A Book to Read When You're Having a Crap Day

Posted By Daisy

 

www.marcjohns.com

 

TODAY somebody projectile vomited beside me, and I had to clean up a river of puke while holding my breath discreetly and trying not to gag. My long-time day-job boss gave me a disappointingly formulaic written reference. My car started to make farting noises and after dropping it to a garage in town, I discovered that the exhaust pipe is rotten and it will cost €200 to fix. And the guy I’ve been on two dates with is now blowing hot and cold.

But…..nothing can ruin the excitement of going to Eason’s bookshop this afternoon and picking up a copy of my first glossy magazine feature - and poring over it proudly on the bus home.

Daisy opened the magazine ostentatiously on the bus, wondering if anyone realised they were sitting next to a magazine writer (albeit a small magazine that no-one in her family had ever heard of).

 

It only takes one nice thing to turn the whole day around - and now I feel like this!

 

 

 

Elevator Pitch: A seven-year-old girl puts her teenage brother behind bars after witnessing the brutal murder of her family. But what really happened that night in the blood-spattered farmhouse?

After the birth of my very sick nephew three years ago, I gave up reading violent thrillers. There was simply too much real-life suffering to bear. Despite it being compelling, I almost renounced ‘Dark Places’ as being too disturbing. But couldn’t stop myself from reaching for it in bed every night. Gillian Flynn is a brilliant writer whose writing style makes me gasp at times.

 

In her acknowledgments at the back of the book, Flynn writes: 'Thanks to my brilliant, funny, giant-hearted, super-hot husband...What do I say to a man who knows how I think and still sleeps next to me with the lights off?'

Not for the faint-hearted, although the ending is fairly unbelievable.



A Book To Read On The Camino - Summer Holiday Idea #1

Posted by Daisy

Summer's coming and with it thoughts of holidays. Why not try the Camino de Santiago - a holiday where you rise at 5 a.m., walk all day, rarely drink alcohol, sleep in the same room as hundreds of strangers every night, and regularly feel blisters popping inside your shoes - what's not to like!

 



'I'll always dream of this' (Miriam)

 

'Would ye ever get up, Miriam and Daisy, it's 6am and we've 35km to walk today' (Lou)

 

'I'll never have buns of steel' (Daisy)

 

All amazing photographs by Lou, Director of summer festival, Vantastival

I walked the Camino de Santiago in 2005. Starting at Roncesvalles (just over the border of France), we walked 750km in five weeks.  We trained by walking around the Lough in Cork twice before we left.

Roncesvalles

On the first day, we emptied our rucksacks out in the middle of a park and realised we’d have to dump all non-essentials - fake tan, make-up and earrings. That night, we slept under gothic chandeliers in a converted monastery with a hundred other pilgrims in double bunkbeds – and were treated to a cacaphonic symphony of snores and grunts all night. If you bring one thing on the Camino, make it earplugs.

 

The first day we walked 22kms through fields and forest paths, running up hills and congratulating ourselves on our marvellous fitness levels. The pain came the following day.

We rose at about 5am every day, and walked towards the nearest town for breakfast. One morning, we stumbled upon a running of the bulls in Puenta La Reina – at 8:30 a.m.

We slept in a hostel in Estella that resembled a Thai prison. Thirty triple-decker bunkbeds, one window, and one windowless shower. My waking view was the long arm of a stranger dangling from the bunkbed above.

 

We were lucky to meet Pablito, a well-known Spanish man of the Camino, who showed us how to use our wooden sticks properly. By the end of the five weeks, my stick-bearing arm was Michelle-Obama-like toned.This juggling man tied a different bell to his rucksack everyday, so he could make his own music as he walked. He was walking from Spain to Scotland, and back again.

 Every morning saw us hunting for the yellow arrows spray painted on walls, and the yellow and blue Camino markers.

We walked through many different regions; the beautiful Rioja and lush green Galicia. In the searing heat of the treeless Meseta, we plodded on, blisters popping inside my shoes until the village of Hontanas appeared like a mirage in the distance. Would it take an hour or five to reach it? Hard to tell. Everyone shouts ‘Buen Camino’ or ‘Animo’ or ‘Ultreia’ as they pass – new pilgrims were obvious by their lack of greeting.

