Tag: Family

Posted in Personal Purchase

The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I have always loved Rachel Joyce’s work, especially the Harold Fry series, but I also adored her more recent novel Miss Benson’s Beetle. This novel was slightly different from her other work, while it did have an eccentric character on a very singular quest and kept that complexity of emotions she does so well, it also had an historical context which I loved. In A Homemade God we see similar complex relationships, but within a family who have a famous father. Vic Kemp is a painter and I have an absolute fascination with painter’s lives and relationships. I love art and have read widely on groups like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the group who gathered around Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant down at Charleston in Sussex. After seeing a Lucien Freud retrospective at the Tate I was intrigued by his family. His children seemed to be the epitome of that creative and eccentric family we come to expect from artists. Bohemian upbringings are just so interesting because of how the development and character of the children are affected by it and how that family copes with the ‘genius’ in their midst.

Here the family in question are Vic and his four children – Netta, Susan, Iris and Goose (short for Gustav and the only boy). They’ve been parented by Vic and a series of au pairs after the sudden death of their mother just after Iris was born. Their father’s art came first always and the conditions he needed in order to create were paramount, so the oldest girls often played the mother role for Iris and Goose, especially when Vic inevitably slept with the au pairs and they left. Vic was not an artist celebrated by the establishment. The description of his paintings brought Jack Vettriano to mind, criticised heavily by the art world, but very popular with the public. Many of Vic’s paintings had a sexual element to them, a sort of soft BDSM theme, except for his only painting of one of his children, Iris. Depicted on the beach with a sandcastle and a man in the background, it brings up mixed memories for Iris. Now grown up, his children are stunned when Vic suddenly starts losing weight and drinking green, sludgy health drinks. It’s just so out of character. His diet is being looked after by his new girlfriend, 27 year old Bella-Mae. None of his children have met her and she doesn’t seem keen on trying. Within weeks Vic announces they’re engaged and Netta suggests that they all stand back and give this the space it needs to fizzle out. A couple of weeks later, Vic announces their marriage with a single photograph from the family home in Orta on Isola Son Guilio with Bella-Mae in such a heavy veil they can’t make out her face. They are staying at the family villa, situated on an island in the middle of Lake Orta and only two days later Netta is stunned by a phone call from a stranger called Laszlo, claiming to be Bella’s cousin. Vic has been dragged from the lake, drowned after a morning swim went wrong as the mist descended. Vic knew that lake so well. Why would he go swimming in the mist? His children come together to travel to Orta, to finally meet their new stepmother and to find out whether she has killed their father. 

I really enjoyed the different personalities of the Kemp siblings and how they complement and clash with each other. Netta has definite older sister energy. She’s the most organised and ambitious of all the siblings with a background in law. She is the most cynical too, convinced Bella’s health drinks have poisoned her father and now after two days of marriage she could inherit everything. Her instinct was to ransack Vic’s London home for the anything resembling a will and to find Vic’s final painting. There’s nothing, but maybe he was painting in Orta? Susan is also older and very organised especially when it comes to food or her stepsons. Married to Warwick who is a much older man she has some empathy and understanding for her father’s relationship. She hasn’t worked, but stayed at home to look after Warwick’s boys which has been a thankless task as they’ve barely accepted her. Susan is passionate about food, but she chose a relationship without that same feeling. Perhaps viewing the volcanic nature of Vic’s relationships she decided to go for a calmer and more stable love. It has proved a successful partnership but there are wild depths underneath Susan’s calm exterior and when she meets Bella’s cousin Laszlo they might rise to the surface. 

Goose and Iris, the younger siblings, both seem lost somehow, perhaps because they don’t have those memories of their mother and only remember the erratic presence of Vic and the revolving au pairs. Since his father’s agent Harry set up Goose’s first exhibition, he has never painted again. When left alone just before his open view, he destroyed his canvasses and nobody knows why. He seemed catatonic and voluntarily checked into hospital for his mental health. He lives quite a lonely life and never talks about his sexuality or takes a partner home to meet family. He works quietly as his father’s studio assistant and lives alone. Iris lives alone too and she comes across a bit liked a startled fawn. She follows behind her sisters and dotes on her father more than others, struggling to keep her distance when Netta suggests it. She does keep secrets though, seismic in their power. As they all travel to their villa in Northern Italy, ready to confront their father’s 27 year old widow and her cousin, Netta tells them they have two objectives. Find anything that could be a will, even if it’s on the back of an envelope and find that last painting Vic claimed to be working on. 

Bella isn’t what the siblings expect and nor is the villa. The villa looks beautiful and tidy for once. Bella seems insubstantial and too fragile to have caused such an uproar. She looks like she might blow away in a breeze. Yet they’ve pictured her with an iron will, imposing her diet on their father and gaining their inheritance. She will prove to be a mirror through which each of them evaluate their lives. I love family sagas and this one is brilliant. It’s psychologically fascinating and I’m not going to ruin that for you by delving too deeply. I was absolutely transfixed! I couldn’t work out whether there was deliberate manipulation at play or if this was just a case of an outsider causing people to view everything through a different lens. Is Bella a destructive force or a helpful one? Whatever she is, the siblings will have to look at themselves, their choices and their relationship to their father. Some revelations will be explosive and take place in public – one particular meal is cataclysmic. Other revelations are quieter, insidious or internal but no less devastating. Goose’s story left me furious and devastated at the same time. The book works almost like therapy, but without the care and ethics. No one will come out of this trip unaffected.

The author made me think about how we view artists and our expectations of them – whether they are potters, painters or writers. We read about their messy and eccentric lives with fascination, but we don’t always consider the damage they do to those closest to them. I’ve always wondered how Lucien Freud’s daughters felt about posing for him, especially in their awkward teenage years. Iris’s story gave me some insight and made me feel deeply uncomfortable. This was such a beautifully complex study of a family’s dynamics and how each sibling positions themselves within it. Rachel Joyce has depicted the way we mythologise people within our family groups and the stories we choose to represent us. We choose stories to tell others who we are and when we do that we can embroider or edit for the effect we want. Think about the stories in your families and whether they’re honest or whether you are trying to represent yourselves within a particular class, religion or other social structure? Do we do this consciously or unconsciously? This is a very different novel for the author but it’s definitely built on her ability to present very deep emotions and the truth of human experience. I think it’s her best yet. 

After reading the novel, you might enjoy reading this article about Lucien Freud’s relationship with his daughter Annie.

https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/10/lucian-freud-nude-portrait-daughter-annie#:~:text=His%20complex%20relationship%20with%20daughter,recalls%20the%20artist’s%20paternal%20demons.

Meet the Author

About Rachel Joyce
Posted in The Book Folks

Murder in the Lake by Sadie Norman DC Anna McArthur No 3.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

When a body is found in a Norfolk Lake it falls to the serious crime team to investigate whether this is an accident, suicide or murder. It’s identified as local man Barney King, who lives close to the lake in a row of worker’s cottages. It falls under the remit of DC Anna ‘Crazy’ McArthur who starts to investigate with her small team. The duty police officer has had a look around Barney’s cluttered cottage and has found a scrawled note laid on a pile of books and post on the dining table. 

“I killed her. I deserve this for what I did all those years ago”. 

This intrigues Anna because it brings up questions about the note and whether this might be a serious crime case after all. When they return to the station to report to their DCI Aaron Burns they’re shocked to find a coincidence. The derelict cottage next to Barney’s was once the home of Clara Burns and her sons Callum and Aaron and she was the focus of a missing person’s case. She disappeared when her boys were asleep upstairs and her husband was in the local pub. Anna is in a difficult position, her relationship with the DCI is a known secret in the team but not to the wider force. He has never told her about his mother, leaving her to believe both parents had died a long time ago. There’s no question that Aaron must distance himself from the investigation, but should Anna? If he wants Anna to find out what happened to his mother, he will have to distance himself professionally and emotionally. Now she’s under so much pressure, with a cold case linked to Barney King’s death and the need to solve them for both personal and professional reasons. Just to make things worse she’ll have to babysit a new DCI and Chase is a bit of a conundrum. He doesn’t know the area and could be here to spy for the Chef Constable. Finally, she has to do it without Aaron by her side for emotional support and to sound out ideas with.

I live in Lincolnshire so have some knowledge of the fen areas around King’s Lynn and Wisbech. They’re not that different from central Lincolnshire, having similar geography of flat farmland and dykes dug in the 14th Century to drain the land for farming. As you drive further south, rather than barley or oil seed rape, there are fields growing flowers and vegetables. In fact there are times of the year when you open the car windows and there’s a strong smell of brassicas in the air – cabbage, sprouts and broccoli. I also know the non-PC terms the used for the villagers that the author refers to. These are isolated and sometimes insular communities, quite some distance from a town, where everybody knows each other’s business and secrets are kept for generations. This is only part of our setting, with Norfolk being DC McArthur’s patch. It’s still a rural area though where wildlife, poaching, farm thefts and firearms licences would be a normal part of police work. The serious crime teams don’t usually touch on those daily matters but they do form part of this case. Barney King is elderly, a lonely man living in the middle of nowhere with a derelict house for a neighbour. His companion is his dog, which seems to have disappeared too. He lives by poaching to top up his pension and this forms one of the team’s first questions – why would a man who owned a shotgun choose to drown himself? 

