The Taking of Annie Thorne by C J Tudor (Audible)

This is C J Tudor’s second stand alone novel. I haven’t been reading her books in any order, but if I compare her first novel, The Chalk Man, to her fifth, The Drift, I can see the growth in her as a writer. I thought The Drift was an exceptionally well told tale. This, her, second book was on a 2-4-1 deal on Audible. Personally, I think Richard Armitage has a wonderful voice for narrating books and he can bring a dull book to life. As I was now familiar with the authors work, and knew I would enjoy the narration, I thought I would see how this early book stood up to her later works.

 

“Then . . . 

One night, Annie went missing. Disappeared from her own bed. There were searches, appeals. Everyone thought the worst. And then, miraculously, after forty-eight hours, she came back. But she couldn't, or wouldn't, say what had happened to her. 
 
Something happened to my sister. I can't explain what. I just know that when she came back, she wasn't the same. She wasn't my Annie. 
 
I didn't want to admit, even to myself, that sometimes I was scared to death of my own little sister. 
 
Now. . . 
 
The email arrived in my inbox two months ago. I almost deleted it straight away, but then I clicked OPEN: 
 
I know what happened to your sister. It's happening again . . .” 

 

The Taking of Annie Thorne is a dark and disturbing thriller in which the plot takes place in both the present and twenty-five years earlier, via a series of flashbacks taking the reader to a specific night in young Annie Thorne’s life. In a bid to ramp up the tension, C.J Tudor has tried to give this book a supernatural edge to increase the atmosphere and the fear of the unknown.

 

Throughout the tale, Joe Thorne, Annies elder brother, is our unreliable narrator. He receives an anonymous email telling him that the same thing that happened to his sister is starting to happen again. Shaken by this message, Joe returns home to Arnhill to take on a teaching position at his former school. He is a gambler and alcoholic, and he hopes if he moves back home, he can find out what happened in his past and escape from his current problems. What he doesn’t realise is that you can’t escape your addictions, when you owe people money, they’ll track you down to recoup it.

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (Audible)

When I realised that Richard Osman was writing a new novel and it wasn’t going to be another instalment of The Thursday Murder Club, I was disappointed. I look forward to my annual meet up with Joyce, Elizabeth & co; it’s a comforting bit of joy in an otherwise complicated world. If I’m honest, I also worried that this new cosy crime series might be rubbish in comparison with TTMC. My niece, being less sceptical than I am, was desperate for a copy, but she was patiently waiting to see what Christmas would bring. Christmas brought her a signed copy of We Solve Murders. Her feedback was promising; the book was slightly different in tone, but still very enjoyable... “you should read it Aunty Sue!” So I did.

“Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favourite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.

Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...

Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy?”

Whilst we may have left behind Joyce, Elizabeth and the boys in the quaint retirement village of Cooper’s Chase, Osman’s latest offering still imbues the same warmth and cosy feeling of his ‘Thursday Murder Club’ books. The gentle humour between characters and nods to classic British staples are still clear throughout the book, but instead of Joyce’s penchant for M&S, we’re invited into a world of Monster Munch and Greggs sausage rolls. We have moved to a slightly more modern world…the world of the social media influencer. Yes, I know Joyce has an Instagram account, but these unfortunate Instagrammers find that bagging a freebie trip to foreign lands is a costly and unglamourous mistake to make.

Meet our protagonist, Amy. Her latest job is to protect bestselling crime novelist Rosie D’Antonio from being murdered. D’Antonio appears to have angered a notable Russian oligarch after she featured him in her latest blockbuster! Whilst they are hiding out on a remote island, another Instagram influencer is murdered and Amy realises that somehow, she is connected to all the victims. It’s not only Rosie’s life in danger, but somehow, Amy seems to be in danger too. In a strange twist of events and with Rosie’s private jet at their disposal, the most unlikely crime busting duo of all time team up. With some added help from Amy’s father-in-law Steve (ex-police) they take-off on a globe-trotting adventure that will see them dodging hitmen and finding new collaborators to aid them in their dangerous quest.

