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About sandradan1

Novelist. I blog about writing, reading and everything to do with books and writing them at http://www.sandradanby.com/. Come and visit me!

#BookReview ‘Endless Skies’ by @JaneCable #contemporary #romance

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Jane Cable writes with a great sense of place and her latest novel, Endless Skies, is set in North Lincolnshire, a place of wide horizons, mists and endless views. Her books always have an element of the supernatural and Endless Skies doesn’t disappoint, from shadowy figures in a field to the lingering scent of lily-of-the-valley. Jane CableRachel Ward, an archaeology lecturer, leaves her old job after a disastrous workplace affair and moves to Lincoln University. Living in a soulless box of a flat, she makes friends with Jem who lives on a barge moored on the nearby canal. Jem is a solid steady character and becomes a mentor, almost father-like figure for Rachel who has made bad choices in the past and seems set to repeat the pattern. Jem’s new lodger, student Ben, tempts Rachel’s newly sworn promise to foreswear men. Meanwhile she takes on a freelance contract for property developer Jonathan Daubney. As she researches her report on a prospective development site at an old wartime airbase, Rachel and Jonathan fall into an instant ‘hate’ relationship.
The past is ever-present in this story which explores how what has gone before is never absent from our everyday lives, whether by actions in our lifetime or events that happened long ago. Markers are there to be seen, most clearly evident in Rachel’s fieldwalking on the old airfield where pieces of old metal are scattered. As they may belong to a wartime bomber that crashed and exploded in this place, Rachel must consult a ballistics expert and dig test pits. And so the past delays the present, as Jonathan is unable to proceed with his property plans until Rachel’s report is finished. Cable handles well the personal and work conflicts between Rachel and Jonathan. Both are emotionally damaged in ways which are gradually revealed.
My favourite character was Esther, an elderly resident at the care home run by Jonathan’s mother. As a teenager in the war, Esther worked at the laundry on the airbase and she is key to our understanding of the book. As Rachel teases out Esther’s memories, the interlinked past and the present starts to make sense.
This is a contemporary romance and is firmly rooted in the present day but I would love to know more about the wartime story of Freddie, Teo and Esther. It was so uplifting to read about a firmly-rooted friendship between two women, Rachel and Esther – one young, the other elderly – and see how they enrich each other’s lives.

Read my reviews of Jane Cable’s other books:-
ANOTHER YOU
THE CHEESEMAKER’S HOUSE

Also by Jane Cable, writing as Eva Glyn:-
THE COLLABORATOR’S DAUGHTER
THE CROATIAN ISLAND LIBRARY
THE MISSING PIECES OF US

If you this, try:-
‘Please Release Me’ by Rhoda Baxter
‘The Perfect Affair’ by Claire Dyer
‘My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You’ by Louisa Young

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ENDLESS SKIES by @JaneCable https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4RQ via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Love in a Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford #satire #historical

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A companion novel to The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford is a tale of a group of aristocratic families, told by narrator Fanny Wincham. Both novels are stories about other people, rather than about Fanny herself. Love in a Cold Climate is about Lady Leopoldina ‘Polly’ Hampton and, like all Mitford’s novels, there is a satire in her portrayal of the whims and foibles of the English upper class. It is like reading of a lost world though the satire in this novel is less biting than her earlier novels. Nancy MitfordMitford does create unforgettable characters. Not Fanny who, like Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, is something of a transparent uncomplicated observer, but Lady Montdore and Cedric are both memorable, especially when seen together. The novel finally takes off with the appearance of Cedric but there is quite a lot of background to set up before this point is reached. In a modern novel, the background would be slipped in carefully so allowing the story’s conflict to be quickly addressed.
Eighteen-year old Fanny lives with relatives due to the absence of her separated parents. Among her neighbours are the Montdores of Hampton near Oxford, recently returned from India where Lord Montdore was viceroy. Polly, also eighteen, reflects on the differing nature of love in a hot, and a cold climate. In the early pages Polly’s mother Lady Montdore despairs of her daughter ever falling in love with a young man and giving birth to the next heir of the Montdore fortune. Unfortunately for them, their only child Polly falls in love with an unsuitable older man. A family rift ensues, Polly is disinherited and flees abroad with her new husband. Into this vacuum arrives the new heir, a distant relative from the Canadian branch of the family. Cedric is something of a surprise and Fanny, expecting the Montdores to hate him on sight, watches with amazement as the foppish outrageous Cedric wins a place in their hearts. When Polly returns from Sicily, she finds a changed world.
This is not a plot-driven novel which at times was frustrating, leaving me with the feeling that the narrative was drifting along. This is remedied with the arrival of conflict, ie Cedric, who comes alive off the page. I did long to hear the internal monologues of Cedric and Lady Montdore; not of Polly though, who remains a rather flat uninspiring character. I started reading the novel thinking it was Polly’s story, but finishing it thinking it was about her mother and Cedric. Not as laugh-out-loud as Mitford’s earlier novels.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Read my reviews of these other novels by Nancy Mitford:-
CHRISTMAS PUDDING
HIGHLAND FLING
PIGEON PIE
THE BLESSING
THE PURSUIT OF LOVE
WIGS ON THE GREEN

