THE CANTERBURY SISTERS

I usually scrounge through bookstores for my book fix as soon as I finish reading a book.However I didnt need to do that,this time around,thanks to the publisher and netgalley for providing me an advance copy of The Canterbury Sisters.

Che de Milan reluctantly decides to fulfil her mothers last wishes,by undertaking the pilgrimage to Canterbury with her mother's ashes.Che's life is already falling apart,with her mother's recent demise and her longtime boyfriend unceremoniously dumping her.As fate would have it,within days she joins a group of women who are walking the sixty miles from London to the shrine of Becket in Canterbury cathedral.The eight women swap stories as they walk along the length of the Canterbury Trail in the best Chaucer tradition,vying to see who among them can describe true love.Initially skeptical about the whole deal,Che loses her cell phone at the first stop and is forced to slow down and experience the magic of Canterbury and finally find the sense of peace and hope she was always searching for.
This is a simple story about a group of women as they travel the Canterbury trail in England,swapping stories as they walk.

My Views: Every once in a while you come across a book which tells you exactly what you need at a particular point in your life.This one asked me to just slow down and take it easy for a bit.It showed me that it is never too late for healing.

Frankly when I started reading this book,I didnt like Che's character.I thought she was too quick to judge others,envied people too much and was a pretty negative person in general and I didnt like that.However that changed after finishing this book,I felt that she was an honest person,who was probably frank about her feelings and she had indeed come a long way in the quest to find herself.This story really grows on you.I really liked the way each woman has a story to tell,be it a myth or a confession or just taking a load off their chest and they all feel a lot lighter and unburdened when they have told their tale.Their stories were different and interesting.This is a book for Women,it will probably touch the right chord in everyone because it speaks of common desires,the difficulties women have in understanding men...how we never really know them even after years of love and marriage,how knowing too much is far more dangerous than knowing too little.Women who might be completely different on the surface but who find a kinship in their stories.

It teaches us valuable lessons along the way,never to compare our lives to someone else's,living in the here and now,recognizing happiness in the present moment,never to judge other's,that whatever we think is lost has really just moved on and taken another shape,that it's sometimes so easy to analyze the stories of others and how it's nearly impossible to grasp the meaning of our own and that things can sometimes come full circle,just when you least expect it.And I think she pretty much nailed it when she gives the answer to what women most desire.

In today's world,we depend so much on cell phones and social media and there's so much pressure to appear to have a perfect life than it is to actually have a perfect life.This book is about middle-aged women,taking charge of their own lives,women who have seen it all and are probable trying to grasp the meaning of their own lives and searching for their own miracles.It showed me that its never too late to do anything in life,that you can re-invent yourself even in mid-life.

I am Indian and follow a different faith.I didnt know about the Canterbury trail and the shrine of Becket,so I also got to know about Chaucer and his pilgrims through this book.Besides I enjoyed the descriptions of the settings of each of the towns the group visits along the way and the cliffs of Dover.

On the downside,I thought the cover of the book,with the lovely fragile tea cups,though pretty to look at,was incongrous with the story.I was anticipating that Che's story would be the best of all but that was a bit of a let down.The end,however,was a bit too dramatic for my liking.

However this book does give you valuable life lessons which can be learnt without going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury.I have decided to just try and value each moment for what it is and find my peace in the here and now.I will surely recommend it to my women friends.I also intend reading more by this author.

I rate this book a 3 and a half out of 5.

THE CONFECTIONER'S TALE

After my last read,I was searching for something completely different,a story which would transport me to a happy place,as well as one which would be an easy read.'The Confectioner's Tale' featured in the sunday edition of the local newspaper caught my eye and I found myself immediately drawn to this book.Who wouldnt be?!A plate of macaroons nestled cozily on a book,against the backdrop of the Eiffel tower and the profile of a beautiful lady with a pearl drop earring.Whats not to love?!

Dont I say very often that a book should find you ?And when that happens,when a book chooses its reader,a happy feeling pervades and you can escape to a place faraway and live a different life.I have been doing just that since the last week and my sojourn to Paris ended yesterday at midnight.

This story has a dual timeline.In 1900's France,Guillerme du Frere is working on the railways,when a chance encounter leads him to meet Jeanne Clermont,daughter of the owner of the famous Patisserie Clermont.The stark difference in social standing does not deter them and they fall headlong in love with each other.Guillerme gets a glimpse into a life he never knew existed as he begins work as an apprentice in the patisserie and also embarks on a forbidden love affair with Mademoiselle Clermont.

