Category Archives: book reviews

#BookReview ‘In Another Life’ by @JulieChristineJ #contemporary #romance

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In Another Life is the debut novel by Julie Christine Johnson but you’d never know it. She handles her subject matter – Cathar history, Languedoc setting – with confidence and has put together a compelling story of love, history and mystery. Julie Christine JohnsonLisa Carrer returns to France, to the place where her husband was killed in a cycling accident, drawn by the comfort of the place and the proximity of her best friend. She is looking to start anew and finish her research into Cathar history. But a strange experience on her first night in her new house is the first of a trail of events which entwine her own life in the present with people from the past, from the actual time in history she is researching.
The story moves along quickly and kept me turning the pages, told in two strands – present day, and 1208. Originally inspired by a holiday in the Languedoc-Roussillon region, Johnson explains in her ‘Author’s Note’ at the end of the book, that she has draped “layers of fantasy over a scaffolding of fact”. This worked for me, I have a shallow understanding of the historical period and trusted her storytelling.
It is a love story which involves reincarnation, it is not about time travel. Comparisons to Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander and Audrey Niffeneger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, are misleading. In Another Life reminded me in style of Kate Mosse’s Languedoc trilogy, though the stories are completely different. Both authors clearly love Languedoc and know their Cathar history.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

And here’s my review of THE CROWS OF BEARA, also by Julie Christine Johnson.

If you like this, try:-
‘Ferney’ by James Long
‘The Lives She Left Behind’ by James Long
‘Citadel’ by Kate Mosse

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview IN ANOTHER LIFE by @JulieChristineJ https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-1Rb via @SandraDanby

My Porridge & Cream read: Rhoda Baxter

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Today I’m delighted to welcome romantic novelist Rhoda Baxter.

“My ‘Porridge and Cream’ book is actually a series: my Terry Pratchett collection. I started reading them when I was around 16. I had moved from Sri Lanka to Yorkshire and was very lonely. I was lucky enough to make a friend who suggested I try one of the Discworld books. I think he lent me The Colour of Magic. I borrowed the rest of the series from Halifax Central Library. I loved the puns and the pseudo-science jokes. When Mort came out, my Physics teacher told me that Terry was doing a book signing. My Dad took me all the way to Leeds to queue up and get my book signed. It was the first time I met a REAL author. Rhoda BaxterAt uni, I bonded with people who knew that a million to one chances happened nine out of ten times and that Klatchian coffee made you knurd. We used Pratchettisms as a verbal shorthand. I still can’t read the phrase ‘per capita’ for example, without mentally adding ‘if not, decapita could be arranged’. When Sir Terry died, I felt as though I’d lost someone I’d actually known.

Rhoda BaxterI read each book as it came out in paperback and slowly built up a collection. Several of the books have been signed by the man himself. I re-read them from time to time, picking a book off the shelf at random. Most memorably, I read them all from one end of the shelf to the other while breastfeeding my children. I had the book propped up on a cookbook stand, leaving my hands free for cuddling small baby. I could fall straight into the familiar world with minimal effort, as though the words were pouring straight into images without any processing (at 3am after weeks of sleep deprivation, they probably were!).

I read them now and I can feel echoes of all those other times. I like that. If you forced me to choose one, I’d go for The Nightwatch, which is a wonderful time slip novel. If you’ve never read any of the series before, I’d suggest that one. If you consider yourself a person who doesn’t really read fantasy, try Nation. It’s not set in the Discworld, there aren’t any silly jokes, and it’s an incredible exploration of why people find strength in religion. It’s also a story about a boy on a tropical island. It will make you cry – but in a good way.’

Rhoda Baxter’s Bio
Rhoda Baxter likes to write about people who make her laugh. In real life she studied molecular biology at Oxford, which is why her pen name takes after her favourite bacterium. She has a day job working in intellectual property and writes contemporary romantic comedies in whatever spare time she can grab between day job, kids and thinking about food.

