Category Archives: book reviews

#BookReview ‘The Outsiders’ by Michelle Paver #YA #fantasy

I came to this Michelle Paver series late, years after reading the award-winning ‘Chronicles of Ancient Darkness’ series which starts with the wonderful Wolf Brother. Doubtful that any character could be as admirable as Torak, it was a joy to read about The Outsiders, first in the ‘Gods and Warriors’ series. Hylas, like Torak, is an outsider. The Outsiders starts at a run from the first page and doesn’t slow up. Hylas has been attacked, his dog is dead, his sister missing and a fellow goatherd killed. And the killers are after him. Adrift at sea, disorientated, Hylas fears he must die. And then there follows a glorious section about dolphins. I won’t give away any more of the plot. The narrative is a shape familiar from Wolf Brother – wild boy in trouble, on the run, not sure who is friend or foe, sets off on a quest where he makes new alliances – but that doesn’t mean this is not an entertaining read with new characters, a new setting, and different myths and gods.
Michelle Paver’s books for children and young adults are set in mystical places but are based on solid research about the way our ancestors lived and survived in wild lands, the animals they hunted, the gods they worshipped and the monsters they feared. The Outsiders is set in the Mediterranean in the Bronze Age.
All the outdoors things inaccessible to today’s children – unsupervised by adults, expected to be self-sufficient at the age of twelve, adventuring to unfamiliar places, making a den, lighting a fire, navigating, foraging, analysing geography, weather and threats. Her child characters have respect for their world, they are brave, adventurous and learn quickly from their mistakes. If they don’t, they will die: these are not gentle stories but they are a preparation for the real world where children must learn for themselves how to survive.

And read my reviews of these other novels by Michelle Paver:-
THIN AIR
VIPER’S DAUGHTER #7WOLFBROTHER
WAKENHYRST

If you like this, try:-
‘Gregor the Overlander’ by Suzanne Collins #1UNDERLANDCHRONICLES
‘The Bear and the Nightingale’ by Katherine Arden #1WINTERNIGHT
‘Divergent’ by Veronica Roth #1DIVERGENT

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#BookReview ‘The Long Drop’ by Denise Mina #crime

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Glasgow, 1950s. Three men meet in bar. One leaves. The remaining two men talk and drink until the early hours. They are unlikely drinking companions. A businessman, and a criminal. What are they talking about? Which one is telling the truth, or are they both lying? The Long Drop by Denise Mina is her fictional version of the night of Monday December 2, 1957 and the subsequent murder trial. It is a chilling story. Peter Manuel was a real murderer in Glasgow and the Burnside Affair happened, which makes this such an unsettling read. A woman, her sister and daughter have been killed, the girl was also raped: this is William Watt’s family, his wife, his daughter, his sister-in-law.
Manuel, a known criminal, writes to Laurence Dowdall, Watt’s solicitor, to say he knows the location of the murder weapon, a gun, and so Dowdall arranges the meeting at Whitehall’s Restaurant/Lounge. Suspected by police of murdering his own family, William Watts meets criminal Manuel desperate for answers. But for a naïve, boasting businessman, he is keeping strange company. All is not as it seems.
Mina populates her story with living/breathing Glasgow in the 1950s. If you have been to Glasgow, Mina’s words bring it alive. It you don’t know Glasgow, your imagination conjures up a crystal clear picture. “This city is commerce unfettered. It centres around the docks and the river, and it is all function. It dresses like the Irishwomen: had to toe in black, hair covered, eyes down.” Dowdall drives a maroon Vauxhall Velox.
This is the first book by Denise Mina which I have read. I really like her writing style. Concise, why use six words in a sentence when one or two conveys the meaning?
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

If you like this, try:-
‘An Uncertain Place’ by Fred Vargas
‘Little Boy Blue’ by MJ Arlidge
‘The Nationalist’ by Campbell Hart

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#BookReview ‘Another You’ by @JaneCable #contemporary #romance

