In re-reading the novels by Elizabeth Goudge, I reached ‘A City of Bells’, which I last read in 2003. Really I should have re-read this before I read ‘Sister of the Angels’ and ‘Henrietta’s House’ last year, as it’s the book which introduces the young and imaginative Henrietta. More significantly, because I had read the others recently, there’s an unexpected revelation in this book which I was expecting, so it was not as much of a surprise as it might have been.
Jocelyn is the main protagonist of the book, however. He is a young man, injured during the war (I assume the first World War) and very weary. We meet him as he is about to arrive in Torminster to stay with his grandparents. Grandfather is a clergyman, almost eighty years old but not yet retired, and Grandmother is a couple of years older, but still in good health, though growing frail.
Despite their years, they have their eight-year-old grandson Hugh Anthony living with them, and have adopted Henrietta, a young girl of similar age, whom Grandfather found in a children’s home. Her mother had died, and nobody knew who her father was. Henrietta is compassionate, imaginative and a deep thinker, with an unexpected element of wildness that appears from time to time. However she is continually grateful for her circumstances, and generally does what her grandparents expect of her.
Next door lives Mrs Jamieson, an elderly lady whose mind is wandering; we would probably say she has Alzheimer’s Disease nowadays. Her niece Felicity has come to stay, and Jocelyn is immediately attracted to her. Their worlds seem far apart, because Felicity is a successful actress, taking a break, and Jocelyn has no career or plans for the future. Until Torminster’s rumours start, and he ends up running a bookshop…
This is a character-based novel, one I had almost entirely forgotten, and which I have enjoyed re-reading very much. There’s a lot of description; I tend to skim descriptive passages in novels, but made myself slow down and read some of them deliberately, and found myself appreciating them. I was less willing to read the lines of poetry that were included despite their significance in Jocelyn’s life.
There’s some satirical, gentle humour here and there in the caricatures of some of the people, and Hugh Anthony’s down-to-earth and questioning nature, but there’s also a great deal that’s extremely moving. Henrietta is very affected by people who are lonely or impoverished, and when she loves somebody, it is whole-heartedly. She and Hugh Anthony provide an excellent contrast to each other.
Lovely writing, about delightful people in an old-fashioned (even for the era) country town. This wouldn’t appeal to everyone, but if you like slow-moving books with mostly believable characters and a fair amount of spiritual/Christian discussion (without any preaching) then I would recommend this novel.
I'm pleased to see that 'A City of Bells' was re-published since I last read it, and is also available in Kindle form. But it can often be found in second-hand or charity shops.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
I regularly download, on my Kindle, books that sound interesting and which are offered free. I had never heard of Graham Cooke, listed as the author of this book, or the co-author Gary Goodell. But reviews of ‘Permission granted to do Church differently in the 21st century’ were positive, and the premise sounded good. I downloaded it about two-and-a-half years ago, and started reading it just before doing some travelling about a month ago.
The overall theme of the book is one I have read about in many other books, and which I agree with, on the whole. The idea of ‘church’ being inward-looking gatherings on a Sunday morning is not Biblical, and in many cases is not particularly helpful. If we put the pastor on a pedestal and expect the music group or choir to be trained performers, we are rather missing the point of what church is - or should be.
The book then takes a slightly strange detour in describing new expressions of church as ‘third church’, and stating that God has given ‘permission’ for believers in the 21st century to do something radical. Perhaps this is true, but it has been happening for some decades; Christians all over the world meet in small groups, or house fellowships, sometimes in addition to Sunday morning services, sometimes as an alternative option. This book talks about different sizes of gathering, which make sense too, although they are rather prescriptive.
Several chapters cover stages in which the authors insist a church can be transformed into something new, and most of these stages seem most unpleasant. A few example are given, in general terms, with a great deal of abstract imagery that I did not find helpful at all. Nor, in my experience, do most people go through a series of different stages in moving from traditional church experiences to more eclectic and interpersonal ones.
However, what bothered me most about this book is that the writing is repetitive, often going around in circles saying nothing new in two or three pages. It is also full of clichés. In places I counted three or four in the space of one paragraph. The occasional clichéd idiom can be useful, but there are far too many in this book.