 Even though I had proper footwear and high-tech ‘1000km socks’, I got blisters on every toe. Every morning I dosed myself with painkillers and walked on. Every evening, I sterilised a needle and threaded string through new blisters to pop them, and plastered them up. In bed at night, it was common to wake up in pain and feel the throbbing of blisters old and new.

Other pilgrims knew we had arrived at a hostel when they saw our three pairs of Asics lined up outside the door. One morning, one of my shoes was missing from the doorstep, and after an hour of running around the tiny village, I found it in a dog's kennel!

 

Opening the wrong door at the outhouse toilets in Manjarin - arghh
The lovely lady who found us a bed for the night - serendipity!

We usually stayed in the pilgrim hostels, where bed and board was about €10 per night. In Arzua, there was no room at the inn, and just as we were about to sign up to sleep on the ground of a sports hall, we met a friendly Spanish lady on the street who found a lovely apartment for us.

We heard about the cool ‘hippy’ hostel in the middle of a deserted village at Manjarin and decided it would be a fun experience, man. On arrival, we were told there was no food and shown to our beds - ten dirty mattresses pushed together in the attic of a cowshed. We sunbathed for a few hours (with flies buzzing constantly around our heads) until we realised that we were lying in the dogs’ toilet area. At last, one of us nervously suggested leaving, and as the sun set, we hotfooted it down the mountain to the nearest B&B.

Pilgrims place stones from their home country at La Cruz de Ferro - apparently one man lugged a 3kg stone all the way from Switzerland.

Most days we walked together. We sang lots. Some days, without needing to discuss it, we split up and walked alone. 

We dragged our feet for the last 5km to Santiago, no-one really wishing to reach the destination. Pilgrim's Mass at the cathedral and receiving our certificate was lovely, but bittersweet.  After a few days relaxing in Santiago, we took a bus to Finisterre – the end of the Earth – and had paella on the beach where pilgrims used to throw their boots into the ocean.

I currently know two people who are walking the Camino solo right now. And my friend Grace will walk for ten days next month with her 72-year-old mother. A definite bucket-list experience.

'The Camino taught me that everything seems impossible at the beginning, but if you break it into small steps, you can achieve anything' (Miriam)

 

'A Rural Affair' by Catherine Alliott

 

Having arrived at the tail-end of a two-month manic work stint, I don’t have the energy to read anything at the moment. ‘A Rural Affair’ proved ideal sleep-time material after emailing yet another feature to my editor at 2 a.m.

Poppy Shilling is always fantasising about her prissy husband’s death. When all her friends were getting married, Poppy panicked and ended up with boring, anally-retentive Phil, who insists on wearing Lycra and going on cycling holidays to France. Now she wants him and his trophy cabinet and ghastly brown leather sofas gone. But be careful what you wish for , Poppy….

I loved this book and the descriptions of ‘Valley of the Squinting Windows’ English country life. The friendships amongst the women is lovely, and the description of the hunt ball sounds fabulous. However, a friend recently went to a hunt ball in Adare with an ex-boyfriend, and described it as ‘fierce country-ish’.

Next Monday: Farting lambs and lame chat-up lines in Galway.

Books to read after finding fish fingers

Posted by Jenny

 

 

 



My son is a little monkey. All my kids are monkeys, but this week he is particularly a monkey. He’s adorable with his red hair, brown eyes and sallow skin. He’s gentle, sensitive and enjoys problem solving. He loves his family, loves his friends and loves going to school. One of his favourite tv shows is a programme called “Finding stuff out”. Every episode kids can send in why-does-this-happen/how-does-this-work questions and a kid called Harrison will “find the stuff out”. Very annoying, if you’re an adult.

Anyway, to get back to why my son is a monkey, surprise surprise, it has to do with him implementing a thought process that clearly has had results in the past during or just after dinner time. My son is a good eater. However, his diet is very limited. At least it’s limited to the good stuff (and so far I’m not complaining), carrots, broccoli, sweetcorn, potatoe waffles and fish fingers. This is all he eats. Every day. For dinner. Except Saturdays, that’s Pancake Day in our house, a sacred tradition. As is Daddy Dinner Day on Fridays (nutella sandwiches!).

He’s not too keen on the fish fingers, but we insist he eats it. Better then nothing, right? Right. Well, let me take you back to the bit where I said that he’s enjoys problem solving. “If mummy doesn’t see me hide the food, she thinks I’ve eaten it, even when I didn’t.”

