Tuesday, July 06, 2010

My holiday in the land of fiction

I’ve just returned from a week in Spain consisting of sunshine, sunbathing, paella, some quality time with the boyf and lots and lots of reading. There’s nothing better than clocking off for a week, unplugging yourself from the internet, leaving your phone on the bedside table and hitting the pool with little more than a sachet of suncream and a beach bag of books.

I like to switch my brain off on my annual jaunt to the Costa Del Sol and immerse myself into the world of fiction. I broke my record this holiday, in fact, and sank five and a half books, the half being the one I started before hollibops. And here they are, with ratings to boot. God, I love reading.

Presumed Guilty by Tess Gerritsen

I started this before I went out to Spain and finished it on the plane over – an easy way to kill a flight from Luton to Malaga. I’ve read a few of Tess’s books and liked ‘em. She’s not my favourite author in the whole wide world but her books hold my interest and lead me on a mission to find out whodunnit. And I do like a whodunit; crime fiction is defo my bag. This book it is an easy read but a tad cliché and a smidgen predictable. There’s a cheesy love story in there, stereotypical characters – the glamourous and forthright wife, the rich and pigheaded father in law, the scruffy but eager journalist, the chauvinistic love rat, the red haired weak-but-strong-at-the-same-time heroine and the dark haired mysterious love interest. The writing I found a tad simplistic and I don’t remember that from other Gerritsen novels. I predicted whodunnit it before the author told me (which I hate), I didn’t warm to or sympathise with any of the characters and the ending made me want to barf, I’ve read it a million times before. Yawn. So, all in all, an easy but disappointing read.
5/10

Deception by Jonathan Kellerman

Until recently this chappy has been one of my favourite authors, but his last few efforts have been way below par. In his latest novel, though, he redeems himself. The main character Alex Delaware takes a slight side step in this one and lets his companion and gay detective friend Milo Sturgis take centre stage, which I like because he’s got much more depth as a character. The plot weaves its way around an American school where kids compete for popularity, the best grades and places at Stanford and Harvard and the likes. It tells of extortion, desperation, greed, lies, deception and how to kill someone using dry ice. There are so many characters in this book and Sturgis and Delaware lead the reader to all the clues and plenty of dark avenues, one way streets and dead ends to solve the crime – and I had no idea whodunnit until the very end so bonus points for that.
8/10

Never The Bride by Paul Magrs

This isn’t something I’d usually touch with a barge pole but I read the blurb at Luton Airport and ended up taking it to the till along with Robert Downey Junior’s biography for the boyf. Call it a moment of madness but I continue to try and read different books to expan my horizons and improve my own writing and this was one of those occasions. After the first chapter I thought “why the hell am I reading this, what’s the point?” and at the end of the book I thought “utterly brilliant and original”. Brenda is the main character, she’s a kind of bride of Frankenstein, sports a few scars and wears a wig. She also runs a bed and breakfast in Whitby and try as she might to just fit in, strange things happen. Her and her best mate Effie meet an alien family, the owner of a machine that can turn pensioners into their prime and a sophisticated vampire. She’s got a heart of gold has Brenda – actually she probably hasn’t got a heart at all considering how she was made– and she endeavors to help everyone she meets. In between tucking into fish and chips and the pie and peas nights at the Christmas Hotel, this book tells the tale of Brenda’s odd existence. Without researching it, I’m not sure which audience this book is directed at – the front cover doesn’t look very young adult to me and the odd swear word slips in – and while the plot is quite juvenile I found it a light read with a fair whack of adult humour. Really enjoyed this although it’s way out of my comfort zone and the sort of thing I thought I was going to brand silly. If you fancy something quirky to read, this could be it.
9/10

No Way Out by David Kessler

After light and quirky I returned to the comfort zone of crime and whodunnit. A male solicitor gets caught up in a case helping to clear an old friend with a dodgy past from a rape charge. He says he didn’t do it but DNA evidence and the victim says otherwise. Another solicitor, this one a lady, joins the defence team to help persuade the jury that the defendant’s s not a woman hater. And so the story goes, with quite a few twists along the way. What did Elias do in his past? Why was he in prison? Who’s sending hate mail? Who is Lannosea? Who’s to blame? This story completely gripped me, from introducing the characters , the long and complex court case and the aftermath. The ending is unpredictable, which I like, but a tad over dramatic, which I didn’t like so much, and I didn’t find myself liking or warming to any of the characters, I felt a bit detached. Nonetheless, a great storyline and a great read.
8.5/10

Shopaholic and Baby by Sophie Kinsella

Next up was chick lit. As a writer of contemporary women’s fiction (yes, I mean chick lit) myself, it’s not actually what I’d read for pleasure. I read crime for pleasure and chick lit for research I guess. So, Shopaholic and Baby is one in a series apparently, although this is the first I’ve read by this author, and possibly not the last. One of Sophie Kinsella’s novels was made into the film Confessions of a Shopaholic, which I haven’t seen, and the “and baby” edition is the one where the spending-obsessed mother-to-be gets to grips with pending motherhood and a celebrity obstetrician who just happens to be her husband’s ex girlfriend. I’m not a fan of chick lit as a genre but after the first couple of chapters to ease myself in, this was easily readable and made me chuckle quite a few times. Main character Becky is probably an overinflated version of most women who like to hit the shops but it did bother me that, unlike the majority of us shopaholic gals, main character Becky seems to have an endless budget. Would I recommend reading it? Probably not, but if chick lit’s your bag, there’s not much wrong with this effort.
7/10

No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay

Shock f horrors, with two days left until my flight home I found myself without a book to read. I’d finished all the ones I packed and so plucked this one off the shelves of the apartment I was staying in. And, oh what a find it was. This is one of those books you can’t put down. Christine is 14 and had a row with her parents for staying out late, getting drunk and dating a boy three years older than her; the usual stuff. The following morning she wakes up to find her parents and her older brother have disappeared without a trace. The story picks up 25 years later and I love that the storyteller is Christine’s husband, casting her occasionally under suspicion. Still, there is no clue to what happened to Christine’s family and her own suspicions and paranoia start to take its toll on her husband and eight-year-old daughter. After a TV show highlighting the mysterious case of the disappearing family, strange things start happening. Is Christine to blame, does she know more than she’s letting on? Are her family dead or alive? I couldn’t put this book down until I’d found out. Excellent.
9/10