📚 Book Nostalgia ~ Time’s Echo by Pamela Hartshorne

Welcome to my Book Nostalgia feature where I'm allowing myself the luxury of going back in time with some of my favourite reads. Over the past 15 years of blogging I have been privileged to read some amazing books which have featured on my books of the year list. 

Sometimes it’s good to revisit these stories in order to remember those extra special books which have influenced my reading over the last 15 years

Come along with with me and let's wallow in a book memory from 2012…

Pan MacMillan 
2012

Grace Trewe comes to York intending to spend as little time as possible sorting out her dead godmother’s affairs before moving on, the way she has always done before. Grace prides herself on her independence. She is a practical, sensible, self-reliant person, impatient with spirituality or mysticism and what she thinks of as wallowing in emotion. Having survived the Boxing Day tsunami, Grace knows how lucky she is to be alive. She looks forward, not back.

But in York Grace discovers that the past cannot always be ignored. Her godmother, Lucy, has been dabbling in the occult, and it seems that she has raised an unquiet spirit, Hawise, who lived, loved and died in York over 400 years earlier. Hawise died believing that she has failed her daughter, and the more Grace is drawn into her life in the Elizabethan city, the more parallels she finds with her own life. For Grace, too, has failed a child.

Is Grace possessed? Or is she suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Either way, she learns that she cannot move on until she has come to terms with the past…

Over the last few years I’ve read several of this author’s excellent stories and have always enjoyed reading them. She is currently writing as Eleanor Buchanan and has a new book expected in January 2027.

***

Time's Echo opens with the details of very graphic experience which quickly sets the scene for this dual time narrative set in the city of York. When Grace Trewe is called to the city to oversee the closure of her deceased godmother's house, she is totally unprepared for the effect that the house has on her. Grace, a very modern woman is drawn into the troubled story of Hawise Aske, a young woman who has been grievously wronged, and whose voice echoes down the centuries. 

With most dual time narratives there is a tendency to favour one time period over another, but in Time’s Echo both time frames are equally valid with neither one trying to outshine the other. The natural blending of the storyline with parallels in both the past and the future is seamless, and as both Grace and Hawise spiral out of control, the story takes on a momentum all of its own. From the beginning the story explores the historical significance of everyday life in Elizabethan York, and as Hawise and the ordinary people go about their everyday business, a story of thwarted lust, greed and ignorant superstition begins to evolve. In modern day York, Grace battles her own demons whilst at the same time experiences the insecurities and challenges of living day to day in two very different time periods. 

Without doubt this is an extraordinarily good debut novel. Pamela Hartshorne is a very talented storyteller, and in Time's Echo she has combined her love of history, with a totally believable story of malicious superstition and overwhelming evil.

Time’s Echo is one of those rare finds that you want to keep on your book shelf in order to re-read and discover all over again.

Read it for Samhain- "when the worlds of the living and the dead become as one"...

📚 Book Nostalgia ~ The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield

Welcome to my Book Nostalgia feature where I'm allowing myself the luxury of going back in time with some of my favourite reads. Over the past 15 years of blogging I have been privileged to read some amazing books which have featured on my BOOKS OF THE YEAR list. 

Sometimes it’s good to revisit these stories in order to remember those extra special books which have influenced my reading over the last 15 years..

Come with me and let's wallow in a book memory from 2011 when Jaffareadstoo first started blogging …

Harper Collins
2011

A bewitching debut novel in the vein of the much-loved classic Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe. It's 1956 and Samuel Lake, a handsome preacher, is voted out of his ministry by yet another congregation, disappointed by his relentless pleas for them to live more charitable lives. Out of options and out of pocket, Samuel and his family are forced to move in with their Arkansas in-laws, the rambunctious Moses clan. At first they thrive in the unruly sea of relatives - Willa, Samuel's wife, runs the bar for Grandma Calla, while the boys, Noble and Bienville, run riot through the surrounding countryside. But when Swan, their formidable but loveable 11-year-old tomboy, crosses the path of neighbour Raz Ballenger, things take a turn for the worse. Raz Ballenger, horse trainer, is a man who rules both his family and his animals through terror. Used to instant obedience, he is insulted when Swan leaps to his son defence, an act that sets a whole chain of unexpected and terrible events into motion...

