Murrin, Alan "The Coast Road"

Murrin, Alan "The Coast Road" - 2024

A friend had read this book and lent it to me. It sounded quite interesting, stories about Ireland often are. But, this story really could have taken place almost everywhere. There are people like that in every village. I grew up in a Catholic village in the sixties and seventies, and life there was almost like that. Actually, there are still people around who act similar. However, these characters didn't come across very likely and likeable.

So, an easy read for anyone who is looking for that. Since I usually don't, I didn't enjoy this book that much. Not my thing.

From the back cover:

"It's 1994 in County Donegal, Ireland, and everyone is talking about Colette Crowley - the writer, the bohemian, the woman who left her husband and sons to pursue a relationship with a married man in Dublin. But now Colette is back, and nobody knows why.

Returning to the community to try and reclaim her old life, Colette quickly learns that they are unwilling to give it back to her. The man to whom she is still married is denying her access to her children, and while the legalisation of divorce might be just around the corner, Colette finds herself caught between her old life and the freedom for which she risked everything. Desperate to see her children, she enlists the help of Izzy, a housewife and mother of two, and the women forge a friendship that will send them on a spiralling journey - one toward a path of self-discovery, and the other toward tragedy."

Groff, Lauren "Matrix"

Groff, Lauren "Matrix" - 2021

A member of our book club tried to convince us that this would be the best novel for our next book choice. But some members were not really convinced that they wanted to read it. So I "took pity" (LOL) and volunteered to be a guinea pig.

I love reading historical novels, especially about women and their fights against the prejudices of their times. So, I expected something really interesting. Many girls were sent to nunneries against their wishes and a few were quite successful in that world.

I tried to read more about the protagonist and found that the book is not really based on anything known from reality. It is what it says: pure fiction.

I thought I could learn more about the history of a person that was important in her lifetime. Unfortunately, I didn't. If you are looking for a novel without being interested in the background or whether that person existed, you might like this better. I was disappointed.

Overall, the novel was too superficial for me.

There are no footnotes or links to research pages that might support at least some of the stories.

From the back cover:

"Seventeen-year-old Marie, too wild for courtly life, is thrown to the dogs one winter morning, expelled from the royal court to become the prioress of an abbey. Marie is strange - tall, a giantess, her elbows and knees stick out, ungainly.

At first taken aback by life at the abbey, Marie finds purpose and passion among her mercurial sisters. Yet she deeply misses her secret lover Cecily and queen Eleanor.

Born last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, women who flew across the countryside with their sword fighting and dagger work, Marie decides to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. She will bring herself, and her sisters, out of the darkness, into riches and power.

MATRIX is a bold vision of female love, devotion and desire from one of the most adventurous writers at work today."

Stedman, M L "The Light Between Oceans"

Stedman, M L "The Light Between Oceans" - 2012

I must say, I expected more from this novel. But I don't want to spoil it for anyone who still wants to read this. I really would welcome comments from those who have.

Spoiler:

As you can see from the book description, a couple who cannot have a child "finds" one and decides to keep it. Even when they know where it belongs, they don't tell the truth. An interesting topic. Is it correct to keep a baby if you think it might have been abandoned? Is it correct to keep it even if you know it isn't? I would say no in both cases. Someone who is not able to have children but would love to have them, might think different but I think about the mother whose baby is stolen. Yes, stolen. I would have killed anyone who would have done that to me.

An interesting subject but the writing has not enticed me to read anything else by this author. It was a little to "chick-litty" for me.

From the back cover:

"Tom Sherbourne, released from the horrors of the First World War, is now a lighthouse keeper, cocooned on a remote island with his young wife Izzy, who is content in everything but her failure to have a child.

One April morning, a boat washes ashore carrying a dead man - and a crying baby. Safe from the real world, Tom and Izzy break the rules and follow their hearts.

It is a decision with devastating consequences."

Paretti, Sandra "The Wishing Tree"

Paretti, Sandra "The Wishing Tree" (German: Der Wunschbaum) - 1975

Actually nothing more than a love story that I read many years ago. Could also have been a threepenny novel.

The English subtitle actually says it all: "The Saga of a Woman and her Family and a Dream That Wouldn't Die". The cover photo on the English edition does the rest.

But I know that there are readers who like this type of literature. Because, otherwise, it was well written.

From the back cover:

"In 1900 Camilla Hofmann is seventeen. The home of her parents is in Berlin's Steglitz. It's a big house with a park around it. Her father goes bankrupt, the family business is lifted, the main house is sold and the family falls apart. Camilla, the youngest, is nothing else but the memory ... and the desire ever to get back in that house in Steglitz and be able to sit under the big lime tree which is told that he wishes come true can let go."

