Tag Archives: book review

#BookReview ‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ by @JohnBoyneBooks #historical #Ireland

From the first sentence I was entranced. The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne starts with such an opening sentence, full of conflict, hypocrisy, resentment and hope, it made me want to gobble up the pages and not put the book down. I wasn’t disappointed. The Heart’s Invisible Furies is the life story of one man, Cyril Avery, but also of a country and its attitudes to sexuality. The story starts in Goleen, Ireland, in 1945; a country riven by loyalty to, and hatred of, the British, at the same time in thrall to its Catholic priests whose rules were hypocritical, illogical and cruel. Cyril narrates his story, starting with how his 16-year old mother was denounced in church by the family priest for being single and pregnant. She was thrown out of church and village by the priest and disowned by her family. On the train to Dublin she meets a teenager, Sean, also heading for the big city. Wanting to help someone so obviously alone, Sean offers to let Catherine stay at his digs until she finds lodging and a job. These first friends she make are some of the most important in her life, and re-appear at important times also in Cyril’s life. Catherine gives birth and, as she carefully arranged, her baby is taken by a nun and placed with a waiting adoptive family. We the readers therefore know the identity and story of Cyril’s birth mother from page one; he doesn’t. As he grows from quiet boy to quiet teenager, falling in love at the age of seven with Julian, Cyril begins to lead a life of lies and shame forced on him by Ireland’s attitude to homosexuality and his inability to be true to himself. Cyril negotiates the first 30 years of his life, trapped between lying in order to stay safe or being truthful and getting arrested. Then he finds himself at the marriage altar. What happens next changes his life in so many ways, ways in which don’t become fully apparent until the last third of the novel.
This could be a depressing novel. It isn’t. It is charming and funny, but can turn on a sixpence and make you gasp with anger, despair or sadness. The characterisation is masterful. I particularly enjoyed Cyril’s adoptive mother Maude Avery, a chain-smoking novelist who detests the growing popularity of her books; his adoptive father Charles Avery who starts off being an awful snob with a talent for unintentional insults; and Mrs Goggin, who runs the tearoom at the Irish parliament with a rod of iron.
I loved this book. Honest, sad, laugh-out-loud funny, touching, with paragraphs I just had to read out aloud to my husband. It is about being true to yourself, the need for honesty in relationships, and the power of love. My favourite book of the year so far.

Read the first paragraph of THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES.

Read my reviews of these other novels by John Boyne:-
A HISTORY OF LONELINESS
A LADDER TO THE SKY
A TRAVELLER AT THE GATES OF WISDOM
ALL THE BROKEN PLACES
STAY WHERE YOU ARE & THEN LEAVE
WATER #1ELEMENTS
EARTH #2ELEMENTS

If you like this, try:-
‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara
‘How to be Both’ by Ali Smith
‘Tipping the Velvet’ by Sarah Waters

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES by @JohnBoyneBooks https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3iJ via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Blow Your House Down’ by Pat Barker #thriller

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The words that immediately come to mind after finishing Blow Your House Down by Pat Barker are negative: unflinching, bleak, dark and depressing. This is a dark story of the women preyed upon by a killer, women living on the edge, surviving by selling their bodies to men at a time when prostitutes are being murdered. But other words also came to mind as I dwelled on the book afterwards: friendship, community, solidarity, defiance, vulnerability, strength. Slim, I read it in one sitting on a rainy afternoon, this is a powerful, compelling read. It pulls you into the women’s stories, makes you feel at one with them. Blow Your House Down is set in a Northern Town in the 1980s. The timing and setting draw inevitable links with the Yorkshire Ripper who preyed on prostitutes and lone women in the north and was arrested and convicted in 1981. Frightened but driven by the need for rent money or to feed their children, the women continue to walk the streets as the face of one of their own, Kath, the killer’s latest victim, looks down at them from a giant poster. The detail of their ordinary lives is described, starting with Brenda who settles her daughters in bed in preparation to going out with her friend Audrey. Their first call is the Palmerston, the pub where the women gather for a drink before going out onto the streets as a pair. There is a camaraderie, a spirit of just-get-on-with-it. We see some of Brenda’s back story, how she tried working at the nearby chicken factory where the women sing to cope with their grizzly job, how she has been let down by men and is trying to manage on her own.
Barker shows no sentimentality for the women, she describes their lives simply and allows the characters to elicit the reader’s sympathy. Like the chickens lined up on the production line, the women walk up and down the streets, trying to support each other by taking note of number plates. The police sit by, watching, using the women as bait to catch the killer. The men have no voice, they are portrayed as liars, weak and pathetic, except for one whose breath smells of the violet sweets he eats.
“You do a lot of walking in this job. More than you might think. In fact, when I get to the end of a busy Saturday night, it’s me feet that ache. There, that surprised you, didn’t it?” Part 3 starts with Jean, whose lover Carol, thought to have gone to London, has been identified as the latest victim. Jean sets out to entrap the killer. “I want to catch the bastard more than most.”
The language is unstinting and graphic, particularly of the sex scenes. The women’s dialogue is in the vernacular which makes them feel real. The tension rises as you wonder which woman will be killed next; each time a women gets into a car with a stranger you think ‘is it him?’ and this drives you to read on.
An accomplished novel published in 1984, it is difficult to appreciate this was only Barker’s second novel. Read it, you will not forget it.

