The Myths and Legends of Britain's Pubs: East of England

Rodney Simmonds' The Myths and Legends of Britain's Pubs: East of England ticks all my personal boxes, so to speak.

The sub-title of the book is "A Thousand Years of History and Trivia/"

Pubs, architecture, ales, history and myths. What more could a person want?

Let's begin this review with a few questions. What do you know about your local? Or the other pubs in your town or district?

Who decided on the name? What is the history of the name? Has the name of that particular pub ever changed? How old is the pub?

What's the pub's history? Is it haunted? And if it is haunted, what kind of ghosts inhabit it? Friendly ghosts or ghosts who are angry and unable to move on?

This  book is, literally, an A to Y of pubs throughout the East of England in 206 pages.

There's the Jolly Woodman in Burnham Beeches, in Buckinghamshire. First opened in 1832, it's starred in several films and TV series over the years.

In Luton, Bedfordshire, you'll find the English Rose public house. Opened in 1845 it was originally called the Rabbit. If you read the book you'll learn why. A piece of trivia regarding this pub is that the son of the then landlord married actress Diana Dors.

In the 1700s in Brigg, North Lincolnshire you'll learn about the Yarborough Hunt public house. It was originally constructed for the Earls of Yarborough who own an estate not too far away.

Previously a brewery tap for Sergeant's Brewery, which, sadly, was closed in 1967, the pub continued trading for a number of years under the ownership of several breweries.

For those interested in ghostly residents you will be interested in the Nutshell, otherwise known as the Traverse in Bury St Edmunds. Not only is it one of the smallest pubs in England, it is also reputedly haunted by a young boy. It's said he was murdered in one of the bedrooms of the premises. But for some reason he appears mainly in the area of the bar.

There's also another ghost, that of a monk who wears a long black habit. He also wears a large wooden cross. Sometimes, even when there is nobody wearing perfume in the pub, the scent of a woman's perfume can be detected.

It's a wonderful book and is very well researched and extremely well-written. And I would recommend buying this book either for yourself or as a gift for a friend or family member. However, the book does have a curious omission: There is not one illustration or photograph in the entire book.

It's published by The Book Guild at £9.99.

Ed & Lily

 

Ed & Lily tells the love story of Ed & Lily.

The story opens with Lily, feeling rather queasy. It's a couple of days before Christmas and she's about to leave the offices of the ecologically aware charity where she works. 

She has something important that she needs to tell Ed, her partner. But she knows full well that she has left it way too late to tell him.

Everyone knows that the relationship between them was fine. Better than fine, even! They all knew it was safe and rock-solid. Only, maybe it wasn't as sound a ship as everyone was thinking?

36 hours later they planned to be together to spend a wonderful holiday in Iceland for a truly fantastic and white Christmas break.

A visit to a pharmacy on the way to the train station (she needed peace of mind of the kind only readily available via pharmacies) was a disaster as she had left her bank card on the counter and was, as a result, unable to buy her ticket at Cardiff Central Station to London Paddington, because when she quickly made her way to the pharmacy, it was closed and the shutters down.

She decided to take the bus to London's Victoria Coach Station, instead. Even though the journey would be almost twice as long, she felt she had no other choice.

She spoke with Ed who, again, questioned why it was that she seemed to like making things more complicated? After all, he always could book train tickets for her?

But there were things happening with, or to, Lily that Ed didn't know about. Or was he trying desperately hard not to know about those things?

The fact that work had taken her away from the capital of England to the capital city of Wales had certainly complicated matters.

Is their relationship doomed? Wrecked beyond compare?

Then her charity work takes her to Serbia where she has to deal with the sad plight of sundry refugees from new violent hotspots.

Can she find time for Ed? And if she does, will Ed still be there for her?

This is a very finely crafted romance for our modern, highspeed lives.

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99 and is written by Sofia Due.

Bleak Encounter at the Cape

Bleak Encounter at the Cape is a thriller novel from author Richard Trahair.

A Coastwatch volunteer makes a dramatic find. He discovers a corpse on the rocky shore.

He and his equally resourceful wife decide to investigate the mysterious death themselves. After all, what's the worst that can happen?

Quite a good deal as it happens.

For soon the couple themselves to be trapped in a burgeoning international conspiracy of threats and intimidation that put the lives of a great many people at risk.

