Category: Fiction

Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

Canongate Books| 2 November 2023|257 pages| Review copy| 4*

Synopsis

Dolly Maunder is born at the end of the nineteenth century, when society’s long-locked doors are just starting to creak ajar for determined women. Growing up in a poor farming family in rural New South Wales, Dolly spends her life doggedly pushing at those doors. A husband and two children do not deter her from searching for love and independence.

Restless Dolly Maunder is a subversive, triumphant tale of a pioneering woman working her way through a world of limits and obstacles, who is able – despite the cost – to make a life she could call her own.

My thoughts:

Kate Grenville is one of my favourite authors, so I was looking forward to reading Restless Dolly Maunder. I was not disappointed.

This is the fictionalised life story of Kate Grenville’s maternal grandmother, Sarah Catherine Maunder, known as Dolly. She was the sixth child of Thomas and Sarah Maunder, born in Currabubula, New South Wales, Australia in 1881. She was not only restless but also clever and determined – she knew what she wanted and she did her best to achieve it.

As a child she longed to be a pupil-teacher but in a world where women were subservient to men she had to obey her father who wouldn’t allow it. She could marry or be a spinster. Eventually she married Bert Russell and began a life away from the farm and her family, moving from place to place and from one business to the next to better herself and her family – a shop, a boarding house, a pub, and a grand hotel.. But she was a difficult person, not easy to like and unable to show love. Hers was a success story but also a tragedy as her wanderlust impelled her to keep striving for more and better things in life.

Restless Dolly Maunder casts light not just on Dolly’s life but also on life in Australia for most of the 20th century. The book has a relentless pace as it tells her life story as she propels herself from place to place and from business to business, enjoying success whilst it lasted and enduring all else, not stopping to pause breath in her restless pursuit of what came next.

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

I can recommend all of Kate Grenville’s books. One of my favourites is One Life:My Mother’s Story, her biography of Nance Russell, Dolly’s daughter. Hers was a happier and more fulfilled life.

Fair Stood the Wind for France by H E Bates

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Synopsis

When John Franklin brings his plane down into Occupied France at the height of the Second World war, there are two things in his mind – the safety of his crew and his own badly injured arm. It is a stroke of unbelievable luck when the family of a French farmer risk their lives to offer the airmen protection. During the hot summer weeks that follow, the English officer and the daughter of the house are drawn inexorably to each other…

My thoughts:

I bought Fair Stood the Wind for France by H E Bates in October 2018 when it caught my eye in Barter Books in Alnwick, mainly because of the title, which appealed to me. I knew nothing about it, but as it’s one of Penguins Modern Classics I added it to my Classics Club booklist. It’s my Classics Club Spin book for December, which is why I’ve read it recently.

I’m in two minds about this book. It begins really well and I was totally gripped by the first part of the book describing Franklin’s flight, with his crew of four sergeants, over France then the Alps and on to Italy. On his return flight when they were over France, they began to dive, rapidly losing height and he knew that the port engine had gone. The air screw (that’s a propeller) had broken, meaning they wouldn’t make it back to England and they crash landed somewhere in the countryside. They thought they were about west-north-west of the Vosges. From then onwards the story covers the period when Franklin whose arm had been very badly injured was cared for by Francoise and her family, hidden in their farmhouse. He falls in love with Francoise and she agrees to help him escape and marry him when they reach England.

But from then on as they made their way through Vichy France and eventually to Marseilles I felt the story dragged and I lost much of the interest I had had in the first part. Even though they encountered much danger and the tension rose, the action slowed down too much. I was relieved to finish the book.

As it was written and initially serialized weekly in the Saturday Evening Post from March 18 to May 6, 1944, and in Woman’s Journal (May-July 1944), it does give a contemporaneous account of the war portraying all dangers and the hardships they endured. It is really an extended short story, a love story, but one that didn’t particularly convince me. However, it does contain some beautiful descriptions of the French countryside and I loved the drama of the first part of the book.

  • Published by Penguin in paperback it’s also available as an e-book, published in 2005.
  • My Rating: 3.5 stars

Reading Beryl Bainbridge

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

Annabel at AnnaBookBel is hosting the third Reading Beryl week from 18 – 26 November, enveloping her birthdate on the 21st.

In previous years I’ve read According to Queenie, a novel about the life of Samuel Johnson as seen through the eyes of Queeney, Mrs Thrale, and the other Master Georgie, set in the Crimean War telling the story of George Hardy, a surgeon.

