Rivals

This week has flown by in a blur of still having the same cold (or maybe it's a new one) and work being full on. I am very much in need of a holiday, and happily one is not far away. Meanwhile the clocks going back - always my favourite day of the year, it's the one where the day actually feels long enough for a change and I don't feel like I'm running to stand still.

I've celabrated this by making a batch of quince jelly, this years mincemeat, and mixing up a bottle of mixed spice - all things that make me happy. I've also watched the last episode of Jilly Cooper's Rivals. It's almost a decade since I last tried reading a Cooper - I hated Jump and couldn;t actually finish it. In the interveneing years I even got rid of my once beloved copy of Riders, I can't imagine I could stomach that now either. But I've loved watching Rivals, it's fabulous television. 

In my late teens/early adult days Cooper was a guilty pleasure who I genuinley beleaved captured something vital about the late 70s and 1980s. She was also the sort of writer that an earnest young woman felt the need to defend herself for reading back in the day. I think if I re read those books now I'd still think they reflected something of the time they were written, but probably not things I want to remember. 

The genius of the tv series has been to present itself as a period drama, capture the brash optomism and glamour of the era for the well to do, and absolutly ignore all the hardship of the time - because these books were always about escapism. The casting has also been genius, Alex Hassel as Rupert Campbell-Black absolutly has the neccesary charisma for the role and is much more convincing than previous actors who have attempted the role, but there are so many brilliant turns in this, especially from the women.

Which is another thing this adaptation gets right, the female characters here might not get the lines, they don't in the books either, but whilst the men get to chew scenery with gusto, those women are bringing the depth to the story (in amongst all the bonking). The attention to detail is also phenomanal, along with all the small jokes and references - right up to the cliffhangers it ends with - please let there be another series.

I couldn't honestly recommend reading Jilly Cooper now, but absolutly watch this to get the sense of what made her books beloved in the first place. 

Charity Girl - Georgette Heyer #1970Club

I hadn't given the 1970 club much thought - works been busy and the commitments are stacking up, but mid week I had an idle look to see if Heyer had published anything - I knew it was towards the end of her life. 

She had, Charity Girl, though initially, I started reading Lady of Quality (1972) because I mixed them up. The later books are not Heyer's best, but having waded through Charity Girl I'm wondering if it's the worst book she ever wrote? There would certainly be an argument for it.

The faults are many - too much slang, endlessly repetitive, main characters who are essentially unappealing, and spend so little time on the page together that there's no sense of chemistry, a plot that doesn't make a great deal of sense, not much happens, and a complete lack of the humour that I associate with Heyer. She was elderly at this point, and not enjoying the best of health, and maybe that's why this one is such a stinker.

There are a couple of redeeming features - as Heyer gets older her heroines move out of their teens or very early 20s into their mid 20s and their are no more heros decades older than the lady. In this book there's a lot of discussion about a perfectly pleasant young woman - the charity girl of the title - who finds herself in a household of bullies. She runs away with the hope of finding a home with her grandfather, gets taken up by the hero who has briefly met her, and then deposited for safe keeping with his best friend and eventual love interest. But 1970 seems late for a discussion of how limited women's prospects were outside of marriage and as it goes, Cherry has found friends and we never feel like she won't be alright. 

Otherwise the characters are all well worn versions from previous books, and something that might have worked as a novella or a short story is dragged out to a tedious length. There's also an unpleasant kind of snobbishness running through the narrative about Cherry - her family is fairly awful, but that's not her fault, and frequent discussion about how it would be a disgrace to marry her and something the hero would never lower himself to do grates a little.

I'm not sorry I read it, apart from anything else it's a fair reminder that if this is where critics started it's no surprise they're critics, but there is something a little sad about seeing a writer I love at her worst. 

Starling House - Alix E. Harrow

Another week, another visit to the dentist. The filling I had last week had 'lifted' so it was kind of loose and scratching the inside of my cheek, but still in firmly enough to need drilling out, and altogether it's been a nuisance. I now have a new filling and a lot of paranoia as my dentist clearly has no faith in this one lasting any longer than the 4 days the previous effort managed. She's away on holiday next week but assured me one of her colleagues would do a temporary fix if needed. Not encouraging. 

Starling House was my Cheltenham book and read mostly for work. I came at it with limited expectations but ended up really enjoying it. It's an excellent autumn choice - full of Gothic (specifically Southern Gothic) atmosphere. It riffs smartly on Beauty and the Beast and the Hades and Persephone myth whilst making something almost benign out of the haunted house trope. 

Opal Jewell lost her mother 10 years ago, since then she's done lied, forged, and connived her way to keeping her brother with her and getting by with the hope she can find a way out of their small town, dead-end life for him. Then one day she finds the gates of Starling House open for her - it and it's owner have a decidedly grim reputation in town, but it calls to her one outcast to another. She takes up a suspiciously well-paid job there as a cleaner and gets a much closer look at some of the house's secrets. 

Unfortunately for all Opal isn't the only one interested in those secrets. There's a threatening corporate outfit who would also very much like to know what Starling House is and how they can exploit it, and they're an entirely credible threat. Harrow also explores the legacy of slavery, abuse, and generational trauma, but with a reasonably light hand. It's enough to give the book substance without overwhelming the reader in misery. Overall the book is a slow burner with a lot of atmosphere balancing the early lack of action. 

The tropes and influences are well warn, but Starling House does it better than most of the examples I can think of, so I don't mind that at all. Harrow has written Young Adult in the past and the only real criticism I have of this book is that her main characters read a good few years younger than their stated ages of late 20s and early 30s. In a charitable mood, I could put that down to their personal histories - Opal's younger brother seems more mature than she does, so maybe she's meant to read like this. It's probably also part of what makes this feel like a book that would be suitable for anyone from youngish teen upwards, and after a summer of fantasy books heavy on smut and violence, it's been a relief to read something more thoughtful and low-key.

Altogether a hit for me; a smart, well crafted, Gothic fairy tale with excellent world building and convincingly fallible characters. I'd describe it as solid rather than brilliant, and mean it as a compliment.

A Lively Midwinter Murder - Katy Watson

I'm more or less over my Cheltenham cold - still coughing but mercifully no longer snotty, and wondering how it's almost half way through October already. I'm normally a bit further ahead with Christmas plans by now but I'm not really feeling it this year - except for the Christmas books which are filtering in at work and turning me thoughts somewhat festive. Or murderous seeing as it's crime and dark folklore I'm mostly being drawn towards. 

A Lively Midwinter Murder is the fourth outing for the 3 Dahlias, as a series it continues to go from strength to strength. Do our actresses meet a more than statistically likely amount of murders - yes, but it's not as if celebrity circles are scandal or crime-free. The motivation in this book is also the most compelling one yet. The setting is atmospheric and fun, the characters continue to develop into believable people, and the further involvement of the ladies various partners is a nice touch - it makes those relationships more convincing as well. 

