Tag: Throwback Thursday

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Little Disasters by Sarah Vaughan

Posted on by thelotusreaders

You think you know her…

But look a little closer

She is a stay-at-home mother of three with boundless reserves of patience, energy and love. After being friends for a decade, this is how Liz sees Jess.

Then one moment changes everything.

Dark thoughts and carefully guarded secrets surface – and Liz is left questioning everything she thought she knew about her friend, and about herself.

As regular readers know, between my blog tour and current fiction reads I always like to go back and read an author’s earlier works. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel from Anatomy of a Scandal writer Sarah Vaughan, first published in 2020. It starts with an ordinary evening on duty for Liz, who is a registrar in paediatrics. She’s called down to A&E to see a ten-month-old baby presenting with strange symptoms. She’s been vomiting, and seems drowsy but doesn’t have a temperature which rules out a virus or infection. However, Liz is familiar with this particular baby girl, because she belongs to her best friend Jess and she’s definitely not acting normally. Jess has always seemed an absolute natural when it came to motherhood, certainly more than Liz. Jess made parenting seem easy, spending so much time making sure her children have the right foods, and lots of activities to try and nurture their minds. She’s the stay at home full time parent, but where Liz would struggle without working, Jess seems born for the role. Yet, this is not the same Jess that Liz knows outside of work – she’s edgy and claims her daughter had a fall. All children fall and through no fault of the parent, but the accident Jess describes doesn’t account for the boggy head injury that Liz can feel at the back of her baby’s head. Why would Jess lie?

Told through different perspectives, from Jess to Liz, this is a brilliant domestic thriller with tension so tight it might snap. This tension in the writing echoes Jess’s mind, at any time she might completely unravel but that doesn’t mean she hurt her baby. Vaughan is exceptional at drip feeding us a little at a time. A tiny bit of extra information here. A new viewpoint there. But never more than you need to keep the story flowing. It’s a powerful and emotive story, but Vaughan never descends into sentimentality or melodrama, this is sharp, addictive and never slows down, insisting you read another chapter, then another.

She is painfully honest about parenthood, so much so that it’s painful to read at times. Especially when the perspective shifts to one of the children and we’re suddenly reminded in the midst of all this, just how vulnerable they are. We are never really aware, until it happens to us or a close friend or family member, just how transformative giving birth can be. Some births are difficult, violent even. Yes, it’s a time of incredible joy and celebration, but my friends were exhausted in those first few days. Exhausted to the point of being almost catatonic. They were uncomfortable, dealing with caesarean scars and infection, stitches, painfully swollen breasts so that every bit of them seemed to be either hurting or leaking! It didn’t look like fun to me and there was a small part of me that was a little bit glad I couldn’t have children. We hear comedians and celebrities publicly talking about how difficult parenting can be and it isn’t just the body that’s affected. The birth can leave you feeling traumatised. The lack of sleep wears you down and you can’t remember things. Then your mind can play tricks on you. Are you really up to this? What if you’re not doing this right? Some women don’t bond with their baby straight away then berate themselves for being terrible mothers. We know so much more about post-natal depression and post-partum psychosis these days, but women still get missed because they’re too scared to say how they feel. If you’re having thoughts of harming your baby, how can you tell anyone?

I think this story that will resonate with many women. Jess and her baby really do pluck your heartstrings. At first I was so suspicious, because she’s cagey and closed off. I couldn’t understand why you would wait nearly six hours to get help for an obvious head injury. I was pretty sure where the narrative was going, but then the author surprised me with a new perspective and a huge twist that was really unexpected. This is a far darker path than I’d expected. Domestic thrillers are one of my a favourite genres and this is up there with the best. It really delves under the layers of motherhood and overturns that old expectation that every woman is naturally maternal. That post-natal depression can happen to anyone, even when they’ve not experienced it with their other children. It brings home to the reader that looking after a newborn baby is a giant undertaking and it how vital it is to ask for help. This is such a perceptive novel with an unexpectedly treacherous conclusion. Sarah Vaughan is an incredibly clever writer, balancing both our sympathy for Jess and her baby, but also our thriller reader’s desperation to uncover what has happened.

Published by Simon and Schuster 2020

Meet the Author

Sarah Vaughan is the international bestselling author of the Number one Netflix TV series, Anatomy of a Scandal, and four other novels. A former journalist, she read English at Oxford before training at the Press Association and spending 11 years at the Guardian as a news reporter and political correspondent. After having her second baby, she left to freelance, and eventually to write fiction. Two women’s fiction novels followed before Anatomy of a Scandal, her 3rd novel and her first courtroom drama/psychological thriller, heralded a new direction and became an instant international bestseller. Sold to 24 countries, it was also a Sunday Times top five bestseller, spending 10 weeks in the top 10 charts; a kindle number 1 bestseller; and one of Richard & Judy’s best dozen books of the decade. In April 2022, it dropped as a six-part Netflix mini-series, written by David E Kelley and Melissa James Gibson, and starring Sienna Miller, Michelle Dockery, and Rupert Friend. In its first 3 days, it debuted at number 3 worldwide and was the number 1 most watched Netflix TV show in multiple countries, including the UK and US. In its first 3 days alone, it notched up 40.28 million viewing hours.

Little Disasters, published during the first and third lockdowns, was a Waterstone’s Thriller of the Month and is in the process of being adapted for a UK broadcaster. It was also WH Smith paperback of the month, a Kindle bestseller, and has been published in the US and various other countries. Reputation, published in March 2022, has also been optioned by the team behind Anatomy of a Scandal with a view to being developed for TV. It will be published in the US in July, and in various other countries throughout the year

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Other People’s Husbands by Elizabeth Noble

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Elizabeth Noble’s domestic drama is focused around a solid group of friends. Six women and their husbands have been a ‘pack’ for several years after chat at the school gates led to lunches, then dinners and now regular get togethers like their annual May Day bank holiday. Traditionally this weekend is always spent together, sometimes abroad but usually at Annie’s picturesque holiday cottage. Annie loves sharing her home with her closest friends and is the best host, often heading down there a couple of days before the others to air the house out and prepare the bedrooms. This is where the ripples begin. In previous years Annie remembers all the kids coming along, playing in the pool and shrieking with laughter. More recently it’s just been the adults and the first day usually involves getting out of travelling clothes and spending the afternoon by the pool, the men in their swimming shorts and the women in sensible Boden one piece swimsuits, an unspoken rule. Kit and Natalie are late for everything and this weekend is no exception, so everyone is already lounging outdoors when Natalie joins them. This is the moment that everything changes, as Natalie strolls out in a high legged red bikini walks the length of the pool and climbs in. The red is as subtle as a matador’s cape, but will anyone take up the challenge? All the women know without speaking that this is a betrayal of the sisterhood, an open sexual invitation, a red flag. Even a couple of the men mention it, later on in bed with their wives they say it was a statement, pure theatre, something that shouldn’t be a surprise considering Natalie is an actress. Yet her husband Kit barely seems to notice.

