20 Books of Summer 2019: The End!

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This is the last day of this year’s 20 Books of Summer challenge hosted by Cathy at 746 Books. It’s the third time I’ve participated and the third time I’ve failed to complete it!

20 Books of Summer is a simple idea – to make a list of twenty books at the start of the summer and then read them between 1st June and 3rd September – but not as easy as it sounds. I have actually read exactly twenty books this summer, but only ten of them were on my list; I was tempted by too many other books in June, and then in July and August I found I was too busy to read very much at all.

Anyway, here are the ten books from my list that I managed to read, with links to my reviews:

1. The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
2. The Woman in the Lake by Nicola Cornick
3. Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh
4. The Devil’s Slave by Tracy Borman
5. Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver
6. The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter by Hazel Gaynor
7. Decoding the Bayeux Tapestry by Arthur C. Wright
8. Murder in the Crooked House by Soji Shimada
9. Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor
10. The Canary Keeper by Clare Carson

Of these, my favourites were The Island of Sea Women and The Devil’s Slave.

I am currently reading the following two books but couldn’t finish them in time:

11. A Tapestry of Treason by Anne O’Brien
12. The Butterfly Room by Lucinda Riley

And these are the eight I haven’t had time for, but do still want to read soon:

13. The Horseman by Tim Pears
14. Those Who Are Loved by Victoria Hislop
15. Anna of Kleve, Queen of Secrets by Alison Weir
16. The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal
17. The Anarchist’s Club by Alex Reeve
18. Mrs Whistler by Matthew Plampin
19. A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
20. Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou by Amy Licence

They will have to be autumn or winter reads instead of summer ones!

Did you take part in 20 Books of Summer this year? How did you do?

My Commonplace Book: August 2019

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A selection of words and pictures to represent August’s reading:

commonplace book
noun
a book into which notable extracts from other works are copied for personal use.

~

I didn’t believe in the supernatural – I should say that up front, Mr Wrexham. And so the legends of the house didn’t bother me at all; in fact the whole idea of nannies and servants driven out by mysterious spooky happenings seemed more than a little ridiculous – almost Victorian.
But the fact was that four women had left the Elincourts’ employment in the last year. Having the bad luck to engage one nervous, superstitious employee seemed quite likely. Getting four in a row seemed…less so.

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware (2019)

~

‘Show respect!’ The chief sheriff took a pace towards Shadwell and raised his hand to strike him again, but the bishop waved him back.

‘One does not burn knowledge! That is a show for the common folk. One hides knowledge – one keeps it close. The libraries of the church hold truths you cannot dream of, Shadwell.’

The Second Sleep by Robert Harris (2019)

~

‘I think I can deal with a couple of boys, thank you, Detective Finkel,’ she said. ‘They’re the ones that need worrying about, not me; they’ll go to bed without a bite to eat. They’ve spent all their pennies on fireworks.’

‘They’ll be happy, though,’ he paused. ‘Sometimes it’s good to follow your heart’s desires.’

The Canary Keeper by Clare Carson (2019)

~

Favourite book read in August:

The Turn of the Key

New authors read in August:

Ruth Ware, Clare Carson

Countries visited in my August reading:

Scotland, England

~

Have you read any of these books? Which books did you enjoy in August?

Time for R.I.P. XIV…

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I always enjoy taking part in R.I.P. (Readers Imbibing Peril), but I’ve been particularly looking forward to it this year because I feel as though I’ve done very little reading recently. Moving house and some big changes at work (including an office move and a new manager) have made this quite a busy and stressful summer for me and I’m not really sorry to see it come to an end. Having completely failed with my 20 Books of Summer list – more on that next week – I’m happy to put that challenge behind me for now and start a new one.

R.I.P. is now in its fourteenth year and I’ve been joining in since year five! The rules are very simple – from 1st September to 31st October we will be reading books that fit into any of the following categories:

Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Dark Fantasy, Gothic, Horror or Supernatural.

