The Coward's Tale by Vanessa Gebbie
I've 'known' Vanessa online for many years and have read some of her short fiction, so I was intrigued to see how her unique style would translate to longer fiction. This book is no disappointment - it's certainly original and has a lilting, lyrical voice which I defy anyone to read without hearing a Welsh accent.
The book is really a collection of short stories, linked by place, characters, and history. It's set in a fictitious Welsh mining town, the scene of a pit disaster which is just within living memory - at least the town beggar, Ianto Jenkins, remembers it. The townspeople all have their own quirks and foibles, and Ianto knows their stories and their parents' stories, and will tell the tales to anyone who'll listen. In many cases, it was the pit disaster which left its impact on the families for several generations.
There are all sorts of unusual characters in this book - the woodwork teacher who tries to carve feathers from wood; the undertaker who points his stick and walks everywhere in the straightest possible line; the illiterate ex-collier who is keeping his hands black with coal, as he told his wife he would only look for another job when the black left his hands.
There's a dreamlike quality to some of the stories. There are some beautiful images, quirky though not terribly real characters, and the strongest sense of place I've ever come across in a novel. It's a sad, wistful read and gets my vote for most original voice.
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Before She Was Mine
Before She Was Mine by Kate Long
Another brilliant Kate Long book.
Freya was adopted as a baby but as an adult got in contact with her birth mum. Since then she's been juggling adoptive mum Liv, who is a down to earth environmentalist, and birth mum Melody who is vibrant and bohemian, acting as though she's still a teenager. Freya herself feels as though she doesn't really fit in with either mum and at the age of 23 doesn't really know where she's going in life. When Liv gets cancer and Melody gets pregnant, both mums need to lean on their daughter for support, and Freya is pulled in several directions. Add to this her best friend is marrying a man Freya fancies, and then the wedding falls through, and Freya's disastrous on-off relationship with her loser boyfriend and she's got loads to deal with.
As always with Kate's books I felt I really got to know all the characters well. The little details she sprinkles throughout make you feel you're living the plot along with them. The voice of Freya is particularly strong. There's humour mixed in with the heartache too. The ending is lovely, but slightly open which makes me wonder whether a sequel is possible...
An excellent book, currently only out in hardback but I think the paperback is due in March 2012. Definitely highly recommended.
Another brilliant Kate Long book.
Freya was adopted as a baby but as an adult got in contact with her birth mum. Since then she's been juggling adoptive mum Liv, who is a down to earth environmentalist, and birth mum Melody who is vibrant and bohemian, acting as though she's still a teenager. Freya herself feels as though she doesn't really fit in with either mum and at the age of 23 doesn't really know where she's going in life. When Liv gets cancer and Melody gets pregnant, both mums need to lean on their daughter for support, and Freya is pulled in several directions. Add to this her best friend is marrying a man Freya fancies, and then the wedding falls through, and Freya's disastrous on-off relationship with her loser boyfriend and she's got loads to deal with.
As always with Kate's books I felt I really got to know all the characters well. The little details she sprinkles throughout make you feel you're living the plot along with them. The voice of Freya is particularly strong. There's humour mixed in with the heartache too. The ending is lovely, but slightly open which makes me wonder whether a sequel is possible...
An excellent book, currently only out in hardback but I think the paperback is due in March 2012. Definitely highly recommended.
Thursday, 19 January 2012
Saturday, 14 January 2012
The Woman in Black
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (Kindle edition)
If I buy books of a certain length for my Kindle, I can read the whole thing on my train journey to and from London which I do once a fortnight. I'd been wanting to read this book for a while.
Lovely, classic ghost story, with a wonderful build-up of tension. A young solicitor is sent to go through the papers of a deceased, reclusive woman, who lived in an isolated house on an island reached by causeway, in the middle of a marsh. At high tide the house is cut off. Despite warnings from the locals, the young man, of course, decides to spend the night there. All sorts of creepy things happen, all the better for most of them being only heard or felt rather than seen.
Very enjoyable book if you like something a bit creepy (though not macabre).
If I buy books of a certain length for my Kindle, I can read the whole thing on my train journey to and from London which I do once a fortnight. I'd been wanting to read this book for a while.
