Theresa Smith's Blog, page 26
May 16, 2023
Book Review: The Albatross by Nina Wan
‘The albatross is just about the rarest thing in golf – two shots on a par 5. A hole-in-one, anywhere on the course, is just a random event, a fluke. It’s not your own doing. But an albatross . . . It’s a thing of beauty. One. Two. It must be very deliberate, very thoughtful, one superb shot followed by another. You can say it’s got to take a degree of belief. You’ve got to really want it, and aim for it, and try for it.’
When Primrose makes an unplanned detour into a dilapidated suburban golf course called Whistles, she has no idea that the past will come rushing back at her, bringing every detail of her life into stark focus.
At 36, her marriage is teetering from illness and infidelity. A visit from her commanding brother-in-law looms ominously on the horizon. And by a twist of fate, Peter, the boy she loved twenty years ago, is now living across the street.
Primrose cannot escape the increasing demands to make a choice, between her first love and her marriage, duty and desire, fear and freedom. Slowly, the grounds of Whistles, and a sport she proves to be terrible at, become her meditation and cure.
From a sparkling new Australian voice, The Albatross is a big-hearted, beautifully written and utterly engaging novel about first love, second chances and the most elusive shot in golf.
Published by PanMacmillan Australia
Released April 2023
My Thoughts:This debut contemporary fiction is one that I won’t hesitate to recommend. It was utterly brilliant, I enjoyed it so much. Fiercely intelligent and heartbreakingly realistic, I laughed, I cried, and then I cried some more.
Primrose stole my heart from the very beginning. This novel explores some heavy themes – mental illness, cancer, sexual assault, politics, toxic friendships, first love, parenting when you and your partner are not well, growing up as a migrant in Australia, race relations, issues of class – but it does so with a balanced hand, giving and taking so that the novel is never too heavy, never too much of anything, just perfectly right all the way through.
As to the golf, how unexpectedly delightful this aspect of the story turned out to be!
Five stars and a solid read this one immediately from me.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
Book Review: Happy Place by Emily Henry
Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple – they go together like bread and butter, gin and tonic, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Every year for the past decade, they have left behind their lives to drink far too much wine and soak up the sea air with their favourite people in the world. Except this year, they are lying through their teeth. Harriet and Wyn broke up six months ago. And they still haven’t told anyone.
This is the last time they’ll all be together here. The cottage is for sale, and since they can’t bear to break their best friends’ hearts, they’ll fake it for one more week. But how can you pretend to be in love – and get away with it – in front of the people who know you best?
Published by Penguin
Released April 2023
My Thoughts:I’ve grown quite fond of Emily Henry in a very short space of time. Her books are fun, romantic, angsty, and maintain an incomparable standard of dialogue between the characters. I got off to a bit of a shaky start with Happy Place though, I thought I might have hit a snag in my winning Emily Henry streak. Alas, all is well. There was an argument, a reveal, and a corner turned, and the story galloped along with ease for me from then.
‘The only way I can bear loving anyone this much is knowing it will never turn to poison. Knowing we’ll give each other up before we can destroy each other.’
Happy Place is not just a romance though. It’s also a book of friendship, three women who met at college, became best friends, and have maintained that through the years – until now, at least.
‘My heart keens. Another little reminder of how well these people know me against all odds, all the pieces of me I’ve come to see as difficult or unpleasant, the parts I never voluntarily share but have sneaked out here and there across the years.’
Love is not easy, especially inside an Emily Henry novel. It’s heartbreaking, and frustrating, and filled with angst and joy in equal measure.
‘Want is a kind of thief. It’s a door in your heart, and once you know it’s there, you’ll spend your life longing for whatever’s behind it.’
Is there an Emily Henry subscription service somewhere out there? Just take my money.
Highly recommended!
Book Review: Only Love Can Hurt Like This by Paige Toon
Neither of them expected to fall in love. But sometimes life has other plans.
When Wren realises her fiancé is in love with someone else, she thinks her heart will never recover.
