I do enjoy Caroline Overington's books which cover a wide range of subjects and somewhat objectional characters. . In Matilda is Missing the focus is vI do enjoy Caroline Overington's books which cover a wide range of subjects and somewhat objectional characters. . In Matilda is Missing the focus is very much on what happens to children when their parents can't agree following a break-up. Be warned Matilda is Missing gives us an illustration of one of the worst kinds somewhat balanced by a less acrimonious but still heart-breaking split.
Not an easy listen and the ending may be a little too up in the air for some....more
What us readers really crave is a story populated with 'real' people and a cracking good plot. Jane Cory delivers on both points
Emily, a midwife has hWhat us readers really crave is a story populated with 'real' people and a cracking good plot. Jane Cory delivers on both points
Emily, a midwife has her mind on her date, and her elderly father, when disaster strikes. While in shock she retreats to her childhood home only to find an interloper. Her father has engaged a French carer who seems to be ruling the roost.
This story has many sub-plots, all fascinating and engaging and peopled by a wide-range of intriguing characters.
This was a book that I couldn't wait to return to,....more
This tale made for gentle and easy listening to whilst walking but despite that it did make me wonder how I would have reacted placed in Prim's, SarahThis tale made for gentle and easy listening to whilst walking but despite that it did make me wonder how I would have reacted placed in Prim's, Sarah's or Victoria's shoes.
Imagine the shock when at age 18 Victoria finds out the mother she thought had died when she was a baby was actually alive and well, worse still, her beloved Grandmother Prim had been part of the deception that had coloured the teens whole life.
Like other readers it can be difficult to fully engage when a book is written from the perspective of a teenager because those days the horror of teenaged angst can feel a long way behind me. That aspect aside, this was an enjoyable listen....more
I have been a huge fan of Dorothy Koomson for many years and enjoyed reading The Ice Cream Girls many years ago.
This is a sharper more controlled novI have been a huge fan of Dorothy Koomson for many years and enjoyed reading The Ice Cream Girls many years ago.
This is a sharper more controlled novel full of devastating details that will resonate with many, even if the overarching storyline is outside many reader's experiences.
This is the story of Logan and Verity following on from the original story of Poppy and Serena. Or is it? The skill Dorothy Koomson has in creating credible characters which defy stereotyping but allow you to peek behind their curtains to try to find the truth. The plotting is exquisite and the rhythm of this book is sublime - I sincerely did not want to put it down at all.
But, don't be fooled, this is serious stuff as well as a peek at a family or two. Poppy has been out of prison for ten years when her younger brother gets to know her co-accused, the teenager who wasn't imprisoned for killing the abusive teacher! Yes, you definitely need to hang onto your seatbelt for a rocky ride through the emotional stable here.
One of the best, and most honest, books that I've read that feature domestic abuse in a long while. This isn't a book that is depending on the twists but one that takes a real look at the issues. I for one would be delighted if the author changed her mind and wrote a third book!...more
One of the things that I love best about Dorothy Koomson's books is the way her characters are so full of life that I am instantly within their story,One of the things that I love best about Dorothy Koomson's books is the way her characters are so full of life that I am instantly within their story, and therefore the emotional aspects of the book hit hard.
Within Tell Me Your Secret we have two fabulous characters, Pieta, a mother and journalist with a massive secret in her past, and Jody a Detective Inspector looking for a killer. The killer is named the blindfolder because of his trademark need for the women he kidnaps to keep their eyes closed. It is all tense stuff but perhaps a tad over the touch for my tastes. I felt that the introduction of a couple of the strands of the plotting didn't sit quite right with me and so although I read to the end, I didn't feel as invested in this book as I have in many of the author's others.
The author has once again taken us to Brighton as a setting and the weaving of this arty community against the grim storyline provides a great contrast....more
Another absolutely thrilling read from the fab duo that make up Nicci French. As much as I enjoyed the Frieda Klien series it was lovely to be immerseAnother absolutely thrilling read from the fab duo that make up Nicci French. As much as I enjoyed the Frieda Klien series it was lovely to be immersed in this standalone psycholgoical thriller of the original kind. A mystery that is bound up in events of the past and the personalities involved.
Tabitha is in prison, she's there because a murdered man was found in her outhouse. There are few suspects the man being killed on the one day when the village was blocked off from the surrounding area due to a fallen tree. Tabitha doesn't remember much of the day itself but then the evidence that it must have been her comes rolling in.
I love a courtroom drama, if you do too, then you will love this book as Tabitha is battling for her freedom, can she get it?
Outstanding casting lends brilliant colour to the intriguing, and clever plot. One of my favourite reads of 2020....more
I read Me Before You way back in 2013 and loved it. You are right, this isn’t crime fiction and nor is it particularly gritty but even though Jojo MoyI read Me Before You way back in 2013 and loved it. You are right, this isn’t crime fiction and nor is it particularly gritty but even though Jojo Moyes was telling the story about a young woman who falls in love with her boss, a quadriplegic, I found it an irresistible read.
