My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

 

 

Book Description

Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable. 

 

 

My Thoughts

I loved Oliver Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout so was delighted to get her latest offering from Netgalley. It is a short novel and written in a disjointed way which along with the lack of background behind Lucy's thoughts and conversations with her mother made it difficult for me to get into. It's obviously meant to be like this and has been getting plenty of rave reviews but unfortunately it didn't work for me and I'm left feeling disappointed.

The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood

 

 

In 2004 Sean Jackson is having a weekend away with family and friends to celebrate his 50th birthday when his 3 year old daughter Coco goes missing overnight. Twelve years on and it's still a mystery as to what happened to her. Some of the people who attended that fateful weekend have met up again (including Coco's twin Ruby and older half-sister Mila), this time for Sean's funeral. The chapters of the book are split between these two periods in time.

Lots more characters, most of whom are unpleasant, are introduced early on. For me this meant that I had to concentrate more than usual to try and recall who was who. I soon got into the story though and liked the way we're gradually fed snippets of information and clues as to what happened to Coco, before the truth is revealed at the end. Also I loved Ruby and Mila, they are very likeable and I was rooting for them throughout.

 

This is the third book by Alex Marwood, they are all different crime novels, not at all formulaic and I've enjoyed them all.

 

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy in return for an honest review

 

Rating: 4 out of 5

 

Book Beginnings on Fridays - The Darkest Secret

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 Darkest Secret, it's the latest novel by Alex Marwood and was published on the 7th January by Sphere. 

 

 

Dear all -

 

Apologies for the general email, but I desperately need your help.

 

My goddaughter, Coco Jackson, disappeared from her family's holiday home in Bournemouth on the night of Sunday/Monday August 29th/30th, the bank holiday weekend just gone. Coco is three years old.

 

All police experience suggests that the first forty eight hours are crucial in cases of child abduction, so time is of the essence.

 

 

  

 

Book Description

 

  When identical twin Coco goes missing during a family celebration, there is a media frenzy. Her parents are rich and influential, as are the friends they were with at their holiday home by the sea.
But what really happened to Coco?
Over two intense weekends - the first when Coco goes missing and the second twelve years later at the funeral of her father - the darkest of secrets will gradually be revealed...

 

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 hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. This week I downloaded two eBooks from the Amazon 12 days of Kindle sale.

 

 

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

I've been following her for the past few days. I know where she buys her groceries, where she has her dry cleaning done, where she works. I don't know the colour of her eyes or what they look like when they're scared. But I will.

 

  Mia Dennett can't resist a one-night stand with the enigmatic stranger she meets in a bar.
But going home with him might turn out to be the worst mistake of Mia's life... 

An addictively suspenseful and tautly written thriller, The Good Girl is a compulsive debut that reveals how, even in the perfect family, nothing is as it seems...

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson's dazzling debut novel is a deeply moving story of family heartbreak and happiness.

Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the twentieth century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets.

 

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 downloaded the Kindle edition of The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries this week and started reading it yesterday. 

 

Have yourself a crooked little Christmas with The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries.

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects sixty of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories--many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.

Included are puzzles by Mary Higgins Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Ngaio Marsh; uncanny tales in the tradition of A Christmas Carol by Peter Lovesey and Max Allan Collins; O. Henry-like stories by Stanley Ellin and Joseph Shearing, stories by pulp icons John D. MacDonald and Damon Runyon; comic gems from Donald E. Westlake and John Mortimer; and many, many more. Almost any kind of mystery you’re in the mood for--suspense, pure detection, humor, cozy, private eye, or police procedural—can be found in these pages.

FEATURING:
-        Unscrupulous Santas
-        Crimes of Christmases Past and Present
-        Festive felonies
-        Deadly puddings
-        Misdemeanors under the mistletoe
-        Christmas cases for classic characters including Sherlock Holmes, Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Rumpole of the Bailey, Inspector Morse, Inspector Ghote, A.J. Raffles, and Nero Wolfe. 

Book Beginnings on Fridays - Did You Ever Have A Family

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 a novel I've only just this minute started reading, Did You Ever Have A Family by Bill Clegg.

 

He wakes to the sound of sirens. Many, loud, and very near. Then horns; short, angry grunts like the buzzers signaling time-out in the basketball games he watches but does not play in at school.

 

 

 Book Description

This book of dark secrets opens with a blaze. On the morning of her daughter’s wedding, June Reid’s house goes up in flames, destroying her entire family – her present, her past and her future. Fleeing from the carnage, stricken and alone, June finds herself in a motel room by the ocean, hundreds of miles from her Connecticut home, held captive by memories and the mistakes she has made with her only child, Lolly, and her partner, Luke.

In the turbulence of grief and gossip left in June’s wake we slowly make sense of the unimaginable. The novel is a gathering of voices, and each testimony has a new revelation about what led to the catastrophe – Luke’s alienated mother Lydia, the watchful motel owners, their cleaner Cissy, the teenage pothead who lives nearby – everyone touched by the tragedy finds themselves caught in the undertow, as their secret histories finally come to light.

 

Lit by the clarity of understanding that true sadness brings, Did You Ever Have a Family is an elegant, unforgettable story that reveals humanity at its worst and best, through loss and love, fracture and forgiveness. At the book’s heart is the idea of family – the ones we are born with and the ones we create – and the desire, in the face of everything, to go on living.

 

 

 

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 two review books this week:

The One in a Million Boy by Monica Wood

Miss Ona Vitkus has - aside from three months in the summer of 1914 - lived unobtrusively, her secrets fiercely protected.

The boy, with his passion for world records, changes all that. He is eleven. She is one hundred and four years, one hundred and thirty three days old (they are counting). And he makes her feel like she might be really special after all. Better late than never...

Only it's been two weeks now since he last visited, and she's starting to think he's not so different from all the rest.

Then the boy's father comes, for some reason determined to finish his son's good deed. And Ona must show this new stranger that not only are there odd jobs to be done, but a life's ambition to complete . .

Published by Headline on 5th April 2016

The Ballroom by Anna Hope

 

Where love is your only escape ....

1911: Inside an asylum at the edge of the Yorkshire moors,
where men and women are kept apart
by high walls and barred windows,
there is a ballroom vast and beautiful.
For one bright evening every week
they come together
and dance.
When John and Ella meet
It is a dance that will change two lives forever.
            


Published by Doubleday and Transworld on 11th February 2016

I loved Anna Hope's previous novel Wake and you can read my review here