another great turn out for Stone and her team which for this outing includes Frost the annoying yet principled journalist. A really interesting case that really gives room for everyone to do their best work, puzzles, data, intuition and more. A great return to form

I have always considered myself well read and connected and with my history degree aware of the politics of what is reported and what is not. For all of that I find in this time of connectedness it seems harder to find the things that matter @dabbe @Susanita
@DebinHawaii
@Mimi28
@TheBookHippie
@JenlovesJT47
@Reggie
@vivastory
@Eggs
@jdiehr
@TheSpineView
@CBee
@lil1inblue
@julieclair
@AnnCrystal

@dabbe
@DebinHawaii
@Mimi28
@TheBookHippie
@JenlovesJT47
@Reggie
@vivastory
@Eggs
@jdiehr
@TheSpineView
@CBee
@lil1inblue
@julieclair
@AnnCrystal
How was your morning?! #haikuaday #haikuhive

This was interesting. British Colonel and his wife in post WW2 Hamburg. Lewis - strongly of the view that reconstitution is going to need kindness more than strong arms agreed to share his requisitioned home with its owners a widower and his angry 15 year old daughter. The set up was fascinating and I appreciated the colour of both Hamburg and the period but found the characters quite flat. There were other perspectives I would have liked to see

What‘s the collective noun for haikus - bashed these off today reflecting on the longest day of the year with thanks to @eggs for the prompt! @Mimi28
@TheBookHippie
@JenlovesJT47
@Reggie
@vivastory
@Eggs
@jdiehr
@TheSpineView
@CBee
@lil1inblue
@julieclair
@AnnCrystal

This was an interesting read on a couple of layers. One, it‘s a satisfying twisty novel about a wealthy woman in her later 40s meeting a younger widower and being swept off her feet. But secondly it‘s also quite interesting on being childless in your 40s and what that alongside being single does to how the world, even your closest friends see you and how easy it can be to be manipulated.

@dabbe
@DebinHawaii
@Mimi28
@TheBookHippie
@JenlovesJT47
@Reggie
@vivastory
@Eggs
@jdiehr
@TheSpineView
@CBee
@lil1inblue
@julieclair
@AnnCrystal

@dabbe
@DebinHawaii
@Mimi28
@TheBookHippie
@JenlovesJT47 I think I might have needed some punctuation here!
@Reggie
@vivastory
@Eggs
@jdiehr
@TheSpineView
@CBee
@lil1inblue
@julieclair
@AnnCrystal

A #oldlangsspine from @BennettBookworm I really liked this. Yea there is an actual plane load of characters but all were different and well written. A fascinating story about a lady who predicts age and reason for death for her fellow travellers it was a great exploration of fate and human responses to fear. I loved the main character but all the others and the sense of interconnect was also great

Have probably read this kind of story begore - I‘ve certainly seen the film but it‘s still well done. Ex teen tv star trying to make it as a producer teams up with her meet cute turned work enemy to try and get a film green lighted. To do so requires retuning to his home town, hanging out with his family and learning the truth of true love. Main character is both self aware and oblivious but that aside it was a fun pool side summer read

And the book I picked off the kindle! This was a pleasing closure to this trilogy about a FBI forensic linguist and her complex and unusual sisters. I would have liked a bit more of her linguist speciality which was such an interesting part of the earlier books but it was still a speedy and satisfying twisty read

I am away for a few days for a@family@members destination wedding !

@Kristy_K
@DebinHawaii
@Mimi28
@TheBookHippie
@JenlovesJT47
@Reggie
@vivastory
@Eggs
@jdiehr
@TheSpineView
@CBee
@lil1inblue
@julieclair
@AnnCrystal @dabbe

A book about books and an authors memoirs in one. So to know Susan Hill is very set in her views (doesn‘t like to travel, doesn‘t get Australian novels!) and this can be frustrating. So too is some of the quite chronic name dropping of the good and great of late 20th century literature. BUT she has a wonderful turn of phrase and clearly loves deep and round reading. I wrote down multiple recommendations and respected her perspective for that !

#haikuhive #haikuaday is a really interesting way to think about what‘s going on and how I am feeling

@Kristy_K
@DebinHawaii
@Mimi28
@TheBookHippie
@JenlovesJT47
@Reggie
@vivastory
@Eggs
@jdiehr
@TheSpineView
@CBee
@lil1inblue
@julieclair
@AnnCrystal

Sometimes knowing what decision to make is hard #haikuhive

@kristy_k
@debinhawaii
@mimi28
@thebookhippie
@jenlovesjt47
@reggie
@vivastory
@eggs
@jdiehr
@thespineview
@CBee
@lil1inblue
@julieclair
@AnnCrystal

#haikuhive

@kristy_k
@debinhawaii
@mimi28
@thebookhippie
@jenlovesjt47
@reggie
@vivastory
@eggs
@jdiehr
@thespineview
@CBee
@lil1inblue
@julieclair
@AnnCrystal

#haikuhive #haikuaday gosh I made it to three days in a row. #@dabbe @Kristy_K @DebinHawaii @Mimi28 @TheBookHippie @JenlovesJT47 @Reggie @vivastory @Eggs @jdiehr @TheSpineView @CBee @lil1inblue @julieclair @AnnCrystal @bellabella @BooksandCoffee4Me @Jari-chan

#haikuadag #haikuhive trying to post every day - at least for this week. What I can say feeling poorly on your birthday really does bring feelings ! Apologies I think I tagged everyone. Joining this party late so not sure of all the rules !