About Please Release Me by Rhoda Baxter
Rhoda BaxterWhat if you could only watch as your bright future slipped away from you?

Sally Cummings has had it tougher than most but, if nothing else, it’s taught her to grab opportunity with both hands. And, when she stands looking into the eyes of her new husband Peter on her perfect wedding day, it seems her life is finally on the up.

That is until the car crash that puts her in a coma and throws her entire future into question.

In the following months, a small part of Sally’s consciousness begins to return, allowing her to listen in on the world around her – although she has no way to communicate.

But Sally was never going to let a little thing like a coma get in the way of her happily ever after …

Rhoda will donate 50% of her royalties from Please Release Me to Martin House Children’s Hospice, because they do such amazing work. Watch the book trailer. Read my review of Please Release Me here.

Rhoda Baxter’s links
Rhoda can be found wittering on about science, comedy and cake on her website, Twitter and Facebook.

porridge_and_cream__rainyday_111_long

 

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 via the contact form here.

 

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Rosie Dean
Sue Moorcroft
Jane Cable

Rhoda Baxter‘Nation’ by Terry Pratchett [UK: Corgi] 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does @RhodaBaxter love the complete works of Terry Pratchett? via @SandraDanby #reading http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1QF

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Forgetfulness’

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The two first lines of this Hart Crane poem [below] grabbed me, will grab anyone in their middle years who starts to forget the odd thing, will grab anyone who has watched by as a loved on is taken by dementia.

[photo: poetryfoundation.org]

[photo: poetryfoundation.org]

‘Forgetfulness’
Forgetfulness is like a song
That, freed from beat and measure, wanders.
Forgetfulness is like a bird whose wings are reconciled.
Outspread and motionless, –
A bird that coasts the wind unwearyingly.
 

Forgetfulness is rain at night,
Or an old house in a forest, – or a child.
Forgetfulness is white, – white as a blasted tree,
And it may stun the Sybil into prophecy,
Or bury the Gods.

I can remember much forgetfulness.

This is the first Crane poem I read, found in an anthology. He committed suicide in 1932 at the age of 32, but that hasn’t stopped him being hailed as ‘influential’. His most ambitious work is The Bridge, an epic poem described as being similar to TW Eliot’s The Waste Land.

Hart Crane

 

‘The Complete Poems of Hart Crane’ by Hart Crane [Liveright] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Cloughton Wyke I’ by John Wedgwood Clarke
‘Runaways’ by Daniela Nunnari
‘Lost Acres’ by Robert Graves

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
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#BookReview ‘Noonday’ by Pat Barker #WW2 #historical

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It seems inevitable that the final novel in a trilogy which started with the Great War should end with the Blitz, and that the theme should be death. Death, grief, guilt at being alive, guilt at longing for death, and guilt at wishing another dead. Noonday is a fitting end to the ‘Life Class’ trilogy by Pat Barker, the tale of three young artists – Elinor Brooke, Paul Tarrant and Kit Neville – which started on the verge of the Great War in Life Class, and continued through the war in Toby’s Room. But although the context is war, there are a lot of other things going on. Pat BarkerThe story opens with Elinor at the country home of her mother, who is dying. The assorted relatives wait, in the scorching heat, for death to arrive. Also present is Kenny, an evacuee sent from London to avoid death by bombing. So, the shadow of death is present from the very first page. Don’t forget about Kenny, he is important, particularly in the impact he has on Paul Tarrant – now Elinor’s husband. Paul’s connection with this sorry out-of-place boy leads him to a meeting with a medium, Bertha Mason. This is a story thread criticised by some readers as being irrelevant – and perhaps it is in that it doesn’t connect with either Elinor or Kit – but for me it falls within the theme of grief in war when it is common to not see the body of your loved one. Death, in war, surrounds everyone daily, is expected daily, but is not easier to accept. Perhaps it is understandable that in these circumstances, without a body to bury, communicating with ghosts becomes popular.
As with Life Class and Toby’s Room, the lives of the three protagonists are entwined like snakes. Elinor and Kit are London ambulance drivers, Paul is an air raid warden by night and official war artist by day. The Blitz is the fourth character on the page. The final third of the book is an intense description of the firebombing of the City, an experience which Barker describes with simplicity, urgency, and not a spare word.
Barker is one of my favourite living authors because she writes with such detail about small things, seemingly insignificant ordinary things, but which in her hands and in the context of her story, add layers of meaning. She pays equal attention to the lives of her three main protagonists, the interaction of their lives, and how their desires and motivations impact on each other. She does not step away from sharing an unpleasant thought or action, she tells it as it is, and for this she is a clear voice in a modern world of fiction in which characters often seem too ‘nice’. But that is not realistic and it is not Pat Barker’s way.

