+ alcoholism, crime fiction, Danish Noir, dark humour, Denmark, fiction, grief, Iceland noir, literature, murder, revenge, review, Scandi noir, secrets, writer
Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Masden – translated by Megan Turney
A snobbish Danish literary author is challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days, travelling to a small village in Iceland for inspiration, and then the first body appears…
Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer’s block, Hannah has the feeling that she’s doing something wrong.
#ThirtyDaysOfDarkness @JennyLundMadsen @OrendaBooks #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #BlogTour #NordicNoir
When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hannah is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjörður – a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters – for inspiration.
But two days after her arrival, the body of a fisherman’s young son is pulled from the water … and what begins as a search for plot material quickly turns into a messy and dangerous investigation that threatens to uncover secrets that put everything at risk … including Hannah.
My Review
Well this was different, not your average crime novel. But then Danish writer Hannah Krause-Bendix is not your average author. Her books are rather high-brow, literary, full of deeper meaning and she pours scorn on everyday crime writers who she believes have no talent and write books that are formulaic. Especially her arch nemesis Jørn Jensen who churns them out one after another and is making a fortune. And she is not. In fact hardly anyone reads her books.
Following a public spat with Jørn at a book fair (their constant banter is very entertaining), Hannah agrees to a bet. She has to write a crime novel in a month. For peace and inspiration, her editor sends her to Húsafjörður in Iceland, where she will stay with an older lady called Ella. There will be no distractions (apart from the cold and the snow), so she can just get on with it.
So far so good, but then the first body appears. It’s that of a young man, who supposedly drowned, but could it have been something more sinister and could it be material for Hannah’s book.
Hannah is very annoying. Not only is she so up herself she can’t help being arrogant and irritating, but she is also unbelievably nosy. She asks inappropriate questions of just about everybody, and lies about her reasons for doing so. She is told by local police officer Viktor to stay out of it, but that’s like a red rag to a bull. Oh and did I mention she’s an alcoholic.
In poking around she has put herself in danger, but does she heed the warnings? No of course not. What starts as a simple death by misadventure becomes a fabulous Icelandic romp with plenty of intrigue and dark humour. I really enjoyed it.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Jenny Lund Madsen is one of Denmark’s most acclaimed scriptwriters (including the international hits Rita and Follow the Money) and is known as an advocate for better representation for sexual and ethnic minorities in Danish TV and film. She recently made her debut as a playwright with the critically acclaimed Audition (Aarhus Teater) and her debut literary thriller, Thirty Days of Darkness, first in an addictive new series, won the Harald Mogensen Prize for Best Danish Crime Novel of the year and was shortlisted for the coveted Glass Key Award. She lives in Denmark with her young family.
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.
Our loved ones protect us.
So what if you woke up one day to find yours gone? Your mum, your friends, your freedom – all gone. And the one person you trust may be hiding a terrible secret.
Welcome to Arrietty’s life.
Here is the fantastic cover for Abby’s new psychological thriller Arrietty:
About the Author
Abby Davies was born in Macclesfield in 1984. She grew up in Bedfordshire in a seventeenth century cottage near Flitton Moor and started writing ‘thrillers’ when she was seven years old. After reading English Literature at Sheffield University and training to be an English teacher, she wrote novels in her free time.
She was shortlisted for the Mslexia Novel Competition in 2018 and longlisted for the Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award in 2019. Her debut Mother Loves Me was published by HarperCollins in 2020. The Cult came out in 2021. Arrietty is her third novel.
She lives in Wiltshire with her husband, daughter and two crazy cocker spaniels.
Check out the video clip below:
The Sewing Factory Girls is Posy Lovell’s heartwarming and moving novel inspired by the brave, hardworking women who fought to improve working conditions at the Singer Factory in Clydebank. It is an uplifting and emotional novel of friendship and courage, for readers who enjoy fiction based on real life stories.
Like half of all the young women living in Clydebank in early 1911, Ellen works at the Sewing Machine factory. So does her big sister, Bridget, Bridget’s fiancé Malcolm, and her new friend Sadie, who has recently come back home after the death of her father to help her mum look after her siblings.
