I’ve had a lovely reading month and I might finally be finding my equilibrium, rather than the frantic scramble of blog tours, blitzes, proofs and NetGalley reads I’m usually in. I’ve tried to say no a lot more and that’s given me some space to read what I want and that NetGalley pile is a little bit lower. I’ve also edged towards crime a bit, with four crime series on the list this month and some of my favourite characters: the Skelf family; Vera Stanhope; Sam Shephard; Tuva Moodysson. There are also four novels at least partially set in Scotland. I don’t think about these links when I’m choosing, it just occurs to me after the fact, but it shows me what I gravitate towards. We’re moving into the Autumn, so less holiday reads and more ‘cosy, curl up by a real fire’ reads to come, I’m enjoying the spooky ones already..
Oh how I love the Skelfs!! I want to be one of their waifs and strays so I can live in their big Edinburgh house, help Indy with the funerals and considering the people they encounter I think they probably need an on-site counsellor. This time round there are a couple of cases but also some serious repercussions from the last case where Jenny managed to discover two police officers involved in sexual exploitation. The attack that Dorothy and her partner Thomas were subjected too has left both of them traumatised, but is still eating away at Thomas who is now retired from the police. She is struggling to find a way to help him and is concerned at his preoccupation with letting go of things – after all he is from Sweden and Dorothy is aware of Swedish Death Cleaning. Jenny is monitoring the men involved. New recruit Brodie is grieving too, but has noticed something odd about his baby son’s grave. It looks like someone has been digging at the earth and he asks Jenny to help. She sets up some cameras, but having spoken to his ex-girlfriend she’s worried. She’s told that Brodie hears voices. Should she be worried and could he be unwittingly causing this himself? Finally, Dorothy is approached at the choir she plays for because one of the Ukrainian ladies has disappeared. Everyone’s busy, but they also feel vulnerable, even Hannah who feels a bit lost now that she’s completed her PhD. This is Doug’s usual mix of crime fiction, philosophy and family. I had a sense of foreboding throughout and I did shed a tear before the end of the story.
I really enjoy Fiona Valpy because her books are always a great mix of historical fiction, female characters and uplifting story. This one travels a bit further than most because it’s set in Scotland and Nepal. In the 1920’s Violet Mackenzie-Grant has grown up on the family estate in Scotland but doesn’t want the usual marriage and kids fate of most girls she knows. She joins the Edinburgh College of Gardening for Women and starts to do botanical drawings of the specimens coming in from all over the world to the botanic gardens. There she meets Callum Gillespie who shares her passion for plants and is her solid mate in every way. However, neither set of parents thinks it’s a good idea; Violet’s parents object that he’s not from 50th social circle or class, whereas Callum’s parents think Violet will be expecting more than Callum can give her. As Callum sets off an expedition to Nepal, Violet receives some surprising news and makes the decision, she wants to be with Callum, so sets off after him to Nepal. Nearly 100 years later Violet’s great-great niece Daisy wants to follow in her doorsteps. She’s dealing with a divorce and an empty nest and is looking for the next direction in her life, She arrives as the pandemic hits and as she’s trekking into the foothills of the Himalaya the country becomes locked down. Will the people of these remote villages look after her in the same way they did Violet? This is a beautifully uplifting tale about finding the place you belong.
I absolutely loved the last novel in this Sam Shephard series and here she is on the verge of returning to work after maternity leave and the traumatic circumstances around Amelia’s birth. As is predictable, her boss DI Johns isn’t the most welcoming and gives her a cold case – the murder of Rev. Mark Freeman outside his own church. There’s one potential issue, Mark Freeman was the father of DI Johns wife Felicity. Felicity’s mother has been diagnosed with cancer and the boss would like her to go to her grave knowing who killed her husband. My first thought was that this had the potential to blow up in his face: he’d be all over her progress, creating a conflict of interest for Sam that would be exploited if a case ever went to court. He was also being his typical sensitive self by ensuring that his mother-in-law would spend her final months reliving the most terrible experience of her life. Rev. Freeman was found at the bottom of the stone stairs leading up to the church entrance. He had been stabbed in the stomach by a small knife, but that wasn’t the cause of death. His subsequent fall down the steps broke his neck, immediately cutting off his ability to breathe. He was found by his son Callum, who had ventured out because his father hadn’t returned home after the service. Yet we know at least one other person witnessed the killing, because the book begins with their anonymous account of the murder. The boss has handed Sam a poisoned chalice and she fears both outcomes. Either she won’t be able to solve the case, so will be held responsible for disappointing his wife and her mother or she will solve it, making the previous investigation seem incompetent and potentially tearing his family apart in the process. If we as readers know one thing, it’s that Sam will not rest until the case is solved. This was a belting thriller with Sam’s usual mix of curiosity, instinct and compassion getting people to open up and placing her in danger.
