Alice Austen Lived Here by Alex Gino - Review

I picked this up in Portal bookshop in York, which is a queer bookshop that also sells badges and fun stuff like that, and has a cafe upstairs and plenty of events happening - it's a really cool place to go. I visited in June with my friend Lucinda. I bought just this book, and picked it up soon after. I love Alex Gino and would love to have read everything they write, so I was glad to buy this. 

It's about a non binary kid called Sam who lives in New York with their mother and father I think. They are close friends with a queer family who live on a lower floor in their building - a woman, her non binary partner, and their baby. Sam also walks the dog of someone in the building, I don't remember her name but I loved her. From their bedroom window, Sam can see the Statue of Liberty and it's a statue that means a lot to them. Their best friend, TJ, is also non binary. They have a busy family that Sam is sometimes jealous of. 

At school, the kids get given an assignment to enter a competition. They have to write a report about who there should be a new statue of in their home borough of Staten Island. Some kids write about Henry Hudson - been done, coloniser, never even came to the area, Sam and TJ are bored of that one - and others write about Alexander Hamilton because one of them is vaguely related to him, which she shoehorns into every conversation haha. Sam and TJ don't know who to write about but eventually learn about Alice Austen, who was a photographer. She lived with a woman for decades and took quite frank photos of herself and her friends. I hadn't ever heard of her so it was interesting to learn more about her as Sam and TJ did too. 

I liked the book a lot and I think for a middle grade audience it was perfect. It explained a lot of things about queer identity and I liked how Sam came more to terms with themself and their place in the community. For me personally it was a bit so so, but I understand I am not the target audience and I think it would hit different with them. I will say that I didn't feel a particular emotional connection with Sam unlike in Melissa or Rick, which perhaps let it down a bit for me. But in all, a good book! 

As an aside but relevant to this post - I reviewed a queer picture book called Princess Pete for Global Comment, where I write occasionally. I wrote about why LGBTQIA+ books are essential for all kids, under the umbrella or not. You can read it here. 

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld - Review

This was yet another of the books that my friend Janet had recommended when it was just 99p on Kindle, so I bought it. I picked it up at the beginning of June and took quite a while to read it, because it is quite long. I did enjoy it but I wouldn't rush out to read something else by Curtis Sittenfeld even though I know people rave about her. 

The book is set at an elite boarding school in Massachussetts. Lee Fiora is fourteen when she arrives and way out of her depth. She's from the middle of nowhere in Indiana, from a normal family. She was clever enough to get a scholarship to Ault, the school, but when she gets there she's just one clever kid in a whole raft of them. And everyone else is rich and from the 'right' family. They have the right things like flowered bedspreads but Lee doesn't - something which marks her out as a scholarship student. 

The book spans all four years of Lee's high school career at the school. She has a huge crush on Cross Sugarman, the most popular boy in her year. One day late in her freshman year she gets to spend the day with him and some friends, which intensifies her crush. She knows he'll never look at her, though. She has just one friend, who she ends up sharing a room with for the next three years. 

The most popular girl in the school is Aspeth, who eventually asks Lee for a haircut and she ends up being the hairdresser for the whole school. She is thrilled that people want to talk to her but eventually realised that this job is a bit beneath her. 

I liked the setting of the school and thought it was so cloistered and had its own language which showed the 'them' and 'us' of it all. I did think it was a bit too long and I would have liked just a bit more plot, but I understand that's not overly the point of the book. In all I'm giving it four out of five. 

Clear by Carys Davies - Review

This book was the June choice for my book club and I was intrigued to read it. It's a novella, so didn't take me very long to read at all. I really reminded me of everything I've read by Claire Keegan in that there's barely a wasted word which I think is a real talent. 

The book is about John Ferguson and his wife Mary. The book is set in Scotland in 1843. John is a Church of Scotland minister but he has been part of the nearly 500 preachers who broke away to form the Free Church of Scotland. This decision means that John has lost his housing and income, so he and Mary are a bit down on their luck. She asks her sister if she can help, and so it is that Mary's brother in law, whose name I forget right now, gets him a job. He will have to travel to a remote island between Scotland and Norway. This period in history was also when the Highland Clearances happened, when people were evicted from their homes by greedy landowners so that the land could be used for grazing. 

There is just one tennant left on this island - Ivar. He speaks a dialect that no one seems to know anymore, although John does try to get some kind of language teaching before he sets off. He is given a rifle, to be used only if Ivar gets angry. He takes with him a photo of Mary, his notebooks where he is translating the gospels into Scots Gaelic, and a few provisions. He gets very seasick on the way over but is eventually on the island. 

Ivar is the only member of his family left on the island. His mother and sister have already emmigrated to Canada and he hasn't spoken to anyone else is around twenty years. The rent collector has left him alone for years and he has a cow and a horse left and otherwise lives on his own wits. He lives in a tiny shack with a bed and a fire and all of that. His most treasured posession is a teapot that is kept up on a high shelf. I actually loved the story of the teapot when it was revealed late on in the book - I thought it was perfect. 

John slips and falls shortly after arriving and Ivar rescues him and his posessions. John is in some kind of coma and sleeps for days in Ivar's bed. Ivar observes him and looks through all his things. He falls in love with the photo of Mary and puts her up on the shelf with the teapot. John eventually comes around but finds that he can't tell Ivar why he's really there - to evict Ivar. 

Instead, the two wander the island and John tries to learn Ivar's language. His notebooks got ruined when he fell, but the pages are usable, if a little bit crinkly. So John starts to write down Ivar's language. And the two do really start to fall in love. 

Mary, meanwhile, is obviously worrying about her husband but knows that the money he will be paid for doing this job will go towards setting up John's church, so she understands why he had to go. She tells the story of how she and John met and fell in love - but the marriage isn't without its problems. 

I won't say more because I just really liked how the book unfolded and would recommend it. I am giving it five out of five. 

Gone For Good by Sarah Crossan - Review

I started reading this book ages ago and then stopped for some reason, but then it was downloaded on to my Kindle so when I was on the plane and had finished The Wedding People, I only had a few books to choose from so decided to go back to this. It did take me a bit of time to get back into it, but I read quite a lot on the plane and then I was hooked so had to read the rest of course. 

The novel is told in verse like all of Sarah Crossan's novels. My only criticism of this is that I just want more! I want more detail in the book and verse novels just don't have the space for it! I think it's so clever to write with these constraints though. It takes quite some skill as a writer!

