Category Archives: Fiction

September 19, 2024 · 11:53 am

One Good Turn – Kate Atkinson

One Good Turn – Kate Atkinson

I enjoyed reading Death at the Sign of the Rook and I thought I would read the Brodie novels that I had missed. I listened to the audio version (it was very good).

Here’s the blurb …

Kate Atkinson began her career with a winner: Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which captured the Whitbread First Novel Award. She followed that success with four other books, the last of which was Case Histories, her first foray into the mystery-suspense-detective genre. In that book she introduced detective Jackson Brodie, who reopened three cold cases and ended up a millionaire. A great deal happened in-between.

In One Good Turn Jackson returns, following his girlfriend, Julia the actress, to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. He manages to fall into all kinds of trouble, starting with witnessing a brutal attack by “Honda Man” on another man stuck in a traffic jam. Is this road rage or something truly sinister? Another witness is Martin Canning, better known as Alex Blake, the writer. Martin is a shy, withdrawn, timid sort who, in a moment of unlikely action, flings a satchel at the attacker and spins him around, away from his victim. Gloria Hatter, wife of Graham, a millionaire property developer who is about to have all his secrets uncovered, is standing in a nearby queue with a friend when the attack takes place. There is nastiness afoot, and everyone is involved. Nothing is coincidental.

Through a labyrinthine plot which is hard to follow because the points of view are constantly changing, the real story is played out, complete with Russians, false and mistaken identities, dead bodies, betrayals, and all manner of violent encounters. Jackson gets pulled in to the investigation by Louise Monroe, a police detective and mother of an errant 14-year-old. There might be yet another novel to follow which will take up the connection those two forge in this book. Or, Jackson might just go back to France and feed apples to the local livestock.

I think these novels should be read in the published order. There were a couple of references in Death at the Sign of the Rook that passed my by when I was reading it, but I understand more now.

I enjoyed this. Atkinson is a fabulous writer who has a soft spot for her characters. It’s told from various perspectives, Jackson, Martin, Louise, Paul Bradley (although not much from him) and Gloria. Then there are the other characters, ‘Honda man’, Tatiana, Pam, Archie. It’s funny, but also moving, and it ends in a satisfying way.

I am definitely going to read the rest – in the right order!

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September 18, 2024 · 2:56 pm

Slow Dance – Rainbow Rowell

Slow Dance – Rainbow Rowell

I wanted a break from my Booker prize longlist reading and this was recommended by the Hill of Content people.

Here’s the blurb …

Back in high school, everybody thought Shiloh and Cary would end up together . . . everybody but Shiloh and Cary.

They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.

Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.

Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.

When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?

The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.

Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.

It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.

I had the wrong idea of this novel. I was hoping for something fun and light-hearted. This has single parenting, dealing with aging parents, and family conflict. I didn’t find either of the main characters charismatic and their relationship, to me, seemed a bit flat. Having said that, this is a story about second chances, picking yourself up and continuing when things have gone badly. It’s probably a bit too realistic for me.

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September 12, 2024 · 3:12 pm

Held Anne Michaels

Held – Anne Michaels

I set myself the goal of reading the Booker Prize long list (I am not doing very well). I have read Stone Yard Devotional and Enlightenment and now this one.

Here’s the blurb …

The triumphant new novel from the author of the Orange Prize-winning Fugitive Pieces : a soaring and luminous story of chance and change

1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory – a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast – as the snow falls.

1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river – alive, but not still whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts whose messages he cannot understand .

So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.

Held is a novel like no other, by a writer at the height of her affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom and compassion.

This was beautifully written, poetical with beautiful sentences. The structure reminds me of Jenny Offil – seemingly unrelated paragraphs and chapters, but somehow all connected and telling a story. Having only read three of the longlist, I am going to go out on a limb and say this one is going to win. Not because I didn’t like Stone Yard Devotional or Enlightenment (this is one of my favourite reads of the year), but I think the structure and the writing will appeal to judges.

