Tag Archives: fiction

#BookReview ‘Fair Exchange’ by Michèle Roberts #historical

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This story by English/French author Michèle Roberts starts with a woman dying, she has a secret to confess. We must wait until almost the end of the book to find out the truth. In a village near Paris, Louise is dying, it is the early 1800s, after the French Revolution and during the subsequent English/French war. Fair Exchange is the story of that secret, of Louise’s part in it and how she impacts on the lives of two other women, one English one French. Michèle RobertsIn an Author’s Note, Roberts explains the inspiration for the story: William Wordsworth’s love affair, at the beginning of the French Revolution, with Annette Vallon. This is not a true account, it is historical fiction about the romances of two couples – English poet William Saygood and Annette Villon [note the mis-spelling], and Jemima Boote [sketchily based on Mary Wollstonecraft] and Frenchman Paul Gilbert. Roberts’ telling of the story combines the detail of poverty at that time – the grinding daily life of Louise and her mother Amalie in the village of Saintange-sur-Seine near Paris – with sumptuous description. Louise is picking plums: ‘The plums were so ripe that they fell into her hands. They smelled fragrant in the warm sunlight, as though she were biting them off the tree and tasting their sweet juice. Flies rose up in clouds as she pushed into the web of branches and she beat them away from her face in clouds. They had got there first, settling, in blue glints of jewelled wings, on minute cracks in the fruit that oozed gold.’
This is a period of history about which I am ignorant. First Annette, and then Jemima, arrive in Saintange-sur-Seine, single women, and pregnant. Louise is drawn into their lives, caring for them, supporting them, observing them. Fascinating stuff.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Read my review of THE WALWORTH BEAUTY also by Michèle Roberts, and try the first paragraph of FAIR EXCHANGE.

If you like this, try:-
‘An Appetite for Violets’ by Martine Bailey
‘The Knife with the Ivory Handle’ by Cynthia Bruchman
‘Gone are the Leaves’ by Anne Donovan

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview FAIR EXCHANGE by Michèle Roberts http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Of via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Under A Pole Star’ by Stef Penney #historical #adventure

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In 1883, twelve-year-old Flora Mackie is taken by her father, captain of the Vega, a whaling ship, to the Arctic. She returns to the Arctic as a young woman, a meteorologist, heading her own expedition. ‘Under a Pole Star’ by Stef Penney is Flora’s story and that of the troubled 1891 Armitage-de Beyn expedition to Greenland. Stef PenneyThe story starts in 1948 as an American group leaves New Jersey, the purpose unclear. Onboard the plane are scientists, air force men, a television crew, a journalist, and Flora Mackie. The Snow Queen. What unfolds is the story of the two rival expeditions: the British, told by Flora, and the American, told by Jakob de Beyn, geologist with the Armitage party. It is quite a while before there is even a hint of what the controversy may be. Until then, we follow the lives of Flora in Dundee and London, and Jakob in New York, as they grow from children to adults. Finally the separate Greenland expeditions set off, unaware of each other. When Flora and Jake meet in Greenland in 1892 there is a spark between them. At this point I was unsure what the book was about – Arctic exploration, romance, a thriller?
Penney’s writing about the Arctic makes me want to go there. The ice, the light, the endless horizon. But this is not just a story of women crossing boundaries at the end of the 19th century, it is a mystery with claim and counter-claim from rival explorers. Ultimately, this is a story of what men, and women, will do to be the first to their goal.
A fascinating story which moves slowly at times with some things left unexplained. It makes me want to read more of Penney’s books, but I was left with the feeling that the story could be tighter with a stronger spine of mystery.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

If you like this, try:-
‘The Surfacing’ by Cormac James
‘The Leviathan’ by Rosie Andrews
‘Devotion’ by Hannah Kent

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview UNDER A POLE STAR by Stef Penney via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2bx

