Posted in Weekly Posts

WWW Wednesday (November 27)

WWW Wednesday green

Hosted by Miz B at Should be Reading
To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

I am currently (still) reading Love Nina by Nina Stibbe

Love Nina
Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life

This book of letters is great to pick up and put down in spare minutes as it consists entirely of letters from nanny Nina to her sister during the 80’s. Great fun

I have very nearly finished The Moon Field by Judith Allnatt which will be published 16 January 2014.

The Moon Field

Blurb

A poignant story of love and redemption, The Moon Field explores the loss of innocence through a war that destroys everything except the bonds of human hearts.
No man’s land is a place in the heart: pitted, cratered and empty as the moon…
Hidden in a soldier’s tin box are a painting, a pocket watch, and a dance card – keepsakes of three lives.
It is 1914. George Farrell cycles through the tranquil Cumberland fells to deliver a letter, unaware that it will change his life. George has fallen for the rich and beautiful daughter at the Manor House, Miss Violet, but when she lets slip the contents of the letter George is heartbroken to find that she is already promised to another man. George escapes his heartbreak by joining the patriotic rush to war, but his past is not so easily avoided. His rite of passage into adulthood leaves him believing that no woman will be able to love the man he has become.
A poignant story of love and redemption, The Moon Field explores the loss of innocence in a war that destroys everything except the bonds of the human heart. Amazon

The Moon Field

This is a fantastic read, one that doesn’t shy away from the horrors of war with its scenes from the battlefield in Ypres.

I have just finished Water’s Edge by Jane Riddell

Click on the cover to read my review

Water's Edge
Water’s Edge

I plan to read The Murder Code by Steve Mosby next, publication date 3 December 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

The Murder Code

Blurb

Detective Inspector Andrew Hicks thinks he knows all about murder. However horrific the act, the reasons behind a crime are usually easy to explain. So when a woman is found bludgeoned to death, he suspects a crime of passion and attention focuses on her possessive ex-husband. But when a second body is found, similarly beaten, Hicks is forced to think again.
When more murders arrive in quick succession, Hicks realizes he is dealing with a type of killer he has never faced before, one who fits nowhere within his logic. Then the letters begin to arrive . . .
As the death toll rises, Hicks must face not only a killer obsessed with randomness and chaos, but also a secret in his own past. If he is to stop the killings, he must confront the truth about himself . . . Netgalley

The Murder Code

I’m looking forward to this one as I read Black Flowers a couple of years ago and was impressed by the fantastic storytelling

Posted in Book Review, Books I have read, Challenge

Water’s Edge – Jane Riddell

Contemporary Fiction 4*'s
Contemporary Fiction
4*’s

A family come together at their family hotel based in Switzerland. The matriarch, Magdalena has summoned them all for a celebration but it is clear from the outset that there are tensions between her four children.

This novel is quite simply about family life and how actions from the past have consequences years into the future. This was an engaging book with a number of incidents that force Magdalena and her children to reflect on their individual actions which have caused relationships to change within the family. Of course as the mother, Magdalena blames herself, but it is clear to the reader that her adult children have plenty to feel guilty about themselves.

I enjoyed the book, although at times I did feel it over-emphasised the point that the author was trying to make. Less is sometimes more, and as a reader I do prefer to put the evidence together myself than being implicitly told that some of the children didn’t fare well being away at boarding school. However, I did like the fact that the offspring had differing memories of their time away. Often when reading about families it is assumed that siblings are at war and have opposing views on everything or so similar that there is little to differentiate them. Jane Riddell avoids this lending plenty of shades of grey to the characters in this novel.

A different, more reflective book, than I often read, this book tackles some difficult issues, particularly those involving the teenage Lucy daughter of high-flying lawyer Portia for whom this break has the biggest impact.

I would read more by this author and would like to thank her for supplying me with a copy in return for this honest review.

