📖 Favourite Read of the Month ~ Venus, Vanishing by Rebecca Birrell

 

Pan MacMillan
Picador
16 July 2026

Thanks to the publisher for the invitation to read this book

Berlin, 1928. Hannah is new to the pleasures and freedoms of the city. She is a fledgling artist, a runaway, building a new life for herself in its galleries and clubs, and, at last, loving without boundaries.

But soon the party will be coming to an end. A consuming affair with her patron, Elke – the imperious wife of a powerful man – is reckless, yet life-changing, and it threatens to do more than ruin both of their reputations. Around them, people are disappearing. The shadows of something unspeakable are growing darker in the city. Hannah’s art could be the thing that secures her survival – or denies her any chance of escape.

📖 My Review…

Fledgling artist, Hannah Sherman wants more from life and has no interest in being shackled to an ordinary existence. Marriage and motherhood is not what she wants for herself. Dreary days spent working as a seamstress in her parent’s workshop Hannah longs for a way out and decides to take a huge leap of faith into a different life which is more suited to her exceptional artistic talent. 

Leaving behind her family is challenging and Hannah struggles to find her place in an ever-changing society but the help of new found friends and with the benefit of securing the patronage of a wealthy woman there comes the opportunity for Hannah to paint however, it comes with a tortured sense of artistic freedom. I followed Hannah’s progression with great interest, filled with excitement when she is given an art commission to paint a series of female nudes only to realise with a sinking inevitability that Hannah is about to travel along a much darker pathway. Life, art, politics and sexuality all converge in a story which is deep in historical meaning and alive with a creeping sort of cultural menace, which can only end in tragedy.  

Beautifully written, 1930s Berlin is brought to life, its initial vibrancy juxtaposed against the stark reality of Jewish persecution as the city enters into a dark chapter in its history. There is a realistic sense of unease which permeates throughout the entirety of the story and I couldn’t help but be fascinated as Hannah negotiates her way through the difficulties of living in a time of horrifying political and social changes, her interaction with people, both good and evil, would greatly influence her life going forward. 

Slow and considered, Venus, Vanishing, is a commendable debut, it is a book which does not rush to get its message across but rather reveals its secrets in moments of flawed beauty and inevitable sadness. It lingers long after the last page is turned and so for that reason I am delighted to make it my Favourite Read of the Month for July.

About the Author

Rebecca Birrell is an art historian and a Bye-Fellow in the History of Art at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. She was formerly the curator of nineteenth and twentieth century paintings and drawings at the Fitzwilliam Museum and has occupied curatorial positions at the Jewish Museum London, the Department of Prints and Drawing at the British Museum, and at the Charleston Trust. She studied English literature at University College London, followed by a master's in women’s studies at the University of Oxford and a PhD from the Edinburgh College of Art. Venus, Vanishing is her debut novel.

📖 Favourite Read of the Month ~ The Hill in the Dark Grove by Liam Higginson

 

Pan MacMillan
6 January 2026

Thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

Carwyn and Rhian – the last in a long line of sheep farmers – are living out a brutal year on their hillside farm, deep in the mountains of North Wales.

When Carwyn discovers a buried prehistoric ruin in one of the fields on their land, his curiosity quickly descends into obsession. His wife, Rhian, meanwhile, is confronted with the growing realization that the man with whom she shares her life and home is becoming a frightening stranger.

As the harsh winter closes in, Rhian finds herself alone with her increasingly unrecognizable husband, and the mountains, and the looming megalithic stones.

📖My Review..

Carwyn and Rhian Gwynnant eke out a meagre existence on their hill farm in the mountains of North Wales. The dark and brooding hillside around them lends an air of melancholy to the place and gives a sense of their isolation and dependence on each other for physical and emotional support. When Carwyn discovers a carved stone head, in what appears to be a prehistoric mound, he seems to become obsessed with the past and subtle changes in his personality start to make Rhian concerned for his state of mind. 

Rich in both local history and ancient Welsh folklore this is a quietly observant story, filled with the prickle of unease and a realistic sense of doom not just from the landscape which has shaped and moulded Carwyn and Rhian into the people they are but also gives off a real sense of the passage of time, both ancient and modern, and how our presence in the structure of the landscape is merely transitory. Imaginatively written and with more than a hint of menace the story unfolds almost mesmerically so that, as a reader, I became part of the very fabric of the place, the gloom of the hillside, the sense of ancient ancestors being disturbed, and a sense of horror which was so beautifully described it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

The Hill in the Dark Grove is a commendable debut novel, imaginative, brooding and deeply memorable, the story will stay with me for a long time and for that reason I am making this my Favourite Read of the Month for January.

