Review ~ The Wayward Girls by Amanda Mason

Zaffre
5 September 2019

My thanks to the publishers for my ecopy of this book

1976 Loo and her sister Bee live in a run-down cottage in the middle of nowhere, with their artistic parents and wild siblings. Their mother, Cathy, had hoped to escape to a simpler life; instead the family find themselves isolated and shunned by their neighbours. At the height of the stifling summer, unexplained noises and occurrences in the house begin to disturb the family, until they intrude on every waking moment . . .

NOW Loo, now Lucy, is called back to her childhood home. A group of strangers are looking to discover the truth about the house and the people who lived there. But is Lucy ready to confront what really happened all those years ago?

What did I think about it..

I can well remember the long, hot summer of 1976 when everyone said they would go mad with heat, and for Loo and Bee and their siblings their lives in the isolated cottage at Iron Sike Farm on the Yorkshire Moors are far from idyllic as the villagers treat them with indifference and it is their very isolation which allows imagination to run rife.

With its Gothic setting, the isolation and the sheer weight of supernatural happenings, The Wayward Girls has all the hallmarks of a traditional ghost story. Told in alternating narratives that of Loo in 1976, and then as Lucy as she is known in the here and now, a story emerges which is as complex as it is frightening.

The author writes well and keeps the tension cranked up to high especially when as she describes the struggles the family had in 1976 when mum, Cathy was trying, amidst a certain amount of chaos, to keep the family together. Lucy's struggles in the present as she meets other demands placed upon her forms the basis for the second part of the novel.

The Wayward Girls is an interesting and accomplished debut novel. It's truly creepy in places and made me jump at shadows even though I knew that there was nothing there. I think that setting the earlier part of the book in the stifling heat of the summer of '76 is inspired as it gives an altogether different sort of dynamic to what is, in effect, a spine-chilling ghost story which makes perfect reading for a dark wintery evening !

About the Author

Amanda Mason was born and brought up in Whitby, North Yorks. She studied Theatre at Dartington College of Arts, where she began writing by devising and directing plays. After a few years of earning a very irregular living in lots of odd jobs, including performing in a comedy street magic act, she became a teacher and has worked in the UK, Italy, Spain, and Germany. She now lives in York and has given up teaching for writing. Her short stories have been published in several anthologies. The Wayward Girls, her debut novel, was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers prize.

Twitter @amandajanemason #TheWaywardGirls #KnockOnce

@ZaffreBooks

Blog Tour ~ Ghost by Helen Grant

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be part of the blog tour for Ghost

Fledgling Press
19 February 2018

My thanks to the publishers and Love Books Group for the invitation to be part of his tour and for my e-copy of the book

What's it all about ...

Langlands House is haunted, but not by the ghost you think.

Augusta McAndrew lives on a remote Scottish estate with her grandmother, Rose. For her own safety, she hides from outsiders, as she has done her entire life. Visitors are few and far between - everyone knows that Langlands House is haunted.

One day Rose goes out and never returns, leaving Augusta utterly alone. Then Tom McAllister arrives - good-looking and fascinating, but dangerous. What he has to tell her could tear her whole world apart.

As Tom and Augusta become ever closer, they must face the question: is love enough to overcome the ghosts of the past?

My thoughts about it..

There is a distinctly creepy feel to Ghost, as right from the beginning there is something odd about the young woman, Augusta who lives, in isolation, at the gothic Langlands House with her grandmother. When Rose, her elderly grandmother mysteriously disappears, Augusta, too used to being hidden away from people, is distrustful and wary of strangers. And then Tom enters into Augusta's life which adds a whole new dimension to what is a deeply unsettling story.

The chilling atmosphere at Langlands House only gets stronger as the story progresses, and I especially enjoyed the creepiness and the gradual rise in tension which is pitted against the barriers and obstacles which Augusta uses to protect herself from harm. That she learns of life from reading books in the Langlands library allows us a delicate glimpse into Augusta's mindset, which is both sad and troubled.