Water’s Edge

Water’s Edge is my sixth book read for the COYER challenge

COYER Challenge button

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Posted in Weekly Posts

WWW Wednesday (November 20)

WWW Wednesday green

Hosted by Miz B at Should be Reading
To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

I am currently reading Water’s Edge by Jane Riddell
Water's Edge

When Madalena invites her four children to Switzerland for a family gathering, she isn’t prepared for the excess baggage of their lives they bring along – secrets they are compelled to keep and those that must be divulged; the compromises they make, and, ultimately, what can and can’t be resolved – for Madalena, too, has things about her past that she would prefer not to reveal.
Set against a backdrop of mountains and lakes, Water’s Edge is a tapestry of love, lies and family. Amazon

Water’s Edge

I have just finished Rose West The Making of a Monster by Jane Carter Woodrow

Rose West

Hard to believe it looking at her now, but Rose West was an exceptionally beautiful little girl, with a Maltese mother and English father. Strangers would stop and stare at her in the street and she could entrance people from a very early age. But looking back at photos of Rose as a child, you struggle to accept that she grew up to one of the country’s most notorious female criminals. What happened to that little girl to make her capable of such violence? Or was there something wrong, a predisposition to violence she was born with? In Rose, Jane Carter Woodrow goes right back to the start in her life to try and piece together what happened to turn Rose West into the violent monster she became. Jane has gained unprecedented access to the family and has revealed a fascinating story of how there was always something “not quite right” about Rose. And perhaps that’s not too surprising Rose’s childhood reads like one of the most grim misery memoirs. Her father was a violent schizophrenic and her mother received electric shock therapy for severe clinical depression, the whole way through her pregnancy with Rose. Jane has uncovered a horrific hidden story of a twisted family and how her upbringing made her a perfect partner for Fred West when they met when Rose had just turned 16. She was to kill for the first time a few months later. This is a gripping read that sheds light for the first time on the story behind what turned Rose West into a vicious and deadly serial killer. Goodreads

This is a fascinating book which concentrates on the reason why Rose West committed the crimes she did rather than on those horrific crimes. I am behind with my reviews but I will be posting soon…

Rose West: The Making of a Monster

Next I will be reading The Moon Field by Judith Allnatt

The Moon Field

It is 1914. George Farrell cycles through the tranquil Cumberland fells to deliver a letter, unaware that it will change his life. George has fallen for the beautiful daughter at the Manor House, Miss Violet, but when she lets slip the contents of the letter George is heartbroken to discover that she is already promised to another man. George escapes his heartbreak by joining the patriotic rush to war, but his past is not so easily avoided. His rite of passage into adulthood leaves him believing that no woman will be able to love the man he has become. Goodreads

I’m really looking forward to reading this book, I’m sure it will be one of many I read commemorating 100 years since the start of World War I next year.
The Moon Field

Posted in Weekly Posts

Teaser Tuesday (November 19)

Teasing Tuesday CB

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teaser this week is from Waters Edge by Jane Riddell

Water's Edge

This is what she needed to do: keep the conversation trundling along. Vienne’s career was a safe topic and they could compare notes: a barrister’s work was often likened to a performance – a dramatic act requiring eloquence, clarity, supreme confidence.
Blurb

When Madalena invites her four children to Switzerland for a family gathering, she isn’t prepared for the excess baggage of their lives they bring along – secrets they are compelled to keep and those that must be divulged; the compromises they make, and, ultimately, what can and can’t be resolved – for Madalena, too, has things about her past that she would prefer not to reveal.

Set against a backdrop of mountains and lakes, Water’s Edge is a tapestry of love, lies and family

Water’s Edge Amazon UK

Waters Edge Amazon US

Posted in Weekly Posts

WWW Wednesday (November 13)

WWW Wednesday green

Hosted by Miz B at Should be Reading
To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

I am currently reading two books

The Medea Complex by Rachel Florence Roberts

The Medea Complex

I’ve posted quite a lot about this book over the last couple of days so by way of an update I’m still loving it!

