Friday 31 December 2021

Books to Read in January 2022

 


Happy New Year to you all. 

January can be a dismal month. It is often when we see the worst of our weather here in the UK, and if it is a little milder than it is generally grey, damp and dreary.

However, I prefer to look at it as a new beginning. We have already passed the shortest day, or winter solstice, and can now look forward to the days being longer and spring being the next season to grace our lives.

Most of all, it is the beginning of a whole new year of reading. I have already got a ridiculously long list of books that I want to read this year, and if I go without sleep then I may get them all read! Realistically, I usually manage between 8 - 10 books each month and here are those that I hope to read this January.


A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe

More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman

To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

What a Shame by Abigail Bergstrom

Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith

Violeta by Isabel Allende

Cesare by Jerome Charyn

The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

Devotion by Hannah Kent

The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher


(header photo courtesy of Eyestetix Studio/Unsplash)

Thursday 30 December 2021

My Favourite Books of 2021 - #Top12 - #ReadingRoundup

 


2021 has been another strange year for us all and I am not going to dwell on covid, lockdowns and restrictions. We constantly hear about it in the media and the last thing you need is to hear me waffling on about it too.

For me it has been a year of joys and sadness. We have had the joy of a family wedding and now a baby on the way to look forward to in the new year. Sadness, as I lost a beloved friend who I miss.

However, as I reflect on the passing of another year, I am grateful for so many things. My family who I love very much and who love me in return. My wonderful friends who enhance my life on a daily basis even though we are not always able to be together. Finally, I am grateful we have warm homes, clothes to wear and food on the table. I consider myself blessed.

I am also grateful to you, the followers of my blog. I am appreciative to each and every one of you who take time out of your hectic lives to read my blog. You are what make my blog worthwhile.

According to my reading log I have read 90 books during 2021. Of those books, there are twelve which really stood out for me. So, without further ado and, in no particular order, here they are.

Matilda Windsor is Coming Home by Anne Goodwin

In the dying days of the old asylums, three paths intersect.

Henry was only a boy when he waved goodbye to his glamorous grown-up sister; approaching sixty, his life is still on hold as he awaits her return.

As a high-society hostess renowned for her recitals, Matty’s burden weighs heavily upon her, but she bears it with fortitude and grace.

Janice, a young social worker, wants to set the world to rights, but she needs to tackle challenges closer to home.

A brother and sister separated by decades of deceit. Will truth prevail over bigotry, or will the buried secret keep family apart?

If you would like to read my review of this book please click here.


The Last Witches of England by John Callow

On the morning of Thursday 29 June 1682, a magpie came rasping, rapping and tapping at the window of a prosperous Devon merchant. Frightened by its appearance, his servants and members of his family had, within a matter of hours, convinced themselves that the bird was an emissary of the devil sent by witches to destroy the fabric of their lives. As the result of these allegations, three women of Bideford came to be forever defined as witches. A Secretary of State brushed aside their case and condemned them to the gallows; to hang as the last group of women to be executed in England for the crime. Yet, the hatred of their neighbours endured. For Bideford, it was said, was a place of witches.

Though 'pretty much worn away' the belief in witchcraft still lingered on for more than a century after their deaths. In turn, ignored, reviled, and extinguished but never more than half-forgotten, it seems that the memory of these three women - and of their deeds and sufferings, both real and imagined – was transformed from canker to regret, and from regret into celebration in our own age. Indeed, their example was cited during the final Parliamentary debates, in 1951, that saw the last of the witchcraft acts repealed, and their names were chanted, as both inspiration and incantation, by the women beyond the wire at Greenham Common.

In this book, John Callow explores this remarkable reversal of fate, and the remarkable tale of the Bideford Witches.

If you would like to read my review of this book please click here.

Some Kind of Company by Nan Ostman

Anna lives with her husband and their dog by the shores of a lake in the idyllic Swedish countryside. But her youth is far behind her, her husband rarely speaks and their children have long since left home and live at a distance. She fears that even the translation work which keeps her going will soon dry up.

In the hope of opening up a new chapter in her life, Anna advertises in the personal column of a newspaper for a male pen friend. She is gratified to receive a number of replies and begins exchanging letters with a widower called Bo. The outcome is both surprising and convincing.

If you would like to read my review of this book please click here.

The Image of Her by Sonia Velton

Stella and Connie are strangers, brought together by two traumatic events - cruel twists of fate that happen thousands of miles apart.

Stella lives with her mother, a smothering narcissist. When she succumbs to dementia, the pressures on Stella's world intensify, culminating in tragedy. As Stella recovers from a near fatal accident, she feels compelled to share her trauma but she finds talking difficult. In her head she confides in Connie because there's no human being in the world that she feels closer to.

Connie is an expat living in Dubai with her partner, Mark, and their two children. On the face of it she wants for nothing and yet ... something about life in this glittering city does not sit well with her. Used to working full time in a career she loves back in England, she struggles to find meaning in the expat life of play-dates and pedicures.

