Tag Archives: book review

#BookReview ‘The Perfect Affair’ by @ClaireDyer1 #romance #contemporary

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This is a deceptive read. It is a meandering tale of two love affairs – one today, one in the Sixties – which unfolds slowly, step-by-step, as these things do in life. The Perfect Affair by Claire Dyer is about love, how it appears and grows, and how it fades. Claire DyerRose has divided her house into two flats, she lives upstairs and rents the downstairs space to Myles, a writer of detective novels. Rose’s regular visitor, Eve, is like the grand-daughter she never had, and is a connection to Rose’s past. In the Sixties, Rose shared a house with Eve’s grandmother Verity. One day Eve and Myles meet. There is a spark of attraction which shocks them both and makes each examine the state of their own marriage. As they come to terms with what this means, Rose watches from afar. In love and seeking the perfect love affair, Rose remembers when she fell in love in the Sixties. Finally a decision must be made.
Dyer writes with a gentle hand, small details showing her understanding of the emotions involved. After meeting Eve for the first time, Myles is disorientated: ‘He’d been OK when he’d left home earlier but now he feels mostly unsettled, as though a fault line has positioned itself under his feet and he knows it’s there and it knows it’s there too.’ Alongside the sense of inevitability, danger lurks. An emotional novel, skilfully written.

Click the title to read my review of Dyer’s novel THE LAST DAY and her poetry anthology YIELD.

If you like this, try:-
‘Please Release Me’ by Rhoda Baxter
‘A Mother’s Secret’ By Renita D’Silva
‘One Step Too Far’ by Tina Seskis

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#BookReview THE PERFECT AFFAIR by @ClaireDyer1 http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2h0 via @SandraDanby 

#BookReview ‘The Witchfinder’s Sister’ by Beth Underdown #historical

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The horror which man can visit on his fellow man, or woman, on anyone slightly different or strange, is explored in this richly-written debut novel. The Witchfinder’s Sister by Beth Underdown is a fictional telling of a real seventeenth century witchfinder, Matthew Hopkins, and his invented sister Alice. It is a novel steeped in historical fact, with excerpts of documents including real people and trials. Beth UnderdownIt is 1645 and the Civil War in England is into its fourth year. There is a sense of brooding danger from the very beginning, and not just because of war. It is a time of religious fervour. A short prologue contains a list of women named as witches, their descriptions and accused crimes. Then in chapter one we meet Alice who is confined to one room. This novel is the account of her life.
When Alice’s husband dies in London in a work accident, she returns home, newly pregnant, to the Essex village where she grew up. Upon entering the home of her younger half-brother Matthew, she discovers he has become obsessed with punishing women for witchery. As her worry about his activities turns into fear, she is unable to escape his influence and is pulled into complicity with his acts. Despite attempts to break free, she too is under his power.
It is a fascinating historical read, the sort of book where you feel assured the author’s research is authentic. Told completely from Alice’s point of view, the other female characters are deeply drawn. The servants in her brother’s house, the creepy Mary Phillips and young Grace; Bridget, her step-mother’s former servant; and Rebecca West, accused of witchery. Some of it is difficult reading, particularly the Watching and Searching of suspects, who are subjected to difficult and demeaning conditions. The power of a few men over so many is frightening. With relevance to today’s society are the big issues of man’s inhumanity to man, intolerance and that ability to inflict cruelty which seems always to lurk just beneath the surface of civilised society.
A book that will stay with me for a long time, and which will be re-read.

Read my review of THE KEY IN THE LOCK, Beth Underdown’s second novel.

If you like this, try:-
‘Orphans of the Carnival’ by Carol Birch
‘The Miniaturist’ by Jessie Burton
‘The Penny Heart’ by Martine Bailey

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#BookReview ‘An Unsuitable Job for a Woman’ by PD James #crime

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When Cordelia Gray’s boss at the Pryde Detective Agency dies, he leaves her the business… and an unregistered gun. And so begins An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by PD James, with a female private detective who is a long way away from Adam Dalgliesh, James’s famous creation, but who has been trained by an ex-copper who worked for Dalgliesh. And so the tentacles of ‘the Super’ stretch to Cambridge where Cordelia Gray undertakes her first case. PD JamesShe is not a female private detective in the busybodying, gossiping style of Miss Marple or Agatha Raisin, but a liberated, independent woman who is financially motivated to make a success of her business. Employed by a Cambridge scientist, Sir Ronald Callender, to discover why his son Mark dropped out of university and committed suicide soon after, Cordelia takes up lodging in the rundown gardener’s cottage where Mark died. So much is unclear. Mark left a stew uncooked and a garden fork stuck in half-dug earth. His friends feign friendliness to Cordelia but dance around her questions. Sir Ronald’s assistant/housekeeper is superior and unhelpful. The Marklands, who employed Mark in his last few weeks, are shadows on the edge of the story. Something is evidently not right and Cordelia is soon convinced Mark was murdered. But how can it be proved?
This is a satisfying read with plenty of twists, mysteries and unexplained behaviour. The Seventies college setting in Cambridge – student parties, punting on the Cam – felt authentic. And I did not guess the ending.
Disappointingly, PD James only wrote two Cordelia Gray novels, this in 1972 and The Skull Beneath the Skin ten years later.

Here’s my review of the second Cordelia Gray mystery:-
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #2CORDELIAGRAY

Read my reviews of the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries:-
COVER HER FACE #1ADAMDALGLIESH
A MIND TO MURDER #2ADAMDALGLIESH
UNNATURAL CAUSES #3ADAMDALGLIESH
SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE #4ADAMDALGLIESH
THE BLACK TOWER #5ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH OF AN EXPERT WITNESS #6ADAMDALGLIESH
A TASTE FOR DEATH #7ADAMDALGLIESH
DEVICES AND DESIRES #8ADAMDALGLIESH
ORIGINAL SIN #9ADAMDALGLIESH … read the first paragraph HERE
A CERTAIN JUSTICE #10ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS #11ADAMDALGLIESH
THE MURDER ROOM #12ADAMDALGLIESH … read the first paragraph HERE
THE LIGHTHOUSE #13ADAMDALGLIESH
THE PRIVATE PATIENT #14ADAMDALGLIESH

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD

If you like this, try:-
‘Dead Simple’ by Peter James #1ROYGRACE
‘Hiding The Past’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin #1MORTONFARRIER
‘I Refuse’ by Per Petterson

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#BookReview ‘Quartet’ by Jean Rhys #historicalfiction #Paris

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Quartet is the first, slim, novel by Wide Sargasso Sea author Jean Rhys. Published in 1928 it is its very different from its famous older sister which was not published until 1968. Semi-autobiographical, Quartet tells the story of Marya, marooned without money in Paris after her chancer husband Stephan is jailed for theft. It is a novel about loneliness and vulnerability and where that can lead. Jean RhysMarya is taken under the wing of the English couple, the Heidlers. They are spoken of as a unit, he is referred to as HJ, his wife is Lois. It is Lois who persuades Marya to move into the spare bedroom at their studio. HJ, she tells Marya, likes to ‘help people.’ But as days pass, Marya is drawn into their emotional and sexual influence. Not an accurate judge of character, Marya is let down but seems incapable of getting away. Visits to her husband in prison are fleeting and unsatisfactory, husband and wife face their own dilemmas and deal with them alone.
This is a melancholy story told beautifully. Marya is intelligent but weak, recognising she is trapped but unable, or unwilling, to extricate herself. ‘You see, I’m afraid the trouble with me is that I’m not hard enough. I’m a soft, thin-skinned sort of person and I’ve been frightened to death these last days.’ She tells her own story but there is often an observational feel almost as if she is standing to the side, commentating about someone playing herself. Some acute observations of other people are really just her transferring her own condition, her own sensibilities onto someone else.
I read the Penguin Modern Classics edition with an excellent introduction by Katie Owen, which sets this novel in the context of Rhys’ bibliography.

Here’s my review of another novel by Jean Rhys:-
AFTER LEAVING MR MACKENZIE

If you like this, try:-
‘A Wreath of Roses’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘The French Lesson’ by Hallie Rubenhold
‘Islands of Mercy’ by Rose Tremain

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#BookReview ‘Sometimes I Lie’ by Alice Feeney @alicewriterland #thriller

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At the beginning of Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney, Amber is in a coma. What happened to her and why she is there, is told in three strands – a series of flashbacks of the previous few days, her childhood, and her trapped-in view of life from her hospital bed. ‘I’ve been returned to my factory settings as a human being, rather than a human doing.’ Alice FeeneyI’m not sure how to describe this book. It starts off as a study of young women, sisters and friends, and turns into a pacey psychological thriller. At times I forgot the title of the novel, a timely reminder that Amber may be an unreliable narrator. What starts off as a puzzle turns into a sprint, as a mystery visitor to Amber’s hospital bed may be trying to drug her. Her husband is being questioned by the police, it is days before her parents visit, and her sister and husband are arguing at her bedside.
Amber is a radio presenter with a touch of OCD, her repetitive checking of things increases as she is stressed. There are problems at work, her husband keeps disappearing, and an old boyfriend turns up out of the blue.
The plotting is tight, it has to be as there are many disguised clues and un-mentioned facts which only come to light at the end. The twist, when it came, was disorientating and curiously it made me disconnect from Amber’s predicament.
A difficult book to classify.

If you like this, try:-
‘Please Release Me’ by Rhoda Baxter
‘Beginnings’ by Helen J Christmas #1SAMEFACEDIFFERENTPLACE
‘Good Me Bad Me’ by Ali Land

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview SOMETIMES I LIE by Alice Feeney @alicewriterland via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2po

#BookReview ‘Bloodline’ by Fiona Mountain @FionaMountain #geneaology #mystery

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Bloodline by Fiona Mountain is a combination of genealogical mystery, murder investigation and historical examination of the Nazis. The second Natasha Blake mystery, it covers a lot of ground from its seemingly innocuous starting point when Natasha hands in her report to a client. But nothing is mentioned lightly in this book, everything has a meaning. Fiona MountainNatasha is not sure why Charles Seagrove requested this particular family tree, but knows he is unrelated to any of the people featured. The real reason for Seagrove’s interest in genealogy is at the heart of this storyline. There are many dead ends and I admit to losing track of who was who at one point but Mountain ties all the loose endings together so there is clarity at the end. At first, Natasha is simply conducting another genealogical research but everything changes when she receives an anonymous note, ‘Cinderella is in the bluebell woods at Poacher’s Dell’. Once her client is murdered with his own shotgun, Natasha feels threatened as well as puzzled.
There are many storylines to be connected including Charles Seagrove’s grand-daughter Rosa and her father Richard, Second World War land girls, and two soldiers – one German, one English – who meet in the trenches during the Christmas truce of 1914. This is a lot to handle but Mountain manages the complicated history with ease and I enjoyed trying to work out the solution.

And here’s my review of the first in the series:-
PALE AS THE DEAD #1NATASHABLAKE

If you like this, try:-
‘The Lost Ancestor’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin #2MORTONFARRIER
‘Beside Myself’ by Ann Morgan
‘Blood-Tied’ by Wendy Percival #1ESMEQUENTIN

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#BookReview BLOODLINE by Fiona Mountain @FionaMountain via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2oY

#BookReview ‘Darktown’ by Thomas Mullen #crime

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Darktown by Thomas Mullen is a gripping book. A combination of the social history of black Americans in post-war pre-civil rights USA, and crime story, it tells the story of the first black policemen in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1948 and the physical, emotional and moral challenges they faced. Thomas Mullen Page after page, and they turned quickly, I was astonished by what happened and the knowledge that similar events really took place. It is a commentary on racial divides in the USA that the summer (2016) this novel about white police brutality was published, white policemen are still shooting and mistreating black citizens.
Politics aside, I read so quickly because the story of Officer Lucius Boggs and the case of the murdered Jane Doe grabbed me and made me resent the moments I wasn’t with them on the page. Twined together are the stories of Boggs and Police Officer Denny Rakestraw; one black cop, one white cop, both dissatisfied with the rules they must police and with the way black people, cops and citizens, are denigrated, both disturbed that the dead Jane Doe has been ignored. Boggs and Rake investigate alone and off-duty, risking suspension plus hatred and injury at the hands of fellow policemen. When they find themselves looking for the same witnesses, they find it difficult to trust. This is a time of corrupt cops and officials, when black people do not expect to have their rights upheld and Mullen shows the suspicion and mistrust of black citizens for the new police officers.
Darktown is a both a depressing story and one which offers a hint of hope. A hint, mind. It is a book which stays with you.
One of the best books I’ve read this year.

If you like this, try:-
‘Nightfall’ by Stephen Leather #1JACK NIGHTINGALE
‘Butterfly on the Storm’ by Walter Lucius
‘An Uncertain Place’ by Fred Vargas #8COMMISSAIREADAMSBERG

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#BookReview ‘We Are Water’ by Wally Lamb @WallyLambAuthor #contemporary

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We Are Water by American author Wally Lamb is the examination of a family riven by differences, tragedy and horrors, how they first avoid then finally admit the truths and shame, in order to face the future. It is a story about looking forwards, not back. Wally LambI loved the storyline set-up in the Prologue, elderly artist and curator Gualtiero Agnello recalls the discovery of a self-taught artist, Josephus Jones, a poor black man in the Sixties with a raw untapped gift. But then as the story develops, Jones is not centre stage. The focus is on Annie Oh, another untutored artist discovered by Agnello, who lived in the same house where Jones lived in a shed out back and where he died in a well. Murder or accident, it is never proven.
Via the Oh family, Lamb explores the imbalance of family life, its events and consequences. When she is small. Annie loses her mother in a flood which devastates the town of Three Rivers in Connecticut. This flood is based on a real-life event though the town is fictional. Growing up, Annie is subjected to abuse which remains unspecified for a long time. The reader comes to realise she was abused, but not how or why. Annie’s husband Orion knows only that she had a difficult childhood. As a psychology professor, he suspects a tough childhood but backs-off challenging her about it.
Raising her three children – Ariane, Andrew and Marissa – Annie is a strict mom who occasionally hits her son, but never her daughters. In an escape from motherhood she starts to make art in the basement of the house, using materials foraged from refuse. When a New York art agent sees her work, this is the catalyst for change. Annie leaves Orion and falls in love with her agent, Viveca. This action puts the focus on all the fissures within the Oh family and raises various issues they have denied and hidden. Andrew finds God, Marissa is a jobbing actress and an alcoholic, Ariane conceives by artificial insemination. When they gather for the wedding of Annie and Viveca, a sequence of events brings the past to life again and the secrets and horror come crashing back.
Lamb’s focus on family reminds me of the novels of Anne Tyler and Jane Smiley, although of course he is a man writing a woman’s point of view. Once I got over my disappointment at not reading more about Josephus Jones I enjoyed this, at times difficult, novel.

