The Sacred River - Wendy Wallace - Guest Book Review

Published by Simon & Schuster

Guest book review by Josie Barton

Harriet Heron is the cosseted daughter of an upper class Victorian family. Her severe asthma, in smog ridden London, necessitates her staying indoors, where her fascination for Egypt and the Egyptian Book of the Dead carries her through the worst of her illness. Tentatively, on the advice of her doctor, Harriet embarks on a journey to Egypt with her mother, Louisa and her eccentric Aunt Yael. On the boat to Alexandria they are befriended by an enigmatic artist, Eyre Soane, whose interest in Harriet and her family can only be regarded as suspicious and whose association with them continues throughout the novel.

Their arrival in Alexandria is filled with the sights, sounds and scents of a city so foreign that Harriet’s senses seem to come alive and she is enchanted by what she sees around her. Her health improves, and she is able to immerse herself in the history and culture of a country which has long fascinated her. However, for Louisa and Yael, Egypt is not just a land of contrasts, but is also a place where they must try to find some sort of inner peace. 

From the start of the novel, the author cleverly intertwines the story of three very different women and shows just what it was like to live within the closeted world of Victorian sensibility. They each have their own secrets, aspirations and hidden yearnings, and as the languid torpor of Egypt starts to influence them, their hopes, dreams and fears of the past are laid open to scrutiny in a fascinating journey of self discovery. Egypt is so beautifully described that it becomes vibrantly alive, from the contrast of valleys tinged with the gold of its ancient tombs, through to the poverty and turmoil of a land at odds with itself.  The whole character and nature of the novel revolves around the effect that this beautiful country has on Harriet, Louisa and Yael.

Overall, I thought that there was much to enjoy within the novel. The slow and languorous nature of the narrative is entirely in keeping with the unhurried atmosphere of nineteenth century Egypt, and I am sure that this book will appeal to fans of well written historical fiction.

Many thanks to Josie for reading and reviewing this novel for The Little Reader Library. Please do also visit Josie's fab book blog JaffaReadsToo!

The Time of Women - Elena Chizhova - Guest Book Review

Translated from the Russian by Simon Patterson with Nina Cordas

Published by Glagoslav

Guest book review by Mandy Jenkinson

On the surface this is a simple, domestic tale. Three elderly women are raising a little girl, Sofia, the illegitimate daughter of factory worker Antonina, who has been lucky enough to be allocated a room in the “grannies’” communal flat. While Antonina goes to work, often accepting double shifts, to support the makeshift family, the grannies tell their stories to little Sofia and reminisce about their lives, filling her head with images from Russia’s troubled past. Each of the old women has suffered immeasurably during the war and siege of Leningrad, losing homes and families. Now they pour all the love they have into the little girl.

Life is hard. The novel poignantly and vividly captures the atmosphere of 1960s Soviet life – the daily drudgery to find enough food, the endless queues, the excitement of finding fabric to make a dress and managing to jump the queue and get a TV, the difficulties of washing and doing the laundry without a bathroom. And interspersed with the minutiae of daily life are the memories of the old ladies and the unbelievable struggle they had to survive during the Siege, the hunger, the deaths, the cold. Much of the action takes place in the flat, but we are also taken to Antonina’s factory, to the shops, the church, the nursery where Sofia goes before the grannies take over.

With these three generations of women the reader has a moving and compelling account of life in Soviet Russia, all told from a feminine perspective. Men are pretty much absent from the book, or if there, then pretty unsatisfactorily. It’s certainly a grim story but ultimately one of hope and renewal. Antonina doesn’t have to suffer as much as the grannies did. Sofia will not have to suffer as much as her mother did. She will have choices none of them could have dreamt of, and she will remember them with affection and gratitude.

This is a rich and multi-faceted novel and a must-read for anyone wanting to learn more about life in the Soviet Union. It’s not always an easy read, as it frequently switches between the narrative voices, and it’s not always immediately clear whose voice we are hearing. Passages of stream of consciousness need to be read slowly and carefully to fully follow what’s happening. And it certainly helps to have some knowledge of the historical background before starting. However, these are minor criticisms of a book that I very much enjoyed and one that I look forward to reading again.  It captures perfectly the atmosphere and environment of a particular place and time with compassion and empathy, and the characters come alive and linger in the imagination long after the reader finishes the last page. A fascinating and immensely enjoyable book and a worthy winner of the Russian Booker.

