Tag Archives: book review

#BookReview ‘The Slaves of Solitude’ by Patrick Hamilton #WW2 #wartimefamily

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Patrick Hamilton is a new author for me. The Slaves of Solitude, published in 1947, is a novel about wartime in which war is deep background. The setting is Thames Lockden, a small town in the Home Counties, which Hamilton based on Henley-upon-Thames. It tells the story of Miss Roach – Enid, though hardly anyone knows this is her first name – and her life at a boarding house, The Rosamund Tea Rooms. Patrick HamiltonThis is a war novel with a difference, focussing on the people at home, not fighting but getting on with their lives in a world turned upside down, managing on a day-to-day basis, life is dreary and bare. Miss Roach, former schoolmistress, is single, 39, and fiercely independent. She has been bombed out of her London flat and has fled from the bombing. Life is dark. ‘The earth was muffled from the stars; the river and the pretty eighteenth-century bridge were muffled from the people; the people were muffled from each other. This was war late in 1943.’
Hamilton is a wonderful observer of human behaviour, he shows the nasty politeness between the residents at The Rosamund Tea Rooms, the bullying, the toadying, the power struggles and how the quiet ones are trampled over by the arrogant bullies. It is fascinating to see how the war makes things which seemed impossible before the war, possible. Miss Roach is a quiet, gentle woman, who over-thinks situations and constantly revisits things that happened and what she might have said. She is bullied at her shared dining room table by the odious Mr Thwaites who dislikes her democratic values, mistreated by ‘her’ American, the inept Lieutenant Pike, and stabbed in the back by her supposed ‘friend’ Vicki Kugelmann. Mr Thwaites is a clever portrayal of a man secure in the knowledge that he is always right and everyone else is wrong and inferior, reinforcing this position by snide comments to Miss Roach which, not wanting a confrontation, she sidesteps. The appearance in her life of the Lieutenant briefly gives Miss Roach’s confidence a boost, until she realizes that his compliments are always spoken in moments of drunkenness. She so longs to believe his protestations but is wary of his inconsequence so, when Vicki sets her sights on the Lieutenant, Miss Roach doesn’t know whether to be jealous or relieved.
Hamilton is a fine writer. He writes about the detail of everyday boring life and enlivens it with observations of human behaviour which are spot-on. The ending is satisfying and realistic.

For a taster of this novel, click here to read the first paragraph of THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE.

Read my review of HANGOVER SQUARE by the same author.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters
‘At Mrs Lippincote’s’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘The Heat of the Day’ by Elisabeth Bowen

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#BookReview THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE by Patrick Hamilton http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2AH via @SandraDanby 

#BookReview ‘Anything is Possible’ by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout #contemporary

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Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout is an extraordinary book about normal people living normal lives. On the outside, people live private, God-fearing lives, they get by, they smile, they work. Inside, they hide secrets, horror, misgivings, sadness and love. With the same vision and delicacy she displayed in My Name is Lucy Barton, Strout tells us about the people of Amgash, Illinois, the small rural town where Lucy Barton grew up. Elizabeth StroutIn Anything is Possible, as in real life, threads of small town life are tangled together, generation after generation, each seemingly isolated but all connected by invisible tendrils of family, neighbourhood, school, farming. The shared history of living together through the years in close proximity, a community where everyone knows everyone else, their shame, their success, their failure, their betrayal and loyalty, is a community it is impossible to escape. Where adolescent misdemeanours, which may or may not have happened, are remembered as fact and decades of distrust attached. But as well as secrets and shame, there is redemption and love for those who face change and find a way to the other side.
This is more a collection of inter-connecting stories rather than a novel with a single narrative spine, but it is finely written with care and grace. A companion novel to My Name is Lucy Barton, it is not essential to have read that novel first but in some ways it does help.
There are nine chapters each focussing on one character and each, you realize at the end, are firmly entwined like the roots of a closely-planted grove of trees. In the first we see Tommy Guptill, elderly now, but once the caretaker at Lucy’s school. In the second, school counsellor Patty Nicely is insulted by student Lila Lane, daughter of Lucy’s sister Vicky. And so the stories keep coming as you gradually build up a picture of the Amgash citizens. After seventeen years away, writer Lucy is drawn back to the dirt-poor family farm where her brother Petie still lives. There, like the other characters in this novel, she discovers how your history cannot be left behind because it is hard-wired within you.
In her portrayals of these straightforward straight-talking Amgash citizens, Strout poses questions for the reader and does not give answers, expect to do some work yourself when reading her novels.

