Britain lost an estimated two percent of its population during World War I. It sounds insignificant, but that loss represented a generation of men whoBritain lost an estimated two percent of its population during World War I. It sounds insignificant, but that loss represented a generation of men who would have otherwise been wage-earners, husbands and fathers. In the wake of their loss was a generation of women who were left without fathers, brothers, husbands and co-parents. Tracy Chevalier's elegant, delicate and deeply moving A Single Thread traces one of the many who were known as "surplus women" and how their pattern of loss wove into British society in the years between the wars.
"Spinster", that terrible euphemism for the perceived failure of a woman to attract or hold onto a man, originated in the early 14th century when it referred to women who spun and wove yarn. By the 1700s it became a derogatory term, and a legal one, to indicate a woman was of marrying age and yet still shamefully single.
Violet Speedwell (a delightful play of names, as "Speedwell" is a flowering perennial) is the very portrait of a spinster, a surplus woman (I can’t even! Just writing that term boils my blood). It is 1932 and thirty-eight-year-old Violet has finally left her overbearing, peevish mother in Southampton for the cathedral village of Winchester, twelve miles to north. Violet's fiancé was killed at Passchendaele in 1917 and Violet has remained single, though a few times a year she puts on her one good dress — a gold lamé number that saw its best days a decade before when flappers kicked their heels in juke joints- and heads to a hotel bar to sip sherry and wait for a stranger to take her to bed for the night.
Although she revels in her independence in Winchester, she's living hand to mouth, freezing in her bedsit, missing meals to afford a few cigarettes and a weekly trip to the cinema. She is a typist in an insurance office, where her two other younger colleagues put in half-hearted days, just waiting for marriage to take them out of the workplace to become wives and mothers.
Lonely, Violet wanders into her beloved Winchester Cathedral and chances upon a group of broderers, women who embroider kneeling cushions and seat covers for the Cathedral. Although Violet has not embroidered since she was a little girl, she takes a chance and inserts herself into this group of volunteers, determined to learn a new skill and perhaps find friends.
Among her new friends is Gilda, who risks becoming even more of an outcast than Violet by following her own heart. There is Arthur, a 60-year-old bell ringer at the Cathedral whose life is marked by sorrow, loss and loneliness, and Mrs. Pesel, a real-life figure whose confidence in Violet's sewing ability translates into certitude that Violent can weather her current troubles to create a bright future, regardless of her marital status. There are also foes: her mother, who threatens to undermine any sense of self Violet struggles to create; her younger brother and his young family, who need Violet to be a caretaker; and a man from a nearby village who sees a single, independent woman as potential prey.
As Violet's stitches become smoother and more assured, so does her ability to assert her independence and her empathy. The metaphor of stitching herself a new life may seem trite, but Chevalier renders this particular story with such a keen eye for detail, crafting all the missteps and small moments that make a memorable, believable character. What may have been cliché becomes a tapestry of delight and grief, determination and hope.
A Single Thread is far and away the best I have read from Chevalier. Its gentle pace belies its power: a single thread may be a delicate, vulnerable thing, but all those threads woven together create a singular, compelling portrait of courage and longing that is timeless and unforgettable....more
How have I never heard of Lisa Jewell? She has a new fan. This was delicious, fascinating, thrilling, creepy, and wonderfully original. Just theHow have I never heard of Lisa Jewell? She has a new fan. This was delicious, fascinating, thrilling, creepy, and wonderfully original. Just the ticket for dreary winter days when escape is on the docket. ...more
We Jackson Brodie fans have waited what felt like an interminably long spell for our favorite private eye, in all his glib and glum glory, to returnWe Jackson Brodie fans have waited what felt like an interminably long spell for our favorite private eye, in all his glib and glum glory, to return to the scene. But author Kate Atkinson has been rather busy in the interim, penning literary gorgeousness into Life After Life, A God in Ruins and Transcription. We'll forgive her.
Our patience is richly rewarded with Big Sky, the fifth entry in the Jackson Brodie series. Although the novel could stand alone, fans of Jackson Brodie will shiver in recognition at the return of Reggie Chase, and nod heads with comforting familiarity at Julia's throwaway affections (and affectations) and Jackson's photographic recall of country and western lyrics.
And just look what's happened in the intervening nine years. Nathan, Julia and Jackson's son who was a toddler when we last laid eyes on him, is now a sulking thirteen-year-old in the reluctant care of his dad while his mum finishes filming her latest television series. Jackson lives on the east coast of Yorkshire, a rural idyll of golf courses and tawdry seaside holiday towns, one church villages, and a sex-trafficking ring that is at the heart of this big-hearted mystery.
