Category: TBRs

Six Degrees of Separation: From The Gate of Angels to A Killing of Angels

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

This is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge.

A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the ones next to them in the chain. This month we are staring with a novella that’s on your reading list – in recognition of Novellas in November.

I’m starting with The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald, a novella on my reading list. It is 1912, and at Cambridge University the modern age is knocking at the gate. Fred Fairly, a Junior Fellow at the college of St Angelicus, where for centuries no female, not even a pussy cat, has been allowed to set foot, lectures in physics. Science, he is certain, will explain everything. Until into Fred’s orderly life come Daisy. Fred is smitten. Why have I met her? he wonders. How can I tell if she’s quite what she seems? Fred is a scientist. To him the truth should be everything. But even scientists make mistakes.

My first link is Angels and Insects by A S Byatt – two mesmerising novellas are set in the nineteenth century another novella. In Morpho Eugenia, an explorer realises that the behaviour of the people around him is alarmingly similar to that of the insects he studies. In The Conjugal Angel, curious individuals – some fictional, others drawn from history – gather to connect with the spirit world. Throughout both, Byatt examines the eccentricities of the Victorian era, weaving fact and fiction, reality and romance, science and faith into a sumptuous, magical tapestry.

Next another novella, Where Angels Fear to Tread by E M Forster. When a young English widow travels to Italy and makes an unexpected decision that shocks her conservative family, the consequences ripple across cultures and relationships. E. M. Forster contrasts the warmth, spontaneity, and passion of Italian life with the restraint and propriety of Edwardian England, creating a story filled with tension, irony, and quiet tragedy..

I’m staying with ‘angels’ and books on my reading list, but the next books are not novellas.

The Time of Angels by Iris Murdoch – The central character is Carel is a widowed rector presiding over a London church destroyed during the war. He believes that, God being dead, His angels have been released. This is a novel described on the back cover as ‘chilling‘ with an ‘all-pervading sense of evil you can almost touch – evil from which no-one can escape.’

The Wine of Angels by Phil Rickman, the first Merrily Watkins novel, in which the Rev Merrily Watkins tries to be accepted as the vicar (or priest-in-charge as she insists she ought to be called) in the country parish of Ledwardine in Herefordshire, steeped as it is in cider and secrets and echoes of the poet Thomas Traherne who was once based in the area.

The Weight of Angels by Catriona McPherson. I’ve read several of her Dandy Gilver books and enjoyed them. This book is a standalone psychological thriller, in which Alison McGovern takes a job as a beautician in a private psychiatric facility near her rented cottage and the ruins of Dundrennan Abbey.  A body is discovered in a shallow grave by the abbey on Ali’s first day at work.

A Killing of Angels by Kate Rhodes – the second book in her Alice Quentin series. I haven’t read the first book but I thought this looks good – it’s a psychological thriller. At the height of a summer heatwave, a killer stalks the City of London.The avenging angel leaves behind a scattering of feathers with each body – but why these victims? What were their sins?

All the books are linked by their titles with the word Angels and they are all books on my books to be read list.

Next month (December 2, 2026), we’ll start with a story that takes place at Christmas – Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan – a book I have read and another novella.

The Third Man by Graham Greene: #The 1949 Club

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

This is my second and final book for this week’s 1949 Club, hosted by Simon of Stuck in a Book and Karen of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings. I read an e-book copy of The Third Man by Graham Greene, which includes a short story, The Fallen Idol. This is just a short review with some thoughts that struck me as I read the book.

Vintage Digital/ 2010/ e-book/ Print length: 162 pages/ My own copy/ 4*

The Third Man was not intended to be a book. It was an early draft for a screenplay, commissioned in 1947 by the film producer Alexander Korda. Greene wrote it whilst he was on holiday in Italy in 1948. After the release of the film in 1949, Greene’s draft was published as a short novel, or novella, in 1950.

Description from Amazon:

The Third Man, Graham Greene’s most iconic tale, takes place in post-war Vienna, a ‘smashed dreary city’ occupied by the four Allied powers. Rollo Martins, a second-rate novelist, arrives penniless to visit his friend and hero, Harry Lime. But Harry has died in suspicious circumstances, and the police are closing in on his associates…

The Fallen Idol is the chilling story of a small boy caught up in the games that adults play. Left in the care of the butler and his wife whilst his parents go on a fortnight’s holiday, Philip realises too late the danger of lies and deceit. But the truth is even deadlier.

I’ve not seen the film and knew very little about The Third Man, apart from the fact that it’s about Harry Lime. But I’d no idea who he was, or what he did.

Vienna after the end of the Second World War is vividly described, ‘a smashed dreary city’ partitioned into four zones – in the control of Four Powers, the Russian, British, American and French, each region marked only by notice boards. Each Power was responsible for the security of the city for a month at a time. This was new information for me as I knew nothing about what had happened in Italy after the War.

