Review ~ Victory for the Shipyard Girls by Nancy Revell

Arrow
6 September 2018

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

What's it all about...

The war rages on, but their friendship is stronger than ever.

Sunderland, 1942

With the war showing no sign of abating, Helen is thriving in her role as shipyard manager. But at home the return of her father brings a shocking discovery that tears her family apart. Gloria is shouldering the burden of a terrible secret. If the truth comes out there could be dire consequences, and it will take all her resolve to resist the pressure around her.

Meanwhile Rosie is throwing herself into her work, taking on as many shifts as she can. Anything to keep her mind off the fact that she hasn’t heard from her sweetheart in months…

With life in the shipyards tougher than ever, will the strength of their friendship see them through to victory?

My thoughts about it...

This series of novels about the female shipyard workers during WW2 continues to exude its usual warmth and charm, and the women we have followed since the beginning have now become as familiar as friends. As each book ends it's always an eager wait until the next book is published as the author is very good at leaving the ending of her stories with a real cliffhanger...

In Victory for the Shipyard Girls we are again thrust into the lives of Helen, Rosie, Gloria and the other women who make up his close knit group. Each of them are facing their own particular challenges, but as ever the trials and complications of their lives draw the women ever closer, and as they share their hopes and fears, so their bonds of friendship get deeper and deeper.

With each successive story, this series seems to grow in confidence and, as a reader, the emotional investment in each character pays dividends as none of the women seem to outshine each other. I am equally interested in Rosie's story, as I am in observing just how Gloria is coping with  managing both her job in the shipyard whilst caring for her baby daughter. I'm afraid that Helen has never been my favourite character but I did worry about how she was coping with all the troubles that seems to come her way.

If you've followed this series from the start, and this is now book number five, then you will be delighted with this continuation of the shipyard girls story, and delighted to know that there is indeed another cliffhanger of an ending...

For those who like books about strong women coping during the tumultuous years of WW2 then this series would work for you, and, although the stories can be read as stand alone, my advice is to start at the beginning of this excellent series and enjoy from the very beginning.

The sixth book in the series, Courage of the Shipyard Girls publishes 7th March 2019 and is available to pre order now.

About the Author

Nancy Revell is the pen name of writer and journalist Amanda Revell Walton, who has worked for the national press for the past 25 years, providing them with hard-hitting news stories and in-depth features. She has also worked for just about every woman’s magazine, writing amazing and inspirational true life stories.

Twitter @arevellwalton #TheShipyardGirls

@arrowbooks


@PenguinRHUK

Blog Tour ~ After He Died by Michael J Malone

📖 Jaffareadstoo is thrilled to host today's stop on the Blog Tour for After He Died 📖

Orenda Books
30 September 2018

My thanks to the publishers and Random Things tours for the copy of the book
and also the kind invitation to be part of this blog tour

What's it all about...

When Paula Gadd’s husband of almost thirty years dies, just days away from the seventh anniversary of their son Christopher’s death, her world falls apart. Grieving and bereft, she is stunned when a young woman approaches her at the funeral service, and slips something into her pocket. A note suggesting that Paula’s husband was not all that he seemed… When the two women eventually meet, a series of revelations challenges everything Paula thought she knew, and it becomes immediately clear that both women’s lives are in very real danger. Both a dark, twisty slice of domestic noir and taut, explosive psychological thriller, After He Died is also a chilling reminder that the people we trust the most can harbour the deadliest secrets…

What did I think about it...

We never truly know just what is going on in someone's life and that certainly rings true for Paula Gadd, for even as she greets mourners at her husband's funeral, and with little time to come to terms with his untimely death, she finds that she into thrust into a maelstrom of deceit and buried secrets.

The mystery at the heart of the novel is complex with lots of twists and turns which, most certainly, had me guessing. I enjoyed how the action fairly bounces along so that you are never really sure of what Paula is going to find out next and that there is much for her to discover is obvious from the start. It's interesting to observe just how Paula deals with the fact that her husband of thirty years is someone that she truly didn't know and, as the story moves along, it becomes obvious that she has more questions about his life than there are clear answers. 

