What Katie Read

This is yet another impressive debut novel written in an interesting style full of well-developed characters and an engaging, if at times distressing plot.  I have been continually pleasantly surprised throughout the pandemic restrictions by the quantity and quality of debut novels that I have encountered.  Sara Collins will be another author on my list to look out for. Spanning 1812-1826 set in London and Jamaica, the novel opens with Frannie on trial at The Old Bailey.   We soon learn that she is charged with a double murder and nicknamed “The Mulatta Murderess” by the press.   After opening statements and an intriguing glimpse into her current predicament, the reader is whisked back in time to Frannie’s childhood on a sugar plantation in Jamaica, as she begins to write her Confessions. This is not merely a slave story.   It is a Georgian gothic murder mystery with an intricate plot.   It is also a very different type of slave story to ones I have rea...

  Although I had heard of this book, I as usual avoided finding out too much about it, so when I chanced upon it in the ‘recent returns’ section of my local library I did not know what to expect.  I was hooked immediately and devoured it in two days.  It is not a long book and is very fast paced and easy to read.  This is helped by the short chapters, with one word titles reflecting the key theme or element of the chapter.   The central character, Korede, speaks to the reader in a frank, matter-of-fact, straight forward manner which is refreshing and also humorous.  Given the subject matter, which is revealed in the title, you could anticipate a deeper, darker, more psychological tenor to the narrative, but the deadpan style and avoidance of gratuitous gory detail suits the story perfectly.  This is a different kind of crime fiction.   This is also a different kind of African fiction, something the author explicitly states and supports in intervie...

I knew nothing about this book before starting to read it so had no idea what to expect.  I had also not read anything by Setterfield before so was not familiar with her writing style or genre.   I was therefore delighted to be immediately captivated by the story and characters and fell in love with Setterfield’s style.   The novel is set in the nineteenth century in Oxfordshire and takes place along the banks of the Thames.  The river is central to the story and to the characters’ lives.  They have a complicated relationship with the water, as it is both a life-giving necessity and a life-threatening danger.  Setterfield cleverly uses the river to drive the story and also reveal aspects of her characters’ personalities.   The crux of the story is that a 4 year old girl’s body is pulled out of the river.  This has a profound impact on everyone in the local community and they spend a great deal of time pondering, speculating and attempting to work ...

Although on the surface this is a gentle, easy to read, uncomplicated novel, I found it incredibly enjoyable, well written and clever.   Whilst I would not classify it as detective fiction, there is a mystery at the centre of the story, and I eagerly read on, not just to discover the answer, but also to find out more about the characters. The story centres on two children, Grace and Tilly, 10 years old and at the start of their school summer holidays.   Being nice, caring children who are slightly disconcerted by recent events and perhaps driven by a lack of anything else to do, they take it upon themselves to investigate the sudden unexplained disappearance of Grace’s neighbour, Mrs Creasy.   Without giving too much away, Grace hits upon a method for not only finding Mrs Creasy, but preventing anyone else from disappearing, and so their mission begins.   It requires them to “interview” all the neighbours who live on the cul-de-sac, which they cleverly ac...

This is an astoundingly beautiful, heart-rending, captivating story of slavery and empowerment.  As soon as I finished it I wanted to start it all over again.  I also wanted to know more about the Grimké sisters, their lives, their courage and their persistence, as this is based on a true story. The book is set in Charleston, South Carolina, in the early 1800s.  The Grimkés are an affluent white family, and so they have slaves as servants.  Their low opinion of and often brutal treatment of their slaves is shocking, but not unexpected in a book of this type.  The story opens from the perspective of Hetty ‘Handful’, a young slave girl, daughter of another Grimké slave, Charlotte ‘Summer’.  Her and her mother dream of freedom, but in the Deep South this seems unlikely. The Grimkés have three daughters, who are expected to marry well, run their own household and own their own slaves.  But middle child Sarah has other ideas.  On Sarah’s 11 th bir...

Being non-fiction this is not my usual reading-for-pleasure choice, but a good friend gave it to me and I was intrigued.  I don’t have anything against biographies, and often enjoy them when I do read them, it just isn’t my natural preference.  And in essence this is an autobiography, albeit focusing on just the one year in the writer’s life.  But it isn’t just about her life, it is also filled with interesting research, facts, interviews and, of course, amusing anecdotes. As you can tell from the title, Helen, a lifestyle journalist living in London, moves to Denmark and charts her experiences during the year, one chapter per month with a theme for each chapter.  As is to be expected, this book is full of cultural insights, language oddities and many faux pas made by Helen. Helen speaks directly to the reader and is very frank and open about her feelings, intentions and mistakes.  Her journalistic training comes through both in the writing style and...

This is an incredibly complex, well written, innovative book which is immensely impressive as it is a debut novel.  Turton set out to create a new type of Agatha Christie-esque novel and I believe he has achieved it.   In classic Christie style there is a death at a party which is taking place in a manor house set within expansive grounds.   And there is a whole cast of crumbling aristocrats, disreputable dandies and disgruntled relations in attendance.   The central protagonist must work out the backstories and motivations of each of the party guests, without arousing suspicion. But that’s not all, far from it.  There are additional mysterious characters lurking about, plenty of secrets, a previous “tragic event” that no-one wants to talk about and our hero has his own issues - questioning his own identity and past whilst dealing with a very peculiar set of circumstances.  This is not simply a murder mystery, it is a hybrid cross-genre novel which p...