Moggach, Deborah "The Carer"

Moggach, Deborah "The Carer" - 2019

I have read "Tulip Fever" by the same author and thought it was very good. So, when a friend offered to lend me this one, I took the opportunity.

This was not the same at all. Not just because it was a different topic. It just read more like chick-lit disguised as a serious novel.

While this could be a great novel about old age and how the care of a senile father can take up everyone's resources, the story turned more and more into a soap opera with family secrets everywhere. I could have done without all that and it might have been a brilliant novel. This is just very unreal. The only thing missing is a murder and the landing of an alien ship, then all genres would have been covered.

According to Goodreads, the novel is humourous. I couldn't detect that.

From the back cover:

"From the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Tulip Fever, a deliciously funny, poignant and wry novel, full of surprising twists and turns.

James is getting on a bit and needs full-time help. So Phoebe and Robert, his middle-aged offspring, employ Mandy, who seems willing to take him off their hands. But as James regales his family with tales of Mandy's virtues, their shopping trips, and the shared pleasure of their journeys to garden centres, Phoebe and Robert sense something is amiss. Is this really their father, the distant figure who never once turned up for a sports day, now happily chortling over cuckoo clocks and television soaps?

Then something happens that throws everything into new relief, and Phoebe and Robert discover that life most definitely does not stop for the elderly. It just moves onto a very different plane - changing all the stories they thought they knew so well."

Baker, Jo "Longbourn"

Baker, Jo "Longbourn" - 2013

I don't care much for novels that are based on someone else's work (so-called fan-fiction) and I might never have started reading this one if it hadn't been for a friend who had finished reading this and lent the book to me.

What can I say, it was an interesting read to learn about the servants at Longbourn, the house of the Bennets from "Pride & Prejudice". I think we know all more about their lives since watching "Downton Abbey".

While it is helpful to know the original story and thereby following the life of the Hills, Sarah, Polly and James, I don't think you necessarily need to have read it.

However, the author has gone a little too far with some of her assumptions and I doubt Jane Austen would have agreed with her protrayal of the family. I can only grant the author a lot of imagination. She should have written a book about a fictional house in the Regency Period with the main focus on the servants. Would have avoided a lot of silly allusions to the Bennet family.

Yeah, as I said before, not a fan of books written about other books. If you can't think of a storyline by yourself, leave it. I am sure it will be a long time until I pick up some fan-lit again.

From the back cover:

"It is wash-day for the housemaids at Longbourn House, and Sarah's hands are chapped and raw. Domestic life below stairs, ruled with a tender heart and an iron will by Mrs Hill the housekeeper, is about to be disturbed by the arrival of a new footman, bearing secrets and the scent of the sea."

McCall Smith, Alexander "Espresso Tales" and "Love Over Scotland"

McCall Smith, Alexander "Espresso Tales" (44 Scotland Street #2) - 2005

This book is the reason why I started another series by Alexander McCall Smith. I found it on one of those book swapping shelves. And since I liked "The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency" Series, I thought, why not. I bought the first and third book in the series ("44 Scotland Street" and "Love Over Scotland").

Some parts are really silly and definitely exaggerated but he always makes me smile. His books are definitely on the lighter side of my reading but they are nice night-time stories to read in-between.
And I can get upset about some people and their behaviour. There is this mother of a five-year-old who treats him like a baby girl, no football, no rough play, pink walls in his bedroom, pink dungarees, no, excuse meeeee, crushed strawberry dungarees. LOL She even takes him to a psychiatrist but if you ask me, it's her who is in desperate need of one.

And then there is Pat, a nice girl but without a goal, who shares a flat with Bruce, a narcistic macho and that's the best I can say about him.

So, a nice little story about neighbours and friends.

From the back cover:

"In Espresso Tales, Alexander McCall Smith returns home to Edinburgh and the glorious cast of his own tales of the city, the residents of 44 Scotland Street, with a new set of challenges for each one of them.

Bruce, the intolerably vain and perpetually deluded ex-surveyor, is about to embark on a new career as a wine merchant, while his long-suffering flatmate Pat MacGregor, set up by matchmaking Domenica Macdonald, finds herself invited to a nudist picnic in Moray Place in the pursuit of true love. Prodigious six-year-old Bertie Pollock wants a boy's life of fishing and rugby, not yoga and pink dungarees, and he plots rebellion against his bossy, crusading mother Irene and his psychotherapist Dr Fairbairn.

