The Leipzig Affair - Fiona Rintoul

Synopsis

The year is 1985. East Germany is in the grip of communism. Magda, a brilliant but disillusioned young linguist, is desperate to flee to the West. When a black market deal brings her into contact with Robert, a young Scot studying at Leipzig University, she sees a way to realise her escape plans. But as Robert falls in love with her, he stumbles into a complex world of shifting half-truths – one that will undo them both.
Many years later, long after the Berlin Wall has been torn down, Robert returns to Leipzig in search of answers. Can he track down the elusive Magda?
And will the past give up its secrets?


Review

'It's another world over there.'

I loved this novel, it had me gripped all the way through. The setting and time period is one that I find fascinating having studied German, and I do enjoy/find intriguing a lot of fiction that involves events surrounding the Berlin Wall and the former East Germany. Fiona Rintoul has created two captivating main characters in Magda and Robert. She creates tension and suspense, and really conveys the atmosphere and secrecy of the times. Magda is studying interpreting in Leipzig, East Germany, in 1985, but is disillusioned with life and politics there, and wants to leave and get to the West. Robert is a student at St Andrews, and events see him ending up in Leipzig and meeting Magda, getting to know some of her friends, and becoming involved in her complicated world.

The story is told in alternating chapters with Robert's story recounted in the first person, and Magda's told in the second person. I thought these points of view worked successfully here. I felt Robert's character was fleshed out particularly well; his personal weaknesses and the moments from his business career added depth and dimension to the story. The novel concentrates not only on those days back in 1985, but also takes us to the present, with the Berlin Wall having fallen and Robert finally revisiting Leipzig, and I was excited and nervous to travel with him there once more and discover what, and who, he would find there this time.

I felt absorbed in the tale as I read and I also felt that the author knew her stuff regarding the background and setting of her novel, and that she wrote in a balanced way about this period of Germany's history. Though Magda and many others like her felt determined, desperate to flee to the West from the GDR, and were very disillusioned by the country, the Stasi surveillance, the way some people were treated such as the tragedy that befalls Magda's brother, nevertheless many people also looked back at their former country with a certain amount of regret once it was gone. This is captured particularly well in a conversation between Magda and her father, after the regime has come to an end:

'"Personally, I think we've paid a very heavy price to have bananas in the shops and shiny new cars on every street corner. I look around me and I see young people with no jobs and no hope. I see homeless people. Did you ever see a homeless person in our Republic?..."

He's jutting his chin out again. It's odd. You agree with much of what he says. It's true that things are not so wonderful in the the new Germany. The West Germans are arrogant. They think they know it all. People like you have become strangers in their own country. Everything from the past has been swept away, whether it was good or bad, without anyone asking if that's what the people want.'

It's sad to read that 'all the dreams from 1989 of building a better kind of GDR, creating a new kind of socialism, are long forgotten.' Fiona Rintoul gives us a picture of the hope and then the reality that many felt hit them after reunification.

I thought The Leipzig Affair was a really enjoyable, gripping read, well-written throughout. I'm really glad I read it and I will definitely be watching out for more works by this author.

Review copy received via amazon vine

The Killer Next Door - Alex Marwood - Guest Book Review

Published by Sphere

Guest book review by Janice Lazell-Wood

Synopsis

No. 23 has a secret. In this bedsit-riddled south London wreck, lorded over by a lecherous landlord, something waits to be discovered. Yet all six residents have something to hide.

In the dead of night, a terrible accident pushes the neighbours into an uneasy alliance. But one of them is a killer, expertly hiding their pastime, all the while closing in on their next victim...

