In March & April auntie read

After  you'd gone _ Maggie O Farrell - on offer for a quid at Amazon so bought this for my Kindle. I loved this book but it had lost something for me on re reading, don't all be coming after me for refunds if you'd shelled out the 99p and didn't like it, I still liked it but maybe not quite as much as before.




The Girl from Krakow - Alex Rosenberg - Now I should have loved this, its worthy, set in WW2 which is a period in history I am hugely interested in and I have been to Krakow and I do love when I get the "ooh I've been there" moment in a book. Sadly it didn't do anything much for me at all. Save your 99p on this one.




The Skeleton Cupboard - Tanya Byron - I loved her when she was in all those tv parenting programmes. This was the story of her clinical training. I should have saved my 99p, can you see a theme emerging from my choices of books, I currently have a £2 limit, which is clearly why I am having such a poor run at present.




Where Memories Go - Sally Magnusson. This was ace, a beautifully written memoir of a mother dearly loved as she developed dementia. Hugely poignant and I really felt that Sally did a great job of describing Mamie to us, I can see why she loved her mammy so much. This is so worth reading, please get a copy of this, it was worth way more than the couple of quid it cost me.

Behind closed doors - BA Paris - I liked this, very easy to read and I liked Grace the main character, not the nicest subject matter but I enjoyed it plenty fine.

The lost boy - Camilla Lackberg. Set in Sweden a detective husband and his novelist wife solve crimes. He has a bonkers boss who is quite lovable now and she has a sister where everything bad in the world happens to. Easy crime, not mad graphic but graphic enough for an auntie

According to yes - Dawn French, not even going to describe this, waste not your time, utter shite, even though I got this free from the library, I was robbed

Driving over lemons - Chris Stewart - the story of adventures in Andalucia, they bought a farm and moved there, it was ok

The sea detective - Mark Douglas Home , another 99p Amazon marvel, about sex trafficked Indian girls to the outer Hebrides feuds, as weird as that sounds. I can't wait for my second 99p book from him so will read it next and get it over with. I am having a very poor year in books.

The woman who walked into the sea - Mark Douglas , another disappointment

The milliners secret - Natalie Meg Evans - Paris, couture, ww2 and nazis, actually really enjoyed this, romped through this nae bother at a

Room - Emma Donahue - for book group, it was all right

Balancing Act - Joanna Trollope , not her best but good enough, passed the time quite pleasantly

The secrets of the sea house - Elizabeth Gifford couple find the desiccated corpse of a baby under the floor of the house they are renovating, jeez that sounds properly grim written down, not the worst I've read this month. Lordy Lordy  I am a harsh critic

Ursula's secret - Mari Wilson - another disaster

Spectacles - Sue Perkins- I had high hopes for this but after reading it I liked her a lot less

Shatter the bones - Stuart Mcbride - graphic crime in Aberdeen? Oh yes please, not his finest but jeez I have had dreadful books these last 2 months so was plenty happy with this

Burnt paper sky - Gilly Macmillan- I was really looking forward to this. It started brilliantly and I was so pleased as it was the 18th book of the 2 months and genuinely I had only properly enjoyed the Sally Magnusson one about dementia so felt I was due a break. This has been the best book I've read in aeons, it just got better and better, I loved this. Go and read it.

In January and February auntie read....

I used to read at least 3 a week, never watched telly and went to bed alone at 9 every night, I had time. Now I have an iPad, the internets especially my new found Instagram obsession and a husband. I am missing the books, I am aiming for 1 a week. 

Amazon has probably my most favourite book of all for 99p so please buy Maggie O'Farrell - After you'd gone. That is my random act of kindness for today. You're welcome.

In January and February, your auntie read...

TThe Sunrise by Victoria Hislop

Set in Cyprus during the troubles of the 1974 war this tells the story of a fancy hotel and the staff. Working together are Greek Cypriots and some Turkish Cypriots, you see both sides of the story.If you like to learn something as well as enjoy the story, this is the book for you, the older I get the more I like things to be worthy!  I would say this would be a great holiday read. It's very easy to read and I did enjoy it, Tolstoy it's not but frankly with dry January, the 5-2 diet and my Christmas overspend, I needed all the comfort on offer to me.

Shoot the damn dog - Sally Brampton

I am fortunate in that where I have had low periods and stressful times in my life, I haven't been depressed, I might have been up to 90 and have had moments of high anxiety but I haven't felt like it wouldn't get better. I have friends and a family member really struggling with this at the moment so had hoped it would help me if not to help them at least to be able to not say anything daft. 

