2022 50 BOOKS - OR AS MANY AS YOU CAN MANAGE

39. She’s Up To No Good, Sara Goodman Confino
Easy reading, about a road trip taken by a grandmother and granddaughter to the place where the grandmother grew up. I was in the mood for something light, and enjoyed it.

40. The Curfew, T M Logan
A missing girl, two cousins who might have been involved in her disappearance/possible murder, their fathers (two brothers) torn apart by the investigation. Not a bad read, though a bit predictable.

41. A Slow Fire Burning, Paula Hawkins
Like Terribull, I enjoyed this one.

42. The Hike, Susi Holliday
A British family hiking in France, murderous plots afoot. About as daft as a supposed thriller can get. Cardboard and really unlikeable characters, unbelievable and repetitive storylines. I don’t know why I stuck with it really, but the ending was the best bit.

43. Rabbit Hole, Mark Billingham
Mysterious deaths in a psychiatric unit, one of the residents - an ex cop suffering from PTSD - tries to solve the case. My fault probably, that I listened to it as an audiobook over quite a long period and wasn’t really sure in the end whodunnit and why! I like Mark B and did think it was cleverly written - the main character was irritatingly sweary for my liking though.

44. The Love of my Life, Rosie Walsh
A missing actor, all the past lies of the people around her coming to light. I enjoyed this one.

I’m not sure where to go next. At the top of my reading pile is The Bookseller of Kabul, but I think I might dig down a bit for a juicy thriller.

My Name is Jensen was OK, but a bit like a watered down Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Now reading book 123, Light Seekers, by Femi Kayode, set in Nigeria and based on something that happened there several years ago.

Book 41
Crossroads-Jonathan Franzen
This has been on my shelf a long time , I’ve been a bit reluctant to pick it up because I’ve yet to find anyone who enjoyed it.
But I did enjoy it it, very much,
Usual dysfunctional American family, a pastor, his wife and their four children. Nothing is as it seems, and no one comes out of it well, they really aren’t a likeable bunch, Becky, the only daughter, the most devout, is actually quite shallow and horrible.
Set in the seventies, it deals with drugs, abortion, mental health, and of course religion!
I think it’s the first in a trilogy, looking forward to the next.

51 A Slow Fire Burning - Paula Hawkins. It seems ages ago that I read Girl on a Train and I gather PH's follow up to that was deemed disappointing and given the reviews I didn't bother with it. So when I picked this one up from the library I wondered whether I'd like it or not. Definitely did! for me it was a page turner with all the elements to make it pacy highly charged "who dunnit"

52 The Good Girl Fiona Neil (Audio) Good! Contemporary issues and dark family secrets

53 Free Love - Tessa Hadley I was drawn to this book primarily because it was set in 1960s London. Conventional middle class housewife leading a humdrum, unremarkable but comfortably off life in the suburbs. When meeting and entertaining the young bohemian son of friends over the course of the evening, she becomes aware of a frisson leading her to pursue him into his bohemian, pot smoking, sexually free world. In a short space of time she abandons, decent, but rather stuffy husband and her children, almost on a whim to plant herself in a parallel universe. Repercussions inevitably follow, fractured relationships with children and several unexpected twists. I enjoyed it.

I'm re reading Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine's novels, she was always my favourite author of the psychological/crime genre. Glad to say I've forgotten pretty much most of the plots in these books so they seemed fresh to me.

54 Vanity Dies Hard
55 The Keys to the Street
56 The Water's Lovely

67 Shrines of Gaiety - Kate Atkinson Probably my best book for this month. Set against the Jazz Age of the 1920s, Nellie Coker ruthless matriarch and proprietor of a chain of nightclubs in London's West End which are run by her and her six adult children. A touch of the Peaky Blinders, in that the dark underbelly of criminal gang warfare is prevalent in her establishments as are the creme de la creme of society. Into this milieu come naive runaways 16 year old Freda and her friend Florence out to make their names as dancers, (without too much talent). only to befall victim to the many predatory men drawing such young women into a life of vice. A good book possibly not up there with Life After Life or A God in Ruins, but certainly better than Transcription!

A Flicker in the Dark was very good, especially for a first book. Now reading book 122, My Name is Jenson, by Heidi Amsinck, translated from the original Danish.

38 The Searcher by Tanya French. I really ought to give up on crime novels, they just don’t do anything for me.

#88 was The Clockmaker’s Second by Jack Denton. This was a cosy murder mystery set on Bodmin Moor of average quality, obviously aimed at more an American audience, in spite of the British setting.
#89 was Call Me Sister by Jane Yeadon. I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir of a young district nurse in the far north of Scotland in the late sixties.
#90 was The Birdcage by Eve Chase. I have enjoyed this author’s books before but this one was much more laboured with the mystery of what happened twenty years earlier far too long drawn out and laboured. I spotted the twist long before it was spelled out.

I liked The Cultured Handmaiden, but it definitely wasn`t the sort of Catherine Cookson book I was expecting. My next book will be A Flicker in the Dark, by Stacey Willingham, her first book.