The team meet some very interesting characters in the course of this investigation and the author carefully paces the secrets and lies that are uncovered. Barney’s landlord and local farmer Harry is now so unwell he has a full time carer, Luisa. His son Garrett is taking over the running of the farm. When they find out Barney had visited the neurology department at the hospital just before his death, they view the CCTV and get a surprise. Why would Garrett and Luisa be visiting the hospital together? Especially since Garrett is married to the local GP. What happened to Barney’s own family? Anna manages to track down his daughter Mags and her granddaughter. They’re a fierce pair, arguing at top volume as the police arrive. Why didn’t they have a relationship with Barney? Even stranger, why can’t Anna find the death certificate for Mag’s mother, if she died of cancer several years ago? 

The author paces this really well, slowly and methodically building the case, but with spurts of heart-stopping action including a firearms incident that shows us exactly why Anna earned her ‘Crazy’ nickname. All the while there are strange and uncomfortable undercurrents. As Aaron’s brother is drawn into the case, Anna is the awkward position of being connected to him but not able to say anything. She doesn’t know how to describe what she is to Aaron – girlfriend seems the wrong word for grown-ups, but so does partner when Aaron is asking for space. Are they anything to each other any more? Then there’s DCI Chase, sent as an outsider to oversee the team on this case. He partners up with Anna who can’t work out whether he’s socially awkward or has an ulterior motive. Occasionally he seems to stray into dangerous territory and Anna thinks he must know, but she’s also sure that no one on the team will disclose her and Aaron’s relationship. I couldn’t make up my mind about him, but he definitely set me on edge. This was a really compelling case and I didn’t guess how it would turn out. I was desperate throughout to find out where Barney’s dog was though. The final attempts to secure the murderer will definitely have you on the edge of your seat. I enjoyed this and will be going back to read the first two novels in the series.

Independently Published on 9th June 2025

Meet the Author

Sadie lives in West Norfolk with her husband, two children, and demanding cat named Random. She works in the education sector, but her real passion is for writing stories with a gripping mystery, attractive setting and a host of characters to love, hate, laugh with and root for.

Posted in Netgalley

River of Stars by Georgina Moore

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This book has the magical ability to captivate the reader. I found myself a fishing widow one night last week so I went to bed early and started reading. When I woke up the next morning I picked it straight back and read through to the end. I hadn’t even removed my glasses to sleep. The author has managed to make this feel like an escape, as well as heart-achingly romantic and with a bohemian setting that appealed to the creative in me. Walnut Tree Island is in a tributary of the Thames and back in the 1960s the owner, George, managed to turn a part derelict hotel into a sought after music venue. Based on Eel Pie Island, Walnut Tree is a harmonious combination of up and coming musicians, artists and picturesque riverboats and in 1965 is a weekly Mecca for young people. One of them is Mary Star, a young girl with a beautiful voice and a head full of dreams. It’s there one night when musician and up and coming front man Ossie Clark notices Mary in the crowd as she’s hoisted up on someone’s shoulders. Ossie is about to hit the big time, but he’s captivated by Mary and when he meets her he encourages her to sing with him. They are so in love and lay down in the grasses by the Wilderness – the most beautiful part of the island. When reality hits Mary knows she has to make a choice for both of them, although Ossie doesn’t reject the idea of becoming a father. He asks her to go to America with him, but the adults in her life, including George, make her realise how difficult that’s going to be. There will be compromises and although Ossie can’t see it now, what if he resents her and their baby? She’s left with her baby Ruby and a broken heart, but also a place to live on the island gifted by George. 

Years later her granddaughter Jo experiences first love on the island. Used to running wild between Mary’s cottage Willows and houseboats, she meets George’s grandson Oliver when he visits the island. He’s the island’s heir, but such things don’t matter to young people and they have a magical summer thinking their love is all they need to sustain them. Now Oliver has returned from NYC as the new owner of Walnut Tree Island which has become a thriving community of musicians and artists all supported by Mary who is the mother of the community. The whispers over what might happen to the island start fairly quickly, not least the ownership of Willows that has always been a verbal agreement with George. Jo now teaches art to children in one of the houseboats. Once an incredible artist she seems to lose her confidence in creating and her career never fully got off the ground. How will she cope with Oliver back on the island, as handsome as ever, but with a touch of New York sophistication. More to the point, how will Oliver feel seeing Jo again? It’s not long before the red-headed firebrand is at his door, fighting on behalf of Mary and the rest of the community. But does she really know what his plans are? Changes are coming to the island, but some things are as constant as the river flows. Could their love be one of them? 

As in her debut novel The Garnett Girls, Georgina has created a family of very strong women and allows them to tell their own tale. We also have the narrative of one of Jo’s closest friends, Sophie, who is another stalwart of the island community along with her husband Dave who runs the boatyard. I found Mary’s story so sad because she doesn’t get to fulfil her dreams of being a singer and loses the love of her life in Ossie. After that she has friends and protectors. Firstly there’s Oliver’s grandfather George who makes sure Mary and her baby have a roof over their head because he feels responsible for her and Ruby. Yet there’s no romance on her part and she still loves Ossie. I thought she made a huge sacrifice not going with him, but she doesn’t want to hold him back and as George points out he needs to be available to his adoring fan base. She never hears from him, until he makes the call no mother wants to receive. Then there’s Gotlibe, whose mixed-race relationship with Mary did raise eyebrows in the 1970s. She can’t remember when their relationship became more friends than lovers. Is now too late to change things? She is the undisputed Mother of the island, the first one called when something goes wrong or a resident needs advice, she’s the chair of the resident’s association and the first to volunteer for any of the island’s celebrations. I loved the island’s sense of community and their shared philosophy of finding joy in the small things and celebrating life whenever they get the opportunity. 

I thought Sophie’s husband Dave was a lovely man, happy with his lot in life and not really needing anything accept his boatyard, friends, a cold beer and Sophie. He was Oliver’s best friend that summer so it’s not long before they’re catching up. Sophie knows that her best friend Jo is struggling with his presence after all this time. She has a city job as a West End Theatres PR, a job that she loves despite it being stressful at times. She’s fascinated with Oliver, who has travelled, lived and worked in Manhattan. So when he calls and asks her for a drink in London after work she is tempted. Dave seems destined to settle even further into island life. Nearing 40 he wants to start a family but Sophie doesn’t want a baby and has secretly continued to take the pill. She’s drawn to Oliver, but is it really him or the sense of freedom he represents? However, it’s Jo you will root for throughout the novel, because despite her tendency to self-sabotage and fly off the handle she’s a truly lovely person and a loyal friend. I think I felt an affinity for her because I have a tendency to self-sabotage my writing. I start full of hope, then read it back and think ‘who would want to read this?’ Jo went to study in Florence, but ended up in a relationship with someone who derided her talent and put doubts in her mind. When they broke up she flew straight home without finishing her course and has never painted again. After Oliver’s return something clicks and she feels an urge to paint, including an abstract of her mother, Ruby. Gotlibe is hoping she’ll exhibit them when they open for the public in the summer. I loved Jo’s return to Italy because it elevated the novel beyond the romance and into the tough part of working on one’s self. Watching characters bloom is my favourite thing and Jo’s eyes are opened to her part in how her life has turned out. The realisation that other people might have had similar setbacks, but stayed and carried on is huge. She chose to believe the criticism and allowed it to affect half of her life. When she meets up with old friend Claudia it encourages her to take some risks, to settle into herself, wear some colour and own it. Is Oliver also a risk worth taking? 

Oliver and Jo originally bonded over a shared trauma, the loss of someone close. I was unsure whether the romance could or even should rekindle. The romantic in me wanted it, but he’s made choices that could derail their reunion. Jo doesn’t know if he’s still the Oliver she knows, or is he just playing at island life? He could turn round and evict them all tomorrow. I felt that Jo needed to see that Oliver knew the value of what he’d inherited, both it’s history and the unique community that now live there. If he commits to the island could they have a future? The island is magical, completely encapsulating the Japanese concept of ‘wabi-sabi’ with the beauty of it’s imperfections. The part derelict hotel was a perfect venue with it’s fairy lights and candles, giving off a nostalgic 1960’s boho that I loved and I know my mum will too. I was thinking of her throughout reading this book because in the early 1970s my mum travelled to London for a Neil Diamond concert with an invitation to meet him beforehand. My Grandad insisted on going with her, but waited outside when she went to meet him backstage. My mum said ‘if I don’t come back he’s asked me to run away with him and I’m going.’ I loved her innocence in thinking this and her guts for saying it to my rather anxious grandad. It was a time that was less cynical, where teenage girls did think dreams might come true and that love would conquer anything and it’s that spirit that this novel evokes. Of course Mum didn’t run off with Neil, affectionately called ‘Dima’ in our family because I couldn’t say his name properly, but they did correspond and she ran his UK fan club too. I hope there’s an alternate universe where my mum did get to run off with Neil. Just as I hope for one where Mary agreed to go on tour with Ossie and their daughter, living happily ever after. This is a gorgeous bitter sweet novel that will remind you of the posters you had on your bedroom wall, of those pangs of first love, of roads not taken. It also made me fall in love with the resilient and rebellious Star women and the community they called home. I’m happy to say this is the perfect summer read.  

