The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd. This is the third book of Rutherfurd's I've read. Many years ago I won a competition and my prize was the top 20 books at WH Smiths - what a dream, so many books. One of the books was Russka by Edward Rutherfurd. It was a huge book but I loved it and I then read Sarum. All of Rutherfurd's books have a family tree and maps and follow families over decades with their intermingling and what happens to them. All are based on historical fact but characters are fictitious on the whole. The Forest is based in the New Forest in Hampshire and begins about thirty years after William the Conqueror and ends in 2000. A lot changes yet a lot stays the same. There are the forest laws, thefts, disputes,smuggling, religious upheaval, the rise and fall of the monestary and of course love and marriage. This was a 600 page saga I didn't want to leave.
The Last Lighthouse Keeper - Alan Titchmarsh. Having bought this at a charity shop thinking it looked familiar I realised that I had read it before some years ago. Still it was an nice read and easy to take on the train! A bit of love conflict, the past to exercise and smuggling to add to the mix. I've read a few of Alan Titchmarsh's books and I soon forget that he's the man who used to present Gardener's World! He writes well.
In One Person - John Irving. This was my book club read (off there tonight). What a different book. I have to say that it dragged and I wondered when it might get going. Basically it carried on much the same. The story revolves around a someone who when young was unsure of who he was, a teenager falling for the wrong people. He is in fact bisexual, looked on suspiciously by both sexes. The ending is quite harrowing in places as Irving describes the death of the character's friends to AIDS. Details are not spared here both in the disease and often in the sexual element. My main wonder about this book was whether it was really possible to have that many gay, cross dressers in one family! Bill (the character) has a cross dressing grandfather, his estranged father was gay, his cousin is a lesbian and the boys school Bill went to seems to have rather a lot! It seemed a little overkill or an I naive? The book was a plod and I wondered if I would finish it but I had a big splurge on it and succeeded. The author is not one I've read before and I'm not drawn to try any others. The subject is treated well but for me it moved too slowly.
The Last Runaway - Tracy Chevalier. I was so pleased to get my hands on this book as I love her stories. I read this in six days. Honor travels with her sister to America. Her sister is to marry a Quaker formerly from their Dorset home. Honor herself has been jilted by a man and is anxious to get away. But when her sister dies before reaching Faithwell, Ohio Honor travels on alone. There she encounters a life very different to her own where runaway slaves rely on help to get them across to Canada where they can be free. Honor becomes entangled in this world as she tries to fit in with a new family and meets two very strong women, one white, one black. I won't say anymore. You'll have to read it if you want to find out what happens. I enjoyed this book very much. I felt that sea crossing from England to the USA! One reason Honor felt she could never return home - she was so ill.
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