If you're looking for a fun, quick, easy read with heart I would thoroughly recommend this book.  I literally read it in one afternoon.  Set in London in 1941 this is a World War Two novel about life on the home front.  Everything is very proper and amusingly stiff-upper-lip British with realistic 1940s language and mannerisms. The central character, Emmeline, is young and naïve, but she is also brave with a very kind heart.  She is a bit of a daydreamer, and has a positive outlook on life, despite the war.  Emmy dreams of being a Lady War Correspondent and is thrilled when she manages to secure her first job in journalism. But of course Emmy’s job is not at all what she had expected.  Instead of being a journalist she is merely a typist for the domineering old fashioned Mrs Bird.  And Mrs Bird is not an inspiring political reporter or even an amusing home front columnist, she is an agony aunt.  And to make matters worse, Mrs Bird’s st...

Having recommended this to my book club I have just read it for the second time, and despite knowing what happens I really enjoyed revisiting it.   It is a very unusual murder mystery novel told from the perspective of Jasper, a 13 year old boy who has autism, synaesthesia and prosopagnosia, or face blindness.   Not the ideal witness to a murder, you can hear the police thinking!   It has been likened to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time , a book I also really enjoyed, and I can see why, but I still regard The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder as a very unique novel. At the start of the book Harris defines synaesthesia for readers not familiar with it.   Synaesthesia is a relatively rare condition, where the stimulation of one sense affects another sense.   In Jasper’s case, when he hears sounds he sees colours.   I had actually come across synaesthesia before, as my husband has it, albeit in a much milder form than Jasper, but I ima...

Do not be put off by the title!!   This is not a cheesy romantic lightweight story, but is actually quite heavy and sad in places.   I am perhaps slightly biased as the story is set in Victoria, Australia and I used to live there, so I enjoyed the references to places I know and the occasional use of local lingo.   It also, obviously, features a bookshop, and what reader doesn’t love a bookshop!? The story is set in the 1970s and centres on Tom, a good honest farmer with a kind heart, perhaps too kind.  At certain points I felt he needed more backbone and assertiveness, but gentleness is clearly in his nature and he does not wish to force his will on other people.   He has made his decisions and chooses to live his life in a simple manner and behave a certain way, and there is beauty and honesty in that, which other characters can and do appreciate, despite their frustrations. As the title suggests, there is a lot of heartbreak in the story.   ...

I may be slightly biased about this book, having met Rosie Walsh and her being a fellow alumna from the University of Birmingham English department, but I really enjoyed this book and was very impressed.   I would call it a romantic mystery novel and it really did keep me guessing.   I therefore don’t want to say too much as this is a book I could really spoil for a first-time reader! All I’ll say is that Sarah, the central character, has fallen head-over-heels in love with Eddie, and he seems to feel the same way.   But then he is gone.   Disappeared.   Leaving Sarah to wonder, question, rage, doubt, obsess, despair, sob, and basically drive herself crazy trying to figure out what on earth happened. Sarah is a well-drawn realistic character and the whole plot is very plausible whilst at the same time being interesting and compelling.   I was gripped pretty much from the start.   I found it easy to read and the characters very engaging, b...

Hi, I’m Katie.  I have always been a voracious reader and am known among my friends for being a bookworm – a term that always makes me think of the very hungry caterpillar!  I am frequently asked for book recommendations and with the current situation people’s reading has increased, so I thought I would start this blog to help others discover some of the fantastic fiction I have been so enjoying.  I am slightly jealous of you as you get to read these amazing books for the very first time! I am generally a book-a-week kind of reader, but now that I am no longer having to commute to work combined with the evenings being lighter for longer, I am getting through more books than ever!   This is a slight problem for me with the libraries being closed – I used to make a trip to the library at least once a month – but I did manage to borrow 10 books just before they closed their doors.   I am a “traditional” reader, preferring actual paper books to ebooks, so h...

Having been amazed, captivated and astounded by The Night Circus , I was very excited for a second novel from Erin Morgenstern and was delighted when it did not disappoint me.   While it retains many of the same wonderful characteristics of magic, mysticism, fate and boundless love, The Starless Sea is very much its own unique story. This is a book about books, about reading and writing, storytelling and game playing, plots, story arcs, character choices, possibilities and the inevitability of history repeating itself.   It is a mystery, adventure, quest novel but in a whole other league and dimension. I am not going to even attempt to summarise the plot, as it would be almost impossible and would completely and absolutely ruin the book for a first-time reader.   So I will simply tell you that the story follows Zachary as he becomes embroiled in what is essentially a rescue mission.   Zachary, a postgraduate student studying video games, is possibly an...

I think this is an absolutely fantastic book, made even more impressive by the fact it is Joanna Glen’s debut novel.  It is a completely absorbing and compelling read.  At nearly 400 pages long I read it in one weekend.  I have recommended it to several people and just could not stop talking about it. The story centres on, and is told by, two different characters, Augusta and Parfait.  Every other chapter is written from their perspective and there is often a lovely mirroring of topic or phrase despite the vast differences and distance between them. The story begins when Augusta and Parfait are children.  Augusta has a twin sister Julia and lives in, and is suffocated by, English suburbia.  Parfait lives in Burundi, amidst the danger and devastation of civil war.  As the story progresses you learn about their families, their particular circumstances, their struggles, uncertainties and the life-changing decisions they make. One of the j...