Out Now from HQ Stories

Meet the Author

Georgina Moore grew up in London and lives on a houseboat on the River Thames with her partner, two children and Bomber, the Border Terrier.   The Garnett Girls was her debut novel and is set on the Isle of Wight, where Georgina and her family have a holiday houseboat called Sturdy. Georgina’s new novel River of Stars is published on 3rd July and is inspired by the legendary Eel Pie Island and its colourful history as a rock and roll haven in the 1960s, and by her own life on the river.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

CL Taylor It’s Always The Husband 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This is one of those thrillers where you’re immediately sucked into this narrator’s life and her new circle of school mums or frenemies. When Jude first arrives in Lowbridge with daughter Betsy it’s a new start and she’s keen to get to know the other mums. However, she soon works out that Victoria is the queen of the school mum scene and everyone wants to be in her clique. Victoria appears to have her shit together – a lovely home with all those aspirational touches like a fire pit table, matching lawn chairs and fluffy blankets for when it gets cool in the evening. She has two kids, heads up the PTA and runs her own business as a personal trainer. Although Jude finds the mums a bit cliquey she does hit it off with one of the dads. Will has a little girl of Betsy’s age and is a widower, there is something very attractive about him and Jude receives the red flag a little too late. When finally invited to a garden get together at Victoria’s she’s warned that not only did Will’s first wife die, but his second wife Robyn went missing and lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice. It seems that the mums don’t believe in coincidences. When Sorrel, another one of the mums, is targeted by a blackmailer pretending to be Robyn she is stunned that Robyn might still be alive. With a husband struggling with depression, three children and a pottery to run Sorrel has her hands full. Her husband Finnley did go out a few nights ago, he rang her to say he’d hit an animal and the bonnet has a large dent in it. So why is this woman so sure he wasn’t where he claimed to be and that he’s responsible for a hit and run miles away. Victoria’s husband Andy is a detective and they’ve split fairly recently. He was struggling because he couldn’t solve the missing person case and he still doesn’t know where Robyn went. As Sorrel, Victoria and Jude come together to solve this case they know it isn’t going to be easy and that it comes with great risk. There is a killer in Lowbridge and they’re determined to find who it is. 

This perfectly paced thriller is narrated by all three women, with short excerpts from a diary Jude finds under Will’s bed that they assume is Robyn’s. It shows a side to her that’s completely different to the sweetness and light image she projected while with Will. Her dedication to him and the little girl who’s already lost one mum gives her an almost saintly reputation, but someone knows better. If she’s behind the blackmail plot there’s something Machiavellian about her ability to act and manipulate those she wants to fool. These are ballsy women across the board though, with none of them running to men to get this sorted. Victoria pursues one mum called Theresa down to Devon after she leaves unexpectedly and with no goodbye. Stalking her her husband’s open Facebook page Victoria notices an open, but unpacked box. In it she sees an expensive bird ornament that disappeared from her own house, plus some things belonging to other mums. Maybe Theresa is involved somehow? She’s clearly perfectly willing to steal from them. When she finally tracks Theresa down to the local pub for a confrontation, the answers she gets are definitely not the ones she was expecting. Similarly Jude goes her own way, getting hold of the diary and reading through it for clues. She knows it might jeopardise her relationship with Will but she needs to know, the fact that he keeps Robyn’s favourite cheesecake in the fridge just in case she comes back, strikes her as odd. Especially if he killed her. Sorrel surprised me the most as she seemed so calm and a definite ‘earth mother’ type. Jude notices her unstyled hair, the way she dresses and her lack of make-up, compared to the others. She cares so much about her husband Finnley, worried every time she returns home that she might find him dead. His depression has lead to weeks off work so far, so she’s surprised to find him heading out to for an emergency appointment. He’s a dentist with anaesthetic training and they need him to sedate a patient. Why is this patient so special? When she receives the blackmail message she goes to her secret bank account, finding it completely empty. How long has Finnley been blackmailed for? I almost expected her to crack but she doesn’t. Often just going through the motions at work and home, she’s just as determined as Jude and Victoria to nail this person. When the three of them find another dead body, the tension ramps up a gear. 

Once you’ve started to read, this is very hard to put down. I love Lisa Jewell and Louise Candlish and I found this very similar in the way it gripped me. It’s addictive and there are a few red herrings thrown in to keep you off the scent. It certainly didn’t go the way I expected. It’s telling that the author references The Handmaid’s Tale, as the women definitely pull towards each other as a team rather than the men in their lives. These women, although involved with men and wanting a partnership, are good at stepping back and looking for those red flags. In some cases they are instrumental in checking out their stories and even bringing anyone who needs it to justice, no matter how they feel about them. From a psychological point of view Will’s daughter Milly worried me. She’s clearly spent a long time with Robyn and has understandable issues with grief, but her reaction to seeing Jude in the room that was ‘Daddy and Robyn’s’ and the daily uneaten cheesecake were definite indications of trauma. It also seemed strange she didn’t have the same fixation on her actual mother. She may have been young when she died, but I wondered if Robyn hadn’t manipulated Milly into being her little ally. There’s nothing more attractive than a girlfriend your kids fall in love with. I did find myself having to go back after reading the unexpected final pages to see all the clues I missed. This is a great thriller, full of action, danger and unexpected twists. It’s also deliciously catty and full of gossip. A brilliant read for anyone who loves domestic thrillers. 

Meet the Author

C.L. Taylor is an award winning Sunday Times bestselling author of ten gripping psychological thrillers including EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick for autumn 2024, THE GUILTY COUPLE, (Richard and Judy Book Club 2023) and SLEEP (Richard and Judy Book Club 2019).

C.L. Taylor’s books have sold over two million copies in the UK alone, hit number one on Amazon Kindle, Audible, Kobo, iBooks and Google Play, and have been translated into over 30 languages and optioned for TV.

Posted in Random Things Tours

Double Room by Anne Sénès

Posted on by thelotusreaders

London 1990s – An up and coming French composer called Stan is invited to arrange music for a stage production of Dorian Gray. Although the play is never staged, he does meet Liv and she becomes the love of his life. They live together, joined by a daughter called Lisa. Their happiness fuels his senses with vibrant colours and melodious music.

Paris, Present Day – Stan lives in France at the Rabbit Hole, a house left to him by his aunt. He now shares his life with Babette, a lifeguard and mother of a teenage boy of Lisa’s age. They also share their home with Laïvely, a machine built by Stan and given Liv’s voice. As Stan becomes more engrossed in his past Laïvely starts to take on a life of her own. His life is about to implode.

This is, at heart, a love story. Told in flashbacks Stan reminisces over a golden period of his life when he and Liv fall in love. It’s no accident that they meet through a production of Dorian Gray because the author does bring it’s style and it’s moral into her novel. The first thing I noticed was the fact that Stan has synaesthesia, a fascinating neurological condition where colours or images evoke tastes or smells. The opening of Dorian Gray is so heady with scent it could conjure a symphony:

“The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.”

Some of Stan’s descriptions, as colour turns to scent and then turn to melodies, bring the senses alive in a similar way. For Stan, music is simply an extension of his sensory abilities, like a form of ESP. There is also the doubling aspects of both novels, captured in the book’s title. Dorian Gray’s portrait is the sum of his dissolute lifestyle, freeing him to experience more and more without it showing on his face. Stan presents his life in two narratives, the present in France and the past where he was at his most creative, happy and in love. His relationship with Liv is almost idyllic. They seem to be naturally suited, in total harmony and without a cloud in the sky. Anything he relates of his present can only suffer in comparison. We learn that he and Babette are compatible, but there is none of the life and vivid colour that comes from his reminiscence. We are all nostalgic about the past, but no relationship can be perfect especially when cramped into the average London apartment with a small baby. While it is touching and romantic, the cynic in me wondered was this a true picture? As for Liv, she is in technicolour in Stan’s flashbacks with her vivid red hair. However, all that life is now reduced to a communication device and no matter how Stan cuddles Laïvely to him, she is inanimate, merely a machine. In what way is this a fitting representation of the love of his life? It seems like, in the present, neither Stan or Liv is truly alive. When Stan trips one morning the giggle that comes from the device is strange, a laugh he’s not a encountered before. Could it be there is a hint of malice?

