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!

#BookReview ‘Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener’ by @mc_beaton #cosycrime

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When a new arrival in the Cotswold village of Carsley brings competition for the attentions of James Lacey, Agatha Raisin is tempted to turn her back on her neighbour. In Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener by MC Beaton, she makes a reckless decision and return to London. MC BeatonAs usual in this series, Agatha’s decision-making is suspect and she gets herself deeper into trouble. But observation of James and her rival in love, Mary Fortune, at the gardening club give her hope that James is not convinced by Mary’s obvious charms although Mary seems universally loved by the rest of the village.
Another murder in Carsley gives Agatha, ably aided by James, ample opportunity for nosiness, trespassing, the making of lots of general assumptions, all tempered by common sense and observation of human nature. Sometimes Agatha seems to have a death wish when it comes to relationships, she admits she was never good at making friends, perhaps she is likeable because she is not perfect. On occasions she is rude, grumpy and arrogant.
MC Beaton’s creation – this is the third in the Agatha Raisin series – is an enjoyable well-written mystery more akin with Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote, than with Miss Marple. If you want an easy read one rainy afternoon, or when you are about to board a plane, then this will suit you admirably.

Read my reviews of other books in this series:-
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE QUICHE OF DEATH #1AGATHARAISIN
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE VICIOUS VET #2AGATHARAISIN
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE WALKERS OF DEMBLEY #4AGATHARAISIN
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE MURDEROUS MARRIAGE #5AGATHARAISIN

If you like this, try:-
‘Big Sky’ by Kate Atkinson
‘The Vanished Bride’ by Bella Ellis
‘A Fatal Crossing’ by Tom Hindle

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview AGATHA RAISIN AND THE POTTED GARDENER by @mc_beaton http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Wx via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Somewhere Inside of Happy’ by @annamcpartlin #contemporary #grief

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Somewhere Inside of Happy by Anna McPartlin is a thoughtful book with strongly drawn characters, Irish humour and a fair amount of ripe language. And there is laughter and tears. Yet again, Irish author McPartlin tackles difficult issues. Grief – as in the superb The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes –  dementia and homophobia. Anna McPartlinThis is the story of Maisie Bean, a single mother who has fought bravely to escape a violent husband and raise her two children, Jeremy and Valerie. The story starts, on January 1, 1995, when Jeremy disappears.
Ever since his mother found the strength to leave her abusive husband, Jeremy has been the man of the family. He has been responsible, thoughtful, helpful, caring for his grandmother Bridie who suffers from dementia, keeping an eye on his younger sister Valerie. In doing so he has repressed who he is because he doesn’t really understand who he is, all he knows is that he is different.
Somewhere Inside of Happy is an examination of generalisations, assumptions and misunderstandings, how the crowd dynamic and a troublesome media can turn a whisper into fact. How a community looks the other way whilst a drug-addict father neglects his son and how gays are referred to as ‘queer’ and worse. The mirror held up to society is not a pretty one. It is a reminder to us all to be more respectful of others, to stop ourselves being unfair and condemnatory about things we do not understand. The setting is Ireland in the Nineties, not that long ago. The title of the book is actually a place within Jeremy, to where he retreats, curled up, when the outside world gets too much.
If I have one criticism, it is the Prologue set twenty years after the main story. It tells us so many things I would expect to discover through reading the book.
My favourite character? Bridie. She is drawn with such affection, a ‘game old bird’ dancing with her sixteen-year-old grandson.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Read my review of THE LAST DAYS OF RABBIT HAYES, also by Anna McPartlin.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Little Red Chairs’ by Edna O’Brien
‘Nora Webster’ by Colm Tóibín
‘Butterfly Barn’ by Karen Power

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview SOMEWHERE INSIDE OF HAPPY by @annamcpartlin http://wp.me/p5gEM4-21A via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 87… ‘Time Will Darken It’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“In order to pay off an old debt that someone else had contracted, Austin King had said yes when he knew that he ought to have said no, and now at five o’clock of a July afternoon he saw the grinning face of trouble everywhere he turned. The house was full of strangers from Mississippi; within an hour, friends and neighbours invited to an evening party would begin ringing the doorbell; and his wife (whom he loved) was not speaking to him.” William MaxwellFrom ‘Time Will Darken It’ by William Maxwell

Here’s my review of TIME WILL DARKEN IT.