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

If you like this, try:-
‘A Thousand Acres’ by Jane Smiley
‘The Stars are Fire’ by Anita Shreve
‘Barkskins’ by Annie Proulx

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2TA via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Nightfall’ by Stephen Leather #supernatural #thriller #crime

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The first page was really intriguing and locked me into the character of Jack Nightingale, a police negotiator turned private detective. He is a troubled man, troubled by what he has seen through the course of his job though nowadays he earns his living from following unfaithful spouses. Nightfall by Stephen Leather is the first of the Jack Nightingale series, described as a ‘supernatural thriller.’ Stephen LeatherThis is a different kind of detective story, which begins when Jack is told he has inherited a mansion from a man who claimed to be Jack’s natural father. That’s not all, his ‘father’ leaves a warning: at Jack’s birth his soul was sold to the devil and a devil will come to claim it on his thirty-third birthday. That’s only three weeks away. So Jack is in a race against time to find out the truth. Was he really adopted? Who is Ainsley Gosling? What is going on? Is he suffering from stress? Hearing things? Imagining things? Is he going to lose his soul? Or is it one big con? When people around him start to die, Jack begins to lose his sense of perspective. ‘You are going to hell, Jack Nightingale’ are the last words he heard at the end of his career as a police negotiator but now he hears those words again, said to him by strangers.
A page-turning thriller with a fresh angle on the crime novel. Not what I was expecting at all, if I’d been offered the chance to read a ‘supernatural thriller’ I would have said ‘no thanks.’ But I enjoyed this. Why? Stephen Leather knows how to keep the story moving, he really works the trick of finishing a chapter in a way which makes you read the next even though it is midnight. And I like the main character, Jack Nightingale. For once he is not a tortured depressed detective with relationship issues, and that made this book a refreshing read. The supernatural detective thing is very different, the most similar crime book I’ve read is The Silent Twin by Caroline Mitchell where the detective is sensitive to the spiritual vibes of recent murder victims.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Silent Twin’ by Caroline Mitchell
‘Wilderness’ by Campbell Hart #1ARBOGAST
‘Snow White Must Die’ by Nele Neuhaus

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#BookReview ‘Skin Deep’ by Laura Wilkinson #contemporary

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Skin Deep by Laura Wilkinson is a thoughtful, difficult book to read about modern-day notions of beauty, ugliness and society’s fascination with appearance. At times it made me feel uncomfortable. It is the sort of book which you find yourself thinking about long after you have finished reading it. It will make you think about your own attitudes to others, do you unconsciously leap to judgement based on their outward appearance, and how much do you worry about your own looks? Laura WilkinsonHulme, Manchester, 1984. Students Diana and Linda start university, Diana is studying art, Linda art history. Diana is keen to make her mark for something she can do with her hands, rather than how she looks. A former child model, people stare at her in the street such is her beauty. Via Jim, Linda’s boyfriend, Diana meets Cal, a four-year old boy neglected by his drug addict parents. He has a severe facial disfigurement and is kept from sight. He does not know a normal life. ‘Normal’ is a word which crops up often. In the child, Diana finds someone dealing with a mirror image of her own challenge: as Cal hides his face from strangers, Claire tried to avoid people ogling her beauty. I found the beginning a little slow and the story takes off once Diana is inspired by Cal to create a different kind of art.
Throughout time, artists have had muses. Cal becomes Diana’s muse, unwittingly at first when he is a child. The book treads a difficult, uncomfortable line. Diana loves Cal and tries to do the best, but what if her best is wrong? Of course, that is the thought process the author wants the reader to explore. As Diana’s success as an artist grows and Cal becomes a teenager, he starts to resent being ‘used’. Is she ultimately any different from her mother, Bunny, who forced her to enter beauty competitions, to refuse biscuits because they would make her fat?
The viewpoint switches between Diana and Cal and jumps around in time, particularly in the second half, which was disorientating. The main voice is Diana’s. I found her exploitative and unlikeable and would have liked to hear more from the adult Cal and the child Diana. Nonetheless this is a powerful, difficult read with underlying imagery of decay hidden by beauty.

