Most of the time, my husband despairs at the books overflowing on the shelves and littering the coffee table, dining table, and many other surfaces in the house. He sighs when I struggle to walk past a book shop while we are out and about, and shakes his head if I don’t leave empty handed. So it was to my great surprise that, while doing the weekly shop, he had ventured down the middle aisle and spotted a novel for me and bought it! The Soulmate Equation by writing duo Christina Lauren, was what he chose. And he made a good choice. It was the perfect antidote to busy days. Set in San Diego, Jess Davis is a single mum and busy financial consultant who works out of a local cafe with her writer freind. Jess has little time for romance. She’s not really looking, but when would she have the time? Until a chance encounter with a cafe regular, Dr River Pena, leads her to her soulmate. Dr River is developing a new way of dating. He has devised a genetically-based algorithm which suggest that your soulmate can be found my matching DNA. Offering Jess and her friend a free trial, Jess’s DNA sample matches her with a higher compatibility score than the company has ever seen before. But does the science stand up? There was enough differentiation in this classic romance to keep it interesting. This would be a great beach read.

Having had a fun time in romance-land, I decided to stick with the genre for my next read, as well because I was still in need of some light distraction after some longer working hours.The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary was next to jump off my shelf. I’d picked up a second-hand copy after hearing the author interviewed on the Best Book Forward podcast, where authors are asked about their top five books, Desert Island Discs-style. They also discussed the author’s own books and I liked the sound of this one. And I really enjoyed it. Tiffy needs a place to live, cheap and fast. Leon works the night shift at a hospice and sleeps during the day and could use some extra cash to help a family predicament. One bed, two flatmates. And in principle the two would never meet. But post-it notes and kind gestures of making extra food for the other are all it takes to light a spark. I will look out for more of Beth O’Leary’s books and hope that each is as charming as this one was. Five stars for the charm factor.

When not thinking of books, I’m usually thinking about food or places to visit (often Italy) and after watching a gorgeous cooking/travel show by Sophie Grigson, documenting her move to Puglia, I had to buy her book A Curious Absence of Chickens. Part memoir, part recipe book, this transplanted me to southern Italy. I would love to spend an extended stay in Puglia and there was lots of inspiration in this to keep me going until I can make that happen. And this week, I learned that Sophie has another book coming out with more tales from Puglia so that’s already going on my TBR. If you know of anyone with a dog-friendly bolthole to rent for a month or two in Puglia, give me a shout!

Watch out for my upcoming review of Elizabeth Strout’s latest book. To catch up a little, I started at the beginning with My Name is Lucy Barton, a spare story of daughter and mother. Lucy has had an operation but there were complications and her stay in a New York hospital extends to several weeks. While her husband cares for their two young daughters, he calls upon Lucy’s mother to come and visit. Lucy’s mother has never visited Lucy in all the years she has lived in the city and ventures from her home in Amgash, in the Mid-West, braving a flight and a cab ride from the airport. As her mother sits in vigil in Lucy’s room, the two have their first, strained, conversation in years. The wonder of this book is how much is communicated in the unsaid. Although a short book (barely 200 pages) and mostly set within the confines of the hospital room, the story covers a number of relationships, childhood and trauma, the institution of marriage, as well as the exploration of self through writing. When a book leaves you thinking about it long after you have put it down, you know it has substance. This is one such book. Five stars from me.

Less thought-provoking but nonetheless memorable have been the books in The Thursday Murder Club series. Richard Osman’s fourth instalment was a Christmas gift last year and I have waited patiently to read it until I could also borrow it from the e-library. Why read it on screen when I have the paper copy? So that I can read it wherever I am night or day. When my hold came in, I was delighted to be able to get started. I read most of it through the paper book, hard back and heavy though it was. I would say I enjoyed it a little less than the preceding three. The characters are settled and there are few surprises, but there was more emotion and pathos in this one. The story begins with the murder of a friend of the TMC, and the unlikely mix of heroin distribution and antique dealing feature. There remained enough humour and intrigue to pull me through but I wonder where next with this series. Osman must have thought the same when he finished it as he is taking a break to introduce a new series with a father-in-law/daughter-in-law detective agency called We Solve Murders. I’m sure I will be putting that one on my Christmas list this year.

