Feb 2022 – The Lotus Readers

Books of the Month! February 2022

Posted on 28th Feb 202227th Feb 2022 by thelotusreaders

It’s been another excellent reading month at the Lotus Readers blog. My plan of taking one or two less blog tours has given me plenty of room to read some personal choices from the backlog on my shelves. So, these choices are a mix of blog tour books, NetGalley backlog and the latest in one of my favourite crime series. Hope you’ve all had a great reading month and now I must rush headlong into a rather overcommitted March! See you next time.

The Marsh House by Zoë Somerville

This excellent book is part of my NetGalley backlog, but I’ve just been asked to join the blog tour next month so I will whet your appetite for my full review in March. I simply loved this book. In fact, a finished copy arrived through the post and I started browsing the first page then couldn’t stop reading. So I read it straight through, only finishing at 2am. It’s a split timeline story, beginning with Malorie and her daughter deciding to spend Christmas in a cottage on the Norfolk coast after an argument with her boyfriend. Malorie feels like a bad mother and wants to get one thing right – an idyllic holiday cottage Christmas for her daughter. This is no ordinary cottage though, set right on the Marsh and shrouded with sea fog there is a definite atmosphere of foreboding. The house holds so much of the past in it’s art, the attic of belongings and the journals filled with the story of a 1930’s girl. Soon Malorie is feeling haunted by this place and it’s past. I loved the author’s look into the complicated, emotional experience of becoming a mother. There is a special skill in weaving real historical events with fiction and this author is so talented and creative. She brings Norfolk to life and makes the reader want to visit and search it out for themselves. The atmosphere was so evocative I spent two days with a ‘book hangover’ – unable to start another book because my emotions and senses were so embedded in Malorie’s story. I loved this so much I could have happily gone back to the first page and read it over again.

Flamingo by Rachel Elliot

In split time frames and across the characters of Eve and Daniel we hear the story of two families who live next door to each other. Eve and Daniel move in next door to Leslie and Sherry who have two daughters Rae and Pauline, and some ornamental flamingoes on their front lawn. Eve isn’t used to making friends as she and her son Daniel move around a lot, but there’s something about Sherry. So Eve goes to a specialist off-licence to find just the right bottle of Sherry to take to her new neighbour. Sherry is delighted and immediately welcomes the wandering pair into her home. That summer is the happiest summer mother and son have ever had, as they are enveloped by this wild, eccentric and loud family – Eve uses the word rambunctious. Then Eve and Daniel leave. All the colours seem to bleach out of the world. We then meet Daniel as an adult, wandering and broken. Deeply affected by some kind words and affection from a woman in the library, he decides to return to where he was happiest. He turns up at Sherry’s door and it feels like coming home, but where is Eve and what is the story underneath the one Daniel knows. It’s so hard to express how much I loved this book. This is a slow burn novel, told in fragments like half forgotten memories and with such beauty it could be a poem. The writer conveys beautifully how certain people can heal wounds and hold space for each other. In light of recent times it’s important to remember that to live fully we must connect with each other. It shows humans in their best light and at their most powerful, when showing love and accepting others for who they are. Just like the flamingo is pink through his diet, we too are shaped by what is put into us. Through Daniel, and Rae to an extent, there’s an acknowledgment of how painful life can be, but that healing and change is possible. I was enchanted by this story and it will keep a special place in my heart.

The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths

There are several mysteries in this latest book in Elly Griffith’s Ruth Galloway series, both professional and personal. Ruth is called in to excavate human remains discovered by a roadworks crew, in the evocatively named Tombland area of Norwich. This alerts her to Augustine Seward’s House, close to the cathedral and rumoured home of the Grey Lady – a young girl locked into the house during the plague with her sick parents in order to stop them spreading the virus. Another grim discovery is the death of an older woman, found by her cleaner after taking an overdose in her bedroom. A prior case had caught DI Nelson’s eye because he couldn’t understand why someone suicidal, would put their ready meal in the microwave first. This latest death adds to Nelson’s suspicions, because the cleaner is convinced she had to unlock the room, from the outside. There is also a personal mystery for Ruth, who is clearing out her mother’s things. She finds a box of photographs and is shocked to find a picture of her own cottage – a place her mother never really warmed to. Written on the back is Dawn, 1963, a full four years before Ruth was born. Why would her mother have kept this and why did she never share that she’d been there? Griffiths weaves the pandemic into this novel so beautifully, with each character responding in their own unique way. The spiritual and ghostly space of Tombland is truly spooky, thanks to the Grey Lady who wanders the house with a lit candle, but also walks through walls – where there used to be doors. It’s no surprise that Cathbad has also seen her in this area and the legend adds to the confusion of the final moments as the crime is solved. The crime is an interesting one due to the elements of coercive control and our team have to ask questions about how and if they can prosecute. However, my mind was also occupied with those characters catching COVID and their loved ones and I was on tenterhooks with that aspect of the book. I’d set aside two days to read this novel on publication and I only needed one because I had to know all my characters are safe and the cliffhanger ending has me already waiting for the next one.

Off Target by Eve Smith

I loved Eve Smith’s last dystopian novel The Waiting Rooms, read during the first days of lockdown number one which exacerbated it’s strange feeling of being our world, but not quite. The author manages this feat again in Off Target, a dystopian thriller set in the not too distant future. Everything about this world is perfectly recognisable as ours, except for that one area that the author focuses on. Ever since Frankenstein there has been a tradition of horror writing around pregnancy and motherhood, showing just how far these fears are embedded in the human psyche. Monstrous births are part of the gothic and grotesque tradition and I think the author plays into that here, with her tale of meddling with babies in utero. Susan fears she will never become pregnant and this is killing her relationship with her husband. A drunken one night stand with a colleague is a world away from the sex she’s been having, which sometimes feels like a means to an end rather than something to enjoy and express love. Once she finds out she’s pregnant, there’s no question of her not keeping the baby. She can’t imagine terminating the pregnancy she’s waited so long for, but her husband looks very different to her colleague. He has very tanned skin and dark eyes, so what if her baby looks the same? She won’t be able to hide her indiscretion then. Susan confides in her best friend who suggests genetic engineering. Already approved in the UK for ruling out possible illnesses and disabilities, but what her friend is suggesting means swapping out the biological father’s DNA for the preferred father’s. Offered in clinics in Eastern Europe, these more extreme modifications are not approved in the UK but just one weekend in Kiev could see Susan’s infidelity covered up for good. Susan’s only concerns are the reported ‘off target’ effects of this extensive genetic engineering. There are underground reports of children suffering depression, becoming aggressive, or even committing suicide, but the urge to keep her infidelity quiet, might overcome her concerns about what could go wrong. The fall out is spectacular. A brilliant look at motherhood, genetics and a future we might already be engineering.

Theatre of Marvels by Lianne Dillsworth.

Our setting for this novel is a Victorian variety show produced under the watchful eye of Mr Crillick. His current headline act is Amazonia – a true African tribeswoman, dressed in furs and armed with a shield and spear, her native dancing brings down the house in show’s finale. The audience watch, transfixed with fear and fascination, never realising that she is a ‘fagged’ act. Zillah has never set foot in Africa and is in fact of mixed race heritage, born in East London. She’s used to slipping between worlds on stage and in her private life, renting a room in the rough St Giles area of the city, but regularly making her way to a more salubrious area and the bed of a Viscount by night. Everything changes as Zillah’s consciousness is raised in several ways. First, she realises that Vincent will never admit to their relationship in public. Secondly, she meets a young black man called Lucien, who places a question in her mind that she can’t shake off. How does it feel to earn money misrepresenting her ancestors? Finally, she sees Crillick parade a terrified women he’s called the ‘Leopard Lady’ at a party. With strange white patches all over her dark skin, the men are fascinated, drawing near and touching her and even roughly scratching to see if it comes off. Zillah notices medical implements laid out on a tray, the horror of what might happen to this woman overwhelms her. She must rescue the Leopard Lady from Crillick’s clutches. Exciting and fascinating, with elements of the thriller and a central character who is resilient and brave in her quest, this is a must read. I found the settings brought vividly to life and the author has clearly used solid research into freak shows, Victorian society and women’s live. She beautifully presents the realities of being bi-racial with the struggles of identity and belonging. I also enjoyed the theme of ‘otherness’ and how outsiders survive in society; the complexities of display and exploitation are weighed against poverty and deprivation. Can freak shows be acceptable if individuals can make a choice to exhibit themselves? Or is any exhibition of ‘different’ bodies unacceptable; a question that still needs debate today. I really enjoyed Zillah‘s quest and her own personal journey too. I read this so quickly and will be putting a copy on my bookshelves, because I know it’s one I’ll want to read again.

What a fantastic month of books! Next month is a crazy one, but here are just some of the novels I hope to read next month. thankfully I’ve read some early. See you soon.

Publisher Proof

Flamingo by Rachel Elliot.

