I have been reading...

So, it's suddenly turned busy. 'Well, it is Christmas!' I hear you opine. Quite right too. Plus, I changed my car, had family visiting, and took up Latin lessons with a really lovely lady tutor. And I have been reading too, just not got around to posting about said books on here, so I shall do a quick rundown in this post.

November saw me read four books. 

66. The Tainted Cup - Robert Jackson Bennett

67. As a Thief in the Night - R. Austin Freeman

68. The Woman in the Woods - John Connolly. Wherein Charlie Parker helps to find out who the body of a woman, buried in the woods, is, and what happened to the child she gave birth to. As always this was hugely satisfying in its creepiness, excellent writing and conclusion. This series 'never' disappoints and one of my personal challenges for 2025 is to get myself up to date with it. Not a hardship.

69. Pomfret Towers - Angela Thirkell. Book 6 of the author's Barsetshire series. It's a loose series and this is one I hadn't read that's been on my tbr pile for years. It's a house party scenario involving several different families and you have to work out who's going to end up married to whom. Beautiful writing and such a gentle, delightful book. A bit different from her later books, which I also love. Another author I want to read more of in 2025. 

So, that was November's books. Three of them were top-notch and one, As a Thief in the Night, a little bit average, but that's fine. 

On to December and I've read, or in one case 'finished', two books so far this month. 

70. Steeple Chasing - Peter Ross. 

This was pretty much what it says on the tin. A book about the ancient churches of the UK. I'm not madly religious (perhaps slightly more than I used to be) but I do love old churches. It's a thing apparently and people who trot around all over the place visiting churches in groups are called Church-Crawlers. Who knew? But it strikes me as a lovely thing to do and I wonder where you sign up! This was full of history and interesting facts with a very strong sense of place all through, especially the London sections. 5 stars, no quibbling.

71. Murder in the Falling Snow - edited by Cecily Gayford. 

This was an anthology of wintery/Christmassy murder short stories of the 'who did who in and why' variety. Not a standout collection but solid, with authors such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Arthur Conan Doyle, Michael Innes, Gladys Mitchell and a rather good story called The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace which I had read before but was no hardship to read again. A solid 3 stars. 

And now I'm reading this which is a three novella volume, Sherlock Holmes and the Three Winter Terrors by James Lovegrove. 

Of course, no one writes Holmes and Watson like ACD, but this is not a bad effort. I've read the first novella which is a school based story about the death of a young boy at a private school. I've read a couple of books by Lovegrove and while they're not amazing, they're very readable. 

So, that's me up to date. I hope you're keeping warm and cosy and finding plenty of good books to read, Christmassy or not. It's all good. No judgement here. :-)

A Couple of short(ish) reviews

Catching up a bit today. First up, The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. It took me a week to read this and I'm not sure why, although it is quite densely written and a trifle complicated! Describing it is going to be fun...

So, the first thing to know about this book is that it's a mixed genre novel and the two genres are fantasy and crime fiction. So it's odd. (Huge understatement!) This is an organic plants/tree world. Walls of houses are made of something made from ferns for instance, you can cool your house with a kind of large mushroom... and grass, plants trees etc. are also a way of killing someone. Dinios Kol, an 'engraver' - meaning he's been altered to possess a photographic memory - and assistant investigator, is called to a house of one of the wealthy families of the region. A man has been killed by a kind of contagion using tree spores and his mutilated body is now part of a tree. (I did say it was odd...) 'Din' works for chief investigator, Ana Dolabra, an older eccentric woman who keeps herself blindfold most of the time and doesn't much like to leave her house. Engraver, Din, is her eyes and ears. It's soon transpires that this death is not the only one that's happened in this manner, recently, and Din and Ana have to travel to another, more dangerous, region to find out more. So, the back-drop to this story is that the coastal area where all this is going on is constantly under attack from Leviathans from the sea, sea-monsters in other words. The blood from these creatures is used to 'augment' the population if they so wish, change various aspects of their bodies, so you can have someone who is very strong, very intelligent or, like Din, an engraver with a photographic memory. There's definitely a Roman Empire slant as well, and some people see a Holmes/Watson relationship in the two main investigators. I personally didn't see much of that, in fact I was reminded more of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin but I think that's probably just me as I haven't seen anyone else mention it. This certainly wins the 'Weirdest Book of the Year' award for me and I read quite a bit of weird fiction. The world building in it is amazing 'but' I can't imagine it being everyone's cup of tea... very far from it in fact. But it was mine... I liked how crazy it was, I liked the back-story of the Leviathans - I'm sure there's a lot more to come on that - I liked Din and how dogged he was, not so keen on Ana and her constant swearing (couldn't see the point of it) but I can tolerate that if the story is strong enough and for me, it was. Book two is out next April and I'll be in the queue.

My second read of November was As a Thief in the Night by R. Austin Freeman, published in 1928, so rather different to the previous book!

The setting for this vintage murder mystery is suburban London. The Monkhouse household consists of Harold Monkhouse, elderly, not in the best of health, his younger wife, Barbara, Monkhouse's secretary, Anthony Wallingford, and Madelaine Norris, an orphaned relation, brought up as Monkhouse's daughter. The old man is often very ill in bed and this time is no different. No one realises he's at death's door, not even his doctor, but at death's door he is and he pops his clogs. It's initially thought his various illnesses have taken him but an autopsy proves otherwise: Monkhouse has been poisoned. Rupert Mayfield is a lawyer and very close friend of the family through Barbara. They practically grew up together and suffered the great loss of a girl that grew up with them, Stella. Thus, the two are very close. So, who killed Harold Monkhouse? Mayfield consults private detective, Dr. Thorndyke, but reluctantly. He hates the thought that one of the household he's so close to has killed a vulnerable old man, but has to do something as the police have drawn a blank. Neither of them realises how complicated this case is going to turn out to be. So, I enjoyed this but gave it just an average 3 stars on Goodreads. Why? Well, it's a bit waffley for my taste. Well written, like most authors from 1920s and 30s, R. Austin Freeman knew how to put pen to paper and write beautifully. But every last thing is gone into, scientifically... and some will like this aspect I'm sure... but for me it got bogged down in too much detail. That said, the case was intriguing, there was very good characterisation, I was very invested in each every one of them and, like Mayfield, didn't really want any of them to have committed the murder. London is very much a real character in the book, good atmosphere, lots of local knowledge, so I liked that aspect too. In all, a solid read, not a 'sing from the rooftops' kind of book, but I enjoyed it well enough.

So, while the snow is coming down outside (not kidding, it 'is') I'm reading this from John Connolly, my favourite author.