On the other side of the world, Anders lost his wife four years ago and is still struggling to move on.
Wren hopes that spending the summer with her dad and step-family on their farm in Indiana will help her to heal. There, amid the cornfields and fireflies, she and Anders cross paths and their worlds are turned upside-down again.
But Wren doesn’t know that Anders is harbouring a secret, and if he acts on any feelings he has for Wren it will have serious fall-out for everyone.
Walking away would hurt Wren more than she can imagine. But, knowing the truth, how can she possibly stay?
Published by Penguin
Released April 2023
My Thoughts:Paige Toon is an auto-buy for me. I occasionally will get a new release of hers sent to me for review, but if I don’t, without hesitation, I buy it, and, more importantly, I read it straight away. We all know that doesn’t happen very often – the read immediately after buying thing!
‘I’m tougher than I used to be, not because I fight, but because I don’t. That’s the way I cope, the way I ensure that things don’t hurt me as much as they used to.’
Only Love Can Hurt Like This has all the ingredients we have come to know and need from a Paige Toon novel. It’s angsty, fun, romantic, a little bit heart-breaking, has a twist you didn’t see coming, and then, just like a Jane Austen novel, ends on a lovely high note – chicken soup for the soul.
‘Because it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks, every child should be told that they’re beautiful by their parents.’
Highly recommended!
May 6, 2023
Book Review: The Fire and the Rose by Robyn Cadwallader
England, 1276: Forced to leave her home village, Eleanor moves to Lincoln to work as a housemaid. She’s prickly, independent and stubborn, her prospects blighted by a port-wine birthmark across her face. Unusually for a woman, she has fine skills with ink and quill, and harbours a secret ambition to work as a scribe, a profession closed to women.
Eleanor discovers that Lincoln is a dangerous place, divided by religious prejudice, the Jews frequently the focus of violence and forced to wear a yellow badge. Eleanor falls in love with Asher, a Jewish spicer, who shares her love of books and words, but their relationship is forbidden by law. When Eleanor is pulled into the dark depths of the church’s machinations against Jews and the king issues an edict expelling all Jews from England, Eleanor and Asher are faced with an impossible choice.
Vivid, rich, deep and sensual, The Fire and the Rose is a tender and moving novel about how language, words and books have the power to change and shape lives. Most powerfully, it is also a novel about what it is to be made ‘other’, to be exiled from home and family. But it is also a call to recognise how much we need the other, the one we do not understand, making it a strikingly resonant and powerfully hopeful novel for our times.
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia
Released May 2023
My Thoughts:Robyn has returned with another brilliant novel of medieval historical fiction. Richly reimagined, this tale set in the latter decades of the 13th century is one of prejudice, hardship, enduring love, and emancipation within a deeply misogynistic and religiously divided society.
I love medieval historical fiction but so much of it is set within the fantasy genre, of which I’m not so much of a fan, so Robyn’s work is highly sought after by me. Her characters were flawed and realistic, and while I never really warmed to Eleanor, I still appreciated her story and character journey.
The writing within this story is divine, particularly the scenes of passion between Eleanor and Asher at the beginning of their love affair. Robyn has a way too of seamlessly weaving memories of the past with the present affairs for her characters, a literary skill that is not to be underestimated.
Highly recommended for historical fiction fans.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
This week in reading…
Robyn has returned with another brilliant novel of medieval historical fiction. Richly reimagined, this tale set in the latter decades of the 13th century is one of prejudice, hardship, enduring love, and emancipation within a deeply misogynistic and religiously divided society.
I love medieval historical fiction but so much of it is set within the fantasy genre, of which I’m not so much of a fan, so Robyn’s work is highly sought after by me. Her characters were flawed and realistic, and while I never really warmed to Eleanor, I still appreciated her story and character journey.
The writing within this story is divine, particularly the scenes of passion between Eleanor and Asher at the beginning of their love affair. Robyn has a way too of seamlessly weaving memories of the past with the present affairs for her characters, a literary skill that is not to be underestimated.
