A Heart Bent Out Of Shape by Emylia Hall

Before Hadley, there was Lausanne, before Kristina, and Jacques, and Joel, there was still Lausanne.  Their presence in the city was only passing; the lake did not burst its banks, no mountainsides were sent crumbling, and no shutters broke from immaculate buildings to go clattering to the ground.  Yet between the striding bridges and the turreted apartment blocks, the tree-lined streets and the looping parks, they played out their trysts and tragedies.  Through it all, Lausanne remained unaltered, but the same could not be said for the lives of the people who lived there.

    It was Hadley’s second year of university and she was spending it abroad, in Switzerland.  La Suisse.  Her idea of the place belonged to cartoons - cuckoo clocks and soupy cheese, triangular chocolate and cool neutrality - but then she looked in a guidebook and saw the words ‘Swiss Riviera’.  She read about Lausanne; a city of vertical streets, rising spires and tumbling rooftops.  She’d seen a picture of Lac Léman, shining like a polished mirror, with the serrated edges of Les Dents du Midi and Mont Blanc rising behind.  There were palm trees and vineyards and palatial hotels with striped awnings that flapped in the breeze.  Lausanne seemed possessed of a quiet glamour, discreet but with a rippling undercurrent, un frisson.

Published by Headline on 12th September 2013

384 pages

Goodreads Summary

For Hadley Dunn, life so far has been uneventful - no great loves, no searing losses.  But that’s before she decides to spend a year studying in the glittering Swiss city of Lausanne, a place that feels alive with promise.  Here Hadley meets Kristina, a beautiful but elusive Danish girl, and the two quickly form the strongest of bonds.  Yet one November night, as the first snows of winter arrive, tragedy strikes.

Hadley, left reeling and guilt-stricken, begins to lean on the only other person to whom she feels close, her American Literature professor Joel Wilson.  But as the pair try to uncover the truth of what happened that night, their tentative friendship heads into forbidden territory.  And before long a line is irrevocably crossed, everything changes, and two already complicated lives take an even more dangerous course…

******

Reviewed by Georgina Tranter

A Heart Bent out of Shape is Emylia Hall’s second novel, following on from the bestseller The Book of Summers.  In this, she tells of student Hadley who by chance applies for a study year in the Swiss city of Lausanne, and is accepted to continue her degree there.  Instantly she meets Danish student Kristina and they become best friends, sharing and doing everything together, apart from one thing.  Kristina has a boyfriend, Jacques, but she won’t introduce him to Hadley, and he remains something of a mystery.

On the evening of Hadley’s birthday, a tragedy occurs, and Hadley decides she needs to trace and find Jacques, but who is he, and how should she begin?  There are only two people to whom she can turn, an old gentleman called Hugo whom she meets in a hotel, and Joel, her professor.  Working together they try to piece together the mystery and

locate Jacques, but all is not what it seems and Hadley winds up playing a dangerous game.  This is an excellent book, I was grabbed from the start, and Lausanne is wonderfully described.  Emylia Hall keeps the suspense going to the very end, and I hadn’t a clue where the tale was going.  A real-page turner, perfect for a cold winters

The Sacred River by Wendy Wallace

‘Oh, Lord, what is that?’

     Louisa, out in the fog with a pair of scissors, explored the soft obstruction with the toe of her show.  A rag, she decided.  A cloth dropped by Rosina from a window, back in the summer.  Stooping to pick it up, feeling for it on the brick path, she gasped.  The thing was warm under her fingertips.  She crouched down and peered though the vapour at a yellow beak, jet plumage around a glassy eye.  It was a blackbird.  Newly, beautifully, dead.

     The fog was sour on her tongue.  It tasted of iron and smoke mixed with a primeval dampness, made her eyes water and her cheeks sting.  Enveloped in the yellow cloud, Louisa could make out nothing.  Her own garden might have been a limitless place stretching to eternity in all directions or it might have shrunk to the very spot where she stood.

     All over London, birds had been dropping from the sky - thudding on to the leather roofs of carriages, falling down chimneys and splashing into lakes in the great parks under the gaze of statues.  Everyone said that they were an omen although there was no agreement on its meaning.  Louisa wouldn’t allow this one to be an omen.  She would rid them of it.

     Pulling on a glove from her pocket, she made herself pick up the bird.  It was light for its size, all feather and quill and claw.  Balancing it on her palm, she made her way along the path to the wall at the end of the garden and stretched out her arm to toss the corpse into the mews.  As she did so, she felt a scrabble of claws, sudden and intimate against her wrist.  The creature lurched, unfurled its wings like a black umbrella and vanished into the morning.

Published by Simon & Schuster on 1st August 2013

400 pages

Book Summary

The Egyptians had written their magic for the dead.  But Harriet wanted assistance now.  It was life she longed for…

Harriet Heron’s life is almost over before it has even begun.  At just twenty-three years of age, she is an invalid, over-protected and reclusive.  Before it is too late, she must escape the fog of Victorian London for a place where she can breathe.

Together with her devoted mother, Louisa, her God-fearing aunt, Yael, and a book of her own spells inspired by the Book of the Dead, Harriet travels to a land where the air is tinged with rose and gold and for the first time begins to experience what it is to live.  But a chance meeting on the voyage to Alexandria results in a dangerous friendship as Louisa’s long-buried past returns, in the form of someone determined to destroy her by preying upon her daughter.

