​
The late Princess Margaret was perhaps one of the sadder members of the royal family, if only for the fact that she seems to have been a chain-smoker and whisky-drinking cougar who never did very much at all apart from waltzing about being an entitled princess, in all its connotations. This memoir is written by the lady-in-waiting who was closest to her, Anne, Lady Glenconner, now in her nineties, a blue blood connected either by family or friendship to nearly everyone in aristocratic circles in the UK.
 
Anne knew she was a disappointment right from birth, when she should have been a boy destined to become the next Earl of Leicester. In her era, upper-class girls had little value other than finding a suitable husband before she was out of her teens, preferably one with money and high status, and to produce more heirs, while putting up with husbands that any self-respecting modern woman would kick out. She didn’t receive any form of higher education and was expected to tolerate all her husband’s foibles, including abuse, gas-lighting and adultery, and keep her mouth shut.
 
This upbringing explains to some extent why Anne married the ghastly and mentally unstable Colin Tennant and stuck with him through behaviour that would break anyone else. The honeymoon “education” in France should have been enough for her to bolt and demand an annulment. It is interesting to speculate if she’d married her first love, Johnnie Spencer (who ditched her because of perceived insanity in her genes) how modern royal history might have been different. Johnnie married another woman instead and became the father of the late Princess Diana. (One can see echoes of Anne’s experiences in Diana’s own story.)
 
Much of the book covers the tedious development by Colin of the island of Mustique in the Caribbean, which became Princess Margaret’s famous bolt-hole after her marriage failed, and the haunt of many other celebrities. The locals who had once independently grown cotton for export were deemed capable of simply turning into menials serving the rich and royal tourists.
 
Whether she wrote this autobiography herself, or was helped by a ghost writer, is debatable. Whoever did the historical copy editing didn’t bother to closely check facts and there are a number of anachronisms that have slipped through, e.g. Anne reminisces about Sir Thomas Cook, “… the founder of the package holiday incidentally …”, coming to her school. This must have been time-travel given he died in 1851. There are also confused references to mad King Ludwig of Bavaria’s numerous castles and one of his mistresses, Anne’s ancestor, Jane Digby. It was the gay and mad King Ludwig II who was famous for dabbling in castles, but not women. Jane Digby’s lover was his grandfather, King Ludwig I, who may have been only slightly mad and was definitely not gay. And quite a few more that perhaps only fussy history fiends like me would spot!
 
Some behind-closed-door stories also feel apocryphal but, given the general nuttiness and eccentricity endemic in this family, others are so outrageous or improbable that they are probably true. These stories found their way into the media, with one particularly appalling episode featuring Colin who was so incensed at his wife and Princess Margaret being put into first class on a plane while he was relegated elsewhere, that he lay down in the aisle and had a full-on tantrum worthy of any three-year-old, resulting in him being forcibly removed, after which British Airways banned him for life. It wasn’t the first time Colin had behaved in such a manner, he had another tantrum during an opera which was so bad Anne had to put a rug over his head to shut him up and the conductor had to repeat the scene. These antics by any normal person would result in them being certified and cared for in some mental institution. Apparently, all the royal family were aware of his tendency to tantrums and somehow blithely ignored them.
 
The coup de grace came when the insufferable Colin left everything in a two-line Will to a male friend that could have left Anne and her children destitute. She fortunately had some assets in her own name and, of course, good connections to rally round and support her.
 
One has to admire Anne’s psychological strength. How she coped without coming apart from the seams herself with the tragedies involving her three sons in particular is more than the average person could dare to imagine. Perhaps she had become so used to denial or those proverbial English traits of pulling up socks and gritting teeth as defences, they helped through these events in her life.
 
Unlike other biographers who perhaps never knew Princess Margaret personally, she is kinder towards her, and the Princess comes across as smarter, funnier and a little more likeable than might be expected.
 
If there’s anything to be gleaned from this expose, it’s the familiar trope that a privileged birth and wealth will never guarantee happiness.
 
Three stars.

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Booktopia

This novel opens with the stealing of a valuable Japanese netsuke from an exhibition in Oxford in 1976 by an unknown person, then it splits into two narratives set in the late 1940s and the cusp of the millennium in 1999.
 
Olivia is an intern in with an art dealer in London when she is sent on a journey to the house of an elderly widow, Beatrix, who apparently has the netsuke in her possession and is thinking of putting it up for sale.
 
Cut to 1945 and the war in Burma, where Beatrix is one of a group of women called the “Wasbies” (Women's Auxiliary Service, Burma) who run mobile canteens in difficult and dangerous jungle conditions, catering for Allied troops on the battlefront.
 
Eventually, the two narratives intersect when Olivia accompanies Beatrix to a New Year’s Eve reunion in Ireland with her old war-time friends and the dramas and secrets behind the netsuke and the reasons for its heist are revealed.
 
Inspired by facts, this is an excellent novel for anyone interested in little-known aspects of World War II, especially in the Far East, and the intrepid women who played their part. The background research doesn’t overload the story and the dialogue fits the era and its characters well. Olivia’s role is low-key, and it is the feisty, grumpy, but ultimately likeable, Beatrice who is centre stage. There is a love story and quite a number of inevitably violent and tragic aspects, and the conclusion may seem a bit too contrived in order to reach its feel-good ending, but overall an entertaining and memorable read.
 
Four stars

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Booktopia

This novel was inspired by a true story. [See the author's website for the background.]
 
