Two Young Adult books

It seems crazy that we're in mid-October already and people I know are already thinking about Christmas! One piece of sad news is that the blogging community lost one of its best loved bloggers a few weeks ago, Nan from Letters from a Hill Farm.  She was beloved by many for her gentle kindness and interest in all things to do with gardening, nature and books. Her family must be bereft. This mad world does not need to lose beautiful people like Nan and she will be missed. 

A couple of Young Adult novels today, to be honest they're more middle-grade, but as I'm never certain what the age-range is for either and I'm sure there is over-lapping, I'll call them YA. 

First up, The Snow Spider Trilogy by Jenny Nimmo. This is an omnibus edition of three short novels, all set in the mountains of North Wales.

Nine year old, Gwyn, lives with his parents on a hill-farm in Wales. There's a feeling of deep melancholy about the family because Gwyn's older sister, Bethan, disappeared on the mountain 2 years ago. In the first book of the trilogy, The Snow Spider, Gwyn is given 5 gifts by his grandmother, on his birthday: she suspects he might be the reincarnation of a Welsh wizard. One of these gifts leads to him being sent a beautiful silver spider and Gwyn hopes to use the spider to help him find his sister. In book 2, Emlyn's Moon, we meet Nia, with loads of siblings, one of whom is Gwyn's best friend, Alun. Nia is drawn to Emlyn, a strange boy in the village whose mother has disappeared; no one mixes with Emlyn and his father, although she doesn't know why. Nia, of course, ignores all the warnings. In book 3, The Chestnut Soldier, Nia's family are to have a visitor, a cousin recovering from serving in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. But Gwyn has suddenly lost one of the gifts his grandmother gave him, one with an evil reputation... how will this mix with a troubled soldier? This was such an excellent young adult trilogy. What worked for me was not so much the magic and all that, although that was good too... it was the setting. Having travelled quite a bit around Wales, I could see that Jenny Nimmo was absolutely spot on with her sense of place and the characters of people who live on these isolated mountain farms and in the villages. It is almost other-worldly and she makes it even more so with a certain extra element she introduces. She doesn't shy away from the hardship experienced by people who don't have a lot, either. I loved this and gave it 5 stars on Goodreads, without quibbling.

The second book is, The Betwitching of Aveline Jones by Phil Hickes. I read the first book in this trilogy, The Haunting of Aveline Jones, last year. My review is HERE. 

Aveline and her mum are spending a week away in a holiday cottage, around the end of the school summer holidays, which in the UK is early September. The cottage is not too far from Bristol, where they live (my thought was Wiltshire as it has the right ancient, mystical kind of atmosphere). Almost as soon as they arrive, Aveline sets out to explore her surroundings and is delighted to discover a circle of standing stones in the field behind their back garden. There she meets Hazel, a girl seemingly of her own age but unlike anyone Aveline has ever met before. The stones are apparently known locally as The Witch Stones and Aveline, who has an interest in such things, wants to know more. Her friend, Harold, whom she met in the last book, is coming to stay with his uncle, the one who owns a bookshop. She messages him to 'bring books' on the subject. He does and the adventure begins as they try to find out about the contents of a mysterious plugged bottle Aveline found in the garden and what it could possibly have to do with Hazel. I enjoyed this as much as book one, although the seaside setting of that one probably appealed to me more. This one has an ancient site feel to it and is atmospheric and creepy, particularly towards the end as you find out what's what and how much danger both Aveline and Harold are in. As young teen I think I would've 'loved' this and, although there were some excellent books around in the 1960s, there is now a 'huge' choice for kids and I often feel very envious of the sheer number of books and choices available now for children and teens. Recommend this series of novella length creepy books even if you're 72 like me and not 13 or 14. 

So, that's what I've been reading. Now and for the last week or so I've been rereading a favourite book that I last read in 2007.

 

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova is a sweeping tome of a novel, spanning centuries and dealing with the history of one, Vlad Dracula, and the people searching for him and his place of burial. It's a love letter to Eastern Europe, I thought it was wonderful back in 2007 and I love it even more now and wish I hadn't waited so long to reread it. 