For my reviews of other Pat Barker novels, click the title below:-
ANOTHER WORLD
DOUBLE VISION
LIFE CLASS #1LIFECLASS
TOBY’S ROOM #2LIFECLASS
NOONDAY #3LIFECLASS
THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS
THE WOMEN OF TROY
UNION STREET

If you like this, try:-
‘The Fair Fight’ by Anna Freeman
‘The Taxidermist’s Daughter’ by Kate Mosse
‘The Killing Lessons’ by Saul Black

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN by Pat Barker https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3e6 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Hoarder’ by Jess Kidd #mystery #contemporary

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Part crime-mystery, part mystical ghost story, The Hoarder, the second novel by Jess Kidd, is difficult to define. Maud Drennan is an irreverent Irish carer who has been assigned the unholy task of bringing order to the life of Cathal Flood, a cantankerous old man who lives with his cats in a decrepit house surrounded by piles of rubbish. The previous carer who did Maud’s job, was run off the scene. Amongst the piles of junk, though, are ghosts of Cathal’s past, clues to the disappearance of one maybe two women, and traps for Maud to fall into. This is at times a bewildering smorgasbord of imagery and description, there were times when I wanted to shout ‘give me a breather’ but the humour of Maud kept me reading. There are some giant character arcs to work through, both Maud and Cathal change and change again, not to mention Maud’s glorious cross-dressing neighbour Renata. To add to the merry-go-round of confusion, Maud is followed around in her daily life by a collection of ghosts, Irish saints that she learned about in a childhood book. Each saint passes comment on Maud’s actions adding a hilarious Greek Chorus effect to the story. Maud, egged on by the agoraphobic Renata, starts to look for ways of breaching the walls of rubbish which Cathal has built around himself and his private section of his old home, Bridlemere. When she does creep through, she encounters a dusty spooky world of collectibles, automata and gruesome collections which add to the feeling that secrets are hidden somewhere in the house.
The action steps up a gear when Maud’s predecessor Sam Hebden, the carer hounded off the property by Cathal, reappears. As well as flirting with Maud, he simultaneously encourages and discourages her from her detecting. Clues appear after dreams or apparitions, at times I was unclear, and Maud stumbles onwards unsure who to trust. Cathal may be old, but he is also cunning, clever and warm. When a man turns up claiming to be Gabriel Flood, Cathal’s son, the old man protests he is a villain. There is also a rather unpleasant case manager, Biba Morel. Quite a lot of the time, I didn’t know who to believe. The story is set in London but Maud’s strong Irish voice could lead you to think you are in Ireland.
So, this is a crime mystery that is not really about a crime, rather it is about Cathal and Maud and how their pasts cannot be ignored. Cathal, who tries to barricade himself in his house, away from modern life; and Maud, who is haunted by the childhood disappearance of her sister; are both characters adrift. I loved Kidd’s debut, Himself and enjoyed The Hoarder though I wish the frenetic storytelling could be toned down a notch or two.

