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. 

Cuddy by Benjamin Myers - Review

This was the book club choice for January and I got a Readers Group copy from the library in like November or something, I dunno, a long time ago. The book was a bit intimidating as it seemed long, and I was concentrating on queer books in January, so I decided to listen to the audiobook instead. Generally in a week I might have a couple of hours where I'm driving and can listen to an audiobook, so I knew I could finish it before the 21st when our meeting was. But then I ended up finishing it in only a couple of weeks as I really liked it and ending up listening to it while I was working too. Listening to it was a joy too because three of the four main parts were narrated by friendly Geordies which was nice. My experience with this made me decide to listen to February's choice for book club, too! More on that later... 

So, Cuddy is the nickname of St Cuthbert, who is the patron saint of Durham Cathedral. This was about the sum total of my knowledge about Cuthbert before I read this book (audiobooks count as reading and it's ableist to suggest otherwise as some people CAN'T read paper or electronic books!) and I expected it to be a novel about him and his life, not dissimilar to Haven by Emma Donoghue which I read back in 2023. Margaret at book club thought the same thing, but no. This is not really a book about St Cuthbert. 

There's a lot of scene setting with quotes about Cuthbert's life and the settling of Durham and the start of the building of the cathedral. I found this a bit dull but I made my way through it to Book 1.

Book 1 is about Ediva, a young woman who is with the band of monks that are taking care of Cuthbert's coffin. When Cuthbert died his body was put inot a stone coffin and removed from Lindisfarne, where he had lived, to the mainland, because of the Viking invaders. Ediva is cook, healer, general dogsbody for the monks. She is somewhat friendly with a young boy, who is also an outsider from the monks, and who has large owl eyes. He is a recurring character through the book, in an odd way. Ediva has visions of where they will set Cuthbert's body down and build a chapel for him - there will be a clearing with a cow. Indeed, this comes to pass, at the bend in the river Wear where Durham Cathedral now sits. 

I liked Ediva; it was interesting to hear her back story and her place within the bank of monks. I liked the faith that they all had that they would find a place worthy of Cuthbert's shrine. I love religious stories like this because I just don't have  that type of faith. This book is set in the tenth century. 

Book 2 was my favourite of the four and lots of people at book club felt the same. It could have been a book in its own right! It's about Eda, a woman who is married to Fletcher Bullard, an archer for the king. This book is set in the 1300s. Fletcher is great at his job, a great archer, well respected etc, but he's also abusive towards Eda. He kicked her so hard once that she has been unable to bear children. She likes it when Fletcher is away from home fighting. She makes beer and takes it to the stonemasons working on the walls of the cathedral. There she meets Francis Rolfe, a mason, who woos her and charms her. I thought that the story would end really badly but loved how it worked out. This part was written in the second person which really gave it immediacy and drew us towards it. 

Book 3 was maybe my least favourite but I still liked it a lot. It's a ghost story set in the 1850s or something like that. A professor at Oxford is invited to Durham to be there when some clerics open Cuthbert's tomb. There's a myth that Cuthbert's body has never decayed and that in the stone coffin it is still whole. The professor is disdainful of the north but arrives in Durham and is greeted by a boy with eyes like an owl's who leads him to his lodgings. But his host, one of the vicars involved, doesn't know this boy. The professor is haunted at night by strange singing in his room. This part owes a lot to writing like The Woman in Black and so on. I didn't love it but it is compelling. 

Book 4 is about Michael. It's set in 2019. Michael is around nineteen years old and is caring for his dying mother. He works as a casual labourer doing back breaking work and he budgets every penny - eating nothing but Pot Noodles - while also kind of wishing for something outside of himself. He gets a job working in the cathedral where talented masons and so on are working on repairs to the ancient building. His life is very much a portrait of Tory Britain at the time which I thought was very effective. I felt really sorry for Michael. At book club, we liked the ending too, and we liked the through motif of Cuthbert spraking to the protagonist of each book. 

In all I'm giving this five out of five, I absolutely loved it and it was a joy to keep me company on my drives! 

The Painter's Daughters by Emily Howes - Review

This was the book club book choice for December and I hadn't ever heard of it or the author, but I was happy to read it. It was a good choice for our book club, I think. We talked about it at our December meeting, which is also a meal and a bit of a social, so I'm not sure we actually talked about the book for very long. But I think we liked it.

It is about the daughters of the painter Thomas Gainsborough, Molly and Peg. The book is told from Peg's point of view and starts with her as quite a small child when the family lived in Ipswich. Gainsborough genuinely did paint his daughters and the author has used this as a springboard to imagine the lives of the family, and has maybe used a rumour as part of her work too? I like this blurring of fact and fiction. 

Molly has funny turns in the book and Peg tries to control her and corral her into behaving. She desperately wants her dad to love her more but he is distant and forgetful about her. The girls' mother rules the house and the finances. There is a rumour that her father was a royal prince, and part of the book is from Peg's grandmother's point of view showing what happened to her. We felt like these chapters were a little jarring and took us out of the main narrative, and it wasn't clear how the two parts were related until quite a way on into the book. 

The family moves to Bath where the girls, their mother hopes, will marry well and make enough money to keep themselves. The girls are kept inside, away from people, while their father paints all the society people who want him to, and perhaps has an affair or two. Peg falls in love but it's Molly who gets married, despite her illness and the episodes where she disassociates. 

I generally liked the book and found it compelling, it kept me reading. But the story just didn't quite gel for me, so I'm giving it three out of five. 