The plot of Big Sky is a Venn Diagram of stories that contract until they become one, and Jackson is, of course, at the center of it all. “A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen” is one of Jackson's favorite maxims, borrowed from some long ago episode of Law and Order. Kate Atkinson's astonishing skill is not only to wink and nod at crime fiction tropes, but to render the plot so that coincidence feels utterly inevitable.
The sinister opening to Big Sky sets the dreadful stage of human trafficking, but the lens pulls back and it takes a while before we return to the initial victims, Polish sisters Nadja and Katja, who are lured to the UK with promises of legit jobs in hospitality. We become entangled with a large cast of characters, including the trophy wife of a self-made millionaire, a down-on-his luck middle manager whose cuckolding wife is bludgeoned to death not long after she declares her intention to seek a divorce, two chummy police detectives reopening an investigation into a decades-old paedophile ring, an awkward, bookish young man who walks miles every day to his job in a seedy carnival (is there any other kind?), and of course Jackson. Brodie is not center stage in this play, but he remains the nucleus around which everything hums, appearing at critical moments with a bit of gallows humor and self-deprecating sexiness that make him so irresistible.
Despite the almost screwball comedic tone that is so deliciously Atkinson, there is deep moral core to Big Sky, embodied in Jackson Brodie’s wry antihero, detectives Ronnie and Reggie, and the trophy wife, Crystal, who proves to be as intelligent and cunning as she is kind.
Big Sky has the biggest heart, and Kate Atkinson has given us a genre-defying novel worth waiting for....more
The author, Fiona Barton, is a former journalist and with particular insights into the British tabloid industry, she devotes much of the storyline toThe author, Fiona Barton, is a former journalist and with particular insights into the British tabloid industry, she devotes much of the storyline to the hounding of Jean Taylor, widow of accused and exonerated kidnapper, Glen, by the media. Flashing back and forth between present-day 2010, when Glen stumbles into the path of a London bus and 2006, when a little girl goes missing in the village of Southampton, The Widow delivers a mystery told from multiple perspectives. The main driver of the story is the eponymous widow, Jean, a mousy, depressed and bewildered hairdresser who is swept off her feet by creepy Glen. It seems for a few years their match is happy one, but gradually they drift apart, Glen spending more time with his laptop, losing his prestigious job at a bank, and becoming preoccupied with his "nonsense", as Jean terms it. That nonsense turns out to be some unsavory business, indeed.
Meanwhile, the mystery of the disappearance of Bella Elliot, a little pixie who vanished from her own front yard, has remained in the headlines for years, riveting the entire nation, it seems. Suspect after suspect is discarded, and a body is never found. All fingers eventually point to Glen, who enjoys flirty chat rooms and looking at pictures of grown women dressed up like little girls. He's not the only character into kink, and red herrings abound, distracting the detectives and the ever-present, slimy media.
I found the writing distant and simplistic, the characters, with the exception of Detective Inspector Bob Sparkes, flat. The premise - how well do we really know the ones we love? - is endlessly fascinating, but here I felt worn out and blunted by obvious tropes. Jean was just so sad and repressed and Glen so weird- I longed for nuance. Looking at the crime from multiple angles was a plus, and the ominous tone set by clever foreshadowing and the crumbs of doubt worked so well. Barton is a skilled plotter and an excellent student of the genre. The Widow just felt drained of color and life to me....more
What was winsome in the first Veronica Speedwell, A Curious Beginning, flirted too closely to twee for me in this sequel and the sexually-chargedWhat was winsome in the first Veronica Speedwell, A Curious Beginning, flirted too closely to twee for me in this sequel and the sexually-charged banter detracted from the sleuthing. It is still terrifically entertaining and fresh, and I look forward to a maturation of characters and plot as the series continues. ...more
On a quiet winter's solstice night deep in the 1880's, regulars huddle in the Swan — an inn tucked in the bend of the river Thames, not far fromOn a quiet winter's solstice night deep in the 1880's, regulars huddle in the Swan — an inn tucked in the bend of the river Thames, not far from Oxford— swapping tales and sipping pints. The door slams open and into the shadowy room stumbles a man, his face battered, holding the lifeless body of a little girl. He is shown into a room where his wounds are tended by the local nurse, Rita. The little girl, drowned by the river that gives and takes according to its whim, is laid to rest in a cold storeroom until her body is claimed and her soul blessed into the afterlife.
And then a miracle occurs. The child takes a breath. She lives! But who she is and how she cheated death become the mysteries around which this rich, meandering, immersive story are wound.
