katewritesandreads

katewritesandreads

Monday 14 December 2020

Five in November

I read five books in November.

On Chapel Sands by Laura Cumming

Read for book group. Non-fiction. In 1929, a little girl, who went on to become Laura Cumming’s mother, was kidnapped from a beach in Lincolnshire and was retrieved, unharmed, a few days later dressed in different clothes. Laura Cummings unravels what led up to that event in this wonderfully written and so well structured book, slowly revealing a community that kept of its secrets right until the end of her quest.

Much enjoyed by all and highly recommended.

 


Venetia by Georgette Heyer

Continuing my extremely enjoyable travels through Heyer-land.

 


The Christmas Swap by Sandy Barker

The Holiday is my favourite Christmas rom-com (thank you, Netflix; just had my first viewing of the season) although not my favourite Christmas film which, unoriginally, is It’s a Wonderful Life (also had first watch of 2020 this weekend).

So, as Sandy Barker’s book was inspired by The Holiday, I was keen to read it. And it was fun, easy to read. Three childhood friends, now on different continents, decided to swap and spend Christmas with one of the other families. It was a little hard to keep track of who was who and came from where but the settings of Colorado, ‘a sleepy village’ in Oxfordshire, and Melbourne were enviable locations to spend the Christmas season, with a handsome man or three about as well of course.

 


A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier

I have read all of Tracy Chevalier’s books and have seen her numerous times at the Edinburgh International Book Festival where she is a very engaging speaker. As her many fans know, she gets very involved in a subject and weaves her stories around them – eg quilting, William Blake, growing apple trees.

Set in 1932, A Single Thread is about a group of women who stitch kneelers and cushions for Winchester Cathedral and in particular, Violet.

This is TC’s most up-to-date book chronologically and it’s a period I love to read about, if not one I’d like to have lived in. I thought this had the feel of books I’ve read about that time which were actually written then, so that was brilliant. And I love cathedrals.

As well as finding out about the intricacy and meanings of the stitches (including the use of the swastika before the Nazis adopted it), we also get a lesson in bell ringing.

I read the book in one go – but I admit to feeling a little let down when I’d finished, because I’d have liked a different resolution to one aspect of it.

<Spoiler alert> TC invoked a terrific feeling of menace on a couple of occasions when Violet encountered a man who was violent towards her. Quite frankly, I’d like to have seen her push him off the bell tower … as it was, we found out nothing about him beyond his name and his actions went unpunished.

Perhaps fewer lessons and more story I guess is what I was wanting.

 


Lessons by Jenny Colgan

Read on Kindle. The third book in the ‘Malory Towers for grown-ups series’. I enjoyed the first two and I enjoyed this – BUT I didn’t appreciate the cliffhanging ending when there’s no indication of when (or if) there will be a follow-up.

The tone seemed slightly different in this one, with authorial asides and voiceovers which were sometimes intrusive, but the latter worked wonderfully in Chapter Ten in the Summer Term section. Just saying.

And thank you to the author for introducing me to A E Housman’s poem Shake Hands.

 

Monday 30 November 2020

Free story/'Christmas Lists'

 

However many lists you make Christmas Day doesn’t always go according to plan, does it?

Read on …

 

 

CHRISTMAS LISTS

Fourteen!

Jess looked at the notebook page she’d headed ‘Guests’, and counted again to make sure.

Mum, Dad, Michael and his new girlfriend, Samantha (wonder what she’s like? – hopefully an improvement on his previous one), Emily (if Emily’s got back together with Rob she would have said?), Auntie Meg and the three cousins.

It was good that Samantha would be joining them as, counting the five of themselves, that came to fourteen. An unlucky number might spoil the day.

But – fourteen! She’d never cooked for so many people before. In fact, she hardly ever cooked from scratch. What were ready-meals and takeaways for if not to make working mums’ lives easier?

But obviously they weren’t an option on Christmas Day. Certainly not for the family who, every twenty-fifth of December, were cooked for by someone who could give Delia a run for her money.

