A Proper Family Christmas by Chrissie Manby - A Wonderful Heart-Warming Story

Merry Christmas!
I hope that you will enjoy A Proper Family Christmas by Chrissie Manby as much as I have!
It's the third book I've read about the Benson family, and although Christmas doesn't come until the last chapters, it's a wonderful heart-warming story that made me laugh and cry.

Following A Proper Family Holiday (which I reviewed here), it follows the story of Annabel Buchanan whose privileged life is the polar opposite of the Benson's. However, when her daughter, Izzy, becomes dangerously ill, the hunt is on for a kidney donor. Annabel and her husband are unable to donate because he has high blood pressure and she, at the age of forty-three, has become pregnant again, so she is forced to tell him the secret she's kept from him throughout their relationship: she was adopted at birth. Of course, this leads to Jacqui Benson, the young girl who gave up her daughter, Daisy, all those years ago.
Jacqui eventually married Daisy's father, Dave, and they went on to have two more daughters, Ronnie and Chelsea, who appear in all the books. Ronnie has been in a relationship with Mark for sixteen years and they have a daughter, Sophie, aged fifteen, and a son, Jack, aged six. The Bensons are completed by Granddad Bill, Dave's father, now in his eighties, confirmed to a wheelchair, and losing his memory, which does not stop him getting up to mischief with his great-grandson, Jack.
This noisy, fun-loving and affectionate family have already unknowingly visited Annabel's house on an open day which resulted in Jack knocking down a suit of armour, and Sophie mistakenly being accused of trying to steal Izzy's new black velvet dress so, when they all eventually meet, sparks fly.
Chrissie Manby tackles issues which may face any family at any time of the year with a warm-hearted and sensitive approach: adoption; from the points of view of both the birth mother and the child; kidney donation; and the problems of living with an elderly relative, making this a very satisfying read.

Her other two books about the Bensons are:

A Proper Family Adventure when Granddad Bill actually does win the Lottery (a running joke, because he always says he feels as if he has when he's happy) and treats the family to a Mediterranean  cruise. It's interesting that a supporting, but important, character in A Proper Family Christmas also turns up in this one too. Here is my review.

A Wedding at Christmas I've just bought this one! It's about Chelsea's wedding. It takes place at Christmas. What more could you want? Perhaps just a mince pie and a glass of mulled wine by a roaring fire?!

Origin by Dan Brown - Gripping, Exciting and Brilliant!

Inside Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

All through history, mankind has tried to answer  two eternal questions: Where are we from? and Where are we going to? In Origin,  Dan Brown  brings these questions right up to date for the twenty-first century.

The Guggenheim, Bilbao

Edmond Kirsch has put millions into finding the answers to them, however, in front of a big invited audience at the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, where he about to disclose his findings, he is assassinated.

The Royal Palace, Madrid

The internet goes wild with conspiracy theories when it is found that a message, believed to have come from the Royal Palace in Madrid, requested the late admission of ex-Naval officer, Ávila, the assassin. Could the old king, already on his deathbed, be trying to remove Kirsch to try and protect the old traditional Catholic Spain from his shocking predictions?

Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon - Will there be another film?

In this intriguing novel which takes place mainly over twenty-four nail-biting hours, Kirsch's old friend, Robert Langdon, with his own life now under threat because of his connections to Kirsch; and Ambra Vidal, the museum's director and the fiancée of Prince Julián, heir to the Spanish throne, try to uncover who is behind Edmond's murder, and also try to solve the cryptic password to the secrets he was going to reveal at the museum so the world can find out what he has discovered.
This book is not so violent as his previous ones, but shows Dan Brown's wide knowledge of the history of science and religion, which he builds on to come up with Edmond's solution. The story is gripping and exciting and all the more so if you have have visited Bilbao, Madrid or Barcelona where the action takes place.

I thought the best parts were Edmond Kirsch's audio-visual presentation in the museum which would look fantastic in a film (if they ever make one) and Winston, the audio-guide that sounds like Hugh Grant, which Robert Langdon is given as he arrives at the museum.
It is a bit different from the books that I have been reading recently, but I thought it was brilliant.

One Thousand Stars and You by Isabelle Broom - a Fabulous Book, in a Fabulous Setting, with a Fabulous Love Affair!

