Book Review: 'Left of the Bang', By Claire Lowdon

Published in 2015, ‘Left of the Bang’ is a contemporary novel about the lives of young adults living in London. Told in third person narration, the story focuses on Tamsin and her relationship with her boyfriend Callum. Surrounding this central relationship is a series of sub-plots that provides a thorough look at the complexities of a generation. Big themes are tackled in this book: sexuality, adultery, modern family life, war in a contemporary setting.

 

Tamsin is not the most likeable character, in fact she’s quite unlikeable; what keeps you hooked is the rawness of the writing. There is no censorship to what these characters say and do, and it is refreshing to see such an extremely honest portrayal, for better or for worse.

Left of the bang is a military term that describes the lead-up to an explosion. This idea is reminiscent in the novel as events slowly reveal themselves and reveal what is to come.

Reserve a copy here.

Book Review - 'The One Plus One' By Jojo Moyes

Jess has it tough—two jobs, an estranged husband who doesn’t contribute any child support, a stepson who gets bullied, a gifted daughter who due to financial difficulties cannot get a top education, and a guard dog that sleeps more than guards.

Ed is a successful man living in the city, recently divorced but the owner of two homes and two cars and eats out every night. After a bad business decision Ed is investigated for insider trading. To hang low while his case is sorted he retreats to his seaside home where he meets Jess – his cleaner.

 

From here Jess and Ed’s lives are thrown together out of necessity—necessary because Jess needs to get her daughter to a maths Olympiad in order to win the prize money to get her through private school, and necessary because Ed has realised how bad loneliness is, and is also in need to redeem himself from his own conscious. 

The book starts out as a dysfunctional family drama and slowly ebbs into romance a little bit before the half way point. It’s not soppy romance either, but the kind that seems natural and not forced.

Available in print or audiobook and eAudio

Book Review - 'The Lake' By Banana Yoshimoto

A novel of tender love and slow, unfurling mystery, Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto folds readers into the lives of Chihiro and Nakajima.

The Lake is narrated by Chihiro, a painter who was born out of wedlock and raised by her unorthodox parents in a small country town. When her mother dies, Chihiro moves to the city. It is here that she meets Nakajima, her neighbour.  The novel courses the two as they fall in love, however Nakajima hides a secret—a secret that Chihiro needs to know if they want to continue their relationship.

 

 

Yoshimoto’s characters are vivid and nuanced, and the prose is strong in its observant nature, for instance, “Of course, it’s true that sometimes the pink at sunrise somehow seems brighter than the pink at sunset, and that when you’re feeling down the landscape seems darker too – you see things through the filter of your own sensibility. But the things themselves, out there, they don’t change.”

For a relatively short novel there is a great sense of emotional depth at play here.

 

Book Review - “Blue Is The Warmest Color” By Julie Maroh, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger

“Blue Is The Warmest Color” is a graphic novel that follows the protagonist, Clementine, as she moves through the motions of growing up, while trying to make sense of her infatuation with Emma: the girl with blue hair. Throughout the story Clem challenges the idea of her own identity, family and friendships.

“Blue Is The Warmest Color” is a great entry point into the graphic novel genre. The text is structured around diary entries which act like traditional chapter breaks, which makes it easy to read. The written text is fast-paced, while the images offer a tender unfolding of Clem’s life. All of this contributes to a story that is exhilarating and emotive.

*This graphic novel contains explicit content and is intended for an adult audience.

Book Review - Stay Alive by Simon Kernick

Suspend belief at the number of dead bodies that will litter the landscape and jump on for the ride. A masterly plot, page-turning action and some unexpected twists will keep you up reading this. Amanda is in a safe house as she may be the only witness who can identify a serial killer. When she is targeted and found, her escape gets tangled up with a family on a wilderness outing, an ex-soldier and a local gangster. Excellently escapist.
Wendy

Book Review - The Perfect Match by Kristan Higgins

Honor Holland works at the family winery along with most of her family. Her life is full of good things and she thinks one of them is her friend 'with benefits', Brogan. But she feels more for him and puts their relationship to the marriage test. Picking herself up after he ran for the hills, she helps out a family connection, British professor Tom Barlow, who needs a green card to stay in the US.  An arranged marriage might just work out better for her than her own efforts, she can help him out and it can't be any worse than what she's been doing up 'til now, surely?.  The plan didn't include falling for him but that is just what she does. Kristan Higgins has written a loving family here, with problems and challenges but with a strong sense of support and love.  Capable, feel good romance.
Wendy

Book Review - A Pleasure and A Calling by Phil Hogan

This is an avuncular story which goes along quietly until you realize that the narrator, Mr Heming, a real estate agent, has kept keys to every house he has ever had dealings with and he indulges himself with visiting the houses and sampling the lives of their occupants. For example, he goes to one house every day for breakfast after the family has left. They are in such a muddle that they wouldn't notice extra toast has been used. Gradually, we learn more of his history, and then learn what he is capable of when he is threatened. He is in danger of losing his carefully acquired poise and good humour, not to mention several clients and employees! Macabre and darkly funny, a very unusual and different mystery which would not be for everyone. 
Wendy

Book Review—The Surfacing by Cormac James

The HMS Impetus wades into the arctic in search of John Franklin’s lost expedition of 1845. While en route it is discovered that Kitty Rink, a female stow away, is pregnant with Morgan, the second in command’s, child. After a troubled start the ship gets stuck for 18 months and from there unfolds tension and desperation.

The restricted geography of the barren environment and the ship’s hull leaves as the only recourse for movement the temporal. Structured around dates, James replicates the strain of the voyage and moves inwards for psychological drama. It is not an easy novel to read, but not because of dense, obscure references or impenetrable language. Instead the hardboiled journal format leaves the reader fatigued from the fractured repetition. This repetition is not soothing or comforting. It is jarring, unsettling, creaking, and the narrative progresses slowly like the ship jerking in the hard Arctic Sea.

Strenuous and demanding, The Surfacing is as mentally and corporeally unrelenting as the events it depicts.

Andreas

Book Review - Redemption by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Described as the "It boy of Nordic noir "on the cover blurb, Adler-Olsen does not disappoint in this murder mystery from Denmark. The serial killer here has the most ingenious way of targeting families, extracting money from them and also satisfying his need to control and to kill. All is going well until he makes a fatal error at the same time as the case is given attention by an eccentric cast of detectives in the cold case team. Another terrific Scandinavian mystery.
Wendy

Book Review - Longbourn: Pride and Prejudice – the servants' story by Jo Baker

Pride and Prejudice, one of the English speaking world's favourite novels by the acclaimed Jane Austen, concerns the Bennett family of five daughters, who will be homeless on their father's death because the family property, Longbourn, is entailed and can only be inherited by a male heir, Mr Bennet's cousin, Mr Collins. This story focuses on the servants of Longbourn:  Mr and Mrs Hill, Sarah, Polly and James. Just as the Bennet daughters are dependent on a good outcome to keep a home, so are the servants. Mr Collins proposes to and is rejected by Elizabeth Bennet and immediately secures the hand of their neighbour, Charlotte Lucas.

"…it was though a sack of bricks had been lifted from Mrs Hill's back. The future was no longer such a terrifying place. Charlotte Lucas was a steady young woman, who knew the value of a good servant, and who had far too much sense to replace staff simply for the sake of appearance or fashion. Nothing was certain, of course – for nothing is certain in this life, except that we must leave it – but Charlotte had been in and out of Mrs Hill's kitchen since she was a little girl, asking for recipes, a loan of sugar or a jelly mould, and was known to be particularly partial to Mrs Hill's lemon tarts, and indeed had on several occasions been heard to say that nobody could make a lemon tart like Mrs Hill. Back in the kitchen, Mrs Hill set about whipping up a batch of lemon tarts to send back with Sir William. These little attentions were more than worth the effort."

It is not necessary to know Pride and Prejudice to get a lot out of this story. Elizabeth is fond of walking and getting her petticoats muddy, on such excursions, she has encounters with Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. In Longbourn, the focus is on Sarah and Polly getting the mud out on wash-day, with cold reddened hands and chillblains. The servants' tasks are carefully detailed, revealing the unimaginable drudgery of keeping a large household running with no running water, no sewerage, no mechanical aids and a lot of sheer hard work. Sarah takes centre stage and her story is told well, but Polly, James and the Hills all reveal their backgrounds, hopes and dreams in this sensitively imagined and satisfying read. A welcome complement to the beloved novel.

