Lynne Patrick
Where did 2013 go? It only feels like minutes since it began.
Then again, a lot has happened. Though we didn’t visit America this year, I made new American friends – hi, Marilyn, hope all’s well in your world. We did visit France, and it was beautiful. We celebrated a cousin’s 90th birthday, and one of those scary wedding anniversaries with a zero at the end.
And I read a lot of books. Here’s a selection of favourites from the second half of the year.
July
Another extraordinary debut came my way as summer began to warm up. It’s called The Second Life of Amy Archer, and it’s by R S Pateman. It should carry a health warning: it will rattle your preconceptions, shake your prejudices, mess with your head, and above all make you THINK. And it’s nothing like Gone Girl. It doesn’t even have orange on the cover.
August
This one did have orange on the cover, but don’t let that put you off. It was the second in a new series by an established author, Harry Bingham. Love Story, With Murders sounds as if it ought to be romantic suspense. It’s not. It starts with a body, or rather a leg complete with high-heeled shoe, found in a deep freeze. The body parts which subsequently turn up are distributed far and wide, and add up to two (almost) complete corpses.
Then it really starts to get dark...
The reason this one stays in the mind is the protagonist: Fiona Griffiths, ace, though maverick, detective, never happier than when unravelling mystery at work, but quite unable to cope with real life. Intrigued? You will be. I certainly was.
September
Would you believe I actually ran out of books while I was on holiday? Not unconnected with the way my taste was completely out of kilter with the owners of the house we rented; usually I can find one or two on their shelves which will at least pass the time, but chicklit and horror simply don’t do it for me, and most of the crime fiction appeared to be Dexter, who has never appealed.
So towards the end of the fortnight I borrowed from my daughter, and I’m glad I did. Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death: twelfth century, a little earlier than Cadfael, protagonist a female pathologist, or what would become a pathologist. It sings. The good news is it’s the first in a series of four. The bad is there won’t be any more; sadly, the author died last year.
October
It’s always sad when a favourite author dies, but sometimes there’s a substantial backlist to explore, which makes the sadness more nostalgic and less poignant. Reginald Hill had been writing since I was a mere slip of a girl with literary pretensions, so I still have a lot of catching up to do, especially of his standalones. In a month of largely OK-but-I’m-not-blown-away, The Stranger House stood out like a beacon. Could that man ever write!
November
Some months are like buses – nothing comes along for ages, then you get three, one after the other. November was half gone, I’d read four books which were firmly in the OK-but-I’m-not-blown-away category, and I was starting to despair of finding anything worth recommending.
Then came Meg Gardiner. I’ve read most of her two series; this was a standalone, unless she decides to come back to the character (whose profession would certainly make that possible), and I could hardly bear to put it down. The Shadow Tracer. Phew.
Then the postman arrived. I don’t often buy stuff online, but my local bookshop tends to look blank when I ask for Julia Spencer-Fleming. Or they used to, when, despite her large UK following, the books had to be sourced in the USA. She now has a British publisher – and not before time! Through the Evil Days is the living, breathing, dancing proof that the best authors up their game in every book. I thought she’d struggle to cap One Was a Soldier, but whaddya know, she has!
The third wasn’t crime. That’s not an apology; a girl needs to ring the changes. Deborah Moggach; Heartbreak Hotel. On the surface a similar concept to her last big hit, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – but so not the same! It’s witty, poignant, perceptive, a page-turner... what more could a readerholic want?
December
Candlenight. Phil Rickman. His first published novel. They say practice makes perfect, which in theory should mean each book an author produces should be better than the last one. On this evidence I’d say Mr Rickman pretty well had it sussed when he began.
And The Edge of Normal, by Carla Norton. All I can say is – wow!
In last year’s list of favourites, only four of my choices were by authors I was unfamiliar with; this year the count has gone up to nine – more than half the total over the year. Four were the start of series, either already in progress or treats in store, and I’ll be looking for more by the other five authors too.
Which is just the way I like it.
For 2014, my friends, I wish you good health, good luck and good reading.
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