Author Archives: sandradan1

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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!

Great Opening Paragraph 122… ‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ #amreading #FirstPara

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‘Long before we discovered that he had fathered two children by two different women, one in Drimoleague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Monroe stood on the altar of the Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, in the parish of Goleen, West Cork, and denounced my mother as a whore.’ John BoyneFrom ‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ by John Boyne

Here’s my review of THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES…
… and read my reviews of these other novels by John Boyne:-
A HISTORY OF LONELINESS
A LADDER TO THE SKY
A TRAVELLER AT THE GATES OF WISDOM
ALL THE BROKEN PLACES
STAY WHERE YOU ARE & THEN LEAVE
WATER #1ELEMENTS
EARTH #2ELEMENTS

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Garden of Evening Mists’ by Tan Twan Eng 
‘The Children Act’ by Ian McEwan
‘Couples’ by John Updike

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES by @JohnBoyneBooks https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3Jk via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Girl at the Window’ by Rowan Coleman #paranormal #mystery

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The Girl at the Window by Rowan Coleman is a glorious mixture of ghosts, grief and the Yorkshire moors of the Brontës. With three timelines to juggle, the novel’s structure is held together by a real house, Ponden Hall, and its true links to Emily Brontë. Mixing historical fact with flights of imagination – the letters of a 17th century servant Agnes – there is a lot going on. Central are the themes of grief, the different types of love and mother/child relationships. Rowan ColemanTrudy Heaton’s husband Abe is missing presumed dead after a plane crash in South America, so she takes their son Will to her childhood home, Ponden Hall in Yorkshire. Tru’s return is wondrous and difficult, a return to the old house and moors she loved near Haworth, home to the Brontës; but also an awkward reunion with Ma, with whom she has not spoken for 16 years. When Tru finds a loose page from a diary written by Emily Brontë, who visited the house and used its library, and some 17th century documents by an Agnes Heaton, she starts a hunt for the truth. At the same time she must renovate the almost derelict house, and help Will negotiate his new life without his father in a strange place. Will likes Ponden Hall, the Granny he has never met before, and Mab the old retriever, but he acquires an imaginary friend. Also hovering on the scene is Marcus Ellis, house restorer and Brontë addict, who arrives to assess the repairs needed and grants available to save Ponden Hall. Ma doesn’t like Marcus’s neat blue jeans, Tru finds him unsettlingly calm, and Will likes the computer games and wi-fi at Marcus’s ultra-modern home.
And all the time, Will expects his father to return and asks his mother why she stopped looking for him. As both mother and son process their grief, the losses, brutality and bereavements of other generations at Ponden Hall are uncovered. Has Tru found a story previously uncovered only by Emily Brontë, and did Emily leave an unfinished second novel hidden somewhere at Ponden Hall?
The adventure and excitement of a bookish girl, searching for real… ‘the existence of a childhood dream come true, almost like finding a snowy forest at the back of a wardrobe.’
Another immersive read on holiday for me, 4* rather than 5* because of some unbelievable elements and impracticalities which took me away from the world on the page and made me wonder… ‘but’. To avoid spoilers I can’t be more specific but they are not ghost or Brontë-related.

Here are my reviews of four historical mystery novels by Rowan Coleman, writing as  Bella Ellis:-
THE VANISHED BRIDE #1BRONTEMYSTERIES
THE DIABOLICAL BONES #2BRONTEMYSTERIES
THE RED MONARCH #3BRONTEMYSTERIES
A GIFT OF POISON #4BRONTEMYSTERIES

If you like this, try:-
‘Yuki Chan in Brontë Country’ by Mick Jackson
‘Wakenhyrst’ by Michelle Paver
‘Love and Eskimo Snow’ by Sarah Holt

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GIRL AT THE WINDOW by Rowan Coleman https://wp.me/p5gEM4-460 via @SandraDanby

My Porridge & Cream read @marlaskidmore44 #books #JaneAusten

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Today I’m delighted to welcome historical novelist Marla Skidmore. Her ‘Porridge & Cream’ read is Emma by Jane Austen.

“It was difficult to choose just one book for my Porridge and Cream read, as I have so many favourites. Anya Seton’s Katherine and Georgette Heyer’s An Infamous Army are very near the top of my list but if I have to pin it down to just one book, then it has to be Emma. It was at school, during a double Library period in the Summer of 1965, that my impressionable teenage self, became entranced by the world that Jane Austen created in her novels. Initially it was haughty Mr Darcy and feisty Lizzie Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, that caught my attention but then I discovered her wonderfully flawed, high spirited and delightfully managing heroine, Emma Woodhouse.

