+ audio book, feel-good, female friendship, fiction, fifties, friendship, gay, grief, List, loneliness, loss, love, marriage, motherhood, relationships, review, sixties
The Last List of Mabel Beaumont by Laura Pearson
The list he left had just one item on it. Or, at least, it did at first…
Mabel Beaumont’s husband Arthur loved lists. He’d leave them for her everywhere. ‘Remember: eggs, butter, sugar’. ‘I love you: today, tomorrow, always’.
But now Arthur is gone. He died: softly, gently, not making a fuss. But he’s still left her a list. This one has just one item on it though: ‘Find D’.
Mabel feels sure she knows what it means. She must track down her best friend Dot, who she hasn’t seen since the fateful day she left more than sixty years ago.
It seems impossible. She doesn’t even know if Dot’s still alive. Also, every person Mabel talks to seems to need help first, with missing husbands, daughters, parents. Mabel finds her list is just getting longer, and she’s still no closer to finding Dot.
What she doesn’t know is that her list isn’t just about finding her old friend. And that if she can admit the secrets of the past, maybe she could even find happiness again…
A completely heartbreaking, beautiful, uplifting story, guaranteed to make you smile but also make you cry. Perfect for fans of My Name is Ove, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, and The Keeper of Stories.
My Review
When her husband dies, Mabel is left alone with only the dog for company. Except he’s not ‘her’ dog. Ollie was devoted to Arthur and just gives her the side-eye. He tolerates a walk, eats the food she gives him (of course, he’s a dog), but won’t let her stroke him.
Arthur loved his lists, but just before he died, he left her a list with just one item on it – find D. What could it mean? Mabel decides it means find Dot, her best friend, who left 62 years ago, and she never heard from again. Dot was wonderful, clever, brave, pretty – she was just ‘Dot’.
Everyone had hoped she would marry Mabel’s brother, Arthur’s best friend. But that wasn’t to be. Mabel still married Arthur though, and they stayed together ‘until death do us part’.
In her search for Dot, Mabel makes lots of new friends. There’s her ‘carer’ Julie, who Arthur hired before he died. Mabel doesn’t want a carer, but she does want a friend. Through Julie she meets dance teacher and ex-model Patty, mum-of-one Kirsty, and then there’s Erin who Mabel knows from the local supermarket.
I had my own theory about why Dot left to go to London. I was of course totally wrong, though I quite like my theory. Very different from what actually happened.
It’s a lovely story. I listened to it on Audible, which I really enjoyed. I only have one criticism. I wish Mabel was just a bit younger – maybe 80 rather than 86. I think she would therefore have a few more years left.
About the Author
Laura Pearson is the author of five novels. The Last List of Mabel Beaumont was a Kindle number one bestseller in the UK and a top ten bestseller in the US. Laura lives in Leicestershire, England, with her husband, their two children, and a cat who likes to lie on her keyboard while she tries to write.
A town under fire. A detective with something to prove. A killer hiding in plain sight.
The small town of Rislake in the picturesque Blue Mountains is about to be engulfed by a major bushfire. The order has been given for the residents to clear out.
But a last sweep uncovers one person is missing: Tracey Hilmeyer, wife of one of the firefighters tackling the blaze.
#IntoTheFlames X/Twitter @JDelargyAuthor #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours
Instagram @jamesdelargy1 @randomthingstours #blogtour
Detective Kennard is in town to help with crowd control, but instead he finds himself driving straight towards the inferno to look for Tracey at the Hilmeyer home.
When he gets there, he finds her dead at the bottom of the stairs, and it’s clear she was murdered. With the evacuation almost complete there is barely enough time to save the living never mind the dead.
But Detective Kennard has something to prove and cannot let this one go. Can he solve her murder before the crime scene, and the entire town, turns to ash?
My Review
Just how far would you go to apprehend a killer? Into the eye of a bushfire? Not me, no way.
But Detective Alex Kennard, suffering from PTSD following a hostage situation that went disastrously wrong, is determined to prove himself fit for duty. Except that he’s really not. He’s partnered with Layton, who is a ‘paint-by-numbers’ cop according to Kennard, younger than him by quite a long way, but she has his back, and he has hers.
The book starts out with the discovery of a body, lying at the bottom of the stairs in a house that should have been evacuated with the approaching bushfire. But this is no accident, it’s definitely foul play – the victim’s head has been caved in with a blunt, heavy object. But who killed her and why?
Tracey Hilmeyer’s husband Russell is one of the firefighters. He was a talented football player with a promising career in front of him, but an injury to his knee has left him unable to play, and bitter. Tracey is an artist, but her beloved art gallery has had to close due to a lack of funds, and she is severely depressed. And self-medicates illegally it would seem.
Tracey’s sister Karen lives and works on a farm nearby, and they are not exactly on good terms. They each own half the land, but Karen has to rent Tracey’s half. With all the animals to look after, a husband and three children, it’s hard to make ends meet. However, neither of them are particularly nice or likable, to be honest.
There are so many red herrings. Just when we think we know who killed Tracey, evidence points to someone else, then back again and so on and so forth. The background of the raging bushfire is not something I have read about before, and it gives an intensity to the thrilling investigation. It’s a race against time, before the fire takes the house and all the evidence with it. Can Kennard and Layton beat the flames? Or will the crime go unpunished?
