Category Archives: Paper

December 28, 2025 · 11:49 am

Murder in the Cathedral – Kerry Greenwood

Murder in the Cathedral – Kerry Greenwood

I have always liked the Phryne Fisher mysteries, but I haven’t read one in a long time and I certainly haven’t read them all. I received this one in the family ‘book flood’ and I read it in a couple of days.

Here’s the blurb …

When Phryne Fisher is invited to Bendigo to witness the investiture of her old friend Lionel, who is being made a Bishop, her expectations of the solemn and dignified ceremony do not include a murder.

Phryne quickly involves herself with perspicacious local Constable Watson and eagle-eyed Detective Inspector Mick Kelly as they identify the murder victim – an overzealous deacon with a nose for trouble. 

Applying her quick wits and magnetic charm, Phryne and her expanding team of sleuths discover murky layers of church politics, social scandals and business scams and blackmail. Soon, various suspects begin to populate a long list, each with excellent motives to kill.

Meanwhile the clock is ticking … Will Phryne be able to bring to light the proof she needs before the murderer strikes again or disappears completely?

I love all of the historical references; the clothes, cars, architecture …The crime was intriguing as well – a deacon murdered during a service (no one noticed anything) and the murderer has vanished (how did he/she get out of the cathedral?). The Deacon had something of serious import to tell the Bishop, is that why he was murdered?

This is a cozy crime – like from the golden age of crime.

This will be the last Phryne Fisher mystery as Kerry Greenwood sadly died earlier this year.

A review.

Leave a Comment

Filed under 4, Australian, Crime, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Paper

Tagged as ,

December 27, 2025 · 1:21 pm

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil – V.E. Schwab

Bury our Bones in the Midnight Soil – V. E. Schwab

I am a fan of V. E. Schwab. I have listened to The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue and Gallant. So when I saw this on sale at Target, I had to have it. Of course, it then lingered on my shelves (although I think I purchased it this year).

Here’s the blurb …

This is a story about hunger.
1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada.
A young girl grows up wild and wily—her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. She vows to have no regrets.

This is a story about love.
1827. London.
A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family’s estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte’s tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow—but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined.

This is a story about rage.
2019. Boston.
College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That’s why Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, her present, and her future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers . . . and revenge.

This is a story about life—
how it ends, and how it starts.

I do enjoy the historical fiction aspects of this novel. I didn’t know at all what it was about and I was quite surprised when I discovered what ‘bury our bones in the midnight soil’ means. Although this is a fantasy novel, it’s really about people – relationships, family, chosen family, friendships and toxic relationships. It’s about women claiming space and agency for themselves.

It was long and I am not sure it needed to be that long. We could have had a few less incidents in Sabine’s life without losing any of the character or plot development.

A review.

Leave a Comment

Filed under 4, Fantasy, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Paper, Romance

Tagged as , ,

December 18, 2025 · 6:27 pm

Jane Austen and Lord Byron – Christine Kenyon Jones

Jane Austen and Lord Byron – Christine Kenyon Jones

I bought this in London while browsing various book stores (we did a bit of a book tour of London).

Here’s the blurb …

Jane Austen and Lord Byron are often presented as opposites, but here they are together at last. In Regency England he was the first celebrity author while she was a parson’s daughter writing anonymously. This book explores how their lives, interests, work and sense of humour often brought them within touching distance, and sets them side by side in the world of the Regency and Romantic period.

Using some little-known sources and new research, it illustrates how they were distantly related by marriage; how they knew about each other even though they probably never met; the acquaintances they had in common and how their literary work often came close in subject-matter, approach, technique and tone.

Engagingly written and beautifully illustrated, this book will inform and delight scholars and Austen and Byron fans alike, showing that these two great authors were closer than you might think, even in their own day.

I am not convinced. Given the size of the population at the time and, in particular, the number of people in the gentry, there will be similarities and connections.

However, there were a lot of interesting points. For example, Byron and Austen were distantly related. They had the same publisher (John Murray) and shared some of the same concerns ‘a rogue, but a civil one’. They both enjoyed the theatre and possibly saw the same performances – or at least the same play.

And I enjoyed reading about Byron and Austen.

Here’s a review from Jane Austen’s House.

Leave a Comment

Filed under 4, Biography, Paper

Tagged as , ,

December 17, 2025 · 5:12 pm

The Austen Affair – Madeline Bell

The Austen Affair – Madeline Bell (My copy is getting a bit worn)

I am not sure when I first heard of this one, but my daughter sent me a photo from Stefan’s Books, and, of course, I had to have it.

