Book Review: Salt and Broom by Sharon Lynn Fisher

 

A gifted healer unravels the mysteries of a cursed estate—and its enigmatic owner—in a witchy retelling of Jane Eyre .

“Salt and broom, make this room
Safe and tight, against the night.”

Trunks packed with potions and cures, Jane Aire sets out on a crisp, clear morning in October to face the greatest challenge of her sheltered girls’-school existence. A shadow lies over Thornfield Hall and its reclusive master, Edward Rochester. And he’s hired her only as a last resort. Jane stumbles again and again as she tries to establish a rapport with her prickly new employer, but he becomes the least of her worries as a mysterious force seems to work against her. The threats mount around both Jane and Rochester—who’s becoming more intriguing and appealing to her by the day. Jane begins to fear her herb healing and protective charms may not be enough to save the man she’s growing to love from a threat darker and more dangerous than either of them imagined.

This was in an ebook format – I believe it was part of the Amazon offering. It forms part of my attempt to clear down my existing TBR, and therefore is part of my #BeatTheBacklog 2024 challenge.

This book follows the main story of Jane Eyre, but with some significant changes. Jane Eyre is now Jane Aire, who has grown up at the Lowood school for orphans as the local herbalist/witch (something the school has a reputation for, even if not outright condoned.) Jane is sent to help out Mr Rochester in his sprawling house. The rest of the book is, of course, pretty much original and therefore subject to a certain set of spoilers.

The principal characters are similar to those in Jane Eyre, at least by name if not by actions. Jane finds out that the Doctor who attended Mrs Rochester as she died also loved her, so there is motive about attending her etc. The marriage with Rochester was mainly financial (rather that a love match). Many of the events have Mrs Rochester at the centre, much like the original. There is also a take on Jane and her being an orphan (spoiler!). Aire is forced to leave, as per the original, but comes back to use her skills in order to solve the issues at hand.

The Ending was close to the original but there is no “reader, I married him” moment. It was different enough to be satisfying

The title does tie up with the ore witchcraft side of things which this book is fairly heavy one – it’s certainly not a book for those who are not open or interested in these things.

 

Book Review: Sweet Danger by Marjorie Allingham

What was Albert Campion up to in the Hotel Beauregard, Mentone? Posing as the king of a tinpot Balkan state looking for his lost crown. It was all too intriguing for Guffy Randall, so he joined in the treasure hunt … to the bitter end. Even when it got very nasty indeed.

Having forgotten that I’ve read this before (early 2011 according to the review date), I decided to listen to this in my Audible Library. It was a tad disconcerting therefore to then realise that I basically knew what was going to happen.

A small portion of land has suddenly become very attractive and important to a number of parties, including the British Government, who charge Campion with sorting it out in their favour.

Having read this book before, it left enough of an impression on me that I knew some of the red flags as they happened.

Throw in Campion’s friends, pretty young girls, rich businessmen and their cronies, rural English Villages, psycho doctors and a quest, and that pretty much covers it in a really short book. Some twists are heavily signpointed, but little to dent the story.

Book Review: East of Algiers by Francis Durbridge

When Paul Temple agreed to do a favour for a friend of Steve, he could never have foreseen the extraordinary sequence of events that would be set in motion. For Judy Wincott’s simple request that Paul return a pair of glasses to David Foster in Tunis is a prelude to a body in a Paris rubbish bin and a succession of mysterious killings …

Narrated by Anthony Head, this is in fact a novelization of the original Paul Temple drama called “Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery”. Apart from a few name changes and the fact it’s told by the one person, it’s essentially the same story. I’m not sure which version I prefer – e.g. I’ve never liked the Marquand actor from the original radio play.

Essentially, Temple is asked by some rando take some eye-glasses to another rando in Algeria (originally Egypt). Things happen along the way, which makes Temple wonder what is happening – more is expanded in the original radio drama (e.g. whole scenes about Steve being drugged and kidnapped).

This is the second time I’ve listened to this (last time was a couple of years ago). I found I spent much of the time seeing where it differed to the radio original, which ended up being slightly detrimental to the listen. Anthony Head was a decent narrator, who had a wide enough range to cover the characters.

