THE BRAND NEW 2024 50 BOOK CHALLENGE

#31. Outback by Patricia Wolf.

Book 50 Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent
I really liked Strange Sally Diamond but was disappointed by this one. Strangely unbelievable characters and plot.

Book 17 Run, Rose, Run by Dolly Parton and James Patterson. Who wouldn't want to read a book by Dolly for her insider knowledge of Nashville's dark side?

Calendargirl

#31. Outback by Patricia Wolf.

Yes, it was very tense.

I then read Paradise by the same author.

#26 was The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards .
The story begins during a blizzard in 1964 when a doctor delivers his own wife of twins. When he realises one suffers from Downs Syndrome, he makes a snap decision and asks the nurse to take the child away to an institution. Instead, she takes the little girl to another state and raises her as her own. The story follows the parallel lives of the 2 families over the next 25 years.
I had very mixed feelings about this book. I didn’t really like any of the characters and found it hard to relate to the decisions they made. Perhaps it was the times they lived in. 7/10

28-Before the Poison-Peter Robinson. In read this 8yrs ago but when a friend gave it to me I thought I'd read it again. Very enjoyable stand alone mystery, not one of the DCIBanks novels.
A composer moves back to UK and lives in a remote house in Yorkshire, where he thinks he sees a ghost. 60yrs before, a woman who lived there was hanged for murdering her husband, but Chris Lowndes has the feeling that she was innocent. So he starts investigating the story.

#18 Eye For An Eye M J Arlidge.
This is a gripping novel about child killers (children who kill) whose crimes were so appalling that on their release from young offenders units as young adults they are given new identities and live new lives under license monitored by the Probation Service. But, someone is contacting family members of the victims and revealing their new identities and where they are living. Very violent, sometimes appallingly so but thought provoking and interesting. If your child, sibling, parent was murdered in horrific circumstances and you had the opportunity to take revenge on the murderer, would you?

Book 74, Homecoming for the Chocolate Girls. The last in the series.

Juno, that sounds fascinating, I’ve added it to my Waterstones basket

Book 32 Road Ends by Mary Lawson
I enjoy her books almost as much as those by Sue Gee.

This is the story of a dysfunctional family set in Northern Canada and also in London from the early 1900s to late 1960s.

This is a tender book revealing the intricacies of family life, the push and pull of responsibility and individual desire, and the way we can face tragedy and eventually hope to start again.

Sparklefizz, oh I do agree with you, I love Mary Lawson, beautiful writing.

I finished book No.7 ‘Unsettled Ground’ (thank you Terribull) a few days ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. It went at a cracking pace. Twins Julius and Jeanie aged 51y living with their mother, in an old cottage. A few unexpected twists of fate made it really quite gripping for me. Some sadnesses. I liked especially the descriptions of living for a few nights in the house of their mother’s best friend and her husband. The detail of observation was superb writing. Mundane but very absorbing.

Book No.8 then.
Going with this year’s (for me) experience my next book has to be non fiction. Although I’ve had Rory Stewart’s political edge book on my Kindle for months I just can’t face it. I’m off to enjoy choosing my next read. I will pop back tomorrow.

23 Bitter Orange - Claire Fuller

On the back of enjoying Unsettled Ground so much, by the way good to see you did too Urmstongran, I decided to try another one of Claire Fuller's books. Bitter Orange is very different altogether. Set in the summer of 1969, 39 year old Frances Jellico has been tasked with surveying a seen better days, late Georgian pile of a house in the country, where she first sets eyes on bohemian, off the wall couple Cara and Peter who, like Frances are also residing there whilst Peter has been commissioned to assess the contents by the owner. This is really the tale of three misfits, and the characters did kind of remind me somewhat of the way Barbara Vine builds hers with a psychological, no good is going to come of this new three way friendship. Frances is lonely, not having had much of a life, recalled from her first year at Oxford to nurse her sick mother, both of them abandoned by Frances' wealthy father when she was a child, when he left them to live with mother's younger sister. Cara is beautiful, glamorous but clearly mentally unstable and embroiders the truth about her background and why she left her home, another large house in Ireland not unlike the one they are temporarily camped in. Peter is a good looking chancer who seems to specialise in selling the contents of Gothic piles for a living and he first encountered Cara at her home when he visited it for that purpose. Whilst living in the dilapidated mansion and supposedly putting together some sort of an inventory, he is also surreptitiously flogging some of the valuable contents of this pile at auction houses before the owner from the US arrives. The story is recounted in two time frames, Frances receiving end of life care, looking back on what for her was the time of her life, abandoning her previous buttoned up existence for her a once in her life carefree endless sweltering days and lavish dining with what develops into a strange voyeuristic triangle. Needless to say, it doesn't end well, but that would be giving too much away. Whilst I liked it, not as much as Unsettled Ground though, that was a hard act to follow. Based on both these books I will definitely read more Claire Fuller, I have Our Endless Numbered Days on my to read pile.