 

The Woman in the Woods, like all Connolly's Charlie Parker books, is creepy and thought provoking and no author makes me shudder like him. I'm five or six books behind in this series so my plan for next year is to have a catch-up as one of my personal challenges. This won't exactly be a hardship. 

I hope you're all keeping well and warm and finding some good seasonal books to read as winter closes in.

Books read in October

I just can't believe October is now behind us and we're entering the final couple of months of 2024. (Note: I have not mentioned the 'C' word.) I did a bit better with reading last month than I did in September... 6 books read as opposed to '2' (still haven't quite recovered from that!) So, these are they.

60. Bookworm - Lucy Mangan. A fun book about the author's favourite books of her childhood in the 1980s. Not my generation but close to my daughters' so it was a nice trip down memory lane. 

61. Two-Way Murder - E.C.R. Lorac

62.  The Haunting of Aveline Jones - Phil Hickes

63. The Woods in Winter - Stella Gibbons

64. The Spy Coast - Tess Gerritsen

Maggie Bird lives quietly, running a chicken farm in a village on the coast of Maine. She hasn't always done that however: Maggie is a retired CIA agent. She's not alone, around her are a peer group of similarly retired operatives, so when a dead body is dumped on her drive one night she is not short of assistance. In fact, the police are more of a hindrance than a help but one, Police Chief, Jo Thibodeau, is doggedly determined to discover who this group are and why one of them was presented with a corpse. So the clue here is in the title, The 'Spy' Coast, but for some reason I still expected it to be more of a crime story than a 'spy' one. Naturally, it was the other way around, which would be quite obvious to all but me, but there you go... Anyway, as with all of Tess Gerritsen's books it was very well written, but I'm not a huge espionage story fan so I did struggle a little with it. Plus, it felt a bit similar to Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn, enough that it felt like I was almost rereading that, although there are quite a lot of differences. Anyone, who hasn't read the Raybourn would doubtless enjoy The Spy Coast as it is a good book, but there is considerable use of flash-back scenes, so if that's not your bag, this might not be for you. I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads but if 3.5 was available, it would've got that.

65. Saving Missy - Beth Morrey.

Millicent 'Missy' Carmichael, 79, lives alone in a huge house in London. Hardly anyone she loves is around any more - husband, Leo, her son lives in Australia with his family and Missy does not get on well with her daughter who lives in Cambridge. It's a walk in the park that changes everything for her. She meets Angela and her young son, Otis, and then their friend, an older woman, Sylvie. It's not easy for Missy to let them into her life, she's prickly and a bit secretive, but they persist and eventually fostering  a female dog, 'Bob', (you have to know your Blackadder) brings about proper change. This was a delightful contemporary story, a bit heart-wrenching in parts, 'very' in a couple of others, have your hanky ready, but it's also funny and very true to life. There are flashbacks but they're not intrusive and 'fit', if you know what I mean. And it is beautifully written. My cousin passed this one on to me and I'm so glad as I absolutely loved it. 

So that was my reading October. A nice mix of crime and creepiness, some good seasonal reading and an excellent contemporary novel. I'm a happy bunny.

At present I'm reading this:

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett is a fantasy novel that is also a crime story. It is weird. Even for me, Queen of the Weird, it is weird.

I'm also still reading this:

This one is a beautiful read so I'm taking my time reading about the ancient churches of the UK.

I hope you're all enjoying your autumn reading and keeping well?

The Woods in Winter by Stella Gibbons - #1970Club

So, this week is the week of the 1970 club which is being hosted by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings.

The idea is to read any book that was published in 1970. (The challenge runs twice a year and a different year is chosen each time.) I usually try to read one book for the event and this year it was The Woods in Winter by Stella Gibbons.

 

It's the 1930s and Ivy Gower cleans house for socialite, Helen Green, for a living and is fairly stoical about her life, although, rather than live in London, she would far rather live in the country. When she gets a letter telling her of an inheritance from her great uncle, she has to take it to Helen to make sense of it because she thinks it might be a scam. But no, Ivy is now the owner of a cottage way out in the Buckinghamshire countryside and wastes no time in quitting her job and moving. Before she goes though she rescues (steals) a badly treated dog from her neighbourhood and foists it onto Helen while she organises her move. 

The cottage, miles up a lonely track, is barely habitable with a hole in its thatched roof and wildlife (mice, pigeons, cockroaches) running amok indoors. Undeterred, Ivy is in her element, she can sleep by the fire with the dog and she certainly doesn't need people to make her life complete. But the locals find her, despite her being so isloated and as anti-social as they come. And Ivy gets a reputation because of her empathy with animals, that of being a bit witchy with gypsy blood, as one of her close ancestors was, in fact, a gypsy. And then her life takes a turn as a 12 year old boy, Mike, turns up on her doorstep and like all her other rescue animals, she takes him in too.

So, this is my first Stella Gibbons it turns out... I thought I'd read one other but when I checked, it was by someone else entirely. Anyway, The Woods in Winter was published in 1970 and has a 1970 element to it towards the end. But the book is about the changing world of the 1930s and the breaking down of class barriers after World War One.

Ivy is the star of the book but others feature too. The Carteret sisters from a well-off family run a tea shop in the village but only want a certain type of clientele and are doing it for a lark. Angela Mordaunt, living with her high maintenance, snooty mother, who secretly wishes she could marry and move out but thinks she's too old and unmarriageable. Helen Green, in love with a bit of a bounder and keeping it a secret from her friends, the Carterets. And the boy, Mike, not terribly communicative but a genius artist in the making. And there're other bit-part players who all come together to make this a fascinating ensemble cast story. 

The sense of place, the cottage on the edge of fields with woods climbing the hills all around, was utterly gorgeous. But already things are changing with talk of developers and that creates a bit of a melancholy feel to the book, it's definitely a 'days gone by' novel. For me, Ivy's story ended rather abruptly. The ending isn't unhappy exactly but I suppose I wanted a bit more from it. I also found Gibbons' depiction of people in general to be a bit too unsympathetic, but that could just be me. In general I enjoyed the book a lot, it's quirky and atmospheric, funny, has a superb sense of place, and definitely appeals to that sense of 'leaving civilisation behind' that a lot of us have... you can keep the mice and the cockroaches though!

A couple of autumn/winter reads

Judging by my first two fiction books of October, I'm thinking this month could be a good one for reading. It's my favourite month, book-wise, as I do tend to specialise in spooky reads or crime fiction if I can. For many years I did Carl's R.I.P. 'Halloween' themed challenge but stopped when he stopped. I didn't stop reading the books though. 

