Fiction

Book of the month – December 2025

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Early in December, I was looking for something light and entertaining to read when I came across two books that fit the bill. The fact that both are set in locations that I’ve had the privilege of visiting added to the fun. Since I couldn’t decide which one to review this month, I decided to share them both.

Buying a Piece of Paris: The Home of My Dreams in the City of Lights

Ellie Nielsen

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.

A couple of Paris street scenes from our visit in 2019…

The Colour of Tea

Hannah Tunnicliffe

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.

I could easily visualize Grace’s café on a street like this, one of the many that we walked down during our one day visit to Macau in 2009.

Book of the month – July 2024

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Crossing Oceans

Gina Holmes

9781414333052At the outset, Gina Holmes’ Crossing Oceans reminded me of a sappy Christmas movie. You know the ones… after several years away, beautiful young woman returns to her quaint mid American hometown where she encounters sweet, kindhearted, and inexplicably single man from her past who sweeps her off her feet and solves all her problems.

I was okay with that. Having just finished reading the memoir of an esteemed Chinese professor who lived through the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, I was ready for some fluff; some light summer reading.  

Crossing Oceans surprised me. First of all, I didn’t realize that it was a Christian novel. Had I known that, I might not have picked it up. As strange as it might sound, considering the fact that I’m a committed follower of Christ, I read very few Christian novels. Although there are exceptions, too many of them are unrealistic, happy ever after romances somewhat on par with those mushy Christmas movies. While the main characters in Holmes’ novel are professing Christians, it isn’t preachy. They are far from perfect, and their problems aren’t swept away because they believe in God. 

When Jenny Lucas left home, single and pregnant, she promised herself that she’d never look back. Six years later, knowing that she’s dying of cancer, Jenny returns to the sleepy North Carolina town where she grew up to decide who will raise her little girl when she is gone. Will it be her father with whom she has had a difficult relationship since the death of her own mother when she was a teen? Or will she choose Isabella’s dad who doesn’t even know that he has a daughter? Animosity between the two families adds to her dilemma. Can they put aside their differences and help both Jenny and Isabella face what lies ahead? 

This is a sad story, but not a depressing one. It’s a poignant story of love and loss, but also forgiveness and healing. Jenny faces her situation with determination, courage, stoicism, and even a sense of humour. As I neared the end, I couldn’t help wondering how the story could possibly end in a satisfying manner, but without giving anything away, I’ll simply tell you that I wasn’t disappointed.

Book of the month – June 2024

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Cutting for Stone

Abraham Verghese

cutting-for-stoneFrom India to Ethiopia to America, Cutting for Stone, is an epic story that captured my attention and held it for the entire 658 pages! Although it’s a work of fiction, it reads more like a memoir.

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin boys born in a mission hospital in Addis Ababa to a nursing nun from India who dies in childbirth and a British surgeon who disappears immediately after their birth. Raised on the hospital compound by two Indian doctors, the boys grow up with a love for medicine and though their pathways are very different, both eventually become doctors.

This emotional and complex family drama combines elements of Indian and Ethiopian culture, coming of age, third world medicine, political revolution, and emigration. It’s a tale of abandonment, betrayal, loss, loneliness, love, lust, envy, friendship, disease, poverty, education, and so much more. Most of all it’s a story about home, family, and belonging.

The author, Abraham Verghese, is a physician, a professor, and Vice Chair of Education at Stanford University Medical School. Born of Indian parents who were teachers in Ethiopia, he grew up near Addis Ababa and began his medical training there before emigrating to the United States. I’m always amazed when a doctor has time to write anything other than medical papers and reports, but Verghese has authored four best-selling books; two memoirs and two novels.

Cutting for Stone contains a lot of medical detail. Other than what I’ve learned as a patient, I have no medical background or knowledge, but I found that aspect of the story quite fascinating. Verghese has a gift for describing medical procedures in such a way that they are interesting, easily understood, and while sometimes quite graphic, not gross at all.

I tend to agree with the Goodreads reviewer who wrote, “It is statistically improbable that I will read a book as good as this one anytime soon.”