Nesting By Roisin O'Donnell - Review

My friend Stacey was raving about this book and wanted me to read it, so I requested it at the library and picked it up in the middle of May. I loved it and really recommend it. I would love to read something else by Roisin so will definitely be keeping an eye out for her!

The book is about Ciara, a young mum of two. She is married to Ryan and I think her kids are called Sophie and Ella but I'm writing this over a month later so I wouldn't swear to that. Ryan is abusive towards her. The book starts where the family goes to the seaside and he insists that the girls go swimming even though it's like April or something, and too cold. The girls are in wetsuits that are too small for them because Ciara has squirrelled away the money that Ryan gave her for new ones. The day is a disaster and when they're back at home she makes a split second decision to leave. She packs up a few things and gets in the car and leaves. 

She sleeps in the car overnight and the next day tries to find help. Ryan is obviously blowing up her phone demanding to know what has happened and begging her to come home. She gets housed in a hotel in Dublin city centre, where the fifth floor is taken up by people - women mostly - in similar situations, who are victims of Ireland's housing crisis. She tries to leave the country as her mum and sister are in Sheffield, where Ciara and her sister grew up, but Ryan has put a block on the kids' passports. Ciara has previously left Ryan for three weeks, but went back. 

In the hotel the inhabitants of the fifth floor aren't allowed to leave by the main staircase etc. Each room has a family in and everyone is trying to make the best of it. Ciara gets quite friendly with the woman next door and with one of the staff in the hotel, who is trying to learn English as a second language. 

Ciara is pregnant again which obviously adds to Ryan's rage. She talks about how he was violent when Ella was only a few months old and how she had to spend the whole night with her back against Ella's  bedroom door in case he turned more violent towards her. He has raped her at night previously, but he tells her that he's not abusive because he has never physically hit her. To the outside world, he looks like a catch. He's a civil servant and he attends mass regularly. His mother gets on at Ciara to go back to him too. 

It's not so much the leaving but it's the staying gone. Ciara has no way to support herself and Ryan has told her that she isn't allowed to teach in Ireland because she gained her degree in England - which turns out not to be true. Ryan uses the girls to manipulate her. It was done so well that the reader totally understood where Ciara was coming from and why she felt totally turned upside down.

I wanted her to succeed, of course. I wanted only the best for her and I wanted her to get money and find some friends and be able to be by herself, coparenting with Ryan I guess even though he was a dick towards her. I want this for all women in this situation and this is a brilliant book showing what can and does happen when a woman dares to leave. 

I really would recommend this and am giving it five out of five. 

 

The Surrogate Mother by Freida McFadden - Review

I've only read The Housemaid by Freida McFadden I think, and I liked it, so on a trip to The Works I picked this up along with two books by Megan Lally who I haven't even heard of, but I was intrigued by the premise of the books so I got all three for £7.50 or whatever it is. I will get to them soon....... probably. I picked this up towards the middle of June. It is compelling in the same way that The Housemaid is, but I didn't like it anywhere near as much. 

The protagonist is Abby. She is an advertising executive and works under a woman called Diana? Dinah? Something like that. The two of them get along, but Diana is a bit annoyed because Abby has been undergoing fertility treatments and stuff for years. Abby is married to Sam, who is a Maths professor at the local university. And he's very good looking. It's important that you know this because it's mentioned about 683 times. But he doesn't know he's good looking! That's important to know too. 

At the very beginning of the book Abby is having a baby shower at work. She's just thrilled it's finally her turn. She and Sam are adopting a baby from a pregnant teenager in like Texas or whatever. Abby is about to take a ton of parental leave and is looking forward to time with her baby. But then Sam arrives and tells her that the adoption has fallen through - the teenager has decided to keep the baby. Abby is obviously devastated. She's been through years of infertility and she's just fed up. 

Then her assistant, Monica, who is a very capable assistant, such a godsend, offers to be Abby's surrogate. She's young, she's probably fertile, and she is sure she can do it. Abby is thrilled and sets about convincing Sam. He takes a lot of convincing, but eventually he agrees to it and they all go to a clinic and Monica gets pregnant. She has signed a contract which I am entirely sure would not stand up in any court of law which guarantees Abby and Sam the baby when it's born.

But then weird things start to happen. Abby is sure that one of Monica's ultrasounds is at X time so she turns up then, only to find that she's late and the ultrasound has already happened, with Monica and Sam only there. Abby thinks it's the stress getting to her, but Monica has a terrible secret and it means Abby and the baby are in danger. 

