The Swan Widow by Fiona Cameron

This is an autumn love story of the best kind. Peigi has settled in her mind that she is not going to find someone whom she will find a lasting love but she is also terribly tied down to looking after two spoilt children who are her sister's grandchildren. The mother and grandmother are both dead and the father is either too desperate or finds it very convenient to just totally dump the responsibility on Peigi and depart for his high powered consultancy work.

Peigi is wondering and planning how she can escape from this prison of her own making and she is planning to stage her death and disappearance (I initially thought she was writing a novel!) and during one of her visits to her favourite cafe she meets up with Kevin who just refuses to let her go.

Kevin is a retired cop, who has set up his own security consultancy business though you see hardly any business once he arrives on the scene and he very neatly captures Peigi's heart and mind completely.

The usual story of love and romance with its ups and downs, and much more variants and differences when each of you has baggage by the ton, and histories by the dozen to be either unraveled or kept tightly hidden. It was these unravel lings that added so much spice to the drama.

Lovely to find a very late second chance at love so successful.

Sent to me by Netgalley for an honest review courtesy of Flying Swan Press.

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

If ever there was a Jane Austen variation that was fabulous, this is it. I've read (and reviewed) quite a few of them but this is so very very good. Now I sound gushing!

Liz and Jane along with all the Bennets in a very modern setting. I doubt anyone could get more modern than IVF, lesbian relationships, transgender marriages etc but the basic Pride and Prejudice story comes shining through.

Bingley and Darcy and Caroline are all there, all very modern characterizations but nothing detracting from their original states and this is what made it wonderful reading.

A riveting read, quite a long story, unputdownable. I had to finish it in two days reading putting aside work and everything else.

Storytelling at its best.

Sent to me by Netgalley for an unbiased review courtesy of Random House Publishing Group - Random House. 

Regret to Inform You by Derek Jarrett

This particular village in rural England is idyllic. Rusfield does not seem to have any any apparent villains. All are hardworking, mainly agricultural though youngsters are now moving to towns to better their prospects. Very few of these rural teenagers have thought of an education other than whatever the local school has to offer and the stalwarts of the village - the vicar and his wife, the school teachers, the principal, the local magnate are all upright worthy gentlemen who seek to protect the people who work  for them.

However the year is 1914 and things are going to change forever. The men who join the war effort are never going to be the same again. What they see and here in the battles of France and Flanders even Mesopotamia are going to change the way they look at the way of life in Rusfield. The havoc of war, the loss to families across the land and how these same families coped and survived are beautifully and very sensitively told.

We have youngsters growing up to be responsible men who will return, many do not and there are many elements of such sadness in this very rich story.

I liked the rich detail of rural agricultural life at the time and the very slow pace at which life was lived. There was a season and a time and place for everything and it all seemed to go according to plan. Work was hard and leisure time was scarce but enjoyment of simple pleasures was very appreciated.

The book was sent to me by Netgalley for a fair review courtesy of Troubador Publishing Ltd.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

This was a book sent to me (with several other books) by Jackie at Farm Lane Books who realised very early on my frustration at not being able to find English language books easily here in Sri Lanka. This was pre my Kindle days. I am now blessed in that access to books is so much easier, I very often get the latest books kindly forwarded by publishers and it is only now and then that mainly due to geographical restrictions I do not get to read a book.

The Victorians were great ones for using the language conveyed by each flower to convey emotions and though the commoner ones have survived to this day, the intricacies of this language are immense and convey a whole gamut of emotions, feelings and as this story progresses would even help out emotionally or maybe psychologically situations which need a small push in the right direction.

Victoria is our main character and she is a child not of trust or love but of suspicion and mistrust and she uses flowers in the same way to indicate these negative feelings. She cannot be blamed for her situation - her entire life has been one of betrayal and it is only with Elizabeth and then subsequently Grant, Rebecca and the others whom she meets in her adult life that she slowly, very slowly and carefully tries to learn to trust again. Victoria is prickly, likes her own company and does not know how to be social.

Her learning process and the flowers are the two parts of one story which will keep any reader spellbound. One keeps rooting for Victoria knowing the odds are so heavily stacked against her and this story of Victoria and her flowers is an intriguing read.

Thank you Jackie for this book. It is very late for the review as you sent it ages ago but I am so glad I eventually got to it. 

A Love that Never Tires by Allyson Jeleyne

Shades of Georgette Heyer mixed up with a bit of Far Eastern travel!

A story involving a young girl, brought up by her father in a very unconventional style (for the time). Living her life in archaelogical ruins and coming to London as they are dead broke and he must find a financier for his next trip to discover the temple ruins which beckon so enticingly. Linley knows that her duty is to help her father obtain those finances by hook or by crook and to this end she goes along with his plans in London.

Meeting up with a Marquess seems fortuitous but things are not what they seem as he is not as well heeled as he sounds. His main idea was to find an heiress and marry her to bolster the family fortunes. Meeting Linley puts a spoke in the wheel in that scheme of things!

Covering London with all its conventionality at the times, and then moving across to Northern India almost at the Nepalese border was descriptive enough for me.

I did not like the title though as I felt it was not apt for the very lovely story it covered.

The book was a free download from Amazon 

A Few of the Girls by Maeve Binchy

This collection of short stories deal with human relationships - and it shows that whether at the beginning of the 1900s or coming close to 2016 nothing has changed as far as basics go. We grow up sometimes in difficult circumstances, sometimes in comfortable ones, have careers, some get married, some don't, have kids, don't have children and learn to live, love and be comfortable with each other.

It was a very heartwarming collection of stories, each unique, each very real.

An author I missed reading for a long time so I am glad I got to this one.

Sent to me by Edelweiss.


A post script here - I was away visiting children and grandchildren in Melbourne and returned this morning. A bit jet lagged but thank god for scheduled reviews. It all seems to have gone smoothly!

What She Knew by Gilly Macmillan

It was only after I read the book that I knew that this is a debut novel. What a debut. The pathos and emotion, sadness and anger, joy and hope all come through so very well that you are living the day to day trauma of Rachel, John, Nicky, Katrina and Benedict every minute of it


The story of a mother's worst nightmare - an abduction of a child from a seemingly harmless walk in the woods. Something this mother and son do all the time. No idea of whom, no idea whether it was planned or random and everything going horribly wrong when the focus turns on the mother as the culprit. Why the public would think this was what puzzled me. But the picture did clear though it was so random. The power of the media and to what extent the press would go to keep readers titillated to buy copy, never mind the damage you are doing to a perfectly normal soul.
It was only after I read the book that I knew that this is a debut novel. What a debut. The pathos and emotion, sadness and anger, joy and hope all come through so very well that you are living the day to day trauma of Rachel, John, Nicky, Katrina and Benedict every minute of it.

The story had so many twists and turns - the suspects were hardly any because there was no one who had enemies and so it was an even worse nightmare to try to whittle it down. How a mother's instincts paid off in the long run, and how policing can ignore this to their detriment was also highlighted in this story.

Excellently told. Am looking forward to seeing more from this author.

Sent to me by Edelweiss.