Unlucky for Some

"Unlucky for Some" by Jill McGowan.

This is an English who-dunnit. It was an alright novel, but I had a hard time finishing it. It didn't really leaving me wanting more. The lingo was hard to decipher. For example, the characters kept refering to the SOCO people who it was explained half way through the 468 page novel as 'scene of crime officer's'. Otherwise known here on this side of the pond as Crime Scene Investigators.

I didn't get attached to any of the characters. Near the end I figured out who the bad guy was, but it still didn't effect me. When I finished the book, all I felt was relief that I had gotten through it at all.

"The Bad Mother's Handbook"

The Bad Mother's Handbook by Kate Long

This book 'is the story of a year in the lives of a grandmother, mother and daughter living under one roof in a working-class town in Northern England. The story unfolds in the women's three very different voices as they react to the news that seventeen-year-old Charlotte is pregnant - ruining her chances for a life beyond their small village and repeating the same mistake her own mother made when she was Charlotte's age.'

This book is sometimes serious, sometimes funny, and poignant throughout. Sometimes it is difficult to figure out who is speaking as all three women speak in first person, but with lines such as "dipped his wick elsewhere" (translated into he's had sex with another) It did make me laugh outloud on more than one instance. 351 pages. I finished it in 5 days.