+ childhood, family, fiction, friendship, humour fiction, love, motherhood, office drama, relationships, review, secrets, sisters, World War Two
The M Word by Eileen Wharton
Roberta Gallbreath is middle aged and menopausal. She dislikes her children, detests her ex-husband and despises her colleagues.
When her mother dies, Roberta is left with a pile of letters and a mystery surrounding her son. The letters reveal Roberta’s heritage is not what it seems and she is soon on a mission to become a better person.
#TheMWord @WhartonEileen @SpellBoundBks @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour
Told with humour and emotion, The M Word is the tale of one woman’s journey to find out where she came from. As she looks to the past for answers, more questions are raised. Will Roberta discover who she really is?
My Review
This was nothing like I expected. Oh how I laughed and cried! It’s really a book of two halves. We have Roberta’s perimenopause experience (I’m glad mine was nothing like hers) and then her mother’s unbelievably sad story of her experiences during and after the second world war.
Had the book just been about Roberta, I would not have enjoyed it so much. Her acerbic tongue is often hilarious though at times you want to cringe.
‘When I get there, I’m sweating like a blind lesbian at a whelk stall.’ What does even mean?
She has no filter and says the first thing that comes into her head, She is rude and offensive. Her ex-husband, Andy, who she calls Knobhead, ran off with Terri-Ann from Thomas Cook years ago and she is still bitter. Her experiences on Tinder, encouraged by work chum Tammy, as she tries to find a date for the office party, is one of the funniest parts of the book. Everyone she meets is either a pervert or a loony and most of them have questionable hygiene practices. When she tries speed dating, it’s even worse if that’s possible.
But there’s only so much of her ‘humour’ you can take, and having gone through my own menopause over 15 years ago, I found it hard to relate. In fact I could hardly relate to Roberta at all. She hates her mother. She detests her sister. She doesn’t even particularly like any of her three children.
‘It’s not enough, Mother, to feed and clothe us,’ says her youngest daughter…’Our souls need nourishment.’ ‘Really?’ replies Roberta, ‘I didn’t look after your feet?’
You could go as far as saying she hates everyone. The doctor simply tells her it’s due to her perimenopause. I could have slapped him.
Then when her mother is on her deathbed, she gives Roberta a pile of letters. They were written mainly from her mother to her twin brother Michael, and then to someone else as well, but I can’t say more. The letters were absolutely heart-breaking. For me it turned the story on its head and the change from light to shade and back again was so well-written that I cried and cried. What started out as a hilarious rom-com turned into an emotional rollercoaster. Absolutely brilliant.
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Eileen Wharton is an Oscar winning actress, Olympic gymnast, and Influencer. She also tells lies for a living. Her first novel was published in 2011 to worldwide critical acclaim. And she’s won awards for exaggeration. It did top the Amazon humour chart so she’s officially a best-selling author. She currently has five ‘lively’ offspring ranging from thirty-three to fourteen years of age, and has no plans to procreate further, much to the relief of the local schools and police force. She lives on a council estate in County Durham. She has never eaten kangaroo testicles, is allergic to cats and has a phobia of tinned tuna. She’s retired from arguing with people on the internet.
Follow her at:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WhartonEileen
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/eileen.whartonwriter
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/eileenscribblings/
Buy Link – https://geni.us/vSw3C
+ alcoholism, dark humour, family, fiction, holiday, humour fiction, marriage, mid-life crisis, motherhood, relationships, review
The Wolf In The Woods by Dan Brotzel
Colleen and Andrew haven’t had sex in eleven weeks and three days [not that anyone’s counting]. Their marriage is in crisis, they’re drinking too much and both have secrets they’re afraid to share. A teetotal week in a remote cottage could solve all their problems. But with the promised beach nowhere in sight, a broken-down car and a sinister landlord, they may not find it so easy to rekindle their romance. In this dark and funny novel, tensions build and tempers fray.
My Review
I absolutely loved this book. It’s funny and sad at the same time – I laughed out loud, cringed at times (because Wolf really is rather creepy), and even shed a tear or three at the end.
Colleen and Andrew’s marriage (20 years married but 27 years together) is a disaster, but will a week away in a remote cottage in the forest really help? Will their marriage survive the make-or-break getaway? You wonder whether they will both survive at all – and I mean literally.
Wolf (Wolfgang? Mr Wolf?) lives next door and owns the cottage they are staying in. He can’t do enough to help to the point of being intrusive. It’s nice to have a caring landlord, but he is always there, accompanied by his dog Jack, poking his nose in, inviting Colleen to spend time having a drink with ‘Mrs Wolf’. Not a good idea as Colleen and Andrew are trying to stay off the alcohol while they are away. Make a fresh start. Stay sober.
Wolf appears to know so much, doesn’t he. And Colleen and Andrew have some big secrets, one of which is about the drinking, but there are other things which each thinks the other doesn’t know about.
Mrs Wolf – Hildy – is also a strange one.
‘Your Andrew.’ she says to Colleen.
‘Yes?’ said Colleen. ‘Does he have a big one?’