Roza Meszaros arrives in America from Hungary. Born an aristocrat, she’s also been a celebrated ballerina and is eagerly looking forward to seeing her soldier fiance, Joe, for the first time in two years, and marry him. However, when she arrives at her destination in Minnesota, there is no sign of Joe. Instead she is met by a Hungarian couple, Jakab and Mariska Wykowsi who will have difficult news. Roza is devastated to discover Joe has married an old girlfriend. She’s been jilted.
 
The option is to return to Hungary, but it is now under the Communist iron fist and would expose her to new dangers. Roza is desperate to stay in America. She resorts to a plan to find someone else to marry her before her visa runs out. She approaches a local newspaper and the editor spots a great human interest story. He publishes her appeal and Roza receives well over 1,000 proposals. She narrows them down to just five. Eventually, she chooses stoic and quiet war veteran, Finn Ericksen. It’s a rocky road for both, however, as it is complicated by Finn’s shell shock (now better known as PTSD) and Roza’s difficulty in adjusting to the role of a housewife, not helped by her lingering feelings for Joe and her own psychological war damage.
 
Roza is an interesting, complex woman, someone who was born with a silver spoon but who must learn how to be ordinary, deal with a new culture, improve her strengths and face up to her weaknesses. And it is so refreshing to read a novel with an appealing male character like Finn. He has his own demons and faults, but is determined that the marriage should succeed.
 
What may appear to be a modest, romantic novel, has far more layers than you expect. It also enlightens readers about what life was like for many individuals and refugees who had to flee from oppression in Europe and elsewhere after World War II.
 
With thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.
 
Four stars
 
(As a personal aside - this novel initially caught my attention because of my fascination with marriages of convenience since first becoming aware of at least of two in my parents’ circle of friends in post-war Africa. One was our neighbour’s “mail-order” bride from Greece whom the husband had never even seen, but it seemed the marriage worked and I believe they stayed together for life. The other was of a Polish woman who’d married a South African soldier after the war, also partly in order to escape family persecution by the Communists. It was another marriage that seemed happy and their son was a playmate of mine. Although she wasn’t aristocratic, her traumatic background involving the Nazis was not dissimilar to Roza’s.)


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Booktopia

Nina Fraser and Simon Jordan are childhood sweethearts and live in a small town in Vermont. They seem to be perfectly suited and their respective families expect them to get married. But after a weekend away together in a cabin, Simon returns home alone alleging they had a row and broke up, that Nina told him she was interested in someone else. He says she arranged for a friend to collect her, but clearly this never happened. She’s disappeared.
 
Nina’s parents are convinced Simon knows where she is and what really happened, while his parents pull out all the stops to protect their son. Being far wealthier and more influential than the Frasers, the Jordans have the advantage. Detective Matthew Wright also has his suspicions about Simon, but proving them correct is another matter.
 
Is Simon guilty? Nina’s disappearance hits the headlines with the resulting plethora of social media armchair detectives, conspiracy theorists and vicious anonymous opinions. The Jordans even get their lawyers and PR agents to use this to their advantage to make it look as if not is all as it should be in the Fraser family, causing them additional distress.
 
I’ve now read most of this author’s thrillers as she has proved to be top-rate in her genre, but this stand-alone novel (several of her others are about an Irish detective) has to be her best so far. Her portrayal of the two mothers, one who has lost her child and is determined to know the truth, the other defending hers no matter the cost, is particularly skilful, and her hard-hitting dialogue as it relates to that curse of our modern world, “trial by media”, is exceptional.
 
If you’ve never read Dervla McTiernan, then this novel is a great place to start.
 
Four-and-a-half stars.
 
 
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Booktopia

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My father had known a man - whose name unfortunately I don’t recall - who’d worked and sailed with Errol Flynn in Australia and New Guinea in the years before he was famous and he’d told my father some of the shocking and hair-raising experiences with Flynn that wouldn’t have been common knowledge at the time, including Flynn's relationships with native women and involvement in rough justice meted out to plantation workers.

As an impressionable teenager rather obsessed with movie stars, this prompted me to surreptitiously read “My Wicked, Wicked Ways”, the shocking memoir of Flynn, although it now appears that early edition had been edited or expurgated in order to avoid possible law suits and more recent editions have been restored to include Flynn’s real opinion of the dark underbelly of the Hollywood he knew, plus his own guilt at having embraced what it stood for.
 
This new biography reveals much more. The author has been able to draw on private letters of Flynn and his family members and other rare hitherto unpublished archival material.
 
At the present time when the Epstein scandal shows no sign of going away, the searing similarities to what was going on in Hollywood from the 1920s onwards can’t be avoided. Starry-eyed girls and young women were trafficked with the promises of glamorous careers in the movies in exchange for sexual favours. Nearly all of the studio bosses and many others in powerful positions were culpable, and of course leading virile actors like Flynn took full advantage of the system. Flynn became notorious for his penchant for under-age girls and even faced a trial for rape, acquitted by a jury top-heavy with middle-aged women who were probably fans. When he died aged only 50, his partner was still a teenager. He’d also been married three times, always disastrously.
 
Flynn’s family was dysfunctional going back several generations and is covered here in detail. His academic father was a womaniser and his mother also had a relationship while still married. She was reputedly descended from Edward Young, one of the infamous “Bounty” mutineers – an interesting fact considering Flynn’s first film role was that of Fletcher Christian, leader of the mutineers. There was nothing glamorous about those mutineers, they kidnapped and exploited both Tahitian women and men, and what took place on Pitcairn Island, then and since, doesn’t augur well for a long genetic line of moralists. (See photo below taken by me of Flynn’s ring at the Bounty Museum, Norfolk Island.)
 
