Life must be filled up

Early in September, I ordered an item from Amazon which should have arrived the next afternoon. I had an email from Amazon saying, sorry, your package will be late. The next day, another email from them, saying your package ‘is probably lost’ and that they were starting the refund process. Note: at no time did I request a refund, the initiative was all theirs. Then the packet arrived. Being an honest type, I felt I shouldn’t have the goods and the refund but couldn’t find a way to cancel the refund, so I went on live chat.
Me: explains issue
Live chat assistant: I’m glad you’ve got the goods.
Me: But what about the refund?
Assistant: I suggest you keep the goods and the refund as a token of Amazon’s goodwill.

Surprising but I thought that was the end of the matter until yesterday, when I received a worrying email from Amazon. It said that their courier had informed them that the goods had been delivered (true) and that I should return the item (impossible because I’d used part of it). There followed a link to phone Amazon for more help. Normally, I hesitate to click on unknown links but the Amazon email was obviously genuine, so I did. Up came my mobile number with a box to ‘call now’. So I did and in just a few seconds, the phone was ringing. Mobile reception here is erratic to say the least, so I had to stand uncomfortably by the kitchen door in order to hear what the chap had to say. I explained exactly what happened and was able to quote the live chat almost word for word. The people who make these calls are obviously superior, brainy types who know what they’re doing. My new advisor said he was looking at the live chat (how they do that?) and could see that everything was exactly as I had said it was. Well, good; it’s nice to be believed. Apparently, the live chat person should not have said what he did (who’s for the chop, then?) but since he had said it, Amazon had to honour it. Mr Wonderful then sent me an email (I could hear him typing busily) which I was able to read while still on the phone. I am to ignore the previous mail and any further ones I get on the issue.

A satisfactory outcome but a lot of bother for me when the fault was entirely Amazon’s, for starting the refund process so quickly.

I sometimes mention the enterprising Dean Street Press, who kindly send me the occasional ebook for review. I got another one yesterday because they’re bringing out the next batch of crime novels by Christopher Bush. I browsed their titles on Amazon and found Murder at Fenwold, which I quite enjoyed, listed at £1,049.00! I thought it must be a mistake and checked it again today. The same price and there are two copies on eBay, even more expensive. Why? And is this another tulip mania of the book world, where people will buy and get their fingers burnt?

I don’t like humid heatwaves so what better excuse to stay cool and read? I found Helen Bryan’s War Brides on my Kindle; I think it was the free book of the month some time. (It’s still £1.00 for the Kindle until 31st July.) For some reason I was expecting this to be one of those formulaic books about women in wartime, cynically designed to appeal to a certain readership. How wrong can you be! I was totally engrossed by it and read it in a day. The story begins with several old ladies returning to the quiet English village they lived in during the war for a reunion coinciding with the fifty year commemorations of VE day.

Alice has lived in the village all her life. The daughter of the late vicar, she now teaches and looks after a querulous, hypochondriac mother. She is bitter about being jilted by her handsome naval officer neighbour. American Evangeline whom he married in such a hurry now also lives in the village, making for ill feeling. Tanni is a Jewish refugee waiting for her family to escape from Austria and join her. Elsie is a teenager evacuated from the East End to be a housemaid. Most interesting is Frances, who has been leading a wild life in London and is dispatched by her important father to live out of temptation's way in the country.

An unlikely friendship develops between the women, who support each other. We learn their back stories and what happened as the war continued. Plus, there is a traitor in their midst, a Nazi sympathizer (rather like the film Went the Day Well?). When the reunion takes place, at the end of the book, secrets are revealed, mysteries solved and a rather satisfactory revenge taken. Helen Bryan (who is American) says she wrote this book as a tribute to the women of Britain who put up with so much during the war.



I’d been saving The Villa in Italy (also published as Villa Dante) for a bad time, knowing that no book by Elizabeth Edmondson would ever let me down. Right time, right book. It’s like a twist on The Enchanted April. In this case the troubled people who assemble at the Villa Dante one April in the 1950s have not chosen their destination but have been summoned, through lawyers, by the will of a woman none of them has heard of. Each has a different problem; although they had no previous connection, they soon become a loyal little group. The beautiful villa, its once beautiful gardens and the warm sea soothe them into feeling they’re on holiday. The will, though, designed for them as a puzzle, makes them face up to things they’d rather forget. The working out of the mystery and the surprising conclusion make for an absorbing read.
( rant about Amazon )

I see that one of today's Kindle offers (again) is The President’s Hat by Antoine Laurin. As you see from my review, I found it charming.

Last Saturday, I called in at the library when I was in town and, as so often happens, came out without a book. I take my little notebook (see above) containing lists of authors I’m on the lookout for, but fail to find any of their books. I can only get books by ordering them specially or by a great piece of luck. For some perverse reason, I usually trust to luck. Perhaps I get more pleasure from a serendipitous discovery. Now I’ve found a new way to borrow books, via The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Since Amazon emails me every day with offers of items I don’t want to buy, such as plasma TVs, I don’t understand why I wasn’t alerted to this service. Here’s how it works. You return the book via Manage My Kindle. Just go to Your Kindle Library, find the borrowed book, click on ‘actions’ and ‘return this book’ is one of the options. Then you can borrow another. So what was the first book loan I tried?
(  Shrinking Violet by Karina Lickorish Quinn )

Well thank you very much Jerry postal workers.
There won’t be much point my checking to see if I’ve sold any books on eBay or Amazon during the next week. Who's going to buy a book that’ll end up logjammed in a sorting office? Never mind your grievances, chaps. If businesses switch to other couriers, you won’t have jobs at all.

edit: since posting this, I have sold two books, both to overseas buyers. I have had to write apologising for not being able to ship out their books yet. This is very embarrassing.