My ManBooker Prize Reaction

Good Morning!

This is a bit of surprise blog post! I wasn’t planning to blog again until the weekend and hadn’t particularly expected to blog about the Booker Prize Long List.

However, due to a number of factors, mainly extreme heat, the mother of all thunderstorms and a flatulent dog(!) the Long List hit my radar a lot quicker than I expected.

I was scrolling through Twitter in an insomnia induced rage and, ‘PING!’, it popped up before my very eyes.

And I have to admit I was excited.

I might have wept inwardly for my proposed Summer Reads. (See Sunday’s blog post!)

And then I went straight back to being excited again.

So I have given my head a little wobble, reminded my inner goblin of self doubt, that my opinions are as valid as the next book geek and decided to crack on.

It’s not a long post, but very much my initial raw reaction to the list.

And so…

…books I have read…

My Sister, the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite– I read this one earlier in the year. Review if you are interested can be found here. I loved the author’s economic but precise use of language, the dark humour and perfect plotting. I think that as debut novel it is impressive.

 Lost Children Archive – Valeria Luiselli – This one was another Women’s Prize read. Very well researched, very well written and so relevant with its focus on America and Mexico’s lost children. Multi layered and complex, there is so much to discuss and motifs of childhood run throughout.

It certainly wasn’t the easiest book I have read this year, either in subject matter or style. I also found the protagonist and some-time narrator quite hard to connect with. So I guess the jury is still out on this one.

Moving on…

…books I am definitely going to read…

Let’s begin with…

The Testaments – Margaret Atwood – It was never, not even for one single second, in doubt that this book was going on to my TBR pile. It is the LONG awaited sequel to the 1985 cult novel The Handmaid’s Tale and the anticipation of it’s September release has been bouncing around my bookish brain all year.

This book and I have history! I have stubbornly refused to watch anything beyond Series 1 of the recent TV adaption, as I believe the power of the first book is rooted firmly in it’s unresolved ending.

And the only person I want to hear what happens next from is Atwood!

Night Boat to Tangier- Kevin Barry – Another one that was already on my radar. It’s been getting a lot of interest in the last week or so in the blogs I follow. Two Irish gangsters, sex, death and narcotics seem to be to make a pretty interesting combination.

Ducks, Newburyport – Lucy Ellmann This novel is everywhere!! So I wasn’t in the least bit surprised to find it nestling on the Long List. 1,000 pages, and a single sentence? Unique certainly! Winking at me on the desk as I type.

Girl, Woman, Other – Bernardine Evaristo Hands up this one had completely past me by. And I am not really sure why because it sounds like some I would really engage with. The story of 12 characters, mainly Black British women and their experiences through several decades. Really hoping to read this one

Lanny – Max Porter. – Heard this one mentioned on the Backlisted Podcast a couple of months ago and if my memory serves me rightly then there were comparisons made to the style of Lincoln in the Bardo. Add in a recommendation from @BookishChat and I am sold. This one was a ‘2am- post-announcement-order‘. Arrives tomorrow...

Frankissstein – Jeanette Winterson – Already earmarked for my summer holidays! Have loved everything I have ever read by Winterson and I was captivated when I heard her talking about this one earlier this year. A look at the future of our planet in the grip of AI, with more than a nod to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. If anyone can pull it off it’s Winterson.

…and the rest?

So those are my initial thoughts. Not especially deep or erudite but just my initial gut reaction to what is an exciting list.

The remaining 5 books listed below haven’t quite spoken to me yet, but give them time!

  •  The Wall – John Lanchester
  • The Man Who Saw Everything – Deborah Levy
  • An Orchestra of Minorities – Chigozie Obioma
  •  Quichotte – Salman Rushdie
  • 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World – Elif Shafak

Thanks for indulging my ramblings. Following this with interest and looking forward to hearing others thoughts! Especially the ones you think I have missed from my list!

Happy LongList Reading !

Rachel x

Book Review: Don’t Think a Single Thought by Diana Cambridge

So one of the most exciting and, honestly, most unexpected bonuses of blogging about books is the chance to discover and engage with some fabulous and very talented independent publishers.

One such publisher is Louise Walters of Louise Walters Books. Based in Oxford and founded in 2017 Louise was one of the first publishers to take a chance on a newbie blogger – a.k.a moi(!)- and send me a real life proof. The Naseby Horses by Dominic Brownlow, out December 2019.

Louise has a gift for discovering unique voices in literature and none more so than that of Diana Cambridge author of Don’t Think I Single Thought.

This is a truly incredible novel. It is like nothing else I have read this year. In fact it is like nothing else I have read in a very long time.

It has a quality to that seems to transcend it’s setting. It feels very much grounded within it’s timeframe, chiefly 1960’s / 70’s USA, and yet it’s message and impetus are so up to date and relevant.

The book is centred on Emma a women who seems ‘perfectly packaged’. Intelligent and a skilled writer, she is stylist, beautiful, and married to a brilliant doctor. Money is clearly not an issue; maids and Picasso’s are standard in Emma’s life.

