Quotation - Susan Hill

"But if the books I have read have helped to form me, then probably nobody else who ever lived has read exactly the same books, all the same books and only the same books, as me. So just as my genes and the soul within me make me uniquely me, so I am the unique sum of the books I have read. I am my literary DNA."
Susan Hill “Howard’s end is on the Landing”

Review:- David ATTENBOROUGH et al – “Amazing Rare Things”

Year Published: -2008
Where the book was from:- My own copy – present from Helen and Ian Christmas 2009
ISBN: - 978 1 902163 46 8
Pages: - 225pp
Genre: - Natural History; Art; Royal Collections;
Location:- ----
How I came across it: - Saw it in Linghams Bookshop
Rating: - ***** *****

One sentence summary:- The art of natural history in the age of discovery.

General comments:-
Some non-fiction is educational; some is beautiful; and some is simply fascinating. This is all three. Created to accompany a 2008 exhibition of the Royal Collections it


This extraordinary book accompanies the 2008 exhibition which was selected from the Royal Library by curators of the Royal Collection in collaboration with the distinguished naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough. It brings together the works of four artists and a collector who have shaped our knowledge of the world around us. Leonardo da Vinci, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Alexander Marshal, Maria Sibylla Merian and Mark Catesby are diverse figures who shared a passion for enquiry and a fascination with the beautiful and bizarre in nature. All lived at a time when new species were being discovered around the world in ever increasing numbers. Many of the plants and animals represented in the exhibition were then barely known in Europe. Today some are commonplace, others are now extinct.

Review:- Paul DOHERTY – “The House of Death”

Year Published: - 2001
Where the book was from:- Pensby Library
ISBN: - 0-7531-6795-6
Pages: - 380pp
Genre: - Historical mystery
Location:- The Hellespont 334BC
How I came across it: - New book shelf
Rating: - ***** **

One sentence summary:- Alexander the Great is poised to launch an invasion of the Persian empire of Darius III but first he has to have the murder of his guides solved.

Describe the plot without giving anything away:-
It is 334 BC and the young Alexander the Great waits with is troops by the hellespont, poised to att many sacrifices, but the omens are not good. Worse still, his guides are being brutally murdered.

General comments:-
This is not my favourite period of history and there seems to be less historical detail thatn in some of Paul Doherty’s novels.

AUTHOR Notes:- see Paul Doherty

Review:- Paul DOHERTY – “The House of Shadows”

Year Published: - 2003
Where the book was from:- Pensby Library
ISBN: - 0 7553 0776 3
Pages: - 312pp
Genre: - Historical crime
Location:- London 1380
How I came across it: - Looking for Paul Doherty novels
Rating: - ***** ***

One sentence summary:-
Brother Athelstan investigates murders which may have their source in a daring robbery twenty years earlier.

Describe the plot without giving anything away:-
A series of brutal murders at a Southwark tavern interrupts Brother Athelstan's rehearsals for the annual Christmas mystery play. He resolves to solve not only these grisly deaths, but also their source - the Great Robbery of the Lombard treasure, which occurred in Southwark some 20 years earlier.

General comments:-
This is the first Brother Athelstan book I have read but it won’t be the last. A cut above the average cosy crime.

The previous list of -
Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan
1. The Nightingale Gallery (1991) (writing as Paul Harding)
2. The House Of The Red Slayer (1992) (writing as Paul Harding)
aka The Red Slayer
3. Murder Most Holy (1992) (writing as Paul Harding)
4. The Anger Of God (1993) (writing as Paul Harding)
5. By Murder's Bright Light (1994) (writing as Paul Harding)
6. The House Of Crows (1995) (writing as Paul Harding)
7. The Assassin's Riddle (1996) (writing as Paul Harding)
8. The Devil's Domain (1998)
9. The Field Of Blood (1999)
10. The House of Shadows (2003)

AUTHOR Notes:- see Paul Doherty

Review:- Alis HAWKINS – “Testament”

Year Published: - 2008
Where the book was from:- Pensby Library
ISBN: - 978-0-230-70638-5
Pages: - 568pp
Genre: - Historical mystery
Location:- Salster - a fictional S English town.
How I came across it: - On the new book shelf in library
Rating: - ***** ***
One sentence summary:- A historical mystery that brings the mystery forward to the present day.

Describe the plot without giving anything away:-
In the 14th century master mason Simon of Kinnerton is preparing plans for his magnum opus, a college to rival anything in England. His work only interrupted when he becomes father to the son he has longed for for twenty years. Six hundred years later Damia Miller is employed to promote revered Kinnerton and Dacre college. It doesn't take her long to recognise that a grotesque antique painting recently uncovered on one of the college's walls might hold the key to the college's financial future. Damia grows increasingly obsessed with the mysterious wall-painting and the college's dark history. What is the painting trying to tell her? Why was the college named after its mason as well as its founder? And who does the statue of the  boy in the Toby Yard represent? In mediaeval Salster, Simon of Kinnerton is struggling to come to terms with the fact that his son is  ‘cursed’ in the eyes of many of Salster's townspeople. But just as Simon himself is coming to accept young Toby a tragedy occurs whose repercussions will echo until the present day.

General comments:-
An excellent first novel but I have to confess I am beginning to tire of books that flit backwards and forwards between centuries.

AUTHOR Notes:-
Brought up in west Wales, Alis Hawkins read English at Oxford before training as a speech and language therapist. She lives in Canterbury with her partner and teenage sons.