Four in February

I read four books in February.

 

Fallen Angel by Chris Brookmyre

Amanda is delighted to be asked, out of the blue, to be a summer nanny in a villa in Portugal for the Temple family – a former actress, a famous professor, their children and grandchildren. She soon realises though that there are dark undercurrents to do with the disappearance of another grandchild in this place sixteen years earlier.

Excellently told (of course) and with a massive twist I didn’t see coming.

 

All Adults Here by Emma Straub

I remember enjoying an ES book a few years ago, although can’t remember which one. This, her latest, though was tiresome – more a series of anecdotes about the mostly unpleasant characters than a novel with a plot. ‘Funny and uplifting’ the strap line says; I found it to be neither.

 

This Could be Everything by Eva Rice

19990s Notting Hill. February Kingdom is still traumatised after a family tragedy when an escaped yellow canary appears to help her. Many musical references (she is Tim Rice’s daughter after all) that didn’t mean anything to me but that didn’t matter; I got the gist, and loved the story and the writing. It was a little reminiscent of one of my favourite books, I Capture the Castle.

 

Back When We Were Grown Ups by Anne Tyler

I’d read this before but never owned it so pounced on it when it came into the charity shop I do some volunteering in (sorting books; buying some of them is an occupational hazard).

Stepmother/grandmother Rebecca is the heart of her late husband’s family, the one who runs the family business, the one who pours oil on many troubled waters. But what, she’s begun to wonder, would her life have been like if she’d married college sweetheart Will, if Joe hadn’t appeared and swept her off her feet. Tentatively, she makes contact with Will … but is he the same person from all those years ago? Is she?

There is no one like Anne Tyler and that’s a fact.

 

Seven in January

I read seven books in January.

 

The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders

Laetitia Rodd is an Archdeacon’s widow. It’s 1850. She lives in Hampstead with a landlady who once rented rooms to John Keats and she makes her living as private investigator. Her brother, a very successful criminal barrister, sometimes sends cases her way.

In the guise of a governess, she travels to Wishtide to find out more about the mysterious young woman whom the heir to the estate wishes to marry and is soon drawn into a much wider investigation.

Atmospheric, twisty, with great characters, especially Laetitia herself.

Kate Saunders (the late, sadly) was a very successful writer of children’s books (Beswitched is one of my favourite books of any genre) but I hadn’t known about this series of three titles until I spotted one in the library.

 

A Bed of Scorpions by Judith Flanders

Another find in the library’s crime shelves. The author’s name caught my eye because I’ve read her (history/non-fiction) A Circle of Sisters but didn’t know she also wrote contemporary fiction. Her heroine, Sam Clair, works in book publishing in London and, very satisfyingly for a book nerd, the uncovering of the villain was helped by Sam’s knowledge of publishing colophons … Three more in the series.

 

Hickory Dickory Dock by Agatha Christie

I was given this very attractive US edition. I've re/read Christie voraciously in the past and while her ingenuity is undoubtedly to be much admired I cannot see how the crime here, involving rucksack exchanges, could practically work … but then of course I’m not Hercule Poirot.

 

The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves

January – ’tis the season for crime reading. The latest ‘Vera’ and very good it is too.

 

The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff

I’ve read some non-fiction about the Roman occupation of Britain especially as it applied to (what became) the border between Scotland and England and find the history of this barbaric/sophisticated army fascinating. (Why, after they left, did we have to wait another 1600 years to have the under-floor heating they enjoyed?!)

A visit at the end of last year to the brilliant Trimontium museum/virtual reality experience in Melrose, in the Scottish borders, reignited my interest in the fabled lost Ninth Legion.

Rosemary Sutcliff’s book was written for children but please, do not let that put you off. The writing is perfectly pitched to appeal to anyone from 9-90, the descriptions are wonderful and the pace and excitement are nail-biting.

Beginning in what is now Dorchester in the south of England, Marcus Aurelius travels on horseback to the area around the Clyde in search of the lost legion, which had been commanded by his father.

There’s little to see now on the Border hills where the vast forts once stood but, reading the book and having been to the museum, it’s not hard to imagine myself there.

 

The Wake-up Call by Beth O’Leary

I enjoyed the author’s first book The Flatshare. This one not so much for various reasons.

It could have been a third shorter. I began to skim-read Izzy’s interminable and samey conversations with her friend Jem.