 

Wendy

Book Review - Don't Look Back by Erica Spindler

Katherine McCall left town 10 years ago, after having been acquitted of killing her older sister, Sara, who was her guardian after their parents were killed in a car accident. Many townsfolk thought she did it and they aren't pleased she is back. But a series of anonymous letters have driven her to confront the truth and find out what really happened. Assisted by the new cop in town, she faces new dangers as the truth is finally revealed. Competent mystery romance fare set in small town USA.
Wendy

Book Review - The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

This is a sensitive and thought- provoking read. The surety of touch by this debut author is astounding. Cameron is 12 when the novel opens and her life is just turned upside down by the death of her parents in a car accident. Her conservative, religious Aunt Ruth, and her well meaning, but ineffectual grandmother, take on the parenting role, something neither of them were expecting or feeling confident about. 

Cameron has feelings for girls not boys which has its own issues and her teenage years also involve all the normal teenage issues; trying out for the swim team, going to the Prom, getting a summer job etc. Her time on the swim team leads to meeting Lindsey, who comes from a more liberal area and displays a confidence in her sexuality that eludes Cameron.  Cameron lives in a conservative, Christian community and when her 'sins' are discovered, she is sent to a Christian camp where it is hoped that she will find their faith and turn away from homosexuality. Her frank account of time in the camp feels very true, describing the schedule of activities, the one-on-one counseling and the room inspections and many other rules. I thought this may be a polemic against such places, but she comes to understand that the people who run it are fully engaged in their belief system and well meaning.  These are not nasty people but they have a deep belief system that does not include gay people. For the teens who share that faith, and therefore have much more of a struggle in trying to change themselves, believing that their own natures are wrong, the camp is much more confronting than for Cameron, who does not share the same faith and sees the camp as just something to get through.

Cameron is just starting to question whether there is any actual scientific basis for the therapies they administer, or any evidence of their success, when a tragic incident occurs, providing a trigger for the novel's ending. The camp does provide a place for Cameron to think about who she is, to make friends and to grow up.  The supporting cast of teenage characters are well imagined and well-drawn, their actions and reactions feel real, their risk-taking believable, their care and compassion for each other heartfelt and their life force engaging. The camp helps Cameron realize her true self, it's just not the self they were trying to bring about.

 

Wendy

Book Review - Police by Jo Nesbo

The latest Harry Hole thriller and he is out of the police force and lecturing at the Police college. A number of loose ends from earlier stories are tied up here so it is an advantage, although not essential to have read the earlier novels. Harry's old team are on the hunt for a killer who is targeting policemen and women with a connection to a old crimes which were unresolved or had some difficulty about them.  Harry's personal life is finally getting to a point where he asks Rakel to marry him but will his commitment be derailed by a troubled student seeking to seduce him while he solves another  'unsolvable' mystery?  Red herrings aplenty which is no doubt appropriate for a Scandinavian mystery. Excellent stuff!
Wendy

Book Review - The Outback Heart by Fiona Palmer

On a completely lighter vein, Fiona Palmer is one of the current crop of popular rural Australian romance writers and she writes a good romantic story. Indi, who gave up her studies to nurse her mother through cancer, is now two years after her death trying to do all her mother did to hold her town and her family together . 

People she'd known her whole life were up and moving to the city, and it saddened her to watch the place shrink and struggle. The decline of the footy club hurt the most. The tourism was great but tourists didn't make a close-knit community. They couldn't bring back the social aspect that the town was once known for – but Indi could. She had grand plans to restore the social events and the fundraisers, to revive a time when the whole town turned out for game day and stayed until late, when young and old shared stories. The world was obsessed with social networking, but it was of the wrong kind. You can't connect with people over electrical devices – working side-by-side and building up a real relationship, a real friendship, that's how it was done.

Her solution is to draft in a new coach to get the footy team firing again, but she doesn't count on losing her heart to the new coach, a handsome hunk with an outsize pile of baggage making him wary of commitment.

Wendy

Book Review - An Act of Kindness by Barbara Nadel

Lee Arnold is a white , male ex-police PI. Nothing new there. His partner is Mumtaz Habib, a Muslim female who wears the hijab. Something quite new there. Lee and Mumtaz find many cases that cover both the Asian and the white communities and some cross-overs when their clients run foul of local loan sharks. Their complementary skills are deftly handled in a well plotted many stranded story. Recommended!
Wendy