As usual, there are different levels to choose from and I will be aiming for Peril the First, which is:

Read four books, any length, that you feel fit (our very broad definitions) of R.I.P. literature. It could be Stephen King or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Shirley Jackson or Tananarive Due…or anyone in between.

I have put together a list of possible reads, though I’m certainly not expecting to read all of these – and will probably end up reading books that aren’t on the list at all, which is what usually happens!

The first three books are on my NetGalley shelf so I would be reading them soon anyway; the rest are a mixture of unread books from previous years’ lists, library books and other review copies.

The Art of Dying by Ambrose Parry
Death on a Quiet Day by Michael Innes
The Anarchists’ Club by Alex Reeve
The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell
The Printer’s Coffin by MJ Carter
A Gathering of Ghosts by Karen Maitland
The Mystery of the Peacock’s Eye by Brian Flynn
Tombland by CJ Sansom
The Sussex Downs Murder by John Bude
Bone China by Laura Purcell
The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

~

Are you planning to take part in R.I.P. this year? What will you be reading?

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

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Never having read anything by John Buchan before, the logical place to start seemed to be with his most famous novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps. I wasn’t at all sure that it would be my sort of book, which is why I’ve put off reading it for so long, but I knew there must be a reason why it is so well-loved and has been adapted for film and television so many times.

Published in 1915, The Thirty-Nine Steps is set during the May and June of the previous year, just before the outbreak of war in Europe. The novel is narrated in the first person by Richard Hannay, who has recently arrived in London having spent most of his life living in Africa. As the story begins, Hannay has been in England for three months and is feeling bored, homesick and disillusioned:

The crowd surged past me on the pavements, busy and chattering, and I envied the people for having something to do. These shop-girls and clerks and dandies and policemen had some interest in life that kept them going. I gave half-a-crown to a beggar because I saw him yawn; he was a fellow-sufferer. At Oxford Circus I looked up into the spring sky and I made a vow. I would give the Old Country another day to fit me into something; if nothing happened, I would take the next boat for the Cape.

That evening, as luck would have it, something does happen. He is approached by a stranger who introduces himself as Franklin P. Scudder, an American secret agent, and who claims to have uncovered a plot to destabilise Europe by assassinating Constantine Karolides, an important Greek politician. Scudder believes his life is in danger and asks Hannay to shelter him for the night, but when the agent is murdered inside his home, Hannay fears that the killers will come for him next. Desperate to get away, he flees to Scotland with the intention of hiding there for a while until he can think of a way to continue Scudder’s work and prevent the assassination of Karolides. It seems he is about to have all the excitement he could have wished for – and more.

All of this happens in the first two chapters. The remainder of the novel follows Hannay’s adventures while on the run, most of which involve being chased around the Scottish countryside and having encounters with various eccentric characters, who could be friends but are equally likely to be enemies. Each chapter feels almost like a separate short story, which is maybe explained by the fact that the novel was originally published as a serial in Blackwood’s Magazine so needed to be written in an easily digestible format. I found it very entertaining at first, but somewhere in the middle I thought it became a bit tedious and repetitive. There were far too many coincidences and too many last-minute escapes; fun in small doses, but a whole book like that was too much for me. It also lacks depth, both in terms of characters and plot, but if you accept it for what it is – an early example of the adventure/spy novel, it’s quite enjoyable.

I can’t say that I loved The Thirty-Nine Steps, but I would be happy to try more of John Buchan’s books. Can anyone recommend one that I might like?

The Canary Keeper by Clare Carson

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Clare Carson has previously written a trilogy of thrillers (the Sam Coyle trilogy) set in contemporary Orkney. I haven’t read those, but the title and cover of her new novel, The Canary Keeper, caught my attention and when I investigated I found that this one is a historical crime novel, still set in Orkney but during the Victorian period. I love a good Victorian mystery, so of course I had to give it a try.

