Looking Down by Frances Fyfield

Richard Beaumont hoped to see rare birds on the Dover cliffs. Instead he sees a young woman falling to her death. No-one recognises her, no-one has reported her missing, and Richard returns, shaken, to his new young wife, but instead of finding solace in Lilian's company, he and obsessively paints the scene of the woman's broken body on the rocks. His cool behaviour towards her takes Lilian to the flat below and the wordly-wise company of Sarah Fortune. But Sarah, once Richard's lover, is awkward with her and is also preoccupied with her brother's unbreakable habit of cat-burglary, and the suspicious traffic to the penthouse at the top of the mansion block. Unable to forget what he witnessed, Richard returns to the coast and is befriended by the local police surgeon. Recently widowed, John is depressed, not so much by his wife's death but by the realisation that his marriage had been a loveless void. Recognising the symptoms, Richard introduces him to Sarah, so that she can no longer ignore the Beaumonts' troubles and is drawn into helping to trace where the dead girl came from and in so doing reveals a trade which is both breath-takingly lucrative and chillingly cruel.

A very English murder mystery. Solved by polite chats over tea and caused by the possibility of the victim disturbing the nest of a rare bird.

Smoke by Dan Vyleta

Welcome to a Victorian England unlike any other you have experienced before. Here, wicked thoughts (both harmless and hate-filled) appear in the air as telltale wisps of Smoke.

Young Thomas Argyle, a son of aristocracy, has been sent to an elite boarding school. Here he will be purged of Wickedness, for the wealthy do not Smoke. When he resists a sadistic headboy's temptations to Smoke, a much larger struggle beyond the school walls is revealed. Shortly thereafter, on a trip to London, Thomas and his best friend witness events that make them begin to question everything they have been taught about Smoke. 

Interesting characters and a thought provoking read. I liked the ending when Livia decided she didn't want to chose between Thomas and Charlie. She kept them both.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Parents behaving badly ... a tragic accident ... or murder? What isn't in doubt is that someone is dead. 

I really enjoyed this book.  You know someone has died, but I was surprised who died....and who killed him.  

I'm looking forward to reading other books by this author.

False Value by Ben Aaronovitch

Peter Grant is facing fatherhood, and an uncertain future, with equal amounts of panic and enthusiasm.

Leaving his old police life behind, he takes a job with Silicon Valley tech genius Terrence Skinner's new London start up: the Serious Cybernetics Corporation.

Drawn into the orbit of Old Street's famous 'silicon roundabout', Peter must learn how to blend in with people who are both civilians and geekier than he is. Compared to his last job, Peter thinks it should be a doddle.

But magic is not finished with the Met's first trainee wizard in fifty years...

Because a secret is hiding somewhere in the building. A technology that stretches back to Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, and forward to the future of artificial intelligence. A secret that is just as magical as it technological - and twice as dangerous.

Peter is as witty as usual. We saw a bit of Beverley but not much of other characters from previous books.

Not the best of the series.

The Water In Between by Kevin Patterson

A broken heart leads Kevin Patterson to the dock of a sailboat brokerage on Vancouver Island, where he stands contemplating the romance of the sea and his heartfelt desire to get away. By the end of the day, he finds himself the owner of a thirty-seven-foot ketch called Sea Mouse. Although he's never really been on the ocean before (aside from the odd ferry-ride), he feels compelled to sail to Tahiti and back, to burn away his failings in hard miles at sea.

Not a travelogue as much as a fleshing out of the regrets of a man on the ocean. He admits to the self-pity early, a failed love affair with a married woman, his dislike at working as a doctor in the Canadian army. Overall he sounded very immature.  The bits about the islands he visited and some of the people je met were interesting and enough to keep me reading all the self-indulgent meanderings in between.

Rules For Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane

When 40-year-old gardener May receives a surprise windfall of one month of vacation from the university where she works, she decides to visit four old friends, each one from different periods of her life. 

A lovely, gentle story of growing older, looking back on life, changing and growing and trees. It felt a bit like a warm hug.

The Other Half of Augusta Hope by Joanna Glen

Augusta Hope has never felt like she fits in.

At six, she’s memorising the dictionary. At seven, she’s correcting her teachers. At eight, she spins the globe and picks her favourite country on the sound of its name: Burundi.

And now that she's an adult, Augusta has no interest in the goings-on of the small town where she lives with her parents and her beloved twin sister, Julia.

When an unspeakable tragedy upends everything in Augusta's life, she's propelled headfirst into the unknown. She's determined to find where she belongs – but what if her true home, and heart, are half a world away?

This book wasn't what I expected from the blurb and I found it hard to get into. It was well written and I enjoyed it when I picked it up. I just couldn't read it for long. It was a bit hard to read at times and I think it was the wrong book for me at this time.