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
James Delargy was born and raised in Ireland, and lived in South Africa, Australia and Scotland before ending up in semi-rural England, where he now lives. He incorporates a diverse knowledge of towns, cities, landscapes and cultures picked up on his travels into his writing. His first novel, 55, was published in 2019 by Simon & Schuster and has been sold to 21 territories to date. It was followed by the standalone thrillers Vanished (2021) and Into the Flames (2024).
+ crime fiction, dark humour, Dogs, fiction, journalist, murder, police corruption, police drama, police procedural, review
Gallows Wood by Louisa Scarr (PC Lucy Halliday #1)
The signs are unmistakable. The dog halts, his nose up – nostrils quivering. Every inch of him is poised. Moss has a scent.
When a hand is found in Gallows Wood, PC Lucy Halliday and her specialist search dog Moss must find the rest of the body. What they uncover is a killer’s dumping ground. Like every case since her husband’s mysterious disappearance, Lucy wonders if this one will bring her closer to the truth. Nico was a journalist with a reputation for getting buried in his work; Lucy is certain that this time he delved too deep.
With new DI Jack Ellis calling the shots, Lucy struggles to keep her professionalism intact. She can’t stay away from these murders – and a killer who may hold the answers she desperately wants. But with those at the very heart of the investigation withholding secrets of their own, can more brutal deaths be prevented?
The first book in the gripping new police procedural series featuring dog handler PC Lucy Halliday. Perfect for fans of Lynda La Plante, Val McDermid and Susie Steiner.
My Review
I read this in ten staves with the Pigeonhole online book club. It was almost unbearable waiting for the next instalment. The book was so exciting, the suspense nail-biting.
While this is the first in a new series ‘starring’ PC Lucy Halliday, we really have two other main protagonists. The first is her new boss DI Jack Ellis, brought in from the met, but maybe the real star is DPC Moss aka Doggy PC Moss, the ‘cadaver’ dog. Moss is trained to find dead bodies, so when a hand turns up in Gallows Wood, Moss and Lucy are first on the scene to find the rest of the body.
If only it was all so simple. Lucy was actually a DI, but was demoted following various misdemeanours mainly related to her missing husband, journalist, Nico. But it’s not all bad, as she inherited Moss, a lovable spaniel, who has become her best friend. Jack also has a secret life, but we don’t find this out till much later on. Even though he seems rather cold, we all really liked him. Moss doesn’t have any secrets that we know of (maybe some ‘illegitimate’ puppies somewhere).
As the body count rises, the plot becomes more and more complicated. Are the murders related to drugs? Is someone from the police force involved? And who can Lucy trust? Pretty sure Jack is OK, Moss definitely. Others less so. After a while, you start suspecting everyone.
This is one of the best police dramas I have read this year, if not THE best.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Louisa Scarr studied Psychology at the University of Southampton and has lived in and around the city ever since. She works as a freelance copywriter and editor, and when she’s not writing, she can be found pounding the streets in running shoes or swimming in muddy lakes.
Free for editorial use image, please credit: James Robinson
This image is copyright James Robinson.
This image must be credited James Robinson. The author is asserting his full Moral rights in relation to the publication of this image. Rights for onward transmission of any image or file is not granted or implied. Changing or deleting Copyright information is illegal as specified in the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
Team Olaf’s Mutt Strut for Maggie’s is an illustrated, rhyming story regaling with ‘tails’ of the canine friends’ Cornish adventures as they embark on a sponsored journey to raise money for Maggie’s.
It is peppered with interactive activities including a piratical treasure hunt, and a celebrity photo shoot at the Eden Project! All the profits from this book will go to Maggie’s charity, ‘Everyone’s home of Cancer Care,’ www.maggies.org
Pets As Therapy continue to feature and benefit from this adventure series, receiving all the profits from Olaf’s previous two books in this adventure series.
To buy Team Olaf’s Mutt Strut for Maggie’s click here
My Thoughts
Such an adorable book, with a serious message, about cancer care in the UK. There are pictures of dogs dressed as pirates (it’s Cornwall after all), plus pasties, caves, mining and seagulls. There is also a lot of educational stuff, because what better way of introducing it than hiding it in the fun parts. And it’s been endorsed by the wonderful Clare Balding CBE, who we know loves dogs.
The book is written in rhyme, making it fun to read aloud with children. I’ve never written a review in rhyme, so here goes, in honour of Olaf and his friends!
In this fabulous book of adventures and snacks,
The dogs and their owners set off down the tracks.
To Cornwall they go, on the train with their cases,
Raising money for Maggie’s, with smiles on their faces.
There are games to play and pictures to paint,
Dog pics to match and new friends to acquaint.
There are pasties to eat in their flavours of choice,
Plus tents to erect and loud barking to voice.
So do support Maggie’s, I mean let’s be frank,
At £7.99 it won’t break the bank (hopefully).
And just in case you missed it, click here to buy Team Olaf’s Mutt Strut for Maggie’s.
All the profits from this book will go to Maggie’s.
About Maggie’s
Maggie’s is an independent charity that provides cancer support for people living with cancer, their families and friends. They have an excellent relationship with and work alongside the NHS. All of their centres are located near to major Oncology Centres and many of the staff are NHS trained.
Maggie’s was founded in 1996 in Edinburgh by Maggie and Charles Keswick Jencks. They used Maggie’s own experience of cancer to create a new type of cancer care – centres offering professional support, bringing people together in a calm friendly, uplifting space. Maggie believed that with the right information and support, people could change the way they live with cancer. There are now over 20 centres in the UK.
