e-books – Page 23 – BooksPlease

The Family Secret by Tracy Buchanan

Published on April 7, 2019April 9, 2019 by Margaret3 Comments

The Family Secret

Avon Books UK|10 January 2019|Print length 400 pages|e-book Review copy|3*

The Family Secret by Tracy Buchanan is the first of her books that I’ve read. Although I liked it, I didn’t love it, but maybe that’s because it is romantic fiction, a genre that I don’t read very often.

It’s an emotional family drama set in two timelines. The narrative switches between the two periods – one in 2009 written in the third person present tense and the other in 1989 – 1996 in the first person past tense, so the timelines are easily distinguishable. The two storylines eventually merge. However, it begins with a prologue in which an unnamed woman drowns in a frozen lake, watched by an unnamed man. As I read on I was wondering who they were and what had led up to that scene and how it fitted into the main part of the book.

There are plenty of secrets and several twists in the story. In 2009, Amber Caulfield comes across a young girl, stumbling along the beach at Winterton Chine on the south coast of England, not wearing a coat or shoes and unable to remember who she is, or how she got there. Amber who has her own problems decides to help her remember who she is and to reunite her with her family.

The second storyline, beginning in 1989 is full of secrets too. Gwyneth is a wildlife documentary filmmaker who gets lost as she’s driving in the Scottish Highlands. She comes across a lodge overlooking a loch. It’s Christmas Eve, freezing cold and snowing, so she decides to ask for help, but seeing a ptarmigan gets out her camera to film the bird and steps onto the frozen loch, the ice cracks and she falls into the water. Fortunately she is rescued by Dylan McClusky and taken in by his family. She is made welcome but it soon becomes apparent that this is a dysfunctional family with a number of problems and secrets. Gwyneth too has a troubled background and a big secret that she keeps well hidden.

It’s a novel about love, loss and guilt, but it’s a bit too predictable for my liking, with rather too many coincidences that weren’t very convincing. But it’s an easy and enjoyable book to read and it kept my interest to the end. I liked the vivid descriptions of the landscape and wildlife both in the Scottish Highlands and in Iceland in the depths of winter, bringing the settings to life.

My thanks to the publishers, Avon Books UK for my review copy via NetGalley.

Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver

Published on April 4, 2019 by Margaret4 Comments

A tale of mystery and imagination laced with terror.

Wakenhyrst

Head of Zeus|4 April 2019|e-book 5683 KB|Review copy|4*

Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver is a dark and sinister tale, full of menace and suspense. It’s a slow-burner, told through different points of view, that builds to a climax with a sad twist in the story right at the end – one I hadn’t seen coming. It’s set in a remote hamlet in the Suffolk Fens, an eerie waterlogged landscape where Edmund Stearn, a historian, and his family live in a large manor house, Wake’s End, on the edge of the Fens, said to be the oldest and most rotten of fens. It was a place of dread, haunted by spirits and the home of eels and other foul creatures.

The novel begins with a magazine report in 1966 on the events that took place at Wake’s End in 1913 when sixteen-year old Maud Stearne watched her father, Edmund, leave the house, armed with an ice-pick and a geological hammer and murder the first person he came across in the orchard. Maud was the only witness. She is now a recluse and in 1913 she had only spoken briefly at his trial. But now she needs money to repair the ancient manor house that is her home and has invited the journalist to Wake’s End. He believes Edmund was innocent and hopes to discover the truth – was Edmund mad and what did he write in his notebook that Maud has never confirmed even existed? Maud’s evidence was full of holes – did she commit the murder and frame her father, who took the blame?

Edmund never explained why he did it, or how he ended up in the well, screaming with terror as he fought off a mass of eels. He spent the rest of his life in an asylum, where he created three paintings that astonished the world – grotesque paintings full of colour and tiny malevolent faces leering out of the canvas, the stuff of nightmares.