I hope you're enjoying October - it's one of my favourite months - keeping well and finding some good books to read. 

 

I have been reading...

It's been a bit of a slowish reading month for me, just four books read this month, which is why I haven't updated until almost the end of the month!

First up, The Nameless Ones, book 19 in John Connolly's 'Charlie Parker' series.

So, I'll say up front that although this is book 19 in the Charlie Parker series, this is not a book about him. He is barely in it and, for me, that was a bit disappointing. The story is actually about his two assassin sidekicks, Louis and Angel. The two men live together as a couple, *spoiler alert* Angel is now in recovery after a diagnosis of cancer. They head off to Amsterdam after the death of some people who helped them in book 17, A Book of Bones. The murders were particularly gruesome and malicious, the two assassins know who did it, two brothers from Serbia, and naturally their days are numbered. So, there was a lot in this about the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Not my favourite historical period, I have to admit, as I remember all too clearly the terrible scenes on the news every night. That said, this was an interesting take on that war and I did learn things. I didn't quite realise how much Tito was holding the various countries that made up Yugoslavia together and this book explains that well, and then how it all fell apart when he died. I do still prefer Charlie Parker to actually be in his books, he appears for one chapter I think, and that's not nearly enough for me. Never mind. This was a decent book, I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads, rounded up from 3.5 because Connolly is an exceptional writer. It also means I will read the next book, The Furies, sooner than expected, definitely this autumn. 

Next, Murder at the Fitzwilliam by Jim Eldridge. 

So, this is a historical crime yarn, set in the 1890s in Cambridge in England. Daniel Wilson is an ex Scotland yard detective who used to work with Inspector Abeline, who famously investigated the Ripper murders. Daniel is now a private investigator. He's called in to help look into the murder of an unknown man found dead in a sarcophogas in the Fitzwilliam museum. This brings him into contact with curator, Abigail Fenton, who is an Egyptologist and who found the body. The two end up working together to discover who the dead man was and how someone got him into the museum in the middle of night and into a sarcophogas. I thought the plot of this sounded excellent and 'my kind of thing'. And it was, to a certain extent, a fun read, and I read to the end and never wanted to give up. The slight problem for me was when Daniel Wilson seemed to have no problem talking about sexual deviancy to Abigail, an unmarried Victorian woman. One of the practices would raise eyebrows 'now' let alone then and I didn't buy that he would just casually tell her about it as though they were discussing the weather. I also didn't think the dialogue was very Victorian, but that's just my personal taste. If I'm reading a book set then, I prefer it when the author makes an effort to make it sound Victorian rather than a bit modern. Other readers are not so bothered, I realise. But, all in all, not a bad read. 3 stars

Lastly, Nocturnes Volume 2: Night Music, a collection of weird short stories by John Connolly. 

This was a partial re-read for me. I read quite a few of the stories way back in 2016 I think, so very few of them felt all that familiar. What I didn't read back then was the novella entitled, The Fractured Atlas: Five Fragments and this was because it's connected to books 16 and 17 of the Charlie Parker series and I had not yet got that far. I read those recently so was able to return to this anthology and read the macabre history of a book that ruined lives. The novella starts in The Netherlands of several hundred years ago and ends in London with the fate of various antiquarian book hunters and sellers. Brilliant. Other stories I liked, The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository and another story about said library, Holmes on the Range. Both 'so' good, I loved the idea of a library where characters from classic books go to live. The Children of Dr. Lyall was 'very' thought provoking and Razorshins was set during The Prohibition in the forests of Maine and was incredibly creepy and deeply atmospheric. At the end of the book, I Live Here is quite a long biographical account of Connolly's writing life which, as a huge fan, I thoroughly enjoyed; someone coming to the author for the first time might not find it quite so interesting. All in all, an absolutely superb short story collection full of creepiness and perfect for the autumn spooky season. 5 stars

I'v also just finished this:

 The Snow Spider Trilogy by Jenny Nimmo is a three book volume telling the story of nine year old, Gwyn Griffiths, who discovers that he's a wizard. I'll review this another time but it was so enjoyable and the sense of the isolated villages in the mountains of Wales was absolutely perfect. A children's (middle-grade) book that I gave 5 stars to. 