#BookReview ‘A Mother’s Secret’ by @RenitaDSilva #historical #India

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What a tangled web some families weave. A Mother’s Secret by Renita D’Silva is a fragrant tale of mothers and daughters stretching from England to India. Gaddehalli is a tiny village in Goa but I could smell the spices, hear the wind in the trees, and see the buffalos in the fields as if I was there. Renita D’SilvaThis novel about identity starts with a young girl, Durga, who must stay with her grandmother in Gaddehalli after an accident to her parents. The ruined mansion where she lives, which is avoided by the locals as haunted and full of bad luck, is the centre of this story. The modern-day strand follows Jaya, a young mother in England mourning the loss of her baby son and whose mother Sudha has recently died. Sudha was an emotionally-withdrawn mother, but when Jaya discovers some of her mother’s hidden possessions, including diaries, she pieces together the story of Sudha’s early life. Jaya is looking for the identity of her own father; she finds so much more.
From the beginning, it is a guessing game: how is the story of Durga connected to Kali, Jaya and Sudha? Halfway through, all my ideas of the twist had been proven wrong and I was wondering if the storylines would come together. At times I got the girls confused, but I read the second half of the novel quicker than the first and the twist, when it came, was a big surprise. A clever novel about families and how the important, simple things in life can sometimes be forgotten because of pride, selfishness or shame.

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

If you like this, try:-
‘Yuki Chan in Bronte Country’ by Mick Chapman
‘Crow Blue’ by Adriana Lisboa
‘Love and Eskimo Snow’ by Sarah Holt

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A MOTHER’S SECRET by @RenitaDSilva http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2b0 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Some Luck’ by Jane Smiley #historical #familylife

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It is 1920, the eve of Walter Langdon’s 25th birthday and he is walking the fields of his Iowa farm. The first two pages of Some Luck by Jane Smiley are a wonderful description of him watching a pair of owls nesting in a big elm tree. And so starts the first book in the ‘Last Hundred Years’ trilogy about the Langdon family. Chapter-by-chapter it tells of the family’s life, their farm, the ups and downs of daily life, births and deaths, and always the land.  Jane SmileyAt first it feels as if not much is happening. Smiley is so good at the detail: of Walter farming, Rosanna doing the laundry, babies being born, growing into toddlers and then pupils walking the track to the tiny school where they are taught with their neighbours in one classroom, all ages together. Steadily the chapters, and years, march on. The eldest child Frankie goes away to college and then to war, becoming a sniper in Africa and Europe. His younger brother Joe shows no inclination to leave the farm. Lillian, ‘God’s own gift’, the beautiful daughter, meets a man and goes to Washington DC. And so more babies arrive into the Langdon’s household, and the family’s life expands from Iowa as this next generation lives in a world
I came to this book fresh after reading A Thousand Acres and eager for more. Reading Jane Smiley is a little like reading a novel by Colm Tóibín. Both writers excel at the detail, building the story slowly, like layers of frost thickening on a window in winter which starts off looking cloudy and finishes as an intricate design. As a reader, I trust both authors to deliver in the end. Will I be reading the next two books in the trilogy? Definitely. Some Luck is a book to be read over a quiet winter weekend, hunkered down on the sofa with an endless supply of mugs of hot chocolate. Don’t read it in short snatches, it deserves more than that and it will get beneath
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Click the title below to read my reviews of other novels by Jane Smiley:-
A DANGEROUS BUSINESS
A THOUSAND ACRES
EARLY WARNING [LAST HUNDRED YEARS #2]
GOLDEN AGE  [LAST HUNDRED YEARS #3]

If you like this, try:-
‘Life Class’ by Pat Barker
‘Rush Oh!’ by Shirley Barrett
‘The Museum of You’ by Carys Bray

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#BookReview SOME LUCK by Jane Smiley http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1m7 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘A Sudden Light’ by @garthstein #contemporary