Mum.

She always did Christmas lunch and it was always perfect. Everything hot and ready when it should be. The turkey succulent, the roast potatoes crisp. The best gravy in the world and the creamiest bread sauce. Her own mother’s famous stuffing recipe. Parsnips and sprouts even the children would eat.

This Christmas, though, they’d told Mum that, with her dodgy hips, she had to sit down and be waited on for a change. Jess and her siblings, Emily and Michael, talked it over, and Jess said she would host because she was the oldest – and because she lived in a house whereas the other two lived in flats and Mum wouldn’t get up the stairs. She waved away their offers of help. How hard could it be?

Lists were the answer – using them was how she ran other areas of her life. This notebook had a sparkly cover and she’d designed a label saying ‘Christmas lists’ and stuck it on. It seemed an efficient way to start.

So, the guest list was finalised. Tick.

She paused for a moment to think about how she’d do Christmas her way.

At Mum and Dad’s there was only room for six at the dining table. On Christmas Day, a garden table and chairs were taken indoors for the children and one or two adults. Everyone else ate from trays. Not that Mum sat down much – she was always bobbing about making sure everyone had enough and pressing second helpings on them. And there was usually a child who wandered off to play with presents, or wanted to sit on someone’s knee.

It was a squash and a bit of a muddle but everyone was happy and neither Jess nor Michael or Emily thought that Christmases would ever be any different.

But this one would, and Jess had in mind the rooms you saw in glossy magazines. Her dining table sat eight and she planned to borrow one from neighbours who were spending Christmas away. And she would make the house, as she did every year, look beautifully festive.

She turned to the next page in the notebook.

Decorations. As Jess was a department store window dresser this was very much her comfort zone. A dark-green spruce tree with white and silver baubles. Piles of red-ribbon-wrapped parcels underneath. (Present list in a separate notebook all ticked off since the beginning of November.) Real ivy framing the pictures and mirrors. Fairylights everywhere. As good as done. Tick.

It would be nice to be able to show off her decorating flair. As they all went to Mum and Dad’s every Christmas the others never saw how she transformed her home. At the parents’ house it was always the same – the artificial tree they’d had forever, and paper chains everyone was set to make the minute they arrived. A lovely family tradition of course but hardly glamorous.

She hadn’t decided yet on a look for the tables. Cool, sophisticated Scandinavian perhaps? But there had to be food on them too.

She began a new page headed Christmas Lunch. Sub-headings: Starter, Main, Dessert.

This morning she’d bought a Christmas recipe book and the December issue of a supermarket magazine.

If she was very, very organised everything would be fine.

She opened the book and flicked straight past the turkey section. Mum was too hard an act to follow and she wasn’t even going to try.

No one was vegetarian – unless maybe Michael’s Samantha? She must remember to ask. She had a quick look down the recipe index. Chestnuts and cranberries in puff pastry. That sounded gorgeous. She wrote it down, and immediately crossed it out. Dad scoffed at vegetarian cuisine.

Chicken? Too everyday. Beef? Two of the cousins didn’t eat red meat. Just as well. Beef for fourteen would mean taking out a second mortgage. Ham? She wasn’t very keen on it herself. Goose? One serves four? That was no use. The quail recipe looked scrumptious but she didn’t fancy stuffing one of the little birds never mind fourteen. Salmon? The children wouldn’t eat fish.

Thank goodness Mum made Christmas puds when she was still on her feet, and had given them to her last week. Along with a couple of supermarket cheesecakes that she could pretend were homemade that was dessert sorted. Tick.

Oh, Auntie Meg always brought bottles of red and white, and soft drinks for the children and the drivers. Jess wrote Wine etc on the list. Tick.

 She put the book aside and flicked through the magazine. For a ‘stress-free’ Christmas starter a chef suggested that you ‘simply griddle forty fresh prawns’. What?! If you had staff, maybe, but in a normal family kitchen? Imagine griddling anything while keeping an eye on the oven and worrying if you’d done enough roasties. And who had room in the fridge for forty fresh prawns at that time of year? Anyway, she didn’t have a griddle.