If you like this, try:-
‘Orphans of the Carnival’ by Carol Birch
‘Life Class’ by Pat Barker
‘The Museum of You’ by Carys Bray

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#BookReview ‘How To Stop Time’ by @matthaig1 #humour

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How To Stop Time is another hugely inventive novel by Matt Haig with a thoughtful message about identity. Tom Hazard is a history teacher with a difference. He can talk authoritatively about the Great Fire of London, because he was there; about Shakespeare, because he met him; about witchfinders, because he was terrorised by one. Tom Hazard is 439 years old but he looks forty one. Matt HaigWhen he was thirteen, the process of ageing slowed down. Tom and his mother are protestant Huguenot refugees in England when their life falls apart; his impossibly youthful looks draw accusations of witchery. We see snapshots of Tom’s past life as he teaches history to bored teenagers in London. And all the time he struggles with the past, so much so that he is unable to live in the present. So he exists, rather than lives, changing his identity to survive and losing sight of who he is.
This is a fascinating study of humankind, our development through history and inability to learn from what went before. Tom encounters threats and suspicions in the 21st century. Is he safe? Is a sinister bio-tech company searching for albas – short for ‘albatross,’ ie. long-lived – to use for experiments? And is the mysterious Hendrich, founder of The Albatross Society, a mentor or a threat? At the core of the novel is Tom’s love for his wife Rose, a mayfly – ie. short-lived – who dies of the plague, and their daughter Marion, an alba. Where is Marion now? Will Tom become reconciled with his past enough to live his life to the full, whether it be a long life or short, and will he ever feel free enough to love again?
A philosophical novel about making the best of what you have now without dwelling on the past, which cannot be changed, or worrying about the future, which cannot be predicted.

Read my reviews of these other Matt Haig novels:-
THE HUMANS
THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY

If you like this, try:-
‘Burial Rites’ by Hannah Kent
‘The Photographer’s Wife’ by Suzanne Joinson
‘Pod’ by Laline Paull

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview HOW TO STOP TIME by @matthaig1 http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Ts via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Then She Was Gone’ by @lisajewelluk #thriller

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Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell is a delight, the page-turning story of a disappeared teenager whose experience was something I did not expect. An excellent un-thriller; that’s a phrase I use after giving it some thought. This is not a psychological thriller in that it is frightening. It didn’t make my pulse race with a sense of danger, but it did make me very curious. Lisa JewellEllie Mack is fifteen the day she fails to come home from the library, she is due to take her GCSE examinations the following week. She is a clever student, a golden girl. But she disappears, never to be seen again. Life goes on. Except it doesn’t for her family, each being trapped in some way by Ellie’s absence. Until ten years later when Ellie’s mum Lauren, now divorced, meets a nice bloke in a café. Her ex, Paul, has a new partner and so do Ellie’s siblings. Laurel is the one who is really stuck, visiting her elderly mother bed-ridden after a stroke. Then she meets Floyd and his daughters Poppy and SJ, and she blossoms.
I would like to say from the beginning I had unsettling feelings of the ‘that’s not quite right’ variety, but I didn’t. Instead the doubts crept in stealthily until the full truth dawned on me at 72% on my Kindle. And then it hit with a sledgehammer.
This is a clever book written by an author who has matured enormously over the years in the subjects she tackles.
Then She Was Gone doesn’t set out to be frightening, at least I don’t think that is the author’s primary intent. I think she started with a ‘what if’ scenario and let it unfold from there. It is a puzzle involving characters so real you feel you know them, that it could be happening to you; and that’s what makes it so powerful.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

And here are my review of two other thrillers by Lisa Jewell:-
I FOUND YOU
THE GIRLS

If you like this, try:-
‘The Good Girl’ by Mary Kubica
‘Chosen Child’ by Linda Huber
‘Stolen Child’ by Laura Elliot

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THEN SHE WAS GONE by @lisajewelluk http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Td via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Anderby Wold’ by Winifred Holtby #historical