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin - Review

 

This was my book club book for October and I have to say that I wasn't thrilled about it when I saw it. It looked really cutesy and romance like, which isn't my jam at all. But I gave it a go, because I'm always willing to give things a go, and I ended up really liking it. I watched the film too which wasn't as good and which didn't really capture the emotional impact of the book. There is a sequel to this book too, which a few people at my book club had read, and which I would like to read soon.

Eilis is a young woman living in rural Ireland in the early 1950s. She lives with her mum and her sister Rose. Rose works in a nearby office. Eilis is struggling to find a job, though, so Rose sets her up with a priest from New York, Father Flood. He talks about all the amazing opportunities Eilis will have over there, and so it's decided, she'll leave Ireland. Her brothers have already left and are working on building sites in Birmingham. Eilis leaves from Liverpool, on a ship and in a part of the book that is genuinely funny. She arrives in New York and stays in a boarding house run by Mrs Kehoe, who is strict and nosey and imposing. She works in a department story by day and starts to do a course on bookkeeping at night. She is desperate to inprove herself and get a good job in an office. 

She is terribly homesick but eventually starts her life in the USA. She meets an Italian American man called Tony, who has grand plans to build houses on Long Island and he wants the two of them to live there together. But then something calls Eilis back to Ireland and she has to leave America and Tony. She promises him she will return, but back in Ireland things are more complicated. She is persuaded to go on dates with a lad called Jim. Eilis feels caught between the two men, and she keeps Tony's letters unread because she's scared of what she might feel. 

I don't want to say anything else because of spoilers. I didn't know anything going into the book and I really loved the way it unfolded in front of me. Parts of it were genuinely shocking and it is just a gorgeous book. I gave it four out of five and I will definitely read something else by the same author 

Aliza in Nazi-Land by Elyse Hoffman - Review and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for Aliza in Nazi-Land by Elyse Hoffman! It is a pleasure to welcome you here. Please do click around and read some of my other reviews. I previously read something else by Elyse which I reviewed here. I haven't read the first book in this series so didn't fully get the context of Aliza's experiences and life, but there is enough information in this book for it to make sense. So if you haven't either, don't worry about picking this one up. 

The book is set in the USA in the mid 50s. Aliza is sixteen and she is a Holocaust survivor. She was in a concentration camp, where she lost her parents, and she was saved by her adoptive dad, Amos, who is part of a crew called the Black Foxes. She now lives with him and her adoptive sisters - one older and two younger. Aliza is haunted by what happened to her and by the fact that she can't even really remember her family. She hates school and her teacher and is often in trouble. Her elder sister is bullied by a boy called Yonah so Aliza often stands up for her. 

One day Aliza sees something strange in her history textbook. She has been offered a contract to become a God in a zone of Hell, a zone which houses the absolute worst Nazis that existed, including Hitler, Goering, Himmler, and Heydrich. In this zone, she will be allowed to torture them as she sees fit. She can harm them, humilate them, do whatever she wants to them. They have to obey all her Commands. 

Aliza keeps going into her Zone to inflict more pain on those who inflicted so much pain on her and millions of other people. She starts to avoid her real life which is a problem and which has an impact on her family, and she also begins to learn that power is seductive. It's fun - but also, is it? Aliza has a conscience and she begins to wonder exactly what she is doing. 

It's an interesting philosophical discussion. If you could torture Hitler, would you? And especially if you were a survivor of the Holocaust, would you want to get revenge on men who wreaked so much havoc? What does it say about you? What does it say about them? I liked the way Elyse poised this question. It's easy to understand Aliza's anger and her wish to get even. 

I liked Aliza's family and her adoptive uncle, Sam, too. I would have liked a bit more drawing of their setting in the US, and I did also think the rules about Hell were a little bit confusing and would have liked a bit more explanation. But in general I really liked the book and would like to hear others' opinions on it too! 

The Burial Plot by Elizabeth MacNeal - Review

I read a review of this book somewhere and thought it sounded great, so I requested it at the library. However, I didn't really enjoy it at all. It took me absolutely forever to read because I just couldn't get into it. I did feel like it picked up at the end, but getting there just wasn't worth it for me. I won't rush to read anything else by the same author, that's for sure. 

The book is about Bonnie. It is set in 1839. She lives in London, sharing lodgings with her lover Crawford and his friend Rex, who hates her. They vie for Crawford's affection. Crawford thinks himself a cut above quite a lot of people. He takes bets on games in pubs. He gets Bonnie to entice men outside - them thinking they can buy her for the night or whatever - and then he and Rex attack and rob the men. 

One night Bonnie entices a gentleman outside, but things don't go as planned when Crawford and Rex don't show up, and the man starts to assault her. She hits him, and he whacks his head. Bonnie is certain she has killed him and thinks she will hang for the crime. Crawford however has a plan. He has seen an advert for a lady's maid wanted at a mansion in Richmond, which at that point was not part of London (I did like this historical part of the book!). Bonnie goes, applies for the job, gets it, and moves in, safe from the hangmen of London.

The family she moves in with is the Moncrieffs. The father is somewhat stilted, closed off. The daughter, Cissie, is sixteen and a strange little thing, but she and Bonnie grow close. Cissie's mother, Josephine, drowned in the pond earlier in the year, and the whole house is in mourning. There are only two members of staff, Annette, the housekeeper, and Manton, the butler. Mr Moncrieff has fallen on hard times and it seems likely that he will have to declare himself bankrupt. He spends a lot of time sketching mausoleums for Josephine and it is this which gives Bonnie an idea.

She has heard Crawford talking about the new cemeteries in London, like Highgate, and says that Mr Moncrieff could sell some of his grounds to make a cemetery, where he could also make a huge tomb for Josephine. He doesn't disagree, but nothing happens until Crawford turns up.

