The Memory Box - Sarah Webb (2013)

Pandora Schuster is about to turn 30 when she receives a letter from her dead mother's doctor and in just a blink of an eye the content of the letter turns her life upside down. She is due to be tested for a cancer gene which killed her mother. Pandora is reluctant to share this news with her family or boyfriend Declan. With no idea what her test results will be, she decides to search for her daughter Iris' biological father, Olivier, whom she truly loved all those years back. On her birthday Pandora plans the trip to Paris so if she does have cancer, Olivier can take care of Iris. But things head south when Olivier refuses to listen to anything she has to say. Giving up hope of ever reuniting Iris with her real father, she instead makes a memory box for her daughter. Pandora is happy to split her time between writing letters for the memory box and time-sharing yet another gorgeous dress with the Shoestring Club members when Olivier turns up on her doorstep out of the blue. While the first book in Shoestring Club series was about Pandora's younger sister Julia, this time the focus is on Pandora. Sarah has managed to keep the tone of the book light despite the heavy and way too emotional storyline. While I laughed along with Julia, I cried bucketloads with Pandora. (SS)

Sarah Webb's Shoestring Club series continues, with the second book The Memory Box. The summary says: "Meltdowns are a funny old thing. You can be as together as you like, and then one day - BOOM - something throws you into a messy tailspin and you freefall into full panic mode. For some people it can be triggered by something as simple as turning thirty. For others - me for example - a meltdown is a little more complicated. And the trigger is something rather more serious than a birthday. Pandora Schuster is about to turn thirty but that's the least of her worries. She's just been tested for a hereditary family illness and, expecting the worst, she's desperate for her ex-boyfriend and father of nine-year-old Iris to be a part of her daughter's life. But there are two major problems: Olivier Huppert lives in Paris and he has no idea that Iris even exists. Pandora secretly tries to find Olivier during her serendipitous thirtieth birthday weekend to Paris, but the trip doesn't exactly go to plan. Back in Dublin, as the agonising weeks until her test results crawl by, Pandora manages to find some distraction with her kind and sensible boyfriend, Declan, and thanks to the increasing bond with her fellow Shoestring Club members as they time-share a fabulous new designer dress. But matters of the heart are not easily forgotten and Pandora is forced to make some serious decisions. She is determined for Iris to know who her father is and creates a memory box filled with photos, letters and mementoes. Pandora's box conjures up magical memories of the time she spent with Olivier in Paris until the past and the present start to collide and she finds herself having to choose between her head and her heart." The Memory Box is out in January.

Back to Home