And yet Emma’s life is a struggle, a continual struggle to deal with events of her past and their longtime impact on her mental health. Her life is a roller coaster where significant, and sometimes seemly insignificant events cause her to spiral back into deep depression.

We see Emma living without truly occupying herself. She is intelligent woman, successful in her own right but depression robs her of her ability, time and again, to take control of her own life. There is a continual trend of deferring to her husband Jonathan, asking him wittingly and unwittingly to take control when things get too much.

Unable to understand Emma’s fragile mental health, Jonathan dresses up her world in money and treats. New clothes, a nice hotel, good food; all designed to smooth the road and maintain, at least superficially, the calm equilibrium of their privileged life.

A sterile world of maids, therapists, bought in meals, new clothes and expensive kitchen gadgets is created to cocoon, protect and maintain.

Until the problem is too big.

Until Chanel and a nice holiday stop working

Emma’s past is complex. Without giving spoilers her whole early life, and indeed beyond, is filled with loss and misplaced guilt. A young life filled with trauma is slowly revealed, Cambridge expertly shifts our sympathies and makes us question.

For the sands of this story are continually shifting. For someone in the depths of a depression isn’t always the most reliable of narrators, and it is up to us, the reader, to piece together Emma’s fragmented story. A process almost akin to that of a therapist.

And yet what treatment would we prescribe ? Where exactly does the trouble lie?

Within this story there is a continual avoidance of emotion and not just on the part of Emma. Difficult emotions are continually bubbling under, never confronted; all wrapped in a frosting avoidance.Emma is our key focus but other friends and acquaintances reflect the pattern.

Diana Cambridge presents with stark and devastating accuracy a pervading lack of understanding. And most shockingly a continual and woefully inadequate level of treatment.

Emma is repeatedly given means of escape, ways of blunting the edges, but never true support. Every time something happens that brings Emma to the edge of confronting emotion or past experiences, someone offers her a shield. Be it a holiday, a dress, a blank cheque, a pill.

This novel raises questions about the wider societal experience of and reaction to mental health. It reflects the knee jerk reaction to create immediate calm, offer temporary balm and paper over cracks. It reflects with pinpoint accuracy and terrible consequences a wider inability to truly listen, to understand and to encourage confrontation.

The style of the prose reflects the protagonist; alternating between calm and chaos but with an veneer of sophistication and chic. The style is sparse, understated but also devastating.

There is an unnerving, but powerful feeling of the protagonist moving away from you and coming back into sharp focus as her life and mental health ebbs and flows.

This is a novel that is painfully relevant, to yesterday, to today and beyond.

It is a warning, dressed up in couture and sleeping pills. And one we all need to hear.

Don’t Think a Single Thought by Diana Cambridge is published by Louise Walters Books on 26th September 2019.

Preorder here!

My Summer Reading Plans* (*please note these may be subject to sudden change!)

This blog post started life as a #20booksofsummer post. It was going to be really easy to write…

Then I realised that 20 books were definitely not going to Be enough, so it expanded to 30 books of summer…

Now it is completely and utterly out of control! The lists and notes have been rewritten so many times. Every time I have opened my emails, checked my Twitter and said hello to the Postman the plans have changed…

But school finished on Friday . It might be raining in Cumbria, but my summer is officially here. I can delay this no longer.

So here goes, tentative summer reading plans, which are very likely to expand at a moments notice!

And I will begin with…

Beautiful proofs just begging to be read…

Having just devoured Don’t Think a Single Thought by Diana Cambridge in almost a single sitting, I can’t wait to get my teeth into The Naseby Horses by Dominic Brownlow. Both books are published by the very talented Louise Walters, and Naseby Horses is set in the Fens, my childhood playground. With a ‘silent and mysterious setting’ and a local curse to boot this one is right up my street. And who can resist a proof that comes bagged up in lavender!!

Next up is The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow. I have had this gorgeous looking proof winking at me for a good few weeks now and I am so excited to be on the blog tour for this one, leading up to it’s publication on 12th September with Little Brown. Set in a ‘sprawling mansion filled with exotic treasures’ and billed as being perfect for readers of The Night Circus, The Thirteenth Tale and The Binding, my hopes are high.

The next two books in this category are late entries, having just come to my attention in the last week and for that I am very grateful!

The first was so beautifully reviewed recently by Amanda @BookishChat, the intriguing Witches Sail in Eggshells by Chloe Turner, published by Reflex Press. After rediscovering my love for short stories in the past 12 months I can’t wait to embark on this one. Thank you David Borrowdale for my gifted copy.

The second is the long awaited sequel to Bluebird Bluebird by Attica Locke. Having discovered this huge talent at the end of last year I was thrilled to be offered a proof of Heaven, My Home. Set in Texas against a backdrop of racial violence following the election of Donald Trump, a black man is implicated in the disappearance and potential murder of a white boy : the son of an Aryan Brotherhood captain.

This book feels like an important and timely read and I am very grateful to Hope Ndaba at Serpent’s Tail for sending this one my way.

