Category Archives: book reviews

My ‘Porridge & Cream’ read: Shelley Weiner

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Today I am pleased to welcome novelist, Shelley Weiner who will share her ‘Porridge & Cream’ read.

“Tiring of a well-worn book is like outgrowing a friendship, or a fashion statement, or a taste for cheap confectionary – depressing but, sadly, a fact of life. We change, our tastes change, the priorities that seemed so immutable ten years ago can alter or become irrelevant And so, having scoured my bookshelves to find a ‘Porridge & Cream’ read, I had to conclude that the old faithfuls by the authors I chose (sorry Carol Shields, apologies Jane Smiley …) no longer moved me.

Shelley WeinerI might have darted back to Dickens, to Austen, to Tolstoy, for classics of that calibre are beyond fatigue. Instead I consoled myself with a movie – the excellent screen adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn – and a large tub of popcorn. And as I sat in the darkness imbibing salty kernels and Irish angst, I recalled the spare beauty of Tóibín’s prose and resolved to return to the novel.

Which I did.

And – relief upon relief – it’s as I remembered it; as simple and quiet and engrossing as when I devoured it on publication eight years ago. It’s the kind of writing I identify with and aspire towards, confirming for me the power of understatement.

Brooklyn focuses on young Eilis, who ventures from the limitations of small-town Ireland to the strangeness and dislocation of New York. It’s a story of immigration, a rite of passage tale that reminds me how the deepest and most important universal truths can resonate through discipline and restraint. Tóibín has the rare ability to disappear into the heart and mind of his character; his lack of authorial ego means that no point does the reader stop to admire his turn of phrase or philosophical astuteness. We’re with Eilis entirely – feeling for her, laughing and crying with her, identifying in the most profound way with her plight. Tóibín revisits the same small-town community in the excellent Nora Webster – a more recent and slightly darker work, satisfyingly alluded to in Brooklyn.”

About ‘A Sister’s Tale’ by Shelley Weiner [Constable]
Shelley WeinerMia is dumpy, earthy and responsible, while her sister Gabriella is flighty and spoilt – a prima donna. Middle aged, their lives in a mess, they find themselves alone together in a parched Israeli town. Is it the promised land or a last resort? As the sisters wait together in the sultry heat for something, anything, to happen, they watch each other and remember. They think back to their isolated Jewish childhood in London; the devastation of their father’s sudden death; their mother languishing hopelessly in bed. They conjure up Mia’s Irish Catholic romantic lover, father of her child; and Gabriella’s well-heeled and ‘suitable’ husband. Meanwhile, at the entrance to their flat, an unexpected visitor arrives in time for a fish supper. A Sisters’ Tale is a wicked yet poignant story about the complex and powerful bond between sisters.

Shelley Weiner’s Bio
Shelley Weiner’s novels include A Sisters’ Tale, The Last Honeymoon, The Joker, Arnost, and The Audacious Mendacity of Lily Green.
Her 60-minute guides to writing fiction are published by The Guardian. She is a regular tutor for the Faber Academy and trusted mentor on the Gold Dust Mentoring Scheme. She has presented workshops for Guardian Masterclasses, Norwich Writers Centre, and the Cheltenham Literary Festival. A former Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, Shelley has also taught fiction for – among others – Birkbeck College, Anglia Ruskin University, the Open University, the British Council, and Durham University Summer School.

Shelley Weiner’s links
Website
Facebook
Twitter

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What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘Love in A Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford. Do you have a favourite read which you return to again and again? If so, please send me a message via the contact form here.

 

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Jane Cable
JG Harlond
Jane Lambert

Shelley Weiner

 

‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Tóibín [UK: Penguin]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does author @shelleyweiner love BROOKLYN by Colm Toibin? via @SandraDanby #books http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1QZ