Posing as Bonnie's brother, he inveigles his way into the household and persuades Mr Moncrieff to start the cemetery. But he is cunning and he has so many plans and so much bitterness. Bonnie is quite stupid, though, and there are many times when she could do something but she just waits for things to happen. I liked her as a character but so much of the book just drags and there's no action. It's supposed to be really gothic and I thought the setting was good, but the slowness just stopped it from being really gothic for me.

In all I'm giving it two out of five, possibly a two and a half. But I won't rush to read anything else by her! 

The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster - Review

I saw this book a couple of times when I was on holiday and was intrigued by it, but it was still in hardback so it was the best part of £20 and I just didn't want to spend that much on a book. But then I saw it on Kindle for a few quid a bit later so I bought it. I also sent it to my friend Leanne because I thought this would be right up her street. We read it at the same time which was really nice. I also read it quickly and would have read it even quicker if I had had more time over the weekend. 

It's based on the story of a real woman called Maggie Dickson who was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of her child. However, she survived the hanging and was deemed to have served her sentence. She lived a lot longer! So Kate Foster has reimagined her life. 

Maggie is twenty two years old, ish, and lives in Fisherrow near Edinburgh with her parents and her sister Joan. At the very beginning of the book she awakes after being hanged, and realises she is in her own coffin (well, the parish coffin, because her parents are too poor to pay for one for just her) in the stables of an inn. She gets out of the coffin and goes into the inn, surprising her family, who thought she was dead. She has given her engagement ring to her sister and demands it back. She is captured by the sheriffs who take her back to Edinburgh because they have to discuss whether she has served her sentence or not and whether she is allowed to go free. 

The novel then goes back in time to show the reader what has happened. Maggie lives in a tiny cottage with her parents and sister. The four of them share a bed. Her Da has a bad temper. He is a fisherman and Ma, Joan and Maggie all sell the fish. She meets a stranger called Patrick Spencer and starts a courtship with him. They get married and Maggie is quite content in her little cottage with him. She doesn't want a baby so Spencer gives her some kind of 'women's tonic' to try to prevent that.

She discovers something awful about him and takes off. She wants to go to London, where Spencer always told her they would go, and open a perfumerie, but she only gets as far as Kelso. She stays the night in an inn and ends up staying there. She is betrayed by a woman she meets and gets a job in the inn. She realises she is pregnant but keeps it to herself, because she doesn't want to lose her job. 

I won't give anything else away because I was so intrigued by the book and loved uncovering that for myself. I really liked it, really rated it, and can't wait to read more by Kate Foster. I am giving it five out of five. 

A Little London Scandal by Miranda Emmerson - Review

 

I picked this book up in The Bookish Type in Leeds and I really liked the sound of it so I bought it. I have been trying to read all new books that come into the house, so I started it. 

And then, good lord, it took me a week to read. Now that was partly because I was away for the weekend with friends so that didn't leave me a lot of time to read, but also because it just entirely bored me. I had such high hopes for it, too, but I would not rush to read anything else by Miranda Emmerson. Apparently this is the second in the series, featuring two of the same characters, but I wouldn't rush to read the other one of these, either. 

I am sorry because I really wanted to like this. I liked the setting in swinging London in the 1960s, before homosexuality was decriminalised. I'm not quite sure that the language for the time was exactly right, but I could give it a pass if I wasn't just so bored. 

Anyway, the plot. Anna Treadway is the dresser at a theatre. I was confused about exactly who worked in the theatre or was in the play, or both or neither, but there is a man called Bertie who is getting fatter and Anna feels bad about suggesting he needs to get his costumes altered. She has a boyfriend called Aloysius who is with his dying mother in the Caribbean so they're writing letters backward and forward. This is entirely not relevant so I'm not sure why it was included OR why some of the letters are included. Anna lives above a Turkish cafe and in there she sometimes meet Nik. 

Nik is from a Greek family and grew up near Blackpool. He was kicked out of the house when he was fifteen and made his way to London. He is now nineteen. He is a rent boy. He is gay. It isn't clear if he was kicked out of his house because he was gay or not, and I would have liked more clarity there. I did enjoy the parts about Nik growing up. 

He is working one Saturday evening and it is all a bit complicated. He goes hither and thither and it is just way too more involved than it needed to be. He is hired by the lead singer of a band and in trying to leave the recording studio he arouses the anger of the whole band and they set upon him, beating him up badly. I really do not know why this happened. Nik heads to close to Picadilly Circus, where there's a police raid on rent boys in the area. He ends up near the garden belonging to a swanky gentlemen's club. Later there, a rent boy called Charlie is found murdered. Nik is arrested for the murder and Anna is certain that he can't have done it, so she starts to do her own investigation. 

She is helped on her way by a police officer called Hayes, who she met in the first book. He used to work on murders but now he's in Vice. He starts asking questions too which puts a lot of people's noses out of joint. 

Additionally - which is ridiculous given that the book is only like 270 pages in total - there is an MP called Richard Wallis. He is married to Merrian and they have two children, but he hires rent boys and he has a bunch of secrets which threaten to come out at any given point. Merrian is a likeable character - if a little clueless - but she spends far too long fannying around over her husband. I thought there was going to be an actual pay off to this, but no. 

In all I'm giving this two out of five. I just can't, and don't recommend it. 

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell - Review

I love Maggie O'Farrell, as you probably know, as I've read and reviewed a few of her books over the course of this blog, and I recommend The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox a lot because I really like it. I follow Maggie's Facebook page so I had heard of this book, but I hadn't ever picked it up. But then it was a book club choice for this year, so when I saw it in a sale in WH Smith I picked it up for a fiver. I was apprehensive because I wasn't sure if it would be a bit too high brow for me. But I picked it up.

