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Review: Charlaine Harris – Poppy Done to Death
Finally the last book in this 8 book series. I’ve got mixed feelings over it ending, because although I’ve really enjoyed the series and I quite like the main character, I can tell that it’s not Harris’ best writing, and I’d much rather read the Sookie Stackhouse books (again).This book starts off with Roe’s step-sister-in-law being murdered in her own house. Roe and her other step sister are going over to confront her for not turning up to a meeting of the ‘Uppity Women’ (don’t ask). When they get to her house, they find her on the floor, brutally stabbed. Over the course of the book, we learn that Poppy (and likewise her husband) were not exactly committed in their relationship, carrying on other relationships with many people in the town. Which of course gives us plenty of suspects for her murder, jealous women, and men who think the cat might be let out of the bag.
The plot was brilliant, a very well written murder mystery. Every time I convinced myself that someone was guilty, I turned out to be completely wrong. In the end, the guilty woman (or man) was not someone that I had ever suspected, but completely obvious now that I know.
There were a few things that I didn’t like about this book, mainly the fact that Roe discovers that she is pregnant. Harris made a big point through the last 3 books to bring up the fact that Roe can’t have children every few chapters, so the fact that Roe is pregnant seems to be an attempt to end the series on a ‘happy ever after’ note. Although it was pretty nice, it just seemed quite odd, a little like it was tacked on as an afterthought.
But apart from the few niggles that I had with the book, it was a very good end to a series that for me was a bit up and down. Not the best series I’ve ever read but one that kept me wanting to read until I’d finished.
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Review: Charlaine Harris – Last Scene Alive
This book starts off a few months after the end of the last one, with Aurora still grieving the massive loss at the end of the last book. She decides that she has had enough of living her life under a cloud of misery and that she needs to start getting back to normality. How convenient, then, that her old flame Robin gets in contact with her and wants to meet up.At first, she thinks it’s because his new movie (which incidentally is based on the murders that she uncovered in the earlier books) is filming in her town, but it turns out that he really did just want to see her. I guess you can probably tell what happens over the course of the book, with Aurora falling for Robin all over again, and getting over Martin by getting under someone else…
Unusually, it’s not actually Aurora that discovers the dead body in this book, but she still ends up front and center. Seriously, if I was involved in this many murders, I’d consider moving to a remote island to live by myself. The victim this time is the lead actor in the movie, who happens to be playing the character of Aurora and was recently dating Aurora’s old flame Robin. Aurora also has to cope with a weird new employee at the library , discovering a terrible secret at the end of the book and leading to yet another murder.
But of course, even though she’s not the police, or even a private detective, she still manages to be the one who identifies the murderer, like a normal member of the public would be able to consistently solve crimes faster than the police. But I suppose you have to accept some far-fetchedness when you’re reading a murder mystery series, kind of like Midsomer Murders.
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Review: Charlaine Harris – A Fool and His Honey
I had two very conflicting reactions to this book. The story was fast paced and thrilling and wouldn’t let me stop reading until I had finished. It’s the quickest I’ve read a book in a long time. But then there was the writing, and you could definitely tell that this is one of Harris’ earlier books. There is a lot of repetition, and detail in places where it is not needed (like too much focus on her hair or her glasses). It kind of distracted from the energy of the story, but not enough so that I didn’t enjoy it.Aurora is at home when the man delivering her wood goes mad and starts dancing naked around her garden. Now this wasn’t actually an important part of the story and we only find out why right at the end. Although the explanation felt like an afterthought, so I think it would have been better without it. After this man has been taken away by the police, a relative of Aurora’s husband Martin turns up on the doorstep with a new baby. Only no-one knows that Regina was ever pregnant. Martin and Aurora go out for dinner, but when they return, Regina is missing, there is a dead man on the steps of the house with a hatchet in his head, the baby is hidden under the bed and there is a strange man hidden in Aurora’s house.
Martin and Aurora decide that they need to find Regina or a relative of hers so that they don’t have to look after the baby, so they return to Martin’s hometown in Ohio, to his old family home on a farm in the middle of nowhere. The drama escalates from here, building to a thrilling (and heart-wrenching) conclusion.
