The Widow by Fiona Barton

This book touched me so deeply that I simply cannot talk about it. Anything I say will destroy the feelings I am left with.

I don't even want to fall back on clichés such as magnificent, wonderful, brilliant, unbelievable.

My emotional reaction to this book astounds me.  Gut wrenching, heart breaking.

I urgently need to take a walk ... 

Later then.

BLURB

'Me, the grieving widow? Don't make me laugh.'

A voice as startling and unreliable as The Girl On The Train, a cast as compelling as Broadchurch. 

Jean Taylor is the wife of a man labelled a monster.

Glen Taylor was accused of heinous crimes, implicated in the disappearance of two-year-old Bella Elliot, snatched from her front garden four years ago. But now he’s dead and Jean Taylor is finally ready to tell her story.

For the reporter who has secured the exclusive interview, this is the scoop of a lifetime. For the detective who has lived a half-life since he failed to get justice for the lost little girl, it is a chance to uncover the truth that has eluded him for so long.

It's time. Jean Taylor is going to tell us what she knows.

My career has taken some surprising twists and turns over the years. I have been a journalist - senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at The Mail on Sunday, where I won Reporter of the Year at the National Press Awards, gave up my job to volunteer in Sri Lanka and since 2008, have trained and worked with exiled and threatened journalists all over the world.

But through it all, a story was cooking in my head.

The worm of my first book infected me long ago when, as a national newspaper journalist covering notorious crimes and trials, I found myself wondering what the wives of those accused really knew - or allowed themselves to know.

It took the liberation of my career change to turn that fascination into a tale of a missing child, narrated by the wife of the man suspected of the crime, the detective leading the hunt, the journalist covering the case and the mother of the victim.

Much to my astonishment and delight, The Widow was published in 36 countries and made the Sunday Times and New York Times Best Seller lists.

It gave me the confidence to write a second book ,The Child, in which I return to another story that had intrigued me as a journalist. It begins with the discovery of a newborn's skeleton on a building site. It only makes a paragraph in an evening newspaper but for three women it's impossible to ignore.

The Child will be published in June 2017 and I am embarking on my next novel. My husband and I are still living the good life in south-west France, where I am writing in bed, early in the morning when the only distraction is our cockerel, Titch, crowing.

 SOURCE: fionabartonauthor.com

Nutmeg by Maria Goodin

Genre: Mystery,  Suspense, Fantasy, Satire, Drama, Relationships, Mother-Daughter relationships, Community, England, British author

Formats: Paperback, Kindle, Nook
Publishers: Legend Press 
Published date: March 13, 2012
ASIN: B007JVNOCE
Pages:304
Edition language: English
Original Title: Nutmeg
US Title: From the Kitchen of Half Truths
Australian Title: The Storyteller's DaughterPurchase links: Amazon,    Barnes & Noble

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US edition - kindle: From the Kitchen of Half Truths ; Nook edition

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Amazon Book Blurb:

Meg is growing up in a world of food filled fantasy; where her first tooth was so sharp her mother used her as a can opener, and eating too many apples once left her spitting pips. Then, age five, she is humiliated in front of the other children at school and turns her back on the world of fiction, deciding to let logic rule her everyday thoughts and deeds.

Years later, Meg's mother falls ill, and as she struggles to deal with the situation in an orderly fashion, her mother remains cocooned in her obsession with cookery, refusing to face up to her illness.

Slowly, Meg uncovers the truth about her childhood and is now faced with a humbling decision: to live in a cold harsh reality, or envelop herself in a wonderful world of make-believe.

Maybe life isn't defined as fact or fiction perhaps it can include truth, lies, and everything in between.

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REVIEW:

I loved the beginning of the book:

" I came out a little underdone. Five more minutes and I would have been as big as the other children, my mother said. She blamed my pale complexion on her cravings for white bread (too much flour) and asked the doctor if I would have risen better had she done more exercise (too little air). The doctor wasn’t sure about this, but he was very concerned about the size of my feet. He suggested that next time my mother was pregnant she should try standing on her head or spinning in circles (spinning in circles on her head would be ideal) as this would aid the mixing process and result in a better proportioned baby."

