Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Find this book at your library



Genre - Family


Alice Howland is a fifty year old Harvard Linguistics professor with a successful husband and three adult children. Alice discovers she has early onset Alzheimer’s disease and she begins to lose control of her life. As she struggles with words and memories she feels she is losing the respect of her family and peers. She questions what is really important to her as she learns to accept the inevitable loss of herself. Without language and memory is she still Alice?
This is an engrossing story that is tragically real and makes you worry about everything you have to lose if you lose your mind.

---- Reviewed by Sue, Knox

The lost recipe for happiness by Barbara O’Neal

Find this book at your library

Find more reviews at NoveList

Genre - Love stories

This is a delicious celebration of life, love and food. It is filled with gorgeous descriptions of meals, people and places. Elena Alvarez is the lone survivor of a terrible car accident which takes the lives of four other teenagers. After recovering from her injuries and unable to stay with her family, Elena spends years learning her trade at restaurants around the world and ends up as executive chef at newly opened Aspen restaurant, the Orange Bear. After numerous failed love affairs she may finally have found lasting love with her boss Julian. A touching romance with a taste of magic.


---- Reviewed by Sue, Knox

Jane & Prudence by Barbara Pym

Find this book at your library






Jane & Prudence met & became friends at Oxford. Jane was a tutor & Prudence her student. Now, years later, Jane is a happy but scatty vicar’s wife & Prudence a researcher in London unrequitedly in love with her dull boss. When Jane & her family move to a country parish, she is determined to find a suitable husband for Prudence. Unfortunately, the available men are a selfish widower who adorned his wife’s grave with a huge photo of himself; and a preoccupied MP who would rather complain about his busy life at Westminster than talk to Prudence at a garden party. When a new young man starts work at her office, Prudence looks set to embark on another unsuitable love affair. Barbara Pym’s novels are full of humour & so perceptive about love & relationships.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters

The diary of a provincial lady by E M Delafield

Find this book at your library






This classic comic novel is the story of the Provincial Lady (we never know her name), her husband, Robert, children & servants, living in an English village between the wars. Our heroine has constant run-ins with the obnoxious Lady Boxe who lives at the Big House & is the sort of woman who always knows best. Cook is constantly threatening to hand in her notice, muttering darkly about the freshness of the fish & the vagaries of the Range. Robert spends the evenings falling asleep behind the newspaper. His only contribution to the household is to complain that his breakfast porridge is cold & the toast burnt. The Diary was originally published in a weekly magazine & the entries are in a breathless, witty style as the Lady rushes from one potential disaster to the next.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

Find this book at your library

Read more reviews at NoveList

Genre - Romance


I had seen the movie & loved it, usually the book is better. In this instance the book is soooo much better. It's compelling even though I know the story. It was a beautifully written love story, you can only imagine that the author knew these people. Nicholas Sparks has a way of making you believe that his stories are true & that anything in life is possible if you have love.

I would recommend this book to anyone & look forward to the day my daughters are old enough to read it & enjoy it as I did.

---- Reviewed by Kim, Guest

Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich

Find this book at your library

Read more reviews at NoveList

Genre - Comedy/Mystery


Everyone's favourite female bounty hunter is back in Plum Spooky, a between the numbers novel. I haven't been a big fan of the Plum novels that come between the main series featuring Diesel, but with this one I've seriously changed my mind.

Diesel, a young bounty hunter with some questionable skills and special powers, drops back into Stephanie's life while he's on the trail of his cousin. His search collides with Stephanie's search for her latest FTA with some scary and hilarious results. There's monkeys, mud, rockets, trashed cars, explosions, food fights and the fire farter. Plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.

It's not essential that you've read all of the previous novels. Evanovich is the master of catching you up on the history of the characters.

---- Reviewed by webgurl, Admin