tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826425202169015832024-02-21T17:11:16.315+00:00Geranium Cat's BookshelfGeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.comBlogger410125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-5933460985764140162023-12-03T16:25:00.003+00:002023-12-03T16:25:16.378+00:00Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales<p>I can't remember ever reading this early outing for Vera Stanhope, Ann Cleeves' detective made famous by Brenda Blethyn on television. The first thing I want to say is what a good job narrator Janine Birkett does. Like Blethyn she makes the ever-so-slightly repulsive Vera into an interesting and frequently sympathetic character, complex, shrewd and sometimes a bit wistful. Looking at Birkett's work on IMDB, it's evident that her northern credentials are sound, and indeed, the accents in the audiobook are refreshingly accurate. This means that I would actually rather listen to the audio version than read a paper copy or ebook. Since I now find even my Kindle increasingly tiring to hold, that's a cheering thought.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMAmvdhI9scOVuQe1EL787hP9AfuQYRB1edOQSfSiJ69qdyZoVOQhOJFatkYMnhZrD4vuDli-CABi0aQCcfCxA0HRNT1nwcdYHSe1zlEIsZA5iadN1Gfa8PAzygeZ9naInfb_IRQ2vgcCx73ctEU75NnNc-sX2e-K6IdJmRcjtOZWCdNWVpw6mOBLo/s255/telling%20tales.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="255" data-original-width="255" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMAmvdhI9scOVuQe1EL787hP9AfuQYRB1edOQSfSiJ69qdyZoVOQhOJFatkYMnhZrD4vuDli-CABi0aQCcfCxA0HRNT1nwcdYHSe1zlEIsZA5iadN1Gfa8PAzygeZ9naInfb_IRQ2vgcCx73ctEU75NnNc-sX2e-K6IdJmRcjtOZWCdNWVpw6mOBLo/s1600/telling%20tales.png" width="255" /></a></div><p>The plot is, as you'd expect, well-told and tightly constructed. I don't, as a rule, play the guess-the-murderer game, preferring to let the author tell me at their own pace. This tale spun out satisfyingly and I had no urge to rush through it, nor to shout back at it about inconsistencies or implausibilities. That it took Vera off her home ground created added tension, even if she was able to take Joe Ashworth with her. And, like most of Cleeves' books, it dealt with difficult issues in a thoughtful way.</p><p>I hope that there will be more from this narrator. Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan UK Audio for an advance copy. This audiobook of <i>Telling Tales</i> will be published on 1 January 2024.</p>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-66449915737285759642023-11-24T17:23:00.002+00:002023-11-24T17:23:23.702+00:00Beth Moran, Take Me Home<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR3Ix_RnjxObdb3SQEzoZI-b1yW5gw1ac5gskYRUbVfJ4SIkYKQCBpurfBBZH56mzRSCATaprUVDYh1dCSFelAnBdE2WiGylxlxQ8I9oc5vcjxTxebMjJKTI4SQKuI4GQecm60M2hZhd-CByDSh-39mlqxCO2RZRoMcOAomHAH-WWsb6I63vsCZu0L/s1500/moran.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="987" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR3Ix_RnjxObdb3SQEzoZI-b1yW5gw1ac5gskYRUbVfJ4SIkYKQCBpurfBBZH56mzRSCATaprUVDYh1dCSFelAnBdE2WiGylxlxQ8I9oc5vcjxTxebMjJKTI4SQKuI4GQecm60M2hZhd-CByDSh-39mlqxCO2RZRoMcOAomHAH-WWsb6I63vsCZu0L/s320/moran.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><i>Take Me Home</i> was a very enjoyable read, from an author I've started to regard as very reliable. The book fits into my invented category of "nest-building", which has become my favourite escapist reading (it's a broad category which includes almost any variety of moving to a new house - unexpected legacy, marital breakdown and relocation, returning to the family home, starting a new business etc).</p><p>Here, home is at first a very small space for Sophie, who shares her motorhome with Muffin, her dog. She has a rather specialised business, supporting people and their families at the end of a life and and she preserves her privacy fiercely between jobs. As we meet her she's just finished one such job and has a choice for what she'll do next. First, a complicated family probably about to fight over an inheritance, one of whom is allergic to dogs, so she'll be living in her van in northern England in winter; the other is an artist who wants help tidying up her affairs - she's a dog owner, there's a guest suite, it's a country estate... of course, Sophie chooses the latter.</p><p>Her arrival at Middlebeck is embarrassing for number of reasons. She finds herself crashing a therapy group, so the initial welcome is somewhat frosty. Then her new client introduces her as a historian who's come to write a book, a falsification which will later prove extremely awkward. But it turns out that the artist is someone whose work she loves, and she agrees to stay and after her first night in the house finds herself beguiled by its warmth and beauty.</p><p>Which is all I'm going to say about the plot. I knew by then that I was going to enjoy the book very much. I already liked Sophie and Muffin and Hattie seemed like an excellent addition - slightly scatty, but intelligent and interesting and apparently, very much alive and active. That her dog's name is Flapjack is proof of her suitability.</p><p>It's probably true that almost any fictional character who chooses to share their home with a dog (or a cat) is well on the way to endearing themselves to me, but <i>Take Me Home</i> was definitely off to a good start. The introduction of a man to the cast-list got us well on the way to a nest-building classification. I don't actually <i>require </i>a love interest, but this form of escapism does tend to go hand in hand with romance. I do, however, require the protagonist to demonstrate their autonomy before settling down to connubial bliss, even if they start out full of vulnerability. And this book meets that requirement too - Sophie has lots of baggage to deal with alongside Hattie's needs, and joining her while she does it is what makes it an absorbing read. Emotional and practical mess is examined and mended, order is re-established, and another contented reader turns the final page. Well done, Beth Moran, and thank you. </p><p>And thanks to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for a review copy.</p>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-54317512971688898932023-10-30T16:48:00.006+00:002023-10-30T16:48:53.142+00:00Ross Greenwood, Death at Paradise Park<p> I’m conscious that much of my reading in recent months has
been of a light and fluffy nature – I haven’t felt much able to engage with
grittiness recently, daily life has been demanding enough. So Death at Paradise
Park was slightly more of a challenge than it might have been. Having said that,
by most people’s standards, it’s probably not particularly gritty. The central police
team of Ashley, Hector and Barry are all likeable and, in their different ways,
efficient investigators, although the case they have to deal with is convoluted
enough to leave them all searching for connections between a string of murders
in and near a caravan park.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The high-end holiday homes at one end of the park have
become the playground of a group of retirees and the comfortably off, all
content to spend 11 months of the year in the pursuit of leisure. But then
Jasmine is found dead in her hot tub – an accident, or murder? If an accident, why
was the pool cover on? It’s rather odd, too, that a builder’s delivery driver
was killed just outside the park. And another resident has recently killed
herself. The coincidences pile up.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-nJdhGpLi7yjgqKbFgKv2-8Sk023hJ4DmhAwpEyetCl9evt-HXQBCkOR0RhX0Wf-joti8LhA3bMPN4vlyuUdFexpg4nK6HQGXNrrbsA4S8C3ADw3l5QnjeDXmOOlEjkcfPTHqRW2AT6KOYLx9xF5dQEsTNhmjRFv44ucQad9vmUmg4vPrUUl9ZqkO/s392/paradise%20park.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-nJdhGpLi7yjgqKbFgKv2-8Sk023hJ4DmhAwpEyetCl9evt-HXQBCkOR0RhX0Wf-joti8LhA3bMPN4vlyuUdFexpg4nK6HQGXNrrbsA4S8C3ADw3l5QnjeDXmOOlEjkcfPTHqRW2AT6KOYLx9xF5dQEsTNhmjRFv44ucQad9vmUmg4vPrUUl9ZqkO/s320/paradise%20park.png" width="208" /></a></div>
<p class="MsoNormal">I feel a little ambivalent about the book. I found the
writing style was occasionally slightly confusing. Nothing that going back and
re-reading a paragraph or three wouldn’t sort out, but I did find myself doing
that several times, which is unusual. I think it was a matter of pronouns, and
characters being not always being identified clearly – this is in the interests
of being cryptic about who’s doing what, but it wasn’t necessarily helpful to
the reader. However, it might have been at least in part my fault, in that I
really didn’t like any of the non-police characters and found it hard to engage
with them. Which takes me back to my preference at present for the light and
fluffy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Considering that the police team seem to enjoy unprecedented
support from their superior officers, with Armed Response Vehicles regularly at
the ready, the deaths really pile up. I’d have expected a better clear-up rate,
quite honestly. No wonder new detective Hector is wobbling a bit. But I wouldn’t
be surprised if the team gets another outing at some point. I see that
Greenwood has written another series of linked crime novels, as well as
thrillers, and I imagine that this one will get a positive reception from his
existing readership, as well as a new audience who, like me, prefer the
slightly more rose-tinted view of life and death. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m giving this one 3 stars. For my own purposes it would be three-and-a-half, but it doesn’t quite make it to four. I’m very grateful to
NetGalley and publisher, Boldwood Books, for the review copy. Death at Paradise
Park is published on 6 November.</p>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-73528619610273987872023-10-22T16:09:00.014+01:002023-10-22T16:12:29.942+01:00The Pantomime Murders, Fiona Veitch Smith<p><i>The Pantomime Murders</i> is an enjoyable and well-researched historical crime novel, set in Northern England in 1929, and the second in a series. If you haven't read the first, however, don't worry, the author updates the new reader in an easy manner, avoiding those pages of backstory which can be irritating to the reader who is already familiar with it.</p><p>Clara Vale, private detective, has inherited her business from her uncle and, having already successfully solved a murder or two, is ready to embark on new cases. She finds two clients, a dancer whose friend and mentor has disappeared after a pantomime performance in York, and the prestigious Fenwicks department store in Newcastle, who have suffered from a spate of shoplifting. The latter brings with it the useful perk of jujitsu training!</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlCwy_oXNzCq6rhd6gD-RW6gAOu3p4xhNvy8qQlwD_Gk47OwjStW59gImGojIP_3GfSbzEABwasrNNEf8PLiYoGxWRhGQKwx2rgYhIq7J7XjkKvtTxxMl51zIfp-7pYL1TbItDdV2KB7yD_FYznJVwcrWs63U4ptURJOKAr6aSf4J2DD76Q1iXU72Q/s382/cover301574-medium.