After He Died isn't just dark domestic noir, it is also a sympathetic portrayal of grief and how it affects judgement and I think that the author captures this really well in the way that Paula's behaviour is often a little unpredictable. The other characters who flit into and out of the story are equally unreliable, and there were definitely some that I liked more than others, but there is no doubt that, collectively, they add the necessary light and shade to what is, after all, quite a dark thriller.

Beautifully written with a distinct eye for detail, After He Died is a fascinating character driven novel by a skilful author who really knows how to keep the tension alive until the very last page.

About the Author

Michael Malone is a prize-winning poet and author who was born and brought up in the heart of Burns’ country. He has published over 200 poems in literary magazines throughout the UK, including New Writing Scotland, Poetry Scotland and Markings. Blood Tears, his bestselling debut novel won the Pitlochry Prize from the Scottish Association of Writers. Other published work includes: Carnegie’s Call; A Taste for Malice; The Guillotine Choice; Beyond the Rage; The Bad Samaritan and Dog Fight. His psychological thriller, A Suitable Lie, was a number-one bestseller, and the critically acclaimed House of Spines soon followed suit. A former Regional Sales Manager (Faber & Faber) he has also worked as an IFA and a bookseller.

Twitter @MichaelJMalone1 #AfterHeDied


@OrendaBooks


#RandomThingsTours

Sunday WW1 Remembered..

A Sampling of War Poets

1917

Mary Borden

(1886-1968)

At The Somme: The Song of Mud

This is the song of the mud, 

The pale yellow glistening mud that covers the hills like satin; 

The grey gleaming silvery mud that is spread like enamel over the valleys; 

The frothing, squirting, spurting, liquid mud that gurgles along the road beds; 

The thick elastic mud that is kneaded and pounded and squeezed under the hoofs of the horses; 

The invincible, inexhaustible mud of the war zone. 

This is the song of the mud, the uniform of the poilu. 

His coat is of mud, his great dragging flapping coat, that is too big for him and too heavy; 

His coat that once was blue and now is grey and stiff with the mud that cakes to it. 

This is the mud that clothes him. His trousers and boots are of mud, 

And his skin is of mud; 

And there is mud in his beard. 

His head is crowned with a helmet of mud. 

He wears it well. 

He wears it as a king wears the ermine that bores him. 

He has set a new style in clothing; 

He has introduced the chic of mud. 

This is the song of the mud that wriggles its way into battle. 

The impertinent, the intrusive, the ubiquitous, the unwelcome, 

The slimy inveterate nuisance, 

That fills the trenches, 

That mixes in with the food of the soldiers, 

That spoils the working of motors and crawls into their secret parts, 

That spreads itself over the guns, 

That sucks the guns down and holds them fast in its slimy voluminous lips, 

That has no respect for destruction and muzzles the bursting shells; 

And slowly, softly, easily, 

Soaks up the fire, the noise; soaks up the energy and the courage; 

Soaks up the power of armies; 

Soaks up the battle. 

Just soaks it up and thus stops it. 

This is the hymn of mud-the obscene, the filthy, the putrid, 

The vast liquid grave of our armies. It has drowned our men. 

Its monstrous distended belly reeks with the undigested dead. 

Our men have gone into it, sinking slowly, and struggling and slowly disappearing. 

Our fine men, our brave, strong, young men; 

Our glowing red, shouting, brawny men. 

Slowly, inch by inch, they have gone down into it, 

Into its darkness, its thickness, its silence. 

Slowly, irresistibly, it drew them down, sucked them down, 

And they were drowned in thick, bitter, heaving mud. 

Now it hides them, Oh, so many of them! 

Under its smooth glistening surface it is hiding them blandly. 

There is not a trace of them. 

There is no mark where they went down.

The mute enormous mouth of the mud has closed over them.

This is the song of the mud,

The beautiful glistening golden mud that covers the hills like satin; 

The mysterious gleaming silvery mud that is spread like enamel over the valleys. 

Mud, the disguise of the war zone; 

Mud, the mantle of battles; 

Mud, the smooth fluid grave of our soldiers: 

This is the song of the mud.

American writer Mary Borden was born in Chicago in 1886 and earned a BA from Vassar College in 1907. One year later, she married George Douglas Turner, a British army general and member of Parliament, and they lived in England. She served as a director of French field hospitals in both World Wars, for which she received military medals for bravery.