I hope you're all keeping well, enjoying autumn if you live in the northern hemisphere, and finding loads of good books to read.  

August reads and autumn plans

 I'll be honest, I didn't get a lot of reading done in August. This is down to lovely family visitors and other stuff I wanted to do... I love reading of course but I also love to do jigsaw puzzles, watch TV shows, cook, and then there's my current crop of tomatoes and a glut of apples to be dealt with. There's one thing, I'm never bored!

So, I read 4 books in August,

The Cat Who Caught a Killer - L.J. Shearer 

The Marlow Murder Club - Robert Thorogood 

Star Trek, Strange New Worlds: The High Country - John Jackson Miller

Several members of the Enterprise crew get stranded on a planet after a shuttle-craft crash. They all end up on different parts of the planet and we mainly follow Captain Pike as he gets embroiled in the business of the town he lands near. He soon discovers that technology is banned here and trying to use science as a way of making life easier is swiftly punished. It seems the planet is not ruled by the people who live there but by beings from elsewhere, not only that, the people he thinks are indigenous, are not. They have been kidnapped from their home planets: one of them was Earth and he knows this individual from when he was a teenager. There was a definite good sci-fi yarn lurking here in this plot, but I found it overly wordy and lacking in the trademark humour that's very apparent in the Strange New Worlds TV series. Still, it picked up about halfway through and was never less than readable. This is the first Strange New Worlds fiction book that's been published, there are two more and a fourth coming out this month I think. 

Happy After All - Maisey Yates.  I saw this reviewed on Lark's blog - HERE.

Amelia has retreated from a hectic life in LA, connected to the film and TV industry. She's a writer who has bought a rundown motel complex near the Joshua Tree NP in California, to do it up and run while she writes her romances. She knows she has run away from a couple of things that've happened to her and an unhappy childhood. Nathan walks into the motel looking for a place to write. It turns out he's a famous author of war thrillers, writing under a psuedonym, the two writers should get along but Nathan is uncommunicative to the point of being surly. Amelia senses a mutual attraction but also senses a determination in Nathan not to give way to it. So, the events of this book take place over several years and we watch as Amelia slowly breaks down Nathan's defenses. We're also drip-fed information about what happened to Amelia and eventually discover Nathan's tragic past. This is not a light romance, it deals with grief and loss and and how individuals cope with this. There is lightness, the old ladies who live in the hotel are a delight, and the setting, in the California desert, sounds very authentic. It is also quite spicy in places so beware of that if it's not your bag. Overall I enjoyed this one but found there was a bit too much repetitive introspection for my taste. I would certainly read more by this author though as the comedic style of writing suited my sense of humour.  

So, I know it's not officially autumn until the 21st. but our weather here in the UK has turned autumnal and as the weather forecast boffins treat the 1st. as autumn, who am to argue?

So these are a few possibles for me for the next two or three months:

 

As you can see, there are four of the British Library's weird stories books, I may just cherry-pick various stories from each of them. A reread of The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, which I've been promising myself for several years, and book 2 of the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons.

Add to that I have an autumn folder on my Kindle Fire and a few ebooks I want to get to are:

Nephthys - Rachel Driscoll

The Nameless Ones - John Connolly

The Harbour Lights Mystery - Emylia Hall

The Mountains in the Sea - Ray Naylor

Babel - R.F. Kuang 

The Frozen People - Elly Griffiths

A Case of Mice and Murder - Sally Smith 

If I read half a dozen from the photo and this list combined then I will be a happy bunny. If not, it matters not. 

I hope you have some fun reading plans for autumn too? I also hope you're all keeping well and finding some good books to read. 
 

A couple of cosy crime yarns

I seem to have been reading a bit of cosy crime recently so this post will focus on two books from that genre. In all honesty, it's not my 'go to' section of crime fiction, I prefer mine  slightly more edgy, but I'm nothing if not contrary, so here are two cosies.

First up, The Cat Who Caught a Killer by L.T Shearer.

