Faraway Smell of Lemon: From the bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

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Christmas Day at the Airport: A glitch in the system, travellers stranded and all sorts of lives colliding in the face of a sudden birth... We are at the centre of our own stories. And sometimes it is hard to believe that we are not at the centre of other people’s.”

There is some terrific humor in these stories as well, which I always love, and as a special surprise, "The Boxing Day Ball" features Maureen, a young girl going to her first dance, and meeting her future husband, Harold Frye. Maybe Joyce's forte does not lie in writing short stories, because a lot of them felt contrived, unrealistic, and abrupt. There were no explanation to fantastical things, there was no depth to the characters, and we didn't have enough time to become invested in any of the stories.Of the seven linked stories in this volume, my favorite has to be “The snow garden” – the title story. It tells of a father who has temporary custody of his two sons over the holidays. He has separated from his wife, due in part, to the fact that he has experienced some mental illness in the form of hallucinations. The story portrays the difficulties and the joys, the promises and the uncertainties of being a parent. Rachel Joyce, internationally bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Perfect, delivers an unforgettable Christmas story of moving on from lost love, now available exclusively as an e-short. Description: Rachel Joyce's new collection "A Snow Garden and Other Stories" glides through the festive season with interlinked stories which delight and surprise. From an unexpected birth at an airport full of stranded travellers, a famous son wanting to escape the madness for a normal family dinner, to a divorced father's wish to give his two little boys the one thing they really want, a white Christmas. Five stories as funny, joyous, poignant and memorable as Christmas should be. 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. Binny doesn’t hear her properly, as she's too busy dashing to the local shops, to avoid a conversation. Perfect is a poignant and powerful book, rich with empathy and charged with beautiful, atmospheric writing.” —Tana French, author of In the Woods , on Perfect

I have to start this review with a humiliating admission - I have not read any of Rachel Joyce's other work. I know this is awful. I have a copy of The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry sat in my TBR pile and for some reason I just have not got round to reading it yet. I intend to rectify this very soon, having read A Snow Garden & Other Stories. The only two I did enjoy were The Boxing Day Ball, which recounted how Maureen had first met Harold Fry and that did leave me feeling all fuzzy inside but unsatisfied. I wanted to read more. I wanted to know more about how Maureen and Harold met. I wanted to see them fall in love. It also made me feel sad, knowing how things had disintegrated with them in The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. She is the award-winning writer of over 30 original afternoon plays and classic adaptations for BBC Radio 4.

Summary

In The Boxing Day Ball: eighteen-year-old Maureen is surprised by a genuine invitation from the local girls. They really seem to want her along, although her mother doesn’t approve. Maureen has no idea of just how life-changing a dance in the parish hall could be. There is much to do, much to prepare, much to mend, but it cannot be done in a day and sometimes it is better to do one small thing.” (from “A Faraway Smell of Lemon”) I really wasn't a fan of this one, which is sad because I usually love Rachel Joyce's story and I was looking forward for a nice warm Christmas read. Out of 7 short stories, I liked only 2 of them - and even those were not fantastically great, but just better than average. PDF / EPUB File Name: A_Faraway_Smell_Of_Lemon_-_Rachel_Joyce.pdf, A_Faraway_Smell_Of_Lemon_-_Rachel_Joyce.epub Rachel Joyce is the author of 2 of my favorite books in the past couple of years: "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frye", and it's companion novel, "The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessey". Both of those books were about normal people trying to live good lives, needing to make connections with others, and trying to do so in sometimes surprising ways.

Rachel Joyce's new collection "A Snow Garden and Other Stories" glides through the festive season with interlinked stories which delight and surprise. From an unexpected birth at an airport full of stranded travellers, a famous son wanting to escape the madness for a normal family dinner, to a divorced father's wish to give his two little boys the one thing they really want, a white Christmas. Five stories as funny, joyous, poignant and memorable as Christmas should be. This is a collection of short stories from the author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. The stories are linked with small references to each other and all each day in the Christmas week (though some are clearly different years). We had once what we can never have again. So why, then, do we behave as if everything we have connected with, everything we have blessed with our loving, should be ours for keeps? It is enough to have tiptoed to that space beyond the skin, beyond our nerve endings, and to have glimpsed things that beforehand we only half knew. In the Foreward, Joyce shares a story, a joke, about an actress playing the part of the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, and someone asking her what the play is about. This is a book of short stories centered on the time between Christmas and New Years, 7 stories with seemingly nothing in common except the picture of a girl in a red coat, an advertisement for something never named. But as each story reveals, there are sometimes connections we never know about with people we only see in passing, as strangers we never meet.Christmas at the Airport: A glitch in the system, travellers stranded and all sorts of lives colliding in the face of a sudden birth... In A Faraway Smell of Lemon, Binny is running from the over-zealous PTA mum (we all know one!) and finds herself in a shop she’d never normally visit. In The Marriage Manual, Alan and Alice try to make their son a gift from a DIY kit and find themselves deconstructing their marriage. In A Boxing Day Ball, a disco at the village hall proves life-changing. The stories are simple, poignant, beautifully told with a gloss of the supernatural like Christmas frosting. It’s Christmas Eve, and Binny is not prepared. In fact, she wants to fast forward and skip Christmas this year all together. Christmas at the Airport: There's a technical problem at the airport and everything is stranded and a baby is born. It's a modern version of the Christmas story with an added dose of Joyce cosiness. I'll Be Home for Christmas The most famous boy in the world comes home hoping to escape the madness with a normal family Christmas.

My favorite character of the seven stories has to be Binny, a forty-seven year old single mother. She is mentioned in both the first story, “The faraway smell of lemon” and the last one, “Trees“. Her live-in partner, Oliver, has just a few days before Christmas – left her… 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 is Christmas Eve and Binny has just four hours in which to make Christmas happen for her children. But it’s raining, her house is falling apart and she’s just been left by her boyfriend who has taken up with another woman. Darting into a doorway to escape an awkward conversation, Binny finds herself in the kind of shop she’d never normally visit. But in among the shelves, she finds a surprising source of peace. A Faraway Smell of Lemon by Rachel Joyce – eBook Details

In Trees: much to Sal’s annoyance, Oliver agrees to his elderly father’s request to bring trees. It’s New Year’s Eve, his pregnant girlfriend wants to party, but his father has decided he needs to plant twenty trees to atone. He’ll need to borrow his ex’s van, but Binny is kind, and Oliver finds himself wishing for the company and comfort of her home, what used to be his too, before he messed up his life. A literary treasury of interconnected short stories which shared a variety of themes and emotions, a more genuine look at the holiday season than most I’ve read. These aren’t all happy-happy stories about the joys of the holiday season, which made me love this collection even more. The Marriage Manual: Christmas Eve. Two parents endeavour to construct their son's Christmas present from a DIY kit and in the process find themselves deconstructing their marriage. I’d had this sitting in my kindle library for I don’t know how long. Imagine my surprise when I opened it up and discovered it was a short story, quite apt for the time of year, and indeed, for this extraordinary year!