Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - Review

Demon Copperhead was the February choice for my book club, and I started listening to it way back in January. I had finished Cuddy in good time before our meeting, so I decided to start this. It is LONG, it's like 23 hours of audiobook time. So I was getting a good start, I thought!

But then, it's just SO depressing. I didn't realise that it's meant to be a modern retelling of David Copperfield, set in the 90s in the opiate addiction crisis in the south of the USA. Maybe if I had known that to begin with I would know what I was getting into, but I didn't, so. Not that I am particularly familiar with the plot of David Copperfield, but I do know it's depressing, so that might have helped. 

Demon is the protagonist of the novel and it's all told from his point of view. His real name is Damon, but most kids call him Demon. He lives with his mom in a trailer on land belonging to the Peggots. She is a teen mother and an addict. Demon gets close to the Peggots' grandson, Matt, whose mom is in prison. He is better known as Maggot and he becomes a goth teenager which was quite funny. 

Demon's dad died before he was born, and there's little other family around. Life is hard. Then his mother takes up with a guy called Stoner who is incredibly abusive towards Demon. His mom overdoses and goes to rehab and Demon enters foster care for the first time. He is with an old farmer nicknamed Creaky, who has four boys in his care and who is abusive towards each of them. The eldest one, Fast Forward, is popular and the others dote on him. He introduces them to drugs. 

Demon's mother overdoses again and dies, and Stoner takes off so Demon ends up in foster care with a family only in it for the money. He is forced to sleep in the dog room and is starved by the family. He works for a man called Ghali and manages to save up some money. Just before his foster family move a way away, Demon takes off, determined to hitchhike to Tennessee to find his dad's mother. He considers Knoxville, where Maggot's aunt and cousin live, but ends up in Tennessee. He finds his grandma and spends a few happy weeks with her and her disabled brother, but ultimately they can't keep him. But they find better foster care for him, in the shape of Coach and his daughter Angus, who are vaguely family. 

Demon is good at football and Coach starts to whip him in to shape as a star player. As he moves into high school he is quite popular because he plays for the team, and he meets a girl called Dori. He injures his knee playing football and thus begins an addiction to opioids himself. I know that he ends up with Dori for a while, but unfortunately I don't know the end of the book because I had to give up on it. It is SO depressing. I liked Demon a lot and felt for him, but everything just kept going wrong and even when it went mostly right - like when he's living with Coach and Angus - he sabotages it and then life shits on him some more. I just couldn't listen to more than just over half. I'm counting it though because I listened to over half of it, so there. Three out of five. 

 

The Chemist by A A Dhand - Review

I bought this book at the crime book festival that I went to at the end of January. A A Dhand was there, and I didn't realise he was the author of the TV series Virdee, which is set in Bradford and which I watched a few episodes of. He was talking about this, his new book, and I liked the sound of it so I bought it and got him to sign it for me. He is a really lovely person, but I didn't enjoy the book that much.

It's about a pharmacist, Idris, who has a pharmacy in Headingley in Leeds. He is married to Maryam, a GP, but he has an ex wife, Rebecca, who he is still in touch with and who he's still fond of. He deals a lot with methadone users - who come to the pharmacy daily to take their methadone under supervision - and he has a lot to do with the local sex workers of Beeston. Rebecca does too as part of her job, so when a sex worker called Amy calls on her, Rebecca goes to help. 

Amy's punter was a man called Patrick, who is part of a big crime family, and he's just got out of prison. He tries to pull a fast one on Amy, she calls Rebecca, and Rebecca kills him. Then she phones Idris for help. He does indeed try to cover it up, with the help of a local called Al, a Syrian refugee, who is a drug runner inside a notorious load of high rise flats called The Moorings. Idris has been blackmailed into providing drugs for the estate, because his money is in short supply and he is scared of the kingpins there. 

It's a very complicated and convoluted plot and it was just so confusing for me. Then there's a few people whose names are really similar - for example two men called Daniel and Damon - which made it hard to keep them straight in my head. Every time I thought the plot surely had to be over now, something else would pop up and someone else would come along and threaten Idris and he would have to make even stupider decisions. 

I did like Idris and I liked Rebecca as well. I couldn't tell you if I liked Maryam (I'm not even certain on the spelling of her name) because she's in it for like two scenes. I understand that this book is the first part of a series and I would like to read more for Idris, but I am just not putting myself through it again. It's way too complicated for me. 

Two out of five. 