I recall reading this one, I think, for a magazine review and was totally immersed in the story. It was the author’s debut novel and was so accomplished I’m surprised that she has not written another novel. Known mostly in the USA for her screenwriting and filmography The Homecoming of Samuel Lake is one of those magical stories which will stand the test of time. Here’s what I thought about it in 2011…

***

Homespun America in 1950’s is beautifully described in this accomplished debut novel which interweaves the lives of the Lake and Moses family. Samuel Lake is a preacher without a congregation and without any hope of a ministry of his own he is forced to return to his wife’s family farm in Arkansas with his eccentrically named offspring. Of his three children, it is eleven year old Swan Lake who is the formidable ringleader, who is tomboy enough to run wild through the rural landscape, and yet has a heart bigger than the Arkansas sky.

Reminiscent of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird, this emotionally charged book reveals a story that is at times dark and dirty, and yet has a theme of faith, and family that transcends pure evil. There is an abundance of rich and varied characters who bring the story to life, from grandmother Calla who tends her flowers, and dispenses wholesome wisdom, through to the bravery of Uncle Toy who keeps the bar at ‘Never Closes’, and who loves the Lake children as he would his own.

I stayed up late and long in order to finish reading this story, it made me laugh, it made me cry and ultimately, it made me believe in the power of storytelling.

This is storytelling at its absolute best, and I would recommend this novel wholeheartedly, if I could give it more than five stars I would do so without hesitation.

Read it if you can.

📖 Book Nostalgia ~ Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

I'm really privileged to read latest release books which are so current they haven't even hit the book store shelves that I forget about the books which have influenced my reading over the years.

So, welcome to my Book Nostalgia feature where I'm allowing myself the luxury of going back in time with some of my favourite reads.

So, let's wallow in a book memory...

Rosemary's Baby

Ira Levin

First published 1967
This edition Corsair 2011

Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling actor-husband Guy move into the Bramford, an old New York City apartment building with an onimous reputation and only elderly residents. Neighbours Roman and Minnie Castavet soon come nosing around to welcome them and, despite Rosemary's reservations about their eccentricity and the weird noises she keeps hearing, her husband starts spending time with them. Shortly after Guy lands a plum Broadway role, Rosemary becomes pregnant and the Castavets start taking a special interest in her welfare.

As the sickened Rosemary becomes increasingly isolated, she begins to suspect that the Castavet's circle is not what it seems.

📖 My thoughts..

Just the thought of Rosemary's Baby brings me out in a cold shiver and even though I was too young to read the book when it was first published in 1967, I became aware of the story in the early seventies when, aged about fifteen, I was inadvertently allowed into the cinema to watch it. I say inadvertently because my group of friends and I had been at the cinema to watch Paint Your Wagon, an entirely innocuous musical starring Lee Marvin but on this particular evening the soundtrack to Paint Your Wagon had broken down so we were offered the opportunity to see Rosemary's Baby as an alternative. 

We weren't legally old enough to to see this film as it had an 18 certificate, but hey, this was the seventies, so with no idea what the film was about and armed with a giant box of buttery popcorn, we settled into our flippy up seats to be soon terrified out of our wits by this devilish story of the occult. Considered to be one of the greatest horror movies of all time and with a haunting melody 'Rosemary's Lullaby', which on hearing makes me want to hide under a comfort blanket. I've never forgotten it and on the odd occasion when I've seen that the film is being shown on TV,  I have tried to watch it but can never get beyond seeing the cupboard in the hallway!

As an adult I have read Ira Levin's novel only once and found it as frightening as the movie and with my head filled with nightmare visions of an ethereal Mia Farrow standing close by a baby in a black bassinet I can still hear the soundtrack of the movie playing through the words. It's an imaginative story, certainly of its time, and rather dreary in places but so wonderfully scary that it still has the power to make the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up in frightened anticipation.

Maybe I'll be brave enough to read it again one day....😉

Best read with ...buttery popcorn and a snuggly blanket..

🎄Festive Book Nostalgia ~ A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

I'm really privileged to read many latest release books which are so current they haven't even hit the book store shelves that I forget about the books which have influenced my reading over the years.

So, welcome to my monthly Book Nostalgia feature where I'm allowing myself the luxury of going back in time with some of my favourite reads.

🎄My Festive Read is not complete without a dip into A Christmas Carol🎄

Alma Classics
November 2016

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

A Christmas Carol in prose. Being a ghost story of Christmas.

