Book #7/2018 Anatomy of a Scandal

Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's a ripper! Extraordinary! Unless something truly brilliant comes along this will be the best book I read this year! Heaped with praise by others Anatomy of a Scandal is breathtaking. A courtroom drama better than any I have read, a portrait of a marriage that is foundering, between James, a successful public figure (a junior government minister) and Sophie who has kept his dark secret ever since they first met.

When James is accused of a terrible crime, Sophie is convinced he is innocent. She wants to believe her husband. Kate is the prosecuting barrister whose memories of Oxford university continue to haunt her. She wants to destroy James.The case will have far-reaching consequences for them all.

Beautifully written, characters who are straight from life, believable. AOAS is stunning and thoroughly gripping. The highest possible recommendation from me.

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Book #6/2018 Coming Home

Fern Britton Untitled 7 by Fern Britton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for this ebook.

Fern Britton is a very accomplished writer. Her love of Cornwall radiates from the pages. It is the perfect location for her stories. Pendruggan - a delightful Cornish village that harbours a secret. Adela, Sennen and Ella - three women deeply affected by events that occurred more than twenty years ago.

Sennen - a teenage mother who cannot cope with her two children. Runs away in a desperate attempt to locate the father and make a new life. Adela, the mother of Sennen, bereft at her daughter’s disappearance and Ella, the daughter of Sennen and her brother Harry are left to be brought up by their grandparents. When Ella’s grandmother dies Ella returns to Cornwall to start a new life always hopeful that her mother will return one day.

Will Sennen ever come back, has she created a new life for herself in some far flung location? You will have to read Coming Home to find out.

Beautifully written with heart wrenching moments, the story unfolds over the decades, with characters you will come to love - some more than others!

Thank you Fern for another entertaining read.

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Book #5/2018 84, Charing Cross Road

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first read 84, Charing Cross Road back in the 70s. It is timeless. I came across this paperback and couldn't resist reading again. It is a beautiful, classic memoir of friendship and bibliophilia, twenty years of correspondence between Helene Hanff, an American writer in New York, and Marks & Co. antiquarian booksellers in Charing Cross Road, London where Frank Doel became her main correspondent.

Letters, books and quips crossed the ocean from 1949 until 1969 and a friendship flourished as Marks & Co. supplied the rare editions Helene was unable to find in New York.

84, Charing Cross Road is combined here with its delightful sequel The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, a diary kept by Helene when she finally made the trip to London.

This is a book for all book lovers - an unmitigated delight.

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Book #4/2018 Hot to Kill

Hot to Kill by Linda Coles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Review to follow.

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Book #3/2018 Tell Me the Truth about Love

Tell Me the Truth about Love by W.H. Auden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Perhaps noticeable by my absence for a while. Saturday 6th January I was rushed to hospital; severe back pain turned out to be caused by a massive aortic artery aneurysm. Five hours later I was on the operating table - for 4.5 hours - on bypass, for a repair to the aorta. Six days of ICU and high dependency care. Discharged nine days ago and now on the long road to recovery. It has knocked me sideways and has (only temporarily I hope) ruined my love of reading. My enthusiasm is lost.

Tell Me the Truth about Love - fifteen poems by W.H.Auden - I had finished on 5th January. It is a small joy and contains one of his best known works: Funeral Blues. Fortunately I have avoided this becoming more appropriate....

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Book #2/2018 The Controller

The Controller by Linda Coles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My thanks to Linda Cole for a Kindle pdf of The Controller - a novella, easy to read in one sitting.

Pete uses a drone to spy on owners walking their dogs. Establish where they live and leave it to his cohorts to nap the dog and hold for ransom. Pam is a delightful lady, ready for retirement, when her dog is stolen. Like any pet owner she is totally bereft until she receives the 'phone call demanding money for her dogs safe return. Pam pays up. But the crime takes a much nastier turn when the gang see a way to make more money...

The Controller introduces Detective Sergeant Amanda Lacey and her sidekick DC Jack Rutherford. He has spent many years as a Detective Constable and is happy with his lot. These are two very likeable coppers and get stuck into this dastardly crime.

Well written, likeable characters (well, the good ones!) and a very satisfying read.

I loved it.

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Book #1/2018 Larchfield

Larchfield by Polly Clark
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I completed reading Larchfield on New Year's Day. It is an unusual book, weaving the lives of historical characters with Dora Fielding, a young poet, who moves with her husband to Helensborough on the west coast of Scotland. This is small town life at its most excrutiating and it starts to smother Dora, who is looking to find her true self. What to do?

When Dora discovers that the poet Wystan H. Auden lived in Helensborough in the 30s Dora finds a way to escape reality. This is handled by Polly Clark with great imagination. Auden taught at Larchfield school where he is mocked for his Englishness. He is rightly suspected of homosexuality and spends his holidays with Christopher Isherwood in Germany. Dora and Auden 'find each other' and Dora's imagination becomes all consuming. These are vulnerable people and Larchfield is beautifully written; a haunting novel about heroism and repression - a story that draws you in with a compelling sense of danger.

This is an ambitious story, which Polly Clark handles perfectly. Highly recommended.

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