June Wrap-Up

 

First up this month was Liv Constantine's The Next Mrs. Parrish. Astute readers of this blog ( and I'm chuckling here because I don't think there are any readers of this blog let alone astute ones! 😂) will remember that May ended with The Last Mrs. Parrish which I read quickly and in preparation for this follow up. I reviewed it on the blog'

https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-next-mrs-parrish-liv-constantine.html

My local bookshop has been hosting several writer events. Often they are local authors. Tim Burrows, a freelance journalist, wrote a book about the county of Essex. It is an attempt to dispel the myths about Essex and explode the stereotypical ideas of Essex Girl and Essex Man. It's fascinating. I am ambivalent towards Essex even though I live here. I don't love it. There are bits of it I like. This book makes it sound like an okay place.

The Maid by Nita Prose was one of my 'walking books'. So it was read on the kindle app on my phone. Not my favourite method of reading but better than not reading. I loved it ! I loved the character of Molly, clearly on the spectrum, and well observed by the author. It was an absorbing whodunnit as well.

I've read all of Kate Morton's books. Homecoming is the seventh and didn't disappoint. She is a natural story teller and her stories are often what I like to call 'big house' stories. This book alternates between two different timelines - 1959 and 2018 - and is a slow reveal of the events that surrounded the tragedy of the Turner family. Lots of twists and turns, some you see coming, others you don't. In this story the big house is called Halcyon and the action takes place in Australia.

Next up was a book that has been on my radar for a while. The Island Missing of Trees by Elif Shafak. I think it is the only book I have ever come across where one of the main characters is a fig tree! Genius. It's a beautiful, moving book that looks at the conflict between Turkey and Cyprus.  It's about love and loss and family and heritage. 

Fiona Cummins is a writer who has been on my radar for a while. I didn't realise that she is a local author and I met her at my bookshop where she came to help out for a morning during Independent Book store week.  She was lovely  to talk to and I can't believe how someone so nice can come up with such brutal and fiendish characters and twisty plots! 😂 She told me she would be returning to the bookshop in August so I am determined to read all her books by then. I started with her current book, All of Us are Broken. I’ve just finished When I was Ten and I've just started The Neighbour. I have another reserved at my local library so that means I will have just a couple to go before August if I can stay on target. They are truly UNPUTDOWNABLES!

My friend lost her Mum last October and I've been trying to support her and help her through the worst of bereavement. I remember so well what it feels like.Her Mum was an avid reader and River God by Wilbur Smith was her favourite book. My friend asked me if I would like to borrow it. I said yes but it’s sat on my shelf for a while now and I’ve been feeling bad that I had left it. So I made sure I read it this month and I enjoyed it very much. It’s pure adventure , a kind of Egyptian Game of Thrones! Smith is an experienced writer and I think my own Mum liked his books too. 

And lastly this month is a debut novel from Nikkitha Bakshani. Ghost Chilli! This was one of those delightful books about which I had zero expectations. I knew nothing the author and I just went into it blind, and it was a delight. Funny, touching, a beautifully paced narrative that just moves smoothly along. There were times when I wanted to just hug Muskan and other times when I wanted to give her a good shake! She is quite the character. 

The Next Mrs. Parrish - Liv Constantine

 

I have always believed honesty is the best policy so I will admit that when I received a copy of this book I had not read the first in the series - The Last Mrs. Parrish. But because I am diligent and thorough I tried to put in a request at my local library for a copy. But the Library's online system was down undergoing some lengthy maintenance so I ended up getting a copy for the kindle. There. I've said it. Me, who loathes kindles is such a dedicated reader and book blogger that I endured the dreaded device so that I could read the first book in preparation for the next! 

So I read the books back to back, and frankly after reading the first one I was so full of disgust for Jackson and Amber that I wasn't sure if I could endure another book featuring them so soon. But, I did. Of course I did! 

And the first thing that occupied my thoughts was how can such a fiendish plot can be created? How are minds capable of such vileness?! And how can a book that is a tale of nasty, despicable, manipulative, fraudulent people doing nasty, despicable, manipulative, fraudulent things to reasonably decent people who resort to devious behaviour simply to survive and find out the truth be so damned compelling!!?? I couldn't put the wretched book down!!! 🤣🤣 Also I was reminded slightly of The Talented Mr. Ripley and of Virginia Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic series where there seemed no end to dreadful behaviours. I also realised that I could have read the second without the first because I think it stands up as a standalone ok but I wondered how quickly I would have loathed Amber and Jackson without reading the first. 

