Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman

An American thriller involving an ex-FBI agent who is reluctantly drawn back into a case she investigated before retirement.  The case was unsolved and it now appears that the perpetrator has confessed, but have the police found the right man?  Easy to read and fairly gripping with writing which is just the right side of average this is a good holiday thriller.  There is nothing literary about this book but it is entertaining and inoffensive trash.

Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

A novel about an Icelandic woman who, following her divorce from her husband, takes a road trip with her best friend's disabled son. I didn't particularly enjoy this book as I found the plot a bit light and the main character one dimensional and difficult to relate to.  There are some nicely depicted moments between the woman and the boy but overall a feel good novel that doesn't make you feel especially good.

Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch

Always good fun this novel follows PC Grant as he continues his wizarding apprenticeship and fights supernatural crime in London. With most series, each book's plot is a little bit more tired and threadbare than the preceding one and that is certainly the case here, but even so this remains reliable holiday reading.

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

Another readable holiday thriller. Amelia, a young high school student, dies in an apparent suicide. Her mother doesn't believe her daughter killed herself and embarks on an investigation to discover what really happened, learning surprising things about Amelia's life. Easy to read with a fairly gripping plot, this is a good holiday choice.

The Back Road by Rachel Abbott

A readable holiday thriller about a seemingly perfectly happy family who start to keep secrets from each other, dragging them down a dangerous and uncertain path. The writing is fine and the characters believable enough to allow the reader to suspend disbelief. This book will never win any awards but it is definitely a fun holiday read.

Come To The Edge by Joanna Kavenna

I was disappointed by this novel which is not the hilariously funny book advertised. The book follows Cassandra White, an eccentric smallholder who tries to live self sufficiently in a tumbledown farmhouse in a small village in the Lake District. Cassandra advertises for a farm hand and a young city dweller in her mid thirties decides to apply, after having been left by her husband for a younger woman. The characters are ridiculously unrealistic and not especially likeable and the writing is very bland. It is vaguely amusing in places but in a very predictable way. I barely smiled, let alone laughed out loud, but then I suppose that's what you get for believing a quote by the Daily Mail.  Overall an okay holiday read but not as funny as the reviews suggest.

TransAtlantic by Colum McCann

This book is about two young men who, after the war, attempt to fly from Canada to Ireland in an adapted war plane.  Before they set off, they are given a letter by a female reporter who is determined to pursue her dream as a writer.  The letter is never opened but is passed down through the generations of the reporter's descendants and the book follows the lives of those in possession of it.  I found this book difficult to engage with and hard to enjoy.  The writing is very good but the plot is slow and I felt the female characters were too undefined to be entertaining.  It is an interesting premis and there is a lot of well researched information in this book but I found it a bit bland and lacking in emotion.

Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw

This is a long book about business and success in Shanghai. It follows numerous characters as they each take different paths towards their goals of happiness and achievement.  I did find this book very hard to get into - to the beginning there are too many and too disparate characters to make it easy to connect with any one of them and for me that made it a challenge to read. 

If you liked White Tiger then I would recommend this. If not, I wouldn't.

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty

This is a novel about a successful scientist, Yvonne, who embarks on an affair which leads her down a path which results in her arrest. The book starts with a description of a criminal trial at the Old Bailey and it is only as the novel progresses that we learn what the trial is about. The book keeps you entertained and in suspense so it is easy to read. However, Yvonne is difficult to warm to and makes some highly unlikely life decisions so it is hard to be too emotionally engaged with the way the plot develops. A good book which fans of thrillers will enjoy as a holiday read but not a book with a long lasting impact.

One Step Too Far by Tina Seskis

A book about a young woman who runs away from her husband and family for reasons which are revealed gradually as the book progresses. The writing is gentle and the characters reassuringly stereotypical which makes this an easy to read book which keeps you in suspense. Ultimately I found the ending a bit disappointing but this is not a bad holiday choice if you're into thrillers.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

A novel about Seattle during World War II and set in Chinatown and Japantown.  This book follows the life of Henry, a young Chinese boy who is being bullied by American schoolmates at his US school and deals with racism and patriotism between nations at war.  I enjoyed this book which is exciting, well written and contains well defined engaging characters.  This would be a good holiday read as the content is interesting but not challenging to read and the plot is pacy but not dark.