April also saw me attend my first in-person book club in about 10 years. Since my early 20s, conversations through books has been a gateway to finding my tribe. When I moved to Amsterdam nearly 20 years ago, a friend already living there instructed me to pick up two copies of the next book at the airport and took me along to her group. I made a close group of bookish and less bookish friends from that original group of six, so close that once the group broke up, I travelled to Chicago and Sydney to visit them. I didn’t quite get the same vibe from my new local group but there are still people to meet so perhaps I should give it another go. Until next month, book friends.

I’m having to use my GoodReads tracker to recall what I read in March. I’m going to tell you first about my favourite reads from last month. First up, The Covenant of Water by Abraham Vergehese was my third subscription book from Mr B’s Emporium and it did not disappoint. A weaving tale with the running thread of water and how it connects and destroys a family. Set in Kerala from the start of the 20^th century and spanning some 80 years or so, this book, though peppered with tragedy, is so full of love and heart. As I read, it always felt like there was hope in the gloom, and the backwaters of Kerala in those days were not immune to gloom. For me the characters at the centre of the story were whole and came off the page. The setting too was so strong and well-depicted that I was transposed into the story. It’s over 700 pages of beautiful story telling, so quite an investment of time, but it was a 5* from me.

I had a further trawl of my unread kindle books. Heather Morris’ book, Cilke’s Journey, is the second of her trilogy on shattered lives from World War II. Cilke is known to Laszlo, the Tattooist of Auschwitz, and when Morris was conducting her research, heard of Cilke and dug further into her story. As her concentration camp was liberated by the Soviets as the war was in its final days, Cilke is debriefed by Soviet intelligence and found to have been a Nazi collaborator while inside the prison. Her crime: being 16, attractive and an ideal target for the unwanted attentions of the camp commandant. She was kept apart from the other prisoners, in a place where the officer could more easily make his use of her, which happened to be in the holding cabin for those shortly to be sent to the death in the gas chambers. Though Cilke did her best to give those prisoners dignity in their last days, the Soviets took this to be assisting the enemy, and sentenced her to 15 years hard labour in a gulag in Siberia. Cilke’s Journey takes us to the harsh wilds of her camp and her struggle each day to keep her life and her dignity, without giving up her integrity. Cilke is a survivor but is very nearly broken by her second unjust imprisonment at the hands of tyrannical regimes. The book is based on a true story, but fictionalised to fill in the gaps and imagine the experience that Cilke must have lived. Another excellent and compelling 5* read.

Also in the kindle trawl, I found Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I had no idea what to expect from this children’s book of his. It was quite a creepy, chilling story. Coraline lives in the middle floor flat of an old house in London with her dull parents. On the lookout for adventure, Coraline investigates what’s behind the mysterious door in the lounge behind which is a brick wall. Only this time she opens it, the wall is gone and a dark corridor beckons. At the other end of the corridor, a flat just like hers but in a very different world. Her parents look the same but there’s something quite odd about them. For starters, they don’t have eyes, instead black buttons fill the hollows. And they seem much more keen on spending time with her, begging her to stay. Coraline has to find her way back to her own world, but she also has to find her real parents. I enjoyed this but I did wonder how kids get on with it. It would have left me afraid of my own shadow as a child. But I asked my niece (11, not an avid reader but I keep encouraging) and she had read it and thought it was a bit spooky but she seemed non-plussed. So it’s just me that’s a scaredy-cat. A 4* from me.

After listening to a couple of books on Audible last month, I continued the trend reading another from my dusty library. Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown was recommended to me when I was trying to figure out some emotional stuff. The idea behind the book is that we are pretty bad at identifying the crux of what we are feeling beyond happy, sad, angry etc. This book runs through all of the possible feelings you might ever feel, whether positive, negative or neutral, so that by naming that emotion, you can respond to it in the way that is most helpful for you. It was quite an eye opener, also in how I thought I understood the descriptors, but didn’t really have it nailed. I’m in a good place at the moment (except that I’m a little irritated by my dog who has been whining for her supper for the last hour, an hour too early) but I hope that next time I am experiencing difficult times, I can better grasp exactly what it is I am experiencing and feeling to better understand and get me back on track.

