#BookReview ‘The Children Act’ by Ian McEwan #contemporary #family

The first page of this book by Ian McEwan is a classic, an intense study of Fiona Maye, High Court judge, a family law specialist, married, childless. The Children Act is the story of a slice of her life and how an upset with her husband coincides with a particular case. Each event impacts on the other and I was left considering how our legal system expects consistent wisdom from its judges when they have human frailties. Ian McEwan Before the story starts, there is a quotation from the Children Act, the piece of law according to which Judge Maye must compose her judgements: ‘When a court determines any question with respect to… the upbringing of a child… the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration.’ But for Fiona Maye, her involvement with this case goes beyond the courtroom.
Adam is a teenager whose religious upbringing prevents him having a blood transfusion as part of his treatment for leukaemia. Fiona Maye routinely moves from one case to the next, digesting complicated information in an efficient, calm and clinical manner, but something about Adam’s situation is different. Her judgement will effectively decide if Adam shall live or die. She doesn’t know it, but it will also have implications for her own life. Is her decision affected by the fact that, nearing sixty, she is starting to feel her childlessness? As she hides from the stress of her husband’s departure in search of sexual adventure, she buries herself in her documents, in Adam’s case. Does personal judgement combine with her judicial process? Doesn’t it always?
This is a slim book about a difficult subject. McEwan writes without a spare word but his prose is more emotional and intense because of that. He concentrates on the two storylines – Adam’s medical situation, and Fiona’s separation from her husband – without extraneous detail about Fiona’s life. The legal case is set out somewhat drily, but then the law is dry. This is not a John Grisham legal thriller, it is a considered fictional examination of what it is like for a lawmaker to sit in judgement while at the same time retaining the humanity which qualified the judge for the job in the first place.
This cover is my hardback version, a Christmas 2014 gift which has been languishing on my shelf until a friend asked me for my opinion. Why did I wait so long to pick it up?

Read the first paragraph of THE CHILDREN ACT

Try these reviews of other McEwan novels:-
MACHINES LIKE ME
NUTSHELL
WHAT WE CAN KNOW

… and try two more McEwan #FirstParas:-
ENDURING LOVE
THE CEMENT GARDEN

If you like this, try:-
‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara
‘The Signature of All Things’ by Elizabeth Gilbert
‘The House at the Edge of the World’ by Julia Rochester

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE CHILDREN ACT by IAN MCEWAN via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1RB

Great Opening Paragraph 82… ‘Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant’ #amreading #FirstPara

“While Pearl Tull was dying, a funny thought occurred to her. It twitched her lips and rustled her breath, and she felt her son lean forward from where he kept watch by her bed. “Get…” she told him. “You should have got…”
Anne TylerFrom ‘Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant’ by Anne Tyler

Here’s the #FirstPara of BACK WHEN WE WERE GROWN UPS, also by Anne Tyler.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Anne Tyler:-
A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD 
CLOCK DANCE
FRENCH BRAID
LADDER OF YEARS
REDHEAD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
THREE DAYS IN JUNE
VINEGAR GIRL

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Philosopher’s Pupil’ by Iris Murdoch 
‘Mara and Dann’ by Doris Lessing 
‘Affinity’ by Sarah Waters

And if you’d like to share a link:
#Books #FirstPara DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT by Anne Tyler http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Tb via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘A Certain Justice’ by PD James #crime

