Mrs. Pankhurst’s Purple Feather/ Etta Lemon The Woman Who Saved the Birds - Tessa Boase

 Some years ago, my sister bought me gift membership of the RSPB and renews it for me annually. I probably don’t make as much use of it as I could as there are no reserves especially near to me, but I enjoy flicking through the magazine each month and I always participate in the Great British Birdwatch each January. Yet I’ve never given a single thought to the origins of the charity. The RSPB. It just IS!

I recently joined an online event from Kensington and Chelsea libraries – Fashion, Fury, and Feathers: Women’s Fight for Change with Tessa Boase. It was an illuminating talk, and I learned a great deal about millinery in the Victorian age, the cruelty unleashed on numerous species of birds, and…… some incredible women. I guess the mark of a good talk is if it sends you hurtling off to find out more. I did. Go hurtling off to find out more! Tessa Boase’s book Etta Lemon – The Woman Who Saved the Birds was my starting point. So I tried to reserve a copy at my local library but the search came up with a different book – Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather, same book, different title - “a rose by any other name “. The copy, secured and collected, I began reading on International Women’s Day, which seemed like an auspicious day to start the book.

I was hoping to find out more concerning the RSPB and its origins. I did, but I also found out so very much more. Several women were pivotal in shaping the organisation, but very little is known about them - Emily Williamson founded the RSPB over tea in her living room in 1889. But the book looks closely at two lives in parallel, Etta Lemon and Emmeline Pankhurst, two very different women with opposing views and contrasting modus operandi. But it shows that when your temperament, be it the quiet dignity of Etta Lemon or the forceful militance of Mrs Pankhurst, combined with sufficient determination and doggedness can eventually bring about change. Of course Mrs Pankhurst needs little introduction, but I had never heard of Etta Lemon before Ms. Boase’s talk, let alone the instrumental part she played in creating the RSPB.

In an accessible narrative, not bogged down by academic jargon and padding, the book, gives us a detailed account of the millinery industry of the 19th century, the lives of its workers from those women and children, who “willowed” ostrich plumes by hand, to the feather manufacturers of the East End. The research is thorough and impeccable. Running alongside this scenario is the Suffragette movement and the development of anti suffrage which you might determine to have little to do with millinery and the RSPB, except the book is also about women and the transformation of a society, about conservation and its legacy.

Today, we are appalled at the procuring of egret plumes, how the young birds are left to starve after the murder of the parent birds for their feathers. So I’m glad to know of Etta Lemon’s single-mindedness and commitment to those birds who have the most beautiful voices but not necessarily those we can comprehend if they scream in pain and outrage. They need voices like Etta’s to heighten public consciousness. Reading more about her shows interests and causes that extended beyond ornithology.

The book also made me wonder how many other people there are in history who have quietly done great things but have gone largely unnoticed? It’s a curious world we live in. Today, social media is redolent with “influencers” posting eye-catching photos and vibrant videos. One sometimes gets the sense that they’re trying to outdo each other instead of focusing on a single issue. My guess is they actually do very little in the way of meaningful influence. But it made me wonder if time could be manipulated, how Etta Lemon and Emmeline Pankhurst would have utilised social media? Mrs Pankhurst would maybe have created hard-hitting reels and videos on TikTok and Instagram. Etta Lemon would have posted meaningful tweets with photos of birds on Twitter!!

Winchelsea - Alex Preston

 Many swashes were buckled in the reading of this immersive tale of Kentish smugglers and Bonnie Prince Charlie!  Sound like a contradiction? And a geographical paradox? Maybe. But anything can happen in the world of fiction. But wait…….. this is historical fiction, and so we have some facts at our fingertips. But we also have Goody Brown, the glue that cements the book together, the fact and the fiction.

At the end of the book, the author refers to the misconception that smuggling was confined to the West Country. It wasn’t. It was very much alive and well in Kent. And this isn’t the first book to deal with smuggling in this part of the world. One thinks of Russell Thorndike‘s Dr.Syn. My father grew up in that part of the country. So I’m familiar with Romney Marsh, Dymchurch and Dungeness. Maybe that gives me an advantage when reading a book like this, because I’ve visited Rye and Winchelsea too. I was instantly taken back to 18th century England and I found the research and the writing to be very evocative.The Hawkhurst gang renowned for their brutality and dominance, an organised crime gang of the 18th century!

