The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - murderous Groundhog Day!

This is a book I started in 2020, and is my last book to be completed before my new reading challenge begins (a month late, but hey, I seem to be a bit of a slow reader at the moment!). I have a feeling that The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton could be a bit of a "marmite"book - you love it, or hate it. Fortunately, I am fall into the former camp. We start with a man coming to his senses in a forest. He doesn't know who he is, or how he got there, but when he hears a scream and sees a man chasing a woman through the trees, one memory strikes home - the woman is called Anna and she is important to him. He hears a shot and assumes that things have taken a tragic turn, but before he gets a chance to find out, someone creeps up behind him, thrusts a compass into his hand and gives him an instruction - "East!" He flees from the forest and heads towards a country house. As he bursts in to try and get help, the people there seem to know who he is and try to take care of him. As his day of confusion progresses, he comes across a whole gamut of characters, many of whom are deeply unpleasant. The only one who seems to want to help him find out what happened to Anna is Evelyn Hardcastle. So when she dies at the end of the evening, it is an horrific shock. But the next day, Aidan wakes up in a different person, and the day starts all over again. With the guidance of a shady figure he calls The Plague Doctor, he is told that he must solve the murder, and that the day will repeat in different hosts until he does, but he only has a set number of hosts. If, at the end of that time, the murder isn't solved, he goes all the way back to the beginning, with all of his memories removed once more. With me so far? This is most definitely a novel where you have to keep on your toes, with Aidan switching between hosts as each one loses consciousness. As I listened to the audio version, which I do when I can't sleep, I found that when I had nodded off and woke up late, I kept having to rewind as Aidan had switched bodies ... and I knew I couldn't afford to miss one single clue. There are so many threads and switches in action, or the same action but from different perspectives. It's a cracking read for anyone who thinks ... what if Christopher Nolan took on an Agatha Christie novel? The development of the main character, who has to fight with the character of whoever's body he is inhabiting at that moment in time, as well as the relationships he forms, is really clever. We slowly start to unravel the sequence of events, and when Aidan realises he can actually change those events, things get really interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it did surprise me, which you wouldn't have thought it would after reliving the same day so many times. Complex it may be, but still totally accessible. Would definitely recommend.

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 528 print pages.

Price I paid: £2.85

Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, audio CD, ebook.

The Pillars of the Earth - Cathedral Building Epic

The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, is the first of a trilogy set in medieval times. This book spans 1123 to 1155. Tom Builder is a master mason struggling to find work. As he and his young family travel the country looking for a job, his wife tragically dies during childbirth. Knowing he cannot look after the baby, he leaves it to die, but very soon regrets his decision and returns to the spot to retrieve it, only to discover it has gone. He finds comfort with a woman who has been living in the forest with her own child, Jack, and she goes with Tom and his two children to Kingsbridge. Unbeknownst to him, his baby had been rescued by a passing monk, and was taken to Philip, the prior at the monastery, who decides to raise the boy himself. When the cathedral at Kingsbridge is destroyed by fire, Philip hires Tom to rebuild it. Meanwhile, brother and sister, Aliena and Richard, suddenly find themselves homeless after supreme baddy William Hamleigh takes over their father's castle (and, in effect, his earldom) and rapes Aliena. Upon their escape, Aliena supports her brother and becomes a canny business woman, only to lose it all at the hands of William. With the passing years, Aliena and Jack grow close and finally fall in love despite many missteps and misunderstandings along the way. Jack inherits his stepfather's love of building and, when Tom is tragically killed, becomes a master builder in his own right. This all happens against the backdrop of political intrigue and unrest as King Stephen and Maud are battling over the kingdom. Plus, the general nastiness of the power-hungry Hamleigh family is a constant threat to Philip and Aliena. There is plenty of action and the plots come thick and fast. It's a mixture of architecture (flying buttresses anyone?), politics, religion and family trials and tribulations. There are way more bad times than good, but it's the little victories that keep you going. There are some grim and violent scenes, and this certainly won't be to everyone's taste. But if you like your historical fiction to be full of intrigue, where the baddies really are baddies and the setting isn't during the well-worn Tudor period, then this could be for you. As if the trilogy weren't enough, he's also just finished a prequel! Many hours of reading to come I fear!

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 1076 print pages.

Price I paid: 50p (in a second hand bookshop).

Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, audio CD, ebook.

The Hoarder - Funny but painful

In The Hoarder, by Jess Kidd, we enter the world of Maud Drennan, a care worker tasked with keeping the belligerent, and downright rude, Cathal Flood alive. Left to his own devices, he has accumulated a houseful of rubbish that threatens to overwhelm anyone who dares enter the property. Maud is at the end of a long line of carers who have come and swiftly gone, and Mr Flood is on his last warning following his assault on her immediate predecessor. Behave, or go into care! Maud is not your run of the mill carer, her life has fuzzy edges to it in that she has a number of Saints who accompany her every move, making comment on her life wherever she goes. She also has endless patience, and slowly Cathal starts to open up to her, as does his house - or at least, the restless spirits who inhabit it. Did Cathal murder his wife and daughter? Why is his son so desperate to get his hands on the house and is there any chance that Maud will find love and recover from a childhood trauma? Part thriller, part supernatural fantasy, the different strands of past and present are woven together with great skill. There is so much humour in this book - I particularly like the asides with the Saints, who don't always act very saintly (yes St Valentine, I'm looking at you!) But there is also a murder mystery to solve, packed with danger and plenty of red herrings. There are immensely tender moments too as we see the friendship develop between Cathal and Maud. I really enjoyed this book, although I did kind of guess the ending. This is the second book of Jess Kidd that I have read (Things in Jars being the first), and while the strange worlds the author conjures up are ones that might not be for everyone, I will certainly be seeking out more of her work.

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 352 print pages.

Price I paid: £3.00.

Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, audio CD, ebook.

Thank goodness it's 2021!

Happy New Year to you all.

Never have I been so glad to see the end of a year - and I know I'm not alone in that sentiment.

Many things took a bit of a back seat during 2020 and one of those was reading for pleasure ... but now that the COVID-19 vaccination programme has begun, there is a new hope dawning and I am determined to approach 2021 with a bit more of a spring in my step.

I am still finishing off a couple of books that didn't quite squeeze onto the 2020 blog, but once they are done, I'll be getting my Alphabet Randomizer Programme (which may or may not resemble a bag of letters purloined from Scrabble) at the ready to select my first author (and book) of 2021.

Any recommendations for authors whose surname begins with X, Y or Z will be gratefully received!

So, here we go 2021 ... onwards and upwards!