Nearest Thing To Crazy by Elizabeth Forbes

Sometimes a book comes along that totally blows the mind.   Nearest Thing To Crazy by Elizabeth Forbes has done just that, my head is spinning, my heart has been beating so fast that I thought it was going to burst out of my chest.  I've been so angry with the characters that I've actually shouted at them - out loud.

Published by Cutting Edge Press on 27 June 2013, there is no doubt that this is going to be one of my Top Ten Books of the year.  There were times when I was actually a little bit scared of turning over the page, this is a mind-bending psychological head-fuck of the highest order.  I loved it!

Set in a small Worcestershire village - a group of middle-class families are happy to welcome novelist Ellie into their tight-knit group.  Glamorous Ellie fits nicely into their glossy lives, with their fancy houses, smart cars and perfect gardens.  She tells them that she is here to write her next book, she's rented a cottage for a few months and is looking forward to getting some inspiration for her story.

Cass and Dan have been married for years, their only child Laura has gone off to university and Cass is happy to potter around the garden, growing vegetables, collecting eggs and making chutney.   Everyone seems to love Ellie - except Cass, she is the only one who feels uncomfortable around her.  And for very good reason.     Slowly and gradually, Cass sees her life unravel - her past insecurities come back to haunt her, but nobody else can see that this is all because of Ellie.   First her husband, then her friends and finally her daughter - all of them - beginning to doubt her, believing in Ellie, slowly driving her mad.

Elizabeth Forbes is an excellent author who has written a story that has twists and turns on every page, not once did I guess how this was going to end.  The suspense builds until at times, it is almost unbearable.  Cleverly weaved into the main story of Cass is Ellie's point of view - who do you believe?


Gripping, clever, tense and thrilling.  This really is a fantastic read that I could hardly bear to put down and the story is going to haunt me for quite a while.

With thanks to Saffeya from Cutting Edge Press for sending my copy for review.

Cutting Edge Press have a really interesting catalogue of books, check out their website, their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter.  Elizabeth Forbes is also on Twitter.

The Liberty Tree by Suzanne Harrington

Suzanne Harrington's The Liberty Tree was written for her children.    Those two children no longer have a living father, but by writing this book she has made sure that they will always know him - and her.

The Liberty Tree is not just the story of Leo, but the story of Suzanne Harrington too, and at times it makes for some very difficult reading.   Not difficult in the sense that the writing is bad, far from it, but difficult emotionally.  This is a powerful, raw and startlingly honest story that has been bravely written.

Suzanne Harrington was an alcoholic, and a drug user.  Her husband Leo liked to party, but knew his limits.  Leo was a small, worried man, Suzanne was a larger than life, devil-may-care type of person.  As Suzanne slowly disintegrated into the blurry life of the seasoned drinker, Leo disintegrated into himself.  They produced two children, they tried to provide a happy home, despite finding themselves homeless, despite the drink and despite the fact that deep-down they didn't love each other.

If I'd met Suzanne Harrington years ago, when she was a drunken wreck, I probably wouldn't have liked her, she was rude, she was selfish and she cared little for anything else except drink.  If I met Suzanne Harrington today, I'd want to hug her.    She has exposed every little part of herself in this memoir, she doesn't try to justify her actions, she is honest - with herself and with her children.

The Liberty Tree is a wonderful, wonderful read - I laughed, I gasped and yes, I cried.  I cried for Suzanne and for Leo and for their two children.   The story is not all sobbing and sadness though, it is also warm and funny and touching and I grew to love all of the players in this amazing story.

Suzanne Harrington's children are lucky.  Lucky to have a mother who has faced up to her failings, turned herself around and written this amazing account for them, something that they can treasure and be proud of for ever.

My thanks to Stacey from We Love This Book for providing my copy for review.

Suzanne Harrington

The Liberty Tree is published by Atlantic Books on 4 July 2013.   Suzanne Harrington can be found on Twitter.   Find out more about The Liberty Tree @AtlanticBooks #LibertyTree

Suzanne Harrington has at various points been a journalist, TEFL teacher, a dole claimer, a backpacker, a youth worker, a painter, a wardrobe assistant, a washer-upper, a pen pusher, a house cleaner, a comic
bagger, a market stall holder and a cake maker.  She is a columnist for the Irish Examiner and also writes fro the Irish Independent, Irish Times and the Guardian.  She lives in Brighton.

The Story of Before by Susan Stairs

"I wonder today how no one else could see the bad thing coming.  Not that I knew back then what the bad thing was; and if I had - if I'd known one of us was going to die - would there have been anything I could have done to prevent it?  I play back in my mind, over and over.  The clues were all there."

These are the words of eleven-year-old Ruth, the narrator of The Story of Before.   Ruth and her family have just moved into their new Dublin home, away from the house that her Daddy grew up in which became too small for them when baby Kevin was born.   Kevin arrived early, on the day that they moved to the new house, he lived there for all of his life.

Ruth can often tell that something is going to happen, just little things usually, but this time things feel different; whatever is going to happen is going to change their lives, but Ruth doesn't know yet what it will be.

Susan Stairs has created an extraordinary voice in Ruth, she narrates this story with the innocence of a child, but the insight of someone so much older.  The sense of both the 70s era and the insular neighbourhood of the Dublin suburb are beautifully observed, the reader is transported smack bang into times when children had more freedom, the summer was long and hot and parents didn't have to worry.

