This book caught my eye in a remainder bookstore catalogue, mainly because it was set in Harbin, Manchuria, where my mother spent her childhood and college years. The action, however, takes place in 1910, a decade before her time and prior to the upheavals of the Russian Revolution and ensuing Civil War.

Based on a real epidemic event, this is an eerily prescient novel, having been published in 2018 just a year before the explosion of Covid-19.

The Baron is a doctor and chief medical examiner for the city of Harbin (spelt Kharbin in the novel) who is alerted to random dead bodies seen in the winter snows, only for them to abruptly vanish before he can discover how they died.

The Baron then embarks on often-delicate dealings with the city’s Russian administrator appointed by the Tsar, General Khorvat, and others in the medical field. As the only doctor who is fluent in Chinese, he plays a valuable role in straddling the deep divisions between the occupying Russians and the Chinese government. He is also married to a young Chinese woman, Li Ju, whom he rescued from a Scots-run orphanage. This puts him at odds with the Russian community who look down on such intimate relationships with the Chinese. His most reliable friend is another doctor, Messonier, who has fallen in love with the only female doctor on the team, Maria Lebedev.

As the snows deepen during a bitter winter in this city at the crossroads of Asia, the dark atmosphere intensifies with every page. There is increasing panic and terror at the seemingly hundred percent death rate with mounting piles of corpses and coffins, and inhumane or failed attempts in quarantine. There is anger in diplomatic wrangling as authorities squabble, complicated by cultural clashes between Chinese superstition and Orthodox religion.

There are graphic scenes of the symptoms of this particular type of plague that may have originated in wild animal furs, involving copious quantities of blood that may be too much for many readers. The friction between the medical experts as to vaccines and treatment also reflects what has been all too common in our recent times. The wearing of masks, gloves, and dowsing oneself in copious quantities of disinfectant permeate every page.

Yet interspersed with all the horror, there is faith and humanity and gentle lyrical passages of prose about Chinese calligraphy – the Baron’s hobby that he is studying with scholar Xiansheng – and finely detailed tea ceremonies overseen by Chang, the dwarf doorman from Churin’s department store.

This is a complex book that is not for the faint-hearted, yet it is also soulful and utterly compelling, especially as it reflects the current world pandemic which ironically also started in China and has produced so much fear and misinformation, yet given witness to incredible dedication and sacrifice by those in the front line of combating disease.

​Five stars

(Here is a link to an article on this little-known plague.)

 


amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

hachette.com.au (paperback version)

​A novel featuring a fictional movie star normally would not be high on my reading list, so I must congratulate the marketing gang from Simon & Schuster on a good job as they got me with their spin - the glamorous cover and memorable title - so I thought maybe a bit of Hollywood glitz might make a change. 

There are two female narrators – Monique and Evelyn.

Monique is in her mid-thirties and about to be divorced. She’s a rising ambitious Afro-American journalist for a magazine. When she is specifically asked for by the world’s biggest movie star, Evelyn Hugo, to write her spill-all biography, both Monique and her editor are astonished.

We soon discover that in spite of having seven husbands, none of them were Evelyn’s true love. It doesn’t take long to discover who that true love is and eventually we get to the reason why Evelyn only wanted Monique to write the biography, although a sharp-eyed reader might glean clues from her background.

It will depend on how well you know past Hollywood royalty as to who might be the inspiration for Evelyn Hugo and others. Although all of them are fictional, one can immediately spot snatches of much-married super stars like Elizabeth Taylor or Marilyn Monroe, or others with fluid sexuality such as Jodi Foster, Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. Other stars disguised their cultural backgrounds, bringing to mind women like Merle Oberon and Rita Hayworth. There are even echoes of Anita Ekberg and Ingrid Bergman who revitalised sinking Hollywood careers in Europe. Monogamy is not a thing with any of the husbands who include at least one wife-beater and self-serving opportunists of varying degree. Other male characters have hints of Rock Hudson or Tab Hunter.

The narrative is tiresome and endlessly trite, all the characters are unlikeable, shallow and have few redeeming features. I disliked Evelyn intensely: she was amoral, self-aggrandising and Oscar-ambitious at the expense of everything else. She doesn’t have any contemplative or spiritual qualities that might have softened her.

Being another movie star, her true love wasn’t much better, so their tempestuous relationship left me bored and cold. When the true love gets annoyed over an explicit scene Evelyn does in a movie, the affair may be over. This stretches credulity. We are talking about actors here! All of them test boundaries or do raunchy love scenes on screen, it comes with the job.

What disappoints me most about the book is the lack of anything much other than ambition over Oscars, marriages on a whim, domestic violence, unrepentant abortion and incessant relationships chatter. We have next to nothing of the dynamism of the movie business itself. There is little about the craft of acting, or the savage wheeling and dealing or the complex preparation that goes into making and distributing a film or making sure it is a success – all aspects that could have added so much more.