No One Saw A Thing by Andrea Mara (Paperback)

I was having lunch with friends, and we thought that instead of randomly recommending a book we’d enjoyed, it might be fun to read the same book and discuss it as a group in a book club. What could be nicer than a get together over some wine discussing books?! We took the plunge in February and for our first ever book club, we read Andrea Mara’s No 1 Bestseller, No One Saw A Thing. 

We all had such high hopes for this book; the blurb sounded really exciting, and it was a Richard & Judy Book club pick, so we thought we would all love it.

 

“Two children get on the train. Only one gets off...

No one saw it happen.

Your two little girls jump on the train ahead of you. As you try to join them, the doors slide shut and the train moves away, leaving you behind.

Everyone is lying.

It's only when you reach the next stop that you truly begin to panic. Because there aren't two children waiting for you on the platform. There's only one.

Someone is to blame.

Has your other daughter got lost? Been taken by a passing stranger?
Or perhaps the culprit is closer to home than you think….”

 

A missing child must be high up on every parent’s worst nightmare list. For Sive and her husband Aaron, this nightmare is about to become reality. Aaron Sullivan, a high-flying criminal barrister, is visiting London for a reunion with his former flat mates. As he catches up with the friends he lived with twenty years ago, his wife has arranged to have breakfast with one of his female friends. In the middle of rush hour, Sive tries to negotiate an unfamiliar London Underground with two small children and a baby in a pram. Her day is about to be changed irrevocably when she decides to answer her mobile phone, whilst pushing the pram and trying to keep her eyes on six-year-old Faye and two-year-old Bea.

Sive encourages the two young children to jump on the tube train, but before Sive can reach them, the train doors close leaving her stranded on the platform, and the two youngsters embarking on a journey alone. With panic rising and not knowing what she should do for the best, a fellow passenger approaches her and says that a man on board noticed what happened and would get the children off at the next station, however, when Sive arrives, she finds only Bea on the platform, Faye is missing, and all two year old Bea can say is “chase on the train.” It quickly becomes apparent that in a city of millions, no one saw what happened to Faye.

To her credit, Mara has managed to capture the fear of being in a large, unfamiliar city, full of crowded, bustling streets and large parks where a child could be taken to. She has painted a place where kidnappers could lurk in the shadows, and people turn a blind eye for fear of becoming involved in something they don’t want to be a part of. But what starts as an interesting storyline, filled with fear and angst, quickly turns into a book littered with plot holes which make for an exasperating read.

#52. Published in 2024 – The Book That Broke The World by Mark Lawrence (Hardback)

If I struggled with some categories in this challenge, this was the one where I immediately knew what I was going to read. 

In 2023 I had a big birthday. One of the things I did during the year was go for a personalised shopping experience with friends…complete with champagne. I’m not normally a lover of shopping, I hate traipsing around clothes racks, so this was the perfect way to shop…get someone else to do the donkey work for you! Once finished, and arms aching with carrier bags, we went past Waterstones. Now there is one type of shop I don’t mind spending hours in, so we popped in and I was captivated by a book called “The Book That Wouldn’t Burn. I’m not normally a lover of the Sci-Fi or Fantasy genres, but there was something about the cover and title which captivated me. I took the book on holiday and loved every minute of it, and I couldn’t wait for the second book in this gripping trilogy. Cue 2024 when Book #2 was released!

“We fight for the people we love. We fight for the ideas we want to be true.

Evar and Livira stand side by side and yet far beyond each other's reach. Evar is forced to flee the library, driven before an implacable foe. Livira, trapped in a ghost world, has to recover her book if she's to return to her life. While Evar's journey leads him outside into the vastness of a world he's never seen, Livira's destination lies deep inside her own writing, where she must wrestle with her stories in order to reclaim the volume in which they were written.

And all the while, the library quietly weaves thread to thread, bringing the scattered elements of Livira's old life – friends and foe alike – back together beneath new skies.

