Tag Archive | Anna Bell

Note To Self by Anna Bell

Really Charming

Note To Self by Anna Bell is the most charming contemporary novel that will swell your heart and make you smile.

The premise is a wonderful idea – a thirty five year old character receives emails from her seventeen year old self. They are encouraging her to grab life and step out of her comfort zone. “Real living happens when you step outside it [your comfort zone] Remember, your comfort zone does not have a brick wall built around it.”

Too often in life we settle. Routine takes over and we lose sight of who we really are. Life is for living. If we are not careful, it will pass us by and we will be left with regrets. The novel shows what can happen when we decide to live and to have fun.

It is also a study in guilt and grief. The past cannot be altered. Guilt will always weigh us down. Grief threatens to drown a character. It never goes away. We just have to learn to live with it. I loved the idea of a memory jar.

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The Man I Didn’t Marry by Anna Bell

Big And Little Memories

The Man I Didn’t Marry by Anna Bell is a delightful contemporary novel about making memories to last a lifetime.

The storyline is well thought out and executed. Anna Bell has a wonderful light-hearted style set around more serious themes. The exchanges of dialogue and situations were highly amusing, certainly making me chuckle on numerous occasions. All the characters were realistic, kind and loyal.

The main premise surrounds a character who has short term amnesia – the last five years are erased from his memory, including his marriage and daughter. The family recreate memories to stimulate his mind but they do not always go to plan. Certain events are kept from him which makes for some delightfully amusing scenes in which the wrong end of the stick is definitely grabbed. Who can forget the early morning mix up at his parents which literally had me laughing out loud.

The novel is about life-long friendships and also new ones. We all need friends to help us journey through life.

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