Tag Archives: book review

#BookReview ‘Crossing the Lines’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #novella

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I read Crossing the Lines, the new novella by Amanda Huggins – whose previous book won the 2021 Saboteur Award for Best Novella – in one sitting. Based on Red, Huggins’ runner-up in the 2018 Costa Short Story Award, this is the fuller story of runaway Mollie and her dog, Hal. Amanda Huggins Fifteen-year old Mollie grows up on the New Jersey shoreline at Atlantic City but when her mother moves to boyfriend Sherman Rook’s home five states away in the west, Mollie goes too. She hasn’t even arrived at Oakridge Farm when she knows she’s made a mistake, and that her mother has too. At her new home she makes one friend, a stray dog. Then after weeks on edge waiting every night for the sinister Rook to stumble in from the bar and rattle the locked door of her bedroom, Mollie hears a gunshot in the henhouse and sees the body of a dead dog. She grabs $20, a road map and a sweater and sneaks out of the house. When she sees Rook’s pick-up with the keys in the ignition, she takes that too.
This is a road trip back east as Mollie faces situations and people unknown, strange, threatening and well-meaning. The driver whose daughter ran away. The store owner whose dog died. The biker who offers her a bed for the night.
Huggins is always a delightful author to read. This story is tightly controlled but her language roams free with some poetic turns of phrase and descriptions that make the emotions, and the dusty Seventies mid-America landscape, seem real. In 139 pages she gives us not only Mollie’s dilemma and the solution she pursues, but the viewpoints of characters she meets along the way and their impression of the girl with the dog. And underlaid beneath it all is Mollie’s past, her friends back east, her regrets, guilt and longing for father Phil and brother Angel. Life, she learns, should be lived forwards. Mollie greets every day as a surprise.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
THE BLUE OF YOU
Short stories
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
EACH OF US A PETAL
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
Poetry
THE COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘Etta and Otto and Russell and James’ by Emma Hooper
‘The End of the Day’ by Bill Clegg
‘If I Knew You Were Going to be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go’ by Judy Chicurel

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#BookReview ‘A Town Called Solace’ by Mary Lawson #mystery #smalltown

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My favourite book of the year so far is also the discovery of a new author to love. A Town Called Solace is the fourth novel by Mary Lawson. The previous three have been nominated for, and won, many awards and much acclaim. I’m not sure how I have overlooked her but I’m now planning to catch-up. Mary LawsonSuch a quiet book with a powerful emotional punch, the story is set in a solitary lakeside town in northern Canada in 1972. It is a story of mistakes made and paid for, longed-for recompenses, the complexities of child/parent relationships and how things can so easily go wrong. Most of all it is about deep love, understanding and forgiveness. Told through the experiences of three people – eight-year old Clara, widow Elizabeth who is seriously ill in hospital, and Liam who appears one day and moves into the house next door to Clara’s family.
Clara has a key to Mrs Orchard’s house next door so she can feed the shy cat Moses and spend time playing with him so he won’t be bored alone. Clara prefers this to being at home because her older sister Rose has run away and her parents aren’t telling her the truth of what is happening. We learn Elizabeth’s story as she lays in bed struggling to breathe, remembering her life with husband Charles and a wrong she committed decades earlier which she still fiercely defends. Liam has recently split with his wife, left his job as an accountant, and comes to the town of Solace to take possession of a house, a surprise inheritance from someone he knew long ago. These three stories are wound together with builder Jim, policeman Karl, library assistant and ice cream maker Jo, and the sullen waitress at the Hot Potato cafe.
Like my favourite authors – Elizabeth Strout, Anne Tyler, Penelope Lively, Jane Smiley – Lawson has the ability to write about complex emotions with an easy style set in everyday situations that are believable, that could be happening to you, or someone you know. I immersed myself in the story, only towards the end did I appreciate Lawson’s deft plotting and subtle management of character. She writes about the ugliness of human behaviour with a beauty that helps you to understand the human dilemma, to look at the whole picture and see the person behind the actions.
A novel to treasure.

Here’s my review of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE, also by Mary Lawson.