Three families step forward to claim the little girl: the Vaughns, prosperous landowners whose daughter was kidnapped two years prior; the Armstrongs, successful pig farmers who believe the child to be the daughter of a wayward son; and Lily, a meek keeper of the local parsonage whose decades-long guilt and terror haunt her every step.
The ensemble of characters, including Rita, the nurse and midwife, Henry Daunt, the photographer who brings the girl to the Swan's door, the villagers, and the multiple villains, are rendered in provocative and captivating detail, as is the landscape in which this novel unfolds. Once Upon a River is a paean to the Thames and its environs. Setterfield captures the sights, sounds, textures of the river in atmospheric, evocative language.
Reminiscent of Jane Eyre or Rebecca, Once Upon a River is written in a slow, resonant, mournful style that conveys beautifully its Gothic themes and setting. And yet the pacing propels the reader forward in a swift current of mystery; I was challenged to set this aside and go about my day. There is nothing quite like a book you want to tuck into from beginning to end, savoring every aspect of story, character, setting and voice.
Once Upon a River is a gorgeous journey through time, and a rewarding immersion in the timelessness of storytelling. Highly recommended....more
An utterly delicious, delightful, darling read. We are introduced to Veronica Speedwell, a twenty-five-year-old lepidopterist who has lived anAn utterly delicious, delightful, darling read. We are introduced to Veronica Speedwell, a twenty-five-year-old lepidopterist who has lived an itinerant existence with two spinster aunts in Victorian England. Left alone after the death of her guardians, Veronica is rescued from an attacker by the elderly Baron von Stauffenbach, who whisks her to London and deposits her at the warehouse of the inscrutable, tattooed, Heathcliffian Stoker. Both men are strangers to Veronica, and it's only curiosity, and perhaps the well-cut physique of Stoker, that keeps the fiercely independent naturalist from bolting.
Then the Baron is found dead and Stoker becomes Suspect #1. The pair of naturalists with mysterious pasts flee to the English countryside, where they hook up with a circus and try with all their might not to hook up with each other. They join forces to find the Baron's real murderer in a caper-filled plot that is as surprising as it is engaging.
Raybourn's writing is tart and lively and Veronica makes for a fine heroine. She's a self-made woman, supporting herself by capturing and selling exotic butterflies, which funds her travels to the far ends of the earth. She pursues men for no-strings attached love affairs, but has one inviolable rule: no English men. Which makes the brooding Stoker inconveniently off-limits. The pair's sexual tension is relieved through their spirited banter — think Tracy and Hepburn; Bogart and Bacall. They are perfectly matched in wit and vigor and their thorny exchanges belie the growing and believable affection.
A day after starting this first of a growing series, I was back at the library searching for Book #2. I think it's the beginning of a beautiful friendship. #TeamVeronica...more
A friend recently raved about this series, citing it as one of the seminal literary experiences of her childhood. I'd never heard of the author or theA friend recently raved about this series, citing it as one of the seminal literary experiences of her childhood. I'd never heard of the author or the series, but when I went to my local bookstore to order the set, the bookseller reacted in much the same way. For this reader, whose imagination was shaped by the fantasies C.S. Lewis, Ursula K Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Lloyd Alexander, and who as an adult has spooned up Philip Pullman and JK Rowling like warm butterscotch pudding, I was sold.
So, perhaps my expectations were way too high. This first book is sweet and cozy, but hardly sent my imagination soaring. Set in Cornwall contemporary to when it was written (early 60s), Over Sea, Under Stone launches three siblings off on a summer adventure to find an Arthurian-era grail, aided by their enigmatic Uncle Merry. It is delightful, but void of the mysticism and deeper metaphorical explorations that characterize Tolkien or Lewis or Le Guin. It is a lighthearted lark that promises future forays into wizards and journeys and tales of darker, deeper, magic.
Seeing as dark, damp winter still looms in the Pacific Northwest, despite cresting the Solstice, I will dig into the subsequent books in this series, on my own grail-like quest to be swept away....more
I'd forgotten how Goodreads qualified Two Stars until I hovered my cursor over the ratings: It was Ok.
Ok. I can live with that. This was ok. A funI'd forgotten how Goodreads qualified Two Stars until I hovered my cursor over the ratings: It was Ok.
Ok. I can live with that. This was ok. A fun diversion in a stressful week. I recall feeling much more riveted by the first Liz Carlyle, read several years ago, but I haven't read the in-betweens. My rating would be higher if not for the disappointing denouement. ...more
I'm working my way through a series of thrillers written by women or featuring female protagonists/main characters. Just trying to get a feel for howI'm working my way through a series of thrillers written by women or featuring female protagonists/main characters. Just trying to get a feel for how women write and move in a literary world that's been dominated by male writers and characters.
