Storm Peak

John A. Flanagan is the successful author of the Rangers Apprentice series which are very popular with our younger readers. This is his first adult novel and it is a well crafted murder mystery with a competent loner female sheriff, a troubled and also competent man with a past who is drafted as her deputy and a suitably nasty serial killer on the loose. It is a paint by numbers story, with a little love interest, a mountain chase and a spectacular setting in a ski resort town. A satisfying read for lovers of this genre. I'll be happy to look out for his next offering.

Wendy

One Thousand White Women

This novel is written in the style of fictionalised journal entries and letters from a white American woman who takes part in an attempt by the American government to treat with the Cheyenne nation by supplying them with 1,000 white women to be their wives and aid assimilation to white culture. In spite of the novel's attempts (including the blurb on the back cover) to set this out as historical truth, an author's note at the back of the book states that although this was a request from the Cheyenne, it was turned down flat with considerable disgust by the authorities. Nonetheless, it is an interesting construct - looking at a sad time in American history when the Cheyenne knew their days as an independent and proud nation were numbered. The wives who were drawn from mental homes, prisons and the vulnerable in society have a remarkable adventure facing troubles and happinesses - identifying with their new husbands and families but unable to understand the more brutal aspects of their culture.

Wendy

The Marriage Bureau for Rich People

I quite enjoyed this slight novel dealing with the retired Mr Ali who creates a Marriage Bureau to use up his energy and time when he becomes bored after retirement. There are echoes of Alexander McCall Smith in his gentle prose and exploration of social customs although his finished product is nowhere near the well crafted delights of Mr McCall Smith. The plot is perhaps contrived and many of the characters are not developed however you do get an understanding of a very different culture and discover that human relationships do not vary so much wherever you are n the world.

Wendy

Audition by Ryu Murakami

This is proclaimed to be the novel behind the "acclaimed cult movie'' which I haven't seen. A Japanese documentary maker, Aoyama, hasn't dated since his wife died seven years before and he is urged by his son and friend to seek a new wife. He advertises for actresses for a film he doesn't intend to make so he can look over many women with the characteristics he seeks. When Yamasaki Asami enters the room, "Aoyama had a very distinct sensation that something extraordinary was happening all around him. It was like being the millionth visitor to an amusement park, suddenly bathed in spotlights and a rain of balloons and surrounded with microphones and flashing cameras." When she spoke "it was a voice that poured into your ears and oozed down the nerves to the nape of your neck - neither high-pitched nor deep nor dusky, but round and smooth and crystalline". Beguiled by her beauty and intrigued by her troubled past, he ignores the warning signs and rushes headlong into a steamy relationship. Aoyama is a decent man getting though life the best he can but Asami-san is playing by different rules and she wants to be the only person in his life.
This novel is beautifully translated from Japanese by Ralph McCarthy. It is a short novel, lyrically descriptive, explicitly sexual and shockingly violent. It is truly said that you should be careful what you wish for!
Wendy

The Sonnets

Warwick Collins has imagined Shakespeare's life during the time he was exiled from London when theatres were closed as a result of the plague in 1592-4. In conjuring this time, Collins gives a context for 32 of the 154 Sonnets and explores some of the political events as the periphery to the poet's work. He postulates a theory as to the 'dark lady' who has fascinated Shakespearean scholars over the centuries. He may or may not be right - but it is an interesting conceit and a pleasant way to re-acquaint yourself with some of the best-known poems of all time. You get a flavour for Elizabethan life and the insecurities of a young man with his way to make in the world. And I couldn't resist including one of my favourite sonnets below!

Wendy

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.