Book Review: The Girl from Vichy by Andi Newton

1942, occupied France.
With the war raging in Europe, Adèle Ambeh dreams of a France that is free from the clutches of the Nazis. As the date of her marriage to a ruthless man draws closer, she only has one choice: she must run.

Adèle flees to Lyon and seeks refuge at the Sisters of Notre Dame de la Compassion. From the outside this is a simple nunnery, but the sisters are secretly aiding the French Resistance, hiding and supplying the fighters with weapons. Adèle quickly finds herself part of the efforts to take down the regime.

As each day fills with a different danger and she begins to fall for another man, Adèle’s entire world could come crashing down around her.

She must fight for her family, her country – and her own destiny.

My First DNF in what seems like years. 70 pages in, 600+ books in the piles so I have to be quite strict when it comes to books I’m not engaged in.

This book is from a box from A Box Of Stories, which is designed to take books out of landfill. I presume that the books are good enough to make it to publication, but more books have been published than were sold in stores etc, so get passed on before being pulped.

This is only the 2nd book in all the years I’ve been taking these boxes that I’ve not finished a book – the previous one was a true crime book about serial killers.

This book was a fiction book about a French woman who escapes to a convent. For some reason I couldnt care to remember, a Novitiate has taken a dislike to Adele and the 1st few chapters deal with Adele trying to work out what’s going on.

It’s at this point that I gave up. Not engaged and not interested in taking the story forward, so I gave up.

Book Review: Caligula by Simon Turney

Forget everything you think you know. Let Livilla, Caligula’s youngest sister and confidante, tell you what really happened. How her quiet, caring brother became the most powerful man on earth. And how, with lies, murder and betrayal, Rome was changed for ever . . .

Everyone knows his name. Everyone thinks they know his story.

Rome 37AD. The emperor is dying. No-one knows how long he has left. The power struggle has begun.

When the ailing Tiberius thrusts Caligula’s family into the imperial succession in a bid to restore order, he will change the fate of the empire and create one of history’s most infamous tyrants, Caligula.
But was he really a monster?

This is the historical fiction version of the life and death of Caligula (Little boots), told from the stance of his sister Livillia. As with all 3rd person historical “Faction” there is a certain amount of factual leeway that must be given. e.g. would she be privy to the worst excesses of his later like ahead of his death? Probably not. Much of the book is given to Livillia and Caligula’s pre-emperor lives, that includes the kidnapping, torture and deaths of close family members.

Book Review: Death comes to Mr Dodsley by John Ferguson

‘A bookshop is a first-rate place for unobtrusive observation,’ he continued. ‘One can remain in it an indefinite time, dipping into one book after another, all over the place.’

Mr Richard Dodsley, owner of a fine second-hand bookshop on Charing Cross Road, has been found murdered in the cold hours of the morning. Shot in his own office, few clues remain besides three cigarette ends, two spent matches and a few books on the shelves which have been rearranged.

In an investigation spanning the second-hand bookshops of London and the Houses qof Parliament (since an MP’s new crime novel Death at the Desk appears to have some bearing on the case), Ferguson’s series sleuth MacNab is at hand to assist Scotland Yard in an atmospheric and ingenious fair-play bibliomystery, first published in 1937.

Welcome to another year of “I’m not reading books fast enough” At 300 pages long this book should have taken me under a week to read, yet oddly – didn’t. I’m placing the blame purely on myself and my “issues”.

One of the side effects of (say) reading a few pages at a time, I that I regularly forget who is whom.  I really need to start maintaining a “family tree” (what ever happened to them?),

Back to the book – Miss Grafton has written and published a crime book (“Death at the Desk”( , which is not being reviewed well. Her Father is a MP with a promising future. “Old” Mr D runs a 2^nd hand/Antique bookstore on Charring Cross Road in London, and is working late to finish some work needed at the printers the following day. However he’s found dead at his desk just after 3am, and so the search is on to work out who killed him.

The crime scene bears an awful lot of resemblance to Miss Grafton’s book. There’s a balance required to offset the fact the book was only published a few days earlier against the fact that Miss Grafton is dating “young” Mr D (Richard/Dick) who also worked in the shop.

