Tag Archives: contemporary fiction

#BookReview ‘Confessions’ by Catherine Airey @catherineairey #contemporaryfiction

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An emotional story of three generations of women moving back and forth between New York and the west of Ireland from 1970s to 2018. Confessions by Catherine Airey is an accomplished debut examining the changing freedoms of women fifty years apart, and the social mores and variations between two countries that speak the same language but are oh so different. Catherine AireyConfessions is a book about stories, secrets and confessions; the telling of stories and the keeping of secrets and about whether confessing your secrets is the right or wrong thing to do. The story starts in New York 2001 as the Twin Towers fall. Sixteen-year-old Cora Brady’s accountant father never comes home. She is left alone – her artist mother Máire having died years earlier – and disorientated, until a letter arrives from her Aunt Ró in Ireland. Before she leaves the city, Cora hangs posters of her father ‘Missing. Cantor Fitzgerald. 104th Floor, North Tower. Father’ in places she will miss.
Airey takes time to establish the character of Cora but as soon as the teeneager arrives in Ireland, the story switches to 1974 to tell the story of two sisters, Róisín and Máire. This is 1970s Ireland, strictly Catholic, setting up stark contrasts between Ireland and New York city at that time: the illegality of abortion, alcohol, sexual freedom, drugs and the coming of AIDS. Occasional references throughout are made to a ‘game’ which make no sense to me until three-quarters of the way through the novel.
Airey is particularly good at juxtaposing the expectations placed on her female characters, in different decades; by the women themselves, on each other and by society, to suffer, to put up with things, to make do, to stay silent. And conversely to let it all out, to scream, to admit the truth even when painful and uncomfortable to oneself or others.
By the end, for me the women merge into one homogenous character. Though the writing is beautiful – ‘I was too wired to even close my eyes, my thoughts wound up like swirls inside a marble’ – the loose plotting is at times disorientating and at times I forgot which woman was speaking. The anchoring point of time in this family’s story is the fall of the Twin Towers in 2001, the events leading to it and what happened afterwards. Airey takes us on a meander through the decades, showing events and their consequences. Stories are the things you present to other people, secrets are the things you never confess to another soul. Viewpoints switch around until the final quarter which is told largely in letter-form when uncomfortable truths are finally addressed. ‘We’re only as sick as our secrets,’ writes one to another.
I finished Confessions not sure if I enjoyed it or not; at times it focusses on distressing subjects, death, addiction, rape, abortion, betrayal, grief. At times it is beautiful. Sometimes I wanted to read on to know what happened next, but then I delayed picking it up again. Challenging. Unflinching.

If you like this, try:-
‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara
‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Tóibín
‘Nora Webster’ by Colm Tóibín

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview CONFESSIONS by Catherine Airey @catherineairey https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8SU via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

#BookReview ‘Tell Me Everything’ by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout #contemporary

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Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout is about stories. Stories of people and the lives they lead. Stories of lost love, of childhood misadventures, affairs, strange occurrences, emotions, hate, regret. Set in Crosby, Maine, the stories told by so many characters familiar from other Strout books happen in parallel, they intersect, some are fleeting and unrelated to anything else. Elizabeth StroutThe spine of the story centres on Bob Burgess and his occasional conversations with Lucy Barton. In the way that friends do, they talk about family problems, difficulty with a brother, with a son, with a partner. They share vulnerabilities, many of which can be traced to childhood and still resonate today though Bob and Lucy are now in their sixties. They try to figure out human nature, if people mean what they say, what is thought but not said, why people are loyal or disloyal, how a child can love a parent but not like them, of the differing nature of grief. Lucy says, ‘…people just live their lives with no real knowledge of anybody …My point is that every person on this earth is so complicated, and we match up for a moment – or maybe a lifetime – with somebody because we feel that we are connected to them. And we are. But we’re not in a certain way, because nobody can go into the crevices of another’s mind, even the person can’t go into the crevices of their own mind.’
We see Olive Kitteridge in her care home, telling stories to Lucy and Lucy returning the favour. We also see Olive’s loneliness, critically at the news that her only friend in the home, Isabelle, is moving to the west coast. Bob takes on a murder case, defending a local man Matt Beach accused of murdering his elderly mother. Matt, something of a strange loner, turns out to be a secret painter of real talent, painting portraits that Bob thinks should be in a New York gallery. In the absence of another suspect, Matt appears guilty to the police who don’t know him.
Of course people don’t tell each other everything, some secrets are eventually shared, others remain hidden, even between partners some things are never told. So is Lucy right, is it impossible to ever truly know another person? Like all Strout’s Maine titles, Tell Me Everything can be read as a standalone novel or as companion to the other books. I did start reading and wonder, is this more of the same. But Strout’s writing and characterisation is bewitching in its truth, its honesty and its realism, so I quickly became lost in the stories.

