“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Chinua Achebe (Author)
When I was gathering books for the Queen’s jubilee stall at our village book exchange, I could have stuck to the British Isles and its experience of life in the reign of Elizabeth II. However, I wanted to look at the jubilee from a global viewpoint and include the voices of all the Queen’s subjects. For me that includes voices from countries that were once part of our empire, some of whom are now under the Commonwealth banner. I think these other voices are important; those who are literally silenced, but also those who were ignored because were simply not the white, middle class, man that society is used to listening to. This book had a beautiful example of one such voice and I was reading it around jubilee time. Celestine Babbington is recorded for history in a silent form, photographed wearing clothes he didn’t choose and posing with a man whose relationship to him is very problematic. The man, Richard Babbington, is a wealthy explorer who has a love for Africa and a large mansion house in England and by 1907, Celestine is being kept in the attic of that house, only allowed out to work as a domestic slave.
Years later, a young girl called Lowra is suffering the same fate. Locked in the attic as punishment for any transgression since her fate was left in the hands of her resentful stepmother. After her mother died, Lowra’s dad remarried and from that day on her life was punctuated by spells of abuse. While locked in the attic she finds an unusual necklace with clawed hands, unlike anything she’s seen before. There’s also an old-fashioned porcelain doll and a sentence on the wall, written in an unfamiliar language. These are her only comfort, because she feels as if the person that owned them is still with her in some way. As an adult, her stepmother’s abuse still affects her and she’s conflicted when she inherits Babbington’s house. People seem to think she’s lucky and the town is proud of this intrepid explorer. Looking into the house’s history leads her to an exhibition of Babbington’s life, where she sees photographs of Babbington and a young black boy wearing an African wrap and what looks like her necklace, the one from the attic. However, the thing that keeps Lowra transfixed, is the young boy’s eyes. Lowra sees someone filled with sorrow, a fellow sufferer of the darkness inside that house. His name is Celestine Babbington. Lowra wants to find out more about this boy, how he came to be in England and what happened to him after Babbington’s death. She enlists the help of a history specialist called Monty, who has an interest in stories that have not been told, particularly those of empire. Together they start their search for the attic child.
I think anyone who talks about the glory of our empire should be encouraged to read this book. It’s fitting that the opening quote of the book is from the incredible author Chinua Achebe, because his novel Things Fall Apart is a perfect companion to this tale. This time the story is partially told by an innocent victim of our Victorian forays into Africa, a child called Dikembe, who is largely ignorant of the atrocities being carried out by the Belgian forces plundering the natural resources of his homeland. At the time of Dikembe’s childhood, his homeland was named the Belgian Congo, a large area of Africa now known as Zaire, then the Democratic Republic of Congo. Very few Europeans had reached this area of Africa, known for tropical diseases like sleeping sickness. King Leopold of Belgium had urged the Belgian Government to colonise the country, but when they stalled their efforts he decided to take charge himself. He took ownership of the country and named it the Congo Free State in 1885, using his private army the Force Publique to press gang Congolese men and boys to work for him in the production of rubber. No one knows the exact population of the country at this time, but due to exploitation and the exposure to new diseases it is estimated that up to ten million native people died during Leopold’s rule of the country. Dikembe is young enough to stay at home each day with his mother, but he envies his brothers who go off to work with their father every morning. His parents keep him ignorant of the way native workers were treated so it is an utter shock when his father is killed one day. Richard Babbington, based on a real man called Henry Morton Stanley, expresses an interest in Dikembe. He wants to take him back to England and turn him into a gentleman and his companion. Ridden with grief and terrified about what could happen to her youngest son, his mother agrees, knowing this may be the only way to keep him safe. Although his intentions seem pure, isn’t this just another form of colonisation? He then takes away Dikembe’s name, calling him Celestine Babbington.
I found both these children’s circumstances heartbreaking and realised that Lowra’s affinity with this boy is because she sees something in his photographs echoed in her own eyes. I thought the two character narrative worked really well here, but all of the characters are so well crafted that they pulled me into their stories and didn’t let go till the end. We’re with Lowra and Monty on their quest, finding out more about Dikembe’s story and we experience the effect these revelations have on all the characters. It’s moving to see Monty identifying with Dikembe and feeling emotional pain from the injustices he has gone through. Monty still experiences racism and oppression, just in different ways and Lowra can’t be part of that even though she has empathy for how Monty feels. They worked together well and slowly become close by being honest about their pasts and what effect their life experiences have had on them mentally. Lola Jaye has managed to engage the emotions, but also educate me at the same time, because I didn’t know much about the Belgian empire or King Leopold’s exploitation and murder of the Congolese population. However, it was those complex issues of identity and privilege that really came across to me, especially in the character of Richard Babbington. His arrogant assumption that he could give Dikembe a better life is privilege in action, as Dikembe soon finds out that he’s a womanising drunk and the companionship he spoke of only works one way. All he does bestow is money, for clothes and school, but what Dikembe craves is the warmth and love of his mother calling him a ‘good child’. The way this need for love and comfort was also exploited made me cry. I was desperately hoping that by the end, these terrible injustices didn’t stop him living his life to the full, including embracing happiness when the chance came his way. We see this play out for Lowra during the novel, can she ever accept that she is worthy of love? I wasn’t surprised to learn that Lola Jaye is a therapist, because she understands trauma and how it can manifest through several generations. The story doesn’t pull it’s punches so I felt angry and I felt sad, but somehow the author has managed to make the overall message one of hope. Hope in the resilience of the human spirit.
Lola Jayne’s latest novel is The Manual for Good Wives. It came out in 2025 is on my tbr for March.
Everything about Adeline Copplefield is a lie . . .
To the world Mrs Copplefield is the epitome of Victorian propriety: an exemplary society lady who writes a weekly column advising young ladies on how to be better wives.
Only Adeline has never been a good wife or mother; she has no claim to the Copplefield name, nor is she an English lady . . .
Now a black woman, born in Africa, who dared to pretend to be something she was not, is on trial in the English courts with all of London society baying for her blood. And she is ready to tell her story . . .
I thought it was probably time to introduce myself to my new subscribers and what better way to do it than by sharing some of my all time favourite novels. First of all I’d like to say welcome to you all and thank you for subscribing. This year there will still be book reviews and blog tour posts, but I’m also going to be sharing my favourite novel and authors with my Sunday Spotlight and my new Tens on Tuesday posts, starting with this one. I think this post lets you know a bit about me and my interests: historical novels, crime and mystery, the Gothic, trauma and psychology, disability and finally a little sprinkle of magic. I hope you enjoy hearing about what I’m currently reading but also older books, authors and themes I love too. Wishing you all a Happy New Year and a great year reading what you love.
I think this novel is the one that explains a lot about my reading tastes ever since I first read it when I was ten years old and the BBC series with Timothy Dalton as Mr Rochester was on Sunday afternoons. I loved how this little girl tried to stand up for herself with her horrible aunt and cousin, being labelled wilful and passionate and in need of correction. Being locked in the Red Room and then sent to boarding school at Lowood were meant to soften her, to make her grateful for the roof over her head. All it does is strengthen her sense of justice and although she learns to keep her opinions in check, those emotions are still simmering underneath. When she takes a position as governess to a French girl called Adele at Thornfield Hall, the book becomes more than a Bildungsroman and develops into a Gothic mystery, a genre I love to this day. The scenes where Jane hears noises in the passageway at night, she hears a maniacal laugh and finds a half burned candle left behind, then when a dark, demonic woman enters Jane’s bedroom and tears her wedding veil in two, are truly frightening. Added to this is the dark and mysterious Mr Rochester who appears out of the mist on a black horse and finds solace in the quiet Jane who can keep up with his intellect and doesn’t bow to his demands. Now if a book has a stately home, a mystery to solve, the paranormal and a feminist heroine it’s in my basket straight away.
I bought this novel for the cover alone when I saw it in Lindum Books. I now have six copies in different styles and I love them all. I’ve seen the novel described as phantasmagorical and I could apply this word to a whole raft of books I’ve read since. Outside London, in an undefined historical setting, a wandering and magical circus appears where many of the attractions defy explanation. As well as disappearing and reappearing at will, the circus is the focus of a competition played by two powerful magicians through their protégés Marcus and Celia. The great magician Prospero and his rival Mr A.H. have chosen their players and proceed to create magical challenges for the younger pair, but this is a secret competition and neither one knows they are rivals. Celia is Prospero’s daughter and he has trained her as an illusionist, using cruel and manipulative methods. Marcus is trained to create fantastical scenes for the circus that he must pluck out of his mind. As soon as they’re both of age they are linked to the circus, not knowing their competitor but becoming increasingly suspicious that they’re present at the Circus of Dreams. Meanwhile, other performers start to question the circus and its magical powers – they are forever young and unable to leave. The beauty of the circus seems to mask sinister intent and as Celia resolves to end this game, she and Marco fall in love. Is this love doomed or can they escape without causing further harm. This book inspires artists and creatives all over the world and it captures my imagination every time I pick it up for a re-read.
