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#BookReview ‘The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing’ by Mary Paulson-Ellis #WW1

A group of Great War soldiers is waiting for orders. During the last skirmishes of the war, men are still dying. Will the men receive orders to retreat or advance? Who will live or who will die? There are two strands to The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing by Mary Paulson-Ellis and the title refers to the second. A contemporary man in Edinburgh, an heir hunter, finds a pawn ticket amongst the possessions of Thomas Methven, an old soldier who died alone. This is a detailed story with many layers and many characters introduced as the two strands are told and hesitantly connected. At times the detail became confusing with so many descriptive repetitions I found myself skipping forwards. Paulson-Ellis writes scenes so well – the soldier’s gambling scene with the chicken is totally believable, and her portrayal of the foundling school in NE England is heart breaking. As Solomon tracks the life story of the deceased soldier, we see flashes of his own story, orphaned at seven and sent to live with his grandfather. Though interesting I found this distracting, it took me away from the story of the soldiers and added even more characters and family trees to remember.
The message is that the debts of the past do not disappear. Captain Godfrey Farthing is waiting, always waiting; to live to die, to advance, to retreat. He is simply trying to keep his men safe to the end of the war, which they suspect may come at any time. But Farthing’s intentions may be wrecked by enemy attack, by orders to attack, or by his own men themselves who are confined and bored. ‘A strange peace was coursing through his veins; that terrible calm that comes when a man knows the end is coming, but not in the way he had imagined when he began.’
Gambling is a continuous theme throughout the WW1 strand, and I lost track of the treasures gambled, won and lost, coveted, stolen and hidden. There are 11 soldiers involved, surely too many. Like The Lord of the Flies, the boredom of the men, their jealousies, petty rivalries and guns come to dominate their world, as if the war is already over. The treasures they gamble can be the smallest thing which to us may seem irrelevant but in war is crucial. Not monetary value as known at home, but representing an emotional or practical value.
Different rules apply during wartime and items that are significant then are cast into the spotlight when they survive across the generations to be found by modern day relatives. I admit to confusion about who was related to who and perhaps the cutting of a few peripheral characters would help. Given my interest in family history and WW1, I expected to love this book but longed for a firmer editing hand.

If you like this, try:-
‘Life Class’ by Pat Barker #1LIFECLASS
‘A Long Long Way’ by Sebastian Barry
‘Half of the Human Race’ by Anthony Quinn

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A poem to read in the bath… ‘Out Chasing Boys’ by Amanda Huggins #poetry

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Recently published is this small poetry chapbook, The Collective Nouns for Birds by Amanda Huggins, with 24 poems. Huggins is an award-winning writer of flash fiction and short stories, so knowing her skill with the short form I looked forward to this first poetry chapbook with anticipation. And I wasn’t disappointed. I’ve chosen the first poem in the book as it struck a chord from my own childhood. I can smell the salt in the breeze, hear the lapping of the summer waves on the shore and taste the tang of vinegar as I lick my fingers after eating haddock and chips. This poem is subject to copyright restrictions. Please search for the full poem in an anthology or at your local library. A ‘poetry chapbook’ is a slim pamphlet of poems, usually no more than 40 pages.

‘Out Chasing Boys’
We spent summer on the seafront,
two stranded mermaids
killing time.
We rolled up our jeans,
carried our shoes,
blew kisses at the camera
in the photo booth.
Always out, chasing boys,
as if we had forever.

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

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘A Thousand Years You Said’ by Lady Heguri
‘The Cinnamon Peeler’ by Michael Ondaatje
‘After a Row’ by Tom Pickard

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#Poetry ‘Out Chasing Boys’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4v6 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘59 Memory Lane’ by Celia Anderson @CeliaAnderson1 #romance #contemporary