But I'm rambling a bit. Let's get to the nitty gritty. The Next Mrs. Parrish is a thriller with lots of suspense as well as a psychological domestic tale. The characters play cat and mouse with each other throughout and there are twists and turns around every chapter! The duplicity of the two main characters is unsurpassed. I think. But the naivety of Daphne sometimes made me want to slap her! 

Briefly Daphne was married to Jackson in an abusive car crash of a marriage that ended when he succumbed to the charms of the obnoxious Amber Patterson. Jackson ends up in jail for tax evasion. That's the first book in an extreme nutshell. The second begins as Jackson's release from prison become imminent and Amber has to begin a new round of conniving and scheming. Meanwhile ex wife Daphne seemingly safe in California has to contend with her eldest daughter running away to try and see her beloved father. Throw in to the mix a blast from Amber's past and the stage is set for a tour de force of deceit, two faced, dishonourable machinations between the lot of them!! The only characters I really felt consistently sorry for were the children, especially Jax and even Tallulah who really was the catalyst for much of what followed. 

Structurally the tale is told in the third person with the exception of Daphne's story which is told in the first person, an interesting device which is more likely to engage the reader positively towards Daphne. 

The narrative stays focused, more so perhaps than in the first book? There is much that you simply can't second guess in terms of the twists and turns that it almost unbalances the reader. It's pretty well paced and simply so compelling. 

The ending was good and I can see a way for another book but I wonder if that would be a mistake? I think I would find it too stressful!!

I was interested to learn that the author is in fact two people! Two sisters. I wondered what their roles might be in the writing of the books. Are they both responsible for these fiendish plots? 🤣

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

This is where I find the softest hurt - Christiana Jasutan

 This is where I find the softest hurt  is a debut chap book of delicate words from emerging poet Christiana Jasutan. 

The collection comprises work of differing form and style from concrete poetry, prose poetry, dialogue poetry, alongside more traditional stanza driven poetry. The diversity is refreshing. 

Thematically the poems examine the body and its relationship with the self within the context of life itself, the highs and the lows, the hurts and the pleasures. 

This is set very firmly within the opening poem in the collection - Morning Ritual - a poem with four parts that illustrate the different forms ( I loved the egg shaped part that seemed to celebrate the notion that the egg contains all that is needed for life, including love) as well as the almost symbiosis between the body and the life it is living. The inclusion of some Indonesian words also features here and is evident in other poems in the pamphlet. I was grateful for Google translate!

The poet is a keen observer of the human condition -

'Thins the lesson of cooking,

of separating life with (dis)jointed fingers,

that washing the leaves under cold water

before splitting them to sections.'

Food features prominently too in several of the poems, I especially enjoyed Kitchen - 

'it still tastes heavenly; not entirely soup and not entirely cream

but this might be what our friendship is like: flavours bursting

in your mouth that go straight to your heart.'

 I particularly liked Phantom Limbs. The poem is a clever comparison of seeing yearning. and missing as the same sensation an amputee experiences with a phantom limb. 

'Not every distance is the cause of an amputation,

yet every kilometre - a phantom limb to behold.'

Here the poet seems to be missing her mum and addresses her in Indonesian. It's delightful. 

The future of poetry is safe and well in the hands and pens of young poets like Christina Jasutan. It's very exciting.

My thanks to Isabelle Kenyon for a gifted copy of the poems and a place upon the blog tour. 

May Round-Up

 A fiction month with a smattering of poetry and only two library books. But.... two ebooks. Yikes!

I began the month with SJ Bradley's Maps of Imaginary Towns. It isn't published yet so I won't blog until publication day - September 27th 2024. It's a diverse short story collection where the majority of stories are open ended and begging for the reader to form not necessarily their own conclusion but their own interpretations of what might happen next. 

