Such a delightful cozy romance. Love is slowly building for two people with terrible childhoods. She was abandoned at birth and lived in foster homes. No one adopted her because of a pre-existing heart condition. Her love of astronomy carried her along through life. He lived hand to foot with a vagrant father, never having a real home or any security. Trust was absent for him until they met and love grew.
A lovely and touching story of love, of change, and of a second chance. The characters of Billie, Mick, Phoebe, and Dean are carefully crafted to relay their emotions and personalities, struggles and acceptance. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel.
Strange Bedfellows is a very strange and weird novel. There is a cat who changes to a girl and back as the familiar for a guy who is clueless but ardent. Then, there is a witch and her dog familiar (a guy) that shows up and everything goes haywire. A lot of spicy stuff and it feels really weird when it is the dog as a man and the cat woman. The story was a little too strange for me.
Stories that enchant you and bring you into a place where magic abounds are so fun to read. This is Ms. Allen’s specialty and Paper Ghosts does not disappoint. Occurrences of ghosts, deep disappointments, hidden secrets, and backstabbing friends unite to create a tale of love and loss, of the chance to rectify errors. Another terrific novel to enjoy.
This novel-oh my goodness. It is so emotional and heart hitting. The relationships are well defined and very deep. The mistakes of a father, long grieving his wife, unable to be a relatable father-loving his son but not knowing how. Nori and Sophie-friends since young, understanding each other yet not. I cried most of the way through the novel because of the heartache of the story and of the many missing chances. It was a good cry from feeling the story. Excellent novel.
I found this novel to be very sad and borderline depressing. The life of Paulette is fraught with bad decisions and heartache. She carries grief for years from the accidental death of her married lover, has a baby with his best friend, and lives her life moving from one mistake to another. Her treatment as a Black woman in 1970’s England is reflective of the racism of the age and the hardness of life in a predominantly white area. The last chapter was a tearjerker.
