I can’t belive it’s the weekend again! This week, I’ve been so busy that I’ve not had much spare time in which to sit down with a really good book. So what I needed was a short but sweet read that I could fit in around all the work (and play!) I’ve been doing over the past seven days.
This week I’ve been reading:
The Missing Rose, by Serdar Ozkan (£10.99, Rider)
Diana is a wealthy but unhappy young woman, living in Rio de Janeiro who has just lost her beloved mother to cancer. The story begins not long after her mum’s death when Diana is struggling to cope with her grief, especially as she has just read a letter her mum left for her to read after she had passed away. The letter tells of a twin sister she never knew existed and how this twin, Mary, has disappeared after leaving a note saying she leaving to ‘reclaim her rose’. Diana’s mum begs her to find Mary and take care of her. And so Diana reluctantly leaves behind her charmed but shallow life to begin a journey of self-discovery that has many unexpected twists and turns.
For a short novel (it’s under 200 pages long) this book packs a massive punch. While you can definitely feel that it has been translated into English from the orginal Turkish, it gives the book a quirky, almost poetic feel as you read it. It’s been described as a ‘modern parable’ and this pretty much sums it up, as you realise that Diana (and the reader) learns various lessons about herself and what it means to be happy, on her journey to find her sister. It’s one of those books that when you reach the end, you almost want to start it all over again and read it with a new understanding!
From Bump To Baby, by Natasha Harding (£12.99, ZakStar Productions)
Girls most definitely outnumber boys in the Fabulous office, which means that there’s always at least one of us pregnant at any one time, but so far not me! So when this book landed on my desk, I decided I needed someone more qualified to review it than me, so I gave it to Cara, our lovely (and now quite pregnant) Fashion Assistant. Written by the Sun’s very own Natasha Harding, it’s a positive and inspirational collection of women’s experiences of pregnancy and giving birth, and is full of tips and advice from Natasha.
Cara says: ‘As a first time mum, I don’t have any experience of what birth is going to be like – and for the past few months I’ve been a little in denial that it’s actually going to happen! So this book was a great introduction to what I can expect – and it was an enjoyable and educational read. It was so nice to get real accounts from women who’ve ‘been there, done that’ so to speak. Author Natasha is a mum herself, and she gives a detailed account of her own experiences of pregnancy and birth that helped answer lots of the questions I had myself. Now I feel informed and a bit more ready for giving birth to my baby – and the biggest lesson I’ll take away is that no matter how good, bad or ugly my labour is, as long as it ends with a bundle of joy, it will all be worth it!’
Tell me what you’ve been reading this week on – tweet me @FabFrosty