In 2015 Jojo Moyes bought out a sequel, called After You and I considered whether to read it and decided it would ruin the original for me (something that I always dread with sequels) and so I ignored it. And then… in 2018 a further episode to Louisa Clarke’s life was published called Still Me. At this point, a colleague read the entire trilogy after hearing about Me Before You and asked my advice on if it was worth a read. I said yes and then she raved about the other two books, and I cracked and decided to listen to After You as an audio book. My previous rambles on audio books will confirm that light-hearted contemporary fiction is my preferred listening fare.
So how was it? In short I loved it. The narrator Anna Acton is perfect for telling the next episode in Louisa’s story as she learns to live with the emotional fall-out from Me Before You. The narrator manages to get the humour to come across in her voice without it ever feeling forced and the sadder parts are also almost underplayed allowing the author’s words to work the magic and complementing them rather than overegging the pudding so to speak. Louisa isn’t the same young woman she was. She’s more thoughtful and suffering but she also has something special to offer. What I love is although she’s undoubtable a ‘good person’ she isn’t so good it’s sickly. Jojo Moyes created a ‘real’ woman character and then has developed her, realistically to deal with the next chapter in her life.
What makes Jojo Moyes such a wonderful author – I am now a confirmed fan – is that she manages to take her readers (or listeners) through the entire gamut of emotions and I travelled unashamedly through Louisa’s despair, her hope for others and then bit by bit herself, her sympathy, her embarrassment and her joy. They are all held up for examination and our inspection. I may be considerably older than Louisa but in many ways the story she tells is a timeless and relevant to us all. Yes, there is romance and love and all those nice things which are all made entirely palatable with a rich seam of humour to take the edge off the sweetness. I have walked and listened to Louisa laughed at her observations, winced at the embarrassment of wearing an awful Irish costume as part of her job in the airport bar, loved it when she got one over on the pompous boss and wept alongside her when life unfairly conspires against her.
I loved meeting Louisa again as well as catching up with the Traynor’s and some new characters too, all as rich and as powerful as the original book, perhaps more so because on the surface the ingredients appear to be less obvious. In fact I loved it so much that I hadn’t finished this one before I bagged the audible version of the next book in the series, I wasn’t going to miss out any longer....more
I chose to read A Place to Lie by Rebecca Griffiths as it is set in The Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire where I spent my formative years. What I didI chose to read A Place to Lie by Rebecca Griffiths as it is set in The Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire where I spent my formative years. What I didn’t expect was quite such an eerie and dark tale that was frankly unsettling.
The story is set in two time periods, the past which is 1990 and the present day. In the present Jo is coming to terms with the death of her estranged sister, Caroline. It isn’t quite clear why the two were estranged but the loss Jo feels is combined with a measure of regret that the two who shared a close childhood no longer were part of each other’s lives.
In 1990 the two sisters are sent to stay with their Great Aunt Dora in Witchwood, a village in the Forest of Dean. I’m going to come right out and say it – the depiction of this area didn’t match the area as I know it with the style of houses being far more at home in the Cotswolds which although in Gloucestershire is a place of an entirely different nature altogether.! To be blunt a far more gentrified nature. Even the description of the forest itself didn’t quite reflect the sense of darkness from the many evergreen trees above and the thick bracken below. Rather this was a fairy-tale description of a forest with trees to climb and play happily beneath with the sun filtering through the leaves. The author has blended the names of the towns and villages in the area to come up with ‘fictional’ settings but again because my mind was trying to match with reality this is an example where a specific disconnect in a book can interrupt reading enjoyment for me. Of course I know full well would not bother those who don’t know the area intimately at all but perhaps explains to the readers of this review as to why I was unable to fully embrace this story.
The characters are all suitably grim as fits the fairy-tale setting Rebecca Griffiths has conjured up. The aunt, the neighbours and the shopkeeper are a toned down variety of the worst kinds of adults and the two girls, and the one other child they mix with in the area, are both simultaneously left to their own devices and watched over. The adults themselves have their own version of a witch hunt going on and the girls are for the most part an inconvenience.
In the present Jo returns to the cottage in the woods in Witchwood to search for clues to the mystery in the past and the clues to what happened to her sister. In a way this present section mirrors the trials of the past with Jo unsure who she can trust to really tell her the truth. Reading both sections alongside each other the consequences of the past are bought into relief but in doing so some of the mist slowly clears allowing us, the reader, and eventually Jo to see the truth.