One Thousand Stars and You is a new departure for Isabelle Broom. After a series of wonderful books set in Zakynthos, Andalusia, Lake Como and Prague, she has spread her wings to Sri Lanka! Here, she shows just what a great writer she is with Rosanna Ley's sense of place and Jojo Moyes' sense of empathy.

Alice has always been adventurous and taken risks as a child, but one day, she falls through the greenhouse roof, resulting in a long scar down the side of her face. Her mother can't cope with Alice's injury and blames herself, so she wraps her in cotton wool, but as she grows up, Alice still wants to test herself and still wants freedom. However, to please her mother, she falls in love with Richard, a safe, kind, devoted boyfriend who is also a History teacher. But is he  really the right one for her? To test her frustration, she dives off a high board into a pool, but the guilt she feels because of her controlling mother and her boyfriend's concern, outweighs the thrill of the dive.

With their thirtieth birthdays approaching in April, she  decides to go with her friends, Maureen and Steph, to Sri Lanka on an adventure of a lifetime. Richard and her mother are worried, and well they should be, because the girls meet Max and Jamal.

Adam's Peak, Sri Lanka - from Wikipedia

Max has a prosthetic leg because of an accident with a landmine in Afghanistan, and Jamal was his physio who has become his friend and protector. Steph is enchanted by Jamal, but Alice and Maureen are both attracted to Max. Of course, Maureen thinks she hasn't any competition because Alice has  Richard. Right? Wrong! Alice is getting more and more captivated by Max, and has to question what she really wants in life. This all comes to a head when these two kindred spirits who want to escape their protective, smothering families, climb Adam's Peak and Alice has to reassess her future. 

This is a fabulous book, in a fabulous setting, with a fabulous love affair. I loved it and I shall certainly read it again!

Sunset Over the Cherry Orchard by Jo Thomas - Not only Food and Love, but also Flamenco!

Sunset Over the Cherry Orchard is the latest fabulous book by Jo Thomas, and it's not only about food and love, but also about flamenco!!
Beti Winter arrives in the Andalusian resort of Lado del Puerto with her fiancé of five years, Will, to take over the Butterfly Bar, but he gets cold feet and runs away with a band and a new girlfriend, Freya, taking all the money that Beti's grandma left her, and therefore all Beti's hopes and dreams.
The owners of the bar, Harold and Brenda, kindly give her some time to earn the money she needs for the deposit on their bar and so when the burger bar she works in lays her off, she gets a job with accommodation at Cortijo Ana, up in the mountains, near a small village called Colina de Flor.
Her job is to wash up in the restaurant, but she soon runs into the owner of the cherry farm, Antonio, who is known as the horse whisperer, and is better at dealing with horses than people. However, I did feel that he had more than a touch of Ross Poldark about him, especially when he rides over his land on Suerte, his fine horse!
Antonio's aim is to produce the best traditional cherries, needed by the cooperative to fulfil their orders, but he has no money to mend the watering system, so Beti and Miguel, his son, have to do it by hand pump. Miguel is Antonio's son with his wife, Esmerelda, who has gone off with Felipe to realise her dream of becoming a flamenco champion.
Now, Antonio runs the farm and his girlfriend, Vanessa, runs the restaurant, however, the cook, Bonita, who has worked there most of her life, does not like Vanessa's new ideas and recipes.
But in attempt to take over the farm for herself to sell, Esmerelda challenges Antonio and Beti to a flamenco dance off to win or lose the land and restaurant.
How on earth will Beti learn the steps? And is her experience of life enough for her to feel the emotion of the dance? Also does she really want Will back if he returns, or is she becoming more interested in Antonio?
This is a rich engaging story with wonderful escapism in this beautiful Andalusian setting and I could certainly feel the wet grass of the cherry orchard underneath my feet!
I really enjoyed it and I think its the best book by Jo Thomas that I've read so far.

Daisy's Vintage Cornish Camper Van by Ali McNamara - A Magical Bank Holiday Read!

