Hell Bay by Kate Rhodes
Synopsis:
DI Ben Kitto needs a second chance. After ten years working for the murder squad in London, a traumatic event has left him grief-stricken. He’s tried to resign from his job, but his boss has persuaded him to take three months to reconsider.
Ben plans to work in his uncle Ray’s boatyard, on the tiny Scilly island of Bryher where he was born, hoping to mend his shattered nerves. His plans go awry when the body of sixteen year old Laura Trescothick is found on the beach at Hell Bay. Her attacker must still be on the island because no ferries have sailed during a two-day storm.
Everyone on the island is under suspicion. Dark secrets are about to resurface. And the murderer could strike again at any time.
Average Score: 3.8
Review: This book follows a fairly standard murder mystery template but avoids a lot of traditional clichés. The location and island community gave a welcome depth to the story and gave lots of interesting characters to revisit in later books. At some points the relationships developing between characters overtake the interest murder investigation. Its was nice to see some gender stereotypes being broken and providing red herrings along the way to solving the mystery. The eventual murderer took us all by surprise which doesn’t often happen!
Early Riser by Jasper Fforde
Synopsis:
Every Winter, the human population hibernates. During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, and devoid of human activity. Well, not quite.
Your name is Charlie Worthing and it’s your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artefact borne of the sleeping mind.
When the dreams start to kill people, it’s unsettling.
When you get the dreams too, it’s weird.
When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.
But teasing truth from Winter is never easy: You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping and stamp collecting, ensure you aren’t eaten by Nightwalkers whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food, and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk. But so long as you remember to wrap up warmly, you’ll be fine.
Average Score: 3.7
Review: Most of the group enjoyed this book although it was by no means popular with everyone! It highlighted to some readers that they are fans of books mostly based in reality, but with relatively small tweaks. There are some similarities between 1984 and The Matrix, which felt like lazy writing to some. The humour throughout the book was mostly enjoyed although the use of puns started to wear a little thin as the book went on. The plot was a little obvious but enough details were surprising to keep interest in the book. Its definitely an incomplete world – some details are over-explained and irrelevant and other parts are lacking in detail. Its another book where the ending feels a bit rushed and all too tidy.
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Synopsis:
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves The Thursday Murder Club. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.
When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late?
Average Score: 3.7
Review: For the most part we all enjoyed this book. Its easy to read and has gentle humour throughout which is a nice juxtaposition to the grim murders. The murder mystery itself is pretty standard but there are some plot twists to keep interest throughout the book and many clichés are deftly avoided. The end of the book is a little too clean and leaves someone off the hook which didn’t sit well with the group. The characters are interesting and their back stories are deftly woven into the main story.
Zombie Apocalypse by Stephen Jones
Synopsis: In the near future, a desperate and ever-more controlling UK government attempts to restore a sense of national pride with a New Festival of Britain. But construction work on the site of an old church in south London releases a centuries-old plague that turns its victims into flesh-hungry ghouls whose bite or scratch passes the contagion – a supernatural virus which has the power to revive the dead – on to others.
‘The Death’ soon sweeps across London and the whole country descends into chaos. When a drastic attempt to eradicate the outbreak at source fails, the plague spreads quickly to mainland Europe and then across the rest of the world.
Told through a series of interconnected eyewitness narratives – text messages, e-mails, blogs, letters, diaries and transcripts – this is an epic story of a world plunged into chaos as the dead battle the living for total domination.
Average Score: 2.8
Review: This book is a traditional zombie story but told in part via text, email and notebook excerpts. This means some of the images are tricky to read on an e-reader. As its a traditional zombie story the plot is fairly predictable but has humour. The styles change throughout the book which in parts made it tricky to engage with or was reminiscent of a collection of short stories.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Synopsis: Paulo Coelho’s enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world. This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and soul-stirring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried near the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles in his path. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasure found within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.
Average Score: 2.2
Review: This is a short book written in the style of a parable and is true to type throughout. In general, this was not well received by Book Club although a couple of members enjoyed it. It lacks peril and for the most part is twee/trite. It is easy to imagine many of the phrases being used in memes or on inspirational posters over the top of a picture of a kitten. As with other books read recently the ending is a little rushed.
Coffin Road by Peter May
Synopsis: The master of crime brings murder back to the Outer Hebrides.
