Friday 20 December 2019

Katrina's Top Ten Reads of 2019


Aūe by Becky Manawatu
The Bone People meets Once Were Warriors meets the movie Boy.  Read late into the night with this one; confronting, touching and gripping.

A sadly believable distopian near-future.  Young people must spend two years patrolling the wall around the coast of Great Britain to keep out the 'others', or be cast out themselves.

Set in Norway, the Shetland Islands and France's Western Front.  The story of two brothers on opposing sides during WW2 and how their young grandson/great nephew unravels past family secrets.  Beautiful and absorbing, I loved it.

Set in the marshes of North Carolina between the 1950's and 1970's: an abandoned girl grows up studying the nature around her.  As a young woman she has two relationships, and when one of the young men is found dead she is a suspect. Read it before it is made into a movie.

A brother and sister live away from their elderly father and employ a live-in carer.  The carer gets  on so well with their father that they become concerned about her motives.  A juicy plot twist midway through that I did not see coming, this book is food for thought for an aging population.

Biography about a 50 year old couple who lose their farm in a court case and at the same time discover the husband has a terminal illness.  They decide on an impulse to walk the 650 mile coastal path around Devon and Cornwall.

In an alternative 1980's England Allen Turing is still alive and his research is used to make humanoid robots.  A young man buys an 'Adam' but makes the mistake of letting his girlfriend programme him.

You will be off buying copious quantity of baking soda and vinegar after reading this - home remedies and Wendly's amusing descriptions of spending a year living like her grandmother. A stylish update of three previous books.

Delightfully darkly humourous - two sisters in Nigeria. The beautiful vacuous sister takes a knife on every date, the practical loyal sister cleans up afterwards. 

A lovely gentle story about a young man who goes on a walking trip before he starts work in the mines of Northern England after WW2, He comes across a lovely cottage in a beautiful bay -  inhabited by a wise and unusual woman with whom he develops a delightful friendship.






Reviewed by Katrina

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