🌟🌟🌟🌟 A continuation of the author’s earlier work, this book picks up exactly where “Till Death We Do Part” left off. As our hero, Pablo, (our somewhat-reliable narrative voice), a smart, sensitive man, now in his late fifties, continues his struggle to accept his sudden and bitter divorce from Delilah,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A quiet masterpiece, (in spirit somewhat reminiscent of Penny Haw’s brilliant #TheWildernessBetweenUs), set in a rural village deep in the vinelands of Germany, this is a story to be savored. As luminous as the first glimpse of a sudden and glorious sunrise, the slowly developing magic of this dazzling…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 + An absolutely beautiful read, this book resonated so powerfully with me that it was difficult to see it end. Deeply evocative, the author captures perfectly the heady rush that comes with being eighteen, on the cusp of adulthood - a time so jumbled up with innocence, heart-ache, yearnings,…
🌟🌟🌟 Benji is a black Labrador, and interestingly, also a narrator of this book, which features a dog’s-eye view of the complications that can arise in seemingly perfect human lives. Meriel, the main (human) protagonist, and the story’s second-provided POV, believes herself to be happily married. Until the day she…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 A gentle look at love, as it ages, batted about and corrupted by the passage of time, as long-held fears, insecurities and secrets, do their dirty work in darkness - leaving us to wonder, is it ever too late to start again? Prickly and somewhat unlikable, Meena Fisher is…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 ➕ If the Earth itself (wait, make that the “Universe”) could write, this would be its creation. Deeply wise, there’s a core of truth captured with such aching beauty that the images, ideas, and feelings so seamlessly poured into this work surround you, in the manner of something eternal…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 This is the fourth edition of the Hedgehog Hollow series, and the first one I have read - a situation I would love to remedy quickly! Based in the dreamy countryside of Yorkshire Wolds, this delightful book reads like a visit with friends, an extended “family” of wonderful characters…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ In parts tender, and almost entirely tragic, I found this short novella incredibly moving. A gentle, compassionate and insightful look at origins, or sources - of identity, shame, grief, anger, despair - (and interestingly, of words themselves) and the roots that provide definition, and a past, that cannot be…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “He was everybody’s son, but he belonged to no one”. A complex and poignant portrait of what it means to be a mother, a father, or a son, and what it feels like to have this most central of identities suddenly ripped away. When we first meet Anton Vesper…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 An epic and life-changing journey, paused and then culminated, decades later, as our main protagonist, Dan, travels the road to Kathmandu, Nepal. Dan, an often strung-out hippie kid from England, seeking mystery, excitement, adventure, and most of all, freedom from his “cultural straightjacket”, completes a drive across Europe,…