I’m not claiming that his reasoning is flawless. He’s only 7 years old. But he has clearly thought about it in enough detail for it to lead to an execution of a plan. I started to find fish fingers in his pockets…. Clearly he hadn’t taken into consideration that mummy eventually will find the food and that it was a very short term solution to an obviously longer term problem with a fairly significant consequence as mummy is now AWARE.

Last week I had taken a much anticipated week off work. I had no plans made, other than be mum for the week, which I don’t get to do that often as I work full time. I’m not complaining, merely stating a fact. I was really looking forward to doing school runs, homework, chatting and playing, cooking and yes, cleaning. Our “old” au pair was leaving on the Monday and the “new” au pair was arriving on the Thursday. So while I was doing my chores I was compiling a list of “things” in my head that I had to organize for the “new” au pair. The list usually contains vague items like:

·         make a new time table,

·         show her around here and there,

·         do the how-to-disipline-a-3-year-old talk,

·         do the how-to-discipline-a-5-and-7-year-old talk,

·         do the child-safety-don’t-take-the-widow-chains-off-in-your-bedroom-when-you-open-the-window talk and the

·         keep-your-make-up-locked-away-because-my-3-year-old-will-rob-you-blind talk

While I was industriously vacuuming the floors, I discovered a new talk. I pushed away the toy box, which I admit with shame (not), happens only a few times a year and found 1, 2, 3….. 12 fish fingers! 12!

I have added the watch-my-son –when-he-eats talk to my au pair list. And my son? Well, he has to go back to the drawing board. I am honestly looking forward to finding out what he’ll come up with next.

 

 

 

I have recently read my way through six Sookie Stackhouse books. Charlaine Harris, you got me hooked! They were great pieces of entertaining escapism and kept me reading book after book. I’m preparing to get my hands on the next instalment and I can’t wait.

The books are different from the tv series. The story line has obviously been adapted for television and in my opinion both work within their own medium. Box-set heaven! For viewing when the kids are in bed though, as they’re a bit explicit on the sex side of things. Series 6 is due out soon, I believe….

A Book To Read After Seeing The Great Gatsby (2013)

                                                                   A shiver-inducing tribute to the emptiness of the Jazz age

Posted By Daisy

‘I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool’. (Daisy Buchanan)

WHAT can I say? I saw the film last night and the characters, story and music are still swirling in my head.

The film is a perfect tribute to the booze and party orgy of the 1920’s prohibition era – all dancing girls with green eye-shadow, and champagne sloshing in vintage coupes, and a thousand tinsel threads raining down upon the party goers who dance a super energetic Charleston.

But behind the great American dream is dirt and poverty. The Valley of Ashes is a no-man’s industrial wasteland between Manhattan and Long Island, its people bored and black with soot, perpetually watched by Dr TJ Eckleberg’s tarnished spectacles on a faded advertising hoarding. Myrtle is exactly as I had pictured her, and the scene in her rented apartment is in stark contrast to Gatsby’s polished parties; grubby feather pillows split open and stick to sweaty bodies, couples have sex in an adjoining bedroom, and drugs are passed from tongue to tongue and washed down with whisky.  As he gazes down onto the street below, Nick realises he neither belongs here nor in West Egg.

Luhrmann ensures that none of the women in the film are portrayed as being classically beautiful – Myrtle (I didn’t even realise it was Isla Fisher) is a pathetic, sleazy creature with an artificial painted rosebud mouth, and Daisy (Carey Mulligan) is ten-a-penny pretty. The dancing women are older and plumper than expected, and Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki) the young golf professional is a sexless beanpole in her long dresses. I like Daisy in the beginning. She’s bright and breezy, floating through life as if behind a gauze curtain, her money shielding her from reality. Gatsby tries to mirror this by smothering her with silk shirts in an odd display of carelessness, but ultimately he tries too hard.

Luhrmann makes the heat another character in the room  at the Plaza hotel, irritating everyone and niggling already-fraying tempers. Cigars and cigarettes sizzle as they are lit and sweat trickles on the back of necks as a busboy chips ice off a huge block to fill the cut-glass whiskey tumblers. For the first time, Gatsby, in his creased pink pin-striped suit, loses control and reveals his true self, if only for a moment, a lock of Brilliantined hair tumbling onto his forehead as he rages at Tom and Daisy and his inability to be a part of their world.