I liked the premise but I thought the way it played out was just stupid. Abby made a bunch of stupid decisions and could have just opened her mouth and communicated with people, Sam especially, but she doesn't. I thought some of the twists were visible from space they were so obvious, and some of them just didn't make sense. I'm giving it three out of five. 

 

Alice Austen Lived Here by Alex Gino - Review

I picked this up in Portal bookshop in York, which is a queer bookshop that also sells badges and fun stuff like that, and has a cafe upstairs and plenty of events happening - it's a really cool place to go. I visited in June with my friend Lucinda. I bought just this book, and picked it up soon after. I love Alex Gino and would love to have read everything they write, so I was glad to buy this. 

It's about a non binary kid called Sam who lives in New York with their mother and father I think. They are close friends with a queer family who live on a lower floor in their building - a woman, her non binary partner, and their baby. Sam also walks the dog of someone in the building, I don't remember her name but I loved her. From their bedroom window, Sam can see the Statue of Liberty and it's a statue that means a lot to them. Their best friend, TJ, is also non binary. They have a busy family that Sam is sometimes jealous of. 

At school, the kids get given an assignment to enter a competition. They have to write a report about who there should be a new statue of in their home borough of Staten Island. Some kids write about Henry Hudson - been done, coloniser, never even came to the area, Sam and TJ are bored of that one - and others write about Alexander Hamilton because one of them is vaguely related to him, which she shoehorns into every conversation haha. Sam and TJ don't know who to write about but eventually learn about Alice Austen, who was a photographer. She lived with a woman for decades and took quite frank photos of herself and her friends. I hadn't ever heard of her so it was interesting to learn more about her as Sam and TJ did too. 

I liked the book a lot and I think for a middle grade audience it was perfect. It explained a lot of things about queer identity and I liked how Sam came more to terms with themself and their place in the community. For me personally it was a bit so so, but I understand I am not the target audience and I think it would hit different with them. I will say that I didn't feel a particular emotional connection with Sam unlike in Melissa or Rick, which perhaps let it down a bit for me. But in all, a good book! 

As an aside but relevant to this post - I reviewed a queer picture book called Princess Pete for Global Comment, where I write occasionally. I wrote about why LGBTQIA+ books are essential for all kids, under the umbrella or not. You can read it here. 

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld - Review

This was yet another of the books that my friend Janet had recommended when it was just 99p on Kindle, so I bought it. I picked it up at the beginning of June and took quite a while to read it, because it is quite long. I did enjoy it but I wouldn't rush out to read something else by Curtis Sittenfeld even though I know people rave about her. 

The book is set at an elite boarding school in Massachussetts. Lee Fiora is fourteen when she arrives and way out of her depth. She's from the middle of nowhere in Indiana, from a normal family. She was clever enough to get a scholarship to Ault, the school, but when she gets there she's just one clever kid in a whole raft of them. And everyone else is rich and from the 'right' family. They have the right things like flowered bedspreads but Lee doesn't - something which marks her out as a scholarship student. 

The book spans all four years of Lee's high school career at the school. She has a huge crush on Cross Sugarman, the most popular boy in her year. One day late in her freshman year she gets to spend the day with him and some friends, which intensifies her crush. She knows he'll never look at her, though. She has just one friend, who she ends up sharing a room with for the next three years. 

The most popular girl in the school is Aspeth, who eventually asks Lee for a haircut and she ends up being the hairdresser for the whole school. She is thrilled that people want to talk to her but eventually realised that this job is a bit beneath her. 

I liked the setting of the school and thought it was so cloistered and had its own language which showed the 'them' and 'us' of it all. I did think it was a bit too long and I would have liked just a bit more plot, but I understand that's not overly the point of the book. In all I'm giving it four out of five. 

Clear by Carys Davies - Review

This book was the June choice for my book club and I was intrigued to read it. It's a novella, so didn't take me very long to read at all. I really reminded me of everything I've read by Claire Keegan in that there's barely a wasted word which I think is a real talent. 

The book is about John Ferguson and his wife Mary. The book is set in Scotland in 1843. John is a Church of Scotland minister but he has been part of the nearly 500 preachers who broke away to form the Free Church of Scotland. This decision means that John has lost his housing and income, so he and Mary are a bit down on their luck. She asks her sister if she can help, and so it is that Mary's brother in law, whose name I forget right now, gets him a job. He will have to travel to a remote island between Scotland and Norway. This period in history was also when the Highland Clearances happened, when people were evicted from their homes by greedy landowners so that the land could be used for grazing. 