Read the first paragraph of THE PURSUIT OF LOVE here.

If you like this, try these:-
‘Half of the Human Race’ by Anthony Quinn
‘The Long View’ by Elizabeth Howard
‘Amy Snow’ by Tracy Rees 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE by Nancy Mitford https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3U2 via @SandraDanby

My Porridge & Cream read… @AlexMarchant84 #books #childrensfiction

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Today I’m delighted to welcome children’s author Alex Marchant. Her ‘Porridge & Cream’ read is Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper, first in the ‘Dark is Rising’ sequence of five books.

“Although I’m generally not one for re-reading books often, when Sandra kindly invited me to contribute my Porridge and Cream book, it took only a moment’s reflection to realize what it was: Susan Cooper’s ‘Over Sea, Under Stone’. Read first when I was ten or eleven – the ideal age for it and the ‘Dark is Rising’ sequence of which it is the first book – and read every few years since, it was the novel that called strongly to me during the early days of this spring’s lockdown in response to the upsurge of Coronavirus in the UK.

Alex Marchant

Alex’s copy of ‘Over Sea, Under Stone’

“Set during an idyllic summer in the mystical land of Logres (aka Cornwall), it follows the holiday adventures of the Drew children – Simon, Jane and Barney – along with borrowed red setter Rufus, as they battle the malevolent forces of ‘The Dark’ in a search for an ancient grail, aided only by a treasure map and their mysterious great-uncle Merry. As in many of her books, Cooper masterfully interweaves the ordinary lives of modern (well, 1960s/70s) children with local and national legends, seasons with plenty of ‘mild peril’, and serves up an exciting treat for younger readers ­– and a nostalgic feast for older ones such as myself.

“I haven’t been to Cornwall for too many years, but in a springtime when travel was impossible, ‘Over Sea, Under Stone’ went some way towards satisfying a yearning to be somewhere (and somewhen) else than in 2020 England ravaged by a pandemic. Being transported to a simpler time, when I knew everything would be ‘all right in the end’ (at least until the next book), was a comfort in those uncertain times. Perhaps more so than my usual escape from the twenty-first century – into the fifteenth century of my own books (despite the latter having been heavily influenced by Susan Cooper’s work themselves in their strong sense of place and their focus on the adventures of a similar closely knit group of young characters). I know where I’d rather be at this precise moment!”
Alex MarchantBUY THE BOOK

Alex’s Bio
Children’s author Alex Marchant was born and raised in the rolling Surrey downs, but, following stints as an archaeologist and in publishing in London and Gloucester, now lives and works surrounded by the moors of ‘Brontë Country’, close to the northern heartland of King Richard III, the leading character of The Order of the White Boar sequence. The sequence was begun in 2013 after the announcement of the rediscovery of King Richard’s grave in a car park in Leicester, to seize the perfect opportunity to tell young people the story of the real king – rather than Shakespeare’s murderous villain. With its sequel, The King’s Man, The Order tells King Richard’s story through the eyes of a young page in his service, and the books have been called ‘a wonderful work of historical fiction for both children and adults’ by the Bulletin of the Richard III Society. Alex has also edited two anthologies of short fiction inspired by the maligned king – Grant Me the Carving of My Name and Right Trusty and Well Beloved…, both of which are sold to raise funds for Scoliosis Association UK (SAUK), a charity which supports young people with the same spinal condition as King Richard – and is currently writing a third book in the White Boar sequence, provisionally entitled ‘King in Waiting’, and also reworking an earlier novel for publication, the 2012 Chapter One Children’s Book Award winner Time out of Time.

