Author Archives: sandradan1

Unknown's avatar

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!

My Porridge & Cream read: Linda Huber

2 Replies

Today I’m delighted to welcome thriller novelist Linda Huber. Her ‘Porridge & Cream’ read is A Cry in the Night by Mary Higgins Clark.

“I have a few ‘Porridge & Cream’ books, but I think the creamiest has to be A Cry in the Night by Mary Higgins Clark. It came out in the early 80s, so I must have bought it then – I devoured all the Mary Higgins Clark books as soon as they were published. At that time, I was young physiotherapist, living in Switzerland, far away from ‘home’ in Glasgow. The main character in this book really struck a chord in my heart – Jenny, a devoted mum to her girls, trying to do her best for them under impossible circumstances.
Linda HuberI suppose I re-read this book when I feel the need for a little mother-love in my life! My own mum is gone now and I’m mum myself to two boys – and still in Switzerland, which is now ‘home’. The thing about having two home countries is, you have neither 100%. I have dual nationality, I speak two languages, my life is here in the middle of Europe – but Scotland still has a corner of my heart. Yet the Scotland I left in the 80s exists no longer; times change and so do places.
In A Cry in the Night, Jenny is searching for home too. Maybe that’s what resonates. She has an aura of love around her, a fierce longing to protect her little family and keep them all together. When she meets Erich, it seems as if her problems are over, but soon Jenny is fighting for the lives of her children. I’ve no idea how many times I’ve read this book, but I know I’ll pick it up again. And again…”

Linda Huber’s Bio
Linda Huber grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, but went to work in Switzerland for a year aged twenty-two, and has lived there ever since. Her day jobs have included working as a physiotherapist in hospitals and schools for handicapped children, and teaching English in a medieval castle, but she now writes full-time. Her books are psychological suspense novels, and she had also published a charity collection of feel-good short stories.

Linda Huber’s links
Linda’s Amazon Author page
Buy Baby Dear
Facebook
Twitter
Website

Linda Huber’s books
Linda HuberBaby Dear is Linda’s latest novel, published in May 2017 by Bloodhound Books. Set in Scotland, it follows three women through a turbulent summer. Caro longs for a child to love, but her husband is infertile. Sharon is eight months pregnant and unsure if she really wants to be a mother. Julie, a single mum with a baby and a small boy, is struggling to make ends meet. Then there’s Jeff, Caro’s husband. All he wants is a happy wife with a baby – but how far is he prepared to go to achieve this?
Linda has written six psychological thrillers, read my review of Chosen Child.
‘Baby Dear’ by Linda Huber [UK: Bloodhound Books]

Linda HuberWhat 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 via the contact form here.

Linda Huber

 

‘A Cry in the Night’ by Mary Higgins Clark [UK: Simon & Schuster]

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Helen J Christmas
Shelley Weiner
Renita d’Silva

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does @LindaHuber19 love A CRY IN THE DARK by Mary Higgins Clark? http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Cm via @SandraDanby #reading

First Edition: The Moonstone

Leave a reply

Before Philip Marlowe, Sherlock Holmes and Adam Dalgliesh. Before Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. The first full-length detective novel ever published was The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. First serialised in Charles Dickens’ magazine All the Year Round, the story revolves around the theft of a precious stone. A diamond, actually, not a semi-precious moonstone. The title page of the first edition [below] shows the publisher as Tinsley Brothers, Catherine Street, The Strand, London in 1868. Wilkie CollinsThe story
On her 18th birthday, Rachel Verinder inherits a large Indian diamond as a legacy from her uncle, a corrupt British army officer serving in India. However the diamond is not only valuable but has great religious significance, and so three Hindu priests dedicate their lives to recovering it. At her birthday party Rachel wears the Moonstone on her dress for all to see. Later the same night, the diamond is stolen. The Moonstone follows the attempts of Rachel’s cousin Franklin Blake to identify the thief, trace the stone and recover it.