Review

No.23 Beulah Grove is a rotten old house divided into bedsits, and it’s owned by the most revolting of landlords, Roy Preece, a vile and obese creature with no morals or hygiene.  He’s desperate for the sitting tenant of the house to die, so he can sell up, move away and live comfortably on the rent proceeds, but she’s not dying nearly quickly enough, so he hatches a plan to help her on her way, a plan that goes horribly wrong.  A plan that leaves the residents unable to go to the police, for fear of their own secrets being discovered, for they have many secrets amongst them…

Cher is an underage care home runaway, living a dangerous day to day existence, Thomas is lonely, boring and just wants some friends, Hossein is an Iranian asylum seeker, Collette is on the run from some very nasty men after doing a bunk with lots of their money, there’s a mysterious man who keeps himself hidden away, playing his music at all hours and interacting with no-one, and finally, there’s sitting tenant Vesta, the matriarch of the group, a woman approaching 70, who’s lived in the house all her life, with nothing to show for it but dusty ornaments and a tea set that once belonged to her parents.

One of these residents is a murderer and we are given full access to their modus operandi in all its graphic and gory detail.  If you can stomach the novels of Mo Hayder and Val McDermid, you’ll be ok reading this, if not, then be warned, it’s not for the fainthearted.  There are shades of how real life killer Dennis Nilsen disposed of his victims here, as well as great detail on how the Egyptians took care of their dead…  The fact that the novel is set during a heatwave, just cranks up the rancid atmosphere of the house!

For me, this was a page turning psychological thriller, one that was devoured in a day.  I have just one gripe, the ending.  It left a question unanswered, however, don’t let this put you off.  Read, enjoy, and treat yourself to a restorative G&T afterwards, you might just need it!

Thanks to Lindsay for the chance to read and review this novel.  I look forward to reading more by the author, Alex Marwood.

Many thanks to Janice for reading and reviewing this novel for The Little Reader Library!

The Silversmith’s Wife - Sophia Tobin - Guest Book Review

Published by Simon & Schuster

Guest book review by Josie Barton

In the winter of 1792, Pierre Renard, the eponymous silversmith, is found dead in London’s Berkeley Square. With his throat cut and his pocket watch stolen, his murder could have been the work of an opportunist pickpocket, but as the story progresses it becomes obvious that, whilst on the surface, Pierre Renard was a man of means and self importance, he had more than enough enemies who wished him dead. At the heart of the story is Mary, the silversmith’s wife, who is completely overshadowed by her erstwhile husband, and yet by necessity, must play a pivotal role in the evolution of events. It’s a time of great uncertainty, not just for Mary as she copes in the aftermath of her husband’s murder but also for the continuation of Mary’s silversmith business, when a woman alone and defenceless was seen as the ultimate weakness.

From the beginning, I was drawn into the dark and dismal world of Georgian London where the patrolling night watchmen sink their sorrow into the bottom of an ale cup and where the great and the good of the city divide their time between squandering their wealth and interfering in other people’s lives. The Silversmith’s Wife takes the reader on a journey into the complicated world of Georgian melodrama and into the hub of the silversmith trade in the very heart of Bond Street, a place where petty jealousies run rife, and where thwarted passions and long buried hostilities threaten to overshadow everything.

There is no doubt that the author has a real skill for storytelling and in The Silversmith’s Wife, she conveys an introspective story, which whilst keeping at its heart the mystery surrounding Renard’s untimely death, also looks at the minutiae of daily life and the sadness which pervades Mary’s role as the unhappy wife. Reminiscent at times of Michel Faber’s, The Crimson Petal and the White, this story oozes quiet elegance and a decadent charm, which lingers in the way the story, evolves at its own pace. I found much to enjoy in the story, the plot kept me guessing, and I was so sympathetically drawn to Mary’s character, that by the end of the novel I only wished for her a long and happy life.

I would definitely recommend The Silversmith’s Wife to those readers who enjoy well written historical fiction.

Huge thanks to Josie for reading and reviewing this novel for The Little Reader Library! Josie blogs at Jaffa Reads Too, do visit her wonderful book blog too!

Before the Fall - Juliet West

'How can I be sorry when I feel like this, as if my life has started up brand new, sharp and colourful, a swirl of terror and bliss like I'm lost in a fairground...'

Before the Fall is a very well-crafted and compelling debut novel set in London during World War One. It tells of Hannah Loxwood, a mother of two young children, her husband away fighting, who has been forced to move in with her sister and brother-in-law, with her sister  Jen, who she feels has never really liked her, minding the children whilst Hannah works in a café, striving for a bit of freedom. Her father is very unwell and the family is struggling. She has a good friend in wonderful Dora, who works at the munitions factory. 

