Ten in May

 I read ten books in May.

 

Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny

Regular readers will know I love Katherine Heiny’s first novel, Standard Deviation, so much that I have read and twice reread it since it came out in 2017. So that was a very hard act to follow – but she’s done it again and I look forward to my first reread of Early Morning Riser soon. Here’s what some others have said about it:

‘Gorgeous. Very, very funny in a knowing wry way but so tender, so beautiful. I loved all the characters.’ Marian Keyes

‘Warm, witty, touching – and frequently hilarious’ David Nicholls, author of Sweet Sorrow

‘You put the book down and feel glad to be alive’ India Knight, Sunday Times

 

The Long Hot Summer by Kathleen McMahon

‘The MacEntees are no ordinary family. Determined to be different to other people, they have carved out a place for themselves in Irish life by the sheer force of their own personalities. But when a horrifying act of violence befalls television star Alma, a chain of events is set in motion that will leave even the MacEntees struggling to make sense of who they are.’

Cleverly told from nine points of view.

 

Then, in need of distraction, I took to crime.

I used to work in London for the publishing company who published Ruth Rendell (I met her once) and I have copies of most of her books. I embarked on a galloping reread of six of them, picking up one as soon as I’d finished the one before.

The first five feature Inspector Wexford, one of my favourite fictional detectives, and the last is a standalone.

Hadn’t reread them for a good few years. The plots have stood the test of time and her writing is terrific (in Murder Being Once Done London comes alive as much as any of the characters) but my goodness how much the world has changed since the 1960s/70s. Technology of course and attitudes, but it’s particularly hard to believe that back then there were streets of grotty bedsits in areas of London like Notting Hill, now only affordable by the mega rich.

 

The Speaker of Mandarin

 

Murder Being Once Done

 

The Best Man to Die

 

Kissing the Gunner's Daughter

                                                               

                                                          Wolf to the Slaughter

 

                                                             The Secret House of Death

And still on a crime spree:

Remain Silent by Susie Steiner

The third book (after Missing, Presumed and Persons Unknown) featuring DI Manon Bradshaw (and her complicated personal life, so best to read them in order). Here she is investigating the death of a young Lithuanian man who was a migrant worker in a horrible chicken factory. His fellow workers are frightened to talk about it. Manon’s colleague, Davy, goes to Lithuania to find out more about the dead man.

A satisfying police procedural, with heart. And worth reading alone for the laugh-out-loud scene when Manon tears into the unfaithful husband of her best friend.

 

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

I could hardly tear myself away from this story of a mysterious death in the Australian outback. Told from the point of view of the dead man’s brother, it’s a tale of old and new family secrets played out in a relentlessly hot and dangerous landscape.

 

 

 

 

 

Six in May

I read six books in May.

Persons Unknown by Susie Steiner

A second police procedural with the terrific DI Manon Bradshaw. I read the first one Missing, Presumed and loved it; was not disappointed with this one and do hope there will be more.

As dusk falls, a young man staggers through a park, far from home, bleeding from a stab wound. He dies where he falls, cradled by a stranger, a woman's name on his lips in his last seconds of life. ...

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells

Bought in Christian Aid book sale.

Years ago I read and loved Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by the same author. I liked this one less but there is something fascinating, when you live in a place that’s more often than not a wee bit wet and chilly (OK, ‘dreich’), to read about the Deep South of America when the intense heat and the fecundity of nature transfer themselves to the printed page – and you find characters with names like Calla Lily … Louisiana is a brilliant place to spend a few hours virtually, but I’ll stick with dreich for everyday.

Plotting for Beginners by Sue Hepworth and Jane Linfoot

Bought in Christian Aid book sale

In his fifties, Sally’s husband goes to build himself a cabin in the wilds of America, and live like his hero Thoreau for a year. Sally is happy enough anticipating all that time to herself and trying to make a success of her writing, but first her d-i-y obsessed brother in need of a temporary home disturbs her peace and then there’s her boomerang son and the local lothario and other distractions. Can her long-distance marriage survive?

Miss Moonshine’s Emporium of Happy Endings

Read on Kindle

‘Nine romantic novelists from Yorkshire and Lancashire, including best-selling and award-winning authors, have joined together to create this collection of uplifting stories guaranteed to warm your heart. This intriguing mix of historical and contemporary romances will make you laugh, cry, and believe in the happy-ever-after.’ What more can I add except that I enjoyed this collection – and every community should definitely have a Miss Moonshine.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Bought in Christian Aid book sale.

