by Donna Cain
I have enjoyed blogging over the past few years and find it’s a great way to share new recipes, travel and decorating ideas with our Captain Freeman Inn guests and readers. I recently decided that it would be fun to review some of my favorite books on this blog and to create a book shelf at the inn where guests could recycle our reads. I tend to like the old fashion reading experience of having a real book in my hands and passing on our reading material seemed like a fun way to share and recycle. With a new goal of watching less TV and reading more, I had a fun shopping experience with amazon selecting my new reads. When my selections came my husband just laughed at me and commented that these are all “chickbooks” While yes, they may be all more identifiable with woman, one is a historical novel that would appeal to both sexes:) I have always been impressed with our daughter Jenn’s (she’s a teacher) philosophy of reading a classic and then reading an easier “chic” read in between. Very impressive Jenn but for me I am going to stick with the fun reads this time around:)
On to my first review of the Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty. It’s a fun read to enjoy during a holiday as it can be finished in a few evenings. Publisher’s Weekly summarized the plot perfectly:
June 10, 2013 – Australian author Moriarty, in her fifth novel (after The Hypnotist’s Love Story), puts three women in an impossible situation and doesn’t cut them any slack. Cecilia Fitzpatrick lives to be perfect: a perfect marriage, three perfect daughters, and a perfectly organized life. Then she finds a letter from her husband, John-Paul, to be opened only in the event of his death. She opens it anyway, and everything she believed is thrown into doubt. Meanwhile, Tess O’Leary’s husband, Will, and her cousin and best friend, Felicity, confess they’ve fallen in love, so Tess takes her young son, Liam, and goes to Sydney to live with her mother. There she meets up with an old boyfriend, Connor Whitby, while enrolling Liam in St. Angela’s Primary School, where Cecilia is the star mother. Rachel Crowley, the school secretary, believes that Connor, St. Angela’s PE teacher, is the man who, nearly three decades before, got away with murdering her daughter—a daughter for whom she is still grieving. Simultaneously a page-turner and a book one has to put down occasionally to think about and absorb, Moriarty’s novel challenges the reader as well as her characters, but in the best possible way.
© Publishers Weekly
The story line while being sad at times was also very humorous and had me chuckling. This would be a perfect read for a woman’s book club as there was so much to debate and think about. The story line makes one aware of how a single event, which cascades into many mistakes and lies can change peoples lives forever. The writer was able to create great characters, and I was really drawn into their lives.
The book includes a helpful discussion guide which brought up some great thinking topics of further character development and symbolism throughout the book such as why did the author refer to a school project about the Berlin Wall coming down that was a school project of the daughter of the main character.
I decided to create my new little reading book club shelf in the front room of our inn which serves as our winter dining room. It seems fitting as that room was the Ladies Library for Mrs. Freeman.
What a great idea, I too would rather hold a book in hand than e books or watching tv.