Posted on 27th Feb 202227th Feb 2022 by thelotusreaders

We bloggers like lists. Every year we list our favourites, then we list the books we most anticipate for the following year and to an extent that can dictate what we read. When we leave ourselves some gaps in the TBR to have a breathing space, browse and pick up what we fancy we can find unexpected gems. That’s what happened with Flamingo, the latest novel from Rachel Elliot and it really is a gem. I don’t know if I can find the right words to express how much I loved this book and why. I knew, just a few pages in, that it was going to be a joy to read. In split time frames, narrated mainly by Eve and Daniel we hear the story of two families who once lived next door to each other. Eve, and her six year old son Daniel, move in next door to Leslie and Sherry who have two daughters Rae and Pauline, and some ornamental flamingoes on their front lawn. Eve isn’t used to making friends because she and Daniel move around a lot, but for some reason Eve feels compelled to make an effort. She goes to a specialist off-licence to find just the right bottle of sherry as a witty present to take to her new neighbour. Sherry is delighted and immediately welcomes the wandering pair into her home. That summer is the happiest Eve and Daniel have ever had, as they are enveloped by this wild, eccentric and loud family – Eve uses the word rambunctious to describe them. Then Eve and Daniel leave and all the colours seem to bleach out of the world. We then meet Daniel as an adult, wandering and broken. Deeply affected by some kind words and affection from a woman in a public library, he decides to return to where he was happiest. He stands at Sherry’s door and it feels like coming home, but where is Eve and what is the real story underneath the fragments Daniel knows.

It’s disconcerting to read a character’s narration, and feel as though the author has opened up your head and borrowed your thoughts. That’s how I felt when reading Eve’s sections of the novel. I have a jumble of thoughts and ideas all at once, and I’ve learned that I need periods of quiet to counteract the amount of stimulation I have. If I go to London for the day and see a show, its exhausting and it can take a couple of days to quiet the jumble of sights, sounds, and inspiration. In fact it was using journal writing to process these thoughts that inspired me to use writing therapy in my practice as a counsellor. For years I thought everyone had my ‘busy brain’. When Eve visits the off—licence and meets the owner, Franklin, they have a shot of rum togther and she’s intoxicated by his shop, the coloured glass, the smells, the guitar playing and the wall of paintings in a back room. Eve notices all these things in seconds and Franklin asks if she likes the place.

“She tells him she likes it. It’s sort of hypnotic, like being in a chemists and a bar and a gallery all at once, and also sort of like being in church somehow, not that she ever goes to church, not that she’s religious, not that she ever goes to church, but a tiny old church in France maybe, not that she’s ever been to France”.

I loved the way the author expresses the speed of Eve’s thoughts and speech, where they come out too quickly for punctuation and you know she would have to take a deep breath at the end. I recognised it straight away, because it was me when I get enthusiastic and excited about something. In fact I sounded similar when telling my partner how much I loved the book. I know when I’m doing it, because it usually makes people smile. We learn so much about who Eve is from that one quote. I loved her enthusiasm, her eye for colour and her ability to make things. Sherry marvels when she mends Rae’s cords, by sewing a patch of Wonder Woman underneath the tear. Rae’s reaction is pure joy and Sherry is astounded that Eve has thought of such a thing, but to Eve it’s normal. She simply knew the cords needed mending and she had remembered that Rae loved Wonder Woman. It’s these little bursts of creativity and thoughtfulness that make her so endearing as a character. It probably stood out to me because I have just embroidered denim jackets for my stepdaughter’s birthdays – one of Frida Kahlo and one of Alice in Wonderland. What’s so special to Rae is that Eve has seen her, listened, and created something she would love.

These parts of the novel, where the characters connect, are its strength and it was no surprise to find out the author is also a psychotherapist. Rae is an introvert and Eve has seen and understood. She knows from Rae’s shining face that she loves the cords but understands the that Rae doesn’t want to be effusive about it, because it just isn’t her.

‘It’s her way to play things down; she is naturally reserved, understated or so it seems. Her mother, who expresses every emotion with intense theatricality, who takes up all the space, calls her eldest daughter the quiet one, as if this quietness is a kind of fragility – not a powerful act of disobedience and unruliness’.

Sometimes, in a house of very loud voices, whispering is the only way to be heard. Rae’s head is crammed with thoughts and it takes an awful lot of effort to keep them in sometimes and Eve has seen a kindred spirit in her.

Daniel is also a fascinating and the dynamic between him and his mum, suggests there’s more to their back story than meets the eye. He has an anxiety around people that concerns Eve and she is protective. Before they go to Sherry’s house for the first time, she prepares him for the social interaction. She wants to prepare him, but she also wants to be careful and avoid her own anxiety rubbing off on him. She explains that this is a thing people do, take a gift to their new neighbours and introduce themselves properly. At Sherry’s door she stands back with a reassuring hand on Daniel’s shoulder and talks about the ornamental flamingoes on the lawn. She tells him their collective noun is a flamboyance of flamingoes, a little game they play together. Eve is so surprised when Sherry opens the door and her boy walks straight in – ‘shy little Daniel stepping towards a stranger.’ Eve doesn’t seem to realise that Daniel is struggling with the impermanence of their lives; they have moved every year since Daniel was born. This was another thing I could identify with since we moved six times before I was in secondary school. I know how difficult it was to walk into a new classroom and see thirty pairs of eyes looking at you. Eve has a map on the kitchen wall and from time to time would simply close her eyes and pop a pin in it to choose their next destination. When she gives Daniel the chance to choose, it’s too much and his imagination runs haywire: what if there are monsters where he chooses? What if its horrible? What happens to their home? Will strangers take their things?

‘Trouble was she hadn’t left it up to chance. She had left it up to a six year old boy, who already hated that map on the wall. In some homes a map would evoke an atmosphere of learning, open-mindedness; lets be aware of the world, there are more places than home. But for Daniel it triggered fear and a sense of transience; always on the go, never know when’.

There are so many touching moments in the book I can’t possibly list them all, but the budding relationship between the boy Daniel and Sherry’s husband Leslie is just so moving. The confidence he gets from time spent with Leslie (who is not a girl) playing cards and learning to swim is obvious. When Leslie leaves the broken fence down so Daniel can appear from his garden and scare them at the window it feels different from other places they’ve been. Daniel blooms with this unconventional extended family and describes it to his Aunty as like having two homes. I was dreading the map coming out again. We meet adult Daniel at a crossroads in life physically and emotionally. As their tenancy ends on their flat, Daniel’s girlfriend Erica decides this is a good time to reassess their relationship and leaves. Instead of picking himself up, Daniel seems unable to cope with this double loss and ends up walking the streets with a rucksack and only a ceramic sheep for company. When he turns up at Sherry’s door she is blown away by the man he’s become, like a ‘matryoshka’ where she can see the boy inside the man and the woman inside the boy. I loved this description because it beautifully describes the ever changing selves inside us, but also the effect of previous generations and incarnations of who we are. Daniel is carrying so much more than his rucksack, but also the baggage of being left behind by the women in his life, the loss of this family where he felt at home and the original secret, the one that always compelled Eve to move them on, from place to place. Can this family, once again, give Daniel the space to heal and process a lifetime of hurt?

This is a slow burn novel, told in fragments like half forgotten memories and with such beauty it could be a poem. The writer conveys perfectly how certain people can hold space for and heal wounds in each other. Even if they’re only with us for a short time. In light of recent events it’s important to remember that to live fully we must connect with each other. The book shows humans in their best light and at their most powerful, when showing love and accepting others for who they are. When Daniel is a child he is taught that flamingoes are not actually born pink, but attain their colour through their diet. Their beauty comes from what’s put into them and humans are the same – we are the sum of what we are fed from parents and caregivers right through to a kind woman in a library acknowledging Daniel’s suffering. Through Daniel, and Rae to an extent, there’s an acknowledgment of how painful this life can be, but that healing and change is possible. I was enchanted by this story and it will keep a special place in my heart.

In the garden, there were three flamingos. Not real flamingos, but real emblems, real gateways to a time when life was impossibly good. They were mascots, symbols of hope. Something for a boy to confide in.

Meet The Author

Rachel Elliott is the author of WHISPERS THROUGH A MEGAPHONE (2015, Pushkin Press, longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016) and DO NOT FEED THE BEAR (2019, Tinder Press). Her third novel, FLAMINGO, was published on 3 Feb 2022 by Tinder Press and is out now in hardback, ebook & audiobook. She is also a psychotherapist.

Out now from Tinder Press

Throwback Thursday

Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

Posted on 24th Feb 202223rd Feb 2022 by thelotusreaders

I’ll own up to the fact that this beautiful book remained on my shelves for about five years before I read it. I’d bought it while doing my degree in literature, so I was already reading five books a week and although I loved the blurb I just couldn’t get into such a weighty book. I remember picking it up and reading the opening paragraph, then slotting it back on the shelf a few times too. When I finally did read it I was absolutely enchanted and amazed by the incredibly detailed world the author had created.

