F.O.X.E.S by M A Bennett - Review

Warning: review contains spoilers for previous books in the series

Where did I get it? I got it as a present from my mum and stepdad for Christmas - I asked for it as I've read the other two in the series.

You can read my review for STAGS here and my review for DOGS here. 

What's it about? We're back with Greer and Shafeen and Nel. The book starts just after the end of DOGS, when Greer has been found guilty of murdering Henry at the end of book 1, and has been branded on her thumb with an M, saying she is a manslayer. However, in hospital, she is convinced she had a visit from Henry and that he is alive. She can't convince Nel and Shafeen though. So all three of them decide to go to Henry's family's London house to ask his parents.

Cumberland Place backs on to Regent's Park and is absolutely huge. Henry's parents. Rollo and Caro, are there, along with their faithful butler, Bates. Caro keeps talking about Henry in the present tense, as if he is still alive, and at night she comes into his bedroom - where Greer is staying - while sleepwalking. 

Then Ty, who was introduced in DOGS, tells Greer and co to look into 'foxes'. They can't get hold of her after that, but it seems like everywhere they turn, there's a fox. There are foxes on the walls in Greer and Shafeen's bedrooms, and Rollo is a member of the House of Lords and is trying to overturn the ban on fox hunting with dogs. It's just before Christmas and he is convinced he will be able to hold a fox hunt at Longcross on Boxing Day, as is tradition. He takes Shafeen under his wing and takes all three of them to the STAGS club in parliament.

However, all three are uneasy, mostly for the reasons that they don't fit in amongst the privileged students at STAGS in the first place. They begin to believe that actually the hunt will be a Ty hunt - so they must go to Longcross to save her. 

I thought that this book would be the final in the series, but I was almost three quarters of the way through and not much had happened, and at the end there's a definitey cliffhanger - there HAS to be at least one more book in the series, right?! I can't believe there won't be more to Greer's story. I'm excited to see what happens!

I really enjoyed the book BECAUSE not a lot happens. There's a proper middle book feel to it, and lots of chatting, and lots of Greer, Shafeen and Nel doing ridiculous posh things. I couldn't believe how things unfolded and how deep the Order went. I love this series. 

What age range is it for? 15+

Are any main characters LGBTQ+? No 

Are any main characters people of colour? Yes, Shafeen is Indian and this difference is shown a few times, I like this subplot 

Are any main characters disabled either mentally or physically? I think Greer has some PTSD going on, and Caro definitely does. 

Is there any sex stuff? No 

Are drugs mentioned or used? No I don't think so. 

Is there any talk of death? Yes, but it's not graphic 

Are there swear words? No 

 

What criticisms do I have? Almost none! I was quite surprised at how little happened, but then I'm happy because there must be another book to read!

Would I recommend the book? Yes. Start at the beginning if you haven't read them all. It's a good series. 

Why did I choose to read it at this point in life? I just really wanted to read it soon! 

 

What do I think of the cover? It's great, it is a bit darker than the other two but still fits in with the theme.  

What other books is it like? The other two! 

How many stars? Five out of five 

 

Where is the book going now? I'll keep it - I really hope to meet M A Bennett one day and get her to sign my copies of her books! 

The Catch by T M Logan - Review

I read The Holiday by T M Logan last year, and I'd been seeing people in a book group I'm in raving about The Catch, so I got it on my ereader and read it in just one day. That's not because it's very good, but it is compelling and I did want to know what happened. Like in The Holiday, most people in this book are terrible humans with too many privileges who do not deserve your sympathy.

The book starts when Ed, aged nearly fifty, is sitting in his back garden (where he just happens to have a badminton court) watching his daughter Abbie play her new boyfriend, Ryan. Abbie is around 24 and Ryan is a decade older than her. Abbie lives with her parents. Ed is very unsure of Ryan, suspecting that there's something 'off' about him, some kind of deadness about the eyes. At the end of the afternoon, Abbie and Ryan reveal that not only are they engaged, but they are going to get married in just five weeks' time.

On paper Ryan seems perfect - he got a first class degree from Manchester University, he served five years in the army including two tours of Afghanistan, and he volunteers in a hospice because his mother died of cancer and he wants to give something back. But Ed still doesn't trust him. Claire, his wife, tells him to not be so stupid, and says he'll upset Abbie if he carries on behaving irrationally.  