As someone with a disability, a heroine with a ‘hare’ or cleft lip was a real find in a book that had really passed me by until around twenty years ago. The author Mary Webb was writing in the early 20th Century but her heroine Pru Sarn lives in rural Shropshire at the beginning of the 19th Century. Local suspicion is that Pru’s mother was scared by a hare during pregnancy, causing the disfigurement she calls her ‘precious bane’. Bad luck starts to dog the family when Pru’s father dies and there is no ‘sin eater’ at the funeral. Superstition states that someone must take on the deceased’s sins so that they’re ensured a place in heaven. Despite all his family’s please not to, Pru’s brother steps forward to take on those sins and from that point on their luck changes. Gideon goes from an affable young man, in love with the prettiest local girl Janis Beguildy and set to take on the family farm, to a bitter and avaricious individual who drives his own family into exhaustion in the pursuit of money. Meanwhile, Pru falls in love with Kester Woodseaves, the weaver at Jancis’s bridal celebration but there’s nothing that would make him look at her twice with her lip and the ill luck that goes with it. This is a story rich with local folklore and old skills that are slowly dying out in rural communities. It’s also about how those superstitions can drive people to look for blame and how women like Pru can become scapegoats for a bad wheat crop. Billed as a writer of romance there’s a lot more to Mary Webb’s work and her challenge to the stereotype of facial disfigurement representing evil is definitely ahead of his time.
I loved this book from Alice Hoffman so much, because it has all the Hoffman magic but is set within the Coney Island freak shows at the turn of the 20th Century, something I researched while writing my dissertation on disability and literature. I’d watched the film Freaks and was fascinated with the complexities of displaying your extraordinary body for money. It’s exploitative yet on the other hand it pays well and is perhaps the performer’s only way of being independent, these contradictions are shown in this novel following Coralie Sardie the daughter of the Barnum- like impresario of the museum. Coralie is an incredible swimmer and performs as the museum’s mermaid, enduring punishing all year round training in the East River every morning. It’s after one of these sessions goes wrong that Coralie is washed far upstream into the outskirts of NYC where development suddenly gives way to wild forests. There she meets Eddie Cohen who is taking pictures of the trees and hiding out from his own community, where his father’s expectation is for him to train as a tailor in the family business. Alice Hoffman weaves Eddie and Coralie’s story with real historic events like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the other wonders who populate Coney Island and her particular blend of magic.
This must appear on so many ‘best of’ lists and there’s a good reason why. I was introduced to Daphne Du Maurier very early in life through my mum who showed me the Hitchcock adaptation of the novel starring Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Wjinter and Joan Fontaine as the second Mrs de Winter. This was an incredible film and no adaptation since has come close to emulating it, although I still hold out hope for a Carey Mulligan Mrs de Winter someday. This has one of the best openings of any book with its dream of the winding drive at the Cornish home of the de Winters, Manderley setting the atmosphere perfectly. This is where ghosts and secrets lurk beneath the outwardly perfect life led by Max and his beautiful first wife Rebecca. Our unnamed narrator is in Monte Carlo as a paid companion to an obnoxious rich woman who sees the infamous widower and an opportunity to hear some first hand gossip to take with them to their next destination. Her companion is young, quiet and under confident. She has no family and is vulnerable in a way that I’d didn’t see when I first read the book and the disparity between them is more obvious the older I get. One thing that really angers me is that Maxim doesn’t bother to remove traces of his ex-wife whose extravagant signature is emblazoned on the stationery in the morning room and her pillowcases in the untouched bedroom she occupied overlooking the sea. Also he doesn’t even consider that her upbringing is from such a different class, she has no concept of how to run a stately home and falls victim to the ghoulish Mrs Danvers, Rebecca’s old maid and now the housekeeper of Manderley. This is most definitely not a love story, it’s a mystery with a hero who is controlling and manipulative to his new wife. This is a book to re-read over and over.
A spiteful spirit rules the roost at the home runaway slave Sethe shares with her elderly mother-in-low and daughter Denver, a ghost that haunts with a ‘baby’s venom’. It’s a million miles away from her years in slavery at Sweet Home, but she carries the damage of those years in the whip marks on her back that look like a gnarled tree. The atmosphere of this little house is set to change though as two visitors come calling; one is Paul D who was also at Sweet Home and shares so many experiences with Sethe she will have to talk about them. The second is a naked young woman who seems almost non-verbal, like a toddler in the body of a young woman. Sethe is entranced by their guest, who demands more and more of her attention pushing out Denver and trying to create a wedge between her and Paul D who has to sleep in the outhouse. Sethe believes that this girl is the embodiment of that restless spirit in the house, who has gone remarkably quiet. While Sethe becomes drained and exhausted trying to care for her new charge. What is her purpose with Sethe and why does she take the treatment meted out to her? The answers lie in a grave marked with one word – Beloved – and the unthinkable price of freedom.
This book was the first of two featuring the Todd family and their lives across the 20th Century. Here we see the world through the eyes of the Todd’s youngest daughter Ursula, born on a snowy night in 1910. As her mother Sylvia gives birth, the cord becomes wrapped around Ursula’s neck and she dies before the doctor can even reach their home. We then loop back and Ursula survives her birth but dies from a fall as she leans from a window to retrieve her doll, or she dies by drowning as a little girl. In 1918 their maid joins the Victory Day celebrations post WWI and brings Spanish Flu to the Todd house killing Ursula at eight years old. Each loop of Ursula’s life is longer and we see more of the family’s rather upper middle class life in Chalfont St. Peter in Buckinghamshire. We notice that Ursula becomes more knowing, taking experiences from her extinguished lives to avoid that fate the next time round – at one point she remembers her death at the hands of a rapist and next time is aggressively rude to avoid his company so she lives a little longer. Later lives take Ursula into womanhood and WW2, working for the war office in London and experiencing the terrors of the Blitz, sometimes rescuing others and other times perishing underneath the rubble. Eventually she works her way close to Hitler through Eva Braun and determines to end the war by killing him. What we never know is how these lives turn out for others, as each narrative ends definitively with Ursula’s death. I loved Kate Atkinson’s bravery and playfulness in using such a complex structure and inventing a character like Ursula who is able to carry the novel on her shoulders. I’ve enjoyed other novels from the author, especially A God in Ruins where we follow the life of her brother Teddy, but there’s no question that this book is her masterpiece.
I’ve read a few of Thomas Hardy’s novels, but something about Far From The Madding Crowd stays with me. At heart it’s a love story, with all the obstacles and diversions you’d expect from the moment shepherd Gabriel Oak turns up at Bathsheba Everdene’s door with a lamb for her to hand rear and a proposal. A proposal she refuses on the basis that she has a lot of other things she wants to do. After this a terrible misfortune befalls Gabriel as he loses his whole flock to a young sheepdog who drives them off the cliffs. However this does force him to cross paths with Bathsheba a second time when he goes for a job where the new farm owner is a woman. Bathsheba makes so many rash decisions, especially where men are concerned, but Gabriel becomes her trusted and loyal friend. As always with Hardy it’s the misfortunes that tug hard on the heartstrings: a pregnant servant girl who goes to marry her soldier lover at the wrong church, the tragic and lonely Mr. Boldwood who takes a poorly timed Valentine joke to heart and Gabriel’s faithfulness to his friend, always putting her first even when she doesn’t appreciate it. Hardy captures the headstrong and impulsive young girl beautifully and as always the rural setting is so wonderfully drawn and strangely restful to read. Having grown up on farms my whole life I understand the character’s connection to the land and the animals they care for, plus I always long for a happier ending than Hardy’s other women.