However, one of the husbands noticed a long time ago that Nat is beautiful. In fact over twenty years there have been several moments – a glance, a brush of the fingers, a hand that lingers on a shoulder, a kiss that strays from the cheek to the edge of the mouth. Will this now become something more? The author lets the tension rise beautifully. She perfectly captures how one action acts like a ripple in a pond within a group like this. It would affect every one of the friends and the next generation who have grown their own friendships over the years. Natalie is feeling restless and expressing that in her clothing and changing her routine. She and husband Kit have a small flat in London that she can pop to on the train and visit galleries or go shopping. Previously she’s been held to the routine of children at home but now she’s free from that and has time for herself. Her husband Kit seems absolutely solid and a great dad, but Natalie misses that frisson of attraction and electricity between two people. So, when she and Dom accidentally bump into each other in London she doesn’t have anywhere to be or to rush back for, so they can enjoy the warmth of a city evening. Joining others who are sat on the embankment, looking at the river and enjoying a bottle of wine or ice cream. The heat between them is obvious, but there’s always been something to stop them before. Dom loves his wife, she’s solid and dependable but their sex life has dwindled of late and they don’t seem to have made the transition back from family to being a couple again. His attraction to Natalie, something he felt at their very first meeting, has never diminished. What if they now have a chance to be together? Whereas Natalie seems to agonise over her husband and children finding out, Dom doesn’t seem to think about the catastrophe this would cause.

Noble has written their characters very carefully so that I really did care about Natalie despite her actions. I enjoyed her relationship with daughter, listening to Temple’s marriage problems and going away with her for the weekend for some quality time. Natalie’s issues were largely her own and they had nothing to do with her relationship with Kit. Dom’s wife Sarah was very organised, something that seemed to fit with her job as a schoolteacher. She often organised group get togethers and was very family orientated. She knew that her sex life with Dom had slipped a bit of late but she wasn’t too worried. She thought that sex did tend to dwindle a little when people reached middle age and had been together so long. That didn’t mean they didn’t love each other. However, she had really been too busy to stop and think about whether they actually did still love each other. The author’s ability to get inside the mind of these characters was incredible and I enjoyed how the story was split between various different members of the group, including the next generation who were facing changes of their own. I loved how the women tried to remain friends with each other, despite everything that was happening around them.

While this intense drama was going on it was balanced by a peek into these couple’s lifestyle. I coveted Annie’s holiday home with it’s old fashioned charm. The events they’re all invited to, such as one of their daughter’s weddings being held in the garden at home, were lavish and beautifully arranged. These were dreamy interludes between the domestic drama that I drifted through, thoroughly enjoying how lovely they were. There was also a gorgeous little romance developing between two of the next generation, who had spent years climbing trees and running through sprinklers in each other gardens, but were now confused because their feelings were changing. In the main it was the women who stood out in this novel, whereas a lot of the husbands simply faded into the background. These were strong women, having to keep afloat careers, family commitments, parents and marriages. These are the ‘middle’ years where children still need you and parents start to rely more on their children. It’s a little like spinning plates, but at least these ladies had gorgeous homes and getaways. Let’s be honest, no one here is struggling on minimum wage. It’s gloriously gossipy though and I felt like a thoroughly spoiled fly on the wall by the end. Perfect for by the pool reading, this really was an enjoyable and addictive domestic drama.

Meet the Author

Elizabeth Noble is the internationally bestselling author of The Reading Group, The Friendship Test, Alphabet Weekends, and Things I Want My Daughters to Know. She lives in New York City with her husband and their two daughters.

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Our Little Cruelties by Liz Nugent

Posted on by thelotusreaders

In the famous words of Phillip Larkin, ‘they fuck you up your Mum and Dad’. Reading this book was a very interesting experience and patience definitely paid off. Had I given in to my impulses and thrown the book down in frustration during the first part, I would have missed out on a great read. The story of three brothers over their lifetimes is compelling, interesting and a great study in how mental health difficulties can be passed on from one generation to the next.

The structure of the novel is what I had difficulty with at first. The first section was narrated by the eldest brother, Will. Written in short chapters, slipping between decades, we see aspects of his childhood through to the present day where he is a successful movie producer. He meets his wife Kate through his brother Brian,when she’s brought to a family dinner. They have a little girl called Daisy, but Will is much more focused on work than he is his family. We get the sense that Kate is a long suffering woman who gets more support from Brian, who is now Daisy godfather. Brian is there for the birthdays and school concerts and Daisy has a great rapport with her Uncle. Will is dismissive of Brian and his lack of ambition. He is also dismissive of Luke, despite Luke’s success as a pop star in his late teens. He is close to his Mum and through flashbacks we see she favours him, quite openly.

Luke, by contrast, really gets the brunt of their mother’s moods. He is the youngest, the weakest but soon finds success as a pop star. However, in the later fragments of his life he has times of struggle, where his mental health is poor and he turns to drink or experiments with drugs. He is an unusual child with a religious fixation to the extent where the family priest thinks he has a vocation! The other boys use his goodness against him, it gets them extra food and attention, especially from their father. There are moments where it seems his life is on track and he could be happy, but others where I wondered if he was just not meant for this world. Finally, there’s Brian the middle brother. If Will is his Mum’s favourite and Luke is doted on by his Dad, it leaves nobody for Brian. He does seem fatally dragged between the two of them. Will is very dismissive of him, even though Brian does so much for his niece. He’s not grateful that Brian stands in for him or that he looks after Luke when his mental health deteriorates. In fact their relationship becomes so destructive that other family members get caught in the crossfire.