I’m really looking forward to reading the next book in the series now, which surprised me, because I didn’t really enjoy the last book. Only 3/5 though due to the almost amateur-style writing.
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Review: John O’Farrell – The Man Who Forgot His Wife
When I decided to read this book, I thought it was going to be quite a serious book about the effects of memory loss, but it was anything but serious.Vaughan finds himself on a tube with no idea who he is, where he is or what he is doing there. He’s experienced a ‘fugue’; he has lost every personal memory that he had, although he can still remember general facts about world history etc (which is pretty useful since he finds out he is a history teacher). He ends up in hospital next to a rather annoying man who is insistent that he can help Vaughan recover his memory. He’s reading through a list of names to see if any of them can jog Vaughan’s memory (which Vaughan thinks is rather stupid), when all of a sudden something clicks. He remembers the name of one of his friends.
After he is released from the hospital to go stay with his friend Gary, he realises that not only does he not remember that he had a wife, but he is actually supposed to be divorcing her in 3 days time. The book is a story of him trying to win her back now that he is no longer the same person that he was before. Obviously, just because he can’t remember all the terrible things he did, doesn’t mean that his soon-to-be ex-wife Maddy has forgotten too, so his attempts at wooing her don’t go too well.
I won’t say too much about where the story goes from here because I don’t really want to spoil the ending, but it does involve: hiding in a bush and taking a hedge trimmer on the tube, a freezing cold dip in the atlantic ocean and a rather unconventional appearance in the divorce court.
I won’t give this book 5/5 because it’s probably not one that I would read again, but it’s a definite 4.
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Review: Hillary Jordan – When She Woke
I know I’ve probably said this before a million times, but I am a sucker for a nice looking book. When I was walking around the Waterstones in Kendal (yes, I did drive all the way to the Lake District and end up in a book shop), this book jumped out at me straight away because of the red edges on the pages and the girl staring out at me from the front of the book.A quick read of the back of the book convinced me that it would probably be pretty interesting, so I decided I might as well give it a try.
“Hannah Payne is a Red.
Her crime: Murder.
And her victim, says the state of Texas
Was her unborn child.”The book is set in Texas, but a very different from the Texas that we know now. In this Texas, they had a problem with massive overcrowding of the prisons, and they realised that it would be much easier (and cheaper) to let the criminals back into society. With one catch: melachroming. This means that, depending on the severity of the crime that you committed, your skin is be turned a different colour for the length of your sentence – making you a ‘Chrome’. Among others, yellow is for misdemeanor crimes, blue is for paedophiles and red is for murderers. Hannah, being convicted of abortion (illegal in this version of Texas) is sentenced to 16 years living as a ‘Red’. We learn that the reason for Hannah’s abortion is an affair with her married Pastor, and she went ahead with the procedure without telling him. No matter how much he tries to help her avoid the sentence, there’s nothing he can do.
After her release from the 30 days in jail while she becomes accustomed to the melachroming, she is released back into society and during a non too successful stint in a rehab ‘church’, she ends up frightened and alone with only her new friend Kayla (also a Red) for company. Life for a chrome is not easy, especially for a Red. Everyone knows the crime that you commited, and not all places are as tolerant as others. Chromes are tracked by the government so they are not allowed to leave the state. Any attempt to run away would result in ‘fragging’, caused when the melachroming starts to run out and will lead to eventual death. The only way to stop the ‘fragging’ is to return to be re-melachromed.
Just as Hannah and Kayla are about to be attacked by an extreme Christian organisation called The Fist, she is hurried into the back of a van by 3 strangers. They call themselves The Novembrists and they are a ‘feminist’ group determined to help women who have had abortions escape from the life of chroming. They are reluctant to include Kayla in their plans, as she was convicted of attempted murder and not for abortion, but they are persuaded by Hannah to keep her alive. Shielded from the view of the government by the Novembrists, they are now highly wanted by police and their only option is to escape to Canada where they can have the melachroming reversed and live a life of seclusion away from the authorities, never to see their friends and family again.