There really was a lot to enjoy in this book with the mysteries, the darkness and the echoes of the scary stories that linger at the edge of our consciousness long after we have left childhood behind. Sadly the disconnect I personally felt meant it fell a little short of expectations for me....more
When she was a child her father bought her a beautiful red address book and Doris faithfully kept a note of the addresses of those who crossed her patWhen she was a child her father bought her a beautiful red address book and Doris faithfully kept a note of the addresses of those who crossed her path throughout her life. At the grand old age of ninety-six it is sad but perhaps not wholly unsurprising that many of the names in the book are crossed out with the word ‘dead’ written against them.
The Red Address Book tells the story of one woman’s rich life honing in on some of the names and addresses held within the address book.
Doris lives in Stockholm and her only living family is Jenny, her Grand-Niece and her family, who live in America. Doris is not doing so well and has devoted some of her waking hours to penning the story of her life to Jenny, to keep those names in the address book alive.
I loved this book, the tone spot on for an elderly woman who has lived, loved and made good choices, and bad, and learn to live with them. Doris has lived. After the death of her father she was more or less pushed out of the home by her mother to go and earn some money as a maid. Did Doris dwell on this rejection for the rest of her life? Did she hell! She recognised the hurt it caused at the time, and moved on treating it as a passing incident in her life, her springboard to becoming a living mannequin in Paris, rather than a hurt to be nursed for her remaining eighty odd years. During the course of the book we see Doris face a multitude of situations as she criss-crosses between countries, lives through a war, heartbreak and more and each one is faced square on, no matter what.
In conjunction with these adventures, Doris is portrayed as a ‘real’ woman, she is unwilling to do exactly what she is told by her caregivers and hospital staff, if it doesn’t make sense to her. After all this is a woman who has mastered skype to keep in touch with her family, she does not need to be told when to go to sleep as if she was a child! But at the same time she is accepting that her end is coming near and so is portrayed as a mixture of toughness and vulnerability or in other words like a real woman who has lived a full life.
I did have a lump in my throat towards the closure of this book although I’m pleased to report that it didn’t have the feeling of overtly playing with the emotions and nor did we have the stereotypical cantankerous elderly woman instead we have a thoughtful piece that will invariably cause its reader to recall many of the paths that have crossed their own, briefly or otherwise, and for whom few will be recorded in our lives particularly with the demise of written records....more
For those of you who have read previous books by this author you will be prepared for a tale of deceit heaped upon deceit served up in a number of difFor those of you who have read previous books by this author you will be prepared for a tale of deceit heaped upon deceit served up in a number of different dishes but all with a lightness that by the time the book comes to a close you are left with a feeling that you’ve been entertained rather than put through the wringer.
Holly is promoted and assumes that her workplace best friend Roz will be keen to celebrate her success, and she is, isn’t she? But someone in the office is out to make mischief and it isn’t long before Holly is wondering whether she will manage to hang onto her job. The thing about Jane Fallon’s writing is that you will laugh, you will gasp and you may well cry at the scenes portrayed and the conversations had but because they are sufficiently grounded in true life. Those short-hand conversations that many authors seem to struggle with are captured with a wicked sense of humour as Jane Fallon makes an acute life observation, there were times when I was sure she has taken a peek into those unspoken thoughts I have whenever the occasion calls for people watching.
The story is a cracker full of twists and turns to keep those pages turning and fortunately Holly has friends outside work, Dee who works for the NHS and has a whole host of medical related stories to entertain us whenever it all gets a bit serious. Dee also as a sounding board, often a wise one but with a wild side all in the name of searching for the truth but when they are proposed I’m sure I won’t be the only reader to sit back thinking ‘oh dear, time to hang onto your hats folks!’
So if you need cheering up with a bit of a feel-good story with a hefty dose of the realities of working life then you really can’t go too far wrong with Tell Me A Secret....more
Having come late to the party with Jane Harper’s debut novel The Dry, I was determined not to be left behind by her latest novel, The Lost Man, a stanHaving come late to the party with Jane Harper’s debut novel The Dry, I was determined not to be left behind by her latest novel, The Lost Man, a standalone read set in the outback of Australia.
The Lost Man had me swept along into an entirely different place, a different lifestyle and that daunting and dangerous landscape. This a book that will evoke a whole range of feelings in its readers and because of that it is not for the faint-hearted.
We start with a description of a headstone, the marker for a legend that has been mutated during the years since it was placed there to mark the place where The Stockman died and on the day in question there is another body close to the headstone, another casualty to a lifestyle which is beyond ordinary comprehension. Cameron Bright was the middle sibling of three brothers and his elder brother Nathan, and the younger, Bub, gather at the site where he perished through lack of shelter from the overbearing sun, or was the story of his death quite that simple?
Jane Harper is a master at showing (and definitely not telling) and she takes us on a tour, into the house where Cameron ran his to the family he has left behind, two small girls whose daddy went out shortly before Christmas to fix something on his land and never returned. Cameron was man who knew the land, it was where he was born after all and now his wife Ilse is left to cope without him. Fortunately Uncle Harry is around as is the boy’s mother although as is only to be expected the house almost hums with confusion and grief.
