January's Literary Adventures: Exploring Compelling Reads and Reviews
It has been a great month for reading, I have managed to read a variety of books from different genres. I have also decided to add an extra element to my book recommendations. My own star rating out of 5 and will publish what the ratings mean against other ratings published very soon. Let me know what you thought of any of the books mentioned.
Love Alis
Title: Bleeding Heart Yard
Author: Elly Griffiths
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Publisher: Quercus Editions Ltd
Date of Publication: 2022
Format: Hardback that I purchased
My Rating: 4**** I liked it a lot and recommend
About book: A propulsive new thriller set in London featuring Detective Harbinder Kaur. A murderer hides in plain sight - in the police. DS Cassie Fitzherbert has a secret - but it's one she's deleted from her memory. In the 1990s when she was at school, she and her friends killed a fellow pupil. Thirty years later, Cassie is happily married and loves her job as a police officer. One day her husband persuades her to go to a school reunion and another ex-pupil, Garfield Rice, is found dead, supposedly from a drug overdose. As Garfield was an eminent MP and the investigation is high profile, it's headed by Cassie's new boss, DI Harbinder Kaur. The trouble is, Cassie can't shake the feeling that one of her old friends has killed again. Is Cassie right, or was Garfield murdered by one of his political cronies? It's in Cassie's interest to skew the investigation so that it looks like the latter and she seems to be succeeding. Until someone else is killed..
My thoughts: I picked this book up to read because of the beautiful cover. I was open to what was inside. The book is the third in a series but can be read alone. I did not feel lost in the plot wondering what had gone on previously in the other books. In fact, I had not realised it was a series until after I had read the book. It was the first book I have read by Elly Griffiths, and I found it well written. Each chapter tells the story from one of the characters points of view and it moves the story on nicely. I did try to follow ‘whodunnit’ but failed miserably. The book kept me guessing right until the end, I did not see the ending playing out as it did. I enjoyed how the characters at the police station played out and how everything came together at the end.
Title: The Woman in the White Kimono
Author: Ana Johns
Genre: Historical, Domestic
Publisher: Legend Press
Date of Publication: 2019
Format: Paperback that I purchased
My Rating: 4**** I liked it alot and recommend
About book: Japan, 1957. Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura’s prearranged marriage secures her family’s status in their traditional Japanese community. However, Naoko has fallen for an American sailor and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it’s learned Naoko carries the sailor’s child, she’s cast out in disgrace and forced to make unimaginable choices with consequences that will ripple across generations.
America, present day. Tori Kovač, caring for her dying father, finds a letter containing a shocking revelation. Setting out to learn the truth, Tori’s journey leads her to a remote seaside village in Japan where she must confront the demons of the past to pave a way for redemption.
My thoughts: An intriguing book right from the start. A feast of description that allows you to move through the pages with ease and wonder, as if you are there with them, looking on from the side-lines. The Japanese descriptions of culture and traditions are exquisite. The book moves between the two eras seamlessly. I really enjoyed the stories the father told to the daughter in the present day, and it was interesting later with her trying to piece things together. The descriptions made the book feel real and intimate
The book expertly directed between the two eras continued throughout the book, and I found myself wanting to know more to find out the truth of what happened. A true page turner full of emotion.
I loved the quote “To pick the correct one is fate, To pick the wrong one is also fate. So, you must choose your love, and be prepared to love your choice.”
Title: The Mothers Day Victory
Author: Rosie Hendry
Genre: Saga, Historical,
Publisher: Sphere
Date of Publication: 2022
Format: Paperback book bought as a present for me
My Rating: 3*** I liked it, it's OK
About book: Norfolk, 1940. As war rages on, sisters Prue and Thea, along with the wider community of Great Plumstead, are doing all they can to help the war effort, from running the mobile canteen for the Women's Voluntary Service to organising clothing drives and collecting salvage. When, Anna, a young German girl who fled her country, seeks refuge at the local hall, Thea opens up her home, Rookery House, and invites Anna into their growing family. But while many in the village welcome Anna with open arms, others are suspicious of the new arrival . . . As the war intensifies and panic sweeps the country, Anna is taken by the government who fear she's a spy. The women of Great Plumstead are already fighting their own battles on the Home Front, but will they come together in Anna's time of need to keep the newest member of their community safe from war?
My thoughts: The Mother’s Day Victory is a very easy read but lacking a little spark. A new genre for me to read and I was interested in the story of the war from the perspective of those left back at home. However, some of the events don’t feel as if they ever would if happened and that some of the characters were truly naïve. But the book did conjour up a sense of camaraderie and working together.
Title: Kane and Abel
Author: Jeffrey Archer
Genre: Family Drama
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
Date of Publication: 1979
Format: Kindle purchased myself
My Rating: 5***** I loved it and highly recommend
About book: Two strangers born worlds apart with one destiny that will define them both. William Lowell Kane, the son of a Boston millionaire, and Abel Rosnovski, the son of a penniless Polish immigrant, are born on the same day on opposite sides of the world and brought together by fate and the quest of a dream. Locked in a relentless struggle spanning sixty years and three generations, the two men battle for supremacy in pursuit of an empire, fuelled only by their hatred for the other and the knowledge it will end in triumph for one, and destruction of the other.
My thoughts: I read this book years ago, and loved it, it was always one I wanted to read again so I thought January should be the time for this to see what I thought the second time around and I can honestly say I enjoyed it just as much the second time around.
