Seven in August

Dear Miss Lake by A. J. Pearce

The last of the four Emmy Lake chronicles. It’s July 1944. Woman’s Friend magazine has decamped to the countryside to avoid the doodlebugs. Along with her work as agony aunt, Emmy throws herself in to country life and, after an unexpected phone call, has a stint as a war correspondent. All the time, she is fearful for the safety all those she loves especially husband Charles.

You could read them in any order but best to start with Dear Mrs Bird.

May I also draw your attention to A. J. Pearce’s Substack newsletter, Notes of Cheer, which is lovely and booky and indeed very cheering.

 

Two Georgette Heyers, from the Christian Aid Book Sale:

 

Devil’s Cub

When Mary finds out that the infamous and devastatingly handsome Marquis of Vidal is planning to run away with her young sister, she sets out to save Sophy’s reputation – without losing her own. Easier said than done …

 

Powder and Patch

Philip wants to win the hand of the more sophisticated Cleone who wishes that he would acquire the polish she admires in other men. When he returns from Paris duly polished (and powdered and patched and shod in red high heels … ) Cleone realises that you have to be careful what you wish for.

 

 Lost Property

by Helen Paris

I started off by being totally on board with this.

Dot Watson’s story is related in chapters headed with the labels put on lost items in Transport for London’s lost property office. It’s a great setting for a novel.

I was especially taken by the first label as, when I lived in London, I knew the 73 bus route well (don’t think I left anything on one though).

 

It was fascinating to find out how the office worked and some of the sharp observations made me laugh eg:

‘Occasionally we have to go to Transport for London “Awaydays” to stare at flip charts and listen to Lynx-doused lads in their machine-washable suits say ‘not a problem’ ad infinitum.’

But although the book is set now, ‘Dot’, a thirty-something employee in the office, began to feel like a time-traveller from several decades ago and her sad Eleanor Oliphanty back-story was dragged out. The labels device far outstayed its welcome as far as I was concerned with some chapters seeming superfluous.

Sorry, I really wanted to like it more than I did.

 

The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer

In which our hapless hero, smitten by a girl he meets in a bar (who’s reading a book called The Satsuma Complex), gets involved with some very dodgy people. I know of Bob M mainly through Would I Lie to You on TV, in which the most outrageous escapades from his childhood, brilliantly told, turn out to be true. Here (I assume … ) he lets his imagination off the leash.

 

Forever Home by Graham Norton

Blackly funny with some memorable characters (looking at you, Moira) and a great plot. I see that it’s to be a TV series.

 

Keeping Distance by V. E. H. Masters

Maddie regrets her good deed in allowing Mason to move in with her temporarily when lockdown happens and she’s stuck with him as he becomes increasingly controlling. When she hears from a friend of an empty cottage she can borrow in the Scottish Borders, she makes a run for it – illegally, as travel restrictions are still in place. She believes that she’s done everything she can to cover her tracks so that Mason can’t find her … 

Next to the cottage is a farm where it’s lambing season and, Cal, the farmer is struggling to cope with his work load. England to Scotland, city girl to country girl – it’s a journey both literally and metaphorically for Maddie. A great read, evoking so well the Borders countryside (it’s a love letter to farming too) and those strange years of 2020/21, along with Maddie’s palpable anxiety to begin with and her taking a chance on a new love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seven in July

 

I read seven books in July.

 

 

The Girls by John Bowen

I picked up this book from a bookshop table, attracted by the front cover – and then even more attracted by the back cover where a review by the Washington Post said:

‘[For] those who feel Barbara Pym-ish on some days and Stephen King-ish on others’

Barbara Pym, author of mid-20th-century novels of English life is one of my very favourite writers. I haven’t read Stephen King (have seen the film Misery …) but I get the gist.

And I would say that review is spot-on.

This is a reissue of a book first published in 1986. I like the authorial writing style and the mix of (very) black-edged comedy, crime and relationships.

Recommended.

 

 

Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer

I bought four GHs in the Christian Aid Book Sale this year.

‘Kate’ is left a penniless orphan but is swept up by her very grand Aunt Minerva who, it turns out, has a very gruesome motive for inviting her niece to live with her. If I thought I was getting a cosy Regency after the macabre-ness of The Girls I was soon disabused of that …

 

 

The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer

Because of a family quarrel, the Darracott heir is only now meeting the relatives he will be supplanting. But ‘Ajax’ is a delightful Yorkshireman who ultimately charms the whole family and saves it from disgrace.