What follows is a story of disintegrating madness, revealed in Edmund Stearne’s notebook as the reporter persuades Maud to tell her story, going back to her childhood, when her mother was still alive. Her mother got the same illness every year, or so Maud believed – an illness where her middle swelled, resulting in a period of ‘groaning’, as her middle would burst and ending with either ‘a bloody chamberpot’, or a dead baby. When she died Maud blamed her father and believed he was insane when he became obsessed with the medieval painting of the Last Judgement, known as the Doom, that he found in the churchyard. He connects the Doom with the writings of Alice Pyett, a medieval mystic whose book he was transcribing.

There is a sense of impending disaster as the tale unfolds. Whilst the fens are a source of dread and fear for Edmund, they are a place of solace and beauty for Maud. The book is full of the folklore and customs of the local people and their belief in the spirits that haunt the fen – ferishes, Jack-o’-Lanterns and Black Shuck – Michelle Paver notes in her Author’s Note that she has not invented these. Maud’s childhood, her fear of her father and his violence towards her and her mother, are scenes that are based on the misogynist attitudes of the period.

Maud’s life was run by her father’s rules. She had no friends or companions apart from the servants, whose lives were ruled by superstitions, until she met Jubal Rede, the wild man who lived in the fen. He was kind to her and taught her the ways of the fen. But there is also Chatterpie, the magpie she rescued from the well and grew to love, and then Clem, the young under-gardener who she also grew to love.

It’s a compelling story, steeped in atmosphere, with characters typical of an earlier age whose lives were oppressed and isolated from the wider world. I loved the setting, the mysterious fenland, the horrific gothic and dark nature of the story, the mystery of the murder and most of all I loved Maud and her independent spirit that brought her through the nightmare.

My thanks to the publishers, Head of Zeus for my review copy via NetGalley.

Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce

Published on March 17, 2019 by Margaret4 Comments

Picador|5 April 2018 |288 pages|Kindle edition |Review copy|3* I wasn’t sure I would like Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce because, although it’s historical fiction and one of my favourite genres, it has received so much hype that made me wonder if it was over-hyped and whether I’d find it a bit of a disappointment.

It is written in a chatty style, which makes it a quick and easy read. It’s set mainly in 1941 in London. The main character is Emmeline (Emmy) Lake, a young woman who yearns to be a war correspondent and gets a job on a magazine, Woman’s Friend as she thinks, mistakenly that this will lead to her becoming a war correspondent. However, what the job entails is being a junior typist working for Mrs Henrietta Bird, the agony aunt on the magazine’s Problem Page. Mrs Bird is a formidable woman who has no time for what she calls Unpleasantness and she will not answer any letters that she considers to be Unacceptable – and there is a long list of topics that come under that heading, mainly anything to do with relationship problems of any kind, religious or political activities or opinions and the war. But Emmy can’t help getting involved and, failing to persuade Mrs Bird to answer the letters, decides to write back herself, and even to publish a couple of answers in the magazine. Needless to say, this is not a Good Idea and she lands herself in all Kinds of Difficulties. At first I thought I wasn’t going to enjoy this book as it comes over as not only chatty, which I liked, but also full of slang – too breezy and clichéd in a ‘jolly hockey sticks’ style with an over-use of capital letters For Emphasis, which I found a bit irritating. But then, as the scattiness of the first part of the book faded somewhat and concentrated more on Emmy’s voluntary work with the Fire Service, the tone changed giving a vivid picture of what life was like during the Blitz. Emmy is a well-meaning young woman, if a little misguided in her efforts to help people, but she tries very hard to correct her errors when things did not turn out as she had hoped. Overall, then I did enjoy it and think it gives a good sense of the times and the realities of the war for the ordinary people at home. My thanks to the publishers, Picador for my review copy via NetGalley.

The Frank Business by Olivia Glazebrook

Published on March 9, 2019March 9, 2019 by Margaret2 Comments

Frank dropped down dead on Christmas Eve at four minutes past midday. He died alone – alone in a crowded mass of travelling humans – and underneath a big yellow sign: Bus Train Underground Taxi Cashpoint Toilets Tickets Information Help. He fell to the ground in the grip of a dreadful agony; his heart, to all intents and purposes, was splitting in two.