Two women set on a collision course. When they finally link up, it will not be in a way that you, or I, or anyone would ever have expected.

If you would like to read my review of this book please click here.


The Darlings by Angela Jackson

When Mark Darling is fifteen years old, he is golden boy, captain of the school football team, admired by all who know him. Until he kills his best friend in a freak accident.

He spends the next decade drifting between the therapy couch and dead-end pursuits. Then along comes Sadie. A mender by nature, she tries her best to fix him, and has enough energy to carry them both through the next few years.

One evening, Mark bumps into an old school friend, Ruby. She saw the accident first hand. He is pulled towards her by a force stronger than logic: the universal need to reconcile one's childhood wounds. This is his chance to, once again, feel the enveloping warmth of unconditional love. But can he leave behind the woman who rescued him from the pit of despair, the wife he loves? His unborn child?

This is a story about how childhood experience can profoundly impact how we behave as adults. It's a story about betrayal, infidelity and how we often blinker ourselves to see a version of the truth that is more palatable to us.

If you would like to read my review of this book please click here.

The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Dare


At fourteen, Adunni dreams of getting an education and giving her family a more comfortable home in her small Nigerian village. Instead, Adunni's father sells her off to become the third wife of an old man. When tragedy strikes in her new home, Adunni flees to the wealthy enclaves of Lagos, where she becomes a house-girl to the cruel Big Madam, and prey to Big Madam's husband. But despite her situation continuously going from bad to worse, Adunni refuses to let herself be silenced. And one day, someone hears her.

If you would like to read my review of this book please click here.

Lily's Promise by Lily Ebert and Dov Forman

When Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert was liberated in 1945, a Jewish-American soldier gave her a banknote on which he'd written 'Good luck and happiness'. And when her great-grandson, Dov, decided to use social media to track down the family of the GI, 96-year-old Lily found herself making headlines round the world. Lily had promised herself that if she survived Auschwitz she would tell everyone the truth about the camp. Now was her chance.

In Lily's Promise she writes movingly about her happy childhood in Hungary, the death of her mother and two youngest siblings on their arrival at Auschwitz in 1944 and her determination to keep her two other sisters safe. She describes the inhumanity of the camp and the small acts of defiance that gave her strength. From there she and her sisters became slave labour in a munitions factory, and then faced a death march that they barely survived.

Lily lost so much, but she built a new life for herself and her family, first in Israel and then in London. It wasn't easy; the pain of her past was always with her, but this extraordinary woman found the strength to speak out in the hope that such evil would never happen again.

If you would like to read my review of this book please click here.

Haven't They Grown by Sophie Hannah

All Beth has to do is drive her son to his football match, watch him play and then drive home. But the knowledge that her former best friend lives nearby is all-consuming. She can't resist. She parks opposite the house, and is still there when Flora and her children return home.

Except... something's not right.

Twelve years ago, Thomas and Emily were five and three years old. Today, they look exactly the same - they haven't changed at all. How is this possible?

Beth knows it isn't - yet she also knows what she saw, and that it was real. And, having seen it, how can she forget?

If you would like to read my review of this book please click here.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life - until the unthinkable happens.


The Binding by Bridget Collins


Imagine you could erase your grief. Imagine you could forget your pain. Imagine you could hide a secret. Forever.

Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a letter arrives summoning him to begin an apprenticeship. He will work for a Bookbinder, a vocation that arouses fear, superstition and prejudice - but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.

He will learn to hand-craft beautiful volumes, and within each he will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there's something you want to forget, he can help. If there's something you need to erase, he can assist. Your past will be stored safely in a book and you will never remember your secret, however terrible.

In a vault under his mentor's workshop, row upon row of books - and memories - are meticulously stored and recorded.

Then one day Emmett makes an astonishing discovery: one of them has his name on it.

The Binding is an unforgettable, magical novel: a boundary-defying love story with a unique literary event.

If you would like to read my review of this book please click here.


Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life, dreaming of greater things. But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and as she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. Shuggie is different, he is clearly no’ right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place.



Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin

brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?

Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.

Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week.

Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright. It is a story of the bond between twins, and of a marriage pushed to the brink by grief.


If you would like to read my review of this book please click here.


(header photo courtesy of Jason Leung/Unsplash)



Wednesday 29 December 2021

Reading Roundup - December 2021

 


This month's header photo is of the Christmas tree in my local library. I have had many pleasurable trips there during 2021 so it seemed appropriate that my final monthly roundup of the year should include a feature from the library.

There was certainly a few seasonal books in my reading this month. Did you read any Christmas books? I would love to hear what you enjoyed.


Books I Have Read

Christmas With Hamish by Sophie Penhaligon - a perfect Christmas read which I enjoyed very much. You can read my review by clicking here.

A Killing Winter by Tom Callaghan - another seasonal read for me.

The Christmas Murders by Alexandra Benedict - I enjoyed this very much and you can read my review by clicking here.

Jewish Women by Max Brod - a compelling read about the lives of prosperous Jewish families in Germany before WW1. I shall be reviewing this book early next year.