Since starting my blog I’ve also read these books, which are linked to my posts:

I have copies of the following books of hers left to read:

  • Every Man for Himself – Recapturing the four crucial days prior to the sinking of the Titanic and the loss of fifteen hundred lives, this story is told from the perspective of Morgan, the American nephew of the owner of the shipping line, and reveals how his destiny is linked to other passengers.
  • Winter Garden – Ashburner’s wife had been sporting about his need for a rest, packing him off on a holiday to Scotland. But in the taxi he changed his luggage labels and checked in for a flight to Moscow. He was the official companion to the artist Nina St Clair – but within 48 hours Nina had vanished. I did start reading this but it didn’t appeal to me very much, so the book has gone back on the shelf for a while.

I’ve started reading Every Man for Himself, and may finish it in time to write about it – I hope so anyway.

Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56: Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham one of the Chunksters I wrote about in this post. I bought this book in 2008 and I still haven’t read it – probably because it is such a big thick book of 700 pages that it is really unwieldy, hard to hold and so tightly bound I can hardly open it. And the print is quite small!

Book Beginning:

The day broke grey and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

And tonight he sank on his knees, buried his face in his hands, and prayed to God with all his might that He would make his clubfoot whole. It was a very small thing beside the moving of mountains. He knew that God could do it if he wished, and his own faith was complete. Next morning, finishing his prayers with the same request, he fixed a date for the miracle.

Description from Goodreads:

Of Human Bondage is the first and most autobiographical of Maugham’s masterpieces. It is the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as would-be artist, Philip settles in London to train as a doctor.

And that is where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a formative, tortured and masochistic affair which very nearly ruins him.

~~~

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

The Classics Club Spin Result

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

The spin number in The Classics Club Spin is number …

2

which for me is Fair Stood the Wind for France by H E Bates. The rules of the Spin are that this is the book for me to read by Sunday the 3rd December 2023.

Synopsis from Amazon

When John Franklin brings his plane down into Occupied France at the height of the Second World war, there are two things in his mind – the safety of his crew and his own badly injured arm. It is a stroke of unbelievable luck when the family of a French farmer risk their lives to offer the airmen protection. During the hot summer weeks that follow, the English officer and the daughter of the house are drawn inexorably to each other.

I’m looking forward to reading it.

Did you take part in the Classics Spin? What will you be reading?

Mini Reviews

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

I’ve been reading almost non-stop and not pausing long enough to write proper reviews, so it’s time for a brief look at some of the books I’ve read. These notes are not as detailed as I usually write, but when you read quickly this is the result!

Friend of the Devil by Peter Robinson, the 17th DCI Banks book 4*

Inspector Alan Banks and his team, the Western Area Major Crimes Squad, investigate the murder of 19-year-old Hayley Daniels who was found raped and strangled in the Maze, a tangle of narrow alleys behind Eastvale’s market square, after a drunken night on the town with a group of friends. There are plenty of suspects and it’s a matter of looking at who was where and when to find the murderer. It wasn’t who I thought it was.

DI Annie Cabbot, on loan to the Eastern area, is assigned to look into the murder of Karen Drew, a quadriplegic, who was found dead in her wheelchair on a seaside cliff. It’s only when Annie discovers the real identity of Karen Drew, that the question of why anyone would want to murder a quadriplegic, becomes clear. But who could have done it? Annie has to revisit an earlier case to find the culprit.

Although this can be read as a stand-alone novel, part of the enjoyment in reading the series in order is that you see the development of the main characters and their relationships over the years. The books are basically police procedurals but along the way there’s a lot about Alan and Annie as people rather than police officers. I have become fond of the regular characters in these books.

Watching the Dark by Peter Robinson, the 20th DCI Banks book 4.5*

This is the description on Goodreads: DCI Alan Banks reluctantly investigates DI Bill Quinn with Inspector Joanna Passero. Quinn, convalescing at St Peter’s Police Treatment Centre, was killed by a crossbow on the tranquil grounds, and left compromising photos. Quinn may be disreputable, linked to a vicious crime in Yorkshire and to a cold case – English Rachel Hewitt 19 vanished in Estonia six years ago.

Banks is not happy about this investigation, not only at the murder of one of their own officers, but because of the involvement of Joanna Passero who seems to him to be determined to prove that Quinn was a corrupt cop.

The team’s investigations lead them to a group smuggling illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe into the UK, taking Banks and Passero to Tallin in Estonia, whilst Annie heads the investigation in the UK. It’s remarkably complex. It’s also long, with many twists and turns, and it became too repetitive in the middle of the book, which is why I haven’t given it 5 stars. But I did enjoy it more than Friend of the Devil, especially the setting in Estonia. Robinson’s books are all definitely grounded in their settings, whether they’re in Yorkshire, Estonia, or elsewhere.

I have now read 20 of the 28 DCI Banks books.

I think the setting in Estonia means I can add Watching the Dark to the Wanderlust Bingo card in Central/Eastern Europe square.