Almost eighty years later in 1980's England,Petra,an academic,is struggling to complete her thesis at university while simultaneously trying to defend her beloved late Grandfather's reputation from a biographer,keen to expose a scandal from his past.As Petra investigates further,she finds a hidden photograph of her grandfather as a young man with two people she has never seen before.Scrawled on the back of the picture are the words 'Forgive me'.This leads her to unravel the story of the two star-crossed lovers and one irrevocable betrayal.

My Views:Let me begin by revealing my weakness for all things sweet.All that I could focus on at the beginning was the Parisien Patisserie and its wonderful delights,I lingered on the descriptions of the choux pastries,the chocolat chaud,the rust coloured caramel,the spun sugar,the macaroons,the profiteroles and it had me eagerly looking up what a croquembouche was.I was transported to a world of indulgence in Patisserie Clermont.

Although the poor boy-rich girl story has been done to death ,Gui and Jeanne as the young,uninhibited,reckless,star-crossed lovers did manage to tug at my heart.Also the period in which this story was set made it very believable.The story moves very fast and alternates between two different time lines which was not too hard to keep track of.I liked both the narratives and was equally interested in both -to know what really happened in the past and to see what Petra finds out in the present.We are given a glimpse of what Paris was like in those times and the class divide was aptly portrayed.

However I couldnt understand why Hall (the biographer who is keen to expose Petra's grandfathers scandal)suddenly loses his zeal and gives up on the chase.There were a lot of coincidences and chances but that too didnt take away the charm of the story.However the end was not as shocking as I had anticipated it to be.It seemed like after all the effort in the beginning ,the story would end with a bang.However the end was a tad disappointing.

Yet,it is a good debut,a fast-paced book with the old world charm of Paris,simple characters,simple story line and wonderful descriptions of french pastries.If all these things intrigue you,go right ahead and pick this one up.

I rate it a 3 and a half out of 5.

THE HEIST

Every once in a while I come across a book which sets me back in my reading.It just makes me lose that momentum and even though I want to give up on it and move on to something else,it just refuses to let go.I let life overtake my reading and just play along for as long as it wishes to engage me and then one day just like that I gradually ease back into my reading mode again.'The Heist' was 'that book' for me this time.I didnt like it enough and yet I didnt want to leave it unfinished.

I normally refrain from picking,thrillers,mysteries,chases and investigation stories.I think they are too predictable and I never enjoy these books because my brain goes into over-drive and tries to figure out the plot even before the story actually begins.However I wanted to read something different this time and randomly picked this one up.For those of you who follow the tv series 'MONK',Lee Goldberg the co-author of this book happens to be the television writer for MONK...or the other way round depending on whether you like MONK or not.But lets not digress.Coming back to this story...

'The Heist' is the first adventure in a new series titled (Fox and O'Hare).Kate O'Hare is an FBI agent,chasing down the worlds most wanted criminals and putting them behind bars,while Nicolas Fox is a con-man,notorious for running elaborate scams on very high-profile people.He's also very charming,handsome and frustrating because he manages to slip away every time it looks like he is being captured.He knows that Kate O'Hare has been hot on his trail and finds it thrilling to be pursued by a beautiful woman.But just when it seems that he has been captured for good,he pulls off his greatest con of all and somehow convinces the FBI to let him work on a case with special agent Kate O'Hare.The task is to team up to capture a corrupt investment banker who's hiding on a private island in Indonesia.Nick,the con-man that he is ,along with his crew of con-artists,Kate and Kate's dad go on this mission.How they accomplish it is what this story was all about.

My Views:First and foremost...I thought the plot was contrived.Maybe this would have worked better on screen but it definitely didnt work for me as a novel.The plot wasn't original either and it did not take a rocket scientist to figure out where the story was headed.The first half of the book seemed totally disjointed from the latter half.We just got to know who Nick and Kate were in the first half and the actual story begins much later and ends just as fast.I was disappointed with the way it was written and I just trudged through the first half to get to the real plot.It was very difficult to imagine a plot like this and the story seemed unreal at every point.The chemistry between them was *yawn* oh-so-predictable,and I couldnt figure out the deal with the toblerone bars.The only redeeming quality about this book was the sparse humor and the exotic locales.

But of course,I could unknowingly be biased to this particular genre in fiction and therefore wasnt able to enjoy this book.It might work for some and you might actually enjoy it.This was my first Evanovich novel too,but I believe you need to give the author another chance before you write them off completely.This might not have been one of her best works.

I rate this book a 2 and a half out of five.