Big sky (by Kate Atkinson)

(Amazon UK link)

I hadn’t previously read anything by Kate Atkinson. But she’s a bestselling author, and her book ‘Big sky’ has several positive recommendations on the cover. I understand that it’s fifth in a loose series involving a private investigator called Jackson Brodie, but it isn’t necessary to have read the earlier ones. 

I doubt if I would have picked this up even if I’d seen it secondhand, but it was this month’s read for our local book group. So I bought it (used) last year, and have been reading it over the past week. It’s quite a long book - nearly 500 pages in my paperback edition - and we’ve been quite busy with guests. 

In addition, it really didn’t grab me. If it hadn’t been for the upcoming book group, I would probably have given up after about fifty pages. The first chapter is gripping: two Polish girls are video chatting with a man in the UK who is promising to find them work in hotels in London. They’re quite wary, but everything seems authentic. And he’s even going to pay for their flights. At the end of the chapter, we learn that he is not who he says he is…

But that storyline is then pushed into the background. Jackson Brodie appears in the second chapter. He’s out, trying to entertain his grumpy teenage son. We’re told a bit about his past, and about his son’s mother, but nothing much seems to happen. 

Then each subsequent chapter introduces another new person (or group of people). None of them seem all that interesting, and the plot didn’t seem to be going anywhere. There are people playing golf, a glamorous woman with a past who has a very likeable teenage stepson called Harry, and a three-year-old daughter. There are a couple of young policewoman who never seem to get anything interesting to do. 

There are back-trackings and back stories, and so many characters that I gave up trying to remember any of them.

By the time I was a hundred pages in, I was starting to skim as it all seemed so tedious. Then there’s an unexpected murder, and a few of the threads start to come together; but I still found it very difficult to remember who was who. None of the characters is particularly well-rounded or even likeable, other than the teenage Harry. 

The underlying story, relating back to the first chapter, is sordid and horrifying. Perhaps such things do still happen in the UK; if so, then it needs to be brought to light, and stopped. There isn’t any gratuitous detail, but the hints given are enough to make me feel almost nauseous. The writing is good, and there’s some tension making this a thriller, I suppose, without too much stress.

It’s not, however, a mystery story as the book suggests. Jackson Brodie might be a great detective, as one of the commendations on the back states, but he doesn’t really do any detecting as such. We see him following up on some of his current cases, but I could not see how any of them are relevant to the main plot. He plans to meet someone who is grooming a young teenage girl… but that storyline fizzles out. 

Then, when the murderer is eventually revealed, there’s no problem-solving, or clues beforehand; we’re just told what happened, and why. The perpetrator concerned didn’t seem to have any other part to play in the story - perhaps he was one of the people mentioned in one of the earlier chapters, but I hadn’t remembered him at all. And I didn’t care sufficiently to go and check.

What’s almost the most disturbing thing about this book is that there are some low-key attempts at humour and light-heartedness. That doesn’t fit at all with the overall theme of the book, and feels out of place. Not that I found any of it amusing. 

I kept reading; towards the end the pace is faster, and I did start to wonder what was going to happen. It was easier to remember at least some of the main characters, although the frequent viewpoint switches mean that there is very little depth to anyone. 

Then, almost at the end, there’s a chapter with a scene that was presented in the prologue without any context. This chapter appears to have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the book, other than containing one of the characters. 

It finishes quite abruptly. The least unpleasant characters are taking positive steps to move forwards, and the main criminals are in jail or dead. But there are a lot of unfinished threads… and really nothing that makes me want to read anything else by this author.

Don’t necessarily take my word for it: this book (and, indeed, the whole series) is very highly rated. But I wouldn’t, personally, recommend it. 

Review copyright 2026 Sue's Book Reviews

Listening to God (by Joyce Huggett)

(Amazon UK link)

I very much liked the three books I had read by Joyce Huggett. She was a thoughtful Christian writer, and I knew something of her because she lived, for a while, in Cyprus, though I never met her. I didn’t expect any of her books to be currently in print, but put second-hand editions of one on my wishlist. I was very pleasantly surprised to be given a new edition of ‘Listening to God’ for Christmas. 