On Battersea Bridge by Janet Davey

A readable book about a girl's struggle to fit into her traditional English family.  Anita is a bohemian artist who struggles with depression and has never felt a strong bond with her family.  As Anita's brother's wedding approaches Anita struggles to cope and the reasons behind her failure to connect with her family gradually start to be revealed.  The writing is acceptable and the plot is fairly griping.  Anita herself is a bit wet and difficult to like but overall the novel is an easy read and is fairly enjoyable in the moment.

Miss Peregrine's Home for The Peculiar by Ransom Riggs

I was disappointed by this book which is about a world in which peculiar people with unusual abilities are born and have to try and live alongside regular humans.  It's a much blander book than I was expecting, perhaps because the main character, Jacob, was very difficult to engage with or to be particularly interested in. I still enjoyed this novel which is still great escapism, but this is nowhere near as gripping or as memorable as other novels in this genre.

The Middlesteins by Jamie Attenberg

A novel about obesity and one American-Jewish family's psychological relationship with food. The main character, Edie, has always been overweight and the novel charts her descent into morbid obesity and its effect on her family. This is not a bad novel, but for me it lacked any real connection with its professed subject. The book tries to analyse each character's relationship with food but there are too many family members for this to be achieved with any real power, resulting in a novel which skims the surface of the subject. I preferred Bed which is a much more in depth look at the topic.

Toby's Room by Pat Barker

A novel about sexuality during World War I.  The book follows Elinor and her brother Toby as they try and define their own relationship in the context of the War and their own growth into adulthood.   I found this pretty hard going to be honest.  The plot is very slow and very obvious – there are a few potentially interesting avenues but these are closed down abruptly which is a real shame.  For example, Elinor starts work at Queens, a facial injuries hospital and uses her talent as an artist to document the injuries and the surgical attempts to heal them.  This is all very well researched and could have been exceptionally interesting, particularly as there are real historical characters written into the narrative, but the heavy plot and the uninspiring characters overtook this more delicate subject.   I found the plot too flighty and the writing too cold to really engage with what could have been an excellent novel.

Seven Houses in France by Bernardo Atxaga

A novel about a small colony in the Congo inhabited by employees of a French rubber company who direct the natives in the extraction of rubber from the jungle. The book is about the relationship between the local tribes and their French employers as well as the political wranglings between the French for control of the encampment. The writing is good but the characters are very difficult to engage with as they are portrayed in a very two dimensional way. I also found the plot quite dry and at times almost boring. The more interesting characters, such as the camps champion marksman, were disappointingly underdeveloped and similarly the more interesting plot lines, such as the love affair between a French lieutenant and a local girl, were simply dropped without any exploration. This novel is not bad and the writing in particular is enjoyable but it does not live up to its potential and could have been a lot better.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The third and final hunger games novel, this book is about Katniss' participation in a revolution against the Capitol.  It is an exciting end to the trilogy but not as gripping as the previous two novels nor as well written. Of all the hunger games books this is most obviously a young adult book. Whilst it is an enjoyable end to the story, this book would not stand alone as both the plot and the writing are weaker than the previous books.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Very slow start but after the halfway point this gets better.  It is a thriller about a couple who are struggling with their relationship when the wife disappears under suspicious circumstances.  There is a twist about half way through and it is after that that the book hugely improves – the plot becomes a lot more interesting and the characters more complex (albeit not especially realistic).   A fairly good thriller but on balance it is not worth the slog through the first half.

A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks

A collection of 5 short stories with a tenuous link.  As with any book of short stories, some were more enjoyable than others but in this collection none were outstanding.  I didn't find any of the plots gripping enough to sustain interest in the relevant characters and the writing was definitely average.  Not up to the standard of any of his other books.

The Casual Vacancy by J K Rowling

This book is about a small village just outside a much larger town. There is a decrepit social housing estate sitting between the village and the town, and the central plot concept of the book out of which all the other events flow, is the ongoing dispute as to whether the parish boundaries should be drawn so as to include the estate in the village or the town. The estate is essentially a political pawn and sparks passionate and personal disputes between the inhabitants of the village.

It is very difficult to read this without being acutely aware of the identity of the author. I found the character development minimal, the plot uninterestingly simple and the writing bland. It is easy to draw comparisons with a book for young adults. There are too many characters for any of them to be truly identifiable as realistic people - they remain characters, and in the main they are portrayed as clearly good or clearly bad.

There is one character, Krystal, who is better drawn than the others and to be fair the ending does redeem this book slightly. But for me this book is an average book piggy backing on the success of Harry Potter.