Madrid In Winter / Ghosts of Spain

Two amazing books I´m reading in parallel. The former book by CJ Sansom (I´ll upload cover when I get back) was absolutely brilliant. Set in Spain just after the Civil War, it has everything: history, romance, gore, war, humour, spies and spivs, a page turning read in every sense of the word.
There are some books you read and think I can write better than this. Other books you think what I brilliant idea I wish I´d thought of that. And other books, like Madrid in Winter, seem to me just so skilful and amzingly complex, gripping but working on so many levels I know if I spent the rest of my life on it I couldn´t come up with anything like it! It was also really thrilling as the climax of the book is set in Cuenca which is my favourite place in Spain (part of Selfish Jean is set there too) and I just got to that bit of the book as I was staying in Cuenca again this time. It was so thrilling to be there and read it. I´m sure they´ll make a film of it there. Only thing isa it wil bring more people then and I like to keep it as my secret hide away.

Reading in tandem with it is a factual book by journalist, Giles Tremlett, who has lived in Madrid for years and it is about the Cicil War and what has happened to Spain in the post Franco years. A riveting and fascinating eye opener about modern Spain