Lev Butts Reviews Fields of Gold: The Orchid and the Rose by Jim Stephens

I'm a sucker for coming of age stories and good World War II dramas (one of my favorite WWII stories is Herman Wouks' duology The Winds of War and War and Remembrance). Jim Stephens' Fields of Gold: The Orchid and the Rose is both, and it is really well done.

The novel tells the story of Matt Weldon, a spoiled and arrogant young American who finds himself in London on the eve of war. He very soon falls for a mysterious woman he meets at a party. Shortly after this, he must decide between her and the girl from his past as the forces of history sweep them in its wake. This dilemma, played against the backdrop of the world at war, forces Matt to mature in ways he never expected, to learn the value of hard decisions, and to appreciate the effects such decisions have not only on himself, but others.

Is the story perfect? Of course not; few books are. There are places that might use a bit more editing: words that need consistent spelling, sections that tend to retell the same stories, and incidents that may seem unnecessarily gratuitous. But this, for the most part, is a matter of opinion. I found most of the scenes other reviewers deemed gratuitous to be effective attempts to establish historical touchstones, thematic parallels, or effective ambiance. Most of the retold stories are slightly different versions from other points of view, so that we generally get a new interpretation of the events on subsequent retellings.

For me, the novel has two major aspects for recommending it: Stephens is adept in his historical research, and it shows in his ability to weave a fictional story around the historical details of the 1930's and 40's. Secondly, he experiments with his points of view: some sections are told in third person, others in first, and others through letters exchanged between the main characters. (Anyone who has read my work knows I am particularly interested in how a story is told as much if not more than what the story actually is, so I appreciate a good point of view shift).

Fields of Gold: The Orchid and the Rose is available in paperback and eBook here.

Secret Hunger by Satin Russell

I discovered this book pretty much by accident, when I happened to notice the beautiful cover. Something about that cover just pulled me in and held me tight, and so – though it’s not normally the kind of book I read – I decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did, and it provided me with a little reminder about how reading outside your comfort zone can sometimes really pay off. Secret Hunger is a very good romantic thriller indeed.

The narrative follows Mason, a police officer whose life and career have been plunged into turmoil by an incident in which a violent serial stalker, Robert Mendez, killed his partner and shot and injured Mason himself. A convalescing and traumatised Mason goes to stay with his sister in Maine, and while there he meets Olivia, a local café owner and the eldest of three close sisters who have come to depend on one another since their parents’ death.

So far this is a fairly standard romance plot – man suffering the after-effects of a personal tragedy meets a warm-hearted woman who offers not just love but healing – but this is no cosy romance. Just as Mason has headed north, so too has Mendez – and it isn’t long before Olivia is the new target of his unwelcome attentions. Mason and Mendez’s lives seem to be intertwined: before they were opponents, Mason representative of law and order, and Mendez of violence and lawlessness; now they are rivals for Olivia. But whereas Mason’s courtship is respectful, and his feelings reciprocated, Mendez is obsessive, delusional – and ever ready to spiral into violence and degradation.

I especially liked the insights into Mendez’s thinking: he’s a fantasist and unbelievably violent, but from his point of view there’s a reason for, and a method behind, everything he does. In his own mind, the women he targets actually want to be targeted. In his own mind, he’s offering them redemption. It’s creepy, it’s obviously wrong – and yet it’s undeniably compelling.

There are one or two little gripes. On a couple of occasions, the way the paragraphs were constructed made it difficult to work out who was saying what. Some of the scenes went on a little too long, and involved a little too much exposition and detail. To be fair, that may reflect my personal preferences rather than any objective flaw; in any case, they shouldn’t put anyone off reading Secret Hunger. If you’re anything like me, the cover might be the thing that baits you; but rest assured, the story will reel you in.

Secret Hunger can be downloaded at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Loving Imogen by Mari Biella

Review by Bill Kirton

Mari Biella is a truly gifted writer who pays close attention to both the choice and the placement of her words. It’s difficult to be specific about some of the effects achieved in Loving Imogen because, from the earliest pages, there’s a tension in the narrative as the attitude of the central character, Daniel,  to Imogen develops and evolves. It would be very easy to say something that might prove to be a spoiler, so I’ll stick with generalities.

First, it’s a compelling read. Its characters are very real and sketched with great skill and economy. The subtle shifts and changes in Daniel’s perceptions of himself and other people, especially Imogen, are tracked to create a tense dynamic that drives the narrative along a path which could fork at any point to lead to very different destinations. Thanks to Biella’s sensitivity to psychological shifts and her understanding of how our fears and desires affect our actions, we share Daniel’s hopes and apprehensions. He’s portrayed as a kind, gentle man, sensitive enough to know that, as Biella puts it, ‘reality … is not the same as the truth’.

His life is relatively simple and ordinary, but he recognises that we’re all ‘fleeting bundles of flesh and blood and bone, held together by desire’ and he has intimations of time passing to create ‘the other, slower death of paid work and isolation and too little time, […] compromise after compromise, until you woke up one morning and found that you’d bargained the better part of your life away’.

