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.