☕️ Best read with : Strong tea from an old teapot and a slice of bread, thickly spread with homemade damson jam.

About the Author

Liam Higginson was born and raised in rural North Wales and lives in Llandudno with his wife. The Hill in the Dark Grove is his debut novel.

X#LiamHigginson #TheHillInTheDarkGrove

X@PanMacmillan

 

📖 Featured Book of the Month ~ The Theatre of Glass and Shadows by Anne Corlett

 

Black and White Publishing

24 May 2024

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

Sometimes the greatest spectacle hides the darkest secrets . . .

In an alternate London, the city's Theatre District is a walled area south of the river where an immersive production - the Show - has been running for centuries, growing ever bigger, more sprawling and lavish. The Show is open to anyone who can afford a ticket but the District itself is a closed world; even the police have no jurisdiction within its walls.

Juliet's mother died when she was a baby. Brought up by her emotionally distant father and even more distant stepmother, she has never felt wanted. It's only when her father passes away that Juliet - now nineteen - learns her birth was registered in the District. Desperate to belong somewhere at last, she travels to London where she hopes to unearth the truth about her identity, her mother's death and her father's years of silence - and claim her birthright.

But in the District, there is only one central truth: the Show must go on. And in a world where illusions abound, and powerful men control the narrative, Juliet has no idea of just how far some will go to ensure certain stories are never told.

📖 My Review..

In mottled glass and smoky shadows lies the Theatre District where things are not as they seem and where truth and lies merge. This immersive theatre complex has been beguiling visitors for centuries but once its secrets are uncovered there’s no going back and yet for Juliet Grace her time there has only just begun.

A life filled with indifference has made Juliet wary but deep down she knows that, with her father’s death, the life she has known is over and as the overwhelming lure of the theatre calls her into its depths so she hopes for answers to her questions and that her heart’s desire will be fulfilled. Beautifully immersive, this view of an altogether different London emerges, and as the story starts to pull so the fragments of your imagination get carried along until you’re part of the scenery, watching as the dance unfolds and as each character emerges so you begin to question where the truth ends and the lies begin.

It’s been a long time since I was gorgeously immersed in an alternate world of a clever author’s imagination but The Theatre of Glass and Shadows fulfilled a need I didn’t know I had and I absorbed every word with as much anticipation as if I was a voyeur in this land of shimmering glass and deep, dark shadows.

Richly atmospheric, and utterly absorbing, I have no hesitation in making The Theatre of Glass and Shadows my Featured Book of the Month for June.

About the Author

Anne Corlett has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and has won a number of awards for her short stories, including the H. E. Bates Award. She works as a criminal solicitor and freelance writer, and lives with her partner and three young boys in Somerset.

X @ConsummateChaos

@bwpublishing

📖 Blog Tour ~ Hold Back the Night by Jessica Moor

Manilla Press
9 May 2024

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book
and to Compulsive Readers for the invitation to the blog tour

March 2020. 

Annie is alone in her house as the world shuts down, only the ghosts of her memories for company. But then she receives a phone call which plunges her deeper into the past. 

1959. Annie and Rita are student nurses at Fairlie Hall mental hospital. Working long, gruelling hours, they soon learn that the only way to appease their terrifying matron is to follow the rules unthinkingly. But what is happening in the hospital's hidden side wards? And at what point does following the rules turn into complicity - and betrayal?

1983. Annie is reeling from the loss of her husband and struggling to face raising her daughter alone. Following a chance encounter, she offers a sick young man a bed for the night, a good deed that soon leads to another. Before long, she finds herself entering a new life of service - her home a haven for those who are cruelly shunned. But can we ever really atone?

📖 My Review..

Lock-down in 2020 brings its own brand of isolation and indecision and left with just her thoughts Annie is taken back in time firstly to 1959 when she and her friend Rita were student nurses at Fairlie Hall Mental Hospital. With an incompassionate matron who ruled with a rod of iron, Annie and Rita were given tasks which they neither knew nor understood. Moving forward in time we meet Annie in the 1980s when another unknown epidemic was wiping out a specific population and with a house far too big for Annie and her daughter, Annie offers a place of refuge to those who were being shunned in society and considered unworthy of human kindness.

Stark, often brutal its depiction of life, this emotive novel took me right back to my own student nurse days and more particularly to nursing in the 1980s when no-one, unless you were actually there, could understand the fear and ignorance which surrounded this particular time in medical history. I had such an emotional connection to Annie, often seeing myself in her when I too would obey instructions with little knowledge of the far reaching consequences. Although different times calls for different measures this cleverly controlled novel links together three very specific eras and gives them a common thread, that of a disease out of control, the ignorance which surrounded medical treatments and in particular mental illness, and of the isolation borne of fear.

