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: 

 

 

Five in March

I read five books in March.

 

 

The Art of Dying by Ambrose Parry

Set in mid 19th century Edinburgh, the second in the Raven and Fisher mystery series – and featuring real-life medical hero Dr James Simpson.

Will Raven, assistant to Dr Simpson, has been in Europe for a year and has returned to the esteemed doctor’s practice in Edinburgh. He’s taken aback to find that former housemaid Sarah Fisher, for whom he had feelings (while at the same time thinking she was socially beneath him) is happily married to another doctor.

A series of mysterious deaths, one of which is being laid at Dr Simpson’s door, bring Will and Sarah together to find the cause – Sarah, with medical ambitions of her own being more than a match for Will.

 

 

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

I read this many years ago but didn’t have a copy in the house so when I saw one in a charity shop I bought it (although it didn't have this nice cover – there are dozens of editions). It stood the test of time – manages to be both erudite and very funny. My favourite set piece was of his friend Harris’s experience in the maze at Hampton Court.

Recently I adjudicated a Humorous Short Story competition for the Scottish Association of Writers. It made me think about what makes a piece of writing funny – although of course one person’s rolling in the aisles reaction is another person’s poker face. But, although I could think of quite a few funny novels, I couldn’t think of any writer who consistently writes humorous short stories – please let me know in the comments if you have any recommendations.

 

Death on the Small Screen by Jo Allen

I was lucky enough to read this before it went ‘live’ online as I know the author. (We are in a group called Capital Writers.)

It’s the latest in the DCI Jude Satterthwaite police procedural series set in the lovely Lake District.

A murdered body is found on the fells by a young actress. It turns out there is no shortage of suspects, mostly thanks to the victim’s tangled love life.

 

American Housewife by Anita Abriel

Farmer’s daughter, turned radio personality in 1950s New York, Maggie Lane is thrilled to be asked to host her own television show The Maggie Lane Baking Show. She has to ‘bake’ (I use inverted commas because all the cakes and desserts are from packet mixes … ) – and to sign a ‘morality clause’ and ensure that nothing will spoil her squeaky clean image. But Maggie has a past she is hoping to keep hidden, even from her husband.

Enjoyable, but reminiscent of Lessons in Chemistry without that book’s depth.

 

 

A Half-Baked Idea by Olivia Potts

Grieving the death of her mother, barrister Olivia Potts decided to leave the law and enrol on Diplôme de Pâtisserie at Le Cordon Bleu, in London. If that wouldn’t concentrate her mind on something else it’s hard to see what would – the course must be the most exacting anywhere, with its team of classically trained teaching chefs demanding perfection from their students.

She describes her progress – with recipes and very mouth-watering they sound (if someone else has made them).

 

 

Competition success!

 I am delighted to say that I have won the Barbara Pym Short Story Award for 2025 run by the Barbara Pym Society.

The stories had to have some reference to Barbara or her characters and I chose to imagine another life for someone from Crampton Hodnet, one of my favourite of her books. For those of you who read her, you will guess which character when I tell you that the title of the story is 'All Change at Leamington Lodge'.

It's such fun taking an existing character and changing her life! The story will be published in a forthcoming issue of Green Leaves, the newsletter of the Barbara Pym Society, and thereafter on their website.

Last year, I had a story in an anthology of stories previously placed the the BP Society competition. You can buy it here.

Spring has sprung!

 

I got this gorgeous book-shaped vase for Christmas.

Crocuses enjoying the sunlight.

NOTE up on the right-hand side, a shiny new sign-up box!

Five in February

I read five books in February.

 

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Read for book group. Winner of the Booker Prize 2024. A short book but you need to savour every single poetic sentence so it’s not a quick read. It imagines life on a space station through the eyes of six astronauts – two women, four men; two Russians, one American, one Italian, one Japanese, one English – as they orbit around the earth seeing their home countries so far below. Wonderful. I want to read it again.

 

Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz

And now for something completely different … Various people had recommended this who-dunnit series featuring Detective Hawthorne – and Anthony Horowitz himself. This is the fifth title.

It’s a great conceit that only he (also author (amongst many other titles) of the story-within-a-story Magpie/Moonflower Murders books) could pull off.

A newcomer to a gated community in a very desirable area of London has been found dead, shot through the neck with a crossbow. He’s made himself very unpopular to everybody so there is no shortage of suspects.

 

Visiting Miss Austen by Angela Pearse

‘Felicity Fitzroy is delighted when she receives an invitation from her good friend Jane Austen to visit her in Bath. Despite living in domestic bliss in Derbyshire, Felicity craves excitement and a trip to the lively spa town sounds like the perfect cure.’

But Felicity and the niece she is chaperoning soon find themselves in peril …

Great fun.

 

Probably Nothing by Lauren Bravo

I enjoyed this author’s first novel Preloved (which I heard about on Joanne Baird’s blog). Probably Nothing is blackly funny. 

Bryony’s had a brief fling with Ed – nothing serious on her part; in fact she’s about to break it off.

But <spoiler alert>when Ed, who’s allergic to wasps, dies of anaphylactic shock, she finds that he has had a different view of their relationship and his loud and loving family embrace her as one of their own. As her own family situation is unhappy she’s torn between enjoying the affection and attention, especially from Ed’s mother, and telling them the truth. (Oh, and she’s a hypochondriac, hence the title.)