 

 

Nightshade by Michael Connelly

A police procedural set on Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles. A good read – my first Michael Connelly.

 

 

Christmas at the Island Hotel by Jenny Colgan

This is the fifth in Jenny Colgan’s ‘Mure’ series and the only one I’ve read. Enjoyable cosy quick read, set on a fictional island somewhere north of Shetland. Probably won’t read the others though as reviews suggest the main characters’ back stories vary and there are other inconsistencies.

 

 

The Trad Wife by Carrie Hughes

Many millions of people follow Faith on social media as she documents her apparently perfect life on a ranch in Utah – handsome husband, five adorable children, grows lavender, makes cheese etc. Etc.

Mel, desperate to make money to support herself and her daughter, is delighted when an approach to Faith for an interview leads to an invitation to visit.

Accepting the invitation is something Mel very much comes to regret. No spoilers – but there are several heart-stopping moments before the satisfying ending.

 

 

From Peach Street to Lobster Lane by Felicity Cloake

I've read One More Croissant for the Road in which Felicity Cloake (cookery writer for The Guardian) intrepidly cycles and eats her way around France in search of the perfect croissant, giving them marks out of ten.

This is her third cycling expedition – an account of cycling across America to find out just what is American cuisine. Cycling in the land of ten-lane freeways and big weather is brave to say the least. Among much else, she discovered that, outside the cities, the global chains do not hold sway and that the ethnic mixes that make up the States have resulted in some fabulous food.

In this book, she chooses to rate pies, some savoury but mostly sweet (in fact, mostly too sweet).

I love her writing style and for taking me vicariously on her food adventures.

I’ve now acquired, but have yet to read, her second food trip, Red Sauce Brown Sauce – around Britain to discover the perfect breakfast. (I don’t yet know what her verdict is on sauces but for me it’s: pass the HP please.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking for Laurie

 

 

This 7500-word short story (or Long Read in People’s Friend terms) has just been published in a bookazine Feel Good Fiction (see details below).

I’m thrilled the story found a home (and a great illustration) but almost more thrilled that I eventually managed to finish it …

 

Some stories go quite quickly from inspiration to thinking where to go with it; others take a little longer and one or two much looonger.

 

I had the initial idea, the ‘What if?’ thought, for Looking for Laurie twenty years ago.

 

We’d booked a short family holiday in Canada during the October school holidays but unfortunately had to cancel a couple of days before we travelled when one of the children took appendicitis.

 

After we’d all recovered from that I thought What if? … What if the appendix chose to get nasty after a family arrived in Toronto? And what if the child couldn’t fly home on the return date and the mother had to stay on? How would she spend those few days on her own in a strange city?

 

I could have stuck with Toronto for the setting but as I’ve never been (see above … ) I decided to turn the story around and have a young Canadian woman – the name Joanne popped into my head – arriving with her teenage son in London. She’d just got married and this was a business trip for her new husband combined with a honeymoon.

 

What if Laurie, the London-born father of her son, had left her in Toronto promising to return but he never did? Never knew he had a son, in fact?

 

Thoughts percolated and bubbled inconclusively for a while. I wrote other stories, magazine serials.

 

Wait! Could this be a serial rather than a story? I tried to make that work, cliff-hangers and all. It didn’t.

 

But now I knew what Joanne would do in London on her own while her husband David travelled north on business and Ben was still in hospital. She’d been thinking how little she actually knew about Laurie and became determined to find out more – and find out why he’d left her when they’d been so happy.

 

I realised I had to set the story back in the day so that her sleuthing would be more tricky than making internet searches. As I’d lived in London, moving there in the fiendishly hot summer of 1976, I placed Joanne there (with a flashback to 1962).

 

What took the longest to work out was what would happen when/if she found him? Would she still love him? How would her son and husband react?

 

I pecked away at it, thinking and rejecting various solutions. When I had success in placing two 7500-word stories with The People's Friend that suddenly seemed the best length to tell the story. I never wanted to give up on it – I wanted to find out myself what happened when Joanne went looking for Laurie.

 

And if you want to know, the story is in this bookazine – available from larger supermarkets, T. G. Jones (where I got mine), online from DC Thomson, Amazon and elsewhere. Yes, it’s £8.99 but that’s only around 20p a story including (see above!) a Long Read.

