The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club by Gil McNeil.
Jo McKenzie's husband is killed in a car crash, but she's not sure whether or not she should grieve, as he had told her he was leaving her just before he drove away. Meanwhile, she has two young sons to raise, and no real source of income.
Then her grandmother decides to retire, and asks Jo to take over her yarn shop, in the seaside town where Jo grew up. Eager to make a new start, Jo and the boys relocate to Broadgate Bay, where Jo sets about modernizing her granmother's musty yarn shop.
While she is updating displays, upgrading stock, and starting a Stitch'n'Bitch group, Jo makes friends with her new neighbors and reconnects with people from her childhood. Unintentionally, she also makes herself much stronger and more independent, which has a trickle-down effect on her sons.
This is British chick-lit at it's finest. I began to talk with a posh accent and each chocolate digestives with my tea. I thought the ending required a bit more closure though, but I see that this book was published in the UK in 2007 under the title Divas Don't Knit, and that a sequel entitled Needles and Pearls has been published there. I hope it makes its way across the Atlantic soon!
23 July 2009
19 July 2009
Just finished reading...
Die for you by Lisa Unger.
I believe I requested this book because it was mentioned on DorothyL and thought it sounded interesting. And it was interesting, though only in the manner of an assumed identity thriller. It's the story of Isabel Connelly Raine, whose husband Marcus leaves for work one day and never returns. Isabel goes to his office the next day to talk to his business partner, who has not heard from him either. While checking Marcus' desk, she is interrupted by a raid. The group are wearing jackets with FBI on them, but they turn out to be fake. One of them, clubs her over the head and she wakes up in hospital.
When the police inform her that the real Marcus Raine died several years earlier and her husband was an impostor, Isabel takes matters into her own hands to find the truth.
As I said, a fairly typical thriller plot.
What is really wonderful about this book is the prose. Unger comes up with some incredible descriptions of the characters' feelings and thought processes. A description of a feeling Isabel had after her father committed suicide when she was a child:
"It was a strange lightness, a drifting feeling. Zero gravity. I understood that everything that once seemed solid and immovable might just float away."
This book was a real pleasure to read!
I believe I requested this book because it was mentioned on DorothyL and thought it sounded interesting. And it was interesting, though only in the manner of an assumed identity thriller. It's the story of Isabel Connelly Raine, whose husband Marcus leaves for work one day and never returns. Isabel goes to his office the next day to talk to his business partner, who has not heard from him either. While checking Marcus' desk, she is interrupted by a raid. The group are wearing jackets with FBI on them, but they turn out to be fake. One of them, clubs her over the head and she wakes up in hospital.
When the police inform her that the real Marcus Raine died several years earlier and her husband was an impostor, Isabel takes matters into her own hands to find the truth.
As I said, a fairly typical thriller plot.
What is really wonderful about this book is the prose. Unger comes up with some incredible descriptions of the characters' feelings and thought processes. A description of a feeling Isabel had after her father committed suicide when she was a child:
"It was a strange lightness, a drifting feeling. Zero gravity. I understood that everything that once seemed solid and immovable might just float away."
This book was a real pleasure to read!
16 July 2009
13 July 2009
10 July 2009
Recent reads
Homicide in Hardcover by Kate Carlisle.
This is the first book I purchased (and read) on my Sony Reader. (Yes, I have the elegant red one.)
Our heroine, Brooklyn Wainwright is an expert in rare books and their restoration. Although she'd been estranged from her mentor, Abraham Karastovsky, she is happy that they have reconciled. Until she finds him lying in a pool of blood in the midst of restoring an edition of Faust that is said to be cursed.
When Brooklyn is hired to complete the renovation of the Faust, she suddenly begins to have accidents, obviously caused by the person who killed Abraham.
Brooklyn is sure that Abraham was not killed by a curse, and she is determined to find the person responsible, although handsome security expert Derek Stone seems equally determined to keep her out of trouble, though she sees it as "getting in her way".
The bookbinding theme is not at all boring, as some might expect. Brooklyn is a vibrant, interesting protagonist and I look forward to further installments in the series.
Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen.
In which we meet Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, known to her friends as "Georgie". Thirty-fourth in line to the throne, Georgie became virtually penniless when she turned 21, as her allowance was cut off. Frustrated living with her older half-brother "Binky" and his wife at the family's estate, Castle Rannoch, Georgie decides to strike out on her own, and removes herself to the family's London home, Rannoch House. After an unsuccessful few hours as a cosmetics salesgirl at Harrods, she decides to start her own housekeeping business. The only problem is that the only housekeeper she employs is herself.
Binky joins her at Rannoch House when an unscrupulous Frenchman claims to have proof that their father gambled away the family lands. But when Georgie returns home to find the Frenchman drowned in the bath, with Binky the obvious suspect, she is certain that Binky is not smart enough to have committed the crime and sets out to clear his name.