As Harried journey towards a destiny no one could have foresee, her aunt Yael is caught up in an Egypt on the brink of revolt and her mother must confront the spectres of her own youth.

*****
Reviewed by Georgina Tranter

This is Wendy Wallace’s second book in a trilogy of Victorian novels.   Focusing on three very different women, she weaves an intricate tale of life, love and strength starting in London and culminating in Egypt.  The principal character is Louisa.  Suffering to breathe in the fog-filled air of London, she longs for change and begs her doctor to recommend that she go to Egypt, county of her dreams.  As this is the Victorian era, of course she cannot travel alone, so to accompany her are her mother and her aunt.  Both are very different people but agree to go with Louisa.

On the boat to Alexandria, we meet a whole host of characters who are to feature again later on in the story; newlyweds Mr and Mrs Cox, the dashing artist Eyre Soane and upon departure, a mysterious man with a piano.  Aunt Yael decides that she will not journey down the Nile with her sister-in-law and niece, so remains in Alexandria to do God’s work, leaving Harriet and Louisa to travel alone to Luxor.  

Wendy Wallace entwines the lives of these three very different women into this tale of discovery.  All three find a new purpose and sense of life outside the rigidity of their environment in Victorian London.  This is a tale of being able to escape from the binds that tie you, of being able to breathe fully and to take chances and risks that you may never have imagined before.  It is also a reminder that the past can sometimes come back to haunt you, with horrendous consequences.  

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, set in the beautiful country of Egypt which Wendy Wallace depicts so distinctly.  I liked the way that she manages to separate the stories of the three women, yet at the same time, keep them together.  I’m looking forward to the next chapter!

Dot by Araminta Hall

They were playing a game of hide and seek, as they so often did.  Some people might have seen it as a lack of imagination , but as both Dot and Mavis displayed so much imagination in later life, it seems more likely a fact of  circumstance.  Druith is after all miles from anywhere, sunk in a low, damp Welsh valley, and Dot’s house suggested itself to hide and seek in a multitude of ways.  Not that two ten-year-old girls were aware of any of this.  They didn’t even find Dot’s house strange: it was still nothing more than a marker in their childhood landscape, and the fact that the floors tipped, cupboard doors opened into secret passages and a concealed turret sprouted out of the side of the house washed over them.  The only thing they were beginning to find amusing were the plates with Dot’s grandmother inexplicably chose to hang on the walls.  ‘What next?’ they’d whisper to each other.  ‘Will we be eating off paintings?’  Although one glance at the heavy oils of permanently displeased relatives and windswept landscape made this seen very unlikely.

Published by Harper Collins  on 23rd May 2013

288 pages

Book Summary

In a higgledy-piggledy house situated in a sleepy Welsh village, two girls play hide and seek within its maze of tunnels and range of turrets.

Squeezed under her mother’s bed, Dot’s hand brushes against a long-forgotten photography of a man, his hair blowing in the breeze.  Dot stares so long at the photograph the image begins to disintegrate before her eyes, leaving her with just one thought: ‘it’s him.’

*****

Reviewed by Georgina Tranter

Unlike her first novel Everything and Nothing Araminta Hall has moved away from the crime/thriller genre and written a novel about families and relationships and the twists and turns of life that can undoubtedly change not only your life but those around you.

Focusing on three generations of women, Dot is a well written novel encompassing a whole host of characters.  I liked that fact that there were no real secondary characters in the book; everyone had a chapter where they got the opportunity to explain themselves.  What begins with two school friends playing hide and seek, turns into something much more complex.  

Dot’s father leaves her on her second birthday.  But who is he, and why did he leave?  Her mother rarely leaves the house they share with their grandmother, and she isn’t telling Dot anything.  Why do both Dot and Mavis both have the same red hair?  And later on, why do the girls’ plans for university both take a dramatic turn?  Araminta Hall weaves together a fantastic tale of two families who on the outside appear to have nothing in common but as the story progresses, you realise that appearances are not what they seem.

Having loved Everything and Nothing, I was eager to read Araminta Hall’s second novel.  There is no comparison.  Whilst I have loved reading both, they are of completely different genres, which, is an amazing feat for a new author to accomplish.  With a whole host of complex characters, and twists and turns to keep you reading, Dot is an enjoyable novel of ordinary people and what how the events around us can shape who we ultimately become.

The Sleeper by Emily Barr

She should have been back two hours ago.

   A person could not disappear from a train in the middle of the night, but apparently, she had.  She got on at Paddington (as far as we knew), but she did not get off at Truro.

   ‘I’m sure she’s fine,’ I told him.  My words hung in the air, improbable and trite.  I cast around for an explanation.  Once you discounted amnesia and sleepwalking, there were really only two, and neither of them would give her husband any comfort.

   ‘I hope so.’  His face was crumpled and his eyes seemed to have shrunk back under slightly hooded lids.  Everything was sagging as, gradually, he stopped being able to pretend that she might be about to walk in through the door.  His face was, somehow, at once both red and grey, patchy and uneven.

Published by Headline on 4th July 2013

416 pages

Book Summary

Lara Finch is living a lie.  Everyone thinks she has a happy life in Cornwall, married to the devoted Sam, but in fact she is desperately bored.  When she is offered a new job that involves commuting to London by sleeper train, she meets Guy and starts an illicit affair.