Now the reason this made me laugh was because while at our local Lido with my friend who is probably not far off Hildy’s age, we bumped into someone I have known for years, but she had never met before. He showed us a picture of his beautiful second wife. Admitted punching above his weight.
‘Are you rich.’ my friend asked.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Then you must have a big one.’ she said.
Brilliant!
About the Author
Dan Brotzel describes himself as a “funny-sad author” and writer of novels, short stories, articles and other motley bits of content. The author of Hotel du Jack, a collection of short stories, and The Wolf in the Woods, a novel, he also co-wrote the brilliantly funny Work in Progress – a “novel-in emails” from award-winning publishers, Unbound. He lives in suburban north London with his partner and three children.
More info at www.danbrotzel.com
+ adventure, audio drama, Cat on a Piano, fiction, friendship, humour fiction, love, podcast, radio play, review, Theatrephonic
Around The World In 80 Days by Cat On A Piano / Theatrephonic
Theatrephonic has joined forces with Rain or Shine Theatre Company to present a radio adaptation of their 2021 Christmas tour: Around the World in 80 Days
As I was on holiday in Gran Canaria (she says showing off) I listened to this in one go on the beach. People around me probably wondered why I kept bursting out laughing. Mad dogs and Englishman and all that (Phileas would approve).
The whole play is hilarious and I couldn’t help being reminded at times of Officer Crabtree in ‘Allo ‘Allo and his ‘Good moaning. You are holding in your hand a smoking goon; you are clearly the guilty potty.’
There are some great lines in Around the World…
‘The other camel,’ says Passpartout, ‘has a flat.’
‘A flat what? Hump?’
‘Doesn’t that make it a horse?’ replies Amelia.
‘I am a valet, not a vegetarian – I mean a veterinarian,’ responds Passpartout.
‘Water, water. I am French. L’eau, l’eau.’
‘It’s the dessert, I mean desert.’
‘There is nothing here, only a parcel tossed carelessly on the ground. Must be a Hermes delivery.’
And then we have the twist at the end. Brilliant. All that’s missing is the fallen Madonna with the big boobies.
Written by Rob Keeves and Jonathan Legg – adapted from the Jules Verne novel.
Directed by Emmeline Braefield based on stage direction by Jonathan Legg
Starring:
Rob Keeves as Phileas Fogg
Ashley Shiers as Inspector Fix, Spanish Captain and Mr Sullivan
Anthony Young as Passpartout
Pippa Meekings as Amelia Swift and Sister Mary
Featuring Jonathan Legg as the Train Driver
Produced by Cat on a Piano Productions
Music:
November by Joey Pecoraro
Sao Meo Orchestral Mix by Doug Maxwell
In the Temple Garden by Aaron Kenny
The Day I Met Her by Esther Abrami
Imperial Forces by Aaron Kenny
Thunderstorm by Hanu Dixit
We Ride! by Reed Mathis
Blue Danube by Strauss
The Theatrephonic Theme tune was composed by Jackson Pentland
Performed by
Jackson Pentland
Mollie Fyfe Taylor
Emmeline Braefield
Cat on a Piano Productions produce and edit feature films, sketches and radio plays.
Their latest project is called @Theatrephonic, a podcast of standalone radio plays and short stories performed by professional actors. You can catch Theatrephonic on Spotify and other platforms.
For more information about the Theatrephonic Podcast, go to catonapiano.uk/theatrephonic, Tweet or Instagram @theatrephonic, or visit their Facebook page.
And if you really enjoyed this week’s episode, listen to Theatrephonic’s other plays and short stories and consider becoming a patron by clicking here…
+ adventure, childhood, coming-of-age, crime fiction, family, fashion, female friendship, fiction, forgiveness, friendship, haunting, humour fiction, List, literature, love, metafiction, murder, mystery, police drama, review, supernatural, witchcraft, witches
My Top 8 Books of 2022 – Part Three
Here are my favourite eight books of the third quarter of 2022. I should have published this at the beginning of the month but I am in Gran Canaria and to be honest, what with the sunshine, the sea and the vino, I totally forgot. Apologies all round and here goes.
Still Water by Rebecca Pert
What a stunning book. Beautifully written and so emotional. How it triggered my own personal memories, the parallels with my childhood and my mother’s mental illness (*see below); the fears of it being inherited, genetic.
Jane is not always the easiest person to like. She works in a mind-numbing job in a salmon processing factory. All she has to do is chop the heads off the fish. She lives alone in a run-down caravan even though she owns the cottage nearby. It has too many memories and has been left to fall to pieces. She has a lovely boyfriend called Mike whom she loves dearly, but he knows little of her past life. She is very closed about her childhood. We know it was traumatic and her problems revolved around her mother’s progressive illness and the death of her little brother.
For my full review click here
All About Evie by Matson Taylor
All About Evie is the first ‘real’ book I’ve read in years, as opposed to reading on my Kindle. Somehow it makes more sense. I have a big yellow hardback with a picture of Evie on her spinning chair and Oscar the basset hound in the bottom right hand corner. I even have an Evie postcard as a bookmark.
