Bleeding Heart Yard by Elly Griffiths - Review

Bleeding Heart Yard is the third book in the Harbinder Kaur series, so I immediately knew I wanted to read it! The previous ones, The Stranger Diaries, reviewed here, and The Postscript Murders, reviewed here, were really good. I got this book on Netgalley so thank you very much to Quercus Books for granting that to me. I received an electronic copy of this book for review purposes but was not otherwise compensated for this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. The book was published on the 29th of September so is available now!

So Harbinder has moved to London and got a promotion, she is now a Detective Inspector and is in charge of her own team. She is sharing a house with two other women. She is called to what looks like a cocaine death at a school reunion. The victim is a Tory MP, Garfield Rice. He was at his school reunion with a bunch of friends, including one of Harbinder's DS', Cassie. Cassie is obviously placed on leave when it becomes clear that Garfield, aka Gary, was murdered with a shot of insulin. Harbinder has to look at Cassie's group of friends to get to the bottom of what happened to Gary.

There's Anna, who is newly returned from Italy and who is caring for her dying mother. There's Chris, now a famous rock star, a Labour MP, Harry, the now headmistress of the school they all attended, Sonoma, and Cassie and her husband. There's Joanna, too, an actress. Some of the parts of the book are told from Cassie's point of view, and then Anna's, and the two of them go over what happened over twenty years ago when they left school, and when Cassie was sexually assaulted by a boyfriend, and how the group of them concocted a way to scare the boyfriend. But what really happened to him, and why is Gary dead, and why is a second body left in Bleeding Heart Yard? 

I found this a pleasing addition to Harbinder's story, I liked the mystery and the group of schoolfriends and all that had been festering for twenty years. It is nice to see Harbinder's career move on and her personal life too, although I won't give any spoilers about that! I hope that we get more of Harbinder's life in London - maybe she can eventually make DCI? I'm giving this four out of five. 

Marple by Various Authors - Review

I had heard of this book on Twitter because Elly Griffiths is one of the authors inside, but when I looked it up on Netgalley I was too late to request it. So I 'wished' for it, which I've only done a couple of times before, but a couple of weeks later I got a notification to say my wish had been granted! That's never happened to me before! I was absolutely thrilled.

I was away in France for the first twelve days of September, and I decided to only take my tablet as it's much lighter than lugging a load of books with me, and it means I have access to ALL my Kindle books. I then decided that for the whole of September I would only read books on my tablet, as a bit of a challenge to myself. I started this right on the first day of the month, on the day before we flew to Carcassonne for our holiday. I read it on the two hour flight on the Friday and finished it later that evening. It is a fantastic anthology of stories and I reall enjoyed it. Thank you Harper Collins for granting my wish!

I have to admit that I'm not familiar with Miss Marple at all. I'm much more familiar with Poirot and his stories. I don't know all Marple's background and canon works, so I wasn't sure how I would feel about these stories. But the calibre of the authors involved just had me gasping - there are some I love and some I was looking forward to reading. They are twelve of the best women writing crime today, and I think Naomi Alderman did a brilliant job in putting the anthology together. The authors included are: Naomi Alderman, Leigh Bardugo, Alyssa Cole, Lucy Foley, Elly Griffiths, Natalie Haynes, Jean Kwok, Val McDermid, Karen M McManus, Dreda Say Mitchell, Kate Mosse, and Ruth Ware. I have to admit that I barely paid attention to who wrote which story, because they're all so brilliant that I genuinely didn't care. I was caught up in all the stories, finding them utterly believable and an excellent addition to the Marple canon. I am writing this review a couple of weeks after reading the book, so I will talk about the stories that stood out to me. I will say that there's such a variety of stories - a couple set in big houses, one at Christmas, ones with Miss Marple's friends, one with her granddaughter (written by Karen M McManus, which should surprise no one!) and one set in New York. Those are the ones I liked best, I think, but honestly there's not a bad story between them. 

I thoroughly recommend this book especially if you are already a fan of Marple, unlike me! Reading this would make me want to read some of the books starring her though, or maybe watch the TV series! I am giving this fiveo ut of five as I just liked it so much. 

This book was published on the 15th of September. I was provided with an electronic copy of the book for review purposes but was not otherwise compensated for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

H.A.W.K.S by M A Bennett - Review

You can find all my previous reviews of M A Bennett's books here. I have read all of this series and reviewed them! I am sad this series has come to an end, but I have really enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to what M A Bennett writes next! 

