Tuesday, January 19, 2016

The Things We Keep - Pub Day Review & Giveaway

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