The Boomers Book Club summer 2016

A warm welcome to our book club, summer 2016. We chatted amongst the team here to shed some light on why we Brits love book clubs, amongst the many reasons, the one which resonates is ‘we all love getting lost in a great read’ the book club allows us to share, discuss and review our choices. Winter, spring, summer & autumn our aim is to make a few suggestions we feel we’ll enjoy.

We’d love to hear your feedback and share the reviews in The boomers community, it’ll be fun to vote on a winner each season. If you click on the title and it’ll take you through to the listing on Amazon, there you can choose from paperback or tablet/Kindle (other great book retailers are available Amazon is usually very competitive on price?) Alternatively your local library may be an option.

Happy reading

Jemma

The Girl on the Train

Sunday Times No1 bestseller and thriller of the year

Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She’s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. ‘Jess and Jason’, she calls them. Their life – as she sees it – is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough.

Now everything’s changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she’s only watched from afar.

Rogue Lawyer

‘The best thriller writer alive’ – Ken Follett

Sometimes you have to fight dirty to get clean.

Sebastian Rudd takes the cases no one else wants to take: the drug-addled punk accused of murdering two little girls; a crime lord on death row; a homeowner accused of shooting at a SWAT team.

Rudd believes that every person accused of a crime is entitled to a fair trial – even if he has to cheat to get one. He antagonises people from both sides of the law: his last office was firebombed, either by drug dealers or cops. He doesn’t know or care which.

But things are about to get even more complicated for Sebastian. Arch Swanger is the prime suspect in the abduction and presumed murder of 21-year-old Jiliana Kemp, the daughter of the assistant chief of police. When Swanger asks Sebastian to represent him, he lets Sebastian in on a terrible secret . . . one that will threaten everything Sebastian holds dear.

According to Yes

Dawn French, number one bestselling author of A Tiny Bit Marvellous and Oh Dear Silvia, returns with her joyously funny new novel, According To Yes.

The Foreign Land of the Very Wealthy – otherwise known as Manhattan’s Upper East Side – has its own rigid code of behaviour. It’s a code strictly adhered to by the Wilder-Bingham family.

Emotional displays – unacceptable.

Unruly behaviour – definitely not welcome.

Fun – no thanks.

This is Glenn Wilder-Bingham’s kingdom. A beautifully displayed impeccably edited fortress of restraint.

So when Rosie Kitto, an eccentric thirty-eight-year-old primary school teacher from England, bounces into their lives with a secret sorrow and a heart as big as the city, nobody realises that she hasn’t read the rule book.

The Little Red Chairs

When a man who calls himself a faith healer arrives in a small, west-coast Irish village, the community is soon under the spell of this charismatic stranger from the Balkans. One woman in particular, Fidelma McBride, becomes enthralled in a fatal attraction that leads to unimaginable consequences.

The Last Act of Love: The Story of My Brother and His Sister

In the summer of 1990, Cathy’s brother Matty was knocked down by a car on the way home from a night out. It was two weeks before his GCSE results, which turned out to be the best in his school. Sitting by his unconscious body in hospital, holding his hand and watching his heartbeat on the monitors, Cathy and her parents willed him to survive. They did not know then that there are many and various fates worse than death.

This is the story of what happened to Cathy and her brother, and the unimaginable decision that she and her parents had to make eight years after the night that changed everything. It’s a story for anyone who has ever watched someone suffer or lost someone they loved or lived through a painful time that left them forever changed. Told with boundless warmth and affection, The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink is a heartbreaking yet uplifting testament to a family’s survival and the price we pay for love.

Sunshine Over Wildflower Cottage

New beginnings, old secrets, and a place to call home: the heartwarming new novel from top five bestseller Milly Johnson

Viv arrives at Wildflower Cottage, a tumbledown animal sanctuary, for the summer. Her job is to help with the admin, but the truth is she is here for something much closer to her heart…
Geraldine runs the Wildflower Cottage sanctuary. She escaped from her past to find happiness here, but now her place of refuge is about to come under threat. Can she keep her history at bay and her future safe?

A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016

A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK

‘Memoirs of a Geisha meets The Piano Teacher, in the best way.’ InStyle

Amaterasu Takahashi has spent her life grieving for her daughter Yuko and grandson Hideo, who were victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

Now a widow living in America, she believes that one man was responsible for her loss; a local doctor who caused an irreparable rift between mother and daughter.

When a man claiming to be Hideo arrives on her doorstep, she is forced to revisit the past; the hurt and humiliation of her early life, the intoxication of a first romance and the realisation that if she had loved her daughter in a different way, she might still be alive today.

Those We Left Behind

A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK

DCI Serena Flanagan is forced to confront a disturbing case from her past: the murder conviction of a 12-year-old-boy who has just been released from prison

DCI Serena Flanagan hasn’t heard the boy’s name in years.

Not since the blood on the wall and the body in the bedroom.

Not since she listened as he confessed to brutally murdering his foster father.

But now Ciaran Devine is out of prison and back in her life. And so is his brother, Thomas – the brother that Flanagan always suspected of hiding something.

When Ciaran’s probation officer comes Flanagan with fresh fears about the Devines, the years of lies begin to unravel, setting a deadly chain of events in motion.

The Girls

** The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller **

California. The summer of 1969. In the dying days of a floundering counter-culture a young girl is unwittingly caught up in unthinkable violence, and a decision made at this moment, on the cusp of adulthood, will shape her life….

‘This book will break your heart and blow your mind.’ Lena Dunham

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll’s Alice has been enchanting children for 150 years. Curious Alice, the bossy White Rabbit, the formidable Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter are among the best-loved, most iconic literary creations of all time.