I've been reading...

There're a few books I didn't review last month and I didn't do a June wrap-up because of lack of time so I'll just do a general post about what I've been reading recently.

Several books from June that I didn't review:

A Very English Murder by Verity Bright. Unconventional Eleanor Swift is back in England after travelling the world, her uncle has died, she's inherited everything and is now 'Lady' Eleanor. But things go rather pear-shaped when she witnesses a murder one night. There's no body, the police don't believe her, so she and the house bulldog, Gladstone, set about solving the mystery. Really enjoyed this one, fun characters, good mystery, it reminded me a little bit of T.E. Kinsey's Lady Hardcastle series.

Death Goes on Skis by Nancy Spain. This, as the title suggests, is a skiing holiday murder mystery. It involves a lot of rich people having affairs and killing each other off and at times I couldn't make head or tail of it. Wasn't keen on the writing style either, too many short, abrupt sentences. Shame, as with the gorgeous cover it has I really wanted to love it. Oh, well.

Married to Bhutan by Linda Leaming was a non-fiction account of the American author who was somehow drawn to the small Himalayan country of Bhutan. She moves there to teach, meets a lovely Buddhist chap who believes they were destined to meet, and marries him. Quite an interesting read and gave me a good flavour of a country you hear very little about. 

Into July now:

The Camino: A Pilgrimage of Courage by Shirley MacLaine. The famous actor walks the Santiago Camino pilgrimage trail in Northern Spain. I've read a few accounts of people who've done this and also watched a doc. on TV. Hmm. Hard to say what I thought. The walking stuff and bits about the people she met were fine. But there's a huge amount of odd rambling about visions. Now I'm very open-minded but this was a bit much even for me. 

Traitor King by Andrew Lownie.

I didn't realise it before I read it but this is actually based on a TV doc. of the same name, which I watched, so that accounts for why it was all so familiar! It starts with Edward VIII's abdication in order that he could marry Wallis Simpson, and the subsequent political furore it caused. Wallis had strong connections to Von Ribbentrop, minister of foreign affairs in Adolf Hitler's government and was rumoured to have had an ongoing affair with him.  The pair did a tour of Germany before the war and were strongly rumoured to be Nazi sympathisers. It was thought there was a plan to reinstall Edward as king if the Germans ever invaded and conquered the UK. All very interesting but I struggled to get to the end. I don't know why, I think perhaps it was all a bit dry, not written in way that engaged me. I think others might feel differently and looking at Goodreads a lot do but there're also a few who found it as dry as me. I would like to read more on this subject though, as it's fascinating, so I'll look to see what else has been written.

 

Finally, The Mysterious Mr. Quin by Agatha Christie. I read this for the 'short story' category for the Back to the Classics challenge (in which I am not doing very well at all!)

The Mr. Quin in the title is rather a mysterious figure. He appears to elderly Mr. Satterthwaite every so often because he's a noticing sort of a man and tends to be on the spot quite often when some kind of tragedy is imminent. He jogs Satterthwaite's memory about things or makes him look at events from a different perspective. There are 12 stories in this volume, often involving country house weekends or jaunts to the south of France. People are not what they seem or suffering from broken hearts or there is some wierdness such as an artist painting Mr. Quin whom he's never met. Favourite stories include, The Man From the Sea, The Dead Harlequin, At the Bells and Motley, The Bird with the Broken Wing, The World's End. I planned to put this in the charity shop box when I'd read it but I can't, it was too good. The stories are very character driven and so beautifully written I was reminded of collections I'd read and loved by Dorothy L. Sayers and the G.K. Chesterton Father Brown tales. Both of these wrote a few stories with a supernatural bent and this anthology fits in so well with those. Beautifully written, I gave it four stars on Goodreads and am now thinking I was a bit mean and it should've been five. 

'For the rest, she was a rather shabby-looking old lady, a good deal given to black bead trimmings on her clothes. She had quantities of diamonds in old-fashioned settings, and she wore them as her mother before her had worn them: pinned all over her indiscriminantly. Someone had suggested once that the Duchess stood in the middle of the room whilst her maid flung brooches at her haphazard.'

Genius.