2022 50 BOOKS - OR AS MANY AS YOU CAN MANAGE

#3 The Other Side of the Bridge Mary Lawson I discovered her recently and I am working through her books. I really enjoy them - very like Anne Tyler but tighter story lines.

#4 The Lost Hours Susan Lewis - easy to read but too much padding for me.

I’ve just finished my first three books for the year. The first two were very average thrillers and it took me a long time to finish the second as I found it hard to get into. Here they are:
#1 No Time To Be Alone by Daniel Hurst
#2 If You Knew Her by Emily Elgar
#3 Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins. I loved this one and gave it five stars. Unputdownable.

Lyndylou
Another Mary Lawson fan here, not a very prolific writer, but always worth waiting for.

#5. Just Like The Other Girls by Claire Douglas.

Trick of the Dark was OK, but not really like anything else I`ve read by Val McDermid. I`m now on book 3, Die of Shame, by Mark Billingham, another author I really like.

My first 4
The 100 years of Lenni and Margot - Marianne Cronin- brilliant
The Twyford Code - Janice Hallett - very different
Crossroads - Jonathan Franzen - 580 pages of wading through treacle
A Terrible Kindness - Jo Browning-Wroe - tremendously moving

#6. A Friend Of The Family by Lisa Jewell.

My latest audiobook is:

7. Somebody’s Mother, Somebody’s Daughter, Carol Ann Lee

It’s the story of the Yorkshire Ripper’s victims, concentrating entirely on them, rather than their killer.

And my book is:

8. The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Christy Lefteri

I’ve just started it, but so far, so good. It was a charity shop buy, and I’ve downloaded it from our library as well, so that I can also read it on my Kindle if I wake up at night, without disturbing DH.

Sarahmob
I’ve just bought Crossroads, so I’m not looking forward to it now, to be honest I found ‘Purity’ a bit of a drag, but I keep trying because ‘The Corrections’ is one of my favourite all time books.

I've just started Burntcoat by Sarah Hall. A friend has read it and really liked it, though a bit 'off the wall'.
I think she lives in the north somewhere (Sarah Hall, not my friend!)

Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr.

I am in my late sixties, but I talk to elderly people on the phone, who have very little idea how to use a computer.
I’m happy to talk them through placing an order, sometimes several times, I try and laugh along with them, and tell them I’m not very good at it either, but we’ll muddle through.
I really hope I don’t sound patronising or condescending, no one has complained about me yet.

Oh, silly me!
Ignore me please ladies!

I loved Die of Shame. Book 4 is Felix the Railway Cat, by Kate Moore, the story of the station cat at Huddersfield station.

So far this year:

1 The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
2 A Spy among Friends by Ben MacIntyre
3 Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
4 Dead Ground by M W Craven
5 My Name is Why by Lemn Sissay

Don't know what to read next, too soon to start my next book club read.

#6 Put a Wet Paper Towel on it! By Lee and Adam Parkinson. Funny stories from the primary classroom - a bit of light relief.

#5 Kate Atkinson ‘Human Croquet’ Phew! Touching and mad and overwhelming. Atkinson finds all the right words and tingling sentences and exciting pace. Glorious fireworks of stories all over the place. Just pleased she addresses readers more gently in later works.

Finished my first two.
no 1: Trust Me T M Logan, good plot and twists but not quite as enjoyable as The Catch.
No 2; Without a Trace the second book from a new Author Jane Bettany, a D I Blood murder mystery set in Derbyshire, right up my street. I loved her first book In Cold Blood so hope there’s more.
No 3: Just started this - Dear Boy - Keith Moons autobiography All good so far.
My next one is The Beekeeper of Aleppo Maggiemaybe I’m looking forward to reading this, just a case of finding time.

What May Burn by James Oswald. If you like a crime novel with a dash of the supernatural then this author is for you. One of my favourite recurring characters is called Mrs McCutcheon’s cat.

#4 And The Rest Is History Jodi Taylor.
An audiobook read by a brilliant narrator Zara Ramm. Number 8 in the St Mary's Chronicles.
#5 The Infinity Engines - Maelstrom Andrew Hastie.
The second in a 5 book series. I read the first, Anachronist, last year and enjoyed it but I found the second confusing and difficult to get on with. I shan't be continuing with the series just yet.
#6 A Perfect Storm Jodi Taylor.
A St Mary's Chronicles short story, it was very enjoyable.

Parsley3

^What May Burn^ by James Oswald. If you like a crime novel with a dash of the supernatural then this author is for you. One of my favourite recurring characters is called Mrs McCutcheon’s cat.

Sounds intriguing. I will definitely check the author out. Thank you.

BlueSapphire

So far this year:

1 The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
2 A Spy among Friends by Ben MacIntyre
3 Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
4 Dead Ground by M W Craven
5 My Name is Why by Lemn Sissay

Don't know what to read next, too soon to start my next book club read.

Thank you for your list, BlueSapphire. You reminded me that I enjoyed Ben MacIntyre’s later novel A Spy Among Traitors - a Russian ‘traitor’ who served the West. I may try A Spy Among Friends this year in hopes it’s just as gripping.

I loved Felix, the Railway Cat, very heart warming. Have just started book 5, The Woman Next Door, by Cass Green, a psychological thriller, it says.

#7. Innocent Graves by Peter Robinson.

#6 Matt Haig, The Midnight Library. I quite liked the imaginative approach to depression, but I thought the self help message became increasingly clunky.