I’m so grateful to have been offered this brilliant crime thriller set on the Isle of Lewis. This is the fourth in a trilogy, so I’ve definitely got some catching up to do where Fin McLeod is concerned. Once a detective and now retired, Fin is drawn back to Lewis when Caitlin Black’s body is discovered on a remote beach. Only eighteen years old, Caitlin was a student at the Nicholson Institute. It emerges that she was having an illicit affair with Fionnlagh McLeod, her teacher and a married man twenty years her senior. Fionnlagh soon becomes the prime suspect and is arrested on suspicion of her rape and murder. He is also Finn’s son. Finn knows he must return to Lewis to support his daughter-in-law and granddaughter. He also knows, despite the evidence against him, that he must try to clear his son’s name. As Fin travels around the island, he is drawn into past memories and soon realises this crime has echoes back into his own teenage past on the island. A terrible accident at a salmon farm caused two deaths, just as the the farm started to expand and become a multi-million pound industry. All of it owned by Caitlin Black’s father Niall. This is such an atmospheric novel where Peter May has woven the history of Lewis, the ecological impact on the island and the damaging changes wrought by the salmon farming industry. This is a journey of family ties, secret relationships and a bleak and unforgiving landscape, where violence, revenge and relegations converge. So brilliant I’ve already bought the first three novels to binge when I take a break at Christmas.
I really enjoyed this trip back into Tuva Moodysson world, even if at times it was tense, threatening and claustrophobic. Will’s intrepid reporter is enticed to a town further north than Gavrik because her famous instinct is telling her there’s a story. Dubbed ‘Ice Town’ it’s a minor ski resort with only one upscale and very empty hotel, stuck in it’s early Twentieth Century heyday. Tuva can only access the town via a tunnel through a mountain. Traffic queues at the tunnel mouth as drivers are alternately let through. It then closes at night leaving residents cut off from the outside world. Tuva has been drawn by a missing person’s report, a teenager called Peter has disappeared. Nothing unusual in that, but Peter is deaf and Tuva is imagining how isolated he must feel. She worries that his hearing aid batteries have run out of battery life and imagines him stuck somewhere in the dark, not even able to hear the search teams shouting his name. Tuva packs up her Hilux and heads north hoping to find out more about Peter and maybe help the search. She’s heading for the only B & B in town, but when she gets there it’s clear they should have dropped the second B – something Tuva points out with her usual tact! In actuality there are two bedrooms in the back of a sunbed shop with very thin walls, but Tuva does not need luxury and expenses are scrutinised carefully by her boss Lena. As she starts to acclimatise she starts to realise that, if possible, this is a quirkier town than Gavrik. She’s also without the long-standing relationship she usually has with the police. Can she find Peter without their help? Without her usual support system to call on, might she find herself in danger? My suspicion was running back and forth constantly and the clues come thick and fast here. I really didn’t know who to believe. We’re on tenterhooks and I remember thinking why does Tuva put herself and us through this? The ending coming in time for the Santa Lucia festival was beautifully done and those of us who’ve been reading since the beginning and love the weirder members of the Gavrik community will love a little cameo towards the end. When will someone pick this up for TV or a film series? It’s a fabulous franchise and it just gets stronger all the time.
Another female detective I absolutely love! This was such an enjoyable read with an atmosphere that links back to the area’s history of witch trials. The dark wives of the title are three stones making up a circle just outside of Gilstead village, a place that seems to link strongly to the people in her case. Vera and her team have the case of a missing girl that’s linked to a murder. Chloe has been in a children’s home since her mother has been hospitalised due to her mental health. Her paternal grandparents offered to give her a home but their relationship is complex and while she gets on with her granddad her grandmother is constantly trying to change Chloe’s gothic look. Josh, the new support worker at the home, has encourage Chloe to write about her experiences and feelings in a journal, something she’s found really helpful. Now Chloe is missing and Josh is found in the park, killed by a head injury. Vera must find his killer, but even more urgently she needs to find Chloe who could be a second victim or the perpetrator. As they unravel the lives of these two young people it’s clear that there are secrets, both within the children’s home and within their lives. Vera’s search takes her to Gilstead, where Chloe’s grandparents used to own a farmhouse and still have a bothy where they’d take Chloe for picnics. Could she be hiding out in the middle of nowhere? The team are getting used to new recruit Rosie, who is what Vera thinks of as a proper Geordie girl – fake tan, false eyelashes and never goes out with a coat. She’s actually an empathic and intelligent investigator and her instinctual way of working puts Sergeant Joe’s nose out of joint. There’s a tense and thrilling conclusion set on the hills of Gilstead after dark as the villagers act out a local tradition of Hunt the Witch. It was also lovely to hear Vera’s thoughts about her own relationship with her father and his cottage where she’s lived ever since his death. Are changes afoot for this veteran detective?
