katewritesandreads

katewritesandreads

Wednesday, 1 October 2025

Five in September

I read five books in September.

 


Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans

I’m a big fan of Lissa Evans’ Second World War trilogy – Old Baggage, Crooked Heart, and V for Victory – so was keen to read her latest novel set just after the war.

Dimperley is an unattractive and crumbling stately home which houses returning soldier sons and evacuees who never left – and the matriarch who insists on standards being kept up no matter what. Witty and profound like the trilogy although, in my opinion, not quite as good. I’ve never (yet) read her Their Finest Hour but I loved the film made from it. Their Finest (why did they drop the Hour?) has a brilliant cast including Bill Nighy.

 

 


Killing Floor by Lee Child

When I saw this in a charity shop I thought, ooh a Jack Reacher I haven’t read and it’s the very first one! And so I continued to think, until I was more than three-quarters of the way in when something rang a bell loudly … No point in telling you the plot because clearly they’re all the same. … J


 


 

When skies are dark and murky, thank your stars you’re not a turkey wrote a school friend in my autograph book (remember those?). Well, thanking my stars I’m not a turkey doesn’t help for more than maybe a second. What does help is returning to childhood favourite reading. Jennings books still make me laugh, especially Our Friend Jennings in which his best friend Darbishire acquires a false moustache through a small ad in a magazine and is convinced that it makes him completely unrecognisable. To make the most of it, the boys collaborate on writing a play about … a man with a moustache.

Similarly, in Jennings’ Diary, when he writes teachers’ and fellow pupils’ names backwards, our hero is positive that no one sneaking a look at his diary will crack the code.

 

And from the delightfully ridiculous to the sublime ...


 

Clear by Carys Davies

I really love Carys Davies’ writing, so spare and sharp, so clear in fact. This, her third novel, follows her hugely successful collections of short stories (in particular do check out the title story in The Redemption of Galen Pike).

Clear is set in 1843, encompasses: a seismic moment in Scottish religious history, the Highland Clearances, an island with one remaining inhabitant, a lost language, a late marriage, an unexpected relationship … all coming together in a tale other writers would take three times as long to tell.

 

Wednesday, 17 September 2025

Five in August

I read five books in August.


 

Table for Two by Amor Towles

Some (quite long) short stories and a novella from the author of A Gentleman in Moscow, The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, all of which I loved.

My favourite of the short stories was the first one ‘The Line’, set during the aftermath of the Russian revolution. A peasant farmer and his much more ambitious wife leave the country and move to the city. He (delightful man) spends his days queuing for basic essentials, first of all for themselves and then keeping the place for others – and where one particular ‘line’ leads I don’t want to spoil for future readers.

It was such a joy in the novella Eve in Hollywood to catch up with Evelyn Ross from Rules of Civility, a young woman for whom the word ‘indefatigable’ might have been coined. Now we know what happened to her when she didn’t get off that train … and all her subsequent adventures including befriending Olivia de Havilland and besting a corrupt officer of the law.

 


The Clock Winder by Anne Tyler

Continuing my re-reading of Anne Tyler (hmm, same initials as Amor Towles: is this a coincidence?? Should I change my name?).

 


Murder in my Backyard by Ann Cleeves

First published in 2014 (and republished I guess because of the success of Vera/Shetland). The second in a series featuring Inspector Ramsay.

No one in Heppleburn has a bad word to say about Alice Parry . . . but here she is, murdered in her own backyard on a bitter St. David’s Eve.’ Inspector Ramsay investigates.

 


Homemaker (Prairie Nightingale Book 1) by Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare

When a former friend and devoted mother vanishes, a confident homemaker turned amateur sleuth follows an unexpected trail of scandals and secrets to find her.