It is on this journey to Canada via members of the Novembrists group that things go wrong and Hannah and Kayla find themselves separated. Hannah has to find hidden strengths within herself, and she becomes a lot more like the person she always thought she could be, rather than the uber-conservative dummy that her parents had raised her to be. It’s a hair raising experience for Hannah as she battles to make it north to Canada, healing her demons along the way.
There were a few surprises that I didn’t expect from this storyline, and a few times I found myself having to cover the opposite page to stop my eyes from inadvertently wandering across in advance to the next page because the plot was unravelling so thick and fast that I just couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next.
The book was very well written, and certainly had a lot thought put into it about the sensitive issue of abortion, and also the more general issue of crime and punishment. Melachroming seems like a cruel and unusual punishment now, but then again the death penalty is still in place in many states in America, and which is really worse?
I really would recommend this book, the subject matter was not an easy read, but the author did a very good job of making it all fit together and keep you wanting more. A definite 5/5.
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Review: Charlaine Harris – Dead Over Heels
Well this is the first book I’ve ever read in digital instead of as an actual physical book, and it’s totally put me off buying a kindle. The actual book was going to cost £30, but the kindle version was only £9.99, so I bought it on kindle and read it on my phone/iPad. Yes, it was quite convenient because I always had my book with me, and yes, my bag was a lot lighter without carrying a book around all the time, and yes, it gave me something to do all the times I was sat waiting in my car. BUT, the experience of reading a book just isn’t the same when you don’t have an actual book. I love the feel and smell of a book, and I love being able to easily tell how far through the book I am. Location 3097 of 13807 means absolutely nothing to me, thank you kindle.Anyway, enough of my book-obsessed ramblings and on to the book. Unfortunately, for the second book in a row by one of my favourite authors, I was disappointed again. Harris seems to have a tendency to repeat what’s happened in the previous books over and over again in subsequent books, especially near the start. The first couple of chapters always seem to be a reintroduction to Aurora and her family. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but when I’m reading a series of books, I tend to know what I’ve just read, so this gets a bit tedious.
This book (the 5th in the series), starts off with a body falling from a plane and landing in Aurora’s garden. Now most people might be extremely freaked out about this, but Aurora seems to take it in her stride, and after other odd attacks start happening (including on her friends), she obviously ends up starting her own little investigation. The middle part of the book did get quite interesting, but it wasn’t as good as the first omnibus that I read earlier this year. Not good enough to make me want to read the next one straight away, I’ve got something more exciting lined up.
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Review: Nicholas Sparks – The Best of Me
I usually look forward to Nicholas Sparks books, but this one left me feeling a bit disappointed. The book was about 300 pages long, but I didn’t actually start to enjoy the story until more than 150 pages through. I would have stopped reading but I hate stopping a book half way through, instead it just took me a long time to read it.I’m not sure why I didn’t get along with it like I usually do, maybe it was because the two main characters in the story were a lot older, or maybe it was because there was too much backstory needed to set up the story. It just didn’t feel like it ‘got going’ until way too late in the book.
That being said, once I’d got past what felt like a huge introduction, the last part of the book was very good. It wasn’t what I would call a typical Sparks book. Usually the two characters have difficulties throughout the book and end up happily ever after, but in this book, it was kind of the opposite, with a sad but also heartwarming ending in which he becomes a part of her family in a way that you would not have expected.
I hate to do this for a Nicholas Sparks book because I usually really enjoy them, but I think this one only gets 2/5 for me.
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Review: Kate Harrison – The Secret Shopper’s Revenge
Well this book was pretty much what I expected from the title. 50% shopping and 50% trashy chick-lit. Saying that though, it was well written and the plot was quite unlike anything I’ve read before.The book has three main characters, Emily, Sandie and Grazia, although we are introduced to Emily first so it seems like the story revolves around her. She’s been dumped by her husband and left jobless and holding the baby. She’s sitting in a cafe when she is approached by Grazia, the head of a ‘secret shopping’ company that goes undercover to spy on shop assistants and waitresses to find bad customer service. Grazia is a recently widowed lady, running out of money due to her artist-husband’s lack of planning for the future. She also recruits Sandie who’s just been fired from her job after being set up for stealing money by her super-catty colleague.
