Booklog #14

Before I begin, I must offer the humblest of apologies for missing last Sunday's post.  It feels like an eternity ago already, but to look on the positive side, I now have lots to talk about today so every cloud has a silver lining! 

Since the last Booklog I've finished:

* White Fang ~ Jack London
This is one of those stories that I've always had a vague awareness of, but never known anything about, other than it's about a wolf - so when I saw it for free within the 'Aldiko' book reader app on my Android I thought I'd give it a try.  To be honest I was a little sceptical - how good can a story told from an animal's point of view really be?  Especially when White Fang doesn't actually have a 'voice' of his own (not even an internal one), it's all told as description of what he perceives through his sense and instincts. 

I felt that the start was a little slow for my liking - it concerns his mother, who lives with a pack of wolves despite being half domesticated dog and takes you from a time where she and the pack are facing starvation through to where she gives birth to White Fang and his siblings.  From this point it gets a lot more interesting as White Fang is a real character!  He's more fearless and feisty than the other cubs, and this gets him into quite a few scrapes from the off.  Even from such a young age his life is rather eventful, so I can't really say much more without giving away spoilers, however I will say that there is a significant amount of violence throughout.  If you're very sensitive to the thought of animals being harmed or harming each other then you might want to steer clear, as Jack London doesn't hold back with his description.  Despite this, it's a very well-told story with a lot of twists and turns, White Fang himself is very cleverly characterised and overall I really enjoyed it.  4/5

* Cleanskin ~ Val McDermid
One of the 'Quick Reads' shortish stories on Kindle.  Though I enjoy crime fiction, I've never tried any Val McDermid so I thought this might be a good place to start.  As you might expect from such a star of this genre, it's an intriguing tale of murder and mystery (and gore - there's been a lot of violence in my reading this last couple of weeks!), told, as usual, from the perspective of a detective with flaws and unresolved issues of his own.  The daughter of a well-known-but-never-able-to-pin-anything-on-him crime lord is murdered and soon after other members of the criminal fraternity start showing up in gruesome crime scenes.  But 'Mr Big' has disappeared - is he dead or is he out there getting revenge?  Our detective has to try and find out...  For such a short piece the characters are really well developed and there are a couple of huge and unexpected plot twists that really surprised me (I'm still shocked now, a week later!).  If you like crime dramas, you'll almost certainly enjoy this.  4/5

* The Middle Passage ~ Julia Golding
A nice bit of historical fiction now!  This is another short piece - a sort of after-story to a series which was set in the Caribbean.  Set in 1792, it follows a feisty young woman named Cat Royal as she journeys home to Britain, accompanied by one Billy Shepherd (who you might say is a bit of a rogue).  On the way they stop off at the Azores islands and get involved in a solving a mystery. 

I just checked the Amazon write-up to remind myself what year it was set in and was surprised to see that it is 'perfect for girls of 9 and above'...oh!  I  hadn't realised it was a children's story!  Which is testament to Julia Golding's writing I suppose - they do say that when writing for children you should never patronise or 'write down' to them and she certainly doesn't do that.  I thought it was just solid, descriptive, pacy writing.  The characters are brought to life very well - I would definitely like to read about their other adventures - and the mystery plot is built up steadily and resolved neatly.  All in all, an enjoyable novella-length read.  4/5

* The Crying Tree ~ Naseem Rakha
Last but not least for this week is the story of a teenage boy's murder and the after-effects it has on his family.  It explores some deep subjects - capital punishment, forgiveness, family bonds and hidden secrets - and though some of it makes for uncomfortable reading, it is all very compelling reading.  The crux of the plot is essentially 'will the murderer's execution go ahead or not', but the detail and all the emotion relates to how each member of the family - mother Irene, father Nate and daughter Bliss - deals with their grief.  They are very different characters and we journey with them over the twenty years that follow that fateful day, seeing them change and learn things they never knew about one another, as well as about the son that was lost.  Pulls on the heart-strings, but not in a twee way and really gets you thinking about subjects that aren't often discussed.  4.5/5

Since the last Booklog I've started:

* The Diviner's Tale ~ Bradford Morrow
* A Room With A View ~ E.M. Forster
* Manifesting Change ~ Mike Dooley

I'm still reading:

* Picture Perfect ~ Jodi Picoult
* Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett (60%)
* Murder on the Flying Scotsman ~ Carola Dunn (it's our final book club meeting about this one this week!)
* The Parthenon ~ Mary Beard

This puts me at 14/100 for the 100 Books In A Year Challenge. 

Phew!  Time for a lie down I think..! 
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