I read The Miseducation of Evie Epworth twice (something I almost never do) and it became one of my favourite books of all time. In All About Evie we are reintroduced to Caroline and Digby plus Mrs Swithenbank, but we also meet a whole new cast of characters from the two Nicks at Right On!, lovely Lolo and his dog Oscar, budding fashionista Genevieve, ghastly Griffin and many more. And Evie is introduced to opera, though it’s a bit more Victor Borge than Mozart, all plinky plonky music and lots of shouting. It’s actually Puccini’s La Boheme. Something easy to start with, break her in gently.
For my full review click here
The Daves Next Door by Will Carver
How can I pigeonhole this book? Metafiction? Postmodern? Self-reflexive? God only knows and in this novel God is the unreliable, omniscient narrator. At least I thought so. Only the narrator realises he’s not God. He’s the would-be terrorist.
This is such a hard book to review. It’s not just about what happens to individual people, but why and how they are all connected, even though most of them have never met each other. The suicide bomber rides the Circle Line every day, waiting for the exact right time to detonate. Asking questions like Am I God? Am I dead? Will I blow up this train?
For my full review click here
Don’t Leave by Pru Heathcote
I loved this book. I read it in about three sittings and would have read it in one go if I had been on holiday. And I would NEVER have guessed the reality of what was happening in a million years.
Following the tragic death of Jane and Peter’s young daughter Angela, Peter decides that it would do Jane good to give up work for a while and spend some time in a cottage by the sea in a remote location off the coast of Northumberland. They will be away from everyone and everything and Jane will be able to come to terms with her loss.
For my full review click here
The Witches of Moonshyne Manor by Bianca Marais
Who would have thought this book would make me cry? But it did. I’m not saying when or why. It also made me laugh and want to be a witch (some would say that’s not such a far leap). So excuse me a second while I pop my broomstick away in the cupboard, consult my personal grimoire, and let us begin.
There is so much I loved about this book. The witches – Ursula, Queenie, Ivy, Tabby, Jezebel and Ruby – plus 15-year-old Persephone and Tabby’s familiar, an elderly crow named Widget. I must also mention that Persephone has a dog called Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I am ashamed to say that I didn’t know who she was, though I assumed she was a real person. I apologise. I’m making myself sound really ignorant, but although it’s no excuse, I am in the UK.
For my full review click here
Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
I adored this book more than I can even put into words. Everything about it, everyone in it and there’s even a cute terrier called Pierrot (I hope the name isn’t a spoiler but I think I need a dog called Pierrot).
Nellie Coker is the head of an empire. She runs five somewhat dodgy nightclubs with the help of her children – Niven, a romantic figure who fought in the Great War, the enigmatic and clever Edith, glamorous Shirley (I can’t read about Shirley without imagining someone I work with who shares her name and is about as glam as it gets), equally glamorous Betty, and budding author Ramsay. We also have 14-year-old Kitty but she’s a pain in the neck, though it’s not really her fault. Where Nellie got the money to start up her business remains shrouded in mystery, but we can guess it wasn’t legal.
For my full review click here
The Crooked Little Pieces: Volume 1 by Sophia Lambton
Wow! Just wow! I never expected this. It’s a true work of literature. The language is beautiful – the story engrossing.
It starts with half-Dutch and half-German twin sisters Anneliese and Isabel aged six living with their father Professor Josef van der Holt in Switzerland. He is a neurologist, but his ideas are considered old-fashioned. He forms a platonic relationship with another neurologist called Sara, but it does not develop.
For my full review click here
Beneath The House of Sin (DCI Mike Saxby #1) by David Field
It’s like two separate books in one and the first two in a series, which I guess it is. I actually could not put this down, but not just because of the story but because I loved the characters. All of them, but particularly DCI Mike Saxby, his wife Alison, young police officer Cathy who reminds Mike of his daughter and keeps feeding him yoghurt so he can lose weight (orders from above ie Alison) and even boring Dave Petrie. Or Paperless Petrie as he is known, because he never does his admin. Mike is known as Paddington for reasons that will become clear and marmalade keeps turning up on his desk, usually on toast.
For my full review click here
+ Devon, family, female friendship, fiction, friendship, Ireland, lies, marriage, Psychological fiction, rape, relationships, revenge, review, secrets, thriller
The Couple at Causeway Cottage by Diane Jeffrey
Kat and Mark move to an island off the Northern Irish coast for a new beginning. Far away from their frantic life in London, it’s the perfect place to bring up the family they’re longing to start.
But as soon as they arrive, cracks begin to appear in their marriage. Mark is still texting his ex-wife. Kat is lying about a new friendship. And one of them is keeping an explosive secret about the past.
The couple in Causeway Cottage are hiding something – and the truth can be deadly…
My Review
Mark and Kat have moved to a tiny island off the coast of Northern Ireland to be close to his elderly mother, who is in a care home suffering from dementia. They will just be a hop away on the ferry to visit her. They have bought a little place called Causeway Cottage, badly in need of some tlc, where they plan to start a family. Mark will have to stay away in Belfast quite a few nights a week because of his job, but Kat is fine with that. She’s looking forward to her new career as a wildlife and nature photographer.