Book 75, Homecoming for the Chocolate Girls, last in this series by Annie Murray.

#32. Exiles by Jane Harper.

#19 Beauvallet Georgette Heyer.
I am re-reading a Georgette Heyer book every month. April's is one of Ms Heyer's historical novels and a bit different from her well known Regency titles. Set in Elizabethan times, Beauvallet is a swashbuckling English pirate who captures a Spanish galleon. Dona Dominica is a passenger travelling with her ailing father from the West Indies to Spain. Beauvallet takes them safely to the Spanish coast and vows to return to take Domenica to England as his wife. The plot is over the top but the book was great fun to read. As with all her books GH's attention to historical detail is impressive.

Started reading Book 33 The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright which had very good reviews somewhere, can't remember where.

Anyway, I was disappointed. I gave it 50 pages and could not warm to any of the characters or really get into the storyline, so life's too short etc etc and I've abandoned it.

Calendargirl Did you enjoy Exiles? I loved it myself and bought it for my son.

Non fiction. Book no. 8 chosen. An autobiography.
The blurb:

“This is a book that everyone must read. No matter how you grew up it's for you: it'll make you rethink your own childhood and your relationships with everyone you know. It's funny, moving and of course it's often sad. But mainly it's a beautiful and fascinating and enlightening portrait of the care system, a world that is barely understood by many of us. It is also a proper page turner: the twists and turns and set-backs of his childhood are as gripping as they are shocking. I genuinely couldn't put it down.

This story is more urgent and relevant now than ever.' - Xand van Tulleken

'Ashley has done the country a great service in shining a light on the inhumane - and at times brutal - way that society supports this most vulnerable group of children. Every politician should read this book and commit to fixing the system.' - Sharon White

Ashley John-Baptiste grew up in the British care system, living with five different families, without ever being truly part of a family.

It wasn't easy, or straightforward, and Ashley's ever-changing living situation affected every single part of his life - from his education to his sense of identity to his friendships and his hobbies. And yet, throughout everything his childhood in care threw at him, Ashley remained resilient and found a way to take advantage of the opportunities that came his way.

Now Ashley feels able to tell us - vividly and movingly - how, when it felt like the world was turning its back on him, he refused to be an outsider in his own home and set about establishing a new and positive life for himself.

Looked After is a memoir written from the heart that pulls no punches but demonstrates that given encouragement and love - and, sometimes, a second chance - a care-experienced boy can become a successful broadcaster, a loving husband and a proud father.

Sorry, have listed the same book twice!
Book 75, Ambush, a Michael Bennett story by James Patterson and James O`Born.

Book 23
Clear my Name - Paula Daly
I’ve read other books by this writer, and quite enjoyed them, but this one, the plot being a miscarriage of justice, I found very mediocre.

Book 24
The Fury - Alex Michaelides
Started well, built up quite nicely, but got sillier and less believable as I read on.
A group of utterly vile people, a private Greek island, the setting for a ridiculous staged murder.
I did read it quickly, but my interest was lost after a hundred or so pages, disappointing, I thought I was going to enjoy it.

Sarah I read a book "The Maidens" by Alex Michaelides, I thought it was awful I wouldn't be inclined to read another of his I don't think.

TerriBull, no, I won’t be reading another one.

Book 22: The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes: Secrets from a Victorian Woman's Wardrobe- I particularly enjoyed the history and research that went into this book. This fascinating book tells the journey to discover the insights into a Victorian lady and her companons with the backdrop of life in Victorian times through Anne Sykes unique fabric scrapbook.

16 was Silent Bones by Rachel Lynch. This looked promising - two crimes linked to the detective’s schooldays many years ago in the Lake District. It started well, but l thought it became seedier and more contrived the longer it went on. I don’t think I will bother with any more of this author’s books.

Book 76, Killer Instinct, by James Patterson and Howard Roughan. Enjoyed it, but not Patterson at his best.