The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

No. of pages: 240
Rating: 8/10

Synopsis: It's 1946 and author Juliet Ashton can't think what to write next. Out of the blue, she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - by chance, he's acquired a book that once belonged to her - and, spurred on by their mutual love of reading, they begin a correspondence. When Dawsey reveals that he is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, her curiosity is piqued and it's not long before she begins to hear from other members. As letters fly back and forth with stories of life in Guernsey under the German Occupation, Juliet soon realizes that the society is every bit as extraordinary as its name.

Review: One day out of the blue, Juliet Ashton, an author struggling to find a new idea for a book, receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Intrigued, she starts a correspondence with Dawsey, and then with the other members of the society, as they share tales of living through and surviving the war, amongst many other things.

I enjoyed that the whole book was a series of letters to various people, I thought it was an lovely way to format the story. I found all of the stories about the German Occupation really interesting too, and I could imagine the things that they spoke about in their letters to Juliet. I got a little confused with all of the characters at the beginning, but the secondary ones seemed to taper off around half way and then it was a lot easier to keep everyone straight. The characters were really well written, you felt you knew them through their letters and the way they spoke. Kit and Isola were my favourites, I loved Isola's quirky ways and Kit was so adorable. The storyline was pretty predictable I thought though, and I guessed most of what would happen, but it was still a lovely read. I would definitely recommend this to people who enjoy reading stories set around war time, or in the format of letters.

Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen

No. of pages: 418
Rating: 10/10

Synopsis: When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer.

Beautifully written, Water for Elephants is illuminated by a wonderful sense of time and place. It tells a story of a love between two people that overcomes incredible odds in a world in which even love is a luxury that few can afford.

Review: Set in the Great Depression of the 30's, a disaster out of the blue sends Jacob Jankowski out of his normal everyday life, and jumping onto a random passing train. The train happens to belong to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show On Earth circus, and his life changes forever in an instant. Joining the circus as a vet, Jacob experiences what it truly is to live...

I think the word for this book is enchanting. Although very gritty and brutal, it holds you in a thrall with it's fantastic storyline from beginning to end. I absolutely loved Jacob as a character, he seemed very real in that he was incredibly naive and innocent at the beginning, and then hardened as the book went on. My other favourites were Marlena and Walter, and I enjoyed seeing how Jacob's relationships with them both evolved throughout the book. The storyline itself I found quite fascinating, I know absolutely nothing about how a circus runs, and the author did a lot of research before writing the novel, so it all seems incredibly realistic. This is the perfect story - a great background, fantastic characters, a bit of friendship and some romance to top it off. It's just a lovely and enjoyable tale and I would heartily recommend it to everyone.

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

No. of pages: 312
Rating: 3/10

Synopsis: As a young woman, Roseanne McNulty was one of the most beautiful and beguiling girls in County Sligo, Ireland. Now, as her hundredth year draws near, she is a patient at Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital, and she decides to record the events of her life.

As Roseanne revisits her past, hiding the manuscript beneath the floorboards in her bedroom, she learns that Roscommon Hospital will be closed in a few months and that her caregiver, Dr. Grene, has been asked to evaluate the patients and decide if they can return to society. Roseanne is of particular interest to Dr. Grene, and as he researches her case he discovers a document written by a local priest that tells a very different story of Roseanne’s life than what she recalls. As doctor and patient attempt to understand each other, they begin to uncover long-buried secrets about themselves.

Review: When the psychiatric hospital where Dr Grene works and Roseanne is a patient is due to be torn down, Dr Grene must assess all of the patients to see if they can be relocated back to the outside world. He becomes particularly fascinated with Roseanne and her story, and goes out of his way to find out why she was admitted to the hospital, but his actions bring to light unexpected secrets and revelations...

This book was such a disappointment. Before starting it, I read over the back cover again, to refresh my memory with what the story was about, and guessed what the big plot reveal would be before I had even started, and the sad thing is, I was correct! The story is so slow going, I thought after an incredibly slow start it would pick up, but the story plods along all throughout the book, flicking between Roseanne and Dr Grene. Another thing that annoyed me was that Roseanne was telling the story of her life, and Dr Grene was finding things out that were completely different, and you never find out which of the two is correct. Overall, I thought it had loads of potential, but it was too slow and too obvious, and was a complete let down.

The Lost Book Of Salem by Katherine Howe

No. of pages: 463
Rating: 10/10

Synopsis: While clearing out her grandmother’s cottage for sale, Connie Goodwin finds a parchment inscribed with the name Deliverance Dane. And so begins the hunt to uncover the woman behind the name, a hunt that takes her back to Salem in 1692 . . . and the infamous witchcraft trials. But nothing is entirely as it seems and when Connie unearths the existence of Deliverance’s spell book, the Physick Book, the situation takes on a menacing edge as interested parties reveal their desperation to find this precious artefact at any cost. What secrets does the Physick Book contain? What magic is scrawled across its parchment pages? Connie must race to answer these questions – and reveal the truth about Salem’s women – before an ancient family curse once more fulfils its dark and devastating prophecy...

