BCF Bookclub 2024 - Part 4 completed reads

[lunababymoonchild]

Starts here

[Hayley]

First book of the challenge completed for me: A Trail Through Time by Jodi Taylor. The characters travel back in time to such experiences as a London Frost Fair and Pompeii as the volcano is erupting! It’s been ages since I read the previous book, but this one tied up a lot of what seemed like loose ends from the previous one. For those who’ve read the first four at least:

 

Spoiler

I didn’t really like the fact that Leon was able to save someone from their own timeline when I read that in the last book. After all the warnings that, even if you messed with history a tiny bit, you would essentially die in some terrible and mysterious way, it seemed like Taylor was breaking her own rule. It also felt like the deaths, then not-deaths of Leon and Max were going to make things quite messy and confusing. I was relieved that this book addresses all of that and ties things up a bit! 

 

[Madeleine]

I've got this far in the series, and agree with you re your "spoiler".

[lunababymoonchild]

Leonard Low, Scotland’s Untold Stories. A factual account of some of our lesser known historical events.

[France]

I went to Pompeii last moth so started reading Pompeii by Robert Harris. What a masterclass in making a fascinating background deadly dull Cardboard characters with  each chapter headed by a little passage from a modern book on vulcanology outlining the development of the eruption, which even though the reader knows what happened took away the tension.

That was followed by another book about Pompeii recommended by a friend, A Day of Fire, a series of interlinked short stories by six authors, which hit the mark as an immersion of how strange and then terrifying it was.

[Hayley]

Finally finished The Suspicions of Mr Whicher! I enjoyed it overall but I realised that I was slightly confused about how I was meant to be reading it. I expected it to be fiction based on a true event, but it’s actually more like an academic text with elements of fiction. So you have a really detailed bibliography, and notes to justify claims to historical fact at the back. Within the ‘story’ of what happened, there are also quite lengthy diversions to explain things like what the media portrayal of private detectives was in different decades and how specific crimes were portrayed in contemporary fiction. 
It was interesting but I kind of wish it had been more clearly non-fiction, so I knew what I was starting 😅

[lunababymoonchild]

Hauntings by Neil Oliver. Not as good as I anticipated, too much about his personal life and boy, does he like a simile! Some are exceptionally good, I’ll grant him but far too many to be useful and not enough about ghosts and hauntings. I’m glad it’s finished