The House That Made Us - Alice Cavanagh

About the book…

One Day meets Up: The House That Made Us is a love story – and a life story – told through a series of photographs and based on a true story

When Mac and Marie marry and find a home of their own, Mac takes a snap of themselves outside their newbuild bungalow, the garden bare and the paint on the front door still wet. It becomes a tradition, this snap, and slowly the photographs build into an album of a fifty-year partnership.

Every year they take a photo and though things change around them – the garden matures, the fashions change, they grow older – the one constant is their love. Every year, come rain, come shine, from the Seventies through the decades, every photo tells the story of their love.

Until the last photo, where the couple becomes one, and their story comes to an end…

Buy Link…                                            

About the author…  Alice Cavanagh was born in Fulham and still lives in London. She writes under a variety of names, including her real name, Bernadette Strachan, and as Juliet Ashton.

Contact Links: Author Page: Simon and Schuster.   Twitter: @Julietstories                                                                                                                    

My thoughts…

Where do I begin, what a book! ‘The House That Made Us’ has to be one of the most incredible moving, emotive and beautiful books that I’ve read in a long time, it will stay will me forever.

At he heart of the story are Mac and Marie who marry and move into their very first home. Mac started a tradition of taking a photograph of them both outside their house every year on their anniversary which tell the story of their life together and absolute undying love for each, their hopes and dreams for the future.

I absolutely loved Mac and Marie, the unconditional love and stability they gave each other and to their extended family and friends literally oozed from the pages. I do have to say their house was definitely not a house it was most certainly a HOME. A home that wrapped itself around them and around those close to them. The love and kindness was embedded into the very fabric of the building.

They always looked ahead to the future, saving what they could to fulfil their distant dreams. Time after time their hopes, plans and dreams abandoned but never forgotten just as they were about to be fulfilled, whenever life through them a curve ball - never feeling bitter when their lives unexpectedly changed direction and followed a different track. I loved that they shared the same thoughts and opinions, each thinking things through independently, coming to a decision and then finding they were aligned when they they shared them with each other, they truly were two of the most selfless people I’ve read about.

I absolutely loved reading their story, spanning fifty years from the 70’s - so many memories brought to life by the anniversary photo’s that became the album of their lives. The story resonating just a little bit more for me, as I was a child growing up in the 70’s and reading Mac and Marie’s story sparked distant memories of how life was back then pre the digital age.

I could say so much more but don’t want to spoil such a special story for others. This was the last book I read of 2022 and I would say if you haven’t already had the pleasure of being a fly on the wall of the most beautiful life story of Mac and Marie you need to clear your day and dive right in you won’t be disappointed. They definitely got it right in life - love, kindness and happiness trumping material gains every time!

The Woman in the Middle - Milly Johnson

About the book… 

From Sunday Times bestselling author Milly Johnson comes a poignant story about family, responsibility and learning to balance it all.

Sandwich generation [noun]: A generation of people, typically in their thirties or forties, responsible both for bringing up their own children and for the care of their ageing parents.

Shay Bastable is the woman in the middle. She is part of the sandwich generation, caring for both her parents and her children as best she can, alongside supporting her husband, Bruce. With her mother’s and father’s health in decline, very little support from her ‘extremely busy’ sister Paula, her son’s wedding just around the corner and her daughter only in touch when she needs money, she’s certainly got a lot on her plate!

Wife, mother, daughter; she has played all her roles dutifully. That is, until a sudden and shocking loss which sends her spiralling to rock bottom. Forced to put herself first for a change, Shay realises that sometimes you have to fall, to find out where you stand.

PRAISE FOR MILLY JOHNSON:

“A gorgeous, warm novel about friendship and how some people are just meant to be by your side” Adele Parks, Platinum Magazine

“A thought-provoking read that explores what it truly means to love” Woman & Home “Funny, poignant and so uplifting” The Sun

“A heartfelt novel from one of our favourite authors” Bella

“Brimming with Johnson’s usual feelgood factor, this is human nature at its best” My Weekly

About the author…

MILLY JOHNSON was born, raised and still lives in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. A Sunday Times bestseller, she is one of the Top 10 Female Fiction authors in the UK with millions of copies of her books sold across the world. In 2020, she was honoured with the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Outstanding Achievement Award and was a featured author in the Reading Agency’s Quick Reads and World Book Night campaigns.

A writer who champions women and highlights the importance of friendship and community, Milly’s characters are celebrations of the strength of the human spirit. The Woman in the Middle is her nineteenth novel.

Contact Links:

Website: https://millyjohnson.co.uk/

Twitter: @millyjohnson

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MillyJohnsonAuthor/

Instagram: https://instagram.com/themillyjohnson?utm_medium=copy_link

My thoughts…

There is nothing quite like a Milly Johnson book - Milly has perfected the art of portraying real family life with the dynamics and emotions that tie them together in such a way that as a reader you forget you are reading about fictional characters, and not reading about your own friends and family. With each book, from the very first pages I find myself totally hooked and totally invested and immersed in their lives.

I devoured The Woman in the Middle in almost one sitting, I picked it up one evening, read 40 pages and just knew it was going to be brilliant. I settled down the next day to read the remaining 400! The Woman in the Middle is such a heartfelt, relatable story - Milly has the words and analogies that just sums everything up perfectly. Sandwiched between family and work pressures it’s easy to forget to care for yourself too - my emotions yo - yo’d whist reading, she touched so many raw nerves, throughout the book that at times I found myself reading with a lump in my throat that I couldn’t swallow. I think The Woman in the Middle evoked in me every emotion possible from one end of the spectrum to the other. So many aspects of family life tackled in a thought provoking way.

The central character is Shay Bastable, a woman with a backbone of steel, and a heart of gold, her whole life is centred on administering care and support for her whole family. Mostly unnoticed and without thanks. Shay is described as part of the sandwich generation - a term I’d never heard before but totally understood as the story unfolded. She is stuck, sandwiched in the middle, somewhere between caring for her two elderly parents and that of her grown up children who having flown the nest appear to have dropped off her radar. Let’s also not forget Bruce, her husband too.

I absolutely loved Shay, but wanted to give her a push to add ‘herself’ into the equation, she was totally selfless - the needs and lives of her family uttermost in her every thought and action, never asking for anything for herself nor seeking pity for a life of giving - she personified the best mother, daughter, wife role. Caring for her family was uppermost in her mind, she never put herself first, she saw her role in the family and fullfilled it.

Shay visits her mum everyday, providing essential care for her Roberta, left to do it alone by sister Paula, she doesn’t have time in her day. Roberta has dementia and becomes fixated on the arrival of a skip next door, the name on the side triggering memories. This sets off a chain of events that turns both their lives upside down and subsequently the inter-family relationships, irrevocably on their head. Relationships, friendships and family life are reassessed as Shay finds herself going back to her past to understand her present and subsequently shape her future.

As much as this was a heartfelt, emotional read for me it was also hopeful and uplifting at the same time, shining light on the dark moments, life evolves and nothing and no one stays the same forever. Milly tastefully scattered a liberal amount of humour throughout to soften the edges, and as the story ended I was left with a lighter heart and a smile on my face. Thank you Milly Johnson for yet another beautiful story about relationships, family dynamics, love and friendship delivered in your usual open, honest, straight-forward style - just perfect.