British Isles Friday: Fiction Books for the Stay-at-Home order

Florida has finally issued a Safer-at-Home order and while I feel it came a little too late, at least those with common sense will stay home now. I hope so anyway.

I miss the library and chatting with the librarians, browsing the book stacks and sale table. While they are closed the digital book service is still available so I can check out a book for my Kindle; I’ve done that a few times recently.

Today I would like to share some books I recently purchased via Amazon. These were all on a good sale ranging from $1.99 to $3.99. While I bought many other books recently I will share those authored by British writers for British Isles Friday event hosted by Joy.

Mothering Sunday is one I just started.  I am going to copy the book descriptions  from Amazon then do my reviews  here as I read them.

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift:  “Twenty-two-year-old Jane Fairchild has worked as a maid at an English country house since she was sixteen. For almost all of those years she has been the clandestine lover to Paul Sheringham, young heir of a neighboring house. The two now meet on an unseasonably warm March day—Mothering Sunday—a day that will change Jane’s life forever.

As the narrative moves back and forth from 1924 to the end of the century, what we know and understand about Jane—about the way she loves, thinks, feels, sees, remembers—expands with every vividly captured moment. Her story is one of profound self-discovery.”

Last Orders by Graham Swift: “Four men gather in a London pub. They have taken it upon themselves to carry out the last orders of Jack Dodds, master butcher, and deliver his ashes to the sea. As they drive towards the fulfillment of their mission, their errand becomes an extraordinary journey into their collective and individual pasts. Braiding these men’s voices, and that of Jack’s widow, into a choir of sorrow and resentment, passion and regret, Swift creates a testament to a changing England and to enduring mortality. ”

Note:  A movie starring Michael Caine was made based on this book. That should be a good one!

The Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart: “When Rose Fenemore takes a desperately needed holiday to an isolated cottage on the Scottish island of Moila she doesn’t expect much in the way of adventure – just a few quiet weeks of writing, walking and bird-watching.

And then, late one night during a wild storm, two young men appear in her doorway, seeking shelter from the wind and rain. Neither man is quite who he claims, and the question of who to trust will put Rose in grave peril .”

The Library at the Edge of the World by Felicity Hayes-McCoy : “As she drives her mobile library van between villages of Ireland’s West Coast, Hanna Casey tries not to think about a lot of things. Like the sophisticated lifestyle she abandoned after finding her English barrister husband in bed with another woman. Or that she’s back in Lissbeg, the rural Irish town she walked away from in her teens, living in the back bedroom of her overbearing mother’s retirement bungalow.

With her teenage daughter, Jazz, off traveling the world and her relationship with her own mother growing increasingly tense, Hanna is determined to reclaim her independence by restoring a derelict cottage left to her by her great-aunt. But when the threatened closure of the Lissbeg Library puts her personal plans in jeopardy, Hanna finds herself leading a battle to restore the heart and soul of the Finfarran Peninsula’s fragmented community. And she’s about to discover that the neighbors she’d always kept at a distance have come to mean more to her than she ever could have imagined.”

The Ministry of Fear By Graham Greene:   “On a peaceful Sunday afternoon, Arthur Rowe comes upon a charity fete in the gardens of a Cambridgeshire vicarage where he wins a game of chance. If only this were an ordinary day. Britain is under threat by Germany, and the air raid sirens that bring the bazaar to a halt expose Rowe as no ordinary man. Recently released from a psychiatric prison for the mercy killing of his wife, he is burdened by guilt, and now, in possession of a seemingly innocuous prize, on the run from a nest of Nazi spies who want him dead.

Pursued on a dark odyssey through the bombed-out streets of London, he becomes enmeshed in a tangle of secrets that reach into the dark recesses of his own forgotten past. And there isn’t a soul he can trust, not even himself. Because Arthur Rowe doesn’t even know who he really is.”

As you can see I have a variety of good books, some light reading, some literary fiction and some mysteries.  Upcoming  I will be sharing reviews and another grouping of books and movies I have acquired for our self isolation period.

Wishing you all good health and safety during this crazy time in our lives. Stay safe.

Sharing with Joy for British Isles Friday