50 Books Challenge - 2nd Thread.

127-The Man With No Face-Peter May
Probably shouldn't count this one in my list as I gave up after 60 pages. Set in Belgium during a political debate about Britain's membership of the European Union, I just couldn't warm to it. So I'll try another one of PM's books as my friend tells me they're great.

69. The Secret Christmas Library, Jenny Colgan

I probably shouldn’t be counting this audiobook, as I barely got a third of the way through it before returning it to the library. It’s not a bad book, just not to my taste (too cutesy).

126-Jessie-Anna Jacobs
What a hard life Jessie has, from being a maid in a stately home, to becoming the wife of a ganger in charge of a team of navvies laying the first railway lines. This book showed me how hard life was in the 1800's, unless you were super rich. A well written account with great characters.

79 The Henna Artist Alka Joshi

Book club choice, first part of a trilogy, set in India of the 1950s soon after partition and Independence. In this we meet young Lakshmi escaping an abusive marriage, she makes her way to the city of Jaipur where she flourishes as a much requested henna artist a skill she learnt from her mother in law. She treads a fine line as a confidante to the wealthy women of the upper class to whom she brings her skills. Into her life, upon the death of her parents, comes a much younger sister, one she didn't even know she had, which adds an extra layer of difficulty into the balance of the newly independent life she is seeking to create. Interesting and quite readable, not a standout for me, nevertheless it evoked the vibrancy of India but also the confines of the class/caste system. I may get around to reading the other two in the trilogy at a later stage.

78 The Wedding People Alison Espach

A runaway New York Times bestseller so the blurb told me about this book and it had a very prominent place in my local Waterstones, so when I saw it in the library, I picked it up. I really shouldn't include it in my tally, cos I've only read half. Put it down with every intention of going back to it. Now I'm half way through the latest Strike, still with another 450 pages to go and very good it is too, and with two books I really want to read before I have any intention of going back to this one, which I thought I'll only skim read the rest because I found it boring so I'm shelving it. The premise is this: Phoebe's marriage has broken down, her husband having had an affair with her best mate who is now expecting, conceiving a baby something that had eluded her, worse still her much loved cat has just died . In her grief she has gone to a luxury hotel on Rhode Island, one that she has often fantasized about, to kill herself in style. There she gets drawn into a wedding party and soon discovers she's the only guest who isn't part of this circus. The bride to be takes Phoebe under her wing. Phoebe then makes a faux pas when she unwittingly propositions the bride to be's fiance in the Jacuzzi before she realises who he actually is. That's as far as I got. Some more twists and turns but I gather it all ends happily ever after 200 or so pages down the line. Not my cup of tea

#91. See No Evil by DS Butler.

68. The Running Grave, Robert Galbraith

One of the best of the Strike series, imho, with Robin going undercover to find out what goes on at the headquarters of a sinister cult. I’ve just got The Hallmarked Man to read now, but first I’ve a couple of books to finish then I’m going to enjoy a few shorter, lightweight Christmas ones.

Book 60
Marble House Murders - Anthony Horowitz

This is the third novel in the Susan Ryland/Atticus Pund series.

They are extremely cleverly written, a book within a book, switching effortlessly between the two.

I have to say though that this was my least favourite of the three, partly because there were two sets of characters mirroring each other, and I kept getting confused between the Marble Hall characters, and those in the south of France.

But I also found it a bit too predictable, I’m not usually good at guessing what’s going to happen next, but I decided Susan must be losing her wits a bit, if she couldn’t see what was happening at times.

Atticus Pund is a most endearing character, but this particular book has a whole cast of really awful characters, even Susan I found irritating.

I enjoyed it, but not as much as the first ones.

#90. The Windsor Legacy by Robert Jobson.

125-You Are Dead-Peter James
Another unputdownable thriller in the Grace series. More exciting than the tv adaption. Looking forward to the next one but need a different genre to clear my head of some of the gruesome pictures in my mind.

66. I Follow You, Peter James

A departure from his Grace series, this is a standalone novel about a Jersey surgeon who becomes obsessed with a young woman he meets socially. Not bad, but for my taste a bit too heavy on medical detail.

67. West Goes East, Lily West

A first hand account of the early travels on a shoestring of a young British graduate who decides to see the world, and who subsequently goes on to visit every single country. Engaging and entertaining.

#71 Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld
Twins Kate and Violet are very different, Kate is a happily married mother of two young children, Violet leads a less conservative life, earning her living as a psychic and medium. Although they both grew up with “senses”, Kate has suppressed hers after some bad experiences in high school, but Violet has nurtured hers. When Violet publicly predicts a large earthquake in the St Louis area where they live, it ignites a media storm, brings the challenges of their past back into their lives and creates challenges for their futures.
I really enjoyed this well written story, the characters were well developed and the story became engrossing as the date predicted for the earthquake approaches. 9/10

#89. Meghan and Harry: The Real Story. Persecutors or Victims by Lady Colin Campbell.

