Tag / Book Review
In Praise of Kate
In Praise of Kate
What am I going to do? I’ve just finished reading the last Jackson Brodie novel by Kate Atkinson.
It’s hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t read them what it is about Kate Atkinson’s books that are so addictive. It’s the way she gets inside her characters’ heads, gives them the strange off-the-wall thoughts that go through all of our minds. We really know these people. They’re not perfect. They don’t...
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Book Review: The Woman in the White Kimono by Ana Johns
Book Review, The Woman in the White Kimono by Ana Johns
This is a beautiful written book, in fact almost too beautifully written: in some places it felt like a fairy story. I found the first part a bit off-putting: there is an awful lot of sitting by a bedside watching a loved one suffering, which doesn’t move the story forward and is almost slushy in its portrayal of an end-of-life scenario.
Book Review: A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier
Book Review A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier
This is the sort of book you put down reluctantly, immediately looking forward to the next time you can read it again. Tracy Chevalier beautifully conjures up England in the 1930’s: the clothes, the streets, the houses, the smells, the attitudes and the general way of life, in particular for women, a subject I am so interested in myself.
Thirty-eight year old Violet “escapes” her home town to go all of twelve...
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Book Review: Square Haunting by Francesca Wade
Book Review: Square Haunting by Francesca Wade
I bought this book thinking it was going to be about the Bloomsbury set: Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey etc. It was my own fault, I should have read the blurb more closely. It is, in fact, the biographies of five women who lived at one time or another in Mecklenburgh Square. Much of the “biography” is not, in fact, about their time in the square and to call them biographies is also misleading: they’re more sort of “potted histories” of some of their...
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Book Review: Those Who Are Loved by Victoria Hislop
Book Review: Those Who Are Loved by Victoria Hislop
What a disappointment this book was! I really enjoyed The Island by the same author and I know her books are highly thought of and well researched. The main problem with this one I think is that I couldn’t relate to the main character. I couldn’t see her in my mind or feel her thoughts and feelings. It’s the same with all the characters in this book: they lack depth and feeling. They’re almost caricatures. It’s as though she has wanted to tell a chunk of history...
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Book Review: Catch Me When I Fall by Nicci French
Book Review: Catch Me When I Fall by Nicci French
This is one of those books that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading it. The description in the first chapter of the heroine’s drink and drug fuelled night out was just incredible. I’ve never had a night out like that (thank goodness!) but I really could feel what it must be like. It’s easy to look back and find holes in the plot, easy to see too that the characters are a bit too obvious: the crazy girl, the loyal husband, the even more loyal friend. It’s...Read More
Book review: After the Party by Cressida Connolly
Book Review After the Party by Cressida Connellly
I agree with the reviews that say, “I’ve never read anything like it.” From the very beginning this novel is different: written in a style that evokes a different time period. It takes a while to get used to this: the main protagonist, Phyllis, comes across as a cold character, with very few redeeming factors. In fact, this first impression doesn’t improve and is one of the main criticisms I have of this book: Phyllis lacks any real depth: her feelings for her husband, children and family are at all times cold and distant....Read More
Book Review: City of Friends by Joanna Trollope
Book Review City of Friends Joanna Trollope I wouldn't say that Joanna Trollope is one of my favourite authors but I have certainly enjoyed some of her novels, particularly Other People’s Children and Marrying the Mistress, both of which could be said to have influenced my own novel on divorce, re-marriage and step-children Out of Step. Jonanna Trollope’s novels are well-crafted....
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“This is it” Book Review “This Must be The Place” by Maggie O’Farrell
This is it
Book Review “This Must Be The Place” by Maggie O’Farrell Maggie O’Farrell is one of the writers who has influenced my own writing style. She has a way of delving into people’s minds, describing family and relationship dynamics and producing believable characters that I try to emulate. The two books by her that I have read and enjoyed are “Instructions for a Heatwave” and “My Lover’s Lover”. “This Must Be the Place” starts brilliantly. I really loved the style and pace of the writing and the way the characters are introduced...Read More
Not Boyd’s Best
Not Boyd’s Best
Book review Sweet Caress by William Boyd
A new Boyd book, I was so excited. Ever since I read Armadillo I have loved William Boyd, although as with most authors, I have found some of his books disappointing. I didn't particularly enjoy Restless or his James Bond outing Solo. Brazzaville Beach is probably my favourite, followed closely by Armadillo, and I loved Any Human Heart. Sweet Caress could almost be seen as a female version of Any Human Heart, the biography of a woman from her earliest memory to almost the day of her death. This is what Boyd does...Read More