His and Hers - Alice Feeney - BLOG TOUR

Oh, Ms. Feeney! You absolute rascal! How could you? I NEVER saw that coming! Not in a million years. What a masterstroke. And I'm still open mouthed at what I like to call 'author audacity'. It's brilliant. 

It's one of those endings that forces you to accept that you have misinterpreted much of what you've read. And is that because you approach a book of this genre with preconceptions? You read the prologue and subconsciously an image of the potential perp infiltrates its way into your head and you experience the whole story with a reluctance, again subconscious, to relinquish that image. By page 126 I thought I knew who dunnit and I felt pretty smug. Clapping myself on the back for my astute, razor sharp perception only to feel pretty stupid a few pages further on because it couldn't possibly have been that person. It was this person. Only it wasn't. It was another person. And so on. Smug became a mere memory.

The story then? What is the story? There are two sides to it. 'Yours and Mine', 'Ours and Theirs', 'His and Hers'.

Anna, TV news presenter standing in for a colleague on maternity leave. Her ex husband, Jack.......

"If there are two sides to every story, someone is always lying…

Jack: Three words to describe my wife: Beautiful. Ambitious. Unforgiving.
Anna: I only need one word to describe my husband: Liar.

When a woman is murdered in Blackdown village, newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Anna’s ex-husband, DCI Jack Harper, is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect in his own murder investigation.

Someone is lying, and some secrets are worth killing to keep."

I'm saying little more about the plot because it would be a crime to give anything away. But I will say this, you will suspect everyone at some point in this narrative. You won't be able to turn the pages quick enough as this tale hurtles on towards its tense climax where your heart might just decide to eject itself into your mouth.

As with all good psychological thrillers it's hard to fully engage with any of the characters. You have to remain objective, unbiased. You can't be allowed to develop any kind of affection for anyone. So there is little to like about any of them  - except, perhaps......... Anna's mum? They're all flawed in some way through their personal life challenges or their professional career paths. 

It's a well plotted story, one that will have you marvelling at the mind of the writer who can come up with such a complex, twisty set of circumstances. I think I might just need to get hold of Ms. Feeney's previous two books.......

My thanks to HQStories and Harper Collins for this book and an opportunity to participate in the blog tour. Do check out what the other brilliant bloggers have to say. 

A Shooting at Chateau Rock - Martin Walker - BLOG BLAST

When I read The Body in the Castle Well I was absolutely captivated by the book’s lead policeman Benoit ‘Bruno’ Courreges. A multifaceted man for whom policing seems to be just one part of him but he executes his duties with unfailingly, efficient and effective demeanour.This latest novel is the thirteenth in the Dordogne mysteries. Banish all thoughts of superstition because there’s nothing unlucky about this story unless you’re the guilty perpetrator! 

'Millions of readers worldwide are talking about the Dordogne Mysteries. Discover why and join them with this gripping new read!  Following the funeral of a local farmer, Bruno gets a phone call from his son. He tells Bruno that before his father's sudden death, he had signed over his property to an insurance company in return for a subscription to a luxury retirement home. Bruno discovers that both the retirement home and the insurance company are scams with links to a Russian oligarch whose dealings are already being tracked by the French police. Meanwhile an ageing British rock star is selling his home, Chateau Rock. The star's son returns for the summer with his Russian girlfriend. As Bruno pursues his inquiries into the farmer's death and the stolen inheritance, he learns that the oligarch is none other than the girlfriend's father. Bruno's talents are tested to the limit as he untangles a Gordian Knot of criminality that reaches as far as the Kremlin. But luckily Bruno still has time to cook delicious meals for his friends and enjoy the life of his beloved Dordogne. What's more, love is in the air. His pedigree basset, Balzac, is old enough to breed. Bruno heads for the kennels where a suitable beauty, Diane de Poitiers, is ready and waiting for Balzac's attentions...'

Once again we have a recipe book of classic French cuisine nestling amongst the more sinister overtones of Russian oligarchy and defrauded, bereaved offspring. Don’t read this book if you’re hungry! You will salivate all over the pages! Walker’s style might at times be described as cosy crime. It’s a term I love for the very paradox of the concept. But Bruno is very comfortable if not cosy. You feel safe with him as a reader for even if bad things happen, and they do, you feel protected by him. It’s a deceptively complex plot which initially on the surface presents as a quite straightforward crime. Then as they say “the plot thickens” in fact it deepens as it casts its net amongst the myriad characters who descend on Château Rock and into Bruno’s life. Walker cleverly introduces a variety of aspects into the tale. As already mentioned there’s cookery but also music, dog breeding, horse riding so that the story has a wide appeal.