American Dirt by Jeannie Cummins has been getting a whole lot of love on Twitter recently and I am so grateful to Louise Swannell for her super speedy response to my begging for a proof. This is (I think!!) my first 2020 proof. The story of a mother’s love and desperate efforts to protect her son as circumstances force them to flee Mexico, riding the ‘la bestia’; dangerous freight trains crossing the US – Mexican border. Published by Tinder Press this too feels like an important novel of it’s time.

Now I am very definitely a ‘physical books’ kind of a gal, however when I really, really, really want to read something I will turn to NetGalley!

Currently waiting for me on my shelf are four crackers which I am planning to devour on the long car journey to France in a couple of weeks time!

Let’s begin with the incredible talent that is Laura Purcell and her upcoming release Bone China. A historical thriller set in Cornwall and inter woven with superstition and intrigue, this one is just brimming with promise! Published on 19th September by Raven Books this one looks like a gem.

The Underground Railroad launched Colson Whitehead into my reading consciousness with a bang. His latest work The Nickel Boys is set in 1960’s Florida and, just like Railroad finds it’s foundation very much in reality. Here is the story of a Reform School that twists and destroys the lives of the boys within it. I am not anticipating an easy read but certainly an important one.

Tracy Chevailer‘s new offering is up next! A Single Thread is set between the Wars. Focusing on Violet, mourning the loss of her brother and fiancé, one of a generation of women unlikely to marry, she strikes out alone. Looking for independence and seeking a purpose in her life, this book seems full of promise and empowerment! Published by HarperCollins UK on 5th September

And finally Jeanette Winterson has held me under her spell since discovering Oranges are not the only fruit as a wide eyed teenage. To have a digital copy of her latest book Frankissstein seems like a true honour! Within these pages Winterson tackles the thorny issue of AI and asks the difficult question of what will happen when humans are no longer the most intelligent creatures on the planet? Published 1st October by Grove Press.

New, shiny, recently released books that are singing to me…

First on this list has to be The Moss House by Clara Barley. Just published by BlueMoose Books and hot on the heels of the fabulous Gentleman Jack, this is the book for anyone looking to immerse themselves once more in the story of the awe inspiring Annie Lister and her lover Anne Walker.

(And interesting fact Clara Barley and my good self shared an A level English teacher, the wonderful Linda Hill of Linda’s Book Bag.)

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, Bloomsbury is quite literally EVERYWHERE this summer. Already a Sunday Times #1 bestseller this imitate portrait of the lives and desires of three very different women is widely tipped as the nonfiction read of the summer.

On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons by Laura Cumming, Chatto &Windus is about as compelling a family history story you will find this year. With the story of her mother’s kidnap in childhood at it’s heart this is Cummings exploration of a Lincolnshire coastal hamlet and it’s secrets.

And the finally – Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann, Galley Beggar Press. I have made absolutely no secret of the fact that this book scares me and intrigues me in almost equal measure. Approximately 1000 pages long and largely told through a single sentence, it is certainly unique. It’s on order…I am waiting with bated breath…

Books that I have missed…

These are books that have been published for a while now, books the world has been raving about but books I haven’t quite caught up with yet.

The first had been recommended most heartily by Claire @yearofreading and who am I to disagree! Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott was long listed for this year’s Women’s Prize and is the story of Truman Capote and his ‘Swans’, the wealthy, beautiful women he courted but ultimately betrayed.

And continuing the theme of hedonism, let us look next to Daisy and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It feels like every single person in the bookish world and beyond has read this tale of a 70’s band rise and fall. And I want to join the party!

Heading in a completely different direction now, for I can’t go long without venturing into the world of Victorian England. Particularly the grimy streets of London where there is a mystery to be solved. The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O’Donnell looks like a promising way of scratching my Dickensian itch. This first hit my radar through the Backlisted Podcast and I have been running to catch up with it ever since.

Sneaking another one in here, let me introduce Heroes by Stephen Fry. Around this time last year I read and thoroughly enjoyed Mythos. Heroes is the last of my Christmas present books and it seems a perfect read for basking (please God!) in the summer sun!

And finally…my blasts from the past my TBR pile…

Blogging has thrown up so many welcome literary discoveries that I have, inevitably been cheating in my ‘To be read pile’. So in no particular order below are the books I am determined to get to this summer!

• Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke – This has been by my bed for a least two years! Another one that scares me a wee bit. Time to face my fear I think!

• Stoner – John Williams – I have been meaning to read this for time immemorial. Who thinks the time is right?

• Do Not Say We Have Nothing – Madeleine Thien Everyone has read this tale of revolutionary China, right? Wrong!! Need to sort it out!

• Frankenstein– Mary Shelley Strictly speaking this is a reread, having read this many years ago at University. Having just completed the brilliant Arguing with the dead by Alex Nye, which focuses on Mary’s tangled relationship with Percy Shelley, and having access to Winterson’s Frankisstein, it feels the time is right to reacquaint myself with the monster!

