A Place To Call Home By Carole Matthews

[amazon_link id=”0751552194″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’A Place To Call a Home’ is the latest book by ‘Sunday Times’ bestselling author, Carole Matthews.

In the dead of night, Ayesha takes her daughter, Sabina, and slips quietly from her home, leaving behind a life full of pain. Boarding a coach to London, all Ayesha wants is a fresh start.

Hayden, a former popstar, has kept himself hidden away for years. He’s only opened up his home to two people – Crystal, a professional dancer with a heart of gold, and Joy, an ill-tempered retiree with a soft spot for waifs and strays.

When Crystal asks Hayden if Ayesha and Sabina can stay with them, he reluctantly agrees and, as different as they may be, they quickly form an unlikely bond. So when enemies threaten their peaceful home, they will do all they can to save it and each other.

The thing that I have come to love with Carole’s books, is that you genuinely have a fun and warm hearted story but once you delve further into the tale, you come to a serious subject that Carole handles with sensitivity and care.

Ayesha is the heroine of the story, who in the beginning leaves her husband with her daughter, Sabrina. After years of being exposed to mental and physical abuse at the hands of her husband, that has resulted in Sabrina becoming mute. Ayesha decides that enough is enough and leaving with only a bag between them, she sets off to start a new life for the two of them, all whilst Suresh her husband and his friends go looking for her. Unaware that Ayesha has found security in a house with an exotic dancer, a grumpy old woman and a reclusive ex pop star.

This book is a gripping one that is not only entertaining reading but is also an inspirational and courageous story. Ayesha, is an encouraging character, brought to England from Sri Lanka. Her parents thought that they had found her a man that they thought would make the perfect husband, sadly this is not the case as Ayesha fears for her life. Living a lonely existence with only her silent daughter for company when she breaks free, Ayesha finds solace in a house full of troubled individuals and forms a new friendship with people that she would never have met in her previous protected life. Providing new friends with a new lust for life and helping others now realise their own potential as well as her own, Ayesha finds helping others make all the pain and suffering worthwhile as she and Sabrina try to piece their lives back together.

I have to say that I thought this book was my favourite out of all of Carole’s books. Genuinely heartwarming and realistic, it highlights the subject of domestic abuse and no matter what walk of life you are from there is always support available. In the case of Ayesha, I loved her. I loved her quiet ambition, to provide a secure life for herself and for those around her. She provided a calming wisdom to the story, even though she had lived quite a sheltered life, she shared her passion through her love of cooking to her new friends and gave them a shoulder to cry on life became tough.

I thought parts of the story were quite heartbreaking especially the scenes with Sabrina, a beautiful and smart little girl, who seen too much for a child off her age. Along with Ayesha we long to hear her talk and scenes were think this is about to happen make for particularly tender reading.

‘A Place To Call Home’ is a poignant, touching and most certainly a courageous story. And although it still reeks of Carole’s wit and charm, I thought this book was a new chapter to Carole’s style of writing and definitely a book of hers that I would highly recommend.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”0751552194″ target=”_blank” ]A Place to Call Home from Amazon[/amazon_link] and is available from good bookshops.