France

The Serpent's Mark - SW Perry. This the second in a series about Nicholas Shelby, doctor and sometime spy and is set in one of the seedier parts of London in the 1590s. I picked it up at a second hand book sale because there was a quote praising it from S J Maclean and I really enjoy her books (see below!) For once it wasn't a puff quote from a friend, this was good, atmospheric, characters well drawn and necessary historical facts explained without info dump. Much better than his near namesake S J Parris's series about Giodano Bruno, set in much the same time, which are readable but not a patch on this. Crucible of Secrets by S J Maclean is the third of her series about Alexander Seaton, this one is set in Aberdeen in 1626. It's a great read and though there are murders and dastardly deeds it's lighter in tone than the previous book in the series which is a relief as that one was very dark indeed. The Wonderful World of Jane and Oliver Bloke by Rorie Smith. Admission time here, Rorie is a member of my writing group and I've heard quite a lot of this novel during our meetings as he was writing it. It's hard to describe, it definitely doesn't follow standard hoping-to-be-a-bestseller tropes but is is very funny in places, wryly funny in others, distinctly different and, for me, a welcome breath of fresh air.

I agree with that. it was very common in books written in the early 90s too.

We seem to have pretty similar tastes in historical novels!

Just started The Serpent's Mark by S W Perry a historical set in Elizabethan London. So far very good indeed.

Alan Moorhead was a distinguished war correspondant who decided after the war the settle in Italy in the hills above Florence. The Villa Diana is a collection of articles he wrote about Italy which were published mostly in the New Yorker in the late 40s and early 50s. They aren't travel articles as such - for instance his piece set in Sicily is about a gangster who started off in a Robin Hoodish type fashion robbing the rich to help the poor and ended up as a down right thug but naturally his observations often have much to do with the rebuilding of Italy after the war. So far everyone I know who has read this agrees on one thing - it's an enchanting book and is much more than a nostalgic look back at an age where Venice was reeling under having as many as 2000 visitors a day. An absolute must for anyone who loves Italy.

This Must Be The Place by Maggie O Farrell is the story of a disfunctional marriage, covering a multitude of characters over several different time slots. That makes it sounds confusing, it isn't because Maggie O Farrell is such a good writer that she manages to keep all her balls separately and clearly in the air and as ever her prose is just stunning. She also manages to write about people who are dislikeable or irritating and keep the reader's sympathy, or with one person in the book understanding why they did what they did while at the same time wanting to yell at them for for being a sniveling, duplicitous little rat. The first time I read this novel I had to do it quickly because I'd been loaned it as a book club read and the owner needed it back, I enjoyed it but wasn't bowled over. This time, deciding to reread it on a whim and taking my time to savour the good bits I loved it.

Reading The Bear Pit by S J Maclean was a bit of a mistake as I thought it was number 2 in her series about Damien Seeker and was too far into it to put it aside once I realised it was in fact number 4. No wonder I couldn't "remember" the back story. That mystification apart it was an excellent read despite a slight jumping the shark incident near the end. It also has one of my all time heroes in it (not saying who as it would be a massive spoiler). I thoroughly enjoy her writing she has the knack of immersing you in her period without modern intrusions or info dump. On the other hand Tall Bones by Anna Bailey was total tosh. It sounded great, girl disappears in small town America and the investigation throws up all sorts of hidden things in the woodwork. The writer says she lived in a small town for a year when she was a teenager but it does not seem to have given her any insights into what people are like, what really motivates them. The book is crowded with lazy stereotypes, the drunk, the homophobic priest, the racist trailer park owner, the girl who suffers racist abuse because her father was Mexican, the Romanian guy who somehow doesn't get abused, the closet homosexual, the beaten up child, more child abuse... I could go on. I gave up caring who did it at about 25%, limped on to half way through and read the last two chapters to see who did. The end was stereotypes on steroids.

This sounds wonderful! The audio book of By Ash, Oak and Thorn is free on Audible Plus too. It's my next listen.

I use my Amazon wish list as a sort-of TBR list for books I don't own even though I don't buy from them very often. It's a useful aide-memoire. Everything that I might be interested in is listed there and every so often I go through and have a cull of books that I've decided against etc. Otherwise it's the TBR bookcase in my bedroom and what I've got in the "unread" section of my Kobo.