The story begins in London in 1855, with the body of Tobias Skaill being found dumped in the Thames. Witnesses report seeing the body thrown from a canoe – surely the work of an Esquimaux! The suspect has disappeared without trace, but it seems he may have had an accomplice: Birdie Quinn, a young Irishwoman who was seen walking in the area at the time. We, the reader, know that Birdie is innocent; she had only met Tobias for the first time the day before when he had tried to give her a message. Her presence by the river that night was a coincidence and she has certainly never had any dealings with Esquimaux. But how can she prove her innocence?

Birdie knows that when the law catches up with her, she will hang, so she turns for help to Solomon, a policeman with whom she was recently in a relationship before they went their separate ways. Solomon advises her to get away from London for a while – and with evidence linking the dead man with the Orkney Islands off the north-east coast of Scotland, that is where Birdie decides to head. Can she uncover the truth surrounding Tobias Skaill’s death and identify his killer in time to clear her own name?

The Canary Keeper explores so many interesting ideas and topics. First, there is Orkney itself and the many traditions, myths and beliefs that are unique to those islands and their people. Then there is the famous Arctic expedition led by Captain John Franklin in search of the North-West Passage, ending in tragedy when both ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, are lost. The Franklin Expedition takes place just a few years before the events of The Canary Keeper and as Birdie begins to investigate she find several surprising links between the doomed expedition and the murder of Tobias Skaill. The fur trade also plays a part in the story and, in the London sections of the book, we learn about some of the trade guilds and livery companies of the period.

Clare Carson also creates some interesting characters, at least on the surface. I found Birdie quite a likeable heroine and I enjoyed her scenes with Solomon, hoping that they might decide to give each other a second chance. There’s also Morag, whose unconventional lifestyle leads to her being labelled a witch, and the widowed Margaret Skaill who is determined to keep her husband’s shipping business going despite her inability to read and write. And yet, none of these characters ever came fully to life for me; there was a disappointing flatness throughout the novel, which I blame on the fact that it is written in third person present tense, probably my least favourite way for a novel to be written. I often find that it puts a distance between the reader and the characters and makes it difficult to engage on an emotional level, although maybe that’s just me.

There’s also a paranormal aspect to the novel, with Birdie experiencing visions and flashbacks, but I didn’t feel that these scenes added anything to the story. This could have been a fascinating book – and at times it was – but it wasn’t really for me.

This is book 10/20 of my 20 Books of Summer.

Thanks to Head of Zeus for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor

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I’ve been curious about The Chronicles of St Mary’s for a while; I enjoy anything to do with time travel, so I thought there was a good chance that I would like these books, but you can never be sure. That’s why, when the publisher made several of the books in the series available through NetGalley a few months ago, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try the first one and see what it was like.

Just One Damned Thing After Another (the title is taken from a quote by Arnold Toynbee) introduces us to Madeleine Maxwell who, as the novel opens, is encouraged by her old schoolteacher and mentor, Mrs de Winter, to apply for the position of historian at St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research. Max, as she is known, is instantly intrigued; she has had a passion for history since discovering a book about Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt as a child. She applies for the job and is invited for an interview, but as she is shown around her future place of work, she quickly becomes aware that this is no ordinary academic institute…and that the historians of St Mary’s are no ordinary historians.

The Institute has developed a form of time travel which allows the historians to travel back in time inside fully equipped ‘pods’ in order to investigate some of history’s many mysteries – large and small – at first-hand. From “being able to say with authority, ‘Yes, the Princes in the Tower were alive at the end of Richard III’s reign, I know because I saw them with my own eyes’” to understanding the secret of Greek Fire and how to handle a Roman chariot, the possibilities are endless. But so are the dangers: pods that malfunction with terrifying results, hostile groups of rival time travellers, as well as all the other hazards you would expect to find on a journey into a less enlightened time. Max and her friends are constantly getting into trouble – particularly Max, who seems to attract disaster like a magnet – but they see it as a risk worth taking in return for being able to see and experience so many wonderful things.

