MellowDrama

All reader everywhere probably are aware of Tayari Jones' name whether or not they might have read her books or not. Her novel American Marriage won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2019. Silver Sparrow is her first UK publication since American Marriage, being brought out by Oneworld Publishers. Silver Sparrow tells the tale of two sisters, rather secret sisters Dana and Chaurisse. Set in Atlanta in the 1980s and 90s, it takes us into the secrets and doings of the two families of Jams Witherspoon junior. The book is told from the point of view of the two girls and begins with perspective of the secret daughter Dana giving us her side of the story and introducing us to the characters involved in her life- her mother, grandfather, teachers, boyfriends. The second half is the story of Chaurisee and characters that shape her. Another central character is their father's friend Raleigh who quietly plays a role in propelling and maintaining the story of all these varied char...

A psychological thriller Only Lies Remain by Val Collins is a ride which you wouldn't want to get off in a hurry that is once you have got used to the pace. It took me some time to warm up to Aoife's story but boy, once I did, it wouldn't le go of me easily. Aoife is looking for a job, her estranged husband has showed up at her door telling her that he wants to improve his relation with his daughter and wants to give their marriage another chance, not caring much whether Aoife wants it or not. Maura, her mother-in-law is suspected of killing her father-in-law whose dead body has just been discovered after years since his disappearance. The characters are well developed and seem to be full of surprises as much as people are in real life. For example Aoife seems like someone who can be easily pushed around but eventually her character progresses through trials and tribulations and she develops into someone who is strong and can hold her own in the face of adversity. ...

How Selfish! is a soon-to-be-released word and picture book by Clare Helen Welsh and Olivier Tallec, published by Quarto Publishing Group. The book tells the story about a Duck and her friend Dot. Duck finds a stick but Dot makes away with it. duck tries to get the stick back from Dot but ends up losing all the other toys to her as well. And Dot though now has things, she learns a most difficult lesson about friendship and sharing. Beautifully illustrated and with excellent (and minimal) writing this book catches attention and manages to deliver an important message , teaching children not to be selfish. The quirky illustrations are not your run of the mill ones. They capture the child's imagination. I read the book with my 5 year old and after we were done, he went back to it to just look at the pictures. Quarto publishes fantastic books for the younger audience and I am a big fan of their Little People, Big DREAMS series which bring to life various world leaders for smaller...

I am a reader of course but I since I began my second innings as a reader I have mostly been hooked to mysteries, thrillers and crime novels. In between, I have often found that up comes a book- sometimes a non-fiction, a classic, a children's book or any other -that just blows me away. And today if I were to typify the book that I am going to be taking about then I would put it in league with my two other favourites from the similar feeling genre- Colleen Hoover's It Ends With Us  and Vibha batra's Glitter and Gloss . Rebecca Serle's In Five Years, isn't really a book that I can put in a particular genre. I might have called it a romance because love runs all along the book as a theme but so does friendship and sisterhood so maybe, women' fiction but then well there are elements of a mystery too in the early pages. So you see my problem and also why I absolutely adored this book and you might too. In Five Years is the story of an up and coming lawyer Danni...

What would you think of a book that is set up in a retirement village and features a heroine who is well past her prime? Meet Clemmie or Helen who will dispense all your preconceived notions about who can do what and at what age. Helen had a tragic past and to escape it she changes everything about herself and her life. She chooses to become Clementine and we meet her at a retirement village called Sun City where she is now living in her old age. She has keys to the house of her next door neighbour Dom- for emergencies. Not having seen him for a day or so,Clemmie goes to investigate about his welfare. She finds the villa almost as if no one has ever lived in there and also finds a glass dragon whose picture she clicks on her phone and shares with her nephew. And like they say all hell breaks loose. The glass piece apparently belongs to a drug dealer who will go to any length to get it back. As he arrives in Sun City, we begin too know more about Clemmie's past- how she was rap...

I Could Be You by Sheila Bugler is a taut thriller that is not only good because of the storyline but is different than many others because of the heroine- an investigative journalist. The book opens with her, Dee Doran, finding a dead woman who has been hit by a car, lying on the road outside her home. The dead woman is her tenant Katie but her two-year-old son Jake can't be found though his upturned buggy is also lying around twisted and bent near to Katie. Fearing the worst, Dee being her search for the child. After the matter is taken up by the local police, Dee realises that the woman that she had identified as her tenant Katie is someone else and Katie had been living under someone else's identify. Gradually Dee's journalistic instincts that have been lying dormant for a while since she quit active journalism to come back to her childhood home to look after her ailing mother, kick in ferociously. She begins to look at various leads in an attempt to find out the w...