Six in November

I read six books in November.

You are here by David Nicholls

What bliss to travel west to east across the north of England, up and down the fells … vicariously that is, in the very good company of Michael and Marnie. Michael, 42, unhappily separated from his wife, is a geography teacher who sometimes forgets he’s not in the classroom. Marnie, 38, is thankfully divorced but trying to persuade herself she’s fine on her own.

As ever, David Nicholls’ dialogue is a joy as are the inner thoughts of both characters (I particularly enjoyed Marnie’s opinion of trousers that unzip at the knees).

If a Netflix series is in the offing so much the better. (Lovely Lesley Manville, if a bit younger, would be perfect as Marnie; I kept seeing her as I was reading.)

 

Redeeming the Reclusive Earl by Virginia Heath

 

A Regency with an amateur archaeologist, Effie, for a heroine. Reclusive owner, Max Aldersley, Earl of Rivenhall, disfigured in a fire and cast off by his fiancée, banishes her from his estate but when she returns and carries on digging he can’t help being interested in what she’s uncovered. However, he’s determined she’ll never reach the man beneath the scars.

 

I also had two comfort re(re)reads, to avoid the news:

 

 

Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym

 

In my top ten of all the books I’ve ever read. Reading it (yet) again is like finding even more out about people you know well. If you’ve never read BP start with this one.

 

The Herb of Grace by Elizabeth Goudge

 

My paperback copy is a battered Hodder Paperback, third impression of the edition first published in 1965, but the link is for the e-book. She won’t be to everyone’s taste – there’s a lot of philosophising (some of which I skip I must confess) but I love her landscape and house descriptions and the relationships between the characters.

 

The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin

 

Published in 1999 and short-listed for the Booker Prize.

This is the sad story of Declan dying of Aids in Ireland in the 1990s and unable any longer to keep this from his family especially his beloved sister Helen. It’s always a pleasure to read Colm Toibin’s writing but (thankfully, because of medical advances) the novel seems dated now.

 

 

10 Scotland Street by Leslie Hills

 

The mostly fascinating story of an Edinburgh home and those who lived in it (including the author) over two hundred years – including booksellers, silk merchants, sailors, preachers and politicians. Amazing amount of research, but far too many tangents which makes for reader confusion. Especially interesting to those who know Edinburgh.

Seven in October

 I read seven books in September.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

I didn’t know this author but kept hearing good things about The Wedding People – which were well justified. I loved it. An excellent premise: Phoebe arrives at a grand beachside hotel in Newport, Rhode Island wearing her best dress. As she discovers, she’s the only guest at the Cornwall Inn who isn't here for Lyla and Gary’s week-long wedding extravaganza.

This is both serious and humorous with an ending I won’t reveal but which leaves you well able to imagine what happened next. And the icing on the (wedding) cake for me is that that I have visited beautiful Newport so could picture the setting.

 

The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith

The seventh in the Cormoran Strike series. Over eleven hundred pages! I hardly spoke to my other half for a whole weekend. Strike’s professional partner Robin (with whom he is in love although he’s never hinted at that) goes undercover for several months to investigate a cult. Seriously unpleasant people and some very scary moments for the resourceful Robin.

 

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

I picked this ‘TikTok sensation’ in a lucky dip. I’d heard of ‘STEM’ romances – romances set within the world of science but hadn’t read one before. I enjoyed it a lot, the characters, the setting and the resolution. Sadly, it also showed that the misogynist 1960s world that Bonnie Garmus conjured up in Lessons in Chemistry is still evident in the new millennium.

 

Murder on the Marshes by Clare Chase

A cosy crime – well, cosyish. My heart was in my mouth as Tara, the main character, walked home each night to her rather isolated cottage on a Cambridge common, especially when we learn that she’s had a stalker in the past. A journalist, Tara becomes involved in the investigation of the murder of a charismatic university professor, Samantha Seabrook. Suspects abound. The resolution was satisfactory although I thought the way the investigating police officer was able to put two and two together just in time strained credulity. But I’d like to read more by Clare Chase.

 

How to Solve Murders Like a Lady by Hannah Dolby

The fun follow up to No Life for a Lady set in the late 1800s. I love Lady Detective Violet and her professional and personal partner Benjamin. The body of a local woman (bit of a busybody) has been found on the beach. Violet’s attempts to investigate the death see her thwarted (be a Lady Detective? how dare she!) and ultimately in danger herself. The book has a lovely ending with the next mystery being set up.

 

A Duke of One’s Own by Emma Orchard

A spicy Regency romance. I liked that, for a change, this wasn’t set in Bath or London but in a castle in wintry Yorkshire. The Duke of Northriding is hosting a weekend during which he will choose a bride, for he needs to have an heir. Lady Georgiana Pendlebury is one of the guests. Both she and the Duke are horrified to see each other as they have met before – at a very clandestine party.

 

The Maiden by Kate Foster

Long-listed for the Women’s Fiction Prize 2024; read for book group. ‘The Maiden’ – no, not a delicate young lady but a guillotine (now in the National Museum of Scotland), was used between the 16th and 18th centuries to execute nobility.