Walker also manages to create a most appealing picture of life and community in rural France. There is a languid, easy feel to the descriptions of life there. You sense that everybody is on good terms with each other which is so uplifting to read particularly in these times that we currently find ourselves in. You can pick up a book like this and completely forget about the ruddy coronavirus. That makes it worth it’s weight in gold. And then if this is the first Bruno story you've read you have the alluring prospect of twelve more to get your grubby little hands on! 😉

My thanks to Milly Reid and Katya Ellis at Quercus books for a copy of the book and the opportunity for a place on the blog blast.

These Lost and Broken Things - Helen Fields - BLOG TOUR

Welcome to the Blog Tour for Helen Fields new historic fiction novel - These Lost and Broken Things.  

Let's begin with a little blurb:-

Maiden-Mother-Murderer

How dangerous is a woman with nothing left to lose?

The year is 1905. London is a playground for the rich and a death trap for the poor. When Sofia Logan’s husband dies unexpectedly, leaving her penniless with two young children, she knows she will do anything to keep them from the workhouse. But can she bring herself to murder? Even if she has done it before…

Emmet Vinsant, wealthy industrialist, offers Sofia a job in one of his gaming houses. He knows more about Sofia’s past than he has revealed. Brought up as part of a travelling fair, she’s an expert at counting cards and spotting cheats, and Vinsant puts her talents to good use. His demands on her grow until she finds herself with blood on her hands.

Set against the backdrop of the Suffragette protests, with industry changing the face of the city but disease still rampant, and poverty the greatest threat of all, every decision you make is life or death. Either yours or someone else’s. Read best-selling crime writer Helen Fields’ first explosive historical thriller.

International and Amazon #1 best-selling author, Helen is a former criminal and family law barrister. Every book in the Callanach series claimed an Amazon #1 bestseller flag. Her next book, the sixth in the series, 'Perfect Kill' is due out on 6 February 2020. Helen also writes as HS Chandler, and last year released legal thriller 'Degrees of Guilt'. Her previous audiobook 'Perfect Crime' knocked Michelle Obama off the #1 spot. Translated into 15 languages, and also selling in the USA, Canada & Australasia, Helen's books have won global recognition. Her first historical thriller 'These Lost & Broken Things' comes out in May 2020. A further standalone thriller published by Harper Collins will come soon. She currently commutes between Hampshire, Scotland and California, where she lives with her husband and three children. Helen can be found on Twitter @Helen_Fields for up to date news and information or at www.helenfields.co.uk.

My response to the story.

An engrossing piece of histfic that has perplexed me and posed a conundrum. Main character, Sofia, struggling to survive with two young children after the premature death of her husband. Living in London and offered a job by a wealthy industrialist. You’d think the scene was set for a touching rags to riches story maybe? Oh no. Our Sofia is a feisty, independent woman who will stop at nothing to secure a future for herself and her children. But it’s the nothings that she won’t stop at that give me my dilemma. For as a decent, honest and upright citizen should I be seen to feel any sympathy for this character? Dammit, I like her immensely! But I shouldn’t, should I?! She does dreadful things. And yet I was always rooting for her to get way with it. How come? 

Hmmmm, could it be that the story is extremely well written with a character development cleverly getting the reader ‘on side’ no matter what? I think it could! 

It’s a masterful example of characterisation. Sofia has enough good qualities for the reader to excuse what she does. Or is that just me?! Maybe excuse is too lenient but, read the book, and you’ll know what I mean! 

Although Helen Fields has an impressive body of work this is the first I have read. I’ve a feeling that may change! I am always fascinated by an author who switches genre. I guess there are numerous reasons for it but it’s not always a given that success in one means automatic prowess in another. I think it has to be considered a brave move in an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ kinda  way. But reading this book I would never have guessed that the author wasn’t an experienced historical fiction writer. Turn of the 20th century London is recreated in absorbing detail. The research is impressive, from descriptions of domestic life to functions of the constabulary at that time and some of the darker, seedier aspects of London life. Utterly believable. 

The main thrust of the novel is Sofia’s story told in a dual chronology from her childhood where a crescendo of detail gradually builds up until the final exposition is revealed towards the end of the book, and Sofia’s current situation. Against a backdrop of the Suffragette movement there is a subtle emphasis on women and their place in that contemporary society. I do not wish to divulge the many intricacies of the plot but its many peaks and troughs seldom allow the reader to relax  with any suggestion of a happy ending. And is there a happy ending? Oh no, you don’t get me on that one. Read the book for yourself!