But then Lara vanishes from the night train without a trace.  Only her friend Iris disbelieves the official version of events, and sets out to find her.

For Iris, it is the start of a voyage that will take her further than she’s ever travelled and on to a trail of old crimes and dark secrets.

For Lara, it is the end of a journey that started a long time ago.  A journey she must finish, before it destroys her….

*****

Review by Georgina Tranter

With twelve novels under her belt already, Emily Barr enters the world of the commuter with her novel of strangers on the night train travelling from sleepy Cornwall to the busy city of London.  Lara has given up her city job to move south to focus on her marriage and having a baby.  With failed IVF treatments behind her, and a host of bills to pay, Lara accepts a temporary position in London that means she will have to take the sleeper train to London every Sunday, returning in the early hours of Saturday morning.  Little

do either her, or her husband Sam realise what this will entail.  While Sam is pining away for her, Lara has created a new life for herself, one that now involves Guy, a married man who she meets on the train.  In love, and determined to tell their partners about their relationship, Lara and Guy make what is to be their final return journey to Cornwall.  But then tragedy strikes and none of their lives will ever be the same again.

Having discovered Emily Barr shortly after her first novel Backpack was published, and having read every one since, it was probably inevitable that I enjoyed this latest book.  Actually I loved it; the characters, the way she describes Falmouth, her current hometown, with such detail and of this incredible world of the sleeper train, for it is in itself like entering a different world.  The twists and turns that are incorporated into her writing, plus the inevitable element of travel are what make Emily Barr’s novels distinctively her own.  She is a seasoned traveller, and this is by all means apparent when reading any of her books.  

The Sleeper is an easy read but that’s because it is a real page-turner.  I read it in just two days and couldn’t get enough of it.  I loved the character of Iris, Lara’s only friend in Cornwall, who lives this reclusive life in a ramshackle cottage with her mysterious boyfriend, and that of Olivia, Lara’s sister, who is the polar-opposite of her, and harbours a deep hatred of her sibling.  I challenge you to read The Sleeper this summer and not to gasp out loud as the twists and turns of the tale are slowly wrapped together, as I did!

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman

It was only a duckpond, out at the back of the farm.  It wasn’t very big.

   Lettie Hempstock said it was an ocean, but I knew that was silly.  She said they’d come here across the ocean from the old country.

   Her mother said that Lettie didn’t remember properly, and it was a long time ago, and anyway, the old country had sunk.

   Old Mrs Hempstock, Lettie’s grandmother, said they were both wrong, and that the place that had sunk wasn’t the really old country.  She said she could remember the really old country.

   She said the really old country had blown up.

Published by Headline on 18th June 2013

256 pages

Book Summary

It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed.  Dark creatures from beyond this world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is a primal horror here, and menace unleashed - within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it.

His only defence is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane.  The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is an ocean.  The oldest can remember the Big Bang.

******

Review by Georgina Tranter

Neil Gaiman has constructed a grown-up fairy tale with his latest novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane.  When our nameless narrator finds himself outside his childhood home, on his way to a funeral, he is surprised to notice that the inhabitants of forty years before are still there, and haven’t changed a bit.  But then, they always did seem a bit strange, especially Hettie Lempstock, his childhood friend who has been eleven forever.

When an opal miner is found dead at the end of the lane, the narrator meets the Hempstock family, three women who live in the farmhouse there.  They seem to have powers that other people don’t possess.  When the villagers mysteriously start receiving money, the narrator and Lettie realise that the opal miner’s death has started something otherworldly and needs to be stopped.  Unfortunately they release it into this world, with potentially horrifying consequences.  Can the narrator, a child of seven, and this mysterious girl, with a duck pond for an ocean, return things to normal?

I was gripped by Neil Gaiman’s short, but enjoyable tome.  It’s a fantasy but at the same time, believable and very well told.  I loved the Hempstock family, with their quirky powers, and in particular Lettie.  This is a book about returning to your childhood, but not a book for children.  Despite its length, it manages to be powerful, gripping and magical. 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane transported me to another time and place, and I loved it.

Ruby Redfort - Take Your Last Breath by Lauren Child

 

The sun flickered on the ocean, cutting bright diamonds of light into the surface of the indigo water.  A three-year-old girl was peering over the side of a sailboat, staring down into the deep.  The only sounds came from her parents’ laughter, the sing-song hum of a man’s voice and the clapping of the waves against the yacht.

   Gradually the sounds became less and less distinct until the girl was quite alone with the ocean.  It seemed to be pulling her, drawing her to it…confiding a secret, almost whispering to her.  

   She barely felt herself fall as she tipped forward and slipped into the soft ink of the sea.

   Down she twisted, her arms, her legs above her like tendrils.  The water felt smooth and perfectly cold; fish darted and silver things whisked by - her breath bubbled up as transparent pearls.

   Then suddenly, like a snap of the fingers, all the fish were gone; it was just the girl in the big wide ocean.

   But she wasn’t quite alone.

   There was something else.

