This was my Christmas holiday wishlist purchase from a London bookshop Foyles. Paperback by Penquin Books, 448 pages.

Synopsis:

"Barbara must say a final farewell to her four daughters. But how can she find the words? And how can she leave them when they each have so much growing up still to do?

Take Lisa, in her thirties but terrified of commitment - or brittle, unhappily married Jennifer. Amanda, the traveller, is always a little apart from her sisters and teenage Hannah faces adult life without a mother at her side.

Barbara's answer is to write each daughter a letter, finally expressing the hopes, fears, dreams and secrets she couldn't always voice. These words will touch the girls in different - sometimes shocking - ways, unlocking emotions and passions to set them on their own journey of discovery through life."

Another good one by Noble. Warm story with believable characters and problems. Much more slower read for me than I expected, perhaps I needed to reflect the loss of my own mother many times during this reading experience. Yes, the book is sentimental but it does not dwell on the sorrow. Instead it beautifully focused on hope and finding your own feet in life.

This book is now reserved for em64.

Toivelistakirjojen lukuhaaste

I will give this book to em64 tomorrow, hope she likes this.

Thank you for the book, bookgeo! It is so nice when your friends know what kind of books you like and then they bring these to you :-)

I did like the book but perhaps my expectations were a little bit too high and they weren't all fulfilled. The characters were believable and likable but there were quite a lot of them which means that some of them were left a bit shallow. And as there were so many people it meant that a lot was happening. The story was however a moving one and full of optimism despite the huge loss that was shadowing everybody's life. I did shed a couple of tears and did have a couple of chuckles so it was an enjoyable read.

The book was given to me by em64. It seems I hvae picked it up from EVK (Ensimmäinen virke koukuttaa). Seems like a good choice. Thank you!