I Found You by Lisa Jewell - A Fabulous Murder Mystery

I Found You by Lisa Jewell is a fabulous read, and I devoured it in record time - I really couldn't put it down.

Forty-something Alice, who has three children from three different failed relationships, finds a man on the beach at Ridinghouse Bay, Yorkshire, who has lost his memory.

Meanwhile, down in Surrey, newly-wed, Lily is distraught because her husband didn't come home on Tuesday night. She's told the police and they say (after investigating his passport details) that he, Carl Monrose, does not exist.

In 1993, Gray Ross is unhappy about the attention arrogant Mark Tate is paying to his fifteen-year-old sister, Kirsty, on their family holiday at Ridinghouse Bay.

However, whilst Lily goes through Carl's belongings and retraces his movements, Alice and her friend Derry do some research of their own and discover that back in August 1993, there was an incident on the beach where one man died and two others were missing, feared drowned. Another teenage youth was taken to hospital but discharged. The mystery deepens.
Could the man Alice is sheltering be a murderer?

This book has been published with two different covers. I liked the brighter one the best, but new books with that cover were twice the price of the darker ones on Amazon. So, I bought a used one, and, looking inside, I found that it had been signed by the author. Brilliant! I was meant to buy it!

Discover 'the truth about melody browne' by Lisa Jewell

the truth about melody browne by Lisa Jewell is a gripping story about Melody Browne who can't remember anything before her ninth birthday when her house burnt down, taking with it all her memories of her childhood. She's now thirty-three, single, and with a son who's approaching his eighteenth birthday. One evening, Ben, a man who she met on a bus, takes her to a hypnotist's show and when she's hypnotised, she begins to remember fragments of her childhood.
The story moves backwards and forwards in time as Melody pieces together the pieces of her life and tries to make sense of what happened.
As in the house we grew up in which I reviewed here last year, Lisa Jewell skilfully makes all the characters and the settings, in London, Broadstairs and Canterbury, believable.  And what a lot of characters there are, as Melody begins to meet them and unravel her past.
I can't go into her story too much here for fear of giving too much away. All I can say is to settle yourself down in a comfy chair with a drink of your choice and enjoy it!

the house we grew up in A Gripping Easter Novel by Lisa Jewell

Are you a hoarder? I am a bit; it didn't take long to find some gift wrap to use as the background for my photo here.  But Lorelei Bird has more of a problem: she's unable to throw away anything and her house has become literally stuffed full of junk or, as she calls it, her memories of good times. Each item a reminder of a particular day or event.
She started by collecting things for her craft box which she kept under the stairs, particularly the shiny foil wrappers off the Easter Eggs she hid around their lovely garden each Easter Sunday.
Thirty years ago, the Birds were a perfect family: Lorelei, Colin, Megan, Beth and the twins Rory and Rhys living in their perfect house in the country, until one Easter, something happened that was so terrible that it destroyed their life altogether.
Lisa Jewell has written a jewel of a book. Weaving backwards and forwards in time, each Easter from then to 2011, she unravels their story and temps us to discover who was actually to blame for the disastrous event.
It is not a traditional Easter story with bunnies and fluffy chicks; it is quite harrowing to read in places, but it is a story that grips your attention, so you keep reading, caught up with their lives, until the end.
Do you have a favourite Easter novel?

My 'To Be Read' Pile of Books - Autumn 2014

'I look at books as a child looks at cakes - with glittering eyes and a watering mouth, imagining the pleasure that awaits him.'
Elizabeth Gaskell

After spending the summer reading about sunny holidays in Devon and Cornwall, it's definitely time for a change, so here's my 'To Be Read' pile for the next couple of months before I turn to a more Christmassy theme!

The books are in no particular order, and I'm not really sure which one I'm going to choose first either!

Kate Atkinson Life After Life
I have only read Behind the Scenes at the Museum and Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, but his one intrigues me because of the premise of the possibility of having an infinite number of chances to live your life until you finally get it right.

Lisa Jewell The Truth About Melody Browne
The Truth About Melody Brown is the first of two Lisa Jewell books in my pile because I enjoyed Before I Met You, set in Guernsey and London in the 1920s and the 1990s. This one attracted me because it's about a nine-year-old girl who loses her memory after a fire destroys her home, and doesn't begin to recover it until she attends a hypnotist's show in her early thirties. However nothing is as straightforward as it seems and she has to uncover many mysteries before she can find out the real truth about her life.

Leah Fleming The Postcard
This book is also about uncovering family secrets. Finding a postcard to someone called Desmond amongst her deceased father's belongings, Melissa sets out on a journey across oceans and into the past. This sounds like my sort of story!

Ali Harris Written in the Stars
A more light-hearted sort of novel about Bea who slips whilst walking down the aisle on her wedding day which triggers two parallel lives: one where she gets married and one where she doesn't.
Each life has its ups and downs, but which one will make her happy ever after?

Alice Peterson By My Side
'By My Side' refers to Ticket, a golden Labrador, who becomes a companion to Cass who is paralysed from the waist down after being involved in an accident with a truck. This is an unusual story, but love grows when she meets Charlie on a flight to Colorado. Will he be able to help her to live her life to the full again?

Hazel Gaynor The Girl Who Came Home
I heard Hazel speaking at this year's RNA Conference about how she self-published this book, and it was so successful that an American publisher offered her a contract. How fabulous is that?
It is based on a true story about Maggie who survives the Titanic disaster in 1912 and, in 1982, shares the painful secret that she's kept for a lifetime with her great granddaughter, Grace, resulting in events that change both their lives.

Lisa Jewell The House We Grew Up In
This is my second Lisa Jewell book. It explores the devastating event, one Easter, many years ago, that shattered the perfect Bird family's life, but which they are forced to confront when they return to their childhood home.

Well, these are my choices. Which one would you read first?

Get Comfy and Settle Down to Read Before I Met You by Lisa Jewell

It's Guernsey,1995, and when Betty's step-grandmother, Arlette, dies, she is set the challenge of finding Clara Pickles, the mystery person mentioned in her will, despite the fact that Clara will inherit £10,000 instead of her.
In Before I Met You by Lisa Jewell, Betty sets off to Soho, London, to track her down with the £1,000 Arlette has left her and Arlette's fur coat.
Arlette, too, sets off for London in 1920. She gets involved with Gideon Worsley, an artist who wants to paint her in a suggestive pose with Sandy Beach, a member of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, whereas Betty gets involved with rock star, Dom Jones, and market stall holder, John Brightly.
It sounds complicated, and it is, but Lisa Jewell skillfully leads you through the tangle of the two plots and the deep emotions that Arlette and Betty experience to a satisfying conclusion.
This is a great book to settle down with in a comfy chair, and a few tissues!
Have you read any of Lisa Jewell's books?