The other book mentioned heavily is of course Alice in Wonderland, inspiration for the name of Stan’s home in France. Another book where there are versions of the self and a blurring between what is real and unreal, something the author has carried into this novel successfully. Stan’s past has all the colour that his present is missing, but there’s something equally unreal about his present. It’s not that there isn’t a fulfilling life to be had. It’s just that Stan isn’t fully engaged. I felt as if the rest of his family had a life, but Stan has started to detach from it. The author’s layers of description evoke the 1990s in a nostalgic way, something I’m apt to do from time to time because it was my era. Laïvely is meant to bring Liv into the here and now, but it feels more like a conduit to the past dragging Stan further and further away from reality. He rarely mentions his or Babette’s child, until he and Téo have a row. He tells us Babette organises everything: celebrations, days out and holidays. Is this a natural division of their lives or is it simply that if Babette didn’t do it their life would run aground? Their relationship seems more about companionship and choice rather than love. It’s as if he has found a calm, steady presence who won’t overpower his senses.

The author cleverly fragments things, very slowly. When I turned a page and realised Stan had been injured by a cupboard door, I had to go back and work out how this had happened. The story continues in past and present chapters but the past starts to feel more coherent and real. Loss is a strange thing, even when you’ve moved on in life because the previous one is still there, haunting you. It becomes a parallel existence where you think about what life would be like now if you hadn’t lost that person. Stan can tell us long detailed passages about what Liv was wearing, the colour of her hair barrettes. He can relate details of their friend Henry’s visits, the eccentric musician has a good relationship with Stan’s daughter Lisa and is there to the end of their relationship. At Rabbit Hole Stan is becoming as inanimate as Laīvely. He’s eating and playing music, often in the same room as his family without hearing a word they say. At times he seems almost catatonic, unable to answer Babette when she knocks at his door. Then she tells him she has booked a holiday without him, choosing to take her son. Stan says nothing, the tension rising. I felt we were building towards something with our past timeline catching us up to why he and Liv are no longer together. I could understand him coming apart a little as he relives his story but this is complete disassociation. I was ready to be heartbroken for him and his daughter, but things are not always as they seem.

The author brings the truth to light brilliantly and I feared Stan’s mind was splitting. He has always remembered his and Liv’s relationship as an ideal. Often when we lose someone the tendency is to rewrite history and paint them as a good person who everyone loved, even glossing over addictions, criminality and all manner of bad behaviour. I’ve occasionally been to a funeral and wondered if the speaker and me knew different people. I can’t see the point of remembering something that isn’t real. Stan seems to imagine that he and Liv would have lived in this harmonious way forever, then as the truth emerges Stan’s perception of himself starts to shatter. Babette finds him catatonic and soaking wet, having to place him in a hot bath and slowly bringing him back to himself. It’s the most nurturing, selfless and loving part of the book and it’s all the more sad that he hasn’t before recognised or rewarded her love and loyalty.

“My partner has behaved like a mother, a loving and devoted wife. She had cared for me, comforted me, given me all the tenderness she could muster”.

He also realises that there were times he was too distant and distracted with Liv, that he stopped paying her attention. It was as if he had imagined them always walking towards a common goal but truthfully, he knows they were out of pace with one another. As the ‘tick, tock’ of the clock at the Rabbit Hole reminds us that the end is approaching we fully comprehend this heartbreaking story. This is no ordinary loss and it’s clear that Stan has never faced the truth of their final days until now. This is an emotional end that has one final twist to impart and it is devastating. It seems that Stan has always held on to Liv’s portrait, but is was a ‘painting turned against the wall’, keeping it’s secrets until that final terrible reveal.

Out Now From Orenda Books.

Meet the Author

Anne Sénès is a writer, translator and former journalist. She was born in Paris and studied at the Sorbonne, where she obtained a PhD in English studies. Her passion for Anglo-Saxon literature and culture has taken her all over the world, from London to Miami, via the south of France. She is currently based on the French Mediterranean coast. Chambre Double (Double Room) is her first literary novel.

Posted in Sunday Spotlight

Sunday Spotlight: Going Down Under

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’ve always been unconsciously drawn to books set in Australia and New Zealand, perhaps because I have family in both countries and want to familiarise myself with their lives. My mum lived there as a ten pound Pom in the 1960’s, leaving Liverpool behind and living in hostels meat Sydney. My grandad loved it out there and would tell us about nature, mostly horrific stories of people having spider’s nest in their ears or brains. My brother-in-law went out to New Zealand to work as a tree surgeon on a huge farm. He met the love of his life out there, Jenny, and although Jan died a few years after my husband I’m still in touch with Jenny and my two nephews. I was also hugely influenced by mum who was an enormous fan of The Thorn Birds – although hated Rachel award as Meggie in the TV mini-series. I’ve always thought that people down under are resilient, rather sweary and very straightforward. They say what they think – something I admire even where I don’t agree. I love the diversity of the cities and fascinated by Aboriginal and Māori. Some of my choices were read on my post-colonial literature course at university, a module that I found so inspiring and forced me to read writers I’d never have picked up as a casual reader. Here are just a few of the books and authors that can take you on a trip round both countries.

Classics

When her wealthy family prepares to host a lavish summer party, the young, hitherto sheltered Laura Sheridan suddenly feels a kinship with the staff and the helpers hired to set up the venue for the festivities. As she learns of the death of one of their working-class neighbours, this burgeoning sense of class consciousness is heightened by a realization of her own mortality. Published in 1922, at the height of literary modernism, ‘The Garden Party’ is now considered one of the key texts of that movement. This volume, which also includes all of Katherine Mansfield’s other published short stories, is an invaluable resource for anyone wishing to discover one of the early twentieth century’s finest writers. I first read this collection at university and I still have it today because it stands up against any short story collection from that period.

Integrating both Maori myth and New Zealand reality, The Bone People became the most successful novel in New Zealand publishing history when it appeared in 1984. Set on the South Island beaches of New Zealand, a harsh environment, the novel chronicles the complicated relationships between three emotional outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage. Kerewin Holmes is a painter and a loner, convinced that “to care for anything is to invite disaster.” Her isolation is disrupted one day when a six-year-old mute boy, Simon, breaks into her house. The sole survivor of a mysterious shipwreck, Simon has been adopted by a widower Maori factory worker, Joe Gillayley, who is both tender and horribly brutal toward the boy. Through shifting points of view, the novel reveals each character’s thoughts and feelings as they struggle with the desire to connect and the fear of attachment.

Compared to the works of James Joyce in its use of indigenous language and portrayal of consciousness, The Bone People captures the soul of New Zealand. After twenty years, it continues to astonish and enrich readers around the world.

Mythology and contemporary Māori life are woven together seamlessly in this spectacular collection by Aotearoa’s foremost short story writer.

The titular story ‘Bird Child’ plunges you deep into Te Kore, an ancient time before time. In another, the formidable goddess Mahuika, Keeper of Fire, becomes a doting mother and friend. Later, Grace’s own childhood vividly shapes the world of the young character Mereana; and a widower’s hilariously human struggle to parent his seven daughters is told with trademark wit and crackling dialogue.

Moving artfully across decades, landscapes, time and space, with tenderness and charm, Bird Child and Other Stories shows an author as adept and stimulating as ever. This isn’t an easy read but fascinating and the comparison between Māori and other creation myths from around the world was fascinating.

Contemporary Fiction

Cassy smiled, blew them a kiss.

‘See you in September,’ she said.

It was a throwaway line. Just words uttered casually by a young woman in a hurry. And then she’d gone. 

It was supposed to be a short trip – a break in New Zealand before her best friend’s wedding. But when Cassy waved goodbye to her parents, they never dreamed that it would be years before they’d see her again. 
Having broken up with her boyfriend, Cassy accepts an invitation to stay in an idyllic farming collective. Overcome by the peace and beauty of the valley and swept up in the charisma of Justin, the community’s leader, Cassy becomes convinced that she has to stay.

As Cassy becomes more and more entrenched in the group’s rituals and beliefs, her frantic parents fight to bring her home – before Justin’s prophesied Last Day can come to pass. I love Charity Norman’s writing because she gets to the heart of family relationships and shows how families can fracture when placed under stress. I’d recommend any of her books but this one is set in New Zealand. I highly recommend Remember Me and Home Truths.

At a suburban barbecue one afternoon, a man slaps an unruly boy. 

The boy is not his son. 

It is a single act of violence, but the slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen.

Christos Tsiolkas presents the impact of this apparently minor domestic incident through the eyes of eight of those who witness it. It’s honestly hard to find someone to like here, but it is a fascinating look at contemporary Aussie relationships. It’s an unflinching interrogation of the life of the modern family, a deeply thought-provoking novel about boundaries and their limits…

The Lambert sisters have secrets…

When 15-year-old Cathy Lambert runs away from her Dublin home, she is scared and pregnant. Settled in New Zealand with her new son Conor she believes the secret she carries will never be revealed…

Rebecca Lambert was eighteen when her parents died and she took responsibility for her younger sisters. Years later, she is haunted by fears she hoped she’d conquered.

Freed from family duties, mother of three Julie Chambers is determined to recapture the dreams of her youth.

