Down the TBR Hole Part 7

From an idea by  Lia @ Lost in a Story and as my tbr over on Goodreads is now toppling over and is definitely in need of some serious de-cluttering!

Anyway, it works like this:

• Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
• Order on ascending date added.
• Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books
• Read the synopses of the books
• Decide: keep it or should it go?

 

The Books

The Potter’s Field by Andrea Camilleri Inspector Montalbano #13

Witty and entertaining, the Montalbano novels by Andrea Camilleri-a master of the Italian detective story-have become favourites of mystery fans everywhere. In this latest instalment, an unidentified corpse is found near Vigàta, a town known for its soil rich with potter’s clay. Meanwhile, a woman reports the disappearance of her husband, a Colombian man with Sicilian origins who turns out to be related to a local mobster. Then Inspector Montalbano remembers the story from the Bible-Judas’ betrayal, the act of remorse, and the money for the potter’s field, where those of unknown or foreign origin are to be buried-and slowly, through myriad betrayals, finds his way to the solution to the crime.

I’ve read a few in this series but not in order as they were library books. I’d definitely read more as they’re laugh out loud funny, but I remember the plot from watching it a while back.

Verdict: Remove

Carte Blanche by Carlo Luccarelli

 

April 1945, Italy. The final days of the Fascist Republic. World War II is nearing it’s frantic conclusion. The regime’s days are numbered, it’s disgraced leaders know it, and their quibbling over pieces of the post-war pie is getting more desperate by the minute. Commissario De Luca has been handed a murder investigation that will draw him into the private lives of the rich, privileged, and powerful. With Mussolini’s house of cards ready to collapse, he faces a world mired in sadistic sex, dirty money, drugs, and murder.

I don’t remember adding this one and I’m not keen on this description

Verdict: Remove

The Murdered House by Pierre Magnan

 

One dark night in the winter of 1896, in remote upper Provence, a family is brutally massacred. Only a three-week-old baby miraculously survives. In 1920, the orphan, Seraphin Monge, finally returns home from the war to pursue the truth. Haunted by the image of his mother’s dying moments, he turns on the house that has seen such misery, destroying it stone by stone. As the walls crumble, the killers’ identities are laid bare and his anger turns to vengeance. But for every murder Seraphin plots, another hand silently executes it in his place.

 

Definitely too creepy for me.

Verdict: Remove

Southern Seas by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

Barcelona Detective Pepe Carvalho’s radical past catches up with him when a powerful businessman–a patron of artists and activists–is found dead after going missing for a year.
In search of the spirit of Paul Gauguin, Stuart Pedrell–eccentric Barcelona businessman, construction magnate, dreamer, and patron of poets and painters–disappeared not long after announcing plans to travel to the South Pacific.
A year later he is found stabbed to death at a construction site in Barcelona. Gourmand gum shoe Pepe Carvalho is hired by Pedrell’s wife to find out what happened. Carvalho, a jaded former communist, must travel through circles of the old anti-Franco left wing on the trail of the killer. But with little appetite for politics, Carvalho also leads us on a tour through literature, cuisine, and the criminal underbelly of Barcelona in a typically brilliant twist on the genre by a Spanish master.

I was obviously going through a big international crime reading phase when I added this!

Verdict: Remove

 

Far To Go by Alison Pick

Pavel and Anneliese Bauer are affluent, secular Jews, whose lives are turned upside down by the arrival of the German forces in Czechoslovakia. Desperate to avoid deportation, the Bauers flee to Prague with their six-year-old son, Pepik, and his beloved nanny, Marta. When the family try to flee without her to Paris, Marta betrays them to her Nazi boyfriend. But it is through Marta’s determination that Pepik secures a place on a Kinder-transport, though he never sees his parents or Marta again.
Inspired by Alison Pick’s own grandparents who fled their native Czechoslovakia for Canada during the Second World War, FAR TO GO is a deeply personal and emotionally harrowing novel.

I’m still interested in this book as it’s a time in history that fascinates me.

Verdict: Keep

 

Annabel by Kathleen Winter

In 1968, into the devastating, spare atmosphere of Labrador, Canada, a child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor fully girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret—the baby’s parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and their trusted neighbour and midwife, Thomasina. Though Treadway makes the difficult decision to raise the child as a boy named Wayne, the women continue to quietly nurture the boy’s female side. And as Wayne grows into adulthood within the hyper-masculine hunting society of his father, his shadow-self, a girl he thinks of as “Annabel,” is never entirely extinguished.

When Wayne finally escapes the confines of his home town and settles in St. John’s, the anonymity of the city grants him the freedom to confront his dual identity. His ultimate choice will once again call into question the integrity and allegiance of those he loves most.

Verdict: Keep

In the Sea There Are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda

If you hold a wish up high, any wish, just in front of your forehead, then life will always be worth living.

One night before putting him to bed, Enaiatollah’s mother tells him three things: don’t use drugs, don’t use weapons, don’t steal. The next day, the ten-year old Afghan wakes up to find she is gone. He is on the border of Pakistan and he is all alone.
In a remarkable true story, Italian novelist Fabio Geda describes Enaiatollah’s remarkable five-year journey from Afghanistan to Italy. His ordeal takes him through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Greece, enduring unimaginable hardships and challenges. Enaiatollah’s engaging voice is brilliantly captured by Geda, and his search for a place to call home becomes a universal story of courage in the face of fear.

I still want to get hold of this book.

Verdict: Keep

 

Patty Jane’s House of Curls by Lorna Landvik

 

After Patty Jane’s husband leaves her, she and her irrepressible sister, Harriet, open a neighborhood beauty parlour–complete with live harp music and Norwegian baked goods. It’s a warm hearted place where good friends share laughter, tears and comfort. A funny, poignant first novel about the bonds between women, says the Houston Chronicle.

 

 

Sorry but the live harp music puts me off lol

Verdict: Remove

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik

The women of Freesia Court are convinced that there is nothing good coffee, delectable desserts, and a strong shoulder can’t fix. Laughter is the glue that holds them together—the foundation of a book group they call AHEB (Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons), an unofficial “club” that becomes much more. It becomes a lifeline. Holding on through forty eventful years, there’s Faith, a lonely mother of twins who harbours a terrible secret that has condemned her to living a lie; big, beautiful Audrey, the resident sex queen who knows that with good posture and an attitude you can get away with anything; Merit, the shy doctor’s wife with the face of an angel and the private hell of an abusive husband; Kari, a wise woman with a wonderful laugh who knows the greatest gifts appear after life’s fiercest storms; and finally, Slip, a tiny spitfire of a woman who isn’t afraid to look trouble straight in the eye. This stalwart group of friends depicts a special slice of American life, of stay-at-home days and new careers, of children and grandchildren, of bold beginnings and second chances, in which the power of forgiveness, understanding, and the perfectly timed giggle fit is the CPR that mends broken hearts and shattered dreams.

I don’t fancy this at all.

Verdict: Remove

 

 

I haven’t done one of these posts for ages and I really must do more, especially if I manage to remove 7 books at a time!