And I ended up loving it and I now want everyone I know to read it! I lent it to someone at book club but then I will lend it to my mum because I think she will like it. 

So, if you don't know, Hamnet was the only son of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway. I knew that, and I knew he died as a child, of the plague. I also knew that he had a twin, Judith, and an older sister, Susanna. But I didn't know much else about his life. And I had a vague impression that the play Hamlet was called that after him. 

Which, indeed, it was. The book starts by saying that the names Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable at the time. Then Hamnet himself is watching Judith as she becomes unwell with what is the bubonic plague. He goes downstairs in the house looking for his mother, his sister, or his grandmother, but can't find any of them. Susanna and his grandmother, Mary, are running errands. His mother is out at Hewlands, her familial home. Hamnet fears his sister will die. 

Lee and I visited Shakespeare's house in Stratford on Avon back in 2020 so it was great that I could envisage the house perfectly. We also went to Anne Hathaway's house but couldn't go in because it was closed due to Covid. But it meant I knew what it looked like. 

So in the book Shakespeare himself is away in London, working and acting and earning his living. The book goes back in time, though, to when he and Anne met. In the book she is called Agnes, because apparently her father's will named her as so. Maggie has really done her research! 

Agnes' mother is portrayed as having been a bit of a witch, a healer, that kind of thing. She died and Agnes' father married Joan, and they had several more children. Agnes and her brother Bartholemew are close in the novel, but she and Joan don't get on. John Shakespeare - William's dad, who he's portrayed as having a volatile relationship with, and who was a glove maker by trade - owed Agnes' dad some money or something and as payment John arranged for William - aged just eighteen - to go tutor some of the younger boys. There he met Agnes, who was older than him and a bit of a wild girl, and who was desperate to leave her stepmother's house. They clearly got married and had Susanna and then the twins. 

The books flips backwards and forwards in time to William and Agnes' relationship and Agnes in particular and how she dealt with her husband and how unhappy he was in Stratford. I don't know how much of this is true but I don't care. It was a good narrative. I also learnt that Hamnet's cause of death is not actually recorded, but it's assumed he did die of the plague. I loved Agnes as a character and I think the book really showed just how difficult life was back then. She didn't have it easy and neither did the rest of the family. 

I think my book club will as a whole have really enjoyed the book but I'm interested for the discussion! I'm giving it five out of five because I loved it. 

Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell - Review

I kept hearing about this book - which is a telling of the life of Emily Bronte - last year and the year before, and bought it when I had a voucher some time last year. Then I kept it for December, feeling it would be an atmospheric read in the colder months. And I was right, it was. It also made me really want to go to Haworth again. It's where the Brontes lived and worked, and where Emily died and is buried. Charlotte and Branwell are buried there too, but Anne is in Scarborough. I saw her grave there about ten years ago. I have been to Haworth, of course, and gone round the parsonage where the family lived, but not for ages. So Lee and I decided to go to Haworth for new year, and we had a lovely time. I was really glad to have read this so close to our trip. We also drove up Penistone Hill to look at the moors where Emily loved to walk and which she used in Wuthering Heights. As I'm disabled it would be difficult for me to walk all the way to Top Withens - which Emily used as the base for where Heathcliff lived - but I did enjoy standing on the moors on New Year's Eve letting the cobwebs blow away. 

I already know quite a lot about Emily's life, having read a biography about her fairly recently and really, having grown up in Yorkshire and having visited the parsonage before, but I really did like this retelling. I liked the focus on her very early life and her first experiences of school. Her elder sisters Maria and Elizabeth were ill and so they and Emily and Charlotte were pulled out and taken home, where the elder girls died. I liked the imagining of Emily at this time, and later, as a young woman, when she was in Brussels with Charlotte. These were parts of her life which may actually be lacking in real detail, but which the author here has imagined beautifully. 

There isn't a lot of detail about Emily's writing, especially until later in the book, but I didn't mind this. I also thought that the lack of detail about Branwell was a good thing. He was a bit of a wrong un and ended up addicted to laudunum or something and was often drunk in the town's pubs and had to be brought home. He died just before Emily did. Dramatisations of the Brontes' lives often focus on Branwell and what his sisters had to sacrifice for him, but this didn't, which I was glad for. Emily is dutiful and cares for her brother and their father, especially when her sisters are away, but there's not much sympathy for Branwell. There is a lot of Charlotte's ranting about how he gets everything handed to him because he's a man and how she and her sisters have to fight so hard, which I did appreciate.

I also think there are hints of Emily being depressed. At times she can't write at all and that distresses her. She finds solace in her dog and in walking across the moors. When she writes, she is all consumed with it. I really liked this version of Emily (who is the best Bronte, for real). 

Obviously I know that Emily died aged just 30, and I wondered how the book would deal with that. I absolutely loved the end and thought it was perfect. I am giving this four out of five. 

The Anarchists' Club by Alex Reeve - Review

I read The House on Half Moon Street in June 2023 and reading back my review of it, it seems like I didn't like it very much! But I was reminded of the series and decided to request the second one from the library, and when it arrived I picked it up really quickly. I really enjoyed it, way more than the first one. I think the author has settled into writing a bit, which helps. There's a lot less detail and less description, meaning that the writing flowed so much better. I really fell in love with Leo a lot more, and I now want to read the next two books in the series quite soon. I hope this book is a sign of things to come!

