Tag Archives: Louise Walters

#BookReview ‘A Life Between Us’ by @Louisewalters12 #mystery

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Survivor’s guilt, revenge, memory tricks, childhood friendship and rivalry are at the centre of this family drama. In A Life Between Us by Louise Walters, forty-something Tina visits the grave of twin sister Meg each week and holds conversations with her. Louise WaltersTina has buried a secret so deep even her husband doesn’t know it. Only one other person was there when Meg died, the twins’ Aunt Lucia. But this is a complicated family with so many stories of betrayal, flight, lies, secrets and denials that until the end I was waiting for someone else to appear as a witness.
The first half was a slow-burn and I longed to get to the first turning point of the story, which when it came was not a surprise. This slow-burn means this is not a psychological thriller but a study of the long-term effects on children violently bereaved, survivor guilt, misplaced memory and grief. We are told the story via multiple viewpoints: Tina, then and now; Tina’s childhood letters; Tina’s husband Keaton who loves his wife but struggles to cope with her depression and guilt; and Aunt Lucia, then and now. For me, this was too many viewpoints and too many characters, making it rather involved and at times repetitive.
Walters’ story involves a large family and perhaps the story would be stronger with less siblings. Certainly the absent Robert and jailbird Ambrose added little to Tina’s story, and her parents are virtually invisible. The device of Tina’s childhood letters to cousin Elizabeth in California became repetitive and irritating, it is so difficult to write in the voice of a child. I also found myself sympathising with Aunt Lucia who is portrayed as something of a harridan in a dysfunctional family, though she too has experienced difficult times which she has kept secret.
An at times long-winded story which, at its heart, explores something deep, difficult and sensitive.

Here’s my review of MRS SINCLAIR’S SUITCASE also by Louise Walters.

If you like this, try:-
‘Please Release Me’ by Rhoda Baxter
‘The Stars are Fire’ by Anita Shreve
‘Sometimes I Lie’ by Alice Feeney

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookRreview A LIFE BETWEEN US by @LouiseWalters12 http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Tw via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase’ by @Louisewalters12 #romance #WW2

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rs Sinclair’s Suitcase by Louise Walters is a gentle mystery of a love affair during war and its consequences for the following generations. Louise Walters We follow the stories of two women: Dorothy Sinclair in 1940, and today Roberta who works at The Old and New Bookshop. Roberta is particularly fond of the secondhand stock, treasuring the notes and letters she finds hidden within their pages, wondering about the stories of the writer and the addressee. Each chapter starts with an excerpt from such a note.
The letter which starts Chapter One is dated 1941 and addressed to “My dear Dorothea” from Jan Pietrykowski in which he writes he “cannot forgive” her for “what you do, to this child, to this child’s mother, it is wrong.” The letter makes no sense to Roberta as it was written by her grandfather to her grandmother, and dated 1941 when Jan died in 1940. This is the puzzle which Roberta must unravel. What woman does Jan refer to, and what child?
Dorothy’s story starts with a plane crash. She lives on the edge of an airfield deep in the quiet Lincolnshire countryside, alone in her cottage [her husband is away at war] which she shares with two land girls. The plane crash brings the Polish pilot to her door. Nervous, Dorothy serves afternoon tea. She “watched Jan take a bite from a sandwich. His teeth were small, even and white. She noticed the way his fingers curved lightly around the sandwich. He was an elegant man… She watched him eat and he seemed unabashed, eating under her scrutiny. She, for her part, always ate guardedly. She hated the way eating contorted her face, and it made her feel exposed.” From their first meeting, he unsettles her. She is so buttoned-up; he is open, curious and confident.
There is a lot of sensuality in this tale. Despite herself, Dorothy wonders about the pilot. She does not miss her husband. When Jan visits the cottage again, she notices his “brown, lean, strong forearms and realizes how she feels… His arms were poetry.” But there is grief too, as this is wartime and what happened in the 1940s knocks on down the decades to affect Roberta, her father and her grandmother Babunia.

Here’s my review of A LIFE BETWEEN US, also by Louise Walters.

If you like this, try:-
‘At Mrs Lippincote’s’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters
‘After the Bombing’ by Clare Morrall

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MRS SINCLAIR’S SUITCASE by @Louisewalters12 http://wp.me/p5gEM4-Na via @SandraDanby