Book talk: Books I read in Autumn 2019

Predictably, as the weather cooled, I was more keen to settle down with a book and, this past autumn, I was able to read 7 books. I am very pleased with the number and I hope I keep up the pace at least until summer as I was gifted 25 books for Christmas and I would like to finish all of them during the coming year. Without further ado, here are the 7 books I read this past autumn.

Christmas in the Snow by Karen Swan

The book blurb:

In London, the snow is falling and Christmas is just around the corner - but Allegra Fisher barely has time to notice. She's pitching for the biggest deal of her career and can't afford to fail. And when she meets attractive stranger, Sam Kemp, on the plane to the meeting, she can't afford to lose her focus either. She learned to shut off her emotions long ago and only her sister and best friend Isobel knows why. But when Allegra finds herself up against Sam for the bid, their passion quickly turns sour.

In Zermatt in the Swiss Alps, a long-lost mountain hut is discovered in the snow after sixty years and the last person expecting to become involved is Allegra - she hasn't even heard of the woman they found inside. But it soon becomes clear the two women are linked and, as she and Iz travel out to make sense of the mystery, hearts thaw and dark secrets are uncovered, long buried by the snow.

Christmas in the Snow is an easy holiday read that can be completed in a few sittings. Overall, I liked it - even though the characters were rather stereotypical. I could have done with a bit less financial jargon (the main character is a hedge-fund manager) and I think that a few glaring inconsistencies could have been avoided. However, none of this detracts from the story, so I would recommend it if you are looking for something easy to read - especially if you are into happy-endings.

Loree's rating: 3/5

Imagine Heaven by John Burke (non-fiction)

The book blurb:

It's obvious from the bookshelves and the big screen that heaven is on everyone's mind. All of us long to know what life after death will be like. Bestselling author John Burke is no exception. For decades, he has been studying accounts of people who have had near-death experiences (NDEs). While not every detail of individual NDEs correlate with Scripture, Burke shows how the common experiences shared by thousands of survivors clearly point to the God of the Bible and the exhilarating picture of heaven he promises.

Imagine  Heaven was a very compelling read. It recounts the NDEs of people of all ages and cultures, from all walks of life, both believers and non-believers. When confronted with these types of books, my first instinct, as a person with a strong scientific background, is to look for inconsistencies in theories and discussions, to find the weakest point of an argument, and then unravel the whole theory from there. I could not do that with Imagine Heaven because the NDEs of the people interviewed are so beautiful and real that I want them to  be true. By the end of the book I was convinced of the veracity of the experiences recounted because it would be impossible for people with such disparate backgrounds and ages to recount the almost-exact same experience. I found that this book can only be enjoyed if it is read with an open heart.

Loree's rating: 4/5

Murder on the Malta Express: Who Killed Daphne Caruana Galizia by Carlo Bonini (non-fiction)

The book blurb:

If we are judged by the nature of our enemies, then Daphne Caruana Galizia should be remembered as a hero of our time. She was Malta’s most fearless journalist until someone with money and power decided that she should be silenced forever. Her assassination was a brutal blow to anyone who cares about the truth.

Their book sets out the evidence on the dirty money merchants exposed by Daphne Caruana Galizia. It is written in her honour.

Since Murder on the Malta Express was published, in October 2019, some headway into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia has been made. We now know that a prominent businessman, Yorgen Fenech, was the 'mastermind' behind the horrific deed but top government officials are also implicated. The court cases to uncover the truth are ongoing. 

Loree's rating: 4.5/5

Stone Field by Christy Lenzi

The book blurb:

In a small town on the brink of the Civil War, Catrina finds a man making strange patterns in her family’s sorghum crop. He’s mad with fever, naked, and strikingly beautiful. He has no memory of who he is or what he’s done before Catrina found him in Stone Field. But that doesn’t bother Catrina because she doesn’t like thinking about the things she’s done before either.

Catrina and Stonefield fall passionately, dangerously, in love. All they want is to live with each other, in harmony with the land and away from Cat’s protective brother, the new fanatical preacher, and the neighbors who are scandalized by their relationship. But Stonefield can’t escape the truth about who he is, and the conflict tearing apart the country demands that everyone take a side before the bloodbath reaches their doorstep.