An immensely readable biography, although in some places there is extensive exposition on world events or history as background to Flynn’s antics that may not require reinforcement for some readers and easily can be skipped through.
 
This paragraph sums up Flynn’s life and legacy:
 
“Errol Flynn’s incredible life elicits competing emotions that run the full gamut from ardent admiration and curiosity to disgust. This journey through his life … reveals something greater than the life of one man … [his] story gives insight into the turbulent worlds he inhabited, and the great points of friction that made him both celebrated and contested, then and now. The questions about men’s power and sexual privileges, the entitlements and enablement of celebrities and the rich and powerful, the searing politics and enduring impacts of race and morality campaigns, the way men and women relate to each other, and the immense gulfs between what society permits for one sex and not the other, continue to convulse our lives.”
 
Four-and-a-half stars
 
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Booktopia

Clara Heywood is one of few Australian female doctors working in Sydney when World War I breaks out. As she watches her fiance Edward, another doctor, head to the battlefields of Europe, she is frustrated and determined also to contribute to the war effort.
 
Against her father’s wishes, she travels to France and joins the staff of the Scottish Women’s Hospital at Royaumont which is run entirely by women and cares for mostly wounded French soldiers.
 
Under the tutelage of the chief surgeon, Miss Ivens, Clara takes on many challenging situations, honing her craft as she goes. She inevitably makes mistakes, but also succeeds in saving the lives of many men. Relationships with other members of staff also need careful negotiation, especially with an uncompromising nurse who has some reason to dislike Australians.
 
For anyone unfamiliar with the difficulties faced by early women in the medical profession, and especially during war in the early part of the 20th Century, this novel can give context to their struggles as it is based in part on real stories. There is also considerable description of operations and procedures that may appeal to readers keen on such detail, but others may find them confronting or of less interest. Clara’s character has flaws, but her humanity can’t be denied when she makes difficult decisions that put her career at risk. 
 
Without revealing details, the ending suggests there’s unlikely to be a sequel. Whether this was a good choice on the part of the author and/or her editors is debatable, as these women need to be celebrated, and perhaps further novels about their struggles would help to have their accomplishments more widely recognised, thus ensuring that the real women involved are better remembered.
 
Three-and-a-half stars
 
 
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Booktopia

​Judith Lee is a Detective Sergeant in Melbourne. She interviews a mysterious young woman, Alexis Turner, who makes accusations against Robert Walker, a prominent psychologist and husband of Vanessa, a well-known TV anchor, of sexual misconduct.
 
Judith then remembers another young woman who made a similar claim ten years before and whom she turned away. After discovering that woman took her own life, she regrets her actions and tries to recontact Alexis. But she seems to have disappeared and is untraceable.
 
Vanessa receives a mysterious package that contains a shocking video allegedly proving Robert’s guilt. Shortly afterwards Robert is found shot dead.
 
Jack Miller, single father of ten-year-old Cameron, also receives a mysterious package. To his shock, it contains a gun. He is on his way to report it, when his departure is pre-empted by the arrival of the police who arrest and charge him with the murder of Robert. He has no idea who Robert is and is distraught, worried at what will happen to Cameron. Fortunately, Jack’s good friend, Elsa Anderson, successful businesswoman, takes him in.
 
But then Elsa receives a third package which will result in a tragedy.
 
The race is on to find out what links all three individuals and who is sending the packages, each of them containing cryptic notes.
 
Judith’s own past still haunts her and causes complications for her in investigating the case. She’s already on thin ice with her superiors in relation to internal police issues and she makes some decisions to hide evidence that she is bound to regret. When her best friend, Katy, is drawn into the net, it becomes even more desperate to find out the common link.
 
This author’s books are always a nail-biting read and this one set in Australia is no exception. Readers familiar with Melbourne will recognise the locations where the action takes place.
 
Judith is tough but she has vulnerabilities and weaknesses. The pacing is excellent and the convolutions of the main plot and its various sub-plots are brought together successfully at the end. There are a few slow sections and questions that aren’t fully resolved, but otherwise it’s another cracking McTiernan read and highly recommended.
 
(With thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.)
 
Four stars
 
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Booktopia

Another random selection from my towering TBR pile, this novel published in 2007 is set between the two World Wars in London and in France and is described by the publishers as: “A Gripping Historical Fiction Mystery of Hidden Identities and Scandalous Secrets.”
 
Artist Polly Smith needs a passport and has difficulty locating her birth certificate, about which her mother is stubbornly vague. With good reason, as it transpires that Polly is not her child but is her sister’s illegitimate daughter, born in Paris with the outlandish name of Polyhymnia Tomkins. Polly’s now worried that her stiff, pompous fiancé Roger won’t be happy to know the truth.
 
Max Lytton is a dashing man about town who appears to be a bit of a dilletante when, in fact, he’s an agent in the intelligence services. His sister Cynthia has caused a scandal in social circles by getting a divorce and has taken up with tycoon Sir Walter Malreward, who appears to be above board but may be involved in nefarious businesses, including dubious art sales. Cynthia has mysterious reasons for delaying their marriage.
 
Polly’s marriage to Roger is also put off for some months and she takes up the offer from her wealthy (secretly gay) friend, Oliver, to join him and several artists in his family’s home in the South of France. There are more sub-plots featuring other individuals who aren’t who they say they are. These all collide in a somewhat limp conclusion, overloaded with too many coincidences and tidy revelations of those “hidden identities” and “scandalous secrets”.
 
