Boy in a China Shop by Keith Brymer Jones

I have been a fan of the Great British Bake Off from the very first series. When a similar show was first broadcast with pottery instead of baking, I didn’t watch it. However, my lovely wife did. I have to say that Helen is an amazing potter. Her Etsy page can be found here.

Anyway, the reason for that preamble is that for Helen’s birthday I bought her the autobiography of one of the presenters from the Pottery Throwdown.

The Boy in a China Shop looks at Keith’s life from growing up and not having a clue as to what he wanted to do, to owning his own successful pottery studio and line of ceramics.

A lot of it was luck. An art teacher handed him a lump of clay, and he took to it. Before long he was working as an apprentice for a local pottery, but when the owners decided to relocate to Scotland, Keith opted to stay in London and open his own studio.

The book is incredibly interesting, although there is a great deal all about pottery. I enjoyed reading about the cost and the price people will pay. Individually made pottery is expensive, whereas mass produced stuff from the far east or India is cheap. The two cannot be compared. 50 or 100 years ago, the large factories in Stoke were still producing almost all of the mass produced pottery used every day. Hand made pottery in the UK nowadays is almost completely the preserve of small talented artists, working hard to make beautiful items and struggling to make a living form it.

Anyway, I found Keith’s life history to be incredibly exciting and the book was very well written. I gave it 5 stars, which might have been a little high, but 4 stars would have felt to low.

The Running Girls by Matt Brolly

This was the first book that I’ve read by Matt Brolly. There was a promotion on Amazon Kindle Unlimited, where I assume his books hadn’t been available previously under the Unlimited scheme. I was drawn to this particular book because of the running theme, although it is tenuous.

Two identical gruesome murders twenty years apart. The confessed killer of the first murder has only recently been released when the second murder occurs. Both victims hadn’t returned home when they had gone out for a run. The police detective charged with establishing who killed the second girl is married to the son of the killer of the first girl. The first victim was his mother.

As the police detective investigates people refuse to talk, including her husband. She knows that there is far more to the story. Was the original killer innocent?

As an aside, I have an issue with a woman with a grown up son being called a girl. Maybe the book should have been titled The Running Women. Just a thought.

The book had plenty of twists and turns as the story is slowed teased out.

Spoiler Alert

The killer of the second girl is unhinged, and it is never fully explained why. I can kind of see the logic of the first killing, but why the second. And if he was predisposed to be a serial killer, why hadn’t he killed anyone in the 20 years between the two murders. One reviewer stated that while the ending wasn’t predictable, it was far fetched. I would concur.

I also had a problem with the author trying to ramp up the tension by having the ending occur during a hurricane. Dean Koontz likes to do this, and it is a trope that I increasingly dislike. If the story feels like it needs more tension, then work more tension into the plot, don’t simply set it during a storm. Rant over.

Anyway, I didn’t dislike the book, although it did drag a little towards the end. I gave it four stars, which is what the average score on Goodreads for the book is. Will I read more books by Matt Brolly? Possibly, possibly not.

The House at the End of the World by Dean Koontz

I used to be one of Mr. Koontz’s biggest fans. One of the first horror books to truly scare me was Phantoms. Dark Rivers of the Heart and Watchers are two of my favourite books, not just by a horror writer, but by a writer of any genre. Unfortunately, I have found that many of his most recent releases have felt formulaic, covering the same old ground and using the same old plot devices.

Katie lives on her own on a small island. Her life was torn apart a few years earlier and as such she has become a hermit, although she isn’t timid, as she has guns hidden all over her house, and she knows how to use them. Across the water there are a few other islands. A small family with a teenage girl lives on the nearest island, while a group of scientists have a base on a larger island.

Government Agents arrive on Katie’s island to search everywhere, while drones fly overhead and depth charges are dropped into the water. Something bad is going on. Katie also still suffers flashbacks from her previous life.

On to my review. It felt like I’d read this before. The book was filled with the usual tropes that Dean Koontz has started to use. Lone woman, independently wealthy, tragic past, secret government agency up to no good, all combined with a huge storm.

Also, nothing happened. Considering that the book’s story isn’t over, and I expect that a sequel will be in the offering soon, it was far too long. Unfortunately, too many of Dean’s recent books have followed this well worn path.

Of his more recent works, I would recommend the Nameless series (read my review here and here), or the Jane Hawk series (read my review here). All of my Dean Koontz reviews can be found here.

Anyway, I gave The House at the End of the World a paltry three stars. Not one of his best, sorry.

