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ClareR (6247 KP) rated Days of Light in Books

Nov 23, 2025  
Days of Light
Days of Light
Megan Hunter | 2025 | Fiction & Poetry, LGBTQ+
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Days of Light tells the story of Ivy, from 1938 when she’s young and inexperienced, up to the 1990’s in her final years. Each time we step forward in time, we see Ivy on the same day. We see the consequences of her life choices, her losses and how she matures.

After the initial chapter where Ivy’s brother dies and she decides to marry a much older friend of the family, time jumps forward in decades to begin with, and longer periods of time nearer the end. Ivy joins a religious order as a nun, but I think this is largely because of the unresolved feelings she has for her friend, Frances.

There is a very spiritual feel to this novel: from the first chapter and the light that Ivy sees that distracts her from her brother drowning, her religious awakening, and the light she sees at the end of her life.

This was a lovely, gentle and thoughtful novel. It was an absolute pleasure to read.
  
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ClareR (6247 KP) rated Burntcoat in Books

Feb 13, 2022  
Burntcoat
Burntcoat
Sarah Hall | 2021 | Contemporary, Dystopia, Fiction & Poetry
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This novella really packs a punch - as all good novellas do!
It’s set in a world that we all know a little about. A Covid-19-type virus, except far more severe, breaks out and social panic ensues. Society goes ion to lockdown, hospitals are unable to cope with the sheer volume of cases, and the army is drafted in to keep order. Shops are looted, food is rationed, people die horrifically.

Edith Harkness looks back on her life as she prepares to enter the last stages of Long-Nonovirus. It’s a much more serious version of Long-Covid, where the affected person dies. Edith looks back on her life, from her childhood where she lives with her brain-damaged mother, to her years of study and consequent art prizes, and then her time in lockdown with her lover, a Bulgarian Turk.

It’s a book about love, sex, desire, illness, caring, family and grief. Those are some big topics for a slim book, but it’s beautifully told.
Now I need to read some more Sarah Hall books.