The theme for my book club is ‘Democracy’. I thought of the suffragettes and this was suggested (by google) as a book about suffragettes – is it though?
Here’s the blurb …
In her New York Times bestselling follow-up, Tracy Chevalier once again paints a distant age with a rich and provocative palette of characters. Told through a variety of shifting perspectives- wives and husbands, friends and lovers, masters and their servants, and a gravedigger’s son-Falling Angels follows the fortunes of two families in the emerging years of the twentieth century.
I am a fan of Tracy Chevalier’s novels. My favourites being The Lady and the Unicorn, and A Single Thread (neither of which I have blogged about).
This has all of the hallmarks of a Chevalier novel – well-researched, beautifully written, and focussing on women. It’s about two privileged families at the turn of the century navigating the societal and cultural changes. It’s about women and how little control they had over their bodies, money, and time. Some women no longer want to be ‘the angel in the home’.
After reading Square Haunting, I was keen to read Dorothy L Sayers. This is the first of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. I listened to this one, narrated by Robert Bathurst.
Here’s the blurb …
It was the body of a tall stout man. On his dead face, a handsome pair of gold pince-nez mocked death with grotesque elegance.
The body wore nothing else.
Lord Peter Wimsey knew immediately what the corpse was supposed to be. His problem was to find out whose body had found its way into Mr Alfred Thipp’s Battersea bathroom.
I loved it, and the crime was fiendish. All of the characters are brilliant – Lord Wimsey, his valet Bunter, fellow detective Mr Parker, and his mother the Dowager Duchess. I imagine all of these characters will reappear in future novels.
The setting is very 1920s London, with Lord Peter needing to dress appropriately for every social event, everyone is ‘jolly decent’ – even the murderer! These are well-written and lots of fun. I shall definitely be reading more. I am quite keen to get to Gaudy Night and Harriet Vane, but I shall read them in order.
Hardly a day goes by when nine year old Laurent Lepage doesn’t cry wolf. From alien invasions, to walking trees, to winged beasts in the woods, to dinosaurs spotted in the village of Three Pines, his tales are so extraordinary no one can possibly believe him. Including Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache, who now live in the little Quebec village.
But when the boy disappears, the villagers are faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true.
And so begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth. What they uncover deep in the forest sets off a sequence of events that leads to murder, leads to an old crime, leads to an old betrayal. Leads right to the door of an old poet.
And now it is now, writes Ruth Zardo. And the dark thing is here.
A monster once visited Three Pines. And put down deep roots. And now, Ruth knows, it is back.
Armand Gamache, the former head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, must face the possibility that, in not believing the boy, he himself played a terrible part in what happens next.
As usual this is beautifully written. There are lots of literary and biblical references. Plus some hints about what Gamache might do next (I started with number 12, so I know where he goes next). There is evil at the heart of this one, multiple deaths, a serial killer, spies and a reckoning for Ruth.
I have had this on my Kindle for a very long time, and it was selected by my random number generator.
Here’s the blurb …
Leaving behind the rural charms of Finnshire, Miss Penelope Fairweather arrives in London with hope in her heart and a dream in her eye. The dowager, no less, has invited her for a season in London, where she will attempt to catch a husband.
Thus begins our heroine’s tale as she attempts to tackle the London season with all her rustic finesse. Unfortunately, her rustic finesse turns out to be as delicate as a fat bear trying to rip apart a honeycomb infested with buzzing bees.
What follows is a series of misadventures, love affairs, moonlit balls, fancy clothes, fake moustaches, highwaymen, sneering beauties, pickpockets, and the wrath of a devilishly handsome duke.
At first, I found this slow going. It felt like a first novel where the author tries to cram in all of their good ideas – did we need so many misadventures? It picked up speed in the second half, and I enjoyed the relationship between Penelope and the Duke. It was well-written, witty and fun.
My husband selected this on Audible, which is a bit weird, but he thought it was a love story about the atmosphere!
Here’s the blurb …
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.
Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.
Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easy-going even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.
As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.
Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.
Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.
I have read one another novel by Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which I enjoyed but didn’t blog about (I have no idea why).
The relationship between Joan and Vanessa is beautifully written. The misogyny and discrimination in the 80s is well described (and therefore incredibly frustrating – how could people be treated that way?). The physics might be a little bit dodgy, but I enjoyed all of the references to the stars and the mythology about the stars. And really, this is a story about people and relationships and how we treat one another, not a text book on astrophysics.
No spoilers, but I wasn’t surprised by the ending (it’s a pretty standard ending).
I have been slowly making my way through the Slough House series – this is number 6.
Here’s the blurb …
‘We’re spies,’ said Lamb. ‘All kinds of outlandish shit goes on.’
Like the ringing of a dead man’s phone, or an unwelcome guest at a funeral . . .
In Slough House memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process.
Meanwhile, in Regent’s Park, Diana Taverner’s tenure as First Desk is running into difficulties. If she’s going to make the Service fit for purpose, she might have to make deals with a familiar old devil . . .
And with winter taking its grip Jackson Lamb would sooner be left brooding in peace, but even he can’t ignore the dried blood on his carpets. So when the man responsible breaks cover at last, Lamb sends the slow horses out to even the score.
