What I've been reading

The Lost Souls' Reunion
by Suzanne Power

"This is Sive Moriarty's tale, beginning with her grandmother's destructive marriage. Spanning decades, and set on the austere coastline of Ireland and in the overindulgent London of the sixties, 'The Lost Souls' Reunion' is the poignant history of the women in Sive Moriarty's family."

Another one of Lola II's: she seems to acquire books that she doesn't really want to read, and I am given them to dispose of. I can't let a book go by without at least trying to read it, so I took this one camping. It's horribly depressing to start with, and teeters on the brink of awful tragedy the whole time, but a good holiday read if you can bear it.



Devil's Cub
by Georgette Heyer

Narrated by Michael Drew

"The excesses of the young Marquis of Vidal are even wilder than his father's before him. Not for nothing is the reckless duellist and gamester called "the Devil's Cub". But when he is forced to leave the country, Mary Challoner discovers his fiendish plan to abduct her sister. Only by daring to impersonate her can Mary save her sibling from certain ruin."

Ooh, this is delicious. I love a good Regency tale, and this is full of swashbuckling heroes, swooning females, and a plucky heroine who wins her swain in the end. Great fun.



The Piano Tuner
by Daniel Mason

"On a misty London afternoon in 1886, piano tuner Edgar Drake receives a strange request from the War Office: he must leave his wife, and his quiet life in London, to travel to the jungles of Burma to tune a rare Erard grand piano. The piano belongs to Surgeon-Major Anthony Carroll, an enigmatic British officer, whose success at making peace in the war-torn Shan States is legendary, but whose unorthodox methods have begun to attract suspicion."

Yet another of Lola II's cast-offs! But she tells me she's actually read this one. It's very atmospheric, slow-moving, and possibly dull. I didn't know where it would end until I reached the last page, and it ended.