Reading as a cheap hobby

PipneyJane

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81887213#Comment_81887213

Ditto @DigForVictory. What I love about Mary Stewart’s heroines are that they all stand on their own two feet and pay their own way in the world. (The feminism is implicit not explicit.)

I’m currently re-reading “This Rough Magic” and love every word of it. I’ve promised myself again that one day, I’ll get to Corfu.

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mehefin

Just re-reading George Sturt 'The Wheelwright's Shop' which I remember reading in my last year in Grammar School. An poignant and moving account of a bygone time.

Mehefin

Coxy11

I’m currently reading my first ever Agatha Christie - The Murder at the Vicarage - it’s good fun 😊

MrsCD

Is it ok to pop in please?

I am reading Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz. It's the follow on from The House of Silk. The Conan Doyle estate asked him to write a couple of books for them....they are brilliant! Just wanted to recommend them, even though they're 10 years old now.

PipneyJane

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81920529#Comment_81920529

Thanks for the recommendation, @MrsCD . I’m currently binging on Mary Stewart books, but may indulge when I’ve finished.

I’ve finished yet another Mary Stewart, the novella The Wind Off The Small Isles and It’s accompanying short story The Lost One (which was lost for decades). Both star a young woman called Perdita West. The Lost One was published in 1960 and is about an adventure she has while driving her mother across country.

The Wind Off The Small Isles was published in 1968 but, I think, is set not long after the original short story, so in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s. It is set in Lanzarote, where 23 year old Perdita is on a research trip with her boss, a novelist. She gets stuck in a volcanic ash avalanche with her boss’s son, Mike. Once they escape, the whole story wraps up in less than two chapters, with a highly unsatisfactory ending. It’s as if Mary Stewart’s publishers phoned her demanding her next manuscript, so she fudged it in the hope they’d give her more time once they’d read what she’d written. The story could have gone so much further, since they find something while trapped in the ash, but it gets swept down the cliff, leaving you wondering what happened afterwards. Was there an archeological dig to uncover what they found???

I’m not the only reader to feel this way. Apparently Mary was planning a third adventure for Perdita, left some notes, but it never got written. In 2017, Annabel Frazer put pen to paper and published a 33 page sequel, The Sea Raven, which is set 14 years after the events in Lanzarote. No spoilers, but she captures Mary Stewart’s style beautifully and gives a credible ending. (Although, as usual with Mary Stewart, I still wish there was more.) I found it via the blog Mary Queen Of Plots. It’s a free download.

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Matron_Midge

I’ve become hooked on the Helen grace books by MJ Arlidge. Eeny Meeny is the 1st one and it was a real page turner. Fast paced and had lots of twists.

Pop goes the weasel is the 2nd - also brill so I’ve picked up the next two in the series. That will be me being antisocial again 🤣

I’m so glad I’ve got back into reading again. I love a thriller. I can also recommend Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce.

Mollina_Girl

Hi everyone, hope it's ok to join you all.

I've just found this thread and am looking forward to reading through and picking up some recommendations.

Has anyone read any Jenny Blackhurst books? I've read "The girl who left" and am now on with "The hiking trip", I enjoyed the first one and this one seems as though it will not disappoint.

Brie

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81929461#Comment_81929461

Welcome!! Not read either of those I must admit.

But I wanted to flag a fellow devotee (who doesn't post here) - my OH. When we have been travelling various places I always point out to him the book case in the hotels where someone can pick and/or leave a tome or two. He surprised me by coming to me with a big grin on his face and holding a pristine copy of Raymond Postgate's "Verdict of Twelve" in one of those vintage mystery series. He looked at me and said "what do you think?" to which I responded "bound to be good considering who his son was!"

FYI - that would be Oliver Postgate, of Bagpuss & The Clangers fame. And FYI - Raymond, as well as writing novels started up a the "Society for the prevention of cruelty to food" which eventually became the Good Food Guide.