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#BookReview ‘Three Sisters, Three Queens’ by Philippa Gregory #Tudor

‘What is the point of love if it does not make us kind?’ Three Sisters, Three Queens by Philippa Gregory is a story of three women, princesses all, who marry for duty, for their country but who long to marry for love. It is a not a tale of sisterly love, more of sisterly rivalry, envy and spitefulness. The three women become sisters of England, Scotland and France but each knows despair and great unhappiness, they are alternately supportive to each other and shamelessly selfish. The three women are Margaret, older sister of Henry VIII; Mary, his younger sister; and Katherine of Aragon, his first wife. All women have been raised to do their duty, to behave correctly, to smile when in pain, to nod to their husband when they disagree, and to always put themselves second. It is a story of English and Scottish politics, the switching of allegiances, the lies and flattery, the convenient silences. The story is told by Margaret, married young to James IV of Scotland, who is horrified after their wedding to be presented with a mob of children, his illegitimate sons and daughters. She appeals to Katherine for advice who tells her to swallow her anger and humiliation and get on with being a good queen to her husband.
The novel tends to repetition and could be shorter, and it is true that in the early pages Margaret is rather mean-spirited and complains repetitively about what she wants and what her sisters have that she doesn’t. But as the pages turned I got more involved in her story, the twists and turns, riches and poverty, love and betrayal, lies and more lies. It is not Gregory’s best Tudor novel, but it is still a fascinating account of a little known queen and sheds a light on complicated Scottish politics of the time. That, and the manipulation of the English/Scottish borders by Henry VIII and his lords, makes modern politics look lily white.
I did expect the viewpoints of each of the three sisters, which the title does imply, but in fact the story is told completely by Margaret aided by letters she receives from her sisters.

Read my reviews of these other Philippa Gregory novels:-
THE LADY OF THE RIVERS
THE LITTLE HOUSE

Read the #FirstPara of THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL, also by Philippa Gregory.

If you like this, try these:-
‘The Leviathan’ by Rosie Andrews
‘Kings and Queens’ by Terry Tyler #1LANCHESTER
‘The Lady of the Ravens’ by Joanna Hickson #1QUEENSOFTHETOWER

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#BookReview ‘The America Ground’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin #familyhistory #crime #genealogy

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The America Ground by Nathan Dylan Goodwin is based on a fascinating piece of local history, indeed Goodwin’s own family history, and made into a historical thriller. On April 28, 1827, a woman is murdered in her bed. Eliza Lovekin is the second to be killed, Amelia Odden is to be next. This is the story of Eliza, her daughter Harriet and a piece of ground in Hastings, East Sussex, which for a short period of time was claimed as a piece of the United States of America. Forensic genealogist Morton Farrier is on the trail of his own adoption story, the identity of his birth father. But a visit to his adoptive father seeking answers sets him instead on the trail of a new mystery. The portrait of a woman from the 1800s: ‘Eliza Lovekin, Hastings, 1825’. Morton’s client is the proprietor of an antiques business who wants a potted family history of Eliza to add value to the painting before it goes up for sale at auction. Initially resenting time away from researching his own family, Morton is soon captivated by Eliza’s story. In the 1827 story strand, we follow Harriet Lovekin, teenage daughter of Eliza, as she longs to be treated as an adult. Unfortunately the day arrives when she is, and she doesn’t like it.
The build towards the climax is deftly handled, though the book starts slowly and I would have liked a more even balance between historical exposition and action in the first half. Originally I was unsure why we were following Harriet’s viewpoint rather than Eliza’s, but all becomes clear towards the end. There is one point when, in order to maintain the secret as long as possible, the author goes back a couple of days; that jolted me out of the story.
I particularly liked Goodwin’s use of local dialect with a light touch: ‘a low fubsy moon’, ‘a-going’ and ‘a-hurting’. As a genealogist and local historian, he knows his East Sussex locations well. As the action moves around the county, I found myself wishing there was a map to refer to.
Morton Farrier is a great protagonist – thoughtful, brave but scared too, a bit of a geek who has a sharp edge – though as my father used to say about Jim Rockford, it’s dangerous being around him; everyone he knows gets threatened, murdered, attacked or abused. And Morton’s own adoption heritage story continues from book to book.