In the process, she encounters some hilarious and harrowing situations, including several attempts on her life.
The book is written as a series of Georgie's diary entries, seems to me to detail the life of a young woman in 1930s London quite well.
The sequel, A Royal Pain, is already available in paperback, and Royal Flush, the third in the series, has just been released in hardcover. They will be added to my toppling TBR pile soon!
This is the first book I purchased (and read) on my Sony Reader. (Yes, I have the elegant red one.)
Our heroine, Brooklyn Wainwright is an expert in rare books and their restoration. Although she'd been estranged from her mentor, Abraham Karastovsky, she is happy that they have reconciled. Until she finds him lying in a pool of blood in the midst of restoring an edition of Faust that is said to be cursed.
When Brooklyn is hired to complete the renovation of the Faust, she suddenly begins to have accidents, obviously caused by the person who killed Abraham.
Brooklyn is sure that Abraham was not killed by a curse, and she is determined to find the person responsible, although handsome security expert Derek Stone seems equally determined to keep her out of trouble, though she sees it as "getting in her way".
The bookbinding theme is not at all boring, as some might expect. Brooklyn is a vibrant, interesting protagonist and I look forward to further installments in the series.
Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen.
In which we meet Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, known to her friends as "Georgie". Thirty-fourth in line to the throne, Georgie became virtually penniless when she turned 21, as her allowance was cut off. Frustrated living with her older half-brother "Binky" and his wife at the family's estate, Castle Rannoch, Georgie decides to strike out on her own, and removes herself to the family's London home, Rannoch House. After an unsuccessful few hours as a cosmetics salesgirl at Harrods, she decides to start her own housekeeping business. The only problem is that the only housekeeper she employs is herself.
Binky joins her at Rannoch House when an unscrupulous Frenchman claims to have proof that their father gambled away the family lands. But when Georgie returns home to find the Frenchman drowned in the bath, with Binky the obvious suspect, she is certain that Binky is not smart enough to have committed the crime and sets out to clear his name.
In the process, she encounters some hilarious and harrowing situations, including several attempts on her life.
The book is written as a series of Georgie's diary entries, seems to me to detail the life of a young woman in 1930s London quite well.
The sequel, A Royal Pain, is already available in paperback, and Royal Flush, the third in the series, has just been released in hardcover. They will be added to my toppling TBR pile soon!
02 July 2009
Just finished reading...
Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin.
I received this book through the GoodReads first reads program.
It's the story of Rachel White, a young attorney in Manhattan. Darcy, her best friend since childhood, is engaged to Dexter, who went to law school with Rachel. Rachel thinks Darcy is tall, slim, beautiful and charismatic, always feels mousy and insecure next to her, and has resigned herself to being in Darcy's shadow. Darcy is really loud, brash and arrogant, and treats Rachel almost like Cinderella.
The story begins on Rachel's thirtieth birthday. A group including Rachel, Dexter and Darcy is bar-hopping. Darcy overdoes it and goes home, while Dexter and Rachel go to "one more place". Rachel is surprised when Dexter ends up spending the night with her. She and Dexter then have to figure out how to keep their tryst from Darcy, who, they are certain, would react very badly were she to find out.
The remainder of the book follows the friends through the summer as they rent a beach house together. Rachel tries to be a dutiful maid of honor, at the same time as she is wracked with guilt.
Under normal circumstances, I would be horrified by Rachel and Dexter's behavior. But Darcy is an incredibly arrogant prima donna, and frankly, I identify with Rachel, having been the "mousy friend" most of my life.
The ending completely surprised me, although it probably shouldn't have. Giffin is a pretty good writer and I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would.
I received this book through the GoodReads first reads program.
It's the story of Rachel White, a young attorney in Manhattan. Darcy, her best friend since childhood, is engaged to Dexter, who went to law school with Rachel. Rachel thinks Darcy is tall, slim, beautiful and charismatic, always feels mousy and insecure next to her, and has resigned herself to being in Darcy's shadow. Darcy is really loud, brash and arrogant, and treats Rachel almost like Cinderella.
The story begins on Rachel's thirtieth birthday. A group including Rachel, Dexter and Darcy is bar-hopping. Darcy overdoes it and goes home, while Dexter and Rachel go to "one more place". Rachel is surprised when Dexter ends up spending the night with her. She and Dexter then have to figure out how to keep their tryst from Darcy, who, they are certain, would react very badly were she to find out.
The remainder of the book follows the friends through the summer as they rent a beach house together. Rachel tries to be a dutiful maid of honor, at the same time as she is wracked with guilt.
Under normal circumstances, I would be horrified by Rachel and Dexter's behavior. But Darcy is an incredibly arrogant prima donna, and frankly, I identify with Rachel, having been the "mousy friend" most of my life.
The ending completely surprised me, although it probably shouldn't have. Giffin is a pretty good writer and I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would.
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