Anyway, first up is a vintage crime yarn from the BLCC series of books. Two-way Murder was one of the last crime stories that E.C.R. Lorac wrote before her death in 1959, in fact it wasn't published in her lifetime, but in 2021.

It's the night of the hunt ball and the great and good have all gathered to let their hair down. Solicitor, Ian Macbane, is down from London hoping to be reacquainted with Dilys Maine, the most beautiful girl in and around the town of Fordings in the south of England (Hampshire or Sussex was my thought.). He gets a lift from Nick Brent, across the hills, where it's incredibly foggy that night. Ian comes back with someone else as Nick has persuaded Dilys to let him give her a lift home. She has to leave early so that her autocratic father does not know she's been out. Unfortunately for them they find a dead body in the middle of the lane and Nick tells Dilys to go home over the fields and pretend she wasn't with him. He goes to find a phone at the home of Michael Reeves, a man from a rough family, whose sister disappeared last year, but gets hit over the head by persons unknown for his trouble. This is really quite a complicated murder mystery, involving as it does several plot threads and a lot of secrets, some of which the reader is aware of, some not.  Who is the dead man? Was it a road accident or was he murdered and dumped there? You will need to keep your wits about you as there's a lot going on in this novel. This is not one of the 46 Inspector MacDonald stories, the two detectives here are Waring and Turner, the former into a more routine, police procedure type of detecting and the latter taking a more psychological approach. Lorac concentrates on Turner as he tries to get inside people's heads and discover their secrets. I had no clue until the end who had done the deed and how it had been achieved. The sense of place was very strong, the foggy, dark night on the South Downs, the overall English autumn/winter feel of the proceeding days of the investigation was excellent and one of the best things about the book in my opinion. If you're looking for a seasonal crime read you could not go far wrong with this.

Next, I moved on to The Haunting of Aveline Jones by Phil Hickes. I saw this Young Adult novel recommended in a Booktube video by Celeste at A Reader's Alamanac. 

Twelve year old, Aveline Jones, is on her way to Malmouth, a small fishing village on the south coast of England, to stay with her Aunt Lilian. She usually lives in Bristol with her mum but her mum's been called up to Scotland as her elderly mother is ill. Aveline is not enthused by having to spend the October half-term with an aunt she doesn't know very well and the state of the village doesn't help her mood, it's off-season and deserted, and the weather is 'stormy' autumnal (sounds lovely!) Add to that some rather creepy looking stuffed scarecrows all around the place and poor Aveline is not optimistic about the next week. Her mood is lifted somewhat by the discovery of a second-hand bookshop in the village, run by Mr. Lieberman and his nephew, Harold. Aveline heads for the shop in the hope of finding some new anthologies of her favourite genre of books: ghost stories. And find some she does, one book in particular catches her attention - it features stories of local folklore and hauntings. Inside the front cover someone has signed their name: Primrose Penberthy. To her surprise Aveline also finds that the same pen has completely scratched out the final story in the book, The Lady and the Waves. Why? Aveline realises she has a mystery on her hands when something is revealed about the fate of Primrose Penberthy. So this book is probably Middle Grade rather than Young Adult, but truthfully I think it would appeal to any lover of a good ghost yarn. I was surprised at how creepy and atmospheric it was for a book aimed at younger teens. The author sets the scene of a lonely, wind-swept fishing village in a stormy October very well indeed. I've actually experienced the setting he uses and he is spot-on. I don't think he says where it actually is but my gut feeling is Cornwall although Dorset gets a mention too, so you can make up your own mind. I found the book strong on characterisation, I liked that Aveline was not some trendy teen in the making with an attitude to match but a reader and lover of old books and bookshops. That makes a change from all the stroppy teens and pre-teens you read about. Aunt Lilian, Mr Lieberman, the old lady who was an expert on folklore, they all felt very real. It's a short book that packs a good creepy punch and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, enough to buy the next two books to read this autumn and winter.

So, an excellent start to my October reading, both books with a very strong sense of season and place, which are two of my favourite things, and I feel fortunate to have such good luck. I hope you too are enjoying some good seasonal reading if that's your thing.

I have been reading...

Judging by the fact that I only read two books in the month of September, that header is a trifle misleading. I honestly can't remember the last time that happened. That said (there's always a 'but'), both books were over or just under 500 pages and one in particular, Black Sun Rising by Celia Friedman, was dense and packed with plot. 

58. Black Sun Rising - Celia Friedman

59. The Trouble With Mrs. Montgomery Hurst - Katie Lumsden

In the county of Wickenshire it's widely thought that Mr. Montgomery Hurst will marry Amelia Ashpoint, daughter of a local, very wealthy, brewer. But not by either of them. Amelia knows she will never marry any man, and Montgomery Hurst suddenly ups and marrys a widow with three children. The population is aghast! Who is this woman? How did he meet her? Of course they all fall over themselves to find the answers to these questions but Mrs. Hurst seems strangely reluctant to get out into society. And of course that causes even more gossip... Katie Lumsden is rather a well-known Booktuber whose videos I watch on a regular basis: I've learnt a huge amount about Victorian lit from her. This is her second book, I haven't read the first yet, The Secrets of Hartwood Hall: I gather they're very different. Anyway, what we have here is a comedy of manners in the vein of Jane Austen's Emma or Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford. It's all about gossipy village life, scandals, secret lives, hypocrisy, duty, set around about the 1840s when that was pretty much all the middle and upper classes had to pass the time. So many different characters abound that I was glad of a list of them at the start of the book, but after a while I didn't need it as they're all so different and well rounded that it became easy to follow very quickly. There's about half a dozen different threads of different people's lives and what happens to them, mainly based around match-making and what it means to be a different. Do you hide it and carry on or give in and 'do your duty'. I gave this an unhesitating 5 stars because I loved it to bits. The writing is a joy and very readable, I would recommend this to anyone who likes regency romances in the vein of Georgette Heyer, even though it's set slightly later and there are things you would not find in her books. I've no idea whether Katie is writing a sequel, I imagine not but oh, how I would love one!

So here we are in October. I was away for 5 days in Cornwall last week, my first holiday since my husband died. It felt odd of course but my youngest daughter and I had a lovely time, so nice to see family who live there. 

I'm hoping to do better than two books in October as this is one of my favourite reading months of the year. I have spooky books lined up and some crime fiction. At the moment though I'mreading a couple of non-fiction books.

This is Lucy Mangan's homage to her childhood reading and it's a joy of a book that's making me laugh all the way through.

And this is pretty much what it says on the tin... a book about the author, Peter Ross, touring Britain looking at old churches. Delightful, though I'm not that far in.