If you like this, try:-
‘Summerwater’ by Sarah Moss
‘The House at the Edge of the World’ by Julia Rochester
‘The Last of the Greenwoods’ by Clare Morrall

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
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#BookReview ‘Jane Austen A Life’ by Claire Tomalin #books #writerslife #JaneAusten

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As a lifelong Jane Austen fan, how I wish I had read this biography years ago. So many details from Jane’s life, her observations in letters to sister Cassandra and comments about Jane by her own relatives shed a spotlight on characterisations and situations portrayed in her novels. Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin was first published in 1997. Claire TomalinLimited by the destruction of so many of Jane’s own letters, Tomalin builds a picture of Jane’s life from the accounts of her family and acquaintances, and of life at that time in Georgian England. The amount of research done must be formidable but Tomalin sets her story of Jane Austen’s daily life against her literary progress, including the times when she was unable to write. She is revealed as having a sparkling and at times dry wit, perhaps more Lizzie Bennet than Emma Woodhouse.  Also interesting is the account of first her father then her brother Henry at getting her books published. On Jane’s death, Cassandra was sole proprietor of Jane’s copyright though Henry continued to negotiate with publishers.
Any writer will be familiar with the reactions of one’s closest relatives to the publication of a new book. The excitement from some quarters, the bemusement from others, and Jane Austen experienced exactly the same. Mrs Austen described Fanny in Mansfield Park as ‘inspid’. It also made me pause to realise that by the age of twenty five, Austen had already written Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. But this was followed by a ten year pause in which she wrote nothing. Only in 1809 did she return to her former pattern of working. What happened to cause this creative halt? Jane’s father retired and so the family were forced to leave the rectory at Steventon; Jane and Cassandra moved with their parents to Bath. Many letters from this difficult time are missing. Tomalin suggests Jane became depressed. She also lacked the physical space and time to write; their lodgings in Bath, frequent outings to the Devon and Dorset coast, and attendance expected at social events, all prevented Jane from writing.
Such is the detail in this wonderful biography that it is difficult to choose highlights. It has made me determined to re-read Austen’s novels now, in the order in which they were written.

Try the #FirstPara of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.

If you’re a Jane Austen fan, try these two ‘extension’ novels by Molly Greeley:-
THE CLERGYMAN’S WIFE
THE HEIRESS

If you like this, try:-
‘Charlotte Bronte: A Life’ by Claire Harman
‘Howard’s End is on the Landing’ by Susan Hill
‘The Woman of Substance: the Life and Books of Barbara Taylor Bradford’ by PiersDudgeon

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview JANE AUSTEN A LIFE by Claire Tomalin https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4k9 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Cornish Village Murder’ by Fiona Leitch #crime #cosycrime

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The Cornish Village Murder by Fiona Leitch is the second Nosey Parker cosy mystery and the first I’ve read, in fact I read it when it was originally called A Brush with Death. Jodie Parker, ex-Metropolitan police officer, and newly single mum has returned home to Cornwall. It’s the week of Penstowan’s inaugural arts festival and Jodie, no longer working for the police, is doing the catering. The festival’s main attraction is painter Duncan Stovall, famous for his Penstowan series of sea paintings. Fiona Leitch This is a story with instant fizz. Written in the first person, Jodie’s, I loved the sly sometimes saucy asides that pull you straight into the jokes, the personalities and the action. If it were an item of food on a menu catered by Jodie, this book would be a mash-up of a Cornish saffron bun slathered with butter and clotted cream, a mug of steaming tea and a glass of scrumpy. Cornwall is a part of the book’s DNA, not just the dialect of the Penstowan residents or the food but the wonderful descriptions of coastal scenery that make you want to get into the car and head south on the M5.
When a visiting author is found dead at the bottom of the cliffs Jodie can’t resist sticking her nose in and asking questions, much to the annoyance of DCI Nathan Withers and the irritation of Jodie’s daughter Daisy and mum Shirley.
This is a silky read, one of the best of its genre I’ve read. A brilliant community of family, friends and townspeople, a beautiful seaside setting, with a witty detective, plotted on two levels. The foundation is Jodie’s life settling into the town of her childhood, a triangular-shaped romantic entanglement, and her burgeoning new catering business. Overlaying this is the case in which she becomes entangled; the art world, not just the creation of art but the finance, promotion, sales and investment.
I particularly enjoyed the joshing with childhood friends Debbie and Tony, including lots of cultural references from the Eighties that are lightly handled without huge signposts saying ‘laugh here’.
Read it and chuckle.