I kept reading, and found, here and there, some interesting insights. But on the whole I didn’t think this nearly as good as the many other books on the same or similar topics. Perhaps worth reading if you can borrow it, or find it free to download. But currently the Kindle price is almost as high as the print one, and I would not recommend it in general. If this topic interests you, there are many other, better-written books on similar principles. For instance: Finding Church by Wayne Jacobson or Church on the Other Side by Brian Mclaren.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
I have very much enjoyed everything I have read by Sophie Kinsella. She is considered a ‘chick-lit’ writer, and it took me awhile to try her work - but she covers some deep themes, sometimes, amidst the superficiality of some of her situations. She writes well, with humour and pathos, and if her people are somewhat caricatured, they are (mostly) likeable too. I put 'Surprise Me' - a novel published last year - on my wish list as soon as it came out in paperback, and was delighted to receive it for Christmas.
Sylvie is the narrator of this book. She appears to have the ideal life when we first meet her. She is married to the delectable Dan, and they have twin five-year-old daughters. They both admit that the baby years were stressful, but Dan supported Sylvie throughout, and is a great father. Sylvie has a job she likes too - working in admin for a small museum. Her boss, the owner of the museum, is old-fashioned and unwilling to modernise, but it seems to be making money anyway…
It’s their tenth anniversary when the story starts. They have a celebratory meal, and then go for a medical check-up for their private insurance company. All goes well, and the doctor lets them know that, barring accidents, they could live until the age of a hundred or more. Which means they probably have another sixty-eight years of marriage ahead of them.
This number is a shock to both Sylvie and Dan, so they decide that, in order to enliven the next few decades, they should introduce a few surprises. Inevitably these don’t go as planned, and there are a few amusing chapters as they both attempt the unexpected…
Meanwhile, Sylvie’s boss’s nephew has arrived, and it looks as though he may try to close the museum down. He certainly wants to modernise and improve efficiency. And after one of Dan’s surprises, the only one which seems to have been successful, Sylvie starts to wonder if he is bored with her and looking elsewhere.
There are so many issues touched upon in this book. Sylvie reminds me of others of Sophie Kinsella’s heroines - she’s a bit flaky, though not particularly materialistic, and she tends to see situations in absolute terms. She jumps to the worst conclusions about several situations, and thinks nothing of checking other people’s phones or browser histories. However, she is kind and loyal, and running through the whole book is a thread of unconditional love. She showers this on her daughters and also her husband, even when she suspects the worst.
There were one or two scenes where I laughed aloud - something that happens rarely when I am reading - and others where I was extremely moved. I found it difficult to put the book down, as I followed along in Sylvie’s trail, wondering just what was going on with her husband, and also with her closed-up mother. There are thoughtful subplots too, involving both sets of her immediate neighbours.
This won’t appeal to people who prefer more serious plots, or more realistic - or at least less ditzy - characters. It’s chick-lit at its best, in my view, but even the best of this genre does not appeal to everyone. However if you like light women’s fiction, and don’t object to quite a bit of ‘strong’ language (my one gripe with the book) I would recommend this highly.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
I have been enjoying reading Madeleine L’Engle’s teenage fiction books, many of which I had not previously read. I’ve almost reached the end, The chronology is rather complicated as she wrote three separate series, but some of the characters overlap. ‘A House like a Lotus’ is third in the O’Keefe series. It features Polly, who is also a main character in ‘The Arm of the Starfish’ and ‘Dragons in the Water’.
Both the earlier O’Keefe novels are somewhat suspenseful adventure stories, but it becomes clear early in this book that it’s a more thoughtful character-based novel. Polly is nearly seventeen as we meet her in Greece, on her own and feeling somewhat forlorn. We quickly learn that she has just flown there from the United States. She should have been met by her uncle and aunt, but they have been unavoidably delayed.
It’s evident that Polly is a confident and fairly mature young woman, but that she has experienced some heartbreak over the past few months. She isn’t worried about spending a couple of days on her own, although she hopes her parents don’t know about it, as they would worry. A hotel is booked for her, and she decides to take an organised tour of Athens when a young man called Zachary Grey attracts her attention. He’s attractive, very friendly, and also wealthy. He offers to take her out for the day, and she agrees to take him up on the invitation.