Hold Back the Night is a difficult book to 'enjoy' as the subject matter is a tough read but it's all sensitively handled and very well written and is definitely a story which will stay with me for a while.

About the Author

Jessica Moor studied English at Cambridge before completing a Creative Writing MA at Manchester University. Prior to this she spent a year working in the violence against women and girls sector and this experience inspired her first novel, Keeper.

Her second novel, Young Women, was published in 2022.

She was selected as one of the Guardian's 10 best debut novelists of 2020, longlisted for the 2020 Desmond Elliot Prize and a Mystery Writers of America Award. She won the 2022 Nouvelle Voix du Polar. She lectures in Creative Writing.

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📖 Book Review ~ The Island of Mists and Miracles by Victoria Mas

Doubleday 
14 March 2024

Thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

 

In 1830 a young novice called Catherine Labouré was granted a vision of the Virgin Mary. Nearly 200 years later, Sister Anne is also waiting for a sign.

Which is why she accepts a mission to go to a tiny community on an island just off the coast of Brittany. Her only companion there is a sceptical, chain-smoking older nun who just wants to be left in peace.

On the island she meets Hugo, the son of a devout family who prefers to look for the meaning of life amid the stars; Madenn, a grandmother whose daughter was killed in a crash and who finds meaning in routine; Isaac, Madenn's grandson, an otherworldly teenager who doesn't fit in but who befriends Hugo, and Julia, a sickly child. If anyone needs a miracle, it is her.

But it is not Sister Anne who receives a vision. Instead it is Isaac who is found on a promontory, transfixed, unable to utter more than the words 'I see'. The event soon becomes headline news and the world descends on the small island, opening old wounds and unleashing a chain of events none of them could have foreseen.

📖 My Review..

Leaving behind her French convent Sister Ann arrives on a tiny island just off the coast of Brittany. On the island she prays for a miracle to happen, a sign that the Virgin Mary has a special message for her, however, it is not Sister Anne who receives the heavenly vision but a troubled young islander called Isaac. With intense scrutiny focused on the Île de Batz, and religious fervour reaching fever pitch, emotions run high with disastrous consequences.

The cast of characters who flit into and out of the story bring their own particular angst. They are not always very likeable as people however, as their individual stories start to emerge so an understanding comes of why they act in such a troubled way. Some of it due unrelenting grief which, over time, has altered their perspective. I enjoyed the way in which the author allowed the story to evolve at its own unhurried pace.

Beautifully written, with a lyrical quality to the narrative, The Island of Mists and Miracles is a short but powerful story about the starkness of belief and of heightened emotions which result in unreasonable jealousy, thwarted frustration and unleashed anger.

About the Author

VICTORIA MAS The Mad Women's Ball, Victoria Mas's debut novel, has won several prizes in France (including the Prix Stanislas and Prix Renaudot des Lycéens) and was the bestselling debut of the year. Victoria has worked in film in the United States, where she lived for eight years. She graduated from the Sorbonne in Contemporary Literature. The Mad Women's Ball is now an Amazon Prime Video Original Film starring Mélanie Laurent and Lou de Louâge.

X / Twitter @DoubledayUK

#TheIslandofMistsandMiracles

📖 Blog Tour ~ Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize 2024 Longlist

The shortlist will be revealed on 21 March.

 

I am delighted to join the blog tour to share my review

Granta
2023

A subversive historical novel set during the French Revolution, inspired by a young peasant boy turned showman, said to have been tormented and driven to murder by an all-consuming appetite.

1798, France. Nuns move along the dark corridors of a Versailles hospital where the young Sister Perpetué has been tasked with sitting with the patient who must always be watched. The man, gaunt, with his sallow skin and distended belly, is dying: they say he ate a golden fork, and that it’s killing him from the inside. But that’s not all—he is rumored to have done monstrous things in his attempts to sate an insatiable appetite… an appetite they say tortures him still.

Born in an impoverished village to a widowed young mother, Tarare was once overflowing with quiet affection: for the Baby Jesus and the many Saints, for his mother, for the plants and little creatures in the woods and fields around their house. He spends his days alone, observing the delicate charms of the countryside. But his world is not a gentle one—and soon, life as he knew it is violently upended. Tarare is pitched down a chaotic path through revolutionary France, left to the mercy of strangers, and increasingly, bottomlessly, ravenous.

This exhilarating, disquieting novel paints a richly imagined life for The Great Tarare, The Glutton of Lyon in 18th-century France: a world of desire, hunger and poverty; hope, chaos and survival. As in her cult hit The Manningtree Witches, Blakemore showcases her stunning lyricism and deep compassion for characters pushed to the edge of society in The Glutton, her most unputdownable work yet.