Here’s where I get confused by not reading fast enough/take notes. MacNab was the PI who was hired to see who was stealing exclusive and expensive books from the shop, I had to remind myself that most of the narrative was from him and not his Scotland Yard colleagues who have come in to investigate the murder.

The rest of the book deals with the investigation, the clues that are picked and may or may not be discarded. I wont spell them out, or who is the eventual murderer, because it all leads to spoilers.

For my review: It could have done with some kind of Family Tree or Dramatis Personae, for those of us who are slow readers. IT was a decent, hard working book in it’s genre.

Had I read it more consistently or extensively, I think I would have taken even more enjoyment from this, so this is something I will take on for future books (especially those in this imprint, of which I have a subscription). I’m sure many people – especially fans of this kind of “Golden Age” novel.

About the Author

John Ferguson (1871-1952) was a Scottish clergyman, playwright, and mystery writer.

John Ferguson was born at Callander, Perthshire, but has made his home in many sharply contrasted places, from the misty isle of Skye to the sunlit island of Guernsey. And though now a resident in the New Forest near Lymington he lived for six years in the grim Dunimarle Castle in Fife, where Macduff’s wife and child were murdered by Mac­beth. As a dramatist Mr Ferguson is probably best known for his now famous play Campbell of Kilmohr, which at its first Royalty Theatre production was hailed by the dramatic critic of the Glasgow Herald as ‘a new and significant type of Scottish drama’. Of John Ferguson’s work one critic has said, ‘As no two of his stories are in any sense repetitious, it is probably his practice of setting each tale against the background in which he writes that gives this variety in characterization and action to each of his works.’ His books have been translated into many foreign languages, the latest of which is Turkish. In his story of the history and development of the detective story, Masters of Mystery, Douglas Thom­son writes, ‘Mr Ferguson is one of the most delight­ful stylists in this genre’

Book Review: The Christmas Wedding by Dilly Court

The village of Little Creek, the long winter of 1867 
 
The first flakes of snow are falling when Daisy Marshall, secretly engaged to her master’s son, finds herself jilted at the altar. 
 
Heartbroken, Daisy flees to the small village of Little Creek, nestled on the coast of Essex. There she is warmly welcomed – but the village is poverty-stricken, suffering under a cruel Lord of the manor. And when cholera hits, the villagers are truly in dire straits. 
 
Determined to help, Daisy makes new friends in earnest doctor Nicholas and dashing smuggler Jay – but also dangerous new enemies, who threaten to destroy everything she’s built. Can Daisy save the village and find happiness in time for Christmas?

Likely to be last “Christmas book” for the 2022/2023 season.

Within the 1st chapter, Daisy has lost her secret fiancé, lost her job as a governess, and lost the home she knew when her Uncle retires and everyone moves into the country

Her brother, Toby, is a newly qualified doctor, and soon realises that the village everyone has moved to, will not give him the training or living he requires, so soon moves back to London.

Nick Neville is also a newly qualified doctor, but who has his family home in Little Creek. The village is desperate for a doctor and Nick stays as long as he can, but enventually returns to London to earn money. The local squire owns much of the land and is making life difficult for many, including Neville.

Many of the tenants are living in squalor and destitution, including Mary (who is the mother of Jay, Linette, Dove and Jack, all of who play a reasonble part in the book, although Jack does disppear about half way throught)

Mary goes to London with a plan to see her brother, and get some form of job and lodgings. She becomes a Probationary Nurse, almost by accident and ends up sharing a room with another probationer.

The rest of the book deals with Daisy’s love life, supporting Nick Neville and the village through a bout of Cholera etc. The title should give an indication of what happens and when, but the question is “who is the groom?”

I have a few problems with the narrative:

1) Characters are dropped (never to be heard about again) as soon as they stop being useful to the story. This includes Jack, the London landlady, the cat (his poor attitude was narrated in depth, until he disappeared); Minnie (the roommate) and Aggie (the servant); The training sisters in the hospital etc

2) Timeline narrative. At one point Jay promised he would get Daisy to “little Creek” the following day, yet they docked 4 days later. I may well have missed something here, but it did grate on me a little.

