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December 2017 Reading Round Up (Happy New Year!)

Happy new year! I hope you had a lovely holiday and that 2018 is treating you well. I’m writing this beside a large cup of coffee (that way round rather than there’s a coffee beside me) because I went to see the Terry Pratchett exhibition in Salisbury yesterday; we had to queue in the freezing wind and as the winter weather has not been wintery so far it was a bit of a shock and I’m rather groggy. In terms of exhibition content, the steamrolled hard drive was on display and the museum had created a small mock-up of Pratchett’s office, complete with video games and Star Wars references. The best thing, though, wasn’t an object but, instead, the snippets of description they’d included alongside the majority of the items – Pratchett’s own words.

The last few days I’ve been wondering how to go about these first of the year posts. I feel that if I’m going to account for December’s reading, writing about that first would be best, even if it isn’t the strongest way to begin.

All books are works of fiction. The non-Christmas books may be better to read about even if I have already reviewed them.

The Books

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Alison Kent: This Time Next Year – A woman visits her grandmother for Christmas, meets a man her grandmother neglected to tell her about, and amongst lots of arguing they get together. An okay story but there really was a lot of arguing, more than any stereotypical ‘they fought and then made up’.

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Claire North: The End Of The Day – The Harbinger of Death does his job, going around letting people know it’ll soon be time, whilst attempting to have a normal human relationship and stay away from those who would harm him. Very good.

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HelenKay Dimon: It’s Not Christmas Without You – A man who refuses to understand his ex-girlfriend’s passion for her career turns up in her new city to win her back without any intention of changing his thoughts. That’s very much my summary rather than the glossy one you’ll find elsewhere – I’m with those who think the hero is awful and Carrie should find someone who will respect her event management work.

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Jaci Burton: A Rare Gift – An ex-sister-in-law and brother-in-law get together. I personally found this uncomfortable, but I know others were okay with the set-up.

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Julianne Pachico: The Lucky Ones – Various ex-classmates describe moments of their life during the conflicts in Colombia. An interesting idea.

Claire North’s book was my favourite, the author using various ideas from the fantasy genre and nodding at Terry Pratchett, to produce something that is funny and thoughtful and, for all its leanings towards other works, original. It was this melding of concepts that I liked most, the author almost experimenting with ideas without ever straying from telling a good story.

Going forward I think I’ll only include the Quotation Report heading when I have quotations to share. And as I’ll be writing about plans and goals and what have you very shortly, I’m going to leave this post here.

What book was/will be your first completed book of the year? (Mine’s likely to be an Eloisa James. More on that later.)

 
 

Kelly

January 8, 2018, 4:16 pm

I’m working on the selection for my February book club meeting, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.

Another blog I follow had a good post about the Pratchett exhibit. I’ve never read any of his work, but have one in mind for the WIAN challenge.

Freda

January 8, 2018, 4:19 pm

That is so cool that you saw Terry Pratchett!! Wishing you the best for 2018!

Jacqueline Pye

January 9, 2018, 6:52 am

Admiration for your reading list! I tend at times to be swayed by publicity for overtly successful novels & am currently reading Lincoln in the Bardo. Took a while to get into it and sort-of get it so far. Ditched A Skinful of Shadows part way in, feeling it was better for a much younger readership, which I hadn’t picked up from the blurb. Happy New Year.

jessicabookworm

January 9, 2018, 8:19 pm

Happy New Year! My first completed book of the year was the cookbook Super Food Family Classics by Jamie Olive. Looking forward to trying lots of yummy, healthy new recipes during the year.

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