I really like the way Katy Watson evokes golden age atmosphere and tropes in a contemporary setting as well. Not everybody can carry this trick off as well as she does, and I'm wondering if the key here is the strong friendship between the 3 Dahlia's themselves. I can't think of another series or book that has this mix of 3 women of different ages negotiating life, love, and career whilst solving crime together. If anyone has a recommendation though, I'd love to hear it. 

The central friendship is far more important than any background romances which also makes a pleasant change. I love the relationship between Lord Peter and Harriet Vane as much as the next person, and between every other detective and their significant other, or the relationship between Lord Peter and his Bunter for that matter (and so on) but an equal friendship without social hierarchy, gender, or job in the way is a nice touch. 

In short, an excellent Christmas mystery with ruined weddings, snow storms, ghost stories, a Scottish castle, mince pies, and murder for lovers of the cosier sort of crime to look forward to this November (I've only just realised that I read an advanced review copy and didn't think to check the publication date until this moment)

Cheltenham Literature Festival Set Up

I spent last week helping set up for Cheltenham Literature festival - it;s one of the oldest, and though I can't easily find specific information on this, I think probably one of the UKs largest too - there are 400 events over 10 days with some really big names attached in venues all over the town as well as the Montpellier gardens sight, it's definitely not small.

It's by far the largest thing I've been involved in, and it was fascinating. We built 3 bookshops from the floor up, 2 of them on a grand scale in 4 days, Moved tons of stock and furniture, and saw some of the effort that goes into making something like this come together. I left on the first day of events as work needed me back in Leicester - I have mixed feelings about leaving halfway through. I loved the setup and meeting colleagues, and as a Cheltenham first-timer, it was good to have the more gentle introduction before all the crazy stuff that can go wrong with live events kicked in - the last-minute cancellations are wild. I also caught a cold that would have made the next few days miserable...

On the other hand I'm missing some amazing events and the chance to say hello to some people I'd love to have met. But there will be other opportunities to do that, and I'm more inclined to go to a book festival as a paying customer after this. As a none driver I've looked at headline events and train fairs in the past and thought no. Hours of cross checking events over the last few days has taught me that the majority of the things I want to see would not be headline events and are fairly reasonably priced - I'd think about it for next year.

The best thing might well have been seeing all the books - more stock than we have in our local branch across all the sights and an emphasis on new titles with supporting backlist for speakers, not all of which we will see in Leicester. I knew this about books generally, but unpacking pallet after pallet of them is something like looking through old photograph albums. Books about art, books about wine, books written by people I'm friendly with, books published by people I'm friendly with, books about people I've crossed paths with, books I've loved, and books I've loathed. Day to day this is not how I interact with stock at work where it's the odd thing that strikes a chord. On this scale the whole orchestra was playing. 

How To Solve Your Own Murder - Kristen Perrin

I picked this up mostly because I liked the cover and there's a bit of buzz about it - it looked like it was going to be a decent easy read at the cosier end of the crime scale. And more or less it is exactly that, but a quote from the mail that says "This has a Netflix series written all over it..." probably more or less sums it up. There's lots of great visuals in here and an intriguing plot, it would televise nicely, but it doesn't quite hang together as a book. 

I didn't check until I'd finished reading but Kristen Perrin is American, she moved to England to do a masters and then a PHD after several years as a bookseller. It probably explains a few of the anomalies - the most glaring of which seems to be a lack of understanding of how titles and property are handed down through British aristocracy, or inheritance tax. 

I'm not sure who exactly this book is aimed at, cosy crime suggests middle age to me (because I'm middle aged and I don't like violent psychological crime thrillers, but plenty of my contemporaries do so that's worth very little), but the cover maybe suggests a younger more design-conscious, bookstagram, reader. They may not be particularly well-versed in the inequities of primo geniture either for all I know, but I grew up on Jane Austen before moving on to Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. 

I suppose there might be a world where a small English Village had two ambulances stationed in it, but not one where paramedics commonly worked alone - who hasn't seen enough Casulty to understand that? And the 60s might have been swinging in London and the bigger cities, but attitudes towards sex outside of marriage for middle-class girls in the counties took a long time to catch up, and so did the availability of condoms. There's a very sketchy understanding of the current art market too. 

The premise of How To Solve Your Own Murder is that in 1965 three teenage girls have their fortune read at the village fair, one is told her future contains dry bones and she will be murdered. She takes it to heart, and after another one of the three goes missing she dedicates her life to solving that mystery and evading her own fate. Eventually, more than half a century later she is murdered just as her great-niece has been sent for as a new potential heiress - she might be the right daughter mentioned in the fortune who will bring justice. 

Annie is an unemployed would be crime novelist living in a Chelsea mansion with her artist mother on the charity of Great Aunt Frances. She seems a bit flakey, the terms of the will say if she solves her great aunt's murder within a week and before the police or the other potential heir - I don't think this is a will that would stand up in court. Much of the detection work revolves around reading Frances' diaries that Annie has discovered from the summer of 1965, and these flashbacks are probably the best bit of the book, the characters come alive, and the plot holes are less glaring. 

This is the first in a planned series, it will probably do well, and there are worse things out there, but it fell flat for me. The resolution to the 1960s murder is flimsy, and half an hour's research would have cleared up some silly errors - that nobody thought it worth checking any of these details made me, as a reader, feel taken for granted. 

Martini - Alice Lascelles

If 20 years in the wine trade gave me a really strong set of prejudices about anything it centres around making cocktails at home. When it comes to most things wine, beers, or spirit related there isn't a right or wrong - if that odd food match works for you go for it. Buy the wine you enjoy, drink whatever neon-hued liqueur takes your fancy (there may be mild prejudice there), and if a mass produced lager appeals more than an artisanal brew - well, you get the idea. 

With cocktails and most things pertaining to them I strongly believe there's a right and a wrong way to go about things, partly born out of bitter and expensive experience in the early days of learning about them using crappy 80s guides and not great ingredients. 

the first rule to observe is that unless you're prepared to invest serious time, money, and effort, leave the really fancy stuff for going out to a really fancy bar. The second is to start with a good book. Alice Lascelles writes very good books full of really practical advice and her deep dive into the Martini is a joy.

If ever there was a drink designed to tweak into your own signature serve it's a Martini. It's veered from super dry to sweet and fruity over its long life - where hits the spot for you is a matter of personal judgement, there's a good bit of fun to be had in working that out. 

So going back to rule 2, and what makes this such a good book is the way it breaks everything down and covers all the practicalities. For a drink that can be neat gin or vodka the details matter - starting with ice, working through glassware, and finishing up with ingredients. For most of us, all of these things need to be sensibly priced - and that's exactly what Lascelles recommends. Glasses that aren't too large - you don't want your Martini to have time to warm up (and I don't want it in knock-out quantities either) mid-priced, and easily available, ice trays that work well, and make decent sized cubes - the details matter.

The choice of ingredients is smart here too, easily available, premium but not super premium spirits, and discussion around the differences different vermouths make to a drink. There's also a useful guide to the properties of vermouth and that it doesn't keep well - so one bottle at a time and take the time to consider which flavour profile works for you. 