But when Bertie's longed-for trip to Glasgow with his ineffectual father Stuart ends with Bertie taking money off legendary Glasgow hard man Lard O'Connor at cards, it looks as though Bertie should have been more careful what he wished for. And all the time it appears that both Irene Pollock and Dr Fairbairn are engaged in a struggle with dark secrets and unconscious urges of their own."

McCall Smith, Alexander "Love Over Scotland" (44 Scotland Street #3) - 2006

"Love Over Scotland" picks up where "Espresso Tales" leave off. We hear more about Bertie, the five-year old and his awful mother, a neighbour of Pat goes to meet some pirates in South-East Asia, there are other small and big problems with the people in the book but I think this is it for the series. There are more books that carry on the tales of our Scottish friends but I think I'll give them a miss. If you love light reading, you will probably love it, Alexander McCall Smith has a good way of describing people.

From the back cover:

"With his characteristic warmth, inventiveness and brilliant wit, Alexander McCall Smith gives us more of the gloriously entertaining comings and goings at 44 Scotland Street, the Edinburgh townhouse.
Six-year-old prodigy Bertie perseveres in his heroic struggle for truth and balanced good sense against his insufferable mother and her crony, the psychotherapist Dr Fairbairn. Domenica sets off on an anthropological odyssey with pirates in the Malacca Straits, while Pat attracts several handsome admirers, including a toothsome suitor named Wolf. And Big Lou, eternal source of coffee and good advice to her friends, has love, heartbreak and erstwhile boyfriend Eddie's misdemeanours on her own mind."

These are the other books in the series "44 Scotland Street":
2007: The World According to Bertie 
2008: The Unbearable Lightness of Scones
2010: The Importance of Being Seven
2011: Bertie Plays The Blues
2012: Sunshine on Scotland Street
2013: Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers
2015: The Revolving Door of Life
2016: The Bertie Project
2017: A Time of Love and Tartan
2019: The Peppermint Tea Chronicles
2020: A Promise of Ankles

Trollope, Joanna "Next of Kin"

Trollope, Joanna "Next of Kin" - 1996

I thought, I had read something by Joanna Trollope before but it turned out to be another author. I doubt I would have picked this book otherwise.

It was an alright read, not badly written but I couldn't relate to the characters, it was all a little too wishy-washy, not deep enough for the promises on the book cover.

I file it under chick-lit.

From the back cover:

"The land running down to the River Dean has been farmed by the Meredith family for generations. Robin Meredith bought the farm from his father, just before he married his wife Caro and now he and his brother Joe work on the land. But now Caro has died, as much as a mystery to the family as she was when she arrived twenty years ago, and the whole family feels her loss acutely, none more so than her adopted daughter Judy.

Into this unhappy family comes Zoe, Judy's London friend, an outsider with an independent spirit and a disturbing directness. Everyone underestimates Zoe's power as a catalyst for change as the realities behind the seeming idyll of a rural community become ever clearer."

McKinley, Tamara "Lands Beyond the Sea"

McKinley, Tamara "Lands Beyond the Sea" - 2007

I would file this novel under "Catherine Cookson with a little Australiana thrown in". Too much "Lord loves poor girl, poor girl loves Lord but they can't get together" for me. The stories of the convicts have been described a lot better in other books (Capricornia, English Passengers, The Floating Brothel, For the Term of His Natural Life, The Secret River).

The story about the convicts might have been good if it hadn't all the chick lit paraphernalia thrown in. And I might have enjoyed the book if it hadn't been such an "easy read". Not my thing, I'm afraid.

I read this is the first of a series. I doubt I will read the following ones.

From the back cover:

"Discovery
By the 1700s, the Aborigine people have lived in harmony with the land in Australia for sixty thousand years. But now, ghost-ships are arriving, their very existence is threatened by a terrifying white invasion.

Love
When Jonathan Cadwallader leaves Cornwall to sail on the Endeavour, he leaves behind his sweetheart, Susan Penhalligan ... But an act of brutality will reunite them in the raw and unforgiving penal colony of New South Wales.

Hardship
Billy Penhalligan has survived transportation and clings to the promise of a new beginning. But there will be more suffering before he or his fellow convicts can regard Australia as home ...

A powerful, romantic epic weaving the lives of the Cadwalladers, the Penhalliagnas, the Aborigine and the convict settlers into the untamed tapestry of newly discovered Australia."

