Letting in the Light (The Spindrift Trilogy)

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It took a while to realize I am much more than my work—and much more than my diagnosis—and celebrate my quieter, but more blessed, life. I am not very eloquent when writing reviews, and only do so when I've really loved a book hoping that others read it.

It was so easy to imagine the transformation and you can’t help but envisage Rowan Hill old and new and really get a picture of how beautiful it is. But to use profanity for no reason, you have to be a super good friend or my attention simply walks away.There is joy to be found in the cracks, if you let the light in, illuminating a redemptive path for you. Living with a disability; caring for someone who cannot live independently; bringing up a disabled child – the Advice Centre has information on benefits, legislation, keeping warm and well, fall prevention, generally coping with being a carer. It took four years of speculative diagnoses, multiple tests, scans, drug infusions, immunotherapies, ten inpatient stays in four hospitals, before I was to have my moment of reckoning with my neurologist. Your friend finding new light and new positivity in her wish to live her remaining life as fully as possible, having stopped having chemotherapy when her terminal cancer was taking her, reminds me of a friend and my mixed-doubles tennis partner who made the same decision. I don’t know how I would have reacted given the same situation, but I doubt it would have been as positive as your outlook.

By about 60% in, and all the way to the end, I was very tempted to give up on this book as it started to feel predictable, and although things happened, the meant-to-be-dramatic things didn't feel that interesting or dramatic (to me at least). A much-used word, karma is loosely understoodI really liked the characters - they all have their own issues and problems along with their individual foibles just as we all have.

Only now should I say that the author walks the edge of pain in these poems – bereavement, marital breakdown and separation from his beloved young daughter. Recently, I’ve been writing a lot about similar topics, especially as you say, “ hopefulness, and not to wallow in the misery and frustrations of my condition, and my brokenness. However she doesn’t quite get the peace and quiet she’s craving as her neighbour has a tendency to chop logs in the middle of the night and things take a very unexpected turn when the identity of this late-night-log-chopper is revealed…you guessed it…it’s Will McKennan. About the last third of the book takes a serious turn as it addresses a wrong that often isn't talked about, particularly in literature.Firstly you’ve got Ellie’s story as she recovers from Robbie’s betrayal and tries to get her life back on track, then when she agrees to house sit and Will McKennan turns out to be her neighbour you get engrossed in their seemingly love/hate relationship…but then when she does get close to Will and it becomes clear he’s hiding so many secrets you’ll be tearing at the pages to find out what’s really going on, and then Finn turns up and things get a whole lot more mysterious.

I have been blessed with living past what was expected, and in that time seeing three more grandchildren born. The people on and around Rowan Hill helped build her back up, and let her see herself for the star that she really was. The story is written with sensitivity and addresses some of the horrors of the Great War and how the characters and their relationships are changed by it.In one paragraph just as I decided to stop reading, for example, almost every sentence began with "I this" and "I that.