Hello Readers, this has been a very tough personal month and it’s a surprise to me when I look at my blog to find how much I’ve read and then written about the above books. These are some of the best books I’ve read this year and for some it’s meant reading a couple of prequels beforehand which were equally good. I haven’t posted towards the end the month because I’ve had a bereavement. I lost my beloved dog Rafferty and I’m still not fully taking it in, never mind anything else. My energy is low, my sleep pattern is ruined and I feel bereft without his warm body next to mine. When Rafferty finally started to struggle with his heart it was difficult to contemplate a life without him in it. He’s been with me for sixteen years and it’s not been enough. Usually when reading he’s as close to me as he can be, so it’s odd without him. As we move forward we’re going to try and do some of those things that have been impossible while he’s been ill. We’re staying in a hotel for the weekend, returning to our old habit of visiting the cinema weekly and perhaps going abroad which we haven’t done in five years. I know that I’ll slowly learn to live with the loss and we’re all lavishing lots of love on our two cats which they’re lapping up! Here’s a quick look at my favourites this month, all of which I recommend highly.
This was a Squad Pod Collective read and since this was the third in the Emmy Lake series I decided to read all three and they were all fantastic. They’re based in WW2 and are full of historical detail, but also genuinely uplifting. We follow Emmy as she goes to work for a magazine, the Women’s Friend, in the hope of starting a career as a reporter. However, her job is to sort through and choose the letters for the problem page, presided over by the formidable Mrs Bird. Her rules are clear, nothing vulgar or remotely distasteful will ever grace her page. Yet Emmy is a modern woman who thinks differently, she would love the page to offer solutions and ideas for real problems faced by real women, tasteful or otherwise. By the start of this book, she has achieved that goal and is in charge of the problem page as well as writing a series of features on women doing war work. Things are settled when the owner is persuaded to sign the magazine over to his niece Mrs Porter in lieu of her inheritance. She has an entirely different vision for the magazine, a scrapbook of society parties and weddings, real fashion instead of the tips for looking good on a budget and no more dreary war features. How can Emmy and her colleagues keep their loyal readership, whilst trying to get rid of Mrs Porter? It’s not all magazine talk though. There are serious storylines set around Emmy and her friend Bunty’s work with the fire service and the horrors of the Blitz. There’s romance and having to keep the faith while the one you love is far away fighting in another country. There’s also a lovely camaraderie between women, as Emmy becomes closer to women from her war work articles. The issues facing women in WW2 were new to me and they’re shown in the raw, but still overall the books leave you feeling inspired by this loveable character’s resilience and spirit.
Another historical novel here from Amanda Geard, also set in WW2 but down under in Tasmania, intertwined with a storyline from the 1970’s and another towards the end of the 20th Century. The story begins as war seems inevitable and two little girls are sent to their aunt and uncle’s house Towerhurst in Tasmania, in the hope they’ll be safe from a war that’s expected to be contained within Europe. Grace Grey is Marcus and Olive’s niece, while Rose who travels with her is the daughter of their housekeeper. Rose is quite beautiful and the one people notice first, whereas Grace is rather awkward preferring to spend her time writing and reading poetry. They’ve escaped a household where the views of Oswald Moseley have become their cause and Grace’s mother was a proud black shirt. In Tasmania Grace falls for charismatic Daniel McGillycuddy, but can she seen past Rose’s beauty? What is it about these teenagers that spawns a story that lasts half a century? In the 1970’s Willow and Ben receive an anonymous inheritance, a house called Towerhurst in NW Tasmania. It sends Ben on a journey to find out about Tasmanian poet Daniel McGillycuddy, who returned to his native Ireland after fighting in WW2. Ben’s fact finding trip to London leads to a tragic accident and Willow bringing up their baby alone. In 2004 Libby flies from Tas to London to claim a satchel her father lost at the Moorgate Tube disaster. Using the clues within she tries to uncover a mystery that dates back to those two girls escaping the Blitz in 1936. This is the story of an incredible love, interrupted by war but never diminished.
My recommendations for this novel were some tissues, some chocolate and a cat to cuddle. I found it so deeply moving. Enid is struggling with aphasia, a symptom of stroke and dementia that affects comprehension and formulation of words. In fact Enid’s dementia is causing accidents and confusion, so much so that daughter Barb wonders if she should be living alone. However, this would mean separating her from her husband Roy, a devastating blow for both of them. Enid thinks this is temporary and Roy will join her in due course, meanwhile Roy is at home alone missing his wife. Tim Ewins writes Enid in such an intricate and beautiful way: sometimes she is watching life pass her by, sometimes she’s in the past falling in love with Roy or playing with her little girl and other times she’s further in the past with her first husband and all the terrible memories she has of his anger and violence. She’s experiencing all this in the same day, believing each reality to be the present. However, sometimes she has a surprising clarity and is very present, with a great sense of humour. Being so in touch with her past allows her to recognise the signs when a visitor comes in for another resident. Sometimes, Olivia is with her husband and Enid can see what this man is, he’s angry and dismissive. Enid builds a friendship with Olivia, but she wants to help her, to make her see that she doesn’t have to stay and that there is happiness, just look at her and Roy. I loved how Tim shows his main character living with an illness, despite her different realities she has formed a friendship and made someone’s life better. Tim has tacked his subject with his usual compassion and care, creating a book that had me reaching for the tissues.
