The Dark Within Them - Isabelle Kenyon - Blog Tour

 

I can't remember exactly when my association with Isabelle Kenyon and Fly on the Wall Press began but it's been a few years now and I have found her to be such a generous and supportive tour organiser. Some wonderful books have come my way, poets and writers who I might not have come across otherwise. I remember buying a copy of Isabelle's short story Andy and the Octopuses a while ago and being impressed by her quirky and original concept. So I had no hesitation in preordering a copy of her first novel, The Dark Within Them.

I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting from the book but it certainly wasn't this at all! A thriller set in a Mormon community in Utah! Oh my word! What a tale! It had me on the edge of my seat wondering what the hell was going to happen next! 

From the opening chapter the story is a thrill ride with dips and turns that will have you open mouthed in disbelief. Using a dual narrative between Amber and Chad the story of their ill-fated marriage unfolds cleverly with a beautifully constructed narrative that drips feeds its readers with a smattering of clues here and there. And yet all the way through there is a chilling undercurrent of iniquity. 

The characters are hard to like!! But I think that's intentional. You begin by starting to like both Amber and Chad but that doesn't last long, not for me anyway! I could smell trouble! The kids are more likeable but their teenage, hormonal attitudes irked me at times. However I'll let them off! Because they were catapulted into an untenable situation. I thought that if Amber could extricate herself from the toxic environment there was some hope and redemption for her.

The plotting is perfect and the way the tension is built up throughout the book creates such a state of unease and jeopardy. But much is achieved through the careful placing of clues and signs that aren't direct but more subtle, demanding the reader pay attention and interpret what is right under their noses. 

If it's 'just' a story you want then you have one in abundance but if you want a little more from your fiction then you have that too for there is much to think about regarding organised religion and its attitudes, family life and relationships, friendships and spirituality, motivation and justification.

This is a cracking debut and I can't wait for the next book from Isabelle!

My thanks to Isabelle Kenyon and Fly on the Wall Press for sending me my pre-ordered copy early so I could have a place on the blog tour. 

Mania - Lionel Shriver

 

Oh my, this is delicious! Shriver at her outspoken best! A dystopian alternate timeline novel, from 2011 to 2027, that could be a parable for our times. Astute, perceptive the story demonstrates what can happen when one point of view is taken to its limits by a minority and spirals out of controlled control! 

Here, it is intelligence that is for the chopping board!! Mental Parity is the new buzzword, the correct PC term for a whole nation. It basically means that everyone’s brains are equal, there is no such thing as a clever person or a stupid one.  Anyone can do any job they fancy. All references to anyone being dumb or stupid together with a whole lexicon of forbidden terms carry sanctions.

 

The central character is Pearson Converse and what a delightful play on words than name is! I also thought that the character may have much in common with Lionel Shriver herself!  Forgive me if I’m wrong! ’d prefer not to give too much away. But Pearson, having been raised by Jehovah’s Witnesses and subject to that extreme dogma, manages to escape it but then finds herself in the middle of a different regime that still threatens her freedom. 

 

Her best friend Emory Ruth is one of those ubiquitous folks who runs with the herd, to fit in maybe, to have an easier life perhaps, in Emory’s case much is to further her career, but will happily change opinion when the tide turns, an archetypal hypocrite.

 

Pearson Converse is no sheep, but she pays a heavy price for refusing to embrace the Mental Parity ideology. 

 

Shriver is an erudite author, and I got the feeling that much of this book was an eloquent expression of her own disquiet with the world as it is today. It is set in the US so some of the politics may be elusive for readers across the pond but the points being made are not elusive in the least. 

 

It's a tour de force with some humour but much latent anger. Shriver’s vocabulary is to be envied, it’s expansive and intelligent. But the book may be divisive. I imagine some book groups will enjoy some heated discussions!

It is thought provoking too and I hope it is not prophetic.

 

My thanks to Readers First where I was lucky enough to win a copy in one of their draws. 

3 Shades of Blue Miles David John Coltrane Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool - James Kaplan

 

It took me longer than usual to read this book. Why? Was it difficult to read? Poorly written? No, no and no! Quite the reverse. It was so well written it had me plundering my CD collection to listen to Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme more than once not to mention some Thelonious Monk. For me this book gave the music an added nuance if that were even possible. 