Next up Was Stacey Halls' The Foundling. I had recently read The Household which motivated me too seek out another of her books. I did blog about this one! https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-household-stacey-halls.html 

Claire Douglas' The Wrong Sister was a Tandem Collective mail out. I'd never read any of this author's books before but I hope to rectify this. I was gripped. It was genuinely unputdownable. https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-wrong-sister-claire-douglas.html

I like to walk. But as I've aged and arthritis has taken such a hold I find myself needing to sit down more frequently to let my hurting joints recover a bit. I'm happy to view the natural landscapes abut I also like to read. And so I have the kindle app on my phone. I don't enjoy reading on a kindle but I've found that reading a couple of chapters allows my body to recharge enough to carry on walking. It takes me a longer time to read a book this way but I will admit to finding it enjoyable. I finished Linda Huber's The Cold, Cold, Sea a tense missing child story.

Kate Grenville's A Room Made of Leaves was my next read. A delightful piece of antipodean hisfic.

https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2024/05/a-room-made-of-leaves-kate-grenville.html

Poetry was my next stop. It is for a blog tour in June so the blog post will be ready a little later. Christiana Jasutan is a young poet and This is where I find the softest hurt is her debut collection exploring the relationship between the body and the world using a variety of style and form. 

Lying Perfectly Still by Laura Fish isn't published until October 2024 so my review is not due yet. It is about Koliwe who leaves the UK for a job as an aid worker in Swaziland. The novel examines some of the corruption within the system. 

Another Kate Grenville story. This time The Secret River which tells the tale of one of Grenville's ancestors sent to Oz as a convict in the nineteenth century. I reviewed it. https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-secret-river-kate-grenville.html

A new book by Sarah Perry is always a treat. I reserved this at my local library. and they had to send out to another library to get a copy! Ambitious, complex and beautifully written, Enlightenment had me rapt.

I was lucky enough to be sent a finished copy of Liv Constantine's The Next Mrs Parrish. But first I needed to read The Last Mrs. Parrish! And quick. So I did. But on the dreaded kindle. That's two books on the kindle this month. What's happening to me?!

The Secret River - Kate Grenville

If I'm honest the enduring feeling I have after reading this book is one of anger. Not because it isn't a good book! Goodness me, no. But anger at what was done to the Aboriginal people of Australia. And yet the book is a story of one man overcoming the, odds and fulfilling in part, his dream. 

The protagonist, William Thornhill, is a convict sent to New South Wales. The character is inspired by one of Kate Grenville's own ancestors. In making the best of his situation Thornhill becomes enamoured of a piece of land that he wishes to have for his own. To the settlers and convicts it seemed that all you needed to do was claim it for yourself and, hey presto, you're a landowner. But the taking of the land is really tantamount to theft - theft from the indigenous people who have tended it for generation after generation. 

It's a novel breathtaking in its descriptive beauty of the antipodean landscape yet graphic in its treatment of the brutality afforded the Darug people. It's an uncompromising tale with an undercurrent that suggests impending doom all the way through. 

What Kate Grenville does so cleverly with the character of Thornhill is make us believe that his humanity might win through and that he is not as base as some of his vile compatriots. So the reader doesn't necessarily dislike him for that hope remains.

His wife, Sal, was one of my favourite characters, loyal to her husband yet surely in an undesirable. situation not of her own making. I suppose that anyone in such circumstances will strive to do the best they can. Here making a living from the land was almost the only option but there was no sense of the settlers working in tandem with people already working that land. Instead they foisted their own ways without consideration.  Sal seems to be one of the few who might just make an effort to co exist.

Broadly the novel exposes the clash of cultures and the disastrous outcomes that can cause. It's solid prose that is slow in places but conjures expertly the tenor of the times. The research is impeccable and there is no faltering for the reader of the sense that you are there in nineteenth century Australia. 

My thanks to  Canongate books for a gifted copy. 

And I Will Make of You a Vowel Sound - Morag Anderson

 

In recent years, perhaps credit must go to the #MeToo movement, women’s voices are much more prevalent than they may have been in the past. So it’s no surprise that poetry, too, celebrates and documents the lives of women. Which brings us to this collection of poems by Moran Anderson. 

From the very first poem in the collection 'A Woman Stops Writing a Poem' (very relatable for an errant scribbler such as myself) the moods and theme of the collection is cemented. Celebrating, perhaps, chronicling, maybe, but offering voice certainly to the disempowered females from now and then. A paradox of gracefulness and fierce anger Anderson looks at all the stages of womanhood. 

