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The Day Our Lives Collided by Laura Pearson

Sep29

Friendship, Love, Life, & Everything In Between

The Day Our Lives Collided by Laura Pearson is a simply beautiful book set over a series of weddings from 2008 onwards. Three friends who met at Birmingham uni seventeen years earlier, share the celebrations over a number of years.

The action is told through three alternating points of view in the first person. The reader gets to know each character intimately.

We witness the highs and lows of life as we follow the wider group of friends down the years. Some are party animals; others are of a quieter nature.

We see rifts in lives. Some marriages make it; others don’t. And there is a funeral. “We couldn’t know… that one of our group would die within the year. If we’d known that, I wonder whether we would have done anything differently. Loved harder or lived more fully.” When death hits, there are always regrets. When death hits the young, it is tragic, especially if children are involved. True friends step in with a life-changing offer.

One character has a disabled sister who is in a wheelchair. “The first time they met… Tash spoke to her like she would anyone else… All too often people crouched down and spoke to Grace as if she were a little kid.” I can empathise as I used to work at the local high school and often worked with teens in wheelchairs – far too often people would speak over their heads to me, asking how the person was. I used to reply “they are sitting right here, why don’t you ask them.”

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Coming Home To Bellbird Bay by Maggie Christensen

Jul26

Very Charming

Coming Home To Bellbird Bay by Maggie Christensen is the most charming second book in the Bellbird Bay series which is heartwarming and welcoming.

The book can be read as a stand-alone. I am always delighted to meet up with familiar characters and locations.

The story is about second chances and new beginnings. Both lead characters have lost their partners. One has coped for years as a single parent. The other has nursed her husband through dementia. The man he was, died piece by piece. The memory of him remains. “Russ will always be with me, wherever I am.”

A well-meaning sister tries her hand at match-making. The attempt is obvious but the couple prove to be perfectly capable of making their own alliances.

The leading characters are in their sixties, still with plenty of life to live. Some of the grown-up children cannot believe that their mother could actually have a life outside of their needs. “Don’t let our kids stand in your way. It’s your decision, not theirs.” We will always want to help our children but we do not want them to dictate our pathways.

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Summer In Bellbird Bay by Maggie Christensen

Jul15

Coming Home

Summer In Bellbird Bay by Maggie Christensen is a most delightful contemporary novel that I adored. It is the first book in the fantastic Bellbird Bay series.

Maggie Christensen writes with warmth and an understanding of her characters lives. Her leading characters are in their fifties. They prove that even though they are older, their personalities remain the same as thirty years ago. We age on the outside but not on the inside. They are wiser and have their priorities in place – but their insecurities and fears remain the same.

Both leading characters have had the foundations of their lives shaken. They need to learn to live and to trust again.

Bellbird Bay is a very charming coastal town in Australia. It is a place where hearts come home and lives heal. “Bellbird Bay… was a place a person could come to heal, to discover there was more to life than fame and fortune.”

Life is about love – who we love, and who loves us. Love is what is most precious. It is the greatest treasure.

A character returns to Bellbird Bay when life has hit hard. He believes “home is the place you return to when you have nowhere else to go” – but home is not always a place. Sometimes it is a person.

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The Woman With All The Answers by Linda Green

Jul1

Until The Wind Changes

The Woman With All The Answers by Linda Green is a very entertaining contemporary novel that I absolutely loved. I read it in just two sittings.

The plotline is unique and perfectly executed – what happens when Alexa goes rogue and is merely Pauline from Halifax? Surprisingly it seems to have a plausibility to it!

We witness the importance of mothers or mother-like figures in lives. Mothers spend all their time juggling life, and may forget who they once were. “What… happened to the person I used to? Who had a life of her own, dreams for the future, time to do the things she enjoyed doing.” Mothers need to practice self-care.

Within the book we see the sandwich generation, balancing the needs of both elderly parents and also teenage children. The novel is partly seen through the eyes of a mother who falls into this category. The needs of the two generations are similar but different. Both need to be helped through the minefield that is social media, and also outside pressures.

Mistakes are made. Bad choices will have consequences. We need to own them.

Life is full of regrets. We need to forgive the face in the mirror.

External pressures have kept a teen prisoner in her own house, fearful of the outside world. We see the difference an elderly labrador can have on her life. Owning a dog gives her a purpose, and a reason to get out.

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