TBR

An unusual detective story told through the eyes of a lady called Maud who is rapidly declining into dementia and at the same time is concerned about her friend who is missing and tries to investigate her disappearance. She has to keep writing notes to remind herself that her friend is missing and she must find her.

Maud also dwells back on her earlier life, as a child, and recalls the time when her sister Suki disappeared seventy years before.

I thought her home helper was extremely annoying and patronising but it does open your eyes to the suffering of dementia victims and their families. The frustration of not being able to remember anything. To make tea, put it on the shelf and forget to drink it. Go to the shops to buy a tin of peaches because you forget that you bought the peaches the day before, and the day before that too. You even have a note to say "do not buy peaches' but you ignore the note and buy them anyway because you think you don't have any. To go out and forget where you live. To not recognise your family...and the list goes on.

It was a work of fiction very well told (shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2014).

Book posted off to my NSSFC recipient. It wasn't a wish list book and I couldn't see it on your book page either so I hope you haven't read it before. I took a chance as it really is a good little read.

Thank you for this surprise book, RedDahlia. It looks like a good read and I'll be putting it near the top of my heap to be tackled in 2017.

Thank you so much for sending me this book, RedDahlia. It was an excellent read. I really felt for Maud, frustrated at her deteriorating memory and treated like a slow-witted, annoying child by the people she encounters. I also sympathised with her daughter, at her wits' end & trying to cope with losing her mother inch by inch. Though Maud's situation is unbearably sad, it is treated sympathetically & with humour. Her character is immensely likeable and I really wanted someone to listen to what she was trying to tell them.

I'll be taking this book along to a Bookcrossing meet-up in the Knights Templar. If nobody fancies taking it home, it will be left somewhere in the city for a stranger to find and enjoy.

Picked this up at the bookcrossing meetup. I have seen this in bookshops before and thought I'd like to read it, so very pleased to have come across it this way.

I have released this book in the Homefield Road book swap shelf.

If you pick up this book, please tell us what you think!