Author: Liane Moriarty

I was about a quarter of the way through the book before I really started liking the characters. After an accident at the gym, Alice has lost ten years of her memory; she thinks she is married and pregnant with her first child when in fact she is divorcing her husband and she has three children.

It was most enjoyable as Alice began remembering snippets of her life; the comparison with what Alice assumes to be true and what is actually true lead to some fun moments.

The story also has snippets of a journal that Alice’s sister, Elisabeth, is writing at the request of her therapist. The letters that Alice’s “adopted” grandmother, Frannie, is writing to her dead fiancé are also included. I’m not sure why these appear in the story, but they are a good diversion.

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Author: Emma Salisbury

Another one from my iPad collection.

A pregnant mother kills her son and then hangs herself. A man, after a night out with his family, is murdered on their way home. The detectives on the case struggle to understand the first case and unravel the circumstances of the second, only to find a link between the two.

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Author: Florence Osmund

I read this on my iPad during a recent trip to Calgary.

A young woman uses her Private Investigator’s license and training to find the real story behind her parents and the secrets they kept.

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Author: Nancy Richler

While we were in Courtenay/Comox I had a chance to visit one of my favourite thrift stores – they always have a good selection of books. I don’t believe I’d heard of this book but it was a finalist for the 2012 Giller Prize so already a winner in my mind.

Lily arrives in Montreal via Palestine only to be rejected by the man she intended to marry; stepping up to fill the gap is Sol’s brother Nathan. Ruth is the daughter of this marriage but her mother deserts her and her family when Ruth is only a few months old. The book tells not only the story of Ruth as she grows up, but also the back story of her mother.

I was afraid the book would leave me hanging for the details of why Lily abandoned her new-found family but all the loose ends were tied up nicely.

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