The chef’s other suggestion was beetroot and goat’s cheese tartlets. Jess grimaced at the thought of the mess on the tablecloth when the children spat them out as undoubtedly they would.

She clapped a hand to her forehead. Brainwave! Everyone loved Mum’s lentil soup. There would be a batch in her freezer that could ‘simply’ be heated up on the day. The magazine went into the bin. Tada!

Starter: lentil soup. Tick.

Back to the main course.  Jess opened the recipe book again and cautiously turned to the Traditional Turkey chapter. It began with a frightening countdown to getting everything ready for two o’clock – a timetable beginning at 8 a.m. with every minute accounted for in between.

The pictures of the beautifully set table made her realise with horror that she didn’t have fourteen plates – never mind matching plates – nor enough cutlery. Or chairs.

She gave up. It was time to call in the cavalry.

The house looked as glossy as she had imagined it, and her husband was keeping the children entertained in the front room. Jess waved a piece of paper at Michael and Emily. The turkey and trimmings timetable looked much more manageable now that she’d divided the tasks between the three of them, each person’s highlighted in a different colour.

Along with dishes and a couple of chairs, Emily had brought a homemade trifle – ‘It’s not rocket science, Jess. We can’t have supermarket cheesecakes for Christmas lunch. What were you thinking?’ Emily had been very short-tempered ever since she and Rob broke up, just when she thought he might propose.

Michael’s contribution was two stools, and cutlery he’d bought in a pound shop, which wasn’t exactly what Jess had in mind – but he proved to be a dab hand at peeling vegetables and wrapping bacon around chipolatas. Emily and he had forbidden Jess to ask Mum for lentil soup – Michael said Samantha would bring a starter as her contribution.

Jess dug out hardly used wedding presents. It was rather satisfying whizzing up crumbs in the food processor for the bread sauce and watching them swell up in warm, seasoned milk. She must remember to take out the bay leaf and the cloves. And it was extremely satisfying to tick tasks off that wretched timetable.

At one o’clock came the first ring of the doorbell – the Jingle Bell chimes her husband had insisted on fitting for the children’s amusement. Jess threw off the Santa apron she’d put over her new dress and went to answer it.

Dad, grinning, rang the doorbell again so he could hear the chimes and went back to the car to help Mum out.

As they’d anticipated she wanted to see how they were getting on in the kitchen so Michael stood barring the way. ‘Everything’s under control, Mum! Go and sit down, see the kids.’

Mum laughed and held up a packet. ‘I’ve remembered to bring the strips for the paper chains.’ She hobbled through to the lounge and Jess smiled as she heard the welcome she got from the children.

The doorbell rang again.

A pretty brunette stood there, her arms full of brightly wrapped parcels. ‘Jess? Love the chimes! I’m Samantha. Thank you for asking me.’ She had a lovely friendly smile and Jess took to her immediately.

‘It was such fun choosing presents for the children.’ Samantha thrust the parcels at Jess. ‘I’m longing to meet them. I’ll get the food out of the car.’

This girl was perfect for Michael! He loved playing with his nephews and niece and Jess knew he wanted kids of his own.

She left the front door ajar and took the parcels through with instructions that they weren’t to be opened until their giver was there.

Samantha came back up the path with two trays, each covered with a cloth. ‘Can I give you these? I’ve got something else to bring in.’

Jess carried the trays into the kitchen. One of them had a fresh salty smell – something fishy maybe.

‘Is that Samantha?’ Michael asked.

‘She’ll just be a minute,’ Jess said. The doorbell rang followed by a commotion and a loud bark. ‘What on earth’s that?’

She went into the hall to be confronted by Auntie Meg and her family – and a large dog. One of the cousins held its lead and tried to control it as it leapt up to greet Jess enthusiastically.