Highly recommended for historical fiction fans.
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia
Released May 2023
The Albatross by Nina WanThis debut contemporary fiction is one that I won’t hesitate to recommend. It was utterly brilliant, I enjoyed it so much. Fiercely intelligent and heartbreakingly realistic, I laughed, I cried, and then I cried some more.
Primrose stole my heart from the very beginning. This novel explores some heavy themes – mental illness, cancer, sexual assault, politics, toxic friendships, first love, parenting when you and your partner are not well, growing up as a migrant in Australia, race relations, issues of class – but it does so with a balanced hand, giving and taking so that the novel is never too heavy, never too much of anything, just perfectly right all the way through.
As to the golf, how unexpectedly delightful this aspect of the story turned out to be!
Five stars and a solid read this one immediately from me.
Published by Pan Macmillan Australia
Released April 2023
May 1, 2023
Book Review: Search History by Amy Taylor
Rebecca meets Fleabag in a sharp and funny debut novel about dating in the internet age.
After fleeing to Melbourne in the wake of a breakup, all Ana has to show for herself is an unfulfilling job at an overly enthusiastic tech start-up and one particularly questionable dating app experience. Then she meets Evan. Charming, kind and financially responsible, Evan is a complete aberration from her usual type, and Ana feels like she has finally awoken from a long dating nightmare.
As much as she tries to let their burgeoning relationship unfold IRL, Ana can’t resist the urge to find Evan online. When she discovers that his previous girlfriend, Emily, died unexpectedly in a hit-and-run less than a year ago, Ana begins to worry she’s living in the shadow of his lost love. Soon she’s obsessively comparing herself to Emily, trawling through her dormant social media accounts in the hope of understanding her better. Online, Evan and Emily’s life together looked perfect, but just how perfect was it? And why won’t he talk about it?
Search History is a sharply funny debut novel about identity, obsession and desire in the internet age from one of the most perceptive and original new voices in Australian fiction.
Published by Allen & Unwin
Released 2 May 2023
My Thoughts:Billed as a blend of Fleabag with Rebecca, my expectation was quite high going into this debut. I can say with conviction that my expectations were well and truly met and even exceeded. I really enjoyed this novel, it was both funny and moving, relatable and absorbing – contemporary Australian fiction at its best.
After her long-term relationship ends, Ana moves across country to Melbourne from Perth, not only leaving behind old relationship baggage, but a network of friends and her mother. New town, new home, new job, new friends, new possibilities for new relationships – it’s all ahead for Ana. Except, as with real life, nothing is that rosy or easy. Ana’s mother stops talking to her, punishing her with silence for moving away and her father lives in Bali, content with a new partner and a bohemian existence, only dropping in occasionally via scratchy video calls with new age advice and recommendations about yoga. After a particularly frightening sexual encounter with a man from a dating app, Ana deletes her dating apps and resigns herself to loneliness. But then she meets Evan.
‘Silence is rejection in slow motion. It’s an injury sustained from a blow that was never dealt. There is, in theory, nothing to recover from. Silent treatment was not new to me, it was, after all my mother’s love language, but Evan wasn’t even the first or second man who had used this tactic on me.’
As is perfectly normal and expected in today’s day and age, Ana looks Evan up online and jumping from profile to profile, she swiftly discovers his long-term girlfriend died less than a year ago. Emily seems perfect, as dead people often do, immortalised by those who love them and forever remembered with nothing but fondness and longing. Except by Evan, who doesn’t mention her at all. As their relationship unfolds and becomes more serious, it does so without Evan acknowledging Emily’s death and Ana not acknowledging that she already knows about it because she’s burrowed down every rabbit hole on social media that contained even a mere whiff of Emily.
‘I was kidding myself to think I was well-adjusted enough to be able to deal with these circumstances. It was uncharacteristically optimistic to think I could cope without projecting an unfair need for constant reassurance from Evan. I wondered if I was truly the right person for this job, the job of being The One Who Came After, which required the responsibility of delicate handling and constant concealing. I stare at Emily’s face and she smiled back at me through the glass like she knew the answer.’
