Throwback Thursday – BooksPlease

Throwback Thursday: The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths

Published on December 4, 2025 by Margaret4 Comments

Today I’m linking up with Davida @ The Chocolate Lady’s Book Review Blog for Throwback Thursday. It takes place on the Thursday before the first Saturday of every month (i.e., the Thursday before the monthly #6Degrees post). The idea is to highlight one of your previously published book reviews and then link back to Davida’s blog.

I first reviewed The Postscript Murders on December 9, 2020.

My review begins:

I enjoyed Elly Griffiths’ first DS Harbinder Kaur book, The Stranger Diaries, so I was keen to read the second book, The Postscript Murders. It’s very different, in a much lighter style and I think Elly Griffiths was enjoying herself writing this poking fun at crime fiction writers and the book world, with book bloggers and a literary festival. I really enjoyed it. It’s very readable, cleverly plotted, with interesting and well defined characters

Click here to read my full review

Throwback Thursday: Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve

Published on August 1, 2024 by Margaret1 Comment

Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve. I first reviewed it on February 5, 2008.

My review begins:

This was one of the best books I read in 2007. Philip Reeve is a new author to me. Here Lies Arthur is an adventure story, set in Britain in AD 500. I have always been fascinated by the legend of King Arthur and this book tells his story, casting a new and original slant on the ‘facts’. Very little historical evidence has survived to give concrete information about life in Britain from the fifth to the sixth centuries. The picture Reeve paints is of a turbulent and harsh world, with Arthur as a war-leader in a land where opposing war-bands fight for supremacy. Arthur is not the romantic hero of legend but a dangerous, quick-tempered man, ‘solid, big-boned with a thick neck and a fleshy face. ‘A bear of a man.’

Click here to read my full review

Throwback Thursday: When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

Published on February 2, 2023 by Margaret2 Comments

When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson is probably my favourite of her books. I first reviewed it on February 18, 2009. I’d borrowed it from the library and at the time was thinking of re-reading it but I had to return the book before I had time to read it again. It’s the third novel in her Jackson Brodie series. I still haven’t read it again – I’d love to though.

My review begins:

Complex but so very satisfying! This has had very mixed reviews on Amazon which just goes to show that you have to make up your own mind about a book. I read it very quickly because I loved it. I know I missed bits – just when did Jackson lose his jacket? I’ve tried to track it down but I can’t spot it, so I’m thinking of reading it again before I have to take it back to the library.

Click here to read my full review

The next ThrowbackThursday post is scheduled for March 1, 2023.

Throwback Thursday: The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart

Published on December 1, 2022 by Margaret4 Comments

The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart is the third book of the Arthurian Saga, a book of myth and legend and about the conflict between good and evil. I first reviewed it on April 5, 2014.

My review begins:

I love books that take me away to another time and place – The Last Enchantment (1979) by Mary Stewart is just such a book, magically whisking me back to the time of King Arthur and Merlin. This is not a book to read quickly, but a book to savour both for the story and for Mary Stewart’s descriptive writing.

Click here to read my full review

The next ThrowbackThursday post is scheduled for January 4, 2023.

Throwback Thursday: They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie

Published on November 3, 2022 by Margaret8 Comments

They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie is a standalone spy thriller. I first reviewed it on November 4, 2011.

My review begins:

I made copious notes as I read Agatha Christie’s They Came to Baghdad because it’s such a complex plot and there seemed to be so many significant events and people that I wanted to clarify what was happening. This is not one of Agatha Christie’s detective novels – no Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot,- just Victoria Jones, a short-hand typist, a courageous girl with a ‘natural leaning towards adventure’ and a tendency to tell lies. Set in 1950 this is a story about international espionage and conspiracy. The heads of the ‘great powers‘ are secretly meeting in Baghdad, where if it all goes wrong ‘the balloon will go up with a vengeance.’ And an underground criminal organisation is out to make sure it does go wrong, aiming at ‘total war – total destruction. And then – the new Heaven and the new Earth.’

Click here to read my full review

The next ThrowbackThursday post is scheduled for December 1, 2022.

Throwback Thursday: The Girl on the Stairs by Louise Welsh

Published on September 29, 2022 by Margaret5 Comments

Today I’m looking back at my post on The Girl on the Stairs by Louise Welsh, a dark, psychological thriller, full of atmosphere and claustrophobic tension. I first reviewed it on August 29, 2012.

My review begins:

The Girl on the Stairs is Louise Welsh’s latest book. It’s a book that once I started reading it I just had to finish it. It’s full of suspense and increasing tension as Jane moves to an apartment in Berlin to join her partner, Petra. Everything is new to her, she only speaks a little German, she doesn’t know the area and has no friends there. And she’s pregnant.