Daniel Blake works as a ship repairer and is exempted from the war, and is one of the customers who come into the café. An intelligent, sensitive soul, I found him easy to like and warm to, and I was interested to read about his background, and his love of books. There is a mutual, dangerous attraction between Daniel and Hannah. 

I was drawn into the story and wondered, how will things play out, how will it end? The story grabbed me from the beginning and is well-paced throughout, with a strong sense of place and time being evoked. The characters felt true and of their time to me. I loved the mentions of, and connections with, Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure. I also thought Hannah's feelings about crossing the real bridge to get around where she lived mirrored well the bridge she had to cross to change her life:

'It's as if I'm caught in the centre of an unending bridge. On one side lies my old life; on the other side...What?'

Events at the munitions factory, as well as bombs falling on the city, evoke the tragedy and fear of those back at home during the war.

I was sad that Hannah hadn't felt for her husband what she felt for Daniel, and also sad that he was away fighting, but I also understood that sometimes these chances, these intense, intimate connections felt for someone only come once, and at the wrong time, meaning awful decisions must be made between duty and desire, with people getting hurt whichever path is taken. The author writes in a lovely style, both literary and very readable. The ending makes for surprising and heartbreaking reading. 

Thanks to amazon vine for a review copy of this novel. 

Published by Mantle

Author Guest Post - Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn - The Piano Player's Son - Blog Tour

Today I am pleased to feature a guest post from Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn, author of The Piano Player's Son.

The Importance of Settings in Novels by Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn

There's a tendency in modern fiction to neglect setting for fear of boring the reader. Writers in the past had no such worries. We've only got to think of Hardy's descriptions of Dorset, the wild moors of Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights', and the London that Dickens evoked. But the argument that today's readers are not interested in descriptions of place and will either skip those bits – or worse abandon the book altogether – is enough to frighten writers off.

But I think this is a mistake. Characters need to be rooted in place, as 'real' people are. Whether we're by the sea, on a mountain peak, in a kitchen, in an operating theatre, in a hot place, a cold place, a prison, at an airport, in conflict with or at home in our setting, our moods will be different. Different things will happen to us. We will meet different people. We will be different people. Without a strong sense of place, it's hard for a writer to fully realise character, and to achieve suspense and excitement.

So, how have I used setting in my novel ‘The Piano Player’s Son’? There are four main places in the novel, all ones I know and love. I was brought up in north London, and I decided to make the family home in Highgate. I went back to the area and identified the house where they lived. Not sure what the people who really lived there felt when I started taking photos of their house!

Some years ago, I spent time in Penzance and Northumberland and think they are both wonderful places, so I decided I wanted to make each ‘home’ for two of my characters – the eldest son, Rick, lives in a beautiful house in Rothbury, and the youngest, George, runs an art school in Penzance. Again, I went back to each area,‘found’ the houses where they live and took photos. Obviously I had to make up the insides! At a book group I visited recently, I was delighted when several people said they ‘knew’ the house in Rothbury as well as if they’d been there.

However, perhaps my favourite setting in the novel is Ischia, an island in the Bay of Naples, Italy, known for its health-giving hot springs, but often overshadowed by its more famous neighbour Capri. I've spent several holidays there, and it didn't take me long to decide one of my characters in 'The Piano Player's Son' would live there.

The character is Grace, one of Henry's four grown-up children. At the beginning of the novel, Henry dies, and gradually secrets emerge which overturn the family's view of the past and their parents' relationship. Grace wasn't there when her father died - she hadn't made it back from Italy in time - and she struggles to cope with this, especially when she returns to Ischia, where she and her Italian husband run a ristorante.

The ristorante looks out over the sea towards Castello d'Aragonese, a dramatic and compelling place with a rich history which Grace is fascinated by. This is almost the view of the castle from the ristorante.