Well, no Christmas is complete, for me, without my favourite Christmas classic and it's become something of tradition, for me, to re-read this atmospheric morality tale at this special time of year. 

A Christmas Carol was first published, in London, on the 19th December 1843, and the story was completely sold out by Christmas Eve. Since then it has never been out of print and has been translated into many languages.

Divided into five staves, or chapters, Dickens tells the story of that old curmudgeon, Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly money lender with not an ounce of Christmas spirit.  Scrooge exploits the good nature of his poor, but honest clerk, Bill Cratchit, only grudgingly allowing him a day off on Christmas Day on the understanding that  he will " Be here all the earlier the day after "..

On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his dead partner Jacob Marley and is warned to mend his miserly ways, or else risk, like Marley, an eternity of doom, "I am here tonight to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."

Taken in hand by the Ghost of Christmas past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, Scrooge is given a glimpse into his lost and lonely life, unloved by friends and shunned by strangers, and is then forced to reconsider his life, and the role he plays in the lives of others.

By no stretch of the imagination is A Christmas Carol a jolly, festive tale. However, there is no doubt that the story has stood the test of time and just as Charles Dickens chose to remind us of the need for charity and compassion in this ghostly novella in 1843, so the premise of the story is just as valid today as it was back then.

And so, as Tiny Tim observed, " God Bless Us, Every One! "

About the Author

Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.

Biography source : Goodreads

You can find out more about Charles Dickens by clicking here

You can  listen to a volunteer recording A Christmas Carol on Librivox by clicking here

You can read A Christmas Carol for free by going to Project Gutenberg by clicking here

📖 Book Nostalgia on Hist Fic Saturday ~ The Absolutist by John Boyne

I'm really privileged to read so many latest release books which are so current they haven't even hit the book store shelves that I forget about the books which have influenced my reading over the years.

So, welcome to my mid-month Book Nostalgia feature where I'm allowing myself the luxury of going back in time with some of my favourite reads.

On Hist Fic Saturday

Let's wallow in book memories... and go back to 1917

Doubleday 
2011

During the years 2014 - 2018 I ran a weekly feature commemorating WW1. This included music, poetry and books set during the time. 

The Absolutist is one of the stories I read back in 2017, its effect on me was profound and deeply moving. It remains in my list of favourite novels about the First World War.

This is my book nostalgia read for Remembrance Weekend.

📖 What's it all about...

September 1919: Twenty-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver a clutch of letters to Marian Bancroft. Tristan fought alongside Marian's brother Will during the Great War. They trained together. They fought together.

But in 1917, Will laid down his guns on the battlefield and declared himself a conscientious objector, an act which brought shame and dishonour on the Bancroft family.

The letters, however, are not the real reason for Tristan's visit. He holds a secret deep within him. One that he is desperate to unburden himself of to Marian, if he can only find the courage. Whatever happens, this meeting will change his life - forever.

Here are my thoughts, written when the book was first published in hardback in 2011...

From the start of The Absolutist, I was engrossed in Tristan and Will's story, and found myself really hurrying the pages to see what happened next.

The description of the time in the trenches is poignant, desperately sad, and hugely horrific, but never without tender philosophy.I loved both characters, and wanted everything to work out for them - but like all those who fought and died in the Great war, nothing would ever be the same again.

John Boyne is a master storyteller, who manages in a few short sentences to convey a complete world, and a time and place that really exists in your subconscious, with characters that come to life, and who live on in your memory, long after the last page is turned.

Beautifully narrated with a profound sadness which has stayed with me since I first met Tristan and Will. That's why I make no excuses for featuring again this excellent WW1 novel written by an author who is, always, at the top of my favourite historical novelists.

About the Author

John Boyne is an Irish novelist born in Dublin.  He has written novels for adults, children and a collection of short stories.

Twitter @john_boyne #TheAbsolutist #WW1

📖 Book Nostalgia ~ The Go - Between by L P Hartley

I'm really privileged to read so many latest release books which are so current they haven't even hit the book store shelves that I forget about the books which have influenced my reading over the years.

So, welcome to my mid-month Book Nostalgia feature where I'm allowing myself the luxury of going back in time with some of my favourite reads.

Let's wallow in book memories...

