I should do this more often.
I'm going to just name the books and star them, with a brief note.
December, by ??? (Have lent this book to a friend)*** Very well written, but the story was not resolved to my satisfaction.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. ****Introducing Dirk Gently, so the story is very slow to start, but a good book, the second Dirk Gently book is better.
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson. ****Good story, nice twist at the end, but was missing that certain something, but don't know what.
The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam by Lauren Liebenburg. ****Set in Rhodesia just before it is declared independent, in fact it is at the end of the book. Tells the story of two girls, who's idyllic life is rudely shattered by their elder boy cousin, who has a sadistic streak.
Ye Gods by Tom Holt ****** It's by Tom Holt, need I say more? Jason Derry is a hero of the Jason and the Argonauts style, except he lives in the modern day. I love the fact the only person who can get the better of him is his Mum.
The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley. **** A mystery story with a secondary theme of a romance thrown in for extra measure. A really well written book.
I haven't finished reading anything on my Kindle for a while, the physical books have been taking my attention.
Another one of Tom Holt's omnibus's...or should that be ominbae?
This one has Overtime and Grailblazers in it, [omnibus number n4]
Two crazy tales of knights in in modern times, but not....if you have read any of Tom Holt's work you will realise that he likes to play around with the idea of "time"
As usual the history side of the book is well researched, and Holt seems to relish putting people in situations "out of their time".
In Overtime a WWII pilot is persuaded to help John de Nesle in his quest, namely to find Richard Coeur de Lion, the mayhem a regular reader is used to ensues.
In Grailblazers a knight who has been "asleep" for 1500 years is awoken in order to gather up the remaining grail knights in order to find the Holy Grail. The knights have given up their quest in favour of pizza delivery and insurance sales, to name two of their new occupations.
Whenever I read one of Holt's books I am always appreciative of how much research has gone into the fine details.
Since I last posted I have read four real, by that I mean physical books, and two ....sorry....three more on Kindle.
The books I have read on my Kindle are
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens, Expecting someone taller by Tom Holt and A dog's tale by Mark Twain. These three have been kept within my parameters I said I would try to stick to when getting books on Kindle.
- These are, classic books, as they are relatively cheap, or even free.
- Books that are too huge to hold comfortably
- and books that I would really like to read, but have difficulty finding as they are not currently "in print", yes....you can find second hand copies, but they sometimes leave me feeling cold when I handle them, don't know why the just do.
The Shakespeare Secret by J.L.Carrell, Theft by Peter Carey, The first hour I believed by Wally Lamb and Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks.
The Shakespeare Secret was a thriller/mystery based around The Globe Theatre, places of importance in Shakespeare's life and literary institutions, (mostly in USA.) It twisted and turned a fair bit and kept me interested right up to the end.
Theft is about love/fraud in the art world, betrayal and family loyalty. Peter Carey is not an author you can second guess. A really good read.
The First Hour I believed is a touching story of how one man deals with the consequences that occur after his wife is caught up in the Columbine high school massacre. (The book is fiction, but bases some of the story in "real" facts, Caelum, the main character also finds out more about his forebears during the mammoth story, over 620 pages long in a smallish typeface. Saying that like his previous book I have read, [I know this much is true] a very good engrossing read.
Birdsong is again about someone looking for their forebears, but it is also a love story based around the first world war. If you watched the BBC dramatisation of this that was recently on TV you would only recognise part of the book, as the dramatisation centred on the love story and ignored the part about the young woman looking for "lost" relatives from the first world war. The book was great, the BBC dramatisation , a little disappointing, for me, as it missed out some of the story.
I was given this for Xmas.
In short it explores a "What if?"
Very readable, and you can hear Fry's voice in the writing.
Nicci French is actually a writing partnership of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. I was given this book sometime back, and I just hadn't got around to reading it before. It's a good job I chose the Yuletide period to read it, as once I picked it up...I was very reluctant to put it down. The book is very fast paced, the whole story taking place within one day, but you naturally put a book down at the end of a chapter, which this book does not have.
Giving you the bumf from the jacket does not do this novel justice.
To sum up, it is Nina's 40th birthday, she and her two children and her new partner are due to fly to Florida for Xmas. However, Nina's car develops a rattle, so she gets a friend to have a quick look at it, as she returns home she is faced , whilst trying to pack for a holiday, an impromptu surprise birthday party. Her daughter who has planned the party has not returned home from her sleepover although excited about the holiday. Nina becomes increasingly worried and reports her daughter missing, but they do not take it seriously at first.
The whole situation rapidly escalates for Nina, whilst the police treat it as just another teenager having a strop at their parents.
The novel is very well written and the suspense builds and builds. You find yourself having sympathy for Nina who is sure that Charlie, her daughter is in some sort of danger.
A brilliant fast paced book, but unless you have time to spare, you might find yourself missing appointments as you read, "just one more page"
This is the second of Kate Mosse's books set in the south of France, apparently a trilogy, but other than location I couldn't see the link between this and Labyrinth. (The third book is due for publication in 2012.) It is however about two sets of characters who turn out to be linked through shared family, although the main modern day character does not know this at the outset.It has mystery, suspense and murder that are all neatly tied up at the end of the novel.
I picked this up thinking it was a novel. Upon reading it I found it was in fact an account of a "village" cricket team who play cricket around the globe. I have never heard of them, but I think a cricket lover will have done.
The story is written by Harry, the captain of the team, he relates the "highlights" of the Captain Scott XIs 20-odd year history. It all starting off with him and some friends wanting to play cricket, because they never had, and then being told they couldn't join in if they had never played. Not to be defeated by this, the group of true amateurs set up their own team, and arrange their own matches, usually getting soundly thrashed, but still enjoying themselves.
I liked the book, I think someone who understood cricket would like it more.