Five in March

 I read five books in March.

 

Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

Read for book group. Fascinating, learned but accessible. The ‘Square’ in question is Mecklenburg Square in London which was blitzed almost to extinction in September 1940. Before that, at different times, it had been home to five women; the Square is what connects them.

I knew of Virginia Woolf and Dorothy L Sayers already, but I learned a lot more about them here. The others – the writer H.D.; classics don Jane Ellen Harrison; and medieval historian and lecturer Eileen Power – were new to me. The last two were at university at a time when women could study but not graduate.

Eileen sounds absolutely delightful. She was the first woman to receive the Albert Kahn Travelling Fellowship which funded a year’s travel designed to widen the ‘narrow academic mind’, and she made the most of it.

Unlike other ‘blue-stockings’ she took a great interest in clothes and wore very colourful outfits, some bought on her travels, and she was famous for her ‘dancing in the kitchen’ parties at which guests were required to wear morning dress. The book doesn’t say how big her kitchen was … but who could refuse such an invitation?

I dared not more than glance at the eleven-page bibliography at the back of the book – I know there will be dozens of titles there that I would like to to read but will never have the time.

 

A Wartime Secret by Helen Yendall

This has one of the most enticing openings I've read - 'Maggie Corbett lay face down on the open platform of the number 56 bus ... ' which was a great introduction to the believable and feisty Maggie.

I've read a lot of books set in WW2 but I learned two new things from this one: 

1) some companies relocated from London to the country, in this case (as you can see in the lovely cover image) to very grand houses. What a gift for the writer, to have different classes cheek-by-jowl in a way they would not be in normal circumstances. 

2) there are villages which became known as Thankful Villages after WW1 because all those who were in the armed forces in that conflict came home.

There are several enjoyable story strands in the book – I particularly liked the one with his Lordship and his childhood sweetheart. The era was well conjured up and the characters were memorable – I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Maggie et al.

 

The Glass Room by Ann Cleeves

A Vera book. Ann Cleeves must have had fun writing this as it’s set in a writers’ retreat and no one seems to have a good word to say about that strange breed of people … A cruel, Svengali type is found murdered and there’s no shortage of suspects.

 

Everyday Kindness edited by LJ Ross

A charity anthology of commissioned short stories with the theme of kindness, all proceeds going to Shelter. It seems churlish to have any criticism of such a kind book but the lack of editing was distracting – in one story a child was mostly called Mable but sometimes Mabel, for example. And a cable-knit cream jumper is an Aran not an arran.

The stories are from well- and less-known writers and include Sophie Hannah, Louise Jensen, CL Taylor and LJ Ross herself.

 

A Maid and a Man by Anne Stenhouse

It’s 1819. Tabby has come north to Edinburgh when her employer, the enlightened Lady Warrende, needs a new lady’s maid to accompany her. Tabby is no ordinary girl though, having previously worked as assistant to her apothecary father. She desires to know more about medicine and about anatomy at a time when girls were debarred from these studies. As Edinburgh University is currently at the forefront of anatomical studies (despite the opposition of the church) she’s come to the right place …. and it seems that in another servant, the handsome Cal Morrison, she may have a kindred spirit.

As the blurb says, ‘Drama and danger abound in old Edinburgh town’ – I read this in a oner and highly recommend.

 

Eleven in December

 I read eleven books in December.

 

The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser

Thea’s been made redundant, and her husband of twenty years has just left her. Salvation comes when she hears that a great-uncle she barely knew has left her his house in a small Scottish town (possibly based on Wigtown ?) – and a large collection of second-hand books.

Cue her relationship with the artistocratic (but reluctantly so) Edward who owns a second-hand bookshop in the town and has a commitment problem.

So far, so like many a romantic plot description … But Jackie Fraser gets deep into the hearts and souls of Thea and Edward, concentrating on them with no sub-plots to speak of, to show a totally believable relationship. I absolutely loved it.

 

Miss Plum and Miss Penny by Dorothy Evelyn Smith

Dorothy Evelyn Smith is one of those authors who was popular in the 40s and 50s but is now mostly forgotten. Engaging enough, but didn’t inspire me to read more. A pale imitation of Miss Pym.