Now I can honestly say I did not like Mark from the very beginning. Kat’s mum didn’t either so maybe it’s a protective mum thing. He has absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever that I can see. I can’t understand why she married him. He’s still texting his ex-wife. It’s not like they share the care of their children as they don’t have any. According to Mark, Fiona didn’t want children and he did.
However, I did like Darragh. Probably because of Dexter the dog. Anyone who has a dog called Dexter can’t be all bad. And he is supposedly rather attractive, which helps – Darragh that is, not Dexter.
I really enjoyed the twists and turns, the lies, the secrets and the intrigue. I did get a bit frustrated at times because characters in books always keep things from their partners, stuff that they should be able to confide in each other about.
The book fairly romps along mostly – a few times Kat spends a lot of time revisiting her guilt – but I read it on holiday while on the beach and it’s a perfect holiday read. Another great book from this author.
Many thanks to Diane Jeffrey 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
+ childhood, crime fiction, fiction, Gothic mystery, grief, lies, loss, love, mental health, mental illness, murder, review, Scotland, Scottish Highlands, secrets, superstition, thriller
The Blackhouse by Carole Johnstone
From the author of the “dark and devious…beautifully written” (Stephen King) Mirrorland comes a richly atmospheric thriller set on an isolated Scottish island where nothing is as it seems and shocking twists lie around every corner.
A remote village. A deadly secret. An outsider who knows the truth.
Robert Reid moved his family to Scotland’s Outer Hebrides in the 1990s, driven by hope, craving safety and community, and hiding a terrible secret. But despite his best efforts to fit in, Robert is always seen as an outsider. And as the legendary and violent Hebridean storms rage around him, he begins to unravel, believing his fate on the remote island of Kilmeray cannot be escaped.
For her entire life, Maggie MacKay has sensed something was wrong with her. When Maggie was five years old, she announced that a man on Kilmeray—a place she’d never visited—had been murdered. Her unfounded claim drew media attention and turned the locals against each other, creating rifts that never mended.
Nearly twenty years later, Maggie is determined to find out what really happened, and what the islanders are hiding. But when she begins to receive ominous threats, Maggie is forced to consider how much she is willing to risk to discover the horrifying truth.
Unnerving, enthralling, and filled with gothic suspense, The Blackhouse is a spectacularly sinister tale readers won’t soon forget.
My Review
Mirrorland is one of my favourite books ever, so I had huge hopes for the author’s next book. The Blackhouse didn’t disappoint, but it didn’t quite match up. I think my problem was twofold. Firstly I didn’t warm to Maggie enough to keep rooting for her and that has nothing to do with her mental health issues. It was more to do with her relationship with her mother, which I didn’t really understand, and her reasons for coming back to the island. Was her mother always lying to her and did that make her a bad person or simply a deluded one? My mother was convinced she could ‘see things or ghosts’ but we regarded it as more of an eccentricity than anything else.
Nearly twenty years later, Maggie is determined to find out what really happened, and what the islanders are hiding. Why would she do that? Best let sleeping dogs lie. It can only end in tragedy.
Her sudden appearance caused huge animosity amongst the locals. I know they didn’t want her digging up the past, but they were very rude and often threatening towards her and Alec’s behaviour is shocking and unforgivable. After all none of it was actually her fault. She was five. She wasn’t even born (excuse my maths if I’m wrong) when the double tragedy occurred.
Secondly it was just too long. At times it just seemed to drift, when I wanted to move the story forward. Maggie constantly questions her childhood and her mother’s belief that she also had the ‘gift’. Was it real or not? I’m still not sure to be honest.
Robert, on the other hand, with his obsession with Norse mythology and mummified crows to ward off evil, is very strange and creepy, especially the stuff with the sheep. (No don’t go getting the wrong idea.) I mean the dying sheep – that for me was the scariest bit.
Unnerving, enthralling, and filled with gothic suspense, The Blackhouse is a spectacularly sinister tale readers won’t soon forget. I’m afraid it just wasn’t sinister enough for me, but maybe that says more about me and my reading habits than the story itself.
But don’t get me wrong. I still loved it. Carole is a master of suspense and knows how to deliver a twist with the best of them, it just didn’t have the same impact as Mirrorland. I’ve seen it described as a slow-burn, but for me it was just a bit too slow. Would I read her next novel? Hell yeah.
About the Author
Carole Johnstone’s award-winning short fiction has appeared in annual ‘Best of’ anthologies in the US and UK. Her debut novel, Mirrorland, was published in April 2021 by Borough Press/HarperCollins in the UK and Commonwealth and by Scribner/Simon & Schuster in North America. The Blackhouse is her second novel. She lives in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.
+ female friendship, fiction, friendship, mental health, mental illness, psychiatric hospital, review
Stolen Summers by Anne Goodwin
All she has left is her sanity. Will the asylum take that from her too?
In 1939, Matilda is admitted to Ghyllside Hospital, cut off from family and friends. Not quite twenty, and forced to give up her baby for adoption, she feels battered by the cruel regime. Yet she finds a surprising ally in rough-edged Doris, who risks harsh punishments to help her reach out to the brother she left behind.
