Cramlington Book Club

So we continued with the Zoom version of book club this month and it was lovely to see so many of us tackle it. The theme was books set in a different country (if you can't travel, let a book take you).  I read The Accident on the A35 by Graeme Macrae Burnet, a detective story with an element of tricksy fiction set in France. I really enjoyed it and you can read my full review here. We travelled to America a couple of times most interestingly to see whether Hilary Clinton (or Bill for that fact) would have made President if they had not got married. Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld is out in hardback now. Norway was a popular spot - Norwegian Nights by Derek B Miller about a retired american marine who moves to Norway and intervenes to save a young boys life sounded interesting. So much so that at least one member of the group has gone on to buy the first in the series, American By Day. We even made it as far as Japan and Botswana (and discovered a Scottish connection for Alexander McCa...

After what felt like 13 million weeks in lock down we attempted to conduct our first online meeting via Zoom. We chose a broad theme of 'autobiographies' to give as many of us as possible a chance at obtaining a book without too much difficulty. I actually didn't have an autobiography on my shelf and so borrowed The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert. The book was all about raccoon eating, teepee living, deer skin wearing Eustace Conway. He has lived a fascinating life and Gilbert had carried out interviews with a wide range of friends and family but I found the lack of pictures puzzling. You gotta have pictures in an autobiography. The group had chosen autobiographies from a real wide range of people. Partly due to availability, partly due to differing interests. We had Gok Wan and his troubled childhood as a non white gay person. Louis XIV (the Sun King) and his debauched court and two Michelle Obamas one of which was given up on. I think the broad topic made fo...

"In a remote hunting lodge, deep in the Scottish wilderness, old friends gather for New Year. The beautiful one The golden couple The volatile one The new parents The quiet one The city boy The outsider The victim. Not an accident – a murder among friends." We had all read the book and all agreed we hadn't really read a book where the victim was revealed at the same time as the murderer. We liked this and found it a definite page turner. The victim not being revealed so late however meant that everyone had to, theoretically, be capable of wanting to murder everyone else which made for a whole host of not nice characters. We all struggled with the characters in someway. We didn't like them. There were too many. They were too self-centered, too two dimensional. Not liking the characters often means we don't like the book and there is no denying it was definitely a hindrance. A few of the group also commented on a plot hole or two. When exactly did ...

"On a trip to the South of France, the shy heroine of Rebecca falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower. Although his proposal comes as a surprise, she happily agrees to marry him. But as they arrive at her husband’s home, Manderley, a change comes over Maxim, and the young bride is filled with dread. Friendless in the isolated mansion, she realises that she barely knows him. In every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, and the new Mrs de Winter walks in her shadow." In what is now becoming a tradition for the book club we chose a classic for January and boy what a good one we had chosen. Quite a few of us had already read it before but this didn't stop us from all having (re)read it by the time the meeting came round. Rebecca is such a good book to talk about at book club. Why does the second Mrs De Winter not have a name? As someones wife is she not worthy enough to have one? Is she so overcast by Rebecca that nothi...

Our festive book of the month for December was Christmas Pudding by Nancy Mitford. Set around a Christmas party at a posh house in the 1920s countryside, it was a mere 180 pages long, had a beautiful cover and couldn't have a more festive name if it tried. It looked like a cracker! "The formidable fox-hunter Lady Bobbin is holding a Christmas house party. Attendees include her rebellious daughter Philadelphia, a pompous suitor, a couple of children poring over newspaper death notices, and a dejected writer whose first serious novel has been declared the funniest book of the year. Add to the mix beautiful ex-courtesan Amabelle Fortescue and her guests staying in a neighbouring cottage and you have a ribald tale of true love and false fidelity, hijinks and low morals, not to mention the consumption of a considerable quantity of Christmas spirit." Where’s the pudding? We almost universally didn't like this book with our major complaint being the lack of anything re...

"Nothing surprises Adam Brandt anymore. As a forensic psychologist, he’s seen and heard everything. That is, until he meets Kassie. Because she claims to have a terrible gift – with one look into your eyes, she can see when and how you will die. Adam doesn’t believe her, obviously. But then a serial killer starts wreaking havoc across the city, and only Kassie seems to know where he’ll strike next. Against all his intuition, Adam starts to believe her. He just doesn’t realise how dangerous this trust might be . . ." I was excited to read to read the book having recently read Eeny Meeny also by Arlidge and having heard Arlidge talk about it at Newcastle Noir earlier this year. Was Adam really going to kill Kassie? If yes how on earth did Arlidge connect the dots to make it work? We had all read the book an all thought it was very heavily plotted. I liked this about the book however some thought it was almost too clever. He'd had a great ide...