Alex’s links
Alex on Twitter
Matthew Wansford on Twitter
Facebook
Instagram

Alex’s latest book
Alex MarchantThe Order of the White Boar, together with its sequel The King’s Man, tells the story of the real King Richard III, not Shakespeare’s murderous villain, through the eyes of a page in his service at the majestic castle of Middleham in the Yorkshire Dales. Twelve-year-old merchant’s son and talented singer Matthew Wansford secures his position as page despite having left York Minster song school under a cloud. He soon makes friends with fellow page Roger, Alys, a ward of the Queen, and Duke Richard of Gloucester’s only son, Edward, but also encounters a brutal bully, Hugh Soulsby, son of an executed traitor. Suitable for ages 10 to 110, The Order of the White Boar follows Matt and his friends’ adventures as the final days of the Wars of the Roses unfold towards the fateful Battle of Bosworth – and beyond….
BUY THE BOOK

What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘Love in A Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford. Do you have a favourite read which you return to again and again? If so, please send me a message.

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Margaret Skea’s choice is ‘Anne of Green Gables’ by LM Montgomery
Laura Wilkinson chooses ‘The Secret Garden’ by Frances Hodgson Burnett
‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee is chosen by Renita D’Silva

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does children’s author @AlexMarchant84 re-read OVER SEA, UNDER STONE by Susan Cooper #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4QG via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘V2’ by @Robert_Harris #WW2 #thriller

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Mostly written during the 2020 virus lockdown, V2 by Robert Harris is a World War Two thriller like no other I have read – and I’ve read a few. I’ve been a Harris fan since the beginning with Fatherland. V2 is different because it tells two stories – the technical development of the V2 rockets, and five days in November 1944 when the lives of a German rocket engineer and British spy are changed by this weapon. Robert HarrisHarris skilfully handles truth, fiction, engineering details and mathematical calculations, adding two fictional characters to create a page turning story. The V2 rocket is placed firmly at the centre of this book. Without it, there would be no story. Originally conceived by scientists as a space project, the V2 was a hateful weapon that inspired fear. Unlike its predecessor the V1 which could be seen and heard before it descended giving time to take cover, the V2 hit without warning. It was also highly unreliable, going off-target, exploding at launch, crashing at sea, killing the people who built it – slave labourers – and launch crews.
The story opens as rocket engineer Dr Graf is trying to concentrate on pre-launch missile checks on the Dutch coast at Scheveningen. He is interrupted by the arrival of a Nazi officer. The rocket is launched. In London, WAAF officer Kay Caton-Walsh emerges from a bathroom wrapped in a towel. Her assignation with her married lover ends when the V2 lands on their building. Harris’s tightly plotted story sees Kay moved from London-based photo reconnaissance, studying launch sites of the rockets, to Mechelen in Belgium. There she and a team of female mathematicians calculate the flight trajectory of the rocket, tracking it backwards to identify the launch site for Allied fighter-bombers to target. As Dr Graf is pressured to launch rockets more frequently than is safe, Kay can’t shake the feeling she is being followed through the strange shadowy streets of Mechelen.
Occasionally the technical details get in the way of the story but what is most fascinating are the portrayals of the German and British leadership at a time when the end of the war seemed to be approaching. Doubts and regrets by some on the German side are balanced by fanatical demands and obsessive management from the SS. In London, key decisions about the defence of the nation are influenced by an extra-marital affair. On both sides, the men at the top making the decisions seem apart from real life. An excellent read, it is a race against time as Kay and her colleagues try to identify the launch locations and Dr Graf is questioned by the Gestapo. I raced through it.
I was fascinated to read the Author’s Note at the end, explaining the inspiration behind the book. In September 2016, Harris read an obituary in The Times of 95-year old Eileen Younghusband, formerly a WAAF officer at Mechelen.