Admittedly, it wasn’t easy for women to assert themselves in that era but Polly’s character is disjointed; she’s fearless speaking out at certain times and a complete wuss at others. The dialogue of Oliver’s sister, the acerbic Katriona, is taken to extremes and a more subtle bitchiness could have been just as effective. Likewise, the annoyingly critical Roger. His about-face in the last chapter is contrived and unexplained. The various romances all feel lukewarm at best, and even an attempted murder seems low-key.
 
On the research side, the tone of the 1930s is well-presented, but overall, this meanders along never quite deciding if it should be just a lightweight Riviera romance or take risks and become a more serious novel with significant commentary on politics and the abuse of power and money.
 
Two-and-a-half stars
 
amazon.com (published as Villa on the Riviera – audio version)

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Narrated by Evelyn Dolman, a London “hack” writer/journalist at the turn of the 19th Century, this tells the story of his seemingly fortuitous recent marriage to Laura, the daughter of T. Willard Rensselaer, a wealthy American, and what happened on their wintry honeymoon in Venice.
 
Things are not going smoothly for the newlyweds. Evelyn is aware of friction between Laura and her father over some past indiscretion of hers, on which she refuses to speak.

After T. Willard had promised Evelyn the authorship of his biography, thus elevating his status in literary circles, the tycoon is killed in a riding accident and rather than bequeathing a healthy proportion of his vast wealth to Laura, the complete Rensselaer fortune goes to her sister, Thomasina, who is much disliked by Evelyn. In turn, Thomasina cancels Evelyn’s right to author the biography. It’s no wonder he is in a disillusioned and confused state of mind.
 
From the outset, Evelyn is uneasy and at odds with La Serenissima, the romantic name for Venice, finding it a dismal city suffering from a “long-drawn-out terminal decay … where over the centuries the action of the tides had eaten into the very fabric of the foundations … leaving them tattered and ragged, like the soiled and drenched hems of the petticoats of a succession of dropsical old ladies.”

​The couple rent rooms full of “fustian grandeur” in the Palazzo Dioscuri, the home of the sinister County Barbarigo. When Evelyn encounters another dubious character, Freddie Fitzherbert and his mysterious sister, Francesca, with whom he becomes besotted, he is progressively drawn into their web. What was intended to be a happy honeymoon turns into a dark journey of the soul. Laura disappears and Evelyn is left to ruminate and agonise over his actions. All of the characters are flawed and the ending has an interesting twist of sorts.
 
This random choice from my local library has provided an unusual and entertaining reading experience. It is noted that many Goodreads reviewers have derided it without perhaps taking into account how well the author has conveyed the fin de siècle flavour and atmosphere. Yes, the writing can be florid with many obscure words, but it suits the age and the setting. Venice was, and still is, to some extent, redolent of wicked events and a decadent, flowery past grandeur.
 
Evelyn is definitely not a modern man of the 2020s, he’s firmly in the grip of late Victorian values and expectations, and those other reviewers who have been outraged by what he did to Laura, have failed to step outside of our time and look on his actions as not unexpected, given how he had been duped by her father, Laura’s dishonesty and her remote attitude towards him – not to mention the lusty urges created by another femme fatale, and the inevitable effects of too many shots of grappa in the Café Florian. This is a novel to be read with an open mind.
 
Four stars
 
 
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Booktopia

 
Many families have myths about their ancestors. These often involve descent from someone historically important via the “other side of the blanket”, or illegitimacy, and there’s at least one family member who is convinced it is true without any shred of evidence. My mother-in-law was adamant they had at least two Earls in the family tree, the Irish Earl of Shannon and possibly the Scottish Earl of Bute. She even wrote to the then Earl of Shannon setting her case, and, to his credit, he replied with a gentle let down. (We still have his letter.) She remained undeterred, however, and continued to tell everyone that his ancestor had his wicked way with an innocent Devon girl resulting in her family line even after subsequent genealogical research disproved it all.
 
My father’s sister had a painting of King Charles II in her bedroom, totally convinced for some irrational reason that she was related to him and therefore somehow a member of the House of Stuart. On my mother’s side, there were whispers about an ancestor being an indiscretion of Catherine the Great of Russia. All total nonsense.
 
Why do people think having royalty or prominent individuals in their DNA is important? Is it a sign of insecurity, a need to prove they are better than others for some reason? Go back far enough and we are all related to one another, so why does it matter? I guess the psychologists can explain it better.
 
This novel is inspired by a similar story in the author’s family tree and creates quite a number of issues for anyone with a healthy dose of scepticism about such notions.
 
Throughout history, the great, good - and not so good – men have left the lives of many women in disarray. The Duke of Wellington (of boots and Waterloo fame) was certainly no exception, with a notoriously unhappy marriage and a litany of affairs with a range of women from Ireland to India and throughout Europe. He had two legitimate sons, but it is highly likely he had other descendants.
 
Mary Ann Marshall is just thirteen and a maid in the London household of the Countess of Mornington when she first encounters the youthful Arthur Wesley (later Wellesley) and over the years they become firm friends and, much later, lovers.  In time, Mary Ann gives birth to his daughter, Elizabeth. Complicating this situation is Arthur’s marriage to Catherine (Kitty) Pakenham. After being spurned several times, when he finally does marry her, he is on his way to becoming the greatest military man of his age but is no longer in love with her. His prowess on the battlefield is matched by the same in the bedroom and he has numerous affairs, including some with former mistresses of his arch nemesis, Napoleon. As their children grow up together, both Kitty and Mary Ann must deal with Arthur’s capriciousness with women and his increasing fame.
 
