Friday 30 March 2018

Review: The Pharmacist's Wife by Vanessa Tait


This book was nothing like I was expecting, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless.

Rebecca is 28 and newly married to a chemist who has just opened a new pharmacy in Victorian England and is experimenting with creating new drugs. One thing leads to another and he ends up creating heroin, which he then begins 'treating' her 'female hysteria' with. Through drug-addled days and nights, Rebecca discovers that her husband is not the Victorian gentleman that everyone thinks him to be, and so she sets out to overcome her heroin addiction and bring him down once and for all.

I really enjoyed Rebecca's character development. As a young woman she fell in love with a childhood friend, who moved to Egypt for his work and never came back, and so she married Alexander and became the timid Victorian wife. However, as she discovers her husband's secret life, she comes back into her own and the story ends with her finally becoming an independent woman.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and would definitely recommend it.

Thursday 29 March 2018

Review: Her Mother's Daughter by Alice Fitzgerald


I don't really know how I feel about this book. I keep going back and forth as to whether I enjoyed it or not, but ultimately I keep landing on the same conclusion: it wasn't really for me.

We flick back and forth between two time periods: 1980, when Josephine is leaving her less-than-happy family in Ireland for a new life in London, and 1997, when Josephine's daughter Clare is looking forward to going to Ireland and meeting her other grandparents for the first time.

It took me a long while to get into the story, and even when I did, it felt like I was reading it just to finish it, and not because I particularly cared about the story. It also just sort of... ended, without any real conclusion. It wasn't a bad story, it just didn't really appeal to me.

Tuesday 20 March 2018

Review: The First Dance by Catherine Law


I really enjoyed this book. It was different to what I was expecting, but I enjoyed it anyway.

We go back and forth between different time periods in Alexa's life - from her as a young girl, to her as a young woman, and finally ending with her later on in life. After rejecting the proposal of her childhood best friend, Harvey, on her eighteenth birthday, Alexa runs away to become a companion to an older lady. She is searching for love and family, but does not realise exactly what that means until it is almost too late, when her search for both of these things brings her back to her home of Porthdeen, Cornwall.

I loved the three generations ideal that was woven throughout this story, and I also liked how we were able to follow Alexa as she travelled from Cornwall to Venice in order to find her grandmother and learn more about herself. I liked the ending of this book too, since it went full-circle and we end up almost where we started. There's something quite pleasing about that. I would definitely recommend this book - it was a really lovely read.