I Found You

Finished February 28

I Found You by Lisa Jewell

Single mom Alice Lake hasn't always made the best decisions when it comes to men. Each of her three children has a different father, none of whom are present in their lives. So when she sees a man on the beach in front of her home in the resort town of Ridinghorse Bay, she resists the urge to see what he's doing there, at least at first. But eventually she approaches him and she ends up taking him under her wing when she discovers his situation. 

Her youngest dubs him Frank, and immediately accepts him, while her older two are more wary. Alice herself isn't sure about what she is doing, but it feels like the right thing to do. 

As small things gradually remind Frank of things from his life, she both hopes he will remember more and is scared of what he will remember, as is he/

Near London Lily waits at home for her husband Carl, but he doesn't arrive. She can't understand it. They've only been married a couple of weeks, and he has been hurrying home from work, eager to be with her, bringing her gifts. But the night before he didn't arrive and Lily knows that something is wrong. She knows little about her new husband, and less about where she now is. They met when he was at a conference in her country of Ukraine, and had a whirlwind romance. She's been continuing her studies online and wanting to meet his friends and family, but he wanted to keep her to himself a while longer, or so he said. 

She knows something is wrong when he doesn't answer his phone, and she isn't sure where he might be, but she is determined to find him. When the police get involved, she learns some disturbing things about him and begins to have questions herself, but it doesn't dissuade her from her search for him. 

As a reader, I sensed early on that these two situations were connected, but was very surprised to find out how. 

This is a tale of suspense, a tale of loss and grief, and a tale of hope for the future. I really liked Alice, and was intrigued by Frank. A book I found hard to put down. 

The House of Whispers

Finished February 25

The House of Whispers by Laura Purcell

This novel has a touch of gothic and otherworldly. There are two timelines, but we aren't given dates for them. They are forty years apart, and both set at a remote house on the cliffs in Cornwall. 

The later timeline starts the novel, as Esther Stevens, now going by the name of Hester Why sets off on a coach for Cornwall where she has taken a position of nurse for an older woman. We gradually learn what and why she is fleeing, and she has an encounter on her journey that brings attention upon her, which she does not want. 

When she arrives at her destination, she finds the other servants a mix of friendly and taciturn, with one of them seeming a bit odd and unnerving. The woman she is looking after barely speaks, is frail, and seems to be in her own world. There is also a younger woman in the house, who is treated as if she is a child, although she is not one in age. 

Hester is also dealing with her own demons, as we discover quite early. She finds the various members of the household believing in superstitions around fairies, changelings, and God, that she has trouble reconciling with reality.

The earlier timeline takes place as a doctor and her adult daughter arrive at the house where he plans to begin an experimental treatment for consumption. The patients he has to begin this treatment are convicts, all suffering from consumption at a variety of stages. His daughter Louise is his assistant in this experiment, and both are grieving the loss of his wife and other daughters from the disease of consumption. 

Louise worries about her father, grieves the rest of her family, and has resigned herself to dedicating her life to her father's dream at the expense of having a family of her own. The maid that her father has hired is a woman with superstitions and odd behaviours that she isn't entirely comfortable with. 

As we gradually learn the links between these two times at this remote house, we also find ourselves seeing these two women who both care perhaps too much for those they serve and see how they react in their own way to loss. 

This is a book with lots of atmosphere, including the ever present sea and strange music. A very different read.

March Reviews for 15th Annual Canadian Reading Challenge

 This is the place to post your reviews for books read in March 2022.

Make a comment as well on your book or progress. 

The Turning

Finished February 23

The Turning by Tim Winton

I always find Australian author Tim Winton's books intriguing. This one is a collection of short stories, loosely linked to each other, all pertaining to moments in people's lives where things changed in some way for them. Most of these stories are told in the first person, and the narrators range in age, and sometimes reappear in a later story. 

Some of these characters we see as children, just as they are coming into adolescence and finding their way, having an encounter that makes a difference in their lives. Sometimes they make a decision to leave somewhere or to return somewhere and that too influences their life in a way they hadn't anticipated. 

Some of these turnings are awakenings, others are a return to a past that was never fully dealt with. All of them take place in Western Australia and give a sense of the land there, the ocean and the landscape. They take place in small communities or rural areas. 