‘I’m sorry about Bonzo,’ Auntie Meg apologised. ‘Our next-door-neighbour was taken into hospital last night and asked us to look after him. We didn’t feel we could leave him on his own. He’s very gentle, good with kids. Oh, love your Jingle Bells bell, by the way!’

Jess opened her mouth to reply but Samantha came in and had to be introduced, and then Auntie Meg and the cousins took Bonzo through to the lounge before Jess could suggest he might be put in the utility room. The children’s shouts of glee could be heard at the other end of the street.

In the kitchen Samantha took a griddle pan out of a bag. ‘I didn’t know if you had one,’ she said. ‘I hope you like prawns. I saw a recipe in a magazine – it’s very simple.’

Jess had a sinking feeling she knew what was on the other tray.

Michael was lifting the cloth. ‘I did remember to tell you that Samantha’s vegetarian, didn’t I?’ he said to Jess. ‘Mmm, these look good.’

‘Beetroot and goat’s cheese,’ Samantha said. ‘They just need warmed up a little. Oh – Jess, there was a man at the gate. Sort of lurking. I don’t know if he’s still there.’

‘I’ll go and see,’ Michael said, but Emily had twitched aside the curtain and with a cry she pushed passed her brother and ran out.

Michael took her place by the window. ‘Rob,’ he said. ‘Down on one knee by the looks of it.’ He winked at Samantha. ‘Come and meet Mum and Dad.’

The big table looked more jumble sale than chic Scandinavian – what with the various china patterns, Michael’s bargain cutlery, and an assortment of chairs around it. The smaller table was already in disarray as Samantha’s presents and the paper they’d come in were added to the mix. The youngest child was sitting, not without protest, in the old high chair, her own seat now being required for Rob.

Bonzo’s tail had evidently been wagging against the Christmas tree to the detriment of some of the white and silver baubles. The paper-chain work party had been busy and there were now sticky orange and purple additions to the ivy frames.

Jess swallowed hard. Everyone had commented on the tinny Jingle Bell door chimes but no one had said anything about her decorations. And she’d got a mark on her dress because she’d forgotten to put the Santa apron back on.

She sat down beside Mum, her work in the kitchen done for the moment – Michael and Samantha were in charge of the starters.

‘Lovely to have a real tree,’ Mum said. ‘Hope the needles don’t shed too much.’

On the other side of the table Dad picked up a Scandinavian candleholder. ‘Nice bit of glass, Jess. Get them cheap at work?’

‘Dad! Be careful!’

Too late. The candle toppled out and set fire to Dad’s napkin.

With presence of mind born of years of experience Mum threw her sparkling apple juice over it. ‘There, love. No harm done. Maybe blow the others out to be on the safe side?’

Her beautiful table. It was a wreck and the meal hadn’t even started.

With Michael tooting a fanfare he and Samantha came in carrying four large platters, two for each table.

Samantha sat on Jess’s other side. ‘Michael says you’re a window dresser. That’s why the house looks so stunning,’ she said.

Jess smiled gratefully at her, feeling a little better. Michael better hang on to this girl!

She waited in trepidation for Dad and the children to make tactless comments about the starters. But Dad popped a tartlet in his mouth, nodded and reached for another. Michael showed her middle child how to extract the prawn from the shell – he seemed delighted with the process and, while not eating them himself, insisted on preparing them for others. The eldest one had indeed removed beetroot and goat’s cheese from his mouth to the tablecloth but the littlest was already on her third tartlet. In no time the platters were empty except for prawn shells.

Now it was up to Jess, and Emily, who commandeered Rob to carve the turkey, to serve up the main course. A rummage in the freezer had produced some vegetarian sausages which Jess microwaved for Samantha. Not very Christmassy, but they’d go with the veg and potatoes. That chestnut and cranberry recipe she’d read – hopefully Samantha would be with them next year too and she’d make it for her then.