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How to define A Sudden Light by Garth Stein? It’s a coming of age tale, a ghost story, it’s about forests and trees and about man’s responsibility to nature. I loved it, one of the best books I‘ve read this year and quite different from everything else. Garth SteinStein is a new author for me. I was attracted to this book by three features: the ethereal cover, the setting in the Pacific North-Western corner of the US, and the family/saga ghost story combination.
Trevor’s parents are separated. His mother has flown home to England for the summer while Trevor visits for the first time his ancestral home on the Olympic Peninsula outside Seattle. Trevor’s objective is to repair his parents’ marriage, he is not sure how. But from the first day he and his father, Jones, arrive at Riddell House on The North Estate, everything seems strange. The house is enormous, built by Trevor’s great-great-grandfather Elijah Riddell a century earlier, testament to Elijah’s riches earned from his logging business. It is a mansion, built from timber, set amongst trees, isolated and rotting. The house is at the centre of this story; its physicality, its history, what it meant to Elijah and his son Ben, and what the sale of it could mean to the current Riddell generation: much needed cash. Trevor meets his aunt Serena [she asks him to call her Simply Serena] and his Grandfather Samuel, who suffers from Alzheimer’s. The mysteries start from day one. Is the ghost of Jones and Serena’s mother dancing upstairs? What exactly is Serena’s agenda, is she trying to seduce 14-year old Trevor? Is Grandfather Samuel speaking rubbish, or not? And what secret is Jones hiding? Money is at the centre of this tale, a family who earned fortunes as the 19th century turned into the 20th by forging timber links with the railroads. That same family now has a mansion which is falling into ruin, while Jones is newly bankrupt after the failure of his boatbuilding business.
Everyone has an agenda at Riddell House that summer, including Trevor.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

If you like this, try:-
‘The Ship’ by Antonia Honeywell
‘The Good People’ by Hannah Kent
‘Barkskins’ by Annie Proulx

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A SUDDEN LIGHT by @garthstein via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1fc

#BookReview ‘The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy’ by Rachel Joyce #contemporary

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I was blown away by The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce and read it in two sittings. First, you do not need to have read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry before you read this. I don’t really think it matters which of the two you read first, they are companion books rather than prequel and sequel. Second, this is the most accurate portrayal of people living in a hospice that I have read, and it is not something often written about. Rachel JoyceRachel Joyce confronts head-on the fact of Queenie’s terminal illness, and that of her fellow residents at St Bernadine’s Hospice. But she doesn’t concentrate on their illnesses, she concentrates on their characters and in this way they form a colourful backdrop to Queenie’s story. They are not defined by their illnesses, and neither is Queenie. This is the story of her life, a story we learn because she is writing a long letter to Harold Fry.
Queenie is in the North-East of England, Harold is in Devon. They worked together many years ago. Queenie writes to Harold to tell him he is dying. He writes a reply, but instead of posting the letter he decides to deliver it himself and starts walking. That was the plot of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, a book about Harold coming to terms with his own life.
This book is about Queenie’s life. Afraid he will not arrive before she dies, Queenie starts to write the story of her life – with the help of nun Sister Mary Inconnue who re-types Queenie’s handwritten notes. It is Queenie’s explanation of and apology for a wrong she did to Harold while they both worked at a brewery in Kingsbridge, Devon. As she nears her end, Queenie struggles to write, but Sister Mary quietly encourages her, lifts her when she is faltering, puts the notebook in her lap and tells her she has to finish her story.
It is so moving, and it is very funny. St Bernadine’s Hospice is a real place populated by real people and they are the fabric of Queenie’s life now. This is a book about death, and about life. It is about love, grief, difficult choices, and finally it is about making peace with yourself before the end.
Just read it!
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Read my reviews of these other novels by Rachel Joyce:-
MAUREEN FRY AND THE ANGEL OF THE NORTH
MISS BENSON’S BEETLE
PERFECT

And read here the first paragraph of THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY

If you like this, try:-
‘The Museum of You’ by Carys Bray
‘The Roundabout Man’ by Clare Morrall
‘Paper Cup’ by Karen Campbell

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE LOVE SONG OF MISS QUEENIE HENNESSY by Rachel Joyce via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1f5