It’s hard to pick one favourite from Jodi Picoult’s back catalogue and I have about four that I love and read again, including her most recent novel about the works of Shakespeare By Any Other Name, Small Great Things and Plain Truth. This one stayed with me, perhaps because of my late in-laws WW2 experiences and the realisation that the generation who went through the invasion of Poland first hand will one day be gone. Recording their stories is vital and although this is fiction it still has a purpose, in educating readers about the Holocaust. Ironically, it has been banned in several school districts in the US despite its message on fascism and antisemitism. It makes it all the more important to read it as well as Picoult’s other banned novels. Sage Singer is something of a recluse, working nights in her local bakery to avoid people. She wears her hair to cover a large scar across her cheek, caused by a car accident that killed her mother. Sage sees her scar as a reminder she was responsible for her mother’s death and struggles terribly with survivor’s guilt and the resulting lack of self worth. When she attends a grief therapy group she meets an elderly local man called Josef Weber, a resident of Westerbrook for forty years with his wife who has recently died. He’s known for kind acts around town, but as he and Page become friends he tells her a terrible secret. In WW2 he was a guard at Auschwitz and is responsible for the deaths of many people. He asks Sage to help him commit suicide, leaving her with a dilemma. Sage describes her self as an atheist despite coming from a religious Jewish family. Can she be friend with this man? Should she report her discovery? Should Josef be able to cheat the death God has planned for him when so many others had no choice? Picoult structures this narrative like a set of Russian dolls and the very centre is the story of Minka, Sage’s grandmother who managed to survive a concentration camp. This is the heart of the story, a survivor’s account that describes how an SS Guard allowed her rewards of food and warmth because of her incredible talent as a storyteller. This is a hard but vital read with huge dilemmas around forgiveness, the degree of bad deeds and whether all sin is the same. Are some people simply unforgivable despite their attempts to change? Is accepting earthly punishment part of forgiveness? Is killing ever justified? It is absolutely spellbinding.
I adore the playful opening of this historical novel as our heroine addresses us and draws us in to her world, a version of London rarely examined at the time. Published in 2002, Michael Faber introduces us to Sugar who has worked in a brothel since she was thirteen. She’s creative and intelligent, scribbling down her story in the time she has between working. She’s also streetwise and determined to create a new life for herself. She meets the rather clumsy and awkward William Rackham as a client. He’s married but his wife Agnes is delicate, a fragile Victorian ideal of a wife who’s disturbed by her own bodily functions. She’s sent further into decline after the birth of their daughter, Sophie and now has no idea she is a mother. She is kept drugged in her room, with visits from the creepy Dr. Curlew whose treatment is sexual assault. The two women couldn’t be more of a contrast. Sugar believes that William might be her ticket to a new life, not that she’s in love with him of course. William is a selfish man, inadequate and under pressure to continue the success of the family soap factory, a business built by his overbearing father. He’s obsessed with Sugar and thinks he could have the object of his affections closer to home. What if he engaged Sugar as Sophie’s governess? This is an incredibly well written novel, full of detail on a grubby and exploitative part of London that Sugar navigates with practised skill, utterly reliant on her own wits. She’s a beguiling character who knows that the gentlemanly ideal is a facade and that all men are disappointing or dangerous. Watching her encroach onto William’s carefully constructed home life is fascinating and you’ll be desperately hoping that all of his women will find a way of escaping their fates.
What an absolute privilege it was to read this incredible story a couple of years ago and it was my book of the year. It is truly the best book Maggie O’Farrell has ever written and I’m a huge fan. I’ve loved her previous novels, especially The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. The scary part was trying to do this incredible work justice in my review. Something that director Chloe Zhao must have thought before embarking on the film version, due out on the 9th January. The responsibility of taking something so precious and recreating it for the cinema must have weighed heavy on the cast too. I watched an interview with Jessie Buckley a few days ago where she divulged that at first she didn’t know how to be. Not how to capture Agnes but how to portray something she’d never had in real life – to embody the role of being a mum when she wasn’t one and to capture the enormity of losing a child. I think her reticence and how she searched for those emotions show that Agnes is in safe hands with Buckley. I’ve been a fan since her debut you on the BBC series I’d Do Anything and to see the wonderful Paul Mescal cast opposite her took away any concerns I might have had about the book being ruined. Here though I want to tell you about this beautiful book and encourage people to read Maggie O’Farrell’s masterpiece.
Despite his place in literature as our most famous playwright, not a lot is known about Shakespeare’s life with his wife and children. Until reading this, and despite doing a module in Renaissance Literature at university, my only knowledge was of a wife called Anne Hathaway. Any other knowledge has rather embarrassingly and erroneously come from Upstart Crow, which depicts his eldest daughter Susannah as an intelligent, outspoken and boy crazy teenager. I also remember that many years ago I was shown the outside of a picture perfect cottage that belonged to Anne Hathaway. This was Hewlands where Anne was born, and after her marriage, the home of her brother Bartholomew. There has always been this hole in my knowledge, and when watching the totally inaccurate Shakespeare in Love I do remember wondering whatever happened to his wife. Did he love her and if so, how did he spend so much time away from her and their family? Also, with his success down in London, what did Anne do with her life? I wondered whether she was weighed down with the care of children, as well as her elderly in-laws with whom they lived.
For the author it was a different absence that became her way into the story. She had always wondered why the Black Death or ‘pestilence’ never featured in any of Shakespeare’s works. It’s absence seemed odd, considering that, in this time period, it killed large swathes of people. From 1575 in Venice over 50,000 people died as a result of plague over two years, thought to be caused by troop movements associated with The Thirty Years War. The beautiful cathedral Santa Maria Della Salute was built after a third of the population was wiped out in a return of the plague in 1630. The city still celebrates the Festival of the Redeemer today as a thank you that the city and some of its residents survived these pandemics. In England in 1563 the plague killed 20,000 people in London alone. Historical sources cite the plague as cause of death to extended members of Shakespeare’s family and possibly his sisters. His work was also affected, with all London playhouses closed down in 1593, 1603 and 1608. However, the biggest loss of all was his only son Hamnet, who is thought to have contracted the disease and died, aged 11, in 1596. O’Farrell takes these facts as the bare bones and fleshes out a more human story, weaving the life of a boy and his family with empathy, poetry and a touch of magic.
One of my favourite passages of the book focuses on the transmission of this horrific disease via some fleas and the beautiful millefiore glass beads crafted on the Venetian island of Murano. It takes accident, upon chance, and coincidence to carry the deadly disease all the way back to Stratford. A glassmaker burns his hand, so someone else packs his beads into some soft rags he finds lying around, instead of their usual packaging. A merchant ship bound for England has docked and a cabin boy searches Venice for cats to combat rats on board, when he is diverted by a monkey in a waistcoat. The keeper roughly pulls him away, but left behind are a few fleas, some of which make their way onto the cats an a crew member who tends to sleep with cats in his cabin. He doesn’t report for duty and has a fever plus the telltale ‘buboes’ or swelling of the lymph glands. These swellings turn black and the smell of the dead man is so repugnant that other crew members are relieved to heave him overboard for burial. He isn’t the last. Only five crew members remain as the ship docks in London and one box of beads from Murano makes its way to a Stratford dressmaker, where a customer is determined that only Murano glass beading would do for her new dress. The dressmakers assistant unpacks the beads from their ragged packaging and as she does a flea jumps from the fabric to its new host. The dressmaker’s assistant is Judith Shakespeare, Hamnet’s twin sister. This is typical of the author’s signature style of layering description to create depth and its effect is like an assault on the senses. I can smell the sweat of the glassmaker, feel the fur of the monkey, hear the creak of the boats in the canals and the shouts in the market, and feel the swell of the waves and ruts in the road as the package takes its journey, delivering both beauty and death at the same time.
In one timeline Judith and then Hamnet succumb to the plague, while unwittingly the family go about their usual day. There is a clever nod to the cross dressing in Shakespeare’s comedies here in the likeness of the twins, but this is anything but funny, it’s a disguise to cheat death. As the family slowly discover what fate has in store, our timeline jumps into the past following Agnes and Hamnet’s father. Although she is more widely known as Anne, she was recorded in official records as Agnes so the author chose to stick with that name. She always refers to him as the tutor, the husband or the father and never by name. The absence of his name creates a sense of two people; the London celebrity playwright and the family man. We start to see what an extraordinary woman Agnes is in her own right. The object of gossip in town, people say the daughter at Hewlands is a very singular character. She has a friend who is a priest, she has her own hawk and can charm bees. In truth she knows a lot of old country ways such as foraging, hawking and bee keeping as well as what plants to grow for household ailments. She often roams barefoot in the forest and her stepmother Joan despaired of her a long time ago and is jealous of the love her husband held for his late wife. When Agnes meets her brother’s Latin tutor, she uses her method of reading people and pinches the flesh between his thumb and forefinger. Here she sees depths and universes within, that his surface youth and inexperience don’t even hint at. It is this promise, these unseen layers, that she falls in love with. For his part, it is her difference he finds intoxicating. He realises that he will never see another woman who walks barefoot, with lose hair and a hawk on her arm. However much they accept each other, will their families accept their choice and will those untapped depths come between them?
