It has been one month since we launched our ‘Parra Reads Online Book Club’. Thank you to everyone who is participating and ‘Reading Together’.
I managed to finish both of our April titles, ‘Alice to Prague’ and ‘The Mother-in-Law’. You can read my review here.
The titles our ‘Parra Reads’ group, painstakingly debated over and finally agreed upon are….’The Sunday Story Club’ by Doris Brett & Kerry Cue &The Nowhere Child’ by Christian White.
Written by Doris Brett & Kerry Cue
Published by Pan Macmillan in June 2019.
Available in eBook & eAudiobook from our BorrowBox Library! Download the FREE BorrowBox Library App from the App Store or Goggle Play and start ‘Reading Together’.
Summary
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cry. But the salons have given me the opportunity to look back and think about my life…I don’t talk to anyone about these feelings outside of the salon.’
We all carry stories within us – wrenching, redemptive, extraordinary, and laced with unexpected and hard-won wisdom.
These are the real-life stories that a group of women tell each other when they gather for a deep and structured conversation – once a month in a suburban living room – about the things that really matter.
They discover that life can be a heartbeat away from chaos; that bad things happen to good people; that good people do outrageous things; that the desire for transformation is enduringly human.
A mother tells of the heartbreaking loss of control when her daughter develops anorexia. A sister reveals the high psychological cost of being hated by a sibling over the course of her life. Husbands leave wives; wives take lovers; friendships shatter; wrong choices turn out to be right ones; agency is lost and re-claimed.
Profound, layered and clear-sighted, this collection of real-life stories reveals the emotional untidiness that lies below the shiny surface of modern life and reminds us of the power of real conversation to enlighten, heal and transform.
Written by Christian White
Published by Affirm Press, June 2018
Available in eBook from our BorrowBox Library & as eAudiobook from rbDigital. Download the FREE BorrowBox & rbDigital Apps from the App Store or Goggle Play and start ‘Reading Together’.
Summary
‘Her name is Sammy Went. This photo was taken on her second birthday. Three days later she was gone.’
On a break between teaching photography classes in Melbourne, Kim Leamy is approached by a stranger investigating the disappearance of a little girl from her Kentucky home twenty-eight years earlier. He believes Kim is that girl.
At first she brushes it off, but when Kim scratches the surface of her family history in Australia, questions arise that aren’t easily answered. To find the truth, she must travel to Sammy’s home of Manson, Kentucky, and into a dark past. As the mystery of Sammy’s disappearance unravels and the town’s secrets are revealed, this superb novel builds towards an electrifying climax.