Married to a possessive older man, Lauren Moran embarks on a frantic love affair that threatens to destabilise her fragile world.

Anxious to make peace with her three sisters, Cathy invites them to her wedding.

But as the women journey together through New Zealand towards their reunion, they are forced to confront the past as the secret shared histories of the Lambert sisters are revealed. I couldn’t put this book down as it’s a great mix of emotions, adventure, secrets and a lot of humour.

EVERY ENDING IS A NEW BEGINNING…

Ruth is ignoring the news. Like most people, she has relationship problems, job stress, friends and family who need her. Ruth has a life.

But the news is about to catch up with Ruth, and her problems are going to be swept away…along with the rest of the world. While on a plane to New Zealand, something starts to happen to the world. Arriving, Ruth makes her way to her coastal destination but never expected to be sharing the inside of a dead whale with a stranger as a world ending event happens. It takes this to change Ruth’s outlook completely. Only when the comforts and complications of her old existence are gone, does she finally realise how she might be able to live to the fullest. This was a mesmerising debut from Kate and I still recommend it constantly. It made me think about something drastic like this happening in my lifetime, but also question why we fall in love with the people we do and how commitments to others are nurtured and lad

Romantic Fiction

Love isn’t an exact science – but no one told Don Tillman.

A thirty-nine-year-old geneticist, Don’s never had a second date. So he devises the Wife Project, a scientific test to find the perfect partner. Don has a regimented life of work

Enter Rosie – ‘the world’s most incompatible woman’ – throwing Don’s safe, ordered life into chaos.

But what is this unsettling, alien emotion he’s feeling? . . .

This is a deeply funny, but emotional and fascinating in terms of Don’s neuro-divergence. He eats the same meal on the same night every week as part of his rotation of menus. His life felt like a never-ending to-do lust and I knew that he would drive me up the wall. Rosie is a woman of great patience! However, I also knew that my lack of systems and routine would have an equally detrimental effect on his mental health. Watching how these two people try, fail and try again to communicate their needs and feelings within the relationship is a lesson for every couple. It’s also brilliantly funny. There is a trilogy now so treat yourself to all of them.

In the rugged Australian Outback, three generations of Clearys live through joy and sadness, bitter defeat and magnificent triumph, driven by their dreams, sustained by remarkable strength of character… and torn by dark passions, violence and a scandalous family legacy of forbidden love.

The Thorn Birds is a poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit. Most of all, it is the story of the Clearys’ only daughter, Meggie, who can never possess Ralph de Bricassart, the man she so desperately adores. Ralph will rise from parish priest to the inner circles of the Vatican… but his passion for Meggie will follow him all the days of his life.

What a saga this is and I have to say the book is ten times better than the series, mainly because we get more of the family dynamic and get to know Meggie as a little girl. Her story of slowly growing up with such a harsh mother really builds and we understand more her bond to the young priest who befriends her, noticing that in a family of many sons she is largely ignored. He is her knight in shining armour and the only one, after her eldest brother is gone, who will hug and comfort this lonely girl. Catholic readers will recognise how powerful the religion is for Irish families and the schooling that nuns provide. The book is an epic and covers Father Ralph’s lifetime, but it has an incredible sense of place and time and really is worth a read for that alone.

n 1929, Beattie Blaxland had dreams. Big dreams. She dreamed of a life of fashion and fabrics. One thing she never dreamed was that she would find herself pregnant to her married lover, just before her nineteenth birthday. 

In 2009, Emma Blaxland-Hunter was living her dream. A prima ballerina with the London Ballet, she had everything… Until the moment she lost it all. 

Separated by decades, both women must find the strength to rebuild their lives. A legacy from one to the other will lead to Wildflower Hill, a place where a woman can learn to stand alone long enough to realise what she really wants.

I’d never read this author before so it came as a complete surprise when I enjoyed it so much. It is historical fiction too, but I loved that this was a ballsy woman who was determined to succeed at Wildflower Hill and her love story with an aboriginal worker would have been so transgressive at the time. It’s an unashamedly romantic story and if you enjoy love with a side order of feminism, family secrets and a dual-timeline this is for you.

Historical Fiction

A faded photograph. An abandoned house. A wartime mystery. . .

1939: On the eve of war, young English heiress Grace Grey travels from London to the wilderness of Tasmania. Coaxed out of her shell by the attentions of her Irish neighbour, Daniel – Grace finally learns to live. But when Australian forces are called to the frontline, and Daniel with them, he leaves behind a devastating secret which will forever bind them together.

1975: Artist Willow Hawkins, and her new husband, Ben, can’t believe their luck when an anonymous benefactor leaves them a house on the remote Tasmanian coast. Confused and delighted, they set out to unmask Towerhurst’s previous owner – unwittingly altering the course of their lives.

2004: Libby Andrews has always been sheltered from the truth behind her father Ben’s death. When she travels to London and discovers a faded photograph, a long-buried memory is unlocked, and she begins to follow an investigation that Ben could never complete. But will she realise that some secrets are best left buried . . .?

This gorgeous story that spans the twentieth century was one of my books of the year last year. The mystery of how all these timelines added up, the beautiful setting of Tasmania and the historical context around WW2 drew me in. The love story is simply gorgeous and potentially heart-breaking. I know this is a story I’ll want to read again.

1896, Bannin Bay, Australia. When British pearl-boat captain Charles Brightwell goes missing out at sea, rumours of mutiny and murder swell within the bay’s dens and back alleys. Only his headstrong daughter, Eliza, refuses to believe her father is dead, and sets out on a dangerous journey to uncover the truth.

But in a town teeming with corruption, prejudice, and blackmail, Eliza soon learns that the answers she seeks might cost more than pearls. How much is she willing to sacrifice to find them?

This incredible debut is richly atmospheric from the get go, throwing us straight into the strangeness of 19th Century Western Australia as if it is an alien landscape. In fact that’s exactly what it is for the Brightwell family, particularly Eliza whose childhood eyes we see it through for the the first time. The adult Eliza has to negotiate her way through the community’s corruption, violence, blackmail and the criminal elements of the pearling business. All the while reading her father’s diary for clues and guiding us to some fascinating characters, some of which are based on historical figures. You’ll love Eliza’s early feminist stance and sense of adventure. The twists and turns her journey takes are gripping and pull you deep into the story. It’s a fantastic debut, full of life and death, just like it’s setting.

Crime Fiction

A killer targeting pregnant women.

A detective expecting her first baby…

The shocking murder of a heavily pregnant woman throws the New Zealand city of Dunedin into a tailspin, and the devastating crime feels uncomfortably close to home for Detective Sam Shephard as she counts down the days to her own maternity leave.

Confined to a desk job in the department, Sam must find the missing link between this brutal crime and a string of cases involving mothers and children in the past. As the pieces start to come together and the realisation dawns that the killer’s actions are escalating, drastic measures must be taken to prevent more tragedy.

For Sam, the case becomes personal, when it becomes increasingly clear that no one is safe, and the clock is ticking…

There’s something about Aussie and NZ crime fiction. It’s gritty and immediate. This is the fifth in Vanda’s Sam Shepherd series and I can honestly say they’re all brilliant but this one …. I was on the edge of my seat! It feels like Sam has just let her guard down and accepted what’s next in her life, when everything could be ripped away from her. Even though she’s the one who most understood the killer’s motivations, will she still be shocked by their identity? Sam’s vulnerability is terrifying and I was praying that she would be okay, as if she’s a living and breathing human being. That’s the power of Vanda Symon’s writing and how much of that magic she’s poured into this brilliant character.

Lou O’Dowd travels across the world from Australia to Edinburgh for a job with the organisation SASOL. Her new life will be living with her cousin and working shifts at a halfway house for high risk offenders including two killers, a celebrity paedophile, and a paranoid coke dealer. After orientation, Lou will be on shift alone dealing with these offenders with little more than her own instinct to guide her. What could possibly go wrong?

Lou is a controversial character, living off a sugar daddy for a while she’s had no need to work, but when the relationship ends disastrously she has no choice but to leave. On her first day in Edinburgh she meets a man at a play who has a similar attitude to risk, enjoying mainly outdoor sex. He comes from a rich family, so maybe he could be more than a fling? I loved how the mundane domesticity of the job was mixed with genuine fear and horror of what could happen if residents flare up. There’s an evening ritual of cocoa for each resident, but it has to be to perfectly timed in order to interrupt one resident’s suicide ritual. These are the extremes a job like this entails, but it’s only the beginning….

A few more suggestions:

Posted in Random Things Tours

Happy Is The One by Katie Allen

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Robin is exactly half way through his life. Like Mark Twain before him, Robin came into the world with Halley’s Comet in 1986 and fully expects to go out again when it returns in 2061. Recently he’s had a huge life change. He’s moved back to his home town of Eastgate to care for his sick father, who due to a disability has had one accident too many. Robin had a well-regimented life in London with girlfriend Gemma. He also had a boring well-paid job as an accountant. Now everything has been thrown up in the air and he’s living in a tiny bedroom surrounded by boxes he hasn’t unpacked. He’s trying to forge a relationship with a father who can’t communicate and who he never connected with as a child. There are childhood ghosts to face and a new connection with Astrid, fellow outsider and professor at a nearby university. She’s brutally straightforward and Robin has never met anyone like her. She’s also hiding something, but he’s hiding even more from her. Can Robin make friends, help his father and accept this is the next chapter of his life?