Maggie’s approach is to focus on the things that help people take control of their physical and emotional wellbeing when cancer turns their lives upside down. They offer workshops, courses, one-to-one, peer and group support, for both the person with a cancer diagnosis and everyone around them. Importantly, they support family, friends, colleagues and carers, as well as the person with a cancer diagnosis.
Olaf first discovered his local Maggie’s Centre in Cheltenham last year when one of his family members had a cancer diagnosis. Since then, Olaf has become a regular visitor, always warmly welcomed with a bowl of water and a belly run, whilst his humans have a coffee and a chat.
Maggie’s Links
Website: www.maggies.org
Twitter/X: @MaggiesCentres
Instagram: @maggiescentres
Facebook: Maggie’s Centres
When customer complaints on Christmas Eve about tenfold inflated bank balances herald not early gifts, nor a botched system upgrade, but the most sophisticated cyber attack in history, National Bank Chief Operating Officer Rob Tanner finds himself in the eye of a ‘Black Swan’ storm no one predicted, but anyone could have anticipated.
He enlists the help of brilliant American computer security expert Ashley Markham but the attacks only worsen: bank balances rise remorselessly and spread to all the nation’s banks. The only clue to the hacker’s intentions are cryptic daily emails, centred on Hieronymus Bosch’s medieval representation of the deadly sins, taunting Tanner and newly incumbent Prime Minister James Allen.
With financial markets—and the very world as he knows it—on the brink of collapse, Tanner races against the clock to decode not just the bizarre emails but their deeper meaning, and the implications for who he can really trust. All the while, his former boss “The Toad” is seeking revenge… and answers of his own.
This enthralling, multi-layered debut follows the story of a disillusioned banker facing unthinkable financial Armageddon, where money has no value, stock and bond prices are meaningless, and the economy is destroyed. Can Tanner unravel the mystery of the hacker’s obsession with Bosch, sin and retribution before modern society returns to the dark ages?
Ten Days. Seven Deadly Sins. Zero Ri$k.
My Review
If you woke up one morning to find an extra nought at the end of your bank balance, you’d be delighted, right? Wrong! You can’t spend it, it’s not your money. It’s some kind of computer blip, except it’s not. It’s the work of the most sophisticated hacker or hackers the world has even seen And it could happen here, or anywhere, at any time.
The results would be devastating – that’s millions of accounts having an extra zero, then another and another, busting the banks, the world of finance, and the government, having to bail everyone out. It all looks like a joke to start with – an early Christmas present – but people must not go out and spend, spend, spend. There will be civil unrest and panic buying. Shelves stripped of flour and toilet paper. Soon we’ll be making banana bread out of spelt.
For James Allen, the Prime Minister, it’s a nightmare, one that could destroy his reputation, because that’s his main concern. Will he be the man in charge when the banks go down? Will they blame him? Will he have to resign and go out ‘not with a bang but a whimper’.
National Bank Chief Operating Officer Rob Tanner is out on a date with the lovely Judith, when the call comes. He’ll have to go into work. There’s been an emergency and he needs to help sort it out. He enlists the help of a computer security expert called Ashley Markham, who he happens to find very attractive. But things don’t get better, they get worse, and the only clues have been the emails, full of cryptic references to Hieronymus Bosch’s medieval representation of the seven deadly sins. What does it all mean?
Then there’s Rob’s boss, known as the ‘Toad’ to his employees, a despicable Harvey Weinstein type character, slimy, sleazy, and using his power and position to blackmail others, including his long-suffering assistant Chrissie.
It’s rather a long book (be warned) though it will fly by. You’ll be so engrossed in the story, you’ll be up half the night reading. And as well as one of the most engrossing stories you’ll read this year, there are some really interesting characters. My favourites are Gerard and Nikki, who I found more exciting than Rob, and then Ashley, of course. And we all hate James Allen and the Toad. Brilliant! Let’s hope Netflix picks it up soon. It will make a fantastic series (we were casting it on book club night and my money is on Keira Knightly as Ashley).
Many thanks to @LiterallyPR and the author for inviting me to be part of the #ZeroRisk blog tour.
About the Author
Simon Hayes is an award-winning former headhunter and investment banker. His finance career took him from his home city London, where he was a top-ranked securities analyst in the Institutional Investor and Extel surveys, to the US, Hong Kong and Japan. Search led Simon back to Tokyo, where he was recognised as the “Best Headhunting Executive” in Japan by Asiamoney then, as head of a leading London-based Financial Services practice, into the City’s most exclusive boardrooms. He wrote Zero Risk, his first novel, whilst creating the rubrics people skills system, and he spent much of 2023 in Zimbabwe on a major fraud case. Born and raised in West London, Simon was the first member of his family to attend university, graduating from Trinity Hall, Cambridge with a degree in Law.
Buy Link
www.amazon.co.uk
Goodreads
www.goodreads.com
Literally PR
Instagram – @literallypr
Twitter/X – @literallypr
Simon Hayes
Instagram – @MySimonHayes
Twitter/X – @MySimonHayes
#ZeroRiskNovel
The Fallen is out in paperback on the 29th August 2024.
Published by: Orion Books.
Genre: Thriller
ARE YOU READY TO SAVE A LIFE?
WHY HER?
Becca Palmer has just lost her job as assistant to Simon Jones MP – the highly-regarded Policing Minister, tipped as a future Prime Minister. But Becca claims that Simon was more than her boss, that she is in love with him.
