books, reviews

Book Review: One Love Chigusa – Soji Shimada

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I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A love story that explores the mechanics of the heart and humankind’s inevitable evolution.

The year is 2091 AD. A horrendous motorcycle accident leaves Xie Hoyu coming to terms with his new cybernetic body. Reconstructed from the latest biomechanical prosthetics, he is discharged from hospital and tries to return to his life as an illustrator after many weeks in recovery.

But something isn’t quite right. Xie is plagued with inexplicable auditory and visual hallucinations and feelings of despair. He fears he is losing his mind and the desire for life itself until he notices a beautiful woman on the street – his sole reprieve from the madness.

Possessed by her beauty and desperate to understand what is happening to him, Xie follows her in the hope of finding answers that only she appears to offer. But not all is as it seems.

An homage to the great artist and creator of Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka, One Love Chigusa by Soji Shimada, one of Japan’s most famous authors, is a tale of obsessive love in a world where technology has crept into the very heart of humanity.

Translated by David Warren, it offers a glimpse into a possible future and questions the purpose of humanity in a manner that only Japan’s master of the postmodern whodunnit can do.

The Author

Soji Shimada’s debut novel, The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, is ranked among the ‘top five best locked-room mysteries published worldwide’ (Adrian McKinty, The Guardian).

An instant classic, it transformed him into ‘Japan’s Man of Mystery’ and one of the country’s bestselling authors. His novel Murder in the Crooked House was a Sunday Times Best Book of the Year.

He is also known for his Detective Mitarai series (published by Pushkin Vertigo) and the Detective Yoshiki series.

Shimada is the recipient of the Japan Mystery Literature Award and the founder of three literary awards: Amateur Mystery Novel contests, The City of Roses Fukuyama Mystery Award and the Soji Shimada Mystery Award.

The Translator

Sir David Warren was British ambassador to Japan from 2008 to 2012, having served twice before in the British Embassy in Tokyo during his career as a British diplomat.

He is now honorary professor at Sheffield University, a member of the Board of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures at the University of East Anglia, and was Chair of the Council of the University of Kent until July 2020. From 2013 to 2019, he was chairman of the Japan Society, the leading independent body in the United Kingdom dedicated to UK-Japanese cultural, educational and business contacts.

One Love Chigusa is part of Red Circle Minis, a series of short captivating books by Japan’s finest contemporary writers that brings the narratives and voices of Japan together as never before. Each book is a first edition written specifically for the series and is being published in English first.

My thoughts:

This was an interesting short story about love, Hoyu is recovering from a terrible accident that meant his body and brain were repaired using cybernetics. His memories are fractured and the people he sees all look like terrible monsters.

Traumatised and struggling to recover, he wanders the city, taking refuge in a coffee shop where he sees a beautiful woman, who doesn’t turn into a monster.

He starts following her, desperate to connect and learn about her. His loneliness and despair lead him all over the city on her trail.

When he finally finds her and tries to form a connection, she seems confused and struggles to understand him.

The ending is tragic and leaves poor Hoyu with more trauma.

The suggestion that humanity’s evolution does not lead to happiness is a dark, morbid one.

A strange, unsettling story of love that ends without redemption. Incredibly well written, you follow Hoyu, desperate to find out more about Chigusa and who she is, winding through the city, trying not to look at the monstrous faces of humanity as he does.

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Blog Tour: The Year of the Witching – Alexis Henderson*

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A young woman living in a rigid, puritanical society discovers dark powers within herself in this stunning, feminist fantasy debut.

In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet’s word is law, Immanuelle Moore’s very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement.
But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood.
Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.

Alexis Henderson is a speculative fiction writer with a penchant for dark fantasy, witchcraft, and cosmic horror. She grew up in one of America’s most haunted cities, Savannah, Georgia, which instilled in her a life-long love of ghost stories. Currently, Alexis resides in the sun-soaked marshland of Charleston, South Carolina

My thoughts:

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year so far and it more than lived up to my hopes.

It is a very 2020 book, with terrible curses, blood, blight, darkness, slaughter. It just feels like it was written exactly for the insane times we’re living in.

