A Surrey State of Affairs by Ceri Redford

Constance Harding's comfortable corner of Surrey is her own little piece of heaven. She lives in a chocolate box house complete with an Aga and a parrot, her bell-ringing club is set to dominate the intercounty tournament, and she is sure she can get her son, Rupert, to settle down if she just writes the perfect personal ad for him. Naturally, things turn disastrous rather quickly. And she's about to learn that her perfect home conceals a scandal that would make the vicar blush.

Her Lithuanian housekeeper's undergarments keep appearing in her husband's study and her daughter is turning into a Lycra-clad gap-year strumpet. As her family falls apart, Constance embarks on an extraordinary journey. From partying in Ibiza to riding bareback with a handsome Argentinean gaucho whose only English words are "Britney" and "Spears," Constance is about to discover a wider world she thought it was too late to find.

 At first I found Constance to be clueless and a bit annoying, but as I got into the second half she became less annoying....still clueless, but less annoying.

I liked the way the book was written as her blog entries.

Overall a charming, entertaining read. 

The American Lover by Rose Tremain

Rose Tremain awakens the senses in this magnificent and diverse collection of short stories.

Trapped in a London apartment, Beth remembers a transgressive love affair in 1960s Paris. The most famous writer in Russia takes his last breath in a stationmaster’s cottage, miles from Moscow. A young woman who is about to marry a rich aristocrat instead begins a torrid relationship with a construction worker. A father, finally free of his daughter’s demands, embarks on a long swim from his Canadian lakeside retreat. A middle-aged woman cares for her injured mother at Christmas. And in the grandest house of all, Danni the Polish housekeeper catches the eye of an enigmatic visitor, Daphne du Maurier. 

As usual with short story collections I enjoyed some stories more than others. 

My favourite was A View of Lake Superior in the Fall. It was about a couple in their 70's running away from home to their cabin on Lake Superior when their 42 year old daughter returned home to 'look after them.'

I prefer Rose Tremain's full length novels. 

The Affair by Lee Child

March 1997. A woman has her throat cut behind a bar in Mississippi. Just down the road is a big army base. Is the murderer a local guy - or is he a soldier?

Jack Reacher, still a major in the military police, is sent in undercover. The county sheriff is a former U.S. Marine - and a stunningly beautiful woman. Her investigation is going nowhere. Is the Pentagon stonewalling her? Or doesn't she really want to find the killer?

As usual with the Jack Reacher series an excellent read. It was interesting to see Jack's last case in the army and why he left the army. There were a couple of red herrings, but mostly it was Jack being Jack.

The bonus story at the end of the book was a great look at Jack's childhood. 
 

The Summer Book by Tove jansson

 An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges, one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the island itself, with its mossy rocks, windswept firs and unpredictable seas. 

Delightful, charming and marvellous.

I liked this bit: "In between times, she played cards with her grandmother. They both cheated shamelessly, and their card-playing afternoons always ended in a quarrel. This had never happened before. Grandmother tried to recall her own rebellious periods in order to try and understand, but all she could remember was an unusually well-behaved little girl. Wise as she was, she realised that people can postpone their rebellious phases until they're eighty-five years old, and she decided to keep an eye on herself."

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child

Suicide bombers are easy to spot.
They give out all kinds of tell-tale signs.There are twelve things to look for.No one who has worked in law enforcement will ever forget them.

New York City.The subway, two o'clock in the morning.
Jack Reacher studies his fellow passengers.Four are OK.The fifth isn't.
The train brakes for Grand Central Station.

Will Reacher intervene, and save lives?
Or is he wrong?Will his intervention cost lives - including his own?

Fast paced and action packed.  It's not often Reacher is wrong, but in this one he gets it wrong.  Not a suicide bomber, a woman committing suicide.  The ending was slightly disappointing, you never do find out exactly what set off the whole sequence of events.

Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud

 In the mid-1960s, two girls, ages 5 and 7, travel with their mother from London to Marrakech. Also along for the ride are John, Mum's boyfriend, and Maretta, John's wife. 

Once the group arrives in Marrakech, John and Maretta split off, and Mum hooks up with various men and pursues spirituality. The children, meanwhile, want nothing more than to be normal--or at least not to be so embarrassed by their mother.

If you can put aside the inevitable, "What sort of a mother would take such enormous risks with her kids?" you can enjoy this charming, well-written book that seems to begin in the middle of the story and finish somewhere towards the end of the story. 

Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child

You do not mess with Jack Reacher.

He is as close to untraceable as a person can get. A loner comfortable in his anonymity and solitude. So when a member of his old Army unit finds a way to contact him, he knows this has to be serious.

You do not mess with the Special Investigators.

In the past the elite team always watched each other's backs. Now one of them has shown up dead in the California desert and six more are missing. 

Reacher's old buddies are in big trouble, and he can't let that go.

The action is nonstop, and as usual, Reacher (and company) make their own kind of justice to revenge the deaths of the lost members of their unit.  

Another excellent Jack Reacher story.