2023 - Book Challenge - Second thread

Yes, I also enjoyed Instructions for a Heatwave, one of my favourite Maggie O’Farrells

I was wondering about Hellogirl1 as I don’t think l have seen her on this second thread and she was always so prolific on the previous ones as she was such a bookworm. I hope she’s alright.

I enjoyed Instructions for a Heatwave too, Maggiemaybe. Maggie O'Farrell writes beautifully and her books are all so different.

Loved Alias Grace Maggiemaybe, one of Margaret Atwood's very best imo. Also enjoyed one of your other choices, Instructions For a Heatwave - Maggie O'Farrell. Both women jolly good writers.

45. Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
One I’ve been meaning to read for a long time, this is based on a real life double murder that took place in Canada in the 19th century. The premise is that a psychiatrist is trying to establish whether the woman convicted of it is actually guilty or not. Being Margaret Atwood, it’s beautifully written, and it may be sacrilegious to say that I think it goes on a bit.

46. The Rise, Ian Rankin
For some reason I’m being offered novellas and short stories as part of my Prime membership, and this was one. A short story around a murder in a block of luxury apartments. Ian Rankin never disappoints and it was a good read, also a welcome change to have a quick-moving story after the previous one.

47. Absolute Proof, Peter James
I really enjoyed this. Peter James apparently once had someone contact him to say that he had proof of God’s existence, and wanted the author’s help to make it known. The idea so intrigued James that he based this book on it. It’s enthralling and thought-provoking, though of course you’ve to be prepared to suspend disbelief at some of the more unlikely events. I’d recommend it.

48. Instructions for a Heatwave, Maggie O’Farrell
Another one everyone else I know seemed to read many years ago and I’ve just got round to. Set in the heatwave of the mid 1970s, a loving husband and father simply walks out of his London home and disappears. His children rally round to find out what’s happened to him and some family secrets are uncovered. An enjoyable, easy read.

49. The New Nanny, L G Davis
Yet again I was hauled in by one of those 99p Facebook recommendations with dozens of comments of the “Wow, best book I ever read” persuasion. I’ll never learn. Woman gets job as nanny to wealthy couple despite no qualifications, because she thinks their adopted son might be her child, on no evidence whatsoever. And it goes downhill rapidly from there. I speed read it to see if it got better. It didn’t.

My next read is Lucy Worsley’s book about Agatha Christie.

I’ve just finished a very intriguing book by Robert Harris - The Ghost. It is about a retired British PM, who was “writing” his autobiography, hence the ghost (writer). He was about to be indicted for war crimes during the Iran war, “axis of evil”. I found it most enjoyable.

#58 Violets Are Blue James Patterson.
Number 7 in the Alex Cross series. Excellent read and a gripping storyline. Quite gruesome in places involving modern day vampires.

#56. Written In Blood by Caroline Graham

90-Triple Cross-James Patterson. No.30 in the Detective Cross series and as always a fast moving thriller with lots of twists and turns. A famous author is a suspect when a whole family are murdered with no clue left behind. Then several more families are slain, so the pressure is on to find the killer. There's a few red herrings in there so you keep guessing all the way through.

I've just finished book #78 Scrublands by Chris Hammer.
A terrific book which I thoroughly enjoyed. Well written and I could absolutely picture myself in a drought-ridden small remote town in Australia.

A charismatic young priest opens fire on the congregation, killing 5 men before being shot dead himself.

Journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in the town a year later to write a feature on the anniversary of the tragedy. But the stories he hears from the locals don't fit with the accepted version of events.

Martin finds himself risking everything to uncover a truth that becomes more complex with every twist.

I could not put this book down!

Thank you SueDonim for mentioning it up-thread.

61 A Spool of Blue Thread - Ann Tyler (audio)

Very nice to have something to listen to at the moment. More about a 3 generational family and like so many of her other books set in and around Baltimore. This one did leap about in the timeline somewhat, but that was OK. At the heart of the story, "big happenings in little lives" so well expressed by SueDonim up thread, she evokes a gentler side of small town America, which I find both captivating and restful.

60 The Running Grave - Robert Galbraith

Snap! Calendargirl just finished it! Another mighty tome, it seemed to go on for rather a long time, but possibly my perception being somewhat housebound with a broken arm my world is a little limited at the moment. However, having said that, this is really a well constructed crime thriller, in spite of its length, the narrative didn't lose momentum. If there is a criticism, I think the undercover investigation which Robin undertakes goes on for quite a while. Fans of Strike will probably know the bare bones of the plot, the agency's investigation into a cult commissioned by a parent whose child has become unreachable in its midst. JK has fathomed the story around a bogus church with a superficial front of good works for the benefit of mankind, as always, a magnetic spiritual leader is there at the helm bleeding the church's adherents dry in every sense, not least of all monetary. Into that fray goes intrepid Robin to try and reach Will the son who is incommunicado with his worried family. There she discovers all manner of horrible goings on whilst putting herself through a harsh regime of near starvation and towards the end of her incarceration, what would amount to torture before she finally breaks out.