I don’t know how I managed to get to the end, but sometimes you have that horror-fascination with something (usually a bad movie or tacky reality TV show) and you press on just to see how much worse things can get and whether there is anything that redeems your faith by the end. Even when I reached the last page, I remained unmoved although I’m sure other readers collapsed into tears.

Currently, there are over a million ratings for this on Goodreads, and the average score is 4.48 out of 5 stars. I am therefore seriously out of touch with what readers love. For me personally, this has been an interesting exercise in how easily one can get sucked in by good publisher marketing. Perhaps the inevitable Netflix series will be better. At least there might be some nice frocks to look at.
 
Two stars (mostly for the cover and numerous mentions of fabulous designer dresses in emerald green).


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​booktopia

Gothic novels usually feature an innocent young woman in jeopardy, a brooding hero, an unsolved mystery and a sinister house, often presided over by a secretive housekeeper. This title uses all of those ingredients, except the woman in jeopardy, Genevieve (or Jenny) Timmons, is a little different from the usual vulnerable heroines of more traditional fare.

She’s streetwise, a con-artist who manipulates séances for rich folk and then takes off with the offerings. When she is rescued from the clutches of the law by a Mr Lockhart who is acting for a bereaved gentleman, Mr Pemberton, on the understanding she will perform a séance for him in order to give him peace, Jenny is puzzled but agrees to the arrangement.

She finds herself at Somerset Park, a grand estate where she discovers that Mr Pemberton’s intended bride, Audra, was found dead at the foot of the sea cliffs. No-one seems to know how she managed to escape from her locked bedroom and why or how she fell.

Things get complicated for Jenny as the plot twists and turns and she realises not one of the people she encounters at Somerset Park are who or what they seem. Everyone has an agenda or is hiding something. Extracts from Audra’s diary add to the mystery.

This is an entertaining read even if it uses just about every cliché in the gothic novel genre. It is saved largely by Jenny’s character as she is quite refreshing and there are some nice exchanges of wit between her and Pemberton in their slow-boil romance. If you stop to ponder, you’ll find some holes in the plot and the ending feels like an unnecessary add-on but may have been included if a sequel is planned.
 
Three and a half stars.

With thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.

(Book not published until August 2022.)

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Booktopia

I am astonished I hadn’t come across this story earlier as it is definitely the sort of topic I like to uncover about the often-unsung women from history (see my blog The History Bucket).
 
Originally the subject of an academic thesis by Hilarie Lindsay, this is her fictional reworking of the life of Winifred Steger (nee Oaten), an Englishwoman who came to Australia as a child with her father in the late 1880s.
 
Without repeating them here, the facts of her life can be found in a number of online biographical sources (see below), and the book pretty much follows those facts, but it is fictionally embroidered with the finer details of what life was like in late 19th and early 20th Century Australia for women who had their own enormous battles with a cruel and often unforgiving land and the rough men who tried to tame it.
 
We follow Winifred through many traumatic events, from her mother abruptly abandoning her on the quay the day the family was to sail to Australia to her neglected and lonely childhood in a prickly pear infested shanty in remote Queensland, then on to a shotgun marriage to a callous German man and her subsequent forced abandonment of her four children and finally through to her ultimate alliance with an Indian trader and members of the Moslem faith that resulted in a remarkable new world opening up to her.

Although she had the minimum of schooling, Winifred’s relief lay in her writing, much of it left unpublished, but she did gain a small modicum of success for her short pieces in the newspapers.
 
Due to a temporary eye issue, I listened to the audio version instead of attempting the print edition. Audio is often a problem, especially when the narrator is putting their own spin on a variety of accents that are rarely noticeable in print form. I found this particular narration somewhat jarring, with the Scots, Irish, Cornish, Cockney, French, German, Aboriginal and other accents not always consistent or true to region or nationality. The Indian and Afghani accents had me cringing occasionally, being reminded of those awful sing-song parodies by Peter Sellers. On the positive side, I liked the detailed descriptions of living conditions in the dusty vistas of outback Australia and Winifred’s experiences on Hajj, visiting Medina and Mecca.

The anti-female attitudes of the men, both Christian and Moslem, were at times unpleasant but accurate. While most of the men in Winifred’s life had proprietorial and prejudicial attitudes towards any woman struggling to assert herself, some of the women were no better. It takes great character to rise above what Winifred had to endure and survive to the age of almost 100.
 
Recently described as “an Australian classic”, this is certainly a book worth reading, mainly for the picture it paints of what life was really like for women pioneers and to learn about the challenges of inter-racial marriage at a time when it was much frowned upon.(If there is a choice, I’d recommend reading the book, rather than listening to the audio version.)
 
Four stars for the content, three for the narrated version.

Links on Winifred Steger:-

​Biography

Wikipedia

Books


amazon.com (audio version)

Booktopia

amazon.com.au

Cali Lyons is a writer who caused a sensation with her first prize-winning novel but is now struggling with her second. She lives in the Blue Mountains near Sydney with her husband, Josh, and a cat, Killa.

