There are many, many book clubs and despite being any avid reader I have never joined because having talked to people who do belong to Book Clubs they tell me about the books they choose and they sound dreadful to me!!!!  I read to be entertained and escape not to be depressed and it seems that a lot of the Clubs choose “meaningful” books which I am sure would make me feel down!

Now to my question; should I always on my Monthly Friday Book Club only give you reviews of books I have enjoyed or should I tell you the negative about a book I have been reading? 

My reason for asking this is the book, below, I have just read and did not enjoy and to be quite honest feel it was mis-described!

I had read an article about this book and it sounded wonderful.  James Pope-Hennessy had been asked to write the Biography of Queen Mary after she passed away and he spent years interviewing and speaking to friends and relatives about her.  Eventually his manuscript was put forward to be read by The Queen, it was approved and duly published.  However he had taken extensive notes and information which did not appear in the book and he said that they should not be published until fifty years after his death. 

So his notes about Queen Mary and her life were drawn together and published in this book.  From what I read I expected it to have details about her life which gave you a different view of her and some exciting bits of information which did not appear in the authorised tome!  It didn’t.  In fact every chapter is about Pope-Hennessy travelling and staying with the Royal Families of Europe and various aristocracy in Britain and being told the same thing that Queen Mary was reserved and quite formidable.  Therefore no new information than what was in the original.  The only slightly different bit of information was that she was actually in love with another man before she was betrothed to Royalty but nothing happened and that was it.

It was a great disappointment and in fact I did not finish it, which is not like me at all.  So I am sorry that this is not a good review but hopefully if this book had peaked your interest you may think twice.  If you did want to read it wait for it to appear in second-hand book shops for a fraction of the cost or for your local library to get it in i.e. don’t waste your money!!!!

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We, at home, had a fraught start to the day!  DH got up at 5.00am and how a shower and left to go to work.  Youngest got up at 6.30am to get a shower and then I was getting up when he realised we had no water!  He managed to get a stand up wash with what was left in the tank and that was it!  A water main had burst and so we had no water until 2.00pm.  At least it wasn’t Monday morning, I think it would have been worse then!!!

We have home jobs to do over the weekend including Spring  Cleaning our bedroom to get it ready for our new bed which is going to be delivered the week after Easter!  Can’t wait!!!

I hope you lovely lot have a wonderful weekend.

Hugs, Susie xx