Acknowledging  the influence of several different poets Anderson observes females from childhood through the stages of life and differing social standings and situations. From neglected children Mandy at Number 9 - 'Dry-mouthed from want of milk she learns to fear her mother’s breast,' - to the loss of a child from the sibling perspective, Portrait of my Father with a Saw - 'Loss—a thorn that cannot be drawn by clenched teeth or the heat of a daughter’s need.' - Anderson delves deep into that intuitive place that allows the poet to give voice to a plethora of emotions and perceptions that might otherwise go unnoticed. The Scottish heritage is never far from the surface of the poems, historically and culturally, 'Bleak Greenock morning skulks the empty dock, herringbone sky billows like the Nancy’s sails.' and 'You walk worn muscles to the corrugated camp, pray for sleep’s deep trench, stroll with me on Donegal’s bladderwrack shores.'

I found The Shoplifter very powerful. Succinctly the writer has expressed the paradox of being a woman and being a mother, where the two states might converge or diverge. But I think one of my favourite poems in the collection is No Ordinary Tuesday 2001. That Tuesday was September 11th and I think it resonated with me so acutely because I was in Canada at the time and watched events unfold in real time on the TV in utter disbelief. The poignancy of the protagonist acknowledging her unborn child against the death leap of a woman from one of the towers is so pertinent, so subtle.

But perhaps it is the concluding poem that really does it for me! Prefaced by a quotation from the Scottish Dylan Thomas, W.S. Graham Last Boat Home it also gives us the title of the entire collection and, if I may, I'd like to quote in full.

'LAST BOAT HOME

for Katherine

‘Bear these words in mind

as they bear me soundly

beyond my reach’

- W.S. Graham

Though I fade like sailors’ footprints, 

do not moulder
under grief’s woollen blanket.

When the ocean knocks at your wind-scraped door

 rise to greet me,

the first Atlantic bite.

When simmer dim’s lamp is trimmed bright and clear,

 find me trailing west—
the last knuckle of light.

When words freight your untilled tongue, 

sit by a rogue of stones at Scurrival
and sing.

In the bittersweet lull between two days, 

open your mouth
to salted air—

and I will make of you a vowel sound.'

My thanks to Isabelle Kenyon at Fly on the Wall Press for a pdf of this collection to be published on May 24th 2024 available from 

https://www.flyonthewallpress.co.uk/product-page/and-i-will-make-of-you-a-vowel-sound

A Room Made of Leaves - Kate Grenville

 

As with Restless Dolly Maunder I had the sense that Kate Grenville was once again giving voice to another ordinary woman unwilling to be defined by marriage, the age and the culture she was born into. 

John Macarthur is a real historical figure, (I know this because I googled him!) who married Elizabeth Veale a Devonshire  farm lass and relocated to Australia. The story is based on the frank and expansive memoirs of Elizabeth. 

The marriage is not a happy one. Macarthur is a devious and almost vindictive man but both he and Elizabeth forge a marriage that seems to flourish on the outside whilst Elizabeth hides her true feelings. Her husband reads all her outgoing letters so she cannot even confide in her best friend. But where there is a will there is a way and Elizabeth finds outlets and fulfilment of a kind.

John Macarthur gained some attention for being the founder of the Australian wool industry yet the backbone of these achievements were surely down to Elizabeth. 

Structurally the book relies completely on the diary form which as the authors note advises us is constructed from Elizabeth's journal. 

'I've done nothing more than transcribe the papers in the box. Of course, I had to use my imagination where the faded old ink was impossible to read, and I spent considerable time arranging the fragments in what I judged to be the best order, but beyond that I've let Elizabeth Macarthur tell her own story.'

Elizabeth McArthur certainly had a way with words then but I cannot help wondering whether the ink was faded throughout the entire manuscript! 😉 There is an intriguing quotation from Elizabeth Macarthur before the book begins - 'Do not believe too quickly!'  

As one might expect from Kate Grenville the writing is confident and assured. She knows how to tell a story and her research is impeccable. I found myself engaged with Elizabeth but also with the indigenous people of the Antipodes. In fact if I had a criticism of the book I would have liked more of these people and their struggle. The battle of Parramatta is documented and Pemulwuy, the Aboriginal Resistance leader features. But as the story of one woman who makes the best of her situation it is superlative.

My thanks to Canongate Books for my gifted copy.