The Winter Garden by Heidi Swain - this is the first book I have read by this author and I enjoyed it very much. You can read my review by clicking here.

The Imposter by Javier Cercas -  a novel without fiction which tells the story of the scandal surrounding Enric Marco. Really very interesting.

Prefecture D by Hideo Yokoyama - a set of four interrelated sections set within the Japanese police system.

Books I Did Not Finish

No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood - I did not get very far through this as I could not get along with it.

Books I am Partway Through

The Patchwork Girls by Elaine Everest

The Ravine by Wendy Lower


Wednesday 22 December 2021

My Top Ten New Release Books in 2022 - #Top10

 Browsing through publisher catalogues for 2022 there are so many gorgeous new titles that are due to be published next year. 

My reading taste buds are tingling in anticipation and here are my top ten that I am most looking forward to reading.


The Little Shop of Hidden Treasures by Holly Hepburn

Due for publication on the 6th January by Simon and Schuster, the brand new novel from Holly Hepburn, perfect for fans of Cathy Bramley and Katie Fforde. Originally published in four parts this is the full story in one package. 

When Hope loses her husband, she fears her happiest days are behind her. With her only connection to London broken, she moves home to York to be near her family and to begin to build a new life.  

Taking a job at the antique shop she has always admired, she finds herself crossing paths with two very different men. Will, who has recently become the guardian to his niece after the tragic death of her parents. And Ciaran, who she enlists to help solve the mystery of an Egyptian antique. Two men who represent two different happy endings.

But can she trust herself to choose the right man? And will that bring her everything she really needs?


Winchelsea by Alex Preston

Due for publication on the 3rd of February by Canongate Books.

The year is 1742. Goody Brown, saved from drowning and adopted when just a babe, has grown up happily in the smuggling town of Winchelsea. Then, when Goody turns sixteen, her father is murdered in the night by men he thought were friends.

To find justice in a lawless land, Goody must enter the cut-throat world of her father’s killers. With her beloved brother Francis, she joins a rival gang of smugglers. Facing high seas and desperate villains, she also discovers something else: an existence without constraints or expectations, a taste for danger that makes her blood run fast.

Goody was never born to be a gentlewoman. But what will she become instead?

Winchelsea is an electrifying story of vengeance and transformation; a rare, lyrical and transporting work of historical imagination that makes the past so real we can touch it.

The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan

Due to be released in paperback on the 3rd of March by Pan Publishing. This novel from Jennifer Ryan, the bestselling author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir comes an unforgettable story inspired by the true events of a BBC-sponsored wartime cooking competition.

Two years into the Second World War, and German U-boats are frequently disrupting Britain’s supply of food. In an effort to help housewives with food rationing, a BBC radio programme called The Kitchen Front launches a new cooking contest – and the grand prize is a job as the programme’s first-ever female co-host.

For young widow Audrey, winning the competition could be a chance to pay off her husband’s debts and keep a roof over her children’s heads. However, her estranged sister, Gwendoline, is equally set on success even if her own kitchen maid, Nell, is competing against her. And then there is Zelda, a London-trained chef desperate to succeed in a male-dominated profession – and harbouring a secret that will change everything . . .

The Vanished Days by Susanna Kearsley

Publishing on the 28th April by Simon and Schuster, this is the third book in the Slains series. 

It is a sweeping love story set against the Jacobite revolution from much-loved, million copy bestselling author Susanna Kearsley.

There are many who believe they know what happened, but they do not know the whole of it. The rumours spread, and grow, and take their hold, and so to end them I have been persuaded now to take my pen in hand and tell the story as it should be told…

Autumn, 1707. Old enemies from the Highlands to the Borders are finding common ground as they join to protest the new Union with England, the French are preparing to launch an invasion to carry the young exiled Jacobite king back to Scotland to reclaim his throne, and in Edinburgh the streets are filled with discontent and danger.

Queen Anne’s commissioners, seeking to calm the situation, have begun settling the losses and wages owed to those Scots who took part in the disastrous Darien expedition eight years earlier.

When Lily, the young widow of a Darien sailor, comes forward to collect her husband’s wages, her claim is challenged, and one of the men who’s assigned to examine her has only days to decide if she’s honest, or if his own feelings are making him blind to the truth, and if he’s being used as a pawn in an even more treacherous game.

 A story of intrigue, adventure, endurance, romance…and the courage to hope.

Iris in the Dark by Elissa Grossell Dickey

Publishing on 7th June by Lake Union Publishing comes this provocative novel of suspense by the author of The Speed of Light.

Iris Jenkins knows that bad things happen. She’s tried to escape these things for years. So when Iris is entrusted to house-sit at a lodge on the South Dakota prairie, she thinks she’s prepared for anything.

But one surprise is Sawyer Jones, the property’s neighbour and caretaker. He’s a caring, reassuring presence who’s making her feel safe and alive again. Then late one night, Iris hears a chilling cry for help coming from a walkie-talkie buried in a box of toys. As the calls get more desperate, personal, and menacing, Iris realises the person on the other end isn’t reaching out for help. They’re reaching out to terrorise her.