The genius of this book is its structure. During the first part, narrated by Will, I was ready to put the book down. I couldn’t stand him. He was arrogant, self-centred and treats women appallingly. If the whole book had been his viewpoint I might have thrown it out of the window. Just when I was at the point of giving up, I saw Luke’s name across the next section and it was such a relief. As the tale goes back and forth in time and perspective we see a tiny bit more of the whole. At a Bob Dylan concert at a local castle, Will ends up in a fight and is taken to hospital with Dad, leaving Luke to follow behind. Mum is also left behind at the castle and doesn’t arrive at the hospital till late. However, through Luke’s story we learn that something terrible happened to her, something that explains so much about how she behaves. When we finally get Brian’s section we see what a lifetime of being in the middle feels like. Overlooked, unconsidered and brushed aside. We find out things we already suspected and other things that surprise and enlighten us. Every single strand of this novel teaches us that we are only ever a small part of the picture and we must step back to see the whole.

This brings me to the second line of Larkin’s poem, which is the best; ‘they do not mean to but they do’. There are parts of this novel, particularly the way Dad behaves, where genuine mistakes are made and misunderstandings occur in the same way they do with any family. However there are other situations where the damage seems deliberate, especially in their mother’s attitude to Luke, Will’s intervention in Luke’s relationship, and in the treatment of Will’s daughter Daisy towards the end of the novel. These acts are more than little cruelties. They are deliberate, potentially causing lifelong psychological disturbance. This is a complex and interesting novel that moves from one narrow perspective to give us all the pieces of the emotional jigsaw puzzle that makes up this family. Liz Nugent is such an emotionally literate writer that I can’t wait to read her next work.

Meet The Author

Liz Nugent lives and writes in Dublin, Ireland. She is an award winning writer of radio drama, children’s animation soap opera and television plays. Her second novel, Lying in Wait, is to be published in July 2016. Unusually for a writer, Liz likes neither cats nor coffee and does not own a Breton top.

Liz Nugent’s new novel Strange Sally Diamond is out on March 2nd from Sandycove.

Posted in Romance Rocks, Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday! Mix-Tape by Jane Sanderson for Romance Rocks!

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I love this book. Perhaps it’s because I had a Dan. A musician who started as my best friend and who I fell in love with. I was 18 and he took me to my first prom. His band were playing and it was 1991 so perms were everywhere and we were just adopting grunge. I would turn up for school in jumble sale floral dresses with my ever present oxblood Doc Martens. They played some of my favourite songs that night: some that were contemporary like Blur and others were classics like Wild Thing. I most remember Waterloo Sunset. Then, like a scene in a rom-com we walked across town to his house – me in a polka dot Laura Ashley ball gown and him in his dinner suit with the bow tie undone. He had a ruffled shirt underneath that he’d bought from Oxfam. We crept into the house and into the playroom so we didn’t wake anyone, then watched When Harry Met Sally. I remember a single kiss and then we fell asleep, but the love carried on over the years.

When I think of Elliot I always think of those famous best friend couples, like Harry and Sally or later, Emma and Dex in One Day. Now I can add Dan and Ali to the list. Alison and Dan live in Sheffield in the late 1970s when the city was still a thriving steel manufacturer. Dan is from the more family friendly Nether Edge, while Alison is from the rougher Attercliffe area, in the shadow of a steel factory. They meet while still at school and Dan is transfixed with her dark hair, her edge and her love of music. Their relationship is based on music and Dan makes mix tapes for her to listen to when they’re not together such as ‘The Last Best Two’ – the last two tracks from a series of albums. What he doesn’t know is how much Alison needs that music. To be able to put it on as a wall of sound between her and her family. Dan never sees where she lives and doesn’t push her, he only knows she prefers his home whether she’s doing her homework at the kitchen table, getting her nails painted by his sister or sitting with his Dad in the pigeon loft. Catherine, Alison’s mum, is a drinker. Not even a functioning alcoholic, she comes home battered and dirty with no care for who she lets into their home. Alison’s brother, Pete, is her only consolation and protection at home. Both call their mum by her first name and try to avoid her whenever possible. Even worse is her on-off lover Martin Baxter, who has a threatening manner and his own key. Alison could never let Dan know how they have to live.

In alternate chapters we see what Alison and Dan are doing in the present. Now a music writer, Dan splits his time between a canal boat in London and home with his partner Katelin in Edinburgh. Alison has written a new novel ‘Tell the Story Sing the Song’ set in her adopted home Australia and based round an indigenous singer. It’s a worldwide hit and she finds herself in demand, having to negotiate being interviewed and getting to grips with social media. She has an affluent lifestyle with husband Michael and has two grown up daughters. She has a Twitter account that she’s terrible at using and it’s this that alerts Dan, what could be the harm in following her? The secret at the heart of this book is what happened so long ago back in Sheffield to send a girl to the other side of the world? Especially when she has found her soulmate. She and Dan are meant to be together so what could have driven them apart? Dan sends her a link via Twitter, to Elvis Costelloe’s ‘Pump It Up’, the song she was dancing to at a party when he fell in love with her. How will Alison reply and will Dan ever discover why he lost her back in the 1970s?

I believed in these characters immediately, and I know Sheffield, and loved how it was described with affectionate detail by the writer. The accent, the warmth of people like Dan’s dad, the landmarks and the troubled manufacturing industry are so familiar and captured perfectly. Even the secondary characters, like the couple’s families and friends are well drawn and endearing. Cass over in Australia, as well as Sheila and Dora, are great characters. Equally, Dan’s Edinburgh friend Duncan with his record shop and the hippy couple on the barge next door in London are real and engaging. Special mention also to his dog McCullough who I was desperate to cuddle. Both characters have great lives and happy relationships. Dan loves Katelin, in fact her only fault is that she isn’t Alison. In Australia, Alison has been enveloped by Michael’s huge family and their housekeeper Beatriz who is like a surrogate Mum. It’s easy to see why the safety and security of Michael’s family, their money and lifestyle have appealed to a young Alison, still running away from her dysfunctional upbringing. She clearly wants different for her daughters and wishes them the sort of complacency Dan had, sure his parents are always there where he left them. But is the odd dinner party and most nights sat side by side watching TV enough for her? She also has Sheila, an old friend of Catherine’s, who emigrated in the 1970s and flourished in Australia. Now married to Dora who drives a steam train, they are again like surrogate parents to Alison. So much anchors her in Australia, but are these ties stronger than first love and the sense of belonging she had with Dan all those years before?

