General Chat

Two books as usual vote will be Tuesday PM if possible, other than that Wednesday.
Review date for this lot will be Tuesday 5 Oct

(Review thread for July/Aug is Thurs 19th Aug).

Greaders suggestion Aug-Sep 10 Turning for home Sarah Challis
A cantankerous, elegant old woman sits in her beautiful somerset house while her family secretly plots to evict her. In the garden is her last loyal retainer, out at grass her one remaining racehorse, prematurely retired, and in London the man she probably should have married – still her dearest friend.

Into this scene comes Maeve Delaney. Sole applicant for the job of companion to Lady Pamela, streetwise and outrageous. Maeve busts into the old house like a firework. As open warfare settles into a wary truce between the two women, Maeve sets her heart on bringing the great racehorse Irish Dancer out of retirement and everything changes.

Intimate Strangers by Susan Lewis
Investigative journalist, Lauri Forbes, is planning her wedding to Elliot Russell, when she receives a tip off that a group of illegally smuggled women is being held somewhere in the East End of London. During her search unexpected and devastating events begin throwing her own life into chaos, so fellow journalist, Sherry MacElvoy steps in to help. Taking on undercover roles to get to the heart of the ruthless gang of human traffickers, neither reporter can even begin to imagine what dangers they are about to face.
Neela is one of the helpless Indian girls being held in captivity. Her fear is not only for herself. But her six year old niece, Shaila. A disfiguring birth mark has so far saved Neela from the abuse, but she knows it is only a matter of time before she is sent for – and worse, before Sheela is taken. Her desperate bids to seek outside help are constantly thwarted, until finally she, and the women with her, agree there is only one way out......

Hi Ann. My two suggestions are:

The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama

Set in modern India, Mr Ali sets up a marriage bureau. 'A writer of charming and breezy prose, Zama pays homage to Jane Austen in a contemporary love story firmly grounded in classic wrangles over family, property and class' --Emma Hagestadt, Independent

The Old Romantic by Louise Dean

Obsessed with death and planning his own funeral, Ken is determined to die in the bosom of his family. But it isn't that easy; his family doesn’t want to know him. His oldest son Nick left home over twenty years ago and reinvented himself. At forty, he has returned home to Kent, and found happiness with his girlfriend Astrid and her twelve-year-old daughter Laura, and he doesn’t want the old man to spoil things. He’s come a long way; he’s a professional, a country gent, a family man. But the past is coming back for Nick and it won’t let him be. A bit of a dark comedy.

Although I am not a contributing member of Greaders, my reading is abit spasmodic, and I would miss the dead lines, I do look in every month for book suggestions and to see if anything appeals.
Whilst having read Crime thrillers for years, they are now beginning to touch on the cyber world, and away from real sluething. So perhaps it is time to move onto something anew.
So I have looked at the titles that you mention Ann, and think that, although these are not my usual genre of reading, I would like to try both. Thanks for your suggestion,and I will look out for them. Hopefully they are paper back, and available from the supermarket, my only source of new reading material.
As a sort of PS, I am awaiting for the time, soon hopefully, that the OH has to go to insure his car. This he does in a town a few miles from where we live, and I go with him and make a half-day out of it, having abit of lunch, even if it is a ' posh ' filled roll, eaten on a sheltered seat, as a bit of a treat. I go round the charity shops in this town, looking for things that take my fancy, eg. mens shirts for me (lovely to work in as the sleeves are cut deeper than a ladies blouse), plant pots for the conservatory, pictures for anywhere, 3rd world jewelery, and books. And, as I am about to change my reading genre, I am sure I will find books that I would in the past, have turned my nose up at. I also like to visit the W.H. Smith for new books, and jigsaws, particularly leading up to Christmas. This shop is the only one outside of Derby, which is 12 miles from here. I usually have a very satisfiying day.
Have a lovely day all, and keep posting your book suggestions
Julia in Derbyshire

Back soon,

Thanks Julia, glad we can give others inspiration. Both my suggestions are paper back.

thanks Helen.

Good grief is it that time already? I need about ten more hours in every day I think.

