Reflection - Jessica Roberts

Amazon Blurb

Bright, spunky Heather Robbins has escaped her small hometown and is anxiously beginning her freshman year of college. Rising above her rocky childhood, she’s found a place where good things are finally starting to happen: her own private apartment, refreshing college classes, and an intense attachment to a mysterious and rugged classmate, Nick Richards.

But when her dreamy college life turns out to be nothing more than a wonderful dream while resting in a coma, questions threaten.

Now, Heather must press forward to unlock the real past, and find the answers buried deep in her mind. What she unlocks instead is a roller coaster ride through flashbacks, embellished memories, and a whirlwind romance.

And when it’s all over and she comes face to face with the truth, will she lose everything she’s fallen in love with?

MY REVIEW

Interesting concept. The story is told as the protagonist, Heather, recounts the life she lived whilst in a coma to a doctor.  Although it was an easy, interesting read I found the romance too long and drawn out, for me it swamped what could have been a very good novel.  I do however think it would appeal very much to young adults.

BookClub Selection

My turn to host the next meeting (13 April) of our very informal Book Club.  The books I have selected to choose from are:

The Blue Cabin - Michael Faulkner  :  Fact based novel of life on an Island in Strangford Lough

VIII - H M Castor  :  A different take on Henry VIII

Please Look After My Mother - Kyung-Sook Shin  :  The disappearance of a Korean mother.

War Horse - Michael Morpurgo  :  Told from the Horse's point of view (See Review)

Briefs Encountered - Julian Clary :  A little light fun read/ Noel Coward -  Ghost???

WHICH WILL WE CHOOSE?????

War Horse - Michael Morpurgo

Official Blurb

This book recounts the adventures of a horse as he moves from life on a farm into the battles of World War I, the story of a friendship lasting through the toughest of tests.

Through the eyes of the war horse, Joey, Michael Morpurgo tells this moving and powerful story of survival on the Western Front.

Runner-up for the Whitbread Award. 

PS   Don't read Amazon's offical synopsis - it reveals too much of the story.

My Review

Beautiful naïve writing makes this an easy, enjoyable read.  I loved the way the story is simply and sensitively told from the viewpoint of Joey ‘the warhorse’ - should be sold with a box of tissues.  Joey’s story is compelling from the outset and my tears were falling from the second page – It’s not all sad tears though.  I was caring and rooting for Joey from page one.  Although Michael Murpogo writes economically he easily managed to evoke an emotional response from this reader at every turn.  It is unashamedly sentimental at times but in balance it is frank about the horrors of war from Joey's perspective without being gruesome.  I look forward to reading more of his work.

I can see why this was chosen to be made into a movie, the writing evokes visual scenes easily adapted for the cinema.  I look forward to seeing Spielberg’s interpretation. 

 

Recommended read for all ages.

The Mill - Mark West

Official Blurb

Michael struggles to come to terms with the death of his wife. He has visions of her calling to him, inviting him to the beyond.

At the Bereaved Partners’ Group, he learns that he is not the only one left behind who can hear the departed beckon them… to the Mill.

This Greyhart Press eBook is a novelette: longer than a short story but brief enough to read in one sitting. At 16,000 words, The Mill would be about 64 pages in paperback.

MY REVIEW

I was hooked from the first page......  This short story hits the ground running - I couldn't put it down and didn't until I had finished it.  My mistake was reading it in the middle of the night....creepy.   A very human story of loss and loneliness told with a supernatural element.  A very atmospheric, good old fashioned ghost story with an ending I wasn't expecting.   

*I received a copy free in exchange for an honest review and I have no hesitation in highly recommending this if you enjoy a good haunting.    

We Bought A Zoo - Benjamin Mee

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Offical Blurb

Benjamin Mee decided to uproot his family and move them to an unlikely new home: a dilapidated zoo on the English countryside, complete with over 200 exotic animals. It was his dream to refurbish the zoo and run it as a family business. There was much work to be done, and none of it easy. Tigers broke loose, money ran low, the staff grew skeptical, and family tensions ran high. Then tragedy struck.

His wife had a recurrence of a brain tumor, forcing Benjamin and his children to face the heartbreak of illness and the devastating loss of a wife and mother. But inspired by her memory and the healing power of the incredible family of animals they had grown to love, Benjamin and his kids resovled to move forward. The Mee family opened the gates of the revitalized zoo in July 2007.

MY REVIEW

I read this in two sittings hard to put down.  Sometimes funny, sometimes sad but mostly uplifting.  It left me wanting to visit the zoo and if I am ever in the vacinity I fully intend to do so.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Benjamin Mee's  trials and tribulations involved in buying, rejuvinating and ultimately re-opening the zoo, whilst coming to term's with his wife's illness and subsequent death, this is not a spoiler as the reader learns of his wife's tumor and prognosis from the opening chapters. 

*  I hope the film does the book justice.