I enjoyed the way these two timelines intersected, each informing the other and adding layers of understanding. How both families assimilated and worked together over time was really interesting. In each generation sibling relationships were particularly important, with their rivalries, but also their unspoken trusts and understandings. The idea of ‘doubling’ and disguise around siblings, especially where there are different genders such as Judith and Hamnet, makes us think again about a play like Twelfth Night. Disguise allows women to do things they would normally be excluded from and O’Farrell shows that in the industriousness of women in the novel. This isn’t just based around domestic matters but planning and running businesses. Agnes grows medicinal plants and creates cures, with people often knocking on the door to be seen. As a country girl I also liked the depiction of her relationship with the land. When I stand on the bank of the River Trent, I feel an urge to go barefoot and ground myself. I was born there, so when I moved next to the river recently grounding and feeling the earth felt so powerful. Agnes is the same with the land at Hewlands, particularly the woods, and she chooses to give birth there to Susannah. Agnes feels cradled by the earth, it protects, cures and grounds her. She also has great ‘countrycraft’ such as being able to control bees – something I’ve seen my own father do with a swarm – there’s a practicality but also a mysticism to these abilities.
Underpinning all of this, I am in love with Maggie O’Farrell’s flow. It’s a hard book to put down because it reads like one long poem to love, family, and home. Then there is the tension that comes when a member of this family follows their dream and is taken away from that unit. How does a father balance his roles as lover, son, father and still follow his dreams? Especially when those dreams are so big. When he gets that balance wrong will he be forgiven and will he be able to forgive himself? The book is full of contrasts, from passages so vibrant and full of life, to the devastating silence of Hamnet’s loss. From birth scenes to death scenes. Wild country lanes and the leafy woods compared with the noise and enclosure of town. The routine of daily family life as opposed to a chaotic life in the theatres of London. All of these contrasts exist within one family, and no matter what we know about our most famous and celebrated playwright, this is about family. Finally, the author’s depiction of grief is so moving. Whether quiet and contained, or expressed loudly, we never doubt its devastating power. We never overlook the boy-shaped hole in the life of this family. Whether our response to grief is to run from it, distract ourselves from it or deny it, eventually we do have to go through it. In the life of this couple, will their grief be expressed differently and if so, can they ever make their way back to each other? This is a simply stunning piece of work. Moving, haunting and ultimately unforgettable.
I’ll keep you posted for the film version but I know I’ll be taking lots of tissues.
As Christmas comes to the west cost of Iceland, a corpse is found in a fish farming pond. Detective Hildur Rúnarsdóttir and trainee Jakob Johanson barely have time to start their investigation before another body is discovered. And soon a third.
While investigating the case, Hildur’s lost sister weighs heavy on her mind. Meanwhile, Jakob travels to Finland for the hearing of his fraught custody battle, that leaves him facing dire consequences. As the number of deaths continues to grow, Hildur and Jakob are desperate to catch the killer before they strike again.
If I said to you ‘horse vampire crime spree’ you’d probably think I’d gone bonkers, but that’s just a small part of what might be going on in this Icelandic thriller from Satu Rämö. When a body is found suspended by hooks in an Icelandic fish farm in the run up to Christmas, Detective Hildur is put in charge of the investigation, by her objectionable boss Jonas. Hildur’s partner Jakob’s mind isn’t on the job but on his custody battles, so she’s working alone a lot of the time and we’re in it with her, party to her thoughts and theories. So when a second victim has her hair burned off with a candle, a strange idea starts to form. Could the attacker be basing their methods on the Icelandic tradition of the Yule Lads? I’m an avid QI fan and without it I would have known nothing about this particular tradition of thirteen mischievous troll-like creatures who come down from the hillsides and play tricks on people. The translations of their names include Spoon Licker, Pot Scraper and Sausage Swiper, something I have never forgotten since. The case is interesting psychologically, but there’s a lot more going on here and I found myself sidetracked by the lives of the detectives. I did find it a bit slow to get going and I think it was when these family stories developed that I became gripped.
Jakob is rather fascinating – a taciturn character who has the unlikely hobby of knitting. In fact he’s so compelled to knit, that he’s able to do it in the car while Hildur is driving and in waiting rooms. It’s clearly displacement activity and we learn that Jakob has a son with his estranged partner Regina who has taken him out of the country to Finland. Although Jakob is fighting this, he’s now at the mercy of a foreign legal system and is having to fly over to attend court which affects his job and leaves Hildur coping alone. In the midst of her investigation Jakob calls Hildur to give her some shocking news, he has been arrested on suspicion of murder. Regina and the new man in her life have been shot dead in their vehicle while in a car park. Worse than this, a witness has described someone who looks remarkably like Jakob as being in the vicinity before the shooting. He has access to a gun and is in a contentious court battle with the deceased, he knows his chances aren’t good and asks for Hildur. Surely, if she had even the smallest suspicion of Jakob being guilty, Hildur wouldn’t fly to his aid without question?
Underneath everything, this is a novel about family. The estrangement between Hildur and her sisters is so painfully believable and we can see the effects of generational trauma in the family. Their mother was an alcoholic, leading to neglect and one sister being very badly burned. We’re reminded of those small traditions families have that make celebrations personal and bind us together. Yet the story is also full of secrets people are keeping from each other and things they can’t talk about, until the right person comes along to unlock that emotion.
“She knew from experience that she had a hard time forming attachments with anyone who hadn’t known grief.”
This was such an eloquent description of how grief feels, almost like living on a different plane of existence to others. I felt this deeply when in the depths of grief and ever since I’ve been unable to do small talk and my tolerance levels for certain people and activities have lowered significantly. Some doors can only be opened with experience. What kept me reading was Jakob’s situation and the incredibly difficult opening flashback of three boys playing by a lake, a quietly devastating scene with ripples that must have spread through the community for years. The haunting and secretive nature of that event sets the tone for the rest of this novel, a perfect reading choice for those who like their Christmas nostalgic and a little bleak.
Translated by Kristian London
Meet the Author
Hæ hæ! My name is Satu Rämö, I’m a Finnish-Icelandic author of bestselling nordic blue crime series called HILDUR. International rights are sold to 20+ countries and d during the first 2,5 years HILDUR books have sold over one million copies worldwide.
I was born in Finland in 1980 and moved to Iceland twenty years ago as an economics exchange student. Instead of macroeconomics I ended up studying Icelandic culture, literature and mythology.
Living in Iceland, I have written extensively about Nordic culture and life in the North Atlantic, blending my firsthand experiences into my novels.
I live with my family in the small town of Ísafjörður in northwest Iceland. I love ice cream, rye bread and sparkling wines. I drink my coffee with cream as often as possible.
My crime fiction debut Hildur (2022) changed the game for me as an author, totally. HILDUR-series is Icelandic-Finnish nordic blue crime fiction that takes place in a small village in the Westfjords of Iceland. Nordic blue is similar to nordic noir but more human. The stories are from the darker sides of the Nordic society but they also follow how people are dealing with each other in life in general.
Finnish Take Two Studios will shoot the HILDUR series in Iceland with an Icelandic co-production.
Turku City Theather stages HILDUR on their Main Stage in autumn 2024–2025.
I just love writing!
You can chat me your thoughts in Instagram at @satu_ramo I hope to hear from you 🙂
ONE TRIAL. FIVE TRUTHS. BUT ARE THEY READY FOR HERS?
When a waitress is charged with murdering four men at an exclusive private club, her personal life and upbringing are thrust into the spotlight. During the trial, people closest to Katie start to question what they know about her.
Her father remembers the sweet schoolgirl.
Her childhood friend misses her kindness and protection.
Her lover regrets ever falling for her.
Her lawyer believes she is hiding something.
A journalist is convinced she is a cold-blooded killer.
To each of them she’s someone different. But is she guilty?
This thriller grabbed me straight away and never let go! The pace was fast, with short punchy chapters containing the narratives of five men each linked in some way to a woman called Katie. Each man has his own name for this woman and their narratives tell us her story as they see it. John is her father, Gabe is her childhood friend, Conrad is her lover, Tarun is a lawyer and Max is a journalist. Each one thinks they know her, each one presents a different face. But who is she and which is her real identity? Is she a combination of all five or nothing like this at all. It’s a timely, compelling and addictive story that you’ll want to finish in one go.