This is not showy, florid writing but it has real power. Its evocation of relationships, surfaces and depths is managed with the lightest of touches and a true feeling for language. The story is a novella but, at its end, I found myself wanting it to be extended to full novel length to take us on the next phase of Daniel’s journey and see how he deals with the conflicting impulses that events have provoked in him.

To complete the collection, there are three short stories with very different subjects but each is crafted with the same care and skill.

Lad's Love by S.R.Crockett reviewed by Cally Phillips

'Lad’s Love' (Volume 17 of The Galloway Collection' ) was first serialised in ‘The Lady’s Realm’ before being published in 1897 by Bliss, Sands & Co.  A contemporary review stated:  ‘It is far from being a commonplace romance. It is indeed an admirable example of the writer’s power to portray the life, character and goings on of country lads and lasses.’

We have seen some of these ‘domestic/rural’ stories before in Crockett’s collections such as ‘The Stickit Minister’ and ‘Bog Myrtle and Peat’ but this the first time Crockett has given novel form to this type of story. It falls somewhere between the history of ‘Lochinvar’ (published the same year) and the romance of ‘The Lilac Sunbonnet,’ but it offers the reader yet another kind of story.  It is told in the first person by Alec McQuhirr, son of Saunders who features in so many of Crockett’s short stories.  If you like it’s a sort of ‘spin off’ of the McQuhirr family saga.  And if you like the McQuhirr family, as I do, it’s a real treat of a novel.

The key setting is Nether Neuk , (a fictionalised version of the area around Crossmichael and Balmaghie) – and Whinniyliggate (a fictionalised version of Laurieston) and one might describe it as a tale of ‘the back end of the byre.’   As such it gives an insight into the lives of ordinary rural young Scots in Crockett’s time. There is earthy humour and couthy romance, and tricks and schemes as the lads try to ‘catch’ their lasses. 

Reading ‘Lad’s Love’ one has to understand that Crockett uses the word, and concept of ‘idyllic’ ironically. A failure to do this is partly what has seen such work misinterpreted as ‘kailyard’.  There is a lot more depth to the novel than such a dismissive categorisation suggests.  No, it is not a moral story of the heights of Henry James, but Crockett on his own admission wasn’t trying to write ‘novels of purpose,’  he was simply recording the way life was, as he saw it, in his own small part of Scotland.  As such it provides us with an interesting insight into domestic ritual, social status and expectations in the society of the day. 

Throughout we come across characters familiar to us from other of his works, and new characters as well. Rab Anderson is now father to ‘Hoolet’ and ‘the Deil,’ the children previously attributed to Sawny Bean in ‘A Galloway Herd.’  Crockett is happy to reuse material from previous serialisations and his original audience would have been just as happy to re-read these stories with variations.

Central to ‘Lad’s Love’ are the Chrystie family, and Alec’s prospective girlfriend (eventually wife) ,the redoubtable Nance Chrystie, is a brilliantly drawn picture of a feisty lass.  If you view rusticity and rural life as ‘nostalgic’ you may not get on with this, but if you enjoy reading about the lives of rural folk and their ‘little’ stories, you will love it. The characters are drawn with love and humour and even the collie dogs are given due credit. Add to that a plethora of interesting small detail, such as games of quoits, poaching,  the ‘Scotch’ marriage convention and the passing of seasons, and you have a novel that punches well above its weight.  This is at least as much a novel of rural social structures as it is a romance and it will appeal to readers of both types of story.

You can buy Lad’s Love in ebook format (Kindle or epub) from Ayton Publishing for £2.99 HERE (You can also buy it as an ebook from Amazon UK or US)

To buy the paperback copy in UK from Amazon click HERE  £8.99 and in the US $14.99 click HERE  

Mad Sir Uchtred of the Hills reviewed by Cally Phillips

S.R.Crockett the 'Vanity Fair' celebrity 

Tomorrow  as you will most likely be completely unaware, is the 100^th anniversary of the death of author S.R.Crockett.  Some of us will be at the Laurieston memorial for 11am and then going off on a walk/picnic/outdoor ‘reading’ of his work – and those who survive will make their way further west to Wigtown for the publication ‘launch’ of The Galloway Collection, which brings Crockett’s Galloway based fiction (all 32 volumes) back into print in a commemorative edition.

So it seemed fitting to put up a review.  I’ve selected Volume 30 which is actually two of his shorter works;  ‘Mad Sir Uchtred of the Hills’ and  ‘The Play Actress.’  

Crockett was a prolific writer (the Galloway Collection only touches about half of his published output) and these two ‘shorts’ which were originally published in serial format and then as novellas, offer something of an insight into the variety of his work. Of course when someone has published over a 30 year career it can be hard to typify their work. With Crockett the underlying elements are History, Adventure and Romance (in various combinations).  You’d think that offered something for everyone then, but why is he no longer read?