He died at London Heathrow airport, having travelled from his home in France. His next of kin is his estranged daughter Jem, who hadn’t seen him or had any contact with him since she was a child. Trying to find out why he was at Heathrow, she travelled to Frank’s house and discovers that she was not an only child as she had believed, because Frank had also had a son. She finds his name and address on Frank’s laptop and as Frank had died of a congenital heart defect, she decides that she has to warn her half-brother that he may have inherited the defect. But this results in chaos for his son’s family as secrets from the past come to light. At first I liked Frank, an illustrator. He had been listening to a performance of Hamlet on the radio and was astonished to find that Kathleen Griffin was playing Gertrude with her son Scott playing the role of Hamlet. He had had a brief affair with Kathleen years earlier and on googling Scott he realises that they look so alike that he must be his son. He decides he must see Kathleen to discover the truth. It quickly becomes clear that Frank is not the nice man I had first imagined – he’s a violent, cruel man, capable of abusive and despicable behaviour. Just what is the truth? What had happened in the past – why hadn’t Jem, a young woman of 26, not seen Frank since she was a small child and why was she brought up by a guardian, Marian, who had been her mother’s nanny?Scott, known to his family as Sonny, had no idea that Walter was not his biological father and the whole family find it almost impossible to come to terms with their situation. I’m not going into any more detail about the plot, other than to say that the whole sad story is revealed as Kathleen remembers the past and her affair with Frank. It’s well written and had me gripped right to the end. The characters are all flawed in one way or another and come across as real people. I read it quickly, keen to find out how they sorted out the mess this has made of all their lives and my only criticism is that the ending seems a bit rushed and I think it wraps everything up a bit too neatly. Olivia Glazebrook studied English Literature at University College London and has written as a journalist, screenwriter, film critic and book critic for fifteen years. The Frank Business is her third novel. Her earlier books are The Trouble With Alice (2011) and Never Mind Miss Fox (2014). My thanks to the publishers, John Murray Press, for my review copy via NetGalley.

The Man on a Donkey by H F M Prescott

Published on March 7, 2019 by Margaret10 Comments

The Man on a Donkey

Apollo|2016|756 pages|e-book|3.5*

This was first published in 1952.

Description:

In 1536, Henry VIII was almost toppled when Northern England rose to oppose the Dissolution of the Monasteries. For a few weeks Robert Aske, the leader of the rebels, held the fate of the entire nation in his hand … An enthralling novel about a moment in history when England’s Catholic heritage was scattered to the four winds by a powerful and arrogant king.

Opening paragraph:

Sir John Uvedale had business at Coverham Abbey in Wensleydale, lately suppressed, so he sent his people on before him to Marrick, to make ready for him, and to take over possession of the Priory of St. Andrew from the Nuns, who should all be gone by noon or thereabouts. Sir John’s steward had been there for a week already, making sure that the Ladies carried away nothing but what was their own, and having the best of the silver and gold ornaments of the Church packed up in canvas, then in barrels, ready to be sent to the King. The lesser stuff was pushed, all anyhow, into big wicker baskets; since it would be melted down, scratches and dints did not matter.

My thoughts:

The Man on a Donkey is the longest book I’ve read this year and at times I thought it was overlong. It certainly is not a book to read quickly, as John Cooper writes in his Introduction it ‘requires persistence from the reader.’ Hilda Prescott (1896 – 1972) was a historian and biographer as well as a novelist and based this novel on documentary evidence relating to the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 led by Robert Aske, a lawyer. It was a protest against Henry VIII‘s break with the Roman Catholic Church, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the policies of the King’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell.