Luhrmann also portrays Nick’s otherness perfectly - he is always behind curtains, listening at partially closed doors or watching from above, always on his own unless someone needs a favour from him.

 

I watched the film with a continuous nausea, from the swooshing camera pans to Gatsby’s roaring yellow motor car squashing water melon on the road, and the crowds of party-goers swaying in their cars as they roar their way up Gatsby’s lit-up driveway.

I’m going to see it again next week – this time in 3D. I can’t wait.

 

                                                                                                 Time for a re-read, I think.

A Book To Read When You Know You're Just Being Silly Now

Posted By Daisy

 

    

www.marcjohns.com

 

I’VE been up the walls recently. Freelance work is like that. Some weeks there’s nothing, and then all of a sudden your inbox pings with seven feature commissions. So the past few weekends have been spent either interviewing or writing. My kitchen has become a tedious office space, with scribbled papers spread all over the surface of the table, and Post-Its stuck randomly about, saying ‘Las or Los Angeles?’ or ‘Check what year the burning of Cork happened.’

But I knew I loved writing when, after spending twelve hours typing a glossy magazine feature (my first-yippee) one day, and sitting exhausted at midnight on Sunday, with my full time day job to go to the next day, I realised I’d actually do it for free as long as I was published.

Having worked steadily on Friday night and all day Saturday, I had a glint in my eye as I got ready to meet my friends in town on Saturday night. I had been too serious for the past few weeks, and needed to kick back, let loose, and have some fun.

So I kissed a man at a party in my friend’s house after the nightclub. And I now realise that I will be single for the rest of my life. Because I’m still irrevocably, immaturely attracted to bad boys and messers who make me laugh. He entertained us into the early hours, dancing and waltzing and jiving and just having good, clean fun. He made a stupid face in front of the camera when we were trying to take a nice girls-only photo, and insisted on playing such gems as the theme song from ‘China Beach’ (!) and ‘Something’ by the Beatles.

But I knew we were compatible when he held out his hand to silence us, reverentially pressed play on his iPod and ‘Lola’ by The Kinks came on. Lola, the song I played constantly on my Walkman during three weeks of summer camp when I was 15, walking around in my dyed purple flares and checked shirts and long chains and nose-ring. It's the only song (besides Bruce Springsteen’s 'The River') that I know all the words to. We sat delightedly facing each other across the coffee table, singing the words - ‘I met her in a club down in Otto-ho, where they drink champagne and it tastes just like Cherry Co-la’.

Twinkle-toeing it out the door of the party at 4:30am, he took my number. And two days later, he texted.

‘X here. How are you. Did you go out Sunday night.’

Even though I know he’s bad for me, I have been composing a witty reply in my head for the last few hours. Let the games begin.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Elevator Pitch: A doting wife disappears one day after moving to Missouri with her out-of-work husband to help care for his ageing parents. But nothing is as clear-cut as it seems.

It's 'Douglas Kennedy meets Fifty Shades of Grey.'

My friend gave me this book with the caveat that it was 'rubbish'. It took me a few weeks to open it, and I was immediately hooked. It's clever, and depressing and has a great twist. The portrayal of marriage is sad - Nick and Amy were so in love in the beginning and then it normality impedes and it all turns to dust. I liked reading about the beginning of their love, as sometimes I think I am addicted to the excitement at the start of a relationship, and run for the hills as soon as it all begins to fade.

A Book To Read in Amsterdam

Posted By Daisy

 

THE last three months have been utterly lovely. I met a man. A gentlemanly, kind, generous, funny and tall one. He’s my brother's friend and is six years younger than me. Since meeting on St Stephen’s night, we’ve dined in gorgeous restaurants, browsed a car boot sale and smooched while cycling through the Killarney National Park. I cooked my first roast for him, had some hilarious nights out and spent many evenings on the sofa with my legs thrown over his chatting and watching ‘The Birds’ or ‘Skyfall’. And last week, we went to Amsterdam.