Despite the narrative issues that I have, overall I found is a nice, lightish book for the Christmas/New Year period

Book Review: Married by Christmas by Scarlett Bailey

All she wants is a perfect Christmas Eve wedding...

It’s been on Anna’s wish-list since she was a little girl, dreaming of a far happier family life than she’d ever experienced.

But now – only two weeks before her big day – her perfect husband-to-be drops a bombshell…

Only nothing’s going to stop Anna’s plans – not even the pesky inconvenience of discovering her groom already has a wife!

My last book of 2022, and naturally, it’s Christmas related.

Anna, who never knew her father and who lost her mother when she was 9 and was taken on by those she classes as “family” ever since. As a result of such a disorganised childhood (her mother was also an alcoholic and druggie), Anna could well be classed as “High maintenance” or “OCD” where she find the need to contrl everything.

Tom proposes to Anna, who has her heart set on a Christmas Eve Wedding. Everything is organised, but there’s one thing that Anna could never have predicted – her fiancée and the fact he has apparently “forgotten” about getting married to an exotic dancer 8 years previously

In the first of multiple “out of character” decisions, Anna is on the next flight to the US to find Charisma (to get the divorce cleaned up). Anna is annoyed that Tom has left it this late, and it is her (not Tom) on the plane to sort this out

On the flight to JFK (referred to later as JKF, boo!). Anna finds herself sitting beside Miles who had a one night date with Anna several years previously.

The majority of the book is Anna and Miles in New York after Thanksgiving where Anna is doing one after another out of character things. They do find Charisma (now known as the actress Erica) and the divorce is progressed.

Anna would have been a nightmare had her initial behaviour continued, so thankfully she was relaxed for the majority of the book. Was a little bit disappointed that she was elsewhere whilst her BFF was getting married – I would have thought she would have bent over backwards in an attempt to be there (although this might be an example of how much he’s changed – I dont know).

In Short: Decent End of the year Book, with suitably complex main female leads (the men could be deeper BUT perhaps that’s not the point!), reasonable Romance levels

Book Review: Winter’s Children by Leah Fleming

Grieving widow Kay Partridge and her daughter Evie, unable to face the oncoming Christmas festivities, move into a cottage at majestic Wintergill Farm in the Yorkshire Dales. Kay wants to shut the door and forget about everything. Evie, struggling to come to terms with the concept of death, just wants her Daddy to come home for Christmas. But Wintergill is far from the quiet refuge that they expected. Devastated by Foot and Mouth, Nik Snowden and his Mother Nora are facing a bleak future. The two are at loggerheads. Nora has had enough of the hard life but Nik wants to keep the house and lands that have been in his family for generations. But Nik is not the only one attached to the house. In the distant past, a terrible tragedy occurred and ever since a restless spirit has haunted the land, seeking a child that once was lost. Through the generations, the ghost has brought misery and pain to bear on the inhabitants. But where one spirit has sown despair, others have sought to protect the children of Wintergill.

Delivered as part of a A Box of Stories box, and I decided to read in the run up to Christmas as it was winter related.

This is set primarily in Yorkshire during the immediate aftermath of the UK’s Foot and Mouth epidemic which decimated farmers who lost so many of their healthy livestock *who were at risk* of being ill, and therefore lost much of their livelihood and reason to remain in farming. Many have sold up and moved away, some have even committed suicide, all leaving a fractured community behind trying to recover.

Previously, Kay and her daughter Evie are staying with Kay’s in laws for Christmas. They are moving with her husband, so have sold their house and plan to spend Christmas with him and his parent’s before they follow. However, Kay gets notice on Christmas Eve that her husband has been killed in a car crash.

A year later, Kay finds herself still living with the in laws. Both are still grieving for their son and seem to be overcompensating for his loss. Evie (the daughter) remains waiting for her father to turn up, despite knowing that he wont be coming back.

In an effort for them all to move forward, Kay takes a medium term let (6 month-ish) a converted barn in Yorkshire, an area where she grew up and has known previously. She turns up in mid winter and is confronted with a middle aged man (Nik) who shares “the big house” with his mother. He is a Dale sheep farmer still trying to recover from the loss of his sheep AND his best friend to suicide. He has a strained relationship with his mother who seems very disconnected from her son. Nik also feels the need to compete with the memory of the sister who died before he was born (and always seemed to be his mother’s favourite).