WHY HERE?
When a heartbroken Becca leaves the Home Office, she heads to Westminster Bridge, intending to take her own life. Which is where hostage negotiator Alex Lewis meets her for the first time. It is his job to try to talk her back from the edge.
WHY NOW?
In the negotiation that follows, Becca suggests that she may know something about the Policing Minister that she shouldn’t. Something that could prompt a serious fall from grace were it to come out.
But can Alex save Becca – and get to the bottom of an alleged conspiracy that goes deep inside the highest levels of government – before it’s too late?
And here is the cover:
#TheFallen #CoverReveal X/Twitter @policecommander @orionbooks @Tr4cyF3nt0n #BookX
Instagram @john_sutherland_author @orionbooks @thebookdealer #CompulsiveReaders #bookstagram
+ austria, germany, jewish history, jews, review, Russia, secrets, spy story, World War Two, WW2
Parallel Lives by Maryam Diener
When Maryam Diener began to research Edith Tudor-Hart and Ursula Kuczynski, she noticed the many parallels running between their lives…
Edith Tudor-Hart was a Bauhaus-trained photographer, and Ursula Kuczynski a writer and polyglot. Both were immigrant dissidents fighting fascism throughout the turbulent 30s and 40s.
They never met, and yet communist agents, radical activists and devoted mothers both, their lives regularly crossed on the leafy streets of Hampstead and in the sophisticatedly bohemian world of the Isokon building – a haven for free-thinking émigrés and modernist marvel that promised a new way of living. Maryam Diener is masterful at the blending of fact and fiction.
In Parallel Lives she traces the haunting secrets, traumas and victories that bound these remarkable women.
My Review
I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the lives of these two women, but I struggled to actually ‘admire’ them. They were, after all, spies for the Russians.
Edith Tudor-Hart’s photos are remarkable. She was undeniably a real talent. Ursula Kuczynski travelled to China, and while I understand that she was appalled by the living standards of the poor (I wonder what she would think now), she still left her two-year-old son with her in-laws, so she could train to be a spy in Moscow.
It’s easy for us to criticise, but the two women, being Jewish, (one German, one Austrian), were afraid of the rise of the right and fascism in Nazi Germany. I do understand – my Jewish mother fled Vienna in 1938. But my father, a Polish Catholic, was a prisoner-of-war in Siberia during WW2, so you’ll have to forgive me for having strong feelings where the Russians are concerned. And of course feeding secrets to Russia today would be unthinkable. Kim Philby was notorious for being a Russian spy, and one of the ‘Cambridge Five’, and he figures in the book. His first wife was Litzi Friedmann, who was great friends with Edith.
I cannot criticise the writing of Parallel Lives. It’s brilliant. It’s just about where I stand on the womens’ beliefs. I rarely get political in reviews, but it’s unavoidable here. I read around the subject quite a bit, during and after reading. Apart from Philby, there were other interesting characters, like Arnold Deutsch who had recruited Philby, Edith’s husband medical doctor Alex Tudor-Hart, Ursula’s first husband architect Rudolph Hamburger, and the nuclear scientist Klaus Fuchs.
Edith’s son Tommy, who was severely autistic, ended up in a home from the age of eleven and was never released. But again hindsight is a dangerous thing. Maybe not our place to judge. Edith was broken by it, and eventually gave up her photography to open an antique shop in Brighton. She died fairly young, unlike Ursula who lived till she was 93.
But one of the most interesting things for me was the connection with the Bauhaus (which I have recently read about in another story), and the famous Isokon building in London where some of them lived. The occupants were mainly bohemian artists, writers and architects, free thinkers, who also believed in free love, something which our two women seemed to indulge in regularly. Maybe it’s not our place to judge once again, but they both seemed to become too emotionally and sexually involved with their fellow spies. I think this was probably their undoing.
An outstanding 5 star read for me, regardless of my personal views on the ‘protagonists’.
Many thanks to Grace Pilkington Publicity for inviting me on the #ParallelLives blog tour
Buy link: www.amazon.co.uk
About the Author
Maryam Diener was born in Iran and attended the Sorbonne in Paris before receiving her Masters from Columbia University. She is the author of The Moon (1998), Sans te dire adieu (2007) and Beyond Black There is No Colour: The Story of Forough Farrokhzad (Quartet Books, 2020) and Exquisite Corpse (2021). In 2012 she co-founded Éditions Moon Rainbow, a publishing company specialising in limited-edition books on poetry and the visual arts including There Must Be Someone to Rewrite Love, which features contributions from Bei Dao and Francesco Clemente.
+ cult, dark humour, feel-good, gothic, gothic horror, Gothic mystery, Historical fiction, humour fiction, List, Magical realism, murder mystery, mystery, thriller, Victorian Britain, World War Two, WW2
My Top 10 Books of 2024 – Part Two
Here are my favourite 10 books of 2024 Part Two, not counting audiobooks. Quite a disparate selection for a change.
Away Weekend by Lesley Fernández-Armesto
Geraldine is divorced. Her military ex-husband Jonty has run off with Sally, leaving Geraldine with only her apricot poodle Bolly. She now lives in a tiny mews house in St John’s Wood. Then she meets Ellis, smooth, handsome, American, and a dead ringer for Cary Grant. He invites her to go to Indiana with him for the All Saints football match. As her sister and her two pugs, her daughter Cassie and God knows who else, are coming to stay, it couldn’t be better timing. But little does she know what she’s let herself in for. It would be my worst nightmare.
