Category: e-books

The Secret Vanguard by Michael Innes

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

A Golden Age Mystery

Ipso Books| 3 Oct. 2017|228 p|Review copy|4*

Nobody, she said to herself, is necessarily what he appears to be; nobody.

I enjoyed The Secret Vanguard very much. It’s the fifth in Michael Innes’ Inspector Appleby series and is very different from the first one Death at the President’s Lodging, which I read several years ago, a book that had little action, much description and a lot of analysis.  Set in 1939 on the edge of war, The Secret Adversary is full of action, a story of spies, kidnapping and a race through the Scottish Highlands to save a scientist. It reminded me in the Highlands section of John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps.

It begins with the murder of poet, Philip Ploss at his home in the Chilterns and Appleby is mystified wondering why anyone would have wanted to kill him. He had been shot in the middle of his forehead whilst in a gazebo with a magnificent view of the surrounding countryside.

It then moves to Sheila Grant, travelling by train to Scotland when she overhears a conversation about poetry as one of the passengers quotes from a poem by Swinburne. She thinks it is odd that he had added in four lines of his own and realises that the words were a sort of code that he was passing on. And, indeed this discovery leads her into danger but before she can alert anyone else she is captured and held prisoner, eventually escaping in a desperate search for assistance.

I liked all the twists and turns in this somewhat improbable story as Sheila, with much courage and luck scrapes through several dangerous escapades until Appleby comes to the rescue. I enjoyed the descriptions both of London and the Highlands as I raced through this book. I also really like Innes’ writing style, detailed, formal and scattered with frequent literary allusions and quotations. He has packed a lot into The Secret Vanguard.

My thanks to Ipso Books for a review copy via NetGalley.

Amazon UK link
Amazon US link

Only Child by Rhiannon Navin

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Publication date 8 February 2018, Mantle

Review copy from the publishers, via NetGalley

My rating:  5 stars 

Blurb:

My thoughts:

This must be one of the most powerful books I’ve read for ages. In fact I don’t remember reading anything quite like it. It’s emotional, moving and absolutely compelling – I loved it. One of the things I loved most about it is the narrative voice – that of seven-year old Zach. Everything is shown through his perspective, as he sees and hears what happens – so, for example the shooting, the sounds ‘pop’, ‘pop’, ‘pop’ are described as Zach hears the gunshots. There are no gory or violent scenes.

But that is just the start of the book. The main part shows how he deals with what happens next, with the death of his ten-year old brother, Andy, and how he tries to make sense of his parents’ reactions and his own. I think Rhiannon Navin portrays him well. He comes across as a child who observes the adults around him  and tries to understand his own feelings. The scenes in his secret hideout are beautiful as he records his feelings as colours to help him separate them and deal with them. He also reads the Magic Treehouse books about finding the secrets of happiness.

Zach’s mother falls to pieces, wanting the gunman’s parents to take responsibility and looking for justice/revenge, his father becomes increasingly distant and although both Zach’s grandmothers and aunty are around for support he retreats into himself and then becomes angry, which bewilders and frightens him. He tries to explain to his parents how he is feeling and although his father listens and tries to helps him, his mother is totally absorbed in her own feelings. When his father decides to leave the family Zach is devastated. It is a heart-wrenching book, that brought tears to my eyes. All of which makes me admire Rhiannon Navin’s portrayal of the characters in this, her debut novel.

It is such a sad book, but ultimately it is uplifting.

Many thanks to the publishers for a review copy via NetGalley.

Amazon UK link
Amazon US link

The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Do you remember when you believed in magic?

Publication date 8 February 2018, Penguin Random House UK, Ebury Publishing

Review copy from the publishers, via NetGalley

My rating:  5 stars 

Blurb:

It is 1917, and while war wages across Europe, in the heart of London, there is a place of hope and enchantment.

The Emporium sells toys that capture the imagination of children and adults alike: patchwork dogs that seem alive, toy boxes that are bigger on the inside, soldiers that can fight battles of their own. Into this family business comes young Cathy Wray, running away from a shameful past. The Emporium takes her in, makes her one of its own.

