House of Joy by Sarah Kate Lynch ,The Cuckoos Calling and The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

June 2015

House of Joy by Sarah Kate Lynch 

Bubbly, creamy, a perfect deep gold - this was the champagne of the venerable House of Peine, one of France's oldest and most distinguished chateaux. Russian Tsars had begged for it, English Kings had toasted with it, but now Clementine Peine, the last of the line, fears that the days of the House are numbered. Her father Olivier spent more time at the local bar than tending to the vines , and her long-lost sister Mathilde has never shown an interest - until Olivier's untimely death , when Mathilde turns up determined to make the most of this dwindling asset. And then, out of the blue, a third sister appears - lovely young Sophie - and ancient family rivalries, long-ago love affairs and forgotten scandals all come bubbling up to the surface. Clementine, Mathilde and Sophie, daughters of Champagne, have nothing in common but broken hearts - yet if their birthright is to survive they need less peine and more joie - or a miracle...
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I loved this book.  

The Cuckoos Calling by Robert Galbraith 

The Cuckoo's Calling is a 2013 crime fiction novel by J. K. Rowling, published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.
When a troubled model falls to her death from a snow-covered Mayfair balcony, it is assumed that she has committed suicide. However, her brother has his doubts, and calls in private investigator Cormoran Strike to look into the case. 


A war veteran, wounded both physically and psychologically, Strike's life is in disarray. The case gives him a financial lifeline, but it comes at a personal cost: the more he delves into the young model's complex world, the darker things get - and the closer he gets to terrible danger . . . 
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Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) is very good at describing the characters so that you really think you know them.  I felt compassion for Strike - you could tell that he wasnt normally such a slob but he had been through hard times.  The story was good and had me guessing whodunnit until the end.

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days - as he has done before - and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.

But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published it would ruin lives - so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him.

And when Quine is found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any he has encountered before . . .

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Susan Lewis -Silent Truths and Ben Elton - Time and Time Again

March 2015

Susan Lewis -Silent Truths 

When journalist Laurie Forbes turns up on Beth Ashby’s doorstep, minutes after Beth’s husband, political high-flier Colin Ashby, has been arrested for murder, neither can even begin to guess the shocking repercussions that have just been triggered in both their lives.

Beth attempts to escape from her shattered life by throwing herself into the kind of reckless high-living that seems destined for disaster, while Laurie finds herself being threatened, terrorised and even taken prisoner for what she knows.

As the dangerous truth draws closer, Laurie realises that if she is to save Beth from those already preparing to destroy her, she must put her trust in hated rival journalist Elliot Russell and face up to a ghost from the past.
Those that had read the book enjoyed it but thought it got slow in the middle.

Ben Elton - Time and Time Again

It’s the 1st of June 1914 and Hugh Stanton, ex-soldier and celebrated adventurer is quite literally the loneliest man on earth. No one he has ever known or loved has been born yet. Perhaps now they never will be.

Stanton knows that a great and terrible war is coming. A collective suicidal madness that will destroy European civilization and bring misery to millions in the century to come. He knows this because, for him, that century is already history.

Somehow he must change that history. He must prevent the war. A war that will begin with a single bullet. But can a single bullet truly corrupt an entire century?

And, if so, could another single bullet save it?
I absolutely loved this book from the first chapter.  A very thought provoking piece of writing and very well written.  The general opinion from the group (those that had read the book) was that it was a good book.