Perfect People by Peter James

        perfect peoplePerfect People is a compelling and thought-provoking thriller from bestselling author Peter James.

John and Naomi Klaesson are grieving the death of their four-year-old son from a rare genetic disorder. They desperately want another child, but when they find out they are both carriers of a rogue gene, they realize the odds of their next child contracting the disease are high.

Then they hear about geneticist Doctor Leo Dettore. He has methods that can spare them the heartache of ever losing another child to any disease – even if his methods cost more than they can afford.

His clinic is where their nightmare begins.

They should have realized that something was wrong when they saw the list. Choices of eye colour, hair, sporting abilities. They can literally design their child. Now it’s too late to turn back. Naomi is pregnant, and already something is badly wrong . . .

Elaine 8
Cai 8
Pauline 8
June 8
trude 7
Janine 4
Rebecca 9
Christine 8
Janet 8
Jane 9
Sally 8

Rebecca H
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The Princess of Siberia by Christine Sutherland

siberia

This historical biography recounts one of the most romantic stories of the nineteenth century.  In 1824 Maria married Prince Sergei Volkonsky.  He was rich, aristocratic, about the most eligible bachelor in Russia.  But unknown to her he was deeply involved in the disastrous Decembrist Revolt on the first day of Nicholas I’s reign.  He was arrested on the day their son was born and, together with 125 of the brightest young men in Russia, sentenced to hard labour and exile in Siberia.  Overcoming the Tsar’s and her family’s opposition, Maria followed Sergei 4000 miles to Siberia.  She was allowed to do this only on condition that she renounce her wealth, name and the right ever to return.

For 12 years she and the few other Decembrist wives helped sustain their husbands and comrades in penal servitude.  It was through the women, who were allowed to write and receive letters, that the men had contact with the West.  Meanwhile, Maria’s first son died but she had two more children in Siberia; she also had a love affair.  Later, when the period of hard labour ended Maria moved to Irkutsk where she became known as the Princess of Siberia for her good works.  With the death of the vindictive Nicholas I, an Amnesty was granted and Maria returned to the West with Sergei after 26 years, a living legend.

Cai 7
Rebecca 9
Pauline 8
Janine 7
Trude 6
Janet 6
Jane 6
Christine 8

Christine P
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All the Light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr

all the light

A beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II

When Marie Laure goes blind, aged six, her father builds her a model of their Paris neighborhood, so she can memorize it with her fingers and then navigate the real streets. But when the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure’s agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall.

In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, is enchanted by a crude radio. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent ultimately makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure.

Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE is his most ambitious and dazzling work.

Cai 6
June 8
Pauline 9
Jane 7
Janine 6
Trude 9
Christine 8
Janet 8
Rebecca 8
Elaine 5
 

Pauline C
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Read when you can – To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee

to kill a mocking bird  This all time classic is to read as and when you have time. If we have all (re)read To Kill a Mocking Bird then we will be better able to read the new Harper Lee book – Go set a Watchman – when it becomes a book club selection……….

‘Shoot all the Bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a Mockingbird.’A lawyer’s advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee’s classic novel – a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man’s struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much-

 

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