Marla Skidmore

Marla’s copy of Emma

‘Handsome, clever and rich,’ Emma has no responsibilities other than the care of her rather foolish, elderly father.When her close companion, the motherly Anne Taylor gets married and leaves her, Emma sets out on an ill-fated match-making career which focuses on the pretty but dim Harriet Smith. Emma manages to cause misunderstandings with every new tactic she employs. Cherished and spoilt, she is charming to all those around her but insensitive to their feelings, so it takes her some time to learn her lesson and profit from spending less time worrying about how other people should live their lives and more time redeeming herself in the eyes of Mr Knightly, the man who loves her dearly but who is also her sternest critic. The more I read Emma, the more I appreciate Jane Austen’s sharp wit; her subtle analysis of contemporary life in small town Regency England and her incisive portraits of characters such as Mrs Augusta Elton, who has £10,000 but is boasting, pretentious and vulgar and the  Frank Churchill, whose surface charm hides a manipulative self-centred nature, determined to ensure his secret engagement to Jane Fairfax remains undetected.”
Marla SkidmoreBUY THE BOOK

Marla’s Bio
Marla Skidmore grew up in a small medieval city in the Yorkshire Dales.   After living in Europe for a number of years, she returned home to become a mature student. Having completed her studies and gained dual Honours in English and History and a Master’s degree in Literature; Marla went on to become a College Lecturer. Her award-winning debut novel, Renaissance – The Fall and Rise of a King, is inspired by the discovery of King Richard III’s remains on the 25th August 2012. She is now researching and writing the sequel Renegade, the story of Francis Viscount Lovell – King Richard’s greatest and most loyal friend. When not immersed in her current writing project, Marla enjoys gardening, exploring ancient ruins and taking long walks with her West Highland Terrier in the countryside surrounding the Dales village where she now lives.

Marla’s Links
Website
Facebook
Twitter 
Goodreads
Instagram 

Marla’s latest book
Marla SkidmoreDeath is not always the end. King Richard III.  Betrayed, defeated and savagely slain but Fate is not quite finished with him. He regains consciousness on Bosworth’s bloody field and concludes that the Almighty has granted him another chance to fight for his throne. About to leave the battlefield to head North, Richard is forced to take cover by the arrival of Henry Tudor and his men who are searching for his body to put on display.  Suddenly the cry goes up ‘We have found the king!’ He sees Henry Tudor standing triumphant over a mauled and battered corpse and hears him whisper ‘It is done. England is mine.’ How could this be when he is not dead? Richard sidles closer; to his utter horror finds himself looking at his own body. The appearance of the mysterious monk Father Gilbert, convinces him that he is dead and now in Purgatory – and so begins Richard’s harrowing journey through the Hereafter. Through his recollections in the Afterlife, reader is witness to the key events that lead to his violent end. The man behind the myths is revealed, as is the torment of a soul who believes that his honour and reputation have been forever destroyed by the malign propaganda of the Tudors. When at last Richard learns that this has not reigned supreme through the ages, he faces a decision that will affect his soul throughout eternity.
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:-
LM Milford’s choice is ‘4.50 From Paddington’ by Agatha Christie
Lexi Rees chooses ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams
‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte is chosen by Julie Stock

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does historical novelist @marlaskidmore44 re-read EMMA by Jane Austen #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4hB via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Olive, Again’ by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout #contemporary

