My Year in Books 2023: November

Just one book on this month's list. Oops. Like last month, it was a bit of a busy time, so I guess that's my excuse!

In case you're interested, here are my reviews from the rest of this year: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October

The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware (2018)

This book was a library book, and it looked so interesting that I started it the day I checked it out (which almost never happens!). I’ve read one of Ware’s other books – One by One – and I quite enjoyed that one, so I had a rough idea what to expect. The thing that appealed to me most with this one was the setting: a creepy and dilapidated house in Cornwall. Hal Westaway is a young woman eking out a living reading tarot cards on Brighton Pier after the death of her mother. She receives a letter from a solicitor informing her that her grandmother, Hester Mary Westaway, has died and left Hal an inheritance. The problem is… Hal’s grandmother wasn’t called Hester. Hal decides to risk a bit of deception and, instead of letting the solicitor know they’ve made an error, she travels to Cornwall in the hope of passing herself off as an heir. What she finds at Mrs Westaway’s crumbling old mansion is a dysfunctional family with Agatha Christie levels of secrets and resentments, and a Mrs Danvers-esque housekeeper (it is Cornwall, after all). Hal is out of her depth. For all her claims of being good at cold reading, she misses various hints that would help her avoid trouble, and she frequently gives herself away by forgetting her cover story. The final revelations are quite easy to guess, and some of the characters are kinda OTT, but you cannot fault the eeriness and atmosphere of this one.

My Year in Books 2021: September

Time for my monthly round-up of the books I've read for pleasure. It's not a huge post this month, but it's not the shortest one either. I've read three novels in September (aside from the ones I've read for work or review).

In case you're interested, here are my posts from earlier in the year: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August

And here are my reviews for September...

One by One by Ruth Ware (2020)

In April I read One by One by Freida McFadden, and I made a passing joke about it not being One by One by Ruth Ware (the better-known book with that title). So I decided it was time this month to catch up with the other One by One! Ware’s One by One has enjoyed a bit of comparison with Agatha Christie’s mysteries (specifically And Then There Were None – and we all know how much I enjoy reading books like And Then There Were None!). It’s very much a classic murder mystery novel with a contemporary flavour. A group of stakeholders for a tech start-up company arrive at a ski lodge in the Alps for a corporate getaway, but disaster strikes when the group are cut off by an avalanche. Worse still, one of the group is missing, presumed dead, and it’s not long before other deaths follow. Someone is picking the guests off… well… one by one. One by One is a page-turning read, and it is very enjoyable. There is a nod to Christie (one of the guests grimly intones ‘And then we were…’ after each of the deaths), but also some well-judged contemporary details relating to the start-up, its app, and social media use. The problem for me was that the killer is screamingly obvious from their first appearance (if you’re familiar with the conventions of murder mysteries) and the clues are signalled with a very heavy hand. An undeniably fun read, but a very easy mystery.

The Many by Wyl Menmuir (2016)

During lockdown, Salt had a marketing campaign to help them ride out the financial uncertainties of the pandemic. I took that opportunity to buy a small selection of their books, choosing (as I usually do) based on how intriguing the blurb looked, rather than any previous knowledge of the book or the writer. The Many is the second I’ve read from my selection. It’s a slim, but deeply atmospheric, novel set in an unnamed village somewhere on the Cornish coast. Timothy Buchannan has bought a dilapidated house, but as he attempts to renovate it and prepare for his wife’s arrival, he faces hostility, silence and confusion from the villagers. The Many is utterly absorbing, as the way Menmuir conjures a place shrouded by secrets and silence is both captivating and skilful. But there’s obviously something more to the silence and secrecy than a straightforward hostility to incomers. Something is off here, in a deeper way than it initially appears. I will admit I got an inkling early on where the book was going to go but that didn’t reduce my enjoyment of it. The Many is a beautifully written book, haunting and meditative in some places, unsettling and borderline disturbing in others. Menmuir’s pitch-perfect writing creates a sense of place that is uncanny in the true sense of the word: it defamiliarizes the familiar. I felt like I could picture the village so clearly, but at the same time it was utterly alien. This one is a recommendation from me.

The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly (2010)

I picked up this next book at a charity shop in Bakewell. I’ve read one of Kelly’s other novels, but I have to admit what really drew me to this one was its 90s setting. The story begins in the present, with narrator Karen preparing for the father of her child to move back into the family home. Although it’s initially unclear why Karen and Rex have been living separately, it’s not long before it’s revealed that Rex has been in prison. As the present day section describe how the two deal with Rex’s release, Karen reflects back on the incidents of the 1990s that led to his incarceration. It’s certainly an intriguing idea, but I’m not sure the book quite lives up to its promise. Firstly, it’s not the most original story, and it is quite predictable. Karen remembers her time at university, when she is a fish-out-of-water type, stumbling into the world of a larger-than-life brother and sister who live in a strange house that’s sort of posh and sort of shabby bohemian. As the book keeps reminding us, someone is going to die at the end of their heady summer together. It’s very Fatal Inversion, and I couldn’t shake the comparison with Vine’s novel. Secondly, it’s not really a 90s setting. Aside from a couple of references to the Spice Girls and Princess Diana, plus a chunky mobile phone or two, The Poison Tree didn’t really make much of its setting. A bit disappointing to be honest.