Lovely, classic ghost story, with a wonderful build-up of tension. A young solicitor is sent to go through the papers of a deceased, reclusive woman, who lived in an isolated house on an island reached by causeway, in the middle of a marsh. At high tide the house is cut off. Despite warnings from the locals, the young man, of course, decides to spend the night there. All sorts of creepy things happen, all the better for most of them being only heard or felt rather than seen.
Very enjoyable book if you like something a bit creepy (though not macabre).
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Drood
Drood by Dan Simmons
Bought for me for my birthday, by my 16-year old son who scored a huge hit last year when he bought me This Thing of Darkness. From the blurb I thought he'd done it again - a Victorian-set novel, narrated by Wilkie Collins, starring Charles Dickens and a gothic fiend, Drood. What's not to like?
Well, almost 800 pages later, my verdict is that I quite liked it. It could have been great but was actually vaguely disappointing. The author has clearly done A LOT of research into the lives of Dickens and Collins, and included all of it. The novel might have been stronger had he cut a lot of it and made it half the length.
It's a hard plot to summarise, but here goes. Five years before the end of his life, Dickens was involved in a train crash (fact). Flitting amongst the survivors, was a spectral figure named Drood (fiction) who Dickens becomes obsessed with, and passes his obsession onto Collins. Drood inhabits the tunnels and sewers and labyrinthine catacombs which exist beneath London, and the two men undertake an expedition into Undertown to search out Drood. As time goes on, Collins becomes more and more dependent on 'medicinal' opium, and also becomes more and more jealous of Dickens's success compared with his own. He gradually becomes an unreliable narrator, and his drug-fuelled delusions and fantasies become hard to separate from reality. Dickens by contrast seems increasingly well-grounded, although he's working himself into an early grave. Collins's obsession with the mysterious Drood leads him to believe he's being controlled by the fiend, and needs to commit a murder in order to be free. Who better to murder than his friend and rival, Dickens?
The ending, constrained as it had to be by history, is a little disappointing, though I have to admit I was glad to finish it and more than ready to read something different. Having said that, the book was intriguing, and Simmons has done a great job of mimicking the style of Victorian fiction especially that written by Collins. I'd recommend this if you're a huge Dickens and Collins fan, and have a lot of time to spare to read.
Bought for me for my birthday, by my 16-year old son who scored a huge hit last year when he bought me This Thing of Darkness. From the blurb I thought he'd done it again - a Victorian-set novel, narrated by Wilkie Collins, starring Charles Dickens and a gothic fiend, Drood. What's not to like?
Well, almost 800 pages later, my verdict is that I quite liked it. It could have been great but was actually vaguely disappointing. The author has clearly done A LOT of research into the lives of Dickens and Collins, and included all of it. The novel might have been stronger had he cut a lot of it and made it half the length.
It's a hard plot to summarise, but here goes. Five years before the end of his life, Dickens was involved in a train crash (fact). Flitting amongst the survivors, was a spectral figure named Drood (fiction) who Dickens becomes obsessed with, and passes his obsession onto Collins. Drood inhabits the tunnels and sewers and labyrinthine catacombs which exist beneath London, and the two men undertake an expedition into Undertown to search out Drood. As time goes on, Collins becomes more and more dependent on 'medicinal' opium, and also becomes more and more jealous of Dickens's success compared with his own. He gradually becomes an unreliable narrator, and his drug-fuelled delusions and fantasies become hard to separate from reality. Dickens by contrast seems increasingly well-grounded, although he's working himself into an early grave. Collins's obsession with the mysterious Drood leads him to believe he's being controlled by the fiend, and needs to commit a murder in order to be free. Who better to murder than his friend and rival, Dickens?
The ending, constrained as it had to be by history, is a little disappointing, though I have to admit I was glad to finish it and more than ready to read something different. Having said that, the book was intriguing, and Simmons has done a great job of mimicking the style of Victorian fiction especially that written by Collins. I'd recommend this if you're a huge Dickens and Collins fan, and have a lot of time to spare to read.
Wednesday, 28 December 2011
The Ice Child
The Ice Child by Elizabeth McGregor
Bought this one as an ebook after hearing the author speak at the Wimborne Literary festival. The novel combines a true historical story - of John Franklin's doomed expedition to chart the north-west passage in the 1840s - with a current day story of an archaeologist and his son who are obsessed with the Franklin story.