Although this is a story of heartbreak and tragedy and features much sadness and the problems that families tend to hide behind their front doors, it is also Ruth's story.   Her family is strong, her parents love one another, her older siblings are close and Ruth feels a little left out.  The arrival of baby brother Kevin, is a turning point for her, along with trying to fit into the already closely formed friendship groups on the new estate.  Ruth makes many mistakes along the way.  Choosing the wrong boy to befriend ultimately leads to the incident that will shape the family for ever more.

The Story of Before is an engrossing read that I really found difficult to put down.  I found myself living Ruth's life for her and hoping against hope that her instinct that something bad would happen was wrong.

This is an outstanding debut from Susan Stairs that will keep the reader turning the pages late into the night.

Susan Stairs

The Story of Before was published by Atlantic Books on 4 June 2013 in trade paperback, it is also available as an ebook.   My thanks to Corinna Zifko from the publisher for sending a copy for review.

Born in London, Susan Stairs has lived in Ireland since early childhood.  Involved in the art business for many years, she has written extensively about Irish art and artists.  She received an MA in Creative Writing from University College Dublin in 2009 and was shortlisted for the Davy Byrnes Writing Award in the same year.  She lives in Dublin with her family.  The Story of Before is her first novel.
For more information about the author and her work, visit Facebook here, or Twitter here. 

Trespasser by Paul Doiron

Trespasser by Paul Doiron is the second of his series featuring Game Warden Mike Bowditch, set in rural Maine.  Trespasser was published by Constable & Robinson's C&R Crime in May 2013.  The first in the series; The Poachers's Son was released in January.  You can read my review of it here.

"While on patrol on foggy March evening, Mike Bowditch receives a call for help. A woman has reportedly struck a deer on a lonely coast road. When the game warden arrives on the scene, he finds blood in the road - but both the driver and deer have vanished. The details of the disappearance seem eerily familiar. Seven years earlier, a jury convicted Erland Jefferts of the rape and murder of a college student and sentenced him to a life in prison. But when the missing woman is found brutalized in a manner that suggests Jefferts may have been framed, Bowditch receives a warning from state prosecutors to stop asking questions.

For Bowditch, doing nothing is not an option. And as he closes in on his quarry, he suddenly discovers how dangerous his opponents are, and how far they will go to prevent him from bringing a killer to justice."

Just like The Poacher's Son, this next instalment is a gripping well thought out and expertly paced thriller story.  Our hero, Mike Bowditch is a little older and a tiny bit wiser - having learnt a great deal in the first story about his father and their relationship.  However, Bowditch is still young and at times he is still hot-headed, often acting on his instincts, rather than with common sense.   These traits make Bowditch a realistic and likeable character, someone who is passionate about his work and has a strong sense of justice.

The plot line is cleverly put together, at times complicated, but with each strand of the story meshing together to create an exciting thriller with plenty of twists and turns along the way.

Paul Doiron

As the mystery unfolds, so does the character of Bowditch along with his partner Sarah and his Warden colleagues.  Again, Doiron has brought to life the wonderful Maine countryside, with it's beauty and wildlife and it's bleakness and share of criminals.

I enjoyed every minute of this story and look forward very much to reading the next in the series.

As always, my thanks go to the Constable & Robinson C&R Crime team for providing my copy for review.

More information about Paul Doiron and his books can be found at this website here, on Facebook here and on Twitter here

Lying Together by Gaynor Arnold

I was really impressed by Gaynor Arnold's debut novel; The Girl In The Blue Dress, it was one of my favourite reads of 2008 and was longlisted for both the Orange Prize and the Man Booker Prize.

Lying Together is Arnold's collection of short stories, and published by Tindal Street Press in 2011.   I was very curious to discover if her short stories would compare with the brilliance of the full-length novel.

This is a collection of stories based on broken relationships, and broken people.  Gaynor Arnold has conjured up some wonderfully colourful characters in these stories, some set in the past, some in the present
with both male and female narrators.   She certainly has a great gift for capturing the reader's attention, and almost every story is engaging and entertaining.  Like most short story collections, some are better than others and I especially enjoyed the linked pair of stories; Mouth and Angel Child.  These two stories tell the story of Geraldine, from her perspective and that of her mother's.

Gaynor Arnold has proved that she can produce a cracking novel and I was delighted by this collection too.

More information about Gaynor Arnold and her books can be found on her website here

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp For Girls by Anton DiSclafani

Anton DiSclanfi's debut novel The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is published by Tinder Press on 6th June 2013 in hardback and ebook.

"North Carolina 1930: Thea Atwell is 'exiled' from her family home in Florida after a scandal that she has been held responsible for.  She is to start afresh at the Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls - an elite boarding school in the Blue Ridge Mountains where money, beauty and equestrian prowess count for everything.

Whilst Thea grapples with the events of the past that took her from her family home, she learns to negotiate the complex codes and social mores of a world that provides her with an education but also expects her to be married at twenty-one, in a world so rarified that it is almost immune to the devastating Depression sweeping the country.  Yet as she becomes closer to the Headmaster and his family, Thea's past returns to haunt her, is this her chance to learn from her mistakes or are some of us just programmed to put our desires above rational choices?  And if this is how life shaped us, how do we make the best of it?"

 There is something almost mystical and dreamlike about this book.  Told in the first person, Thea is something of an unreliable narrator.  Thea has spent her life cosseted by her family and its wealth, surrounded only by close family members, she has never had any contact with strangers before.
Thea believes that she will only spend the summer at the Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, and although she finds it very strange, suddenly thrust amongst a group of girls she has nothing in common with, she welcomes the chance to go riding every day.