The scandal involved a pyramid-selling scheme and the culprit seemed so predictable I read on expecting a twist …

Whatever else she is, Prairie Nightingale is not a ‘homemaker’ although she says homemaking is something she’s ‘very, very good at.’ Instead of getting alimony as such in her divorce settlement from her perfectly decent husband (who asked what was for dinner once too often), she asked him to pay for staff – an office manager, a chef, a gardener and whatnot else to look after her and their two teenage girls – oh, and her very supportive ex-mother-in-law lives in the granny flat.

So our Prairie has all the time in the world to waft around playing detective and make sanctimonious speeches about the patriarchy to anyone who’ll listen.

 


Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

Is ‘meta’ the right word here? Anyway, the book features characters from some previous books of Elizabeth Strout’s – Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge. Although I thought My Name is Lucy Barton was terrific, I was less enamoured when Lucy got together, parted, got together again … with the tiresome William. In this book she’s still divorced from him but they are living together in Maine. Olive Kitteridge (the first eponymous book about her is one of the best-written I have ever read) lives nearby in a care home and the reason I bought this book was to catch up with her.

Fortunately, in my opinion, William is mostly off-stage until the end which wasn’t the conclusion I was hoping for …

 

 


Monday, 4 August 2025

Six in July

I read six books in July.

 

The Lady in the Park by David Reynolds

I enjoyed David Reynold’s travel memoir The Road to Brownsville (and have yet to read his family memoir Swan River) so I was interested to see that he’d written a cosy-ish crime novel featuring Max, a retired CID inspector, as a private investigator; Max’s sidekick as it were is his observant six-year-old grandson which worked really well.

 

‘When a woman is found unconscious on a ping-pong table in Peckham's Warwick Gardens, it looks like a case of mistaken identity. Why would anyone want to injure this popular local mum of six?’ Danny spots a vital clue in CCTV footage.

 

I look forward to the next outing of this duo.

 


 

Long Story Short by Victoria Walters

Hmmm. Wasn’t keen despite its literary agent/book publishing background.

 


 

Wycliffe and the Tangled Web by W. J. Burley

When I was in Orkney in the summer we passed a hall with a jumble sale, raising funds for the RNLI, and couldn’t resist going in. It was a jumble sure enough … after a good rummage the cousin I was with found a dress for a couple of pounds that she was delighted with. The ladies running it were so lovely and chatty I wanted to buy something so (last of the big spenders) I paid 50p for this tangled tale. I quite enjoyed it, and its Cornish setting, but I couldn’t really believe in the victim, a very troubled teen called Hilda.

 

So, as a palate cleanser as it were, I reread Clock Dance by the peerless Anne Tyler.

 


 


 

The Cliff House by Christopher Brookmyre

A take on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None – a hen party on small island goes very very wrong. Brilliant.

 


Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

My first Sebastian Barry but definitely not my last. What a staggering feat – to sustain the voice of teenage Irish-born Thomas McNulty, driven to emigrate to the United States after the death of his family in the potato famine. After signing up for the army, Thomas and his beloved friend, ‘Handsome John Cole’, fight in the Indian Wars and the Civil War, both viscerally described, and gain and lose comrades along the way. When they think they have finally settled down to farm life, the past comes back to haunt them.

Wednesday, 2 July 2025

Five in June

 

I read five books in June.

 


Mrs Porter Calling by A J Pearce

‘A feel-good novel about the spirit of friendship in wartime Britain.’ The third in The Wartime Chronicles series – the fourth Dear Miss Lake has just been published. I love books set in the Home Front, books set in wartime London and books set in magazine publishing houses, so this ticked three boxes.

Obviously, in this time and place, the characters face very serious situations, but it’s all done with a light and delightful touch.

From her uncle, the eponymous Mrs Porter has inherited Woman’s Friend magazine – a cosy weekly which specialises in answering readers’ problems. But the glamorous and entitled Mrs P finds their problems ‘mis’ and dreary and makes the staff run Vogue-type articles on eg perfume that would cost the ordinary woman half a week’s wages.