After an argument with Josh and with a horror bushfire threatening her house, she takes shelter with her neighbour, Spike, and a mysterious elderly Frenchwoman known as Lady G. They survive the experience, but Cali’s house is destroyed and Killa is missing. Memories shared with her by Lady G releases Cali’s writer’s block, inspiring her next novel.

When Cali is interviewed on TV after the fire, she lets go with an explosive tirade about climate change and those in power who are responsible. This draws her to national attention and knowing that she is now homeless, the tech billionaire, Arlo Richard, gives her the use of a boathouse on Sydney Harbour. She is soon in demand in the media both for her books and her stance on global warming.

Josh then resurfaces in her life and creates problems regarding money. As her new book approaches publication, Cali is panicky about what it will mean when it is discovered that she has stolen Lady G’s story.

The basic plot and peppy narrative have all the standard ingredients of a lightweight contemporary chick-lit with its (mostly) rich and glamorous settings in exclusive Sydney suburbs, although it has its serious underbelly with climate change and the tragic effects of bushfires. The result is a mixed bag. Cali’s character is often irritating with her dithering self-absorption and over-thinking. She takes rather too long to realise that aligning herself with a controlling billionaire who chooses what she should wear is bound to come unstuck and will be at odds with her principles. 

 
Three stars
​


Booktopia

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It is September 1941 in London. Young Freddie Hackett earns extra money to help his family by running important government messages around the city. One night, he nearly stumbles into two men fighting. While he hides out watching them, one man stabs the other. Freddie's terror at possibly having been seen is increased when soon afterwards at a delivery address he encounters a man whom he is sure is the killer. The police are no help and so Freddie seeks out investigator, Maisie Dobbs.

Maisie is involved in her own secret government work for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and has to step carefully once it becomes apparent that there is much more to the murder Freddie witnessed, that it involves the Free French, the intelligence services and possibly events that took place decades earlier in the Middle East.

None of the crimes solved by Maisie are ever cut-and-dried. Moral questions are always a major feature of her investigations and this particular plotline follows that pattern.

On a personal front, Maisie continues to juggle her work with trying to spend as much time as she can with her adopted daughter Anna, and also the new love of her life, the American, Mark Scott. She also spends rather too much time looking out for the many secondary characters who have played roles in other books in the series and who still remain in her life like some sort of massive extended family. 

It goes without saying that readers already familiar with all the previous novels in the series will get the most out of this one but it seems Maisie's stoic independence has gone off track. Much as I've loved her in the past, I feel it's time she retired. ​

Three stars

(With thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC)

amazon.com

​amazon.co.uk

Booktopia

​Miriam Duffy lives a successful and comfortable life. When her daughter, Ally, marries veterinarian, Nick, she is delighted and feels they are well matched.

After being widowed, Miriam is bereft and wonders why she’s rarely welcomed to help with Ally’s growing family. Even when Nick tells Miriam that Ally is having mental health issues, she doesn’t question him. Only when alerted to the truth by a therapist, followed by Ally’s desperate arrival on the doorstep, does Miriam realise how wrong she has been.

The law fails to protect the family as the situation escalates with Nick’s increasingly sinister tactics. A crisis point is reached. The lives of those she loves are on the line and Miriam decides to take matters into her own hands.

The narrative is brisk and well-constructed, but not easy reading: it isn’t meant to be. Although fiction, it reflects the reality of domestic violence in our community in which cunning perpetrators manipulate and skirt the law. On other levels, it also explores our perceptions of self, and whether events in our past can ever be an excuse for actions in the present.

A brave, confronting and dynamic novel that is bound to get readers talking.

4 1/2 stars

(With many thanks to betterreading.com.au and Allen and Unwin for the ARC)

(Links to book sites will be included after publication.)

I have something to tell you … about a book that contains 56 chapters in which there are around 160 instances of ‘I’m sorry’, i.e. an average of three times per chapter, some of which are barely a few pages. (Found via e-book search function.)

All these sorry expressions pretty much sum up this novel.. Over-written and overwrought with two plotlines that trample over each other, I only persisted to the end to find out what the final twist was. Interestingly enough it involves an innocent dog.

Jess (Jay) Wells is a high-flying Bristol solicitor who takes on the case of architect Edward Blake who's been arrested after he comes home to find his wife Vanessa has been murdered in a guest bedroom.

The police are convinced Blake is guilty although he swears innocence. Doubts soon creep in and Jay is sure he didn’t do it. As other evidence about a tragedy in the couple’s past and Vanessa’s sordid extramarital activities come to light, the case against Blake becomes less certain.

Parallel to this, Jay is having her own relationship issues. She suspects her husband, fellow lawyer, Tom, has revived a previous affair with a younger woman and a new discovery will send her into a tailspin.

Blake’s character is perhaps the most interesting, as are his honest motivations, which are reinforced by the ending. Most of the other family members and friends are shallow English ‘Midsomer Murders’ county types, boozing, bed-hopping and with few redeeming qualities.