I decided to be a bit quirky and booked a studio apartment via Air BNB in the gorgeous area of Prisengracht (near the Anne Frank House) for 3 nights. However, quirky meant bookshelves full of CD’s and books, huge paintings of naked men and women on every wall, some tired Philippe Starck furniture and a fur throw on the couch which I refused to touch. The location was amazing – but using someone elses non-fluffy towels and standing on their flat bathmath every morning is just not romantic.

 

Amsterdam is fast. The city soundscape is the whoosh of a bike or the bell of a tram. It’s also achingly cool. I peeked through the windows of countless canal-side tall houses and spied modern magazine-style interiors.

 We spent an afternoon browsing the boutiques on Prisengracht and the Nine Streets. It's all vintage furniture, light fittings and even a shop devoted to Japanese Bento boxes. How he laughed when I coveted a paint-speckled wooden ladder (€60), and told me he’d give me the one he has in the shed at home.

 We sampled the famous crumbly apple pie in Cafe Winkel.

I braved the queues for the Anne Frank House at 8:30am one morning, trotting across the bridge as fast as I could while the 20-deep queue filled up before my eyes. I touched the bookcase and saw Anne's patch of blue sky through the attic window.  A glass panel on one wall preserves the sisters heights marked out in pencil on the old wallpaper, and a magazine montage of movie stars carefully cut from Anne's favourite magazine.

 I thought the Red Light District (just off Dam Square) at midnight would disturb me, but it was funny. All the ladies posing in the windows of their booths reminded me of Roald Dahl’s description of the giants lounging around in 'The BFG.' Wearing stockings and suspenders, they smoked languidly or chatted to their window buddy or on their phones, while smiling at the gangs of (mainly) men walking past. I watched as a man entered a booth and the young woman inside coquettishly took off his furry Russian hat and tried it on. In the darkest, loneliest corner near the church, there were two older, fatter models in the window. Rates are cheaper off the beaten track. It’s €150 to rent a booth for eight hours, and prices for punters start at €50. And no, according to a local barman, the punters don’t have the luxury of a shower afterwards -  a spray detergent is used.

The funniest fact I read in my guide book was that they experimented with putting men in the red light district windows once, but it just didn't catch on!

              Grubs up

On the last night, we dined in De Kas (the best restaurant in Amsterdam, apparently). It’s in a huge glass building surrounded by greenhouses with home-grown produce. A glamorous lady and her friends sat next to us, and a family of four sat at a high table in the kitchen, watching the chefs cook while they ate. There’s no menu in here - you eat what you’re given. And every course is described in detail by the staff.

The food was nice, but everything was concentrated on The Up-Sell, with the waitress mentioning the cheeseboard throughout the meal, telling us threateningly that 'we'd talk about it later.'

I kept thinking of the story of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’. Were we all fools eating the same meal and oohing and ahhing at the miniscule portions, reverential explanations and overpriced aperitifs? On the way out, the waitress held our coats and offered us an apple from a big sculpted bowl beside the door. I nearly started laughing as I took a tiny windfall and put it in my pocket.

I like small portions but he was still hungry and we stopped for drinks and a huge plate of tapas in the lovely Café T’Smalle in Prisengracht.

                                             Cafe T'Smalle - because we were still hungry after spending €150 on dinner in De Kas.

We had a freshly-made Wally's waffle in the Albert Cuypt market, before wandering down to the Heineken Museum. Not my first choice, it was actually a very enjoyable and relaxing way to spend a few hours, learning about the history of the beer, customising our own Heineken bottles, and culminating in a few free glasses of Heineken.

We pootled down the canals in a hop-on/hop-off canal boat tour and I could have stayed there forever. A native taxi driver told me that his favourite summertime activity is to rent a boat with his friends and spend the day on the canal.

 

It's Wally's Waffles or pickled herring in the Albert Cuypt market - which would you choose?

There must've been something in the water in Amsterdam because we decided to break up when we arrived home. We are better as just friends.

But this isn’t a sad story. It’s a hopeful one. It taught me that there are amazing men out there who treat women like princesses, and are respectful and fun. I won’t call off the search just yet.

'Perfect People' by Peter James

I had never read any Peter James before, but when my sister gave me this book I trusted her judgement. It's about a couple who are grieving the death of the four-year-old son who died from a rare genetic disorder. They want another baby but are afraid to risk him having the same genetic condition. Along comes the dodgy Dr Leo Dettore, who promises them a genetically perfect child, with choice of hair, eye colour and sporting ability.