 


The Glass Maker by Tracy Chevalier

Tracy’s books are always so interesting and informative because she researches such different subjects each time – Vermeer, trees, fossils, church kneelers and Victorian mourning to name but a few. This time it is glass making on the Venetian island of Murano: she visited there several times and tried her hand at this difficult skill (sadly, a skill and an industry that has been mostly overtaken by modern production methods).

The main character, Orsolo, and some of her family barely age over the five-hundred-year span of the story. This feat is explained by the ‘timelessness’ of Venice and is pulled off brilliantly. Told this way, you can see the history of glass making since the 1500s without having to meet a new set of characters every generation.

 


False Colours by Georgette Heyer

‘Gossip, scandal and an unforgettable Regency romance.’ The main character here is the dashing Kit, on leave from the diplomatic service – and he needs all his diplomacy skills to sort out the tangled lives of his extravagant mother and wayward twin brother, and his own feelings for that brother’s betrothed.

An enjoyable read if not one of my favourite GHs.

 


A Christmas Party by Georgette Heyer

My first GH crime novel – and, sadly, my last. Set in the 1930s in a snowbound country house, the book has none of the sparkling writing and gorgeous characterisation I like so much in her Regency novels. (I was warned of this by diehard Regency fans ... ) 

The solution to the murder of the house’s owner was satisfying but, jings, it was a bit of a plod to get there.

 


Broken Threads by Michal Hussein

This memoir from the host of Radio 4’s Today programme details her ancestry, which includes an Irish grandmother and a grandfather who played a part in the bloody transition ‘from Empire to Independence’.

It’s fascinating – I wish, though, that I’d read it in print and not on Kindle because eg there are many names beginning with A and I would like to have been able to refer back easily to get a grip on them, plus the e-form is hopeless when a book has lots of reference notes.

Wednesday, 4 June 2025

Six in May

I read six books in May.


Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives by Lucy Mangan

A book about books – what’s not to like? I enjoyed Bookworm which covered Lucy Mangan’s childhood years of not wanting to do much else other than read (a girl after my own heart then).

Of course, though, adulthood does have its compensations – an income to buy books and a house (and a specially built ‘shed’ in the garden, of which I am very jealous)’) to put them in. Oh, and a husband who’s equally bookwormish, and a child who provides a reason to reread favourites and to find new ones.

So this book ranges wildly and wonderfully (as anybody’s reading material should) from Library Lion to 1990s bonkbusters such as Lace, to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with much (much) in between.

I had the pleasure of seeing her recently being interviewed under the auspices of the wonderful Toppings bookshop in Edinburgh and got this lovely signed copy.

 


 

Free, Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

Read for book group. I knew next to nothing about Albania; it was so interesting to hear about its recent history through the eyes of Lea Ypi, born there in 1979 and now a professor at the London School of Economics.

Albania, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe, was a difficult place to live in for many reasons – but it was Lea’s home and all she knew. But in December 1990 political upheaval meant everything changed. There was freedom at last which seemed wonderful to begin with but it came with many downsides for everybody and, for Lea, some startling family revelations.

Fascinating.

 


 

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

Something extraordinary happens on a flight from Hobart to Sydney – an elderly woman called Cherry goes down the aisle telling each passenger (including children) and crew members when and how they are going to die.

Thereafter, the book focuses on some of these people and what effect their prediction has had on them (especially when they find out that some of the predictions have come true)  – and we find out Cherry’s very plausible backstory too. Riveting. I particularly enjoyed Leo’s and Ethan’s stories – Leo, the family man with a toxic boss, and Ethan, hopelessly infatuated with his rich, glamorous housemate. I still think about them actually …

 


April Lady by Georgette Heyer

Yay – the Christian Aid book sale was back this year in Edinburgh after a couple of years’ hiatus. Among my (very restrained) purchases were two GHs I’ve never read before. April Lady won’t go into my top five but it was very enjoyable all the same.

 


 

Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

A joy to catch up with Jackson Brodie again.

