January 2020

On New Years Eve 2019 our peace and quiet on a dead end road near the beach was disturbed by hundreds of cars, vans, mini buses and taxis driving past looking for a place to park so that people could attend beach party on the beach. There were people camping on the side of the road and no toilet provisions. The next day many of the people who had been dropped off by taxis or mini busses had no transport to get back to the nearest town. They had to walk or ring for a taxi. It was really hot and they had no water. Lots of people stopped at my house asking for water and wanting to sit in the shade on my veranda while waiting for a ride home.

New Years Day 2020, cars and vans parked near our house on side of road.

Was able to do a lot of reading in January, too hot to do anything else.

Seven Letters by Sinead Moriarty.

A very sad book. A mother writes a letter to her young daughter every year on her birthday and keeps them in her journal.

Stalked. The Human Target by Rachel Cassidy

A non-fiction book about people's experiences of being stalked.

The Garden of Lost and Found by Harriet Evans

I love the way Harriet Evans writes her stories. This one was set in London in a house overlooking Highgate Cemetery and Nightingale House not far from London. It is about artists, architects, family relationships and a lost painting called The Garden of Lost and Found.

A Million Dreams by Dani Atkins

Beth Brandson owns a flower shop and makes a decision that will change her life, Izzy Vaughan's life and all she believes will be tested. this was about families, relationships, IVF and infertility.

 The Girl In the Letter by Emily Gunnis

An old house that used to be a home unmarried mothers is about to be demolished when secret letters are found. Samantha Harper tries to find out the secrets of the old mansion.

Snowdrops on Rosemary Lane by Ellen Berry

Lucy Scott is a married to Ivan and has two children. Lucy works for an online lingerie retailer. When she is offered a redundancy, she buys a cottage that she remembered as a child in a small village where she used to spend holidays with her grandmother.

Lucy and her family move to the small village to set up a bed and breakfast.

This was about families, friendships and village life.

The Forbidden Promise by Lorna Cook

This was set over two time periods 1940’s and 2019 at Invermoray House in Scotland. Constance McLay is a young woman living at Invermoray House she is not happy with her lot in life and wants to help with the War effort by working but her family won’t let her, they expect her to marry Henry but Constance is not ready for marriage.

Constance secretly helps a pilot who crashes in the lake near Invermoray house which upsets her family.

In 2019 Kate leaves London and goes to Scotland to work at Invermoray House to help Mrs Langley-McLay promote Invermoray House as a holiday destination.

Kate discovers old photographs of Constance McLay and other family members and tries to discover what happened many years earlier.

This is a romance about families and family relationships, the Second World War and Invermoray House. I loved the way it switched back and forward between Constance in the 1940’s and Kate in 2019.

Fresh Water For Flowers by Valerie Perrin

Violette Toussaint has had a difficult life and is finally at peace working at the cemetery. Violette first worked as a level crossing attendant with her husband before being given a job of a cemetery caretaker at Brancion-en-Chalon Cemetery in Burgundy.

This was about a woman who is a caretaker of a cemetery. She opens the cemetery gate each morning and locks the gate at night. Through the day she helps people find graves, removes dead flowers, waters flowers and helps to keep the cemetery tidy.

Violette tends to the graves and is a friend to the cemetery workers. She feeds the cats that live at the cemetery and sells flowers to cemetery visitors. Violette has many favourite epitaphs one of them is – “Death begins when no one can dream of you any longer”

(I can really feel how Violette feels because many years ago I spent months transcribing all the inscriptions in a local cemetery near me and after a while I started feeling that I knew everyone in the cemetery).

As Violette tells the story of the people who visit the cemetery and the people buried in the cemetery, she gradually uncovers the mystery of her life.

This was about relationships, families, grief, cemeteries and secrets. I loved the way this was written and how Violette’s story was revealed.