The book begins as Rollo Martin, a writer of cheap American westerns, arrives in Vienna. His old school friend, Harry Lime had invited him, promising him a job. But he arrives in time for Harry’s funeral, where he meets a British military policeman Colonel Calloway, who narrates the story. Harry died in a road accident outside his apartment.

It has a terrific atmosphere throughout, classic noir, seedy, somewhat dreary and depressing. There is a enormous feeling of danger, fear and tension as Rollo tries to find out exactly how Harry had died and who was the third man who had witnessed the accident. Greene’s writing conveys a sense of the melancholy and tiredness that filled Vienna at that time.

Colonel Calloway describes it as

… a city of undignified ruins which turned that February into great glaciers of snow and ice. The Danube was a grey flat muddy river a long way off the Second Bezirk, the Russian zone where the Prater lay smashed and desolate full of weeds, only the Great Wheel revolving slowly over the foundations of merry-go-rounds like abandoned millstones, the rusting irons of smashed tanks which nobody had cleared away, the frost-nipped weeds where the snow was thin. (page 7)

And as Ian Thompson describes in his Introduction ‘Virtually every Viennese was involved in black-marketeering of one kind or another; there was not merely defeat in the former Nazi outpost, but debasement.’

I did find it confusing in places and some time I’d like to re-read it to clarify the sequence of events. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. Don’t read the Introduction by Ian Thompson before you read the book, because it gives away the plot. It compares the book and the film and gives a summary of The Fallen Idol. It is very interesting and worth reading – after reading the book.

The Fallen Idol tells the story of a small boy who was left alone in a grand London house in the care of the parents’ butler and his jealous wife. It has a tragic ending but I thought it was interesting because its seen partly through the little boy’s eyes. Like The Third Man it has a great sense of unease and dread.

Many thanks to Simon and Kaggsy for choosing 1949. I found both Brat Farrar and The Third Man give fascinating insights into what life was like in 1949!

A Small Part of History: Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret2 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. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

A Small Part of History by Peggy Elliott, is one of the books I’ll be reading soon. It’s one of my TBRs, historical fiction I bought in 2008. I’m featuring it today as the book caught my eye this morning as I browsed my bookshelves. I took it off the shelf and it made me think of all those cowboy series on TV that I used to watch about pioneers venturing out West. More recently I’ve enjoyed watching Taylor Sheridan’s television series Yellowstone and the prequels 1883 and 1923. 

It’s described on the back cover as:

an epic, heartfelt story of courage in the face of appalling adversity, and a haunting portrayal of how America was forged. Above all, it is a story of people and how the ties that bind us most strongly are those of friendship, of family and of love.

But what makes this book look a bit different is that it’s told from a woman’s perspective. In her Author’s Note Peggy Elliott explains that she’d read ‘a wonderfully thought- provoking book, Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey which pointed out how different women’s experience on the Oregon Trail had been compared to men’s.’

The book begins :

My papa always told me it was best to start a story at the beginning when I confused him by jumping into the things somewhere in the middle. so I am not going to talk about where I am today or even last month, because it all really begun back in June of 1845.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

Poor Lizzie! There were dark shadows beneath her eyes and Rebecca could see pale blue veins throbbing in her forehead. What words of comfort could she possibly bring her, not being a mother herself? To have a young child on the trail brought one set of worries, but to bring yet another into the world while still travelling must present even more of a burden.

The map at the front of the book shows the length of the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City.

Description from the back cover:

In the summer of 1845 Rebecca Springer and her family join the Oregon wagon train in search of land thousands of miles away. It’s a hard and dangerous journey through blizzards and searing heat, over prairies, desert plains and mountains and, at times, it seems as if it will never end. But an unbreakable bond develops amongst the travelling women as they are tested, physically and emotionally, and their shared experiences of new life and tragic death will bring them closer than blood ever could.

And now I’m really looking forward to reading this book.

If you have read A Small Part of History, what did you think?

THE TBR 26 IN ’26 CHALLENGE

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

Half way through this year I have just found this challenge to read from my TBRs. It’s hosted by Gilion at her blog Rose City Reader. For full details check out her blog at the link above. Basically, it’s just read 26 books from your own TBRs. A TBR is a book that you have owned prior to January 1, 2026.

I have so many TBRs both on my physical bookshelves and on my Kindle that I really need to get down to reading more of them, so I’m hoping to read more than 26 this year – so far I’ve read 13.

The challenge runs from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2026. You can sign up any time before December 31, 2026. Crossover with other challenges counts. Rereads count. Any genre counts as long as it is a complete book. Anything published as a book between two covers counts as a book. For example, a single story doesn’t count unless it is published as a stand-alone book, but a collection of short stories does count. If you read an omnibus that contains several “books” you can count each book separately if they were published separately in other editions.

You do not have to review the books to complete the challenge. If you do review a book, please post a link to your review on the review page here. 

When you finish, please post a link to your wrap up post with a list of the books you read and post that link on the wrap up page here. 

Quite Ugly One Evening by Chris Brookmyre

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Abacus| 7 May 2026| 359 pages e-book| Review copy 4*

An Atlantic voyage. A family at war. A secret worth killing over.

