Dawn

I'd only ever read Donoghue's Room before and this was very, very different. A slow and humble read but with undeniably horrific undertones. We follow Lib who is employed to watch over (spy upon) Anna, the presumed miracle child who does not need to eat. Lib is a Nightingale with the horrors of the Crimean War locked behind her tweed uniform. As they grow closer Lib tries to find out the truth, is Anna a saint in the making or is some trickery abroad?
The novel draws you gently in then refuses to let you go. I was, with Lib, quite unsure and desperate to know what was going on. Donoghue did not disappoint, keeping me gripped to the very last page.

Still on the fence here, its hard not to compare this to the Dresden Files and find it lacking. Especially as I haven't really warmed to Versus but I'd probably leave my family for Harry and all his flaws!
The plot was fine but didn't fully draw me in and Jacka's characters still lack depth. Females, in particular, are poorly drawn with few qualities beyond their looks and a need to be rescued. My favourite character is Garrick, by far the most interesting, who makes fleeting appearances throughout - I'd rather be off following him in his story if truth be told.
However, I'll keep plodding on through these as they ARE fairly entertaining and easy enough to read. I'll give it another couple of books before quitting...

Agatha Christie's first novel brings us a fully formed Hercule Poirot, a murder in a locked room and too many suspects. There are twists and turns all dictated by the rather gormless Mr Hastings who consistently gets it wrong. It's most enjoyable, if rather farfetched, I loved it!

It's 30 years since I was a 15 year-old, now I've got one of my own and this author is who they're reading. So I thought I'd better check them out for myself...

I was really impressed, the author was only 19 when this novel was published and her closeness to the age of her characters give them a realism missing from a lot of YA fiction. I liked that everyone was a little bit broken and I could have really done with this book back in the dark days of the mid-nineties - having been very “Tori” myself!

I hope it helps my 15 year-old, and other teens, to start talking about “stuff”. Kind of like a Judy Blume for the iGen. I'm not sure if the rest of her novels will resonate so much with me but I'm willing to give them a try.

I've been to a few Play/Pie/Pint lunches at the Òran Mór but hadn't seen any of these. Overall they all worked as plays on the page being coherent enough just to read through. I was a little unsure how the staging would be for a few of them and sometimes the story itself just didn't grow me. That was the way of the show though - you never really knew what you were going to get! Three stars for the six plays as a job lot, definitely a mixed bag.

In order of enjoyment:
Jocky Wilson Said by Jane Livingstone and Jonathan Cairney - 5 stars
Chic Murray: A Funny Place for A Window by Stuart Hepburn - 4 stars
Ida Tampson by Denise Mina - 4 stars
Toy Plastic Chicken by Uma Nada-Rajah - 3 stars
A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity by Douglas Maxwell - 2 stars
Do Not Press This Button by Alan Bissett - 2 stars

I love The Rik Mayall, that's all!

Well, it's not really all. This book is perfect for those of us who adore the gorgeously hilarious acter himself. A spoof autobiography which hides some rather moving truthfull moments between its neverending double entendres. I can't imagine anyone who likes the man (the Man? the MAN? The MAN?) not also loving this (is there anyone who doesn't like him?). And if they don't (like him, that is) then why are they even reading this book, or this review, anyway?

I'm currently reading my Agatha Christies in order and not reading the back beforehand. So it was a bit of a shock to slide into my bath with this and find myself in Egypt 2000 years BC!

It was a good little murder mystery, once again I failed to guess the killer, and a nice piece of historical writing too. I just wasn't invested in the characters, I didn't really care about any of them.

Not a book I would have chosen to read had I known the premise and not one I'll return to in a hurry.

Oops, I didn't mean to get large print but what a treat for my post-nightshift eyes! I didn't even need my specs!
Another rollicking riot around Whitby with Brenda and Effie. More strange tales and some insights into the monstrous heroine's past. Great fun read and I look forward to continuing this series.

A lovely wee novella continuing the teenage love story began in the Heartstopper graphic novels. This looks at one of those moments, when a simple misunderstanding threatens to destroy a whole relationship. Cleverly written from both characters' points of view, chapter about, it gives greater insight into why and how things can so easily fall apart.
Forget Romeo and Juliet - that was just insane obsession. For true young love it's got to be Nick and Charlie.

