Hobbies and Crafts

Adding a day early so that Perse can catch up with us.
Two books as usual please. vote when all suggestions are in. :-) :-)

From PAMMY

The Silent Boy by Andrew Taylor
Paris, 1792. Terror reigns as the city writhes in the grip of revolution. The streets run with blood as thousands lose their heads to the guillotine. Edward Savill, working in London as agent for a wealthy American, receives word that his estranged wife Augusta has been killed in France. She leaves behind ten-year-old Charles, who is brought to England to Charnwood Court, a house in the country leased by a group of émigré refugees.
Savill is sent to retrieve the boy, though it proves easier to reach Charnwood than to leave. And only when Savill arrives there does he discover that Charles is mute. The boy has witnessed horrors beyond his years, but what terrible secret haunts him so deeply that he is unable to utter a word?

A Promise Given by Meg Hutchinson
Stunned by her stepmother's accusation that she killed her beloved little brother, Rachel Cade is even more shocked to find she is at the mercy of the village's evil Magistrate Bedworth who sends her to the workhouse to await trial. There, Rachel is convinced her fate is sealed, but she has reckoned without the actions of handsome landowner Jared Lytton who comes to her rescue.
Despite being vindicated, Rachel is forced to leave the village. Life is tough and she has to struggle to survive until she meets the widow Beulah Thomas and her son William. Working on their farm, she is treated with kindness and when William asks for her hand in marriage, she agrees - more out of gratitude than out of love. But Rachel cannot forget Jared Lytton, whose path seems destined to cross hers.

While my eyes were closed by Linda Green
One, two, three . . . Lisa Dale shuts her eyes and counts to one hundred during a game of hide-and-seek. When she opens them, her four-year-old daughter Ella is gone. Disappeared without a trace. The police, the media and Lisa's family all think they know who snatched Ella. But what if the person who took her isn't a stranger? What if they are convinced they are doing the right thing? And what if Lisa's little girl is in danger of disappearing forever?


Yew Tree Gardens by Anna Jacobs

Sisters Mattie, Nell and Renie have all managed to escape their oppressive and bullying father, but now separated, the girls must draw upon their strength and courage to build new lives for themselves. Renie, the youngest sister, is living with the newly married Nell, happy in her waitressing job at the King's Head Hotel. But a shadow falls over her the day Mr Judson arrives as assistant manager. Feeling increasingly harassed by him and also eager to escape from Nell's unpleasant husband, Renie is delighted when she is offered a new job in London. Although she at first finds the city a huge and bewildering place, soon she is settling in and making friends. And yet she still worries about her sister Nell, and the way her husband Cliff treats her. When tragedy strikes Nell and her family, Renie is left feeling horrified and helpless. Her only comfort is her growing friendship with the injured Gil, towards whom she has felt an instant trust and affection. But can their relationship progress from friendship to something more? And how will the return of the threatening Judson affect their future?

Love and other near death experiences by Mil Millington

Hello. My name is Robert, and I haven’t been dead for sixty-three days now.

If he hadn’t bought those crummy towels, Rob would be six feet under. But his poor shopping sense accidentally set off a convoluted chain of events that meant he lived when all those others died in the pub explosion. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the ugly towels that saved his life. Perhaps it was some other random action, some other small movement that was the utterly trivial yet vitally important factor. And that’s the real problem.
Now, with his wedding fast approaching, Rob suddenly finds himself paralyzed with indecision–about Every. Little. Thing. He just can't be sure which seemingly innocuous choice will mean the difference between life and death: Should he wash the fork or the knife first? Should he step out of the shower with his left leg or his right leg? Red sweater or blue? One thing is certain: His fiancée, Jo, is at her wits’ end.
To save his relationship and his sanity, Rob embarks on a quest to find out why he’s still breathing. When he meets up with others who have had similar lifesaving near misses, he figures the answer must be close. But fate may just catch them yet, for Rob’s search to understand why he’s still alive might well turn out to be the very thing that kills them all.

The Blue Hour by Douglas Kennedy

I am a big fan of Douglas Kennedy and have read nearly all of his though he has had one weird one, one I can't get into really and one that just way too much happened to this one person. The pentulimate book I read of his was The Moment which I thought was spot on and I did recommend it a while back to no avail.

This Blue Hour:

Robin knew Paul wasn't perfect. But he said they were so lucky to have found each other, and she believed it was true. She is a meticulous accountant, almost forty. He is an artist and university professor, twenty years older. When Paul suggests a month in Morocco, where he once lived and worked, a place where the modern meets the medieval, Robin reluctantly agrees. Once immersed into the swirling, white hot exotica of a walled city on the North African Atlantic coast, Robin finds herself acclimatizing to its wonderful strangeness. Paul is everything she wants him to be--passionate, talented, knowledgeable. She is convinced that it is here she will finally become pregnant. But then Paul suddenly disappears, and Robin finds herself the prime suspect in the police inquiry. As her understanding of the truth starts to unravel, Robin lurches from the crumbling art deco of Casablanca to the daunting Sahara, caught in an increasingly terrifying spiral from which there is no easy escape.

Seem to have lost all track of time. Just sent his thread. Off no to find some books to suggest.

Sorry for the delay. :-

Unfortunately Mersey is not able to join us this month. Hopefully that leaves us with only 4 of us so a limited choice. Just waiting for Tess then I will do the vote. Again numbers will be reduced for this as pammy is away and unable to vote. So only 3 of us voting.

I'm back!
First suggestion.

Excursion to Tindari. by Andrea Camilleri. (An Inspector Montalbano Mystery.)

Maybe a phrase, a line,ahint somewhere would reveal a reason, any reason, for the elderly couple's disappearance. They'd saved everything...there was even a copy of the "certificate of living existence", that nadir of bureaucratic imbecility.

A younDon Juan is found murdered in front of his apartment building early one morning, and an elderly couple are reported missing after an excursion to the ancient site of Tindari - two seemingly unrelated cases for Inspector Montalbano to solve amid the daily complications of life at Vigata police headquarters.
But when Montalbano discovers that the couple and the murdered young man lived in the same building, his investigation stumbles onto Sicily's brutal " New Mafia", which leads him con a path more evil and far-reachin than any he has been down before.
*****************



Second suggestion

The Book Thief. by Markus Zusak.

1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holing its breath. Seat has never been busier.

Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Hummel Street. Her parents have Ben taken away to a concentration camp.
Liesel steals nooks. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street hen the bombs begin to fall.

SOME IMPORTNT INFORMTION.

This story is narrated by death.

It is a small story about:

a girl
***
an accordionist
****
some fanatical Germans
****

a Jewish fist fighter
****
and quite a lot of thievery.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT THING YOU SHOULD KNOW

Death will visit the book thief three times.