Zachary is one of the characters who appears in L’Engle’s ‘Austen’ series about an entirely different family. So (as I have read them fairly recently) he was familiar to me as a somewhat pushy, arrogant young man. But I didn’t think he was going to be dangerous. Sure enough, they spend a few pleasant days together. Although Zachary is quite intrusive at times, he mostly respects Polly’s boundaries, and is the catalyst for her thinking more deeply about her recent past.
The narrative is interspersed cleverly with Polly’s memories. Some are in daydream format, as she re-lives or re-tells some of what has happened in the past couple of years. But the story mostly revolves around two women called Max and Ursula. Their relationship is fairly obvious from the start but comes as something of a shock to the somewhat naive Polly at first when gossip hits her. But her friendship with them - and Max in particular - is based on philosophy, literature and other shared interests. Overall I thought this was handled sensitively and well, given the 1980s setting.
There are more secrets in Max’s life, which gradually unfold. Evidently there is some crisis or betrayal which has caused Polly to want to cut her out of her life entirely. I was intrigued, and found it difficult to put the book down until I finally discovered what happened, towards the end of Part One.
Part Two sees Polly in Cyprus, where she is helping out at a conference in the (presumably fictional) village of Osia Theola. The descriptions feel realistic; apparently the author had spent some time in Cyprus shortly before writing this book. Polly makes some new friends from various nations, although I wasn’t entirely comfortable with some of the stereotypes. Again, though, the way she thinks of and observes people is probably appropriate for a well-travelled American teenager in the 1980s.
There’s a lot to think about in this book, with many important issues touched upon from Polly’s perspective. She grows up in several ways. While some of the book is shocking in content, the writing is consistently good. I thought the difficult scenes were covered with sensitivity, and minimal detail. As with all L’Engle’s books, there’s an underlying Christian theme. This one, as I gradually realised, involves forgiveness. But it’s not pushed or preachy in any way, and could be read by people of any faith or none.
The earlier books were, I thought, appropriate for younger teenagers. But this one has some more ‘adult’ content, and I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone below the age of about fifteen or sixteen. It’s not necessary to have read the earlier books in the series, but doing so adds to the richness of the characters and gives a sense of catching up with old friends.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
I had a US Amazon gift voucher to use, and was browsing my recommendations. One of the suggestions had the intriguing title of ‘Life after church’. I had not heard of the author, Brian Sanders, but the reviews were mostly positive, and the blurb made it sound as though it could be an interesting read.
I ordered it nearly a year ago but didn’t start reading it until December. It’s subtitled ‘God’s call to disillusioned Christians’, and in the first section examines some of the reasons why people are leaving churches, in the US (and elsewhere) in such large numbers. They are not people who have lost their faith, or become cynical about God. Instead, they are people who have strong beliefs, yet do not feel right or comfortable in standard church contexts.
As one who currently has only tenuous links with two local congregations currently, despite a strong faith, much of what was written in this book resonated with me. The author begins by suggesting that this mass exodus of church (in the sense of Sunday morning meetings in a building) may be something the Holy Spirit is calling people to.
He points out later in the book that each generation has its radicals - as far back as Luther at least - rejecting the church they grew up in, moving on to something new. The author sees this, in general, as right - meaning that we’re not stuck in the rut of tradition, but can build on the best of what went before while exploring new or alternative options.
There’s a chapter giving the three most important factors of what the author considers ‘church’ to be: worship, community and mission, in a nutshell. He points out that there are many great organisations, including some Christian meetings, which focus on one or two of these, and that there’s nothing wrong with them. But ‘church’, in the sense of the Body of Christ, must include all three. He also makes the point that worship does not just mean group singing, and that mission doesn’t just refer to travelling abroad to unreached people.
He then writes about the five broad reasons why so many Christians leave congregations, and this is not including those who move to a different town, or decide to join their friends elsewhere. This is about deliberate leaving, with at least a short period of not belonging to any recognised church. I thought this a particularly interesting chapter, which summed up the reasons well. Growing out of the message is something I have tried to explain myself; when a sermon is geared to new believers, or is evangelistic, week after week, there is nothing in it for those who have been believers or church members for decades.