The year is 1806. centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation’s past. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell hoards books of magic for his library and can perform incredible and unexpected feats of magic. He is approached by Sir Walter Pole whose wife has died and he begs Norrell to revive her. Despite his scruples about old magic he knows this might be the only way to bring this beautiful young woman back to life. So, he is tempted by a richly dressed gentleman fairy, who agrees to help Norrell on two conditions. First he would like a keepsake of the lady and takes a finger which he keeps in a jewellery box. Secondly, if he is to give life back to her, it seems only fair that he should have half of it. Norrell does a quick calculation and decides it will not matter to have a few years shaved off her life. However, as Mr Norrell himself knows, fairies can be tricky, deceptive little creatures and this one may have ulterior motives. After this amazing feat of magic MrNorrell becomes the talk of London and finds himself working for the government, conjuring illusions to aid England in their war with the French. However, Norrell would still like to keep magic controlled, only performed by serious and studious men. Constantly, at the back of his mind, is the bargain he’s made with the fairy creature. Can he be trusted and will the magic that brought Lady Pole back to life work as planned?

Marc Warren and Eddie Marsan in the BBC adaptation.

Norrell becomes challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very antithesis of Norrell. He only begins to study magic because he is in love and she loves him back, but there is a very stern father in the way, who does not like Jonathon. He thinks he’s an idle layabout with a rich father, but no real prospects. Unless he commits himself to a profession, he will not give permission for Jonathon to marry his daughter. Jonathon Strange finds he is surprisingly good at magic and he’s certainly a showman, enjoying the performance element of magic. As word spreads of this new magician on the block, Mr Norrell becomes concerned. In a bid to contain the situation he asks to meet Jonathon Strange and offers him an apprenticeship. This will control Jonathon’s wild exhibitions of magical power. He sets him to studying, but Jonathon is increasingly frustrated by Norrell’s unwillingness to perform magic. A row erupts and so begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms the war between England and France. Each man’s obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine, while all the time Norrell’s dabble with the fairy gentleman and old magic is coming back to haunt him.

It’s really hard to explain the richness of the detail in this beautifully written novel. There’s the amazing historical background with 18th Century society vividly brought to life and the rural home of Jonathon Strange contrasting sharply with London society. There’s the city of York, where an incredible scene in the Minster involves Mr Norrell bringing all the statues to life in front of a terrified magician’s society. Of course the illusions are spectacular, but so is the fashion and just wait until you enter the dreams of our poor resurrected Lady Pole! The characterisation is playful and humorous, with both magicians thought of as great men but each ridiculously comical in their own way. Mr Strange is like an overexcited puppy who has just found a tennis ball and might trample the whole garden in his exuberance. Mr Norrell on the other hand, is like a squirrel gathering nuts for winter, collecting all the magic and storing it in a safe place where no one else will find it. He is fussy and persnickety in his manner, but can also be rude and abrupt with people. This is where Mr Strange excels, he is handsome and charming, making his magic appear to be an innate talent rather than the result of studying dusty books. We go from rural England, to London, to France and Venice with every setting evocative and rich. I loved incidental characters like the street magician who plies his trade in a rather tongue in cheek way, using props that Mr Norrell finds deplorable. Mr Norrell’s servant is also a fascinating puzzle. I was truly sucked in by the story of Stephen, a servant in the household where Mr Norrell dabbles in fairy magic. The way he is slowly sucked into something he doesn’t understand is incredibly well done, from the bell ringing that only he can hear and the mysterious guest upstairs who he didn’t see arrive. Stephen serves with pride and is proud of the place he has reached in life as a black man in 18th Century society, but promises of greatness from the new guest appeal to his need to be respected. Why is he offering these opportunities and why is Stephen so incredibly tired all the time? It’s as if he hasn’t slept at all.

TV Tie-In Edition showing Bertie Carvel and Eddie Marsan as Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell

The novel explores the 18th Century preoccupations with reason and madness, but also with classification and includes long academic style footnotes referencing an entire fictional body of literature on magic. Last year Collins released her second novel Piranesi, a full seventeen years after Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell. It had taken her almost ten years in her spare time to write this debut novel, which isn’t surprising given the level of detail. It was revealed recently that she struggles with chronic fatigue syndrome and having experienced this level of fatigue for many years as part of my MS, I can only marvel that she managed to write such a substantial debut. However, if Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell had been the only novel she wrote in her lifetime, I would still think of her as a genius, because this novel is an absolute masterpiece.

Showing the original editions of the novel

Meet The Author

Susanna Mary Clarke was born 1 November 1959 in Nottingham and is an English author known for her debut novel Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell (2004), a Hugo award winning historical novel. Clarke began Jonathan Strange in 1993 and worked on it during her spare time. For the next decade, she published short stories from the Strange universe, but it was not until 2003 that Bloomsbury bought her manuscript and began work on its publication. The novel became a best-seller.

Two years later, she published a collection of her short stories The Ladies of Grace Adieu (2006). Both Clarke’s debut novel and her short stories are set in a magical England and are written in a pastiche of the styles of 19th-century writers such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. While Strange focuses on the relationship of two men, Jonathan Strange and Gilbert Norrell, the stories in Ladies focus on the power women gain through magic.

Clarke’s second novel, Piranesi was published in September 2020, winning the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Netgalley, Publisher Proof

The Last Woman in the World by Inge Simpson

Posted on 22nd Feb 202222nd Feb 2022 by thelotusreaders

Fear is her cage. But what’s outside is worse…

It’s night, and the walls of Rachel’s home creak in the darkness of the Australian bush. Her fear of other people has led her to a reclusive life as far from them as possible, her only occasional contact with her sister.

A hammering on the door. There stand a mother, Hannah, and her sick baby. They are running for their lives from a mysterious death sweeping the Australian countryside – so soon, too soon, after everything.

Now Rachel must face her worst fears to help Hannah, search for her sister, and discover just what terror was born of us. . . and how to survive it.

I felt slightly breathless reading this story of destruction and apocalypse. So much so, that by the end I had very mixed feelings. I was glad to have finished the book, because I’d been feeling a low level panic and despair. However, it was so prescient and close to our current existence that I felt it needed to be read, however uncomfortable. This is a book borne of a fury that we treat our world the way we do. I write this as I’m laid on my bed – I’ve been unwell this week – watching Storm Eunice attempting to tear the roofing felt from the neighbour’s shed. It was only yesterday that I watched in disbelief as a town in Brazil was completely engulfed by a massive landslide. As I think of the state of our politics, the dreaded virus and the scenes from the Australian bushfires that left me distraught I know that the world Inga Simpson is writing about isn’t something far off future Armageddon. This could happen tomorrow. It is our now, not our future.

Yet still I veer between thinking I must do better and feeling that whatever I do will never count while those who actually have power can hold a ‘landmark’ climate change summit and not decide on anything worth the paper it’s typed on. Simpson has clearly felt a need for change for a very long time and this novel is her retort to our complacency and really does hit home. She uses the medium of the thriller to make our hearts race, our fears run rampant and spells out that this is our future if we don’t change right now. Where the films and books of my childhood concentrated on possible threats from outside – nuclear war in War Games, aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Alien. Here the threat is so real, because it’s already coming true. It comes from within. We are killing our own planet.

The setting is the city of Canberra, but it’s the incredible and unique flora and fauna of the Australian bush that’s so powerful in the novel. The author’s love for her homeland is so evident in her descriptions of the bush and it’s clear that the basis of the novel comes out of those terrible bushfires and the pandemic. I felt her pain at the loss of wildlife and their habitat. There are themes that flow through all of the authors writing – solitude, the need for quiet, a dislike of large crowded spaces and a total mistrust of elements of modern culture such as social media. The way Rachel feels as one by one these aspects of modern life disappear shows exactly how dependent we’ve all become on constant information and confirmation of events, beliefs and what other’s think.

‘It was a world gone silent. Silenced. There was no help. No news. No advice. No solution.’

I know people who might implode if they were left by themselves without a constant echo chamber of validation. Who do we become when our self is not reflected back to us? Already we can all see people’s standard of living slipping, their security eroded, their sense that someone is in charge and knows what to do about this, is shattered. We have all slipped down the scale from trying to be fully self-actualised beings, to being unable to keep ourselves warm. If there is no one to tell us how to cope we become very basic versions of a human – scraping by to survive and without the tools we once had to be self sufficient or alone. These are the aspects Simpson considers between the action and the conclusion the reader draws might be confronting and upsetting for some. At the very least it will make you think about the way you treat the world and your fellow humans, especially those who have to live in the future we’ve created. I have to say I felt like a product of capitalism when I read the following section:

‘Now it was too late and Isaiah, if he survived, would never see half the things she had seen, taken for granted, gulped down.’