The author writes well and knows how to keep the momentum of the plot ticking along so that you are carried forward, both by the atmosphere, and also by the setting, which is deliciously creepy. There are one or two surprises, and some genuine twists and turns towards the end which I didn’t see coming.

Ghost is a genuinely spooky story which kept me entertained from beginning to end.

About the Author

Helen Grant writes thrillers with a Gothic flavour and ghost stories. Her first novel, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, was shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and won an ALA Alex Award in the US. Her other books include the exciting Forbidden Spaces trilogy. 

Helen's latest novel Ghost (Fledgling Press 2018) is set in Perthshire, where she has lived since 2011. When she is not writing, Helen loves to research the lost country houses of Scotland and to visit the sites where possible. Her experiences of exploring these fascinating places inspired her to write Ghost.

Twitter @Helengrantsays #Ghost

@FledglingPress

@LoveBooksGroup

Amazon UK

Review ~ The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements

Headline Review
8 February 2018
My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

There is nothing I like better than an atmospheric ghost story which is set high above the hills of Northern England. 

Mercy Booth, her father, Bartram and servant, Agnes eke out a bleak existence amongst the lost and lonely crags of the Yorkshire Dales. The old coffin path that links Mercy's home at Scarcross Hall to the village below is a path not often travelled as folk say that evil lingers on its dark and lonely trail.

Mercy isn't frightened, after all, this is the only life she has ever known, and she is content to tend to her flock of sheep in isolated loneliness. But so attuned is she to her solitary environment that when strange things start to happen, and when a shadowy figure is seen near the Hall, Mercy’s peace of mind is greatly disturbed.

With a strong sense of time and place, The Coffin Path is a deliciously creepy story and so icily chilling in places that it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. And whilst, it’s about the realities of living in a harsh and unforgiving time when ignorant superstition could ruin innocent lives, it’s also about gossip and sly innuendo; it’s about blood and fear and of the daily struggle of survival.

Set in the latter half of the seventeenth century, The Coffin Path is that wonderful mixture of Gothic gloom and ancient superstition which is so reminiscent of Northern England. Beautifully written, and filled with a sense of evil and a brooding loneliness, it’s one of those stories which is just perfect for a cold, wintery evening, and when the light dims and the evening gloom settles you will find yourself peering into dark shadows.....as, like Mercy, you never know what waits for you there.

About the Author

Katherine Clements is a critically acclaimed novelist, self-confessed costume drama addict and current Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Manchester.

She is editor of Historia, the online magazine of the Historical Writers' Association, and is a member of the HWA committee and The Prime Writers. The Coffin Path is her third novel.

Twitter @KL_Clements

#CoffinPath

@headlinepg

Amazon UK

Blog Tour ~ The Possessions by Sara Flannery Murphy

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be hosting the last day of  


The Possessions Blog Tour

Scribe Publications
March 9th 2017

What's it all about ..

Who will prevail – the woman or the ghost? A worker at an organisation which channels the dead for the grief-stricken begins an illicit affair with a client. But as she gets closer to him, she begins to question whether he is telling the truth about his wife's death.

What did I think of it ...

The first time I meet Patrick Braddock, I’m wearing his wife’s lipstick..

Working for the Elysian Society, Eurydice (Edie) is just one of  a number of ‘Bodies’ who rents her services so that the recently bereaved can take advantage of her disassociated state to communicate with their loved ones beyond the grave. Using objects which were once linked to the deceased, the Bodies then swallow the Lotus, a small white pill which allows a metamorphosis to take place. Intimate contact between user and Body is not encouraged and whilst there are protective considerations in place to safeguard this exchange, inevitably some users want more than can be safely offered.

In her role as a Body, Edie is bound by a strict moral code but she’s also an enticing enigma, prone to her own brand of secrecy, and, as such, she is destined to become inextricably linked with a mystery that opens up, for her, more questions than it does answers. Her association with client, Patrick Braddock is intense, as is her connection to his dead partner, Sylvia. Both situations are fraught with irregularities, and, as the plot starts to diverge beyond the connection laid down as acceptable by the Elysian Society, a dangerous subplot starts to develop between Patrick and Edie.