This chapter also refers to being unable to ask questions - so common in Christian circles, sadly, unless one is prepared to accept standard, often cliched answers. It looks at irrelevance, or boredom; at use of money; and at not finding anywhere to serve or fit in. I found all these - which are discussed in some detail - to be interesting and thought-provoking too, neatly summarising reasons why many people I know have either left a church or would like to do so.
To provide some balance, there’s also a section about choosing to stay despite problems if called to, and the importance of doing so in a positive way. Staying in a church for the wrong reasons can lead to criticism and the undermining of leaders who are often trying to do their best in difficult circumstances. The author makes the point, more than once, that each individual should either stay and be involved, or leave and move on - that it’s not right or helpful to be on the boundary. And he gives some pointers for leaving well. So that gave me a lot to think about.
The last part of the book is about what people who have left can do - the author contends that it is important to be part of some kind of church, according to his three stated principles. He acknowledges that we are all part of the worldwide Body of Christ, and of the subset found in a particular town. But it’s harder to focus on God without a weekly or bi-weekly meeting, and while one can worship and do ‘mission’ in the basic sense outside of any kind of congregation, it’s also important to belong to a loving community of people.
I didn’t agree with everything in the book, but overall thought it was well-written and thoughtful, and would recommend it to anyone feeling frustrated by their church, wondering whether they should move on.
Recommended.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
We have a large collection of Agatha Christie novels, and there are still some which I have not previously read. Gradually I’m working my way through them, and have just finished ‘The murder on the links’. This is one of the earlier novels involving not just the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, but his friend (and scribe) Arthur Hastings. This book is written from the point of view of the latter.
There is a prologue involving Hastings on the train, meeting a rather attractive girl who is worried about her sister. This short chapter is somewhat cryptic, and its significance is not clear until much later in the book.
The real story starts when Poirot, recently retired from the police force and hoping for some interesting private work, receives a letter from a French millionaire. The letter states that M Renauld is worried about some unknown threat, and has a secret which cannot be revealed in writing. So he asks that Poirot join him as soon as possible…
So Poirot and Hastings make their way to France, and quickly become embroiled in a complicated murder case which seems, at first, to baffle even the brilliant detective. They are slightly hampered by the French police force, and by various involved people who are clearly not telling the entire truth…
The front cover (and, indeed, the book title) are slightly misleading; the cover depicts legs in golfing socks with a golf club and ball lying at the side of what is evidently a body. While there is indeed mention of a golf course, it is not yet complete, and the person concerned has not been playing golf, nor is he dressed in clothes of this kind. Perhaps the illustrator did not read the book.
As with most of Christie’s books, the plot is cleverly developed, with clues and red herrings nicely scattered around to confuse both the local police and the reader of the book. I did in fact grasp the importance of some of the things that were evident to Poirot (though not to the sometimes clueless Hastings). I didn’t guess the outcome - and it came in several parts - and am not sure I could have done.
There’s an underlying low-key romance, too, which I was not expecting - it makes a pleasant extra thread to the story. The characterisation, as with most of this author’s books, are not all that great; she tended to work in caricatures or exaggeration rather than creating truly sympathetic people. It doesn’t particularly matter, as it’s the plot and investigation which are most important, but even a day after finishing it I find that I have forgotten almost all the names already.
Pleasant enough light crime fiction, with nothing gory - or even disturbing, if one accepts that there will be dead bodies at some point in a story of this nature. On the whole I thought it an enjoyable diversion.
Available in Kindle form as well as a variety of print editions, and regularly found second-hand.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
In re-reading some of my Louisa M Alcott books, I finally came to my favourite of all, ‘An Old-Fashioned Girl’. It’s not nearly as well-known as ‘Little Women’ and its sequels, but I have loved this book since the first time I read it, many years ago. Written as a contemporary novel, it was published in 1869, and as well as being a good story, gives a nice picture of American life of the era.
The last time I read 'An Old-Fashioned Girl' was in 2011, and I remembered most of the storyline. Polly is the main character in this book; she’s thirteen when we first meet her, a shy girl from the country who still considers herself a ‘little’ girl, and dresses appropriately. Although not wealthy, she comes from a very loving family, with a mother who gives her excellent advice.