Here are my reviews of other books in the Nosey Parker series:-
THE CORNISH WEDDING MURDER #1NOSEYPARKER
THE PERFECT CORNISH MURDER #3NOSEYPARKER
A CORNISH CHRISTMAS MURDER #4NOSEYPARKER
A CORNISH RECIPE FOR MURDER #5NOSEYPARKER
A CORNISH SEASIDE MURDER #6NOSEYPARKER
THE CORNISH CAMPSITE MURDER #7NOSEYPARKER
THE CORNISH CASTLE MURDER #8NOSEYPARKER

If you like this, try:-
‘Magpie Murders’ by Anthony Horowitz #1SUSANRYELAND
‘A Deadly Discovery’ by JC Kenney #4ALLIE COBB
‘Tea for Two at the Little Cornish Kitchen’ by Jane Linfoot #2LITTLECORNISHKITCHEN

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#BookReview ‘A Deadly Discovery’ by JC Kenney #cosycrime #crime

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Needing a change one day, as I sometimes crave a calming walk in the green countryside, I picked up cosy mystery A Deadly Discovery by JC Kenney. Knowing the book was fourth in a series, I didn’t know what to expect. JC KenneyLiterary agent Allie Cobb lives in Rushing Creek, Indiana where her life revolves around her clients, their manuscripts, taking her cat Ursi for a walk, family and friends. Having previously investigated local murders, and being injured in the process, before this book starts Allie had promised her nearest and dearest that she would drop her private investigating. But when a body turns up in the local woods, everyone wonders if it could be a girl who disappeared twenty ago. As Allie asks questions around town, tensions with the police department arise with suspicions of clues missed at the time of the original disappearance.
This is a different style of whodunnit in that the story is firmly anchored and clues processed in the head of detective Allie. This is a tell-don’t-show style that sinks us into Allie’s daily life and concerns, the reader must unravel the clues from the seemingly ordinary. Of course this is a mystery story so clues, and red herrings, can be anywhere.
Diving into a series mid-way has its benefits and issues. I’m sure I missed lots of references to characters and past stories that would help my reading of Allie’s detecting and understanding of Rushing Creek. From page one a lot of names and relationships are introduced, featured in the previous novels, that I struggled to remember. A character cast at the beginning would help.
Kenney has created a believable small-town world at Rushing Creek where lives, secrets, resentments and loves have been entwined since birth. It reminded me of Charlotte Hinger’s Lottie Albright genealogical mystery series, set in another American small town. When everyone knows everyone else, secrets are not simply embarrassing or shameful. They can be deadly.
An easy, gentle read without a confusing tangle of multiple suspects. I guessed the murderer well before Allie’s big reveal scene, which owed much to the trend of Poirot. I finished it feeling curiously unattached from the people involved, perhaps because Allie dominates the story so thoroughly.

If you like this, try:-
‘Deadly Descent’ by Charlotte Hinger #1LOTTIEALBRIGHT
‘Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death’ by MC Beaton #1AGATHARAISIN
‘Murder at Catmmando Mountain’ by Anna Celeste Burke #1GEORGIESHAW

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#BookReview ‘Winter Pilgrims’ by Toby Clements #historical #WarsoftheRoses

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This is the first of a four-book series about the Wars of the Roses. Toby Clements is a new author for me, I admit to picking up the paperback by mistake in a bookshop when browsing and am happy to find an unknown historical author to explore. Winter Pilgrims is the first of the four novels, telling the well-documented story of the Lancaster versus York wars through the eyes of two fictional people on the edge of the action. Toby ClementsIn February 1460, at a priory in Lincoln, two people flee from marauding soldiers. Despite living yards apart in the same priory Brother Thomas and Sister Katherine have never met until this morning, their previously segregated lives are to be entwined as they escape danger only to encounter new threats. And some old ones.
At first I worried that the plot was moving slowly and felt occasionally drowned by detail, but I stuck with it and was rewarded. By the end – and it’s a long book, the paperback is 560 pages – I wanted to starting reading the second novel straight away. Clements excels at historical detail, particularly soldiers and fight scenes, living conditions and basic human detail. Both characters are conflicted by their religious backgrounds, the things they must do to survive frequently challenge their faith. Life in the real world is brutal, dirty, dangerous and poor. Neither have the personalities of victims. Thomas trains as an archer, Katherine – adopting the male persona as Kit – proves to be an adept surgeon.
Making snap decisions takes them to unknown places with sometimes reliable, sometimes untrustworthy people. Along the way they become involved in some of the key battles of the year as their story is set within the broader framework of civil war. Over the years I have read a lot about the Wars of the Roses due to an early fascination via Shakespeare, but still find it disorientating and so was disappointed with the map and superficial character list. But the story of Thomas and Katherine kept me turning the pages late at night, just one more chapter.
A good book to lose yourself in.

