Claire McGowan

Suzi is a young married woman who is pregnant. She suspects her husband Nick is having an affair when she's the one that had an affair. When Suzi became pregnant, they moved out of London to a remote location with only a few houses nearby. Suddenly, Nora moves in across the street from them. Nora is a widow whose husband had recently passed away. The unlikely pair become friends and Suzi starts thinking she is losing her mind because strange things keep happening at her house.

There are a lot of characters in this book and several twists. I had figured out one part of it but did not anticipate the ending. The book definitely could have continued as there was a storyline there but it wouldn't be necessary to continue.… (altro)

Thank you to Amazon Publishing and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This tells the story of 6 couples that all attended the same prenatal baby group. A few weeks after the last baby was born, one of the attendees hosted a gathering at their home for everyone to reconnect. Someone died at the party. Was it an accident and did they fall off the balcony or were they pushed? Everyone at the party says they saw "nothing".

Alison, who is suffering through her own issues with fertility, is the detective called in to investigate.

Told in alternating points of view, the story unfolds between a few weeks prior to the "event", the day of and afterward. Some of the couples get along with others do not. I did not particularly care for the characters (with the exception of Alison) - they all seemed to be full of themselves and none of them felt terrible about lying to the police about what they saw that day. There are addiction issues with some of the couples and one couple has a significant age difference between them.

The police procedural part was well done, but I had figured it out well before we got to the end but I wanted to finish the book.… (altro)

This is a novel that proves even though the topics are heavy, this story is heartwarming, unforgettable, and leaves you feeling joyful.

Meet two women in their mid-thirties, who couldn’t be more different. Polly is outgoing, impetuous, and makes friends with everyone. Annie is quiet, insecure, and self-critical. She’s been through some terrible things: divorce, bereavement, and a parent who left when she was a baby. They meet in the hospital where Annie is visiting her mother, who has dementia. And Polly is dying of cancer.

The catalyst for the story is Polly’s big experiment to do one happy thing each day for one hundred days, the amount of days the doctors have said she has left to live. As she tells Annie, “I want to know if it’s possible to make yourself happy, even when things really, really suck. I need to know death can have some meaning. Like it isn’t all just totally random bad luck. I’m hoping that ‘Happy’ is a state of mind. I wanted to be angry, and miserable, and impatient…like you, my dearest Annie. But I have so little time left. I wondered what would happen if I just didn’t. If I just made myself be happy, despite everything.”

In spite of her reluctance, Annie agrees to Polly’s experiment, explaining to one of the doctors, “Life is too short for any of us not to be happy. She just thinks we’re all wasting our lives, being unhappy, when we could be happy. I know it’s not as simple as that, but there you go.”

Polly took most people’s worst nightmare – a diagnosis of terminal cancer – and turned it into a chance to be joyful, and productive, and change her own life, but even more than that, other people’s lives, and one of those people was Annie.

In the author’s note, she says, “I realized that doing happy things did make me feel better. So I think it is possible to find happiness and hope again, even in the darkest days. There are always good things in the world. I hope that, if you are going through a tough time, you might be able to find the same hope that Annie does.” Although I enjoyed the book, I was disappointed that despite the topics of hope and death, the author makes no mention of faith, God, or eternity.

This would make a great book club read. Discussion questions are included.… (altro)