The Possessions is set in what could be a dystopian world, a place where the past stays hidden and the future reaches out into white space which, at times, appears bleak and unfathomable. Memories surface and linger and a shimmering disquiet bubbles away just beyond reach. The concept of communicating with the dead takes the image of dusty séances that bit further and succeeds in delivering a story which is in part ghost story and part illicit romance.

The premise of the story is cleverly addictive and I enjoyed being taken into a very different world. I think that the author has shown considerable imagination in delivering a story which goes beyond the ordinary, and which make you think about life and death in a different way. By the time the story finishes, the concept of something like this existing in a parallel universe is perhaps not so unbelievable after all...

Best Read with...strong coffee, tart as poison.

About the Author

Sara Flannery Murphy was born in Little Rock, Arkansas and received an MFA in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis. Currently, she lives in an Oklahoma college town with her husband and son. The Possessions is this author’s first novel.

Visit Sara on Facebook

Follow on Twitter @sflannerymurphy 

#The Possessions

@ScribeUKBooks

My thanks to Adam at Scribe for his invitation to be part of this blog today.

At Christmas I was one of the lucky bloggers to be given a wonderful goodie box


 to promote The Possessions. Here's the link 

~***~

Blog Tour ~ The Silent Fountain by Victoria Fox

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be hosting today's stop on 

The Silent Fountain Blog Tour 

It's with real pleasure that I introduce the author, Victoria Fox

Hi and welcome to Jaffareadstoo, Victoria and thank you for spending time with us on your blog tour. 

When you were planning The Silent Fountain what came first the idea or theme, the plot, place or characters.  Did you base any of the characters and places on people and places you know?

Italy came to me first. I had always wanted to set a book in Italy, in particular the Tuscan countryside surrounding Florence, and I knew, for this book, the setting would be key. I wanted somewhere with a very definite atmosphere. As soon as I decided on Italy, I could picture the crumbling, dilapidated Castillo Barbarossa. I could imagine the overgrown gardens and tangled rose bushes; I could smell the lemon groves.

The Silent Fountain is a bit of a ghost story, so I liked the idea of events unfolding in a rundown, but once very grand, mansion. This led me to the character of Vivien Lockhart, a one-time movie star, who herself was once very grand – until a shocking family secret made her too afraid to step out of the house. I like the idea of faded glamour both in settings and characters, because it begs the question: What happened here? What changed? What befell these people, to turn their lives upside down? The fountain at the front of the Barbarossa was once its glittering centrepiece. Why, then, hasn’t it been used in decades? And why does its owner insist on keeping it filled?

It’s strange, when planning, how one notion can lead to the next. Once I had Vivien at the Castillo Barbarossa, I started thinking about the events that had brought her there: an Italian love affair, a scandal buried deep in the past and a tragedy that would change everything. We first meet Vivien in the 1970s, and it isn’t until close to fifty years later that she finally faces the truth she’s been hiding from. Also hiding is Lucy Whittaker, my contemporary lead, who escapes London in the wake of a shattered romance. Lucy finds work at the Barbarossa – and a lot more besides. Strange sounds come from the attic. Vivien will never meet her in person. She glimpses a woman by the fountain, but when she goes to confront her no one is there…

I haven’t based any of the characters on people I know (although there’s probably a bit of me in Lucy). I have, however, been inspired by some of my favourite set-ups in literature: the glamorous first wife in Rebecca; the terrible love triangle in Jane Eyre; even the dark, irresistible danger of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (even if my Heathcliff is Sicilian). I love to explore the friction between duty and passion.

The Silent Fountain is my seventh book and it’s definitely different to the stories I’ve written before – my previous novels have been high-octane blockbusters set in the celebrity whirlwind. But the important things remain the same: powerful female leads, enticing, escapist settings and plenty of drama and romance. I hope readers will step straight into Italy every time they open the book – but that they’ll be glad to step out of it again, back into the real world, leaving the ghosts of the Barbarossa far behind.