Twenty-five years later, the rules have relaxed, and the women are free to leave. How will they cope in a world transformed in their absence? Do greater dangers await them outside?
The poignant prequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home is a tragic yet tender story of a woman robbed of her future who summons the strength to survive.
My Review
This was a hard read for me. I won’t go into detail again about my Jewish mother’s constant battle with mental illness, her escape from the Nazis shortly before the war, her lobotomy in the 1950s, her electric shock treatment, as I already mentioned all this in my review of Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home. But I can’t pretend that Stolen Summers didn’t upset me. It did.
We first meet Matilda when she is taken to Ghyllside Hospital, a mental institution, probably referred to as a ‘lunatic asylum’ in those days. It’s where girls were often sent after becoming pregnant ‘out of wedlock’. Their sanity was called into question and their babies taken away to be adopted immediately after they were born. The mothers were considered mentally defective and this ‘mental defect’ was believed by some to have caused the women’s ‘immorality’. They were locked up to prevent the perpetuation of ‘unfit’ genes. Unbelievable to think that nowadays.
Matty doesn’t talk about the pregnancy or the baby. Her main concern is that her little brother is only six and how will they explain to him where she has gone. Eventually she is told that it would be better for Henry if he forgets she even exists. We have to wait until Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home to find out more about Henry.
For now it is just about Matilda and the friendship she forms with the course Doris who ends up being her best and only true friend. She also befriends a black, American soldier called Eustace, who she meets at the weekly dances. Until then she had no idea that there were men at Ghyllside Hospital as they are segregated the rest of the time. We suspect this brief ‘relationship’ will not go well.
Stolen Summers is very short. I read it in a couple of hours max. It basically serves as an introduction to the twenty-year-old Matilda, and shows us how she ended up in Ghyllside Hospital, following her pregnancy. We also jump back and forth between 1939 when she enters the hospital, and 1964 when she has more freedom to come and go, and then finally we see Matilda in 1989 right at the start of Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home.
It’s a wonderful book – please don’t be put off by my own personal experience. It gives a real insight into the way unmarried mothers were treated in what is actually less than 100 years ago. A lot less in fact.
Many thanks to the author for an advance copy in exchange for a 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.
Website annegoodwin.weebly.com
Twitter @Annecdotist
Link tree https://linktr.ee/annecdotist
Book blog Annecdotal
Amazon author page viewauthor.at/AnneGoodwin
YouTube Anne Goodwin’s YouTube channel
Facebook Annecdotist
Instagram authorannegoodwin
Newsletter subscribe
TikTok @annegoodwinauthor
Amazon and other purchase links
US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFJH1VL8
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BFJH1VL8
CAN: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BFJH1VL8
AUS: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0BFJH1VL8
IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0BFJH1VL8
Universal link: https://books2read.com/u/mvXq6q
Direct review links @ https://linktr.ee/stolensummers
+ childhood, coming-of-age, family, feminism, fiction, girl's school, Historical fiction, literature, London, love, music, piano, relationships, review, sisters, twins, World War Two
The Crooked Little Pieces: Volume 1 by Sophia Lambton
Lost are the creatures destined never to be understood.
1926. Professor Josef van der Holt obtains a post at an all women’s college overseas. Stuffy London suddenly becomes the site for the unseemly exploits of his half-Dutch and half-German daughters Anneliese and Isabel. When tragedy carves out a hollow in their lives, an ailing soul sends the sororal twins along a jagged path: while Isabel takes flight in sensual hedonism Anneliese skirts danger in her role as sleuth. Elusive are the sentiments they seek: swift stopovers of fleeting feeling. Seditious loves and passions scarcely probable veer each away from the predictable.
And when the obvious appears unstoppable the opposite may achingly be true.
Spanning the twentieth century’s five most volatile decades, The Crooked Little Pieces is a series about inextricable entanglements. Perverse relationships pervade a glossary of scenes. Plots criss-cross over a rich tapestry of twists and tension-fuelling characters: some relatable, others opaque and many “crooked”.
It is television drama. Novelised.
My Review
Wow! Just wow! I never expected this. It’s a true work of literature. The language is beautiful – the story engrossing.
It starts with half-Dutch and half-German twin sisters Anneliese and Isabel aged six living with their father Professor Josef van der Holt in Switzerland. He is a neurologist, but his ideas are considered old-fashioned. He forms a platonic relationship with another neurologist called Sara, but it does not develop.
Josef is offered a job in London and his two daughters are devastated. His wife Elise is a strange character, who never seems to come out of her room. I’m not sure how she survives to be honest, as they don’t have a maid or cook. In order to persuade her to go with them to London, she is told they are going on holiday.
The sisters are both talented. Anneliese is destined for great things in the medical profession, though her interest in psychiatry makes her unpopular at medical school. Isabel is potentially a musical genius on both cello and piano, but her inability to perform in front of others prevents her career from flourishing.
Anneliese has no interest in relationships and cannot see herself ever marrying. The most intense relationship she forms is with her psychiatrist shortly after a tragic event in the sisters’ lives.
Isabel is seemingly the opposite. Her hedonistic lifestyle is a constant source of worry to her twin sister.