#BookReview ‘Master of Shadows’ by Neil Oliver #historical

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Master of Shadows starts with a historical note about 1453 and the advance of the Ottomans on the eastern Christian empire of Constantinople. Rumoured to be among the city’s defenders was a Scot called John Grant. Author Neil Oliver takes the real life Grant and fictionalizes him in this, his debut novel; a novel rich in detail, historical context, colours and smells. Neil OliverIt starts with disparate snapshots: a boy lies in a meadow and feels invisible; a stranger arrives at a Scottish village; a woman, chopping wood, feels threatened; a young girl leaps from a high wall, expecting to die.
A Moorish solider, tall and imposing with his curved blade, arrives in Scotland at the castle of a Lord. Secretly he is seeking a specific woman. He had fought in wars alongside her husband and promised to keep her and their son safe if he should die. Badr becomes a surrogate father to the boy and teaches him everything he knows, later they fight side-by-side in battle. Leña lives amongst nuns. Given her name – which means ‘firewood’ in Spanish – I thought was a Spanish woman but in the memories of her childhood we learn she, too, has been to Scotland, and speaks French. So the mystery continues. The storylines are many and intriguing and for a long time I puzzled over how they connected. It is a story about the connections of blood, the duty owed to family. It is a long book (448 pages) but never seemed so long to be off-putting. There were passages a little too ‘history heavy’ for me, but I’m sure some readers will gobble it up.
All-in-all, a great debut. Not all historians can tell a page-turning fictional story, for some it takes three or four novels before they hit their stride, so I’m looking forward to Oliver’s next novel.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

If you like this, try:-
‘The Surfacing’ by Cormac James
‘Gone Are The Leaves’ by Anne Donovan
‘Wilderness’ by Campbell Hart

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MASTER OF SHADOWS by Neil Oliver https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-1Qr via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Due Diligence’ by DJ Harrison ‪@djharrison99‪ #crime

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An accountant, at the beginning of a crime novel? Stick with it because what at first appears to be a quiet first chapter takes off with a briefcase full of cash and leads to money laundering, assault, murder and all sorts of financial shenanigans. Due Diligence is first in the Jenny Parker series by DJ Harrison. DJ HarrisonSet in the business world, and underworld, of Manchester, accountant Jenny Parker is sent to conduct due diligence of a company’s finances. That briefcase full of cash, £20,000, is the beginning of the trouble for Jenny which sees her lover dead and risks her marriage, her son, and her life.
A quick-moving story, Jenny is a likeable heroine who finds toughness she never knew was harboured within herself. The storyline jolts around a little but DJ Harrison has drawn a support network around Jenny, including the wonderful security boss Gary. The financial and business background is well constructed, and the fraud all too believable.

If you like crime, try:-
‘Business as Usual’ by EL Lindley
‘An Uncertain Place’ by Fred Vargas
‘Eeny Meeny’ by MJ Arlidge #1HELENGRACE

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DUE DILIGENCE by ‪DJ Harrison @djharrison99‪ https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-1Qj via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Life Class’ by Pat Barker #WW1 #historical

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Pat Barker is one of my top five novelists. She writes sparingly with not a word wasted, but creates a world so real with detail and characterization. Life Class is the first of her #LifeClass trilogy of novels which tell the story of brother and sister Elinor and Toby, and Elinor’s fellow art students Paul and Kit, through the Great War. I first read this book when it was published in 2007 and devoured it. I have re-read it now to refresh my memory of the story and characters, before I read the newly published third volume of the trilogy, Noonday. Pat BarkerThe story starts in 1914 in a life-drawing class at the Slade School of Art in London. The class is taken by Professor Henry Tonks, a real-life character, artist and surgeon. Barker weaves her fictional story around the true story of Tonks, the Slade, and the outbreak of the Great War. For student Paul Tarrant, the presence of Tonks is intimidating, as he struggles to find his identity as an artist. This is a novel about young people and their journey from youth to maturity via art and love, brutally influenced by the horrors of war. Interwoven with Paul’s story – he volunteers as an ambulance driver and goes to Ypres, working in a hospital – is that of Elinor Brooke, fellow art student. Elinor’s journey to adulthood is different, given that she is a woman at a time when middle-class women are not expected to have a career. She remains in London, continues to paint and mixes with the society group of Lady Ottoline Morrell, another true character, mixing with pacifists, conscientious objectors and the Bloomsbury Group.
Essentially, this is a triangular love story set into the structure of war. As the students struggle to define themselves as artists, their safe world collapses around them and the abnormal becomes normal. As Paul undertakes gruesome nursing tasks, he questions the purpose of war art and what it can achieve. As his life becomes surreal, so he is cast adrift from his former life without context to judge either his ability as an artist, or his humanity in the face of war. Are some things simply too horrific to paint?