This is a coming-of-age story with a difference.  Not only does Thea discover things about herself, she learns that beauty, wealth and the ability to ride better than others can affect how people judge her.  Thea longs for home and her family, especially her twin brother Sam, she finds it difficult to understand the dress codes, the behaviour of these pretty, almost alien Southern girls.  Thea is not always the most pleasant of characters, she often appears selfish and self-centred, but she is also determined and quite daring at times.

Anton DiSclafani writes descriptive prose with ease.  From the Southern countryside, to the Florida heat, all beautifully drawn and very alluring.   Her handling of adolescent girls' relationships is impressive, detailing the jealously, the closeness, the adulation with ease.

Anton DiSclafani

This is a slow-paced, character rich novel that should be savoured for it's sense of place and fine detail.

The author has drawn upon her own childhood when writing this novel, she grew up in Florida and visited
her family's cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near the real Yonahlossee.

For more information about the author, please visit her webpage here.  Join the conversation on Twitter: #yonahlosee

My thanks go to Helena Towers at the Headline Press Officer who supplied my copy for review.

Me and Mr Jones by Lucy Diamond

Me And Mr Jones is Lucy Diamond's seventh novel and is published by Pan Macmillan, released on 6 June 2013.

The story revolves around the Jones family; the four Mr Jones and the women and children that share their lives.
Eddie Jones and his wife Lilian have lived in Mulberry House for over forty years, this is where they brought up their three sons; Hugh, David and Charlie.  Mulberry House is now a guest house and Lilian and Eddie have managed their business very well over the years.  Lilian has realised though that Eddie's health is not so good,  it is time for them to retire, but will any of their sons want to take over the business?

Be warned!  Once you start reading Me And Mr Jones you will won't want to put it down.  This is the perfect summer read, full of entertaining and vividly drawn characters who immediately begin to feel like members of your own family.     Hugh has been married to Alicia for around twenty years, they appear to be the model family; good jobs, nice house and three lovely children.  Alicia is approaching her fortieth birthday and is beginning to feel unsettled, she is tired of being the perfect wife, always cleaning and cooking, she want a little excitement in life.  Little does she know that good old Hugh has a little secret of his own.

David, the middle son has lost his job.  His wife Emma is desperate for a baby, everything seems to be crumbling around them.  Emma wants a baby, she is determined to get pregnant, and nothing will stand in her way.

Charlie, the youngest son, is a charmer.  Totally unreliable, but Lilian's favourite son. Everything that he touches fails, yet he is lovable and honest and loyal. When he meets Izzy, on the run from an abusive husband with two young daughters in tow, everyone assumes that this is going to be another of Charlie's failures.  They don't know Izzy though!

Lucy Diamond has written a novel that is a joy to read.  It's a pleasure to sit down with this book and totally lose yourself for a few hours.  Although funny, it also deals with some pretty serious issues, and she deals with them very well.    I found myself completely caught up with each of the characters and their lives.
We meet Lilian and scowl in frustration as she bitches at her daughters-in-law and undermines anyone who dares to speak back to her, then we get to know her a little better and find that underneath the bluster there is a loving wife who is worried sick.  She is worried sick about Eddie - a wonderful father character who I loved instantly.

Lucy Diamond

This is sparkly, summer reading at its very best.  Characters to love and a really engaging storyline.   I enjoyed every page, and really hope that Lucy Diamond will consider writing a sequel.  I'd love to know what happens to the Jones family in the future.

Lucy Diamond has a website here where you can find out more about her other book.  You can also find her on Twitter here.

I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of Me And Mr Jones when I attended the Pan Pacmillan Women's Fiction Party a few months ago.  I also found myself standing next to Lucy Diamond in the queue to get our name badges at the party, but was a little star struck and didn't say hello!  Silly me!

Black Bread White Beer by Niven Govinden

Black Bread White Beer by Niven Govinden is something of a voyeuristic novel.  Spanning just twenty-four hours, the story follows Amal and Claud, a young married couple who are taking a trip into the country to visit Claud's parents.

Amal and Claud have been married for three years, they come from very different backgrounds, but share the same hopes and dreams.  Yesterday Claud miscarried their first child.   Today Amal is trying to come to terms with the alien-like stranger who sits alongside him in the car, who used to be his wife.

Narrated throughout by Amal, this is a short, yet stark look at modern-day marriage.  Not only do this couple have to deal with the horror of losing a baby; a baby that they'd only known about for twenty one days, they also have to deal with the clash of cultures that their marriage has brought about.  Claud's white middle-class parents try to deal with Amal's colour and Indian heritage as best they can, emphasising their terms of endearment so that nobody could ever accuse them of prejudice.

There is an underlying tension running through this story which keeps the reader on edge, almost fearful of what may happen.  Claud has decided that her parents should not know about the miscarriage and upon entering her childhood home has reverted back to a childlike state.  Doted on by her parents, allowed to dress up in her mother's cocktail gown, or bury sad memories in a Tupperware box in the garden - this is Claud's way of coping.  Amal, on the other hand is lost.  He feels left out, excluded and finds it incredibly difficult to accept the congratulations thrust upon him by the villagers.