The Crooked Little Pieces is very different. Don’t expect straightforward historical fiction. It’s more about emotions and the relationship between two women, who even though they are twins are disparate and diverse. As we leave them amidst world war two, I look forward to the next instalment in this fascinating tale.
Many thanks to the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
About the Author
Sophia Lambton became a professional classical music critic at the age of seventeen when she began writing for Musical Opinion, Britain’s oldest music magazine. Since then she has contributed to The Guardian, Bachtrack, musicOMH, BroadwayWorld, BBC Music Magazine and OperaWire, and conducted operatic research around the world for a non-fiction work set to be published in 2023. Crepuscular Musings – her recently spawned cultural Substack – provides vivid explorations of tv and cinema together with reviews of operas, concerts and recitals at sophialambton.substack.com.
The Crooked Little Pieces is her first literary saga. Currently she’s working on her second. She lives in London.
+ coming-of-age, family, fiction, history, literature, love, memoir, motherhood, piano, relationships, review, World War Two
Lessons by Ian McEwan
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines’s life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother’s protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano
teacher Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
Twenty-five years later Roland’s wife mysteriously vanishes, leaving him alone with their baby son. He is forced to confront the reality of his rootless existence. As the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster spreads across Europe he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life.
#Lessons #IanMcEwan @VintageBooks @ChristianLLewis #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
From the Suez and Cuban Missile crises, the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Covid pandemic and climate change, Roland sometimes rides with the tide of history but more often struggles against it. Haunted by lost opportunities, he seeks solace through every possible means – literature, travel, friendship, drugs, sex and politics. A profound love is cut tragically short.
Then, in his final years, he finds love again in another form. His journey raises important questions. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? And what can we learn from the traumas of the past?
My Review
Some of the book – which is really Roland’s memoir – resonated with me, but being a few years younger, a lot of it didn’t. I was, however, fascinated by anti-Nazi group known as The White Rose as my mother living as a Jew in Vienna, had to flee the Nazis in 1938. The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 for instance went over my head at the time as I was too young to understand the danger, and have only read about it as history. The Suez Crisis in 1956 happened when I was about three years old.
However, I went through Checkpoint Charlie in 1973 when I was a fashion student. I was about 20 years old. It is an experience I will never forget. I cannot understand how ANYONE could defend the GDR. It was awful and scary. They counted our English money on the way in and again on the way out to make sure we hadn’t given any to the residents of East Berlin to spend in the Western shops. We had to have receipts. Machine guns were pointed at us as we went through the checkpoint. In the Eastern shops they sold a lot of strong spirits (they no doubt needed it) but I best remember all the teddies were the same colour. How we celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Chernobyl was important to me and I remember being in hospital giving birth to my second child just after it happened. The woman in the next bed was terrified of the fall-out and had come to England from somewhere in Europe to have her baby. I am still affected by the man who stayed to feeds the cats and dogs after everyone left. And the children who would die of cancer in years to come and came here to the UK for a holiday.
But the most important part of the actual story follows young Roland from his early childhood in Tripoli where his father was stationed and he felt as if he had total freedom, to a somewhat ‘alternative’ boarding school in the Suffolk countryside. It is here that he meets his piano teacher Miriam Cornell when he is eleven years old. It changes his life, but it will be another three years until he is seduced by her and their ‘affair’ begins. By today’s’ standards, I found this all rather distasteful. It reminded me of a film I saw many years ago called Summer of ’42 . It tells the story of the author, in his early teens on his 1942 summer vacation, who embarks on a ‘romance’ with a young woman, whose husband has gone off to fight in the war. It seemed beautiful and poignant at the time, but in retrospect it’s all rather tacky and creepy.
The ‘affair’ with Miriam has an impact on Roland’s life and relationships. He doesn’t marry until he meets Alissa in the eighties. They have a child – Lawrence – but one day she just walks out, leaving him with a seven-month-old baby, Lawrence. We then delve into her family’s history – her mother Jane is English, but her father Heinrich is German. Eventually Alissa explains why she had to leave in order to write her books and become one of Germany’s most celebrated authors, but as a mother myself, I’m not buying it. She felt as though her marriage to Roland and motherhood were stifling her creativity, but she could have done both as numerous authors have shown us over the years.
There is so much more but if I go on my review will be nearly as long as the book! Roland muses about new Labour in power under Blair and then Brown, disillusionment, followed by years of disastrous Tory rule, Brexit and the pandemic.
Lessons is a fascinating look at the history of our times, wrapped around Roland’s story. It’s an ambitious book and one that only an author of McEwan’s talent and experience can pull off with such mastery.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Ian McEwan is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen novels and two short story collections.
His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; Nutshell; and Machines Like Me, which was a number-one bestseller. Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach have all been adapted for the big screen.
+ brothers, crime fiction, Detective novel, family, fiction, friendship, haunting, Historical fiction, kidnapping, literature, London, love, murder, police corruption, prostitution, revenge, review, secrets, sisters
Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time.
The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho’s gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost.
#ShrinesOfGaiety #KateAtkinson #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
With her unique Dickensian flair, Kate Atkinson brings together a glittering cast of characters in a truly mesmeric novel that captures the uncertainty and mutability of life; of a world in which nothing is quite as it seems.