A man is washed up on a deserted beach on the Hebridean Isle of Harris, barely alive and borderline hypothermic. He has no idea who he is or how he got there. The only clue to his identity is a map tracing a track called the Coffin Road. He does not know where it will lead him, but filled with dread, fear and uncertainty he knows he must follow it.
A detective crosses rough Atlantic seas to a remote rock twenty miles west of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. With a sense of foreboding he steps ashore where three lighthouse keepers disappeared more than a century before – a mystery that remains unsolved. But now there is a new mystery – a man found bludgeoned to death on that same rock, and DS George Gunn must find out who did it and why.
A teenage girl lies in her Edinburgh bedroom, desperate to discover the truth about her father’s death. Two years after the discovery of the pioneering scientist’s suicide note, Karen Fleming still cannot accept that he would willfully abandon her. And the more she discovers about the nature of his research, the more she suspects that others were behind his disappearance.
Coffin Road follows three perilous journeys towards one shocking truth – and the realisation that ignorance can kill us.
Average Score: 3.6
Review: Coffin Road was well written and easy to read (we must find a new way to say that!) and most of the group found it engaging. We enjoyed the atmospheric descriptions of the Hebrides/Highlands. The plot triggers/hints were kept the story moving along. The ending felt rushed and was too cleanly wrapped up in just a few pages. There was really only one character’s death which was left a mystery. There was also one character who had a fairly dramatic change of direction which wasn’t explained. The very last page left a lot of us disappointed – impossible to say why without spoilers!
Recursion by Blake Crouch
Synopsis: A breathtaking exploration of memory and what it means to be human, Recursion is the follow-up novel to the smash-hit thriller, Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch.
What if someone could rewrite your entire life?
‘My son has been erased.’
Those are the last words the woman tells Barry Sutton before she leaps from the Manhattan rooftop.
Deeply unnerved, Barry begins to investigate her death only to learn that this wasn’t an isolated case. All across the country, people are waking up to lives different from the ones they fell asleep to. Are they suffering from False Memory Syndrome, a mysterious, new disease that afflicts people with vivid memories of a life they never lived? Or is something far more sinister behind the fracturing of reality all around him?
Miles away, neuroscientist Helena Smith is developing a technology that allows us to preserve our most intense memories and relive them. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss or the birth of a child.
Barry’s search for the truth leads him on an impossible, astonishing journey as he discovers that Helena’s work has yielded a terrifying gift . . .
Average Score: 4.0
Review: This is our joint second highest scoring book. The concept is more interesting than the characters and the story is told in a few separate chunks of story. Just as you start to get bored the story jumps along and keeps you engaged. There are some definite inconsistencies in the rules put in the story early on but these are not necessarily jarring as the whole tale is intriguing. The story loops round and round but in a good way. We did realise talking about it that we aren’t sure where or when the story really starts!
The Last by Hanna Jameson
Synopsis: For fans of high-concept thrillers such as Annihilation and The Girl with All the Gifts, this breathtaking dystopian psychological thriller follows an American academic stranded at a Swiss hotel as the world descends into nuclear war—along with twenty other survivors—who becomes obsessed with identifying a murderer in their midst after the body of a young girl is discovered in one of the hotel’s water tanks.
Jon thought he had all the time in the world to respond to his wife’s text message: I miss you so much. I feel bad about how we left it. Love you. But as he’s waiting in the lobby of the L’Hotel Sixieme in Switzerland after an academic conference, still mulling over how to respond to his wife, he receives a string of horrifying push notifications. Washington, DC has been hit with a nuclear bomb, then New York, then London, and finally Berlin. That’s all he knows before news outlets and social media goes black—and before the clouds on the horizon turn orange.
Now, two months later, there are twenty survivors holed up at the hotel, a place already tainted by its strange history of suicides and murders. Those who can’t bear to stay commit suicide or wander off into the woods. Jon and the others try to maintain some semblance of civilization. But when the water pressure disappears, and Jon and a crew of survivors investigate the hotel’s water tanks, they are shocked to discover the body of a young girl.
As supplies dwindle and tensions rise, Jon becomes obsessed with investigating the death of the little girl as a way to cling to his own humanity. Yet the real question remains: can he afford to lose his mind in this hotel, or should he take his chances in the outside world?