When she tried the gravy it didn’t taste anything like Mum’s and as she carried the bread sauce through she remembered too late about the bay leaf. And the cloves. The older two children shuddered at the sight of the sprouts. The little one, full of beetroot and goat’s cheese, refused everything, extricated herself from the high chair and went to sit on top of Bonzo.

But all the food was hot and on the table. There was nothing else to do except try to find her appetite.

Mum put her fork down for a moment. ‘It is nice to have all this done for you.’ She raised her voice to be heard above the hubbub. ‘Thank you, my dears.’

Dad stopped eating too. ‘Very tasty. Just as good as your mum’s.’ He held up his ginger beer to make a toast.

Jess raised her glass of wine to him, finally relaxing.

Happy Christmas. Tick

 

© Kate Blackadder

First published in The People’s Friend

I hope you enjoyed Christmas Lists – here's my novel Stella's Christmas Wish, currently 99p.

Happy list-making!

 


 

Wednesday 25 November 2020

Girls Gone By

 

 

Readers of this blog will know that my reading tastes are wide but when the chips are down – and, boy, have they been down this year – it’s to children’s books I return for comfort reading, those I read first as a child and some terrific ones published more recently of which this is my favourite.

 

I know I’m not the only one – the BBC adaptation of the Malory Towers series brightened many an early lockdown experience according to social media posts from girls’ school story fans of all ages, lots of whom declared their intention of rereading the originals. And there are Facebook pages dedicated to the Chalet School series and, more generally, Girls’ Own books.

 

I’m lucky in that, despite many house moves in my childhood and into my twenties, I have held on to all my books. If that’s not the case for you and you feel the urge for a nostalgic reading binge can I point you in the direction of  Girls Gone By Publishing? They republish such stalwarts of mid-20th-century bookshelves as:

 

Mabel Esther Allan

Elinor Brent-Dyer

Gwendoline Courtney

Monica Edwards

Josephine Elder

Antonia Forest

Elizabeth Goudge

Lorna Hill

Malcolm Saville

Jane Shaw

 

Their most recent non-fiction publication is a three-volume Encyclopaedia of Girls’ School Stories. Having signed up to get the GGBP newsletter I was aware the project was forthcoming. The publisher asked if anyone had copies of various girls’ annuals (which had school stories in them) as cover images of them were wanted to illustrate a particular section. 

 


I told in this post of my large collection of annuals so I was delighted to be able to help with several of the wanted titles and to subsequently see them in Volume Two eg:

 


 

I had NO idea there were so many girls’ school stories – an absolutely staggering amount were published from the late 1800s with their heyday probably being in the 20s and 30s. There’s no way I could ever acquire or read even a fraction of them so it’s great to be able to read about them in the almost 700 pages of the Encyclopaedia which is a huge slice of social history and highly recommended.

Thursday 12 November 2020

Ten in October

 

I read ten books in October.

 

 

Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell

Shaun Bythell’s first book, The Diary of a Bookseller, has been translated into twenty languages and been a best seller. His droll account of the trials and tribulations of selling second-hand books in Wigtown in the southwest of Scotland found thousands of happy readers, and he’s done it once more with Confessions.

We meet Nicky again, his eccentric assistant who brings him ‘treats’ on a Friday scavenged from supermarket dump bins, and there’s an equally eccentric new addition to the staff, a young Italian woman he nicknames ‘Granny’. He’s still having his arguments with Amazon and with customers who want a discount off a 50p book. It’s a hard way to make a living.

There’s a new one I haven’t read yet called Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops. And after the success his writing has brought him, even more tourists will surely flock, post-pandemic, to Scotland’s National Booktown and visit his shop. I’d love to be one of them.

 

 


The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer

I read a few Georgette Heyers that my mum had and then forgot about her for about fifty years. Much enjoying catching up – what delightful worlds she conjures up for readers to escape to in these difficult times. Lent to me by Anne Stenhouse who is a long-time fan(atic), currently having a complete reread – and who is also a Regency author herself, most recently of Courting the Countess.