For Sadie, the factory is a way to make ends meet. But Ellen has sewing in her veins. She sings in the factory choir, helps organise the gala days and is even making Bridget’s wedding dress on her beloved sewing machine. But after the excitement of the wedding dies down, things take a turn for the worse. Ellen discovers that the work of the cabinet polishers – her job – is to be reorganised, and they will be doing more work for less pay.
Ellen feels like it is a betrayal – the sewing factory is her family and they’ve let her down. Sadie is more pragmatic. But she tells Ellen about trade unions and how at the factory she worked in before, there was a strike. And Ellen gets an idea…
The events of the strike will throw Ellen, Bridget and Sadie’s lives into turmoil but also bring these women closer to each other than they could ever have imagined.
The Sewing Factory Girls will be published on 13th June by @orionbooks. Here is the fab cover to tempt you:
Many thanks to @Tr4cyF3nt0n for inviting me to be part of the cover reveal.
About the Author
Posy Lovell is a pseudonym for British author and journalist Kerry Barrett. Born in Edinburgh, she moved to London as a child with her family. She has a passion for uncovering the role of women in the past. She lives in London with her family and is the author of The Kew Gardens Girls.
+ crime fiction, fiction, grief, lies, loss, love, marriage, murder, relationships, revenge, review, secrets, thriller
The Other Couple by Diane Jeffrey
Two couples. A fatal accident. And a decision that changes everything…
Kirsten and Nick are enjoying a weekend away until, on their drive home, they accidentally run over and kill a man. They should call for help – but they have too much to lose, and no one can know the real reason they’re here. Instead, they make a split-second decision to conceal the accident.
Amy and Greg have just celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary. Amy is expecting a baby, and they couldn’t be happier. So when Greg fails to come home from a dog walk one weekend, Amy knows the police are wrong to believe he left of his own accord. Someone must be behind Greg’s disappearance, and Amy won’t give up until she gets justice – or revenge.
If you had nothing left to lose, how far would you go to find the truth?
My Review
Well this was totally unexpected. I’ve read two other books by this author, but this is way out in front for me. How it starts, one selfish couple – Kirsten and Nick Taylor from London – her an ambitious high end estate agent, him a successful barrister. The ‘other couple’ are Amy and Greg Wood, a primary school teacher and a surfer dude with his own shop. They live in Devon.
The two couples couldn’t be more different. Amy and Greg are very ordinary in comparison to the flashy Taylors. They’ve been married ten years, are expecting a baby, and have a fox-red labrador called Rusty.
One rainy night, Greg takes Rusty out for a walk and doesn’t return. The police think he probably decided to leave her, but why take the dog? Amy on the other hand, knows he wouldn’t have left her. He wasn’t like that. He must have met with an accident, but where is he?
Kirsten and Nick are on their way home from a weekend away, when they run over a man and kill him. They need to call an ambulance, call the police, but that would ruin both their lives. So they make the decision to hide the body and conceal the crime. As you do. But then they have secrets, big ones.
And that’s where it gets really interesting. Never underestimate a woman out for revenge. This was way more exciting than I expected. Because some people will do anything to discover the truth and exact their revenge. Very clever and well thought out. I loved it.
Many thanks to the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
About the Author
Diane Jeffrey is a USA Today bestselling author. She grew up in North Devon and Northern Ireland. She now lives in Lyon, France, with her husband and their three children, Labrador and cat. Diane’s is the author of four psychological thrillers, all of which were Kindle bestsellers in the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia. THE GUILTY MOTHER, Diane’s third book, was a USA Today bestseller and spent several weeks in the top 100 Kindle books in the UK. Her latest psychological thriller, THE SILENT FRIEND, is set in Belfast and Lyon. It was published in ebook in November 2020 with the paperback and audiobook to follow in 2021.
Diane is an English teacher. When she’s not working or writing, she likes swimming, running and reading. She loves chocolate, beer and holidays. Above all, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends. Click on the link to visit Diane’s website: www.dianejeffrey.com
Today is my turn on the blog tour, so how appropriate to post an extract and feature on World Bee Day, 20th May 2023.
