Hot nights and book reviews

From my front garden

I have been getting up rather late this past week. Usually I'm up between 6.30-7.30am but these mornings it's  more like 8-8.45am.  I have been going to bed later and in the last few days it has been so hot in the bedroom that I can't get to sleep.  The other night at 10.45pm workmen decided to start drilling on the A3!  Thankfully it only went on for about an hour and it was in fits and starts but it all aided to my not getting to sleep.  Last night there was a breeze and it made so much difference, though the front bedrooms were still very hot (poor boys!).  I do love the hot weather but not the hot nights. Abroad the nights are cooler so there is no problem with sleeping (that is my limited take on things, though I guess there might be places where it is hot at night - do let me know, dear readers!).

I have just finished a lovely book - Dancing Backwards by Salley Vickers.  I do enjoy her stories and this one is set on a ship as Vi travels to New York to meet Edwin, a poet who she lived with in the past.  There are flashbacks to her life as she tries to work out what it was all about.  Life on board is also interesting, getting to know those who share her table at meels, her ever obliging Steward and Dino (aka Des) the dance teacher.  I love the humour and the 'knowing voice', that inner one we hear yet often ignore even though we know it is right.  A really nice read.

I also read The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon who wrote The Shadow of the Wind.  The author started out writing books for children/young adults and The Prince of Mist was the first one he wrote.  It is a mystery set as war threatens and the family - a watchmaker, his wife, two daughters and son Max - move to a Beach House overlooking the sea. Max makes friends with Roland whose grandfather is the lighthouse keeper. There is a sunken ship, weird goings-on, ghostly images and confrontations with Cain, a man who can change shape and grants wishes but at a deadly cost. He has come to claim 'his end of the bargain'.  Good stuff.  Zafon is a good weaver of stories - his adult books are just the same, though a mite confusing at times.  Sometimes I am left with not quite understanding what has been going on but I still like reading them.  He loves this sort of underworld life and I can see how he made the jump into adult books.  This is a good 'boys story' which is why he wrote them in the first place (he wanted to write books he wanted to read as a child).  There are other children/youth books of his now being released and I shall probably read those when they come my way.