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Novels rooted in a particular area where the place and scenery come alive off the page are favourites of mine. Studland Bay in Dorset, England is a beautiful part of the country, a dramatic coastline which is an ideal for a dramatic story. In Another You, Jane Cable uses the place to great effect. Key action scenes take place at the looming chalk cliffs, the Old Harry rocks, the sand dunes and heath. The time in which the story is set is cleverly chosen too, the sixtieth anniversary of preparations for the D-Day landings, preparations which took place along the south coast of England. It is a time full of memories, grief, regret and gratitude.
In this place and time, Cable sets her story. Marie is chef at The Smugglers, the pub she owns with her husband Stephen, from whom she is separated. Jude their son, a student, lives at the pub and helps out. Despite its popularity, the pub’s finances are not good and there is not enough cash to pay suppliers. Marie doesn’t understand what is happening and is stressed by this and having to deal with her difficult husband. This human story plays out alongside rehearsals for a commemorative re-enactment of Exercise Smash, the exercises conducted to rehearse for the Normandy landings. There are strangers in town, in the pub, soldiers, tanks, tourists. One day walking among the dunes, Marie meets an American soldier Corbin. Entranced by his old-fashioned manners, Marie looks for Corbin again but his presence is unpredictable, he appears and disappears. Marie also meets George, an elderly local gentleman who actually fought at D-Day, and his businessman son Mark; and then there is Paxton, another American serviceman based at a nearby tank museum, who entrances Marie and with whom she starts an affair.
Will Marie self-destruct before she confronts her husband? Will she ask Paxton why he can’t sleep at night, or Jude why he is so unhappy. Her frequent migraines and love of a glass of brandy make her an unreliable narrator, at times she is unable to see the way forward from her situation or question some of her wilder assumptions. Throughout this time, the voice of reason belongs to George. At times I found the story disorientating. In the middle of a migraine, Marie’s sense of the real is blurred, is she remembering real things, having visions, hallucinating, seeing ghosts, blacking out? Mark is a breath of fresh air in the midst of this emotional turmoil. When Marie first meets him, he is tying up his sailing dinghy. Somehow the sea, the waves and wind symbolise a freedom from the troubles on land.
A strong recurring theme throughout Jane Cable’s fiction is the way past and present inter-connect, decisions made years earlier are re-visited, things which happened to an older generation has significance today. This check-and-balance keeps the pages turning quickly.

Read my reviews of Jane’s other books:-
THE CHEESEMAKER’S HOUSE
ENDLESS SKIES

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:-
‘In Another Life’ by Julie Christine Johnson
‘Sweet Caress’ by William Boyd
‘Freya’ by Anthony Quinn

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#BookReview ANOTHER YOU by @JaneCable via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2ke

#BookReview ‘The Perfect Affair’ by @ClaireDyer1 #romance #contemporary

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This is a deceptive read. It is a meandering tale of two love affairs – one today, one in the Sixties – which unfolds slowly, step-by-step, as these things do in life. The Perfect Affair by Claire Dyer is about love, how it appears and grows, and how it fades. Rose has divided her house into two flats, she lives upstairs and rents the downstairs space to Myles, a writer of detective novels. Rose’s regular visitor, Eve, is like the grand-daughter she never had, and is a connection to Rose’s past. In the Sixties, Rose shared a house with Eve’s grandmother Verity. One day Eve and Myles meet. There is a spark of attraction which shocks them both and makes each examine the state of their own marriage. As they come to terms with what this means, Rose watches from afar. In love and seeking the perfect love affair, Rose remembers when she fell in love in the Sixties. Finally a decision must be made.
Dyer writes with a gentle hand, small details showing her understanding of the emotions involved. After meeting Eve for the first time, Myles is disorientated: ‘He’d been OK when he’d left home earlier but now he feels mostly unsettled, as though a fault line has positioned itself under his feet and he knows it’s there and it knows it’s there too.’ Alongside the sense of inevitability, danger lurks. An emotional novel, skilfully written.

Click the title to read my review of Dyer’s novel THE LAST DAY and her poetry anthology YIELD.

If you like this, try:-
‘Please Release Me’ by Rhoda Baxter
‘A Mother’s Secret’ By Renita D’Silva
‘One Step Too Far’ by Tina Seskis

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#BookReview THE PERFECT AFFAIR by @ClaireDyer1 http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2h0 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Witchfinder’s Sister’ by Beth Underdown #historical

