France

I listened to The Bookseller of Inverness on Audible and it was so good that I bought the book as part of my husband's birthday present. Then I can read it myself! I agree about The Seeker, it's excellent. I'd never heard of her until I picked it up at a second hand book sale last year.

I've just listened to this on Audible and it's a hoot!

I read that years ago when I was living in Hong King and loved it.

The problem is that authors often have to proof read their own books these days, even with the big publishers, and if you have written something your brain sees what it wanted to write and not what is actually on the page so it glides over mistakes unless they're glaring. That's especially true if you have to re-read twice in quick succession

A Game of Sorrows by SJ Maclean is the second in her series about Alexander Seaton. It's 1628, Alexander has made a new life in Aberdeen and is about to leave for a mission on the continent when a stranger arrives, proclaims himself to be his cousin and whisks him off to Ulster to help raise a curse that has been placed on his mother's family whom Alexander knows nothing about. This really is first class historical fiction, it feels utterly real and people behave as of their time, there isn't that sense of 21st century attitudes in 17th century heads that bedevils so much historical fiction and the characterisation is excellent. It was an absolute pleasure to read a novel set in a period I know very little too. Highly recommended but do read the first in the series The Redemption of Alexander Seaton which is set in Banff two years earlier. I was saying how much I was enjoying the book at my writing group and one of the other members said she was in Shona Maclean's class at school in Banff and at the same university too. Small world!

Absolutely! We have an old wine chai where they used to make wine attached to the house which basically houses the washing machine and junk. It's just too easy to let it fill up with stuff that's "too good to throw away" but which we have no use for. However I do repurpose my husband's walkers when they develop cracks - they're very useful for propping up half broken branches on fruit trees or supporting honeysuckle!

The Crown in Cris by Alexander Lerman is about the lead up to the abdication of Edward VIII. it's a superbly written, fluent and fascinating account of something I thought I knew a fair amount about and it turns out that I didn't. One of the things that comes across very clearly is how devastating most people, public and politicians alike, found even the idea that a monarch could voluntarily lay down his crown because of a woman of somewhat dubious reputation - and it was dubious, and how hard most of the inner circle tried to keep him on the throne even when they thought he would make a lousy and irresponsible king. I ended up feeling quite sorry for Wallis even though "hubris" comes to mind. There's a follow up to this about the Windsors during the war years which I'm very keen to read but will have to wait until it comes out in paperback.

I've been hearing a lot about this book. Thanks for the review, it's been added to the wishlist!

I agree I thoroughly enjoyed this though unlike you I didn't guess the main protagonist!

That's a wonderful colour Luna!

Ouch! Poor you, Luna. Hope you feel better soon.

The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard. Largely taken from the blurb as it's better than how I could give a taster: "An impulsive word can start a war. A timely word can stop one.A simple act of friendship can change the course of history. Cliopher Mdang is the personal secretary of the Last Emperor of Astandalas, the Lord of Rising Stars, the Lord Magus of Zunidh, the Sun-on-Earth, the god. He has spent more time with the Emperor than any other person. He has never once touched his lord, called him by name, never initiated a conversation. One day Cliopher suggests the Sun-on-Earth has a holiday. He could have been executed for blasphemy. The acceptance upends the world." I was Kobo diving among my to read collection and had no memory of buying this book, let alone what it was about so it was something of a surprise, the first one being how long it is - 2000 pages on the Kobo. The second is that though it is hardly action driven it doesn't get boring or flag despite the length even though the last part could have been wrapped up a little more quickly. It's a gentle story and thoroughly nice, managing at the same time to stay well clear of being sickly sweet. I really enjoyed it, much more so than A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet which is what's usually mentioned when talking of gentle fantasy or SF.

Couldn't that have been JK simply having her character getting it wrong?

You really don't like Natasha Pulley! I would say she goes further than magical realism into outright fantasy and they aren't historical so much as outright alternative reality. I love her books though the Bedlam Stacks isn't one of her best, imo. To really appreciate her books you ought to read the first four in the order in which they were published as the same characters pop up in minor or major roles.

37°C this afternoon and we're getting all of 0.1 mm of rain during the night. It will be cooler though.

In The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue Addie has a picnic near the church of Sacre Cour in Monmartre, making particular reference to the steps. The date is 1752 ish. At that date the only way of getting up there was by sheep track or ladders and the church wasn't built until the late 19th century.

