Trisha Sakhlecha: The inheritance, Penguin Random House UK, Century, 9781529928723, ebook, coming February 2025

Thanks to an early netgalley of "Trisha Sakhlecha's : The Inheritance", my end of summer reading was a gripping mystery, a perfect escapist novel. 

A very wealthy Indian patriach with three children, Myra, Aseem and Aisha, decides to announce how his estate will be split up  amongst them. The Agarwals retreat to the Scottish island Myra is turning into a luxury retreat for a family reunion. As soon as they arrive, family dynamics set in and their mother's manipulative love and expectations do nothing to cover up the reason why everyone came and is so eager to receive their share of the fortune. This includes Zoe, Assam's wife whose voice and that of Myra narrate the mounting toxic developments, climaxing in a death with one of family members losing his/her life. A tight plot, several twists, well drawn out characters against an Indian/English background. 

 Elizabeth Strout: Tell me everything, Viking, 9780241634356, hardback

I loved the latest by Elizabeth Strout "Tell me everything" which I cannot say for all of her books that I have read, her best book in my opinion. 

It left me upbeat,  made me curious what was the next stories that Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge tell each other, about seemingly ordinary things but revealing so much about the inner lives of people they know. 

And then there are the walks between Lucy Barton and Bob Burgess which are more intimate in conversation then their relationships with their current partners, potential trouble looming ... Bob Burgess is by far my favorite character.. a book about friendship, old and new loves, trust, the complexity of relationships  and my favourite quote in the book: Love comes in so many different forms but it is always love! 

 Attica Locke : Guide me home, Viper / Little Brown, 9781788163972 c format paperback, 26. Sept 2024, i read the ebook 

"Guide me home" caught my attention by being awarded the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Daggar Award. 

Set in East Texas, the 3rd book centered around Texas Ranger Darren Mathews who has justed handed in his badge,  is not exactly a crime novel, although at the center is the search for a missing young black sorority student Sera Fuller.  For me this is a fine, engaging novel about a man at a crossroad with very conflicting personal relationships, be it with his current girlfriend, his divorced wife or his mother who drifted in and out of his life but is now making a reappearance or his former superior or colleagues. It is also a great portrait of America's less fortunate, far from the dreamland politicians would like everyone to believe . 

Really was surprised by the captivating story and the exellent writing.

 Tracy Chevalier: The Glassmaker, Harper Collins,  9780008153878, c format paperback, available

" The Glassmaker " by Tracy Chevalier begins in Renaissance Venice, Murano to be precise,  and is a wonderful historical novel of the Rosso family, traditional glassmakers, with  strong female characters  and the charismatic Orsola Rosso at its center,  which I really got into and enjoyed ...until I did not anymore.  

Chevalier chose to tell a story spanning over 500 years,  where she played with time progressing as we know it from history,  but her characters are only aging marginally. Meaning Orsola only ages 8 years wheras in reality 100 yrs have passed. 

 I liked this in the beginning, i loved the characters, the storytelling about glassmaking and its difficulties as a family business through history  but towards the end I felt this was not working anymore, the ending constructed and wobbily in my opinion. Sorry, i loved a lot about this novel but the concept did not work for me. 

 Lisa See: Lady Tan's Circle of Women, Simon + Schuster UK, paperback & ebook available

"Lady Tan's Circle of Women" falls into one of my favorite reading categories, historical based on true facts.  Who would have thought that China had female doctors in the 15th century who, although considered inferior,  where  extremely knowledgable and allowed to treat women's illnesses,  often working together with midwives.

Tan Yunxian really existed but Lisa See took fictional liberties to tell the captivating  story of a female doctor, born into an elite family,  who received her medical training from her grandmother, knowledge passed down through generations.   After being married into an aristocratic family with a mother in law from hell and no longer living under her grandparents protection,  she has to go against convention using every diplomatic skill to be able to help ailing women. 

This is also a  great story of female friendship.  Meiling, a midwife, and Tan seem destined by fate from girlhood onwards to become the rock in each others lives, working together to make female life medically safer during the Ming dynasty .  A great historical read, loved it. 

 Joseph O' Connor: The Ghosts of Rome, Harvill Secker, trade paperback 9781787303881, pub date: January 30, 2025, 

"My Father's House" by Joseph O Connor, the prequel to a" The Ghosts of Rome" , is one of these literary historical thrillers that will stay with you for a while. 

 I was thrilled to be able to read the netgalley of " Ghosts of  Rome" which continues with the work of "The choir", a group of exceptional individuals trapped in the Vatican,  helping people to escape certain death during the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1943/44.   The writing in different voices depending on the background of certain characters is what captured me as did the story although I have to confess to me it lacked the  brilliance of the first book.  Coming in January 2025...

 Charlotte Wood: Stone Yard Devotional, Sceptre, paperback and ebook 

Longlisted for the Booker Prize this year, "Stone Yard Devotional"  is one of these books I would describe as strangely weird but so  beautifully written that you wonder how Charlotte Wood pulled it off. 

At times sobering and sad, I could not stop reading the story of a woman who leaves her husband and life behind, despite not being religious but in search of freedom and peace, to join a small community of nuns in the Australian outback. Add to that an invasion of mice in the convent,  the arrival of the remains of a former nun and another disturbing visitor not only the narrator shares a past with, it is not surprising that the feeling of why should I continue to read this strange story surfaced sometimes. 

But Wood is a remarkable writer, short chapters with reflections on life, flashbacks of the woman's past and  current challenges lend the novel an almost mediative quality.  It is a very special novel about female friendship, solidarity and perseverance. I am very glad I read it.  As was the case with The Weekend, her other brilliant novel about female friendship.