The book is about Connie, a teenaged girl. She is abducted from her bed in the middle of the night and taken to one of those camps for 'wayward' teens. She has been having a difficult time as her mother died and her dad quickly got with someone else - Wendy - who has been making unwelcome changes to the house. Something happened and Connie got into trouble, and now she's at a camp. She's certain that her dad wouldn't have sent her there but the camp counsellors waste no time in telling her that that's not true. Connie is heartbroken and really needs to heal.

Life is of course brutal in the camp. There are sadistic staff and one of her roommates, who I think was called Florence, or similar, is the type of person who snitches on everything that happens. People start to tell Connie that the previous occupant of her bed, Becky, has gone missing and no one knows what happened to her. Connie starts to unravel the truth, but it's slow going. And she has to suspect everyone, including dishy British guy Alex. 

I liked the book a lot and am glad I got round to reading it. I'm giving it four out of five. 

The Wedding People by Alison Espach - Review

 

My friend Janet does a round up monthly of books that are 99p on Kindle and she often has recommendations, and it often costs me about a fiver when I go through and buy a few. It's like the opposite of a problem, really. Anyway she had recommended this so I bought it, and I picked it up towards the end of May when I was on holiday in Morocco. Weirdly there was a woman sitting round the pool who was reading this in paperback. I would probably have spoken to her about it but she was asleep! 

I read the end of this while travelling back from Morocco, so I got really into it because I read so much while I was on the plane. My friends were sleeping so I had plenty of uninterrupted time! 

The novel is about a woman called Phoebe Stone. She has recently got divorced from her husband. Max. They are both academics and he has been having an affair with someone in the department. They have had a difficult marriage with a bunch of failed IVF treatments. Phoebe is completely bereft and really struggling with life, and then her beloved cat (Harry? Henry) dies. She leaves his body in the cellar and sets off to a luxury hotel. She once read about the hotel in a magazine and decides she will go there to kill herself. 

When she gets there, there is a week long wedding going on. The bride, Lila, is outraged that Phoebe is there and staying in the best suite. Phoebe says she is going to kill herself and Lila is further outraged because that will ruin her wedding. Phoebe takes a bunch of her cat's painkillers and lays down to die, listening to the start of the wedding celebrations that is happening below. 

She doesn't die and heads down to the hotel hut tub. She flirts with a man there and tells him she would like to fuck him, but he tells her he's involved with someone else. In the morning, Lila comes to talk to her. Half the wedding party are hungover and Lila would like Phoebe to come and join a boat party to make up numbers. Phoebe eventually goes and then meets the groom, Gary - who is of course the man in the hot tub from the night before. 

Phoebe gets roped in to be Maid of Honour when Lila's cancels, and Lila tells everyone that she and Phoebe know each other from the gallery where she works. Phoebe ends up getting massively involved in everyone's drama. Gary has a daughter and his wife died; he is still close to her brother Jim. Juice, the daughter, doesn't like Lila and the feeling is entirely mutual. It's a whole mess!

The book is compelling and interesting. I liked Phoebe and felt really sorry for her; life has dealt her a rough hand and her ex husband is a proper dickhead. I liked the story a lot and would definitely read something else by the same author. I've seen that this has been optioned for a film too, and I would definitely watch it. I'm giving this five out of five. 

The Women by Kristin Hannah - Review

In February 2023 I read The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah and thought it was absolutely brilliant. I must have said this to my friend Stacey at some point and she read it and loved it too. She told me about The Women at some point and said that among her friends, those that had read it first had preferred it over The Nightingale, and vice versa. She had preferred The Nightingale because she knows France better and coule imagine it really well - which is one of the reasons I loved it too! However The Women is set in the Vietnam War and one of my special interests is the Vietnam War, so I was really keen to see what I thought. 

I started this book on the day that I went on holiday to Morocco with two of my friends. The flight is four hours and they both slept or dozed, so I got a big chunk of reading done. On holiday itself, though, we were busy the first few days and were going to bed early, so I had less reading time than I might have. I finally finished it on the 25th, the Monday of our week away. I loved it and would really recommend it. I can't choose between the two books because they're both great!

The book is set in the late 1960s. Frances McGrath is the youngest child and only daughter of a rich family that live in California in a pretty fancy community. Frankie's brother, Finley, is about to join the Navy. The family is a military family and her father, Connor, has a wall of familiy photos in his offce, where all the man are in their military uniforms and the women are only shown on their wedding days. Her mother is quite cold and obsessed with getting Frankie married off so she can carry on the country club life. 

Frankie has trained as a nurse but wants something more out of life. After seeing off her brother to the Navy Frankie decides she will sign up. However, the Navy won't take her until she's been nursing for over two years. But the Army have no such compulsions and before too long she's in basic training. Her parents are shocked and appalled and beg her to reconsider but no, Frankie is off to Vietnam. 

She arrives at an army hospital not too far from Saigon. She's billetted with two women whose names I now forget, but one of them is white and one is Black. They start to show her the ropes. In the treatment areas she is thrown in at the deep end - men arrive desperately injured, quickly evacuated from fighting via helicopter, and have to be assessed immediately. Some can be saved and some need to be comforted as they die. It is chaos and there's more blood and guts than Frankie thought possible. 

She quickly learns lots of nursing and becomes a skilled and capable nurse. She parties with other nurses and doctors, trying to unwind from the horrors that she's seen. She nearly has a dalliance with a man but he's married and Frankie won't do that. She goes out into the nearby villages with other medics to treat some of the locals and to vaccinate the children and so on. 

Later in the book she is moved up north in Vietnam to a place that is much closer to fighting and where things are even more difficult. I don't want to spoil anymore of the first half of the book but Kristin Hannah really gets across the horror, the chaos, the exhaustion, the constant living on edge, etc. 

The second half of the book is about Frankie's life once she gets home. She tries to get a job but finds that her learning in Vietnam counts for little. She suffers from nightmares and clearly has PTSD, like a lot of Vetnam vets do and did. She tries to access Veteran help but is told it's not available to her as she wasn't 'in combat'. She's repeatedly told that 'there were no women in Vietnam'. More than once she loses her temper because SHE WAS THERE.

She gets involved in the anti war protests, which I found really interesting too because I didn't know a lot about it. I didn't know so many veterans turned on the war once they were home, disgusted by what they had been put through. 

I loved Frankie and rooted for her the whole way through. I loved the personal things she went through and I thought the depiction of the war was so well written. I would recommend this book so much and am giving it five out of five. 

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix - Review

I think my friend Sarah bought me this book for my birthday, just because she saw it and thought I would like it. I picked it up in mid May, although I then had to put it down because I had to read books for blog tours, so I didn't finish it until the 21st of May. I do think it was a bit too long and could have been edited down a bit, but generally I really liked it. 

