This weekend was the first time I have gone into the library to browse.... and it was wonderful. Up until now I have been ordering library books online and then just going to the door to collect them. It was so nice to be back inside the library. The layout has completely changed but it still felt like going home.
Libraries are fantastic places and I borrowed four great books to read.
The mysterious Lisbon sisters obsessed the entire neighbourhood long before the first suicide, of Cecilia, the youngest.
Looking back over the strange and hazy year that followed, men recall the boys they once were, and try to impose order on a tragedy that defies explanation. For still, the question remains - why did all five of the Lisbon girls have to die?
Scotland, 1940.
On a remote island, a prisoner-of-war camp is raised to house 500 Italian soldiers sent to Orkney to wait out the war. Upon arrival, a freezing winter and a divided community greet them.
Where their neighbours see faceless enemies, orphaned sisters, Dorothy and Constance, see sick and wounded men unused to the icy cold and volunteer to nurse them. But while Constance remains wary of the soldiers, Dot finds herself increasingly drawn to Cesare, a young man on the wrong side of the war, broken by the horrors of battle.
Cesare and the other soldiers spend their days building a barricade between the island. By night, they construct a reminder of their homeland - an exquisite Italian chapel, fashioned from Nissen huts and debris from the sea.
As tensions between the islanders and outsiders grow, the lives of these three people are set on a collision course. Each is forced to weigh duty against desire ... until, one fateful evening, a choice must be made, one that will have devastating consequences.
Flora lives near here. We haven't spoken in twelve years. I wonder what she looks like now ...
All Beth has to do is drive her son to his football match, watch him play and then drive home. But the knowledge that her former best friend lives nearby is all-consuming. She can't resist. She parks opposite the house and is still there when Flora and her children return home.
Except ... something's not right.
Twelve years ago, Thomas and Emily were five and three years old. Today, they look exactly the same - they haven't changed at all. How is this possible?
Beth knows it isn't - yet she also knows what she saw and that it was real. And having seen it, how can she forget?
Winter. Bleak. Frosty wind, earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes ...
When four people, strangers and family, converge on a fifteen-bedroom house in Cornwall for Christmas, will there be enough room for everyone?
(header photo courtesy of Liana Mikah/Unsplash)
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