Lulu Lewis, recently widowed and a former police detective, now lives alone on a canal boat in the area of Maida Vale in London. Conrad is a calico cat... 'calico' being a colouring which is black, white and ginger. But that's not what is really unusual about him... the really strange thing about him is that he can talk. So, Lulu's mother-in-law is in a carehome. She has Alzheimers but otherwise is very healthy, so when she dies suddenly Lulu cannot believe it's not a suspicious death. Of course, no one believes her - old people die, it's a sad fact of life. But something isn't right, her other son is back from Spain with his new wife and acting suspiciously, the carehome might've been negligent over a lost watch. Things mount up and, with Conrad's help, Lulu begins to investigate. This was one of those 'okay' reads. I didn't think the writing was any great shakes, too much explanation, dialogue guilty of being not quite how people speak, that sort of thing. But Conrad the cat was a fun character and I liked the canal setting in Maida Vale although we did not need to hear the name of every surrounding street, over and over. It was a decent enough case and kept me reading to the end but I doubt I'll be reading any more of this four part series. 

Next, The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood.

Judith Potts lives in Marlow, a very pretty, historical town in Buckinghamshire in the UK. She's 77, lives alone, but is very happy with that situation. She sets crosswords for a living and likes whiskey and nude swimming in the Thames. One night, while out doing exactly that, she hears what she thinks is someone being assaulted or murdered but because she hasn't got anything on, she can't get out and investigate. Eventually, a body is found and it's the owner of an auction house who was an acquaintance of Judith's. The police do not really take Judith's ideas on the case seriously so Judith ends up enlisting the help of the Vicar's wife, Becks, and a dog walker, Suzie. They're a bit reluctant to get involved but Judith manages to convince them that there's more to life than their everyday, rather humdrum, lives. I enjoyed this and although I called it a 'cosy' it's a bit more than that with its good writing, humorous tone, and 'real' people with real foibles. I didn't guess who the culprit was but then I am quite easily fooled by murder mysteries. I suspect I enjoy the journey more than arriving at the destination. I think I will read on in this series and there is a TV adaptation which I'll try to take a look at. 

So those are actually the only two books I've read this month, having dnfed a couple quite far in. And sometimes, 'shock-horror', books take second place to some other thing you suddenly discover. For me it's a 'new to me' Star Trek series, Strange New Worlds. I had absolutely no idea it was so brilliant and have been devouring the first two seasons. And am now reading this:

The story, that of several crew members of The Enterprise being stranded on a planet where technology is banned and the Luddite rules enforced by rulers from yet another planet, is an interesting one, and the world-building quite good too. The execution of said intriguing tale is, sadly, a little mundane. Strange New Worlds has a huge amount of humour and it's lacking in this book. The cover's nice though. :-) 

I hope the August heat is not too unbearable if you're in the northern hemisphere. In the UK we're in the middle of our 4th. heatwave this summer, although our heat in no way compares in ferocity to many other parts of the world. Stay cool and I hope you're finding some good books to read and keeping well. 

Books Read in July

 Where did July go? I don't mind... it's not my favourite month by any stretch of the imagination... but it just whizzed by. Possibly because I had two lots of visitors? Which is always nice but means I'm behind with reviews and also commenting on my favourite blogs. I will try catch up. 

So, I read six books in July. Some I reviewed, some I did not. I wish I had the time to review everything, but I can at least mention them all here.

32. The Half Bird - Susan Smillie. This is a non-fiction book about a woman who sailed from the UK to the Med. and around it. Well, supposedly. She didn't actually get going until about halfway into the book, and the first half just felt like a load of waffle. The actual sailing around the Med. bit was quite good - there just ought to have been more of it. 3 stars