Read my reviews of the next books in the Morton Farrier series:-
HIDING THE PAST #1MORTONFARRIER
THE LOST ANCESTOR #2MORTONFARRIER
THE ORANGE LILIES #3MORTONFARRIER

If you like this, try:-
‘Blood-Tied’ by Wendy Percival #1ESMEQUENTIN
‘Hangover Square’ by Patrick Hamilton
‘Days Without End’ by Sebastian Barry

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Great Opening Paragraph 111… ‘Reading Turgenev’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“A woman, not yet fifty-seven, slight and seeming frail, eats carefully at a table in a corner. Her slices of buttered bread have been halved for her, her fried egg mashed, her bacon cut. ‘Well, this is happiness!’ she murmurs aloud, but none of the other women in the dining room replies because none of them is near enough to hear. She’s privileged, the others say, being permitted to occupy on her own the bare-topped table in the corner. She has her own salt and pepper.”
From ‘Reading Turgenev’ by William Trevor

Here’s another #FirstPara by William Trevor:-
DEATH IN SUMMER

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Children Act’ by Ian McEwan
‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen
‘Dance Dance Dance’ by Haruki Murakami

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#Books #FirstPara READING TURGENEV by William Trevor http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2qN via @SandraDanby

My Porridge & Cream read: Kelly Clayton

#BookReview ‘Things Bright and Beautiful’ by @anbara_salam #historical #adventure

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How to describe Things Bright and Beautiful by Anbara Salam? It is a tale of the 1950s set on a Pacific island where the author authentically creates the sweltering heat, the humidity, the tropical jungle and the natives. It is a claustrophobic tale of differing religious beliefs where confusion, conviction and malaria bring about an unexpected ending. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, it was a wild card choice and I really enjoyed it. Bea and Max Hanlon arrive on Advent Island in the remote New Hebrides as Max takes up his post as island missionary to spread the word to the heathen natives. It is not what they expected. Bea is soon picking rat droppings from their bag of rice while Max deals with a lack of clocks making scheduling a morning service difficult. Not to mention the group praying and singing at night, this ‘dark praying’ is intended to expel dark spirits and is done outside the Mission House whilst Max and Bea attempt to sleep. The authorial tone is at first fond and humorous as Bea and Max face up to their difficulties shackled by language differences and the late arrival of their trunks. They are literally thrown in at the deep end. Bea negotiates the many taboos and starts a kitchen garden. I particularly enjoyed the description of one mysterious vegetable as ‘hedge’. But their house is their own, until the previous missionary reappears unannounced. The always-humming Marietta cannot take a hint and tramps around as if she owns the place. She is the grit on which the story takes a dark and threatening turn.
Two small criticisms. There are so many peripheral characters with island names that I ceased to remember who was who. And at times the island dominated character and plot.
If you are looking for a novel in which to lose yourself, this is it. An atmospheric, spooky and at times downright yucky tale of how religion can turn quickly into fanaticism. It is about a fight for survival in a world which starts off as a dream and ends as a nightmare. I enjoyed Bea’s journey as she adapts to her new world, makes the best of things, makes friends, ignores the silliest taboos and gets herself into trouble.
In the jungle, is it the fittest that survive or the cleverest? A highly imaginative debut.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

If you like this, try:-
‘The Signature of All Things’ by Elizabeth Gilbert
‘How to Stop Time’ by Matt Haig
‘Then She Was Gone’ by Lisa Jewell

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#BookReview ‘Elmet’ by Fiona Mozley #contemporary