There is just one tennant left on this island - Ivar. He speaks a dialect that no one seems to know anymore, although John does try to get some kind of language teaching before he sets off. He is given a rifle, to be used only if Ivar gets angry. He takes with him a photo of Mary, his notebooks where he is translating the gospels into Scots Gaelic, and a few provisions. He gets very seasick on the way over but is eventually on the island. 

Ivar is the only member of his family left on the island. His mother and sister have already emmigrated to Canada and he hasn't spoken to anyone else is around twenty years. The rent collector has left him alone for years and he has a cow and a horse left and otherwise lives on his own wits. He lives in a tiny shack with a bed and a fire and all of that. His most treasured posession is a teapot that is kept up on a high shelf. I actually loved the story of the teapot when it was revealed late on in the book - I thought it was perfect. 

John slips and falls shortly after arriving and Ivar rescues him and his posessions. John is in some kind of coma and sleeps for days in Ivar's bed. Ivar observes him and looks through all his things. He falls in love with the photo of Mary and puts her up on the shelf with the teapot. John eventually comes around but finds that he can't tell Ivar why he's really there - to evict Ivar. 

Instead, the two wander the island and John tries to learn Ivar's language. His notebooks got ruined when he fell, but the pages are usable, if a little bit crinkly. So John starts to write down Ivar's language. And the two do really start to fall in love. 

Mary, meanwhile, is obviously worrying about her husband but knows that the money he will be paid for doing this job will go towards setting up John's church, so she understands why he had to go. She tells the story of how she and John met and fell in love - but the marriage isn't without its problems. 

I won't say more because I just really liked how the book unfolded and would recommend it. I am giving it five out of five. 

Gone For Good by Sarah Crossan - Review

I started reading this book ages ago and then stopped for some reason, but then it was downloaded on to my Kindle so when I was on the plane and had finished The Wedding People, I only had a few books to choose from so decided to go back to this. It did take me a bit of time to get back into it, but I read quite a lot on the plane and then I was hooked so had to read the rest of course. 

The novel is told in verse like all of Sarah Crossan's novels. My only criticism of this is that I just want more! I want more detail in the book and verse novels just don't have the space for it! I think it's so clever to write with these constraints though. It takes quite some skill as a writer!

The book is about Connie, a teenaged girl. She is abducted from her bed in the middle of the night and taken to one of those camps for 'wayward' teens. She has been having a difficult time as her mother died and her dad quickly got with someone else - Wendy - who has been making unwelcome changes to the house. Something happened and Connie got into trouble, and now she's at a camp. She's certain that her dad wouldn't have sent her there but the camp counsellors waste no time in telling her that that's not true. Connie is heartbroken and really needs to heal.

Life is of course brutal in the camp. There are sadistic staff and one of her roommates, who I think was called Florence, or similar, is the type of person who snitches on everything that happens. People start to tell Connie that the previous occupant of her bed, Becky, has gone missing and no one knows what happened to her. Connie starts to unravel the truth, but it's slow going. And she has to suspect everyone, including dishy British guy Alex. 

I liked the book a lot and am glad I got round to reading it. I'm giving it four out of five. 

The Wedding People by Alison Espach - Review

 

My friend Janet does a round up monthly of books that are 99p on Kindle and she often has recommendations, and it often costs me about a fiver when I go through and buy a few. It's like the opposite of a problem, really. Anyway she had recommended this so I bought it, and I picked it up towards the end of May when I was on holiday in Morocco. Weirdly there was a woman sitting round the pool who was reading this in paperback. I would probably have spoken to her about it but she was asleep! 

I read the end of this while travelling back from Morocco, so I got really into it because I read so much while I was on the plane. My friends were sleeping so I had plenty of uninterrupted time! 

The novel is about a woman called Phoebe Stone. She has recently got divorced from her husband. Max. They are both academics and he has been having an affair with someone in the department. They have had a difficult marriage with a bunch of failed IVF treatments. Phoebe is completely bereft and really struggling with life, and then her beloved cat (Harry? Henry) dies. She leaves his body in the cellar and sets off to a luxury hotel. She once read about the hotel in a magazine and decides she will go there to kill herself. 

When she gets there, there is a week long wedding going on. The bride, Lila, is outraged that Phoebe is there and staying in the best suite. Phoebe says she is going to kill herself and Lila is further outraged because that will ruin her wedding. Phoebe takes a bunch of her cat's painkillers and lays down to die, listening to the start of the wedding celebrations that is happening below. 

