It is three weeks since I last posted and while I managed to finish all the novels I was currently reading before the end of the year, my reading for 2016 got off to a slow start. The first few days of the new year were spent sorting out the challenges I was signing up for, making lists of books I am hoping to read for those challenges and finally writing sign-up posts.
My last four books for 2015 were all excellent reads. I enjoyed the first of D.K. Broster's Jacobite trilogy, but am not ready to continue with the second book just yet. My re-read, Georgette Heyer's A Civil Contract, while entertaining is not one of my favourites and I now remember why. The ending was a little sadder than most of her other Regencies. Though it ends on a happy note, there are undertones the marriage between our two protagonists will always be one of convenience. Not a usual Heyer ending.
My final books for 2015 were the first two in The Great South Land Saga by E.V. Timms. The next book in the series will be a re-read. I first read The Beckoning Shore a long time ago and as I can't remember any of the story line it will seem like a new novel.
My first book of 2016 was from an author I've read before, Shadow of the Hangman by Edward Marston. I have previously read his Captain Rawson novels set during the War of the Spanish Succession and some of his books featuring Inspector Colbeck, the Railway Detective, which I'd enjoyed. Shadow of the Hangman is the first of the Bow Street Rivals series and introduces identical-twin detectives, Peter and Paul Skillen. Needless to say, their physical resemblance is put to good use and makes for some very entertaining moments. This first book is set in 1815. You can read my full review here.
The other book I finished last week was Thornwood House by Anna Romer. This book had been a part of my TBR pile for a while. It is an excellent mystery story, full of suspense, that kept me reading all weekend and lamenting I should have got to it sooner. You can read my review here.
At the end of last year I had a number of lengthy books waiting to be read, but just couldn't face them. I'm happy to say that the temporary aversion to those books has vanished with the old year. I am currently readingThe Lake House by Kate Morton and loving it. I'm also reading The Mind's Own Place by Ian Reid.
Now that I'm back in the mood for lengthy books I'm hoping to read Now Face to Face by Karleen Koen as it is due back to the library in a couple of weeks.
My Last Books for 2015
The Flight of the Heron by D.K. Broster
1745. When Bonnie Prince Charlie lands in Scotland, the mountains and glens of the Highlands ring to the pipes and drums of the clans who flock to his banner. Charged with excitement, heroism and romance, this stirring tragic adventure that is the unforgettable story of the 'King Over the Water', has never been better told.
A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer
Adam Deveril, the new Viscount Lynton and a hero at Salamanca, returns from the Peninsula War to find his family on the brink of ruin and the broad acres of his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt. It is Lord Oversley, father of Adam's first love, who tactfully introduces him to Mr Jonathan Chaleigh, a City man of apparently unlimited wealth with no social ambitions for himself, but with his eyes firmly fixed on a suitable match for his one and only daughter.
Forever to Remain by E.V.Timms
In 1831 the London Lass sets sail for Australia, the Great South Land, with a shipload of settlers eager to start new lives in a new land. Among them is the elegant and beautiful Eleanor, travelling to Australia's hot, dry sun for the sake of her sick brother's fading health. And, seeking the adventure and challenge of the young colony, there is Simon, Eleanor's childhood sweetheart, whom she once jilted but can never forget. Reunited by chance, both are alarmed by this turn of events but they are still attracted to one another - as all on board can see, especially the brutal Captain Lush, who desires the lovely Eleanor for himself; and the vivacious young Penelope, who is determined to win Simon's heart before the end of the voyage ...
The Pathway of the Sun by E.V.Timms
Into the new colony of Western Australia - and into the idyllic love of Simon and Penelope, two if its early settlers - bursts a green-eyed, chestnut-haired hell-cat called Ginny Lockey, alias Margaret Cameron, a convict from Van Diemen's Land who carries the scars of the lash on her back. With the aid of the lecherous Gaston Fonfrede, Ginny has escaped from the penal settlement and has come west to search for her young son who has been so cruelly snatched from her. But even in 1832 the iron hand of the Law could reach out to the free colony of Western Australia to reclaim its victims ...