Tom is guilty of most of the grovelling ‘sorry’ dialogue to the point where it becomes meaningless. Jay’s behaviour in her dealings with Blake are affected by her personal problems and, although this is fiction, it is this type of writing that persists with the idea that women lawyers are vulnerable to their emotions and unable to stick to professional ethics and standards. It is for this reason my early admiration for Jay really waned by the end of the book.

The criminal case would have been a good story on its own. The author’s end notes say that it is based on a real case and perhaps another writer could have made better mileage out of it.
 
Two stars
​

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Booktopia

Jess is a librarian who’s had major life changes, having lost both her job and her cherished grandmother, Mimi, who raised her.

While driving around Devon, Jess comes across a ramshackle cottage in the village of Middlemass that instantly appeals to her and she decides to buy it, even though it needs considerable work. Her only close friend, Hannah, lives overseas and she knows she must force herself out of her comfort zone and take a gamble on fitting into this new community where she knows no-one.

At the end of her garden is a decommissioned red telephone box, and Jess sees the opportunity to turn it into a free lending library using the many books left to her by Mimi.

Jess swiftly makes friends with residents such as the flamboyant Diana from the parish council and Becky, a harassed mum who was once a hot-shot lawyer. Then there is Aidan, the grumpy single dad and local bat authority who may turn into an unexpected romantic interest.

Before she knows it, the little library is a success, drawing people together in a new way and even, in one case, ending a lifetime feud. Although it’s not all smooth sailing when someone thinks the telephone box would be better served to house a defibrillator.

Naturally, the plot is predictable in that you know everything will turn out well in the end, but that is the intention of any cosy reading journey. The descriptions of Devon are delightful, the characters are charming and at the conclusion Jess has newfound happiness and gained a confidence that she didn’t have before.

It’s not surprising that escapism has been part of our lives during the recent worldwide pandemic. I’m sure many of us have foregone our usual favourite fiction genres such as dystopian sci-fi or gory crime drama, preferring to lose ourselves instead in other kinder and gentler spaces. This delightful book fits that feel-good bill perfectly.

Four stars

(With many thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC)
 
 
Amazon.com
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Amazon.co.uk

Booktopia

I have to admit I'm not a big fan of audiobooks, certainly in fiction. It depends very much on the narrator's voice and as I also tend to scan ahead and speed-read any sections that I sense are slowing down the pace, this is impossible with audio as you have no way of knowing what lies ahead in the text. Non-fiction and autobiographies can be a different matter and when I saw Michelle Obama's own reading of her book available through my library, I took up the offer.

​There is not much more one can say about a book that has been read by millions and has around 60,000 reviews on Goodreads alone, so I won't repeat here what can be read elsewhere, save to say that it has to be one of the best autobiographies I've read (listened to) in years.

Although I was already biased in favour of the Obamas, her wisdom, warmth, generosity and honesty came through to me loud and clear in her distinctive and laidback speaking voice, and I am even more of an admirer of her than I was previously for how she coped with the challenges she had no idea lay ahead of her when she fell in love with Barack Obama.

Her life on the Southside of Chicago in a close-knit family that encouraged education, hope and dignity is just so beautifully related, as is her later life as a lawyer, her early days with Barack, the birth of her daughters and then later how they lived in the White House. (Anyone who makes a kitchen garden where there was none before always gets a big tick from me!)

There were passages that nearly brought me to tears, quirky bits of humour, and an overall sense of someone who admitted to her mistakes but always tried her best to do things right, to help people and bring fractured communities together. It is still baffling that America chose to replace this wonderful couple with a bully and a thug to lead them. Michelle doesn't pull any punches on what she thinks of him!

This book is a great testament to a remarkable woman who is a credit to her country and is thoroughly recommended.

Five stars.

amazon.com (audio)

amazon.co.uk (a new younger readers version)

booktopia

The opening paragraphs are confronting, so we can guess right from the outset what Lily Harford’s last request might be. But how it reaches that conclusion is the main focus of the novel and is told primarily through the viewpoints of three women - Lily herself, her daughter Pauline and aged-care worker, Donna.
 
Lily is horrified when she begins to realise that her memory is slipping, that age has finally caught up with her. A successful business woman and single mother, she’s dealt with life’s many challenges with vigour, strength and confidence. Dementia and decay aren’t supposed to happen to her. She is determined to exit on her own terms, but for that she is going to need help.  She starts off protesting and mulling over her current situation - “… even if my brain and body are on the way to buggery, I’m not going to let them go downhill without a fight” – although as time passes, she loses impetus and gradually falls back into past memories of her youth and early loves.
 
Pauline is a school principal who has to deal with her own career stresses and other mid-life issues. Equally as “capable, dependable and robust” as her mother, she is in danger of falling apart as she witnesses Lily’s personality slipping away. Pauline and her husband Sam are forced to sell Lily’s house and send her to “an institution [that], no matter how lovely its aspect, facilities and staff, [is] no substitute for a family home and its happy, rich lattice of memories.”
 