Many thanks to Mandy for reading and reviewing this novel for The Little Reader Library. Mandy is an omnivorous reader who enjoys reviewing, for newbooks magazine as well as elsewhere, and enjoys discovering new authors.

Dance the Moon Down - R. L. Bartram

'Do you think they'll remember us, when we're gone?' Victoria asked. 'The next generation, I mean. What we did, what we saw, how far we've come? Or will it be just another history lesson, a story in a book?'

Dance the Moon Down is an engaging and well-researched historical portrait of one young woman's life in rural England during the Great War.

Victoria has enjoyed a comfortable middle-class life prior to the war, with her father supporting her continuing her studies, enabling her to benefit from education for longer than many women at that time. Whilst studying she makes friends with Beryl Whittacker, a staunch advocate of women's rights and independence, and she also meets the gifted poet Gerald Avery, with whom she falls in love. The two spend such happy times together, and the feelings of joy and love Victoria experiences are wonderful;

'It was to be an unforgettable year - a year of risk and excitement, of secret liaisons, the fear of discover, of reluctant partings and counting the minutes until they were together again…She was light as a feather, whilst all around her the world seemed wonderfully bright and inexpressibly beautiful. She'd never been so happy. She was so very much in love that she hardly knew where she was, except when she was with him…She felt as if she'd been only half alive before she'd met him...'

After a battle with Victoria's mother, the pair start to make a life together in the countryside. A strong love and bond grows between Victoria and Gerald prior to World War I. However as I read I was afraid as to what would happen to them when the war began. 

The tale follows Victoria's subsequent search for news of Gerald when he has gone missing in France after volunteering to fight. She is persistent and fiercely determined to discover what has happened to him, she scours the lists of the dead, she goes to London and enquires there, never giving up the hope that he is alive, just as so many other women await news of their men, whether sons, husbands, brothers, fathers; …'women, their faces tired and drawn, who were sick at heart with waiting and worrying.' Victoria is accused of being a spy and we see how this blot on her character will influence her future choices.

She returns to the countryside, to Staunton Gifford near the south coast, where she must get used to a much lower standard of living than she was once used to, and she eventually finds work, albeit hard, physical work as a farm labourer; '...Victoria understood that even though the work was backbreaking, it was still work. Without it, you didn't get paid, and if you didn't get paid, you starved. It was a part of life she'd never had to consider before.' There she makes firm friendships with some of the other women who are similarly employed, friendships that cross the social/class barriers. I won't write any further about the plot, as it is for the reader to discover further what happens to Victoria and to Gerald.

I must admit that I found the narrative perhaps a little overly descriptive at first, but then the story grew and blossomed fully to life and I was caught up in it fully, eager to see what the path ahead would hold for these characters. The author vividly conveys the determination and perseverance, and sheer hard physical work that so many did at home during the war in support of the country and of those overseas. It was brave of the author to tackle the female point of view here and he gives a fresh, compassionate and honest portrait of the lives, trials and struggles of those left behind during wartime. He has paid keen attention to detail, and the novel shows his careful research of the times and the events of this period; I felt transported back to another time. 

I really liked the portrayal of Beryl, her independence, fighting for what she believed in despite being considered a criminal, and her urging Victoria to want to make more of life and not just settle down and get married. But it felt right too, that this is what Victoria wanted, and that she could defend that choice. It was interesting to see the depiction of women trying to break free from convention but at the same time to be able to have the freedom to make their own choices either way. And Beryl is a rounded character; despite her independence and her actions as a suffragette demanding progress, she is nevertheless susceptible to romance. I admired Victoria for the way she adapted to the hand life had dealt her, and the way she was prepared to us her knowledge and abilities to help others who had had less chances in life than her thus far, whether due to lack of education or due to poverty.

R. L. Bartram has incorporated some lovely details and nice touches in his story; there was a moving incident involving a photograph in a newspaper, and a very poignant moment near to the end of the story which had me on the verge of tears. A very promising historical fiction debut that brims with romance, friendship, endurance and hope through adversity, and captures a time of great hardship and change; I'm very glad to have read this novel and the memory of the story has stayed in my mind since reading it.

