Happiness Seeker by Jennifer Burkinshaw,

 

So, this month I’m recommending: Happiness Seeker by Jennifer Burkinshaw

Yes, again I’ve chosen a text for younger readers again.  I could hardly put this one down.  

Allie is at Grange-Over-Sands on a school trip. The very place is beautiful and dangerous at the same time.   

There are other delights and dangers too. Allie is irritated by the relationship developing between her best friend and her nemesis. Then she becomes romantically involved with the mysterious Mareno. He is threatened not just from the shifting sands and strong currents. Allie’s attempt to put this right is doomed to failure.  When her greatest enemy attempts to right a wrong, four lives are put in danger. There are deaths and near misses. This text tackles some modern but also age old problem: migration and modern slavery.            

Happiness Seeker is beautifully narrated by the very talented Jennifer Burkinshaw.    

Note, this is an affiliate link and a small portion of what you pay may go to Bridge House publishing.  

 

 

 

Jiddy Vardy by Ruth Estevez

 click on image to see on Amazon

I’ve read three books by Ruth Estevez recently and enjoyed them all but this, her latest, is fabulous.

Jiddy Vardy is an extraordinary young woman, living in a world that is dangerous and exciting. She is later introduced to another world, a world that is her birth right, and she finds herself conflicted. 

Is it a young adult book or one written for adults? Certainly Jiddy is a young person who encounters many of the dilemmas facing young people even today. She experiences her first kiss. She is kissed by another man but this second lover doesn’t come up to expectations. The ending is upbeat but open, so typical of a young adult text. Yet the novel would also be very appealing to adults.   

This is arguably also an historical novel. Estevez creates a convincing setting and makes good use of the senses to pull us right into the story. 

Estevez’s prose style is very evocative, making the novel an excellent read.  

Leaving Poppy by Kate Cann

I read a lot of young adult books and I write a few. Back at the turn of the century I pretty well knew every young adult book that was published and labelled as such as well as many that were clearly young adult but that didn't have the label. The new works then were fresh and experimental. The older, unlabelled ones, appealed to the young adult reader and those who like reading young adult books.  Now, it has all become somewhat formulaic even though "high concepts" are continuously brought in.  There are also now so many that it's impossible to know them all.

I've studied quite a few of Kate Cann's books. They border on what I call chicklet-lit but have a darker side and are fundamentally about relationships. I was expecting he same of this one. I found it refreshingly novel.  

Yes there is still quite a lot about relationships and as you might expect the main characters are a bunch of students sharing a flat. Protagonist Amber is on a gap year. In true Bildungsroman fashion she grows over the course of the story. She has two main challenges: disturbed younger sister Poppy and something creepy about the house. I'll say no more about the story and in fact I'm giving no more away here than in the book's own blurb. 

I will say that this book is well written, the chapters are delightfully short, the characters are believable and that we are kept guessing right until the very end. It has an upbeat but open ending. The voice is pleasing.                         

The Love of My Life by Louise Douglas

This is definitely one of the books I just did not want to put down. I started reading it as we waited to board a high-speed ferry from Dublin to Holyhead.  I carried on reading it during the crossing and finished it just a couple of days later. It’s the type of book that stays with you until you’ve finished it.

I’d bought it as a young adult book and many of the scenes do depict protagonist Olivia – Liv – as a young adult. However, it’s arguably more “new adult”.

The story starts at the funeral of her husband Luca. He has been tragically killed in a nasty car accident.  She has been widowed at a very young age. The framework for the story is that the hurt has become very bad and she is now staying with her sister who, now that the time is right, has given her a laptop on which to write her story.     

The story soon settles into a rhythm of a scene from the past, taking us to the time of the accident and a scene after the funeral, bringing us forward to the present crisis.

I admire this book for its richly drawn characters and though Liv is no angel and her in-laws do some despicable things it isn’t hard to feel empathy for all of them.

Louise Douglas has also created an effective plot. It is all very believable but totally unpredictable. This, and the conveniently short chapters, make you keep on reading.   

Go, on treat yourself. It’s that time of the year when we need a lot of stories.