2018 Top Ten International Reads

As choosing an overall top ten is far too difficult, I broke it up into Aussie authors and ‘the rest’.  I have more US writers on this list than I thought I would.  Of course, this might be Connie Willis’s doing.

Blackout by Connie Willis:  Blackout is part of Willis’s Oxford Time Travel series and  has time travellers heading for England during WW2. The book is full of ordinary characters doing ordinary things. Then, it suddenly dawns on you that the characters and their lives are anything but ordinary! Blackout and All Clear as basically the same book, but it was too long and Willis and her publishers cut it up into two parts.  They are my overall favourite reads of the year.  5 out of 5

All Clear by Connie Willis: After finishing All Clear, my love for Willis’s Oxford Time Travel series has not diminished and in fact I’m sad and depressed that I only have Fire Watch, the short story, remaining. I’d love to demand Willis write another book in the series but as I recently read she took an epic eight years to pen Blackout and All Clear, I don’t see it happening in my near future.  5 out of 5

Passage by Connie Willis: Passage isn’t part of the Oxford Time Travel series but as this is the fifth Willis novel I’ve read, I’ve become very familiar with her style. I can understand why some people become frustrated with it when reading her books, but I just continue to adore it and her. She is truly one of the most deceptively intelligent writers there has ever been. I can’t recommend Passage enough. 5 out of 5

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths: Ruth Galloway is a nearly 40 unmarried overweight introverted cat owning archaeologist. DI Harry Nelson is the lead detective working on two missing child cases. When bones are found on the salt marsh near where Ruth lives, Harry asks for her assistance and soon Ruth finds herself drawn further and further into the police investigation and subsequently, danger.T here was something about this book which dragged me in and made me want more. Luckily for me there are another ten books in the series.  I’m currently up to number 8.  I won’t list them all, but I rated them all 5 out of 5.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeymoon: You’d have to live under a rock to not have heard of this debut. There’s several themes Honeyman explores with Eleanor’s story. How people cope with mental illness, of course, plus how people cope with loneliness and the importance of love. We’re all a little crazy. We’re all a little damaged. But in the end, we might find the strength to make it through the day and feel fine — about certain aspects, at least. After all, if Eleanor can do it, so can we.  5 out of 5

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan: There’s a little bit of everything in this book: romance, mystery, comedy, drama. It’s a book about books and a book about movies. It’s a collection of short stories. It has diverse characters who will warm your heart and make you cry. It’s above love and second chances. It’s about loss and the flow on effects of those losses And it’s a keeper. 5 out of 5

The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schaffhausen:  Schaffhausen is a good friend of a good friend of mine meaning I feel like I know her (even though the limit of our friendship is the occasional comment/reply on one of our mutual friend’s Facebook posts, LOL) and, therefore, I felt obliged to pick up a copy of her debut novel. For someone who doesn’t read this genre often, The Vanishing Season definitely had its creepy moments. There’s no huge Gone Girl twist in the end of the book but there is enough tension in the climactic scenes to make you keep turning pages until you reach the end. 5 out of 5

The Wolves of Winter by Tyrell Johnson: A nuclear war ends when a super flu spreads around the world. Those few who have managed to survive both of these events flee the cities, living off the land in isolated areas. Johnson’s debut skips along at a fast pace which had me hooked from the first chapter.   4 1/2 out of 5

The Queen of Wishful Thinking by Milly Johnson: Despite being around 500 pages long, this book was a fast easy read; for the most the characters were ordinary people who you could imagine live down the road; the setting was cute and typically English; the characters too were very English; and I appreciate the fact they were older.  4 out of 5

Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn: First books in mystery/detective series can be tough. The author has to introduce the main characters and establish their personalities, one of whom we need to find very likeable, as well as give us a bit of background on those characters, without using information dumps or corny flashbacks. Then, they need to bait us enough in the ending to ensure we pick up book number two in the series. Dunn’s effort ticked all the boxes all while presenting a half decent murder plot.  Considering there are currently 23 titles in the series, I assume Dunn kept up the high standard and I’m not the only one who instantly became a bit of a fan of Daisy and Dunn’s writing. 4 out of 5

Hopefully I’ll pick up just as many 5 star reads in 2019.

Happy New Year!

The Keeper of Lost Things

Book Review:  The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

There’s a little bit of everything in this book: romance, mystery, comedy, drama. It’s a book about books and a book about movies. It’s a collection of short stories. It has diverse characters who will warm your heart and make you cry. It’s above love and second chances. It’s about loss and the flow on effects of those losses And it’s a keeper.

Firstly, I’d like to talk about the author, Ruth Hogan. This was her debut, written whilst she was receiving treatment for cancer and this sounds like an interesting story in itself. She writes so beautifully, you’ll want to read some passages over and over. If I started quoting gorgeously written lines, I’d end up almost quoting the whole book.

There are two main stories told throughout the book. In the first we meet Anthony, a writer, who passes away and bequeaths all his worldly possessions to his housekeeper cum personal assistant, Laura. Laura learns that Anthony has been collecting and cataloguing ‘lost things’ for years. Some of these have, in fact, become the basis of his short stories. She also finds out that he wants her to try and find as many owners of the lost things as possible, a daunting task.

Helping Laura is the gardener, Freddy, and the young neighbour, Sunshine, who has ‘dancing drome’ (Down’s Syndrome).

Of all the character in the book, Sunshine, in particular, shines (to use an obvious turn of phrase). She continually made me smile. Although sweet and innocent, she was never written as stupid, despite her hilarious grammatical errors. It was obviously a fine line Hogan had to walk to get the right balance, and I think she nailed it.

The second main story told through the book is of Eunice and Bomber. These two best friends connect instantly due to their shared passion for movies and dogs. In this section we also meet Bomber’s parents and his sad sister, Portia. You’ll definitely need a tissue when reading about their lost things.

Bomber and Eunice run a publishing house, and thus their lives interconnect with Anthony’s when he submits a manuscript.

I read this as a challenge book. I needed something which featured magic and the blurb told me this book fit the bill. For once, the blurb was telling the truth, as there was magic, literally and figuratively. Again, Hogan kept on the straight and narrow path of believability here, where she could have easily toppled over into ridiculous territory.

The short stories about the lost things are interspersed amongst the book and are all wonderful. They’re poignant and polished, despite their brevity and I would actually read an entire book from Hogan just of short stories.

If I had to give one thing I didn’t like about the book, it would be its size. At 288 pages, I flew through it so fast, I was left wanting more. I will definitely be picking up Hogan’s other books.

Highly recommend.

5 out of 5