The book has everything, mystery, drama, revenge, love and tragedy and I was taken on an epic journey of the lives of the two main characters. The book is very well written and a true page turner, so much so that I want to read the whole series again.
Title: Testament
Author: Alis Hawkins
Genre: Historical
Publisher: Sapere Books
Date of Publication: 2019
Format: Kindle purchased myself
My Rating: 4**** I liked and recommend
About book: When Damia Miller is employed to promote revered Kineton and Dacre college, it doesn’t take her long to recognise that a grotesque antique painting recently uncovered on one of the college’s walls might hold the key to the college’s future. Six hundred years earlier, master mason Simon of Kineton is preparing plans for his magnum opus, a college to rival anything in England. His work only interrupted when he becomes father to the son he has longed for, for twenty years. In the present day, Damia grows increasingly obsessed with the mysterious wall-painting and the college’s dark history. What is the painting trying to tell her? Why was the college named after its mason as well as its founder? And who does the statue of the carefree boy in the Toby Yard represent? In mediaeval Salster, Simon of Kinnerton is struggling to come to terms with the fact that his son is disabled – cursed, in the eyes of many of Salster’s townspeople. But just as Simon himself is coming to accept young Toby a tragedy occurs whose repercussions will echo until the present day. Testament is a startling feat of imaginative skill, distinguished by the breadth of its vision, and by the heart-breaking story at its centre: that of the sacrifice a child made for his father, six hundred years ago.
My thoughts: Another book I wanted to re-read, I love the way Alis Hawkins writes. I picked this book up initially because I thought it was a story with characters regressing from one period to another. However, it is a book about two eras, and I thoroughly enjoyed it although I found it a little wordy to start with, I'm pleased I persevered. As the two time periods developed I enjoyed reading about both the current time and 13th century. A great historical time piece mixed with the current it was fascinating to read about what happened in one time era and the impacts in another.
Title: The Alchemists Secret
Author: Scott Mariani
Genre: Thriller, Suspense
Publisher: Harper Collins
Date of Publication: 2011
Format: Kindle purchased myself
My Rating: 5***** I loved it and highly recommend
About Book: Ben Hope lives on the edge. A former elite member of the SAS, Ben is tortured by a tragedy from his past and now devotes his life to finding kidnapped children.
When Ben is recruited to locate an ancient manuscript which could save a dying child, he embarks on the deadliest quest of his life.
The document is alleged to contain the formula for the elixir of life, discovered by the brilliant alchemist Fulcanelli decades before. But it soon becomes apparent that others are hunting this most precious of treasures – for far more evil ends.
When the secrets of alchemy hidden within the pages remain impenetrable, Ben teams up with beautiful American scientist Dr Roberta Ryder to crack the code.
It seems that everyone – from the Nazis during WW2 and powerful Catholic organisation Gladius Domini – wants to unearth the secrets of immortality.
The trail leads Ben and Roberta from Paris to the ancient Cathar strongholds of the Languedoc, where an astonishing secret has lain hidden for centuries…
My thoughts: I loved this book from the very beginning. The plot was unusual, Ben Hope was charismatic it was fast paced and full of action I didn’t want to put it down. There was intrigue and plot twisting in every page. I have already purchased the next book in the Ben Hope series.
Title: The Plowman’s Plight
Author: E A Rivierre
Genre: Historical, Murder, Mystery
Publisher: Woodcarver Books
Date of Publication: 2021
Format: Kindle version sent to me by Voracious Readers
Rating: 3*** I liked it, it's OK
About Book: Cathar country, (now) southern France, year: 1200. When the woodcutter's only daughter is murdered, the bailiff tries to arrest Bertwoin the Plowman, who flees to a master alchemist and his professional virgin, Flowia, for help. Bertwoin must find the brutal killer while the grieving woodcutter, the relentless bailiff, and righteous monks pursue him. His search for clues takes him to the corpse room inside an abbey, to a torture pit near the Devil’s Doorstep, and to the accursed home of a heretic priest. When monks capture him, wily Flowia rescues Bertwoin from the Bishop’s dungeon and hides with him where no one would think to look for them. To save his own life and another life as precious as his own, Bertwoin must outwit this sadistic killer who hunts them . . . and who knows how to find them.
My thoughts: An enjoyable historical, murder mystery set in medieval times. This is my first read in something set so far in the past. At the beginning I was a little confused about the characters but it quickly came together. I read the book in two sittings, the characters are engaging and the plot moved along at a good pace. I found myself liking some of the characters and hating others which shows how invested I was in the story. A pleasure to read and I would definitely recommend the book to fans of historical murder mystery stories.
This book was sent to me by Voracious readers in return for an honest review.
Title: The Unlikley Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Author: Rachel Joyce
Genre: Humour
Publisher: Transworld Digital
Date of Publication: 2012
Format: Kindle that I purchased
My Rating: 5 ***** I loved it and highly recommend
About book: When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else's life. Harold Fry is the most ordinary of men. He just might be a hero for us all.
My thoughts: I had heard that they were filming part of this book locally, in Gloucestershire so I became interested in reading what it was all about. I am so glad I did, the book was funny, heart-warming and thought provoking. It evoked lots of different emotions throughout. A book well written and a true page turner. One I would highly recommend and my book of choice when it is my turn to choose the book of the month.
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