Sample the #FirstPara of THE CHATEAU.

And read my reviews of these other novels by William Maxwell:-
BRIGHT CENTER OF HEAVEN
THE FOLDED LEAF
THEY CAME LIKE SWALLOWS

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Such a Long Journey’ by Rohinton Mistry 
‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ by Mark Haddon 
‘Death in Summer’ by William Trevor 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara TIME WILL DARKEN IT by William Maxwell http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Vh via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet’ by @mc_beaton #cosycrime

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Re-bound dates are never a good idea, and Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet by MC Beaton starts with retired PR supremo and now amateur sleuth Agatha feeling spurned by sexy neighbour James Lacey. MC BeatonOn the re-bound, she goes out for dinner with the village’s new flirtatious vet, Paul Bladen. It soon turns out that he dislikes cats, although he does seem to have a penchance for middle-aged ladies.
When he drops dead, seemingly of an unfortunate accident, Agatha refuses to accept it is not murder. And so the second novel in the prolific Agatha Raisin series sets off at a pace, as Agatha tries to spend time with James Lacey without drooling.
They ignore police warnings not to ask questions where it is inappropriate, and after breaking into the bank, and snooping around the dead man’s house, they think they find evidence of wrongdoing. Except it is not quite the wrongdoing that they expected.
Another easy-to-read detective romp by MC Beaton, charming to read with your feet up on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Formulaic, yes. But very funny.

Read my review of other books in this series:-
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE QUICHE OF DEATH #1AGATHARAISIN
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE POTTED GARDENER #3AGATHARAISIN
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE WALKERS OF DEMBLEY #4AGATHARAISIN
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE MURDEROUS MARRIAGE #5AGATHARAISIN

If you like this, try:-
‘Etta and Otto and Russell and James’ by Emma Hooper
‘Cover Her Face’ by PD James
‘The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman’ by Julietta Henderson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview AGATHA RAISIN AND THE VICIOUS VET by @mc_beaton http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1K6 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Don’t You Cry’ by @MaryKubica #mystery #suspense

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Don’t You Cry explores how easy it is to make assumptions and how this guesswork is so often wrong. This is the third novel by Mary Kubica, all thoughtful mysteries, carefully written and detailed. It took me longer to get into this one, but Kubica spends time drawing the characters and I was prepared to go along with her. Mary KubicaThere are two narrators. In Chicago, Quinn’s roommate disappears. After a couple of days waiting for Esther to return and wondering if she has done anything to upset her, Quinn starts to poke around looking for answers. The first things she finds are confusing, they contradict the Esther she knows, or thinks she knows. And then she starts to wonder what Esther is hiding. Quinn’s voice is alternated with Alex, a young man who lives in the small town where he grew up on the shore of Lake Michigan. He is a nice guy, who passed up on college for a boring low-paid in a rundown lakeside café so he can care for his drunken father. He takes lunch to Ingrid, a housebound elderly lady and stays to eat with her, and to play cards. One day, he goes to work and sees a girl with distinctive, ombre hair. There is something about her that captures his imagination. The girl, in his head he calls her Pearl, is watching the house next door to Ingrid, which is the office of a psychologist.
Nothing is what it seems. I raced through the last few pages as the answers came thick and fast. The twists and turns are clever but, compared with Kubica’s other two novels, this feels baggy and would benefit from an edit to improve the pace and cut repetitions.