The murder that has taken place at March House has killed four very important men at once. Lucian is a businessman and owner of March House, a private members club for the richest and most influential men in the UK and their guests. His guests that night were Harris Lowe, Lucian’s new right hand man, Dominic Ainsworth MP and Russian millionaire Aleksander Popov. They appear to have been poisoned with an incredibly expensive bottle of brandy laced with poison. Only one person has been serving the party all evening and that is waitress Katie. She is soon under arrest, but what possible motive could she have had to kill these men? Yet when police apprehend her not long after she’s left work for the evening she is reported as saying ‘they got what they deserved’. Is this an admission of guilt or an acknowledgment that whoever killed them, did the world a favour?
It’s hard to get to know Katie because she is simultaneously a wildcat, a conspiracy theorist, a squatter, a farmhand, a waitress or the accused. These are just some of the descriptive words used to label her by the men in her life, but we have to remember that they are viewing her through their own lens. How much can we trust their impressions of her and do we accept that they’re telling the truth? She’s clearly beautiful, even without the ‘right’ clothes she has something that men desire. Conrad feels this when she’s helping out with the pigs on her uncle’s farm but then is shocked when she turns up at his club and his boss Lucien clearly desires her too. Both of them see a sex object rather than the young, troubled woman in front of them. John still sees his little girl, unable to equate the terrible crime she’s accused of with his daughter. However, we learn that she’s always been sympathetic and perhaps a little soft where his daughter is concerned whereas her mother sees her as a naughty child who grew up still getting into trouble. If anyone sees a more rounded Katie it’s her childhood friend Gabe, even if he is in love with her. She pulls him into her internet wormhole of conspiracy theories and he follows her down to London, ready for direct action to change everything that’s wrong with society. Yet when he gets there, Katie is living in a squat and has moved on in her belief system. Gabe has fallen under the spell of the elusive Mr E who appears in the comments under YouTube videos, disparaging the rich and the corruption within the system. He’s saddened to find her working at March House, the centre of online rumours about secret cabals and the ‘real’ people who run the world. He sees the Katie who had these beliefs as the real Katie and now she doesn’t believe or belong to him anymore. Similarly, Conrad sees her as this beautiful, innocent farmhand:
“You’d taken on a hazy, pure quality, a perfume ad of a person. In the cafe you looked ordinary.”
Every so often a book comes along that captures a moment and this definitely does. It isn’t the first book I’ve read where online radicalisation is part of the story and how dangerous it can be to become drawn in by conspiracy theorists. We tend to use the word grooming when it refers to children, but young adults and people with learning disabilities are also vulnerable and political or conspiracy theories seem to be changing the way people view the world without them even leaving the house and experiencing it for themselves. The echo chambers created when we look at certain subjects means people can be left thinking they have the majority viewpoint, no matter how crazy or extreme the ideas. Conspiracy theories are popular because it gives explanations for events that are incredibly complex and totally outside of our control. The realisation that a small group of individuals could hijack a few planes and attack the most powerful cities in the USA is almost too scary. People didn’t want to feel that their country was that vulnerable and open to attack, so they created stories that their own government must have been involved. Mr E directs his followers to March House as the real seat of power and their list of members could easily feed into that narrative. There is no doubt that some dodgy deals and introductions go on there, but the difficulties facing the country are international and much more complex than a few smoking men in a private room, but for some, life being random chaos is a scary prospect.
At the centre of all this is Katie, a lost young woman unsure of who she is and what she wants from life. With no plan or purpose, she lurches from one crisis to the next never feeling safe or grounded. The novel made me angry, especially with Conrad and Max who want to use and exploit Katie. Conrad has the audacity to suggest his connection to her was flimsy at best:
“I could barely even remember your real name. You had come onto me so hard, when I looked back, that in a way it was embarrassing. I was embarrassed for you”.
I was furious and desperately wanted him pulled apart in court by her barrister Tarun. It reminded me of how women who are seen as controversial, such as Caroline Flack or the Duchess of Sussex, are presented and packaged by the media. There’s misogyny at the root of this and it’s the same with the male characters in the book who package Katie into roles and personalities that absolves them for the harm they cause and assuages their guilt. This is brilliantly done by the author who doesn’t put a foot wrong in her characterisation and the pace of this novel. It’s fast moving and she doesn’t waste a single word, keeping you gripped by what might happen next. We’re never sure on what has happened or who is responsible and the courtroom scenes are brilliant meaning it was impossible to put down – there was one late night where I completely wrote off the following day for anything useful. This is powerful and will make you angry, but you won’t be able to stop those pages turning.
Meet the Author
Nicci Cloke is an author and editor based in Cambridgeshire. Her novels have been published in twelve languages, and she has previously worked as a nanny, a cocktail waitress and a Christmas Elf. Before being published, she was a permissions manager, looking after literary estates including those of Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and T. S. Eliot, and was also communications manager at the Faber Academy.
Be whisked away to Greece with this dual narrative novel set on the Greek Islands. Greek cottage. Price: One Euro. Skye doesn’t make impulsive decisions. But when she sees a derelict Greek cottage for sale by lottery, she enters with dreams of a fresh start. However, her heart sinks as she pushes open the tattered blue door weeks later. Can this wreck ever be her home? Then Skye finds a bundle of letters hidden in the fireplace, their faded pages drawing her in with a story of long-forgotten love, tragedy, and unbelievable bravery during WW2. But all the while, Skye’s own past is circling. No matter how far she goes, fate is never far behind…
I throughly enjoyed this novel that treads the difficult line between feeling escapist while looking back to harrowing events in the island’s history. The people who buy the one Euro houses bring an optimism and sense of renewal to the island. The current residents of the island are a joy, incredibly generous with the new arrivals and particularly Andreas who is the builder commissioned to renovate the houses. He is hospitable, showing Skye around her new home and chatting ideas, but he goes above and beyond when he realises she is staying in the empty house so brings her groceries and coffee. When some of the other residents arrive the place is full of camaraderie and new friendships. These are mainly women. Joy is an artist from Australia who clicks with Skye straightaway. There are three sisters, one of which is a builder determined to renovate in her own way much to Andreas’s disgust. As Skye wanders through her house alone, taking in the sea view from the attic room we get a sense of freedom and independence from her, possibly a feeling she hasn’t had for some time. All of this activity is exciting and hopeful, a light-heartedness that’s at odds with the reasons Skye left the UK and her new home’s sad history. Skye and Andreas find Nazi dog tags and a stash of letters in a half collapsed wall, so they know these are from the time of occupation, when Italian and German soldiers were present in the islands. It’s more troubling when remains are unearthed in the garden, some of which appear to be human. What has happened on this particular street?
I found Katerina’s letters and the times we delve back into the island’s history so vivid and there were scenes so memorable, I don’t think I’ll forget them. It really engaged my emotions and I fell in love with Katerina when we first meet her as she’s climbing to reach her goats. Her relationship with the little three legged goat is so touching. It’s also the reason she meets Stefanos, as her goat climbs a little higher than she should considering her poor balance. Katerina tucks her skirt into her knickers and shows off her own climbing skills. It feels like love at first sight for these two, but war will get in the way of their courtship. This heroine is bold and brave and even though she faces some terrible events she never loses her determination or her love. This is a turn around for the girl who scorned her sister’s marriage and the constraints it placed on her.
“Love, such a stupid thing. She was eighteen, strong, healthy and free to roam between chores. A man would not let her behave in such a way.”
I found the islander’s experiences at the hands of their occupiers harrowing. They take everything they can from the villager’s stores of food, requisition their animals and leave them starving slowly. Katerina can see her sister is becoming frail, but doesn’t realise what she’s enduring in order to secure the tiny amount of food they have. One particular soldier takes an interest in her and she knows he won’t take no for an answer, even though she is expecting to marry Stefanos if he comes home. As she symbolically tries on her mother’s wedding dress she feels the strength of the older generation with her. This is a strength she sees when encountering an elderly man on the beach who greets her warmly then simply walks away into the sea, unable to cope with what is happening on the island and knowing the young need to be priority when it comes to resources. It’s the young who have to fight, including Stefanos and her sister’s husband, but it’s easy to forget that occupied women are also fighting in their own way. That might be foraging for food, hiding supplies from the occupiers, or even collaborating to survive – something that women were often punished for by their community, but is understandable when there are children to feed and refusal only means they take what they want anyway. Katerina’s principles are steadfast, even when starving and pregnant, but they also lead to devastating consequences. I loved the author’s focus on women helping women, even across the barriers between them.