So, Happy October to everyone. I'm hoping to be around a bit more this month, September seemed crazy somehow, but in a nice way, visitors and holidays are not something to complain about. Happy Autumn reading!

Black Sun Rising - Celia Friedman

Black Sun Rising by Celia Friedman (or C.S. Friedman) is book one of her Coldfire trilogy. I thought it would make a good read for early autumn as that's when it begins, and I thought right, as it absolutely did. It 'has' taken me two weeks to read it, I'm not sure why, other than it's 530 pages long and quite densely written. But it was worth taking my time as it was a cracking read. 

The planet of Erna was colonised by humans hundreds of years ago. Already inhabiting this world was a sort of non-sentient species called the Rakh, who were displaced and went to live behind a canopy on a continent of their own. Something has since happened to them though in the way of advancement of the species. But they weren't the only inhabitants. There's a natural force called the Fae which can manipulate and prey on human minds and is deadly unless humans can learn to control it somehow.

Fast forward many centuries and that is what has happened but it's not proper control and living on Erna is a very dangerous business. The priest, Damien Vryce, is one who has learned some control over the Fae. Arriving in the northern city of Jaggonath he meets Adept, Ciani, who is in tune with all things supernatural and Fae. But he hasn't known her more than a couple of days before she is attacked by fiendish creatures and robbed of all of her memories and deep experience in dealing with the Fae.

Damien knows he has to follow the trail of these creatures, back to where they came from, to get Ciani's memories back. Unfortunately, it turns out to be behind the canopy of the Rakhlands. Something there has sent these abominable fiends to pray on humans. Ciani goes with him along with her protege, Senzei... and someone Damien's powers cannot best, Gerald Tarrant. Damien knows he's not like them, but what is he? He's clearly dangerous but dangerous to whom - their enemies or themselves?

So this is a bit of a mixed genre novel. It's clearly science fiction as it involves humans and space travel. That said, it's described as 'Dark Fantasy', and it is that too. There's also  lot of what would come under the heading of horror in this book, but not gory horror, it's very much a fantasy based horror. And it's definitely a 'quest', 'travelling' themed book, my favourite kind of fantasy, so no wonder it suited me so well. 

The two characters that stuck out for me were Damien Vryce and Gerald Tarrant. Vryce is very much the hero and Tarrant a fascinating anti-hero. It's not long before the reader realises what Tarrant is but Vryce seemed a bit slow on the uptake somehow and doesn't understand why he hates the other man so. It's very interesting to watch their interactions. Oddly enough, the whole reason for their journey was Ciani but I didn't get a strong sense of her at all... possibly because she had lost her memory and thus wasn't that interesting. I rather fancy though that the author was more smitten with her two male protagonists and I can understand why.

The world building in the novel is superb. From the magic system with the Fae, to the bleak Rakhlands, the various species of Rakh, 'winter' and how they survive it, fantastic underground cave sequences, all brilliantly done and so beautifully written. Celia Friedman is right up there with my other favourite fantasy writer, Robin Hobb, and I surprise even myself saying that. This was just 'great', I loved it and gave it 5 stars without even having to think on it. I immediately bought book two, When True Night Falls, because I want to know what happens to Vryce and Tarrant on their next adventure which starts tantalisingly right at the end of Black Sun Rising, and looks to involve a sea journey into the unknown. Perfect.

Books read in August

Once again I've been a bit AWOL for a couple of weeks due to visitors and other sundry bits and pieces. But I have been reading and managed seven books in August.

51. The Question Mark - Muriel Jaeger

52. The Girl Beneath the Sea - Andrew Mayne

53. Green for Danger - Christiana Brand

54. Have a Little Faith - Kate Bottley. This autobiography by the TV vicar was quite interesting, written in her chatty style of speaking, it was quite the insight into the ins and outs of becoming a vicar and the sort of thing that happens once you achieve your aim. Also good on how to be good to yourself mentally. 

55. Jane Austen at Home - Lucy Worsley. If you want a good biography of one of the world's most famous classic authors, this one by documentary maker, Lucy Worsley, would fit the bill nicely. (Also recommend Claire Tomalin's book.) It's done by way of all the houses she lived in or were forced upon her, her sister and mother after the father died. An excellent 5 star read.

56. The ABC Murders - Agatha Christie.

This is a Poirot mystery, book number 13 I think, set in the 1930s. Poirot gets a letter, one of those taunting, 'You think you're so clever, but you can't outwit me' types of thing. It indicates that murder is about to take place and that letters of the alphabet are going to be involved. And so it proves to be, a woman with the initials AA killed in Andover, a woman with the initials BB killed in Bexhill and so on. Poirot and Hastings (back from Argentina for a spell) are powerless to do anything about it until the killer kills again and supplies them with more clues. This was Agatha Christie at her best. The idea was definitely to throw the reader off the scent and I fell for it hook, line and sinker. So clever. And beautifully witty as always with lots of verbal sparring between Poirot himself, Hastings and Japp and the addition of another police detective who has no time for Poirot's methods. (I always love the Miss Marples where a detective is dismissive of the old lady in the corner with her knitting.) This got 5 stars from me, no dithering.

57. The Uncanny Gastronomic edited by Zara-Louise Stubbs.  To be reviewed but it's a solid offering of weird stories from the British Library, all of which involve food or eating. Lots of different authors, Shirley Jackson, Christina Rossetti, Saki, Angela Carter, Damon Knight (his sci-fi story, To Serve Man, was my favourite in this collection), Mark Twain and so on. I gave this 3 stars but it was a 3.5 if Goodreads would only do halves. 

So that was my reading for August. Five fiction, two non-fiction. No duds, several stand-outs, The Girl Beneath the Sea, Green for Danger, Jane Austen at Home and The ABC Murders. I call that a pretty good reading month. 

I'm currently reading this:

Black Sun Rising by Celia Friedman is a book I've had on my tbr pile for well over 10 years. It's that rare beast, a mix of science fiction and fantasy and as such is rather interesting. It has a good Goodreads rating so I'm optimistic. Cautiously. 

So, here we are in September, one of my favourite months. As far as I'm concerned it's autumn and thus I shall be indulging in some good creepy fiction as well as lots of crime yarns. I hope you're keeping well and finding lots of good books to read.

Catching up!

It's been a while since I posted, I've had visitors and been busy enjoying the Olympics etc. but still reading, so I thought I'd do a quick catch-up post. 

I read just five books in July, which shows you how busy I was, plus it was Wimbledon fortnight of course. The last book I read for that month and after my last update HERE was Death in the Dark Walk by Deryn Lake. 