From there the recipes come with tips for garnishes and how to prepare them, and an entertaining little potted bio of each iteration. I love this book, I've loved reading it, am looking forward to drinking from it, and am planning on giving it widely this Christmas to stylish friends who imbibe. It ticks all the boxes. 

A New Jumper

I've knitted a few jumpers now and got past the early failures of too big, too long, and generally unwearable to a reasonable sense of what works for me, so this time I decided to try without an actual pattern to follow, although I did look at Donna Smith's Peerie Leaves for a general size guide. Very general because the Jamieson and Smith 5 ply doesn't equate to the DK that pattern uses so there was added guesswork for the number of stitches to cast on. I used 4mm needles too, which I like for this because I prefer a lighter fabric that I can layer. I'm sorely tempted to order a couple more cones straight away to start a second jumper on smaller needles for when I want something slightly more windproof though. 

Basically I'm happy with the result except for the neck. Long story short I should have added at least another 18 stitches to it, I went down a needle size first time thinking the tighter knit would help with structure. It was too tight so I had to rip it back, and definitely dropped some stitches in the process. I did not manage to effectively pick them all back up so after I'd knitted the neck for a second time and finally clicked on where I'd gone wrong (it should have had another pattern repeat/18 stitches) I didn't want to risk ripping back again. 

More than anything though I've fallen in love with the yarn. It's lovely to knit with, the colors are fabulous, and it feels great. It's not as grippy as the shetland yarns I'm used to - hence the slipped stitches on the neck but I cannot wait to wear this or to knit more with the 5 ply. It's probably for the best that I can't call in to the shop right now, there's zero chance I'd exercise even a minimum of self restraint. If I order online I do at least have to meet the postman's eye and all the judgement I imagine I'm seeing there. This is the work postman, a genuinely nice man who yet manages to make the most ordinary conversation sound threatening.

Anyway, I strongly recommend trying the 5 ply. It comes in 50g balls and 250g cones. For a jumper to fit a UK size 20 with negative ease I used just over 1.5 cones of the main colour, maybe 20 -25g each of the other colours. Unless you're seriously skinny and like a fairly cropped jumper you would definitely want 2 cones for any larger project. 

Long Live Evil - Sarah Rees Brennan

I have a weakness for a cosy sort of fantasy that doesn't take itself or the genre too seriously but does treat it with affection and respect. It started with Terry Pratchett at a formative age and has been reignited by the current vogue for this particular subgenre. Some books have been better than others, Long Live Evil, which I listened to while knitting surprised me with how much I liked it. It doesn't do anything particularly new, but it does it much better than a few other examples I can think of. 

Rae is a 20 year old woman dying of cancer with pretty much only her younger sister by her side. Het father abandoned the family when the going got to tough, and her mother is too busy working to try and pay medical bills (it is an American book). Her friends have moved on and it's all fairly bleak, when one day a mysterious woman tells her she can have a second chance in her favourite book series - if she retrieves a mystical flower in the book she'll be cured in her own world. 

It sounds like nonsense, but what do you do but humour a mysterious stranger, even on your deathbed. So nobody is more surprised than Rae when she wakes up in Time of Iron, as a villainess. Unfortunately, she never really read the first book in the series properly, it was her sister's favourite first, becoming something they shared. She's listened to her sister read it to her, but not very closely so there's a lot of very hazy detail. 

Even more unfortunately she does remember that the character she's currently inhabiting is due to be executed the next day, but Rae isn't going to give up on her second chance so easily no matter what it does to the plot - which spins further and further away from her. 

Chaos ensues. Sarah Rees Brennan is transitioning from YA to adult here, and does it well. She interrogates fandom and it's obsessive nature, but with enough good humour to see the good as well as the bad in it. She has fun with her characters and discusses some reasonably dark themes, but avoids smut - this wouldn't be inappropriate for her younger audience to read. I found this one fun and look forward to book two and seeing where she takes her story next. 

Seven Lively Suspects - Katy Watson

It's been an up and down kind of week - I've been having problems with my foot that I'd been assured by consultant were arthritis and would be helped by a steroid injection. After a very long wait, I finally had an appointment for that injection on Monday. Just before needles were brandished it turned out that over almost 2 years of consultations and scans (4 appointments in that time) they had the wrong foot. No injection, the arthritis in my left foot isn't bad enough to warrant it and it wouldn't have done anything for the actual problem in my right foot. So back to the beginning but with much less mobility and much more pain than I had 2 years ago. I'm both angry and upset which is a poor combination online. 

I'm making good progress on a jumper though and been listening to a couple of audio books whilst I do it. I've been sent a review copy of A Very Lively Midwinter Murder which made me realise I hadn't read this one yet. It's still in hardback and I didn't like book 2 in the series enough to want to buy it until the paperback release. 

I enjoyed Seven Lively Suspects far more than A Very Lively Murder - which was okay (thoughts here) which I felt lacked character development and had too high a body count. Seven Lively Suspects reins back considerably on the murder and does much better by its 3 main characters who are really starting to come to life. With book 5 due out in the spring this series clearly has no shortage of ideas to play with.

The charm of book one was in the 3 strong female leads - all actresses who have played or are playing the same fictional detective (Dahlia Lively) along with the references to various golden age crime writers - Agatha Christie in an obvious candidate but in book one there were references to Dorothy L. Sayers, and in this book I thought I saw parallels to Josephine Tey. If there were similar references in book 2 I missed them. 

Here our actress detectives are asked to join a true crime podcast set to re-examine a cold case, Caro the middle Dahlia has a connection to the case in that she testified against the presumed culprit and helped send him to prison. The mix of guilt and fear she feels is persuasive, and so is the friendship between the three Dahlias.

 The mystery hangs together nicely, I guessed the wrong murderer, and Caro's, now a true crime writer herself, appropriation of Katy Watson's books is another amusing touch as is the literary festival setting. Cosy crime isn't normally my thing but I like this series for its homage to the golden age and the fun it has with what it's doing. I didn't like the narration of the audio book - I found the tone mildly annoying, the accents felt off, and the humour over stressed. It wasn't enough to stop me from listening, but enough to think I'm much better off reading the physical book. 

Shetland with Laurie Goodlad and Otter Spotting

Shetland Your Essential Travel Guide by Laure Goodlad is the latest book from Misa Hay's 60 North Publishing project. If you're planning a trip to Shetland it's definitely worth giving Laurie a follow on Instagram, and ordering her book either direct from 60 North or through the Shetland Times bookshop. I bought it as soon as I got up there with the definite intention of doing something I'd never done before. After consulting the book and my general level of fitness (arthritis is playing hell with my right foot, and I can't currently walk as far as I'd like and really not very far off road - I'm scheduled for an injection to help with the pain a week today) I thought a sea bird tour around Noss would be perfect.

Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas, it was sunny for most of our time in Shetland, but also windy enough on the free days I had not to be ideal for a boat trip. Next time. Meanwhile the book is full of excellent walks, info for shopping for wool and knitwear, things to see, photography tips, heritage attractions and more. The size is sensible, the weather advice is another excellent feature, and altogether it's a thoroughly useful and engaging guide book.

