Book Club Book Review: A Lifetime of Impossible Days by Tabitha Bird

A Lifetime of Impossible Days

by

Tabitha Bird

Publisher: Penguin Books
Imprint: Viking
Publication date: 4th June 2019
Pages: 395
Format Read: Paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher via Beauty & Lace book club

On one impossible day in 1965, eight-year-old Willa Waters receives a mysterious box containing a jar of water and the instruction: 'One ocean: plant in the backyard.' So she does - and somehow creates an extraordinary time-slip that allows her to visit her future selves.

On one impossible day in 1990, Willa is 33 and a mother-of-two when her childhood self magically appears in her backyard. But she's also a woman haunted by memories of her dark past - and is on the brink of a decision that will have tragic repercussions . . .

On one impossible day in 2050, Willa is a silver-haired, gumboot-loving 93-year-old whose memory is fading fast. Yet she knows there's something she has to remember, a warning she must give her past selves about a terrible event in 1990 . . . If only she could recall what it was.

Can the three Willas come together, to heal their past and save their future . . . before it's too late? 

Willa age 8 is a gumboot wearing, storytelling ball of energy. She is also the protector of her little sister Lottie

Willa age 33 is broken, a mother of two small boys, she scrubs and cleans until her home is spotless but still she feels worthless, a failure.

Willa age 93 is a gumboot wearing old lady full of sass and cheek. She is in the throes of dementia and keeps a notebook listing all the important things she must remember; like staying out of the nursing home.

A Lifetime of Impossible Days is the most heart-wrenching emotional read I have read in a long time. If you loved The Lost Girls (Review here) by Jennifer Spence or Before I Let You Go (Review here) by Kelly Rimmer this book will resonate with you.

Super Gumboots Willa is a young girl who has spent her life feeling responsible for her sister and all her mistakes. Silver Willa is an old lady who is starting to lose her memory but she knows that there are things in her past that must be mended and only Middle Willa can do that.

This book is filled with heart-breaking moments and magical realism as the three Willas meet via a time shifting garden that is planted in their backyard. They come together to try desperately to heal the past and mend what is irreparably damaged.

Willa is 93 she needs to go back in time and stop herself from doing something that will change her life forever the only problem is she has dementia and she can’t remember what that thing is.

The story isn’t all heavy there are lots of laugh out loud moments with Willa’s dementia causing funny situations, she has quite some sass and is very cheeky.

Willa’s husband, Sam, and grandmother, Grammy, are the most wonderful supporting characters giving Willa unconditional love and support.

Allusions to child abuse, domestic violence and drug use.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

My rating   5/5

This review first appeared on the Beauty & Lace book club.

and is part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge.

and book #26 in the Australian Women Writers challenge.

 

Photo credit: Goodreads

In a bayside suburb of Queensland, Australia, Tabitha Bird grew up in a garden. It wasn’t much of a garden, but she told stories to ferns and weeds alike and gave herself something to hope in that was bigger than she was. 

Eventually, she had to leave the garden and do responsible things like grow up. When her own children came along she read stories with gumption and wild joy and got to thinking that perhaps she had some of her own to tell. 

The first whispering of story she heard was from a forgotten child that lived in that long-ago garden. Together with her family she moved to Boonah, Australia, where her novel is set. 

Her Chihuahua, husband and three sons are all the reason she needs to believe there is still magic in this world. A LIFETIME OF IMPOSSIBLE DAYS is her first novel.

 

Book Review: The Border by Steve Schafer

The Border

by

Steve Schafer

Publisher: Scourcebooks Fire
Publication date: 5th September 2017
Pages: 364
Format read: eBook
Source: Courtesy of the publisher via Netgalley

A band plays, glasses clink, and four teens sneak into the Mexican desert, the hum of celebration receding behind them.
Crack. Crack. Crack.

Not fireworks--gunshots. The music stops. And Pato, Arbo, Marcos, and Gladys are powerless as the lives they once knew are taken from them.

Then they are seen by the gunmen. They run. Except they have nowhere to go. The narcos responsible for their families' murders have put out a reward for the teens' capture. Staying in Mexico is certain death, but attempting to cross the border through an unforgiving desert may be as deadly as the secrets they are trying to escape...

The Border is the debut novel of author Steve Schafer.

Four Mexican teenagers witness the cold blooded murder of their families, by a band of Narcos, whilst attending a 16^th Birthday celebration. They flee into the darkened night with the sounds of death threats ringing in their ears.

Schafer has lived, worked, volunteered and travelled throughout most of latin America, including northern Mexico and it is clear he has extensively researched his topic.

The story is narrated in the first person by 16 year old Pato. But we also get a good sense of the other three main characters, Arbo, Marco and Gladys.

When they realise their only means of escape is across the Sonoran Desert into the USA the teens are naive and unprepared. Desperate situations call for desperate measures.

It’s easy to feel empathy for these four teens. Good kids who have been placed in a life or death situation. Throughout the story they bicker, they get along, they dream and occasionally the leadership role shifts but most of all they are scared; just like normal teens.

This is a timely and relevant story with the immigration debate currently storming in America.

The Border is a highly emotional and thought provoking read with palpable suspense and page turning action.

Highly recommended!

A few words from the author:

Political discourse often loses sight of the individuals at the heart of the issue. To generalize they are people in need. They leave desperate situations to  find an opportunity for a better life.

                                        

My rating    5/5 

Content: violence

                 mild sexual reference

                                🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟  

Photo credit: Goodreads

 

Steve Schafer is an avid cultural explorer, animal lover, bucket-list filler, and fan of the great outdoors.

He has a master’s degree in international studies from Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, with his wife and two children. The border is his first novel. 

Book Review: Home Fires (Contemporary Fiction)

Home Fires

by

Fiona Lowe

Publisher: Harlequin Australia

Imprint: HQ Fiction

Publication Date: 18th February 2019

Pages: 487

RRP:$32.99

Format Read: Paperback

Source: courtesy of the publisher via AM Publicity 

 

From the bestselling Australian author of Daughter of Mine and Birthright. When a lethal bushfire tore through Myrtle, nestled in Victoria's breathtaking Otway Ranges, the town's buildings - and the lives of its residents - were left as smouldering ash. For three women in particular, the fire fractured their lives and their relationships.

Eighteen months later, with the flurry of national attention long past, Myrtle stands restored, shiny and new. But is the outside polish just a veneer? Community stalwart Julie thinks tourism could bring back some financial stability to their little corner of the world and soon prods Claire, Bec and Sophie into joining her group. But the scar tissue of trauma runs deep, and as each woman exposes her secrets and faces the damage that day wrought, a shocking truth will emerge that will shake the town to its newly rebuilt foundations...

With her sharp eye for human foibles, bestselling author Fiona Lowe writes an evocative tale of everyday people fighting for themselves, their families and their town - as only this distinctively Australian storyteller can

The residents of Myrtle, a small country town cocooned by the forest of Victoria’s Otway Ranges, are still feeling the effects of a fire that destroyed the town almost two years earlier.

A group of women that had formed a craft group decide to take action to put Myrtle back on the map and attract tourists to the town.

Claire is back home after living in large cities and has been with Matt for 3 years.

Sophie, married to Josh, moved to the country for a better lifestyle.

Rebecca is married to Adam through an arrangement instigated by her mother they have two children and a third on the way. They appear to be the perfect couple.

The story follows the three women before and after the fire. How their lives had changed, their dreams shattered. The hardships not only financially but mentally and physically when the rest of the world has moved on but the town is still struggling to rise above the ashes and forge a new life.

Over the months of meetings and planning they had changed from a random group of women to become friends, working through their differences and supporting each other. Even minor characters in the group, Julie, the stalwart of the town, Layla and Erica, play integral roles in the bringing together of the community.

This small town weathers it all; a deadly bushfire, a cancer scare, domestic abuse, PTSD, teenagers using alcohol and drugs, but through sweat, determination and hard work they come through it all.

Lowe highlights how the impact of a fire goes far beyond the buildings that were destroyed. It affects different people in different ways and quite often this effect is not clearly visible on the surface.

Home Fires is a timely tale with a quintessential Australian feel. Lowe brings the country town of Myrtle, and its residents, into our homes and opens our eyes to the hardships and heartbreaking aftermath of a devastating bushfire.

Recommended reading.

My rating  5 / 5  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Content: domestic violence

                 drugs

                 post traumatic stress

*This review is: 
Part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge
& Book #6 in the Australian Women Writers Challenge

Letter H in the 2019 AtoZ Challenge  
 

Fiona Lowe has been a midwife, a sexual health counsellor and a family support worker; an ideal career for an author who writes novels about family and relationships. She spent her early years in Papua New Guinea where, without television, reading was the entertainment and it set up a lifelong love of books. Although she often re-wrote the endings of books in her head, it was the birth of her  first child that prompted her to write her first novel. A recipient of the prestigious USA RITA award and the Australian RuBY award. Fiona writes books that are set in small country towns. They feature real people facing difficult choices and explore how family ties and relationships impact on their decisions.

When she is not writing stories, she's a distracted wife, mother of two 'ginger' sons, a volunteer in her community, guardian of eighty rose bushes, a slave to a cat, and is often found collapsed on the couch with wine.