I have been keeping a spreadsheet of all the books I read for several years. There is a column for the download, one for when I’ve read it, when I’ve written a review and finally posted on Amazon and Goodreads.
The books in my next few blogs are those I have highlighted as great reads, stories I will remember, and they have to be special as I’ve exceeded my Goodreads challenge of 80 books this year and that’s not counting those I’ve read and privately reviewed for Readers Favorite.
THE DARK MONK Oliver Potzsch
I love this series, set in the middle Ages in Bohemia (yes I had to check that out on the map). This writer takes you back into the past and makes it all come to life.
Following a trail of riddles, hangman Jakob Kuisl, his headstrong daughter, Magdalena, and the town physician’s son team up with the priest’s aristocratic sister to investigate. What they uncover will lead them back to the Crusades, unlocking a troubled history of internal church politics and sending them on a chase for a treasure of the Knights Templar. a seventeenth-century Bavaria and quickening our pulses with a gripping, mesmerizing mystery.
The only problem I have with this series is the rather dull covers. I would not have chosen to read these books if I hadn’t downloaded the first one on sale. I am so glad I did. This is the third book in the Hangman’s Daughter series. I recommend them all.
1662: Jakob Kuisl, the hangman of Schongau, receives a letter from his sister calling him to the imperial city of Regensburg, where a gruesome sight awaits him: Her throat has been slit. When the city constable discovers Kuisl alongside the corpse, he locks him in a dungeon, where Kuisl will experience first hand the torture he has administered himself for years.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008O5O7XO
SISTERS OF ARDEN Judith Arnopp
My favourite genres are historical novel, most especially set in England during the time of the Tudors and this one is a little different detailing the consequences of the closure and plundering of the religious houses under Henry VIII. Again Arnopp is a writer who transports you back in time as you join the pilgrimage and suffer the same trials on the march.
Arden Priory has remained unchanged for almost four hundred years when a nameless child is abandoned at the gatehouse door.
As Henry VIII’s second queen dies on the scaffold, the embittered King strikes out, and unprecedented change sweeps across the country.
The bells of the great abbeys fall silent, the church and the very foundation of the realm begins to crack.
Determined to preserve their way of life, novitiate nuns Margery and Grace join a pilgrimage thirty thousand strong to lead the king back to grace.
Check out the next three books in my next blog.
lucinda E Clarke 
I always enjoy your annual roundups, Lucinda. I must read these two. They both sound up my street 🙂
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Thanks, Val, it was a valiant effort through the brain fog, but there should have been 3 books on there so I wonder where number 3 went?
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Yes, you wrote about three, but there are only covers for two of them. Those are the two I meant. Not sure I’d want to read about torture 🫣
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Ah but it makes you realise how easy we have it today!
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In Europe, you’re right. I fear torture still goes on elsewhere. Awful to think of, isn’t it?
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I read the first of the Hangman’s Daughter books some years ago; didn’t realize it’s a series.
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I think there are about 5 of them Audrey. I have a couple still waiting to be read. So well written and translated too
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