She doesn't die and heads down to the hotel hut tub. She flirts with a man there and tells him she would like to fuck him, but he tells her he's involved with someone else. In the morning, Lila comes to talk to her. Half the wedding party are hungover and Lila would like Phoebe to come and join a boat party to make up numbers. Phoebe eventually goes and then meets the groom, Gary - who is of course the man in the hot tub from the night before. 

Phoebe gets roped in to be Maid of Honour when Lila's cancels, and Lila tells everyone that she and Phoebe know each other from the gallery where she works. Phoebe ends up getting massively involved in everyone's drama. Gary has a daughter and his wife died; he is still close to her brother Jim. Juice, the daughter, doesn't like Lila and the feeling is entirely mutual. It's a whole mess!

The book is compelling and interesting. I liked Phoebe and felt really sorry for her; life has dealt her a rough hand and her ex husband is a proper dickhead. I liked the story a lot and would definitely read something else by the same author. I've seen that this has been optioned for a film too, and I would definitely watch it. I'm giving this five out of five. 

The Women by Kristin Hannah - Review

In February 2023 I read The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah and thought it was absolutely brilliant. I must have said this to my friend Stacey at some point and she read it and loved it too. She told me about The Women at some point and said that among her friends, those that had read it first had preferred it over The Nightingale, and vice versa. She had preferred The Nightingale because she knows France better and coule imagine it really well - which is one of the reasons I loved it too! However The Women is set in the Vietnam War and one of my special interests is the Vietnam War, so I was really keen to see what I thought. 

I started this book on the day that I went on holiday to Morocco with two of my friends. The flight is four hours and they both slept or dozed, so I got a big chunk of reading done. On holiday itself, though, we were busy the first few days and were going to bed early, so I had less reading time than I might have. I finally finished it on the 25th, the Monday of our week away. I loved it and would really recommend it. I can't choose between the two books because they're both great!

The book is set in the late 1960s. Frances McGrath is the youngest child and only daughter of a rich family that live in California in a pretty fancy community. Frankie's brother, Finley, is about to join the Navy. The family is a military family and her father, Connor, has a wall of familiy photos in his offce, where all the man are in their military uniforms and the women are only shown on their wedding days. Her mother is quite cold and obsessed with getting Frankie married off so she can carry on the country club life. 

Frankie has trained as a nurse but wants something more out of life. After seeing off her brother to the Navy Frankie decides she will sign up. However, the Navy won't take her until she's been nursing for over two years. But the Army have no such compulsions and before too long she's in basic training. Her parents are shocked and appalled and beg her to reconsider but no, Frankie is off to Vietnam. 

She arrives at an army hospital not too far from Saigon. She's billetted with two women whose names I now forget, but one of them is white and one is Black. They start to show her the ropes. In the treatment areas she is thrown in at the deep end - men arrive desperately injured, quickly evacuated from fighting via helicopter, and have to be assessed immediately. Some can be saved and some need to be comforted as they die. It is chaos and there's more blood and guts than Frankie thought possible. 

She quickly learns lots of nursing and becomes a skilled and capable nurse. She parties with other nurses and doctors, trying to unwind from the horrors that she's seen. She nearly has a dalliance with a man but he's married and Frankie won't do that. She goes out into the nearby villages with other medics to treat some of the locals and to vaccinate the children and so on. 

Later in the book she is moved up north in Vietnam to a place that is much closer to fighting and where things are even more difficult. I don't want to spoil anymore of the first half of the book but Kristin Hannah really gets across the horror, the chaos, the exhaustion, the constant living on edge, etc. 

The second half of the book is about Frankie's life once she gets home. She tries to get a job but finds that her learning in Vietnam counts for little. She suffers from nightmares and clearly has PTSD, like a lot of Vetnam vets do and did. She tries to access Veteran help but is told it's not available to her as she wasn't 'in combat'. She's repeatedly told that 'there were no women in Vietnam'. More than once she loses her temper because SHE WAS THERE.

She gets involved in the anti war protests, which I found really interesting too because I didn't know a lot about it. I didn't know so many veterans turned on the war once they were home, disgusted by what they had been put through. 

I loved Frankie and rooted for her the whole way through. I loved the personal things she went through and I thought the depiction of the war was so well written. I would recommend this book so much and am giving it five out of five. 

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix - Review

I think my friend Sarah bought me this book for my birthday, just because she saw it and thought I would like it. I picked it up in mid May, although I then had to put it down because I had to read books for blog tours, so I didn't finish it until the 21st of May. I do think it was a bit too long and could have been edited down a bit, but generally I really liked it. 