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

If you like this, try:-
‘Old God’s Time’ by Sebastian Barry
‘Smash all the Windows’ by Jane Davis
‘Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview TELL ME EVERYTHING by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8Ho via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- JC Harvey

#BookReview ‘The Croatian Island Library’ by Eva Glyn @JaneCable #Croatia #contemporary

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One summer, three strangers sail a catamaran around the beautiful Croatian islands near Dubrovnik. Their joint mission is to bring library books to the islands’ children. Each member of the crew is running from something, a problem, a secret, a hidden past. The Croatian Island Library by Eva Glyn is a tale of ten weeks that changes lives. Eva Glyn Ana, owner of the catamaran, needs to earn money this summer or risks losing her boat, the ‘Dida Krila.’ Signing up for the library trial will, she hopes, win her a four-year contract and bring financial stability. If she fails, she will have no choice but to join the family oyster business. She employs two people. Lloyd, a widower and former teacher, will run the library part of the trip. Natali, a young mechanic who arrives on board with her tiny dog Obi, is so shy she seems frightened of her own shadow.
The first trip around the islands is about getting to know the job, and each other, while living in a confined space. Each person seems wrapped up in themselves, no one shares, there are tensions, awkwardnesses. When a purse is stolen near the library stall on one of the islands, there is an accusation of theft and the past comes roaring back to mess up the now. The future of the floating library is in danger and Ana, in her first role as a manager, feels out of her depth.
The hold of the past over the present is a theme running throughout the book. Ana has a decision to make when a former lover returns, seeking an answer about a deal which Ana never took seriously. Natali must summon the courage to change her life, move on from her difficult child, figure out what she wants and make it happen. Lloyd has an old mistake to acknowledge and set aside, and discover a new path forwards. No matter how Ana, Lloyd and Natali each, for their own reasons, want to forget, the past is not a forgotten world and its imprint is on every day today.
This is a story set in surroundings of such Mediterranean beauty but in the deep blue water and the green wooded hills, the shadows of war and tragedy remain. Glyn has created characters that stayed with me after I finished the book, she reminds us that love from family and friends is a gift, not an automatic right. Highly recommended.

Here are my reviews of other books by Eva Glyn:-
THE COLLABORATOR’S DAUGHTER
THE MISSING PIECES OF US
Eva Glyn is the pen name of author Jane Cable, here are my reviews of some of Jane’s other novels:-
ANOTHER YOU
ENDLESS SKIES
THE CHEESEMAKER’S HOUSE

If you this, try:-
‘The Lie of the Land’ by Amanda Craig
‘Akin’ by Emma Donoghue
‘The Girl in the Painting’ by Renita d’Silva

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE CROATIAN ISLAND LIBRARY by Eva Glyn @JaneCable https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8H0 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Elizabeth Strout

#BookReview ‘The Blue of You’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #contemporary