(Source poetry foundation.org)

~****~

Hist Fic Saturday ~ Elizabeth Woodcraft

On Hist Fic Saturday I am delighted to welcome to the blog, best selling author

Elizabeth Woodcraft

Welcome to Jaffareadstoo, Elizabeth, I'm so thrilled to have you as my special guest today

Do tell us about yourself and how you were inspired to start writing your novels

I began writing when I was at school so then I wrote mostly on Sundays because we weren’t allowed to go out to play on Sundays. When I started to keep a diary I was 12 and I would write every night, in bed, hunched over the pages, because I slept in the lower bunk of bunk beds. My sister slept in the top bunk. 

I began writing my crime novels (Good Bad Woman and Babyface) while I was still working as a barrister. The good thing about being a barrister is you’re always writing documents that attempt to persuade as well as interest and even entertain your reader. So you are always honing your craft because the judge will tell you pretty smartly if your argument isn’t logical or lacks an important part of the story. 

 

Most of the fiction I wrote in those days was for my writing class. The class at City Lit in Holborn in London, was held on a Saturday afternoon, so in the morning I would be scribbling away. I couldn’t tell anyone at work that I was writing because – really – everyone wants to be a writer and I knew people would just yawn and say ‘Yeah, yeah.’ But the day I got a two-book deal from HarperCollins I was so excited I went into my chambers and told them all. Well, everyone who was in the clerks’ room. Basically, it was the clerks, all the barristers were in court. Immediately their question was, ‘What’s it about?’ and when I said it involved a barrister and her chambers they all said, ‘Am I in it? Am I in it?’ And in fact, one of the clerks, Lee, was in the book, in one short scene. 

It was at a time in my barrister’s career when I was representing a client whose case had gone to the House of Lords – the highest court in the land (now the Supreme Court). I was about to leave chambers to go to the hearing and as I said goodbye to the clerks I said, proudly, ‘I’m just off to the House of Lords.’ Lee, one of the senior clerks, looked me up and down in my barrister’s smart outfit and said, ‘In those shoes?’ I thought that was very funny, although a bit disconcerting. Fortunately in court your shoes are usually hidden. But that was the quote that went into the book. 

I’d written the first book, then I had to write the second one. 

I cut back on my barrister work which was something I could do fairly easily, because barristers are technically self-employed, although long-running cases had a habit of getting in the way. But the second book got written. 

Now I have left the bar and writing is my first career. I have to say it’s a whole lot harder now to sit down and do it, because now I am totally the mistress of my own time. And there are all those other activities which are calling to me - going out for coffee, going to the flicks (watching a film in the afternoon when the cinema is almost empty is one of the greatest pleasures on earth), reading newspapers, books and magazines, doing a sudoku or two, and occasionally going for a short stroll (exercise). It’s a challenge. But it’s a great life.

Huge thanks to Elizabeth for being my guest  author today 

and for sharing her thoughts about her writing...

Elizabeth's latest novel The Saturday Girls was published

 by  Zaffre on 30th August 2018. 

 ✧Here's what it's all about ✧

It's 1964. England has shaken off its post-war gloom and the world is full of possibilities.

Best friends Sandra and Linda live on a housing estate in Essex. They are aspiring mods: they have the music, the coffee bar and Ready Steady Go! on a Friday night.

Having landed their first jobs, Linda and Sandra look set. But the world is changing rapidly, and both girls have difficult choices to make. As Sandra blindly pursues a proposal, Linda finds herself drawn to causes she knows are worth fighting for.

But when Sandra's quest leads her to local bad boy Danny, she lands both her and Linda in more trouble than they bargained for . . .

Here are my thoughts about The Saturday Girls...

The Saturday Girls evokes that special time in the 1960s when every suburban town had its share of trendy coffee bars and the most important question for teenagers at the time, wasn't about nuclear disarmament or The Cold War, but was, for them, far more significant... are you a mod or a rocker?

