The Night Book – Book Review #20

The Night Book

I saw this book while I was volunteering in the charity shop. I’ve never considered reading a book by Richard Madeley but after reading some posts on the Richard and Judy book club website, I decided to give it a go.

A beautiful radio presenter/agony aunt, Meriel Kidd, is trapped in a marriage to a vile, older man.
Cameron is a control freak who just views his wife as arm candy. They’ve had their own rooms for months. To help her cope with his behaviour, Meriel started writing a kind of diary.

She called it The Night Book and in it, she wrote quite graphic ways of killing her husband.

Meriel stays with Cameron because of her career. She would be the first to tell a woman to leave her husband if he treated her the way Cameron treats Meriel. Her persona depicts a happy home life in 1976 with her millionaire husband in the Lake District.

I’ve often been told stories about the intense heat in 1976, which happens to be the year I was born. My dad took my mum walking up and down the hills in July because I was overdue!

The heatwave is causing problems with the lakes and there are a higher than the average number of people drowning.

Meriel uses this to her advantage when it comes to Cameron but I won’t say more as I don’t want to spoil it.
I will say I found myself really liking Meriel and I was happy with the ending.

I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads and I’ll be picking up his other books when they come into the charity shop 🙂