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlCwy_oXNzCq6rhd6gD-RW6gAOu3p4xhNvy8qQlwD_Gk47OwjStW59gImGojIP_3GfSbzEABwasrNNEf8PLiYoGxWRhGQKwx2rgYhIq7J7XjkKvtTxxMl51zIfp-7pYL1TbItDdV2KB7yD_FYznJVwcrWs63U4ptURJOKAr6aSf4J2DD76Q1iXU72Q/s320/cover301574-medium.png" width="214" /></a></div></blockquote><p>Clara is very much the modern woman, too young to have been a Suffragette, but just old enough to have benefited from the changes they have helped to bring about. She has a degree from Oxford (so she's one of that league of new and unfortunately-named "graduettes") and a laboratory in the basement where she can develop photographs and conduct analyses, so she's well-qualified, if lacking experience, and, of course, has to fight her corner with prejudice from policemen and pathologists. Luckily, though, she has a friend in Dr Charlie Malone, who allows her to observe and assist in her first post-mortem, and the local Inspector Hawkes is at least tolerant of her involvement in crime cases, if not exactly overjoyed at the prospect.</p><p>The action alternates between York and Newcastle, conveniently close since Clara can drive herself back and forth. She's a very capable young woman, though her efficiency slips a bit when her mother, sister and all her sister's children fetch up on her doorstep on Christmas Eve. Of course, her family doesn't approve of her independence, or the way she lives alone without servants. Disastrously, it looks as if they might be there to stay, which could be very inconvenient indeed.</p><p>Being a stickler, I checked on some of the author's use of words which felt as if they might be too modern - I might quibble at the use of "predator" in the human sense, for instance, but it had been used in the 1920s, even if it wasn't common parlance until the '80s. I hope the formatting will be sorted out before the final e-version (my ARC was a PDF, which had some issues which will transfer if not tidied up) but again, I am quibbling somewhat, as I've seen much worse and it's not bad enough to interfere seriously with reading. One or two grammatical errors could be cleared out at the same time, and it would be nice if Clara's family titles could be corrected (it's easy to check aristocratic titles and their correct forms with Debretts online). A good copy-editor should have sorted all of this out.</p><p>Having quibbled, this promises be an excellent series. I fully intend to go back and read the first, <i>The Picture House Murders</i>, and will be on the lookout for more instalments. Clara may be overcoming prejudice against her sex a little too easily for the period, but a truly accurate depiction of that battle might prove to be too depressing for the reader. Let's just settle down and enjoy a cheerful version!</p><p>My copy was provided by NetGalley and the publisher, Embla Books. <i>The Pantomime Murders</i> will be published on 28 November.</p>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-32939680919510228202023-10-14T16:12:00.002+01:002023-10-14T16:12:30.673+01:00Sally Rigby, The Lost Girls of Penzance <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrVP_kLOexDZzzS0CU5i8SNwGq2Ai3CNV7r8WWM5e5Ib2NXzM48_RXO-NMH_gnhNkT5Ndk3SceCLI5k5C56xpdaurbFtUsfcExlyHAZfBKkwSXLZovRkkDJdpk7AgPxOG7tJhLurt7uPbnLwrCJOwFeLkBBSo6Bj74i8FaD_c9LPhFFf44TMt2HhrN/s255/penzance.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="255" data-original-width="255" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrVP_kLOexDZzzS0CU5i8SNwGq2Ai3CNV7r8WWM5e5Ib2NXzM48_RXO-NMH_gnhNkT5Ndk3SceCLI5k5C56xpdaurbFtUsfcExlyHAZfBKkwSXLZovRkkDJdpk7AgPxOG7tJhLurt7uPbnLwrCJOwFeLkBBSo6Bj74i8FaD_c9LPhFFf44TMt2HhrN/s1600/penzance.png" width="255" /></a></div><p></p><p>I enjoyed this audiobook set in Cornwall. On her return from leave, DI Lauren Pengelly finds herself rushing unexpectedly to the scene of a crime - a body has been found. However, she finds herself being refused access to the scene, because she hasn't got her ID card with her. Although she tells the unfamiliar officer who she is, he's convinced she's a reporter trying to pull a fast one - he's new on the job, and doesn't know anyone, but has been sent to the scene as the only person available. It's a bad start, Lauren has been rubbed the wrong way, and the new officer, Matt Price, is rather more vulnerable than he'd care to admit. Then, on top of what looks like a historical crime, a child goes missing and things get much more complicated - Pengelly and Price are going to have to work together, whatever their feelings. </p><p>The Cornish setting isn't particularly evident, except in that it's reflected in the accents of some of the characters - quite useful in an audiobook, where it can sometimes be difficult to know exactly who is speaking. One of the reasons I was keen to listen to it is that it's read by Clare Corbett, of whom I have a good opinion. I can be picky about narrators, and she stands out as one of the most reliable.</p><p>The two threads of the plot - missing children and the historical crime - weave together quite nicely, ramping up the tension towards the end as personal issues make things more urgent than ever. Pengelly and Price become interesting characters with enough quirks to bode well for future instalments in their partnership (I see a second is promised for next year). If, like me, you prefer murder mysteries that aren't too gritty, then this is for you. I might give some of her other series a try, but I note the words "psychological thriller" and "serial killer" are mentioned, so I suspect I'm on safer ground with this series.</p><p>Thanks to Netgalley for a review copy.</p><p><br /></p>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-33073372375425859522023-09-29T17:02:00.002+01:002023-09-29T17:02:26.873+01:00Katharine Schellman, Murder at Midnight<pre class="display" style="border-radius: 4px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway-Regular, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: normal; overflow: auto; padding: 0px; text-wrap: wrap; word-break: normal;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhScEYe-4UZx33XG3jVPt7UW08INnm8IbgSs_-hI0ux_G1ad2NOWjxtnReTCjbvKWuLxoCnnzdfRD9mGv9jxCg7ao8-MxuTjjue8Knm6yRA56pqRFpoOaA9nYnR8XtkTGx5CmMvF0fYd_ajHr08arNiO8VhjreRMK9O808RmxUW1PkyMejarYf2fTxr/s255/murder%20at%20midnight.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="255" data-original-width="255" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhScEYe-4UZx33XG3jVPt7UW08INnm8IbgSs_-hI0ux_G1ad2NOWjxtnReTCjbvKWuLxoCnnzdfRD9mGv9jxCg7ao8-MxuTjjue8Knm6yRA56pqRFpoOaA9nYnR8XtkTGx5CmMvF0fYd_ajHr08arNiO8VhjreRMK9O808RmxUW1PkyMejarYf2fTxr/s1600/murder%20at%20midnight.png" width="255" /></a></div><br /></pre><p style="border-radius: 4px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway-Regular, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: normal; overflow: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-wrap: wrap; word-break: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;">A murder mystery set at an English house-party. I found this a little patchy, to be honest. It was the fourth in a series, which may have added some confusion, as some of the characters obviously had background that I didn't know about - but some authors can handle this sort of problem neatly so that the reader doesn't feel at sea, and this wasn't really the case here.</span></p><p style="border-radius: 4px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway-Regular, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: normal; overflow: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-wrap: wrap; word-break: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">
</span><span style="background-color: white;">Then there was a continual switching of point of view, mostly between the main character, Lily, but also with a younger woman, Amelia. This wasn't signalled in the audiobook, so I don't know if the print copy headed chapters, for instance, with whose experience we were following, but I had to go back and check. Also Amelia alternated between being pathetic and gutsier, rather at random and, I felt, more at the author's convenience than actual consistency of character. A couple of Americanisms crept in too. And finally, I felt the denouement was a bit rushed - up till then, the writing could have used a bit of editorial pruning, but suddenly we were whizzed pell-mell to a conclusion! I was still picking up my metaphorical skirts, and it was all over.</span></p><p style="border-radius: 4px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway-Regular, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: normal; overflow: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-wrap: wrap; word-break: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">
</span><span style="background-color: white;">All of that being said, it was a pleasant listen - the narrator, Henrietta Meire, did a nice enough job, if a little lacking in distinguishable voices, and the plot had enough red herrings to keep the listener guessing. I might go back to some of the earlier ones to follow Lily's adventures.</span></p><p style="border-radius: 4px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway-Regular, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: normal; overflow: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-wrap: wrap; word-break: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">
</span><span style="background-color: white;">Thank you to both NetGalley and Dreamscape for a review copy of the audiobook.</span></p><div class="big450BoxBody" style="background-color: white; background-repeat: repeat-y; color: #181818; font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><div class="big450BoxContent" style="overflow: hidden; width: 430px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div id="review-like" style="float: right; margin-top: 8px; text-align: right;"></div><div id="review-follow" style="margin-top: 8px;"></div></div></div>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-59036795340011191072023-09-24T15:37:00.001+01:002023-09-24T15:37:00.141+01:00Jenny Kane, Misty Mornings at the Potting Shed<p><span face="Raleway, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Poppins; font-size: 14.4px;">I was drawn to this title because it was about running a nursery (my sister works in one, and I love my garden, so I visit local nurseries when I can). Also, I enjoyed Jenny Kane's Mill Grange series - her books are pleasant, easy reads which assume that people will do jobs they enjoy, like gardening or archaeology or running historic houses - all of which happen to be the sort of jobs I enjoy, so I can identify with the aspirations of the characters. And they are people whose lives are often interesting and complicated, so that they don't necessarily fit into society at large. For instance, here, one of the characters, Ed, is a barrister, who cares about the law, but is unhappy commuting and working in a high-pressure office; Tristan, an old friend turns up and is puzzled that Ed is "wasting" his law training. Ed is the sort of person I understand, who values helping people and being there for his partner, so I enjoyed his story as much as I enjoyed that of the other people who work at the Potting Shed, which anyway sounds like the sort of place I'd like to spend time - we do have a lovely nursery nearby, where we go to sit in the garden and eat delicious food and drink coffee served in pretty mugs, before browsing the plants and "preloved" garden accessories (there's an idea for the Potting Shed!) </span></p><p><span face="Raleway, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Poppins; font-size: 14.4px;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkv1kxMWKg-NbaRN9Y8mQdlgUKbyxqS2dRXzUiY480CKzfq5kYH6sFqt7RZT7UW7sgMwqi2mJJp_owU-A6GmBfOhnclV6e9r2uU74xHTVQRD5nVbVVxC3zgcR2WfRqur85uHhgeVTArg3lL5LSPd2ZaNTu8P-NyYjX54ECj2zQyJM2ruSfutUmjujn/s391/potting%20shed.