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59 Memory Lane by Celia Anderson has a cozy tone reminding me immediately of MC Beaton’s Agatha Raisin series, but without the crime. Anderson has created the sort of feelgood destination you long to live in, to get away from it all. Pengelly is an isolated seaside village in Cornwall with an infrequent bus service. When a local do-gooder starts an Adopt-a-Granny scheme pairing people together, 110-year old May Rosevere is paired with her eighty year old neighbour Julia. Except unbeknown to everyone else, these two women harbour a long held grudge against each other.
The central premise of the novel is that May’s long life – and she is free of the medical complaints experienced by other older characters in the book – is thanks to her magical ability to collect other people’s memories and extract energy from them; this is described as a kind of frission, naughtiness, a buzz. May, determined to reach her 111^th birthday, steps up her ‘thought harvesting’ and so is delighted to learn that Julia has discovered a large collection of family letters going back decades.
This book has two major storylines spliced together – the feelgood seaside life in Pengelly and the adventures of the community, the romances, the illnesses, the community spirit; and the flip side, the unexplored darkness of May’s theft of other people’s memories. I found the latter quite difficult. It feels as if May is basically stealing other people’s lives; when she takes Julia’s letters, Julia becomes forgetful, vague and weak. May’s ‘thought harvesting’ is not clearly defined, described variously as a power, skill, ability, talent. May’s father tells her, as a child, about her ‘power’ but we see her doing nothing positive with it. It is not a force for good, she simply uses it for a feeling of well-being. In the beginning she gets her buzz from handling secondhand possessions at fairs and sales and by picking up rubbish and forgotten objects. But when did the stealing start?
The community at Pengelly is large and so the first half of the novel includes lots of scene setting and explanation of who is who. For this reason, this feels like the first novel in a series. The story really took off for me in the second half when May’s ‘talent’ comes back to bite her and she starts to feel guilty at taking people’s memories from them when it clearly causes damage. Anderson does an excellent job in creating the world of Pengelly, the community spirit for a village often cut-off, its residents have become supportive and innovative. There is romance for young and old, and support and friendship for everyone when illness strikes.
At the end I would have liked more explanations; to the mystery of Julia’s letters, the death of May’s husband, the mysterious Will who went off to be a priest, or the meaning of the missing ring. I can’t help but think this is a missed opportunity to turn this novel into something more than a Cornish village romance. Pengelly is definitely an escapist village with its beach walks, barbecues, cake, biscuits and mugs of hot chocolate, and it was good to see a cast of characters across the age spectrum, from six-year old Tamsin to 110 year-old May and lots of 50-80+, all getting along together. But I was left feeling I had been led, by the cover design, to expect one novel but got another.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Lost Letters of William Woolf’ by Helen Cullen
‘On a Night Like This’ by Barbara Freethy
‘Butterfly Barn’ by Karen Power

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#BookReview ‘The Moon Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

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Fifth in the Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley, The Moon Sister is the story of Tiggy, wildlife conservationist and warm-hearted introvert. Each of the D’Apliese sisters is different with diverse skills, interests and hugely varying birth stories. Tiggy’s story alternates between a Highland estate where she is managing the rewilding of Scottish wildcats, and the flamenco world in Spain during the 1930s. The Kinnaird Estate is a beautiful, isolated, wild place. The four wild cats move into their custom-built enclosure and Tiggy moves into a shared estate cottage with fellow worker Cal. Riley builds the Kinnaird community quickly and skilfully from new Laird Charlie to housekeeper Beryl and old retainer Chilly. It is Chilly – speaking in a muddled mixture of English, Spanish and Romani – who introduces the first hints of premonition, seeing and herbal remedies. He tells Tiggy she has healing hands. Caught up in the twists and turns of the Kinnaird family, the frictions in Charlie and Ulrika’s marriage and their tempestuous daughter Zara, Tiggy grieves for Pa Salt and is curious about her own birth family. In his farewell letter, Pa Salt tells her she comes from a gifted line of seers. She must go to Granada in Spain, to the gypsy area called Sacromonte, where she must knock on a blue door and ask for Angelina. Tiggy delays, unsure of the truth, attracted to Charlie. But when she is injured in a poaching incident on the estate, Tiggy feels upset, confused and wronged. She flies to Granada. This is a quick reminder that Tiggy, who lives the most normal, ordinary life of the sisters so far, is far from a normal girl and when times get tough, the D’Apliese wealth is ever-present.
The second storyline is that of Lucia, Tiggy’s grandmother, who rises from a tiny girl living in deepest poverty in Sacromonte to a world-famous flamenco dancer. Though Tiggy’s character and situation is appealing, I found Lucia a more difficult character. By nature energetic and stubborn, Lucia turns into a selfish, spoiled woman who rides roughshod over others. Exploited by her feckless father who keeps control of her money and career, Lucia’s few moments of caring for others were not enough for me to warm to her. But the world in which she lives, the Sacromonte community, the gypsy brujas, and the violence and depravities of the Spanish Civil War were fascinating to read. As with the stories of the other sisters, Riley concentrates most of the birth family story on a generation further back than the birth parents and there were times when I longed for less flamenco and more bruja. I also wanted to know Chilly’s story and how he came to work on a Scottish estate.
There are more teasers in this book about the truth of Pa Salt’s identity and death, but nothing concrete. There is also the reappearance of Zed Eszu, who can only be described as a sleazy millionaire cad, who first appeared in Maia’s story. What lies behind his fascination with the six D’Apliese sisters. And is Pa Salt really dead?