About three quarters of the way through the book I started to read gingerly, almost as if it was a bomb that might go off. I’ve never got over the loss of Emma in One Day and I was scared. What if these two soulmates didn’t end up together? Or worse what if one of them is killed off by the author before a happy ending is reached? I won’t ruin it by telling any more of the story. The tension and trauma of Alison’s family life is terrible and I dreaded finding out what had driven her away so dramatically. I think her shame about her mother is so sad, because the support was there for her and she wouldn’t let anyone help. She’s so fragile as a teenager and on edge. Dan’s mum had reservations, she was worried about her youngest son and whether Alison would break his heart. I love the music that goes back and forth between the pair, the meaning in the lyrics and how they choose them. This book is warm, moving and real. I loved it.

And what of my Daniel? Well he’s in Sheffield strangely enough. Happily partnered with three beautiful kids. I’m also happily partnered with two lovely stepdaughters. We’re very happy where we are and with our other halves. It’s nice though, just now and again, to catch up and remember the seventeen year old I was. Laid on his bedroom door, with my head in his lap listening to his latest find on vinyl. Or wandering the streets in my ballgown, high heels in one hand and him with his guitar case. Happy memories that will always make me smile.

Meet the Author

A former BBC Radio 4 producer, Jane Sanderson’s first novel – Netherwood – was published in 2011. She drew on much of her family’s background for this historical novel, which is set in a fictional mining town in the coalfields of Yorkshire. Ravenscliffe and Eden Falls followed in the two subsequent years, then in the early summer of 2017, This Much Is True was published, marking a change in direction for the author. This book is a contemporary tale of dog walks and dark secrets and the lengths a mother will go to protect her family. 

Jane lives in Herefordshire with her husband, the journalist and author Brian Viner. They have three children.

Her book Waiting for Sunshine is published in paperback on 23rd March 2023, with my review coming soon.


‘Who would name a child Sunshine, then give her away?’

Chrissie has always wanted to be a mother. After months of trying to adopt, she and her husband Stuart finally get the news that a little girl named Sunshine is waiting for them.

Abandoned at a young age, the child comes to them without a family history, and it feels like a fresh start for all of them. But when fragments from Sunshine’s previous life start to intrude on her new one, the little girl’s mysterious past quickly becomes Chrissie’s greatest fear …

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday! We Are All Made Of Stars by Rowan Coleman

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This book was originally published in 2015, but the first time I’ve read it is after reading Rowan Coleman’s novel The Girl at the Window. I do like to feature books as I discover them, rather than trying to chase the latest or next best thing.This may sound weird but I actually picked this up as light relief between a couple of deeply dystopian reads. I think there is an incredible skill in writing about such a serious subject but with such a lightness of touch and an edge of romance. Coleman has a group of characters, all linked to the Marie Francis hospice in some way. The story comes from all their points of view interspersed with letters written from patients in their final days, revealing secrets and emotions that have been held back, offering advice or instructions on where the money has been left.

These letters are written by Stella, who works at the hospice at night, giving her plenty of time to listen to patients and capture their last words. Behind her professional exterior Stella has her own problems. Her night shifts have become a way of avoiding problems at home. Her husband Vinny was a soldier and has returned home after losing his leg in a bomb blast. Now they feel like different people who are unable to connect and Stella runs miles every day to avoid her fear this is the end of their marriage. One of the letters Stella writes leads us to Hugh. Hugh is an academic researcher and collects artefacts relating to death such as death masks, Victorian mourning brooches and photos of dead loved ones. Hugh’s mum left when he was small leaving a suicide note. This personal tragedy has possibly lead to his research and has left him very isolated and scared of connection. When a single mum moves next door with her son, Hugh’s cat Jake starts to spend time there and they name him Ninja. This shared cat brings them closer, but will Hugh be able to form a relationship with his new neighbours and how will he cope when Stella delivers a letter that will change his life?

Finally, we meet Hope who is a young woman with cystic fibrosis recuperating at the hospice before returning home. Hope’s best friend and lifelong hanger on is Ben. They have been close friends for years and he has seen her in the worst moments of her illness. He visits every day at the hospice, and patients and staff start to notice that maybe there’s more than friendship here. Hope doesn’t think so, but she is starting to realise that she is missing out on things in life. Her friendship with a young girl, Issy, begins to make her think. Issy is terminally ill and tells Hope how sad she is to be leaving life when she has experienced so little. She makes Hope promise to live life to the full and try all the experiences Issy has missed out on. This inspires Hope and she asks Ben to help her fulfil this promise, knowing it might change their relationship forever.

It was Hope and Stella’s narratives that most resonated with me. I knew how I wanted their narratives their narratives to end happily. I know how it feels to have your plans cut into by an illness so young, the need to have new experiences and live like any other girl in their early twenties. I remembered the hen nights missed and friends celebrating graduations, weddings and births of their first children when I had none of these things in sight. So I identified with Hope’s need to do as much as possible before time runs out. Yet, I also felt for Stella, who tries her hardest to make people’s last wishes a reality while her own life is falling apart. She gives constantly, at home and the hospice, so when she finds she can maybe reunite two people she throws caution to the wind. I wanted her and Vinny to find their way through their difficulties and come together again, but with his survivor’s guilt and difficulties coming to terms with his amputation it’s no easy task.

This book seems so light and easy to read but is packed full of real, honest and deep emotions across the characters. Maybe I found the subject easy to enjoy, because I’m used to this world. I know people who might read the hospice setting and pass it over, but they’d be missing out. This book relates what life limiting illness is really like; it’s not easy, but you can still live well and all the other parts of life like learning, being fulfilled, finding meaning and feeling love are still very much part of the experience. Within these characters, and the letters Stella writes for her patients, are glimpses of human life that take us far beyond them as patients and closer to them as people.

