Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain by Barney Norris

 

This debut novel, set in Salisbury, tells us about five different people linked together because of a car accident. They include Rita, a flower seller who runs a market stall and teenager Sam, who has fallen in love for the first time but his dad is gravely ill. The other characters are an elderly farmer whose wife has just passed away, Liam a heart broken security guard and an army wife who is lonely because her husband is working abroad and her son is away at boarding school.

 

Each chapter is told in the first person of the character. I didn't think all of these worked but they all had moving, sad tales to tell. My favourite was the army wife, and her chapter was written in the form of diary entries.

 

This is a very well written first full novel from an author I expect to hear more about in the years to come.

 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

 

Thanks to Netgalley and Transworld Publishers for my copy in return for an honest review.

 

Publication date: 21st April 2016

 

 

The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood

 

I loved this story about 104 year old Ona Vitkus and the 11 year old boy scout. He is sent to help her with jobs to earn a merit badge and they soon form a wonderful friendship. The boy, whose name we never learn, is obsessed with world records and he would love to see Ona's name in the Guinness Book of Records. One day he doesn't arrive and the elderly lady is disappointed and left feeling let down, she wrongly believes he is the same as all the previous scouts she couldn't get on with. Then his father arrives to help instead, sent by his ex wife to continue their sons good deed.

 

This novel has sad and funny moments and ultimately is an uplifting story. An enjoyable, easy read that was very different to what I was expecting. 

 

Rating: 4 out of 5

 

Thanks to Headline for an ARC.

Publication date: 5th April 2016 

 

 

Mailbox Monday

 

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It was created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books but now has a permanent home here

 

I received a surprise book post this week from Headline. It's called The Butterfly Summer by Harriet Evans and is due to be published on the 19th May.

 

 

This is the story of Nina Parr, a girl who has grown up in London with her mother after her father's early death catching butterflies in the Amazon. She knows nothing about him, or his family, and has got to the age of almost twenty-five accepting this, until one day in a dusty old library off Piccadilly she bumps into an old lady who seems to recognise her...

 

 

Mailbox Monday

 

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It was created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books but now has a permanent home here

 

Just one for me this week but I'm so excited about it, a book proof of This Must Be The Place by Maggie O'Farrell. It's due to be published by Headline on 16th May.

 

Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life.

A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California, a father he loathes in Brooklyn and a wife, Claudette, who is a reclusive ex-film star given to shooting at anyone who ventures up their driveway.

He is also about to find out something about a woman he lost touch with twenty years ago, and this discovery will send him off-course, far away from wife and home. Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back?

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE crosses continents and time zones, giving voice to a diverse and complex cast of characters. At its heart, it is an extraordinary portrait of a marriage, the forces that hold it together and the pressures that drive it apart.

Maggie O'Farrell's seventh novel is a dazzling, intimate epic about who we leave behind and who we become as we search for our place in the world.

Book Beginnings on Fridays - The Trouble With Goats and Sheep

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

This week my book beginning is from The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon.

 

Mrs Creasy disappeared on a Monday.

I know it was a Monday, because it was the day the dustbin men came, and the avenue was filled with a smell of scraped plates.

'What's he up to?' My father nodded at the lace in the kitchen window. Mr Creasy was wandering the pavement in his shirtsleeves.

 

 

Book Description:

Summer, 1976

 

Mrs Creasy is missing and The Avenue is alive with whispers. As the summer shimmers endlessly on, ten-year-olds Grace and Tilly decide to take matters into their own hands.

 

But as doors and mouths begin to open and the cul-de-sac starts giving up its secrets, the amateur detectives will find more than they could have imagined...  

 

Book Beginnings on Fridays - Little Black Lies

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

I'm currently reading Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton.

 

I've been wondering if I have what it takes to kill. Whether I can look a living creature in the eye and take the one irreversible action that ends a life. Asked and answered, I suppose. I have no difficulty in killing, I'm actually rather good at it.

 

 

 

Book Decription

In such a small community as the Falkland Islands, a missing child is unheard of. In such a dangerous landscape it can only be a terrible tragedy, surely...

When another child goes missing, and then a third, it’s no longer possible to believe that their deaths were accidental, and the villagers must admit that there is a murderer among them. Even Catrin Quinn, a damaged woman living a reclusive life after the accidental deaths of her own two sons a few years ago, gets involved in the searches and the speculation.

And suddenly, in this wild and beautiful place that generations have called home, no one feels safe and the hysteria begins to rise.

But three islanders—Catrin, her childhood best friend, Rachel, and her ex-lover Callum—are hiding terrible secrets. And they have two things in common: all three of them are grieving, and none of them trust anyone, not even themselves.