For my reviews of other Pat Barker novels, click the title below:-
ANOTHER WORLD
BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN
DOUBLE VISION
LIFE CLASS #1LIFECLASS
TOBY’S ROOM #2LIFECLASS
THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS
THE WOMEN OF TROY
UNION STREET

If you like this, try:-
‘Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase’ by Louise Walters
‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters
‘Midnight in Europe’ by Alan Furst

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview NOONDAY by Pat Barker via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Rf

#BookReview ‘Beside Myself’ by @A_B_Morgan #mystery #identity

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Beside Myself by Ann Morgan is a novel about identity, about identical twin sisters. Do you recognise what is fake and what is true? One sister is prettier and cleverer than the other, and she is unkind to her twin who seems downtrodden, bullied, teased and not so bright. Then a childhood prank goes wrong which affects the two girls for the rest of their lives. Ann Morgan Helen and Ellie play a cruel trick on a neighbour, they swap clothes and re-do their hairstyles appropriately (Helen wears a plait, Ellie is in bunches) and act like the other one does – Helen assertive, Ellie cowering. It is Helen’s idea, but when it is time to swap back Ellie refuses. Beside Myself is thoughtful, at times creepy and disturbing.
The story is told from Ellie’s point of view, that is Ellie who used to be Helen:-
Hellie – Ellie who became Helen – is now a TV presenter.
Helen – who is now Smudge/Ellie – is struggling with mental health problems.
Confused, I was a little.
After the switch, both girls seem to be accepted without question by friends and family, despite their obvious personality differences. Their mother has met a new man and is not taking much notice of what her daughters do. Even so, the mother’s blindness is a little hard to believe. There is a soggy section in the middle of the book with stream-of-consciousness rambles which I could have done without. I also admit at times to pausing and double-checking which girl I was reading about.
Without giving away the conclusion, it is pertinent to say there is a dramatic turning point which makes the girls revisit their childhood, the swap, and other family memories; and so as adults they make sense of who they are today. Many things are explained and, though I didn’t find either girl particularly likeable, they are much more alike than either appreciate.
This is a psychological portrait of sisters, identity and mental illness, rather than a thriller so don’t expect dramatic action.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

If you like this, try:-
‘The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes’ by Anna McPartlin
‘All My Puny Sorrows’ by Miriam Toews
‘Wolf Winter’ by Cecilia Ekback

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#BookReview ‘Original Sin’ by PD James #crime

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I am never disappointed when I pick up an Adam Dalgliesh mystery, I know what I will get with PD James: excellent plotting, thoughtful characterization, an impossible maze of clues, patient description and scene setting, and deep literary references. Original Sin delivers, and it also gives life to London and the River Thames. PD James This is the ninth outing for James’ poet detective, Commander Dalgliesh, the taciturn, thoughtful, policeman with the stare which is as hard-as-nails. His colleagues respect him but cannot say they either know or like him. He is mysterious, and thereby hangs the fascination he holds for readers.
The first death at Peverell Press, a traditional publishing house located in a Venetian-style house beside the Thames, is a suicide, the body found by a new employee. The same employee has the misfortune to find another dead body later in the book. There are a lot of dead bodies at Peverell Press, and there is also a prankster. Proofs wrongly amended, illustrations disappear, appointments cancelled. When the managing director, Gerard Etienne, is found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning, upstairs in the little archive room, the death is considered suspicious enough to call in the police.
This is a complicated web of a story, James weaves together the current and back stories of the key Peverell employees, their alibis, their affairs and petty spats, their lies and secrets. Is the murderer and the prankster the same person, and what of the suicide? Is that connected? Essentially the building where Peverell Press is based, Innocent House, provides a closed-room mystery: the murderer must come from within the company but although some are haughty, others unlikeable and the rest just gossips, someone there must have done it.
Did I guess? No. The motive is fascinating, though I could have done with a few more hints earlier on.

