November 2008 Archives
My first taste of Val McDermid, one of the many reading recommendations to come out of my Central Asia Overland trip this autumn. A chance find in the Barbican Library, and doubly serendipitous as the first half of the book takes place in St Andrews. It was a bit strange reading a murder mystery set in the sleepy streets of my alma mater, with four Fife Park students as the main suspects in the murder of their local pub's Strathkinness barmaid. The plot kept me guessing until almost the end and the nostalgia factor was high. I did guess whodunnit though.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Distant Echo - Val McDermid
Moving swiftly on from Alfred (and Uhtred)'s victory at Ethandun fort, the action in The Lords of the North takes place back in Northumbria. Accompanied by former nun Hild, Uhtred travels north, his sights firmly fixed on regaining his family's power-base at Bebbanburg and on avenging the murder of his foster father, Earl Ragnar. The spinners of fate though have other plans and when his path crosses with slave-king Guthred, Uhtred finds himself first fighting for Saint Cuthbert, and then a ship-slave.....
Amazon.co.uk links:
The second in the Uhtred series* The Pale Horseman continues on from The Last Kingdom. Humiliated by Alfred despite being key to Alfred's victory over the Danish Vikings at the Battle of Cynuit, Northumbian-born, Viking-raised Uhtred of Bebbanburg decides to seek riches and power .... by going raiding along the Cornish coast.
However, when the Vikings betray their truce with Alfred, Uhtred's fortunes too take a turn for the worse and he ends up hiding in the Somerset marshlands, with Alfred....
Amazon.co.uk links:
* I know that strictly this is the Alfred the Great series, but seeing as Uhtred is the main character for me this series will remain named after him!
I'd not even realised there was a "new" Lisa Jewell, and this has been out in paperback since April!
A rapid read, 31 Dream Street is aka Peacock House aka 31 Silversmith Road. Owned by lonely, scruffy would-be poet Toby, the rooms are occupied by waifs and strays who have responded to his philanthropic 'To Let' adverts over the years. Over the road lives Leah who's boyfriend Amitabh has just decided that he can't marry her; and so the scene is set for a satisfying dose of chicklit. There is a vast cast of characters, some likable, others less so - but as you'd expect life works well for the ones you care about in the end.
Amazon.co.uk link: 31 Dream Street - Lisa Jewell
One of my Hereford holiday haul, and an excellent read from Bernard Cornwell, as ever.
Harlequin is the first novel in the Grail Quest series, and introduces us to Thomas of Hookton, an English archer who ends up in France, enmeshed in the Hundred Years War and with various women (very Sharpe!).
In this first novel, there is not much about the Grail, but there are plenty of battles and skirmishes, and we do catch glimpses of what I suspect will become Thomas's own quest to discover more about his own origins.
Amazon.co.uk links: