Friday Recommends

Friday again, and it's time for my choice of book for Friday recommends...

This is an exciting book blog hop that book bloggers can take part in once a week to share with their followers, the books that they most recommend reading!

The rules for Friday Recommends are:

Follow Pen to Paper as host of the meme.

Pick a book that you've read, and have enjoyed enough to recommend to other readers. It can be a book you've read recently, or a book you read years ago - it's up to you - but make sure you tell us why you love the book (like a mini review). You make the post as long or as short as you like.

Visit the other blogs and enjoy!

My Friday Recommended Read 

 is 

A Place in the Country 

by 

Elizabeth Adler 

Published 19 June St Martin's Press

Newly single Caroline, and her fifteen year old daughter Issy, enjoy a mother-daughter relationship, which is at times fraught with frustration and despair, and yet, inevitably they have a deep and abiding love for each another. After her marriage breakdown, Caroline must try to make a new life for herself and Issy. When forced to leave their home in Singapore, they travel to England, where they attempt to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. However, Issy is a tetchy and argumentative teenager, still coming to terms with being abandoned by the father she adores, and blames her mother for the breakdown of the marriage. Inevitably, Caroline, faced with the prospect of supporting the two of them, needs to find a way of making a living. They decide to settle in a quirky Cotswold village, and quickly immerse themselves in village life, where they begin to make friends, and set down some roots. However, with stability comes commitment, as both Caroline and Issy find their own way of dealing with the events that life throws at them.

A Place in the Country is a strong and emotional story which captures perfectly the mother-daughter relationship, and emphasises the need within us all for love and acceptance. Elizabeth Adler has brought to life the idiosyncrasies of English village life, and has combined this with an array of warm and witty characters. The additional mystery at the heart of the story adds a nice twist and serves to emphasise that life is never easy, and sometimes we have to deviate from our path, in order to get to where we are going.

Having never read any of Elizabeth Adler’s books before I was impressed with her style of writing and the way the story evolved effortlessly. This is one of those lovely books to get lost in – best read on a sunny afternoon in the garden.

I'm now going to search out Elizabeth Adler's other books. She has an extensive back catalogue - so I've many to choose. Don’t you just love it when a new ‘favourite’ author pops along!

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance digital copy to read and review.