The Pindar Diamond by Katie Hickman

Step inside the hidden alleyways and secret gardens of seventeenth-century Venice. Discover an extraordinary tale of forbidden passion, mistaken identity and a priceless diamond.
This is a gripping and superbly told story that goes as deeply into history as into the human mind.

The Accidental Sorcerer by K E Mills

Gerald Dunwoody, a Third Grade wizard and lowly safety inspector for Ottoslands Department of Thaumaturgy, inadvertently blows up a factory while trying to save it. Summarily fired, Gerald takes a job in almost bankrupt New Ottosland as royal court wizard for King Lional the 43rd. To prove his powers to the doubtful king and his put-upon sister, Prime Minister Princess Melissande, Gerald turns a cat into a lion and transforms the dowdy princess into a literally bewitching fashion plate, but preventing war between New Ottosland and Kallarap and making a highly illegal dragon for the king may be beyond his will and abilities.


Both are paperbacks

The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

A fairy tale for grown-ups.
The story begins with a little girl who makes a wish one snowy night and ruins her life. She grows up with a splinter of ice in her heart untill one day, standing by her kitchen window, she is struck by lightening.
Instead of killing her, this cataclysmic event sparks off a new begining.
She seeks out Lazarus Jones, a fellow lightening survivor. He is her opposite, a burnung man whose breath can boil water and whose touch scorches.
As an obsessive love affair begins between them, both are forced to hide their most dangerous secrets - what turned one to Ice and the other to Fire.

The Ice Queen is a haunting story of passion, loss, second chances and the secrets that come to define us if we're not careful.


Sharp North by Patrick Cave


Set in the future ...
Mira lives quietly in a remote community in Scotland - untill one day she witnesses a stranger running for her life through the forest. Shot and killed in front of her, the woman's body is quickly removed, the only clue to her death a crumpled piece of paper, and a spot of blood in the snow.
Mira discovers the paper contains a list of names, including her onw, with another name she recognises and the word "watcher" alongside it.
Shocked, Mira suddenly begins t view her community with suspicion - and what she discovers throws her whole world into confusion....

Tess

Will be back on shortly to add my two titles

xx Jill

Tomorrow When the War Began. by John Marsden.

Somewhere out there Ellie and her friends are hiding. They're shocked, they're frightened, they're alone. Their world has changed, with the speed of a slamming door. They've got no weapons - except courage. They've got no help - except themselves. They've got nothing - except friendship. How strong can you be, when the world is full of people trying to kill you?

Lovely Bones. by Alice Sebold.

My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer.This is Susie Salmon. Watching from heaven, Susie sees her happy, suburban family devastated by her death, isolated even from one another as they each try to cope with their terrible loss alone. Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet . . .

Did anyone else but me belong to greaders when we read Lovely Bones before? If not it can stand (and the best of luck with it!!!!)

Can't remember writing about Lovely Bones, Ann, although I have read it.
Might still have it on my shelves somewhere. So it is fine by me if it stands.

It was some time back Tess.

Better nudge this up.

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

Lady Elizabeth Grey's husband was killed at the Battle of St. Albans and she desperately wants his lands back for her two little boys. She is tired of living in her parents' home and would like her independence. So she stands out in the road as the new king, Edward IV, rides by, holding their hands and hoping he'll see her. He does see her and takes note not only of her problems, but of her beauty, and before she knows it, Elizabeth is the queen of England and in almost over her head with politics and intrigue. She is a Woodville, though, and she will perservere, going to the edge to push her family as high as it can possibly go before her tower of cards topples around her.

The Visable World by Mark Slouka

The book begins with the narrator discussing his early life. His family are Czech, and his homeland seems vague and distant to him - just as the past can so often be. His memory is fragmentary, but there is one issue that seems to hold everything together - that his mother loved another man before she married his father. As you read the first part of the book, you get the sense that he is desperately trying to undertsand his family's history; not just their personal history but also their history in terms of race and culture, and the effects that the war had on them. The second part of the book is the love story - the stroy about his mother and the man that she loved.

x Jill

Anne I was here when we read Lovely Bones, it can stay, I just wont read it if it does get picked and read the second book.

OK Michelle, maybe it was only you and me then. Anyone else?

I have not read it.

x Jill

From May who is on holiday

Precious Time by Erica James

The Girls by Lori Lansens