Source - author review copy in exchange for an honest review

Self published via Authors Online

Bitter Greens - Kate Forsyth - Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tour

Today I am delighted to be taking part in the Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tour for Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth.

‘Her parents had sold her to a sorceress for a handful of bitter greens…parsley, wintercress and rapunzel.’

This beautiful novel has at its heart three women and three stories which are all combined to create a very special and enchanting tale. It is a gorgeous hardback edition, beautifully finished, making it a joy to look at, hold and read. The story is beautifully written, and it makes for an engrossing historical fiction read. In part it is a retelling of a classic fairytale, Rapunzel. But it is so much more than this too.

Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force, to give her her full title, is appalled to have been banished from the royal court of Louis XIV at Versailles to instead spend her days in a nunnery. She tells us that she 'had always been a great talker and teller of tales', and this time her storytelling has cost her dearly. She has a talent for tales, a great imagination and a way of captivating her audience. She is depicted as a strong and independent woman, but the times she lived in severely restrained her ability to become everything she hoped she could be:

‘I had thought I could bend the world to my will. I had thought I could break free of society’s narrow grooves, forging a life of my own desire. I had thought I was the navigator of my soul’s journey. I had been wrong.’

As is noted in the foreword to the book, she was in fact a real person who wrote one of the earliest versions of the Rapunzel story, under the name ‘Persinette.’

The second strand to the narrative begins the retelling of the tale we know as Rapunzel; the character who is named Margherita here. The story takes us back to the sixteenth century to meet a little seven-year-old girl in Venice upon the day that will change her life. She becomes trapped in a tower with little hope of escape, weighted down by lengths of red-gold hair. Despite, or perhaps because of, the physical constraints she finds herself in, Margherita turns to her imagination to escape the tower:

‘So she lay in her bed, as snug as she could make herself, and imagined herself out in the world, having all kinds of grand adventures: fighting giants; defeating witches; finding treasure; sailing the seven seas; singing at the courts of kings.’

The third woman to feature in this story is Selena Leonelli, who encounters the artist Titian as part of her story and recounts the events of her life that have shaped her dark character, rendering her frightened of the passage of time.

The stories of the three women are captivating and held my interest and attention whilst reading; they were brought vividly to life for me, I wondered about their lives, felt drawn into their adventures, was moved by their plights and the different ways in which they all seemed trapped. Three distinctive women with fascinating journeys through life, often fraught with danger, beset by sadness, but all strong and courageous. I felt frustration at the restricted position life offered them as women living back then. I think I liked Charlotte most of all; such a strong woman for her times and evidently influenced by her mother. It was enjoyable how the story moved about between the three women and the episodes looking back in time added another dimension to the tale and gave insight into the each character's formative years. 

The attention to detail in Kate Forsyth’s writing is excellent and brings the period settings to life vividly, but this never holds up the advancement and intrigue of the narrative, which the author keeps moving satisfyingly and effortlessly throughout.  

I found great pleasure in sitting back and reading this impressive novel and I think it will appeal to many readers who like a combination of accomplished historical fiction with romance plus a fairytale, fantasy element. I enjoyed escaping back in time and getting lost in this layered, imaginative, magical story every time I picked the book up. Bitter Greens is definitely one of the highlights of my reading in 2013 so far.

Thank you very much to Amy from Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours for inviting me to be part of this tour.

Published by Allison & Busby

Thanks very much to the publisher and the tour host for kindly providing a copy of this novel to read and review.

About the Author

Kate Forsyth is the award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 books for adults and children, translated into 13 languages. She was recently named in the Top 25 of Australia's Favourite Novelists. Since The Witches of Eileanan was named a Best First Novel by Locus Magazine, Kate has won or been nominated for many awards, including a CYBIL Award in the US. She’s also the only author to win five Aurealis awards in a single year, for her Gypsy Crown series of children's historical novels. Kate’s latest novel, Bitter Greens, interweaves a retelling of the Rapunzel fairytale with the scandalous life story of the woman who first told the tale, the 17th century French writer Charlotte-Rose de la Force. It has been called ‘the best fairy tale retelling since Angela Carter’ and ‘an imaginative weaving of magic, fairy tale and history’. A direct descendant of Charlotte Waring, the author of the first book for children ever published in Australia, Kate is currently studying a doctorate in fairy tales at the University of Technology in Sydney, where she lives by the sea, with her husband, three children, and many thousands of books.