“Nuclear apocalypse meets murder mystery, with an amazing cast of characters. It’s Stephen King meets Agatha Christie, in this fantastic and highly original novel” – Luca Vesta, author of Dead Gone
Average Score: 3.0
Review: We read this book at the start of lockdown and rarely do reality and a Book Club read align so well. The Last split the group – some found it more enjoyable than others but we all found it easy to read. Its potentially a little forgettable. The book could have been improved by explaining how the war started. None of the characters are particularly likeable and there were definite plot holes – or maybe we just wanted to know more!
Complicity by Iain Banks
Synopsis: n. 1. the fact of being an accomplice, esp. in a criminal act
A few spliffs, a spot of mild S&M, phone through the copy for tomorrow’s front page, catch up with the latest from your mystery source – could be big, could be very big – in fact, just a regular day at the office for free-wheeling, substance-abusing Cameron Colley, a fully paid-up Gonzo hack on an Edinburgh newspaper.
The source is pretty thin, but Cameron senses a scoop and checks out a series of bizarre deaths from a few years ago – only to find that the police are checking out a series of bizarre deaths that are happening right now. And Cameron just might know more about it than he’d care to admit…
Involvement; connection; liability – Complicity is a stunting exploration of the morality of greed, corruption and violence, venturing fearlessly into the darker recesses of human purpose.
Average Score: 2.3
Review: This book is made up of components that should make an amazing novel but it doesn’t quite get there. The writing is easy to read but changing narrators can be confusing. There’s quite a lot of gratuitous sex and violence which doesn’t add to the story and excessive detail about 90s technology (which some of the group enjoyed!) We thought that if the plot was written from the Police Officer’s view, it might be a more enjoyable read. The protagonist is really unlikable and the book is fairly predictable – most of us had guessed the identity of the murderer.
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Synopsis: Under the streets of London there’s a place most people could never even dream of. A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, knights in armour and pale girls in black velvet. This is the city of the people who have fallen between the cracks.
Richard Mayhew, a young businessman, is going to find out more than enough about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his workday existence and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and utterly bizarre. And a strange destiny awaits him down here, beneath his native city: Neverwhere.
Average Score: 3.8
Review: This book was much better received than the last book! Everyone found it an enjoyable read and found the setting interesting. We particularly enjoyed the personification of certain tube stations/London landmarks, especially Old Bailey. We also all really liked the Marquis de Carabas and would love to read more about him. Along the way there are plenty of gentle twists which were genuinely surprising, even if the ending is a little predictable. The subtext of people falling through the cracks in society prompted a good discussion.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Synopsis: English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.
But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England’s magical past and regained some of the powers of England’s magicians. He goes to London and raises a beautiful young woman from the dead. Soon he is lending his help to the government in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, creating ghostly fleets of rain-ships to confuse and alarm the French.
All goes well until a rival magician appears. Jonathan Strange is handsome, charming, and talkative-the very opposite of Mr Norrell. Strange thinks nothing of enduring the rigors of campaigning with Wellington’s army and doing magic on battlefields. Astonished to find another practicing magician, Mr Norrell accepts Strange as a pupil. But it soon becomes clear that their ideas of what English magic ought to be are very different. For Mr Norrell, their power is something to be cautiously controlled, while Jonathan Strange will always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic. He becomes fascinated by the ancient, shadowy figure of the Raven King, a child taken by fairies who became king of both England and Faerie, and the most legendary magician of all. Eventually Strange’s heedless pursuit of long-forgotten magic threatens to destroy not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything that he holds dear.
Average Score: 1.9
Review: Positives – The book is Dickens-esque with many characters with colourful names and did generate some interesting discussions in the group. The last section of the book was most popular and some people found the alternative histories intriguing. It was different to other recent choices (that have accidentally ended up focused on death!).
Negatives – Like the synopsis, this book is long. The reviews included the phrase “rambling windbaggery”, which is a fair summation! Most people felt that some more drastic editing could have been useful, along with the removal of the extensive footnotes. Five people failed to finish this book, the most for this iteration of Book Club. Of the eight people who did finish it, only three actually enjoyed it.
Note: review written by someone who failed to complete the book so some bias may be present!
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
Synopsis: A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.
Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.