The first edition
Of course there are many ‘first editions’ and not all date from the original publication, they may simply be the first printing by a particular publisher. Although I could find online a first edition of Collins’ The Woman in White, dated 1860 and costing £2,500, I could find no similar edition of The Moonstone. I wonder where they are and who owns them? Fans of crime fiction? Wilkie CollinsThis first edition dates to 1959 and was published in the USA by the New York Heritage Press. George Macy’s Heritage Press reprinted classic volumes previously published by the more exclusive Limited Editions Club. Bound in red Morocco leather and including colour lithographs, it costs £450 at rare bookseller Peter Harrington.

The current UK edition
Wilkie Collins There are many editions of The Moonstone now listed at Amazon, many are self-published and take advantage of the lack of copyright. Above is the current Penguin Classics edition.

The films

There have been many television, radio and film adaptations, including in 1997 a BBC/Carlton TV production featuring Greg Wise as Franklin Blake and Keeley Hawes as Rachel Verinder. Watch at You Tube below.

 

Watch the trailer here for the most recent BBC mini-series in 2016 [below].

Other editions
Cover designs for older editions of The Moonstone tend to be romanticized, often featuring details from larger classical paintings.

My copy of The Moonstone [below] is a Penguin Popular Classics edition dating back to 1994. The cover shows a detail of ‘The Honeymoon’ by Alfred Joseph Woolmer [below]. wilkie collins wilkie collins ‘The Moonstone’ by Wilkie Collins [UK: Penguin Classics] Buy now

If you like old books, check out these:-
‘Watership Down’ by Richard Adams
‘The Sea The Sea’ by Iris Murdoch
‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ by John Fowles

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
First Edition: THE MOONSTONE by Wilkie Collins #oldbooks via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2sF

#BookReview ‘Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day’ by Winifred Watson #historical

Leave a reply

Why have I never heard of this book before? First published in 1938, Miss Pettigrew’s day starts when her employment agency sends her to the wrong address. What follows is twenty-four hours of epiphanies in which she learns about life, courtesy of a nightclub singer. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson was a revelation and has quickly claimed its place as one of my favourite novels. Winifred WatsonMiss Pettigrew is a governess, not a very good one, and finds herself forced to take jobs as a housemaid or looking after children she would rather not know. Then one day an error leads her to the apartment of Delysia LaFosse, a nightclub singer with a complicated love life. She tries to tell Miss LaFosse she has come about the job, but Miss LaFosse does not listen. As the story progresses, no children appear, but by now Miss Pettigrew is proving adept at solving Delysia’s small difficulties.
On the surface, this is a frothy story of gowns, flirting, lipstick, negligées and men, suitable and unsuitable. Beneath the surface, it is a novel about throwing away the bounds of class and venturing into the unknown. It is about taking a deep breath and being brave in order to change your life. I was rooting for Guinevere Pettigrew and was particularly pleased with the ending, as I am sure she was too.
My enjoyment of the novel was supplemented by gorgeous line drawings by Mary Thomsom in my Persephone edition.

If you like this, try:-
‘Angel’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘Curtain Call’ by Anthony Quinn
‘A Death in the Dales’ by Frances Brody #7KateShackleton

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY by Winifred Watson http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2oe via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 98… ‘Armadillo’ #amreading #FirstPara

12 Replies

“In these times of ours – and we don’t need to be precise about the exact date – but, anyway, very early in the year, a young man not much over thirty, tall – six feet plus an inch or two – with ink-dark hair and a serious-looking, fine-featured but pallid face, went to keep a business appointment and discovered a hanged man.” William Boyd From ‘Armadillo’ by William Boyd 

Try this #FirstPara from A GOOD MAN IN AFRICA also by William Boyd.

Read my reviews of these other books by William Boyd:-
ANY HUMAN HEART
LOVE IS BLIND
NAT TATE: AN AMERICAN ARTIST 1928-1960
ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS
SWEET CARESS
THE BLUE AFTERNOON
THE DREAMS OF BETHANY MELLMOTH
TRIO
WAITING FOR SUNRISE

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘A Change of Climate’ by Hilary Mantel
‘Jack Maggs’ by Peter Carey
‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara ARMADILLO by William Boyd http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2qA via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘At First Light’ by Vanessa Lafaye #Florida #historical

