My to be read pile is a like a cruise liner of literary joy, one to steer me through the choppy waters of life. Others may say it’s a leviathan ready to consume the boat and it’s passengers. It obviously doesn’t stop me from adding to it regularly or visiting the library for a temporary rehoming of books, because a world without books is not a world I want to contemplate.

I will admit though that I occasionally forget which books are loitering on the bookcase. So I thought I’d start having a rifle through and see what jumped out at me. Sadly for you, inspiration struck and I thought a good way of highlighting them would be looking at older books, newer books and borrowed ones. So the obvious extension was to through in something blue.

So, in each post I will showcase a book that has been on my TBR for some time, a new one, be it one I’ve recently bought or a book with a future publication date, a book I have borrowed and one with a blue cover.

I went to the library between Christmas and New Year and was delighted to see it full. There were families choosing books (and checking a lot out), the knit and natter group were in full swing (with more natter than knit when I was there) and there was a small queue to check books out. It seems like the love of libraries is still strong. Those of you on Twitter agreed too when I tweeted about how vital libraries are to communities, over 3.5 thousand of you agreed. (I may frame that tweet and use it as proof to my kids that some people do actually agree with me).

Anyway, I was restrained and came away with only one book for me and one for the kids. The former features today, along with three books loitering with intent on my bookshelves.

The old book this time is The Mad Sculptor by Harold Schechter, published by Head of Zeus on 27 February 2014.

On Easter Sunday 1937, Bob Irwin – a handsome, failing sculptor with a history of depression and psychopathic episodes – commited a grisly triple murder. Creeping back to the flat of his ex-landlady in a swish New York borough, Irwin killed her, her lodger, and her stunning daughter Ronnie with an ice-pick, an apparently motiveless homicide that would shock the entire country.

Firmly in ‘you couldn’t make it up’ territory, and crafted like a Chandler novel, THE MAD SCULPTOR thrillingly relates Irwin’s crime, flight, and capture, his trial and its aftermath, whilst painting a warts-and-all portrait of 1930s America.

The new book is Nine Elms by Robert Bryndza, published by Sphere on 9 January 2020.

Kate Marshall was a promising young police detective when she caught the notorious Nine Elms serial killer. But her greatest victory suddenly became a nightmare.

Fifteen years after those catastrophic, career-ending events, a copycat killer has taken up the Nine Elms mantle, continuing the ghastly work of his idol.

Enlisting her brilliant research assistant, Tristan Harper, Kate draws on her prodigious and long-neglected skills as an investigator to catch a new monster. But there’s much more than her reputation on the line: Kate was the original killer’s intended fifth victim . . . and his successor means to finish the job.

The borrowed book this time is The Rapture by Claire McGlasson, published by Faber & Faber on 6 June 2019.

Welcome to the Panacea Society, a terribly English cult…

Dilys is a devoted member of The Panacea Society, populated almost entirely by virtuous single ladies.

When she strikes up a friendship with Grace, a new recruit, God finally seems to be smiling upon her. The friends become closer as they wait for the Lord to return to their very own Garden of Eden, and Dilys feels she has found the right path at last.

But Dilys is wary of their leader’s zealotry and suspicious of those who would seem to influence her for their own ends. As her feelings for Grace bud and bloom, the Society around her begins to crumble. Faith is supplanted by doubt as both women come to question what is true and fear what is real.

Finally the blue book is Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys, published by Doubleday on 26 June 2018.

London 1948: Eve Forrester is trapped in a loveless marriage, in a gloomy house, in a grey suburb.
Out of the blue, she receives a solicitor’s letter. A wealthy stranger has left her a mystery inheritance but in order to find out more, she must travel to the glittering French Riviera.

Eve discovers her legacy is an enchanting villa overlooking the Mediterranean sea and suddenly, life could not be more glamorous.

Alone in paradise, Eve must unlock the story behind her surprise bequest – before events turn deadly…

So there we are, four different books just waiting to be read. Have you read any of them? Do you have your own list of old, new, borrowed and blue? Do let me know.