I’m on the blog tour for this lovely book from Sharon Gosling who I’ve been reading for a couple of years now. I love her combination of female characters, personal growth and change, plus a little hint of romance too. Here we meet two very different sisters, Bette and Nina Crowdie who grew up on a farm in Scotland. There’s a ten year age gap between them and they’ve never been close. Nina feels that Bette left at the first opportunity she had and has rarely been back since. She’s had been distant since she left to study law at university and now works as a divorce lawyer in London. Whereas Nina and her little boy have lived at the farm for five years and she’s worked hard to help her father. Now their father has died and Bette returns for the funeral, poised to leave as soon as it’s over. However, she’s asked to stay for the will reading. Unexpectedly their father recently changed his will and has split the farm down the muddle giving both daughters an equal share. However, the farm has significant debts and they’ll need to work together if they want to save it. Nina is furious, but she finds out that Bette has not been as distant from their father as she thought. They exchanged regular emails and Bette had given him all of her savings to mend the barn roof. I kept wondering what could possibly have happened for Bette to leave everything she knew behind and start again? As she tries to make sense of their father’s office it’s clear they need to have the property valued and it’s while walking the perimeter that they find a secret orchard at the edge of the cliffs. Why is it there and who has disguised it so well that neither of the girls had found it before? They will have to look into a story from the past to understand the mystery. This is a story about family and how we can hold beliefs and judgements about each other that are completely wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed this, hoping that the sisters could open up to each other and Build a relationship. My full review will be out this month.
Finally comes Polly Crosby’s latest book, The House of Fever, a historical mystery set in a sanatorium for patients with tuberculosis. On a trip abroad with her mother, Agnes Templeton meets a handsome young doctor called Christian Fairhaven. He seems completely besotted with her and a romance soon develops, his his swift proposal can only mean one thing, it must be love. Seen another way, this could be a relationship of convenience. Dr Fairhaven needs a wife and a stepmother for his daughter Isobel, while Agnes needs an expert in tuberculosis for to look after her mother who is suffering from the disease. Christian is researching a new cure, something he’s working on at the institute he runs called Hedoné. He lives in a cottage alongside the institute, which is split into an infirmary for very unwell patients and ‘spa’ type accommodation for those TB patients who can benefit from the fresher air and rest that the institute provides. When Agnes arrives she finds that the guests are more glamorous and wealthy than she expected, with their part of the building adjoined by a swimming pool, beautiful grounds and many places for parties. Their access to alcohol and gourmet food gives the place the feel of a luxury hotel. Agnes’s mother is taken into isolation, to be monitored closely and have a period of quarantine. Agnes is allowed to visit her mother’s room as she seems to be immune to TB having nursed both her father and mother through the disease without succumbing herself. As she adjusts to the contrasts of lavish dinners and partying for some and the very authoritarian Matron and strict quarantine restrictions for others, Agnes starts to notice things. Isobel seems to flit around largely unmonitored and doesn’t live with them in the cottage. The beautiful actress Juno Harrington holds court here and seems to have unfettered access to Christian, even in his office. There’s nothing Agnes can put her finger on, but she feels uneasy. She senses there are secrets at Hedoné and perhaps in her marriage too. As the truth starts to unfold, I was desperate for Agnes to escape and not leave Isobel behind, because a definite bond was growing between them. Polly nails the historical background to her story and really emphasises the fate of women between two world wars. I wanted Agnes to be free, to explore her authentic self outside of her caring role and make the life she wants. I wasn’t sure, right up to the final chapters, what her fate would be. This is an entertaining and interesting novel from an author who understands the nuances of relationships and always creates fascinating characters within the most unusual settings.
That’s all for now. There are some great full reviews coming up this month so keep a look out. I have a great tbr for September and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you. I might not get through all of them but I’m going to try.
The Lotus Readers 