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My Friday Post: The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce

Published on January 3, 2020 by Margaret13 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

There are so many books I want to read right now and The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce is just one of them.

The Music Shop

There was once a music shop.

From the outside it looked like any shop, in any backstreet. It had no name above the door. No record display in the window. There was a homemade poster stuck to the glass. For the music you need!! Everyone welcome!! We only sell VINYL!

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice.

30879-friday2b56 These are the rules:

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

Vivaldi was so famous he was like a film star. There was a time everyone wanted to hear Vivaldi, but when he died, they’d all moved on. He had nothing at the end. Do you know the saddest thing?

No, Peg.

No one went to his funeral. There was no music for Vivaldi at the end.

Blurb:

1988. Frank owns a music shop. It is jam-packed with records of every speed, size and genre. Classical, jazz, punk – as long as it’s vinyl he sells it. Day after day Frank finds his customers the music they need.

Then into his life walks Ilse Brauchmann.

Ilse asks Frank to teach her about music. His instinct is to turn and run. And yet he is drawn to this strangely still, mysterious woman with her pea-green coat and her eyes as black as vinyl. But Ilse is not what she seems. And Frank has old wounds that threaten to re-open and a past he will never leave behind …

~~~

One of the quotes on the back cover says that this is ‘a beautiful novel, a tonic for the soul and a complete joy to read.’ I really hope it will be just that.

Have you read this book? What did you think?

Wild Fire by Ann Cleeves

Published on December 31, 2019 by Margaret4 Comments

Macmillan|6 September 2018|417 pages| paperback|4*

Wild Fire is the 8th and last book in Ann Cleeves’ Shetland series. I have loved this series ever since I read the first book, Raven Black, back in 2010. And because I began reading the books before they were televised my picture of Inspector Jimmy Perez is drawn from them rather than from the dramatisations. There are some significant changes between the TV dramatisations and the books – notably in the characters of Cassie, Fran’s daughter who is still a child in the books is older in the TV stories, and the relationship between her father, Duncan Hunter and Perez is different. And Douglas Henshall, who plays the part of Perez, is not physically like Jimmy Perez – Perez has long dark hair with Spanish ancestry in his blood, whereas Douglas Henshall is a redheaded Scot.

It’s not necessary to have read the earlier books in the series as each one works well on their own, but I think it helps enormously if you have as the personal stories of the main characters form a continuous thread.

Wild Fire is set in Deltaness, an invented village in Northmavine where the Fleming family, Helen, a knitwear designer, her architect husband, Daniel, and their children, autistic Christopher, and Ellie, have recently relocated from London. They are finding it hard to settle and matters were only made worse when the previous owner of their house is founding hanging in their barn. But they have made friends with the Moncrieff family, Belle, her husband Robert the local doctor and their four children – the eldest two,Martha and Charlie are teenagers, with a younger brother and sister.

Things go from bad to worse for the Flemings when Christopher discovers the hanged body of the Moncrieff’s nanny, Emma Shearer in the barn. Suspicion immediately falls on Daniel and Helena as the rumours spread like wild fire that Emma and Daniel had been having an affair. Chief Inspector Willow Reeves, Jimmy’s boss returns to Shetland to lead the investigation and it is immediately obvious that they have personal issues to resolve as well as finding the murderer.

But of course it is not that straight forward. Emma comes from a dysfunctional family and has issues of her own to work through, and the Moncrieffs are also suspects. In fact there are plenty of people who bear grudges against the incomers and they become a focus of resentment and jealousy. Emma’s boyfriend Magnie Riddell and his mother Margaret are two more people whose motives and movements come under suspicion.

The main interest for me is the relationship between Jimmy and Willow and how Jimmy reacts to her news. It causes him to question what he really feels and what form his life will take for the future. I don’t think it is giving away any spoilers, as this is the last book in the series, to say that things are about to change for them both. As in all the Shetland books it is Ann Cleeves’ beautiful descriptions of the islands that stand out – that and the characters themselves who have become like real people to me and I shall miss reading about them. But then, I can always re-read the series!

Reading Challenges – Calendar of Crime (the main action takes place in May), and Mount TBR 2019 (a book I’ve owned for 2 years)

As it is the last day of the year, this is my last post in 2019 (you may have noticed that I’ve written three posts today to complete my entries in the two Reading Challenges above).

And now I’m looking forward to the start of a new decade and lots of books to read.

The Shadow Puppet by Georges Simenon

Published on December 31, 2019 by Margaret2 Comments

Penguin Classics|2 October 2014|160 pages|Paperback|4*

Georges Simenon wrote his 13th Maigret book, The Shadow Puppet in December 1931 at the villa Les Roches Grises at Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes) on the French Riviera. It was first published in 1932 under the title L’Ombre chinoise.

It’s the second Maigret book I’ve read in the last two days and I think this is better than the other one I read, The Saint-Fiacre Affair. It is a more typical murder mystery – a man is shot dead in his office in the Place des Vosges in Paris and Maigret uncovers a tragedy involving desperate lives, unhappy people, addiction and an all-consuming greed. He gets to the truth through careful examination of the facts, questioning those involved and applying his knowledge and understanding of human nature.

One evening Raymond Couchet, the owner of a serum company in the Place des Vosges, was shot dead, seated at his desk, and the safe behind him was empty, the 3600 francs that should have been there have gone. The building contains Couchet’s medical laboratory as well as residential apartments, set around a central courtyard. Called to the scene Maigret notices the shadowy figures in the lighted windows of the building and suspects that the murderer could be one of the residents of the apartments where Couchet’s first wife, Juliette Martin and her husband live. Then there is his son, Roger, a drug addict living in the Hôtel Pigalle, and in the next room to him, Couchet’s girlfriend, Nine Moinard, a dancer at the Moulin Bleu.