Dark, sinister and unsettling, that’s just the creepy religious community Immanuelle lives in. Surrounded by the Darkwood, home to four malevolent witches, Bethel follows the teachings of the Prophet, a man with multiple wives, who claims to be leading them in the ways of the Lord, overlooking the poverty and misery on their doorstep.

Immanuelle’s mother died the day her daughter was born, and as darkness approaches in the form of four terrible plagues, it is only this one brave young woman who can stop it.

Immanuelle is an incredible resilient, bold, clever woman. Treated poorly by her community because of her parentage and skin colour, raised by her grandparents and suspicious of the way things are run, she’s a very strong and powerful figure.

The tension and terror rachets up, pure Gothic horror, with sinister houses and disturbing monsters in the form of Lilith, Delilah, Jael and Mercy, the Darkwood witches.

The use of names in this book was so good too, Immanuelle, Lilith, Hope, Leah. The Biblical references abound. I could easily write whole essays on the references and the names alone.

For a first novel Alexis Henderson has written a masterpiece. I devoured this so fast. I actually already want to re-read it. Adding it to my top 10 books for this year.


*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

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Blog Tour: Killing Dad & Other Crime Short Stories – Keith Wright*

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KILLING DAD
A family plagued by an abusive father finally take their revenge.
THE SHIFT
A detective completes a shift at work like no other. He couldn’t see the hit coming, and he couldn’t see the positive impact he’d had on so many lives.
THE MISSING LINK
A detective holds a retirement party. His old friend indicates he knows the truth.
THE PARCEL
A devoted son carries out his mother’s wishes.
DEAD TO THE WORLD
A detective stumbles across a murder. The problem is, he is alone with the killer and there is no way out.
THE VERDICT
A woman is abused in her back garden. But are things really what they seem?
THE CONFESSION
A Catholic priest is new to the parish and befriends a lady parishioner.
THE SLEEPER
A loving husband and father, discovers a horrific scene and blames himself.
APPOLLONIA’S MIST
An aging artist falls in love with his muse. But is she as devoted to him?
FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS
An elderly couple find themselves next door to a problem family. Surely they will listen to reason?
FROM THE CRADLE
A young detective discovers his partners impropriety, but he learns a life lesson which conflicts with his instincts.
JIMMY TICKLE’S CHRISTMAS
A boy from an underprivileged family has a run-in with an intruder. It ends in tears…of joy.

Keith Wright is the Author of the crime novels in the ‘Inspector Stark series’ available on Amazon, Kindle and Kindle Unlimited|Audiobook on Audible and iTunes.

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My thoughts:

These short crime stories are inspired by the author’s former career as a police officer and his life’s experiences. Before each story he offers an insight into the inspiration for the following tale, which are pretty intriguing themselves.

The short story can be a hard form to master, there’s a lot to deliver in a limited number of words, and these are clearly written by a confident master of the form. Succinct and satisfying, each story has enough world building and character development built in to satisfy, within a few paragraphs you can picture the entire scene.

A very enjoyable collection of tales, perfect for dipping into at leisure or skipping through one after the other.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

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Cover Reveal: Coming Home to Hope Street – Marcie Steele

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Step across the cobblestones, pull back the curtains and peek behind the doors in the second instalment of The Hope Street Series. Catch up with old friends and fall in love with new ones in a story of friendship, second chances and new beginnings.

Livvy has no choice but to return to Hope Street, the childhood home she left over twenty years ago. Along with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Pip, she turns up on the doorstep, hoping for forgiveness from her sister.

Hannah thought she’d never see Livvy again. She’s overwhelmed with emotion but locks away her real feelings. How could Livvy stay away without any contact? And why has she come back now?

It isn’t long before the charm of the market town of Somerley begins to work its magic. Hannah is opening a book shop in the square, adjoining The Coffee Stop, and Livvy’s offer to help out brings the sisters closer together.