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The horror which man can visit on his fellow man, or woman, on anyone slightly different or strange, is explored in this richly-written debut novel. The Witchfinder’s Sister by Beth Underdown is a fictional telling of a real seventeenth century witchfinder, Matthew Hopkins, and his invented sister Alice. It is a novel steeped in historical fact, with excerpts of documents including real people and trials. It is 1645 and the Civil War in England is into its fourth year. There is a sense of brooding danger from the very beginning, and not just because of war. It is a time of religious fervour. A short prologue contains a list of women named as witches, their descriptions and accused crimes. Then in chapter one we meet Alice who is confined to one room. This novel is the account of her life.
When Alice’s husband dies in London in a work accident, she returns home, newly pregnant, to the Essex village where she grew up. Upon entering the home of her younger half-brother Matthew, she discovers he has become obsessed with punishing women for witchery. As her worry about his activities turns into fear, she is unable to escape his influence and is pulled into complicity with his acts. Despite attempts to break free, she too is under his power.
It is a fascinating historical read, the sort of book where you feel assured the author’s research is authentic. Told completely from Alice’s point of view, the other female characters are deeply drawn. The servants in her brother’s house, the creepy Mary Phillips and young Grace; Bridget, her step-mother’s former servant; and Rebecca West, accused of witchery. Some of it is difficult reading, particularly the Watching and Searching of suspects, who are subjected to difficult and demeaning conditions. The power of a few men over so many is frightening. With relevance to today’s society are the big issues of man’s inhumanity to man, intolerance and that ability to inflict cruelty which seems always to lurk just beneath the surface of civilised society.
A book that will stay with me for a long time, and which will be re-read.

Read my review of THE KEY IN THE LOCK, Beth Underdown’s second novel.

If you like this, try:-
‘Orphans of the Carnival’ by Carol Birch
‘The Miniaturist’ by Jessie Burton
‘The Penny Heart’ by Martine Bailey

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First Edition: The Sea The Sea

#BookReview ‘An Unsuitable Job for a Woman’ by PD James #crime

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When Cordelia Gray’s boss at the Pryde Detective Agency dies, he leaves her the business… and an unregistered gun. And so begins An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by PD James, with a female private detective who is a long way away from Adam Dalgliesh, James’s famous creation, but who has been trained by an ex-copper who worked for Dalgliesh. And so the tentacles of ‘the Super’ stretch to Cambridge where Cordelia Gray undertakes her first case. She is not a female private detective in the busybodying, gossiping style of Miss Marple or Agatha Raisin, but a liberated, independent woman who is financially motivated to make a success of her business. Employed by a Cambridge scientist, Sir Ronald Callender, to discover why his son Mark dropped out of university and committed suicide soon after, Cordelia takes up lodging in the rundown gardener’s cottage where Mark died. So much is unclear. Mark left a stew uncooked and a garden fork stuck in half-dug earth. His friends feign friendliness to Cordelia but dance around her questions. Sir Ronald’s assistant/housekeeper is superior and unhelpful. The Marklands, who employed Mark in his last few weeks, are shadows on the edge of the story. Something is evidently not right and Cordelia is soon convinced Mark was murdered. But how can it be proved?
This is a satisfying read with plenty of twists, mysteries and unexplained behaviour. The Seventies college setting in Cambridge – student parties, punting on the Cam – felt authentic. And I did not guess the ending.
Disappointingly, PD James only wrote two Cordelia Gray novels, this in 1972 and The Skull Beneath the Skin ten years later.

Here’s my review of the second Cordelia Gray mystery:-
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #2CORDELIAGRAY

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:-
‘Dead Simple’ by Peter James
‘Hiding The Past’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin #1MortonFarrier
‘I Refuse’ by Per Petterson

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#BookReview ‘Quartet’ by Jean Rhys #historicalfiction #Paris

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Quartet is the first, slim, novel by Wide Sargasso Sea author Jean Rhys. Published in 1928 it is its very different from its famous older sister which was not published until 1968. Semi-autobiographical, Quartet tells the story of Marya, marooned without money in Paris after her chancer husband Stephan is jailed for theft. It is a novel about loneliness and vulnerability and where that can lead. Marya is taken under the wing of the English couple, the Heidlers. They are spoken of as a unit, he is referred to as HJ, his wife is Lois. It is Lois who persuades Marya to move into the spare bedroom at their studio. HJ, she tells Marya, likes to ‘help people.’ But as days pass, Marya is drawn into their emotional and sexual influence. Not an accurate judge of character, Marya is let down but seems incapable of getting away. Visits to her husband in prison are fleeting and unsatisfactory, husband and wife face their own dilemmas and deal with them alone.
This is a melancholy story told beautifully. Marya is intelligent but weak, recognising she is trapped but unable, or unwilling, to extricate herself. ‘You see, I’m afraid the trouble with me is that I’m not hard enough. I’m a soft, thin-skinned sort of person and I’ve been frightened to death these last days.’ She tells her own story but there is often an observational feel almost as if she is standing to the side, commentating about someone playing herself. Some acute observations of other people are really just her transferring her own condition, her own sensibilities onto someone else.
I read the Penguin Modern Classics edition with an excellent introduction by Katie Owen, which sets this novel in the context of Rhys’ bibliography.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Here’s my review of another novel by Jean Rhys:-
AFTER LEAVING MR MACKENZIE