My Audible library is also home to another Brene Brown book, Dare to Lead. This one expands on her ideas about having courageous conversations (“rumbles” to coin her phrase) but this time in an organisational context. I’ve spent the last 6 months outside of an organisation, so it would probably have been better having read this book some years ago, but it nonetheless covered some good learnings. Be honest and clear when giving feedback, and don’t shy away from saying what needs to be said. But make the other person heard, watch for their response and give space when something is better digested before dissecting further. The same applies when you are on the receiving end. If you need time to process something, ask for space, reflect, avoid the immediate urge to defend, explore if you are telling yourself the real story or if there could be another way of looking at something, don’t hide your vulnerabilities from others. These are probably not so different from those around you.

March was quite the self-help audio book month. Last on the Audible list was Why Did Nobody Tell Me This Before by Julie Smith. Smith is a psychologist with a strong social media presence. She had made a bunch of bitesize videos about dealing with difficult moments. Eventually, she turned these into a book. I also have the hardback, which a kind friend sent my way and it was good to have the paper reference alongside the audio book. Practical tips and solid insight. Smith herself recommends not waiting until the low times before reading the book, so that you can already have the knowledge to put up a ladder for yourself and climb out.

Back to the fiction, and the second subscription book from Mr B’s Emporium. It was delivered in February but I was already invested in Demon Copperhead so couldn’t make a start on another 500+ page book until that was done. This is at heart a spy book, but Max Archer is just an associate professor of history, studying intelligence and spymasters of the cold war. A mysterious invitation to meet with a former MI-5 officer, the legend Scarlett King, draws Max into the murky world and he finds himself having to master espionage tricks fast. I have not read too many spy thrillers, so for me this was an interesting education in the Cambridge Five as well as key Soviet defectors and double agents who are referenced in the book (yes, I had to Google them to see if they were real). And the story had enough pull to easily bring me through those 500 pages. 4* from me.

At the bottom of the rankings for the month was a bit of a disappointing book from Ann Patchett. I was spurred to read this by one of my book clubs reading Bel Canto, which I thoroughly enjoyed years ago. Not being much of a re-reader, this was the perfect opportunity to read Commonwealth, recently sent my way by my sister. A story of a blended family of two families brought together by divorce and remarriage, and told from the point of view of different parents and siblings. It’s about the said but also the unsaid, the secrets, the alliances. For me, this just lacked narrative drive but it was clearly well written which carried me to its end. 3* from me.

And that wraps up March. It won’t be long before I’m debriefing on Apri but that is looking like a short update. Where has all my reading time disappeared to?

Echoing the story of David Copperfield, Kingsolver wove in the ups and downs (more of the latter) of Dickens’ David to the sad and sorry tale of Demon. Born to a mother already addicted to pills and booze, his childhood was doomed from the outset to be a struggle. Demon faced his lot with realism, learning fast that if he needed help, then he’d better look within himself than expect or rely on the kindness or duty of others, be they the good-hearted Peggotts next door or the overworked social workers assigned to his case. The rotten luck and bad treatment that Demon encounters seems to be endless but Kingsolver’s’ ability to capture the voice of a disenchanted, world weary 11 year old who still retains a kernel of pluck and spirit keeps you in the story’s thrall. Come to this book with fortitude, as you will need it as you join Demon’s journey.

To provide lighter relief from the dark days of Demon’s life, I took refuge in a string of other books. The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of a Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson was the perfect foil. I can’t even recall how long this book has been sitting patiently on my Kindle bookshelf. I have a vague recollection of buying it when it was one of the 99p specials after a good friend recommended it. It’s Allan Karlsson’s 100^th birthday and he really doesn’t want all the fuss of the party the nursing home has planned for him, so he opens his ground floor window, steps gingerly out into the flower bed and hot foots it away as fast as his slippers and 100 year old body can carry him. As Allan makes his escape, the time-shift story flicks back to his youth and through his life. Although school wasn’t his forte, he learned early on how to use explosives and became quite an expert at blowing things up. And so his adventures begin. Chance decisions bring him into the path of some of the most memorable figures of 20^th century history like a centenarian Forrest Gump. You can’t help but be pulled in by Jonasson’s epic caper. It reads a bit like a fireside yarn spun by your favourite Grandpa, happenstance and incredulity dripping off the page. If you haven’t read this yet, get hold of a copy and enjoy. This was my first 5 star book of the year (before I turned the last page of Demon).

