Kate

When are you going to reveal the answer?

OK then, my new guess is Keeping Faith

I love that about Gillard's writing - how she describes places. She has made me want to visit many places! Star Gazing is my favourite of hers - I thought it was a really good book.

The third book is A Lifetime Burning, also very good. I agree with Ceinwenn I think Star Gazing is my favourite. She is a great author though, highly recommended on here

I am a middle aged woman whose best friend, who opened a knitting shop and died 5 years ago, out eating dinner with her friend's partner

Yeah I think you would enjoy it Mac - it is a good murder book and well written. 68. Dying Unfinished by Maria Espinosa 5/10 TBR: 60

Synopsis taken from information given to: http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk Using her own love-rage relationship with her mom as a catalyst, American Book Award winner Maria Espinosa weaves fact and fiction in her latest highly acclaimed novel Dying Unfinished. A novelist, poet, translator, and teacher, who has been reviewed in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, New York Review of Books, and The San Francisco Chronicle, Maria is featured in the Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series. This latest book is the follow-up to her critically acclaimed novel Longing.

My guess is Handle With Care - really want to read it!

I am a detective in Brighton who has just found a skeleton in a sewer

66. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene 8/10 67. No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay 9/10 TBR: 62

Synopsis from Amazon: On the morning she will never forget, suburban teenager Cynthia Archer awakes with a nasty hangover and a feeling she is going to have an even nastier confrontation with her mom and dad. But when she leaves her bedroom, she discovers the house is empty, with no sign of her parents or younger brother Todd. In the blink of an eye, without any explanation, her family has simply disappeared. Twenty-five years later Cynthia is still haunted by unanswered questions. Were her family murdered? If so, why was she spared? And if they're alive, why did they abandon her in such a cruel way? Now married with a daughter of her own, Cynthia fears that her new family will be taken from her just as her first one was. And so she agrees to take part in a TV documentary revisiting the case, in the hope that somebody somewhere will remember something - or even that her father, mother or brother might finally reach out to her... Then a letter arrives which makes no sense and yet chills Cynthia to the core. And soon she begins to realise that stirring up the past could be the worst mistake she has ever made... Meet Cynthia - she is teenager out with her older boyfriend getting drunk in his car. Her Dad finds her, pulls her out of the car and drags her home. After a row she hits the sack to sleep off the alcohol. The following morning she wakes to a silent house. At first she finds plausible reasons for everyone being out, but once at school quickly discovers they are indeed missing. Twenty-five years later she still doesn't know what has happened to her family. And with a family of her own, it is starting to threaten her comfortable home. Still wanting answers, she is shocked when a letter arrives. Her past and what happened on that night is about to catch up with her, and it won't be pretty.... What an exciting book. I couldn't put it down. There were many twists and turns, and outcomes I did not see coming. Barclay leads you down one path, and suddenly flips it over and reveals your suspicions and guesses to be wrong. I was gripped by this adventure. So much happens, a lot of which you won't predict. Barclay manipulates what you think, then corrects your wrong views. Just excellent. His characters were great - I especially liked the thugs who grabbed Cynthia's husband off the street and then sat listening to the Carpenters. Quite funny! This is just a really good book. My one complaint is the swearing. There is a lot of it. I managed to ignore most of it, but there is too much, and that is what stops me giving this book the highest rating. Overall, this is a must-read thriller, and I highly recommend it. 9/10

Synopsis from Amazon: A gang war is raging through the dark underworld of Brighton. Seventeen-year-old Pinkie, malign and ruthless, has killed a man. Believing he can escape retribution, he is unprepared for the courageous, life-embracing Ida Arnold. Greene's gripping thriller, exposes a world of loneliness and fear, of life lived on the 'dangerous edge of things'. I picked up this book for part of my dissertation reading (the portrayal of Brighton in fiction) and wow, it certainly portrays life in the town in a dark, horrific way. Brighton Rock follows Pinkie, a heartless man as he tries to become a gang leader. He kills a journalist without any remorse. Just as he thinks this is the start of big things, he starts to be hunted down by Ida Arnold, who wants justice for Hale's death. As events unfold Pinkie takes all sorts of measures to remain safe and in control, including more death, but he may just have underestimated Ida... I didn't know what to expect when starting this book, especially as the opening line is: "Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him." I actually enjoyed this book. It was a slow read, and sometimes I got a little bored but overall it was exciting, with murder, fear, love and suspicion . The book shows a dark side of Brighton, with gang wars and dingy hide-outs. The ending was not what I expected either - and probably not how I would have written it, but a good way to end the book. I liked Ida best. Pinkie was too arrogant and moody for me - he had lots of mood swings, which although fitting for his character, did annoy me somewhat after a while. Ida on the other hand, she was big and brave. She was clever and determined - and not easily scared. I think she was the most courageous character in the book. Although written in the 1930s, this is a good crime novel, and just as exciting as modern-day thrillers. If you like suspense, and adventure, this book is worth reading. 8/10

Poppyland by Raffaella Barker Synopsis from Amazon: I'm sad to say I didn't finish this book. The more I read, the more I lost interest. I felt there was too much sex and too much reminising about drugs. I got just under half way through, and Ryder and Grace had only met once and had not returned to Norfolk. It made the story drag out. I felt that Barker was repeating herself a lot too - she kept telling us how Grace wanted out and how Ryder didn't want to live in Norfolk. I didn't even get to the love story bit - it took too long getting there and my attention was lost.

