Tag Archive | Harper Collins

The Vanished Girl by Kathleen McGurl

Mar3

Layers

The Vanished Girl by Kathleen McGurl is a powerful and heartbreaking dual timeline novel that gripped me from the start.

The action is set in the summer of 1976 and in 2024. For those of us of a certain age, we remember the summer of ’76 as being glorious – long, hot days. For the characters they were, eight, twelve, and nearly fourteen-years-old. Theirs was a summer of freedom. “We were giddy with freedom and endless possibilities. Friends, a picnic, our bikes… We could go anywhere.” The reader ‘feels’ the freedom and remembers their own childhood in the summer of ’76. Days of adventures with friends, no phones to distract. The summer stretched out endlessly, creating bonds and happy memories until – the girl vanished.

Nearly fifty years later, the friends are re-united. “Inside, I’m still that kid.” Old bonds re-attach as the years fall away. Feelings of guilt return as everyone wonders if they could have done more.

The intervening years have seen a life being plied with guilt upon guilt. A life spiralled downwards. Returning to her childhood village, a character hopes she will heal.

Re-connection with childhood friends creates the original strong bonds.

The modern reader is horrified at the attitudes to those with mental health issues in 1976. They are shunned at best, persecuted at worst – by the adults, who hunt in packs. It is shameful. Only the children see the kind, gentle heart that beats beneath the skin of a nineteen-year-old man.

Continue reading →

Most Wanted by Andi Osho

Mar2

Spiraling

Most Wanted by Andi Osho is a powerful contemporary novel that gripped me from the start.

As the novel opens we ‘hear’ the voice of the perpetrator of the crimes. We know they have been caught – but who are they? And what are their crimes?

The setting is an urban one, in several boroughs in London. We ‘see’ the troubled youths just hanging about. We drop in on community-minded neighbours. And we witness the side effects of gentrification on neighbourhoods – in particular pushing up housing prices. Demand is outstripping supply. Houses are being snapped up. Prices are rocketing. All this is pushing local people out of area. How will it ever stop?

A young couple who has been renting, and are desperate to get on the property ladder. They are the focus of the novel. The reader can empathise with their plight and their frustration in losing property after property. Add to that, a fluid job situation creating tension, and you have the perfect storm.

The reader watches the couple becoming ever more desperate. Their actions catch the eye of local criminals. Without knowing quite how they got there, lives start spiraling downwards, and there seems to be no way out.

Continue reading →

A Mother’s Second Chance by Sarah Lefebve

Jan19

Heart-Wrenching & Beautiful

A Mother’s Second Chance by Sarah Lefebve is the most beautiful and heart-wrenching contemporary novel about love and loss; grief and guilt; faith and families. It is a novel that I savoured and was emotionally invested in. It was a book that I never wanted to end.

This is a book about loss and how it affects all those involved. A best friend, Lou, and her husband are tragically killed, leaving their two children to be looked after by Zoe, Lou’s best friend. Friends for over thirty years since meeting at secondary school, the grief is very raw, “I am angry at my friend… that she died.” Grief throws up many emotions. It is a question of wading through the grief journey. “One day you’ll wake up and though the pain will still be there, it will be a little duller. A little easier to bear.”

Loss never goes away. “It’s okay to cry… You don’t get a quota of tears.” Tears can come when we do, and when we don’t, expect them.

Guilt is the bedfellow of grief. “It’s okay to laugh… It doesn’t mean you don’t miss them.” We are allowed to smile and laugh again. “The start of spring. A beautiful but painful reminder that life does not stop. Even when your best friend dies.” We feel that life should stop turning when loved ones die, but the wheels just keep spinning.

The children left behind are five-year-old Phoebe and her baby brother Zack who is not one yet. Phoebe’s grief is hard to deal with as her pain cannot be taken away. “She [Phoebe] asks if it is possible to un-die once you have died.”

Love never dies. “They [Phoebe & Zack] will forever be the love that links me to the best friend I ever had.” Loving her children is the last act of love that Zoe can do for Lou. “We will make sure Phoebe and Zack remember Louise and Rich. They don’t need a house to do that. And we will help them make new memories.”

Continue reading →

Every Lifetime After by Jennifer Ross

Jan16

Love Remains

Every Lifetime After by Jennifer Ross is a very charming dual timeline novel that I loved.

The action is set in 2018 and 1943, and concerns the boys who flew from bomber command in Yorkshire. It is their story which is being filmed in 2018.

The leading actress has links to the area as it is where she was born and spent her first four years. Memories are awakened – some are her own, others are transcending time and space as she has a gift to ‘see’ past actions. Though their tale is already known, locations give her glimpses to the past. She is unsure what to do with her gift.

A character alive in 1943 is still alive and in a nursing home in 2018. He lives haunted by memories, grief and guilt. He grieves what he cannot change.

We see the pain of miscarriage. It affects the lives of the couple – until they share their grief, they are lone ships drifting along.

The reader ‘experiences’ the lives of the men and women of bomber command. Lives were uncertain – every time the boys left the base, they realised it could be their last.

Continue reading →