Well, in order to be read it helps if your books are in print and people know you ever existed.  And if a weeks a long time in politics, a hundred years is a long time in publishing. Times change. Fashions change. Marketing strategies change.  Writers, yes, even great writers, fall by the wayside. And this is what has happened with Crockett.

Crockett was quite a ‘celebrity’ in the 1890’s – bursting onto the ‘scene’ in 1893 with ‘The Stickit Minister’ ( a collection of short stories from the previous 10 years he’d spent writing for magazines)  This was published by T.Fisher Unwin who was a champion of ‘new’ writers in the 1890’s.  Something obviously clicked, because in 1894 T.Fisher Unwin published Crockett a further 3 times.  ‘The Raiders’ is a smuggling/adventure/romance very much in the vein of R.L.Stevenson (who died in 1894 and who had a friendship by correspondence with S.R.Crockett) and is the one novel anyone who has heard of Crockett might have read.  But T.Fisher Unwin did what all publishers worth their salt do when they put their money behind a ‘new talent’ and in the same year published both ‘Mad Sir Uchtred’ and ‘The Playactress’ in separate editions – talk about flooding the market?! Crockett had already 'proved' himself in the popular magazine market but T.Fisher Unwin gave him the step up to the 6 shilling novel.  In 1894, Crockett was everywhere in the public consciousness – he was the ‘next best thing’  of the late 1890’s. It meant he could get out of a ‘safe’ but somewhat restrictive career as a minister and become a full time writer. Living the dream? He certainly had his day in the sun, but that sun has long set. A hundred years on I think it's time for a new dawn. And like T.Fisher Unwin, I've put my money (and more importantly my time) where my mouth is. 

Writers reading this will appreciate the years that go into becoming an overnight success and will not be surprised that a writer could turn out 4 books in one year. Remember Ian Banks/ Iain M.Banks? And there are numbers of other writers who use pseudonyms when their output is either prodigious or cross genre.  So Crockett’s ‘stats’ are not that unusual. It is true that Crockett was a prolific writer and in the 20 years from his first success in 1894 to his death in 1914 he managed on average 2-3 publications a year.  He loved to write, was a natural storyteller and he of course had bills to pay. He generally wrote one Galloway (or Scottish) based novel (or collection/short stories) a year and one ‘European’ based novel.  His output might seem prodigious but it’s worth remembering that he had a ‘bank’ of writing from the 1880’s to draw from. Yes he worked hard, and yes he worked fast. And yes he wrote to order – he got his ‘break’ and he made the most of it – and yes he wrote in a style that is not ‘fashionable’ today but none of these are reasons NOT to read him.  I come to praise Crockett, not to bury him.

I believe there are a huge number of people who will enjoy reading Crockett’s fiction and the difficulty is in trying to find a place for them to start.  I won’t say that ‘Mad Sir Uchtred of the Hills’ or ‘The Play Actress’ are paradigm examples of his work but they offer a view of the range and, since they are early career works, the promise of what was to come. As such, they are a good place to ‘dip a toe’ into the Crockett stream.

Without more ado:

‘Mad Sir Uchtred of the Hills’ is short and shocking. Originally serialised in a popular magazine in 3 episodes it offers, in its thirteen chapters, a Gothic style story set in Covenanting Times. This in itself is intriguing.  The basic story is of Sir Uchtred who is cursed by a Covenanting Minister (Alexander Renfield.) We are swiftly taken into a world of allegory and symbolism (though you can ignore all this and simply read the fast paced and gruesome story) The curse is that of King Nebuchadnezzar  - which sees him cast out as a beast on the hills.  Crockett’s great strength in writing was his power of natural description and ‘Mad Sir Uchtred’ opens our eyes to this in an immediate fashion but the heavily laden symbolism of the popinjay and the wounded white mountain hare, ensure that for those who want to read a little deeper than the blood and guts and madness, there is much food for thought.

In Crockett’s day there was a furore about his title character’s name. And charges of plagiarism. For the T.Fisher Unwin edition he offers an ‘advertisement’ which points out that the character is not based on William McDowall of Garthland.  It is fiction not fact. The contemporary ‘dispute’ illustrates something that was to dog Crockett all his career – arguments over the nature of ‘historical fiction.’  It was a relatively ‘new’ thing in the 1890’s and Crockett could certainly be credited with an involvement in the emerging ‘genre’ of historical fiction.  Thus reading Crockett is of great interest both to  those who like historical fiction and those who are interested in the development of historical fiction. 

Crockett stated that he wrote ‘Mad Sir Uchtred’ complete in one sitting, on waking from a dream, and it certainly has that nightmare, chaotic quality one would expect from such a work.  Shades perhaps of Coleridge’s ‘dream’ poem Kubla Khan – but in prose form.  While not thoroughly typical of Crockett’s historical or adventure writing, it is a good place to start an exploration of the writer – if you like to be gripped and hurled along a story from beginning to end.

