#BookReview ‘The Elopement’ by @AuthorTracyRees #historical

5 Replies

When society beauty Rowena Blythe elopes with an unsuitable artist’s assistant, the repercussions ripple throughout the household and the local community. The Elopement, like other novels by Tracy Rees, is packed with social comment. She shows that while society in 1897 was lived under strict class differences, people were more similar than they realised. Tracy ReesRees tells the story of three women who live in close proximity to each other in Highgate, North London. Housemaid Pansy Tilney works six days a week at Garrowgate Hall, home to the Blythe family and run with a rod of iron by the mistress, Maud Blythe. Rowena, the only daughter of the house, is intended for a suitable marriage if only Maud can find a suitable husband that Rowena will deem to accept. Rowena and her best friend Verity love nothing more than to gossip, especially about those they see as unfashionable, plain, weak or boring. One of their targets is single mother Olive Westfallan. The Westfallen family lives at the opposite side of Hampstead Heath to the Blythes. There is history between the two families as the patriarchs – Rowena and Olive’s fathers – fell out long ago. Olive, who is as rich if not richer than Rowena, pays no notice to gossip about her unusual circumstances. As a single unmarried woman, she adopted a daughter Clover and gave home to a ward, Angeline. She is a working mother, as head of her own charitable foundation she helps less fortunate people take a step up in life, through education, employment or financial aid. There are not two people more different than Rowena and Olive.
Rees brings the three women together in the most unusual of circumstances. Each is facing a life-changing decision and each is prevaricating. Rowena must choose a husband. Pansy must leave Garrowgate Hall and find new employment as the man she loves holds a secret unfulfilled passion for Rowena. Olive must consider whether to accept a marriage proposal from a man she likes, perhaps loves, but isn’t sure if she loves him enough or whether his attitude to life fits hers. These are dilemmas of the time, England on the cusp of the twentieth-century saw the cause of women evolving rapidly. Rees presents opportunities to her three characters, each must be brave in making their decision.
A novel about the solidarity, and also bitchiness, of women. Not all are as they seem. Some get what they want, others don’t know what they want. As the constraints of society’s expectations are loosened, new chances become available, to rich and poor alike. Rowena, who had it all, falls in love with an unsuitable man – an artist, foreign and poor ­– and pays the price for her impetuous decision.
I’ve loved every Tracy Rees novel I’ve read so far. The Elopement didn’t disappoint. It is in fact a sequel to Rees’s The Rose Garden [see below for a link to my review] but it isn’t necessary to read the first to enjoy The Elopement. Each woman must find a way to break free of the limitations of their sex and find a brighter future. So much more than a historical romance.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Click the title below to read my reviews of other novels by Tracy Rees:-
AMY SNOW
DARLING BLUE
THE HOUSE AT SILVERMOOR
THE ROSE GARDEN

If you like this, try:-
‘After Leaving Mr Mackenzie’ by Jean Rhys
‘The Walworth Beauty’ by Michèle Roberts
‘The Ninth Child’ by Sally Magnusson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
THE ELOPEMENT by @AuthorTracyRees #bookreview https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6p9 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- William Trevor

