pages: 300  published: 2009

Two couples meet for dinner at a fancy restaurant. The husbands are brothers. One is a school teacher who has been put on an indefinite sick leave, the other is set to be the next prime minister of The Netherlands. Relationships are cordial at the best of times, but tonight differences need to be set aside to discuss an important topic: the two couple's sons, who have committed a crime which can no longer be ignored.

What a very strange book. It left me with a most bizarre and uncomfortable feeling. I didn't particularly enjoy the book but I kept on reading because I was curious to get to the bottom of what the crime committed by the boys was, and how the parents were going to deal with it. Things definitely did not turn out the way I had expected, which I always enjoy when reading a book, nothing worse than an obvious ending that you can smell straight from chapter 2 or 3. But in this case, the turnout left me feeling very troubled. I'm unsure what point the author is trying to make. Does he agree with the main character's view? Or is this a way for him to criticise certain members of society? What will happen next? I felt the ending to be quite a cliffhanger, up to the reader to make up his/her mind on the issue and to imagine what the consequences will be I guess.

pages: 549 published: 1994

Sully is a sixty-odd years trady; divorced; estranged from his grown-up son; who rents a room in a nice old lady's house. Old lady who happens to be his ex-high school English teacher. Sully lives life on a day-to-day basis, whithout much a care about anything or anyone. As things start to go more and more awry in his life however, some of the unexpected will start to resound in him and start to make him more aware of the people around him and the impact he has on their lives.

I quite enjoyed this book, although a little long at times. It is well written and the evolution of the main character is credible.

pages: 318  published: 2012

 More crazy stories of the strange life lead by Jenny Lawson. She has a knack for telling stories, and somehow her life seems to attract all sorts of weird stuff.

pages: 320  published: 2004

 In the second novel of the Maisie Dobbs series, Maisie is hired by a successful businessman to find his missing daughter. This is not the first time his daughter has left home and Maisie feels that there is a deep conflict between father and daughter that needs to be fixed. She sets the condition that the father must be willing to speak with his daughter and really hear her out, if Maisie is to bring her home. But on her quest to find the missing girl, Maisie stumbles upon some unlikely coincidental deaths. Maybe her missing person is in danger after all.

pages: 344  published: 2006

Gerald Candless is a writer. He's had a number of best-sellers in the past although his latest books did not have the success he would have hoped for. When he dies unexpectedly, his publisher approaches his daughters Sarah and Hope to write a biography on their father. Hope doesn't feel up to the task but Sarah decides to take on the job. However, soon after starting her research for her book, Sarah discovers that her father was not entirely who he claimed to be: according to records, and his family, Gerald Candless was 5 years old when he died of meningitis. 

Pages: 159 Published: 2015

So this book totally falls under the "teenager literature" category. It is the first of a series called, wait for it... Never never. Not much happens in this first book, two teengagers get a black-out in the middle of the day at school, at the same time, and "wake up" without any memory of who they are or where they are. Their whole past has been erased. Being in the middle of a school day, they do the best they can to blend in and act normal. They find out that they are a couple and then realise that both are experiencing the same "issue". As it turns out there is some kind of Romeo and Juliet theme as both of their families seem fairly upset to see them spending time together. 

pages:  252  published: 2014

 This is the story of Rebecca Winter, an ageing photographer. At the height of her career, she was a world-renown name but nowadays people don't recognise her name or if they do it's because their parents were "big fans". Rebecca is struggling to make ends meet, and this leads her to move to a derelict cottage in a small town while renting out her high-profile New York appartment. This year "out of her life" will force her to reflect on her past work and find inspiration for new work. 

I'm an amateur photographer, and this boook really made me want to go out there and find inspiration to make beautiful shots. The only little negative thing I can say is that I didn't expect the story to have a romantic twist to it, I felt that it could have done without it. It wasn't overly cheesy, so it didn't kill the enjoyment I got out of the book, but I feel that the book could have been just as good, if not more focused on the photography theme, without romantic feelings being involved.

pages: 432  published: 2012

Two stories run in parallel in this book: the oddly coincidental death of all 4 members of an English rock band in the 1960s; and the life of a scruffy looking man who is suffering from "locked-in"syndrome after a hit in run in Brussels in 2010. There is a link between these two stories and as the story unfolds, the information gathered by the reader starts to add up.

Had I started this book on a weekend, I could probably have read it in one long sitting. As it was, I started this book on a weekday so had to take breaks to work, but nevertheless I still gobbled it up in about 2 days time. 

pages: 390  published: 2011

 This is a book about star crossed lovers. In the 1960s, Jennifer Stirling wakes up from a coma after a horrible car crash suffering from amnesia. Her family remains very vague on the circumstances of the accident and very little information in general is given to her on her life. She is expected to slip back into it without making a fuss. Hard as she may try, she feels a disconnect and something feels broken between her and her husband. Things start to make sense when Jennifer stumbles upon a lover letter hidden in her personal belongings, signed simply "B". In 2013, a young journalist named Ellie finds this very same letter in the archives of her newspaper, and decides to investigate.

 I would have given this book an extra star if the story line of Ellie hadn't been such a cliche of "lucky coincidences" and "happy ending" chick lit. The main storyline of the story, Jennier and Bs' story, is much more authentic.

Pages: 303  Published: 2015

Jacob Kelley is in prison, awaiting trial for the murder of a lifelong friend of his. But Jacob Kelley is also in a safe house, hiding from the police. How can one person be in two places at the same time? It's not magic, it's not aliens, it's quantum physics messing with Newtonian physics.

What a weird and bizarre storyline! I found this book to be pretty unique and special. I loved the idea of applying quantum-physics laws to our world. Afterall, there is still so much we don't understand and so much for us to discover, this story has the potential of coming true. A great read for a book club, this can lead to some interesting scientific and philosophical debates.