Last night the book club met to discuss Peter Papathanasiou’s The Stoning. The theme for the month had been an Australian book and members were pleased with the strong sense of place the book evoked. You can catch up with the meeting in the video below, but be aware it does contain spoilers. We discuss the entirety of the book. I hosted the meeting having only ten minutes left on my kindle, but knowing who the killer was, but still found out there was something else I hadn’t expected at the very end! So, you have been warned 🙂
The next meeting is 8 pm Monday 5th December. The theme is a crime novel set on a train – thank you to Loraine (correct spelling) for the suggestion! It was to be the classic crime book, but we moved that to January so we had a gentler read over the Christmas period. If anyone was present for last year’s Christmas read you’ll remember how brutal some of that book was! Not the most relaxing holiday read.
If you haven’t yet joined us but would like to, you can sign up HERE.
Below are the books to be voted on. Please read the blurbs and leave your vote in the comments by the end of Friday 11th November. I will email you at the weekend informing members of the winning book. If you are a member but haven’t yet voted, why not jump in now?
Violet by SJI Holliday
When two strangers end up sharing a cabin on the Trans-Siberian Express, an intense friendship develops, one that can only have one ending … a nerve-shattering psychological thriller from bestselling author SJI Holliday
Carrie’s best friend has an accident and can no longer make the round-the-world trip they’d planned together, so Carrie decides to go it alone.
Violet is also travelling alone, after splitting up with her boyfriend in Thailand. She is also desperate for a ticket on the Trans-Siberian Express, but there is nothing available.
When the two women meet in a Beijing Hotel, Carrie makes the impulsive decision to invite Violet to take her best friend’s place.
Thrown together in a strange country, and the cramped cabin of the train, the women soon form a bond. But as the journey continues, through Mongolia and into Russia, things start to unravel – because one of these women is not who she claims to be…
A tense and twisted psychological thriller about obsession, manipulation and toxic friendships, Violet also reminds us that there’s a reason why mother told us not to talk to strangers…
Confessions on the 7.45 by Lisa Unger
From master of suspense Lisa Unger comes a riveting thriller about a chance encounter that unravels a stunning web of lies.
Selena Murphy is commuting home on the train when she strikes up a conversation with a beautiful stranger in the next seat. The woman introduces herself as Martha and soon confesses that she’s been stuck in an affair with her boss. Selena, in turn, confesses that she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny. When the train arrives at Selena’s station, the two women part ways, presumably never to meet again.
Then the nanny disappears.
As Selena is pulled into the mystery of what happened, and as the fractures in her marriage grow deeper, she begins to wonder, who was Martha really? But she is hardly prepared for what she’ll discover…
The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci
Every day without fail, Travis Devine puts on a cheap suit, grabs his faux-leather briefcase, and boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city’s most prestigious investment firm. In the mornings, he gazes out the train window at the lavish homes of the uberwealthy, dreaming about joining their ranks. In the evenings, he listens to the fiscal news on his phone, already preparing for the next grueling day in the cutthroat realm of finance.
Then one morning Devine’s tedious routine is shattered by an anonymous email: She is dead.
Sara Ewes, Devine’s coworker and former girlfriend, has been found hanging in a storage room of his office building—presumably a suicide, prompting the NYPD to come calling on him. If that wasn’t enough, Devine receives another ominous visit, a confrontation that threatens to dredge up grim secrets from his past in the Army unless he participates in a clandestine investigation into his firm.
This treacherous role will take Travis from the impossibly glittering lives he once saw only through a train window, to the darkest corners of the country’s economic halls of power…where something rotten lurks. And apart from this high-stakes conspiracy, there’s a killer out there with their own agenda, and Devine is the bullseye.
What She Saw Last Night by Mason Cross (or MJ Cross in the US)
No one will believe … WHAT SHE SAW LAST NIGHT.
Jenny Bowen is going home. Boarding the Caledonian Sleeper, all she wants to do is forget about her upcoming divorce and relax on the ten-hour journey through the night.
In her search for her cabin, Jenny helps a panicked woman with a young girl she assumes to be her daughter. Then she finds her compartment and falls straight to sleep.
Waking in the night, Jenny discovers the woman dead in her cabin … but there’s no sign of the little girl. The train company have no record of a child being booked on the train, and CCTV shows the dead woman boarding alone.
The police don’t believe Jenny, and soon she tries to put the incident out of her head and tells herself that everyone else is right: she must have imagined the little girl.
But deep down, she knows that isn’t the truth.
The Necropolis Railway by Andrew Martin
Bright and ambitious, young Jim Stringer moves from the English countryside to London deter- mined to become a railway man. It is 1903, the dawn of the Edwardian age, when steam runs the nation and the railways drive progress. Jim can’t believe his luck to have gotten his foot in the door at South East Railway, run out of Waterloo Station. He finds, however, that his duties involve a graveyard shift, literally—a railway line that takes coffins from London morgues to the gigantic new cemeteries being dug in the city’s outskirts. He also learns that his predecessor had disappeared and that his coworkers seem to have formed an instant loathing for him. Forced to live by his wits and to arrive at his own deductions—assisted by his landlady, for whom he falls— he tries to figure out what is going on before he is issued a one-way ticket on the Necropolis Railway.
Thanks for the work in putting this together, Rebecca, and for the work of facilitating the group. My vote’s for the Baldacci, but all of them look really interesting.
I enjoyed the discussion although I could not participate because of laryngitis.
I vote for Violet.
I notice two authors use initials. I propose a category of authors using initials.
I’m sorry you were ill, Ellen. I did notice you were quiet. I hope you’re feeling better.
Thanks for the theme suggestion. I shall add it to my list!
Ah, shame I missed this last night, I love the fact that you thought you were safe from spoilers, being so close to the end and then… bam! I do like a story set on a train! I vote for the Mason Cross because it’s set on the Caledonian sleeper and I’ve always wanted to travel on that!
The 6:20 man
I like the look of Lisa Unger, but they all look good.
The necropolis railway as my garden backs on to Brookwood cemetery where the old necropolis railway ended
Didn’t know this book existed !
Hi guys, I would like to vote for ‘What She Saw Last Night’ please.
The Necropolis Railway is my first choice!
But any one except the David Baldacci would be fine by me
Violet or David Baldacci preferred but will be content which ever is selected. Don’t like the title ‘The Necropolis Railway’. Find it most off putting.
Looking forward to seeing the recording of the meeting to compare view points.
Violet would bey first choice followed by the 6:20 man
I vote for confessions on the 7.45.
Sorry that I missed this week’s meeting (i will watch the video since I’m reading and enjoying the book). I will join again in December. 😁
Great meeting. I vote for Violet please.
All look good but would vote for the necropolis railway
Sorry not to have attend Monday sounds like it was a good book club meeting. I may be away in December so apologies in advance in case I don’t make the next meeting.
I think the Mason Cross sounds interesting but so do the others. Since I’m not sure about attending my vote could be mute!