Donna, divorced and unsuccessful with men, suffers from low self-esteem, but absolutely loves her job in aged care and she will form a strong bond with Lily when she comes to live at Blue Vista. However, she is deeply disturbed by Lily’s “request” of her. When the crisis is reached, she fears her slip back into alcoholism may have made her do something terrible.
 
This is a powerful novel that will speak to everyone who has already had to face - or will in the future - the inevitable difficult decisions around caring for an ageing loved one who may suffer from dementia or need intensive end-of-life care. It also poses vital questions about euthanasia.
 
The characters are all appealing and perfectly drawn: Lily, once full of vitality who dreads succumbing to gibbering helplessness; Pauline, struggling to maintain some quality of life for her mother but also dreading the time when she will lose her; Donna, who is simply wonderful and a warm reflection of all the real workers like her in aged care who genuinely love what they do in looking after the elderly and frail. As the principal male in the story, Pauline's husband Sam, also demonstrates the best masculine supportive and positive qualities.
 
It’s been a long time since a novel made me sad and teary yet also optimistic and uplifted. Joanna Buckley’s beautiful novel will speak to many and deserves a wide readership.

Five Stars
 
(With many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins Australia for the ARC.)

Available for pre-order (published 2 February 2022)
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​Booktopia

Amazon
 

When it comes to English literature, Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” are probably almost as well-known as Shakespeare. Many students will have been introduced to the “Tales” in school but even new translations of the original old Middle English can remain a challenge and one can be defeated by them. Thus, I approached this new interpretation via the historical fiction route with enthusiasm, that at last someone has taken one of Chaucer’s best-known characters and breathed new life into her in a way that will appeal to modern readers. There is no doubt that this is an admirable and major accomplishment by author Karen Brooks.
​
The historical background to the story is full of the base living conditions and all the mud, guts and stink of 14th Century England. For current readers dealing with a modern pandemic, it is sobering to note the number of times the population of that era had to deal with epidemics of the dreaded “Botch” with resignation and fatalism.

A cousin of Chaucer, Eleanor, or the Good Wife of Bath, buries 5 husbands (or so she thinks) and tells her tale of her marriages and other liaisons in a fearless and entertaining way. She is earthy, rash, but kind-hearted, and you can’t help liking her even if some of her actions are not always wise or rational. She demonstrates optimism and determination not to let men rule her life and is a champion of other less-privileged women.
 
It’s always difficult to present an objective opinion on any book that has already garnered numerous five-star reviews in the media and websites so I hate to bring in a but … but the book is an epic on which I nearly gave up several times and it took me weeks to finish in fits and starts. 

The author’s notes are excellent at explaining the moral codes of the era and while I do accept that 12 year old girls were considered old enough to be wives, that domestic violence was almost an expected part of marriage for many and that prostitution was often the only option for those down on their luck and at the mercy of men, all of this can be wearisome after a while.

Also, there are too many secondary characters with similar stories (usually distressing) that makes it difficult to tell one from the other. The five husbands are all unattractive in appearance and/or character and they seem to just serve as backdrop to the Good Wife’s total feminine domination of the story, which is probably the intention.

Brilliant in parts, this novel is frustrating to sum up adequately. It is both good and tiresome and, in that, perhaps reflects the way people might feel about the original overblown tale by Chaucer.


(With many thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.)
 
Three-and-a-half stars.
 

Booktopia

Amazon.com
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Amazon.co.uk (Kindle edition)

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​There has been a plethora of World War II historical novels in recent years and most of them have similar covers, titles and settings – often featuring England, France or Germany. Unless there is something unusual about the story it can be difficult to remember one from the other, so when I read the synopsis of this one, that it was set in Italy, I looked forward to learning something about one of the less-written-about battle fronts.

Giulia is one of five children, the daughter of a Calabrian farmer, but has ambitions to do something more with her life other than become a wife and mother and work on farms. She yearns to be a herbalist and healer like her grandmother, but her father is set against what he considers to be witch’s work and it is only through the encouragement and connivance of other women that she gets the chance to study at a monastery when she learns about herbs and medicine. Her father, however, is furious and remains determined to marry her off to a suitable husband.

Meanwhile, the clouds of war are forming over Italy as the fascist leader Mussolini seeks to build an empire and aligns himself with Hitler. Giulia’s brother and his friends become soldiers and when her father is also called up, the farm is run by the women left behind. In increasingly dangerous circumstances and struggling with personal loss and tragedy, Giulia is finally able to practise her skills and find true love in the process.

The history is well-researched and presented, but there are over-written and tedious passages that can slow the pace. The novel is partly based on the author’s own family background which is detailed in the notes at the end. Giulia’s temperamental and antagonistic behaviour towards those who love her is a bit of a puzzle at times and doesn't always present her in the best light. In fact, some of the lesser characters have more warmth than she does, but that doesn’t detract from a mostly entertaining read that should have a wide appeal for readers looking for a WW2 novel with a different setting.