The modern-day narrative features Ava Washington, a Sydney journalist, who discovers she is reputedly descended from the Duke via an illegitimate line and she starts an investigation into her own family tree that includes digging in archival institutions and travel to places where he is known to have lived and the battlefields where he saw his greatest actions.
 
While Mary Ann’s story set in the early 1800s has the author's recognisable style with  evidence of meticulous historical research, the contemporary component flounders. Not only is there repetition of what we’ve already discovered from the other narrative, there is over-explanation of facts and travel details that read like tourist brochure copy.  Ava's complicated personal relationships and involvement in sideline research into property issues do little to advance the main objective.
 
As to characterisations, Mary Ann is amiable but unconvincing and naïve about the Duke’s intentions. Any chemistry in their relationship feels lukewarm at best. The seemingly empty-headed Kitty proves to be kind and forgiving in difficult circumstances. The Duke is attractive/repellent depending on your own opinion of how dynamic men treat women. Ava is annoying and silly at times; more than once she berates herself for not asking the right questions as a journalist. And as for her putting up with the truly awful Darren who gaslights her several times over, one despairs at her behaviour when any self-respecting intelligent woman would have sent him packing. (Am I expecting too much to have writers give us stronger 21st Century female protagonists with more self-respect and not be at the mercy of their fluttering hormones, easily swayed by men and therefore unable to assert themselves?)
 
At least the final resolution is probably the only feasible one. 
 
Basically, there isn’t enough substance here for a novel of 440+ pages and it falls into the trap of research padding and oversimplification. And then there are the tacky allusive chapter titles that include: “Hunger Games”, “Sleeping with the Enemy”, “Lord of the Ring”, “Finally Facing his Waterloo”, “Dangerous Liaisons”, “Root Rat”, “Bridgerton Betrayal” and many others. Is this is a case of publishers wanting an author to “dumb down” or to write in a way that will appeal to younger generations of readers who find history and family research boring?
 
A genuine, first-person, non-fiction memoir by the author of how she sought to uncover the family legend would have been so much than better than this.
 
Not the best from this usually excellent author and it is hoped that she reverts to her earlier strengths and doesn’t engage in more dual timelines with contemporary components that have proved problematic for so many other historical novelists - and their readers! - since this became a trend.
 
Two stars for the contemporary narrative, three-and-a-half for the historical.

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Booktopia

 
​The infamous Mitford Girls have had numerous outings, both in fiction and non-fiction, but this is the first biography dedicated to their mother, Lady Redesdale (born Sydney Bowles) and it helps to fill in the background to the extraordinary chequered lives of her infamous six daughters.
 
The book’s cover shows “Muv”, as she was called by her family, as a young woman. There is much to be gleaned from the haughtiness of that image; this was not a woman to be messed with, someone who had fixed ideas about social behaviour and, as it turns out, was uncompromising, hypercritical and rigid in her political opinions. In turn, one learns about her father, Thomas Bowles, a man of his own convictions, self-made, successful and also a “maverick”, and the greatest influence on her life.
 
Muv married the eccentric David Freeman-Mitford (“Farve”), who later inherited the baronage of Redesdale, and they had six daughters and just one son. The couple were parodied by three of their daughters in a number of famous novels but they also created controversy through their support of fascism in Europe, and a close connection to Adolf Hitler.
 
For anyone who has read extensively about the Mitford Girls, much of this will already be familiar territory, but it is interesting to observe the dynamics of a family that clashed violently with one another over a range of extremist views, be it racism, antisemitism, communism, or fascism.
 
Although there were estrangements, it is extraordinary to see how Muv did her best to juggle her unruly family.  Unity – whom she looked after for several years after a failed suicide attempt - is perhaps the most tragic figure. Given the full name of Unity Valkyrie Mitford and conceived at a place called Swastika, Ontario, Canada, it seems she was doomed by some bizarre fate to be linked to Hitler!
 
Muv isn’t likeable, and her unwavering support of Hitler, her views on “ugly” Jews and poor people can make one wince. One might even think of her as stupid when she simply refused to ever have her mind changed by events, even the deaths of two of her children linked to the Second World War. As the author states:
 
“Sydney was not stupid; it was her judgement not her intelligence which was at fault. Her obstinate refusal to reassess situations in the light of incontrovertible evidence, alongside her entrenched prejudices and her misguided loyalty, made her hold onto pernicious attitudes which had proved catastrophic on both a global and personal scale. As so often in her life, she only saw what she wanted to see and tightly shut her eyes to anything which might contradict her worldview.”
 
A most intriguing woman, and a book definitely recommended for anyone with a curiosity about who influenced the Mitford Girls and made them into such memorable figures.
 
(My only quibble is the naming inconsistency in the narrative, with paragraphs calling her Muv in one sentence, Sydney in the next, and Lady Redesdale in the following.)
 
Four-and-a-half stars.
 
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Tan Twan Eng’s House of Doors (review here) was one of the best novels I’ve read in recent years. He’s not a prolific author, with only two other major works in print at present, this one being his debut novel, and I admit to a delay in reading it as I’ve felt World War II novels have reached saturation point, although the majority of them is based around the Nazis and Europe and the war with Japan is largely overlooked, certainly as it pertains to its effect on non-Western countries.
 
