We Have Books

The Glovemaker by Ann Weisgarber My Review Having read and loved the authors two previous books I have waited and anticipated a new title by her for quite some time. So I was eager to read this and very fortunate to receive an advance copy.  I quite simply LOVED it.  The author has the amazing skill of creating, convincing characters whose skin you can slip inside for the duration of the book. Strong, credible women who live a life so different to my own it would seem virtually impossible to relate to them. Yet the women she creates have left such an indelible mark on me it feels as though they have left a fine layer of themselves in my soul.  She writes about well researched austere locations where I have never been yet by the time I finish reading I feel as though I once lived there. This time we visit the location of Rural Utah in a secluded valley amidst harsh yet dramatic landscapes in the late 1800s. This book is leisurely and gradual, gentle and rather bleak and th...

Beyond the Bay - Rebecca Burns - my review In a year which has for me, been the year of great historical reads I'm delighted to add this engaging and satisfying book to my blog and my lists of books I've loved. What a wonderful discovery and welcome addition this book is! I devoured it from start to finish and longed to keep on reading more about the two sisters I met within its pages when it ended. This is a beautifully written piece of historical fiction about two women who travel across the world to find new opportunities. Set in Auckland, New Zealand, at the very beginning of the 20th century as women begin to rise and demand the vote and throw off the shackles of total subservience to men which has previously been the norm. Isobel has been living there for ten years already, she came here as a newlywed settler to escape her domineering Mother and defy her by choosing her own path in life and marry a man of her choosing and eschew a life in England which held little hope or...

WEST by Carys Davies - my review This book was, for me a very fast read, it's a short book with a big punch. It tells the story of Cy Bellmann, a pioneering Brit who has previously emigrated to Pennsylvania to farm mules and horses, this act alone tells us he is man not averse to taking a great risk to achieve what he wants in life even if it is to the cost of those dear to him, you'd think he'd be satisfied with what he has! Now widowed and left alone with just his young daughter Bess who is now 10, for company, like many of us, he knows there must be something greater than his humdrum life. He's only 35 but boy does this guy have a sudden mid life crisis. He hears news of a momentous discovery far away in Kentucky, a pile of colossal animal bones. He is convinced this skeleton reveals the presence of a yet undiscovered wondrous living creature and it ignites a fire in him he hasn't felt since before his wife died, he burns to be the one to find this huge animal. T...