As a reminder, Leo is a trans man, but because the book is set in the 1880s, he doesn't have that terminology to refer to himself. But we would now, so I'm going to. He used to be known as Lottie Pritchard, the well to do daughter of a vicar, but he always knew he wasn't a girl, and finally, aged fifteen, her left the family home and made his way to London. He now lives in a chemist with Alfie, his landlord, and Alfie's daughter, Constance, who is twelve. 

So the book is set about a year after Maria died in the first book. Leo is working as a porter in the hospital, but actually there's way less of that which I liked because it just wasn't relevant to the story. He's working in the chemist one afternoon when a woman arrives with two children, aged ten and six ish. She buys some bromide and leaves. Leo wouldn't think anything of it except that a few days later the police arrive at Leo's door. The woman has been found in a shallow grave and in her pockets was a piece of paper with Leo's name and address. Leo is baffled as he only met her very briefly and has no idea who she is. 

He goes with the police to a confusing courtyard and warren of rooms where Dora has been found. The kids, Aiden and Ciara, soon turn up, and Leo comes to be very fond of them. The rooms where Dora lived are part of an anarchists club. There, Leo meets a man from his past - someone who knew him before - who wants an alibi for Dora's murder and who blackmails Leo, threatening to expose him if he doesn't provide the alibi. Maybe John is the murderer, but there are so many confusing things about that case. Leo also has to get back in touch with his family, which is difficult. 

There's Rosie, too, who we met in the first book as her husband was murdered. Constance wants her and Leo to be friends, but it's difficult between them. 

I loved the mystery here and the setting. I really think the author just settled into the world a lot more. I'm giving this four out of five. 

Eliza Mace by Sarah Burton and Jem Poster - Review

I really can't remember where I heard of this book but I clearly did because I requested it at the library. I must have been waiting a while because when it came in I was like what the hell is this book! But I picked it up and I ended up really enjoying it, which is the main thing. I think this is going to be the first in a series and I will definitely read the next ones. 

The book is set on the border between England and Wales somewhere in the 1870s. Eliza is sixteen, and lives in the big hall with her parents and her uncle. Her father, Robert, is an unpredictable and difficult human. He has run through the family's money, meaning that they have barely any servants left, and life is difficult. The house and estate belong to Hannah, Eliza's mother, who suffers with her nerves and is quite sickly. She refuses to sell any of the land which would make the family solvent again, mostly because she thinks Robert would quickly spend the money. He is a proper wrong 'un and he's borrowed off absolutely everyone, including his manservant, Jacob Todd. He's nasty and brutish with everyone. His brother, James, has to live with the family because he has fallen on hard times too. He is very close to Hannah and Eliza, which winds Robert up. 

Eliza's sister Charlotte is already married and living in Bristol I think. There are hints that it isn't a completely happy marriage for one reason and another. She and Eliza write to each other. Eliza loves her father even though she realises his faults. Her mother is anxious for her to marry well and wants her to behave like a lady. Eliza is too headstrong for that, though.

Then Robert goes missing. He is last seen in the town getting drunk in a pub, and someone was seen attacking him. His horse was then found and stolen, and the person concerned is arrested. The police are called, and the constable, who is new to the area, is determined to leave no stone unturned. He and Eliza get close, much to Hannah's consternation. Eliza is a sharp, intelligent, quick witted girl. I really liked her. I liked Constable Pritchard too, and James. Really a lot of people had a motive to do harm to Robert, and it was fun to discover so many motives. 

The setting is really good, too. There are definitely elements of gothic in it. I could picture the house and the surroundings so well and I really liked it. I'm giving this four out of five and I really hope there's another one soon! 

Weyward by Emilia Hart - Review

I bought this book in Waterstones just because I liked the sound of it. It was on buy one get one half price and I had a voucher from my birthday, so I got four books for about £30. I picked this up because I really want to read all four of them and am hoping to get them soon! 

This book has three strands of stories, and I enjoyed them all equally. The oldest part is set in 1619 when a woman called Altha Weyward is on trial at Lancaster Castle, accused of witchcraft. She is just twenty one years old and her strands are basically her diary. She grew up with just her mother, and they were the local 'wise women' - helping to heal the sick and so on. Altha's childhood friend is Grace, but when they are thirteen, Grace's mother Anna dies, and her dad blames Altha's mother. The two girls are no longer friends and it is now Grace who stands as a prosecution witness after the death of her husband John. Altha is definitely a witch - a weyward woman - but she and her mother have learnt to hide it because of the witch hunting that is going on. They live in Cumbria but Altha is taken to Lancaster, which really did have witch trials in the seventeenth century. I liked this blending of truth and fiction. 

The next oldest past is set in 1942. Violet is sixteen years old and lives at Orton Hall in Cumbria with her strict father and her brother, Graham. Graham is away at Harrow most of the time, and Violet is never allowed to leave the gardens of the hall. She is obsessed with nature - she can hear the flies and the clicks of her pet spider - but her father won't educate her and just wants her to marry well. He doesn't want her to turn out 'like her mother', who died when she and Graham were just tiny. Their cousin Frederick is coming to visit, and it becomes obvious that Violet's father wants to match the two of them. Violet isn't a witch - is she? 

The third strand is set in the current day and concerns Kate, Violet's great niece. Violet dies and leaves Kate her tiny cottage in Cumbria - Weyward Cottage. Kate has been there only once, when Graham died when she was a small child. Kate is in a relationship in London with Simon. He is abusive towards her - he tracks her phone, he hits her, he rapes her - and now she's pregnant. She didn't tell him that she had been left the cottage, so on discovering she is pregnant and unwilling to let Simon abuse the baby, she takes her car and drives up to Cumbria. There she begins to rebuild her life. It's obvious she has a lot of trauma because of the abuse and because of what happened to her dad when she was young. She has no idea about this history of her family, but she can discover it all in the tumbledown cottage. 