📖 My Review..

In a Versailles hospital Tarare lies unloved, and largely forgotten, with only the young Sister Perpetué for company. That Tarare is dying is not disputed and as we travel along the journey of his past so we begin to see just what has made this man into The Great Tarare, The Glutton of Lyon, and into a monster whose gargantuan appetite would be his downfall. We meet Tarare in the aftermath of Revolutionary France as he recounts his life in dreadful detail to Sister Perpetué, which at times shocks her into silence. From rural France to his life as a soldier, and showman, Tarare is unsparing in sharing the horrors of his life.

Based on the true story of Tarare, the French showman and soldier, who was renown for his unusual eating habits, this is serious historical fiction at its absolute best. At times quite shocking whilst at others gravely serious I followed Tarare as he moved from the small rural village he was named after and into the nightmare which became the French Revolution. His huge and unusual appetite made him the subject of public scrutiny and in doing so he seemed to lose his humanity altogether. 

Elegantly written, with beautifully written prose, which is, at times, so scarily realistic that I had to catch my breath, The Glutton definitely fired my imagination.  I started the story feeling only revulsion for this man who was purported to have eaten all manner of unusual things only to find, by the conclusion to Tarare's story, that he was merely a misunderstood man and not a depraved monster.

About the Author

A. K. Blakemore's debut novel,The Manningtree Witches, won the Desmond Elliott Prize 2021, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, and was a Waterstones Book of the Month. She is the author of two full length collections of poetry, Humbert Summer and Fondue, which was awarded the 2019 Ledbury Forte Prize for Best Second Collection, and has also translated the work of Sichuanese poet Yu Yoyo. Her poetry and prose has appeared in the London Review of Books, Poetry, the Poetry Review and the White Review, among other publications.

Follow on social media

X / Twitter @dylanthomasprize #SUDTP24

Instagram @dylanthomasprize

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☼Summer Reading ~ Azúcar by Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Destination ...Caribbean ☼

Peepal Tree Press Ltd

8 June 2023

My thanks to the publisher and Tory Lyne-Perkis for my copy of this book

Part socio-political satire, part romance, Azúcar (sugar) is the long awaited second novel from the critically acclaimed Ghanaian-British novelist, Nii Ayikwei Parkes (author of award winning novel Tail of the Blue Bird (Jonathan Cape). Set in a world where everything is on the move: people, ideas, food and music, Azúcar is a magic realist tale set on a fictional island in the Caribbean that asks what price we pay to have a place called ‘home’?

Sonada Sun is the sweetest rice in the world, and on the mythical Caribbean Island of Fumaz two young lovers, Ghanaian-born, Caribbean-raised musician Yunior and Caribbean-American college student Emelina Santos, heiress of the Soñada dynasty, lock eyes at a fiesta yards from her family’s city home.

In the ensuring years Yunior and Emelina travel divergent journeys through history, music, myth and heartbreak; confronting the question of what it means to belong to a place or to another person. Several years later the two are united in a quest to save Emelina’s family’s plantation from closure. To succeed they must find a way to bring back to life a plantation with soil so saturated with sugar that it can no longer support crops.

Yunior brings the knowledge of a scientist, the skills of a farmer and the heart of a musician to life in Fumaz. As a farmer, he sees how much of his West African food has journeyed across the Atlantic to make the island’s unique cuisine; as a musician he becomes part of the spirit that puts the island on the world stage, out of all proportion to its size.

Love and death, harmony and conflict are the motives of a set of vividly drawn characters, brought alive by Parkes’ flowing, elegant and heartfelt prose, that alongside people, food and music moves freely back and forth across the seas between Africa and the Caribbean.

📖 My Review..

In ordinary circumstances, Ghanaian-born, Caribbean-raised musician Yunior and Caribbean-American college student Emelina Santos, heiress of the Soñada dynasty, would never have met, that is, until fate brings them together. 

Set on a fictional island in the Caribbean, music, life, love, tragedy and heartbreak bring these two beautiful people together in a lyrical story which looks at the idea of destiny, what it means to be family and of the importance of bringing life back to those who have had hope taken away from them. A short but powerful story I read Azúcar in one sitting and was captured by Yunior's story as he pursues his dream but was also equally invested in Emalina's quest to fulfill her destiny by taking control of her family's sugar-soaked rice plantation. 

In Azúcar two quite separate stories converge and both Yunior and Emelina are lively protagonists however, it is their individualism which brings them together and their very differences which make this into such a compelling and beautifully written story about the need to find the place we call 'home'.

