Today, is the first day we have a review from our new team member Kimberly Livingston. Welcome aboard Kim, we are so happy you are part of the bookish madness that is Love Books Group and I know your opinions and reviews will be a welcomed addition.

Magic Places By Elizabeth Jenner

Publisher: Arcadia Books (20 April 2017)
ISBN-10: 1911350064
Goodreads Page

Guest Review: Kimberly Livingston

The Magic Places By Elizabeth Jenner

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For dreamer Clare, a chance encounter with old family acquaintance Marcus brings up haunting memories of a childhood holiday, as she and Marcus try to come to terms with the tragedy and the magic that has shaped their lives.
They meet by chance in a department store. But they’ve met before. They last saw each other when Clare was a child, during a summer in Guernsey marred by an accident. He lost his son in inexplicable circumstances. She was his son s friend and the last person to see him alive.
The novel flits backwards and forwards in time, between the present day affair between Marcus and Clare, fuelled by grief and loneliness; and the summer a young boy, Tom, went missing, a summer filled with sunshine and magic, moving inexorably towards tragedy.
The Magic Places is a spellbinding tale of the power of stories and imagination.

~Guest Review ~ Kimberly Livingston ~

The Magic Places by Elizabeth Jenner is filled with exactly that. What I appreciated most, as a reader, was that I got to decide if the magic places were actual, metaphorical, or both. Part mystery, part romance, part fantasy, the book might not please purists of any of these genres, but for lovers of good fiction, this book has it all.

The novel follows the story of Clare and Marcus whose paths cross after many years apart. Clare was childhood friends with Marcus’ son who disappeared on a joint family vacation when Clare was young. As the story unfolds (all from Clare’s perspective), time hopping back and forth between the present and that fateful vacation, the reader learns all that happened to bring the two families together and then to bring Clare and Marcus together again.

While there are many heartbreaks in the story, there is also hope and love. Without these the book might well have been depressing, and the colour I would attribute to it would be dark gray. By the end there was certainly closure that did not leave me disappointed. If you know my writing you know what this means, but I will leave it at that.

You can purchase your own copy here ~