There's a special uncategorized category of books I refer to as comfort books. These are books I'll return to again and again, not because of what happened in the story necessarily, but because I want to revisit the lives of the characters that inhabit it.
These books have heart.
I've read every book ever written by Rosamunde Pilcher simply because the homes her characters create embody the way I'd like to live. These cottages are strewn with threadbare rugs, merry fires, and sleeping dogs. There's always a scrubbed wooden table, some sort of stew bubbling on the Aga, and a dried-up heel of gingerbread to offer to whoever happens by in search of a restoring cup of tea. When I read her books, I take a bit more pleasure in cooking, cleaning, and nesting in general. I pull out my vintage tablecloths and use only vinegar to clean the house (lest you get the wrong idea, my house isn't as pristine as I'm leading you to believe here).
Then there's Jane Austen. Her brilliant stories and characters aside, I love to revisit a world of elegant country homes, simple needs, and short lace-up boots meant to be worn with long cotton dresses. Alexander McCall Smith brings me comfort in the stark functionality of Precious Ramotswe's detective agency. Patricia Wood in her Orange-Prize shortlisted book, Lottery, brought me comfort in bringing me back to the summers I spent with my grandmother when I was young.
I could go on and on listing books that warm my heart. But I won't.
Today is the launch day for my novel, Inside Out Girl, in the U.S. I've been asked a few times why I wrote the book and my answers can be found in the Q&A on my website in the book section. But there's another reason I haven't spoken about. Inside Out Girl is a story of two splintered families who are affected by a young child with a severe learning disability. Both families bring their own busted histories to the scrubbed wooden table. It's a story about parenting. About frustration and guilt. Doing the right thing, doing the wrong thing. But most of all it's a story about a girl who has never had any power of her own and how she surprises everyone by becoming a neighborhood hero. And while Rachel Berman's house probably won't inspire you to go at your kitchen grout work with vinegar and a scrub brush, I hope you'll find this to be a story about heart.
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