Sue Fairhead's Blog, page 45

The Enchanted Grove (by Stephen Hayes)

When we lived in the United States for a couple of years, almost three decades ago, I first became involved with email and ‘bulletin boards’ which were the precursor to online forums or groups. I’m still in touch with some of the folk I ‘met’ there, where we had many interesting discussions and debates. One of them is Steve Hayes, who is a not-quite-retired teacher and writer in South Africa. In recent years he has published a couple of children’s novels; this is the second of them. 

A few y...

The Man With Two Left Feet (by PG Wodehouse)

When I’m travelling, I take my Kindle rather than any physical books. I have a large collection of downloaded volumes, mostly free offers from Amazon or elsewhere, or - in the case of those which are out of copyright - from Project Gutenberg. The latter is the source of the PG Wodehouse collection of short stories, ‘The Man With Two Left Feet’. My books on the Kindle are not particularly well organised, and I’d entirely forgotten that I read this collection back in 2014, although once or tw...

Before We Say Goodbye (by Louise Candlish)

Since I very much enjoyed reading the novels I’ve been given by Louise Candlish, I decided to re-read them, interspersed with others,, starting with the ones I read the longest time ago. I’ve just finished ‘Before we say Goodbye’, a novel which I first read twelve years ago. I remembered liking it very much, but had totally forgotten the story.

Sometimes when I re-read a book after a gap of a decade or so, parts of it come back to me and I remember how it ended. That wasn’t the case with thi...

In This Mountain (by Jan Karon)

I don’t know quite why I enjoy Jan Karon’s Mitford novels so much, but I’m very much liking re-reading them. I’ve just finished ‘In This Mountain’, which is the seventh in the series, both chronologically and in publication order.  It follows on from ‘A New Song’, which I re-read about a month ago and which saw Father Tim and Cynthia supplying for a church on Whitecap Island.

In this book, which I last read in 2006, they are back in Mitford, but planning to go on a mission trip for six month...

The Chalet School in Exile (by Elinor M Brent-Dyer)

I love reaching this point when I am rereading my way through Elinor M Brent-Dyer’s lengthy ‘Chalet School’ series. I last read ‘The Chalet School in Exile’ at the end of 2010, and recalled that it was moving and surprisingly powerful. But inevitably I had forgotten most of the details. 

This book was published in 1940, set (I assume) a year earlier, as the thread of World War II is looming.  The Chalet School owners and Head are very worried, particularly about their German and Austrian stu...

The Hot Line (by Peter Lawrence)

Peter Lawrence was an Anglican clergyman in Birmingham (UK) in the 1980s, when the events of this book took place. Hoping for a bit more enthusiasm, and some answers to prayer, he started reading more, talking to people who had experienced dramatic healings, and experimenting in a small way in his own congregation. His book ‘The Hot Line’, which I last read in 2006,  is biographical. It charts much of what he learned, with many anecdotes as well as Scriptural references and explanations. 

It...

The Salt Path (by Raynor Winn)

I hadn’t heard of Raynor Winn, and don’t often buy biographical books, so I might never have come across ‘The Salt Path’. But it was the book allocated for this month’s reading group, so I acquired it some months ago, and finished reading it yesterday.  What an amazing story it is!

The first chapter - after a hopeful prologue - is harrowing. Raynor and her husband Moth (I have no idea if that’s his real name) are on their final appeal in a court case against a former friend. Due to an admini...

The Masqueraders (by Georgette Heyer)

I started reading Georgette Heyer’s novels in my late teens, after being given some by a relative. At the time, I appreciated most the overtly romantic novels, those set in the upper-class homes where young debutantes attended balls and soirées, albeit with some humour and clever dialogue. I then started acquiring others, mostly second-hand, as an adult and first read ‘The Masqueraders’ in 1988. I noted at the time that I found it rather slow to start, and awarded it just three stars in my ...

Postcards from the Past (by Marcia Willett)

I am thoroughly enjoying re-reading my large collection of novels by Marcia Willett.  It’s only six years since I read ‘Postcards from the Past’, but I had entirely forgotten the story. When I picked it up to re-read a couple of days ago, and realised that there was something of a mystery, I wondered if I would recall the outcome: but I didn’t. I found the the book difficult to put down, and finished it rather later last night than I was planning to be awake.

The novel opens in quite a drama...

An Unsuitable Match (by Joanna Trollope)

I’ve been reading novels by Joanna Trollope for over twenty-five years now. Mostly they are character-based rather than having a significant plot, and as I get older that increasingly suits me. Although the author is in her seventies now, she’s still publishing novels, so I put them on my wishlist as soon as they’re out in paperback. I was given ‘An Unsuitable Match’ for my birthday in April, and have just finished reading it.

The main character is a woman in her sixties called Rose. She’s b...