WomenWriters

pick

The darkest of dark humour in this story introduces me to the mind of celia dale + early 1960's England as two villainous characters swindle old ladies out of their meagre assets. The seedy nature of their enterprise finds Maisie + Josh Evans taking elderly Flo into their home + quickly manipulating her into a grim life trapped in her bedroom. The image of Josh creating his scrapbook will stay with me for a while. Bleak but bizarrely I loved it.

LeahBergen Great review, Andrew. I loved it, too! 5d

Tamra Echo @LeahBergen 5d

Cathythoughts I also loved it 👍🏻 4d

45 likes3 comments

TheEllieMo

Murder in the Snow: A Cotswold Christmas Mystery | Gladys Mitchell

Yet another from my extensive collection of seasonal crime novels….

#Day22
#Snow
#ChristmasCheer
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
@Eggs

Eggs Pretty❄️ 1mo

28 likes1 comment

BarbaraJean

Knock, Murderer, Knock! | Harriet Rutland

“Mrs Napier walked slowly to the middle of the terrace, noted the oncoming car, looked round to make sure that she was fully observed, crossed her legs deliberately, and fell heavily on to the red gravel drive.”

Now that‘s a great opening sentence!! 😂

35 likes

peanutnine

The Hotel: A Novel | Elizabeth Bowen

so-so

Read this in September with the #hashtagbrigade
While the conversations we had discussing it were entertaining, the novel itself was a bit bland. All of the characters were pretty unlikeable and it was hard to sympathize with them

37 likes

BarbaraJean

Knock, Murderer, Knock! | Harriet Rutland

It‘s the last #BookSpin day of 2024! Thank you, Sarah, for running this challenge—I look forward to it every month! My last two spins of the year are: a mystery from my Kindle TBR (I‘d love to use it for the #christmascrimechallenge if I can make it fit a prompt), and one from my library list that I‘ve been meaning to read forever (and it fits a year I need for #192025). Looking forward to squeezing these into my already-full December!

TheAromaofBooks

TheAromaofBooks Yay!! Enjoy!! I liked The Dean's Watch, although like the other Goudge books I've read it isn't exactly full of action 😂 But she can write such real people - I don't know, her books seem like ones I would find boring and uninteresting, but she completely pulls me in. 2mo

BarbaraJean @TheAromaofBooks I‘ve only read Elizabeth Goudge‘s children‘s books before! This one has been on my list because I‘ve seen glowing reviews, but also because it‘s set in a fictional version of Ely, the English town I lived in as a child. This version of the cover features the Octagon tower of Ely Cathedral, which gives me so much joy!! 2mo

TheAromaofBooks Oh wow, that is amazingly cool! A lot of the book is describing the town, almost as its own character, so being able to match that with real-life experiences would be amazing. I've also read and LOVED The Scent of Water, and read and quite liked The Rosemary Tree.

Do you still live in England?? 2mo

See All 7 Comments

BarbaraJean @TheAromaofBooks Oooh, now I‘m really looking forward to the town descriptions!! I don‘t still live in England—I just wish I did! My dad was a civilian contractor for the USAF at the time and we were there for 6 years, but moved back to California when I was 9 (which is where I ended up). I‘ve been back to Ely several times to visit and dream of moving back someday! 2mo

TheAromaofBooks Oh that makes sense!! I was thinking that you were in the US all this time, so you threw me off by having a childhood English village 😂 2mo

BarbaraJean @TheAromaofBooks Hahaha... you are correct in thinking that I have been in the US all this time! I just have a sneaky international past 😂 2mo

TheAromaofBooks Very international spy of you 😆 2mo

29 likes7 comments

RowReads1

Love Object: Selected Stories | Edna O'Brien, John Banville

Blue Road: The Edna O‘Brien story https://youtu.be/bEErqpfb3HM?si=ljhV1jnb8PZ1VXcX

kspenmoll Thsnk you! So excited to see this! 2mo

28 likes1 comment

DebinHawaii

The Hotel: A Novel | Elizabeth Bowen

so-so

#ReadAway2024

Read as a chapter-a-day with the #HashTagBrigade or I probably would have dropped this one. A group in the 1920s on holiday on the Italian Riviera sounds good in theory but this was really a bunch of annoying & unlikable people who mostly whined & talked around things. There was no fun on this trip! Luckily it‘s a short book & @BarkingMadRead is good with entertaining hashtags. 😉
Would I read more from this author? Maybe?🤷🏻‍♀️

DieAReader, Andrew65, GHABI4ROSES

BarkingMadRead I‘ve heard that her other books are better, but I‘m scared 😱🤣 (edited) 4mo

DieAReader 🥳Great! 4mo

41 likes2 comments

julieclair

The Hotel: A Novel | Elizabeth Bowen

so-so

Elizabeth Bowen‘s prose is exquisite. There are occasional sentences that are absolute perfection. Unfortunately, there were many more sentences (at least for me) that were absolutely cryptic. Even after rereading them more than once, I still had no clue what they meant. And the fact that I didn‘t like most of the characters in this book didn‘t help. ⬇️

julieclair I expected to love this book, thinking it would be similar to Anita Brookner‘s Hotel du Lac. Instead, it was just a disappointing “meh” for me. Of course reading with the #HashtagBrigade makes any book fun, but on my own this would have been a DNF. Thanks, as always, for doing a great job hosting @BarkingMadRead ! 4mo

BarkingMadRead It was definitely tough to get through at times! 4mo

rubyslippersreads For a book that I couldn‘t put down, set in a small hotel, I recommend

The Feast

4mo

See All 7 Comments

julieclair @rubyslippersreads Thanks for the recommendation. I have never heard of it and it looks great! Stacked! 4mo

julieclair @BarkingMadRead That‘s why it was so fun to read it together! 😆 4mo

mcctrish A #hashtagbrigade book is always ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ but this was only great because of the company and universal confusion 🤣 too bad we aren‘t all rich like the characters and then we could have had it made into a movie 4mo

julieclair @mcctrish The universal confusion was so comforting! 😂 4mo

28 likes7 comments

andrew61

Winter Garden | Beryl Bainbridge

pick

A farcical story about a middle age man Douglas who tells his wife he is going to Scotland fishing but sets of on an artistic groups visit to Moscow with his lover the flamboyant actress Nina, who then appears to be permanently avoiding him. His journey around 1980s Russia with the other members and the authoritive olga makes for a strange tale of misadventures. Enjoyable, strange ending, as ever Bainbridge is a great storyteller but not my fave

46 likes

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