Books and decorating

I have been making a start on the decorating as well as doing other boring mundane chores which practically drive me demented but need to be done if we're not to live in a mess. I have practically finished the dining room/kitchen thanks to a very useful gadget - a Dulux Paint Pod. It is basically an electrified roller system. Much quicker than using a roller normally as you don't have to stop and re-load the roller - you just press a button.

I'm the world's messiest decorator so anything that promises no mess is a bonus for me. It really is no mess as well. It also cleans itself - fill a chamber with warm water and switch on. Empty the chamber at the opposite end of the machine when done and everything is clean and just needs drying - including the roller itself. I'm far from being a gadget freak but I just love this. I wonder when they'll bring one out that works with gloss paint? In the meantime I'm tempted to emulsion everything!

Books:

The Devil's Sonata by Elizabeth Aston - very good - supernatural influences in a co-ed boarding school which occupies a former monastery. A violin which seriously affects the girl who plays it and an American researcher studying a grimoire in the library.

Anna, where are you? Catherine Wheel, The Case of William Smith all three by Patricia Wentworth and all are among her best work for sheer complexity of plot and character analysis. I only have about six more to read by this author.

The Merchant's House and Armada Boy by Kate Ellis - archaeology and modern crime - fascinating. All the police characters get on as well which makes a change from many police procedurals.

The Hanging Wood by Martin Edwards - another episode in the Lake District series of mysteries. A very enjoyable crime story with a truly horrific ending. I love the concept of a residential library - now that is my idea of heaven! I thought the characters were well drawn and I like the way the relationship between Daniel Kind and Hannah Scarlett is being developed slowly and sensitively.

The Secrets of Pain by Phil Rickman - thanks to a mix up over publication dates I have the ebook version of this which is not actually published until September. I think by the time Amazon realised their mistake my copy had already been downloaded and they haven't asked for it back! It is the latest in the Merrily Watkins series and very good it is too. Not so much about the exorcism side of Merrily's job but enthralling just the same.

The SAS feature in the form of Syd Spicer - the vicar who was in The Remains of an Altar - currently temporary chaplain to the SAS, his old regiment. He is trying to deal with something unpleasant which would be better left to Merrily but for reasons of secrecy he has to keep it to himself. Hereford police - in the form of Frannie Bliss and Annie Howe have their own problems with the murder of a farmer and the murder of two girls. The book kept me reading late into the night when I got to the last third of it as I had to know how it all worked out. At least with ebooks it is more difficult to flick to the end and make sure all your favourite characters escape unscathed!

Reading . . .

I am currently reading The Cold Calling by Will Kingdom (Phil Rickman under another name) - very good but not as good as the Merrily Watkins series. Then there's Kate Atkinson's Started Early, Took my Dog which is improving the more I read of it and I'm familiar with much of the geographical area she writes about which has to be a bonus. The first 30 pages didn't impress me but it's growing on me.

Also reading Suffragette City by Kate Muir which I've had kicking around for ages. I finally picked it up and started reading it on Saturday and was hooked by it. Albertina is living a somewhat Bohemian life in New York when her grandmother gives her a trunk belonging to Agnes - Albertina's great great grandmother. The problem is that Agnes - in spirit form - keeps turning up and haranguing Albertina about her life and how she's wasting it. Funny and historically interesting.

Pretty mixed bunch there and I'm also still listening to Bill Bryson's At Home - on disc 13 of 14.

Still reading . . .

I am still reading Phil Rickman. I rarely read a series back to back because I usually start getting bored after the first few but with the Merrily Watkins series I am number 8 with 2 more to go. I recently visited the author's web site and have discovered that he is working on another one www.philrickman.com

There is just so much packed into the books - ghosts, the supernatural, religion, paganism, local history and folk lore. Then there's the characters - Merrily herself and her teenage daughter Jane and her boyfriend Eirion; Gomer Parry - semi retired plant hire expert; Lol Robinson - singer, song writer and guitarist; Sophie - the Bishop's lay secretary; Frannie Bliss - detective and his boss - the ice maiden Annie Howe. Great stuff and I find myself totally lost in their world on the Hereford border with Wales.

When I get to the end of the series I have several other books to start on. Matt Haig's The Radleys; Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson; Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles; Sick Notes by Tony Copperfield. A fair old mixture there!