#BookReview ‘One Step Too Far’ by @tinaseskis #contemporary #mystery

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I became aware of One Step Too Far by Tina Seskis by word of mouth, often the best kind of recommendation. It is certainly a page turner. I sat down to read it one hot sunny day and raced through it. Tina SeskisThe theme is running away. What place a woman has to be in to leave everything behind, the desperation, the guilt, the expectations for a new life, the logistics of running. Emily runs, and runs one step too far. The reason for her running is dangled in front of the reader like a carrot, hints, deceptions, and this is why you keep reading. Is it something she did, or something done to her? Is it criminal or emotional? The story of Emily’s escape, and the story of the reason for her escape, are told in parallel. I had my suspicions about her reason, and I was almost right. Almost, but not quite.
One of the intriguing things in the narrative mix is that Emily is a twin, and the two twin sisters do not get on. This added welcome spice to the tale of Emily’s childhood in Manchester, and her reinvention in London. The twin thing enables some convenient misunderstandings, doppel-gangers and threat of discovery.
A great holiday read.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

If you like this, try:-
‘The Ivy Tree’ by Mary Stewart
‘Please Release Me’ by Rhoda Baxter
‘The House at the Edge of the World’ by Julia Rochester

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ONE STEP TOO FAR by @tinaseskis via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1ca

#Bookreview ‘Ghost Moth’ by @mforbesauthor #romance #Belfast

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Ghost Moth by Michèle Forbes opens with a woman, Katherine, who when swimming out of her depth encounters a seal. What begins as an encounter with nature becomes something more chilling, hinting at the depths of the story about to be told. “…it is his eyes – the eyes of this wild animal – that terrify Katherine the most; huge, opaque and overbold, they hold on her like the lustrous black-egged eyes of a ruined man.” Katherine’s fear when encountering the seal is a mystery until much later in the book, when we understand the memories it disturbed. Michèle ForbesThis is the story of Katherine and George, the beginnings of their love in 1949 and its endurance until death in 1969. The setting is Belfast: in 1949, post-War when Katherine sings Carmen in a local opera production and meets Tom, the tailor who sews her costume and flirts with her. Tom, who forces Katherine to examine the nature of her feelings for boyfriend George. Tom, who tempts her so she can never forget him. And Belfast, wrought by The Troubles in 1969 when even Katherine’s small children are challenged on the street for being of the ‘wrong’ religion. Katherine cannot forget Tom.
The novel examines the nature of love set against a city in 1969 where hatred is demonstrated every day on the streets with burning buses and ransacked shops. Can love ever be forgotten? Should young love be allowed to affect a marriage, years later? And is it better to tell the truth when the truth hurts, or protect your loved one by remaining silent?
In 1949, Katherine and Tom share quiet moments together as he makes her Carmen costume. Katherine forgets her new fiancé, George, in the eroticism of Tom taking a measuring-tape to her body. He describes to her how he will construct her dress. “I’ll insert the bone through the aperture of the casing, sliding it firmly upward all the way to the top of the seam. I’ll draw the bone back just a little, if I need to, so that it won’t force the material. The spring of the bone must always be right.” Compared with this sensuality, volunteer fireman George is a pale alternative.
But one night, before the night’s performance of Carmen begins, something happens which changes the lives of this love triangle.
The title of the book refers to the pale moths [below] which Katherine’s father told her: “…that some people believed that ghost moths were the souls of the dead waiting to be caught, and some people believed that they were only moths.” For me, the double symbolism of the romantic moths and chilling seal was too much. Just one of them would suffice. I think I prefer the seal.

If you like this, try:-
‘On a Night Like This’ by Barbara Freethy #1Callaways
‘The Last Day’ by Claire Dyer
‘You’ll Never See Me Again’ by Lesley Pearse

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview GHOST MOTH by @mforbesauthor http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1br via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Seventh Miss Hatfield’ @caltabiano_anna #mystery #suspense