Niven Govinden

Although narrated by Amal and heavily featuring Claud and her parents, it is Claud and Amal's marriage that takes centre stage in this novel.  Almost stripped bare by both of them in their desperate need to understand what went wrong, their relationship begins to teeter and fall, and one wonders if it will ever regain it's balance.

Although bleak, this is an excellent novel, with a flash of humour and a lot of humanity.  Niven Govinden's writing is engaging, descriptive and incredibly readable.

Black Bread White Beer was published by The Friday Project at the beginning of May.


My thanks go to The Friday Project for sending my copy for review.

Gracie by Marie Maxwell : Review and Q&A with the author

I've been a fan of Bernardine Kennedy's novels for many years, and am now most certainly a fan of her alter-ego Marie Maxwell.
Ruby was the first in a planned series of four novels and I enjoyed it immensely, it was published in the summer of 2012 and you can read my review of it here.

The second in the series; Gracie was published by Avon (HarperCollins) in mid April 2013 and I've been looking forward to catching up with the characters for a long time.   Although this book is part of the series, the author provides enough background information throughout the story which makes it a great stand alone story too.

Gracie is Ruby's best friend and although she featured heavily in the first novel, this is her story.  Gracie and Ruby are back home, living and working in the Southend hotel that Ruby recently inherited.  Gracie still has the scars on her heart from the hard times that she lived through when she was younger, but is excited and happy to accept a marriage proposal from long-term boyfriend Sean Donnelly.  Sean works hard and loves Gracie.  This is her chance to settle down and have a family, to love and be loved, probably for the first time in her life.
Gracie's big mistake is to keep secret from Sean the most important thing that has happened to her, the one thing that has shaped her life, and the thing that hurts her so much.  Despite this, the couple begin married life with big dreams and high hopes for the future, until Sean begins to show a side that Gracie does not like.

I loved Ruby; Marie Maxwell's first novel, but I adored Gracie.    As with Ruby, this is a compelling story that does not shy away from some really sensitive, yet very important issues.   It is clear that the author has drawn on her experiences and knowledge when writing this story as it is so real and believable.  The lead characters are, on the whole, strong women who have suffered hardships yet are still fun-loving and hopeful.

The period setting is wonderful, the descriptions of 1950s Southend are rich and evocative and the plot is fast-paced and packed with interesting and well-rounded characters - some you will love and others you will loathe and detest.

Both Ruby and Gracie have been a joy to read, I'm now eagerly awaiting the next in the series which I believe will feature Maggie and will be set in the 1960s.

It is an honour and a pleasure to welcome Marie Maxwell (aka Bernardine Kennedy) to Random Things - I asked her a few questions about books and writing.

      What are you reading at the moment?

Perfect People by Peter James (Kindle) and Dearest Rose by Rowan Coleman (paperback).  I like a cross-section of genres.... my bookshelves and Kindle reflect this, they will also reflect that I’m not too adventurous or literary. I want to read for entertainment so I’m in heaven with a good old Jackie Collins, James Patterson or similar. 

   

Do you read reviews of your novels?      Do you take them seriously?

Yes I do. Avidly! Sometimes I wish I could stop clicking but I can’t and I do take them seriously although if they’re particularly vicious (and there are always one or two) then I have to tell myself it doesn’t matter. But the majority are good and constructive and I do take notice of the feedback, I need it, writing can be very insular so knowing what readers expect is very important.

How long does it take to write a novel?

I write one a year but that year consists of research and plotting as well as the actual putting of the words onto the paper. And there’s usually that cross-over time when the previous book needs promoting and the new one is creeping towards deadline. A lot of juggling goes on constantly.

Do you have any writing rituals?

Only that I have to have the bits and pieces of everyday life in order before I can sit down and set to it, even if it’s only writing a list! Actually it often is just writing the list, that's enough to satisfy me... 

What was your favourite childhood book?

Probably Enid Blyton’s Island of Adventure. (and the rest of the series) Oh how I wanted to be part of that world. I was quite a solitary child and loved the idea of going off with other children and having adventures. 

Name one book that made you laugh?

I’m ashamed to say I don’t really read humorous books although I do sometimes laugh at biographies. Thinking about it I did laugh most at ‘Stone Me, the Wit and Wisdom of Keith Richards’. He has a way with spontaneous words both good and bad!

Name one book that made you cry?

I read ‘Home for Christmas’ by Annie Groves (Penny Jordan) just after she had died. She was a friend and I sobbed through that one. A fabulous and most prolific author.

Which fictional character would you like to meet?

The mother in ‘We Need to talk about Kevin’. Just to find out what she was really like. I simply couldn’t fathom her out and I’m still not sure if I feel sorry for her or if I blame her. Now I've said it I think I may go back and read it again. Something I don’t often do.

Which book would you give to your best friend as a present?

One of mine? No, not really. Maybe ‘Gone Girl’ the current top seller. I read it when I was on holiday recently, I wasn’t sure about it but I had to finish it to find out the end. I’d love to know what others think of it. It seems to have appeared from nowhere and flown!  

Are you inspired by any particular author or book?

Jackie Collins and ‘Hollywood Wives’. I not only wanted to write like her, I wanted to be her! I was so envious of it all! Note I said envious, not jealous. It was very fleeting but i still admire her tremendously. 

What is your guilty pleasure read?

I don’t feel guilty about any books I read now. Someone laughed on the train a while ago, a stranger no less, when I was reading Jeffrey Archer and suggested I put a brown cover on it. But I like his books, always have. Another good storyteller IMO. I don’t care about his private life!