An actual highlight of the holiday was spending the best part of an hour on a sunny afternoon Otter watching though and there are tips for that in Lauries book too. 

She lists some great possible spots in Lerwick, the best times of day to see them, and gives a bit of solid advice - if you really want to be sure of seeing an Otter book a nature guide. I learned this when I went to Mull and didn't see a Sea Eagle - it feels like everyone else I know just saw them hanging out, so I thought I might get lucky too. Sadly not and if I ever go to Mull again I'm doing a nature tour because I really don't know enough about Sea Eagle habits to have a clue about where to start.

I do know a bit about Otters though, and I'm pretty good at spotting them. Shetland is a great place to do it, it has the highest concentration of otters in Europe and a lot of water close at hand - which otters like. Watching the sea is a good strategy for Shetland anyway - there are seals, an excellent chance of whales, dolphins, and porpoises, and a whole raft of birds to spot quite apart from an otter. 

Spending a bit of time observing seals is worthwhile - once you know what they look like in the water you'll know that's not what you're seeing when you spot an otter. My next tip is to go for a good walk along the coast - look for lots of crab shells, sea urchin shells, and possible otter spraint - otters are messy eaters when it comes to leftovers. From there the best time to see them is either side of low tide - look for good rocks with plenty of kelp around them and then sit downwind from the sea.

Otters don't see very well so if your spot is a good one you might end up getting quite a close encounter. If you see one in the water you can move closer to the shoreline whilst they're diving, but be respectful of their space - it's their home, not ours. 

New Scottish Baking - Sue Lawrence

I didn't think to take a photograph of it, the tent was busy and sometimes you just want to enjoy the moment, but a hotly contested category in the Shetland agricultural shows is best Sultana cake baked by a Gentleman. We hit it lucky and managed to shows in the time we were up north - Cunningsburgh and my local show - Walls (Waas). Dad entered his sultana cake, delicious but unplaced along with a couple of other friends one of whom swiped first prize. I'm not saying dad is bitter about this, but I'm not saying he's not either. 

Doug is now determined to get in an entry next year and so I bought Sue Lawrence's 'New Scottish Baking, because if anyone was going to have a really classic, hopefully show winning as well as stopping, sultana cake it's surelySue Lawrence. Her recipe is based on her mother's and she also mentions similarly simple cakes from the 18th century. It's a simple recipe with no fancy tricks, so will rely very much on the baker making a good job of the business. I'm very much looking forward to the results.

It would have been an expensive book for a single recipe for a fairly standard cake so it's lucky there's a whole lot of good interesting sounding things in here, though at times I'm not sure what makes something Scottish. I'm looking at you artichoke heart and thyme bread, and you Pain aux Raisen, and Pecan Pie is getting some side eye too. I made a Pecan Pie with my sister last week so I should probably let it pass and save my questions for the two separate brownie recipes (it feels like one too many to me). It's not that any of these things sounds less than delicious so much as that I do  not associate pain aux raisins with Scottish home or cafe cooking. 

On the other hand who am I to argue with Sue who knows far more about her subject than I do. I'm on safer ground with Aberdeen butteries (a salty fatty thing that my husband loves and I don't) an excellent range of shortbreads, a particularly intriguing bannock that comes out on the shortbread end of the scale, a lot of scones, oatcakes, and roasted rhubarb, orange and ginger blondies. The concept of the blondie doesn't often appeal, but a rhubarb and ginger version does. It fits the tray bake tradition and the ability of rhubarb to thrive in the highlands and islands. The gentleman who won first prize for his rhubarb at the show told me his patch was well over a hundred years old.

There's a tomato and black pudding (Stornoway of course) tart that's also caught my attention, so altogether I'm delighted with this book and looking forward to making good use of it. I might even see if this pecan pie is a better version than the one  I've been using for the last 20 years. 

The Formidable Miss Cassidy - Meihan Boey

I'm back from Shetland and feeling low about it. We had a fabulous couple of very busy weeks and really weren't ready to come back to work yet. So far the adjustment has been hard even with the extra time on the ferry and then stopping in the borders on the way back. Maybe not helped by the borders being another beloved area which deserved more time. Work today was overwhelming, not because of the work itself but more the sheer number of people. That I'm listening to football chants carried to me on the wind and not the actual wind, birds, or sheep is another disconnect that I can't quite reconcile yet. 

The formidable Miss Cassidy wouldn't give into this sort of melancholy, she'd shake herself down and sort something out and as that's hardly the worst example to follow she's where I'll start. I really liked this book which i read a good few weeks ago as a proof. It's out in hardback now and if any of you are in the mood for a reasonably cosy fantasy with a bit of an edge I highly recommend it. The blurb on my copy likens the heroine to part Mary Poppins and part Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Miss Cassidy is like neither of these characters, and yet it's not the worst description. It does at least capture something of the vibe of the book. 

Miss Cassidy arrives in Singapore in 1890 to be a governess for the listless child of a merchant who has lost the rest of his family to tropical disease. She soon realises that there is something supernatural haunting the remaining family and takes steps to deal with it. The first problem solved she moves on to another family and a more worrying creature, and in the process, the reader finds out more about Miss Cassidy who is as enigmatic as she is formidable.  

The blurb also promises Magic, Romance and Mystery. Do not be taken in by the promise of romance. There's an intriguing relationship that promises to develop further in subsequent books but here it's a deep friendship and not more. the romance is along the Travis Baldree lines of Bookshops and Bonedust or Legends and Latte's - and all the better for it. 

What really makes this book special though is the way that Meihan Boey has taken her Singaporean/ southeast asian folklore and mixed it up with the myths and legends of her Scottish husband. If I have this right the novel was originally published in English, and it's Pushkin who have the UK rights. Hopefully this will  be successful enough that we get the next two books here. The mixing of traditions is both unexpected and entirely successful. Meihan brings her melting pot Singapore to glorious life evoking flavour and smell along with an oppressive heat and all shot through with an affection for home that is entirely beguiling.

Miss Cassidy is a curious visitor eager to learn about her new home and in that spirit makes friends wherever she goes. It's a charming book with enough of an edge to avoid complacency in the reader - maybe more Buffy than Mary Poppins in that respect, though it's kinder to its monsters with a  hint of sympathy for the way they come into being that begs the question of who or what is monstrous first. 

The Witching Tide - Margaret Meyer

In some sort of personal record I seem to have finished two books whilst on holiday and only bought one. I bought The Witching Tide because it was described ad Margaret Atwood meets somebody (maybe Angela Carter?) that sounded particularly compelling along with all the other plaudits it was recieving.

Now that I've read it I'm not really sure what to say about it. the Margaret Atwood comparison is fair, Margaret Meyer is a fine writer who approaches her subject with compassion, sensitivity, and just the right amount of anger. She creates a convincing version of east Anglia during the civil war and witch hunts of the 17th century, the plot and pacing are both compelling, and yet there's a but.

There are a lot of novels, and almost as much non fiction examining the witch hunting craze of the 17th century, some will be better written than others - and here's the but - do we need as many of them as we have? How much outrage can an individual reader muster and how many times do I want to read about how bloody awful men can be to women? 

