Hobbies and Crafts

Two as usual please.


Review date will be 3 October.

From Persie
Calamity in Kent by John Rowland

In the peaceful seaside town of Broadgate, an impossible crime occurs. The operator of the cliff railway locks the empty carriage one evening; when he returns to work next morning, a dead body is locked inside a man who has been stabbed in the back. Jimmy London, a newspaper reporter, is first on the scene. He is quick on the trail for clues and agrees to pool his knowledge with Inspector Shelley of Scotland Yard, who is holidaying in the area. Mistrustful of the plodding local policeman, Inspector Beech, the two men launch their own investigation into the most baffling locked-room mystery a case that could reignite Jimmy s flagging career, but one that exposes him to great danger."


Barefoot on Baker Street by Charlotte Anne Walters
Barefoot on Baker Street is set in late Victorian London where a life of crime is the only way to escape poverty and servitude for one bright young workhouse orphan. The narrative follows Red on her incredible life-journey as it twists and turns through poverty, riches, infatuation, loss and love. A dramatic escape from the workhouse at thirteen propels Red into a world of slum housing, street gangs, prostitution and petty crime as the rapidly expanding city groans under the weight of the industrial revolution. A chance meeting with the mysterious and eccentric Sherlock Holmes prompts an infatuation which cuts through her street-wise bravado. Red's blossoming criminal career also brings her to the attention of Professor James Moriarty. An autistic savant riddled with obsessive compulsions, Moriarty is a dangerous criminal who draws Red into his life and onto a collision course with Holmes.

Last Voyage of the Valentina by Santa Montefiore
Italy 1945 The war is over but its shadow still lingers. And deep in the countryside an eccentric aristocrat is savagely murdered in his beautiful palazzo.
London 1971. Years later this unsolved crime touches the life of Alba, a hedonistic girl who lives on a houseboat in swinging Chelsea.
Between these two distinctive times runs a thread of love, decadence and betrayal that takes Alba to the olive groves of the Amalfi Coast, rich with the scent of figs and the lingering decay of tragedy.
The past unfolds revealing a secret web of partisans and Nazis, peasants and counts and in the centre of it all, an alluring woman of mystery; her mother....

Rosie Thomas A Simple Life
Hidden beneath the comfortable family life she shares with her successful husband Matthew and their two perfect sons lies a shameful secret that has haunted Dinah for fifteen years. She and Matt never speak of it or the impossible choice he forced her to make all those years ago; they think the cracks have been papered over.
But when a chance encounter brings the past into sharp focus once more, Dinah realises she can no longer deny the truth. She decides to risk everything – her husband, her sons, her perfect lifestyle – in order to claim what was always hers.

Have seen this. Will be back soon with my suggestions.

Here they are -

Requiem Mass. Elizabeth Corley.

Someone had wanted her to die and bought her to a twisted, broken death. Now he would kill for her - once, twice, three times - as many times as necessary to avenge her death and finally let her rest in peace.

Twenty years earlier a young woman falls tragically to her death. The only people with her are four schoolfriends. One - or maybe all of them - is responsible. And there's someone intent on letting their have their just desserts.

DCI Andrew Fenwick is soon caught up in a desperate race against time to find the murderer before he completes his bloody vendetta. As the death toll mounts, he must now draw the predator out of the shadows and into an unconventional and highly dangerous trap with the ultimate bait.


Second suggestion -

The Wine of Angels. Phil Rickman.

The new vicar has never wanted a picture I post card parish - or a huge and haunted vicarage. Nor had she wanted to walk into a dispute over a controversial play about a seventeenth-century clergyman accused of witchcraft ..... a story that certain long-estzblished families would ratnere remain obscure.


But this is Ledwardine, steeped in cider and secrets.
A paradise of cobbled streets and timber framed houses. And also - as Merrily Watkins and her teenage daughter, Jane, discover - a village where horrific murder is a

tradition that spans centuries.

Hello,
My two books are.
The good liar by nicholas searle
This is a life told back to front. This is a man who has lied all his life. Roy is a conman living in a small English town, about to pull off his final con. He is going to meet and woo a beautiful woman and slip away with her life savings. But who is the man behind the con? What has he had to do to survive a life of lies? And who has had to pay the price?

And
Time and time again by Ben Elton.
Its the first June 1914 and Hugh Stanton, ex soldier and celebrated adventurer, is the loneliest man on earth. No one he has ever known or loved has been born yet. Perhaps they never will.
Stanton knows that a great terrible war is coming. A collective suicidal madness that will destroy European civilization and bring misery to millions in the century to come. He knows this because, for him that centuury is already history. Somehow he must change that history. He must prevent the war. a war that will begin with a single bullet. But can a single bullet truly corrupt an entire century?
and if so, could another single bullet save it.

The Girl With No Name - Diney Costelloe

Thirteen-year-old Lisa has escaped from Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport. She arrives in London unable to speak a word of English, her few belongings crammed into a small suitcase. Among them is one precious photograph of the family she has left behind.

Lonely and homesick, Lisa is adopted by a childless couple. But when the Blitz blows her new home apart, she wakes up in hospital with no memory of who she is or where she came from. The authorities give her a new name and despatch her to a children's home.

With the war raging around her, what will become of Lisa now?



Billy,Eric and Adolf - Chris Whitfield

In January 1941 with the Liverpool Blitz at its height, twelve-year-old Billy Whitfield was evacuated to live on a farm without running water or electricity in the rural town of Bridgnorth, Shropshire, an event that was to shape him for the rest of his life. In the same year, his elder brother Eric volunteered to join the RAF, subsequently serving as a flight engineer in Bomber Command, the most dangerous of the Allied Services.

Based on the true story of these two brothers and their contrasting experiences during the Second World War, Billy, Eric & Adolf is a tale of courage, innocence and love, a poignant, funny and moving account of ordinary lives impacted by extraordinary times.

The Sister by Louise Jenson

"I did something terrible Grace. I hope you can forgive me ..."

Grace hasn't been the same since the death of her best friend Charlie. She is haunted by Charlie's last words, and in a bid for answers, opens an old memory box of Charlie's. It soon becomes clear there was a lot she didn't know about her best friend.

When Grace starts a campaign to find Charlie's father, Anna, a girl claiming to be Charlie's sister steps forward. For Grace, finding Anna is like finding a new family, and soon Anna has made herself very comfortable in Grace and boyfriend Dan's home.

But something isn't right. Things disappear, Dan's acting strangely and Grace is sure that someone is following her. Is it all in Grace's mind? Or as she gets closer to discovering the truth about both Charlie and Anna, is Grace in terrible danger?

There was nothing she could have done to save Charlie ...or was there?

The Secret of Orchard Cottage by Alex Brown

April Wilson is wondering what to do next – her life has been turned upside down after the loss of her husband so she’s hoping to piece herself together again with a visit to her elderly great aunt, Edith. Arriving in the rural idyll of Tindledale, she’s dismayed to find Edith’s cottage and the orchards surrounding it in a sorry state of disrepair. Edith seems to have lost interest completely, instead she’s become desperate to find out what happened to her sister, Winnie, who disappeared during WWII.
April gets to work immediately, discovering that the orchard still delivers a bumper crop each year, and with the help of some of the villagers – including Matt, the enigmatic Farrier – begins to unravel the mystery of the missing Winnie. Slowly,
April can feel things coming to life again – but can Orchard Cottage work its magic on her too?

Will have to do this tomorrow now, a bit late for me to sort it on the main pc now.