Happy St George's Day; and books

Why can't we have a Bank Holiday for St George's Day? We're falling over Bank Holidays this Easter but I still think we should have one for our national saint.

Books read:

• Death in the Physic Garden by Karen Lowe - murder and garden design. I first read this a few years ago and enjoyed it but thought I would re-read it before I read the next one featuring Fern Green - Death in the Winter Garden.


• Gently Down the Stream by Alan Hunter - murder and family secrets set in the Norfolk Broads with lots of Norfolk dialect - though nothing too incomprehensible for those not familiar with it!


• Summer of Love by Katie Fforde - good light reading. I haven't enjoyed her later books but in this one she is back on form.


• Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer - Regency with a Gothic theme. This is the only Heyer which has ever reduced me to tears.


• The Missing Marriage by Sarah May - man goes missing off the Northumbrian coast in a kayak - but is he really dead? I found it a very confusing story with some relatively unsympathetic characters.


• The Body on the Beach by Simon Brett - the first in the Fethering series. I read it some years ago but it was still enjoyable the second time around. Touches of delicious humour and a pair of mismatched sleuths - what's not to like?

Currently reading

• The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer - one of her most interesting heroines in my opinion


• Death in the Winter Garden by Karen Lowe - Fern is asked to resurrect an overgrown art deco garden but the skeleton of a baby is found when the digging starts


• Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon - the first in her Guido Brunetti series set in Venice - worth more than one reading as her style is understated and I'm seeing things I missed first time round.

Happy Easter people!

Kate Fforde

I think I've read all Katie Fforde's books at various times. Her latest is A Perfect Proposal. She writes light women's fiction which is a relaxing read and her earliest books - Wild Designs, Living Dangerously and Life Skills - were all excellent reading but her later ones were not so good in my opinion. Highland Fling was the one which started to put me off her books. The edition I read had so many typos in it that it almost looked as though it had never been proof read. I hope these error were corrected in later editions. I think it was at that point that her books suddenly became about 85% dialogue and virtually no narrative.

I have no problem with dialogue - if it is well written, which hers is - but I do like to see a larger proportion of narrative in the novels I read. Her last book Love Letters - set in the literary world - was good - almost back to the standard of her earlier work. So I had high hopes of A Perfect Proposal. I did enjoy it but . . . It seemed almost as though there were two books trying to get out. There was the story about Luke and his grandmother Matilda - from New York and there was the story with Sophie's (the heroine's) family. There just seemed to be too much material for one book and it seemed a little disjointed and sort of thrown together in a hurry. The problem is, I think, that Katie Fforde has found a formula that works and sells books - which she and her publisher obviously love - but I think she needs to maybe do something a bit different.

If you like light fiction then don't let me put you off - just read her earlier books as listed above. - anything prior to about 2003 was excellent in my opinion.

Money, hot weather and books

I have the majority of the money I'm waiting for as of this morning but as I told the nice man at the building society when he wanted to offer me financial advice it's all spoken for. So that's a weight off my mind. I can now start distributing it.

I've spent 10 minutes pulling up weeds in the shingle in our back garden and came in rather over heated. This is definitely flaming June! I've also walked to the post office - about 5 minutes away - which was quite pleasant as there's a nice little breeze once you get away from sheltered areas.

I stayed up late to finish reading Katie Fforde's Love Letters. It's very much light fiction but this author is one of the best in my opinion. Sparkling dialogue, lots of humour and a heroine who starts off lacking in self confidence but grows throughout the story. I loved the background to this as Laura - the heroine - having been made redundant from her job in a bookshop gets roped into helping to organise a literary and music festival. There are some great scenes with authors sniping at one another and an absolutely marvellous literary agent - Eleanora. I'd love to see more of her though I suspect we're not likely to as she's rather outside Katie Fforde's normal age range.

Katie Fforde and others

Katie Fforde's new book 'Wedding Season' arrived on Monday and was finished by Tuesday evening. I've been slightly disappointed by her last few - more dialogue than description to the extent they almost read like a film script. This one was better balanced and had all the sparkle of her early books - 'Thyme Out', 'Living Dangerously', 'The Rose Revived' etc. Sarah, Bron and Elsa organise weddings for other people. But what about their own love lives which are sadly neglected and going nowhere. The background - wedding planning - is well researched and interesting and the characters come alive on the page. I loved it. This is chick lit at its very best.

Sue Gee's 'Reading in Bed' was just as good in its own very different way. The educated middle class and their belief that everything will continue as it has done for years is well portrayed. Georgia, Henry, Dido and Jeffrey have all been friends since university. Now Henry is dead, leaving Georgia a widow and the status quo is about to be upset. The children are grown up and having their own crises which impact on the parents and then there is Cousin Maud who appears to have finally tipped over the edge into madness. Jeffrey is in trouble because of inappropriate behaviour with a student - but how one sided is it really? Does the text message Dido read against her better judgement have anything to do with it? The writing is subtle and understated. I enjoyed it.

Then there's Sharon Owen's 'The Revenge of the Wedding Planner' - which I was finding slightly annoying. I did finish it and enjoyed it though it's not a five star read. I found the narrator a bit too chatty and I didn't think the title fitted the book at all. Obviously wedding planners are the people to write about at the moment - especially those who do not believe in love.

I have two by Martin Edwards to read now and Susan Hill's latest Simon Serrailier 'The Vows of Silence'. How can you tell I'm not at work?