Just Jillian Blog - What I’ll be reading over the holidays

What I’ll be reading over the holidays

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Relaxing means different things to different people – a good movie, a bingeworthy series – or maybe a good read in front of the fire/woodburner on a cold, windy evening!

At Christmas you only have to look at the variety of new titles being promoted to see the vast array of genres and formats available to appeal to everyone and, like a lot of bookworms, I like to squirrel away a couple of books to keep for the festive season. Not, I hasten to add, anything that is particularly festive – so nothing about snow, or Christmas per se, but recent titles by favourite authors that I know will be a ‘good read’. Novels that I am almost guaranteed to enjoy.

This year I have three sitting waiting already – the question is will I be able to resist until the holidays! And of course it is great to have Libby and Borrowbox to hand in case I run out of reading material over the holidays.

Three Books - Ice Town by Will Dean, By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult and You Are Here by David Nicholls

Ice Town by Will Dean is the latest of his Tuva Moodyson series – set in deepest Sweden this series features a deaf investigative journalist who finds herself mixed up in the cases she is investigating. In Ice Town she is called in to help with the disappearance of a deaf teenager in a tunnel leading to an isolated town during a freezing Swedish winter. I’m looking forward to this as I know there will be a mix of Tuva’s own story mixed into the plot. The author Will Dean is an english author who now lives in the middle of a Swedish forest himself so I know that the detail he includes is authentic.

David Nicholls is well known for his novel One Day which was also made into a brilliant film. His latest offering is You Are Here, a story about two lonely divorcees who are ‘set up’ by a mutual friend and end up hiking across the Yorkshire Dales together. It promises to be an entertaining tale – hopefully with a satisfying ending! Time will tell. 😊

Finally, I am looking forward to reading Jodi Picoult’s latest ‘By Another Name’. Moving between Elizabethan England and modern day Manhattan the story revolves around Emilia Basano who pays an unknown actor ( William Shakespeare) to produce and perform her work on the stage – and who proceeds to take all credit for the successes. Jumping forward to present day Melina Green, a descendant of Emilia’s, finds that a woman’s voice is still less worthy than a man’s. This promises to be an interesting read and I am looking forward to it.

If you have any relatives who enjoy a good story you can’t do any better than downloading The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke from Libby and reading along together. It is a great recommendation – a haunting mix of fairy tale and magic. Merowdis is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees-and she is only happy when she is in the woods. One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst-and the path of her life is changed forever. Lovely delicate illustrations and a deliciously dark tale

Whatever you decide to read to relax this Christmas, enjoy and breath!