There's a whole lotta Atta Girl! power in the Cross Her Heart , a psychological thriller that alternates between the viewpoints of Lisa, a blurry-around-the-edges but eager Mum, her teenaged daughter Ava, and Lisa's BFF, Marilyn. The time is now and insistently so, with social media and clutching of cellphones prominent features. The setting is England, but so utterly generic and devoid of character that the novel could take place in a suburb of Cleveland or Seattle. The plot twists are fast and furious. Contrived yes, but so fun in all their bizarre and eerie ferocity.
The emphasis on female relationships-the deep alliances and bewildering betrayals-compels beyond a thriller's expected snags and silences, chases and coincidences. Sarah Pinborough is a deft and snappy writer. I'll continue to seek out her work, particularly in the drab days of wet fall, when curling up with a crisp read is a needed bit of escape.
Somewhere around page 230 of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine I began to ugly cry. Deep, shattering, heaving, snotty sobs. 5-star weeping. EleanorSomewhere around page 230 of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine I began to ugly cry. Deep, shattering, heaving, snotty sobs. 5-star weeping. Eleanor Oliphant is definitely not fine. She's a train wreck from whom I couldn't look away, until it became clear that I was looking at the mirror image of my most dreaded self. Alone Me. Lonely Me.
Eleanor is an old, old thirty-year-old, whose Victorian diction and Asperger's awkwardness isolate her from her work colleagues-the only real social connection she's made since leaving a series of foster homes at seventeen. She lives in the island of her apartment in Glasgow, and for the past ten years, she has dutifully reported for work as accounts administrator at a graphic design firm, Monday through Friday, 8:30-5:30. She eats lunch alone, and on Friday nights, she purchases two liters of vodka to get her through the two days and three sleeps she must endure before Monday rolls around again. Nights, she watches TV or listens to the radio. She has no friends. Each Wednesday night she logs an excruciating phone call with her institutionalized Mummy, a woman grinding through her own unique madness. She seems resigned to her isolation until the day she and Raymond, the firm's IT guy, witness an old man collapse on the sidewalk. Together they arrange for his rescue by paramedics and from this potential disaster, a friendship blossoms.
There will be more ugly cries over this later, trust me.
It's hard to go much further into the plot without venturing into spoiler territory. Gail Honeyman deftly weaves in the mystery of Eleanor's childhood trauma that prevents this sweet novel from becoming mawkish and keeps the pages turning with anticipatory dread and curiosity.
There's a quirky quality that might feel like a gloss-over for mental illness and addiction, both of which loom darkly in Eleanor's life. At first, I found the underlying giggles off-putting, but the author's tenderness for Eleanor is so evident that I soon relaxed and accepted she wasn't taking cheap shots at her character. By listening carefully, I could feel the deep compassion, and be rewarded, ultimately, with joy. Of course, too many of the desperately lonely rarely, if ever, experience joy. But perhaps just one will see themselves in Eleanor and reach out for help, as she does, and find her way to a source of light.
In a perfect balance between self-effacing humor and tender self-awareness, the author touches the live wire of our greatest and most private vulnerability: loneliness. Eleanor is a heroine of our times- the consummate misfit who makes us cringe —those of us who see our own misfit reflected in her.
The English summer heat wave, à la Kate Atkinson. The dumpy, approaching middle age protagonist, à la Claire Messud. The creep dilapidated EnglishThe English summer heat wave, à la Kate Atkinson. The dumpy, approaching middle age protagonist, à la Claire Messud. The creep dilapidated English country manor, complete with ghosts, à la David Mitchell. Shades of A.S.Byatt and Daphne du Maurier and Jean Rhys and Penelope Lively and Sarah Waters and Edna O'Brien. . . Claire Fuller borrows from literary traditions — mostly British, Irish, and/or female — of thorny relationships, ramshackle mansions, creepy familial relationships, post-war malaise to craft this slow burn of a psychological thriller. Bitter Orange is Gothic and cerebral and chock full of lush, delicious detail.