There’s a great thriller here that is addictive, frightening and full of heart-stopping moments. Underneath is just as powerful, but quietly so. For this reader, that made it even more profound.

Published 24th Feb 2022 by Sphere.

Personal Purchase

The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths

Posted on 20th Feb 202220th Feb 2022 by thelotusreaders

Ruth Galloway is one of my all-time favourite characters in fiction, because I love her perspective on life, her intelligence and the fact that she doesn’t give in to all those things women are pressured to worry about. So, as I read her latest exploits, imagine my shock when she is lured to a Lean Zone meeting! I was horrified. I can’t cope with a Ruth who avoids cake. Rest assured, our favourite forensic archaeologist isn’t about to become a calorie counter. I gave a huge sigh of relief. When chatting about her decision not to continue at Lean Zone, Ruth tells her neighbour she was only inspired to go because she’d seen a school friend who lost an enormous amount of weight. The neighbour asks ‘and you thought she looked better?’ Ruth considers for a moment and replies ‘no I thought she looked worse.’ This is just one of the reasons I love Ruth and have followed her through 14 novels. How long will it take for someone to turn this into a TV series? There’s so much material to work with and she’s such a relatable character. I’ve entered into debate on Twitter over who should play these characters I love, even with Elly Griffiths herself. I know Ruth Jones was discussed, but I favour Olivia Colman who’s actually from Norfolk. David Tennant was put forward as Cathbad and I’m sure he’d pull it off admirably, although for some reason Rhys Ifans floats into my mind. As for Ruth’s love interest, the slightly ravaged and wonderfully Northern, DI Harry Nelson I’m thinking of either David Morrissey or Phillip Glenister (a little bit worn, but still a certain something that’s attractive).

There are several mysteries in this latest book in Elly Griffith’s Ruth Galloway series, both professional and personal. Ruth is called in to excavate human remains discovered by a roadworks crew, in the evocatively named Tombland area of Norwich. This alerts her to Augustine Seward’s House, close to the cathedral and rumoured home of the Grey Lady – a young girl locked into the house during the plague with her sick parents in order to stop them spreading the virus. Plague sufferers were often barricaded into their homes, but rumours suggest that this young girl was alive long after her parents death and had tried to eat them when she was starving. Another grim discovery is the death of an older woman, found by her cleaner after taking an overdose in her bedroom. A prior case had already caught DI Nelson’s eye because he couldn’t understand why someone suicidal, would put their ready meal in the microwave first. This latest death adds to Nelson’s suspicions, because the cleaner is convinced she had to unlock the room, from the outside. There is also a personal mystery for Ruth, who is clearing out her mother’s things. Her widowed dad has remarried and after several years leaving things as they were, his new wife would like to redecorate their home. It falls to Ruth to sort her clothes and belongings. She finds a box of photographs and is shocked to find a picture of her own cottage – a place her mother never really warmed to. Written on the back is Dawn, 1963, a full four years before Ruth was born. Why would her mother have kept this and why did she never share that she’d been there?

The pandemic is woven so well into the story and Griffiths really captures the disbelief, mental struggles and frustrations of trying to live in this strange time. It was interesting to see characters who are so familiar to us, reacting to something we’ve all lived through. Nelson is sceptical at first, but a few weeks later as wife Michelle ends up locked down with her parents in Blackpool, will he cope with living alone? Ruth takes lockdown in her stride, trying to juggle home schooling, lectures via Zoom and supporting her students. Griffiths weaves in the story of those students who haven’t been able to go home and are isolated in halls of residence, including one young man who is very interested in Dr. Galloway. Judy is as practical as ever, but surely this is the sort of crisis her partner Cathbad is ready for? Druid, wizard and all round mystical being, Cathbad is teaching yoga in the morning and has a pantry ready for any crisis. I felt quite tense though, waiting to see how COVID would affect these characters I love and worrying for them. Nelson’s team are struggling to investigate their case with the restrictions in lockdown, but the case is still fascinating with a lot of red herrings to muddy the waters. I loved how this mystery really looks at mental health and how difficult life events can leave us vulnerable to those who would prey on us. All the possible victims are women, live alone and have faced difficulties in life such as the loss of a partner. It also seems that all have been to weight loss groups, but is that a clue or a sad indication of the modern pressures of being a woman?

The personal mystery of Ruth’s had me hooked even more than the crime this time around. Ruth’s mother had never understood why she wanted to live her life in such an isolated place and there are times during lockdown where Ruth has wondered this herself, especially for Kate who is now 11 and has been totally reliant on the Internet to talk to friends. Ruth’s dad is equally befuddled by the photo she’s found which predates even his relationship with his wife. Ruth keeps wondering why, when she found her cottage, her mother never mentioned seeing it before. Plus, if it wasn’t important, why keep the photo for all these years? Answers come, but they’re unexpected and even life changing. It’s the personal relationships that shine here and the unexpected places and people that bring us comfort. For Judy, used to the ethereal and spiritual Cathbad, it’s her straight talking old sidekick Cloughie who brings the solace she needs from a friend. Ruth is surprised to find she has spent most of her time feeling almost separate from the world. She feels the strangeness of her daily life changes: more time in bed, the different way of working, and the jarring first sight of shoppers queueing outside the supermarket in their masks. Most of her observations are practical changes though and she’s remarkably comfortable, just her, Kate and Flint the cat. In fact the upside has been the lack of other people, the beautiful scenery and wildlife on their doorstep. They even have a new neighbour, who Ruth enjoys getting to know with a socially distanced glass of wine each evening separated by the garden fence. They can walk together on the beach and do Cathbad’s daily yoga, making them feel a connection rather than isolation. Nelson however is completely alone with only his dog Bruno for company. Used to a house run by Michelle and the rough and tumble of young son George he’s strangely lost and finds himself drawn mentally to the cottage on the coast and his other family.

There are little observations that make Griffith’s world feel so real to me. Lured to a small school reunion while staying at her parent’s house in London, Ruth observed how everyone had aged. In fact her school boyfriend Daniel is bald and she observes she wouldn’t have recognised him a line-up. She then does the middle aged calculation that all of us over 45 do in these circumstances; she wonders if she’s looking as old as they are. Then as the pandemic hits, these people she’s not seen for decades, are sending her messages on social media prompted by the ‘strange times’ we’re living through. It’s something I observed over over the last two years, when daily life is put on pause we look for things to ground us or start to re-evaluate our lives. These touches are grounded in that incredible Norfolk setting, fully formed in my brain now I can immediately see inside Ruth’s cottage by the salt marsh. This mysterious and wild space is offset by the city of Norwich and in this case, the setting of Tombland around the cathedral. This spiritual and ghostly space felt unsettling, as friend Janet explains to Ruth about sitings of the Grey Lady who wanders the house with a lit candle, but also walks through the walls where there used to be doors. It’s no surprise that Cathbad has once seen her in this area and the ghost story adds to the confusion of those final chapters as the case builds to a climax. I really loved the theme of the outcast dead, whether they are the undiscovered plague pits that one of Ruth’s students becomes fascinated with or the graves of those who committed suicide. Historically, people who’ve committed suicide are placed outside the boundaries of the graveyard in unconsecrated ground. The idea of punishing someone in so much pain seems archaic now and I loved the idea of a yearly church service to acknowledge all these outcast people. There are interesting elements of coercive control in the investigation and our team have to ask questions about their preconceptions of who commits crime and what criminals look like, never mind how and if they can prosecute. However, my mind was also occupied with worrying over which of my beloved characters might catch COVID and how their loved ones might cope. I’d set aside two days to read this novel on publication and I only needed one, because I had to know all my characters were safe and when I reached it, I was immediately hooked into waiting for my next instalment.

Meet The Author

ELLY GRIFFITHS is the author of the Ruth Galloway and Brighton mystery series, as well as the standalone novel The Stranger Diaries, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel, and The Postscript Murders. She is the recipient of the CWA Dagger in the Library Award and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She has published a children’s book, A Girl Called Justice. She has previously written books under her real name, Domenica de Rosa.

The Ruth books are set in Norfolk, a place she knows well from childhood. It was a chance remark of her husband’s that gave her the idea for the first in the series, The Crossing Places. They were crossing Titchwell Marsh in North Norfolk when he mentioned that prehistoric people thought that marshland was sacred ground. Because it’s neither land nor sea, but something in-between, they saw it as a bridge to the afterlife; neither land nor sea, neither life nor death. In that moment, she saw Dr Ruth Galloway walking towards her out of the mist…

She lives near Brighton with her husband Andy, an archaeologist. She has two grown-up children. She writes in the garden shed accompanied by her cat, Gus.

