New to Dot Scribbles' Shelves

I have been very good this week in that I didn't actually buy any books myself, my shelves are pretty full so I am trying to be good for a while, doubt it will last long!!

I was sent two books to review this week:


Sidney Sheldon's After The Darkness by Tilly Bagshawe (Harper 5th August) What happens when a woman who has everything, loses it all? And when a woman who has nothing, realises she has nothing to lose? Grace Brookstein is young, beautiful and the wife of billionaire Lenny Brookstein when the US stock market goes into a terrifying freefall. Oblivious and seemingly unscathed, Grace continues her charmed life, until the death of her husband in a tragic sailing 'accident' forces her to face reality. Was it possible that Lenny had conned thousands of people out of millions of dollars to live like a king, and how much did Grace know? Untangling a spiralling web of vicious lies and well planned deceit, Grace soon puts her own life in danger in an attempt to prove her innocence. Filled with the passion, glamour, twists and driving suspense that made Sidney Sheldon a bestselling legend, After the Darkness continues the grand tradition set by the master himself.

Cathy's Ring by Stewart / Weisman / Brigg (Bloomsbury 2nd August) You only live twice. My rich boyfriend, Victor is broke. My potential other boyfriend, Denny, is broken. There are creepy guys stalking my best friend. And there are three dead bodies underneath my window. All I have left is my sketch book, a variety pack of lip gloss in Assorted Candy Flavour and a healthy dose of fear.

Then my lovely, lovely sister who knows I have a slight obsession with books turned up with four for me! Here they are:

Mother Country by Libby Purves (Flame) Even her closest friend agreed that Shark Grayson wasn't fit to keep her baby. A heroin addict, living in a sordid London squat, she was already close to death when her American lover took charge of the situation by force, and carried off the baby Alexander to give him a loving home in the Mid-West and an affluent future. But now Alex is twenty-seven, orphaned again and afflicted by a sense of lost roots and a romantic vision of what he sees as the magical and sacred, heroic and democratic, happy and glorious realm of England. A business trip provides the chance to go and track his unknown relatives, and so another innocent American arrives in the intricate, strangely bad-tempered country that part of him yearns to belong to. He finds friendship, in homely Doreen Clark; encounters some startlingly predatory girls; and confronts mystery (and truly terrible soup) in the eccentric alternative health centre run by the austere Julia. He discovers that while some British people are very hard indeed to get along with- like the aloof Lady Vernon and the tricksy gambler Alan- some turn out to be, after all, more closely akin to him than he could ever have imagined.


Secrets of a Family Album by Isla Dewar (Headline) Obsessively neat Lily, a writer who writes about writers, is asked to interview the enigmatic journalist and photographer Rita Boothe. Leafing through a book of Rita's from the early seventies, Lily notices a picture of the incandescently sexy young woman sitting in a limousine swigging Jack Daniels. It's her mother, Mattie. Lily isn't shocked. She's jealous. She wants to be like that, beautiful, abandoned. But Mattie is no longer meltingly gorgeous. In their neglected house, she and her husband scrape by and bicker. Upstairs, Grandpa flirts on the Internet. Marie, Lily's sister, is facing a custody suit and her brother Rory avoids coming home. Lily is usually one to sort the family out, but she's tired of being boring and dependable. She wants to let go, be a woman of wicked mystery and intrigue. Like the one in the photograph.


Light on Snow by Anita Shreve (Abacus) Walking through new-fallen snow in the forest near their home, twelve-year-old Nicky Dillon and her father come upon something inconceivable: there in the pristine winter scene, an abandoned infant wails, its survival made possible only by the coincidence of their having chosen this path for their evening stroll. Anita Shreve delivers her most powerful novel yet- a mesmerising story of the secrets we keep and the secrets we unearth, and the power of forgiveness to mend even the most battered souls.

Sea Room by Adam Nicholson (Harper Collins) Have you ever wondered what it would be like to own your own islands? 20 years ago it happened to Adam Nicholson. Aged 21, he inherited the Shiants, 3 lonely islands set in a dangerous sea 5 miles off Lewis; only a stone bothy for accommodation- and one of the most beautiful places on the planet. A world of hermits and stories, of birds and boats, of fisherman and sheep, Sea Room is these island's story, written with passion and poetry- a celebration for all of us of an island life. 


So there you go, have you read any of these? I am making good headway with The Passage but it is HUGE so will probably take me longer than normal!