Reporter Jack Parlabane thrives on chasing stories in unlikely places, and where could be less likely than a fan convention on a cruise liner celebrating a contentious Sixties TV series? But unlike the media family exploiting their show’s renewed relevance, he’s not there to stoke controversy: he’s there to solve a murder.

Already in deep water with his employer, Jack desperately needs a win, and solving this decades-old mystery could be it. Problem is, he’s in the middle of the Atlantic, and someone onboard has already killed once to keep their secret.

And that’s not even the tricky part. No, the tricky part is definitely the dead body locked in a stateroom with him, covered in his blood. Now Jack has to solve two murders, otherwise the only way he’s getting off this ship is in handcuffs – or in a body bag.

Quite Ugly One Evening by Chris Brookmyre is the ninth book in the Jack Parlabane series. Jack, now 60, is an investigative journalist, who finds himself in competition with his younger colleagues, grateful that he still has a job.

The first book by Chris Brookmyre I read was Quite Ugly One Morning, the first in the series. That was in 2010 and since then I have read and enjoyed more of his books, including those he’s written under the pseudonym Ambrose Parry with his wife, Marisa Haetzman. But, I haven’t read the other Jack Parlabane books. However, it wasn’t a problem and I don’t think you need to have read the other books to enjoy this one, as it does read well as a standalone.

It is a ‘locked room’ type mystery as the action takes place on a cruise liner as it crosses the Atlantic. The ship is full of fans of the Maskyn family’s 1960s TV puppet series, The Imaginators, attending a convention, symposium and 60th anniversary celebration. They are also looking to update the series as sixty years later the series is not only dated but also obviously racist in some of the puppet designs. And the family are split over a takeover bid from a billionaire, with some wanting to accept his offer and others bitterly opposed to it.

It’s also complicated, with a large cast of characters and multiple layers. It took me a while to work out who is who, as I was reading a proof copy which does not have the Maskyn family tree included in the published edition – it would have been really helpful. Jack is onboard after being approached by MI5 who want him to act as an undercover agent investigating the death of an agent, Simeon Wickham forty years earlier. MI 5 had intelligence that the Maskyns had been infiltrated by an agent of a foreign power at that time. Just who was Simeon Wickham, what was his involvement with the Maskyns and who killed him?

Right from the start of the book it appears that Jack is the main suspect for killing the man found dead in suite 1114. The first half is slow going with detailed descriptions of the layout of the ship, with Jack getting lost in the different staircases that looked the same, confused by the position and direction of the ship and not sure which deck he was on. There is a great deal of description about the TV puppet show and about the current criticism it’s attracting. However, the pace begins to speed up at about 49%, and it was a race to the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, murder, onboard a luxury line in the middle of the Atlantic, with a complex plot, interesting characters, social commentary, told with humour and a hint back to the Golden Age of murder mysteries.

The Keeper by Tana French

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

Penguin| 2 April 2026| 524 pages| e-book| Review copy|5*

Description from Amazon

On a cold night in a remote Irish village, a girl goes missing.

Sweet, loving Rachel Holohan was about to be engaged to the son of the local big shot. Instead, she’s dead in the river.

In a place like this, her death isn’t simple. It comes wrapped in generations-old grudges and power struggles, and it splits the townland in two. Retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper has friends here now and he owes them loyalty, but his fiancée Lena wants nothing to do with Ardnakelty’s tangles. As the feud becomes more vicious, their settled peace starts to crack apart. And when they uncover a scheme that casts a new light on Rachel’s death and threatens the whole village, they find themselves in the firing line.

I’ve read the first two in Tana French’s Cal Hooper series, The Searcher and The Hunter, so I was really keen to read her third, The Keeper. They are all excellent books.

This one completes the Cal Hooper trilogy continuing the story of retired Chicago police officer Cal, his fiancée Lena, teenager Trey Reddy, who is now sixteen, and the rest of the people living in Ardnakelty, a fictional, remote village in Western Ireland. Like the first two books The Keeper begins slowly, but I like the slow build up to the mystery, and I love Tana French’s beautiful descriptions of the Irish rural landscape and her characterisation. I really felt that over the course of the trilogy I have got to know the characters – they come over as real people and I felt for all of them as this story developed.

It’s focused on the death of Rachel Holohan, was it murder or suicide, as her fiancé’s father would have us believe? I’m not going to write in any more detail about the plot other than to say that from the slow start the pace picks up, the tension rises and the twists and turns all make this an impressive and convincing murder mystery. I loved it and only hope that Tana French will write more books about Cal and the others as I’d love to know what happens next.

Tana French has won several awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry Awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction.

As well as the Cal Hooper trilogy, she has written a standalone novel, The Wych Elm and six books that form The Dublin Squad series:

In the Woods (2006)
The Likeness (2008)
Faithful Place (2010)
Broken Harbour (2012)
The Secret Place (2014)
The Trespasser (2016

Many thanks to the author and Penguin for a review copy via NetGalley.