Random Things Tours

The Lost Chapter by Caroline Bishop

Posted on 18th Feb 202218th Feb 2022 by thelotusreaders

Teenager Alice has escaped a terrible accident that left her friend Ella dead, hit by a lorry and killed outright. Her mum Carla worries about her so much and noticed a huge change in her daughter’s behaviour, even before the accident, but is unsure how to broach the subject and too nervous to push her into moving on in life. Carla doesn’t know how Ella’s parents have coped with her death, but she does know that if Alice had been take from her, she would have fallen to pieces. Constrained by their grief and anxieties, both mum and daughter are too scared to fully live. Then Alice ends up walking Flo’s dog. Flo is in her eighties and knows a thing or two about choosing to live life. She rues spending years married to a man she didn’t love, scared of taking a leap into the unknown till years later when his affair ended the marriage. Alone and free to do anything for the first time, Flo thought back to the example of her friend Lilli at finishing school and decided to take more chances. She’s had a long life with times of pure happiness, but some incredible lows too. Now she lives with her dog, Ernie, and earns a living creating lino prints in her garden studio to sell in local outlets. She can feel the anxiety in Alice and convinces her to try printing. Flo can see that she needs to learn mistakes don’t matter – in fact it’s the mistakes that often make the picture. She encourages Alice into applying for art college, but when that plan is pushed aside for a safer option, Flo knows she needs time with both mum and daughter. So she invites Alice and Carla to travel to France with her and meet her friend Lilli. They have been apart for 60 years, will they still know each other and will that friendship be there after what Flo did?

Flo has been inspired to find Lilli because of a book she wrote based on the girl’s shared past. Through each chapter the author takes us back to when the girls were roommates at finishing school in Lyon. Their families were of a similar class and had only one expectation of their daughters – that they marry well and be ready to run a household. However different Flo and Lilli were on the surface, both were stifled by the minutiae of table settings (three forks on the left of the plate must not be more than one inch from the edge of the table) flower arranging and party planning. Yet only one of them had the courage to risk her family’s wrath for some freedom and adventure. When Lilli meets a young man named Hugo there’s a spark between them, but the school would never allow them to meet. She uses her brother to write a letter, granting permission for her to be taken out once a week by their cousin. The couple are now allowed out more easily and spend their stolen afternoons in bed more often than not. A young woman called Celeste who is in the same circles, takes Lilli aside and warns her that Hugo might not be as in love as he seems. A warning that Lilli brushes aside, thinking Celeste is perhaps jealous. It isn’t long before she finds out that men can often walk away from an affair unscathed and women are left with the consequences.

I loved how these fundamental inequalities in society are picked up in the novel – that women are held to account, while men can simply move on and pick their next mark. I felt the fear of Flo and Lilli, terrified to step outside the rigid lines that their society dictates, but also full of regret for the time they wasted being conventional. I thought the author had a brilliant grasp of human psychology, showing beautifully how mental ill health can be passed on to the next generation. Carla is so fearful I sometimes found myself wincing as she spoke to her daughter, because I could see the damage her words would do. She’s so intent on protecting her daughter that she’s actually harming her. The sense of place created, whether in the surroundings of the artist studio or the incredible heat of the South of France, is incredible and so evocative. The stunning setting of Lilli’s home is idyllic and made me want to visit France. Aside from the character of Hugo, this is a novel peopled by women and it was great to see such a celebration of female friendship. Even Celeste, in her way, had tried to be a friend to Lilli and share some female wisdom. I loved how the author showed, with the benefit of hindsight, how important that shared wisdom is. Often we only see the benefits of learning from the women around us when we’re older. I also enjoyed the age difference between these friendships. This allowed the older friends learn about things that are current and new. Whereas the wisdom and past experience of the older friend filters down and supports the younger. Flo wants to make sure that neither Carla or Alice live in fear of their future, like she did. What she most admired about her friend Lilli was that she always took responsibility for her actions, even when the outcome was going to cause difficulty or even change her life forever. She simply embraced every challenge that came along. I read this so quickly, because I simply couldn’t tear myself away from the story of these four women. This book is beautifully written, moving and really celebrates the joy of female friendship.

Meet The Author

Caroline Bishop began her journalism career at a small arts magazine in London, after a brief spell in educational publishing. She soon moved to work for a leading London theatre website, for which she reviewed shows and interviewed major acting and directing stars. Caroline turned freelance in 2012 and a year later moved to Switzerland, where her writing veered towards travel and she has contributed to publications including the Guardian, the Independent, the Telegraph and BBC Travel, writing mainly about Switzerland, and co-wrote the 2019 edition of the DK Eyewitness Guide to Switzerland. For two years Caroline was editor of TheLocal.ch, an English-language Swiss news site, and it was during this time that she became fascinated with aspects of Swiss history and culture, particularly the evolution of women’s rights.

Publisher Proof

The Marsh House by Zoë Somerville

Posted on 16th Feb 202216th Mar 2022 by thelotusreaders

I simply loved this book. In fact, a finished copy arrived through the post and I started browsing the first page then couldn’t stop reading. So I read it straight through, finishing at 2am. It’s a split timeline story, beginning with Malorie and her daughter deciding to spend Christmas in a cottage on the Norfolk coast after an argument with her boyfriend. Malorie feels like a bad mother and wants to get one thing right – an idyllic holiday cottage Christmas for her daughter. Maybe if she achieves this one thing, she can convince herself she’s not as useless as she imagines. The sense of foreboding hits the reader immediately as the weather promises snow and Malorie becomes disoriented in the fog. She skids and ends up wedged into a hedge. The Marsh House itself is damp, dark and neglected. They cannot even see the sea through the mist. Malorie begins to wonder if this is a bad idea, but finds a pair of journals in the attic while searching for Christmas decorations, and she begins to read. Written by a young woman called Rosemary, who lived in the house, the journals tell a tale of a young woman’s crush on the boy from the big house. This young woman’s story paints a picture of 1930’s rural Norfolk, becoming a young mum and her husband’s link to fascism and Oswald Moseley in particular. Malorie can’t put the journals down, but alongside the house’s strange atmosphere, they are having an effect on her sleep and her state of mind.

I felt for Malorie straight away and her sprite of a daughter. Malorie is very hard on herself and has a negative inner voice, not helped by an over critical partner at home. Here she is capable, ordering logs and a turkey, rigging up a Christmas tree with vintage ornaments from the loft, and even managing real candles in their holders. However, even when she’s barely started the journals, the locals are giving her the house’s sordid history. That whiff of fascism becomes stronger when Malorie finds leaflets in the attic and the girl in the village shop asks if she knows what happened at The Marsh House? Tales of lost cocklers cut off by the tide that can still be heard screaming in the fog don’t help her state of mind. The house itself holds some scary relics too including a weird picture of women who perhaps lived here, one with bright green eyes that bore into you. I loved how the author drip fed these little bits of information, adding to the house’s history but also to the creepy tension that keeps building. It’s Malorie’s kinship with Rosemary, the writer of the journals, that drives the story forwards. The more she understands about the writer’s life, the more confused she becomes between fantasy and reality leading to some truly terrifying visions in the night. Why does she feel so connected with someone she’s never met who lived here thirty years before? Who is the strange woman with the large dog she sees from time to time, and why does she seem to be looking after the family by leaving logs to keep them warm?

I did enjoy Rosemary’s story too, her innocent crush on the boy from the family at the big house. She fantasises about what it would be like to have him like her too, to kiss her on the cheek and choose her above the more well to do girls in society. There does seem to be a part of him that is attracted to Rose, but she might also suit his purposes – a compliant country wife at home to keep the line going while he gallivants in London with Moseley’s social circle. Having read a bit about the Mitford sisters and Unity in particular, I had already known how popular fascism was in the ranks of the aristocracy and how some of our great country houses were used as meeting places for talks on appeasing Hitler. I hadn’t known of it’s hold in Norfolk and found this aspect of the book interesting. As time goes on and Rosemary is treated very badly by her husband it was clear that something terrible was going to happen, but the final revelations are truly shocking. I loved the way she delved into the complicated, emotional experience of becoming a mother. She opens up the inner world of these women, with their constant questioning of whether they’re good enough, or are they failing at this job we’re led to believe should come naturally? There is a special skill in weaving real historical events with fiction and this author is so talented and creative. She brings this area of England to life and makes the reader want to visit and search it out for themselves. The atmosphere was so evocative I spent two days with a ‘book hangover’ – unable to start another book because my emotions and senses were so embedded in Malorie’s story. I loved this so much I could have happily gone back to the first page and read it over again.

Published by Apollo 3rd March 2022

Meet The Author

Zoë Somerville is originally from Norfolk, but has settled with her husband and children in the West Country. She works as an English teacher. Zoë began her debut novel, The Night of the Flood on the Bath Spa Creative Writing MA in 2016. It was published in September 2020. Her second novel, The Marsh House, a ghost story and mystery is published in March 2022. She is currently writing her third novel.

Random Things Tours

Off Target by Eve Smith.