Average Score: 4.0
Review: This is one of the most popular books read at Book Club and the first where some group had read the second book in the series before the review. The book is far less predictable than the synopsis suggests and the concept was very interesting. Even the few people who didn’t particularly enjoy the book found it an easy and engaging read. It showed issues of power and corruption. There was a lively discussion around how you’d spend your time if you could live forever, if any of us would be “splatters”, if any of the group thought they could be scythes and what reasoning we’d use to pick the subjects of a scything!
One Second After by William R Forstchen
Synopsis: New York Times best-selling author William R. Forstchen now brings us a story which can be all too terrifyingly real … a story in which one man struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina town after America loses a war, in one second, a war that will send America back to the Dark Ages … A war based upon a weapon, an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP). A weapon that may already be in the hands of our enemies.
Months before publication, One Second After has already been cited on the floor of Congress as a book all Americans should read, a book already being discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a truly realistic look at a weapon and its awesome power to destroy the entire United States, literally within one second. It is a weapon that the Wall Street Journal warns could shatter America. In the tradition of On the Beach, Fail Safe, and Testament, this book, set in a typical American town, is a dire warning of what might be our future … and our end.
Average Score: 1.6
Review: One Second After caused quite the discussion in Book Club. It was predictable, corny, cliched and full of stereotypes. It’s a depressing read with no glimmers of hope or light. Much of the science and survivalist planning was flawed. Its not heavy enough to be useful as a doorstop but could be used for light kindling, which would be more useful in the event of an apocalypse than the contents of this book!
World War Z by Max Brooks
Synopsis: The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.
Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.
Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”
Average Score: 3.6
Review: This is a unique take on a zombie apocalypse. It tracks a world wide zombie apocalypse from early infection to rebuilding via interviews with those on the front line. The themes could be applied to any kind of global pandemic quite easily, which makes it more relatable. It was an enjoyable read, if a little American-centric with obvious stereotypes. In some places the balance between the characters and story was a little off, but overall it was well liked by the group.
Circe by Madeline Miller
Synopsis: In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.
But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.
Average Score: 3.3
Review: It was interesting to see stories from Greek mythology from a new perspective, or to learn about them at all for some of our readers! We felt is was a good summer read, not too complex but not gripping either. Some of the characters lacked depth whereas others jumped out of the page. The ending felt a bit rushed but was poignant.
Best phrase from the review was: “The book highlighted the inanity of immortality!”
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Synopsis: They say that the Thorn of Camorr can beat anyone in a fight. They say he steals from the rich and gives to the poor. They say he’s part man, part myth, and mostly street-corner rumor. And they are wrong on every count.
Only averagely tall, slender, and god-awful with a sword, Locke Lamora is the fabled Thorn, and the greatest weapons at his disposal are his wit and cunning. He steals from the rich – they’re the only ones worth stealing from – but the poor can go steal for themselves. What Locke cons, wheedles and tricks into his possession is strictly for him and his band of fellow con-artists and thieves: the Gentleman Bastards.
Together their domain is the city of Camorr. Built of Elderglass by a race no-one remembers, it’s a city of shifting revels, filthy canals, baroque palaces and crowded cemeteries. Home to Dons, merchants, soldiers, beggars, cripples, and feral children. And to Capa Barsavi, the criminal mastermind who runs the city.
But there are whispers of a challenge to the Capa’s power. A challenge from a man no one has ever seen, a man no blade can touch. The Grey King is coming.
A man would be well advised not to be caught between Capa Barsavi and The Grey King. Even such a master of the sword as the Thorn of Camorr. As for Locke Lamora . . .
Average Score: 3.5
Review: 8 out of 13 reviewers rated this book over 4 and it scored our first ever 5! However one reviewer scored it 0.5 which dragged the average down somewhat! Its a well written book with plenty of humour, twists and turns. We thought it was maybe a little long and could have been split into two books. Some readers found it a little slow to start and the “interludes” to give more character background were well received by some and disliked by others. If you’re a fan of heists and a little bit of fantasy, you’ll like this book.
Them by John Ronson
Synopsis: From the bestselling author of The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry and So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.
A wide variety of extremist groups — Islamic fundamentalists, neo-Nazis — share the oddly similar belief that a tiny shadowy elite rule the world from a secret room. In Them, journalist Jon Ronson has joined the extremists to track down the fabled secret room.