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A powerful book about the nature of family in today’s society, Elmet by Fiona Mozley is also about our relationship with the earth, nature, and existence without the trappings of modern life. Except it is impossible to escape completely. The narrator, fourteen-year-old Daniel Oliver, is walking north in pursuit of an unnamed someone. As Daniel walks on, we see flashbacks to what happened before he set off on his journey. Danny’s life with his sister Cathy is split into two parts: living with Granny Morley beside the seaside where their father and mother are, separately, occasional visitors to the house; then later, living in a wood with Daddy, in a house hand-built, foraging off the land. At the beginning the descriptions of the rural landscape made me think this was a historical setting but Elmet is set today, making the circmstances of the family more disturbing. They live off the land and the money earned bare knuckle fighting by Daddy, John Smythe. They live on the margins; the children are home-schooled, and receive payment in kind [a carton of orange juice from the milkman, chops from the butcher] for favours done. Daniel and Cathy visit a neighbour’s house each morning for lessons, though it is not clear how Vivien knows John or what favour he has done her. It is a story of hints and implications, expecting the reader to wonder and explore possible gaps in the children’s history without knowing all the facts. Sometimes this worked, at other times I felt it made me miss some of the subtleties.
The story gathers pace as the odious Mr Price, a local landowner, appears on the scene with his two equally odious sons. His mistreatment of the Smythe family is echoed by the exploitation of farmworkers and tenants not only by Price but by other local farmers and landlords. As the downtrodden gather together at the Smythe house in the woods, a plan is devised to face up to the bullies. Watching it all are Smythe’s two teenage children, almost but not quite adults, understanding some of what is happening but not the implications or cost. Both are still discovering their own identities and there is a degree of gender confusion; while Cathy prefers the outdoors and reacts first with fists flying, Daniel is the homemaker.
While some of the characters are thinly-drawn – Price, Vivien – Mozley writes poetically about the wilderness of nature, the trees, plants and animals, the passing of the seasons. She creates a visual picture of the house in the woods, of Cathy plucking a mallard, of Daniel cooking eggs and bacon. But for me the plot stumbles rather than flows and would have been helped by a little more exposition about the children’s mother and why their father is determined to take them away from their regular lives. Though Daniel’s observations are beautiful he is an unconvincing narrator, his voice too mature and sophisticated for a home-educated teenager. The transition from his thoughts – “It was as if Daddy and I had sprouted from a clot of mud and splintered roots and they had oozed from pure minerals in crystalline sequence” – to vernacular dialogue and the use of ‘wandt’, dindt’ and ‘doendt’ jarred.
The book closes without a natural ending, simply a pause in proceedings, as life meanders its course for Daniel. An elegiac read, beautiful if flawed, it covers a lot of moral questions for today. Families living on the margins of society and their right to choose to live how they want, the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy, family love and loyalty when faced with extreme threat, and what happens when you take justice into your own hands. A promising debut. Shortlisted for the 2017 Booker Prize.

If you like this, try:-
‘Himself’ by Jess Kidd
‘Reservoir 13’ by Jon McGregor
‘The Western Wind’ by Samantha Harvey

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#BookReview ‘Panic Room’ by Robert Goddard #thriller

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Panic Room by Robert Goddard starts in the voice of someone unnamed, someone who feels safe in a beautiful, calm place, who wants to stay there forever but who knows that is unrealistic. It made me ask so many questions: who is the speaker, where is this safe place and why isn’t it forever? It’s a while before we learn the identity of the first speaker. We are next introduced to Don Challenor, an ordinary middle-aged bloke, an estate agent who has been sacked, who is given a temporary job by his ex- wife Fran. To prepare for sale a multi-million property, Wortalleth West in Cornwall, for a client of Fran’s. Don jumps in his vintage MG to drive west, not realising how his life will change.
In the house he sets about his job, taking photos and measurements in order to prepare the sales brochure. Except the dimensions of one room don’t make sense. There is a mystery void. A steel door which cannot be opened. Is it a panic room? Why is it there? What’s in it? Is it dangerous? Could someone be inside, watching? Or are they trapped? Why not simply ask the owner of the house? Of course, nothing is that straightforward. And so the search to solve the riddle begins.
This is a cracking thriller which starts slowly and winds up and winds up as all the disparate threads of story begin to fall into place. It is an old-fashioned thriller with a conflicted but strong heroine, a disillusioned male hero who rediscovers his strength and guile, an arch villain who cannot be fathomed because he seems too nice and reasonable, and a couple of thugs who don’t worry about the trail they leave. Add in a Cornish witch, a kidnapping and a disappearing teenager, and you begin to wonder how on earth it will all make sense.
Goddard draws a beautiful picture of the Cornish coastline, it will make you want to go there… just not to Wortalleth West. You don’t have to work hard, just sit back and let this master thriller writer take you on a journey of family lies and disappearance, manipulation and fraud, big finance, global warming and cutting edge science. It will not be what you expected.