What Jane Harper does that is even more explosive though is to start peeling back the layers of this family. Nathan pretty much takes centre stage as we journey with him back in time and slowly, oh so slowly but perfectly so, we learn the truth about an event many years ago that is still making its mark today.
I really couldn’t tell you what I enjoyed most about this book – was it the brilliant descriptions of a place? It really is testament to the author’s prowess that she managed to conjure up the heat and power of an open landscape of the outback in Queensland, when her reader was sat with the wind and rain howling across a small island on the other side of the world. I haven’t ever been to Australia and if I did the outback would probably not be my chosen destination, and yet for the duration of this book, I was very much there in the house with Isle and her girls Sophie and Lo. I watched Cameron’s mother Liz weep in the deepest of darkness when the generator was switched off by Harry at night-time. Perhaps the legend of the Stockman had something to do with the appeal, or equally the unravelling of a mystery that is dark, don’t for one moment imagine that the grim scenes at the beginning of the book mean you’ve passed the worst, there are shocks still to be revealed.
In conclusion I loved this book because it covers a great deal of ground, there are deeply upsetting moments but perhaps in keeping with the characters that inhabit the real-life place, there is something very measured about the delivery. No over-hyped action scenes here, just the truth which is sometimes a whole lot worse....more
A secluded retreat for stressed-out people complete with the promise to change your life in just ten days, pricy and exclusive and just what the doctoA secluded retreat for stressed-out people complete with the promise to change your life in just ten days, pricy and exclusive and just what the doctor ordered for our willing candidates?
I am a fan of Liane Moriarty, she is one of those authors that has a real eye for shining a light on everyday situations and letting her readers see how absurd they are. In Big Little Lies she took the school gates as her starting point, this time we move to the more exclusive setting of a retreat at health-and-wellness resort Tranquillum House which promises total transformation for those who sign up. This story is completely bonkers but very entertaining.
Tranquillum House is run by Masha, a women we met in the prologue having a heart-attack in her corporate office. Masha is a Russian who moved to Australia as a young woman and following her near-death experience she has become evangelical about saving others from themselves. All the bad things are banned, including any electronics and replaced with healthy smoothies, massages, mindful walking and light fasting.
The first guest we meet is romance author Frances who is not only menopausal but has just had her latest book rejected, readers are falling out of love with romance and she’s obsessing about a bad review. She herself had a thriller in her bag, one which over the days at Tranquillum House she finds less than thrilling… it seems that Liane Moriarty knows her audience!
She is joined by rich young things Ben and Jessica, who come complete with a Lamborghini for him and various surgical enhancements for him. They have signed up for couple counselling in a bid to save their marriage. There is a family of three, parents Napoleon and Heather along with their twenty-one year old daughter Zoe who are all cloaked in sadness, the cause of which is revealed later in the book. An aging football star Tony, a health junkie Ben and a divorce lawyer Lars complete the guest list. They are all in, and then Masha reveals the start of her innovative treatment plan.
Believe me the thought of being on a retreat doesn’t really appeal to this reader under what I imagine are normal circumstances but this one takes an ominous tone right from the start when the guests are given their orders so perhaps a healthy wariness and lack of funds is a good thing!
This is really a character study, not only of the guests, but of the owner and her chief of staff, former paramedic, Yao. With the guests under the spotlight and in the prime location to reveal their hopes and fears there is so much room for the author’s trademark wry humour, the poking of fun of those earnest health-junkies is tempered by some life-stories that can’t help but tug at the heart-strings! This book should be approached with the aim of enjoying the ride. I said earlier, it’s bonkers, it is but a well-written bonkers book that yet had one foot in reality reflecting society as well as the differences between the generations and one that had me chuckling in delight at regular intervals. If you can’t afford a retreat to make changes in your life Nine Perfect Strangers will go some way to giving you the best medicine, laughter....more
Lisa Jewell just goes from strength to strength as she serves up different scenarios with a whole cast of different characters in this her sixteenth nLisa Jewell just goes from strength to strength as she serves up different scenarios with a whole cast of different characters in this her sixteenth novel and I for one was hooked from page one, where there is out and out darkness in the form of a body on a kitchen floor. The police are in attendance and an investigation is opened.
First of all the author paints us a picture of perfection, a group of colourful houses perched on a hill, the type of house that Joey (Josephine) has always wanted to live in but that seemed unlikely after four years working in Ibiza, and now she’s home with her new husband Alfie in tow. Fortunately her older brother Jack and his pregnant wife Rebecca live in the cobalt coloured house in Melville Heights and her and Alfie had moved in while they sorted out where there life was going next.
Lisa Jewell’s latter books have all had some level of darkness about them but this one hurtles headlong into the undeniable thriller territory. After listening to Joey describing her life to her mum at her grave, we are launched into a transcript of a police interview held at Bristol police station nearly three months past this point. A word of warning, keep your eye on the changing dates, which are easily signposted, because this book does hop backwards and forwards until the past catches up with the present.