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Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout is a return to the town of Crosby, Maine, and the life of Olive Kitteridge. Strout does it, again. If you loved the first iteration of Olive you will love this one too, it is like slipping into a sloppy pair of comfortable slippers. Olive lives her life, day by day; irascible, impatient with indulgence and self-importance, unsympathetic on the surface; but with a keen eye for those who need help, a kind word, a supporting hand under the elbow. But she cannot stand pseuds and snobs, though she fears she may be the latter. Elizabeth StroutStrout has such a light touch when handling difficult, deep emotions, set amongst the picture frame of predictable daily life. There are thirteen connected stories. Each feature Olive; in some she is the protagonist, in others she appears in the periphery of someone else’s life, always at a time of turmoil, grief, divorce or trauma. Often the people featured are former pupils from her years as a maths teacher, often they are friends or neighbours. In the course of this book, Olive mourns the death of Henry and struggles alone in the house they built together. She sleeps downstairs on the large window seat though she spends most of each night awake, listening to a transistor radio she cradles to her ear. Jack Kerrison is mourning the loss of his wife, Betsy. Olive and Jack have an on-off friendship, hearing each other’s travails with their children. Olive worries she was a bad mother and that Christopher avoids her, and she doesn’t know what to do to put it right. She is so prickly on the outside, sometimes on the inside too; but she is also empathetic, determined to be herself in the face of frightening change and old age.
My favourite scene is the one where Olive attends a baby shower, reacting with incredulity then impatience as each present is unwrapped and circulated endlessly around the guests who ooh and aah. Olive has a way of cutting through the crap. ‘She thought she had never heard of such foolishness in her life.’
Another 5* book by Strout.

Read my reviews of these other books by Elizabeth Strout:-
AMY & ISABELLE
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
LUCY BY THE SEA
MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON
OH WILLIAM!
OLIVE KITTERIDGE
TELL ME EVERYTHING

If you like this, try:-
‘The Stars are Fire’ by Anita Shreve
‘A Thousand Acres’ by Jane Smiley
‘Barkskins’ by Annie Proulx

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview OLIVE, AGAIN by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout https://wp.me/p5gEM4-45V via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Second Midnight’ by @AndrewJRTaylor #WW2

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In The Second Midnight, Andrew Taylor unpicks the connections between a group of people – a dysfunctional family, spies, ordinary people – before, during and after World War Two in England and Czechoslovakia. Essentially it is a novel of relationships wrapped up in the parcel of wartime spying, lies and romance. In its scope it reminds me of Robert Goddard’s Wide World trilogy, except Taylor covers the subject in one book rather than three. Andrew TaylorIt is 1939 and twelve year old Hugh Kendall is bullied by his father, sighed over by his harried mother, ignored by his older brother and manipulated by his older sister. Hugh retreats into imaginative games with his toy soldiers. His father, failing glass importer Alfred Kendall, is recruited by the Secret Services as a courier on a glass-buying trip to Czechoslovakia. In tow is Hugh, recently expelled from school, a nuisance to his father. Alfred is not a natural spy, though he thinks he is. When things get sticky and Alfred must return to England, the Czech Resistance keeps Hugh as collateral to ensure his father’s quick return. But Hugh finds himself alone in Prague after the German invasion, unsure who to trust, unsure if he will be rescued. He quickly learns to live on his wits. This for me was the best section of the book.
The thing that makes this story stand apart for me is Hugh. He makes an uncanny narrator, giving us a view of life in an occupied country, stranded from everything that is safe and familiar. Adept at languages, Hugh quickly becomes familiar with Czech and German allowing him to assume a false identity as Rudi Messner, a Czech-Hungarian boy.  Cared for by a German officer, Colonel Helmut Scholl, Hugh works as the gardener’s boy at Scholl’s mansion in Prague and meets the colonel’s children, Heinz and Magda. These relationships weave across the years and the pages into the post-war years and the fight against communism.
The significance of the title left me wondering if I had missed something. It is set up with an intriguing connection between two characters, then abandoned. The connection with the Prologue was also lost on me as it is only mentioned again at the end and I had forgotten what happened; ends neatly tied without adding understanding. Taylor knows how to tell a page turning story, I read this quickly. This is a fascinating read over a complex time period, but an enormous subject; I wish it had been given the space of three books to explore fully.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Read my reviews of Andrew Taylor’s ‘Marwood & Lovett’ series that starts on the night of the Great Fire of London:-
THE ASHES OF LONDON #FIREOFLONDON1… and read the first paragraph of THE ASHES OF LONDON.
THE FIRE COURT #FIREOFLONDON2
THE KING’S EVIL #FIREOFLONDON3
THE LAST PROTECTOR #FIREOFLONDON4
THE ROYAL SECRET #FIREOFLONDON5
THE SHADOWS OF LONDON #FIREOFLONDON6

If you like this, try:-
‘Corpus’ by Rory Clements
‘The Ways of the World’ by Robert Goddard
‘Five Days of Fog’ by Anna Freeman

