It’s been a while since I did a look back at books I have been reading – which means there are rather a lot of books to look back at… so I’m going to hit the highlights.
I’m starting with the book I just finished – The Runaway Actress by my good friend Victoria Connelly.
This book was shortlisted for the RNA’s Romantic Comedy of the Year award and I can see why. It’s delightful. I read it in about a day and a half, when I should have been doing useful things like housework. The characters really came to life for me right form page one – and Victoria managed to make the Scottish setting real, without resorting to over-use of dialect or descending into cliché.
This is a great escapist read – and would make a fabulous film. I see the delectable David Tennant ion the lead – after all, he already has the accent.
This month, at long last, I finally managed to sort out the books I had in storage while I was away. They are alphabetised and now I can find all these books that I own that I haven’t seen for a long time. Sorting them involved a lot of sitting on the carpet and flicking through old favourites.
I rediscovered that I have a fabulous collection of old pulp sci-fi. (I know – it’s a strange thing for a romance writer to say). All the masters are there – Asimov, Clarke, Silverberg…. And so are all those amazingly corny but wonderful covers.
I spent a lovely couple of days re-reading To Live Forever, by Jack Vance. It was his first published novel – and it’s easy to see why he went on to become a significant writer in the genre.
The book is nothing about the science – it’s all about the people. The title gives you a pretty good clue what his theme is, and it is still relevant today. That’s why it’s a classic.
As part of my trip down memory lane, I re-read Penmarric, by Susan Howatch.
This is one of those big fat multi-generation family sagas. I read this years ago and loved it. Loved it again this time.
There’s a big gothic house and a family so dysfunctional that it makes Bart Simpson’s brood look positively normal. I always loved the big gothic house and brooding damaged hero books – Victoria Holt was another favourite. Daphne Du Maurier too.
Does anyone still write these books? If so – let me know and I’m there…
While sorting books, I was stopped in my tracks when I discovered I had a Nora Roberts trilogy I had bought but not yet read.
This was the In The Garden series – which of course I immediately started reading.
These NR trilogies are a tad formulaic in that there are three women whose stories are intertwined, and each book centres on one of the woman. I don’t care that it’s formulaic – with Nora at the keyboard the formula works.
I think I have said before that I really like her books – and I do.
I also discovered the Twilight books by Stephanie Meyer as I did my sort. I re-read the first one.
There was a reason these books (and the movies) made such a splash. This first book really is very good.
There is much about it that I would say is not really ‘my type of book’ – but the fact remains that I re-read it cover to cover in a couple of days. I guess that says it all…
Re-reading Twilight immediately sent me back to re-read my favourite vampire book of all time.
George R R Martin has suddenly been shot to the top of the best-seller lists by the fabulous TV series based in his Game of Thrones novels. Long before GoT, George wrote a book called Fevre Dream – which was the first time I read a book where the vampire was a good guy – the hero.
I loved it. Still do. So, I guess this is my book of the month award. But a word of caution – it’s pretty gruesome.
And finally – on the subject of books… I hope to be able to announce some very good news about one of my books on this blog in the next week or two. Stay tuned!!!!