Lennox, Judith "Before the Storm"

Lennox, Judith "Before the Storm" - 2008

I wouldn't exactly call this book bad chick lit but I'm sure it goes very well with the description "summer read". The story of a young man who falls in love with a young woman, the family they subsequently have, problems with relatives, a little bit about the war, and there's your story. It was a nice read that I can recommend to anyone who doesn't want too much of a challenge. But that was it.

From the back cover:

"On an autumn day in 1909 wealthy young Richard Finborough catches sight of twenty-year-old Isabel Zeale at the harbour at Lynmouth in Devon. Her beauty captivates him. Aware of shameful secrets in her past, Isabel has no intention of letting anyone into her life, but Richard's persistence and ardour eventually win him her trust - and her hand in marriage. The decades pass and Isabel and Richard raise a family through the turbulent times of the First World War and the 1920s. As her children reach adulthood, Isabel is convinced her secret is safe - until an old acquaintance emerges from the shadows, turning her world upside down. To protect the happiness of those she loves most, Isabel must find the courage to confront what came before, and live with the consequences..."

Bivald, Katarina "The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend"

Bivald, Katarina "The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend" (Swedish: Läsarna i Broken Wheel rekommenderar) - 2013

I wouldn't call this one of my favourite books because the plotline is pretty "chick-litty". Sara is Swedish and works in a Bookshop. Amy is American and lives in a remote village. They swap books and ideas about books.

And that's what caught me. Many Scandinavian authors are mentioned. Therefore, I made a list of all the books and authors they talked about. There are a lot of interesting books here though some of them are tending towards chick literature to me and I'm not a huge fan of crime stories, so a few of them would not be on my reading list.

Alcott, L.M. "An Old Fashioned Girl"; "Little Women"
Austen, Jane "Pride & Prejudice" (second review); Sanditon
Auster, Paul
Bondeson, Euthanasia - crime stories
Brontë sisters 
Brontë, Charlotte "Jane Eyre"; "Villette"
Brown, Dan (The Da Vinci Code)
Bulgakov, Mikhail
Child, Lee - Jack Reacher series
Christie, Agatha - crime fiction
Connelly, Michael - crime fiction
Coupland, Douglas "All Families are Narcotic"
DeMille, Nelson "The General's Daughter"; "Word of Honor"
Dickens, Charles 
Dostoevsky, Fyodor (Crime and Punishment; The Adolescent; The Gambler)
Evans, Nicholas "The Horse Whisperer
Fielding, Helen - Bridget Jones Series; "Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination"
Fitzgerald, F. Scott "Tender Is the Night" 
Flagg, Fannie "Fried Green Tomatoes";"A Redbird Christmas"
García Márquez, Gabriel (One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the time of Colera; The General in his Labyrinth)
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "The Sorrows of Young Werther"
Grisham, John "A Time to Kill"; "The Rainmaker"
Guillou, Jan - Carl Hamilton series
Guareschi, Giovannino - Don Camillo series
Hanff, Helene "84 Charing Cross Road"; "The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street"
Heller, Joseph "Catch-22"
Hemingway, Ernest (The Old Man and the Sea; For Whom the Bell Tolls)
Highsmith, Patricia "The Price of Salt
Joyce, James "Ulysses"
Keyes, Marian (Rachel's Holiday)
Kinsella, Sophie - Shopaholic series
Läckberg, Camilla
Larsson, Stieg - Millenium Trilogy
Lee, Harper "To Kill a Mockingbird"
Lindquist, Ulla Carin "Rowing Without Oars: A Memoir of Living and Dying" (Ro utan åror: En bok om livet och döden)
Marklund, Liza - crime stories
Malraux, Phil
Martinson, Moa
Montgomery, L. M. "Anne of Green Gables"
Morgan, Jude "The Taste of Sorrow" (about the Brontë sisters)
Morrison, Toni "Beloved"
Murdoch, Iris "The Sea, The Sea"
Oates, Joyce Carol (the characters and I guess in this case the author agrees with me that she should have received the Nobel Prize for Literature a long long time ago)
Paolini, Christopher - Eragon series
Pratchett, Terry
Proulx, Annie "The Shipping News"
Proust, Marcel "In Search of Lost Time" aka "Remembrance of Things Past (À la recherche du temps perdu)
Roth, Philip (Zuckerman Unbound; The Ghost Writer)
Rowling, J.K. - Harry Potter Series 
Shaffer, Mary Ann & Barrows, Annie "The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society"
Shakespeare, William (Hamlet; Macbeth; Romeo and Juliet)
Sparks, Nicholas "A Walk to Remember"
Steinbeck, John "Grapes of Wrath"; "Of Mice and Men"
Stein, Gertrude "Geography and Plays"
Stockett, Kathryn "The Help"
Stowe, Harriet Beecher "Uncle Tom’s Cabin"
Thomas, Dylan 
Thoreau, Henry David "Walden"
Twain, Mark "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"; "Pudd'nhead Wilson. Those extraordinary twins"
Waller, Robert James "The Bridges of Madison County"
Wilde, Oscar 
Witter, Bret; Myron, Vicki  "Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World"
Young, Elizabeth "Asking for Trouble"
The Bible