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

#BookReview ‘The Carer’ by Deborah Moggach #humorous #familydrama

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At first I didn’t know what to make of The Carer by Deborah Moggach. She travels a fine comic line nudging towards simplistic or tasteless stereotypes. But then, as she did in These Foolish Things, the novel finds its stride. In two parts, Moggach takes her original portrayal of this family, shows it through different eyes, and turns it upside down. Deborah MoggachIn Part One we meet widower James Wentworth, OBE, 85, retired particle physicist, living downstairs in his home after breaking a hip; and his live-in carer Mandy, 50, from Solihull. ‘Mandy hummed show tunes as the kettle boiled. Blood Brothers was her favourite, about two boys separated at birth. She said she had seen it three times and blubbed like a baby.’ Mandy is fat, jolly, is a chatterer, and says it as she finds it.
Part One is told from the alternating viewpoints of James’ children. Unfulfilled artist Phoebe, 60, lives in a Welsh village in the area where she had many happy childhood holidays. Robert, 62, former City trader, is now writing a novel in his garden shed in Wimbledon, while married to a television newsreader. Our first impressions of their father, and of Mandy, are filtered through their middle class worries and prejudices. Both harbour resentments about their father’s absences when they were children when he travelled the world for work; resentments that straight-talker Mandy tells them they should have got over years ago.
Mandy is truly a catalyst of change, not just for James but for Robert and Phoebe too.
The situation is a believable one faced in today’s society as we all live longer. James in his eighties needs full-time care, his children are already retired. A succession of carers has come and gone, each unsatisfactory in one way or another. When Mandy arrives she seems an angel. Initially, Phoebe and Robert put aside the class differences as Mandy cares for their father so well. The daily walk to the nearby donkey sanctuary or trip to Lidl for pots of flavoured mousse, soon become day trips to Bicester Village and eating at Nando’s. Initially thriving under Mandy’s care with daily scratchcards and a chirping kitchen clock, James seems more forgetful so when Robert’s daughter sees the papers from James’ desk upstairs in a mess, they fear the worst. Why is Mandy looking in their father’s private documents. Can she be trusted. And what has prompted James’ sudden mental and physical decline. The twist which comes halfway through is masterful.
Part Two is James’ story, starting from his life as a young father and married to Anna. One day he attends a conference in Cardiff. What happens there affects the rest of his life, but in ways even he cannot have predicted. At the end there is one more twist, unexpected, that once again casts Robert and Phoebe’s understanding of their lives into a whirlwind.
At the heart of this novel is the question, can you ever really know someone. Whether with a stranger or a long-loved family member, don’t we all sub-consciously present different faces to different people. It is easy to assume we know someone because of the public face they present to the world, but the inner thoughts of other people, even our closest relatives – and often their marriages – are always a mystery.
Littered with throwaway quotes from Shakespeare, this is on the surface a quick, contemporary read (only 272 pages) which also casts a light on the prejudices, snobberies and problems of modern society. It is billed as a comic novel but it did not make me laugh. I was left feeling vaguely disappointed.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Read my review of these other novels by Deborah Moggach:-
SOMETHING TO HIDE
THE BLACK DRESS
TULIP FEVER

Read the first paragraph of THESE FOOLISH THINGS [now THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL] here.

If you like this, try:-
‘Crow Blue’ by Adriana Lisboa
‘In the Midst of Winter’ by Isabel Allende
‘The Only Story’ by Julian Barnes

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE CARER by Deborah Moggach https://wp.me/p5gEM4-45Q via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Dunt’ by Alice Oswald #poetry

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‘Dunt: A Poem for a Dried-Up River’ by Alice Oswald won the Forward Prize for the best single poem in 2007. A water nymph tries unsuccessfully to conjure a river from limestone. Punctuated by the refrain ‘try again’ it feels like a wail against climate change and our changing rural landscapes. The water nymph is real, rather it is an artefact found by Oswald in a local West Country museum.

Alice Oswald

Alice Oswald [photo Pako Mera]

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘Very small and damaged and quite dry,
a Roman water nymph made of bone
tries to summon a river out of limestone

very eroded faded
her left arm missing and both legs from the knee down
a Roman water nymph made of bone
tries to summon a river out of limestone’

BUY THE BOOK

Alice Oswald

Read this interview in The Guardian as Oswald talks about this collection.