Maureen Little is an author, gardener and bee-keeper who has worked in horticulture for over 40 years. She has given lectures at RHS Wisley, the Garden Museum in London, the Herb Society and gardening groups and societies nationwide. Maureen has a monthly gardening feature on local community radio Ribble FM. Maureen is a full member of the Garden Media Guild, and the author of The Bee Garden and The Little Book of Popular Perennials. The Little Book of Plants for Pollinators is her latest book.
Maureen Little knows how important pollinators are and has decided it’s time to share her knowledge of how to draw them in. The Little Book of Plants for Pollinators (out in May) includes a compilation of one hundred plants including annuals and biennials, perennials, shrubs and sub-shrubs, and trees.
So here is an extract to whet your appetite.
Introduction
‘It probably goes without saying – but I make no apology for saying it again – that pollinating insects are vital to our planet’s ecology and economy, and our well-being. Quite simply, without insects our ecosystem would fail. All wildlife depends on pollinating insects to provide food – both in terms of the insects being an integral part of the food chain themselves, but also the seeds, berries and nuts that are the result of pollination and provide food for adult birds and other animals.
‘From an economic point of view, insects are essential for the effective pollination of many commercial crops – apples, strawberries, and oilseed rape, for example.
‘It has been estimated that pollinators of all kinds are responsible for nearly £700 million worth of crops every year in the UK alone. Worldwide, 35% of global crop production is dependent on insect pollinators to some extent. Without them we would be scuppered.
‘Who does not delight in seeing a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, or the steady thrum of bees visiting a lavender bush? And how many pollinators are sources of inspiration for music, literature, art, education, and religion? Such things cannot be given a price tag but without them the world would be a much poorer place.
‘Nearly everyone has heard of Rimsky-Korsakov’s music entitled ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’. Did you know that Grieg wrote a piano piece called ‘The Horsefly and the Fly’; and Nyman has written ‘Where the Bee Dances’ for soprano saxophone?
‘The bad news is that because of a variety of circumstances, including climate change, the use of pesticides, and the loss of natural habitat (to name a few examples), insect pollinators – be they bees, butterflies, moths, true flies, wasps, or beetles – have been in steady decline over many years.
‘A 2017 report from a study in Germany demonstrated that over a period of 27 years, across 63 locations in protected nature reserves, there was a 76% drop in the number of insects recorded. This figure is for all insects, not just pollinators, but the trend is disturbing, to say the least.
‘The good news is that we gardeners can all do something to help. Albeit in a modest way, we can assist in redressing the balance. We may not be able to have an immediate effect on climate change, but we can make a difference by the way we travel, the energy we use, how much we recycle, and the food we eat, for example.
‘We can banish all pesticides from our gardens, and to help compensate for the loss of insects’ natural habitat we can include plants in our gardens that are good for all kinds of pollinators – which is what this book is about.
‘Each of us growing just a handful of pollinator-friendly plants would provide an enormous resource for our insect friends – in fact the phrase ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’ could have been invented for pollinator-friendly gardeners.
‘But how do you choose which plants will be of benefit to pollinators? There are numerous lists of pollinator-friendly plants. But as Garbuzov and Ratnieks point out: ‘A list is only as good as the data that went into it.’ They go on to suggest that: ‘Lists can raise public awareness. […] Therefore, lists of plants recommended to help pollinators via gardens are in a good position to raise awareness, educate, and enthuse a very large audience. As long as future lists state their limitations and encourage their readers to think for themselves and outside the confines of the list, they can be useful tools in communication from scientists to gardeners and conservationists.’
‘This is why I am setting out my ‘plant stall’ now by saying what this book is about and explaining the criteria I have used. I hope the information and suggestions that I give prove useful.’
What This Book Is About
‘As the title says, it is about plants for pollinators. These plants also have to be garden-worthy, and an added criterion is that they should also be suitable for an ‘average’ garden.
