Five Books I've read in Self Isolation

I've taken up reading as my self isolation hobby and have read a fair amount of books in the last few weeks. I enjoyed making my to read pile, smaller and have enjoyed passing the time, sipping on Gin in the spring sunshine getting lost in a book.

I have given myself the challenge to read twelve books this year, using Goodreads of course and thought I'd share the five books I've read so far!

The Flat Share by Beth O'Leary

Blurb

Tiffy and Leon share a flat

Tiffy and Leon share a bed

Tiffy and Leon have never met…

Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time.

But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window…

Highly Recommend if you want a feel good book to get lost in. I loved this book and finished it within days of starting. 10/10

In the Time We Lost by Carrie Hope Fletcher

Blurb

Luna Lark used to love her name, but that was before people started saying it differently .

I'm so sorry, Luna.

Are you alright, Luna?

Everything will be okay, Luna.

Now Luna is taking back control by starting again in the most remote place she could find: Ondingside, a magical little town with barely a hundred and fifty people in the middle of nowhere important. She'll finally finish her latest novel, get herself back to normal, maybe even find love (and continue being a hopeless romantic).

But on her first night in Ondingside a freak July snow fall freezes the town. Snowed in, the town stands still. Can Luna break out of the monotony and do what she came to do?

If you like a magical story line, this book is for you. The ending took me by surprise but I liked the fact it didn't end the way you expected it too! 8/10

Never Greener by Ruth Jones

Blurb

‘We spend most of our lives wishing we were somewhere else or someone else, or looking forward or harping back. Always thinking the grass is greener on the other side. But it never is. It’s still grass. Just a different patch of it, that’s all.’

*****

The past has a habit of tracking us down. And tripping us up.

When Kate was twenty-two, she had an intense and passionate affair with a married man, Callum, which ended in heartbreak. Kate thought she’d never get over it.

Seventeen years later, life has moved on – Kate, now a successful actress, is living in London, married to Matt and mother to little Tallulah. Meanwhile Callum and his wife Belinda are happy together, living in Edinburgh and watching their kids grow up. The past, it would seem, is well and truly behind them all.

But then Kate meets Callum again.

And they are faced with a choice: to walk away from each other . . . or to risk finding out what might have been.

Second chances are a rare gift in life. But that doesn’t mean they should always be taken . . .

Highly Recommend. Another book I couldn't put down. This is first book I've read of Ruth Jones and she didn't disappoint! I really disliked the main character, but she is so well written that I was hooked. 9/10

The Boy Who Followed his Father into Auschwitz by Jeremy Dronfield

Blurb

Where there is family, there is hope

In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholster from Vienna, and his sixteen-year-old son Fritz are arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Germany. Imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp, they miraculously survive the Nazis’ murderous brutality.

Then Gustav learns he is being sent to Auschwitz—and certain death.

For Fritz, letting his father go is unthinkable. Desperate to remain together, Fritz makes an incredible choice: he insists he must go too. To the Nazis, one death camp is the same as another, and so the boy is allowed to follow.

Throughout the six years of horror they witness and immeasurable suffering they endure as victims of the camps, one constant keeps them alive: their love and hope for the future.

Based on the secret diary that Gustav kept as well as meticulous archival research and interviews with members of the Kleinmann family, including Fritz’s younger brother Kurt, sent to the United States at age eleven to escape the war, The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz is Gustav and Fritz’s story—an extraordinary account of courage, loyalty, survival, and love that is unforgettable.

 

I love a true life story and have read a few Auschwitz stories. This book is literally heartbreaking but tells you the amazing story of a father and son, battling through the evils of the Nazi's. 8/10

The Things We Left Unsaid by Emma Kennedy

Blurb

ONLY THE TRUTH WILL SET HER FREE . . .

After her wedding in cancelled hours before she is due to walk down the aisle, Rachel is newly single and must move back in with her mother, Eleanor.

But their relationship is far from perfect, and their family home is filled with secrets.

It will take a devastating turn of events for Rachel to finally unravel a powerful truth. One that Eleanor has kept close to her heart for decades.

Will unlocking the past help Rachel find the key to her future?

Highly Recommend if you like a feel good, heartwarming story about families, relationship and the complications of life. 8/10

These are the five books that I've read during lockdown so far and my to read list is still long. Here are some books that I shall be reading within the next few months or weeks.

Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris

 The Switch by Beth O'Leary 

Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce

What are you all reading? Recommend any books?

tags:Bookshelf