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Poppins;"><img border="0" data-original-height="391" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkv1kxMWKg-NbaRN9Y8mQdlgUKbyxqS2dRXzUiY480CKzfq5kYH6sFqt7RZT7UW7sgMwqi2mJJp_owU-A6GmBfOhnclV6e9r2uU74xHTVQRD5nVbVVxC3zgcR2WfRqur85uHhgeVTArg3lL5LSPd2ZaNTu8P-NyYjX54ECj2zQyJM2ruSfutUmjujn/s320/potting%20shed.png" width="209" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: Poppins;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span face="Raleway, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Poppins; font-size: 14.4px;">That's a nice cheerful cover, isn't it?</span></div><p></p><p><span face="Raleway, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Poppins; font-size: 14.4px;">Other characters? Well, there's Belle, who has an autistic teenage son, who resents her new job at the nursery. Sara, meanwhile, is young and bright - will she be beguiled by awful Tristan into a more ambitious life (and when will she notice just how awful he is?) Maddie is trying to run the Potting Shed while her sister is away despite a desperate staff shortage, Jo is struggling with his complicated feelings for a co-worker and his anxieties about his elderly mother. The author writes with sympathy and insight into their problems and appreciates that not everyone fits into conventional categories. You know that all will be well in the end, because this is romantic fiction, but you can also appreciate good storytelling and intelligent writing along the way. Oh, and it's part of a series, which is all to the good.</span></p><p><span face="Raleway, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Poppins; font-size: 14.4px;">Thanks, as ever, to NetGalley and Aria for an advance copy.</span></p>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-22880142861390362762023-09-23T16:58:00.003+01:002023-09-29T17:03:08.743+01:00Lis Howell, The Gardener in the Graveyard<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">Isn't it great when you find a new author? Well, thanks to NetGalley and Joffe Books I've just added Lis Howell to my list, and I have happily added several books to my TBR pile. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">When a group of volunteer gardeners discover a body in a wheelie bin they have no idea how it will affect not just their lives but those of their families and friends. At first the police write off the murder as a gang-land killing, but the gardening team isn't convinced, and neither is Suzy Spencer, a podcaster intent on gaining a wider audience. Then Lorna, the self-appointed leader of the gardeners, disappears and her friend Pat is determined to find her, helped by fellow volunteer Tim. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">All the characters have backgrounds, which I liked. Suzy has already appeared in several of Lis Howell's books, but I didn't know that, and at first, I didn't much like her, although her partner is more sympathetic. But what I did like - and what I began to like Suzy for - is the thoughtfulness about some of the topics that the story touches on. Pat has lost her husband comparatively recently, Tim is scarred by his experiences as a paramedic... end-of-life issues feature, abuse of power too, and sexual identity. At the other end of the spectrum but perhaps equally controversially, the question of rewilding appears, with a TV gardener who advocates the return of once-indigenous species (this part of the story is set in an area of southern Scotland where this debate is current). </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">I found myself thinking about the issues raised over the washing up, which is always a good thing - books should challenge us, even (especially?) when they are light and cosy. Another nice touch is the contact across generations - Pat, Lorna and Tim may all be retirees, but Becky is a student. Despite the age-gap, common ground is found and at the end, Becky and her friends are all involved in a cross-border chase. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">I'd like to thank Joffe Books not only for a review copy, but for introducing me to quite a few new authors recently, as well as issuing some existing favourites. As far as am concerned, they are A Good Thing.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqVCenVnwuBJkj-dS4D5tDFwOwtFkMc-mLe49enTBDk1OXWOpdCUwI1RJljBWWvXdTJR6i6rHwr4qlLBI4q12V7L0azvG4Bf9vNI089JKRb3bJLpb8VqQ7HCvwVHKaZOetIfPIE9bKLWb_5dkTwZa6opcyBWDwmOyDSHXg2bprgprt-3-ZYQGUE8j8/s1500/gardener.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="938" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqVCenVnwuBJkj-dS4D5tDFwOwtFkMc-mLe49enTBDk1OXWOpdCUwI1RJljBWWvXdTJR6i6rHwr4qlLBI4q12V7L0azvG4Bf9vNI089JKRb3bJLpb8VqQ7HCvwVHKaZOetIfPIE9bKLWb_5dkTwZa6opcyBWDwmOyDSHXg2bprgprt-3-ZYQGUE8j8/s320/gardener.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;"><br /></span><p></p>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-14747917811816731102023-09-22T14:23:00.000+01:002023-09-22T15:51:32.231+01:00The Kew Gardener's Guide to Growing Perennials<p><span style="font-family: Poppins;">The Kew Gardener's Guide to Growing Perennials by Richard Wilford / Royal Botanic Gardens Kew</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NOaSXRIFwngYPzfLg3GkSx2yIoHeVMWFxnZT8liFnBbKxCeMz3xmXJndBNmY9WEm3Du2t7O9Zj66J8SPQVuALs6vOIqbx6R8ApswkZHUn9mhmkpl7bcD-Dk0CRU56vjymg6imZWdM89Wm155ZBr5goRtF136N9vFqRtI7a93PK9EkhxXb78OVLtn/s330/kew.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Poppins;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NOaSXRIFwngYPzfLg3GkSx2yIoHeVMWFxnZT8liFnBbKxCeMz3xmXJndBNmY9WEm3Du2t7O9Zj66J8SPQVuALs6vOIqbx6R8ApswkZHUn9mhmkpl7bcD-Dk0CRU56vjymg6imZWdM89Wm155ZBr5goRtF136N9vFqRtI7a93PK9EkhxXb78OVLtn/s320/kew.png" width="247" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-family: Poppins;">This is a good general guide to gardening with perennials, as you'd expect with a book produced by the superb Kew Gardens. It would make an excellent gift to a new gardener, but is of less use to an experienced one, who would probably already have a library of books covering the same ground as well as knowledge gained through practice and through visiting other gardens, the latter always being a great source of new ideas. The publishers describe as "entry level".</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Poppins;">The Kew guide is divided into Projects - chapters, really - on different topics such as gravel gardening, container growing, unifying a border and so on, with each project also focusing on a number of individual plants in greater depth. These are mostly bread-and-butter plants familiar in British gardens - though a handful are perhaps slightly less familiar, baptisia and macleaya for instance - but I think all would be readily available, if not at always at a garden centre then an online nursery would supply them. In the Table of Contents they are all called by their common names, but alternative names are also given, along with the Latin species, so there should be no problems identifying them. A colour drawing is given with each flower description, but there's also an inset photograph.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Poppins;">There's a chapter on troubleshooting plant problems which, I was pleased to see, gives more space to dealing organically with issues than to chemical solutions, which it cautions against using too readily. Propagation and retaining seedheads are covered and a final chapter gives advice on seasonal gardening; there is also an adequate index.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Poppins;">My copy, provided by NetGalley, was a e-book, so I can't comment on the physical quality of the book, but it looks well-produced and the hardback edition should be nice to handle. All-in-all, a nice guide, out usefully in time for the Christmas market and, if you have a new gardener in the family, you won't go far wrong with choosing this book for them.</span></p>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-35702231486043827022023-09-21T17:36:00.001+01:002023-09-21T17:36:21.852+01:00Jill Steeples, Winter at the Dog and Duck<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">My first book by this author (and my first post for a long time). </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr3hUVbW-anZhjDx-2AoMCr_mOLJszgvlGlF-0xLv4CnGGpXRg8_zQqsPGdRzoqYQtiJpsa0jqN1nUMvfRCGF3GN_6SW7ZHEz0rMCxp2s2Heq5Gat3G4ENBj-zpjK7YcUlE1RzBRixqEKGH5LgB44Mhm80i_RNagcx-KS-Mf_5GDIL9QnUSVBXQah0/s390/steeples.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr3hUVbW-anZhjDx-2AoMCr_mOLJszgvlGlF-0xLv4CnGGpXRg8_zQqsPGdRzoqYQtiJpsa0jqN1nUMvfRCGF3GN_6SW7ZHEz0rMCxp2s2Heq5Gat3G4ENBj-zpjK7YcUlE1RzBRixqEKGH5LgB44Mhm80i_RNagcx-KS-Mf_5GDIL9QnUSVBXQah0/s320/steeples.png" width="209" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;"><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;"><br /></span></p>Ellie has returned to the village where she grew up having been made redundant. She moves into her parents' house (they are away for several months), starts a dog-walking business and gets a job at the pub that's been a sort of home-from-home to her in the past. But the pub, despite being the centre is village life, is threatened as the lease is up and the brewery has sold it. Inevitably, Ellie's meeting with local landowner Max goes badly from the outset - she's covered in mud, he's mocking. So you know that the course of the book will be their series of misunderstandings and miscommunications - it's a familiar pattern, but not the easiest to handle. Some authors do it wonderfully (think Lizzie Bennett and Mr Darcy, mother and father to the whole trope). Here, it's no more than okay - Max charges headlong into things without asking, Ellie is wilfully obstructive a lot of the time. You want to shake them both. Neither really has a satisfactory excuse for their behaviour, but I suppose that's actually fairly typical of people in general. </span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">Overall, it's a feel-good novel that serves its purpose of being comfortable and unchallenging, despite the visit to the refugee camp that's a pressing issue and deserving of more serious handling. But I still enjoyed it, and may look for further further instalments (it seems to be first of a series of four). </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Boldwood Books, for a review copy, for which I have invented (possibly not originally) a new category which I call Nest-Building. This will be applied when the main characters repair old houses, refurbish pubs, learn new domestic skills etc. I seem, in company with many, many others to be drawn to such books, and indeed, always have been. I had a picture book when I was small in which a girl called Caroline repaired an old house helped by a motley crew of animals including a lion-cub in a safari suit. It was very sweet, and seems to have stuck with me.</span></p>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-16117657435899542662021-03-05T17:35:00.002+00:002023-09-21T17:11:20.073+01:00The Windsor Knot by S.J. Bennett<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4zmUbqNxbOcgVYAsWpl-CZyCsfS7a6b3IFE_aC_u7mOYTcj4lc8tnLGkrIAZtdk9Vk8qe6rsXtC7-KkbP8LGGVphlZPUl_4RS0MPn7NzIHk2xpK9lX-t7wJDybeloNjJqnTwTGgBuGQ/s293/windsor+knot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4zmUbqNxbOcgVYAsWpl-CZyCsfS7a6b3IFE_aC_u7mOYTcj4lc8tnLGkrIAZtdk9Vk8qe6rsXtC7-KkbP8LGGVphlZPUl_4RS0MPn7NzIHk2xpK9lX-t7wJDybeloNjJqnTwTGgBuGQ/s0/windsor+knot.