Ed decides that he must move fast and begins leaving work early to stalk Ryan. He puts a GPS tracker on Ryan's car and finds out that Ryan a) visits a 'dodgy' house on a 'dodgy' estate on the outskirts of Nottingham, visits a red light area, and also doesn't visit Manchester every second Sunday of the month like he says he does. He still can't find any concrete proof, so he hires a private investigator to do the work for him. He also begins to suspect that things aren't right at home - the cat is skittish, there seems to be eau de cologne in the air, and he can't find things. 

The first half of the book shows Ed spiralling, and the reader does believe him and he does find out some dodgy things about Ryan. The second half of the book got stupid and unbelievable and I didn't enjoy it. I'm giving this three out of five. 

Things To Do Before the End of the World by Emily Barr - Blog Tour and Review

Hello and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Things To Do Before the End of the World by Emily Barr! It's a pleasure to welcome you. If you haven't been here before please do have a click round and read some of my other reviews!

I frst read Emily Barr books when I was at university. She was writing 'chick lit' then, for adults, and I read Cuban Heels, Baggage, and Backpack, I think. Even though she was labelled as 'chick lit' I don't feel like it was at all - the books started off quite happy and jolly but quickly turned into something darker. I read Stranded in 2012, and when I heard a few years ago that Emily had started writing YA, I was keen to read her new stuff. I read The One Memory of Flora Banks in 2017 and The Truth and Lies of Ella Black in 2018, and enjoyed both. So when I got the chance to be included in this blog tour I jumped at it!

So the hero of the book is Libby, who is seventeen. At the beginning of the book, it's December, and she is walking through a park when she learns - along with the seven and a half billion other people on earth - that the world is going to end in nine months. It's something to do with the permafrost melting and releasing too much carbon dioxide, which will mean that humans can no longer breathe properly and will die. All life will be wiped out. 

Libby grieves for a little bit but then decides to do things out of her comfort zone for her last months on earth. She auditions for the college play, and ends up playing Juliet opposite the girl she has a crush on, Zoe. She is generally quite shy and keeps to herself, but tries to change herself. She lives with her mum and stepdad, Sean. She also has her dad, and his fourth wife, Anneka, and her half siblings Sofie and Hans-Erik. Some people don't think the world will actually end, that scientists will sort it out, but everyone is in kind of a fever about it. 

In the beginning of the next year, Libby's dad tells her that he had a brother, Andy, who he was estranged from and who has died in a car crash. He has left all his money to Libby and her dad. He also has a daughter, Natasha, Libby's cousin. Libby's dad tells her she should do what she wants with the money, like travel over Europe during the summer, which is still available via train, and he encourages her to get in touch with Natasha.

The two start an email relationship. Natasha is the outgoing person Libby wishes she was. Natasha gives Libby some tasks to do, like go to a party where Zoe will be. 

Then, Libby and her mum and Sean decide to go to Spain to spend some time, and it's decided Natasha will join them later. She does arrive, and she and Libby have a great time together. But it's obvious something will go wrong. And it does, spectacularly. I loved it, I liked what happened and how chaotic the world was and all of that.

I liked Libby and really wanted her to be okay. I liked the ending of the book a lot. For a depressing book it's quite uplifting! I utterly recommend this, and am giving it a very good four out of five. 

The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson - Review

This book was the April choice for my book club, and I wasn't looking forward to it at all because it just didn't seem like my kind of thing at all. But I bought it on eBay for a few quid and decided to pick it up at the end of March. This was well in time for the meeting, which is the third Wednesday of April, but meant that if I didn't like it I could pass the book on to someone else in my group. 

I ended up loving it. It WASN'T my kind of thing at all but I really liked it. 

It's about a true thing that happened in the 1620s - ships of Turkish pirates arrived on Iceland's coastline and took more than four hundred Icelanders as captives and put them in ships to take them to Algiers, on North Africa's coastline. One of the captives, a priest called Olafur Egilsson, managed to return to Iceland after petitioning the king of Denmark, Christian IV, to pay the ransom of other captives. Christian refused, but in 1637 thirty four captives did manage to return to Iceland. The priest's wife, Asta, was among them.

(I can't do the accents that the Icelandic language has on some letters, and I'm really sorry about that)

So building off what was true, Sally Magnusson has imagined the life of Asta. At the beginning of the book she is pregnant with her fourth child - her eldest is on a different island and is married, and her second and third children live with her and Olafur. Olafur is older than her and has children from his first marriage. The Barbary pirates arrive on the island, ambushing the inhabitants. They kill some people on sight and take Olafur's entire family on to their boat. While on the month long trip from Iceland to Algiers, Asta gives birth to her son, who she and Olafur name Jon. 

