Treacle Walker – Alan Garner – 24.09.23

When I finished this short book (more of a novella really) my first thought was ‘what the heck was that/!’ It’s a very strange book.

In some ways it felt very nostalgic – I grew up in the north of England in the 1970s and the style of the book felt like that sort of thing they made us read in school – like Stig of the Dump, or The Railway Children. I’ve lived in Belfast now for 35 years, but the northern English dialect words and phrases really took me back and sparked old memories.

It reads like a lucid dream or demented ramblings about childhood fears and hopes and magic and myth. Apparently there are lots of nods to things from Alan Garners previous novels, which I haven’t read, so they were lost on me, but I am familiar with a lot of the English mythology from other books.

It feels like it’s probably a very deep book, and quite possibly a lot of it went over my head, some of the reviews I looked at after finishing reading implied all kinds of cleverness.

I’m kind of tempted to read some of Alan Garner’s old books now.

Fallen: An Alex Verus Novel – Benedict Jacka – 22.09.23

After getting a bit fed up with this series, I’m now back to really liking it, although I am constantly amazed by how Alex Verus can live with all the stress and drama of his life!

I thought this book moved the plot along well, and we’re gearing up to a big showdown, so I’m quite excited to read on (I’m waiting in the hopes that the next book in the series goes on offer at Amazon before I go on though!).

The Last Devil to Die: Thursday Murder Club, Book 4 – Richard Osman (AUDIOBOOK) Narrated by: Fiona Shaw – 21.09.23

I wasn’t sure about the first book in this series, but they are really growing on me, and are now as welcome as a lovely hot bath or a perfect cup of tea!

I don’t know if Richard Osman’s writing is improving, or just my appreciation of it, but I think this is his best book yet.

Elizabeth’s husband Stephen is slipping further into dementia, and when a good friend of his is killed after getting mixed up with drug smuggling gang, the retirement home murder club friends decide they need to investigate.

There is also an interesting side story when a new resident at the home is taken in by a romance fraud scam.

Now that we know the returning protagonists a bit, Osman delves deeper into their characters with some poignant back story details which mean more to us now than they would if we been told in the first book. This book is very sad, with lots of musings about life and death and memory and grief and I did shed several tears while listening. Also, I worked out some but not all of the clues, which is just about right, because I get to feel clever without spoiling all the twists.

Can’t wait for the next one!

Mr Mercedes – Stephen King – 18.09.23

Somebody on Rick O’shea (the booklovers group that I follow in Facebook) was excited about the release of Holly, by Stephen King, which is the third book in a series of which Mr Mercedes is the first. I realised that I’d had this book on my kindle for a while, but not read it, so I bought the next two books in the series with my Audible credits and then read this (I know, I had faith that I would like it enough to want to read all of them!)

It follows a retired detective, Bill Hodges, who is spiralling into inertia and depression until he receives a letter from Mr Mercedes, a killer who’s case he’d worked on but not solved.

Bill goes rogue to try to stop Mr Mercedes from killing again, after all he still has his police ID, so long as he puts his finger over the bit that says he’s retired! There’s an interesting cast of characters from some very nice people to some very not nice people, and I was gripped by the book and very glad that I have the next two to listen to now!

The Land of Lost Things (AUDIOBOOK) – John Connolly –14.09.23

This is the sequel to The Book of Lost Things, and in it we return to Elsewhere with a different human protagonist. In the book of lost things, David had to work through his feelings of loss and resentment, in this, Ceres (named after the goddess of motherhood, among other things) is a mother whose child is in a coma and her quest involves saving children.

Interestingly, Ceres reverts to her teenaged self when in Elsewhere – maybe to appeal to the intended young adult audience, or maybe because it is the child in us who uses stories to work through life’s problems?

It was nice to revisit some of the characters from the first book, and again there are some quite nasty scenes as well as a smattering of humour, and no simply happy ending as life is filled with both light and dark.

I somehow didn’t feel as gripped listening to this book as to the first one, and I found my mind wandering a few times. Still good though.

Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers – Rob Grant, Doug Naylor (Audiobook) Chris Barrie (Narrator) – 07.09.23

This was the audible daily deal recently, and I loved the show back in the day, so I bought it and I’m glad I did. The story is really fun, and the narration by Chris Barrie is excellent! He is so good at doing the voices that I wondered (and still do a bit) if there was actually a full cast doing the reading!