The byline on this book says that it’s the 30th anniversary edition of the ‘bestselling spiritual classic’. It’s been recommended by many writers on prayer and contemplation. The first edition was published in 1986, and it was something of a landmark at the time. In the notes at the end, on the anniversary edition, the author expresses great happiness that the boundaries between different strands of Christianity were much less obvious than they were in the 1980s. 

The purpose of the book is to encourage all Christians to spend more time in prayer, in particular in contemplative prayer. The idea of this sounds very positive to me; as an introvert, I need a lot of time on my own. Despite many decades of being a believer, and many prayers, I’m not good at sitting, and meditating, or contemplating. Partly this is because I don’t ‘see’ things with my eyes closed, partly, I suppose, because my mind is constantly active, wandering around all kinds of topics, ideas and thoughts.

Watch the wall, my darling (by Jane Aiken Hodge)

(Amazon UK link)

I discovered some of Jane Aiken Hodge’s novels when I was a teenager, and on the whole liked them very much. One of my favourites was ‘Watch the wall, my darling’, quoting the famous line which ends… ‘while the smugglers go by’. I last read it in 2008, so had forgotten all the people and the storyline, although I realised that smuggling must somehow play a part.

This novel is set in Sussex, by the coast, during the Napoleonic war period. The heroine is a strong-minded, feisty American girl called Christina, who is in her early twenties. We meet her travelling across the marshes in a hired coach, with a very nervous driver and groom who have been paid well to take her to her destination. She’s been warned by a landlord that she should not travel, and it’s so dark and gloomy - and the journey is taking so long - that she begins to think that she should have take his advice.

The coach has to halt due to branches across the road, and when the three travellers start to pull them aside, they are attacked by masked men. When she says who she is, they are allowed to travel again, with dire threats if they tell anyone what happened. And, at last, Christina arrives at the mansion where, she hopes her grandfather is expecting her. She has never met him, but had promised her late father that she would try to get to know her English family. 

The quiet war of Rebecca Sheldon (by Kathleen Rowntree)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s a long time since I acquired and read the novels by Kathleen Rowntree. I decided to reread them, choosing the order of publication, although each novel is complete in itself, without any overlap of characters.

So I began with ‘The quiet war of Rebecca Sheldon’, which I read in 2001. I had totally forgotten what it was about, and so was mildly surprised to find that it’s historical rather than contemporary fiction. The novel opens in 1892, when the teenage Rebecca is visiting her schoolfriend Louisa Ludbury during the summer holidays. Rebecca merely tolerates Louisa, who prattles a lot, because she’s rather keen on Louisa’s older brother George.

Mrs Ludbury, who is widowed, is a small and very snobbish woman who tends to look down on anyone who isn’t in her social circles. She doesn’t even like the fact that she lives on a farm; she never wants the farming discussed in the house, and really doesn’t want George to end up as a farmer. And she definitely doesn’t want him marrying Rebecca, whom she insists is a ‘shop girl’. 

Ruey Richardson - Chaletian (by Elinor M Brent-Dyer)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s nearly ten years since I read ‘Ruey Richardson - Chaletian’ by Elinor M Brent-Dyer. It's 44th in the original series. I recalled that I was very pleased to have acquired a ‘Girls Gone By’ full edition, and then a tad disappointed that the book wasn’t all that interesting. So I wasn’t expecting much of it. Still, I hadn’t remembered most of the details, and once I’d started I found it hard to put down. 

The book follows on directly from ‘Joey and co in Tirol’, which I reread - and very much enjoyed - last month. It follows Ruey, the Maynards’ new ward, in her first term at the Chalet School. She is looking forward to it, but she hasn’t been to a boarding school before. So she’s not entirely happy about the rules, and bedtimes in particular. However, she’s a likeable girl, and mostly happy to go with the flow.

Ruey is disliked on site by Francie, a girl in her form who had hoped to become Margot Maynard’s best friend. This thread runs through the book, mostly in a low-key way, and is eventually resolved rather unexpectedly.