(proximacharter.com)

~~~~~

The following extract from 'The Piano Player's Son' describes the morning after Grace's return from England where her father's funeral took place:

Chapter Ten

When Grace woke, the shutters were ajar and a sliver of light slanted across the room. She stretched, easing her limbs into the cool reaches of the bed. There was no sign of Franco.

She turned on her back and listened. The ristorante was gearing up for another day. The familiar sounds calmed her, like waves breaking on shingle. She slipped from the bed and crossed to the window. She pulled back one of the shutters. The sun was shining and the light glinting off the sea was sharp and clear. It was a shock after the leaden skies of England. She drew a cardigan over her flimsy nightdress and stepped out onto the balcony.

Her eyes sought Sant'Anna's rocks, sturdy tuffs rising steeply out of the sea. On summer mornings, while it was still quiet, she liked to scramble down the steep path to the beach and swim across to the rocks. Franco had attached a rope to one of them so that she could haul herself up. She'd found a spot, where the sea had washed the rock smooth. She could sit in it, almost like an armchair.

She lifted her gaze from the rocks to the castello, her favourite place on the whole island. Like something from a fairytale, it stood on its cone of volcanic lava, mysterious and compelling. Grace had lost count of the number of times she had crossed the bridge and climbed up to the remains of the castle cathedral, where in the sixteenth century the poet, Vittoria Colonna's wedding was celebrated. She always took her copy of Vittoria's poetry with her and read in the shadows of the high vaulted arches. To her it was the most romantic place in the world, but Franco scoffed at her obsession with that old ruin.

***

Thank you, Lindsay, for the opportunity to talk about ‘The Piano Player’s Son’, and in particular the settings in the novel. I’ve really enjoyed remembering all those lovely places, and it’s made me want to return to each of them as soon as possible!

www.lindsaystanberryflynn.co.uk

Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn

Website: www.lindsaystanberryflynn.co.uk

Blog: http://lindsaystanberryflynn.co.uk/blog/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LindsayStanberryFlynn.Author

The Piano Player's Son on Amazon: www.amazon.co.uk/The-Piano-Players-Lindsay-Stanberry-Flynn/dp/1907090932/

SilverWood Books: www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/silverwoodbooks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SilverWoodBooks

Road Ends - Mary Lawson

(This is a book I read and wrote the review for a little while ago, but kept back until nearer the publication date.)


This is the third novel by Canadian-born writer Mary Lawson. It tells of twenty-five-year-old Tom Cartwright, his sister Megan, and their father Edward, and the rest of their large family, in Struan, a small town in northern Canada. The paths of the three characters that Lawson focuses on run parallel, moving back and forwards in time a few years apart, each strand gradually reveals itself, and then the three are brought together as events very cleverly converge.

It’s the 1960s, Tom is intelligent and had a promising career ahead of him as an aeronautical engineer, but is withdrawn and hides himself away after the tragic death of his friend. Megan has at last escaped, to London, but worries for the welfare of her mother and brothers; as the only daughter, and with her mother only managing to care for her latest baby, the rest of the family of boys and men were under her care before she left. Edward looks back on his difficult memories of a violent father, and explores the remaining extracts of his mother’s diaries that recall the Ontario silver rush of the 1900s. He struggles to connect with his own family; he has regrets and wonders how his life got to where it is now, he hides away in his study and dreams of traveling, not noticing what is happening to his family.

Each of the three main characters is honestly, convincingly and roundly portrayed. Road Ends is beautifully written; a well-crafted, evocative tale that slowly captivates the reader, an eloquent, measured and touching story of tragedy, regret but also hope, and of the longing for independence and the chance to follow individual dreams, versus a sense of duty and responsibility.

I felt warmth and compassion towards these people; Mary Lawson conveys their dreams and sadness with poignancy and sincerity. I was intrigued by Edward’s past, by whether Tom’s life would change, and by Megan’s strength, her bravery and independence in coming to England and forging her own career. The locations are vividly realised; I could almost feel the wintery weather in Canada; she brings the surroundings to life and the landscape has a real part to play. I loved Mary Lawson’s previous novels and I relished the fine storytelling by her here once again. It is a captivating novel and a joy to read.

Published by Chatto and Windus
Reviewed for WeLoveThisBook