The Canterbury Sisters
along with a note reminding Che of a half-forgotten promise to take her mother to Canterbury, Che finds herself reluctantly undertaking a pilgrimage.
Within days she joins a group of women who are walking the sixty miles from London to the shrine of Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, reputed to be the site of miracles. In the best Chaucer tradition, the women swap stories as they walk, each vying to see who can best describe true love. Che, who is a perfectionist and workaholic, loses her cell phone at the first stop and is forced to slow down and really notice the world around her, perhaps for the first time in years.
Through her adventures along the trail, Che finds herself opening up to new possibilities in life and discovers that the miracles of Canterbury can take surprising forms.
I had a hard time putting a rating on this one. The book started a little slow for me, but then it was simply a delight once it got going. I did like the main character, especially for the fact that this author uses middle age women for her protagonists. It doesn't happen a lot, so I am always interested when one comes along. It really started to get interesting once all the women started on their trek to Canterbury and they started the story telling (in the tradition of Chaucer I'm told, although I've never read The Canterbury Tales). All of the women started really developing through their stories. It was a bit hard to keep track of who was who, but as you continue to read it doesn't become an issue. There were a couple of stories that were not that interesting to me, but they are not very long, and the majority I found to be very well done. It was also fascinating that a lot of the women told their own stories disguised as a third person narrative. Very well thought out on the part of the author. While I loved the cover of the book, I have to admit that other than the fact that they drink tea in England, it didn't really showcase the plot of the book. I'm very drawn to this cover though, so I'm not taking anything away from its power to draw me in to the story.
Another great book by Kim Wright. If you have not read her book The Unexpected Waltz, I would highly recommend that one as well! This one may take a few pages to get into, but it's well worth the read once the journey takes off.
I received this book from the publisher for a discussion with the author on Goodreads. As always, my opinions are my own.
I have this on my Kindle but haven't gotten to it yet. Thanks for the warning about the slow start. I can get very impatient with that unless I know that things do improve if I just stick with it! Glad you enjoyed it overall!
It's definitely worth the read, it's a unique concept for a book, and I liked that. Thanks for stopping by!