1 Reply

Having loved Summertime, the debut novel of Florida-born Vanessa Lafaye, I was looking forward to reading At First Light. I was not disappointed. As with her first book, Florida in the period after the Great War is the setting. But the story starts with a bang in 1993 when an elderly Ku Klux Klan official is shot dead at a rally in Key West. The murderer is a 96-year old Cuban woman. At First Light is the story of Alicia Cortez. Vanessa LafayeThis is an intense story in many ways. Love, politics, racial hatred, prostitution and Prohibition. In 1919 Alicia arrives on a boat from Cuba, running from shame though for a while we don’t know the exact details. On the same day, John Morales disembarks from the troop ship which brought him from Europe where he fought with distinction in the Great War. Watching from the dock is fourteen-year-old Dwayne Campbell, who falls a little in love with Alicia, is in awe of John, and who becomes entangled in what is about to unfold. When John, a white man, a local man, is seen with a ‘brown’ stranger, Alicia, the newly established Klan of the Keys takes notice.
Although we know from page one that Alicia shoots someone, we do not know the identity of the victim. As she will not talk to the police, her motivation is unknown. So as the story of her arrival in Key West in 1919 unfolds, the guessing game begins as the Ku Klux Klan plans its attacks. This story segment takes place over a short few months and the speed at which events unfold is mesmerising. There are many thematic contrasts: the beauty of the location, the poverty and depravation; the global politics of war, the local politics run by corrupt men; the lack of women’s rights, the moral and emotional strength of women.
Inspired by a true story – the murder by the Ku Klux Klan of a white man in 1921 because he refused to end his relationship with a mixed-race woman – this is a novel about freedom. The freedoms fought for in war which are too often, and too rapidly, forgotten in daily life when hate is allowed to overcome tolerance and people become too quick to judge. And once a wrong is committed, who has the right to determine the nature of justice and how it should be implemented? Once the police cannot be trusted, the disintegration of society begins.
I read this book very quickly and didn’t want it to end. Second novels are often a disappointment, this one is not.

And here’s my review of SUMMERTIME, also by Vanessa Lafaye.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Ways of the World’ by Robert Goddard
‘Curtain Call’ by Anthony Quinn
‘Time Will Darken It’ by William Maxwell

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview AT FIRST LIGHT by ‪Vanessa Lafaye‪ via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2zh

#BookReview ‘Follow the Leader’ by @writermels #crime

2 Replies

This police procedural is not about identifying the killer as the reader knows who it is from page one, but a chase against time. Will the police stop him before he completes his series of murders? Follow the Leader is the second in the DS Allie Shenton series by Mel Sherratt and, as well as being a story in its own right, it continues the thread of Allie’s story and of her sister Karen. So much so that the ending made me want to pick up book three and keep reading. Mel SherrattThe story is told in the present time from the viewpoint of the murderer, and Allie, plus flashbacks to schoolchildren in 1983. There is bullying, nastiness and violence at home. Patrick keeps his head down, hoping not to be noticed. Unfortunately for him, he has ‘victim’ written all over him. The schooldays segments are horribly realistic. The setting of Stoke-on-Trent is a critical part of this book and it is clear Sherratt is describing real places. The first body is found on the canal towpath. A man was walking his dog, in the same place, at the same time, as he always does. The next victim is a woman. Both have coloured magnetic letters left on the body.
The murders come thick and fast, the police are twisting and turning but the murderer has planned meticulously and remains one step ahead. There are many characters, most of which were at school in 1983, though the identities are muddled with the use of nicknames. As we see the former schoolfriends now, going about their daily life, we wonder who will be next.
Patrick is a difficult character to like or sympathize with despite his abusive childhood. Towards the end Sherratt does consider whether someone can change, can leave behind their violent past. Unfortunately the unthinking cruelty of teenagers to each other has consequences, but there is never an excuse for murder.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Read my reviews of more books in the Allie Shenton series:-
TAUNTING THE DEAD #1ALLIE SHENTON
ONLY THE BRAVE #3ALLIE SHENTON

If you like this, try:-
‘Good Me Bad Me’ by Ali Land
‘The Anarchist Detective’ by Jason Webster
‘Snow White Must Die’ by Nele Neuhaus