The new Collection, published April 16.

In ‘The Galloway Collection’ edition ‘Mad Sir Uchtred’ is followed by the other ‘short’ work published in 1894 by Unwin’ ‘The Play Actress.’  This is on the surface a completely different kettle of fish.  The obvious  biblical analogy it is that of the prodigal son (daughter or even grand-daughter in this case) but it is a contemporary story which travels between the rural world of Galloway and the urban poverty of London.  As  an author, Crockett writes about social history but is also himself a part of a social history. Another good reason to read him. 

Gilbert Rutherford is preaching locally and at the end of the service a woman dressed in black brings him a grand-daughter (Ailie) he never knew of. This is the child of his now deceased son which Bessie (the child’s aunt) has taken from her dissolute mother (the dead son’s wish)and brought to be reared by his grandfather.  This presents Gilbert with all sorts of emotional and practical challenges.  He does not shirk his duty but he also determines to challenge his prejudices and, once Ailie is set up happily in Galloway, he travels to London to find out what is behind this ‘story’  and deal with the family issues. He is drawn into what he has always believed is the immoral world of the theatre and finds himself both facing the reality of urban poverty, and challenging his views of ‘goodness.’   This is an urban reality we might recognise from a Dickens novel and is every bit as good.  Crockett developed this story theme several times in his later work (most notably in ‘The Moss Troopers’ where he considers the ‘evils’ of London and in ‘Sandy’s Love’ where he delves into ‘the theatre’ and London life once again.)

So, with ‘Mad Sir Uchtred’ and ‘The Playactress’ the reader has the opportunity to see Crockett’s take on history, adventure and romance and hopefully the two short stories will whet the modern  reader’s appetite for more. The good news is that now there are plenty of Crockett novels to choose from in ebook and paperback format.

You can buy The Galloway Collection ebooks direct from the publisher HERE and paperbacks (as well as Kindle ebooks) are available from Amazon.   If you want to find out more about S.R.Crockett (and why wouldn’t you?) you can join The Galloway Raiders – a free online society founded  on the 100^th anniversary of his death to bring him back to life at least in the only form of immortality currently available – fiction.  If you join The Galloway Raiders this week there are special deals on ebooks and you could have read ‘Mad Sir Uchtred’ and ‘the Playactress’ by the time everyone is gathered at the memorial to pay their own tribute.  You may become a fan. You’ll certainly have found a whole new library of books to read. Let’s hope it’s a long, hot summer. 

Gathering Storm by Maggie Craig

Reviewed by Chris Longmuir

Edinburgh in 1743 is a dangerous place, and Maggie Craig does not shy away from the scheming and brutality of some of its residents.

We first meet the main character, Captain Robert Catto, as he leads his town guard on a raid of Surgeons’ Hall, where they expect to find an illegal dissection in progress. I particularly liked the description of the Town Guard as “A Pack of wolves metamorphosing into men”. Captain Catto may have his sword, but the men are highlanders carrying Lochaber axes.

Captain Catto presents as a brutal man, insensitive to the fear and pain he imposes on the household of the surgeon-apothecary, in particular, the daughter of the house, Christian Rankeillor. But, as the book progresses he turns out to be a much more complex character than he initially appears.

Christian, on the other hand, comes across as a caring and intelligent woman, unusual for the time and place. But she is pulled into the Jacobite conspiracy, and as a result comes into conflict with Captain Catto.

At first, because of the opening raid on Surgeons’ Hall, I thought this was going to be a resurrectionist novel, with themes of grave-robbing and dissections. However, the main theme surfaced as a Jacobite rebellion one, with conspiracy, spies, and murder. Oh, and a little romance thrown in as well.

The historical background is well depicted, and the poverty and despair of the ordinary people is realistic enough to make the reader shudder. The abuse, rape, and murder of working class women, is of little consequence to their oppressors who are of more noble birth.

This book kept me guessing right up to the end. I could not see how the electric spark of attraction between Christian and Catto could ever be resolved given the extreme nature of their differences. And I’m not going to tell you whether it was resolved because that would be too much of a spoiler.

I enjoyed this book very much because of the historical accuracy, the political aspects, and it was a rattling good story.

Chris Longmuir

You can find the book at:-

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Star Child, by Stephanie Keyes

Reviewed by Chris Longmuir

Fantasy, quest, folklore and legend all rolled into one

I don’t read a great deal of fantasy so wasn’t sure what to expect when I started to read The Star Child. However, I was taken on a journey through the lands of Faerie with Kellen and Calienta. Kellen is a mortal but Calienta is immortal, with many powers. They embark on a quest which must be successful if good is to win, if they fail in their quest the world will be doomed to darkness forever. In the process they meet many dangers as well as gods, faeries, demons, while the hounds of hell are never very far behind.