33. An Act of Foul Play - T.E. Kinsey 4 stars

34. Not to Be Taken - Anthony Berkeley 4stars

35. Godmersham Park - Gill Hornby.  

Thirty one year old Anne Sharpe is from a genteel family, until her mother dies and Anne suddenly realises she has no home and nowhere to go. She has to resort to being a governess and gets a job at Godmersham Park, the home of Edward Knight (formerly Austen) and his family. Her charge is Fanny Knight, aged 12, an enthusiastic, likeable, intelligent girl. Things could be worse. But a governess holds a strange position in a large household, neither a fully paid-up member of the servants, nor a proper family member. Things are difficult, made even more so when the servants take against her. Still, she is very much liked by Edward's brother, Henry Austen, who has charm aplenty and the sort of personality that wishes to know about everyone. So is this a good thing or a bad thing? I thoroughly enjoyed this fictional account of the life of Anne Sharpe. In real life her and Jane Austen really were friends but not a lot more is known about the friendship. Sadly, Jane herself does not appear until halfway through the book. Until then the book concentrates on the indignities Anne suffers and you feel very sorry for her. Henry Austen takes centre stage quite a lot and he is full of ambivilence, something he was in real life apparently. His charm made him popular but the target of said charm needed to be careful. This is Gill Hornby's second book about the Austen family, Miss Austen, which concentrates on Cassandra Austen, was very good too. And now there's a new book out - The Elopement - how that fits in with the family I don't know, but I assume it does somehow and I will be reading it. 5 stars

36. Hyperion - Dan Simmons. This was a reread for me. I read it first in 2016 and my review is HERE. I saw mention of the whole series of four on Youtube recently and decided I wanted to read the next three, but would need to refresh my memory by rereading the first book. It was every bit as good the second time around, if not better. I see I reserved book 2 from the library but clearly never read it, I have bought it now and plan to read it in the autumn. 5 stars (I gave it 4 in 2016.)

37. Walking the Woods and the Water - Nick Hunt. The author plans to follow in the footsteps of Patrick Leigh Fermor who walked from The Netherlands to what was then Constantinople, back in the 1930s. How much have the countries he passed through changed, are people's attitudes the same? Some very interesting answers ensue. Enjoyed this one a lot. 4 stars 

So, I was pleased with my July reading month. I read 4 fiction novels and 2 non-fiction travelogues and they were all quite varied. Only The Half Bird was a bit disappointing, the rest were all top-notch. And now we're into August, another of my least favourite months, roll on September! Hopefully there will be some more good books read during August but as yet I'm not sure what they will be. 

 Happy reading and I hope you're all keeping well. 

 

Two crime yarns

 I am, of course, waaaay behind with book reviews, three books to be honest, so I'll try (hoho) to be brief and deal with the two crime novels first. 

 First up, An Act of Foul Play by T.E. Kinsey, this is book 9 in the author's 'Lady Hardcastle and Flo' series.

Lady Hardcastle, amateur sleuth and sometime spy, and her sidekick and maid/companion, Flo, are celebrating Lady Hardcastle's birthday with an evening out in Bristol. They're attending a comedy play and have thoroughly enjoyed the first half. Everyone but Flo take themselves off during the intermission and she can't help but notice a lot of noise coming from behind the curtain. Sure enough, when the curtain rises for act two, the actors strolling onto the stage to engage with the actor who should be there to meet them, find him dead in a chair. Of course, the two women can't help but get involved but find themselves having to work with a new, rather clueless, detective. There's nothing for it but for the two to go undercover and join the acting troupe. This is another fun instalment of an excellent comedy crime series. By comedy, I don't mean it's a laugh a minute, the comedy is in the relationship between Lady Hardcastle and Flo and the banter they engage in. If I'm honest, theatre set scenarios are never my favourite: I don't know why... but we all have our foibles. But this was good, and fun, and never less than enjoyable but not my favourite in the series.  I gather for the next couple of books the two go into 'spy' mode rather than whodunnit, that too is not my favourite genre but I own them so will read them to see how I get on. Although this series is on the lighter side, I would not refer to them as 'cosies', the humour and the writing take them out of that category in my opinion. 

Next, Not to Be Taken: A Puzzle in Poison by Anthony Berkeley, one of the excellent, now very long, series of vintage crime novels reissued by the British Library. 

