My Name In Books

I saw this tag on many blogger’s sites in the summer and decided to have a go for myself – I decided to pick favourite reads of all time – I confess, my biggest problem was finding four books that started with the letter O, but I finally located those that deserved a place!

So without further ado I give you CLEOPATRA LOVES BOOKS, in books

Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White

One of my favourite books from childhood

Little Lies – Liane Moriarty

My favourite read by this author who injects so much humour into this dark tale

Emil and the Detectives – Erich Kastner

Possibly my very first introduction to crime fiction where Emil and his friends catch a thief

Out of the Silence – Wendy James

A fantastic combination of fact and a historical crime

Precious Thing – Colette McBeth

One of those books I simply couldn’t stop reading

A Judgement in Stone – Ruth Rendell

The best opening line – “Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write“.

Thursday’s Child – Noel Streatfeild

My favourite book from childhood – Margaret was my heroine, I read this book hundred’s of time although it sadly out of print now.

Rubbernecker – Belinda Bauer

A sensitive piece of crime fiction featuring a young man with Asperger’s Syndrome

Asta’s Book – Barbara Vine

My favourite of the psychological fiction books written by Ruth Rendell under the name of Barbara Vine which depicts Asta’s life from the turn of the twentieth century.

 

Like This Forever – S.J. Bolton

The third in the brilliant Lacey Flint series

Only the Innocent – Rachel Abbot

A relatively new addition to my must read list of authors and a fellow channel islander, this is the author’s first novel

Victorian Murderesses – Mary S Hartman

Although published in 1976, this is a fascinating look at the social lives of women during the late nineteenth, early twentieth century as well as detailing some historical crimes.

Evil Games – Andrea Marsons

A fabulous new series which has a complex plot and is backed up by well-formed characters.

Shadow Baby – Margaret Forster

Probably the book I have re-read most as an adult, a well told dual time-line tale, well researched and totally captivating.

Burnt Paper Sky – Gillian McMillan

A fresh and innovative debut

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe – Agatha Christie

There simply can’t be a list which doesn’t feature the amazing Agatha Christie so while this isn’t her best novel, it did start with an O

One Last Dance – Judith Lennox

A historical saga set during the First World War, this is a story of sibling rivalry and a grand house.

Keep Your Friends Close – Paula Daly

Domestic noir at its best

Someone Else’s Skin – Sarah Hilary

There aren’t enough adjectives to describe the sheer brilliance of this book

Rubbernecker – Belinda Bauer

Crime Fiction
5*’s

Urban Dictionary
rubbernecker
Person who cranes, stains or otherwise awkwardly turns their head and stares while passing the scene of something interesting (usually morbid in nature).
This is usually seen and performed while driving past the scene of an accident, or any other incident where there are police, firemen or ambulances with lots of flashing lights.

Belinda Bauer manages to write books that get right under your skin, in this case literally, when Patrick Fort enrols on an anatomy course and along with three fellow students is faced with a cadaver. The object of the exercise is to determine the cause of death of ‘number 19’. Patrick has no interest in becoming a doctor, he wants to know what happens when people die. His interest and obsession with the subject ties into the death of his father when he was a young child and the fact that he suffers with Asperger’s Syndrome. When Patrick’s assertion of the cause of death of ‘number 19’ turns out to be at odds with the official certification he is determined to prove that he is right!

This book is not just about Patrick’s quest though. There are scenes set on a hospital high-dependency neurological ward where those either in a coma or recovering from one are nursed disinterestedly by the staff there. Tracey in particular took the job so that she could have a rest away from patients who talked, and read her book series! Tracey sets her sights on Mr Deal with plenty of opportunity to appear kind and caring when he visits his silent wife daily.

My précis of this story doesn’t do justice to the narrative that the author weaves around the silent happenings on the ward or Patrick’s original take on the world around him. Patrick’s mother is at home wishing him a ‘normal’ life but with no real optimism that he will find his way in the world and when he finds himself at odds with his lecturers she is powerless to help him.

This is one of those books that is full of a cast of unpleasant examples of the human race, which would sometimes put me off a book, but the writing is so compelling as Belinda Bauer manages to sprinkle the text with some fantastic dark observations about life, the characters and the world in general changing the tone from horrid to fascinating. I couldn’t stop reading this book and all the time I wondered how all the strands would be pulled together; of course Belinda Bauer managed this with an elegant bow.

I was delighted to receive a free copy from Random House UK, Transworld Publishers of this book in return for an honest review

Other Books by Belinda Bauer

Blacklands
Darkside
Finders Keepers

WWW Wednesday (October 30)

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 which is very unusual for me. My fiction book is Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer click the cover to see my Teaser from yesterday,

and Silent Witnesses by Nigel McCrery is my non-fiction read.  This is a fascinating look, using actual cases at the progress of forensic science over the last couple of centuries.

Blurb

Silent Witnesses looks at the history of forensic science over the last two centuries, during which time a combination of remarkable intuition, painstaking observation and leaps in scientific knowledge have developed this fascinating branch of detection. Throwing open the casebook, it introduces us to such luminaries as ‘The Wizard of Berkeley’ Edward Heinrich, who is credited with having solved over 2000 crimes, and Alphonse Bertillon, the French scientist whose guiding principle ‘no two individuals share the same characteristics’ became the core of identification. Along the way, it takes us to India and Australia, Columbia and China, Russia, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. And it proves that, in order to solve ever more complicated cases, science must always stay one step ahead of the killer. Amazon

I have just finished Don’t Cry Over Killed Milk by Stephen Kaminski, a great cosy mystery which caught my eye because of the great play on words in the title. Click on the cover to read my review.

I plan to read The Moment Keeper by Buffy Andrews next which is due to be published on 1 November 2013 by Carina

Blurb

Our lives are often connected in ways we never would have imagined…
Two babies; two very different upbringings.
First there is Sarah: raised by her loving grandmother, but neglected by her own father who views her as the instrument of her mother’s death. She will lead a hard life, searching to belong and to be loved.
Then there is Olivia, surrounded by love, nurtured and adored by her parents, a golden child with a golden future.
When Sarah’s life is cut tragically short and she is assigned to record the moments of Olivia’s life as her Moment Keeper, their lives become intertwined.
Sarah is able to overcome the heartbreak of her own lost years and Olivia is able to deal with a future that isn’t nearly as golden as what she had planned – or is it? Amazon

Related articles

• Belinda Bauer, ‘Rubbernecker’ (2013) (whatareyoureadingfor.wordpress.com)
• WWW Wednesdays (Oct. 30) (wordsandpeace.com)

Teaser Tuesday (October 29)

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 Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer

Blurb

‘The dead can’t speak to us,’ Professor Madoc had said.
But that was a lie.
Sometimes, only an outsider can get to the truth.
Patrick has been on the outside all his life. Thoughtful, but different, infuriating even to his own mother, his life changes when he follows an obsession with death to study anatomy at university.
When he uncovers a crime that everybody else was too close to see, he proves finally that he has been right all along: nothing is exactly as it seems.
And that there have been many more lies closer to home… Goodreads

My Teaser concerns a nurse Tracy

“Tracy nodded in a way she hoped denoted that she, too, was a little bit heartbroken – even though she thought that if her (hypothetical) boyfriend were in a coma for more than a few weeks, she’d probably just cut her losses and move on, not stick around to watch him shit his pants for the next fifty years.
‘And the families,’ said Jean, with a look that said Tracy would soon find out for herself.”

Related Content

Kate Eileen Shannon – My TEASER TUESDAY
Review Books and More Tuesday Teasers 10/29/13