Read my reviews of Goddard’s other books:-
THE FINE ART OF INVISIBLE DETECTION #1UMIKOWADA
THE WAYS OF THE WORLD #1WIDEWORLDTRILOGY
THE CORNERS OF THE GLOBE #2WIDEWORLDTRILOGY
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH #3 WIDEWORLDTRILOGY
THIS IS THE NIGHT THEY COME FOR YOU #1SUPERINTENDENTTALEB

If you like this, try:-
‘An Officer and a Spy’ by Robert Harris
‘The Travelers’ by Chris Pavone
‘Purity’ by Jonathan Franzen

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#BookReview ‘Hangover Square’ by Patrick Hamilton #WW2 #historical

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Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton, first published in 1941, is deservedly being re-discovered as a perceptive portrayal of people getting-by, living in the low rent district of Earls Court, London, months before war is declared. It is the mournful tale of one man’s hopeless love for a woman who exploits him relentlessly, his inability to see her for what she is, and the battle of his psyche, half of which is telling him to commit murder. George Harvey Bone loves Netta Longdon despite, or perhaps because of, her disdain for him. ‘When she had finished making up, she went into the sitting room to change her shoes, and he followed her. He was always following her, like her shadow, like a dog.’ This is a novel about love, about living on the edge, and schizophrenia, and about the underbelly of a city paused on the brink of war.
The story flicks back and forth in George’s head between his lucid moments planning a new life in Maidenhead when he will stop drinking, and what happens after the ‘click’ in his head – a blackout or loss of sense of time and place – when he realizes the only solution is to kill Netta. George is put-upon by Netta and her circle of friends, he buys drinks, brings food, and they tolerate his company only when he can contribute something. Netta goes to Brighton with George, not to be with him but because she hopes he can introduce her to someone useful. George, bless him, fails to see this. ‘She was wildly, wildly, lovely that night. He looked across the table at her, and she was violets and primroses again.’ Netta and her heartless group of friends exploit George mercilessly and he allows them to do it.
Hamilton’s Earls Court is a seedy place where people get-by on little money, living in rented rooms or boarding houses, scrounging off others, seemingly without jobs to go to. Netta goes to bed in the small hours, rises at eleven in the morning with a hangover – the Hangover Square of the title – then navigates her day via pubs, bars and restaurants or drinking from a bottle of gin provided by a friend. Brighton – London-by-the-Sea – brings a breath of fresh air but, as is always the way, George’s problems follow him there. There is a lovely section when he plays golf, a successful round which gives him the confidence to woo Netta. ‘He wasn’t going to get drunk. She could drink if she wanted to, but he wasn’t going to – at least only a little. He was going to keep his head.’ The irony, of course, is that George is schizophrenic and has another psychotic episode.
This novel is very funny in places, in others the action can seem slow to progress, but I found myself willing George to tell Netta where to go. He is the sort of character you want to take by the hand. Of course, he is unable to stand up to Netta’s rude and ungrateful behaviour and it is the uncertainty of what he will do, where he will go, and whether his schizophrenic murder plans will come to fruition, which made this such an absorbing read.