Femina by Janina Ramirez is a fascinating feminist look at what women really did in Medieval times (medieval as in from the end of the Romans to the later Middle Ages, post Black Death). I've always considered myself reasonably knowledgeable about history but I had no idea how important women rulers were during the Dark Ages - for instance Alfred the Great's daughter was the one who consolidated the kingdom not him or that there were female Viking warriors, though admittedly neither did historians until DNA testing was done on the elaborately buried skeleton of a warrior of importance. It's very well written, a pleasure to read and quite an eye opener in several aspects. Highly recommended.

Granted it was written before he dumped poor Catherine but nothing I've read about her indicates that she had much in common with Dora, though she probably did suffer from post natal depression. He was a brilliant writer but he didn't do women very well, they tend to be stereotypes whereas his male characters leap off the page with their vitality.

I with you on this one Madelaine, I enjoyed it but it didn't really wow me, probably because of all the surfing. I far preferred Daisy Jones and the Six.

If they reflect anything in his marriage it would be what he wanted the public to think not anything approaching truth. He was absolutely foul to his wife, she had been married to him for over 20 years and had 10 children when he fell in love with an 18 year old actress and first of all publicly said that his wife was a bad mother and was mentally ill, then tried tried to have her institutionalised. That didn't work so he bullied her into a separation and took the children. None of the heroes in his books behave like that.

I read this due to a recommendation from someone on Bookgrouponline who often had surprisingly similar tastes to my own and approached it with some trepidation, cowboy stories and films are so not my thing and it's also a chunkster so looked like it was going to be a long haul. I think I read it in about 4 days, I was totally engrossed and it's one of those books I wholeheartedly suggest to others. A really terrific read, and no, I haven't read anything else about cowboys since.

Messalina being probably the greatest villaness of them all.

The Vanishing of Class 3B by Jackie Kabler is a Did Not Finish and a Do Not Bother. It sounded promising - a whole class of primary school children vanishes on a school trip but when chapter 3 or something introduces someone who praactically has "I"m a baddy" written on his forehead it's time to give up. What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch What fun this was! Sheer pleasure for lovers of the series. The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman This was slightly slower to get going that his previous books and even sillier in places but if you appreciate his writing and his humour (quite a few people don't) it's very enjoyable indeed. Black as He's Painted by Ngaio Marsh This is a strange one, written in the 70's it's apparently one of her most loved books but it's a bit of an eyeopener now. The plot revolves around the president of the newly independent African state of Ng'onbwana who went to school with detective Roderick Allen and a murder in the Ng'onbwanan embassy. It wasn't written that long ago but it's full of language and attitudes that you just wouldn't see in a book these days (I wonder if it'll get "edited" for modern sensibilities). It's the first Ngaio Marsh I've read and once I got past my surprise I rather enjoyed it. The Midnight House by Amanda Geard This was a Kindle cheapie I got for a weekend going to and from Paris anbd it's excellent travel reading. There's nothing very surprising in it, three story lines beginning of the war, mid fifties and present, set in Ireland, which slowly unravel a mystery but it's nicely written and ideal for the metro as you don't have to concentrate too hard.

I wouldn't describe Becky Sharp as a villaness, more of an absolute survivor, though I grant you she's thoroughly devious and always prepared to backstab but she does have redeeming points. Have you read 101 Dalmatians? My children loved me reading it to them, it's very funny, and Cruella was a much more rounded figure than in the film - she was expelled from school for drinking ink and all her food tastes of pepper but she was a real villaness, totally focused on what she wanted. I didn't enjoy Gone Girl but the wife, was she called Amy?, was a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Most stepmothers in fairy tales are cast as villanesses, Goneril and Regan from King Lear might qualify or are they just thoroughly greedy and unpleasant?

I'm so pleased to see that the two founders of Slightly Foxed, the literary magazine and podcast, have been awarded MBE's in the King's first Birthday Honours list for services to literature. I wonder if Camilla had anything to do with it, she's said to be a keen reader. For those who haven't come across Slightly Foxed, it's a quarterly magazine with essays about books, books that have slipped under the radar, that are a bit quirky or different, have been unjustly forgotten or that the author of the article loves and wants to bring to everyone's attention. My daughters give me a subscription each year for my birthday and I love it, I'm not always very interested in all the books written about but there's always something that catches my fancy, I've found some really brilliant books thanks to SF and the editions are so nice to look at and dip into that they'll never find their way to the charity shop!