Under a Blood Red Sky - Kate Furnivall

Furnivall returns to Russia, the setting for her previous novels, The Russian Concubine and The Concubine's Secret (and also her new novel The Jewel of St Petersburg). But this is unconnected to those.

Opening in one of Stalin's labour camps in Siberia, Under a Blood Red Sky, tells the story of Sofia and Anna, two women forced to dig ditches and cut trees, as punishment for being related to people deemed enemies of the Communist State. Anna is sustained by the support of her friend and the memory of her love Vasily. As she becomes ill, Sofia vows to escape and find Vasily, bringing him back to rescue Anna from a slow and painful death in the camp.
Escape she does, and eventually makes it to the village of Tivil, where Vasily is said to be hiding. There she meets Mikhail Pashin, the man she believes she's come to find, and the other villagers, including the mysterious gypsy Rafik, who possesses strange powers.
Sofia will learn about herself, about the mess Russia is in, and how to save herself and her friends. But will she save Anna?

I liked this book, and I picked it up because I enjoyed the previous two, they're well written and easy to read, you might even learn something!

The Secret of Lost Things - Sheridan Hay

This book tells the story of Rosemary Savage, who leaves Tasmania after her mother's death and travels to New York in search of a new life. There she finds work in the Arcade bookshop and becomes entangled in the lives and secrets of her eccentric colleagues, Pearl the pre-operative Opera singing transsexual, Walter Geist the secretive albino manager, money obsessed owner George Pike, fat, gay Arthur in Art, rare book specialist Mr Mitchell and nonfiction's fastidious, obsessive Oscar. As she searches for meaning, love and a lost manuscript she finds that some things are not as they seem and some people you will never understand.
A book about literature, the love of reading, and finding out who you are meant to be.

One Day - David Nicholls

There's been a lot of hype about this book, currently being made into a film with Anne Hathaway (odd choice considering it's set in the UK and there are plenty of British actresses capable of carrying a film, but that's a rant for another day.)
Several friends have raved about it as well, and I quite liked his previous book, Starter for 10.
If I'm being completely honest, this struck me as a rather typical novel, where boy meets girl, they have sex, drift in and out of each others lives, it all goes a bit When Harry Met Sally, then eventually they get together. The twist near the end I didn't expect or see coming, so I suppose that sets it apart from other novels similar to it (such as those by Nick Hornby). The characters themselves were well written, Dexter isn't very nice to start with, and I can see that readers are meant to gradually warm to him, while Emma is much more likable straight away.
I wasn't completely won over by it, but it was a nice read, considering I read it to give my brain a rest from more academic reading.

Stories - Edited by Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio

This anthology of short stories by acclaimed authors is not something to be read in one sitting, but rather something to be dipped in and out of. I've only read a few of the stories so far, and been delighted by all. As is the tradition in short story telling, each is a self-contained tale of the Other. From the twisted revenge in Neil Gaiman's The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains, to the curious twin bond in Joyce Carol Oates' Fossil-Figures, and the vampirism of Walter Mosley's Juvenal Nyx, and the meta-fictive twists in Michael Swanwick's Goblin Lake, to name but a few, each story explores an aspect of the weird, sometimes frightening Other that preoccupies humanity.
Of what I've read so far, it's all rather brilliant. But then asking world-renowned, prize winning, authors to write a short story was bound to turn up some corkers. It's currently a hardback, so it might be out of some readers price range, but I highly recommend borrowing a copy from your local library, or just waiting for it to be a paperback.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz

Oscar de Leon is one of life's losers. He's the ultimate nerd, living in a world populated by characters out of the sci-fi and fantasy novels he loves. All he wants to do is lose weight and find love. His family are living under a curse that's blighted it for generations, so how can Oscar ever get what he wants.

I liked this book, it speeds along at a nice pace, jumping between Oscar's story as narrated by his best friend Yunior, and the stories of his mother, sister and grandparents, explaining all that's gone before.
Set in both New Jersey and the Dominican Republic the family hails from, it explores what it is to be young and misunderstood, and seemingly doomed.