 

Wavewalker: A Memoir of Breaking Free by Suzanne Heywood

Actually for March’s book group meeting – I’m ahead of myself.

When Suzanne Heywood was seven, her parents announced that they were going to take her and her brother and sail around the world for three years.

Ten years later … Suzanne, having more or less educated herself but has no formal qualifications, applied to Oxford and got in.

In between was a life of terror and privation – terror, for example, at being in the Indian Ocean hurled from wave to wave (think A Perfect Storm) and privation from being often hungry because supplies or money had run out.

Her parents were more interested in each other than in their children and considered Suzanne difficult for wanting any other way of life.

Astonishing. 

NOTE up on the right-hand side, a shiny new sign-up box!

 

Eleven in January

I read eleven books in January (including rereads).

Dusk by Robbie Arnott

I read and loved Limberlost by Robbie Arnott JAN 2024 and the Tasmanian cousin who gave it to me very kindly brought me Dusk when she visited last November. In between those dates I had the pleasure of meeting Robbie Arnott at the signing session after his event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival when he signed Limberlost for me.

His writing is so lyrical and the landscape, in the Tasmanian wilderness, so extraordinary. In that place, a puma, nicknamed Dusk, is killing shepherds. Outcast twins, Iris and Floyd, see a chance to make some money when a bounty is placed. The ensuing journey into the wild brings their relationship and their terrible childhood to the fore.

(The cover shown is of the Australian paperback.)

 

What’s Next: A Backstage Pass to The WestWing, Its Cast and Crew and Its Enduring Legacy of Service

by Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack 

I’ve watched The West Wing several (ahem) times and will do so again. That, apparently, means that I am a ‘Wingnut’. So when I spent Christmas with relatives in the States I was thrilled to get this book, began to read it immediately and interrupted everybody to read bits out eg ‘Charlie’ made a name for himself as a tap dancer before WW! Martin Sheen holds up filming because he insists on greeting everyone first, not just the main cast but all the crew! The regular cast all have their pet charities and support each others’! ‘Will Bailey’ is a prankster who sounds very annoying!

If you’re a Wingnut too, you’ll know that Melissa Fitzgerald plays Carol and Mary McCormack is Kate Harper. 

 

Echo Burning by Lee Child

Vintage Reacher.

 

I took the notion to reread two books by Ruth Thomas and enjoyed them all over again especially The Snow and the Works on the Northern Line.

 

 

And because rereading children’s books set in the past is a comfort in these trouble times I blitzed through the four titles in The Saturdays series by American writer Elizabeth Enright and her standalone lovely Thimble Summer.

 

Army Without Banners by Ann Stafford

A memoir really, I think, but written as a novel – middle-aged Mildred and other wonderfully brave ladies driving ambulances in the London Blitz.

 

 

 

Six in December

 

I read six books in December.

 

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

At the beginning of December I had a four-hour bus journey and as I can’t read on a bus I looked to see what I could listen to on BBC Sounds and found this brilliant reading of The Wind in the Willows. I adored the story – it passed the time very nicely indeed but I realised, to my shame, that it was one of those classic books that you think you’ve read but actually haven’t. I liked it so much that when I came home I went straight to the bookshelf for a copy that belonged to my husband as a child and enjoyed it all over again, this time with Ernest Shepherd’s perfect drawings.

(Many editions are available - the link is to a paperback version.)

 

The Thirty-One Kings by Robert J. Harris

It’s June 1940 and Robert J. Harris has brought Richard Hannay (of John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps fame, now known as Dick) out of retirement to find Roland, believed to be in Paris, in the hands of Nazi agents – only Roland knows the secret of the thirty-one kings upon which the future of Europe depends.

I’m not sure the author has done our hero any favours – surely ‘Dick’ made a rookie error after getting his briefing in starting to get into the taxi that just happened to be idling outside? And in not recognising an old enemy?

What I did enjoy though was the mash-up with characters from another Buchan book, Huntingtower – Dickson McCunn’s little army of Gorbals die-hards without whom Mr Hannay would be at the bottom of the Seine.

 

I like a bit of crime in January:

 

An Unfinished Murder by Ann Granger

The author is new to me but I see she has written loads so I have them to catch up on.

 

P is for Peril by Sue Grafton

I might have read this before but it didn’t ring any bells – really like this series which, sadly, ended at Y with the death of the author.

 

A Quiet Life in the Country by T E Kinsey

A new series – the Lady Hardcastle Mysteries. The twist here is that Lady Hardcastle’s side-kick is her maid, Flo with whom she’s had many adventures in the past and as a result of which Flo has picked up some useful skills.

 

A Different River by Jo Verity

I fished this from the depths of my Kindle to read while on holiday. Miriam, newly widowed, is the filling in the sandwich between her elderly parents and her daughter’s family. When she hears that her schooldays boyfriend, ‘Bing’ Crosby, is now divorced and back in her hometown she makes contact. It’s like they have never been parted … but is their new relationship moving too fast?

I didn’t quite buy in to Bing – facets of his character didn’t add up for me but the other characters, even minor ones, mostly sprang off the page.