There are as in many of this author’s books a number of issues which are sensitively portrayed but with realism at its core rather than the reader getting the feeling that they’ve been used to bolster an otherwise flabby storyline.
At the centre of this book is Tom Fitzwilliam, the head of the local school who is married to Nicola. They also live at Melville heights with their teenage son, Freddie. Joey quickly becomes infatuated with Tom and is watching him. Tom’s son Freddie was documenting the neighbourhood using his digital binoculars but more recently has been using his spy equipment to watch the teenage girls in the vicinity while down in Lower Melville Frances Tripp is convinced that there is a mass of people watching her, so she is watching everyone else.
You might be able to tell from that very short synopsis, apart from a lot of watching, there are lots of characters in this book. And what characters they are, even the teenage girls are kept distinct by Lisa Jewell’s keen eye (and pen) for the little things that make each person unique. In short I found this latest novel absolutely gripping. I wanted to know who had been murdered, who would want to murder but most of all I wanted to truly understand this eclectic bunch of people who became my neighbours for the duration of the book. Of course it wasn’t that simple with impeccable timing we are drip-fed pieces of information, some of which are red-herrings, so that my opinion on the characters altered the more I learned about them all.
I’ve said it before, and I will say it again here, if you haven’t read one of Lisa Jewell’s books you really should, she has a very easy to read style but that isn’t to say that they are superficial, in fact they are anything but!...more
I ‘read’ this book in audio format, chosen because I find my normal fayre of crime fiction bizarrely too hard to listen to, and decided a total changeI ‘read’ this book in audio format, chosen because I find my normal fayre of crime fiction bizarrely too hard to listen to, and decided a total change of scene might work better for me, I was right.
I’m not however quite sure how to review it but need to illustrate what an impact Elsa, and her Grandmother had on me as I trudged home from work over a number of weeks. Elsa starts by giving us a few pointers about her Grandmother:
“Granny and Elsa used to watch the evening news together. Now and then Elsa would ask Granny why grown-ups were always doing such idiotic things to each other. Granny usually answered that it was because grown-ups were generally people, and people are generally shits. Elsa countered that grown-ups were also responsible for a lot of good things in between all the idiocy – space exploration, the UN, vaccines and cheese slicers, for instance. Granny then said the real trick of life was that almost no one is entirely a shit and almost no one is entirely not a shit. The hard part of life is keeping as much on the ‘not-a-shit’ side as one can.”
Granny is also a little bit mad. One of the early stories we hear is of her throwing turds at a policeman after breaking into a zoo, firing paintballs from her balcony at one of the most enduring characters of all Britt-Marie and driving a car called Audi, all with Elsa in tow of course. Granny and Elsa live in separate apartments in one building and although the main story is about this wonderful pair; Elsa a super bright child who is ‘different’ and Granny who we discover is similarly different and we have a whole host of other characters whose stories we discover along the way. Child characters always worry me a little and Elsa at ‘nearly eight’ is no different. Fortunately she was an engaging child, full of Marvel super-heros, Harry Potter and a stickler for using Wikipedia a useful device for knowing stuff that no normal nearly eight year old would know and of course as she is absolutely integral to the storyline it was helpful that she was ‘different’ a normal child could never have coped with the pressure!
This might sound like a bit of a ‘twee’ tale, and on a level it is. There is the magic of childhood with an overarching fairy tale world invented by Elsa’s Granny, Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal. But Fredrik Backman has a way of making this absolutely story for adults. In a style seen again in his far darker tale, Beartown, there are insightful words that cover the range of every situation and emotion.
“Death’s greatest power is not that it can make people die, but that it can make people want to stop living.” Because sadly, and especially because she is Elsa’s only friend, Granny dies and leaves Elsa with a number of letters to be delivered, all of which apologise to the recipient for something. It is while undertaking this task that the other resident’s stories are revealed. Some with happier outcomes, some less so and those stories also reveal more about Granny than all the stories and madcap activities she carried out in Elsa’s presence. As the book goes on it becomes clear who some of the characters in Miamas really are and in turn gives an explanation as to why they are the way they are. Along the way we see war, we see natural disasters in the form of a tsunami, we see bullying and betrayal and we also see that life goes on. Life and death are seen up close and personal through the prism of a those who have witnessed both.
This is a delightful story which was beautifully narrated by Joan Walker who manages to keep her voice steady as some of the more emotional moments and the combination of an unusual story, expertly translated by Herman Koch gave me much pleasure and company while I clocked up my steps!
“She shouldn’t take any notice of what those muppets think, says Granny. Because all the best people are different – look at superheroes.”