Book Review - Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

This is a re-release of the acclaimed debut novel first published in 1977. It has been re-published to coincide with the film starring Harrison Ford. It is interesting to discover why he wrote the book and what he was thinking as described in an introduction by the author first published in 1991. The story is of gifted children drafted to BattleSchool for training and assessment in a desperate search for a supreme battle commander . The commander is needed to lead the Earth's forces in an interstellar war against 'the buggers', the insectoid race that came out of the stars in the first interstellar war. This story is deservedly a classic. It focuses on Ender Wiggin, a hugely intelligent 6 year old who is sent to Battle School after his brother Peter, fails as he is too nasty and his sister, Valentine, fails because she is too nice. Because of their genetic potential, their parents were given permission to breed a Third, in a world where 2 children is the maximum allowed. The result is Ender, who combines his siblings' traits. His growing up is a combination of developing knowledge & skills and of understanding the duality of his own personality. When he is first sent into space, "There were 19 other boys in his launch. They filed out of the bus and into the elevator. They talked and joked and bragged and laughed. Ender kept his silence. He noticed how Graff and the other officers were watching them. Analyzing. Everything we do means something, Ender realized. Them laughing. Me not laughing. He toyed with the idea of trying to be like the other boys. But he couldn't think of any jokes, and none of theirs seemed funny. Wherever their laughter came from, Ender couldn't find such a place in himself. He was afraid, and fear made him serious."  The children at BattleSchool face tough challenges to make sure they can do the job but is the price they pay too high? As with the best scifi, the underlying political realities are deftly inserted into the action so that no-one is in any doubt that the black and white areas in life are well and truly greyed out! The space tech is handled well and you can simply read this as a coming-of-age story with fight training. I really enjoyed this book.

Wendy

Book Review - The Highway by C. J. Box

I like C. J. Box and this is a cracker of a rural Montana story. A new sheriff's deputy is involved in finding evidence about a crooked cop, her partner, Cody Hoyt. But the truth is never that simple and she finds herself in a desperate race to find two missing girls with Hoyt her only support. This story had me reading into the early hours to find out how the girls get tangled up with the serial rapist and killer called The Lizard King and, more importantly, did they get away? I am still puzzled by how the different crime fighting jurisdictions in America ever function together with State, city and local forces all with their own hierarchies and political realities, after reading uncounted American crime novels. By now, I just go with the flow and follow the detectives I like!

Wendy

Book Review - Knife Edge by Fergus Mc Neill

This is the sequel to a debut novel, which I reviewed favourably. This is creepy and chilling but is not as much as a page-turner as the first one. It continues the story of the serial killer who successfully eluded police in "Eye Contact", Robert Naysmith. He has fallen in love and thinks it is time to share his secrets with his new love. But is she ready to embrace his history? And is it going to remain history? DI Harland is a competently drawn policeman with not quite enough to do in this book.  It is a good book to explore the "what would I do?" scenario – I think I would be different to his girlfriend in this book but then there wouldn't be so much to write about!

Wendy

Book Review - The Disciple by Hjorth and Rosenfeldt

The second of the Sebastian Bergman Chronicles lives up to the promise of the first one. These two authors have written for TV and have a capacity to raise the levels of tension as the investigative team try to find connections between the four victims of a serial killer. Sebastian, the discredited psychologist and crime profiler begs to get back onto the case and then discovers that he is the link. The working relationship within the murder team is well handled and the reveal of information is paced well.  Just when they think they have solved the mystery, one of their team is taken by an escapee from a secure detention facility.  Then it's a race to discover where and rescue them before it's too late. This is very well done!

Wendy

Book Review – Life and times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee

If I were to cut, he thought, holding his wrists out, looking at his wrists, the blood would no longer gush from me but seep, and after a little while of seeping dry and heal. I am becoming smaller and harder and drier every day.

Michael K, a municipal gardener born with a hare lip and slow of mind, lives in a future South Africa in the atrophy of civil war. His mother, Anna K, is in failing health and longs to see the farm of her childhood again. K decides to cross the hundreds of kilometres to get her there. Facing bureaucratic procedure after bureaucratic indifference, they travel by wheelbarrow-cum-rickshaw. Anna K dies early into the journey, leaving K with an uncertain future, searching for solitude and a garden.

The language is restrained, precisely clear, but by no means plain. Coetzee conjures unsettling images that culminate in rich metaphors through this reserved prose. His ability to combine these striking climaxes while retaining unadorned, nuanced language (as in the passage above) is reason enough to read the book.  But the unambitious K provides an even greater one. He is not the daft, unimaginative dullard the world believes him to be, with the solace of his silence leaving his mad world (and us) devastated and baffled in his wake.
Andreas.