Eight in July

 I read eight books in July.

 

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

Paperback, bought with the birthday book token that also bought Rodham (see below). I hadn’t heard of Lily King before but Writers & Lovers was on the same table as Rodham in Waterstones and I thought it looked my cup of tea. And it was, a complete afternoon tea in fact with jam and cream and a cherry on top. I’ll certainly be reading her four previous titles.

Casey Peabody is writing a novel, living in a gloried garage, waitressing, recovering from a relationship break-up. So Writers and Lovers encompasses her struggles and otherwise to write and her working life in the restaurant with characterful co-workers; she has non-sugary romances with the two new, very different, men in her life; she tries to come to terms with the recent death of her mother and to mend bridges with her ghastly father.

Glowingly endorsed by fellow writers such as Ann Patchett and Tessa Hadley, the book, to my mind, occupies the sweet spot between commercial and literary fiction. 

 

Midsummer Magic at Miss Moonshine’s Emporium by Authors on the Edge

Read on (ancient) Kindle but I shall get a paperback too because the map of Haven Bridge drawn by Livi Gosling looks lovely but not seen to best advantage in black and white. I do love a map at the beginning of a book, ever since my sister and I used to pore over the Toytown endpapers in our Noddy books. I love the covers of the three Miss Moonshine books too – they were done by one of the talented authors, Mary Jayne Baker.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first two outings for Miss Moonshine and on this evidence the series is going from strength to strength. The nine authors each have their own voice but the whole is made cohesive by their short stories all being set in the same place, the town of Haven Bridge, and in each story the amazing, time-travelling, Miss Moonshine sorts out everybody's problems.

 

Choose Me by Tess Gerritsen and Gary Braver

Read on Kindle. Taryn is a clever girl whose single mother is struggling to keep her daughter at a prestigious university. Taryn’s planned thesis has attracted the attention of a prominent feminist academic; together they are going to rewrite classical myths. But while Taryn’s work is about reclaiming history from men, in her personal life she is clingy to the point of stalkery. When she finally realises that her relationship with Liam is finished she overly responds to the admiration of married professor Jack Dorian to the ultimate tragedy of them both.

 

A Village Murder by Frances Evesham

Read on Kindle. Promising characters and plot but ultimately unsatisfying in outcome. The sleuth, a retired cop turned publican, made leaps of connections and puttings of two and two together that the reader (this one, anyway) couldn’t see; plus, we hardly met, never mind got to know, the villain  – so there was no ‘I wonder … ’ moment followed by feeling clever that you’d cudgelled your little gray cells and come up with the answer.

 

The Darkest Evening by Ann Cleeves

Paperback from a charity shop. The latest case for Vera and one of the best, plus the title comes from my favourite poem, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, not an original choice I know but it’s popular for a reason.

 

Hand-grenade Practice in Peking by Frances Woods

Reissued in this lovely edition by Slightly Foxed. Frances Woods spent a year at a language school in China in 1975-76; the book is based on the letters she sent home. So she was there at the very end of the Cultural Revolution and the end of the life of Mao Zedung – at a time when China was virtually closed to outsiders.

Funny, fascinating and jaw-dropping.

I blogged here about my own, much shorter but still funny, fascinating and jaw-dropping, visit to rural China in 2011.

And to read about China somewhere between those two dates I highly recommend Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory by Peter Hessler.

 

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

Read in paperback for book group. I thoroughly enjoyed American Wife by CS in which she imagined the life of Laura, wife of George W Bush – the result, I promise, is much more amusing and touching than I know you are thinking it could possibly be …

In Rodham, as you can see from the cover, she imagines what would have happened to Hillary Rodham, to the US, and indeed to the world, if she hadn’t married the charismatic Mr Clinton.

It’s an entertaining and thought-provoking read.

 

I Know I Saw Her by E D Thompson

Read on Kindle. A really good psychological thriller. Alice’s quiet (quiet for a slowly revealed reason) home life is disrupted by new neighbours, and a game of cat and mouse is played out over one hot summer.

Eirin Thompson writes excellent women’s magazine stories; I look forward to seeing what she does next as her alter ego.