‘Let us look at the first criterion – that any plant that I have chosen should be of benefit to pollinators. Not all the plants included in this book are attractive to all pollinators, but I have tried to include a range of plants that will benefit a variety of insect pollinators, including bees (honey bees, bumblebees, and solitary bees), butterflies, moths, flies (including hoverflies), wasps, and beetles. My choices are based on as much scholarly research as possible, existing recommendations, and my observations from when I owned a pollinator-friendly plant nursery.’
If you found this extract interesting, you will love this book. It’s full of facts about bees, butterflies, moths, beetles and other pollinators, and beautiful pictures. It will guide you in your journey to make your garden more pollinator-friendly and help you to understand why this is so important for our future.
As Maureen says: ‘Each of us growing just a handful of pollinator-friendly plants would provide an enormous resource for our insect friends.’
Many thanks to READ Media for inviting me to share an extract from The Little Book of Plants for Pollinators.
After half a century confined in a psychiatric hospital, Matty has moved to a care home on the Cumbrian coast. Next year, she’ll be a hundred, and she intends to celebrate in style. Yet, before she can make the arrangements, her ‘maid’ goes missing.
Irene, a care assistant, aims to surprise Matty with a birthday visit from the child she gave up for adoption as a young woman. But, when lockdown shuts the care-home doors, all plans are put on hold.
But Matty won’t be beaten. At least not until the Black Lives Matter protests burst her bubble and buried secrets come to light.
Will she survive to a hundred? Will she see her ‘maid’ again? Will she meet her long-lost child? Rooted in injustice, balanced with humour, this is a bittersweet story of reckoning with hidden histories in cloistered times.
Lyrics for the Loved Ones is the stand-alone sequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home.
My Review
I am still reeling from the sheer brilliance of this book. I have previously read Matilda Windsor is Coming Home, which I thoroughly enjoyed (though parts were difficult for me to read – you can see my review for the reasons) and Stolen Summers, but Lyrics for the Loved Ones is in a league of its own.
I confess it did take me a while to work out who was who and the relationships between eg Gloria, Tim and Brendan, Wesley and Oh My Darling (Clementine), Denise aka Mrs Jefferson and Goodnight Irene and Scarlett, who Matty calls Bluebell etc. Then there are the Loved Ones ie the rezzies (residents), their rellies (relatives) and all the other names for the various characters. I loved the names. I tried to work out the connections with Matilda Windsor, but could only remember Irene and her relationship with Matty’s brother Henry.
Approaching her hundredth birthday, Matty’s celebration is put in jeopardy with the arrival of Covid. The nursing home in Cumbria is in lockdown, along with the rest of the country, the Loved Ones mostly confined to their rooms. No visitors allowed, insufficient PPE, hospitals and the NHS overwhelmed, we were told to stay home and only go outside to exercise for a maximum of one hour a day. And self-isolate if elderly or clinically vulnerable. I shudder to think about it.
Down in Bristol, Tim and Brendan are about to get married. But Tim’s mum Gloria doesn’t know about Tim’s illness, while she keeps secrets from him. How does this connect with Matty 300 miles away? I was quite a way into the book before this began to make sense. Then suddenly it all became clear.
At times very emotional, at others filled with warmth and humour, it’s so beautifully written, it’s stunning. It will stay with me for a long time and is one of my favourite books of the year so far.
Many thanks to the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
About the Author
Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
Anne writes about the darkness that haunts her and is wary of artificial light. She makes stuff up to tell the truth about adversity, creating characters to care about and stories to make you think. She explores identity, mental health and social justice with compassion, humour and hope.
An award-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.
Purchase links
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Books2Read.com
Google Books
+ childhood, dementia, diary, family, fiction, fifties, friendship, grief, journal, memory, mystery, psychic, review, secrets
One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley
On a suburban street filled with secrets, 84 year old Edie Green must look back into the past to discover what happened to her friend Lucy, who went missing years before . . .
A mystery she can’t remember. A friend she can’t forget.
I kept your secret Lucy. I’ve kept it for more than sixty years . . .
It is 1951, and at number six Sycamore Street fifteen-year-old Edie Green is lonely. Living alone with her eccentric mother – who conducts seances for the local Ludthorpe community – she is desperate for something to shake her from her dull, isolated life.