Who are your favourite authors?

At the moment I’d say Jodi Picoult and Kathy Reichs but it could all change next month. I’ve gone through so many phases over the years. The one’s who have stayed all through are Jackie Collins and Jilly Cooper.

What book have you re-read?

I’m currently re-reading Tanamera by Barber which I still love (a novel set in Singapore in the forties) but I recently read Valley of the Dolls and now wish I hadn’t. I loved it so much at the time but sadly it hasn’t worn well.

What book have you given up on?

War and Peace? Not that I’ve tried it recently! I tried to read many many years ago because I thought I ought to so that was probably the wrong way to approach it.

Thank you so much, Bernardine, for answering my questions Good Luck with Gracie!

For more information about Bernardine, her books and Marie Maxwell, take a look at her website here

The Favoured Daughter: One Woman's Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future by Fawzia Koofi with Nadine Ghouri

Fawzia Koofi is an Afghan politician, she is one of the first women politicians and her aim is to run for Presidency.  In The Favoured Daughter, Fawzia tells the story of her very difficult, dangerous journey through times of war, political unrest and incredible danger.  She is a woman who is brave, committed and loyal and her story is one that should inspire women all over the world.

Fawzia was her Father's nineteenth child, there were twenty-three in total.  Her mother was his second wife, one of seven and Fawzia was her last child.    When Fawzia was born she was abandoned by her mother, left out in the sun to die because she was not a boy.  That was the first time that she faced death and survived, many more times would follow throughout her life.   Despite their start in life, Fawzia and her Mother became inseparable and loved each other so much, her Mother couldn't read or write, yet instilled in her a great sense of justice and self-belief.

As the political climate in Afghanistan shifted, so did the plight of the women who lived there.  Fawzia's childhood is described with joy and full of love and family, but as the Taliban began to take over the country her life, and the lives of all Afghan women changed dramatically.  The country was at war and Fawzia saw loved ones murdered, was stopped from studying and lost her beloved Mother.    Despite this, she was determined that one day she would prove her Mother right and that she would enter politics, change life in Afghanistan and maybe, one day become President.

Fawzia tells her story in simple, yet incredibly emotive language.  The internal politics of Afghanistan are explained clearly.  The horrors of war, the discrimination, the tortures, the hate and also the love that makes this country what it is today and spurred Fawzia on are excellently portrayed, often harrowing but always vivid.   Fawzia is an inspirational woman, she is daughter, sister, wife and mother and takes each and every role so seriously, never giving up hope that one day, the country that she loves will return to peace.

A brave and inspiring lady, a beautifully written story.

The Favoured Daughter by Fawzia Koofi was published in hardback last year, the paperback version is released by Palgrave Macmillan on 14 May 2013.

My thanks to Katy from Palgrave who kindly sent my copy for review.

If you would like to find out more about Fawzia, and her support committee, there is a website here

Buddhaland Brooklyn by Richard C Morais

I was really excited to discover that Richard C Morais had written a new novel, I read his first book The Hundred Foot Journey a couple of years ago and totally fell in love with his writing style and characters - my review is here, on my blog.

His latest novel; Buddhaland Brooklyn was published at the end of April by Alma Books, and again I've been very very impressed by his wonderfully creative and captivating writing.

The story begins in the remote mountain regions of Japan and monk Seido Oda is reflecting on his childhood and how be came to enter the temple as a small child.   The reader is taken to a traditional family in a small village and introduced, one by one, to Oda's family.  His hardworking parents, the brothers he adores and his small sister.  Each character is brought to life by Morais, he draws each one perfectly - capturing each individual and giving them a real presence.

Oda himself is something of an introvert, yet he can also be set in his ways, often judgemental and very direct.  He sticks to what he believes in and expects others to do the same.   Oda is almost forty years old and expects to live out his days in the beautiful temple that he considers home, teaching the young acolytes how to produce beautiful art work and observing his faith.   It is massive shock to him when he is told that he is to travel to Brooklyn, New York to oversee the building of a temple in the area of Little Calabria.  Oda tries everything he can to get out of leaving, but eventually finds himself living amongst the American Believers and trying to understand the chaos of New York.

Coming from a peaceful, tranquil, beautiful area of Japan and finding himself in an apartment in noisy, loud, often dirty New York is a major shock to Oda.  Another shock is the behaviour of the American Believers and how they interpret the Buddhist teachings.

"Directly below the window was a weedy garden, and a line hung with children's clothes and huge billowing underpants that must have belonged to a very large woman.  A crow cawed at me from the telephone wires that ran from the house to a vine-crawled pole out back.  As I was studying this urban view, a butterfly briefly alighted on a monstrous-sized brassiere hanging from the clothesline, before fluttering off again. This was a good omen, it improved my mood."

Richard C Morais has created a wonderful character in Oda.  The despair and disbelief that he feels every day when in New York is almost palpable when reading.   The supporting cast of characters are larger than life, often a bit mad, sometimes very sad and excellently produced.

What I loved most about this book was the description of both Japan and New York.  The contrast is startling,  yet both places come to life.

Woven through this novel is a story of change, of learning about oneself, and of appreciating other people.  It tells the story of a man who is a good man, but a flawed man and how the challenges he meets in the strange land that is Brooklyn then go on to shape his future.

This is a sensitive story, with flashes of quick and clever humour and writing that is exceptional in places.  The descriptive prose is stunning, the characters are fabulous.