Skye arrives in a timid state, but blossoms on the island. She has come through a period of grief after losing her father, but there’s something more in the way she reacts to men and in the joy she takes in making her own choices for her new home. She gains the confidence to tutor some of the children and her friendship with the bold and liberated Joy seems to be exactly what she needs. She also builds a good relationship with Andreas, they work well on the house together and he quickly learns her boundaries. If something has to be done his way because of safety or local regulations he stands his ground, but all other decisions belong to Skye. He literally gives her own power back to her by remaining respectful and passive with decision making. It’s a marker of how broken the mother daughter relationship is, that Skye’s mother turns up on the island with her husband. If I’d disappeared across the continent with no forwarding address my mum would know something was very wrong back home. The author illustrates so well how grief is life-altering, leaving us potentially vulnerable to those who seem to offer love and protection, but actually want to control. With a total break from her usual life and the new people she has around her, I hoped Skye would have enough strength to break from relationships that have become abusive. It emphasises ‘found family’ and shows that community is vitally important to our wellbeing.
This was a fabulous read, a dual narrative storyline where both timelines held my interest and kept the pages turning. Of course Katerina’s experiences have more power because of the horrors they faced during occupation. I also particularly loved Katerina’s bond with Chrysi her little goat, a relationship that was so touching it brought me to tears. Skye is also fighting for her survival, to build a life that’s how she wants it and the freedom to make her own choices and mistakes. I loved the hint of romance that didn’t overpower or devalue the serious points being made about the strength of women and their supportive bonds with each other. The historical finds that are made really piqued my interest and it was fascinating to see Katerina’s story slowly uncovered and I have wondered since finishing what she might have done next. There is loss, domestic abuse and sexual violence which can be a tough read if you’ve been through it, but all are handled well and felt authentic. I felt Katerina’s despair when she realises she no longer ‘feared the enemy, not their guns and bombs. It was the sorrow that terrified her.’ Like Skye she realises that she must use this as a strength going forward. I was rooting for both women throughout, dealing with the oppression of men and finding their own path.
Meet the Author
My career as an author really began when I won The Great British Write Off competition in 2014 with a short story called The Wedding Speech. It was the first time anyone in the publishing industry had looked at my writing, and their collective advice and guidance gave me the confidence to complete a proper novel. My Map Of You was the result.
I write escapist fiction because travel is in my soul. My books are about all facets of life and often feature a love story. Getting inside the hearts and minds of my characters continues to fascinate me, as does searching the globe for settings in which to set their stories. I have scaled mountains in Sri Lanka, watched fireworks over Lake Como, swam in crystal clear Croatian waters, made wishes in Prague, hunted for orange houses in Mallorca, fallen off chairs in French bistros and wept over the beauty of the stars in Zakynthos – and these experiences are just the tip of the iceberg.
Each of my novels comes with a promise: to take my readers on an adventure and leave them with hope in their hearts. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I love writing them.
I love spending time in beautiful gardens. One of my favourite childhood places was Chatsworth House, mainly because I had delusions of grandeur and wanted people to ask ‘have you seen Hayley?” “This morning she was in the library.” I also loved the garden because it has such an incredible mix: cozy hiding places (I think I’ve always been Jane Eyre hiding in the window seat), highlights like a bronze willow tree that sprinkles water and creates rainbows, huge tropical conservatories and grand vistas that open up to reveal incredible views of the Peak District. My favourite place was The Grotto, a stone building next to a large pond that was like a bandstand with a pointed roof and open sides. I imagined sitting there and reading, able to look out over the valley below. Gardens are powerful places that can evoke so many different emotions and I was fascinated with our heroine Julia who is a garden restorer. This means having all the landscaping skills and plant knowledge of a gardener with an emphasis on the history of the place. It gives Julia’s job an added emotional element whether the client is trying to recreate a garden from their ancestral past or a garden that existed within the client’s lifetime, potentially bringing up the feelings it once evoked and whatever led to it’s destruction or decline. Here it is WW2 that interrupted the garden’s original beauty, particularly the moonlit garden that was repurposed as a kitchen garden to supplement rationing. Based mainly around greenery and white flowering plants, the emphasis was placed on plants the would reflect moonlight or only flowered at night. Julia’s client Margaret does remember the garden from before the war, but is struggling to convey to Julia the details. The 92 year old lady of the manor is rather enigmatic, but steadfast in her instructions that it should be exactly as it was. So Julia must do some digging into the family’s historical documents and photos so she can hopefully give Margaret those feelings once again. However, digging into the archives will unearth more than plants as family secrets come to light.
“Moon gardens were often believed to be deeply spiritual places, where the barrier between the dead and the living thinned.”
The author tells the story in a dual timeline with two narrators. In the present day timeline we follow Julia’s perspective and her strange position of living in Havensworth Manor with her nephew while she fulfils her contract. It’s a slightly awkward situation, with Julia worrying about the disruption of the house’s quiet, slightly stifling atmosphere. Margaret is her client, but she is often restricted from seeing her by Andrew, Margaret’s nephew who is also a GP. Bringing a curious and excited child into the mix does bring its moments, but there’s a sense of these newcomers bringing the manor back to life again. Sam bursts into this careful and structured home with all the innocence, excitement and curiosity you’d expect from a small boy and he’s a delightful character. Where Julia feels she has to be careful around Margaret, Sam asks the questions that Julia can’t, having been steered away from certain topics like the war by Andrew. More specifically the family don’t talk about Margaret’s sister Irene, but it’s clear that Irene and the garden have a strong link. When Julia finds a sketchbook filled with botanical drawings she is fascinated. In fact the book is a florilegium – where specific flowers are drawn together with their meanings underneath. The Victorians were fascinated by the language of flowers and this artist had a gift for expressing meaning through her flower drawings. We learn that Margaret’s elder sister Irene was the artist, but the two became estranged during the war when Irene fled the family home and brought disgrace on her family. Having both lost a sister, Julia and Irene could connect, with Julia still unable to separate the disparate emotions of grief and anger. Might this common experience help her with the garden?
I felt like the book was a little slow to reveal things in the first third and I didn’t connect with Julia, who sometimes felt more like the catalyst for Irene’s narrative than a fully rounded character in her own right. However, Irene’s story immediately grabbed me as we heard how her life unfolded in her own words as compared to the family version in which she never saw her family or the manor again. All Irene wanted to do was go to art college but her parents refused, even though she was talented enough to be accepted. Art was a pastime for a lady, not a profession. Irene’s life at Havenworth is limited, leaving her both naive and frustrated. This is the perfect combination for James Atherton, a handsome RAF officer to sweep her off her feet, when he comes to stay with her brother. She has her head turned by his flattery, especially when it’s about her work and the romantic symbolism and sentiment of flowers and gestures. When he asks her to run away to London and marry him she only pauses to think about how hard it will be leaving Margaret. She’s soon in the thick of London nightlife, meeting new friends and shopping in Selfridges never stopping to wonder where the money is coming from. London is now in the thick of the Blitz and Irene will have to face the reality of her new life, especially when she’s asked to make a choice she could never have imagined. Her narrative gives the book its urgency and drama as WW2 slices through the life of this family like a knife. The author brings home the differences between life before and during the war, both at Havenworth and in the city, particularly for women. There’s a sense in which Julia and Sam’s presence thaws this family riven with secrets, they bring life into a largely silent house and although Julia worries that Sam might be too much, he seems to work his charm on Margaret and Andrew. As the garden starts to come back to life so do they, actually connecting as a family when it finally gives up its secrets.
Out now from Lake Union Publishing
Meet the Author
Sara Blaydes has been obsessed with books ever since she demanded her parents teach her to read at four years old so she could steal her older brother’s comic books. It was only natural she start crafting stories where she, a perpetual daydreamer, could escape into worlds of her own creation. She currently lives in British Columbia with her handsome husband, two amazing children, and an overly anxious Boston terrier. She believes books are magic, summer is the best season, and parsley is never optional.
Ten years ago, the Harper family disappeared. Their deserted cottage was left with the water running, the television playing cartoons, the oven ready for baking. The doors were locked from the inside. Overnight, the sleepy village of Nighbrook became notorious as the scene of the unsolved mystery of the decade, an epicentre for ghoulish media speculation.
For crime journalist Naomi, solving the case has turned into an obsession. So now, with Ivy Cottage finally listed for sale, it’s her chance to mount an investigation like no other. And her husband and stepdaughter don’t really need to know what happened in their new home… do they? But Nighbrook isn’t quite the village she expected. No one wants to talk to her. No one will answer her questions. And as she becomes increasingly uneasy, it’s clear that the villagers are hiding something—that there is something very dark at the heart of this rural idyll. And the deeper she digs, the more it seems her investigation could be more dangerous than she ever imagined… In raking up the secrets of the past, has she made her own family the next target?