#BookReview ‘Joe Country’ by Mick Herron #spy #thriller

8 Replies

In a consistently high-quality series, Joe Country by Mick Herron is as good as all the rest in the Slough House series. The roll call of regular characters is headed by the incorrigible Jackson Lamb, who is so wrong he is right. And at this point in the series we know Lamb is sharper than he looks. Mick HerronIn this sixth instalment of the reject spies, Louisa takes time off to hunt for the missing teenage son of former lover, the now dead spy Min Harper. Meanwhile in the office, new recruit Lech is rumoured to have been sent to Slough House because child porn was found on his Regent’s Park computer. How can these two events possibly be connected?
It’s another puzzle for the slow horses to figure out, ably supported by ex-dog Emma Flyte and threatened by the re-appearance of a baddie from a previous book. Herron’s stories run so quickly they feel a little like gobbling down food and wishing you’d taken time to enjoy the individual flavours. A couple of times I checked back to make sure I was correctly remembering a seemingly small incident or inconsequential remark that turned out to be not so small. The quickfire wit is a hallmark of Herron’s style and the running jokes, many political, transfer from book to book. One of the most popular highlighted phrases in the Kindle version of this novel is, ‘If you want your enemy to fail, give him something important to do. This stratagem – known for obscure historical reasons as ‘The Boris.’
The action moves from London – where River attends the funeral of the ‘OB,’ his former-spy grandfather, and office manager Catherine Standish has taken to buying a bottle of wine every day on the way home from work – to Wales. With the Fitbit coordinates of Lucas Harper’s last location, Louisa heads west while her Slough House colleagues check the movements of a suspicious character spotted at the OB’s funeral. As always, Lamb knows exactly what is going on everywhere but unleashes his reject spies out into the field when they are supposed to be doing boring desk jobs. When Louisa goes missing in Wales, Lamb sends the slow horses to find her.
Excellent. I raced through it.

Click the title to read my reviews of the previous books in the Slough House series:-
SLOW HORSES #1SLOUGHHOUSE
DEAD LIONS #2SLOUGHHOUSE
REAL TIGERS #3SLOUGHHOUSE
SPOOK STREET #4SLOUGHHOUSE
LONDON RULES #5SLOUGHHOUSE
SLOUGH HOUSE #7SLOUGHHOUSE
BAD ACTORS  #8SLOUGHHOUSE

If you like this, try:-
‘Never’ by Ken Follett
‘Panic Room’ by Robert Goddard
‘The Accident’ by Chris Pavone

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview JOE COUNTRY by Mick Herron https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6mo via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Tracy Rees

#BookReview ‘The Cottingley Secret’ by @HazelGaynor #historical #fairies

3 Replies

I won a signed paperback of The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor in a Twitter promotion on #NationalNorthernWritersDay and it’s been sitting on my to-read shelf for a while. I picked it up one weekend when searching for a comforting, absorbing read, and that’s what it is. Hazel GaynorTold in dual timeline, it is partly based on the true story of the two young girls who photographed fairies at the bottom of their garden, combined with a fictional imagining of a 21st century bookbinder who inherits a bookshop in Ireland. The story is slow to start and it’s a while before the fairy connection between the two strands is established. But hang in there.
In 1917, Frances Griffiths and her mother travel from South Africa to Cottingley, Yorkshire. They will stay with Frances’ aunt, uncle and cousin while her father goes off to fight the Great War. Frances soon settles into life with her older cousin Elsie and together the two play imaginary games. Until one day Frances sees fairies beside the beck at the back of the house, ‘…the first flash of emerald, then another of blue, then yellow, glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. Not dragonflies. Not butterflies. Something else.” After confiding in Elsie, Frances blurts out her secret to her mother who doesn’t believe her. None of the adults do. What follows is an innocent attempt to prove the adults wrong, an attempt which spirals out of control. Soon Mr Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, is involved and the possibility of confessing their secret becomes impossible.
In present day Ireland, Olivia Kavanagh arrives in her hometown of Howth on a sad journey. Her grandfather Pappy has died. Olivia feels helpless as she visits grandmother Nana, who suffers from dementia and lives in a local nursing home. But Pappy has left a letter and a surprise for Olivia. He has left her his secondhand bookshop, Something Old, and Bluebell Cottage. But Olivia lives and works in London as a rare book restorer and is due to marry fiancé Jack in a few weeks.
This is a novel about the need for hope at a time of upheaval and uncertainty, both in the midst of war in 1917 and for Olivia in the 21st century. ‘If we believe in fairies, perhaps we can believe in anything,’ says Frances’ mother. If they can believe in the end of the war, they can believe in the return of loved ones and the resumption of normal life.
As a childhood lover of Cicely Mary Barker’s Flower Fairies, I found this novel to be a wonderful read. Gaynor knits together the wonder of the fairies with the darker themes of world war, and the modern challenges facing Olivia who is lost but doesn’t know it.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Hazel Gaynor:-
THE BIRD IN THE BAMBOO CAGE
THE LAST LIFEBOAT … and try the #FirstPara of THE LAST LIFEBOAT.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock’ by Imogen Hermes Gowar
‘The Good People’ by Hannah Kent
‘The Ninth Child’ by Sally Magnusson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE COTTINGLEY SECRET by @HazelGaynor https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6nz via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘A Village Affair’ by Joanna Trollope #familysaga #rereading