This is a niche book for jazz lovers, particularly bebop fans and fear not if Davis, Coltrane and Evans aren't necessarily your bag because the whole book reads like a Who's Who of jazz. So you get an insight that goes beyond our titular trio. Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderly, Max Roach, Chet Baker - I could go on. But I guess it's a volume that might also appeal to music historians keen to see how jazz reached a kind of peak in the fifties and sixties. I suppose, too, sociology buffs might also be interested in the drug culture that seems almost endemic amongst the jazz fraternity. 

Coltrane, Davis and Evans all played on the seminal Davis album Kind of Blue often considered to be the best jazz album ever. This book looks at how those three guys arrived at that place and where they went afterwards. 

Kaplan digs deep and gives us the musicians warts and all. He seems to reach the heart and depth of all three men teasing out what made them all tick. He shows their place amongst their peers and critics. But most importantly he shows their commitment to music and their own creative development. And I defy anyone reading NOT to go scuttling off to listen! 

Books like these can often be quite dry, the passion and enthusiasm for the subject matter paradoxically rendering the narrative narrow and over detailed. But Kaplan doesn't fall into that trap. This book is very readable and the flowing style encourages you to read on. Yes, there's some musical technical language but it isn't hard to understand especially if you have an interest in music form. 

You come away from the book feeling like you've got to know the three players a little better and more significantly you can understand their music a little better. 

I absolutely loved this book and am so grateful to Olivia-Savannah Roach of Canongate Books for sending me a gifted copy. 

February Round Up

 

I’m not one of these readers who set themselves reading goals. I read what I read when I read it. Some choices are dictated by proofs, arcs and blog tours but they’re fewer now than ever so I can indulge in my own selections. 

 

Speaking in Tongues – Jeffery Deaver 

I was sent this book as part of a book bundle at Christmas from my sister. I’d read a couple of Jeffery's novels before so thought I knew what to expect but whilst I found this gripping it wasn’t a pleasant read. 

 

The Fox Wife – Yangsze Choo

I was so thrilled to receive an advance copy of this book from a publisher who I thought had dropped me off their lists years ago. I read The Night Tiger as part of a buddy read initiated on social media and it was a lot of fun. The book will stay with me forever particularly the character of Ren. This latest offering from this author is a shapeshifting homage to the fox, full of intrigue and mystery and no less haunting than The Night Tiger.

 

Poor Things – Alasdair Gray

I borrowed this from the library as I was intrigued by the film buzz. I haven’t seen the film yet, but Emma Stone is one of my favourite actresses and I see that she won a BAFTA for her performance.  I expect I’ll wait for it to be shown on TV. I thought the book was a vehicle for the author’s political and sociological opinions, but it was certainly a phantasmagoria of a book!

 

The Dark Within Them – Isabelle Kenyon

Isabelle Kenyon is an independent publisher at Fly on the Wall Press. She often invites me to participate in blog tours and is understanding of my need for physical books. As a blog tour organiser, she is one of the most supportive and encouraging I’ve worked with. So, I preordered a copy of her book because I was interested, and I wanted to support her back. I didn’t know what to expect with this book, but I could never have imagined this. – a thriller set in a Mormon community in Utah! It’s quite a dark tale with plenty of twists and turns, plenty to keep me guessing.

 

The Sanatorium – Sarah Pearse

I had seen this book on social media, and I chose it as a prize from a publisher following my participation in a bookish community. I found it to be gripping and tense and heading towards the ‘unputdownable’ genre although I felt it fell away a little towards the end. That didn’t stop me borrowing the next in the series The Retreat, which I’m reading currently. 

 

Umbilical – Teika Marija Smits

This was a collection of short stories sent by the author herself after soliciting for my attention on social media. Always a gamble when a writer does this, but I go with my instincts and my gut told me this was sound. I wasn’t wrong. It’s a highly readable collection of sci fi, fantasy type stories with many allusions from mythology and folk lore.

 

3 Shades of Blue – James Kaplan

This was brilliant. I was offered a copy form the publisher on the strength of a previous request I made for a music genre book. The book looks at the development of jazz from the bebop era using the lives and careers of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Bill Evans as the focus of the book. It is a feast for jazz fans and ever since reading I’ve been playing nothing but the music of these giants of the genre. 

New Gillion Street - Elliot J Harper - Blog Tour

 Okay, listen up. Don't read this book. I FORBID you to read this book. Unless.......unless.....you have an imagination as wide as the ocean and as deep as a bottomless pit. The author has so it seems only fair that the reader should too, and trust me, you will need it and it will stand you in good stead.