I came to this novel on the recommendation of another blogger and it’s certainly a page turner. Ivy Cottage isn’t the average house. It’s isolated from the village, tucked away in a forest clearing and inside it’s the archetypal haunted house – dated and untouched, full of cobwebs and creaking sounds. It feels like a house whose history is imprinted on the atmosphere. We also don’t know who can be trusted in this village. At first people are all smiles and welcome, so much so that Naomi takes cakes to the local cafe and the family gets to know local police officer Lloyd, who calls in to introduce himself. The tension is created by intervening chapters that delve into the past and cast doubt on characters that have seemed friendly in the present. They open up questions: why is a girl called Grace slipping out of the cottage in the dead of night and playing in the woods? Why is Lloyd watching? Is he trying to keep her safe or does he have more sinister motives for watching his ‘moonlight girl’. The author also creates disquiet in the reader with odd incidents that have no explanation. We don’t know who is responsible for locking Naomi in the attic one morning. Is her new stepdaughter Morgan resentful or actively dangerous? Who is the teenager talking to online? I found myself full of questions.
I did have a lot of sympathy for Morgan who doesn’t seem to be such a bad kid, considering her circumstances. I found myself cross with her father Ed and Naomi for destabilising her, especially when she’s already estranged from her mother. Naomi and Ed have married in a whirlwind, then have taken Morgan from everything she knows into the middle of nowhere. They’re barely in Ivy Cottage when Ed announces he’s travelling to Scotland to track down Morgan’s mother who we’re told is an addict and has a life full of drama. It’s not hard to work out that Morgan must feel abandoned by both parents and is now stuck in this creepy house with a woman she barely knows. I felt quite angry with Naomi already, but when we realise she’s dragged her new family into her scheme to investigate the previous owners it seems positively reckless. Not even Ed knows the house’s past so Naomi has started a marriage by lying to everyone. To put a vulnerable teenager into this dangerous environment is at best selfish and at worst callous. Morgan is sullen and angry, which is understandable. When Naomi’s sister turns up she encounters Morgan wandering in the night and decides to give her a few ‘home truths’ which I found particularly spiteful. It’s no surprise that Morgan has started talking to strangers on the internet and wanders outside at night to meet new friends like Dawn, not knowing that she’s putting herself in danger. Can she trust anyone in this village?
More tension is created by intervening chapters that delve into the past and the unusual life of a young teenage girl called Grace, part of the family who disappeared from this house. She has a very restricted life, plagued by unusual symptoms and even allergic to light. This level of control has led to her sneaking out at night and wandering through the forest, but out there she isn’t alone. Someone watches Grace and we’re not sure whether they’re benign or a danger. I’d worked out what was going on within the Harper family early on, but that’s only a small part of the mystery around Ivy Cottage and their disappearance. When Dawn asks Morgan to sneak out at night they play with an ouija board in the old church and Grace seems to speak to them. It unnerves Morgan but she’s not sure whether it’s a spectral Grace or Dawn she should be wary of. What we do realise is that there are still people lurking in the woods so Morgan and Naomi feel like sitting ducks. There are several twists and turns from here, with a double showdown coming – one for Naomi and Morgan and one in the past – it was nail-bitingly tense. I was also curious about the future of this whirlwind family if they came out of this alive. Would Ed forgive Naomi for lying to him and putting his daughter in unnecessary danger? Could they carry on living at Ivy Cottage? As the night of the Harper disappearance also unfolds I was on tenterhooks. The house was left with half-eaten food on the table as if they were spirited away with no warning. If Grace and her family came out of their ordeal alive, where are they and why did they leave the village? If they’re dead, then who is to blame? With mind games being played and a scene that may just have put me off cake, I’d have been packing my bags very quickly. I did feel there was a twist or two I didn’t need, but the author paints a brilliantly spooky atmosphere around the cottage and it’s hidden past. I didn’t know who to trust out of the villagers and my judgement was completely wrong! This was gripping and is one of those thrillers you’ll devour in a weekend.
Thomas and Mercer Jan 2022
Meet the Author
New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post and International #1 Bestselling Author. Shortlisted by the International Thriller Awards for best ebook 2017, the Killer Nashville Best Police Procedural 2018 and the Audie awards 2022. Over 1.8 million books sold.
Caroline originates from Ireland and now lives in a woodland village outside the city of Lincoln. A former police detective, she has worked in CID and specialised in roles dealing with vulnerable victims, high-risk victims of domestic abuse, and serious sexual offences. She now writes full time.
Caroline writes psychological and crime thrillers. Her stand alone thriller Silent Victim reached No.1 in the Amazon charts in the UK, USA and Australia and was the winner of the Reader’s Favourite Awards in the psychological thriller category. It has been described as ‘brilliantly gripping and deliciously creepy’.
The first in her Amy Winter series, Truth And Lies, is a New York Times bestseller and has been optioned for TV.
London, 1897. Nobody, least of all Molly, knows why she ends up taking the foundling home from her job at the Alhambra Theatre. Molly is a seamstress, creating costumes for ballerinas who perform within the music hall tradition. She loves dance but with her built up shoe and awkward gait she is as close to the stage as she can get. When a baby is discovered on the steps of the theatre everyone discusses who could be the mother, but they’re at a loss. It’s hard to hide a pregnancy in a shared dressing room and with seamstresses who note the tiniest change on a tape measure. She takes Rose home, but her upbringing is also at the theatre where everyone takes an interest in this little girl who grows up enjoying the colours, fabrics and feathers of the sewing room but reserves her love for the ballerinas. When she’s old enough she wants to learn and grows into a role in the chorus very quickly. Rose is determined to succeed and keeps pushing for that breakthrough that will give her the starring role. Molly knows Rose is pregnant before she tells her, the result of an affair with a wealthy married man, but the abortion they arrange is abandoned when Rose changes her mind. Rose’s twins are born backstage at the theatre, where life starts and then life ends as Rose’s dancing dreams die. So the boy, Walter, is sent to live with his father and stepmother and Nina stays with Molly. This decision means that Nina has the same upbringing as Rose and becomes even more determined than her mother to be the best dancer she can be. The younger generation pursue their ambitions, loves and dreams in a new world shaped by the pioneering Diaghilev and his dazzling Ballets Russes, Stravinsky’s dissonant music, and the devastating First World War.
I asked to read and review this book because I enjoy ballet, particularly the more lyrical modern ballets by Mathew Bourne and the brilliant Northern Ballet based in Leeds who often do literary adaptations such as Wuthering Heights and The Great Gatsby. I’m also fascinated with this period of history, particularly when it comes to the huge impact of WW1 and the way it affected class structures and the lives of the women left behind. The author weaves her story into this time and society beautifully and with such care over every detail. Even the cover shows her themes of rebirth and regeneration with its large golden egg and a female figure as if drawn by Matisse, non-sexualised and not constricted by the corsets and crinolines of earlier generations. Her shape reminded me of the new ballets produced by Diaghilev and choreographed by Fokine that also showed more freedom in their movements and looser costumes. Rose and Nina have a very different upbringing from the average Edwardian woman, the music hall theatre wouldn’t be considered respectable by the middle and upper classes. Molly has no choice but to work so both Rose, and later her daughter Nina, fell asleep to the sound of sewing machines and have clothes that are colourful and unique, thrown together from fabric remnants. Both are dazzled by the dancers and want to be on the stage and both are successful to different extents. Nina is utterly determined and visits all the ballets she can while training, because she’s aiming beyond the music hall and into the world of modern ballet. She hears of the Ballet Russes and Diaghilev’s new approach, she identifies herself with his ‘Firebird’ – another symbol of renewal and regeneration:
‘Tamara Karsavina wore a magnificent head dress – long flaming feathers quivering – a bodice of brilliant reds and oranges […] she adored the exotic creature”.
The premiere of this ballet was in 1910 at the Opera de Paris and showed off the choreography of Diaghilev’s collaborator Fokine which was ground breaking. This dancer had to represent an element, with all the wildness of fire, something we think of as hard to contain and dangerous to be near. It’s definitely a force that’s in Nina and represented the changing roles of women in the early 20th Century: women who wanted to go to university, to have a career, to have the vote. Imagine how strange it must have been to see a woman on stage who’s a rebel and has power, especially with its incredible costume and free expressive dancing.
‘This firebird was her – Nina – aflame, all sharp angles radiating determination’.