I couldn’t help feeling the world would be a much better place if every child had a ‘Granny’ in their corner to guide them....more
Well here is an author who isn’t the slightest bit afraid of delving into a subject that is a difficult one to say the least! Laura has lost her way, iWell here is an author who isn’t the slightest bit afraid of delving into a subject that is a difficult one to say the least! Laura has lost her way, in part because of the things her father did when she was young, the things that she has never told anyone about and certainly not her mother. Laura is therefore stuck in an uneasy relationship with both parents, not close but as their only child far from estranged. But each time she goes back, she is drawn back to the past.
On one visit her mother informs her that her father is taking a friend’s young daughter swimming, to give her confidence and to keep her out of trouble. Laura senses danger for the child but can’t quite bring herself to believe that her father would hurt another child, after all he did what he did to her, because he loved her so much. Well that’s what he said at the time, and young minds are impressionable, and once the thought is there it is very hard to dislodge.
Jennie Ensor has made this story even more dramatic by not overplaying her hand. As a reader I felt and could relate to the emotions of all the women far better because whatever had happened they were doing the best they could under challenging circumstances. It accurately illustrates that young girls do not, and can’t understand in the way that an adult does. You also have moral dilemmas because even if Laura is willing to reveal all and let her father take the consequences, where does that leave her mother?
The book gives a voice to all of the key characters adding yet another layer of realism to the story. We hear from Laura’s father too, the character who it would have been all too easy to turn into a caricature, but yet again Jennie Ensor while never provoking sympathy for the man has added some subtlety here too.
A disquieting read which is pleasingly resists the sensationalist statements. I’d go so far to say that it is a rare author who can turn this subject matter into a read that both puts texture to lurid headlines and yet has a positive ending. It is so rare to read a book on this subject that isn’t about how lives have been ruined and nothing but misery for the victims ahead and so while the subject matter is a tough one I think that this is a book which is as much about the characters as the ‘issue’ at its heart. Since the author has written from experience it has a level of realism that so many other’s books written miss.
In short I was left with the feeling that this devastatingly difficult subject has been handled with care. The characters have been created to produce a truly thought-provoking novel....more
Mary Byrd Thornton is minding her own business in Mississippi when a call comes through from a detective that is revisiting the murder of her step-broMary Byrd Thornton is minding her own business in Mississippi when a call comes through from a detective that is revisiting the murder of her step-brother over thirty years before. So far so good, exploring what an unpunished crime of this magnitude does to a family, how they deal with the impossible emotions that must come from such an awful event sounded ideal.
So Mary Byrd Thornton is summoned back to her home town in Virginia, to her mother, leaving her husband and their two children behind. A journalist is sniffing around the story too and poor Mary is struggling with being propelled back into that time when she was a teenager and some of the police were less than sympathetic dealing with the family. The thing is she has always believed they know who snatched Stevie from them.
Unfortunately for this reader the solving of this long ago murder is a mere bit part in what is on the whole a stream of consciousness about Mary Byrd Thornton’s life. Her friends, the truck journey she takes to Virginia, the alcohol she drinks, the affair she consider and her housekeeper Evagreen and this woman’s own troubles which are of a massive magnitude. The problem I have with this type of writing is that it never seems to get to the point, and quite frankly I get frustrated with the style fairly quickly.
There are a lot of interesting characters and I feel that for once I was able to understand a part of the world where although we speak the same language, the whole ‘feel’ of the place is quite unlike any that I know. There is insight into the plantation past and racial issues that were still firmly in place at the time the book was set in the 1990s. We get to look inside different types of houses, visit different families and even get a flavour of the local news. This is a book about a community with a defined culture and if that was what I thought I was reading about, then maybe my frustration wouldn’t have been quite so great.
One big positive is Mary’s approach to life so although I didn’t really get to know her despite the endless thoughts on breakable china, the mixed emotions of child-rearing, her inquisitiveness about her friend’s lives and her somewhat chaotic approach to housekeeping, it was clear that she isn’t a woman to take herself too seriously. She may pay lip-service to caring about other’s views of her but it doesn’t cause her to want to put too much effort into conforming. Her view of the loss of Stevie was also far more realistic than endless weeping and wailing that many novels offer of prolonged grief. There is a sense of guilt but again, not overwhelmingly so. This made sense when I got to the end and realised that in part the author has written the book about the unsolved murder of her own step-brother which seemed to give the book more context than I had previously given it credit for.
Despite being written in a style that doesn’t really appeal to me, there was a lot to enjoy in Flying Shoes and a book that has more impact in retrospect than perhaps it did while I was reading it....more
This is a novel and one that I think falls under the heading ‘literary novel’ with its symbolism and eloquent prose. The story is mainly split between This is a novel and one that I think falls under the heading ‘literary novel’ with its symbolism and eloquent prose. The story is mainly split between the 1970s with visits to World War I. Imogen Bailey’s brother Johnny is a champion swimmer. Their father is hoping that he will make the Olympic squad but maybe this is his dream and not Johnny’s. One day fifteen year old Johnny goes missing in the water in County Cork, no further sighting is ever made but Imogen never quite believes he drowned.