Published by Ebury Press and available in all formats.

Meet the Author

I’m Rowan Coleman, and I live in England with my husband, 4 children and 2 dogs! The Girl at the Window is my 14th novel is my twelfth novel. I am also the author of the internationally bestselling THE MEMORY BOOK, the double award winning THE RUNAWAY WIFE, and the NYT bestseller THE ACCIDENTAL MOTHER and the Zoe Ball ITV Bookclub pick THE SUMMER OF IMPOSSIBLE THINGS. Growing up dyslexic made my dream of becoming a writer seem impossible, but I never gave up trying and in 2001 I won Young Writer of the Year competition in Company Magazine. This lead to the publication of my first novel, and I’ve never looked back since.

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Grown-Ups by Marian Keyes.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Years ago, when I was a book snob after my English lit degree, I wouldn’t have read Marian Keyes. It was firmly in the category of chick-lit and that meant it would be ‘easy-reading’. The literary equivalent of easy listening music, pleasant but no depth, just tinkling on in the background when I wanted my reads to grab me, make me think and blow me away. It was reading Jojo Moyes ‘Me Before You’ that put me onto Rachel’s Holiday and the Walsh family. Before I knew it I was racing through her back catalogue and loving every minute of it. It helps that she’s also an incredible woman, mad as a box of frogs and funny, enthusiastic about what she loves and chatters on ten to the dozen. She’d fit right in with my family and is one of the first people I’d invite to a fantasy dinner party. If I had to pick one thing about her writing that makes it so good, amply demonstrated in this novel, it’s that she provided a family tree to keep track of the characters and how they were related to each other, but I didn’t need it once. Each and every character was so real and so distinct that I felt I knew them all personally.

Ed, Johnny and Liam are brothers and enjoy a large extended family. Their background isn’t great, in fact their parents are awful people – demonstrated at their golden wedding anniversary when their father’s speech manipulated and put down each of his sons in turn. Ed has never had that feeling of being grounded, of belonging somewhere, until he met his wife Cara. She makes him feel safe. Cara has a head receptionist role at the Ardglass Hotel in Dublin and they have two children. Cara has always had problems with her body image and has been yo-yo dieting ever since Ed met her. She can’t seem to resist bingeing on chocolate and then hates herself for having no will-power, but is this cycle of overeating just a blip or is she heading for something more serious? Jonny and Jessie are the successful pair in the family, running their own chain of specialist food shops and a cookery school. Jessie had the original idea, with Jonny and his best friend Rory Kinsella going to work for her several years later. However, it was Rory who won Jessie’s heart and they were married with two children when he died suddenly. The Kinsella family were like a second family for Jonny, especially Rory’s dad Michael who had been a surrogate father since his own was so lacking. They all grieved together, until two years later when Jonny and Jessie found themselves drawn to each other. Surely the Kinsellas would be happy for them? Now years on, with three more children, and despite being a good husband and stepfather to Ferdia and Saoirse, the Kinsellas had cut themselves off from their former daughter-in-law. It was probably for this reason that Jessie focussed so much time on their family spending time together, all three brothers and their respective families spent Easter and many other holidays together, with Jessie even footing the bill to make it happen. Yet neither had ever really given up hope that everyone would be reunited in time, but time runs out and so does money.

Liam is the youngest brother, an ardent runner in his prime he now had to cycle thanks to a difficult knee injury. Handsome and charming, it never took very long for him to get what he wanted in life. Most would say he had a charmed life, despite his split with wife Paige and her relocation to the US with his two daughters, who are missed terribly by their cousins. In an incredible financial settlement, Liam lives in an apartment in Dublin paid for by Paige. When he meets Nell, a young set designer full of idealism and principles, he has to have her. Nell is beautiful, with cascades of pink hair and a quirky dress sense that comes from never buying anything new. She’s so passionate about art and conveying the message of a play through her set, plus she’s passionate about so many causes. The family love her and she brings her outlook on life to everyone, especially Liam’s nephew Ferdia who has similar opinions but never does anything to back them up. The family are surprised when the couple get married in an ice hotel on the arctic circle. Since the wedding though, despite Nell throwing herself into the family and their rather claustrophobic way of doing everything together, Liam hasn’t seemed the same. He starts to drop out of things she’s planned, branding them boring, and then chips away at her confidence. When she has a good review saying she’s the most exciting new designer in the country – he points out that Ireland is a very small place. He’s also very creepy, ogling his young niece’s friends and his nephew’s girlfriend. Nell is drawn to Ferdia, young, ethical and concerned with social justice, but can they be friends?

I loved how Marian Keyes presents the image of a perfect family that others must see, when they gather for an Easter Egg Hunt at a luxury hotel or holiday together in a Tuscan villa. Then she undermines it by showing that none of these people, or their relationships, are perfect. Her depiction of Cara’s eating problems were familiar to me because I’ve also had that urge to eat my feelings from time to time. I thought the way Cara down played the seriousness of her bulimia was realistic and the resistance to treating it as an addiction also rang true. Her counsellor was also brilliant, firm and not pulling her punches about the road ahead for Cara as a patient. If there was anyone I was rooting for it was Cara and husband Ed. Getting married again when you’re a widow is also something I know about and the relationship dynamics are so fragile. Luckily for me my lat husband’s family were very understanding and I treated them with respect, being up front and letting them know everything early on. I really felt for Jessie, but in the early chapters I really didn’t understand her desperate need for the whole family to get together constantly. There was a moment where she’s laid on a pool lounger with all the kids (bunnies) piled on top of her and she’s supremely happy. Then I got it. The friendship she had with Rory’s sisters Izzy and Keeva was the first real friendship she had and being part of the Kinsella tribe was just as important to her as it was to Jonny. She needed to belong. Strangely I also felt for Nell. I liked her as a person and thought she had been love-bombed by Liam into a marriage without truly knowing who he was. I really loathed him and that’s rare for me. He was lazy, living entirely off his ex-wife and not making any effort to see or maintain his relationship with his children. The way he commented on her talent and gaslighted her made me furious. I wanted Nell to have the romantic happy ending. In this book Marian Keyes has punctured that Instagram perfection many families seem to project these days. It’s also a welcome reminder that we never know what another person is going through, even the person lying next to us. I also found the message that we have to work on ourselves, take responsibility and live authentically, very empowering. I truly enjoyed my time as a fly on the wall with this family and laughed out loud so much that my other half commented on how much I seemed to be enjoying it.

