Review ~ The Black House by Peter May

Quercus
2011

Detective Inspector Fin Macleod returns to the place of his childhood on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.  After an absence of almost eighteen years, Fin finds the island relatively unchanged, but investigating the unexplained death of one of his childhood friends is never going to be easy, and old secrets, long buried, now threaten to disturb the equilibrium, not just for Fin, but for the whole of the Lewis community.

The story draws you in from the beginning, as the murder mystery, at the centre of the story, is complex and convoluted and there are many elements to consider. The writing throughout is very good, the plot is tight and tense, and no detail is spared and no emotion is left uncovered. The Isle of Lewis, in all its stark and uncompromising beauty comes alive in the imagination. You feel the tension in the air, you walk the same streets as Fin and rediscover the secrets of his childhood and as the story is uncovered piece by piece, you discover almost as much about Fin’s character, as you do about the modus operandi of the killer.

The Black House is the start of the Lewis trilogy of novels which continues Fin Macloed’s love/hate relationship with the Isle of Lewis in - The Lewis Man(2011) and The Chessmen (2012). 

It’s important to note that whilst the books can be read as standalone novels, there is much more enjoyment to be gleaned by following the story from the beginning – believe me ,you won’t be disappointed.

About the Author

The Lewis Trilogy

  

Quercus

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Bloggers on the blog...The Little Reader Library

Bloggers on the blog


My latest feature showcases some of the best of the book blogging community. 

These are the unsung heroes who are constantly on the look out for new and exciting books 

and who give so generously of their time ,energy and expertise.



I am delighted to welcome

Lindsay 

from

 the excellent blog

The Little Reader Library

What makes you want to blog about books?

Spreading the word about something I’ve read and loved. Also it’s lovely connecting with so many different book bloggers all over the world!

What type of book makes you happy?

So many! Something that, whether it’s historical/crime/something else, I look forward to picking it up every time. Lately I’ve been really enjoying graphic novels. 

Which book have you recommended the most?

Probably The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson, I loved that book so much.

Which is the best book you received as a gift?

In recent memory, I received The Golem and the Djinni in a beautiful hardback edition that is just gorgeous, and I loved the story. Also, receiving a book token is wonderful for any book lover!

Which book has sent a shiver down your spine? 

I don’t tend to read many books that are out-and-out scary, but I do like psychological thrillers and one that had me on edge was Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes.

How many books do you have, as yet unread, on your book shelves?

About 700, and I have passed an awful lot on over the past few months, and I am concentrating on reading the lovely books I’ve got and I’d like to get my unread books down to a more sensible, manageable number that I’m happier with.

Tell me about a book you’ve read more than three times?

There were some I read when I was younger, I’m sure, though it’s hard to remember now for sure. I’ve read The Secret History by Donna Tartt a couple of times, great book. 

What’s your idea of book heaven or book hell?

Book heaven – reading whatever you fancy, whenever you fancy it, maybe? I think a lot of us are lucky to be close to having a kind of book heaven already, there are so many books out there, not too expensive, plus lovely libraries full of books. 

Book hell - not having any books within reach I think!

Where is your favourite reading place?

Either in the bath or in bed, or snuggled up by the fire, though I’ll happily read most places, as a passenger in the car, on the bus. I do like peace and quiet whilst I read. 

What has been your favourite book of the year...so far ?

Ooh, hard one, in terms of fiction, I really loved The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker, The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Please can I have all three? J

Huge thanks to Lindsay for giving so generously of her time.

Jaffa and I love visiting your blog.

Long may it continue.





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Sunday WW1 Poet...

The theme for this month's WW1 poems 

is 


Literary Figures 


Those poets who are perhaps better known for their stories



Edith Nesbit

 1838 - 1924


The Fields Of Flanders

Last year the fields were all glad and gay
With silver daisies and silver may;
There were kingcups gold by the river's edge
And primrose stars under every hedge.

This year the fields are trampled and brown,
The hedges are broken and beaten down,
And where the primroses used to grow
Are little black crosses set in a row.

And the flower of hopes, and the flowers of dreams,
The noble, fruitful, beautiful schemes,
The tree of life with its fruit and bud,
Are trampled down in the mud and the blood.

The changing seasons will bring again
The magic of Spring to our wood and plain:
Though the Spring be so green as never was seen
The crosses will still be black in the green.

The God of battles shall judge the foe
Who trampled our country and laid her low . . .
God! hold our hands on the reckoning day,
Lest all we owe them we should repay.

Written in 1915

Edith Nesbit was an English author and poet. She wrote many novels for children and adults but perhaps she is best known for; Five Children and It (1902), and The Railway Children (1906)

Nesbit lived a colourful and active life while writing her poems, plays, short stories, fiction and non-fiction. With elements of fantasy, time travel and spies, fairy tales and magic, her children's stories are a reflection of her idyllic childhood days and travels through England, France, and Germany. 

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The Last Pier by Roma Tearne...

April 2014
Hesperus Press

This is a haunting story of love, loss and family secrets in a world irrevocably changed by the circumstances of war.