But Cathy is about to discover that the Emporium has secrets of its own…

My thoughts:

I loved this book. As a child I loved stories about magic, stories that transported me to another world, but The Toymakers is not a children’s story. It is an extraordinary, magical and wonderful book that captivated me, a book set mainly in 1917 whilst the First World War was taking its toll of humanity, leaving despair and tragedy in its wake. It’s a blend of historical fiction and magic realism.This is a story of love, and family relationships, as well as of the devastating effects of rivalry and war.

Papa Jack’s Emporium in London is a toyshop extraordinaire. It opens with the first frost of winter each year and closes when the first snowdrop blooms. And the toys it sells aren’t ordinary toys – they seem alive, from patchwork dogs, to flying pegasi, Russian dolls that climb out of one another, runnerless rocking horses, whales that devour ships, fire-breathing dragons and many others to the toy soldiers that wage war on each other.

The story begins in 1906 and ends in 1953, following the lives of Papa Jack Godman, his sons, Kaspar and Emil and Cathy Wray, who aged 15 and pregnant had run away from home. Cathy finds sanctuary at the Emporium, and Papa Jack tells her how he came to live in London and founded the Emporium, how he had found in making toys a kind of magic, a way of reaching a man’s soul.

At first Cathy lived in the Wendy House, which like the Tardis is larger on the inside than the outside, with Sirius the patchwork dog. It was where her daughter, Martha was born. Kasper and Emil are caught up in a battle for control of the Emporium, and they both fall in love with Cathy, but it is Kasper that she marries. The years pass, the First World War breaks out, Kasper joins up, but Emil’s application is refused, so he stays at home, developing his toy soldiers. I was struck by the irony and pathos of a world at war mirrored in the battles fought by Emil’s toys soldiers. And things come a head when Kasper returns a damaged man and retreats into his mind. What happens next changes their lives for ever.

The Toymakers is a wonderful book, one that will stay with me, not just about the horrors of war and rivalry, but above all about the power of love, the magic of childhood and the effect of toys – when you are young you play with toys to feel grown up, imagining what it will be like to be an adult. But when you are an adult what you want from toys is to feel that you are young again. They remind you that the world was once as filled with magic as your imagination will allow.

Many thanks to the publishers for a review copy via NetGalley.

Amazon UK link
Amazon US link

First Chapter First Paragraph: Only Child by Rhiannon Navin

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

Every Tuesday First Chapter, First Paragraph/Intros is hosted by Vicky of I’d Rather Be at the Beach sharing the first paragraph or two of a book she’s reading or plans to read soon.

My first paragraph this week is from Only Child by Rhiannon Navin, which will be published on 8 February 2018.

It begins:

The Day the Gunman Came

The thing I later remembered the most about the day the gunman came was my teacher Miss Russell’s breath. It was hot and smelled like coffee. The closet was dark except for a little light that was coming in through the crack of the door that Miss Russell was holding shut from inside. There was no door handle on the inside, only a loose metal piece, and she pulled in with her thumb and pointer finger.

“Be completely still, Zach,” she whispered.

“Don’t move.”

Blurb

“We went to school that Tuesday like normal. Not all of us came home . . .” Huddled in a cloakroom with his classmates and teacher, six-year-old Zach can hear shots ringing through the corridors of his school. A gunman has entered the building and, in a matter of minutes, will have taken nineteen lives. In the aftermath of the shooting, the close knit community and its families are devastated.

Everyone deals with the tragedy differently. Zach’s father absents himself; his mother pursues a quest for justice — while Zach retreats into his super-secret hideout and loses  himself in a world of books and drawing. Ultimately though, it is Zach who will show the adults in his life the way forward — as, sometimes, only a child can.

∼ ∼ ∼

I was just going to look at this, not start reading it but before I knew it I was hooked and well into the story. What do you think – would you read on?

The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

‘We have no need to protect ourselves from the bad sort 
because we ARE the bad sort . . .’

Publication date 1 February 2018, Hodder and Stoughton

Review copy from the publishers, via NetGalley

My rating:  3 stars 

The Wicked Cometh is Laura Carlin’s debut novel.