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September 11, 2024 · 11:48 am

A Song of Stone – Iain Banks

A Song of Stone – Iain Banks

I found this in Mr H’s audible library and I needed a new audio book.

Here’s the blurb …

The war is ending. perhaps ended For the castle and its occupants the troubles are just beginning Armed gangs roam a lawless land where each farm and house.. supports a column of dark smoke. Taking to the roads with the other refugees. anonymous in their raggedness. seems safer than remaining in the ancient keep. However. the lieutenant of an outlaw band has other ideas and the castle becomes the focus for a dangerous game of desire. deceit and death.Iain Banks masterly novel reveals his unique ability to combine gripping narrative with a relentlessly voyaging imagination. The narrative technique and sheer brio of A SONG OF STONE reveal a great novelist at the height of his powers.

This novel wasn’t for me – it is first person narration, and I disliked the narrator. In fact, I disliked all of the characters and didn’t care what happened to them.

I do think it is well written.

A review.

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September 10, 2024 · 3:22 pm

Tell Me Everything – Elizabeth Strout

Tell Me Everything – Elizabeth Strout

I love Elizabeth Strout. I think I have read all of her books.

Here is the blurb …

From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Elizabeth Strout comes a hopeful, healing novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world.

With her “extraordinary capacity for radical empathy” (The Boston Globe), remarkable insight into the human condition, and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?”

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known—“unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them—reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”

I enjoyed reading this novel. I enjoy the intimacy of Strout’s novels – we get to know the inner thoughts of many of the characters. And just when you’re thinking badly of someone you get their perspective and your opinion changes. Salutary lesson (for me at least) about not judging people. The writing is lovely, and although it is a reasonably short novel, by the end I felt a lot had happened to the characters. What I mean by that is that Strout manages to convey a lot with little.

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· 3:12 pm

Death at the Sign of the Rook – Kate Atkinson

Death at the Sign of the Rook – Kate Atkinson

I do like Kate Atkinson novels and I managed to get this one as an ARC.

Here’s the blurb …

The stage is set. Marooned overnight by a snowstorm in a grand country house are a cast of characters and a setting that even Agatha Christie might recognize – a vicar, an Army major, a Dowager, a sleuth and his sidekick – except that the sleuth is Jackson Brodie, and the ‘sidekick’ is DC Reggie Chase.

The crumbling house – Burton Makepeace and its chatelaine the Dowager Lady Milton – suffered the loss of their last remaining painting of any value, a Turner, some years ago. The housekeeper, Sophie, who disappeared the same night, is suspected of stealing it.

Jackson, a reluctant hostage to the snowstorm, has been investigating the theft of another The Woman with a Weasel, a portrait, taken from the house of an elderly widow, on the morning she died. The suspect this time is the widow’s carer, Melanie. Is this a coincidence or is there a connection? And what secrets does The Woman with a Weasel hold? The puzzle is Jackson’s to solve.?And let’s not forget that a convicted murderer is on the run on the moors around Burton Makepeace.

All the while, in a bid to make money, Burton Makepeace is determined to keep hosting a shambolic Murder Mystery that acts as a backdrop while the real drama is being played out in the house.

A brilliantly plotted, supremely entertaining, and utterly compulsive tour de force from a great writer at the height of her powers.

This is told from various different view points – Jackson, Reggie, Ben, Lady Milton, the Vicar, an escaped psychopath, and they all converge at the big house. It’s by turns funny and moving.

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September 5, 2024 · 11:34 am

The Cut – Richard Armitage

The Cut – Richard Armitage

I read (listened to) Geneva and enjoyed it, so when this appeared in my Audible library I was happy to listen to it (and it is narrated by Richard Armitage).

Here’s the blurb …

You can’t escape your past. The cut always reopens.

In the sleepy village of Barton Mallet, the old ruins of Blackstone Mill watch over the residents as they go about their quiet lives. Ben Knot and his friends are looking forward to a summer of fun and freedom once their last year of school is over. The class of 1994 have been through a lot together, good and bad, but teasing turns to bullying when the Knot gang target younger boy Mark Cherry. As tensions rise and violence escalates, the group fractures and tragedy strikes. Before the summer is over, one of them will be killed. Murdered by someone they called a friend.