Long ago, a lie was told, and with the passing years it has grown and spread, a small push leading to a chain of desperate consequences. Now, as one edifice topples into the next with ever-growing violence, it threatens to break the world. The secret war that defines the library has chosen its champions and set them on the board. The time has come when they must fight for what they believe, or lose everything.”

I pre-ordered The Book That Broke the World, then I wondered if I was going to be disappointed with the sequel. So often a sequel lets you down, it doesn’t live up to expectations. If I’m honest, I can’t say whether this book is better or worse than the first. It’s a bit different. It’s like trying to compare apples with pears. The first book is very much character led. At 559 pages, it has the scope to bring the reader into this different world inhabited by different characters. You learn about this strange world set in an infinite library, about characters of different races in different times and it is completely engrossing. In book #2, we know so much about the main characters, that the story needs to take a bit of a different direction. 

What I loved about this book was "The Story So Far" section, which served as a brilliant reminder of what had happened in the first book. I wish more authors would do this. If I’m reading a series of books, I get so annoyed if the author diverges from the flow of the story to issue long rambling reminders of what has previously happened to their characters (J K Rowling take note!)

Mark Lawrence's The Book That Broke The World is the second book in the author's "Library Trilogy", and whilst it continues to follow Evar and Livera’s story, a new perspective is introduced in the form of a slave called Celcha and her brother. As her character arc grows, we see how her story weaves into the lives of Evar and Livera. 

#50. A Musical Instrument On The Cover – The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable (Audible)

I was really struggling to find a book with a musical instrument on the front cover. There was nothing on my bookshelf, in my Audible library, or on my Kindle app. If I went anywhere that books were sold (supermarket, airport etc) I’d have a quick glance on the shelves…nothing. I mean it shouldn’t be so hard, should it? Then this book popped up on a Facebook page. It was set in Venice, a favourite haunt of mine, and based on real people and a famous Venetian orphanage; I thought it sounded like the perfect book and so I bought it with a remaining credit I had for Audible. 

“Anna Maria may have no name, no fortune, no family. But she has her ambition, and her talent.

Her best hope lies in her teacher, Antonio Vivaldi. Soon she is his star pupil.

But as Anna Maria's star rises, not everyone is happy. Because Anna Maria's shining light is threatening to eclipse that of her mentor.

She will leave her mark, whatever it takes. And her story will be heard.”

The challenge with writing a fictitious story based on historical figures, is to balance what we know, with some added excitement that makes us want to read the story. If one of the historical figures is not well known, the writer may feel they can put whatever spin they want on the story and no-one will know how true, or not, the tale is. As the writer, you can be tempted to take the story to whatever place you like. When you partner an unknown character, Anna Maria della Pietà, with a well-known figure such as Antonio Vivaldi (everyone will have heard his Four Seasons at some point in their life) you need to be very careful as to how much you want to interfere with history. Too much interference, and suddenly the interest in your unknown character wanes. Sadly, no-one seems to have given the author of The Instrumentalist this piece of salient advice.  

Harriet Constable’s The Instrumentalist is inspired by the real-life Anna Maria della Pietà, who was a Venetian orphan and prodigious violinist. She studied under the tutelage of Antonio Vivaldi but very little is known about her life, so whilst the setting of this story might be historically accurate, the majority of the book is pure fiction. Constable herself acknowledges that she has moved some historical events around for dramatic effect, but has that decision diminished what she was trying to achieve with this book? 

The question I asked myself after reading this novel is, what was she trying to achieve?

#49. Set In A City Beginning With The Letter ‘M’ – Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (Audible)

My immediate thought was reading a book set in cities like Moscow, Munich, Mexico, Madrid…and then I thought, why not pick somewhere a little less exotic, a bit closer to home perhaps, and so I headed a few miles up the road to Manchester, to the industrial north and to the great novelist, Elizabeth Gaskell. I loved her novel North and South, would I also enjoy this story about Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life? 

“Explore the poignant and powerful world of 'Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life' by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. Set against the backdrop of the bustling city of Manchester during the industrial revolution, this novel takes you on a compelling journey through the lives of the working class in the 19th century. Gaskell's writing is a vivid window into the struggles and triumphs of the ordinary people during a time of social and economic upheaval.

Mary Barton, the central character, is a young woman who embodies the hopes and aspirations of the working class, while also grappling with the harsh realities of urban life. Gaskell's narrative paints a vivid picture of the disparities between the privileged and the downtrodden, highlighting the themes of social justice, labor movements, and the complexities of human relationships.

 

This audiobook is a captivating exploration of love, class divisions, and the resilience of the human spirit. It offers a riveting glimpse into the challenges faced by the working class and the enduring pursuit of a better life.”

 

This is the first novel that Elizabeth Gaskell wrote, and for a first novel, it paints a powerful picture of what Manchester life was like in the 1800’s, and whilst it is a work of fiction, the origin of the tale is rooted in the murder of a mill owner in 1831.

This is definitely a book of two halves, and I don’t mean like Gaskell’s brilliant novel North and South which I remember reading years ago and thinking it was a wonderfully written tale, a real page turner.

Both novels tell the plight of the working classes and they both stress the importance that people of all classes need to work together to ensure decent working and living conditions can be had by all. But if I’m being honest, North and South is a more refined novel…at times I found Mary Barton to be a bit clunky and boring. It wasn’t until the second half of the book that I started to enjoy the story; the first half of the book made me feel quite despondent.

Many Victorian novels feature secondary characters who live squalid lives and fight hard for survival; but they are certainly not the hero’s. This book is rather unusual because it features Mary Barton, a working class woman with very little money. Mary Barton gives a voice to the poorest souls of Manchester and makes them the central characters of this book. This makes the book fairly depressing, because these characters, of whom there are many, lead an incredibly hard life.

#48. The Word "Secret" In The Title – Open Secret by Stella Rimington (Paperback)

In theory this should have been an easy category for me to find a book to read, but it wasn’t (well at least in terms of the books I hadn’t read on my bookshelves.) The Secret Keeper…read. Celia’s Secret…read. The Secret Garden…read. The Children’s Secret…read. Twelve Secrets…read. Surely to God there must be a book in this house with the word secret in it that I haven’t read yet! And there it was…a book signed by Stella Rimington herself which belonged to my partner. He has never read it, but I think he should. He’d enjoy it. 

“Stella Rimington worked for MI5 between 1969 and 1996, one of the most turbulent and dramatic periods in global history. Working in all the main fields of the Service's responsibilities - counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism - she became successively Director of all three branches, and finally Director-General of MI5 in 1992.

She was the first woman to hold the post and the first Director-General whose name was publicly announced on appointment. In Open Secret, she continues her work of opening up elements of the work of our security services to public scrutiny, revealing the surprising culture of MI5 and shedding light on some of the most fascinating events in 20th century history from the ultimate insider viewpoint.”

I suspect that this could be a ‘marmite’ type of book, which is a bit of a mean thing to say when it is a book about someone’s life. I really enjoyed it. It tells the remarkable story of how a woman managed to climb to the top ranks of the British Secret Service; however, it has been written in a style that is not the most engaging. By this, I mean the sentences are often long and rambling and need rereading several times to understand what point Stella is trying to convey to the reader. A lot of autobiographies are about celebrities; therefore you can ‘hear’ the voice of the writer in your head as you read. This can often help with understanding what point is being made and in what context the writer is mentioning it, as you would instinctively know what inflections they would make. 

As I have never met, or indeed heard much about Stella before, I found it took a while to gel with her informative, but matter of fact telling of her life story. And what a life she has led! Stella Rimington has quite a dry sense of humour, she’s also a bit sarcastic, so I found her character rather endearing! I imagine a lifetime spent exasperated by ‘the men in suits,’ who think women can’t accomplish anything other than raise children and keep the canapés and light-hearted conversation flowing at corporate events, would make you somewhat sardonic.