It is raining, her house is falling apart, the streets are jammed with people and it is all Oliver’s fault. While doing the morning school run, Binny escapes from the clutches of another Mum (wearing a complete Xmas “ensemble” of a festive jogging suit, with matching red fur ears and gloves) who wants to know if Binny is “ready for Christmas” or maybe even the nativity play that is on that afternoon at the school. Zufällig findet sie sich in einem Laden voller Putzmittel wieder und die Verkäuferin hatte auch mit Schicksalsschlägen zu kämpfen. This process reminded me a bit of "cutting" that some people do to "relieve" themselves of emotional overload/misery. Also, you're not alone with our troubles - everyone has secret problems or worries they don't talk about and we often get so consumed with our own lives we forget that.

Marketed as a Christmas story, I found Christmas to be incidental and that this tale could have been set at any time of year. Wonderfully written this account moves you emotionally and allows you to reflect on Christmas and truely prepare for this special time of year.Even though the story is set at Christmas, the festive period is incidental and the story could have been set at any time. Perfect is a poignant and powerful book, rich with empathy and charged with beautiful, atmospheric writing. Just in time for Christmas, a heartwarming holiday e-original story by Rachel Joyce, the author of the bestselling The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. It's a story about loss and love, renewal and change, giving up and letting go, reaching out and reaching in. Rachel has also written over twenty original afternoon plays and adaptations of the classics for BBC Radio 4, including all the Bronte novels.

I thought this would be an easy way to try out her writing style to better prepare me for reading this book, and it was! A NICE CLEAN AND TIGHT UK FIRST EDITION FIRST PRINT PAPERBACK COPY OF A FARAWAY SMELL OF LEMON BY RACHEL JOYCE. I worried it might spoil my experience with PERFECT before I had a chance to review it but the writing was just as lovely and the story touching. It's a Christmas story that let's those who are not living the shiny holiday of expectations mourn and move on. A Faraway Smell of Lemons is a Christmas Short Story by actress, radio playwright and author, Rachel Joyce.She has lost her parents not so long ago, but refused to cry or show her emotions at that time, then when her current "partner," Oliver ups and leaves her, confessing his affair with another woman who is now pregnant, she is beside herself yet still willing herself to remain stoic. I've been wanting to finish The Grapes of Wrath for more than 3 decades but it was a book that I put on hold in my late teens and never came back to. What I liked about that was that it meant this story didn't fall into the sentimentality that plagues seasonal reads. I'm not much into short stories but the author has managed to infuse this short read with depth and emotion that far longer novels often fail to achieve.