With each successive year I seem to be slipping further and further from my goal of reading a book a week. That goal was almost in sight when I read fifty books in 2017 but the following year I dropped back to forty books and this year is even worse with only thirty-seven books read. … Continue reading A Year of Reading – 2019
Book reviews
My Reading – November 2019
The Confession by Jessie BurtonThat Saturday - an early winter's afternoon on Hampstead Heath - Elise had actually been waiting for someone else. The Rúin by Dervla McTiernan Cormac leaned forward to peer through the windscreen, then nearly cracked his head on the steering wheel as the car bounced through another pothole. Shite. Lanny by … Continue reading My Reading – November 2019
Book Review – Murder at Westminster Abbey by Amanda Carmack
Londoners are crowding into the streets, celebrating, watching the river procession as Elizabeth Tudor makes her way by barge to the Tower of London in preparation for her coronation. Meanwhile, in the backstreets of Southwark, a kindhearted prostitute with pale skin and red hair is brutally murdered. Nineteen-year-old Kate Haywood is the daughter of a … Continue reading Book Review – Murder at Westminster Abbey by Amanda Carmack
Book Review – The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey
Set in the fictional village of Oakham, Somerset, The Western Wind starts on Shrove Tuesday 1491. This is Day 4 of the story as this novel is told backwards over four days from Shrove Tuesday to the previous Saturday. It is the first person narrative of the parish priest, John Reve, a gentle and compassionate man … Continue reading Book Review – The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey
My Reading – April 2019
Tombland by C J Sansom I had been in my chambers at Lincoln's Inn when the messenger came from Master Parry, asking me to attend him urgently. A Pure Clear Light by Madeleine St John 'Simon, there's a woman over there who keeps looking at us.'
Book Review – The Innocents by C A Asbrey
The Innocents is set in the American West in 1868. 'The Innocents' are Nat Quinn and Jake Conroy, a nephew and uncle team, who rob only banks and railways and are courteous to the ordinary people they may discommode during the course of a robbery. Abigail McKay, a Scottish woman, has spent weeks travelling by … Continue reading Book Review – The Innocents by C A Asbrey
My Reading – February 2019
The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey Dust and ashes though I am, I sleep the sleep of angels. How to Behave Badly in Renaissance Britain by Ruth Goodman Welcome to a century of bad behaviour. How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life by Ruth Goodman Just before dawn the cockerels began … Continue reading My Reading – February 2019
Book Review – Call of the Curlew by Elizabeth Brooks
Call of the Curlew begins on 30 December 2015. 86-year-old Virginia Wrathmell has known for years that one New Year’s Eve she will walk onto the marsh and meet her end there. She has been waiting for a sign. The sign has now appeared on her doorstep in the form of a fragile curlew’s skull. … Continue reading Book Review – Call of the Curlew by Elizabeth Brooks
Book Review – The Lady of the Tower by Elizabeth St John
The Lady of the Tower imagines the life of Lucy St John, a descendant of Margaret Beauchamp (maternal grandmother of Henry VII), from 1603 as she emerges from girlhood to 1630 when she was wife of the Keeper of the Tower of London. With the death of Lucy’s mother five years earlier, the family has been … Continue reading Book Review – The Lady of the Tower by Elizabeth St John
My Reading – April 2018
The Good People by Hannah Kent The Architect's Apprentice by Elif Shafak The Story of English in 100 Words by David Crystal