I have read A Certain Justice before, many years ago, my paperback is old. Reading an Adam Dalgliesh story is like slipping into a favourite pair of old jeans. It’s that feeling you get with an assured author: you are in safe hands. It is mutual trust. The author trusts the reader to make connections and ‘get’ references without having to spell everything out, the reader trusts the author to deliver a satisfying story without distractions of blind alleys. This applies, especially I think, to crime fiction. PD JamesI remembered the character of Venetia Aldridge, the murder victim, and of course know detective Adam Dalgliesh, but I had forgotten the identity of the killer. One of the pleasures of a PD James novel for me is the cultural background and the depth of knowledge she demonstrates. Dalgliesh is a poet, he is fond of architecture, of music, of the countryside. The murder of Venetia Aldridge, a barrister, takes place in her Chambers, and so as the reader I became involved in the world of law, of trial by jury, of guilty v not guilty, of revenge, of abandonment, hate and lingering resentment.
James takes her time to establish the characters involved, Venetia Aldridge herself, but also everyone around her, the other lawyers, her colleagues in Chambers, her daughter, and the people involved in her recent trials. A PD James crime novel is not short, but each character sketch is a potential murderer, accomplice, witness or, another murder victim. So it pays for the reader to pay attention. James is a master storyteller.

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
ORIGINAL SIN #9ADAMDALGLIESH … read the first paragraph HERE
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 another PD James novel:-
INNOCENT BLOOD

If you like this, try:-
‘The Pure in Heart’ by Susan Hill #2SIMONSERRAILLER
‘Homeland’ by Clare Francis
‘Stolen Child’ by Laura Elliot

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A CERTAIN JUSTICE by PD James via @SandraDanby https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4cQ

#BookReview ‘Time Will Darken It’ by William Maxwell #historical #classic

Two families, the one from the South visits the one in the North. America before the Great War, class divides, manners, family duty, the race question and, beneath the politeness, love is turbulent. This is the world of Time Will Darken It. I don’t know why I have never discovered William Maxwell before now, but I will certainly seek out his other books. William Maxwell Draperville, Illinois, is the setting for this observation of manners which at times reminded me of Austen. Draperville is based on Maxwell’s own hometown of Lincoln, Illinois. In 1912, the Potter family from Mississippi visit the family of their foster son. Austin King, lawyer in Draperville, struggles to live up to the reputation of his father Judge King. The interaction and resulting effects of the King and Potter families over four weeks and three days, is detailed in a way reminiscent of Austen. And the detail is fascinating. The interaction between the generations, the expectations of the men and women, norms of behaviour and what happens when those norms are broken. This pre-war period teeters on the verge of war, and all the changes that will soon be brought about.
This is a wise book about relationships and how one’s own self-perspective, and that of your parents, changes over time and with experience. “…the history of one’s parents has to be pieced together from fragments, their motives and character guessed at, and the truth about them remains deeply buried, like a boulder that projects one small surface above the level of smooth lawn, and when you come to dig around it, proves to be too large ever to move, though each year’s frost forces it up a little higher.”

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

And read the first paragraphs of TIME WILL DARKEN IT and THE CHATEAU.

If you like this, try:-
Some Luck by Jane Smiley
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
‘Summertime’ by Vanessa Lafaye

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview TIME WILL DARKEN IT by William Maxwell via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1I1

My Porridge & Cream read: Jane Cable

My guest today at ‘Porridge & Cream’ is novelist Jane Cable.

“If I say that my Porridge & Cream book is Long Summer Day very few people will recognise the title. If I say it’s the first volume of RF Delderfield’s Horseman Riding By trilogy most readers will know exactly the book I mean.  jane cable
In all honesty this book has been with me so long I can’t remember the first time I read it. What I do know is it was after the BBC made the TV series in 1978, which I didn’t watch, being far more interested in punk music. At a guess it was while I was studying for my A-levels or my degree. I’m pretty sure it was a library copy, but I asked my father to buy me the whole trilogy for Christmas. The reason they don’t match in the photograph [below] is because I lost Long Summer Day in a house move and my father replaced it for Christmas in 1988.

I don’t often read books twice but A Horseman Riding By comes out if ever I’m ill. The last time was Christmas a few years ago when I caught flu and was too poorly to travel to my mother’s house. It was the first festive season my husband and I had actually been in our home and we spent it curled up with our noses in our books. Jane CableThe main thing which draws me to this book (okay, these books) is the setting. The trilogy charts the life of Paul Craddock from the moment he arrives in “the valley” in South Devon in 1902 until his death in 1965. But it’s not only his life and loves, but those of his family, his tenants and his neighbours woven into a wonderful tapestry which bridges the generations as English country life changes forever.”

