Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop

 by Hwang Bo-Reum

This is a story about a bookstore in Korea.  A young woman is fed up with being in a non permanent job.  She had been told if she kept working hard she would get a permanent position but after years of struggling she is told it won't happen.  She decides to quit and follow her dream -- setting up a bookstore.

She opens up a small bookstore and coffee bar.  She thinks she probably can survive for a couple years.  She enjoys reading but finds that running the business takes up more of her time especially as the store gets busier.  She ends up hiring a young man the coffee bar.  He becewing.omes very interested in the art of roasting beans and brewing coffee and becomes close friend with the woma who owns the bean roasting company who is in an unhappy marruage,

As the book proceeds the young woman is busy posting online reviews of books and organizing book clubs and author talks.  One of the authors becomes attracted to her but she seems oblivious to his attention.  The store also attracts a woman who has quit her job and comes to the store to knit and drink coffee and a young boy whose mother allows him to hang out at the bookstore.

The people form a casual friendship.  The story talks a lot about jobs and job and life satisfaction.  The knitting woman eventually goes back to work, the coffee roaster decides to leave her husband.  The book reinforces the importance in doing what you love even though society may not judge your choice as  the  best or most profitable choice.

It was a nice friendly read/ 

Six Days in Bombay

 by Alka Joshi

This is the story of a young half Indian/half English nurse who is working in a hospital in Bombay.  She becomes very friendly with a patient who comes in after an apparent miscarriage.  The woman is not recovering as would be expected.  The patient, Mira Novak is a somewhat well known painter.  Despite her state her husband only visits a few times and doesn't seem much concerned.

The young nurse has a colleague who doesn't like her and gets her in trouble at times.  The nurse lives with her mother who is a seamstress, they are ecking out an existence.  The patient dies and it is determined she may have received a heroine overdose, or possibly committed suicide.  The young nurse, Sona, is accused of malpractice and is fired. She is devastated.

Before she died Mira asks Sona to retrieve four paintings she has left in a storeroom in the hosptial and distribute them as follows, Sona is to keep one. one she is to take to a friend in Prague, a former art dealer in Paris and an art instructor/former lover in Florence.  Mira doesn't know what she should do, can she accomplish this with little money.  Her mother then tells her about some money that had been sent to her over the years by her father.  Her father and left her mother and her to return to his original family in England.  At the same time another patient of hers, a elderly gentleman, asks her to accompany him as he travels to Istanbul to meet with his son.  She feels she has nothing to lose so decides to do it.  She meets the man's son and is attacted to him.  He is a British diplomat and offers to help her locate Mira's friends so she sets off.

She meets the first friend in Prague and discovers Mira was not as nice as she had imagined.  She was a wild person and used people in her life.   Mira delivers the first painting.  Then she moves on to Paris and meets the art dealer who was also wronged by Mira.  Then off to Florence to meet the artist/lover.  She finds he is married to an older woman.  All Mira's friends are devastated at the news of Mira's death but especially her lover.  It turns out Mira had agreed to have a child for them.  The child she lost was hers and her lovers progeny.  The artist and his wife wanted a child to guarantee his wife's father would continue to support them financially.

Sona is ready to return to India but the elderly patient urges her to go to London to meet her father.  She has been angry with her father for abandoning her, her brother who died at three years of age, and her mother. She eventually gets up the nerve to do this only to find out he died a few years previously.  She meets his wife who had discovered the truth about his Indian family.  Despite the hurt the woman seems to welcome her and invites her to meet her half brother and sister. While in London she meets a doctor she knew from the hospital in India that she had a crush on.  They have sex and he invites her to consider joining him as he embarks on some humanitarian work he is beginning, but she declines.

She returns to India where she meets up with the old patient and his son.  She was attracted to the son and they marry a month later.  She never tells her husband that their daughter was actually the result of her liaison in London.

It was an interesting story, there were many stories of love/relationships that were abandoned, in addition to all the above, the old patient had a fiance in England that he abandoned when he fell in love with an Indian woman.  The story talks about the challenges of the half breeds in India -- half Indian/half English and also hints at the resistance to British rule that is building in India.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snow Road Station

 by Elizabeth Hay

This is  the story about an aging actress who is devastated when she cannot remember her lines when she is performing in a Samuel Beckett play.  She leaves town for a few days in rural Ontario where a friend of hers has a property on which she harvests maple syrup.  The woman is distraught about her future  but is amazed by the beauty of the nature.

As the story progresses we meet the family of the woman the actress (Lulu) is staying with.  Lulu has an unfortunate, disgusting encounter with her friend's ex husband after the wedding of the friend's son.  When Lulu returns to Ottawa she is shocked to find they have replaced her in the role because they thought she as awol.

As the story progresses Lulu develops a relationship with a man in Snow Road Station, develops a deep affection for a young baby, granddaughter of ther friend, and revels in the beauty of the nature around her in Snow Road Station.  She is instrumental in getting her brother to tell her friend that he loves her.

As the book ends Lulu is in the process of selling her condo in town and moving permanently to Snow Road Station.  It seems she is happy, probably for the first time in her life.

