December meeting: Our December book was “You are Here” by David Nicholls. Described as a clean and wholesome romance it is the story of two people, both bruised by past relationships, struggling to re-engage with the world around them, who join friends to walk part of the coast to coast path in the north of England.
It contains some lovely descriptions of the scenery and has a lot of gentle humour. It was an easy read, which half of our members really enjoyed. Others thought it was a bit predictable and superficial. A nice holiday read for some and several of us wanted to read more by the author.
In January we will be discussing “The Red Tent” by Anita Diamant.

October book:The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley.

Described as a romantic, historical, comedic, literary, genre-defying bestseller, a few of our group really enjoyed it.
Unfortunately many of us felt that the author had tried to get too much into one book. The story of the polar explorer was interesting, the insight into her family’s Cambodian identity was fascinating, her exploration of time travel could have worked if there hadn’t been so many flaws in the science and inconsistencies in the plot. The last part of the book was more of an espionage novel, with different parts of the organisation being pitted against each other. It will be interesting to see where her writing career takes her in the future.

Septembers book was The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. 

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett returns home to his younger brother Billy after serving fifteen months in a juvenile facility for involuntary manslaughter. They are getting ready to leave their old life behind and head out to sunny California.But they're not alone. Two runaways from the youth work farm, Duchess and Woolly, have followed Emmett all the way to Nebraska with a plan of their own, one that will take the four of them on an unexpected and fateful journey in the opposite direction - to New York City.
The events that follow are beautifully written, touching, funny and shocking. Most of the group loved this book, although a little long for some and the ending wasn’t what I expected. 

August 2025: Our book for August was “The Outrun” by Amy Liptrot , a well written memoir, starting with her journey into alcohol addiction and finishing with her journey to recovery in nature on a remote Scottish island. Highly rated by some of our readers, some enjoyed the first part more, others liked the depiction of nature in the second part. It certainly painted a beautiful picture of Orkney and I feel will inspire some of our members to visit.

July 2025 This month we read “Dead in Devon” by Stephanie Austin.
Agatha Christie meets Midsomer Murders set in Ashburton, Devon. Well written cozy crime. A good holiday read.

May 2025 There was a mixed reaction to this month book Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano.
It is a family saga, described as a modern day retelling of Little Women. It explores the themes of family, mental illness, childhood trauma, sibling bonds and found family.
A bit of a soap opera but with some interesting twists.

April 2025 This month we read Sarah Winman’s latest novel ‘Still Life’  It moves from 1944 to 1979 and tells the story of Ulysses Temper, a young soldier from the East End who, during World War Two, meets sixty-four-year-old art historian, Evelyn Skinner, a spinster who lives an unconventional life and who is in Italy to help salvage works of art from the devastation of war. Filled with a whole cast of characters - many of whom are not only interesting to read about, but are also rather idiosyncratic (including a somewhat foul-mouthed parrot named Claude) - this is an ambitious and warm-hearted novel, which looks at love and loss and of the value of family and like-minded friends. Some of us felt that it was too long and a little unbelievable. 

March 2025 This month we read “The Marriage Portrait “ by Maggie O’Farrell.
In 1560, fifteen-year-old Lucretia di Cosmo de’ Medici left Florence to begin her married life with Alfonso Il d’Este, Duke of Ferrara. Less than a year later, she would be dead. The official cause of her death was given as ‘putrid fever’, but it was rumoured that she had been murdered by her husband…..
Maggie O’Farrell uses this fact as a basis for her imagining of the story of this marriage.
Most of our readers enjoyed the story which has a twist at the end about which opinion was divided.

Feb 2025 : “All the Broken Places” is the sequel to “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”. Gretel has lived in London for decades, never speaking of her childhood in Nazi Germany as the daughter of a concentration camp commandant. Her life is upended when a new family moves in next door whose circumstances force her to confront her own past.
“All the Broken Places” is a novel about guilt, complicity, and grief, a book that sets out to examine how culpable a young person might be.

Jan 2025 This month we read Educated by Tara Westover. This was a little different in that it is a memoir and not fiction. It tells the story of Tara as a young girl in Idaho in a Mormon family preparing for the End of Days, whose birth was not registered and didn’t go to school, her abuse by several family members both mental and physical, to her eventual success as a student at Trinity College Cambridge. Some of her story has been disputed by the family but the story is a fascinating read and was enjoyed by the majority of our readers.