Goody Brown is a wonderful character. Multifaceted and multitalented it seems. I found her to be the most defined character in the book. The others were there to play their parts and they did so very well. I found the book to be something of a paradox because on one level, it’s quite simplistic storytelling. A story told very well with plenty of action. But if you scratch beneath the surface, there are some deeper themes and social comment, not to mention political intrigue.

The only part I wasn’t quite so keen on was at the beginning of book 2, when we were treated to a memoir by a character, hitherto unencountered, which was very different in style from the rest of the book and for me, disturbed the rhythm a bit. Progressing further on, I could see its function which confirmed what had been very subliminally hinted at earlier in the book

I read this as part of a readalong with Canongate Books, and I thank them for my gifted copy.

Squeaky Clean - Callum McSorley - Blog Tour

‘Half the Glasgow polis think DI Alison McCoist is bent. The other half just think she’s a fuck up.

No one thinks very much at all about car wash employee Davey Burnet until one day he takes the wrong customer’s motor for a ride.

One kidnapping later, he and the car, wash, are officially part of Glasgow’s criminal underworld, working for a psychopath who enjoys playing games like “Keep yer Kneecaps” with any poor bastard who crosses him.

Can Davey escape from the gang’s clutches with his kneecaps and life intact? 

Perhaps this polis Ally McCoist who keeps roaming round the car wash could help. That’s if she doesn’t get herself killed first.’

 I love the irony of this title, for there is little that is remotely clean in this hard-boiled thriller from an exciting debut novelist, Callum McSorley.

DI Alison McCoist, demoted in task if not rank, is almost but not quite a hapless heroine in this brutal and dark tale of Glasgow’s OC world. There are comedic overtones but it’s one of these books where you find yourself almost feeling guilty for chuckling.

A Glasgow car wash is the central location for much of the action with owner Sean and employees Davey and Tim playing central roles, especially Davey who can’t quite keep on the right side of life.

It would be unfair to give too much of the plot away, but be prepared for some buttock clenching bloodshed, and much tension. It’s an intricate plot and the reader joins alongside McCoist as she unravels the nefarious antics of Glasgow’s underworld, running on hunches and instinct.

Davey was one of those characters, where you find yourself, frequently, almost yelling at the book, no, no, don’t do it! But invariably he does. It is an action of his, that is the catalyst for what happens in the bulk of the novel.

Ally is a very likeable character. Fallen from grace on a previous case, she seems to spend the book trying to redeem herself, not just to the police force, but to her family as well. I understand that this is going to be the first in a series and I’m looking forward to seeing what Ally gets up to next.

These two characters drive the narrative forward. That’s not to say it’s a character lead book, not at all, there’s a great deal of action, not all of it pleasant. But they provide an interesting contrast with each other.

It’s well paced, confident writing that urges you to read on and on to the book’s conclusion.

Callum McSorley is a writer based in Glasgow, whose short stories have appeared in Gutter Magazine, Monstrous Regiment and New Writing Scotland. Squeaky Clean is his debut novel.

My thanks to Kate Wilkinson at Pushkin Press for a gifted copy of the book, and a place upon the blog tour.

Never Never - Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher - FIRST CHAPTER PREVIEW

Charlie Wynwood and Silas Nash have been best friends since they could walk. They've been in love since the age of fourteen. But as of this morning… they are complete strangers. Their first kiss, their first fight, the moment they fell in love… every memory has vanished. Now Charlie and Silas must work together to uncover the truth about what happened to them and why. But the more they learn about the couple they used to be… the more they question why they were ever together to begin with. Forgetting is terrifying but remembering may be worse…   The Number One Sunday Times bestselling author of It Ends with Us joins forces with the New York Times bestselling author of The Wives for a gripping, twisty, romantic mystery unlike any other.

 

1

Charlie

A crash. Books fall to the speckled linoleum floor. They skid a few feet, whirling in circles, and stop near feet. My feet. I don’t recognize the black sandals, or the red toenails, but they move when I tell them to, so they must be mine. Right?

A bell rings. Shrill.

I jump, my heart racing. My eyes move left to right as I scope out my environment, trying not to give myself away.

What kind of bell was that? Where am I?

Kids with backpacks walk briskly into the room, talking and laughing. A school bell. They slide into desks, their voices competing in volume. I see movement at my feet and jerk in surprise. Someone is bent over, gathering up books on the floor; a red-faced girl with glasses. Before she stands up, she looks at me with something like fear and then scurries off. People are laughing. When I look around I think they’re laughing at me, but it’s the girl with glasses they’re looking at.

“Charlie!” someone calls. “Didn’t you see that?” And then, “Charlie…what’s your problem…hello…?”