Search History is a polished debut, written with a perfect blend of comedy and tragedy, hitting all the notes with perfect pitch. What a fabulous writer Amy Taylor is. I enjoyed this novel immensely and look forward to seeing what she next has in store for us. Highly recommended!
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
April 29, 2023
The Month That Was…
At last the weather has turned and Autumn is well and truly here. Not only are the mornings and nights cooler, the days are pleasant right the way through. Perfect reading – and tea drinking – weather. My blog hit a milestone this month, thank you to all of you who interact with me here, I originally set this up as a place to post my reviews that I expected no one but myself to read. It’s been such a delight to instead be part of such a vibrant reading community.
What Zeus has been up to:
Making new friends, beach combing and…being naughty. He is most definitely not allowed on the furniture, and he knows it, but the last few weeks he has been pushing the limit and racing to jump onto this particular couch whenever he thinks I’m not looking – and sometimes when I am. Now, as a means of preventing him, we’re having to fold it back down (it’s a foldaway day bed) whenever we’re not sitting on it. The running joke is that Zeus can hustle his way to anything, well, he can hustle away with his best efforts, because I am definitely not backing down!
What I’ve been watching:
It’s that time of the year when it seems like all my favourite TV shows have new seasons dropping. Season two of Love Me aired on Binge and I devoured that over a weekend. The final season of Mrs. Maisel is currently airing on Prime and is a bittersweet watch, knowing this is the last time we get to ever see new episodes of this awesome show. M and I binged Beef on Netflix over the Easter weekend. It has such an unexpected plot and I can highly recommend it if you want to watch something different, darkly funny, and slightly absurd. Movie wise, we watched one in the cinema and one on Disney+. Air was a trip back to the 1980s and even if you know nothing about basketball or Nike (me on both counts) it is so worth the watch, the cast is amazing and there is a lot of nostalgia in the film for those of us who remember the era. The Banshees of Inisherin is so very Irish and I absolutely adored it. I can’t even begin to adequately express how utterly fabulous and ridiculous it is. I almost felt bad for laughing sometimes but the Irish will do that to you.
What I’ve been reading:
I read nine books throughout April. Seven were review books, two from my Kobo library. This month was a good mix of historical and contemporary fiction, with a non-fiction thrown into the mix as well. Reading widely (for a change)!
I’m currently reading The Fire and The Rose by Robyn Cadwallader, which is due to be released this coming week. Robyn’s books are always such an anticipated read for me. So far, this is as wonderful as her previous ones.
Until next month, good reading…
April 28, 2023
Book Review: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him – and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.
An exquisite winter tale of courage – and its cost, set in Catholic Ireland.
Published by Faber
Released October 2022
My Thoughts:This novella is perfection. It is a literal tiny masterpiece that demonstrates the power of fiction. Set in the mid-1980s, Thatcher is in power in the UK and Ireland is struggling economically. Bill Furlong, child of an unwed Irish mother, father to five girls, stumbles upon a girl who is terrified and mistreated on the grounds of a convent. Something inside him shifts and he acts with instinct.
‘As they carried on along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?’
I love how Claire Keegan writes, with such elegance. Little wonder this novella was Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize list. I’m not giving away much with this one, but trust me, it’s stunning.
Book Review: A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern
A redemptive and captivating novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of PS. I Love You.
Ever wondered where lost things go?
Ever since the day her classmate vanished, Sandy Shortt has been haunted by what happens when something – or someone – disappears. Finding has become her goal.
Jack Ruttle is desperate to find his younger brother who vanished into thin air a year ago. He spots an ad for Sandy’s missing persons agency and is certain that she will answer his prayers and find his brother.
But then Sandy disappears too, stumbling upon a place that is a world away from the only one she has ever known. Now all she wants, more than anything, is to find her way home.