Jo Harper is a journalist asked to cover a story about an archaeologist who is missing in the Arctic. When he is found and she meets him, they fall in love and they have a child. But their relationship is doomed - he is killed in an accident for which his older son John blames himself. John, distraught, goes off the radar on archaeological digs and eventually on an expedition of his own to try to find out more about what happened to Franklin's men. Meanwhile Jo's child falls ill with a rare disease, and needs a bone marrow transplant to have any hope of survival. The best match is with his half-brother, John, but he too, echoing his father and Franklin before, is missing in the Arctic.
Entwined with this story is the tale of Franklin's expedition, told from the viewpoint of ship's boy, Gus. The ships become icebound and are eventually abandoned. The crews die, one by one of scurvy, pneumonia, TB and starvation.
This was a brilliant novel - fantastic prose, fascinatingly researched. With Frozen Planet on the TV and a recent ski trip under my belt I felt I could identify with the descriptions of the Arctic. Definitely recommended.
Bought this one as an ebook after hearing the author speak at the Wimborne Literary festival. The novel combines a true historical story - of John Franklin's doomed expedition to chart the north-west passage in the 1840s - with a current day story of an archaeologist and his son who are obsessed with the Franklin story.
Jo Harper is a journalist asked to cover a story about an archaeologist who is missing in the Arctic. When he is found and she meets him, they fall in love and they have a child. But their relationship is doomed - he is killed in an accident for which his older son John blames himself. John, distraught, goes off the radar on archaeological digs and eventually on an expedition of his own to try to find out more about what happened to Franklin's men. Meanwhile Jo's child falls ill with a rare disease, and needs a bone marrow transplant to have any hope of survival. The best match is with his half-brother, John, but he too, echoing his father and Franklin before, is missing in the Arctic.
Entwined with this story is the tale of Franklin's expedition, told from the viewpoint of ship's boy, Gus. The ships become icebound and are eventually abandoned. The crews die, one by one of scurvy, pneumonia, TB and starvation.
This was a brilliant novel - fantastic prose, fascinatingly researched. With Frozen Planet on the TV and a recent ski trip under my belt I felt I could identify with the descriptions of the Arctic. Definitely recommended.
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Expected
Expected by Sarah England
Kindle self-published book by fellow women's mag writer. The author describes it as 'anti-chicklit' which sounded interesting so I thought I'd give it a go. It's a lively, quick read with some very funny moments.
Sam Sweet is in a relationship with a bloke she doesn't much like, but whom she is expected to marry (by her mother, his family, and him). She's expected to have children with him too. There are problems at work (she sells and demos Botox-like facial fillers and the company is being taken over). Then she meets the George Clooney lookalike new MD and falls for him in a big way. Can she extricate herself from everyone else's expectations and make a new life and career for herself?
I would, I'm afraid, class this book firmly in the 'chick lit' camp, not anti-chicklit. The heroine's main obsessions are men, her clothes and her weight. She doesn't want marriage or children but she does want a hunky man. I couldn't work out why she was living with the repulsive Simon in the first place - she seemed very weak at the start of the novel. She does eventually get what she wants - or does she? There's a bit of a twist right at the end to keep you guessing.
Kindle self-published book by fellow women's mag writer. The author describes it as 'anti-chicklit' which sounded interesting so I thought I'd give it a go. It's a lively, quick read with some very funny moments.
Sam Sweet is in a relationship with a bloke she doesn't much like, but whom she is expected to marry (by her mother, his family, and him). She's expected to have children with him too. There are problems at work (she sells and demos Botox-like facial fillers and the company is being taken over). Then she meets the George Clooney lookalike new MD and falls for him in a big way. Can she extricate herself from everyone else's expectations and make a new life and career for herself?
I would, I'm afraid, class this book firmly in the 'chick lit' camp, not anti-chicklit. The heroine's main obsessions are men, her clothes and her weight. She doesn't want marriage or children but she does want a hunky man. I couldn't work out why she was living with the repulsive Simon in the first place - she seemed very weak at the start of the novel. She does eventually get what she wants - or does she? There's a bit of a twist right at the end to keep you guessing.
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