It is an entertaining mystery and Maigret finds himself getting to really like Couchet as the details of his life emerge – and equally disliking both his son and his bitter ex-wife. What I like about these Maigret books are that they are concise and tightly structured yet convey such convincing characters and depths of perception. In this particular book Maigret comes across feelings of enmity, greed, class distinction, hatred and paranoia in the course of his investigations.

Reading Challenges – Calendar of Crime (the setting is a place of employment), and Mount TBR 2019 (a book I’ve owned for 2 years)

The Saint-Fiacre Affair by Georges Simenon

Published on December 31, 2019 by Margaret1 Comment

Penguin Classics|6 November 2014|160 pages|Paperback|3*

The Saint-Fiacre Affair by Georges Simenon was first published in January 1932, under the title Maigret Goes Home. My copy is one of the Penguin Classics publications in new translations.

Saint-Fiacre is where Maigret was born and grew up. His father had been the steward of the château there for thirty years. So when an anonymous note predicting a crime during All Souls’ Day mass at the church is handed in to the Moulins police office, Maigret went back there for the first time since his father had died. It is a melancholy visit for as well as a death to investigate, Maigret finds so much had changed and the atmosphere was oppressing him – he had never imagined that he would find the village in such a sorry state.

The predicted death took place in the church whilst Maigret was attending the the first Mass on All Soul’s Day – the old Countess of Saint-Fiacre died during the mass, of heart failure. But Maigret soon discovers that the heart attack had been brought on when the Countess read a fake newspaper story of her son’s suicide that had been planted in her missal. Maigret suspects a number of people could have been responsible – her son, Maurice, her secretary/lover, Jean, the steward, Ernest and his son, Emile.

I enjoyed this book, although I found it rather disjointed and at times couldn’t follow very easily who was speaking, so it was a bit difficult keeping track of what was going on – maybe that was my problem, I’m not sure. But I thought the melancholy atmosphere and the descriptions of the chateau and Maigret himself were well done and it is packed with drama and tension. The denouement in which Maigret reveals the truth reminded me of the way Poirot rounds up all the people involved and explains who had done the deed and why, and why it was a crime that was not punishable by the law.

Reading Challenges – Calendar of Crime (winter scene on the cover), and Mount TBR 2019(a book I’ve owned for 2 years)

The Classics Club Spin Result

Published on December 24, 2019 by Margaret6 Comments

The spin number in The Classics Club Spin was announced yesterday. It’s number … 13

which for me is Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. The rules of the Spin are that this is the book for me to read by January 31, 2020.

Charles Dickens oliver twist etc

I’m delighted with this as I’ve been meaning to read it for years and never got round to it.

The story of the orphan Oliver, who runs away from the workhouse to be taken in by a den of thieves, shocked readers with its depiction of a dark criminal underworld peopled by vivid and memorable characters – the arch-villain Fagin, the artful Dodger, the menacing Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy. Combining elements of Gothic romance, the Newgate novel and popular melodrama, Oliver Twist created an entirely new kind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery.

Did you take part in the Classics Spin? What will you be reading?

This is my last post until after Christmas, so I’m wishing you all a very …

Christmas bells

The Woman Who Wanted More by Vicky Zimmerman

Published on December 21, 2019 by Margaret2 Comments

Woman who wanted more

Publishers’ blurb:

Two lonely women.

An unlikely friendship.

And one big life lesson: never be ashamed to ask for more . . .

After a major life upheaval on the eve of her 40th birthday, a reluctant Kate Parker finds herself volunteering at Lauderdale House for Exceptional Ladies. There she meets 97-year-old Cecily Finn. Cecily’s tongue is as sharp as her mind but she has lost her spark, simply resigning herself to the Imminent End.

Having no patience with Kate’s plight, Cecily prescribes her a self-help book with a difference – it’s a 1957 cookery manual, featuring menus for anything life can throw at ‘the easily dismayed’. Will Kate find a menu to help her recover from her broken heart? If Kate moves forward, might Cecily too?

The cookbook holds the secrets of Cecily’s own remarkable past, and the story of the love of her life. It will certainly teach Kate a thing or two.

So begins an unlikely friendship between two lonely and stubborn souls – one at the end of her life, one stuck in the middle – who come to show each other that food is for feasting, life is for living and the way to a man’s heart is . . . irrelevant!

My thoughts:

The Woman Who Wanted More by Vicky Zimmerman begins very slowly and I soon felt this wasn’t a book for me. For a start it’s romantic fiction written in the present tense. Then there is Kate, who is nearly 40, single but preparing to move in with her boyfriend, Nick. But on holiday he tells her that he doesn’t want the commitment and she ends up back home living with her mother. Despite her friends’ warnings that he is not worth the bother, she still gives him chance after chance of starting again. And she goes on and on and on about him.

I breathed a sigh of relief when Cecily meets Kate! Cecily is 97 living in Lauderdale House for Exceptional Ladies, a grumpy old lady with intense brown eyes and a sharp tongue. When she hears Kate’s story about her relationship with Nick she tells her in no uncertain terms to give him short shrift and to find a man who isn’t too emotionally stunted to love her.

I was thinking of not finishing this book until Cecily came on the scene. After getting off to a bad start, with several cross words, Kate and Cecily get to know each other better and Cecily’s cookery book gives her some helpful advice mixed in with recipes. And when I got to the end of the book and read the Author’s Note I understood why Cecily’s part of the story appeals to me more – the character was inspired by a real person, Vicky Zimmerman’s grandmother. The book is a mix of fact and fiction – and for me Cecily’s story had the ring of truth. I’m glad I read on to the end.

My thanks to the publishers for my review copy via NetGalley.