#67 Consequences by Penelope Lively

Set in 1935 onwards, Lorna meets the love of her life. She comes from a very privileged background but has never felt she fitted in - he (Matt) is a bohemian artist. They marry and she abandons her wealthy lifestyle for a rustic cottage in Somerset. Their daughter, Molly, is born, but then WW2 arrives.

So far, so corny and "rom-com", I thought.

But then Matt is killed in the war and Lorna's subsequent decisions and unforeseen consequences come to shape the lives of her daughter, Molly, and then of her granddaughter, Ruth.

This book tells the story of three generations of women, spanning the 20th century, united by their shared experience of love, pain and happiness.

The latter half of the book is much better in my opinion, and I enjoyed it. 9/10

124-Decent Exposure-Phillipa Ashley
Amusing rom-com set in the Lake District.

123-Alone on a Wide Wide Sea-Michael Morpurgo
A very moving story based on some of the stories of orphan children who were shipped across the world to Australia by the British Government. I was aware that this had happened, but had no idea of the scale of this scheme, or that it went on between 1860-1970.
Well worth a read.

Sara1954

Probably not Sparklefizz, I found my mind wandering a lot
Hope all goes well for you

Thank you Sara1954
Your latest review sounds nicely distracting so I'll reserve that.

Book 66 What have you done by Shari Lapena. I enjoyed this.

Nothing ever happens in sleepy Fairhill. Everyone knows everyone. Doors are left unlocked.

But then 18 year old Diana Brewer is found lying in a farmer's field, naked and being circled by vultures, and suddenly this small friendly town becomes a place of suspects. Someone in Fairhill did this and everyone wants answers.

I'd give it 10/10

Book 59
No one Home - Tim Weaver
Really enjoyed this, a real page turner, lots of twists and turns, some very sinister characters, and a very fast moving narrative
It’s Halloween, the setting, four luxury homes forming a hamlet in a remote part of Yorkshire.
Nine friends gather for a meal, by morning they have totally disappeared.
Definitely recommend

77 The Slowworm's Song Andrew Miller

Stephen Rose is an ex- soldier and recovering alcoholic living in his native Somerset. As a very young man, against his pacifist, Quaker father's outlook and beliefs he joins the army and spends time in Northern Ireland where a fatal shooting shrouded in visual ambiguity is to have lifelong ramifications as to his mental health and life thereafter. On his return to England having been let go from the army and somewhat adrift. His downward trajectory is related through the wrong company and immersing himself in drug dealing, which sees him on the wrong side of the law, and a brief incarceration in prison. One of his defining relationships which is not to last, produces his daughter Maggie. Stephen absent for most of her formative years is on the cusp of forming a bond with her as an adult, when he is summoned to an inquiry in Belfast about his involvement in the fatal incident back in the time of The Troubles. As the years have gone by his recollections are somewhat hazy in winding back to that fatal day in Belfast in 1982. Much of the narrative in the latter part of this fairly brief book is through the medium of an account of his life written to his daughter, a daughter who he is anxious to now keep in his life, but increasingly worried that the summons to testify could wreck that fragile relationship. Very well written. I'm looking out for this author's latest book, set in the big freeze of 1963, nominated from the Booker, it didn't win, but has had very good reviews.

##88. The Dead Place by Stephen Booth.

122-Landlines-Raynor Winn
What started out as a walk round part of Scotland's coast, became an amazing but unusual therapy for Moss's illness.
Some great descriptive passages of an area I have explored in the past, and RW certainly has a easy style to her writing.

Probably not Sparklefizz, I found my mind wandering a lot
Hope all goes well for you

Sara1954 Thank you for the update. I'm going through a bad time at the moment awaiting cancer biopsies so perhaps now is not the right time for me to tackle something quite heavy-going. My concentration is not too good at the moment.

A message for Sparklefizz concerning Thomas Cromwell
After 200 pages I’m having a break and reading something lighter
It’s quite heavy going, I feel like I’m doing A level history, so many characters, many familiar, but many of them not.
Lots of legal talk, and so far, little of the real man who was Thomas Cromwell,
I will come back to it, just having a break

#87. The Hawk Is Dead by Peter James.

The latest Roy Grace story, featuring Queen Camilla, the Royal Train and Buckingham Palace.

Am half way through, think I’ve guessed who the baddie is, will see if I’m right.