Published by Harper Collins Children’s Books  on 6th June 2013

432 pages

Book Summary

All at sea?  Ok, here’s the lowdown…Ruby Redfort: secret agent, thirteen-year-old kid.  Super-smart, super-cool and not afraid of the water or anything in it.  Sharks?  Cut-throat pirates?  A giant tentacled sea monster?  No problem, buster.  Diving without oxygen, is NOT Ruby’s strong suit.  Can she do it?  There’s only one way to find out…

*******

Reviewed by Georgina Tranter

Ruby Redfort made her first appearance in Lauren Child’s earlier books about Clarice Bean, and due to requests made by children around the globe, she was given her own series.  Take Your Last Breath is the second book.  Ruby is a sassy thirteen year old with a passion for wearing t-shirts with couldn’t care less slogans on them, such as excuse me while I yawn and a nose for spotting the out-of-the-ordinary.  In fact, she is so good at this, she is currently the youngest recruit at Spectrum, a spy agency set up to foil the plots and plans of evil geniuses capable of grand theft, extortion, fraud and murder.  She only heard of Spectrum six weeks ago, and it looks like she’s already on to her second case!

Strange things are happening at sea.  An agent has been found drowned.  Shipping cargo has been confused, unusual marine activity is taking place, and strange sounds have been heard.  But how, what and why?  And are these things connected at all?  Under her guise as a normal thirteen year old, Ruby sets out to solve this mystery, with a little help from her butler Hitch (secret agent) and best friend Clancy.  But can she do so in time?

I think this book is perfect for the 9-12 year old age bracket.  It’s easy to read, with lots of diagrams and puzzles to try to work out (the answers to the clues are given at the end) and most importantly, it’s fun.  I loved this book and am looking forward to the next Ruby Redfort adventure!  

Non Fiction Friday - Girl Least Likely To: Thirty years of fashion, fasting and Fleet Street by Liz Jones

I went to visit my mum today.  She is in her old bedroom, still in the semi-detached Sixties’ house she shared with my dad in Saffron Walden in Essex, but the room could now by anywhere.  Or at least, anywhere inside an institution.  Her bedroom furniture has been taken away - the double divan, the heavy, dark dressing table - as the carers found it to be in the way, too low, too high, too heavy.  Basically, my mum’s pride and joy, Pledged over many decades, contravened health and safety.  She is, instead, in a narrow hospital cot, with metal bars on each side, a hoist above her hovering like an obscene child’s mobile.  It twinkles, I suppose, when someone has bothered to open the curtains (a ritual that began and ended my mum’s every day, whilst she could still wield a mop to shove the heavy, oak curtain pole back up into place, given it always drooped with the weight of the blue velvet).  But rather than being a comfort, the mobile-hoist hybrid is a constant reminder of her infirmity.

Published by Simon & Schuster on the 4th July 2013

288 pages

Book Summary

Liz Jones is Fashion Editor of the Daily Mail, and a columnist for the Mail on Sunday.  She is the former editor of Marie Claire, which sounds quite an achievement, but she was sacked three years in.  A psychotherapist once told her, ‘What you brood on will hatch’, and she was right.  Nothing Liz ever did in life ever worked out.  Nothing.  Not one single thing.

Liz grew up in Essex, the youngest of seven children.  Her mother was a martyr, her dad so dashing that no other man could ever live up to his pressed and polished standards.  Her siblings terrified her, with their Afghan coats, cigarettes, parties, sex and drugs.  They made her father shout, and her mother cry.

Liz became an anorexic aged eleven, an illness that continues to blight her life today.  She remained a virgin until her thirties, and even then found the wait wasn’t really worth it; it was just one more thing to add to her to do list.  She was named Columnist of the Year 2012 by the British Society of Magazine Editors, but is still too frightened to answr the phone, too filled with disgust at her own image to glance in the mirror or eat a whole avocado.

She lives alone with her four rescued collies, three horses and seventeen cats.  Girl Least Likely To is the opposite of ‘having it all’.  It is a life lesson in how NOT to be a woman.

******

Reviewed by Georgina Tranter

Liz Jones is a bit like Marmite.  You either love her or hate her and this book will not change that.  Many who already dislike her will read this and continue to do so.  Those of the three million readers of her column in the Mail on Sunday will read it and love every word.  So what about those who aren’t sure, or have maybe never even heard of Liz Jones?

Journalist and fashionista Liz Jones never felt she would be good at anything.  She only really had two ambitions, to own a horse and to appear in Vogue magazine.  The first she finally managed a few years ago, the latter she never achieved.  Starting out as reporter on Lyons Mail, Liz worked her way up through the likes of Company magazine until she was offered the role of Editor of Marie Claire.  She was to dramatically fall from grace just three years into the role by challenging the ‘body issue’ and the way that magazines portray women.

This is Liz’s account of her life, from her first childhood home by the A130 that she was too scared to cross, to her failed marriage to an adulterous husband; Liz reveals all.  I will readily admit to being a reader, and admirer, of her column in the MoS.  I do think that she has become a parody of herself, that with her writing she has created a persona that she now cannot afford to shake off.  But, she has an unfailing talent for writing, and publishing things that shouldn’t be said, but for Liz, that has made her career.  She no longer has a husband, or very many friends as a result but she tells it as she sees it.  She is nothing but unseeingly honest.  I actually really enjoyed this book, she focuses more on her earlier years than the later ones of her marriage, and current relationship to the Rock Star, but that’s what the book is about; if you want the latest ins-and-outs of her life, read her weekly column.  However, I wouldn’t want to be Liz Jones for anything.  She clearly is a woman who tries too hard, and seemingly fails at almost everything in doing so.  Is she her own worse enemy?   Probably.

