Thursdays in the Park - never too late for love!

Thursdays in the Park, by Hilary Boyd is a lightweight book that will not tax your brain cells too much. Jeanie is almost sixty and her life is plodding along in a comfy, but less than thrilling manner. The main highlight of her life is her granddaughter, Ellie, who she looks after on Thursday afternoons and always takes to the park. One day, she bumps into Ray, a man on grandfatherly duties - and their two grandchildren start to play very happily together and they get talking. This chance encounter shakes her up and brings her life into focus. She is in a stale marriage, her husband George is overbearing and non communicative - and left the marital bedroom 10 years ago without explanation. He wants her to give up her whole life - the shop she runs, the closeness of her daughter and granddaughter and retire to the country. She has kept saying no, but no one is listening. The charming Ray sets her heart a flutter and makes her feel like a teenager ... is this real or is she just reacting to the unhappiness in her life "before Ray"? It is nice to have an older woman as the central character of a book for a change, and more especially one who still has all her faculties and passions. There are also traumas and tension and soul searching a-plenty. I did find myself caring about Jeanie and wanting her to be happy, but at the same time, I wanted to shake her for her pliability and apparent "hey ho" attitude that had seemed to be her forte up to this point. However, I could have done with a bit more depth to all the supporting cast, some of whom felt a bit like caricatures to me. A book maybe for a holiday or with nothing better to do - great for the Kindle! One that will not be staying with me for very long I suspect ... but sometimes, that's what your brain needs!

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 352 print pages.
Price I paid: £0.20.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio CD; unabridged audio download; ebook.

The Redbreast - gripping to the end

I have decided that it is just not safe to be around Harry Hole for any length of time. The Redbreast, by Jo Nesbo, is the third outing for the Norwegian detective, but the first one set in his own country. The action starts with Harry shooting someone who he believes is threatening the life of the visiting American President. When it turns out that they were part of the US security detail, rather than an assassin, Harry is quietly assigned to another department to keep him out of the way of the media! Here, he misses, Ellen, his partner, who has been helping him to get and keep off the alcohol which, in his dark moods, threaten to overtake his life completely. (If he wasn't such a good detective, he would be out of a job in 10 minutes!) He is now investigating the neo-Nazi movement, and whether the recent smuggling in of a rare rifle favoured by assassins, has something to do with them. When a former WWII Nazi sympathiser is found with his throat cut, Harry feels that there are links with a murder he and Ellen had previously started to investigate. However, right on the point of a breakthrough, Ellen is murdered, and Harry slips back down into his self-destructive pit of alcoholic despair, but not for long. He strives to find the key that will provide the link to all the events going on around him. And so begins a journey which started 50 years ago, and one which could leave a deadly legacy ... I have to say that I am starting to really like Harry Hole, despite his numerous faults. This book demands your attention from the first page and you really have to remain focused throughout. Don't get me wrong, it is a very enjoyable read, but there are many threads that you have to keep a hold of as the book progresses. The writing is sharp, the dialogue realistic and often witty and Harry is becoming a more rounded character, with a little hint of better times to come! Jo Nesbo has really got into his stride with this series and it will not be long before I am reaching for more. After all, there is a massive thread that has not been tied off as yet, and the reader is left dangling and wondering ... a great strategy for an author if they can pull it off!

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 626 print pages.
Price I paid: £0.50
Formats available: print; unabridged audio cassette; unabridged audio download; ebook.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky - something and nothing

Hmm ... am feeling ambivalent about The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, by Simon Mawer, which I read in audio format. It started well ... when Marian Sutro, half French, half British, brought up in Geneva and fluent in French, is recruited by SOE to go undercover in occupied France, she suddenly feels that her life has finally got some purpose. She goes through intense training, learning about sabotage, and how to kill someone up close and personal. She meets fellow recruits Yvette and Benoit - the former, a vulnerable French women who just wants to "go back home"; the latter, a cocky French man, who takes a shine to Marian and with whom she decides to have a one night stand prior to them being shipped out. However, Marian has been holding a candle for an old family friend and scientist, Clement Pelletier, who she fell in love with when she was still at school. Clement, it turns out, is of special interest to the British, who hope to extricate him from France to help the allies create a nuclear bomb in order to "bring the war to an end faster" - and Marian is told that she may well be asked to help with his extraction! Marian is finally parachuted into South West France and settles into her work with the French Resistance, feeling useful and safe, and hooking up with Benoit from time to time. She is then sent to Paris for two reasons ... to make contact with Clement and persuade him to escape to Britain, and also to try and make contact with Yvette, whose own Resistance Group have been uncovered. Paris is a dangerous place and she finds it difficult to be aloof in the presence of Clement, who is now married. Things, inevitably get complicated! I was enjoying this book, the recruitment phase and then the training, but I became a bit disenchanted as it progressed once our heroine actually got to France - which is when I thought the action would really go up a level. However, Marian seemed to become a weaker character from that point on and I stopped warming to her and just wanted to shake her! Don't get me wrong, there ARE patches of real tension, with danger lurking around every corner, and there is a really threatening undertone in Paris, where no one is able to feel safe. But as the threat got bigger, Marian seemed to get smaller ... it was as if all that training was totally wasted! It may be that I was overly influenced by the narration of the audio version I read, but I felt the book kind of fizzled out right at the end, and I was left a bit deflated and disappointed. But as always, that could just be me!

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 320 print pages.
Price I paid: £7.00.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio CD; unabridged audio download; ebook.

Towers of Midnight - Trollocs a-plenty!