A Conspiracy of Violence - Susanna Gregory

Set in Restoration era London, this follows spy Thomas Chaloner as he attempts to unravel a series of mysteries dating back to the English Civil War and the execution of Charles I. Having returned from Holland, Chaloner is looking for employment, Oliver Cromwell's former spymaster suggests he try the Lord Chancellor, who asks him to look for some missing gold. While undertaking this mission, he becomes involved with the Brotherhood, a group of men claiming to be seeking tolerance and understanding in the political and religious tinderbox that is England at this time, or are they all following their own agendas?
A good, well-paced, historical mystery, that cleverly comes together as Chaloner resolves his many investigations, with explosive consequences.

Friends Like These - Danny Wallace

Writer, TV presenter and cult leader Danny Wallace returns with another 'stupid boy project', this time to update his address book by meeting the 12 people he was friends with as a child, that he'd lost contact with. This involves travelling to Australia, Japan, Dundee and Loughborough, looking for his best childhood pals. At times laugh out loud funny, and at one point, quite sad, you too can learn what Man Points are and how to earn them, and turning 30 will lead some men to do. Like his previous books, Yes Man and Join Me, you do wonder exactly why he decides to do these things, and how no one punches him in the face at times.

Red Leaves - Paullina Simons

Detective Spencer Patrick O'Malley meets a girl doing up her black boots one winter in Hanover, New Hampshire, a few weeks later she's found naked and suffocated in the snow. Who was Kristina Kim and why would anyone want her dead? Spencer digs into her past and the lives of her close group of friends, Conni, Jim and the mysterious Albert, as he searches for answers.

I'd read The Girl in Times Square, by the same author, a while ago, and so picked this up, not realising Spencer was in it as well. It's a good read, with echoes of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, and a well-paced detective mystery. I rather enjoyed it's surprising little twists, although the ending was a bit odd.

The Mistress of Spices - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Tilo is a Spice Mistress, bound to serve the spices and the people who enter her shop looking for help. She knows exactly what they need. Until an American walks in her door and throws her powers off balance, can she find what she needs among the spices?

I quite liked this book, there's a touch of magical realism in there, and that appeals to me. Tilo might be all mysterious and wise, but at heart she's still someone who longs to make a connection with people and fall in love. Set amongst the Indian community of Oakland, CA, Tilo's customers come to her for food that reminds them of their homelands and also for her secret knowledge to ease their lives, there's Geeta's grandfather, angry Jagjit, Ahuja's wife, Kwesi cooking for the woman he loves, and Haroun who's searching for his slice of the American Dream. The one day a man called Raven walks in her door, and she disregards the spices and the voice of the Old Mother warning her not to leave the shop and forsake her calling.
It's a quick, charming read, perfect for now, when the weather's miserable and you're curled up inside wondering where the summer went!

Keeping the Dead - Tess Gerritsen

A forgotten mummy is found in a museum's basement, but x-rays reveal it to be a modern corpse, and now it's a murder case for Detective Jane Rizzoli and ME Maura Isles. Then another preserved corpse is found, could there be a serial killer with an interest in archeology out there?
Gerritsen's novels following the often sensational crimes investigated by her female protagonists, are much akin to other thrillers, unhinged murderers, brave detectives, terrible crimes. But if you, like me, enjoy these as a touch of escapism, then this is for you. Gerritsen writes well, and the characters of Isles and Rizzoli are likable enough.

Carnevale - M.R. Lovric

Set in Venice, this tells the story of Cecilia Cornaro, portrait painter and lover of both the legendary Giacomo Giralamo Casanova and the disreputable George Gordon, Lord Byron. The book moves from the days of the great republic through Napoleon's capture of the city and it's becoming an extension of his empire. Cecilia paints the portraits of the great and good, as well as their wives and mistresses and records her own love affairs in secret portraits of the men she loved.
They're a study in contrast, Casanova who worships women, and who loves Cecilia 'properly', and the narcissistic poet, who demands to be loved but seems unable to return any affection. Both great adventurers, but only one of them seems noble, and it's not the one with a title.
I loved this book, I have never been to Venice, but would love to, even though the age of La Serenissima is passed and the city is no longer the way Lovric describes, conjuring up the great festival of the title and the many noble families who filled its palazzos.