Here’s the blurb …

Two feuding co-stars in a Jane Austen film adaptation accidentally travel back in time to the Regency Era in this delightfully clever and riotously funny debut

Tess Bright just scored her dream role starring in an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. It’s not just the role of a lifetime, but it’s also her last chance to prove herself as a serious actress (no easy feat after being fired from her last TV gig) and more importantly, it’s her opportunity to honor her mom, who was the biggest fan of Jane Austen ever. But one thing is standing in Tess’s way—well, one very tall, annoyingly handsome person, actually: Hugh Balfour.

A serious British method actor, Hugh wants nothing to do with Tess (whose Teen Choice Awards somehow don’t quite compare to his BAFTA nominations). Hugh is a type-A, no-nonsense, Royal Academy prodigy, whereas Tess is big-hearted, a little reckless, and admittedly, kind of a mess. But the film needs chemistry—and Tess’s career depends on it.

Sparks fly, but not in the way Tess hoped, when an electrical accident sends the two feuding co-stars back in time to Jane Austen’s era. 200 years in the past with only each other to rely on, Tess and Hugh need to ad-lib their way through the Regency period in order to make it back home, and hopefully not screw up history along the way. But if a certain someone looks particularly dashing in those 19th century breeches…well, Tess won’t be complaining.

A wickedly funny, delightfully charming story, The Austen Affair is a tribute to Jane Austen, second chances, and love across the space-time continuum.

This novel was great fun, and I loved the time travelling aspects of it (and meeting Jane Austen). It was well-written and witty, but also with a bit of emotional heft. I do think it could have been a bit tighter – a bit more editing perhaps.

A review.

Leave a Comment

Filed under 3, Fantasy, Fiction, Paper, Romance

Tagged as , ,

December 7, 2025 · 5:02 pm

The Impossible Fortune – Richard Osman

The Impossible Fortune – Richard Osman

I read the first and second of these (I was not so keen on the second one). As this one was a gift, I felt compelled to read it, and I am glad I did (it’s lots of fun).

Here’s the blurb …

Who’s got time to think about murder when there’s a wedding to plan?

It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favourite criminal.

But when Elizabeth meets a wedding guest who’s in trouble, kidnap and death are hot on their heels once more. A villain wants access to an uncrackable code, and will stop at nothing to get it. Plunged back into action once more, can the gang solve the puzzle and a murder in time?

The book was witty, entertaining and generous. Joyce and Ibrahim are my favourite characters.

I know exactly how you feel Joyce

And then something a bit more serious

I do hope there will be more T.V. adaptations.

A review.

Leave a Comment

Filed under 5, Crime, Fiction, Paper, Spy

Tagged as , ,

November 18, 2025 · 2:48 pm

Audition – Katie Kitamura

Audition – Katie Kitamura

Last year I read all of the Booker prize short listed novels and my plan was to try to do that again this year. However, I only read one (The Land in Winter) before the winner was announced (Flesh). I saw the short films the Booker prize people made for each of the short listed novels, and this one appealed to me.

Here’s the blurb …

One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilising Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love.
 

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young – young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.

I don’t want to spoil this for anyone, so I am just going to write that it is a novel in two parts, and the second part upends everything you thought you knew from part one.

There is a single narrator – a middle aged woman – whose name we don’t know. There is no exposition. She doesn’t give us information like who is Tomas? (her husband it turns out). There is a fabulous sense of place – it felt like a witty New York movie. And I enjoyed all of her musings on the craft of acting.

It is mysterious and open-ended.

A review.

2 Comments

Filed under 5, Digital, Fiction, Paper

Tagged as , , ,

November 16, 2025 · 5:44 pm

The Lion Women of Tehran (Final Thoughts)- Marjan Kamali

The Lion Women of Tehran – Marjan Kamali

So I have finished all of my summaries.

This was the book chosen by my Wednesday (but we meet on a Monday) book club.

Here’s the blurb …

An “evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism” (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran—from nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions of becoming “lion women.”

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.

I have spent a lot of time with this novel. I read each chapter twice and wrote summaries. For me this novel was about friendship, feminism, loyalty, and betrayal. The structure of the novel is very good. Different time periods and different points of view. This creates perspective – you see the same events in a different light. I think it could have been a bit tighter, a few less scenes in every time period. However, it should be widely read to bring the plight of the Iranian people to a bigger audience (and not just see them as part of the ‘axis of evil’). And also to appreciate how the British and Americans interfered in the government of the country to suit their national interests (that’s a problem that has come home to roost).

I know very little about Iran. I enjoyed all of the descriptions of Iranian culture. And how, with the Shah, women had some rights and were encouraged to be educated. It seemed to be quite a secular society. And now, I think they must be some of the most oppressed women in the world. It is very disheartening.

A review.

Leave a Comment

Filed under 4, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Paper

Tagged as , ,

November 15, 2025 · 2:55 pm

The Lion Women of Tehran (Chapters 43, 44, 45 and 46)

The Lion Women of Tehran – Marjan Kamali

Chapter 43 Bahar June 1982

Bahar goes to the after prom party at Madison’s. She is still wearing her frock and brings a present for Madison’s mother.