4 Replies

The title of this Joanna Trollope novel is so clever. Yes, A Village Affair is about a love affair that takes place in a village. It’s also about a woman’s love for that village, a comfortable middle-class lifestyle and a house, and the reverberations of her subsequent love affair on such a small claustrophobic community. Joanna TrollopeWhen Alice Jordan moves to The Grey House in Pitcombe she knows at last she is living a beautiful life. The house is old and stylish, her husband successful, her three children adorable. She wishes for nothing more and fits comfortably into village routines. So why does it feel as if something is missing. When she falls in love with Clodagh Unwin, daughter of their richest neighbours, the whole village apple cart is upset and Alice’s life is suddenly the opposite of idyllic. ‘Once you had stopped letting things happen and started to make them happen, you couldn’t go back.’
Trollope charts the changes in Alice’s life through the descriptions of her homes. The stifling suburban home where she grew up, her first married home with Martin to the glorious Grey House. It is clear as she bounces from one home and one relationship to another – from smothering mother and silent father, to boring husband Martin, and Cecily, Martin’s cool garden designer mother – that Alice doesn’t know who she is or what she wants. She has fallen in love with a picture postcard image of marriage, but has married the wrong person. When she realises this and becomes open to change, making choices she has never considered before, she then must face the consequences good and bad. Her choices now affect more than just her.
First published in 1990, the story about a gay love affair has dated somewhat awkwardly. The neighbours all have a judgement about the Jordan’s marriage but that is what villages are like, everyone knows everyone else even if they don’t know them well or particularly like them. One village character feels so strongly about what’s happened that she weeps over and over again but ‘couldn’t quite describe what it was that she felts so strongly about.’ Another believes he understands more about poetry than life because, ‘life was often just too peculiar to take in.’
I first read this book thirty years ago and enjoyed again Trollope’s skill at characterization, the small details. Clodagh, in distress, becomes ‘an exotic broken bird with tattered, gorgeous plumage and splintered frail bones showing through.’ Toddler Charlie ‘who had fitted a raspberry on his finger like a thimble and was regarding it with wonder.’
It is possible to feel affronted at the now old-fashioned portrayal of a relationship between two women but this story is really about love full stop. Alice loves Clodagh but also loves her children, her parents and in some way still loves her husband. Love is never simple.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Here are my reviews of other Trollope novels:-
A PASSIONATE MAN
MUM & DAD
THE CHOIR
THE RECTOR’S WIFE

If you like this, try:-
‘The Lie of the Land’ by Amanda Craig
‘The Perfect Affair’ by Claire Dyer
‘Something to Hide’ by Deborah Moggach

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A VILLAGE AFFAIR by Joanna Trollope https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6jI via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Mick Herron