 


Faro’s Daughter by Georgette Heyer

My copy was bought at the Christian Aid Book Sale 2019 (very sadly there wasn’t one in 2020).

 

 


Chasing the Case: The First Isabel Long Mystery by Joan Livingston

Read on Kindle. When I first heard of this book/series it ticked boxes for me. I love books set in rural America and I like cold-case crime novels and older, female protagonists. Tick, tick, tick. Thoroughly enjoyed the first 75% but slightly disappointed thereafter. First, Isabel’s character started not to ring true for me and, second, it wasn’t really thanks to her sleuthing that the perpetrator was uncovered.

I’d read another in the series – maybe.

 


In Cold Blood by Jane Bettany

Read on Kindle. This novel won a Good Housekeeping First Novel Award. Another protagonist called Isabel; this one, Isabel Blood, is a Detective Inspector with an interesting family history. A body is found in the garden of the house she lived in as a child – well, that was a great start to the book.

I thought, no spoilers, that the premise for the plot was fresh and intriguing but, as in Chasing the Case, I found the resolution unsatisfactory. Everything pointed to who the most likely murderer was so I thought there would be a last-minute twist; there wasn’t; and having the villain filling in the gaps with a confession probably happens in real life but here it would have been good if the detective had worked it all out. It was a bit of an anti-climax.

 


 

My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Read on Kindle for book group. ‘As smart and murderous as Killing Eve, My Sister, the Serial Killer is a blackly comic novel about how blood is thicker – and more difficult to get out of the carpet.’ Set in Lagos; sibling loyalty is put to the ultimate test again and again. Enjoyed the book – but to get the full experience try the version read/performed on Radio 4.

 

I’ve been listening to Desert Island Discs archives while on the exercise bike. There’s a section where only ‘fragments’ remain ie the conversation but not the music. I was interested to hear the edition with Helene Hanff, Pennsylvanian-born author of 24 Charing Cross Road fame. I’d reread (for the umpteenth time) that and its sequel The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street fairly recently but was inspired to go to her other titles on my shelf.

 


Underfoot in Showbusiness

Her parents couldn’t afford to send her to college for more than a year so she further-educated herself through borrowing from the public library and subsequently, and life-changingly, ordering books from an antiquarian bookshop in London. Her ambition was to be a playwright and between short-lived or part-time jobs that’s what she worked on.

Here’s a story from the 30s with modern resonance: the Bureau of New Plays held a contest for budding playwrights, awarding $1500 to the best two, to subsidise them while they wrote. The following year HH was one of twelve recipients but this time round the award was organised by the Theatre Guild. Subsidy dollars were not handed out but the would-be playwrights had a year-long programme of classes, lectures and workshops. Not one of them ever had a play produced. 

And the two from the year before? Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.

 


Q’s Legacy

‘Q’ being the Cambridge don Sir Arthur Quiller Couch, whose book On the Art of Writing, formed her early reading tastes.

 


 Apple of My Eye

Asked to write extended captions for a photographic book on New York, her home for many years, HH realised there were famous landmarks she hadn’t visited and set out to rectify that.

 


Letter from New York

Following the popularity of 24 Charing Cross Road – the book and a play – HH was asked by Woman’s Hour to do a regular ‘letter’ slot; some of these are collected here.

 

 

Wednesday 28 October 2020

Wooo Wooo

Are you ready for some Dark Stories?

 


 

Coming through the mist towards you are …

 

The Homecoming

 

Blaze of Glory

 

Colour Blind

 

The Cemetery House

 

by, respectively, Jennifer Young, Kate Blackadder, Jane Riddell and Anne Stenhouse aka Capital Writers as they all live in that most haunted of cities, Edinburgh.

 

Dark Stories can be yours for a very unscary 99p

 

And while you’re there check out our three other collections:

 

Capital Stories

 


‘ … each in their own distinctive style and each one charming and cleverly written.’ Amazon reviewer

 

 Capital Christmas Stories

 

 ‘… Four beautifully crafted stories, each one a little gem - it’s not a cliche when it is true.’ 

