Relief Reads 11a - Nights of Rain and Stars

Nights of Rain and Stars by Maeve Binchy
(Reader's Digest edition)

Charity Shop: British Heart Foundation (Newcastle upon Tyne)

Charity: Charity fighting heart and circulatory disease. The BHF funds research, education and life-saving equipment and helps heart patients

Price: £1

Book Blurb: A memorable tapestry of human emotions played out in an idyllic Greek village, in which four tourists meet by chance and discover that each has a personal crisis to solve. // In a greek taverna high in the hills above the little village of Aghia Anna, four strangers meet: Fiona, a young Irish nurse; Thomas, a Californian academic; Elsa, a glamorous German television presenter; and David, a shy young English boy. Drawn together by the horror of a tragedy that unfolds in front of their eyes, their dependence upon one another grows - with surprising results.

Expectation: Didn't think about it too much, thought it was a romance, and thought the entire story would be set in the timeframe of one night.

Reality: The first night was over in a couple of pages which surprised me a little. The core of a story wasn't a romance which was refreshing, and the personal crises were fairly mundane in the grand scheme of the world but to each individual appeared an insurmountable obstacle. The 4 characters became a part of this little village and there were 2 other main characters from the village itself. It was a very satisfying book in that each 'crisis' was neatly wrapped up by the end, it was less satisfying in that the two female character's crises were men-related, ptsch! With the 6 main characters (3 men, 3 women) all being single, unsurprisingly there was some romance, but that was a side-note, and they didn't all pair up which made it slightly less predictable.

Overall Rating

It was a struggle           2        3        4        5        6        7        8       9      Gripping page  

to make it                                                                                                        turner

I really liked the story, It would have been a lot better as the unabridged version.

Twist Scale:

Knew the beginning,                                                                                 As twisty as the 

middle and end         2       3        4         5       6        7        8        9      bendy wendy road

from the first line 

The reader is kept guessing about the characters' pasts which are not entirely predictable, but as I said they all had fairly believable life histories, nothing too shocking.

Tear-jerker Scale:

 As dry as a house       2        3       4         5         6         7       8        9     Cried an ocean

 throughout

Had I read the unabridged version I'm sure I'd have tears running down my face in parts, but as it were abridged and so moved on so fast I only made it to a bit sniffly.

Moral of the Story: It leaves you questioning the meaning of life, this book's answer is family.

***

Coming up: 3 more books to come in this series...

I went to visit Holy Island yesterday, even though it was just a day trip, being by the sea really makes you feel like you're on holiday. Holy Island is where the Lindisfarne gospels were written; the priory is now a ruin and the stones have been weathered into beautiful shapes by the constant wind. The island gets cut-off by the tide for about 3 hours, and being a small place, you keep bumping into the same groups of people. Worth a visit if you're ever this far North.