It feel like ages since I read this so I'm pinching the synopsis from Goodreads: 

Having just finished his indentures, John Rawlings is celebrating in Vaux Hall Pleasure Gardens when he trips over the body of a young girl. Summoned to the magistrate’s office as prime suspect, Rawlings not only clears his own name but impresses Fielding so much with his power of recollection that he is asked to investigate the crime. From gaming hell to fashionable house, Rawlings follows a trail of lustful liaisons and illicit intrigue which prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the girl has had quite a past … a past with threatening secrets. 

I gave this a 3 stars on Goodreads, there was nothing wrong with it, it was quite enjoyable, but I never did manage to connect with the main character, John Rawlings. This being book 1 in the series, he was very young so perhaps that's why, also he didn't feel like a young man from Georgian times - I think the book was set in the late 18th. century. I did learn quite a lot about Georgian times from it though, so that was fine, good descriptions of Vaux Hall (soon to be Vauxhall) gardens and what went on there. Anyway, I doubt I will read more in the series but you never know.

My first book of August was The Question Mark by Muriel Jaeger. 

This was sent to me (quite a while ago) by the British Library for review. It's a vintage (1926) science-fiction novel of the time-travel variety whereby the main character, Guy Martin, an unhappy office worker, is suddenly yanked forward in time 200 years. It seems like humans now have a Utopian society based on socialism, free from hunger, education and jobs for all, health-care and all that. Martin settles in with a scientist and his family and sets his mind to adjusting to this paradise. But it doesn't take him too long to discover that though everything might look hunkydorey, it isn't. I shall say no more. It was very interesting to read a very early sci-fi novel, written by a woman, long before women were expected to be writing speculative novels. There are some very interesting ideas in this, such as how human society could still be divided in a perfect society, how would people pass the time, what happens to those who are not academic? It's very well written and very readable, and I'm thinking I was a bit mean giving it only a 3 star rating - unfortunately 'again' I just didn't connect with the main protagonist. Very interesting and thought provoking though.

Next, I read The Girl Beneath the Sea by Andrew Mayne.

This is book 1 in the author's Underwater Investigation Unit series. Sloan McPherson works for the Lauderdale Police in Florida as a diving auxiliary officer. She comes, though, from a bit of a crime ridden family, uncle in prison, father a possible smuggler, that kind of thing. So when she finds a dead body while diving in a canal she's an immediate suspect. Push comes to shove and the only police officer willing to help her prove her innocence is the man who put her uncle behind bars. This book had an awful lot of 'thriller' type aspects, focussing as it does on a shady, spy-like dept., of the US government. I found some of it quite chilling and the rest really exciting. I don't dive but found all of the diving scenes fascinating and quite edge of the seat. If you like a fast paced adventure type crime yarn you could do worse than give this a go. I loved it and gave it 5 stars. Will definitely read more in this series.

 

Lastly, we have Green for Danger, a vintage crime novel by Christiana Brand.

This one is set in WW2 in a military hospital in a small village in Kent. Being Kent, it's suffering badly in The Blitz and one night two men are brought in badly injured. One, the village postman, promptly dies on the operating table and it's subsequently discovered that he was somehow murdered by one of the four nurses and three doctors attending the operation. Inspector Cockrill is brought in to look at this very complicated case and has to have a lot of operating theatre procedures explained to him. That's hard enough but why would anyone want to kill the postman? You need to keep your wits about you when reading this and because I was struggling to remember who was who I wrote them all down, something I never do, and found it helped a lot. The blurb on the back of the book describes the plot of this one as 'claustrophobic' and I think that's accurate. The hospital setting and knowing that only these people could've done the deed makes it so and 'these people' you get to know in minute detail. And they're all keeping secrets or not telling all they know. It's a very well crafted crime novel, my first by Christiana Brand but not my last, I grabbed Tour De Force for my Kindle and will look into others.  

So that's my reading up to date. I'm still reading this:

 

It's excellent but, like her Agatha Christie biography, quite densely written, so I'm taking my time over it.

I hope you're all well and finding lots of good books to lose yourselves in. I can feel autumn in the air, my favourite time of year, and am already pondering a few spooky reads for September.

I have been reading...

Not heaps to be honest as it was Wimbledon fortnight for the first two weeks of the month and I watched a lot more of it than I normally would. So good this year, my two favourite players, apart from the Brits who all went out early, were Lulu Sun from New Zealand and Jasmine Paolini from Italy - two bouncy, dynamic players and huge fun to watch. And in a week or so it will the Paris Olympics of course. 

So, books. I started July with Murder Takes a Holiday, an anthology of murder mystery short stories with a holiday theme, edited by Cecily Gayford.

Ten stories in this collection. It started with two stories I'd already read, the first being, The Adventure of the Devil's Foot, a Sherlock Holmes story by ACD of course. It's set in Cornwall on The Lizard Peninsula and I'm always up for a reread of this one as it's 'so' atmospheric. That was followed by a Lord Peter Wimsey which is not one of my favourites but even an average Wimsey is better than a lot of other stuff. After those I had five favourites. The Mystery of Home's Cross by Anthony Berkeley tells the story of a body discovered in the woods but when the man who finds it brings the police the body has gone and no one believes him. Chapter and Verse by Ngaio Marsh is an Inspector Alleyn story about a murder that took place in 1770. I haven't read any Alleyn novels so I must correct that. The Mysterious Visitor by Austin Freeman is about a man who goes on holiday and goes missing. The Fever Tree by Ruth Rendell was set on an African game reserve and was probably the best story in the collection for my money, very atmospheric. A couple go to reinvigorate their marriage after he's had an affair, nice twist at the end. Parking Space by Simon Brett was the last one I liked, another story about a disintegrating marriage and husband who's a social climber and another author I need to read a proper novel by. This anthology has quite a low rating on Goodreads - 3.33 - which really surprises me as I thought it was very solid with no dud stories at all. Oh, well.

Next, I read the third novella in the canal boat series I've been enjoying by Cressida McLaughlin, Cabin Fever. These are light and fluffy and set on a canal with interesting characters and dogs and what's not to love if that's what you're in the mood for?

After that it was Reckless Creed, book 3 in Alex Kava's 'Ryder Creed' series. 