Winter by Val McDermid - Review

I got this book with one of my Waterstones vouchers, I bought it not long after Christmas in my haul then, and I knew I wanted to read it before this winter was over. I kept meaning to pick it up and finally got round to it at the beginning of March. I don't know about you, but winter returned with a vengeance at the beginning of March - we had sleet, hail, and tons of wind! So it was perfect to read this book then. 

This is only a short book and apparently it's one of a series on each of the seasons, by different authors. I would really like to read the other ones so maybe I'll seek them out. My review won't be very long because it really is a short book, but I really enjoyed it, and recommend it. 

Apparently Val settles down each winter to write a new novel, so it's a time of creativity for her, a time to hunker down and work. I really liked knowing that about her writing structure, it was interesting as I've read a lot of her novels. She also writes a lot about her Scottish childhood and the brutality and beauty of a Scottish winter. I found her writing really evocative of the time and space and learnt a lot about Scotland in the 1950s and 60s. Did you know for example that the puritanical church didn't celebrate Christmas so it wasn't a bank holiday in Scotland until the mid 1960s, which explains why they celebrated New Year/Hogmanay so much more! So interesting. 

I lent the book to my friend Morag, who I go to craft club with, and who is only a couple of years old than Val. She is Scottish herself - obviously, with a name like Morag - and I thought she would find it really interesting and evocative of her own childhood too. 

I'm giving it five out of five and will definitely read it again!

Murder Before Evensong by Richard Coles - Review

I of course have heard of Richard Coles' books and I even caught one episode of the TV show and quite liked it, but I wouldn't have picked up the book ever I don't think. But someone chose it for our book club choice in March, so I got it to read. And I didn't rate it at all and definitely won't bother reading any more of his books! Hey, at least I know that now. By the time you read this I will have been to book club and I am interested to see what other people thought of it, because I just didn't like it much.

I know Richard is a Church of England vicar of course and some of the stuff about the inner workings of the church was both interesting and funny, but I felt there was too much of it that it bogged down the book. The main character is Canon Daniel Clement. His parish is semi rural and has a typical parish church. There are the flower ladies and the local archivist and the local teachers etc, and there's also the Lord of the manor up at the big house, who is the patron of the church. Daniel is considering putting a toilet into the church - which was a whole thing in the C of E like thirty five years ago - and the flower ladies are outraged because they want a bigger room and because the pews - oh god, the pews - are historic, blah blah blah. Daniel thinks this will be his biggest problem but then Anthony, cousin to his lordship, is found murdered in the pews (oh god, the pews!!!). 

Daniel lives with his mother, Audrey, who is a gossipy woman who worries about his far too much, and they're also joined by his brother Theo, who is an actor. He's about to be a vicar in a TV show so he's keen to shadow Daniel but he's kind of just in the way. There is a lot about the gossipy old women of the village which I did enjoy; they're very true to life and I loved how they tried to get one up on each other. The manor house was a convalescence home during World War Two, so there's a lot of history there which becomes pertinent to the plot. 

I was confused by the sheer number of characters, some of whom have very similar names, so I think there could have been some cut out there. I was confused about the time period too, I found it very hard to decide when the book was set. I decided on around 1990, but I'm really not sure. I would have liked something concrete about that. 

I'm giving this three out of five ish in general. I didn't hate it but it needed a better edit and the story got bogged down in places. 

The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas - Review

 

I bought this recently when I was browsing in Waterstones with a voucher. The blurb appealed to me so I thought I'd give it a go. I've never heard of Scarlett Thomas and was intrigued; I love to discover new authors so it was worth a shot. 

However, I didn't like the book very much. I thought it was confusing and trying too hard to be better than it was, to have like a twist in the tale to make the reader rethink the whole book. But this didn't happen, so it didn't work. 

The book is told in a few different media, which adds to the confusion. The first, longest part, is a letter from Evelyn to her new husband, Richard. They are on their honeymoon on a Greek island and have arrived at a villa owned by Isabella. Something happened at their wedding that neither of them want to talk about. They spent the first week of their honeymoon with Richard's best friend Paul, and his latest girlfriend, Becky. The four of them had fun together in their cheap hotel, sunbathing all day and then eating at the local taverna all night. But Paul and Becky have left and Evelyn and Richard have gone to the villa. The stay was a wedding present from Richard's parents and Evelyn is not thrilled. 

Isabella is odd, and the honeymoon suite is odd too. Evelyn would like another room but is told only that one is available. One day she leaves a not for Richard which then disappears; things like this keep happening. Isabella gives her the cold shoulder while showering affection on Richard. He gets a full English breakfast and when Evelyn asks for fruit she gets just unripe melon. She's uncomfortable and wants to leave but Richard makes out like she's just overreacting. 

