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Chapter One

I would like to introduce you to Cramlington Book Club. It has members that are not all related or previously known to me. It has had its first meeting and has even decided upon a book to review. More on that later.

I arrived at The Plough, my local pub that I had chosen as a venue, to find one person already there! Yipee I wasn't going to be on my own, this might actually work! There were 4 of us in total, all female but varied in age. I had asked everyone to bring along either their favourite book or the one they were currently reading as a starting point for discussion. I had brought along Kept, a Victorian Mystery by D J Taylor. I hadn't read any by Taylor previously and wasn't enjoying the Dickens wannabe. It was however A typical of the type of books that I read - 3 for 2 at Waterstones/best seller list at Asda. This seemed to be the general reading fodder of the group and most of us had heard of the various authors that each liked to read.

In the offerings of those that had turned up was also one of my favourite books The Time Travellers wife by Audrey Niffenegger. This triggered a conversation of how many books were now being turned into films and how Hollywood insisted on changing the stories for (in our opinion) the worst - notably Cecelia Aherns PS I Love You.

I was relieved that conversation seemed to be flowing and on the few occasions that it seemed to be slowing my nerves kicked in and verbal diarrhoea followed ensuring there were no awkward silences. Honestly I felt like I was on a first date!

Talk then turned as to what book we should review first. I had brought along a couple of suggestions - Wedlock, How Georgian Britains Worst Husband Met His Match by Wendy Moore and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson. The former as it was based locally and had just been read by my colleague at work who loved it and the latter as my auntie had just read it at her book club and loved it so much she had bought and read the other two.

I wanted to aim for a book that none of us had read which ruled out a few obvious choices. However The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo met with a warm response as it was on the best seller list at Asda (we don't buy food from there in Cramlington only books!) and had recently been made into a film.

And so it was decided that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (that takes forever to type, think next blog it's going to have to be known as Dragon Tattoo or even Dragon depending on my patience!) was going to be the book that we would review. People drifted away seeming quite happy with promises to return next month. My first meeting had been a success.

Think I better put another sign up in Sainsburys though (complete with surreptitious replacing to prime location) advertising the book and asking for more members just in case!

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