My Review
I adored this book more than I can even put into words. Everything about it, everyone in it and there’s even a cute terrier called Pierrot (I hope the name isn’t a spoiler but I think I need a dog called Pierrot).
Nellie Coker is the head of an empire. She runs five somewhat dodgy nightclubs with the help of her children – Niven, a romantic figure who fought in the Great War, the enigmatic and clever Edith, glamorous Shirley (I can’t read about Shirley without imagining someone I work with who shares her name and is about as glam as it gets), equally glamorous Betty, and budding author Ramsay. We also have 14-year-old Kitty but she’s a pain in the neck, though it’s not really her fault. Where Nellie got the money to start up her business remains shrouded in mystery, but we can guess it wasn’t legal.
In the meantime, 14-year-old Freda runs away to London with her friend Florence, to seek their fortune as dancers on the stage, along with the hundreds of other girls their age. Freda is quite talented for a girl from the provinces, while poor Florence is better at eating humbugs than performing. However, to make it as a dancer in the metropolis is less about talent and more about what you are prepared to trade for fame and fortune.
Detective Chief Inspector Frobisher is a man on a mission – he is determined to bring the Coker Empire crashing down and reveal the police corruption that allows Nellie to continue running her shady clubs. However, he has also been tasked with finding Freda and Florence by Gwendolen Kelling, a friend of Freda’s sister. Gwendolen is a librarian, who has inherited what was a lot of money in 1926, so she takes a sabbatical from the library and heads off to London. There’s also a romantic love interest, but with whom (and there’s more than one) is one of the delights of the story.
I could go on and on. Everyone is so well written – I loved them all, though I have my favourites, particularly Gwendolen. There is sadness, joy, murder, romance, a haunting, 1920s excesses, and humour.
‘”I know Pamela,” Betty said. “She’s not in the least bit bright.” All of the Cokers poured scorn on the so-called Bright Young Things. “She’s not even that young,” Shirley said. “Just a thing then,” Betty said.’
I must now start reading Kate’s other novels, but which one to start with?
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Kate Atkinson is one of the world’s foremost novelists. She won the Costa Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Her three critically lauded and prize-winning novels set around the Second World War are Life After Life, an acclaimed 2022 BBC TV series starring Thomasin McKenzie, A God in Ruins (both winners of the Costa Novel Award) and Transcription.
Her bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie, Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News? and Started Early, Took My Dog, became a BBC television series starring Jason Isaacs. Jackson Brodie later returned in the novel Big Sky. Kate Atkinson was awarded an MBE in 2011 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
+ audio drama, Cat on a Piano, dark humour, fiction, humour fiction, podcast, radio play, Theatrephonic
Pearly Gates by Cat On A Piano / Theatrephonic
Pearly Gates
But hey! They survived!
‘Sorry I wasn’t here to welcome you. I was having a comfort break. You know …. as you get older.’ says St Peter. And it turns out that Satan is responsible for identity theft. Who knew.
Sylvester is addicted to watching cartoons. It’s called bi-toonism. Is that anything like bi-curious, asks St Peter? No that’s something completely different.
So how did Sylvester end up at the pearly gates? I think he may be a contender for the Darwin awards. Hilarious. Loved this.
Written by Nigel Foster
Directed by Emmeline Braefield
With
Peter M. Smith as Sylvester
Danielle Lade as Cherub
and Tom Jordan as St. Peter
Produced by Cat on a Piano Productions
Music:
Angelic Forest by Doug Maxwell
Angel Guides by Jesse Gallagher
Pizzetti – Sanctus – Messa di Requiem performed by The Tudor Consort
Earth Appears by Brian Bolger
Brain Trust by Wayne Jones
Goat by Wayne Jones
Bike Rides by The Green Orbs
Toy Piano by Wayne Jones
Cartoon Bank Heist by Doug Maxwell
Cartoon Hoedown by Media Right Productions
Seahorse by Rondo Brothers
Thunderstorm by Hanu Dixit
The Theatrephonic Theme tune was composed by Jackson Pentland
Performed by
Jackson Pentland
Mollie Fyfe Taylor
Emmeline Braefield
Cat on a Piano Productions produce and edit feature films, sketches and radio plays.
Their latest project is called @Theatrephonic, a podcast of standalone radio plays and short stories performed by professional actors. You can catch Theatrephonic on Spotify and other platforms.
For more information about the Theatrephonic Podcast, go to catonapiano.uk/theatrephonic, Tweet or Instagram @theatrephonic, or visit their Facebook page.
And if you really enjoyed this week’s episode, listen to Theatrephonic’s other plays and short stories and consider becoming a patron by clicking here…
+ childhood, family, fantasy, female friendship, feminism, fiction, forgiveness, friendship, grief, haunting, loss, love, magic, review, sisterhood, supernatural, witchcraft, witches
The Witches of Moonshyne Manor by Bianca Marais
The House in the Cerulean Sea meets The Golden Girls in this funny, tender, and uplifting feminist tale of sisterhood featuring a coven of aging witches who must unite their powers to fight the men determined to drive them out of their home and town.