I really liked the book. I liked all three women and the different but difficult circumstances they have all found themselves in. Each period was really well written, too. Mostly the men are terrible but I did really like Graham, too - he's a bit clueless to begin with but he comes through for his sister at the end. I liked the magic realism within; witches are real and can do strange things, if they just know how to harness their power. I'm giving this five out of five. 

Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin - Review

I picked this book up in February in Edinburgh. I was staying with a friend and she had to work, so one day I went to Portobello Bookshop in Portobello to spend a voucher that I had been given for my birthday. I picked up four books and this was one of them! It was actually the first book I picked up in the shop. Recently I've had a few books that I've 'had' to read and it's been a bit of a slog, so I picked this one up because I really wanted to read it. I wanted to treat myself, as it were. And I ended up loving it and sped through it, so it was the perfect thing I needed!

The book starts in 1978 in Vietnam. Anh, Minh, and Thanh are packing to leave. They are the eldest children in a family with seven children - Mai, Van, Hoang, and Dao - and their parents. The war has ended and many Vietnamese are leaving the country. Anh's dad's brother is already in the United States, in New Haven, so the family is planning to emmigrate, via Hong Kong. Anh and her brothers will go first, and the other six will follow soon behind. 

Anh, Minh, and Thanh arrive in Hong Kong and are taken to a camp. There they will stay, waiting for their parents. They make friends with a young boy in their hut, Duc, and his grandmother, Ba (I apologise for not being able to put the correct accents over the letters in some of these names). Then they are told that their family has died. Anh identifies the bodies of her parents and siblings; they are buried in Hong Kong. Workers from the camp ask Anh if she has any relatives in America but Anh says no because she blames her uncle for her dad wanting to leave Vietnam. She's angry with him, so says no. Because of that, the children's application for refugee status in the US is denied, and instead, they are sent to England.

They arrive into freezing cold weather and have to stay at first in a similar camp in the south. There they are taught English and experience snow for the first time. By this time Anh is about eighteen and the boys are at school. She is a seamstress. The family is moved to London, to a council flat in Peckham, not too far from Duc and Ba. They have to share the bed in the one bedroom there is. Minh kind of falls apart. Thanh is a clever student, but Anh isn't sure that she can get him to university. Anh works in a clothing factory. It's Thatcher's Britain, the mid 80s, and being an immigrant isn't easy. 

The book is quite a saga - it moves on vastly in time and we see Anh as a much older woman. I really liked her - she was trying to do the right thing by everyone all the time, while being extremely young and having lived through a ton of trauma herself. I liked her brothers too; I felt for both of them. It's not just a story about this family but it's about a lot of families who have lived through similar trauma and who have come to the UK for a safe haven. 

Part of the book is also sort of free verse from Dao's point of view - from the point of view of a small child who is now a ghost and who is watching his surviving siblings from the afterlife. I liked this - it points towards the family's religious beliefs and the ceremony that they perform to remember their dead ancestors. I love this stuff.

This is a brilliant book and I would urge you all to read it. I'm giving itr five out of five. 

Into the Lion's Mouth by Nancy McConnell - Spotlight and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for Into the Lion's Mouth by Nancy McConnell! It's a pleasure to welcome you here - please do have a click around and read some of my other reviews. 

I'm sorry that I didn't get round to reading this book before today. Life got away from me and I just wasn't able to get to it. So instead I'm doing a spotlight for this book which I hope you like and which I hope shows the book off! I am still hopeful I'll read it soon, in which case I'll review it here of course. 

This was one of the BBNYA books this year. If you don't know what that is, it's a competition where book bloggers read and rate books written by independent authors. There are fifteen finalists and one overall winner. I have been a panellist before but didn't sign up this year as I was just too busy. But it is a brilliant initiative and I would urge you to get involved if you're interested! 

BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

This book is a historical middle grade book. I really liked the blurb which is why I signed up, especially as it's set in Venice which I love. Please have a look at the information below, and please do check out some of the other stops on this tour!

Blurb

Venice is sinking, so they say.

And so are Nico's chances to prosper in the most glorious city in the world. Nurse Francesca is threatening to send him to a farm to pick olives, he has failed at two apprenticeships, and one of the most powerful men in Venice would like to sink Nico's lifeless body into the darkest canal. Orphans have very few options and Nico might be forced to choose the one he most wishes to avoid, leaving Venice behind forever.

Author Bio

Nancy McConnell grew up in a little family, in a small town on the outskirts of a bigger city. Besides her family, the two things she loved most in the world were: reading and playing pretend. When she grew up, reading was allowed but playing pretend was sometimes frowned upon. Since that was the case, she decided to write books so that the stories running around in her head would still live. In between writing stories, marrying her college sweetheart, and moving to a new country, she had her own little family and settled in another small town on the way outskirts of a much bigger city. Some things never change. When not writing, Nancy can be found puttering in her garden, taking photos or baking.

Follow Nancy on Instagram @nancywrites66, on Twitter @nancyemcc, and on Facebook @nancywrites4kids or visit her website nancymcconnell.com.

The Household by Stacey Halls - Review

You know I've read and enjoyed a couple of others of Stacey's books, so when I saw this on Netgalley I requested it straight away. I am so thankful to Bonnier Books for granting access to me! This book will be published on the 11th of April, so only a couple of months away. I was provided with an electronic copy of this book for review purposes but was not otherwise compensated for this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

The book blends reality with fiction in a really brilliant way. One of the things we talk about at book club a lot is about when or where or if it is possible and ethical to write books about real people. My overarching feeling is that it's fine if it's long enough ago, if the people in question don't have heirs and relatives who are still alive. For instance, writing about Queen Victoria likely doesn't matter now, but writing about Queen Elizabeth II would have different ramifications. I know other people may have different lines here but that's where I am on it. I actually really wish I had chosen this for a book club book because I think we would have loved it. I've told everyone to read it!

