Monthly Archives: April 2024

#BookReview ‘The King’s Evil’ by @AndrewJRTaylor #Historical

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A body is discovered in the wrong place. A murder is worrying at any time, but in the turmoil of 1667 in the court of Charles II it is inconvenient too; further death is likely to follow. The King’s Evil is third in the ‘Fire of London’ series by Andrew Taylor. As London rises from the smoldering ruins of the fire, government administrator turned investigator James Marwood is called yet again to do the king’s secret bidding… to move the body somewhere less inflammatory. Andrew TaylorWondering why he gets into these situations, Marwood must find away to get through the following days without being murdered, by one side or the other. Complicating matters is that the man murdered is Edward Alderley, the nasty cousin of Cat Lovett who was forced to flee the dangerous Alderley in The Ashes of London. Marwood, unable to forget the fact that Cat has a very good reason for wishing her cousin dead, sets out to identify the real murderer. Complicating things are the obtuse instructions of royal insider Mr Chiffinch; the tensions at court between the King’s brother, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Buckingham; and the sensuous but manipulative Lady Quincy.
The King’s Evil gains an extra star from me for the return of Cat. Though the plotting at times threatened to head up a dead end street, Taylor pulled it around again. At times I wondered when the ‘threat to the royal family’ would become evident. Marwood is sent on errands by the tight-lipped Mr Chiffinch and the waters are often muddied. Only in the last few chapters does the significance of small events at the beginning of the book become clear.
All three books in this series have fascinated me, this is a historical period about which I shamefully know little. Taylor has the uncanny ability to write fast-moving stories with period detail, showing wounded London re-emerging as scaffolding climbs into the sky, a believable place with traces of today’s city.
Is this the last of a trilogy, or the third of a series? I don’t know.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Read my reviews of the other books in this series:
THE ASHES OF LONDON #FIREOFLONDON1… and try the first paragraph of THE ASHES OF LONDON.
THE FIRE COURT #FIREOFLONDON2
THE LAST PROTECTOR #FIREOFLONDON4
THE ROYAL SECRET #FIREOFLONDON5
THE SHADOWS OF LONDON #FIREOFLONDON6

And a World War Two novel by the same author:-
THE SECOND MIDNIGHT

If you like this, try:-
‘Dissolution’ by CJ Sansom
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen
‘Rush Oh!’ by Shirley Barrett

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE KING’S EVIL by @AndrewJRTaylor https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7ea via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Folded Leaf’ by William Maxwell #historical #classic

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The world in The Folded Leaf by William Maxwell is of another age when childhood lasted longer than it does now. Teenage boys wear breeches, naked youths jump into a pool at a school swimming lesson and teachers call their pupils Mister in this story of male friendship in 1920s mid-America. William MaxwellThe storytelling is easy, languid, introducing us to two boys. Lymie Peters, skinny, clever, on the edge of things and living with his absent widowed father. Newcomer Spud Latham, strong, angry, a boxer. Both dissatisfied with their lives. Their unlikely friendship grows from the late school years to college in Indiana, through fighting, bullying and a rather barbaric initiation by humiliation into a school fraternity, to discovering girls. Today the boys’ friendship may be viewed through a same-sex lens but there seems a group acceptance of ambiguity in this male group where girls are admitted infrequently to the fraternity’s grotty basement apartment where they take it in turns to dance to the shaky sounds of the victrola. It is a group innocence that feels rather alien today. This balance is upset when Sally enters their lives.
Maxwell’s prose is a delight, so simple, never over-stating, building slowly. First published in 1945, The Folded Leaf is Maxwell’s third novel. He was fiction editor at The New Yorker for 39 years, working with writers including Nabokov, Updike, Cheever and Salinger. A story set in the last century but still familiar today.
The Folded Leaf is a story of youthful shyness and arrogance, mis-communications, silence and assumptions, and what can happen when feelings are unexpressed. A thoughtful read that stays with you.