This was so funny. Geraldine’s observations about the Americans she meets at the football match are hilarious. The yanks (apart from functioning alcoholic Barb) all find her a bit weird. That’s because they have no idea what she’s talking about, but put her eccentricity down to her ‘Englishness’. Not that I think Geraldine is that wonderful herself. She’s a terrible snob, who does basically nothing except go to the theatre and lunch with her friends.
For my full review click here
A Bitter Remedy by Alis Hawkins
I knew as soon as I started reading A Bitter Remedy that it would become one of my favourite books of the year so far. In fact I’ve already recommended it to my brother and downloaded a sample of the next book in the series.
Set in 1881, we meet Rhiannon ‘Non’ Vaughan, an unusual and very liberated young woman, who has come to Oxford from semi-rural Wales. Life was different there and Non hates that she has to keep her mouth firmly shut at Oxford, so as not to hinder other women from being admitted to the university. She is so far only allowed to attend lectures – she cannot be a ‘proper’ student as such. Any bad behaviour could put the women’s movement back years.
For my full review click here
The Shadow Key by Susan Stokes-Chapman
I’m beginning to think that Gothic Horror is rapidly becoming my new favourite genre. Maybe it’s because I was obsessed with Dennis Wheatley when I was a teenager, particularly The Devil Rides Out (not technically Gothic) and I kept getting those vibes while reading The Shadow Key. Nothing like a bit of devil worship and ritual sacrifice. I was waiting for Henry to recite the words of the ‘Sussamma Ritual’ or shine his headlights on the rising goat-like figure in his midst (ooops no headlights yet). But in the case of the Tresilian family and Plas Helyg, it’s just folklore and superstition. As a man of science Dr Henry Talbot doesn’t believe in any of that nonsense.
For my full review click here
Estella’s Revenge by Barbara Havelocke
I’ve always loved Great Expectations in all its iterations – my husband loves the 1946 film version where John Mills plays Pip (I think he is far too old), but my favourite is the TV mini series where Gillian Anderson portrays Miss Havisham. As a child, the scene where Miss H goes up in flames terrified me and still does.
But back to Estella’s Revenge. I absolutely loved it and have given it a worthy five stars. The writing is impeccable and immaculate. The plot is original and entertaining. It’s not a retelling of GE though, you have to remember that – it’s the story from Estella’s pov, NOT Pip’s, so anything can happen, and it does. There are a lot of the original characters, but also others that are new
For my full review click here
The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr
This story is so character-driven, that you have to get to know everyone before you can really get into the book. First of all, we have Clayton Stumper, our reluctant hero, who as it says in the synopsis ‘dresses like your granddad and drinks sherry like your aunt’. Except he’s only 25 and was abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers. He has no idea who he is in more ways than one.
Then we have Pippa Allsbrook – the Pipster – who is the matriarch of the Fellowship. She set it up and she looks after it and everyone in it. She is a crossword compiler for The Times newspaper, using the soubriquet ‘Squire’ as it makes her sound like a man and men are the usual setters.
For my full review click here
The Theatre of Glass and Shadows by Anne Corlett
When Juliet’s father died, his last words were ‘Madeleine, Mad…e…liene’. Juliet’s stepmother asked her, ‘What’s going on? Did he say something?’ ‘No. I mean it didn’t make sense,’ says Juliet.
Juliet never really connected emotionally with her distant father and her stepmother Clare treated her like an outsider. Her half sisters were always ‘the girls’, never ‘your sisters’. And who was Madeleine? Obviously Clare knew, but she didn’t say anything.
Juliet wanted to be a dancer, but Clare had taken her away from Miss Abbeline’s ballet school, so she could go to secretarial college. Juliet though has other ideas, especially when she discovers that her birth was registered in the Theatre District. I am not going to try and explain this because at times I didn’t really understand. I felt as though I was reading in an alternative reality, but that’s the whole point. The Theatre District is an alternative reality, an alternative London, where the police have no jurisdiction and the show must go on. And it does, in a loop, and performers are queuing up to be part of it. Punters must enter a ballot to secure a ticket, or pay a fortune to buy one.
For my full review click here
Paradise Undone by Annie Dawid
There were times this book made me cry, at others it made me cross. Often at night I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The babies and children who were murdered (yes murdered because they didn’t have any choice), but also about Christine, held down by four men and injected with the poison. That was the worst kind of murder if there is such a thing. It was very hard to read. The sedatives were supposed to help alleviate the suffering, but they took 15 minutes to work, by which time it was far too late – the victims were already dead, having suffered excruciating pain and convulsions.
By the end I hoped I would understand why they would follow a drug-crazed lunatic (which is what pastor Jim Jones became by the end). I would try to understand the power of brainwashing. For some of the very poor, any life was better than what they knew. Many had been drug addicts, and the African Americans had been racially abused all their lives. But what about the white middle classes? How were they taken in by him?
For my full review click here
Garden of Her Heart by Zoë Richards
I’m totally in love with this book. It’s not my usual genre, but I just adore it. I even woke up in the night and read it. Maybe it’s because I would love to go to a retreat like this. The only retreat I have ever been on was at my Catholic Convent School when I was 16, and the priest told us that animals didn’t have souls. My flirtation with Catholicism was well and truly over.