#OnePuzzlingAfternoon @EmilyMCritchley @ZaffreBooks @Tr4cyF3nt0n #CompulsiveReaders #blogtour
When the popular, pretty Lucy Theddle befriends Edie, she thinks all her troubles are over. But Lucy has a secret, one Edie is not certain she should keep . . .
Then Lucy goes missing.
2018. Edie is eighty-two and still living in Ludthorpe. When one day she glimpses Lucy Theddle, still looking the same as she did at fifteen, her family write it off as one of her many mix ups. There’s a lot Edie gets confused about these days. A lot she finds difficult to remember. But what she does know is this: she must find out what happened to Lucy, all those years ago . . .
My Review
What an emotional read. Oh my God! 84-year-old Edie lives with dementia and the passages where she is struggling to separate the past from the present are heart-breaking. At times she doesn’t recognise her own son Daniel or even her beloved granddaughter Amy.
It’s 2018 and Edie has just seen her friend Lucy, looking the same as she did when they were teenagers. But it can’t be real because Lucy vanished in 1951 and was never seen again. And Edie is determined to find out what happened to her, if only she could remember. For some of my buddy readers, who have personal experience of dementia, this was often hard to read.
The story is written in two timelines – 2018 and 1951. As Edie remembers more snippets of information relating to her friendship with Lucy, what actually happened is revealed bit by bit through the flashbacks. I’m not always a fan of flashbacks, but this is different.
In 1951, Edie lives with her mum, who conducts séances and is a bit of a local celebrity, and her dreadful step-father Reg. What a horrible man! She attends the local school along with Lucy and wants to stay on and study so she can become a teacher. Only that wasn’t the usual path girls from families like hers took – they ended up working at the undergarment factory.
Lucy, on the other hand, comes from a well-off family – her father is the mayor – so why is she friends with Edie? Well, Edie knows Lucy’s secrets, so it’s a bit of a friendship of necessity on Lucy’s part, and flattery on Edie’s.
Such a beautiful, well-written story – I simply adored it.
Many thanks to @Tr4cyF3nt0n for inviting me to be part of the #CompulsiveReaders #blogtour and also to The Pigeonhole, the author and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Emily Critchley grew up in Essex. She has lived in Brighton and London and now lives in Hertfordshire where she works as a librarian. She has a first class BA in Creative Writing from London Metropolitan University and an MA with distinction in Creative Writing from Birkbeck University of London. Her YA debut Notes on my Family was nominated for the Carnegie, long listed for the Branford Boase, and book of the week in the Sunday Times, and her middle grade novel The Bear who Sailed the Ocean on an Iceberg was published in October 2021, both by independent publisher Everything With Words. One Puzzling Afternoon is her debut adult novel.
+ crime fiction, fiction, marriage, mindfulness, podcast, Psychological fiction, religion, review, secrets, sisters, spirituality, thriller, USA
The Dark Is Always Waiting by TJ Brearton
A PUBLIC SHOOTING
After surviving a public shooting and saving someone in the process, Alex Baines’s life is forever altered. His marriage hangs by a thread. His leg is shattered from a bullet wound. And evidence is piling up that the attack was not random…
A GUNMAN WITH SECRETS
State Investigator Raquel Roth has never seen a case like this. A criminal who makes major mistakes, yet seems to have a master plan. And is someone pulling his strings?
A WOMAN WHO WOULD DO ANYTHING TO KEEP HER FAMILY SAFE
Corrine Baines begins to worry someone is after her and her children, too. Everyone becomes a suspect in the plot to hurt her husband — who can she trust?
While the investigators race to prevent a terrifying new development in the case, Alex must confront the man who tried to kill him.
And Corrine must fight for her life… and the life of her children.
THE DARK IS ALWAYS WAITING is a crime thriller that will make you question what’s real until the very end, from one twist to the next. Find out the truth and start reading! *This book was previously published as Breathing Fire, but has been completely revised into this definitive version.
My Review
OMG this was brilliant. I think this is the seventh or eighth book I have read by this author (one still to be published for which I was a beta reader) and maybe – probably – my favourite. There I said it.
