Madeleine
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Posts posted by Madeleine
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For once it's dry this morning, but quite a thick frost.
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I order from them regularly, in fact had a delivery only last week. Fingers crossed they find a buyer.
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Still raining, getting a bit ridiculous now. Will need wellies just to go into the back garden to feed the birds, it's like a bog out there now it's so muddy.
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We had fairly clear sunny days but it rained every night, especially Saturday when it threw it down for most of the night. Dry so far today but a cold wind.
Glad you finally got the roof fixed!
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Islands in the Stream - Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton
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Windy, rainy, cloudy, sunny - sometimes all at the same time!
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The Christmas Egg" by Mary Kelly - this year's Christmas offering from the British Library Crime Classics series focusses on the murder of an elderly Russian émigré in London, she lived fairly frugally, in one room in a boarding house with her grandson - both of them hated each other and although he has a job he drinks away most of his earnings, and when his grandmother is found dead he is the prime suspect. Inspector Beddoes is brought in, and he soon discovers that the old lady did in fact possess some very valuable items, including the egg of the title. Cue a race against time as a gang of organised thieves look set to take one or more of her treasures out of the country, and of course there's a snowstorm to make things harder as both sides converge for the final showdown in the Kent countryside! An entertaining read, with some nice dry humour. 7/10
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Cold and drizzly today, really dark in the mornings too now
, makes getting up early even harder.
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It's a funny expression isn't it! I wonder how it came about, why a curate's egg?
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Quite windy and a bit chilly but not that cold considering the time of year. Very squally though, I found our dustbin lid halfway down the garden this morning!
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A Time to Kill - John Grisham
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Yep it's hard to beat The Woman in Black! I've tried a couple of her other ghost stories but they don't even come close.
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Last Christmas - Wham!
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Actually got a new tree yesterday, bit difficult finding a small one - only wanted a 3 footer due to space restrictions - but finally got one in Wilkinsons for a fiver. Have decorated most of it, I might also put up my old tatty one, we'll see. Have also finally started doing some Xmas shopping as well.
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Hollywood Wives - Jackie Collins
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"Over Sea, Under Stone" by Susan Cooper - this is the first book in the classic children's fantasy series "The Dark is Rising", and is a grail quest in which siblings Simon, Jane and Barney Drew find themselves getting involved with all sorts of skullduggery when they go on holiday to Cornwall and stay in a house rented by their mysterious Great Uncle Merry, who is a famous archaeologist and has rented The Grey House from a supposed sea captain. Bored one day, the children rummage around in an old attic, and in true style find an old map. It seems they're not the only ones interested in the map, the house is broken into and although nothing has been taken someone was definitely looking for something. Then they're befriended by "brother and sister" the Winters, and meet a rather scary vicar. There are further adventures involving a kidnapping, until it culminates in a genuinely tense final search for the mysterious grail, and is there more to Great Uncle Merry than he's letting on? It was an enjoyable romp, very much of it's time with lots of "jolly this and that" and "I say", very similar to the Famous Five (there's a dog as well!) but the last part was quite exciting and gripping. Onto the next one in the sequence now, which is set during Midwinter. 7.5/10
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It was definitely an ambiguous ending.
SpoilerI did wonder why Ruth herself didn't say she was innocent, but I think she was so convinced that she had somehow killed them by her sewing that she wouldn't change her mind, also she felt so guilty over her baby sister dying (even though it was sadly very common amongst infants back then) that she felt it was her punishment for that, as well as her father's suicide, so I think she set her own path and if Dorothea had said anything I don't think it would have made any difference, except maybe for Ruth to end up in an asylum.
SpoilerDo you think that Dorothea poisoned her father somehow, or he just had a heart attack or something similar with all the strain? And do you think he and his new wife were trying to get rid of Dorothea?
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Little Lies - Fleetwood Mac
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19 hours ago, Hayley said:
I've been hoping someone else would read The Corset because I've been dying to talk about the ending!
I had to read it twice because I couldn't work out how Dorothea's father had ended up with the handkerchief! I actually only fully understood it when I read a comment from the author explaining it on Goodreads. Although it was hard not to feel like he deserved his ending. What did you think of Dorothea's actions (or lack of actions) with Ruth at the end? I wondered, after I finished reading, why she hadn't tried to tell other people that Ruth was innocent and that all she had really done was sew things... but did she purposely let her die so she could use her for that one last murder? She is always talking about how the shape of her head should mean she's evil!
Great review by the way!
Thanks Hayley, yes I wondered about
Spoilerthe handkerchief too, I assume he followed her?
And I wonder why Dorothea didn't do more at the end, I suppose there was no real proof though and it would have been her word against the others.
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The Christmas Party by Karen Swan - Declan Lorne is the last proper knight in Ireland, and when he dies suddenly, his widow and 3 daughters are left stunned and bereft, his wife Serena goes into denial, his eldest daughter Ottie, who helps run the estate and castle campsite, is bewildered when his will leaves the castle to the youngest daughter Willow, who fled to Dublin 3 years earlier and has hardly spoken to the family since. There's also strong-willed (to put it mildly) middle daughter Pip, who runs the stables, but it's up to Willow who comes home to sort out the estate - basically the only thing they can do is sell the castle, and Willow sets about doing this almost immediately. But she finds herself drawn to the only buyer - in fact it's fairly obvious who all 3 sisters will end up with romantically pretty much from the start. Along the way there are various trials and tribulations, a couple of near tragedies, but the book bowls along to a satisfying, happy ending. No surprises but readable, although a couple of the sisters did annoy me! 7/10
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The Corset by Laura Purcell - Dorothea is in her mid 20s and unmarried, which is unusual for this historical novel, but she lives with her widowed father and, despite a steady procession of suitors, she only has eyes for one man, David, a policeman, who of course can't marry someone of her superior social status,, so the relationship is a secret, known only to her maid. Dorothea is also desperate to reform the lives of female prisoners, which is how she meets teenager Ruth, on trial for the murder of her mistress. Gradually the story unfolds, and we get Ruth's back story, of how she came from a poor but happy family, until her baby sister died - not unusual in those days, but Ruth bizarrely blames herself, and sets in motion a chain of events which lead to her murder trial. Ruth's story is tragic but fascinating, and much is made of the precarious nature of women's positions in society; only in this case, it is women who are also the worst enemies of their own gender. Poor Ruth suffers terribly when she is sent to work for Mrs Metyard and her daughter Kate, who run a draper's shop and have a small team of girls working for them -girls who no one wants, either from impoverished families who can't afford to feed them, or from the Foundling Hospital (which still exists today as a museum). When the Metyards' treatment leads to a tragedy, Ruth swears her revenge on both of them. Meanwhile, Dorothea, after initially believing that Ruth is innocent, finds herself unable to decide what is true and what is in Ruth's head. Indeed the ending, which does have a twist, is also slightly ambiguous, but to say any more would give things away! I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, I felt sorry for poor Ruth and also liked Dorothea, and prefer this book to the author's debut "The Silent Companions". This one is nowhere near as creepy as that, it's more of a gothic psychological thriller, beautifully written and well paced as the two stories are gradually revealed. 8/10
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Thanks for the background info, still think it was handled rather clumsily though despite it being in referred to in the original book.
What's the weather like?
in General Chat
Posted
Milder today but dull and drizzly.