She therefore decides to write to Johnny, not as a story but as a way to sift through her memories and back them up with family documents; letters, school reports and diaries, hence the title of the book with premise that the result will be:
“a hopeful message sent out into the world, like a piece of paper in a bottle dropped into the sea”
Following Johnny’s disappearance Imogen stops speaking and is sent to a private hospital to recover. The real cause of her lack of voice is one strand of this fascinating story. The others concern Johnny’s disappearance and the links to the past with another family member sent to fight for his country.
Considering this is a fairly slim novel it is commendable that the writer has managed to condense a whole century of one family into its pages with no obvious bumps as she hurtles backwards and forwards giving the feeling of the natural echoes that her narrator finds in the trunk of old papers.
There are some absolutely fascinating characters within the book from Mathilde the housekeeper who converts religion as a way of fitting into country life following her move to Ireland after the war whose story sits next to that of the young German Bruno who makes such an impact on Johnny and Imogen. The stories of their trips to the cinema seemingly benign made this reader wince at the parts that both the youngsters were oblivious to.
This is a story told in layers, far more than is immediately apparent when reading the novel itself. I like and greatly admire authors who can allow you to read and enjoy but then give you the additional pleasure of uncovering some of the themes on reflection after that last page is turned. The trick of writing something that is seemingly uncomplicated but having hidden depths of course works well in conjunction of the narrator being absolutely convinced in the seemingly impossible, after all Johnny disappeared from the family some thirty years previously. A narrator unable to accept the inevitable after that length of time gives some doubt to her own memories whilst there can be no doubt in the written evidence provided.
Like so many other Irish writers the distinctiveness of the place of their birth is never far from the surface. The reader is well aware of Ireland’s ‘neutrality’ at the time of war so far in the distant past the bitterness of one mother for her son being sent needlessly to fight in the War has a different ‘flavour’ to those set in other parts of the UK. As with everything else in this novel though, the Irish hand is employed with a subtlety that is unusual....more
A Long Goodbye is contemporary romance novel set in the somewhat unusual setting of a care home in Cambridge.
Simon is an accountant, a successful one.A Long Goodbye is contemporary romance novel set in the somewhat unusual setting of a care home in Cambridge.
Simon is an accountant, a successful one. He’s sporty with a love of running, not just the taking part but watching other athletes and reading the magazines as well as challenging himself to beat his personal best. He’s funny, good-looking and he has been diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s disease. He is just forty years old and faces the challenges ahead with fortitude and a sense of humour.
Emma works at Orchard Care Home, a residential home that usually houses the elderly who need to have the love and support of their professional team. Emma is married to a man she met earlier in her caring career, she’s now managing the home but keeps her hand in with the patients. Her husband Michael has meanwhile risen through the ranks and now works away for much of the time which combined with the lack of a much-wanted baby has left their marriage much in need of some tender care.
Anthony Le Moignan’s book is based on facts, his father suffered with Alzheimer’s, and so while he creates a story that pulls at those heart-strings, he doesn’t use his fiction to create either a totally unrealistic portrayal of this cruel disease but nor is it in any way sensationalist. The story is lovely, the characters a wide variety from the obviously kind and caring Emma to a real doozy of a money-grabbing woman who makes an unwelcome appearance during the story. I was worried that A Long Goodbye would be too saccharine sweet for my tastes, but it wasn’t, far from it, I actually found it to be a thoughtful novel, with many of those truths that I suspect we all look for within the books we read and no, these are not all specifically related to the Alzheimer angle. The story moves along at a pace with some tender moments that bought a tear to my eye so have the hankies at the ready!
A well-written novel that explores love from a variety of perspectives and yet balances this with some genuinely funny moments with a real feel for the characters. A great debut and I for one will be looking to see what the author comes up with next.
What a delightful book, well-written, engaging and most importantly one that made me think and is without doubt one of my favourite reads of this yearWhat a delightful book, well-written, engaging and most importantly one that made me think and is without doubt one of my favourite reads of this year.
Ursula Todd was born on a snowy night in 1910 in England, a country which is on the edge of the huge change we know will follow. In the first version of Ursula’s life, she doesn’t make it through and dies before she takes her very first breath. but this is not the end, we get another version where Ursula lives. This unusual structure gives us so many versions of Ursula’s life, or lives, and boy when she’s not dying in various different ways, she does know how to live!
“Yes, Mrs Todd, a bonny bouncing baby girl.” Sylvie thought Dr Fellows might be over-egging the pudding with his alliteration. He was not one for bonhomie at the best of times. The health of his patients, particularly their exits and entrances, seemed designed to annoy him.”
Ursula is just my type of character, down to earth, funny in a ‘quiet’ way.
He was born a politician. No, Ursula thought, he was born a baby, like everyone else. And this is what he has chosen to become.”