Click the title to sample the first paragraph of ORIGINAL SIN.

Read my reviews of the other Adam Dalgliesh mysteries:-
COVER HER FACE #1ADAMDALGLIESH
A MIND TO MURDER #2ADAMDALGLIESH
UNNATURAL CAUSES #3ADAMDALGLIESH
SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE #4ADAMDALGLIESH
THE BLACK TOWER #5ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH OF AN EXPERT WITNESS #6ADAMDALGLIESH
A TASTE FOR DEATH #7ADAMDALGLIESH
DEVICES AND DESIRES #8ADAMDALGLIESH
A CERTAIN JUSTICE #10ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS #11ADAMDALGLIESH
THE MURDER ROOM #12ADAMDALGLIESH … read the first paragraph HERE
THE LIGHTHOUSE #13ADAMDALGLIESH
THE PRIVATE PATIENT #14 ADAMDALGLIESH

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

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

If you like this, try:-
‘The Blind Man of Seville’ by Robert Wilson #1FALCÓN
‘A Death in Valencia‘ by Jason Webster #2MAXCAMARA
‘I Refuse‘ by Per Petterson

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#BookReview ORIGINAL SIN by PD James via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1CX

#BookReview ‘Toby’s Room’ by Pat Barker #WW1 #historical

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As the second book of a trilogy by Pat Barker, Toby’s Room can be read also as a standalone novel. The Toby of the title is the brother art student Elinor Brooke, whose story is told in Life Class. This story starts further back in time with a secret shared by the siblings, something not hinted at in the first book. In fact this whole book is about secrets, things hidden for shame, war too horrible to talk about, fear and emotions to be ashamed of, and things simply not spoken. Society was very different then, pragmatism coloured everyday lives, people did what they had to and tried to forget the bad things. Pat BarkerToby is reported ‘Missing, Believed Killed’, a parcel of his belongings is returned. Elinor believes the true story is being hidden and enlists fellow art student Paul Tarrant – who returned from Ypres injured and is now an official war artist – to help. She believes another war artist, Kit Neville, who served with Toby, must know the truth but refuses to say. Kit suffered a horrific face injury and is being treated at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup. Visiting Kit there they find not only Kit but Henry Tonks, their intimidating professor at the Slade School of Art.
The facial reconstructions at Sidcup are well documented, not least by the medical drawings of patients by Tonks and his team. Once again, Barker uses a true story and seamlessly inserts her fictional characters. And yet again, Barker combines a study of individuals at war while considering the role of art in conflict. As official war artists, Kit and Paul struggle with the limitations they are given, the portrayal of reality is forbidden. As I read every page of this book, the image which stayed in my mind was Paul Nash’s ‘We Are Making a New World’ (see below).