So apparently in 1847 Charles Dickens and a woman called Angela Coutts put a load of money in to open up a thing called Urania Cottage. It aimed to take 'fallen women' who had been in prison or involved in prostitution or whatever, and train them up, out of the eyes of everyone else, for a life in service. The idea was to get them away from the problems and temptations of their former lives, and reform them into 'good' women. This was a real place and it really did do some of these things! Angela Coutts was a very wealthy heiress and she is one of the main characters in this book. Charles Dickens is also in it but barely appears, which I think was a good shout for the author. As Angela is much less well known it's easy to shape her into a character the reader cares about. 

Angela lives in a huge mansion near Regents Park and is accompanied by her old governess, Mrs Brown, and her husband, Dr Brown. Angela appears to live a charmed life - she is rich, she throws parties, she is fond of a duke who keeps rebuffing her offers of marriage (who, as I read later, is supposed to be the Duke of Wellington, but he's not named as such in the book). But she has a stalker, Richard Dunn. He has done many things to scare and threaten her and has spent time in prison for it, but at the beginning of the book he is released and Angela has to live under the threat of him again. She has police guarding her, but she's obviously still worried. 

She gets involved in Urania Cottage. The matron, Mrs Holdsworth, is stern but fair. Some of the first 'inmates' are Josephine and Martha. It's not exactly a prison, but there are very strict rules. The women are given a lot of luxuries, though, and lots of education and some freedoms. 

Josephine has been in prison - due to poverty - and there, has started a relationship with a woman called Annie. They are both offered the chance to go to Urania Cottage, where they will be trained to be servants, and from there, they will be deported to Australia to start lives there. It's a pretty good deal and Josephine jumps at the chance. Another woman there is Martha, who has spent time in a Magdalen Laundry, although her specific circumstances aren't spelt out. She is desperate to get back in touch with her sisters, Mary and Emily, but she can only find Mary. She enlists the help of Mrs Holdsworth's son, Frank, and also that of the home's chaplain, Mr Bryant. 

This is a really twisty and turny book and I was so intrigued to find out where it would go. I didn't guess a lot of the twists which was great and I was really pleased by them, they felt satisfying. There's a lot of characters which would be my only critcism, but the book also has a lot of scope so a lot of the characters are needed. It's a really interesting look at poverty in the middle of the 1900s, too, and I also really liked the descriptions of London and bits that are now definitely London but weren't then, like Shepherd's Bush. It felt like very really settings. 

In all I'm giving this five out of five as I really liked it. Thank you for the access, Bonnier Books! 

The Wages of Sin by Kaite Welsh - Review

 

This book was one of my Christmas swap gifts, and I was intrigued by it as I hadn't heard of the author before and I like crime fiction, as you know. I picked this up on the 10th of January because I'm trying really hard to read all my Christmas books. This book took me about a hundred pages to get into, but after that, I really got into it and read it really quickly. I desperately wanted to unravel the mystery and learn whodunnit. My Santa sender also sent me the next in this series, so I will look forward to that. 

So, the book is set in 1892. Sarah Gilchrist is in her late twenties and she is at Edinburgh University training to become a doctor. She is one of the first female cohorts of students. There are just twelve female medical students, and they are accompanied everywhere by suitable chaperones. Their very presence at the university is contentious - the male students don't like them and even the professors aren't very keen. Sarah desperately wants to become a doctor. She had been studying in London, but then something happened which derailed her reputation, and instead, she's been exiled to her aunt and uncle's house in Edinburgh.

You see, Sarah is a lady, she's aristocracy, and not too long ago she was at a party and went into an empty library where she was rapedby a man called Paul. The word rape is never used, and the narrative is not graphic about it, but it's obvious that's what happened. However, it was spun that Sarah was a willing participant and so she has been derided as a slut. She spent some time in hospital but her parents have abandoned her and she isn't allowed to contact her sister. She is living with her Aunt Emily and Uncle Hugh. Emily is harsh with her, treating her like both a small child and a wanton whore. Sarah is allowed to go to lectures and that's basically it.

Except, she is also allowed to do some work in a clinic, in the slums of Edinburgh, which looks after women and children. Fiona Leadbetter set up the clinic and Sarah thinks she's marvellous. They look after many, many women, many of whom are prostitutes. They help a girl called Lucy; she asks for an abortion but Fiona sends her away, saying she can't do that. 

But then, very soon afterwards, Lucy turns up on the slab at the medical school. Sarah is obviously scared and upset that the body is of someone she knows. She is convinced there are defensive injuries on Lucy, and that Lucy did not die of a self administered overdose of laudunum, but was murdered. She starts to look into who may have known Lucy, and finds that one of her professors, Gregory Merchiston, is a punter in the brothel where Lucy worked. Investigating, though, will lead her into dangerous areas and will get her education and even her life threatened. 

I liked the mystery a lot, and I liked the red herrings that were dropped and who the murderer was. I liked the feminist nature of Sarah's education and her being at university in the first place. I likesd her character and how she just wouldn't give up. I liked the feminist commentary around poverty and women's rights and so on (which just about stopped Sarah from being a bit of a White Saviour). I'm giving this four out of five as I really enjoyed it!