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I read the 120-page novella The Blue of You by Amanda Huggins in an afternoon, drawn into the story by her exploration of relationships old and new, the imprints of the former on a fresh start. Amanda HugginsIn 2010, a tragedy in her northern hometown sends Janey south to London. A lost friend, a parting from her first love. When she returns alone to Langwick Bay years later, she’s still lost and searching for something. Janey is at sea emotionally and geographically, but her hometown is her anchor. It is the death of her friend Alice when they were teenagers that magnetically brings Janey home. The loss is painful still and, after spending the intervening years stabbing her guilt with the sharp tip of a knife, she seeks resolution. Alice died at Christmas and Janey’s annual celebrations ever since have been loaded with grief and regret. The Blue of You takes place in the lead up to Christmas 2022.
Not sure if she will resettle permanently in Langwick Bay, Janey begins to heal when she meets Tom Inglewood, a coble fisherman who is part of a group of local men trying to preserve the traditional way of fishing. ‘Tom has never told me how he feels in the everyday language I know, has never used the word love, but has shown me his love every day – there is love in mending nets, in advising and helping the lads in the village, there is love in the way he watches and reads the sky and the sea. He knows love better than I do.’ Tom’s solid presence, his undemanding acceptance of Janey and his unspoken but visible love for her, help her to think clearly of Alice and, for the first time as a adult, to explore what really happened.
The Blue of You is firmly anchored in its location. Huggins is a northern writer and her love of the place shines out on every page. Janey has always missed home, longs to return, but now she is back she’s not sure what, or who, she’s looking for. Only that she wants to make peace with her past, and move on. But the locals don’t recognise her, assuming her to be yet another incomer who doesn’t appreciate or have interest in the local way of life. When she does meet an old acquaintance, it doesn’t go as expected.
Finally she beings to talk about Alice. ‘Every detail is clear as day in my head, but the words stick to my tongue like glue the moment I start to speak.’ She talks to Stella, Alice’s mother; to Rory, her first love; and to Tom, who encourages her to remember with fondness not regret.
This is a story of sadness and hope told with delicacy and sensitivity, a coming to terms with difficult memories. Of recognising the impossibility of moving on until the truth is faced.

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

If you like this, try:-
‘Did You Ever Have a Family’ by Bill Clegg
‘Smash all the Windows’ by Jane Davis
‘When All is Said’ by Anne Griffin

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview THE BLUE OF YOU by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8wa via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- David Hewson

#BookReview ‘Normal Rules Don’t Apply’ by Kate Atkinson #shortstories

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Normal Rules Don’t Apply by Kate Atkinson is a collection of eleven inter-connected stories that as soon as you finish reading them you’ll want to start again. As the title hints, nothing is as it seems. Is someone alive, or could they be dead. Does that voice belong to a person, or a cat? Will Franklin ever find the right girl? Kate AtkinsonThe first story ‘The Void’ sets a dark tone as the Universe blinks. Atkinson shows us the arbitrariness of life, the obsessions and minutia of daily living that become irrelevant as people suddenly drop dead. Things mentioned in passing in this first story may be referenced later, it is worth paying attention. The tone doesn’t stay dark, it shifts from story to story. There are laugh-out-loud moments and then Atkinson will turn the mood on a sixpence.
‘Puppies and Rainbows’ made me smile. The key character, Skylar Schiller is a child actress turned film star filming in England, her daily routine sustained by a stream of tablets and potions. Then at the party following the film’s premiere in Leicester Square, she bumps into an ordinary looking guy who is anything but.
My favourite character Franklin, a producer on television soap Green Acres, pops up regularly and knits together some of the disparate storylines. He is a ‘man of straw, buffeted and blown around on the winds of change. Sometimes he had the feeling that he existed only on the fringes of other’s people’s lives, not at the heart of his own.’ If Normal Rules Don’t Apply was a Venn diagram, Franklin would be at the centre. You’ll enjoy spotting the links as you go along.
Atkinson has such a wonderful way with words, down-to-earth and ordinary, set in a disorientating strange world. For example, in ‘Blithe Spirit’ Mandy is dead but the description seems reassuringly bland. ‘Seventeen years old when she started work, armed with her RSA certificate and a fuschia lip-gloss and already thinking with nostalgic fondness of the drunken and careless youth she had exchanged in order to be tethered to a Dictaphone.’ Just as Mandy is settling into one world, she is transported to another. The truth of her death, when it is revealed, is a surprise and another link to the Venn diagram.
These stories rattle along at a high pace, at times I needed to catch my breath. I know that a lot of references, and chuckles, passed me by. The writing is beautiful, as always with Atkinson, and I enjoyed the Yorkshire settings. Some of it seems a bit mad but she takes the reader by the hand and leads them on her rollercoaster.
Original. One to read and read again and to think about. Just because a story makes you laugh, doesn’t mean there’s isn’t a serious theme.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Kate Atkinson:-
A GOD IN RUINS
LIFE AFTER LIFE
SHRINES OF GAIETY
TRANSCRIPTION
BIG SKY #5JACKSONBRODIE
DEATH AT THE SIGN OF THE ROOK #6JACKSONBRODIE
… and try the #FirstPara of EMOTIONALLY WEIRD