The Skeleton Road - Val McDermid

Usually like her but this one was hard going at times, not a Tony Hill/Carol Jordan but you could guess who had did it a fair bit before the end, it's fine so.

When God was a rabbit - Sarah Winston 

Unlike everyone else I missed it first time around, started well but my interest petered out about half way through, it was ok, I know I should be in the literary supplement with pithy wit like this.

Splinter the silence - Val McDermid

I did like this one. Tony Hill and Carol Jordan back together and setting up a new crime squad, someone is murdering outspoken women but making it look like they have committed suicide but Tony and Carol put an end to that malarkey.

How to build a girl - Caitlin Moran , if you've read how to be a woman, don't bother with this, save yourself the time. I loved Moranthology so everything I read after this is a bit of a letdown, I expect she's fretting now she's got my opinion, I shall have to avoid her at parties.

Little lies - Liane Moriarity

I liked this, small town suburban Australia and the petty politics of the school gate with a deeper undercurrent.

Tune in again at the end of April and please do recommend your favourites to me, I love a good book.

Book Group Blues

I have been a member of our book group for the last 4 maybe even 5 years. We meet once a month in our local pub and dicuss the book we've read and then choose a new one. I believe it is now the law for all middle aged women to be in a book group although the flightier of the genre also do salsa dancing (no, not me, would you give yourself peace!)

My book group usually meets on a Wednesday but for some reason we met on a Tuesday this week. Which confused me mightily when Sarah appeared at the door with book in hand.

This meant I had to get out of my jammies (navy and pink polka dot fleecy ones, oh yes, sexy is my middle name) I was gutted, I got home from work and as BBD was away skiing I didn't have to drive to and from Girls Brigade and there was a Jo Frost thing and a babies being born thing on the telly, so straight into my jammies, on the sofa, I had a fleecy blanket, full charge of the remote and some cookies. I appear to have bypassed middle aged completely and stormed right into old lady hood, don't feel even a bit sorry for me, I love the idea of sitting around in my jammies and a wee nap if I get tired.

So I got dressed and we went to the pub,
which was heaving,
on a Tuesday night,
in the middle of a recession.
The reason for this became apparent, they were having their regular pub quiz. Now I have never taken part in a pub quiz, that is another of my very last forms of virginity gone now, I've only a few left, I'd better ration them out, don't want to get rid of them all so quickly and with no thought or care.


How hard could it be, we thought.

I'm a whiz at Trivial Pursuit, I thought.

We are quite clever women, we thought.

At our table there were 6 women, 28 years of university level education and 7 degrees between us. Comprising ...

A solicitor
A dentist
A pharmacist
A nursing sister
A teacher
A director (of a big Government agency, with multi million pound projects and big posh do's at The Houses of Parliament)

Readers, we came last.
24 points out of 50.
The shame.

Tag, I'm it

Your mission should you choose to accept it is,

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you

Okay, never let it be said that you don't get value for money with your auntie. As I am in my usual position of prone on my bed with the laptop, the nearest book to me was on my bedside table, there were 3 on top of one another, so I shall give you the extract from all 3.

Something had to be done, although he had no notion of what that something might be, and he stared, stricken, at the doctor's wife as she put her hand to her throbbing head and moaned. He might be stupid, but he knew what this meant. Calamity was coming.

Taken from " The Thirteenth Tale " by Diane Setterfield.

Sleep can do that to you - erase the most important thing from your mind. Iris listens, straining for sound. Nothing.

From " The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox " by Maggie O' Farrell.

And now Yanne Charbonneau was watching me in a fearful silence that spun and spun like a silk cocoon. I could have said, well, that was lucky, or just just put back the dish without a word, but it was now or never, I told myself. Strike at once, while resistance is low.

From "The Lollipop Shoes" by Joanne Harris.


I would like to thank Indigo16 aka Alison for this, and please don't apologise for tagging me, I never mind in the slightest, unlike the Edge who I think has only done 1 tag in living memory.

I know some of you have already done this but I would like to tag anyone who's interested, I'd love to know what you're all reading. Yes that means you, TF, Karen, Gwen, Katie, Flick, Mob and Lena all in the UK. Also Newfie ( in Canada) and Lisa and Craze in the US of A,are you reading very different stuff over the pond ?
See me, see my blog, .... international.

(ps, that last bit was tongue in cheek, just in case you thought I was getting a bit full of myself, which is a cardinal sin where I come from !!!)