Winton takes you inside the characters' heads, seeing what they are thinking and feeling so that you feel what is happening to them, how it affects them. 

These events are sometimes small, sometimes big, sometimes peripheral to the their lives in many ways except for the effect they have. 

A great read. 

Left You Dead

Finished February 22

Left You Dead by Peter James

This is the seventeenth book in the series featuring Roy Grace, a police officer in Lewes, Sussex. Grace gets a case that seems straightforward, but he keeps feeling that something isn't quite right. Niall and Eden Paternoster are returning from a visit to a country house. She likes to look at them, and he feels that this is the life that he will someday be living. Niall is currently unemployed, picking up a few shifts for a friend that has a taxi, usually ones in the middle of the night. Eden has a good job, and it's one that she enjoys. 

Niall wants to get home to watch some live sports on TV, but Eden reminds him that they need cat litter and he keeps forgetting. So they stop at a local grocery, and she gets out to run into the store, and never comes back. 

At first Niall thinks that maybe she got distracted, but when he goes in, he doesn't see her anywhere. When he goes home, she isn't there. He figures that she's gone to a friend's place in an effort to teach him a lesson. So he waits until morning to start making enquiries and comes up empty-handed. 

This is when the police get called in, and they start asking some questions as well. The police suspicions, based on what they see and find, place Niall in the suspect box, and he isn't sure what's going on. 

As the story progresses, we see things from a variety of viewpoints, Niall's, Grace's and others. We get insight into the relationship between the couple and into the dynamics of the police hierarchy as well. There are side stories here as well as the main story of the missing woman, and we learn more about Grace as a person as well. 

I enjoyed this book and will definitely look for others in this series. 

The Geography of You and Me

Finished on February 16 

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

This teen novel opens with two teenagers Lucy, fifteen, and Owen, sixteen, stuck in an elevator together as the power goes out. Lucy's family lives on the 24th floor of this New York City building, and Owen's father recently started as the building manager and lives in the basement. Until now they hadn't exchanged any words, although Lucy had noticed him. 

After they are released from the elevator and discover the power outage is widespread, they stay together, going out for supplies and then up to the roof of the building, staring at the dark city and the stars. 

Soon after, Lucy's family moves to Edinburgh, keeping the apartment for occasional use, and Owen and his father start moving west. Even though their communication is sparse, the two can't stop thinking of each other.

This is a story of first love, of long-distance relationships, of family, and of growing up.

I liked both the main characters and most of the secondary characters here, particularly Owen's dad who is dealing with his own losses. A feel-good story.

Those We Left Behind

Finished February 16

Those We Left Behind by Stuart Neville

This is the first in the series featuring DCI Serena Neville of the Belfast police. She is just returning to work after her cancer treatments and struggling with how it has changed her relationship with her husband. Years ago she had a case where two boys, Ciaran and Thomas, were involved in the death of their foster parent, and it still haunts her. One boy confessed, but she had never really believed the confession. Now, he is nineteen and getting out of youth custody. The probation officer assigned to him, Paula Cunningham, comes to Serena for some background on the young man. Paula finds him a little odd, but she knows he isn't stupid. Thomas has been out for a while, and has a job, an apartment and a car, and hasn't shown any issues of problematic behaviour. Ciaran is eager to see his brother, but seems nervous and unsure how to behave on his own. 

The son of the man killed, Daniel, is sure that Thomas was the one who killed his father, and he begins to exhibit unpredictable behaviour when he learns of Ciaran's release. 

When someone ends up dead, and Serena gets the case, both she and Paula think the brothers are connected. Especially when they get threats of their own. But can Serena break through to Ciaran now when she couldn't before, or will these two women find themselves in danger.

After recently reading the second book in this series, I decided that I had to read the first, and while I knew from the second some elements of this one, I still found myself hoping that Serena's intuition would lead her in the right direction. 

I liked Serena as a character and I also liked Paula here. Both are women in careers that put them in contact with dangerous people and they both are used to relying on their guts to warn them of dangers. As they combine what they know to find the answers to both old and new crimes, they also find themselves up against their superiors.