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview FOLLOW THE LEADER by @writermels via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2v9

#BookReview ‘The Good People’ by @HannahFKent #historical #folklore

4 Replies

The Good People by Hannah Kent is a powerful second novel from a writer whose debut was outstanding. It is a tale of rural people in a poor community where superstition and folklore become entangled with one woman’s grief, with tragic results. Conflicting systems of thought come into play – folklore, religion, medicine and legal – and fail to make sense of what happens to Nóra Leahy. The power of the story lies not in black versus white, or logic and education versus peasant superstition, it lies in its characters. Hannah KentCounty Kerry, Ireland, 1826. An isolated village, where gossip goes around and around, where people survive on milk and potatoes and burn turf on the fire. A place where petty grievances are not forgotten, there is no money to pay the doctor, but there are still random acts of kindness. In such a poor community, what happens when the unthinkable happens, where the doctor and priest have no explanation or solution?
The Good People is based on true events, a court case which did happen. In the same year in which her daughter died, Nóra’s husband drops dead in the field leaving her alone to care for her four-year-old grandson Micheál. He cannot walk or speak and neither the doctor nor the priest can offer hope. So Nóra keeps him hidden from the village gossips in the fear that his deformities may be an indication of fairy interference. Unable to cope alone, Nóra employs 14-year-old Mary to milk the cow and fetch the water, and principally to care for Micheál. Soon Mary hears the whispers at the well, that the unnatural child of Nóra Leahy is to blame for the poor harvest, the hens not laying, the thin milk. So Nóra asks Nance Roche for help. Nance is the wise woman of the valley, she knows the plants, the cures, and she talks to the Good People… the fairies.
When Nance suggests the screaming, fitting, feeble child is not really Micheál but a changeling left in his place by the fairies, the three women become embroiled in cures to banish ‘the fairy’. The darkness of the cures attempted on a disabled and sick child is disturbing and, ultimately tragic. The events unfold slowly through the stories of Nóra, Mary and Nance. The writing is beautiful and every page is steeped in the folklore of rural Ireland, this bleak village where poor people live at the edge of survival. It is impossible not to connect with the three women, each so different, while at the time seeing the inevitability of what is to come.
A little historical context. In 1801 the Act of Union was enacted which ended a separate parliament in Dublin with government switching to Westminster. In 1823 in Ireland, Daniel O’Connell began to set up Catholic associations around the country, seeking a repeal of the Act of Union. In 1826 an ‘old woman of very advance age’ known as Anne/Nance Roche was indicted for the wilful murder of Michael Kelliher/Leahy at the summer Tralee assizes in Co. Kerry.
A compelling read.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Read my reviews of Hannah Kent’s two other novels:-
BURIAL RITES
DEVOTION

If you like this, try:-
‘The Western Wind’ by Samantha Harvey
‘Master of Shadows’ by Neil Oliver
‘All the Birds, Singing’ by Evie Wyld

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GOOD PEOPLE by @HannahFKent via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2×7

#BookReview ‘The Stars are Fire’ by Anita Shreve #contemporary

1 Reply

I haven’t read anything by Anita Shreve for a very long time and I wonder why, because I thoroughly enjoyed The Stars are Fire. It is a fine example on how to write about someone experiencing difficult times, who is trapped and feels powerless, without being depressing. Anita Shreve It is 1947 and the summer heat is blazing. Then the heat turns to drought and the drought turns to wildfire. On the coast of Maine, Grace Holland, five months pregnant, without a car and at home with her two toddlers, must run as the fire threatens to engulf her village. Her husband Gene is with other men, making a fire break. Grace, with her best friend Rosie and her children, run from the fire, taking refuge overnight at the beach. The next morning, their houses are ash, their village is burned. They are homeless, penniless and, though Rosie’s husband returns, Gene doesn’t.
Grace must cope and in doing so she finds a new world opening up. A world which she had no idea existed. She becomes decisive and brave, she finds a home, a job and learns to drive. All of this validates her worth. With her mother, they fashion themselves a new life. But it is a life with a temporary feeling about it because Grace dare not think Gene is dead. Theirs was a difficult relationship, suffocating, Gene is an emotional bully. She revels in her new freedoms until one day everything she has built, the gains she have made, are lost. Her gamble backfires.
This is a woman’s story of its time, when men were the providers and expected their wives to fulfil their wifely duties. Grace and Gene married young because she was pregnant and this sets the tone for their marriage. His mother wanted better for Gene and has never welcomed Grace. Grace’s dissatisfaction with her claustrophobic life grows. Gene is a good provider but they have little emotional connection, and so Grace envies Rosie’s close and sensual relationship with her husband Tim.
Shreve’s writing style is simple and descriptive. Gene sometimes calls Grace ‘Dove’. “She has never been Gracie. Only Grace. And then Dove, with Gene. Grace doesn’t feel like a dove, and she’s sure she doesn’t look anything like a dove, but she knows there’s a sweetness in the nickname. She wonders if it means something that she doesn’t have a fond or funny name for her husband.” The story is told, however, from Grace’s viewpoint. Gene’s thoughts are left unsaid.