The book does a beautiful job of describing the scenery and the tiny moments of joy the nature provides. It was a lovely calm read, fortunately and unusually, with a happy ending.

 

The Retreat

 by Sarah Pearse

This book seems to reflect some of an Agatha Christie vibe.

A police officer, who is recovering from PTSD, is sent to an island to investigate an accident/murder.  The island had a violent past.  The island has a huge rock formation that looks like the grim reaper.  Some students on a school trip were murdered there.  However now the island is home to a luxury resort designed by the police officer's boyfriend.

When she arrives, with a colleague, she discovers her boyfriends sister is the Manager of the resort.  I don't think she knew this.  The incident they are investigating is the death of a woman.  It appears she fell over a glass wall to rocks below.  It first seems an accident.  However, upon further investigation it is determined to be murder.

The officer finds out that family of the woman, and their boyfriends as well as her boyfriend are on the island but the woman was not supposed to come -- too busy at work.  She did not tell them she changed her mind.  Shortly after another member of that group, the son of the man who owns the island is found drowned.  He had been diving and was an experienced diver.  Now tension escalates.  The police officer asks for more support but is told other staff are busy on another serious crime(s) so she and her partner are on their own.   Some guests leaves after the second death, the others are gathered into a central area in the resort.  The police officer's boyfriend arrives and he gets angry when she questions his sister, their relationship seems on the edge.  At one point the boyfriend's sister disappears, she has been kidnapped and left to die by the murderer.  The police officer finds her and saves her.

In the end we find out one of the "family" group is the murderer.  He wants to avenge? his father who was imprisoned for murdering the young people years before.  He is angry the island was turned into a resort rather than designated a nature sanctuary.

This was an okay mystery and kept one guessing except it was hard to keep everyone straight with so many characters in the book.

 

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

 by Sayoshi Yaisawa

This is the story of a young Japanese girl who is distraught when she finds out that the man she thought was her boyfriend announces he is getting married to another woman.  She is so upset she quits her job and hides in her apartment.

She goes to visit her uncle who is running a very specialized bookshop.  When he finds out her situation he ofers her space in this store so she can save money.  She reluctantly decides to move in and gradually starts to help running the shop.  She had been a reluctant reader up to that point.

There comfortabe life is disrupted when the man's wife, who had left 10 years before returns to the scene.  At first the young woman doesn't like the woman.  Then the woman invites her to go on a little trip into the mountains.  The girl learns about how her unce and his wife met in Paris and how devastated her aunt was when she lost her baby.  She was so depressed she felt she had to leave.  The aunt had gone into the mountain and worked at the building she and the aunt visit in the mountains.

The girl strikes up a friendship with a young man she meets at a coffee shop   They discuss books.  At first the young woman thinks the young man is waiting for her.  She is sad to learn he is really hoping to reconnect with his former girlfirend/

The girl tells her uncle the truth about why his wife left.  It looks like the couple will be reconciled. We know  the young girl leaves the shop.  

It was an okay read but left a feeling of unresolved matters.

Paris Bohemian

 by Michelle Fogle

This was a book about the friendship and then rivalry between the composers Debussy and Eric Satie. It does and interesting job or represening the lives of the composers and the life and activities of the creative types in Paris.  I didn't really know anything about Satie before this.  It was an interesting read.

The Phoenix Crown

 by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang

This is a book about the lives of three women at the time of the San Francisco earthquake.  It is written by two authors, one writes from the Chinese character's experience the other writes from the main character an aspiring opera singer.

The three characters are Alice Eastwood, a botanist, Gemma the aspiring opera singer and Suling.  All three women encounter a man Henry Thornton.  Thornton is friends with Alice because of her and his interest in botany. Suling is trying to get enough money to escape an arranged marriage and is hired to embroider some garments for Thornton.  Gemma becomes Thornton's mistress and he promises to make her famous.

Gemma arrives in San Francisco to join the chorus at the Opera.  She is surprised that her friend Reggie who invited her to come to SF is no longer around.

The women become acquainted with each other and are shocked to learn that Thornton is not what he appears.  It seems he murdered a Pinkerton agent in New York and that Gemma's missing friend was his mistress previously.  They eventually find out that he has imprisoned Gemma's friend in an insane asylum.

Thornton is a collector of Asian antiquities, elegant robes and the Phoenix Crown.

As the women are about to confront Thornton the San Franciso earthquake occurs.  Thornton learns that they know about his past and he traps them in the house as fire rages through it.  The women manage to escape and Suling is able to get to the asylum and rescue Gemma's friend.  This women is her lover.

The women survive the quake and go their separate ways, Alice ot Colorado, Gemma to New York and later South America and Suling and her lover go to Paris where Suling works for a fashion house.  The women assume Thornton died in SF but one day Alice sees mention of the Phoenix Crown in a Paris newspaper.  She sends telegrams to the other women.  They all meet in Paris and find Thornton is going by a new name and is engaged to the daughter of a very rich man.  The women tell the fiancee about his past and her father hears the confrontation too.  Thornton is then arrested by a Pinkerton detective.

It was an interesting story, kept your interest throughout.  I was wondering how/if the women would get justice and the way it was handled was very believable.