Read my reviews of the other books in this series:-
BROKEN FAITH #2KINGMAKER
DIVIDED SOULS #3KINGMAKER
KINGDOM COME #4KINGMAKER

And also by Toby Clements:-
A GOOD DELIVERANCE

If you like this, try:-
‘The Evening and the Morning’ by Ken Follett #PREQUELKINGSBRIDGE
‘The Lady of the Rivers’ by Philippa Gregory
‘The Burning Chambers’ by Kate Mosse #1JOUBERT

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#BookReview ‘The Heiress’ by Molly Greeley @MollyJGreeley #historical #romance

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An intriguing premise for this second novel by Molly Greeley which re-imagines the story of a minor character in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. In The Clergyman’s Wife it was Charlotte Collins, in The Heiress it’s the turn of Anne de Bourgh. Molly GreeleyWell-written in a slightly modernised style of Austen, it is easy to slip into the head of Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s sickly daughter who at first sight seems an unpromising protagonist. But keep reading. Greeley starts with the birth of a daughter to a young married couple. In order for this book to work you have to both forget Austen’s portrayal of Anne, to sink yourself into the life of this delicate child, but also to remember the original. That is the path to enjoying the asides, thoughts and occasionally darting but puzzling urges that Anne experiences growing up. Scenes I looked forward to, critical in Pride and Prejudice, were skirted over here in favour of new material. Familiar characters occur, some more importantly than others – Darcy, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Mr Collins – but this is 100% Anne’s story.
Sickly from birth, Anne is dosed twice daily with laudanum drops. She is protected from exertion, emotions and unspecified dangers of the outside. Playing the piano is too strenuous, novels and poetry too emotional. Then when she is twelve after an unsuccessful treatment of sea bathing, Anne’s life change when a governess arrives. This is not yet the nodding Mrs Jenkinson from Austen but Miss Hall, a young woman determined to teach her unschooled young pupil what she needs to know to be the future mistress of Pemberley and Rosings.
This is a story of laudanum addiction, the tentacles of the drug’s control preventing any small rebellion by Anne, any protestation that she feels healthy before her curative drops are administered and only weak afterwards. Cocooned from emotion, her true personality smothered, Anne lives at a distance from those closest to her. An article in a newspaper is to be the catalyst for change. But change of any kind takes immense courage, needing a confrontation with her controlling mother. Greeley gives Lady Catherine a moment of redemption though as we, and Anne, catch a glint of history that explains the elderly woman portrayed by Austen and challenged so gleefully by Lizzie Bennet.
For Anne to fulfill Miss Hall’s objective of being a fit mistress of the estate of Rosings, she must do more than break free of drugs. She must discover the truth of who she is.
A fascinating exploration of one woman’s search for freedom in a time of female subjugation to men, when females were labelled as delicate with little diagnosis or review, when many women were unable to live alone or manage their own inheritance. At times surprising, the detail of The Heiress is Austen-like but the emotions are of the twenty-first century.

Click here to read my review of THE CLERGYMAN’S WIFE, also by Molly Greeley.

If you like this, try:-
‘Cecily’ by Annie Garthwaite
‘The Cottingley Secret’ by Hazel Gaynor
‘The Almanack’ by Martine Bailey

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#BookReview ‘Here We Are’ by Graham Swift #theatre #Brighton

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What a delightful slim story is Here We Are by Graham Swift. On the surface it’s a simple tale of a summer season at the theatre at the end of Brighton Pier in 1959. It’s a tale about a magician and his assistant. It’s also a tale about perception and delusion, truth and lies, what is real and an illusion. Graham Swift When young magician Ronnie Deane gets a job for a seaside summer season, he advertises for an assistant. Evie White has experience in the chorus line but has never worked for a magician before. They are both on a steep learning curve. Their guide in Brighton is Ronnie’s friend Jack Robbins, compere, listed on the bill as Jack Robinson. ‘Some patter, some gags, some of them smutty, a bit of singing, some dancing, some tapping of his heels.’ As Ronnie and Evie, listed as ‘Pablo & Eve’, perfect their act, work their way up the bill, they go out as a foursome in the evenings with Jack and his latest girl. They change so frequently Evie can’t keep track of their names, instead thinking of them simply as ‘the Floras’.
This is principally Ronnie’s story, how at the age of eight he left his mother and was evacuated to safety in Oxford. There he found a new home, new parents and a magician to share all the secrets and tricks of the trade. By the end of the war, when Ronnie returns home to London and to his mother, he is a man who knows what job he wants to do.
Like all Swift’s stories, this can be read on many levels. At its simplest it is about a love triangle.
Only 208 pages, it is a short novel. The language is beautiful with not an unnecessary word. Not much may happen, but as the events of 1959 unfold Swift tells us the story of Ronnie’s childhood and how it impacts on the man he has become. The lies told to prevent hurt, the lies told for self-protection, lies told for unknown reasons, and some lies which may actually be the truth. As unknowable as Ronnie’s Famous Rainbow Trick. Unpretentious, at its heart lies a mystery that is in itself mysterious.

