Here’s my reading list for April.

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift

The plot of this rather short novel takes place on March 30th 1924. This is Mother’s Day or Mothering Sunday as it was known then.

Jane Fairchild is an orphan and a housemaid. Like all other housemaids in that age of large scale domestic service, Jane is given the day off to go and visit her mother. How will she occupy her time when she has no mother to visit?

Beginning with an intimate assignation but with broad hints of what the future holds for Jane, this is the story of her life encapsulated on that fateful day in March.

I found the novel slow to start and had to re-read the first chapter to get into it. But once started, I didn’t put it down again until it was finished. The writing is so succinct and vivid. Remarkably…