The foreshadowing is delivered with a heavy hand and the twisted ending comes as a relief rather than a surprise. This is a novel I appreciated in parts, rather than as whole. ...more
Fate versus Free Will. Law and Justice versus Divinity and Destiny. Power. Femininity. Grief. In her seventh novel, British-Pakistani writer KamilaFate versus Free Will. Law and Justice versus Divinity and Destiny. Power. Femininity. Grief. In her seventh novel, British-Pakistani writer Kamila Shamsie takes on the themes of giants, loosely holding the Greek tragedy of Antigone as her inspiration, and tells a modern tale of terrorism, politics and love. Her ambitions garnered her the 2017 Women's Prize for Fiction, as well as placements on the longlist for the 2017 Man Booker prize and shortlist for the Costa novel award. It is a triumph that a woman writer, a writer of color, is lauded critically as well as rewarded with public acclaim for writing a political novel.
Home Fire considers how a homegrown terrorist is created. In this case, Parvaiz Pasha, a young man in the London suburbs is wooed carefully by an ISIS recruiter who eventually lures him Syria. This is a double tragedy for the Pasha family: Parvaiz's father was a jihadist who died years earlier, en route to Guatanamo Bay prison. The shame of his legacy hangs heavily on the Pasha family and is responsible for his wife's early death. Parvaiz and his twin sister Aneeka were toddlers at the time and barely remember their father - his disgrace leaves the son adrift and the daughter determined and defiant. And pious. She alone holds onto their Muslim faith.
At the start of the story Isma Pasha, the eldest daughter, leaves Britain to pursue her graduate studies in the United States. The twins are now nineteen and the pragmatic older sister feels she is finally free from the burden of mother and provider. Her relief at leaving this complicated family dynamic behind is palpable. But the novel's opening scene, which shows Isma at Heathrow, detained and questioned simply because of her Pakistani heritage, is a chilling reminder that escape is not so easy.
Chance encounters by Isma and Aneeka with trust-fund fed Eamonn Lone introduce a romantic and political entanglements. Eamonn is the son of the conservative Home Secretary, a Pakistani-born Londoner who has carefully crafted his political career, aligning himself with traditional British values and eschewing identity politics. The Home Secretary is responsible for immigration and security policy and this particular politician, Karamat Lone, emphasizes complete assimilation -distancing himself from his Muslim heritage. Eamonn, whose mother is an Irish-American business tycoon, has never had to question his place- culturally, politically- in society. His privilege has been granted without hesitation. Until he falls in love.
Like the Greek tragedy that serves as its inspiration, Home Fire is epic, fatalistic, and breathtaking. Shamsie's story is engrossing, her intelligent and beautiful writing so readable. The political thriller/romance spin serve to make this novel accessible, even while its stylistic and psychological choices push it into deep literary fiction.
And the ending. Oh, that ending. One I will never forget - powerful, devastating, inevitable. ...more
... It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma... Winston Churchill may have been speaking about Russian national interest, but his famous... It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma... Winston Churchill may have been speaking about Russian national interest, but his famous quip perfectly describes the playfully clever Matryoshka doll of a novel written nearly eighty years later. Magpie Murders is an homage to the cozy mystery that British authors and screenwriters have made so irresistible, from Agatha Christie to the author's own detective series for the small screen, Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War.
Editor Susan Ryeland tucks in to read the latest manuscript from her publishing house's bestselling author, Alan Conway, writer of a hit crime series set in small town England in the 1950s featuring the enigmatic private detective Atticus Pünd. Realizing the final chapters are missing, Susan is launched into a contemporary murder mystery, and you and I, the real life readers, sit center stage in two simultaneous whodunits , enjoying the deliciously-plotted ride.
A deep bow to Anthony Horowitz for his lovingly rendered pastiche of the murder mystery genre. As editor Ryeland states when she settles in to read Conway's latest (and as it turns out, last) book, “You can’t beat a good whodunnit: the twists and turns, the clues and the red herrings and then, finally, the satisfaction of having everything explained to you in a way that makes you kick yourself because you hadn’t seen it from the start.” Written with elegance as a finely-crafted and cunning puzzle, Magpie Murders is the perfect antidote for these anxious, overwrought, angry times. Funny to say that about a murder mystery, right? This is a rollicking good time, and we could all use more of those. Highly recommended....more
I picked this up on a lark from the New Arrivals display at my local library. And now I know what I will be doing this autumn/winter: binge-readingI picked this up on a lark from the New Arrivals display at my local library. And now I know what I will be doing this autumn/winter: binge-reading the Sebastian St. Cyr series. This isn't my usual fare— historical thrillers, and series in particular — but C.S. Harris's writing is so smart and interesting, her characters irresistible, her pacing so fine, I'm hooked. As I seek to write my own contemporary mystery series, this is exactly the effect I'm after. Brava, writer. You have a new fan!...more
A police-procedural written with meticulous care, Salt Lane will introduce many to Detective Sargent Alexandra Cupidi (I find this surname veryA police-procedural written with meticulous care, Salt Lane will introduce many to Detective Sargent Alexandra Cupidi (I find this surname very distracting. If that's by design, okay, but I stumbled over it every time. Sigh). Cupidi recently relocated with some unidentified professional baggage from the glamour of London to the coastal marshlands of Kent (a name I DO love, Dungeness, for I grew beside and now again live near another beautiful Dungeness), where she and her introverted daughter Zoe are in the awkward dance of independence v. mothering that is the inevitable consequence of child growing into young woman. Alex (can I just use her first name, please?) is partnered with rough-around-the-edges constable Jill Ferriter, and the two women are assigned to investigate the death of an unidentified woman who died of unknown cause.
