Morvern Callar - Alan Warner

Recommendation from Sarah Mitchell. A short story about a girl from the Scottish Highlands who goes on something of a rampage after her boyfriend dies. It's quite weird, not quite sure the whole way through whether you are meant to like her or not. The contrast between the places she visits and her home are brilliant. Has left me thinking about it a lot, but it is quite an odd one.

8/10

Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor

February's Book Club read and to be honest I'm not sure if I would have wanted to read it otherwise. The style is written like a Victorian book and didn't look appealing to me. However I soon changed my mind and got very hooked by it. It's about a group of people who sail from Ireland to start a new life in America. It concentrates on the lives of a few of them, showing connections before they are brought together on the ship: an Irish landowner and his family, their maid servant, a murderer and an American writer.
Well worth a read; not sure how much is fiction, but certainly based on facts from Ireland in the mid 1800s.
8/10

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

Hmmm,
generally quite twee but a gentle story and am glad I've read it as I think it got a lot of rave when it wasa first published.

6/10