Monday 26 May 2014

The Separation by Dinah Jefferies

This is the second book this year that is out of my comfort zone of chick lit and it moved me just as much as the first book and had me hooked from the first page and was felt very honoured that I was sent the book to review .

This is the first book of Dinah Jefferies  and I was not disappointed  the book is set the 1950's when the world is just get over world war two and the story was you to Malaya, We met Lydia Cartwright is married and has two beautiful girls Emma and fleur who are her world . Lydia has been away looking after her sick friend she is taken away from her family for some time which is very hard for her but on her return she faces a an empty home and a mothers worst nightmare her girls are gone !!!!

Dianh has beautiful wrote this book with much detail and with two views  from a mothers live serching for her girls too Emma's a 11 year old who never gives up on her mum even thou she doesn't know where she is ....
In each chapter there is great detail of they surrounds they emotions I was strongly connect to Lydia as I'm a mother of too beautiful girls  and I felt her pain (tissues may be needed).... But I also Emma world rocked me too the way this story is told you get lost in both the worlds and is very hard too put down.

 The story tells of a mothers search and a daughters love and hope that battles to bring them back together.

Well Lydia is just finding out that her family are gone , Emma and fleur are taken by they Father on a shill to England they are not the only people on the ship and you meet some chapters for they journey but two that they father warm too are Veronica and her brother Oliver that are also returning to England they spend sometime with them and the journey so they become friend one night Emma is not feeling well and misses dinner and returns too they cabin too rest so when Oliver has comes too the cabin she thinks her father has sent him to check on her but he is not he is they for things that no man should want to do to a eleven year girl !!!!!! Emma keeps quite hopping that she never see him again and believes that she will not be believed. When they arrive  back in the England her father told them that they mother was missing and that she would not becoming to them and soon started dating Veronica who was very nice  but Emmma did not understand why her father moved on soon quickly and started to play up but one afternoon she came home late from playing out and she knew that they where having visitors Veronica and Oliver she was only a little late but her father was very mad and sent her too her room with no tea she nears her father take Veronica and Fleur out and she is left with Oliver in the house and she hopes and prays he stays down stair s but he does not and enters her room with only one thing on his mind she tells him no but he just her to lay still and that no one will believe her she finds the strength and gets hold of her writing set and stabs her in the neck and manages to get away from her and runs away but later that night she is found by her father but she still does not tell him and he is at his wits end and send her to boarding school for trouble girls.....

On the other side of the world Lydia is finding to hard to accept that her family are gone and is finding clues to where they may be she visits Alec boss to find out that he has been sent up north to work in a different branch and that he would be in a rest house waiting for a house to be allocated to them so she asks plans to reach them whem she goes to they bank to be informed that Alec had with drawn all they money apart from 30 dollars she realised that she was broke and no way of getting to her family what was her husband up to and finds a friend who leans her some money to make the journey up north so she gets a bus that a very long journey but is the cheapest way but the bus is hijacked by rebabs and she tired to a tree for days with a little boy called Maz but when they getaway the lady asks Lydia to take the boy with her to they family up north as he will be safe....
She manages a strange man but he offers to help her get to her family but does know why this stranger would her her or that the importance he would make late in her life . When she arrives at her desination she comes face to face with so make pain that her heart breaks her family had reached the rest home safely but the house was bombed burn down by rebabs and they were only a few survivors and they where not her family her world was gone in a heart beat....

I will stop there with the spoilers this is story is gripping and outstanding and has to be read through your own eyes , I found this book very hard to put down and would highly recommend that everyone should read this story it will take your breath away.


Sunday 18 May 2014

A Seaside Affair by Fern Britton

I was very lucky to win a copy of this fantastic book by Fern Britton  so it had to queue jump my to read pile which has more of her books in to read.

In this book me so many fabulous characters which bring the book together and you actually feel that you are staying in this lovely seaside village life.But in the first half of the story we meet Jess who is a struggling actress with an successful actor boyfriend who is going places , then we meet Brooke  who is very beautiful and is the new model for a coffee chain and has a famous boyfriend we also meet Ollie who is a theatre actor just finishing his current show and is in a relationship with a rock star Red. And is that's not enough people,  then we meet the heart of the story the people of  Pendruggan  who are out to save the old theatre from the coffee chain , Cafe au Lait.  The head of the the complain is Penny Leighton a hotshot tv producer who is married to the town vicar !!!! An then there is Helen her best friend who is seeing  Piran the local historian who heart is not really in saving the Trevay but does has he is told then we met dear old Colonel Walter Irvine who has been with the Trevay from the day it opened and was the ordinal actor and then moved to stage manager.

 As you read this book your fall in love with the characters  and they all gel together in this little seaside town as the complain gets going we meet up with Brooke who is on a night out with her famous boyfriend and the mangers of the huge coffee chain finds herself in a bad situation  at the end if the night  but in the morning her life turns into a nightmare and she really finds out the her relationship was only for status and that her agent has dropped her as well her new contract and that she might never work again until  she see  watching the news on Travey and saving from the clutches of  Cafe au Lait and they she pulls her self together and joins the complain and holds some important cards in her hands to play against them but she does more than that through they book you see that you never judge a book by its cover that is true in Brooke's case !!!!!

The the first half we meet Jess who is stuck in a runt in her acting career until she goes for a casting for a new comedy and gets the part and the show is a hit but she is still alone at home while handsome boyfriend is acting in his hit Tv show he tells her all the things she wants to hear even when he asks her to marry him..... But Jess finds she is sent an invites to save the Travey by playing in production so Jess packs herself and the her two little dogs and head to Travey and a life change but she doesn't know it!!!!!

When we meet Ollie he is just on the end of finish a play in London and is waiting for new jobs to come in and his income is very low but his rock star girlfriend wants him with her but for some reason he stays in the Uk and moves down to see his more in the seaside town for a few days and before he knows it he is Travey show and fighting the complain .
.
In the second half of the book we see the fight take hold the Travey is being restored as the village pulls together and miracles do had from finding old films with stars from the past to save the future new relationships and friends are made but I'm not going to give to many spoilers from the second half of the books and it's a must read to find out the outcome but Fern Britton held my imagination from page one to the very end I hope to meet the characters again in her future books.