February books 2012

So, let's start with Non-Fiction. It's difficult to know whether non-canonical gospels count as fiction or non-fiction, so I've counted them in here: The Gospel of Peter and The Gospel of Thomas. The latter, of which versions survive in Coptic and Greek, is filled with sayings of Jesus that suggest the world he wanted to see as a strongly moral and ethical one.  From the sublime to the ridiculous is Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a donkey in the Cevennes. It's old but still a good and entertaining read. Kevin Paul Woodrow, resident in Mallorca, had an accident that resulted in the amputation of a leg. He wrote to friends while he waited to be discharged. His main worry was how he was going to continue running his bar. The resulting book is called Letters from Mallorca and is a good, entertaining read. Michelle Williams, a mortuary technician, writes about her life serving both the dead and coroners in  Down among the Dead Men. Matt Gable writes about his life being abused first by his mother and then his father in Daddy Knows Best. Lily O'Brien writes about her life of abuse at the hands of Irish nuns in an orphanage in The Girl Nobody Wants.

I loved the story of the daughter of a Jewish murderer in Jerusalem contained in The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman.  Her father, brother and herself flee from the Roman in the wake of the AD 70 Destruction of the Temple. They join some other small groups on the way and part from them under varying circumstances. In the end they end up in the Masada fortress. The daughter and a friend manage to escape at the very last minute from the mass suicide and make their way to Alexandria where they practice as herbalists. I'm afraid that is the only Historical Fiction I've read this month.

Far too many Romances fell under my gaze this month. Most of them were very readable. First was Mona Risle's No more lies, then Jennifer Connor's Valentine Surprise. Frankie Valente's Dancing with the Ferryman is set in Shetland, which is a nice change. Lanie Kinkaid's Kelsey's Song is an enthralling story. Jeffe Kennedy's Sapphire is all about domination with a good twist at the end. Nikki Logan's Their Newborn Gift is set in the Australian outback while Nita Bruhns' Warrior's Bride is set in the USA in the context of native Indian life. Fred Limberg's Ferris' Bluff combines romance and thriller in a very convincing way.

David Downing's Silesian Station is a brilliant thriller set in Nazi Germany. Dougie Brimson's Thed Crew: trouble is their game is about football hooligans and how one particular group manage to outwit the police of Britain and Italy.