In Algiers, their elder son Egill is taken to the pasha's palace immediately. Everyone else is taken to the house of Ali Pitterling Cilleby, a Moorish man who has a harem and two wives. Olafur is soon freed to go back to Denmark to ask for the ransom of his family and others, but the other three are left there. Asta has an easier life than in cold, damp, poverty stricken Iceland, but she is not free. Her children are not free. She fears them converting to Islam and that their souls will not be welcome in Christian heaven. She is summoned to Cilleby's bedroom and there, she begins to tell him sagas and stories from her homeland. 

The book is set so long ago but it feels so modern. I could picture the houses perfectly; I could smell the perfume in Algiers and the stench of the ship. I felt for Asta so much and wanted her to make the best choices. I loved hearing about this event in history and how truth was mixed with the fiction. I liked the sagas she told. I like her relationship with her children and with Olafur. I'm giving this five out of five because it's so good.

Fabulosa! The Story of Polari, Britain's Secret Gay Language by Paul Baker - Review

 

I had heard of this book a while ago, but then got reminded of it because someone I know read it recently, so I thought I would buy it when I had some credit to use. I picked it up quite soon after it arrived, because I wanted to read it.

So if you don't know what Polari is, it is as the subtitle says, a language used by primarily camp gay men throughout the 40s, 50s, 60s, and then it went into decline in the 70s. The author started his PhD on Polari in the late 90s, and he interviewed Polari speakers then. Since then he has become an expert on the subject, and he's written this witty, accessible, fun book about it. I was thinking it would be quite dry, but it's really not. I found the book really easy to read and raced through it. 

You will have heard some Polari words, like 'naff' and 'clobber' and maybe someone even complimented your 'dolly old eke' (your pretty face). I have heard some words, but it was nice to learn more. Plus there's lots of the history of Polari. It's a mixture of Thieves Cant, backslang, Italian, some words from Romany gypsy, and a few other bits. The history is fascinating, showing how all different groups of men, some who identified as gay and some who did not, added bits to it and made it their own. It was used as a secret language when men having sex with other men was literally illegal, and when the need to hide yourself was high. A lot of the words are focussed on looks, so you could talk about someone without them knowing about it, or on sex, which also makes sense. 

The author talks about how and why Polari faded from use, and why people are interested again now. He talks about the maybe most famous speakers of Polari - Julian and Sandy on a radio show called Round the Horne, which was broadcast in the 60s. He talks about the speakers in the 40s, 50s, and 60s and who they were. I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in queer history. I'm giving this five out of five. 

Keep My Secrets by Elena Wilkes - Blog Tour and Review

Hello and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Keep My Secrets by Elena Wilkes! If you haven't been here before, please do click around to see my other reviews. I read quite a lot of crime thrillers, it's one of my favourite genres and things being as they are in 2021 means that I'm trying to read things that make me happy because god knows everything else is rubbish. 

I heard the blurb for this book and thought it sounded interesting, so immediately wanted to sign up. Thank you to Hera Books for having me on the tour, and for providing me with an electronic copy of the book for review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

So, Frankie is thirty-three years old and lives on the Welsh border with her husband Alex. She is a social worker for kids in care and at the beginning of the book she's been up on a roof trying to persuade a teenager to come down. She ends up filthy and goes home ready to get in a hot bath. 

But, Frankie has secrets. She grew up in care after being abandoned as a child, and was a somewhat wayward teen. At seventeen, she started a relationship with a volunteer at the home she lived in. He was called Martin and they did seem to form a genuine connection. However, they also started breaking into houses together. On one such occasion they almost get caught and they run off together to a party. There, Martin meets a girl the same age as Frankie, called Charlotte. 

Charlotte ends up murdered, and Martin is prime suspect. He goes on trial, and is ultimately sentenced for murder. He has a sentence of fifteen years, and in the 'now' times, he's out of prison. And Frankie has a stalker. Someone is sending her strange notes, and keeps phoning her, and has even followed her. Frankie is genuinely frightened of Martin, and of Alex finding out the truth about her past. Alex has had a rough time due to the demise of his business, and he's got very paranoid of Frankie. He's convinced she's having an affair and is checking her possessions and her phone and handbag. He won't listen to her say she isn't having an affair, but of course she's aware she is keeping secrets from him. 

