Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2011
287p
It's about.....a three-year-old boy named Wrecker whose single mother is sent to prison. Alone , scared silent and deep down angry , he is sent to live with distant relatives in the wilds of Humboldt County. His presence will in time turn a motley group of isolated eccentrics into a real family.
I thought.......it was a beautifully written and moving story. It touches on the need we all have to belong to and be loved by a family and how sometimes it isn't those who we have blood ties with who become that family. I loved the 'motley group' , all of them battered and bruised by life, who find healing by reaching out to a lost little boy.
Lovely - recommended!
The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton by Elizabeth Speller
Publisher: Virago Press, 2011
405p
It's about.......When former infantry officer Laurence Bartram is called to the small Wiltshire village of Easton Deadall, he is struck by the beauty of the place: a neglected stately home, a centuries old church; and a recently planted maze, a memorial to the men of the village almost all of whom died in one battle in 1917. But it soon becomes clear to Laurence that while the rest of the country is alight with hope for the first time since the war, this village is haunted by its past and the mystery of the strange disappearance of five-year-old Kitty Easton in 1911.
I thought.....I enjoyed the historical background, the aftermath of war and its affects on the different characters, and the atmosphere created by ancient crypts and maze puzzles but the first half was so slow and failed to build the suspense necessary for the mystery part of the book. But overall it's a book about loss and grief and finding the courage to let go and build afresh and I thought this was described very well . I may have been more enthusiastic if I'd read Elizabeth Speller's first book to which this is a sequel and understood the background of the main characters more.
Good but not great!
Excellent mini reviews. I might have to borrow that format. I have such a hard time being succinct.
ReplyDeleteThe first book sounds good. I do believe that you can create your own family when needed.