And see my reviews of these two other novels by Jess Kidd:-
HIMSELF
THE NIGHT SHIP

If you like this, try:-
‘The Good People’ by Hannah Kent
‘Elizabeth is Missing’ by Emma Healey
‘The Ghost of Lily Painter’ by Caitlin Davies

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE HOARDER by Jess Kidd https://wp.me/p5gEM4-36p via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Tea Planter’s Wife’ by Dinah Jefferies @DinahJefferies #romance

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In Ceylon, between the First and Second World Wars, pre-Independence, a young wife arrives from England to join her new husband on his tea plantation. The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jefferies is a portrayal of an island riven by racial differences, a marriage riven by an inability to be honest, concluding that in the end skin colour should not matter. As her ship from England docks in Colombo, Gwen Hooper feels faint and is helped by a charming dark-skinned man. This is our introduction to Savi Ravasinghe, a pivotal character, a Sinhalese portrait painter who paints the rich in Ceylon, England and America. At this first meeting, Gwen demonstrates her naivety of racial tensions between Ceylon’s native Sinhalese population and the Tamil workers brought to the island by the British tea planters to work on the plantations. Soon after, trying to help an injured worker, she tramples over old sensitivities and the Raj way of doing things. I found Gwen both fascinating and a little irritating. The story is told totally from her viewpoint and, for me, her husband Laurence is rather remote. When Gwen gives birth to twins, the first, a boy, is christened Hugh. The second is a dark-skinned girl. In fear of accusations of infidelity with Savi, and rejection by her husband, Gwen panics. Her ayah Naveena takes the child to be cared for in a nearby village. Conveniently, the birth took place with only the ayah present so secrecy is assured. But Gwen lives on, haunted by her lies to her husband and her failings to her daughter.
This story hangs on the premise that Gwen feels unable to question her husband about the death of his first wife and child. When we finally get the answer in the last few pages, it seems obvious. Except of course the book is set in the late 1920s early 1930s so though obvious to a modern reader, it would not be widely known or understood at that time. To say more would give away the plot. This aside, I enjoyed this fragrant tale of the Hooper tea plantation, the difficulties faced after the Wall Street Crash, the changing times, the fashions and foods. There is a particularly unlikeable sister-in-law Verity, American vamp Christina, and bright and charming cousin-from-home Fran. The story felt alive in Ceylon. Jefferies cultivates a believable world from another time w ith the scents of cinnamon, sandalwood and jasmine combined with bullock dung, grease and rotting fish, servants dressed in white, and glamorous balls danced to the music of jazz. In contrast the short section in New York when Laurence and Gwen meet bankers and advertising men to launch the Hoopers Tea brand, seems remote and it was a relief to return to the lushness and complications of Ceylon.

And here are my reviews of some of Dinah Jefferies’ other novels:-
DAUGHTERS OF WAR #1DAUGHTERSOFWAR
THE HIDDEN PALACE #2DAUGHTERSOFWAR
NIGHT TRAIN TO MARRAKECH #3DAUGHTERSOFWAR

And these standalone novels:-
THE SAPPHIRE WIDOW
THE TUSCAN CONTESSA

If you like this, try these:-
‘The Gift of Rain’ by Tan Twan Eng
‘A Mother’s Secret’ by Renita d’Silva
‘The Garden of Evening Mists’ by Tan Twan Eng

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReviewTHE TEA PLANTER’S WIFE Dinah Jefferies @DinahJefferies http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Rh via @SandraDanby