Alison Penny is forty, single, doesn’t need to work, lives with her family’s old retainer, Ada, who treats her as if she were still a child – and Alison is perfectly happy with that arrangement.

Into her uneventful life comes friendless Miss Plum whom Alison prevents from throwing herself in the pond (or thinks she does) and so finds herself with a guest who outstays her welcome. Miss Plum (her life blighted apparently by her parents thoughtlessly christening her Victoria) eventually departs with the only real beau Alison has ever had but, not to worry, one of Ada’s shepherds pies will make everything all right again.

 

Home by Marilynne Robinson

Home, along with Gilead and Lila, formed a trilogy of award-winning books (which can be read in any order), set in the small town of Gilead in Iowa in the early 1950s. Then Marilynne Robinson, clearly reluctant to say goodbye to her characters, wrote a fourth, Jack, which came out this year. I succumbed to buying a hardback edition as Blackwell’s were offering (lockdown treat) to send out signed copies. But to refresh my memory of the Boughton family I reread Home first because Jack, chronologically, comes before it.

 

Jack by Marilynne Robinson

Jack Boughton is possibly fiction’s most heartbreaking character. He's one of the Rev Boughton’s eight children, and despite being much loved by them, he has not seen his family for years. He’s a bum, a petty thief, a drunk, living in a grotty rooming house in St Louis, just after WW2.

He’s clever, he’s musical, he has charm – there are so many times that things could have worked out well for him but his personality can’t allow that; he takes a wrecking ball to anything good.

But when he falls in love with a beautiful and good schoolteacher, Della, and his feelings are reciprocated, the wrecking ball comes from elsewhere – because Della is black and mixed-race relationships were illegal in Missouri (and other American states) at the time.

Like I said, heartbreaking.

 

Stolen Holiday by Lorna Hill

Needed a break after the intensity of Jack. I know from FB forums that I’m not the only one to have been rereading childhood books over the last few months and I bought a copy of this one through one of these forums. No jacket but that meant it cost £5 and not a ludicrous Marketplace price. Escapism on the wild coast of Northumberland.

 

The World of Elizabeth Goudge by Sylvia Gower

And so to a biography of Elizabeth Goudge who was a mega-selling author, mostly of historical novels, in her day; one of her books Green Dolphin Country was made into an MGM film. She still has fans as the re-publication of this biography proves.

 

Hot Winter Nights by Jill Shalvis

Lucas works for Hunt Investigations doing dangerous stuff; Molly is the office manager but wants to do dangerous stuff too. So when one of her elderly neighbours voices concerns about the owner of a nearby Santaland she decides to dress up as an elf and investigate. Their boss orders Lucas to keep an eye on her …

 

Christmas at Maldington by Anne Stenhouse

A My Weekly Pocket Novel; rightly described on the cover as a ‘great quick read’ and a ‘celebrity drama’. I liked that it was the female character who was the celebrity. Genni Kilpatrick, escaping from her London life which has turned toxic, and hoping for a peaceful time at Maldington House, is asked by local businessman (and stage lighting engineer) Paddy Delford to run the village panto.

Maldington House, in the north of England, was also the setting for A Debt for Rosalie; both available from the DC Thomson shop 0800 904 7260 (UK) or + 44 (0) 1382 575 322 (overseas).

 

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

I expected Mr House of Games’ first novel to be good and so it proved. Passed Boxing Day afternoon and evening very nicely, thank you.

 

Death at Rainbow Cottage by Jo Allen

The fourth in the DCI Jude Satterthwaite mysteries was another page-turner in this series, set in Cumbria. Jude has a series of apparent random killings on his doorstep – and his personal problems are added to by the arrival of a new boss.

 

A Winter’s Dream by Sophie Claire

A return to the English village of Willowbrook, and to Provence, a delightful combination successfully used in The Forget-me-not Summer and The Christmas Holiday.

This time it’s timid Liberty who is centre stage along with Alex Ricard, the famous, thrill-seeking motorbike champion, who’s in Willowbrook to try to solve a family mystery.

On Liberty’s 30th birthday she resolves to be more open to new opportunities and invitations and to be braver (which includes taking in Alex as a lodger).