When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson

I've read Kate Atkinson's previous Jackson Brodie novels (Case Histories, One Good Turn) and there's a new one out soon (Started Early, Took My Dog), and her retired policeman turned private eye, is a right curmudgeon, and that's what makes the books work.
In this one, set in Edinburgh, Jackson is in the wrong place at the wrong time (as he sees it), rescued from a train crash by a local girl, Reggie, whose employer, a GP with a tragic history, has gone missing, he's soon manipulated into helping find Dr Hunter and her baby.
Atkinson also tells Reggie's story, and that of DCI Louise Monroe, who has a personal connection with Brodie.

It's a good detective/mystery novel. Harking back to the various characters' pasts as well as their present situations, well written and paced.

The Last Hero - Terry Pratchett

*I'm a huge Pratchettaholic and have almost everything he's written on my shelves, this is a book I've read before, but never reviewed.*

The Last Hero is a graphic novel, illustrated by Paul Kidby, but not set out in the usual style of graphic novels. It mixes text with pages of Kidby's wonderful illustrations, his one of The Great A'Tuin and the elephants with the Disc on top is spectacular, he does an amazing job of bringing Pratchett's world to life.
It centres on Cohen the Barbarian and his Silver Horde as they travel to the gods' home of Dunmanifestin' atop Cori Celeste at the centre of the Disc, to return what the first hero stole, namely fire.
Lord Vetinari, Patrician of Anhk-Morpork assembles a crack team (inventor Leonard of Quirm, wizzard Rincewind and Captain Carrot of the Watch) to stop them. Along for the ride is the Unseen University's unusual librarian, a kidnapped bard, Evil Lord Harry Dread and his bumbling henchmen, Vena the Raven-haired and a whole host of wizards, deities and dragons. Just another day on the Disc really.
As always there are echoes of our world, inside jokes for the fans (although nothing that alienates the new reader), references to stories that sound a little familiar and with the added pictures it's almost like you can see inside Pratchett's head!
The book works as a stand-alone text or as part of the Discworld narrative as a whole. It's a lot shorter than most of the other books, so would work as an introduction to the wonderful world Pratchett has created.

Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger

Set mostly in a flat overlooking London's Highgate Cemetery, this is a rather unusual ghost story. Elspeth Noblin leaves her spacious flat to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina, who have never met their aunt. She stipulates that they must live there for a year before deciding whether to keep the flat or not. Upstairs lives Martin and his wife Marijke, he's an OCD crossword compiler and she works for the BBC, until one day, shortly after Elspeth's death, she leaves him. Downstairs lives Elspeth's lover Robert, a man trapped in his despair and sadness until he meets the twins and becomes entwined in their lives.
The twins are identical, symmetrical, Valentina is an exact mirror image of Julia, with her heart on the right. Seen as the weaker twin, she finds the bonds with her sister suffocating, but how far will she go to escape them?

I really liked this book, I wasn't that keen on The Time Traveller's Wife, Niffenegger's previous book, but I enjoyed the dark, Gothic-y tone of this one. Niffenegger spent time as a tour guide in Highgate Cemetery, and the little details about its inhabitants, which Robert is researching for his dissertation, add a sense of history to the novel.

Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood

The book that inspired the musical and film Cabaret, should be a great, fun read right?
Well bits of it were, and bits weren't. A fictionalised version of Isherwood's time in Berlin during the late 1920s and early 1930s, leading up to the fall of the Wiemar Republic and the Second World War, it chronicles the lives of Isherwood's friends and acquaintances, from his landlady, Sally Bowles, the Nowak and Landauer families and others he meets, in a series of short interwoven stories.
The narrator (confusingly called Christopher Isherwood, although the author assures us in his introductory note, it's a mere coincidence), seems somewhat distanced from the people around him, and observes them with a detached air, as though unwilling or unable to get too involved in their lives. He's not entirely likable, being cruel to one young woman, just for fun.
At times the book drags, the way it is set out doesn't help. Hopping from one story to another, not entirely linking them together, it reads like extracts from a longer, more involved manuscript.
He touches briefly, at times, on the political situation, but as a foreigner, it doesn't seem to have much effect on him, even when it has a great one on the people he knows. It's an odd little book, worth a quick read but perhaps not worth investing too much in.

