General Chat

Two suggestions from me. "Ferney" by James Long

'A story of love and self discovery that resonates across the ages' Nicholas Evans ** 'The book grips ... It belongs to the unputdownable, so goodbye sleep. I love it ... the whole story sang' Mary Wesley ** 'The book is a lovely puzzle ... an enthralling, ambitious novel with distinct echoes of Hardy' Mail on Sunday ** 'If a book ever deserved a second chance, it's this; a historical novel, a love story and a tale of time slippage, just the tale you need when you want to escape into a book and forget the world for 480 pages. I first read this many years ago and it was wonderful to get the chance to go back to it. As fresh and intriguing as ever, the love story and the historical detail are all done with a master's touch. There's many a current bestseller in this vein that can't hold a candle to Long's involving story' Sue Baker, Publishing News

"The Star of the Sea" by Joseph O'Connor

Tragedy is a word too often used. Nevertheless, in Star of the Sea Joseph O'Connor manages to achieve a real sense of the tragic, as personal dramas of the most distressing kind play themselves out against the background of the Irish potato famine and the almost equal nightmare of the mass emigration that it caused. As passengers die of starvation and disease in steerage, a drama of adultery, inadvertent incest and inherited disease plays itself out in first class. O'Connor raises, and does not attempt definitively to answer, real questions about responsibility and choice.
Bankrupt aristocrat Meredith is emigrating, pursued by the hatred of his tenants and the memory of his mad-hero father. His children's nurse, Mary, has memories of lost love to torment her, as well as of the husband and child who died of hunger. And the ballad singer Mulvey has both his monstrous past and the certain promise that he will be tortured to death by the Liable Men should he not kill Meredith. This is a kaleidoscopic novel, whose events are seen in many idioms, from many points of view--it is a rich novel that knows that there are limits to the sense that can be made of history. --Roz Kaveney

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Incidentally are there any volunteers to take over this group please, not that I want to leave the group but it is a bit time consuming to have to keep logging on to see if people have remembered the date of the suggestions/review threads. Thanks to those who make my life easier by sending me a pm before they go away with either their suggestions or their vote choice. It is a real help.

The vote will be around 5pm UK time today regardless of anyone missing as I have to get it finished by Thursday evening. I wonder why Berona hasn't posted I know she is around because she was on the Aussie thread on Chat last night.

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x jill

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May Blossom

The Self Preservation Society by Kate Harrison and

about a young girl scared of everything, nuclear Holocaust the lot, a self confessed scardey-cat. She now works in Accident Prevention at the local council, trying to protect the world from conker injuries, killer tea-cosies and death by chocolate. Then Jo survives a hit and run accident and realises she has beaten the odds. Maybe a bit of living dangerously is what she needs?

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
set in 1960's Nigeria, a country blighted by civil war, three lives intersect. Ugwu, a boy froma poor village, works as a houseboy for a university lecturer. Olanna, a young woman, has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic new lover, the professor. The third is Richard, a shy Englishman in inthrall to Olanna's enigmatic twin sister. When the shocking horror of the war engulfs them, their loyalties are severely tested as they are pulled apart and thrown together in ways that none of them imagined....

Looking through the reviews I can see there is a very good choice of books/authors there and I think this time round it is going to be quite difficult to pick only two.

Persey

Recommended

1) Good Faith by Jane Smiley

Anyone who has read a book by her will know how good she is – she can pick up a topic and run with it and make it so so interesting.
Good Faith is about the greedy Real Estate business in the eighties – not a subject that I would’ve normally found interesting. However, one is drawn in – it starts with a likeable good sort and trusting bloke who is lured down the windy road of easy money.
Her characters are so believable and most people will probably find someone in there that they either recognise or are familiar with. It is an extremely good novel, reveals the nice and not so nice in people and how certain events shape our lives.

2) Touch of Frost by R D Wingfield.

This is Wingfield’s first book – Like the television series – it is funny only more so. Frost shows even worse behaviour than in the series where he is played by David Jason. One is hooked into the story from page 1 – love the interaction by the various characters in the police force and their little idiosyncrasies.
Detective Inspector Jack Frost, officially on duty, is nevertheless determined to sneak off to a colleague’s leaving party. But first the corpse of a well-known local junkie is found blocking the drain of a Denton public lavatory – and then, when Frost attempts to join the revels later on, the nubile daughter of a wealthy businessman is reported missing.
Sleepy Denton has never known anything like the crime wave which now threatens to submerge it. – robbery – hit and run - multiple rapist on the loose – it is all happening.
Frost is reeling under the strain but Frost manages to assure his superior he has it under control....