They also mention a list that seems to be interesting:
Mr. Rothberg's Best American Authors List

From the back cover:
"Once you let a book into your life, the most unexpected things can happen...

Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds that Amy's funeral has just ended. Luckily, the townspeople are happy to look after their bewildered tourist - even if they don't understand her peculiar need for books. Marooned in a farm town that's almost beyond repair, Sara starts a bookstore in honor of her friend's memory.

All she wants is to share the books she loves with the citizens of Broken Wheel and to convince them that reading is one of the great joys of life. But she makes some unconventional choices that could force a lot of secrets into the open and change things for everyone in town. Reminiscent of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, this is a warm, witty book about friendship, stories, and love."

Hay, Ashley "The Railwayman's Wife"

Hay, Ashley "The Railwayman's Wife" - 2013

I chose this book mainly because it was about Australia and I thought it would be nice to read one about another time than just the beginnings. It's a nice book, an interesting story but that's about it. It's an easy read which leads to the result that there is not that much depth in the novel.

Maybe if the author had given a little more thought on the feelings of the people and described them better. Or hadn't wrapped up the story so quickly. It's almost as if someone dies unexpectedly, the story just ends.

Not a bad book as such but not my type.

From the back cover:

"In a small town on the land's edge, in the strange space at a war's end, a widow, a poet and a doctor each try to find their own peace, and their own new story.

In Thirroul, in 1948, people chase their dreams through the books in the railway's library. Anikka Lachlan searches for solace after her life is destroyed by a single random act. Roy McKinnon, who found poetry in the mess of war, has lost his words and his hope. Frank McKinnon is trapped by the guilt of those his treatment and care failed on their first day of freedom. All three struggle with the same question: how now to be alive.

Written in clear, shining prose and with an eloquent understanding of the human heart, The Railwayman's Wife explores the power of beginnings and endings, and how hard it can be sometimes to tell them apart. It's a story of life, loss and what comes after; of connection and separation, longing and acceptance. Most of all, it celebrates love in all its forms, and the beauty of discovering that loving someone can be as extraordinary as being loved yourself.

A story that will break your heart with hope."

There is one part of the book that I do love. Anikka Lachlan, the "Railwayman's Wife" starts working in the library and their daughter loves reading, so they talk a lot about books. Some of them are mentioned:

Brontë, Charlotte "Jane Eyre"
Conan Doyle, Arthur "The Lost World"
McKinnon, Iris "Timeless Land"

Fowler, Karen Joy "The Jane Austen Book Club"

Fowler, Karen Joy "The Jane Austen Book Club" - 2004

I'm reading this with an ad hoc online book club a friend started to read this and Jane Austen's books. Since I just reread all of them, I am referring you to the link here for my reviews of them.

I'm afraid this book does not give Jane Austen any credit. The book club is like many of the clubs my friends have told me about - and I once briefly was a member of one, too, but left it rather quickly since I would love to talk about the books we read, not gossip about everything but books. The sticker on the cover "Richard & Judy's Book Club" should have rung huge bells. I will let that be a warning to me.

Do they ever talk about the books? Has Karen Joy Fowler even read any of them? If she did, she doesn't know how to talk about a book because I am under the impression she hasn't even opened any of these fabulous novels. Why else would she construct a story around Jane Austen without even getting into her writings?

A disappointing read. I only finished it so we can talk about it in our little group.

From the back cover: "In California's Sacramento Valley, six people meet once a month to discuss Jane Austen's novels. They are ordinary people, neither happy nor unhappy, but all wounded in different ways, all mixed up about their lives and their relationships. Over the six months they meet marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and, under the guiding eye of Jane Austen, some of them even fall in love . . ."

