Friday, March 20, 2020

Could be getting a lot of these

Four Minutes to Save a Life
By Anna Stuart
****
 Charlie has joined a grocery firm as a delivery man. (The time allotted to each customer is four minutes hence the title.) It is obvious he has secrets and guilt from his past but, then again, so do several of his customers. Three of them in particular touch Charlie and, seeing they're all lonely, he brings them together.

All goes swimmingly at first but gradually hidden pains emerge and truths come out. It's a little predictable but still manages to surprise, and the characters are all believable and likeable - well, apart from the nasty one you're not supposed to like.

An easy read that illustrates how easily we can mistake loneliness for other things.


Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves
By Rachel Malik
****

The previous Miss Hargreaves I read about recently was doubly fictional in that she'd been made up by a character in a novel; the Miss Hargreaves in this book is a real character in a work of fiction.

Miss Hargreaves comes to work as a land girl for Miss Boston, and from that their friendship develops. Wonderfully descriptive of life on a tiny farm during the war, it's a poignant and beautiful love story that turns into a court-room drama.

The story of how the author did her research can be found here.

And both books have happy endings!

1 comment:

Debra She Who Seeks said...

The second one intrigues me!