Morais's debut novel, The Hundred-Foot Journey, is the international best-seller that has sold in 21 territories around the world and is in active film development. His first book, an unauthorized biography of Pierre Cardin, was published by Bantam Press in 1991 to critical acclaim. He currently lives in New York, where he is also the editor ofBarron's Penta, a quarterly magazine and website offering insights and advice to affluent families. An American born in Lisbon and raised in Zurich, Morais lived in London for 17 years, where he served as Forbes magazine's European Bureau Chief.

Follow author Richard C. Morais on twitter @richardcmorais and on his website  www.richardcmorais.com

A Time of Myths by Chris Blamires

My email inbox seems to contain more and more author requests recently.  Authors have spotted my reviews, either on Amazon, Goodreads, or here on my blog and ask that I consider their books for review.  As much as I'd love to say yes to everyone, I just don't have the time to read and review them all as well as read the books that I've actually chosen myself.   I also don't read e-books, so that makes saying no a little easier at times.

When debut author Chris Blamires contacted me to tell me about his novel A Time Of Myths, I was intrigued by the synopsis, and also by his personal and friendly approach.    A Time of Myths is published by The Literature Orchard in paperback and was released at the end of April, it is also available for Kindle.

A Time of Myths is an incredibly brave and adventurous first novel; a dual-time and multiple location story featuring a group of young English travellers who originally meet at the Woodstock Festival in 1969.  The story is also set on a small Greek island, and it was the combination of Woodstock and Greece that sold the book to me.    The lead characters are all flawed, all with their individual emotional baggage and together they create a dynamic group that spark off each other.  Their relationships are confused, never easy and create a darkness that colours the whole story.
The tiny Greek island is depicted in such a different way to the traditional fictional view of Greece.   The inhabitants are not the jolly, all-smiling Greeks of legend, but morose, unwelcoming and quite frightening at times.

I'm not going to talk about the story line here, suffice to say that it is well structured and multi-layered with some dramatic scenes and a air of the psychological thriller about it.   The switches between 60s Woodstock and the present day are well handled, and the story is well paced and quite compelling.   I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the Woodstock Festival, the author reveals the murky side to the event and doesn't gloss over anything.  Most of us think of a sunny, happy-smiley Festival, full of love and joy, it was interesting to read another side to the legend.

I did feel, at times that there was a little too much going on, with some supporting characters who personally I felt were surplus to the story.   The journey to the Festival felt long and quite drawn out although I realise that the author wanted the reader to know the characters well before they arrived.

This is a genre-busting novel, and would appeal to a wide range of readers.  It's a coming-of-age story, there are thrills, a little bit of magic and mystical goings on and a dollop of history too.

Beautifully presented with a striking front cover illustration, this is a fine debut from new author Chris Blamires.  I enjoyed the story and the characters and look forward to reading more from the author.

My thanks to Chris Blamires for providing a copy for review, to find out more about A Time of Myths please visit the website here

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

Over the past couple of weeks I've had a bit of reading blip.  I've been making my way through some books that have been waiting around and nothing has really thrilled me.  I was beginning to worry that I'd lost my reading mojo.

Then I picked up The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, I admit that I didn't have huge expectations as historical fiction is not my favourite genre.  There has been a lot of hype around this novel in the US, with many comparisons to The Help.  Now, I enjoyed The Help when I read it, but it didn't blow me away by any means, and if I'm honest, I actually thought the film was better than the book.

The Kitchen House is Kathleen Grissom's first novel and was published here in the UK by Doubleday at Transworld on 14 March 2013.

Thank goodness - my reading mojo is back, and was saved by this novel!  I have been totally transfixed by this wonderful story and enjoyed every page of it.  Kathleen Grissom has produced a story that is moving and shocking, with characters that are so well created that the reader feels as though they are family.  This is not a pleasant story, at times it is harrowing and very cruel, but it is compelling and I found it very difficult to put it down.

Set in Virginia, and beginning in 1791, The Kitchen House tells the story of Lavinia, a seven-year-old Irish orphan.   Lavinia finds herself working in the kitchen of a wealthy plantation owner and soon becomes part of the family of black slaves who are owned by and work on the plantation.  As Lavinia grows up, she becomes more aware of her white skin, and how this makes her different to her adopted family.  The story is narrated alternatively by Lavinia and by Belle.  Belle has always been a mother figure to Lavinia, yet she is black, a slave, and owned fully by the Captain.

Kathleen Grissom has proved with this debut novel that she can write very well.  Her writing has a warmth and compassionate edge that even when dealing with some horrific incidents of violence and cruelty urges the reader to carry on reading.  The subject matter is shocking, the writing is brave, the story is important.

Kathleen Grissom

Over the past ten years, Kathleen Grissom and her husband have been restoring an old plantation tavern in Virginia.  While researching the plantation's past, Kathleen found an old map on which, not far from their home, was the notation, 'Negro Hill'.  Unable to determine the story of its origin, local historians suggested that it most likely represented a tragedy.  This became the inspiration behind The Kitchen House.

To find out more about Kathleen Grissom, visit her website here

**Givaway Time** The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway - Interview and Book Giveaway

In January this year I was lucky enough to read an early review copy of Bee Ridgway's debut novel The River of No Return, you can read my thoughts here.

I have a paperback advance reading copy to give away, please enter by completing the Rafflecopter form at the bottom of this post.