Even at the worst of times Ursula is never a moaner despite having echoes in her life of those times she has fallen into the black hole of death. As the reader of her life we understand what those echoes are memories of even if Ursula just has a vague feeling of unease.
“Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn’t even begin to solve.”
Despite the unusual structure and the many deaths this book is a reflection of life for a child born into what could be viewed as idyllic family. A house called Fox Corner, a mother and father who love and laugh, siblings and opportunities for a life ahead. Of course there is also war on the horizon, not once but twice, the loves and losses and relationships with parents, siblings and friends which will wax and wane. In short Ursula’s life is a full one.
The setting for Ursula’s childhood is Buckinghamshire and even here we see progression from a a house which was once Ursula’s world, in the countryside will not remain that way for the duration of the story, or of course in this case stories. This is a book about how life never stands still. There is one character in particular who I loved but became far less sympathetically drawn as life progresses, where another more flamboyant one becomes softened by the turns her life takes. This quality of growing the characters, especially when their scenes are not set in chronological order is just one element of how exceptional Kate Atkinson’s writing is.
Ursula’s life during World War II is portrayed in vivid scenes, no reader will be able to forget the technicolour images that these imprint on your mind. In one of her lives Ursula lives in Berlin, so we also get to see the challenges how her counterpart in Germany faced too. The period set during the war, both in London and Germany made the book a special read, but on reflection it is the contrast between the cosy life at Fox Corner and the horror that she witnesses at this time of her life which makes the book feel so real. These contrasting scenes, as we follow Ursula as she faces hardships as well as happiness is what makes this book such a rich read.
Kate Atkinson doesn’t make it easy for herself, we have a whole cast of characters that have to keep up with the many deaths that befall Ursula too… even down to the dog who is drawn in detailed perfection to delight the reader. I said in my opening paragraph that it made me think, it did. As we all profound reads we all take our own experiences into the book and this reflection on life gave me an opportunity to look at my own life in a slightly different way.
“Life wasn’t about becoming, was it? It was about being.”
I was alternately delighted and amazed by this book, so if like me, you somehow didn’t get around to reading this book when it was published, I recommend you do so now. I’m off to buy A God in Ruins which features Ursula’s younger brother Teddy, a would-be poet....more
An old lady, an older house and peacocks! That alone was tantalising enough for me want to know more, and just look at that stunning cover! So I’m delAn old lady, an older house and peacocks! That alone was tantalising enough for me want to know more, and just look at that stunning cover! So I’m delighted to say this story didn’t disappoint at all, in fact it took me off to a mysterious manor with secrets at its heart.
Maggie is summoned back to her sojourn in Australia to the news that her Grandmother Lillian Oberon has been admitted to hospital. Seeing her beloved Grandmother, the woman who has raised her since she was tiny, begging to be allowed to spend the rest of her days at Cloudesley, her home in the Chiltern Hills, Maggie resolves to be on hand. No matter that what happened before her flight to Australia has made her something of a person non grata in the village of Cloud Green. She’s shocked to find a house has deteriorated further in her absence and is now in dire need of some monetary input, money it appears that simply isn’t available. But a promise is a promise…
As Lillian recovers back at home her mind continually returns to memories of the year 1955 when as a young bride she was dealing with the night terrors, and worse, that her husband Charles suffered with. The entrance of a young artist Jack Fincher brings colour into her life as he spends the summer turning the old nursery into a jewellery box of a room with his Trompe-l’œil designed to show off the treasures of Cloudesley to their best advantage.
For some reason the start to my summer reading has involved quite a few books detailing domestic violence of various degrees and in various time periods and this belongs firmly in that bracket. Lillian is a second wife who believes, or is made to believe that she is inferior to the first. Charles has rages bought on perhaps by the war but Lillian, as is commonly the case, is trapped. Even though by this time divorce was possible Lillian feels compelled to look after Albie, Charles’s son and to ensure that the private care given to her sister is continued. It isn’t always fear that keep those binds so tight. This aspect gives what could otherwise be considered a light read, a darker edge and pleasingly a different angle to this dual time-line read (something that I think makes for the perfect escape to the past whilst keeping the present in focus.)
Maggie’s story whilst more recognisable in many aspects also touches on the darker side. Albie her father has been inconsistent and there is that shadowy event that hasn’t been forgotten, least of all by her.
Not only is this an original tale, full of splendour and visual effects, it is also peopled by those characters that you wish you could meet in real-life. I admired Lillian, wanted to see Jack’s creations and had a certain amount of respect of Maggie’s determination. This is a book where you feel the plotting has been meticulously carried out with none of false tension created by devices clearly planted to spin the mystery out. Yes, I know these are often necessary but it is lovely not to be jolted away from the story with them planted conveniently at the end of each chapter.
I can’t leave this review without admiring the ending, more than that I can’t say without spoiling the book for other readers…...more
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