August Roundup

Anyone who is a regular to this blog will know that August is one of the bumper months of reading for me as I have around three weeks off work. This August has been no exception and as you will be able to see from the list of books below, I have been busy. The majority have been reviewed but there are some that have been read for sheer pleasure or fascination.

I have seen many blogs mention Susan Hill – Howards End is on the Landing, but had yet to read it. It is one of those books, that you can pick up read a chapter, which are like small essays and then put it down comfortably for a fortnight without thought and pick it up again to learn some more. Fascinating but not the book I thought it was going to be.

I do love a good saga, and Daisy Styles – The Code Girls was going to give me that. I liked the premise and I thought perhaps I was going to get more of the codebreaking than the cooking I did get, it was a pleasurable diversion apart from one thing – the historical mistakes. Poor research is unacceptable especially when people who could well be reading books like this probably remember the events.

This did not happen through the book, but in the first 15 pages or so – it was stated that Clement Attlee was the prime minister who announced the war, that the Dunkirk evacuation from the North Sea was on the Normandy beaches. At this point the book nearly flew out the window. I kept reading because I was under the impression it would be perhaps interesting – it was passable for a wet afternoon. Realistically if these ‘Code’ girls were as clever as they were portrayed they would not have been stuck in the kitchens. I am now in the process of writing to Penguin (publisher) because of what I feel is a very poor example of a book. It is this which has put me off reading any more from this author.

Thank goodness for Roald Dahl – The Witches. A childhood read which I wanted to go back and enjoy and I did, what pleasure it gave me when I was a child and read and reread and just the same as an adult. Although looking back I am surprised I was not frightened of such creatures!

If you have read my previous posts then you will know that I was spending my summer vicariously in different places that’s the wonder that is books, novels and stories! It was surely a mere coincidence that a lot of them had Summer in the title!

Holly Martin – Summer at Buttercup Beach, second in a trilogy meant I had to read Holly Martin – Spring at Blueberry Bay first so I knew what was happening and it is only a couple of weeks until the final book is published and I can return to Hope Island.

Jennifer Bohnet – Summer at Coastguard Cottages was one of my favourite summer reads as was Lily Graham – Summer at Seafall Cottage (or The Cornish Escape). I recommend both of these authors wholeheartedly, you will get a really good read.

I was disappointed with two books I read in August, both from authors I had not read before; Jen Mouat – Summer at Bluebell Bank and Fiona Walker – The Weekends of You and Me. They had the potential to be much more than what they were.

My holiday type reads did not just involve sun, there was a sprinkling of murder as well. Robert Thorogood – Death Knocks Twice took me away to the Caribbean and the television programme Death in Paradise on which these books are based.

Italy was my destination for a wedding, Tilly Tennant – A Wedding in Italy and to catch up on the goings on there from when I visited earlier in the year. I am growing to love Tilly Tennant books, but some are much stronger than others and I do wonder is perhaps writing a series is not always the right way to go.

If I am going to stay in a B&B I want it to be a boutique one, no candlewick bedspreads and nylon sheets for me, with doors shut at 930pm sharp! So I want to go to Jennifer Joyce – The Little Bed and Breakfast by the Sea, even out of season I am sure it would be delightful.

Bizarrely reading some of these women’s fiction, light reads whilst engaging can lead you wanting to read something with a bit more meat, a bit of a page turner in a different way. That is why Joanna Barnard – Hush Little Baby, her second novel was the book I chose. Much better than her first, something which can be very difficult to achieve.

Historical Fiction is a real love of mine and I always say I must read more, then get diverted by a million and one other books, but when I do go back I revel it. Despite receiving the book last year and putting off reading it, not because it was going to be awful, but because I knew I would lose myself in it and not want the book to end I finally got round to reading, Lucinda Riley – The Shadow Sister. Easily my favourite of the year and will be hard pressed to beat. So much is contained within the pages, that the writing of the review needs to be considered and thoughtful.

Tracy Rees – The Hourglass is recommended by Lucinda Riley and because I have read her other books I knew I was going to get a cracker of a book. This is different from the previous two, but sweeps not that far back into the past. But far enough back to show the changes that have happened. Cannot wait for this author’s next one.

As the month closes I am reading another historical fiction book, which I have been lost in and will become my first finish of September. The nights are drawing in and there is more than enough for me to be reading.