Friday reads

 

    What's everyone reading as the weekend is in sight?

    I have just started The Sick Rose by Erin Kelly, a Ruth Rendell-type psychological suspense novel set around the restoration of the garden of a crumbling Elizabethan mansion where Louisa and Paul, whose backgrounds are very different, meet and find they are both escaping the past.

    One of the things which drew me to this was that garden setting, and the fact that in the reading guide at the back of the book, Erin Kelly lists among the books that helped inspire her The Lost Gardens Of Heligan by Tim Smit and The Morville Hours: The Story of a Garden by Katherine Swift, both of which I've read and enjoyed enormously (there are posts on the latter here and here).

    I'm only twenty or so pages in so can't say much about it yet, but it has had very good reviews. Has anyone read it or Erin's first book, The Poison Tree? 

    Please tell us your Friday reads, good, bad or indifferent.

Comments

[Jo]

I am at he stage of having just finished two books. Pictures at an Exhibition by Camilla Macpherson and The Only Fools& Horses story by Graham McCann.

I must now decide what I will read next? Something light because I have A Dangerous Inheritance on the go as well.

I picked up Erin Kelly's first book this week so looking forward to it.

[Cornflower]

It can be surprisingly difficult to decide what to read next, even when spoilt for choice!

[cindy]

I'm listening to my second Barbara Pym via Audible.com whilst in the car am finding her sly humour and genteel comedies of manners unbelievably soothing. Am also finishing 'Then We Came to The End', about life in a Chicago ad agency in the early 2000's. Next up is 'Hawksmoor' by Peter Ackroyd, and 'Of Mice and Men', the nicely slender Steinbeck which my daughter is studying for GCSE.

[Cornflower]

Barbara Pym is wonderful and lovely for the car, I should think. I've had Hawksmoor on my radar for ages - shall get to it sometime, I hope.

[m]

I'm struggling with Jonathan Franzen's Freedom and would have given up but it's for book group. Might be one I just have skim read to get the end. Only another 300 pages ...

[Susan in TX]

I'm finishing up A Letter of Mary, the 3rd of Laurie King's Mary Russell books, which I just discovered recently. I have a book mark in Middlemarch, but I think it will wait a while longer as I need to read the French Lieutenant's Woman.

[Pam]

I am also in the midst of book three of Middlemarch. Other books on the go include Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman and An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd.

[Cornflower]

Oh dear ...

[Anbolyn]

I just finished Excellent Women last night and am sad it is over. A great book. I am now reading The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan and also trying to finish up The Song of the Lark by Cather. Lots of good reading over here!

[Cornflower]

TFLW is surprisingly long, but I hope you'll think it worth the time it takes.

[Cornflower]

A good variety, by the look of it, Pam.

[Cornflower]

Excellent! From what I've heard of it, The Lifeboat should be good.

[Barbara M.]

Just started the Messenger of Athens, and need to finish the Song of Achilles. I put it down while we dealt with a family crisis, and need to review a bit before moving on. But I loved what I had read!

Thank you so much for all the wonderful recommendations.

Barbara M. in NH

[Rebecca]

All my reads are potential right now: I just finished listening to David Copperfield on my ipod for my commute, and I am embarking on a vacation with the new Mma Ramotswe, the new Maisie Dobbs, and a new retelling of Jane Eyre (called. . . Jane. . . imagine that!) in my carry-on. So exciting and enticing!

[Sandy]

I am re-reading I Am The Blade by JP Buxton.

A recommendtion here, I enjoyed the first time and I felt in the mood for a guaranteed good time! it's just as good on the second occasion.

[Moira]

Have just finished "The Tiger's Wife" by Tea Obrecht, which was our book group discussion tonight. Plenty to talk about and as she's such a young writer we're all wondering how she will develop. Over the next week I need to read "The Tempest" as we're going to see it next weekend and increasing deafness makes the language hard to catch. On hols next week so I've got the kindle stacked up with stuff.

[Claire]

Claire Tomalin's Life of Dickens which I'm loving. Very, very readable. Now have David Copperfield on my radar. I'm also a Middlemarcher.

[Julie Fredericksen]

Hey, I recognize that book. In fact, I read it - only under the title "The Dark Rose"! I liked it a lot and bought it because I liked "The Poison Tree" so much.