"Fleetwood Shuttleworth is 17 years old, married, and pregnant for the fourth time. But as the mistress at Gawthorpe Hall, she still has no living child, and her husband Richard is anxious for an heir. When Fleetwood finds a letter she isn’t supposed to read from the doctor who delivered her third stillbirth, she is dealt the crushing blow that she will not survive another pregnancy. Then she crosses paths by chance with Alice Gray, a young midwife. Alice promises to help her give birth to a healthy baby, and to prove the physician wrong. As Alice is drawn into the witchcraft accusations that are sweeping the north-west, Fleetwood risks everything by trying to help her. But is there more to Alice than meets the eye? Soon the two women’s lives will become inextricably bound together as the legendary trial at Lancaster approaches, and Fleetwood’s stomach continues to grow. Time is running out, and both their lives are at stake." We talked first about the cover of the bo...

Well we didn't like this one did we? "The President is Missing. The world is in shock. But the reason he’s missing is much worse than anyone can imagine. With details only a President could know, and the kind of suspense only James Patterson can deliver." Not many of us had read a James Patterson book before and I can see why. As a group we are clearly not fans of the American thriller genre. A few of us gave up along the way, one wished she had and no one really seemed taken by the dream team that was ex President Clinton and numero uno crime thriller writer Patterson. I'm not a fan of this style of book in any event but I find what makes them work is the pace - there needs to be a deadline fast approaching. A good bad guy and a loveable rogue hero. Whilst there was a pretty big deadline, in the form of the Dark Ages, we kept taking time out to be force fed minute detail about the inner workings of the White House and the President's close knit team. Th...

“Lorena Hickok meets Eleanor Roosevelt in 1932 while reporting on Franklin Roosevelt’s first presidential campaign. Having grown up worse than poor in South Dakota and reinvented herself as the most prominent woman reporter in America, “Hick,” as she’s known to her friends and admirers, is not quite instantly charmed by the idealistic, patrician Eleanor. But then, as her connection with the future first lady deepens into intimacy, what begins as a powerful passion matures into a lasting love, and a life that Hick never expected to have. She moves into the White House, where her status as “first friend” is an open secret, as are FDR’s own lovers. After she takes a job in the Roosevelt administration, promoting and protecting both Roosevelts, she comes to know Franklin not only as a great president but as a complicated rival and an irresistible friend, capable of changing lives even after his death. Through it all, even as Hick’s bond with Eleanor is tested by forces both extraordinar...

Our Book of the Month for July was A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles about Count Alexander Rostov’s house arrest in the arresting(!) Metropol Hotel, Moscow. A Gentleman In Moscow – The Blurb “On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov – recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt – is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval. Can a life without luxury be the richest of all?” We talked about how it was different from other Russian books that we had read from this period. Yes there were horrors, but the Metropol Hotel offered an Oasis allowing the beauty of Russia to shine through.  I got a bit geeky and talked about the struct...

“ Erin is a documentary filmmaker on the brink of a professional breakthrough; Mark a handsome investment banker with a bright future. They seem to have it all, until Mark loses his job and cracks start to appear in their perfect life. But they’re determined to make it work. They book their dream honeymoon and trust that things will work out – after all, they have each other. On the tropical island of Bora Bora Mark takes Erin scuba diving. Mark is with her – she knows he’ll keep her safe. Everything will be fine. Until they find something in the water. Erin and Mark decide to keep their discovery a secret — after all, if no one else knows, who would be hurt? Their decision will trigger a devastating chain of events… which will endanger everything they hold dear. ” We had all read the book, which is a good start, and were captured by the start - Erin digging a grave.  Given that the book was called Something In The Water, and the blurb references a big find in ...

After The Party was May's book of the month. “Had it not been for my weakness, someone who is now dead could still be alive. That is what I believed and consequently lived with every day in prison.’ It is the summer of 1938 and Phyllis Forrester has returned to England after years abroad. Moving into her sister’s grand country house, she soon finds herself entangled in a new world of idealistic beliefs and seemingly innocent friendships. Fevered talk of another war infiltrates their small, privileged circle, giving way to a thrilling solution: a great and charismatic leader, who will restore England to its former glory. At a party hosted by her new friends, Phyllis lets down her guard for a single moment, with devastating consequences. Years later, Phyllis, alone and embittered, recounts the dramatic events which led to her imprisonment and changed the course of her life forever.” We were very confused initially as to which party the book was referring to. We all thought it...

“Age 45, she thinks her life is perfect, as long as she avoids her feckless brother, Edward – a safe distance away in Birmingham. She has a London flat which is ideal for one; a job that suits her passion for logic; and a personal arrangement providing cultural and other, more intimate, benefits. Yet suddenly faced with the loss of her mother and, implausibly, with the possibility of becoming a mother herself, Susan’s greatest fear is being realised: she is losing control. And things can only get worse … at least in Susan’s eyes” Just over a year ago the group made  Eleanor Oliphant ‘ their book of the year. So there was always going to be comparisons reading about a single lady living slightly outside of society norms.  Would it be as good? The book didn't get off to a good start with the group not taking to the very obvious metaphor - the Cactus = Susan. One of the group thought the book was the product of a creative writing course as it seemed to tick many boxes (t...

"Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.” For Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, the world is full of mazes. The miniature of a Paris neighbourhood, made by her father to teach her the way home. The microscopic layers within the invaluable diamond that her father guards in the Museum of Natural History. The walled city by the sea, where father and daughter take refuge when the Nazis invade Paris. And a future which draws her ever closer to Werner, a German orphan, destined to labour in the mines until a broken radio fills his life with possibility and brings him to the notice of the Hitler Youth." Despite its length, over 500 pages, the group had all finished it by the time of our meeting, or very nearly had which is unusual for us.  To start off with the book is a little slow, flitting around from character to character, and between time-frames. Yet it sucked us in and didn't put anyone off.  We loved the two unlikely protago...

"Tara Westover and her family grew up preparing for the End of Days but, according to the government, she didn’t exist. She hadn’t been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she’d never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn’t believe in hospitals. As she grew older, her father became more radical and her brother more violent. At sixteen, Tara knew she had to leave home. In doing so she discovered both the transformative power of education, and the price she had to pay for it.” I loved the books opening chapter, describing the Indian Princess, the mountain upon which  Tara  grew up beside and the fields surrounding it: “the wheat field is a corps de ballet, each stem following all the rest in bursts of movement, a million ballerinas bending, one after the other, as great gales dent their golden heads. The shape of that dent lasts only a moment, and is as close as anyone gets to seeing the wind ” In this ...

Did you know the Cramlington Book Club blog is nine years old? It is, and in blog terms that's pretty old. It started out as a way of recording the books the book club had read during the year. It's hard to remember how many stars you gave April's book of the month when in December! Liking the blogging malarkey I started to include reviews of every book I read. I hooked up with social-media and started to participate in Blog Tours. Without me realising it the Cramlington Book Club blog wasn't about Cramlington Book Club anymore. It wasn't their books or their thoughts. Off the back of this realisation (and with the help of web designer hubby) Book-Social has been born. A website for all things book. There will be reviews, blog tours, articles, features and give-aways. Book Clubs, actual books, independent Book Shops and publishers will be heavily featured as that's what important to me. Cramlington Book Club still exists, it is still going strong. Th...

"13 October 2008. Welcome to the worst day of Chef Charlie Sheridan's life, the day he's about to lose his two great loves: his childhood sweetheart, Lulu, and the legendary Brighton hotel his grandfather, Franco Sheridan, opened in 1973. This is the story of the Belle Hotel, one that spans the course of four decades – from the training of a young chef in the 1970s and 80s, through the hedonistic 90s, up to the credit crunch of the noughties – and leads us right back to Charlie's present-day suffering. In this bittersweet and salty tale, our two Michelin star-crossed lovers navigate their seaside hangout for actors, artists and rock stars; the lu...

I had to stop reading The Soldier's Home I was sat reading it in a trampoline park and feared I would cry in public. I finished it in the privacy of my own home. I didn't cry, but only just and I think only because of the trampoline break in between chapters. "The war is over and his home was built … but a home is just a set of empty rooms without people and love. After surviving the devastation, secrets, lies and tragedies of a community under German occupation, can people now rekindle their lives, and rediscover their reasons for surviving? As the soldier waits for the return of his love, the world keeps moving, threatening to leave his hopes and dreams behind. History, secrets and painful truths collide in this astonishingly human, warm and emotive sequel from writer George Costigan." I was very kindly given a copy of this book by  Urbane Publications  in exchange for an honest review. I had never heard of its predecessor,  The Single Soldier  although I had...

"When the high school in the small Norwegian village of Fredheim becomes a murder scene, the finger is soon pointed at seventeen-year-old Even. As the investigation closes in, social media is  blaze with accusations, rumours and even threats, and Even finds himself the subject of an online trial as well as being in the dock … for murder? Even pores over his memories of the months leading up to the crime, and it becomes clear that more than one villager was acting suspiciously … and secrets are simmering beneath the calm surface of this close-knit community. As events from the past play tag with the present, he’s forced to question everything he thought he  knew. Was the death of his father in a car crash a decade earlier really accidental? Has his relationship stirred up something that someone is prepared to kill to protect? It seems that there may be no one that Even can trust. But can we trust him?" Based on the previously published YA thriller, 'Killerinstink...

OK I confess I am disappointed. Not about The Lost Man or Jane Harper 's writing, oh no, but because when reading the brilliant The Dry and it's follow on Force of Nature I always knew I had another Harper book in the bag awaiting me. Now however I am all caught up and find myself slightly bereft that there is no longer a sub waiting on the bench. "He had started to remove his clothes as logic had deserted him, and his skin was cracked. Whatever had been going through Cameron's mind when he was alive, he didn’t look peaceful in death. Two brothers meet at the border of their vast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of Outback Queensland. They are at the Stockman’s Grave, a landmark so old, no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last hope for their middle brother, Cameron. The Bright family’s quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish. Something had been troubling Cameron. Did he lose hope and wa...