Amazon reviewer

 

and Capital Collection which combines Capital Stories and Capital Christmas Stories with four stories specially written in support of the charity CrossReach.

 


 

 

 

Monday 5 October 2020

Seven in September

I read seven books in September.

 

Escape to the Art Café by Sue McDonagh

Read on Kindle – but isn’t that a gorgeous cover? From a painting, I believe, by the (clearly multi-talented) author. This series, of three so far, has been on my radar for a wee while so why I chose to start with the third one I don’t know. I guess my brain has gone on furlough.

But I don’t think it matters – the place is the anchor to the series rather than a particular character. And that place is the Gower Peninsula in Wales, a place I have wanted to visit ever since reading a book by Susan Howatch many years ago. Can’t remember the title or anything about the characters or plot but the miles of golden sands have stayed in my mind.

What a lovely place to have a café … with hot chocolate and cake to die for too. Into this idyllic scene comes Flora, on the motorbike she’s stolen from her cheating ex-boyfriend, to stay alone in the holiday cottage they were supposed to be in together. She soon becomes part of the local community and, unsurprisingly, doesn’t want her holiday to end …

 

 

The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim Defede

Talking of holidays … on 11 March this year Mr B and I were to be going to London for a week to visit relatives and do lots of Londony things. A few days before, we both realised that we were more apprehensive about going than looking forward so we cancelled. A good decision in retrospect.

Had we gone, we planned to try and get last-minute tickets for Come From Away, the musical based on The Day the World Came to Town. Ah well.

Immediately after the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001 no flights could land on US soil and had to return from whence they came or go elsewhere. Many were diverted to Gander in Newfoundland, Canada, a small town that suddenly had to find accommodation and sustenance for several thousand people (who, for all they knew, could have included potential terrorists). This they did with great generosity and friendliness – truly a story to restore your faith in human nature.

 


Beany and the Beckoning Road by Lenora Mattingly Weber

I wrote about discovering this series here. In the fourth book Beany and her brother are in charge of taking their small nephew back to his parents a couple of states away. With some unexpected passengers, including a horse in a trailer, and a dwindling supply of cash, it’s a preposterously eventful journey for the teenagers.

 

From a Distance by Rafaella Barker

I loved RB’s early books (especially Hens Dancing, Green Grass and Summertime) but her most recent couple not so much. The title of this one reflects how I found reading it – as if I couldn’t see the characters very clearly. It’s set just after the end of WW2 in Cornwall and in Norfolk fifty years later (which should have been 1996 but mobiles, Skyping and social media were much in evidence so that didn’t add up). The cover bears no relation to the story. However, as always, her actual writing is gorgeous especially in its descriptions of landscape.

 


Presumed Dead by Mason Cross

Like many social activities, meetings of Edinburgh Writers’ Club have moved online for the duration. Our first zoom worked well. The opening speaker was thriller writer Mason Cross and he was terrific. Not his real name – he’s from Glasgow – but most of his books are set in America so his pseudonym reflects that.

He has a series involving a ‘people finder’ called Carter Blake which has been compared to the Jack Reacher titles and carries an endorsement by Lee Child. So I had to investigate and I wasn’t disappointed.

Presumed Dead is the fifth in the series but they don’t have to be read in order. I thought it was great so I immediately downloaded the first one …

 

The Killing Season by Mason Cross

… and it was just as good.

So I am looking forward to reading more by him in this series, and other titles for which he uses a different pseudonym, especially his latest which features a murder on the Caledonian sleeper train.

 

The Dry by Jane Harper

Still in murderous mode. This was passed on to me by my sister. It’s set in a small town in rural Australia. A family is found murdered. It’s presumed that Luke murdered his wife and little boy and then shot himself, but his childhood friend Aaron, home for the funeral, finds that difficult to believe. I started reading this at 3 o’ clock one afternoon and, with a break to eat and be reluctantly sociable, I finished it at 10.30.

You can take that as a recommendation.