Here’s my review of Swift’s MOTHERING SUNDAY.

If you like this, try:-
‘A View of the Harbour’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘The Gustav Sonata’ by Rose Tremain
‘Redhead by the Side of the Road’ by Anne Tyler

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#BookReview ‘Amy & Isabelle’ by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout #contemporary

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The mother and daughter portrayed in Amy & Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout are at odds with each other. The events of one long sweltering summer in Shirley Falls are simple, familiar across the ages, but are told with a hefty emotional punch. So strong is this book it’s difficult to see that it was Strout’s first novel, published in 2000 to be followed only eight years later by her Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge. Strout is adept at peeling away the layers of character and events to show the raw emotion, shame, guilt and pain beneath. Elizabeth StroutWhen Isabelle Goodrow arrived in Shirley Falls with her baby daughter, she took a job at the local mill. Now, in a time that feels like 1970s America, Amy is sixteen and has a summer job in the same office as her mother. They sit and fume at each other, barely talking, brushing past each other without a word. Amy, who has fallen in love with her maths teacher, believes her upright, unemotional mother, has no idea of what she is feeling right now. Isabelle despairs of her daughter’s behaviour. Told in absorbing detail, switching between the two viewpoints, the trauma of the two women is revealed. Shirley Falls is an evocative setting, an industrial town with a river flowing through it. As the temperature rises, the river begins to stink adding to the stresses not just on the Goodrows but on the small community in which they exist. Strout excels at portraying the circle of characters which make the world of a novel so believable – Amy’s friend Stacy, Fat Bev and Dottie Brown at the mill, Isabelle’s boss Avery Clark.
Isabelle finds it difficult to fit in, has always felt like an outsider. As she judges others, she assumes others judge her. This is more about her own experience and inadequacies than about anyone else. As the summer days plod on and Amy’s affair unravels, we see hints of the truth of Isabelle’s past that go some of the way to explaining why she is as she is.
Difficult to put down, I enjoyed Amy & Isabelle very much. Both women are so real, their situations are real, you want to slap them both and hug them both. Strout writes in an extraordinarily perceptive manner about ordinary people in ordinary places, so real you feel you are in the room too.

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

If you like this, try:-
‘If I Knew You Were Going to be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go’ by Judy Chicurel
‘The Museum of You’ by Carys Bray
‘When All is Said’ by Anne Griffin

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview AMY & ISABELLE by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5id via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘A Room Made of Leaves’ by Kate Grenville #historical

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When she is 21, a moment’s dalliance in a bush forces orphan Elizabeth to marry soldier John Macarthur. The story of their marriage in 1788, journey to the colony of Australia on board a convict ship and life in the new settlement called Sydney Town, is told in A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville. Kate GrenvilleElizabeth was a real woman but little is known of her, though her husband features in Australia’s history books as the British army officer who became a politician, legislator and pioneer of the Australian wool industry. Grenville is free to imagine what life must have been like as a white settler, and a woman, in a rough, uncultured town where the native people are viewed as animals.
Very quickly Elizabeth finds her new husband is a bully and her new home is a brutal, unforgiving, judgmental place. She spends much time alone with her sickly son and survives by disguising how clever she is, particularly from her husband. More children quickly follow and she bonds more with the convicts who work for her as servants, than she does with the wives of her husband’s friends. An outlier, she decides to improve her learning and seeks lessons on astronomy from an officer in her husband’s corps. What follows changes her understanding of her new country and her place in it.
The pacing seems at times off kilter, a trifle slow in places and rushed at the end, but the writing is as beautiful as I remember from Grenville’s earlier books. Of the book’s two halves, I wanted less of the first half and more of the second about Elizabeth’s role in developing breeds of sheep suited to the wool trade.
Essentially this is a delicately-written story of a young woman who, after making one mistake, is trapped in a loveless marriage far away from her Devon home. She learns how to manage her husband without him realising he is being managed, she tempers his outbursts and steers him out of trouble. Perhaps this fictional account of Elizabeth’s life will mean more to Australians who have grown-up with the historical story of the real John Macarthur.
A good read but not my favourite Grenville book.

Read my review of another Kate Grenville book, RESTLESS DOLLY MAUNDER.

If you like this, try:-
‘Dangerous Women’ by Hope Adams
‘The Pearl Sister’ by Lucinda Riley
‘Rush Oh!’ by Shirley Barrett

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A ROOM MADE OF LEAVES by Kate Grenville https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5jI via @SandraDanby