A coven of modern-day witches. A magical heist-gone-wrong. A looming threat. Summoned by an alarm, five octogenarian witches gather around Ursula when danger is revealed to her in a vision.
An angry mob of townsmen is advancing with a wrecking ball, determined to demolish Moonshyne Manor and Distillery. All eyes turn to Queenie—as the witch in charge, it’s her job to reassure them – but she confesses they’ve fallen far behind on their mortgage payments and property taxes.
Queenie has been counting on Ruby’s return in two days to fix everything. Ruby is the only one who knows where the treasure is hidden, those valuable artifacts stolen 33 years ago on the night when everything went horribly wrong. Why didn’t clairvoyant Ursula see this coming sooner?
#WitchesMoonshyneManor @BiancaM_author @Harper360UK #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
Wasn’t Ivy supposed to be working her botanical magic to keep the townsmen in a state of perpetual drugged calm, all while Jezebel quelled revolts through seductive bewitchment?
The mob is only the start of the witches’ troubles. Brad Gedney, a distant cousin of Ivy, is hellbent on avenging his family for the theft of a legacy that was rightfully his. In an act of desperation, Queenie makes a bargain with an evil far more powerful than anything they’ve ever faced. And things take a turn for the worse when Ruby’s homecoming reveals a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.
In a race against time, the women have nine days to save their home and business. The witches are determined to save their home and themselves, but fear their aging powers are no match against increasingly malicious threats. Thankfully, they get a bit of extra help from Persephone, a feisty TikToker eager to smash the patriarchy. As the deadline approaches, fractures among the sisterhood are revealed, and long-held secrets are exposed, culminating in a fiery confrontation with their enemies.
My Review
Who would have thought this book would make me cry? But it did. I’m not saying when or why. It also made me laugh and want to be a witch (some would say that’s not such a far leap). So excuse me a second while I pop my broomstick away in the cupboard, consult my personal grimoire, and let us begin.
There is so much I loved about this book. The witches – Ursula, Queenie, Ivy, Tabby, Jezebel and Ruby – plus 15-year-old Persephone and Tabby’s familiar, an elderly crow named Widget. I must also mention that Persephone has a dog called Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I am ashamed to say that I didn’t know who she was, though I assumed she was a real person. I apologise. I’m making myself sound really ignorant, but although it’s no excuse, I am in the UK. In fact I felt so bad, I looked her up and have been doing quite a bit of reading about her. What a marvellous woman! Born in 1933, she was only the second woman and the first Jewish woman to be appointed to the US Supreme Court. And she was 60 years old at the time. She was a champion of gay rights, women’s rights, the poor and many other marginalised groups. It explains why the dreadful Brad Gedney in the story has a photo of himself shaking hands with Donald Trump (who I guess was not a fan of Ms Ginsburg).
But I digress yet again. The six witches have lived in Moonshyne Manor since they all arrived as children and that was many years ago as they are all in their eighties (maybe Jezebel hasn’t quite hit 80 but she’s near enough). But now they risk losing everything unless they can pay the half a million dollars they owe the bank. And in an act of desperation, Queenie makes a bargain with an evil far more powerful than anything they’ve ever faced. But maybe Ruby will be able to help when she comes home, except she is no longer the person she was the last time they saw her.
To add to the problem, a group of local dignitaries ie the mayor, the bank manager etc, want to knock down the manor and distillery, and turn the land into a theme park called Men’s World. This just gets more Trump all the time. But Persephone, who happens to be the daughter of one of the men, is a staunch feminist with strong feelings of her own. I love how she talks about Youtube, TikTok and Harry Potter and the witches have no idea what she’s on about. And she wants to help them, but why does Queenie try to keep her away?
Writing this review is like talking in riddles – it’s so hard not to give anything away. Suffice to say I just adored it. There is so much that resonated with me, even though I am not in my eighties or have I got magical powers unfortunately. But it’s the whole idea of people power, in this case the power of women, proving that you can do anything if you put your collective minds (and wands) to it. This book is a triumph.
Oh yes – and there are recipes for some simple spells and salves (I wonder if any of them are real), plus the ultimate banned spell – A Spell to Grant the Deepest Longing of Your Yearning Heart. However, it requires amongst other things a gallon of rainwater from Puerto Rico, 1/2 gallon of black rhino urine, 3 drops of Cuchumatan golden toad saliva, some scorpion venom, an eyelash from a ruling British monarch, 2 oz placenta powder from a sextuplet birth and a powerful magical artifact, so I think we can safely say it might be rather difficult to perform.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Bianca Marais is the author of the beloved Hum If You Don’t Know the Words and If You Want to Make God Laugh (Putnam, 2017 and 2019). She teaches at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies where she was awarded an Excellence in Teaching Award for Creative Writing in 2021. A believer in the power of storytelling in advancing social justice, Marais runs the Eunice Ngogodo Own Voices Initiative to empower young Black women in Africa to write and publish their own stories, and is constantly fundraising to assist grandmothers in Soweto with caring for children who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. In 2020, Marais started the popular podcast, The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, which is aimed at helping emerging writers become published.
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