Jane Cable’s Bio
Jane Cable is the author of the multi-award winning romantic suspense novel, The Cheesemaker’s House. In 2015 the book won Jane the accolade of Words for the Wounded Independent Novelist of the Year and she was signed by Felicity Trew at the Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency.

Jane’s latest book is The Faerie Tree, a second chance novel about Robin and Izzie who meet again twenty years after their brief affair and realise that their memories of it are completely different. But how can that be? And which one of them is right?

Jane Cable

 

About The Faerie Tree by Jane Cable
How can a memory so vivid be wrong? In the summer of 1986 Robin and Izzie hold hands under the faerie tree and wish for a future together. Within hours tragedy rips their dreams apart. In the winter of 2006, each carrying their own burden of grief, they stumble back into each other’s lives and try to create a second chance. But why are their memories of 1986 so different? And which one of them is right? With strong themes of paganism, love and grief, The Faerie Tree is a story that will resonate with fans of romance, suspense, and folklore.

Read my reviews of Jane’s two novels The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree

 

Jane Cable’s links
Follow on Twitter, through her Facebook page or at her website.

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:-
Claire Dyer
Shelley Weiner
Lisa Devaney

Jane Cable

 

‘Long Summer Day’ by RF Delderfield [UK: Hodder] 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
LONG SUMMER DAY by RF Delderfield is the comfort read of @JaneCable http://wp.me/p5gEM4-23Z via @SandraDanby #books

#BookReview ‘My Name is Lucy Barton’ by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout #contemporary

My Name is Lucy Barton is a gem of a little novel by Elizabeth Strout. I read it in one sitting on a winter’s afternoon, drawn into the life of Lucy Barton. Lucy looks back, ostensibly telling the story of her nine-week stay in hospital and an unexpected visit by her mother, when in fact she tells the story of her life. Mothers and daughters, no two relationships are alike and no woman can make assumptions about another’s experience as either mother or daughter. Stranded in her hospital bed, Lucy remembers her childhood and tries to make sense of it. Elizabeth StroutEconomically [208 pages] and beautifully written, this is the first of Elizabeth Strout’s novels I have read. I have of course heard of Olive Kitteridge but did not realize it is a Pulitzer winner, and so have the treat awaiting me. Strout writes about the everday, the ordinary, the normal [and not-so-normal] and sees the truth behind what is and isn’t said.
Lucy is a kind of everywoman. Through her Strout examines the mother-daughter relationship with an acute eye which will make you examine your own relationships. Lucy tells the story of her hospital visit and her mother’s appearance with the benefit of hindsight, looking back at her childhood, her daughters and female friendships. Sometimes she is baffled, other times she joins the dots and makes acute observations while her mother remembers their life in extreme poverty. There are hints to things in the past which are never confirmed, this is a book as much about what is not said as about what is. In revisiting her childhood, trying, and mostly failing, to get her mother to talk about it, Lucy learns that although your upbringing shapes who you are, that shaping continues throughout your life.
I thought about this book for days afterwards.

Read my reviews of these other books by Elizabeth Strout:-
AMY & ISABELLE
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
LUCY BY THE SEA
OH WILLIAM!
OLIVE KITTERIDGE
OLIVE, AGAIN
TELL ME EVERYTHING

If you like this, try:-
‘The Language of Others’ by Clare Morrall
‘A Spool of Blue Thread’ by Anne Tyler
‘How to Belong’ by Sarah Franklin

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1SL via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Exposure’ by Helen Dunmore #thriller #spy

