I just want to mention quickly a few books that I’ve read but hadn’t got around to blogging about. I recently finished

The Bookshop on Rosemary Lane by Ellen Berry. It was the first book I’ve read by this author who also writes under the name Fiona Gibson. Although this isn’t really the sort of book that I read I found this one to be enjoyable. I had thought it would be a real comfort read but it turned out not to be my idea of such a read.

It’s all a bit middle-age meltdown-ish as Della’s mother has just died and as if that isn’t bad enough her husband Mark is behaving like a complete idiot during his mid-life crisis involving a richer, younger woman. So far so almost cliched but when Della realises that everything in her life has been her husband’s choice – even their house and furniture, and that he pours cold water on any of her ideas, she decides that it’s time she started doing things for herself – and of course she succeeds.

The Light Hearted Quest by Ann Bridge is a book that I finished way back in October when we were on holiday. It was Joan at Planet Joan who mentioned she had been enjoying this author who was new to me. I liked this one, it was more my cup of tea with the main character Julia Probyn travelling around on a merchant ship trying to track down her cousin Colin as his father has died and Colin is needed back home. This book is the first in a series of mysteries by the author, it was published in 1956 and although I felt that the story dragged a wee bit at times, I will be looking for more of these books.

Just this week I gave up on Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver. He is of course a well-known and popular TV presenter and he has turned his hand to historical fiction but although I struggled on to page 160 of this book I decided that life is just too short to read something that I wasn’t really enjoying, and of course I have so many other books of my own that I should be paying attention to. This was a random choice from the library.

I just didn’t care about any of the characters, to me the plot such as it was seemed repetitive – it just wasn’t a page turner for me. I must say that it is very rare for me to give up on books.

So that brings my 2016 books to an end. Soon I’ll be telling you about the many books I got for Christmas.