Please visit Kate Forsyth's WEBSITE and BLOG for more information.  You can also find her on FACEBOOK and follow her on TWITTER.

The Painted Bridge - Wendy Wallace

It is 1859 when Anna Palmer is cruelly incarcerated against her will by her husband Vincent in a Victorian asylum near London named Lake House. This private asylum houses genteel women supposedly needing a rest and a cure, those who have delicate sensibilities. Having realised what has happened to her, and what Lake House actually is, Anna immediately sets about trying to prove there is nothing wrong with her and that she doesn’t belong there and should be allowed to leave immediately. She appeals unsuccessfully to her uncaring husband to let her return home.

Lucas St Clair is a physician working at the asylum, employing the very new medium of photography in his work with the patients, believing that it may perhaps be used to shed light on the health of their minds.

Anna is subject to cruel treatments in the asylum that were common in those days, supposedly in the name of a cure. Initially she wants little to do with the other residents, but slowly she lets her guard down and finds more in common with some of them than she first expected. Alongside some companionship with the owner’s daughter, and her meetings with Lucas St Clair, they are of course the only people who can help reduce her feelings of isolation and from whom she can gain strength and solidarity.

I was gripped by the storyline right from the start. I felt sad at the helpless situation Anna found herself in, and angry at the ease with which she was locked away there by her husband. The author highlights the cruelties and injustices of the system and of society prevalent in those times, leaving women with little or no say in their own destiny, and locked away for feeling low or anxious, or just not behaving as expected. The writer caused me to care about Anna and share her feeling of being trapped, and I was willing her to find an escape somehow.

I loved the author’s use of language, and the names she created for some of the characters at Lake House struck me as perfect.

There is beautiful and convincing period detail throughout this intelligent, perceptive historical novel, and the author has evidently researched her topics well, but is never heavy handed with the details. I found it particularly interesting to read about this early use of photography, the processes involved, and this theory that it may enlighten a doctor as to the mental health of patients. Will Anna be able to prove her sanity? What is the truth about her past, and her husband? The lines between truth, reality and fact become blurred until we are unsure quite what to believe at times.

The hardback edition of this novel has beautiful endpapers which complement it very well.

This is a fascinating, emotional and compelling debut novel with engaging characters and a strong storyline throughout. This is a book that I would definitely read a second time. I am really looking forward to reading the next novel by this author. 

Published by Simon & Schuster

You can follow the author on twitter @slangular and visit her website here.

Thank you very much to the publisher for the opportunity to meet this author at their book bloggers event recently. Thank you very much to Wendy for being so friendly and happy to discuss her book and her work. 

Women of a Dangerous Age - Fanny Blake - Guest Author Q&A!

I am thrilled to welcome author Fanny Blake to the blog today!

Fanny is the Books Editor of Women & Home magazine, and recently her second novel, Women of a Dangerous Age, was published by Blue Door, an imprint of HarperCollins. 

You can connect with Fanny Blake on Twitter @FannyBlake1 and through www.facebook.com/FannyBlakeBooks

My review of Women of a Dangerous Age is coming soon.

Synopsis from the publisher:

Can you ever truly escape from the mistakes of the past?
Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Buchan, Elizabeth Noble and Katie Fforde this is a warm and witty novel about women, relationships and why it’s never too late to change.
Lou is married to a man who no longer loves her. It’s time to move on, to begin a new business venture and to start her life over.
To celebrate her new-found freedom, she travels to India, where, in front of the Taj Mahal, she befriends Ali after taking each other’s photographs on ‘that’ bench.
Ali is a serial mistress. But when she returns home, she discovers her latest lover is not the man she took him for. She too needs a new beginning.
As Lou and Ali put their pasts behind them, they start to discover new possibilities for life and for love, until the shocking realisation that they have far more in common than they thought.

* Q&A with Fanny Blake *

·         ‘Women of a Dangerous Age’, your new novel, depicts two women, Lou and Ali, who are both facing major changes or turning points in their lives when they become friends. Could you tell us a little more about your inspiration for the novel and your motivation for writing it please?