The Secret by Lee Child and Andrew Child

Pottering around our local Waterstones I spotted a table loaded with new hardbacks. One of which was the latest Jack Reacher adventure. The book was half price, so I snapped it up. I’m not sure how much money Waterstones will be making selling it at that price. Amazon is also selling the hardback version for half price at £11.00. Annoyingly, the e-book is more expensive. That’s not right considering how much cheaper an e-book is. Also, In Too Deep, the 29th Jack Reacher book will be available in October next year.

Anyway, the latest Jack Reacher book is set in the distant past, back in 1992 when Reacher was back in the army and had only recently been demoted from Major. Reacher is sent to a small government building along with three other investigators. Given very little information they have to come up with a list of names of possible suspects who are killing people on a different list. All of the people on the list are scientists who worked for the government on a project in India manufacturing antidotes to Russian chemical weapons over twenty years earlier. The investigation is at the command of the secretary of defense, one of the top officials in the US.

Obviously, Reacher and the others haven’t been told the full story, and between them they try to uncover the truth as well as finding out who is carrying out the murders.

I have to say that this was probably the best Reacher book since Andrew Child has been co-writing them, although the timeline does imply that Reacher might be in his 60s by now. There were twists and turns, although there were a couple of places where luck played a huge part in moving the story along. I would have liked these aspects to have been more thought out, but this is a small complaint.

As with any well establish series, this isn’t the book to begin with, but it is another welcome addition for Jack Reacher fans. I gave the book four out of five, which seems to be what everyone else has done.

Fairy Tale by Stephen King

It is no surprise that I’ve been a fan of Stephen King for many years, 35 in fact since my Uncle gave me a box of horror novels that he was disposing of. Carrie, Salem’s Lot and Nightshift were all gratefully received. Phantoms by Dean Koontz and The Tomb by Paul Wilson were other memorable inclusions in that box.

Over the years I have ignored some of Mr. King’s new releases, but unlike Mr. Koontz, he still appears to have fresh ideas.

Charlie Read is a 17-year old boy living with his father. His mother was killed in a tragic accident when he was young. Charlie excels at sport and is looking forward to graduating high school and attending college. One evening cycling home he hears shouts from old man Bowditch’s house. He investigates and finds the old man almost unconscious haven fallen off a ladder. His leg is very obviously broken.

Charlie looks after the reclusive old man and his elderly dog, slowly becoming friends, until that is when Howard Bowditch passes away. He leaves his whole estate to Charlie, along with a cassette recording, which explains that there is a secret staircase under the shed which leads to another world. He adds that in that world there is a sundial which can turn back time for an individual sat upon it when it is turned backwards. Charlie immediately sets about exploring this world with the aim of giving the dog a few more years.

Obviously, this being Stephen King, there is a darkness in the other world.

I wouldn’t say that Fairy Tale is a return to form, because even a less well written book by Stephen King is better than hundreds of other books hat can be found on Amazon. I would say that Fairy Tale is an excellent dark fantasy read, and I would love to read more about the other world at the bottom of the stone spiral staircase.

Nell Ceramics

A few years ago my wife had a taster session at Bentham Pottery. She absolutely loved it, and since then she has become more and more proficient at the skilled art of pottery making. Helen started out with a very small potters wheel in the cellar, but it was damp and cold. The dinning room in our house was being used as a dumping ground, so she converted it into a studio, complete with an upgraded wheel, shelves and two work benches.

In the last few months Helen has got serious. She went to an early Christmas fair at the hospice up the road, and she now has an Etsy page. Click on the link below and check out her first few select items.

Nell Ceramics

Helen’s pottery studio is named after our old dog, Nell, who sadly passed away earlier this year. Nell was an incredibly lively English Pointer with an amazing temperament who would often lie next to the radiator in Helen’s studio while she was working.

One thing that amazes me about pottery is how hard it is and just how much there is to learn. I tried it once and could barely make anything. What I made resembled a very wonky ashtray.

It doesn’t just take a great deal of skill, there are dozens of types of clay to chose from, as well as thousands of types and colours of glazes. Every day I am impressed with what Helen achieves, knowing that I couldn’t in a thousand years.

Helen has made some incredibly unique and stylish mugs and bowls, as well as spoon rest and container. Currently she is making a load of soap dishes, possibly in time for Christmas, however, homemade and handmade ceramics takes time. Making, trimming, first firing, painting, glazing and then second firing.

I can’t wait to see what she makes next.

Nell Ceramics