Not many times in my case, so whilst I appreciated this book and found it almost as absorbing as the cover quotes promised, I'm also left a little cold by it. Everyone suffers too much, and sometimes it's not entirely clear why. Having the main character as a mute midwife is effective - of course, she's going to get caught up in a witch hunt, and as it happens she does have things to feel guilty about. That Martha cannot speak adds to the sense of horror - she cannot speak up to defend her friends or herself, not that it would matter much if she did. 

There is a suggestion of actual witchcraft that also works well - mostly we see things from Martha's point of view and some of what she feels is suggestive of powers beyond strictly human - which also reflects the genuine belief in, and fear of, witchcraft that people felt. So overall there's much to like, and I did like it, but at the same time it's just not a book I feel passionate about, and will probably the novel on witch hunts I read for a very long time. 

Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries - Heather Fawcett

This book was big for us early this year, I bought it when I was in the mood for something light and managed to ignore it ever since. It seemed like a good bit of holiday reading in that it probably wouldn't be a book I'd keep so I wouldn't have to carry it back with me once I'd read it. 

It has been a nice bit of light reading, and I will leave it with my sister to read. Before this sounds too dismissive I'm looking forward to reading the sequel when it comes out in paperback; it's a thoroughly enjoyable bit of fantasy with some decent jokes and a welcome relief from the romantic fantasy which is everywhere. 

Emily Wilde is a brilliant academic in the field of Dryadology engaged in a winters worth of fieldwork in a remote Scandinavian community. She's soon joined by her college, Wendell Bambleby who might be rather more than he seems, and her dog Shadow, who is definitely more than an ordinary dog. Emily and Wendell find a mildly cursed village where Emily, despite her lack of social skills starts to put things right with the reluctant aid of Wendell. Unfortunately, academic curiosity leads her to make a very silly decision.

In some ways very little happens, but it doesn't happen enjoyably. The footnotes are amusing and Heather Fawcett both understands and has fun with all the folk and fairy tale conventions. Emily is a spikey kind of character with just enough chaotic energy to balance her competence and make her decently 3 dimensional. Wendell becomes slowly less human but in an equally relatable way.

There isn't really much else to say about this one - if you like a bit of light fantasy I'd recommend it, if it sounds utterly unappealing it won't be for you. As a fan of Holly Black, Sylvia Townsend Warner's fairy tales, and Susan Stokes-Chapman darkly gothic novels I found enough to enjoy here, though Heather Fawcett is definitely more at the whimsical comedy end - with just a hint of a love interest. I'm not sure she's as good as Travis Baldree in the feel good stakes - but it's in that league. 

A Lerwick Yarn Shopping Expedition.

I'm currently in Shetland enjoying a mix of weather from idyllically sunny to driving rain - often in the same hour. I love it in both moods and all the stages in between. It's no hardship that a wilder kind of day is a good excuse to go to Lerwick to enjoy both the museums and the wool shops. It's a heady mix of inspiration for a knitter. 

Working on the principle that someone out there might find this useful this is my idea of a good time - you could start at either end!

Shetland Textile Museum. If this is open it's more than worth the £3 entry fee. Exhibitions change each year and sometimes within the season. This year one of the rooms is devoted to the late Zena Thomson, she taught me to knit at primary school, she was a brilliant teacher and a formidable knitting talent, it's been a real treat to see so much of her work together. The textile museum shop is also brilliant and you don't have to pay just to go in that bit (do pay!). 

There can't be many gift shops where the things for sale can match the quality of some of the exhibits - there's a nice selection of yarn from some of the smaller organic producers, these are at the more expensive end so it's great to be able to see them before committing. The knitwear is always inspiring, and there's generally people demonstrating upstairs who will teach a little and give useful advice. 

From the Textile museum it's a short hop to the The Woolbrokers (Jamieson and Smith) on the North Road. It's the bigger of the two dedicated yarn shops and they've been really good at introducing new ranges/weights of yarn over the last few years. The heritage ranges, and the 1 ply cobweb lace yarn are interesting, and so is the latest 5 ply sports weight they do. There's an excellent choice of colors in jumper weight too, but the biggest draw from my point of view is the extensive range of yarn they have on cones - 250g for the new 5ply, 500g for everything else and a few 1kg cones in stock at the moment. 

Cones are the cheapest way to buy and the savings can be significant, they're perfect for larger projects - jumpers and shawls, as there are no ends to tie in either. they're oiled for machine use so you need to be thorough when washing and dressing your finished piece, and you'll get grubby hands knitting, but when you find a colour you love they're an excellent investment. 

Next stop would be the Shetland Museum at Hay's Dock. They also have a decent collection of historic knitwear (as well as a cafe and toilets). From a knitwear point of view, their displays don't change as much as the Textile museums do, there are some star pieces there that are well worth repeat visits. 

From the museum, it's a pleasant walk into the centre of the old town (10 minutes at most) on a dry day. The Peerie Shop, Loose Ends, Ninian, R.A.M, Anderson & Co, all have a good range of knitwear to have a look at. Loose Ends sells Uradale Yarn and a couple of other smaller local producers. Ninian and the Peerie Shop are great for Shetland themed gifts of all sorts. 

As you go along Commercial Street there's probably my favourite shop, fabulous windows, Jamiesons's of Shetland I love the heathered colours they produce and their famous wall of wool. They produce their yarn in a wool mill at Sandness so everything happens in Shetland, and there's also a decent range of machine-knitted jumpers, slip overs, cardigans, and hoodies as well as a few tweed items for sale alongside other gift type things. Both Jamieson's and the Woolbrokers do a good range of pattern books (the Woolbrokers possibly have the slightly better collection of these). The staff in both shops are also great with advice for every knitters level and can help with everything from required yardage, through colour matching, to shipping if you want to buy a lot. 

Jamiesons have the best range of Double Knitting weight and if you want coloured lace weight this is probably the best place to look. Spindrift and jumper weight are interchangeable between here and the woolbrokers - there does seem to be an amount of personal preference between more experienced knitters but I don't have one. If the bands are gone I can tell the difference based on colour with reasonable success, but not on texture or quality. You can get everything here from a really fine lace weight through to a super chunky Arran weight. 

The Shetland Times bookshop is definitely worth a visit too - there's a good range of knitting books, both Shetland specific and beyond, an excellent selection of more general Shetland books, and plenty more besides. 

A Hot Day Spent Doing Stupidly Hot Things

Having worked all weekend this is my last day off before going to Shetland at the Weekend, the temperature here has been in the high 20s so of course, instead of reading a book and doing a little light packing I had a wool jumper to finish. I might conceivably want the jumper in Shetland where temperatures might be a lot lower. I could have finished knitting it in March so I wasn't sitting under all its cosy wooliness at near 30C. Could have. Didn't. 