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>I've added a slightly random note to be reading of late - as a library user I have access to Borrowbox, a collection of e- and audio-books. Actually I preferred the library's previous option, which seemed to have a slightly larger choice, and I was happily working my way through most of Ian Rankin's recent books, with a lengthy wishlist to follow. However, for some reason they changed provider, and the new one appears to have a booklist geared to Northumbrian readers, with a huge collection of L.J. Ross's local mysteries which, I'm afraid, I really don't like.</p><p style="text-align: left;">What I did like when I borrowed it on spec, however, was <i>The Windsor Knot</i>, by S.J. Bennett, a mystery set at Windsor Castle, with Her Majesty in residence for the spring and a month of "less formal" socialising. A Dine and Sleep (apparently it's a Thing) has been held, with a mix of new and regular guests for a <span style="font-family: inherit;">"F<span style="background-color: white;">ê</span>te <span style="background-color: white;">à</span> la Russe"</span> organised by Prince Charles. Now, it's the morning after, and while the various guests are finishing their breakfast before leaving, Her Majesty is informed that a young Russian pianist has been found dead in his room, in rather compromising circumstances. Soon the police will be crawling all over the scene of crime - with utter discretion, of course - and generally upsetting the servants.</p><p style="text-align: left;">The evening had gone rather well. The entertainment had been good - Brodsky, the pianist had played Rachmaninov, followed by some scenes by two Russian ballet dancers, and Brodsky had returned to the piano to play some dance music. The Queen had retired at her usual time, but had been happy for the party to continue, and as she had left, Brodsky had been dancing with one of the ballerinas while the playing had been taken over by the wife of a Professor of Russian Literature.</p><p style="text-align: left;">But now Brodsky is dead. Questions must be asked. Was he just a musician? Has there been a lapse in security? With all these Russians about, could this be an assassination attempt by Putin or the FSB? Could Brodsky even be a sleeper? The police lean rather to this possibility, although the Queen is quietly sceptical. The officer in charge of the investigation is suitably senior, but he's over-promoted and condescending<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">, and Her Majesty is not impressed. Fortunately, the Queen is a bit of an old hand at solving mysteries, and with the help of her new Assistant Private Secretary, Rozie Oshodi, she sets about doing some investigating herself. After all, she's met lots of experts who can be consulted.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Windsor Knot</i> is a pleasant and gently humorous mystery with some very likable characters. The Queen is portrayed by an author who's obviously done her research: she describes herself as a "royal watcher" and talks interestingly </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">on her </span><a href="https://www.sjbennettbooks.com/about" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">website</a> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">about her background and why she felt able to write this book</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">. I'm <i>not</i> a royal watcher, but it strikes me that she paints an insightful and convincing portrait which takes into account the Queen's long reign, in which she must have noticed a thing or to about people in general, and depicts her as generous and human and pretty shrewd. And meticulous and admirably self-disciplined, even in her thoughts. We see a good deal of the action from HM's point of view, albeit secondhand, and I particularly enjoyed the scene where she drags three senior policeman out on a muddy dog-walk. She's well matched too, by Rozie, who's still feeling her way into the job; here the relationship between the Queen and her new assistant is beautifully developed, as Rozie learns to intuit what can't be said by a monarch and to become a loyal and trustworthy helper.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">I should add a word about the reader of the audio version, Samantha Bond. An excellent and fluent performance, with distinguishable voices, perfectly paced - which, incidentally, matches the plot - and none of those irritating little mispronunciations which can accumulate to flaw an otherwise good reading. Bond is certainly a candidate for my list of top-ten readers and, I can tell you, I'm picky. But she nearly earns her five stars just for being able to pronounce "valet" (with the T sounded, please and thank you).</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">So, all-in-all, excellent book, excellent reader - I look forward to the next in what I hope will be a series, A Three Dog Problem. The title certainly pleases. I may even go so far as to pre-order it. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7SNwNvRlL2oEfiNx0aYM7olHBXdsyeid54T3pPNRuzwvd7hvk65NK2fZ3Y-o3rRU-Pgb5XpAr0Eq53bwnNkoIWVcCk8FgeNN6C6bKrEu3xccdQYXQEt23BHbfB9TTbWFteAmso-HRDA/s220/corgi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7SNwNvRlL2oEfiNx0aYM7olHBXdsyeid54T3pPNRuzwvd7hvk65NK2fZ3Y-o3rRU-Pgb5XpAr0Eq53bwnNkoIWVcCk8FgeNN6C6bKrEu3xccdQYXQEt23BHbfB9TTbWFteAmso-HRDA/s0/corgi.jpg" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-19738275012980209372021-02-16T16:33:00.008+00:002023-09-29T17:03:41.184+01:00Retiring<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipAN1PO6s92ddwszvEjKgBX-7qqtMtNpnwiN03Ptpb6i_69G5kTZSbX57-5SEt6sUWuejc8q8R28PueA7MwZiqVb_M5iox0cyIL-PYu4x_Mx72nqKjSjlCAxNhT4heKlrF5p9NuZJl1w/s475/13th+witch.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="308" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipAN1PO6s92ddwszvEjKgBX-7qqtMtNpnwiN03Ptpb6i_69G5kTZSbX57-5SEt6sUWuejc8q8R28PueA7MwZiqVb_M5iox0cyIL-PYu4x_Mx72nqKjSjlCAxNhT4heKlrF5p9NuZJl1w/s320/13th+witch.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRlexT3RkLLj6YqSVtQY24UOg0bN56hiSZiGiEovBsWH1ZTD5uzlxPUb7LhixH_FIFBUJHP30cjq1uuD0amEBd9ecTJ7qtot_t__lnHu-omrRdtsGpgfN_YpJfrKM4Nt40IVZNWDB0aA/s475/night+raven.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="310" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRlexT3RkLLj6YqSVtQY24UOg0bN56hiSZiGiEovBsWH1ZTD5uzlxPUb7LhixH_FIFBUJHP30cjq1uuD0amEBd9ecTJ7qtot_t__lnHu-omrRdtsGpgfN_YpJfrKM4Nt40IVZNWDB0aA/s320/night+raven.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzB1nxaoSVbJC2ZAK91kTP_QNlWHD5XgKkcdPQDBQ1DDCF2y6u-VVL2GD-fBmt5R2tgUaHVs2-tOZft1cu94I3oVV2LMsu6l7boWXSag2uSXb7DwADe1_urUTYaPUAvX2fgI5Zw4CeZw/s449/melrose+court.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="318" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzB1nxaoSVbJC2ZAK91kTP_QNlWHD5XgKkcdPQDBQ1DDCF2y6u-VVL2GD-fBmt5R2tgUaHVs2-tOZft1cu94I3oVV2LMsu6l7boWXSag2uSXb7DwADe1_urUTYaPUAvX2fgI5Zw4CeZw/w227-h320/melrose+court.jpg" width="227" /></div></a></div></div> <br /><p></p><p>I've just been looking at my blog archive figures. I started posting here in 2007, and for several years, while I was working in Edinburgh and commuting daily, I posted fairly regularly - about every 10 days or so for 5 years. Then I started freelancing and working in London, where I spend 3 or 4 days every couple of weeks, and often travelled on to Devon to see my parents, so I was spending a lot of time on trains. I got quite a lot of reading done, but not much blogging. When I was made redundant I continued freelancing, and when I wasn't working I didn't want to be anywhere near a computer! And freelancing was tough - I always seemed to have either too much work or none at all and meanwhile, the Devon trips continued and got more and more demanding, so I changed track and spent almost 5 years in a blissfully menial job with English Heritage. When I lost both parents over a short time I was able to start getting involved in my local community, though that ceased with lockdown as we were shielding my husband. who's disabled.</p><p>And now I've retired! So maybe I'll start blogging again. After all, I've read a lot of interesting books over the last few years. And I'm involved with several literary societies, so activity hasn't ceased, by any means - I've been reviewing on Goodreads, too. But the focus has shifted slightly - still lots of Golden Age crime, still lots of classic children's literature, more ghost stories, more audiobooks.</p><p>Last year's reading was mostly undemanding. One author showed up more than any other, and that was Mark Hayden. His King's Watch series provided me with endless amusement - I think I've read most of them three times by now but the come up fresh every time. Similarly with two other authors I've found recently that I will buy anything by: Sarah Painter, whose Crow Investigations series has a slightly Rivers of London vibe, and - very differently, Karen Menuhin's 1920s-set series which begins with Murder at Melrose Court. There are so many authors writing period detection in a stately home setting that they just get terribly same-y after a while. Menuhin's Major Heathcliff Lennox unashamedly cuddles his dog and, in the one I'm currently reading, carries a small plump kitten in his pocket. All three have excellent audio versions too. More on all three anon.</p><p>Retirement feels like a Very Good Thing.</p>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-63505493532222663642020-08-12T17:01:00.003+01:002020-08-12T17:09:24.121+01:00A Distant View of Everything by Alexander McCall Smith<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh603LF-hsRc0UCWpQ5ZEngI0F3JSwoNDzfmVwScMBPRz76lqZQd8MsDAfLjHqrlp7yfx81WWsQdjybpH6auqp68gByRXeCMTHHMbOYwAMKZ17fuoEBX0CwQDA9E0PiiqloCWIejk9Riw/s318/distant+view.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh603LF-hsRc0UCWpQ5ZEngI0F3JSwoNDzfmVwScMBPRz76lqZQd8MsDAfLjHqrlp7yfx81WWsQdjybpH6auqp68gByRXeCMTHHMbOYwAMKZ17fuoEBX0CwQDA9E0PiiqloCWIejk9Riw/s0/distant+view.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>If you are just embarking on this series, there are spoilers here! <div><br /></div><div> I really hadn't expected, when I read the first Isabel Dalhousie novel, <i>The Sunday Philosophy Club</i>, that I would one day be reading the 11th in the series. I thought a book about a polite Edinburgh lady with a predilection for philosophy would be just too niche. But here we are, some 16 years later (yes, I read the first almost immediately it was published, because I couldn't resist the title) - quite a lot has happened in Isabel's life, in a very quiet sort of way. She's acquired a husband and two children, something that looked rather unlikely in the first book. However, she still lives in the same house, with Grace her housekeeper, and she is still editing the <i>Journal of Applied Ethics</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div> It was the Journal which really drew me to the series - I too was working, in Edinburgh, on a small academic journal in those days, and I recognised and identified with many of the issues Isabel faced as editor. In fact, they often made me laugh out loud. Indeed, my favourite moment from the series is still the never-posted reply to one of her contributors. I could have written that myself!