What I Read Last Week
Shadow of the Hangman by Edward Marston
In this first instalment of the Bow Street Rivals series a riot breaks out in Dartmoor prison, enabling some American inmates to escape. The twin detectives Peter and Paul Skillen catch wind of a projected assassination but the target is unknown. Trouble ensues when a woman from the Home Office vanishes; a mysterious lady turns up at the archery shooting gallery; and Paul’s gambling addiction worsens...
Thornwood House by Anna Romer
When Audrey Kepler inherits an abandoned homestead in rural Queensland, she jumps at the chance to escape her loveless existence in the city and make a fresh start. In a dusty back room of the old house, she discovers the crumbling photo of a handsome World War Two medic - Samuel Riordan, the homestead's former occupant - and soon finds herself becoming obsessed with him. But as Audrey digs deeper into Samuel's story, she discovers he was accused of bashing to death a young woman on his return from the war in 1946. When she learns about other unexplained deaths in recent years - one of them a young woman with injuries echoing those of the first victim - she begins to suspect that the killer is still very much alive. And now Audrey, thanks to her need to uncover the past, has provided him with good reason to want to kill again.
What I'm Reading Today
The Lake House by Kate Morton
Living on her family’s idyllic lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, inquisitive, innocent, and precociously talented sixteen-year-old who loves to write stories. But the mysteries she pens are no match for the one her family is about to endure…
One midsummer’s eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest child, eleven-month-old Theo, has vanished without a trace. What follows is a tragedy that tears the family apart in ways they never imagined.
Decades later, Alice is living in London, having enjoyed a long successful career as an author. Theo’s case has never been solved, though Alice still harbors a suspicion as to the culprit. Miles away, Sadie Sparrow, a young detective in the London police force, is staying at her grandfather’s house in Cornwall. While out walking one day, she stumbles upon the old estate—now crumbling and covered with vines, clearly abandoned long ago. Her curiosity is sparked, setting off a series of events that will bring her and Alice together and reveal shocking truths about a past long gone...yet more present than ever.
The Mind's Own Place by Ian Reid
Two women and three men, displaced in different ways by the rapid transformation of Victorian England, travel separately to a small settlement on Australia’s western rim. With them they carry social ambitions and psychological wounds. As their lives intersect in the Swan River Colony, what they encounter is not quite what they expect.
Though fictional, The Mind’s Own Place is partly based on the actual experiences of historical figures: a pair of convicts from respectable backgrounds, talented and enterprising but troubled; two female immigrants, free settlers, not equally fortunate or resilient; and the first detective in Western Australia, who eventually uncovers more than he intends.
What I Hope to Read Next
Now Face to face by Karleen Koen
The beloved heroine from Koen's bestselling Through a Glass Darkly returns in a passionate, unforgettable, romantic tapestry. A widow at age 20, emotionally devastated and financially ruined by the death of her husband in scandalous circumstances, Barbara Devane leaves colonial Virginia for London to confront her enemies and to pursue a deeply satisfying yet dangerous clandestine love.
The Orphan Gunner is an unconventional romance set in bomber command in Lincolnshire during the Second World War. Evelyn and Olive grew up together in the Canabolas Valley near Orange. They are in England at the outbreak of war: Evelyn as a pilot in the Air Transport Auxiliary, Olive in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. They're joined by Evelyn's brother Duncan, a novice gunner in Lancaster L-Love, flying bombing raids over Germany. The raids take their toll on the crew, and the two women are drawn into a plot involving disguise and mistaken identity, to get the exhausted Duncan out of service. The Orphan Gunner explores the seductions of passing, the licence granted by risk, and the selflessness - and selfishness - of sacrifice. The relationship between the two women is portrayed with subtlety and warmth, and an extraordinary sense of historical detail which brings its wartime setting vividly to life.