The novel is set in 1970 in a maternity home for pregnant teenagers. Neva is six months pregnant when her parents find out, and her dad drives her to Miss Wellwood's Home in Florida, and abandons her there. All the girls there are given the names of plants so that they do not know each other's true originas - Neva becomes Fern. She is rooming with Rose, who wants to keep her baby and who has wild ideas about running off to California with her baby's dad, and Holly, who is thirteen years old, about to turn fourteen, and who is, at the beginning of the book, mute. There are tons of other girls around too. 

The girls are made to work around the home. They have to meet with the doctor, who patronises them and dismisses all their health concerns. If he feels they are putting on too much weight he puts them on a diet. Miss Wellwood owns the home after the death of her father - she is nasty and non sympathetic. There's a nurse and a social worker too. Girls must work until just before their due dates, when they are permitted to rest. They go to birth their babies, give them up for adoption, and are permitted to rest at the home for a little longer before returning to their families. All their parents have stories about where their daughters are - looking after a sick aunt is a popular cover story. 

The mobile library visits every couple of weeks and Miss Parcae is the librarian. The home insists on 'worthy' books for the girls, but one day Miss Parcae gives Fern a book called How to Be a Groovy Witch. Along with Rose and Holly, and a new girl, Fern tries to do some incantations and spells. And surprisingly, they seem to work. But Miss Parcae isn't who she seems and the girls are in danger...

I did really like the book but I also thought it was too long. It needed editing down a bit. I did like Fern a lot and I loved the stories around the other girls. I thought it had a little of the Magical Negro trope in the form of the two women who work in the kitchen of the home and I would like that to be unpacked a little more in reviews, especially reviews by Black people. But I generally did like it and found it very creepy and gothic. I'm giving it five stars for pur enjoyment. 

The Heartstopper Yearbook by Alice Oseman - Review

I was passing through the library - fortunately Penistone Library is open again so my craft club can meet there again! - and noticed this book in the Young Adult section. I've read all the Heartstopper books and really enjoyed them, and I of course love the TV show so I picked this up. I read it very quickly but it isn't very long and quite a lot of it is drawings. But I loved it!

There are lots of words from Alice themself, including and introduction and including a lot of chat about their artistic process and their story planning. There's Nick and Charlie in their first incarnation, years and years ago, and loads of chat about how the artwork moved on to what we've seen in the comics and the books. 

There are also little snapshots about some of the secondary characters in the books, like Darcy and Tara, which I also thought were really cute. This was a cute little look into Alice's work and what goes on behind the scenes in making a story like Heartstopper. I'm giving it five out of five because it was just cute!

PS did you know that I have three Heartstopper leaves tattooed on my arm? One yellow, one green, and one blue. They're adorable. I hope one day I can show them to Alice at a convention! 

My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney - Review

I saw Alice Feeney talk about this book at Stockport Noir back in January and I really liked the sound of it so I requested it at the library. It finally came in - it was in high demand - and I read it at the beginning of May. 

The very beginning of the book is good. Eden Fox and her husband Harrison have recently moved to the seaside - I imagined it to be like Dorset or Devon but I'm not sure if it's specified - and are living in a gorgeous weird old house called Spyglass. Eden is about to have an exhibition of her art in the town they have moved to, and she goes for a run to run off some nerves. When she gets back to the house, her key won't go in the lock. She knocks, and Harrison answers with a woman who looks eerily like Eden next to him. He says that's his wife and he doesn't know Eden at all. She is obviously extremely confused and the police are called, but she can't prove that SHE is Eden Fox and this woman is an interloper. 

Then there's Birdy's point of view. She has been told she is dying and she is pretty alone in the world after the death of her only relative, her mother. But then a long lost grandmother dies and she inherits Spyglass. She doesn't think she's ever been, but when she gets there she realises that she has, that she spent time there when she was a child. She is sorting through her grandmother's mail when she finds a card outlined in black. It's from a company that says it can predict exactly the day when you will die. As Birdy is dying she gets in touch with them. 

It turns out that Harrison, Eden's husband, is the owner of the company that can predict your death, and also that  Birdy is a police officer who then starts investigating what's going on with Spyglass. 

The book just lot its way for me. There's loads of plot holes and ridiculous things happening and so many coincidences that it really stretched the bounds of possibility for me. I'm not the only one - the internet is full of people complaining about this book. I wouldn't reach for anything else by Alice Feeney because this just didn't impress me that much. I'm giving it three out of five. 