Stone Field claims to be inspired by Emily Bronte's famous novel Wuthering Heights but, since I have not read the original, I will not comment about whether it was or not. I did not dislike this book but I found a number of things to be irritating: Catrina falls in love with a man as soon as she lays eyes on him; she says "Lord" or "Lordie" too many times throughout the book; she talks about a 'darkness' within her but where this darkness comes from is not adequately explored; her character is also not well developed. The man she calls Stonefield is very one-dimensional. He loses his memory and can't remember his name, yet has no problem quoting Shakespeare. The American Civil War is thrown in as a backdrop but we get no real insight into the conflict and how it really affected the people that lived through it. I picked this book up at a book fair, on a whim, and it was only after I read it that I found out it was in the Young Adult genre. In hindsight, I think it would appeal most to this category of readers but older people (like myself) will not relate to it very well.

Loree's rating: 3/5

The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman

The book blurb:

On the first Monday of December, every year, twelve friends gather in the evening with batches of homemade cookies wrapped in beautiful packages. They drink wine, they eat and they take turns telling the story of the cookies they have baked. Somehow these stories are always emblematic of the year that has just passed, as complicated and rich as our own lives. Lives full of sisterly love and conflict, yearning for babies and grandchildren, passion and disillusionment with men, a secret decade long affair, the loss of a job, the death of a child . . . These women are as imperfect as real women, made heroic by their ability to resolve conflict, to endure and support each other. The Cookie Club is as involving, heartwarming and uplifting a story as you'll ever read.

The Christmas Cookie Club was not very long and tried to do too much in the number of pages allotted to it. Each chapter was about one of the women that formed part of the cookie club and, after the first 4 or 5 chapters I started to get confused who was who and how they all got to know each other.  A cookie recipe is also included with each chapter, together with detailed information about one of the ingredients in each recipe. I felt that this book was disjointed and, since there were so many characters introduced in such a short space of time, I never really identified with any of them.

Loree's rating: 2/5

Mrs Miles's Diary: The Wartime Journal of a Housewife on the Home Front by Constance Miles (non-fiction)

The book blurb:

At the outbreak of the Second World War Constance Miles was living with her husband in the pretty Surrey village of Shere. A prolific correspondent with a keen interest in current affairs, Constance kept a war journal from 1939 to 1943, recording in vivid detail what life was like for women on the Home Front. She writes of the impact of evacuees, of food shortages and the creative uses of what food there was, and the fears of the local populace, who wonder how they will cope. She tells of refugees from central Europe billeted in village houses and, later in the war, of the influx of American servicemen. She travels frequently to London, mourning the destruction of familiar landmarks and recording the devastation of the Blitz, but still finds time for tea in the Strand. A woman of strong convictions, Mrs Miles is not afraid to voice her opinion on public figures and her worries about the social upheavals she feels certain to follow the war. But most of all her journals record an overlooked aspect of the conflict: the impact on communities outside of major cities, who endured hardships we find hard to imagine today. It is a fascinating document that makes for compulsive reading.

I am glad I read Mrs Miles's Diary because it provides a glimpse into the life of the English middle-class during WW2 and the hardships they had to ensure. Mrs Miles is a gifted writer and her entries for each day are quite short, so the book never becomes boring due to the inclusion of too many details. It is a book I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn a bit more about life in the countryside in Britain during the last war. I will say that Mrs Miles' prediction that the war would change life for everyone have come true in ways that she probably never imagined.

Loree's rating: 3.5/5

Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts

The book blurb:

Talk about unlucky sevens. An hour ago, seventeen-year-old, seven months pregnant Novalee Nation was heading for California with her boyfriend. Now she finds herself stranded at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, with just $7.77 in change. But Novalee is about to discover hidden treasures in this small Southwest town--a group of down-to-earth, deeply caring people willing to help a homeless, jobless girl living secretly in a Wal-Mart. From Bible-thumping blue-haired Sister Thelma Husband to eccentric librarian Forney Hull who loves Novalee more than she loves herself, they are about to take her--and you, too--on a moving, funny, and unforgettable journey to . . . Where the Heart Is.

Where the Heart Is is a sweet book that I thoroughly enjoyed. The characters in it really come alive and they are lovable and quirky in ways that are only possible in small towns where people know each other inside out and stick together through goods times and bad. This was not a predictable story as the author throws in several small twists and turns that make the plot more interesting and carry the reader along quite effortlessly.

Loree's rating: 4/5

And that's about it from me for 2019. I thought I would have time for one more post because my brain feels muddled and I thought that 2020 would start on Friday rather than on Wednesday. So, since 2020 is practically here, I would like to wish you all a very happy New Year. See you in the new decade.