Based on a real-life murder trial in 1679, the book imagines the circumstances which led newly married Lady Christian Nimmo of Corstorphine, Edinburgh to be found guilty of stabbing her lover – who was her uncle by marriage. Kate Foster doesn’t suggest that Christian was innocent but rather that she was more sinned against than sinning. Seventeenth-century Edinburgh is wonderfully evoked and the author has invented some very colourful character.

 

Seven in September

I read seven books in September.

 

Always Gardenia by Betsy Hanson

In July I reported that I had a story in an anthology called All this Richness by Barbara Pym and her readers; all the stories were taken from entries to the short story competitions run by the Barbara Pym Society. Betsy Hanson also has a story in it – she has been shortlisted twice and won in 2023. We connected on social media and she kindly sent me a copy of her lovely novel.

Gardenia, from Seattle, is fifty-six and mourning the premature loss of her husband. But she is making a new life for herself – she has started a job as an administrative assistant in a university and is getting to know her colleagues (academia is such fertile ground for a novelist); she babysits her grandson (and worries about her daughter-in-law’s erratic behaviour) and she has her best friend Sylvie, and her beloved dachshund.

Wise and witty and Pymish – I loved it.

 

Murder in Bloom by Liz Fielding

More flowers … but this is the third in a great cosy crime series featuring garden designer, Abby Finch. In this one, Abby is invited onto a gardening TV programme and ends up investigating the murder of the presenter.

 

A Pen Dipped in Poison by J. M. Hall

Another cosy crime, this time with three ex-teacher sleuths Thelma, Liz and Pat. Careers and marriages are destroyed before the three discover the sender of the letters revealing the recipients’ secrets.

 

Broken Bayou by Jennifer Moorhead

Not a book I would have come across if it hadn’t been an Amazon Prime free pick.

Child psychologist Willa Watters has come back to the small town in Louisiana where she, her feckless mother and her damaged little sister, spent childhood summers with her two great aunts. The aunts’ house has been left to the town but there are some boxes Willa must go through. A dry summer lowers the water in the bayou, bringing to light a serial killer’s work – and a shock for Willa.

 

Amusing Miss Austen by Angela Pearse

Sisters who must get married to avoid poverty, a dull clergyman cousin who will inherit their home – sounds a familiar story? Well, indeed – this, after all, is the situation that inspired Felicity's friend Jane Austen to write her best-loved novel ... I look forward to meeting these characters again. Felicity is a delightful heroine and Max is as dashing and (at first) as taciturn as one hopes for in a Regency hero, and of course one can never have too much of Miss Austen.

Great fun – and the sequel Visiting Miss Austen is now available to pre-order.

 

Highland Deceived by Jayne Castel

What a compelling hook – Connor, the new young chieftain of the Mackays of Farr has been betrothed for years but until now has never met his bride – and the woman he retrieves from the nunnery is not who he thinks. Keira – from the Gunn family, sworn enemies of the Mackays – falls hard for her husband but how can she keep her identity a secret? My heart was in my mouth when she got called out by someone who knew the girl she'd replaced. Set in the beautiful far north-west of Scotland, in Sutherland, this is a page-turning read and I look forward to revisiting the area and discovering what happens with Connor's siblings in the follow-up titles.

 

Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Gondola of Doom by Olga Wojtas

The latest mission for time-travelling Morningside librarian Shona, as given to her by her fearsome old headmistress Marcia Blaine. This time Shona thinks she’s been asked to travel back to 17th-century Venice to prevent an outbreak of the plague but she may (as usual) have got the wrong end of the stick. Misunderstanding abound, as do the puns and witticisms and literary allusions. Eventually, Shona’s 21st- century knowledge helps to change Italian history, just not in the way she expected.

An absolute joy.

 

 

Six in August

I read six books in August.

 

Long Island by Colm Toibin

The sequel to Brooklyn. It’s now 1976. Eilis and her husband Tony and their two children live in Long Island, in the same cul-de-sac as Tony’s parents and two brothers. A marriage crisis sees Eilis going back to Ireland and her mother’s house in Enniscorthy for her first visit in twenty years.

No further spoilers. It was such a pleasure to revisit these characters and Colm Toibin’s writing about them. I had the privilege of hearing him talk about the book at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this year (frankly, I could listen to him read the telephone directory). He said he’d loved the film of Brooklyn to the extent that he took some characteristics that Domhnall Gleeson gave to Jim, and brought them out in Long Island.

And that gorgeous lyrical writing? The minute he’s written anything flowery or introspective he deletes it … and pares down and pares down … 

 

A Coronet for Cathie by Gwendoline Courtney

I love to reread my favourite girls’ books. One I know almost off by heart is Elizabeth of the Garrett Theatre by GW and several others of hers are a nostalgic read too. I’d never read this one; it seemed unavailable but has just been reissued by the wonderful Girls Gone By Publishers.

Teenage orphan Cathie learns that, following the death of a previously unknown relative, she is now a duchess and has a castle to live in … The book then turns into more of a school story. Cathie manages to avoid having her lineage known when she attends a day school some distance away – that certainly sorts out the snobs from the nice girls!