#BookReview ‘A Daughter’s Courage’ by @RenitaDSilva #historical #India

6 Replies

A Daughter’s Courage by Renita D’Silva is the story of four girls, in India and England, separated by a hundred years. D’Silva explores how actions have consequences not only instant but generations later, not just for the person concerned but also for people unknown. What happens to Lucy and Gowri in the 1920s impacts on the contemporary lives of Kavya and Sue, one newly-widowed and feeling adrift, the other a failed Bollywood actress. Renita D'SilvaTwo girls at the beginning of the twentieth century. One rich one poor, a continent apart and in circumstances so remote from each other. Both are trapped by their circumstances. Both are mavericks who want more than their parents plan, dreaming of a life different from the one that society expects.
Gowri is the older daughter of a poor tenant farmer in India in 1924. She loves school and plans to be a teacher. But her only brother is ill and when an amazing opportunity presents itself, her parents choose her brother’s life and in exchange Gowri becomes a devadasi, a woman dedicated for life to a local temple and the goddess Yellamma. Her hopes and dreams are nothing.
In England in 1927, Lucy flirts at parties but longs to travel with her best friend. But when Ann falls in love and marries, Lucy’s dreams are abandoned. Lucy, who ‘doesn’t want to tread the path chalked out for her. She doesn’t want to follow the crowd,’ seeks a different kind of adventure. When things go wrong, Lucy marries a stranger and travels to his coffee plantation in India. With her husband James polite but cold, she obsesses over the mistakes she has made. The lives of Lucy and Gowri change forever when they are brought together as a tiger roams the woodlands.
What a fascinating read this is. A trifle slow to get going, and occasionally repetitive, I soon didn’t want to put it down. I was intrigued more by the daily lives of Gowri and Lucy and their dilemmas, than the contemporary women, but what kept me reading was the puzzle of how all four women are connected. As Kavya discovers previously-hidden letters and Lucy finds startling photographs of India, a news story hits the headlines in India. A long-forgotten temple has been discovered by a rampaging elephant, its history and ownership are in doubt.
A beautiful story of heartbreak and family, set in the fragrant and beautiful landscape of India where abuse and exploitation can be hidden in plain view.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Renita D’Silva:-
A MOTHER’S SECRET
BENEATH AN INDIAN SKY
THE GIRL IN THE PAINTING
THE ORPHAN’S GIFT
THE SPICE MAKER’S SECRET
THE WAR CHILD

If you like this, try:-
‘Devotion’ by Hannah Kent
‘Pigeon Pie’ by Nancy Mitford
‘Things Bright and Beautiful’ by Anbara Salam

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A DAUGHTER’S COURAGE by @RenitaDSilva https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6jB via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Joanna Trollope

#BookReview ‘Molly & the Captain’ by Anthony Quinn #historical #art

6 Replies

Three timelines, three studies of artist families. Molly & the Captain by Anthony Quinn is the story of one painting via three families across three centuries. It starts in Georgian Bath with the artist William Merrymount and his two daughters. His portrait of the two girls, ‘Molly & the Captain,’ intrigues through the centuries and ends up in North London in the current time. Anthony QuinnEach of the three parts stands alone, the connections revealing themselves in the final pages. In 1758, Merrymount is a renowned artist. His elder daughter Laura is a promising student and it is she who tells the family’s story through letters to her cousin. When her emotionally brittle sister Molly falls in love with the man Laura had thought to marry, their lives change. Things are not as they appear, secrets are well-hidden even within their household and Laura discovers facts she perhaps would prefer to remain unknown.
In 1889, artist Paul Stransom makes a living painting pictures of his local area, preferring to paint landscapes in parks rather than portraits. Tempted to venture abroad, perhaps to Normandy where colleagues are having success, his plans change when in Kensington Gardens he sees a mother and two young daughters, all dressed in white. When he approaches them, they disappear. Meanwhile his sister Maggie is faced with choosing to marry a man with the means to support her, or the poor man she loves.
In modern-day North London, artist Nell is preparing for an exhibition, a retrospective of her work which should bring long-overdue recognition. Her actress daughter Billie meets a young musician who she is to work with in a film. Horrified by the squat where Robbie lives, Billie suggests her mother take him into her house to replace the lodgers currently moving out of her loft. The consequences impact on all their lives.
This is a book about families, love and loyalty, about how creativity impinges on the privacy of family members and how the conflicts of success are just as difficult to deal with now as in Georgian times. Life – romance, loyalty, self-sacrifice, betrayal, opportunities, failure – always seem to get in the way.
It took me longer to read than I expected although it is not a particularly long book. The pace is slow, Quinn takes times to describe his settings with characteristic care of detail. Essentially this is a gentle mystery, a question runs throughout the three sections: what happened to the painting ‘Molly & the Captain’?
The ending has a wonderful, but gentle, twist. A thoughtful read and one I expect to gain more from on re-reading.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Read my reviews of these other novels also by Anthony Quinn:-
CURTAIN CALL
FREYA
HALF OF THE HUMAN RACE
OUR FRIENDS IN BERLIN
THE RESCUE MAN
THE STREETS