Read my review of THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE, another World War Two novel by the same author, and click here to try the #FirstPara of THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Heat of the Day’ by Elisabeth Bowen
‘Midnight in Europe’ by Alan Furst
‘At Mrs Lippincote’s’ by Elizabeth Taylor

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#BookReview ‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ by Stuart Turton #crime #thriller

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The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton is a whodunnit version of Groundhog Day set at a country house party. There is a twist: the Bill Murray character must live each day in a different body, a host, and solve a murder or never escape back to his normal life. I found this to be a tortuous, convoluted and mystifying plot, impossible to review without giving away clues (intentionally or not), but I will have a go. If you like conventional detective stories which follow the rules of crime fiction, presenting a challenge to be solved, this may not be for you. If you like going on a mystery journey where nothing is as it seems, you will like it. Mysteries work when the reader has something to cling onto, to make them identify with a character, to make them care, to give them someone to root for. This story has so many unknowns I spent most of the story in a state of confusion. Like Coco Chanel dressing for the evening and then removing two elements to ensure she wasn’t over-dressed, I finished this book wishing the author had undertaken a similar cutting exercise. The solution to the murder, and the fate of the protagonist were not the elements I found most fascinating; I enjoyed the challenge faced by Aiden – if that is his true name – when he inhabits the body of a host, a stranger. The obese body but sharp mind of Lord Ravencourt; the over-excited Jonathan Derby who acts without thinking and molests the chambermaids; the beaten-up butler who knows a lot but lays in bed drifting in and out of consciousness.
The list of characters is so long – with too many similar names, Millicent/Madeline, Daniel/Donald – plus others who are simply unnamed background extras, I couldn’t remember which each one was. This is complicated by the fact that the hero – whose name might be Aiden Bishop – doesn’t know who is who either. He doesn’t know who can he trust, who has he already met at Blackheath House, and who he knew before arriving at the party – as he also has amnesia about his real identity and previous life. Two/three other people are also experiencing this mobile bodied state, and Aiden is competing with them to solve the crime. Because only one, he is told by the mysterious fancy dress Plague Doctor, will survive. Oh and there’s a mysterious footman too who may or may not be trying to kill Aiden. Oddly, none of the other time-trapped people appear in Aiden’s body.
By a quarter through I was seriously confused and becoming seriously irritated. Is this a story best read in one sitting, so you are better able to remember all the twists and obfuscations? But the book is not short, 528 pages. Or could it be that there is just too much going on? A closed room mystery, each day repeating itself, a hero with amnesia who must relive each day in a different host body and be influenced by the stranger’s body and personality, a murder that happens every night meaning the victim cannot be rescued, a competition to solve the murder in order to survive, obtuse threats from sinister unidentifiable figures, key characters introduced rather late in the game. There is no doubting the planning skills of the author but at times I did suspect he set out to wilfully confuse rather than tease the reader. I ran through various scenarios: is it a game show, is it a wind-up like Candid Camera, is Aiden the murderer and doesn’t know it, is Aiden the murderer and cleverly duping everyone?
Ambitious, overwhelming, fantastical, mysterious, I can’t help but admire the ambition of the author and the scope of his story. Hidden beneath the machinations are two serious questions: how far will a person go in order to escape an intolerable situation, and is it ever possible to escape your own past? A Marmite book: love it or hate it.