About Nii Ayikwei Parkes

London based Ghanaian-British writer, editor and publisher, Nii Ayikwei Parkes is one of the UK’s leading black voices, winning critical acclaim as a poet, novelist, broadcaster, and children’s author.

His debut novel, Tail of the Blue Bird (Jonathan Cape, 2009), was hailed by the Financial Times as ‘a beautifully written fable… simple in form, but grappling with urgent issues,’ and lauded internationally, becoming a bestseller in Germany and notably winning France's two major prizes for translated fiction – Prix Baudelaire and Prix Laure Bataillon – in 2014. He is also the author of two books for children – The Parade and Tales from Africa – under the pen name K.P. Kojo.

A published poet since 1999, his poem, ‘Tin Roof’, was selected for the Poems on the Underground initiative in 2007, followed by the poem ‘Barter,’ chosen from his first full poetry collection The Makings of You (2010). His 2020 poetry collection The Geez, was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, shortlisted for the Walcott Prize and was a Poetry Book Society 2020 Recommendation, while his a Ga language book, The Ga Picture Alphabet was shortlisted for the 2021 Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize.

He is the author of the poetry chapbooks: his début eyes of a boy, lips of a man (1999), M is for Madrigal (2004), a selection of seven jazz poems; and Ballast (2009), an imagination of the slave trade by balloon.

In 2001 Nii Ayikwei Parkes founded flipped eye publishing, a UK based publishing house which focuses on voices from the margins of British society. As editor and publisher at flipped eye Nii has played a key role in developing poets including Inua Ellams, Malika Booker and Nick Makoha as well as publishing the débuts of award-winning writers including Roger Robinson, Warsan Shire and Nikesh Shukla.

Nii Ayikwei is the literature programmer for Brighton Festival the city’s annual multi-cultural arts festival and serves on the boards of World Literature Today and the AKO Caine Prize. Previously he has served as a judge for several literature prizes including the Commonwealth Prize, the NSK Neustadt Prize and the Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize. In 2014 he was named one of Africa's 39 most promising authors of the new generation by the World Book Capital Africa 39 Project.

Outside of literature, Nii Ayikwei has written for publications such as the Financial Times, National Geographic, the Guardian and VICE, created adverts for the likes of Guinness and DHL, and modelled for Toyota and Ozwald Boateng.

 

Twitter @BlueBirdTail

@peepaltreepress

🎧 Featured Book of the Month ~ Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 

Doubleday
2022

Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing.

But it's the 1960s, and despite the fact that she is a scientist, her male peers are very unscientific when it comes to equality. The only good thing to happen on her road to professional fulfilment is a run-in with famous colleague Calvin Evans, legend and Nobel nominee. He's also awkward, kind and tenacious. Theirs is true chemistry.

But life is never predictable and three years later Elizabeth Zott is an unwed, single mother and star of America's best loved cooking show Supper at Six. Her singular approach to cooking - 'take one pint of H2O and add a pinch of sodium chloride' - and empowering message prove revolutionary. Because Elizabeth isn't just teaching housewives how to cook, but how to change their lives.

📖 🎧 My Review..

I have to own up to being rather late to the party with this one as it was published last year but with an Audible credit newly arrived in my in-box I decided to listen to the words and haven't been disappointed as it's a wonderfully immersive sort of read.  

Beautifully narrated by Miranda Raison, Elizabeth Zott comes gloriously alive, along with all her single-minded eccentricities, her foibles and her determination to empower women, not just in the work place, but also in the home. Elizabeth’s brilliant analytical brain is overshadowed by the misogynistic attitude of the men working alongside her, as even in the laboratory, Elizabeth, although an exceptionally gifted scientist, is seen as second best and not good enough to be one of the boys. However, it is her meaningful relationship with fellow scientist Calvin Evans which takes Elizabeth Zott's life in a very different direction.

Thanks to skilful storytelling we get to know Elizabeth very well, and whilst at first I wasn’t terribly keen on her, I did start to warm towards her as we gradually get to know her as woman, a scientist, a mother and finally a celebrity hosting a successful TV programme. I found Lessons in Chemistry to be a real breath of fresh air, it’s an interesting read which kept me entertained from start to finish. Elizabeth Zott is funny without meaning to be and her deep bond with 6:30, meaning will become apparent if you read the book, is so endearing that I couldn’t help but come to love her. Elizabeth is definitely one of those characters who stays with you long after the book is finished.

I have no hesitation in making Lessons in Chemistry my Featured Book of the Month for June.

Bonnie Garmus was recently awarded Author of the Year at The British Book Awards 2023

Twitter @bonniegarmus #LessonsinChemistry

@DoubledayUK @TransworldBooks

@Audible

📖 Book Review ~ Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry

 

Faber and Faber
2 March 2023

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

Recently retired policeman Tom Kettle is settling into the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a Victorian castle overlooking the Irish Sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, catching only glimpses of his eccentric landlord and a nervous young mother who has moved in next door. Occasionally, fond memories return, of his family, his beloved wife June and their two children.

But when two former colleagues turn up at his door with questions about a decades-old case, one which Tom never quite came to terms with, he finds himself pulled into the darkest currents of his past.

📖 My Review..

Newly retired from the Irish police force Tom Kettle lives with a certain truth which he has kept carefully hidden. Alone and isolated in his small apartment annexed on the edge of an Irish castle, Tom looks across at the grey Irish sea and remembers snippets of his life, memories which are as painful to forget as they are to remember.

The story is beautifully written with a starkness to the narrative which belies its strength and although painful to read it is eerily compulsive, especially as Tom Kettle's stream of consciousness brings to the fore everything he has tried so hard to forget. I read it quickly, immersed in Tom's story and its dreadful reminder of  Ireland's painful Catholic past, with the sins of the religious fathers lying heavily on those who were the victims of abuse and shame.

Old God's Time is a haunting and rather melancholic story and Tom Kettle is a character who will stay with me for quite a while.

About the Author

Sebastian Barry is an Irish playwright, novelist and poet. He is noted for his dense literary writing style and is considered one of Ireland's finest writers.

#SebastianBarry #OldGodsTime

@FaberBooks

📖 Blog Tour ~ Blue Hour by Sarah Schmidt

 

Tinder Press
7 July 2022

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of the book
and to Random Things tours for the invitation to the blog tour

She thinks of blue mountain, her favourite place. 'We're going somewhere where we can be safe. We never have to come back here.' As the rest of the world lies sleeping, Eleanor straps her infant daughter, Amy, into the back of her car. This is the moment she knew must come, when they will walk out on her husband Leon and a marriage in ruins since his return from Vietnam. Together, she and Amy will journey to blue mountain, a place of enchantment and refuge that lit up Eleanor's childhood. As the car eats up the miles, so Eleanor's mind dives back into her fractured relationship with her mother, Kitty. Kitty who asked for so much from life, from love, from family. Kitty who had battled so hard to prise her husband George out of the grip of war. Kitty, whose disapproving voice rings so loud in Eleanor's head.

📖 My Review..

Eleanor's marriage is in ruins and over the space of this sparsely furnished novel we get to know why she is leaving her husband in order to get far away to the Blue Mountain, her favourite place in the world. With her infant daughter Amy in the car Eleanor sets off on an emotional journey recalling the events in her life which have led to this moment. Eleanor’s challenging relationship with her mother is pretty much at the core of the story as is her fractured relationship with her husband, Leon, who has recently returned from the conflict in Vietnam.

Blue Hour took me by surprise, not just because the story is so powerful but also in the way the author uses her words so sparingly and yet delivers such a thought provoking and intensely personal story of trauma and abuse. Covering such an array of topics from toxic motherhood, to PTSD and every level of emotional discontent, the story should be difficult to read and yet it flows so beautifully that I had difficulty putting the book down. Right from the start I felt a brooding respect for Eleanor, unlike her mother, Kitty, who made my skin crawl.

Clever writing by this talented author makes Blue Hour such powerful and emotional roller coaster of a read and the connection, made between author and reader, is a very personal one. Throughout the story there is a sad intensity as we witness fractured lives spiralling out of control. 

🥛Best read with... a glass of Milo

About the Author

Sarah Schmidt is the acclaimed author of See What I Have Done, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and won the AIBA Literary Fiction of the Year 2018. She lives in Melbourne where she works as a librarian. 

Website

Twitter @ikillnovel #BlueHour

@TinderPress

@RandomTTours

📖 Blog Tour ~ Tasting Sunlight by Ewald Arenz (Translated by Rachel Ward)

Orenda Books
23 June 2022

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book
and to Random Things Tours for the invitation to be part of the blog tour

Teenager Sally has just run away from a clinic where she is to be treated for anorexia. She’s furious with everything and everyone, and wants to be left in peace. Liss is in her forties, living alone on a large farm that she runs single handedly. She has little contact with the outside world, and no need for other people. From their first meeting, Sally realises that Liss isn’t like other adults; she expects nothing of Sally and simply accepts who she is, offering her a bed for the night with no questions asked. The first night lengthens into weeks as Sally starts to find pleasure in working with the bees, feeding the chickens, and harvesting potatoes. Eventually an unlikely friendship develops and these two damaged women slowly open up – connecting to each other, reconnecting with themselves, and facing the darkness in their pasts through their shared work on the land.