If you like this, try:-
‘The Doll Factory’ by Elizabeth Macneal
‘The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock’ by Imogen Hermes Gowar
‘The Ballroom’ by Anna Hope

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
MOLLY & THE CAPTAIN by Anthony Quinn #BookReview https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6if via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Renita D'Silva

#BookReview ‘The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty’ by Sebastian Barry #historical

6 Replies

Written in 1998, The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty is the earliest of the books by Irish writer Sebastian Barry I’ve read so far. I came to him with A Long Long Way, shortlisted for the 2005 Booker Prize. What I didn’t realise until recently is that many of his novels are connected by their characters, all related distantly to each other. Sebastian BarryThe Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty is the sad story of a dislocated young man forced to leave Sligo, threatened with murder, blacklisted because he worked as a police officer for the Royal Irish Constabulary. When Irish independence occurs at around 100 pages, Eneas realises that following the murders he witnessed, murders by Irishmen of Irishmen in the cause of this independence, he must be either an outcast or a wanderer. And wherever he goes, he must go alone without the girl he loves. Viv, the enigmatic, beautiful, carefree girl he met on the beach.
Eneas is a simple man who makes his own way in life, looking for support from no one, but naïve in the decisions he takes and friends he makes. His banishment is symbolic of the ferocious Irish political turmoil of the early 20th century. Periodically he tries to return to his family – his parents, two brothers and sister – hoping time has healed the political separations but finding his name is still on a kill list. So he drifts, finding for work, not proud, turning his hand to what is available. “And he thinks back a little over his life and where he was born and he wonders did he make such a hames and a hash of it after all? Didn’t he just live the life given him and no more side to him than a field-mouse as God’s plough bears down to crush his nest?”
The timeline stutters through events in Eneas’ life, taking a long time over small passages of time but flashing through momentous landmarks. Wars start and end. Decades pass with barely a mention. But the language is a delight.
Eneas, an innocent in the world of early 20th century Irish politics, is afraid. There is ‘no aspirin for his fear.’ The novel is suffused in Irish history with mentions of Irish warrior hero Cú Chulainn and local Sligo landmarks such as Maeve’s Cairn at the peak of Knocknarea.
This is a novel to be read slowly and absorbed. Race through it and you will miss its beauty.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Sebastian Barry:-
A LONG LONG WAY
DAYS WITHOUT END #1DAYSWITHOUTEND
A THOUSAND MOONS #2DAYSWITHOUTEND
OLD GOD’S TIME

If you like this, try:-
‘The Irish Inheritance’ by MJ Lee
‘Love is Blind’ by William Boyd
‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ by John Boyne

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE WHEREABOUTS OF ENEAS MCNULTY by Sebastian Barry https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6aU via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Anthony Quinn