Persey

Thanks for nudging Jill, I had computer problems yesterday everything froze on me so couldn't get on here. I will check the list and see who I have to chase up.

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x Jill

I'm not too sure about that Ann.
Perhaps not.
It is her new one and I treated myself to it from Amazon.
Hard back and ...hard to hold, but easier in bed. ha ha
Deanna XX

No time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay
1983, 14-year-old Cynthia Bigge wakes up with a raging hangover following a night out with her unsuitable boyfriend and the ensuing row with her father, to find that her entire family (mother, father and brother) have disappeared. The story then brings us forward 25 years, with Cynthia married to Terry Archer, an English teacher, and the mother of an 8-year-old daughter. The story is henceforth told through the eyes of her husband as they try to unravel the mystery of what really happened to her family so many years before.

Night Crossing by Robert Ryan
In 1938, Ulrike Walter, a beautiful young German musician, is engaged to be married to Erich Hinkel, a member of the Hitler Youth. But when she meets Inspector Cameron Ross, a Scotland Yard policeman, whose father is a colonel in British Intelligence, her life will be changed for ever. When war is declared, Ulrike flees Germany for the safety of England but is instead cruelly imprisoned as an enemy alien. Her only hope of rescue is Cameron, who, despite his better judgement, is falling in love with her. Then Erich is captured by the British and incarcerated in a prisoner of war camp in England. He faces interrogation by Cameron Ross, the one man who stands between him and Ulrike, the woman who means more to Erich than life itself...

I am in UK between 10th and 16th July so if the next book choices fall then I will pass mine on to Ann before I go

x Jill

Thanks Deanna, I love Jodi Piccoult's books. Not read that one though, is it out in paper back?

Ann.... I'm back again and yet not joining in.
I did tell you before that I have to read as I want to.
If I join the club, it becomes a chore as if I were reading for school!!

BUT, can I make a suggestion ~Please?

HOUSE RULES
by
Jodie Picoult

The first book I have ever read of hers and it was a real page turner.
About a child with a form of autism... an amazing read.
Well I thought so anyway.
whatever you are all reading.... enjoy, there is no better pastime, is there?

Deanna X

My suggestions-

Restoration by Rose Tremain

When a twist of fate delivers an ambitious young medical student to the court of King Charles II he is suddenly thrust into a vibrant world of luxury and opulence. Robert Merivel rises quickly, soon finding favour with the King, and privileged with a position as ‘paper groom’ to the youngest of the King’s mistresses, But by falling in love with her, Merivel transgresses the one rule that will cast him out from his new-found paradise.

The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his friend Marilyn Monroe by Andrew O'Hagan

This is the charming and entertaining 'memoir' of the maltese terrier given for Christmas 1960 by Frank Sinatra to Marilyn Monroe. 'Maff' or 'Maffia Honey', as Marilyn named him, is a dog of aristocratic birth and temperament, an encyclopaedic knowledge of the arts, an astonishing command of languages and a refined taste in moral and metaphysical philosophy. In addition, Maff has access not just to the thoughts but to the feelings of the humans around him. Being, of his nature, without pride, vanity, or ambition, but well-endowed with the large reserves of love, affection and curiosity equally natural to his species, Maff furnishes an attractive and stimulating commentary on the American scene just at the point where it ceased to defer to the high culture of Europe and began, itself, to define the focus and to govern the direction of popular culture.

I am hoping not to have to chase people up this time as I gave the date with last time's results.

Will add my books a little later as just about to take a class

x Jill

The Dark Tide by Andrew Gross

A bomb explodes in a commuter train station, killing several people, including New York City hedge-fund manager Charles Friedman. At roughly the same time, a suspicious auto accident kills a young man in Greenwich, Connecticut. The detective on that case, Ty Hauck, soon discovers an odd connection between the hit-and-run and the bombing. He investigates and discovers that Charles Friedman was not the man he appeared to be. He also forges a connection with the dead man’s wife, Karen, that leads him into uncharted waters.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Meet Dexter Morgan. He's a highly respected lab technician specializing in blood spatter for the Miami Dade Police Department. He's a handsome, though reluctant, ladies' man. He's polite, says all the right things, and rarely calls attention to himself. He's also a sociopathic serial killer whose "Dark Passenger" drives him to commit the occasional dismemberment.