What a wonderful book. It takes place at the end if the land where two oceans meet in Western Australia.The key protagonists are to very wounded light house keepers, living in isolation 100 miles from land.Tom is a WW 1 veteran and Isabel has miscarried 3 children. Into their life comes a lifeboat with a dead man and a baby girl. They keep the child and do not mention the incident to anyone . In a small village a woman believes her husband and child have disappeared. The consequences from these actions affect all these protagonists through the years.at the end of the book I was in tears for all the characters.

I am an older man who doesn't particularly enjoy love stories as they are often maudlin and unrealistic. The First Warm Evening of the year was neither as it was more character-driven than anything else, and it's characters were people you would want to befriend in life. Beautifully written, there were time I reread paragraphs for their beauty. Highly recommended.

This book explores the concept of reincarnation using 3 generations of an Irish American family to try to accomplish the authors goal. While the concept of reincarnation is fascinating, Fox is too weak an author to make this a satisfying read. His characters are caricatures of The Irish IRA types and the depiction of Bloody Friday has been better done by many others. Despite the hackneyed writing and a weak story line, the novel was entertaining and informative about a period of Irish- English history that few of us in the United States know much about if we are not of Irish descent.

The Memory Of All That starts slowly focusing at first on the authors' father,a second rate producer and movie director and first rate cheat who ignored his family. The story takes off when the focus shifts to the authors mothers' family, the Warburgs, grandfather Paul and his wife Kay Swift,a song writer and lover of George Gershwin . At this point the story of this menage becomes at once moving and ultimately tragic ending with the inexcusable death of Gershwin at the hands of his physicians who misdiagnosed a tumor which eventually killed this great American musical genius. The story is replete with wonderful characters, dysfunctional families and the magic years in New York between the two world wars. A wonderful piece of entertainment.






father

This is the first Masie Dobbs book I've read. I wanted to read it because of my interest in the effects of WW 1 on English society as well as my passion for detective literature about that period. Unfortunately while Maise has a compelling history and proper wisdom for an English amateur detective the writing is less than stellar with numerous Gramatical errors that are disconcerting. Moreover the mystery is banal and slimly developed. One positive note is that Ms Dobbs is a likable creative character whose back story is unusual and time spent with her
Justifies further reading of the series.