This was a reading group book. It’s a fairly absorbing tale of a girl who is finding her own way in life after 18 years in foster care. It’s something of a page-turner, with alternate chapters providing flashbacks to the past which explain the present. The protagonist is unlikeable but how she comes to be the way she is is explained as the book unfolds. The plot is slightly unrealistic – Victoria always seems to land on her feet – but the part about her (SPOILER) motherhood more than makes up for it. I wasn’t very taken with the language of flowers itself either, which is annoyingly unscientific.

Overall this book is ok; thought-provoking and easy to read.

This has quite a dark storyline but I did enjoy it. It is so evocative of Indians, from India, as opposed to British Indians. I asked Mum and Dad to read it because I imagine Dad’s life must have been a lot like that described in the book; the protagonist is a young boy who emigrates from India to the USA in the late 70’s. I would recommend this.

This was recommended to me by members of the book group. Not an ‘official’ read but an optional one as the author came to the library to do a talk.

It seemed like nothing happened for the first 100 pages but afterwards I became sucked into the plot, despite my disbelief that a child of 8 would know anything about people’s ‘energies’. Actually the whole spiritualism aspect annoyed me. The chapters written from the young girl’s point of view were very convincing though. The Gramps and Pastor characters were thoroughly menacing. The end felt rushed; it was a happy ending and I would have expected the author to make more of that. Anyway. Not sure I’d recommend this to anyone as there are better thrillers out there (e.g. The Girl on the Train) but it was a page-turner with some interesting ideas in it.

This was a reading group choice. A rather mixed bag of a book. All the characters apart from the protagonist are quite sketchily portrayed, to the point where I kept mixing people up or forgetting who they were. The thought that kept recurring to me throughout the book as Judy went through one bad experience after another was, why doesn’t she give her husband (more of) a chance? On the plus side there are many very astute observations about life as a woman in her mid-thirties that jumped out of the book and spoke to me. Also to the book’s credit is that fact that the front cover gives the impression that it is chick lit, but the book is far from light, bubbly reading.

Overall, I probably wouldn’t recommend this; life is too short to spend reading books that are just ok.

My reading group leader Kay said that she would be interested to know what I thought about this book.

Nothing happens for thr first 152 pages so I almost gave up ir. However, the language is alluring and the mysteries kept me hooked. SPOILERS: I guessed right from the start that Johannnes’ husband was gay. I was disappointed that the mystery of the miniaturist was not resolved in the end.

I would recommend this book if you are interested in that period of history because it is very evocative, but not really otherwise.

This one is a real page-turner, on a par with Before I Go to Sleep in that it plays with your perceptions. Better than Gone Girl, which it has been compared to. I’d definitely recommend this one.

This was a book group choice. Very slow-moving at first but picks up momentum later. There is a major heart-in-mouth moment when Wilfred is about to consummate his marriage.

Quietly bleak, beautifully written with well developed characters. Reminds me a little of Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach. Would recommend.

This was a book group choice. It is the first collection of short stories that I’ve enjoyed in its entirety. They give a fascinating insight into the situations that middle class English women found themselves in during the war. Each story is a little portrait of the protagonist. Although you don’t have long to get to know them in a short story, the characters are believable and their emotions are very vivid. There are a few lines that made me laugh out loud. Yes, I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I might.