Read my reviews of the other novels in Lucinda Riley’s ‘Seven Sisters’ series:-
THE SEVEN SISTERS #1SEVENSISTERS
THE STORM SISTER #2SEVENSISTERS
THE SHADOW SISTER #3SEVENSISTERS
THE PEARL SISTER #4SEVENSISTERS
THE SUN SISTER #6SEVENSISTERS
THE MISSING SISTER #7SEVENSISTERS
ATLAS: THE STORY OF PA SALT #8SEVENSISTERS

… plus my reviews of these standalone novels, also by Lucinda Riley:-
THE BUTTERFLY ROOM
THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF
THE LOVE LETTER

… and by Lucinda Riley & Harry Whittaker:-
THE HIDDEN GIRL

If you like this, try:-
‘The Bear and the Nightingale’ by Katherine Arden
‘The Penny Heart’ by Martine Bailey
‘Rush-Oh!’ by Shirley Barrett

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#BookReview ‘Mudlarking’ by Lara Maiklem @LondonMudlark #Thames #archaeology

#BookReview ‘The Confession’ by Jessie Burton #romance #contemporary

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The Confession by Jessie Burton is her third novel after The Miniaturist, her successful debut. The Confession is a contemporary romance about relationships; mother/daughter, romantic, between friends. Are daughters destined to repeat the mistakes of their mothers, even if they have never met? This is a dual timeline novel. In 2017, Rose Simmons never knew her mother, who left when she was a baby. Rose’s father has always been tight-lipped until now when he tells Rose that the famous but reclusive novelist Constance Holden may have the answers. Frightened of scaring off Constance with awkward questions, Rose instead gets a job as maid/companion for the reclusive novelist, now in her seventies and crippled by arthritis. Unexpectedly Rose comes to like and admire Connie so the longer she works for her the more impossible it is to admit to her deception [she is known to Connie as Laura Brown]. And all the time she wonders if Connie can see her mother’s face in her own. In 1982, we see the story of her mother and Connie. Part-time waitress and artist’s model Elise Morceau meets the enigmatic Connie on Hampstead Heath. When Connie’s first novel is made into a film, the two women go to LA. That’s where the lies start, the cracks appear. Connie is working, Elise is a hanger-on who learns to surf. The turning point comes when she begins to doubt Connie’s love.
At times, Elise and Rose were inter-changeable in my head. Both women are immature, unsure who they are, searching for something they cannot define except that they don’t have it. Elise is in her early twenties, while Rose is in her thirties. I had some sympathy with Rose’s boyfriend Joe and best friend Kelly who both lost patience with her. Both Rose and Elise seem to play at being adults, thinking they are the centre of the world, not understanding that their own actions also leave ripple effects that cause pain to other people. They obsess about being hurt but do not recognise the hurt they cause. Mother and daughter are both passive characters, drifting in their own lives, running away rather than confront difficult situations. Principally, the novel is about life choices, taking responsibility for one’s own life and own choices [and being passive, not making decisions, is a personal choice].
At the beginning I felt for Rose and her absence of self-identity, ‘I didn’t have a mum, and I’d never had her, so how could I miss something I’d never really lost?… I don’t tell people about the yearning. The wonder. I tell them, You can’t miss what you never had!’ But the pace of the first quarter is very slow, it picks up once Rose, aka Laura Brown, starts working for Connie in Hampstead. Ironically Rose finds her sense of self through the very mode of her deception; by creating a new personality and life for herself, assuming the face of Laura that she presents to Connie, Rose begins to understand who she is.
After really enjoying The Miniaturist, The Confession left me feeling underwhelmed.