Oh wow, I am almost glad to be poorly as it‘s let me curl up and mere myself in this. A murder mystery tols@over many many years it‘s really more of a character study and it‘s just wonderful.

I am not sure the rules of the #haikuhjve but I have been enjoying them and today feeling sorry for myself and well dosed on cold medicine I have one of my own to add !

The kind of horror I can cope with! This was at times just a bit bonkers but I actually really enjoyed the story of the adult siblings regrouping to sell their parents house and unearthing generational trauma along the way. A blame it on Litsy from when it was first published I finally picked up on my indie bookshop crawl at the end of last year

Gosh his would be a great, divide the crowd book club book. Framed as a story of a missing girl as told by a chorus of her near peers and written as ‘we‘ alternating with stories from their future it‘s a haunting kind of a book. I loved the muggy Florida backdrop, the deeply intense early teen years portrayed with all their raw energy. I liked less the deeply disheartening future stories and the vague horror type vibe and the abrupt ending

This is a format I like - 4 stand alone stories all touching on the life of Jesus, his mother, a friend, the Cheif Priest and Barabas. All were excellently written and imminently quotable but I am not quite sure what the author was trying to say. Part of the message is the power of story and the line between truth and fiction but at times it felt like the aim was to simply be provocative. An interesting read

Not played in ages @Eggs but joining in today 1. I quite like my own name as both a long and short version Joanne and Jo as an androgynous shortened version. and therefore would tend towards the same like Alex or Sam or Charlotte / Charley 2. As a child I had rabbits with very descriptive names twitch, cheeky, grey boy etc. imagination not a core strength! 3. I don‘t know about favourite but Verica Salt is to me one of the best accurate names!

DNF - I rarely do this but it‘s taken me three weeks to get to page 240 and picking it up gives me a moment of dread. It‘s beautifully written I just haven‘t a clue as to what is going on and frankly everyone seems really awful. I think a good example of a probably great book but not for me. Not right now. Off to find something I do fancy for this bank holiday Monday

I found this haunting. There is something about the authors use of language that mimics the ‘for the ages‘ style of the original works whilst bringing fresh perspectives and an almost practical infuse telling. In this one our narrator is slave to Cassandra sailing home with Agamemnon who is mostly secondary to the story of his waiting wife and family. The horror of their home, ghosts of slaughtered and canabilised children adds tension .& horror.

the Walsh sisters were regular reads in my 20s & I found them lovable, chaotic & both relatable & very far away from my only child efforts at early adulthood. Picking back up now was confused. At its best - highly relatable, refreshing, age appropriate storylines, great sense of place and zingy one liners. Less positively it was oddly paced,bogged down by a huge character & struggling to define its In characters and their relationships.

This was not quite what I expected (the hype passed me right by). Phoebe, desperately sad and struggling inadvertently crashes a week long wedding and through the connection she makes finds new purpose. I loved some of her relationships and conversations with the wedding people but felt less invested in the overall story. I think the cast of characters was strong and would happily have read more about any of them

This book has left me stumped. I don‘t quite know whether it is steampunk / fantasy / eco warning or horror and I was left vaguely dissatisfied. The writing especially the descriptions of the ‘wastelands‘ was stunning and the sense of place on the train hurtling then creating through this otherworldly was great but the characters were a little two dimensional for me and following several split rather than added to a sense of what was happening!

Have I spent half the day doing a bookshop crawl around Boston - yes I have ! Finished here and loved the shelf of Persephone titles. It was lovely to see each of the 4 shops I went to so full .. people reading, sharing titles and in all sharing their love of books with in well stocked children‘s sections. It was good for the soul (if not for my legs which are feeling every one of my 18,000 steps

1. I am away for work so no planning, prepping or cooking dinner!
2. The coach driver outside my hotel this morning reading a doorstop of a book while waiting for his passengers
3. Sunshine setting on the river
4. Being able to stock up on my favourite makeup brand. Please come to the UK Merit!
5. No alarm for the morning ! @DebinHawaii #5joysFriday

A low pick for me. Loved the sense of place especially the power of the river and the insight into history that I just don‘t know anything about -
Sudan in the mid 1800s (yes I am still making my way through #readingafrica2022 😆) but overall I found the story from multiple perspectives hard to keep up with and there was a really sad futility in much of the war and loss of identify. The main love story also confused me!

Been to see my mum for the weekend and just missed train back to London - enjoying some sunshine and hoping the signalling issue that has incomings now delayed is sorted soon!