You can find out more about Victoria and her writing on her website by clicking here

Find on Facebook or Follow on Twitter @VFoxWrites

Blog Tour runs 1st - 9th March #TheSilentFountain

My thanks to Victoria for answering my question and for sharing her thoughts about The Silent Fountain.


Thanks also to Olivia at Midas PR and the publishers HQ for the invitation to be part of this blog tour.

The Silent Fountain is out on the 9th March 2017

~***~

Review ~ All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage

Riverrun
May 2016

A bit of book blurb..

Upstate New York, 1980s

The farm stood at the foot of the hill. Around it, an aching emptiness of fields and wind. Within, a weight, a sense of being occupied, with more than its inhabitants. The Clares got it cheap.

George knew why, though he didn't let on- he didn't want to give Catherine any excuses. He'd given her an easy excuse to get married. He wasn't prepared to give away much anymore. 

Catherine, at home, with their young daughter, has the feeling they're not alone. She is helped by the Hale boys, young Cole and his brothers, Though they never tell her what happened to their mother there.

My thoughts...

All Things Cease to Appear is a beautifully written psychological thriller, which is both complex and complicated, spanning, as it does, over twenty years. The story which gradually unfolds is one of lies and deceit, of sadness and heartbreak, and of the unbearable agony of loss. The intricacy of its plot and story development makes it difficult to say anything about the story without giving too much away as this is one of those stories which should be read without any preconceptions.

Right from the start there's a creepy edginess to the story, which is quite unsettling, and that's what makes reading it so absorbing. Multiple points of view, from narrators who can only be described as unstable, invoke a story which is heartbreakingly sad in places , and yet, so disturbing, that in the light of so many different voices, it becomes progressively more difficult to determine who, if anyone, has an accurate viewpoint. And that’s not a criticism of the book, far from it, it’s merely an observation that you have to keep your wits about you as you read, and don’t be put off by the lack of quotation marks or of the exchange between narrators and timescales, as this, in a way, helps to maintain the book's overall stability. So, just relax and let the story wash over you, and all will be revealed.

There is a quiet confidence to the writing which I found rather refreshing. I liked the way that the characters, frustratingly, both forthright and enigmatic in equal measure, were allowed the space to tell their own version of the story. Some I liked more than others, it was difficult not to fall in love with Catherine and Franny, less easy to like George, or to understand what was going on in several marriages which were both fragile and brittle.

For me All Things Cease to Appear is about the power of the unknown, of people and the essence of what’s left behind when we are gone, it’s about the unexplainable and the suggestible, and it’s also about love and loss in all of its many guises. It was such a compelling read that I got through  the first two hundred pages without ever looking up and, believe me ,that interest didn’t diminish until I had read the book to its conclusion in one sitting.

Best Read with …a batch of stained glass cookies and a glass of milk, fresh from the farm

About the Author

ELIZABETH BRUNDAGE graduated from Hampshire College, attended the NYU film school, was a screenwriting fellow at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, and received an MFA as well as a James Michener Award from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.She lives near Albany in upstate New York.

Visit the Author's website

Visit on Facebook

Amazon UK

My thanks to the publishers and Real Readers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

~***~

Review ~ The Visitors by Rebecca Mascull

Hodder & Stoughton
July 2014

Imagine if you couldn't see

couldn't hear

couldn't speak...

Then one day somebody took your hand and opened up the world to you.

 In late Victorian England on her father’s hop farm, Adeliza Golding is born with very little sight. Tragically, as a three year old, and after a bout of scarlet fever, she loses her hearing and cataracts obstruct her vision even further. She becomes increasingly isolated; unable to communicate and trapped and lost in a world of darkness. Her father tries in vain to understand her, but has neither the knowledge nor the patience to overcome Liza’s disabilities.

In her darkness and confusion, Liza’s only communication is with the visitors, ghostly visions she speaks to in her head, who bring her neither comfort or joy, but who are her only way of making sense of her dark and dangerous world. One day, Lottie, a young hop picker takes Liza’s hand and begins to draw the shape of words, and suddenly the world beckons Liza in a way that she could never have envisaged.