Keeping it light, I borrowed from my niece the second in the All Four Stars series about Gladys Gatsby, 12 year old restaurant critic for the New York Standard newspaper. In the second instalment, The Summer of Stars, Gladys has to try to keep up with her secret side hustle while attending summer camp. That would be difficult enough, but when her fellow critic tries to steal her assignments and sabotage her reviews by giving her a fake assignment to find New York’s best hotdog, Gladys has her work cut out. Tara Dairman makes this KidLit book as entertaining for its target audience as well as their aunts. This one was just what I needed. And needless to say I wanted a hotdog myself by the time I’d finished this one.

In early February, a long road trip with my sister was the perfect opportunity to use one of my Audible credits and buy a recent release to listen together on the journey home. Piglet by Lottie Hazell had come up in my Bookstagram feed a few days earlier and the donuts on the cover sold it for me. Piglet (the nickname of our female MC) is soon to marry Kit and is in the throes of last minute wedmin while juggling her day job as a cook book editor. Each scene plays out with food at the centre, whether around the dining table, a test kitchen or restaurant, it’s a series of meals rather than chapters. Though this sounds like it should very much be my cup of tea (with a biscuit please), it just didn’t hit the spot. Just 3 stars for this debut.

Back to the dusty to be read shelf at home and I sought out a long-term resident. One for my Baby by Tony Parsons had resided on my shelf since I lived in London the first time around, a Tesco bargain with discount sticker still on the cover (£3.84 in those days was a steal). Time to come on down and have its day. Opening in Hong Kong (a place where I spent 6 months in my early 20s as a junior lawyer) I was immediately drawn in to the scene on the Star Ferry, remembering numerous trips back and forth in Hong Kong’s harbour. Alfie Budd bumps into his perfect woman, the One for him, who will become his wife. But their life together is short-lived as his wife dies barely two years into their marriage and Alfie returns to London to pick up the pieces of his life. He’s a bit of a grumpy chap, Alfie, bumbling along back in his parents’ house. As Alfie mourns his lost future with his wife, his own father throws decades of marriage away by leaving his mother and shacking up with his mistress. The story follows Alfie’s string of ill-advised couplings with his students at the foreign language school where he has found a job. I spent much of the book wishing that he would open his eyes to what was right under his nose. And wishing I was at the end of the book already. This wasn’t one of those rare gems lurking on the shelf. This was one of those that I should have abandoned and ditched. You win some, you lose some.

Rounding of the month, I had been spending time at the gym listening to another audiobook, Atomic Habits by James Clear. Funnily enough it was particularly helpful at cementing in place my new habit of going to the gym or doing some other activity before 9am. Clear breaks down the thinking behind how it’s the actions, the habits, which are more important than the goals themselves. And further, that to become long lasting the habit you wish to foster should become part of your self-identity. It was an interesting listen, but the kind of thing I will probably have to listen to twice for it to fully sink in. There’s one habit I already have well and truly nailed: reading books wherever, whenever, and however.

I started the month by finally finishing the last pages of A Suitable Boy, a doorstop of a book which had such a woven cast of characters, I felt I lived the year with them. At over 1300 pages, it felt like an achievement to have even finished it. Next stop War and Peace!

Early in January, I saw a post from a fellow book blogger, Bestbookforward, that she was hosting an online book club and the chosen book of the month happened to be one of the many books on my to-be-read shelf. A couple of Christmases back, my sister bought me Old Baggage by Lissa Evans. I’d made a start once before but wasn’t ready to read it then, and I’d never picked it up again. This was the perfect opportunity. Bestbookforward played a blinder and managed to get the author to join the book club call, which was a great opportunity to hear more about the book came to life. The middle book of a three story trilogy, Old Baggage also works as a standalone story of a former suffragette in her middle aged years figuring out how to keep fighting for equality and find her place in a changing world. Her character really comes off the page, strong, forthright, sometimes a little oblivious of her own impact and the book is a gem. I’d be interested to read the other books in the series to see where some of the other characters develop.

Next on my list was the first book sent to me from my Mr B’s book emporium subscription. Finding Hildasay follows the real life journey of Christian Lewis who has been struggling with civilian life after being in the army and who finds himself with no home other than his tent. He starts to walk the entire coast of the United Kingdom, following the water’s edge as much as possible. It takes a couple of years to wend his way around the Welsh coast to the west of Scotland, across to Northern Ireland and back. Each inhabited island and sea loch, no shortcuts. The weather is brutal and his reliance on the generosity of strangers to help keep him fed make each day challenging. The book finishes part way around the coast, paving the way for another book to complete the coast. I enjoyed reading about this incredible feat but occasionally found the way the book was put together disjointed, particularly Christian’s back story and relationship with his daughter which gives context to how he ends up on his coastal odyssey.