And so there you have it..

…my somewhat tentative summer reading plans.

There are, however, any number of things which might just sway me off course.

At this moment, for example I am very aware the Man Booker Prize long list announcement is looming. I would like to say I won’t be affected…

…it would be a lie!

Every time I log on to Twitter I will make new golden discoveries, be tempted into requesting proofs and just generally feast myself on the loveliness of fabulous books floating in the ether!

Lovely publishers will hopefully continue to be in contact sending me goodies, (again, Please God!)

And I will wander into beautiful book shops and rescue poor unwanted books… for their own good…naturally!

But I promise that one thing that will definitely happen is that I will read lots of lovely books…

…and it’s always good to have a plan!!!

Happy reading!

Rachel x

Book Review : Beneath the Surface by Fiona Neill

“In a land where the sky is king, the weather announces itself hours in advance; the fields, ditches and dykes have a Mondrian‑like geometry, that repeats itself with utter predictability as far as the horizon; and you can see anyone approaching for miles.”

It is rare, in fact so far unheard of, that I start a review with a quote from the book in question. However this quote sums up so perfectly how I remember the Fens of my childhood it was an obvious place for me to begin.

Fiona Neill has hit upon the very openness of the landscape and the huge brooding skies; skies that reached the ground, skirting fields of wheat and barley for mile upon mile. Unlike the rugged Lakeland landscape I now call home The Fens are not beautiful in the traditional sense, but they have a unique quality and one which for me is ever present.

It is this unique quality which Fiona Neill has been so accomplished at embedding into her novel. It is a quiet delight to find a novel with such a strong sense of place, a sense of place which not only grounds the novel but is central to it’s key themes and motivation.

For The Fenland that Neill writes about is seeped in history and that history is cleverly interwoven into the lives of the characters.

Patrick, husband and Art History teacher, is the descended from the Dutch pioneers who drained the land, reclaiming it from the sea.

Mia, younger daughter; eccentric, creative and straight talking, becomes fascinated, some might say obsessed by the Anglo Saxon burials recently uncovered. They offer a glimpse into the past but they also indirectly threaten the future. Tas, Mia’s traveller friend, is likely to lose his site in order to preserve this newly discovered and important site.

The past, seeping through to the present, is a theme running through the very veins of this novel. For when Lilly, fated older daughter and A grade student collapses at school, her parents Grace and Patrick are thrown into a world of turmoil.

Grace has spend years constructing the perfect life for both her girls. The product of a chaotic and abusive childhood, Grace clings to normality and the concrete. Navigating her life with her notebook of Certainties she has suppressed the most traumatic event in order that her girls may thrive. But just like the rising marshland water that is infecting their new home, the more Grace fights her past, the more it threatens her present. Her need for boundaries is ingrained, but what happens when those boundaries stop being healthy and become a cage?

The story is testament to the fact that the past runs through all of us. Deny it and it will find a way to make it’s self known. Neill shows the reader that by suppressing the past we are giving it a momentum of it’s own.

Yet secrets within this novel are not confined to just the past. Here we find a compelling portrait of a family coping with both collective and individual problems . No one person is telling the truth. Each is keeping close watch over their own and indeed other people’s secrets, in a misguided bid to protect the family as a unit.

Lilly, for example, has created a double life; dutiful and driven daughter, competing for a coveted University place, verses young woman experiencing love, sex and deceit for the first time. When the pressure of this charade becomes to much the fallout affects not just Lilly and her family but the wider and surrounding community.

This novel is held together by tight family bonds. The theme of siblings and their unique relationships runs deep. They are a source of tension, humour and unexpected revelations, which once again underline the connections between past and present.

Neill has created a cast of characters that are authentic and believable. Their motivations, however misguided never seem outlandish, such is the skill with which they are drawn. It is a mark of Neill’s accomplishment as an author that the reader finds their sympathies continually shifting throughout the novel.

Should you want to take a trip to the open Fenland landscape the Beneath the Surface is an excellent place to start and one I would recommend.

Huge thanks go to Penguin Random House for sending me a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review : The Murder of Harriet Monckton By Elizabeth Haynes

Historical fiction has always floated my boat. I love immersing myself in the past, particularly when the story in question is based on fact. And particularly where there are unanswered questions and room for interpretation. Give me a slow reveal of fact and supposition cleverly interwoven and I am in clover.

I also love a long book. The joy of finding a book that is skilfully put together and captivating is unbounded. Who doesn’t want a really great story to go on?

So I approached The Murder of Harriet Monckton by Elizabeth Haynes with excited anticipation. Heartfelt thanks go to Emma Dowson at Myriad for my gifted copy.

I wasn’t disappointed; my reading experience was every bit as satisfying and enthralling as I had hoped.

Based on a true story Haynes takes us back to Bromley, 1843 and sets about unmasking the killer of Harriet Monckton. A young aspiring teacher Harriet is found dead in the privy at the back of her local Chapel, 24 hours after leaving a friends house to post a letter.

