*This hasn't happened to me in a long time, but I wrote a review of this wonderful essay collection and somehow in the moment of posting this morning,*This hasn't happened to me in a long time, but I wrote a review of this wonderful essay collection and somehow in the moment of posting this morning, I inadvertently deleted it. Tears shed, and it was too late to reconstruct, so until I muster up the energy to attempt a rewrite, suffice it to say I loved this. Forty-one beautifully written essays by one of my favorite writers on nature, science, nostalgia, grief and goats that shouldn't be missed.
Elegant, chilling, and full of captivating humanity, The Boy in the Field slivers into the mind like a tiny fragment of glass into the skin: imperceptElegant, chilling, and full of captivating humanity, The Boy in the Field slivers into the mind like a tiny fragment of glass into the skin: imperceptible until suddenly you can't think about anything else.
Just so we're clear: this isn't a genre mystery. It is possible to have a story with a random act of violence, detective inspectors, and a suspect at large that cannot be pigeonholed into a genre beyond "fiction". I make this point because the book may have been mis-billed as mystery/crime novel and readers who only skim the back cover blurb may feel cheated that The Boy in the Field does not follow conventional crime fiction tropes.
There is a body and there is blood, that of a boy in a meadow outside the storied city of Oxford, discovered by three siblings on their way home from school. He is not dead, this boy whose name is Karel Lustig, although he admits later he wishes he hadn't been found.
This is the story of those three siblings and how the discovery of the boy in the field affects them at their very particular stage of emotional development. Matthew, the oldest, becomes obsessed with finding Karel's attacker and joins Karel's spooked and scary older brother in a bizarre stakeout. Zoe, in full flush of her sexual awakening, discovers that her father is having an affair and responds by pursuing an age-inappropriate relationship with a visiting American graduate student. Most poignant is thirteen-year-old Duncan, adopted at birth from teenager, who is suddenly compelled to find his "first" mother.
Each of these coming-of-age journeys occurs within the shelter of a loving, stable family — Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan are perceptive, kind, wise young people and their parents, flawed and distracted as they are, allow these young people both the room and the safety to grow into their adulthood. The great mystery Livesey explores is that of the human heart and the lengths we travel to make sense of an unknowable world.
It struck me how refreshing it was to read a novel with teens as the main characters set in an era immediately prior to smartphones. Smart technology has gotten in the way of thoughtful discourse and brains developing on their own power.
Written with a light hand in lucid and luminous prose, The Boy in the Field is profound in theme and empathy. The denouement blunts some of the story's power but it also met my need at this point in time for resolution and closure, even if that satisfaction lasts only as long as it takes to read a brilliant book....more
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 the tickeHow 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 return tWe 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 to The 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-charged bantWhat 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 from OxforOn 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 an itineraAn 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 fun diI'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 how 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 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. Eleanor Somewhere 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 English couThe 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 Kamila ShFate 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-reading thI 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