This is un-put-downable and the ending still makes me shiver.

 

*In case you think I sound too blasé about the break-up, it took me a week to lift my suitcase from the hall where he left it, and I’ve watched at least 15 episodes of my Gossip Girl box-set since then. And I’m still wearing the bracelet he gave me for Valentine’s Day.

 

 

 

 

 

A Book to Read During Book Camp in the Country

Posted by Daisy

 

 

ON a muddy walk through the Berkshire countryside, three deer with white bottoms stand perfectly still in the middle of a field and stare at us, long-eared hares bob up and down in the distance, and pheasants fly out of the underbrush as pink-wellied Cesca, CEO of Book Camp tells me that Kate Middleton attended her school for a term, and that her cousin is Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

 

 

It’s afternoon break at Book Camp – I’ve already had a two-hour morning session with women’s fiction author Rowan Coleman, written over 1000 words in a word race session, scanned through a book on plotting, and begun planning my novel.

Last year, I decided to embrace my inner geek. In ‘The Happiness Project’, Gretchen Rubin urges people to just be themselves. So in a bid to ‘Be Daisy, I joined a writing group and set up a blog with two other girls. Irish author Roisin Meaney has said that a weekend writing retreat gave her the impetus to quit her day job and finally kick-start her writing career. So when I spotted a four-day bookcamp in Berkshire on Twitter over the Christmas holidays, I immediately signed up.

 

 

Each morning began with a two-hour writing session around the huge kitchen table with Rowan. We did writing exercises and listened to each other’s plot descriptions, and by day three I was no longer embarrassed about reading out my paltry word count or over-descriptive text in front of the others.

 

Five of us stayed in the converted country barn, with new students joining us for daily sessions. One girl wrote a short story, another re-worked her chick-lit novel (it was fascinating to have read her first chapters and then listen to Rowan edit it), and I started a story about my grandmother and her sisters in 1950’s Ireland. And for anyone with writer’s block, there was a never ending supply of tea, rosewater cupcakes, apple crumble and jam roly poly as well as a pile of shiny ‘How to Write’ books on the antique writing desk to peruse.

 

 

It was lovely to be embroiled in a literary world, listening to Cesca and Rowan talking about authors and reviewers by their first names (‘Kirsty’ and ‘Katy’ and ‘Cressida’) over a roast chicken dinner, or having Rowan critique my short story over an evening glass of wine. And it was strange to sit in a tiny bedroom with Caroline Hogg, senior commissioning editor at Pan Macmillan, listening to her feedback on my (fledgling) book plot and reeling off a list of similar-themed book titles to study.

The main thing I learned from Book Camp is to stop being so precious about writing and just write. Seeing Rowan write and edit daily, while showing us iPhone pictures of her children at home also made me realise how much dedication and hard work it takes to write a book.

 

WHAT I LEARNED FROM IT:

• Do hour-long word races and just vomit the words onto the page. They can be cleaned up and polished later.

• Do a plot outline on which to hang all the beautiful descriptions.

• Use less description – anyone can write description.
• Write for at least 30 minutes per day.

• Aim for at least 1000 words per week.

• There is no muse involved in writing. It takes lots of plotting and planning, and at least 3 edits.
• Do proper planning and a complete plot outline before you begin, or otherwise you might end up having to delete 60,000 words.

• Spend time formulating an Elevator Pitch - a two-sentence synopsis of your book.

• Editors and agents love when authors describe their books in terms of films/other books e.g. My book is 'Bridget Jones meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'.

• The term ‘Chick-lit’ is frowned upon. It’s called ‘Women’s Fiction’.
• Women’s fiction may be easy to read but it is very difficult to write.
 

Check out Cesca's 'Beat the Block' videos at www.novelicious.com

 

 

Elevator Pitch: A group of college students loose their best friend in a terrible accident on holidays in Ibiza. The story follows the lives of the gang as they each struggle with a secret sadness and guilt over the death of their friend.

The best I can come up with today is: It's 'One Day' the book meets 'One Day' the film. Maybe this is because we hear the thoughts of a male and female protagonist - and hearing a male point of view is unusual in the women's fiction genre.

I read this book in two days and loved its intelligent grittiness with a happy ending.

 

Next Monday: A Book to Read after a city break in Amsterdam.