And Love Nina by Nina Stibbe

Love Nina

Blurb

In the 1980s Nina Stibbe wrote letters home to her sister in Leicester describing her trials and triumphs as a nanny to a London family. There’s a cat nobody likes, a visiting dog called Ted Hughes (Ted for short) and suppertime visits from a local playwright. Not to mention the two boys, their favourite football teams, and rude words, a very broad-minded mother and assorted nice chairs. From the mystery of the unpaid milk bill and the avoidance of nuclear war to mealtime discussions on pie filler, the greats of English literature, swearing in German and sexually transmitted diseases, Love, Nina is a wonderful celebration of bad food, good company and the relative merits of Thomas Hardy and Enid Blyton.  Netgalley

This book of letters is easy to dip in and out of so I am expanding my ability to read two books at once!  Love Nina was published on 7 November by Penguin Books

Link to Love Nina Amazon UK

I have just finished Imago by Celina Grace the third in the Kate Redman series.

Click on the book cover to read my review

Imago

Next in line for a read is Water’s Edge by Jane Riddell

Water's Edge

When Madalena invites her four children to Switzerland for a family gathering, she isn’t prepared for the excess baggage of their lives they bring along – secrets they are compelled to keep and those that must be divulged; the compromises they make, and, ultimately, what can and can’t be resolved – for Madalena, too, has things about her past that she would prefer not to reveal.
Set against a backdrop of mountains and lakes, Water’s Edge is a tapestry of love, lies and family. Amazon

Link to Water’s Edge Amazon UK

Posted in Weekly Posts

Friday Finds (November 8)

Friday Finds Hosted by Should be Reading

FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased).

So, come on — share with us your FRIDAY FINDS!

So as I am working hard to read some of my free and cheap books on my e-reader in November the last thing I should be doing is looking at more books to buy, or requesting new ones from Netgalley!

As it happens the people at Random House have been really kind to me this week and I have 3 new books from Netgalley.

Wake by Anne Hope to be published 16 January 2014

Wake

Blurb

Unfolding over five days leading up to 11 November, 1920, a powerful debut telling of three women who have lost loved-ones, set against the journey of the Unknown Soldier from Northern France to the Cenotaph.
Five Days in November, 1920:
As the body of the Unknown Soldier makes its way from the fields of Northern France to the Cenotaph, three women are overcoming loss in their own way: Hettie, who dances for sixpence a waltz at the Hammersmith Palais; wealthy Evelyn, who toils at a lowly job in the pensions office, and Ada, a housewife who snatches glimpses of her dead son in the street.
As each struggles to move on with her life, a wartime mystery begins to unravel. But where will the threads lead, and will they bring the answers these women crave? In this shattering novel of intertwining lives, Anna Hope shows the beginnings of a new era, and the day the mood of the nation changed, for ever Netgalley

This looks like a great addition to feed my historical fiction.

I also received A Pleasure And A Calling by Phil Hogan which looks like a real psychological thriller.

A Pleasure and a Calling

Publication date 13 February 2014, be scared if you receive this one as a Valentines gift!

Blurb

You won’t remember Mr Heming. He showed you round your comfortable home, suggested a sustainable financial package, negotiated a price with the owner and called you with the good news. The less good news is that, all these years later, he still has the key.
That’s absurd, you laugh. Of all the many hundreds of houses he has sold, why would he still have the key to mine?
The answer to that is, he has the keys to them all.
William Heming’s every pleasure is in his leafy community. He loves and knows every inch of it, feels nurtured by it, and would defend it – perhaps not with his life but if it came to it, with yours…

and lastly Stone Bruises by Simon Beckett

Stone Bruises

Publication date 30 January 2014

Blurb

‘Somebody!’ I half-sob and then, more quietly, ‘Please.’ The words seem absorbed by the afternoon heat, lost amongst the trees. In their aftermath, the silence descends again. I know then that I’m not going anywhere…Sean is on the run. We don’t know why and we don’t know from whom, but we do know he’s abandoned his battered, blood-stained car in the middle of an isolated, lonely part of rural France at the height of a sweltering summer. Desperate to avoid the police, he takes to the parched fields and country lanes only to be caught in the vicious jaws of a trap. Near unconscious from pain and loss of blood, he is freed and taken in by two women – daughters of the owner of a rundown local farm with its ramshackle barn, blighted vineyard and the brooding lake. And it’s then that Sean’s problems really start…
Superbly written, Stone Bruises is a classic nail-shredder of a thriller that holds you from the beginning. The narrative slowly, inexorably tightens its grip as the story unfurls and will keep you guessing until the unnerving and shocking final twist…Netgalley

I have to admit I am a little worried that this one might be a bit too scary for me (I know I pretend to be big small and brave but maybe I’m not quite as fearless after all… I’ll let you all know!

