Everybody has a
weakness! And some have more than one! I happen to be a member of the
latter group. One of my many achilles heels is
books.
I love to read. And if a
book is really good, I have been known to read it more than once,
sometimes even more than twice!!
The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets
by Eva Rice (2005)
This is a quirky,
retro-inspired
novel about growing up in post-war England, falling in love, living in a
great big tumbling-down house named Magna, and finally...you guessed
it! Keeping secrets!
With an array of delightfully eccentric characters,
from a beautiful but lonely young war widow, some
impetuous, scatty socialites, and a magician, to a
dashing Hollywood producer, I wished I'd known all of them
personally.
Perfect for when you need something light (but not
fluffy), optimistic, and enjoyable to read. It's Molly Keane's classic
Good
Behaviour meets Bridget
Jones's Diary, if Bridget Jones was eighteen
and living in 1954, and er, named Penelope. ****
How To Talk To A Widower
Jonathan
Tropper (2007)
Doug Parker is a young, handsome widower. He lost his beautiful wife Haley (ten years his senior) in a plane crash just over a year ago and he's still miserable. But life is carrying on around him nonetheless. Doug's angry stepson Russ has fallen in with a bad crowd. His twin sister Claire is single and pregnant and his little sister Debbie is about to get married.
Slowly but surely he gets dragged back into the
world of the living and the crazy world of dating (New York style). Doug
is like your best guy friend, the kind of man you just want to hug and
lead by the hand because he's constantly getting himself into trouble,
i.e. getting into random arguments in his front garden and having
jealous husbands run after him.
This novel is one part melancholic prose, one part Hollywood plot-iness, and two parts mirthful craziness. Think Ethan Hawke's'Ash
Wednesday with a dash of Sex
And The City(read Carrie Bradshaw is suddenly a man). I've read it twice. ***
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