The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman - April 24th 2023

Michèle was our host this month.  Present were Beth, Betty, Colette, Linda, Marg, Michèle, Shirley and coming back to the fold, an original member of the BookClub Marilyn.  Michèle served a smoked salmon mousse on cucumber slices, a garlic dip with veggies and devilled eggs. A chocolate, strawberry cream dessert was served.  Of course wine was available and tea. 

We discussed Marg's book choice The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.  Mr. Osman is a television and radio personality who in 2020 published his first crime fiction novel.  It became an instant success selling over a million copies in the U.K. alone. It has become a series and three more novels with the Thursday Murder Club members have been published.  According to Wikipedia, Steven Spielberg has acquired the book's film rights.

The Thursday Murder Club is a group of 4 retirees living in a well-to-do retirement village in Kent.  They meet every Thursday to go over clues of a crime to try to solve it.  They find themselves involved in a real crime when a developer of a retirement villages is murdered.  

Most of our members enjoyed the book, found the storyline well developed though somewhat confusing near the end.  The characters, the members of the Murder Club, Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron are well described as are the two detectives Chris and Donna.  There is a fair amount of humour injected in the story and the plot moves well in short chapters. 

Members found the book to be light reading and enjoyable.  They liked the short chapters, that the characters were seniors who were active and into modern trends, all having cell phones and texting each other often.  They seemed well connected and often had sources and clues that had the detectives "running" to catch up to them in trying to solve the two murders.  Members liked that there were surprises at the end as to who were the murderers and why.  

Thank you Marg for offering us an enjoyable read. 

Violeta by Isabel Allende - March 24, 2023

 Carla was our host this month.  We were a small group, Carla, Colette, Linda and Michèle.  We discussed Michèle's book choice Violeta  by Isabel Allende.

Isabel Allende was born in Peru where her diplomat father was stationed as the representative from Chile.  She moved back to Chile with her mother when she was 3 years old.   She was educated in private English schools.  She married Miguel Frias in 1962 and had 2 children.  She married twice more, her most recent marriage is to American lawyer Roger Crukas in 2019.  She now lives in California and is an American citizen.  She has received numerous honorary doctorates.   

Her writing career started as a translator of romance novels such as Harlequin Romances into Spanish. She was fired from that job because she was modifying the stories to make them more interesting.  She wrote her first novel The House of Spirits in 1982.  It evolved from a letter she wrote to her 99 year old grandfather hoping  to keep him alive, at least in spirit.  She has written 22 novels and 5 non-fiction books. 

She is often categorized as a writer of magical realism such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  Her most notable books are the first one, The House of Spirits, Daughter of Fortune, published in 1999, it was an Oprah choice, and City of Beasts published in 2002. 

Violeta is her most recent novel based on her Grandmother's life begins in the early 1900's during the influenza pandemic and continues through to the present COVID pandemic in 2020. It covers not only the effects of the pandemics but also the depression, military coups in South America and family upheavals.  Violeta Del Valle is a 100 years old woman, almost on her death bed and pens a letter to her grandson describing her life. 

Members enjoyed the book, all present felt she has a good writing style and told the story of Violeta and her family well giving us a good history lesson of South America.  No specific country was mentioned.  Violeta had several men in her life, not only husbands but also lovers. She seemed to thrive only when she had a man in her life.  Though she always had men in her life, her decisions were her own and she was obviously the matriarch of her family.