As a journalist and a Jew, Ronson was often considered one of “Them” but he had no idea if their meetings actually took place. Was he just not invited? Them takes us across three continents and into the secret room. Along the way he meets Omar Bakri Mohammed, considered one of the most dangerous men in Great Britain, PR-savvy Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Thom Robb, and the survivors of Ruby Ridge. He is chased by men in dark glasses and unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp. In the forests of northern California he even witnesses CEOs and leading politicians — like Dick Cheney and George Bush — undertake a bizarre owl ritual.
Ronson’s investigations, by turns creepy and comical, reveal some alarming things about the looking-glass world of “us” and “them.” Them is a deep and fascinating look at the lives and minds of extremists. Are the extremists onto something? Or is Jon Ronson becoming one of them?
Average Score: 2.92
Review: Our first non-fiction book, although some of the content reads like fiction! This book created some interesting debate amongst the group although lead to the slightly worrying thought that no amount of logical debate would persuade an extremist to change their minds, because no amount of debate would make us change our minds on certain key things e.g. the Earth is round! It was interesting to see the influence of paranoia on individuals. While the book was quite enjoyable the overall feeling of Book Club to this book was meh, accompanied with a shoulder shrug!
The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
Synopsis: Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her “our little genius.”
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.
Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.
Average Score: 4.13
Review: A new high scorer! This is an excellent twist on the genre and introduces characters in an interesting way. Its a little slow at the start but soon gets going. There was some debate on whether the ending was satisfying but it was certainly interesting! It has similarities to the Day of the Triffids and is based on some real-life science. The film is also good, if you don’t want to read the book.
Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
Synopsis: Mystery novelist Harriet Vane knew all about poisons, and when her former lover died in the manner prescribed in one of her books, a jury of her peers had a hangman’s noose in mind. But Lord Peter Wimsey was determined to find her innocent.
Average Score: 2.75
Review: We thought this book was easy to read but some of the dialogue was a little stilted. There were many strong female characters who were pivotal to the plot and made the book more interesting to read. This scored our first ever 0 due to a ridiculous phrase being used!
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock
Synopsis: This voyage is special. It will change everything…
One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door. One of his captains is waiting eagerly on the step. He has sold Jonah’s ship for what appears to be a mermaid.
As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours and brothels, everyone wants to see Mr Hancock’s marvel. Its arrival spins him out of his ordinary existence and through the doors of high society. At an opulent party, he makes the acquaintance of Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on… and a courtesan of great accomplishment. This chance meeting will steer both their lives onto a dangerous new course, a journey on which they will learn that priceless things come at the greatest cost…
What will be the cost of their ambitions? And will they be able to escape the destructive power mermaids are said to possess?
Average Score: 3.20
Review: Another well written novel with some interesting characters. In fact some characters were so interesting we would be happy to read a spin-off novel about them! There were some inconsistencies in the novel which some readers found distracting. It was well researched and the historical details felt accurate.
The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks
Synopsis: The Culture – a humanoid/machine symbiotic society – has thrown up many great Game Players. One of the best is Jernau Morat Gurgeh, Player of Games, master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel & incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game, a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game and with it the challenge of his life, and very possibly his death.
Average Score: 3.18
Review: We thought this book was easy to read and very well written. It was a little slow to start and has a slightly disappointing ending. It does have some interesting plot points although some of the twists are easy to spot.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Synopsis: A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breath-taking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan’s last thirty years—from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding—that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives—the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness—are inextricable from the history playing out around them.
Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heart-wrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love—a stunning accomplishment.
Average Score: 4.00
Review: For the second month in a row we have a new high scorer! This book it was our most consistent scorer with scores ranging from 3 to 4.5. A Thousand Splendid Suns prompted a lot of discussion with the group and was really thought provoking and heart-wrenching.
This book is very well written and easy to read, although the part breaks can take a little time to get back into the story. It is very harrowing and the first book to evoke tears from some of the members. The intensity builds throughout and while some plot twists are predictable, others really aren’t.
We felt its essential reading to understand what life is like in war torn countries and what its like for the people just trying to live their lives.
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
Synopsis: ‘Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come round again. That’s why they’re called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.’
For a policeman, there can be few things worse than a serial killer at loose in your city. Except, perhaps, a serial killer who targets coppers, and a city on the brink of bloody revolution. The people have found their voice at last, the flags and barricades are rising…And the question for a policeman, an officer of the law, a defender of the peace, is:
Are you with them, or are you against them?