Hard to see what I can say about this as it's a continuation of book 2 and I don't want to spoil it. Basically it's about secret labs in parts of the USA where uncontrolled experiments on human guinea pigs have been taking place. This came to light in book 2 when there was a landslide in South Carolina that engulfed one of these labs and Ryder Creed and his dogs are sent in to find survivors. Someone from the lab got away and book 3 tells what happens next and it is 'scary'. It was written in 2016 I think, and it's odd how many authors there are who predicted pandemics, what would be the cause of them, and how they would spread. Sobering stuff and this was quite edge of the seat reading. I do enjoy this series, good characters, all of them nuanced and interesting, and delightful dogs of course. But I've had enough of pandemics now...

 

 

So that's been my reading so far in July. My two current reads are two non-fictions. First up, Everything is Everything: A Memoir of Love, Hate and Hope by Clive Myrie.

 

Clive is a very well known in the UK as a BBC newsreader, maker of travel documentaries and question-master for Mastermind. I thought this might be an interesting read and it is, covering as it does, some of his childhood as part of a black immigrant family from Bolton near Manchester with origins in Jamaica. It gives a different perspective from the one I know and that's always a good thing. I'm really enjoying this, especially his experiences as a foreign correspondent for the BBC in many countries, which is one of the reasons I wanted to read it. A very readable and fascinating memoir.

Lastly, Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley. 

I love Lucy Worsley's books and TV documentaries and this one lives up to its promise. It charts Austen's life through the various houses she lived in with, first of all, her family in Steventon in Hampshire and then, basically, wherever Jane, Cassandra and their mother could find to house themselves after the father died. The brothers all had careers of course, not so easy for widows and women who couldn't find a husband. I think this is going to take me a while to read as it's very densely written.

I hope you're all having a good July, one that's not 'too' hot, and also finding some good books to read.

Books read in June

Now that it's July, the Wimbledon tennis tournament has my attention, so my reading has dropped off the last few days. But June was not actually a bad reading month for me. I read eight books in all and these are they:

38. The Bordeaux Book Club - Gillian Harvey

39. A Charmed Life - David Essex. Autobiography by the famous British singer, actor, writer. Enjoyed this one a lot.

40. What Would Jane Austen Do? - Linda Corbett

41. The Wild Isles - edited by Patrick Barkham. An anthology of British nature writing, a bit hit and miss but overall not bad.

42. The Canal Boat Cafe - Cressida McLaughlin

43. The Canal Boat Cafe, book 2 - Cressida McLaughlin. A continuation of the story from the first book, great fun. 

44. Death in the Sunshine - Steph Broadribb

This crime yarn is set in a retirement complex in central Florida. Moira is a retired British under-cover police officer, hoping to find a quiet life away from people she knows who might be aware of the secrets she's harbouring. Her mission is to keep herself to herself but this intent is stymied rather when she's the one to discover the dead body of a young woman floating in a swimming pool. Moira is not the only retired police officer living in the complex. There's another British couple, Phillip and Lizzie, he was a DCI and she a crime scene investigator. And then there's retired American cop, Rick. The police are so inept that the four retirees start to investigate themselves and discover that there's still life in the old dogs yet. I rather enjoyed this. The Florida retirement village setting was unusual although it was rather a stretch to imagine 'three' retired Brits in the same place, all previously attached to the British police. I also struggled to believe that the local police would that antagonistic. But I liked the way the four main characters with their various secrets were written and having each chapter written from the point of view of each of them worked for me. It kept me guessing about what had happened in their previous lives and even at the end we realise that not everything has come to light. Interesting. I will definitely read more in this series as I thought this was a decent start.

45. Frederica - Georgette Heyer. This was a reread for the 'Reread an old favourite' category in a Book Bingo  challenge I'm doing with a friend. It was like snuggling into a comfy old blanket as I immersed myself in the story of how Frederica and her young family inveigle themselves into the affections of the Marquis of Alverstoke. No one did Regency Romance like Heyer and I enjoyed this so much I plan to reread a few more favourites, Arabella, Sylvester etc. before too long.

Oh, here's a strange thing that happened while I was reading Frederica. It has a long scene about two thirds of the way in concerning an adventure the youngest brother has with a hot-air balloon. That mode of transport was in its infancy when this book was set. So, I'm sitting there reading this when I hear noises outside and when I looked out there was only a hot-air balloon floating along just above the house! How's that for weird?

So, eight books is not bad for me, I liked them all so that's even better. And I even managed a couple of non-fictions which I failed to do in May. 

My total for July so far is two and I will be back soon to talk abut those. Hope the summer is treating you well and it isn't too hot where you are. It certainly isn't here, it's more like autumn, but that's ok with me, I'm not a hot-house plant. 

 

Time for a catch-up

How on earth can it be mid-June already? I feel like the year is flying by and before you know it we'll be into autumn, especially as it's the longest day tomorrow. Summer's not my favourite time of year, I hate too much heat, and so far this year we've been lucky and Spring into Summer has been really nice with temps. in the high 60s, low 70s. That suits me very nicely.

Apologies for being AWOL for a few weeks. I've not been reading as much as usual, fueled by a strange inability to settle to anything. I'm assuming this is quite normal after a serious loss but I'm getting there, albeit slowly, and actually have some books to talk about today.

So, I started June with The Bordeaux Book Club by Gillian Harvey. 

There's an awful lot of bookclub themed contemporary fiction around these days, this one being slightly different with its setting of Bordeaux in France. As usual, a motley group come together to discuss books. Grace is the instigator of the group, she's an older, single lady with a finger in a lot of pies. She ropes in her friend, Leah, who lives on a small holding with her husband and daughter and is finding out the hard way that The Good Life is not all it's cracked up to be. Add to them Monica, a young mum, husband away a lot and struggling with a new baby, George, a builder, and Alfie, very young and clearly harboring a secret and you have a new bookclub for Brits in Bordeaux. This was a bit formulaic, the usual problems to be solved with everyone coming together to help, or not. I enjoyed it a lot but didn't feel the setting of Bordeaux came very much alive, it could've been anywhere but it was a very decent 'people' sort of read. 

 

I've been reading The Wild Isles: An Anthology of the Best of British and Irish Nature Writing, edited by Patrick Barkham for a couple of months and finished it last week. It was a bit hit and miss for me. There were dozens of authors (it's a huge book) such as Dorothy Wordsworth, Kathleen Jamie, Roger Deakin, Nan Shepherd, Horatio Clare, Kenneth Grahame and so on. Some pieces were excellent but quite a few were just a bit tedious. I see from reviews on Goodreads that I'm not alone in this opinion. 

A Charmed Life by David Essex is pretty much what it says on the tin - an account of the singer and actor's rather charmed life in showbiz. Fascinating, I enjoyed it a lot but it's not a kiss and tell sort of account, he's clearly a really nice chap.

What Would Jane Austen Do? by Linda Corbett was next.