Read my reviews of these other thrillers, also by Robert Harris:-
AN OFFICER AND A SPY
MUNICH

If you like this, try:-
‘The Accident’ by Chris Pavone
‘The Second Midnight’ by Andrew Taylor
‘The Farm’ by Tom Rob Smith

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview V2 by @Robert_Harris https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4Rs via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 128 ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.”JD Salinger From ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by JD Salinger 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty’ by Sebastian Barry
‘The Slaves of Solitude’ by Patrick Hamilton
‘The Rainmaker’ by John Grisham 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE CATCHER IN THE RYE  by JD Salinger https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4ev via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Woman of Substance’ by Piers Dudgeon #biography

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The Woman of Substance by Piers Dudgeon is in part an authorised biography of A Woman of Substance writer Barbara Taylor Bradford, and part analysis of how Barbara’s own family history features in her books. The story of Emma Harte’s journey from Edwardian kitchen maid to globally successful businesswoman is well known. Less known perhaps are the connections with Barbara’s own family history. Connections she did not know herself. Piers DudgeonStarting with a meeting at the Bradfords’ New York apartment at which he is surrounded by the great and the famous, eating amidst the glittering décor, Dudgeon realises this is the world of the successful Emma Harte at the height of her powers. And then he tells Barbara’s story from her birth in 1933 in Upper Armley near Leeds, born not into the family of a kitchen maid like Emma Harte, but a tidy working class family who were neat and always made ends meet. Barbara is an only child and spoilt by her mother who takes her at every available opportunity to visit the Studley Royal estate where she learns this history of the house, the estate and the family. ‘My mother exposed me to lots of things,” said Barbara. ‘She once said ‘I want you to have a better life than I’ve had.’’ Barbara did well at school and, wanting to write books, decided her best chance was to train as a typist and find a job as a journalist. Which she did, joining the typing pool at the Yorkshire Evening Post and then, through dogged perseverance, moving to the women’s page.
At each significant point throughout Barbara’s story, Dudgeon provides a reference from one of her novels of fiction mirroring fact. A case of Barbara’s sub-conscious curiosity about her own origins finding their way into the backstory of her novels. It is an encyclopedic exercise of genealogy which lovers of the Harte series will enjoy. It is many years since I read the novel, but it made me want to revisit it. At the time when Piers Dudgeon was writing this book, Barbara did not know the true story of her grandmother Edith’s life or the mystery surrounding the birth of her own mother, Freda.
This is a long book which could have been made shorter by cutting some of the extraneous history and for that reason I gave it 4* rather than 5*. But if you are a writer interested in how your real life sneaks into your own novels, you will be fascinated.

If you like this, try:-
‘Ammonites and Leaping Fish’ by Penelope Lively
‘Jane Austen: A Life’ by Claire Tomalin
‘Charlotte Bronte: A Life’ by Claire Harman

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE by Piers Dudgeon https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4xX via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Summer’ by Ali Smith #SeasonalQuartet #contemporary