Published 1953
Penguin Modern Classics
This edition 2004

'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there'

When one long, hot summer, young Leo is staying with a school-friend at Brandham Hall, he begins to act as a messenger between Ted, the farmer, and Marian, the beautiful young woman up at the hall. He becomes drawn deeper and deeper into their dangerous game of deceit and desire, until his role brings him to a shocking and premature revelation. The haunting story of a young boy's awakening into the secrets of the adult world, The Go-Between is also an unforgettable evocation of the boundaries of Edwardian society.

📖 My Thoughts..

There's something about that classic opening sentence that immediately takes me back to the long hot summer of 1976, when, after completing my English Literature A' Level exam, I was able to read something that wasn't Shakespeare, Chaucer or Milton. Blue skies seem to stretch endlessly into my, then unknown, future and with the sound of my dad mowing the lawn, and my mum chatting to the next door neighbour, I settled down on my red sun lounger, with a can of Lilt and an Aztec bar, to read this classic story of forbidden love.

Thirteen year old Leo is staying with his school friend, Marcus when he develops a teenage crush on his friend's beautiful older sister. Wanting to please Marion, Leo becomes embroiled in the clandestine relationship which is developing between Marion and Ted Burgess, a local tenant farmer. Completely besotted by the beautiful and beguiling, Marion, Leo is unaware of the significance of the messages he is passing between Marion and Ted until it's too late. Looking back at this time in his youth, the much older Leo looks back at the events of the summer of 1900 and the devastating consequences of Marion and Ted's ill-fated love affair.

The Go-Between is a classic coming-of-age novel which evokes the languid summer of 1900 and the social and moral restrictions of the Edwardian era. I've read the story a couple of times since 1976 and although I can't recall seeing the 1971 film version which starred Julie Christie and Alan Bates, I did enjoy the 2015 remake starring Joanna Vanderham as Marion, Ben Batt as Ted, and Jack Hollington as young Leo.

About the Author

Leslie Poles Hartley was born in 1895 and educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford. He is best known for Facial Justice, the Eustace and Hilda trilogy and The Go-Between, which won the Heinemann Foundation Prize in 1954 and whose opening sentence has become almost proverbial: 'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.' He was appointed a CBE in 1955, having won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in addition to the Heinemann. He died in 1972.

(Source: publisher website)

📖 Book Nostalgia ~ Love Story by Erich Segal

  

I'm really privileged to read so many latest release books which are so current they haven't even hit the book store shelves that I forget about the books which have influenced my reading over the years.

So, welcome to my mid-month Book Nostalgia feature where I'm allowing myself the luxury of going back in time with some of my favourite reads.

Let's wallow in book memories...

1970 edition

Oliver Barrett IV went to Harvard and Jenny Cavilleri to Radcliffe. He was rich, she was poor. 

He was sporty, she played music.

But they fell in love

This is their story.

Love Story was originally adapted as a screen play and then picked up by Paramount Pictures. The author, Erich Segal was asked to write the play into a novel as a preview for the film, and so, Love Story, all 127 pages of it, was published to coincide with Valentine's Day in 1970. It became a publishing phenomenon spending 41 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. 

This book came to my notice when the movie, starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw, became a box office sensation. After its general release in the UK, I went to see the film with friends from school and my lasting memory is of sitting in a darkened cinema on a summer afternoon watching this tragic tale unfold. It is the first film that made me cry and the only film that I have watched twice back to back on the same afternoon, in the same cinema! It's also the first grown up book I bought for myself.

I was already familiar with Ryan O'Neal having been a teen fan of the American daytime drama Peyton Place in which O'Neal had a starring role but it was Love Story which catapulted this charismatic young actor into the hearts of millions. Safe to say Love Story remains one of the highest grossing films of all time.

Segal's original idea, became THE film of the early seventies, and the book, despite it's small size, has become a publishing giant and is definitely a case of less is more. The story which is simplicity itself is a classic tale of boy meets girl. They meet at college, fall in love, marry against the odds and just when they have struggled through hardships and are facing a more settled future, tragedy strikes at the very heart of the novel. The book has remained in print since the day it was published, and sadly, after a couple of house moves, I lost my original, well-thumbed copy but I quickly replaced it with a new copy in 1987. I've lost count of the amount of times I've read it and it remains one of my favourite stories of all time.

Classic, beautiful, timeless Love Story is the novel which led me, by the hand, into a lifelong love of romantic fiction.

What can you say about a twenty-five year old girl who died? 

That she was beautiful. And brilliant. 

That she loved Mozart and Bach. 

And the Beatles.

And me.