In the 1990s, a sick Japanese woman, Michiko, comes to the island of Penang off the coast of Malaysia, hoping to solve a mystery about a man she cared about a life time ago and she stays with the elderly Philip Hutton, who tells her his story.
 
Half-English, half-Chinese Philip is 16 when the war breaks out in late 1939. His wealthy merchant father and siblings are in Europe and he remains behind at the family’s lavish estate Istana. While they are away, Philip makes friends with Endo-san, a mysterious Japanese man who lives on a nearby small island. Endo-san begins to teach Philip the art of aikido, and the two form a strong bond, often travelling together around Malaya. After the family return and invasion by the Japanese seems inevitable, Philip is conflicted over duty and loyalties. The decisions he makes before, and during, the occupation of Penang will challenge him and make him ponder deeply on his place in the world and the highs and lows of human existence.
 
This powerful and confronting novel with its doomed characters and moral questions took me a long time to read, often having to put it aside after a few pages, but it is searingly memorable. The prose is intricate and thoughtful; some descriptions are graced with beauty, stoicism and philosophy, while others display in agonising detail all the horrors and depravity unleashed by war.
 
Some readers may find the reincarnation ideas a distraction from reality, but one has to bear in mind this is the East where spirituality and ways of thinking are often quite different from the more pragmatic Christian West. As Endo-san says, “Accept that there are things in this world we can never explain and life will be understandable. That is the irony of life. It is also the beauty of it.”
 
Five stars




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amazon.co.uk (the collected novels)

Booktopia

​

This is yet another offering in the genre of “Aussie Outback Noir”.
 
Sixteen-year-old Janet McClymont has gone missing in the cane fields of North Queensland and the local residents of the small town of Quala put a hold on the annual burning of the cane to join in a search for her. Some think she has run away, but many others suspect the worst, i.e. murder, at the hands of a stranger or perhaps someone local. This results in false accusations, dangerous assumptions and even a bit of divining or dowsing. The air of menace and distrust builds.
 
The story is relayed through various viewpoints including observations by an unnamed older narrator, another teenager Essie, the school headmaster, and a tough female cop among them, all of which is cumbersome and a straightforward third-person narrative might have been less distracting and given better focus.
 
Overall, a slow burn of a novel that only bursts into flaming action (no puns intended) in the last fifty pages or so after much unnecessary exposition and padding. The final solution is very busy with many disparate threads coming together at the same time that reads like a desperate race to the finish in order to meet a publishing deadline.
 
On the plus side, the dialogue and attitudes of the 1970s are an accurate reflection of society in Australia at that time, although readers of a different generation or unfamiliar with the background might fail to recognise its honesty and veracity. Characterisation is brilliant in places – the teacher with an alternative attitude being a standout.
 
Excellent in parts, a bit ho-hum in others.
 
Three-and-a-half stars.
 
amazon.com (Kindle)
 
amazon.co.uk (audio)
 

Eve has hooked up with rich boy Xander in Mexico and together they sail his yacht across the Pacific to Sydney. En route, she falls pregnant. But Xander is killed in an accident soon after their arrival and impoverished Eve tries approaching his wealthy family for help, only to be given short shrift. On her own, she has a fortuitous encounter with a mysterious woman who offers her a way out by introducing her to a secretive couple in Tasmania who are desperate for a child of their own.
 
There is the core of a good idea in this novel – a super-rich couple who can’t have children taking in a pregnant single girl with the intention of faking their own pregnancy and then raising her child as their own which, of course, won’t go smoothly.

But this tale goes off into ridiculous tangents of double duplicity on the part of the couple involving fake or not-fake baby bumps, easy remote coincidental births without benefit of hospital care, an inordinate amount of survival swimming in freezing Tasmanian waters, not to mention bizarre wildlife and human trafficking angles, none of which are in the least bit plausible. And as for having a six-year-old child navigate a yacht … The conclusion is rushed and then there’s the bizarre epilogue that contains another twist on the twist that you thought was the original twist but is twisted back again. Eve is vacuous and irritating as she makes so many stupid decisions. All the other characters are blank, unpleasant, stereotyped. 
 
This has to be one of the worst books I’ve read in a long time. Normally, if I dislike a book I won’t pass comments on it, let alone write a review. But this was so bad, I suffered from a case of horror fascination to keep reading (also as a warning to other potential readers) to see if it gets worse. And it does.
 
Having experienced all the many difficulties that goes with being a writer (including unwelcome criticism) I fully appreciate the challenges in getting books written, published, marketed and, if lucky, reviewed, but when an author churns out such dross and a prestigious company accepts it for publication, to me this is more evidence of an increasing lack of discerning agents and/or editors - or did A.I. have a hand in its production? 

I am glad this was a library copy and I didn’t waste my money.
 
One star.

amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

Booktopia

This novel tells the story of members of the Dixon family through three narratives about a century apart.
 
In an effort to help his father who has fallen into debt, young Hugh Dixon bravely approaches his Uncle Walter, a wealthy lawyer, from whom the family has been estranged. Rather than being rejected, Walter is able to assist and Hugh begins to form a bond with Walter who recognises the boy’s artistic talent and also tells him something of a sensational tale from the 1850s involving his own father, Martin.
 