A very fun trip down memory lane.

If you are too young to remember, Red Dwarf follows Lister (the last human alive after being in cryosleep for three million years) Rimmer (a hologram), Cat, a humanoid cat creature who evolved from one pregnant cat in the bowels of the spaceship, Holly, the super intelligent AI computer who is going a bit stir crazy, and Kryten, a robot who loves to clean, as they try to find their way back to Earth. It’s funny and poignant.

Foster – Claire Keegan – (BOOKGROUP) – 06.08.23

For my bookgroup in September, we are reading two novellas by Claire Keegan – this one, Foster, as well as Small Things Like These, which I had already read (and loved!).

Claire Keegan’s writing is just beautiful. I’d seen the film based on this novella (I think it’s called ‘The Quiet Girl’) and remembered the gist of the plot, but still really enjoyed the experience of reading the book.

The prose is understated and yet gorgeous. You feel like a visitor to a wee Irish farmhouse sharing a slice of life with the family within with all the joys and heartache and quiet routines of life that get you through it.

Marked: An Alex Verus Novel – Benedict Jacka – 06.08.23

About a third of the way into this book, I was almost wondering if it would be wrong to abandon the book (and the series) when I’d already read 9 and a third of the twelve books. I was bored by yet another protracted magical fighting scene. But…

Then it started to peak my interest – some clever plot twists, and (FINALLY) some movement on the Alex/Anna relationship will they/won’t they thread and by the end of the book I was actually excited to read the next one!

The Book of Lost Things (AUDIOBOOK) – John Connolly – 04.09.23

I read this book years ago, back when I used to read physical books and remembered liking it, so when someone on the Rick O’Shea group on Facebook posted their excitement at the sequel coming out, I bought the audiobook for a re-listen before reading the next one.

By the way, I would thoroughly recommend joining the Rick O’Shea group on Facebook – it’s an Irish group for avid readers and I get a lot of book recommendations or nudges about authors I like having new works from that group.

Anyhoo, The Book of Lost Things is an Adult (or maybe young adult) faery tale. I think it’s aimed at people like me who always loved to read and look back with nostalgia at being lost in the world of the fey as a child or young adult and being both terrified and delighted and wishing it was all real while being relieved that it isn’t (or is it?).

There are dark themes and some violence and gore – but as one character pointed out, that is the tradition with fairy tales – to be dark and cautionary and teach the young about the very real dangers of life but in a safe and vicarious way. (I wish I’d said something like that when I was interviewed on the radio during my five minutes of fame when The Forbidden Room won the Wow Factor award – the interviewer asked me if I didn’t think my book was too dark and serious for a teen audience, and I said something inane like ‘oh, no, I don’t think so,’ instead of talking about the rich tradition of dark tales for children. Hey Ho.)

The world of Elsewhere (or whatever you want to call it) is shaped around the fears and experiences of the human protagonists who visit, and the main character, David is battling grief after losing his mother, and feelings of resentment toward his new stepmother and step brother and his quest really is to fight through those feelings in the form of evil magical creatures. It turns some traditional fairy tales on their head in a fun way and I like that it didn’t have a ‘happy ever after’ more a ‘complicated ever after’ like real life.

Winter’s Gifts: A Rivers of London Novella (Audiobook) – Ben Aaronovitch (Author), Penelope Rawlins (Narrator) – 30.08.23

This is a fun novella in Ben Aaronovitch’s River’s of London cannon. You could probably listen to/read it as a stand alone, as it’s entirely set in America with an American FBI agent who investigates ‘special’ cases as its main protagonist. The Native American spirits reminded me of two TV series I’m currently watching and enjoying – Reservation Dogs, and Dark Winds. I liked the female American narrator.

One strange thing was, at the end when they say the rights belong to the author, Ben Aaronovitch, the narrator pronounced it Aaron-OH-vitch (with the emphasis on the OH) whereas in my head I’ve always said AaRon-o-vitch – with the emphasis on the ‘ron’) do I need to rethink my world, or did the narrator mispronounce???