Best friends, Linda and Sandra, are typical teenagers, fashionable mods, from their C&A twinsets, to their neatly pressed grey skirts. They enjoy innocent nights out, lust after inappropriate boys and generally have a really good time. However, times are a-changing and when Linda and Sandra start to become more independent, they realise that life isn't always very simple.

The author writes with confidence and enthusiasm, and as she explains in her notes at the end of the book, this was her time and the diaries she kept and her vivid memories have stayed with her. I was too young in the sixties to understand what it was like to be a teenager on the cusp of adulthood, with momentous change all around, and so this story certainly helped to bring time and place alive in my imagination.

I travelled back to a newly progressive time when boys with Lambrettas and girls with beehive hairstyles would meet and chat over coffees to plan their nights out. Futures would be decided and yet, for some, life wasn't always very kind, the ugly stigma of illegitimacy, and the unfairness of being ostracised for being an unmarried mother was still very much in existence, and the race to the altar, to be a wife was, for some girls, their life's ambition.

I really enjoyed being whisked back to suburban Essex in the 1960s in The Saturday Girls and I am sure that the author has more stories of this fascinating time to share.

Blog Tour ~ What Was Lost by Jean Levy

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be hosting today's stop on the 

What Was Lost Blog Tour

The Dome Press
13 September 2018

What's it all about...

Sarah has no memories. She just knows she was found, near death, on a beach miles from her London home. Now she is part of a medical experiment to see whether her past can be retrieved. 

But bad things seemed to have happened before she disappeared. The police are interested in her hidden memories too. A nice man she meets in the supermarket appears to have her best interests at heart. He seems to understand her - almost as if he knows her…

As she fights to regain her memories and her sense of self, it is clear that people are hiding things from her. Who are they protecting? Does Sarah really want the truth?

What did I think about it...

Our memories define us, they make us into the people we are and give us meaning and purpose. When those memories are taken away from us we flounder and cease to function as we did before. 

Sarah is recovering from a devastating accident which has left her without any conscious memory and as her amnesia takes over her life, so the struggle for some sort of stability becomes paramount. Guarded by a team of medical experts, Sarah tries to make sense of a world in which she is increasingly isolated, a world in which she can remember how to drive her car, but then struggles to make a cup of coffee. That is, until she meets a man who makes her question everything about her new life. 

This compelling psychological drama looks at what happens after a catastrophic trauma, at how the brain closes down to protect itself from memories it doesn't want to remember and which, as the story progresses, reveals more questions than it does answers. 

The author controls this complicated plot really well, offering tantalising glimpses into Sarah's previous life whilst at the same time keeping the unreliability of Sarah as the primary narrator. I found everything about Sarah's emerging life compelling, particularly in the way the medical profession seem to be manipulating her recovery, and whilst I was drawn to some of the people in the story from the start, there were others, and one health professional in particular, who made my blood boil. Even though some of the peripheral characters aren't always likeable, they add much needed light and shade to what is, after all, quite a dark story. I particularly enjoyed the medical aspects of Sarah's condition; her medical problems are well explained for those of us who know very little about the inner workings of the brain, or of its complexities when it goes wrong. 

Engrossing, compelling and fascinating until the very last sentence, What Was Lost is a clever debut by a talented writer whose love of language and creativity shines through with every well written word.

About the Author

Jean Levy has worked in genetics research, the pharmaceutical industry and in academic publishing. She is currently completing a doctorate in Linguistics. She studied Creative Writing at the University of Sussex and lives with her husband in the South Downs. This is her first novel.

Twitter @JeanELevy

@DomePress

Amazon UK

Review ~ The Antique Dealer's Daughter by Lorna Gray

✨ Happy Paperback Publication Day ✨

Harper Impulse
20 September 2018

My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for my e-copy of this book

What's it all about...

In the aftermath of war, Emily Sutton struggles to find her place in a world irrevocably changed by conflict. When she refuses to follow tradition and join her father’s antiques business – or get married – her parents send her for an ‘improving’ stay with her spinster cousin in the Cotswolds. But Emily arrives to find her cousin’s cottage empty and a criminal at work in the neighbourhood.

