Coming Home

I have finished a book! And it's still January! And it was a book published this year!

Hmm.

It wasn't a heavyweight book, it was distinctly light, purchased because it said on the front that I'd like it if I liked Sophie Kinsella. Which I do, very much. On the back it told me that fans of Sophie Kinsella (for those that had forgotten since they read the front cover) and Cecelia Ahern would like it.

Oooh.

So I read it. Not obsessively, there are the odd books that I read at every opportunity, this was not one. Bedtime only. But I finished it, which these days says a LOT for a book. Mostly that it must have been a relatively simply read, but also that it held my interest for the week or so that it took to read.

The book in question is entitled "Coming Home" (hence my genius title) and the author is Melanie Rose.

The book is set in rural Cornwall and tells the tale of a young woman who is found in a major snowstorm suffering from total amnesia as to who she is, and is sheltered by a sad family, consisting of a father and his daughter together with their housekeeper and a variety of neighbours and relatives. The story of the family unfolds as the girl tries to open her own memory.

The story is intriguing enough to read on, but is unconvincingly realistic. The daughter of the family has not spoken for two years since her elder sister died and her mother left. She chatters away to the stranger who arrives in their house however. The mystery of the mother is somewhat spoiled by the fact that the father is described as a widower on the back cover.

In order to try and regain her memory, the girl seeks the help of a handily passing hypotherapist. She regresses to a previous life however and accesses the memory of a girl named Kitty who lived 100 years previously. Keen to discover Kitty's story, she undergoes hypnosis a number of times. The story that unravels and the parallels drawn with the girl's own life and the sad story of the family she is with is somewhat farfetched but it is rather nice.

Believing in fate, soulmates and fitting in where you are meant to be is a nice concept. It makes you think plesantly about people you are around, where you are in life and in particular, people who you feel drawn to for no apparent reason.

Comparisons to Sophie Kinsella and Cecelia Ahern are simply drawing attention to the fact that the story is loosely based around the supernatural, as both of those authors have tended to do.

Having finished the book and a-pondering over what to read next, I was overjoyed to receive today a most generous gift of a signed copy of Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey. I adore Jasper Fforde, I really do, but I can't shake the sense that this book is terribly like Ben Elton's Blind Faith. I am only on page 3 and fully intend to read on, giving my favourite author the full benefit of the doubt, but the seeds have been planted and I'm seeing a lot of similarities.

Reportage will be done on completion. God knows when that'll be!