 

The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives by Elizabeth Arnott - Review

I got this book on Netgalley, so thank you very much to Penguin for granting me access to this. I received an electronic copy of the book for review purposes, but was not otherwise compensated for this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

I really liked this book and would definitely read something else by the author. I was intrigued by the premise - about actual wives of murderers in the 1960s - and the book did not disappoint. 

Beverley is the main character of the book. She had no idea that her husband was a killer, of course, until he was arrested in the family home. She is struggling to get her life back on track. People in the neighbourhood hate her and she's trying to protect her kids from the brunt of it. She lives in fear and has to barricade herself into the house at night. She has met two other women with serial killers for husbands. Elsie is quiet and reserved and her husband was similar, but also turned out to be a killer. Margot was married to a governor or senator or something, someone in politics, who was also a killer. She masks her pain by drinking too much. 

Beverley is speaking at a police conference when a call comes in about a murder and the chief takes off. Beverley is having an affair with one of the men who arrested her husband and she gets to know a bit more about the girl who was found dead. She fears that another serial killer is on the loose, but the police don't agree with her. She enlists the help of Elsie and Margot to help her uncover the truth. 

It's like a fun romp of a book - the women are irrepressible despite what life has thrown at them and it's easy to like them and want them to succeed. I also definitely wanted a drink with them! There's an air of gothic about the book - there's a heatwave and everything is oppressive in the California sunshine. There's the Manson killings kind of as an undercurrent, which I definitely liked. 

I'm giving this four out of five, I thought it was a great book and I'll look out for more! 

Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth - Review

I actually saw this book in a motorway service station when I was travelling to Birmingham in February, and I was really tempted to buy it, but resisted temptation of buying this and something else. But then I looked later and it was only 99p on Kindle so I bought it. I read it while I was in Rome! And flying there and back. I loved Rome and highly recommend it, and this was a good book to read while I was travelling. 

The book is about sisters Sarah and Juliette and has a dual narrative - one in the 90s, and one in the now, when Sarah is 42 and Juliette is just turning forty. I am forty-two and am enjoying reading about women my age - especially when there was a dual narrative which was so reminiscent of my own life in the 90s. 

Sarah is single, and lives in London. She's from Manchester originally where Juliette still lives with her mediocre husband and two children. Their mother was pretty neglectful and I don't remember much said about their dad at all, but I did read this over a month ago so maybe I've just forgotten by now. (I am kind of sorry that my reviews are so far behind, but I'll get caught up.... eventually). Sarah's life is pretty empty but she knows she doesn't want Juliette's life either. 

Anyway, she rents a campervan for the two of them to go on a trip to the Scottish Highlands for Juliette's birthday. It's a bit run down and causes them no end of problem but that's half the fun of it. There's no mobile signal at the campsites so Juliette can't speak to her children. Neither of the women like going over to the showers and loos, either, which I found very relatable and hilarious. They've had a bit of a tempestuous relationship over the years and things do flare up but it's obvious there's a lot of love between the two of them even if they don't always understand each other.

In the dual narrative, it's the late 90s and Sarah is fifteen. She is obsessed with boy bands, sex, underage drinking, and her teacher, Mr Keaveney. She is convinced that they are in love and that once she leaves school and turns sixteen, they will go to Gretna Green and get married and everyone will accept this. I knew girls who were obsessed with teachers in the 90s and I think Emma Jane got this so perfect, just bang on for what it was like back then when you FEEL so deeply. When bands do mean EVERYTHING and when a crush feels like it will kill you. 

It's obvious that something happened in the 90s that has repercussions on today, and I thought I guessed it, but I was a bit wrong. I do think the ending didn't quite live up to the rest of the book. I wish it had been a bit different. 

But I did really like the book; I liked Sarah a lot and really felt a lot of her life. I will definitely read something else by Emma Jane Unsworth and I am giving this four out of five. 

Not A Happy Family by Shari Lapena - Review

I can't remember where I heard about this book but I was intrigued by it so bought it on Kindle. I read it at the end of April and it's the first of June as I'm writing this, so forgive me if I've forgotten some of the ins and outs of the plot. However, I know I didn't particularly like the book and wouldn't reach quickly for something else by the same author. 

The family in question is the Merton family. They are parents Fred and Sheila and their children, Catherine, Dan, and Jenna, and Catherine's husband Ted and Dan's wife Lisa. They are all getting together for Easter dinner, but tensions are already running high. The family is rich as anything after Fred sold his company. However, Dan assumed that he would inherit the company so he's angry with his dad that he didn't. He and Lisa have very little money and he is stressed about it. Fred is selfish and cruel. Sheila is neglectful and critical of all her children. They were brought up by a nanny, Irene, who lived in the house and who still lives close. 

