Year of wonders

The Ghost by

Adam Lang, ex-Prime Minister, is writing his memoirs. Or to be more honest, he needs a ghostwriter. Someone to do some research, to rewrite Lang’s memories into a story. Enter our...

Do butlers burgle banks? by

Read originally 19/07/2010. Reread June 2014 On my reread I enjoyed it just as much as the first time round, if not more. Wodehouse has that wonderful way of poking fun...

The Unfortunate Fursey by

Fursey is a lay brother in Clonmacnoise. The only monastery in Ireland to be unafflicted by demons and other such occult presences. The power of its bells have kept all those...

A girl called Fred by

Roger Willgoose isn’t really a dog person. It is his wife really who decides to bring a dog into their home. But gradually this little Yorkshire Terrier, renamed Fred, worms her...

Triptych by

When the aliens came it was nothing like the way science fiction and popular culture had predicted it. There was no invasion, instead they were refugees. Their own planet had collapsed,...

Girl with a pearl earring by

In seventeenth century Holland Griet is about to become a maid. She is sixteen years of age. Her father was blinded in an accident so the family are suffering financially. She...

The Owl Service by

Alison and Roger have come to Wales on a holiday with their parent and respective step-parent. Roger’s father and Alison’s mother have recently married and in a way this is a...

Some kind of fairy tale by

Twenty years ago Tara Martin went missing. She simply went out one day and never came home. Her boyfriend at the time was an obvious suspect. They had rowed before she...

The Book Thief by

At the end of the nineteen thirties in Germany a little girl travelled with her mother and brother on the train. The children were being sent to live with foster parents....

The Hundred and One Dalmatians by

Life for Mr and Mrs Dearly and their dogs, Pongo and Misses, is going well. They live near Regent’s Park in London and are very comfortably well off, Mr Dearly having...

Address Unknown by

Reread for my book club. And on second read it is just as powerful, if not more so than on first reading. Original review from 2010 below ISBN: 978028563293 ; DDC:...

Year of wonders by

The year is 1665 and Anna Frith is a widow at only 18 years of age. She has two young sons to support and she works hard. Life in a small...