The Summer of Love - Notting Hill Press - a new publishing partnership

Want to see your favourite authors’ books before they’re published?

What do award-winning, best-selling chick lit/romantic comedy authors Talli Roland, Belinda Jones, Michele Gorman, Matt Dunn, Nicola May, Scarlett Bailey, Nick Spalding, Sue Welfare, Chrissie Manby, Victoria Connelly and Lucy Robinson all have in common?

They’ve joined the new publishing partnership, Notting Hill Press, and now you can be on the inside track to get freebies, discounts, signed copies and even sneak peeks at some of their books before they're published!

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And to celebrate Notting Hill Press’s launch, 5 lucky winners will each get to choose 5 eBooks by these authors. Enter here by June 13^th for your chance to win.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? - Maria Semple - Guest review

 

Bernadette is a complex woman still trying to come to terms with thwarted hopes and dreams from twenty years earlier.  Avoiding contact with anyone outside her immediate family (husband Elgin and her fourteen-year-old daughter Bee), she conducts her life almost entirely via the internet, even outsourcing most of her personal admin to a virtual PA based in India.  When her life appears to spiral increasingly out of control, she suddenly vanishes and it is left to the bright and precocious Bee to piece together the reasons for her disappearance and discover where she might have gone.  Along the way, several of those around Bernadette, including her husband Elgin and her neighbour and nemesis Audrey Griffin, have to confront uncomfortable truths about themselves in the process of learning to understand Bernadette and why she has come to shun the world.  As Bee says, "Just because you think you can't ever know everything about another person, it doesn't mean you can't try."  

This a very lively read that it's impossible not to devour in huge chunks.  Much of the narrative consists of emails, faxes, memos and blog entries between the various characters, as well as conventional narrative by Bee; this use of multiple viewpoints is a terrific shorthand way of giving insight into the different characters, and filling in details that Bee herself clearly couldn't be privy to.  At the same time, the technique of skipping at short intervals from one viewpoint to another means the book trips along at a very brisk and breezy pace, particularly through the first two-thirds of the book in which Bernadette's life lurches from one comic disaster to another giving rise to some very funny scenes, sometimes verging on slapstick, which reflect the mounting chaos and near hysteria felt by Bernadette.  However, there are darker strands running through the novel: Bernadette is clearly not a woman who is in control of her life, and by the time she does her apparently miraculous vanishing act, it seems she has almost lost her sanity. Equally, the effect of her disappearance on her husband and daughter is naturally devastating, and the high comedy of the early chapters gives way towards the end of the book to a more sober and reflective narrative.  For the most part I felt that Semple does a terrific job of steering the narrative carefully between comedy and tragedy, keeping the overall tone witty and bright, but just at times the darker strands show through quite starkly, like Antarctic rock through the snow.

One aspect of the book that didn't sit altogether comfortably with me was the trenchant satire directed at Seattle, and Seattle's biggest corporate entity, Microsoft.  While the digs at consumerism and at aspirational and ultra-competitive "hockey-mom" mothers (or gnats as Bernadette calls them) were spot on (as I can testify from personal experience of American schools) and highly amusing, I did find myself baulking occasionally at the sharpness of Semple's attacks on Seattle generally: a city whose designers "never met a beautiful view they didn't block with a twenty-storey old folk's home with zero architectural integrity.... [a city] overrun with runaways, drug addicts and bums...", a city where there are just two hairstyles, "short gray hair and long gray hair".  Microsoft comes in for similar attacks on its ethics and corporate style, and although the satire is laced with a large dose of humour, I did begin to wonder how many fans the book will find either in Seattle or among Microsoft employees!

Having said that, though, I neither live in Seattle nor work for Microsoft so despite feeling slightly uncomfortable at times for people who do, I nevertheless found the book an extremely enjoyable read overall and an impressive debut novel: lively, witty, great fun and very engaging. I think Maria Semple could be the new Marina Lewycka and I'll be watching out for her next book with great interest. 

Reviewed by Penny Tattersall - guest reviewer

Many thanks to Penny for writing this lovely, perceptive guest review for The Little Reader Library. 

'Where'd You Go, Bernadette?' is published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson

The Humorist - Russell Kane

I have to admit I had never heard of Russell Kane before reading this book, but the plot line intrigued me greatly.

The question is: can laughter be made to kill people, a lot of people, all at once?

This book is packed with very black humour which turns in the end to horror, but it is more than that.

The narrator, Benjamin White, was born without the ability to smile or laugh; in fact when he was very small other people's laughter caused him actual pain and he had parents who laughed a lot. He would play, cry, eat and interact but he could not laugh.

Put through a special school to help him come to terms with his condition, he lives as an adult writing reviews on comedy and comedians, which are later put into acceptable terms by a co-worker, because though he cannot react to it personally he has a vast and analytic knowledge of the workings of comedy. Naturally, most comedians hate him as his reviews almost invariably rubbish them.

His life is mainly solitary, he has no real friends and sees as little as possible of his family, though he has been in love since childhood with his cousin Becky. He can feel love, but the love he feels becomes increasingly twisted. Documents fall into his hands that suggest that laughter can be made to kill by a series of movements and actions, rather than words alone. He is sceptical but fascinated and his quest leads him to Africa, where his conviction that content more than presentation is the root of comedy is challenged and overcome.

He makes the decision to perform his routine to a packed house at the Comedy Store, Leicester Square, following up a successful previous attempt. The place is packed out with people willing him to fail.

You cannot help but feel sympathy for Benjamin; he discusses his own case candidly and without too much self-pity, and even as the story descends into horror, I found I was still rooting for him. The other characters; his family, his workmates, are fleshed out as far as his limited imagination can paint them, and I felt sorry for some of them too. They did not understand Benjamin, and he had no way of understanding them.