Maddy Shaw has her column in a magazine cancelled and is jobless until she discovers a 'black sheep' uncle has left her a huge house in the Cotswolds (which, as we all know, often happens.) Off she goes to live in it for a year as the will stipulated, but will she then sell up? The locals welcome her to the point where she suddenly finds herself in charge of the village literary festival. She's also met a local crime writer, Cameron Massey, nice dog but very grumpy owner. Can she persuade him to come and give a talk at the event? This was fun. I mean the outcome was never in question but I liked Maddy's Jane Austen obsession and the grumpy author with a bit of a superiority complex was well written. As was the village and the locals who lived there. A fun read.

 

 

I seem to be in mood for fluff because I then moved on to a couple of novellas by Cressida McLaughlin, set on a canal boat, the canal itself being next to a small village and pub etc. All Aboard is book1.

Summer Freeman, an artist specialisng in sign writing, is returning to her mother's canal boat café nine months after she died. A friend has been keeping it going but it's struggling. Summer takes it over but it's hard with so many memories closing in on her and antipathy from the local owner of the pub. Eventually her bacon butties and delicious brownies win people over and a growing friendship with another boat owner, Mason, a wildlife photographer, doesn't do any harm. This had a lovely sense of the British countryside about it, the canal and surrounds feeling very real. Summer's indecisiveness and inability to put her foot down with certain people slightly annoyed me, more than slightly, but I liked the dogs and the birds and it was charming enough for me go straight on to book 2, Casting Off, which I've already finished but can't say anything about as it would involve spoiling the end of Book 1. 

 

So, my current read is this:

Death in the Sunshine by Steph Broadribb is set in Florida in a retirement complex. Moira is an ex-police inspector from the UK who discovers a body in a swimming pool. She gets together with several other retired folk to solve a murder that the police don't seem very interested in. Very good so far. 

Next month is Jane Austen July and I'm planning to try to get a few Austen related titles under my belt. I've never read Sense and Sensibility so would like to get to that and then I have a whole heap of other possibilities as I do enjoy anything related to Jane Austen and her writing.

So that's my June reading so far. I hope you're all keeping well and enjoying some good books.  

I have been reading...

 Again, I meant to post a bit sooner than this but I'm still not quite back in the swing of things and suspect that might continue for some time. The oddness of it all is very hard to shake. I have been reading though and thought I would a do brief rundown of the books I've been reading this month.

I finished this BLCC collection, Guilty Creatures, edited of course by Martin Edwards. The theme in this one is 'animals', each story has a connection to wildlife or pets. So we have a chap with a fear of earthworms, a yarn about nobbling racehorses, there're gorillas, parakeets, slugs, all life is here. Authors include G.K. Chesterton, Christiana Brand, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Josephine Bell, Edgar Wallace and so on. Overall, I thought this was a better than average collection, only a few failed to please and the rest were top notch. I didn't jot down my usual notes so I can't name any favourites, other than remembering that the Father Brown was good and so was the Christiana Brand. And what a glorious cover!

The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White is a novel published in 1936, and subsequently made into a Hitchcock film, The Lady Vanishes. I'd seen that years ago, so the plot was slightly familiar, but I couldn't remember the outcome, so it was fine. Socialite, Iris Carr, is travelling back by train from a holiday somewhere mountainous (they don't say exactly where but I think northern Italy) in Europe. An English governess, Miss Froy, takes her under her wing, but the next day the woman has disappeared and no one in the carriage can remember her being there. Is Iris suffering the results of sunstroke  or is there a conspiracy of silence. Excellent read this one, a little too heavy on the surreal, 'am I going crazy?' aspect but nevertheless, a real pageturner and not a little creepy, to my mind anyway.

 

The Man by the Sea by Jack Benton is book one in his 'Slim Harding' series. Slim is a private detective, ex-army and an alcoholic. He's hired by a woman who thinks her husband is having an affair. Slim duly sets about following the husband only to discover that what he's actually doing is driving to an isolated cove and reading something aloud to the incoming tide. Slim thinks the man might be mad. Delving a bit deeper, the case ends up being connected to a woman who went missing just before her wedding. Is she dead and haunting this part of the wild Lake District coast? And what does she have to do with a man reading to the waves? I liked this a lot despite not being all that enamoured of the detective, Slim Hardy. As is the nature of the beast, his alcoholism rules and that was hard for me to identify with. That said, the story has a huge sense of place and is really atmospheric. I also found the plot intriguing enough to carry me through the book without any wish to abandon it. I will probably, at some stage, continue on with the series.

So, my most recent book, I finished it yesterday, is Illyrian Spring by Ann Bridge. Lady Grace Kilmichael  is leaving her husband and grown-up children behind and going off on a European trip. Only they don't know. She thinks her husband might be having an affair and the children are not really interested in her nowadays. She does leave a letter to her husband however, telling him she's off to Greece to paint as Grace has recently become quite a well-known artist. She doesn't go to Greece. She starts in Paris and then on to Venice where she comes across Nicholas, aged 23, half Grace's age, who wants to be a painter but whose parents won't hear of it, they want him to be an architect. She takes him on to mentor him, and the pair travel together along the Dalmatian (present day Croatia) coast, not just painting but learning a lot about life from each other. So this sounds like a fairly simple plot and indeed it is. If I'm honest the whole thing is more of a travelogue and homage to the Dalmation coast and, in fact, I read that the impact of this book when it was first published in 1935 was to up tourism in the area and even Edward and Mrs. Simpson took a cruise down the coast to see what all the fuss was about. Fascinating. 'And' I have no problem understanding it because that was exactly what the book made me want to do... pack my bags and set off! It has quite an introspective sort of narrative and this might not be everyone's cup of tea. I was reminded of Absent in the Spring by Agatha Christie writing as Mary Westmacott, or Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim, they too have older ladies looking for a break from humdrum life or difficult relatives and trying to find a way to make life work for them now they're older. It's not often I finish a book and find myself wanting to go back to the beginning and start again but I did with this. A five star read and certainly a book that will be in my top ten for this year.

So, that's me, up to date. I hope you're all well and finding lots of good book to read this spring.

A bit of catching up

 It's several weeks since I posted, I did mean to post again sooner but, as I'm sure you'll understand, with the loss of my husband and the funeral last week, I felt like I was existing in a strange kind of limboland. The funeral, I felt, went well and was a nice celebration of his life. We cried but also laughed, and I did enjoy catching up with family and friends afterwards. What was also nice is that these days funerals can be live-streamed so those who couldn't make it were able to attend that way. Technology has its faults but there are occasions when it's a wonderful thing.