A painting has apparently been stolen from the Yorkshire home of a deceased woman but her unpleasant offspring are reluctant to involve the police. Our hero, rather reluctantly, takes on the case – which leads to a stately home, an array of characters straight from the Golden Age of crime writing, and a Murder Mystery Weekend. Hope that’s not the last we see of JB – I’m still cross that the television series was cancelled.

You can’t see from the image but my copy (also purchased in Toppings but this time the St Andrews branch) has sprayed black edges, a special edition for independent bookshops.

 


 

Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers

After I read Small Pleasures by CC a few years ago, I read through her backlist of six books, one after the other.

Shy Creatures, her latest, is terrific. Set in the 1960s, in the environs of Croydon, it was inspired by the true story of a man discovered in a house he hadn’t left in forty years – a man with wild hair and beard and an astonishing talent for art.

Helen, an art therapist (embroiled in an affair with a charismatic married colleague in the psychiatric hospital) becomes entangled in the man’s mysterious past.

Wednesday, 30 April 2025

Seven in April

I read seven books in April.



West by Carys Davies

This has been on my radar for a little while. When I suggested it for a book group read it turned out that others had thought of it too. Despite it being short (160 pages), it engendered wide-ranging discussions and – because it was short – its immersive yet very spare writing was much admired.

Carys Davies was an award-winning short story writer before writing novels (do check out ‘The Redemption of Galen Pike’ which won the 2015 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize and is included in the collection of the same name).

 

Cy Bellman, American settler and widowed father of ten-year-old Bess leaves his small Pennsylvania farm and his daughter, in the unsympathetic care of his sister-in-law, to find out if the rumours are true: that the giant bones found in Kentucky are from a species still alive who roam the uncharted wilderness beyond the Mississippi River.

 


Just One Weekend by Catherine Aitken

Sandy leaves Scotland, and her husband, for a weekend in New York with her widowed best friend Isobel. There’s going to be a reunion concert there for The Brig, the group they were obsessed with for years.

Control-freak Sandy’s (very) detailed itinerary is thrown into disarray immediately when Isobel’s virtual American boyfriend appears, and Sandy gets saddled looking after the inebriated passenger who’s been irritating her in (she was upgraded) First Class.

There follows a wild weekend across New York with the stranger (who’s not such a stranger after all) when both their lives are changed forever.

I do love books set in New York and this was an exhilarating visit to the city that never sleeps.

 


There’s Something About Mira by Sonali Dev

This book is partly set in New York! Mira Salvi, from an Indian family now living in Chicago is finally engaged to be married (at the ripe old age of 28 … ) to a highly respected doctor, to the delight of her domineering parents. But a visit, minus fiancé, to New York takes her life in a completely different direction when she finds a strange ring and is determined to reunite it with its owner.

After New York, Mira has to go to India with her mother and future mother-in-law for a lavish spending spree on wedding clothes and jewellery. But as she suspects the ring’s owner is somewhere in that vast continent her mind is not on dresses.

I mostly enjoyed this. My reservation is one, not only for this book, but others that are told in first person present tense. It’s mostly to do with facial expressions – how can you see on your own face that ‘a smile plays on my lips’, ‘I look at him quizzically’ or whatever?

 


The People Next Door by Kate Braithwaite

A psychological thriller/domestic noir billed as having a ‘shocking final twist’ – which it certainly did.

The premise is ‘how well do you really know your neighbours’? In this case, the neighbours live in an affluent suburb of Pennsylvania. Jen has moved there with her partner and her daughter but she has a secret reason for being there.

Told from multiple viewpoints, in the past and the present, this is a tense and twisty read.

 


The Miseducation of Evie Epworth by Matson Taylor

Well, each to their own. I Did Not Finish this. It has pretensions to be a classic girls’ coming of age novel but I found all the characters to be cardboard cut-outs. It’s set in the 1960s and reminded me of 60s sitcoms which were funny at a time when we were more easily amused but are just tiresome now.

 

So after that I revisited Maeve Binchy, for the first time in years, and sank happily into her world.

First of all, with Quentins

 


and then with Tara Road