Read my review of THE MINIATURIST.

If you like this, try:-
‘Ghost Moth’ by Michele Forbes
‘If I Knew You Were Going to be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go’ by Judy Chicurel
‘The Girl on the Cliff’ by Lucinda Riley

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#BookReview ‘The House at Silvermoor’ by Tracy Rees @AuthorTracyRees #historical

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Expectations and generalisations are an odd thing. When I first read the the blurb for The House at Silvermoor and saw it is set in a South Yorkshire mining community, I hesitated. But I decided to place my trust in the author, Tracy Rees, because I read and loved her Amy Snow. What a good decision it was. Inspired by her grandfather Len, Rees researched coal mining at the turn of the century. This research informs every page but never interferes with her story of Tommy Green from the mining village of Grindley and Josie Westgate of nearby Arden. When they are twelve they meet in a country lane, talking over a dropped bunch of bluebells. Rees is excellent at world creation: the hard grind of the mining families, the lack of options, the durability and sense of inevitability of the families, the autocratic families that rule the mines, the temptation of the unknown. Tommy is destined to work in the pits of the Sedgewick family of Silvermoor where his father and brothers work, where his brother Dan died in an accident. Josie’s father and brothers work in the nearby pits owned by Winthrop Barridge, where standards are lower, the work more hazardous, and no compensation for widows of miners killed at work. Her sisters work at the mine too, above ground, washing coal.
As the story starts, it is Tommy’s last day at school. His destiny is to work in the pits despite wanting more, something different, despite his dreams. Dismissed by his schoolteacher as the best of a bad lot and accused of false pride, Tommy is tongue-tied. ‘In quite real terms, my tongue had lodged in my throat in a glutinous lump, and I could neither swallow nor speak’. That night, in a rite of manhood, he is taken poaching at midnight by his father to Heston Manor, the rundown estate owned by Barridge and patrolled by guards. Entrance is forbidden but food is scarce so the risk is worth it. Josie’s sister Alice is marrying and she runs to her secret place in the grounds of Heston Manor to pick wildflowers. She is caught by the gamekeeper Paulson. She lies her way out of an awkward situation, runs towards home and bumps into Tommy. It is a lovely meeting between two adolescents, on the brink of their lives, both rebels, both smart enough to talk their way out of trouble, and both capable of getting themselves into trouble.
The relationship between Tommy and Josie is at the heart of this novel as they navigate the difficult paths deemed to be their fate. Both want more, both struggle with restriction and each supports the other. Into the picture come Arden shopkeeper Dulcie Embry, who inherits the village shop from her uncle and is determined to prove it is a job for a woman, and who becomes a particular friend of Josie; a mysterious ghost that haunts Heston Manor and rides a white stallion; and Lord Walter Sedgewick, son of the earl and five years younger that Tommy, who was christened on Tommy’s birthday. This connection runs throughout the story in ways I did not expect and opens up new friendships and loyalties that cross the rigidities of class.
It is the turn of the century, the promise of the 1900s brings expectations, new opportunities and tradition challenged. This is a story of love, loyalty, the fight against exploitation, the hope of goodness. It is the story of a family mystery and a romance, bound up with the rapidly changing social history of its time. Excellent. A note about the cover design; beautiful, but completely irrelevant to the story.