Now the only way for Iris to move forward in life is to confront the past she’s been running from…a threat that has now followed her into the dark.

I'm Sorry You Feel That Way by Rebecca Wait

Publishing by River Run on 8th of July. From the author of the Waterstones Book of the Month, Our Fathers, comes a compelling domestic comedy about complex family dynamics, mental health and the intricacies of sibling relationships.

For Alice and Hanna, saint and sinner, growing up is a trial. There is their mother, who takes a divide and conquer approach to child-rearing, and their father, who takes an absent one. There is their older brother Michael, whose disapproval is a force to be reckoned with. There is the catastrophe that is never spoken of, but which has shaped everything.

As adults, Alice and Hanna must deal with disappointments in work and in love as well as increasingly complicated family tensions, and lives that look dismayingly dissimilar to what they'd intended. They must look for a way to repair their own fractured relationship, and they must finally choose their own approach to their dominant mother: submit or burn the house down. And they must decide at last whether life is really anything more than (as Hanna would have it) a tragedy with a few hilarious moments.

The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem by Sarit Yishai-Levi

Releasing in paperback in the UK by Swift Press the number one international bestseller, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem is a dazzling novel of mothers and daughters, stories told and untold, and the ties that bind four generations of women.

Gabriela's mother Luna is the most beautiful woman in all of Jerusalem, though her famed beauty and charm seem to be reserved for everyone but her daughter. Ever since Gabriela can remember, she and Luna have struggled to connect. But when tragedy strikes, Gabriela senses there's more to her mother than painted nails and lips. 

Desperate to understand their relationship, Gabriela pieces together the stories of her family's previous generations – from Great-Grandmother Mercada the renowned healer, to Grandma Rosa who cleaned houses for the English, to Luna who had the nicest legs in Jerusalem. But Gabriela must face a past and present far more complex than she ever imagined. 

Spanning decades, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem follows generations of unforgettable women as they forge their own paths through times of dramatic change, and paints a dazzling portrait of a family and a young nation as they struggle to find their way even as others try to carve it out for them.

House of Tudor by Mickey Mayhew

Publishing on the 28th February by Pen & Sword.

Gruesome but not gratuitous, this decidedly darker take on the Tudors, from 1485 to 1603, covers some forty-five ‘events’ from the Tudor reign, taking in everything from the death of Richard III to the botched execution of Mary Queen of Scots, and a whole host of horrors in between. Particular attention is paid to the various gruesome ways in which the Tudors despatched their various villains and lawbreakers, from simple beheadings, to burnings and of course the dreaded hanging, drawing and quartering. 

Other chapters cover the various diseases prevalent during Tudor times, including the dreaded ‘Sweating Sickness’ – rather topical at the moment, unfortunately – as well as the cures for these sicknesses, some of which were considered worse than the actual disease itself. The day-to-day living conditions of the general populace are also examined, as well as various social taboos and the punishments that accompanied them, i.e. the stocks, as well as punishment by exile. 

Tudor England was not a nice place to live by 21st century standards, but the book will also serve to explain how it was still nevertheless a familiar home to our ancestors.

Devotion by Hannah Kent

Publishing in hardback on the 3rd of February by Picador.

1836, Prussia. Hanne is nearly fifteen and the domestic world of womanhood is quickly closing in on her. A child of nature, she yearns instead for the rush of the river, the wind dancing around her. Hanne finds little comfort in the local girls and friendship doesn't come easily, until she meets Thea and she finds in her a kindred spirit and finally, acceptance.

Hanne's family are Old Lutherans, and in her small village hushed worship is done secretly - this is a community under threat. But when they are granted safe passage to Australia, the community rejoices: at last a place they can pray without fear, a permanent home. Freedom.

It's a promise of freedom that will have devastating consequences for Hanne and Thea, but, on that long and brutal journey, their bond proves too strong for even nature to break . . .

From the bestselling author of Burial Rites and The Good People, Devotion is a stunning story of girlhood and friendship, faith and suspicion, and the impossible lengths we go to for the ones we love.

The House at Helygen by Victoria Hawthorne

Publishing in hardback on the 14th April by Quercus.

An atmospheric historical suspense novel rich with familial secrets. The House at Helygen is a twisted tale of dark pasts, murderous presents and uncertain futures.

2019

When Henry Fox is found dead in his ancestral home in Cornwall, the police rule it a suicide, but his pregnant wife, Josie, believes it was murder. Desperate to make sense of Henry's death she embarks on a quest to learn the truth, all under the watchful eyes of Henry's overbearing mother. Josie soon finds herself wrestling against the dark history of Helygen House and ghosts from the past that refuse to stay buried.

1881

New bride Eliza arrives at Helygen House with high hopes for her marriage. Yet when she meets her new mother-in-law, an icy and forbidding woman, her dreams of a new life are dashed. And when Eliza starts to hear voices in the walls of the house, she begins to fear for her sanity and her life.