Published by HarperCollins GB
Released September 2007
My Thoughts:‘It’s really very simple if you remember it like this. Everything in life has a place and when one thing moves, it must go somewhere else. Here is the place that all those things move to.’
Ever lost something and just never been able to find it? I have, not often, but it’s definitely happened. Mostly during times when I’ve moved house, I’ve unpacked, only to discover sometime later that I’ve lost something. Recently, something that I’d lost during a move that had real meaning for me actually turned up, ten years after I’d lost it. This novel is about lost things and lost people, and while I’m normally a big fan of Cecelia Ahern, I feel like this story got a bit lost several times itself along the way.
The story is a blend of a missing persons mystery, a retelling of the key theme of The Wizard of Oz, and a strange journey of magical realism within a place called ‘Here’ where all the missing things and people around the world end up. It was entertaining, yes, but also very strange. I enjoyed the parts where Jack was searching for Sandy as well as closing in on the fate of his missing brother, but as to the parts about Sandy in ‘Here’, they were incredulous, at best. The novel ends with this paragraph, which seems to be the key message:
‘We all get lost once in a while, sometimes by choice, sometimes due to forces beyond our control. When we learn what it is our soul needs to learn, the path presents itself. Sometimes we see the way out but wander further and deeper despite ourselves; the fear, the anger or the sadness preventing us returning. Sometimes we prefer to be lost and wandering, sometimes it’s easier. Sometimes we find our own way out. But regardless, always, we are found.’
A quaint story that will appeal to fans of magical realism and fantasy, but not one that I’d rush to recommend to anyone. The ending was a little too ‘and they lived happily ever after’ for me, given that Sandy had spent the previous thirty odd years dealing with some significant issues that just seemed to magically disappear upon her return home from her magical adventure. I did appreciate the closure for Jack though, despite how sad that ended up being. This one is definitely more magical realism than contemporary fiction and will require quite a bit of suspended belief in order to enjoy.
April 24, 2023
Book Review: The Lipstick Bureau by Michelle Gable
1944, Rome. Newlywed Niki Novotná is recruited by a new American spy agency to establish a secret branch in Italy’s capital. One of the OSS’s few female operatives abroad and multilingual, she’s tasked with crafting fake stories and distributing propaganda to lower the morale of enemy soldiers.
Despite limited resources, Niki and a scrappy team of artists, forgers and others — now nicknamed The Lipstick Bureau — find success, forming a bond amid the cobblestoned streets and storied villas of the newly liberated city. But her work is also a way to escape devastating truths about the family she left behind in Czechoslovakia and a future with her controlling American husband.
As the war drags on and the pressure intensifies, Niki begins to question the rules she’s been instructed to follow, and a colleague unexpectedly captures her heart. But one step out of line, one mistake, could mean life or death…
Loosely inspired by real-life OSS operative Barbara Lauwers, The Lipstick Bureau is about a woman challenging convention and boundaries to help win a war, no matter the cost.
Published by HQ Fiction US
Released January 2023
My Thoughts:I used to read a lot of fiction set during the World War II era, but in recent years, I have found myself fatigued by the topic, so my consumption has dwindled down to almost nothing. As can often be the case when you take a break from something, you can return to it with fresh vigour, and that’s what has happened here, with this book, The Lipstick Bureau. I found this to be an utterly fascinating read of an aspect of WWII history that I was unfamiliar with.
It follows a contingent of OSS operatives based in Rome in the final months of the war and details their efforts with disseminating ‘black propaganda’ to destabilise an already unstable enemy as the Allies and the Soviets swept closer and closer to victory. It’s a story charged with moral ambiguity and highlights the many ways in which women, both officially and unofficially, contributed to the war effort.
I enjoyed the characters, many of which are loosely based on real people, as per the author note, and the way in which they interacted with each other and the bureaucracy above them. The author writes with such an engaging and suspenseful style, and I was delighted to see that I have her previous release on my review bookshelf, just waiting to be read. I’ll be getting to that sooner rather than later, given how much I enjoyed this one.
Highly recommended for fans of historical fiction and war fiction.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