What then follows is a beautifully written and very poignant coming of age story, in which Liza matures and grows into a strong and courageous young woman. With Lottie’s companionship, Liza is able to make sense of a changing world which sees her leave the familiarity of the Kentish hop fields, and head towards the unknown territory of the Boer War. The sweep of history moves effortlessly and very cleverly takes the reader on a voyage of discovery. We view the world through Liza’s eyes, which damaged though they are, offer a unique perspective on everything around her.

The overriding theme of love, friendship and survival make this one of those stories that stays with you long after the last page is turned.

It is a commendable debut novel, and I look forward to reading more from this talented author.

Do come back tomorrow to read an interview with Rebecca Mascull

*~*~*

Review ~ Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield

Atria Books 5 November 2013

Blessed with a charmed life, William Bellman is the epitome of Victorian prosperity, until misfortune introduces him to a mysterious man in black whose macabre hold over William's life forms the basis for this interesting and compelling story of Gothic obsession.

When I first started Bellman and Black, I thought that it was a rather unassuming book as nothing much seems to happen for a good third of the novel. However, there is a stealthy quietness to the story which sneaks up on you, and as the morbid fascination for the ritual of death starts to evolve, the sparseness of the narrative becomes more absorbing and offers a disturbing insight into the Victorian fascination for death and dying.

With great precision, the author has captured the very essence of Victorian funereal etiquette, from the intense and varied quality of the black bombazine used for mourning clothes, to the voyeuristic observation of unseemly grief. There is an almost hypnotic quality to the story and a distinct creepiness which seeps into your mind. 

Reading the story late at night you sense a chill in the air, and almost without realising it you start to observe rooks in a whole new light.






My thanks to Netgalley and Atria Books for my review copy of this book

Today my author Spotlight is on Jane Cable

I am delighted to welcome to the blog on this first day of October 

Jane Cable

Troubadour Publishing

whose novel

The Cheesemaker's House 

is published today

1st October 2013

Happy Publication Day!!

Jane - welcome to jaffareadstoo

Where did you get the first flash of inspiration for your novel The Cheesemaker's House?

I find my best stories happen when two or three ideas coalesce. The original opening of the novel came first, which was a dream-like sequence where a woman sees a man who she hardly knows but touches her deeply. From this the character of Owen was born, but he existed in isolation in my mind for a long time.

About a year before that my husband and I had been intending to move to Yorkshire and had found - and bought - the house of our dreams. Just a few days after we completed the purchase my father died and over the next few months things changed with my husband's job and the move became increasingly unlikely. We bought the house from a lovely couple who told us a great deal about its history, including the fact that it had been built by a women in 1726 and that woman was the village cheese maker. I inherited a load of documents with the house and as I looked through them I realised just how many women had owned the house over its history. Which made me wonder how a woman moving there today would feel and what might happen to her. So I found I had a female character and a context for Owen's story.

The final piece of the jigsaw fell into place when I found it hard to research everyday rural life in the early eighteenth century and turned to my father's extensive folklore library. In it I found reference to charmers and they intrigued me.


What can you tell us about the story ?

It's a suspense and a love story; it's what happens when a thirty-something divorcee moves to Yorkshire and meets her neighbours from the present and the past. I have been delighted about how people are gripped by the story as it pulls them in so I don't want to spoil that by telling too much.

Have you always wanted to be a writer?

Without a doubt. I wrote poetry when I was little (my father was a poet as well as a lecturer in English) and throughout my teenage years and beyond started story after story but never finished any of them. When I left college I talked my way into a job in PR simply because the word 'writer' was in the advertisement. But in my late twenties I changed tack career-wise, trained as an accountant, and didn't really start writing again until nine years ago.