Read my reviews of two other novels by Mary Kubica:-
PRETTY BABY
THE GOOD GIRL

If you like this, try:-
‘Pretty Is’ by Maggie Mitchell
‘The Lost Girl’ by Sangu Mandanna
‘The Accident’ by CL Taylor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DON’T YOU CRY by @MaryKubica by @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-21l

#BookReview ‘Dark Aemilia’ by Sally O’Reilly #historical

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Shakespeare, tick. Possible identity of the Dark Lady, tick. Supernatural, witches and demons, tick. Stinking, plague-ridden London, tick. The Globe, white-faced boy actors dressed in velvet, smoke, whistles and special effects, tick. This is Dark Aemilia by Sally O’Reilly. Sally O'ReillyBased on a foundation of history, O’Reilly tells the fictional story of real-life Aemilia Bassano and her love affair with William Shakespeare. There is no documentary evidence that this affair took place, but O’Reilly’s imagination conjures a rich story in which the setting of Elizabethan London is vibrant and believable. Wherever Aemilia goes – in an apothecary’s shop, in the audience at The Globe or standing at the edge of a plague pit – you can see, smell and hear her London.
Aemilia is something of a feminist, in that she struggles against men her whole life for the freedom to live her own life. Orphaned at 12 she becomes mistress to Lord Hunsdon [readers of Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl will be interested to know that Hunsdon was the real-life Henry, son of Mary Boleyn] but during an affair with Shakespeare, Aemilia falls pregnant. Hunsdon arranges a marriage for her to her cousin Alfonso Lanyer, and so Aemilia’s destiny is determined at each stage by men. Father, protector, husband, lover and son.
She is a fascinating character, a woman of her time or before her time? As a poet and a lover, her influence on Shakespeare is at the core of this book. But then with her son dying of the plague, she turns to witchcraft and so the wilder element of the story takes off. I admit to skipping some of these sections. For me, the interesting plot was Aemilia, Shakespeare, the Globe and the writing of Macbeth and consequently for me the book could have been shorter.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

If you like this, try:-
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen
‘The Taxidermist’s Daughter’ by Kate Mosse
‘A Dangerous Business’ by Jane Smiley

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DARK AEMILIA by Sally O’Reilly via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1RK

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Runaways’

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Today’s poem to read in your bath is from Red Tree, the debut poetry collection by Yorkshire poet Daniela Nunnari.

[photo: valleypressuk.com ]

[photo: valleypressuk.com ]

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.

‘Runaways’

Run away with me.

We’ll drive down roads
With old stone walls.
We’ll close our eyes
By waterfalls,
And listen.

You’ll how me how to skim a stone
And how to pick the perfect one.
I’ll catch the icy river ripples,
Frozen like February, in my phone.’

So evocative of new love, the exhilaration and freedom of getting away from it all. The countryside and nature feature in examination of the fantasy/reality elements of a daily relationship.

My other favourites in this edition? ‘Optrex’, ‘Buoy’ and ‘There’s Something in the Trees’.

For more about Daniela Nunnari and publisher Valley Press, click here.

red tree by daniela nunnari 24-7-15

 

‘Red Tree’ by Daniela Nunnari [UK: Valley Press] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Cloughton Wyke I’ by John Wedgwood Clarke
‘Alone’ by Dea Parkin
‘Sometimes and After’ by Hilda Doolittle

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Daniela Nunnari’s RUNAWAYS http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1HI Today’s #poem to read in the bath: chosen by @SandraDanby

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#BookReview ‘Curtain Call’ by Anthony Quinn #historical #1930s

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The 1930s come alive in Curtain Call by journalist Anthony Quinn, I stepped into his world and felt as if I was there. An effortless read, I was plunged into the worlds of Stephen Wyley, artist; Nina Land, actress; the gloriously-named Madeline Farewell, hostess; Jimmy Erskine, theatre critic; and Tom Tunner, Erskine’s assistant. Anthony Quinn The setting is a time of looming war, royal crisis, blackshirts and strict homosexuality laws. It is not an easy novel to categorize: there are murders, but it is not a detective novel; we see the world of art and theatre and prostitution, but it is not a novel about art etc. Packed with period detail, with not one detail too many, this is written with a light hand and a clever plot. It starts with a romantic assignation and chance encounter in a hotel with a murderer, known in the newspapers as the Tiepin Killer. This meeting of only seconds, brings together the key characters and kickstarts the murder plotline.
Curtain Call is the predecessor, not prequel, to Quinn’s novel Freya.