If you enjoy historical fiction with a strong female lead there’s a lot here to appeal to you. I would be interested to know what stalwart fans of Helen Fields previous writings make of this. Will they find it ‘Perfect’? Pun/reference absolutely intended.  It’s good quality, assured writing which I’m sure she produces whatever the genre. And I intend to find out!

My thanks to Kelly at LoveBooksTours for the opportunity to read this book and participate in the blog tour. Please read what my fellow bloggers have to say. 

And thanks to Helen Fields because my book is signed. And I love a signed book. ;)

TBR Round Up

This is more for my own records rather than any viewable blog post. I'm not sure anyone reads my blog nowadays much anyway. Sometimes if it's a blog tour but few people are interested in what I've got to say. No matter. I will do what I always do. Write about the books I read.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman

Oh my, this had me weeping unconsolably. I could relate to so much of what Eleanor was feeling. Not that I had experienced the trauma that the poor girl has been through but it was her response to life and her emotions that really got me. I've had this book for years and only just got around to reading it. But as much as it made me cry it also made me laugh out loud too. Eleanor's commentary on life was just so apt sometimes. I would say that as well as all the trauma she went through she was probably somewhere on the spectrum?





A Version of the Truth - B .P. Walter

Gripping and well written book. But nothing to feel good about. No upliftment whatsoever. In fact itwas quite unpleasant, what happened in the book. I don't want to spoil it for anybody but I finished the book feeling quite uneasy. Because sadly I think that this kind of thing goes on. And people in positions of power and privilege are allowed to behave like this. It's actually quite chilling. So maybe it's a book that really needed to be written.







Darling - Rachel Edwards

Again this book isn't a book that's going to make you feel good. But I felt it made its point in a more potent way. And there are a number of issues on a number of levels. It's billed as a psychological thriller, which it is. It's a very good one. It also has some social comment about racism, about Brexit, about mental illness and eating disorders. And also about taking the time to understand each other. Powerful and very sad story.







Insomnia - Marina Benjamin

I've actually been reading this book for months. Since I bought it to be honest. I suffer from insomnia. Quite badly sometimes. And I had this book on my bedside and when I was having trouble I would read great swathes of it aloud and I found it really really helpful. The author suffers from insomnia too are some fascinating insights into the condition. It's kind of a book of philosophical anecdotes I guess. I absolutely love it.

Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang
This is a curious little book. I had it on my bedside for months and months. I've dipped into it every so often. Because I found it quite hard to get into. But that's not to say I haven't enjoyed it. It's sci-fi but it's very scientifically sci-fi. I got a hold of a copy after I saw the film Arrival. It's a collection of short stories. Which are science-fiction in theme but they also look for a deeper morality and ask us to question our place within the universe.

Death Magazine - Matthew Haigh BLOG TOUR

‘Death Magazine is a neutropian vision of our soundbite, snippet-obsessed, digital and print magazine culture. It employs the Dadaist technique of cut-up to produce poems that range from the blackly comic to the surreal, from the nonsensical to the prescient.’

Thus sayeth the blurb pertaining to Matthew Haigh’s poetry collection. Structured as a, predominately male, lifestyle magazine with various sections that are commonly found in such publications, Haigh examines the human condition with a black humour that borders on both the sarcastic and surreal at times yet is a pertinent indictment of our digital days, culturally.

Using the cut up technique Haigh manages to construct a powerful suite of verse. Resplendent with intense and sustained imagery the collection demands you stop, think and consider. There is humour, there is compassion, there is the soul of a poet intertwined within the words. 

As is my preferred method I always read each poem aloud before I read silently, to allow the full weight of the words to engulf me. Invariably the subjectivity of poetry means each reader will have their favourites. I have mine and I also have favourite lines from throughout the collection, like these:-

‘I am a downloaded copy of my entire life.’

‘I don’t remember now what I don’t remember’

‘Even though yellow is going to happen, corroded metal is unapologetically feminine.’

‘How to frame life without eating. 

How to frame life without wanting.’

'The quiet lanes shagged with the foliage.....'

The reading of various poems invoked certain trigger memories. For example ‘Treating Depression with H.R. Giger reminded me of Ewan McGregor’s Choose Life monologue from Trainspotting. I read it with the same accent and inflection!

‘Try treating depression with lavender. Try treating depression with bath bombs or a peach stone in your mouth. Try cannabis, try walking, try kundalini yoga. Try saying yourself each morning I am not afraid. 

I treat depression by running the blades of scissors down my ring finger.’

I found this poem also provoked an insatiable curiosity within me. I watched a YouTube video about camel spiders as I’d never heard of these ‘Spawn of Satan. I found the Giger painting curious as Alien had been referred to in the previous poem so I googled it.  I find the words create a mood within me, an effect, like watercolour but with words. Powerful.