Daisy's Vintage Cornish Camper Van, a magical, romantic story, is Ali McNamara writing at her best!
Set in the fictional Cornish seaside town of St Felix, Ana arrives to collect a VW camper van, left to her by her best friend, Daisy, but when she finds it at Bob's Bangers, she is horrified to discover how dilapidated it is. It needs completely re-building. However, Malachi, who is looking after Bob's business whilst he is away, offers to do the work, and Ana finds Snowdrop Cottage to stay in whilst it's done. (The cottage is owned by Poppy and Jake who appear in The Little Flower Shop by the Sea and you can read my review here.)
When Malachi discovers some mysterious postcards written in the 1940s to the 1990s from Lou to Frankie, but never posted, hidden in the van, Ana sets out to find out who these people were, and return the cards. She's helped by Noah who runs an antiques shop with his young assistant, Jess, to track down some of the missing cards.
With Ana finding both Malachi and Noah very attractive, she has more on her mind than just returning the postcards to their rightful owner!

This is a fabulous story, set in glorious Cornwall, with wonderful characters and more than a hint of magic. I loved it so much, that I will certainly read it again!

Then. Now. Always. by Isabelle Broom - Sun, Sand and Sangria - the Perfect Holiday Read!

In my last post, I wrote about the two novels set in Lanzarote that I took on my cruise. Well, two books are never enough because I'm scared of running out of something to read, so I took the latest book by Isabelle Broom that I've been longing to get my teeth into: Then. Now. Always.
This emotional roller-coaster of a story is set in Mojácar, Andalusia, in southern Spain, so not all that far from the Spanish Canary Islands, and Isabelle Broom takes you right into this romantic mountain village with its traditional white-washed buildings with blue-painted doors, and village square, complete with sparkling fountain.

Hannah has a tattoo on her wrist of the ancient Indalo Man which reminds her of that teenage summer she spent there ten years ago with her schoolfriend, Rachel, but now she is a researcher for an independent TV company, run by the gorgeous Greek, Theo, who she's fancied ever since she got her job. They are in Mojácar making a documentary about the Spanish village with Tom, the cameraman and her friend since uni, and Claudette, the temperamental and highly strung French narrator.
The embarrassing memories of that summer long ago that Hannah wishes she could forget threaten to resurface; the arrival of her half-sister, Nancy, whom she's never got on with, also threatens to spoil her month in the sun; plus the story of local artist, Elaine, that Hannah uncovers, all combine to make this novel of sun, sand, and of course, Sangria, the perfect holiday read. I loved it!

Now I'm really looking forward to reading One Thousand Stars and You, set in Sri Lanka, and released on August 23rd, 2018!

Two Books to Take on a Cruise to the Canary Islands!

I found it really hard to find any books to take on my cruise to the Canary Islands, because I love to read a novel set in the place that I'm visiting. There's obviously a need for somebody to write some more!
So after a good search on Amazon, I came up with two set in Lanzarote.
They couldn't  be more different from each other: one is an up-to-the-minute picture of a crazy family holiday with lots of thrills and spills by one of my favourite authors, Chrissie Manby, and the other was written in the Sixties by the famous twentieth century novelist, Mary Stewart, whose books I'd never read.

I will start with a  A Proper Family Holiday by Chrissie Manby, about the crazy Benson family. (I've already enjoyed A Proper Family Adventure  when I 'sailed' with them to the Mediterranean; you can read my review here.)
However, this book was written first, and here the Benson family are off to Lanzarote for a week, paid for by Jacqui and Dave. It's her 60th birthday, and this will be the perfect opportunity for getting the family together and telling them a secret they've been keeping.
They have two daughters, Ronnie and Chelsea. Ronnie and Mark have yet to tie the knot, but have Sophie, aged fifteen, and Jack, aged six.
Chelsea works in London on a society magazine. She fell out with her sister two years ago, and they haven't been able to forgive each other for what happened.
Bill, Sophie and Jack's great-granddad and Dave's father, is a great character, always forgetting that he is actually eighty-five years old and getting into as much trouble as Jack!
On the plane, Chelsea meets Adam and his daughter, Lily, who becomes a great rival to Jack. One of the best bits of the story is the sandcastle-making competition!
This is a wonderful family novel with comedy and drama. It flows along, and is brilliant for summer holiday reading.

