Margaret Pemberton's "Summer queen"

You can find this book here.

Pemberton’s novel is a well-detailed historical novel, following three grandchildren of Queen Victoria: May, Alicky and Willy. If you are well-versed in modern history or the British royals, you may well know these characters already, or maybe you don’t know them as well as you think you do.

The novel follows the lives of May, Alicky and Willy and how they were bound together one day through a blood pact. If you read the tagline on the cover: ‘Her broken oath would cast an empire into turmoil’, then you can be sure that the consequences of their future by these characters are linked to the fact that the blood pact between the three of them does not remain. Whether their futures become what they do because a blood pact was broken or not, can easily be debated by you.

Their futures could also be shaped by who they are. May for example, is not a true royal and living with this truth around royals makes her feel like an outsider. Alicky is strong-willed, but never recovered over her mother’s death, even when she falls in love with the man she thinks she will be with for eternity. And finally, Willy, who was born with a birth defect that his parents were ashamed of and tried hard to “fix”, making him hide who he really is and becomes someone else.

Pemberton has researched her history well to create a family saga that is rich, and dare I say gritty, with detail. The characters are relatable; even when things start to break down for each of them, I still felt for them: I wasn’t distanced from them. Pemberton writes with flair regarding the settings, the architecture, the clothing … everything you need for a strong historical saga. I will say; however, that some things are repeated in the descriptions and memories. Whilst this could be reminiscent of human reminiscences, I found it a little jarring.

I did also find the list of characters sometimes confusing and couldn’t keep up. However, the more I made it through the novel, the better I became at handling this. Without it, would it really be so saga-like? There are family trees at the beginning for you to be aware of; but you can also be sure that the three main protagonists are not lost in this novel either.

If you enjoy reading about a lot of characters, historical fiction, or even royal families, this book is a good read. Whilst I am unsure how much is poetic licence (it is fiction, so there will be some); I still really enjoyed it.

Links for you:

Book list of Pemberton in the library here.

Title read-a-likes in the Library:

Three sisters, three queens

Philippa Gregory

This book is set further in history, but is within the same genre, is descriptive and has a strong sense of place. The characters are strong females (which May could be), though it is a much more suspenseful novel.

Tudor conspiracy

Christopher (or C. W.) Gortner

This book is also historical; however, is more focussed on mystery than family sagas.

Read-a-likes in cloudLibrary:

Cavendon Hall chronicles

Barbara Taylor Bradford

This series is historical in nature and has elements of family saga within. It is also written as descriptively as Pemberton’s novel.

A select bibliography:

Queen Victoria’s matchmaking: the royal marriages that shaped Europe

Deborah Cadbury

The three emperors: three cousins, three empires and the road to World War One

Miranda Carter

Alix & Nicky: the passion of the last Tsar and TsarinaAlix & Nicky : the passion of the last Tsar and Tsarina

Virginia Rounding

The last of the tsars: Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution

Robert Service

King, Kaiser, Tsar: three royal cousins who led the world to war

Catrine Clay

Quest for Queen Mary

James Pope-Hennessy

Four sisters: the lost lives of the Romanov grand duchesses

Helen Rappaport

Victoria the Queen: an intimate biography of the woman who ruled an empire

Julia Baird (also Julia Woodlands)

Queen Victoria: a life of contradictions

Matthew Dennison

Staff pick: Canna Campbell's "Mindful money"

This book can be found here.

I recently finished ‘Mindful Money’, a book by Australian financial planner, new mum and YouTuber, Canna Campbell. This book not only offers practical tips for how to structure your income and spending, but also weaves a modern, mindful philosophy into the whole process. Canna explores the relationships and values we all have towards our money and invites readers to further explore this in a positive way. This approach is a side to personal finance that I haven’t seen represented before and is such a welcomed point of difference, especially for younger investors.

It broaches a wide range of financial topics and clarifies some big buzz words (hello franking credits!) The topics are easy to follow, clearly written and presented in a way that encourages beginners and informs rather than instructs. It’s a very poignant topic and gave me a sense of comfort and clarity, especially within

 the current worldwide environment.  

-- Lauren

Staff pick: Sophie Hardcastle's "Below deck"

This book can be found here.

On the surface, a simple story of a young woman deciding to take her life in an unexpected direction after the death of her grandfather. A chance meeting with people who ‘get’ her more than she has ever felt from her parents, takes her part of the way on this journey and they remain a support system as she travels on by herself.

The words flow seamlessly in circles of colour, in streams of light and dark, in visceral description and battered and baffled feeling. The story of Oli, of how she meets, evades, excels and ignores other people’s expectations is tender and hopeful. She goes to sea which is both the answer and a terrifying question. She finds people who will test her and some who will support her but eventually she must go back to the sea to find her own answers. Oli has synaesthesia which means she hears the world in colour, but she has the same difficulty as any other young person in making sense of her world. There is a large cast of supporting characters who are developed enough to move the story forward, but this is Oli’s story alone and we hear it in her own voice and in her own colours.

 ’Someone told me a special story about death,’ Maggie says. ‘She told me that we are like rivers, all of us. We begin as clouds, and then one day we rain down and become a trickle. We grow into a stream…thicken into a river. We travel great distances, wind through all kinds of valleys and forests. Sometimes we come together with other rivers, flow together, swirl together in great lakes, part ways, flow alone…But we all meet again in the end at the river’s mouth, where we empty into the sea.’ pp. 54-5.

