Author: Harper Lee

I’ve seen the movie based on this book several times but I’m not sure I ever read the book. But I must have because it was on Mum and Dad’s bookshelf from 1961.

From what I remember about the movie it focused on the trial of a black man who was accused of raping a young white woman. The trial is certainly a part of the book but what I found more interesting was the awareness of the children, Jem and Scout, of the differences between the lives of the black families, the “white trash”, and the more prosperous whites.

Goodreads Rating: * * * * *

Author: Amy Tan

This might be the best Amy Tan book yet. The story follows three generations of women, two of whom are courtesans in the most exclusive houses in Shanghai. The story spans more than forty years with the struggles of first the mother, Lulu, and then those of her daughter, Violet.

Each mother loses her child at some point but by the end of the book the three generations have been reconnected.

Goodreads Rating: * * * * *

Author: John Boyne

Long before we discovered that he had fathered two children by two different women, one in Drimoleague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Monroe stood on the altar of the Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, in the parish of Goleen, West Cork, and denounced my mother as a whore.

With an opening paragraph like that you are drawn into the book from the very beginning. Told mainly from the point of view of Cyril, the very reason his mother was ousted from her home and village, he is adopted by a fairly well-to-do family but it was always acknowledged the he is their adopted son and they were his adopted parents, not a “real Avery”.

The book follows the tormented life of a gay man in Ireland, as well as a better life in Amsterdam and the United States. At the end of his life Cyril returns to Ireland to find that not a lot has changed.

Goodreads Rating: * * * * *

Author: Emily Gunnis

I’ve been hoping to find another book by this author but when I couldn’t find it I decided to try one of her other books. I was not disappointed. There is so much more going on in this story that the midwife portion took a backseat in my mind. The book revolves around Yew Tree Manor and the rental cottage on the estate, The Vicarage.

In the current day portion of the story a young girl has gone missing from Yew Tree Manor almost fifty years to the day since another young girl went missing and was never found. The family in the Manor have always blamed the family in the Vicarage but is that really the case? In the end, both disappearances are solved and several secrets are revealed.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *