Our Fathers - Rebecca Wait

As a reader you sometimes get that indefinable frisson of anticipation about a book without really knowing why, it just hits you. And so it was with Our Fathers. I hadn’t read either of Rebecca Wait’s previous two novels so it wasn’t a prior experience thing. The book seemed to lurch out at me from numerous feeds on social media. So I was delighted when Katya Ellis from Quercus Books sent me a copy.

But did my intuition hit the mark? Our Fathers is one of those beautifully considered and impeccably structured pieces of work that stuns the reader with its abundance of paradoxes. An extreme and tragic event occurs within a small, sequestered community in the Hebrides. It’s the stuff of major news headlines. All are affected to a degree but none more so than the child who survives the familial massacre. Escaping the island of Litta as a young, damaged man Tom returns after twenty years still seeking answers and closures.

The story that follows is an eloquent exploration of extreme trauma and grief that invites the reader to consider the age old topic of nature versus nurture.

‘He had already realized in a vague way that you got your idea of yourself from other people. You didn’t choose it yourself.’

Considerations, too, of domestic abuse, potential gaslighting, and the effect on the children. 

‘And Tommy had thought all fathers were like this, but behind closed doors this was how all men treated their wives.’

Tommy also struggles with the unenviable dilemma of who he really is intrinsically and to what degree he should fear his future.

‘It was a strange form of cognitive dissonance, being able to recognize his father’s attitudes as hideous while finding them living within himself. But he would not pass this sickness on to his child.’

With evocative yet economic prose Ms. Waits subtly uses location as metaphor for the conflict within Tommy Baird’s head. A landscape wild and unforgiving at times yet with an innate beauty and peace that has the potential to heal and sustain. Avoiding the temptation to offer extravagance in the descriptions the impact is all the more potent. 

The characterisations are understated, ordinary people pursuing  their everyday existences with routines and rituals that shape the framework of their lives, understanding that when that framework gets bent out of shape for whatever reason they must quietly, unashamedly strive to restore the balance, no matter what. Punished by the arch enemy hindsight and its absence when they need it they endure as best they can. Malcolm and Tom will tug at your heart. Drawn with compassion and a subtle, almost imperceptible humour these people demand a humility and respect from the reader. 

This is a ‘quiet’ book but with a loud voice for it is one of those stories that can have you searching inside yourself to ask those impossible questions about who you are and how you are. For most of us the unthinkable doesn’t necessarily happen, the tragedy depicted here is one of those things you watch on TV never believing it could happen to you. But  this book illustrates vividly how it can happen. 

Was I alone in finding that the title made me think of the Lord’s Prayer? Forgiving those who trespass against us? No matter. I am certain I am not alone in finding this a book of substance, an elegant work with a powerful intent. 

Highfire - Eoin Colfer BLOG TOUR

High five to Highfire! The scales are tipped in its favour but I don’t want to drag on or sound like I’m winging it. I’m on fire. Puns and Dragons? Wasn’t there a game of that name? Oh no, that was Dungeons and Dragons. Enough.

Listen very carefully for I will say this only once. Artemis Fowl. There. That’s got it over and done with and we’ll say no more. Forget about it. This is an adult fantasy novel. Hmm. I’ll rephrase that for I don’t wish to mislead. A fantasy novel for adults. But if you’ve clocked the dragon thing and the fantasy thing then maybe you’ve a cute little image in your head of mists and mountains, fairy castles and enchantments, knights and dragons, portals to another land and ……..STOP! Think again. It’s no Game of Thrones either. Okay. I’ve told you what it isn’t, how about what it is!

It’s Honey Island in the Louisiana swamps. It’s minding the ‘gators and poppin’ the Pringles. It’s Flashdance T shirts and reality TV. It’s Vern the vodka drinker or Wyvern if we’re gonna get formal or even Lord Highfire. He is the last living Cajun dragon. And he totally rocks!

This is an experienced storyteller at work offering a crescendo of action and intrigue that should keep the reader riveted until the end. It’s funny, sometimes witty, sometimes almost farcical, it’s fantasy so anything can happen and it does. It boasts a cast of some memorable characters, heroes, Waxman, Squib, Elodie, Bodi and villains, Regency Hooke (how perfect a name is that for a dastard, yep, I did mean dastard) but all headed by the inimitable Vern. It has some underlying sentiments about a boy and his mom, rooting for your friends, getting an education as well as being a rollicking good read. 

I love, what I like to call ‘fringe fantasy’ where the setting is very much real world; Louisiana and the swamps, fishin’ off the bayou, with a generous helping of ‘normal’ human characters, plenty of fast paced action and ammunition fuelled pyrotechnics and then you get the anomaly - a dragon, the last of his kind. Whether there are any other fantasy elements I am not prepared to disclose. But trust me. It just works.

The dialogue is lively and tips its hat to the literate amongst us-

‘I’m like Boo fuckin’ Radley on crack…….’

‘Specially the book. Something happens to my Faulkners and that's the final nail in the coffin as far as this here is concerned.’

Laugh?! I nearly peed myself! And speaking of pee didya know that dragon’s piss is like aloe vera times a million? That's what Vern says. And if Vern says it then I'm not gonna argue!   Colfer’s wit meanders through the prose like the alligators in the swamp. It’s an enjoyable read without pretension. It’s escapism and entertainment. It’s like being in a literary theme park but there’s no queues for the rides, you just jump right in and hang right on for the ride of your life. 

Oh, thank, thank you, Quercus Books for this proof. And thank thank you, Milly Reid for giving me a place upon this blog tour. However I am  but one lowly blogger amongst many. Do check out what other bloggers have to say about HighFire.

The Base of Reflections - AE Warren

This review was originally part of the nbmagazine.co.uk blog tour for Tomorrow's Ancestors.  I suppose I should've put the two reviews in the one post. But I figured each book really deserved a separate post.  And, it's my blog so I'll do what I want! 😉

Oh, chortle, chortle, glee, glee, glee! Well readers, at the end of my review of The Museum of Second Chances I was bemoaning the fact that I had not signed up to participate in the blog tour for this second in this series. Thought I was being greedy, too many other books to review, blah, blah, blah. Then I read the first book. And I wanted, no, I NEEDED to know what happened next. So I mentioned this to the ever alert online managing director of New Books Magazine, Erin Britton,  who, bless her heart , secured me a copy of THIS, the second in the Tomorrow’s Ancestors series. May the Force Be With Me! And Erin, too.

It can be hard reviewing the second of a series when you’re reading it fairly hot on the heels of the first because it’s like a continuation of the first. And I’ll admit i was after nothing more than seeing what happened next. But that ain’t the stuff that reviews are made of. So it is interesting to see how well an author sustains firstly, the mood, secondly, a consistency in the narrative style and thirdly characters created in the first of the series. Characters need to be developed, I think, to keep a reader not just interested but rooting for them. New characters need to be introduced and new scenes set. (The main new location here reminded me of the Ewok settlement in The Return of the Jedi.The Force is with AE Warren, ;-) )

So as well as finding out what happened next, I have found out but I’m not going to tell you ;), I wanted to tick those boxes. And ask these questions. Was the first book a fluke? Is AE Warren the real deal?

Okay, so it was very much like reading a continuation of the first book, the writing style familiar now. I would think that to enjoy this book fully a reader does need to have read the first. However there are some ‘what happened previously’ moments that might fill the necessary gaps. The mood is typically dystopian and this book develops seamlessly from the first with no hiccups in mood. It’s action packed with some tense situations that felt more intense than the previous book. More exciting. Our established characters are all here and we learn more about all of them. Elise continues to prove herself as a worthy colleague of Katniss and Tris and you feel that the influence of dystopia and scifi worlds are never far away from the mind of this writer. 

Unsurprisingly the premise remains the same, reversing extinction and preserving species creating a caste system of the world’s inhabitants who live in defined bases. The premise is sustained and developed and we get a more detailed glimpse into the minds of those who seek to perpetuate this hierarchical existence. Friendships and family loyalties are explored, moralities and behaviours, too, examined and left for the reader to ponder. 

So, I hear you anxiously ask;

Did this tick all the boxes? Yes.

Was the first book a fluke? No. 

Is AE Warren the real deal? Yes.

Now I want the third book. No, I don’t. I NEED the third book? 

The Museum of Second Chances - AE Warren

This review originally appeared on nbmagazine.co.uk  as part of their blog tour for the Tomorrow's Ancestors Series. 

There’s something about dystopian fiction that creates an indefinable mood that endures no matter what the situation or who the protagonists may be. And reading this debut from AE Warren did nothing to swerve me from that opinion! Reading this it was as if the spirit of Katniss, Tris and Thomas even were watching over this narrative nodding approvingly as Elise diverges her way through a maze of typical dystopian hierarchies. 

The setting is The Museum of Evolution, and that set me wondering how prophetic that might be in years to come if we continue to annihilate our planet. It’s an original premise. With the aim of reversing extinction and creating a kind of conservation zoo for extinct species the museum is not the cuddly place you might expect. Or maybe it is if you are a visitor. But there’s much going on in terms of bureaucracies and conventions that suggest one slip and you’ll be on the receiving end of potential extinction yourself. 

However our heroine, Elise, is made of strong stuff with a secret to keep that is both a blessing, and a curse if the ‘management’ were to discover it. She’s an intelligent protagonist and I guess the intention is that she mirrors our own thoughts about what is going in within the Museum. The action flits between the museum and Elise’s home where her parents and aurally challenged brother, Nathan, reside under a mantle of undisclosed anxiety that is revealed fully later in the book and precipitates a course of action for Elise that is the perfect springboard for another book in the series. Elise’s work in the Museum is that of Companion to an extinct species of human that is being ‘unextincted’. More than that I’ll not say! 

It’s a laudable debut with a sustained narrative and some solid characterisations that demand the reader keep on their toes and reevaluate these people as the action progresses. It is straightforward story telling, too, any past information is a ‘within the narrative reveal’ with no need for flashbacks. There is a goodly balance of nail biting moments and tender moments and for devotees of The Hunger Games, Maze Runner and Divergent this should satisfy. It satisfied me! But I’m sick! I was offered the chance to participate in both blogtours for this and the follow up book and I just went for this due to other commitments. Now I’m kicking myself because I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! And I want to know NOW! It has to be a good book that does that, doesn’t it?

The Hungry and the Fat - Timur Vermes (translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch)

‘Never in history has there been a country where things just kept getting better and better. Conversely, there hasn’t been a country where the lights suddenly went out. Usually it gets darker bit by bit.’

T’is a brave and fearless writer who deals with such a topical subject with a savage and merciless satire. Timur Vermes is such a writer. And thank goodness for him. Thank goodness for Jamie Bulloch, too, whose translation doesn’t allow any of the irony and satire to seep away diluted by the vagaries of another language.

Vermes’ homeland of Germany is the country, capping the numbers of asylum seekers. Other countries are closing their borders. It could be anywhere in Europe? Enter a popular, reality TV presenter who does a Comic Relief type trip to Africa. A young and ambitious refugee exploits the circumstances to organise a refugee march to Europe knowing that the media are keen to cover its progress. What follows is compelling. 

The politicians, the TV networks, the journalists, the racketeers all have a vested interest in seeing how this drama plays out. It’s a protracted study of conceit, laying bare prejudices and right wing politics whilst emphasising the desperation of misplaced peoples. 

It’s an absurdly funny book. But it’s also very worrying because it doesn’t seem so far removed from some of realities we’re living in. and it is one of those uncomfortable books that has you feeling slightly guilty for finding it funny. 

The many and diverse characters are one step short of becoming caricatures or stereotypes, very clever, they all work so well. Vermes is an acute observer of human life with a talent for finding just the right words, that hint and nudge the reader to the conclusions he wants us to reach, 

‘…..this is the actual reason for the triumph of the smartphone. Whereas children can close their eyes if there’s something they don’t want to see, adults have always had to face up to things… until now.’

He also has a knack for apt descriptions!

‘…..crunching on so many sweets it gives you tooth decay just listening to it.’

‘What were you stir frying in your think-wok when you put this together?’

The narrative progresses like the march of the refugees it describes, popping in on the machinations and exigencies of the various groups and parties, in turn, looking to see how this drama plays out. We see their weaknesses and their frailties that they seek to hide behind their egos and their arrogance. It is a substantial tome where the strength is in the detail that subtly mocks the veneers upon which our self aggrandising society pivots.

‘Nadeche feels fingers on her bra straps, then the straps are off. The fingers dig into the sleeves of her T-shirt. The sleeves hold. Quality product.’

But the conclusion is explosive and you can’t second guess exactly what will happen. It’s horrifying to contemplate. and  a book like this leaves the reader reluctantly chortling because it is cleverly funny but it’s also chilling and you are left wondering , could it actually happen?

My thanks to Corrine Zifko at MacLeHose Press for a copy of this entertaining and thought provoking book. 

The Black Ditch - Simon J Lancaster

This was part of blog tour for Nudge/New Books Magazine 

Offered as a dystopian novel showing a post climate change Britain, where London is a wall-less ghetto come prison for climate refugees and Birmingham has become the centre of government as sea levels rise, the opening sequences fulfil that promise and lure the reader in. The cover advises us that this is the first in a trilogy, (what self respecting dystopian novelist wouldn’t conceive of a trilogy - Hunger Games, Maze Runner , Delirium, Divergence - ;-) ? ) featuring Laurie Sterne so we know he and ourselves are in for the long haul. 

However what follows is less than a dystopian novel than an action thriller featuring gangland wars in a bleak, unforgiving future metropolis. Dystopia is there but it’s a backdrop against which this bloody, violent and duplicitous adventure is played out. It’s a complex plot that requires the reader pay attention and keep track of the characters whose allegiances are sometimes confusing. The reader, like Laurie, is persuaded to believe one thing, but then, often painfully, the opposite is apparent. 

Laurie, as a character, is what I like to call a ‘Houdini hero’. Against all the odds he summons envious strength to battle his oppressors and his many injuries to make it to the end of the novel. We know he will make it because this is but the first part of a trilogy but how is what absorbs us and requires us to suspend belief on occasions. You get to thinking that Laurie is some kind of paradoxical superhero but he doesn’t get changed in a phone box and he doesn’t wear his pants over his tights! No, his superpower is that he can see the future and see into minds. You might think that this would protect and support him, and it does to a degree, but, hey, we wouldn’t have a novel if he saw absolutely everything!

The depiction of London is cleverly done for it remains recognisable as the city we know today with the Tube trains and the areas and streets we might be familiar with but it is necessarily dark, dirty and sombre. There is little to uplift us. The city almost comes across as an additional character to thwart our hero’s intent. 

Putting the action and the violence to one side you get to see that this is a fictional opinion of what might happen to our environmentally beleaguered world. As the first in a series I am keen to see these aspects developed in the future novels of this trilogy since it couldn’t be more relevant and pertinent. 

Sometimes fiction is the perfect way to draw attention and raise a consciousness where drier, more turgid non-fiction tomes may lay dusty on the bookstore or library shelves. But if you take exception to blood and violence then this might not be the book for you but if you enjoy a fast paced, video game like action thriller with a point to make then you’ll devour this with turbo velocity. 

It’s a debut novel and bears many of the hall marks of such a work, an exuberance of detail and an enthusiasm to offer an intense experience for the reader. 

My thanks to New Books Magazine/Nudge for the opportunity to read this book and participate in the blog tour. 

Love, Lies and Lunch - Diana Kay

I always feel that the short story seldom gets the attention it deserves. Writers of fiction tend to favour the novel over the short story.  It’s a bit like playing Doubles in a tennis grand slam tournament;  the big guns don’t bother with the Doubles because they want to concentrate on the Singles. Yet it wasn’t always that way. Short stories seemed to be as much of an author’s arsenal as the mighty novel. One thinks of Kipling, Poe, Wilde, Kafka, Hemingway and so on but modern authors don’t seem so keen. Ishiguro embraces the genre as does Annie Proulx but rarely do short stories hit the best seller lists or ‘grace’ the TV/Radio book club recommendations. And yet they are a delight to read. Very satisfying as a compact reading experience.

So I was delighted to receive a copy of Diana Kay’s anthology. I will admit I was unfamiliar  with the writer so I did a little research especially as the rear cover detail advised that she is a blogger going by the name of Delia Despair! http://www.despairingdelia.com/322323222 In fact I found out more about Delia Despair than I did about Diana Kay including this video interview from YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXG8yR9JAI8 which is a marvellous companion to the stories since it puts them into context in terms of the author’s experiences and inspirations. 

Love, Lies and Lunch is a diverse collection of short stories that span what seems to be the writers’ whole career. And it needs to be stressed that some of these stories date back to the 1950’s which means that reading them today the attitudes and ideas described may appear dated. I fear this collection might not appeal to a feminist reader unless it is viewed historically when it becomes absolutely fascinating.

Frequently the review of a novel will comprise of a précis of the plot. The challenge for the reviewer of a short story collection is that you simply cannot summarise the entire collection. You can perhaps offer a flavour of what’s there by citing your favourite stories but the variety makes that an almost impossible task. Reader, I’ll try!

One of my favourites was the prize winning Rendezvous with Rory because of the humour and the twist in it that I didn’t see coming. You assume one thing and it isn’t until the final paragraph that you realise the complete opposite is in fact the case. The Lonely Rose was another favourite for it had a fairy tale quality. Both thematically and stylistically it reminded me of Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant and The Lonely Prince. There is another fairy tale like story which is an updated retelling of Cinderella where the prince is called, wait for it, Frank Incense! The two ugly sisters are Gold and Myrhh! 

I liked The Cherry Stone for its opening paragraph which caused a chuckle and a wry smile;-

‘When I was fifteen I thought falling in love with me the most romantic thing in the world, but now I’m 20 I know better. It isn’t romantic at all  - it’s just inconvenient.’

There were several tales that had quite dark outcomes and, indeed, many were submitted and published in Dark Tales. I enjoyed all of those very much. Love in its myriad guises feature predominantly in a great number of the stories often from the adolescent or young wife’s perspective. And there were a fair number of lunches enjoyed too as the anthology collection suggests! And the lies? Well,yes,there were several. Some stories with a faintly supernatural flavour nestle alongside the more worldly tales. 

There are 46 stories in total, an impressive oeuvre and a most enjoyable way to spend an hour or two. My thanks to Elly Donovan who sent me the book which I won in a social media giveaway. Always a thrill to win something!

Six Wicked Reasons - Jo Spain

This is my third Jo Spain book now. Does that make me a fan? I’d like to think so. After Dirty Little Secrets last year I thought she might be hard pressed to come up with yet another page turner seemingly so soon. But she has. Again the number six is key. There were six neighbours in Dirty Little Secrets with six secrets and six reasons for murder and here in Six Wicked Reasons there are, well, six wicked reasons for……… nope, you won’t get me to go down the spoiler path. 

The formula in this new book is similar to the previous one, but whilst that might sound critical it isn’t intended to be. Imagine your favourite chocolate bar? You can hear the tearing of the wrapper, the taste of that first glorious bite and the knowing that it will continue to taste as good until you’ve finished it. And the aftertaste, sweet and luxuriant. People return to their favourites  again and again and seldom get tired of eating them. Books and chocolate. You know what I’m saying?

This story uses the almost claustraphobic setting of Spanish Cove and the events of one night that allows a cascade of confessions and revelations concerning one family. A story that begins like a tightly wound ball of yarn and slowly unravels willing the reader to second guess yet making it harder and harder as the yarn startss to unravel faster and faster. You need to keep up. It’s like six plates spinning and you have to attend to all of them to really keep your grip on the story, 

Ms. Spain is a plotter supreme, skilled and experienced, sometimes you feel that as a reader she is toying with you but she’s always one step ahead which is just as it should be. Guaranteed to make you want to read on and on but you’ll be sad when you reach the end for a part of you wants the experience to continue. Isn’t that what we want from a good book?

Six siblings; James, Adam, Clio, Ellen, Kate and Ryan. Their deceased mother. Their father. Their father’s friends. Their friends. All play a part in this taut drama that takes us from Ireland and New York to Paris and Rome. Six siblings; scattered seeds until their homing instincts brings them all together when one scattered seed returns home and all their tales germinate and bloom with chilling consequences. Six siblings; loyal or perfidious? 

It might be a crime story but there’s also some insights;

‘She only realised, when Kathleen was gone, that her mother’s personality was rare, that she’d been a gem. It ruins you, a person like that loving you. Once you’d had that, it was devastating to realise nobody else would ever care for you in the same way. You would never be that important to anybody else.’

Each of the siblings has their story to tell, each of them has their flaws, not all of their own making. Their return is catalyst for tensions that explode. Words like narcissism, sociopath, dysfunctional, twisted, will creep through your consciousness as you read of this flawed family. And it all makes for such a complicated whodunnit you’ll not want to put the book down. 

My thanks to Quercus Books for a proof of this gripping story. 

The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley

One of my ‘late to the party’ reads since the hardback was published about a year ago and the paperback was out several months ago, But I don’t care! If a book is good it stands the test of time. This cropped up so much on social media and seemed to meet with much approbation I decided I needed to read it. So I put in a reservation request at my local library to see if I agreed with the accolades.

It’s a decent little twist on a fairly classic murder scenario; the remote location with a finite suspect/victim list stranded by an unassailable situation, here it’s the weather, and an onion story where layer by layer the characters and their sorry stories are peeled back. You probably won't fail to think of Agatha Christie. There’s also something  of The Secret History about it with a group of friends and a death. So it’s not an original premise and I doubt the writer would disagree but it’s what a writer does with any premise, original or otherwise that makes or breaks a book. 

A dual chronology of then and now and several POV from various female characters and one male character drive the narrative. I found that interesting because we don’t get every character’s take on the situation. None of them seem especially nice people, fairly vacuous and self absorbed. There are subtle and vague flashes of potentially redeeming qualities and as histories are revealed you sense some hope for a couple of them. Sometimes less than pleasant characters are criticised by readers who feel they can’t engage with them. However I have always believed that it permits the reader to look at the events with an objectivity which I think is helpful for a crime story. I thought it was an effective device in this book.

I also liked how the author kept the reader guessing as to who the victim was and therefore who the killer might be. Ms. Foley then led us all willingly into that labyrinth of red herrings and possibilities taking us to that point over and over again where we assuredly believe we know who dunnit and who had it ‘dun’ to them. But we’re wrong. Dammit! Oh, how I love that! When we smug, know it all readers are forced back to the drawing board. And we know, we just know because we’ve read so many crime and thriller stories that all the clues are there, hiding in broad daylight. There for the taking. But it’s only when we reach the final denouement that we start metaphorically pummelling ourselves for not seeing it! Naturally there are those readers who spotted it all right from the start! It’s a win/win situation! 

It’s a book that satisfies the penchant for the flawed character, psychological thriller. It’s also interesting to see what a writer does when they ‘switch’ genres. I do see that as a brave move. But did the book deserve its social media accolades? Yes, and no! I enjoyed it and I wanted to read on to the conclusion. I could pick out inconsistencies in places, descriptions, details but what would be the point? I am not seeking perfection. I am seeking an entertaining read that keeps my attention. I got that. But if I’m honest there was a sense that I’d read it all before. And I’m on the fence as to whether that matters? 

Followers - Megan Angelo BLOG TOUR

Well, if this doesn’t have you deleting your social media accounts I don’t know what will! This is a dual chronology, dual POV, debut novel of dystopian disturbance from Megan Angelo, a former editor of Glamour Magazine. With one time frame in a relatable 2015 and the other in a chilling 2051 this is a tale of friendship and family dynamics and how they are affected and dominated by social media. 

Our principle ‘followers’ or ‘followees’ are Marlowe, Orla and Floss. Their lives are irrevocably entwined in a complex mix of technology, social media and a digitally dominated life where your number of followers can dictate your mood or even your prospects on any given day. It’s disturbing and should be made compulsory reading for those who choose to spend the bulk of their time connected, yet in a broader sense, disconnected. There is something almost starkly prophetic and scary about this story. I’m unwilling to give too much away because there are some delicious twists in the tale. It also demands we consider the ultimate fragility of the internet with what is aptly named The Spill and what happens to all that data we so carelessly offer up to the cyber Big Brothers.  

I found it very compelling, wanting to read on and on. It honours the traditions of decent dystopian fiction by creating landscapes of unease where the familiar and the unfamiliar nestle alongside each other to offer the reader an unnerving ride. As an ‘enjoyer’ of dystopian and sci fi fiction I experienced that almost indefinable frisson of edginess that I get from watching things like  Blade Runner or reading The Road. 

What makes Followers so relatable is that it sustains the topical instability of social media with an incident that pivots the course of the narrative down an alternate path from the one the protgaonists, certainly, if not the readers, were expecting.  It’s something I feel sure we’ve all done at times, victims of the immediate and 4G/5G speeds at which competent users manipulate their chosen social media platforms and how easy it to misconstrue some digital communication and watch events spiral out of control. And of course the cyber jargon that seems to drive social media nowadays - 'Influencers'. 

There might be a growing trend within this genre to voice concerns about our dependence on technology and how we willingly allow it to shape our lives. I’m thinking Of Jem Tugwell’s Proximity and Liam Brown’s Broadcast. But Followers gives you a nice little mystery too. 

My thanks to HQ  and HarperCollins for a proof of this unforgettable story and an opportunity to participate in the blog tour for this book. Please check out what my colleagues have to say about Followers.

The One Book or The Debut Novel

Evry so often I rummage around on my hard drive and come across some forgotten 'gem' that has thus far escaped one of my blogging binges. This article was originally published in New Books Magazine several years ago when Guy Pringle was still the Editor. I remember being thrilled that he considered it print worthy. And if it was good enough for Guy then........ it's good enough for this blog, I guess!

They say there is a book in all of us. I know mine is in there somewhere and has been since I learned to read and write but darned if I can find the little rascal!! So I am prone to imagine what it must be like to write a book and see it through to publication for the very first time. 

And that is why I think I am a sucker for the debut novel. For me it is a genre all of its own. A new jar of coffee ready to be opened. An anticipation of being on the precipice of a great new talent, maybe a whole new series of books, something that might challenge or change our thinking, a literary masterpiece, an award winning piece or maybe just that one book that was in that person. 

They can be easy to spot if you’re unaware as to whether it is a debut novel or not. There is an exuberance of language and description that fills me with both delight and despair in equal measure. It as if the writer has just this one chance to show what they are made of and every trick and device that they can think of is poured into their writing. Sometimes it detracts from the real, raw talent that may be there and you crave for some subtlety. But often when you come across follow up works you can see how a writer develops and matures. 

And from there I am often led to consider the motivation of a writer. What drives a person to commit thousands of words to paper?  A commitment that takes time and persistence. The debut novel may not always be the starting point of their writing but it has to be a product of that motivation, Are they writing for themselves, first and foremost? Or are they writing for an intended audience or readers?  Are they writing to express a deep felt theme or cause that has consumed them and been the catalyst to finally put words to paper. Is it an act of our catharsis to aid them through a troubled time? Or are they writing hoping to earn some money, make their name and their fortune?

Doubtless all of these reasons are valid,  for each writer is different and unique. But can anything ever match the experience of that first book? For myself, I have plenty of unfinished material hanging around so why don’t I get myself in gear and finish something? Or is it not about completion but the fact that writing is simply something that a person has to do no matter whether any one else reads it or even gets as far as publication? Publication is the icing on the cake maybe? 

Then I think of all those successful and established authors who have forged a career for themselves with their words. They all produced a debut novel at some point. Did the success of that first piece determine the direction of their careers? Or did they think that it was just their ‘one book’?

An Interview With Elizabeth Lowry

Dark Water, Elizabeth Lowry’s second novel, was published on September 6th to great acclaim.

The Guardian’s Book of the Day, The Times’ Critic’s Choice and Book of the Month. Historia Magazine included it in their list of best recent historical writing. Numerous bloggers, including myself, and other publications are running out of superlatives. With good reason. It is a work of depth and substance that only comes along once in a while. 

I reviewed it on my blog earlier this month - https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2018/09/dark-waters-elizabeth-lowry.html

I am thrilled beyond measure to have had the opportunity to interview Elizabeth. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I present - An Interview with Elizabeth Lowry.

 Dark Water has left a lasting impression on me. There’s been so much to think about long after I closed the book. My mind boggles at the thought of how you approached the planning and plotting of this story. Can you give us some insight into the initial motivation for the book and how the idea for it first came to you?

Well, I’m interested in questions of identity and how we define personality. After you asked me this I went back to my very first notebook for Dark Water (I had three in the end) and found I’d scribbled down this remark by Primo Levi: ‘Man is a mixed-up creature; and he becomes all the more confused, we might add, the more he is subjected to tensions: at that point he evades our judgement, just as a compass goes wild at the magnetic pole’. William Borden sprang out of that, I think, and out of a love of Melville’s sea stories.

 The novel is offered as an historical novel, although I found it to be much more than that. But you must have had to do some extensive research. I found the narrative to be so realistic and convincing, I never doubted for a moment that I WAS back to 1833 Massachusetts. I also wondered if you actually spent some time below decks on a ship, the descriptions were so palpable? Can you tell us a little about the research you undertook?

I didn’t know much at all about ships (though unlike Hiram Carver, I don’t get seasick!) before I began to write Dark Water. It was quite an education. I had before me the painful example of Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket without doing his homework. A scathing early review pointed out that in Chapter One the jib of a ship in a storm is still mysteriously flying even though the mast has been ‘carried away’ by the waves just moments before. (The jib is a small triangular sail that is set ahead of the foremast and is usually rigged to a stay extending from it. Oops.)

I found Melville a good teacher – his memoir White-Jacket about his stint on a US man-of-war was written expressly to explain the ins and outs of life at sea to landlubbers like me. We also share some source material. The route steered across the Pacific by Borden following the Providence mutiny draws on the real-life story of what happened after the Nantucket whaleship Essex was sunk by a whale in 1820. On losing the ship the survivors made for the coast of South America in open boats. An account of this disaster and their journey was published by the first mate, Owen Chase, and was used by Melville as the basis for Moby-Dick (though he was much more interested in the whale). I had help too in the form of marvellous sea-going accounts by other sailors of the time, such as Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast describing his experiences as an ordinary merchant seaman. Dana was a gentleman sailor (like Melville) who enlisted for the adventure of it, rather than from necessity. Once he’d had enough he could afford, unlike your average tar, to go home and retrain as a lawyer. That’s why his book isn’t called Ten Years Before the Mast!

I didn’t get to tour a real wooden man-of-war until I’d already written the early scenes on the Orbis, and took a trip to Boston, where the USS Constitution is kept in dry dock. It was useful to be able to check if I’d got the physical details right. You know, though, when approaching Dark Water I wasn’t drawn so much to the technicalities of ships or sailing as to what a nineteenth-century man-of-war could represent – an enclosed community with a rigid hierarchy and its own inflexible rules. The metaphysics of ships, if you like.

 Geographically that part of the USA is one of my favourite parts, especially Martha’s Vineyard. There is an indefinable thrill associated with those islands and I always feel that affinity when I read about them. I regret never visiting Nantucket. It seems crucial to the book. It conjures the ghosts of Melville and Moby-Dick, adding another atmospheric layer to the story. Are those places familiar to you or did you make some special trips?

I was born in Washington DC but left at a very early age, and hadn’t been back to the east coast at all until I tackled this book. I’d written a good chunk of Dark Water when I decided I’d better go and take a look at the places in it: Boston, of course, but Nantucket especially. It’s easy to get a sense of Boston and its history from paper sources; Nantucket was more slippery. An island has a totally different sense of space to the mainland. I spent about two weeks in Massachusetts in the summer of 2016, walking around Boston’s Beacon Hill and climbing all over Old Ironsides, as I mentioned just now, before staying in a tiny grey shingled cottage in Sconset on Nantucket – pretty much as Carver does, except that I didn’t have a Mrs Bunker to cook my meals.

Hiram Carver? He is the supreme paradox of us all! He behaved abominably at times, especially towards his own sister and her happiness. Yet in spite of it I simply couldn’t bring myself to dislike him. There’s something within him that seems to be within us all maybe? He and Borden seem to be two halves of a dichotomous whole. How did you go about creating such characters? Or did they eventually start to develop themselves!? I’ve heard some writers speak of how once created the characters do go on to develop their selves almost as if the writer has no part in it!

I’m so glad you don’t completely dislike Carver. I don’t either. The challenge, as with William Borden, was to write someone who couldn’t be pinned down too easily. I felt I had to give him some significant redeeming features, in the form of his youthful anti-authoritarianism, his willingness to question the mores of his time and place, and his instinctive sympathy for the social outcasts he is treating at the asylum. Once I got going he added his own flourishes. But of course he is the worst cannibal in the book. By the end he has consumed Ruth Macy as surely as he consumed Richard Mansfield, Frank Goodwin, Adam Thornton, his sister Caro, and William Borden. The irony is that he’s also trapped himself. By achieving a position of supremacy in the society he once despised, he has – as he knows full well – given up his last chance at freedom. 

 The sea as a metaphor is wonderfully sustained throughout the book and together with considerations as to the real meaning of madness encourages the reader to ponder the frailty of the human soul. When Hiram suggests to Ruth that all we’ve created out of freedom is a prison it struck such a mournful chord with me because it’s so inviolably true. I found it a pivotal moment in the story and I wondered whether it was your intention to throw these metaphysical ideas out there in the hope that the reader might ponder some solutions?

Yes, absolutely. And if anyone can find a solution, I’d love to hear it.

 The book has much to say about the invisible line between sanity and insanity. The passages set in the asylum were both fascinating historically and sociologically. All too easy to ‘get it wrong’ but you didn’t! How did you set about writing these sections of the book?

Writing the asylum sections was tricky because I was hoping to show how fine that line can be, and how common, even ordinary, mental disturbance is – but couldn’t use any of the vocabulary we have at our disposal in the age of psychiatry. When I was reading the memoirs of some nineteenth-century asylum patients it seemed obvious that a few of them suffered from maladies which would now be quite easily treatable with psychodynamic medication, and this got me thinking. I wanted to approach these scenes through a sort of double perspective. In the book Adam Thornton, for example, clearly has what we’d today call bipolar disorder, with a two-to-three-week depressive phase, followed by a month-long build up to mania. Richard Mansfield insists that Thornton is mad, but Borden and Carver sense that something else is at play here, and the modern reader will too. What is ‘madness’, anyway? The doctors and attendants aren’t exempt: Richard Mansfield is a morphine addict; Felicity Joy exhibits a form of OCD when washing the asylum floors; Frank Goodwin is a binge eater. The younger Carver himself, whose refusal of food is really a rejection of his overbearing family and everything they represent, is anorexic.

 Suffering, whether oblique or realised, physical or emotional, play a huge part in the book. So many contemporary parallels, for example Richard’s dependence on drugs, Frank’s relationship with food, Hiram’s confusion with his sexuality take this beyond the historical. Was it emotionally demanding to write?

I wrote the book during a period of great personal stress and sadness and the wonderful thing was that I knew, while writing it, that it was acting as a very real life preserver for me. So yes, it was demanding, but not more demanding than actually getting through that time. 

 For me the most uplifting characters are the patients in the asylum! They seemed to have ‘got it right’! Was that your intention or am I… insane?!

You are quite clearly bonkers. Just joking – spot on. As Carver says, they’re at liberty to express the sorts of foibles and idiosyncrasies the rest of us have to keep in check. That can be quite appealing.

 Quite coincidentally as I was writing these questions I noticed that you had referenced Janet Frame on one of the social media platforms. I’ve always found Faces in the Water to be a seminal work regarding sanity, insanity and institutions and wondered whether her work had any influence on your writing?

Janet Frame is an expert at rendering mental anguish. I recently tweeted an excerpt from the second volume of her autobiography, An Angel at My Table, because I’m including it in a feature for the Guardian on my ‘Top Ten Books’ about psychiatric institutions. Her story is truly horrifying. She was misdiagnosed as a schizophrenic in 1945 and spent eight years in and out of mental hospitals in her native New Zealand. In spite of this she managed to write a collection of short stories, The Lagoon. In 1954 she was scheduled to have a lobotomy, when the doctor who was due to perform the procedure read in the paper that her book had won a national literary prize. He cancelled the operation and she was released from hospital. In her autobiography she says, without any exaggeration, ‘My writing saved me.’

 How do you approach your writing? By that I am wondering if you have a special place, special time, any special routines and rituals?

At the moment writing is my day job, though this hasn’t always been the case. I write between dropping my children off at school and picking them up again, a working day of about six hours. It never seems long enough. I was a teacher for many years and I’ve written while taking detention and before registration in the mornings. When I’m away from home I set my laptop up on a bedside locker and write there. You can’t afford to have special rituals or be too fussy about your circumstances when your next thought is liable to be interrupted by someone saying “Mu-uum”. (Hello kids, I love you too.)

 I know that being an avid reader is almost compulsory for a writer so a question I always ask is if you can remember the first book you read that moved you to tears, if any?

Not sure if I can pinpoint the very first book that moved me to tears, but I do recall, with weird immediacy, learning the alphabet itself. I was at the Walworth Barbour American School in Israel and must have been about five years old. We were taught the alphabet with an ingenious story flip-chart. In this story you were taken on a journey through a jungle, over mountains, across seas and deserts, and each day, as you travelled, you met a new letter. An audio cassette tape played alongside and made it all seem doubly real (there were no interactive whiteboards or DVDs then – this was the 1970s). I really had no idea what came after A, or B, or C, so every day was a total cliff hanger. I lived for these sessions and I was forlorn when we reached Z and they stopped. The excitement I felt for those 26 days is still vivid to me – I’ve probably never known anything like it since. Just thinking about it has made my heart thump.

 And finally having enjoyed this novel so much I am bound to ask when we can expect another new one! And is there anything you can tell us about it?

Soon, I hope. I’m working on a novel about Thomas Hardy, set in the weeks immediately following the sudden death of his first wife, Emma. In the thirty-eight years they were married their relationship had become very strained: though they were living in the same house they only met once a day, over dinner, and had stopped speaking to each other. But he is shattered by the loss of her. Then, while he is still overwhelmed by grief, he finds a record she has written about their life together in which she accuses him of a very specific and very terrible thing (you’ll have to wait and see what that is), and he has to start re-evaluating their entire marriage – and himself.

The novel is called The Chosen, after one of Hardy’s poems. While describing it to you I’ve realised that like Dark Water it’s a story about suffering and the unknowability of the other, even the people to whom we’re supposedly closest. And about memory and identity and the mystery of human motivation. Which brings us back to where we started our interview, doesn’t it?

My heartfelt thanks to Elizabeth for this frank, informative, erudite  and entertaining interview. If you’d like to hear more of her I include a link to a radio interview Elizabeth did for BBC Oxford with Kate Orman - https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/p06k5d8w

And my thanks, yet again, to the wonderful Ana McLaughlin at Quercus books for introducing me to this book in the first place and for facilitating  this interview. 

When We Get to the Island - Alex Nye BLOG TOUR

After loving Arguing With the Dead Alex Nye has been firmly on my radar so I jumped at the opportunity to read her new book and be a part of the blog tour. My thanks to Kelly at LoveBooksTours for making that possible. 

Author Bio 

Alex Nye is the award-winning author of four novels. She grew up in Norfolk by the sea, but has lived in Scotland since 1995 where she finds much of her inspiration in Scottish history. At the age of 16 she won the W H Smith Young Writers' Award out of 33,000 entrants, and has been writing ever since. Her first children's novel, CHILL, won the Royal Mail Award. 

Her fourth book is a historical novel for adults about Mary Queen of Scots. Her fifth title, ARGUING WITH THE DEAD, is another historical novel, this time about Mary Shelley, and explores the chaotic and destructive forces which shaped her.

She divides her time between walking the dog, swimming, scribbling in notebooks in strange places, staring at people without meaning to, and tapping away on her laptop. She also teaches and delivers atmospheric candlelit workshops on creative writing/ghost stories/Scottish history. She studied at King's College, London more years ago than she cares to remember.

Possibly intended for a YA audience but there’s little here for an OA to object to! It’s a powerfully moving story about issues very relevant today. I was reminded forcibly of a talk I attended earlier this year with Eva Schloss, an Auschwitz survivor, talking about a number of relevant issues but one she touched on that was pertinent to her own situation was that of refugees. We can read oft times in the media of peoples ‘outrage’  at the Calais jungle,for example. In fact if you’ve ever been at that port heading for a ferry it IS alarming to be bombarded by people who are determined to find a way to get on board if they can. We hear constantly of migrants attempting to reach our shores, undertaking journeys fraught with peril. But the point Eva Schloss made, and it is pivotal, is that no one ups and leaves their families, their friends, their way of life, their culture, their country unless they are DESPERATE. What people are prepared to go through to escape whatever miseries surround their dally living must surely make it obvious just how anguished they have become. I think this book makes this heart wrenchingly clear. 

Hani is a Syrian refugee conned by an unscrupulous ‘entrepreneur’ and living in Scotland as a migrant worker, illegal, dependent, with his sister Reena until she disappears. It is never stated why she disappears but the implications are pretty obvious. In order to find her Hani escapes. Then there is Mia, also on the run, her flight is for different reasons but she, too, is searching for happiness. They meet. I won’t give too much more away. But it does make for a splendid tale.

What Alex Nye has created here is a clever story pitched perfectly towards her intended audience. It’s exciting, nail biting, with a well paced narrative that should carry the younger reader along willingly. Skilful too is the rendering of the two runaways from different walks of life but with a common aim.  A balanced dynamic between our two courageous protagonists reinforces concepts of friendship and loyalty and trust. And survival.

‘They were survivors. And this is what it meant to survive; it meant being haunted, carrying images you would rather not carry, but there it was, you had no choice. You had to keep going, You had to keep believing, and you had to try not to remember all the bad stuff when you shut your eyes.’

The sustained analogy that life is a game of snakes and ladders is an accessible one for a YA readership but won't be lost on an older audience. 

‘Everyone has a story, Mia thought then. Some people land on the squares with the ladders leading to a bright new future, others land on the ones with the snakes, sliding back down into disaster and disappointment; ‘

And Ms. Nye has done her homework. Hani’s memories and account of his harrowing journey from Aleppo to Scotland are believable and should have you weeping. I hope the impact is not lost on a younger audience and that they realise this isn’t just an adventure story, it is a fiction created out of a reality. And a reality that is happening as we read. Right now there are people risking their lives to escape intolerable regimes. Right now there are people being exploited for wanting a better life, in a better place. But this is not a glum or depressing story ultimately. There is redemption on several sides. I’m not going to give the ending away but it is vital for the younger reader to close a book feeling satisfied that ‘all is well’. However I hope that the reading of this book offers food for thought and much discussion leading to a wider empathy and understanding for a next generation.

Buy Link 

https://amzn.to/2XuW8ue

But, folks, this a blog tour and that's just my take on the book. Please take some time to check out all the other amazing bloggers and see what they have to say.