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ClareR (5674 KP) rated Freckles in Books

Oct 25, 2021  
Freckles
Freckles
Cecilia Ahern | 2021 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Freckles by Cecilia Ahern is about Allegra Bird, aka Freckles, and her quest to find the mother she has never known.

Freckles moves from her small island home to Dublin, in the hope that she will be able to track her down. She lives a solitary life in Dublin, seems to have few friends and lives by her rigid rules and routines - although I do think she has more friends than she knows. Those few friends are people who seem to genuinely care about her. Freckles is full of self-doubt though, and when a frequently ticketed Ferrari owner (she’s a traffic warden!) tells her that she’s the sum of the five people that she spends the most time with, she decides that the best thing to do, is to choose those five people herself.

This was quite the emotional rollercoaster. Allegra is such a vulnerable young woman, and I was rooting for her happy ending from the start. This book made me laugh out loud and cry - and genuinely want to be one of her five!

So, I’m re-evaluating my opinion of Cecilia Ahern books. I may not have got on well with the books I’d previously read, but Freckles really did hit the spot. I loved it.
Highly recommended.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this.
  
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David McK (3372 KP) rated Hearts of Stone in Books

Feb 9, 2022  
Hearts of Stone
Hearts of Stone
Simon Scarrow | 2015 | Fiction & Poetry
6
5.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Not quite what the blurb makes out
Whilst I do associate Simon Scarrow with the genre of historical fiction, these tend to be set further back in history: mainly around the time of the Roman Empire; there or thereabouts.

Until recently, I've tended to avoid his few works that are more contemporary in nature, only recently (towards the end of last year) reading Blackout as I felt they were 'too close' (if that makes sense) for comfort for me in that there are still people alive who lived through the setting.

I must admit, I did quite enjoy Blackout so thought I would also give this a go, due to the roughly the same (WW2) setting.

This novel flits back and forth between then and 'now' (of 2013), as the descendants of the main 1940s settings character start to discover more about their ancestors - in particular, as history teacher Anna uncovers the story of her maternal grandmother Eleni, who participated in the Greek resistance on the island of Lefkas during 1943.

The whole had-a-German-friend in 1939 thing almost seems incidental to the story (he's not), until roughly about the final third.

And yes, I did pick up on the arguments in favour of teaching history (a subject I did, mostly, enjoy in school) passages.
  
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Kristy H (1252 KP) rated Blush in Books

Nov 18, 2021  
Blush
Blush
Jamie Brenner | 2021 | Fiction & Poetry
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
BLUSH tells the story of three generations of women who discover that the trashy novels of the Jackie Collins/Judith Krantz era might hold the key to saving their family’s winery. Jamie Brenner’s BLUSH is the second book in my ABC author challenge [B].

This is a sweeping novel that gives a lot (!) of details about wine and vineyards. The Hollander family owns their Long Island winery—belonging to matriarch Vivian and her husband, Leonard. Leonard, who is quite firm in his ideas about gender roles, would not let their daughter Leah take over, so she runs a cheese shop in New York City. Leah’s daughter Sadie is struggling in college with her thesis.

When they all converge at the vineyard, they discover Leonard is thinking of selling. He refuses to accept any of Leah or Vivian’s ideas to help save it. But when Sadie finds Vivian’s trashy old novels from her book club days, the three women come together. It’s fun to hear about the old novels (you’ll enjoy this book if you like Krantz or Collins) and watch the women triumph over Leonard, who, honestly can be sort of awful. The themes of marriage, sexism, and family run strong and make this an interesting read, even if the characters sometimes frustrate you to no end. 3 stars.