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. :-)