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

If you like this, try:-
‘The Almanack’ by Martine Bailey
‘The Doll Factory’ by Elizabeth Macneal
‘The Taxidermist’s Daughter’ by Kate Mosse

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#BookReview ‘Our Souls at Night’ by Kent Haruf #love #loneliness

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Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf is a simple, straight talking, touching book about loneliness, love and longing late in life. One day Addie Moore suggests to her neighbour Louis Waters that he visit her house each night and sleep in her bed. Both are in their seventies, widowed, lonely and don’t know each other well. Acknowledging Addie’s bravery in asking the question, Louis arrives with his pyjamas and toothbrush in a bag. And so starts this touching novel about relationships, family and morality. Addie and Louis sleep side-by-side, not touching. They ignore the glances of neighbours, fearing censure. But the townsfolk nod and smile at them, while their own children disapprove. And so one generation seeks to control another.
When their new dynamic is disrupted by the arrival of Addie’s six-year-old grandson Jamie, Addie and Louis’s relationship enters a new stage. Jamie’s parents have separated and he is distressed. Addie’s son Gene has asked his mother to help. This new three-person family begins to slowly to heal itself, starting slowly by visiting a family of new born mice in Louis’ shed.
This is a short read, manageable in one sitting. The language is beautiful. Addie’s suggestion does not contain one redundant word. “I mean we’re both alone. We’ve been by ourselves for too long. For years. I’m lonely. I think you might be too. I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. And talk.”
Haruf is non-judgmental; he doesn’t point fingers at the small-minded criticism, he simply shows how friendship can be a saviour for the elderly, lonely and forgotten.
A word about dialogue. There are no speech marks and I missed them. In some places it was difficult to know who was speaking, which made me stop and think and took me away from the emotion of the story. Which was a pity.
This is the first book by Haruf that I have read, and the last he wrote; now I’ll seek out the others. It was made as a film in 2017 featuring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Only Story’ by Julian Barnes
‘The Stars are Fire’ by Anita Shreve
‘A Sudden Light’ by Garth Stein

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#BookReview ‘Miss Austen’ by Gill Hornby @GillHornby #JaneAusten #historical

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What a delicious first chapter there is to Miss Austen by Gill Hornby. Elderly Cassandra Austen arrives unannounced to visit a family friend in Kintbury, endures a parsimonious supper and a difficult evening without much conversation. Why, I wondered, is Cassandra there. And then at bedtime, comes a hint at her reason. Cassandra visits Isabella, a family friend who is grieving the death of her father. Cassandra’s objective, is to retrieve any incriminating letters between her sister Jane and Isabella’s mother, Eliza, before Isabella leaves the family vicarage. With both letter writers dead, and knowledge of the novelist Jane Austen more widely sought than ever before, Cassandra is anxious to protect Jane’s legacy.
What follows is a gentle telling of the sisters’ relationship as Hornby pieces together the real letters of the Austen sisters and the known biography of the family, combined with events and dialogue of her own imagination. This is a meandering read without a real focus, there is the imagined threat to Jane’s reputation as Cassandra searches for the missing letters under threat of exposure by her sister-in-law Mary. But this threat is not wholly formed and the story goes back and forth between Cassandra reading the letters at the dead of night, to key times in the life of Jane.
Not until three-quarters of the way through does the dilemma becomes personal to Cassandra. Until this point, it is oddly numb. Cassandra has been seeking private – and very personal – letters written to Eliza but instead finds letters that cast what she, Cassandra, believes to be a bad light on her own life. Not Jane’s. The stakes are raised and I wanted to see more than a snapshot of the man involved and don’t really care if he was a real person or the author’s invention.
Cassandra in her old age is dismissive of those who do not read or don’t appreciate the art of her sister’s books, and has a lack of interest in anyone not an Austen. ‘Those other mortals, whose poor veins must somehow pulse with no Austen blood in them, always appeared to her comparatively pale’. This quote reminded me of Marianne’s dismissal of Edward’s underwhelming reading of Shakespeare sonnets and made me want a 360 degree picture of Cassandra’s own life.
I finished Miss Austen reflecting on the difficulty of writing this novel. What an awkward task it is for an author, to balance biography and real letters with invention and how strong must be the impulse to stick with the truth. I longed for Hornby to take a bigger risk and show us more of the life, and loves, Cassandra may have had.