I couldn’t resist The Medea Complex by Rachel Florence Roberts when she offered me a free copy… the fact that it is billed as a psychological thriller within a historical context meant that my heart quickly typed ‘yes please’ as it overruled the head which was saying ‘you’ve loads of books to read and review already!’

The Medea Complex

Blurb

***Based On A True Story***
Anne wakes up in a strange bed, having been kidnapped from her home. Slowly, she realizes she is in a lunatic asylum.
1885. Anne Stanbury – Committed to a lunatic asylum, having been deemed insane and therefore unfit to stand trial for the crime of which she is indicted. But is all as it seems?
Edgar Stanbury – the grieving husband and father who is torn between helping his confined wife recover her sanity, and seeking revenge on the woman who ruined his life.
Dr George Savage – the well respected psychiatrist, and chief medical officer of Bethlem Royal Hospital. Ultimately, he holds Anne’s future wholly in his hands.
The Medea Complex tells the story of a misunderstood woman suffering from insanity in an era when mental illnesses’ were all too often misdiagnosed and mistreated. A deep and riveting psychological thriller set within an historical context, packed full of twists and turns, The Medea Complex explores the nature of the human psyche: what possesses us, drives us, and how love, passion, and hope for the future can drive us to insanity Amazon

The Medea Complex

and another kind author Jane Riddell has also sent me a copy of her book Water’s Edge

Water's Edge

Blurb

When Madalena invites her four children to Switzerland for a family gathering, she isn’t prepared for the excess baggage of their lives they bring along – secrets they are compelled to keep and those that must be divulged; the compromises they make, and, ultimately, what can and can’t be resolved – for Madalena, too, has things about her past that she would prefer not to reveal.
Set against a backdrop of mountains and lakes, Water’s Edge is a tapestry of love, lies and family – Goodreads

Water’s Edge

On top of these wonderful sounding books I have two purchases to make Imago by Celina Grace with the third of the Kate Redman Mystery series which I have enjoyed so much. .

Imago

Publication date Sunday 10 November

Blurb

They don’t fear me, quite the opposite. It makes it twice as fun… I know the next time will be soon, I’ve learnt to recognise the signs. I think I even know who it will be. She’s oblivious of course, just as she should be. All the time, I watch and wait and she has no idea, none at all. And why would she? I’m disguised as myself, the very best disguise there is.”
A known prostitute is found stabbed to death in a shabby corner of Abbeyford. Detective Sergeant Kate Redman and her partner Detective Sergeant Olbeck take on the case, expecting to have it wrapped up in a matter of days. Kate finds herself distracted by her growing attraction to her boss, Detective Chief Inspector Anderton – until another woman’s body is found, with the same knife wounds. And then another one after that, in a matter of days.
Forced to confront the horrifying realisation that a serial killer may be preying on the vulnerable women of Abbeyford, Kate, Olbeck and the team find themselves in a race against time to unmask a terrifying murderer, who just might be hiding in plain sight… Amazon

and The Flavours of Love by Dorothy Koomson which was published yesterday 7 November 2013

FOL
Blurb

‘I’m looking for that perfect blend of flavours; the taste that used to be you. If I find it, I know you’ll come back to me.’
It’s been 18 months since my husband was murdered and I’ve decided to finish writing The Flavours of Love, the cookbook he started before he died. Everyone thinks I’m coping so well without him – they have no idea what I’ve been hiding or what I do away from prying eyes. But now that my 14-year-old daughter has confessed something so devastating it could destroy our family all over again, and my husband’s killer has started to write to me claiming to be innocent, I know it’s only a matter of time before the truth about me and what I’ve done is revealed to the world.
My name is Saffron Mackleroy and this is my story.

The Flavours of LoveDorothy Koomson’s novels are all extremely well plotted and with the sort of writing that immerses you in the story…

All I need now is a time machine to make enough time to read everything I’ve got planned!

Please let me know what you have found this week because as you can see I’m always looking for more books to read!