Posted on 15th Feb 202219th Feb 2022 by thelotusreaders

A longed-for baby
An unthinkable decision
A deadly mistake

In an all-too-possible near future, when genetic engineering has become the norm for humans, not just crops, parents are prepared to take incalculable risks to ensure that their babies are perfect … altering genes that may cause illness, and more…

Susan has been trying for a baby for years, and when an impulsive one-night stand makes her dream come true, she’ll do anything to keep her daughter and ensure her husband doesn’t find out … including the unthinkable. She believes her secret is safe. For now.

But as governments embark on a perilous genetic arms race and children around the globe start experiencing a host of distressing symptoms – even taking their own lives – something truly horrendous is unleashed. Because those children have only one thing in common, and people are starting to ask questions…

Bestselling author of The Waiting Rooms, Eve Smith returns with an authentic, startlingly thought-provoking, disturbing blockbuster of a thriller that provides a chilling glimpse of a future that’s just one modification away…

I loved Eve Smith’s last dystopian novel The Waiting Rooms. I read it during the first days of lockdown number one, which exacerbated the novel’s strange feeling of being set in our world, but not quite. The author manages this feat again in Off Target, a dystopian thriller set again in the not too distant future. Everything about this world is perfectly recognisable as ours, except for the one area of progress that the author focuses on. Ever since Frankenstein in 1818 there has been a tradition of horror writing around pregnancy and motherhood. This shows that Mary Shelley had hit upon something deeply embedded in the human psyche. Monstrous births are part of the gothic and grotesque tradition and from Frankenstein’s creature onward they all ask a similar question. Who is the more monstrous, the child or their creator? The creature starts out gentle and enquiring, but Frankenstein was only interested in the moment of creation, not in how his creature would go on to live. The abandonment by his parent and the cruel way humans treat him are what shape the creature’s later behaviour. I think the author plays into this tradition, with her tale of meddling with babies in utero. Here the ‘creator’ becomes a geneticist who knows he can, but doesn’t stop to ask if he should and a parent more concerned with covering her own mistakes, than how her child might feel. The villagers with torches become the media, the protestors and eventually the terrorists.

However, I feel the author also uses great empathy when capturing those fears that grip you when coping with possible infertility. I had recurrent miscarriages in my twenties and remember all too clearly the combined joy and fear of seeing the second blue line on the pregnancy test. Joy because I wanted to be a mum, but straight afterwards a creeping dread that this baby would be lost too. For Susan, her fear is she will never become pregnant and this is killing her relationship with her husband. She fears the infertility is her fault and that she will never be able to have a child of her own. Her drunken one night stand with a colleague is a world away from the sex she’s been having, which sometimes feels like a means to an end rather than something to enjoy and express love. Once she finds out she’s pregnant, there’s no question of her not keeping the baby. She can’t imagine terminating the pregnancy she’s waited so long for. Yet her husband looks very different to her colleague; he has very tanned skin and dark eyes so what if her baby looks like him? She won’t be able to hide her indiscretion then.

Susan confides in her best friend who suggests genetic engineering, already approved in the UK for ruling out possible illnesses and disabilities. All it takes is a simple DNA screening to identify any problems and they can be eradicated. What her friend is suggesting goes much further though and means swapping out the biological father’s DNA for the preferred father’s. Offered in clinics in Eastern Europe, these more extreme modifications are not approved in the UK, but Susan is assured that just one weekend in Kiev could see her infidelity covered up for good. Susan’s only concern are those reported ‘off target’ side effects of such extensive genetic engineering. There are underground reports of modified children suffering depression, becoming aggressive, or even committing suicide. How can the clinic ensure that this won’t happen to Susan’s child? If they can’t, will the urge to keep her own secret overcome any concerns or scruples she may have?

The story was believable and gripping, especially as we moved into the portion of the story where Susan’s daughter is a teenager. Zurel has stopped speaking and with no physical problem apparent it seems this is due to psychological trauma. She is offered extra support from the school’s new SEN teacher and they develop a strong bond. Susan is already concerned that this may just be the beginning of the type of symptoms reported in other genetically modified children. I felt deeply for Zurel who is at an age where so much is changing anyway and I feared her facing a complete identity crisis. If her mother’s choice came out how would Zurel know which parts of her character are original and which are engineered? Would there be any of her biological character left or is she all engineered to be the way she is? It would feel something like finding out you are a programmed robot!

Underneath these emotions are some wider issues to consider. Should we be engineering disability out of existence? There are disability activists who would argue that no one else can decide for them whether their life is worth living. There is also an argument that a person is worth more than the money they can make, something which seems lost in todays politics and society where everything is measured with a monetary value and disabled people cost too much. As a disabled person I feel undervalued and unwanted by our government and a society that begrudges both the tax they pay to ‘fund my lifestyle’ and the wearing of a simple mask that might protect me from serious illness or death. I believe there is a social value in having disabled people in society. If we move towards eradicating all ‘faults’ from a baby’s DNA, there would only be acquired disability and how much more ostracised would those people be? Aside from these very personal musings, I thought the author asked interesting questions about nature and nurture. There are connections between certain characters that pose questions about the science, can a birth parent’s genetic material ever be totally removed? It’s clear that the scientists are working beyond what has been tried, tested and approved. As always, profit is the driving factor.

Betrayal is a central theme to the story and Susan’s betrayal of her husband’s trust is beautifully balanced with other betrayals. Her best friend betrays her for a better share price and there’s a final betrayal exposed towards the end that made me furious for Susan. As is often the case in these situations, it would have been far better if she’d faced up to the consequences of her actions in the first place. I also found the story of Susan’s blackmailer moving. From that first encounter outside the clinic where Susan goes to discuss her options, it might seem like her blackmailer is someone full of hate. Yet, despite what may seem like despicable actions, these extreme views can be covering fear, trauma and deep seated psychological problems. The revelations are thrilling, but that isn’t where the novel stops. The author takes us into the aftermath, showing that this isn’t one family’s problem. Using news articles and enquiry reports we see how the world deals with the fallout. The protests, marches and acts of terrorism, the vigils and church services for all the children affected by this quest for the ‘perfect’ child. It feels like a warning and an important exploration of a subject many people are already uneasy about, especially with the backward steps in the area of women’s reproductive rights in the USA. This is the best kind of book because the story was fascinating and tense, but also made me think deeply too. Like her novel The Waiting Rooms this book will stay with me as a glimpse into the future we might be already be engineering.

Meet The Author

Eve writes speculative fiction, mainly about the things that scare her. In this world of questionable facts, stats and news, she believes storytelling is more important than ever to engage people in real life issues. She attributes her love of all things dark and dystopian to a childhood watching Tales of the Unexpected and black-and-white Edgar Allen Poe double bills. Her new thriller, Off Target, is another chilling, prophetic page-turner set in a near future, when genetic engineering has become the norm for humans, not just crops, and parents are prepared to take incalculable risks to ensure their babies are perfect.

Eve’s previous job as COO of an environmental charity took her to research projects across Asia, Africa and the Americas, and she has an ongoing passion for wild creatures, wild science and far-flung places. When she’s not writing, she’s chasing across fields after her dog, attempting to organise herself and her family or off exploring somewhere new.

Find out more at http://www.evesmithauthor.com

Follow Eve: @evecsmith on Twitter, EveSmithAuthor on FB & Instagram

Sunday Spotlight

Valentine’s Day! My Literary Crushes

Posted on 13th Feb 202213th Feb 2022 by thelotusreaders

I thought I’d celebrate Valentine’s Day by talking about our literary crushes. Let’s be honest, we all have them. Those literary heroes that draw us in and make us swoon. From a young age there have been literary heroes that have stuck in my mind, and probably informed some ill-advised dating choices over the years. Those formative literary heroes who made my adolescent heart flutter, have changed a lot as years have gone by. Perhaps because what I’ve learned through my real life relationships has started to change the characteristics that attract me in a hero. Those young, dashing, tortured souls don’t seem quite so attractive when you’ve encountered a few in real life. Of course, literary adaptations on film or TV often influence these crushes greatly – remember the endless banging on about a wet Colin Firth striding across the Derbyshire countryside? My mum’s expectation of that scene had obviously been honed by 1970’s literary adaptations like Women in Love where Oliver Reed and Alan Bates famously wrestled naked in front of a roaring fire. She expected Darcy to be wearing less clothes and couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Anyway, I much preferred a slightly dishevelled Matthew McFadyen Mr Darcy, striding across a field at dawn. However, between the book covers, Mr Darcy simply doesn’t do it for me. Similarly, Mr Thornton from North and South was incredibly sexy when portrayed by the lovely Richard Armitage, but simply fails to light my fire when reading the book. So, with some trepidation, here are my reading crushes. Let me know yours. There’s no judgement here. ❤️❤️

Mr Rochester – Jane Eyre

“To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts…but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break—at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent—I am every tender and true.”

