A Simple Intervention

By Yael Inokai 

A nurse involved in a pioneering surgical procedure falls in love with her room mate and has her world shaken up. I really enjoyed this book. 8.5/10

Maigret is Afraid

By Georges Simenon

Maigret calls in on an old friend on his way back from a conference in Bordeaux. He gets involved in a murder enquiry involving three dead bodies, a suicide and a rather dysfunctional family. 7/10

Orbital

 by Samantha Harvey

This is a very short book at just over 100 pages and deals with one day -or I should say 24 hours on board the International space station and the interactions and lives of the astronauts aboard. I did not expect to enjoy it and yet it was strangely absorbing as well as being informative about life in space. 8/10

Creation Lake

 by Rachel Kushner

A spy story with a difference. Sadie Smith is sent to infiltrate a commune in South West France as well as keep an eye on a low ranking government official. She used to be employed by the FBI but her current employer remains unknown. 
The book never really got going for me and although I enjoyed some of her fun one liners to end various sections I was yearning for something to happen. By the time it did happen it all felt too late. 6/10

Wandering Stars

by Tommy Orange

Another family saga. This time about a twentieth/twenty first native american family in Oakland. A look at life for the underprivileged and discriminated against in modern America. It was well written but left me a bit cold 6/10

The Duke's Children

By Anthony Trollope 

The last of the Palliser novels. Glencora has died and the Duke is left trying to come to grip with the love interests and various misdemeanours of his three children.  Still amusing in places and painful in others I enjoyed it and will miss the various characters we have met along the way. 8/10

Held

 by Anne Michaels

This is a book told in fragments over the course of a century, beginning in the first world war when John, a soldier loses his leg in an explosion. From then on we are given fragments of stories as he and his descendants are shown to us fleetingly before we move forward -or back-to the next episode.

The writing is beautiful at times-the author comes from poetry, but I enjoy a book with more plot than this. 

If asked whether I enjoyed this book I would probably respond, "Maybe". 6/10

Enlightenment

 by Sarah Perry

I found this an unusual book and as such really enjoyed it.

Thomas is a reporter on the Essex Chronicle, homosexual and a member of a local baptist church. He is a close friend of Grace, thirty years his junior and daughter of the church pastor. 

Reluctantly, Thomas gets drawn to astronomy while Grace is drawn to a young man. The story unfolds over the next twenty years as they each pursue their passion. The characters are beautifully drawn and will stay with me for a while. 8.5/10

This Strange Eventful History

 by Claire Messud

A family sage covering much of the twentieth century and much of the globe in its reach, as we move from Algeria to the States to Australia to Greece, Lebanon and France among others. 

However, it is the story of one family in which nothing remarkable happens and yet the writing is such that I was drawn in to these lives and shared their pain-there seemed more pain than happiness. I loved the writing but less so the story. Was it that strange? Was it that eventful?  7/10

The Safe Keep

 by Yael van der Wouden

The first Dutch author to make the longlist. The story revolves around a house and Isobel who has lived in it since a child. The book is set in the early sixties but refers back to 20 years earlier when the family acquired the house. Isobel is very closed and possessive now that she lives alone. Her parents are dead and her brothers have left. Then one day her brother turns up with his new girlfriend Eva and leaves her to stay for a month. Isobel's life is about to change forever! Suspenseful, erotic tension and an ending I found surprising make this a really enjoyable book. 8/10

Hotel Cartagena

 by Simone Buchholz

Fourth book in the series featuring Chastity Riley based in Hamburg. In this novel she has more of a background role as she part narrates the story of a drug related payback cum hostage situation in which she is one of the hostages. 8/10

The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild

 by Mathias Enard

This was a book that is hard to categorise. It starts and ends with David Mazon who is supposedly carrying out fieldwork for his Phd in anthropology in the west of France in a small village that is struggling with all the problems of rural France. His diary entries are very funny. However, not much work on his thesis gets done. The central sections of the book are crazy as we explore the interaction of the wheel of life and its impact on the inhabitants past and future of the village. In the middle of this we have the banquet of the gravediggers which is magnificently described and dotted with stories and speeches by those in attendance.

My biggest gripe with this book which was published by Fitzcarraldo, is the glaring typos throughout the book where words are duplicated or appear in the wrong order. Dreadful.

As for the book itself I enjoyed this madcap trip 9/10 

Brooklyn

 by Colm Toibin

The story of an Irish girl, Eilis who in the 1950's is encouraged to emigrate to New York by her sister.

The story of her preparation for this upheaval and her arrival and setting in New York I really enjoyed. The story of her return visit to Ireland seemed a bit less believable to me and so lost a bit of the edge that occupied the earlier sections. Having said that the ending was interesting. I will read the sequel at some point. 7/10

The New York Trilogy

 by Paul Auster

Fascinating book. It is three short stories set in New York with characters who slip between the tales even though they have little connection in time or space - other than being set in New York and involve people being looked for by private detectives or old friends. It was enjoyable because it was so different but I am still trying to make head or tail of bits of it. 8/10

Boulder

 by Eva Baltazar

A book translated from the catalan about a lesbian relationship that comes under pressure when one of the couple decides after several years that they want a baby. The pressures of IVF and adjusting to a new baby are captured really well but I didn't enjoy the book. The author has published a lot of poetry and this book is loaded with metaphor not all of which worked that well and in the end I just found this distracting. 5/10

James

By Percival Everett 

A retelling of Huck Fin by Jim. Very amusing in places, it gets darker as the book moves on and swerves away from following the Mark Twain path. A really interesting read 9/10

Mexico Street

 by Simone Buchholz

The third novel featuring prosecutor Chastity Riley in Hamburg.

A man is killed in a car fire in Hamburg. He turns out to be part of a middle east mafia family based in Bremen and worse, was in love with a girl from a rival family. Romeo and Juliet for the 21st century? Is this family warfare or is something else going on? Another quirky chapter in an intriguing crime series 8/10

Un Amor

 by Sara Mesa

A woman turns up from the City to a small village in the middle of nowhere, trying to escape her past.

She has one guy who tries to befriend her but who is almost too friendly. Throw in a creepy landlord, annoying neighbours and a man who makes an unusual proposition to her and the tension is never that far away. 8/10

Maigret and the Man on the Bench

 by Georges Simenon

A seemingly gentle, respectable man is found murdered in a Paris alleyway. 
However, he had another side to him. 

Intriguing story amid a wet and soggy Paris. 8/10

Beton Rouge

 by Simone Buchholz

The second book featuring Chastity Riley, the Hamburg based public prosecutor.

Men from a certain media company start turning up in cages badly beaten up. The links take the case back to a school in Bavaria and a complicated past. Quirky 7/10