If you like this, try:-
‘Last Stories’ by William Trevor
‘An Unfamiliar Landscape’ by Amanda Huggins
‘The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth’ by William Boyd

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview NORMAL RULES DON’T APPLY by Kate Atkinson #shortstories https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7Nt via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Ferdia Lennon

#BookReview ‘Earth’ by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks #Elements #contemporary

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Evan Keough is a handsome, talented famous footballer. Accused of being an accessory to rape, he becomes notorious. It is up to the reader to work out the truth of Evan’s evidence, his back story, the stories he gives to his mother and to priest Ifechi. Earth by John Boyne is second in his Elements quartet and, like its predecessor Water, is another small book with a powerful story. John BoyneLike Willow in Water, Evan’s past story is revealed in pieces. As a boy on the remote Irish island first introduced in Water, Evan is unable to be who or what he wants to be. He knows he is gay. He is certain he wants to be a painter. Unfortunately he is better at football, which he hates but which his  father loves, and is a moderate artist.
A theme that runs through the first two books in the Elements quartet is complicity in guilt, about burying deeply the moral instinct of right and wrong, and dealing with the consequences as time passes. It is about bearing a grudge. Throughout the story I didn’t know if Evan was truthful or not, never knew what he was hiding. His back story is brutal at times and difficult to read. Evan’s down-to-earth upbringing is contrasted with the wealth he encounters in London and in the world of professional football. The theme of earth runs throughout the book, the burial of the dead, earth as a hiding place, of being grounded to the earth of losing a foothold, of the final return of a traveller to the soil of their homeland.
I can’t say I enjoyed reading Earth, the first of John Boyne’s books that I can say that about. It is a truthful, awkward, shameful and sad book about a young man who can’t find his place in life, who is horribly abused and exploited. I remain unclear about culpability. Boyne purposely blurs the line between lies and truth, both in the evidence given in court and discussion on social media. In today’s world, the presence or absence of data on a mobile phone can win or lose a criminal trial, and public speculation about guilt and innocence is often based on ideas not fact where the loudest voices are heard.
A disturbing social commentary.

Click the title to 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 AND THEN LEAVE
THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES… Curious? Read the first paragraph of THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES here.
WATER #1ELEMENTS

If you like this, try:-
‘Nutshell’ by Ian McEwan
‘Lean Fall Stand’ by Jon McGregor
‘Days Without End’ by Sebastian Barry

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview EARTH by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7s0 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Helena Dixon

#BookReview ‘Water’ by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks #Elements #contemporary

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Who is Willow Hale? When Vanessa Carvin arrives on an unnamed Irish island, she changes her name to Willow and shaves her head. Can she simply disappear or will her past follow her? Water by John Boyne is first in his Elements quartet. It is a small book with a powerful story. John BoyneVanessa is escaping a truly horrendous time but at heart she knows she must acknowledge the choices she made throughout a difficult marriage. On the island she hopes to escape notice, but few people live there and everyone is curious about the newcomer. Her landlord is invisible, her daughter Rebecca is ghosting her messages, her nearest neighbour is nosy. She does connect with local priest Ifechi, Bananas the cat and neighbouring young farmer Luke. ‘I can call myself Willow Hale till the cows come home but, underneath, I’m still Vanessa Carvin. I just can’t let anyone know.’
Slowly as Vanessa remembers, her story becomes clearer. The offence committed by her husband, what she did and didn’t do during this time. Families were broken, not only families of the victims but also the family of the guilty party. Actions have consequences. John Boyne writes with such intensity of emotion and spareness on the page, he takes you straight into Vanessa’s shoes. It takes distance, isolation on an almost empty island surrounded by sea, for Vanessa to admit what happened.
I’m intrigued to see how the books in this quartet of novellas are linked; by theme, character, setting? At the end of Water, Willow says, ‘The elements – water, fire, earth, air – are our greatest friends, our animators. They feed us, warm us, give us life, and yet conspire to kill us at every juncture.’ Earth is next.
Sensitive. Bold. Excellent.

