I've been doing a bit of reading lately, and here are some of the books, which as you can see are quite varied!
All books are available from Amazon.
Title: The Summer Escape
Author: Lily Graham
Ebook
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I wanted to be Ria!!
It was funny, sensitive and full of great characters. Great descriptions.
Ria is such a lovely character who impulsively goes to Crete to escape a terrible job and the rut she had found herself in. There, she changes her life and starts living again, surrounded by helpful and kind people. Of course she falls in love with the dashing male lead in the story, but who wouldn't? He was the kind of guy that makes you feel good.
Excellent summer read.
Title: Chickens Eat Pasta
Author: Clare Pedrick
Ebook
In the vein of Under the Tuscan Sun, this autobiography drew my attention as I've always wanted to go to Italy, or France, buy a house and do it up and become part of a village life. Clare does this and I was excited to read her story.
I did feel the first part of the story was a bit stilted and sometimes confusing with all the names and people. I would have liked to learn more about her doing up the house and her struggles to adapt, as it seems much of her life was helped by having money and good Italian friends - without that I doubt she would have found it so easy. At times the story concentrated more on what she was eating and what other people were doing than her own story. Some elements were glossed over too readily.
However, it was an interesting read, and I'm glad it all worked out for her in the end.
I did feel the first part of the story was a bit stilted and sometimes confusing with all the names and people. I would have liked to learn more about her doing up the house and her struggles to adapt, as it seems much of her life was helped by having money and good Italian friends - without that I doubt she would have found it so easy. At times the story concentrated more on what she was eating and what other people were doing than her own story. Some elements were glossed over too readily.
However, it was an interesting read, and I'm glad it all worked out for her in the end.
Title: COMFORTS FOR THE TROOPS
Author: Fiona Joseph
Published by: Foxwell Press UK
Year: 2015
Paperback
Pages: 251
ISBN: 9780957093454
Sub genre: WWI 1915 Birmingham England.
Review:
A novel inspired by the female workers at Cadbury Chocolate
Factory, the novel centres on three female characters and their stories through
this difficult time.
Leonora is the character that has drive and determination to
be a forewoman of her section at the factory. However, her manner is cold and
her spine unbending when it comes to matters outside of the factory. Although a
hard worker, she finds herself overlooked for promotion and this makes her
increasingly bitter.
Jessie is a married worker at the factory, whose husband is
housebound after an accident at his work. Jessie is the breadwinner, but
finding life outside of the home opens Jessie’s eyes to another world where she
can be free to find new interests. Sadly her new found freedom creates problems
in her marriage, which is suffering under the pressure of her long hours at the
factory and her husband’s long convalescence and his struggle to regain his
focus and independence.
Finally we have Mary, the boisterous and fun-loving woman
who has a sense of family duty and a bucketful of courage. Her adventurous
nature gives her an instant friendship with Jessie but earns the disapproval of
Leonora.
It takes the climatic events in each of these three women’s
lives to make them realise that what they were striving for, isn’t always
easily attainable.
Leonora has to learn humbleness to truly understand her role
at the factory and in her life.
Jessie must learn compromise and forgiveness to find the
happiness she seeks.
While Mary learns that her eagerness to make things right
isn’t always the correct way to do things and sometimes you have to let others
help you.
Comforts for the Troops is a gentle and interesting read. I
enjoyed the three women’s situations. Although I felt at times that each story
could have had a little more depth. I would have preferred more back story to
each woman. Apart from Mary, we know nothing of Leonora or Jessie’s background
really, just the odd comment, but nothing substantial.
In general though the
plots worked and the story flowed. The story set in the Cadbury’s chocolate
factory was unique, as everyone has heard of Cadbury’s chocolates. I can tell
the author did her research and put much effort into getting the historical
details correct.
I give Comforts for the Troops 3 stars.
Title: THE KIMONO SONG
Author: T.C. Kuhn
Published by: Amazon UK
Year: 2015
Paperback
Pages:346
ISBN:1514161877
Sub genre: WWII 1942 Manila.
Review:
The Kimono Song is set in Manila in 1945, but with flash
backs to 1942. The story starts with the main character, Captain Helen
Williamson, a nurse in the U.S. Army Nursing Corps, going on a bus journey
after the war has finished, and it is during this bus journey that she
reminisces about the last three years of the war.
In 1942 with serving in a military hospital for America
soldiers, Helen suffers a personal loss, however, her grief has to be put to
one side as the Japanese Army sweeps across the Philippines, capturing the
hospital. Helen and her fellow nurses are taken to a prisoner of war camp.
There, they are kept for three years until the Allies defeat Japan and the
prisoner of war camps are liberated.
During the three years incarcerated, Helen and her fellow
prisoners have to deal with the brutality of her capturers, the primitive
conditions, the lack of medical supplies, the bland diet of limited food and subsequently
the numerous deaths that result.
Despite the harsh conditions, Helen manages to find solace
in her work nursing the ill and infirm in the make-shift hospital inside the
walls of barbed wire.
Although hating the Japanese that rule them, there is one
man, Ito, who comes to take charge of the camp, and with whom Helen learns to
respect and a friendship grows.
Ito, having experienced years of working in Hawaii,
understands the Westerners, and Helen in particular, he finds intriguing. He
asks her to treat his soldiers and she agrees, hoping she can convey
information back to her own people. Unintentionally, they find their feelings
towards each other grow. Helen is in mourning, Ito is missing his wife. There
are consequences of their actions.
I don’t want to spoil the ending for readers and so I won’t
mention any more of the story line, only to say that I found the ending of the
camp flashbacks to be satisfactory. It
worked well. Knowing the history of Japanese officers after their defeat I
accepted the plotline as totally plausible.
However the ending of the story as a whole, (one year after
the war finished) I found less agreeable.
I didn’t understand Helen’s actions, the whole reason for her bus
journey through a war torn country to visit someone, who didn’t need visiting
and which I feel was a little cruel. But, that is my opinion and others may
feel the ending is completely correct to the tory and characters.
That said, I did enjoy this story. I believe the author did
well with the research, and the characters were three dimensional. I found at
odd times the American dialect to be a little over the top when spoken by the
G.I.s who Helen encountered on the bus journey.
Overall, The Kimono Song is a book worth reading. I
recommend it to anyone who enjoys WWII fiction. Also I think the cover suits
the story, which is always nice to see.
I give The Kimono Song 3 stars.
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