As research, author Sophie Claire also embarked on pushing herself out of her comfort zone, climbing a mountain and driving on the ‘other’ side of the road, for example.

 

A good lesson to learn and a positive and uplifting note on which to end this most challenging of years.

Nine in July

I read nine books in July plus two ongoing as I said in my previous post. Which are still ongoing …

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

This is a glorious and gloriously written book I believe I shall return to again.

‘On a dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the Thames, the regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open and in steps an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a child.

Hours later, the dead girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life.’

‘On a dark midwinter’s night …’ – who could resist such an opening? Fabulous. It pinned me to my chair until the last word.

Burying Bad News (The Much Winchmoor Mysteries Book 3) by Paula Williams

Read on Kindle. Cosy crime. Cosy to read that is; probably it’s not a cosy feeling when you find a severed head – or for that matter you have your head severed …

Kat Latcham, reporter/barmaid/dog walker, gets involved in the aftermath of an argument between two warring neighbours. Along with a touch of humour and a dollop of romance this is a satisfying read. But I’d recommend that, as with St Mary’s Mead and Midsomer, you give Much Winchmoor a miss when you’re making holiday plans.

 

Notes From a Big Country by Bill Bryson

I’ve read this before, probably more than once. But I’m finding at the moment I’m not always up for a new read however enticing but want to sink into the comfort of the tried and tested. This is a collection of columns BB wrote for a British magazine when, after twenty years of living in Yorkshire, he moved back to the US at the end of the 1990s – and sees the country of his birth in a different light.

The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo

Read on Kindle. Can’t remember which book blogger mentioned this title but thanks very much whoever you were. I loved it. The Observer described it as ‘the love child of Jonathan Franzan and Anne Tyler’. I was sceptical about the Anne Tyler bit because that’s a very bold claim for AT fans to get on board with …

However, I was totally won over; it is Anne Tylerish albeit with graphic love scenes and lots of swearing.

Marilyn and David have the most stable marriage ever and are still crazy about each other after all these years – which is probably why their four grown-up daughters’ lives tend to be dysfunctional and secretive. How can their relationships ever live up to that of their parents’?

A first novel – I certainly hope there will be more.

 

And talking of the tried and tested … my next (re)reads are (if you were to twist my arm to choose two) my favourite Anne Tylers:

 

Ladder of Years

‘One warm summer’s day at the beach, forty-year-old Cordelia Grinstead, dressed only in a swimsuit and beach robe, walks away from her family and just keeps on going.’

 

Saint Maybe

‘When eighteen-year-old Ian Bedloe pricks the bubble of his family's optimistic self-deception, his brother Danny drives into a wall, his sister-in-law falls apart, and his parents age before his eyes. Consumed by guilt Ian finds the hope of forgiveness at the Church of the Second Chance.’

 

 

A Debt for Rosalie by Anne Stenhouse

A My Weekly Pocket Novel. It came out on 23 July and was available in selected WH Smiths and supermarkets for two weeks. However, if you ring DC Thomson 0800 904 7200 hopefully they will have some still for sale.

Rosalie has taken a job as the chef at Maldington House, a private hotel, following the collapse of her business and the end of her relationship with Steve (these two facts being unfortunately connected). And just when she’s getting on nicely with David, the dishy hotel owner, Steve turns up like a bad penny.

There are serious issues discussed here, albeit with a light touch, and a great sense of place.

 

Our Castle by the Sea by Lucy Strange

I adored Lucy Strange’s first book The Secret of Nightingale Wood, set just after the First World War.

Our Castle by the Sea takes place during the Second World War. Pet and her older sister Mags have been brought up in the cottage by the lighthouse in Kent where their father is keeper. With a war raging at sea, and their German mother interned, life becomes very grim for the girls especially when it becomes clear that there is a saboteur in the village.

Terrific, although for me not quite so tear-inducing as Nightingale Wood.

 

Fulfilment by Anne Stormont, the Skye Series Book 3

Read on Kindle. The third in the trilogy about Rachel and Jack, following Displacement and Settlement. It was good to catch up with the two main characters as they continue to work out their relationship – which is complicated by the mental health issues ex-policeman Jack has following a horrific attack on him. You could read this even if you haven’t read the others as you can pick up on earlier happenings – but much better to start at the beginning and follow Rachel and Jack on their complicated journey to their <spoiler alert> happy ever after.