The Silent Wife by A.S.A.Harrison

It’s early September.  Jodi Brett is in her kitchen, making dinner.  Thanks to the open plan of the condo, she has an unobstructed view through the living room to its east-facing windows and beyond to a vista of lake and sky, cast by the evening light in a uniform blue.  A thinly drawn line of a darker hue, the horizon, appears very near at hand, almost touchable. She likes this delineating arc, the feeling it gives her of being encircled.  The sense of containment is what she loves most about living here, in her aerie on the twenty-seventh floor.

At forty-five, Jodi still sees herself as a young woman.  She does not have her eye on the future but lives very much in the moment, keeping her focus on the everyday.  She assumes, without having thought about it, that things will go on indefinitely in their imperfect yet entirely acceptable way.  In other words, she is deeply unaware that her life is now peaking, that her youthful resilience - which her twenty-year marriage to Todd Gilbert has been slowly eroding - is approaching a final state of disintegration, that her notions about who she is and how she ought to conduct herself are far les stable than she supposes, given that a few short months are all it will take to make a killer out of her.

Published by Headline in June 2013

384 pages

Todd and Jodi have been together for more than twenty years.  They are both aware their world is in crisis, though neither is willing to admit it.

Todd is living a dual existence, while Jodi is living in denial.  But she also likes to settle scores.  When it becomes clear their affluent Chicago lifestyle could disintegrate at any moment, Jodi knows everything is at stake.  It’s only now she will discover just how much she’s truly capable of…

*********

Reviewed by Georgina Tranter

There isn’t much of a surprise to The Silent Wife; we know from the start that the seemingly perfect marriage of Todd and Jodi is on the rocks.  Todd is having an affair, but Jodi is perfectly happy to pretend that everything is just rosy, until Todd reveals he is leaving her.  When her world is suddenly about to be turned upside-down, just how far will one woman go to maintain the life she loves?

If Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl was one of the most talked about books of 2012, then A.S.A.Harrison’s similar tome The Silent Wife is set to be the hit of 2013.  This is her first novel, and unfortunately, set to also be her last, given her untimely and unexpected death only a month ago.  Comparisons between the two novels are bound to arise, as they feature a parallel theme - a once-loving couple whose relationship takes a murderous path.  Where The Silent Wife differs in my opinion, is that it has a much better ending than Flynn’s novel.  Read both and compare them to see if you agree, but beware a woman scorned!

Big Brother by Lionel Shriver

I can’t believe they gave him a middle seat.”

     “They should really charge double, and leave the next seat empty.  I lost my armrest, and the guy was half in my lap.  And you saw how hard it was for the attendant to get the cart past him.”

     I was relieved when the woman’s suitcase arrived, since the pariah whom she and her seatmate had so cruelly disparaged must have been the very large gentleman whom two flight attendants were rolling into baggage claim in an extra-wide wheelchair.  A curious glance in the heave passenger’s direction pierced me with a sympathy so searing I might have been shot.  Looking at that man was like falling into a hole, and I had to look away because it was rude to stare, and even ruder to cry.

     “You, don’t recognize your own brother?”

     The smile I’d prepared in welcome crumpled.

Published by Harper Collins

Hardback - 9th May 2013

384 pages

Paperback - 16 January 2014

400 pages

Summary

For Pandora, cooking is a form of love. Alas, her husband, Fletcher, a self-employed high-end cabinetmaker, now spurns the “toxic” dishes that he’d savoured through their courtship, and spends hours each day to manic cycling. Then, when Pandora picks up her older brother Edison at the airport, she doesn’t recognize him. In the years since they’ve seen one another, the once slim, hip New York jazz pianist has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened? After Edison has more than overstayed his welcome, Fletcher delivers his wife an ultimatum: It’s him or me.

******

Reviewed by Georgina Tranter

It has to be said, Lionel Shriver has done it again.  The author of the incredible We need to talk about Kevin has just written an explosive book focussing on that ever topical subject of food.  As this is an American author, then what better way to tackle our relationships about, and with, food than with the topic of obesity, of which American has a major problem.

Pandora Halfdanarson is a now flourishing business woman living in the state of Iowa; daughter of a successful soap-opera father, she has spent her life shunning the media. Her

brother Edison hasn’t.  A known jazz musician he has dreamt of living life in the limelight ever since he can remember.  After a few years absence, he calls Pandora out of the blue, asking if he can visit.  The man who greets her at the airport is not the brother she remembers.  He has piled on the pounds to become a grotesque enlarged version of himself, to the extent that she initially doesn’t recognise him.

What follows is a graphically descriptive account of our relationships with food, and how not only this can affect those living with us, but also the way we are treated and regarded in society.  It’s an engrossing read that, pardon the pun, I devoured in only a few sittings.  

It’s not a light-hearted read, as fans of Shriver will already expect of her, but a brutally honest account with an element of truth in its telling.  I’ll be recommending this to many people to read.

Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann

“I’m not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse,” Helena said.

     “At least it’s something different,” Nick said.  “No more goddamn ration books. No more taking the bus everywhere.   Hughes said he’s bought a Buick.  Hallelujah.”

     “Lord knows where he got it,” Helena said.  “Probably from some cheat fixer.”

     “Who cares,” said Nick, stretching her arms lazily toward the New England sky.

     They were sitting in the backyard of their house on Elm Street wearing their slips and drinking gin neat out of old jelly jars.  It was the hottest Indian summer anyone in Cambridge could remember.

