#BlogTour: The Spoon Stealer by Lesley Crewe @LesleyCrewe @NimbusPub #TheSpoonStealer #LesleyCrewe #TandemReadalong #5Stars #HighlyRecommended

Book Synopsis:

Born into a basket of clean sheets—ruining a perfectly good load of laundry—Emmeline never quite fit in on her family’s rural Nova Scotian farm. After suffering multiple losses in the First World War, her family became so heavy with grief, toxicity, and mental illness that Emmeline felt their weight smothering her. And so, she fled across the Atlantic and built her life in England. Now she is retired and living in a small coastal town with her best friend, Vera, an excellent conversationalist. Vera is also a small white dog, and so Emmeline is making an effort to talk to more humans. When she joins a memoir-writing course at the library, her classmates don’t know what to make of her. Funny, loud, and with a riveting memoir, she charms the lot. As her past unfolds for her audience, friendships form, a bonus in a rather lonely life. She even shares with them her third-biggest secret: she has liberated hundreds of spoons over her lifetime—from the local library, Cary Grant, Winston Churchill. She is a compulsive spoon stealer.

When Emmeline unexpectedly inherits the farm she grew up on, she knows she needs to leave her new friends and go see the farm and what remains of her family one last time. She arrives like a tornado in their lives, an off-kilter Mary Poppins bossing everyone around and getting quite a lot wrong. But with her generosity and hard-earned wisdom, she gets an awful lot right too. A pinball ricocheting between people, offending and inspiring in equal measure, Emmeline, in her final years, believes that a spoonful—perhaps several spoonfuls—of kindness can set to rights the family so broken by loss and secrecy.

The Spoon Stealer is a classic Crewe book: full of humour, family secrets, women’s friendship, lovable animals, and immense heart.

My Review:

The Spoon Stealer is an addictive, absorbing read that will stay with me for a long time.

I absolutely loved Emmeline and Vera who were great fun to follow throughout the book. Emmeline is a truly wonderful lady who has a big heart and it was lovely to see how she liked to help people. Her growing friendship with her memoir group was so nice to see and I enjoyed feeling part of their group, following their often hilarious antics. Her relationship with Vera was great to read about and I loved how the two supported each other.

The book is told in two timelines one following Emmeline in the present and the other flashing back to past events in her life. She’s definitely lead an interesting life and I found it fascinating to follow her on all her amazing experiences. These events spam most of the last century, taking in both world wars so it reminded me in places of Any Human Heart which is one of my favourite books ever.

The story has a great pace to it and there always seemed to be something happening to keep my interest. I often found it hard to put the book down as I really wanted to find out what happens next in Emmeline’s interesting life. It was lovely to follow her as she goes from being isolated and lonely to having lots of friends and rediscovering family. The ending made me cry but was so beautiful. This is one of the best books I’d read and I’ll be recommending this to everyone.

Huge thanks to Tandem Collective for inviting me onto the read-along and to the publisher for my copy of this book.

About The Author:

I love the ordinary moments.
I celebrate everyday things.

They are too often lost in the race for something grand. I hold dear our humdrum routines. These accumulating hours make up our lifetimes and when we remember, it is always the simplest of pleasures that make us happy. These are the memories I create in my books.

Hubby and I were raised in Montreal, but have lived in the same house in rural Cape Breton for forty-five years. It remains a sanctuary for our children and pets, both living and remembered. My writing began as an exercise in trying to understand my world and quickly became something that brought me joy. I dearly love my family, baby blueberry Gia, all creatures great and small, children’s books, and breathing in the wild ocean air. 

Also, raisin tea biscuits.