Jiddy Vardy by Ruth Estevez - Review and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my stop on the tour for Jiddy Vardy by Ruth Estevez. My post was supposed to go up yesterday but unfortunately something happened in my personal life and I didn't get round to it. I'm very sorry, but I really did enjoy this book and am glad to be on the tour!

The book is sat in the late 1700s and starts on a ship where a baby has just been born, to Maria, who is only sixteen herself. Pirates board the ship and the baby is put in a cupboard to hide her, and the captain, Captain Pinkney, takes over the ship. Maria is terrified, of course... 

Then we meet up with the baby, Jiddy, first of all when she is eight years old, when she is bullied by some other girls for being different, and then when she is sixteen. She was adopted by Mary and her husband, who are poor people who live in Robin Hood's Bay on the north coast of Yorkshire. They are also involved in the local smuggling ring, and Jiddy gets involved too. She is darker skinned and haired than everyone else in Robin Hood's Bay and is bullied for that, especially by one local girl, Nellie. She gets the chance to work for the local lady of the manor and has to go up against Nellie for the chance. 

She knows smuggling is wrong but she also resents the local military who are trying to stop it. They are preventives (I don't know a lot of the military history but it was interesting) but then they get replaced by dragoons who, it seems, are meaner, nastier, and just a lot worse. But Jiddy's life crashes up against one in particular... 

She has been half in love with a local farm boy, Jonas, since she was very little, but the two start getting a lot closer over the course of the book. 

I liked the story a lot. I liked Jiddy and how full of life she was. I loved the setting as I know Robin Hood's Bay and think it's a beautiful part of the world. My only critique is that a LOT happened in the pages, but I do get it. I am giving this four out of five and really recommend it!

The third book in this series came out on the 2nd of December, and I would utterly recommend it. Here's the blurb for it:

When the sea can’t be put on trial for murder, who must pay the price?

 

A smuggler with a conscience, the defiant and contradictory Jiddy Vardy sets out to find choices and freedom for local girls worn thin by poverty.

 

Caught in the net that is Robin Hood’s Bay, Jiddy looks to majestic York, little realising that even loved ones can cage you when they think they are offering the chance of a lifetime.

Head inland to the promise of work, out to sea to the unknown, or stay in a close-knit community of smugglers and familiar faces?

What’s it to be for our endlessly curious, yet ultimately open-hearted Jiddy Vardy?

Rizzio by Denise Mina - Review

I got this book from the library because it caught my eye on a shelf end as I was walking in one day! I've met Denise Mina but have never read anything by her so I thought I would change that. This book is historical fiction and tells some real events that happened in the life of Mary, Queen of Scots. I don't know too much about her life at all, although I have read another book which looks at the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley, but I can't for the life in me remember what book that is, right now. I had forgotten about him, entirely, though. But anyway he is her husband and she is pregnant. They live in Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, but the country is changing. There are Protestants who want power, and there's Elizabeth on the throne in England. Mary's child will have just as much a claim to the English throne as Elizabeth because Mary and Darnley share a grandmother (and in fact he did inherit the throne and unified England and Scotland - he was James VI of Scotland and James I of England, if you're not familiar with him). Darnley is a total rotter though and he has sold Mary out. He is jealous of her friend, Rizzio, who is Italian, so conspires with other noblemen to murder him.

Mary is in her apartments eating when the conspirators break in. They hold her at gunpoint and murder Rizzio. He ends up with so many stab wounds that no one is sure exactly which killed him. Mary is obviously hugely betrayed by Darnley but knows she has to escape with her life and the life of her baby, so she knows she has to keep Darnley on side. The other nobles turn on him, next, and they are also interrupted by the city's keepers, who turn up asking what's going on at the palace. Mary has to escape to people who are loyal to her, and she is helped in this by one of her ladies in waiting, whose husband she had recently executed. Aren't old royals absolutely bonkers? I'm not sure exactly what was true and what wasn't in this book and that's aboslutely fine because I liked it and was entertained by it anyway!

The book is a novella, so only short, and the writing is rich, and you can imagine exactly the palace and everything inside it. Denise also writes poetry and I tihnk that shows. The narrative is meta in parts, where the chapter titles tell the reader what is going to happen, and where the prose sometimes says things like 'this will happen later'. I think it's really effective and especially when portraying something that really happened in the past. The book is part of a 'dark tales' series about Scottish history so I think it's really effective in getting that across to the reader. In all I'm giving this five out of five and I would read other things in the same series! 

The Vengeance of Samuel Val by Elyse Hoffman - Review and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for The Vengeance of Samuel Val by Elyse Hoffman! It is a pleasure to welcome you here. Please do have a click round and read some of my other reviews. 

So this is a novella and I think it counts as Young Adult because Samuel is himself a young adult through the book. The book is set in World War Two. Samuel is Jewish and he is in synagogue one morning with his family - mother, father, and three little sisters - when one his sisters needs something from home. He goes to find it, but while he is gone the Nazis move in and set fire to the synagogue, killing everyone inside. Samuel runs to the scene, but is shot by a Nazi leader. Samuel is Russian and his entire village is gone. 

He is saved by the Black Foxes, an underground resistance movement. He swears vengeance on the Nazi, but he also gets involved in the resistance movement and is given the task of getting a fellow Jew to safety. He escapes prison in an SS uniform, with the other person, Amos, alongside. He has to get Amos to safety with another Black Fox, but as he does, he gets the chance to take his revenge. Will he do it? 

I liked this novella and would read something else by the same author definitely! You know I like World War Two fiction anyway, and especially that to do with the Jewish experience of such. This is a good addition to the work, especially because of the age of the protagonist. I'm giving this four out of five. Thank you so much for having me along on the tour!