My heart is beating fast, so fast.

Where is this? Why can’t I remember? “Charlie!” someone hisses. I look around. Who is Charlie? Which one is Charlie?

There are so many kids; blond hair, ratty hair, brown hair, glasses, no glasses…

A man walks in carrying a briefcase. He sets it on the desk.

The teacher. I am in a classroom, and that is the teacher. High school or college? I wonder.

I stand up suddenly. I’m in the wrong place. Everyone is sitting, but I’m standing…walking.

“Where are you going, Miss Wynwood?” The teacher is looking at me over the rim of his glasses as he riffles through a pile of papers. He slaps them down hard on the desk and I jump. I must be Miss Wynwood.

“She has cramps!” someone calls out. People snicker. I feel a chill creep up my back and crawl across the tops of my arms. They’re laughing at me, except I don’t know who these people are.

I hear a girl’s voice say, “Shut up, Michael.”

“I don’t know,” I say, hearing my voice for the first time. It’s too high. I clear my throat and try again. “I don’t know. I’m not supposed to be here.”

There is more laughing. I glance around at the posters on the wall, the faces of presidents animated with dates beneath them. History class? High school.

The man—the teacher—tilts his head to the side like I’ve said the dumbest thing. “And where else are you supposed to be on test day?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Sit down,” he says. I don’t know where I’d go if I left. I turn around to go back. The girl with the glasses glances up at me as I pass her. She looks away almost as quickly.

As soon as I’m sitting, the teacher starts handing out papers. 

He walks between desks, his voice a flat drone as he tells us what percentage of our final grade the test will be. When he reaches my desk he pauses, a deep crease between his eyebrows. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull.” He presses the tip of a fat pointer finger on my desk.

“Whatever it is, I’m sick of it. One more stunt and I’m sending you to the principal’s office.” He slaps the test down in front of me and moves down the line.

I don’t nod, I don’t do anything. I’m trying to decide what to do. Announce to the whole room that I have no idea who and where I am—or pull him aside and tell him quietly. He said no more stunts. My eyes move to the paper in front of me. People are already bent over their tests, pencils scratching.

Fourth Period

History

Mr. Dulcott

There is a space for a name. I’m supposed to write my name, but I don’t know what my name is. Miss Wynwood, he called me.

Why don’t I recognize my own name? Or where I am?

Or what I am?

Every head is bent over their papers except mine. So I sit and stare, straight ahead. Mr. Dulcott glares at me from his desk. The longer I sit, the redder his face becomes.

Time passes and yet my world has stopped. Eventually, Mr. Dulcott stands up, his mouth open to say something to me when the bell rings. “Put your papers on my desk on the way out,” he says, his eyes still on my face. Everyone is filing out of the door. I stand up and follow them because I don’t know what else to do. I keep my eyes on the floor, but I can feel his rage. I don’t understand why he’s so angry with me. I am in a hallway now, lined on either side by blue lockers.

“Charlie!” someone calls. “Charlie, wait up!” A second later, an arm loops through mine. I expect it to be the girl with the glasses; I don’t know why. It’s not. But, I know now that I am Charlie. Charlie Wynwood. “You forgot your bag,” she says, handing over a white backpack. I take it from her, wondering if there’s a wallet with a driver’s license inside. She keeps her arm looped through mine as we walk. She’s shorter than me, with long, dark hair and dewy brown eyes that take up half her face. She is startling and beautiful.

“Why were you acting so weird in there?” she asks. “You knocked the shrimp’s books on the floor and then spaced out.”

I can smell her perfume; it’s familiar and too sweet, like a million flowers competing for attention. I think of the girl with the glasses, the look on her face as she bent to scoop up her books. If I did that, why don’t I remember?

“I—”

“It’s lunch, why are you walking that way?” She pulls me down a different corridor, past more students. They all look at me…little glances. I wonder if they know me, and why I don’t know me. I don’t know why I don’t tell her, tell Mr. Dulcott, grab someone random and tell them that I don’t know who or where I am. By the time I’m seriously entertaining the idea, we’re through a set of double doors in the cafeteria. Noise and color; bodies that all have a unique smell, bright fluorescent lights that make everything look ugly. Oh, God. I clutch at my shirt.

The girl on my arm is babbling. Andrew this, Marcy that. She likes Andrew and hates Marcy. I don’t know who either of them is. She corrals me to the food line. We get salad and Diet Cokes. Then we are sliding our trays on a table. There are already people sitting there: four boys, two girls. I realize we are completing a group with even numbers. All the girls are matched with a guy. Everyone looks up at me expectantly, like I’m supposed to say something, do something. The only place left to sit is next to a guy with dark hair. I sit slowly, both hands flat on the table. His eyes dart toward me and then he bends over his tray of food. I can see the finest beads of sweat on his forehead, just below his hairline.