Related image

It’s written in the form of a chronicle, written from the various characters’ viewpoints. It’s as much about the ordinary people as the rich and powerful. There are many characters including many real historical people, such as Henry VIII, Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell, Princess Mary and Thomas More amongst others. The two main characters are historical figures too – Robert (Robin) Aske and Christabel Cowper, the last Prioress of the Benedictine nunnery at Marrick in Yorkshire. They and the fictional characters came to life as I got used to their individual voices – some instantly likeable, such as Robin and Christabel despite their flaws and others so despicable. Henry VIII, a tyrant and Thomas Cromwell, a real villain, for example were much reviled as between them they created fear and terror in a totalitarian regime.

In fact this book is in line with much of what I had learnt of the period from history lessons at school, films, books and TV series up until I read Hilary Mantel’s books that portray a much kinder view of Cromwell. But just like Mantel’s books, this book transported me back to that time, with lyrical descriptions of the settings, both of the countryside and of the towns, of Marrick Priory and of the king’s court, of the people, and the mood of the times, both religious and political.

The Pilgrimage of Grace was not a revolution against Henry but an attempt to get him to change his mind and to understand how people felt. They wanted Henry to stop the dissolution and his attacks on the monks and nuns and to return the country to following the Pope. There were several uprisings and thousands of people were involved, nobles as well as the ‘commons’. But it cost many people their lives in excruciating pain as they were hanged, drawn and quartered.

The source of the book’s title comes from the mystic, Malle, a simple-minded young woman who the nuns had bought at a York market in the belief that she was a mermaid. She is a strange character who sees a vision of Christ riding on a donkey over a bridge across a stream in the Yorkshire countryside. Her visions and strange sayings continue to puzzle and frighten people throughout the book.

Reading A Man on a Donkey has reminded me that I have Tracy Borman’s biography of Thomas Cromwell still to read. It’s a detailed account of his life, subtitled ‘the untold story of Henry VIII’s most faithful servant’. I wonder what this will reveal about Cromwell’s controversial character?

The Wych Elm by Tana French

Published on February 21, 2019April 19, 2026 by Margaret3 Comments

The Wych Elm by Tana French is a long book and it starts very slowly, so it’s a book to savour rather than one to rush through. I was engrossed in this psychological thriller, a standalone book, as dark family secrets gradually came to light. It isn’t a page-turner and yet it is full of mystery and suspense about a family in crisis.

Toby Hennessy, the narrator, is twenty eight. He’s a good looking and charming young man from an affluent and supportive family who love him. He has had an easy start to life, everything had just seemed to fall into place for him. He works for an art gallery in the centre of Dublin, where he does the gallery’s PR and is thinking of getting a place together with his girl friend, Melissa. But then his luck and his life change dramatically when he is brutally attacked by burglars in his flat, leaving him in a terrible state, physically and psychologically damaged. The first mystery is to find out why he was burgled and so savagely beaten. The police investigation doesn’t get very far and Toby is left to solve it himself – for a while at least.

He then learns that his Uncle Hugo has terminal cancer and he and Melissa go to stay with him at the Hennessy family home, the Ivy House, to care for Hugo and to recuperate. Their large family – his parents, his aunts and uncles, and his cousins, Susanna and Leo – descend on Ivy House for lunch every Sunday and one Sunday afternoon Susanna’s young children discover a human skull in the hollow trunk of a wych elm, the biggest tree in the garden.

So there is a second mystery to be solved – and one that is slowly unravelled taking Toby back to his teenage years and he realises that there was so much going on in his friends’ and cousins’ lives that he had just not known about. It’s as though he was cocooned within his own comfortable bubble, totally unaware of the bullying and struggles that other people had to face. He really finds it hard to come to terms with this. Much of the rest of the book is made up of long conversations with his uncle and cousins and the police investigations.

The Wych Elm is an intense book, digging deeply into the nature of privilege, luck and empathy, with the dynamics of relationship, with memory and coming to terms with the past and with death. There were times when I wasn’t sure just how reliable Toby was as a narrator and then I wondered which of the other characters were telling the truth. The account of Hugo’s illness, the way he copes with it and his family’s reactions are completely convincing. This is a nuanced book, with several complex layers and when I wasn’t reading it I was still thinking about it. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My thanks to the publishers, Penguin UK, for my review copy via NetGalley.