So on one level this was the story of a battle between good and evil, and on another level a romance between a mortal and an immortal, and a choice will have to be made by the end of the story. Will Kellen choose to become an immortal or will Calienta relinquish her immortal status to become a mortal, so that the couple can be together? If I told you what the decision was, that would be a spoiler, so if you want to know you’ll have to read the book to find out.

This was a fantasy with its roots in celtic legend and folklore and was an interesting read.

Chris Longmuir

You can buy the book at

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Review of Bird Of Passage by Catherine Czerkawska

Bird of Passage by Catherine Czerkawska

Reviewer: Susan Price

Category: Adult fiction

          I was three-quarters of the way through this book – or even more – before it dawned on me that it was Wuthering Heights in modern dress.  I was tipped off by a couple of sly and amusing references to twigs tapping on windows and ghosts, and by the hero disappearing for twenty years and then returning a rich man.

          It’s not a re-telling, though – it’s a re-imagining.  A dialogue with the older book, if you like.  It asks, would the same story, the same deathless love, be possible in the modern age, and if so, how?

Catherine Czerkawska

          Even so, if I’d known before I began it, I probably would never have read it, and that would have been a shame.  It would have been my loss – but I’ve read enough self-conscious and unconvincing rewrites of classics to ensure that they’re never something I’m eager to pick up.  However, I’m glad I did download this to my e-reader and click it open, because it’s excellent – as are the other books I’ve read by Catherine Czerkawska:  A Quiet Afternoon in the Museum of Torture and The Curiosity Cabinet. (Also reviewed on this site.)

          Bird of Passage begins on an isolated farm on the Isle of Skye, in the 1960s.  Every year, bands of Irish ‘tattie-howkers’ arrive for the potato harvest, and one year Finn O’Malley comes with them.  He is too young for the back-breaking work, and an elderly farmer is concerned for him, and takes him under his wing, inviting him back to his house to feed him up, and taking him fishing to give him a rest.

          The farmer has a granddaughter, Kirsty, on whom he dotes.  She’s an only child, lonely at the farm, and strikes up a friendship with Finn which persists through the years, as he returns again and again to the harvest.  By the time sex enters the scene, they have forged a close emotional bond that even years of separation cannot loosen; and, as an adult, Kirsty retains an understanding of Finn which others, kept at a distance by his silence, never reach.

          I’ll confess here that I’ve never actually finished Wuthering Heights.  While admiring the down-to-earth reality of its earlier chapters, I’ve always lost interest once it moved on to the next generation.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s one of the classics we love and avoid today.  But I finished Bird of Passage.

Tattie-howkers

          Couldn't have put it down.
          For one, I found both Finn and Kirsty far more engaging characters than Heathcliffe and Cathy.  Kirsty is a bright and loveable child when we first meet her: the sheltered, adored darling of her mother and grandfather.  She can’t understand Finn’s withdrawn and touchy nature and merrily, touchingly, tries to draw him out.  She’s read the ‘Chalet School’ books and, hearing that Finn attends ‘a boarding school’ in Ireland, questions him about dorm feasts.  In reality Finn is a near-prisoner in an ‘industrial school’ for the children of ‘unfit mothers’, staffed by monks.  Things go on in dormitories at night, but not midnight feasts.

The Curiosity Cabinet

          Because we know more of Finn’s background than we do of Heathcliffe’s, we understand him more.  We can see why he is withdrawn, wary and silent.  Nor does he simply vanish before returning a rich man – we know exactly where he’s been, what he’s been doing and how he got that money.  We also understand why he hasn’t changed.  Though I know many Heathcliffe fans won’t agree with me, I’ve often felt that Heathcliffe should be clipped round the ear with a rolled newspaper and told to lose the Byronic pose – whereas with Finn, I knew exactly what he was struggling with and how hard it was.

          I was convinced, moved and impressed by Bird of Passage. It says that, yes, undying love for another, unrelenting absorption in another, is possible in these days of computers and motorbikes.  (Guess who rides the motorbike in leathers: go on, guess.)  But, although it’s possible, you may not want to pay the price.

          Whether you love Wuthering Heights or not, if you enjoy an involving, beautifully written book, you’ll enjoy Bird of Passage.

 Bird of Passage by Catherine Czerkawska can be found here.

Susan Price is an award winning author, and has recently published several ebooks.
She blogs here: http://susanpricesblog.blogspot.co.uk/

Susan Price also contributes to Do Authors Dream of Electric Books? 

Review of My Memories of a Future Life by Roz Morris

 Reviewed by Susan Price

Roz Morris

Age-range: Adult, Young Adult.

          I have had to wrestle with monsters of professional jealousy to review this book.  It is SO good.

          Even the premise is one of those striking ideas that seems so beautiful and right, even obvious, but that you know you would never have thought of yourself: - if, by hypnosis, you can be regressed into a past life, could you be progressed to a future life?  My immediate response was: Wish I’d thought of that!  But I didn’t.  Roz Morris did.