Click the title to 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 AND THEN LEAVE
THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES… Curious? Read the first paragraph of THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES here.
EARTH #2ELEMENTS

If you like this, try:-
‘Old God’s Time’ by Sebastian Barry
‘Did You Ever Have a Family’ by Bill Clegg
‘My Name is Lucy Barton’ by Elizabeth Strout

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview WATER by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7rt via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- John Boyne

#BookReview ‘The Rector’s Wife’ by Joanna Trollope #familysaga #contemporary

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No-one writes a small village saga like Joanna Trollope. Though the main character of The Rector’s Wife is the said wife, the tensions within her marriage, family and community are universal. The independence of the woman, the stifling controlling behaviour of an uncommunicative husband, the disapproval of outsiders making judgements on the family with no knowledge of the truth. Joanna TrollopeFirst published in 1991, The Rector’s Wife is about a priest’s wife struggling to rediscover her own identity, a feeling of self that faded on marriage and has been swamped since by the competing needs of husband, children, church and village. The flower committee, the Sunday School, the newsletter, the endless teas and cakes to bake. The silent expectation that she will do this without payment. It is a sad story about a struggling marriage where communication is limited and the three children – Charlotte, Luke and Flora – observe in fear, confusion and ultimately in rebellion, in their own individual ways. How can they know who they are if their father rarely talks and their mother is having her own identity crisis. But it is also a heartwarming story about family love and adaptation.
Anna Bouverie’s rebellion begins when her husband Peter fails to be awarded promotion to archdeacon. ‘He would be changed by this; he couldn’t avoid that. Even the gradual assimilation of his disappointment would leave scars and blights, like a landscape after fire.’ Anna wonders if he will become even more difficult. Peter retreats into himself, leaving Anna to deal with the family’s financial problems. Son Luke wants to drive to India in an old van with friends, but doesn’t have the money. Flora is being bullied at her comprehensive and longs to go to the convent school. Oldest child Charlotte, away at university, avoids going home. Anna’s solution is pragmatic. To the scandalous whispers of the village women, she takes a job as a shelf-stacker at Pricewells supermarket. To her surprise, she enjoys the work. Her husband is scandalised. Two newcomers to the village, a rich businessman, and the brother of the new archdeacon, observe the upheaval and watch Anna with interest.
As Anna faces down her husband’s sullen disapproval, her mother and mother-in-law rebel in their own small ways and navigate their own choppy waters with resilience. There are asides which raise a chuckle, particularly old villager Mr Biddle, and some of Flora’s pronouncements. I finished the book feeling indignant at how the men in Anna’s life, no matter how well-meaning, seem to treat her as an appendage to themselves rather than seeing Anna the person.
The ending is satisfactory, not neat but realistic. “I married the man, not the job,” Anna tells a parishioner. “I’m not an outboard motor, I’m another boat.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Read my reviews of other novels by Joanna Trollope:-
A PASSIONATE MAN
A VILLAGE AFFAIR
MUM & DAD
THE CHOIR

If you like this, try:-
‘We Are Water’ by Wally Lamb
‘The Language of Others’ by Clare Morrall
‘The Last Day’ by Claire Dyer

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview THE RECTOR’S WIFE by Joanna Trollope https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-70O via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Nicola Upson