The novel is set in 1970 in a maternity home for pregnant teenagers. Neva is six months pregnant when her parents find out, and her dad drives her to Miss Wellwood's Home in Florida, and abandons her there. All the girls there are given the names of plants so that they do not know each other's true originas - Neva becomes Fern. She is rooming with Rose, who wants to keep her baby and who has wild ideas about running off to California with her baby's dad, and Holly, who is thirteen years old, about to turn fourteen, and who is, at the beginning of the book, mute. There are tons of other girls around too. 

The girls are made to work around the home. They have to meet with the doctor, who patronises them and dismisses all their health concerns. If he feels they are putting on too much weight he puts them on a diet. Miss Wellwood owns the home after the death of her father - she is nasty and non sympathetic. There's a nurse and a social worker too. Girls must work until just before their due dates, when they are permitted to rest. They go to birth their babies, give them up for adoption, and are permitted to rest at the home for a little longer before returning to their families. All their parents have stories about where their daughters are - looking after a sick aunt is a popular cover story. 

The mobile library visits every couple of weeks and Miss Parcae is the librarian. The home insists on 'worthy' books for the girls, but one day Miss Parcae gives Fern a book called How to Be a Groovy Witch. Along with Rose and Holly, and a new girl, Fern tries to do some incantations and spells. And surprisingly, they seem to work. But Miss Parcae isn't who she seems and the girls are in danger...

I did really like the book but I also thought it was too long. It needed editing down a bit. I did like Fern a lot and I loved the stories around the other girls. I thought it had a little of the Magical Negro trope in the form of the two women who work in the kitchen of the home and I would like that to be unpacked a little more in reviews, especially reviews by Black people. But I generally did like it and found it very creepy and gothic. I'm giving it five stars for pur enjoyment. 

The Heartstopper Yearbook by Alice Oseman - Review

I was passing through the library - fortunately Penistone Library is open again so my craft club can meet there again! - and noticed this book in the Young Adult section. I've read all the Heartstopper books and really enjoyed them, and I of course love the TV show so I picked this up. I read it very quickly but it isn't very long and quite a lot of it is drawings. But I loved it!

There are lots of words from Alice themself, including and introduction and including a lot of chat about their artistic process and their story planning. There's Nick and Charlie in their first incarnation, years and years ago, and loads of chat about how the artwork moved on to what we've seen in the comics and the books. 

There are also little snapshots about some of the secondary characters in the books, like Darcy and Tara, which I also thought were really cute. This was a cute little look into Alice's work and what goes on behind the scenes in making a story like Heartstopper. I'm giving it five out of five because it was just cute!

PS did you know that I have three Heartstopper leaves tattooed on my arm? One yellow, one green, and one blue. They're adorable. I hope one day I can show them to Alice at a convention! 

My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney - Review

I saw Alice Feeney talk about this book at Stockport Noir back in January and I really liked the sound of it so I requested it at the library. It finally came in - it was in high demand - and I read it at the beginning of May. 

The very beginning of the book is good. Eden Fox and her husband Harrison have recently moved to the seaside - I imagined it to be like Dorset or Devon but I'm not sure if it's specified - and are living in a gorgeous weird old house called Spyglass. Eden is about to have an exhibition of her art in the town they have moved to, and she goes for a run to run off some nerves. When she gets back to the house, her key won't go in the lock. She knocks, and Harrison answers with a woman who looks eerily like Eden next to him. He says that's his wife and he doesn't know Eden at all. She is obviously extremely confused and the police are called, but she can't prove that SHE is Eden Fox and this woman is an interloper. 

Then there's Birdy's point of view. She has been told she is dying and she is pretty alone in the world after the death of her only relative, her mother. But then a long lost grandmother dies and she inherits Spyglass. She doesn't think she's ever been, but when she gets there she realises that she has, that she spent time there when she was a child. She is sorting through her grandmother's mail when she finds a card outlined in black. It's from a company that says it can predict exactly the day when you will die. As Birdy is dying she gets in touch with them. 

It turns out that Harrison, Eden's husband, is the owner of the company that can predict your death, and also that  Birdy is a police officer who then starts investigating what's going on with Spyglass. 

The book just lot its way for me. There's loads of plot holes and ridiculous things happening and so many coincidences that it really stretched the bounds of possibility for me. I'm not the only one - the internet is full of people complaining about this book. I wouldn't reach for anything else by Alice Feeney because this just didn't impress me that much. I'm giving it three out of five. 

 

The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives by Elizabeth Arnott - Review

I got this book on Netgalley, so thank you very much to Penguin for granting me access to this. I received an electronic copy of the book for review purposes, but was not otherwise compensated for this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

I really liked this book and would definitely read something else by the author. I was intrigued by the premise - about actual wives of murderers in the 1960s - and the book did not disappoint. 

Beverley is the main character of the book. She had no idea that her husband was a killer, of course, until he was arrested in the family home. She is struggling to get her life back on track. People in the neighbourhood hate her and she's trying to protect her kids from the brunt of it. She lives in fear and has to barricade herself into the house at night. She has met two other women with serial killers for husbands. Elsie is quiet and reserved and her husband was similar, but also turned out to be a killer. Margot was married to a governor or senator or something, someone in politics, who was also a killer. She masks her pain by drinking too much. 

Beverley is speaking at a police conference when a call comes in about a murder and the chief takes off. Beverley is having an affair with one of the men who arrested her husband and she gets to know a bit more about the girl who was found dead. She fears that another serial killer is on the loose, but the police don't agree with her. She enlists the help of Elsie and Margot to help her uncover the truth. 

It's like a fun romp of a book - the women are irrepressible despite what life has thrown at them and it's easy to like them and want them to succeed. I also definitely wanted a drink with them! There's an air of gothic about the book - there's a heatwave and everything is oppressive in the California sunshine. There's the Manson killings kind of as an undercurrent, which I definitely liked. 

I'm giving this four out of five, I thought it was a great book and I'll look out for more! 

Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth - Review

I actually saw this book in a motorway service station when I was travelling to Birmingham in February, and I was really tempted to buy it, but resisted temptation of buying this and something else. But then I looked later and it was only 99p on Kindle so I bought it. I read it while I was in Rome! And flying there and back. I loved Rome and highly recommend it, and this was a good book to read while I was travelling. 