Meet The Author

Marian Keyes is the international bestselling author of Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Rachel’s Holiday, Last Chance Saloon, Sushi for Beginners, Angels, The Other Side of the Story, Anybody Out There, This Charming Man, The Brightest Star in the Sky , The Mystery of Mercy Close, The Woman Who Stole My Life, The Break and her latest Number One bestseller, Grown Ups. Her two collections of journalism, Making it up as I Go Along and Under the Duvet: Deluxe Edition are also available from Penguin.

Posted in Squad Pod

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I am a huge fan of Damon Albarn – I haven’t gone crazy, this is relevant – from the first 12 inch Blur single I bought in 1989, to Gorillaz and all the solo projects in-between I’ve been there. For me, the most amazing piece of work he’s composed is Monkey: The Opera which I went to see at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and then again at Lincoln Centre in NYC. I’d seen the ‘Monkey Magic’ series when I was a child, me and my brother loved the hilarious and badly dubbed chronicles of Monkey and his quest. However, in the opera house, when the music started and the curtains opened this Monkey was simply magical, like a window to another world. The music was exquisite and the set was just incredible, with floating clouds and giant bamboo, underwater realms and ancient gods and spirits lurking above while Monkey learns what his journey is about. I’d honestly never seen anything like it. So, when I picked up this beautiful book I put the music on so I had a soundtrack to my reading experience and it fitted together beautifully. Used to Greek, Roman and Celtic mythology, Albarn’s soundtrack felt like fitting music for the entirely alien, but rich and evocative mythology I was becoming immersed in.

This incredible debut novel from Sue Lynn Tan is a mix of mythology, spirituality, magic and Bildüngsroman- that wonderful and almost untranslatable word that relates to books focused on a young person growing up. Our heroine is Xingyin a young woman who has grown up on the moon, hidden from a powerful Celestial Emperor who placed her mother Chang’e in exile for the theft of his elixir of mortality. Xingyin’s life has been a lonely one and as she grows she longs for new experiences and places. Now Xinying is coming into her power and as her magic increases, she is discovered. Now she must flee the moon and leave her mother behind, knowing that she’s pitted against the most powerful immortal leaving both their lives at risk. Alone, powerless, and afraid, she makes her way to the Celestial Kingdom, a land of wonder and secrets. Disguising her identity she works as a servant, but then seizes a lucky opportunity to train in the Crown Prince’s service. Xingyin starts learning to master archery, magic, and the strange attraction between her and the emperor’s son. I loved being back in a world within the clouds. The author’s beautifully lyrical language is so vibrant and she really does bring this stunning world to life. This celestial realm is woven from layers of description about the clothing, the food, the buildings and the unique magical elements, creating a setting and atmosphere that’s suitably awe inspiring.

I found Xingyin’s inner journey interesting too, because she develops so much from the naïve young girl at the beginning. I loved that she is following a path to be a warrior, something that seems rare for women in Western mythologies. I learned so much about Chinese culture through her obligations to family, particularly the mother/daughter relationship and the concept of honour and how it informs her ambitions. Her focus is to free her mother from exile and this brings out an incredible determination in Xingyin. She starts out unable to fend for herself and she shows both patience and grit, achieving each goal on the way to her destiny. She has to learn the history of these Immortal Realms in order to negotiate her way forward. She also has to practice her magic and the find the best way to utilise it in her quest. I loved how the author kept a steady pace in these early sections, the slower pace echoing that Xingyin is only at the beginning of her journey and she feels those same emotions we do when our goals are still so far away. The pace really speeds up when Xingyin has undergone her initial training and the army leaves to test it’s recruits in battle. I really enjoyed the extraordinary monsters from Chinese legend that the army must defeat for Xingyin to really fulfil her potential as a battle-hardened warrior. The author beautifully describes that uncertainty and fear soldiers must feel before a battle – the self-doubt that can creep in and takes hold. Yet Xingyin manages to feel this and still maintain her warrior-like demeanour. She isn’t just a killing machine. Throughout her endeavours she has kept her own deep seated sense of morality and a self-awareness that allows her to set boundaries.

Aside from Xingyin’s quest there is also an element of romance in the novel; a love triangle that does dominate in parts and takes up an enormous amount of her head space. I wasn’t sure I needed the romance for the book to work, but I guess it’s part of a young girl’s journey into womanhood. She is torn between two men and seems on a rollercoaster of trying to understand her feelings for both. One minute she’s berating her own fickleness in wanting one and then the other, then is angry that whatever they do she can’t let either one of them go. I think the author is trying to capture the immaturity of relationships at this age and I felt the romance might have been pitched at a YA audience who would understand the angst better than this middle-aged reader. I didn’t want the romance to take over the storyline and distract Xingyin from her own journey and potential. I don’t read a enormous amount of fantasy, but this was a complete escape from normal everyday life and I found myself lost in it’s imagery and those wonderful mythical creatures. The author has a boundless imagination, shown in the sheer scale of this work and how she paints her world with words so that it’s beautifully rich, evocative and ultimately, enchanting. I’m looking forward to diving into her world again for the sequel to this incredible debut novel.

Published 20th Jan 2022 by Harper Voyager

Meet the Author

Sue Lynn Tan writes stories inspired by the myths and legends she fell in love with as a child. After devouring every fable she could find in the library, she discovered fantasy books, spending much of her childhood lost in magical worlds. Daughter of the Moon Goddess is her debut, the first in the Celestial Kingdom duology – a fantasy of immortals, magic and love, inspired by the beloved legend of the Chinese moon goddess, Chang’e.

