After a slow start to the year I read 10 books in March, so doubling the total for the year. The books I enjoyed the most are The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell and The Glass Room by Ann Cleeves.

The full list is (with links to my posts on the books):

1. Wildwood: a Journey Through Trees by Roger Deakin (Non Fiction)
2. The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell
3. Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain (review copy) (Non Fiction)
4. The Kashmir Shawl by Rosie Thomas
5. The Sleeping Policeman* by Andrew Taylor (library book)
6. Small Kindnesses by Fiona Robyn (Kindle) (from TBR books)
7. Airs and Graces by Erica James (borrowed
8. The Glass Room* by Ann Cleeves (library book)
9. The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien (Kindle) (from TBR books)
10. Mrs McGinty’s Dead* by Agatha Christie (library book)

Of the 10 books, just 3 are crime fiction (marked with *) and of these my Crime Fiction Book of the Month is The Glass Room by Ann Cleeves.

Notes on the books without reviews:

•  The Kashmir Shawl by Rosie Thomas – romantic historical fiction set in the 1940s and the present day with a predictable ending. Mair Ellis goes to Kashmir to find more about a shawl found in her grandmother’s belongings. The story switches between Mair’s journey and that of Nerys Watkins, her grandmother, a missionary’s wife, living in India during the Second World War .
• Small Kindnesses by Fiona Robyn – an interesting gentle book, full of reminiscences as Leonard Mutch, a widower discovers his wife had a secret she kept from him for forty years. 
• Airs and Graces by Erica James – romantic fiction, a predictable story that doesn’t tax the brain.  Ellen, a divorcee struggles to decide who she should marry Duncan, a wealthy lawyer or Matthew an artist.