My Memories of a Future Life

          It’s far more than a great idea.  From the very first page, the prose is a sheer pleasure to read.  It’s a first-person narration by Carol Lear, and her voice is alive, witty, perceptive, expressive.  I laughed aloud several times at her dry, neat nailing of a situation or person.

          Carol is a classical pianist, passionate about her instrument and music, raging against the limitations placed on her by repetitive strain injury (the pain of which is so well described, it made my hands ache.)

Nail Your Novel

          She’s frustrated because her pain doesn’t respond to treatment.  A close friend, suffering from panic attacks, is in a similar situation – but his problems seem to be solved when he undergoes a past life regression. The unresolved trauma of his previous life has spilled over into his present life, causing his attacks; and only when he faces what happened in his previous existence can his panics be controlled.  Carol is so desperate to be free of pain and to play again that, although sceptical, she is drawn to the idea of other lives – and, indeed, to the hypnotist, the elusive, attractive Gene Winter.

          Carol experiences not a past life, but a future one.  If the trauma of the life you’re living is shaping the life of an unknown stranger in a future you can’t recognise, what should you do?

          It’s not a book easily categorised.  Should I call it a literary novel?  Science Fiction? Romance?  You could make a case for including it in any one of those genres though, like all original books, it refuses to sit easily in any one of them.

          While reading, I several times thought I could predict the ending.  I was always wrong.  But the ending, when I reluctantly reached it, was beautiful, thoughtful, and right.  It brought a realisation that the novel had never been about what I thought it had been about, and made me want to read it again, so I could enjoy the skill with which it had all been handled.

          It isn’t about attacking and solving problems.  It’s about, I think, the way we cause our own problems, but hide from them, preferring  to fall over them and hurt ourselves again and again, rather than see those problems clearly, or – that thing we dread - changing.

          It’s about resolution, about picking ourselves up, sorting ourselves out, and going on.  Not, perhaps, solving the problem – which may be insoluble – but doing that very hard thing, changing, and walking away, leaving old things behind.  Not, after all, memories of a future life, but – future life.

     Memories of My Future Life by Roz Morris, is available for download here.

     Her book of advice for writers, Nail Your Novel, can be found here.

     Susan Price is an award winning writer, whose website can be found at www.susanpriceauthor.com

The Dream by Sophie Nicholls

The Dream, by Sophie Nicholls

The Dream

by Sophie Nicholls
Everyday Magic #2

Romantic Fiction
Reviewed by Kathleen Jones 

I read Sophie Nicholls first novel, The Dress, and loved it(see review here).  So I pounced on the sequel, but with a little apprehension – I’ve read so many sequels that were a let-down.  But The Dream didn’t disappoint. Iranian Fabbia and her half-Italian daughter Ella still had a lot of story to tell, and I finally got to meet the mysterious Maadar-Bozorg.

The Dress told the story of Fabbia and Ella’s arrival in northern city of York and Fabbia’s struggle to open a vintage dress shop and make a living for herself and her daughter.  It also described the teenage Ella’s quest to find an identity for herself – and the difficulties of fitting in to the close-knit northern community – with an Iranian mother and an Italian father who died before Ella was born, it was never going to be easy.  There are also family secrets that Ella hasn’t been told and she has never met Maadar-Bozorg, the woman who brought her mother up in Tehran.

As the sequel opens, Ella has achieved her dream of running a bookshop and becoming an author; she’s married to Billy and has a lovely 2 year old daughter Grace.  Everything should be perfect, shouldn’t it?  But life running a business, looking after a child, and trying to write a book, isn’t easy.

Ella is still troubled by ‘The Signals’ – her strange flashes of what used to be called ‘second sight’ –  and they sometimes frighten her. But then a confused young woman called Bryony walks into the bookshop, picks up a book called Miss Mary’s Book of Dreams and things begin to change. We enter the world of 'cure-wives' and  arcane knowledge.

Fabbia is living in California with David, the doctor she met at the end of the first novel, and though her relationship is going well and her vintage clothing business is thriving, there’s something missing.  She begins to sense that Ella is in trouble and doesn’t know what to do.

Sophie Nicholls is a published poet as well as a novelist and the writing is beautiful.  It reads as effortlessly as any romance should, but it skates lightly over deeper water – so much wisdom and knowledge was thrown out as superstition and paganism – women were burned alive for knowing how to cure people with herbs – we have been taught not to listen to our ‘intuition’ but to put our trust solely in science – as a result we have lost many of the skills we need to survive.  In this novel, Ella and Fabbia learn to trust their intuitions in order to make sense of their lives.

This is a lovely ‘feel-good’ read, which will probably be a best-seller like it's predecessor.  Perfect for an afternoon when you're feeling a bit depressed and need cheering up.  Now I’m waiting for number three in the trilogy!

The Dream by Sophie Nicholls

Review of 'A Lifetime Burning' by Linda Gillard

'A Lifetime Burning' by Linda Gillard

Reviewer: Susan Price.