My Porridge & Cream read: Julie Christine Johnson

#BookReview ‘The Wicked Cometh’ by Laura Carlin #historical #suspense

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In the dark alleyways of London, in 1831, people are disappearing; the vulnerable poor, children, elderly, homeless. Missing posters line the streets. But none are found. The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin is a 19^th century crime thriller with two women, divided by class and background, who are determined to find the truth but who never once suspect the depth of wickedness they will uncover. When 18-year old Hester White is hit by a carriage, physician Calder Brock takes her to his London home. Cared for by his servants, he questions Hester about her birth. Ashamed of her bad luck – growing up at a country parsonage, she was orphaned and taken in by her parents’ servants whose own income declined so now they live in an East End slum – Hester hides her education with a deftly-adopted London accent. Brock rescues her as an experiment in educating the poor. He takes Hester to Waterford, his childhood home in the country, where he lives with his sister Rebekah and their Uncle Septimus. Rebekah is to be Hester’s tutor. What follows is a story of lies laid upon more lies, murder, theft, friendship and love. As the women set out to discover what happened to Hester’s missing cousin, and two servants who worked for Rebekah, they enter into an underworld neither guessed exists. Being female hinders their attempts to investigate and they put themselves into increasingly dangerous situations in their efforts to gather evidence.
This is a melodramatic rollercoaster which in places grew so convoluted that I at first re-read passages, but then simply skipped paragraphs. It would benefit from some robust editing. At its heart is a gruesome Victorian murder mystery and the love of two women. The answer to the mystery that Hester and Rebekah set out to solve – and I started with high hopes of the two female investigators – is perhaps predictable but the details are dense and colourful though at times needlessly confusing. Some of the descriptions are unbelievably gory, unnecessarily so.
There are two endings, difficult to describe without giving spoilers. Suffice to say I found the final ending unsatisfactory; too neat and tidy for me. The part of the book I enjoyed the most was the beginning, with the development of Hester’s character, her stop-start relationship with Rebekah, and the whispers that unsettle Hester so she doesn’t know who to trust. The London setting is well-written; the filth so real you can smell it. The medical detail is gruesome so be warned, a few pages require a strong stomach. Another positive is the two strong female protagonists.
I particularly liked Rebekah. All of this is well done. What let it down for me? It simply didn’t hold my attention in places.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen
‘The Secrets of Gaslight Lane’ by MRC Kasasian #4GOWERDETECTIVE
‘The Taxidermist’s Daughter’ by Kate Mosse

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE WICKED COMETH by Laura Carlin https://wp.me/p5gEM4-35y via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Silent Companions’ by Laura Purcell #historical #mystery

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How to describe this novel? Spooky, mysterious? A tale of witchcraft and trickery or malicious exploitation and fraud? The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell starts with a woman in an asylum. Mute, she is given chalk and a slate with which to communicate. What follows is her account of the Bainbridge family and their country home, The Bridge. From the beginning until the end, we do not know who to believe. The story is told in three strands – a woman in an asylum, accused of murder; a young widow who arrives at her husband’s family home, pregnant and vulnerable; and a couple excitedly prepare for a royal visit by Charles I. What unfolds is a complicated story. Purcell handles the many threads well although I would have preferred a clear delineation with each new section marked by date.
Elsie, the daughter of a match factory owner in London, is a survivor. She supported her mother after her father was killed in a ghastly workplace accident, she supported her younger brother Jolyon as their mother also fell ill. And when Jolyon brings a new investor for the factory the siblings, now jointly own, Elise marries Rupert Bainbridge. Odd things start to happen after Rupert dies soon after the marriage and Elsie goes for the first time to The Bridge. Exploring the rundown dusty house when she hears a noise at night, Elsie finds a locked door and in the room behind is a wooden stand-up figure of a girl. From this point, odd things start to happen, getting odder and more frequent as the tale progresses. The reader doesn’t know who to believe or who to trust. It feels as if everyone might be lying for their own ends, or perhaps the villagers are right and the house is riddled with witchcraft. But concrete things keep happening which cannot be denied.
This is a strange, unsettling read.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Night Child’ by Anna Quinn
‘The Penny Heart’ by Martine Bailey
‘The Witchfinder’s Sister’ by Beth Underdown

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SILENT COMPANIONS by Laura Purcell http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Tn via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Gustav Sonata’ by Rose Tremain #historical

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The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain is a remedy. If you have been reading too many fast-moving, cliff-hanging, emotionally-wringing new novels which don’t give you time to breathe, now sink into this. The Gustav Sonata is a sensitive portrayal of the friendship of two boys who meet at kindergarten and form a lifelong on-off friendship. Gustav and Anton are the products of their parents and upbringing, and the baggage they inherit. All of this is complicated by post-war Switzerland. The war seems, to them, irrelevant, but in fact it frames their whole lives.
Gustav lives with his widowed mother Emilie in a small town in Switzerland. Money is tight and Emilie juggles jobs to manage. As a lonely toddler who misses a father he barely remembers, Gustav longs for more warmth from an emotionally-distant mother. She encourages him to ‘master himself’, his behaviour, his emotions, his ambitions. He accompanies her to her cleaning job at the local church, he helps by cleaning rubbish from beneath the grating; instead of throwing it away, he keeps it carefully in a tin. The only person with whom he shares these treasures is Anton, his first real friend. Visiting Anton’s home and meeting his parents, Gustav comes to realize that his own lifestyle is not the norm and that other people live and love in different ways. He starts to question his mother, her distance, her lack of love, and why she will not talk about Gustav’s father, Erich. Anton, Gustav soon understands, is emotionally vulnerable and unable to master himself. This makes him feel protective of his friend, especially when it becomes clear to Gustav that his mother dislikes Anton. The reasons why are hinted at but not understood until the story of Erich is told.
This is a slow-paced novel about friendship, love, and how and where these connect and disconnect. It is about the expectations of relationships and how these can run afoul when any hopes and ambitions are hidden. And it is about conscience: when to do the right thing; what is the right thing; when to remain silent and when to speak out. Decisions taken based on conscience can haunt an individual all their life and affect everyone around them forever. The conflicts faced by the two boys and their parents reflect the moral dilemmas faced by Switzerland during World War Two and afterwards, long after the two boys have become men.
The story is told in three parts. Gustav’s childhood to the age of five. The story of Emilie and Erich’s romance and early married life. And finally Gustav and Anton as men in their fifties. Facts are slowly revealed which explain Emile’s coldness, and Erich’s failure as a police officer. But some things remain a secret until Gustav himself is nearing retirement and his mother is no longer there to question. Anton’s hoped-for high-flown career as a concert pianist morphs into the underwhelming one of music teacher in his hometown. Gustav opens a hotel and concentrates on creating comfort for his guests. A comfort he never felt in his own home: warmth, soft beds, roaring fires, exquisite food. Both men are products of their childhood but lack the self-awareness to change things mid-life. At the heart of it all is Mitteland, their ordinary hometown.
Mitteland in itself is an indication of how Tremain spins a compelling story out of everyday ingredients. There is nothing glamorous about The Gustav Sonata. There is depression, privation and jealousy. But there is also love and hope. The scenes in Davos when the two boys play make-believe, running a sanatorium for imaginary sufferers of TB, are delicate and touching. Rose Tremain is an author whose books vary considerably from each other. The breadth of her understanding of human nature, and the diversity of history and settings she writes about, is humbling. She is never a boring author.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Rose Tremain:-
ISLANDS OF MERCY
LILY

If you like this, try:-
‘Birdcage Walk’ by Helen Dunmore
‘Ghost Moth’ by Michèle Forbes
‘The Ballroom’ by Anna Hope

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GUSTAV SONATA by Rose Tremain https://wp.me/p5gEM4-35k via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Birdcage Walk’ by Helen Dunmore #historical

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Birdcage Walk is the last novel by the incomparable Helen Dunmore who moved between subjects and periods with ease, setting the dramatic minutiae of people’s lives against the huge social events of the time. War, spies and, in Birdcage Walk, the French Revolution and how its impacts on a family in Bristol. The novel opens as a walker and his dog discover a hidden grave in the undergrowth of a derelict graveyard. He reads the inscription to Julia Elizabeth Fawkes but subsequent research finds no information about her. This is followed by a short night-time scene in 1789 of a man burying a body in woods. We do not know the location, his identity or that of the body. How are these two things connected? For the first half of the book, I forgot these two short scenes until growing menace made me recall it and read faster.
It is 1792. This is the story of young wife Lizzie Fawkes, new wife of Bristol builder John Diner Tredevant and daughter of writer Julia Fawkes. Diner, as he is known, is developing a grand terrace of houses on the cliffs at Clifton Gorge, a development for which he specifies the best, borrowing against the potential sales. He is not keen on the company kept by his wife’s mother, seeing them as seditious socialists agitating in support of the French revolutionaries. He is aware of the potential cost to England, and his ambitious development, if the trouble in France turns into war. Lizzie is torn between two worlds, loyal to her Mammie and cautious about Augustus, her step-father and political pamphleteer, but aware her husband is under financial pressure. Diner is derided as a capitalist by Augustus and his writer friends. But Lizzie is proud, she chose her husband and remains loyal to him. But that loyalty and her young impressionable love for him are challenged. As news from Paris gets grimmer, Diner’s mood darkens. He must lay off workers, creditors chase payment, and he has night sweats. Insistent that independent Lizzie is his now, that he owns her and everything of hers, he is almost overpowering in his need to keep her close. She begins to fear he is having her followed and so disguises herself as she walks about town, lying about her visits home. And then there is the mystery of Diner’s first wife, Lucie, who died in France but of whom he does not speak. Lizzie fears he still loves Lucie.
This is a gently-written novel about tumultuous times in Europe, when the shadow of the unknown and fear – from the horrors in Paris to Diner’s secrets and his dark brooding nature – cannot be escaped. When the moment to run arrives, will Lizzie recognise it? If she does run, where to and who with? And will she know if she is running towards more danger? This is an expertly-written historical novel, rich in period detail, although the title is mentioned fleetingly and not referred to again.

