Author: Annie Lyons

Eudora is an eight-five year old who is feeling her age. She hasn’t had an easy life and she finds herself without friends or family. Her beloved father was killed in the war and she had a difficult relationship with her mother and younger sister. She’s been unlucky in love a couple of times and all she wants to do is die with dignity. So she approaches a clinic in Switzerland that will help her with a voluntary assisted death.

But will she be accepted? And will her new neighbours convince her to change her plan?

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

Author: José Saramago

I’ve always enjoyed books by this author but I had a hard time getting through this one. I was averaging about a chapter a night (although the book isn’t actually divided by chapters) and not getting very far into it. I had a chance today to spend a few hours reading and I have to admit I enjoyed it more today than I did before. The author has a very particular way of writing, and often more than one characters is speaking in the same very long sentence. I mentioned to Pat that I thought I might have enjoyed an audio version of the book.

In the story the Iberian Peninsula has split apart from Europe and is floating in the Atlantic Ocean. As scientists and governments try to figure out how this happened tourists and the wealthy begin fleeing the area. When it appears that this new island is going to crash into the Azores the residents along the ocean front begin to flee inland to avoid the impending disaster.

Four people had strange experiences at the time of the separation. One is followed by a swarm of starlings, and one threw a stone into the ocean that turned out to be a rock so large it seemed impossible that he could have even lifted it. A third man could feel the ground trembling beneath his feet and one woman drew a line in the dirt with a stick and no matter what was done the line would not disappear. They all meet during the story and are led to a fifth person by a dog who cannot bark but clearly expects the group to follow him.

Strange? Yes, but somehow it is entertaining rather than weird.

Goodreads Rating: * * *

Author: Lisa Jewell

I’ve read two other books by this author and both were quite different from this one.

The story revolves around the Fours family – Roan, who is a child psychologist, Cate, who is a physiotherapist, and their two children. Owen Pick, an odd man in his thirties, lives across the street. The other main character is Saffyre who is a former patient of Roan. The characters are connected through assaults that are happening in the neighbourhood where the Fours family and Owen Pick live.

It was an ending I neither expected or even came close to guessing.

Goodreads Rating: * * *

Author: Chris Cleave

This whole book is one long letter to Osama bin Laden written by a woman whose husband and four-year old son were killed in a terrorist attack at a football stadium. Although the bombing in the book is a figment of the author’s imagination in a twist of fate the book was published on the same day as three very real bombs exploded in the London subway.

The narrator (I don’t think we ever really find out her name) begins by telling Osama how hard her life has been since the loss of her family. As she seems to be pulling herself up out of her depression she takes a job with the London police – the same bomb squad as her husband worked for. A confession from a lover sends her into another downward spiral toward madness.

Goodreads Rating: * * *