For my reviews of other Pat Barker novels, click the title below:-
ANOTHER WORLD
BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN
DOUBLE VISION
TOBY’S ROOM #2LIFECLASS
NOONDAY #3LIFECLASS
THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS
THE WOMEN OF TROY
UNION STREET

If you like this, try:-
‘A Long Long Way’ by Sebastian Barry
‘The Lie’ by Helen Dunmore
‘Wake’ by Anna Hope

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview LIFE CLASS by Pat Barker http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Q3 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Liar Liar’ by @mjarlidge #crimefiction

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I loved the ending… a tasty titbit to make me anticipate the fifth book in the series by MJ Arlidge about Southampton detective Helen Grace. Don’t start reading an MJ Arlidge novel, unless you have nothing to do but read. Because the story moves so fast you won’t want to put it down. Liar Liar is the fourth in Arlidge’s Helen Grace series set in Southampton, UK. MJ ArlidgeArlidge is an expert storyteller, he has created two likeable female detectives – DI Helen Grace and DC Charlie Brooks – and put them in a real, gritty, believable setting.
The writing is graphic. The theme of this book is fire – there’s an arsonist on the loose in Southampton, setting serial fires – so the description of fire in all its stages and its after effects is at times graphic. Is someone trying to cover up a crime? Could it be a revenge attack on one person disguised by multiple fires? Or is it an insider with a grudge?
It is a quick read, 448 pages. Arlidge writes TV drama and his skill at keeping the tension going is clear on every page.

Read my reviews other books in this series:-
EENY MEENY #1HELENGRACE
POP GOES THE WEASEL #2HELENGRACE
THE DOLL’S HOUSE #3HELENGRACE
LITTLE BOY BLUE #5HELENGRACE
HIDE AND SEEK #6HELENGRACE
LOVE ME NOT #7HELENGRACE
DOWN TO THE WOODS #8 HELENGRACE

If you like this, try:-
‘Big Sky’ by Kate Atkinson
‘Wolf’ by Mo Hayder
‘An Uncertain Place’ by Fred Vargas

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview LIAR LIAR by @mjarlidge http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1PW via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘The Road Not Taken’

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You may perhaps be aware of this poem by New England poet Robert Frost, for it is often quoted and often misunderstood. But that doesn’t lessen its impact. I read this first as a student, and it has stayed with me since. In our lives we all face a choice at times, a forked path, take the left or the right? And so rightly this poem is thought fondly of at times of indecision, choice and how the uncertainty of the future. It speaks to everyone, I think, to poetry lover and poetry novice.

Robert Frost

[photo: poetryfoundation.org]

‘The Road Not Taken’
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
 

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
 

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
 

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

If you know someone who loves the woods, and nature, and being outside, then buy them an edition of Frost’s verse; it is easily-accessible and full of truths. This edition [below] is my own copy from university.

To listen to The Road Not Taken, read by David Garrison for The Poetry Foundation, click here.

Above is my beautiful Penguin copy of Frost’s Selected Poems, dating from my university days.

Robert Frost

 

‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost [UK: Penguin Classics] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Forgetfulness’ by Hart Crane
‘Poems’ by Ruth Stone
‘Happiness’ by Stephen Dunn

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1LY via @SandraDanby

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#BookReview ‘In the Blood’ by @SteveRobinson01 #genealogy #mystery

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Steve Robinson is a new author for me and In the Blood is the first in his series of novels about American genealogist Jefferson Tayte. I warmed to JT quickly, he’s not a typical hero and seems very real. His assignment – to uncover the truth of what happened to a family who set sail from Boston to England in August 1783 – takes him across the Atlantic to Cornwall. Steve RobinsonThere are two parallel timelines, the ship voyage in 1783 and JT’s trip to England set in the present day. The story weaves back and forth between the two, in fact I enjoyed reading the eighteenth century strand and would have liked more of the Fairbornes’ story. JT’s search, initially for documents, suddenly becomes dangerous when local woman Amy discovers a wooden box. Now Amy’s life is in danger too. But who stands to gain from a mystery 200 years old, and which Cornish locals can JT trust?
At times I wished there was a cast list at the front of the book as I got a little confused between the family connections, but as that is what JT was researching I guess it was inevitable.
If you like reading mysteries, try this. It’s an intriguing mixture of history, mystery, genealogy, set in Cornwall which is a beautiful backdrop. There’s lots about the countryside, Cornish history, wreckers and smugglers.

