I’m still in Lockdown and still in need of distraction so I’ve picked three books I’m hoping will carry me away for days at a time. The first is a newly-published genre-bending Rom-Com/Lit-Fic, ‘Beach Read’. The second is the start of a much-loved period cosy mystery series, ‘A Quiet Life In The Country’. The third is the second book in a thriller series about a man with extraordinary tracking skills, ‘Pursuit‘.

I’m fascinated by the premise of ‘Beach Read’ by Emily Henry: two writers, strangers to one another, meet for the first time while on holiday. One writes RomCom, the other LitFic. Both are suffering from writer’s block and make a pact to write each other’s novels.

I’m hoping for something amusing and genre-bending. The reviews I’ve read suggest that I’ll also find a substantial novel beneath the cute meet and the publishing in-jokes.

My wife has already read ‘A Quiet Life In The Country’ by T E Kinsey and immediately moved on to ‘In The Market For Murder’, the second Lady Hardcastle book, so I know I’m in for a good time with this period-piece cosy mystery.

Set in 1908, the book centres around the unique relationship between the redoubtable Lady Hardcastle, an eccentric widow with a mysterious past and Florence Armstrong, her maid and confidant, who is an expert in martial arts.

The two are seeking a quiet life in the country which, thankfully they are cheated of once a dead body is discovered and the pair delve into rural rivalries and evil plots.

Sounds like a great book to read in the garden with a cold beer and a bowl of nibbles nearby.

‘Pursuit’, by Indy Quillen, is the second of her Fox Walker thrillers.

I met Fox a couple of years ago in ‘Tracker’ which I thought was:

‘An entertaining thriller that makes a fast, light, weekend read and creates some real page-turning tension.’

Fox is a Native American with extraordinary tracking skills. In ‘Pursuit’, he’s tracking someone with skills that equal his own and whom, he begins to suspect, is not someone who deserves to be hunted.

I’m hoping to find myself eager to turn the pages and see how this works out.