To say anymore would be a spoiler. It's so well plotted though with an interminable amount of drivel and mumbo jumbo espoused by the quasi church in question, I imagine JK has done her research on cult like practices that have been run along similar lines.

Strike and Robin's mutual suppressed feelings for each other are there in abundance. Oh get on with it the pair of you! you're as bad as Elly Griffith's Ruth and Nelson for procrastination and getting it on with other unsuitable partners in the interim

I wouldn't say it was my personal number 1 of the series, that for me is still Troubled Blood, but fear not for those who didn't like The Ink Black Heart, you won't get bogged own in internet chat room 3 way conversations.

It only leaves me with the burning question, I wonder what the agency charged for such a lengthy, dangerous, undercover operation. I suppose we'll never know

Have just finished ‘The Running Grave’, the latest ‘Strike’ novel.

I have deliberately spun it out, as it was so good I didn’t want it to finish!

Far, far better than the last offering ‘The Ink Black Heart’, really couldn’t get on with all the online chat in that one.

This was great, a gripping plot, some humour, the Strike/ Robin relationship, other tangled love lives, family issues….

Highly recommended.

SueDonim

We seem to like similar books, Sparklefizz, as I enjoyed The People Of the Book. We did it for my reading group. It’s a different kind of story, for sure.

No 44 Family Album by Penelope Lively. A family with six children and an au pair, living an idyllic life. Or is it??

Yes, we have similar tastes SueDonim

SueDonim Thank you so much for recommending Scrublands by Chris Hammer.

I am halfway through it and thoroughly enjoying it. It reminds me of Jane Harper's books, mainly because it's set in Oz and very hot and dry

We seem to like similar books, Sparklefizz, as I enjoyed The People Of the Book. We did it for my reading group. It’s a different kind of story, for sure.

No 44 Family Album by Penelope Lively. A family with six children and an au pair, living an idyllic life. Or is it??

Bob Mortimer. The Satsuma Complex. It was actually really rather good, I laughed out loud in parts and rather enjoyed the whole thing.
A murder mystery although not the usual tension.

#67 was Mr. Brightly's Evening Off by Kathleen Rowntree. First published in the nineties, this is a story of a middle aged gentleman, who is charming in every sense of the word and the ladies who think the world of him, apart from his shallow, grasping wife. He has a gift for making money, which is his undoing when a new vicar inspects the church accounts. It is very well written and I can recommend this book.

# 77 Monogamy by Sue Miller I found the storyline of this book rather depressing but it was well written.

Book 51
Tom Lake - Ann Patchett
Set in the US during the pandemic, three young women return to help out on the family cherry farm.
Mum, Lara, has a past, she was once an actress, who had an affair with a very famous actor before he was actually famous.
Gradually she eases the monotony of cherry picking, by telling her daughters the story of this period of her life.
I got into it eventually, but I can’t say it was gripping.
I liked some of the characters a lot, especially her husband Joe, but there were few surprises.

#57 The Worldship Humility R R Haywood.
Number 1 in a sci-fi series about a fleet of enormous spaceships which have been travelling for a hundred years looking for a new planet after Earth is destroyed. I enjoyed it but there is some Very strong language which I didn't like. If I come across book 2 as a Kindle freebie I will continue the series, otherwise probably not. My next book will be a James Patterson or John Grisham I haven't decided which yet.

89-Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage-M.C.Beaton. Another one of the light hearted series of thrillers. A bit silly but made a change from the serious stuff.

88-The War Pianist-Mandy Robotham. I picked this book up in the swap kiosk as I liked the title, but it wasn't what it said on the tin! A great story about two women who were sending morse code messages in WW2. One was working at the BBC when she discovered that her grandfather had been doing this to help the Dutch resistance. She took over when her grandfather was killed in the Blitz. Little did she think that one day she would meet the Dutch woman who was receiving the messages. I had not heard the phrase War Pianist before, but they were a vital means of helping the war effort.

#63 was Whisper Cottage by Ann Wynn Clark, which I quite enjoyed.
#64 was Found in a Bookshop by Stephanie Butland. This was set in a York secondhand book shop during the pandemic. It was a nice, easy read as was:#65 Farewell to Fairacre by Miss Read. I didn’t remember this one and enjoyed it, but it felt somewhat anachronistic.
#66 was The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves. This was a Vera Stanhope novel and was about a murder on Holy Island which had links to an unexplained death forty five years previously.

# 76 Let me Lie by Clare Mackintosh

The police say it was suicide. The daughter says it was murder. A psychological thriller with plenty of twists along the way.

I enjoyed it.