Can Josie piece together the past to make sense of her present, or will the secrets of Helygen House and its inhabitants forever remain a mystery?

Tuesday 21 December 2021

The Winter Garden by Heidi Swain - #BookReview

 

Before I moved to the Broad-Meadows country estate in Suffolk, I'd never celebrated either the summer or the winter solstice, but meeting octogenarian estate owner Eloise Thurlow-Forbes had soon changed that, along with a lot of other things.

"In order to garden successfully," she had told me the day we met, which just happened to fall on the summer solstice three years ago, "one has to be in tune with nature, the seasons, Mother Earth, the moon and all their cycles."


Freya Fuller is living her dream, working as a live-in gardener on a beautiful Suffolk estate. But when the owner dies, Freya finds herself forced out of her job and her home with nowhere to go. However, with luck on her side, she’s soon moving to Nightingale Square and helping to create a beautiful winter garden that will be open to the public in time for Christmas. 

There’s a warm welcome from all in Nightingale Square, except from local artist Finn. No matter how hard the pair try, they just can’t get along, and working together to bring the winter garden to life quickly becomes a struggle for them both.

 Will Freya and Finn be able to put their differences aside in time for Christmas? Or will the arrival of a face from Freya’s past send them all spiralling?

***

I considered whether or not I had time to sneak in another Christmas book before the big event and concluded that I have. Especially one that was as gorgeous to read as this one.

Before reading this I had not realised that it is the third book in the Nightingale Square series. Shock, horror I hear you cry! Annie never reads books out of sequence! This is very true but having inadvertently done so, I can assure you that The Winter Garden works very well as a standalone book. Although rest assured, I will be going back to read the first in the series, Sunshine and Sweet Peas in Nightingale Square, and is something I am already looking forward to doing in the New Year.

The book made for easy pre-Christmas reading and was the perfect antidote to the busyness of the season. It was an entertaining and enchanting book and I enjoyed it very much.

With the exception of one of the characters, they were all very likeable. Getting to know Freya, the main character, was a joy and I rather miss her now that the book is finished. Like all of us, she has endured some difficulties in life. However, Ms Swain has placed her within a scenario in which she can shine and grow in self confidence.

Equally, the author presents all of the other characters in a well drawn manner. Even the dog, Nell, is an important character in the story and played an important role in portraying Freya's character.

I loved reading of the camaraderie of the residents of Nightingale Square along with the haphazard nature of the potential relationship between Freya and Finn.

We all have our individual Christmas traditions and reading a Heidi Swain novel is set to become one of mine, although I am certain that I will not be waiting a whole year to read another of her novels.


ISBN: 978 1471185724

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

No. of pages: 464 (paperback)

Purchase Link *


About the Author:

Heidi Swain is a Sunday Times Bestselling Author who writes commercial fiction for Simon and Schuster.

She has three series set in fictitious Wynbridge, Nightingale Square and Wynmouth and writes two titles a year – a summer and a Christmas book. She also writes short stories and non-fiction for magazines.

Heidi always wanted to be a published author and her big writing break came in 2014 when she submitted The Cherry Tree Café to Books and The City (the digital first imprint of Simon and Schuster). The book was published a year later and she hasn’t stopped writing since.

Her books are available in paperback, E-book and audio and have been published in Italy, France and Germany as well as the UK.

She lives in the east of England, is a member of the RNA and the Society of Authors. 



(photo and bio info courtesy of the author's website https://heidiswain.co.uk/heidi_swain.shtml)

*Disclosure: I only recommend books I would buy myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post contains an affiliate link from which I may earn a small commission.

Friday 17 December 2021

The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict - #BookReview

 

24th December - Christmas Eve.

Snow is falling. Because of course it is. Nothing about this is going to be easy.

Lily presses her forehead against the cold window, her duvet wrapped around her. It's four in the morning and she can't sleep. Streetlights shower gold rings onto Catford High Street. Snowflakes dance down from the sky. Two blokes stumble along the middle of the road, arms around each other, shouting, "It's Christmas!"

***

Twelve clues.

Twelve keys.

Twelve days of Christmas.

But who will survive until Twelfth Night?

Lily Armitage never intended to return to Endgame House - the grand family home where her mother died twenty-one Christmases ago. Until she receives a letter from her aunt, asking her to return to take part in an annual tradition: the Christmas Game. The challenge? Solve twelve clues, to find twelve keys. The prize? The deeds to the manor house.

Lily has no desire to win the house. But her aunt makes one more promise: The clues will also reveal who really killed Lily's mother all those years ago.

So, for the twelve days of Christmas, Lily must stay at Endgame House with her estranged cousins and unravel the riddles that hold the key not just to the family home, but to its darkest secrets. However, it soon becomes clear that her cousins all have their own reasons for wanting to win the house - and not all of them are playing fair.

As a snowstorm cuts them off from the village, the game turns deadly. Soon Lily realises that she is no longer fighting for an inheritance, but for her life.

This Christmas is to die for . . . Let the game begin

***

Who does not like a Christmas thriller set within a traditional country house murder scenario? I think most of us do, and this book was a cut above many of them.