And continuing on the comfort reads, a couple of L M Montgomerys – The Story Girl and The Golden Road with their bewitching story-spinning heroine Sara Stanley.

 

 

Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer

Unmarried at thirty, wealthy Annis Wychwood defies convention and sets up her own household in Bath. She unexpectedly finds herself in loco parentis to seventeen-year-old Lucilla whose guardian is the much-gossiped about rake Oliver Carleton.

 

Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield

I’m not that keen on ghost/slightly supernatural stories except if they’re written by Diane Setterfield … Her Once Upon a River is wonderful, even better than this one..

Here, William Bellman kills a rook with a catapult when he’s ten and thereby alters the course of his life. Rising from poverty to become a very rich businessman entirely through his own astonishing acumen, when his child is dying he enters into a kind of pact with the mysterious Mr Black.

Apart enjoying the story, I learnt many things from this book especially about rooks and the over-the-top mourning clothes and accoutrements the Victorians went in for. Highly recommended.

 

 

Six in July

I read six books in July.

 

All this Richness by Barbara Pym and her readers …

… and one of those readers I’m thrilled to say is me! This is an anthology of short stories, three of which are by Barbara P herself and the remaining 22 are by readers/writers who have submitted entries to the competition administered by the Barbara Pym society.

Entrants take a Pym character and run with them – take them abroad/forward in time/change their relationships or whatever. Great fun to do, and it was fabulous to read the other stories in this collection.

Not available online (yet; I believe this will be coming). In the meantime contact:

barbarapymsociety@gmail.com

 

Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes

Literally – a mix-up of shoe bags at a gym changes the lives of struggling wife and mum, Sam, and trophy wife Nisha. Many twists and turns ensue in this warm and satisfying read.

 

The Veiled One by Ruth Rendell

I was, and still am to some extent, a big fan of Ruth Rendell’s writing, her plots and her protagonists Inspector Wexford and his right-hand man Mike Burden. (I used to work for her publisher in London and was once introduced to her.)

Her books are set in the 60s/70s/80s and reading them now at least forty years later these decades are another world and not just in terms of technology and attitudes. She’s so good on detail and giving a sense of place and so much has changed in how and where people live, for example areas once downtrodden now have properties worth millions, that her books seem somehow more dated than others written in the same era.

 

Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova

Read for book group. Set in the crumbling Paradise cinema (rumoured to be based on one in Edinburgh … ) this takes in the surreal, hallucinatory months that Holly works there, ushering, making popcorn, watching films, getting to know her colleagues, cleaning – I won’t give you a single example of what filmgoers leave behind on and under the seats but I can tell you it’s all revolting.

I admired the consistency of the world that Camilla Grudova created (and the book was long listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction last year) but had to read some bits with my eyes shut …

 

Last month I read two books by Jacqueline Winspear and I read two this month, A Sunlit Weapon and The Comfort of Ghosts – the seventeenth and eighteenth in the now concluded Maisie Dobbs series. I discovered there were some rather large gaps in my knowledge of Maisie’s relationships so I shall have to go back to catch up. 

Five in June

I read five books in June.

 

An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear

Book 5 in the excellent Maisie Dobbs series from which I read Birds of A Feather (Book 2) in April. (There are 18 altogether.) I follow the author on Facebook (she has very interesting posts) and was intrigued to learn that for this one she drew on her own background, an East End family who annually went hop-picking in Kent. So …

 

This Time Next Year We’ll be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear

… I downloaded her memoir and although I would perhaps have liked to learn more about how she came to write (ie the jump between always wanting to be a writer and becoming a best-selling one) I always find other people’s families fascinating and hers more than many.

The title comes from a favourite saying of her dad’s.

 

A Death Most Monumental by J D Kirk

My brother has been telling me for ages that J D Kirk is one of his favourite authors – and having read this I can see why. This is an excellent police procedural with absolutely cracking (sweary) dialogue and a satisfying plot. A young woman, daughter of an American billionaire, is found hanging from the Glenfinnan Monument, near the ‘Harry Potter’ viaduct. But who would want to kill her – and why?

 

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

Although I very much liked the premise of this debut novel (‘When Mukesh Patel pops to the local library, forgoing his routine of grocery shopping and David Attenborough documentaries, he has no idea his life’s about to change.’) I thought there were far too many characters and the writing quickly became predictable.

 

The Magazine Girls 1960s-1980s: The Inside Story by Ann Carpenter et al

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have had short stories published in Woman’s Weekly. I’m a Friend of one of their ex-fiction-editors on Facebook and jumped on this when she flagged it up. It’s the experiences of seven women who worked in best-selling teen magazines of the time (Petticoat, 19, Rave, Mirabelle, Valentine, Loving) and (before the gate-keeping of PR agents) got immediate access to some of the biggest stars such as David Bowie.

They didn’t get their jobs (proper jobs, not unpaid internships) because of who they knew or what school they went to or what university degree they had – they were state-school educated ‘from sprawling pre-war suburbs and housing estates’ and were able to move straight from school into work.

It was a new era, a time of youth, no particular qualifications required, just ‘curiosity, the ability to learn new skills’ and being in the right place at the right time.