On paper this should have been right up my alley - at marys‘s style writing and the recall of the knights of the round table to help save the realm. Plenty of in jokes, nods to the myths and general shenanigans ensue. And yet for that I found it a bit too full - I would have enjoyed the myth bits on their own, ditto the strong eco-warming and female strengths but all together it read a bit like all the books the author wanted to write

Gosh this is a quite remarkable read. It contains some things that I don‘t like - age differences in relationships inc a child bride (of its time but still not what I want to read about) and an almost distant story telling with very abrupt changes in main character and focus. It was a spiralling family saga - at its heart about love for each other and love for home even as both things change and evolve. The love for the land comes clear ⬇️

My first 5* of the year. This was a fabulous multi layered story - yes there is the love and bond of the 3 sisters and the pain and trauma of a difficult family history, then there is a world of female oppression, the witchcraft, the love of stories and words and all of it done against a clever historical backdrop that acknowledges the racism of the suffrage movement. The power of women, of words and of wanting was powerful stuff this IWD

Another YA from the TBR pile. this was stark and unrelenting in its portrayal of the experience of life for those forcibly removed from the Baltic states by the USSR during WW2. Lina is a wonderfully drawn protagonist - at times selfish, at times incredibly brave she is well rounded esp for a YA even if I did want to shake her! If I had a criticism, it‘s the end. Incredibly abrupt with a postscript as though the author ran out of steam or words

A quick easy YA read for #bookedintime. Pirates follows the daughter of a Bristol merchant as she learns the reality of where her wealth is come from & how tenuous her circumstances as a young woman are. enjoyed learning about something new.Pirates! Pirate honour! Whilst well researched it has a simplistic tone to it The love story seemed insta & there was a sense that Nancy was telling minerva‘s story as much as her own. @Cuilin

Maybe I am just not quite smart enough but there were swathes of this one where I was not quite sure what was happening and crucially not sure I cared. I do know the language was beautiful - words of longing and exploration and loneliness but it still left huge gaps as a cohesive story for me. I suspect I might give it another go and find more in the language to love and maybe a better understanding of the actual time war. Low pick

Whilst I feel like I might have seen the main premise of this book in a very old episode of Bones it was really well written and good to return to Northumberland wit L J Ross - she writes with such love and sense of place that even her slower books are enjoyable and this one is not at all slow. A good read at the end of. Very busy week

This was another #auldlangspine2024 from @BennettBookworm and was a lovely gentle read. I really liked how our main protagonist Meg had a full life outside of the love interest - rich yet complex female friendships and a hard earned creative career. As someone bit obsessed with signs and fonts I loved the game Meg and Reid played wandering the city looking for interesting and lost typeface it was like a private world in the city

Soft pick. This book, clearly means a great deal to its author and is in many ways deeply personal but for me one that took me. Surprisingly long time to read. A n exploration of life after death, grief and the universe it was at times wuirky and poetic and at times quite frustrating. Loved Wallace‘s growth and all the character bus found the pacing a bit too slow for me

I really like Alison Weir but this for me fell a bit flat. Perhaps it‘s because the story adds nothing new to my knowledge of the time and compared to some of the other novels I have read it felt a little fast and at time perfunctory. Henry is a complex character and I feel like we never really see that complexity #bookedintime @Cuilin

Another of my #oldlangspine2025 selections from @BennettBookworm this time one I least had on my kindle - honestly @monalyisha is so good at the pairing! I really enjoyed this swisty take on a reliable / unreliable narrator and stayed up far too late last night to finish it. If I had any complaint it finished quite abruptly. A note - set across the southern US states I loved the sense of place and clear love the author wrote with

Look at me go #auldlangspine2025 @monalyisha @BennettBookworm thanks for this tip. Having only recently come to romance novels, the challenge from the protagonist that people can be sneary about romance felt a bit stinging! Loved our main characters - well rounded, kind but flawed people both of whom I would happily have as friends. The set up, a dating show is made fun by the embracing of romance hero tropes. Lots of fun - thank you!!

Happy to finish the year on this one. A story of the power of books and the damaging world we find ourselves in when they are banned. Troy is a southern town full of secrets who have started down the book banning route when a teenager hides them in the covers of a local lending library. Learning ensues. The Indiana story with real heart, stark warning and sense of hope. Loved it

This is written in an unusual style - lots of spaces and no speech punctuation. Does take away from this heart breaking story following a family of Afghanistani
Refugees and their long hard journey to Australia. It‘s a damning indictment to the camps and treatment of refugees. I really enjoyed the folktales weaved through and the impact they had - less keen on the magical realism component. Rewarding but tough to read

A fun less headache inducing outing for Max and co. I had been finding these increasingly tough to follow but this felt like a return to form. Forced into supporting a tv producer help make his show authentic, max ends up adventuring with the star of the show.

How lucky was I? Thank you so much @jhod and also @MaleficentBookDragon for running this fun swop again #JolabokaflodSwap24

#JolabokaflodSwap24 my parcel has arrived ! The one I am@sending went to day for confirmed Tuesday delivery!! Thanks for organising again @MaleficentBookDragon