Difference between revisions of "Newest General Fiction Reviews"
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| + | |author=Julian Clary | ||
| + | |title=Briefs Encountered | ||
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| + | |summary=Choosing this book from Julian Clary was irresistible. Normally, I try not to review books where I’m already familiar with author. But I didn’t feel that seeing him live several times or watching him regularly on TV counted, as I hadn’t read either of his two previous novels. | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091938856</amazonuk> | ||
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|summary=Loviah French, Dinah Wainwright and Avis Metcalf met when they were at boarding school. Lovie owns a top-class dress shop in Manhattan - the place where women of a certain class go when they want something for a special occasion and to be secure in the knowledge that they will be treated well and discreetly. Dinah is a columnist who chronicles the lives of New York's rich and famous, whilst Avis is a prominent figure in the art world. Lovie is our narrator and she's also the glue which holds the three women together. They're both devoted to her and she to them, but a small, imagined slight, many decades earlier, has left an icy distance between Dinah and Avis. | |summary=Loviah French, Dinah Wainwright and Avis Metcalf met when they were at boarding school. Lovie owns a top-class dress shop in Manhattan - the place where women of a certain class go when they want something for a special occasion and to be secure in the knowledge that they will be treated well and discreetly. Dinah is a columnist who chronicles the lives of New York's rich and famous, whilst Avis is a prominent figure in the art world. Lovie is our narrator and she's also the glue which holds the three women together. They're both devoted to her and she to them, but a small, imagined slight, many decades earlier, has left an icy distance between Dinah and Avis. | ||
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857899821</amazonuk> | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857899821</amazonuk> | ||
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Revision as of 06:48, 17 April 2013
General fiction
Briefs Encountered by Julian Clary
Choosing this book from Julian Clary was irresistible. Normally, I try not to review books where I’m already familiar with author. But I didn’t feel that seeing him live several times or watching him regularly on TV counted, as I hadn’t read either of his two previous novels. Full review...
The Safest Place by Suzanne Bugler
Jane and David Berry have always lived and worked in London. However, since their children have come along, the house has felt too cramped and Jane has often dreamed of moving away. When their son Sam fails to get a place at his chosen secondary school, that is the catalyst she needs to start making her dream a reality. The only problem is that the rest of the family are not quite as enthusiastic about moving as she would have hoped. David will have to commute every day to London and the children are anxious about starting a new school, particularly Sam who finds it difficult to make friends. Even Jane starts to wonder if it was a good idea, isolated in a house miles from anywhere, finding it difficult to get to know the local community. Full review...
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Much like the missing question mark in the title it would seem, Bernadette has disappeared. Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette works as both a physical and emotional question. Bernadette Fox is the wife of Elgie Branch, a star at Microsoft in Seattle, and mother of 15 year old, Bee. The narrative begins with Bee wondering where her mother had gone, but then quickly moves to an epistolary format told in e-mails, notes and messages between the major players, including some rather obnoxious mothers at Bee's school, one of whom also works at Microsoft with Elgie. We are taken back a few weeks to when Bernadette was around and a seemingly somewhat angry mother prior to her mysterious disappearance. One of the delights about the book, which along with being very funny on issues like helicopter parenting, corporate life and, er, Canadians, is that it emerges that Bernadette is more than a wife and mother but has a past career of her own as a talented architect which she has sacrificed for one reason or another. Thus, in many ways she disappeared long before her physical disappearance. Full review...
The Ottoman Motel by Christopher Currie
Simon Sawyer is 11 years old, forced on a road-trip with his parents to visit his grandmother, Iris. Iris is living in some backwater town hemmed in on three sides by corn fields, and on the fourth by the sea. The town is called Reception in a heavy-handed attempt at irony, as we learn the town actually has no reception for mobile phones and is pretty much isolated from the rest of the world but for a few dirt tracks leading out. Full review...
Homecoming by Susie Steiner
Ann and Joe Hartle are approaching their sixties and hoping to slow down a little. Their sheep farming life is starting to take its toll and it’s an enticing thought that they may be able to pass the farm on to their son Max. The only problem is that the farm is hardly making any profit and Max is not the most capable person in the world. Added to that, Max’s wife Primrose is expecting a baby and that is not without its difficulties. The Hartle’s other son, Bartholomew, is far away in London trying to run his own business and also scared about committing to his girlfriend, Ruby. The family has started to fall apart over the years but when things go badly wrong on the farm including a barn fire and a virus that spreads through the sheep and newborn lambs, there is the opportunity to pull together and start anew. Is this something that the family can do or will they fall apart even more? Full review...