If you like this, try:-
‘A Wreath of Roses’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘The French Lesson’ by Hallie Rubenhold
‘Islands of Mercy’ by Rose Tremain

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#BookReview ‘Sometimes I Lie’ by Alice Feeney @alicewriterland #thriller

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At the beginning of Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney, Amber is in a coma. What happened to her and why she is there, is told in three strands – a series of flashbacks of the previous few days, her childhood, and her trapped-in view of life from her hospital bed. ‘I’ve been returned to my factory settings as a human being, rather than a human doing.’ I’m not sure how to describe this book. It starts off as a study of young women, sisters and friends, and turns into a pacey psychological thriller. At times I forgot the title of the novel, a timely reminder that Amber may be an unreliable narrator. What starts off as a puzzle turns into a sprint, as a mystery visitor to Amber’s hospital bed may be trying to drug her. Her husband is being questioned by the police, it is days before her parents visit, and her sister and husband are arguing at her bedside.
Amber is a radio presenter with a touch of OCD, her repetitive checking of things increases as she is stressed. There are problems at work, her husband keeps disappearing, and an old boyfriend turns up out of the blue.
The plotting is tight, it has to be as there are many disguised clues and un-mentioned facts which only come to light at the end. The twist, when it came, was disorientating and curiously it made me disconnect from Amber’s predicament.
A difficult book to classify.

If you like this, try:-
‘Please Release Me’ by Rhoda Baxter
‘Beginnings’ by Helen J Christmas #1SAMEFACEDIFFERENTPLACE
‘Good Me Bad Me’ by Ali Land

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
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#BookReview ‘Bloodline’ by @FionaMountain #geneaology #mystery

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Bloodline by Fiona Mountain is a combination of genealogical mystery, murder investigation and historical examination of the Nazis. The second Natasha Blake mystery, it covers a lot of ground from its seemingly innocuous starting point when Natasha hands in her report to a client. But nothing is mentioned lightly in this book, everything has a meaning. Natasha is not sure why Charles Seagrove requested this particular family tree, but knows he is unrelated to any of the people featured. The real reason for Seagrove’s interest in genealogy is at the heart of this storyline. There are many dead ends and I admit to losing track of who was who at one point but Mountain ties all the loose endings together so there is clarity at the end. At first, Natasha is simply conducting another genealogical research but everything changes when she receives an anonymous note, ‘Cinderella is in the bluebell woods at Poacher’s Dell’. Once her client is murdered with his own shotgun, Natasha feels threatened as well as puzzled.
There are many storylines to be connected including Charles Seagrove’s grand-daughter Rosa and her father Richard, Second World War land girls, and two soldiers – one German, one English – who meet in the trenches during the Christmas truce of 1914. This is a lot to handle but Mountain manages the complicated history with ease and I enjoyed trying to work out the solution.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

And here’s my review of the first book in the Natasha Blake series:-
PALE AS THE DEAD

If you like this, try:-
‘The Lost Ancestor’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin
‘Deadly Descent’ by Charlotte Hinger
‘Blood-Tied’ by Wendy Percival

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

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SANDRA DANBY'S BOOK REVIEWS

Sharing thoughts on the books I read, new authors, favourite authors, classics re-visisted

Category Archives: book reviews

#BookReview ‘The Outsiders’ by Michelle Paver #YA #fantasy

#BookReview ‘The Long Drop’ by Denise Mina #crime

#BookReview ‘Another You’ by @JaneCable #contemporary #romance

#BookReview ‘The Perfect Affair’ by @ClaireDyer1 #romance #contemporary

#BookReview ‘The Witchfinder’s Sister’ by Beth Underdown #historical

First Edition: The Sea The Sea

#BookReview ‘An Unsuitable Job for a Woman’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘Quartet’ by Jean Rhys #historicalfiction #Paris

#BookReview ‘Sometimes I Lie’ by Alice Feeney @alicewriterland #thriller

#BookReview ‘Bloodline’ by @FionaMountain #geneaology #mystery

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