Author: Espach, Alison

This book came to my attention because Pat was doing an online workshop with the author. He mentioned that she had a best-selling novel so I decided to see if I could find it; to my surprise, the library had one available.

Lila and Gary have booked a seaside hotel for their family and friends for a week-long wedding celebration. Recently divorced and depressed, Phoebe has booked the last available room in the hotel where she intends to kill herself. Although the attempt is made it isn’t successful and all of a sudden Phoebe has become an integral part of the wedding plan.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

Author: Slavomir Rawicz

This was a book from Mum and Dad’s shelf and, from the tape outline inside the cover, I assume it came from a book club offering; the brochure itself had been removed. One day we were looking at our book shelves and I came across a couple from Mum and Dad’s collection and pulled them out to read.

The Foreward purports this to be the true account of an escape from a Siberian labour camp, across Siberia, through the Gobi desert and over the Himalayas to safety in India. On looking a bit further online it seems that this may not, in fact, be a true story. Or if it is true it perhaps didn’t happen to the teller of the tale. Either way I enjoyed the read.

As the journey progressed I followed along on a map of Russia. I realized that were I dropped into the middle of nowhere I wouldn’t have a clue which direction I should travel to reach safety and, if I was dropped in another country, I wouldn’t have a clue what countries bordered where I was. Perhaps I need to spend more time learning my geography.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *