Tag Archives: books

Great Opening Paragraph 116… ‘The Slaves of Solitude’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“London, the crouching monster, like every other monster has to breathe, and breathe it does in its own obscure, malignant way. Its vital oxygen is composed of suburban working men and women of all kinds, who every morning are sucked up through an infinitely complicated respiratory apparatus of trains and termini into the mighty congested lungs, held there for a number of hours, and then, in the evening, exhaled violently through the same channels.”
Patrick HamiltonFrom ‘The Slaves of Solitude’ by Patrick Hamilton

Read my reviews of THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE and HANGOVER SQUARE, both by Patrick Hamilton.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Reading Turgenev’ by William Trevor
‘The Children Act’ by Ian McEwan
‘The Ghost Road’ by Pat Barker

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE by Patrick Hamilton via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2AD

#BookReview ‘The House Across the Street’ by @LesleyPearse #historical #mystery

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This is the first book I have read by Lesley Pearse. The House Across the Street is a slow build as Pearse takes time to build the characters and the Sixties setting. This is a difficult book to describe: part-mystery, part-romance, part-thriller. Lesley Pearse.The house of the title is in Bexhill-on-Sea. Twenty-three year old Katy Speed is fascinated by Gloria, her fashionable neighbour, who owns a dress shop in town. Katy is also fascinated by some odd comings and goings; a black car arrives, bringing women and sometimes children to the house. Katy’s mother Hilda disapproves of Gloria, thinking there may be something illegal going on. Then one night Gloria’s house burns down and Katy’s father Albert is arrested for murder. It is at this point that the story really takes off.
The 1965 setting is well portrayed. It is a time of social change. Katy and her friend Jilly dream of escaping boring Bexhill to live and work in London. Hilda is something of a mystery; moody, cold, traditional. Mother and daughter mirror the changing times and sexual freedoms of the time. The backbone of the story is domestic violence and the lack of help available for victims in the Sixties.The House Across the Street is a novel sympathetic to the Sixties, showing the transition after World War Two as the older generation shaped by their war experiences clash with their children who want to grab their new freedoms. Pearse contrasts the awkward marriage of Hilda and Albert, and Katy’s new friendship with a barrister at her new job, to demonstrate the changing lives of women. Katy has more opportunities than her mother, but the laws protecting women remain inadequate. At the heart of the novel lays brutality but also kindness and a sense of justice.
The second half of the book flew by as Pearse expertly handles the increasing intrigue.

Here’s my review of YOU’LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN, also by Lesley Pearse.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Beekeeper’s Daughter’ by Santa Montefiore
‘Beside Myself’ by Ann Morgan
‘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 THE HOUSE ACROSS THE STREET by @LesleyPearse https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3yv via @Sandra Danby

#BookReview ‘Amy Snow’ by @AuthorTracyRees #historical

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When eight-year old Aurelia Vennaway runs outside to play in the snow on a January day in 1831, she finds a baby, blue, abandoned and barely alive. She takes the baby home and, despite opposition from her parents, demands they keep the baby. Aurelia really is that precocious. She names the baby Amy. Amy Snow by Tracy Rees is about two lost girls, each lost in different ways who through their friendship find strength to face the lot given to them by life at a time when women had few individual rights. Tracy ReesThis is the story of a secret, well-hidden and unveiled by a series of letters. The two girls grow up together. Aurelia lives a privileged life and Amy stays on in the large house, first as a servant and then companion to her friend. She is treated harshly by Aurelia’s parents, but is looked after by Cook and under-gardener Robin. The two girls support each other as they grow up. Amy gains an education and learns how to be a lady, but when Aurelia faints, a weak heart is diagnosed. When Aurelia dies in her early twenties, Amy is thrown out of the house where she was discovered in the snow. ‘Staying here where you were not welcome. Schemer! Vagabond! Baseborn!’ shouts Lord Vennaway.
But Aurelia has not abandoned Amy. In a package entrusted to the keeping of the local schoolteacher and given to her after the funeral, Any finds money, a green silk stole and a letter. It is the first of many. In a recreation of the treasure trails she invented for her young friend when they were children, Amy must now follow Aurelia’s trail of clues. The subterfuge is necessary, Aurelia insists in her first letter, but does not explain why. So Amy travels to London and looks for a mysterious bookshop, trying to second-guess Aurelia’s clues, unsure where the path will lead, knowing only she must find the next letter. What is the secret Aurelia is protecting and why can’t she confide in Amy while she is alive? Each letter apologises for giving no answers. The trail takes Amy from London to Twickenham, Bath and York. The nature of the secret becomes obvious well before Amy realizes it, but this doesn’t stop the urge to read to the end.
There is some lovely description of the houses and the fashions of the time, and I particularly liked Ariadne Riverthorpe who was much more than she seemed. In contrast the family in Twickenham, the Wisters, are idealised. As the story progressed, the letter device came to see rather false. Also, given the title of the book, I expected the main narrative to be about Amy’s origins so when these are briefly explained at the end, it seems like a bit of an afterthought.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

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

If you like this, try:-
‘After Leaving Mr Mackenzie’ by Jean Rhys
‘Angel’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘The Distant Hours’ by Kate Morton

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview AMY SNOW by @AuthorTracyRees http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2TL via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Dark Fire’ by CJ Sansom #Tudor #detective

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Dark Fire by CJ Sansom is a story of political intrigue, whodunit and a Tudor weapon of mass destruction. Second in the series about Tudor lawyer Matthew Shardlake, Dark Fire combines two criminal mysteries; the appearance and subsequent disappearance of the alchemical formula to make an ancient terrifying weapon, and the impending trial and expected sentencing of a young woman to death by pressing. CJ SansomDespite a tenuous connection between the two cases, and a somewhat meandering pace at times, I enjoyed this book for its further development of Shardlake, first seen in Dissolution. It is 1540, King Henry VIII wishes to anul his marriage to Anne of Cleves, recommended to him by Thomas Cromwell, and marry instead the teenager Catherine Howard. At the beginning of the book Cromwell’s relationship with Henry is weakening and this imposes time pressure on both the novel and on Shardlake. As the novel opens, the lawyer is defending Elizabeth Wentworth, a teenage girl accused by her family of killing her cousin by pushing him down a well. She languishes in the Hole in the cellars of Newgate Prison and refuses to speak. Shardlake, though convinced of her innocence, despairs of being able to help her.
The alchemical formula for Greek Fire, the legendary substance with which the Byzantines destroyed the Arab navies, has been lost for centuries but is discovered in the library of a closed monastery in London by a government official. Cromwell decides to present it to the king as a demonstration of his fealty. He charges Shardlake with finding the Greek Fire within two weeks; to ease this he instructs the postponement of Elizabeth’s case for two weeks. As in Dissolution, Shardlake is once again living every minute under threat of Cromwell’s demands and bad temper. When Shardlake tracks down the official and his alchemist brother, he is too late; both men are dead and the formula is missing. So starts a chase across London.
As always with Sansom, the historical setting is convincingly written with vivid descriptions of the lives of rich and poor, the divisions between them and the melting pot that is the City and its surroundings in Tudor London. As this is the second book of the series, the community around Shardlake is becoming clearer and we see a small group of people who are different. Shardlake with his hunched back; Brother Guy, Moor and apothecary, who is stared at on the streets because of the colour of his skin; Jack Barak, Cromwell’s assistant who is sent to work with Shardlake, is threatened because of his Jewish heritage. Shardlake seems a modern interpretation of a sixteenth century lawyer; he has enlightened views of both race and the role of women, and is becoming disillusioned with religion. These loyalties and views potentially cause trouble for him, adding to the vulnerability that makes him appealing.
A pleasure to read, I am hooked on this series.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

And here are my reviews of other novels by CJ Sansom:-
DOMINION
DISSOLUTION #1SHARDLAKE
SOVEREIGN #3SHARDLAKE
REVELATION #4SHARDLAKE
HEARTSTONE #5SHARDLAKE
LAMENTATION #6SHARDLAKE

If you like this, try:-
‘The Western Wind’ by Samantha Harvey
‘The Wicked Cometh’ by Laura Carlin
‘The French Lesson’ by Hallie Rubenhold

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DARK FIRE by CJ Sansom https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3Ne via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Union Street’ by Pat Barker #motherhood #women

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Uncompromising, unbelievably sad and harsh, Union Street by Pat Barker does not hide the uncomfortable truths of poverty in North-East industrial England. This is the story of eight women who live on Union Street from teenager Kelly Brown to Alice Bell in her eighties and though each story is told individually, like the lives of the women, the stories interweave. An honest book about women struggling to hold life, family and home together, while retaining pride and some of their own individuality. Some succeed in this, others don’t. Pat Barker This is not a book about idealised motherhood. It is about putting bread on the table for your children no matter how you do it; including beating your husband to get his pay packet before he spends it on booze. These women are tough because they have to be; the choices are the cake factory, charring, and prostitution. Many marry young to feckless husbands because they are pregnant. This is not a light read; it features scenes of rape and backstreet abortion that somehow make the prostitution a lighter route. The language is often strong and some of the descriptions are difficult to read; but it is an honest book, bleak and realistic.
The spine throughout the book is Iris King, she appears in each story and is the one most aware of other women’s lives and offers support and a word of kindness when needed. But Iris is the toughest woman in the street. Three weeks after marrying Ted, he knocks her around because she is ironing his shirts when he gets home from work when he was expecting his supper. “After he’d gone, she sat down and took stock… When he came back she was waiting for him behind the door with the meat chopper in her hand. The blow glanced off him, though there was enough blood around to scare the pair of them stiff. It didn’t stop him hitting her again, but it did free her from the fear. She never lost her self-respect.” It is that self-respect which separates Iris from the other women.
This is the first novel by Booker Prize winner Barker, but such is the excellence of the prose

For my reviews of other Pat Barker novels, click the title below:-
ANOTHER WORLD
BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN
DOUBLE VISION
LIFE CLASS #1LIFECLASS
TOBY’S ROOM #2LIFECLASS
NOONDAY #3LIFECLASS
THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS #1WOMENOFTROY
THE WOMEN OF TROY #2WOMENOFTROY
If you like this, try:-
‘Orphans of the Carnival’ by Carol Birch
‘In the Midst of Winter’ by Isabel Allende
‘These Dividing Walls’ by Fran Cooper

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#BookReview UNION STREET by Pat Barker https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3rH via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Smash All the Windows’ by @janedavisauthor #contemporary

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Thought-provoking, sometimes difficult, always moving, Smash All The Windows by Jane Davis starts at a run as we are pitched straight into emotional turmoil, grief, anger and betrayal. Jane DavisAn inquest investigates an accident thirteen years earlier, it is the undoing of a miscarriage of justice. In turn we meet the survivors, and the relatives of the victims. Davis follows the paths of each person to their own resolution; there is no self-help book to follow, they must each must work it out for themselves. We see flashbacks to the days and hours before the accident as Davis unravels the real truth of what happened.
This is a complex story with legal twists and turns, misunderstandings and minute step-by-step detail of what happened on that day, thirteen years ago, when over-crowding at St Botolph and Old Billingsgate tube stations in London ended in death. For thirteen years, blame has been thrown around, scapegoats have been targeted, the media has dug for dirt. This is an imaginary accident but with echoes of so many disasters – Hillsborough, Grenfell, Kings Cross – that it can’t help but be affecting.
There are a lot of victims and survivors, a lot of relatives. The high number of characters causes initial confusion: who is who, who is alive and who is dead, what was the actual accident. As I read the first quarter of the book, I longed for a short summary of what happened. But as the story progressed I understood that my confusion mirrors the confusion of an accident as it happens, the disorientation of victims, the powerlessness of the loved ones who are waiting. It is a purposeful obfuscation by the author to reflect the opacity of what happens, the difficulty of finding the truth in any inquest or public enquiry, and ultimately the slippery nature of memory.
The survivors and relatives of victims are now living fractured lives. Gina lost her son. Her daughter Tamsin has grown into a young woman, still living at home to support her mother after Gina’s husband left, as husband and wife dealt with grief in different ways. Gina often forgets in the bottom of a glass. Donovan lost his pregnant daughter, her partner and his unborn grandchild; grief has caused his wife to withdraw into her own world, agoraphobic she stays at home. Maggie lost her daughter, newly-promoted station supervisor Rosie; Rosie is the scapegoat and Maggie receives hate mail. She understands the need of people to blame someone, and tries to deal with the anger and bitterness thrown her way, but is unable to ‘move on’ as her husband can. Jules lost his wife and is raising his young son alone. None of these people were there on the day but they are also victims. Add to this mix the two lawyers, Eric and Sorrel. It is Eric’s cussedness, his determination to unravel the truth, to read obscure documents about operating procedures and identify the failings, that makes the new inquest possible. He proves that accidents happen because of an unpredictable collision of small things.  I found Eric’s sections about the minutae of the accident, the legal arguments, the leaden language of official documents, to be a slow read that interupts the flow of emotions as Gina, Tamsin, Donovan, Maggie and Jules process their grief.
Ultimately, Jules is the catalyst for resolution. Transformed from plumber to artist, his reputation has gradually grown. Now a commission from the Tate Modern to produce a collection of art about the disaster allows ‘the 59’ to achieve a form of public resolution to their grief. The story came alive for me with Jules and his art. He takes the story of each survivor or relative and uses small items to tell a huge story, about their grief, their anger, the need to hit out, the need to be recognised.
Davis writes well about the powerful emotion unleashed by the accident, and its lasting effects. This book is about the nature of victimhood and how it is possible to shake it off if you have the will to do so. But that does not mean forgetting. Davis shows the transition of remembering; at the beginning, the second inquest has refreshed the trauma anew; but at the end, memories are welcomed in.

If you like this, try:-
‘In the Midst of Winter’ by Isabel Allende
‘The Bone Church’ by Victoria Dougherty
‘The Little Red Chairs’ by Edna O’Brien

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview SMASH ALL THE WINDOWS by @janedavisauthor https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3TP via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Serious’ by James Fenton #poetry

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I picked up Selected Poems by James Fenton [below] in 2015] in my local library, drawn by the cover illustration; the colours, the corn cobs. I flicked through, and this was the poem that caught my eye. It is about love and hope and the fear of future regret. James Fenton

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘Awake, alert,
Suddenly serious in love,
You’re a surprise.
I’ve known you long enough –
Now I can hardly meet your eyes.

It’s not that I’m
Embarrassed or ashamed.
You’ve changed the rules
The way I’d hoped they’d change
Before I thought: hopes are for fools.’

James Fenton

BUY

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘Because I could not stop for Death’ by Emily Dickinson
‘Name’ by Carol Ann Duffy
‘Not Waving but Drowning’ by Stevie Smith

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A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Serious’ by James Fenton https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3g2 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Girl in the Painting’ by @RenitaDSilva #historical #India

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When Renita D’Silva writes about India, it comes alive on the page. Her books are dual timeline family mysteries combining a modern day narrator with historical events set in India. With her latest, The Girl in the Painting, D’Silva tackles guilt, forgiveness and sati – when a husband dies, his widow burns with his body on the funeral pyre. It is her emotionally toughest novel yet and handled with sensitivity and balance. Renita D’SilvaThis is the story of three women – Margaret, Archana and Emma – pre-Great War in England, India in 1918 and England 2000. At the beginning, each woman is introduced in short chapters which made me long to dwell a while with each in turn, rather than jumping around. I was puzzled at how these three women, so different from each other, could be connected. Each has a deep sense of duty that, despite a longing to make her own decisions, is an anchor to a sometimes unwelcome, difficult, reality. Yet being impulsive and taking decisions without consideration for others often has far-reaching consequences. The early 20thcentury was a pivotal time in world history and a period of rapid change in the lives of women. Margaret’s family is separated tragically by war, Archana’s by impulsive love; both separations deeply affect these two young girls and reverberate throughout their whole lives. It is Emma in modern-day England who faces a moral and emotional decision of her own, who travels to India with her daughter to cast light on the story.
The emotional connection really kicked in for me when Margaret and Archana meet at the halfway point in the book. From that point, I didn’t want to put the book down. The parallel struggles in Margaret and Archana’s early lives, even though thousands of miles apart, demonstrate the commonality of being human. Tragedy does not strike the undeserving, the old, the unlikeable, the lazy; it strikes everyone without selection. But D’Silva’s story is not about tragedy; it is about what comes next, about taking a deep breath and moving forward.
There is an evocative portrayal of Archana’s village life, the daily grind of poverty juxtaposed with the fertility of flowers and fruits, exotic colours and birds; and the picture of slum children in Bombay who live beside the railway tracks. Neither is romanticised. I also enjoyed Margaret’s time as an artist and her transition to India, using her art as a promotional tool in the fight for Independence. The story covers a lot of history and there were times when I would have liked to immerse myself in a period, but the characters move onwards.
Given the title, The Girl in the Painting, I assumed the front cover design was of the specific painting. In fact there are a number of portraits in the novel and in my imagination none looks like the cover. So I prefer to think it is a portrait of Margaret in the garden at Charleston, welcomed by the Bloomsbury Group, free to allow her art to flourish, free to

Read my reviews of these other novels by Renita D’Silva:-
A DAUGHTER’S COURAGE
A MOTHER’S SECRET
BENEATH AN INDIAN SKY
THE ORPHAN’S GIFT
THE SPICE MAKER’S SECRET
THE WAR CHILD

If you like this, try:-
‘The Sapphire Widow’ by Dinah Jeffries
‘The Photographer’s Wife’ by Suzanne Joinson
‘Somewhere Inside of Happy’ by Anna McPartlin

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GIRL IN THE PAINTING by @RenitaDSilva https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3Tk via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Clock Dance’ by Anne Tyler #contemporary #family

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Every novel by Anne Tyler is a treat, I save them up, anticipate them. For me as a reader, she tells stories that seem ordinary but have exceptional depth, gentle stories which make me want to continue reading on into the night. For me as a writer, it is her I aim to emulate; her economy of word and scene, achieving depth without unnecessary diversion. So, to Clock Dance. Anne Tyler Told in three parts – 1967, 1977 and 2017 – this is the story of an ordinary woman, Willa Drake, to whom things outside normal life don’t happen. The three key events in her life – the disappearance of her mother, a marriage proposal, being widowed at 41 – are passive acts. Willa is not a proactive person. We meet her first as an eleven year-old, at home with her family; her emotionally-erratic mother, her passive, lovely father, her awkward younger sister Elaine. Willa takes on the motherly role, making a chocolate pudding, observing the ups and downs of her parents’ relationship with acute asides. At college, her boyfriend proposes to her and expects her to give up college and move across the country. In 2017, a confused phone call from the neighbour of her son’s ex-girlfriend sets in motion a chain of events that sees Willa gain a substitute grand-daughter but endanger her own marriage. Each time, Willa reacts to other people.
In Baltimore Willa and her second husband Peter move in with Denise who has been shot, and Denise’s nine-year-old daughter Cheryl and dog Airplane. It is an everyday story of a household, hospital visits, neighbours and community. Tyler’s observations of daily life are so spot-on, she tells the story in a way that makes it seem real, not a literary invention involving toil, plotting and rewriting. Without you noticing, time passes and people change so subtly it is impossible to put a finger on the point when the change started. Simple, complex, hugely perceptive.
This is a novel about meekly accepting your place in the world until the day arrives that you realise life is passing you by. Does Willa have the courage to find a new life? I was urging her on all the way. A 5* book for me.

Read my reviews of these other books by Anne Tyler:-
A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD
FRENCH BRAID
LADDER OF YEARS
REDHEAD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
VINEGAR GIRL

And read the first paragraphs of:-
DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT 
BACK WHEN WE WERE GROWN UPS

If you like this, try:-
‘Autumn’ by Ali Smith
‘The Stars are Fire’ by Anita Shreve
‘The Gustav Sonata’ by Rose Tremain

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview CLOCK DANCE by Anne Tyler https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3J9 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Rich Pay Late’ by Simon Raven #historical

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It is the eve of the Suez crisis in the Fifties. Written in the Sixties with the benefit of hindsight of this political crisis, The Rich Pay Late by Simon Raven has a modern tone applicable to today’s culture. Greed, disloyalty, snobbishness are common. First of the ten novels in Raven’s ‘Alms for Oblivion’ series, in which a Dickensian cast of characters overlap with each other’s lives, each book is a self-contained story from the end of the Second World War to 1973.Simon RavenThe Rich Pay Late opens as Donald Salinger and Jude Holbrook, co-owners of an advertising agency, discuss the purchase of a financial magazine, Strix. Jude is ambitious but without money, Donald has the cash but is cautious. And so starts the combined theme of gambling/business/love in which everyone is for himself and taking calculated risks is a way of life. Structurally, it is an ensemble story rather than concentrating on one central character; Raven introduces characters with short glimpses, some of one paragraph, of people who start off separate from Donald and Jude until their entwined lives are revealed. Not one character is superfluous.
This is a short novel of 250 pages, but intense. Slow, rich, satirical, it portrays a depressing and bleak take on human nature. The blurred story builds and builds as the appalling characters become real; at times a little dry, I persevered and am pleased I did as the pace of the final third was quicker.
The narrative centres around the sale of Strix and subsequently on a political scandal about Strix’s new board member, Peter Morrison MP. When the magazine’s owner receives the offer to buy his company, Morrison’s vote takes on additional importance. But is he a benefit or a liability?
A tale of politics, media, love affairs and betrayal between a network of upper and upper-middle class men and women with names like Vanessa, Somerset and Jude. In places, the dark humour reminds me of Nancy Mitford’s later novels. There is some discussion amongst reviewers about the correct order in which to read the series, I’m sticking with Raven’s order. Written fourth, he placed this first in his series.

And here’s my review of the next book in the same series:-
FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES #2ALMSFOROBLIVION

If you like this, try:-
‘Freya’ by Anthony Quinn
‘Wigs on the Green’ by Nancy Mitford
‘Hangover Square’ by Patrick Hamilton

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE RICH PAY LATE by Simon Raven via @SandraDanby https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3SY