Tideline by Penny Hancock

This month's meeting was at Kate's, I was unable to go but it sounds like I missed a corker.  I've heard rumours of discussions lasting past 10pm and very cute cats.

Here is Kate's summary of this month's book:

Sonia lives on her own in the River house, her childhood home which holds many memories from early days with her brother who she worshiped and adored, more than most sibling relationships! Sadly her brother dies in a tragic river accident and Sonia always feels guilty about this. As an adult she is now married to a man who used to be her lecturer and who she doesn't love, they have a daughter who no longer lives at home.

One day Jez (who is in london for college interviews, staying at his Aunt's house who is a friend of Sonia's) comes to the river house to collect a music album. Jez is young and beautiful and Sonia feels an urge to keep him and worship him. Sonia gets Jez drunk and keeps him in the music room for a night that turns into a week whilst his family and girlfriend and the police worry about where he is and whether he is alive.  Jez's aunt eventually starts to suspect Sonia and in desperation she kills her, and dumps her body in the river. Knowing she doesn't have much time before people catch her, Sonia decides to plaster-cast Jez's body to have a permanent reminder of his perfect body at this moment in time. But does Jez get away alive, and does Sonia get caught??

Concept: 7.5/10

Plot: 8/10
Ending: 8.5/10
Cover: 2/10
Page turner: 8/10
Who to slap: Greg

New category for cheesiest line in the book:
Where's the cheese? - ''he chose to come to the river house, she chose to keep him there, forever"

Overall: 7/10

We chose our next book from the following:

• The Adventures of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie
• Claus: The Legend of the Fat Man by Tony Bertauski
• Christmas Pudding by Joseph Connolly
• The Lady and The Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier

We chose 'Claus: The Legend of the Fat Man' by Tony Bertauski which we will be reading for the December meeting, hence the Christmas Lunch theme.

Our next meeting will be at a venue to be decided (I think Susie has offered but need to check with her first) on Wednesday 14th November at 8pm.

Fifty Great Short Stories by Milton Crane (ed)

This month's book was a little different, we chose 12 of the 50 short stories in this compact little book.  Details of the stories we read are in the previous post.  We had quite a good discussion about each story, some were, predictably, better than others but the standard was quite high across the board.  My favourites included:

The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
Hunger Games - esque story of a nation where villagers gather for the annual lottery.  Well written story with a twist at the end.

The Giaconda Smile - Aldous Huxley
How could I fail to love anything written by this man!  Quite a long short story about a man who thinks himself a bit of one with the ladies and plays upon it.  One spinster takes him seriously with disastrous consequences.


How Beautiful with Shoes - Wilbur Daniel Steele
An American farming community is rocked by an escaped convict who kidnaps a beautiful local girl who mistakenly wears new shoes while running for her life - a mistake we've all made :-)

We marked this book a collective 6/10.

Our next book was chosen from:

• Tideline by Penny Hancock
• The Thread by Victoria Hislop
• Fever Tree by Jennifer McVeigh
• When a Crocodile eats the Sun by Peter Godwin
• Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

We chose 'Tideline' by Penny Hancock which we will be reading for the October meeting.

Our next meeting will be at The Warwick, 8pm on Wednesday 12th September.  Please bring a review of a book you'd like to read.