In politically-neutral Neo-Yuthea, Albert Smith's orderly life is disrupted when Mr Zand campaigns for Mayor.

Shocking deaths caused by strange forest creatures, enforced arranged marriages, and the impending suppression of Albert's secret garden meetings bring the community to the brink of chaos.

Albert and his neighbours must rally together, resisting the encroaching darkness, and fighting for their freedom before their world crumbles.'

Elliot J Harper has  created an immersive landscape, possibly in a galaxy far, far away, but this doesn't hit you as a stereotypical science fiction novel in terms of planet hopping in spaceships and hurtling through hyperspace. There's elements of speculative and fantasy fiction too. One of the things I enjoyed was the paradox of describing fairly normal and straightforward pursuits, like drinking tea, familiar to us in our present day earth alongside some weird and otherworldly happenings, not to mention hanging out with some weird and wonderful otherworldly beings!

New Gillion Street is a settlement created and populated by survivors of a space ship crash after they left Yuthea (which I think we can interpret as earth) to seek a new life elsewhere. The planet upon which they landed was already populated and those 'indigenous' inhabitants aided the survivors to create a new society on the understanding that they remain separate. Neither strays into the domain of the other. And it works. For a while. 

The Odds and Evens reminded me of Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses, so the seeds of a division are sewn early on. I also thought of Animal Farm, 'all animals are equal but some are more equal than others' when Mr. Zand decides to assert himself as a leader. But if all that sounds like stuff you've read before you won't have been bargaining on the expansive imagination of Mr. Harper. The world created is like none you've ever visited with overwhelming beauty and characters that range from a talking, swearing garden gnome to the Narda, a peaceful and wise race who I wish would populate earth, right here, right now. 

I wouldn't want to plot spoil because exploring that is one of the joys of the book but also words are inadequate to truly describe how the initial narrative explodes into a landscape so far removed from all that we know. It had me thinking of the author, whatever he's on, I want some! 

But it isn't just an intergalactic fun romp there's some serious intent behind the story. I mentioned Animal Farm? The character of Mr. Zand prompted that with his aspirations, his devious contriving, to bend the inhabitants of New Gillion Street to his will. These sequences illustrate the frailty of life's infrastructures and how in the wrong hands the changes can become devastating. There's a political undercurrent to the book but fear not if politics isn't your bag because it doesn't dominate and the book also has plenty to say about love on many levels. 

The writing sparkles along with pace and clarity reaching a conclusion that should satisfy us all. Even the facking gnome.😉

My thanks to Isabelle Kenyon of Fly on the Wall Press for a gifted copy and a place upon the blog tour.

Umbilical - Teika Marija Smits

 

I look at the best seller lists sometimes and I find myself thinking, why? I receive a book like Umbilical and I find myself asking the same question. But for a different reason. Why hadn't I heard of this book before I was sent a copy? Why isn't it all over social media? I've seen and read books that have been splashed about all over the place and they aren't half as good as this. I know that short stories don't always get the accolades they deserve. I long for that to change. It would be fantastic if this were the book to do that. 

As a book blogger I am sometimes asked directly by authors if I would care to read and review their books. My decision rests on my own gut instinct, and whether there's a physical copy because I can't bear e-reading. Often that's the end of the story and I get it because economically and environmentally ebooks make sense. But every once in a while an author is willing to send me a paper copy and I am always very grateful that they are willing to invest in my humble opinions. When this writer approached me via social media my instinct radar started buzzing even though the genres listed weren't amongst my favourites, I don't do horror! (As a young teen the Pan Book of Horror Stories Volumes 1 and 2 did the rounds in the playground and I think they scarred me for life! ) But instinct rules, and a sample story which I did e-read convinced me that I would find something in this debut collection of short stories.

However I wasn't prepared for just how good this collection is. This is writing of quality, compassion and intelligence. Each story is different and original but there is a cohesion that binds them all together. I particularly liked how the opening poem is referenced again in the concluding story, such a subtle move but so effective.  

There is an almost futuristic fairy tale quality to many of the stories and although they may appear benignly different initially there are threads and themes running though the entire collection which offers the reader a pleasing cohesion. The Greek myths provide a wealth of inspiration for some tales, Theseus, Icarus, Daedalus, characters from global folk lore, Baba Yaga, Bluebeard and The Green Man, some literary heroes, Sherlock Holmes and they all nestle alongside some deliciously futuristic scenarios -  instead of an engineer coming to service your boiler, in the opening story he comes to service the AI ! For some reason I thought of Hal and 2001:A Space Odyssey as I read of Marvin, so called because he hears things through the grapevine! If you don't get that allusion then you're not as old as me! Little touches like those were a delight to encounter as I wove my way through the narratives, enchanted by the creativity and the unfettered imagination of this author. 