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I was a teenager when I first read South Riding by Winifred Holtby but, until now, hadn’t read her earlier novels. Anderby Wold is her first; published in 1923 it is a portrayal of a Yorkshire Wolds village in the first years of the twentieth century. I was struck by the similarity to Jane Austen: both focus on the personalities, tensions, the pettiness, resentments and emotions of small communities, and both combine acute social observations with sharp humour. Winifred HoltbyThe novel opens with a family party at the farm, Anderby Wold, as Mary Robson and John, her husband of ten years and also her cousin, are celebrating a decade of hard work and penny pinching to clear the mortgage on the farm they had inherited. We are introduced to Mary and the family from the viewpoint of John’s sister, the spiteful Sarah. If ever there was a negative first chapter that makes you think the story is going to be full of unlikeable characters, this is it. It is, perhaps, a sign of its times; I am not sure a novel would be published today with such an ill-feeling introduction. But do persist, this novel is worth reading.
We are slowly introduced to each key character with their own viewpoint and take on their agricultural world, where hard toil, tough weather and difficult land unites – and separates – the community. Mary thinks of herself as a considerate benevolent mistress, she sits with sick people, visits the old, supports the school, and distributes gifts at Christmas. But she is unaware that some of the farm labourers resent what they see as her Mrs Bountiful role, a vision of her behaviour to which she is blind. She feels dissatisfaction with the minutiae of her life, dissatisfaction she pragmatically ignores. At a gathering of the village ladies, she listens to the gossip, ‘Mary shivered. They were as lifeless as the uprooted trees, carried from the wold side and laid in the back garden of the farm, awaiting destruction for firewood. Their talk was as meaningless as the rustle of dry leaves on brittle twigs.’
Into this fragile world where people speak bluntly and behaviour can be brusque, comes a writer from Manchester. He is researching the lot of the agricultural labourer with an eye on social change. When he comes into conflict with Mary, the beliefs and assumptions of both are challenged in an Austen-esque manner. As an outsider, David Rossitur is treated first with silence, then with suspicion. The innkeeper’s wife worries about his motivations, ‘Mrs Todd, being a personal of small imagination, had divided mankind into two classes, those who had designs on Victoria [her daughter], those who had designs on her Beer. Last night she had come to the regrettable conclusion that David had no true appreciation of Beer.’ A trade union for agricultural workers is formed, followed inevitably for a strike. At harvest time. Anderby Wold will be changed forever.

Click the title to read my review of POOR CAROLINE, also by Winifred Holtby.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Ballroom’ by Anna Hope
‘Time Will Darken It’ by William Maxwell
‘Under a Pole Star’ by Stef Penney

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#BookReview ‘The Escape’ by CL Taylor @callytaylor #thriller

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The Escape by CL Taylor fairly gallops along without time to take a deep breath. It is a tale of escape, pursuit, lies, vulnerability, long-hidden secrets and selfishness. At times I didn’t know which character to believe and I didn’t particularly like any of them. I wanted to sit them down at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and a plate of biscuits, and bang their heads together. There appear to be so many lies it is difficult to sift out the truth, which became a little frustrating after a while. In the end, there are many types of escape. CL TaylorJo and Max have a toddler daughter Elise. Max, an investigative journalist, has just completed a long-running story which resulted in a conviction, and he is jubilant. Jo, who became agoraphobic after the loss of their first child Henry, lives from day to day, her small world surrounding Elise. Jo feels Max is less sympathetic to her condition than he used to be. Max tries to be patient but is finding it increasingly difficult. Into this fragile world steps Paula, a stranger, who threatens Jo and Elise. The first crack appears as Max doubts Jo’s judgement of the threat. Is she panicking again, exaggerating it, imagining it?
Faced with danger to her child, Jo runs. That is the escape of the title. The agoraphobia which made it a trial to take her daughter to nursery every day fades as, driven by her maternal defence mechanism, she packs Elise into her car and flees to Ireland. Ireland, we know vaguely, is where her mother came from years ago but of which she will not speak. More mystery. As she runs, Jo appears more unbalanced, sees threats on all sides and is forever planning escape routes. But where is the danger actually coming from? Is she seeing clearly, could it be that some of the lies which frighten her are actually the truth? And vice-versa. Is she a reliable witness? The need for flight seems to over-ride all historic connections of love and trust, she runs from the people who try to help her. So, is she misguided, confused? Or correct? And in escaping with Elise, in all good intentions to protect her daughter, is she putting her two-year-old daughter in further danger of her life?
This is a psychological thriller which asks some difficult questions. About how we react to stress, how our judgement of others can be influenced, and when to trust your own deep-seated instincts.