It undoubtedly contained all the usual tropes one would expect to find in a story of this kind but what elevates this above the average is the wonderful writing. It has a lyricism in the narrative that made it a pleasure to read. Ms Benedict's use of simile and metaphor was inspired.

Puzzle lovers will particularly enjoy this as it is possible to play along with solving the clues but from the safety of your own armchair. For the characters in the book, no such safety exists and the body count soon mounts up.

There was much of this novel that was predictable to anyone familiar with the genre but that did not make it any less entertaining or enjoyable to read.

This is my favourite Christmas themed book that I have read in a while and I hope that you enjoy it every bit as much as I did.


ISBN:  978 1838775384

Publisher: Zaffre

Number of pages: 400 (hardback)

About the Author:

Alexandra Benedict read English at Cambridge and studied creative writing at Sussex.

She composed film and television soundtracks, as well as performing as a musician before becoming a full-time writer in 2012.

As A.K. Benedict, she published the critically acclaimed The Beauty of Murder and The Evidence of Ghosts.

She lives in St. Leonard's with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.


(photo and bio info courtesy of the authors website https://akbenedict.com/about/)


Thursday 16 December 2021

My Top Ten New Book Releases in January 2022

 


January is a time for looking forward and not back. A time to put aside the seasonal books we have all been reading and focus on a time of new beginnings.

There are some exciting new books being released in January and here are a few which have caught my eye.


The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman

THE STUNNING, UNFORGETTABLE CONCLUSION TO THE BELOVED PRACTICAL MAGIC SERIES

For centuries, the Owens family has been cursed in matters of love. When beloved aunt Jet Owens hears the sound of the deathwatch beetle, she knows that it is a signal. She has finally discovered the secret to breaking the curse, but time is running out. She has only seven days to live.

Unaware of the family’s witchcraft lineage and all it entails, one of the young sisters of the new Owens generation has fallen in love. As the curse strikes once again, her love’s fate hangs in the balance, spurring three generations of Owens to venture back to where it all began and use their gifts to break the spell that has marked all their lives.

But doing so threatens to destroy everything the family has fought so hard to protect. How much will they give up for the greatest gift of all?


Worn by Sofi Thanhauser

Linen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics, Wool: through the stories of these five fabrics, Sofi Thanhauser illuminates the world we inhabit in a startling new way, travelling from China to Cumbria to reveal the craft, labour and industry that create the clothes we wear.

From the women who transformed stalks of flax into linen to clothe their families in nineteenth century New England to those who earn their dowries in the cotton-spinning factories of South India today, this book traces the origins of garment-making through time and around the world. Exploring the social, economic and environmental impact of our most personal possessions, Worn looks beyond care labels to show how clothes reveal the truth about what we really care about

The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher

PARIS, 1919.

Young, bookish Sylvia Beach knows there is no greater city in the world than Paris. But when she opens an English-language bookshop on the bohemian Left Bank, Sylvia can't yet know she is making history.

Many leading writers of the day, from Ernest Hemingway to Gertrude Stein, consider Shakespeare and Company a second home. Here some of the most profound literary friendships blossom - and none more so than between James Joyce and Sylvia herself.

When Joyce's controversial novel Ulysses is banned, Sylvia determines to publish it through Shakespeare and Company. But the success and notoriety of publishing the most infamous book of the century comes at deep personal cost as Sylvia risks ruin, reputation and her heart in the name of the life-changing power of books...

That Jewish Thing by Amber Crewe

Tamsyn Rutman is at yet another wedding, for yet another cousin. She wouldn't mind - the food's pretty good, the location is fabulous and there's a moderately famous singer crooning away - but what is a Jewish wedding if not the perfect opportunity for the bride to do a bit of matchmaking on behalf of her single, workaholic cousin? Tamsyn's not at the table with her parents and her family, she's sitting next to Ari Marshall.

Ari is everything Tamsyn doesn't want for herself, and everything her family want for her. Stubbornly determined not to fall into the trap of someone else's happily ever after, Tamsyn decides to focus on work, and while interviewing London's hottest new chef, finds herself being swept off her feet . . . by someone her family definitely wouldn't approve of.

But somehow, Ari and Tamsyn keep crossing paths, and she's about to find out that in love, and in life, it's not always easy to run away from who you really are...

A Killing in November by Simon Mason

The first book in an Oxford-set crime series of surprising twists, troubled pasts and a dynamic duo who are brought together by a mysterious murder investigation.

Ryan Wilkins grew up on a trailer park, a member of what many people would call the criminal classes. As a young Detective Inspector, he's lost none of his disgust with privileged elites - or his objectionable manners. But he notices things; they stick to his eyes. His professional partner, DI Ray Wilkins, of affluent Nigerian-London heritage, is an impeccably groomed, smooth-talking graduate of Balliol College, Oxford. You wouldn't think they would get on. They don't.

But when a young woman is found strangled at Barnabas Hall, they're forced to.