I read it in two days on holiday. I love a good crime novel with a bit of religion chucked in the mix.
Dr Alex Baines is a neuroscientist, who lectures on science versus religion, has a podcast and has published four books. As far as he is concerned science can be proved using evidence, while religion is based on faith and therefore unproven. Unfortunately this isn’t popular with right-wing religious fundamentalists of both Islam and Christianity. They believe he is the portent of doom, and the reason why the world is going to hell in a handcart (except he doesn’t of course believe in hell).
So when he is almost shot and then wounded in the leg while saving someone’s life at a public appearance, his life changes forever. But was this a random attack or an act of domestic terrorism? And if it is personal, does that mean that his wife Corrine, and children Kenneth and Freda could also be in danger? And who can Corrine trust? Almost no-one it would seem. Can she even trust her own husband?
For State Investigator Raquel Roth, the case takes on twist after twist where everyone is a suspect. This is not your average perp – he doesn’t seem to care that he is in custody. Then one surprising turn of events that involves Alex confronting the gunman is totally outside everyone’s experience. Should he do it?
This was such an exciting read. I was sorry when it finished. I really loved everything about this book. My only question left at the end – do we agree with Alex? Or are we on the side of religion?
Many thanks to the author and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for a review.
About the Author
T.J. Brearton’s books have reached half a million readers around the world and have topped the Amazon charts in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. A graduate of the New York Film Academy in Manhattan, Brearton first worked in film before focusing on novels. His books are visually descriptive with sharp dialogue and underdog heroes. When not writing, Brearton does whatever his wife and three children tell him to do. They live happily in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Yes, there are bears in the Adirondacks. But it’s really quite beautiful when you’re not running for your life.
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.
Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.
My Review
I must just first say that my favourite character is Elizabeth’s dog whom she calls Six-Thirty. He was a stray but he is very clever and empathic and he knows 103 words, though by the end the count has gone up to 981. Elizabeth talks to him like a child, reading him stories, while he talks to the dead in the cemetery and the unborn ‘creature’. According to Six-Thirty, ‘maybe it worked; maybe it didn’t.’ ‘It’s me, Six-Thirty. I’m the dog,‘ he says. I just love him.
Elizabeth is a one-off. Apart from confiding in her dog, she doesn’t care what others think of her, except when they accuse her of not being a true scientist because she’s a woman. She’s also a pain in the neck. She could be Aspergers, definitely neurodivergent, though there are many readers who don’t like that label.
Another criticism is that it’s like taking a woman from today and time-travelling her back to the 50s and 60s. I disagree. I expect lots of women felt the same at the time – they just didn’t get the chance to shout about it, let alone on a TV show called Supper at Six. It’s a cooking show that should’ve been a disaster with Elizabeth at the helm, but women love it. It gives them power. Walter Pine is permanently terrified that it will all blow up in his face.
Into this strange mix we also have Elizabeth’s daughter Madeline, a precocious genius, (she’s illegitimate – shock horror – as Elizabeth and Calvin never married), Rev Wakeley who was Calvin’s pen-pal until Calvin told him he HATED HIS FATHER AND WISHED HE WOULD DIE, neighbour Harriet Sloane, whose husband is a pervert and a slob, and a variety of male chemists at Hastings, determined to put her down.
Everything about this book is a bit bonkers (I love a bit bonkers), from a chemist turned cookery show host, to a daughter who reads The Sound and the Fury at age six and a huge, ugly (beauty is in the eye of the beholder) dog with human characteristics – he picks up Mad from school and takes her to the library.
I almost didn’t read Lessons in Chemistry. I admit I was put off by the beginning – her experience wasn’t remotely funny – but I persevered and was well rewarded. By the end it had become one of my favourite books of the year.
About the Author
Bonnie Garmus is a copywriter and creative director who has worked for a wide range of clients, in the US and abroad, focusing primarily on technology, medicine, and education. She’s an open water swimmer, a rower, and mother to two pretty amazing daughters. Most recently from Seattle, she currently lives in London with her husband and her dog, 99.
