The Ladies of the House, Molly McGrann

Read in hardback - a birthday present, read while we were on holiday at half term.

Marie Gilles is at the airport.  She reads a newspaper article about three elderly people who have died in a house in Primrose Hill during a heat wave in London.  Marie suffers a panic attack, and feelings of guilt - could she be responsible for their deaths?

Skipping backwards and forwards in time, the book comes to explain who the three elderly people were, how they came to be living together and what their connection with Marie is.

A depiction of the secret world of the brothels of London in the sixties, this book did evoke a particular time and place.

I enjoyed this book, and found it interesting the way that some events were described over and again, but from different people's perspectives.

A Spool of Blue Thread

Read on the Kindle, following an Amazon recommendation.  I have been an Anne Tyler fan for years, and have read several of her other books.

This book centres on three generations of the Whitshank family, living in the house built by the Junior, the first Whitshank patriarch.

This is essentially the story of how the next generation, Red and Abby, met, fell in love, and raised their four children.

As Red and Abby age, and their health fails, the children return to the family home, and buried sibling rivalries and issues bubble to the surface.

You cannot fault Anne Tyler's writing, and she has created a character - the family - as fascinating as it is ordinary.

A Man Called Ove, Fredrick Backman

Read on the Kindle - Rachel's choice for book club, although we won't discuss it until after Christmas.

Pronounced to rhyme with "hoover", Ove is an elderly man, living on his own in a house on a normal housing estate.  Ove is a stickler for rules and regulations, and is downright rude to his neighbours.

Throughout the story, you come to find out why Ove behaves as he does, and you also find out there is more to him than meets the eye.

A whimsical tale, in the same vein as The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, the ending is similarly bittersweet.

Burial Rites, Hannah Kent

Read on the Kindle, after amazon recommendation.

The year is 1829, and Agnes Magnúsdóttir, living in Iceland, but under the jurisdiction of Denmark, has been convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

Since there is no prison system to accommodate her, Agnes is sent to live out the days until her execution at the house of Jón Jónsson and his family.

Obviously this causes a lot of disruption, and the family are very suspicious of Agnes. The neighbours are likewise scandalised.

Through Agnes' conversations with a young local priest, her history gradually comes out, and the family come to see her as a person, not just a criminal.

Based on the true story of the last woman to be executed in Iceland, the story moves to its inevitable conclusion in a very poetic way.

The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood

Read on the Kindle, after seeing Margaret Atwood speak at the Cambridge Literary Festival in September.

After an economic collapse in America, Stan and Charmaine are forced to live in their car, in fear of hijackers and living on Charmaine's meager wages.

They dream of a better life, so when they see an advert for the Positron Project, they go to investigate and have soon signed up to living in Consilience.  The living arrangement is that they have possession of their apartment every other month, and when they are not there they are in prison, and their "alternates" live in the apartment.

Sooner or later, both Stan and Charmaine start to wonder, and fantasise about their alternates, and their comfortable lives start to unravel.

I'm a big Margaret Atwood fan, and her dystopian novels are not so very removed from the current world that they are unbelievable, which makes them compelling but uncomfortable reading.

For the record, she's also a great public speaker.