If you like this, try:-
‘Did You Ever Have a Family’ by Bill Clegg
‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara
‘If I Knew You Were This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go’ by Judy Chicurel

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#BookReview WE ARE WATER by Wally Lamb @WallyLambAuthor via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2ps

#BookReview ‘Hide and Seek’ by MJ Arlidge @mjarlidge #crimefiction

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Different from the preceding five books in the series and even faster-paced, Hide and Seek by MJ Arlidge is a relentless page-turner. DI Helen Grace is in prison, awaiting trial. Unsurprisingly, as a copper she receives brute treatment from her fellow inmates. And then one of them is killed and the prisoners don’t know who to fear – Grace, who is accused of murder; a fellow prisoner; or a prison guard. MJ ArlidgeThe action switches viewpoint as Helen tries to identify the killer and prevent him killing again. Her friend DC Charlie Brooks is on the outside, trying to prove Helen’s innocence and find the real murderer, the prison governor can’t cope, and the killer is planning the next attack. Meanwhile the aggressive journalist Emilia Garanita is somehow getting photos from within the prison. While Helen is struggling to survive from one day to the next, the prison guards are under-staffed and under-pressure.
Helen uses a few old prisoner tricks to unlock her cell door and move around the prison, I don’t know how realistic this is but it certainly moved the story along. How often do murders happen in a prison wing at night when the prisoners are locked in their cells?
This is a series to read from the beginning if you are to get the most out of Helen Grace’s ongoing story.

Read my reviews other books in this series:-
EENY MEENY #1HELENGRACE
POP GOES THE WEASEL #2HELENGRACE
THE DOLL’S HOUSE #3HELENGRACE
LIAR LIAR #4HELENGRACE
LITTLE BOY BLUE #5HELENGRACE
LOVE ME NOT #7HELENGRACE
DOWN TO THE WOODS #8 HELENGRACE

If you like this, try:-
‘The Nationalist’ by Campbell Hart #2ARBOGAST
‘The Pure in Heart’ by Susan Hill #2SIMONSERRAILLER
‘The Black Tower’ by PD James #5ADAMDALGLIESH

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#BookReview HIDE AND SEEK by MJ Arlidge @mjarlidge via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2mH

#BookReview ‘Golden Age’ by Jane Smiley #historical #familylife

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When I go on holiday I see a lot of people around the pool reading ‘family sagas’, usually a historical setting, based on one or two families, with characters that lock you in. That’s what the ‘Last Hundred Years’ trilogy by Jane Smiley is like. In the first book, Some Luck, I studied the family tree at the front. It started with the two key figures, Walter and Rosanna Langdon. The names in the future generations, stretching to the bottom of the page meant nothing. I was interested in Walter and Rosanna’s story. In Golden Age, the final instalment, I became locked into the story of those names at the bottom of the family tree, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Langdons. Jane SmileyThe story opens with an arrival, a newcomer to the family introducing himself. No-one can see forsee at that time what role will be played by Charlie Wickett and how his appearance reverberates through the Langdon generations. The story is a fascinating journey through American history including Richie becoming a congressman, his twin brother Michael, the Machiavellian one of the family, makes his fortune and loses it again on Wall Street. Walter’s great-grandson Guthrie fights in Iraq and comes home damaged. Guthrie’s sister Felicity studies environmental science and worries for the fate of the family farm, managed by her father Jesse. Jesse feels threatened by the huge agricultural conglomerates buying up his neighbours, by the development of technology which fails to counter the negative effects of soil erosion.
Throughout this trilogy, I read with a knowledge of world events and how they might possibly cross the paths of the Langdon family. This added to my curiosity. Smiley finishes the story in 2019 with a few guesses at what history has in store for us. I was sad to finish this book. This is a trilogy to read and re-read, and it will stand the test of time.

Click the title below to read my reviews of other novels by Jane Smiley:-
A DANGEROUS BUSINESS
A THOUSAND ACRES
SOME LUCK #1LASTHUNDREDYEARS
EARLY WARNING #2LASTHUNDREDYEARS

If you like this, try:-
‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara
‘The Goldfinch’ by Donna Tartt
‘The Last Runaway’ by Tracy Chevalier

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#BookReview GOLDEN AGE by Jane Smiley via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2gp