Meg's mom had an obsession with food which lead to the most outrageously funny fantasies about her daughter's first five years on this planet. At first I laughed, because the stories were so unbelievably creative and funny. I would not have minded to have a mother with an imagination like that all.

But truth be told, I was seldom so touched by a book that I sat with a mouth full of teeth, not knowing what to say in reviewing a book. If I blurted out 'magnificent', I still would have to explain why, in which case it will become necessary to quote this entire book in the review!

A 21-year old girl, Meg May, arrives home after earning a degree in science. She is coming home to take care of her dying mother. It is soon clear that mom's outrageous fibs and fiction hid a mystery about Meg's childhood that she was unable or unwilling to reveal to Meg. 

"Throughout her pregnancy my mother suffered all manner of complications. She was overcome by hot flushes several times a day which the midwife blamed on a faulty thermostat, and experienced such bad gas that a man from the local gas board had to come and give her a ten-point safety check. Her fingers swelled up like sausages so that every time she walked down the street the local dogs would chase her, snapping at her hands. She consumed a copious amount of eggs, not because she craved them, but because she was convinced the glaze would give me a nice golden glow. Instead, when the midwife slapped me on the back I clucked like a chicken."

As a young girl, the world of fairies and talking animals only brought rejection from Meg's school friends, which left her lonely and growing up fending for herself in the harsh world of school and mean neighborhood kids. Now, as a grown-up scientist, she wants her mother to finally face reality and tell the truth and stop dodging her own story. Meg is convinced that people who believed in fiction and fantasy were gradually rotting their brains. Their fictional world was destroying them day by day, like a maggot eating away at their brains. Life has taught her that science is the only way to address the world and it's challenges. Science is her way of addressing life. It is the social home where she finally is accepted and respected.

The gardener, Ewan, appears out of nowhere, starts talking to the trees, asks the frogs nicely to leave the garden and explains to snails why they are not welcome. Valerie, Meg's mom, finds a soulmate, which drives Meg to more antagonistic behaviour. But Meg has a few lessons to learn, of which the first one is that Ewan might sometimes have his head in the clouds, but his feet are firmly on the ground.

When Meg finally discovers the truth behind her mom's fantasy world, she is devastated. As she meanders back into her mom's past, she slowly begins the walk on the road of healing and understanding. Forgiveness comes slowly and quietly. 

It is the second mother-and-daughter book I read this year that had me in tears. First of longing and sadness, and then of joy. The biggest compliment a daughter can give her mother is to finally be able to say to her: " I am everything you ever taught me, even when you thought I wasn’t listening." 

My mom never had to tell me fairy tales like this. She did not have to rewrite my history for me like Meg's mom. This book shocked and shook me to my deepest core. This book is so multifaceted it is very hard to write a complete review on it without turning it into a dissertation! Apart from the delightful fibs and fantasy in the book, it also addresses a magnitude of emotions, perceptions, approaches and -isms that can enhance or destroy lives, depending on how we apply it to our own life stories. 

I recommend it to all mothers and daughters alike; to fathers and brothers who always wanted to know what the real magic in fairy tales is all about. 

I wanted to rate it five stars for excellent writing, originality and plot, but if it was possible, I would have added another five stars for the unbelievable emotional journey it invites the reader on. Nobody will walk away unscathed from this experience.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Maria Goodin was born in the South-East of England. Her first novel, 'Nutmeg', was published in the UK in 2012, and was based on an award-winning short story of the same title. The novel was published later that year in Australia under the title of 'The Storyteller's Daughter', and is soon due to be released in the US under the title 'From the Kitchen of Half Truth'. Book deals have also been secured in Italy, Germany, Spain and Sweden. Following a varied career which included administration, teaching and massage therapy, Maria trained to be a counsellor, and her novel was inspired by her interest in psychological defences. She lives and writes in Hertfordshire.