This was an enjoyable YA read, but with rather too much going on. Numerous interlocking storylines, and several of them - concerning difficult and emotional issues - were wrapped up rather too easily or glossed over. Still it was a fun read, and I learnt some things about the southern USA in the late 19th century that I hadn't known before.

This edition contains not only the titular "84 Charing Cross Road" but also "The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street", a diary of Helene Hanff's visit to London a few years after the events of the previous book. Both are wonderful, although the original series of letters maybe has the edge over the other, diary-format, book. Helene Hanff's enthusiasm for books, her kindness and her humour shine through both.  A real delight.

The tension in this one is incredible. It's told to and fro in time, with a court case in the height of summer flashing back to events in a freezing and wet November. The story centres on a murder, but there is so much more at stake, both personally and professionally for Gamache, his family and the whole of Three Pines.
One of my favourites in the series so far (though I love them all).

Inspector Gamache has come out of retirement to become the head of the Surete Academy and to clear up the corruption there. Though his way of doing it seems odd to many, and he faces opposition, not least from the older students.
In the middle of all this, a professor is murdered, and Gamache's new job becomes mixed up with his old one as head of homicide. Only this time, he's a suspect as well as an investigator.
And, of course, Three Pines is mixed up in it too. There's a mysterious old map - maybe the only one in existence that actually shows the village - and it may or may not be relevant to the crime.
Some interesting new characters, as well as the well-loved ones from Three Pines, several intertwined stories (how does she do it without it seeming bitty and all over the place?) and some wonderful backstory for Gamache and for Three Pines too. Wonderful.

I loved this book; one of my favourites so far in the Inspector Gamache series. From a slow-paced start it builds to a climax that at one point had me literally holding my breath. 
The characters are as well-drawn as always, and I particularly love the relationship between Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir.

the scene where Jean-Guy tells Gamache Annie is pregnant, and calls him "Armand" for the first time and neither of them even notice. Wow. I cried. Just a bit. 
Some great backstory for Ruth too.

I love Three Pines, although the lack of internet would bug me. And I guess the murder rate. Oh well, nowhere is perfect.

Susan is in her sixties and has made a life for herself in Watkins Glen, where her family spent the summers of her childhood while her father raced drag cars. That summer life came to an end when her parents died when she was a teenager, and she and her brother went to live with relatives. In adulthood they drifted apart.
Susan's life is interrupted by a phone call from her nephew, who is worried about his father, Susan's brother Mark. So begins a series of events which leads to Mark, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, coming to live with Susan. Her life is upended as she struggles to cope with his increasing confusion, his obsession with painting, and his belief in a strange monster living in the nearby lake.
This is not an easy read. Mark's deterioration is ongoing and unstoppable, and the moments of lucidity, where he and Susan are able to connect and make some sort of sense of their childhood together and their adulthood apart, make this all the more poignant. Both Mark and Susan are well-drawn characters, and I felt deep sympathy for both as the book progressed.
The prose is beautiful, as are the descriptions, but I did find that some passages were just too slow, and the whole thing felt repetitive in places. Although that probably added to the realism of the novel. 
On the whole, this was an enjoyable and enlightening read.
With thanks to NetGalley and Mayapple Press for the advance reader copy of this title.

 There were points where this book irritated me because the situations were just SO quirky and absurd. But the characterisation and the writing meant the irritation was easy to get over, and I kept reading. I wanted to know what happened: I really cared about the characters. Tragic at times, laugh out loud funny at others. I loved this book. 

Beautifully told and drawn story of the internment of Japanese people in the USA during World War II. Told mostly from the point of view of the young George Takei with a child's understanding of events, and interspersed with explanations and opinions he came to as he grew up. Interesting and enlightening.

Whilst I didn't enjoy this as much as Garden Spells, this was still a very enjoyable easy read.It was nice to re-visit the characters of the earlier book, as well as a few new ones, and to discover that the Waverley gifts were still going strong. Just enough story to keep the reader interested, nothing too startling; a nice gentle book.

I didn't expect to like this book as it's way outside my comfort zone, but I really did. The author did a great job at getting us inside the characters' heads. Yes, they were mixed up and had messy lives, but aren't/don't we all to some extent? I loved the exploration of what it means to be a woman and to be a mother, and the fact that the book didn't present any easy answers. A really good read.