Click the titles to read my review of other novels by Anthony Quinn:
FREYA
HALF OF THE HUMAN RACE
MOLLY & THE CAPTAIN
OUR FRIENDS IN BERLIN
THE RESCUE MAN
THE STREETS

If you like this, try:-
‘The Light Years’ by Elizabeth Jane Howard
‘At Mrs Lippincote’s’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘The Heat of the Day’ by Elizabeth Bowen

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview CURTAIN CALL by Anthony Quinn http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Xu via @Sandra Danby

First Edition: Watership Down

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It is a book which begun as a tale told by a father to his two daughters. Surely everyone has read Watership Down by Richard Adams.

Watership Down

[photo: Wikipedia]

The story
In Southern England lives at Sandleford Warren, a community of rabbits. They live in their natural environment but anthropomorphized so they have their own voices, culture, language, proverbs and mythology. This is a book which rewards re-reading. Fiver, the runt of the litter, is also a seer. When he forsees the destruction of their warren, Fiver and and his brother Hazel try to convince the other rabbits to flee with them. Unsuccessful, they set out on their own with 11 other rabbits to search for a new home. Hazel, previously an unimportant member of the warren, finds himself leader of the group. Fiver has visions about a safe place to settle, and so they find Watership Down. But still, they are not safe.

First UK edition Watership DownThe first UK edition was published in November 1972 by Rex Collings. At the time, Collings famously wrote to an associate, “I’ve just taken on a novel about rabbits, one of them with extra-sensory perception. Do you think I’m mad?”

The book took Adams two years to write and went on to win two children’s fiction awards for Adams – the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, one of only six authors to do the double.

The film Watership DownIn 1978 there was an animated film, well-known for two things: Hazel, voiced by John Hurt, and Art Garfunkel’s hit single Bright Eyes. Watch the trailer here.

The current UK edition
The current UK edition, published by Puffin Books in 2014, features illustrations by David Parkins. This [below] is the original 1973 Puffin paperback edition. Watership DownOther books by Richard Adams
Tales from Watership Down – the sequel, published 25 years later.

The Plague Dogs [1977] – about two dogs which escape animal testing. The first edition features location maps  by Alfred Wainwright, fellwalker and author.

Shardik [1974] – Kelderek is a young hunter who pursues a bear believing it to be Shardik, the giant bear god. Hunter and bear are unwillingly drawn into the politics of the Beklan Empire. Shardik, the height of two men, has curved claws longer than a man’s head.

Watership Down

 

‘Watership Down’ by Richard Adams [UK: Puffin] Buy here

If you like old books, check out these:-
‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen
‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ by John Fowles
‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
First Edition: WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams #oldbooks via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Y4

#BookReview ‘Last Light’ by Alex Scarrow #thriller #dystopian #adventure

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I’m sure that you, like me, watch end-of-the-world scenarios in films and wonder ’what would I do?’ That’s the thought I had reading Last Light by Alex Scarrow. Oil consultant Andy Sutherland writes an investigate report for a client about what would happen if the world’s oil suppliers were cut off. Ten years later, the trigger points he identified start to happen. Alex Scarrow Within hours, society breaks down. Andy is in Iraq, his wife Jenny has packed her stuff ready to move out of the family home and has gone to Manchester for a job interview. Their daughter Leona is at university in Norwich and son Jacob at private school. They could not be more widely spread. The instinct of the, newly separated, parents, is to get back to their children. The children long for the security of their parents. While in the background, the unknown group causing the chaos has sent Ash to find Leona.
The pages of this turn so rapidly you could read it in one sitting on a long haul flight. Excellent stuff. It’s clear that Scarrow is fascinated by the ‘Peak Oil’ scenario at the centre of the story, and it shows on every page. As each of the Sutherland family learns the hard way not to trust anyone, we wonder if they [and society in general] can possibly survive.

And here’s my review of the sequel, AFTERLIGHT #LASTLIGHT2.

If you like this, try:-
‘In Ark’ by Lisa Devaney
‘The Last of Us’ by Rob Ewing
‘The Ship’ by Antonia Honeywell

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview LAST LIGHT by Alex Scarrow via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Pn