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And so Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet comes full circle with Summer. What a journey these four books have been – experimental fiction at its best written in the moment at a time of political and social upheaval. Challenging, sometimes grating, often uplifting, so many of the loose threads left dangling in the first three books are reconnected in this finale. Ali SmithAli Smith is a challenging author to read. You get comfortable with one story and a couple of characters who she then abandons to tell you about someone else who seems completely disconnected. At times there are passages which seem to belong to no character, where the authorial voice shows through. It can feel as if the manuscripts for two or three novels have been thrown in the air and landed randomly on your Kindle. But then, as you come close to the end of this fourth book, all the disparate stories start to connect. Read Summer, the last in Smith’s Seasonal Quartet, when your brain is in full gear otherwise you will miss so much.
The story starts in Brighton with Sacha and Robert Greenlaw, teenage siblings, precocious, curious, competitive, committed and awkward. Following a trick Robert plays on his sister, two strangers visit the home where they live with their mum Grace. The strangers, Charlotte and Arthur, are the first characters from previous books to reappear. And so begins a journey to Norfolk, inspired by Einstein, motivated by a promise, towards answers, towards mystery, no one seems to really know.
Smith says summer is ‘heading towards both light and dark. Because summer isn’t just a merry tale. Because there’s no merry tale without darkness.’ Smith’s tales always feature darkness and here it is the wartime stories of Daniel Gluck and his father interned on the Isle of Man and of Daniel’s sister in France. How, I wondered as I read, will Smith connect the Greenlaws, Charlotte, Arthur and the Glucks? That is what kept me reading, to discover the meaning of summer in this story and to these particular characters. Smith says ‘summer’s surely really all about an imagined end. We head for it instinctually like it must mean something.’ There is so much depth in her exploration of theme – paralleling The Winter’s Tale, for example, and her own summer tale via the remembered summer of Grace when a young Shakespearean actress – more than I can explain here. You have to read it for yourself.
I do wish for old-fashioned punctuation, speech marks and clearly delineated changes of voice, the lack of which interrupts the flow of my reading and takes me away from the story – surely that can’t be the conscious objective of any author.
I will re-read this quartet back-to-back, without pause, hoping to gain more understanding and nuance. Individually, the novels are challenging and at times mystifying. Collectively, they become something else entirely. I suspect in years to come I will see a different interpretation.

Click the title to read my reviews of other books by Ali Smith:-
AUTUMN #1SeasonalQuartet
WINTER #2SeasonalQuartet
SPRING #3SeasonalQuartet
COMPANION PIECE #5SeasonalQuartet
HOW TO BE BOTH

If you like this, try:-
‘The Only Story’ by Julian Barnes
‘Amnesia’ by Peter Carey
‘The Testimony of Taliesin Jones’ by Rhidian Brook

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview SUMMER by Ali Smith https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4Qi via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Remember’ by Christina Rossetti #poetry #funeral

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Christina Rossetti was 31 when her most famous collection Goblin Market and Other Poems was published in 1862 but perhaps better known are two other poems. Her 1872 poem A Christmas Carol was set to music by Gustav Holst and renamed In the Bleak Midwinter, and her short poem Remember appears regularly in poems of funeral verse. Her lines of sweet and lyrical verse go straight to the emotional heart of her subject and explain which she remains popular today.

Christina Rossetti

[photo: Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library/Alamy Stock Photo]

Please search for the full poem in an anthology or at your local library.

‘Remember’

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Christina Rossetti BUY THE BOOK

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Digging’ by Seamus Heaney
‘My Life’s Stem was Cut’ by Helen Dunmore
‘The Unthinkable’ by Simon Armitage

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Remember’ by Christina Rossetti https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4c6 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Mercies’ by Kiran Millwood Hargrave #historical

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Based on a historical event, The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave tells the story of a village on a remote island in 17th century Norway after a once-in-a-lifetime storm kills the village’s fishermen. Following the loss of their husbands, brothers and sons, Vardø becomes a settlement of women. Kiran Millwood HargraveAt first they grieve then they struggle to survive without men, but survive they do. Eighteen months later a government official arrives to impose control on a female population at the edge of nowhere. He finds the women behaving in an unseemly manner, behaving as men, forsaking church and flirting with officially disapproved-of Sámi rituals.
Hargrave tells the story of the women of Vardø through the viewpoints of two very different women. Maren Magnusdatter’s fiancé Dag is killed in the storm. So are her father and brother. She lives in a claustrophobic house with her elderly mother, her Sámi sister-in-law Diinna and Diinna’s son Erik. Ursula lives in Bergen with her widowed father and sister. When her father proposes a marriage match to Absalom Cornet, a Scottishman, Ursa imagines ice and darkness. She sails north with her new husband, a stranger, of whom she knows nothing.
When they arrive on the island of Vardø, Ursa is unused to the ways of the far north, the cold, the starkness of life and, used to a servant, cannot keep house or make food. Her house becomes slovenly, her thin inadequate clothes caked with mud. Maren takes pity on the newcomer and helps her prepare meat and make a coat from furs. A close friendship grows between the two women. Hargrave’s portrayal of the machinations of this small female community – the alliances, the petty jealousies, the childhood envies, the gossip, the lies – is spot-on. But while the women are watching each other, Commissioner Cornet is watching them and looking for signs of witchcraft. Maren and Ursa encourage Diinna to at least attend church, to set aside her Sámi folklore habits of stones and poppets, but Diinna will not become someone she is not. And then Ursa’s husband makes his first arrest and for the first time Ursa understands she is married to a witchfinder.
I quickly became absorbed in the story of these women and the situation in which they find themselves. It is a difficult read at the beginning, the setting is dour and the life hard, descriptions of the daily privations are depressing, but the growing relationship between the two women lies at the core of the story.
The middle section sags a little as there is a pause in the action, waiting for the witch hunting to begin. The final third is devastating.
A fascinating book about a harrowing story.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Click the title to read my review of THE DANCE TREE, also by Kiran Millwood Hargrave.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Witchfinder’s Sister’ by Beth Underdown
‘The Western Wind’ by Samantha Harvey
‘Burial Rites’ by Hannah Kent

