Thrifty Thursday - Week 3 - Charity Shop Challenge

THRIFTY THURSDAY - WEEK 3

Charity Shop Challenge

I've been feeling the book-buying urge all week. But I really do want to limit my spending. This week I decided to challenge myself to visit one of my favourite local charity shops and only spend the cold, hard, cash I had in my purse. No notes, no Google Pay, no payment cards. If I had known how little that was I would have made some adjustments, but once I have something in mind, I stick to it! 

My total was a measly £11.70, mainly in 50p pieces. I was in for a challenging day but was feeling positive. I was secretly hoping to happen upon one of the books already on my TBR but was mentally prepared to add more instead! Spoiler alert, none of the books I bought were on my TBR.

Off I ventured to my local British Heart Foundation charity shop. I listened to The Martian on the way and was feeling positive. I love charity shops, they're organised chaos which means that I find things I wasn't looking for and didn't know I needed. That can also be a negative. Some charity shops have books split into genres, but usually just alphabetically by author. Mix that with a reader who doesn't look at blurbs and bases their purchases solely on either a good-looking cover or an interesting-sounding title and you end up with some really random combinations. I did make a point to make sure I wasn't buying anything halfway through a series after learning from previous experience. 

Within ten minutes, I had picked up and bought 6 books (and had money left over!). Using spare change rather than my cards or notes helps me to limit my spending and, psychologically at least, feels like I am not spending anything at all. 

Here's what I bought, along with the blurbs, which I have now read :) (I'll also add links to the reviews once they've been read!)

The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

This is the extraordinary love story of Clare and Henry who met when Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry suffers from a rare condition where his genetic clock periodically resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. In the face of this force they can neither prevent nor control, Henry and Clare's struggle to lead normal lives is both intensely moving and entirely unforgettable. 

I've read this book before and loved it so was immediately drawn to it when I spotted it on the shelf. 

Larkswood - Valerie Mendes

Larkswood House is home to the Hamilton children - Edward, Cynthia and Harriet - who enjoy the freedom and excitement of privilege. But in the glorious summer of 1896, with absent parents and a departed governess, disaster strikes the family, leaving it cruelly divided. 

More than forty years later, on the eve of the Second World War, Louisa Hamilton is sent to Larkswood to recuperate from glandular fever. There she meets her grandfather, Edward, home after decades in India. But as Louisa begins to fall under the spell of Larkswood, she realises that it holds the key to the mystery that shattered her family two generations before. Will she find the courage to unravel the dark secrets of the past? And can Larkswood ever become home to happiness again?

The Other Mrs Walker - Mary Paulson-Ellis

Somehow she'd always known that she would end like this. In a small square room, in a small square flat. In a small square box, perhaps. Cardboard, with a sticker on the outside. And a name...

An old lady dies alone and unheeded in a cold Edinburgh flat on a snowy Christmas night. A faded emerald dress hangs in her wardrobe; a spilt glass of whisky pools on the floor. 

A few days later, a middle-aged woman arrives back in the city she thought she'd left behind, her future uncertain, her past in tatters. 

She soon finds herself a job at the Office for Lost People, tracking down the families of those who have died neglected and alone. 

But what Margaret Penny cannot yet now is just how entangled her own life will become in the death of one lonely stranger...

City of Vengeance - D.V. Bishop

Florence. Winter, 1536. A prominent Jewish moneylender is murdered in his home, a death with wide implications in a city powered by immense wealth. 

Cesare Aldo, a former soldier and now an officer of the Renaissance city's most feared criminal court, is given four days to solve a murder; catch the killer before the feast of Epiphany - or suffer the consequences. 

During his investigations, Aldo uncovers a plot to overthrow the volatile ruler of Florence, Alessandro de' Medici. If the Duke falls, it will endanger the whole city. But a rival officer of the court is determined to expose details about Aldo's private life that could lead to his ruin. Can ALdo stop the conspiracy before anyone else dies, or will his own secrets destroy him first?

The Keeper of Stories - Sally Page

Cleaner Janice knows that it is in people's stories that you really get to know them. When Janice starts cleaning for Mrs B - a shrewd and tricksy woman in her nineties - she finally meets someone who wants to hear her story. But Janice is clear: she is the keeper of stories, she doesn't have a story of her own. At least, not one she can share. 

Mrs B is no fool and knows there is more to Janice than meets the eye. After all, doesn't everyone have a story to tell?

A Fever of the Blood - Oscar De Muriel

New Year's Day, 1889. In Edinburgh's lunatic asylum, a patient escapes as a nurse lays dying. Leading the manhunt are local legend Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray and Londoner-in-exile Inspector Ian Frey. 

Before the murder, the suspect was in whispered conversation with a fellow patient - a girl who had been mute for years. 

What made her suddenly break her silence? And why won't she talk again? Could the rumours about black magic be more than superstitions?

Frey and McGray track a devious psychopath far beyond their jurisdiction, through the worst blizzard in living memory, into the shadow of Pendle Hill - home of the Lancashire witches - where unimaginable danger awaits...

What a great haul, for only £9! I can't wait to get into these. Most of these authors are as new to me as the books are. Have you read any of these? What are your thoughts?

If, by some stroke of luck, you made it to the end of this post and thought "Wow, what a great blog, I'd love to read more!" you can FOLLOW MY BLOG by clicking the link and subscribing :) I also post bookish content on Instagram. Happy Reading!