The stop press news is that I have finally ordered an e-book reader. I've been debating for about a year whether to get one. Now Amazon are selling a UK version of their very successful Kindle I'm going for that - which will be released at the end of August. I had favoured the Sony but having found out their latest one has a shiny screen I decided to go for the Kindle. I dislike reading books printed on shiny paper as I find them difficult to read so trying to read on a shiny screen could have been difficult.

Currently reading

Phil Rickman still - now it's number 6 in the series - The Prayer of the Night Shepherd which involves a spooky hotel, a small village and an alternative source of inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles. I remember being not quite so keen on this book when I first read it but I suspect that was because I read it in very small chunks. Some books need to be read in longish sessions I think.

I found The Lamp of the Wicked - number 5 in the series - compelling reading. The background to it the Fred West murder cases and a possible copy cat killer - with of course supernatural elements. A very good and thought provoking mystery.

Still reading Phil Rickman . . . .

I'm part way through The Lamp of the Wicked - which is the 5th in the Merrily Watkins series. It's good when books you haven't read for years are just as good - if not better when you read them again. I've read nearly five in a week and have stayed up later than normal on several evenings because I couldn't put the book down.

I'm also listening to an audio book of Jane Austen's The Watsons and Sanditon - her two unfinished novels. I really wish she'd lived long enough to finish Sanditon as I'm sure it would have been one of her best books.

I also have an audio book - all 14 discs of it - of Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life which looks like being good. I got that through the Amazon Vine programme - free - which can't be bad.

Phil Rickman

I'm a fan of Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins series about a Church of England Exorcist - now called Deliverance Consultants. It is quite some time since I first read The Wine of Angels which was the first in the series so I decided to re-read it at the weekend. I found myself totally hooked and when I'd finished it yesterday I immediately started the next one - Midwinter of the Spirit. These are gripping stories set in Herefordshire in a fictional village called Ledwardine. In the first book Merrily is the newly appointed Priest-in-Charge of the parish.

Village life with all its fallings out and cliques is well portrayed. A newcomer wants to stage a drama in the church to rehabilitate a 17th century vicar - Wil Williams. But things are not as simple as they seem. There is ghostly activity in the vicarage and Jane - Merrily's daughter - has some strange other worldly experiences. This is a gripping story and it keeps you reading even when you're hair is standing on end. It even made me break my usual habit of reading several books at the same time - even though I'd read it before.

More books read

I finished Phil Rickman's 'To Dream of the Dead' last night and excellent it was too. A bit different from his usual Merrily Watkins books as there was very little about her part time job as official exorcist to the diocese of Hereford. There was some very murky corruption going on in the local council and involving a charismatic TV archaeologist and a murder. The advent of a headline making atheist author living incognito to escape threats from various places, next door to a possible prehistoric pagan site which the archaeologist is digging serves to stir things up - if only with the local fundamentalist Christian. The action of the novel takes place over the few days leading up to Christmas and is punctuated by a rapidly rising river threatening to cut off the village of Ledwardine. A very tense and fast paced thriller.

I finished - at last - Anne Brooke's 'Maloney's Law' - not a comfortable book to read including as it does some very murky business dealings. I did like Paul, the private investigator, and thought his upbringing had a huge bearing on the problems he found himself immersed in. I was less sure about Dominic. I thought the ending was appropriate and I feel hopeful about Paul's future prospects. I thought the way Paul always comments about how long it's been since something happened interesting and it fitted his particular personality. He really likes to keep control of things and that quality is also shown by his series of Maloney's Laws. I've only one bone to pick with you, Anne, and that's what you did to Jade - how could you??!! I really liked her and thought she was an interesting character. I have posted a review on Amazon for you - without any comments about Jade as that would have potentially given away some of the plot.

Doesn't time fly . . .

Now I'm not in pain all the time and have been able to stop taking pain killers I'm starting to enjoy my enforced leisure. My arm does still hurt if I put too much pressure on it which reassures me that I'm not malingering, but I can do a bit more everyday.

My bookchair arrived but actually it is not really needed now as I can hold a book for quite a while. But as it's a useful object - especially if you need to refer to a book whilst typing - or eating! It looks exactly like a miniature deckchair with the obligatory stripes, though you can get plain ones as well. The only difference is it has two little bits that stick up on the leading edge which hold the pages in place - see picture.