Thematically the stories are diverse and in the hands of a lesser writer it might not work as a collection but it does here because there are subtle strands that knit the stories together.  They are not overtly feminist stories yet the female as an archetype populates many of the stories whether they are set in some dystopian future or a 19th century past. The bind between mothers and daughters is wonderfully explored in the titular Umbilical. Parenting, marriage, miscarriage are all compassionately explored in other stories. 

As a metaphor the labyrinth appears in a couple of stories, most effectively in the concluding story The  November Room, one of my favourites, and you come away from the book feeling that you have in some way navigated the labyrinth of life in so many of its aspects. 

There's nothing superficial about these tales, they are at times deep and challenging but redemption is never far away. It is a considerable skill to explore intense themes without descending into bleakness and negativity and to offer hope to the reader. 

My thanks to the author Teika Marija Smits who offered and gifted me a copy, and my thanks to my instinct that urged me to accept. 

You could treat yourself and buy a copy - http://www.newconpress.co.uk/info/book.asp?id=229&referer=Catalogue

The Fox Wife - Yangtze Choo

 

I will confess that I struggled to start reading this book. Why, I hear you ask? Because I knew that once started I would read on and on until I had finished and once read it couldn't be unread. And I knew it would be one of those books where I would feel sad that I'd finished it because I would want it to go on forever and there may be quite a wait before the author's next book! Yangtze Choo is one of those authors who you could never call prolific but the old adage 'quality not quantity' applies here. I fell in love with this author's work when I read The Night Tiger. I was lucky enough to snaffle a proof before its 2019 publication date and I was also lucky enough to participate in a social media buddy read organised by the publisher Quercus Books. The book and that experience will stay with me for ever. 

The Fox Wife is a very different book in terms of content but the themes are still there, an element of fantasy, the nature of creatures and their place in our world, the convergence of humans, animals and spirits.

Foxes sometimes get a bad rap. Certainly in the UK urban foxes have become a familiar part of the landscape. I have one who visits regularly and gave birth to four cubs last season to the frustration of some neighbours around me and to the delight of myself! There is a certain mystique that they carry with them, in part through their physical appearance in that sense sometimes that they are laughing at you and something more, something undefined yet present in an other wordily sense.

That sense is captured here in the novel. 

'Manchuria, 1908.
In the last years of the dying Qing Empire, a courtesan is found frozen in a doorway. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and handsome men. Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman's identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they've remained tantalizingly out of reach--until, perhaps, now. 

Meanwhile, a family who owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments but can't escape the curse that afflicts them--their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. When a disruptively winsome servant named Snow enters their household, the family's luck seems to change--or does it? 

Snow is a creature of many secrets, but most of all she's a mother seeking vengeance for her lost child. Hunting a murderer, she will follow the trail from northern China to Japan, while Bao follows doggedly behind. Navigating the myths and misconceptions of fox spirits, both Snow and Bao will encounter old friends and new foes, even as more deaths occur.'

Although we are given a year when the novel starts there is a timelessness to the narrative, a fey, almost dreamy sense as we begin our journey with Snow and Bao. It's a slow start, measured and controlled, offering us information, thoughts to conjure with, the reader can settle and adjust to an ambience of the Orient and a culture probably very different from the one they are used to. The notion of shapeshifting is fundamental to embracing the story. The mythology of foxes, so important in Chinese lore,  is prevalent and a sense of folk mythos, enigmatic yet tantalising. 

The chapters shift between Snow's perspective and Bao's. Both are on journeys with different intents; Snow to find a murderer and Bao to uncover the identity of a murdered courtesan. I loved the way the story progressed and developed as you feel the convergence of their two paths approaching.

Yangtze Choo's writing is hypnotic, mesmerising almost. Her characterisations are so empathic that even if a character is of dubious integrity there remains a draw, a pull, a desire to find the good in them. And the atmosphere she creates is almost surreal. And yet as well as being full of ethereal mystery it is also a detective tale! 

I feel credit too must be observed for the historical aspects of the novel, some serious research has been undertaken here and it all reads so authentically.  

My thanks to Ana McLaughlin at Quercus Books for a gifted proof.