Then there is the story of the sleepwalkers. The year previously, at the end of the summer season, just before the annual storm rolled in, an older couple were staying in the villa. James, the husband, who was experiencing some kind of religious delusion, went for a walk and ended up in the sea, and Claire (I think that was her name) followed him, and they both ended up drowned. Evelyn is disturbed by the story. She's also obsessed with some young people who she keeps seeing around the place; she thinks they're some kind of Turkish pop band. This part of the story just seemed totally irrelevant and although it was resolved at the end I don't think it was done to justice.

The second part of the book is Richard's letter to Evelyn, which reveals what happened at the wedding, which is a massive secret; I liked this part of the book a lot. Richard is unlikeable but his part reveals that Evelyn isn't the innocent she pays herself as either. She used to be the housekeeper for his parents, which adds a different spin on their relationship.

The next bits of the book are some transcripts and some half scribbled notes. I didn't feel like this worked a lot, it just left me a bit cold. The last part is another letter, but how it ended just really annoyed me. I'm giving this two and a half out of five. 

A Spot of Folly by Ruth Rendell - Review

After I enjoyed the Ruth Rendell book Shake Hands For Ever back in October, I thought I would like to read something else by her so I reserved three books by her from the library. I then renewed those loans a bunch of times, but never mind, that's what libraries are for! I did however pick this book up eventually at the end of February. 

I really enjoyed it. It's a book of short stories and they all kept my interest and were amusing. They all seemed typical of the type of people that she would write novels about - posh middle Englanders in somewhat boring marriages in a lot of cases. A lot of the stories had a twist in the tale with unexpected endings, or endings that make the reader go Ohhhh. I love short stories like that. 

There's also a ghost story which I really liked. There's a long story about a woman who steals things from people who have annoyed her. That comes back to bite her in the bum in a really unusual way; I thought it was well done. One of the stories was written under Rendell's pen name, Barbara Vine, which was interesting to read too. 

In general this was a good read, just the kind of thing I needed. I'm giving it four out of five. 

Girls to the Front by Lucy Nichol - Review

I got this book from my Secret Santa at Christmas, but I know who that was! For the past couple of years, Lee's family has done a secret Santa where each adult just buys presents for one other adult, up to the value of £60. It makes things a lot cheaper, and it means each adult can choose things they'd really like. in 2025 Lee and I chose a new toaster and kettle that we wanted for our kitchen, but they were only £30 so we could choose other things we wanted too. I said I would  like champagne because I love champagne. My Santa was Libby, one of my sisters in law, who knows I love books. She got me the kettle, a bottle of champagne that I have not yet drunk, and this book. It's set in the north east where Lee's family is from, and where Libby lives, and I really appreciated that! 

The beginning of the book sees a woman called Roma in police custody. She is lying about what happened with the body she has been found with, but is obviously covering for someone. We then go back to a few weeks ago in Roma's story. She works at a place called Electric Dreams which sells old video games and DVDs and stuff. Roma had some kind of breakdown previously and had to leave her graduate job, so she works there instead of something more stressful. She enjoys the work and her colleagues though. She lives with her two best friends, Jonny and Leila, and they definitely care for each other and all of that. 

At work they often get given boxes of house clearance stuff. In one such box, Roma discovers a home video accompanied by a menacing note. She is intrigued and goes to some trouble to watch the video (which is like thirty years old by the time she finds it). On it, there is a video of a young woman passed out on a sofa in a hotel room, and some men talking about how they're going to assault her. The accompanying note identifies these men as members of the band The Razor Heads, who often played in a local venue. Roma is disturbed by what she has seen and is determined to take the video to the police. She begins to get a bit obsessed with discovering what happened to the woman on the video, and her flatmates are concerned about her. 

In a parallel narrative, Kat is a mature student in 1995. She is friends with a younger student called Alison. They go to see the Razor Heads and while there, Alison decides to crowd surf. As she is doing it, she is assaulted by random hands in the crowd, including sexually assaulted. She is obviously upset and shaken up. Kat realises that there is a problem with the band and with the venue. She starts to investigate, as she's a writer on the student newspaper, and discovers loads of girls with similar complaints. She is a bit of a loner and is a bit witchy and fierce too. 

I liked both narratives and loved how they came together. This book is described as feminist and thrilling with a 90s nostalgia thing, and it definitely did all that for me. I liked it a lot and am giving it four out of five.