A couple of months ago I was drawn to a book title and cover while mooching in Waterstones. Bob Mortimer, the British comedian, has written The Satsuma Complex. It’s a rambling, farcical caper of a boring, invisible man who finds himself caught in the middle of gangsters and a murder. With the help of his tech wiz geriatric neighbour, he tries to keep himself out of hot water and find out who killed his work acquaintance. It’s filled withthe bizarre quirkiness of Mortimer’s comedy and moves along with a well-paced plot.

I’ve made a start of Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, the modern retelling of Dicken’s David Copperhead. It’s as good as you would expect if you have read any of her other stuff. But boy is it bleak. I’d seen other book bloggers saying they had to read it in chunks because if was so heavy. Now I get it! Unfortunately, making a start on the book also coincided with me coming down with a chest infection which laid me low for close to two weeks. I really struggled with the tragic story and so have read some other lighter bits in parallel.

First of these diversions was an art crime thriller by Jeffrey Archer. This book had found its way on to my shelf via my parents’ book shelf. It’s perhaps one of the last books that my dad read before he died. He always had a book on the go, his favourites genres being Westerns, crime and thrillers. False Impression tells the tale of a New York art historian working for a finance company. After valuing the art collection which makes up the collateral of one of the company’s borrowers, she finds herself mysteriously fired on the morning of 9/11. As she’s being unceremoniously escorted from the office, a booming explosion rocks the building. She’s in the north tower. Barely escaping with her life, she has an opportunity to disappear to try to get to the bottom of her former employer’s questionable lending practises. The book was light, pacy and intriguing enough to get me through a couple of bad days of flu.

Looking for something suitably light, and needing an e-book to read in the night when my cough would keep me awake, I scoured my kindle library for something that would be a hug in a book. The Library by Bella Osborne fitted the bill and didn’t disappoint. A young boy with a secret love of romance novels reacquaints himself with his village library. While there he makes an unlikely friend in the shape of an elderly book club member who he tries to help when he spots her being mugged. Each filling an unspoken need of the other, they join forces to help save the library from pending closure. The story is similar to The Last Chance Library which I read last year but this one was better written, with some lovely characters.

Back to my paper TBR, I was scanning my shelves last week and fixed on a hard back book called Cooking Lessons by Daisy Garnett. This was a long time resident of the TBR shelf after I had acquired the book based on a magazine recommendation/plug but then never got around to reading it. It was Daisy’s story of how she came to be a keen cook after a childhood where her family were looked after by a housekeeper and cooking was rarely necessary. That was until she was on board a small yacht crossing the Atlantic and was volunteered to be the cook. Learning to cook in a listing galley was a baptism of fire (or it would be if she could get the gas to light). Having the privilege of being acquainted with Rose Gray of the River Cafe and other talented chef friends, Daisy rapidly develops skills to create classic dishes.

I’m still only a third of the way through Demon Copperhead. I hope it doesn’t take me as long to digest as A Suitable Boy, it is after all only half as thick. But I have to take abject misery in small doses. Maybe next month I can report on having completed it.

This month I finally finished a book that I’d borrowed from Libby the e-library. Lost Property by Helen Paris was a charming tale of a woman working in the Transport for London lost property office. Among the numerous umbrellas, single gloves, and more obscure items was one rather lost woman, herself needing to be found. I enjoyed it but it lacked a bit of pace. Almost running out of steam, I persevered and was rewarded with a good second half.

I then did a bit of Netgalley shelf decluttering by reading the last two books that I had been given access to in exchange for an honest review. The first of these was a detective novel, the second in the series by Kate Webb and you can see my review here. If you are a crime fiction fan this series might be worth investigating.

