Mini – reviews I: The Ink Black Heart; Lessons; Bournville

I need to get back to writing full reviews, but time is against me at the moment because we're approaching exam season and I seem to be constantly marking. But I have been reading; here are my thoughts on three of the novels I've read in the last few months: The Ink Black Heart - …

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Imagine Living – Deborah Morgan

'Upstairs, I opened the bedroom window, looked into other people's gardens. Their own little bit of land. I imagined myself here in a season that was not winter. Spring, maybe, sitting out in the garden on a chair with a book ... Then I heard the words in my head. They said, don't. Don't let …

Top Ten Reads of 2022

I'm late in posting this properly because of a slightly prolonged hospital stay - all fine, but I've only just managed to get hold of my laptop! So, although I am really so done with 2022, here are the books that really stood out for me last year. Click on the links for my full …

December Insta-Reviews Catch-Up

Due to unforeseen circumstances (dodgy liver - who knew?!), I've only been able to post brief reviews on instagram. But I have put my enforced bedrest to good use, and I have read some cracking books! Here are my (very short) reviews. Turning for Home - Barney Norris. I grabbed this one of my tbr …

Stories for Christmas and the Festive Season – British Library Women Writers

As you might expect from the publishers behind this series, this is such an interesting volume of festive tales – it isn’t full of cloying seasonal goodwill that leaves you, rather like the grogginess you get after Boxing day, feeling a bit heavy. That’s not to say there aren’t stories which warm your heart, remind …

War Among Ladies – Eleanor Scott #BritishLibraryWomenWriters

If there's one word to describe most of the characters' behaviour in this novel, it's 'beastly' - I'm thinking that this word is due to come back into fashion - and even the more sympathetic characters don't always behave well. Set in a girls' school in the late 1920s, the 'war' amongst the teaching staff …

The Red Monarch – Bella Ellis #BronteMysteries

You know when a series has got under your skin when you find yourself waiting for the next installment - so it was with the third in Bella Ellis' marvellous Brontë-Sisters-as-Detectors series. We're further afield in this one with the action centred around the forbidding slums of London, and the sisters' discomfort at leaving their …

Heatwave – Victor Jestin (trans. Sam Taylor)

'I hadn't made many stupid mistakes in my seventeen years of life. This one was difficult to understand.' What is so clever about this slight novel is that Leonard's mistake - witnessing another teenager strangling himself, Leonard panics and buries the body in a sand dune for fear of being implicated in the original event …

The Bullet That Missed – Richard Osman

When you're onto the third in any series, the main characters have perhaps lost some of their ability to surprise you; now, as long as you're in good hands, the joy is meeting them again. And so it is with Osman's return to the gang at Coopers Chase - Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron are …

Keeping Up Appearances by Rose Macaulay and Which Way? by Theodora Benson #BritishLibraryWomenWriters

Today's post is a look at two books I've been desperately trying to get to for some time. It's been a good summer for reading and I've managed to shift clear about half of the TBR pile - and I've finally read these two crackers from the marvellous British Library Women Writers series. I've been …