#BookReview ‘The Choir’ by Joanna Trollope #familysaga #rereading

5 Replies

The Choir was the first book by Joanna Trollope that I read, in 1988, and the first published under her own name. Prior to that, she had written historical novels as Caroline Harvey. After reading and enjoying Mum & Dad in 2020, I decided to revisit my old Trollope paperbacks. Joanna TrollopeI never liked the phrase ‘aga saga,’ coined to describe Trollope’s style of novel – community-based, middle class, family trauma, forbidden romance – finding it over-simplistic and belittling of Trollope’s work. The Choir is about a limited time period in the life of a small community, the cathedral and choir school at Aldminster, and what happens when the stonework begins to crumble. Money must be found or saved, cuts must be made, unthinkable changes are considered. This is a story of small-world politics, the interaction of personalities domineering, clever, manipulative, naïve, well-meaning, defeated.
When the Dean of Aldminster Cathedral investigates the building’s dodgy lighting system, he finds stone erosion that will cost a fortune to fix. He first considers sell the headmaster’s magnificent listed house to the council for use as a community centre. There are social divisions within the town and the cathedral’s quarter is seen by some as superior and unwelcoming, a new social centre may help redress the balance. When the true cost of the renovation becomes apparent, Dean Hugh Cavendish considers closing the cathedral’s choir. The latter idea is abhorrent to headmaster Alexander Troy and organist Leo Beckford. Personalities ally themselves to one side of the argument or the other. Caught in the middle is chorister Henry Ashworth whose absent father lives in Saudi Arabia and whose mother Sally is dallying on the edge of an affair. Trollope is excellent at drawing this cast of characters, each fully rounded, each of which is engaging even when they are being awful. Like Ianthe, the Dean’s rebellious daughter, who fancies herself in love with Leo despite a lack of encouragement from him.
When a money-raising scheme is suggested that involves some of the Cathedral Close’s most unlikely characters, it is expected to fail. Henry becomes an unexpected star. One event leads to another, decisions must be made, marriages falter and professional courtesies are forgotten. In this small community, they all know each other’s business, politics becomes all-consuming; the finances of the cathedral, its place in the town, the accessibility of the choir to children from less advantaged families, and the rivalry around the town council boardroom table.

Joanna Trollope

My original copy of ‘The Choir’

This novel is 35 years old but that doesn’t matter. I enjoyed it immensely.

Read my reviews of other novels by Joanna Trollope:-
A PASSIONATE MAN
A VILLAGE AFFAIR
MUM & DAD
THE RECTOR’S WIFE

If you like this, try:-
‘A Single Thread’ by Tracy Chevalier
‘The Gustav Sonata’ by Rose Tremain
‘We Are Water’ by Wally Lamb

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE CHOIR by Joanna Trollope https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-68K via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Sebastian Barry

#BookReview ‘A Mansion for Murder’ by @FrancesBrody #cosycrime

6 Replies

A Mansion for Murder, thirteenth in the Kate Shackleton 1930s crime series by Frances Brody, centres on an unlucky Yorkshire mansion. Intrigued when she receives a letter from a stranger, Kate visits the Milner Field estate, near the mill town of Saltaire, to meet the letter writer. But Ronnie Cresswell, who promised to tell a ‘story from the past,’ has drowned. Can Kate discover this story for herself? Frances BrodyMilner Field has an unhappy reputation for bad luck, failure and death. Everyone around the mansion, and nearby Salt Mills, is hiding something. At the mill, a new contract may be lost because an employee is selling sensitive commercial information. And now Ronnie is dead. Some secrets relate to the present day, others are anchored in the past. So many secrets mean lots of red herrings hiding the truth. Ronnie’s death happens at the beginning of the story and a lot of characters are introduced together. Some are just names and I struggled to separate them in my mind, appearing briefly and not seen again.
Brody tells this story in two timelines, Kate in 1930 and a child in the past; the year isn’t specified, the chapters are simply headed ‘Long Ago’. Ronnie Cresswell works for the maintenance department at Salt Mills. His family are deeply connected with the local area. He lives with his parents at The Lodge on the Milner Field estate, which is now for sale. Ronnie’s parents, father [confusingly also called Ronald] is head gardener. His mother is housekeeper and there are three siblings, Stephen, Mark and Nancy. Ronnie, it emerges, is courting Pamela Whittaker, daughter of the Salt Mills owner. Not everyone is happy with their relationship.
The events of the past and present are thinly connected but they contribute to the eerie atmosphere of the once grand house and explain how local legends and rumour take root. I was left feeling that the creepiness of the house and its grounds was under-exploited. A number of sub-plots jog along, some of which amount to nothing much. But the story of Rosie and Jim Sykes is a good one. The most affecting storyline belongs to Miss Mason, the schoolteacher.
Not as tightly written as Brody’s previous Kate Shackleton novels perhaps, as seems to be the case with a number of recently-released novels, it was written during lockdown. Overall this is a good inter-war series with a thoroughbred lead character in Kate Shackleton. Set in a period of social change, Kate’s character and job reflect the alteration in women’s lives, the widening of their opportunities and ambitions, and the old-fashioned obstacles they must still bear.