With many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC.
 
Three-and-a-half stars.
 
Booktopia
 
Amazon.com.au

Another novel that’s been around for a while but attracted me due to its synopsis, as it is set in a guesthouse opposite St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin. Having once stayed a few nights at a similar small hotel facing The Green which has an uncannily similar layout and rooms, I could immediately visualise the setting and even some of the characters working there. And as Dublin is one of my favourite cities, how could I resist!
​
Aisling O’Mara has come home to Ireland after travelling and working around the world to take up the management of the family’s guesthouse. Her father has recently died and her mother has decided to call it quits. Aisling has an older brother, Patrick, who lives in America, and two sisters, Roisin and Moira. The eldest sister, Roisin, is busy with a family and the youngest, Moira, is leading the self-indulgent lifestyle of the young.

Aisling is still getting over being ditched at the altar by her intended, Marcus, who hightailed it to Cork just two weeks prior to the event. Her family is fiercely protective of Aisling and their reaction is predictable when he unexpectedly pops back into her life and she is torn between sending him packing, or forgiving him and letting him have a second chance.

This is a delightful novel that is a bit more than just fluffy chick-lit, as it has a secondary more serious story featuring an prickly middle-aged guest called Una who has come to Dublin also on a quest for forgiveness.

I really liked all of these characters. Mammy O’Mara is a joy. Moira is sassy and tends to drink and party too much. Aisling is energetic and has a weakness for teeteringly high heels and an ongoing battle with her waistline as she loves to eat, especially food created by her old friend, Quinn, who runs a nearby restaurant. Quinn carries a secret torch for Aisling and is not impressed by the return of Marcus. The Irish dialogue, expressions and patter are spot on, and some of it is very funny.

There are quite a number of books in the Guesthouse series available on Kindle and I’ll probably read more of them when looking for something light-hearted about endearing people who are sure to give a lift to any heart.

Four 1/2 stars.
​
 
amazon.com

amazon.co.uk
 
bookdepository  (Print copies don't seem to be available from Australian booksellers.)
 
(Coincidentally, in my TBR pile is a new book about the history of St. Stephen’s Green which will be reviewed at a later date.)

This is not a recent release, being published in 2017, but it is the first novel by the popular Josephine Moon that I have read.

Maria is a former nun who lives in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, where she runs Honeybee Haven and lovingly tends to her bees. She also makes tourist products for markets and offers retreat style escapes. She lives modestly herself and all her profits go to support an orphanage in Cambodia.

Maria has been estranged from her family for most of her life and when her niece, Tansy, tracks her down and arrives on her doorstep unannounced, keen to mend the rift, she knows she can no longer keep silent about how, and why, she left the convent. This is further complicated when Maria receives an anonymous threatening note and she realises that something wicked in her past is about to catch up with her.

Meanwhile, Tansy has her own issues with her husband, Dougal, who has accepted a job in Canada. After being confident she never wanted children when they were first married, her approaching birthday sets her biological clock ticking.

Most of the secondary characters also have their own personal crises to deal with, from babies with reflux to decisions about whether to continue with university. Even Tansy’s own parents’ marriage is fracturing over religion. As a result, the primary issue involving Maria – the horrific abuse and secrecy within the Catholic Church – can sometimes get “honeyed” down by all that is going on with the others, some of which is almost trivial in comparison. (The cheerful, brightly-illustrated cover reflects this to some extent.) Bees worldwide being under threat is the other major issue to think about.

The plotline and narrative flow well and the descriptions of how bees and their hives operate are particularly interesting. Maria has her positive characteristics but her immediate trusting of the slightly irritating and pushy Tansy, only to be followed by swift reliance on family members she doesn't know when a crisis occurs, makes it seem too contrived.

However, this is an easy read and thankfully not as over-written as are so many other books in this contemporary genre. It does tend towards being preachy in places, but I'll forgive that due to its brave plotline and twist in the ending; enough to lead me to cautiously consider other titles by this author.

Three-and-a-half stars.

Booktopia

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In 1904 Ruby May is a children’s nurse (we learn it is an occupation that should never be confused with the lesser  “nursemaid”) and is employed by the prestigious Norland Institute in London. After being unable to travel with her present family to America, she is reassigned to Hardcastle House in the wilds of Yorkshire to look after the four children of mill-owner, Charles England.
 
His wife, Lilian, the Mrs England of the title, is distant, detached and forgetful. She spends most of her time in her rooms, takes a lot of baths and shows scant interest in her children or the staff. There is no housekeeper and it is her husband who makes the decisions about the running of the household which Ruby finds most unusual, including his insistence that the children be locked into the nursery at night.
 