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘Winter Song’ by Wilfred Owen
‘My Heart Leaps Up’ by William Wordsworth
‘Tulips’ by Wendy Cope

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Dunt’ by Alice Oswald https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3Rf via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ by Elizabeth Taylor #classic #love

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Reading this novel is like taking a long deep breath of air when your lungs are bursting. The Sleeping Beauty by Elizabeth Taylor is about beauty and is loosely based on the fairy story – a man rescuing a woman – but with real people who have faults, irritations, fantasies and vanities, whose prejudices and past lives inconveniently do not go away. Elizabeth Taylor In the small seaside town of Seething, Vinny Tumulty visits an old friend, Isabella, whose husband has recently died. He wants to support her through difficult times, but Isabella fancies she is falling in love with him. Vinny, however, sees a stranger walking on the beach and, without seeing her clearly, knows she is beautiful. We learn later that Emily’s face has been reconstructed, plastic surgery necessary after a car accident caused by her drunken brother-in-law. Emily’s widowed sister Rose tells Vinny that, since her accident, Emily looks and behaves like a completely different person. To Rose, Emily’s face is untrue; to Vinny, it is beautiful.  He becomes obsessed with her. ‘My plans for today are to hang about hoping for a glimpse of her, to have my heart eaten away by the thought of her; to feel my blood bounding maddeningly, ridiculously, like a young boy’s; to despair; to realise the weight of my misery and hunger with each step I take.’
Vinny is in his fifties but behaves as if this is his first love. In contrast, Isabella’s son twenty-something Laurence picks up a girl at the cinema. Not knowing how to make the first move and kiss her, he experimentally takes Betty’s hand. ‘Her skin was rough, her nails so short that he wondered if she bit them, and hoped she did. He did not want a young lady too tranquil, too defined.’ This scene is mirrored later when Emily is top-and-tailing gooseberries; she puts her hand into the basket as Vinny does too, and they touch. ‘He felt the involuntary tremor before the tension, the shocked leap of her blood which she could not control. ‘Even her arms are blushing,’ he thought.’
Is Laurence falling in love with reality, and Vinny with an image? Neither knows the woman he is courting, has hardly had a conversation with her. It is halfway through the novel before Emily says more than a single sentence at a time. Taylor shows the gradual, patient steps that Vinny takes towards Emily; brief words exchanged, moments of silence stretching ahead. It is a cautious middle-aged love where hope of finding love has long passed. There is a sensuality, a thin seedling struggling to grow despite the aridity of the earth.
As usual, Taylor is excellent on everyday detail of people and things. ‘The streets were almost empty. An obviously betrothed couple stood looking in at the lighted window of a furniture shop at a three-piece suite labelled ‘Uncut Moquette’.’ And I loved the scene where Isabella and her friend Evalie are checking the racing results and doing tapestry badly, with their faces covered with clay face packs; and Laurence enters the room, bemused. This is a slow, contemplative novel, beautifully written, which in places made me stop and smile.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Read my reviews of other books by Elizabeth Taylor:-
A VIEW OF THE HARBOUR
A WREATH OF ROSES
ANGEL
AT MRS LIPPINCOTE’S
IN A SUMMER SEASON

If you like this, try:-
‘Mobile Library’ by David Whitehouse
‘A Life Between Us’ by Louise Walters
‘The Gustav Sonata’ by Rose Tremain

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SLEEPING BEAUTY by Elizabeth Taylor https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3ru via @SandraDanby

