Just the other week I found Douglas Kennedy’s “A Special Relationship” and, as usual, just couldn’t put the book down until it was finished. If anyone out there is a mother, they’ll relate to this story. An American journalist wife, who has just settled in the U.K. with her British journalist husband and just given birth to their son, is suddenly betrayed. Her husband tries every trick to take her new born son away using the excuse she’s suffering from a dangerous form of post-natal depression which would endanger their son. This novel has been so thoroughly researched – it makes one feel they are themselves in the wife’s shoes and going through the same traumatic events.
I always look first for a new Douglas Kennedy book in the library or store – but once I found one of his older writings “The Job” from 1998. Ned Allen, a rising “hotshot” in NY advertising thinks he’s got it all figured … but ends up in the fight for his life through his ‘get rich quick’ innocence and falls through the trap well laid out for him by corrupt and bigger fish than himself. Another excellent page-turner that you can’t put down.
Tuscan Rose” is an even bigger and more exciting work by Belinda Alexandra than “White Gardenia” – and is centered in Florence during the Second World War. The heroine, Rosa, and all the life dramas she endures is one you are unlikely to forget … The authoress, Belinda Alexandra is now one of my favourites.
“White Gardenia sweeps across cultures and continents, from the glamorous nightclubs of Shanghai to the harshness of Cold War Soviet Russia in the 1960s, from a desolate island in the Pacific Ocean to a new life in post-war Australia. Both mother and daughter must make sacrifices, but is the price too high? Most importantly of all, will they ever find each other again?
Rich in incident and historical detail, this is a compelling and beautifully written tale about yearning and forgiveness.” Booktopia
Another great read is the multi-million copy International Bestseller: The Seamstress (original in Spanish “El Tiempo Entre Costuras” – The Time Between Seams)
“Set from just before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and through World War II, The Seamstress follows the life of Sira Quiroga, a Spanish seamstress who becomes embroiled in a glamorous and dangerous world far from where she belongs, one filled with the idle rich and politically powerful.
Abandoned by her lover and beset by debt, Sira clings to her gift for sewing and forges a new life as the most sought-after couturiere in Morocco. But her wealthy clients bring more than their business to her tiny studio. Caught up in international conspiracies and obscure secret service missions, Sira discovers the value of loyalty and the price of love.
Set in the haute couture ateliers of Madrid, the bustling souqs of Morocco and the shadowy streets of Lisbon, The Seamstress is filled with richly-drawn characters and fascinating historical figures, including Ramon Serrano Suner, Franco’s right-hand man, and Rosalinda Fox, the woman Winston Churchill praised as influencing the outcome of World War II.”(from book cover)
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