‘Enemies to lovers’ – I didn’t buy how Izzy and Lucas became ‘enemies’; a misunderstanding that could have been cleared up on page two. Also, couldn’t see why it was called ‘The Wake-up Call’.

I resented (and resisted) the attempts to manipulate my emotions – did Izzy really have to be a relation-less orphan?

And, a rom-com favourite cliché, the dash to the airport … here, last-minute flights were booked a couple of days before Christmas to/from Brazil, the USA and ‘the Outer Hebrides’ (no particular island given) – come on!

Plus, although not a complaint specific to this title, the first person/present tense is quite tiresome to read, especially in a long book, and sometimes unintentionally comical. ‘I give a slow smile.’ ‘I whimper.’ ‘I pounce.’

 

The Break-up Clause by Niamh Hargan

Another enemies-to-lovers, written in the present tense but not in the first person. Loved it!

Twelve years on from their youthful, drunken wedding in Las Vegas, Irish Fia and American Benjamin (still legally married but not having had any contact since) find themselves as mentor and mentee in a high-powered Manhattan law firm.

I heard Niamh Hargan talk recently at an event in Edinburgh. She has written a pilot episode for a series based on the book – do hope that is successful.

Seven in December

I read seven books in December.

 

Everything I Never Told you by Celeste Ng

This is second Celeste Ng book I’ve read (the first being Little Fires Everywhere which was adapted into a series by Reece Witherspoon). Everything is her debut novel, although the term is meaningless when the writing is so accomplished.

Sixteen-year-old Lydia’s body has been found the town lake. So, this is a crime novel but oh so much more. Her father is Chinese, her mother American. She’s the eldest child, with a brother and a sister. It’s the 1970s in small-town Ohio. As the family try to trace Lydia’s last movements (and discover how little they knew her) the reader finds out her parents’ back-story, their ambitions for their clever daughter and their heartbreaking attempts, as a mixed-race family, to be accepted in their community.

 

 

 

House of Eyes by Patricia Elliot

Written for 9-13-year-olds – I guess I fall somewhere in-between … J

In a dark house in Edwardian South Kensington, Connie Carew investigates what happened to her baby cousin, Ida, who went missing years before. Can the beautiful young woman who claims to be the long-lost child be telling the truth?

I bought the book because I met the author. Loved it – it has everything: a delightful heroine, atmosphere, danger, history (suffragettes, séances eg) and a very satisfying conclusion.

 

 

 

Dorita Fairlie Bruce

I went to an all-day event at the University of Edinburgh, a symposium Investigating Irish & Scottish Writers of Children’s Literature 1750-1940. Part of Scotland’s Early Literature for Children Initiative. So interesting!

One of the speakers, Jane Sandell, gave a presentation on Dorita Fairlie Bruce (1885-1970). A writer mainly known for her school stories, Bruce was hugely popular in her day, especially with her ‘Dimsie’ series which alone sold half a million copies by 1947.

What Jane likes particularly about her work is that she treats Scotland as a place where people just live normally and are not defined by bagpipes, haggis or other clichés but, having said that, the author describes the Scottish west-coast landscape beautifully.

When I got home, I looked out three DRB titles from my shelves and reread them – three ‘Springdale’ titles. Dimsie, you’re next.

 

 

 

They Called Her Patience by Lorna Hill

Lorna Hill is another writer who describes landscape beautifully – in this case the Northumbrian border with Scotland.

As it’s very hard to come by, I was very happy to acquire this from a friend of a friend who was downsizing her collection of children’s books (although sadly my copy does not have the lovely dust jacket shown here). I’ve got the second (of two) Patience books (It Was All Through Patience) already.

Patience (her name is really Fleur and she’s definitely not patient) has a will of iron. Though she is much younger than her adored half-brother David and his friends, plus she has recently been very ill, she is determined to join in everything they do whether that’s riding, camping or getting up to mischief.

 

So after my very happy visit to the blue remembered hills, I picked up

 

 

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris

and read about the Restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1669 and the ‘Act of Oblivion’ whereby everything that had happened leading up to the execution of Charles I was, in effect, to be forgiven and forgotten – except for the 57 signatories to the King’s death warrant.

The regicides were to be hunted down and dispatched slowly and cruelly. This is mostly the story of two of them who managed to escape to America, to the aptly named ‘New England’ where it was very hard to hide in the small settlements and to travel between them.

A page-turner, and the book ignited an ambition to read some non-fiction about the Civil War and its aftermath. Tune in next month …