Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

White Nights by Ann Cleeves. "It's the time of year. The light nights. It makes us all go a little bit mad." Sounds like Shakespeare? A Midsummer Night's Dream? This is Cleeves' second book in the Shetland series. Tourists are streaming ashore in Lerwick, mainly Americans to enjoy the beauty and tranquility of Shetland. In one breath we are told of how safe the place is then we are confronted with a clown wearing a sinister mask giving out flyers as the tourists disembark. It's midsummer when the birds sing at midnight and the sun never sets. It's a crazy time of the year when night blurs into day and nothing is quite as it seems! Jimmy Perez has his own down-to-earth style of detective work in between pursuing Fran Hunter, his love interest for the past six months. It's still early days and he is treading carefully. Bella Sinclair, described as being rather unapproachable, intimidating and rich was exhibiting her art work at Herri...

                  Marriages Are Made in Bond Street by Penrose Halson . "The men come over here, the girls are already here, they all want to get together but they never meet! Let's introduce them-let's start a marriage agency." It's spring, 1939 just before the war started. Two young women, both twenty-four, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver decided to open a marriage bureau in Bond Street, London. The book by Halson celebrates ten years of matching couples during a difficult period in English history. Many years later, Halson found herself proprietor of the Katherine Allen Marriage and Advice Bureau (1986). In 1992 it had incorporated Heather Jenner's agency. Her source came partly from Jenner's daughter, Stella Sykes who had archived her mother's copious notes as well as three books on marriage, two by Jenner and one by Mary Oliver collaborating with Mary Benedetta. The stories are interesting...

                 The Calico Cat by Amanda James.  "Then life takes huge bites out of you, chews you up, spits you out and watches you slowly bleed to death by the wayside." I find it refreshing to come across writing that is somewhat different and far removed from the world of crime and detection, my usual genre. James indicates that this is about a journey of self-discovery, life, love and adventure mainly for the persona, Lottie Morgan, a "damaged" individual because of how her parents mismanaged an extremely "delicate" situation when their daughter was at an impressionable age. Lottie is not your average female and she is so complicated, having suffered a rejection by Jenny her mother then further betrayals from people she cared about. It got so bad for Lottie that she started to self-harm, followed by suicidal thoughts then displayed what is referred to as psychotic behaviour. We get a glimp...

                Merciless by Heleyne Hammersley. "I can't seem to stop what I've started. It's his fault. I can feel his poison in me, flowing through my veins." Police procedural murder investigations combined with the thriller genre make up for a dynamic combination. You won't be disappointed. "Merciless" is the second novel in the D.I. Kate Fletcher series. Set mainly around south Yorkshire you are presented with a bunch of down-to-earth detectives working with Kate. Hollis was a key part of her team, Sam Cooper, efficient but an extremely private person, Barratt and O'Connor who Kate tolerated but disliked. Nothing untoward. Kate takes her work seriously and it dominates her life. She seems a little more compassionate and human  showing how different she is from how the stereotypical D.I. is portrayed. Nick Tsappis becomes romantically attached to Kate at the end and sums up her caring nature when he tells her: "It matters....

                   Islands by Gwen GB. "How could a child, let alone several children, have gone missing without anybody noticing, without somebody querying where they'd gone?" Islands is a powerful and personal story based around the tragedy of miscarriages and the horrors of physical and sexual abuse. It is Gwen's debut novel and worth a read. The timeline covers Katherine's late teenage years in 1976 into the 1980s and to her maturity in 2008. In the background we are reminded of actual historical events such as the Shannon Matthews case, Haut de la Garenne, Elisabeth and Josef Fritzl and the Lockerbie Pan Am 103 flight. Footloose and fancy-free, that's how Katherine was as she took her final exams, inseparable from her friend Anne. Both are relishing the prospect of leaving school with boys on their minds, obsessed with Darren Le Brocq and Mark Vibert. Katherine's mother, Marie ...

             My Sweet Friend by H.A.Leuschel. "Beyond the façade we were all human, fragile and sensitive to judgement." Helene conducted research into the consequences of lying and I mean serious lying and this interesting novella is the result. It touches on mythomania, more commonly known as pathological lying, where guilt doesn't exist at all. If parameters exist between truth and fiction, they are so blurred they are unrecognisable. It is written in first person with two very different narrators: one nice "The Sweet Friend," the other malicious. The story is set in France, mainly in Paris although Alexa Dubois escapes for a break to Biarritz, apparently on sick-leave through exhaustion. It's 2017. Alexa has just started a new job in Paris working with Rosie, Jack, Monique and Marc connected to sales and marketing as an accounts manager. Initially, Alexa had made a strong impression on all but Monique. Jack fancied her. Rosie just...

                 Honeymoon in Paris by Jojo Moyes. " I can't be this woman. It's who my mother was and it terrifies me." This is Moyes' first collection of short stories taken from " Paris For One and Other Stories." Honeymoon in Paris is more novella than short story and satisfying to read. Two newlyweds are celebrating their lune de miel at different times, one in 2002, the other in 1912 with uncanny similarities and tensions. They are certainly love matches but is this a solid enough foundation for marriage and all the challenges that they are going to be faced with? An artist, or more specifically, a painting, links the newlyweds a century apart. Liv Halston looks down from the iconic Eiffel Tower, alone already regretting her marriage to David who designed and built properties. She was reflecting on how disastrous her honeymoon in Paris had been. She had celebrated two days of married b...