The Wind Off the Small Isles is a long lost novella by Mary Stewart who died in 2014. She was one of the best selling and best loved writers
of the twentieth century. It was written in 1968 with a foreword from Jennifer Ogden, her niece and companion for the last twelve years of her life.
Set in Lanzarote, with a close attention to detail of the volcanic island and its flora and fauna, the story begins in 1879 when a wealthy young woman elopes with a poor fisherman.
Then in 1968, Coralie Gresham, a writer of children's novels, arrives with her assistant, Perdita West, to find a place to settle down and write a rip-roaring adventure about the Barbary pirates. It so happens that Coralie's son, Michael, is also an assistant to a struggling playwright called James Blair. They have come to the island and have found the perfect house at Playa Blanca.
Whilst Cora is taken out to an old shipwreck to research her story, Perdita goes snorkelling and gets trapped in an underwater cave. She is rescued by Mike, of course, but not before they've discovered what happened to the nineteenth century star-crossed lovers.
This is another wonderful holiday read, yet from a totally different angle to A Proper Family Holiday. It gives the full atmosphere of this Canary Island, exploring the relationships of the twentieth century characters against the story of the past.

Although written fifty years ago, I did not find it stuffy and old-fashioned, but fresh and new. As I said, I haven't read any of Mary Stewart's novels before, but I did see The Moon-Spinners, starring Hayley Mills, which I remember enjoying, so I think I'll look out for some of her other books.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by Miranda Dickinson - A Romantic, Heartwarming, and Magical Read

Wow! What a romantic story!
I've just finished reading Somewhere Beyond the Sea by Miranda Dickinson, told in alternate chapters by the protagonists, Seren and Jack.

Seren's father has died, leaving her MacArthur's Gallery, tucked into a tiny courtyard in St Ives, and his vision of saving The Old Parsonage, the former home of Elinor Carne, an astronomer who discovered new stars in the nineteenth century when women's endeavours were ignored and their glory given to their male rivals instead.
Seren is a designer and makes beautiful jewellery out of the seaglass that she finds on her morning wanderings on Gwithian Beach. One day, she discovers an half-finished star, made out of seaglass pebbles, and can't resist finishing it herself.

Jack Dixon is on his own with his daughter, Nessie, now that his wife, Tash, has died. He's a qualified and experienced builder, but he's struggling to find work to make ends meet. He and Nessie live in a beach chalet on a holiday park in return for doing odd-jobs for his friend, Jeb. Each evening, he and Nessie go down to Gwithian Beach and half make a seaglass star, hoping the mermaids will complete it.

When Jack is offered a job by Bill Brotherson to redevelop the parsonage site and turn it into flats, Jack and Seren find they are on opposing sides. Will they ever discover who is making/completing the seaglass stars? Will they ever be able to have a future together if the Brotherson scheme goes ahead?

With her colourful descriptions of St Ives, and the many other characters, I could tell how much Miranda Dickinson loves the place. It's one of those novels that really takes you out of your armchair and transports you to somewhere magical. With its song-title title, it is more like her earlier novels and is a heartwarming, marvellous read. I loved it and I'm sure the story of Seren and Jack, and the beauty of St Ives will stay with me for a very long time. It's almost as good as taking a holiday in St Ives itself!

A Family Recipe by Veronica Henry is indeed 'An Utter Delight'

The Weir below Pulteney Bridge, Bath

On the cover of A Family Recipe by Veronica Henry, Jill Mansell says it's 'an utter delight', and she's right.
Set in the beautiful city of Bath, it follows Laura whose world has fallen apart because her daughters have now both left for university, and her property developer husband, Dom, is having an affair with his conveyancing lawyer, Antonia.
To make a better life for herself and create an income, Laura decides to rent out two empty bedrooms in the attic on Airbnb and use a box of family recipes, handed down from her grandmother to make some jams and chutneys to sell at the local market.
This is the same box of recipes that Jilly used during the Second World War to feed the family she had taken in because they had lost their home in the Bath Blitz. We find out that Jilly is Laura's grandmother whom, as a child, she named Kanga, and whose name has stuck. Now aged ninety-three, Kanga lives in a cottage at the bottom of the garden of Number 11, having given over the house she inherited from her parents during the war to Laura and her family. The story is also told of her best friend, Ivy, who has supported her through thick and thin throughout their lives.
Veronica Henry cleverly draws parallels and differences between Laura's and Kanga's stories, told seventy-five years apart, and it is a novel of love, loss, happiness and heartbreak which is indeed 'an utter delight'!