It is quickly established that Harriet has been poisoned but is this through her own hand or has she been murdered? The revelation that unmarried Harriet is ‘with child’ adds further complexity and intrigue.

As an inquest is called various potential suspects come to light. Haynes has used actual coroner’s reports and witness testimonies from the original case to paint a picture of both a life and community riddled with secrets, all touched by suspicion.

Could gentle Tom Churcher be Harriet’s killer? It was he who found the body and seems strangely affected by her death. Having been seen ‘walking out with’ Harriet, despite being unofficially betrothed to another, could this be a love affair turned sour?

What of his spurned sweetheart Emma? Is this a killing with is motives in jealousy and revenge?

Harriet’s friend and sometimes housemate Frances Williams cannot be discounted either. Why exactly has she become so close to the deceased and what would it cost her if the true nature of their relationship was disclosed?

And what does Richard Field, husband of a dear friend, know of Harriet’s death. As former landlord and clearly former lover he is quickly pulled into the circle of suspicion.

Finally and perhaps most chillingly, we must consider The Reverend George Verrall. Is his relationship one simply of spiritual guidance and confessor as he would have his followers believe, or is there a more sinister side to his relationship with Harriet ?

This, perhaps unsurprisingly is a story of secrets, of hidden facts and relationships build on half truths and lies. The plotting of this novel is skilful, layers of deception are slowly revealed as each character uses their own distinct voice to present their individual relationship with Harriet. For Harriet means different things to different people and this is key to our tale.

It is through these authentic voices we build a snap shot of a group of characters who are misunderstood not only by each other but by themselves. Working hard to justify their actions or, indeed, inactions there is a sense of self deception which permeates their testimonies.

Richard Field, for example, works hard to convince not only the reader but also himself that he is a dedicated family man, taking little or no responsibility for the pivotal role he played in Harriet’s life and undoing.

Rev. Verrall’s account aims for piety but smacks of desperation. His attempts to lead the inquest to a verdict of suicide make him all the more suspicious and frankly distasteful.

And this is a view that is enhanced and repeated through the use of Harriet’s diary. For crucially Harriet’s is not a voiceless victim in this story. The use of her own written testimony adds clarity, gives her character power but also brings into sharp focus one of the key strengths of this novel.

The abuse of power, both spirtual, sexual and financial power is behind Harriet’s sorry tale. For Harriet is not an uneducated women. Rather she is spirited, independent and eloquent. Her relationship with Richard Field was based on genuine feeling, it’s ending a moral sacrifice on her part for the sake of a dear friend.

Moreover her treatment at the hands of George Verrall is the classic abuse of power. Religious power and abuse masquerading as concern and correction, the sacrifice of one young woman for a greater male purpose. The weaving of deceit and concealment is all too common both in Harriet’s life time and our modern day society.

For the real genius of this novel lies in it’s ability to commentate on the treatment of women in the past, but make it relevant to society today. As a reader I couldn’t help but link the kind of abuse of power detailed so starkly with in these pages to the events of recent years; the #MeToo campaign and all its associated stories and movement. The situation Harriet faces is still something faced by women all over the world.

Elizabeth Haynes has employed to maximum effect the ability to look to the past to illuminate the lessons we are still learning today.

And what if the killer of Harriet Monckton? Well, you will find no spoilers here but as with everything else in this gem of a book, nothing is ever quite as it seems.

Book review – Expectation by Anna Hope

Ever get an Advance Reader Copy of a book that makes your heart sing?

That’s what happened to me when I was approved for Expectation by Anna Hope. So thank you Transworld Books for making a middle aged blogger very happy!

Anna’s post World War 1 novel Wake has lived large in my memory for a number of years. I vividly remember reading it on a 5 hour train journey north. Spellbound and moved, I finished it almost in one sitting. Thank goodness my stop was the end of the line, as I would have undoubtedly missed it otherwise.

Hence my excitement about the release of Expectation.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

Expectation is a novel about three women, all ploughing their own furrow. All following their own and others expectations, none of them completely fulfilled.

Cate, Hannah and Lissa have been friends for years. Connected by past events and shared memories, all three are at a crossroads in their lives.

Lissa is an actress, not quite fulfilled, still seeking success, constantly in awe and frustration with her artist mother.

Hannah is successful, married but desperate for a child, and facing down the process of IVF and all that it brings.

Cate is a new wife and mother but feels life has over taken her and that somehow she has missed out; that she has taken a wrong turn and is not fulfilling her potential.

Throughout the novel we see each woman peering in at the lives of their friends, and building their own expectations and desires. Each woman is questioning what they have achieved and quietly coveting what the other has.

Hope has created a believable portrait of friendship that houses underlining tensions and unspoken truths. Events and emotions in both the past and future seek to undermine the foundations of their friendship and those of people surrounding them.

The power of this novel lies, undoubtedly, in the authenticity of the characters. Their dilemmas and stumbling blocks aren’t outlandish or unusual. In fact that they are common, some might say mundane but they are all the more powerful and heartbreaking for that.