Ruby is puzzled by Mrs England’s odd behaviour and through her growing affectionate relationship with the children, her friendship with the tutor and other individuals such as the blacksmith Sheldrake, Ruby slowly peels back the layers of the truth. The narrative is interspersed with flashbacks in Ruby’s own life which also gradually reveal her own secrets.
 
Apart from having the main character a nurse rather than the ubiquitous governess, this has many of the classic elements of every gothic story that features a grand house with dysfunctional rich family and the usual array of brooding men, disgruntled servants, secret liaisons, missing letters and locked doors. It’s Jane Eyre meets Rebecca complemented with a dash of Downton Abbey, the Yorkshire glooms as per Wuthering Heights and much gas-lighting - in both the illuminative and psychological senses.
 
The writing, descriptions and historical detail are fine and although it is true to the Edwardian era there is the odd modernism or anachronism in dialogue that occasionally leaps out *. However, the penultimate paragraph is a gem and may make you re-evaluate everything you have taken to be true in the story.

I enjoyed it well enough while reading it, but perhaps I've read too many similar books and it didn’t quite do as much for me as it seems to have done for the majority of reviewers elsewhere.
 
Three stars.


Booktopia
 
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* If someone can prove to me that toasting marshmallows on forks over fires was common practice in mid-late 19th Century Australia - as opposed to America - then I stand corrected. 

Celebrity memoirs are not normally high on my reading list, but this one was recommended to me and I have been delighted with the discovery. The book isn't an autobiography, rather a random selection of vignettes and memories and in no particular chronological order.

It dips in and out of Byrne's rough Dublin childhood and early years of struggles; darts off to a Hollywood system that bemused and baffled him; alludes to serious episodes involving clerical abuse when he was in a seminary, yet skirts around utter condemnation, and is frank about his battles with alcoholism, his family's foibles and sister's mental health issues.

It has laugh-out-loud moments involving discovering God and religious education with the nuns (reminds me of that other irreverent Irishman, Dave Allen) and his early Hollywood fumbles in his first big blockbuster movie, including faking love-making to a pink pillow while dressed in a full suit of armour. Meeting his idols Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier have a poignancy all their own.

This extract celebrates Byrne's first stage appearance as a shepherd with cotton wool beard in a school nativity play:-

"Goose Gavin with jug-handle ears and a big, red face landed the role of St. Joseph. Burkey, who had fleas that jumped out from under his collar, was Mary, dressed in a blue curtain. The baby Jesus was a rubber doll. There were angels and wise men who came from the East with nice presents.
The Virgin Mary said to the wise men:
---- Youse shouldn't have gone to all that trouble, youse --
---- Not YOUSE!!! the nun shouted. Youse is what common people say. The holy family aren't from the tenements.

[further description and dialogue referencing the wise men, the twins who made up the donkey plus the angel, who is discreetly unnamed.]

I have bad news, the angel said and looked at me strangely. I glanced down and saw piss coming like a snake from the angel toward me, then flowing under my shepherd's sandals. There is an evil king  who's going to kill all the little babies in Israel, so baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph have to fly into Egypt. 
So, the holy family put the  rubber doll on the donkey's back and Goose Gavin said
---- Thanks for everything. Goodbye now."

Contrasted with these other frank excerpts:-

"I struggle with authenticity. Being truthful. Both to myself first and to other people.
Is it possible to be completely honest with myself? To admit my fears, my demons, prejudices, the petty envies, the unfulfilled desires? I want to live an authentic life. To take off the mask requires courage. I admit my fragility, my vulnerability and weakness."
​...

I am by nature an introvert. For a long time I was ashamed of this. As if it were somehow a moral failing ... I can be sociable too. But it drains me of energy and I have to find refuge in solitude again."

This is a short volume, less than 200 pages, but is packed with wit, humanity, lyricism, introspection, joy and loads of Irish charm. Gabriel Byrne might have never quite achieved superstar status, but will be a familiar face to many from stage, TV and film. When or if he retires from acting, he has all the makings of an excellent author.

Five stars.

booktopia

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The Irish Famine of the 1840s is still one of the most disgraceful events in British history: a time when the potato crop failed due to blight and countless thousands of people were evicted from their tenancies, became destitute and starved. The government in London either ignored the issue or mishandled it to such an extent that some estimates state a million people died while at least another million were forced to emigrate. 

With this background, one only takes up any book about the Famine with caution, knowing full well you are going to face some distressing scenes. And this is certainly the case with this novel although the author manages to balance the most harrowing episodes with the human need to help others and the importance of family strength.

Principally set in and around the town of Skibbereen in County Cork, Mary and John Sullivan and their four children are faced with the many challenges that come their way after their potato harvest fails. ​When they are evicted from their cottage for being unable to pay rent, John labours on hare-brained government employment schemes in shocking conditions, for irregular and poor pay. Mary brings in a few pennies with her needlework. Malnourished and with having to pawn or sell their warm clothes, sickness is ever present.