Considering they barely left the surroundings of their home at Haworth, those Brontë girls knew how to write the brooding, Byronic, hero. Heathcliff is probably the best example, but I read Wuthering Heights again when I was older, and he was a bit too tortured soul for my liking, plus he hangs a woman’s dog for goodness sake! I first read Jane Eyre when I was ten, in my last year of primary school, and I’ve read it every couple of years since. When younger, I loved the slow burn of their romance. From the moment she saves him from burning in his bed, it’s clear there’s something about Jane that attracts him. For him, she seems like a cool drink on a hot day. Somewhere he can sit and find peace, and let’s face it, he has an awful lot of drama to escape from. Of course when I was young I couldn’t see the feminist or sexual implications of the novel – Bertha upstairs was a bit of a monster to me. She was the gothic, scary bit so I didn’t really think about her as a person or what Rochester had done to her, until I was in my teens. I liked his dark brooding character and when he appears out of the fog on his horse it is still a swoon moment for me. I think I also enjoyed that he loves the plain, poor governess rather than the decorative, but awful Blanche Ingram. I loved their conversations and the way he seems to enjoy that fiery part of Jane. In my teens I used to think she was mad for leaving Rochester, but later I could see why she left and sometimes wondered if it wouldn’t have been better for her to keep her fortune and take off on a trip across the world. At least when she does return to Rochester it’s as an equal, with her own fortune and experience

Willoughby – Sense and Sensibility

In every meeting of the kind Willoughby was included; and the ease and familiarity which naturally attended these parties were exactly calculated to give increasing intimacy to his acquaintance with the Dashwoods, to afford him opportunity of witnessing the excellencies of Marianne, of marking his animated admiration of her, and of receiving, in her behaviour to himself, the most pointed assurance of her affection.

We’re still in bad boy territory here, with the ultimate cad who breaks Marianne’s heart and reputation in Sense and Sensibility. I have read the book, but I will admit that the Greg Wise version does play a large part in this choice. I loved the romantic way that Willoughby finds Marianne, having sprained her ankle on a hillside. He simply picks her up and carries her home. Factor in some rain, and Greg Wise being all dark and handsome, mastering a huge horse and a literary crush was born. No wonder Emma Thompson wrote in her diary on that particular day that Greg was setting all hearts fluttering as he was drippng wet an

a he loves Marianne, but in need of money he chooses status and an heiress above his heart. There’s no excuse for how he behaves, he’s an absolute rat, but that rush of chemistry can’t be denied. Would we have done any different to Marianne? In the film, when he rides to the hill in order to watch Marianne and Colonel Brandon leaving the church after their wedding, I think he’s truly sad and a little jealous.

Jamie Fraser – Outlander.

“I will find you,” he whispered in my ear. “I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you–then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest. Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.”

I couldn’t resist the giant photo of Jamie Fraser! I had barely started reading the Outlander series when the TV series started so now the literary character is always going to be linked with the lovely Sam Heughan. He’s a great choice for the character and the chemistry between him and Catriona Balfe as Claire is perfect. What I love about Jamie is the way Diana Gabaldon has written him and it’s something that spills over into the TV series. We as readers are firmly with Claire and everything Jamie does is viewed through the female gaze. Their wedding night sequence is good example. We experience him through Claire and it’s his body we’re undressing and enjoying. I think the allure of Jamie is that heady mix of tough outdoors warrior, with a vulnerability underneath. There’s the way he respects her ideas and opinions, unheard of in most men of Claire’s time, never mind the 18th Century. It’s also his deep loyalty to Claire, not just across the few years they’re together but all those years inbetween when they’re in a different time from each other. There’s nothing more romantic than that.

Cormoran Strike – The Cuckoo’s Calling Series

‘My best mate . . . ” For a split second he wondered whether he was going to say it, but the whisky had lifted the guard he usually kept upon himself: why not say it, why not let go? ‘. . . is you.”

Robin was so amazed, she couldn’t speak. Never, in four years, had Strike come close to telling her what she was to him. Fondness had had to be deduced from offhand comments, small kindnesses, awkward silences or gestures forced from him under stress. She’d only once before felt as she did now, and the unexpected gift that had engendered the feeling had been a sapphire and diamond ring, which she’d left behind when she walked out on the man who’d given it to her.She wanted to make some kind of return, but for a moment or two, her throat felt too constricted. ‘I . . . well, the feeling’s mutual,” she said, trying not to sound too happy.”

Finally, I actually fancy someone in this century! From the moment I picked up a dog eared copy of The Cuckoo’s Calling in a charity shop I was hooked on private investigator Cormoran Strike. Yes, there’s the old tortured soul aspect to his personality, but it’s not just the high pitched warning alarm of a damaged man that calls out to me. I remember how well the author described him having to care for the stump left when his leg was amputated. It felt realistic to me, because walking and standing a lot was painful for him. If he is tailing someone he would ache and his leg might have chafed against his prosthetic. I appreciated a hero with a disability, his heroism magnified by the fact he was injured in action. He’s a big man, broad and tall, so much so that you’d feel safe with him. He may be vulnerable, but he can handle himself if necessary and that’s a heady combination. He’s a great listener, full of empathy for people in a predicament and for those close to him. He’s deeply loyal to those who he can trust, like his business partner Robin. He’s been messed up by women, from his mother to his long term girlfriend Charlotte. However, he’s a very private about his relationships and seems to have his own code of honour which is very attractive.

Captain Wentworth – Persuasion

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you.”

Are there any more romantic words in literature? Wentworth’s letter is, for me, the most romantic I’ve read. I’d go as far as saying it’s the best declaration of love in the classics. It’s all the more wonderful because Anne is so unassuming and modest. She has spent months with Wentworth back in her circle, loving him from afar, but never presuming he might feel the same way. In fact she’s so sure he’s moved on from the feelings he had for her when they were younger, she thinks he’s in love with Louisa Musgrove. She has so little confidence that she misses the care and kindness he shows her. After a long walk he makes sure it is Anne who gets the seat on the carriage because he’s thinking of her comfort. She thinks he wants to be alone with Louisa or that he thinks she needs to sit as she’s older. I love Wentworth’s constancy and the passion he has been hiding under that polite exterior. The kiss that follows is wonderful, because we’ve been waiting for it so long.

Jackson Brodie – Case Histories Series

“He was officially a lunatic, she decided. Strangely, that didn’t make him less attractive.”

What is it about Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie? He’s a slightly rumpled, middle-aged, private investigator. He’s been in the military and the police so is probably institutionalised. In fact he’s a bit of a hopeless case, often taking on the lame ducks he finds along the way, whether they’re human or canine. Marriage doesn’t seem to suit him, but he is a very loyal friend. He’s quite grumpy and set in his ways. I’m not really selling him well I know, but there is that indefinable something that’s attractive. Rather like Cormoran Strike, there’s that sense that he’s an honourable man. He’s old-fashioned and would want to make sure you got home ok. In fact he’s one of those men who would walk on the outside on the pavement so you’re safe, away from the traffic and don’t get splashed. I imagine he looks like life has knocked him around a bit, but if someone needs help he would still be the first one there. There are times when he does the right thing, not by the book, but by his own moral code and I love that.

Gabriel Oak – Far From The Madding Crowd.

“And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be— and whenever I look up, there will be you.”

I haven’t put my crushes in any sort of order, but I’ve definitely saved the best till last. If you ask me, for most of the book, Bathsheba Everdene needs her head examining. Near the beginning of the book, Gabriel visits her. They’ve been neighbours and he comes striding across the fields with a lamb under his arm. It’s an orphan and he thought she might like to feed and take care of him. He then proposes to her and she refuses! If a man brought me a lamb I’d be beside myself with excitement and I’d be saying yes before he’d finished his sentence. How can you turn down a man who brings you your very own lamb? However, their fates are intertwined. After a terrible tragedy where he loses his whole flock, Gabriel is forced to look for a job. It turns out that Bathsheba has become an heiress, inheriting a farm but luckily needing someone to manage it for her.

Gabriel proves himself to be a loyal employee and is constant even when she marries the ridiculous Sergeant Troy. Troy gambles her money and one night gets the whole workforce dangerously drunk. They are celebrating the harvest, but the hay stacks aren’t covered and a storm blows up. Bathsheba finds Gabriel desperately trying to save he harvest for her, while Troy is passed out cold in the barn. Bathsheba grows up a lot in the course of the novel and she starts to see and value the qualities Gabriel has. She has previously overlooked his steadfast loyalty, how hard he will work for her and what an incredible friend he can be. He listens to her and when she is silly enough to lead on Mr Boldwood, an older gentleman who owns the neighbouring land, he speaks to her and warns her that it isn’t fair. Of course, this being Hardy, this flirtation ends in tragedy. Yet Gabriel is still there and when he proposes a second time she’s finally ready for the love he’s offering.

Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you have a literary crush you enjoy ❤️❤️

Throwback Thursday

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka.

Posted on 11th Feb 202211th Feb 2022 by thelotusreaders

Synopsis

‘Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.’

Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must aside a lifetime of feuding to save their émigré engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth. But the sisters’ campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of Europe’s darkest history and sends them back to roots they’d much rather forget . .

My Thoughts

The second phone call came a few days after the first. ‘Tell me, Nadezhda, do you think it would be possible for a man of eighty-four to father a child?’

I love this unexpected question early on in the novel, coming from Nadezhda’s elderly father out of the blue. It’s not the sort of question I’d expect from my father, but as our narrator Nadezhda points out, her father is always straight to the point and when he’s in the grip of a big idea never bothers with small talk or enquiries about her health. My mum read this first and told me I needed to read it. Within a couple of pages I knew why, Nadezha’s father was an elderly Ukrainian engineer, widowed for several years, with a penchant for tractors and straight talking. I was laughing out loud within pages, I couldn’t believe Marina Lewycka had conjured this man out of her imagination, especially since he was sitting on my sofa reading his daily paper.

My father-in-law came to live with us in Spring 2004. The plan was that he would spend summers with us and winters in New Zealand with his other son and family. My husband’s family were from Poland, relocated as children from Poland to England, his father escaped from a labour camp in Siberia. So, not exactly the same story as Nadezhda’s father, but his speech, mannerisms and preoccupations were eerily similar. I should just say that my father-in-law would have been horrified to be propositioned by a woman thirty years his junior. He wore his wedding ring until the day he died, at least twenty years after his wife was killed in a car accident. We didn’t always see eye to eye. However, some of the things that drove me insane when we lived together, became rather endearing and even downright hilarious with time. Blunt speech was a trademark of his, to the point of seeming rude in some cases. Yet, when told someone was offended by his comment, he would say ‘but it was correct, yes?’

One favourite lunch party dissolved into disbelief and giggles when he addressed his godson’s wife and suggested she might be more comfortable sitting on his chair than the kitchen stool since she had a ‘much larger’ bottom than him. He was bewildered by the reaction, believing he was being chivalrous by offering her the dining chair and because she did, in fact, have a much larger bottom. I realised this was a preoccupation of his when he came to visit us proffering a carefully cut out article from his daily paper for me. The subject was scientific research that found women with larger bottoms had longer lives than apple shaped women who stored fat round their middle. He was very happy with his discovery, humming away to himself in the kitchen, as my father and I shut ourselves in the bathroom laughing uncontrollably so we didn’t offend him. I hadn’t realised he was very appreciative of this body type until he asked me to look up the journalist Victoria Derbyshire. He had been listening to her on the radio for some time, but had never seen her in person and despite his son being the director of the media lab at a university he wasn’t up to speed with using the internet yet. I showed him her photograph and he shrugged his shoulders mournfully saying he’d expected her to be a much rounder woman in general but specifically with a ‘much bigger bottom.’ It dawned on me that he felt this was a compliment, something he thought was vital to his idea of female beauty.

He also had a way of making even the most positive things sound like a problem. At a fancy dress party my husband and I threw at home, he watched me working all day to put together a buffet for the guests. Finally, just before people started arriving, he asked if he could take a picture of the buffet table. My husband seemed to think he was impressed by the spread, but his face seem to suggest he was inwardly struggling with what to say. Finally he sighed deeply and said ‘but so much food, how can one possibly choose?’ Later, I received in the post a printed copy of his photograph of the food, showing me that it was important to him. After learning more about his family struggles during the war, and the death of his brother as they were hiding in the Siberian forests, I understood more deeply his utter disbelief at so much choice when weighed against the constant hunger he remembered feeling. Nadezhda tells us about her father’s specialty of ‘Toshiba’ apples – chopped Bramley apples nuked so thoroughly in the microwave they became apple sauce. This was a speciality of my father-in-law with apples that were so hot, they were still cooking in the desert bowl half an hour later. If he wanted to cool food he had a brilliant idea. My brother-in-law had been living. with his father for many years. He was a tree surgeon and had built what they called ‘the cage’ attached to the back of the house. This was a dog run, padlocked and used as a store for chainsaws and other equipment. Any food that needed to cool was placed in the cage on an upturned tree stump, open to the elements on all sides, but sheltered by a roof and away from foraging animals. This made perfect sense in practice, but always caused questions at the dinner table from guests baffled by the instruction ‘fetch the pie from the cage’.

Nadezhda’s father is proud of his late wife’s ability to forage and preserve food to last into the winter season. There is a pantry of store bought supplies, boxes of preserves and fermenting alcohol under the bed, plus a deep freeze full of vegetables and individually portioned meals. Everything labelled and rotated by date.

The only way to outwit hunger is to save and accumulate, so that there is always something tucked away. […] What she couldn’t make had to be bought second hand. If you had to get it new, it had to be the cheapest money could buy, preferably reduced or a bargain. Fruit that was on the turn, tins that were dented, patterns that were out of date, last year’s style. It didn’t matter, we weren’t proud, we weren’t some foolish types who wasted money for the sake of appearance, Mother said, when every cultured person knows what really matters is what’s inside.’

It took three visits for me to work out that what I thought was a kitchen island, in Aleks’s kitchen, was actually a deep freeze with a loose work top laid over it. When he was out we looked in it to find portioned meals labelled by Jez’s mother who had died ten years previously. I thought it was grief that kept the freezer lid closed and it was in part. It was also a survival instinct of someone who had known hunger and that those closest to you, the people you depend on, could be taken from you without warning. All starting with a terrifying knock on the door. Aleks’s father was in the Polish military, shot by the Russians and his family marched to a Siberian labour camp. By the time they escaped and joined the Resistance in a forest camp there was only Aleks and his mother left alive. Behind the comic elements of her book, the author is telling a similar story of political fanaticism, social upheaval, hunger, displacement and terrible loss. I was more understanding when I he told me about his conversation with my sister -in-law who had just bought a property in New Zealand. Apparently, he was most impressed by how quickly his son had ploughed up the tennis courts and planted potatoes.

The part I find most sad, both in the book and for my father-in-law, is that the homeland they crave and hold in their hearts and minds no longer exists. Alek would have been ten when he left Poland, but the Poland he left isn’t there waiting for him. Nadezhda’s father talks at length about a Ukraine that was forty or even fifty years ago. He wants to save one person from the tyranny of communism and give them the freedom of a life in this country. In his head he imagines tyrannical politicians controlling the people, but also the Pastoral beauty of his home country. He will rescue Valentina and in return she will bring to him the Ukraine of his youth with golden wheat fields, lush forests and flowing rivers. Nadezhda who has visited more recently remembers concrete tower blocks and polluted rivers full of dead fish. She tries to tell him that the people are no longer noble peasants, they are consumers longing for Western designer goods. Within weeks of them marrying Valentina has insisted on her own car – ‘not just any old car either. Must be good car. Must be Mercedes or Jaguar at least.’ She also wants second car, for when she’s in the Ukraine. Then it’s the cooker, three rings are not working, but ‘it must be prestigious cooker, must be gas. Must be brown.’ When Nikolai objects because the brown one isn’t on offer, she won’t let it go. He wants her to have ‘crap cooker’ because he is ‘no good meanie’. In the meantime Nadezhda starts to ask for legal advice on her father’s behalf, because there must be a divorce and they can’t bear the thought of this woman owning half of their mother’s things.

I thank the Lord we never had a Valentina to contend with. We sometimes hoped he would find someone, to ease the loneliness and take his head out of the past. The wardrobes full of his mother’s furs and Hanna’s side of the bed, left as if she’d be coming back any moment. We simply didn’t understand each other. If my friends came round it was my welcome break from the care routine – my husband had MS and he was on palliative care – a space to unload a bit, but I couldn’t do that if my father-in-law was also pulling up a chair and joining in. Although I did have it easier than my sister-in-law who found he was in the room when she was on all fours in labour. We had long conversations on the phone where we would both complain that he found us too loud, too opinionated and in my case, a bit too Northern. She would complain that he never shared any praise or positive thoughts about her and I felt exactly the same. I did realise though that he was telling other people – I would tell Jenny that he was proud of her mothering skills and the way she was bringing up his grandsons. She would tell me that he was amazed at the strength I had to keep going, to look after Jerzy every day and not panic if things went wrong. I found that Alek and I bonded more after my husband died, with a shared grief and on his part an understanding and gratitude for the years I spent nursing ‘his boy’. He would ring me every Sunday morning until his eyesight failed him and I missed those calls so much when they were gone. Even now, when I think of him stroking the back of my head as I told him how his son died, it brings a lump to my throat. Every time I read this book it’s a bittersweet experience. It makes me laugh still. I think of all those funny stories and the times we shared, even the hard parts when we didn’t get along. I would do them all again just to spend time with this incredible man. As for Nadezhda and her father Nikolai, I won’t ruin the ending, but there are more twists and turns along the way. For me, every time I pick this book up, I get to spend a little more time with an incredible man who I miss every day.

Published by Penguin 2nd March 2006.