A patchwork quilt of intersecting, crisscrossing stories - each that could have stood alone. Evaristo's prizewinning masterpiece covers so many subjects; love, death, abandonment, forgiveness, feminism, transgender issues, racism, sexism, domestic violence - to name but a few. There's no preaching, just discussions which inform you and allow you to make your own opinion. Overall, it is a book full of enjoyable stories about people, who they are and how they affect each other. I could have happily kept on reading, following all the paths leading away to the next person and the next and the next. But I also feel the book ended perfectly, with a moving scene that needed no further exploration.

An extremely enjoyable anthology of short stories. One of my favourite authors doing what he does best. Science fiction in the classic sense - mostly time travel and space stories. There's quite a bit of the casual misogyny of the time (women are generally silly little things or infernal nuisances) but there's hope in the futuristic females and those of alien descent.
My favourite was Meteor which was a near-perfect Sci-Fi story - a simple premise well executed and surprisingly emotional.
I absolutely loved it and I'd encourage anyone with a Sci-Fi bent to give it a go!

A very clever Christie novel that keeps you guessing until the end. There are so many strands that come together beautifully, showing why they called her the “Queen of Crime”. Well worth a read or a re-read.

A quirky and bizarre novel that was consistently entertaining and enjoyable. I particularly liked the narrator “who loses the plot, literally” cycling off on tangents. And who couldn't love the three aunts, a terrifying Cerberus of nonagenarians who are never quite what they seem.
I doubly confused myself by starting Hewbris first, then accidentally going back to it instead of Sloot on a nightshift (only realising my mistake when Sloot itself was referenced in the footnotes - I just thought it'd got really meta). Now I'm off to start Hewbris again and try not to get totally befuddled!

Once again the maestro has dumbfounded me, I never know where she is going to go! Delightfully fun, enjoyable characters with plenty of deaths and daring.
Great to see a plucky, young female take the lead and lots of very funny moments. Dialogue was sharp as a whip and there were plenty of twists and turns.
As with all the Christie novels I've read so far it is far removed from the reality of that time. Everyone has plenty of money and all the time in the world for sleuthing and playing golf. But it's a lovely piece of escapism which is, sometimes, all you want from a book!

With this novel you just settle in and enjoy the ride. Could I try to explain what was happening - is there even a plot? Ultimately it's about the characters, who've doubled (at least) thanks to the film-within-a-book storyline. That's 6 hilarious nonagarians and a tripled protagonist as Hayden, Wolfe and Een the narrator/author.
None of this review does it justice, it's a rollicking great fun read and thoroughly recommended.

A great fun read, lots of amateur sleuthing and some tricky situations. I didn't quite get the full “whodunnit” but I wasn't far off! Would thoroughly recommend.

Poirot is on the trail of an apparent alphabetical serial killer who sends an advance warning letter. Can Poirot, and his mismatched band of amateur detectives, solve the case before the killer comes to the next letter?
Quite a different style of novel from the other Poirots I've read but it works well. And yet again the Queen of Crime had me fooled until the end.

I'd seen a TV adaption of this novel and it slightly influenced, but did not spoil, my reading of it.
Ten strangers are brought together in a house on an uninhabited island where a disembodied voice accuses them of having each commited murder. Then, one by one, they perish as the murderer passes ultimate judgement upon them. Everyone is a suspect, and ultimately a victim. But who? How? Why?
This is a dark, macabre little book that gets under your skin. While the characters panic and flutter around the island the denouement is cold, concise and (almost) totally unexpected.
Definitely the most disturbing book I've read so far by Christie but also utterly enjoyable.

Four little Poirot mysteries, three deaths and a theft. Beautifully constructed and enacted with surprising, but not always satisfying, conclusions. Needless to say, I was completely bamboozled at every turn!

My first Miss Marple and Mrs. Christie did not disappoint. As per usual I failed to predict the ending but I did have some suspicions which leant towards the conclusion. I feel I should go back to the earliest Marple mystery to get a true feel for the old girl but, for now, it's back to a Poirot.