Isabel's investigations - or "interventions" as she terms them - may have started with a sudden death, but the issues are more often of an ethical nature than an exciting one. McCall Smith says he doesn't think we celebrate kindness enough, and there is a great deal of it within his books. When Isabel finds herself lacking in kindness, she generally takes herself to task. But although she can be punctilious to the point of being maddening - to both reader and, sometimes, her friends - she is also human and sometimes just plain wrong. </div><div><br /></div><div> Edinburgh life is entirely recognisable to anyone who's ever lived there, which is another of the series' charms (though not necessarily infallibly so - I am not a great fan of the author's Scotland Street series), though McCall Smith patronises a better class of eatery than I can afford. </div><div><br /></div><div> The plot hinges on whether a personable man is preying on wealthy women. Isabel's friends are the sort of people who can afford to admire works by the Scottish Colourists with the familiarity of those who have inherited one along with their gracious Georgian residences. McCall Smith name-drops various real-life Edinburgh denizens from time to time, and Colourist paintings have featured in more than one of the books. I was glad not to have too much of Isabel's "sainted American mother" here, she's an offstage character who has never appealed to me. </div><div><br /></div><div>I listened to the audio version of the book. There have been several readers throughout the series, but I like Karlyn Stephen, who reads here. She has a soft voice, which suits the subject matter, and a fairly generic accent - characters are distinguishable, which is important, and Isabel's lengthy musings (have they got longer?) remain lively enough to avoid <i>longueur</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>I wrote about Isabel Dalhousie <a href="https://geraniumcatsbookshelf.blogspot.com/2008/12/christmas-what-christmas.html">once before</a>, for anyone who is interested. </div>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-67837000072603287452020-07-20T17:42:00.000+01:002020-07-20T17:42:36.533+01:00Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzLP9_qF0UatQLxSmL-7Z667F7B98RJ52lqse4a7X-j-82C6jXc0t1aDrtSD3H4F-ktWxjHoEfa2eHtS8LeXUWSH3ybaGUXKkZRSMNOOkYPHrufWqqPZRGsADumgq11x0V9H-O-WKH5g/s1600/cluny+brown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="304" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzLP9_qF0UatQLxSmL-7Z667F7B98RJ52lqse4a7X-j-82C6jXc0t1aDrtSD3H4F-ktWxjHoEfa2eHtS8LeXUWSH3ybaGUXKkZRSMNOOkYPHrufWqqPZRGsADumgq11x0V9H-O-WKH5g/s320/cluny+brown.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>
<br />
In Margery Sharp's novel of this name, twenty-year-old Cluny lives with her Uncle Arn in Paddington and assists him ably in his plumbing business by taking messages and doing the accounts. But she is of concern to her family - her uncle, his sister and his brother-in-law - because they think she doesn't "know her place": she's outgoing, adventurous, full of curiousity about the world, and this leads her to decide that she can take tea at the Ritz or be invited to parties. She's a complete innocent, and can't see any reason why these things are unacceptable - if other people can, why shouldn't she? It's decided, thanks mainly to Aunt Addie, that she must go into service as a maid in the country house of Sir Henry Carmel in Devon.<br />
<br />
Even before she arrives Cluny's behaviour is most un-maid-ish - befriending the dog of a one of the Carmels' neighbours on the train, she is invited to go and walk it on her days off, and since the dog doesn't wish to be parted from her, she is given a lift to her new place of employment in the neighbour's Rolls-Royce. Cluny's first letter home to Uncle Arn begins: "There are twenty-seven rooms, Queeen Elizabeth slept in one of them but I have to share. The other girl is called Hilda. She had a baby last year but Mrs M. overlooked it. You tell that to Aunt Addie."<br />
<br />
Esatblished at Friars Carmel she meets "the Professor", a writer who has fled Nazi Germany. Invited by their son for a stay of indefinite length, Belinski is warmly welcomed into the household by Andrew's parents - Lady Carmel explains her understanding of the situation to her husband: Mr Belinski is a Professor, who has been ill and now needs peace and quiet. Andrew, wrapped up in his own concerns, does nothing to disabuse his parents of this harmless notion, feeling that the explanation is well-suited to their kind and comfortable complacency.<br />
<br />
Belinski recognises Cluny as a misfit like himself and understands her, perhaps, better than she understands herself. When she tells him she doesn't feel as if she belongs anywhere he replies with what she regards as a magic phrase, "For you, I imagine, the whole universe is to let." Her imagination thus fired, what she will do with this idea is one strand of this quietly funny book.<br />
<br />
In contrast, the other strand is what will happen to Andrew. Concerned that there will be another war, he frets about his future, and while his parents hope that he will come home and settle down to run the estate, he pulls away from what he calls "Lord of the Manorishness". At the same time he is vying with his friend John for the attentions of the attractive and self-assured Betty Cream, who firmly rejects them both. Although Andrew's position of privilege makes it seem as though he has much greater autonomy than Cluny, he feels trapped by both past and present.<br />
<br />
In 1946 Cluny Brown was transported to the US and made into a romantic comedy which loses all the subtlety and humour of this very English novel. Life at Friar's Carmel is so harmonious, peaceable and comfortable that Belinski has none of the irritations that allowed him to work successfully. Meanwhile Cluny, despite being "only" a parlourmaid, is able to escape the eye of the housekeeper often enough to form a sedate courtship with a widowed pharmacist in the nearby village. A "rom-com" demands effervescence and caricature, but what makes this book work are the tenderly-drawn characters with their little faults, foibles and escapisms. No great histrionics here, but gentle satire.GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-25227128572300747552019-08-13T18:11:00.002+01:002019-08-13T18:11:53.557+01:00The Lady Hardcastle Mysteries by T.E. Kinsey<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-q2bR7B4XmvU_2SQ_YUNStPk5eg-G3HBApz5-uuLem32XfrsTAOvlZPso3rLAJE4_pk9ZAC3yBmR-u4v1P7-QaYh8OP1DN5MQUZrd55Vkx0K5rVgaICDldrI6O699e09dAKpxuoj7kQ/s1600/lady_h_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="316" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-q2bR7B4XmvU_2SQ_YUNStPk5eg-G3HBApz5-uuLem32XfrsTAOvlZPso3rLAJE4_pk9ZAC3yBmR-u4v1P7-QaYh8OP1DN5MQUZrd55Vkx0K5rVgaICDldrI6O699e09dAKpxuoj7kQ/s320/lady_h_1.jpg" width="212" /></a> <span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The Lady Hardcastle
books are proving to be a very enjoyable series. I received the latest, </span><i style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The
Burning Issue of the Day</i><span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">, from Netgalley, but before I read it, I finished
all the earlier ones first. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The first book, <i>A
Quiet Life in the Country</i>, introduces us to our two main characters,
widowed Lady Hardcastle and her diminutive but capable ladies' maid,
Florence Armstrong, and to the English country setting, but it breaks the mould
in fun ways: the country house to which they move is a new build, Lady
Hardcastle has a racketty background spying for the Empire, Armstrong has been
trained in martial arts by a Shaolin monk, the local Inspector of Police
actually welcomes their help. Events are narrated by Flo, with a general
sense of irreverence:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">I was up with the lark
on Saturday morning, and resolved at once to make enquiries as to the sleeping
habits of larks. Do they really rise early? ‘Up with the lady’s maid’ might be
just as evocative of early rising but perhaps open to unfortunate
misinterpretation.</span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The period setting
(1908 at the start of the series) is well done in an understated way - it's
become fashionable to give lots of detail, but here it's sketched in fairly
lightly, which is fine, and the odd anachronism is either knowing, or too
incidental to rankle. Perhaps there's a little too much mixing of the social
classes, but the nouveau riche are, accurately enough, vilified by pretty
nearly everyone, while the local country folk get ‘salt of the earth’
treatment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The mystery is slight
(apparently the original version of the book was episodic but it's been
streamlined into one in this edition), with a certain amount happening
off-stage, but it's coherent enough to be entertaining. All in all a good start
to a series, and more than amusing enough to carry the reader on to the next
instalment:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">‘...we can be
detectives. You can be Watson to my Holmes.’ ‘But without the violin and the
dangerous drug addiction, my lady,’ I said. ‘As soon as the piano arrives from
London that will make an admirable substitute for the violin. And I’m sure we
could both have a tot of brandy from time to time to grease the old wheels.’
‘The slow-grinding ones?’ ‘No, ours shall be lightning fast.’</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The relationship
between eccentric widow Lady Hardcastle and her maid is a joy, and the trickle
of backstory elements always leaves one reader wanting a bit more. I was pretty
much hooked from the very beginning, as Lady H and Flo find themselves a new
house and set about furnishing it (including, of course, with daily help and
cook). The exchanges between them are always beautifully judged and are full of
gentle acerbity - for instance, Flo rarely refers to her employer as ‘my Lady’
except when she disapproves of her actions, they bicker over who is to drive
the new car, and so on. One has the sense of a long-established relationship
based on mutual respect and affection, and a certain amount of saving each
other's skins:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">‘You’re welcome, my
lady. I shall yell uncouthly when breakfast is served.’ ‘We need a gong.’</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The second book, </span><i style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">In
the Market for Murder</i><span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">, is also episodic, offering four short mysteries, and
consolidating the rapport between the reader and characters. The cases mostly
centre on their local village, with cattle markets, pub ghosts, cricketing
trophies and so on. By book three (</span><i style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Death Around the Bend</i><span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">) however, we
are given a ‘proper’ full-length mystery, as Lady Hardcastle and Flo are
invited to join a house party for some motor racing, and this offers a little
more room for development of the subsidiary characters, which is all to the
good since the reader then starts to care about the ‘who’ and ‘why’ as well as
the ‘how’. Flo is in the ideal situation of course, when a murder is committed,
to hobnob with the servants and get all the gen on family and visitors, as well
as on the staff themselves.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">A short story, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Christmas at the Grange</i>, follows, with
Lady H visiting friends for the festive season and Flo in attendance like a
good lady's maid, but able, as before, to move with ease between above and
below stairs (although Sir Hector takes a very unholy delight in offending his
sister by including Flo in the festivities). As Christmas stories go, it’s a
good ’un.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Book 4, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>A Picture of Murder</i>, finds Lady H and
Flo offering to host a visit by some moving-picture makers as their friends, the
Farley-Strouds, have unfortunately had a kitchen fire. (Lady F-S doesn’t take
advantage though, she lends a surly maid and a more amenable footman to help
out, the Hardcastle establishment only running to part-time help.) Even for our
intrepid heroines, who stumble over murders at the drop of a hat-pin, the rate
at which their guests start to meet untimely ends is a bit disconcerting,
especially when there’s no motive that makes any sense. The cast of subsidiary
characters is beginning to look like old friends, by now, and we’ve definitely
started to get to know the village of Littleton Cotterell. We get some more
about the past, too, with perhaps a presentiment of trouble to come?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">With the fifth in the
series, <i>The Burning Issue of the Day</i>, the author takes the light-hearted
amateur detectives - we know by this time that their background has been much
more serious, but they have retired from living on their wits in the service of
HMG - and gives them something a bit more serious to get their teeth into. A
death has occurred which may have been the result of suffragist sabotage, and a
young suffragette is on trial for her life. Can they save her, despite the opposition
of the (male) Bristol establishment? I felt that the author genuinely wanted to
talk about the suffragist cause and that it wasn't simply a subject to hang a
mystery on. Kinsey re-introduces a character from <i>A Picture of Murder</i>,
the journalist Diana Caudle who, despite initially clashing with Lady
Hardcastle, looks set to put in appearances in future episodes. She fulfils the
role of ambitious young career woman, nicely complementing the two more
in-period ladies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">I see there is another
on its way - good-oh!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-28844175995208685812019-04-07T16:31:00.000+01:002019-04-07T16:32:35.201+01:00A Conformable Wife by Alice Chetwynd Ley<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Somehow or other I missed Alice Chetwynd Ley's books when I was younger, and <i>A Conformable Wife</i> is the first of hers I've read. It will not, however, be the last, for I found it charming.<br />
<br />
It is very much in the style of one of my favourite authors, Georgette Heyer, including the familiar formula of eligible young woman meets eligible bachelor, sparks fly, there are obstacles to overcome before they, and we, reach the inevitable happy ending, and so on. Like Heyer, I'm sure that Alice Chetwynd Ley's books will explore the many possibilities offered by this pattern in very entertaining fashion, and amongst her books I will expect to find mistaken identities, dastardly villains, abductions (usually foiled), misunderstandings between lovers, young men going to the bad through gambling... all the vicissitudes which Georgian society can throw up, and all leavened with humour and warmth.<br />
<br />
The attraction of the Georgian period is, I guess, that some women were beginning to have a small degree of autonomy, particularly if they were widowed, when they might respectably manage their own incomes unless very young. It was also a time when women were beginning to write for publication, so we have, in their own words, the start of a recognisably modern, female sensibility. The rising middle class was a factor too, as more and more people became wealthy and respectable while not necessarily belonging to the aristocracy - though it obviously helped if you could marry a duke's daughter or a younger son, the latter almost invariably in need of an urgent injection of merchant-class money.<br />
<br />
In <i>A Conformable Wife</i>, the Hon. Julian Aldwyn has decided that it's time he was married, and seeks a suitable wife, one able to manage a large household, and of respectable origins, obviously. His sister suggests her girlhood friend Henrietta Melville, who has kept house for her family until his death; despite being wealthy in her own right she now lives in her family home as a dependent relative of her brother and his resentful wife - it's not easy when the servants all defer to the former, instead of the present, mistress. Aldwyn, who in modern terms is positively phobic in his avoidance of love, having been once-bitten, proposes a marriage of convenience, since this will provide the rather dowdy Henrietta with her own establishment, and besides, they seem to get along quite well together. Henrietta retorts, in essence, that she's never had any fun in her life and doesn't see why she shouldn't have some now, and anyway, she'll marry - if ever, which at twenty-six, she doubts - for love, thank you.<br />
<br />
Thus the stage is set for all the required elements, and the action moves to Bath, which is rather livelier than the family home. Henrietta embarks on a makeover, so that Julian fails to recognise her when he eventually turns up, and he's duly horrified by the number of conquests she has made. Need I say more?<br />
<br />
Chetwynd Ley, like Heyer, is careful about her period detail, although - here, at least - she doesn't wield cant with such bravura. Perhaps she prefers not to compete? At any rate, readers shouldn't find themselves jolted out of the Regency by the annoying anachronisms which are all-too-common nowadays. Bath is well-portrayed and researched, but not in distracting detail - the author feels no need to show off her scholarship. Altogether, <i>A Conformable Wife</i> turned out to be an excellent place to begin my acquaintance with this author, and I look forward to many more of her books. My thanks to <a href="https://saperebooks.com/" target="_blank">Sapere Books</a> and <a href="https://www.netgalley.co.uk/" target="_blank">NetGalley</a> for my review copy.GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-49614144937135816122019-04-03T14:21:00.000+01:002019-04-03T14:21:48.225+01:00Becoming Mrs Lewis by Patti Callahan<br />
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I saw this title on <a href="https://www.netgalley.co.uk/" target="_blank">NetGalley</a> and was interested as I'm one
of the many who grew up on the Narnia books, progressed to C.S.
