France

I've just started Iron Flame. I'm not talking to anyone.

Kobo are launching two colour e-readers this month, one with a 6 inch screen, the other the Libra which is 7 inches. Both are waterproof. Apparently Amazon will be launching colour versions of Kindle next year. Is colour important to you? I miss it in my Kobo Libra, particularly when I'm reading something with illustrations though I'm not so desperate for it that I'll buy a new Libra before my existing one gives up the ghost. I daresay I'll be playing with the demostration models in Fnac in Bordeaux when it comes out though.

Yes, this one had a lot of plot similarities to one I'd read before (the first they wrote I think) and ridiculously useless police, both in 1990 and 2020.

Another good run; The Fake Wife by Sharon Bolton , this is a real page turner, not quite her best but still very good. Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo is the follow up to Ninth House and suffers a bit by comparison, that was so good and so different that it was always going to be a hard act to follow. This one wanders a bit in the first half but the last quarter is epic stuff. Definitely worth reading. I tried Nicci French a couple of times and always found her a bit lacking,her plot lines had 'that really couldn't happen' elements - a girl disappearing, presumed murdered, last seen at a party of her parents. Turned out her best friend who was at the party had the same coloured hair so everyone presumed she was the daughter... Anyway Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter had such rave reviews that I bought it as an ebook special. It's certainly very readable, I finished it in 24 hours - being stuck in a car that had slid into a ditch for over two hours got me off to a good start, but afterwards I got that unsatisfied feeling you get from too many sweets. A really good mystery leaves you savouring things, this didn't.

Scott is definitely a Marmite author. I used to love his books, less so now. He was a great storyteller but I think of his time, some of his attitudes stick in the modern craw particularly where Jews are concerned. My book group read Ivanhoe a few years ago and two people said that if a book by Sir Walter Scott was ever chosen again they were leaving the group!

I really didn't expect that! And yes, I've ordered Iron Flame...

Oh goodness, how often do you read three books you can't put down in succession? The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith is a prime example that certain books are definitely better suited to paper. I had it on my Kobo and gave up on it twice, long before I got to the infamous pages of tweets. Then on urging from another online book group I got a real book and was hooked, the tweets are easy to read on a proper page and do add a lot. Yes, it's too long and should have been edited but it's still very good indeed. A Stranger in the Family by Jane Casey is the 11th in her Maeve Kerrigan series and the standard is keeping up. You need to start at the beginning for these books as the characters develop and change. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros For once the sort of facile comparisons to other books on the jacket are pretty close to the bone - this is The Hunger Games with dragons (and I loved the Hunger Games). It really is unputtdownable, I got up at 6 which is very unlike me just so I could fit in some intensive reading. The pace doesn't let up and there is a totally unexpected ending.

Yes, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Btw, just finished Fourth Wing. Wow!

This is another one I really, really want to read!

Just given in and pre-ordered it!

I'm trying to be restrained about buying books! It comes out in paperback here next week.

A very quick catch up: Just like the curate's egg part of The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne are very good, others bits not so much. 80 year old Georgy, a Russian exile, looks back to when he was pitchforked out of his peasant upbringing into the middle of the Tsar's family in the years just before the Revolution. The early bits were wonderful then the plot line gradually got sillier and sillier. The last scene in Russia was just ridiculous. John Boyne has written some grat books but this isn't one of them, imo. Everyone Here is Lying - Shari Lapena A decent thriller with one or two seriously unbelievable plot twists but that isn't unusual with this sort of book! Destroying Angel - S J Maclean Excellent historical fiction set in Cromwellian times, the 3rd in her series about Damien Seeker. Recipe for a Perfect Wife - Karma Brown A Kobo cheapie which turned out to be much better than I thought it would be, not profound but easy reading and enjoyable. Fatal Legacy - Lindsay Davies I think I've come to the end of reading about Flavia Albia, I love the Falco books, both in print and on audio but this series about his adopted daughter, also a private investigator in Ancient Rome, lacks the humour and lightness of touch that Falco has.

I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on that.

I'd never heard of Ian Marchant but thanks to you I've gone beetling off to look up his books and add a couple to the wishlist. He sounds very much my cup of tea.

Thanks, we've got the first 4 in the series which my husband read many years ago and I thought I had, but I have absolutely no memory of them which is strange because if I have read a book before I almost always find that the plot starts becoming familiar. So I got to read Iron Lake fresh which was a pleasure!

And a bit creepy too. Especially the tall ones rising up out of their pits!

Yes, I think he did and he obviously really likes dogs!

Wow! That looks even more alarming than when we get too close to wild boar who are generally shy and stay away - except if something has annoyed them.

The mind boggles a bit! I wonder how they are going to manage to get the science over or if they won't bother to try.

Fairy Tale by Stephen King is a terrific retelling of the old fairy story trope about the young man/prince from far away who saves the kingdom and saves the princess except that in this case our hero is doing it for his dog. Add some distinctly dark elements (this is Stephen King) and you've got a great story. My main caveat is that it's too long in places which made some scenes drag. Stephen King wrote one of the very best books on the craft of writing, one of the things he emphasises is to cut out all extraneous material, advice that he frequently doesn't follow himself. There's far too much back story, some of it repeated - the reader doesn't need to be told once that the school friend who introduced Charlie, the hero, to the books of H P Lovecraft was called Jenny or that she moved to Des Moines at the end of the school year, let alone twice. That said the whole book is so good that the occasional lacunae can easily be overlooked.

As I said earlier the physics got too much for me! I tend to accept worlds in science fiction as I'm not knowledgeable enough to say 'That couldn't be so,' though my daughter who has a degree in chemistry gets very cross about impossibilities!

The Red Notebook by Antione Laurian is very short - as French novels often are, and absolutely enchanting. A woman gets mugged and her bag stolen, next day a bookseller finds a beautiful handbag sitting on a bin with nothing to say whom it might belong to apart from a set a keys and red notebook with daily thoughts scribbled in it. This could have become sickly sweet but doesn't, partly because it is so brief and also because neither Laurent the bookseller or Laure the muggee are needy souls looking for love, they are both content in their own lives. There is one part where Laurent begins to verge on being stalkerish which is creepy but he seems to feel uneasy about that too. All in all, this is a great read if you just want something to lift your spirits.

There are a lot of good books coming out this year, here's just a few: The Mars House - Natasha Pulley The Familiar - Leigh Bardugo Long Island - Colm Toibin The Warm Hands of Ghosts - Katherine Arden (I should think Luna will be falling on this too!) The Last Murder at the End of the World - Stuart Turton The City of Stardust - Georgia Summers The Ministry of Time _ Kaliane Bradley Table for Two - Amor Towles

What type of deer are those MN? They have wonderful ears!

No, they are roe deer and there are loads of them around here.