Paul Nash

(c) Tate; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

For my reviews of other Pat Barker novels, click the title below:-
ANOTHER WORLD
BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN
DOUBLE VISION
LIFE CLASS #1LIFECLASS
NOONDAY #3LIFECLASS
THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS
THE WOMEN OF TROY
UNION STREET

If you like this, try:-
‘Stay Where You Are and Then Leave’ by John Boyne
‘The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing’ by Mary Paulson-Ellis
‘The Ways of the World’ by Robert Goddard

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#BookReview ‘The Book of Lies’ by Mary Horlock #Guernsey #WW2

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What is the truth and what is a lie? Is a fib a lie, is an omission a lie? And what would make you lie? To save yourself, to save a loved one? Is it okay to lie in war? I read The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock without keeping the title in my mind, but at the end I knew what the title meant. Mary Horlock The island of Guernsey is the setting for this family story told through the eyes of two children: in 1985, Catherine is 15; in 1940, her uncle Charlie is 12. He sees the German soldiers arrive to occupy the small island; a generation later, Cat still feels the after-effects of the lies told then. More lies are being told now, the difficulty is in identifying truth from lies.
Cat is central to the novel. She is an irreverent narrator who tells us not only her own story but also the history of the island and her family’s war story. She was told both stories by her father, and now that he is dead Cat wishes she had asked him more questions. Cat’s voice is a true teenager, her banter is littered with humour, insecurity, crushes, curiosity and indignation. Charlie’s story is told in flashbacks, but mostly through the transcripts of tapes made of his conversation with his brother Emile, Cat’s father’, telling the truth of what happened to him.
Keep reading, the twists and turns of this family, its tricks and lies, its love and secrets, ends in a twist I didn’t see coming. Forty-five years later, the truth still hurts.

If you like this, try:-
Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase by Louise Walters
‘A Week in Paris’ by Rachel Hore
‘The Light Years’ by Elizabeth Jane Howard #1CAZALETCHRONICLES

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BOOK OF LIES by Mary Horlock http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1LQ via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘The Cinnamon Peeler’

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This is one of the most sensuous poems I have read, it conjures up love and desire and… cinnamon. By Michael Ondaatje [below], better known for novel and film The English Patient, it is an assault of the senses. I first read it in the anthology Staying Alive edited by Neil Astley [UK: Bloodaxe]. That’s why I love anthologies, I own all three of the Astley trilogy: Staying Alive, Being Alive and Being Human. All are excellent, a great way of finding new poets, great to dip in and out of.

Michael Ondaatje

[illustration: newyorker.com & Patrick Long]

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 Cinnamon Peeler’
If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
And leave the yellow bark dust
On your pillow.
 

Your breast and shoulders would reek
You could never walk through markets
Without the profession of my fingers
Floating over you. The blind would
Stumble certain of whom they approached
Though you might bathe
Under rain gutters, monsoon.

To listen to The Cinnamon Peeler, read by Michael Cerveris for The Poetry Foundation, click here.

Michael Ondaatje

 

‘The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems’ by Michael Ondaatje [UK: Bloomsbury] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘The Dead’ by Billy Collins
‘Elegy of a Common Soldier’ by Dennis B Wilson
‘Poems’ by Ruth Stone

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#BookReview ‘The Truth Will Out’ by Jane Isaac @JaneIsaacAuthor #crime

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A great beginning, it made me want to check that the loft space of our house is sealed and inaccessible from outside. In The Truth Will Out by Jane Isaac, the lives of two young women are never the same again after a holiday to Italy. Jane IsaacThe truth of their trip dawns on them on their way home, and the days after their return are fraught. One is attacked, the other flees. Detective Chief Inspector Helen Lavery is on the case, hindered by the appearance of a central police team led by her ex-lover [odd that so many crime novelists feel the need to add a romance theme, is this because so many crime novels are read by women?]. So, a good combination of tension: will the baddies catch up with Eva, will the attacker strike again, and how will Helen cope with seeing her ex?
A competent crime thriller with a female detective who, refreshingly, is not an alcoholic, on the verge of a nervous breakdown or being bullied by male officers. A few plot weaknesses aside – I never fully bought-into Eva’s flight and lack of concern about Naomi – this was a good tale though perhaps it could have been a little shorter. A slightly lacklustre final few pages.

If you like this, try:-
‘An Uncertain Place’ by Fred Vargas #8COMMISSAIREADAMSBERG
‘The Accident’ by CL Taylor
‘Angel with Two Faces’ by Nicola Upson #2JOSEPHINETEY

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