I bought this very soon after I read T.I.G.E.R.S. and picked up very soon after because I wanted to see how the series ended. The book takes place when Greer has finished her exams. She's about to leave STAGS for the last time when she gets another invitation slipped under her door. This time it's an invite to attend the Lammas hunt on the 1st of August on the Isle of Skye. She will be visiting the castle of the MacLeods. Fiona MacLeod is the mother of Louis and Cass, Henry's cousins. Now that Henry is supposedly dead, Louis is the heir to the earldom and is making repairs to Longcross, the family seat of the de Warlencourts. There remains the mystery about who killed Rollo de Warlencourt, and of course Henry is biding his time until he can show himself and reassert his place as the rightful heir. 

But now Greer has this invitation, and as she's been working to bring down the Dark Order of the Great Stag, she feels her life is at risk. She thinks she will be hunted, as Henry did to her at the first weekend at Longcross. She assembles her crew around her - Henry, of course, for whom she still has feelings after he confessed his love for her, Shafeen, who she is still going out with, Nel, Ty, and the new Abbot, Nathaniel Ridley. Ty has contacts who know things about the school and the Dark Order, so on their way to Skye the group stops to meet Ratio. He has a HAWK, a powerful drone, that will follow Greer wherever she is on Skye and make sure she's safe. 

So far, so STAGS. On Skye, Greer is once again thrust into the workings of the upper echelons - fancy dinners, Mediaevals, posh people who don't mean what they say. Things happen between Greer and Henry, and when he reveals to the crowd that he is still alive, Louis is less than happy. 

I felt like this was a good ending to the series. There was plenty of intrigue and plenty of that stuff that made the first book so compelling. I did guess some of the twists but as always, I'm not sure if a younger reader would or not. I loved the setting of Skye and the eerie, Wicker Man esque feel to the whole thing. Five out of five from me. I have loved Greer and her friends and this look into the utter privilege of the upper classes. I'll miss it!

I Want You to Know We're Still Here by Esther Safran Foer - Review

I picked this book up at High Peak Bookstore in the Peak District when I visited at the beginning of July with my friend Lucinda. I love that place - the books are plentiful and cheap. I only left with two books this time which is very restrained for me! I noticed this because of the name Safran Foer - I of course know Jonathan Safran Foer, who wrote the book Everything Is Illuminated, which is sort of based on the Holocause experiences of his mother's family. I have seen the film, but it was either just before or just after my dad's suicide in 2008 so it's got caught up in the trauma of that, especially because it features a suicide, so I've never rewatched it. It turns out that this details is directly from Esther's life - her dad took his own life when she was just eight years old. I really related to that, obviously, and the gaps left behind.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Esther was born in Poland in 1946; her parents both survived the Holocaust and met and got married. They then lived in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany for several years, trying to find any of their relatives that had also survived, and were eventually sponsored to immigrate to the United States when Esther was little. There, her younger brother Julian was born. Her dad ran grocery stores, but had just been duped on the purchase of a new one at the time he died. Esther understands that he was traumatised by his experiences during the war and that this likely led to his decision to take his own life - but understanding this doesn't mean she truly feels it, and so on. She begins a search for what happened to her dad. This theme of trauma is one that I also saw in Maus, which I recently read and reviewed. 

It's interesting because quite a bit of the book focusses on the family's experiences post war. I have read a lot of Holocaust literature (I was a Theology student for my undergrad degree and was lucky enough to be taught Judaism by a Jewish lecturer who was a convert but then discovered she had Jewish heritage, which is quite cool. I was at York St John and York has a very dark anti Semitic history, which was also interesting to learn... I digress, though...) but have rarely read as much about what happened immediately post war. It's quite easy as a Gentile to think, well the war was over, the Nazis defeated, so of course everything was fine for Jews in Europe! But of course that wasn't the case! Anti Semitism was still rife, and remains so even today. Plus entire families, entire communities, so many people had just been murdered, had been wiped out, that people didn't have anywhere to go back TO. Esther's mother, Ethel, returned to her shtetl, Trochenbrod, in 1944, to find all the houses razed to the ground by the Soviets after all the (Jewish) inhabitants had been murdered by the Nazis. When Ethel had lived there, the village had been in Eastern Poland, but thanks to border shifts, the place is now in Western Ukraine - hence the setting of Everything Is Illuminated. As time went on and people began to understand the true horrors of the Holocaust, there was a determined effort to record the names of the dead, and to find the sites of mass burial graves, like where the inhabitants of Trochenbrod had been killed inthe massacre there. Esther understands the important of memory and history and how history is memory and memory is history, something which I think we all understand but which I think Jewish people definitely have a long tradition of anyway, and definitely in the light of the Holocaust. 

Esther makes an emotional trip to Ukraine with her son Frank towards the end of the book. By that time she has connected with people from all over the world, people who knew her parents, who knew the shtetl, and who have all contributed to completing the picture of Esther's ancestors and family. Her mother doesn't like to speak much about the war, which is of course her right, and which makes perfect sense also. But Esther wants to know the name of her half sister because then she can be recorded, and remembered.