After the initial introductions, the storyline was pretty predictable for this kind of book, Emily falls for a charming guy called Will, but then messes it all up and thinks she’s lost him for good. But with help from Sandie and Grazia, of course things turn out happily ever after in the end. Similar predictability for Sandie and Grazia, although their stories don’t seem quite as fully developed as Emily’s. This kind of put me off because we were switching between three narrators for the story, but two of them seemed more like a side-show than the main story.
I did find the book quite entertaining and it was definitely an easy read, but when I compare it to some of the books I’ve read recently, it just didn’t draw me in in quite the same way.
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Bakewell (Home of the Tart)
Not wanting to waste the lovely hot weather, Cameron and I went for a day trip to the Peak District yesterday, deciding on Bakewell. I’d been there a couple of years ago with Vicky and it was really nice, so worth a re-visit. All the way there, it looked quite miserable outside, cloudy and occasional rain. But the temperature on my car still said 22 degrees, so we had the air-con on quite cold. Getting out of the car in Bakewell was like walking into a sauna, it was so humid! Not that we should complain, at least it’s not torrential rain and thunder storms like a couple of weeks ago. Typical English, complaining about the weather.
We had a picnic and a walk around the town, finished off with an ice cream in the park. Then a meandering drive home followed by a yummy sunday carvery to wind up the day. I definitely hope the sunny weather lasts for a few more weeks, although less humidity would be nice. We are going to see my Uncle in Bristol next weekend for the bank holiday. It’ll be Cameron’s first time visiting so it should be good fun! And Cameron is on my car insurance now, so I’m looking forward to being chauffeured around. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of pictures when I get back, but in the meantime, here’s some pictures of sunny Bakewell (and not a tart in sight*).
*For my American followers, a bakewell tart is not a culinarily talented yet inappropriately dressed lady, but an almond flavoured dessert originating in the aforementioned lovely Derbyshire village of Bakewell:
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Review: Eleanor Brown – The Weird Sisters
I don’t know about the weird sisters, but it was definitely a weird narrative. The book was written from a collective retrospective first person. I was never any good at English so I’m sure there’s a proper word for that, but hopefully you know what I mean. Most of the time, the book seemed like it was in third person, but then occasionally there’d be an interruption from this collective entity of the three sisters. It took quite a while to get used to, but in the end I grew to quite like it, it felt kind of like a reminiscence.The book (as you would probably have guessed) is about 3 sisters; Rosalind, Bianca and Cordelia (aka Rose, Bean and Cordy). They’re from a small academic town (Barny) where their father is a professor specialising in Shakespeare (this is where their names come from, although I didn’t realise as I’ve never really read any shakespeare). There are quotes from Shakespeare interspersed throughout the book, which kind of made me want to read Shakespeare more.
Onto the three sisters; Rose is a homebody, never moved away from their hometown, and now caring for their mother who has cancer. The news that their mum has cancer is also a catalyst to bring the other two sisters home, although they both have other reasons to return. Cordy, a free spirited traveller, has discovered that she is pregnant, father unknown. She’s had enough of the travelling life and wants some stability for her and the baby. Bean, a New York socialite, has been fired from her job after they discovered she’d been stealing money from the company to fund her high-flying life.
At first, the sisters don’t talk to each other about their troubles, don’t even seem to like each other very much. But they grow closer over time, and Cordy and Bean find that home is just what they needed. They’d been pushing away the small town life of Barny for so long, but it helps to heal their troubles and move on. And their return frees up Rose to move to take the leap away from the comfortable security of the place she’s grown up and loved for so long.
After a shaky start while I got used to the narrative, I grew to love the sisters and the style of the book drew me in and made me turn the pages over and over to find out what would happen. I don’t think I can quite give it 5/5, but it’s a definite 4 for me.
Louise Douglas
(I've got no) Shelf Control…
Louise Douglas 