Another body turns up in a ghastly slurry of toxic of cow dung, and soon the scope of investigation widens to the abuse of migrant workers and the opioid epidemic, as of-the-moment in the UK as it is here in the United States.
Although Shaw takes his time, there's something amorphous about Alex Cupidi. It's almost as though author and character haven't quite got the hang of each other (though they did meet in The Birdwatcher, the prequel to Salt Lane, which I haven't yet read). I did wish at times for a sharper editing pencil- I think the pacing could have been tighter with the excision of 50-75 pages- but I wouldn't turn away from the next installment of DS Alexandra Cupidi (oh, sigh)....more
In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals.
As far as first lines go, this is among the more sublime.In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals.
As far as first lines go, this is among the more sublime. It reveals so much about the story to come, offering setting, tone, character. We feel the heartstring plight of the orphan and the fairytale of villainous parents, a frisson of a thriller in the offing, the voice of a narrator, wondering, seeking...
Tense and atmospheric, the novel opens in London just months after the formal end of WWII. Fourteen-year-old Nathaniel and his older sister Rachel find themselves parentless in the dingy crumble of bombed-out London. Their father's business has taken him suddenly to Singapore, and supposedly their mother follows a short time later. The teens are shifted off to boarding school as day students; their general care, as well as the family flat, has been left in the hands of a laconic and mysterious family friend whom they dub 'the Moth.' Soon the London flat becomes a Victoria Station of sorts for an odd collection of the Moth's friends, including a greyhound smuggler, and an intrepid ethnographer. All the characters have deliciously Dickensian names- Pimlico Darter, Olive Lawrence, Agnes Street, Marsh Felon. Although we are reminded that some of these are pseudonyms, created by necessity from subterfuge or by the accident of faulty memory.
Why Nathaniel and Rachel's parents went away becomes a mystery that Nathanial devotes his life to solving. A disaster slams the door shut on the siblings' childhood, divides alliances, and casts the truth deeper into the shadows of an already-murky city.
The second half of the book ushers us into Nathaniel's life fourteen years later. He works in the bowels of an archival monument, teasing out the secrets of his mother's life. To say more would be to spoil the dreamy intimacy of this strange and bewildering tale.
Warlight is more meditation than novel. It is about the way memory shifts and stops, blurring out when we need it the most, our imagination filling in the gaps until we no longer know if we are remembering truth or remembering our own desperate fictions.
I am left with the image of two young lovers naked and entangled on the floor of an empty home while a pack of ecstatic greyhounds careen and tumble and slide around them. Weird and wonderful, just like Warlight....more
An exquisite read. It is literature like this that gives me hope publishers haven't all lost their collective, revenue-grasping minds, pushing asideAn exquisite read. It is literature like this that gives me hope publishers haven't all lost their collective, revenue-grasping minds, pushing aside the beautiful and relevant, important and worthy for the trite, plot-silly novels that invariably have the word Girl in the title (although now Child seems to be the "in" word). Sarah Winman's (why have I not encountered her before? Tin Man is that dreaded (by the publishing industry), quiet novel, built around characters and the slow burn of years, tragedy, and a copy of a Van Gogh painting. It is the glaring sunlight of the Provençal sun against the glittering needles of the Alpilles. It is the autumn glow of a waning year in majestic Oxford. It is a couple falling in love during the delivery of a Christmas tree and another in a cemetery where the drunks go to find a moment of tenderness.
I read this in one sitting- it is not a long book, true, but more than that, it called to me with something elemental and precious that made it impossible to set aside.
Beautifully written, with sublime empathy but not a shred of sentimentality, Tin Man is literary gold....more
A chance encounter on a London street in 1950 propels Juliet Armstrong down the rabbit hole of memories of her recent past.