The title of this book comes from Proverbs XVIII, 3: When the wicked cometh, then cometh also contempt, and with ignominy reproach.

The opening chapter sets the scene as The Morning Herald reports on the growing numbers of missing people in London in September 1831. So, you know straight away that this is a tale of wickedness and evil. It begins well, setting the scene with detailed descriptive writing full of vivid imagery, evoking the sights, smells, and sounds of life in the darkest and foulest corners of London in the 1830s.

It’s narrated in the present tense by Hester White, a young woman of eighteen. She grew up in a parsonage in Lincolnshire but she was orphaned at the age of 12 and went to live in London with Jacob, formerly her father’s gardener, and his wife Meg in a slum dwelling, just one room with a brick and dirt floor. I liked Hester, who originally came from a reasonably well-off family and was educated. She lives in hope of leaving London and escaping from her miserable life.

A way out presents itself when she is knocked down and injured by Dr Calder Brock’s carriage and whisked away to stay at his family’s country house, Waterford Hall near Stratford. Calder intends to use her as an experiment, to build up her physical health, and to give her the chance of improving her life he persuades his sister Rebekah to educate her. He wishes to prove that even those from the gutter can be educated and Hester exaggerates her ignorance in order to escape being sent to the London Society for the Suppression of Mendicity, a place of shame feared by the poor. Known as the ‘Dicity’ it was one step on the downward path either to transportation in the hulks or to the poorhouse.

So far, so good but the first part of the book moves very slowly and my attention began to wander as I thought the wicked were a long time in coming. But come they did in abundance in the latter part of the book and as the relationship between Hester and Rebekah develops they begin to uncover the sinister secrets of what is behind the mystery of the missing people. And it is a dark, gruesome and grim secret.

Overall, I’m rather torn about this book – parts of it I really enjoyed, even though it’s written in the present tense, which I don’t like. The characters are well-drawn and the settings are superb, but the slow pace failed to provide enough tension especially in the middle section. The suspense and drama increased rapidly towards the end, but the final twist seemed contrived and not very convincing. But I can see from Goodreads that other readers enjoyed this book far more than I did.

My thanks to the publishers for a review copy via NetGalley.

Amazon UK link
Amazon US link

First Chapter First Paragraph: The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale

Published on by Margaret13 Comments

Every Tuesday First Chapter, First Paragraph/Intros is hosted by Vicky of I’d Rather Be at the Beach sharing the first paragraph or two of a book she’s reading or plans to read soon.

This week I’m featuring a book that I’ve just started to read, The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale, to be published on 8th February 2018. It promises to be A dark enchanting, spectacularly imaginative novel.

It begins:

PAPA JACK’S EMPORIUM, LONDON 1917

The Emporium opens with the first frost of winter. It is the same every year. Across the city, when children wake to see ferns of white stretched across their windows, or walk to school to hear ice crackling underfoot, the whispers begin: the Emporium is open! Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat …

If, at a certain hour on a certain winter night, you too had been wandering the warren between New Bond Street and Avery row, you might have seen it for yourself. One moment there would be darkness, only the silence of shops shuttered up and closed for business. The next, the rippling snowflakes would part to reveal a mews you had not noticed before – and, along that mews, a storefront garlanded in lights. Those lights might be but pinpricks of white, no different to the snowflakes, but still they would draw you eyes. Lights like these captivate and refract the darkness. Lights like these can bewitch the most cynical of souls.

Blurb:

Do you remember when you believed in magic?

It is 1917, and while war wages across Europe, in the heart of London, there is a place of hope and enchantment.

The Emporium sells toys that capture the imagination of children and adults alike: patchwork dogs that seem alive, toy boxes that are bigger on the inside, soldiers that can fight battles of their own. Into this family business comes young Cathy Wray, running away from a shameful past. The Emporium takes her in, makes her one of its own.

But Cathy is about to discover that the Emporium has secrets of its own…

∼ ∼ ∼

This has me bewitched already.

What do you think – would you read on?