#68 Bridgerton: The Duke and I Julia Quinn.
My sister in law knows I have been a fan of Georgette Heyer since my teens and recommended the Netflix series and Bridgerton books saying "they are even better than GH". I highly doubted that, but on the strength of her recommendation I bought this and several more in the series. All I can say is it bears no resemblance whatsoever to
Ms Heyer's well researched and beautifully written Regency novels other than being set in early 19th century London. Suffice to say Ms Quinn does not come off well in comparison. As I said I bought several of the series (special offer) so I will probably read them at some point but not yet.

Have just started book 120, The Cultured Handmaiden, by Catherine Cookson.

I liked Circle of Friends, never read Maeve Binchy before.

AnitaNixon

Sabine Durrant, "Sun Damage," page 40 In the same way that I like Louise Candlish, Lisa Jewell, and Sarah Vaughan because their stories typically have some fairly nice twists, I'm a big fan of SD. It takes place in the South of France. The book's main character is a con man with a problematic past who works with a domineering older male partner. While evading his grasp and assuming another person's identity, she bluffs her way into the position of cook at a vacation home rented to an English family and their guests, each of whom has something to conceal. This was a fun holiday read for me[url=https://mybankinginformation.com/does-winco-accept-ebt/].[/url]

41 The first book in the Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante is My Brilliant Friend. commences with

I really agree with you regarding Sabine Durrant, Louise Candlish, Lisa Jewell and Sarah Vaughan. They are all my go to writers for the crime/psychological genre. I recently read Sun Damage too, nearly as good as Lie with Me, SD's best book imo.

Also recently enjoyed Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend.

Since last posting I've read

Behind the Seams by Esme Young the host of Great Sewing Bee. This was a great read all about her life in London through the 60s and 70s and up to her TV appearances.

Windswept in the footsteps of remarkable women from Beauvior to O'Keefe by Annabel Abbs. She follows the walking trails through Britain and Europe of some women writers.

The White Rock by Anna Hope. This was an interesting book set just before Covid started, in Mexico where an English family is travelling in a minibus. The writer is wondering how things are going at home. They are approaching the White Rock off the coast and then there a number of other stories through the ages all relating to that place.

Through Siberia by Accident by Dervla Murphy. Written in 2001 about her travels through Siberia, full of engaging characters she meets on the way, and the realities of life in Russia at the time.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. This was a Sunday Times best seller about twins who are separated in their teens and set in the US. But I just couldn't get into it and gave up half way through!

Two books by Donna Leon, Transient Desires and The Temptation of forgiveness, about Commissiariat Brunetti and his work in Venice. I've never been there but you feel as if you are there. She's very good at describing the atmosphere and life alongside the canals.

In the Thick of It by Alan Duncan, former Foreign Office minister and MP for 25 years. This covers the period 2015 just before the Brexit vote to 2020 and was a brilliant read. I could not put it down. You learn a lot about the inner workings of Westminster and the Foreign Office. He had special interest in embassies and diplomatic cover overseas and knows the major political figures in the Middle East and beyond and often accompanied the Royals and the PM on trips abroad. Its very funny in parts as he can be scathing about political figures both Tory and Labour yet full of praise when it is due. 50p from a charity shop and money well spent!

#67 Saving Time Jodi Taylor.
Number 3 in the Time Police series by one of my favourite authors. I have read it before but I wanted to remind myself before the recently published number 4. Before I move on however I shall look around for something quite different.

I loved Song of the Wind. Am just about to start book 119, Circle of Friends, by Maeve Binchy, but not sure if it`s my kind of book.

#52. Looking Good Dead by Peter James.

36 Wintering by Katherine May. Subtitled as How I learned to flourish when life became frozen. Not about the winter season but about a personal voyage.

37.
A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville. A fictionalised story of one of the first (non-convict) women to move to Australia in the 1780’s. It’s a book group read and I enjoyed it a lot.

#66 The Pearl King Sarah Painter.
Number 4 in an entertaining series about a private investigator who is reluctantly pulled into her position as a member of the Crow family one of the four magical families of London.

#85 was Soot by Andrew Martin. I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery set in York in 1799. It had many twists and turns.
#86 was Murder in Midwinter by Annie Dalton and Maria Dalton. This was a reasonably entertaining cosy mystery, which was very much aimed at an American readership, even though it was set in Oxford.
#87 was Cream Teas, Traffic Jams and Sunburn: The British Holiday by Brian Viner. I thoroughly enjoyed this wry account of the British on holiday, whether in the UK or abroad.

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Well, I finished Hidden, and it was so inconclusive, and still boring. My next book will be Song of the Wind, by Madge Swindells.

Sorry, PERSIST!

Hidden is a bit boring so far, but I will peersist.

Loved Killer Heat. Now on book 117, Hidden, by Paul Jaskunas.

Fox Evil was OK, but the characters weren`t very likeable. Now reading book 116, Killer Heat, by Linda Fairstein, it`s OK so far.