The River of No Return is a brilliantly escapist and enchanting debut novel about forbidden love by Bee Ridgway and will be published by Michael Joseph, Penguin on May 23 2013. 

Featuring a time travelling Marquis and a mysterious organisation called The Guild, The River of No Return has the same magical and indefinable atmosphere as The Night Circus or The Snow Child. Impossible to pin down in terms of genre, this is cracking, good quality, story telling at its best. A book that demands to be read, talked about and shared, it was born from Bee’s desire to include everything she loved in one novel. 

Bee worked for a year in features at Elle Magazine in the US and went on to Cornell for a doctoral degree in English Literature. She is now a Professor of American Literature at Bryn Mawr university and the book is interwoven with subtle literary echoes from her favourite books. Bee is super intelligent and lots of fun to be around. She lives with her partner in Philadelphia and this is her first novel.   Find out more about Bee and the book at www.beeridgway.com

Bee kindly agreed to answer some questions for me, here we go:

What are you reading at the moment?  I just this morning finished The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. They gave it to me when I visited the Penguin offices in London and it kept me laughing on the plane all the way back to Philadelphia.  It's a wonderful comic romance, both hilarious and humane.  The male hero and narrator is on the Aspergers spectrum, and has a very difficult time reading other people's emotions or feeling empathy in a conventional way.  His perspective makes the experience of reading a romance marvellously off-kilter, and as a reader you learn to empathise, and even love, in a new way

Do you / will you read reviews of your novel?  Do you / will you take them seriously?  Yes, and so far it is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. The River Of No Return is my first novel, and it has only been out there for people to read and critique for a few weeks.  Learning how to read reviews and how to process them emotionally is proving to be a bit difficult.  No, rephrase. It is TERRIFYING.  But while the emotional side of it is hard, the fact is that I have been a professional book reviewer for years.  Once I get over the initial butterflies in the stomach, I can recognise when a review is going to be helpful to me. This is only partly because I need a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down!  It's also because - and I've learned this from years of teaching - it is easier to learn from the position of what is strong but could be made stronger, than from the position of what fails and is simply bad.  BUT - and this is very important - reviews are for readers, not writers.  I do read them and I try to learn from them, but I also think it is a privilege to see them at all.  I am not the audience for which they are intended, and if someone out there really didn't enjoy my book, I am sorry for it, but fair enough.  Different strokes for different folks!

How long does it take to write a novel?  All in all it was fifteen months between first sitting down to write and sending in the final page proofs.  I have never worked so hard in my entire life - the book went through many revisions - but I have also never had so much fun.

Do you have any writing rituals?  I didn't have an outline for my novel.  I tried to write every day until I hit a cliffhanger, either an emotional or an action-based one.  Sometimes that would be a ten or a fourteen hour writing day.  Then I would go to sleep, telling myself to figure out what came next in my dreams.  Almost invariably I would wake up fired up and ready to keep writing.  Once I was in the revision stage (or stages - it was completely overhauled and expanded several times) that completely changed.  But for getting that first draft down I wrote from cliffhanger to cliffhanger.

.  Check out the video below where Bee talks about her novel.

What was your favourite childhood book?  I had/have dozens and dozens.  I doubt I will ever read with quite such a feeling of magic and transporting joy as I did when I was a kid.  But let's see,  I think I was on a continuum between traditional masterpieces like C S Lewis' The Magician's Nephew (my favourite in the Narnia Series) and Daniel Pinkwater's far edgier Lizard Music, which is a surreal adventure about a misfit boy in a gritty magical version of Chicago.  Although now that I think about it, The Magician's Nephew is about a misfit boy in a magical verison of England so maybe not so different after all.

Name one book that made you laugh?  I love being surprised into a good laugh.  But the book that mde me laugh the most is a little-known 1948 memoir by Betty MacDonald called The Plague And I.  I found it in a charity shop in Sevenoaks and I picked it up because I have a secret love of plague literature.  Like for instrance, Daniel Defoe's A Journal Of The Plague Year.  Not a funny book, Mr Defoe's.  But amazing.  So I picked up this old, falling-apart green-and-white Penguin paperback thinking "this will be nice and grim".  It's about the year MacDonald spent flat on her back in a tuberculosis sanitarium outside of Seattle, Washington. Which does not sound funny, I know.  But trust me.  I laughed so hard my sides ached for a day and a half.

Name one book that made you cry?  I'm an easy crier, just like my Dad - so it isn't necessarily a gauge of anything!  But I had a real cry during the first scene of Elizabeth Fremantle's The Queen's Gambit.  It is written form the perspective of Catherine Parr's second husband, as he lies dying.  She gives up his pain and his passion in its entirety for a few pages, and never returns to him ..... you know you will lose him even as you begin to know and love him.

Which fictional character would you like to meet?  Jo March.  I'd like to give her a piece of my mind!

Are you inspired by any particular author or book?  All of them?  I mean, it's amazing that people write books, and they they invite people into them.  I'm also impressed by readers.  I love borrowing a book from a friend or the library and reading in the wake of other readers - other voyagers into the unknown.  But the question was about a particular book or author, and I suppose that today I am inspired by Philip Red Eagle. My novel is a big, frothy time travel story set mostly in London of 1815 .... it couldn't be more distant in tone and subject from Red Eagle's serious, emotionally harrowing time travel stories in Red Earth: A Vietnam Warrior's Journey.  His path to writing the two novellas in that volume was difficult.  Writing literally saved his life and I will always find that utterly humbling and incredible.

