Scary Times

Well in these times of floods, earthquakes, tsunamis nuclear meltdowns and so on, I feel the need to escape and escape I did, yesterday, into the excellent psychological thriller by Julia Crouch called Cuckoo. Cuckoo is a page turner of a first novel. When Rose, who is seemingly, contented with her life, invites her recently widowed best friend, Polly, to stay she opens a very nasty can of worms. Glamorous, fragile, Polly arrives at the graceful English home with her wild young boys and the unravelling of everything Rose has strived to perfect, begins. I had a couple of quibbles but all in all so enjoyable.

Last time I blogged (so exciting) I mentioned an Indian restaurant in Victoria st, Seddon. The restaurant is Indian Palette and has perfect small dishes of delicious traditional Indian food with real spices to put to one side, like cardamom pods and cloves. Indian Palette puts me in mind of another book I recently read, Snake by Australian author Kate Jennings which is just about to be reissued. Snake was fabulous; a novel told in small portions, the story of a marriage, it is rich and beautifully executed. Snake was first published in 1996 and is well worth revisiting. Also loving the bookclub book, Fall by Colin Mc Adam and The Terror of Living by Urban Waite (an apt title).