While Riley is preoccupied with the birdies and squirrellies in the backyard, I’ll take a minute to give you a short review of the non-Silver Birch books I’ve read this month. There were two of them.
The first was a YA Eco thriller by Welsh author Caryl Lewis called The Danger of Small Things, which was like a YA version of The Handmaid’s Tale, except the young girls are tasked with hand-pollinating the buds on the trees because of the extinction of all pollinators. Once they reach “breeding age”, they are married off to someone in the ranks and sent off to have children. It was a really amazing book that had me hooked from the very first page. It was both engaging and horrifying, and could serve as a cautionary tale for what will happen if we don’t do something drastic to stop the destruction of our Earth and all her fragile ecosystems.
Then I read a bunch of Silver Birch books in between, and then I received notification that my hold for Sophie Hannah’s new book, No One Would Do What the Lamberts Have Done, was ready. This was a sort-of mystery/not-mystery, and an example of metafiction at its best. It concerns the Lambert family, led by mother Sally, who are on the run from their home in a quaint British country village because one of their neighbours has accused their dog, Champ, considered by Sally to be another of her children, of biting their daughter. Adamant that it couldn’t have been Champ, Sally nonetheless flees and an elaborate escape plan unfolds. This book is hard to write about because it twists and turns and there are surprises all over the place and sometimes more questions than answers, but that’s a big part of the fun of reading it, so I don’t want to give anything away, even by presenting questions to consider. It was a fun romp, less “bloody” than the audiobook I also just finished by the same author, The Next to Die, which is #10 in the “Spilling CID” series featuring DS Charlie Zailer and DC Simon Waterhouse. The Next to Die was OK, not amazing, but I was interested in listening right to the end, although the conclusion was a bit far-fetched and not very credible. I found the comedian, Kim Tribbeck, to be the most interesting, sarcastic and funny character, and the dialogue between her editor and publisher regarding her memoir, Origami, was also pretty interesting. If you've never read any Sophie Hannah books before, don't start with this one, but maybe some of her earlier books, or even The Lamberts, although it's atypical of her usual mystery/thrillers.
That’s all I can manage tonight, as Riley is on his way to my chair… sigh… he needs more “mama time”!!
Take care and keep reading!
Bye for now… Julie