Lewis's adult books and later enjoyed the film <i>Shadowlands</i>, about his
marriage to the poet and author Joyce Davidman.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What I hadn't realised when I requested the book was that this is a fictionalised
version of that story, though it makes much use of letters between the two from
their first correspondence - Davidman wrote to Lewis because his description of
his religious conversion struck an immediate chord with her. He replied, and a
lengthy and intimate exchange grew up between them. In many ways,
fictionalisation is a good choice for biography - it serves to remind us that
any account of another's life is necessarily a fiction, even when we have their
writing to base it on (come to that, it's the case even when they've written it
themselves). Initially though, it gave me some problems, because I found it
rather overwritten - later, I told myself that
Davidman (events are told in the first person, from her point of view) was,
as a poet, given to wielding words dramatically, so a degree of self-dramatisation
was appropriate. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I think the book's author, Patti Callahan,
admired both Davidman and Lewis fairly uncritically, so I found myself reading
between the lines quite a bit. Not with the sort of vilification that met
Davidman when she had the "effrontery", as many saw it, to marry
Lewis - they seem to me to have been a very successful couple, despite his
qualms about her divorced state, their relationship being a genuine marriage of
two minds - but I found Callahan's version of Joy quite hard to like, and I
think that might well hold true for the real person. But then, I find Lewis
quite hard to like too, if I'm honest - though the Inklings fascinate me and I
find them eminently readable, I don't think I would actually like any of them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I suppose my biggest problem was with the account of
Davidman's first marriage, to fellow author William Gresham.
He certainly comes across as a pretty loathsome person, but I suspect that
during the time they spent together they would both have seemed, to me at
least, self-centred and histrionic, probably bringing out the worst in each
other. After her conversion to Christianity (she was Jewish, non-practising,
and had flirted with communism – a much greater sin in the US than here in the
UK), Davidman left her husband and two some for an extended research and
writing trip to to the UK, during which she planned to meet Lewis in person. I
can understand that she felt her writing was suffering at home, and that she
needed to write to earn, but still found it hard to reconcile the length
of time she was away from her children, particularly since there were already
signs – according to Callahan’s account, at least – that at least one of the
children feared their father, who had an explosive temper and was possibly a
suicide risk.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Readers who share the Lewises' religion will almost certainly enjoy this retelling of their relationship, while those who, like me, are interested in the Inklings will find much of interest, albeit secondhand. I imagine for many it will provide an impetus to go back to Lewis's own non-fiction and some may be inspired to further explore Davidman's poetry, which is oft-quoted, which didn't appeal to me. I did, however, find a previously unread author amongst Davidman's Oxford friends (unfortunately, long out-of-print and therefore almost unobtainable). I found myself sympathising again with C.S. Lewis's brother Warnie who, although much troubled, seems to have been a gentle individual, and enjoyed an American's impressions of the shabby shambles in which the Lewis brothers lived in peculiarly English fashion. At one point I had wondered whether to give up on the book altogether. I’m glad that I didn’t, because I did end up enjoying this rather poignant story. Thanks go to NetGalley for providing me with a review copy.</div>
<br />GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-26061693698460498202019-01-15T16:32:00.001+00:002019-01-15T16:32:25.156+00:00Thunder On The Right by Mary Stewart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgckUlAxQBzk_7GnIfKVlaCb5I9e0CpUTjJe8pv3NglOGNe6dkMofoIYTqwTdnPkZ2S_Mft4IAERWxO_wLG2-M2-8hkXkpw9pLiafFg7hugPkEy2_2x-iynT29vxoiavm_C-56grjctwQ/s1600/thunder-on-the-right.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgckUlAxQBzk_7GnIfKVlaCb5I9e0CpUTjJe8pv3NglOGNe6dkMofoIYTqwTdnPkZ2S_Mft4IAERWxO_wLG2-M2-8hkXkpw9pLiafFg7hugPkEy2_2x-iynT29vxoiavm_C-56grjctwQ/s320/thunder-on-the-right.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>
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<br />
Oh, the hysteria...<br />
<br />
Not since my last reading of <i>Black Narcissus</i> have I encountered so many hooded eyes under conventual veils, slender white fingers convulsively clutching pectoral crosses and torrential rain. But I was in the mood for something short and gripping, so turning to Mary Stewart seemed natural enough, and I quickly found myself borne along on descriptive sentences that seemed never-ending along with a liberal dose of the aforementioned hysteria.<br />
<br />
Actually, the book opens very pleasingly, with a sort of cameo from two Cambridge geologists, Miss Moon and Miss Shell-Pratt (for my fellow Thirkellites, they are a Hampton and Bent couple, though both stoutly brogued and tweeded) who are holidaying in the Pyrenees and rock-hunting, their dinner conversation all gabbros and anticlines, while Miss Jennifer Silver, twenty-two and coolly virginal, idly listens while dining in her hotel. She has come to meet her cousin Gillian at a convent in the Vall<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">é</span></span>e des Orages - and if that doesn't warn you what's coming... but we read Mary Stewart expecting a romantic mystery, with only the most veiled (see what I did there?) references to anything as untoward as sex, though violent death, of course, is fine.<br />
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First, however, she meets Stephen Masefield, the only man with whom she's ever been seriously involved - but he's a musician and her father approves, so we know he's going to be a protector, and not the treacherous lover we might otherwise encounter in an MS novel.<br />
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Now, despite my flippant tone and Stewartian sentences, I don't actually want to give the plot away - suffice to say that when she gets to the convent, where she will inevitably stay for a period so that the action can be cloistered and claustrophobic, events will move inexorably towards the helter-skelter denouement that we expect from this author. There's always a chase, and they are always, somehow, the part that gives me least pleasure, I suppose because they get very predictable. From about the halfway point, you know exactly how it is going to end. In my teens, I suppose, I found that cathartic, but in fact it's not what I remember about her books - rather, I recall the settings, always richly described, and to some extent, the heroines, although the latter do tend to blend into one - all early twenties, attractive, poised, well-spoken and capable, from "good" backgrounds and, usually, with plenty of spare time and money on their hands. More recently, my favourite Stewart, and the one I re-read from time to time, is <i>Thornyhold</i> - it was written 33 years after her first novel and, although it still has elements of the romantic mystery, is much quieter and more pleasing, and the heroine, although still young, seems more mature.<br />
<br />
Several of her novels play with the paranormal, but <i>Thunder On the Right</i>, written in 1957, sticks to the Gothic. In one of her later novels, a character scoffs:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">"A robed figure in a darkened church? Absurd. They had a word for the silly penny-dreadful, didn’t they? Gothic, that was it. Robed nuns and ancient houses and secret passages, the paraphernalia that Jane Austen had laughed at in <i>Northanger Abbey</i>."</span></blockquote>
But this one plays into them, right down to the tenebrous church. As with many of her books, both title and chapter headings are aptly chosen, in this case with reference to music (actually, I think she missed Tenebrae - how thoughtless! - but I liked the use of Bridge Passage). I think it was her titles which started me reading her books in the first place - although at the time I first read it I was still young enough to be horse-crazy, what drew me to <i>Airs Above The Ground</i> was the evocative title. Even at its most histrionic, her writing is intelligent and well-crafted, and when later I discovered her Merlin books, I was immediately hooked. And, having invoked it in my opening comments, I should say that <i>Thunder On The Right</i> has very little of the tense eroticism of <i>Black Narcissus</i> (19397), though given the popularity of the film (1947), it may well have been at the back of Stewart's mind while she was writing.<br />
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Right now, <i>Thornyhold</i> beckons again, so I may have more to say on the subject of Mary Stewart shortly.GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-66631736614919670192018-11-23T18:10:00.000+00:002018-11-23T18:10:03.166+00:00The Ghost It Was by Richard HullI've never read anything by Richard Hull before, so when the Crime Readers' Club offered a review copy I was keen to see what I thought - I'm always on the look-out for new writers to satisfy my completist needs. A nice long list makes me very happy!<br />
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As well as a long list (fourteen books) Richard Hull supplies, in <i>A Ghost It Was</i>, something else that makes me happy in a writer of mysteries - humour. In his case it's not quite that slightly febrile humour that characterises Innes or Crispin but something a little more down-to-earth: his policemen are more stolid, reliable types than Sir John Appleby, for instance, even when undercover (and we won't even mention Gervase Fen!). Nonetheless, you do feel that the author's tongue is firmly lodged in his cheek at times, as each new character displays a series of unloveable traits in trying to manipulate circumstances to his own ends.<br />
<br />
Funnily enough, I'd just been reading a book with a rather similar starting point by Gladys Mitchell, <i>The Longer Bodies</i>. Each begins with a rich relation who hasn't yet named an heir, and various family members trying to ingratiate themselves in order to inherit all. Mitchell's horrible Great Aunt Puddequet (what a fantastic name!) sets an athletics challenge to her nephews; here James Warrenton, who has a strictly dilettante-ish interest in spiritualism, buys a haunted house and proceeds to amuse himself by watching his family members jump through metaphorical hoops to please him. Among them is Gregory Spring-Benson, whom we meet at first trying to persuade an newspaper editor to employ him as a reporter apparently in the belief that it won't involve any actual work. He certainly doesn't intend to do any, and is staggeringly rude to absolutely everyone; his pretence that he believes in ghosts gets him into the house as a potential heir, since it amuses Warrenton to annoy the rest of the family. And then there's the pompous Arthur, who sets up an elaborate - and really rather perverse - trick to prove that there's no ghost. They really are a nasty bunch.<br />
<br />
It's an unusual example of the genre in other ways - the police arrive late to the events, which is not so very odd (there's an Appleby one where he doesn't appear until near the end, if I remember correctly), but the denouement happens, as it were, off-stage. No showdown in the library here, although there is the required explanation of the mechanism of the murder.<br />
<br />