My friend goes to Champneys all the time, but it’s not the same, is it. Wearing an oversized towelling robe and slippers for bigger feet than mine, lolling around in the sauna and having facials and pedicures. Pinewoods is more spiritual. It’s a place where people go to find themselves (without sounding pretentious).
For my full review click here
How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley
How To Age Disgracefully is my third book by this author and I really loved it. It has an eclectic mix of characters, just like the other two books.
Of course the first has to be Daphne, a glamorous but ill-tempered 70 year old, with whom I have literally NOTHING in common (I’m 71). What would I think of her if I met her? I certainly wasn’t sure at first.
Then we have Art, a failed actor, who at 75 is way past his sell by date, thespianly speaking, and whose personal hygiene is dubious, to say the least. His best friend since childhood is William.
For my full review click here
The Porcelain Maker by Sarah Freethy
Hard to believe this is a debut novel. It’s so beautifully written and often heartbreaking. It’s not just the characters of Max and Bettina, but also Clara and Holger who stood out for me.
It’s a dual timeline novel, starting in 1929 and into WW2 itself, and then in 1993, when Bettina Vogel’s daughter Clara is trying to find out who her father was. Having travelled alone to America to bid for a selection of porcelain from the factory at Allach (which later moved to Dachau), she returns with a number of items, including the celebrated The Viking. The Nazis, particular SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, adored the porcelain, believing it to be pure, and loved pieces that showed German soldiers and animals in perfect representation. They did not like anything ‘degenerate’, as they called it, particularly expressionism. Unfortunately, Bettina, having attended the Bauhaus, is an expressionist, her hero and mentor being Wassily Kandinsky.
For my full review click here
Small Fires by Ronnie Turner will be published by Orenda Books in February 2025.
Poison runs through this land like blood…
When sisters Lily and Della Pedley are persecuted for the shocking murder of their parents, they flee from their home in Cornwall to a remote and unnamed island in Scotland – an island known for its strange happenings, but far away from the whispers and prying eyes of strangers.
Lily is terrified of what her sister will might do next, and she soon realises that they have arrived at a place where nothing is as it seems. A bitterness runs through the land like poison, and the stories told by the islanders seem to be far more than folklore.
Della settles in too easily, the island folk drawn to her strangeness, but Lily is plagued by odd and unsettling dreams, and as an annual festival draws nigh, she discovers that she has far more to fear than she could ever have imagined. Or does she…?
Chilling, atmospheric and utterly hypnotic, Small Fires is contemporary gothic novel that examines possession, female rage, and the perilous bonds of family – an unsettling reminder that the stories we tell can be deadly…
Midsommar meets Midnight Mass in a folk horror, modern gothic masterpiece.
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Here is the fantastic cover.
Extract – Old Town
They say the Devil came here. He fell to the Earth long ago and he never left.
There is a silence over this land, the stillness of a muscle before it moves. Somewhere a bird calls a warning to us in its little throat. I see its body and think I should offer a warning of my own: We have arrived. Now leave, before we break those wings.
‘This place knows we are here,’ my sister says, and I take a breath.
‘Why do you say that?’ I ask.
‘It knows,’ she says, and yes, I almost expect the mountain to take a gulp of air like the body of some great beast come to see us. Della catches my wrist with her finger. I jump, check for blood. I always check for blood when my sister touches me. She smiles, says, ‘Mind me, Lil.’
In my head I carry memories of their deaths. And if I bring my fingers to my lips, I can feel their absence there too; words I will never speak to them. A ghost living inside a ghost. I think of our old home, our names, changing on tongues as the news spread. Until all anyone could think of were their pale bodies, emptied and hanging, and ours still very much pulsing, alive.
The Witches of Old Town. We have so very many names. They called us pariahs, and we ran fast. They called down their gods, and we ran faster. They called us a ‘condemning’, like a murmuration, a moving shadow that palms the sun and takes out the light. And now we have migrated. To this island with no name.
I count the shadows but I run out of fingers to count them on. The path from the harbour twists down into a valley. There are no animals or children. The houses are empty. Where are the people? There is nothing but the mountain. It watches us, throwing down its darkness, so unyielding it makes the light feel like a captive. What things has it seen? What will it say of us to the men and women who will come to this island in the future? They will not be good stories, this I know. My sister and I do not tell good stories. Mother and father knew that.
I rub my arms to bring some heat to my skin, but I rub too hard so it only hurts. I look at my sister.
‘Does it make you feel cold – the mountain?’
Della smiles. It does. And she likes it. I wish I had not asked.
We will find our new house, Lower Tor, later; we do not mind that it will soon be night. We have always been able to find our way in the dark.
I follow Della to The Molloch Inn, and as we enter, my spine shivers, my pulse sings. We have found the people.
About the Author
Ronnie Turner grew up in Cornwall, the youngest in a large family. At an early age, she discovered a love of literature and dreamed of being a published author. Ronnie now lives in the South West with her family and three dogs. In her spare time, she reviews books on her blog and enjoys long walks on the coast. Ronnie is a Waterstones Senior Bookseller and a barista, and her youth belies her exceptional, highly unusual talent.