Category: Adult

          This is Jacobean tragedy re-imagined.

          I came to that conclusion even before the heroine studied to become an actress and played Ophelia in the most famous of revenge tragedies.  There’s an adjustment to modern taste: the body count at the end isn’t as high as the Jacobeans liked it, and the hero doesn’t wander around with his sister’s heart on a dagger – well, only metaphorically, anyway.

Linda Gillard with her book 'Star Gazing'

          I’ve enormously enjoyed other books by Linda Gillard, such as Emotional Geology and House of Silence, but I think this moves up through several gears.  It’s an impressive and powerful book.

          But, if I’m honest, I was troubled by doubt as I read it.  I did wonder: Isn’t it all a bit OTT?

          Then I asked myself, is the story believable?  Do things like this ever happen?

          And also, being honest, the answer to both questions is,Yes.  More often than most rather pallid novels of modern life – which a friend once summed up as, ‘Unmarried mothers and unmanned lovers’ – would lead you to think.

House of Silence by Linda Gillard

          The characters of A Lifetime Burning are fully imagined and vivid.  I could see them, and hear them, and their motivations and emotions are such that you never doubt them.  They could, would, do no other.  And the book is beautifully written, the narrative controlled with great skill as it shifts between decades, covering a whole lifetime of burning, constantly giving us new perspective on the characters and events.

          But we’re thinner blooded than the Jacobeans, and usually prefer our drama to be more low-key.  Then we can call it ‘realistic.’  But in fact, real-life is not only more multiple than we think it, it’s frequently more OTT.  I remember as a child being told about a family friend, who was such a disaster magnet that, as catastrophe piled on catastrophe, I started to laugh, and was told off for being unsympathetic.  An acquaintance has a love-life resembling an annexe of Bedlam, and I’ve known people who, if their lives did happen to be calm for a moment, immediately took actions that any cool observer could easily predict would create havoc.  The only conclusion is that they craved uproar and couldn’t bear calm.  Drama queens, in fact.

Emotional Geology by Linda Gillard

          In that sense, the Jacobeans had a more accurate idea of 'realism' than us, and so does ‘A Lifetime Burning’.  In fact, come to think of it, in comparison to the aforementioned real lives, it’s far more credible, perhaps because we know the people from the inside.

           If you want a sweet love-story, tied up with a pink bow, and happy-ever-afters, then A Lifetime Burning isn’t for you. Jacobean tragedies are never sweet, and never end happily.
          They are vivid and gripping.

          I do wonder that the heroine plays Ophelia, instead of taking part in the play which would have supplied the most apposite quote, from the Jacobean tragedy to beat them all: ‘My sister, O my sister! there's the cause on't. Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust.’ (Webster’s Duchess of Malfi.)

Linda's Gillard's 'A Lifetime Burning'  can be found here.

Susan Price is an award winning author, and has recently published several ebooks.
She blogs here: http://susanpricesblog.blogspot.co.uk/

Susan Price also contributes to Do Authors Dream of Electric Books? 

The Dress by Sophie Nicholl

Sophie Nicholls: The Dress 

Contemporary Romantic Fiction

Reviewed by Kathleen Jones

Reading about an independently published novel by a first-time novelist who makes it to the top of the Amazon best-sellers’ list sounds like a fairy tale.  But this isn’t the much discussed Amanda Hocking, this is UK author Sophie Nicholls, whose novel, The Dress, was an E-book sensation.  It isn’t sci-fi, or fantasy, or crime, or erotica, or any of the other ‘fashionable’ genres at the moment - just straight-forward fiction likely to appeal to a predominantly female audience right across the age spectrum.  

Of course, as it implies in the title, ‘It all began with a dress....’  This is an unashamedly romantic novel – romantic in the best sense – not really a love story, but a novel that has a deep belief in the intrinsic goodness of individuals, that ‘all manner of things will come to good’ in the end.  It’s also a coming of age story, about a young girl of mixed heritage, whose life so far has been nomadic, finding out who she is and where she belongs. 

But it was the writing, rather than the plot summary, that persuaded me to buy it. In the sample I downloaded, it was obvious that here was a writer who loved words.  When I read,  ‘It was a simple dress, a slip of oyster-coloured silk, made to fall over the body like a sigh of pleasure’,  I could feel the silk sliding over my own shoulders with just the faintest rustle of sensuality.  And Fabbia’s dress-making, the embroidering of secret words into the seams of the garment, are really part of a grand metaphor for the stitching of the story. Not a simple story, as Fabbia’s daughter Ella reveals,  ‘it has complicated seams and concealed fastenings.  It has deep pockets and interfacings that won’t sit quite true…..   You’ll have to forgive me if at times I’m clumsier than I ought to be.  Mamma didn’t believe in following a pattern.  She taught me to trust the fabric itself, letting the texture and colour of it find its own form on the cutting table…..’