Books read recently - Peter Lovesey - 'The House Sitter' - I've read two other Peter Lovesey novels - The Circle' & 'The Headhunters', both of which featured DCI Hen Mallin - a cigar smoking female detective who's got where she is by sheer hard work. 'The House Sitter' is the first one I've read with Peter Diamond in. The bonus as far as I was concerned was that it also had Hen Mallin! 'The House Sitter' is excellent and not too violent and has two murders which may or may not be connected. Characters are well drawn and the plot is tight and convoluted with some brilliant twists and turns.

I've also just finished Kathy Lette's 'To Love Honour and Betray', and it's the first and last book of hers which I shall be reading I think. She is trying to be funny most of the time and after a few pages you can see the jokes coming a mile off and the language is cruder than strictly necessary - to me it detracted from the story. The plot is good with some sparky characters and some very unpleasant caricatures as well, but overall it left a bit of a nasty taste. I'm sure it will be popular with her many fans

I'm currently reading Phil Rickman's 'To Dream of the Dead' and it's spookily excellent as are all his Merrily Watkins novels.

Pink Champagne and Apple Juice

I have just finished reading Anne Brooke's novel 'Pink Chmapagne and Apple Juice'. It is really good. Angie runs away from home and descends unnanounced on Uncle John - the black sheep of the family. He turns out to be a transvestite running his own club for like minded people in Muswell Hill. How Uncle John welcomes her into his home and yet manages not to 'corrupt' (her mother's word) her in the process makes for an amusing story. There are serious aspects to it though and Angie has to come to terms with John's role in the break up of her own family before the end of the story.

As might be expected the book is full of colourful and yet believable characters. Derek the doorman, Malcolm - Uncle John's lover, Philippe the French waiter and Heinrich the German chef who always cooks mushrooms. Thrown into the mix is Lisa - Angie's friend from university - who turns out to be lesss of a friend than might be expected. This is a brilliant story and it would make a good film or tv drama. Why it hasn't been snapped up by a main stream publisher I don't know. It deserves to become a classic like John Hadfield's 'Love on a Branch Line'.

It doesn't fit into any particular category and will still be readable in 20 years time. Go out and buy it! Anne Brooke has her own web site - www.annebrooke.com and a blog at www.annebrooke.blogspot.com.

I've also read Mary Nickson's 'Secrets and Shadows'. A group of people meet on a creative writing week in Scotland. All have secrets and shadows in their lives. Some are known to each other, some are strangers. All are changed by the course. Some find happiness where they least expected it others have a harsher future in front of them. Some have to make compromises and some find their ambitions are not realisable in the form they had hoped for. Interesting reading if you want a change from light fiction. This is still not heavy reading but it is more thought provoking than many.

I have just bought Ken Follett's 'Pillars of the Earth' which looks like a hefty read at over 1000 pages. It's about the building of a cathedral in the twelfth century. There is a sequel to it - recently published - 'World Without End'. On an epic scale I've bought John Cowper Powys' 'A Glastonbury Romance'. I've come across his books before mentioned in Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins series. www.philrickman.co.uk if you want more information.

Back to work tomorrow - I shall have to cut down on my reading then - not as much time.

Phil Rickman

I have just emerged blinking into the sunlight having read Phil Rickman's latest installment in his series about Merrily Watkins, parish priest and part time 'Deliverance consultant'. To the uninitiated this is the current term for the old fashioned exorcist. For anyone who wants to know exactly what an exorcist does these are excellent. This is understated horror with insights into all things occult, including in this volume - 'The Fabric of Sin' - a foray into the murkier regions of Templar history in Britain not to speak of a sinister masonic influence.

What is most interesting to someone who has read the rest of the series is the development of characters - Merrily's teenaged daughter Jane is growing up but not losing her enquiring mind, Merrily's relationship with Lol is developing and deepening. Frannie Bliss - the policeman is still there as is Gomer Parry the former plant hire man and stalwart of the village of Ledwardine in Herefordshire on the border with Wales. The village - fictional - reminds me of Ludlow with its black and white houses. The real Hereford appears as well, and of course the cathedral there features.

I thoroughly recommend this series for a well written and well researched clutch of novels showing the darker side of life and the Church of England. They deserve to be better known. As do the novels of Kate Charles and Susan Howatch. Kate Charles does not cover quite the same ground and her novels usually feature a crime, though the background is the clergy and the Church. Susan Howatch in her trilogy about the St Benet's healing centre - 'The Wonder Worker', 'The High Flyer' and 'The Heartbreaker' covers similar ground though more about the ministry of healing than the deliverance ministry. Her 6 Starbrdge novels do touch on deliverance though.