#BookReview ‘A Passionate Man’ by Joanna Trollope #familysaga #contemporary

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I started A Passionate Man by Joanna Trollope wondering about the identity of the man in the title, and finished it not being entirely sure. There are three men in the story who could fit the label and although I enjoyed the book I finished it feeling incomplete. Joanna TrollopeJoanna Trollope is so good at exploring the experiences faced by couples and families, relationship challenges are emotionally similar despite differences in the ages of the people involved, class, geography, decade or century. In A Passionate Man, published in 1990, she deals with a seemingly happy couple whose lives are rent apart by the death of a parent and the unexpected interest of an amorous colleague. Trollope’s characters are middle class, doctor Archie and teacher Liza Logan live a comfortable life in a covetable house in a Hampshire village. But all is not beautiful in this beautiful setting. A plan to build house on a field causes ruptures between friends and neighbours, locally-born workers struggle to live where they grew up while the elderly die quietly in loneliness. The cosy life of the Logans begins to fracture.
As husband and wife become focussed on their own emotions and needs, the divisions grow to the degree that their three children notice the undercurrents. Grief of a parent is an unexpectedly intense, disorientating experience which makes one question one’s own life, achievements, mistakes, dreams and longings. Trouble can often follow. I found myself becoming irritated by both Archie and Liza, rather than sympathetic, as each struggles with the consequences of their own actions and the other’s. As the family’s fractures deepen to chasms, Trollope’s portrayal of the children however is excellent.
I was left feeling that the ending is rather rushed and convenient and that ‘passionate’ is not the most appropriate adjective. Not my favourite Trollope novel.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Here are my reviews of other Trollope novels:-
A VILLAGE AFFAIR
MUM & DAD
THE CHOIR
THE RECTOR’S WIFE

If you like this, try:-
‘In the Midst of Winter’ by Isabel Allende
‘The Marriage Plot’ by Jeffrey Eugenides
‘In Another Life’ by Julie Christine Johnson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A PASSIONATE MAN by Joanna Trollope https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6KA via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Andrew Taylor

#BookReview ‘Ordinary Thunderstorms’ by William Boyd #contemporary #mystery

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Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd is a pacy mystery story in the mould of John Buchan’s The 39 Steps and the Will Smith film Enemy of the State. Innocent man in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cloud scientist Adam Kindred is eating a meal alone in a quiet West London restaurant when his instinct to help a fellow diner sends him on the run, accused of a crime he didn’t commit. William BoydThis is a fast-paced story that takes suspected murderer Kindred from a forgotten triangle of wasteland near Chelsea Bridge to the East End of London. As his name and face become media headlines, he finds a new identity at the Church of John Christ. As ‘John 1603’ he meets fellow dropouts, all with their own reasons for leaving behind a previous identity, all willing to sit through a two-hour sermon for the hearty meal that follows. Adam’s first priority, with his stash of cash running out, is to make money. Second, he sets out to discover the truth of the crime he witnessed and is accused of doing; the murder of Dr Philip Wang, head of research and development at pharmaceutical company Calenture-Deutz.
This is Kindred’s story and 70% of the action is told from his viewpoint. But Boyd adds pace to the story by adding the narrative of Ingram Fryzer, CEO of Calenture-Deutz, river police officer Rita Nashe and ex-soldier JonJo Case. Essentially this is a story of corporate greed and pharmaceutical fraud lightened by dark humour and the touching relationship of Kindred, Mhouse and her son Ly-on.
There are a few sticky coincidences but, forgiving these, this is an entertaining ‘what would I do if it happened to me’ tale. An average thriller elevated by the quality of Boyd’s writing.

Here are my reviews of other books by William Boyd:-
ANY HUMAN HEART
LOVE IS BLIND
NAT TATE: AN AMERICAN ARTIST 1928-1960
SWEET CARESS
THE BLUE AFTERNOON
THE DREAMS OF BETHANY MELLMOTH
TRIO
WAITING FOR SUNRISE

… and try the first paragraph of ARMADILLO.

If you like this, try these:-
‘Reservoir 13’ by Jon McGregor
‘Thornyhold’ by Mary Stewart
‘Brat Farrar’ by Josephine Tey

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS by William Boyd‪ https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6zO via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Rachel Rhys