Archive | April 2025

Safe Harbour In Pelican Crossing by Maggie Christensen

Apr8

A Perfect Escape

Safe Harbour In Pelican Crossing by Maggie Christensen is a most charming contemporary novel that I really enjoyed. It is the fifth book in the Pelican Crossing series but can be read as a stand-alone.

Each book in the series has a different character focus but they all have inter-connecting lives. It is always good to catch up with familiar faces. The reader appreciates the wisdom of Old Agnes, and applauds when characters take note of her words.

Pelican Crossing is the place where many (including this reader) want to call home. “Here in Pelican Crossing, it was as if she had a new lease of life.” Pelican Crossing is a place of community, where hurting hearts come home to heal.

Pelican Crossing is also a place of new connection and re-connection. A place where secrets are not so secret and where big hearts spread love and care.

We witness that the lives of the two main characters have not always been easy. They ‘lost’ each other in their teens and have now ‘found’ each other – but is the ending destined to be happy?

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The Last Song Of Winter by Lulu Taylor

Apr2

So Beautiful

The Last Song Of Winter by Lulu Taylor is a most beautiful dual timeline novel that consumed me from the start.

The stories are set in the 1940’s and in present day. Both time periods are linked to a couple of families. The war consumes characters in the 1940’s. In present day there is a search for the truth. A resistance member ‘disappeared’ and her family and descendants really need to know what happened to her so that they can put the past to bed.

The novel is one of discovery as characters learn just who they are. A teen in the 1930’s is ‘helped’ to blossom as she is taken under the wing of a Parisienne lady. Her time at finishing school opens her eyes to new possibilities under the guidance of the older, more sophisticated female.

A lonely island off the Pembrokeshire coast holds its own secrets. The wild, untamed landscape appeals to some characters but not others. It contrasts sharply with the gay sophistication of Paris before the war.

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Eva Is Waiting by Romola Farr

Apr1

Highly Entertaining

Eva Is Waiting by Romola Farr is a gripping historical novel that I read in just two sittings.

The action is set in 1965 at a girls school. It is a time of uncertainty, only twenty years since World War II ended and is fresh in the minds of all. It is now at the height of the Cold War – a time of mistrust.

Historians will know of Berlin being split into four zones. The Stasi had far-reaching fingers and underhand tactics.

We see that war criminals hid in plain sight, blending in and denying their past.

The lead character is a teenager who finds herself haunted by a young Jewish girl who disappeared ten years earlier. Shadowy figures are seen, and the past is re-lived through dreams.

It is a time of awakening as the teen is on the verge between adulthood and childhood. The swinging sixties were definitely swinging in the girls boarding school!

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