More Than Words Can Say by Robert Barclay, Book Review
In this extremely good novel Chelsea Enright, a successful art teacher, inherits her grandmothers lakeside cottage and her wartime recipe book. She is led on a journey of personal discovery as she learns more about her late grandmother, Brooke Bartlett, through her wartime diaries which were hidden in the cottage.
Chelsea meets her true love while staying in the cottage that eventful summer, her story has very close parallels to her grandmothers with some major positive differences.
You will meet some very clear, strong characters in this book who I am sure you will fall in love with, as did I. It is a very cleverly written romance/drama/historical novel with some mystery thrown in for good measure. There is something for everybody in this book and it comes to a very satisfying conclusion.
I like the way in which Robert Barclay flashes back to Brookes actual life when the excerpts from her diary are read by Chelsea and her neighbour Brandon, I found this a very cleverly constructed style which worked amazingly well.
I also liked the fact that Barclay included some of the wartime recipes in the back of the book, I think I will try to replicate some of them one day. There is a useful reading group guide which would open up some very interesting topics of discussion.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and intend to read Barclay’s other novel If wishes were horses and I will be keeping my eyes open for future books from this author.
The only negative that I could find were a few editing errors but this did not detract from the overall enjoyment of the book.
Excellent
Personal read 5/5
Group read 5/5
Published by Harper Collins
ISBN 978-0-06-204119-7
USA $14.99
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