So this is one of those very English forms of vintage mysteries (published in 1938) set in a quintessential country village, Annypenny in Dorset. (That county is full of these villages still.) It concerns a group of six individuals, all friends and very much involved in each other's lives. The narrator is Douglas, a fruit farmer and he lives with his wife, Frances. Just up the lane from them is John Waterhouse and his wife, Angela. He's a retired engineer of sorts who has worked all around the world. Angela is frail in the manner of one who enjoys her illnesses. And then there's the doctor, Glen Brougham who lives with his sister, Rona, she's as clever as he is but without the qualifactions. What happens when John Waterhouse dies is the business of this story. The doctor treats him for indigestion type problems when he complains of pains and feeling unwell. When he dies 'natural causes' goes on the death certificate but an almost estranged brother isn't happy and demands a proper autopsy. It turns out John's been poisoned and it's clear it must be one of the five people closest to him, but why would any of them want him dead? So Anthony Berkeley is not one of my favourite rediscovered authors. I find him clinical and always looking on the unpleasant side of people's natures. And this book is like that too 'but' I liked it a lot more than the previous two books I've read by him. I enjoyed the village setting and the closed circle theme, the slow reveal of secrets is something I enjoy too, no one is quite what they seem in this type of book. The doctor's analysis of Angela and the reason for her mystery health issues I found quite fascinating. Berkeley does human nature very well, despite his tendency to always think the worst of people. This book was apparently part of a competiton... it was published in a newspaper in instalments and at a certain spot the book stopped and people had to send in their solutions. I gather no one got it quite right. Berkeley is still not my favourite Golden Age crime writer but am glad I gave this one a go as it really was excellent. 

 

Books read in June

 So, here we are, halfway through the year. Incredible. Wherever you are I hope the summer heat is not too intense - those in the northern hemisphere of course. (I have no idea whether anyone in the southern hemisphere, Oz or NZ etc., reads my blog.) We've had a couple of short heatwaves but our 'heatwave' temps are not comparable to places where the heat is serious. It doesn't get to 40C (104f) here, for instance, which it frequently does in other countries. So it's all relative. I personally hate anything over 30C (86f) and am really not a summer fan at all! Give me autumn or winter, and I'm mostly happy with spring too, but not summer. 

Anyway, enough of the weather report. Books. I read 6 in June, with not a dud among them, so for me, it was a good reading month.

26. A Book of Bones - John Connolly 

27. Death Rites - Sarah Ward 

28. Children of Ruin - Adrian Tchaikovsky 

29. Pandora - Susan Stokes 

30. Lessons in Crime - edited by Martin Edwards (to be reviewed)

31. Death Sentence - Damien Boyd.

This is book six in Damien Boyd's 'Nick Dixon' series. It starts with a frightening death, underwater in a cave. And that's left hanging until a long way into the book. The real start is the discovery of a dead body in a WW2 pillbox on the side of of a canal in Somerset. It turns out to be a man named Alan Fletcher, and someone has killed him and  made him inhale brick dust before he died. It's bewildering and Nick Dixon and his team get nowhere until they discover that the dead man was a decorated Falklands war veteran and begin to investigate what happened to him in that war. This series is one of the best police procedural series you will find anywhere. It's painstaking in its attention to little details and I find it fascinating. The main characters have lives and partners, Nick lives with one of his former junior officers so she has had to be placed elsewhere within the Somerset police force. But none of this overwhelms the plot of each story and neither are there sob stories and angst and alcoholics and God knows what else. It's ordinary life as we know it, late home from work, both tired, so grabbing takeaways or nipping to the pub to sit by the fire with pie and chips. It does help of course that I know most of the settings of each book because I live in the next county to Somerset and have lived there in the past. It all feels so real. Another terrific instalment of this excellent series. I'm waaay behind, this one was written in 2016, so this year I want to read more and catch up a bit as there are now fifteen books!

So there you go, I couldn't choose a favourite as I enjoyed them all - all were four or five star reads... that's a good reading month.

I hope you're all keeping well. I say this as several of my blogging pals are not having a good time at the moment with health issues of spouses and bereavements. And I don't know if anyone remembers the lovely Pat from the blog, Here, There and Everywhere. We became good friends almost from the moment I started my blog in 2007, sharing a love of books and Star Trek and chatting on the phone occasionally. Very sadly, she passed away a couple of weeks ago, her health had not been good for years but it was still a real shock. She will be sadly missed. So please take of yourselves.