I have always been passionate about cricket, and sitting at The Oval in 2004, watching England parade the Wisden Trophy around the ground, I started wondering how it would feel to be the new girlfriend of one of the players, thrown into this strange world. It was an idea I carried through into a book-length story. And then another one. And then a third. They weren't that great and I papered my study walls with rejection letters but I was spotted by a professional editor and published novelist called Caroline Upcher and over the next few years she taught me how to polish my work and present a manuscript properly.



When do you find the time to write, and do you have a favourite place to do your writing?

Writing almost always happens first thing in the morning. It's when I'm at my freshest and very often I've been lying in bed at night thinking about what might happen to my characters next. Until last month my husband had a lengthy commute to work so we were getting up at 5.30 and although I start work at 7 a couple of morning a week on the other days I would just shower, make myself a coffee and head off to my study to write for an hour.

I don't really have a favourite place to write; I go into my study from force of habit. If I have one specific problem to work on I'll treat myself to an early trip to Caffe Nero in Chichester and write there. We are lucky enough to have a holiday home in Cornwall and when we are there I get up early and write at the dining table.

One thing has changed recently; I've always written on my laptop but my husband bought me an iPad for my 50th birthday and I am writing my latest novel on that. It feels very different with its flimsy keyboard stuck to the bottom of it, but now I've started I can't seem to wean myself back onto my laptop for that particular story.


Can you tell us if you have another novel planned?

I always have another novel planned; sometimes they feel as though they're stacking up like planes waiting to come into Heathrow. I think it's because I am a storyteller first and foremost.

On my website (http://www.janecable.com/) I've written about The Fairy Tree as the next one likely to be published, but now I am not sure. It's finished, but needs polishing and editing so it's nowhere near ready. Even less ready is The Seahorse Garden, which I have only just started writing, but I am beginning to wonder if it wouldn't be a better follow on from The Cheesemaker's House. I'm not sure why - just a gut feeling.

And people are beginning to ask if there's going to be a sequel to The Cheesemaker's House because they want to know what happens to Owen and Alice next. The problem is, I have an idea about that too.

My real enemy here is time as I am really struggling to combine work, marketing The Cheesemaker's House, actually having a life and writing!

*The Cheesemaker’s House won the Suspense & Crime category of The Alan Titchmarsh Show’s People’s Novelist competition, reaching the last four out of over a thousand entries*

Find The Cheesemaker's House on Facebook
Follow Jane on Twitter @JaneCable

Huge thanks to Jane for taking the time to answer our questions and for generously providing a copy of The Cheesemaker's House to one lucky UK winner in this great Giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My thoughts on The Cheesemaker's House

Alice Hart moves to a small village in North Yorkshire, ostensibly to escape from a disastrous marriage breakup, but also to heal her wounds in the idyllic setting of The Cheesemaker’s House, which is ripe for renovation. Once settled into the village, Alice meets and befriends some of the locals, who are keen for her to fit into village life, but bubbling away under the surface are some strange and rather supernatural incidents which Alice finds difficult to rationalise.

 Helping to keep the energy alive in this interesting and well written novel are a lovely collection of slightly quirky characters who provide a real sense of purpose to the story. There’s Richard, the canny Yorkshire builder who Alice hires to do her renovation work, Owen, a rather handsome cafe owner and local “charmer” who sweeps Alice off her feet, and Margaret her lovely neighbour who has a penchant for gardening. Together they all add a special individuality to the jigsaw puzzle until all the pieces fit together to form an absorbing ghostly love story.

I was completely charmed by this novel; for me it had a little bit of everything. A lovely Yorkshire setting, and although I’m Lancastrian by birth, I have actually crossed the Pennine border and lived and worked in Yorkshire, so I am familiar with Northallerton where the book is set. Well defined characters, who the author treats with a very subtle hand, so that they never become an irritation, and as the pages flew by, I found that I was quite engrossed in the supernatural elements, which are particularly well done and are interwoven quite seamlessly into the story.

I was surprised to find that this was Jane Cable’s debut novel as she writes with natural skill and great confidence. I am already looking forward to reading more from this talented author in the future.

My thanks to NetGalley and Troubadour Publishing for my copy of this book