A gorgeous, much needed story of friendship across generations, of love and acceptance, of the power of nature to heal and transform, and the goodness that surrounds us, if only we take time to see it… Tasting Sunlight is an achingly beautiful, profound and uplifting novel that will slow you down, and draw your view on the essential and most important things about life. 'A triumph' Nurnberger Zeitung

📖 My Review...

On the surface, Sally and Liss are unlikely companions. Teenager, Sally has recently run away from a clinic where she is being treated for anorexia, whilst forty-something Liss lives and works on her farm, quietly going about her days, with no need for any intrusion from the outside world. Liss is entirely comfortable with the beauty, and adaptability of nature, whilst Sally is all spikes and ridges and yet seeking shelter, and with no questions asked by Liss, Sally is given refuge and solace, finding her own rhythms in the daily activities on the farm, learning about nature, the importance of friendship and the comfort of finding your place in the world.

With well crafted skill, we are emotionally drawn into the relationship between Liss and Sally, we start to learn of their individual backgrounds, the sadness they each conceal from other people and the journey they must both make to discover what's truly important. Filled with the scents, sights and sensations of rural life I felt immersed in the natural world, learning how to harvest, and mash, sugar, sweet pears, how to remove sticky mites from bees, and alongside Sally, I gathered potatoes until my back ached. 

Beautifully translated from German by Rachel Ward, Ewald Arenz's unique story-telling skills are revealed in this wonderfully, descriptive story, which warms the heart and brings this rural backdrop to life in all its uncomplicated glory.

🍵Best Read with ...a cup of tea, sweetened with summer honey

About the Author

Ewald Arenz was born in Nurnberg in 1965, where he now teaches. He has won various national and regional awards for literature; among them the Bavarian State Prize for Literature and the great Nuremberg Prize for Literature. One of seven children, he enjoys nature, woodturning, biking, swimming, and drinking tea. He lives with his family in Germany.

Twitter @EwaldArenz #TastingSunlight #JubilantJune 

@OrendaBooks

@FwdTranslations

@RandomTTours

📖 Book Review ~ Free Love by Tessa Hadley

 

Vintage
6 January 2022

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

1967. While London comes alive with the new youth revolution, the suburban Fischer family seems to belong to an older world of conventional stability: pretty, dutiful homemaker Phyllis is married to Roger, a devoted father with a career in the Foreign Office. Their children are Colette, a bookish teenager, and Hugh, the golden boy.

But when the twenty-something son of an old friend pays the Fischers a visit one hot summer evening, and kisses Phyllis in the dark garden after dinner, something in her catches fire. Newly awake to the world, Phyllis makes a choice that defies all expectations of her as a wife and a mother. Nothing in these ordinary lives is so ordinary after all, it turns out, as the family's upheaval mirrors the dramatic transformation of the society around them.

📖 My Review ..

Set initially in a quiet, leafy suburb of London we meet the Fischer family, Roger, Phyllis, Colette and Hugh who live a conventional, and unremarkable, life together, that is until homemaker, Phyllis becomes hopelessly infatuated with the son of a family friend. Nick Knight is twenty years her junior and his louche lifestyle is far removed from the middle class respectability which has stifled Phyllis's natural exuberance for far too long.

The setting is reminiscent of a bygone era and the ambiguous sexual morality of the 1960s is juxtaposed alongside the conventionality of middle class suburbia. The country was undergoing great changes, both socially and economically and it was, most certainly, a time of discovery and unconventionality, the old order was gone and a new 'free loving' generation was going forward.

Each of the central characters are superbly flawed, and, it must be said, rather difficult to like, so all credit to the author for creating a set of people who, despite their many faults, start to become more credible as the story unfolds. Clever, sophisticated, entirely absorbing, Free Love is Tessa Hadley writing at her absolute best.

Best Read with...a slice of pork terrine, and a glass or two of Mateus Rosé

About the Author

Tess Hadley is a British author who writes novels, short stories and non-fiction. She lives in Cardiff and teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, her special interests including Jane Austen, Henry James, Jean Rhys and Elizabeth Bowen.

Twitter #TessaHadley #FreeLove

@VintageBooks

Book Review ~ Our Fathers by Rebecca Wait

Riverrun
January 2021

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

When Tom was eight years old, his father took a shotgun and shot his family: his wife, his son and baby daughter, before turning the gun on himself. Only Tom survived.

He left his tiny, shocked community on the island of Litta and the strained silence of his Uncle Malcolm’s house while still a young boy.

