Where's your reading taking you?

      This coming week sees the publication of Friend & Foe, the fourth book in Shirley McKay's series of mysteries featuring young lawyer Hew Cullan, set in St. Andrews during the reign of James VI. The arrival of that book reminded me that despite having had them on the shelves for ages I've still to read the earlier ones, so at long last I've made a start.

 

Click to enlarge

     Hue & Cry is the first one, and it begins in St. Andrews - a place I'm very happy to visit either in real life or on the page - in 1579. Hew has returned to Scotland from studying in Paris, to find that his friend, university regent Nicholas Colp, is accused of murdering a boy who was a private pupil of his. Hew investigates what appears to be an open and shut case, and in so doing he uncovers "a dark tale of duplicity and passion amidst a world of religious piety and the chilling austerity of university life."

    The book has been described as "not only a gripping mystery that holds the reader to the very last page, but also a marvellous portrait of St. Andrews in the sixteenth century," so I'm greatly looking forward to getting deeper into it, and to seeing the present day town through fresh eyes when next I'm there.

    Where's your reading taking you this weekend? The past, the present, the future? Close to home or far away?

                                            ~~~~~

    On an unrelated note, I was in a charity bookshop today and I happened to find a copy of Told by Eileen, a children's novel written by my great-grandmother's cousin Alice Massie. I didn't buy it as I already have one, but that's the first of Alice's books I've come across 'in the wild', and I was very pleased to find it. I'll continue to look out for her work.

Comments

[Lory @ Emerald City Book Review]

I'm visiting the English village of Bishop's Lacey in 1950, through the medium of The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, the latest Flavia de Luce mystery. I'm also finishing up Jane Austen's England, which unsurprisingly is taking me to the England of Jane Austen's time. Both are quite distant from me in space and time (though not as far as 1579), but they feel familiar in terms of literary geography.

[Dark Puss]

Bletchley Park and Princeton University via Alan Turing and John von Neumann's contributions to the development of modern computers. I'm reading Gribben's book Computing with Quantum Cats.

[Cornflower]

Flavia is a great favourite here, so I'm sure you're having an enjoyable read, Lory.

[Cornflower]

Just by the by, I learned the other day that we have a family connection to Bletchley Park, but nothing to do with the development of computers, I'm sure.
Do tell us what a quantum cat is!

[Dorothy]

I am reading The Good House by Ann Leary. It is set on the North Shore (in Massachusetts); I live on the North Shore. The main character is a realtor; I am a realtor. The fictional town is Wendover (an amalgamation of Wenham and Andover); I live in Wenham. So my reading has come to me at home!! I should add that the main character has a drink problem and I don't!

[Sue]

I am visiting the Kent countryside in the 1950s and it is 'perfick'! (The Darling Buds of May -HE Bates).

[Madame Là-Bas]

I'm visiting Edinburgh via The Missing Shade of Blue by Jennie Erdal. The protagonist is a French bibliophile who is translating the work of David Hume.

[Cornflower]

Wonderful! I love reading books set in places I know well.

[Cornflower]

It's years since I read those Pop Larkin chronicles but I remember them fondly.

[Cornflower]

I noticed that one when it came out and thought I'd like to read it - the Edinburgh setting being an extra draw.

[MOIRA OLIVER]

I have escaped to the Oregan Trail via Los Angeles in Francine Rivers' The Scarlet Thread'.Two women , living many years apart are joined by a tattered journal.Very good so far.

[Cornflower]

Sounds good, Moira.

[Sylvia]

I'm partly in 1930's Wandlebury with Barbara Buncle/Abbott and partly in 1920's Henley with Daisy Dalrymple. I'm usually in the early 20th century somewhere!

[Cornflower]

Ah, Miss Buncle - lovely!

[Susan in TX]

Just recently discovered the Flavia de Luce books and finished the 2nd one last week. Went straight into the 6th in the Maisie Dobbs series -- I typically go to England for my comfort reads. :) Also been dipping into The Brethren (Inside the Supreme Court) by Bob Woodward & Scott Armstrong.

[Cornflower]

How interesting that you choose English books/settings for your comfort reads, Susan.

[Gillie]

I am moving between Yorkshire and the south of France, or sadly, I moved, since I finished the book today. Set in the wartime 1940s and 1998, it's The Lavender Garden by Lucinda Riley, great story and I think the fourth by this author that I've read. Hoping she writes another soon!

[LizF]

Currently in New Hampshire with Stephen King's Doctor Sleep - the 'follow-up' to The Shining. It has been years since I read one of King's books and I had forgotten just how they draw you in and how hard it is to put them down.
Also in 11th Century England with Patricia Bracewell's The Shadow on the Crown, which is proving to be an education because I know very little about the period before the Normans arrived, and embroiled in the English Civil War with Lindsey Davis's Rebels & Traitors - another period of history where my level of knowledge is decidedly sketchy.
If you are in the mood for a large involving historical novel, I can thoroughly recommend them both.

[Cornflower]

I've read only one of Lucinda's novels so far (dual timeframe also), and it was a good story.

[Cornflower]

You get about, Liz!
Off to look up Shadow on the Crown now.

[Mr Cornflower]

Writing this at 120mph on the train from London to Edinburgh, but in my mind I am travelling in an altogether different plane, with Umberto Eco's "Imaginary Lands", from Atlantis to Ultima Thule via Shangri-La.

[Cornflower]

See you soon!

[Catherine]

Oh yes,I love Umberto Eco , read The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana recently. I've just finished The Lavender Keeper and it's sequel, The French Promise by Fiona McIntosh. Now I'm back to my history with Alison Weir and Isabella,She wolf of France ,soon to be followed by Maurice Druon's She Wolf ,book 5 in The Accursed Kings series.

[Cornflower]

Another 'well-travelled' reader! Thanks, Catherine.

[Swissrose]

Ah @Catherine, I was absorbed with Isabella last year :)
Now I have just finished a south Brittany crime story (jean-Luc Bannalec's Commissaire Dupin, not sure if they exist in English, it's a German author) around the Guérande and now back to Lillian Beckwith's Hebridean Omnibus, a favourite old reread...