It has been 32C / 90F in the shade again (45C / 114F!! in direct sunshine) and I have stayed indoors reading for most of the last five days. Happily, our Victorian semi stays cool even in such extreme heat.
I have read two very different, and each unputdownable, books where the characters drew me in so completely. The first was The Distant Shores by Santa Montefiore, a family history told through the eyes of an historian writing a biography of said family. It’s a good summer read, not too demanding but nevertheless, a proper page turner.
The second, quite different, a Booker prize winner last year, The Promise by Damon Galgut. This one was utterly compelling, set in South Africa over four decades with all the political backdrop of those years and again, is a family saga but told from a very unusual standpoint where the narrator pops from one character to another sometimes taking first person but mostly as an observer. Utterly fascinating and one of those novels that stays in your head……
Thank you very much to the two friends, H and J, who kindly lent me these to read.