I found this a really emotional book, especially the ending, and also so interesting. The focus on the family's post war experiences really helped round out that period in history for me. I am giving this five out of five and recommend it thoroughly. 

The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths - Review

You know me, I love Elly Griffiths' books and always love when there's a new Ruth Galloway book coming out. I had to wait for this to come out in paperback though, which it did, in August. I picked it up soon after that! I'm aware that it's the penultimate Ruth book, the last one will be out next year! I also knew that this one was set in lockdown in 2020, which puts a whole new slant on things. 

At the beginning of the book it's early 2020 and no one is yet panicking about Covid-19. Ruth is clearing out some of her mum's stuff from her parents' house - her mum died five years previously and her dad, Arthur, is remarried to someone he met at church. Ruth finds old photos and so on, including a photo from 1963 of the cottage that Ruth now lives in. It's a photo with its neighbours, when the cottages painted pink, and the note on the back says Dawn 1963. But why would Jean have a photo of Ruth's cottage, somewhere that she always professed to hate? 

Meanwhile Nelson is investigating an unexpected death. It looks like a suicide, but the victim's bedroom door was locked from the outside. It doesn't feel right to Nelson, so he gets his team to start looking at other deaths where the victim was middle aged or older, and which have been recorded as suicides. They turn up a few, but can't find the link between them all... 

Ruth is called to a body in Tombland, near Norwich cathedral. She thinks it is mediaeval, and properly buried, but her students are obsessed with the idea that it might be a plague body, slung into a plague pit. Two of her students, Eileen and Joe, seem unhealthily obsessed with the body. Ruth also has a new next door neighbour, Zoe, who is a nurse. Lockdown hits, and Ruth is glad to not be alone on the saltmarshes with only Kate for company. Cathbad rises to the challenge of homeschooling the children, and starts doing Zoom yoga with Ruth and Kate and then Zoe too. 

Michelle is away in Blackpool with little George, and has been for weeks, meaning Nelson is by himself at home, so then he ends up staying at Ruth's, because of course. Then someone catches Covid and is extremely ill... I honestly thought this person would die. As a writer, if I was coming to the end of such a long series, I might start killing people off too.... 

I loved this book - it's odd to look back at what is such recent history but what feels like so long ago now. I am so looking forward to the last one, and am giving this five out of five.

The Amazing Edie Eckhart: The Big Trip by Rosie Jones - Review

As soon as I reviewed The Amazing Edie Eckhart back in July, someone told me that there was a sequel coming out, so I ordered it immediately. It arrived on the day it came out in mid August, and I picked it up nearly straight away. I'm so glad this is going to be a series - it really deserves to be. As a reminder, Edie has cerebral palsy and she's in Year 7 at high school. Author, comedian Rosie Jones, also has cerebral palsy. Edie lives in Bridlington with her mum, dad, and baby brother Louis.

At the beginning of the book it's Christmas, and then it's back to school. Edie gets given an English assignment where she must give a presentation about herself, where she answers the question 'Who am I?' But she ends up not completing the assignment because she isn't sure who she is! She is questioning herself, and that includes her relationship with Flora. Does she want to be Flora's girlfriend? If so, how should she ask her?

There's a half term drama trip, and Edie persuades her parents to let her go. She is a bit worried about how she'll get on, but she's determind to be independent. But the school ends up going with a different school, who have a very strict teacher, Mrs Hargreaves. She makes them get up at six am every morning to do a run before they start their drama workshops. She also tells Edie that she speaks too slowly to be given a speaking part in the end of week play, which really upsets Edie. She tries to tell Mr Murphy but can't. 

This experience sours Edie's feelings about drama club so she ends up not going after half term. She does spend lots of time with her friends, including Poppy, Georgia and Chloe, and of course Oscar. I love the friendships shown in these books - they're really cute and supportive. Then there's FLORA! We like her. I won't give any spoilers but I did love the book and am giving it four out of five. 

Heartstopper Vol 4 by Alice Oseman - Review

I read the last book (so far!) in the Heartstopper series back in August. I think this was my favourite so far and really cemented my love of the series. Charlie and Nick go through some rough stuff in this book which brings them closer together, but they also learn that they can't always fix what's wrong with each other. A valuable adult lesson! 

Charlie struggles with an eating disorder in this book, which began in Vol 3 and which comes to a head here. Most of this story is told in flashback by Nick, which worked well as it allowed Nick to sum things up and let the author avoid some things which may have been really triggering. Charlie spends time in hospital and Nick talks to his mum a lot about it. I liked this a lot. 

Nick also wants to come out to his dad, but struggles to see him as he lives in Paris. He visits, at the end of the book, and there's a brilliant bit where Nick does come out and there's all drama. In the meantime, there's more stuff at school of course, and a lot of cute bits. I'm giving this five out of five and now I really want Vol 5 to come quickly!