France

Never have I been so glad to live on a hill! The sud Gironde is having appalling flooding, my little town of Cadillac is under waist-deep water - it was in the Guardian today and one of my friends has over 2 metres of water in her house. And that follows on from all the damage done by storm Nils last week (a lot).

Yes, very good even if there were at least two too many references to him being "emotionally incontinent"!

In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan. For once the blurb for the book sums it up perfectly (and much better than I could) In the UK, someone is reported missing every 90 seconds. Just gone. Vanished. In the blink of an eye. DCS Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her instincts. Picked to lead a pilot programme that has her paired with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, Kat's instincts come up against Lock's logic. But when the two missing person's cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help Kat when the case gets personal. AI versus human experience. Logic versus instinct. With lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statistic? This really is excellent, original, well paced (the misogyny of one character is a little heavy handed but no writer is perfect) and very hard to put down. Recommended. The Killing Stones by Ann Cleeves. I was so looking forward to this, the start of a new series set on Orkney for Jimmy Perez and Willow. Jimmy's best friend is murdered and it's leading up to Christmas and the bad weather keeps the proper team from Glasgow arriving so Jimmy is investigating. Parts of this are very good indeed, Ann Cleeves is brilliant at giving a sense of place and some of her characterisation is very good but heaven is the writing clunky in places. There's endless spelling out of the obvious, Jimmy and Willow have four year old and he's constantly referred to as 'his son' not by his name as if the reader is too inattentive to remember who James is or that Fran who died several books ago was 'the love of his life' (told this three times at least. There are more murders and once you get to the end you'll realise they weren't credible, it leaves a bit of a sour taste. Finally, James aged 4 has quite an active role in the last grand scene and he talks like an articulate 10 year old. So a bit of a disappointment but if you don't get annoyed by the things I do (I freely admit I'm a pedant) you'll love it.

Reading The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller. So far very good indeed.

I read War and Peace when I was 15 and supposed to be revising for mock O levels, I was far too engrossed in the book to even think of picking up my texts despite beng the sort of stress bunny who usually got up at 4 in the morning to fit in 3 hours more of revision when there were exams. I surprised everyone, most of all my teachers, by passing every exam, a first, which goes to show the power of a good book. I still love it and am still annoyed by the misoginistic ending.

I can't think why I don't read more Maugham, his books don't shout out "read me" but when I do I love whatever it is.

Lucy Carmichael by Margaret Kennedy. This is a strange one. Margaret Kennedy was a prolific author from the 1920's and I've read several of her books before and enjoyed them. This one from 1951 is about Lucy and how she remakes her life after being jilted on her wedding day. Lucy is a survivor and a realistic one, she makes mistakes and isn't good at everything and there's a feel good ending but it's also strangely inconclusive in many ways. I like books where all the ends are not neatly tied up but here there are story arcs which seem to meander into nothing and don't leave you speculating what might have happened. It's an interesting read but is very much of its time.

1. Lucy Carmichael - Margaret Kennedy **** 2. Clown Town -Mick Herron ****1/2 3. An Instruction in Shadow - Kevin >Hearne ****1/2 4. Introducing Mrs Collins - Rachel Parris ***1/2 5. In the Blink of an Eye- Jo Callaghan ***** 6 Peach Street to Lobster Lane - Felicity Cloake ***1/2 7. Cairo Gambit - SJ Parris *** 8. Hexwood - Diana Wynne Jones ***** 9. The Killing Stones -Ann Cleeves **** 10. Archer's Goon - Diana Wynne Jones ****1/2 11. A Room Full of Bones - Elly Griffiths *** 12. My Family and other rock stars- Tiffany Murray **** 13. The Land in Winter - Andrew Miller ****1/2

Eleanor was exceptional in that she ruled Aquitaine (her dowry and getting on for 1/3 of present day France) as Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right - her father's will specified that Aquitaine would not pass to her husband on marriage as was the rule in those days and that she would keep it until her death. I read this ages ago as background for my job (tour guide in Bordeaux where she married Louis ) and thoroughly enjoyed it though the sheer unpleasantness of some of the male nobles made it hard reading in places.

No books - I think the family reckons I have enough (not true of course) but my husband did give me Myrtle the dress form so I no longer have to try on half finished pieces of knitting to check it fits.

Yes, Joanna was Anthony great-great or three greats granddaughter. Popular female authors seem to be going at a horrible rate right nw.

I've been trying to read more non-fiction To Catch a King by Charles Spencer was a chance pick up and a good one. The book charts the escape of the young Charles II after the disastrous battle of Worcester as he zig-zagged down to the coast and eventual safety, in many cases only an hour or so ahead of his pursuers. Most of us have heard about his hiding in the Boscobel oak but the story of his escape is so much more than that (he was in the oak for one day and took nearly six weeks to get to safety), the king was resourceful and quick thinking and he had some incredibly loyal supporters willing to risk all to help him. The narration takes a bit of time to get going but once it does it's completely compelling. A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell. Virginia Hall was sent to Lyon in 1941 by SOE, the fledgling British intelligence service, the whip up the French resistance under the pretence of being a journalist. She was the first woman to be sent to France, nearly the first agent, was American, not British, and despite being red-headed, tall and having a wooden leg she built up one of the largest spy networks, became a target for the Gestapo, sprung Allied prisoners from jail and created huge army of civilian guerrillas who played a vital role in occupying Nazi divisions during the 1944 invasion so they couldn't march up to Normandy. The blurb says it reads like a thriller and indeed it does. I can't recommend it more highly.

I agree with you about it being a bit overwritten. I enjoyed it but didn't find it totally gripping.

I found this pretty slow so it's been relinquished to the 'I might pick this up sometime and finish it, but not yet' pile. Not so slow that it went into the charity pile though.

A very quick round up of just some of what I've read since last clocking in properly: Gabriel's Moon by William Boyd is vintage Boyd, this story about a reluctant spy in the early 1960s iss an absolute gem. Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton Chloe Dalton found a very young leveret and raised it without much hope it would survive. It did and I found the book fascinating, in particular because she took great care to raise Hare as a wild animal in great contrast to my own family where my mother raised a badger from a few hours old who most definitely became a house badger and a pet. Sadly it seems from the ending that The Shadows of Men by Abir Mukherjee is going to be the last in the series, this one was just s good as the previous ones We Solve Murders by Richard Osman is sadly just not as good as his his Thursday Murder Club books but still readable. Out of Time by Jodi Taylor is the sixth in her Time Police series and like the rest very funny. The Last Word by Elly Griffiths is frankly unmemorable. For all those who were worried about Ben Aaronovitch running out of steam, the good news is that in Stone and Sky, Peter Grant's latest outing; he most definitely hasn't.