Expectation by Anna Hope

Hannah, Cate and Lissa come together at school and college, and share a house on the edge of a Hackney park.  Their futures seem limitless and exciting: the world is their oyster.

As time passes, their golden futures have tarnished as none has managed to have it all.  A career, a relationship, a family, a home, a better life seem elusive.  We follow their paths and their relationships, get to know them better and discover what transpires.
They are three different women with three different lives that are interwoven.  I was sad to leave them at the end and would love to return to them in the future.

Expectation is an intelligent and well written book, with plenty to think about.

The Aunt Who Wouldn't Die by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay

This delightful book tells the story of Somlata, a resourceful eighteen-year-old who marries into the Mitras family. Once the family was noble and grand but now they find themselves in straitened circumstances due to their ability to spend and their inability to see the need to work in order to produce the income to support their habits.  Their grand house is divided into apartments for the various family members and upstairs lives her husband's irascible and formidable widowed aunt.  It is Somlata who discovers the body of Pishima and also her ghost, who tells her to hide her jewels from the rest of her avaricious relatives, and Somlata is an obedient girl.

It also tells the story of Somlata's daughter, Basoma and how she finds her identity and destiny.  As strong and principled as her mother, Basoma is a feisty delight.

I enjoyed this window onto a slice of Bengali life.  There are a number of levels to this story and so it is a rewarding book for both the individual reader and the book club.  I just wish there had been a glossary for all the titles of various family members, although with perseverance I got the hang of it in the end.  Nonetheless, it was a good read.

The Woman in the Dark by Vanessa Savage

A truly haunting story: the characters are still in my head several days after reaching the end of the book.  It is cleverly written and Sarah is a character to warm to, caught in a situation beyond comprehension as she tries to make a home with her family at the seaside, away from all she has known in the city.  Her husband is desperate to return to the house which accommodated his idyllic childhood  and, although she is not keen, she wants to make him happy.  Then strange things begin to happen and Sarah feels threatened.  Is she suffering a relapse of mental illness?  Is the house haunted?  How well does she know the people she loves?  A gripping thriller and a jolly good read.