Read my reviews of these other Kate Shackleton novels:-
DYING IN THE WOOL #1KATESHACKLETON
A DEATH IN THE DALES #7KATESHACKLETON
A SNAPSHOT OF MURDER #10KATESHACKLETON
DEATH AND THE BREWERY QUEEN #12KATESHACKLETON

If you like this, try:-
‘I Refuse’ by Per Petterson
‘An Uncertain Place’ by Fred Vargas
‘Or the Bull Kills You’ by Jason Webster

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A MANSION FOR MURDER by @FrancesBrody https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-67i via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:-
Joanna Trollope

#BookReview ‘Lucy by the Sea’ by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout #contemporary

8 Replies

Elizabeth Strout never writes a bad novel. When I started to read Lucy by the Sea, her latest, I was taken aback to find it is set during the pandemic; something I have avoided. But I was soon immersed in the life of Lucy Barton and her relocation from New York to a small seaside town in Maine. Elizabeth StroutMy misgivings about lockdown were reduced because this is a Strout novel. She doesn’t write about the pandemic – apart from occasional mentions of masks and vaccines – she writes about people. This is a finely-judged story about ageing, about grief [new and long-lived], about secrets within families and self-denial of difficult truths. Lucy moves into a large house outside the town of Crosby, not because she planned it, but because her ex-husband William persuades her it will be safer than the city. There they discover new and old acquaintances and reacquaint themselves with each other. William is recently separated; Lucy was widowed a year earlier. Both feel their age and are anxious about the subtle changes, but don’t like admitting it to themselves or anyone else.
Through Lucy’s eyes as she reflects on her own life, and that of her children and family, we see how childhood poverty never leaves you even if you leave that poverty behind. How marriage turbulence is sometimes negotiable, and sometimes terminal. How education saved her but didn’t save her sister or brother, and how she was for years blind to that inequality. It is thought-provoking stuff. Honest. Painful. It makes you consider your own life and how you see it through blinkers gained through your personal experience.
Strout’s novels are all inter-twined through character and place, but always with a light touch. If this is the first Strout book you pick up, please read it. This is not a series, there is no first and last book to be read in order. It is an ensemble. If it were theatrical, it would be a repertory company. The pandemic-forced move to Crosby takes Lucy out of her comfort zone, away from friends, and she rubs shoulders with people she wouldn’t normally meet. As we see Lucy age from novel to novel, Lucy by the Sea highlights her new vulnerability and anxiety as she and William work out how to handle the awkward elements of getting old.
This is a more political novel than any of Strout’s previous work. The pandemic setting makes this inevitable. There is a shadow of mask v anti-mask, resident v incomer, plus brief mentions of George Floyd and storming of the Capitol on January 6. But this is not overt and always put into Lucy’s context. Strout places her characters in a time of disruption, fear and death. For everyone who lived through it, the surreal isolation forced by pandemic lockdown was an opportunity for consideration, re-evaluation and truth. A gift for a novelist with the powers of Elizabeth Strout.
Excellent.

Read my reviews of these other books by Elizabeth Strout:-
AMY & ISABELLE
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON
OH WILLIAM!
OLIVE KITTERIDGE
OLIVE, AGAIN

If you like this, try:-
‘Curtain Call’ by Anthony Quinn
‘A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom’ by John Boyne
‘Shrines of Gaiety’ by Kate Atkinson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview LUCY BY THE SEA by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-65D via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Frances Brody