_ Soltalk February 2023 _ Soltalk 24 / 01 / 2023 16:52 Page 43
BookTalk watchman . But as the mystery of Dalton ’ s disappearance unfolds their lives become hellishly entwined , and the small community altered forever .
Hold My Girl ( h ) by Charlene Carr . Katherine is a woman full of obsessions . After seven years of trying - and failing - to conceive , she finally gives birth to Rose , her IVF miracle child . But she ’ s always feared Rose may not be her daughter , her pale skin not matching Katherine ’ s own . Tess never got her happy ending . She took on IVF alongside Katherine , but her daughter Hanna was stillborn . After a series of desperate choices , she ’ s divorced , broke , and stuck in a job beneath her skillset . When Rose is ten months old , both women get a call from the fertility clinic - two women ’ s eggs were switched . It ’ ll take a custody battle to decide who deserves to be Rose ’ s mother ...
All Your Children Scattered ( p ) by Beata Mairesse . Blanche returns to Rwanda after building a life in Bordeaux with her husband and young son , Stokely . Reuniting with her mother Immaculata , old wounds are reopened for both mother and daughter while Stokely , caught between two countries , tries to understand where he comes from and where he belongs . Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse ’ s unforgettable debut novel follows three generations torn apart by the genocide against the Tutsis , as they try to reconnect with one another , rebuild broken links and find their place in today ’ s world .
Something for Valentine ’ s Day perhaps ? Pianos and Flowers ( p ) by A . McCall-Smith . Brief Encounters of the Romantic Kind . In ‘ Pianos and Flowers ’ we are invited to glimpse a world long departed . In these stories , inspired by long-lost photographs , the lives of the people in the frame are imagined and then explored , layer by layer . And through all of these photographs , and all of these stories , there runs the same refrain : the possibilities of love , of friendship , of happiness lie before us .
Key : ( p ) paperback ( h ) hardback / large paperback depending on availability .
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