Review: When Connie's mother asks her to clear out her grandmother's house so it can be sold, she's not looking forward to it. But what starts as a chore turns into much more when she discovers a piece of parchment with the name Deliverance Dane on it. Her search for Deliverance takes her back to the Salem witch trials, and reveals more than she ever could have imagined...

I've always been interested in the Salem witch trials, and so this was a great read for me. I liked how it started as two completely seperate people and times, Connie in 1991 and Deliverance in 1692, and then as the story went on, you saw how the two seperate stories came together. I thought it was really well written, especially considering it's a debut novel, and it showed that Katherine Howe obviously did a lot of research before writing it. The characters were really well written, and were enjoyable to read about, especially Deliverance and her daughter Mercy. Now I have to find more books written about the Salem witch trials as I found the topic really enjoyable!

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

No. of pages: 216
Rating: 4/10

Synopsis: Michael Berg is 15 when he begins a long, obsessive affair with Hanna, an enigmatic older woman. He never learns very much about her and when she disappears one day, he expects never to see her again. But, to his horror, he does. Hanna is a defendant in a trial related to Germany's Nazi past and it soon becomes clear that she is guilty of an unspeakable crime. As Michael follows the trial, he struggles with an overwhelming question: what should his generation do with its knowledge of the Holocaust?

Review: 15 year old Michael starts a love affair with Hanna, a woman in her 30's, although she always holds herself back from him and he never knows why. Years later when he's a law student, he sees her in a court room being accused of awful things. Michael struggles to come to terms with having loved someone so terrible...

This is a weird book for me as I didn't like it at all, but it's a very thought provoking book. It raises the question of 'how far would you go to hide something?', and the answer in the book is 'too far'. I personally cannot ever imagine doing the things Hanna did, right from sleeping with a child to what she did during the war. I found Hanna to be quite a hateful character, and I thought she was insanely selfish but yet I felt forced to feel sympathy for her when she quite clearly didn't deserve it. I thought that part one was the best section of the book, and my interest slowly waned through parts two and three. It's a book I'm glad I've read, but one I'd not bother to pick up again.

The Confessions Of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer

No. of pages: 267
Rating: 8/10

Synopsis: Out of the womb in 1871, Max Tivoli looked to all the world like a tiny 70-year-old man. But inside the aged body was an infant. Victim of a rare disease, Max grows physically younger as his mind matures. In Andrew Sean Greer's finely crafted novel, The Confessions of Max Tivoli, Max narrates his life story from the vantage point of his late fifties, though his body is that of a 12-year-old boy. He has known since a young age that he is destined to die at 70, and he wears a golden "1941" as a constant reminder of the year he will finally perish in an infant form. His mother, a Carolina belle concerned over her son's troubling appearance, curses Max with "The Rule": "Be what they think you are". Max fails to keep this Rule only a handful of times in his life, but it is the burden of living by it that wounds him and slowly alienates him from the people he loves.

Review: Max is born with the body of a 70 year old, and ages backwards over his life, so when he's 17, he actually looks in his 50's and this is very tough for Max. But his Mother told him to live by only one rule, and that's to be what they expect him to be. So when he looks 50, he has to act 50, even though he's only a young man inside. This makes simple things such as friendship and love very tough for Max, and so he writes the memoir of his backwards life.

This is very like the film of The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, which I saw a few weeks ago and really enjoyed, but I wasn't expecting them to be so alike in storyline. However, if you enjoyed that film, or even that short story, you are sure to be a fan of Max. I really found the book enjoyable, and thought the characters were really well written and easy to empathise with. The ending came as a bit of a surprise, not in a bad way, it just was just unexpected and I never would have guessed it. I would say this a good book for fans of books set around 1900, as it really is full of life from that time, which is great to read about.

The Madonna Of The Almonds by Marina Fiorato

No. of pages: 366
Rating: 10/10

Synopsis: Young widow Simonetta tries to rebuild her family in 16th century Saronno, tuscany, following the death of her husband in one of the battles ravaging the land. In pursuit of a means to keep her estate together, she stumbles upon a new drink made by inffusing almonds with alcohol. At the same time, she encounters Bernadino, the protege of Leonardo da Vinci. What follows is a glorious story of passion, betrayal, warfare and bravery.

Review: Two parallel stories of love, loss and growing up. Simonetta is a widow at 17, and her dead husband has left her broke, so in order to save her house she agrees to pose as Madonna for artist Bernardino Luini who is painting a religious fresco in her local church. Peasant orphan Amaria is being raised by a kind woman she calls Nonna, and when she tells Nonna of the strange wild man in the woods, Nonna goes to look for him and takes him into their home. On the verge of death, the man they call Selvaggio has what appears to be many war wounds, but he doesn't remember anything of his former life or how he came to be injured.

Historical fiction is a genre I've not really tried before, as I didn't think I'd enjoy it very much. How wrong I was! The story was so easy to get in to, and the characters are fantastically written, I found it so easy to imagine them in my mind with the vivid descriptions that are given. I enjoyed reading about the wars and the religious persecutions of Jews and thought both subjects were written about really well. To put it simply, there was nothing about this book I disliked at all, everything about it was great. I'd really recommend it and I'm eager to now read The Glassblower Of Murano, Marina Fiorato's first novel set in the same time period.