The last book on my Netgalley shelf was Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa. I was given access to the audiobook by Netgalley but I wasn’t in a place to listen. Handily, the book became available from the Libby e-library so I read it instead. It is only a short book and its writing is spare but emotive. I zipped through it in a busy weekend and took every possible moment to dip in and read it. The story is about Takako who suffers a nasty break up which leaves her at rock bottom. Her uncle, the owner of the Morisaki Bookshop, helps Takako get back on her feet by letting her stay in the rooms above the shop in exchange for helping in the store. Takako goes along with the arrangement, but she has no interest in the dusty books and spends most of her free time sleeping to escape her own reality. But the lure of the stories and adventures between the covers eventually draw her in and bring her out of her funk. This isn’t a new book but it has recently been translated and relaunched.   

Another bit of clutter clearing was finally finishing off a self-help book that I’d started a very long time ago (hmmm, I feel like there is some sort of deeper meaning here that I didn’t get the chance to finish it sooner…). The book was Dr Rangan Chatterji’s The Four Pillar Plan, which was an interesting look at how to focus on four key elements of keeping a healthy body and mind: relax, eat, move, sleep. I would say this could be a good one to read in January as the inevitable resolutions to do and be better kick in. The book was packed with short and simple changes to implement that could have big impacts. My favourite was one of the relax tip: me-time everyday, which of course I devote to reading!

For the last week and a half or so, I have been more fervent in ploughing my way through A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. At the start of last year, I decided that I would finally read the might tome. At over 1200 pages, I figured by reading just 100 pages a month I could tackle it in the year. But after a solid start, I fizzled out after just 200+ pages read. This is a very detailed saga about four interlinked Indian families in the early 1950s. The still bubbling political turmoil post-Partition weaves through the daily lives of shoemakers, lawyers, traders and politicians and their children. The main thread of the book is the quest to find Lata Mehra a suitable boy to marry. She has her own ideas but social hierarchy, religion and a meddling mother make it a confusing journey for Lata. I have three more days to be one year late with reading this. With just over 200 pages left to go it remains to be seen whether a suitable boy can be found.

It hasn’t been all clutter clearing this month. After meeting up with a friend for a catch up and book exchange last month, I was able to dive into one of this year’s most talked about novels, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. This one was on my list of 2024 reads but I couldn’t wait once I was in possession of my loan copy. A story of two friends, Sam and Sadie, who find each other through playing computer games and, years later, who come together again and create their own hit game. The story is accessible to gamers and non-gamers alike. I’d put myself in the latter category but after reading this I had a strong desire to play the game that Sam and Sadie create.

What will be my first book of 2024? I have a couple on my shelf which are jumping out to be read but another friend recommended to me Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, so I think think this will get the honour. Conveniently I also have an electronic copy on loan from Libby, so I will be able to read this is paper during the day and on my Kindle in the darkness.

Here’s to a happy new book year and may 2024 bring you a box of reading delights!

On a hot summer’s day, Lockyer and his colleague DC Gemma Broad are on the scene where the body of Lee Geary has been discovered. He was an acquaintance of Holly Gilbert. In the weeks following Holly’s death, Lee and two other suspects were questioned in connection with her death. As Lockyer and Broad start their investigation, each of those three suspects have since died or disappeared. Lockyer doubts that the four deaths of these connected persons in the space of a decade can have been a coincidence, but proving otherwise was going to take a lot of hard work and patience.

Having read the first DI Lockyer mystery, I was interested to read more about the main detective, who carries the burden of his own brother’s unsolved murder with him. Lockyer is one of the good guys but he doesn’t always follow procedure when justice would not (in his view) be best served. This has landed him in hot water before, almost costing him his career, but he doesn’t seem to have fully learned his lesson, and this book also sees him making a few unorthodox moves when he discovers a mystery closer to home, in his own home in fact.

The book is a slow burn but once the story catches it rips along to a conclusion, tying up all the threads, not without a few twists along the way.  In this second book, we get better acquainted with Lockyer and Broad and how they work together. I’m sure this will continue to be a good series as there is more for each of these characters to reveal.

Laying Out The Bones will be published on 18 January 2024. I read an advance reader copy from Netgalley, courtesy of Quercus. I give this book 4 stars.

Reading is to me, another way of exploring. I don’t have any authors or genres that I stick to. Most things are fair game, but I do tend to leave heavy sci-fi, fantasy and horror well alone. What I read is driven by my mood. I can start a good book but not feel ready for it, and I might be drawn to something less mentally taxing, in need of a literary Snickers rather than a carefully handcrafted Belgian truffle (chocolate is one of my other favourite things if you will pardon my analogy).