When not writing or reading, she enjoys exploring the hills, lakes, and temples around her home. She is also grateful to be within reach of bubble tea and spicy food, that she unfortunately cannot cook.

Find her on Instagram and Twitter @SuelynnTan, or on her website http://www.suelynntan.com

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday! Violet by SJ Holliday.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

There are so many cliches we use in the world of book blogging but it’s hard not to use them when  all of them applied to this original and unusual novel. This was an unputdownable, page turning, keep me up all night, edge of your seat thriller with intriguing characters and exotic settings.

It was refreshing to read a thriller with a female protagonist who steals all of the limelight. Added to that she has a feisty female travel partner. In a genre where women are often prey and merely a catalyst for the real action, these women more than hold their own. Violet has tired of Thailand and her boyfriend wants to stay put. Far from being the island paradise she expected Thailand has become about the same scene, people and drugs. Violet decides to follow their itinerary without him and she does it in style. She makes her way to China but feels strangely alone and dislocated. When trying to organise a ticket for the Trans-Siberian railway Violet overhears a girl talking to the travel agent about her spare ticket. Her friend has had an accident and can’t travel, but the travel agent is no help and the girl has a spare ticket on her hands. Violet follows her to a bar and engineers a meeting that turns into dinner and many drinks. By the next day Violet has scored a ticket and a new travel companion in Carrie. By this time we have a few doubts about our narrator and I worried for Carrie and whether she knew what she was taking on board.

The rest of the novel is told in sections through Violet’s eyes and the emails that Carrie sends back to her injured friend back home. The girls have a stop off in Mongolia where they experience Nomadic life, sheep’s milk tea and a shamanic experience that threatens to put their friendship on a very different footing. Violet reads like someone with borderline personality disorder; despite her narration I don’t feel a coherent sense of self. I don’t think Violet knows who she is. Carrie starts to have her own doubts on the train and tries to create some space by befriending other passengers. Violet starts to panic. What if Carrie decides to go her separate ways? Violet’s friendship has become obsessive and potentially dangerous. However, when we reach Russia we start to see what both girls are really capable of.

The brilliance of Holliday’s writing is that we never really know what the girls are going to do next. This is not helped by the copious amounts of drink and drugs the girls partake in. It’s like being on a rollercoaster ride blindfolded. Just when you think you’ve worked Violet out, something else happens and your opinion changes. I loved the travel detail as well. It isn’t romanticised. It’s scuzzy and grimy. It dispels the backpacker myth of Thailand being a paradise better than The Beach did. Mongolia was at least an authentic experience, but the thought of ewe’s milk tea was grim. I loved the gritty realism and and the psychological manipulation. Living for a while in Violet’s head shows us how dark, obsessional jealousy manifests and left me feeling very uneasy. How much do we really know about what’s going on in someone else’s head? After all this, Holliday still surprised me with a final twist I didn’t see coming that turned everything I thought I knew on its head. It was like seeing The Sixth Sense for the first time, you want to pop back to the beginning and see it all over again with fresh eyes and try to pick up the clues. I read the end of this novel at 2am and was so blown away I had to wake up my other half and tell him all about it. This is definitely one of my books of the year.

Published 14th September 2019 by Orenda Books

Meet the Author

Susi (S.J.I.) Holliday is the bestselling Scottish author of 10 novels, a novella and many short stories. By day she works in pharmaceuticals. She lives in London (except when she’s in Edinburgh) and she loves to travel the world.

Posted in Throwback Thursday, Uncategorized

Throwback Thursday! Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters.

Posted on by thelotusreaders
Hardback with Masters’s original drawings.

I enjoy reading memoirs, especially when they’re innovative and try to show life in a different way. This fantastic biography does both. It’s unique in it’s subject – a homeless man the author meets while volunteering at a charity. It’s also unique because it’s told backwards- a device that has a massive emotional impact. Despite it’s subject, this isn’t a misery memoir. I’m not a fan of them myself, although I accept their therapeutic value, both as catharsis for the writer and as a powerful shared experience for the reader who’s survived similar experiences. I always feel prurient reading such personal and traumatic testimony. Although Stuart’s life is undeniably traumatic I never get that uncomfortable feeling when reading.

Stuart Shorter is a homeless, ex- junkie and possible psychopath. Alexander Masters first met Stuart out begging, then continues to spend time with him after securing a role as a fundraiser for Wintercomfort. His job is to make funding applications to different benefactors to keep the charity providing a day centre for homeless people in Cambridge. Set up in 1989 the charity worked with some of the worst cases living rough, giving them somewhere with supportive staff to spend time in. The founder was hoping to help individuals and reduce anti social behaviour in the city. However, when the main staff members, Ruth and John, were arrested for allowing drugs to change hands on the premises, Masters found himself at the centre of a protest movement. He also had to be more ‘hands on’ with the centre’s many users. This was when he met and formed a tentative friendship with Stuart Shorter. They were paired up to give talks around the country about the values of the charity and the campaign to free Ruth and John. They were the only people who had the time and Masters becomes intrigued with Stuart, who more often than not received a standing ovation after speaking – even if he did let out a stray ‘fuck’ from time to time. Stuart is intrigued to spend time with middle class people. ‘I thought middle class people had something wrong with them’, he says ‘but they’re just ordinary.’

This I think is the key to Master’s tale. Stuart, and some of the situations he finds himself in are genuinely funny. I also felt as if Stuart was looking at me as much as I was looking at him. The jarring contrast of Stuart’s everyday life to that of Masters, or to the reader really does hit hard. He’s a person whose life would be described as chaotic by social services or a mental health team. One or the other have been a constant in Stuart’s life, an amorphous mass of middle class do-gooders he calls ‘The System’. He’s had one service or another observing or judging his life since he was twelve years old. Like most homeless people he despises the system, because agencies that are supposed to support and help those who are struggling, are actually duplicitous. Using their observations to record and relay information to other agencies in a carrot and stick approach. Most people would assume the system is there to help, but it patronises, damages and blames too. There are welfare benefits and back to work schemes, but if the person doesn’t cooperate in come the police and prison. We learn that Stuart has been bounced round the care system, has been placed in a group home run by paedophiles, then placed into a brutal juvenile detention centre when he strays from their control. It’s easy to see why homeless people even become suspicious of things that are supposed to help, because once one part of the system comes in, everything else follows. He knows he was placed with paedophiles unwittingly, but as he points out, that doesn’t really matter when you’re 14 years old with a ‘grown man’s dick in your throat.’