Catherine has a high flying career as does Ted, but they've been having problems having a baby so their lives aren't perfect either. Jenna is the wild, third child, a bit flighty, blah blah. Her boyfriend attends the dinner too but I don't remember his name. Everyone falls out with Fred and Sheila and leaves, although Jenna and her boyfriend stay a little bit longer than the others. 

The next day the housekeeper or someone arrives at the house and finds Fred and Sheila brutally murdered. At first the policce think it's a robbery gone wrong, but then they realise it's been set up to look that way. Suspicion falls on the three children, of course, but there are just so many people and so many red herrings that it's hard to keep up. Fred's sister (Angela?) says that Fred had promised to leave half his money to her, but there's no proof of this - although it would have given her a good motive, of course. It's easy to think it's Dan, as he's been screwed over most by his father, but honestly, all the kids are acting weird. 

The book is like 100 pages too long in my opinion, and a crucial piece of information comes way too late in the book for me to care. I found it hard to read and can only give it two and a half out of three. 

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter - Review

I first read The Bloody Chamber years and years ago when I was a teenager. I didn't do English Lit at 6th form but tons of my friends did, and a lot of them did this book and we were all obsessed with it. I'm pretty sure I read a library copy way back when, and I'm not entirely sure where this copy came from, but I've had it forever and not picked it up. When we moved last summer I was reminded of its existence, but then didn't pick it up until just before Christmas. 

However, I read the first few stories and then put the book down and didn't pick it up again until April, by which time I was determined to finish it. However, I didn't really like it as much as I remember liking it. Maybe it was just because I was seventeen and it was all new to me, so maybe stories just don't hit the same now I'm in my forties. 

I did still really like the story The Bloody Chamber, which is a retelling of the fairy tale Bluebeard. It's exactly as creepy and gothic as I remember, which I liked. I also really liked the story of Puss in Boots, about a cat who spends his days with a rakish young man. Some of the others were so graphic - something that the collection is controversial for - that they left me cold. 

In all I am glad I reread this, but it wasn't quite my jam anymore. Still, I would recommend it to young adults who haven't read anything similar before. I'm giving it three out of five. 

Frozen by Ann Cleeves - Review

This is a really short story that I must have got on Kindle at some point and when I was scrolling my way through what I wanted to read I came upon it. So I'm reviewing it even though it is really short! I loved being back with Vera and will have to pick up another of her books soon. 

Vera is having a day off and heads to a bookshop in Corbridge. She's interested in a book about Hadrian and the wall, but she ends up walking into a crime instead. The bookshop is in an old church, and the owner and her teenaged son are working on opening up the old baptismal underneath the floor of their shop. To their surprise, there is a dead body in there. 

A skeleton, to be more precise. And what's more, Vera recognises who it is from the bracelet on the skeleton's wrist. It is a girl who went missing years and years ago, a case that Vera has never forgotten. And of course, she's involved now and she wants to solve it. 

I'm giving this four out of five, I liked it a lot for such a short story. 

Athelstan by Tom Holland - Review

This was the May choice for my book club and I read it way back in mid April, so I was in plenty of time before book club. As I write this, we haven't yet met, so I don't know what everyone else thought, but I really enjoyed the book. It's non fiction, it's about the King called Athelstan who I had never heard of, although I'd heard of some of his relatives for sure. But that period of England is not something I know a lot about at all, so it was good to learn more. 

Athelstan is arguably the first King of England because he managed to unify the country more than anyone had done previously. There is apparently little documentary evidence about Athelstan himself, but what there is Tom Holland manages to pull together in a very readable and dramatic fashion. This is a short book so I raced through it, but it is also compelling. Also, presumably he's not THAT Tom Holland, haha. 

I also found it really interesting how Athelstan became king of all of England. When a different king died, others would rush in and fill the gap - what an absolutely mad way to do anything. So Athelstan managed to get a couple of places before anyone else, including some Irish kings, did. Wild. 

I really enjoyed this and would recommend it to anyone who would like to learn more about this period of history. I'm giving this four out of five. 

The Eternal Return of Clara Hart - Review and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for The Eternal Return of Clara Hart by Louise Finch. It is a pleasure to welcome you here! Please do click around and have a look at my other posts. I love contemporary YA and don't feel like I've read one in ages, so I was eager to sign up to this blog tour and to read the book!

