Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.

Bird Life by Anna Smaill

Why I have it: Also because of Susan’s review.

Summary: In Tokyo, two women meet. Dinah has come to Japan to teach English and grieve the death of her brother. Yasuko is keenly observant – of her students and colleagues at the language school, and of the natural world. When she was thirteen, animals began to speak to her, to tell her things she did not always want to hear. One day her son disappears, and even Yasuko’s special gifts cannot bring him back. The women’s traumas unite them.

I’m thinking: Yes.

The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry

Why I have it: Not usually into historical fiction but Beck has tempted me.

Summary: One Wednesday morning in November 1912, the aging Thomas Hardy, entombed by paper and books and increasingly estranged from his wife Emma, finds her dying in her bedroom. Between his speaking to her and taking her in his arms, she is gone. In the aftermath, he comes across a set of diaries that Emma had secretly kept about their life together.

I’m thinking: Maybe.

The Truth and Other Lies by Sascha Arango (Translated from the German by Imogen Taylor)

Why I have it: Because of The Intrepid Angeleno’s review.

Summary: On the surface, Henry Hayden seems like someone you would like, or admire. A famous bestselling author who appears a modest ‘every man’. But Henry is a construction – his past a secret. No one besides him and his wife know that she is the actual writer of the novels. For most of Henry’s life, it hasn’t been a problem but when his mistress becomes pregnant and his carefully constructed facade is about to crumble, he tries to find a permanent solution.

I’m thinking: Yes