Trying to do what he can for everyone is the remarkable, selfless doctor Dan Donovan who is the Medical Officer for the Skibbereen Union Workhouse and risks his own health with long working hours. Burying children whom he helped to deliver only to witness them dying from disease, exposure and hunger tears him apart. Father John Fitzpatrick pleads for help with higher authorities but is too often dismissed or ignored.

The writing is uncomplicated and the narrative flows well. Some reviewers have commented on its simplicity or the lack of in-depth characterisations which I think is rather unfair. Expressions of individuality in such a major crisis don't need analytical exploration. Trying to survive, being united and putting others first is what this novel is all about and although there are many shocking and tear-jerking passages, there is also courage, hope and determination to get through which ultimately adds to a satisfying story. (The author's notes reveal that much of the background is based in truth taken from the diaries of the real Dr Donovan.)
​

Four stars

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Someone bears a grudge against the Adler family, but is it against all four of them or just one? Could it be the father, Thomas, a real estate agent who has something to hide after an indiscretion at a bucks’ night? Or is it against his interior designer wife, Viv, who’s a kleptomaniac? Their son, Eli, refuses to say why he suddenly dropped out of university and his underage sister, Tarryn, is running a risky online business. Told in four personal narratives, none of them know each other’s secrets.
 
It starts out innocently enough with what seems to be childish vandalism with eggs thrown at their house under cover of darkness but soon escalates into more serious damage to their property, including fire. The police are of little help so the family are left to investigate in their own way.
 
The characters are clearly defined. Thomas and Viv are all about appearances and success and so are at odds with the less-driven Eli and Tarryn, who is an edgy, cynical teenager.
 
This is a smooth, binge-worthy read for anyone who likes a rapid-fire thriller. With each family member having something to hide that is only revealed to one another as the novel unfolds, it works well for the most part. Not everything is fully resolved and the conclusion leaves a few unanswered questions which may appeal to some readers but not those who like all the loose ends in their novels tidied up.
 
This is the first Robyn Harding book I’ve read and will definitely look out for more of her titles. Recommended as a great reading alternative when you’ve exhausted all the thrillers on television!
 
(Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Australia for the ARC.)
 
4 stars.

 
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​Whenever we consult our favourite recipe book for that special dish we probably don't give a thought to the fact that once upon a time recipes were not ordered in the way we recognise today, i.e. a list of ingredients giving the correct proportions, followed by a carefully detailed method. Once, recipes were far more vague that left it up to the reader to figure out what might be meant by a "quantity" or "scoop" of, say, flour, sugar, butter or apples (two, six, ten?) A spoonful might meant a teaspoon or a tablespoon (try adding a tablespoon of cinnamon to your apple pie and see what happens!) Experienced cooks would have kept the recipes in their heads but without better guidance it must have resulted in many a cooking disaster for the beginner!

Recipes didn't take the form we know today until writers like Eliza Acton came along and started to pull them into shape for the average cook. This novel re-imagines the life of Eliza Acton and that of her kitchen assistant, Ann Kirby, in dual narratives. 

Born into a comfortable family and occupying much of her time writing poetry, Eliza's secure world is turned upside down when her father has a financial failure and takes off to France, leaving Eliza and her mother to find some way of making ends meet. They start a boarding house near Tonbridge, Kent, but to her mother's dismay, Eliza decides that she will look after the kitchen and meals. Eliza's publisher had once suggested she write a cookery book rather than more poetry and eventually she begins her project, assisted by Ann. Her mother hates the idea ("Ladies do not cook!") and still holds out hope. "Only marriage and money bring freedom," she reminds her. "Without them you will grow old and lonely and bitter, a hated old maid who must serve others for a pittance." When an opportunity does arise, Eliza has to make her decision. Marriage and a comfortable but boring life, or to risk all and publish her book?

In Ann's narrative, we experience the grim reality of the starving poor in Victorian England. Her demented mother may have to be confined in an asylum, and her father who has only one leg struggles with drink and finding any kind of secure work. With their  pompous do-gooding and righteousness, the local vicar and his wife turn out to be both a blessing and a curse on Ann's family. Fortunately her brother has found work in the kitchen of a London gentleman's club under the famous French chef Soyer and Ann dreams of the day she, too, might also cook for a living. Eventually, her path leads her to Eliza's boarding house and the wonderful partnership of cooking and friendship is formed.

The descriptions of everything from street scenes to Victorian parlours are as lush and extravagant as some of the recipes and the narrative moves seamlessly between the experiences of the two women. Like a mouth-watering, rich meal, this novel is to be savoured slowly and not rushed. (I imagine readers may want to know what some of these Victorian recipes tasted like and there could be a run on old copies of Eliza Acton's book, maybe even the opportunity for a new tie-in edition.)

Five stars.

Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. Links to international book sites be will added closer to publication date.

(Annabel Abbs' two earlier novels both received Editors' Choice awards from the Historical Novel Society. See my reviews of The Joyce Girl and Frieda.)