Orenda Books is a small independent publishing company specialising in literary fiction with a heavy emphasis on crime/thrillers, and approximately half the list in translation. They’ve been twice shortlisted for the Nick Robinson Best Newcomer Award at the IPG awards, and publisher and owner Karen Sullivan was a Bookseller Rising Star in 2016. In 2018, they were awarded a prestigious Creative Europe grant for their translated books programme. Three authors, including Agnes Ravatn, Matt Wesolowski and Amanda Jennings have been WHSmith Fresh Talent picks, and Ravatn’s The Bird Tribunal was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, won an English PEN Translation Award, and adapted for BBC Radio Four ’s Book at Bedtime. Six titles have been short- or long-listed for the CWA Daggers. Launched in 2014 with a mission to bring more international literature to the UK market, Orenda Books publishes a host of debuts, many of which have gone on to sell millions worldwide, and looks for fresh, exciting new voices that push the genre in new directions. Bestselling authors include Ragnar Jonasson, Antti Tuomainen, Gunnar Staalesen, Michael J. Malone, Kjell Ola Dahl, Louise Beech, Johana Gustawsson, Lilja Sigurðardóttir and Sarah Stovell.
A collection of theatrical misfits goes on tour across the Atlantic in this nostalgic post-war novel sure to delight fans of P. G. Wodehouse.
The Red Lion production of ‘Love and Miss Harris’ is booked to tour America, opening in Manhattan.
#MissHarrisInTheNewWorld X/Twitter #PeterMaughan @farragobooks #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour #BookX
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On arrival the group finds that it’s not the Manhattan with the Great White Way of Broadway at its glittering heart, but the part between the Bowery and the East River, on the Lower East Side, in a vaudeville venue owned by a local mobster. And when members of a rival gang decide to disrupt the play, the action shifts from the theatre’s state to its auditorium…
Determined to fulfil the rest of their tour dates, the company heads west from New York. Try as they might to shake it off, trouble seems to follow them wherever they go.
My Review
This is a fun read about a troupe of eccentric British actors touring America with a play called Love and Miss Harris, shortly after the Second World War. The subject of the play is largely irrelevant – it’s the characters that are important. We first met the Red Lion Touring Company in London in Book One, after their East End theatre was bombed and they embarked on a tour of Britain instead.
There is also a side story about a man called Reuben Kramer, who having escaped from a high security prison for the criminally insane, is on the trail of leading man Jack Savage, so he can shoot and kill him. Reuben had murdered four people, and attempted to kill two more, one of which was Jack, who had got the better of him, something he will never forgive or forget. This was my favourite part of the book.
In the meantime, the troupe is travelling from town to town, city to city, having started in New York and visited such prestigious places as Carlston, Pennsylvania and New Littlehampton in Connecticut. Am I being sarcastic – I’ll leave you to decide. They travel in a no 9 red bus, plus a Rolls Royce, and these attract attention wherever they go, even if they are sometimes considered to be part of a circus sideshow. It’s all publicity after all! And we all know what they say about publicity.
Some of the people they meet along the way are interesting, some amorous, and some less friendly. I love the argument that Titus has with theatre manager Mr Potters at the end of the tour about whether Shakespeare wrote his own plays, or whether it was Sir Francis Bacon. Titus is incensed and makes his position known. And then the ‘ornamental’ sword comes out. Very theatrical.
There’s plenty of singing, flirting, carousing and alcohol involved, as well as a bit of ‘how’s yer father’ on the way, to use an East End colloquialism. So until we meet again, “Next stop Blighty!”
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Peter Maughan studied at the Actor’s Workshop in London, and worked as an actor in the UK and Ireland (in the heyday of Ardmore Studios).
He founded and ran a fringe theatre in Barnes, London and, living on a converted Thames sailing barge among a small colony of houseboats on the River Medway, wrote pilot film scripts as a freelance deep in the green shades of rural Kent.
He lives in a river valley in the Welsh Marches where he writes the Batch Magna novels.
Visit Peter’s website at http://www.batchmagna.com
Here are my favourite audiobooks of the year Part Two. Diane Setterfield appears twice, because I adored both her books.
Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield
I think this has to be one of my favourite books ever. It’s so original, with a cast of characters that I absolutely adored. It’s set in the area around the banks of the River Thames in 1887. I love that it is set in my part of the country, so I recognised many of the places, particularly Kelmscott, which I associate with William Morris and the Kelmscott Press.
It’s a story about stories and storytelling, much of which happens at the pub run by Joe and his wife Margot. They have lots of children, the girls referred to as ‘the little Margots’, which tickled me no end, and Jonathan, the youngest, who today would be recognised as being Downs.
For my full review click here
Fyneshade by Kate Griffin
It’s one thing when the heroine is not very nice, but Marta is truly evil. Not because her French grand’mere was supposedly a witch, or because of the way she treats the young girl who she is sent away to ‘educate’, or the fact that she would be considered ‘no better than she should be’ in those days, but because of the way she views herself and others and is happy to wreak havoc on anyone who crosses her.
Discovering that she is not to be married to her lover Nathaniel, she accepts that she is to be sent away to be governess to ten-year-old Grace, the daughter of Sir William Pritchard, the owner of Fyneshade. She has never met him and told he is away for lengths at a time. She is shocked to discover that all members of staff at the house appear to be either old, unlovely, or in some way debilitated. They are shocked when Marta arrives and is young and attractive.
For my full review click here
Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
My husband’s late granddad used to say ‘When I go, stick me in a bin bag Paul… (his daughter), and put me out with the rubbish.’ Of course we knew he was joking and wouldn’t have dreamt of doing it. But Sally takes things literally, so she does. When her father dies, she attempts a DIY cremation. Which attracts the attention of the guards, and the media. And that’s where the story begins.