Thirty years on, Ben is an award-winning architect who has moved his family back to the village where he grew up. His girlfriend Dani is a hands-on step mum to his kids, budding actor Nate and star footballer Lily, but even though the family seem happy, Ben has never been able to forget the tragedy of the past. And it’s a past that is coming back to haunt him with the murderer’s imminent release from prison. Ben’s glittering career is also starting tarnish as some shady business deals have put him on the path to bankruptcy. With the killer’s parole date approaching and the banks calling in their loans, Ben struggles to keep a grip on the perfect life he has built.

When Nate lands the leading role in a new horror movie, Dani jumps at the chance to propel him towards stardom, despite Ben’s concerns that it will complicate their lives. Ben is persuaded to support his son’s dreams, but when the film crew descend on the village to start shooting, the dream starts to turn into a nightmare. The film is not quite what it seems. His kids are being pushed to the limit and Ben’s paranoia makes him question the film makers’ motives. Ben is desperate for answers and will stop at nothing to keep his family safe.

If the first cut is the deepest, then the last cut is going to end it all.

This was really interesting and different. It has two different time periods thirty years apart and the story is told from various perspectives – Ben, Nathan, Max, etc. (all of whom may be unreliable). There is awful school bullying, fraud and suspect business practices, and an historic murder (the early narrative builds to the murder) not to mention the filming of a horror film. The pacing is excellent.

A review.

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August 27, 2024 · 1:40 pm

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong

I am continuing my epistolary reading. This is a letter from a son to his mother. I listened to it, and it was narrated by the author (I am sure that must add something to the reading).

Here’s the blurb …

his is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born. It tells of Vietnam, of the lasting impact of war, and of his family’s struggle to forge a new future. And it serves as a doorway into parts of Little Dog’s life his mother has never known – episodes of bewilderment, fear and passion – all the while moving closer to an unforgettable revelation.

This was incredibly beautiful, but also challenging. There’s trauma and generational trauma. The difficulties of making a new life in a country where you don’t speak the language. The harshness of poverty and the daily small indignities (trying to act oxtail at the super market counter). But it is also about love (all sorts of love) and family. Damaged people trying to do their best.

A review.

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August 22, 2024 · 3:59 pm

This Is How You Lose The Time War – Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

This is How You Lose The Time War – Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

The theme for my book club this month is ‘letters’. I wanted to read an epistolary novel and this one seemed to come up in everyone’s list. (I’m also reading Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie – more on that another time).

Here’s the blurb …

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.

I loved this novel. The writing is beautiful, poetic and moving. The plot is a confusing at first, but stick with it, it will all come together and make sense.

A review.

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August 19, 2024 · 8:46 pm

The Glassmaker – Tracy Chevalier

The Glassmaker – Tracy Chevalier

I am always going to buy Tracy Chevalier’s novels. My favourite is still A Single Thread, but I have liked them all.

Here’s the blurb …

Venice, 1486. Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives learning to handle.

Women are not meant to work with glass, but Orsola Rosso flouts convention to save her family from ruin. She works in secret, knowing her creations must be perfect to be accepted by men. But perfection may take a lifetime.

Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola as she hones her craft through war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.

The beads she creates will adorn the necks of empresses and courtesans from Paris to Vienna – but will she ever earn the respect of those closest to her?

This had an interesting structure with time. Chevalier used the metaphor of skipping a stone over water to explain the way time worked in this novel. The rest of the world might skip 100 years, but Orsola and the people close to her only aged 8 years. In this way, we could witness the evolution of glassmaking from the 1400s to now.

I enjoyed this novel, but the end felt quite melancholic. Orsola was grappling with ideas of Tourism and Making. Is she adding to the world’s problems by making things that no one really needs? But surely there is a place for beautiful things? And tourism? Good or bad? All that air travel?

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