She drinks too much, thinks about Iran, her mum and dad, and vomits.

There is a few funny bits about looking up words in the dictionary “daisy dukes”

Chapter 44 June 1982

Bahar is rushed to hospital – Madison called the ambulance – she has alcohol poisoning.

While sitting by her bedside, Ellie tells Homa it was her fault. Homa had already guessed. She told Ellie they wanted the name of the translator (i.e. Ellie), but she never gave it to them.

Homa is not going to let anyone take away her spirit.

Chapter 45 July 1982

Bahar is fine. She spends a few days in hospital recovering.

Ellie and Homa go to the cinema to expel H0ma’s fear of the cinema – they see E. T.

On Homa’s last day, she gives Ellie the pink notebook in which she has written her mother’s recipes. She encourages Ellie to open a cafe/restaurant serving Persian food.

Homa is going to try to come back. She wants to be with Bahar and Bahar wants to be with her, but Iran is not the place for Bahar. She’s angry about the state of her country.

Chapter 46 2022 September (Last Chapter)

Ellie has a cafe. I don’t think they’re living in New York anymore.

Bahar is married with and 18 year old daughter. They are celebrating her 18th birthday.

In Iran, Mahsa Amini was beaten by the morality police and later died in jail. People (men and women) are protesting in the street.

Ellie, Bahar & Leily (Bahar’s daughter) see video on social media of the protestors and they see Homa.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Fiction, Historical Fiction, Paper, Summary

Tagged as , , ,

November 12, 2025 · 6:25 am

The Lion Women of Tehran (Chapters 39, 40, 41 and 42) – Marjan Kamali

The Lion Women of Tehran – Marjan Kamali

Chapter 39 January 15th 1982

Bahar has arrived. She’s worried about leaving Homa.

She thinks it is only temporary – this government can’t last long.

She still likes Snoopy

Chapter 40 January 1982

Bahar’s first day of school.

Ellie is worried the other students will be mean to her (it is just after the hostage situation at the US Embassy in Tehran).

Bahar’s English is not very good.

Ellie is worried that she is the one with the evil eye – she now has Homa’s family just like she wanted when she was seven.

Chapter 41 February 1982

Bahar has a friend over from school – Madison. Ellie doesn’t like her.

While cooking a traditional Iranian meal, Ellie mentions learning how to cook it with Homa when they were seven.

Bahar knows all of the stories, Ellie’s shocked – she thought Homa would never mention her. She asks Bahar why she thinks her mother and her haven’t been in contact. Bahar believes it’s because Homa didn’t want Ellie to get into trouble – Homa knew she was being monitored.

Chapter 42 June 1982

Ellie and Bahar argue about a party Madison is hosting,

Homa comes to visit to see Bahar graduate. She calls Ellie ‘my friend’.

Ellie wants to confess, but she also doesn’t want to ruin the day. They visit the New York Public Library, the Piermont Morgan library and eat hotdogs.

Homa talks about the three things that saved her after prison; family, walking and reading.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Fiction, Historical Fiction, Paper, Summary

Tagged as , , ,

November 10, 2025 · 3:28 pm

The Lion Women of Tehran (Chapters 36, 37 and 38) – Marjan Kamali

The Lion Women of Tehran – Marjan Kamali

Part 5

Chapter 36 1977 Ellie

The story has gone backwards in time.

Ellie and Mehrdad have just arrived in New York. Ellie is homesick and lonely. Mehrdad takes her to meet his colleagues and his boss. She feels inappropriately dressed. The boss is impressed by her English and suggests she joins the expat happy hour.

She meets Angela and they become friends. It is Angela who suggests she tries for a job at Bloomingdales.

The two couples spend news year’s eve together and watch Jimmy Carter drink champagne with the Shah. The Iran/US relationship is solid.

But I should have known that some friendships fracture and rupture beyond belief.

Chapter 37 1978 Ellie

Ellie’s mother comes to visit. They have a difficult conversation about Homa, her father and Uncle Massoud over frozen yogurt at Bloomindales.

Her mother tells her the country is in a terrible state and it will only get worse if the fundamentalists take over. They should stay and make a life for themselves in America, which they do.

Chapter 38 December 1981

We’re back to where we started.

Ellie calls Homa. She learns about Abdol’s death and how awful life is in Iran. Ellie is worried that people might be listening to the call.

Homa wants Ellie to host Bahar to get her out of the country. Niloo’s husband is in the foreign office and can organise the paperwork.

Homa is going to stay in Iran and fight for women’s rights.

Ellie and Merhdad agree.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Fiction, Historical Fiction, Paper, Summary

Tagged as , , ,