The Horse Whisperer

Nicholas Evens

Romance

In the still of a snow-covered morning in upstate New York, a girl is out riding her horse is hit by a 40-ton truck. Though horribly injured, both thirteen-year-old grace Maclean and her horse, Pilgrim, survive. But the impact on their lives and the lives of those who love them is devastating.

Grace is the only child of a prominent New York magazine editor, Annie Graves, and her lawyer husband Robert. In a way which none of them at first understands, their destiny comes to depends on Pildrim's. So mutilated and traumatized is he that even the vet who saved his life now wishes he hadn't. Annie refuses to have him destroyed, sensing that if she does, something in Grace will die to.

She hears of a man in Montana, a 'whisperer' who is said to have the gift of healing troubled horses. Abandoning her job, Annie sets off accross the continent with Grace and Pilgrem to find him. The man's name is Tom Boker and he lives on the Rocky Mountain Front, a place of daunting beauty. Here, under the massive Montana sky, all their lives are changed forever.

Well worth the read at anytime, anywhere. Perfect for holidays!

A Little Princess

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Childrens Fiction

Sara Crewe's world is tranformed when her wealthy, adoring father dies, leaving her penniless. She is suddenly forced to work as a servant at the boarding school she once attended. But Sara has a loving heart and a quick imagination, and she knows that with her enduring hope, she will persevere.

This is my favorite book and I just had to add it! Every little girl has to have it on her book shelf.

Busy Woman Seeks Wife

Annie Sanders
Romance

Alex Hill is a fiercely independent single career woman. Not surprisingly that her grip on domestic life is shaky - she's barely ever at home. So when her demanding mother - an ageing sixties style icon - has a fall and needs to move in with her indefinitely, Alex needs help . . . Fast!

Ella is desperate for any work that will pay the rent, but she's even less domesticated than Alex. Can she persuade her brother, resting actor, Frankie, to help on the quiet, and how will Alex react when she realises a man had been ironing her knickers? Then Alex discovers someone is sabotaging her work. She'll need more than a 'wife' to help her now!

This book is a good romp and a giggle!

Child of Tibet

By Soname Yangchen with Vicki Mackenzie
Autobiography

This is a very charming book about Soname’s flight from Chinese occupied Tibet. Soname had a carefree childhood running around on her family’s farm in the Tibetan Himalayas. Her parents then sent her to Lhasa for her safety but cruelly ended up as a child slave. At the age of sixteen, Soname joined a couple of Buddhist Monks for a six week trek across the Himalayas to join the Dalai Lama, at Dharemsala, in North India. Over several years, Soname made her way to England, though not without the pain of losing her child and not knowing where she was.

This is such a courageous and awe inspiring autobiography of one woman’s determined fight to find her daughter, herself and her own place in what can be a very scary and intimidating world. This small book is well worth the read.

The Undomestic Goddess

Sophie Kinsella
Beach Read

Samantha is a high powered lawyer in London. She works all hours, has no home life and cares only about getting a partnership. She thrives on the pressure and adrenaline.

Until one day she makes a mistake. A mistake so huge it will wreck her career.

She walks right out of the office, gets on the first train she sees and finds herself in the middle of nowhere. Asking for directions at a big beautiful house, she is mistaken for the interviewee housekeeper and being offered the job. Her new employers have no idea that they have hired a Cambridge educated lawyer with an IQ of 158-Samantha doesn’t even know how to work the oven!

This is one woman’s discovery that there is more to life than work and more importantly finding herself. This happy book is perfect for a holiday read as you can’t put it down.

The Crows are Crying

Marie Campbell
Semi Autobiography

This wonderful story is about Bridgit Ryan and her younger sister Elizabeth, who heard the screams of their mother, dying in childbirth. Their broken-hearted father sent them to a convent, to be raised by nuns, because he couldn't look after them. Soon the sisters where fostered out the Hebridian island of Fada, due to their father dying in war.

Once they were teenagers, Elizabeth went to live with a family in America and Bridgit went to find work on the mainland, where, young and innocent, she had many trials.

This is a heart warming story that conjures up the magic of the Hebridian Islands in a bygone era at the turn of the century and follows Bridgits adventures and trails in Glasgow and on a farm before returning to Fada where her life unfolds with a surprise ending.

Madeline’s in Manhattan

Collette Rossant
Autobiography

Madeline’s in Manhattan is the journey of Collette Rossant. From young housewife and passionate cook to acclaimed food writer. From the romantic early days of marriage to grand-motherhood, all the tales told with the writer’s unique ability to bring magic to her memories through food.

In 1955, Collette Rossant was only twenty-two when she had just married and arrived in New York, America. Being a Frenchwoman, she was highly bemused by American customs and more importantly, the food-the limp sandwiches, the ubiquitous mayonnaise, the iceberg lettuce . . . . . but New York is humming and Collette and her husband Jimmy discover a whole new world of theatre and avant-garde cinema, farmers markets, Jewish deli’s, Chinatown and the Italian patisseries.

Madeline’s in Manhattan is one for the foodies. Though it might not be content sitting on the kitchen shelf with the rest of the cookbooks, is would be very happy on a bed side table. It is such a charming book to read!