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE MERCIES by Kiran Millwood Hargrave https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4Nj via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Transcription’ by Kate Atkinson #WW2

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Few of the characters in Transcription by Kate Atkinson are who they seem to be. A novel of the Second World War, Transcription suggests that the ripples of wartime secrecy spread out through the following years so that outstanding lies and betrayals are eventually repaid. Many years later. Kate AtkinsonIn 1940, Juliet Armstrong intends to join one of the women’s armed forces when she receives a letter on government notepaper and is summoned to an interview. After being informed by telegram that she has got the, still unspecified, job, Juliet boards a bus which takes her to Wormwood Scrubs prison, now converted into government offices. There she works in Registry, shuffling files around, until Perry Gibbons says, ‘I need a girl’ and Juliet finds herself working for Perry’s MI5 counter-fascism team at a flat in Dolphin Square.
Told across two timelines, 1940 and 1950 – with a brief glimpse at 1981 in the prologue and epilogue – Transcription has a huge cast of characters, most of whom I confused and, I suspect, Atkinson wishes me to confuse. Some characters are spies with cover names, some are only described and have no name while others seem innocent, too innocent to actually be innocent. If this is all confusing, it is meant to be. That is Atkinson’s point. This is a story about the importance of truth and how lies, which seem pragmatic and normal in wartime, are still lies. And that the most obvious traitors are not always the ones to be worried about.
The 1940 storyline covers the MI5 operation. At first, Juliet’s job is type up transcripts of bugged conversations between fascist supporters in the next door flat; later she takes on the persona of Iris to infiltrate a group of fascist agitators. Sometimes she fluffs her lines, sometimes she is impulsive and gets into trouble. At all times she feels isolated and unsure of the value of what she is doing. She is also a young woman and looks for signs of interest from the men surrounding her. In 1950, while working in the Schools Department of the BBC making educational radio programmes with titles such as ‘Can I Introduce You To?’ and ‘Have You Met?’, she sees familiar faces from her wartime days and the past revisits her.
Atkinson excels at the small detail which makes these workplaces convincing, creating believable relationships between Juliet and radio engineer Cyril at Dolphin Square, and with junior programme engineer Lester Pelling at the BBC. I enjoyed this book but wouldn’t describe it as a page turner. I’m not sure I liked Juliet but she held enough fascination for me as I tried to figure out what she did and didn’t believe in. I was never totally sure if I believed in her.
The Author’s Note at the end of the book is fascinating and perhaps would have served better as a Foreword. So, in summary, not my favourite Atkinson novel but not a bad one either.

Click the title to read my reviews of these other books by Kate Atkinson:-
A GOD IN RUINS
BIG SKY #5JACKSONBRODIE
DEATH AT THE SIGN OF THE ROOK #6JACKSONBRODIE
LIFE AFTER LIFE
NORMAL RULES DON’T APPLY
SHRINES OF GAIETY
… and try the #FirstPara of EMOTIONALLY WEIRD

If you like this, try:-
‘The Heat of the Day’ by Elizabeth Bowen
‘After the Party’ by Cressida Connolly
‘Shelter’ by Sarah Franklin

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#BookReview TRANSCRIPTION by Kate Atkinson https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4cx via @SandraDanby