 

 

 

 

Five in June

 I read five books in June.

 

 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

I bought this lovely hardback copy with a birthday book token a few weeks ago. The book has since won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which I was delighted to see as it shows that the demise of the epistolary novel was announced too soon …

Several of my very favourite novels are written in letter form: I’ve reread The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society twice, 84 Charing Cross Road (many times) and Daddy Long-Legs (many times).

Will I reread The Correspondent? At the moment I’m thinking that I will not.

The life story of the irascible 73-year-old Sybil Van Antwerp is told through the letters she writes to family members, famous authors and neighbours etc etc and I really liked that structure.

But there was almost too much – the death of her small son for which she has carried guilt, her law career and a decision that comes back to haunt her, the fact that she was adopted and discovers her origins through DNA, a rift with her daughter, her two current suitors, and more.

Maybe I was irked by the fact that seventy-three is presented as being truly ancient (!) instead of just over our allotted span …

I liked it but I thought I would love it.

 

The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osmond

Number five in the Thursday Murder Club. In which lovely Joyce acquires a son-in-law … and helps Elizabeth, Ibrahim and Ron solve a billion pound mystery.

 

 

The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith

Have been saving this almost-1000-pager (hardback bought in charity shop) for a free weekend so I could binge – and binge I did. Couldn’t tell you the ins and outs of the complicated plot but it was an enjoyable forty-eight hours following Strike and Robin find out who was the dead man in the silver vault – and how their own relationship is (or is not) progressing.

 

 

A Journey of a Kind by Aimée Chalmers

This is a beautifully written and produced, self-published novel given to me by a friend – Aimée Chalmers is a friend of hers.

The protagonist, Thea, recalls the year she spent as a young woman, fleeing from her life in Scotland, to teach English in Greece.

Sadly, although it’s listed on Amazon and on various bookshop online sites, its status is currently given as ‘unavailable’; I don’t know why. Worth asking for in your local bookshop – ISBN 9781036954130.

 

 

The News From Dublin by Colm Toibin

Short stories, or in some cases, long short stories, set in Ireland, Spain, Argentina and Catalonia.

Look forward to hearing him speak about the collection next month at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (now sold out).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eight in May

I read eight books in May.

 

West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge

This was recommended to me and I loved the premise, which is based on a true story. In 1938, two giraffes are on their way to San Diego Zoo in California. There’s a hurricane, the ship is tossed about, but miraculously the giraffes survive. (A hippo wasn’t so lucky.)

The giraffes’ story is a morale boost to Americans so soon after the Depression and with the threat of another war in Europe. So the twelve-day cross-country road trip to deliver the giraffes to the zoo is one eagerly followed by a myriad cast of characters, some with the best of intentions, some not.

I loved it and so did my book group – it’s a great yarn combined with brilliant writing, not something you often get. Apparently, a film is in the pipeline.

 

 

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes

Lila has her hands full. Her husband has left her; she has two daughters; her mother has died and her stepfather, Bill, gradually moves in with her. To crown it all, her unreliable biological father, an actor past his famous heyday, makes a re-appearance. Oh, and she’s trying to have a love life.

Jojo Moyes’ books are always page-turners but this wasn’t one of my favourites. While I liked some of the characters, especially her two dads, I didn’t take to Lila herself. I wouldn’t take to anybody who has written a book detailing the breakdown of their marriage, since she is identifiable and there are children involved. It was a best-seller though (so what do I know?) so now her agent has encouraged her to embark on a follow-up, about the aforementioned love life. That doesn’t go so well.

 

 

Before I Met You by Lisa Jewell

Dual timeline, set in the 1920s and the 1990s (it's not one of LJ's psychological thrillers). In the later age, Betty moves from Guernsey to London to find the mysterious woman mentioned in her grandmother’s will. Her search will uncover Arlette’s glamorous life in Soho, a whirl of cocktail parties and smoky night-clubs. In researching Arlette’s tragic love story, Betty finds her own place in the city.

(And, no, the mysterious woman is not who you might immediately think she will be.)

Fabulous, loved it.

 

 

The Crow Trap by Ann Cleeves

The first Vera. Excellent. So I’ve read them all now, perversely finishing with the first.