ES has been on my radar for a while but this is the first one I’ve read. Why have I waited so long? It’s a miracle, this book. Olive, a retired teacher, is looked at from the points of view of various people with whom she is regularly, or hardly ever, in contact with. In some chapters she barely appears. Sometimes she comes over in a good light, sometimes not. I didn’t really like her, not until the very end – not that that mattered at all because I think this is the most effective portrayal of a character I have ever read. It’s all beautifully written but the last chapter particularly – I read it quickly because it drew me in and then read it again to appreciate the language.

Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty
A retired Irish couple take a break in Amsterdam and over the few days the fractures in their relationship are revealed.

This has been much lauded but my appreciation of it suffered because I read it directly after the Elizabeth Strout and any book would have paled in comparison … plus for me two authors, Anne Tyler and Carol Shields, have covered this territory more beguilingly.

Seven in July

I read seven books in July, one I wish I hadn’t.

Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner

Christian Aid sale purchase. Loved this police procedural. The main character, Manon Bradshaw, is a detective sergeant and what she has to deal with is this – ‘Edith Hind is gone, leaving just her coat, a smear of blood and a half-open door’. How could you not want to find out what happened next? The New York Times, no less, called it: ‘Smart and stylish. Manon is portrayed with an irresistible blend of sympathy and snark.’

I Found You by Lisa Jewell

Read on Kindle. Lily has only been married for three weeks. When her new husband fails to come home from work one night, she is left stranded in a new country where she knows no one.

Alice finds a man on the beach outside her house. He has no name, no jacket, no idea what he is doing there. Against her better judgement, she invites him into her home.

I stayed up very late to finish this. My goodness, it has some extremely dark and harrowing moments. You have been warned.

Alone Through China and Tibet by Helena Drysdale

Christian Aid sale purchase. I am rather obsessed by China (see why here) and wish that, like Helena Drysdale, I saw it before its modernisation began.

She went in 1985 and I travelled vicariously with her. I would not have the courage to do what she did – or the temperament. I like knowing where I'm going to sleep, and even the thought of arriving other than ridiculously early at a station or airport gives me the screaming heebie jeebies.

But I like to think that in some respects that I am more prepared for a journey than Ms Drysdale. I wouldn’t take the hour-and-a-half bus trip to Glasgow without an emergency granola bar. She got on a bus to go through Tibet, a journey of several days in one of the most unpopulated parts of the planet, and she did not take a single thing to eat with her, nor any water. Her fellow travellers were laden with snacks, including tins of mandarin oranges – they fished the segments out with chopsticks. She does not say whether they offered to share with her but after a day or two someone by the roadside ‘made us omelettes’. I’d have eaten my own hand by that stage.

Apologies to my Censor: The Highs and Lows of a Foreigner in China by Mitch Moxley

Christian Aid book sale purchase. Another sojourn in China, this one a mere twenty-two years later but in a very changed country. Canadian Mitch Moxley finds himself in Beijing in 2007 as a correspondent for China Daily. He wants to be a journalist, or so he says … he doesn’t actually seem very keen on writing, or working come to that, but he gets up to various shenanigans as twenty-something men are wont to do … But hey, he’s in China so I’m willing to follow him.

Lost for Words by Stephanie Butland

Read on Kindle. I heard about this on the Portobello Book Blog (read Joanne Baird’s review here).

I loved it. Loveday works in a second-hand bookshop in York for the wonderful, mysterious Archie. She lives on her own and doesn’t seem to have any friends or family – her story is slowly revealed. When she picks up a book on the street Nathan enters her life. 

I never intend to get a tattoo but after reading this I’m pondering which first line of a book would I choose if I did. Perhaps it would be the beginning of Lost for Words: A book is a match in the smoking second between strike and flame. Isn't that lovely?

 *****

I’m not going to say what the sixth (e-)book was. If I’d read the first page on Amazon I’d never have bought it – won’t make that mistake again. I kept going thinking surely it will get better but it never did. Banal writing, badly edited (not self-published, shame on the publisher). A young couple’s marriage is in crisis but as we never see them in the good times so what? I could tell you what happened to them but I couldn’t tell you anything about them, they were so one-dimensional. Two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

 *****

The Print Petticoat by Lucilla Andrews

Lucilla Andrews was the doyenne of hospital romance and some of her titles have just been brought out as e-books. This one is set a few years after the Second World War in a maternity unit that was evacuated from London and has not yet gone back. Joanna has several men who are very keen on her and it takes a serious and unexpected event to show which is the right one for her.

The 'print petticoat' by the way is a reference to the full-skirted uniform worn by nurses at St Gregory's Hospital.

 

Lucilla Andrews’ wartime memoir No Time for Romance (highly recommended) became part of a controversy involving Ian McEwan and his novel Atonement.

I was honoured to be asked to contribute an article for the publisher’s website and I chose to write on my favourite books about nurses (fiction and fact), see ‘Florence, Cherry, Lucilla and Me’ here.