Sophie Nicholls is a poet, her short (and excellent) collection Refugee is published by Salt, who have an eye for good writing, so she knows about form.  This novel is beautifully shaped to tell the story.
Ella and Fabbia have arrived in York, where Fabbia is going to open a small shop selling ‘vintage’ clothes as well as hand-made-to-measure garments.   Ella is the story-teller, daughter of the beautiful, mysterious Fabbia, who conceals her origins in pre-revolutionary Iran, having been brought up in the hills outside Tehran by her grandmother Madaar-Bozorg.  Ella has never met her great-grandmother, and knows little of ‘the old country’ her mother comes from.  She is reserved, courageous, and determined to find somewhere she belongs.

Fabbia, widowed before Ella was born, intends to begin yet another new life. Her clientele in York includes the snobbish ‘ladies who lunch’, one of whom sets out to create trouble for Fabbia and her daughter.  The novel touches on deeper issues – the problems of integration for immigrants to Britain, and the feelings of alienation and displacement felt by their children even if they are born here.  There is no getting away from the words, or the labels; ‘Foreigner.  Dirty Arab.  Osama bin Laden.  Terrorist cell.  Excuse me, madam, may I see your papers?  Passport?  How long do you intend to stay here?  Taking our jobs.  Why don’t you just go home?’

Ella feels cut off from her heritage because her mother doesn’t want her to learn ‘the old language’ – Farsi – and tells Ella stories in English.  These stories are embedded in the text, folk-tales handed on from generation to generation and you get a sense of continuity in the novel, of all the mothers and grandmothers standing behind Ella and Fabbia and Maadar-Bozorg in a continuous line.  Story-tellers.  Makers.

The novel is elegantly structured.  Each section has its own sartorial tag.  Chapter 1 is ‘Man’s black overcoat.  Marks and spencer.  2007′.    Chapter 4 ‘A plume of emerald-green feathers with Swarovski crystal clip.  Bespoke stage costume jewellery from Paris.  1990s.’  Chapter 2 ‘A pair of leopard-print shoes, platform heels.  Late 1950s.  Size 37.’  These little epigrams are part of the story, headings that tell you where you are and where you might be going.  And then at the end, the author hands the reader the story to make into something that is their own.  Stop for a moment, the writer orders you.  ‘Lift your arms over your head – there, that’s right, just like that – and all the rustle of it, the gatherings of it, to settle over your body, just so.  And now it’s your story, yours to make and remake again, in your way, until it’s perfect.’

Some people have found the ending too abrupt, the novel too short, but I didn’t.  I’m tired of bloated compendiums that stretch the material out to breaking point.  Books that dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s bore me.  I want the characters to carry on wandering around in my imagination after I’ve finished reading.  Sophie knows how to tell a story succinctly, the book has a fascinating structure and she knows how much space to leave the reader. The Dress made me want to read more of Sophie Nicholls’ work.  She should be taking her place among the best-selling mainstream authors – Kate Morton, Adele Geras, Joanne Harris – because she’s good enough.  Her fans will be glad to know that she’s now working on a sequel, though writing more slowly than the first novel because there’s a very new baby competing with the book for attention.

I find it really interesting that a talented young author, already published by someone like Salt, chose to publish a novel on Kindle as her first option, particularly one that has such obvious commercial potential.   Apparently it was Sophie’s father’s suggestion, after he’d read about Amanda Hocking’s success in the newspapers.  But it was the speed of publication that appealed to Sophie rather than the very long time-line you get with a traditional publisher.

Even more interesting is the story of how, without any hype, publicity or web net-working, The Dress reached the Amazon top 20 within a couple of months of Kindle publication.  Sophie thought that the first sales spike was a fluke, but the book carried on selling and quickly rose to number 1. It’s a lesson for every E-author – if your material is good enough and there are enough people out there who want it, you can make it without the backing of the publishing juggernauts!

I interviewed Sophie Nicholls to find our how she did it on the Authors Electric blogspot  shortly after the book was published. The answers to my questions were something of a surprise.

Reviewed by Kathleen Jones

Someone Different by Kate Hanney

She's a posh, spoiled and unhappy fifteen year old, too scared to admit she's terrified of the new horse her parents have bought her. He's sixteen, with an electronic tag, a criminal record and an alcoholic father who hits him. She's headed for a skiing holiday; he's headed for Young Offenders institution. They're not exactly the perfect partnership.

But when Jay comes to work at Anna's stables, there's an unlikely attraction. For the first time, Jay's found something he's good at with the horses and Anna's found somebody who listens to her fears. But it's never going to be an easy ride. Jay's past is catching up with him. People want him silenced and they don't care who they hurt in the process.

A YA love story (that is just as readable for those of us less Y and more A) that deals with loyalties, standing up for the person you believe in and ultimately having the courage to be true to yourself. I adore Kate Hanney's books - she gets right under the skin of what it's like to grow up in 21st century Britain and does it with sensitivity and skill.

Someone Different