The Firebird from V and A archive
Walter is almost his sister’s opposite, a person you could easily miss in a room and caused by his upbringing. Brought up by his mother’s lover Arthur and his wife Beatrice, he is rich in every sense except the one we most need – love. Beatrice was cold, although it is hard to imagine what it felt like to meet the proof of her husband’s infidelity at the breakfast table each morning, especially when she couldn’t have children of her own. I was intrigued by the differences between the twins and what it said about the nature/nurture debate. Nina has been brought up by the entire theatre community of women from Molly’s fellow seamstresses to the dancers, which gives her so much confidence, drive and inspiration. She sees women making their own money and in a creative career, so she knows women can make it on their own in this world. All Walter seems to learn at home is to stay as small as possible and not upset anybody, something he takes to boarding school with him. His masters at school are trying to turn out traditional middle class men, who go on to university and have a profession. The assumption is they will have a career that can support a family, but Arthur’s only love is music but he doesn’t have the confidence or self-worth to make that happen. When Arthur died I thought Beatrice was particularly brutal in dismissing Walter, making it clear he will liaise with his father’s solicitor from now on. When children are rejected they don’t think something is wrong with the parent, they internalise the rejection and are left feeling something is wrong with themselves. For Walter this is compounded at boarding school where he is not athletic or competitive, he is teased, bullied and never stands up for himself. As he discovers his Grandmother and Nina he’s also having feelings that seem natural, but must be kept secret. When they all go to see the Rite of Spring he watches Nijinsky mimicking an ecstatic and sensual moment on stage and becomes aroused. He’s mortified and has to leave immediately. I kept wondering how he would cope with war on the horizon and the huge pressure on young men to enlist. I couldn’t imagine how he would survive the brutality of the experience.
Costumes from the Ballet Russes
This fascinating family story feels absolutely real and that is down to the incredible amount of research the author has undertaken. She wholly embeds these characters into the history of the time, weaving social, cultural and political history around them, along with her incredible knowledge on dance history. I loved the vividness of the theatre, the backstage bustle and the magic that is produced for the audience especially when what they’re seeing is groundbreaking. She applies equal care to the war sections of the novel too. It feels like you are in those trenches because there’s an immediacy to them. These sections are also graphic and raw, which makes them hard to read about war when you’re invested in the characters. It had to be strong and true to life for us to understand how and why this war tore straight through the lives people had known before. Although changes were already happening at the turn of the century, WW1 was the first mechanised war and the sheer number of casualties were hard to comprehend. It wiped out a generation of men and afterwards there’s an acceleration of modernism that’s visible in the arts and everyday people’s lives. The aristocracy struggle to hold on to property and land as they are tied up with death duties, sometimes more than once. Middle class women who have always relied financially on men have to face life alone and discover ways of making money – less servants, taking in lodgers and finding jobs. If men came back, they came back changed forever due to shell shock (now PTSD) or physical injury and couldn’t work. Women didn’t want to give up jobs they’d done throughout the war and a freedom they’d never had before. Also contraception becomes more freely available and this was the earliest stages of some women not having to choose between career and relationships. As Nina joins the Ballet Russes she becomes more independent, travelling all over the world and living the life her mother had dreamed of. When we see her reach her first stop in the south of France she is utterly in her element and it’s no surprise that she enters into a controversial mixed race relationship, something more acceptable in that time within the bohemian and arty circles she inhabits. It’s almost as if the war curtailed the freedom of men, especially when conscription began, but emancipated women.
Nijinsky
In 2010 I visited an exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, called Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes which focused on costume and design including collaborations with artists like Picasso and the music of Stravinsky These sketches and costumes were like nothing I’d ever seen, seeming both weirdly modern but archaic at the same time. There’s nothing pretty about them and no tulle in sight, they’re loose with strong colours, geometric shapes and sharp zig-zags. I could see the point being made – by being so aggressively modern it almost forces change and expectation of what a ballet is. I could see how they matched Stravinsky’s music because there was a segment of the Rite of Spring with its themes of growth, fertility and desire. I could see why audiences found this piece so shocking because it has that same aggressive feeling with unusual rhythms and sudden loud bursts of sound. It’s harsher on the ear than the usual score for ballets and the sets were purposely sparse. The dancing had a primitive feel and the subject matter of a young woman sacrificed to the spring is like a modernist version of the contemporary horror film Midsommar. It was reported that people rioted at the premiere, which is probably an exaggeration, but I can imagine an audience finding it strange and confronting when we think of the opulence and beauty they were used to in ballet. It’s such an important piece in the history of dance and without it we wouldn’t have contemporary dance. I came away from the novel feeling I’d learned so much about dance and the early 20th Century in general. While all the characters touched me in different ways I did have a soft spot for Molly, who stands out within these themes of fertility and desire. I thought she was the most incredible mother, yet had never given birth to either of her children. She has a disability but spends her time within a world where bodies are pushed to their limit, creating beauty in their movement. Her love of dance is built into every one of the costumes she lovingly creates and the colourful outfits she makes for her daughters. She provides stability and love for Rose and Nina, plus she never judges their mistakes. She is the earth, grounding these fiery women and eventually Walter, for the rest of her life. She is the heart of this novel for me and Nina can only be what she is because of her. I could imagine her as the central character in an incredibly lush and powerful period drama with the war breaking through everything in its brutality. This is a must read for both lovers of dance and historical fiction.
The Firebird
Meet the Author
Stories with big themes written as page-turners are Anna M Holmes’s speciality. With an extensive background in dance and theatre, Dance of the Earthis a story she has longed to write. Her novels- The Find, Wayward Voyage, and Blind Eye-are all typified by deep research. Anna worked as a radio journalist before embarking on a career in arts management. Originally from New Zealand, she now lives in South-West London.
That title is enough to get the hackles raised because everyone knows that the most terrifying type of ghost is a child ghost! The novel’s opening does nothing to dissuade us of our fears. Thom and Jude are an elderly couple visiting their son Alan, his wife Coral and their grandson Dean. Recently moved to the seaside town of Barnwall, it’s an environment that should be perfect for children, but there is something right from the outset that feels ‘off’. While Thom and Jude seem natural and doting grandparents, they are warm and seem to have real affection for one another. However, the house feels stifling and distinctly unnatural. There are no toys scattered around and Alan and Coral’s dialogue is stilted and cold, even towards their son. As his other grandparents arrive, it doesn’t improve. As his grandparents give him a present Dean is reminded to thank them even before he’s had chance to do so. Jude’s quiet replies try to chip away at their reserve, thinking perhaps that they’re worried about how she and her husband will perceive Dean’s behaviour. She makes it clear that they’re fine, not at all concerned or bothered by a bit of mess or a late thank you. It simply does not matter. Yet as the day continues I began to think this is how they are all the time. There are so many rules, all of them contrary to how a child of that age would normally behave. It’s no surprise that he’s conjured up an imaginary friend called Heady, who he talks to from time to time. Although he does point out that it’s sometimes hard for Heady to hear him, because he doesn’t always have a head. It’s the first sign that something very weird is going on in this sterile and unpleasant atmosphere. All too soon the significance of Childer Close will be revealed.
The author clearly has a knack for making the reader uncomfortable and I certainly was. The dialogue didn’t feel real to me and this company of people made me squirm. As someone who immediately sits on the floor with children and starts to play I’m afraid I’d have been very vocal. My first thought was intergenerational child abuse and there are certainly clues that Coral’s parents are disciplinarians when compared to Jude and Thom, but why would Alan go along with it? It really did stretch my belief when time after time Dean is told that his wants and needs don’t matter, in tiny little micro-aggressions from his parents – not being able to play with his present as it will be untidy, talking too much, not leaving his grandparents alone, not finishing his fish and chip dinner. It’s a slow drip drip drip of negativity that drove me crazy. Why wasn’t Thom taking his son aside and asking what the hell was going on? We learn that an unusual number of children have died in Barnwall’s history, so why would a loving parent move there? Alan and Coral believe the house may have a malevolent spirit and perhaps an exorcism needs to be performed. He seems the least likely child to be possessed and by focusing on him in particular, again he gets the message that he’s not like other children and something is wrong with him. What unfolds I will leave you to find out….
Meet the Author
The Ramsey Campbell Special Editions. Campbell is the greatest inheritor of a tradition that reaches back through H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the early Gothic writers. The dark, masterful work of the painter Henry Fuseli, a friend of Mary Wollstonecraft, is used on these special editions to invoke early literary investigations into the supernatural.
Ramsey Campbell (born 4 January 1946 in Liverpool) is an English horror fiction writer, editor and critic who has been writing for well over fifty years. Two of his novels have been filmed, both for non-English-speaking markets. Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein has written that “Campbell reigns supreme in the field today”, and Robert Hadji has described him as “perhaps the finest living exponent of the British weird fiction tradition”, while S. T. Joshi stated, “future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood.”
The Lotus Readers 