“I am something of a magician. There are things I know without having to be told.”

Sixteen years after the murder of her father a young woman tasks Poirot with finding out the truth. Was her mother actually the murderer or has someone else been to blame all along?

I found this a clever little book with the usual twists and turns right up to the end. It was an enjoyable read, mostly, but the ‘little pigs' references did rather get on my nerves and rather detracted from the telling of the tale. Goodness knows how American readers coped when their title had absolutely nothing to do with the annoying children's ditty!

On an aside, I'm loving reading these 1970 era Fontana novels with distinctive cover art. It brings an extra level of enjoyment to hold these old pages, pre-loved by a great friend of mine, while I read these words for the first time.

I was totally drawn in from the beginning with Jerry Burton's narration, he's a bit of a numpty but that makes the character all the more believable. Once again I had no clue as to who was behind anything (no spoilers here) and certainly didn't expect the surprise guest (which, I now notice, Goodreads spoils).

Thoroughly recommended to all Christie fans. Once again I had the pleasure of reading a lovely old paperback with a beautiful cover, only spoilt by the glue having given up so half the book kept falling out!

I'm not sure what I was expecting, I'd never read a review or even the blurb on the back. I just saw the cover in Waterstones (other bookshops are available) and was intrigued. It wasn't THIS cover by the way, it was the orange one with the small silhouette seemingly oblivious to the great gaping white hole they've ripped open behind them.

I started off interested and intrigued. I like a Scottish novel too because of the whole “I've been there” and “ooh, I knew that/them” stuff. It was also set pretty much in my timeline (I'm a little younger though, thanks) and leant to the punky/rocky/grungy side of that era (when the front-woman just didn't give a flying fuck what anyone thought - think Shirley Manson and Justine Frischmann glowering at the camera on TOTP).

But all on all it was a bit flat, I got to the end with a “oh, was that it then” feeling. It wrapped up the ends neatly enough but I found I didn't care and then I was a bit disappointed. I could have maybe pushed this up to 7/10 but it was never going to be a 4⭐

I don't know if I liked the time-hopping, people-hopping style of the novel really. But it served a purpose. It doesn't matter who's writing, when or where, every page is full of HER. The impact she had on everyone, but we never really meet her, the real Clio. Just echoes, distilled from memories. We never get to see inside HER head or fully make our own minds up. I think I'd have hero-worshipped the socks of her.

I think they got that cover pretty much right, except I don't think our absent protagonist was ever oblivious. I think she'd have loved to rip open the world and let us all look underneath. I think she thinks that's what she did.

PS @KirstenInnes my primary school headteacher was Mrs McGrouther too and I also played Scabby Queen - whatever was the point of that game?

Chosen purely because the author's initials matched my own (part of a Reading Challenge) and I liked the ethereal cover with its colour photocopied girl reminding me of a Tori Amos single. However, it did not get off to a good start as every time I picked it up I found myself droning the title with “I know, I know” after it in a Smithsy/Morrissey fashion - that got very boring very fast!
The book is split into 3 sections: the fairly interesting 1978 section where the girlfriend does indeed slip into a coma and her group of friends deal with how they are affected, the okay second part where she awakens and (spoiler alert) then the world ends, and the final section where they wander through the wreckage of the ?future. The end section dragged horrifically and really put me off the fairly promising start.
This is my first attempt at Coupland and according to his critics it's his worst and most pointless work (good choice then). So I'll maybe attempt another of his in the future but I definitely do not recommend this one!

An enjoyable, well written novel where an ordinary man is turned amateur detective after overhearing a call at his telephone exchange. Rowlands, lives in a world devoid of sight - having been blinded in Ypres. He has learned to survive, indeed flourish, until he is drawn into mystery that turns into murder.
The twist surprised me sufficiently but it was never about the murder for me - I enjoyed this as a character study. A man learning to rely on the rest of his senses to replace his ruined vision. Dealing with the horrible shadows of war, where his last visions are nightmares.
I look forward to reading more of this series.