'Passionflower Your Sleep Routine' initially reminded me of that game we used to play as kids called ‘bangers and mash’. Where you substituted the word bangers and mash for various nouns within the passage that you were reading. When we grew older we substituted rude words and fell about in hilarious laughter. Guess that might have been my very early introduction to the cutup technique! This poem also invoked Dylan Thomas with the line ‘I go thunderous to bed.’ It just reminded me of ‘Do Not Go Gentle......’.

'What Will Your Sims Do Now?' I found a poignant but immersive consideration of our relationship with video games. The sense of our misconstrued ability to control when it is we who are being manipulated.

Other favourite poems include 'Memento' and 'Reptile Your Relationship'. I DID shrug.

The Fitness section I found hilarious where Haigh takes a series of male screen  icons like Brando and de Niro offering the reader insights into their fitness regimes! But it's discerning as Haigh has subtly identified their perceived characteristics quite accurately. 

'Hardy is so hardy, and hard to kill. He does a convincing impression of bacteria.'

'Gyllenhaal had six months to resemble a suit of armour - he did this by performing 2000 cultural expectations a day.'

As is so often the case when trying to review a collection of poetry you want to quote and comment on every single poem in the collection. Thus I could continue by citing every single piece but I'll conclude by commending the 'Interview with a New Father' which is so surreal and incredibly topical at the moment as apparently it is taken from an interview with Joe Wicks. 😉

My thanks to Isabelle Kenyon for the opportunity to not only read this incredible volume of work but to participate in the blog tour. Do check out what my blogging colleagues have to say. 

Dark Water Revisited or How I Rediscovered the Ancient Art of Re-Reading

I don’t normally do this, once I’ve written a review that’s it. But nowadays I don’t normally get to re-read the books I love. I used to re-read, frequently. Sometimes if I loved a book, I’d read it again back to back, wanting the experience to continue. When I was much younger I had this naive dream that when I was retired I would have the opportunity to re-read all my favourite books at my leisure. But that was before the days of computers and the Internet and blogging. Nowadays, with so many books I already own, forlornly waiting on the shelves for me to select them, ( I often wonder if they are inwardly saying “pick me, pick me” as my hand hovers uncertainly and undecidedly over their enticing spines), with various proofs and arcs for blog tours and publishers, with  library books, all clamouring for my reader hands to caress and commit to them re-reading has been a vague dream on the periphery of my reader brain. But in these pandemic, viral, lockdown days when I yo-yo from up to down, from inside to out, I strive for little ways to change the flow. Proofs and arcs have dried up now. Libraries are closed. Publishers are offering offering digital copies, and Reader, I don’t do e-books.

My shelves are shedding dust as I pluck one lucky volume after another. And so, to ring a change and create a new structure to my reading program I decided I would go to my 'forever' shelves and re-read one book a week.

I began with Elizabeth Lowry’s Dark Water. I’ve been wanting to re-read it ever since I read it! I wrote a review at the time of writing. You can find it here:-  

https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2018/09/dark-waters-elizabeth-lowry.html 

and I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to interview the author. You can find that interview here:-

https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2018/09/an-interview-with-elizabeth-lowry.html

But why the need to re-read? Any book, not just this book. I mean we listen to a piece of music more than once. We look at a piece of art more than once. We read a poem more than once. We sometimes see films and plays more than once.So obviously we should read our books more than once. But not every book. By no means. Some books. But which books? 

I’ll confess that by and large I’m generally “looking for literature” when I’m reading. It’s not a conscious decision, it’s just something within me. I don’t always find it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the myriad books I read. But what is literature I hear you ask?  It is something I have thought about and I blogged about it here

https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2019/04/what-is-literature.html

Every so often a book comes along that seems to find its way right to my heart and fills me up to overflowing so that I can barely speak. Dark Water is such a book. And when I began it I had no expectations. I had no prior knowledge of the author. I was tantalised by an endorsement from Hilary Mantell on the cover. Nothing could have prepared me for the explosion of literature that rained down upon me, gloriously and mercilessly. I felt changed forever. 

So I came to reread it. I’ll admit I was nervous. What if the second reading left me underwhelmed? What if I reached that horrible place that would make me wonder what I saw in it in the first instance? What if all I felt after that first reading crumbled away to nothing? Do you have to be brave to re-read a book?