Initially I found Sally intriguing, sad, often humorous, and I couldn’t stop listening (I had an audio version from Borrowbox). Then after a bit I wanted more – where was the story going – and I certainly got it. We moved from Sally to Peter and to be honest, I found his parts the more interesting of the two. If you think Sally’s childhood is dark, it pales into comparison with Peter’s. Because just when you think things couldn’t get any darker, they do. And then darker still.
For my full review click here
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
I am not going to leave a long review as this book has been reviewed so many times, there isn’t much I can add. Suffice to say it moved me to tears on more than one occasion. As with Once Upon A River, the writing is beautiful, perfect and evocative. It’s unlike anything I’ve read before (or in this case listened to). And the narration by Jenny Agutter is just right.
But there is one important thing about this book to remember before you embark on a remarkable journey. It’s long (especially as an Audiobook). It’s a slow, beautiful, moonlight cruise, not a 4-hour trip on a jet plane. It’s as much about the journey as the destination. In fact it’s all about the journey, with quite a few stops along the way for tea and cake. And there’s a cat. Need I say more. Oh and a bookshop.
For my full review click here
Patrice Chaplin takes us on a tour of the unknown lives of the stars of glamorous Hollywood, starting in the 1970s.
The swimming pools are shimmering with talent, but Goddess Hollywood looks further afield and finds its next protege amongst the puddles of Kentish Town.
When Patrice Chaplin left Kentish Town for Hollywood she did not envisage the extent of the excitement of the lives of its biggest stars, but she quickly found herself in its fold. And when Lauren Bacall and Alan Ladd Jr wanted to turn Patrice Chaplin’s book into a film, many expected her to jump at the chance, but she didn’t…
In this series of vignettes, established novelist Patrice Chaplin takes us through some extraordinary moments in time. Her time. From spider spotting by the swimming pool with Jack Nicholson and plotting ways to get him to take off his glasses, to food shopping for Marlon Brando’s fridge, to meeting Elizabeth Taylor and Orson Welles, this is a mini-memoir of an enthralling and bygone world of Hollywood.
My Review
Hollywood To Kentish Town is a fascinating insight into the world of celebrity and stardom in the latter half of the twentieth century. We jump around a lot, with little vignettes from Patrice Chaplin’s interesting life. Some of them are amusing, some sad and some rather worrying, especially where Silvio is concerned.
In the synopsis, we hear about Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando, Orson Welles and other famous Hollywood Stars. But two people stood out for me. Canadian Film Director Silvio Narrizano and Ivan Moffat, the screenwriter, born in Cuba of Cuban/American heritage, though most people thought he was British. I had never heard of either, but I looked them up and found they were responsible for many films I have seen and loved.
Silvio is an interesting character, though chaos seems to follow him everywhere. And he always turns up at the most appropriate (or inappropriate) times. Ivan, however, is my favourite. Handsome and charming, he was nominated for an Academy Award for the adaptation of Edna Ferber’s Giant. They are extremely eccentric, but it’s only to be expected. In spite of everything, they both lived to ripe old ages.
Incidentally, I was never a Jack Nicholson fan, though he’s made some brilliant films. I first saw him in Easy Rider when I was too young to be watching it. I was bowled over by the lovely Peter Fonda, so much so that I saw it four times at the cinema, on one occasion sitting through it twice in one afternoon. I only paid once. Born To Be Wild or what!
Drugs, particularly cocaine, seem to feature in Patrice’s Hollywood more so than alcohol. Patrice doesn’t ‘do’ either, which her famous ‘friends’ found strange. Her younger son however, mixes in ‘alternative’ circles in his mother’s large house in Kentish Town, where everyone seems to congregate. Or maybe it’s because where I live is sheltered and provincial. I worried for her sons. I looked them up too (as well as their father Michael Chaplin) and their lives are also interesting, though there isn’t that much about them online.
I don’t usually read memoirs or biographies, but I really adored this. I read it in one sitting, loving the stories and insights. Marlon Brando’s binge eating disorder for instance, is legendary, but other stars’ eccentricities may not be. You’ll be delighted you picked it up.
Many thanks to Grace Pilkington Publicity for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
About the Author
Patrice Chaplin is an internationally renowned playwright and author who has published more than 36 books, plays and short stories. Her most notable work includes Albany Park, Siesta – which was made into a film staring Jodi Foster and Isabella Rossellini with music by Miles Davis – Into the Darkness Laughing, Hidden Star, Night Fishing, Death Trap and City of Secrets.
As a Bohemian in Paris during the 50’s and 60’s, she spent time with Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. She was married to Charlie Chaplin’s son, Michael, and during her avant-garde journeys through occult circles her friends included Salvador Dali, Jean Cocteau – who gave her a starring role in one of his films – Lauren Bacall, Miles Davis and experts on the esoteric practices of the Kabbalah in Spain.
As an accomplished writer, Patrice has contributed to many collections of short stories, including Black Valentine and The Minerva Book of Short Stories 1. Her plays, documentaries, and short stories have been extensively written and adapted for radio. The short story Night in Paris has been translated in many countries, and other short stories of hers have appeared in magazines and newspapers, including The Independent. Patrice’s stage play From the Balcony was commissioned by The National Theatre in London in conjunction with BBC Radio 3, and was performed at the Cottesloe Theatre.
Patrice is the director of Northern Bridge Productions, a non- profit organization that leads workshops based in the performing arts as a new and unique way to help fight addiction.
