I am not sure what happened to me this month but I hit a reading slump
Maybe it was because I have read so much the past couple of months
Maybe it was because my chronic pain was so bad all I wanted to do was sleep
Maybe it was because my son is getting so active lately that I don't have a minute to myself
Maybe it was because the books I read this month didn't inspire me to read much
Whatever it was I didn't do much reading this month only three books!
I have read a number of Martina Cole's book and normally really enjoy these dark crime reads
Unfortunatly this wasn't one of my favourites from her. I didn't connect to any of the characters and the storyline got very repetitive. It lacked the gripping story lines of Cole's other books and the ending I could see coming half way through the book.
Like most of Cole's books, this about the big Faces and criminal gangs of the East End of London. Charting the rise of Michael Flynn from early petty criminal days to becoming the big Face of the East End. As he becomes the big boss and as he gains control in his business life he starts to lose control of his family life. It does start of strong and the first 100 pages I really enjoyed but after that the story gets muddled and very repetitive. None of the characters are likable Michael, his daughter and wife Josephine are all hard to relate to or understand, Josephine's character is very underdeveloped she goes from being a girl mad about Michael, willing to cut off her family to be with him to a recluse who hates her life and we never really understand why!
A few of the characters do a 1-80 in there personality and change very quickly and I just didn't feel it. The book is also around 100 pages too long. There was some good twists and turns but the ending for me was a huge lit down, and TBH this book didn't have the spark like some of Cole's earlier books. I would recommend The Take, The Know, Runaway or Faces if you want a good crime read from Martina Cole.
This book came on my recommend list on Goodreads so I kept an eye out for it
and found it recently in my local second book shop. This book was such a let down!
It tells the story of Grania who comes home to her family's little farm house on the coast of Ireland after ten years living in New York. After a miscarriage she leaves behind her New York life and a heartbroken boyfriend. While she is home in Ireland she get embroiled with the young daughter of the family from the big house called Aurora who she finds wandering along the cliffs.
Grania then finds out from her Mother that these two families have a long and bitter history together
The reader travels back through time to the first world war to find out what happened to these two families who are so deeply entwined.
It starts off strongly with a Gothic feel to it,a young red hair girl walking along the cliffs
with a huge house on the hill which has been lying empty and crumbling.
Then I remembered that the first part of this book is meant to be set in the mid 2000's
not the 70's or 80's in which it seemed. It felt so dated, I know parts of the west coast of Ireland seemed to belong to the past but I have been to these places and there not at all like how described in the book!
Every single character in this book is a stereotype, the American peppy highly educated boyfriend who calls his girlfriend "babe" and "honey", the poorly educated Irish woman from a little village in the middle of nowhere, with the typical Irish Mammy who calls every one "pet" and speaks like a leprechaun "top of the morning to ya" and "to be sure" a major pet peeve of mine! It's badly written with so much melodrama it could be a soap opera!
I have read this author before and really liked her books but this was probably one of the worse books I have read!
While I really hated the cover and title of this book, I actually really enjoyed the book itself!
The blurb on the back of the book doesn't give much away and it's not an author I have heard of before, my Mam picked up this book in a local charity shop and passed it on to me after she read it.
I enjoyed this light read set in the west of Ireland and unlike the previous book I read this month it was done right. No stereotypes, no top of the morning stereotypically language just a good read about five different families and how there stories are entwined. Jenny who is married to an older man who runs a horse stud farm, Chris who lives on a tumbling down farm and her mother who is suffering from Alzheimer's, Carmel who has moved to Australia with her daughter Helen and David who has found world wide success as a Jazz musician later in life.
I found this book easy to read, the story hooked me from the first pages and was a welcome relief after a month of let down books and a book slump! I enjoyed this book so much that I have bought another book from this author on Amazon.
All the proceeds of this book go to the Lauralynn hospice for sick children
What Oisìn has been reading this month:
Oisìn has been loving this book which he picked from the library this month
I think it is because it reminds him of his two funny Grandads and how they make him laugh
He has been asking for it almost every night before bed time
It's a cute little instruction of how to babysit your Granddad, and how you are actually really minding them!
Thankfully my book slump seems to be ended!
As I started the mammoth third book Voyager from the Outlander series
this week, as it is over 1000 pages long but I am loving it and already 200 pages in!
So that's what we have been reading in May
What have you been reading?
Any recommendations?
How do you get yourself out of a reading slump?
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