The Wildflowers by Harriet Evans - A Really Enjoyable Clever Mystery

Harriet Evans is a cracking good storyteller and she had me intrigued from the very first page of The Wildflowers with the story of The Bosky, a mysterious ramshackle beach house in Dorset , and the family who owned it, the Wildes, who spent idyllic summers there in the 1970s.
I wanted to know was it really so idyllic? Why did the family suddenly stop coming and what was it that brought them back forty years later to put all their family secrets to rest?
The characters are beautifully drawn too: with Sir Anthony Wilde who first came to the Bosky as a boy in the war with strange Great Aunt Dinah, (after he'd been rescued from the rubble of his house where his mother had been killed in a bombing raid) and who became a famous Shakespearian actor, and his wife, Althea, also an actress,  on a Sunday night TV drama, and their unconventional marriage with many other partners, some of whom would visit The Bosky during those hot August holidays.
They had two children, Benedick and Cordelia, known as Ben and Cord, who used to play with a strange girl called Madeleine, who came each summer with her repressive father to stay nearby. Mads keeps a diary the happenings at The Bosky which she keeps hidden under the floorboards of the porch and takes out each year.
The story is also told from Cord's point of view when she overhears a shocking secret, and distances herself from her family to pursue a career as an opera singer.
This is one of those really enjoyable clever mysteries, you want to read again to pick out all the clues. Fabulous!

A Richard and Judy Summer Read 2018.

The Last Secret of the Deverills by Santa Montefiore - A Wonderful End to this Trilogy!

Love and forgiveness are the main themes of The Last Secret of The Deverills by Santa Montefiore. It concludes the fascinating trilogy about Kitty and Celia Deverill and their childhood friend, the daughter of the cook at Castle Deverill, Bridie, who were all born in 1900, and this final instalment takes them up to the 1950s.
Each book has focussed on a different girl, although the stories of the others carry on at the same time, and in this one, it's Bridie.
Also, the story of Maggie O'Leary who put a curse on the first Lord Deverill, after he took their land, that he and his descendants would be confined to roam the castle after death until it is returned to the hands of an O'Leary once again, is played out.
Bridie has returned from New York with her new husband, Count Cesare di Marcantonio to buy Castle Deverill, a place that she has always wanted to make her appear as good as the Deverill girls. Although she doesn't know it, her daughter (who she was told had died at birth leaving her twin brother, JP, to survive) Martha Wallace, has also returned to Ballinakelly to find her birth mother. But she thinks that it is Grace Rowan-Hampton because that's the name on her birth certificate.
On the way, Martha comes across JP in Dublin, who has been brought up by Kitty and her husband, as he was her father's son. They are instantly attracted to each other. What will they do when they find out the truth?
Jack O'Leary, Kitty's childhood sweetheart, also returns to the town, but now he's married. How will Kitty be able to mend her broken heart that she's tried to live with all these years?
There is a wonderfully satisfying conclusion to these stories with love and forgiveness winning over all. But I can't tell you how!
I have loved reading all these books and I'm glad to know that Santa Montefiore is writing another novel about the Deverills, starting in 1885. I can't wait!

The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor is a Truly Magical Read for the Bank Holiday!

I've loved all of Hazel Gaynor's novels because although she includes all the historical details the story needs, she has the fantastic skill to weave them into the story, set the scene, and reflect her character's emotions without the facts getting in the way.
Through her magic, I have sailed on the Titanic with Maggie from Queenstown, Ireland, in The Girl Who Came Home; I've sat beside Flora and Rosie Flynn, selling violets and watercress around Covent Garden, in A Memory of Violets; and I've dreamt of being a star with chambermaid, Dolly, in The Girl from the Savoy. (You can read my reviews here, here and here!)
Now, at last, I've got round to photographing fairies with Frances and Elsie in The Cottingley Secret, Hazel Gaynor's latest novel which is based on a true story.
Just over one hundred years ago, Frances and her mother returned from South Africa when her father was sent away to war, to stay with her mother's sister, Aunt Polly, and her cousin, Elsie. Missing her home in South Africa terribly, Frances became enchanted by the bubbling beck at the bottom of her aunt's garden, the 'flash of violet and emerald', and the 'misty forms (of fairies) among the flowers and leaves.'
However, forbidden by her mother never to go to the beck again because a young girl had gone missing in the area and had never been found, Frances tells her mother about the fairies and, to prove they exist, she and Elsie borrow her father's camera and take a photo which changes their lives for ever.