Among the things I have read over the past few months have been:

• a whole series of murder mysteries where the supersleuth was none other than Her Majesty The Queen;
• an audiobook about the importance of sleep, most of which I read on an overnight flight and the possible irony being that I nodded off through some parts;
• a few different psychological thriller and detective novels from authors new to me, covering themes like gaslighting and coercive control, how to be a serial killer and a good dad at the same time, as well as classic police procedurals;
• two sides of an American marriage, when one spouse has been wrongfully imprisoned;
• letters home and a diary written by an author 40 years apart, giving an insight into the literary high society of north London;
• a two-parter from a popular author that has been peppering Bookstagram and Booktok for the last couple of years (late to that party!);
• two recently released hot hot hot books (Yellowface and Really Good, Actually) that each left me cold cold cold (don’t believe the hype);
• a Pulitzer winning book within a book within book about the great depression of the 1920s;
• two books from a Turkish/British author which each had a mystical element; and
• the sixth instalment of a cosy mystery series set in a bookshop (which is a definite guilty pleasure).

A couple of the books that I read were free ARCs (advanced reader copies) through Netgalley, a website which opens a door into the world of publishing for book enthusiasts.  It’s quite a privilege to be able to read new stuff before it has been released and to play a (very small) part in that book coming to market. The mistake I have made each time I’ve dabbled with Netgalley is being a bit too enthusiastic when requesting books to read and then being accepted for more than I can comfortably read and review. It’s especially difficult if I haven’t enjoyed the book, as writing a constructive review can be as hard work as trudging through the book itself. This time I was accepted for four books, two of which I’ve now read and reviewed. I am looking forward to the next two, one of which is the next Katherine Webb “Detective Lockyer” mystery called Laying Out The Bones and the other is an audiobook of a translated Japanese book called Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. I always love a book about a bookshop!

As the end of the year approaches, and having overshot my start of the year target of reading 52 books a year, I’m starting to turn my mind to things that I want to read next year. I’ve got some exciting things on my shelf, some of which I have acquired recently from my sister and from charity book shops in my neighbourhood. These include The Whalebone Theatre, which is a recent release and which my sister read for her book club. She thought it was a great read, and my sis has made some excellent recommendations recently. A few weeks ago, I was delighted to find a copy of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, which is a modern retelling of Dickens’ David Copperfield. I haven’t read David Copperfield but I have read a couple of Barbara Kingsolver’s books, which were both excellent. Another good friend has lent to me Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, which has a beautiful front cover with a stylised image of The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Japanese artist Hokusai. She also told me that it was a great read, so I think these three books will make it straight on to my TBR for 2024.

I also have something else to look forward to in 2024. When I left my last job, my lovely colleagues (knowing me so well) bought me a reading subscription from Mr B’s Emporium in Bath. I can expect 11 books over the year (not in January as they say we will be reading our Christmas gifts) hand chosen for me by Mr B’s book therapists. To get a flavour what I like and don’t like, I’ve filled out a questionnaire about my reading tastes and things that I’m open to trying as well as gathering info about my other interests, likes and dislikes. Before the book is shipped, they will send me a teaser about the book. If it sounds unappealing, I can request a different selection. But I’m excited about exploring new and different corners of fiction and non-fiction and seeing where the book subscription will take me.

Debbie Johnson is an author that I have returned to for a guaranteed feelgood read. In her Comfort Food Café series, as you could imagine from the titles, each book treated you a warm hug in book form, and this series Starshine Cove, is heading in the same direction. This is the second book in the series.

Cally’s world has been upended just before Christmas. Her reclusive mum has got herself a life and moved from around the corner in Liverpool all the way up to Scotland with her new beau Kenneth. Disaster strikes at the hairdressers where Cally works when the ceiling caves in.  And her 18-year-old son Sam is going through his own troubles after being dumped. With nowhere better to be for Christmas, Cally impulsively drives south, to the little bay where she remembers having her last happy childhood holiday before her dad died, Starshine Cove.  

Stumbling into the local pub in the middle of a fairy and pirate party, Cally and Sam are welcomed inside and dragged into the festivities, and their holiday in Starshine Cove begins. We meet the cast of characters in the pub. There’s Jake the pub landlord, and Connie the owner of the café, and two adorable little girls and their dad, Archie, a rugged giant.