See my reviews of other novels by William Maxwell:-
BRIGHT CENTER OF HEAVEN
THEY CAME LIKE SWALLOWS
TIME WILL DARKEN IT

And read the first paragraphs of TIME WILL DARKEN IT and THE CHATEAU.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Goldfinch’ by Donna Tartt
‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Tóibín
‘Some Luck’ by Jane Smiley #1LastHundredYears

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE FOLDED LEAF by William Maxwell https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7c6 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Elodie Harper

Great Opening Paragraph 133… ‘Fortune Favours the Dead’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The first time I met Lillian Pentecost, I nearly caved her skull in with a piece of lead pipe.”
Stephen SpotswoodFrom ‘Fortune Favours the Dead’ by Stephen Spotswood #1Pentecost&Parker

Click the title to read my review of FORTUNE FAVOURS THE DEAD.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt 
‘Jack Maggs’ by Peter Carey 
‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara FORTUNE FAVOURS THE DEAD by Stephen Spotswood @playwrightSteve https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-79u via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Gregor and the Marks of Secret’ by Suzanne Collins #fantasy #adventure

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Gregor is a ‘rager,’ a sort of super fighter. And he needs to be because war is coming to the Underland. Gregor and the Marks of Secret is fourth in the Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins and it moves at breakneck speed to the last page and the next book, the last in the series. Suzanne CollinsCan teenager Gregor save Regalia. Can he become the hero that everyone excepts him to be. Will he stay, or escape Regalia back up to the streets of New York above. He won’t because he must fulfil the prophecies that mention his name, because he cannot leave behind his friends and his sister Boots, because he must fight against wrong. Gregor is an everyman hero, an ordinary boy thrown into extraordinary situations who makes unexpected friends, some enemies who become allies. He struggles with the strangeness of the Underland society with its medieval courtesies, legends and prophecies, threatening jungle and caves, rivers and caverns. Of course he will stay and fight, a fact accepted by all those who face invasion of their home. ‘He would fight because he could think of no other option.’
When the nibblers return the crown to Luxa, it is a sign, a cry for help. Could their attacker be the Bane, the white rat featured in the second book of the series. Answering the plea for help, the group of friends – lead by Luxa, her cousins Howard and Hazard, with Gregor and Boots and beings familiar from the earlier books, the bats Ares, Aurora and Nike, cockroach Temp and rat Ripred – pretend to go on a picnic and instead fly into danger. When they see a strange mark Hazard explains it is a mark of secret, a prediction of death for whoever reads it. They journey to a mice colony at the Fount but they have disappeared, next tracking the nibblers further into dangerous territory where they face death.
Another strong tale of quest, danger predictable and unseen, the strength and power of bonded characters, the waste of misguided presumptions about characters and species unknown, and the bravery of a band united with a common goal.
Bring on book five, Gregor and the Code of Claw. Read these books with a child, read them by yourself. A reminder that family is where you find it, family can be made of many shapes and beings, and that your life is what you make of it. Will Gregor and Luxa find the strength within to fight their common enemy… great stuff.

Here are my reviews of the other books in the series:-
GREGOR THE OVERLANDER #1UNDERLANDCHRONICLES
GREGOR AND THE PROPHECY OF BANE #2UNDERLANDCHRONICLES
GREGOR AND THE CURSE OF THE WARMBLOODS BY SUZANNE COLLINS #3THEUNDERLANDCHRONICLES
GREGOR AND THE CODE OF CLAW #5UNDERLANDCHRONICLES

And try the first paragraph of THE HUNGER GAMES, also by Suzanne Collins.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Magician’s Land’ by Lev Grossman #3THEMAGICIANS
‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar
‘The Outsiders’ by Michelle Paver #1GodsandWarriors

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview GREGOR AND THE MARKS OF SECRET by Suzanne Collins https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7b7 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- William Maxwell