Rewind, recap: Weekly update w/e 20/09/20

So how has your week been? Mine has been a lot more interesting than last week. A lot less bookpost (all that I received I bought myself) but a lot more travel. Due to the never ending changes to the coronavirus rules, I almost thought that we were going to have to cancel our plans for a short getaway but thankfully, with a few concessions and adjustments, we were able to set off north on Friday and we had a wonderful time.

All of the above is very much bookish themed, and in keeping with our LJ Ross month feature as the pictures above and below were taken in Northumberland, namely at Berwick Upon Tweed, Cragside and Holy Island to name but a few locations. I love that part of the country and would gladly visit more often were things a little different. we had to postpone out two week holiday from earlier this year, but now felt like the last chance to have a decent break away so we took it. So glad we did. People were so welcoming and we had the best weekend. If you are ever at a loss as to where to visit in the UK, you could find no better place to go.

Book wise I have read an unimpressive two books, but they were good ones so I forgive me. Purchase wise I treated myself to a copy of On Writing by Stephen King, the 20th anniversary edition don’t you know? I also got the paperback copies of A Song of Isolation by Michael J. Malone and The Seven Doors by Agnes Ravatn. One new Netgalley – The Shadow Man by Helen Fields. Whilst in Corbridge I treated myself to signed copies of Bedlam and The Darkest Evening by Ann Cleeves.

Books I have read

A Death in the Family by Michael Stanley

‘There’s no easy way to say this, Kubu. Your father’s dead. I’m afraid he’s been murdered.’

Faced with the violent death of his own father, even Assistant Superintendent David ‘Kubu’ Bengu, Botswana CID’s keenest mind, is baffled. Who would kill such a frail old man? The picture becomes even murkier with the apparent suicide of a government official. Are Chinese mine-owners involved? And what role does the US Embassy have to play?

When grief-stricken Kubu defies orders and sets out on the killers’ trail, startling and chilling links emerge, spanning the globe and setting a sequence of shocking events in motion. Will Kubu catch the killers in time…and find justice for his father? 

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The Fox by Sólveig Pálsdóttir

Hoping to put behind him tragedy in his professional life and to resolve the turmoil in his personal life, Reykjavík police officer Guðgeir Fransson has moved as far away from home as he can, marking time in a dead-end job in a small town in eastern Iceland.

His detective’s instincts are triggered when he hears about a foreign woman who arrived in this tight-knit community – and then disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared. The trail of the missing woman takes him back to Reykjavík, and then to a remote farmhouse beneath dark mountains where an elderly woman and her son live with their sinister past.

An exciting new voice in Nordic crime fiction, Glass Key Award-nominated Icelandic author Sólveig Pálsdóttir is published for the first time in English.

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That was my lot – I’ve been otherwise engaged. Now down to only two published Orenda Books I’ve not read (although one technically not out until the end of the week!) Busy week on the blog combining Beech Week and LJ Ross month. Recap below.

#Review – The Mountain In My Shoe – Louise Beech
#Review – Dark Skies – LJ Ross
#Review – Maria In The Moon – Louise Beech
#Review – Seven Bridges – LJ Ross
#Q&A – Doug Johnstone
#Review – The Lion Tamer Who Lost – Louise Beech
#The Hermitage – LJ Ross
#How To Be Brave – Louise Beech
#Longstone – LJ Ross
#Call Me Star Girl – Louise Beech
#The Infirmary – LJ Ross
#The Fox – Sólveig Pálsdóttir
#I Am Dust – Louise Beech
#The Moor – LJ Ross
#Penshaw – LJ Ross

15 posts!!! That’s what happens when Mandie and I decided we are going to ‘slow down’. Yeah right. This week LJ Ross month continues plus we have blog tour posts for City of Spies by Mara Timon; The Rhino Conspiracy by Lord Peter Hain; The Life We Almost Had by Amelia Henley and The Seven Doors by Agnes Ravatn.

That’s me done this week. I’m going to lie down in a darkened room now. I need the rest!

Have a fabulous week. See you next time.

Jen x