Coming Up Trumps

I can't tell you how much I loved this book. I have become a bit of a fan of Baroness Trumpington in recent years (since seeing her on Have I Got News For You), and I was so delighted to be able to sit down and read this book. So delighted in fact that I spent most of the day with my nose in it and eventually went to sleep at midnight (which is very late indeed for me).

What a fascinating life Jean Trumpington has led: land girl, civil servant at Bletchley Park, headmaster's wife, magistrate, life peer. This memoir is packed with stories from all these periods of her life and all the other equally fascinating bits in between. Growing up in social circles that included the Lloyd George family, Trumpers's tales often feature well-known names from the period, and helped me to better fit together the pieces of stories that I have read sketchy details about in the past. I enjoyed reading about all the stages of her life, but a particular favourite part came once she and her husband Barker had moved to Cambridge, where he was headmaster of the Leys School for seventeen years. I very much enjoyed reading about her experiences of living in a city that I know so well.

What I really loved about the book though was the humour, the spark, the naughtiness and the glass half-full attitude to life. Trumpers has had a wonderful life, but she has really embraced all the opportunities that she has been given and made the best of everything. I have huge admiration for her and I am absolutely thrilled that her book is currently riding high in the best sellers list.

Long live Trumpers!

A Dark And Twisted Tide- Sharon Bolton

Ex-Detective Lacey Flint has quit the police for a safer, quieter life. Or that's what she thinks. Living alone on a houseboat, she is trying and failing to get over the man she loves, undercover detective Mark Joesbury. But Mark is missing in action and impossible to forget. And danger won't leave Lacey alone...

When she finds a body floating in the river, wrapped in white burial cloths, she can't resist asking questions. Who is this woman and why was she hidden in the fast-flowing depths? And who has been delivering unwanted gifts to Lacey? Someone is watching her very closely. Someone who knows exactly what makes her tick...

I was very kindly given a chance to read this early by the publisher (it is out in the UK tomorrow) and I absolutely LOVED it. I confess, I haven't read any of the earlier books in the Lacey Flint series (this is number 4) , and I now feel that I need to know more about the character's backgrounds and stories, so I will be starting again at the beginning. This didn't spoil my enjoyment of this book as a standalone thriller at all though. The characters (despite my limited knowledge of their past-lives) are strong, realistic and quite fascinating, and the plotting is sharp, with twists galore and raising some very interesting cultural issues. Near the end I thought that I had an idea who the culprit was, and in the end I was right, but not before the story had twisted back and forth several times, with me absolutely gripped.

The River Thames is a fabulous backdrop to the story, and Sharon Bolton describes it brilliantly. I only know London as a visitor, and love wandering over the central bridges, looking down at the river. Here though, away from the main landmarks of the city, the Thames, with its creeks and channels, is dark, menacing and quite frankly terrifying at times. I'm not sure I'll be able to look at it in the same way again the next time I stop on a bridge with my children to wave at people on the boats below.

All in all a very well written gripping page-turner of a thriller. I thoroughly recommend it!

First posts are a nightmare.

Once I get into this blogging lark I am sure I'll be perfectly fine, but starting to write is hard, so I'll just jump in.

I love books, more than pretty much any material item that I can think of. I love fashion, I love skincare and beauty, I love music and good tv, but I LOVE books. In my head I am Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail, with my little independent bookshop that children and adults love to visit, and good hair and knitwear. Nora Ephron was a genius.

This is all somewhat to the bewilderment of my husband, who likes books, but fails to understand why all the bookshelves in our house are overflowing, my Kindle account is very actively used and the courier who delivers my Book People orders drives to my house on auto-pilot. The latter is a bit embarrassing, I'll concede. 

Anyway, books and reading are my thing, and I really enjoy being able to recommend amazing books to friends, so I thought I could do so here, and if I have any readers, they can tell me what they are reading, and so on. Or, if no one reads this, I can just write to myself about my favourite books. That would be a bit weird though, so please read!