Books read in September

September is always a busy month for me as it's the main harvesting month for produce grown in the garden. At the moment we're peeling heaps of shallots for the freezer but also preparing tomatoes, courgettes, apples and more... also for the freezer. It's sometimes an exercise in logistics finding room in it... in fact a friend refers to our freezer as The Tardis. LOL! Anyhow, I still found some time to read and this month read five books. These are they:

42. Little Beach Street Bakery - Jenny Colgan

43. Death du Jour - Kathy Reichs

44. River Marked - Patricia Briggs

45. Terra Incognita - Ruth Downie

Roman Medicus, Gaius Petreius Ruso, finds himself heading north from Deva (modern-day Chester) to the borders of England and Scotland, a wild and lawless area where his housekeeper, Tilla, originates. Expecting a quiet time, Ruso is of course quickly disabused of this fanciful notion with an accident on the road which is not an accident, the appearance of a sinister antlered individual whom Tilla thinks is a god, and the murder of a Roman soldier. It's a real can of worms and Ruso soon wishes himself back in Deva as the powers that be assume he, with a track record of solving a murder, can help solve this one. Really enjoyed this second instalment of this 'Roman Empire in Britania' series. The sense of place is very strong, it seems to me that plenty of research has been done as to landscape, buildings, costume, conditions and so forth, plus the books are good mysteries with quite a lot of wry humour. Poor Ruso's life is endlessly complicated by people constantly taking advantage of his honourable nature and also by the wonderful Tilla. I will definitely read a lot more of this series.

46. The Violins of Saint-Jacques - Patrick Leigh Fermor

The narrator of this story meets Frenchwoman, Berthe de Rennes, on an island in the Aegean. She's lived a long and interesting life and likes to talk about it... and the narrator becomes interested in the time she spent on an island in the Caribbean, Saint-Jacques in the Antilles. Newly inpoverished, she had gone there to distant relations to be a governess to the family's children. Berthe becomes immersed in their way of life, falls in love and is fallen in love with, and all against the backdrop of a stunningly beautiful volcanic island. That basically is the book. There isn't a huge plot, just the intricacies of people's lives and how their dramas all come together at the annual Mardi Gras ball... about which there is a lot of detail. What raises this book above the ordinary is the contents of the last 20 pages. I suspected the outcome but wasn't prepared for the brilliant and devastating way in which it was written, which of course made it even more shocking than it might otherwise have been. I was going to give the book a 4 on Goodreads but made it a 5 because of the ending. Patrick Leigh Fermor is best known for his travel writing of course, I'm not sure if this is his only fictional book, I think it might be, which is a real shame. Parts of this book will live with me for a long time.

So that's it. Today is the last day of September and I can't believe how quickly this month has flown by. I intended to read more but didn't do too badly all told. The mix is interesting - no one book was like any other which is probably a bit unusual for me. I don't have a favourite book, all of them were very good and that makes me a happy bunny.

We're well and truly into autumn now and October is one of my favourite months for reading so I'm looking forward to it. To close here's a photo of my favourite of the jigsaw puzzles I completed this month. Click for a larger view.

~~~oOo~~~