“You two are so awkward sometimes,” says a new girl, blonde, across from me. She’s looking from me to the guy I’m sitting next to. He looks up from his macaroni and I realize he’s just moving things around on his plate. He hasn’t taken a bite, despite how busy he looks. He looks at me and I look at him, then we both look back at the blonde girl.

“Did something happen that we should know about?” she asks. “No,” we say in unison.

He’s my boyfriend. I know by the way they’re treating us. He suddenly smiles at me with his brilliantly white teeth and reaches to put an arm around my shoulders.

“We’re all good,” he says, squeezing my arm. I automatically stiffen, but when I see the six sets of eyes on my face, I lean in and play along. It’s frightening not knowing who you are—even more frightening thinking you’ll get it wrong. I’m scared now, really scared. It’s gone too far. If I say something now I’ll look…crazy. His affection seems to make everyone relax. Everyone except…him. They go back to talking, but all the words blend together: football, a party, more football. The guy sitting next to me laughs and joins in with their conversation, his arm never straying from my shoulders. They call him Silas. They call me Charlie. The dark-haired girl with the big eyes is Annika. I forget everyone else’s names in the noise.

Lunch is finally over and we all get up. I walk next to Silas, or rather he walks next to me. I have no idea where I’m going. Annika flanks my free side, winding her arms through mine and chatting about cheerleading practice. She’s making me feel claustrophobic. When we reach an annex in the hallway, I lean over and speak to her so only she can hear. “Can you walk me to my next class?” Her face becomes serious. She breaks away to say something to her boyfriend, and then our arms are looped again.

I turn to Silas. “Annika is going to walk me to my next class.”

“Okay,” he says. He looks relieved. “I’ll see you…later.” He heads off in the opposite direction.

Annika turns to me as soon as he’s out of sight. “Where’s he going?”

I shrug. “To class.”

She shakes her head like she’s confused. “I don’t get you guys. One day you’re all over each other, the next you’re acting like you can’t stand to be in the same room. You really need to make a decision about him, Charlie.”

She stops outside a doorway.

“This is me…” I say, to see if she’ll protest. She doesn’t. “Call me later,” she says. “I want to know about last night.”

I nod. When she disappears into the sea of faces, I step into the classroom. I don’t know where to sit, so I wander to the back row and slide into a seat by the window. I’m early, so I open my backpack. There’s a wallet wedged between a couple of notebooks and a makeup bag. I pull it out and flip it open to reveal a driver’s license with a picture of a beaming, dark-haired girl. Me.

Charlize Margaret Wynwood

2417 Holcourt Way

New Orleans, LA

I’m seventeen. My birthday is March twenty-first. I live in Louisiana. I study the picture in the top left corner and I don’t recognize the face. It’s my face, but I’ve never seen it. I’m…pretty. I only have twenty-eight dollars.

The seats are filling up. The one beside me stays empty, almost like everyone is too afraid to sit there. I’m in Spanish class. The teacher is pretty and young; her name is Mrs. Cardona. She doesn’t look at me like she hates me, like so many other people are looking at me. We start with tenses.

I have no past. I have no past.

Five minutes into class the door opens. Silas walks in, his eyes downcast. I think he’s here to tell me something, or to bring me something. I brace myself, ready to pretend, but Mrs. Cardona comments jokingly about his lateness. He takes the only available seat next to me and stares straight ahead. I stare at him. I don’t stop staring at him until finally, he turns his head to look at me. A line of sweat rolls down the side of his face.

His eyes are wide. Wide…just like mine.

Nothing Can Hurt You Now - Simone Campos - translated by Rahul Bery - Blog Tour

  

A fascinating exploration of sibling rivalry and relationship intertwined within the grip of a thriller. A dual narrative, one from each sister, which almost made me feel I had two books instead of one. Interestingly, Lucinda‘s part is a third person narrative while Viviana’s is first person. But both narratives create an atmosphere of intrigue and tension.

 Lucinda and Viviana are sisters. They don’t seem especially close but close enough for Lucinda to worry when her sister seems to go off grid. Her investigations lead her to discover that Viviana is a sex worker and her partner is another woman. Lucinda is relentless in her search for Vivi and the truth and she joins forces with Graziana, Vivi’s partner. The search takes them across Brazil. The story takes us through the past, showing how both sisters have grown into the people that they are when we get to the present of the novel. They’re both fascinating characters both driven but in their own individual ways.