In researching this book, Hazel Gaynor wondered if there were other people in Cottingley, caught up in the fairy fever, who saw the girls taking their photographs and who also believed in fairies, so she created the fictional characters of Ellen Hogan, Frances' teacher and the mother of the girl who disappeared; Martha, Ellen's friend and grandmother to Olivia, whose story is set in the present day.
Olivia is left her grandfather's bookshop, Something Old, in Ireland. There she discovers a memoir given to her nana many years ago: Notes on a Fairy Tale by Frances Griffiths. She reads this as she comes to terms with her imminent wedding to Jack that she doesn't want to go ahead with; supporting her nana who is in a nursing home; and reviving the bookshop. And, of course, there is the gorgeous Ross who comes into the shop with his daughter . . .
The novel was written with the co-operation of Frances' daughter,  Christine Lynch, who has always believed that her mother did see fairies during those far off summers, but you will have to read this truly magical book to make up your own mind!

Hazel's next book is The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter  due out on 9th October 2018, based on the story of Grace Darling. I can't wait!

The Trip of a Lifetime by Monica McInerney - A Sweeping Family Story Set in Australia and Ireland

I am a real sucker for an attractive cover, and very often I'm proved right, and I really enjoy the book.
The Trip of a Lifetime  is one of those that caught my eye. I hadn't heard of Monica McInerney before, but looking over that wooden fence, surrounded by pink flowers to the cottage on the rocky shore, I knew I was going to love it, and I did.

Lola Quinlan, an eccentric, enigmatic and colourful eighty-five year old, left Ireland for the Clare Valley in Australia over sixty years ago. For all those years, she has kept a secret from her family, and now it is time to go back home and face her past.

She takes her granddaughter, Bett, who really can't afford the time away from her job, as editor of the local newspaper which is under threat of closure, or away from her husband, Daniel, and their toddler twins, Zachary and Yvette. Lola also takes Ellen, the daughter of Bett's sister, Anna, who died when Ellen was younger. However, I love the scenes when Lola deals with this typical thirteen-year-old in a loving, amusing and effective way, especially when Ellen is obsessed in keeping up with her friends on her iPhone.
Bett has another sister called Carrie, who would have loved to have gone to Ireland too, but is heavily pregnant with her fourth child, and who occupies herself whilst Bett is away as a self-appointed blogger on the forthcoming TV murder mystery which is going to be filmed in the vineyards of the Clare Valley.

This is a wonderful sweeping story about the Quinlan family, and a cast of wonderful characters like Des, the talkative chauffeur, who bring it all to life, and Jim, Lola's son, who is still the apple of her eye.

I really enjoyed this book and I will certainly read Monica McInerney's other novels about Lola and her family: both with irresistible covers!!

The Alphabet Sisters 

Lola's Secret

To the Bright Edge of the World - Eowen Ivey's Second Brilliant Alaskan Novel

To the Bright End of the World is Eowen Ivey's second brilliant novel set in Alaska, which I loved just as much as her first. (You can read my review of The Snow Child here).
As I read this fictional account of a real expedition northwards along the Copper River to the Yukon to survey the land for the US government, I could sense the rush of the melting Wolverine River as it sped past me through the towering snowy mountains and the deep granite gorge.

Told in a scrapbook style with diary entries, photographs, drawings, letters and newspaper cuttings, I followed Lieutenant-Colonel Allen Forrester, Lieutenant Andrew Pruitt, and Sergeant Bradley Tillman with their helpers, Samuelson and Boyd, two trappers who know the terrain, and Nat'aaggi, an Indian woman, through the dangerous valley populated by the Midnoosky Indians, named by the Russians on a previous disastrous attempt to find a way through to the Yukon,

The main diary entries are those of Allen and his wife, Sophie. He tells of the responsibility of leading his men through such tough terrain and the difficulties they are encountering, whilst she tells of her frustration of becoming pregnant and being forced to stay behind at the Vancouver Barracks. She had been desperate to accompany him on the greatest exploration since Lewis and Clarke crossed the Great Divide, but is left attending tea parties with the other gossipy and nosy army wives. However, she sadly loses her baby, and knowing it's months before Allen's return, she teaches herself photography, helped by her Irish maid, Charlotte, to focus her mind on something else.

