Better Nesting Book Club: After the War is Over

Better Nesting Book Club recommends:

After the War is Over

by Jennifer Robson

Are you a fan of Downton Abbey?  I arrived a bit late to the party but was completely hooked after watching the first season on Netflix. It didn't take me long to catch up and I have been a fan ever since. With season 5 just ending it will be a long wait for season 6. While you are waiting, I recommend reading After the War is Over by Jennifer Robson. If you like the world of Downton Abbey, I believe that you will enjoy this book.

Set in England at the end of World War I, it tells the story of Charlotte Brown who has finished four years of service as a military nurse and is ready to start a new chapter in her life. She moves to Liverpool to take a job helping the needy and is just settling in when she reconnects with her best friend's brother.

Edward Neville-Ashford, now Earl of Cumberland is struggling to recover from battle wounds and needs her help. Charlotte wants to help, but should she risk her heart and her future on a man who can never be hers? Edward needs to marry an heiress in order to shore up his family's fortunes and Charlotte is but the adopted daughter of a clergyman. She knows they can never be together even though he may be the love of her life.

This romantic novel is full of historical detail that gives it more depth than the average romance. On the serious side, it takes a look at conditions in post-war England, addressing the changing roles of women; changing conditions for the aristocracy: poverty; and social unrest.

Better Nesting Book Club : The Boston Girl

The Better Nesting Book Club recommends:

The Boston Girl by

Anita Diamant

The book begins with Addie Baum’s twenty-two-year-old granddaughter asking her to talk about how she got to be the woman she is today. As her life story unfolds we learn that Addie was born in 1900 and was the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Poland. She grew up in the North End and is the Boston Girl.

As an eighty-five year old wife, mother, grandmother, social worker, and teacher, Addie recalls living in a one-room tenement apartment with her two sisters and their parents who had difficulty adapting to a new way of life in their adoptive country. From joining a girls club at the neighborhood settlement house as a teenager to falling in love and from marriage to going back to college, she tells about her adventures with honesty and humor.

While Addie’s particular fictional story is unique, it touches on subjects that are part of every woman’s and every family’s stories. Family values, friendships, and the changing roles of women in the twentieth-century are things that my own family has in common with this character.

As I read this book I couldn't help but think of my own grandmothers and their stories. This is the kind of story that will inspire you to ask your own family members about their stories.

Better Nesting Book Club : A Sudden Light

The Better Nesting Book Club recommends:

A Sudden Light

by Garth Stein

Garth Stein's previous book, The Art of Racing in the Rain, is one of my favorite books from the last 10 years. I have also had the privilege of meeting the author, so when I saw that he had a new book, naturally, I was excited to read it.

There is no dog in A Sudden Light (If you haven't read The Art of Racing in the Rain, which you really should, the book is narrated by the dog.) but there are ghosts. The Riddell family is haunted by several generations of unresolved issues and secrets.

For the first time in his life, fourteen-year-old Trevor Riddell's father takes him to the family mansion, which was built by a timber-baron ancestor. The mansion is a huge, rustic building built from whole trees on an estate overlooking Puget Sound. With hidden staircases and secret rooms the the house sets a dark and secretive atmosphere for the story.

While Trevor's father and his sister are working together to sell off the house and property and send their father to a retirement home, Trevor begins to explore the house and surrounding property. Trevor's exploration uncovers long-buried family secrets. His willingness to face his family's past, ghosts and all, changes his family's future.