There were, however, some other books mentioned in the book, apart from all the Jane Austen novels (mainly science fiction or fantasy):
Henlein, Robert A. "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Junger, Sebastian "The Perfect Storm"
LeGuin, Urusla K. "The Left Hand of Darkness"
LeGuin, Ursula K "The Lathe of Heaven"
LeGuin, Urusla K. "Searoad"
Radcliffe, Ann "The Mysteries of Udolpho"
Rand, Ayn "The Fountainhead"
Tolkien, J.R.R. "The Lord of the Rings"

Schoemperlen, Diane "Our Lady of the Lost and Found"

Schoemperlen, Diane "Our Lady of the Lost and Found" - 2001

This was one of the books a friend left behind when she moved and said she thought I might like it. I don't think I would have picked it myself because it seemed to me like chick lit crossed with a religious theme. Breakfast with Mother Mary. Or something like that.

And it reads a little like that. I still couldn't say this was one of my favourite books but it had something. The information about the Virgin Mary, for example, the author puts together a list of Marian apparitions and other stories around her. That I found quite interesting.

From the back cover:

"On a Monday morning in April, a middle-aged writer finds a woman standing in front of the fig tree in her living room. The woman is wearing a navy blue trench coat and white Nikes, and is carrying a small black suitcase. She is the Virgin Mary and, she explains, after 2,000 years of petition, adoration and travel, she is in need of some R&R.

In Our Lady of the Lost and Found, Diane Schoemperlen has created a profound and original novel that captures the hearts and imagination of readers. Now available with a P.S. section featuring insightful background material, this captivating story is an exploration of our capacity for faith and of the miracles of daily life."

Two books are mentioned in the book, books the author supposedly reads before and during Mary's visit:
Allende, Isabel "The House of the Spirits"
Grunwald, Lisa "The Theory of Everything"

And there was  an interesting passage I would like to quote: "For those with a bookish bent, reading is a reflexive response to everything. This is how we deal with the world and anything new that comes our way. We have always known that there is a book for every occasion and every obsession. When in doubt, we are always looking things up."
I couldn't agree more!

Sefton, Maggie "Knit One, Kill Two"

Sefton, Maggie "Knit One, Kill Two" - 2005

Read this with an online book club. I must say, this is not my type of literary, too simple, too obvious, too much sports. And I don't need dozens of pages explaining to me how to knit, I know that already and I doubt anybody would learn it through that. Maybe someone would feel inspired to learn it and if someone does then I'd say, go for it.

Maggie Sefton has written a whole series of these "Kelly Flynn Mysteries" but I doubt I will read any of the others, even though I admire her titles.

Knit One, Kill Two, June 2005
Dying to Sell, October 2005
Needled to Death, December 2005
A Deadly Yarn, August 2006
A Killer Stitch, May 2007
Fleece Navidad, October 2008
Dyer Consequences, June 2009
Skein Of The Crime, June 2010
Dropped Dead Stitch, June 2010
Double Knit Murders, November 2010
Unraveled, June 2011
Cast On, Kill Off, June 2012
Close Knit Killer, June 2013
Yarn Over Murder, June 2014

The fact that she churns out more than a book a year on average might show her enthusiasm for the stories but I doubt that it is a sign for any quality of the writing.

From the back cover: "Despite the fact that her aunt was an expert knitter, Kelly Flynn never picked up a pair knitting needles she liked - until she strolled into House of Lambspun. Now, in the first in a brand-new series, she learns how to knit one, purl two, and untangle the mystery behind her aunt's murder. - Kelly Flynn would be the first to admit her life in Washington, D.C., is a little on the dull side. But coming back to Colorado for her beloved aunt’s funeral wasn’t the kind of excitement she was seeking. The police are convinced that her Aunt Helen’s death was the result of a burglary gone bad, but for the accountant in Kelly, things just aren’t adding up. After all, why would her sensible, sixty-eight-year-old aunt borrow $20,000 just days before her death? With the help of the knitting regulars at House of Lambspun, Kelly’s about to get a few lessons in cranking out a sumptuously colored scarf - and in luring a killer out of hiding."

Gabaldon, Diana "Outlander"

Gabaldon, Diana "Outlander" (UK: Cross Stich) - 1991

So many of my friends have told me I should read this, it has been suggested in my book club, yet, it never really caught my attention, I didn't think it was me.

So, when I saw this was read in an online book club, I jumped at the opportunity to discuss this with some other people and read it.

What can I say? I was right all along? Yes, I was right all along. This is not my kind of read. Granted, the story itself is not too bad, Claire, a nurse who has been in World War II, all of sudden finds herself in the 18th century. Well, I don't believe in time travel but I am willing to overlook that part. She then has to start living in that time and does pretty well integrating with her medical knowledge and all.

