February book reviews

I’ve not done very well with books this month. This is a shame because the weather outside is frightful and there’s nothing better than curling up with a good book when the rain is lashing against the windows.

There were two novels I abandoned after a couple of chapters and then a three-star which was all right, but not that enjoyable.

However, there is one stand-out book for me and I’m still reading it. It’s A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia, due to be published in April. I didn’t expect it to be my thing at all, but it’s captivating. I’ll reveal more in next month’s reviews.

Being a reviewer for NetGalley is a real privilege. Especially when I go into a book shop and see all these titles I’ve already read, such as The Wardrobe Department *** by Elaine Garvey, Three Days in June **** by Anne Tyler, The Boy From The Sea **** by Garrett Carr and The Book of Doors **** by Gareth Brown.

One of my next reads will be the new novel by Elizabeth Strout, the author of Olive Kitteridge. But I have a few more to get through first, including my first purchase in a long time, Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household, published in 1939 and set around these parts, yet I’ve never read it.

In 1976, it was made into a television film starring Peter O’Toole.

And there has been talk that British actor Benedict Cumberbatch has his eye on the lead role in another film adaptation, although it’s all been a bit quiet of late.

Anyway, here’s my one and only book review for February.

Where The Truth Lies by Katherine Greene ***

Publication date: 24 March 2026

A murder rocks a small community in southern USA and threatents to blow apart the impending marraige of Rhett and Lucinda and their future happiness together. We think we know who did it and what and why it happened, but do we?

There are twists and turns galore in this thriller/whodunnit/domestic drama and I did not see the end coming. The story is told from various viewpoints, including the voice of the murdered woman, a device I always find difficult to take on board because how can she tell a story in the first person, past tense, when she’s dead?

I also didn’t much like any of the characters through which the tale unfolded.

Anyway, that aside, this was a tense and generally fast-paced novel which would be an ideal basis for a Netflix adaptation in the Harlan Coben mould.

Nice weather for ducks

Oh, what weather we’re having here in Lush Places.

Rain, rain and more rain. And when it’s not raining, it’s grey skies.

Dull, dull, dull.

It can be foggy here at the best of times. When other places nearby are bathed in sunshine we sit under the misty radar.

There’s a kind of microclimate at work, but not in a good way.

No-one tells you that before you move here, you find out only after it’s too late.

Currently, the village is in a grey state of doom, as are many places in the country ever since the new year began.

There are parts of South Wales and South West England where it’s rained every day since the door opened to let in 2026.

This weather saps the soul and, coupled with the worldwide fall of humanity on the depravity scale, it’s enough to make you want to curl up and come out in May, along with the bluebells and tulips.

My headphones are drowning out my sorrows and tinnitus, with wall-to-wall Stevie Wonder, an old friend’s Sunshine Pop playlist on Spotify and out-of-this-world ethereal music by We Are All Astronauts.

Still, if it wasn’t for the weather, we wouldn’t have anything to talk about.

There were blue skies on Wednesday and the snowdrops in my sister’s garden were chattering away like nobody’s business. Small joys to cheer up a dreary time.

On that note, have a great weekend.

Love, Maddie x

There’s not mushroom inside

I’m just taking a yellowing copy of Machineries of Joy from my bookcase.

It’s a collection of short stories by the master storyteller, Ray Bradbury.

I love his small town, big wonder style. Something Wicked This Way Comes is one of my favourite books, a coming-of-age novel where good and evil do battle against the backdrop of a sinister fair in a sleepy town in the American midwest.

The reason I’m grabbing this book is to familiarise myself with a story on page 47 – Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms In Your Cellar!

Because when we looked into our grow-your-own-mushrooms box this morning, the Bradbury story came straight into my mind (as well as this scene from the 1940 Disney classic, Fantasia, where the toadstools are choreographed to the Chinese Dance from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. You can see it from about a minute in – I’ve left the rest for context. That Walt Disney and Tchaikovsky knew their stuff).

We received the mushrooms box at Christmas and it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Mr Grigg is out for supper tonight at the pub with the ‘boys’. Me, I’m having mushrooms.

Have a great rest of the week.

Love, Maddie x

Good morning to the snowdrops

Saw these this morning and I just had to stop to say hello.

They didn’t respond but I think they were pleased to see me.

For some reason, I was whistling Let ‘Em In by Wings, which sent me down an internet rabbit hole when I got back home, as I wanted to find out the significance of the names of the people Paul McCartney was welcoming through the door.

I knew ‘Phil and Don’ were the Everly Brothers, the Amercian music duo so beloved of my two older sisters back in the day.

‘Martin Luther’ I got (King rather than the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation) and ‘Brother Michael’ was clearly Mike McCartney, who, as Mike McGear, went on to become a member of The Scaffold, well-known for the hit song Lily the Pink.

The others I figured were members of the extended McCartney family – ‘Auntie Gin’ etc – so was genuinely surprised when I learned that ‘Uncle Ernie’ was a reference to The Who drummer Keith Moon, who played the disgusting and depraved character of that name in the film version of the rock opera Tommy.

(I just looked that up on YouTube and wish I hadn’t.)

I did wonder how Martin Luther King and Keith Moon might get on with each other. I thought Auntie Gin might be a soothing presence and the Everly Brothers, I hope, would have something harmonious to say about it.

You can find out more about Let ‘Em In here, on the unofficial fan website, The Paul McCartney Project.

It is said you should learn something new every day, which is the one good thing about the mobile phone because I use it for all sorts of trivial fact-finding missons.

Well, you never know what questions you might get in the next pub quiz.

Have a great week everyone.

Love, Maddie x

Spring is in the air

After a grey, grim old day yesterday, we have blue skies and signs of spring here in West Dorset.

There’s mud everywhere and it’s squelchy underfoot but the many puddles are reflecting the changing of the seasons.

We’re not there yet but it won’t be long.

On my morning walk, I glanced up when I heard the corvid call of rooks building nests in the tall trees in the copse.

And then a deer scuttled through the undergrowth.

‘The longer days are coming,’ said my farmer friend as he came down the hill from the community shop with his newspaper under his arm.

“But I fancy the daffodils are a bit early.”

I met a man in the lane who I thanked for his expertise in the community pub the other night when our very own Celebrity Farmer and his sidekick regaled the gathered throng with tales from their escapades on the Channel 4 show, Hunted.

(They should have done Bake Off.)

The man in the lane had provided his sound and vision expertise for the talk, which was just as well because the place was packed and none of us would have been able to hear it otherwise.

He told me he’s going to be at the village hall next weekend to help when I put on an archive film show as part of a project recording the memories of older people born and bred here in Lush Places.

It’s people like him who quietly get on with helping others who are the unsung heroes among us.

The international stage is a frightening place and there are personal situations all around where people are suffering.

But to be dragged down by all of that means the extinguishing of hope. We have to celebrate the small big things that make a difference.

I thought about all the volunteers in our pub who are keeping it going while we interview for a new manager. I thought about the volunteers in the shop who man the till.

The people who run the village hall, the people who keep our lovely church up and running, the people who lock and unlock the gate everyday on the multi-use games pitch, the people who listen to children reading at school and those who give up their time to look after our communal open spaces.

So many people, in small and big ways, doing their bit and keeping the community from coming unstuck.

To steal a well-known slogan, every little helps. And it really does.