     Nick eyed the record player sitting precariously in the window.  The needle was skipping.

     “It’s too hot to do anything but drink,” she said, laying her head back against the rusting garden chair.  Louis Armstrong was stuck repeating that he had a right to sing the blues.  “The first thing I’m going to do when I get to Florida is get Hughes to buy me a whole bushel of good needles.”

     “That man,” Helena said, sighing.

     “I know,” Nick said.  “He really is too beautiful.  And a Buick and fine record needles. What more could a girl ask for?”

     Helena giggled into her glass.  She sat up.  “I think I’m drunk.”

Published by Picador on  the  9th May 2013

256 pages

Book Summary

Nick and her cousin, Helena, have grown up sharing sultry summers at Tiger House, the glorious old family estate on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.  As World War II ends they are on the cusp of adulthood, the world seeming to offer itself up to them.  Helena is leaving for Hollywood and a new marriage, while Nick is to be reunited with her young husband Hughes, due to return from London and the war.  Everything is about to change.

Neither quite finds the life she had imagined, and as the years pass, the trips to Tiger House take on a new complexity.  Then on the brink of the 1960s, Nick’s daughter Daisy and Helena’s son Ed make a sinister discovery.  It plunges the island’s bright heat into private shadow and sends a depth-charge to the heart of the family.

*****

Reviewed by Georgina Tranter

Tigers in Red Weather is Liza Klaussmann’s debut novel, and boy is it good.  From the most delicious cover to such captivating prose, I was hooked from the start.  This is such an atmospheric novel that you could almost imagine yourself in America through the decades from the end of the Second World War to the Sixties of the Kennedy era.

Nick and Helena are complete opposites; destined for such contrasting lives that it can do nothing but threaten to tear them apart.  Klaussmann covers all of the stereotypes of the suburban American housewife; drugged up by her doctor to keep her from straying too far, to the wife who cannot keep her eyes, or hands, off of other men.

It is only when their children make a horrible discovery one summer that the bonds that tie them together start to unravel.  How much do we really know of each other’s lives and when pushed, how far will we go to protect those we love?

Set mainly on Martha’s Vineyard it tells of a way of life so different from that which we know today; of pools, and summer parties, and of having nothing better to do than choose which fish to serve.  This is the American of the rich and privileged.  Written from the perspective of the five main characters, it covers 1945 through to 1969.

This is a perfect summer read and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

Review by Georgina Tranter

Pages - 528

Republished by Vintage Children's Classics on 2nd August 2012

‘Swallows and Amazons for ever!’

Goodreads Summary

The Walker children - also known as Captain John, Mate Susan, Able Seaman Titty, and Ship’s Boy Roger - set sail on the Swallow and head for Wild Cat Island. There they camp under open skies, swim in clear water and go fishing for their dinner. But their days are disturbed by the Blackett sisters, the fierce Amazon pirates. The Swallows and Amazons decide to wage war and so begins a summer of unforgettable discoveries and incredible adventures.

Roger, aged seven, and no longer the youngest of the family, ran in wide zigzags, to and fro, across the steep field that sloped up from the lake to Holly Howe, the farm where they were staying for part of the summer holidays. He ran until he nearly reached the hedge by the footpath, then turned and ran until he nearly reached the hedge on the other side of the field. Then he turned and crossed the field again. Each crossing of the field brought him nearer to the farm. The wind was against him, and he was tacking up against it to the farm, where at the gate his patient mother was awaiting him. He could not run straight against the wind because he was a sailing vessel, a tea-clipper, the Cutty Sark.

*********

When given the choice of which of the republished Vintage Classics to choose to review, I jumped at the chance to read Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons. Surprisingly despite being a voracious reader even as a child, I have never read this before, therefore I thought I ought to remedy it straight away. Set in Coniston where Ransome used to holiday as a child, Swallows and Amazons has a wonderful way of transporting you to the idyllic summers of your youth; where days seemed endless and the sun always shone!

Written in 1930 before the age of technology had really kicked in, Swallows has the ability to create a wonderful magic for children of all ages. The whole concept of being able to sail off to an island, alone without adults is one that most children, and even adults aspire to doing and it is only really possible to envisage this in a time where mobile phones, mp3 players and computers don’t exist.

Swallows and Amazons may appear dated and a touch politically incorrect in comparison to some books that are being published today but it remains enchanting. For me, if a book has the ability to capture your imagination and transport you to that place in your head, then the book works, and this one works very well. A wonderful summer read and one that I think many children will still enjoy today.

Snow White and the Huntsman by Lily Blake

Reviewed by Georgina Tranter

Published by Atom Books on 1st June 2012

Pages 240

Who will you be when faced with the end?

The end of a kingdom,

The end of good men,

Will you run?

Will you hide?

Or will you hunt down evil with a venomous pride?

Rise to the ashes,

Rise to the winter sky,

Rise to the calling,

Make heard the battle cry.

Let it scream from the mountains

From the forest to the chapel,

Because death is a hungry mouth

And you are the apple.

So who will you be when faced with the end?

When the vultures are circling

And the shadows descend.

Will you cower?

Or will you fight?

Is your heart made of glass?

Or a pure Snow White?

Book Summary

SHE IS DESTINED…EITHER THE QUEEN WILL KILL HER OR THE HUNTSMAN WILL TRANSFORM HER INTO A WARRIOR.

