Sheltering Rain by Jojo Moyes

Sheltering Rain by Jojo Moyes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2 days

Pages - 448

Publisher - HarperTorch

Source - gift ages ago

Blurb from Goodreads

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You, the basis for the major motion picture, comes the touching, unforgettable story of three generations of Irish women faced with the fundamental truths of love, duty, and the unbreakable bond that unites mothers and daughters.

Estranged from her mother since she ran away from her rural Irish home as a young woman, Kate swore a future oath that she’d always be a friend to her daughter, Sabine. But history has a way of repeating itself, and Kate now faces an ever-widening chasm between herself and her daughter. With Sabine about to make her own journey to Ireland to see the grandmother Kate abandoned, Kate is left wondering how they ever made it here, and what she can do to close the gap between them.

For Joy, seeing her granddaughter is a dream come true. After the painful separation from Kate, she’s looking forward to having time with Sabine. Yet almost as soon as the young woman arrives, the lack of common ground between them deflates her enthusiasm. And when Sabine’s impetuous, inquisitive nature forces Joy to face long-buried secrets from her past, she realizes that perhaps it’s time to finally heal old wounds.



My Review

Sabine goes to live with her grand mother, to help with her grand father, get away from the city and give her mother time to mop up after another failed relationship. Life could not be more different from her city life, telephones, boys, technology, at the farm it is routines, regimented, horses and no networking. Sabine is a vegetarian, her grand parents host hunting parties -Sabine is about to go on a journey that changes everything as she has known it.

The book has two timelines, current day with Sabine on the farm with her grand mother Joy and grand father Edward and back to when Joy was a young girl (1950's), meeting Edward and what follows. A large focus of the book is relationships, personal growth, the decisions we make and the consequences that follow. Infidelity, parenthood, a love of love and focus on horses. Sabine is initially an irritating selfish teen but she grew on me a bit, her mother Kate enraged me, self worth completely tied up in men ugh absolutely infuriating.

A book that has you up and down, back and forth, opinions changing on characters frequently. Whilst I love Moyes you can see a huge difference in her writing now to this, her debut novel, it is still an enjoyable read and she is so talented in her writing abilities. A good story, strong visuals in how she conjurs up scenes and you can easily believe your are back in the 1950's and easily slide into the current day. She handles the duo timeline well and whilst I was reading one I was loathe to jump to the other and back and forth. 3.5/5 for me this time, still enjoyed it but not my favourite, if you aren't familiar with this author I recommend starting with one of her more recent books and working back.

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