I’m scraping in pretending it’s still January and that I’m not a bit late with my January reading choice….please bear with me!

If you missed it, I’m joining in with the reading project on ‘Circle of Pine Trees’ which I wrote about here and my first book choice was The Red House by Mark Haddon.

As it says on the cover, Mark Haddon is the author of the best seller, ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’, and I was curious too, to find out if he could follow up such a distinctive book.

I wasn’t disappointed.  My abiding memory of that first book was the way the author got inside the head of the main character, and with ‘The Red House’ Mark Haddon takes on a whole cast of characters, gives them all a voice and weaves the narrative without ever losing the thread of the individual perception of each person.

The book is a small slice of family life, it’s relationships and complications.  Seven days of a shared holiday with a brother and sister, their respective families, the ghosts of the past and the uncertainties of the future.

Having planned to make this my book for the month, I found myself devouring it over a couple of evenings, and becoming so involved with the characters I didn’t want it to end.

But apart from the strong characters Mark Haddon creates a wonderful sense of place, and his descriptive passages are very evocative.

I’m always nervous of accidental ‘spoilers’ when talking about books so I won’t say any more, but I do thoroughly recommend it as an inclusion on your reading list!

My February read is ‘Elegance’ by Kathleen Tessaro.

I’m looking forward to a wander through everyone else’s January books to find a few more recommendations for later in the year, I hope you do too!

I’ll be back soon, when I will admit to it being February!

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