A deadly scandal still haunts this place – the death of John Langton, the rumour of his hoard of wartime spoils, leaving his older brother to bear the disgrace. Now, even as Emily begins to understand each man’s true nature, the bright summer sky is darkened by a new attack. Someone is working hard to ensure that John’s ghost will not be allowed to rest, with terrifying consequences…

Here are my thoughts about it...

In The Antique Dealer's Daughter we are introduced to Emily, who with a mind of her own, doesn't always see eye to eye with her parents. Her father would prefer it if she followed him into the antique business but Emily refuses to conform to tradition. In desperation, her parents send Emily to stay with an unmarried cousin who lives in a cottage in the Cotswolds, but when Emily arrives to an empty cottage, she finds that she is inadvertently involved in a rather dark mystery which is haunted by a scandal from the past

The author writes with great enthusiasm and clearly does her research well as both time and place are nicely described and, within the 1940s setting, there is a real sense of history. As with this author's previous stories, the mystery is complicated and there is much to take in, both in terms of character and plot, but, as always, the strength of the lead female character does much to carry the story forward. The adventure is filled with twists and turns and Emily finds that she needs to keep one step ahead of the game. I found the story a little over descriptive at times. and it takes a while for the story to settle. however, once I got used to the author's distinct style of writing, I started to enjoy the book.

The author seems to be developing a niche for this type of historical mystery/adventure and I look forward to seeing what she writes next.

The Antiques Dealer's Daughter is published today in paperback by Harper Impulse.

This is now the third book by this author which has a wartime setting

  

About the Author

More about the author can be found on her website

Follow on Twitter @MsLornaGray

Facebook

Amazon UK

Blog Tour ~ Street Cat Blues by Alison O'Leary

Jaffareadstoo is honoured to be starting off the Street Cat Blues Blog Tour

Crooked Cat Books
2018

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

What's it all about ...

A quiet life for Aubrey? After spending several months banged up in Sunny Banks rescue centre, Aubrey, a large tabby cat, has finally found his forever home with Molly and Jeremy Goodman, and life is looking good. However, all that changes when a serial killer begins to target elderly victims in the neighbourhood. Aubrey wasn’t particularly upset by the death of some of the previous victims, including Miss Jenkins whom Aubrey recalls as a vinegar-lipped bitch of an old woman who enjoyed throwing stones at cats, but Mr Telling was different. Mr Telling was a mate…

Here's what I thought about it...

I often wonder what my two orange cats see and do when they go out for the night. That they patrol the area, with whiskers twitching and paws gently tumbling along footpaths and driveways, is all part of the secret world of cats.

In Street Cat Blues we meet Aubrey, a slightly overweight rescue cat, who hopes that he has found a permanent home with his new owners, Molly and Jeremy, but as every street cat knows, it’s always wise to have a backup plan and Mr Telling was Aubrey’s back up plan, that is until something dreadful happened to this kindly, old gentleman.

I knew I was going to like Aubrey from the very first paragraph when he slipped beneath a parked car and covered in grease and dust he waited and observed the comings and goings at Mr Telling's house across the street. 

The author writes well, and keeps the momentum of the mystery alive in several threads which don’t all involve cats and feline participation and yet, it is with Aubrey and his pals where the real heart of the story lies. She has created in Aubrey such a force of nature that you can’t help but become involved as he, and his associate cats, particularly, the hapless Moses, who I loved second only to Aubrey, start to delve a little deeper into the ensuing mystery. That Aubrey is as clever as he is wise comes across in this charming cosy crime debut.

I really enjoyed solving this murder/mystery alongside Aubrey and his pals, their feline point of view is a refreshing change in a world of gritty crime and I’m sure given the right set of circumstances, Aubrey and his adventures could become a great book series.

About the Author

Alison was born in London and spent her teenaged years in Hertfordshire. She has also lived in Somerset and Gloucestershire. After studying Law she decided to teach rather than go into practice and for many years taught Criminal Law to adults and young people. Since moving to the south coast, Alison has been involved in qualification and assessment development for major awarding bodies. When not writing, she enjoys crosswords, walking by the sea and playing Scrabble on her iPad – which she always sets to beginner level because, hey, why take chances? Alison lives with her husband John and cat Archie.

Twitter @alisonoleary81 #StreetCatBlues

@crookedcatbooks

#RandomThingsTours