While the Light Lasts (Hercule Poirot Series Book 41) Agatha Christie

 

These previously unpublished short stories showcase Christie's talents across a range of styles from romance to the supernatural.

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Having the read the blurb, I expected the book to be something it wasn't, but once I had got over my preconceived ideas I really enjoyed this book.

It is a gentle book which moves slowly to tell the plot.
It is a perfect Autumn book as the main character spends a lot of her time walking in the woods!
The writing is beautiful - poetic and also witty at times. I liked the descriptions of the English countryside.
One of Warner’s better tricks is that you can’t really be sure if she’s introduced a supernatural element or not. Everything that happens subsequently can be explained without resorting to infernal pacts. Everything can be explained as a rationalization of Lolly’s rebellion.

The Schooldays of Jesus by J M Coetzee

I found this quite a strange book but I am not sure if that is because I hadn't read the first book!  Effectvioely, it is the story of two adults trying to raise a very headstrong, very 'different' little boy with the plot involving murder, madness and passion.
It is set in a dystopian Spain where everyone seems to be a immigrant from another life but they have forgotten their past including their name upon arrival in Spain. 
The story was strange with a lot of abstract philosophy about identity, passion, the reliability of memories etc.   
Actually, the book was oddly compulsively readable - involving and haunting.
I think at some point when have stopped thinking about the this one I will read the first and I think there must be at least another book in the series because the ending was so strange!

Serious Sweet by A.L. Kennedy

 
 This is a romance novel: misfit meets misfit and they fall in love; the story of two people trying to meet up in London, which turns out to be not as easy as you might think.

I liked the way the author combined the minutiae of daily life for the main characters, while seamlessly weaving in detailed back story. 

However, at times the lack of plot driven action makes the books dull.

At times, it was confusing; for example Jon's colleague, Chalice's menacing monologues were well-written but out of place as there was no preamble for his threats.  And there was also overly-pretentious fillers sporadically throughout the entire book - written as tableaux of typical London life, they come across as unbidden interruptions in an overlong story. They add to page length, and nothing else. They have no bearing on the main story, nor do they impact the characters in anyway.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

I think this has been my favourite of the Mann Booker longlist! The story is told through the eyes of a girl Marie [Li Ling] who is living in Vancouver  with her mother. Her father was a musician who had fled from China to Hong Kong before committing suicide in 1989. Marie and her mother are joined by Ai-Ming, the daughter of a musician who had been a friend of Li Ling’s father. Ai-Ming is on the run, having been a demonstrator in Tiananmen Square. Marie pieces together Ai Ming’s story and that of her ancestors. 
I liked the historical bits about China before, during and after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. It really is an ambitious novel spanning fifty years.

There are simialries between this and the book The Four Books when it was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize and there is some overlap between that and this as both have The Great Leap Forward as dominant themes.

However, the first half(ish) of the books I did find confusing with its flashbacks, numerous characters set in different times of history - I felt like I needed a list of characters at times!

Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves

This is a story set in American south of the 1920s with all its racism, violence, and hardships telling of love, family, guilt and redemption. It is a quiet, understated story about a man who loses everything, about the consequences that can follow even the most well-intentioned actions.
Roscoe’s years in prison and what they do to his relationships, especially with his wife.
It was clever with its alternating chapters in the third person narrative on what happened to get Roscoe in prison with chapters in the first person as Roscoe is in prison.
The writing felt realistic and pragmatic.
The dialogue is authentic, and the historical background well-researched.

But the plot develops slowly and as such it was an OK read, but it didn't grip me!

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

 
I had a feeling, as I read this, of the plot being familiar... so I don't know if I ad heard it before or reading something similar.
It tells the story of Eileen, an unstable twenty-four-year old woman who works at a juvenile correctional facility for boys and lives with her alcoholic father in a shambles of a house. it chronicles the events of one week in winter where she has to leave town, never to return.
The writing is taut and evocative, the setting so specifically bleak.
I quite liked the description of Eileen - she is one of the  most pitiable and despicable characters I've ever read; neurotically self-absorbed, insecure but prone to feverishly obsessive behaviour.
The ending felt odd - quite abrupt.