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

If you like this, try:-
‘The Walworth Beauty’ by Michèle Roberts
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen
‘The French Lesson’ by Hallie Rubenhold

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Bookreview BIRDCAGE WALK by Helen Dunmore http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2T2 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Last Day’ by Claire Dyer @ClaireDyer1 #contemporary

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Love is complicated, modern families are complicated, and a line cannot be drawn before and after. Whenever there is a last day, there is a first day too. That’s the theme of The Last Day by Claire Dyer, a deftly managed part-study of grief and mourning, part-teaser about how past events always affect the present. Boyd and Vita were married, now separated; Boyd owns an estate agency, Vita paints portraits of pets. Both have new relationships. Added to the mix is Boyd’s elderly mother irascible mother. When Boyd has a big tax bill, he and his girlfriend move back in with Vita. The collision of these three people has unforeseen results. So much of what we see at the beginning of this novel is unexplained, unravelling as the pages turn. It is tightly written with a minimal cast of characters. When you think you’ve got it worked out, there is another twist. Everyone is hiding something.
At the heart of the book is Honey Mayhew, except that’s not her real name. She is the catalyst of change. Wearing charity shop clothes and a smiling assured attitude, she goes for an interview at Harrison’s Residential and gets the job. Her connection with Boyd, as they sit in the car as it goes through a car wash, is transforming. Dangling in front of her is the temptation of a new life with an older man. Conformity. Security. Love. But Honey, addicted to horoscopes and superstition, a young twenty-seven year old, is mercurial. At times she seems more like the feisty troublesome teenager she was not so long ago. What happens to Honey as she is thrown into the very adult world of Boyd and Vita’s romance/marriage/separation/amicable friendship changes everything; it wouldn’t be a novel if it didn’t.
Living together, none of the three have bargained for the re-stirring of old memories in the house, and the tugging of anger and regret. Honey, because she is young and inexperienced; Boyd, because he is emotionally blocked; and Vita, because she considers she has moved on with her painting and her convenient relationship with Colin next door. Dyer is good at portraying the small details, the daily things. How Honey sits upstairs in bed in the morning, hearing Boyd and Vita reassume their old morning habit of coffee and crossword clues. How Boyd buys his mother some handkerchiefs for Christmas. How Vita watches families play in the park, and her bones feel heavy in her body.

Read my review of Dyer’s THE PERFECT AFFAIR and her poetry anthology YIELD.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes’ by Anna McPartlin
‘Etta and Otto and Russell and James’ by Emma Hooper
‘Please Release Me’ by Rhoda Baxter

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE LAST DAY by Claire Dyer @ClaireDyer1 https://wp.me/p5gEM4-38t 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 Heart’s Invisible Furies’ by @JohnBoyneBooks #historical #Ireland

#BookReview ‘Blow Your House Down’ by Pat Barker #thriller

#BookReview ‘The Hoarder’ by Jess Kidd #mystery #contemporary

#BookReview ‘The Tea Planter’s Wife’ by Dinah Jefferies @DinahJefferies #romance

My Porridge & Cream read: Julie Christine Johnson

#BookReview ‘The Wicked Cometh’ by Laura Carlin #historical #suspense

#BookReview ‘The Silent Companions’ by Laura Purcell #historical #mystery

#BookReview ‘The Gustav Sonata’ by Rose Tremain #historical

#BookReview ‘Birdcage Walk’ by Helen Dunmore #historical

#BookReview ‘The Last Day’ by Claire Dyer @ClaireDyer1 #contemporary

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