In 1939, dark war clouds are gathering and for eleven year old Cecily Maudsley life is about to be changed forever. Palmyra Farm, the Maudsley’s family home, is a place of secrets and hidden desires and Cecily’s relationship with her mother Agnes and her older sister Rose is fraught with petty squabbles and minor sibling jealousies. However, a devastating tragedy shakes the very foundations of Cecily’s family, and the repercussions will reverberate for years to come.

Effortlessly slipping between two very different time frames, the book moves from the 1930’s to the 1960’s when Cecily returns to the family home after an absence of 29 years, and as she remembers the summer she turned fourteen, old secrets are exposed with shocking consequences. However, for Cecily there is no escape from reality and she must come to terms with her past before she can face her future.

Roma Tearne is a very fine writer and is able, with just a few words, to capture the reader and hold them in the palm of her hand. The writing is languid and poetic, almost cinematic in quality, and conjures time and place so perfectly that I felt like I had gone back to a time of hostilities, hidden desires and dreadful secrets. Part family saga, with a well written mystery at its core, this is a fascinating read and is highly recommended.

My thanks to Hesperus Press and LoveReading Reading Panel for my copy of this book 

More  book reviews for The Last Pier  can be found on the Love Reading website

About the author.

Roma Tearne is a Sri Lankan born novelist and film maker living in the UK. She left Sri Lanka with her family, at the start of the civil unrest during the 1960s. She trained as a painter & filmmaker at the Ruskin School of Fine Art, Oxford and then was Leverhulme artist in residence at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Subsequently she was awarded an AHRC Fellowship and worked for three years in museums around Europe on a project accessing narrative within the collections.

She has written six novels. Her fifth, The Road To Urbino was published by Little Brown in June 2012 to coincide with the premier of her film of that name at the National Gallery in London. She has been short-listed for the Costa, the Kirimaya & LA Times book prize and long-listed for the Orange Prize in 2011 and, in 2012, the Asian Man Booker. Her sixth novel, The Last Pier, is published April 2015 from Hesperus Press.

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Catholic Literary Festival ...

LADY ANTONIA FRASER AND DAVID LODGE HEADLINE MAJOR CATHOLIC 

LITERARY FESTIVAL

19 - 20 JUNE 2015

Lady Antonia Fraser

David Lodge

Tickets are now on sale for The Tablet Literary Festival, which will take place in June to mark 175 years of the UK’s second-oldest weekly journal. Critically acclaimed novelists David Lodge and Andrew O'Hagan and award-winning historian Lady Antonia Fraser will be among the speakers debating faith, fiction and truth at the two-day event.

They will be joined at the iconic Library of Birmingham on 19th – 20th June 2015 by other high-profile speakers, Catholic and non-Catholic and from the literary, theological and historical worlds, who will explore the influence of the Catholic imagination on literature, the arts and their own writing. 

Tickets are available online at http://www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/tablet-175-festival. 

To book for the writers’ workshops visit: http://www.thewordfactory.tv/

The festival, sponsored by the Word Factory, Bloomsbury Publishing and the Bible Society, is a unique opportunity to discuss issues including embracing and escaping the Catholic voice, sin in literature and Irish history with some of Britain’s leading writers and thinkers. The event has been arranged by The Tablet as part of a wider religious, educational and cultural programme marking the journal’s 175th anniversary on 16th May 2015. 

The programme will include: 

Lady Antonia Fraser – historian, novelist, and author of the recent memoir My History: A Memoir of Growing Up 

David Lodge, Man Booker nominated author of books including Small World and Nice Work and the recent memoir Quite a Good Time to be Born 

Andrew O'Hagan, Granta listed author of fiction and non-fiction, including The Illuminations 

David Almond, Carnegie Medal winning children’s author of books including Skellig 

Alison MacLeod, short story writer and essayist. Her most recent novel is Unexploded 

Michael Symmons Roberts, poet and winner of the Costa Poetry Prize 

Steve Ely, Forward Prize shortlisted poet and biographer of Ted Hughes 

Michèle Roberts, Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia 

Piers Paul Read, writer and historian, author of Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors 

Roy Foster, Carroll Professor of Irish History at Hertford College, and author of Vivid Faces 

Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge 

Catherine O'Flynn, Costa Book Award winning author of What Was Lost 

Maureen Freely, President of English PEN 

Paula Gooder, writer and Anglican theologian 

Carlene Bauer, American novelist 

Mark Lawson, the author and critic, will discuss the renaissance of Catholic imagery in contemporary film with Andrew O’Hagan and Catherine Wheatley. Further additions to the festival line-up will be revealed nearer the time. Speakers will be available for interview and journalists are invited to attend sessions. 

Brendan Walsh, Literary Editor of The Tablet, said: ‘The first issue of The Tablet, published on 16 May 1840, included reviews of books, theatre and opera, and a (not very good) poem. Besides news and analysis of what is happening in the Church and the world, coverage of the arts and culture has always been a part of the weekly diet. Good writing is as important to us as good ideas. We're delighted to host a literature festival in Birmingham as one of the events celebrating our 175th anniversary.’ 

