Review by Marlene Engel
This
book centers around thirty eight year old Anna, a former paramedic, who has
been diagnosed with early onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Recently placed at a small assisted living
center that her twin chose when he learned that there was another young patient
with the same disease, Anna, who doesn’t plan on living long enough to care, is
not partial to her new living situation.
But it doesn’t take long for her to form a bond with Luke, the forty one
year old patient who is suffering from frontotemporal dementia and before long
they become inseparable.
Another
storyline builds when Eve is introduced.
Due to her husband’s criminal activity, she’s forced to put aside her
restaurant culinary skills and accept a job as a chef at Rosalind Home. We also meet her seven year old daughter,
Clementine, who the residents fall in love with and who has had struggles in
her short life that no young child should have to endure.
I
couldn’t wait to read this book. Having
a relative who was recently placed in a senior living center because of
Alzheimer’s dementia, the premise of this book intrigued me. The author was spot on with her depiction of
this horrible disease. A disease that
takes people from you, even before death, in not being the person they once
were or remembering the life that they previously lived.
Purchase
this book at:
About the Author:
Sally Hepworth has lived and
travelled around the world, spending extended periods in Singapore, the U.K.,
and Canada. While on maternity leave from her job in Human Resources, Sally
finally fulfilled a lifelong dream to write, the result of which was Love
Like the French, published in Germany in 2014. While pregnant with her second
child, Sally wrote The Secrets of Midwives, published worldwide in
English, as well as in France, Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia
in 2015. A novel about three generations of midwives, The Secrets of
Midwives asks readers what makes a mother and what role biology plays in
the making and binding of a family.
The Secrets of
Midwives has been labelled “enchanting” by The Herald Sun, “smart and
engaging” by Publisher’s Weekly, and New York Times bestselling authors
Liane Moriarty and Emily Giffin have praised Sally’s debut English language
novel as “women’s fiction at its finest” and “totally absorbing”.
Sally’s next novel is
titled the Things We Keep and will be published in February 2016. She
is currently working on her next novel.
Sally lives in Melbourne,
Australia with her husband and two children.
Connect with the author at:
St. Martin’s Press is giving
one lucky winner a print copy of
The Things We Keep by Sally
Hepworth
US only
a Rafflecopter giveaway