There is a real sense of empathy with these characters. We care what happens to them.

More than that we feel what happens to them. We have been Cate, or Hannah or Lissa. Surely is a rare individual who hasn’t questioned where their life is heading or where they have ended up.

And it is this quiet simmering undertone of dissatisfaction and re evaluation, which drives the story along. Can these characters make the changes they need, even if means changing the course of their lives and not fulfilling their own and others exacting expectations? Or are they destined to live up to Expectation but live unfulfilled?

Hope is showing us that fulfilling ‘Expectation’, is not necessarily the key to happy and successful life. In doing so she has created a novel that refines the terms and phases of our everyday lives.

Is fulfilling Expectation a mark of success? Or do we judge our lives through different eyes?

Blog Tour! Book Review – The Chain.

I am delighted to be taking my turn today on the blog tour for The Chain by Adrian McKinty Thank you to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for inviting me to take part. Are you ready to take on The Chain.

About the book…

Now I am not one to just copy and paste blurbs, but in this case I don’t see the need to mess with perfection. I can’t sum up the premise any better so I ain’t even going to try!

YOUR PHONE RINGS.

A STRANGER HAS KIDNAPPED YOUR CHILD.

TO FREE THEM YOU MUST ABDUCT SOMEONE ELSE’S CHILD.

YOUR CHILD WILL BE RELEASED WHEN YOUR VICTIM’S PARENTS KIDNAP ANOTHER CHILD.

IF ANY OF THESE THINGS DON’T HAPPEN:
YOUR CHILD WILL BE KILLED.

YOU ARE NOW PART OF THE CHAIN

Hooked yet?!???

The power of The Chain lie in the fact that it makes you examine what would you do? It is not coincidence that Rachel is a philosophy graduate and teacher, for this is the ultimate philosophical, moral and ethical question, “What would you do to save your child?”

What would you do to save your own child? Kidnap another child kill another child ?

The fact that Rachel is an unlikely action hero makes this story more compelling. A cancer patient, single mother, just turning her life around, she shows us the ultimate in what you will do when your child is threatened.

Throughout the novel her layers are peels back to reveal a strong independent woman, it is her smart and tactial thinking that pushes the story forward.

When Pete, her ex Marine brother in law steps into the story I admit to a little eye rolling. My thoughts immediately were among the lines of ‘ Here we go, big man to save the day’ but I was wrong . This is a partnership, Pete’s tech knowledge and past experiences are a support to Rachel but his drug addiction continually threatens to undermine their success. All the key mistakes they make are his mistakes, Rachel is the constant, Rachel is the key .

Crucially Rachel embraces life, the catalyst for the books finale is that she doesn’t just want her daughter alive, she wants her to live .

This was pure escapism, but escape into a very dark place where the ultimate moral and ethical question is being asked if you. The plot moves quickly, there is action and tension and more than a sprinkling of those moment which make you want to scream Nooooo! A real plus for me was the use of a strong female lead character.

Can Rachel be the one to break the chain?

This was a quick read, but an absorbing one. If you are looking for an unforgettable summer read then this might well be it!

and there is more…

For more fantastic reviews of this book check out other talented bloggers on the Blog Tour.

Blog tour review : Know No Evil By Graeme Hampton

I am delighted to be taking my turn today on the blog tour for Know No Evil by Graeme Hampton. Thank you to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for inviting me to take part. Won’t you join me on a trip to East London, in the middle of a heatwave, where we might just have a serial killer on the loose?

On to the book…

The streets of East London are the scene for this gripping crime novel. D.I. Matthew Denning is new to the job, recently promoted and new to this team, he is an outsider with everything to prove. When the body of a young mother is discovered in a local park Denning finds himself thrown in at the deep end. At first the murder seems likely to be domestic and relatively straight forward but when other bodies are found all bearing similar hallmarks the case takes a sinister turn.

But Denning has problems of his own. Recently divorced, with an young autistic son, is Denning able to focus on the job in hand? Will simmering resentment from members of his team who feel overlooked and slighted by his appointment throw the investigation off course?

Enter young and upcoming Constable Molly Fisher. Fisher has a particular interest in this case. She approaches Denning after making links between the new cases and those of the Bermondsey Ripper. The trouble is Anthony Ferguson was tried and convicted of those crimes a decade ago and is currently serving a life sentence. Have the Police made a fatal error of judgement or is this a very convincing spate of copy cat crimes?

And why is Molly so invested in these murders? What is the story behind her obsession with The Ripper? Can she separate her personal and professional involvements or will she too be a threat to justice ?

If you are looking for a fast paced crime thriller to get you through the summer then look no further, Know No Evil could very well be the book for you. This story starts with a bang and holds your attention throughout. The plotting is clever, building tension with it’s focus firmly on two police officers both under personal pressure, but both determined to rise through the ranks and prove their worth. Our protagonists are dedicated, vivid and well drawn. The skilful weaving of the personal and professional gives a real sense of three dimensional characters. It is a novel full of characters that are relatable, fallible and believable making the action and thrilling climax all the more powerful.