The Song the Waves Sing by Val Harris
Some time has passed since we last saw the Moon family. Charlie Moon has been released from prison. His sister Olivia is in New York but Jenna is still in Cornwall, where she's turned the family home into a B&B. Their father Brendan is a reformed character and he's moved to Looe, where he's a partner in an art gallery. But everyone's life has its ups and downs: Olivia is made redundant and the only logical move is back to the UK. Then Brendan overhears a conversation and realises that his business partner is deep in an art fraud. Full review...
The Spark by O H Robsson
Kristoffer lives in a house on the edge of a lake in Western Norway with his dog and occasional company from his friend Mats. By profession he’s a photographer and enough business comes his way to keep him the way he wishes to live. He’s relaxed - too much so at times when you’re relying on him (always a mistake) to be punctual. There has been the occasional girlfriend - some of them pretty stunning - but none of them ever came up to Eva whom he met when they were both in their teens and working in the local hotel to earn some money. His grandfather has a summer cabin up in the mountains and Kristoffer’s happy to go up to spend time with him and take him his supplies. You might think that’s pretty idyllic - and it is. Full review...
The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepherd
Teenager Juliet Moreau has had a hard life since her father was vilified by Victorian society. Thinking him long dead, she scrapes a living as best she can – but a chance discovery at a macabre event leads to her to learn that he is alive and her life is cast into chaos. Full review...
May We Be Forgiven by A M Homes
May We Be Forgiven is not an easy book to summarise. The book is narrated by Harold, a fairly pedestrian academic teacher and aspiring writer of history and particularly the Nixon era. We don't have to wait long for the catalyst that changes his life fundamentally over the course of a year. His high flying, younger brother, George, is involved in a car accident shortly after Thanksgiving and an adulterous encounter will change the lives of Harold and George forever. AM Homes offers a biting satire of the American Dream, taking swipes at materialism, families that are more nuclear fallout than nuclear, Internet sex sites and the dependence on drugs and psychiatrists to keep people on the straight and narrow. Full review...
Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick
Charlie Beale returned from the war in Europe and 1948 found him in Brownsburg, Virginia. He'd been driving around looking for somewhere to settle and all he had with him were two suitcases. One contained an excellent set of butchers' knives - and the other was full of money. Brownsburg seemed like a fine place to stay and before long he had a job with Will Haislett and the Haislett family became his family. He'd never hankered after children but their five-year-old son, Sam found a place in his heart. Life might have been good if it had continued in this vein, but Charlie Beale met Sylvan Glass.s Full review...
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid
Inside Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is a bitter-sweet love story disguised as a self help book. It's a well structured concept and works nicely. Each chapter is presented in the format of those common to the self help genre, with advice like 'Move to the City', 'Get an Education' etc., although the chapter entitled 'Be Prepared to Use Violence' is a notable omission from most business tomes and self help books. After some general chatty comments in the self help book style, the attention turns to two people who are named only 'the boy' and 'the pretty girl', charting their rise and fall from rural poverty in an unnamed Asian country (although it certainly feels like Pakistan) to business success and wealth in the city. The two are not a couple, but their lives cross at frequent times and he, in particular, remains infatuated with his childhood acquaintance. Full review...
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore
In Plainview, Indiana there are three women who have been friends since their teens. Forty years after they first met they're still known as the Supremes, the name given to them by Big Earl at his All-You-Can-Eat diner. The diner's now run by his son, Little Earl, but you'll find the Supremes at the table in the window every Sunday, after church, along with their families. Odette tells us her own story, from the time she was born in a sycamore tree, which made her the fearless soul she is. But now she's up against something which even she might not be able to face down. Clarice was always the well-brought-up young lady as well as being a musician of some considerable merit, but her husband is causing her problems. Even serial philanderers would be in awe of what Richmond gets up to. Full review...
Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson
Eleanor Henderson's debut novel Ten Thousand Saints is set in late 1980s Vermont and, more memorably, New York. Opening in 1987 we discover in the second sentence that one of the two boys hiding under the stands to the Vermont school football field on match day will die that night. It's a powerful opening. From then on, the book deals first with Teddy's death and then with the life he has left behind in the form of his friend Jude, Jude's sort of step sister Eliza and Teddy's older brother Johnny. It's a world of broken homes and the trinity of sex and drugs and rock and roll, or more specifically punk. Henderson is particularly good at evoking the underground scene in New York at the time before the unlikely combination of AIDS and mayoral intervention combined to clean up the city. Full review...
