I like to think of reading as vacation from real life. You can escape down the narrow streets of Rome whilst speeding through The Da Vinci Code, enter the twisted minds of serial killers whilst on the tube and add up all the clues as a detective whilst you wait for your bath to fill up- but what about reading WHILST on holiday? Is that a holiday on a holiday? It’s starting to get a bit too Inception for me…
Anyway, this summer has been no stranger to some great reads and us Killer Readers have been reading and holidaying a-plenty.
Here’s what the team have been reading whilst jetting off this summer!
Kate: Crime books I read on holiday (desperately casting my mind back…) include Fall from Grace, by Tim Weaver – the first of his that I’ve read, but am now keen to go back to the start of his series; and Dear Daughter, by Elizabeth Little, which I was given at Harrogate, and thought was very pacy and entertaining. Non-crime reads included Friendship, by Emily Gould, a witty, engaging story of two friends living in New York, and the ups and downs of their relationship as they try to make something of their lives; and We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart, which has a brilliant twist, and is a great beach read. I was also lucky enough to read the brand new Logan McRae novel from Stuart MacBride, The Missing and the Dead. Logan is back in uniform, in a new location, and you’re all in for an absolute treat when this comes out in January.
My photo was taken in Antalya, in Turkey. Had one night there on the way to Oympos, and came across one of my favourites on the bookshelf in the hotel! I get excited by small things…
Lucy: With trips to both Italy and Cornwall this summer, what better time to read S.J. Parris’s latest novel, Treachery? Set in Plymouth, Parris’s latest triumph is so atmospheric that I half-expected to be ambushed every time I walked down a back-alley. And imagine my delight when, in Italy, I spotted a street named after our very own Giordano Bruno! The holiday season also gave me the perfect opportunity to get stuck into Ben McPherson’s haunting and compelling novel, A Line of Blood (out next year), which I’d been excited about reading for ages. I was on holiday with friends at the time and I’m ashamed to admit that I spoke barely a word to any of them until I reached the end. Finally, I read Robert Galbraith’s The Silkworm, which was every bit as good as the first in the series, and The Goldfinch by Donna Tart. At nearly 800 pages, it’s a pretty hefty tome but absolutely, totally worth it.
Katie S: This year my husband and I took a very delayed honeymoon, travelling around the islands of Cape Verde for two and a half weeks. It feels like another lifetime ago, but it was really a wonderful holiday – we went hiking, saw whales from our hotel balcony, went to the beach… absolutely bliss! Here I am reading in the hammock outside our room at one of the hotels we stayed at. I got through a LOT of books while we were away (so many that I had to start raiding the hotel libraries everywhere we went), but the best book I read while I was away was definitely The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (AKA JK Rowling). I absolutely LOVED it. Such a great set of characters and so interesting to read something so different and SO good from the author of the Harry Potter series. If you haven’t read it yet, I thoroughly recommend it, and The Silkworm, featuring the same set of characters, and which might be even better!
Katie M:I’m a little late to the party but I FINALLY read Gone Girl on holiday! I was immediately hooked and couldn’t put it down – my boyfriend pretty much got ignored for the whole day! I’m so excited for the film to come out next month, I hope it does the book justice.
I also read Broken Monsters, the latest terrifying thriller from Lauren Beukes. I thought The Shining Girls was brilliant so had very high expectations for Lauren’s next novel – and I can safely say I was not disappointed. This dark tale set in Detroit has various plot lines, which weave together into one epic, page-turning, jaw-dropping novel! I love Lauren’s writing style, she brings the story so vividly to life – I’m just glad that I was reading it on a bright sunny beach with lots of people around me, otherwise I think I would have had some serious nightmares!
Yasmin: This summer, I enjoyed a staycation in a very sunny London, and an equally sunny Milan. Sitting on the River Thames, I devoured the Ice Twins – a tale of mistaken identity, lies, and a family trying to keep themselves together on the isolated Scottish Isle of Skye. I couldn’t put this one down and the sun was setting when I hungrily turned the last page! It also made me really want to go and visit the island which sound haunted but absolutely stunning too. Other great reads I holidayed from real life to this Summer include I am Pilgrim which read like a Hollywood blockbuster and Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid. The vampire inspired rewrite of Jane Austen’s classic from the Austen Project by Borough Press. It was such a fun read, and made me want to pick the original again to compare too.