In the tradition of all excellent crime novels Know No Evil is fast paced and multi layer, each twist and turn drawing us further in. There is a feeling of authenticity and impeccable research. The dialogue is plentiful, snappy and realistic, drawing vivid characters portraits within our minds. There is no stereotyping and no broad sweeping assumptions are made. It is far to say that this is a carefully crafted crime novel where the unexpected is likely and nothing should be taken for granted.

Here’s hoping that this is only the beginning of Denning and Fisher’s crime fighting days. I have a feeling there is a whole lot more to come.

And there is more…

The Blog tour for Know No Evil runs until 14th July 2019. Why not check out more reviews from some other fantastic and hardworking bloggers ?

Know No Evil is published on 10th July 2019 by Hera books.

Graeme Hampton – author of Know No Evil

Book review : The Warlow Experiment by Alix Nathan

On this occasion I see very little point in playing my cards close to my chest, because I am about to gush repeatedly and quite possible extensively about how much I found to admire and love in the pages of The Warlow Experiment by Alix Nathan

This book quite simply took my breath away.

And not because only because as a chronic claustrophobe, I had to read with a curious sense of detachment. It took my breath away as this novel has so much to offer and so much to say.

Throughout my reading I made copious notes, as this beautifully plotted and many layered novel slowly revealed itself. I made so many notes that in truth I am not quite sure where to start.

Part of me wants to mull things over a bit more; this is a book that leaves you pondering and reflecting after each sitting. I guarantee these characters will dance through your dreams and whisper to you while you go about your day.

But another part of me is desperate to review this while it’s all still fresh in my brain. And I feel strongly that this novel deserves a publication day review.

So am starting in the obvious place, at the beginning.

Not just the beginning of the novel but right at the novel’s conception, the point where Alix Nathan found inspiration for this incredible story.

It surely must be an author’s dream to stumble across something as tantalising as a genuine late 1700’s advert searching for a person willingly to spend seven years underground and entirely alone all in the name of science.It is a gift of a starting point, and from it Alix Nathan has created a gift of a novel.

And so we come to our story. Enter Powyss. An amateur botanist, wealthy and living with limited social contact. Considering himself a man of science, tired of simple experiments surrounding his plants, he conceives a scheme to raise his standing in scientific circles.

He advertises for a man to lived beneath his house in specially designed apartments. Filled with books and furnished in style the only thing the chosen subject will want for is human contact. For seven long years.

One man comes forward. Warlow, a local labourer, a married man with minimal education and a growing family. His labours will earn him £50 a year for life and his wife and children will be well cared for during his time away.

The novel begins as Warlow enters the apartments. At this point it is not necessarily the confinement that is the cause of his immediate discomfort but rather the palatial surroundings he finds himself in. Everything that Powyss has seen as essential to Human enjoyment and sustenance, books, fine china and linen, even an organ is entirely alien to Warlow.

From the beginning obvious tensions and paradoxes are apparent. Powyss sees himself as educated, even worldly and yet his actions and reactions particularly to Warlow underline his naivety and social arrogance.

Powyss does not understand the working man, he does not understand how his estate runs, how the people he employs think and feel.

Choosing to dismiss his acquaintance Fox’s lyrical letters highlighting social unrest, beginning with the French Revolution and spilling across the Channel in the form of workers uprisings, Powyss see the wider world as irrelevant to him. Powyss pointedly ignores his gift of Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’, leaving it’s pages uncut, whilst key members of his staff are lapping up it’s teachings.

In fact, far from isolating himself from what is happening in the wider world, Powyss is replicating a societal microcosm in his own home. What could be more pertinent to the ‘Rights of Man’ than choice, education and freedoms? At so many points the novel is an astute exploration of the nature and notion of universal suffrage.

For quite unwittingly Powyss has created a world where perceived order and hierarchies are being subverted. Power shifts as Powyss comes to understand the implications of what he has done. How easy will it be to release this man after such a period? After years of repression, confinement and potential suffering, what kind of retribution will Powyss face. Once again we staring down a metaphor for a wider socio-economic situation.

Or course it is of no surprise that the experiment fosters danger. But does this danger come from the expected quarters ?

The experiment brings change, upsets balance and careful order. It doesn’t just change Warlow but everyone who comes into contact with it.

And of those affected who, poses the greater risk to wider stability.

Is it Warlow? Living isolated and becoming more disassociated from the world and his own self, beginning to understand, even fleetingly, just how important even small freedoms can be.

Or does risk lie in Powyss’ own shifting priorities? For a man who seems to revel in his self perceived solitude, the experiment is bringing dramatic changes to his social circle. Warlow’s wife Hannah is strangely beguiling. What effect will her presence bring to the situation?

And we shouldn’t underestimated Abraham Price and his sweetheart Catherine, master gardener and housemaid, two of Powyss’ overlooked staff. Both are dissatisfied, both drawn to political developments, but who will take their frustrations to the next level?