Apparently Hull continued to eschew the straightforward in his novels, tending more towards the sort of "psychological" novel that became more common later. I'm intrigued to see where his experimentation took him, though I must admit that I don't often enjoy mysteries with unreliable narrators. We shall see....GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-11174110106308685812018-11-19T10:01:00.000+00:002018-11-19T10:01:04.236+00:00Illustration - Margaret Tempest<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6BkXuvKqKUw5eKsIrevaRqP2nv77SkF3sVno0SbEECfUtQULRPCoILWr7BZZVncTtsQ7ciDTlL92zWybF9zFrrVotOxCe540v859nLRrROSHUMrYi2MRXqK0ToIINpQu3V3I8FZyypg/s1600/margaret+tempest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="234" data-original-width="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6BkXuvKqKUw5eKsIrevaRqP2nv77SkF3sVno0SbEECfUtQULRPCoILWr7BZZVncTtsQ7ciDTlL92zWybF9zFrrVotOxCe540v859nLRrROSHUMrYi2MRXqK0ToIINpQu3V3I8FZyypg/s1600/margaret+tempest.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Margaret Tarrant</td></tr>
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I was book-obsessed from the start, and some of my earliest treasures were the Little Grey Rabbit books by Alison Uttley, illustrated by Margaret Tempest. I adored the characters within these pages and the beautiful watercolours which depicted their daily tasks and amusements. They are probably largely responsible for the pleasure I take in middlebrow literature, where the mundane is of equal, if not more importance, than events on the world-scale.<br />
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Both Uttley and her illustrator understood this. The foreword to all the Little Grey Rabbit books is as follows:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Of course you must understand that Grey Rabbit's home had no electric
light or gas, and even the candles were made from pith of rushes dipped
in wax from the wild bees' nests, which Squirrel found. Water there was
plenty, but it did not come from a tap. It flowed from a spring outside,
which rose up from the ground and went to a brook. Grey Rabbit cooked
on a fire, but it was a wood fire, there was no coal in that part of the
country. Tea did not come from India, but from a little herb known well
to country people, who once dried it and used it in their cottage
homes. Bread was baked from wheat ears, ground fine, and Hare and Grey Rabbit gleaned in the cornfields to get the wheat.<br /><br />The doormats
were plaited rushes, like country-made mats, and the cushions were
stuffed with wool gathered from the hedges where sheep pushed through
the thorns. As for the looking glass, Grey Rabbit found the glass,
dropped from a lady's handbag, and Mole made a frame for it. Usually the
animals gazed at themselves in the still pools as so many country
children have done. The country ways of Grey Rabbit were the country
ways known to the author.<br /><br />(The Foreword to the <em>Little Grey Rabbit</em> books by Alison Uttley)</blockquote>
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The pictures are actually quite simple, but you feel as though there is lots of detail. Here, for example, is the lace border that Little Grey Rabbit made for Mrs Hedgehog, with its bees and flowers, and you can see the lace-making pillow with its bobbins on Grey Rabbit's lap.<br />
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Margaret Tempest was born in Ipswich in 1892 and lived until she was 90. She was trained at Ipswich Art School and Westminster School of Art, graduating just as WW1 began. After the war she and a group of friends founded The Chelsea Illustrators - women artists sharing a studio to work, teach and sell art - the studio ran successfully until 1939. </div>
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During the twenties she began work on the Alison Uttley books, a partnership that lasted 40 years although artist and author didn't like each other (but Uttley does seem to have been extremely difficult - amazing that she could write such enchanting books, but I think she was probably happier while she was writing than the rest of the time). She wrote and illustrated her own books too, like the ABC below, and designed cards for Medici (78 in all) - the postcards are particularly fine, as the whole story has to be told in a single image.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Medici postcard</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2sgLpgIP-1BzWvsUFQPptpWOLQpK9EXNyfcmETgHeBXkCIjuXVwMozQ0OmGYwYiHGW41mpnxByZdAUSy_9GYX_XdTHLeU93yVfveARPdKx5wWWyShrs-T9tVWLbBG-LgRCTGDdULRJg/s1600/abc-margaret-tempest-vintage-medici.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="284" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2sgLpgIP-1BzWvsUFQPptpWOLQpK9EXNyfcmETgHeBXkCIjuXVwMozQ0OmGYwYiHGW41mpnxByZdAUSy_9GYX_XdTHLeU93yVfveARPdKx5wWWyShrs-T9tVWLbBG-LgRCTGDdULRJg/s320/abc-margaret-tempest-vintage-medici.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
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The illustration below, probably from <i>Little Grey Rabbit and the Weasels</i>, has a lovely William Morris sort of background. Apparently the distinctive coloured border that surrounds the LGR illustrations was Tempest's idea, and it is wonderfully effective, framing the miniature world of the animals - there's always a sense of being close to the ground.<br />
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The borders made the dustjackets equally distinctive too, and even modern editions retain a strong sense of the originals. Here's the 1986 version of <i>Little Grey Rabbit Makes Lace</i>:<br />
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It lacks the lace-making detail that I liked so much and the lacy border, replacing them with the coloured border of the text illustrations which is the most easily recognised feature, along with the grey dress, blue pinny and crisp white collar and cuffs that Grey Rabbit (nearly) always wears. Even later illustrators of the series kept to these conventions. I particularly like this one, where her grey dress is kilted up, showing her delicious white petticoat below - she's actually hanging her pinny on the washing line.<br />
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I can see the beginnings of all lots of my own character traits when I look at these little books, which are ideally sized for small hands. The original editions had endpapers showing the little house in the woods with washing gaily dancing in the breeze. I suppose many of the things I learnt to prize are deeply unfashionable these days - homemaking, pretty clothes, care for small creatures, country lore - but the books are still in print, though whether they please small children or nostalgic grandparents I don't know.<br />
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Margaret Tempest married her cousin Sir Grimwood Mears, a former Chief Justice in Allahabad, in 1951. They lived in Ipswich at 3 St Edmund's Road, where there is a blue plaque in her memory. She was an enthusiastic sailor and became Commodore of the Pin Mill Sailing Club. <br />
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A <a href="http://www.margarettempest.com/newsite/" target="_blank">website </a>about Margaret Tempest lists her books and shows some of her other illustrations, but she will always be best remembered, I think, for Little Grey Rabbit and her friends.<br />
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<br />GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-68332169790742173082018-11-16T18:05:00.003+00:002018-11-28T16:49:04.192+00:00The Ice King by Helen SlavinI haven't been reading many new books recently - since the advent of ebooks there is so much being reissued from my favourite period (roughly 1930-70) that I can barely keep up. There is a small and select band of authors who get bought automatically, though: Ben Aaronovitch, Jodi Taylor, Alan Bradley and Jasper Fforde get pre-ordered, and Nicola Slade and Linda Gillard are close behind. Pretty much anyone else will languish on the to-be-read list, sometimes picked up from the library, but it may be years and a growing sense that I really <i>ought </i>to read a particular work before I get round to it. I've said before that I'm very resistant to the books <i>absolutely everyone</i> is talking about, unless it's an author I already know I like. So making it onto my radar is quite difficult. But I do get newsletters from some publishers (usually the ones with long reissue lists) and I do actually read them. I also, of course, read blogs, but I'm aware that everyone else's taste is necessarily as idiosyncratic as mine, so although they may rave about a book, that doesn't mean that I'll like it. I'll probably wait for a consensus by several people whose views I really trust before forking out some of my limited book budget.<br />
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Which is a long-winded way of saying that someone new got through the barbed wire fence and the pack of guard dogs and the attack squirrel and shinned up to my tower window (yes, I do have a very<i> small </i>tower...). And that author is Helen Slavin, who has written a novella, <i>The Ice King</i>, that I'm eager to talk about.<br />
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First off, isn't that a seductive cover? I'd certainly have picked it up in a bookshop. That eye is full of promise - is it a threat? or what? there's both danger and candour in that gaze. And what happens to the main characters is like that too.<br />
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The story is in three parts and focuses on three different people. The first we meet is Hettie Way, the Gamekeeper. That capital initial is important. The extent of her role isn't divulged here, but we know that she protects Pike Lake and the wood around it, and her link with the land and what lives in the lake is important. It's not entirely clear whether she's protecting it, or protecting everyone else from it. She's certainly trying to protect her 9-year-old daughter, Vanessa, who is drawn to the lake despite being told that she should stay away, and must not, ever, go into the water. Being drawn to something is a guarantee that orders will be disobeyed, and Vanessa does, in a spirit of scientific curiosity, go into the water.<br />
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Part 2 takes up the story of Lachlan Laidlaw who, in the early years of the twentieth century, is in love with a girl who's a bad lot. She wants him to take her to the Goose Fair (echoes of <i>Lud-in-the-Mist</i> and <i>Stardust</i>, two of my favourite books). It doesn't go well, but Lachlan has a brush with a fortune teller.<br />
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Part 3 takes up the story of the grown-up Vanessa, now a scientist on an expedition to the northern wastes of Norway with her supervisor and a bunch of exceedingly unlovely male scientists. Echoes of all sorts of things here, since a research station is pretty much just that - claustrophobic and vulnerable to weather and communications failures and all that those entail. And bears. Vanessa discovers a body in the ice and things don't go well from there.<br />
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How the lives and stories of the three people we've met entwine to make an atmospheric and scary whole is the stuff of folklore and legend and our most atavistic fears. <i>The Ice King</i> has some genuinely heart-in-the-mouth moments and leaves unanswered lots of intriguing questions, which is fine as it's the prequel to further books about the Way family.<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"> I found myself impatient to know more about the Lake and woods and how the magic within them works: what it costs its Gamekeepers, how it's inherited, whether it can co-exist with Vanessa's science? This is exactly the sort of book I like, the kind you find yourself thinking about after you've finished. And the kind where magic is woven into the natural environment and isn't something to be learnt by going to wizard school or reading a grimoire or whatever - not that I can't enjoy some of that too, but this feels like the Real Thing.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">**Edited later to say I have no idea why the formatting changed in the last para! How infuriating! </span> </span>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-58460269476308141012018-11-13T16:13:00.000+00:002018-11-13T16:13:02.350+00:00All for Love by Jane Aiken Hodge<i>All for Love</i> was originally published as <i>Savannah Purchase</i> in 1971 and seems to have been out of print for a little while. I'm very glad that <a href="https://www.agorabooks.co/" target="_blank">Agora Books</a> have brought it back, and kindly allowed me a copy via Netgalley, because it was a real romp of a read - I stayed up late and then finished it in one blissful gulp this morning, as part of my mini Aikenfest.<br />