It is 1854. When the notorious bushranger Lucas Wilson and his partner Liam Dalton (a recent escapee from Port Arthur) raid the Dixon farm, Martin, a budding journalist, asks to go with them in order to write Wilson’s story for the newspapers. Wilson agrees, but blindfolds Martin on the route to their secret hideaway. Roy Griffin is another recent recruit and escapee who has ulterior motives. Martin discovers that Nowhere Valley is more than just a refuge for criminals and that Wilson plans a self-sufficient Utopia. Martin has more than a scoop, and finds himself increasingly drawn into Wilson’s schemes and dreams, until Griffin causes an upheaval that results in tragedy.
 
The third narrative returns to the early 1950s as Hugh is on his way to recognition as an artist and meets Bob Wall, an old friend from childhood who is also an artist. He helps him find a job with an illustrator and cartoonist, Max Fell, who has a secret sinister side. When Bob is arrested for murder, Hugh asks his Uncle Walter to defend him.
 
I was thoroughly captivated by this book and wish I’d known about it previously (published 2012). If you have visited Tasmania and know its history, you will have the benefit of a deeper understanding of this story in which a family and community struggle to shrug off the darkness of the past.
 
Although extraordinarily beautiful in places, the island still can’t avoid echoes from history in its inky black waters of Macquarie Harbour with its rocky portal of Hell’s Gates, the ruinous outposts of misery that were Sarah Island and Port Arthur with its Isle of the Dead, the solitary confinement remnants at the Cascade Women’s Factory, the roar of ocean breakers that roll across the world from South America and incessantly pound the West Coast – an infernal and eternal booming sound that could send you mad – contrasted with that unique silence of the mountains and the primeval forests that have witnessed the unspeakable. All of this might be felt if you have sensitivity to such things and this last novel by Christopher Koch captures this superbly through its characterisations and prose.
 
This passage from the third narrative:
 
“The past is a dimension that can’t be escaped, however hard we try. Old Van Diemen’s Land had claimed Bob Wall: that past which most people here preferred not to think about, just as they preferred to forget their convict ancestors. Only the present was thought to be clean and harmless: modern was good. But when Bob entered the Hobart Gaol, the bland and transient present was dissolved. He was locked not just in prison, but in the nineteenth century. It had never gone away, that sombre old century; instead it was hidden and preserved behind the high sandstone walls in Campbell Street, waiting for recruits from outside.”
 
Five stars

amazon.com (Kindle)

amazon.co.uk

Booktopia

​
​Phew! Finally, with this eighth book, I managed to conclude my reading of the Seven Sisters series, albeit with varying degrees of emotion: while I was often enthralled, there were times when I was also irritated by some plots and characters.
 
In this, we finally discover the past of the mysterious Pa Salt [Atlas Tanit/Bo d’Apliese], father of the Seven Sisters, six of whom are adopted. As the d’Apliese [anagram of Pleiades] sisters all gather on Pa’s mega-yacht Titan [anagram of Tanit] to commemorate the first anniversary of his death, they are given copies of his diary to read and we are drip-fed the story of his life with cliff-hangers at the end of every chapter as it switches back and forth with the present day. The final revelations are no surprise as numerous clues were dropped in the earlier books as to what might be the situation. Everyone’s lives are tidied up.
 
I’m aware that Lucinda Riley passed away before she could conclude the series and one can detect a more casual style in use here, presumably that of her son and co-author, Harry Whittaker. There are a number of historical slips that the more skilful and meticulous Riley would have avoided. Added to which is one of my personal anathemas with the use of those awkward phrases, “she was sat” or “I am stood”, that weirdly have crept into common usage in England. Not only are they poor grammar, they just sound plain clunky. Editors please, no!
 
Of course, the book is also far too long and even more over-written than Riley’s own earlier work, as it goes off at unnecessary tangents with bloated swathes of cheesy dialogue and saccharine “good folk” always coming to the rescue of Atlas in the nick of time as he attempts to avoid the dastardly Kreeg Eszu [another hokey anagram of Greek Zeus] and who is forever on his trail. It also ties together the stories of all the seven sisters and gives each of the lesser characters gallant reasons for their existence [with or without anagrams]. Even if you have read all of the books, you are unlikely to remember everyone or every aspect of their lives in detail, so I was at sea myself a number of times, trying to recall the back stories of the sisters, their modern-day issues and relationships, never mind the tangled and tortured pasts of their ancestors.
 
Still, in spite of around 5,500 pages to tell this massive saga, most of these books have offered pleasant enough reading experiences, with the historical back stories definitely superior most cases, the exception being this one which could have done with a fiercer edit.
 
Although I’ve read all the books, I haven’t written reviews on each but give barely two stars to my least favourites and four-plus for a couple of others. Therefore, an average of 3 stars overall. 

This novel was written over 25 years ago and reflects a simpler and easier writing style that may now seem old-fashioned to many, but it is still an absorbing and highly entertaining read that had me hooked.
 
The dramatic opening chapter sets the scene well as World War I veteran, Captain Jack McKenna, is gunned down on the steps of his Queensland home in a confrontation with police and bailiffs sent by bankers. His disabled widow, his daughter (Emma) and twin sons are left homeless and destitute. What follows is a long saga in which Emma is determined to care for her family, seek restitution and to see justice done. In the process, she will fall in love with a man whose life is complicated by dirty politics and she will make decisions that don’t always go to plan, some with disastrous consequences, and she will encounter moral and social prejudices, the ugly side of religious orders, anti-female opinion and even racism before life finally resolves itself for the better.
 
