The Correspondent
Virginia Evans
When I requested this debut novel through the interlibrary loan system, I was something like 85th on the waiting list! Obviously, like me, many others had read the positive reviews and were eager to get their hands on it. While I waited and my name slowly climbed up the list, I wondered if I would actually enjoy it. Could an epistolary novel, one written entirely in letters and emails, truly tell an engaging story or would it be a disappointment?
The day finally came when the the library called to tell me that the book was in and once I started reading it, I had a very hard time putting it down! The more I read, the more I loved it! In fact, I read most of it in one day. As my usual bedtime approached, it was easy to tell myself that I’d read just one more letter. Of course, one letter became two and two became three. After several more letters, wisdom finally prevailed. I reluctantly put the book down and went to bed, but I eagerly picked it up and finished it the next morning.
Sybil Van Antwerp is a mother, a grandmother, a divorcee, and a retired lawyer who lives alone. When the book opens, she, like me, is in her early seventies. She has always been an avid letter writer, feeling that she can express herself better through the written word than orally. She regularly writes to her brother, Felix, her best friend, Rosalie, and her daughter, Fiona, but she also writes to her neighbour, her eye doctor, a customer service representative, and the dean of a university faculty who won’t let her audit a class she desperately wants to take. She even writes to her favourite authors to tell them what she thinks of their latest books. Through the letters that she writes and the responses that she receives, we learn a great deal about her life both past and present. We learn about her losses, her regrets, her fears, and the struggles that come with aging, but we also see kindness and generosity. In other words, Sybil comes across as a real, imperfect person just like the rest of us.
This is definitely a book that was worth waiting for!
Divorced for more than two decades, Yannick and Kathleen have not seen or spoken to one another for nineteen years when they receive the news that human remains have been unearthed on Vancouver Island. Could this be their daughter, Una, who disappeared without a trace over twenty years earlier? This unimaginable shared loss brings them together for a cross-Canada trip from Ontario all the way to the Pacific Coast.
When a friend recommended this historical novel I was immediately intrigued because the setting is a very familiar one. The story takes place near the location of present-day Clive, Alberta, about an hour and a half by car from where I live! The action begins in 1905 with Scottish newcomer, Flora Craigie, jumping from a moving train to escape a disastrous marriage. Depending on where you live, 1905 might seem like fairly recent history, but this was brand new country at that time. The town where I live was established as a Canadian Pacific Railway townsite in 1906 and incorporated as a village in March 1907.
Buying a Piece of Paris is a charming memoir about the Australian author’s humorous and challenging quest to find and purchase an apartment in Paris. With only two weeks to locate and secure the apartment of her dreams, something exuding character and Parisian chic, Ellie embarks on what seems an almost impossible pursuit. Armed with only a cursory grasp of the language, she finds herself trying to navigate the bewildering French real estate market with its unique customs, quirky agents, and unexpected cultural hurdles. All in all, a very entertaining read and especially so since, although I’ve only spent five days in Paris, I could visualize many of the places that she mentioned and the kind of buildings she visited in her frantic and sometimes hilarious search for the perfect place to call home.
After moving with her husband to the tiny, bustling city of Macau, across the Pearl River delta from Hong Kong, Grace Miller finds herself a stranger in a very foreign land. Facing the devastating news of her infertility and a marriage in crisis, Grace resolves to do something bold, something that her impetuous mother might have done. Turning to her love of baking, she opens Lillian’s, a café specializing in coffee, tea, and delicate French macarons. In this story of love, friendship, and renewal, Lillian’s quickly becomes a sanctuary where women from different cultural backgrounds come together to support one another.
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In this international bestseller, renowned mental health expert and speaker, Dr. Gabor Maté, provides insight into the critical role that stress and emotions play in the development of many common diseases.
At seven years old, Suzanne Heywood set sail from England with her parents and younger brother on what was supposed to be a three-year trip around the world retracing one of Captain Cook’s voyages. What followed was a decade of isolation on a 70-foot sailboat crossing some of the world’s most dangerous oceans and surviving horrendous storms, shipwrecks, and reefs. What sounded like the romantic adventure of a lifetime became a child’s worst nightmare “trapped inside someone else’s dream”.
The book opens with an elderly Jewish woman sitting in the elegant dining room of a posh hotel on the French Riviera. Suddenly and quite seamlessly it transitions to the dark Ghetto of Kraków, Poland during World War II and I was hooked!
Following Augustine 