The experiment is ill conceived of that it there is no doubt, both subject and creator end up trapped and changed by their experience.

Alix Nathan has created a masterpiece. And I don’t say this lightly. There are so many layers within this novel. So many recurring themes, strands that weave beautifully together.

Clearly this is a meditation on what if costs to live both within the world and the effects of being removed from it. But it’s also offers valuable comment on such themes a religion, personal and political power, rights of women and suppression of humanity. It is a novel with a social conscience, a love story and on many levels a tale of horror.

My review is, I hope, heartfelt but is actually a mere skim across the surface of this incredible tale. One blog review will not unlock the wonder of this novel, but I hope it persuades you to turn the first page.

From there you are lost…

Book review : Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller

I am certainly a little late to the party with this one but ‘wow’, what an absolute gem. This was chosen as a read for one of my book clubs, and I am so grateful it was. The novel had been languishing, undiscovered on my Kindle for weeks and I had clearly been missing something very special.

Before I go any further I must say a big ‘Thank you ‘ to Claire for kindly providing our group with some great ‘book club’ questions. It focused our discussions and gave us a great insight to this multilayered tale.

So what’s it all about? Well a brief synopsis is called for here because one of the joys of this novel is in it’s unravelling. An air of mystery is present from the beginning and pervades throughout, and there is no way I am spoiling anyone’s reading pleasure!!

We begin at the death bed of Frances Jellico. Triggered by repeated visits from the ‘vicar’ Frances is swapped by memories.

It her mind she is back in 1969. A long summer when Frances, recently released from a life of caring and drudgery after the death of her mother finds herself working in a crumbling country house. Tasked with cataloguing and researching the house’s horticultural architecture by it’s new American owner, she finds herself living alongside an intriguing couple Cara and Peter.

Cara is fiery, unstable and longing for Italy. Peter, there to catalogue the inside of the house, seems both drawn to and unsettled by his partner’s unpredictability.

Frances is certainly drawn to both Peter and Cara. Attraction to Peter pulls her close and Cara’s compelling stories seem easy to believe, however unlikely they maybe.

Parallels can quickly be drawn between the two women. Both have difficult relationships with domineering and seemly cruel mothers, both seem to worship fathers long since absent. The lack of parental guidance has all too clearly left it’s mark. Peter seems to take on the mantle of both lover and father figure for both women at various points. Parental chaos is a key underlying theme of the novel.

All three characters fall into a Bohemian and careless routine. Drinking and eating late into the night, pulling each other into strange confidences and conversations, making unlikely and misguided decisions. Decisions that will have terrifying consequences for all concerned.

The state of the house; that of faded grandeur and with an air of broken down convention, has a dramatic and far reaching effect on all three characters, but perhaps most markedly on Frances. Here we see a casting off of restraint. This rather uptight and cowed Woman steps into the light, casting off her Mother’s hand me down girdle and donning floating vintage gowns. Along with her clothing she sheds morality and normality, swept away by this heady new atmosphere and strange, remote setting.

Moreover the house seems to act as metaphor for the character’s lives. It reflects the jaded nature of their past but it too has a history is full of complexity and sorrow. The turmoil of the buildings mirrors the turmoil all the central characters seem to find themselves mired in.

For all of our characters are searching for a truth, a reason for a being, a deeper meaning to their existence. All protagonists have secrets, some more shocking than others. And all are trying to find a way to make peace with those secrets and reconcile themselves with decisions they have made.

At times it feels as those there may be supernatural forces at work within the house. Frances particularly experiences unexplained and unexpected events within her rather shabby sleeping quarters. Confusion and chaos increase throughout the novel, but is it real or imagined? Supernatural or a reflection of the state of someone’s happiness or guilt? Is it just easier make a glib reference to ghosts or even miracles, rather than confront an uncomfortable truth?

For be in no doubt, the narrators in this novel are nothing if not unreliable. Cara is feted as the obvious problem but slowly we come to question everyone’s reliability and integrity. Who, if anyone can we believe? What is Frances hiding? What of Peter’s past? For even the house has secrets that it won’t easily relinquish.

There is a pervading theme of seeking the truth, of spying on others, of listening at closed doors and only hearing part of a story. Characters in this novel are not in possession of the full facts, they can’t see the full picture and the consequences are dire. I promised no spoilers but Frances first discovery is a clear signpost for truth seeking and secrets in the most clandestine of ways!

Because from the start the reader is working through a fog of confusion. Where is Frances now? Who is this ‘Vicar’, and why is he bringing her back at the end of her life to a summer long ago?

As the story concludes ask yourself; are you sure of the truths you have acquired? Or do you need to spend a bit more time with Frances, Cara and Peter? Is there more to unravel in this rather complex web of ‘truth’?

Claire Fuller has created one of those delightful books that is so easy to read and utterly compelling, yet is multi layered and complex. One of those books that is just meant for discussion, that becomes even more vibrant and in this case, sinister with continued thought and probing.

It is a book ripe for rereading, with the promise of finding yet more hidden treasure.