The police become involved as the couple make their way across Europe as far as Lake Geneva in Switzerland and back home again to Cornwall for a dramatic and shocking conclusion back on the coast of West Cornwall.

Will they survive? Will the guilty be brought to justice?

It's an exciting novel and I hope to see more books from Richard who makes good use of his intimate knowledge of Cornwall for the backdrop of this novel.

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99.  

I am updating this review to point out that the author is donating profits from book sales to the National Coastwatch Institution. For details of this highly valuable organisation please visit https://www.nci.org.uk/

Fractures, Dreams and Second Chances

Fractures, Dreams and Second Chances is a fictional novel, but which is based on the life experiences of the author, Stephen Anthony Brotherton.

It tells the story of Freddie whose life was fractured by family tragedy.

Freddie meets Jo-Jo, a woman of determination and strong will. She knows what she wants out of life, she has her goals and aspirations.

However, like Freddie her life has also received fractures and circumstances forced the two young lovers to part.

The book tells their stories as individuals and also as a couple. It covers their teen romance, what happens to them after they part and their eventual attempts to rekindle their youthful first love after a separation of in excess of three decades.

The author uses their love story to reflect upon deep topics such as the possible impact of traumas that occur early in life.

It's published by The Book Guild at £9.99.

Family Reunited

Family Reunited is a new novel from the author of Fireworks to Thailand, J. R. Bonham.

It's a gripping family drama it tells the story of how Jan eventually plucks up the courage to leave her vile and abusive husband, Geoff after their 25 year marriage.

After she leaves Geoff she meets the man who she feels is her soulmate, Mike, who she marries. And with whom she has a happy second marriage.

Unfortunately her adult children, Louise and Steven blame Jane for, as they perceive it, breaking up their 'happy' home.

She's been totally estranged from her children and hasn't ever been able to meet her five grandchildren. 

Sadly, she becomes a widow and Jan's sense of loss is crippling in its intensity following 22 years of a loving, blissful marriage.

Louise, Jan's daughter, then dies which unleashes a tsunami of grief that further destroys the family.

Charlotte, Louise's daughter plunges into grief and takes on the persona of a 'wild child' to mask her sorrow. She is only 15 and when she falls pregnant she is thrown out of the family home.

Jan feels that enough is enough and she steps forward to try to bring her shattered family back together again. But how can she accomplish this? Will they listen to her ideas? acquiesce to her proposals to get everything back on track and to heal the family at long last?

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99.

The Fall Out

The Fall Out is a novel by D J Arthur.

Anita and Marilyn are an inseparable pair of women. Even though they have very different characters. 

Anita weds David and David's best friend, John, also falls for Marylin and they also marry. The lives of both couples become entwined.

John is a freelance writer and receives a surprise commission from an old friend to write for his firmly anti-EU publication The Swiftian.

He agrees to accept the job and begins to dig deep into matters regarding the EU.

However at the same time Anita receives a promotion to a full-time position in Brussels and David, which rather shocked everyone, is chosen as a Conservative Party candidate for Benfleet.

As John digs deeper and deeper into the EU the position that Anita has taken reveals itself as extremely Eurocentric. David must fight his party or his wife in order to remain true to himself.

However, Marylin has some secrets of her own that seem to be on the point of once again coming to the surface. Whilst the marriage of Anita and David seems to be heading to an unhappy conclusion.

What, exactly, will happen to the two couples?

It's published by The Book Guild at £9.99. 

Stormfront

Stormfront is a new detective thriller from R. S. Sutton.

It features impecunious private detective Valerie Stone who owns a valuable old watch and a vintage jaguar.

She's already aware that she consumes far too many French cigarettes lives on a houseboat moored on the Thames. She has male admirers that she manages to keep at arms length.

A very lucrative insurance investigation job comes along which will keep her and her assistant Jane afloat for a while longer. Just have to pad the expenses out a bit, OK?

It was a simple job. Body found on the south coast. Just compile a report, take the insurance company's money and... things never go quite as smoothly as hoped.

Jane finds that a secretive, covert organisation also has an interest in the dead body and they blackmail her.

Some people will not say anything, other people are feeding misinformation to Jane and suddenly Valerie, Jane and others around her find themselves deep inside a storm. A very foul storm, indeed.

This is a good detective thriller, which also contains a good deal of pathos.

I hope we will read more novels featuring Valerie Stone and Jane in the future.

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99.