Kate Atkinson returns usA chance encounter on a London street in 1950 propels Juliet Armstrong down the rabbit hole of memories of her recent past.
Kate Atkinson returns us to World War II Britain, but the mysticism of reincarnation that mesmerized in Life After Life and dance in the shadows of A God In Ruins is traded for espionage grounded in the tedium of overheard conversations in stuffy flats.
At the start of the war, Juliet is recruited by MI5 to transcribe overheard conversations from a flat in central London, where a spy invites in rabidly anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi sympathizers. The novel moves fluidly from the 50's to those hushed and waiting months before the Blitz and the harrowing navigation of the city after the bombs began to fall.
Don't expect the same ponderous, elegiac flow of Atkinson's two most recent novels Transcription is as crisp as toast and tart as lemon curd. Juliet, whether as a naive typist in at the start, or a jaded spy just a few years later, is wry and stoically funny in that singular Atkinson way. At first, the slightly detached nature of the narrative was disappointing, but then it all fit- the character, the time, the essence of the story- the sense that to survive, one must rise above and watch it all unfold below.
This is also a delicious espionage thriller wrapped around historical fiction. Do not skip the Author's Note at the end - Atkinson opens a window on the context, her research, and how fact becomes fiction.
In 1917, in the meadows and forests of northern England, two young girls photographed themselves with a collection of fairies. The photographs madeIn 1917, in the meadows and forests of northern England, two young girls photographed themselves with a collection of fairies. The photographs made their way into the world, causing a national sensation when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published them in 1920 to accompany an article about the existence of these fairies for Strand Magazine.
Hazel Gaynor's charming The Cottingley Secret fictionalizes the story of nine-year-old Frances Griffiths, who leaves South Africa with her mother at the start of WWI to live with her mother's sister in Yorkshire while her father is at the front. Frances and her older, worldly cousin, Elsie, become fast friends, but Elsie is often away at work. Frances, an outcast at school, must fend for herself. On one of her solo perambulations in the forest, she encounters the fairies and her obsession pushes the loneliness aside.
One hundred years later, in a village just north of Dublin, Olivia Kavanaugh grieves her beloved grandfather. She's an accomplished book restorer in London, but she's miserable, living an inauthentic life, engaged to a man she reluctantly admits she doesn't love. Her grandfather has bequeathed her his bookstore, Something Old, that is filled with rare and second-hand books, hardly a recipe for success in a hyper-modern, digital world. He also left her the manuscript of a memoir written by Frances Griffiths recounting the discover and subsequent scandal of what become known as the Cottingley Fairies.
The Cottingley Secret is a curl-up-and-forget-the-world sort of read, an enchanting and delightful escape. A dash of history mixed with contemporary drama and a touch of romance is just the antidote for these cynical, selfish times. Gaynor's writing is lovely, moving fluidly between past and present, conveying a sense of wonder and possibility while remaining grounded in history and place. I simply adored this book....more
"How do we become human except in the face of adversity?"
This elegantly written and richly cast novel speaks of adversity, both personal and"How do we become human except in the face of adversity?"
This elegantly written and richly cast novel speaks of adversity, both personal and political, that tests our willingness to greet the world with compassion, to believe in the possibility of happiness.
Attila Asare, a Ghanian psychiatrist and expert on PTSD, and Jean Turane, an American wildlife biologist, meet by chance, and then chance again, in central London. Jean is living in London, conducting a study on the urban fox phenomenon; Attila is passing through to present at a conference, yet his connections to the city run much deeper. His ex-lover is fading away at a care facility in the suburbs, Alzheimer's corroding her brain. And as he arrives in London, he receives word that his niece has been detained by immigration and her young son has run off, disappearing into the February cold and dark.
It is the search for the boy, Tano, that unites this unlikely pair and brings to the foreground a cast of supporting characters. These characters — hotel employees, garbage collectors, street buskers, the homeless — are themselves immigrants, all making their way in a shadow economy far from the glittering highrises and bespoke suits of the storied British city.
The narrative moves from present to recent to mythical past, tracing the lines of a wolf hunter in Massachusetts in the early nineteenth century, the demise of Jean's marriage and her quest to save coyotes in New England in the mid-oughts, and Attila's work as a hostage negotiator and trauma specialist in war zones from Bosnia to Sierra Leone to Iraq. Despite the breadth of its landscapes, Happiness is the story of what happens deep inside the heart after grief and loss, after love has come and gone. And possibly come again. It is also deeply political, delving into human migration, animal conservation, and war. There are so many layers of theme and character and much of the narrative relies on coincidence to move it forward, yet Forna keeps this all spinning in delicate orbit with sublime writing and wonderful characters.