But when someone from Livvy’s past arrives unannounced too, he threatens everything she’s built up since her return. Can Livvy convince her sister, and her new friends, that her intentions to return were good ones? Or will her dreams of settling down and being happy again become nothing but a closed book?

Marcie Steele is the pen name of Mel Sherratt. For as long as she can remember, she’s been a meddler of words. Born and raised in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, she’s a romantic at heart and has always enjoyed writing about characters that fall in and out of love, have good friends to hang around with, and live in communities with great spirit.

She can often be found sitting in her favourite coffee shop, sipping a cappuccino and eating a chocolate chip cookie, either catching up with friends or writing on her laptop. Whether she writes crime or women’s fiction, she loves making up things for a living.

You can find more about Marcie Steele on Mel Sherratt’s website at Twitter and Facebook

Join me for my stop blog tour on 18th September too!

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: A Match Made in Heaven – edited by Claire Chambers, Nafhesa Ali, Richard Phillips*

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Star-studded and beautifully written, this collection of diverse stories about love and desire by South Asian-heritage British Muslim women authors, including Ayisha Malik and Shelina Janmohamed.

Although outsiders often expect Muslim women to be timid, conservative, or submissive, the reality is different. While some of these authors express a quiet piety and explore poignant situations, others use black humour and biting satire, or play with possibilities.

Still others shade into the territory of a Muslim Fifty Shades of Grey, creating grey areas where the mainstream media sees only black and white. If grooming-gang scandals grab headlines, characters are more scandalized by suitors’ sloppy personal grooming.

Finding the right crimson lipstick for a date or the perfect power outfit for meeting a cheating ex-husband are commoner preoccupations than the news.

Stylish but far from shallow, the stories also reflect on migration, racism, arranged marriage, gender differences, lesbian desire, bearding, and many other subjects.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Claire Chambers teaches postcolonial literature the University of York. Her fascination with Muslim South Asia was sparked by a teenage year spent in Peshawar.

Nafhesa Ali is a sociologist and the lead postdoctoral researcher for the Storying Relationship project at Sheffield University. She researches gender, age, the life course, and methods.

Richard Phillips is a geographer and Storying Relationships’ principal investigator at Sheffield University. His research interests include contemporary multiculturalism and the world after Empire.

All three authors live in the UK.

My thoughts:

This was an interesting collection of short stories centred around love and the Muslim perspective, as written by women living in the UK.

Some of the stories are funny, some sad, one has a possibly demonic cat determined to cause chaos. Some of them made me think about my friends and the conversations we’ve had about sex and relationships.

There’s this weird belief that Muslim women have no agency of their own, and that they’re under mens’ thumbs, clad in hijab and niqab against their will and it jars so harshly against reality.

My Muslim friends are clever, funny, weird, silly and completely normal. Their religion doesn’t dictate their lives, some of them are married, some aren’t. Even among the married ones some chose their own spouse and others went for an arranged marriage (and unlike some people believe, they had a say).

Collections like this one help to redress the balance against the strange stereotype of Muslim women. Showing different facets of life, from writing erotica to pay the bills, finding a (second or third) husband, fending off annoying relatives or buying the perfect red lipstick.

Universal experiences that anyone can relate to, regardless of religion, bring us closer together and help foster better understanding and relationships.

I really enjoyed this book and have some new authors to investigate (although I spotted some familiar names amongst the included writers). The project that spawned this collection sounds really interesting and I hope similar ones produce more enjoyable and enlightening reads.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

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Blog Tour: The White Phoenix – Catherine Randall*

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London, 1666. After the sudden death of her father, thirteen-year-old Lizzie Hopper and her mother must take over THE WHITE PHOENIX – the family bookshop in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral. But England is at war with France and dire prophecies abound. As rumours of invasion and plague spread, Lizzie battles prejudice, blackmail and mob violence to protect the bookshop she loves.

But England is at war with France and dire prophecies abound. As rumours of invasion and plague spread, Lizzie battles prejudice, blackmail and mob violence to protect the bookshop she loves.

When the Great Fire of London breaks out, Lizzie must rescue more than just the bookshop. Can she now save the friend she wasn’t supposed to have?