The rest of the book interwaves several generations of people who had lived in the house, and the ghosts remain rooted to the house. Some of the ghosts prove to be more malignant than others (which we see later in the book – no Spoliers here!). There is also background as to the “lost” sister, and a possible readon as to why Nora acts the way she does.

There is a good parallel between Kay’s grief at the loss of her husband, and Nik’s grief at losing his friend, girlfriend and his own livelihood.

Meanwhile there is a mutual help between Kay and Nik, Evie and Nora as to the potential ways forward, plus possibly how to deal with the past.

This is Yorkshire Dales in Winter, so heavily rural, with lots of snow, working dogs etc. Secrets lie heavy and are resolved (at least partially) during the book. This was an excellent book to read at Christmas (or at least Winter). I’m not going to go more “in depth” because of potential spoiler points

About the Authour

Leah Fleming was born in Lancashire and is married with three sons and a daughter. She writes from an old farmhouse in the Yorkshire Dales and an olive grove in Crete

See More at: http://authors.simonandschuster.com.au/Leah-Fleming/471625538#sthash.m6tyuWYT.dpuf

Book Review: Christmas at Holiday House by RaeAnne Thayne

In the town of Silver Bells, there’s always a feeling of Christmas in the air… Let love—and RaeAnne Thayne—melt your heart this holiday season!

This New Year will bring widowed nurse Abigail Powell a fresh start in a different city. Excited about the chance to create an unforgettable Christmas for her young son in picturesque Silver Bells, Colorado, Abby has been hired to take care of her dear friend’s recuperating grandmother. But sprightly senior Winnie insists she doesn’t need looking after. What she does need is help decorating her historic mansion, Holiday House, for a seasonal town fundraiser. Abby warms to the festive task, but she’ll have to contend with her own personal Grinch: Winnie’s prickly grandson, Ethan Lancaster.

Ethan Lancaster is good at a lot of things. Relationships surely aren’t one of them. His ex-fiancée convinced Ethan he was incapable of love, and he believes her…up until the moment he impulsively kisses Abby. What is it about this vibrant woman and her sweet son that knocks his world off-kilter? He knows they’re leaving town after Christmas. He just didn’t expect they’d be taking a little of his heart with them. But as he and Abby work together on the magical Holiday House through the record cold weather, visions of a different future dance in his head…one filled with warmth, love and a new beginning for them both.

Received as one of my books from “a Box Of Stories” subscription, and since it was Christmas related, I thought I’d read and review it ahead of the Christmas season

Lucy, working abroad, asks her college friend Abby to travel to Silver Bells just before Thanksgiving, in order to look after Lucy’s grandmother Winnie, who has broken her wrist following a fall.

Abby has a 5 year old son Christopher, which she had with her husband who died following a car crash 2 years previously. Abby is a nurse and preparing to move across Texas in order to start a new job in the New Year. Going to Silver Bells for 6 weeks allows her a winter break before hand, so everything works out for the best.

Abby drives multiple hours with her son and cat (what happened to the cat? It’s never mentioned beyond the 1st few chapters). Abby finds the Holiday House to be a large Victorian style house, covered in the standard Colerado winter snow.

She finds that Winnie is old, and has some strained/broken bones, and apart from needing some pain killers, she was otherwise fine.

Lucy’s brother Ethan wants Winnie to go into a home. Winnie doesnt want to. In fact she still wants to open up the house to visitors for guided tours (hence the “Christmas at Holiday Home” title)

As a side thread, Lucy is facing a personal challenge about her relationship with Luiz potentially going from a Friendship to romantic. Lucy and Ethan have both been damaged by the relationsip between their parents, their divorce etc.

The next few weeks cover Thanksgiving, prepping for the open house, and then Christmas. It includes skiing, shopping, as well as decorating the house for Christmas.

As with other ABOS books, this book is good enough to have been published, but not one of those books to set the world on fire – sorry. It’s a decent Christmas related romance novel with few (if any) extras to distinguish it from some very similar stories