The Schism by Robert Dickinson
Patrick Farrell works for a company that reclaims credit cards from those in debt. He doesn't particularly enjoy the work, but it gives him plenty of opportunity to visit his schizophrenic brother, Mike, which he does regularly. Mike used to be a fairly decent boxer, but now his only fight is against the paranoid delusion that there are people watching him all the time. Full review...
The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen by Syrie James
'A newly discovered, incredibly rare, handwritten manuscript of a previously unknown Jane Austen Novel is to appear at auction in London. The neatly written but heavily corrected pages are for a full length work entitled 'The Stanhopes'.' Full review...
The French House by Nick Alexander
CC was trapped in a job she no longer felt able to do in a city which wasn't really her. Her boyfriend, Victor, had moved to France to live in a farmhouse he'd inherited and whilst giving everything up and moving out there to join him wasn't the most rational decision she'd ever taken it did feel like a step in the right direction. Only - there were a couple of problems. The south of France in January can be bitterly cold, particularly when you're a good way up a mountain. And it's going to feel even worse when the property you're going to lacks some of the most basic facilities - amongst them most of a roof. Full review...
The King's Jockey by Lesley Gray
In June 1913 Emily Wilding Davison ran out in front of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby: she died of her injuries. Her actions are often quoted in history books and whether you think her to be a suffragette martyr or a deluded woman, few are ignorant of her or what she did. But how many people remember the jockey who was up on that fateful day? Few will know his name, or that what happened at the Derby would haunt him for years to come as he believed himself responsible for killing Emily Davison. The King's Jockey is the story of Herbert 'Bertie' Jones, of the life which brought him to the Derby and of what happened in the years afterwards. Full review...
The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg
Edie Middlestein almost has the American dream within her grasp. She trained as a lawyer, has a husband, a daughter who followed her professional footsteps and a son married to an ambitious wife who provided him with two high-achieving children. There are just two flies in the ointment preventing the dream's arrival: 1. Edie is so morbidly obese that she has to undergo surgery; and 2. this is the moment her husband chooses to leave her. Apart from that… Full review...
The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
Sage Singer is scarred both mentally and physically and has never really got over her mother's death. She works as a baker as the night work allows her to hide away from people and sleep in daylight hours, but she does develop one friendship which probably only happens because it seems non-threatening. Josef Weber, pillar of the local community, attends the same grief counselling group as Sage - and he's in his nineties. But when Sage relaxes into the relationship Josef tells her about himself and asks her to help him to die. Sage is shocked at the request and then repelled as Josef tells her more of his story. Full review...
The First Book of Calamity Leek by Paula Lichtarowicz
I know I'm going to face a dilemma in reviewing this book, because, really, the best way to approach it is to come at it knowing nothing at all. And it's very hard to write about it without giving some important things away! Let's start with the basics, in that this is a story told by Calamity Leek, a child living together with her 'sisters', taken care of by 'aunty' and occasionally visited by 'mother'. Calamity is in charge of a book called the Appendix, in which everything the girls could possibly need to know about their lives is written. They live closeted in their own small farmyard area, protected from the outside world by 'the wall', their enemies being the 'injuns' and 'demonmales'. I know, that's a lot of words in quotes. Let me explain... Full review...
The Hunger and the Howling of Killian Lone by Will Storr
Killian Lone grows up in a home lacking in love and security. For these he relies on his elderly aunt Dorothy, an accomplished cook. Indeed his visits to Dorothy revolve around food as he absorbs all she can teach him, slowly inheriting her passion and skill along with her knowledge. This attachment to food then becomes his career choice, leading to the unfortunate discovery of a family secret that has remained hidden for a very long time. Why 'unfortunate'? There's a reason for its concealment… a very, very good reason. Full review...
Lost and Found by Tom Winter
Carol has lived in a state of unhappiness for many years, married to a man she doesn't love (and probably never has) and with a daughter whom she doesn't understand (and probably never will). But Sophie is just about independent now and Carol is determined that she's going to tell Bob that the marriage is over - that she's leaving - but something always gets in the way. As her frustration grows she writes letters - to the world at large - and posts them. It doesn't change anything, but she does feel better. She even puts a smiley face on the envelope. Full review...
Gossip by Beth Gutcheon
Loviah French, Dinah Wainwright and Avis Metcalf met when they were at boarding school. Lovie owns a top-class dress shop in Manhattan - the place where women of a certain class go when they want something for a special occasion and to be secure in the knowledge that they will be treated well and discreetly. Dinah is a columnist who chronicles the lives of New York's rich and famous, whilst Avis is a prominent figure in the art world. Lovie is our narrator and she's also the glue which holds the three women together. They're both devoted to her and she to them, but a small, imagined slight, many decades earlier, has left an icy distance between Dinah and Avis. Full review...
