Skip to content
  • Home
  • Reading, Writing and Posting
  • Ted Bun’s Books
  • Naturist Fiction
  • Tell me what you thought
  • Legal Matters

The Ted Bun Book Shop

Reading is for fun

  • Home
    • Meet Ted Bun
  • Reading, Writing and Posting
  • Ted Bun’s Books
    • The Rags to Riches Series
      • The Uncovered Policeman
        • Excerpt from The Uncovered Policeman 
      • The Uncovered Policeman Abroad – the 2nd Rags to Riches Story.
      • The Uncovered Policeman: In and Out of the Blues
      • The Uncovered Policeman: Goodbye Blues
      • Two Weddings and a Naming
      • The Uncovered Policeman: Caribbean Blues
      • The Uncovered Policeman: Family Album
      • A Spring Break at L’Abeille Nue
      • The Uncovered Policeman: Made for TV
      • The Uncovered Policeman: THE LONG ROAD
      • LIVE, LOVE and LAUGH
      • A new home in the sun
      • While Bees Sleep
    • Crooke and Loch
      • The Summer of ’71
      • Runners and Riders
      • Summer of 76
      • A Line of Death
    • NEW HOUSE
      • New House … New Neighbours
      • New House … New Address
      • New House … New Traditions
    • NBL Solutions
      • Problems and passions
      • Problems of Succession
      • Problems in the Pyrenees
      • Problems With Planning
    • TAKING THE PLUNGE
    • Music, the Food of Love
      • When the Music Stops: DC al Fin
      • Then Play On
      • 24 Bar Rest
    • Stand-Alone books
      • Ruth … And Jack
      • After The Event
      • The Last Day of June
      • One Storm Too Many
      • The Grind; A Tabloid Tale
      • The Return of the Less Famous Five
      • The Girl with a Ginger Cat
      • The Day Before Last
      • Boy on a Baker’s Bike
      • Paul Mount is Special Squirrel
      • The Meadow Whispers
      • A Breaking Wave
    • Short Stories
      • Blindman, Buff
      • D-Day for Ruth
      • Flat Bares
      • Melissa; More or Less
      • Grandma’s Photo
      • New Laws
      • The Dancer
      • A Job in the City
      • Going South – Forever
      • The Cutter’s Tale
      • The Naked Warriors
      • The Girls trip to the Beach
      • Forty Shades of Green
      • BareAid
  • Naturist Fiction
  • Tell me what you thought
  • Legal Matters
  • Toggle search form

April 2019 Reads.

Posted on 08/05/2019 By Ted Bun

An eclectic bunch of books caught my eye this April. Here we go

Refusal

Felix Francis

Refusal (Dick Francis Book 3) by [Francis, Felix]

In the past, I have read most of the genuine Dick Francis books. The Sid Halley stories being in among the best of them. I was tempted into this one by while doing some research for a story.
Sadly, Felix is not his father. The book moves forward in leaps and pauses. The character of Sid has changed, much more than marriage and fatherhood alone should have done.
The secondary characters get very little development, even Chico becomes a cypher of his former self.
If you are new to the Francis canon, it is a perfectly acceptable ripping yarn, but …. 3 Stars

Forever War

Joe Haldeman

The Forever War: Forever War Book 1 (Forever War Series) by [Haldeman, Joe]

I read this as an almost new book while serving in the RAF and enjoyed it. Many years later I read Starship Troopers the story it was supposed to be antidote too.
Re-reading on the Kindle it was just as engaging as i remembered. The story follows Private Mandella as he manages to reach the heights of command simply by being just one of just two people to survive 2000 years of war, the other is his lover of choice. Haldeman manages to avoid the cliches of war fiction, by leaving most of it out. Probably as a result of being a Vietnam veteran. The end is a clever twist too.
A Good read.  4 Star

The Burning Issue of the Day

TE Kinsey

The Burning Issue of the Day (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery Book 5) by [Kinsey, T E]

The return of Lady Hardcastle delighted me.
It meant one of my favourite characters was back to, the diminutive, violent and supreme deflator of the pompous, Lady H’s maid, Flo.
The story appears to have been carefully researched and is a well written cosy mystery. If murder, arson and explosions are cosy.
Tucked into the mix are some wonderful observations on the class structure from the pocket lady’s maid. Plus there is a little bit of the history of the suffragette movement to round out the mix.
Well worth reading the whole series.

The return to form continues 5 Star fun

You Then, Me Now

Nick Alexander

You Then, Me Now by [Alexander, Nick]

A cleverly constructed tale of two visits to the Island of Santorini. (The Greek island where they take the classic white house, blue sea tourist pictures.)
For Becky, the two trips are a lifetime apart. For Laura, it is a painful return to try and find closure for the loss of the love of her life on the island.
Nick Alexander cleverly keeps the two stories separate and yet allows the reader to see how interwoven they are. Without revealing too much of the plot, let’s say there is a twist in the tail that I didn’t see coming until very close to the reveal.
Mr Alexander manages to weave an abusive, controlling, alcohol addicted character through the story. The hardship of life for the Greek people in the post-bail-out economy features too. This is not all the fluffy Shirley Valentine paradise.
An Excellent Read, worth every one of  5 Stars

A Dead End (A Saints & Strangers Cozy Mystery Book 1)

Keeley Bates, Annabel Chase

A Dead End (A Saints & Strangers Cozy Mystery Book 1) by [Bates, Keeley, Chase, Annabel]

As the blurb says “Kit Wilder is all washed up at the ripe old age of twenty-three. Blackballed by the producers of her hit TV show, she returns home to the affluent town of Westdale, chock full of Mayflower descendants, to enroll in college and lead a quiet life…until she discovers a skeleton in her house.” An absurd plot, ex-TV Cop helps solve murder. PS Mother is stinking rich, the must know person in town. The whole concept stinks.
On the other hand it is written with a deftness of touch that allows the authors to get away with a romantic lead … called Romeo.
Fun, a lot of good clean fun.  4 Stars

Going Home: The Barely Normal Life

Chef Martin

It’s not a novel, it is not even a good TV script (which is what it looks like)
No review, I didn’t read it beyond a few pages.

Dry Hard

Nick Spalding

Dry Hard

Funny, appalling, appealing and very contemporary … Classic Nick Spalding.
Kate and Scott have a wonderful fun-filled marriage. The partying hard and enjoying the odd drink, they drink a lot to find the odd one they enjoy. Sadly for them, it is destroying their lives, their marriage and their daughter’s life. Until their daughter posts a video of Christmas at home on the web …
The infamy is enough to get the couple onto the wagon … Can they stay there, can survive a year? What do the thousands of follows of various online gurus think ..
A funny moving story with a moral.
It hurt, I’ve cut back on the booze.  5 Stars

Books read Tags:books, Lady Hardcastle, LovetoRead, reading, review

Post navigation

Previous Post: I can be flash
Next Post: Books I read in May

Reviews & News

  • Taking The Plunge
  • The Naturist Fiction Collaborative New Project
  • Added Value
  • NaturistFiction. Org
  • Must We Grow Up?

Ted Bun on Amazon

Archives

  • February 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • August 2024
  • May 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • May 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • September 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • October 2021
  • July 2021
  • May 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • January 2017
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016

Categories

  • Books read
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Short Fiction
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2025 The Ted Bun Book Shop.

Powered by PressBook WordPress theme