The Winter Crown by Elizabeth Chadwick (Sphere, £7.99)
Chadwick’s second novel in a trilogy about Eleanor of Aquitaine is an efficient enough historical romance, but one can’t help wishing that she could have differentiated the character of such an extraordinary woman, married first to the King of France, then to Henry II, King of England, from other historical queens. Beautiful, heroic, clever. Aren’t they all?
Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam (Fourth Estate, £8.99)
Hickam’s life story is an extraordinary one, and he tells it well in this memoir about growing up a boy in the mining town of Coalwood, West Virginia, how his mother pushed him to do well at college and indulge his fascination with space travel. He ended up a NASA engineer. As heartwarming and moving as one might expect.
Private Life by Josep Maria de Sagarra (Archipelago Books, £13.48)
First published to great scandal in 1932, this surprisingly readable novel about Barcelona high society is a sensual and also psychologically acute representation of mismatched couples, tragic widows, blackmailing cowards and cheating husbands. There’s a genuine regret about the passing of this period, though, for all its wicked characters.
A Summer With Kim Novak by Hakan Nesser ((World Editions, £10.99)
This is an absorbing murder mystery that takes stock subjects like adolescent sexuality and the loss of a loved one and brings them together with some ingeniousness. Erik looks back years later on a teenage summer when a new teacher, who looked like Kim Novak, became involved with his brother and possibly the murder of a local man.
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