More Recommendations from Hastings Library Book Chat

Hastings Library Book Chat gets together at 10:30 am every third Wednesday of the month. At the last meeting, there was a varied bunch of books on the table including some top notch, page-turning thrillers, evocative historical fiction and some moving contemporary fiction. Here's what the team thought.

One of our readers highlighted books by Harlan Coben, recommending the thriller author as a guaranteed good read. The Boy from the Woods is the story of a maverick character who lives off the grid. As young boy, Wilde is found in some woods, with no memory. Thirty years later he lives off the grid with a stint in the army behind him and picking up work as a security expert. He’s asked by a friend to find a missing girl when another boy goes missing. The story keeps the reader in suspense to the end as more and more secrets are uncovered.

The story of Wilde carries on in Coben’s novel The Match. After trying to live a more conventional life, Wilde has returned to his nomadic, off-the-grid lifestyle and not knowing anything about his family. Then a DNA search reveals a match. But as soon as Wilde discovers him, his new relative disappears. A very convoluted plot ensues involving false identities and bots, which seems quite realistic in today’s world. Another brilliant suspenseful read.

The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley is based on true events. The book starts out in a Siberian gulag in 1963. A former nuclear scientist is given a new life and released for work at a town hidden within a forest. He’s to study the effects of radiation on local fauna. But what about the people of the town; what potential harm is being hidden from them? Another brilliant read from the author who gave us The Watchmaker of Filigree Street which was a big hit with the group.

A Thousand Different Ways by Cecelia Ahern concerns Alice, a woman who can see other people’s auras. This means she can tell how anyone she meets is feeling. If only all those negative feelings she encounters would leave her alone. It’s all getting a bit overwhelming for Alice; but our reader found the book distinctly underwhelming.

No Land to Light On by Yara Zgheib is about a Syrian couple living in the US who seem to have a bright future and also a baby on the way. A travel ban separates the couple when Hadi is visiting Jordan to bury his father. The Immigration Department prevent his return to Sama, his wife, under a new government policy in the Trump era. This is a heart-breaking story, beautifully written.

After Francesco by Brian Malloy is another read that tugged on the heartstrings. Set in New York in 1988, it concerns Kevin who has lost his partner Francesco to AIDS. It’s a novel about grief and loss, while other friends of Kevin's continue to be affected by the virus. With only a dreary job to keep him in the city, Kevin decides to return to Minnesota to start again. A beautifully written book, well-recommended.

Mrs England by Stacey Halls is set in the early 1900s in Yorkshire. Ruby, recently trained as a nanny, finds a job for a wealthy family in a mill town. At first her relations with her mistress are distant, a woman who seems to be harbouring secrets; her charming and welcoming husband quite the opposite. The servants are distant with Ruby too, leaving her feeling isolated and stressed. As the story develops, you realise this is a book about power and control. A nice, engrossing read.

The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda is set among the wealthy enclaves of Maine. We follow the story of Sadie and Avery, two young women who become friends, spending their summers together in spite of being from opposite sides of the tracks. When Sadie is found dead, the police assume it is a suicide, but Avery feels she is being blamed for the death. She must do what she can to clear her name. A well-written psychological mystery.

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson is a brilliantly written story set in 1920s London amid the nightclubs of Soho. It’s a glittering world of flappers and starlets, gangsters and dignitaries. Here Nellie Coker runs several clubs with the help of her children when her empire is suddenly under threat from others who would like to muscle in on her domain. There’s a missing girl and a former small town librarian who is on a mission to find her. A glimpse into the underbelly of London society after WWI written with Dickensian flair.

The Tresspasser by Tana French is number 6 in the Dublin Murder Squad series. Antoinette Conway is the detective investigating the death of a woman, with every indication that she’s been killed by her boyfriend. Only when Antoinette sees the victim’s face, it looks oddly familiar. The book has a ton of detail, not only into the processes of an investigation, but also about how the mind of a detective works. A fairly solid story which keeps you reading just to find out whodunit.

Fans of the TV series, River Cottage Australia may remember the author of Homegrown: a year of growing, cooking and eating. Paul West was the host of the series and this attractive book a spinoff publication. Homegrown is a really good start for anyone new to gardening and cooking what you harvest, with an easy-to-follow progression through the seasons.

Continuing with a seasonal theme is Autumn by Ali Smith, the first in a series of books, the Seasons Quartet. The narrative follows Elizabeth visiting an elderly man, Daniel, who is 100 years old. Themes around hope and hopelessness, wealth and harvest make for a fairly challenging read, although there are parts where you think, yes, that is what life is really like. Our reader usually enjoys this author, but found this book fairly slow going. 

27 October 2023

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