This won't be a very long post as I'm doing it on my Kindle Fire. My computer decided it didn't want to speak to my monitor any more and it seems it's the pc not the monitor and my family computer boffins say there's no easy fix (one could but hope). I now have to decide what to do and as I can prevaricate for England I've warned folk not to hold their breath...

So, books. I read seven in April.

26. Silent Creed by Alex Kava. Book two of her Ryder Creed series. It was 'excellent ' but the theme of secret laboratories doing uncontrolled experiments I found quite alarming.

27. Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley. This was a superb biography on the world's most famous crime writer. A lot of interesting comments and reflections from the author. Highly recommend!

28. Murder in Tuscany by T.A. Williams. Murder at a writing retreat for erotic fiction writers, the narrator did not know it was such before he arrived. Huge fun and I loved the dog.

29. How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry. Father who has been running a bookshop in The Cotswolds dies and his daughter comes home to take it on and save it. Nice cast of characters. I enjoyed this light read.

30. The Murderer's Ape by Jakob Wegelius, translated by Peter Graves (hopefully not a Mission Impossible!) YA fantasy type yarn about a gorilla, Sally Jones, who is a ship's engineer. When the captain is accused of murder and locked up, she sets about trying to prove he didn't do it.  A bit overlong I thought but nonetheless a decent, unusual read. 

31. Ranger Confidential by Andrea Lankford. I think this is another one that Lark is responsible for. LOL! Fascinating look at the lives of American NP rangers and what they have to deal with on a regular basis. Sobering.

32. No Life for a Lady by Hannah Dolby. Hugely fun yarn about Violet, a young woman whose mother disappeared ten years ago and how she sets out to hire a private detective to find her. Great fun and I've already preordered book two which I think is out in early June.

So that was my reading month. A good lot of escapism, gentle reads and interesting non-fiction. Since then I've DNFed one book, a BLCC vintage crime story, The Port of London Murders by Josephine Bell, because it was thoroughly unpleasant. I'm now reading these three:

All interesting and entertaining, which is all I'm asking of a book at the moment. I hope you're all keeping well and finding lots of good books to read this Spring.

Reading as a retreat from reality

I've been so grateful to be a reader since my husband passed away, just over a month ago. Not that I wasn't before of course, but having somewhere to escape to, where reality doesn't intrude, has been a huge comfort. For a few days even books didn't help but slowly I managed to get back into a book and the author I turned to was Agatha Christie. I have no idea why but she worked for me and the couple of books I read by her were a real escape.

I'll quickly list the books I read in March with one longer review that I had already written weeks ago.

18. The Last Bookshop in London - Madeline Martin

19. A Death in the Parish - Richard Coles

So, this is book two in the author's fairly new 'Canon Clement' mystery series. A new associate vicar is on the scene, Chris Biddle. He's taking over a couple of churches in Daniel Clement's parish so Daniel will have to work with him. But it's not easy as their views on church matters are opposing, Chris being of a more fundimental bent and Daniel, not. All this has to be put to one side though when the ritualistic murder of a teenage boy is discovered on a disused airbase. Policeman and friend of Daniel's, Neil Vanloo, is brought in to investigate and Daniel, as in the first book, helps him to solve the crime. Running alongside this are a couple of other issues including an elderly woman, nearing death, being preyed on by a couple who make it their business to insinuate themselves into death-bed families like this, hoping to pick up a legacy. (I'm assuming this is a 'thing'.) I thoroughly enjoyed this second book about Daniel and his parishioners. I like his mum, Audrey, far from any perfect vicar's mother, judging by what she was up in this instalment. There is some personal stuff which took rather an unexpected twist right at the very end. A genuine 'Wut?' moment. I hesitate to call this a 'cosy' because it has a slight edge in that some of the situations feel very real and quite gritty, but they're not written in a gritty manner. Coles writes in a gentle, non-judgemental, way about human foibles and mistakes and it's actually really well done. There is plenty of humour too. I suspect some situations are based on his personal experiences or that of people he knows and I found some of his theological explanations really interesting too. I gave it five stars on Goodreads, no agonising required.  I gather the next book is based in a monastery and as I love a good monkish murder story I can't wait for that. Murder at the Monastery is out in June I think. 

20. The World's Greatest Sea Mysteries - edited by Michael and Molly Hardwicke. What it says on the tin, an anthology of mysterious happenings on sea voyages etc. Entertaining in places but not fantastic. 

21. Lending a Paw - Laurie Cass.  Book one in the author's cost mystery series: 'Bookmobile Cat Mystery'. This is set in Michigan and revolves around a mobile lending library. There's a murder and a cat and lots of books so what's not to like? I loved it.

22. The Hairy Bikers, Blood, Sweat and Tyres - Si King and Dave Myers. This is a biography of the TV British cooking duo who're household names in the UK. Particularly poignant now of course because Dave Myers died of cancer about 2 months ago. A really enjoyable biography of two lovely men.

23. Best Detective Stories of Cyril Hare. I've been reading this vintage collection for several months and can't recommend it highly enough, it has some really excellent crime short stories in it.

24. Crooked House - Agatha Christie. Terrific story about a family living in a huge house and the death of the patriarch with all the money. Who, amongst the dozens of suspects, knocked him off? Agatha Christie at her best.

25. Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie. This spy type yarn didn't work quite so well for me and is known as one of her odder books I believe. But I still enjoyed it and noted that, as they say, 'the more things change, the more they stay the same' because much of what Christie worries about in this book are things which are still worrying us now. 

So that was my March reading. Six fiction books, two non-fiction, eight books in all. Personally, one of the strangest and most unsettling months I've experienced in my life and April is not much different if I'm honest. Books continue to be the place I retreat to and so far this month I've finished just two.

Silent Creed by Alex Kava is book two in her 'Ryder Creed' K9 series of crime novels. Quite gritty and scary in its background premise of experimental labs where we have no idea what's goes on inside and what happens when one is destroyed in a landslide. Really good.

Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley. This is a really excellent biography of the iconic crime writer. Having read Christie's own autobiography I thought it might be just a rehash of that but it wasn't at all. There was a lot more comment than I expected and clearly heaps of research done. A really good read and I also highly recommend the accompanying BBC documentary Lucy Worsley made. 

My current read is this:

A cosy murder mystery set at a writing weekend for authors who write erotic fiction: the narrator is there by mistake. The setting of Tuscany is gorgeous, the writing style is gently funny, and I'm really enjoying it.

I hope you're all doing well, enjoying the spring when it's not pouring with rain, and finding lots of good books to read.