I wanted to write about a woman who had reached one of those turning points when she looks at her life and thinks, ‘Is this it?’ Does there come a point when it’s too late to change? As I mulled it over, Lou and Ali came into my head, two women at quite different turning points. Lou is leaving her marriage and wanting independence while Ali is looking for commitment. They make friends in India but when they get home, a revelation threatens their friendship. I wanted to write about women of a certain age, about the importance of friendship and the possibilities for change.

·         I love reading which books have been recommended and featured every month in Woman & Home Magazine. As the Books Editor of the magazine, do you have a large number of new books to read all year round, and is it difficult choosing what to feature in each issue?

Thanks. That’s really good to hear. Yes, the postman arrives with anything between three to ten proofs of new novels to be published later in the year. Opening them means it’s a bit like Christmas every day. It is difficult to choose what to feature, because there’s never enough room to include all I’d like. However, I try to feature as many different kinds of novel as possible – eg crime, historical, literary debuts, brand-name fiction – so there’s something on there for everyone. Selecting them that way does help narrow it down.

·         Have you always loved to read since being a child? Have you noticed your reading tastes change over the years?

I remember once my sister and I were put to sleep in a caravan parked in the drive of my parents’ friends’ house. While they had dinner, I was left with a pile of Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven books. I’d never heard of them but I was completely gripped. After that, I never looked back. I’ve always had a very wide-ranging taste in reading. If anything, it grew even wider over the many years I worked as an editor and publisher. The only fiction I’m not very comfortable with is science fiction and fantasy. I was taught by one of my bosses that what matters, isn’t the category into which a book falls, but the quality of the writing and/or storytelling. If it’s good enough, the chances are you’ll be won over.

·         Have you always wanted to write fiction?

I didn’t think about it until I did so I suppose not. Not consciously anyway. When I worked in publishing, writing fiction was definitely what other people did. They wrote and I edited. It wasn’t until I’d become a journalist and written several non-fiction books that I began to think that I could write a novel. I had several false starts. Perhaps because I didn’t really know what I wanted to write about. But eventually I hit on the characters and the theme of What Women Want, a novel about the importance of women’s friendship.

·         Which writers have inspired you, whether present day or past?

That’s so difficult to answer because there are so many I love to read. I couldn’t say who in particular has inspired me. At university I read and loved all those classics, Mrs Gaskell, George Elliot, the Brontes, Jane Austen and Dickens. But now, I tend to read and admire contemporary novelists such as Anne Tyler, Barbara Kingsolver, Ian McEwan, Mark Haddon, Anne Michaels, Hilary Mantel, William Boyd, Susan Hill to name but a very few. I also read a lot of crime from Ruth Rendell and PD James through to Jo Nesbo  or Karin Slaughter.

·         What do you enjoy most about writing? What is the most difficult thing about it?

I love sitting down and escaping into a world populated by the characters I’ve created. There’s nothing more satisfying than making a particular scene work. At the same time there’s nothing more frustrating when I can’t get it right. The most difficult thing is making myself sit down and do it when I’m going through a bad patch. The worst point for me seems to be at about a third of the way through when I’ve got all the balls in the air and I feel like they’re all going to come crashing down. That’s when doing almost anything else, even the ironing, is preferable.

·         What is your ideal or perfect environment for writing? Is there such a place for you?

I can write anywhere - on a plane, a train, in someone’s spare room – but I prefer being in my tiny work room at home, especially when I’ve got the house to myself. The book proofs that keep arriving mean that the room’s a constant mess and it’s dangerously near the kitchen and the biscuit tin but … it’s very peaceful and overlooks the garden (which, to be honest, is a bit of a jungle) and I can hear the birds and the children playing next door. I’ve got my computer and an endless supply of peppermint tea to keep me happy. If I want a change of scene, or the kitchen’s full of people (a hazard if you’ve got grown kids still living at home), then I’ve just discovered the joys of working in bed. Always great – so long as no one else is in it!

·         Can you tell us what you are working on at the moment, in terms of writing – are you working on another novel?

I’ve almost finished my third novel. After that I’ve got ideas for the fourth and fifth as well, which I’m looking forward to getting to in due course.