One of the most poignant aspects of the novel is that structurally there is a time gap between the letters Allen sends to Sophie, and her to him, due to relying on the Indians to convey them to the coast, illustrating their frustration, and the fact that their news was therefore months old.

I also very much enjoyed the present day correspondence between Allen and Sophie's great-nephew, Walt, and Josh, the young curator at the Alpine Museum, Alaska. Walt sends a letter, in advance of sending Allen and Sophie's letters, diaries and other artefacts from the expedition in the hope that the museum will accept them and put them on display. It all starts off very formally, and then the relationship between the old-timer and the young curator develops as they get to know each other better and learn more about each other's life.

One theme in the book is birds, for example, the raven, and also the hummingbird: one of the Midsookies is a mysterious raven-like old man with a top hat; and Sophie's aim as a photographer is to take a picture of some hummingbirds in a nest. Another theme is light, reflected in the title, and a special sort of light that Sophie is searching for in her photography after seeing the marble bear that her father sculpted in the forest seemingly come alive with the setting sun.

This is a totally engrossing novel: it's totally captivating to discover whether Allen and his men will make the five hundred miles up the river before the ice melts, through the canyon, and over the mountains, and then another thousand miles to the ship that will take him home again to his beloved Sophie.

     

English by Ben Fogle - An Immensely Readable Account of the Celebration of Englishness

I've followed Ben Fogle from Taransay in Castaway 2000, to the South Pole; and then all round the world with New Lives in the Wild, so I was intrigued to receive English - A Story of Marmite, Queuing and Weather for Christmas to discover the essence of being English and how it should be celebrated.

You would think that Ben Fogle was the quintessential Englishman, often mistaken for Prince William, but he isn't: his father is Canadian and his grandfather Scottish, but he was born in London, and describes himself as

     

'...a Land Rover-driving, Labrador-owning, Marmite-eating, tea-drinking, wax-jacketed, Queen-loving Englishman.'

So who could be better for the task?

Ben Fogle's style is rather like Bill Bryson's (if you loved Notes from a Small Island, you'll love this), but with fewer facts and figures and rather more action! He takes us through everything that makes the English English from the weather to the perfect cup of tea in an immensely readable account whilst he chases a 9lb Double Gloucester cheese down Cooper's Hill; joins the Royal Household Calvary on their summer holiday at Holkham beach in Norfolk; presents the weather forecast and has a go at tasting Marmite at the factory in Burton on Trent.

I loved this book, and I'm sure that anybody who has an interest in celebrating Englishness would love it too. 

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig - A Gripping and Entertaining Story of Time Travel

As I have said many times before, I love quirky books about time travel. For example, The Time Traveller's Wife, The Forgetting Time and The Comet Seekers, not forgetting my all time favourite, Tantalus: The Sculptor's Story.
But in How to Stop Time, Matt Haig doesn't just take Tom Hazard back in time to observe how life was then; he takes Tom back through his own life, because although he only looks about forty, he is really well over four hundred years old.

Briefly: born in France in 1581, Tom and his mother flee to England because of the persecution of Huguenots, and settle in Suffolk. However, when the villagers notice that he is not getting any older, she is tried for witchcraft and drowned in the River Lark. He leaves for London and anonymity and falls in love with Rose, a fruit seller, and they have a daughter, Marion, who is an alba like her father: someone who doesn't grow old, and he hasn't seen her since the day he left them in 1617 to protect them both from being discovered.

The novel starts in the present where Tom is about to begin a teaching job in East London, and he visits the places that meant so much to him and Rose, and the story moves backwards and forwards through his memories and key paces that formulated the man he is today.