The book is about sisters Sarah and Juliette and has a dual narrative - one in the 90s, and one in the now, when Sarah is 42 and Juliette is just turning forty. I am forty-two and am enjoying reading about women my age - especially when there was a dual narrative which was so reminiscent of my own life in the 90s. 

Sarah is single, and lives in London. She's from Manchester originally where Juliette still lives with her mediocre husband and two children. Their mother was pretty neglectful and I don't remember much said about their dad at all, but I did read this over a month ago so maybe I've just forgotten by now. (I am kind of sorry that my reviews are so far behind, but I'll get caught up.... eventually). Sarah's life is pretty empty but she knows she doesn't want Juliette's life either. 

Anyway, she rents a campervan for the two of them to go on a trip to the Scottish Highlands for Juliette's birthday. It's a bit run down and causes them no end of problem but that's half the fun of it. There's no mobile signal at the campsites so Juliette can't speak to her children. Neither of the women like going over to the showers and loos, either, which I found very relatable and hilarious. They've had a bit of a tempestuous relationship over the years and things do flare up but it's obvious there's a lot of love between the two of them even if they don't always understand each other.

In the dual narrative, it's the late 90s and Sarah is fifteen. She is obsessed with boy bands, sex, underage drinking, and her teacher, Mr Keaveney. She is convinced that they are in love and that once she leaves school and turns sixteen, they will go to Gretna Green and get married and everyone will accept this. I knew girls who were obsessed with teachers in the 90s and I think Emma Jane got this so perfect, just bang on for what it was like back then when you FEEL so deeply. When bands do mean EVERYTHING and when a crush feels like it will kill you. 

It's obvious that something happened in the 90s that has repercussions on today, and I thought I guessed it, but I was a bit wrong. I do think the ending didn't quite live up to the rest of the book. I wish it had been a bit different. 

But I did really like the book; I liked Sarah a lot and really felt a lot of her life. I will definitely read something else by Emma Jane Unsworth and I am giving this four out of five. 

Not A Happy Family by Shari Lapena - Review

I can't remember where I heard about this book but I was intrigued by it so bought it on Kindle. I read it at the end of April and it's the first of June as I'm writing this, so forgive me if I've forgotten some of the ins and outs of the plot. However, I know I didn't particularly like the book and wouldn't reach quickly for something else by the same author. 

The family in question is the Merton family. They are parents Fred and Sheila and their children, Catherine, Dan, and Jenna, and Catherine's husband Ted and Dan's wife Lisa. They are all getting together for Easter dinner, but tensions are already running high. The family is rich as anything after Fred sold his company. However, Dan assumed that he would inherit the company so he's angry with his dad that he didn't. He and Lisa have very little money and he is stressed about it. Fred is selfish and cruel. Sheila is neglectful and critical of all her children. They were brought up by a nanny, Irene, who lived in the house and who still lives close. 

Catherine has a high flying career as does Ted, but they've been having problems having a baby so their lives aren't perfect either. Jenna is the wild, third child, a bit flighty, blah blah. Her boyfriend attends the dinner too but I don't remember his name. Everyone falls out with Fred and Sheila and leaves, although Jenna and her boyfriend stay a little bit longer than the others. 

The next day the housekeeper or someone arrives at the house and finds Fred and Sheila brutally murdered. At first the policce think it's a robbery gone wrong, but then they realise it's been set up to look that way. Suspicion falls on the three children, of course, but there are just so many people and so many red herrings that it's hard to keep up. Fred's sister (Angela?) says that Fred had promised to leave half his money to her, but there's no proof of this - although it would have given her a good motive, of course. It's easy to think it's Dan, as he's been screwed over most by his father, but honestly, all the kids are acting weird. 

The book is like 100 pages too long in my opinion, and a crucial piece of information comes way too late in the book for me to care. I found it hard to read and can only give it two and a half out of three. 

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter - Review

I first read The Bloody Chamber years and years ago when I was a teenager. I didn't do English Lit at 6th form but tons of my friends did, and a lot of them did this book and we were all obsessed with it. I'm pretty sure I read a library copy way back when, and I'm not entirely sure where this copy came from, but I've had it forever and not picked it up. When we moved last summer I was reminded of its existence, but then didn't pick it up until just before Christmas. 

However, I read the first few stories and then put the book down and didn't pick it up again until April, by which time I was determined to finish it. However, I didn't really like it as much as I remember liking it. Maybe it was just because I was seventeen and it was all new to me, so maybe stories just don't hit the same now I'm in my forties. 

I did still really like the story The Bloody Chamber, which is a retelling of the fairy tale Bluebeard. It's exactly as creepy and gothic as I remember, which I liked. I also really liked the story of Puss in Boots, about a cat who spends his days with a rakish young man. Some of the others were so graphic - something that the collection is controversial for - that they left me cold. 

In all I am glad I reread this, but it wasn't quite my jam anymore. Still, I would recommend it to young adults who haven't read anything similar before. I'm giving it three out of five. 

Frozen by Ann Cleeves - Review

This is a really short story that I must have got on Kindle at some point and when I was scrolling my way through what I wanted to read I came upon it. So I'm reviewing it even though it is really short! I loved being back with Vera and will have to pick up another of her books soon. 

Vera is having a day off and heads to a bookshop in Corbridge. She's interested in a book about Hadrian and the wall, but she ends up walking into a crime instead. The bookshop is in an old church, and the owner and her teenaged son are working on opening up the old baptismal underneath the floor of their shop. To their surprise, there is a dead body in there. 

A skeleton, to be more precise. And what's more, Vera recognises who it is from the bracelet on the skeleton's wrist. It is a girl who went missing years and years ago, a case that Vera has never forgotten. And of course, she's involved now and she wants to solve it. 

I'm giving this four out of five, I liked it a lot for such a short story. 

Athelstan by Tom Holland - Review

This was the May choice for my book club and I read it way back in mid April, so I was in plenty of time before book club. As I write this, we haven't yet met, so I don't know what everyone else thought, but I really enjoyed the book. It's non fiction, it's about the King called Athelstan who I had never heard of, although I'd heard of some of his relatives for sure. But that period of England is not something I know a lot about at all, so it was good to learn more. 

Athelstan is arguably the first King of England because he managed to unify the country more than anyone had done previously. There is apparently little documentary evidence about Athelstan himself, but what there is Tom Holland manages to pull together in a very readable and dramatic fashion. This is a short book so I raced through it, but it is also compelling. Also, presumably he's not THAT Tom Holland, haha. 

I also found it really interesting how Athelstan became king of all of England. When a different king died, others would rush in and fill the gap - what an absolutely mad way to do anything. So Athelstan managed to get a couple of places before anyone else, including some Irish kings, did. Wild. 