It’s a brutal read in parts, but it has to be. I didn’t realise how dysfunctional the lives of my clients were, until I tried to describe to someone what my job entailed while at a ball. I was starting my career as a mental health support worker and my everyday was working with people like Stuart. I would help them with day to day tasks like shopping and budgeting, cleaning the house, and even just getting out of bed if they were struggling. People at my table couldn’t believe there was a job that entailed these things. It’s when I realised that there was a class of people more successful than me, who never learned about these incredible people and their difficult lives and I was proud to be someone who did know. The book is honest about what it was like to be a friend and supporter of Stuart. Sometimes it was frustrating, moving, devastating and other times it felt incredible. Yet we really hear Stuart’s voice too. Really the book is written by both of them. Masters never takes over or forgets that this is a collaborative effort. It’s not sugar-coated and at the beginning it’s Stuart who first reads Master’s manuscript and says he could do better. He needs to make it more readable, Stuart says, because people should want to read it, like a Tom Clancy novel.

‘Do it the other way round’ he tells Masters, ‘make it more like a murder mystery. What murdered the boy I was? See? Write it backwards’.

The BBC film starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy
Posted in Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday! The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I love Jojo Moyes. Like many people I was introduced to her writing with the novel Me Before You. I became immediately attached to Louisa Clark, mainly because I felt that Moyes had created her character by stepping inside my head! My husband was paralysed due to MS and when I fell in love with him he was in a similar wheelchair to Will, with the same interests and charismatic spirit. Sadly, I lost him in 2007 and I have read Moyes’ follow up novels and found her depiction of grief and moving forward intelligent, moving and real.

The Giver of Stars is a different type of novel, more historical fiction than romance. It’s setting is the Depression era and a small town in rural Kentucky where the Van Cleeve family own the mines where most people work. Levels of rural poverty are high, African-Americans are still subject to segregation and while middle class women are expected to stay home and know their place, women in poorer families are working hard while trying their best to feed and look after ever-growing families. Into this setting comes Alice, the English bride of the heir to this mining fortune. Bennet Van Cleeve is handsome and considerate, and their marriage seems to start well but once they reach the family home things change. Bennet lives with his father and the death of his mother still hangs heavy over the house, with everything still being run to her exacting standards. Alice finds she has little to do and the house is full of her late mother-in-law’s ornaments and china dolls. She daren’t change anything because Mr Van Cleeve doesn’t like anything to be out of it’s normal place. More worrying is the change in Bennet now they are home, despite showing some desire at the beginning, the proximity to his father seems to be affecting their sex life. Several months down the line their marriage is still unconsummated and Mr Van Cleeve keeps hinting about grandchildren, adding to the pressure she feels.

When a town meeting is called to discuss President Roosevelt’s initiative to get the rural poor reading, Alice senses an opportunity and an outlet for her unspent energy. Margery O’Hare will head up the initiative. She is an outspoken and self-sufficient women who doesn’t listen to the opinion of anyone else, particularly men. She opens a door for Alice to escape the claustrophobic Van Cleeve household, into the wild forests of Kentucky. Alice learns to ride a mule, and along with Margery and two other local women she sets out as a librarian for the Packhorse Library. At first, rural locals are suspicious of an Englishwoman coming to the door offering them books, but soon Alice finds a way in and starts to be trusted. She also finds she likes the open air, the smells of the forest and singing of the birds. She enjoys the freedom of more casual clothes and the camaraderie she is building up with her fellow librarians. She is close to Margery and when she confides about her marriage, Margery loans her a book she has been sneaking out with the novels and recipes. It is an instruction book on married love and Margery has been loaning it to poor women on her rounds who are inundated with children and need educating about sex. Alice takes the book home and a series of events are set in motion that change not only the Van Cleeve household, but the whole town.

Old Mr Van Cleeve is determined to deal with Margery O’Hare and vows to destroy the Packhorse Library altogether. Margery is shrewd and is sure that a devastating flood had more behind it than high rainfall and suspects the mines. However, she has left herself vulnerable with what Van Cleeve sees as evidence of transgressive behaviour: she is exposed as having a relationship out of wedlock, she has hired an African-American woman who used to run the coloured library and she is encouraging townswomen to take control of their own lives. She seems impervious to other people’s disapproval so what lengths will he have to go to in order to stop her? Meanwhile, Alice starts to fall into a friendship with Frank who helps out at the library by chopping wood, putting up shelves and being a general handyman. They bond over poetry and spend hours talking and working side by side in the library building. The other librarians have seen what’s happening, but Alice doesn’t seem to realise this man is falling in love with her.

I loved this book and writing about it again has made me want to reread it. I was on holiday the first time and I stayed in my holiday cottage for two days to read it cover to cover. As always with Moyes, it is beautifully written and researched, with characters I fell in love with. She writes about relationships with so much insight and emotional intelligence. She captures the tensions of the Depression perfectly, depicting the rural poverty where work is scarcer and poor women really take the brunt of the economic conditions. Stuck at home with ever growing families they must have felt desperate for a break. They had land to grow vegetables and keep livestock, but there was still worry over where the next meal was coming from and hoping and praying that there are no more mouths to feed. Just as in the recent pandemic, money worries and pressure meant more domestic abuse. Margery is determined to educate these women to keep themselves safe and prevent their families growing. The town hasn’t kept up with the national shift in women’s attitudes and opportunities. Moyes shows that feminine power is on the rise and the new attitudes towards feminism, as well as marriage and sex, could end up battling against old money and old values. For the women, the poorer families and those residents who are African-American losing the power struggle could be disastrous, and some characters might pay a high price. I was braced for tragedy, but found myself desperate for the progressive characters and attitudes to prevail. It was this struggle that built the tension and kept me reading till 2am! Moyes achieved something real, romantic and historically significant with this novel, but most of all it is simply great storytelling. This book is an absolute must read and I still think it is probably her best novel to date.