Have some catching up to do as books seem to have piled up over the last few weeks and though I have been reading, my posting is far behind. So am doing a round up over the next few days to get up to date.
A Perfect Proposal - Katie Fforde. I never wait for Katie's books to come out in paperback and I don't beg for copies from the publisher either, I just order as soon as I see she has a new one coming up as I enjoy them so much. Light and sparkly and written with a deft touch there are no surprises, the reader knows all is going to end happily ever after, but they are such fun and such a pleasure to read. Had a bad
day earlier in the week when the fact that Kathryn was now on the other side of the world hit me once more and A Perfect Proposal was the perfect antidote to my gloom. Sophie Appleby is the non-academic in a family of high achievers who tended to look down their noses at her practical skills, no matter that these skills help keep the family and her cooking and mending saves them from penury as none of them seem to have a proper job, preferring to concentrate on higher things. To teach her ungrateful relatives a lesson and to show that they cannot manage without her, Sophie goes on a visit to a friend in New York. There she meets and befriends Mathilda, a spirited old lady who invites her to Connecticut for Thanksgiving, an invitation which does not go down well with her grandson, Luke, who thinks Sophie is on the make. When I tell you that Luke is tall, blonde and gorgeous and that 'his eyes were, in fact a sort of golden colour, with dark rings round the irises', and that he is totally hostile towards Sophie then you will know exactly what is going to happen. And it Does. And I loved it. I do wish Katie would produce two or even three books a year instead of the measly one. Not too much to ask is it?
The Case of the Gilded Fly - Edmund Crispin. A Gervase Fen mystery, in fact the first, set in the dreaming spires and domes of Oxford, published in 1944 so still on the edge of the so called Golden Age
of Crime, this tells us of the murder of one Yseut Haskell, a pretty but spiteful young actress with a talent for destroying men's lives and who is found dead in a college room close to those of the aforementioned Mr Fen. Plenty of candidates for the murderer but difficult to find out who when the body is found in a room with closed doors and windows and at first glance appears to be suicide. I have not yet quite fallen in love with Mr Fen, who I find slightly irritating and all the characters in this particular title seemed to meet, love and propose to each other with startling rapidity - three alone in the final chapters. I am intrigued enough to seek more of these out and, in fact, have another waiting to go, but I am still not quite convinced that I like them yet.
The WIngs of the Sphinx - Andrea Camilleri. When I first discovered the Inspector Montelbano stories I didn't much care for them but they have grown on me and now I am totally hooked. A dead body of a young woman is found in a dump with half her face shot off. Her indentity is at first unknown but then a tattoo of a sphinx moth on her shoulder links her with three other girls bearing the same mark, all recent Russian immigrants to Italy. Montelbano solves it all in his usual cavalier style while seemingly placing the demands of his stomach above all else and trying to deal with
his long term lover Livia with whom he is having difficulties. Rattling along at a great pace, lots of humour and featuring, as always, the wonderful Catarella who mangles names and numbers and forgets messages, adores Montalbano and who keeps telling him that he has a visitor 'poissenly in poisson'. Wonderful and this latest is well up to standard and kept my glooms at bay for another day.
The Three Sisters - May Sinclair. An old Green Virago I have had for some time (now out of print) and why I decided to read it this week, not sure, but read it I did. What attracted me was the fact that the painting of the Bronte sisters, done by Branwell, was used on the cover of the book and the story has Bronte'ish overtones as it tells the story of three sisters in a lonely parish in Yorkshire. Quite easy to imagine Haworth when reading. All rather gloomy and angst ridden but I was interested enough to read it right through though at the end I was left feeling Well, is that it? There is a Heathcliff character, a young farmer who takes to drink but is saved by the love of one of the sisters who marries him despite the fact that her father, the vicar, and the rest of her family oppose the marriage and think she is degrading herself. The eldest sister marries a doctor who is gradually worn down by the ties and responsibilities of marriage and his attempts to move away are thwarted. Shades of Dr Lydgate in Middlemarch here. The other sister ends up looking after their ailing father after a stroke and, in short, it is not a book to read if you are feeling somewhat depressed. Rather like Ethan Frome really - you should only read that book when in a chirpy mood else you feel like putting your head in the gas oven.
Seething sexuality lurking under the surface all the time - we know why one of the sisters takes to her bed and why they had to leave the last parish because of her behaviour. The author doesn't tell us what but it is heavily hinted at so that we can guess. I have to say that by the time I was half way through The Three Sisters I found my thoughts turning to Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons and remembered that one of the characters in this title found 'something nasty in the woodshed' and was never the same since she saw it. We never find out what it is. All drawn with rather a heavy hand and the protagonists ripe for satire. Only my humble of course, and I am told that some of her other books are really good so may try another one when I come across May Sinclair which I probably will in my forays into second hand bookshops.
Right that is enough for today. Still a few more to go but they can wait until tomorrow.
Au Reservoir.
