Monthly Archives: July 2014

Checkmate

Checkmate

In this, the third book of the trilogy, I was a little disappointed. I felt that the writing was very simplistic, as it has been throughout the trilogy, but this book didn’t counteract it with the suspense of the other books. I didn’t like Callie Rose and Sephy’s happy ending; thought that was a bit sugary. Jude was beyond a caricature. All that said, I did think the earlier tension between Sephy and her teenage daughter was quite realistic.

Life After Life

Life after life

This book is beautifully written. I can’t believe that this was written by the same person who wrote Started Early, Took My Dog, which I read recently. KA has a gift for writing from women’s perspectives, no matter what time period they are in.

Aside from the quality of the writing, what kept me reading was wondering whether Ursula would fare any better in the next perumtation. I was utterly gripped. I also loved how the Snow period is revisited and bulked out gradually through the book e.g. we know that Sylvie is given a snowdrop in a vase on her breakfast tray, then later we see how it came to be there.

There are so many characters and permutations that I feel compelled to make some kind of chart to make sense of it all but it looks like someone has analysed it already with an accompanying flow chart:


Life After Life permutations


I think the flow chart is a bit too simplistic though so I’ll be going through the book again, making my own notes.

This is a wonderful book with a well-told story (or should I say stories?). The characters feel very real and the are tragedies enormous and poetic. Ultimately I found this to be quite a sad book but I loved it. I would go so far as to say that it’s the best book I’ve read all year.

Beetroot & feta salad

Based on: http://recipes.doctissimo.com/main-dishes-recipes/vegetables-recipes/roast-beetroot-and-feta-salad.html

500g bunch of beetroot
Block of feta cheese
1 red onion, very finely sliced
Handful of walnut pieces
Fresh coriander. chopped
Chilli to taste, either powder or finely chopped fresh
Salt

Dressing:
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp clear honey

Make up the dressing and mix in with the onions. Letting the onions sit in the dressing while the beetroot cooks for a while removes their harshness.
Roast the beetroot at 200C for 40 mins. They should be cooked but still firm enough to dice after being peeled.
After peeling the beetroot, cube it and the feta then mix with the dressing and onions.

To make a simpler version, miss out the onions and dress with lime juice only.
Add chilli and salt to taste
Sprinkle walnuts and coriander on top just before serving

Started Early, Took My Dog

Stared early took my dog

This was a book group choice. I’ll be concise.

1) It has so many characters that I got confused.

2) I found it very difficult to believe that a woman who spent 30 years working for the police would buy a child.

3) I didn’t like the rambling thoughts of characters in this book. It was difficult to glean what was relevant. I didn’t feel like I connected to any of the characters and got fed up of Jackson going on and on about his dead sister. He’s done it throughout the series and it’s getting boring.

In its defence, it’s fairly ‘readable’, just disappointing as I liked the first Jackson Brodie novel (Case Histories).