Lady Antonia Fraser: ‘Catholicism has been an integral part of my life, from my conversion at the age of 14, followed by a convent education, onwards. And in so many of my works from 'Mary Queen of Scots', 'The Gunpowder Plot' and 'Marie Antoinette' to my most recent book, ’My History: a memoir of growing up', religion has been an essential ingredient. I am therefore delighted and honoured to be a speaker at The Tablet Literary Festival.’ 

David Lodge said: ‘The Tablet’s record of continuous publication for 175 years is remarkable and I am honoured to be invited to take part in the celebrations. I am no longer a practising member of the Catholic Church, but it shaped my character and writings from an early age and I continue to take a keen interest in its fortunes, to which there is no better guide than the modern Tablet. Its coverage of literature and the other arts has also been outstanding and the theme of the Festival is well-chosen.’

For further information on the events, to apply for tickets, or for any other queries, visit the dedicated site: http://www.thetablet.co.uk/other/The-Tablet-Literary-Festival.

Follow the anniversary plans on Twitter: @the_Tablet and #Tablet175

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Blog Tour : The Nashville Series by Inglath Cooper...

I am delighted to be part of the Nashville Blog Tour

and to welcome to Jaffareadstoo


Inglath Cooper

Inglath Cooper spent two years traveling to Nashville, TN learning to write lyrics and co-writing with other songwriters. She is the author of the best-selling Nashville Series, and the newly released
Blue Wide Sky: A Smith Mountain Lake Novel (Feb. 14, 2015). 

Welcome to the Nashville Series

by 

Inglath Cooper

I've been asked by readers which I love more: reading or writing.

That’s a difficult question to answer because they both originate in the same place for me. That is from a love for story, characters and remembering them long after I’ve finished the last page.

I can’t imagine being a writer without having first been a diehard reader. My mom read to my sister and me every night before bed and that was without doubt the beginning of my love for storytelling.

I started checking books out of the library as soon as I learned how to read. One of my favorite people ever was Mrs. Milliron, the librarian at the small elementary school I went to in rural Virginia. She would help me pick out books and introduced me to Beverly Cleary’s books, stories I still remember today.

My goal in writing is to hopefully leave a reader feeling as though she might have known the characters in real life. The highest honor I ever receive as an author is when a reader writes to tell me that they saw something of their own lives in the story.

My current series - Nashville - began with my own love affair with songwriting and Music City. In addition to fiction, I decided at some point along the way that I wanted to learn how to write song lyrics. And so I began traveling to Nashville, attending workshops, meeting other writers and eventually, co-writing and recording songs with them.

Amazon

It was an amazing time in my life, and I fell in love with the community there. The creative people who make up the country music industry are some of the most generous with their talents I’ve ever met.

And as with most other phases of my life, a story about my experiences there began to take shape and ask to be written.

From that, Holden, CeCe and Thomas were born. They are some of my favorite characters because in writing about their lives and experiences, I get to continue visiting Nashville and the country music world. Something I always love to do!

R U Serious

Nashville #8

CeCe and Holden have what is sometimes unusual in the entertainment world: a good marriage. They know how lucky they are to have found each other, and with the recent scare they witnessed best friends Thomas and Lila go through, they're determined not to take any of it for granted. But life in the public eye can come with its drawbacks, and when CeCe begins to receive death threats, Holden is ready to walk away from the spotlight altogether. CeCe refuses to let fear of the unknown determine how they live and insists on not involving the police. Until, that is, the terrifying event that leaves her certain she may never feel safe again.

Amazon UK

Amazon.com

Learn more about Cooper and her Nashville Series at www.inglathcooper.com and connect on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and Pinterest.





My thanks to Inglath Cooper for sharing her Nashville stories with me and Lynn Cappotelli at Smith Publicity,Inc for her kind invitation to participate in this blog tour.





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Review ~ Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum

Mantle
An imprint of Pan Macmillan
March 2015

Anna Benz is an American in her late thirties. She lives a comfortable life with her Swiss husband and three children in a suburb of Zurich. On the surface, Anna has everything she needs, but her life is filled with dissatisfaction, not just with her husband, with whom she is cold and distant, but also from her children, who seem to be nothing more than an irritation to her. Throughout the novel, she demonstrates a level of contempt for her family which is, quite often, difficult to explain. Adrift and disconnected from the people around her, Anna embarks on a series of short-lived intense sexual encounters, which are, in the main, unsatisfactory and which leave Anna feeling bereft of all support. As the story progresses, tensions start to escalate and in light of a devastating tragedy, Anna needs to re-evaluate everything about her life.

Strongly written with explicit sexual references, this is not a book for the faint hearted. It many ways, though, it becomes a compelling read, almost voyeuristic in its approach, and strangely alluring, as the need know how Anna’s story would be played out, becomes the driving force of the novel. I'm not sure that this book is easily likeable. I found Anna to be completely distasteful, not just in the way she behaves to family, but also in the way she has lost total respect for herself and considers her own self worth beyond redemption.

Sparsely written, with great precision, and heavily inspired by the author’s own experiences as a housewife living in Zurich, this intense debut novel reveals a story of marital discord on a grand scale.  

My thanks to Sam Eades and Pan Macmillan for my copy of this novel.

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