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The Seventh Miss Hatfield by Anna Caltabiano opens with the auction of a painting in 1887 and then switches to 1954 as a girl sits on a doorstep. Cynthia is 11 and aware of her mother’s demands for good behaviour combined with initiative, knowing she is a disappointment. So when a parcel is wrongly delivered, she shows independence by taking it to the house opposite. There she meets a new neighbour, Rebecca Hatfield. Cynthia doesn’t go home again. Anna Caltabiano This is a tale of immortality and time travel. Where immortality means you can still die, of illness or accident, and time travel comes via a large mysterious clock owned by Miss Hatfield. Cynthia – and it is key that we are told her original name only a few times – drinks a glass of lemonade containing a drop of a mysterious substance and everything changes. “I felt as if I was slipping away into some strange dimension where I recognized nothing – not my surroundings, or my feelings, but most terrifyingly of all, not even myself.” Miss Hatfield has a task for Cynthia to do, a task which involves theft and time travel. The task, of course, does not go to plan.
The fine detail is excellent but I found the bigger picture lacking, as if the author was carried away by Cynthia/Margaret’s flirtation with Henley and lost sight of the where this fit into the flow of the narrative. I was impatient for the mystery to move on. Cynthia/Margaret is a girl things happen to, rather than her being a proactive heroine. She spends quite a lot of time waiting for the time to be right, waiting for things to settle down, before she can complete her task. I just wanted her to get on with it. She accepts her new life with minimal heartache or disbelief, demonstrates little longing for her parents and the life she left in 1954 and no cynicism about what Miss Hatfield tells her. She ages instantly from teenager to adult, but we are shown none of the insight this would bring as so ably demonstrated in the film Big. Then I did a bit of Googling and found out that Anna Caltabiano is 17, and I understood. When I read a book for review, I read with a notebook and pen by my side and quite early on I wrote down ‘feels like a young author?’ Despite the ‘literary’ front cover, this is a book written by a teenager for teenagers about young love. If I had known, I would not have chosen to read it and I became a bit more forgiving of the writing style. Another example of a cover design being misleading.
That this novel was written by a 17-year old is admirable and explains the style: lots of explanation of the action of the ‘I understood Henley did this because…’ style. Lots of re-stating the obvious, which should have been edited out. It is clear that Caltabiano was in love with Henley.
This is the first novel of a trilogy. I think I’m too old to read the others, it’s a long time since I was a teenager. But if you know one who likes stories about puppy love combined with time travel, they’ll probably love this. Caltabiano is a talented writer and I will watch out for future novels, but in a few years’ time.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen
‘An Appetite for Violets’ by Martine Bailey
‘Ferney’ by James Long

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SEVENTH MISS HATFIELD @caltabiano_anna via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1af

#BookReview ‘The Queen of the Tearling’ by Erika Johansen #fantasy #Tearling

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The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen is a ripping adventure story which feels like a medieval tale except for the occasional references to plastic surgery, Harry Potter and mascara. For a debut, it is skilfully handled. Erika JohansenThis, the first of a trilogy, is a dystopian society, post-something [an un-named event] which caused people to feel their homeland [an un-named country] in The Crossing [across an ocean, as a boat was lost] to their new land of the Tearling [on an unspecified continent]. Behind them they left science, books, medicine, education, art, television, you name it they left it behind. They fight with knives and swords.
Into this context is thrown a 19-year old girl, raised in secrecy by an elderly couple in rural seclusion. She must become queen of her mother’s nation or it will be lost to the evil ruler of the neighbouring state. Kelsea Glynn had a studious childhood, learning history, mathematics, languages, and how to trap and skin a rabbit. She reads a book a day [including The Lord of the Rings], not something your usual heroine does. Add treachery, slavery, corruption, prostitution, child exploitation, and all sorts of other dastardly deeds, and you will see why this is a page turner. Kelsea, the girl-turned-Queen is thrown into the middle of this and expected to fail. But she doesn’t.
There is more to this than just a thriller, the world of the Tearling has been meticulously constructed by Erika Johansen with its own history, myths and customs. It has the makings of a classic fantasy series.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Click the title to read my reviews of the other Tearling books by Erika Johansen:-
BENEATH THE KEEP [#PREQUEL TEARLING]
THE INVASION OF THE TEARLING [#2 TEARLING]
THE FATE OF THE TEARLING [#3 TEARLING]

If you like this, try:-
‘The Magicians’ by Lev Grossman #1TheMagiciansTrilogy
‘The Ship’ by Antonia Honeywell
‘In Ark’ by Lisa Devaney

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE QUEEN OF THE TEARLING by Erika Johansen via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p2ZHJe-19P