If you like this, try these:-
‘Himself’ by Jess Kidd
‘The Last of Us’ by Rob Ewing
‘Curtain Call’ by Anthony Quinn

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#BookReview ‘Love is Blind’ by William Boyd #historical

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When a new novel by William Boyd features a male protagonist, my first thought ‘is it another Logan Mountstuart’ with a feeling of anticipation. But Love is Blind is not another version of Any Human Heart. It tells the story of Brodie Moncur, a young Scottish piano tuner who travels Europe as he seeks warmer climes and the love of his life. Boyd is on good form and I raced through Love is Blind, enveloped in Brodie’s end of 19^thcentury/early 20^thcentury story. Told almost exclusively from Brodie’s viewpoint, plus some of the letters he writes and receives, we see the world and the people he meets through his eyes so, as he falls in with thieves the sense of impending doom increases. He is a likeable, believeable character, son of a fire-and-brimstone alcoholic preacher, living in a time of great change as motor cars appear on the road and the signs of war increase but when consumption kills. The details of Brodie’s piano tuning are fascinating, these skills are the passport to his travels, getting him into and out of trouble, enabling him to earn money wherever he finds himself.
When the story starts in 1894 Brodie is a piano tuner for Channon & Co in Edinburgh. Offered a job at the Channon shop in Paris, he takes the opportunity to escape his oppressive father and so falls in with John Kilbarron, a fading Irish concert pianist who comes to rely on Brodie’s magical skills with his tuning tools. The major difficulties of Brodie’s story are established in Paris. He falls in love with Lika Blum, would-be Russian opera singer, who may or may not be in a relationship with Kilbarron. And he starts to cough up blood.
Consumption is diagnosed and Brodie travels to Nice in search of a warmer climate, unable to work, leaving Lika behind. From the beginning, Brodie pursues Lika rather than the other way round, she insists on secrecy and is enigmatic when pressed for details of her earlier life. Warning signs that are obvious to the reader but to which Brodie is blind, the blindness of the title, are everywhere. Lika does not share many secrets and there is no authorial voice to fill in her backstory. He is a young man in love/lust and cannot see what seems to be staring him in the face. He writes a succession of letters which, given the need for secrecy, are foolhardy. So when trouble finds him, in the shape of Kilbarron’s thuggish brother Malachi, it is not a surprise.
The character of Lika is lightly drawn but that is perhaps because Brodie knows so little about her. They arrange assignations in hotel rooms and on riverbanks, passing notes to each other and sharing significant glances. The affair continues as the Kilbarron party moves to St Petersburg, Russia, to perform a programme for a new wealthy benefactor. It is here that the cracks start to appear in the Kilbarron/Moncur relationship.
The final part of the book was less satisfactory for me. The Prologue to the story is a short letter written in 1906 by a woman called Page from an address in the Andaman Islands, Indian Empire, in which Brodie Moncur is briefly mentioned. In Part VII, Brodie is living at Deemer’s Hotel, Port Blair, the Andamans. I found his encounter with ethnologist Page Arbogast and their research trip to the Nicobar Islands superfluous.

Read my reviews of:
ANY HUMAN HEART
NAT TATE: AN AMERICAN ARTIST 1928-1960
ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS
SWEET CARESS
THE BLUE AFTERNOON
THE DREAMS OF BETHANY MELLMOTH
TRIO
WAITING FOR SUNRISE
… and try the first paragraph of ARMADILLO

If you like this, try these:-
‘After the Bombing’ by Clare Morrall
‘The Translation of Love’ by Lynne Kutsukake
‘Exposure’ by Helen Dunmore

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SANDRA DANBY'S BOOK REVIEWS

Sharing thoughts on the books I read, new authors, favourite authors, classics re-visisted

Tag Archives: books

#BookReview ‘Three Sisters, Three Queens’ by Philippa Gregory #Tudor

#BookReview ‘The America Ground’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin #familyhistory #crime #genealogy

Great Opening Paragraph 111… ‘Reading Turgenev’ #amreading #FirstPara

My Porridge & Cream read: Kelly Clayton

#BookReview ‘Things Bright and Beautiful’ by @anbara_salam #historical #adventure

#BookReview ‘Elmet’ by Fiona Mozley #contemporary

#BookReview ‘Panic Room’ by Robert Goddard #thriller

#BookReview ‘Hangover Square’ by Patrick Hamilton #WW2 #historical

#BookReview ‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ by Stuart Turton #crime #thriller

#BookReview ‘Love is Blind’ by William Boyd #historical

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