 

 

The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths

I haven’t read any of Elly Griffiths’ (forensic archaeologist) Ruth Galloway books before. Quite enjoyed it, especially the Norfolk setting. It’s probably not typical as it’s set in 2020. It does bring that strange time to life, with its restrictions on movement (not that they prevent the characters from doing whatever they want) and uncertainty.

 

The recent Christian Aid book sale presented the opportunity to buy these three vintage books for children. How could I refuse?

Enjoyed them all.

 

The Lark in the Morn Elfrida Vipont.

 

 

The Lark on the Wing by Elfrida Vipont

 

 

Lillipilly Hill by Eleanor Spence

 

 

Five in April

I read five books in April.

 

Brave Hearted: The Dramatic Story of Women of the American West by Katie Hickman

Most people have heard of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her pioneering family, from the Little House on the Prairie books and the loosely based TV series in the 70s.

In this fascinating and sometimes heartbreaking book, Katie Hickman tells us about other women in the days when ‘America’ was still expanding its territory – whether they were wives, mothers or daughters in pioneering families, missionaries, poker players, sex workers, madams, bar owners, African Americans in search of freedom from slavery or displaced Native Americans (the last two is where the heartbreak happens and the resonances down the years are inescapable).

‘Brave hearted’ scarcely begins to cover the courage of all these women.

I’ve previously read KH’s book Daughters of Britannia:The Lives and Times of Diplomatic Wives, also recommended.

 

 

Burial of Ghosts by Ann Cleeves

A standalone title, first published in 2003. (How prolific is Ann Cleeves? Incredibly is the answer!)

Lizzie, brought up in care, receives an unexpected legacy of £15,000 from a man she had a holiday fling with – but there are strings attached.

 

 

Overkill by Vanda Symon

The first book featuring Constable Sam Shepherd. I bought it and three subsequent titles in the series in a charity shop because they are set in South Island, New Zealand, which I love to read about, and also because Sam(antha) is described as being feisty. I anticipated a Kinsey Milhone or V. I. Warshawski with gorgeous NZ scenery.

Well, all four books will be returned to the charity shop, three of them unread. For ‘feisty’ read ‘irritating’, ‘needy’ and ‘complete pain in the posterior’. She thinks she’s the only one who can sort anything out (she can’t) and the lip she gives senior officers (while being suspended from duty) would surely see her dismissed in real life. Disappointing (if you haven’t guessed that already).

 

 

The Republic of Love by Carol Shields

The much-missed Carol Shields in fact.

A reread. Not one of my favourites of hers (Happenstance and Larry’s Party taking that slot) but she’s always a pleasure to read. If you like Anne Tyler (and if not why not?) you will like Carol Shields.

Rather incensed to see the strapline on the big online retailer: ‘a charming chick lit novel’ – even when it was published in 2003 that would have been a misleading description; it should certainly be updated now.

Fay is a commitment-phobe (as we say in the 2020s) and in any case thrice-married late-night-radio host, Tom, does not seem like a good bet. She has plenty to keep her busy with her research into mermaids for the Folklore Society and with worrying about her parents’ long and apparently happy marriage.

But there’s the inconvenient fact that for both herself and Tom it was true love at first sight …

 

 

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain by Victoria Mackenzie

This appealed to me when it first came out and I wish I’d read it before going to an Edinburgh Book Festival event with the author last year.

I’ve read it now. It’s told in two voices – each one a 15th-century female mystic: Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich. Although not much is known about their lives (which Victoria Mackenzie has imagined most vividly), it is documented that the two did meet each other and that both had visions – or ‘shewings’.

Margery – mother of fourteen children, cried a great deal in public following her visions of Christ on the cross, leading to support from a few people and condemnation from many, including her husband. She wrote a book (or probably dictated it) – astonishingly, the manuscript was missing for six hundred years and found in a cupboard in an English country house in 1934.

Julian (she took a saint’s name) lost her husband and child to the plague and so decided to be an ‘anchoress’, the term for a female hermit. As it would be dangerous for her to live the life a male hermit could (ie in a cave or other isolated place), she had herself bricked up in a room attached to a church in Norwich. There was a curtained window where the necessities of life were passed to and fro to/from a devoted maid whose face Julian never saw. People came to her for guidance; again she couldn’t see them, only hear them.

She also wrote a book, thought to be the first book in English by a woman that has survived.

Imagine being bricked up … yet, this is the person whose optimistic words have lasted down the centuries: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.