Cramlington Book Club

Crikey what a month. A grand total of 10 books were posted out to me this month for #BlogTours and the book club having won a competition via The Reading Groups for Everyone website and Quercas books. Out of the ones I haven't already read and posted about, added to my book shelf this month were: The Lion Tamer Who Lost by Louise Beech. I will be reviewing this one, about Lions, love and a first meeting in a library, on 12 September. Being Simon Haines by Tom Vaughan MacAulay is about a City solicitor who heads to Cuba to reflect on his life before the most key moment of his career, partnership. As a recent law leaver what will I make of Simon's decisions? How We Remember by J M Monaco is another Blog Tour book to be reviewed by me on 7 September. Abuse, grief and mental illness are all referred to on the blurb and makes me think I am in for a roller coaster of a read. Last to arrive this month (but in no means least) was After He Died by Michael J Mal...

A book about the famous french chef Escoffier and a book about a woman wanting to be french, guess where I went on holiday this year? Yep you guessed it France and as I like nothing more than a good location read I had been saving White Truffles in Winter by N M Kelby and We'll Always Have Paris by Emma Beddington for this very purpose.  As I read them simultaneously (pool book and balcony book respectively) it seems only fitting that I review them together. Not to take anything away from either, they were both brilliant. First up White Truffles, imagining the life of Auguste Escoffier head chef at the Ritz and the Savoy, creator of the last meal eaten on the Titanic, inventor of the Peach Melba and winner of his wife during a game of billiards. Very little is known about Escoffier's private life other than he was married to the poet Delphine Daffis (Madam Escoffier, said billiards 'prize') and was linked to the actress Sarah Bernhardt (who I now want to kn...

So the book club won a competition and through my letterbox five beautiful hardback copies of An Ocean of Minutes by Thea Lim arrived. I practically needed a fork lift truck when I rocked up at the meeting last month, a swap system was quickly conjured up to ensure we could all read it before the next meeting and away we went. I was not alone in loving the concept for the book - a deadly virus is sweeping the world, time travel has been invented and Polly willing agrees to travel forward to 1993 in order to save the love of her life Frank. They agree a time and a place to meet in the future only Polly arrives late and Frank is not there. Don't let the concept of time travel and deadly virus put you off though, this book really isn't that kind of novel (although I do love a good apocalypse). One member of the group described it as an anti romance and was probably spot on. I loved the flashbacks to the 80s when Frank and Polly first met. I thought in particular the section...

OK hold on everybody for MY FIRST EVER BLOG TOUR!!!!!!!!! Did I like it? Did I manage to read it in time? Did I forget to post my review when I should have done? Yes, yes and (thankfully) no! Stitch Up is the ninth in the Best Defence Series featuring Scottish defence lawyer Robbie Munro. As a solicitor not a policeman who successfully runs his own law firm, is recently married and has a daughter the book immediately set itself apart from your standard crime thriller. The book begins with Robbie's ex girlfriend asking him to investigate the apparent suicide of her new boyfriend (awkward!). At the same time a convicted child-murderer is attempting to have his conviction quashed (if I remember the term correctly Mr McIntyre?) claiming Robbie's dad ex sergeant Alex Munro planted key evidence at the scene of the crime (double awkward!). I liked the two stories running along side each other which kept the pace of the book moving swiftly forwards. In real life McIntyre is ...

I stumbled across  Six Stories  on Twitter where the comments were nothing but good. Discovering Wesolowski was a local author I was intrigued and thought I would give it a go. Set in the atmospheric Scarclaw Fell a fictional place in the north east of England, the book investigates the death of a teenager some 20 years previous via a set of 6 podcasts (interviews) conducted by the elusive Scott King. Was Tom Jeffries death misadventure or was it something else? The teenagers present at the time of Tom's disappearance together with other key characters reveal the truth piece by piece until the one hell of a twist ending arrives, that kept me guessing right to the last chapter. It did take me a bit of time to settle into the book and to get to grips with the style as it flitted between characters and time frames but once I did, I found it easy to read. It was an original read for me which I always appreciate (I'm not familiar with Serial , the podcast upon which the idea ...

The Diary Of A Bookseller is one I not only read in hardback but bought for myself in hardback. A rare thing indeed. I was attracted to the cover and just love bookshops. Plus I was actually in a bookshop when I came across it which probably encouraged the splurge. The book diaries a year in the life of a bookshop owner (Bythell) running his bookshop (The Bookshop) in Wigtown, Scotland. As well as colourful accounts of the customers it includes little things like takings and on-line orders. Oh and a fabulous cat called Captain. Delivered in Bythell's no nonsense style it describes the hardships faced by all booksellers in the age of Amazon. He doesn't shy away from mercilessly ripping into his customers and where as Adam Kay ( This is Going to Hurt ) went to pains to disguise the identity of his patients there seems decidedly to have been less lengths gone to in this Diary. Whereas Kay and Bythell's books are totally different, I cant help but compare them as I read ...