Alison

📚What’s on my Book Shelf📚

This is a new challenge for me and it’s hosted by Deb over at Deb’s World with a few other bloggers. It’s called What’s on your Book Shelf.

I love reading and have always done so, ever since I could read. I enjoy a good crime novel and I think the earliest ones I ever read were the Enid Blyton Famous Five books and Secret Seven. I really wanted to be in those gangs and they fired up my imagination to search for more of the same. Then came Agatha Christie and I don’t think I ever guessed who did it.

These days I read all types of fiction books which is my preference, rather than an autobiography or non-fiction.

I’ve just read the following three books.

They are about three different women, Jocelyn, Georgina and Evelyn.

The House in the Hollow

This is the first in the trilogy.  It’s mainly about Jocelyn who is banished to Tall Chimneys.  We don’t find out the reason until later on in the story.  She is humiliated and dishonoured and sent to live with just a few staff in the North of England.  It is set in the Regency period where appearances matter above all else. 

I loved this book and was transported back to a time when women were just puppets made to do as they were told by the men in their lives.  

The Lady in the Veil

This is the second one and it does say it’s a stand alone but it would definitely make more sense to read the first. In this book we also don’t find out until later on why Georgina insists on wearing a veil. It is set in the year 1835 and not much has changed for women who still continue to do as their male relatives tell them. I enjoyed this book very much and it was a definite change from the usual psychological thrillers I usually read.

Tall Chimneys

Tall Chimneys is set at a much later period, just before and during the second world war. This can be read as a standalone. It is about Evelyn who is banished to Tall Chimneys as the family don’t quite know what to do with her. I enjoyed this one the most as I felt I really got to know Evelyn and her trials and tribulations against the men in her life and how much her home meant to her.

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Another book I also loved is the first novel by Chris Whittaker called Tall Oaks. Last year I read another one by him called We Begin at the End, this would be one of my all time favourite novels. What a talented author this man is to be able to write from a 14 year old girl’s viewpoint. They are both contemporary fiction and each features a police officer trying to solve a crime. Both have twists that I didn’t see coming.

I do belong to a book club and we meet once a month, usually in a cafe or in the house of whoever chose the book. It is called the Dancing Queens Book Club because we mainly all met at zumba!

We chose our books around two months in advance. Some of the books I love but some are DNF’s! which is a bit slack of me, but life is too short to read something I can’t get into. It’s one of the reasons I love my kindle as I can download samples to see if they grab me or not. I can usually get a feel of whether I’m going to enjoy the book by the first chapter although I do try and give it the 100 page test.

My two adorable grandchildren enjoying their books

23 comments

  3. This is great Ali, I’ve not heard of these authors but both sound really interesting. Thanks for the reviews and background, it often helps to have that before starting a series. How cute are your grandchildren reading? And I love the name of your bookclub, a fun group!
    It’s fabulous to have you join in and I’ve added you to the list in my post 🙂

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  5. Thanks for linking up Ali! I haven’t heard of the authors, but the trilogy sounds interesting to me. As an aside, I LOVED Famous Five (and pretty much everything by Enid Blyton) when I was growing up.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Enid Blyton is so persona non grata these days isn’t she, but she was a brilliant writer. I am enjoying all the Allie Cresswell books, she writes so well.

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