#Bookreview ‘After The End’ by Clare Mackintosh #drama #contemporary

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I read After the End by Clare Mackintosh in one day on holiday, it is compulsive reading. It begins in a courtroom as everyone awaits the verdict of the judge. Leila, and at this point we do not know what role she plays in this story, watches two parents hold hands as they await the verdict on their son’s fate. Clare MackintoshThis is a book of two halves. The first is compelling, telling the story of how Max and Pip Adams find themselves in the courtroom described in the Prologue. Their two and a half year old son Dylan has a terminal brain tumour, surgery has removed only part of the tumour. Max and Pip are a strong couple, committed to each other and to Dylan. So far, they have coped. That is, until the hospital says it recommends no further treatment as Dylan has no quality of life. The reactions of Max and Pip to this advice are different and traumatic. Should Dylan be allowed to die peacefully without further painful, disruptive medical intervention? Or should he be taken to America for cutting edge medical treatment which his NHS consultants warn is not suitable for him? As the court case approaches, trust is broken, a pro-life group gets involved, secrets are told to the media, and Pip and Max are on all the front pages.
Part two centres on what happens after the court case and this, for me, is the weaker half. In a kind of ‘Sliding Doors’ approach, Mackintosh alternates chapters for two different outcomes of the court case. For me the technique was confusing, perhaps better signposting in chapter headings might have helped. I realise she is making a comment about the randomness of life but the ‘after’ story would be emotionally stronger if one option was told.
The community of Dylan’s PICU unit was so well drawn it felt real. Reading the Author’s Note afterwards, it becomes clear that Mackintosh experienced her own real life tragedy. The small details make it oh so believable. The specialist nurses, the parents of other patients, and doctor Leila Khalili are so well drawn. In a novel so emotional and at times polarised, I think it was important to include the viewpoint of Leila. Mackintosh is so good at showing the emotions of people on the edge, living in an abnormal world centred on the four walls of a hospital room, separate from the outside world operating as normal.
Understandably this book has been a word-of-mouth hit but it comes with an advance warning for anyone suffering grief at the illness or loss of a child. At times it is difficult to read, but its bare honesty is refreshing.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

If you like this, try:-
‘Smash All The Windows’ by Jane Davies
‘The Warlow Experiment’ by Alix Nathan
‘The Children Act’ by Ian McEwan

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview AFTER THE END by Clare Mackintosh https://wp.me/p5gEM4-45M via @SandraDanby

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

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Spring is the third in the Seasons quartet by Ali Smith and the most experimental of the books so far. Set in today’s disorientating, chaotic times, Spring is at times both disorientating and chaotic. The most political of the three, it felt at times like the author was shouting. It left me feeling rather flat, which I didn’t expect as I am an Ali Smith fan. Ali SmithThe book is rather difficult to summarize, partly because so soon after reading it the story disappeared from my mind. Two story strands start off independently, inevitably merging and impacting on each other. In between are passages of social media language, phrases listed, nasty, full of bile and hatred; I can imagine Smith trawling Twitter, pencil in hand, making notes.
Richard Lease, a film producer, is contracted to make a film about Katharine Mansfield and Rainer Maria Rilke, but is struggling with the script. He holds imaginary conversations with his – professional, and sometime romantic – partner Paddy who died recently. Richard also holds conversations with an imaginary daughter. Both women test him with awkward questions about his behaviour.
Brittany is an officer at an SA4A immigrant detention centre, a predictable, challenging job in a depressing place. And then she meets Florence, a kind of wonder child. Florence is 12 years old. She achieves mythical status, of a kind with Greta Thunberg, by persuading the centre director to steam clean all the toilets. No one knows where she came from; is she a detainee, did she blag her way into the building? Brit and Florence go on a road trip to Scotland where they meet Richard Lease and Alda, driver of a coffee van, possibly member of an underground movement to rescue detainees from immigrant detention centres, possibly Florence’s mother. These four key characters meet in Edinburgh and agree to go to Culloden.
I was left feeling that Smith’s political message would be stronger if it wasn’t so confusing. She vents her anger and the words on the page read as if they poured from her mind without sub-editing. This interrupts the flow of Richard and Brittany’s stories, taking my mind off the page and away from the book. I didn’t feel close to any of the characters and consequently didn’t care about them.
Ali Smith is one of the freshest, experimental voices we have today; reading one of her novels is not an easy read for the beach, they need concentration. So I will re-read Spring and hope for a smoother read. I await Summer, wondering if it will bring enlightenment on Spring’s storyline but not expecting it. To date, each novel is completely independent of each other. The only context for calling it a quartet are the titles, the seasonal themes. It is a difficult thing Smith is doing with this quartet; writing about a country in the process of cataclysmic political change – the anger, the depression, the fear – and writing quickly without the usual gap of years between writing and publication which allow a book to mellow. For me, Spring does not quite work. But I do love the Hockney cover art.

Click the title to read my reviews of other books by Ali Smith:-
AUTUMN #1SeasonalQuartet
WINTER #2SeasonalQuartet
SUMMER #4SeasonalQuartet
COMPANION PIECE #5SeasonalQuartet
HOW TO BE BOTH

If you like this, try:-
‘A Sudden Light’ by Garth Stein
‘A Thousand Acres’ by Jane Smiley
‘All My Puny Sorrows’ by Miriam Toews

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview SPRING by Ali Smith https://wp.me/p5gEM4-44W via @SandraDanby