No Regrets by Carolyn Burke ***

I read a bio of Edith Piaf many years ago, but I downloaded this more recent one as I was preparing for the concert this week, where I am accompanying Colombe. Since this is the closest I've ever gotten to Piaf's music, I was happy to take on this gig, even though Colombe and I had less than two weeks to work together. Reading this book at this hectic time of practising and rehearsing was very helpful, and helped me understand the songs even better.

And what a life! It wasn't hard to read at all!

The Purchase by Linda Spalding ****

Winner of the GG's award for fiction in 2012, this book has been on my list since Shirley told me about it about 3 years ago, actually. I found it in a second-hand bookstore in Bracebridge this summer, and I'm always happy to pick up books from my list when they're cheap! 

Since it's summer and there's so many books to read, I'm letting a reviewer from Amazon speak for me for this. I thoroughly enjoyed both the story and the writing, although the Canadian connection is very small, and it could be a Book Club recommendation another year. So here's the review:

Linda Spalding's new novel The Purchase is a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction. Trust me, it's an absolute must read.

1798. Daniel Dickinson is a devout Quaker. But when his wife dies leaving him with five young children and he quickly marries Ruth, a fifteen year old orphan, he is cast out of the fellowship. With no home and no community, he then packs his family in a wagon and heads to Virginia to homestead. At an auction to buy needed farming tools, Daniel instead ends up with a young slave boy. As an abolitionist, this goes against everything he believes in. This purchase is the catalyst for a series of events that will change the lives of family, friends, enemies and more.

I literally hurtled through the first part of The Purchase. Spalding drew me into the lives of the Dickinson family. The characters are exceptionally well drawn. Daniel struggles with his ownership of Onesimus, his marriage to a girl he doesn't even know, his efforts to build a new life for his children in a wilderness that he is ill prepared for and trying to follow his beliefs. His oldest daughter Mary is stubborn, petulant, wilful but also kind and giving. But not to her stepmother. But it is quiet, silent Ruth that I was most drawn to. And to the slave Bett as well. There is a large cast of characters, each bringing a turn in the tale. And all elicit strong emotions and reactions. The interactions between the players sets up an almost tangible sense of foreboding.

I stopped after part one, which ends on a cataclysmic note, to gather my thoughts. Where could the story go from here? I started part two a few days later and didn't put the book down until I turned the last page. And then I sat and thought again.

Spalding's prose are rich, raw, powerful and oh, so evocative. She explores so much in The Purchase - freedom, faith, family, love, loss and more.

On reading the author's notes, I discovered that The Purchase is based on Spalding's own family history. She visited sites and settings that are used in the book. I think the personal connection added so much to the book.

Brilliant. One of my top reads for 2012. Can lit rocks!

Emma: A Modern Retelling by Alexander McCall Smith ***

I love McCall Smith's gentle yet pointed humor in his writing, and I was quite enjoying this novel, but it began to pall on me. Maybe I took too long to read it, so couldn't get into the flow of the novel. It was very cleverly done, and I enjoyed Mr. Woodhouse's phobia about germs and such, but maybe it was too long. Three stars is all I can gve it.

And The Birds Rained Down by Jocelyn Saucier ****

A beautifully written book set in the wilderness of Northern Ontario with the back story setting of the Great Fire of Matheson. This is a good candidate for our Book Club choices next year. I 've copied a review I found on Amazon:

And the Birds Rained Down is a delicate, introspective fiction of a photographer's journey to chronicle the great bush-fires that consumed so much of Ontario's north during the early part of the 20th century. In doing so, she (the photographer) uncovers the story of a boy who walked through six days of inferno to find the twin girls he loved.

The simplicity of the story, however, is belied by the complexity of the lives of the people who had been involved, now either dead or advanced in age, some of whom have retreated from society and live in isolation around a lake, each with a pact with death, to control their destiny with dignity and independence.

It is also a story of love found in the last act, of love never found, of love acted out through creative expression that ends up a legacy.

Beautifully and skilfully written, the story evokes emotion with a subtle hand. Highly recommended.

Last Friends by Jane Gardam ****

This is the final novel in the Old Filth Trilogy, and it tells Veneering's story- his mother, who collected coal, and his father, a former Russan spy- his marriage to Elsie, but not much about Betty, who was really the love of his life. The story of how Veneering and Filth become friends is in this novel, as well as the connection between poor old Fiscal-Smith and Dulcie, who was mainly a piece of fluff. 

I've really enjoyed this series, and I must read more of Jane Gardam's novels. She has a dry sense of humour and is able to say a lot in just a short scene or conversation.