It's on the board drying now, but even washing it was hot work. I compounded this folly by seeing cheap raspberries passing their best before in town and thinking it was too good a chance to miss them for raspberry fridge jam. I was briefly lulled by the airconditioning in the supermarket, and possibly high on ice cream, when I thought that was a good idea. The little supermarket didn't have jam sugar, and crucially my freezer wouldn't fit a kilo plus of slightly mushy raspberries in it. The bigger tesco was also out of jam sugar suggesting I'm not the only lunatic deciding that an evening spent over an oven whilst it's this hot is an awesome idea. They no longer sell pectin sachets or liquid pectin and cheap is a relative term with raspberries. 

Do I make my own pectin stock with a bag of apples (inexpensive) or risk £10 of raspberries going mouldy whilst I don't know, I wait for amazon to deliver some pectin powder? I got the apples. The internet in Tesco is intermittent and they were out of Bramleys so I made a best guess at the sharpest looking ones there and a quantity, and boiled them up. In this heat. And then made jam - I hope it's worked but it looks sloppy even for fridge jam with the extra liquid. 

Now all I have to do is a load of washing, remake my bed, run the hoover around, and think about packing. I'm going to need that holiday when it comes, and I hope to heaven it's cold enough to wear this jumper. 

Keep Using Cash

I've never much liked the idea of a cashless society and Friday was an excellent example of why. Theoretically, I don't particularly want to give banks, credit card companies, or whatever applications I use them through so much free information about my spending habits, though in truth I don't think about that as much as I should. 

I try to avoid online shopping where possible partly to support local businesses - price matters but so does choice, a decent range of competitively paid jobs, the chance of some on hand expertise, human interaction, not having to negotiate around delivery times or drop boxes, not having packages stolen from your doorstep - and I don't believe Jeff Bezos got where he is by fair pricing and paying staff decently. The other reason is it lays you open to fraud from too many angles. 

I'm not a fan of high contactless limits either - lose your card and someone could spend hundreds of pounds on it in minutes, lose your phone and you're high and dry. I couldn't count the number of people using apps to pay via phones or watches who can't quite comprehend when the machines say no, it's time to verify your pin. I assumed Britain's relentless march towards a cashless society was a universal thing until I was in Vienna a few years ago and saw how many cash-only businesses there were there (they weren't big on Sunday opening either which was refreshing, if a little awkward when you arrive on a Sunday with no idea it's going to be an issue). 

After spending over a year and making at least 5 attempts with the Bank of Scotland to get a joint account I'm really not a fan of how banks have cut back on services either.  You need to have a face-to-face appointment to open a joint account. In some branches, the waiting list was over 6 months, in others there simply wasn't anybody who was authorised to set one up, but this is surely something people still need? The extravagant length of the queues whenever I go near a bank (never more than 2 tellers available on the desk) suggest there's no shortage of demand for them either. 

So with all this in mind, Friday was interesting. Our card machines were out for several hours with the Microsoft problems, and most of the day for some people depending on which systems their bank used. We've been seeing a bit more cash generally since the cost of living crisis hit - cash is easier to budget - which is my main reason for liking it. In the end a surprising number of people were ready with cash, they'd listened to the news and come prepared - there were also a fair few who hadn't and weren't. They were uniformly outraged that they couldn't pay as they wished and generally didn't have a bank card as a back up.

Are you, dear reader, cash or contactless people and if contactless have the recent outages made you think again about carrying at least some money around with you? 

Lessons in Crime - edited by Martin Edwards

It's been a while since I've read a crime classics anthology, and this one has been an absolute treat as well as perfectly timed for the start of the school holidays around here. At work we have a perennial debate; which is more stressful? Summer holidays or Christmas. The consensus is generally the school summer holidays on the grounds that not only do we not have the extra staff, but with our own holidays we have less than normal, and everyone is hot and bothered. Last Friday was the end of term here, a few thousand kids, very excited to be free of school for the next six weeks descended on the city center and it was chaos. 

If nothing else it absolutely put me in the mood for a few academic murders, kidnaps, and near misses. There are a couple of absolute gems in this collection - Herbert Harris's Low Marks for Murder where what seems like an excellent plan falls apart, somewhat to the readers relief as the culprit is a cold-blooded piece of work, The Harrowing of Henry Pygole which almost veers into horror territory, and Miriam Sharman's Battle of Wits all particularly stood out. 

It's a nicely put together anthology too with some old favourites - Dorothy L Sayers, Michael Innes, Arthur Conan Doyle, alongside some unexpected names - that Jacqueline Wilson and those 3 stories above all from names I didn't immediately recognise. I love an anthology that does this - gives me a few safe bets and introduces me to lots of new things, or encourages me to reassess a writer I don't normally care much for. Edmund Crispin for me in this case - but the example here is both short and effective and has temporarily made me forget why I generally dislike his books. 

The visits to Oxford are charming too, and altogether I thoroughly recommend this collection. It might partly be a timing thing and I've never been disappointed by any of the anthologies in the series, but one has gone straight onto my favourite list. 

Storm Pegs - Jen Hadfield

I don't think I've ever read a book quite like this, and I'm not sure where to start with talking about it. I am on the other hand absolutely sure that one reading isn't enough to have properly got to grips with it, my copy is an uncorrected proof, in the fullness of time I'll buy the paperback edition and compare notes. 

Storm Pegs mixes biography, nature writing, poetry, travel, and an examination of language and place. It's both personal to the author's experience and full of moments of recognition and connection. Jen starts her introduction with a moment of wondering how to define a place like Shetland which defies easy definition. 'Where am I' She asks? I in turn am wondering how to define her book. 

The answer to both questions might be home. My relationship with Shetland informs how I've read 'Storm Pegs', not everyone will feel the same about it as I do, but reading this for me was like seeing a much loved view after a while away from it. When I wrote about Kathleen Jamie's 'Cairn' I talked about how these two books have become a sort of literary pair of meids to me - meid is a Shetland word for landmarks seen from the sea - line them up just so and you know where you are; you can find your way home, or mark a good fishing spot so. 

I stand by that. It's been an eventful few months full of change and planning, these books have been fixtures that continue to help me navigate through this current set of challenges. But why should you read 'Storm Pegs'? 

It's the structure of the book that makes it so special. If I've read Jen's posts about it correctly it's been years in the making, so most of the 17 years she covers are in the present tense and arranged roughly by season and by the sense of a word. There's a beginning, a first visit, the decision to stay, and an end for this book at least; the starting of a family. The middle part of all this exists outside of a strict chronology, it doesn't read like fiction, but it's compelling in a way I associate with fiction. 

It's Shetland that's at the center of this book, seen through Hadfield's eyes and experiences. She alludes to the things she's doing in that time - the travel for residencies and teaching, the poetry she's writing, the relationships she finds, and the house she builds, but they are peripheral things compared to the landscape she finds herself in and the elements that define it. If this book is like anything I've ever read it's Nan Shepherd's 'The Living Mountain' which must, I think, have been a key influence - references to it and to Nan's relationship with her beloved landscape run through the book. It's hard not to think of George Mackay Brown either, except that where he looks back, Jen looks forward or exists wholeheartedly in a moment. 