This was a great book that’s simply joyful to read, even while addressing some really difficult themes. Robin is a great character to spend time with. I found myself feeling quite protective of him, despite his rather pernickety ways. I could honestly feel his anxiety and he copes by planning for eventualities that might never happen. He ekes out money, setting a daily amount for a minimal food plan and then bulk shopping at Costco. He’s worked out how long his savings will last, trying to keep Dad’s care to a minimum so he can afford it for longer. He seems at odds with everyone; not communicating with his father, bickering with Jackie who is his father’s man carer, and not even trying to find old friends. I’ve been a carer and I felt how overwhelmed he is by everything when he climbs up on the roof for some peace. He has to connect in order to get this new chapter of life started. However, to do that he has to accept that this is his life for now. The daytime telly shows, the sorting of meds and lifting his dad off the loo is life. He doesn’t seem to realise that while he fights it, he remains standing still. If he accepts Astrid’s friendship, unpacks the boxes and breathes, life will get better. 

My two favourite characters are the forthright Astrid and Jackie. Astrid is a strong character and has a lot to say, but enough quirks to humour Robin and push him just a little into enjoying life. She embraces and accepts where he is in life, happily trawling Costco for savings. His relationship with her little boy is lovely too. No one can go through life as an island though and Eastgate is a small place. It’s almost inevitable that these new relationships are uncomfortably entangled with others he’s been trying to avoid. Jackie is wise and more of an asset than Robin realises as he spends weeks trying everything to avoid her – even climbing onto the roof. She’s brilliantly written because I’ve met carers like this and they’re worth their weight in gold. Nothing phases her and she is soon onto Robin’s ways. She reminded me of an incredible carer called Barbara who worked in a pair looking after my late husband. She was wider than she was tall and smoked like a chimney between calls. She was also matter of fact, never allowing him to be embarrassed about any aspect of his care. Barbara had seen it all and her stories had him in fits of laughter. I knew he was in safe hands with her, an incredible weight off my mind when I had to go in to University. Barbara passed out one day at work and died only a few days later, from a brain tumour she didn’t know she had. She was caring for people at the end of their lives, not knowing she was close to her own.

The wonderful relationship between Robin and old friend Danny felt so genuine and the way they talked to each other felt exactly like people who’ve known each other from childhood. There’s a shorthand and we start to realise some of Robin’s quirks have been there a while. You get the sense that if they were going on a bike ride Robin would spend so long getting prepped with wet weather gear and a puncture repair kit that they’d run out of time. Danny on the other hand would set off as is and get soaking wet, then tell everyone the story for years. Danny is full of life and has a great business idea to run past Robin, but can he be tempted to take the risk? Robin is eking out an existence that goes way off into the distant future, but our futures change all the time and one day he’ll start living yet another chapter. Living is right now! It’s not when we have money, or have lost weight, or when we have better health. It’s now, when we’re skint, fat and feeling ill. Whatever life looks like right now, we absolutely must live. Many people don’t get the time to waste. Of course, when we find out why Robin is so adamant about his comet theory – while being forced to evaluate his choices by a strident Astrid – it all becomes clear. A heart-breaking tale emerges, just as Robin is faced with yet another loss. He’s forced to admit why he jumped off a cliff into the water when he was a child. He thinks he can’t die, because once he survived something and can’t make sense of it. In fact immortality is the only explanation that does make sense to him. He’s doing what humans do, we subscribe meaning to events that have none. It’s just messy, terrifying, random and heart-breaking life. Katie infuses this difficult truth with beauty, humour and hope because life is beautiful and joyous too, if you let it be. 

Out 22nd May from Orenda Books

Meet the Author

Katie Allen was a journalist and columnist at Guardian and Observer, starting her career as a Reuters correspondent in Berlin and London. Her warmly funny, immensely moving literary debut novel, Everything Happens for a Reason, was based on her own devastating experience of stillbirth and was a number-one digital bestseller, with wide critical acclaim. Katie grew up in Warwickshire and now lives in South London with her family.

Posted in Netgalley, Throwback Thursday

Missing Pieces by Laura Pearson

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’ve read a little bit of Laura Pearson before, so I did come to this expecting a moving and powerful story. It didn’t disappoint. When Bea is born it should have been a healing, new chapter for the family – mum, dad and older sister Esme. However, Bea was born to a family struggling in the aftermath of a tragedy. Esme was only seven years old when her sister Phoebe died suddenly and unexpectedly. It hits Esme hard because she was supposed to be looking after her sister. Their dad Tom feels an immense weight of guilt because he shouldn’t have stayed out later than expected. Esme’s mother is also wrestling with guilt and blame, she’d briefly popped next door to help a neighbour knowing that Tom would be home imminently. This is a story of a family, years later, struggling with unimaginable loss. How can they learn to forgive each other, or themselves?

Laura splits the story into two sections: the first months after Phoebe’s death interspersed with a narrative where Bea is trying to understand what happened to her family a couple of decades later. These feelings are coming to the surface because she herself is pregnant. I really enjoyed the section in the present day as Bea searches for the truth when her parents won’t ever talk about it. It reminded me of something my mum has recently done. Her first sister, Teresa, died on Bonfire Night 1959 and although she doesn’t remember everything she does have a memory of a tiny coffin that my grandad was carrying and putting in a black car. Mum tracked down a community group who were looking for the resting place of their stillborn babies in the same area where she grew up. Back then, if there was no money for a funeral or a grave plot then a baby might have been buried in a coffin with someone else or in a grave for several bodies. Three years ago she was able to take my grandma to a ceremony at the graveyard in Liverpool where a memorial was finally in place for babies lost and buried in a pauper’s grave on the site. It’s easy to underestimate how much the death of a baby affects other children in the house and i think we all underestimated how it still affected my grandma who is now 91. 

Bea feels like she’s lost part of her identity. This loss is part of their joint family history and no one is addressing or memorialising it. Of course this is tough for other family members, all of whom blame themselves. The loss for Bea and her older sister Esme is threefold: they lost a sister, they lost the relationships and life experiences they would have had as three sisters and they lost the happy family life they might have had if their parents hadn’t been carrying the weight of all that grief and guilt. As for the other characters in the book, I did find Linda a bit of a struggle. It’s clear she’s never fully connected with Bea and when we go back in time we can see her conflicting emotions over being heavily pregnant. She is buried by her grief for Phoebe and feels bad for being pregnant again. She doesn’t want to replace Phoebe and sometimes wishes she wasn’t pregnant. A combination of fear, guilt, sadness and anger take over and she really wasn’t there for Esme or Bea, once she’s born. In the past sections there’s an oppressive atmosphere that hasn’t fully lifted, even in the girl’s adulthood. Esme can’t talk with her father so Bea doesn’t stand a chance when wanting to ask questions. It would mean delving back into the pain and communicating honestly, but no one wants to go back into the raw grief and horror of that day. Bea wonders how she can be a good mother when she has no relationship with her own. Will the family be able to rally around her, find a way to talk and become a united family again?

It’s a trademark of Laura’s books that characters are forced to talk about difficult and frightening experiences or situations they find themselves in. I love the openness and honesty these issues need and it is like a counselling process if people can start sharing and healing. I did shed some tears at times. I thought the author’s depiction of the parent’s grief was realistic and raw. We’re let into every aspect of a characters mind, no matter what their thoughts might be. I could genuinely feel these character’s emotions and pain. Yes, this is intense. Somehow through, this isn’t off-putting. We’re given just enough glimpses of hope to lift the story, personified by the new start Bea’s baby brings to the family. I found myself gripped, willing these people to give themselves a break and stop being angry with themselves and each other. This is an emotional but satisfying novel that shows healing is possible, if we’re willing to do the work. Beautifully written, emotional and ultimately hopeful. 

Out now from Boldwood Books

Meet the Author

Laura Pearson is the author of five novels. The Last List of Mabel Beaumont was a Kindle number one bestseller in the UK and a top ten bestseller in the US. Laura lives in Leicestershire, England, with her husband, their two children, and a cat who likes to lie on her keyboard while she tries to write.

Posted in Travel Fiction

Summer Holiday Reads: The Greek Islands

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Classics

Three classic tales of childhood on an island paradise – My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell – make up The Corfu Trilogy.

Just before the Second World War the Durrell family decamped to the glorious, sun-soaked island of Corfu where the youngest of the four children, ten-year-old Gerald, discovered his passion for animals: toads and tortoises, bats and butterflies, scorpions and octopuses. Through glorious silver-green olive groves and across brilliant-white beaches Gerry pursued his obsession . . . causing hilarity and mayhem in his ever-tolerant family. This book is joyous and has the reputation of being the only book my brother loved. The Durrells are gloriously eccentric and this trilogy transports you to Corfu so well it’s like taking a holiday.