If you like this, try:-
‘We Are Water’ by Wally Lamb
‘The Photographer’s Wife’ by Suzanne Joinson
‘Did You Ever Have a Family’ by Bill Clegg

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE STARS ARE FIRE by Anita Shreve via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2sq

A poem to read in the bath… ‘The Roses’

Leave a reply

The Remedies is the second poetry collection by Katharine Towers. Such an economy of words, beautiful, never a superfluous thought. Concise, moving, piercingly beautiful. Katharine TowersMy favourite is ‘The Roses’. 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.

‘The Roses’

Because my father will not stand again
beneath these swags of Himalayan Mush
nor stare for hours to see which stems are safe…

This poem is about remembering, about loss, about family. And roses.

Read more about Katherine Towers’ poetry at her website.

Katharine Towers

‘The Remedies’ by Katharine Towers [UK: Picador] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Sometimes and After’ by Hilda Doolitte
‘Elegy of a Common Soldier’ by Dennis B Wilson
‘Lost Acres’ by Robert Graves

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘The Roses’ by Katharine Towers via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2rI

SaveSave

#BookReview ‘My Husband the Stranger’ by Rebecca Done #contemporary

Leave a reply

My Husband the Stranger by Rebecca Done is a difficult, depressing story about how the life of a newly married couple is changed when Alex, the husband, has an accident which changes his behaviour. Rebecca DoneAlex’s wife Molly finds herself living with a stranger who looks like the man she loved. This is a study of the emotional aftermath of living with someone with a brain injury. It is not a romance [as the cover style suggests] or a psychological thriller [as the cover blurb hints].
The story is told in alternating sections, Molly and Alex, then and now, as the story is told of how they met, married, their plans for a life together, and then the accident. The first half is slow reading, sometimes repetitive and emotionally-charged. The only thing that kept me reading was the belief that something had to happen soon. The story follows their daily life as Molly deals with a bullying boss and an ex-girlfriend of Alex’s who flirts with him and sends him text messages. Molly feels isolated but is too proud to admit it.
When Alex sets fire to the kitchen he is rescued by a neighbour, an elderly lady who asks Molly how she is coping; she explains how she cared for her husband who had dementia and recognises the difficulties Molly is facing. As Molly mourns the man she fell in love with, she struggles to dutifully care for Alex. She wants to take care of him and brushes off well-meaning offers of help from friends and family. Alex’s twin brother Graeme is a little creepy, and Molly’s parents are too good to be true and crass in the way they pressure her to start a family. Meanwhile, her employer in London is offering her old job back. Should she move Alex away from Norfolk, away from the village where he grew up? Or should she leave him behind and go on her own?
A couple of things jarred with me: contradictions in the portrayal of what Alex is capable of on a day-to-day basis. He has a temper tantrum in an electrical store, but is okay going to a noisy pub or finding his way to the golf club on his own.
This is a tale about the realities of life and how romance can be lost in the most brutal way.

If you like this, try:-
‘Good Me Bad Me’ by Ali Land
‘Did You Ever Have a Family’ by Bill Clegg
‘Summerwater’ by Sarah Moss

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MY HUSBAND THE STRANGER by Rebecca Done via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2rE