Hadfield's treatment of Shetland's language is interesting too - Storm Pegs is as much about exploring that language as anything else I think. Dialect as I remember it being spoken in the 1970s and 80s is fading away, but that's also been recognised and people are fighting for it. Mallachy Tallack talked about the twin pillars of accent and ancestry that gate keep a Shetland identity (I can't remember where exactly) with a sense of frustration of being kept out. 

Jen seems to have a less complicated delight in words that express something fundamental to her -  Lightsome/Lichtsome is one of them. She chooses to discuss it in the winter part of her book - I'd describe lightsome as something that you take joy in with others - good company and good times - an evening laughing with friends, though a person can also be lightsome. An example here is a group of women swimming through a sea filled with Mareel (bioluminescence - tiny luminous creatures in the sea that light up as anything moves through them). I have seen this, paddled in it, rowed a dinghy through it - it's magical, definitely lightsome, and so is the description of it here. 

The answer to Jen's question of where am I? Is somewhere a group of serious women can gather on a dark, drizzling winter's night to swim in a sea full of living light and for that to be both remarkable and not remarkable. I am not there but I wish I was. 

A Duke of One's Own - Emma Orchard

Another week has gone by in something of a blur. Work is busy; fortunately, after a not-great May, we've been flood-free for several weeks. There are interesting projects in hand, and on my part at least some excitement about today's election. I'm hoping for new faces and change, I'm not paying too much attention to polls - they've been wrong before. I'm not wildly optimistic about what the next few years will bring, the damage is too deeply rooted for a quick fix but if we can fix the water supply and work on the NHS as a country that would be something. 

I'm currently on a waiting list for an injection into my foot that will help with the referred pain arthritis is causing. I'm at the getting text messages to ask if I still need treatment stage of the process (yes I do, the arthritis has not gone away of its own accord). I hadn't considered the option of going private until the text landed, and haven't yet looked into it, but the pain is getting worse so at some point the consideration will be can I work like this? Or sleep. 

Altogether then there are a lot of distractions, so easy reading to keep my mind off the serious business of what kind of country we'll wake up to tomorrow is about all I can manage (current book is Lessons in Crime, the academic mystery themed British Library Crime Classics collection). I read A Duke of One's Own a little while ago, and because it was on a kindle app didn't exactly forget about it, but it was out of sight and therefore out of mind. 

Emma Orchard is a friend, we met during lockdown in the Georgette Heyer readalong on Twitter (as was). I like her books, I love the easter eggs for Heyer fans, the fact that her characters sometimes need to pee (I suppose it's part of the fantasy in a lot of romances that nobody has any bodily functions to contend with beyond sometimes being hungry). These books are funny, honest about female desire, and probably spicier than I would otherwise read.

The heroine of A Duke of One's Own is Georgie, sister to Lord Irlam, hero of the last book. Bridgerton style - because that's the current frame of reference, the Pendlebury's are a large and loving family of mostly boys. Georgie is a mess of a human being. She's young, stubborn, sexually curious, and full of hormones. It's a combination that has led to some very poor but entirely realistic decision making. 

The double standards applied to female sexuality are touched upon here, and although the consequences for stepping out of line might have been theoretically more severe in the past I sometimes winder how much they've really changed. I don't doubt for a moment that girls did mess around though, what mattered was not getting caught. For a woman in Georgie's position - a socially powerful family who will support her, and plenty of money, I also wonder how severe the consequences would even have been? 

This is Emma's third book, the tone is more assured each time, and again, the thing I really love here is that people might behave outrageously from time to time, but always in a way that makes sense for the character, and is understandable from a human perspective. Add to that humour, genuinely complex emotional situations, a hugely likable cast of side characters who get proper space and attention, and you have a series to really enjoy. 

D is for Death - Harriet F. Townson

I am so conflicted about this book. On the one hand, it's funny, pays homage to golden age crime fiction, specifically, but not only that of Dorothy L. Sayers, and does it with both wit and wholehearted enthusiasm. It's an entertaining setup for a series to come, has likable characters, dozens of easter eggs for like-minded fans of the aforementioned golden age crime writers, is set against a publishing and library background which is jolly, and makes some interesting social points.

On the other hand, it gets some silly details wrong - it's set in 1935, tights are mentioned instead of stockings, a man wonders around the Cafe de Paris holding a Nebuchadnezzar of champagne in 1 fist - it's a 38-kilo dead weight, I've tried lifting them, it's not a one-handed job. More importantly, there are some weird continuity issues around the main characters and all of it should have been picked up by an editor. Harriet F. Townson is a pen name for Harriet Evans which makes it all the more surprising. 

On the whole I really enjoyed it and think this is a series that's going to be worth following. I will never not appreciate a chapter heading of 'Miss Pym Supposes', it might be a while since I've read Dorothy L. Sayers but there were references I recognised instantly, and a very fitting almost direct quote from the punt scene in Gaudy Night (if you know, you know). The inclusion of people of colour, queer characters, and Jewish ones is done smartly and underlines both the diversity of pre-war London and the politics of the time. References to real-life characters such as Baba Metcalf and Brenda Dean Paul (I looked her up) are well used too. If you don't know or remember who they are and do look them up it adds depth to the reading and serves as a reminder of how much more colorful real life can be than fiction, but it's done with a light enough hand that there's no need to follow up if you're not inclined to.

My biggest issue was with Dora and her mysterious money. We meet her escaping from a thoroughly unpleasant fiance - initially, she's described as swiping all the cash she can find in the more or less abandoned for now family home, she's meant to have inherited money from her mother but doesn't know what's become of it, later there's talk of a bank account that she's using (an unlikely thing for a girl to have in 1935) then there are postal orders that she's spent on clothes, and finally, she's been saving every scrap of pocket money for her train fair. As the money discussions are generally accompanied by reflections on how financially precarious a woman's situation was in the 1930's especially those who had been bought up to be ladies it matters. 

There's an aristocratic male character who seems destined to recur who's troubling too. There's a reason that Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Margery Allingham made their aristocratic sleuths younger sons, so spoiler, the reveal about Ben (well sign posted throughout the book) undermines the believability of his character somewhat. 

Overall if you love Sayers read it for the references and the jokes, enjoy it for what it is, and hope that the continuity issues are sorted out before the next book comes out. If these kind if details ruin a book for you though, it's going to be best avoided. 

Not In Love - Ali Hazelwood

My reading is all over the place at the moment, it's also included a lot of advance review copies and I'm never quite sure what the etiquette is for those - do review when I've read them, in this case a month or more before they come out, or do I wait as I did with Cairn? I think I wait, which means my head is full of Jen Hadfield's extraordinary biography about her life in Shetland, but I'm looking at Not in Love which I read a couple of weeks ago pre-funeral when I was in a totally different mood.

Ali Hazelwood continues to be my favourite contemporary romance writer - and as I've given up dabbling much in that pool that'#s unlikely to change anytime soon. She has a note at the beginning to say this book is less romantic comedy and more erotic romance - which is sort of true although I'm not a hundred percent convinced it's markedly more erotic than her previous books. The mood is slightly different though and her plotting and characterisation improves with each book so I'm not complaining.

