Nine in February

 I read nine books in February.

 

Deception by Helen Forbes

This was indeed the ‘compelling’ read promised in the blurb – heightened for me because I know the locations in Edinburgh very well. Who knows what lurks behind those doors?

It was an unsettling read, taking in a host of social problems ... and with an unexpected (or maybe not?) villain. My heart was in my mouth almost the whole time I was reading as I followed Lily in her attempts to change her life and keep her little boy safe.

Terrifically atmospheric writing and a great cast of characters.

 

Murder at Snowfall by Fleur Hitchcock

More murder – but this time off-stage and written for a 10+ age group. This is a children’s mystery twenty-first-century style and I loved it: the Famous Five had their excitements but finding a body in a suitcase wasn’t one of them. A satisfying plot and I liked the developing relationship between the two step-siblings.

 

And more murder. You can’t go wrong with ‘a Vera’ – or two.

 

 

And another murder, a cold case this time, the first of five books I read while on holiday.

 

Stay Buried by Kate Webb

I’ve enjoyed Katherine Webb’s historical books, especially her first one The Legacy. She has a new author name for her first foray into crime.

Detective Inspector Matt Lockyear reopens the case he was involved in fourteen years earlier which sent a woman, Hedy Lambert, to prison. At the same time he is making ongoing investigations into the murder of his own brother.

A very good read which does finish in an ends-tied-up way but there’s also a bit of a cliff-hanger ... The follow-up is due this autumn I believe.

 

Closing In by E. D. Thompson

A psychological thriller this time. Caroline has a nice life, personally and professionally, until someone turns up – someone she’d rather forget and with whom she shares a secret past. That secret is a difficult one, bravely tackled.  

 

Then I caught up on more of my Kindle ‘pile’, three from Amazon Prime’s First Reads.

 

Three More Months by Sarah Echavarre

Over-wrought, and repetitiously written, but I was totally on board with the (impossible) premise.

 

Five Winters by Kitty Johnson

Liked the structure of catching up with the characters every December for five years but didn’t find the characters very convincing.

 

Good for You by Camille Pagán

My favourite of the First Reads as I’m a sucker for American beach houses; the one here is on Lake Michigan and has been half-inherited by Aly from her adored brother Luke – half, because she has to share ownership with Wyatt, Luke’s best friend whom Aly disliked first time they met. You can guess the rest.

Six in February

I read six books in January.

Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan

I’m a fan of Lucy Mangan’s journalism (especially in the excellent free magazine Stylist) but it’s nerve-wracking to read about the favourite childhood books of someone you like in case their likes disagree violently with all your own cherished choices. What you want is agreement over some books, a difference of opinion over a few, and the introduction to some that, inexplicably, you’ve never come across. And with Lucy I found exactly that.

She is almost twenty years younger than me but she too read as a child every waking hour she could (only asking that her family turn her over on the sofa occasionally to avoid bedsores … ) so we are definitely kindred spirits. I was upset when she didn’t like Anne of Green Gables – but then she concluded she’d read it too young; on a re-reading she loved it. We differed rather over Little Women – unlike me she remained dry-eyed reading of Beth’s death. (Lucy! How could you? Pass the hankies.)

Like me, she loved Enid Blyton, the William books, The Borrowers and Tom’s Midnight Garden. (I say loved but of course it’s not a past-tense feeling but a forever one.) Some favourites of hers, the Narnia series and anything by Judy Blume, I have never embarked on and don’t feel inclined to start now.

I was chagrined to find that I hadn’t heard of three books very dear to her heart: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, a mega-seller published in the 1960s, now deemed ‘an essential modern classic’; Private – Keep Out! by Gwen Grant, the diary of a north of England female Just William, set just after WW2 (in Bookworm Lucy says it has long been out of print; however it has since been reissued, perhaps thanks to her championing); and Life with Lisa by Sybil Burr (of which more below).

Thinking about it, my experience of books for children was different from Lucy’s: as I lived very rurally I wasn’t near a library so much of my reading of them came later, especially when I had my own children as I chronicled here.

White Nights by Ann Cleeves

Set around midsummer in Shetland when it scarcely gets dark, a time known locally as the ‘simmer dim’ – white nights.

When Shetland detective Jimmy Perez finds a body in a hut used by fishermen it seems to be a straightforward case of suicide. He recognizes the victim – a stranger with amnesia who had disrupted a local party the night before his death. Further deaths point to the crimes having their roots in the past. Excellent.