Oli’s sailing takes her to the Great Barrier Reef and the Great Southern Ocean; seeing whales, penguins, icebergs and the vast, restless colours of the waters of the earth. On land, she works in an art gallery and meets creative women developing their craft and asserting their own identities.

This is a debut adult fiction although the author has already published a memoir re mental illness and a YA novel. But this is grown-up territory, a poetic muse on being an adult and making adult choices; about finding your own voice and making your own space to live.

I imagine that this wind first circled in Antarctica, that it was born of silence. I imagine how it thickened, changed shape, changed direction. I imagine how it licked the sea, clawed at it, dug up waves from the deep. I imagine how it screamed in the night, shaking sailor’s knees.

And as it tears through my hair and up behind me, I find a sense of awe blooming inside my body, a deep and unswerving respect for these coarse grasses, that mother with her child, this purple earth, these people, all these wildflowers.

It’s a wild wind. Fierce and bitter and alive. Ushuaia endures.

And in that thought, I find solace. For I, too, endure. P. 252

For other books (or versions of this one), go here.

To read an article on Hardcastle's writing process, go here.

-- Wendy

Stop! Grammar time.

Grammar and usage. (2011). Irvine: Saddleback Educational Publishing, 6. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e700xww&AN=435827&site=ehost-live&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_6



This resource can be found here. It is part of our online nonfiction collection of items that you have free access to with a library card. All you have to do is scroll down to the bottom of this page, and log in.


The image gives the perfect summary for what a sentence is: a full thought that contains the 'who' and 'what they did'. So as long as you have both of those elements and it is a complete thought, then you have a sentence. It will also always start with a capital letter (ABC) and have punctuation like a full stop (.) at the end. And the resource allows you to practice this on following pages; so feel free to use them if you are trying to show or explain to someone how to write a sentence.

But, stop! What if I have a question? Or, you need to understand how I feel! Or, I need to tell you to do something. ... Well, a sentence does not have to end in a full stop (.). Ending a sentence with a question mark (?) or an exclamation mark (!) still shows a complete thought; as long as the 'who' and the 'what they did' or 'how they felt' is in there.


What sound does a dog make?

I wanted the last piece of chocolate!

He jumped on the trampoline. 

Go over there now!

The fireworks are pretty.

Now I know that these sentences seem small; especially since the sentences I am writing are very long. Books like 'Grammar and usage' go into more detail; but ease you in to learning things that seem much more complicated than they first appear. And we have a lot of books you can use to help you!

But 'Grammar time' will also break things down ... and over time there will be a lot more about sentences coming. So, watch out! It's time to break grammar down.

via GIPHY

C. J. Tudor's "The chalk man"

This book can be found here.

Tudor’s ‘The Chalk Man’ is a pretty fast read, and whilst I am going to review it as much as any other book I have read … cloudLibrary classed it as part of the genre “Horror”. Depending on your definition of the genre, you may or may not agree with this when you read it.

Eddie is a kid, part of a “gang” of youths who find a dead body when they are young and then need to deal with the consequences of this once they are older. Seems like a simple storyline; and it is, because we have heard this many times before (even Stephen King’s ‘Dreamcatcher’ does this in part). However, this book has a very different feel to it, even though it follows common tropes. 

The reason I believe this novel is different is because of the characterisation. I found the characters; not exactly interesting per se, but so damaged and flawed that the situation, consequences and the writing sat with me much longer. Perhaps this was why it was placed in horror? The mentalities, attitudes and lives of these characters are so flawed, so pained at times, and seemingly so … off … that perhaps this is the horrifying element all along. Not anything violent that actually happens in the novel: it is the psychology of the characters themselves that is off-putting or creepy. It was what made the book interesting. And sad (not in a crying way, but in a “oh, humans are so pathetic and tormented way”, you know?). It’s also what I take away from this novel the most.

The story itself changes chapter by chapter through the past and present. Mainly between 1986 and 2016. This really worked and made the novel even poetic and cyclical by the end. 

“Everyone has secrets, things they know they shouldn’t do but do anyway.”

You may not see it now, but you will if you read this novel. 

If anyone says they could not connect with the characters; that makes sense. Because it is filled with dark humour and the characters are all flawed, broken and well, human. But the story itself is well written and complete; you have everything you need by the novel’s end. I just kept going back to its cyclical nature and found this part the most enjoyable.

Links for you:

Tudor in the Library:

Other people

Tudor in cloudLibrary:

Taking of Annie Thorne

Title read-a-likes in the Library:

Bone keeper

Luca Veste

Both novels are menacing and have a murder of the past that leaves a mark on individuals into their older selves. However, Veste is more police procedural.

Lying game

Ruth Ware

This was chosen because of the flawed nature of characters and the psychological impact of past events on characters.

Good daughter

Karin Slaughter

Chosen because characters were flawed and shows the impact of small-town life.

Author read-a-likes in cloudLibrary:

Into the water

Paula Hawkins

Girlon the train

Paula Hawkins

Hawkins' work is similarly creepy, complex and nonlinear. These works also focus on the psychology of characters and their unlikeability.