Read my reviews of these other thrillers by CL Taylor:-
THE ACCIDENT
THE LIE

If you like this, try:-
‘One Step Too Far’ by Tina Seskis
‘The Accident’ by Chris Pavone
‘The Last of Us’ by Rob Ewing

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE ESCAPE by CL Taylor @callytaylor http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Tj via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Girl in Trouble’ by Rhoda Baxter @RhodaBaxter #romance

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Funny, sad and believable: Girl in Trouble by Rhoda Baxter is the third in her Smart Girls series and, though some of the characters have cameo appearances throughout the series, can be read alone. Which is what I did, quickly, particularly enjoying the second half of the story. I was worried that the first chapter, in which we meet Olivia at a stag night, meant the book would be too chick lit for me but as the story progresses the themes become darker and complex. Rhoda BaxterOlivia is thirty, relationship-phobic and surrounded by friends. She is quite independent, thank you very much and does not need a man to look after her. She has never been in love, never allowed herself to be in love and knows this dislike/distrust of men can be traced back to her father who left her and her mother when she was a child. She also has a health issue that makes pregnancy a big risk, though to be honest I was a little in the dark about the specifics of this. Instead she is a serial one-night girlfriend. When she falls accidentally pregnant, Olivia thinks the decision to have an abortion is straightforward and sensible. Of course life gets in the way, in two ways. Firstly her absent landlord Walter, who lives in the upstairs flat, returns home and is hot and funny and makes her feel comfortable in a cosy sexy way; a first for Olivia. And then her absent father arrives on her doorstep.
This is a fast-paced well-written novel which runs the gamut of emotions from chuckles to tears to pain. Relationships within broken families, as the years pass, are not simple and Baxter explores the unresolved tension and anger of Olivia and her mother Liz towards her father Trevor. Graham, her stepfather, has been a calm and loving influence on Olivia since her teens, but she only starts to appreciate this once Trevor returns to the scene. The father/daughter theme is echoed also in Walter’s storyline. His divorced wife Charlotte is to remarry and take their daughter, Emily, to live in America. Walter, absent because of work through many of Emily’s baby years, realises what he has missed just as he is about to lose it.
If you like your girls to be girly then Olivia does not fit that profile. She keeps her thoughts to herself and is quite complex in her behaviour. She does not want children and, in discussions with her friend Ruchi, the for/against options for abortion are explored with Ruchi, at first, unhappy at her friend’s viewpoint. So although the cover design is bright and cheerful, Girl in Trouble touches on some serious topics in a balanced and thoughtful manner. I would have liked to know more about Olivia’s work life as a solicitor though, in fact Walter’s career as a marine biologist is explained in much more detail.
If you’re going on holiday, or a long train journey, you will devour this.

Read my review of PLEASE RELEASE ME, also by Rhoda Baxter.

If you like this, try:-
‘Butterfly Barn’ by Karen Power
‘One Step Too Far’ by Tina Seskis
‘Stormy Summer’ by Suzy Turner

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview GIRL IN TROUBLE by Rhoda Baxter @RhodaBaxter http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Wf via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Travelers’ by Chris Pavone #thriller

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What a non-stop ride this is. I resented everything which made me put this book down. The Travelers by Chris Pavone is a spy thriller about an ordinary guy doing an ordinary job who finds himself in an extraordinary position. It reminded me a little of Robert Redford in the film Three Days of the Condor. Chris PavoneTravel writer Will works for New York-based Travelers, a luxury travel magazine. Married to Chloe, who works as a freelance for the same magazine, they live in a rundown money-pit in Brooklyn. Things change in a short space of time. On a press trip in France, Will flirts outrageously with an Australian journalist and goes home, relieved he didn’t succumb to temptation. But on his next press trip to the wine area of Argentina, Elle is there again and this time they do have sex. Except Elle isn’t what she says she is, her name isn’t Elle and she isn’t Australian. She gives Will a choice. Cooperate, supply information about his contacts and people he writes about, or else he will be exposed to his boss Malcolm and to Chloe. And so he cooperates.
The action is rapid. Some sections – identified only by the location, not the person – are only half a page and for the first third of the book this is disorientating. I couldn’t work out who was spying and who was being spied upon. A man in an office sits at a computer terminal and monitors targets, the flights they take, the hotels and rental cars they book. An un-named woman goes to Capri to kill a man. An American man wants to disappear. Malcolm has a hidden office with secret files.
The threads are tangled thoroughly. The answer is not one I predicted. It is impossible to explain the plot without giving away secrets, but the ending in Iceland will make a great action sequence in a film.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

And here’s my review of another thriller by Chris Pavone:-
THE ACCIDENT

If you like this, try:-
‘Dominion’ by CJ Sansom
‘The Killing Lessons’ by Saul Black
‘An Officer and a Spy’ by Robert Harris

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE TRAVELERS by Chris Pavone via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2lT