The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

Winner of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize.  The story is a fictionalised autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett.  The novel details Daisy’s long, at times mundane, life.  It is structured in ten chapters starting with her Birth in Canada in 1905 and ending with her death in a nursing home in Florida.   I liked the use of different narrative voices and devices – it is written in a mix of first person, third person and uses letters, lists, tributes to tell the story.  The book contains a family tree and family photographs to complete the biographical feel.  I enjoyed more sections than others.    

The Other Side Of The Bridge By Mary Lawson

The story is set in a rural community in Canada in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.  It is a book about relationships.  The story revolves around the Dunn family farm.  We know from the beginning that Arthur Dunn and his younger brother Jake have always had a turbulent relationship.   Ian, who is fifteen, goes to work on the Dunn’s farm to escape the tensions of his home life and because he has a schoolboy infatuation with Arthur’s beautiful wife, Laura.  Ian becomes adept at helping on the farm and gradually gets to know and respect the sometimes reticent Arthur.   Everything seems peaceful on the farm until the day that Jake comes home.   The chapters alternate between Arthur’s point of view in the 1930s and Ian’s point of view in the 1950s.  

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore

I found this a dark sad tale.  The loneliness seeps from the book.  The story opens with Futh as he sets out on a ferry for Germany.  He is newly separated from his wife and is taking a restorative walking holiday in Germany.  Futh is awkward and not good at handling emotions or social situations.  As he walks he contemplates.  He remembers his childhood, his mother, father and wife.  The book is permeated with smells and these act as triggers for Futh’s memory.  Interspersed with Futh’s narrative we hear Ester, another lonely person looking for affection.  Their paths cross when Futh spends the first night of his walking holiday at Hellhaus, the hotel Ester runs with her husband Bernard.  Their paths cross again at the end of the book.  It is a short read at 182 pages.  I enjoyed it and found it a thought provoking read.

The Art of Falling by Deborah Lawrenson

Set in Italy the story opens with Isabel Wainwright as she embarks on a trip to the town of Petriano.  Her father, Tom Wainwright, arrived in the town in 1944 as a British soldier, just as the Second World War was coming to an end.  Here he got to know the Parini family and fell in love with their eldest daughter, Giuliana. It was here that he saved a child’s life from a bombed building.  To honour his heroism the town want to rename a piazza after him and Isabel goes to Italy to accept the honour on her father’s behalf.  She struggles to explain to the people who so warmly welcome her that she doesn’t know whether her father is dead or alive because her father left home twenty years ago, when she was seventeen, and he hasn’t been heard of since.  He went out one day and never came back and she and her embittered mother, Patricia, have been trying to come to terms with this fact ever since.  Isabel remembers that her father was infatuated with the Leaning Tower of Pisa so it is here she goes in the hope of retracing his footsteps and to learn more about him.  Here she meets Matteo and falls in love.  The book alternates between the point of view of Isabel in the present and Tom in the past.  The descriptions of Italy were magical.  A thoroughly enjoyable read.

Friday Nights by Joanna Trollop

Friday nights have become a regular meeting time for six women of different ages and from different backgrounds.  The nights were first started by Eleanor a former senior administrator and now retired with time on her hands.  She chose to live a single life concentrating on her career and now realises she doesn’t have many friends.  She is an astute observer of people and spots two lonely single mothers and suggests they meet up for a drink at her house.   As they get to know each other their group expands.  They become friends and learn to rely on each other.  Then Paula, one of the members of the group, meets a man, Jackson, whom she introduces to her friends and things are never the same.   I liked the way Joanna Trollop seamlessly flitted between all the different points of view.  

The House at Zaronza by Vanessa Couchman

This is the first novel by Vanessa Couchman.  The story opens with Rachel Swift who arrives in Corsica to find out more about her Corsican grandmother, whom she never knew.  While staying at a guesthouse she discovers some passionate love letters that the proprietor found when he was restoring the house.  The letters are unsigned and simply addressed to Maria.  They captivate Rachel’s imagination and, in her quest to find more, she ends up meeting an old woman who gives her Maria’s memoir to read.    The story is then Maria’s as the reader is taken on the journey of her life from the confines of a strict bourgeois family to France and the horrors of WW1, where she nurses the wounded.  There is a strong sense of place in Vanessa’s writing, which I loved.  The descriptions of Corsica are beautiful.   I’m very much looking forward to reading Vanessa’s next book.  

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter is about the consequences of one action and the effect that it will have on many lives.   The story starts in 1964 with Dr David Henry forced to deliver his wife’s baby as the obstetrician is unavailable.  Dr David Henry is a specialist in bone and joint surgery, but with the help of his colleague, nurse Gill, he knows he can deliver his baby safely.    But what he doesn’t know is that his wife, Norah, is expecting twins.  David’s son Paul is born a healthy boy.  At this point Norah is exhausted and doesn’t know what is happening.  He delivers the second baby, a girl.  It is obvious to Dr Henry that she has Down’s syndrome.  He instructs nurse Gill to take his daughter to a home where she can be brought up.  When his wife wakes he tells her that she had twins, but the little girl died.  This one action will haunt David for the rest of his life.  The story unfolds following the lives of David, Norah, Caroline Gill and the two children Paul and Phoebe.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading it for the second time.