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The Peach Keeper

Official Blurb

The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Chased the Moon welcomes you to her newest locale: Walls of Water, North Carolina, where the secrets are thicker than the fog from the town’s famous waterfalls, and the stuff of superstition is just as real as you want it to be.

It’s the dubious distinction of thirty-year-old Willa Jackson to hail from a fine old Southern family of means that met with financial ruin generations ago. The Blue Ridge Madam—built by Willa’s great-great-grandfather during Walls of Water’s heyday, and once the town’s grandest home—has stood for years as a lonely monument to misfortune and scandal.

And Willa herself has long strived to build a life beyond the brooding Jackson family shadow. No easy task in a town shaped by years of tradition and the well-marked boundaries of the haves and have-nots.   But Willa has lately learned that an old classmate—socialite do-gooder Paxton Osgood—of the very prominent Osgood family, has restored the Blue Ridge Madam to her former glory, with plans to open a top-flight inn. Maybe, at last, the troubled past can be laid to rest while something new and wonderful rises from its ashes.

But what rises instead is a skeleton, found buried beneath the property’s lone peach tree, and certain to drag up dire consequences along with it.  For the bones—those of charismatic traveling salesman Tucker Devlin, who worked his dark charms on Walls of Water seventy-five years ago—are not all that lay hidden out of sight and mind. Long-kept secrets surrounding the troubling remains have also come to light, seemingly heralded by a spate of sudden strange occurrences throughout the town. Now, thrust together in an unlikely friendship, united by a full-blooded mystery, Willa and Paxton must confront the dangerous passions and tragic betrayals that once bound their families—and uncover truths of the long-dead that have transcended time and defied the grave to touch the hearts and souls of the living.

Resonant with insight into the deep and lasting power of friendship, love, and tradition, The Peach Keeper is a portrait of the unshakable bonds that—in good times and bad, from one generation to the next—endure forever.

MY REVIEW

An enjoyable light read, drew me in to the mystery from the beginning with the delivery mishaps of invitations to the opening of the 'Blue Ridge Madam'. The characters were interesting and likeable.  A little romance and developing friendships surrounded with mystery.  Relationships were predictable but enjoyable to follow none the less.

Promise Me Eternity - Ian Fox

Official Blurb

Dr. Simon Patterson is a successful and well-respected neurosurgeon at Central Hospital in the town of Medford. Married, though without children, he keeps himself so busy that one day is not much different from another. Until, that is, he saves the life of the powerful mobster Carlo Vucci.  At a dinner in honor of Dr. Patterson, Carlo Vucci introduces him to his alluring wife Christine. Simon is entranced by her beauty.

Three weeks later, Christine shows up at the hospital, complaining of terrible headaches. Dr. Patterson offers to help her, but Christine did not come to see him just because of her headaches. A series of shocking events follow that turn Dr. Patterson’s life into a nightmare. Among other things, he finds himself in court being accused of murder in the first degree …

My Review

This is the kind of review I hoped I would not have to write but I’m afraid this novel defeated me.  Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, English is not his first language, something has been lost in translation.  I tried very hard to find rhythm and depth in the writing but was unsuccessful and the dialogue was stilted and naïve (but not in a good way).  I’m afraid I couldn’t warm to the characters either as they were unbelievable and verging on caricatures’, particularly the women.  There may be a premise of a solid story in there but I couldn’t wade through to the end to discover it and I really did try.

* I received a copy free in exchange for an honest review and to be honest I cannot recommend it.

The Reality War: The Slough of Despond - Tim C Taylor

Amazon Blurb  

In 1992, Radlan Saravanan runs a small business out of a Tudor cottage in the sleepy English village of Elstow. But Radlan was born in 2951, and when he falls in love with a local girl, he has to choose between running from his own people and condemning his lover to die.

He makes the wrong choice.

Travelling into the past, falling in love… it turns out he was meant to do these things. He’s been manipulated all along, but now he’s slipped his handlers, and Time is no longer following the right script. Other versions of history vie for dominance, and our reality is losing.

In 1992, Radlan Saravanan sparked The Reality War.

The second and final book in the series, The City of Destruction, will be published spring 2012.

My Review

What a great read, I have just finished Book 1 and I will be checking daily to see if Book 2 has been released.  An engrossing tale with good solid believable characters, the choices they make (or do they) and subsequent consequences (or realities).  The concept of time-travel, paradox and alternate reality has always been mind-blowing and now a mind-blowing novel to live up to it.  Hollywood check this out!   

I received this novel free in return for an honest review and I have no hesitation in awarding this a well-deserved 5 stars.  If you like Sci fi/time travel you will love this.

I have also read and reviewed Tim C Taylor’s 'Last Man Through The Gate', I awarded it 4 stars mainly because too much was left unanswered.  I will read it again, having now read The Reality War it will be interesting to compare with my previous review/rating.