What is your guilty pleasure read?  When I'm feeling blue I reach for my beautiful old rag-eared paperback copies of Georgette Heyer that I collected from charity shops when I was living in the UK.  Especially her early novel, These Old Shades.  Surely someday the well of pleasure will run dry. But I hope not.

What book have you re-read?  See above!  But actually there are many to which I return again and again, both for pleasure and for my work.  I'm a professor, and I have to read the books I teach over and over again.  Each re-readig is a new experience.  I teach a class three or four times before I feel I've wrung it dry. Next year will be my last time teaching a course called American Girl.  It is a class that asks why girls and girlhood are so important to pre-suffrage American literature.  So of course we have to read Little Women, a book that I love and hate in equal measure.  I hope that this next time I teach the novel I will finally be able to reconcile my feelings.  But I think irreconcilable feelings was Alcott's goal when she wrote that dastardly book, darn her!

What book have you given up on?  There are a lot and most often is isn't the author's fault.  When it is something that I would say was a 'fault' with the book it's usually because it is a genre convention that just isn't to my taste.  I read a lot of books that fall under the umbrella of 'romance', but I'm picky about it, and I don't enjoy every variant of the genre.  For example, I just don't like romances where the heroine has to contend with another woman who wants to bring her down out of jealousy. Basically the evil stepmother plot really bugs me.

I'd like to say a huge thanks to Bee for answering my questions and giving such interesting answers

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The Nightingale Sisters by Donna Douglas

The Nightingale Sisters by Donna Douglas was published this week by Arrow Books at Random House and is the second in the series.   The first, The Nightingale Girls was released in Autumn 2012 - you can read my review of it here.

The Nightingale Sisters takes up the story of the three student nurses that readers met in the first book; Dora, Millie and Helen, although Helen does not seem to feature quite so much in this one.  Also featuring heavily is the new night sister Violet Tanner - a woman with a secret past that she does everything she can to hide.

Set once again at the Florence Nightingale Teaching Hospital in the east end of London, the three girls are now in their second year of training.   Dora comes from a tough east end family and times are hard at home.  When her step father up and left the family, only Dora was relieved, but she can't tell anyone why. As her mother and siblings struggle to cope at home, Dora struggles to cope with her own personal heartbreaks.

Millie is the daughter of a wealthy family and engaged to Seb.  She also has feelings for Helen's doctor brother William and feels torn between them.  Her inner struggles begin to impact on her work at the Hospital and she begins to question all that she had believed in.

Once again, Donna Douglas has written a warm and engaging story with characters that are so easy to care for.  There are some really serious themes running throughout the novel, from domestic violence to the effects of poverty, and the harsh realities of working class life are portrayed excellently.    Each character has their own story, and each story interweave to create a compelling, compassionate, sometimes funny and often heart-breaking read.    It is clear that once again Donna Douglas has meticulously researched her subject, creating an authentic account of life on the wards of a large teaching hospital.

A completely satisfying read, I enjoyed it even more than the first book. There is plenty of scope to continue the series and I'm looking forward to the next one already.



My thanks go to the author for sending a copy for review.

Donna Douglas lives in York with her husband and daughter.  Besides writing novels, she is also a very well respected freelance journalist under her real name, Donna Hay.  For more information on Donna, please visit her blog here, or follow her on Twitter here.

A Fucked Up Life In Books

The web seems to have been overwhelmed by book bloggers recently, I'm not complaining because I'm one of them, so how could I moan?  One of the hardest things about having such a choice of reviewers is finding just the right ones to follow, finding someone who thinks along the same lines and whose reviews you can really believe and trust in.   @Bookcunt is one of my favourite bloggers.  She's controversial, she's outspoken and she's very sweary!   I've followed her reviews for ages, I've read her Tweets for ages, but it is only in the past couple of months that I've actually interacted with her.  To be truthful, I was scared of her! She's so feisty and so cool that I didn't know what to say to her, so I said nowt!    We kind of bonded over Caroline Smailes' latest novel; The Drowning of Arthur Braxton.  We both loved the book, we both love Caroline - that brought us together.  I'm not scared of her any more.

When The Friday Project offered to send me a preview copy of her book, I jumped at the chance.  I read it over last weekend.  She made me cry.

A Fucked Up Life in Books tells her story, from childhood to the present time.  Each significant episode in her life is associated with the book that she was reading at the time.  I love this concept, I love the fact that Howard's End is the only book she has read whilst having sex (I'd love it even more if her partner had been called Howard!).  That's one of the funny moments.   There are quite a few funny moments, but there are many poignant moments, and these are the moments that really resonate.  These are the moments that expose her vulnerability, her emotions and her sadness.  These are the moments that have made BC the lady she is today, the reasons why she is so sweary, and the reasons why she is quite special.

I don't know who BC is.  I know she works in publishing and she is in her late twenties.  I want to know more, and I really think that this could be just the start for her writing career.

The book is full of swearing, at times it is crude and to the point.  Anyone who thinks that they'd be shocked? Then don't read it.    However, I'd really recommend that you do read it.  It's powerful stuff.

Huge thanks to The Friday Project for my preview copy of the book which will be released as an eBook in May.    

Oh, and I've been invited to the launch party in May.  I'm going to meet her!  I really don't know what I'm going to say to her ........ I'm beginning to feel a tiny bit scared again!