Oh me of little faith! My fears dissolved after the first few sentences. Once more I became utterly immersed in the story of Hiram Carver and William Borden and once more I surrendered myself to the magnificent prose of this gifted writer. I was incredulous at the number of things I had “missed” on my first reading. It wasn’t that I didn’t read everything, dammit I read every last punctuation mark!  But the full import didn’t penetrate me, probably because I was still processing what I read in a previous section. This small example describing the  sun  - a “buxom pumpkin” - how perfect is that? How did I pass it by the first time? 

It’s 18 months since I first read the book. So I also have to bring in a re-reading of myself to the experience. Did I see William Borden more clearly with my older eyes? Do I understand Hiram Carver a little better as I continue to rot?  (As Richard Mansfield accurately puts it, ‘From hour to hour we ripe and ripe -  until at last, from hour to hour we rot and rot, no?’ )

Subliminally, maybe, when you know the story, or think you know the story, does your mind focus more acutely on those deeper matters nestling within the narrative? Those notions of identity and personality, of sanity and insanity, our mental and emotional freedoms. I  was very aware at the time of my first reading how potent these themes are in the book and how eloquently and perceptively they were expressed. How then on the second reading would my response alter or deepen? And I wondered how any of those states can be separated or defined or are they composite, residing within all of us along a sliding scale of some sort? 

I was struck by the early passages of the book on board the Orbis that Hiram’s perspective of William Borden was a classic example of first impressions and how he struggled later on to see a different Borden to the one of his initial imaginings. Poor Hiram. No matter what he did and how he behaved he still breaks my heart. First time I think I skirted around this a bit but Hiram lacks love, particularly from his mother. He remains a paradox, for his treatment of the patients in the asylum contained so much compassion and understanding, qualities which desert him in his dealings with other people. Maybe in treating his patients he is trying to treat himself. Without success ultimately. 

Some characters made a deeper impression on me the second time, especially John Canacka. I always thought the patients at the Charlestown asylum seemed to have “got it right’! This business of living and understanding that we’re never free but Canacka I found even more interesting. For in spite of all he endured he remains stoic, a survivor, probably the only survivor in the whole book?

And throughout there is the extraordinary prose of Elizabeth Lowry. It has me wanting to read great swathes of the book out loud revelling in the imagery and feasting on the vowels and consonants in harmonious fusion.

As ever I could go on and on, this book still has me in its thrall and I don’t suppose I’ll ever let it go. I’d like to think I can continue to revisit it and plunder its depths  to see what it will yield on future occasions. And that is what literature does. A book like this that can offer up continued richness from subsequent readings deserves to be studied and be placed on reading programs and syllabuses. I do believe that this will in time become a classic. Or it damn well should do!! 

But it has reinforced and rekindled in me a strong desire to reread as many of my cherished books as I can. I need to work hard at striking a balance between the old and the new. 

An Interview with Romy Hausmann - Author of Dear Child

After reading Dear Child I couldn't get the story out of my head and questions were buzzing around my brain for days. So I was thrilled to have the opportunity to put some of these questions to Romy. And I'm delighted to share her frank and informative answers with you today on my blog as part of the Social Media Blast for this book. 

My heartfelt thanks go to Romy for taking the time to answer my questions at this busy time. My thanks, too, go to Hannah Robinson at Quercus Books for facilitating the interview.  

 I’ve just finished Dear Child and I read it in almost one go! I couldn’t put it down. I thought it was remarkable. I was wondering where your initial idea for the book came from?

There was actually no particular trigger, rather than a certain point in time when I was writing a new story and many impressions that had accumulated over a longer period suddenly came together. Quite a few years ago there were two very spectacular crime cases in Austria: the one around Natascha Kampusch, who was kidnapped on the way to school as a ten-year-old and then imprisoned until she managed to escape only eight years later, and the case of Josef Fritzl, who had detained his own daughter in an underground apartment for over twenty years and even fathered children with her. Both cases shocked me so much that I couldn't get over them for years. How was it possible that such cruelty could happen in reality without anyone noticing? On top of that, I live on the edge of a forest myself and, when I am out and about, I always see huts like the one in Dear Child. So all of this together gave me, the first rough idea for Dear Child.

 There is no shortage of psychological thrillers and Dear Child drew some parallels with books like Room and Gone Girl. And yet what sets your book apart for me is the fact that is not formulaic. You seem to have defied convention almost! Was that your intention? 

Since I‘ve started writing about ten years ago – until the publication of Dear Child in Germany rather unsuccessfully by the way – somehow I‘ve always been different in my texts. It was never a conscious decision that I made, it‘s simply my way of telling stories. And, of course, it is something that, for a long time, had plunged me into deep self-doubt –

precisely because nobody wanted to read my stories. The only really conscious decision I made at some point was to stick with it and not to let myself be influenced in the way I tell stories. In Germany, I often read things like: "Either you like how Romy Hausmann writes or you hate it." I can live with that very well, as it implies that among a lot of many, even very good authors, I somehow stand out. For me, a thriller is not just popcorn entertainment that you read between washing the dishes and the next episode of a Netflix series with the intent to simply shock you. It may also contain more literary elements, or emotions like the ones we’re more familiar with in love stories or family dramas. Why should a thriller just shock? Why shouldn't it be tragic at the same time, stirring, beautiful, stimulating to think?

 I thought the themes explored in the book were astutely observed. Your expositions of Hannah and Jonathan were heart wrenching. Are these characters based on any real situation? What kind of research did you do in order to create such potent characters, especially Hannah. 

Neither Hannah nor Jonathan are based on real people, but after I wrote the book, I talked to a trauma expert who confirmed to me that the behavior of the two characters could actually occur in real life. When I was writing, it just felt right to let Hannah behave the way she does. I just imagined what it would feel like to have stayed in a hut all my life and to have been conditioned by my father in such a way. One mustn‘t forget: our own understanding of "normality" is based on what we are given as an example. But what if the society that has agreed on certain moral rules ceases to exist? If our entire world view is based on the stories and upbringing of one person?

 Whilst not obvious maybe I thought love was an important theme in the book too, parental love, sisterly love for example. Was that deliberate or did it evolve organically through exploring human nature?

Essentially, that’s what all of my stories are about: they’re about love and how this feeling can degenerate. Love and fear are the two basic motivations in all of us and they drive us – for good and for bad.

 I also thought survival was an important theme in the book for several of the characters. The psychology of survival is complex.I thought your handling of it in the story was amazing.  What kind of research did you do?

Survival is our basic need – we are ready to do anything for it. I actually didn’t research anything specific on that subject, but relied on the fact that I’m simply quite an empathetic person – or at least I think that I am. I slip into the roles of my characters and try to survive. Whilst I’m doing so, for me it is not just about the physical act of not being killed, but also about a kind of “mental survival”: how do I manage to maintain the worldview that has accompanied me throughout my life and to which I am so attached?

 I found your plotting superb. So often a reader can start to second guess or get an inkling of what has or what might happen. I didn’t here which was joyful! How did you approach the plotting of the novel?

Don't laugh, but I actually plot too little. I have only one basic idea and a few individual key points that I know I want to talk about – the rest is relatively organic if you let yourself be led by your characters. They show you the way, and if they are well laid out and consistent, everything will come together in the end.

 The character of Jasmine, so complex, so believable. You seemed to really get into the head of a victim of abduction. Was that emotionally challenging to write? 

Definitely. I really suffer a lot when I write. This also goes back to the time when I was working in TV where I often came into contact with real victims. Some stories and their faces one never forgets. It was therefore extremely important to me to describe Jasmin as an “authentic victim”. I often find it very difficult how disrespectful the feelings of victime are described in some books and that they‘re often only used for lurid purposes – even if they are fictional characters. But there are real people out there who have really experienced something terrible, and if you write about such stories you shouldn't forget that, I think. Respect is a very important thing, always.

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

I just write and I do it every day – but that doesn't mean that always good things come out of it. I sit on the floor of my living room with my back against the old heater, which often gives me bad blisters in the winter, my laptop on my knees. I can't sit at a desk – I think I always need it a little uncomfortable. I also don’t have real rituals, at most a lot of coffee. I admire authors with beautifully arranged, Instagram-ready desks, on which everything is neat, and who may even light a scented candle when writing – but sadly I'm quite different.

 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?

Yes! Oh god, yes! It was about a sailor from Germany who brought a snowman to a girl from Africa in the cold room of his ship. She was so happy because she didn't know snow. Of course, the snowman gradually thawed away under the African heat – a fact that broke my heart as a six-year-old. I bought the book again as an adult, after I’d lost it at some point.

 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?

My new thriller, Marta Sleeps, has just been released in Germany. It's about guilt and whether you can ever get rid of it. It’s a book that is very different to Dear Child – consciously so, because that is my big mission: As an author, I always want to try out something new and surprise people with it.

Dear Child - Romy Hausmann Translated by Jamie Bulloch - Social Media Blast

Where the hell do I start in reviewing this? What a plot! The press release suggested it was Gone Girl meets Room and I thought, yeah, right, in your dreams. But it damn well IS! I read it in a day. I should have been doing other things but I’m sorry, I could not put it down until I found out what the heck was going on. But a book like this presents such a challenge for a reviewer because the worst, the very worst thing anyone could do is divulge anything that happens in this story. 

Let me start, though by offering you the blurb:-

‘A windowless shack in the woods. Lena’s life and that of her two children follows the rules set by their captor, the father:  merles, bathroom visits, study time are strictly scheduled and meticulously observed. He protects his family from the dangers lurking in then outside world and makes sure that his children will always have a mother to look after them.

One day Lena manages to flee - but the nightmare continues. It seems as if her tormentor wants to get back what belongs to him. And then there is the question whether she really is the woman called ‘Lena’ who disappeared whiteout a trace over thirteen years ago. The police and Lena’s family are all desperately trying to piece together a puzzle which doesn't quite seem to fit.’

This is a best seller in Germany and I’m pretty sure it will be here too. It’s one of those thrillers that you can’t second guess even when the details are fed to you slowly, like a drip feed, as the novel progresses. The facts turn around in your head, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but they never quite fit until the final denouement  when all is revealed and you’re left hollowly clutching at the words in disbelief almost as the full import hits you. 

Romy Hausmann seems to have defied convention in the writing of this book, I can’t think of another suitable way to describe it. It isn’t formulaic as so many psychological thrillers are. They are no less enjoyable because of that but this almost maverick approach is what will possibly set this book apart from others of its genre. 

The complexity of its themes; the psychology of trauma in both children and adults is heart wrenching on both counts. The nature of both paternal and maternal love is chillingly explored on several levels. But above all it’s a story of survival, raw and uncompromising and again on more than one level. It’s extraordinary. There is a precision to the writing; descriptions and details. Palpable. Believable. There is an understanding of the flawed human, an idealistic parent and the innocent, trusting child. There is an acknowledgement of the dark, base nature that can reside in the seemingly unlikeliest of individuals. And the police, desperate, clutching, thwarted. The media, desperate, clutching, thwarted.  If this was on the Great British Bake Off it would be a showstopper and Ms. Hausmann would be Star Baker. It's that unusual thing  - a thriller that actually makes you think AFTER you've finished reading it. 

Lovers of psycho thrillers will see the parallels with Emma Donoghue's Room and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl but hopefully they will also see how this writer seems to have taken one giant step further in the development of the genre.

My thanks to Katya Ellis at Quercus Books who sent me a copy and to Ella Patel who invited me to the Social Media Blast. Checkout what other bloggers have to say about this story. And stay tuned to my blog for I have an interview with the author, Romy Hausmann, coming up!

Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami translated by Philip Gabriel

I will confess that I bought this book purely because of its title. If they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover then what do they say about judging a book by its title? What was it about the title that attracted me? Why, Kafka, to be sure. One of my all-time favourite writers. But in truth what was I expecting? A book about Kafka? Well, in truth I don’t know! A Japanese author? I love iIshiguro, maybe that played a part. No matter in the end. For once you embark upon a journey with a book all the reasons that you chose it in the first place almost cease to be relevant. And so it was that I became totally, utterly, completely immersed and absorbed in this incredible story. It will find its place on my TBRA shelf. (To Be Read Again). 

There is something dreamlike and surreal about the novel. The tale of Kafka Tamura, running away from home at the age of 15, escaping a prophecy that he feels will engulf him. The parallel story of the elderly Nakata who can talk to cats and has such an endearing simplicity about him. His sense of mission and dogged, unquestioning  purpose render him one of the most dignified characters in contemporary literature. The stories are linked obliquely and subtly. It’s like two halves of one world, yin and yang, an eternal paradox of the conscious and the subconscious. 

Whilst questioning the Kafka of the title I could see the allusion. The dreamlike narrative, the parable like sequences from characters like Oshima. The absurdity at times, the perplexing characters like Colonel Sanders. But it’s a joyous thing! Whilst I admit that I so often look for literature when I read. And I so rarely find it. What I perceive to be true literature that is. But here in this wonderful book I have found it. And there is that wonderfully satisfying feeling. A richness of narrative. An abundance of evocative prose and some characters like you’ve never met before. The story is etched into my memory and I keep thinking about it.

Something else for me that defines literature as opposed to merely fiction. Is the books quotability. The more quotes the more I think it is literature!  

‘Perhaps most people in the world aren’t trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It’s all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real pickle. You’d better remember that. People actually prefer not being free.’

I love that quote. It reminds me of a similar sentiment from Elizabeth Lowry’s  2018 novel Dark Water,

‘Ma’am, I sense terror in the everyday. And I don’t believe we’ve solved the problem of how to live.We’ve made that terror safe, merely by going along with the old ways and the old forms. We should be free to question, we should be free to reinvent, we should be free to feel that terror, the terrible freedom of being uncertain - but we aren’t; we cling to our false certainty and call it freedom and we can’t see what we’ve really created out of freedom is a prison.’ 

And as an habitual will scribbler myself where writing is a reflex, it’s something I simply have to do, I found this quote particularly meaningful,

‘The process of writing was important. Even though the finished product is meaningless.’

And on the subject of life itself this seems particularly pertinent in this beleaguered time we are living through,

’…..in everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.’

When a book ‘speaks’ to you it ends up not mattering whether it is a ‘good’ book. For what is a good book? Who decides whether a book is good or not? I’m sure you’ve been in that position where you get hold of the book everybody seems to be raving about. You read it and you are completely underwhelmed. If you’re anything like me you believe it’s your own inadequacy and you have seriously missed the point of something. Your lack of belief causes you to feel you have no right to call yourself a reader. But then you lose yourself in a book where you do connect and it doesn’t matter if nobody else in the world reads the book. Or nobody else in the world likes the book. If your life is the richer for having read it then isn’t that what makes a good book?

I found this to be a book of substance. There was a cultural richness to it in terms of music and art. But it is one of those books that fills you with emotion. Emotion that you can’t actually put into words. There is a beauty in the narrative, even the most gruesome, violent parts and there’s some pretty nasty bits here and I speak from the point of view of a cat lover. It’s that rare book where the book Cupid has fired his arrow this book  has a forever place in my heart.

When We Fall - Carolyn Kirby

I often find with historical novelists that they favour one particular period in history. Maybe that is because it is their favourite period or maybe it is because they don't want all that research to go to waste!?! But occasionally you find a writer who is bold enough to chase the centuries and dig through the decades. Carolyn Kirby is one of those writers. The Conviction of Cora Burns, which I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing about a year ago, was very much the Victorian novel. But her latest book couldn’t be further from those gothic prisons and asylums of nineteenth century Birmingham.  

Like ‘Cora…’ the title is one of those clever, camouflage titles that can present with more than one meaning. Here it is the literal and the metaphoric. Publication of When We Fall is to coincide with the 75th anniversary of VE day and has at its base the, perhaps, lesser known WWII atrocity, the Katyn massacre. 

Several years ago I stayed in Krakow and spent many an hour wandering the city. There is a wooden cross erected in one of the many squares, simple, with one word on it - Katyn. On the day I walked past a Polish lady was standing in front of the monument, her head bowed in silent prayer. In my ignorance I thought it might be St. Katyn, a feast day perhaps. How wrong could I be? Fortunately curiosity got the better of me and I did some cursory research. What I read shocked me, of course. 

So I came to this book with a little prior knowledge, of what to expect maybe? What I actually got exceeded expectations……..

‘England, 1943. Lost in fog, pilot Vee Katchatourian is forced to make an emergency landing where she meets enigmatic RAF airman Stefan Bergel, and then can't get him out of her mind.

In occupied Poland, Ewa Hartman hosts German officers in her father's guest house, while secretly gathering intelligence for the Polish resistance. Mourning her lover, Stefan, who was captured by the Soviets at the start of the war, Ewa is shocked to him on the street one day.

Haunted by a terrible choice he made in captivity, Stefan asks Vee and Ewa to help him expose one of the darkest secrets of the war. But it is not clear where everyone's loyalties lie until they are tested...

Published to coincide with the 75th anniversary of VE Day and based on WWII war atrocity the Katyn massacre, When We Fall is a moving story of three lives forever altered by one fatal choice.’

What that fatal choice is I refuse to divulge as I don’t do spoilers, you’re going to have to read the book for yourself. But it is an absorbing read. Not only are we are treated to a swashbuckling world war two story that is gripping and exciting but it also highlights one of those chilling events of war that can go under the radar unless writers like Ms. Kirby draws our attention to them.  

The research, as ever, is impeccable. You feel as if you’re in the cockpit with Vee . I can only presume that Carolyn Kirby actually flew a plane to achieve this level of palpability. You can hear the throb of the propellors and the stuttering reluctance of the engines. You can smell the oily engineery odours of old aircraft. You can smell the sweat of the officer’s mess. The reading becomes a sensory experience almost. 

The triad of characters is complex. I found myself sceptical and mistrusting of Stefan. It was as if Vee and Ewa were pawns. They are well defined characters in a tightly woven plot. Great to have two strong female characters in a war story. But none of these components have any worth unless thery are embedded in an effective narrative.  

Trust me they are. 

My thanks to Paru of No Exit Press and Oldcastle Books for a proof.