Hobbies and Crafts

A book I have just read and enjoyed.

The Girl next door by Elizabeth Noble.

This is only her second novel. She wrote Things I want my daughters to know which was very good.

EN has an uncanny ability to get inside her characters and make them so real. This is about an apartment block in New York and the people who live there, so we follow their individual stories and how they link with the other residents (or don’t).

The residents are a mixed bunch, from Eve and Ed, newly arrived English, and 78 year old Violet English but lived there many years, who always laid the table the night before for breakfast, with a linen napkin and silver cutlery, toTodd and Gregory a gay couple. There are young families, elderly curmudgeony men and Cuban doormen who all have a part to play.

The individual stories are very well written as is the way they interact with other residents. It is sad and funny, very readable and clever.

A really good book that held my attention and that I really enjoyed.

I had a coffee morning at my house recently with a bring and buy book stall so I have been reading a couple of books I picked up there. Both of them are historical murder mysteries.

The Butcher of St Peter's by Michael Jecks

This takes place in Exeter in 1323 where Sir Baldwin de Furnshill is attempting to solve a murder, which is shortly followed by two more deaths. Michael Jecks is very good at portraying the clergy, good and bad - some very bad, and the antipathy between Cathedral and Priory. He's also good on the position of women at the time, particularly the poorer classes for whom work in the brothels was often the only option. He writes well and evokes the general filth and squalor. Quite a satisfying read if you like this genre.

The Ides of April by Lindsey Davis

Lindsey Davis is the author of the series of books featuring Marcus Didius Falco, the Roman investigator. This book features his adopted daughter Flavia Albia and I suspect is the first of a new series. Flavia Albia, a young widow, is following in the footsteps of Falco and is also establishing a career as an independent investigator. While the story and the characters are fictional, the author has an excellent understanding of both the geography of ancient Rome and how the political system worked, with the various levels of officialdom. I very much enjoyed this book.

I also picked up from my book stall "The King's Mistress. The true and scandalous story of the woman who stole the heart of George 1", so that will probably be my next read.

Sounds as you've picked up some good'uns, Vera.

We love the Lindsey Davis books. From what I can remember there are either 3 or 4 Flavia books now. She probably got fed up writing about Falco!

I have just finished One Last Dance by Judith Lennox.A family saga, a story of a family house in Kingswear, Rosindell, from the end of the 20th century to 1970s, and the family headed by Devlin Reddaway that loved it, hated it, rebuilt and lived in it.
Just over 500 pages of an excellent read by this great story teller.some of her previous books, Footsteps in the Sand, the winter House, the Italian Garden, Some old lover's ghost.
I really liked this one. :-)

I finished this one ntl long ago....loved it...reminded me of Kate Morton books
I could not put it down

The Daughters of Red Hill Hall- Kathleen McGurl

Description
‘Mystery, danger, intrigue and heart-pounding drama are deliciously interwoven’ – Julie (Goodreads)

When Gemma discovers a pair of ancient duelling pistols encrusted with rubies in the basement of the local museum, she is immediately intrigued…

On a fateful night in 1838 two sisters were found shot in the cellars of Red Hill Hall. And when Gemma begins to delve deeper into their history she begins to realise that the secrets of that night are darker than anyone had ever imagined.

As the shocking events of the past begin to unravel, Gemma’s own life starts to fall apart. Loyalties are tested and suddenly it seems as if history is repeating

Seeing that it looks good and also that it was only 99p on Amazon for Kindle, I have downloaded that one Mersey. It better be good now :-D

Hope you enjoy it Ann as much as I did :-)

:-D :-D got a few to read before I get round to it though. At the moment I am reading one on Kindle which is good but strange, about a girl who suffers from an illness that causes sleeping episodes but she lives in the dreams she has, meets someone who also lives in the dream world. Called the girl in between by Laekan Zea Kemp. I think it was a free one. Have you read it?

I haven't Ann, but will take a peek..not sure if it's a book for me but
will certainly try it :-)

Not my sort of book either Mersey but it was a free one and, I thought, well written. And intriguing too in a strange sort of way.

Think I read it a while ago. It was certainly a strange one! Wouldn't have paid money for it, but free is good :-D

Currently reading The Graveyard of The Hesperides by Lindesy Davis. It's the newest one in the Flavia Albia series.
The previous ones were The Ides of April, Enemies at Home, and Deadly Election.

During renovations, the skeletons of 5 males and 1 decapitated woman are found in the courtyard garden of a bar, The Hesperides. Albia, with the support of her good friend the Adelie Faustus, tries to work out who they were and how they died about 10 years previously.

OH finished it in one day; I'm trying to pace myself ;-)

Not read any of those, are they free? I really shouldn't download any more until I have read what I have on the kindle, I dare not count how many I have waiting. :-D

Unfortunately not :-(

Occasionally you can pickup the Falco books in Charity Shops and probably the Albia series in time. OH doesnt have a kindle, hence this new one is a paper version.

I think DetEcTive and I have very similar tastes. We always seem to like the same sort of books. I recently picked up a copy of The Ides of April for a very small sum from a bring and buy book stall.

There's a limit to how much I am prepared to pay for Kindle books (I'm a bit of a miser lol), but I do use the library a lot and have borrowed various Falco books from there. Our library used to arrange books by category so it was easy to find a crime novel or a fantasy and try out different authors. Now, apparently by popular demand, the books are arranged alphabetically by authors so everyone goes to the authors they know write the type of book they enjoy and don't try new authors so much. This I am told, is progress :-S

Eventually finished The Wreckage. Not great, and the relevance of the title was lost on me, but maybe I missed something somewhere along the way. Not a page-turner.

Just started Peter Robinson's Watching The Dark, number 20 in his Inspector Banks series.

DI Bill Quinn is killed by a crossbow in the tranquil grounds of a police rehabilitation centre and compromising photos are found in his room. An English girl who disappeared in Estonia six years ago seems to hold the secret at the heart of this case. DCI Banks is brought in to investigate.

So far, so good. I might seek out some more later.

One I've bought recently on Kindle was Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin. Its the most recent in the Rebus series. If I'd waited a couple of weeks, I could have borrowed our daughter in law's paper back!

Although Rebus is retired, DI Siobhan Clarke asks for his help on a case - "Clarke's been investigating the death of a senior lawyer whose body was found along with a threatening note. On the other side of Edinburgh, Big Ger Cafferty - Rebus's long-time nemesis - has received an identical note and a bullet through his window."

Malcolm Fox, late of the 'Complaints' who investigated Rebus and worked with him in the previous book Saints of the Shadow Bible, is involved in a seperate investigation. A man with links to drug smuggling has gone missing.

Clarke, Rebus and Fox may not be on the same cases, but they do socialise with each other and discover a link.

Stephen - Your latest read is the sort of thing I might buy. Unfortunately the cost is a bit too steep at the moment.

Finished Watching the Dark. A good read, not a fast-paced story but a page-turner non-the-less, though with a somewhat predictable outcome.

Just started The Marriage Certificate.

I've never read any of the DI Banks books or seen any of the TV series but I do enjoy crime/detection novels. Some of them are a bit more than I am prepared to pay for Kindle books but the first in the series, Gallows View, is available for 98p so I'm going to download that now.

Love the posts on here because they make me look at authors I haven't tried before.

I am reading The Daughters of Red Hill Hall- Kathleen McGurl suggested by Mersey. Enjoying it so far.