May meeting - Undercurrent by JA Baker

May's meeting of the Low Fell Book Group was held in the cosy little room we like at The Aletaster. Undercurrent by JA Baker had been put forward as one of the suggestions by Joan and was chosen in part due to its local setting in County Durham. It was a departure from our usual genres and was generally well-received by most of the group.

Some members were somewhat perturbed by the number of mistakes that had managed to get through the editing process, but this only really put Emma off. Anne Marie thought the author was in need of a thesaurus due to the number of times she used the word detritus, but despite this, it was an easy read and one most people enjoyed.

Having not read many thrillers before, I was keen to know if it was fairly typical of the genre and was informed that it was pretty representative. Phoebe's first person narrative really drew many people in. Despite not being able to make the meeting, Jeanette provided us with her opinions via Facebook. She spent her holiday in the Yorkshire Dales looking for bodies in rivers, which means it was certainly on her mind!

Jeanette and others found some issues with aspects of the plot, but a little bit of artistic license was granted, as these elements were required to allow events to move on. Not having too many characters made it easy enough for us all to follow and Joan particularly enjoyed how pacy it was.

Undercurrent was given a total of four stars.

Next month's meeting will discuss The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry and will be held at Joan's house.

April meeting - The Versions of Us

For the April meeting, we met in the book-lined surroundings of the library at The Vic for a chat about The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett. Described as a combination of One Day and Sliding Doors, the novel centres around the relationship between Eva and Jim and the possible different ways their lives could have taken shape depending on their actions.

Opinions were mixed, with Anne Marie stating that she wouldn't recommend it to anyone and Pauline and Linda saying they enjoyed it. Joan went so far to say that the author had a fairly boring story and it was only the structure of splitting it into three alternative tales that gave it interest.

One of the key areas of debate for our group was whether or not more should have been the same in each version of the tale. Joanne C suggested that it might have been better if Eva had done wildly different things, such as travelling the world. As it stood, the type of life Eva had was fairly similar in each incarnation. Specific characters and events were also consistent throughout, providing markers in the text to tie scenarios to.

Another topic of discussion was how confusing it was to follow. Several of us had intended to make notes of the defining features of each story to help us through, but nobody actually got round to it. This meant a few paragraphs of readjustment at the beginning of each chapter, which was not too much of a problem in the end. Joanne B read seven pages and was so confused she decided to give it a miss for this month!

As a group, we awarded The Versions of Us three stars.

The next meeting will take place at The Aletaster on May 4th to discuss Undercurrent by J A Baker.