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Juliet and Josephine are cousins so alike that they've often, in childhood, swapped roles. They've been apart for some years, though both have moved to Savannah from France, where both had been involved in the French-English war that saw Napoleon exiled to St Helena. As their story begins their circumstances are very different - Juliet has just lost her father and is living in miserable poverty, while Josephine has married a wealthy landowner, Hyde Purchis. (This is in fact the third book in a Purchis family saga but since, I think, it introduces Juliet and Josephine as new characters, can perfectly well be read as a standalone.)<br />
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Josephine, we learn, was rescued by her husband from an unspecified-but-dire situation in France where they conducted a <span data-dobid="hdw"><i>mariage de convenance</i>. Thus she has little compunction about persuading her cousin to take her place while she sets off on a wild scheme to rescue her hero Napoleon. Juliet reluctantly allows herself to be drawn into this plot on condition that she will be able to return to France to start a new life. Once in the Purchis household, of course, she faces a series of challenges, since however alike the cousins look, it is impossible to predict all eventualities. Josephine's wayward habits and extravagance contrast with Juliet's quiet and caring manners, though at times she manages a <i>bravura </i>performance as her selfish cousin. How it all plays out I leave the reader to discover (you know I don't like plot summaries!)</span><br />
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<span data-dobid="hdw">Having just read and reviewed <a href="https://geraniumcatsbookshelf.blogspot.com/2018/11/sisters.html" target="_blank"><i>Maulever Hall</i></a>, a typically English Regency bit of gothic fun, I enjoyed the shift to Southern Gothic in <i>All for Love</i>. It's a sort of Georgette Heyer-meets-Anya Seton kind of book. Some years ago I re-read <i><a href="https://geraniumcatsbookshelf.blogspot.com/2012/11/dragonwyck-by-anya-seton.html" target="_blank">Dragonwyck</a></i>, which I had remembered from my teens as a dark and brooding sort of affair, and on re-acquaintance was struck by how much the hot southern sun kept intruding to lighten the atmosphere. It's the same here - to my surprise I almost wanted more histrionics. Perhaps you can't do Southern Gothic without vampires? But that notwithstanding, I enjoyed <i>All for Love</i> very much, and boy, but I'm loving some of the Agora reprints - through them I've discovered such writers George Bellairs and Richard Hull, filled some Allingham gaps, and have a feast of Jane Aiken Hodge's books still to come. In fact, I have a feeling that their list is going to keep me pretty busy for the next 12 months or so, and use up most of my book budget. Thank goodness for the Crime Classics Review Club!</span>GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-36619260873394433652018-11-12T17:00:00.001+00:002018-11-12T17:00:11.961+00:00SistersI have a terrible tendency to muddle up the Aiken sisters: Joan Aiken (she of <i>The Wolves of Willoughby Chase</i> fame) and Jane Aiken Hodge. I guess I was reading both in my late teens and early twenties, they both wrote some regencies, their writing styles are not dissimilar, and while Joan wrote some Austen sequels, Jane wrote a biographies of Austen and Georgette Heyer... so when I thought last week that the book I was enjoying was by the Other One, I didn't feel I was entirely to blame for my confusion.<br />
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I started the week with <i>The Embroidered Sunset</i>, by Joan Aiken. Lucy, born in England but brought up by her uncle in the US after her father ran off leaves school to discover that her expensive education has apparently used up all her money so that her planned career as a concert pianist looks unlikely. However there's a chance that a famous pianist who is dying of cancer might train her, if she can earn enough to pay for lessons so she decides to work her passage to England as a ship's stewardess. Her loathsome uncle agrees to her plan as she can also check up on his elderly sister, who may or may not have died - if she has, he wants to stop paying her an annuity, and besides, he has an idea that her pictures just may be valuable. While most enjoyable, this turned out to be quite a dark little novel, and I'm still not at all sure what I make of the end. Lots of gothic overtones, deserted houses and rain though - you can never have too much of them, right?<br />
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What I did know, however, was that Aiken's writing was pleasing and was holding my attention, and I felt that I could do with more of it. So I turned to another of her books, only to discover that it was in fact by Jane. It was on my Kindle because Agora Books have been reprinting quite a number of authors I like - Michael Innes amongst them - and I'd spotted it on one of their emails. Well, I'd spotted the Aiken bit, at any rate...<br />
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<i>Maulever Hall</i> has a lot of Georgette Heyer about it - resourceful heroine, in the case suffering from amnesia after a carriage accident, eccentric aristocrats, cross-country chases (so much more fun in a coach and four!), murdered heirs, dangerous suitors... what more could one ask? Marianne has no idea why she is fleeing in terror on a dark night with a child she doesn't think is hers. And where is she going? She's not even sure what her name or status is. Does she have a guilty secret? She manages to be at once both capable and gullible, and I thought this quite convincing - the one thing that is clear from what she can/can't remember is that she's country-bred, and has no experience of the ways of the city or the <i>ton</i>. And she has only her own feelings to tell her who and what can be trusted, and her memory of fear and pursuit. There's plenty of rain in this one too.<br />
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Which did I prefer? Well, actually, I was very happy with both, and as the nights here grow longer, am going to immerse myself in the gothic worlds of both Aiken sisters. Next up, <i>Castle Barebane</i>, by Joan - now <i>there's</i> a promising title!<br />
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<br />GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-24259392583993301462018-10-07T15:21:00.000+01:002018-10-07T15:21:56.712+01:00A Night of Errors by Michael Innes<br />
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Michael Innes' <i>A Night of Errors</i> was first published in 1947 and is the eleventh in the series which features his detective, John Appleby. As so often in this series, it's a country house setting, this time full of triplets, arson and madness. Innes' plots are always convoluted and baroque in construction, but Appleby - as ever - seems to sort out the solution while not appearing to do anything much except think.<br />
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Michael Innes books are a bit of an acquired taste: his writing is full of literary jokes and flamboyant verbiage (never use one word when five or six will do instead) and there's a tendency for the action to happen off-stage. And to be absolutely truthful, this wasn't one of his very best, so I wouldn't recommend starting with it. If you haven't read Innes, go for one his absolute classics, like <i>Hamlet, Revenge!</i> and then, if you love that I'd recommend reading <i>Appleby's End</i> before <i>A Night of Errors</i> - the cheerful insanity of the former will prepare you for the outright lunacy of the latter. By the time you've worked your way through all three there's a good chance you've fallen for Innes' style and will want to read all the rest. On the other hand, if you've already made the acquaintance of Edmund Crispin's Gervase Fen, and are a fan, you'll probably be quite comfortable with Appleby.<br />
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My thanks to Netgalley and the Crime Classics Review Club for a copy of this book (and my apologies to the latter for having a whole pile of reviews to catch up on!).GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182642520216901583.post-10792858770158621232018-08-30T17:04:00.000+01:002018-08-30T17:09:09.662+01:00The BookshopI went with a friend to see Isabelle Coixet's <i>The Bookshop</i> on Tuesday. Two people have asked me what I thought of it. So I'm hauling myself out of exile to report.<br />
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Looks idyllic, doesn't it? So easy to identify with a lead character who wants to open a bookshop. Don't we all?<br />
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It's a very quiet, low-key film which leaves a lingering sense of sadness. It's based on a novel of the same name by Penelope Fitzgerald, which I read a couple of years ago, and it leaves quite a bit out, choosing to place greater focus on an ultimately doomed love affair. You know it must be doomed by the agonising silences.<br />
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Florence Green, widowed for 16 years, arrives in a Suffolk village having found a derelict house that she thinks she can turn into a shop (what's she been doing up until then? we never learn, though we are told that she and her husband met in a bookshop). She moves into the house, which has been empty for some time. But there's a problem: the local lady of the manor, Mrs Gamart, wants the house too, to turn it into an art centre; after all, she says, there are other empty properties in the village equally suitable. Florence doesn't hesitate - she marches off to her solicitor and tells him to hurry up and finalise details. If I sound a bit unsympathetic, I'm not really: Mrs Gamart is horrible, I'd have reacted the same way. But looking back, I do find myself wondering why Florence is quite so recalcitrant. If she'd for a moment considered compromise, the subsequent events may not have occurred. But she forges on, with help from the local sea-scouts, and a precocious child called Christine who helps out for 12/6d a week, and with whom she forms a touching relationship. Even though Christine doesn't like to read they find a rapport through their shared work. Her only other real ally is Edmund Brundish (Bill Nighy), a recluse who buys books from her.<br />
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So far, so good. There's a lot to admire - the substitution of Co. Down for the Suffolk village works well and offers opportunity for lots of windswept shots of Emily Mortimer sitting on the beach. There are some excellent performances, and Mortimer and Nighy manage a kind of chemistry-despite-themselves which is very tenderly observed. As I've said, there is much from the book which is left out, and from a directorial point of view that's a good thing (it's why short stories make the best adaptations). Sadly though, much of that detail is what makes it such a fine and subtle book, and its loss makes it just a "nice" film.<br />
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Driving home after the film we shared our quibbles: immaculate period cars (it's set in 1959) - not a speck of rust in sight. William Morris wallpaper - how could Florence possibly afford it? Despite the film's opening, in which Florence is acquiring a frock for Mrs Gamart's party and ends up looking completely different from everyone else --<br />
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all the costumes look as new as the cars. No-one has frayed cuffs, the handmade knitwear is all straight off the needles and Florence's wardrobe is both extensive and stylish. In fact, for a woman who's supposed to be middle-aged and insignificant-looking, Mortimer is altogether too charismatic. Actually, Co. Down is a bit lush for the Suffolk coast, though the late summer trees are made to look faintly oppressive, full of restless movement in the ever-present wind. And whatever happened to the ghost? <br />
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To sum up, then - <i>The Bookshop</i> <u>is</u><i> </i>worth a trip to the cinema, but don't think that, having seen it, you needn't read the book. You'd be doing yourself, and Fitzgerald, a disservice.<br />
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<br />GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com4