If you like this, try:-
‘The America Ground’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin #4MortonFarrier
‘Tainted Tree’ by Jacquelynn Luben
‘Blood-Tied’ by Wendy Percival #1 Esme Quentin

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview IN THE BLOOD by @SteveRobinson01 http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1PM via @SandraDanby

My Porridge & Cream read: Lisa Devaney

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Today I’m delighted to welcome clifi novelist Lisa Devaney who will share her ‘Porridge & Cream’ read.

“As winter pends, and the leaves are turning beautifully vibrant colours, before they die off of the trees here in London, UK, I like the idea of turning to a comfort book, that can see me through the days that turn dark early and warm me up in the cold nights. When Sandra Danby invited me to blog about my ‘Porridge & Cream’ favourite book, I had a hard time, at first, picking just one that would qualify as the way she describes it as “It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it.”

Lisa Devaney“Some on my selection list included a non-fiction title of Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us, and the collected stories of Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, but ultimately, I feel I turn most often to the book, that bred the movie that I watch most often as a comfort film. Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep wins my pick for being my ‘Porridge & Cream’ novel. Published first in 1968, this post-apocalyptic near future fictional account is weird and scary enough to keep me turning the pages. The book inspired Ridley Scott’s film classic Blade Runner, which I have watched again and again, as well as reading the book.

“In Dick’s future world, de-constructed by a world nuclear war, we find a robot bounty hunter who is tasked with killing off six defected models – and his hunt of them compels us to question the meaning of life for them and ourselves. Bounty hunter Rick Deckard is fascinated by live animals, as most have been made endangered or extinct in the war, and wants to own one.

“I was first recommended this book by a dear friend who is a science-fiction fan. It was in the late 1990s, and both of us were working hard in the intensity of the dot com boom in New York City’s Silicon Alley. It was all feeling very sci-fi in daily life, as many of the technologies we were working with were shaping the future of things to come – and in fact, many did just that! So I picked up Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and it felt, at that time, all too real that our futures could be filled with human-like robots, and other strange technologies that feature in the book. At the same time, I was also going around the city performing as my alter-ego cartoon self I called (((Futuregirl))) and sharing my odd SLAM-style poetry. Blade Runner fashion gave me inspiration in styling my (((Futuregirl))) costume [below].

I’d say now, especially when the winter sets in, I turn to the book, and the film, once or twice a year, when I want to step back in time and put myself back to that memory of being in the height of the dot com madness, living in an exciting and crazy city like New York and using my imagination to flash-forward a few decades and dream of what might be coming our way.”

About In Ark: A Promise of Survival by Lisa Devaney
Lisa DevaneyIn Ark is set in the year 2044, in New York City, Mya Brand is working as a digital archivist, trying to save the life stories of every human on the planet before climate change makes Earth unliveable.

Keeping laser-focused on her mission is helping her escape the emotional pain she feels from a failed first marriage. Along with support from her actress best friend and bartender buddy, she is rebuilding her life and trying to heal her hard shell. Fraught with daily hardships of survival in the face of climate change, she struggles on to get food, maintain power and protect her delicate skin from the harmful rays of the sun. With little funding for her digital archiving project, she keeps going but dreams of how much more she could do with more resources. Then, one day, she is abducted by an eco-survivalist community that calls itself Ark and promises to make her dreams come true. But is Ark the solution to climate change or the problem?

Read my review of In Ark.

Lisa Devaney’s Bio
Whether it was writing and illustrating her own comic books as a child, creating cartoon-inspired websites in the 90s, taking to the stage in New York City to perform in SLAM-poetry style as her make-believe online character (((Futuregirl))) or even spinning a publicity campaign for a business client, Lisa has been enthralled by storytelling and the mediums that can be used to tell her stories. Her imagination has now led her to writing and self-publishing books, with her debut novel In Ark: A Promise of Survival earning 5* ratings and reviews. But the story isn’t just on pages, follow the hashtag #InArk on Twitter, Instagram  and Facebook to find the transmedia layer of Lisa’s newest storytelling adventure.