Rich Oxford is not Ryan's natural habitat. St Barnabas's irascible Provost does not appreciate his forceful line of questioning. But what was the dead woman doing in the Provost's study? Is it just a coincidence that on the night of her murder the college was entertaining Sheik al-Medina, a Gulf state ruler linked to human-rights abuses in his own country and acts of atrocity in others?

As tensions rise, things aren't going well. Ray is in despair. Ryan is in disciplinary measures. But their investigation gradually disentangles the links between a Syrian refugee lawyer now working in the college kitchens, a priceless copy of the Koran in the college collection and the identity of the dead woman.

A Killing in November introduces an unlikely duo from different sides of the tracks in Oxford in a deftly plotted murder story full of dangerous turns, troubled pasts and unconventional detective work.

Violeta by Isabel Allende

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses all and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling.

In a letter to someone she loves above all others, Violeta recounts devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of both poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy, and a life shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics. Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humour will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.

Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart

It's March 2020 and a calamity is unfolding. A group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months, new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing each character to reevaluate whom they love and what matters most. 

The unlikely cast of characters includes a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a global dandy with three passports; a Southern flamethrower of an essayist; and a movie star, the Actor, whose arrival upsets the equilibrium of this chosen family. Both elegiac and very, very funny, Our Country Friends is the most ambitious book yet by the author of the beloved bestseller Super Sad True Love Story.

After Agatha by Sally Cline

From Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith to Val McDermid and JK Rowling, After Agatha is an indispensable guide to women's crime writing over the last century and an exploration of why women read crime

Spanning the 1930s to present day, After Agatha charts the explosion in women's crime writing and examines key developments on both sides of the Atlantic: from the women writers at the helm of the UK Golden Age and their American and Canadian counterparts fighting to be heard, to the 1980s experimental trio, Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton, who created the first female PIs, and the more recent emergence of forensic crime writing and domestic noir thrillers such as Gone Girl and Apple Tree Yard.

After Agatha examines the diversification of crime writing and highlights landmark women's novels which featured the marginalised in society as centralised characters.

Cline also explores why women readers are drawn to the genre and seek out justice in crime fiction, in a world where violent crimes against women rarely have such resolution.

The book includes interviews with dozens of contemporary authors such as Ann Cleeves, Sophie Hannah, Tess Gerritsen and Kathy Reichs and features the work of hundreds of women crime and mystery writers.

It is an essential read for crime fiction lovers.

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins

A darkly funny, soul-rending novel of love in an epoch of collapse-one woman's furious revisiting of family, marriage, work, sex, and motherhood.

Since my baby was born, I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things. a) As much as I ever did. b) Not quite as much now. c) Not so much now. d) Not at all. Leaving behind her husband and their baby daughter, a writer gets on a flight for a speaking engagement in Reno, not carrying much besides a breast pump and a spiraling case of postpartum depression. Her temporary escape from domestic duties and an opportunity to reconnect with old friends mutates into an extended romp away from the confines of marriage and motherhood, and a seemingly bottomless descent into the past. Deep in the Mojave Desert where she grew up, she meets her ghosts at every turn: the first love whose self-destruction still haunts her; her father, a member of the most famous cult in American history; her mother, whose native spark gutters with every passing year. She can't go back in time to make any of it right, but what exactly is her way forward? Alone in the wilderness, at last she begins to make herself at home in the world.

To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

From the author of the modern classic A Little Life, a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, about lovers, family, loss and the elusive promise of utopia.

In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist’s damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him – and solve the mystery of her husband’s disappearances.

These three sections are joined in an enthralling and ingenious symphony, as recurring notes and themes deepen and enrich one another: A townhouse in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village; illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost; wealth and squalor; the weak and the strong; race; the definition of family, and of nationhood; the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries; the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can’t exist. What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. Love. Shame. Need. Loneliness.

To Paradise is a fin-de-siecle novel of marvellous literary effect, but above all it is a work of emotional genius. The great power of this remarkable novel is driven by Yanagihara’s understanding of the aching desire to protect those we love – partners, lovers, children, friends, family and even our fellow citizens – and the pain that ensues when we cannot.

If you would like to read my review of A Little Life, please click here.

(Header photo courtesy of Unsplash)

Tuesday 14 December 2021

Christmas at the Vicarage by Rebecca Boxall - #TuesdayTeaser

Hello and welcome to this week's Tuesday Teaser. The place where we take a sneaky peek at a book that has caught my eye.

This week we are looking at Christmas at the Vicarage by Rebecca Boxall.

Rebecca was born in East Sussex and grew up in a bustling vicarage always filled with family, friends and parishioners. She now lives by the sea in Jersey with her husband, three children and Rodney the cat. She read English at the University of Warwick before training as a lawyer and also studied Creative Writing with The Writer's Bureau. She was nominated for the Romantic Novel Awards in 2020.

Rebecca is a new to me author who writes novels which are perfect for the festive season.