Twenty years have passed and now he needs answers - from his uncle, who should have known. From his neighbours, who think his father a decent man who ‘just snapped’. From the memories that haunt the wild landscape of the Hebrides.

My thoughts..

After an absence of twenty years, Tommy Baird returns to the remote Hebridean island of Litta the place, where until he was eight years old, he called home. However, after a horrific family tragedy, of which Tommy was the sole survivor, his life suddenly became one of bewilderment, heartbreak and unresolved grief.

Returning to the island, Tommy must face the demons of his past but getting away from the events of twenty years ago is harder than he could ever have imagined. Memories lie deep and there are still so many unresolved issues that Tommy is drowning in a sea of sorrow but there is no-one out there who can throw him a life belt. The islanders try their best to welcome Tommy home but none of them really know just how damaged Tommy is by the events of his childhood.

Our Fathers is a beautifully written character driven novel in which grief and loss sit against a backdrop of deeply hidden violence. The added complication of living in a community where everyone knows each other makes the claustrophobic nature of the island all the more convincing. The isolation of Litta, with its many moods and nuances, is as much a character in the story as are those who make the island their home, but with the spirit of Litta in his heart Tommy needs to shed the burden of grief he carries in order to have any chance of  happiness.

Our Fathers is an emotional and deeply affecting story about one man's search for resolution in place where the truth has been so deeply buried, within the landscape of personal survival, that it may never be found. A absolute hidden gem of a story, and one that will stay with me for a long time.

About the Author

Rebecca Wait grew up in the Oxfordshire countryside and studied English at Oxford University, graduating with a first in 2010. She has previously written two novels,The Followers and The View on the Way Down. She lives in London. 

Twitter @ #OurFathers

@riverrunbooks

@QuercusBooks

Blog Tour ~ The Puzzle Woman by Anna Ellory

Lake Union Publishing
20 October 2020

My thanks to the publishers and to edpr for my copy of this book
and the invitation to the blog tour

Berlin, 1989. 

Siblings Rune and Lotte are awakened by Mama and told to follow her quietly into the night. Last time they snuck away from Papa, with Mama bruised and broken, they were back within a week. But this time they are starting a new life, Mama says—where nobody can hurt them again. 

Ten years later, the memories of their escape are blurry; Mama is long gone and the siblings are back at Papa’s house. But when they receive a mysterious notebook that seems to have come from Mama, Papa tears it apart. Could there be more to their past than they’ve been led to believe? With Rune paralysed by fear, Lotte takes their fate into her own hands. 

When she learns about the ‘Puzzle Women’ working tirelessly to reconstruct files shredded by the former secret police, she begs them to help her piece Mama’s story back together. But as Papa’s threats against both siblings escalate, can they unite to learn the full, brutal truth in Mama’s own words at last?

What did I think about it..

This is one of those stories which grabs you right from the start with an emotional connection to the characters, particularly, devoted siblings, Rune and Lotte, and which doesn't let go of your heart until the whole of this compelling story is told.

Beautifully written, with strong characteristaion and a powerful sense of time and place, we come to share in Lottie's quest as she tries to put together the pieces of ripped paper which make up her mother's journal. However, Lotte can't do this alone, so she enlists the help of the amazing 'Puzzle' women. A group of workers who have a special talent for reassembling shredded secret police files, piecing together the shards of lives which have been shattered and broken. 

Moving, silently and swiftly, forwards and backwards in time, between the momentous year of 1989 when Berlin's wall finally crumbled, to a time, ten years later, when Lotte and Rune are having to live with the frightening knowledge that their mother is gone from them. I know that I am being deliberately vague about the whole premise of the story but this is such a powerful read that I fear to spoil it would do the author a great disservice. More than once I read with tears in my eyes at the injustice that was meted out, not just to those who lived in the shadows of Berlin's secret police, but also of the abuse suffered by wives and mothers who were destroyed by their violent and uncaring men.

Whilst The Puzzle Women is about state injustice, domestic violence and abuse, it's also about love in all its many guises and, eventually, there's a sense of hope even when all the odds are stacked against you. This is not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination but it's so beautifully written that parts of it, I am sure will stay with me for a very long time.

About the Author

Anna Ellory is a former nurse from Bath. She completed an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, where she was mentored by author Fay Weldon. Anna was inspired to write The Puzzle Women by her own experience of surviving domestic abuse, her research into the first women’s refuges in Europe, and the real- life ‘puzzle women’ who pieced together the Stasi’s shredded past.

The Puzzle Women by Anna Ellory is out now, published by Lake Union, priced £8.99 in paperback original.

Twitter @AnnaEllory #ThePuzzleWomen

@ed_pr

@AmazonPub