It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals but over time he proves himself to be civilised, humorous – and a consummate musician.

When Pelagia, the local doctor’s daughter, finds her letters to her fiancé go unanswered, Antonio and Pelagia draw close and the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. But can this fragile love survive as a war of bestial savagery gets closer and the lines are drawn between invader and defender? Forget the awful film, in which barely anyone was Greek, and pick this up if you haven’t already. Not only is it a great chronicle of WW2 in Greece, but it is a touchingly beautiful love story you’ll want to read again.

‘That summer we bought big straw hats. Maria’s had cherries around the rim, Infanta’s had forget-me-nots, and mine had poppies as red as fire. . .’

I read a recent review where Three Summers was touted as a Greek I Capture The Castle and that draws me in straight away. This is a warm and tender tale of three sisters growing up in the countryside near Athens before the Second World War. Living in a ramshackle old house with their divorced mother are flirtatious, hot-headed Maria, beautiful but distant Infanta, and dreamy and rebellious Katerina, through whose eyes the story is mostly observed. Over three summers, the girls share and keep secrets, fall in and out of love, try to understand the strange ways of adults and decide what kind of adults they hope to become. A beautiful story of growing up, sisterhood and first love.

Retold Myths

Now that all the others have run out of air, it’s my turn to do a little story-making . . . So I’ll spin my own thread.

Penelope. Immortalised in legend and Greek myth as the devoted wife of the glorious Odysseus, silently weaving and unpicking and weaving again as she waits for her husband’s return from the Trojan war. 

Now Penelope wanders the underworld, spinning a different kind of thread: her own side of the story – a tale of lust, greed and murder. This is one of the first novels to write back to Greek Myth, to tell the story of a sidelined character in the tale of Odysseus. Atwood tells a tale of the Trojan War from a feminist perspective, looking through the eyes of Penelope who has no action or agency in the original myth, only appearing as the dutiful wife.

‘So to mortal men, we are monsters. Because of our flight, our strength. They fear us, so they call us monsters’

Medusa is so hard done to who acts like a cautionary tale about the meddling Greek gods. Medusa is the sole mortal in a family of gods. Growing up with her Gorgon sisters, she begins to realize that she is the only one who experiences change, the only one who can be hurt.

When Poseidon commits an unforgiveable act against Medusa in the temple of Athene, the goddess takes her revenge where she can: on his victim. Medusa is changed forever – writhing snakes for hair and her gaze now turns any living creature to stone. She can look at nothing without destroying it.

Desperate to protect her beloved sisters, Medusa condemns herself to a life of shadows. Until Perseus embarks upon a quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon . . .

After ten blood-filled years, the war is over. Troy lies in smoking ruins as the victorious Greeks fill their ships with the spoils of battle.

Alongside the treasures looted are the many Trojan women captured by the Greeks – among them the legendary prophetess Cassandra, and her watchful maid, Ritsa. Enslaved as concubine – war-wife – to King Agamemnon, Cassandra is plagued by visions of his death – and her own – while Ritsa is forced to bear witness to both Cassandra’s frenzies and the horrors to come.

Meanwhile, awaiting the fleet’s return is Queen Clytemnestra, vengeful wife of Agamemnon. Heart-shattered by her husband’s choice to sacrifice their eldest daughter to the gods in exchange for a fair wind to Troy, she has spent this long decade plotting retribution, in a palace haunted by child-ghosts.

As one wife journeys toward the other, united by the vision of Agamemnon’s death, one thing is certain: this long-awaited homecoming will change everyone’s fates forever. This is a brilliant retelling of a myth we know so well and the reality of war from a female perspective.

Crime Fiction

Mykonos had always had a romantic reputation, until the body of a female tourist was found on a pile of bones under the floor of amountain church. The island’s new police chief starts finding bodies, bones and suspects almost everywhere he looks. This thriller has a great atmosphere, is perfect for readers who love a good mystery and also Greek legends, which the author weaves throughout her story. The reader is firmly on the side of the heroine, trying desperately to escape her fate. You will also be rooting for Inspector Kaldis, who was recently demoted from Athens to the isle of Mykonos. He’s trying to avoid the political pitfalls on the island as he pursues the Killer, whose identity is not revealed until the end of the story. This is a fun one for the reader to speculate on as the action builds to a nail-biting climax. Highly enjoyable and addictive.

SOMEONE’S POISONING PARADISE

Detective Inspector Jack Dawes is travelling to a tiny Greek island with wife Corinne, ready for a bit of sun, sea and sand.

However, one of their fellow travellers is a ruthless killer.
When a storm destroys the island’s primitive communications, cutting it off from civilisation, people begin to panic. One victim is poisoned, followed swiftly by another. Then a woman is found in a grotto to St Sophia, the island’s patron saint. She is badly beaten. It feels as if the island’s visitors are being picked off one by one. Can Jack uncover the truth before the killer ups the ante?

Who will return home — and who will be sacrificed to the island?

Historical Fiction

It’s May 1941, when the island of Crete is invaded by paratroopers from the air. After a lengthy fight, thousands of British and Commonwealth soldiers are forced to take to the hills or become escaping PoWs, sheltered by the Cretan villagers.

Sixty years later, Lois West and her young son, Alex, invite feisty Great Aunt Pen to a special eighty-fifth birthday celebration on Crete, knowing she has not been back there since the war. Penelope George – formerly Giorgidiou – is reluctant, but is persuaded by the fact it is the 60th anniversary of the Battle. It is time for her to return and make the journey she never thought she’d dare to. On the outward voyage from Athens, she relives her experiences in the city from her early years as a trainee nurse to those last dark days stranded on the island, the last female foreigner.

When word spreads of her visit, and old Cretan friends and family come to greet her, Lois and Alex are caught up in her epic pilgrimage and the journey which leads her to a reunion with the friend she thought she had lost forever – and the truth behind a secret buried deep in the past…

Victoria Hislop is the Queen of fiction set on the Greek Islands, ever since her book The Island

25th August 1957. The island of Spinalonga closes its leper colony. And a moment of violence has devastating consequences.

When time stops dead for Maria Petrakis and her sister, Anna, two families splinter apart and, for the people of Plaka, the closure of Spinalonga is forever coloured with tragedy.

In the aftermath, the question of how to resume life looms large. Stigma and scandal need to be confronted and somehow, for those impacted, a future built from the ruins of the past.

Victoria Hislop returns to the world and characters she created in The Island – the award-winning novel where we first met Anna, Maria, Manolis and Andreas in the weeks leading up to the evacuation of the island… and beyond. Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother’s past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more. 

Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone’s throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga – Greece’s former leper colony. Then she finds Fotini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip…

In The Figurine we are taken beneath the dust sheets in the Athens apartment that Helena McCloud has inherited from her grandparents, There she discovers a hidden hoard of rare antiquities, amassed during a dark period in Greek history when the city and its people were gripped by a brutal military dictatorship.

Helena’s fascination for archaeology, ignited by a summer spent on a dig on an Aegean island, tells her that she must return these precious artefacts to their rightful place. Only then will she be able to allay the darkness of the past and find the true meaning of home – for cultural treasures and for herself.

It seems crazy to think of the 1960s as a historical era, but it is now 60 years ago! In this dreamy and bohemian novel, Erica is eighteen and ready for freedom. It’s the summer of 1960 when she lands on the sun-baked Greek island of Hydra and is swept up in a circle of bohemian poets, painters, musicians, writers and artists, living tangled lives. Life on their island paradise is heady, dream-like, a string of seemingly endless summer days. But nothing can last forever.

Romance and Self-Love

Set on the breathtaking island of Andros, The Jasmine Isle is one of the finest literary achievements in contemporary Greek literature. Mina Saltaferou is the despotic wife of a ship’s captain, Savvas Saltaferos. Her tyrannical influence over her two daughters is unquestionable and unrelenting, like nature itself. Tragedy becomes inevitable when Mina’s beautiful, eldest daughter, Orsa, is sentenced by her mother to marry a man she doesn’t love and watch as the man she does love weds another.

I love a family saga and this one spans half a century in the history of modern Greece, this novel explores the solace and joy women find in each other’s company during the insufferably long absences of their husbands, sons, and lovers. The story alternates between descriptions of domestic life and evocations of the world’s seas and ports, as it follows both the men who embark on voyages lasting months and the lives of the women who remain behind

Calli’s world has fallen apart – her relationship is suddenly over and her chances of starting a family are gone. So when she’s sent to write a magazine article about the Greek island of Ikaria, it seems the perfect escape.

Travelling to Crete, where her family is from, Calli soon realizes there is more to discover than paradise beaches and friendly locals. When her aunt Froso begins to share the story of her own teenage heartache, will the love, betrayal and revenge she reveals change Calli’s life forever?