The Blurb

It’s been fifteen years since Rosamunde last lived at the vicarage in Potter’s Cove, the pretty coastal village where she grew up, experienced her first true love―and a heartbreak that changed her life forever. But now Potter’s Cove is calling her back: it’s time to make peace with the past and go home.

Rosamunde’s return to the vicarage in the days before Christmas is a whirlwind of festive cheer and heartwarming reunions with friends, family and her loving father, the vicar. And while seeing the old place after all this time stirs painful memories of long-ago grief, it also reminds her of all the love she left behind. Fifteen years ago she vowed never to let herself be vulnerable again―but now that she’s back she’s not so sure. Is it possible that real happiness could strike more than once?

Spanning three decades of family life, Christmas at the Vicarage is a warm, feel-good tale that examines what it means to love and to lose―and to be brave enough to try again.


The Beginning

Prologue

October 2014

Rosamunde stood calmly at the shoreline. She watched the seals bob up and down in the distance and, for this moment, everything seemed right with the world. So still. So peaceful. Until suddenly it wasn't.

In an instant she realised the figures weren't seals at all - they were people. She knew them at once: there was her father and, next to him, her mother, Marguerite. Circling them like seagulls were Rachel, Kizzie, Stephen, Mrs Garfield and Benedict.

It was a bright summer's day; there hadn't been a single blemish in the sky and yet somehow an enormous black cloud had emerged from nowhere and the swimmers had almost simultaneously begun to panic. Rosamunde started to strip off her clothes; she simply had to help them, but her limbs felt heavy and as she lumbered into the sea she felt weighed down by an almighty force of gravity. As she swam into the deep waters she knew there was one person she must save first - someone who would drown if she didn't get there soon.

Suddenly, Rosamunde was awake, sweating, her heart pounding with adrenaline. It was the same dream she's had all week and she was never closer to knowing the answer to the critical question: who was the person she needed to save?

What an exciting prologue. Now, the question for me is, have I got time to read this before Christmas? I would really like to.


(bio information from the author's own website at http://www.rebeccaboxall.co.uk/)

Monday 13 December 2021

Library Loans - 11th December 2021

 

I have not been into town to visit my wonderful local library in the past few weeks as life has been rather busy.

However, I was not going to let another weekend pass by without a visit and I found it to be all things festive in there. There was row upon row of Christmas themed books and the photo to the left was just one aisle end of Christmas reading choices.

As tempted as I was by these lovely books I only borrowed one which has a festive theme. 

Have you read any good Christmassy books recently? Or maybe you have a favourite that you have read in previous years? I would love to hear about it? 

In the meantime, here are the three books which I borrowed.

***

The Silent Stars Go By by Sally Nicholls

Three years ago, Margot’s life was turned upside down when her fiancé, Harry, went missing in action on the Western Front. Worse, she was left with a devastating secret which threatened to ruin her life and destroy the reputation of her family. As a respectable vicar’s daughter, Margot has had to guard that secret with great care ever since, no matter how much pain it causes her.

Now it’s Christmas 1919, and Margot’s family is gathering back home in the vicarage for the first time since the end of the Great War. And miraculously Harry has returned, hoping to see Margot and rekindle their romance. Can Margot ever reveal the shocking truth to the only man she has ever loved?


Prefectured D by Hideo Yokoyama

SEASON OF SHADOWS

"The force could lose face . . . I want you to fix this." Personnel's Futawatari receives a horrifying memo forcing him to investigate the behaviour of a legendary detective with unfinished business.

CRY OF THE EARTH

"It's too easy to kill a man with a rumour." Shinto of Internal Affairs receives an anonymous tipoff alleging a Station Chief is visiting the red-light district ­- a warning he soon learns is a red herring.

BLACK LINES

"It was supposed to be her special day." Section Chief Nanao, responsible for the force's 49 female officers, is alarmed to learn her star pupil has not reported for duty, and is believed to be missing.

BRIEFCASE

"We need to know what he's going to ask." On the eve of a routine debate, Political Liaison Tsuge learns a wronged politician is preparing his revenge. He must now quickly dig up dirt to silence him.

Prefecture D continues Hideo Yokoyama's exploration of the themes of obsession, saving face, office politics and inter-departmental conflicts. Placing everyday characters between a rock and a hard place and then dialling up the pressure, he blends and balances the very Japanese with the very accessible, to spectacular effect.


The Great Village Show by Alexandra Brown

Tindledale is in a tizzy . . .

The Village Show competition is coming around again and after last year’s spectacular failure, the villagers are determined to win. Meg, teacher at the local school, is keen to help and to impose some much-needed order.

After a terse encounter with a newcomer to the village, Meg discovers that it is celebrity chef and culinary bad boy, Dan Wright. Meg thinks he is arrogant and rude but rumour has it that Dan is opening a new restaurant in the village which could really put Tindledale on the map.

As things come together, villagers old and new all start to come out of the woodwork, including new arrival Jessie who seems to have it all. But first impressions can be deceptive and Meg discovers that when it comes to Tindledale – and Dan – nothing is ever quite as it seems . . .