·         If you could meet any fictional character, who would you choose?

Again, so many to choose from. But, today, I’ll plump for Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. She’s strong-willed, independent-minded and straight-talking. I think she’d be pretty interesting and fun to spend some time with.

Thanks so much for taking part in the Q&A, Fanny!

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar - Suzanne Joinson

'Bicycles are rarely seen here, and a woman riding one is simply unimaginable.'

It is 1923, and Evangeline (Eva) English, her sister Elizabeth (Lizzie) and their companion Millicent Frost are trained missionaries who have traveled to Kashgar, East Turkestan, to spread the message of Christianity. Lizzie and Millicent are driven by their religious beliefs, whereas Eva, with her 'glorious, green BSA Lady's Roadster bicycle', has other motives for wanting to be part of the trip, capturing her experiences in writing, and hoping to write A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar and have her guide published...'and I shall sub-title it, 'How I Stole Amongst the Missionaries.' It shall be my own personal observations, filled with insights about the Moslems. I intend to spy upon the women, fascinating in their floating garb; and the landscape: these great, monotonous plains; and I shall sit upon my two wheels and feel the grit of the desert and move about the streets as if flying.' As we meet them, they have just happened upon a young girl in the desert, only 10 or 11, who is giving birth, and they help her. However, the local people are against what they have done, and they take them in whilst deciding the fate of the three women. The women hope that they can gain funds to free themselves.

The story then moves to London in the present day, and we meet Frieda as she returns home after travelling for many months, as part of her work researching the youth of the Islamic world. She discovers a man sleeping outside her door, and shows kindness towards him. The next day she finds beautiful images of birds drawn on the wall outside her home. She is in an unsatisfactory relationship with a married man. We learn that the stranger is called Tayeb, and he used to be a filmmaker in his homeland of Yemen, but is now in a difficult position due an incident that happened to him in London. Frieda inherits the contents of a flat from a lady she doesn't recall ever having known. There she discovers intriguing items from the past, and an unlikely and unexpected friendship grows between Frieda and Tayeb as they both look to their futures. Frieda has had an unusual upbringing and the inheritance she has received will cause her to revisit past times.

The author has transported us to another world, describing its exotic colours, the foods, the people, and conveying the atmosphere the women find themselves in, as two different cultures with different traditions and lifestyles come together. It was intriguing to discover how the relationships between the three women changed and developed as more of their individual personalities are revealed to the reader; Eva experiencing feelings of loneliness, and becoming increasingly distanced from Lizzie and Millicent, whose 'friendship was so thick and tight.' Of course this is all viewed through the eyes of Eva in the passages she has recorded in her journal. She ponders why she writes; 'Perhaps I write it for sense. I write it for cohesion, I suppose, to understand the progression that must occur in the layering of different selves that create a life.' The parts of the novel narrated by Eva are prefaced with wonderful short extracts from a book entitled Bicycling for Ladies, by Maria E. Ward, from 1896. 

Overall I liked this fascinating debut novel; I felt that whilst reading I was able to take a step into the past, and experience with Eva some dangerous, unfamiliar places, and felt tension as I read on, wondering what would happen to these courageous, independent women, how would their stories end? Although admittedly it took me a little while to get into the story fully at first, I grew more interested in the story involving Frieda and Tayeb as it gathered momentum, and I enjoyed Eva's journal entries more once the story had progressed a little. 

The author moves the story along nicely between the dual strands of narrative, historical and modern day, and links them cleverly together, slowly revealing the connections between Eva and Frieda, and combining to deliver an intriguing and satisfying read as a whole. If you, like me, enjoy novels with this dual time frame structure, and which combining historical and present-day stories to compelling effect, you may well enjoy this book. 

Thank you very much to Netgalley and to the publisher for the chance to read and give an honest review of an advance egalley of this novel.

Published by Bloomsbury


There's a website about the book here.

Suzanne Joinson works in the literature department of the British Council, specializing in the Middle East, North Africa, and China, and she is the Arts Council-funded writer-in-residence at Shoreham Airport in the UK. Her personal blog can be found online at http://delicatelittlebirds.wordpress.com, and she tweets at @suzyjoinson. Visit her Web site at www.suzannejoinson.com.

Below is a video featuring the author discussing this novel.