The story about the people in the 18th century is also not completely uninteresting. It's just, the whole style of writing is so chick lit, so simple, there is way too much importance on sex and, even in the 1700s, clothing. The whole story seems to turn around those subjects. And everything is totally predictable. Not really any surprising facts. "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily.  That is what Fiction means." As Miss Prism says in Oscar Wilde's fantastic play "The Importance of Being Earnest".

Not my cup of tea. This will have been my one and only "Outlander" novel, I know there are plenty more to read. If you are interested in them, here is the list of the sequels:

Outlander - 1991 (UK edition: Cross Stitch)
Dragonfly in Amber - 1992
Voyager - 1994
Drums of Autumn - 1997
The Fiery Cross - 2001
A Breath of Snow and Ashes - 2005
An Echo in the Bone - 2009
The Exile – An Outlander Graphic Novel - 2010
Written in My Own Heart's Blood - 2014
Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone - 2021

What have I learned from this? I often do know whether I would like a novel or not. It doesn't happen often that I am pleasantly surprised even if I pick up a book I think might not be me. That should count for something, right?

From the back cover:

"The year is 1945 and Claire Beauchamp Randall, a former British combat nurse, is on holiday in Scotland with her husband, looking forward to becoming reacquainted after the wars long separation. Like most practical women, Claire hardly expects her curiosity to get the better of her. But an ancient stone circle near her lodgings holds an eerie fascination, and when she innocently touches a corner of one of the giant boulders, she's hurtled backward in time more than two hundred years, to 1743.
The past is a very different country, boiling with rumors of the Jacobite Pretender's Rising, beset with ignorance and superstition, ravaged by pestilence and disease. Alone where no lady should be alone, and far from the familiar comforts of her other life, Claire's usual resourcefulness is tested to the limit. The merciless English garrison captain so feared by others bears a disturbing resemblance to the husband she has just left behind. Her own odd appearance and even odder behavior expose her to accusations of witchcraft. And the strands of a political intrigue she doesn't understand threaten to ensnare her at every turn.

Determined to make the best of things, Claire uses her nurses training to help heal the sick, her wits to foil those who would brand her a spy and her humor and courage to disarm any would-be captors. Struggling to keep the all-too-present past at bay, she plots to return to the stone circle, and home. but of all the perils Claire's new life holds, none is more disquieting than her growing feelings for James Fraser, the gallant young soldier she is forced to marry for her own protection. Sworn by his wedding vows to keep her from harm, Jamie's passion for Claire goes beyond duty. The emotions between them are stronger, and far more real, than anything she has ever known. As she struggles with the memory of another life - indeed, another husband - Claire is forced to choose between the future she has left and the past she now inhibits. And, having been plunged into an adventure that is at once unimaginably bizarre and unmistakably real, she learns an unforgettable lesson: that a man's instinct to protect the woman he loves is as old as time."

Moyes, Jojo "Me Before You"

Moyes, Jojo "Me Before You" - 2012 

A friend recommended this book. When I checked the description, it sounded a little too "easy" to me. My friend assured me this was not so, and when I came across it, I supposed it was meant to be and therefore read it.

Was she right? Yes and no. The story has a certain background, it deals with an incurable illness/handicap and the will to live or not to live.

However, the whole story itself is quite shallow, the characters didn't convince me that this was the major part of the novel. The author talks a little bit too much about clothes, shoes and alcohol to my liking, the people come across as if that is the only thing worth living for.

So, even though I appreciate the thought of the story, I would have preferred it to be a little more elaborate, more deep. The author reminded me of Jodi Picoult whose novel "My Sister's Keeper" I didn't like, either.

My advice: Do not try to hide a dramatic story with a deeper meaning in a shallow "chick lit" novel, it doesn't do either of them any good.

And I should have listened to my inner voice that tells me, never read a book that has pink on its cover.

From the back cover:

"Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time."

Gillham, David R. "City of Women"

Gillham, David R. "City of Women" - 2012

This was a novel chosen by our book club. This will probably be the last International Book Club book I discuss for a while. For health reasons, I regrettably had to decide to end it for now. But I hope to start again at some point.

I probably would not have chosen this book if I had to decide for myself. I like to read books about the war but I prefer to read them when they are written by someone who lived through the war, and there are plenty of accounts like that.

