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).