Lisa Devaney’s links
Website and blog
Follow Lisa Devaney on Twitter and Facebook

porridge_and_cream__rainyday_111_long

 

What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘Love in A Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford. Do you have a favourite read which you return to again and again? If so, please send me a message via the contact form here.

 

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Rosie Dean
Rachel Dove
Judith Field

Lisa Devaney

 

 

‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ by Philip K Dick [UK: Gollancz]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does author @lisadevaney love DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP by Philip K Dick? #books via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1OS

#BookReview ‘Devices and Desires’ by PD James #crime

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Perhaps of all the Adam Dalgliesh books so far, and Devices and Desires is the eighth in the series by PD James, this is the one with the strongest sense of place. The East Anglian coast: a bare, windswept, desolate landscape, its coastline dominated by Larksoken nuclear power station, it is a tight-knit community where there are few secrets and no hiding places. PD JamesThe power station’s staff, its purpose and existence are at the centre of this murder mystery. Dalgiesh’s Aunt Jane has died and he visits her house, which he has inherited, both as a break after the Berowne murder [featured in the previous book, A Taste for Death] and as an opportunity to consider the house and decide whether to sell it or keep it. Meanwhile, the community on the remote coastal headline is being terrorized by a serial killer, The Whistler. And, of course, a few pages into the book, The Whistler kills. Or does he?
This is a magnificent mystery, I challenge anyone to work out the plot twists and turns. But it is not just James’ talent at plotting which sets this book aside from its predecessors. It is thoughtful, considered, and very moving: about death, love, and all the big human emotions.
I wonder how far ahead James planned her books. Reading A Taste for Death, I noticed that Book Four [of seven] is called ‘Devices and Desires’. Evidently James liked the title and used it for this eighth, and she repeats the phrase several times throughout the book: “Here the past and present fused and her own life, with its trivial devices and desires, seemed only an insignificant moment in the long history of the headland.”
I read this book many years ago and still have my original copy [below], I think I prefer this cover design. PD JamesRead my reviews of the other Adam Dalgliesh mysteries:-
COVER HER FACE #1ADAMDALGLIESH
A MIND TO MURDER #2ADAMDALGLIESH
UNNATURAL CAUSES #3ADAMDALGLIESH
SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE #4ADAMDALGLIESH
THE BLACK TOWER #5ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH OF AN EXPERT WITNESS #6ADAMDALGLIESH
A TASTE FOR DEATH #7ADAMDALGLIESH
ORIGINAL SIN #9ADAMDALGLIESH … read the first paragraph HERE
A CERTAIN JUSTICE #10ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS #11ADAMDALGLIESH
THE MURDER ROOM #12ADAMDALGLIESH … read the first paragraph HERE
THE LIGHTHOUSE #13ADAMDALGLIESH
THE PRIVATE PATIENT #14 ADAMDALGLIESH

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:-
‘Or The Bull Kills You’ by Jason Webster #1MAXCAMARA
‘The Accident’ by CL Taylor
‘Wolf’ by Mo Hayder

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DEVICES AND DESIRES by PD James http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Nc via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The House on Cold Hill’ by Peter James @PeterJamesUK #ghost #thriller

1 Reply

Is it a crime story, is it a ghost story, is it a thriller? I don’t care, The House on Cold Hill is great. This is the first Peter James book I have read, and I loved it. It is a mystery about a family moving to a new house in the country, then everything starts to go wrong.  Have they just bought the wrong house? Bad luck? Co-incidences? Or is someone attacking them, and why? Peter JamesAs the oddities become more frequent, Ollie becomes more frantic as the house crumbles, his new business clients are sabotaged, and he fears for his wife and daughter. The tension is handled brilliantly, the first quarter of the book is a slow build as we get to know the family and the house, after that the screw is turned relentlessly. James is a skilled storyteller.
After finishing reading this novel, I discovered that Peter James used his own experience of living in a haunted house. This shows on every page, the things that happen in the house, Ollie’s reactions, the understandable belief that ‘this is not real.’

And here’s my review of DEAD SIMPLE, the first in the Roy Grace crime series by Peter James.

If you like this, try:-
‘A Sudden Light’ by Garth Stein
‘The Cheesemaker’s House’ by Jane Cable
‘The Quarry’ by Iain Banks

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL by Peter James @PeterJamesUK via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1P8