What was even worse in this case, the author is a non-German man but he writes mainly about German women. I could have forgiven that fact if I had had the feeling that he knows what he is talking about. But already the names give you the impression that he has no idea. They are all spelled differently, no German would spell the name Erika with a "ch" (so Ericha), for example, and even Karin with a C looks weird. It just leaves behind a weird taste of unprofessionalism and makes the story less believable. It reminded me of those of my American friends who find out that the city Wiesbaden is pronounced Weeesbaden and henceforth spell it Weisbaden.

Anyway, the names were not the only part that was annoying, the whole plot, the whole language was rather simple. Yes, he was trying to tell how the women in a war torn city lived, how they carried on their lives in Nazi-Germany. But did he really manage to do that? The story wasn't as brilliant as a lot of the critics suggest, it was boring at times and didn't reveal anything new that I hadn't read in other, much better books about the second World War.

Not my book. Probably goes well for those people who would call it a "beach read". I would file it under "chick lit".

We discussed this in our book club in September 2013.

From the back cover:

"Whom do you trust, whom do you love, and who can be saved?

It is 1943—the height of the Second World War—and Berlin has essentially become a city of women.
Sigrid Schröder is, for all intents and purposes, the model German soldier’s wife: She goes to work every day, does as much with her rations as she can, and dutifully cares for her meddling mother-in-law, all the while ignoring the horrific immoralities of the regime. But behind this façade is an entirely different Sigrid, a woman who dreams of her former lover, now lost in the chaos of the war. Her lover is a Jew.

But Sigrid is not the only one with secrets.

A high ranking SS officer and his family move down the hall and Sigrid finds herself pulled into their orbit.  A young woman doing her duty-year is out of excuses before Sigrid can even ask her any questions.  And then there’s the blind man selling pencils on the corner, whose eyes Sigrid can feel following her from behind the darkness of his goggles.

Soon Sigrid is embroiled in a world she knew nothing about, and as her eyes open to the reality around her, the carefully constructed fortress of solitude she has built over the years begins to collapse. She must choose to act on what is right and what is wrong, and what falls somewhere in the shadows between the two.

In this page-turning novel, David Gillham explores what happens to ordinary people thrust into extraordinary times, and how the choices they make can be the difference between life and death."

Kimmel, Haven "A Girl named Zippy"

Kimmel, Haven "A Girl named Zippy. Growing up small in Mooreland, Indiana" - 2002

This book shows that not all recommendations from friends have a happy ending. Meaning, I didn't like this book very much. Even though it is supposed to be a memoir of a girl from Indiana, it read more like a chick lit. The writing is not very challenging, I found it quite boring at times. One of the few books where I was quite glad it wasn't that long because I don't think it would have improved if there had been more pages. I wondered whether I didn't find it funny because I am not American and don't get the jokes or don't have the same sense of humour but I don't think that's it because there are other American authors whose humour I thoroughly enjoy, Bill Bryson for instance. And I even grew up in a similar rural environment as the author.

In short, this book is not for me.

From the back cover:

"When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period–people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards. 

Laced with fine storytelling, sharp wit, dead-on observations, and moments of sheer joy, Haven Kimmel's straight-shooting portrait of her childhood gives us a heroine who is wonderfully sweet and sly as she navigates the quirky adult world that surrounds Zippy."

Anam, Tahmima "The Good Muslim"

Anam, Tahmima "The Good Muslim" - 2011

Brothers and sisters can always have different points of view, on politics, on religion, on education, on anything.

In this case, a brother and a sister fight for their country Bangladesh. When the civil war is over, they go their own ways, they make completely different choices. The brother, Sohail, turns very religious and becomes a "good Muslim", the sister, Maya, becomes  a doctor and causes all sorts of trouble. They don't see each other for years until the brother's wife dies. Maya wants to take care of her nephew but the different views of the two clash.

Even though the author describes the situation between the two well, in my opinion, everything is just a little too superficial, doesn't go deep enough, a lot of hints and short descriptions but nothing that really sticks out and clarifies the point of view. Too "easy" in my opinion but if you like to read chick lit, you might enjoy it. There is only a small glimpse into the culture, and not much about the war at all.

Again, my verdict, too superficial, not detailed enough.

I only learned later that this is the second book in a series, the book cover says nothing about it. So, if you want to read this, you might want to start with "A Golden Age", although I don't think I will read it because I don't expect it to be any different from this one.

From the back cover:

"Maya Haque - outspoken, passionate, headstrong - has been estranged from her brother Sohail for almost a decade. When she returns home to Dhaka hoping for a reconciliation, she discovers he has transformed beyond recognition. Can the two, both scarred by war, come together again? And what of Sohail's young son, Zaid, caught between worlds but desperate to belong?"