When Martin was on trial, Frankie ended up meeting Charlotte's mum, Vanessa, who was also in court. Charlotte lived with her mum, stepdad Peter, and stepbrother Jack. Frankie ends up getting embroiled in the family, despite her best instincts, and everything goes wrong. She soon meets Alex and marries him, and hopes that part of her life is over. 

I liked the book, although I did think a lot kept happening and towards the end it was one thing after another after another, a couple of which I found a bit unbelievable. I liked Frankie, but wished at the beginning she would just be honest with Alex. I found him frustrating and annoying, given his paranoia. I haven't heard of the author before but would read something else by her for sure! I'm giving this four out of five.

Those People by Louise Candlish - Review

I've enjoyed Our House and The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish, and I've seen a bunch of people rave about Those People, so I really wanted to get to it. I'm trying to not buy any books though, so I looked on my local library site and saw it was available, so I put in a request for it. It arrived at my local library a couple of weeks later and Lee picked it up for me. It's so easy because it's already checked out to you - you just pick up the bag that's got your name on and go. Really simple! And I do like to support my local libraries because they're so important and because if we don't all use them, the Tories will shut them all down. 

So, like Candlish's other books, basically this one is full of terrible people and you want all of them to have terrible things happen to them. Most people in this book are posh and/or wealthy, and I like it when posh people don't succeed. Haha, sorry. I do love this kind of book.

All these people live on Lowlands Way, a street near Crystal Palace in London, and they are incredibly proud of that. At the bottom of the street are some lesser houses, but we don't have to care about them. At the top end are big Victorian villas, and people with a lot of money. But at the very top is two semi-deatched houses, built on the plot of a house bombed in the Blitz (although, why are they then numbers 1 and 3 if they only existed after WWII and all the other houses would have been previously numbered??? There's a plot hole!). Number 1 used to belong to an old lady named Jean, but she's died, and her nephew Darren has inherited the house. He moves in with his wife Jodie, and chaos starts to reign.

They are, no doubt, noisy neighbours. They do DIY at any time of the day, and they play loud metal music all night. They are also running a second hand car garage from the house, meaning they're taking up more than their fair share of parking spaces on the street. They make life hell for the house attached to them, which belongs to Ant and Em and their small baby, Sam. Sam can't sleep and Em is getting to the end of her tether. 

Everyone else in the street has problems with the newcomers too. Opposite, there's Sissy, who runs a bed and breakfast from her house, and who begins to get bad reviews because of the noise opposite. At numbers 5 and 7 there are brothers Finn and Ralph and their families. Finn is married to Tess, a stay at home mum, and she's desperate to move away from Finn's brother and wife, who she thinks have too much of an influence on Finn. The two families live next to each other and have a big shared garden. I'm not quite sure why this is relevant but they kept mentioning it. Tess gets delegated to by her sister in law a lot, and is often annoyed by her. 

Ralph and Naomi are kind of the A list couple on the street. Naomi runs some kind of thing like Mumsnet, and she's very posh and really annoying and thinks everyone is beneath her. Ralph (and Finn) came from working class origins but have managed to drag themselves up! Wow. And now Ralph owns a leather goods business in Bermondsey, and reckons he's the king of the world, to be honest. He's hotheaded and very irritating, and I so badly wanted him to get his comeuppance. 

The street is very proud of this thing they have called Play Out Sunday where they all move their cars off the street and close the road to traffic so that the children can play out in the street like in the olden days. Darren doesn't even KNOW about this initiative when everyone has a go at him for not moving his cards, but like fine, expect him to just know that this thing happen. (And also right, where did they all move their cars TO? Nearby streets, apparently - and how is that fair?! Or do only poor people live there, and therefore they don't matter????? Omg, this book)

Relationships between the residents and Darren and Jodie go very sour very fast. The police and council say they need documentation of what's happening, so Ant sets up a camera from his front window. But then tragedy occurs - as it was obviously going to - and everyone is a suspect. It's like Murder on the Orient Express, honestly. I wouldn't have been surprised if they had all been in on it. 

I really enjoyed Our House, and I liked The Other Passenger, but this book kind of annoyed me because everyone was just so snobby and snotty. I didn't get what Naomi's problem was, and it was never resolved. I didn't understand why almost anyone did what they did. I'm giving this three out of five.