As a young woman, Helena spent a magical holiday at Pandora, a beautiful house in Cyprus – and fell in love for the first time. Now, twenty-four years later and following the loss of her godfather, she has inherited Pandora. And, though it is a crumbling shadow of its former self, Helena returns with her family to spend the summer there.

When, by chance, Helena meets her childhood sweetheart, her past threatens to collide with her present. She knows that the idyllic beauty of Pandora masks a web of secrets that she has kept from her husband and thirteen-year-old son. And that, once its secrets have been revealed, their lives will never be the same . . .

Sophie Keech has it all. A new life in Greece with a handsome man enables Sophie to leave her mundane job and her estranged mum. But four years on, a domineering mother-in-law to be and the reality of living in Greece not being what Sophie imagined, strains her relationship with Alekos. 

When her mum is involved in an accident, Sophie jumps at the chance to escape. Time to reassess her life and make amends is sorely needed. Yet an attraction to a good looking and newly divorced man, and a shock discovery, complicates things.

Can Sophie and Alekos’ love survive the distance?

Can one house hold a lifetime of secrets?

Corfu, 1930, the moment Thirza Caruthers sets foot on Corfu, memories flood back: the scent of jasmine, the green shutters of her family’s home ― and her brother Billy’s tragic disappearance years before. Returning to the Greek house, high above clear blue waters, Thirza tries to escape by immersing herself in painting ― and a passionate affair. But as webs of love, envy, and betrayal tighten around the family, buried secrets surface, is it finally time to uncover the truth about Billy’s vanishing?

New To Look Forward To.

Could discovering a family secret encourage Kat to follow her heart?

Shattered by the sudden loss of her twin, Nik, Kat is lost in grief. The comfort of family feels both soothing and suffocating, but everything changes when she inherits a house on the breathtaking Greek island of Agistri from a mysterious uncle she’s never met.

Arriving on Agistri, Kat is mesmerized by its crystalline waters, lush pine forests, and the citrus-scented air. Among the white-washed houses and warm, welcoming locals, she begins to feel her heart heal. The island offers more than solace, sparking courage in Kat to face her loss — and maybe even embrace the spark of unexpected love…

But as she unearths her family’s buried past, Kat must also confront her own fears of belonging, forgiveness — and the possibility of rediscovering happiness in the shadow of heartbreak…

Posted in Personal Purchase

Eighteen Seconds by Louise Beech

Posted on by thelotusreaders

My mother once said to me, ‘I wish you could feel the way I do for eighteen seconds. Just eighteen seconds, so you’d know how awful it is.’

I was reading this raw and painful memoir to discuss at my local book club Pudding and Pages. Sadly, my health wasn’t great that day and I wasn’t able to go. So I decided to tell all of you about it instead, because I love Louise’s writing and I identified very strongly with some of her experiences. This is such a psychologically astute story, from someone who has done a lot of work on their childhood trauma, even while being traumatised anew with the shock that comes on an ordinary morning. Normally, Louise would take her children to school and then have a walk along the path at the side of the River Humber and underneath the bridge itself. Her husband asks if she will take her walk earlier than normal as he has a package being delivered later and needs her to be home. She agrees, completing her walk earlier than usual, and returning home to a call from one of her sisters. Their mother has thrown herself off the Humber Bridge, it’s only by changing her schedule that Louise didn’t witness it. This call hits the reader like a punch to the gut and I’m sure that’s how she must have felt. If you’ve ever had a similar call you’ll know it hard to communicate the force of that moment. Your mind is still at home holding the phone while your body is grabbing the car keys and scrambling to reach A+E as soon as possible. 

Honestly, the siblings are shocked to find their mother alive when they reach the hospital. She landed, not in the water but on the path, causing multiple broken bones, internal bleeding and head injuries. As they navigate those first few hours Louise contrasts them with inserts that are flashbacks to their childhood. Their mum’s first suicide attempt flashes through her mind. The three girls were placed with grandma for several month, but Baby Colin had to be taken into foster care. Although losing their mum was terrifying for Louise’s younger twin sisters it must have been desperately traumatic for Colin who lost his whole family that day. She describes these months with grandma as the safest and most loved she ever felt. Their return to their mother heralded the worst years of their childhood, the abuse ranged from neglect to prioritising her own needs and emotions over that of her children. New relationships always came first, placing them in grave danger as she plunged headfirst into alcoholism. For Louise, as the eldest, it meant being a second mum to the other three while mum partied. In a way Louise became the identified problem of the family – she’s miserable, no fun and constantly moaning according to her mother and her male friends. It was an immense struggle to keep the younger ones happy, especially the girls who worried every time the door closed that their mother would ever come back. The didn’t know she was choosing to be in the pub. Louise’s attempts to get her mother to see what effect her alcoholism was having on the twins were met with either silence or insults, depending on which friend was drinking with her at the time. She just wants her mum to be responsible for her own children. 

This is such a hard read in parts but it isn’t without humour and hope. Once her mum is recovered enough to talk again, her sense of humour is restored and she is remarkably charming when she wants to be. I loved how the siblings handled her, with a patience and humour she barely deserves at times. I loved the sibling’s family WhatsApp group, including their Uncle Edwin who’s in Australia. Their ability to share gallows humour, even in the worst of circumstances reminded me a little of my family. Their discussions about her underwear and accusing Colin of sneaking it away, descends into uproar when he tells them it looks better on him. ‘Well you haven’t seen it on Edwin’, one of his sister’s hits back. My family and I used gallows humour all the time when my husband was dying. From my own experience I recognised the bulldozing that happens in MDT Discharge meetings, where everyone is agreeing to a plan you haven’t said yes to. Once I was told by an NHS Continuing Care nurse that my opinion didn’t really count because I wasn’t a nurse. No consideration to the fact that the care was happening in my house and I was the only full-time carer. In fact I was carrying out medical tasks such as pump feeding, suction and catheterising, so to all intents and purposes I was nursing him. The horror of realising there was nowhere for my husband to die broke me, because he didn’t have cancer so couldn’t go to a hospice. He wanted to come home but I couldn’t do it alone, Louise writes about similar issues in a very matter of fact way, because that’s the only way to be at times like this – blunt and forthright. Then in between the family uses humour to deal with a hurt that can’t heal and can’t change. 

I read this at a difficult time for my family, because my mum and her two sisters are dealing with care for my 90 year old grandmother, who has been a very difficult woman. My mum has felt completely overlooked by her mother, often left out of decisions or not considered when it comes to family memories or possessions. As the only daughter with any memory of her grandma (always referred to as Mother) she had hoped to be given her engagement ring when the time came, with her sisters receiving the wedding and engagement ring of their own mum. She was really upset to find her middle sister had been given Mother’s ring, with the other two going to her youngest sister. It wasn’t the item as much as the memory, not helped by my grandma saying ‘well the others really wanted them and I knew you wouldn’t make a fuss’. This total lack of consideration opened a Pandora’s box of hurt, including a terrible decision made when the family returned from a spell in Australia in the late 1960s. Having to accept housing away from their home city of Liverpool, they settled in Scunthorpe but both of my grandparents needed to work. My mother was twelve and her two sisters were pre-school age, so my grandma didn’t register my mum for school and left her at home caring for the younger children. This lack of education was devastating for my mum who felt like she was sacrificed for the good of her sisters and also felt ashamed that she had few qualifications. It affected her opportunities but also her confidence, leading to life long mental health issues. Despite this my mum shows incredible intelligence, is well-read and has had a lot of psychotherapy. I think that at the age of 72 she is very in touch with her authentic self and knows that she needs to ration the time spent with her mother, place careful boundaries around herself and us and accept a relationship that’s very one sided. I recognised a lot of my mum in Louise’s personal growth and that motherly relationship with her younger siblings. This book made me realise there are families like ours where intergenerational trauma is a very real part of life. I think the book holds out a lot of hope that with boundaries, solid friendships, somewhere to express the negative emotions and a lot of humour it’s possible to survive narcissistic parenting. Lastly, I admire Louise’s honesty and openness in writing this memoir so beautifully and I hope it has proved both cathartic and healing for her too.

Meet the Author

Louise Beech lives in East Yorkshire and grew up dreaming of being a writer but it took many years and many rejections for her to finally get a book deal in 2015, aged 44. Her debut, How to be Brave, got to No4 on Amazon and was a Guardian Readers’ Pick; Maria in the Moon was described as ‘quirky, darkly comic and heartfelt’ by the Sunday Mirror; The Lion Tamer Who Lost was shortlisted for the Popular Romantic Novel of 2019 at the RNA Awards and longlisted for the Polari Prize 2019; Call Me Star Girl was Best magazine’s Book of the Year 2019; I Am Dust was a Crime MagazineMonthly Pick; and This Is How We Are Human was a Clare Mackintosh Book Club pick. In 2023 her new novel, End of Story, will be published under the pen name Louise Swanson. Louise regularly writes short stories for magazines, blogs, and talks at universities and literary events.