I'm now a gangster in Brighton, killed two already, planning to get married to save my skin but am being pursued by a woman who wants justice for one of the men I killed

I'm a middle aged man flying over the coast of Norfolk, and having flash backs to his teenage years spent drunk/stoned on these beaches

65. For One More Day by Mitch Albom 9/10 TBR: 64

Well, as I said earlier in this section, I would read this book, and in fact, I have just finished it: Synopsis from Amazon: 'Every family is a ghost story ...' As a child, Charley Benetto was told by his father, 'You can be a mama's boy or a daddy's boy, but you can't be both.' So he chooses his father, only to see him disappear when Charley is on the verge of adolescence. Decades later, Charley is a broken man. His life has been destroyed by alcohol and regret. He loses his job. He leaves his family. He hits rock bottom after discovering he won't be invited to his only daughter's wedding. And he decides to take his own life. Charley makes a midnight ride to his small hometown: his final journey. But as he staggers into his old house, he makes an astonishing discovery. His mother - who died eight years earlier - is there, and welcomes Charley home as if nothing had ever happened. What follows is the one seemingly ordinary day so many of us yearn for: a chance to make good with a lost parent, to explain the family secrets and to seek forgiveness. This is the first Mitch Albom book I have read, and it has placed him in high stead. This book is very easy to read. It draws you in and pulls on your heart strings a bit. It is engaging and gripping. Yes,predictable but that does not spoil the story. Albom touches on several issues in this book - divorce, alcoholism and death - all with a good degree of success. He talks about divorce in a time where it was not the done thing, and he examines how the children were pitied and the mother was shunned. He looks at how easy it is to fall into alcohol abuse, and what damage that can cause, and he looks at death - from the reasons behind attempted suicide to dealing with unresolved issues when someone you love dies. It is only a short book but all these issues are dealt with a satisfying and sensitive way. The story does jump around in time as Charley remembers the past, deals with guilt from always trying to please his father and learns his mother's life story. This is a touching book. As I said, it is predictable but a lovely book all the same, as Charley gets answers to his questions and deals with his guilt, and ultimately, gets one more day with his dear Mum. This is well worth reading. It is hard to put down and hard to criticise. 9/10

So do I! It will definitely be interesting to see where they go next. I think new characters are needed

64. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris 8/10 TBR: 64

Synopsis from Amazon: Small town Louisiana has a big problem - or rather a number of big problems. And now some of them have come knocking on Sookie's door ...Sookie is an unassuming cocktail waitress in an (outwardly) unremarkable town. She's quiet, keeps to herself and doesn't get out much. Attractive as she is, her hidden 'talents' send men running. For some reason her mindreading skills are just a bit threatening ...Then the unreadable Bill appears on the scene. Tall, dark and handsome, Bill seems to be the man of her dreams. Except he's not technically human. Bill is a vampire and a vampire who keeps seriously bad company, some suspected - unsurprisingly - of murder. Things get a bit close to home when a co-worker is murdered and Sookie starts wondering whether she will be next ... Well it is fair to say Charlaine Harris really does know how to write a good story. This is the first book in her Sookie Stackhouse series. Sookie is a waitress in a small town, where everyone knows everyone else. Yet she has a gift; she can read people's minds, which makes her the strangest person in the community. But things are set to change in this sleepy town, as vampires are now legal beings and are trying to "go mainstream" and live in amongst humans. This is good news for Sookie - it gets her a boyfriend - a tall, dark, handsome vampire. But not everyone is happy with having vampires roaming around, and soon there are girls dying, girls who Sookie works with and who associate with vampires. With fear and death all around, Sookie fears she will be the next victim.... This book had action right from the first page to the last. Harris weaves a great web of suspense, suspicion and fear. She writes in several characters, all of whom could be committing the crimes. The deaths themselves were gruesome. She had no fear in writing a realistic murder. I liked how she wrote about vampires too. She stuck to the traditional ideas about vampires - such as them keeping out of sunlight and feeding on humans. Although I thought it was interesting that she invented "fang-bangers": those who wanted to be bitten by vampires; I thought that was original. I liked Sookie. She seemed strong and sensible, and fairly likable. I loved her Gran though - her interest in the vampires was fairly amusing. I couldn't figure out her brother - his character kept changing. That makes me wonder if he will feature more further on in the series. Of course, the other key character was Bill. For a vampire, I liked him. I couldn't work out how vampires don't have emotions but do fall in love but I liked how he was written. He was dangerous, and he showed that, but he had affection too. My complaint would be the amount of sex in the book. There was a lot. It did seem that when they weren't out investigating, they were having sex. I didn't think the book needed quite that level of intimacy - in a way it did spoil the book for me a little bit. However, I did enjoy the book for the most part and would recommend it. It didn't take long to read; it was gripping and exciting; and Harris keeps her status as one of my favourite authors. 8/10

I have no idea where next - where can they go? What else can happen? They have had it all this season, even mingling with Private Practice (which I thought was awesome!) I guess it will be a series of mourning. Maybe they will bring to the forefront some of the interns?