The tension is palpable, and there is a nice cliffhanger twist at the end of part one. Part two sees a shift in writing style as Viviana takes over the narrative and the tension racks up in a veritable tour de force of dark threat and implied aggression. I cannot bear to offer any spoilers here, but it’s a great climax for the book. 

I enjoyed the paradoxes and the dualities of the story – rich and poor, moral and immoral, sexuality, colour – all finally balanced within a vibrant narrative. The book is excellently, translated by Rahul Bery.

There is a sense of the political, understated, yet there, with a hefty helping of feminism, all fused within the thriller format which offers action of an unpredictable nature. And it wouldn’t be a thriller if it didn’t offer us some surprises and some twists.

My thanks to Pushkin Vertigo for a gifted copy and a place upon the blog tour.

The Broken Afternoon - Simon Mason - blog tour

 

The Broken Afternoon is the second DI Ryan Wilkins novel. A Killing in November is the first, which I haven’t read…. yet. However, very soon after beginning to read this book I reserved a copy of its predecessor from my library. Because I just have to know what happened to Ryan to bring him to the place he is in this second book. However, that’s not to say that this book doesn’t work on its own, it does, but it’s certainly made me want to know more of what went before.

I’ve read a fair few detective novels in my time, and my time is now a long time! But this is the first time I’ve come across two main characters with the same surname! I think it’s a great move. Ray Wilkins and Ryan Wilkins – you couldn’t find a couple of cops more different, in appearance and approach, but between them they get the job done.They are the yin and yang of contemporary policing.

Initially a missing child story - harrowing, emotional, it develops into a broader investigation in the city of Oxford, place of gleaming spires and enviable intellect, but in Mason’s hands, we see an alternative view of Oxford, with disgraced, impoverished detectives and altruistic millionaires.

It’s a complex plot that requires attention and concentration to keep all the plates spinning in the reader’s head, but it’s worth it because it’s a fine example of a police procedural, well researched, gripping and just quirky enough to give it a slight edge over its stablemates.

But the novel isn’t just about crime and policing. It has much to say about parenthood - existing and imminent. Ryan has a child, and Ray is about to become a father. Both seem to have less than straightforward relationships with their own fathers. And so, perhaps emotionally and philosophically investigating a missing child case would have a subtler resonance with both men, than if they were not parents or parents to be. And perhaps the story suggests to its readers to consider adult/child relationships on a variety of levels. I don’t want to give anything of the plot away, but I thought the theme was cleverly dealt with.

This case is a high-profile case, and, as happens all too often, ignites the attention of the wider public. Ray is catapulted into the public eye through television appeals, while Ryan stays backstage, as it were, to pursue his lines of inquiry, which are not always straight and above board. Another example of how different the two men are. And the situation allows us to explore both characters, their strengths and their weaknesses. 

I’ve just checked my library reservation online. I am fourth in the queue. That’s good. It means other people are wanting to read the book. But if they didn’t, I might get it quicker. Ho-hum.

I hope Simon Mason is hard at work, writing another one as we speak. 😉

My thanks to Ana McLaughlin of Riverrun for a gifted copy of this book.

The Eye of the Beholder - Margie Orford - Canongate Books readalong

 

A bleak, unforgiving landscape provides the perfect metaphorical background for this tale of male, predatory aggression, and the secrets, to hard to give voice to.

Is this a thriller? Yes, in every sense of the word. A chiller too as we read of unspeakable acts. Three women from different continents merge as one almost as their lives intertwine and collide. Cora, Freya and Angel, innocent of the links that bind them all but all seeking truth and, maybe, retribution. Cora and Freya, mother and daughter, one with experiences of the past she just can’t burden her daughter with, and Freya all too aware that her mother is in possession of something dark and frightening. And Angel?  Feisty, strong and resourceful, observant and perceptive, has her part to play in this triangle of intrigue. We get the perspectives of all three women, and they come across as very real, not perfect by any means, but shaped by their pasts. Perhaps a sub theme too, is the art world. Cora is an exhibiting artist, so we see both sides; the creative process, and the commercial side of art.

 A well paced and tautly written narrative, the Eye of the Beholder picks its readers up and carries them along desperate for redemption by the novel’s end. Do they get it? Oh no. I’m not offering any spoilers. Have a read for yourself.

My thanks to Canongate Books for a gifted copy and a very enjoyable read along.