Towers of Midnight, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson is the penultimate book (and number 13) in The Wheel of Time fantasy series. There is, at long last, real pace and a great sense of urgency running throughout this part, something which had been lacking in books 7-11. Everything and everyone is being pulled together in readiness for The Last Battle ... which will determine the fate of the entire world. The Dragon Reborn - Rand Al'Thor - has finally defeated his inner demons, and has flowered into a calm, but determined, leader. His power is truly awesome, but he is no longer in danger of being distracted or tempted away from his main goal which is to defeat The Dark One, once and for all, and free the world of such evil. Most of the world is barren, food is scarce and mostly rotten, the weather is awful ... except for when Rand appears - then the sun shines and the food tastes good once again, and people start to hope once more. However, the grizzly Trollocs - the endlessly vicious creatures sent to cause suffering and mayhem throughout the land - are more widespread and numerous than ever. Desperate skirmishes are taking place everywhere to try and prevent them from over-running the entire world. And even Rand cannot defeat such hordes by himself. And so, we find that all those companions who were with him at the very beginning - Mattrim, Perrin, Egwene and Elayne - start to gravitate towards the same place, at the same time. And, amazingly, Moraine, the Aes Sedai who first recognised Rand and his friends for what they are, is found alive and is bravely rescued from captivity. She will no doubt have a vital part to play in the denoument. It's not going to be plain sailing, there is still disagreement with Rand about how to tackle The Last Battle, and there are powerful people still determined to try and manipulate him for their own gain. Despite this, nearly all the pieces are in place for what I'm really hoping is going to be a cracking finish to this epic of all epics!

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 861 print pages.
Price I paid: Free, borrowed from local library.
Formats available: print; audio download; audio CD; ebook.

The Last Hundred Days - a curate's egg

I finished The Last Hundred Days, by Patrick McGuinness, a couple of days ago, and I have to admit, I am struggling a little with what to write about it. It's not that it is a bad book, it's just that I didn't find it particularly memorable ... which I'm not sure whether is a little damning for me or the book! And even now I'm being distracted by the sudden hail storm happening outside my window ... March is definitely going out with a bang in the UK! The story is narrated by a recent university graduate, who finds himself being offered a job at Bucharest University, despite the fact he hasn't actually had an interview. He takes the job and soon finds himself mixed up with the corruption and politics of the last few months of 1989, when communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu was desperately holding onto power within Romania. Very much in the shadow of the previous incumbent of both the job and the flat he is living in, he is befriended by the larger than life Leo, who is a bit of a wheeler-dealer black marketeer, with a hand in many pies, but whose main focus of attention is to try and keep a record of the fantastic buildings in the city which are being systematically destroyed, only to be replaced by grey, miserable and poorly built blocks of concrete. The country is broke, but not according to the propaganda output by  Ceausescu, a communist who would have made Stalin proud! As the weeks go by, the country slowly disintegrates and our narrator is swept up in the chaos and characters. There is brutality, fear, food shortages, back-handers and treachery all around, but never does our narrator want to leave the country, despite everyone telling him he should do so. I think I found the narrator way too passive ... he just seemed to let stuff happen, not initiating nor even having a strong opinion on anything much. Perhaps this way a deliberate ploy to enable the author to paint such vivid characters and action around him, without the narrator getting in the way ... thus he was able to shine a light on the last days of a horrible regime that ruled with an iron fist without the narrator getting in the way. I read the audio book which was ably voiced by Cameron Stewart. Others have given this book 5 star reviews and it was long listed for the Man Booker Prize, but I'm a bit ambivalent towards it, and I feel slightly guilty about that.

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 356 print pages.
Price I paid: £3.99.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.

Terry Pratchett - goodbye and thank you for the joy that is Discworld!

The Half-Life of Hannah - light and airy

I have been experiencing disrupted sleep over the last few days, and to while away some of the wee wakeful hours in the morning, I needed a book that wasn't going to tax me too much, or require a great deal of concentration. In this frame of mind, I happened upon The Half-Life of Hannah, by Nick Alexander which I had purchased on Kindle ages ago for just 20p (can't really go wrong at that price can you?) and, for some reason, its cover spoke to me at 3am. For my energy levels right now, I could hardly have chosen better. Hannah Parker is on holiday in the South of France with her husband - the boring Cliff - and her beloved son Luke. The rest of the party is made up of her wild sister, Jill, together with her grumpy, teenage daughter and their gay friend Tristan. Things are going okay, with the sister setting her cap at the "pool guy" and Tristan (a chef by trade) cooking up tasty meals to help the holiday go with a swing. So far, so good. However, mixed in to the "now" are some vignettes from Hannah's past, specifically the time when she and Cliff were about to get married ... and Cliff's brother James bounced into their home and almost changed her life completely ... almost! When James disappeared, went travelling and then was killed overseas, Hannah put all those "what if" thoughts behind her and got on with her married life. When the villa receives a phone call, from James, to ask if he can come to see them, Hannah is more than a little gobsmacked, and things start to unravel. This is a very quick read, light and airy, but totally enjoyable. A bit of fluff it may be, but this book got me just at the right time. The bickering between the two sisters is totally believable, as is the tension between Hannah and Cliff, who try to keep up appearances in front of the others, particularly the children, but the stress and strain of doing so soon bubbles up. Whilst I might have guessed where some of the story was going, it didn't detract too much from my enjoyment of the book. A great book if you are on holiday, or, like me, too tired to be doing with Dickens! I will definitely look out for the sequel, Other Halves, as I would like to know what happens next.

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 256 print pages.
Price I paid: £0.20.
Formats available: print; ebook.