The Venetian Game by Philip Gwynne Jones is the first in a series featuring Nathan Sutherland, translator and part time honorary consul in Venice who is asked to look after a parcel by a shady customer which of course leads to a mystery. The mystery part is fairly run of the mill but what is outstanding is Venice. The author lives there and a feeling for the city imbues every page, he doesn't merely describe it, he puts you there. Very well worth reading just for that! Traitor King by Andrew Lownie is about the Windsors after the abdication. It's pretty obvious what Mr Lownie's opinion of the Windsors is from the title but even so this is a real eyeopener. I knew that they were deeply selfish, were antisemitic and pro German but I had no idea to what extent. They were also arch spongers, he was a drunk and very boring, both of them were extravagant to an eye watering degree and I finished the book feeling that Britain really dodged a bullet when Edward VIII abdicated.

Oh I hope not! I do wonder where the series is going though.

I really enjoyed this one. Naomi Novik can genuinely write in different styles, I first came across her with the Temeraire novels which are adult fantasy and loved them - the first few in the series anyway. I liked Spinning Silver a lot too but I listened to it on Audible and it was beautifully read which of course adds so much.

"Antifan" - what a good word! I share your sentiments.

I wouldn't read War and Peace again and not because it's so long! I read it when I should have been revising for my mock O levels and was completely blown away by it, Natasha was the first heroine I really fell in love with, I'm still indignant about Tolstoy turning her into a nappy obsessed wifie at the end which shows how little he knew about women! I'd be afraid it wouldn't have that impact (and I couldn't hack the Masonic stuff again). Likewise I wouldn't re-read Margaret Irwin's novels again which kept me entirely enthralled for 3 weeks in hospital in Galway when I was 14. My mother would bring me a new one every day and I fell totally romantically in love with Prince Rupert and The marquis of Montrose and learnt a lot about the Civil War well. I have a horrid feeling I might find them overblown these days.

I agree with you totally about Lord of the Flies. It's the only book which was proposed for one of my book groups (the one that had quite a few challenging books) that several members said flatly that they not only refused to read it again but wouldn't come to the meeting either as they didn't even want to hear it discussed.

The Second Sleep was on a par with this one! And derivative too.

The Bandit Queen by Parini Shroff. Goodness this is fun! Geeta is living peacefully as a widow in a rural Indian village until other members of her loan group decide they'd like to be widows too... It's an adventure story, a revenge thriller, very funny in places and takes some extremely surprising turns. An absolute pleasure. Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris. And what a disappointment this was. Robert Harris is on my automatic buy list, this is a man who can make a book about a group of modern cardinals locked up in conclave to elect a pope exciting so how did he manage to make a cat and mouse story of the pursuit of two of the regicides who signed Charles I's death warrant so tedious? It was far too long, he kept drifting off into side stories that kept distracting from the plot and generally lacked pace. the one thing that was really interesting was his descriptions of the Puritan colonies in New England which make me very glad I didn't have to experience them.

Possibly the living belongs to the Martyrs Memorial Trust like the living of the church in the village where I grew up. They were closely allied to the Methodists and the services were very low indeed

Take a look at Femina the free mag that comes with our local newspaper, the Sud Ouest on Saturdays. As my daughter says even the problems on the problem page are dull. But then life in this part of rural France is so vibrant that when a traffic light was installed in the village we were living in (the first and on a small side road) it got a full quarter page write up with three pictures.

I read some rather more glowing reviews of this and was half of a mind to add it to the tbr pile. I won't bother now, thanks!

Dead Rich by G W Shaw (who also writes detective fiction as William Shaw) is about life on the open waves - in a Russian oligarch's super yacht in the Caribbean. Kai, a rootless, formerly reasonably successful rock person, is invited on her father's yacht by his girlfriend, having no idea that daddy is one of the richest men in the world. It's just the first of the things he's pretty clueless about, he makes one of those mistakes so stupid that leave you wondering if this person deserves to live even in the pages of a thriller, yet at other times he seems to have almost superhuman powers of observation and ability. It's billed as a page turning, heart stopping thriller and I suppose that if you read it quickly enough you might not notice some of the inconsistancies in the plot or how everything is far too neatly tied up at the end. It was all a bit too Jeffery Archer for me.

Isn't she pretty! We had a cat who wasn't a rescue as such - she had been living wild in the forest and was tempted to live with humans by three square a day and a comfy billet when she was about 8 months old who was probably the most affectionate thing we've ever had. She never forgot where she came from though, each summer she would disappear to live wild, come back for two or three days to stuff herself and then go off again. When it got colder she would revert to being a fireside cat.

Another of the books I read many years ago when I was living in Hong Kong. I agree, it is amazing!

Just seen that Ann Patchett has a new book out, Tom's Lake. Now to wait until it comes out in paperback, sigh! I'm also waiting for the paperback of Jane Haper's Exiles which is September I think.

My Brilliant Friend is exceptional as is the second one in the series so don't worry!