There’s a great sense of place – whether that’s in Skye where Rachel and Jack live or in Israel where Rachel goes to visit her brother; they are Jewish through their mother’s side of the family. She also goes there for work reasons as she has been putting together an anthology of writings intended to help promote peace in that part of the world. With that and with Jack wanting to help youngsters who’ve had a bad start in life there are important and topical themes explored here along with the love story. Highly recommended.

Apologies for any oddities of spacing etc in this post – Blogger has a new 'interface' I am still getting to grips with.

The Day of Small Things

I first heard the quote that gives the blog post its title from the novel The Day of Small Things by O. Douglas (sister of John Buchan), encountered by me when I was about ten in my great-aunt’s house; it and her other titles have been on my comfort-read list ever since.

She got the quote from the Bible, Zechariah, iv. 10: ‘Who hath despised the day of small things?’

I have never been more grateful for the ‘small things’ than in these recent, unprecedented, days.

My daughter and I went out a drive on Mother’s Day (22 March) into the beautiful Border country around Peebles. We admired the scenery, including newborn lambs, without getting out of the car. A lovely memory to have – and not an experience that will be repeated anytime soon, because the day after that came the lockdown.

No going into shops for us for health reasons. So we are very fortunate that many local small businesses have stepped forward to be a lifeline in delivering food to the door – fruit and veg boxes, bread, milk, eggs, other groceries, butcher meat and fish.

One company delivered the goods and after that phoned for payment which restored my faith in human nature to quite a tearful extent.

On second thoughts keeping people fed is no small thing – it’s massive and I’m so grateful, and for:

WhatsApp – for keeping in regular touch with family and friends, whether for reassurances regarding health and well-being, doing silly little quizzes together, dress-up Friday photographs and much more

FaceTime 

phone calls

email

zoom – for enabling meetings of book group and writing class

Face Book (keeping in touch plus there have been some very funny memes and black humour and many heart-warming stories; I don’t read the negative stuff or click through to the horror/tabloid stories)

friends’ blogs showing what their daily lives are like at the moment: Anne Stenhouse and Anne Stormont

cooking something with substituted ingredients that turns out well (those food deliveries, wonderful though they are, are unable to supply plain flour or yeast; who’s got it all?)

 

Richard Osman’s House of Games – 6pm BBC2, brain-teasing fun

blossom

teddies and rainbows in windows

(and in my son’s Greater London street on Easter Sunday painted eggs for children to ‘hunt’)

I can read all day if I want to (and I do), currently the rather wonderful Where the Crawdads Sing and, alternately, a comfort read Mrs Pooter’s Diary.

 

Joe Wicks’ YouTube exercises (to help keep reader’s bottom at bay)

exercise bike (ditto)

early morning walks through deserted streets (ditto, and for fresh air, and to feel some sense of normality while marvelling at the changed, almost vehicle-less, city)

free theatre productions on YouTube

Malory Towers on iPlayer

large garden (communal, south-facing)

sleep (previously I could lie awake worrying about various things but now with these being eclipsed I’m sleeping like the proverbial log – perhaps some form of defence mechanism kicking in?)

time to put together a new anthology Still Rocking and other stories– watch this space.

(all images courtesy of Pixaby)

Free book!

A Christmas present for you ...

 

In my previous post I told you about Capital Writers’ new anthology Capital Christmas Stories (you can read the beginning of my story here).

And, just for you, our first anthology, Capital Stories, which came out last year, is FREE for five days only, from 20-24 December.

You’re welcome.

Capital Christmas Stories

With Jane Riddell, Anne Stenhouse and Jennifer Young I am part of Capital Writers – four writers who live in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital city.

Edinburgh, renowned for many things over the centuries, is now also famous for its Christmas/New Year festivities (anyone tried this year’s silent disco on George Street …?).

So it seemed appropriate that we produce an anthology of festive stories and here it is, available from Amazon at the very cheery price of 99p:

And here is a review by Joanne Baird of Portobello Book Blog

This is how my story begins:

UNDER THE CHRISTMAS TREE

Princes Street. George Street. Moray Place. Castle Street. Hanover Street.