I’m a big fan of Polly Crosby and this beautiful historical novel has cemented her position as a ‘must-buy’ author. In 1997, Eve is encouraged by her brother to stay in the rundown artist’s studio where her grandmother Dodie lived on the coast. Having lost Dodie and her mother, Eve has felt a little lost. This place reminds her of them both and family holidays where she and her brothers would fall asleep cuddled together like puppies after a day on the beach. Behind the studio stands the incredible Cathedral of the Marshes, a glass construction built by the Goldsborough family in the early part of the 20th Century. When clearing out her grandmother’s things, Eve discovers that Dodie had a link to the building. She painted Vite Goldsborough there, just before the war in 1938. In an echo of the past, Eve takes a commission to paint a local lady who is the key holder for the building. It’s the first time she’s been inside since accepting a dare to go in when she was a teenager. Slowly Eve begins to uncover long buried secrets that change the way she thought of her grandmother and also that night she first entered the glass cathedral and saw a portrait of herself. It’s a wonderful history of a family’s female line during the 20th Century and how much has changed for women in terms of making choices. This is a beautiful historical story of friendship, love and being your true self, no matter what others may think.
This is one of those books that takes precedence over everything, from the TV to the housework. I was utterly engrossed! Rachel is in her thirties and married to Tom, but part of her heart is still with a man she met on a Greek island in the summer after her A’Levels. Alistair was her first love and their relationship was special. It has given Rachel something to aim for in relationships because their love was the ideal. It was what love is supposed to feel like and Rachel isn’t sure she’s ever had that since. She and Tom almost ‘fell’ into living together, it was easy and they are best friends. Alistair was the kind of love everyone dreams of and her memories are reignited when she and Tom visit the island as a couple and they see one of the girls Rachel knew back then. As they talk an altogether murkier story emerges, of a nightclub staffed entirely by young women and the parties with older, wealthy men who like pretty girls around, especially young pretty girls. Rachel decides to find Alistair and reassure herself that what they had was the real thing. Yet in the background, stories of exploitation and manipulation starts to emerge. Could Rachel have everything wrong? This is a brilliantly addictive story, perfectly pitched for the #MeToo generation and even those of us who lived through very different attitudes towards women. It’s a book that’s ripe for adaptation, in a similar vein to The White Lotus series. Be aware though, once you’ve started the book, nothing will get done for the next 24 hours.
Essie Fox is an amazing author who covers subjects very close to my heart. The Fascination takes us to Victorian London and shows the seedy underbelly of what everyone thinks was a prim and buttoned-up society. We start in the rural fairgrounds and twin sisters Tilly and Keziah Lovell, whose father is a snake oil salesman, selling his elixir to people desperate for a cure. However it isn’t long before the girls are wanted as attractions, especially Tilly who is a perfect copy of her sister but in miniature. When their father sells them they end up with a troupe of curiosities working for the enigmatic Captain and Tilly is immediately in demand in London’s West End. Meanwhile, Theo first meets the girls when the fairground visits close to his home. His domineering father Lord Seabrooke has a unique collection of curiosities and exotic animals, so when Theo sees the girls he is fascinated. The lord’s remarriage is a turning point and Theo is cast out to find his own way in the world. His ambitions to be a doctor are thwarted without his father’s money, but his skills are a good fit for Dr Summerwell’s Museum of Anatomy in London. The girls and Theo’s paths will cross again, but it’s not long before his father hears of Tilly and her beautiful voice. If a man will discard his own son, just how ruthless will he be when pursuing a new item for his collection? Essie Fox has created an incredible world of fairgrounds, freak shows and theatre that was so perfect for this reader, fascinated as I am by disability history. I felt like I was watching a Baz Lurhmann film as the details of the fairground and the West End came to life. I was also frightened for the girls, desperate to know how their stories would end. This is an exciting and unusual period novel, telling the story of people who would have been considered ‘other’ and their unusual lives.
My final choice is the lovely Kate Sawyer and her new novel This Family. Set on one day, the matriarch Mary’s wedding day, this slightly fractured family come together and set aside all their differences to celebrate. Mary has three daughters and for this one day she wants Emma to speak to her sister Phoebe, she wants Phoebe to stay sober and for Rosie to stay quiet about the climate crisis. Just this once. Mary still lives in the house the girls grew up in and their father Richard lives in the annexe with his mother, who Mary has been looking after. The house is sold, so everyone is saying goodbye to a house full of memories including the huge tree in the garden where they’ll be eating dinner. Each sister has something to overcome. Emma’s childlessness has consumed her, so facing her new niece and nephew will be difficult. Phoebe hasn’t spoken to Emma for years. Rosie is the baby of the family, but her appearance in the family was difficult for the older sisters. Over the course of the day we hear from each sister’s viewpoint about their lives, sometimes the same event but from two different perspectives. The author shows us how different an event can look from two different perspectives. From all these fragments she weaves a tapestry of this family. She is always questioning how we construct reality, whether there is one true account of an event, or whether the story is fragmented, fluid and ever changing? This was a fascinating read psychologically and really made me think about how others see events we’ve shared and how families choose to overlook each other’s faults and bad behaviour, to come together and choose love, again and again.
Here’s next month’s TBR:
And finally here’s a picture of my beloved Rafferty, ‘helping’ with my reading.
The Lotus Readers 