‘It’s every mother’s nightmare …
The first time Alice Fancourt goes out after their daughter is born, she leaves the two-week-old infant with her husband, David. When she returns only two hours later, she swears the baby in the crib is not her child. Despite her distress, David is adamant that she is wrong.
‘One girl missing, one woman searching, both equally lost. Will a shared tragedy help them find their way home—even in the face of imminent danger?
Renowned archaeologist Richard Mathis is half a world away on the island of Crete when he learns his daughter, Bella, has gone missing. Within twenty minutes, he’s on his way back to the States. Two days later, he’s dead.
Richard’s young assistant, Angela Chase, is devastated by the loss of the man who had become both mentor and friend, and she’s determined to find the missing girl, who seems to have made dangerous connections—and whose lonely childhood so resembles Angela’s own. Born Laurel Springfield, Angela now spends her days digging up the origins of a lost civilization while struggling to keep her own past buried. But will the search for Bella expose Angela’s carefully disguised identity—and will she find Bella before she’s lost forever?’
‘Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for success. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent – but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own.
Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful – but desperately lonely – older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice’s first novel.
‘The person who loves the addict exhausts and renews their love on a daily basis.
In this vivid and powerful collection of essays, Emilie Pine writes about all the things she shouldn’t say.
Addressing addiction, fertility, feminism, sexual violence and depression, Notes To Self is raw, funny and honest.
Unsentimental and brave, this startling debut breaks new ground in the field of personal essays.’
‘Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?
Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.
At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.’
‘If there’s a healthy way to grieve, Erin Gaines hasn’t found it. After her husband’s sudden death, the runaway success of the tech company they built with their best friends has become overwhelming. Her nerves are frayed, she’s disengaged, and her frustrated daughter, Shorie, is pulling away from her. Maybe Erin’s friends and family are right. Maybe a few weeks at a spa resort in the Caribbean islands is just what she needs to hit the reset button…
‘A collection of seveteen wonderful short stories showing that two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor. A hectic, funny sexual affair between two best friends. A World War II veteran dealing with his emotional and physical scars. A second-rate actor plunged into sudden stardom and a whirlwind press junket. Four friends going to the moon and back in a rocket ship constructed in the backyard. These are just some of the people and situations that Tom Hanks explores in his first work of fiction, a collection of stories that dissects, with great affection, humour and insight, the human condition and all its foibles.’
I went on a charity shop scavenge today and I’m so happy with my haul! All of these for the small price of €5 – what a bargain! Can’t wait to get stuck in.
I’m quite pleased with the books I read in January – while I enjoyed some of them more than others, there are none of them that I disliked or regret spending time with. If I had to chose my favourite, I think it would be A Man Called Ove. It took me a little bit longer than usual to get through it, but it was a fantastic book.
In no particular order of preference, you can find the reviews of my January reads below.
‘One love. Two people. Twenty Years.
From the moment they met, Erin and Dom loved each other too much, too quickly. Everyone said it wouldn’t last. But they knew differently.
A wedding present, a notebook, brings them together through the good times and the bad. On the blank pages of their love story, they write down everything they can’t always say – the secrets, the heartbreak, the highs and lows. It’s where they see the best and worst of each other.
The Reading Nook 