Jessica blinked and looked again at the map she’d just been given in the tourist office.

Edinburgh was over 11,000 miles away, but in front of her were many of the same street names – albeit in a different configuration.

Sophie had only given her vague instructions about how to get to where she lived on Wallace Street, walkable she’d said from the centre of the city. Jessica had left home twenty-four hours ago, the time now a blur of airports and trying to sleep in cramped seats, and her head swam as she scanned the map for the street whose name was yet another reminder that Dunedin, New Zealand, was named after Scotland’s capital.

She took the map over to the assistant behind the desk. He swivelled it round towards him and made a pencil circle.

‘There,’ he said, marking a spot that actually didn’t look too far to walk and then helpfully pointing out the route. ‘Start here, at Stuart Street. About twenty minutes’ walk? Or there’s a taxi rank on the other side of the road.’

Any thought that a walk would clear her head – and postpone the moment of seeing her sister – was dispelled when Jessica saw that Stuart Street was vertical, so vertical she imagined herself having to scale it like a mountaineer while trying to hang on to her wheeled suitcase. Did people really live up there? Edinburgh was hilly but this was in a different league.

So, she wouldn’t walk. But she could still put off arriving at Sophie’s; she’d spotted a café when she got off the shuttle bus from the airport.

Over a long black coffee, which served to wake her brain up a little, she tried to think what she would say to her sister, what platitudes she could come out with this time to comfort her. And she wondered if Sophie would realise that Jessica herself might be in need of comforting.

Would Sophie remember what had happened to Jessica last Christmas? Would she wonder why her hysterical phone call home a month ago, crying that Logan had left her, had resulted in Jessica, uncharacteristically impulsive, saying she’d book a flight and come to New Zealand for Christmas? Just her, not David. No, she wouldn’t wonder; she would take it for granted that her older sister would drop everything – including her husband – so that Sophie wouldn’t be on her own over the festive season.

Now read on …

A writerly week

Didn’t get much writing done … but had a very nice writerly week nonetheless.

The last meeting of the Edinburgh Writers’ Club year was on Monday. The AGM followed by the prize-giving and a social event. I’ve been the membership secretary for rather a long time but I stepped down this year and was touched to be presented with these lovely flowers.

The Club year begins again on 24 September 2018, 7.30. Grosvenor Hilton Hotel, Grosvenor Street and meets every fortnight until the end of May. The 2018-19 programme will be up on the website towards the end of August. You can also find the Club on Facebook.

When I joined the Club I had never been published or even tried to be but I found people to be very friendly and helpful and it was so encouraging to get feedback in the competitions and from other members, and thus to think I might actually send a story out into the big wide publishing world.

Fourteen years on, although of course members have come and gone, the ethos of the Club is still the same – it’s a mix of published and unpublished writers who write in various genres (novels, short stories, poetry, drama, articles) but who come together in their shared love of the written word.

It is no exaggeration to say that joining Edinburgh Writers’ Club changed my life!

One of the encouraging members I met when I joined EWC was Anne Stenhouse. Now she and I and two other writers, Jennifer Young and Jane Riddell, all Edinburgh based, have come together as Capital Writers. The idea is to have a joint platform for promoting our writing. So we have a website, a Facebook page and are on Twitter @reekiewriters. We have produced a book of short stories, one from each of us, Capital Stories, as a taster of our work; a further anthology is in the pipeline for the end of the year.

And on Wednesday this week, Anne, Jane and myself (Jennifer was away) found ourselves on a writers’ panel at the Corstorphine Festival (Corstorphine is an area of Edinburgh), alongside crime writers Wendy H. Jones and Cecilia Peartree, and Ray Bell who was there to talk about his book Literary Corstorphine.

There was (almost) more panel than audience but what a lovely audience they were, really friendly and engaged and asking excellent questions. Capital Writers had a capital time and <hint> are available for similar events …

I have a story in the current issue (No 158) of The People’s Friend Special called What Would Jane Think?, my thirty-third for the PF. I do like the illustration they've had done for it.