I really enjoyed this and would recommend it to anyone who would like to learn more about this period of history. I'm giving this four out of five. 

The Eternal Return of Clara Hart - Review and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for The Eternal Return of Clara Hart by Louise Finch. It is a pleasure to welcome you here! Please do click around and have a look at my other posts. I love contemporary YA and don't feel like I've read one in ages, so I was eager to sign up to this blog tour and to read the book!

The main character of the book is James Spencer, and he is in his last year at 6th form so he's already eighteen. His dad calls him James but everyone else calls him Spence. He has a car, an MG Midget which I've got major envy for, and on this particular Friday just before exam leave, he wakes up in his car. 

It is the year anniversary of his mum's death and he and his dad haven't been getting on very well, so James has chosen to sleep in his car to stay out of his dad's way. He is woken up by a car hitting his. A small red Micra, driven by Clara Hart. They have a bit of an altercation about it and then James goes into school and sits with his friends Anthony and Worm. They have forgotten the significance of the day and are their usual selves - mocking girls, catcalling, and giving all the girls ratings out of five. They are also planning a party for that evening. James doesn't really want to go, but he does. He and Anthony pick up alcohol and get ready.

At the party Worm strips naked and jumps into the pool. James ends up asleep. A girl called Mia gets incredibly drunk. Clara's friend Genni gets off with a guy called Jay and Clara ends up upstairs with Anthony. James rescues her, covering up her naked body, but she's drunk and upset and runs out of the house. She is then killed by a car coming past. The party ends with everyone at the police station giving a statement about what happened. James is obviously distraught and ends up asleep in his own bed, taken home by his dad. 

But then he wakes up again in his car, and Clara is again close by in her red car. James is obviously confused, and moreso when the day repeats itself. Can he save Clara this time, though?

Through more than a week of Fridays James tries and tries again to save Clara, to make a better hash of the day than he did the first time around. He's sure there must be some kind of key - but what is it?

I loved the book, I liked James a lot and loved the setting he found himself in. I liked the mystery of how he was going to get out of the mess he was in and I liked the ending. In all I'm giving this four out of five. 

Star by Star by Sheena Wilkinson - Review and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for Star By Star by Sheena Wilkinson! It is a pleasure to welcome you here. Please do click around and have a look at my other reviews. 

I was really intrigued by the premise of this book and signed up for it without realising that I have already read something by Sheena Wilkinson. I finished the book and when I was adding it to Goodreads I realised I read Name Upon Name by Sheena, which is actually related to this book! That book's main character is Helen, and she has a cousin Sandy, and in this book the main character Stella meets Helen in the first chapter, and she ends up living with Sandy! So that was delightful to learn and I'm glad I did learn it. 

So yes, Stella is fifteen and the year is 1918. The Spanish flu is endemic across Europe and the Great War is roaring. Stella has grown up in Manchester with her Mam after her mam had to leave Ireland when she was pregnant with Stella. Her mam has been a suffragette, fighting for women's rights to vote, and eventually, women who are over thirty and are householders are entitled to vote. It's a great victory! But Stella's Mam catches flu and Stella has to nurse her as she dies. 

Stella is left alone in the world and has to travel back to Ireland to live with her mother's sister Nancy. Nancy runs a kind of boarding house and Stella is to go and help her. She meets Helen on the train from Belfast; Helen is trying to visit Sandy but it doesn't go well. He is a wounded soldier, wounded in the trenches of the war, and has some kind of PTSD that means he rarely leaves his room. Also in the house are two elderly women and a young nurse, Kit, who nurses at the local convalescent home for soldiers.

Things are changing in Ireland - after the Easter Rising of 1916 the spirit of independence from British rule is in the air. Reading this as someone in 2026 who knows what happened in Ireland it was interesting to get into the head of someone living in Ireland at the time. Stella is an independent forthright young woman who wants to sort everything out. She has no malice in her and people's best interests at heart, but the way she goes about things sometimes rubs people up the wrong way! 

I loved the book, I am so glad I joined in this tour. I loved Stella and I liked the setting and her aunt and all the other inhabitants of the house. I liked Sandy and thought he was very compassionately portrayed. He is only 22 and has been an officer and has been permanently wounded by the war. I'm giving this four out of five and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Sugar & Other Stories by A S Byatt - Review

I have never read anything by A S Byatt but have always wanted to, so when I saw this in a charity shop in York for just a couple of quid I picked it up. 

I really enjoyed the selection of stories, but it's a few weeks since I read it so I don't remember specifics of many. I think generally the theme was people, and relationship, and quite a lot about middle class people. The book was published in 1987 so all of the stories were dated before that, but some felt quite a bit older - more like Agatha Christie type of time period. But some really felt set in the 1980s, too. 

This definitely has inspired me to read something else by A S Byatt, so I'll keep an eye out for something else by her! I'm giving this four out of five. 

Shorelines by Ruth Ennis - Blog Tour and Review

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for Shorelines by Ruth Ennis! It is a pleasure to welcome you here today. Please do have a click around and read some of my other reviews. 

I love novels told in verse and I love mermaids, so when I saw this book come up on the blog tour I signed up immediately! This book really did not disappoint. I loved the artwork on the front and inside; I would recommend it on artwork alone. But the writing is beautiful too. I raced through this and loved it. It is somewhat a retelling of The Little Mermaid, but in a modern setting. I loved the glimpses of the original story peeking through. 

Muireann is a mermaid. She has lots of sisters, including her twin sister Mairead. One day, they are searching for pearls as gifts for their mother. The twins are obsessed with the world above the surface and want to go one day. Mairead goes missing and the whole family has to look for her. When they find her, she is dead - killed by a mass fishing net. Muireann's mother sinks into a deep depression and Muireann feels totally alone.

She is a fat, strong, powerful mermaid. She knows her place within the ocean, but she really wants to see the surface. She and Mairead had spotted a ship in trouble and saw a man there - obviously the handsome prince. 

But when Muireann does go ashore, the real world isn't like she imagined it to be. She has to become someone else in order to be safe. And she wants more than anything to return to the sea.

I loved the book and would definitely read something else by Ruth Ennis in the future! I will keep a look out for them for sure. I'm giving this a high four out of five. 

What Does It Feel Like? by Sophie Kinsella - Review

My friend Stacey read this book and recommended it, but she had a library copy so she couldn't lend it to me, so I requested it from my library because it sounded really interesting. It is a tiny little novella, but it's really good and really packs a punch and I would definitely recommend it. 