Ten years ago, the stunning and vengeful Queen Ravenna murdered her king the same fateful night she married him. But controlling the now desolate kingdom has begun to take its toll on the evil Queen. To keep her magic and beauty from dying, she must consume a heart that is pure. And the only one that has been under her cruel watch all along belongs to the king’s daughter.

Ravenna calls for the imprisoned Snow White, but the young woman escapes from the castle and seeks refuge in the Dark Forest. Because the forest is enchanted with magical flora and deadly fauna the Queen sends for the only man who has ventured into the woods and survived; a tortured Huntsman called Eric.

With his hope long forsaken, the Huntsman agrees to bring back the girl. But when Eric finds his prey, he hesitates. Will he kill her?

Or will he train her to become the greatest warrior the kingdom has ever known?

*********

I have to admit I leaped at the chance to review this book. This is one of the first films I remember going to see and it still holds a magical quality for me so I was interested to see how the traditional tale was to be re-worked for a modern day audience.

Firstly, it’s not a difficult read. The synopsis has remained much the same - evil Queen wants rid of beautiful step-daughter. Only this time she needs Snow White in order to maintain her strength and beauty forever. Unfortunately for Ravenna, Snow White escapes and heads blindly into the Dark Forest from which no man has returned to tell the tale. Of course, there has to be an exception to this rule and this is where Eric the Huntsman comes into the tale. A drunk, miserable man who has nothing to live for following the death of his beloved wife, he is charged by the Queen to find Snow White and bring her back to the castle alive. When they meet there is an instant dislike of each other, but as the tale progresses, this changes and Eric questions whether he should uphold his promise to the Queen.

With beautiful descriptions and imagery it is not hard to picture how this must appear on the big screen. It truly is a visual novel. I think it would certainly appeal to younger teenagers as it stays clear of strong violence and language but still maintains a tension throughout. Will Snow White defeat the evil Queen and bring happiness back to the kingdom, or will Eric trick her into being returned to the castle in order for him to collect his much desired promise? There’s only one way to find out - read the book!

Cop To Corpse by Peter Lovesey

Review by Georgina Tranter

Published  by Sphere in April 2012
Hero to zero. Cop to corpse. One minute PC Harry Tasker is strolling up Walcot Street, Bath, on foot patrol. The next he is shot through the head. No scream, no struggle, no last words. He is picked off, felled, dead.
The shooting activates an alarm over one of the shops nearby, an ear-splitting ring certain to wake everyone.
Normally at this time on a Sunday morning - around 4a.m. - the streets of Bath are silent. The nightclubs close officially at three. The last of the revellers have dispersed. PC Tasker was on his way back to the police station after checking that Club XL was quiet.
His body lies in a bow shape under the light of a street lap on the flagstone pavement, a small puddle of blood forming under the head. His chequered cap is upturned nearby.


Goodreads Summary
It’s the third killing of an officer in Somerset in a matter of weeks. The emergency services are summoned. Ambitious to arrest the Somerset Sniper, the duty inspector seals the crime scene, which is confined by the river on one side and a massive retaining wall on the other. He uncovers the murder weapon in a garden and is himself attacked and left for dead.
Enter Peter Diamond, Bath’s CID chief. Throwing himself and his team into the most dangerous assignment of his career, he must outwit an adversary the likes of which the West Country has never seen - a twisted killer with a lust for police blood.

**********

As a huge crime fan I was eager to read Peter Lovesey’s latest novel featuring Peter Diamond, the twelfth in the series. Admittedly I have not heard of Lovesey before but I’m glad I picked this book up.

From page one the story is intense and gripping, PC Tasker is murdered instantly and then follows the immediate hunt for the Somerset Sniper, leading to a second officer getting injured in his bid to capture the killer single handedly, all within a few pages.

The book moves along at a fair pace. Diamond is the typical fictional male detective, grumpy, set in his ways and always knowing best. However when compared to his nemesis Jack Gull, head of the Serial Crimes Unit, he is a saint. Diamond and Gull pit their wits against each other in order to try to find this police serial killer and their love-hate relationship makes good reading.

Almost half-way through the book we are introduced to some new characters, three women who decide to follow a suspicious character who books European business trips when also being on benefits. Is he all he seems? The friends decided to turn detective to find out more about this mysterious Mr Smith and his ulterior motives and write about it in the form of a blog.

The book then moves back and forth between Diamond and Gull’s quest to find the killer, and the blog about trying to find out more about Mr Smith. From midnight stake-outs in woodland to find the sniper, through to historical research in order to link the three policemen this is a gripping read. There is a twist in the tale that obviously links these two stories but I have to admit I sort-of missed it. The conclusion of the book wasn’t quite what I expected it to be and I was a little let down. Having said that, the pace was quick and the characters and dialogue strong enough to keep me turning the pages. I will certainly read another Lovesey book and think this is worth a read for any crime fans out there.

Slide by Jill Hathaway

Review written by Georgina Tranter

Published  - March 2012 HarperCollins Children's Books
Pages - 256

I’m slumped at my desk, fighting to keep my eyes open. A drop of sweat meanders down my back. It’s got to be eighty-five degrees in here, though it’s only October. When we complained, Mrs. Winger mumbled something about waiting for a custodian to come fix the thermostat.
Beside me, hunched over his desk, Icky Ferris stumbles over the words in Julius Caesar. We’re supposed to be reading in partners - but his monotonous tone, paired with the unintelligible Shakespearean language that gets English teachers all hot and bothered, makes me feel unbearably sleepy.