Capital Writers in Corstorphine Festival

I am looking forward to being on a panel of writers, including two of my fellow Capital Writers, at the Corstorphine Festival (Edinburgh) on 30 May 2018 at 7pm.

If you are in the vicinity it would be lovely to see you - free, and no need to book.

Four Capital Writers

Three fellow writers and myself, all Edinburgh based, have set up a website together. Appropriately, we call ourselves Capital Writers. 

And to give you a flavour of our writing we have produced an anthology, Capital Stories, one story from each of us.

The stories in the anthology are arranged chronologically and are set in Edinburgh, from Regency times to the present day:

A Close Encounter

Anne Stenhouse

Afternoon Tea with Angelica

Jennifer Young

The Letter

Jane Riddell

An Ordinary Joe

Kate Blackadder

Apart from being writers living in Edinburgh we have something else in common. None of us were born in Scotland’s capital city but we have come to live in it at different times and for different reasons – and we love it.

We have each posted on the website an account of how we came to be here. This is mine, a tale that encompasses the murder of Rizzio, a horde of mice, and a name on a telephone list …

Anne, Jane, Jennifer and I propose to blog about things that interest us, to tell of the delights of Edinburgh including its past and present literary heritage (and promote our books along the way … )

We are looking forward to that and hope that you will travel virtually from wherever you are to join us …

… and we hope that you enjoy Capital Stories (99p).

Six in September

I read six books in September.

This Must be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell

Two pics for this title – the jacket and the lovely binding underneath. 

I’ve liked all of Maggie O’Farrell’s books – but while I’ve found them page-turning and engaging while reading them, apart from The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox I haven’t thought about them much once I’ve finished them and in retrospect can’t really distinguish one title from another. I do hope that doesn’t happen with This Must be the Place because I absolutely loved it and a few weeks after finishing it still think about the characters as if they were people I actually knew.

I saw her at the Edinburgh Book Festival this year – before I bought the book. Chicken and egg – I’d like to have read it first so that I could appreciate what she said about it more, and maybe have had a question to ask her myself.

Casting Off by P I Paris

Set in a Highland Care Home, this explores some serious issues in a truly laugh-out-loud way. When the residents are told that their fees are going up by an exorbitant amount some of them take it upon themselves to raise money in a variety of ways – and, despite the cover picture, it’s certainly not all about knitting egg cosies. As the publisher’s blurb has it, this is Calendar Girls meets The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. See a post by the author on this blog.

Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

Sophie Kinsella’s first book designated for Young Adults and as warm and funny as her readers, including me, will expect. Actually any of her books could be enjoyed by Young Adults as well as by Old Adults …  but this one has a teenage protagonist. I liked that she was called Audrey – I think it’s odd that the name is not more popular given the iconic-ness of Miss Hepburn.

Courting the Countess by Anne Stenhouse

Lady Melissa Pateley has been virtually abducted by handsome Colonel Harry Gunn – for her own safety because Melissa has been left a rich widow and there are those, including Harry’s deranged cousin, who would like to get their hands on her fortune – and on herself. Melissa and Harry develop a relationship but then he discovers a family secret which could put paid to that continuing. The story takes place against the backdrop of beautiful Regency Edinburgh. A great read. (Check out Anne Stenhouse's previous Regencies including Bella's Betrothal also set in Edinburgh.)

Fashion on the Ration by Julie Summers

I saw this exhibition when I was in London last year. The make-do-and-mend ingenuity shown by women during the Second World War was light years away from popping down to Primark – silk underwear made out of maps issued to RAF pilots, coats made out of blankets, a duster as a headscarf, earrings from shattered aircraft windscreens …

The many fascinating things I leaned from the book included: to save cloth that could be used for uniforms men’s trousers could not have turn-ups; you’d slide off a chair when you wore a parachute-silk dress; shortage of elastic meant knickers had to have buttons; there were no extra coupons for maternity clothes. This would be a terrific resource if you were writing a book/story set in the 40s.

And – not exactly a book, but well-worth mentioning – I read the summer issue of Slightly Foxed ‘The Real Reader’s Quarterly’. Great writing and a lovely line-drawing-illustrated production. I bought it in the wonderful Topping bookshop in St Andrews and am thinking of subscribing (Santa, if you’re reading this … )