#21. Written By A Ghostwriter – There’s a Hole in my Bucket by Royd Tolkien (Kindle)

This is another of my forgotten Amazon First Reads – this time from July 2021. I picked this book because of the Tolkien name, but I knew it wasn’t going to be anything like the Lord of the Ring books due the difficult and sensitive subject matter. I did think it would be a harrowing but interesting read and would be treated with suitable gravitas. I was wrong.

 

“Having grown up on their great-grandfather’s stories, Royd Tolkien and his brother, Mike, have always enjoyed adventures. So when Mike is diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, the brothers decide to use the time they have left to tick off as much as possible from Mike’s bucket list, from remote camping in Norway to travelling through Royd’s beloved New Zealand.

Yet, when Royd loses Mike, he discovers his brother had been writing another kind of bucket list: fifty things he wanted Royd to do after his death. His first task? Mike wants his mild-mannered brother to trip up on his way to the lectern to deliver his eulogy. What follows is a set of emotionally charged tests that will push Royd firmly out of his comfort zone.

This is the story of Royd’s journey to accomplish a challenging, humorous, and often heart-breaking list of unknown tasks that chart the brothers’ lives from childhood to adulthood. But above all, it is a story of the sibling bond, of grief—and of treasuring every moment.”

 

Due to the subject matter, I really wanted to be more positive about this book, but I found it hard to keep engaged reading, so I could only read a couple of the short chapters each evening until I eventually got to the end. The 357 pages seem to go on forever.

I cannot imagine how hard it would be to watch my adventurous brother become ill, health gradually declining, desperate to find an answer from doctors to what is wrong, only to finally be told it was Motor Neurone Disease. It doesn’t bear thinking about, and I wouldn’t wish that sort of suffering on anyone, but this book just feels like a self-indulgent bit of therapy cashing in on the Tolkien name.

It is clear from the book that Royd and Mike loved one another dearly but were very different people. Mike might have been the younger brother, but he would tease Royd mercilessly and always push that little bit further; whether it was how high he could climb a tree or how high he could throw himself out of an airplane, Mike always had to get the better of Royd who didn’t share the same bon homie as his brother, he seemed happier with his feet on the ground with a cuppa.

#15. Part Of A Duology – Deeper Than the Dead by Debra Webb (Kindle)

This was my selection from my Amazon Prime First Reads UK options for July 2024. At the time it was stated that this was the first book in a duology, and I thought the blurb sounded interesting enough for there to be a second book and that I’d read it once it was released. It now transpires that this is the first book in a new detective series, but I’m keeping it here under the #15 as I began reading it when I was under the impression there were only going to be two books!
 
“Crime analyst and newly disgraced deputy police chief Vera Boyett doesn’t visit home often, and she certainly doesn’t venture back into the cave on her family land. But when the remains of her long-missing stepmother are discovered, Vera will have to face a past that threatens all she is. She and her sister Eve had a fairy-tale childhood: good until it was tragic, with a stepmother they never found a bond with. At least they had each other, a baby half-sister, and a mutual devotion that would have them do the unthinkable. It’s a summer in small-town Tennessee, so thick with humidity it could drown you and so rife with secrets it could smother you. And deep beneath the surface, there are more bodies than you’d think….”
 
Twenty-two years ago, Vera Boyett's stepmother Sheree disappeared, it was presumed she had run away with her lover.  Human remains have now been discovered in a cave on the Boyett land in Fayetteville, and Vera's sisters need her to return home as the remains belong to Sheree. 39-year-old Vera has spent fifteen years working with the Memphis Police Department, working her way up to her current role of Deputy Chief in a specialised unit. Unfortunately for Vera, everyone on her team has been suspended, following a horrific shooting that claimed the lives of two of her officers. Vera is to be the scapegoat and the unit that she helped to create will be disbanded. With her career in tatters and the recent unearthing of human remains where she grew up, she is eager to head back to see her younger sister Eve and half-sister Luna. 

As with many novels focusing on domestic drama, families often have skeletons hidden in the closet, and Vera and Eve are no exception to this rule; although their skeleton is literally in a cave they used to play in as children. Twenty-two years ago, a family drama that they would prefer to keep hidden is about to be unearthed, but unknown to them both, there wasn't just one body hidden in the cave. Further remains are soon discovered in a deeper part of the cave system; some remains were deposited before Sheree's body was dumped there, and others were deposited after Sherree. Who else knew about the complex cave system and why was it chosen to dump the bodies in?