It's a semi-autobiographical novel about Sophie's own life. She was a massively popular author whose Shopaholic books got made into a film (maybe more, I don't know, I didn't read much of her stuff) and she died of a brain tumour in 2024 I think. This book is about an author called Eve who buys a dress to wear on the red carpet for the premiere of her film. She's successful, she's happily married, and she has five gorgeous children.

Then she wakes up in hospital with no memory of how she got there. It turns out she has a malignant brain tumour that has grown huge. She has to learn how to walk, talk, and write again. She has to work out how to tell her beautiful children that their mum will die. She has to be reminded about what has happened by her husband, who is faithfully by her side. 

This is a tiny book, a novella really, and it's told in little vignettes which tell Eve's story. There's a few pages which have text messages from Eve's family and friends, which I liked the inclusion of. It's a powerful little book and I'm giving it five out of five. 

The Secret Room by Jane Casey - Review

I can't remember where or when I heard of this book but I obviously had, as I requested it at the library and it arrived so I read it. I didn't love it, though, I don't think it really stood up to what I thought it was going to be. Oh well, I live and learn! 

This is the twelfth book in a series about a detective called Maeve Kerrigan and her boss, Josh Derwent. I didn't realise that but as with most series you mostly can start here and catch up on some of the back story. In this case, it is obvious that Maeve and Josh have had a bit of a dalliance, and later there's more on their relationship. I did mostly like this aspect but Josh is a bit of a dickhead so it was hard to care as much about him as Maeve clearly does. They were nearly together but then Josh's girlfriend Melissa's son got unwell, and Josh felt guilty and stayed. From further reading I see that this book is set six months after Maeve and Josh didn't get together, which makes sense. 

The main murder in the book is of a wealthy woman called Ilaria Cavendish. She has a long standing meeting on a Wednesday afternoon with her lover, who I think is called Sam? They meet in a hotel every week for sex. She arrives one week, makes her way up to the room which is the room she always has, and waits for Sam. A hotel employee arrives with a bottle of champagne; on the CCTV later the police can see that he was in and out of the room in only a few minutes. When Sam arrives he says he finds her submerged in a scalding hot bath - he tries to pull her out but she is already dead. He is the prime suspect, of course, but he didn't really have enough time to kill her. 

It's a classic locked room mystery and Maeve and Josh are confused. Ilaria was married to a man who had a lot of money and who seemed to trade in wives for a younger model every few years, so he is a suspect too. Sam, meanwhile, has a pregnant girlfriend who he's trying to keep all this from. 

Maeve's parents are Irish immigrants to London and she seems like she avoids them a lot, but they were close with Josh's stepson and still miss him; they end up looking after him at times. Then Melissa is found attacked at home, badly beaten at the bottom of the stairs, and Josh is of course prime suspect. Maeve is sure that he couldn't have done it so she ends trying to investigate it herself, which brings her up against some fellow cops, of course, but she obviously has to meddle which did actually annoy me. Some unsavoury things about Josh come out which I feel was meant to put the reader off him, but he had already come across as a dick anyway so. 

I did like the outcome of both mysteries but something in the way this was written just didn't work for me. It meandered a lot in the middle and I didn't care about Maeve's dating life - she's trying to see this other fella - enough to put up with it. In all I'm giving this three and a half out of five. 

Spring by Michael Morpurgo - Review

After I read Winter by Val McDermid I knew I wanted to read the rest of the series. This one is the only one to have come out so far - Summer is expected this summer and I can't wait! I requested this one at the library and read it at the beginning of April when it really did feel like Spring had sprung but the weather was still a bit wild, as it ought to be. 

Michael's description of his Springs has a lot to do with his farm, which is in Devon, and from where he and his wife set up Farms for City Children, a charity where children come from the cities to work on farms to explore the living, etc. This still happens at Michael's home, apparently, and I liked the descriptions of the children with the pigs, mucking out the horses, and so on. I could imagine the farm well, including the birds that he and his wife Claire spend a lot of time looking at. Michael appreciates that he is no longer in the spring of his life, but he appreciates each new spring with the new life that comes and what that brings on a farm. 

He also talks a bit about how sometimes nature is cruel and things don't live, which I liked. In all this is a cute little book - not quite as punchy and immediate as Winter, but I liked it all the same. I'm giving it five out of five. 

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - Review

This was the April choice for my book club, chosen by Helena. I was a little uncertain about it when I read the blurb, and for the first few chapters of the book. But then I just decided to lean into it, into the weirdness, and then I ended up really liking it. It is odd and it did split the group a bit, but I think more people liked it than not. 

Piranesi is the main character and he lives in the House. It has big halls and vestibules, is made of marble, and has three levels. Below, there are tides that wash through the halls, and above as clouds. Piranesi has spent years journalling and mapping the halls where he finds himself. He lives a simple life; he passes through the halls, he visits the skeletons of the thirteen other people he knows to have lived, he fishes and keeps note of the tides, and on Tuesdays and Fridays he meets with The Other.

The Other is the only other person that Piranesi knows to be alive currently. Piranesi doesn't know where he goes when they're not meeting, but assumes he is in the vast House somewhere. The halls are filled with marble statues depicting any number of things; Piranesi knows them all intimately. He also has reverance for the skeletons even though he doesn't know who the bodies were. As far as he knows, only fifteen people - includimg himself and The Other - have ever lived. 

One day The Other mentions something about an unknown sixteenth person. He warns that if Piranesi was to talk to them, he would go quite mad, so he must not talk to them. Piranesi trusts The Other so believes him. He sees evidence of the sixteenth person a little time later, in the form of arrows through the confusing labyrinth of halls and vestibules. Then Sixteen leaves a note for Piranesi but he, mindful of The Other, erases the words. But little by little things start to unravel. Piranesi discovers gaps in his journals, and the names of some other people. He can't trust himself and he has no idea who, what, or where he is. 

I thought at first Piranesi might be in heaven, because of the many rooms. Then I realised it has shades of Plato's Allegory of the Cave which I know about but can't explain in good enough detail to explain why I thought of it, but I really did. I liked how the story unravelled and I thought it was a satisfactory ending. I just leaned into the weirdness and got involved in Piranesi's life and thoughts. I'm giving it four out of five. 

The Vipers by Katy Hays - Review

I read The Cloisters by Katy Hays and didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either, so I don't know that I would have given her another chance but then someone chose this for an online book club that I'm in so I bought it on eBay for a few quid and picked it up. And I ended up liking it a lot more! So that's good.