The Constant Gardener - John le Carre

This started off slow and I struggled to maintain my interest, but I'm glad I did. The novel is a tense thriller as Justin Quayle searches for his wife's murderer and investigates the work she was doing that may have lead to her death.
I haven't seen the film, I might now, mainly to compare the way the story is presented, the novel is well written, densely plotted, with strong characters and full of things to make you think.
I've never read any of le Carre's books, but I think it might be worth hunting some of his others out, any suggestions?

Bitter Chocolate - Lesley Lokko

I read Lokko's Sundowners a few years ago and quite liked it, so I hoped this would be as enjoyable. It's not a cerebral read (and sometimes that's just what's needed), but a light-ish novel, bit chunky, about the lives and loves of three girls, Laure, Ameline and Melanie. Set in Haiti, Chicago, L.A and London, it follows them as they grow up, lose their innocence and find their places in the world. At times, it seems to focus more on Laure than any of the other characters, and seems to struggle to keep three narrative threads going, especially when it's unclear how they're going to intersect in any way. Laure and Ameline grow up together in the heat of Petionville, Haiti, Laure is the granddaughter of a formerly wealthy family, and Ameline a servant, but they're closer than sisters, until one day they're divided and Laure moves to Chicago to live with her mother. It's difficult at first to see how they will meet up again and what circumstances their lives will be in. It's even harder to see how Melanie ties into any of this, and indeed she doesn't until the last third of the book, making her storyline slightly discordant with the rest.
Overall it was a fairly un-taxing read, perfect for the summer's heat, when you just want something gentle to read. People who enjoy slightly more intelligent "chick lit" (oh how I loathe that term) will probably enjoy this.

The Agnes de Souarcy Chronicles - Andrea H. Japp

The Season of the Beast
The Breath of the Rose
The Divine Blood

Originally written in French, these books tell the story of Agnes de Souarcy and her family, and the conspiracies swirling between medieval France and papal Rome. There's a knight, a lord, a convent full of nuns, the Inquisition, a boy who might not be a boy, ancient manuscripts, and murder.
The first two books were the strongest, the final third devolved into quasi-Da Vinci Code territory (which was rather disappointing), and got a bit tangled up in it's conspiracies. I liked the characters of Clement and Sister Anneline, resourceful and clever, and also the clerk Agnan, who was rather sweet. These are well written historical romps, the appendices at the back proving that there's some rather thorough research gone into writing the trilogy. I enjoyed reading these, although the ending was a little weak.

The Death of Achilles - Boris Akunin

This is one in a series of Russian crime mystery novels featuring Erast Fandorin, described in the blurb as "a 19th Century James Bond", I think he's more of a Russian Sherlock Holmes.
I haven't read any of the others, and picked this up randomly in a charity shop. It's quite good. The weird language quirks probably come from it being a translation (I don't read Russian), common to a lot of translated literature.
The 'Achilles' of the title, is a General in the army, who is seen as a hero for everyone to look up to. He dies in mysterious circumstances and it's up to Fandorin and his Japanese sidekick Masa, to work out what is going on, what's in the briefcase, how is the singer (and concubine) Wanda involved and how far does the intrigue stretch?
Fandorin gets through several disguises, a few murders and discovers a conspiracy that might just end with the Emperor! It's quite a fun read, well paced and at times a little silly (Masa seems to exist purely to provide comic relief).

In The Kitchen - Monica Ali

This is Ali's third novel (Brick Lane & Alejanto Blue), set in a hotel kitchen, it tells the story of Gabe, the head chef, as his life begins to unravel. This is prompted by the death of a kitchen porter who appears to have been living in the hotel's basement and Gabe's investigation into how he came to be there and how the mysterious Lena is involved, and just what the restaurant manager is up to. Ali's novel peels back the layers of life in a hotel, the immigrants and the management, everyone from the lowliest pot washer to the general manager himself is studied by Gabe as he attempts to see beyond the veneer of respectability and also to work out his own family relationships.
This is different from Ali's famous first novel and again from her last, which I always think is good, novelists get typecast, just like actors, and Ali is veering away from that, although immigrants have featured in both this and Brick Lane, she doesn't get as indepth as previously. It's well written and intelligent, part crime novel, part introspective study of the protagonist.