If you like this, try:-
‘After Leaving Mr Mackenzie’ by Jean Rhys
‘The Confessions of Frannie Langton’ by Sara Collins
‘Amy Snow’ by Tracy Rees

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MISS AUSTEN by Gill Hornby @GillHornby https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4iB via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Howard’s End is on the Landing’ by Susan Hill @susanhillwriter #memoir

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I selected this book off my to-read shelf where it has sat for at least two years and, on reading the first paragraph, knew I must read on. Howard’s End is on the Landing by Susan Hill is a gem of a memoir, a year in the life of a crime novelist who decides to read only the books on her bookshelves. But this is more than a review of books – it can be dipped in and out of, the chapters are conveniently short which makes you want to read ‘just another’ – because Hill attaches a personal story to each book, each author. Hill’s first novel was published when she was only eighteen, she lives an ordinary life but mixes with some breath-stopping names. She met and/or knew TS Eliot, EM Forster, Cecil Day Lewis, Penelope Fitzgerald, Ian Fleming, Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Bowen; it is a mirror image of my reading list at university, except for the Bond. Above everything though, the book reveals Hill as a reader who devours everything from Dickens to WG Sebald, Anthony Trollope to Anita Brookner, John le Carre to Olivia Manning. Her bookshelves contain signed copies, first editions, expensive sets, anthologies and poetry, plus shabby cheap paperbacks bought at airports and train stations, or second hand in charity shops. She writes in her books, turns down the corners of pages, discovers things used years ago as bookmarks – bills, paid and unpaid; receipts; picture postcards; shopping lists. She is, like you and I, someone who loves reading books. I recognised her description of reading library books as a child.
“Although when I was a child and growing up I could borrow books every week from the library, there was a limit on the number to be taken at any one time and so, as there was not the money to buy many books either, I found myself reading, re-reading and re-reading again. If I liked a library book I simply got to the end, turned it round and began again. It was a bit like sweets. Until I was ten, sweets were rationed. I had a quarter of a pound a week and there were various ways in which they could be made to last. A sweet a day. Buy only boiled sweets which could be sucked for a long time. Suck half and re-wrap the rest until tomorrow. Occasionally I would have such a sugar-craving that I bought something that was gobbled up in a great burst of sweetness that exploded in the mouth like a firework and then was gone. Sherbet lemons were like that. Marshmallows did not last long.” I turned my library books round and began again, too. I also read my mother’s books. That’s how, as a young teenager, I discovered Mary Stewart.
This is a delightful slim paperback which made me want to re-read many novels first read forty years ago, and to try authors I have always meant to read such as Sebald and PG Wodehouse.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Story’ ed. by Victoria Hislop
‘In the Midst of Winter’ by Isabel Allende
‘White Chrysanthemum’ by Mary Lynn Bracht

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#BookReview HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING by Susan Hill @susanhillwriter https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3t5 via @SandraDanby

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SANDRA DANBY'S BOOK REVIEWS

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

Tag Archives: book review

#BookReview ‘The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing’ by Mary Paulson-Ellis #WW1

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Out Chasing Boys’ by Amanda Huggins #poetry

#BookReview ‘59 Memory Lane’ by Celia Anderson @CeliaAnderson1 #romance #contemporary

#BookReview ‘The Moon Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

#BookReview ‘Mudlarking’ by Lara Maiklem @LondonMudlark #Thames #archaeology

#BookReview ‘The Confession’ by Jessie Burton #romance #contemporary

#BookReview ‘The House at Silvermoor’ by Tracy Rees @AuthorTracyRees #historical

#BookReview ‘Our Souls at Night’ by Kent Haruf #love #loneliness

#BookReview ‘Miss Austen’ by Gill Hornby @GillHornby #JaneAusten #historical

#BookReview ‘Howard’s End is on the Landing’ by Susan Hill @susanhillwriter #memoir

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