The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

This is the way the world ends: by gradually slowing down. When scientists reveal that the earth’s rotation has been extended by 56 minutes, there is a minor panic. Twelve-year-old Julia doesn’t really recognize what’s happening—sure, her drama-queen mother starts hoarding food, and she loses some school friends when their families leave town, but at first, life seems to go on as usual. Until the slowdown continues, and it isn’t only by an hour anymore—the days keep stretching, with no apparent return to normal.

An unsettling, engaging read that I couldn't put down.  It ended with a WOW!

The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason

In the murky haze of a London morning in 1886, piano tuner Edgar Drake receives a letter that presents to him a challenge certain to change his life forever. Accepting the post offered to him by the Burma and East India Division of Her Majesty's Army, he leaves wife and work to embark on a three month mission across the seas. But Edgar is not going to be fighting for his country. His travels are the direct result of a request by highly respected Major Surgeon Anthony Carroll, secured in the Shan States. He has asked that a specialist piano tuner be paid to travel from England and mend his Erard Grand. But why?

Beautiful, haunting descriptions of the landscape. A strange, almost mystical story. The feeling of this book, if not the actual story will stay with me a while.

I don't like it when the hero, even an unremarkable, bespectacled piano tuner, die at the end.

Golden In Death by J D Robb

When Kent Abner - baby doctor, model husband and father, good neighbour - is found dead in his town house in the West Village, Detective Eve Dallas and her team have a real mystery on their hands. Who would want to kill such a good man? They know how, where and when he was killed but why did someone want him dead? 

Then a second victim is discovered and as Spring arrives in New York City, Eve finds herself in a race against time to track down a serial killer with a motive she can't fathom and a weapon of choice which could wipe out half of Manhattan.

This book was disappointing.  Not bad, JD Robb couldn't write a bad book...just disappointing.

It was an improbable reason for murder...all going back 8 years to when the murderers were in high school.  The thread she has been building for the past few books about a farm in the middle of nowhere seems to have ended in this one with a whimper rather than the big thing she seemed to be building it towards.  And there wasn't enough Roarke.

Thirty Thousand Bottles of Wine and a Pig Called Helga by Todd Alexander

Todd and Jeff have had enough of the city. Sick of the daily grind and workaday corporate shenanigans, they throw caution to the wind and buy 100 acres in the renowned Hunter Valley wine region, intent on living a golden bucolic life and building a fabulous B&B, where they can offer the joys of country life to heart-weary souls.

Todd will cook, Jeff will renovate. They have a vineyard, they can make wine. They have space, they can grow their own food. They have everything they need to make their dreams come true.

How hard can it be?

Charming, funny and delightful, a pleasure to read. I really enjoyed it. 

Double Dating With The Dead by Karen Kelley

Psychic Selena James is having the kind of week that makes her happy to talk to the dead. First, famously skeptical (and sinfully sexy) writer, Trent Sanders, called her delusional on TV. Next, her outraged mother publicly challenged him to spend two weeks with Selena at the haunted Garvey Hotel. Now, if Selena can't prove ghosts exist, she'll answer to Trent's private wager: one night in his bed. It doesn't take any psychic abilities to know Trent could satisfy a woman's every fantasy. And she may find out very soon, if the two sex-starved ghosts in residence have their way. . .

Trent Sanders doesn't believe in anything he can't see, taste, or touch, and what he sees right now he would definitely enjoying tasting and touching. Selena James might be a bit kooky, but she's also blessed with a body that could certainly raise the dead, if not talk to them. She's even got a wicked sense of humor, like when she pinched his butt and insisted it wasn't her, but one of the "ghosts." Riiiiiight. But as things move from "haunted" to extremely hot, Trent's starting to believe the paranormal is a one-way--make that four-way--ticket to paradise. . .

Chic lit with ghosts...and annoying characters.

Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs

Tensions between the fae and humans are coming to a head. And when coyote shapeshifter Mercy and her Alpha werewolf mate, Adam, are called upon to stop a rampaging troll, they find themselves with something that could be used to make the fae back down and forestall out-and-out war: a human child stolen long ago by the fae.

Defying the most powerful werewolf in the country, the humans, and the fae, Mercy, Adam, and their pack choose to protect the boy no matter what the cost. But who will protect them from a boy who is fire touched?

I love this series. The very best of urban fantasy - complex world-building, likeable characters and lots of action.

The Summer Before The War by Helen Simonson

East Sussex, 1914. It's the end of an idyllic summer and Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha in the pretty coastal town of Rye. Casting aside the recent sabre rattling over the Balkans, Agatha has more immediate concerns; she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master.

When Beatrice Nash arrives, it is clear she is significantly more free thinking and attractive than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing.

But just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape, and the colourful characters that populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end. For despite Agatha's reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. Soon, everything will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war.

There are so many strands to the story - the class structure, the way in which women are viewed, homosexuality, the treatment of refugees but they are all woven together skilfully and in an understated way. It's a very clever, very enjoyable, quiet read. No action but a lot happens.