You know what you're getting with a book like this, and you definitely know what you're getting with Ali Hazelwood - is the heroine an intelligent and able scientist with her life mostly together but some personal issues - yes she is. Is the hero equally smart and capable in his daily life but emotionally flawed - yep. Do they work it out together - they certainly do.

This one skirts around kinks, is more sex-positive than some of the earlier books in that the characters unapologetically enjoy hookups (in this it's a more explicit take on Mallory's character in Check and Mate) but has the same enthusiasm for consent that previous books have. Consent is sexy so that's a plus in y reading. 

I liked that the villain here (SPOILER) was a not much more senior female scientist and the setting is industry rather than academia - not a huge difference at the end of the day, but with Hazelwood, it's the background details of the workplace and the associated politics that make her books stand out. Basically this does exactly what it says on the tin, it's intelligent and funny romance with a convincingly happy ending. 

Cairn - Kathleen Jamie

The last few weeks have been busy, a funeral followed by working at a book festival interspersed with normal work with the now traditional skeleton staff and all the problems that brings with it. It's been exhausting but I think the worst is over now and I can work on getting back to something normal. 

I read Kathleen Jamie's Cairn a couple of weeks ago after getting an advance copy through work, it blew me away (though how publication date has worked around so quickly is frankly frightening). It's a slim book that could be read in a couple of hours, though that would not be the best way to approach it - this is one to dip in and out of and consider at pleasure. 

Jamie has collected her thoughts here - sometimes just a paragraph at a time, and used them to build a marker of turning 60. She considers grieving the loss of her parents, seeing her children embark on independent adult life, how the climate crisis has developed - it's been a recurring theme in her writing. How it feels to get older and a hundred other things. It's a contemplative little miracle of a book that came to me at exactly the point I needed to read it - 50 and caught up with my own grief. 

I have loved Jamies's writing since I discovered her (late) in 2012, I don't know if this is her best book - maybe not, but the right book at the right time is a powerful thing. There is a Shetland word - meid, that refers to prominent landmarks, such as a hilltop cairn, seen from the sea. Line up 2 or 3 of these and they tell you exactly where you are, and help you maintain a fixed point at sea - generally a favoured fishing spot. This summer Cairn, and Jen Hadfield's Storm Pegs are the literary equivalent of meid's for me. Between them I've found a place of calm in uncertain times.

I read somewhere that this book really pushes the line between poetry and prose - I take the point and can't really argue with it, but I might be more inclined to say that for Jamie here there is no line to blur or cross. Anyway, it's a beautiful, meditative, book that says much about the experience of being well into middle age without trying to impart any particular wisdom, and for that last point I'm especially grateful. 

Queen Macbeth - Val McDermid

It's been a long couple of weeks, but it's time to look forward again and get organised. I've read and am reading some remarkable things, and whilst I'm trying not to be over hopeful I'm keeping everything crossed for an election that brings a certain amount of change with it. 

I think Val McDermid's Queen Macbeth is the 5th book in Polygon's Darkland tales series (I've checked, it is), and what an excellent series it's turning into, even if not all the books are for everyone. I didn't dislike Alan Warner's 'Nothing Left to Fear From Hell' but I doubt I'll revisit it. Equally, I still feel a little nagging guilt that Ginny Jones disliked Columba's Bones which will probably be one of my best books of the year. But dissent and discussion are a good thing and hopefully, she will forgive me/still more or less trust my judgment. 

Lady Macbeth is having quite a moment - there are 3 reasonably high profile feminist retellings of her story around at the moment. This book, Ava Reid's 'Lady Macbeth', and Isabelle Schuler's Lady MacBethad. And there is of course Shakespeare's play overshadowing all of them. Mcdermid departs quite quickly from Shakespeare's version of Gruoch, though she does keep the witches and I like the way she does it. 

This version relies more on a history that doesn't need to flatter a Stuart king and interestingly she has Gruoch betray her first husband to conceive her child with Macbeth himself. It's maybe another swipe at Shakespeare who conspicuously makes his Lord Macbeth incapable of fathering a child (last time I saw the play this seemed a key point in it to me). 

In this version, Gruoch and her closest companions have been in exile after the apparent loss of Macbeth in battle, and now the loss of her son before he could secure the Scottish crown. This Macbeth and his Lady have ruled the country well for some years, they have friends and loyal subjects as well as political enemies, but the tide has turned on them. Gruoch is a danger to Malcolm, the next man to claim the kingdom - there's enough support for her that she might prove a rallying point. We meet them as they're about to be discovered and be forced to flee.

What follows is a tense journey full of danger and heartbreaking loss set beside Gruoch's memories of his this all came to be. There's an unexpected twist at the end and a clever resolution - and as definitely the shortest of the 3 Lady Macbeth's around at the moment is a very good place to start with her. MacDermid's take is thought provoking and smart. If the Darkland series excels at one thing (it excels at a few) it's in getting a lot into a novella. This Gruoch is compellingly human and less morally grey than some depictions, less supernatural too - though again, the way prophecy is handled here is interesting. It's fun to see MacDermid writing ina  different genre too. 

How many books are you reading right now?

Way back when I started blogging one of the things it helped me do was focus my reading - one book at a time. It worked for years and then it all fell apart, a process accelerated by getting a job in a bookshop where the tempatation and the proofs are constant. Somebody somewhere, probably Twitter, was asking if they were the only person to have an upstairs and a downstairs book. 

Obviously, they were not. I live in a one-bedroom flat so I don't even have the excuse of stairs being an effort to justify the state I'm in here. So these are the books I have on the go. There is the bedroom reading - Storms' Edge is currently on the left hand side of the bed, Godkiller, which I started months ago, and was really enjoying but somehow never finished is on the right along with Silver Birch which has been my intended next book for a while but keeps getting pushed down the pile on the right hand side.

I'm not sure these really count, but they probably do - my collection of Slightly Foxed quarterlies live in the bathroom. It's ideal for reading in the bath if you want to avoid turning into a chilled prune whilst the water cools but you need to read one more page.

In the kitchen there's Greekish and Sebze which I'm cooking from extensively at the moment, Sebze is an interesting read as well if like me you don't really know much about Turkish food or culture. 

I'm behind on reading Rosie Andrews Puzzle Wood - again, a very promising start, it is currently my bag book, the one that leaves the house with me.

In my sitting room there is the chair book that I didn't mean to start the other day but which was so compelling that a quick glance was all it took to find myself 30 pages in. 

There's the floor book for the jumper I'm knitting - it's by the sofa, and got moved because I started reading the sofa book, also very promising. I bought this one based on the comparison to Hilary Mantel and Margaret Atwood - that's an intriguing combination if accurate.

My desk gives as good an indication as any of the amount of books around read as well as unread at any one time.

I could pretend that the other chair didn't have its own book - The Penguin Book of Murder Mysteries, the books on the floor here mostly function as a useful place to balance a cup of tea with the added bonus of occasionally throwing out a forgotten gem.

And finally, there's the book I'm truly thinking of myself as reading at the moment - an arc of Jen Hadfield's Storm Pegs which I'm enjoying very much, I only hope I can find the focus to finish it in a timely fashion. 

What are you reading at the moment?