Average Score: 3.86
Review: This is our highest scoring book to date, with four people rating it 5 out of 5. Most of Book Club had read this book before and were happy to re-read it. Four members hadn’t read the book (or any Terry Pratchett) previously. The book had mixed results with readers new to Terry Pratchett, but we all agreed it was an easy read with an enjoyable story. While its part of a series, it reads ok as a standalone novel even if you’re aware you’re missing out on a private joke here or there.
We drew similarities to Les Miserables (barricade building) and The Adjustment Bureau (fiddling with time). It was noted that this is a more mature/grown-up Pratchett, with slightly darker themes.
Answers on a postcard please for how ginger beer is used as a torture device!
You Don’t Know Me by Imran Mahmood
Synopsis: An unnamed defendant stands accused of murder. Just before the Closing Speeches, the young man sacks his lawyer, and decides to give his own defence speech.
He tells us that his barrister told him to leave some things out. Sometimes, the truth can be too difficult to explain, or believe. But he thinks that if he’s going to go down for life, he might as well go down telling the truth.
There are eight pieces of evidence against him. As he talks us through them one by one, his life is in our hands. We, the reader – member of the jury – must keep an open mind till we hear the end of his story. His defence raises many questions… but at the end of the speeches, only one matters: did he do it?
Average Score: 2.68
Review: This is a great story told in an unusual way. Most people found the story fascinating, but the telling of that story hard to read. This book is written by a barrister who has represented many people like this unnamed defendant to give a voice to those people affected by things outside of their control.
The Coincidence Authority by J. W. Ironmonger
Synopsis: One seagull and four pieces of bread decide the course of one person’s life. But is the rest just coincidence? Thomas Post is an expert on coincidence. He’s an authority. Every coincidence, he says, can be explained by the cold laws of chance. But why then do coincidences so afflict the life of Azalea Lewis? And why has Thomas Post’s orderly life been thrown into such disarray by the coincidences of Azalea?
This is the tale of two lost souls, each with a quest to understand the secret patterns hidden in a very random universe. It is the story of the short but eventful life of Azalea Lewis, a foundling child discovered at a travelling fair; and it is the unfolding story of Thomas Post who looks for patterns in a haphazard world, and who finds his belief in the fabric of life challenged by Azalea. From the windswept tranquillity of a Manx village, to the commuter swarms of London, to the brutal abduction of child soldiers in Africa, this is a search for truth, a search for God, a search for love, and a search for a decent pizza in North London.
Average Score: 3.32
Review: We wanted more coincidences! This was a well written, easy to read book. Some of the tales from Africa were harrowing, but were wrapped around lighter chapters.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Synopsis: A race for survival among the stars… Humanity’s last survivors escaped earth’s ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age – a world terraformed and prepared for human life.
But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind’s worst nightmare.
Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?
Average Score: 3.25
Review: Half of the club loved this book; half weren’t so sure. Its quite a long read that could possibly have benefitted from some editing. It is a fascinating insight into societies as they form, evolve and hopefully adapt. If you read this book you’ll recognise themes from many of our ancient civilisations.
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
Synopsis: Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London’s Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he’ll face is a paper cut. But Peter’s prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter’s ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.
Average Score: 3.71
Review: This was a popular book with most of the Book Club. We enjoyed the story, location and humour of the book, although felt some sections could have been shorter. There are also “set-ups” about recurring characters in the series that feel unexplained in this book.
White Bones by Graham Masterton
Synopsis: One wet November morning, a field on Meagher’s Farm gives up the dismembered bones of 11 women. In this part of Ireland, unmarked graves are common, but these bones date to 1915, long before the Troubles. What’s more, these bones bear the marks of a meticulous executioner. These women were almost certainly skinned alive. Detective Katie Maguire is used to dead bodies. But this is wholesale butchery. Her team think these long-dead women are a waste of police time. Katie is determined to give them justice. And then a young American tourist goes missing, and her bones, carefully stripped of flesh, are discovered on the same farm. With the crimes of the past echoing in the present, Katie must solve a decades-old ritualistic murder before this terrifying killer strikes again.
Average Score: 3.05
Review: Well, none of us saw the twist coming in a book that divided its readers! Its certainly an original story in the detective/thriller genre. If you like detective novels, folk lore and don’t mind some slightly dodgy Irish phrasing, this could be the book for you!
The Next Chapter Book Club 