It was paradoxical, but nevertheless true that in this life and in his career Attila had often observed joy amongst those who had suffered most: it was what life gave in exchange for the pain.
Cora, you cannot always keep yourself away from the things that hurt you. We all wish that we could, but we cannot: to live at all is to be bruised.
Cora, you cannot always keep yourself away from the things that hurt you. We all wish that we could, but we cannot: to live at all is to be bruised.
Something sinister stirs in the marshes along the Essex coast. Hysteria ripples through the village of Aldwinter in dread of it. It's a serpent-monster, they say - a winged leviathan that once roamed this county just north of London more than three hundred years ago. And it's come back to steal the breath of children and the reason of adults.
Sarah Perry's lush, complex historical novel, The Essex Serpent, is a marvel of storytelling, research, and insight into the nature of love. Set during the peak of Victorian England, the novel celebrates an era that has long been characterized as stifled by convention and rigid biblical conservatism. Perry shows instead a time of great scientific curiosity, an embrace of research and experiential learning, and an emboldened sense of social justice. The author offers us strong women who loosen their corsets to better tramp through fields and marshes, exploring a life of the mind and burgeoning modernity. She deftly combines a Gothic style of prose with clear-headed emotional arcs for the broad and fascinating cast of characters.
The story's heart and soul belong to Cora Seaborne, a young widow who wasn't sorry to see her abusive husband pass. She escapes the confines of mourning in London for the freedom of the country, accompanied by her companion, the stalwart Martha, and her autistic son, Francis. Cora is an amateur naturalist and without knowing it, a feminist—a woman wholly unafraid to live her own truth. Or at the very least, to work to explore and define what that truth may be and what it holds for her future.
This is also a novel of tangled, rich love, both mannered and wild. Multiple hearts beat with loves unrequited and an aching pervades the pages, expressed in letters, in long glances, in touches to cinched waistlines and damp napes of the neck. Along with the palpable sense of dread that follows rumors of a winged beast is a sense of desperation and longing that may spin out of control at any moment: desire without fulfillment can be as dangerous as a legendary ichthyosaur.
This is as lovely a novel as I have read in a long time, reminiscent of A.S. Byatt and Sarah Waters. Sarah Perry is a breathtaking writer. Settle in and be prepared to be swept away on a wave of exquisite prose and storytelling. Highly recommended....more
The stranger who arrives in mysterious circumstances and turns a household on its ear may be familiar literary trope, but Ali Smith does it with suchThe stranger who arrives in mysterious circumstances and turns a household on its ear may be familiar literary trope, but Ali Smith does it with such panache and vivacity, the familiar becomes fresh and revelatory.
The Accidental shows the rusted and broken bits inside the moral compass of the Smarts, a bourgeois British family of four on summer holiday in a drab northern England town. Eve Smart is mid-list novelist and mother of 17-year-old Magnus and 12-year-old Astrid. Michael Smart, husband and step-father, is a philandering professor of English. It becomes all to easy to detest the Smart mère et père, for they are eye-rollingly entitled and pretentious, but this novel is about the kids. And it is in their voices that Smith's prose shines like a beacon.
Teen-aged Magnus has retreated deep within himself, grappling with his complicity in the tragic death of a classmate and the particular bewilderment of a privileged young man who has everything but the attention of his parents. Flitting about like a moth is young Astrid, a budding videographer and keen observer of the arbitrary and contrary unfolding around her. Astrid is the novel's strongest voice, the character I could have spent all of my time with, for her innocence is genuine, her clear heart a clean space in which to linger, after being sullied in the moral decrepitude of her ineffectual parents.
And what of that mysterious stranger? The enigmatic Amber arrives Chez Smart and moves in, yet no one in the family is quite up to admitting they have no idea who she is or how she found them. Her past feels irrelevant to the story, yet the stream-of-consciousness snippets indicate she was born in a movie theatre called Alhambra some three decades prior. She seems conjured out of legend, an imp, a sprite, beautiful and irreverent and frankly, rather mean-spirited and of questionable moral judgment. She drills under the skin of each family member, dragging them out of their emotional malaise and entrancing each before blowing the nuclear family to bits, figuratively speaking. Far be it from me, however, to give anything away.
Ali Smith plays with form here, as one would expect, but I would hazard a guess that this is one of her more traditional narrative structures. Points of view shift here and there, with meltdown riffs that shake the reader up before moving her along.
I loved this book. Truly whetted my literary appetite for more Ali Smith....more
Julie Christine
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