The book is set on the island of Capri so it has the summer gothic feel that I love, where everything is so bright and sunny but there's an undercurrent of threat and something sinister. I loved the setting and could picture it perfectly. 

The main characters are Helen and Lorna. Helen is the daughter of the Lingate family. Her dad and uncle, Richard and Marcus, have a lot of money and are very rich and influential. Thirty years ago, on Capri at the villa they always stay at, Helen's mother Sarah, a famous playwright, fell over a cliff and was killed. The family maintains that it was an accident, but Helen, who was a small child at the time, has always had her doubts. Her father and uncle - and Marcus' wife, Naomi, who drinks too much and takes a lot of prescription drugs - keep her on a really tight leash. She went to college but had a driver and so on; she's  never been free. 

She's determined to make things happen, so she's looped in Lorna, who is Marcus' assistant, to help. Pretty soon in the book the reader knows that Lorna has disappeared, but not exactly why. But as soon as the family arrive on Capri they run into an old friend, who was on the island the day Sarah died, and there's something for Helen too - a present. It turns out to be the necklace that Sarah was wearing when she died. 

A ton of things happen and it did get slightly confusing in places, and there are quite a lot of people involved, but I liked the story and the setting. I thought it had a good ending, too. I'm giving it four out of five. 

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths - Review

 

So you know I'm a huge fan of Elly Griffiths and have read everything she's written for adults, and a couple of her books for children, but when I first heard of this book I wasn't thrilled about it. It involves time travel and I was like ....sure. So I didn't buy it. But then when I was at Stockport Noir in January Elly was there and the way she talked about this book was enough to pique my interest. So I bought a copy of it for Elly to sign. Then when I mentioned it to my mum and to my friend Sarah, who both also really like Elly, they both said that it's really good and I should give it a go. Sarah said that you just accept the time travel premise and how it's done, and that the book carries you along with it. 

So I picked it up in March and I have to say my mum and Sarah were right - I really liked it and the story is good enough to forget my misgivings about time travel. I will definitely read the second and more in the series! 

The protagonist is Ali, she's in her forties and has a son called Finn who is about twenty five. She had him pretty young and was married to his father (Declan? Duncan? One of those) but they have divorced and don't particularly get on. Ali's job is for the police, ostensibly in 'cold cases', but in actuality, a scientist in the department has cracked time travel. Ali has been back in time just once, when she and a colleague went to the 1960s to witness a crime to bring back to the present day for relatives to get closure. There's just six people in the department and it's obviously on a need to know basis. 

Finn works for a Tory MP called Isaac Templeton. Ali is disappointed if he believes in Tory politics, which I thought was very funny, but she appreciates that he has a good job and is learning his way in politics, etc. Then Isaac gets in touch with Ali's department and she has to go see him. 

He explains that his great grandfather, Cain Templeton, was a bit of a wrong 'un, that he might have belonged to this group called The Collectors - and rumour has it that to join the group, you had to kill a woman. There are details in his diary of a murder in a house he kept, and Isaac wants to be sure that Cain didn't kill this woman so Ali has to go back in time to see. Cain certainly did collect some weird things, like people's brains and so on, so it seems like he really might have murdered this woman. I liked the similarities here to Jack the Ripper and to other groups like The Collectors. 

Ali is helped in her transformation into a Victorian lady by several people, including the scientist in the department, whose name I've forgotten but I liked her a lot too. The time travel goes well and Ali arrives in the 1860s and goes to Cain Templeton's house. It isn't where he lives - he's posh so he has a manor house in Sussex or something - but he keeps the house for artists he's patronising and other waifs and strays. Ali sees the murdered girl and isn't sure who has murdered her, so does some enquiries. She is supposed to return home at the same time the next day, when the 'portal' will be open again, but when she gets there, it doesn't work. 

She's stuck. She rents a room in Cain's house and starts trying to unravel what has happened there. She poses as a widowed lady and tries to get herself back home. Victorian London is not a fun place to be...

Meanwhile Finn is in legal trouble back in the present day but with his mum 'away' for work he's having trouble too. 

I liked Ali a lot and can't wait to read more about her. I liked Finn too. The set up was just good, and it was a good story for the first in a series. I'm giving it four out of five. 

2 Mysteries by Enid Blyton - Review

The Secret of Moon Castle was one of my favourite Enid Blyton books when I was a kid. I had it in a compendium of three stories, and it was the first story in that book. The book is probably still in my mother's attic, but a few years ago when I wanted to reread it I bought this book, which has two stories in it. I am entirely sure that I've never read the first story in this book, so maybe I just read The Secret of Moon Castle when I bought this several years ago. 

I was looking for something short to read so picked this off the shelf. I decided to read the first story, even though I didn't know the characters. It's cute, I quite liked it. The main character is Nicky and he has a dog called Punch. In the book, it's the first day of the Easter holidays and Nicky is exciting to be rushing around with the dog and his best friend, Ken, who lives next door. 

Then they get the good news that Nicky's Uncle Bob is coming to stay! He is a private detective and Nicky is thrilled, and wants to set up some mysteries for Uncle Bob to unravel, even though he is supposed to be coming to rest and recuperate. Nicky and Ken start flashing lights at night - but then someone flashes back! Nicky and Ken set up a note for Uncle Bob to find, thinking they are clever, but Bob is on to them. But then they end up embroiled in a real mystery, including Ken's sister Penny and her friend Winnie. The boys can't stand them but they end up having to work together. I thought this was a cute mystery. 

The Secret of Moon Castle stars Jack, Peggy, Mike, Nora, and Paul. Peggy, Mike and Nora are biological siblings. Jack is their adopted brother - I can't remember if this is explained in earlier books, as I know I read a couple of them. And Paul is Prince Paul of Baronia, because of course he is. He has his manservant, Ranni, with him. There is some racism in how these two characters are portrayed, which did make me roll my eyes. 

Anyway Paul's parents, the King and Queen of Baronia, obvs, want to come and stay in England and rent a castle. Of course. So the childrens' mother, Mrs Arnold, requests the particulars for castles, and starts looking through them. The children pick up one of the ones she's discared, about Moon Castle. They don't understand why she has discarded it so ask her; she thinks it is far away from anything. But they decide to go visit anyway and set off on a two hundred mile round trip in Ranni's huge car. Of course. 

When they stop for lunch they mention to the castle to the waitress, who says that strange things happen there, that the place is haunted. The children and Mrs Arnold ignore her and go anyway. They meet a hostile welcome, though. The caretakers are Mrs Brimming and her sisters, and they do not want to show everyone around the castle. They keep saying that Mrs Brimming's son, Guy, who is a scientist, will be fuming that they let the visitors in. Mrs Arnold insists on it, though. 

