The year in Books May 2015

It has been another bumper month of reading here at The Willows.  

A mixture of books and kindle reads 10 books in all this month.

From the bookshelf 

1. The Girl on the Train - Paul Hawkins
2. The Forgotten Garden   - Kate Morton
3. We are all completely beside ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler
4.  The Dark Witch Book 1 of the O'Dwyer Trilogy - Nora Roberts
5.  Behind Closed Doors - Susan Lewis
6. The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz - Denis Avey

From the Kindle

                                         

                             

                                   

1.  The Villa  - Rosanna Ley
2.  The Missing Half - Brooke Powley
3. The Love of My Life  - Louise Douglas 

And not forgetting this months return to my childhood read 

1.  Rikki-Tikki Tavi - Rudyard Kipling 

If you haven't had a chance to catch up with what I have been reading over the last month and want to know my thoughts you can click on the link above and it will take you back to my post. 

There have been some that I have loved, some that were OK but I wouldn't read again and are destined for the 'To go to the charity shop'  shelf.  Thankfully there weren't any that were so bad I couldn't wait to get to the end or even worse they were so bad I couldn't finish. 

They were all very different but my favourites this month have definitely been 

The Forgotten Garden  is Kate Morton's second novel and although she got great reviews for her début  novel The House at Riverton  I think this one is far better. I base this judgement on the size of the box of tissues required - BIG

I think everyone has seen or heard about The Girl on the Train. I heard about it whilst driving home listening to Simon Mayo's book club when Paula Hawkins came along to give a synopsis of her book.  I had put off reading this one as sometimes when a book is so hyped up I can be left disappointed when I actually come to reading it.  That definitely was not the case and if this is Ms Hawkins first attempt at writing fiction I can't wait to see what she will produce in the future.

And lastly I had downloaded The Missing Half sometime ago onto my kindle when Amazon had one of their 99p  sales.  It is Brooke Powley's début novel which can sometimes be a bit like Marmite can't they you either love them or hate them.  Fortunately I loved this one and everywhere I went my kindle would go just in case I got five minutes to spare and I have now downloaded her two follow on novels which I suppose should give you some idea of how good her first one was. 

So if you have clicked on to the link to my previous posts you will now understand my dilemma of which of the three to choose as my book of month. You don't want to read one really good book in a month followed by those that are a bit mediocre just to make the choice that little bit easier but I really think I have given myself a bit of problem this month. I have chosen to have two books as my book of the  month before now but I think choosing all three would be a little excessive don't you. Even a nice cup of tea in my favourite cup & saucer together with three biscuits has not made the job any the easier. 

But in the end I decided to go for

 The Missing Half  by Brooke Powley

So it is Goodbye to May and Hello June and hopefully some nicer weather than we have been having of late. Judging by my bookshelf/kindle  there is a whole lot more reading to be done over the summer months and it would be nice if some of that reading time could be spent in the garden with a nice glass of white.

Happy Reading one & all

Mx