We don’t learn a huge amount about any of the historical periods to which Max travels (only the Cretaceous period has a significant amount of time devoted to it), but that’s not really the point of the book. The enjoyment is in following the adventures Max and the other St Mary’s historians have as they travel through time – and in sympathising with Max’s various accidents and mishaps, some of which are her own fault, but certainly not all! The story is narrated in Max’s own strong and humorous voice, which adds to the sense of fun.

Apart from Max herself, though, I didn’t feel that I got to know any of the other characters very well, but maybe they will be developed further in future books. Although I don’t feel the compulsion to continue with this series immediately (I did enjoy meeting Max, but I think I would find it a bit overwhelming to spend too long in her company), I do still plan to read the second book and am looking forward to finding out where the historians will travel to next. And of course, now I’m wondering where I would choose to go if I had one of the St Mary’s pods at my disposal…

This is book 9/20 of my 20 Books of Summer.

Thanks to Headline for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

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Ruth Ware doesn’t write the sort of books I usually choose to read these days, but something drew me to her latest one, The Turn of the Key, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it courtesy of The Pigeonhole (a website/app which makes new novels available in daily instalments). I’m sure I will be looking for more of Ruth Ware’s books; they would be perfect to put on my list for this year’s RIP Challenge, which I’m hoping will be announced soon.

The novel opens with our narrator, Rowan Caine, in prison awaiting trial for murder. We don’t know exactly what happened, except that a child died while in her care and that suspicion fell on Rowan as the killer. With no one else to turn to for help, Rowan begins to write a letter to her lawyer, Mr Wrexham, in an attempt to explain the sequence of events that led to her imprisonment.

It all starts with a job offer which seems too good to be true: the position of live-in nanny for a rich family based in the Scottish Highlands, caring for four children in return for an unbelievably huge salary. However, it’s not just the money that attracts Rowan…although she doesn’t tell us, or Mr Wrexham, her other reason for applying for the job until much later in the book. In fact, it quickly becomes obvious that Rowan is telling lies about a lot of things; if you enjoy books with unreliable narrators this is definitely the book for you!

Rowan is not the only one with secrets, though, and when she arrives at her new place of work, Heatherbrae House, she becomes aware of some of the mysteries lurking behind its luxurious exterior. Why have the Elincourt children had so many nannies in such a short period of time, some of them lasting no more than a day? What are the eerie sounds Rowan hears during the night? Is Heatherbrae House haunted?

The Turn of the Key, as the title would suggest, draws inspiration from the classic Henry James novel, The Turn of the Screw (which I have to confess I still haven’t read, although I know what it’s about) but Ruth Ware updates the story into a very modern setting. Life at Heatherbrae House is controlled almost entirely by smart technology with cameras in nearly every room and apps to operate lights, heating, showers and music. The sense that Rowan is under constant surveillance with no idea who could be watching her every move creates a sinister and claustrophobic atmosphere which combines with the more traditional gothic elements such as the unexplained noises and other ghostly happenings to make this quite a spooky read.

There were just one or two things that bothered me. First, I thought there were several plot points that felt unconvincing and too convenient; for example, I found it a bit unbelievable that the Elincourts would leave for a week-long conference the day after Rowan’s arrival, leaving the children, including a baby, with someone they had only just met. Also, I felt that in the age of the internet and Google some of the novel’s mysteries could have been solved by the characters much more quickly and needn’t really have been mysteries at all. And then, some of the revelations that came in the final chapters of the book had seemed quite obvious to me and I had already guessed the truth well in advance. Not the ending, though – I hadn’t seen that coming!

I’m looking forward to my next Ruth Ware novel, whichever that turns out to be. I like the sound of The Death of Mrs Westaway and The Woman in Cabin 10, so I think it will probably be one of those.