The main character of the book is James Spencer, and he is in his last year at 6th form so he's already eighteen. His dad calls him James but everyone else calls him Spence. He has a car, an MG Midget which I've got major envy for, and on this particular Friday just before exam leave, he wakes up in his car. 

It is the year anniversary of his mum's death and he and his dad haven't been getting on very well, so James has chosen to sleep in his car to stay out of his dad's way. He is woken up by a car hitting his. A small red Micra, driven by Clara Hart. They have a bit of an altercation about it and then James goes into school and sits with his friends Anthony and Worm. They have forgotten the significance of the day and are their usual selves - mocking girls, catcalling, and giving all the girls ratings out of five. They are also planning a party for that evening. James doesn't really want to go, but he does. He and Anthony pick up alcohol and get ready.

At the party Worm strips naked and jumps into the pool. James ends up asleep. A girl called Mia gets incredibly drunk. Clara's friend Genni gets off with a guy called Jay and Clara ends up upstairs with Anthony. James rescues her, covering up her naked body, but she's drunk and upset and runs out of the house. She is then killed by a car coming past. The party ends with everyone at the police station giving a statement about what happened. James is obviously distraught and ends up asleep in his own bed, taken home by his dad. 

But then he wakes up again in his car, and Clara is again close by in her red car. James is obviously confused, and moreso when the day repeats itself. Can he save Clara this time, though?

Through more than a week of Fridays James tries and tries again to save Clara, to make a better hash of the day than he did the first time around. He's sure there must be some kind of key - but what is it?

I loved the book, I liked James a lot and loved the setting he found himself in. I liked the mystery of how he was going to get out of the mess he was in and I liked the ending. In all I'm giving this four out of five. 

Star by Star by Sheena Wilkinson - Review and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for Star By Star by Sheena Wilkinson! It is a pleasure to welcome you here. Please do click around and have a look at my other reviews. 

I was really intrigued by the premise of this book and signed up for it without realising that I have already read something by Sheena Wilkinson. I finished the book and when I was adding it to Goodreads I realised I read Name Upon Name by Sheena, which is actually related to this book! That book's main character is Helen, and she has a cousin Sandy, and in this book the main character Stella meets Helen in the first chapter, and she ends up living with Sandy! So that was delightful to learn and I'm glad I did learn it. 

So yes, Stella is fifteen and the year is 1918. The Spanish flu is endemic across Europe and the Great War is roaring. Stella has grown up in Manchester with her Mam after her mam had to leave Ireland when she was pregnant with Stella. Her mam has been a suffragette, fighting for women's rights to vote, and eventually, women who are over thirty and are householders are entitled to vote. It's a great victory! But Stella's Mam catches flu and Stella has to nurse her as she dies. 

Stella is left alone in the world and has to travel back to Ireland to live with her mother's sister Nancy. Nancy runs a kind of boarding house and Stella is to go and help her. She meets Helen on the train from Belfast; Helen is trying to visit Sandy but it doesn't go well. He is a wounded soldier, wounded in the trenches of the war, and has some kind of PTSD that means he rarely leaves his room. Also in the house are two elderly women and a young nurse, Kit, who nurses at the local convalescent home for soldiers.

Things are changing in Ireland - after the Easter Rising of 1916 the spirit of independence from British rule is in the air. Reading this as someone in 2026 who knows what happened in Ireland it was interesting to get into the head of someone living in Ireland at the time. Stella is an independent forthright young woman who wants to sort everything out. She has no malice in her and people's best interests at heart, but the way she goes about things sometimes rubs people up the wrong way! 

I loved the book, I am so glad I joined in this tour. I loved Stella and I liked the setting and her aunt and all the other inhabitants of the house. I liked Sandy and thought he was very compassionately portrayed. He is only 22 and has been an officer and has been permanently wounded by the war. I'm giving this four out of five and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Sugar & Other Stories by A S Byatt - Review

I have never read anything by A S Byatt but have always wanted to, so when I saw this in a charity shop in York for just a couple of quid I picked it up. 

I really enjoyed the selection of stories, but it's a few weeks since I read it so I don't remember specifics of many. I think generally the theme was people, and relationship, and quite a lot about middle class people. The book was published in 1987 so all of the stories were dated before that, but some felt quite a bit older - more like Agatha Christie type of time period. But some really felt set in the 1980s, too. 

This definitely has inspired me to read something else by A S Byatt, so I'll keep an eye out for something else by her! I'm giving this four out of five.