I give this book 3 stars.  All the ingredients are here in the book but somehow there is something missing from this book. The story makes for a gentle ride on the teacups rather a rollercoaster of drama and adventure. Starshine Cove brings a little bit of magic but for me, this book doesn’t sparkle like the Comfort Food Café ones.

If you are familiar with Nina’s earlier biographical book, Love Nina, a collection of letters from a 20ish year-old Nina to her sister Vic, then you’ll already be mental friends with her. I wasn’t and only read Love Nina after I read her latest book. The two books feel like companion pieces, with a similar cast of characters, many of which are familiar names from the London arts scene.

After separating from her husband, Stibbe decides she needs to return to London and an opportunity falls into her lap to stay as a lodger with writer and screenwriter Deborah Moggach, Debbie to her friends (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel). Stibbe spends the year mostly in London with the occasional trip to Leicestershire to see her sister and mother, back to Cornwall for a Christmas with her family, and in between, various literary festivals and events. We get a glimpse into that world, and the varying quality of hotels that come with such gigs, including mishaps with suitcases, brain fog and getting older.

In London, Stibbe explores her neighbourhood, its swimming pools (indoor and outdoor), walks the dog on the heath and spends a lot of time drinking coffee at Sam’s Café, owned by Sam Frears, one of Nina’s charges when she was a nanny and son on Stephen Frears the film director (Dangerous Liaisons, High Fidelity, The Queen), and where many of the cast of characters pop in and out. You could probably write a sitcom set in Sam’s Café (I’m surprised one of the many writers and film folk that frequent it haven’t already) and I’m keen to make a cameo there myself on a trip up to town, to see who I might spot. Nina and Debbie rub along well in their lodger/landlady relationship, sharing often a Charlie Bigham’s dinner (fish pie is a favourite) and trying to evict in a humane way a mouse that had also taken up residence.

Disappointingly in “Went to London…”, Alan Bennett doesn’t make an appearance as he did in Love Nina (he lived across the road and would often have supper with the family Nina was nannying for). Though Stibbe’s style of the writing is quite like Bennett’s own diaries, with her knack for wry observation and capturing a moment through spare dialogue.

Nina, if you’d like to bring your dog to Kent for a walk, give me a shout. I feel we will have a lot to talk about.

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.“ To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee

Surviving high school is tough. Navigating the politics of the classroom and lunch room is hard enough, and joining a new school part way through even harder. Consider then that you move to a new school when you are homeless and living out of a van with your little sister and mum and dad. Welcome to Abby’s new life.

The book gently unfolds how Abby and her family find themselves in this situation. Abby’s mum was a teacher and had an affair with a colleague, which was discovered and made very public. At the same time that Abby’s mum loses her job for her indiscretion, her father is made redundant when his employer goes bankrupt. Sometimes you can be just a few paychecks from poverty. When that income stream is lost, savings can quickly be eroded. And then things get really bad.

Without family or other support, Abby and her family move north to Minnesota to make a new start there. While the children go to school in the day, the parents look for jobs and hunt out what help they can from the community. For supper they go to the Salvation Army soup kitchen and in the weekend the church hosts a similar lunch, but rather than making them feel needy and helpless, the church lunch makes them feel like guests and offers more support. This for me was an important distinction: when these people have already lost everything, the church lunch helped them to keep or regain their dignity.

Abby has to work hard to keep up the pretence that she has a normal home life (indeed, a home). She meets some new friends who are warm and welcoming, and well-to-do. The contrast between what they have and how they live is stark with Abby’s reality. She struggles with their easily given generosity, but when she sees that it isn’t just directed at her, that they share things with each other, she is gracious in accepting.

But how long can she maintain the pretence? And will her world come crashing down again if anyone finds out?

This book was touching and thought-provoking without becoming schmaltzy. It has the classic theme of trying to endure high school with the elevated emotion and worries of a person struggling with abject poverty.

After reading the book I did some research. Recent statistics in the U.K. state that 80,000 families (including 120,000 children) are homeless in the U.K. They will be housed in temporary accommodation, often a B&B, but without any security as to how long they can stay. Approximately half of these families have working parents, but they can not escape their circumstances because of the high cost of private rents, the freeze in housing benefit and the scarcity of social housing. The book has made me ask myself, how can I do more? A question which I asked myself after reading Becoming by Michelle Obama also. I’m picking up on a theme…

Get Roam by C.H. Armstrong on Amazon, click here