In the first chapter, we meet Polly’s friend Fanny Shaw.. She is only a year or two older, but already considers herself a young lady. Fanny does not like to run, or get in a mess, and sends her brother Tom to meet her friend from the railway. Tom and Fanny have a younger sister, Maud, who is six and rather a whiner.
Polly finds herself in awe of the Shaw family’s large house and evident wealth, but she quickly realises that they are discontented. Fanny’s father works hard but has little time for his children. Her mother is an invalid, and their only positive adult influence is Grandma, elderly at not quite seventy, who spends most of her time in her room, longing to see more of her grandchildren. Tom and Fanny squabble constantly, and Tom teases Polly too.
Into this rather unhappy household Polly brings love and light, although she’s by no means a perfect child. Polly likes to be independent, and goes on walks - or runs - by herself, without letting anyone know. She’s quite tempted to extravagance too though she only succumbs once - and although Fanny and her friends rather despite some of her old-fashioned ways, most of them can’t help liking her.
The first half of the book recounts Polly’s two-month visit, before she goes home for Christmas, promising to visit again the next year.
The action then skips forward six years. Polly evidently has continued to visit her friend regularly and has been considered part of the family, but now she is almost twenty, and has to earn her living in order to support her brother Will at university. Fanny is now a very elegant woman, who flirts with young men, and lives a life of leisure, although she’s often rather bored. Tom is at the same university as Will, but a year ahead - and rather than being determined to work hard, he wastes time and money, and regularly plays pranks.
While the Shaw family are still pleased to be friends with Polly, her status has changed. Now she is a working woman, many of Fanny's friends look down on her, some of them shunning her entirely. This is something quite hard to understand in today's society.
As with other books by Alcott, some of the chapters simply follow a day in Polly’s life, or a scene that demonstrates some aspect of her nature. It’s not a plot-driven novel as such, although there are romances which become more overt in the last part of the book. We see Polly learning to deal with her stresses, and the Shaw family having to pull together to overcome their own difficulties before the entirely satisfying resolution in the final chapters, part of which I still find very moving.
While the book is very readable, it’s inevitably full of author comment and moralising, rather more so than I had remembered. I don’t mind that, but it could be irritating to anyone reading the book for the first time. The author was very keen for women to be a force for good in society, to work hard in the homes or outside them, and as in her other novels makes the point that women can do most things that men do. This was quite radical in her era, but since she still expects men to be the main earners and women to cook and clean (if they don’t have servants to do so) she doesn’t seem so much of a feminist in today’s more egalitarian society.
I used to consider this one of my all-time favourite books, though I don’t any longer. I still like it very much, however, particularly the concluding chapters. Recommended to any teenagers or adults who have enjoyed others by this author, or who want to see a bit of social history from the late 19th century in context.
'An Old-Fashioned Girl' is regularly re-printed, both by well-known publishers and also in print-on-demand editions now that it is out of copyright. There are many Kindle versions too, some of them free; it's also available at no cost for various formats at Project Gutenberg.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
I have re-read several of Alexandra Raife’s novels in the past year. I first came across her, at the recommendation of a relative, about eighteen years ago, and gradually acquired and read all her novels - twelve in all. They are all relationship-based, set in Scotland.
I last read ‘A Question of Trust’ in 2006, and it was probably my least favourite of Raife’s novels although I felt it was still a good story. The author writes fluently, with sufficient description to make her places feel familiar, and her people are three-dimensional, including the minor characters. Conversations flow well, and I like the way that many of the novels include people who have been introduced in earlier books; not that it’s necessary to have read them before, as they all stand alone.
Philippa is the main character in this story. She’s a very likeable person, mostly calm and kind, from a distinctly upper-middle class background but with no pretensions. It’s clear, when we meet her in the first chapter, that she’s been hurt in the past; but she’s building a life for herself in a cottage near the West coast of Scotland. She has plenty of friends, some of whom would love to see her married to one of their inner circle, but she keeps herself slightly aloof, working as many hours as she can at odd jobs: administration, babysitting, catering, and more.
Jon is the person who, inevitably, falls for Philippa despite her being very different from any of the women he has previously had relationships with. Jon is a rough, ex-army type, with something of a chip on his shoulder and a lot of hidden anger. He’s in hiding - or at least in a rest period - after an enterprise which we learn more about later in the book. He’s tired, drained, and quite nervous and when we first meet him he’s spending a lot of time drinking. He’s rented a small place for a year, not far from where Philippa lives, but knows he could be called back to dangerous work at any time.