One key figure in his life since 1891, is Hendrich who has set up The Albatross Society (named because it was believed that albatrosses lived for ever) to protect people like them from the mayflies (ordinary people with ordinary lifespans) who could use the albas for scientific experiments. One rule of the society is that members cannot fall in love in fear of being discovered, and that they must move every eight years with Hendrich finding them a new identity. In return, Hendrich says he will help Tom find Marion.

As Tom's life unfolds, we discover that he has met Shakespeare and Scott Fitzgerald, seen Tchaikovsky conduct, and has also travelled to New York, Paris and the South Seas.

It is a philosophical journey, illustrated by the words of Montaigne, the French philosopher, whose work Marion quotes from the age of eight. Also interestingly another character is introduced called  Sophie. I wonder if this is in honour of the Sophie in Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder who makes her own philosophical journey?

It's a gripping and entertaining story as we follow Tom back and forth: seeing if he will ever fall in love again; finding out whether he will be reunited with his daughter, Marion, and getting a glimpse of what his future might be. I can thoroughly recommend it. I could not put it down!

Back Home at Firefly Lake by Jen Gilroy: A Wonderful, Wintry Love Story

Back Home at Firefly Lake by Jen Gilroy is a wonderful love story set against wintry Firefly Lake, Vermont; perfect to curl up with by the fire sipping a large mug of hot chocolate!
It's the third part of Jen's Firefly Lake trilogy which focuses, this time, on Cat McGuire, Nick's sister from Summer on Firefly Lake (although each of the books stands alone) and NHL* hero and Olympian ice hockey player, Luc Simard.
However, for me, re-engaging with all the other characters in the previous two books was like going back home, and I'd settled in before the end of the first chapter!
Firefly Lake is a small town community, and Jen Gilroy gives an excellent picture of what you'd imagine it to be like to live there in the winter time: snow, ice, hockey, everyone knowing everyone's business and, romance!
Cat has returned to the town with her daughter, Amy. She has a grant to work on a research project, which she hopes will get her that university job she's dreamt of for years, but she doesn't want to stay with her mother, Gabrielle, at Harbor House, preferring to be self-sufficient and rent an apartment over the craft gallery in return for payment and helping out.
Widower, Luc, Nick's friend, whose dad and brothers run the creamery, has left NHL after a shoulder injury and returned to the lake as well, building a new house where he can make a new start and get over the death of his wife, Maggie, who was expecting their first baby. However, the junior league ice hockey coach breaks his leg, so Luc takes over the training and allows twelve-year-old Amy, a keen hockey player back in Boston, to join the team.
After all these years since they were together at school, when although he was friendly enough, and she admired him from a distance, Cat and Luc can't help finding each other attractive, but is this what they both really want and where will it end, especially when Amy tries to get them together?
It's an engrossing story, full of ups and downs that make you want to keep reading to the final page to find out what happens! I loved it.

*National Hockey League, for those not living in North America!

The Place We Met by Isabelle Broom - A Great Read for Cold, Dark January Days and Nights!

If you've read my blog before, you'll know that I like to read novels set in the places I've visited. Therefore, I loved The Place We Met, the latest book by Isabelle Broom, especially as it's set around Lake Como, Italy, where I spent a wonderful few days in September.

Taggie works at the Casa Alta Hotel near Como, it's nearly New Year's Eve and her big chance to make her name by putting on a big party and achieving her dream of becoming an events organiser; however, there a heartbreaking event in her own past that she's finding hard to forget.
Then, when she visits her secret beach by Lake Como, and slips into the icy water, strong, gorgeous Marco lifts her out, but is a new love interest what she really wants, or needs?

Lucy treats her boyfriend, Pete, to a New Year's break at Lake Como. She's not usually spontaneous, but surely a few days in such a romantic spot will help their relationship, especially after she finds a shoebox full of photos of a glamorous woman at the back of his wardrobe, and he receives some phone calls that he won't tell her about.

The story is told in turn from Taggie's and Lucy's point of view as the plot thickens and their lives intertwine.

For Isabelle Broom, the lake is an integral part of the novel, another character reflecting the emotional highs and lows of the girls as they come to terms with their past and move forward into the New Year.

I think that this New Year, it's a great read for all these cold, dark January days and nights.

(Look at my photo of Bellagio, it's almost the same as the cover of the book, but lots warmer!)