As a dark story of the workings of comedy this book comes off very well; it made me think and even rush to look up things.

I've read reviews of the author's actual comedy and it doesn't appeal, but I hope he will write more fiction.

Reviewed by Penny Waugh

Guest reviewer Penny Waugh has kindly reviewed this novel for The Little Reader Library - huge thanks to Penny for this insightful review. Penny is a very keen reader whose reviews I always enjoy reading, and she is part of the ReadItSwapIt website.

Published by Simon & Schuster

Thank you to the publishers for the opportunity to read and review a proof copy of this novel.

The author is on twitter @russell_kane and you can visit his website here.

The Au pair by Janey Fraser

'If only she could pick out the good bits from each au pair (and their families) and roll them into one!'

Jilly is becoming increasingly worried about money, and after listening to her friend Paula's problems with her current au pair, Jilly discovers that, apparently, anyone can start up and run an au pair agency, so this is what she herself decides to do. It seems an attractive proposition, a job she can do at home, thereby allowing her to look after her own children, and to help out other mothers in the area who need additional childcare.

What follows are her attempts to successfully match au pairs to families, and to keep the au pairs and the families happy when differences and problems arise, and boy, do they arise! Also the story delves deeper into the background of some of the families, in particular Matthew, a widower who is battling to do his best for his young daughter Lottie, a sweet little girl who seems nevertheless determined to see off any au pair who comes her way! Similarly, the story also looks into the lives of the au pairs, most closely that of Marie-France, a young French woman who has come to the UK determined to find out the truth about her father, and following in the footsteps of her mother, who was an au pair twenty years ago in the same area. 

Poor Jilly made me feel quite sorry for her and also quite stressed as her situation got a bit out of hand, trying to look after her own three children and dog, and run her new business, without an au pair of her own, and with little support or encouragement from her husband David. 

The au pairs themselves are a mixed bunch, with their own motivations and reasons for coming to the UK to work. Some of the families leave a bit to be desired in their treatment of the au pairs too. The author has incorporated little passages with interesting asides regarding au pairs, language, duties and so on, at the start of each chapter, and I enjoyed these and found them a fun addition to the book. One of the major contradictions, or difficulties, in this relationship, is summed up by one of these passages, an extract from 'Jilly's Au Pair Agency: Guidelines for Families - An au pair should be treated as a member of the family. However it is not always wise to let her get too close.' Evidently some of the families and some of the au pairs could do well to heed this advice.

I liked Matthew, and the exploration of the challenges facing a single male parent who is trying to maintain his career and care for his young daughter after losing his wife rang true. 

The Au pair is an entertaining, light and emotional read scattered with amusing moments as various mishaps occur. The plot moves along at a good pace and there is always something happening to keep you reading on. Janey Fraser has the knack of presenting an interesting bunch of characters and fleshing them out, keeping several branches of the storyline running alongside each other successfully, and providing situations that keep the reader interested as the story develops. 

I don't know if I've ever met anyone who has employed an au pair, and I'm not sure how widespread the employment of au pairs is these days, so I can't comment on the accuracy or realism of any of the circumstances, although as someone who has lived in another country, it is certainly interesting to observe the humour and curiosity regarding cultural differences. I would definitely look to this author again if I were in the mood for a well written, amusing and satisfying read about aspects of modern life and it’s ups and downs.

Published by Arrow Books

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this novel to read and review, and also to the author for asking me to review it.

You can find out more on the author's website here. Janey Fraser also writes as Sophie King.

Guest post by Janice Horton, author of Reaching for the Stars

You may already know that both Lindsay and I are part of the innovative reader/writer website called Loveahappyending.com: Lindsay is an Associate Reader and I am an Associate Author - but we also have one other thing in common - as of this month we are both celebrating a whole year of blogging!

Where has the time gone? I can hardly believe it has been a year since I first dipped my toes tentatively into the social networking pond, only to discover that it’s not a pond at all but a vast inter-connecting ocean. At the same time that I started blogging, I joined Twitter and launched my first e-book and, one year later, I’m delighted to say I’m still regularly posting. I blog every Friday and Tweet most days. I’ve also added an Author Facebook Page to my news network and I’m now looking into Tumblr and Pinterest. It seems that there really is no end to the fun that can be shared on the world wide web!

Over on my blog today, I’m hosting my first Blogiversary, so please do pop over to join in the fun. There are yummy treats on offer as well as my latest ebook on Amazon completely free of charge. Yes, my five star rated novel about a media stalked and disillusioned celebrity chef entitled ‘Reaching for the Stars’ is FREE today and over the weekend. So please help me to celebrate by downloading ‘Reaching for the Stars’ – and if you already have it - why not recommend it to a friend? Leave a comment on my blog today or retweet one of my tweets @JaniceHorton to be in the draw for the yummy gifts!

Janice’s Blogiversary Blog: www.janicehortonwriter.blogspot.com

The Link to Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com for you FREE copy of ‘Reaching for the Stars’

Find all Janice Horton’s books on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Janice’s Facebook Page

Follow on Twitter: @JaniceHorton

And on:  http://www.loveahappyending.com

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You can read my review of Reaching for the Stars here.


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Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance 2012

I was delighted to receive 3 novels to read and rate as nominated titles for the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance 2012.


I received:


Jane Lovering 'Please Don't Stop the Music' published by ChocLit

Harriet Evans 'Love Always' published by Harper

Allison Pearson 'I Think I Love You' published by Vintage

Very much looking forward to reading them over the coming weeks.


The short list will be announced in April 2012.


Find out more about this special award here: Melissa Nathan Award website