The plot itself is perhaps clichéd: Jon and Philippa meet, are attracted to each other, clash, clear up misunderstandings, get closer, clash again… but although I often felt frustrated with them both, the writing is good, and there’s a fair amount of emotion involved, as well as plenty of interaction with other characters. There’s a tad too much introspection for my tastes, and by the final chapters I was wanting to bang their heads together: each of them is caught up in pride and fear of being hurt. But feeling anything for characters is a mark that they have got under my skin.
I also found it hard to like Jon. He is so angry, so driven by bias and jealousies that it’s hard to see how anyone, least of all gentle Philippa, could be happy with him long-term. Perhaps someone like her, who can turn insults to teasing, and accept him exactly as he is, is the only kind of person who could possibly help him become more balanced as a person. But in many cases it felt as if he were riding roughshod over her, and I didn’t like it.
My main frustration with the book is that the viewpoint switches far too frequently, sometimes to someone other than the two main characters. Even when it’s restricted to Jon and Philippa, it often alters from one to the other within a single scene: so rather than seeing everything from one point of view, we leap from one to the other, reading their thoughts alternately, and I found this quite confusing. It also made it harder to see either point of view in scenes of this.
Still, once I had got into the story, I found it difficult to put down. Events move at quite a pace, and while there are many misunderstandings and reunions, each is written in a different way, with a variety of circumstances. I’m glad I re-read it, and will probably read it again in another ten years or so.
'A Question of Trust' is not currently in print, although it's available (at least in the UK) in Kindle form. Paperback versions can often be found in second-hand or charity shops.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
Some years ago, I read and liked some of the novels by Robin Lee Hatcher. She’s an American Christian writer. I find many books in the US Christian fiction genre to be rather trite, but on the whole I thought this author’s books were well-written. Some of them cover rather deeper topics than is typical.
So I was pleased when I saw ‘Ribbon of Years’ available to download free for my Kindle. I started reading it on a flight to the UK, and finished it on the return flight a week later. The story is mainly about a woman called Miriam. We meet her first as a headstrong teenager in 1936, and then follow her through her remarkably difficult life until she turns eighty.
The book begins well. It opens in 2001 and introduces us to Julianna, a woman in her forties who is looking for a house to buy. She acknowledges that she’s rather bored, and wishes things could be different. She starts looking over a house, and comes across a box of mementoes. Then she meets an elderly man, who evidently knows the former owner of the house. He talks about Miriam, and then the next section of the book takes us back to 1936 where we meet her as a restless teenager.
It’s a good device to begin the book, but unfortunately it doesn’t really work for the rest of it. Every so often we’re whizzed back to 2001, and another item is taken out of the box, then after a page or two the action returns (albeit with a leap forward in Miriam’s life) to the 20th century. Julianna isn’t developed as a person, and by the final section, I’d forgotten who the other people in her life were.
However, the vast majority of the story is about Miriam, her relationships and family and working life. Inevitably she’s caught up in the war, with friends and relatives going abroad to fight in Europe, not all of them returning. She falls in love and is happy, but dogged by a problem… she’s just about accepted it when something unexpected occurs, followed by a terrible tragedy.
As this is Christian fiction, I wasn’t surprised at the Scripture references, and discussions about finding Jesus - but I found the sheer number of them rather excessive. I don’t know who the intended audience is: for someone who is already a believer, these sections are somewhat superfluous. For someone who is not, they would probably put them off altogether.
At the start of the book, there are some people with a real faith and others whose beliefs are rather nominal, but as the story progresses there are more and more discussions about personal relationships to God and surviving the storms of life - and poor Miriam suffers considerably more than anyone I’ve known, despite her faithfulness.
The later part of the book covers some serious issues; it would be a spoiler to say what they are, but I felt that on the whole they were handled sensitively and in a positive way, although I suspect that some of what Miriam says would be criticised by many.
I didn’t find any of the characters particularly believable. The writing is good, but I found it all rather depressing, on the whole. I kept reading, but it’s not a novel I would want to read again.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