I am reading "The Hunger Games", which I had sworn I would never succumb to. However, my daughter was home for Easter last weekend and we went to the movie. After we got home I immediately ordered a used copy and now am with Katniss Everdeen in the middle of the games. (BTW I'm very happy to know the outcome.) I will definitely buy Books 2 and 3.

[Cornflower]

You're welcome, Barbara.
Coincidentally, Madeline Miller was recommending The Messenger of Athens on Twitter yesterday, so it's good to know it gets a classicist's seal of approval.

[Cornflower]

Have a good trip, Rebecca. Lovely Mma Ramotswe!

[Cornflower]

Great!

[Cornflower]

That reminds me I haven't read The Tiger's Wife, though it's sitting here.
Enjoy The Tempest!

[Cornflower]

... and I haven't read Middlemarch, either.

[Cornflower]

I'm well into The Sick Rose now and enjoying it very much.
As to The Hunger Games, my 'junior critic' (younger daughter) couldn't put the books down but she said she wasn't impressed with the writing. Clearly that deficiency hasn't hurt sales!!

[Dorothy]

I am in the middle of Obedience by Jaqueline Yallop and am finding it incredibly sad. But in a 'good book' type of sad.

[Anji]

I was surprised to discover just how long the French Lieutenant's Woman is. I am just starting it and I am hoping that it is going to be worth it as I didn't finish it the last time I tried to read it. I think I got half way through last time, put it down and never did get back to it. I am going to try again. Thank you for the suggestion

I have just finished the latest in Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway mystery series 'The Room full of Bones' and the final disc of Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay.

[Lyn]

I've just finished reading Fatal Decision, a novel about Edith Cavell by Terri Arthur. Terri kindly sent me an ePub copy to review & I enjoyed it very much. I read Diana Souhami's biography of Edith last year but didn't feel that I really knew what Edith was like. Terri's novel has very successfullly removed the veil of sainthood from Ediuth & portrayed her as a real woman, still heroic but not so saintlike. Much more realistic.

[Mystica]

I just read Mr Macgregor which was gardenish but very light! The book I started on for the weekend is a good one. Edwina Mountbatten - a memoir/cum biography. Quite a chunkster but I hope I can finish it soon.

[Margaret Powling]

Like Rebecca, I'm reading Maisie Dobbs, the latest in the series (it's better than the last one, I think, the only one which didn't meet my 'Maisie' requirements, i.e. she was dispatched elsewhere and wasn't mainly in her London office or in Kent.)
I must say, I like the sound of The Sick Rose, if not the title! It sounds positively yukky. The Dark Rose sounds so much better.
Speaking of horticultural mysteries, although they are not phychological thrillers, I would recommend the books of Anthony Eglin, starting with The Blue Rose ... it was the rose in the title of the book you are reading, Karen, that promted my thoughts on the Eglin books.

[Audrey]

I was just going to add that this has just been published in the US as The Dark Rose - just in case anyone else went out looking for it as soon as they saw this post! :)

Mine is Sidney Chambers and the Shadows of Death by James Runcie (I'd call it indifferent, but cozy and fun).

[Karoline]

I'm reading The French Lieutenant's Women and The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sadly Sherlock Holmes is suffering in comparison with Lord Peter Whimesy.

[Cornflower]

Yes, Lord Peter is a hard act to follow.

[Cornflower]

I really enjoyed Sidney Chambers - not for the plot and the solving of the crimes but for Sidney's character, his dilemmas and his struggles with matters of conscience and his efforts to do the right thing. Very cosy and fun as you say, Audrey, and I'm certainly looking forward to the next in the series.

[Cornflower]

Oh, yes, it is very sad!

[Cornflower]

If it's any encouragement to you, Anji, my husband didn't want to re-read it at all after having read it years ago, but once he started again he raced through and didn't really put it down. He has quibbles with it, as I'm sure he'll say in his comment in due course, but he enjoyed it a lot more than he feared he would.

[Cornflower]

How interesting that the fictional treatment felt the 'truer' one!

[Cornflower]

The Edwina Mountbattern book appeals to me, and 'gardenish' is good!

[Cornflower]

More for the wish list - thankyou, Margaret.