Exposure is a powerful novel by Helen Dunmore about the effect of the Cold War on one family, thrilling yet subtle. One night in 1960, Simon Callington’s colleague falls and breaks a leg. He rings Simon and asks him to go to his flat, retrieve a document he had taken home from work, and return it to their office. And so begins a tale of official secrets, spies, cover-ups, all told through the prism of this one family, the Callingtons. Helen DunmoreThis is not a traditional spy novel, there are no car chases or killings, but it is taut with tension and threat felt within the routine domesticity of Callingtons’ home. The impact of Giles’s plea for help, and Simon’s subsequent actions, changes everyone’s lives. They are living in a time of secrets and suspicion. Lily, Simon’s wife, is a German Jew brought to England by her mother before the Second World War. As a child, Lily was taught by her mother to fit in with the English, to hide her foreignness. Her life is one of secrets and covering up, when suddenly it becomes real; her husband is accused of espionage, of passing secrets to the Russians. Lily is convinced he is innocent but her instinct is to protect her children, even though she is unsure who the enemy is.
The story unfolds quickly, alternating between Simon and Lily’s viewpoints while from Giles we learn secrets of which Lily is unaware. And all the time, the three Callington children see and listen and understand more than their mother can expect.
Excellent. Helen Dunmore is a go-to author for me, whose hardback books I buy to keep and re-read.

Read my reviews of two other novels by Helen Dunmore:-
BIRDCAGE WALK
THE LIE

If you like this, try:-
‘The Diamond Eye’ by Kate Quinn
‘The Aftermath’ by Rhidian Brooke
‘After the Bombing’ by Clare Morrall

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

#BookReview ‘Purity’ by Jonathan Franzen #mystery #contemporary

I admit to feeling disappointed by Purity by Jonathan Franzen. The root of this disaffection is partly my high expectations, having loved The Corrections and Freedom, and partly the subject matter. Unlike his previous two novels, which focussed on an extended family, the central narrative of Purity is a young woman’s search for her father, a search which brings her into contact with some seriously dodgy people. Jonathan FranzenA large chunk of the novel is about Andreas Wolfe whose Sunlight Project brings light to the world by leaking secrets. His backstory as a young man in East Germany as the Wall crumbles is historically interesting but I found his character unpleasant. On his first foray into West Berlin, Wolfe meets a young American journalist, Tom Aberant, who becomes another constant throughout the book. Great chunks of the book are dedicated to Wolfe and Aberant’s relationships with, respectively Annagret and Annabel, who confusingly merged together in my mind.
So what kept me reading? Pip, the Purity of the title, a young woman burdened by student debt and a curiosity about the identity of her father, is lured to Bolivia to work for the Sunlight Project, in the belief that she will find out the name of her father. Pip’s story inevitably becomes entwined with Wolfe and Aberant but at times it seemed as if Franzen was writing two separate novels, I wanted to skip the Wolfe parts and get back to Pip.
Purity is not just Pip’s real name, it is the big theme. Purity in terms of information freedom, in terms of intentions and objectives, and old-fashioned secrets and lies; and there are a lot of the latter two. All the characters are hiding something, or avoiding someone, or longing for someone, or seeking something unattainable; and all must consider whether, in seeking the truth, they actually want to hear it when they find it.
This is not a bad book, Franzen couldn’t write one, and parts of it are written beautifully. He has a wonderful economy of phrase sometimes which encapsulates a big observation in a few well-chosen words. Unfortunately for me, other parts of it were stodgy and over-long and I skipped over some paragraphs.
Is it an epic book? It is certainly big [576 pages, but not the 736 pages of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life] but that is not in itself a problem, I like reading big books – big in terms of length, and subject matter. My real problem was that I didn’t engage with the characters, I didn’t care about them and found them at times over-the-top, verging on hysterical. I don’t need to like them, but I do need to care about them.
A full-fat novel with extra sugar and extra caffeine.

Read the #FirstParas of these two novels by Jonathan Franzen:-
FREEDOM
THE CORRECTIONS

If you like this, try:-
‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara
‘A Spool of Blue Thread’ by Anne Tyler
‘Some Luck’ by Jane Smiley

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

#BookReview ‘In Another Life’ by Julie Christine Johnson #contemporary #romance

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.

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 #3LANGUEDOC

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

My Porridge & Cream read: Rhoda Baxter

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