This time, they’re heading into joe country.
And they’re not all coming home.
I love the way Mick Herron writes – the way he describes sunlight like a person.
There is a high body count in this one and some of my favourite characters didn’t make it out alive. But that has always been the case, don’t get too attached.
It is terrifying to think that the secret service might actually be like this.
I am not sure where I first heard about this novel. Possibly from one of the many book newsletters I receive. It took a while to track down, but in the end it was in the ‘Three for the price of Two’ section at Dymocks.
Here’s the blurb …
Charming, talky, wryly funny, poignant and original – Rise and Shine is a love story, yes, but it’s a love story that happens ten years into a marriage, when somebody wants out.
This is a story about marriage. It is also a story about life and love and happiness and the absence of happiness and what we need to do to find it again.
It’s a story about hope, baking, making music, lemon trees, painting, love, divorce, dogs, the families we create for ourselves, and the heat of the Brisbane sun.
It’s a story about August and Noah.
It begins at the end.
Rise and Shine is an utterly surprising delight, a break-up tale that is also a love story; endearing, astringent, talky, wry, wise, uplifting and so original.
First, I love that this novel is set in Australia.
It is a grown-up romance. The issues are real and no one is a villain. I loved all of the relationships – Noah and August, August and Regina, August and Jasper, Jasper and Noah, Noah and Adam, and Noah and Jeff. The writing is beautiful, there are poignant moments and funny moments.
I found this book in the Book Exchange at Margaret River and had to provide a home for a Perspehone book.
Here is the blurb …
When these captivating and at times bizarre stories were published posthumously in 1949, Angus Wilson wrote: ‘It appears no exaggeration to say that Frances Towers’s death in 1948 may have robbed us of a figure of more than purely contemporary significance. At first glance one might be disposed to dismiss Miss Towers as an imitation Jane Austen, but it would be a mistaken judgment, for her cool detachment and ironic eye are directed more often than not against the sensible breeze that blasts and withers, the forthright candour that kills the soul. Miss Towers flashes and shines now this way, now that, like a darting sunfish.’ ‘At her best her prose style is a shimmering marvel,’ wrote the Independent on Sunday, ‘and few writers can so deftly and economically delineate not only the outside but the inside of a character…There’s always more going on than you can possibly fathom.’ And the Guardian said: ‘Her social range may not be wide, but her descriptions are exquisite and her tone poised between the wry and the romantic.’
I loved it. They are all stories about love, mostly romantic love, but not all. The writing is beautiful. It reminded me a bit of LM Montgomery’s short story writing. I wish there was more I could read.
I love these Gamache novels. This one was more about finding a missing person (but don’t worry there was still a very well planned murder).
Here’s the blurb …
Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he’d only imagined possible. On warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book, The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. “There is a balm in Gilead,” his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, “to make the wounded whole.”
While Gamache doesn’t talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. She wants Gamache’s help to find him. Having finally found sanctuary, Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines. “There’s power enough in Heaven,” he finishes the quote as he contemplates the quiet village, “to cure a sin-sick soul.” And then he gets up. And joins her.
Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Myrna Landers, they journey deeper and deeper into Québec. And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter Morrow. A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist, he would sell that soul. And may have. The journey takes them further and further from Three Pines, to the very mouth of the great St. Lawrence River. To an area so desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it “the land God gave to Cain.” And there they discover the terrible damage done by a sin-sick soul.
This one ventures out of Three Pines to the wilderness of Québec – there are small planes, rollicking boats (there is a bit of humour in the rooms they are assigned on the boat), art discussions – is there a 10th muse?, and is Ruth in love?
There is kindness, friendship, love and the occasional awful person.
I bought this solely for the title! From here. I always thought slag was an Australian word (like root and chook), but it must also be an English word.
Here’s the blurb …
Slag. Noun. A promiscuous woman, of cheap or questionable character. Mostly derogatory. Sometimes affectionate.
Takes one to know one…
Sisters Sarah and Juliette are going on a whisky-fuelled campervan road-trip across Scotland to celebrate Juliette’s birthday – and they’re going to dig up some demons from the past.
Sarah is 15.
SEXUAL 2.5 (one only went halfway in)
GREAT 1 (her English teacher Mr Keaveney, who definitely feels the same way)
Her annoying younger sister Juliette
Her best friend Nessa, boy band 4Princes
Sarah is 41.
SEXUAL Rather not say, but that last one was compellingly awful
GREAT Nope
Millennials like Juliette thinking they’ve got it bad
Fellow Gen X-ers
From the acclaimed author of ANIMALS and ADULTS, SLAGS is a no-holds-barred, frank and heartfelt exploration of sisterhood, friendship and teenage obsession.
I was at high school in the 80s and slag was used prolifically to insult girls (ya slag). I enjoyed this novel. It has two time periods – contemporary and when Sarah is 15 (alternating chapters). It is all from Sarah’s perspective, sometimes first person and sometimes third.
This is a novel that needs to be read more than once. There is an event early in the novel that seems incidental, but is in fact a triggering event for Sarah’s life.
This novel is about friendships, sisterly relationships, early sexual experiences and the narratives well tell ourselves (sometimes true, but also sometimes false).