Rising out of the Great Depression, a hardline organisation known as the New Guard becomes a force to be recognised with across the country, being opposed to social benefits or help for the unemployed, and displaying thuggish behaviour. Those with wealth or standing in society show indifference towards the poor or those whose skin is a different colour. A brave few individuals take a stand against authority, often to their physical and mental cost, and through all of this Emma must establish and find her place.
 
There is history here that perhaps not many younger Australians know about and much of what took place in the 1920s/30s is reflected in what is happening around the world today in which fascism and right-wing movements are again on the rise. Abuses by the church, anti-immigration and racism are still hot topics today. So, on many levels, this story remains contemporary, and that makes it worth reading.
 
This would have been a five-star read for me, except the ending is a little rushed and the wrong man survived the Spanish Civil War to return to Emma’s arms. The other one in her life was a far superior individual on every level.
 
Four stars

amazon.com
 
Print copies may be found in second-hand bookshops. 

Mystery novels featuring a group of people in enforced isolation in a remote setting are hardly new – the most famous being Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None”, which has undergone several incarnations since it first appeared in the 1930s – so I approached this with some initial misgivings as to whether anything new could be scraped from the barrel. I needn’t have worried and was thoroughly absorbed right from the start. Evelyn Clarke, the author of this is, in fact, a collaboration between two fantasy/young adult fiction authors, V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke.
 
Here, we have seven individuals (including a couple who write as one), who are either struggling midlist or budding writers in various genres, including thrillers, science fiction, horror, young adult and romance. Each receives an email invitation to an expenses-paid weekend on the Scottish island hideaway of one of the world’s most famous writers, Arthur Fletch. None is sure why they have been invited but all are eager to accept. On arrival, they discover from his agent that Fletch has died (the world media not yet informed) and that he’s left his latest novel unfinished. Each of them has been selected to write the last chapter, with a million dollars-plus going to the successful candidate. Naturally, there’s a recipe here not just for competitiveness and a potential boost to sagging fortunes, but also reasons why someone may decide to resort to elimination of their rivals.
 
Written from several viewpoints, and with surprises and twists, this is a cracking good read that also pulls no punches about the dire state of the publishing world, how difficult it is to make a living as a writer and the neuroses of all those involved.
 
Most loose ends are tied up, but I did have some lingering questions over feasibility and practical aspects regarding those who survive the mayhem. And although we’re given reasons why the doomed individuals aren’t missed, I doubt so many people could disappear off the face of the earth without someone, somewhere, asking questions! 
 
Still, I can’t fault the plotting and its less-than subtle satirical look at publishing. A solid four-and-a-half star rating for such smooth readability and sheer entertainment value.
 
With many thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.
 
 
 
To be published in 2026. Book links to come.

Lena is interested to meet her new neighbours, seemingly a friendly middle-aged couple, but no sooner have they moved in than she accidentally overhears snatches of a mysterious conversation between them via equipment her teenaged son Rufus is using to record environmental sounds in the garden. She’s immediately suspicious that they are not what they appear to be and are up to no good. Kidnappers? Drug dealers? Who are Henry and Marielle, really?
 
Aside from Lena’s story, there are two other viewpoints: one from a terrified woman only known as Natalie, who is on the run for unspecified reasons, and from Henry, who is consumed with his obsessive love for Marielle.
 
Summarising the rest of the plot would risk giving too much away, but if you’re in the mood for a fast-paced mystery with lots of twists and turns, then this is a cracker of a read that quite literally had me reading into the small hours.
 
Sure, Lena’s risk-taking in investigating her neighbours might have you shouting at her not to be so stupid and there are also coincidences, loose threads and asides into her past and current personal life that might irritate the more pedantic reviewer, but for me, the overall inventiveness, easy readability and unexpected shifts in plot direction make for an escapist and enthralling ride that is a bit different from others in the women-in-jeopardy genre. In the hands of a good screenwriter, this could make an excellent bingeworthy TV series.
 
Many thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.
 
Five stars

(US publication details to come.)
 
amazon.co.uk

​Dymocks Australia

 
Hotshot author William Corwyn is being stalked by someone only known as The Rabbit, but who is clearly female. Sam/Simone Vetiver is also a successful author but she’s suffering from a serious case of writer’s block. As she comes into William’s orbit, he offers to help her out and they begin a sizzling affair which Sam hopes will turn out to be something more serious.
 
From the outset, it is clear that William is arrogant and unpleasant, even a touch creepy.  He’s sexist, manipulative and exploitative, so it’s puzzling why so many smart, educated women seem to fall under his spell. But those who do all have a common weakness – they are desperately lonely, often lacking in self-esteem but have dreams of being recognised as published authors, so when William takes an unexpected intense interest in them, they are flattered and fail to realise he has ulterior motives that sets them on a fatal path.
 
The three points of view are all well-written, the pace never falters and the conclusion is satisfying, if not unexpected.  But, for any reader who has now read far too many novels in which gullible young women are the victims of older, unscrupulous men, this tends towards cliché, and the salacious descriptions of incessant bedroom acrobatics are just yawn-inducing rather than titillating.
 
Three stars.
 
Many thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.
 
(Publication links to come.)
 
PS  As a further comment on dated scenarios, when are authors/screenwriters going to stop with the suggestion that people’s passwords to their computers are their birthdays or other significant dates that can be cracked quickly in high pressure situations?

We now have such complicated passwords with upwards of 15 symbols, letters, numbers, as well as finger or facial recognition, not to mention a complete lock-out after three failed attempts, there is no way you can break into a personal laptop with minutes to spare!