+ family, female friendship, feminism, fiction, friendship, grief, Historical fiction, loss, love, motherhood, review, sisterhood, suffragette movement, war, World War One
The Dictionary Of Lost Words by Pip Williams
In 1901, the word ‘Bondmaid’ was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it.
Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the ‘Scriptorium’, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word ‘bondmaid’ flutters to the floor. Esme rescues the slip and stashes it in an old wooden case that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world.
Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. While she dedicates her life to the Oxford English Dictionary, secretly, she begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words.
Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape the world and our experience of it.
My Review
Absolutely fantastic! Who knew that a book about compiling a dictionary could be so emotional and beautiful.
It’s a combination of fictitious characters like Esme and her father ‘Da’, and others like Dr Murray, his daughters Elsie and Rosfrith and Ditte who really existed. The author gives some of the real people more importance and personality in the story than we know as real – Ditte for instance is very central to the book, but in reality we know little about her in real life.
Esme has spent much of her childhood in the Scriptorium where ‘her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard.‘
Then one day she finds the word ‘bondmaid’, which she ‘steals’ and hides in an old trunk under her friend Lizzie’s bed. But Lizzie is actually a servant in the big house – a ‘bondmaid’. This one word changes Esme’s life.
So while Esme continues to work on the Oxford English Dictionary, she begins to collect rejected words – those not written down, not supported by the men at the Scriptorium or considered too offensive in polite society to be included. It will be called: The Dictionary of Lost Words.
While the lexicographers live in their bubble of words, around them the country is preparing for war – a war that will see so many from the nearby printing press sent to the front, never to return. It also sees Esme become tangled in a relationship with an actress who is part of the suffragette movement, one which Esme supports, but doesn’t want to be part of the violent protests.
I cannot express how much I adored this book. There are not enough words in The Oxford English Dictionary and The Dictionary Of Lost Words combined to give it justice. It is probably one of my favourite books of the year. It is so much more than a story about words, love, women’s suffrage and war – it’s a masterpiece of storytelling.
About the Author
Pip was born in London, grew up in Sydney and now calls the Adelaide Hills home. She is co-author of the book Time Bomb: Work Rest and Play in Australia Today (New South Press, 2012) and in 2017 she wrote One Italian Summer, a memoir of her family’s travels in search of the good life, which was published with Affirm Press to wide acclaim. Pip has also published travel articles, book reviews, flash fiction and poetry.
+ alcoholism, childhood, fiction, friendship, Historical fiction, obsession, prostitution, relationships, review
The Misadventures of Margaret Finch by Claire McGlasson
Blackpool, 1938. Miss Margaret Finch – a rather demure young woman – has just begun work in a position that relies on her discretion and powers of observation. Then, her path is crossed by the disgraced Rector of Stiffkey (aka Harold Davidson), who is the subject of a national scandal.
Margaret is determined to discover the truth behind the headlines: is Davidson a maligned hero or an exploiter of the vulnerable? But her own troubles are never far away, and Margaret’s fear that history is about to repeat itself means she needs to uncover that truth urgently.
#TheMisadventuresOfMargaretFinch @ClaireMcGlasson @FaberBooks #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
This deeply evocative novel ripples with the tension of a country not yet able to countenance the devastation of another war. Margaret walks us along the promenade, peeks into the baths and even dares a trip on the love boat in this, her first seaside summer season, on a path more dangerous than she could ever have imagined.
My Review
I’d only just started reading when one of my buddy readers mentioned to me that the Rector of Stiffkey (aka Harold Davidson) was a real person. I then had to look him up on Wikipedia (I know I shouldn’t have), but it didn’t spoil anything for me. Because his story entwines with that of fictional Margaret Finch, who is working as a researcher in Blackpool in 1938. In fact it enhanced it for me.
Margaret’s job is to watch the ‘working classes’ on holiday and make notes of everything she sees. She enjoys her job and is good at it – her reports are second to none. Her immediate boss is James, to whom she reports at ‘HQ’. He’s a bit of a strange one, but then so is she. ‘I’m not like other women,’ she says.
