Madeleine

Any thoughts on this year's dancers? The surprise so far is Debbie McGee, so elegant and composed. Quite as few possible contenders, and a few potential disasters as well!

Glad your grandfather is making progress. I can't believe it's October either!

Red Red wine - UB40

I've read a couple of his books and I'm ok with the Americanisms, I must admit From A Buick 8 did remind me of an extended X Files episode! I enjoyed it though. I don't think a similar book set in the UK would work - From a Ford Escort just doesn't sound the same really!

I loved the series as well, I thought her books were run of the mill chick-lit but obviously not, just how they've been marketed. Good to see the cast doing well at the Emmys the other week.

That's a slump?! It would take me months to read that many books! Even short ones....

I'm now reading Sleeper's Castle, enjoying it so far but finding the storyline with Rowan a bit silly, love the setting, and Catrin's story is also fascinating. I've also read Time's Legacy, and thoroughly enjoyed that one, even though the villain was so two-dimensional I wanted to start booing him!

Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor - 1st in a new series of Shardlake-style historical crime novels set in London as the Great Fire burns, and a body is found in the ruins which later turns out to be a murder victim. Then another body turns up with the same MO, and James Marwood, whose father is a regicide who has been pardoned, and is now suffering from dementia, is ordered to find the killer. Running parallel to this is the story of a young woman, Cat Lovett, whose father is also a traitor, and who is determined to stop at nothing for her freedom. Her path often crosses that of Marwood and he is not quite sure what to make of her. She's definitely an anti-hero, I wasn't sure what to make of her either and found the ending slightly ambiguous. This was a solid read but I did find it a bit convoluted and hard to follow at times. However it was a promising start to a new series, but Shardlake is way out in front at the moment. 7/10 A Death at Fountains Abbey by Antonia Hodgson - 3rd in the Thomas Hawkins series and another hugely enjoyable read. This time Tom (and later Kitty) is sent out of London up to Yorkshire, to try to retrieve a ledger from John Aislabie, one of the men involved in the disastrous south Sea Bubble debacle (think of a historical Bernie Madoff/ Ponzi scheme financial collapse) who is believed to have a list of all the men who may have known that the scheme was about to collapse and sold their shares at a fantastic profit just in time. Many people hate Aislabie, and he's been receiving some terrifying threats, but seems more pre-occupied with a woman who is claiming to be his daughter, who as supposedly killed as a toddler when his London house was burnt down by a servant to try to cover up a theft. Several people think she is simply a gold-digging impostor, but she is only one of many people around who are behaving a bit oddly, and Tom has his work cut out trying to find out what is going on, and when things turn to murder after one of Aislabie's most trusted servants is brutally killed, it looks like everyone is in danger. I thoroughly enjoyed this, it's very entertaining with some thrilling moments, and Tom and Kitty are as likeable and irascible as ever, and although it's quite dark at times, there is also some nice humour, and some sympathetic characters; I particularly liked Judith, who is married to Aislabie and who Tom takes quite a shine to (especially when he sees her riding in, horrors, trousers!) and even Aislabie himself isn't a really bad man. 8/10

Transmission

Before I go to Sleep - S J Watson

Have a great time, hope you're not flying Ryanair!

Had torrential rain most of last night, but quite nice and sunny today.

today is glorious, sunny and warm, lovely after yesterday's drab rain all day.

Just got The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge Portrait of a Murderer by Anne Meredith

Yes I like the LT Challenge too, and was thinking the same thing ie wondering if anyone on here would like to join in (even though I don't think I've read one challenge this year!). Unfortunately the other forum now has more spam messages than anything else on it now, wonder how they get through when it's a closed forum? It is still going though, just about, so do pop by if you feel like it!

Yes I think we're both on that forum you mentioned Will! It has got quiet lately but is still limping along, and is one of the reasons why I'm glad I found this forum as it's much busier. I suppose some dropping off is inevitable, life gets in the way etc; I think one of the issues with our other forum is that it's now closed to new members, which means that inevitably it might stagnate a bit, and it keeps getting hopelessly spammed as there are no longer any mods to weed out spammers.

Yesterday was gorgeous - warm and sunny! Then it started raining around 8.00 last night, and hasn't stopped really!

Thank you everyone.

We had the same with electrics earlier this year - had it fixed once and he did it all wrong, so had to have it done again, therefore ended up paying twice! Good luck!

I agree too, a dedicated forum is so much better for discussing and "chatting", and there's so much inane stuff to get through on Facebook, of the "here I am in Costa" type of post - I don't care if you're in Costa or have just been to the hairdresser!

Today I got: One Last Dram Before Midnight by Denzil Meyrick Earthly Remains by Donna Leon

Yep I think that sums it up! I don't think Gendry will have much of a claim to the throne though. Yes you're right about Gilly's baby, I vaguely remember them rescuing him now you've mentioned it. As you say, the Night King controls all the walkers and that would include the dragon as well, so I assume unless he turned everyone in Westeros into Walkers (which is presumably his intention) then he's got no "blood" claim on the Iron Throne. Rumour has it that the next series might not be until 2019

I'm looking forward to it too!

Big Love - Fleetwood Mac

Just got A Cold Case in Amsterdam Central by Anja de Jager.