Goodreads Summary
Vee Bell hates having narcolepsy.
But collapsing at school is nowhere near as bad as the truth. When Vee passes out she slides randomly into other people’s heads and ends up seeing through their eyes. Then Vee finds herself in the head of a killer, standing over the body of a dead cheerleader, and she’s beyond freaked.

Vee knows that this was no suicide. And when another cheerleader turns up dead, everyone is a suspect. Struggling to understand her terrifying and unwanted ‘gift’, Vee is tangled in a web of secrets, lies and danger…

***********

Vee, the central character, suffers from narcolepsy which means she cannot control herself falling asleep at any time of the day or night. The thing that makes this more dramatic for her is that if she has something on her possession that belongs to another person, for example clothing or jewellery, she can transfer herself into their heads. This really sounds so totally over-the-top and implausible that I really thought this book wouldn’t work out. I’m glad to say that I was wrong.

Whilst it might not sound believable, I never for one moment doubted this book. The central character Vee, is a high-school student living with her father and younger sister. She used to be part of the popular kids at school but her narcolepsy singles her out and she is no longer part of the inner circle of students which includes her younger sister Mattie. With her dyed pink hair and penchant for 90s indie rock bands, Vee doesn’t need to be made any more weird by disclosing her unique ‘talent’.

When the first murder occurs, everyone believes it to be a suicide but Vee is the only one who knows the truth. She realises that no one would believe her if she said what she had seen, so tries to find out who the killer is by sliding into them while she sleeps. Could it be her male best friend Rollins who has been acting ‘kinda weird’ lately, or is it the gorgeous new-boy Zane who has developed quite an interest in Vee? Then again, it could be teacher Mr Golden, who clearly has some secrets of his own?

This is not your typical high school novel but it flows easily and I finished it over a weekend. It’s also not a book for girls or boys - there are enough characters and plot strength for it to appeal to most teenagers. It’s also not gory in its descriptions so suitable for younger teenagers. If anything, the cover is scarier than the book! I had my suspicions but despite all the crime novels I read I still didn’t quite work out whodunit! Definitely worth a read!

Vixen by Jill Larkin

Guest Review by Georgina Tranter

Pages - 386
Published by Corgi in paperback in March 2012

They found the entrance exactly as instructed: just before the cracked sign for Malawer’s Funeral Parlor, between the tailor and the barbershop, through the rusted gate, eleven creaky steps below street level. After they’d knocked precisely three times, a tiny slit in the boarded-up door slid open.
‘What’s the word, doll?’ One dark eye blinked at them.

Goodreads Summary

Three girls. One city. Who will be the last Flapper standing?

Chicago, 1924. Born into American high society, Gloria is the girl who has it all. Living the debutante dream along with her best friend Lorraine, Gloria is just a trip down the aisle from her future life as Mrs Sebastian Grey.

But surely there’s time for a little partying before she settles down?

With an illegal speakeasy on every corner and mobsters rubbing shoulders with the city’s most sensational flappers, Chicago’s jazz-fuelled underworld is certainly not the kind of place for a society princess like Gloria.

And she’s never had so much fun.

************

I loved this book! Vixen is the first of a trilogy by Jillian Larkin, set in American in the 1920s. Three very different characters make up Vixen: debutante Gloria, who has everything, the money, the lifestyle and the fiancé; her best friend Lorraine who is determined to cause a stir wherever she goes, and Clara, the country relative bought to Chicago to organise her cousin’s forthcoming wedding. But as with most things, appearances can be deceptive!

From the outset, I was hooked by this book. The settings were so detailed, the illegal speakeasys where the girls slip off to for illicit drinking and partying in true Flapper style. (Prohibition means alchohol is illegal in Chicago but knowing where to find it is half the fun)! Jillian Larkin clearly loves this period and it was well researched. The descriptions of the outfits that the girls wear were wonderful - I wanted to bob my hair and buy a sequin dress just reading about it.

Each girl is very different in character and initially I had doubts as to whether they seemed to act their age (18-20) but as the book progressed I did believe them. I think the male characters in the book (the rich fiancé Sebastian, the best friend Marcus and the piano player Jerome) came across as a lot older but again I think that in the era this book is set, they would have acted more this way than boys of today. The balance of the three female characters with three male characters also worked really well.

The book is divided into chapters with each of the individual girls’ names at the start so it focuses on each of them in turn which I liked. Gloria is the spoilt little rich girl who is about to get married to the very handsome but cold Sebastian. However she longs for a little excitement in her life and it only takes her best friends Lorraine and Marcus to encourage her before her life takes her on a path that will change her forever.

Best friend Lorraine loves to shock and comes across in the book as a very shallow figure. I felt sorry for her as she really was all about appearance but no substance. She wants to be everything Gloria is, but she isn’t.

Clara is the country cousin who is sent to live with Gloria and her mother. From the start you know that there is more to her that meets the eye but what is the secret that she is keeping from everyone and will they all find out?

This is an easy read that I flew through. With the chapter breakdowns it keeps you wanting to read more so you can find out what is happening to each character. I can’t wait to read the next two instalments to find out what happens next. With it’s dramatic red and black cover, Vixen and Jillian Larkin are definitely names to look out for.