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  Before I started reading this book, I noticed a paragraph on the back that mentioned that it was a debut novel, then all the way through I kept thinking: How on earth can anyone write anything this good at the first go? It is a really clever novel that nibbles at the edges of 'cosy crime', but is much darker than most in that genre.  There are no sweet little old ladies putting together clues in between Pilates and dinner, and not everyone in it is necessarily on the side of the police, so that gives it an interesting twist.  It seems that among the upper classes, it is quite possible to be a pillar of society while still being capable of covering ones tracks if anything unsavoury occurs. Edward, who has come from more humble beginnings, has managed to earn himself a private education through scholarships and good fortune, ending with an assisted place at Oxford.  While he was at the university he met Stanza, who was grieving for her recently deceased mother, and q...

  This book came at a good time for me as I needed something that was easy to read and not very complicated after a couple of weeks of personal trauma.  It's a book about friendship and family, and Nina Stibbe has an amusing way with words so that helps make it a pleasant read. Susan and Norma have been friends for years but its an odd sort of relationship where neither seems entirely satisfied with the other.  Norma is an academic woman and they met at university, but Susan dropped out without finishing her course after she found she was pregnant and decided to marry Roy.  Norma was very much against this choice as she felt that Susan was throwing her life away, but they remained in contact despite their disagreements. After she has had the baby, Susan asks Norma to be godmother to her daughter Honey, but Norma refuses as she doesn't want to be bothered with children, and this becomes another bone of contention that Susan can never entirely forget.  At times th...

Those of us who were around in the 1960s may remember the 'Ten Pound Pom' scheme where British citizens could apply to emigrate to Australia for just ten pounds.  There was a lot of take-up for this offer because people were still recovering from the effects of the war, and it seemed like a good way to make a fresh start. In the book, Charlotte and her husband Henry make the trip from their home in Cambridge, but the move isn't really what Charlotte wants, and her misgivings are compounded by the fact that she finds she is pregnant with their second child before they set off.  Henry has Indian heritage and was bought up in a much warmer climate, so the rain and the cold of English winters upset him and he worries that the constant damp is making Charlotte and the children perpetually ill.  He is the one who drives the move and Charlotte only agrees to give herself some breathing space, but before she knows it, everything has been arranged. Having another child brings chal...

Some books take a while to get into, but this one had me gripped right from the start.  This is a true story based on the Loray Mill Strike in a North Carolina mill in 1929.  The mill workers were barely earning enough to keep their families alive, and without a strike, nothing was ever going to change. The book follows one of the mill workers, Ella May Wiggins, who has no choice but to leave her children alone at night as she goes out to the mill to put in her 14 hour shift.  Her useless husband has left her to cope on her own, and things don't get much better when she finds another man who can't hold down a job.   Ella is a poor white woman from the mountains, and she is living in a shack where all her neighbours are all black, and this is unusual during the time of racial segregation but she sees all the mill workers as equal in their struggle to get by.  One day she finds a leaflet advertising a union rally for the workers that is taking place in the ne...

This was one of those books that didn't really move me one way or the other.  It wasn't a bad read, but then again it wasn't riveting and the storyline just jogged along for the few days it took me to read it. I never like to be mean about books, especially when authors have clearly put so much effort in, but it's just a fact of life that some books resonate with you and some books don't.  I think the underlying problem I had with this book was that the main character, Helen, didn't seem very authentic.  Helen is a top level scientist working in theoretical physics, and she holds a position as a Professor at MIT, but the author, Nell Freudenberger, is not a scientist and had to learn everything she writes about from scratch. To be fair, she has obviously learnt a great deal, as the book is peppered with explanations of scientific research, but it did seem a little forced at times. Anyway, scientist Helen's best friend Charlie had recently died after sufferin...

The writing in this book is solid as a rock and the style fits perfectly with the harsh life of farming families in the hills of the Welsh borders.  There is a masculine tone to the narrative as the story is mostly told through the experiences of Oliver, the son of a sheep farmer, whose family have lived in the same property for multiple generations. The book begins in 1941 when Oliver is a young boy at school.  He's a big strong lad with a swarthy look to him, and one day other boys taunt him that he looks like a gypsy and not his father.  There have always been rumours about him, but his mother has never agreed to talk about it, so Oliver learns to put up a fight and takes on anyone who hits him first. The farm they live in is barely changed from a century before as Oliver's father Idris prefers the old ways and resists modernisation.  He still farms using a plough with a horse and refuses to have electricity connected to the house.  Winters are terrible with ...

Sunbringer is the second book in The Fallen Gods Trilogy, and if you haven't read the first book, Godkiller, then you will not get the full experience with this one.  The first book introduces the concept of multiple gods existing alongside, and sometimes even within the people, and the setting has some parallels with medieval times in Britain. Gods can rise and fall in strength depending on how many followers and offerings they have, and if they become too strong, they can manipulate armies and alter the balance of power in the land.  Most people are helpless against the gods, but a group of people known as Veiga have special powers that allow them to become godkillers and fight back when necessary.   The godkiller Kissen is a strong woman with a fearless mind, and although she lost a leg many years ago, that has never held her back and she fights alongside knights, matching their fighting skills at every turn.  Her prosthetic leg is made from briddite, which i...