But while out one night doing her research in a pub (rather silly of her to be out alone at night), she is rescued by a small, white-haired, old man, who turns out to be Harold Davidson himself. Known as the Prostitute’s Priest, he was accused of exploiting young women for his own gratification, but Margaret is determined to find out the truth.
She becomes embroiled in his scandal, following him as he tries to prove his innocence by setting himself up on the pier in a number of dangerous stunts. But can Margaret trust him or is he manipulating her as well?
Margaret also has her own demons to fight, from her upbringing by her stepmother to her relationship with alcohol.
I adored this book. Margaret is an unusual main character, with her quirky ways and inability to form trusting, personal relationships. It’s all set during a time when the country was still recovering from The Great War and afraid of entering another war, even when Chamberlain declares ‘Peace for our time’ following a meeting with Hitler.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours and also to The Pigeonhole, the author and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Claire McGlasson is a journalist who works for ITV News and enjoys the variety of life on the road with a TV camera. She lives in Cambridgeshire.
+ art, coming-of-age, family, female friendship, fiction, friendship, grief, literature, loss, love, Magical realism, memory, psychiatric hospital, relationships, review, secrets, Thirties, whimsical, World War Two, WW2
Vita And The Birds by Polly Crosby
1938: Lady Vita Goldsborough lives in the shadow of her controlling older brother, Aubrey. Trapped and isolated on the East Anglian coast, Vita takes solace in watching the birds that fly over the marshes.
But then she meets local artist Dodie Blakeney. The two women form a close bond, and Vita finally glimpses a chance to escape Aubrey’s grasp and be as free as the birds she loves.
1997: Decades later and in the wake of her mother’s death, Eve Blakeney returns to the coast where she spent childhood summers with her beloved grandmother, Dodie. Eve hopes the visit will help make sense of her grief. The last thing she expects to find is a bundle of letters that hint at the heart-breaking story of Dodie’s relationship with a woman named Vita.
Eve and Vita’s stories are linked by a shattering secret that echoes through the decades, and when Eve discovers the truth, it will overturn everything she thought she knew about her family – and change her life forever.
My Review
The Unravelling was one of my four favourite books of 2022 (and probably all time). Therefore I had great hopes and expectations for Vita And The Birds. I was not disappointed. I love the cover to start with.
In 1997, Eve Blakeney returns to the place where she spent her summers with her four brothers and her Bohemian mother Angela. During these holidays they hung out with the local teenagers and her brothers’ friends who came to stay, having picnics on the beach and drinking. Angela was not exactly a traditional mum. On one of these nights, Eve and Henry’s friend Elliott, both intoxicated, accept a dare and go off to explore the disused Cathedral of the Marshes. It’s dangerous and scary and lots of myths surround it. Then an accident and the discovery of a painting change Eve’s life forever.
In 1938, Lady Vita Goldsborough meets Dodie Blakeney, Eve’s grandmother, on the beach. Dodie is an artist and lives in a tiny studio where she paints. Vita, constantly under the control of her bullying brother Aubrey, is entranced by Dodie, her passion and her freedom. She is free like the birds that Vita adores. But can Vita ever be free to pursue her own life?
This is a story full of sadness, secrets, beauty, love and hope. There is something about the author’s writing that is like no other and I can’t really describe what it is that stands out for me, but it’s magical and breath-taking and I adore her books.
About the Author
After a whirlwind of a year which saw Polly receive writing scholarships from both Curtis Brown Creative and The University of East Anglia’s MA in Creative Writing, she went on to be runner up in the Bridport Prize’s Peggy Chapman Andrews Award for a First Novel. Read Polly’s piece for the Bridport Prize’s blog here.
Polly’s novel was snapped up by HarperCollins HQ in the UK and Commonwealth in a 48 hour pre-empt, and a few days later by HarperCollins Park Row Books in North America.
Polly grew up on the Suffolk coast, and now lives in the heart of Norfolk with her husband and son, and her very loud and much loved rescue Oriental cat, Dali.
The Illustrated Child was her first novel. Her second novel, The Unravelling, was published in January 2022. Vita And The Birds is her third novel.
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