She decides the castle will be fine for Paul's family so rents it, but before the Baronians can come over, two of Paul's brothers get the measles or something, so their visit in postponed. No matter, the children can go visit instead, supervised by their nanny? type of woman, Miss Dimity (who they called Dimmy). They go, assured that Guy has cleared out of the Tower, which they are desperate to visit. 

But as the children settle in, strange things do start to happen! Stringed instruments start to play themselves, and vases jump off shelves! The children start to investigate and visit the nearby ruined village of Moon. 

I still loved this mystery, it's really cute and kept my interest. In all I'm giving both books four out of five. Nostalgia reasons, I'm sure, but I liked my reread. 

 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - Review

Demon Copperhead was the February choice for my book club, and I started listening to it way back in January. I had finished Cuddy in good time before our meeting, so I decided to start this. It is LONG, it's like 23 hours of audiobook time. So I was getting a good start, I thought!

But then, it's just SO depressing. I didn't realise that it's meant to be a modern retelling of David Copperfield, set in the 90s in the opiate addiction crisis in the south of the USA. Maybe if I had known that to begin with I would know what I was getting into, but I didn't, so. Not that I am particularly familiar with the plot of David Copperfield, but I do know it's depressing, so that might have helped. 

Demon is the protagonist of the novel and it's all told from his point of view. His real name is Damon, but most kids call him Demon. He lives with his mom in a trailer on land belonging to the Peggots. She is a teen mother and an addict. Demon gets close to the Peggots' grandson, Matt, whose mom is in prison. He is better known as Maggot and he becomes a goth teenager which was quite funny. 

Demon's dad died before he was born, and there's little other family around. Life is hard. Then his mother takes up with a guy called Stoner who is incredibly abusive towards Demon. His mom overdoses and goes to rehab and Demon enters foster care for the first time. He is with an old farmer nicknamed Creaky, who has four boys in his care and who is abusive towards each of them. The eldest one, Fast Forward, is popular and the others dote on him. He introduces them to drugs. 

Demon's mother overdoses again and dies, and Stoner takes off so Demon ends up in foster care with a family only in it for the money. He is forced to sleep in the dog room and is starved by the family. He works for a man called Ghali and manages to save up some money. Just before his foster family move a way away, Demon takes off, determined to hitchhike to Tennessee to find his dad's mother. He considers Knoxville, where Maggot's aunt and cousin live, but ends up in Tennessee. He finds his grandma and spends a few happy weeks with her and her disabled brother, but ultimately they can't keep him. But they find better foster care for him, in the shape of Coach and his daughter Angus, who are vaguely family. 

Demon is good at football and Coach starts to whip him in to shape as a star player. As he moves into high school he is quite popular because he plays for the team, and he meets a girl called Dori. He injures his knee playing football and thus begins an addiction to opioids himself. I know that he ends up with Dori for a while, but unfortunately I don't know the end of the book because I had to give up on it. It is SO depressing. I liked Demon a lot and felt for him, but everything just kept going wrong and even when it went mostly right - like when he's living with Coach and Angus - he sabotages it and then life shits on him some more. I just couldn't listen to more than just over half. I'm counting it though because I listened to over half of it, so there. Three out of five. 

 

The Chemist by A A Dhand - Review

I bought this book at the crime book festival that I went to at the end of January. A A Dhand was there, and I didn't realise he was the author of the TV series Virdee, which is set in Bradford and which I watched a few episodes of. He was talking about this, his new book, and I liked the sound of it so I bought it and got him to sign it for me. He is a really lovely person, but I didn't enjoy the book that much.

It's about a pharmacist, Idris, who has a pharmacy in Headingley in Leeds. He is married to Maryam, a GP, but he has an ex wife, Rebecca, who he is still in touch with and who he's still fond of. He deals a lot with methadone users - who come to the pharmacy daily to take their methadone under supervision - and he has a lot to do with the local sex workers of Beeston. Rebecca does too as part of her job, so when a sex worker called Amy calls on her, Rebecca goes to help. 

Amy's punter was a man called Patrick, who is part of a big crime family, and he's just got out of prison. He tries to pull a fast one on Amy, she calls Rebecca, and Rebecca kills him. Then she phones Idris for help. He does indeed try to cover it up, with the help of a local called Al, a Syrian refugee, who is a drug runner inside a notorious load of high rise flats called The Moorings. Idris has been blackmailed into providing drugs for the estate, because his money is in short supply and he is scared of the kingpins there. 

It's a very complicated and convoluted plot and it was just so confusing for me. Then there's a few people whose names are really similar - for example two men called Daniel and Damon - which made it hard to keep them straight in my head. Every time I thought the plot surely had to be over now, something else would pop up and someone else would come along and threaten Idris and he would have to make even stupider decisions. 

I did like Idris and I liked Rebecca as well. I couldn't tell you if I liked Maryam (I'm not even certain on the spelling of her name) because she's in it for like two scenes. I understand that this book is the first part of a series and I would like to read more for Idris, but I am just not putting myself through it again. It's way too complicated for me. 

Two out of five. 

Winter by Val McDermid - Review

I got this book with one of my Waterstones vouchers, I bought it not long after Christmas in my haul then, and I knew I wanted to read it before this winter was over. I kept meaning to pick it up and finally got round to it at the beginning of March. I don't know about you, but winter returned with a vengeance at the beginning of March - we had sleet, hail, and tons of wind! So it was perfect to read this book then. 

This is only a short book and apparently it's one of a series on each of the seasons, by different authors. I would really like to read the other ones so maybe I'll seek them out. My review won't be very long because it really is a short book, but I really enjoyed it, and recommend it. 

Apparently Val settles down each winter to write a new novel, so it's a time of creativity for her, a time to hunker down and work. I really liked knowing that about her writing structure, it was interesting as I've read a lot of her novels. She also writes a lot about her Scottish childhood and the brutality and beauty of a Scottish winter. I found her writing really evocative of the time and space and learnt a lot about Scotland in the 1950s and 60s. Did you know for example that the puritanical church didn't celebrate Christmas so it wasn't a bank holiday in Scotland until the mid 1960s, which explains why they celebrated New Year/Hogmanay so much more! So interesting. 

I lent the book to my friend Morag, who I go to craft club with, and who is only a couple of years old than Val. She is Scottish herself - obviously, with a name like Morag - and I thought she would find it really interesting and evocative of her own childhood too. 

I'm giving it five out of five and will definitely read it again!