Madness Lies by Helen Forbes

Since White Nights had put me in the mood for a crime spree, I retrieved Madness Lies from the to-be-read pile at the side of my bed, where I’d put it some months ago after buying it at the author’s Edinburgh launch. Set mostly in Inverness, the book features policeman Joe Galbraith. The twist in the first JG book, In the Shadow of the Hill, needed all my little gray cells to get to grips with – but although there wasn’t that shock here I enjoyed it even more.

The plot is terrific, beginning with the murder of an Inverness councillor in broad daylight in the middle of town, and featuring a heart-stopping showdown at a Highland beauty spot. Gives ‘Shetland’ a run for its money I would say.

Millions Like Us: British Women’s Fiction of the Second World War  

edited by Jenny Hartley

Does what it says on the tin – discussing a range of authors including Elizabeth Bowen, Olivia Manning, Rosamond Lehmann, Rose Macaulay and Stevie Smith.

Life with Lisa by Sybil Burr

See above – after reading about Lisa in Lucy Mangan’s book I was keen to get hold of this, another (fictional) diary of a working-class, mildly rebellious schoolgirl, set in the 1950s. One of her heroes is ‘Peeps’ and he’s one of mine too. I was lucky enough to find a (tatty Puffin) edition online for £3.99 (all that appears there now are hardback editions starting from £32). And I wasn’t disappointed. Maybe the Mangan magic will see this one reissued too.

Old Baggage by Lissa Evans

Read for book group, on Kindle. It’s 1928. Mattie Simpkin was a militant suffragette and now that that battle has (mostly) been won all the energy and passion she poured into that campaign has to find another outlet. She decides to start a Saturday club for working girls (ie girls in domestic service/shop workers) on Hampstead Heath – with mixed, sad and funny results in which her own family background plays an unexpected part. I loved Lissa Evans’ writing. This is the first book of hers I’ve read – but a film I enjoyed, Their Finest, was based on one she wrote, originally published as Their Finest Hour and a Half.  

Six in January

I read six books in January:

Die Hard by Lee Childs (from Christian Aid book sale 2014)

In which Jack Reacher, our action hero, takes on the world single-handed yet again and acts as jury, judge and executioner before disappearing into the sunset. And in which the author annoyingly ends too many paragraphs with – ‘right?’ But he’s sold over 300 million books and he does know how to make you keep turning the pages so what’s not to like, right?

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert MacFarlane

‘The third book in a loose trilogy about landscape and the human heart.’ – following Mountains of the Mind and The Wild Places. 

Our ancient predecessors did not have motorways to drive on, nor trains or planes or motor boats on which to cross land and water. But the modern world, which has all those things, still has the tracks, holloways, drove-roads and sea paths used by our ancestors. 

I love Robert MacFarlane’s writing and it is very kind of him to do all this walking so that I don’t have to. Here he travels on foot through diverse places such as the Ickneild Way which runs from Norfolk to Wiltshire and was beloved of the poet Edward Thomas; he walks, unguided, beside the quicksands of Morecambe Bay; he travels ‘into’ the mountains of the Cairngorms, in the footsteps of Scottish writer Nan Shepherd; he puts his life at risk by walking in the hills above Ramallah in Palestine; he treads some of the old pilgrim trail in Santiago de Compostela. I would urge you to join him by reading this book.

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty (from Christian Aid book sale 2014)

‘Apple Tree Yard is Louise Doughty's stunning psychological thriller about a respected female scientist and the single reckless decision that leads to her standing trial for murder.’ The official description is not a spoiler – we know right at the beginning that Dr Yvonne Carmichael is on trial for murder, but we don’t know whose until well into the book. I liked it that her lover (unnamed until near the end) was not particularly handsome – good looks could have detracted from the force of his personality which zinged off the page. One to keep you up to the wee small hours.

In the Shadow of the Hill by Helen Forbes (read on Kindle) 

Move over Rebus et al. Tartan noir has moved to Inverness and North Uist – to an engaging young policeman protagonist, the murder of an elderly woman and the most staggering plot twist I’ve come across since the one in Fingersmith. It’s hard to believe that this is Helen Forbes’ first novel – definitely one to watch.

 

The Next Always by Nora Roberts (read on Kindle)

I blogged about this book in my last post: Two nations divided ... 

The Detective’s Daughter by Lesley Thomson (read on Kindle)

I liked Stella who, after the death of her retired policeman father, resolves to finish one of his cases. It was inspired to have a character (Stella) who runs a cleaning agency and therefore gets legitimate access to people’s houses and their secrets. The case and its solution would make for a very satisfying read if I hadn’t felt I was paddling through treacle to get there. Hmm. My internal jury is out on this one.