Blood Summit by Leigh Turner

Thrillers for reading groups and book clubs

Picture of Leigh Turner
Leigh Turner

Looking for thrillers for reading groups and book clubs?  Do yo need some questions to encourage a lively discussion?  “Blood Summit” is a thriller with broad appeal and a feisty female heroine.

A great thriller for reading groups

If you’re looking for thrillers for reading groups and book clubs, Blood Summit is worth a look.  This intelligent thriller appeals to a wide range of audiences (see reviews on Amazon) and contains plenty of controversy and discussion material.  Here are some questions you can use.

Blood Summit cover

Blood Summit: questions for book clubs

Sexism and equality

  • One publisher rejected “Blood Summit” because they said Helen, a female action hero, was insufficiently feminine or “too much like a man”.  Do you agree?  Is Helen lacking in feminine qualities?  Would it matter if she did?
  • How would the plot develop differently if Helen was a man?  Which elements of the story, if any, would be less compelling or make less sense? 
  • How would you feel about living with Helen?  Or with Nigel?   If you had to be stranded on a desert island with one or the other, which would you choose?
  • Nigel and Helen are competitive with each other.  He is a top journalist.  She aspires to be a top diplomat.  Are they too competitive?  Is competition in a relationship positive, or negative?  Helen is repulsed by the fact that Nigel is too controlling, and does not listen.  Are these typical male behaviours, or exceptions?
  • When Helen attempts to put forward her ideas on resolving the crisis in the Reichstag at crisis meetings, the predominantly male attendees pay her ideas little attention.  Is this because of her ideas; the way she presents them; or because she is a woman?
  • Reading groups are sometimes said to be dominated by women.  Is “thrillers for reading groups” a contradiction in terms?  Could Blood Summit appeal more to women because it has a female lead?

Relationships

  • Helen appears cool towards Nigel.  Does her lack of warmth, or of any wish to “nurture” him, make her less attractive, or feminine, than a more caring woman?
  • Nigel phones Helen before the Children’s Summit starts, in the hope that she will give him confidential information he can use in a story.  Is it reasonable for him to ask her in this way?  Should she give her husband such information, if doing so will not threaten lives, in the public interest?
  • Helen is furious that her husband refuses to leave London and come with her to Berlin.  How would life with Nigel fit in with her lifestyle in Germany?  Are they sufficiently compatible to live together?
  • When Helen is sued by the families of people injured in the bomb outside the embassy, the newspaper her husband Nigel writes for publishes an editorial fiercely critical of her: “Blood on her hands”.  Do you think Nigel wrote the article?  If not, did he seek to influence its content?  If so, in what way?
  • What does Helen get from her relationship with the deputy head of the Summit Security Unit, Dieter Kremp?  Is she solely interested in him for sex?  Or would she be open to a deeper relationship?  What is Dieter looking for from the relationship?  Are women generally interested in relationships which are primarily sexual, or is this uncommon?

Women, mothers and jobs

  • Many women are conflicted, like Helen, over whether to have children or whether to have a career.  Is this conflict inevitable?  How far has this position changed in recent decades, if at all?  Would Helen make a good mother?
  • The senior diplomats in the British Embassy in Berlin, as depicted in the novel, are men, including the Ambassador, Sir Leonard Lennox, and Jason Short, the Deputy Head of Mission.  Does this reflect real life, in your experience?  Would Helen be suitable to be an ambassador?  Is this likely to happen, based on her character in the story?

A blind journalist and a female SAS officer

  • Karen Daniels is a blind journalist who has won prizes for her reporting.  She relies on a guide dog to move around Berlin.  Is the idea of a blind journalist realistic?  How might a blind journalist need to work differently from one who could see?  Would she – or he – have advantages as well as disadvantages?
  • Captain Elle Morgan is an SAS officer.  Should women have equal rights to fight in front-line military units?  Does Elle behave differently towards Helen because both are women?  Would Elle face the same challenges in being a soldier which Helen faces as a diplomat?
  • The Georgian businessman, Sukanasvhili, is helpful to Helen on several occasions.  Why does he help her?  What benefits does he receive from their relationship?
  • Uli Wenger is a cold-blooded killer.  What has made him like this?  Was it his difficult, institutionalised upbringing?  Or was he born evil?

Getting hold of “Blood Summit”

You can get hold of a copy of Blood Summit thus:

(i) go to Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de or Amazon.com (or your local Amazon if you live somewhere else).  You can order a paperback or download a copy for your Kindle or e-book;

(ii) if you live in Vienna, stroll along to Shakespeare & Company at Sterngasse 2.   It’s a terrific bookshop and stocks many other books in addition to Blood Summit;

(iii) come to one of my readings.

Blood Summit reading

A recent reading at Cafe Korb in Vienna

I usually have books at my readings (see piano in the picture above) which I will be delighted to sign for you.  At the readings, I usually read a couple of chapters and then answer questions; up to now, people have seemed to enjoy them.  If you buy a paperback elsewhere and bring it along, I’ll be happy to sign it, too.

(iv) if you want to read the book for free you can take a 30-day trial membership of “Kindle Unlimited” which permits you to read any book available on Kindle, including Blood Summit, for free.  Or you may already be a member of Kindle Unlimited.  I’ve actually been surprised how many readers access the book this way.

P.S. I hope you’ve enjoyed this post on thrillers for reading groups.  If you enjoy fresh, original writing, you can follow me on Facebook.or sign up for my newsletter (you can unsubscribe anytime you wish).

P.P.S. Want something else to read?  See this page with all my books.

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