CAN THE WHITE PHOENIX RISE FROM THE ASHES?

Goodreads

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Catherine Randall was brought up in Shropshire but has lived in London since graduating from St Catherine’s College, Oxford with a degree in Modern History. Catherine worked as an editor in book publishing before taking a break to bring up her family.

She took a Master’s in Children’s Literature at the University of Roehampton, writing a novella for teens as part of her dissertation. Now living in southwest London, she is known in her local area as the writer of two history plays (The Teddington Review and Letters from the Front) performed in 2017 and 2018.

As a result of her research for The White Phoenix, Catherine takes workshops about the Great Fire of London into primary schools. She is passionate about encouraging reading and volunteers with the charity Prisoners’ Reading Groups. She is currently working on her second novel.

She is currently working on her second novel.

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My thoughts:

I used to work just round the corner from where this book is set, sadly there are no bookshops next to St Paul’s anymore, though there is now a fancy shopping centre.

The Great Fire of London devastated the Square Mile of the City of London, and it’s legacy still lingers in the changed shape of the city, the missing buildings that were never rebuilt (Baynard’s Castle, once a royal residence is now a miserable office building) and others remain in ruins.

The streets still bear the same name, I’ve bought lunch on Pudding Lane, and shopped in Leadinghall Market, which does have a book shop!

I really enjoyed reading this snapshot of life in 17th Century London, following Lizzie through the streets, the top of St Paul’s acting like a beacon so she can always find her way home.

I liked the mentions of real life figures, like Samuel Pepys, setting the narrative firmly in its time. A wonderful adventure story with a brave and resilient heroine in Lizzie.

The White Phoenix I’m sure rises from the ashes of the Fire and continues to sell books to Londoners and visitors alike under Lizzie and her family’s guidance.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

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Cover Reveal: The Coconut Girl – Sunita Thind

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The Coconut Girl is a collection of poems containing material that is from the Indian, female point of view with an insight into Punjabi culture. We also follow the author through the hallucinogenic state of the brain following cancer treatment, and in her experience of life in multi cultural Britain.

The protagonist in the poems is at the same time deeply vulnerable and strongly independent. Overall her strength of character shines through

The Coconut Girl features poetry of deep imagery, not least in some of the poems exploring the experience of the female body post-operatively, such as in My Womb Is A Park Of Carnage.

Author Bio

SUNITA THIND is a Bedford born Derby based published female, Asian British BAME poet and writer. Her debut collection of multicultural poetry (Black Pear Press, 2020) focused on living between two cultures, British and Punjabi. Sunita is workshop facilitator, speaker and performance poet. She has had poetry and short stories published in various literary magazines, e-zines and journals.

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Cover Reveal: A Stranger in Paris – Karen Webb

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Aberystwyth University, 1986 – and another year of torrential rain. Bad hair days and a rugby-fanatic fiancé are part of her drab existence so who can blame Karen for falling into the arms of a handsome Parisian?

Hastening across The Channel with stars in her eyes, she speeds to the city of light only to discover that her lover is nowhere to be found. Nor what he seemed.

Life takes a turn for the better when her old school-friend Jessica makes a dramatic entrance, encouraging Karen on a downward spiral of adventure – including a brush with the Parisian underworld which places both girls in peril.

Karen’s childhood is a constant anguish reminding her that when things go wrong, not everyone has a home to return to, as the dark shadows of the past merge with her troubled French life.

Where to go, when there’s no going home?

Based on a true story, A Stranger in Paris is the first of a three-part series. This honest memoir recounts with humour and poignancy the search for love and family.

Karen graduated from Aberystwyth University with a Degree in English Literature. She then moved to Paris, where she worked for 16 years as an English language teacher for business professionals before settling in rural South West France. With few employment opportunities other than stuffing geese or picking melons, she qualified as a licensed real estate agent.

Karen then attended Lancaster University where she graduated with a Masters in Creative Writing in 2015, after which she set up a series of Creative Writing retreats, “A Chapter Away”, inviting world famous authors, literary agents and publishers to teach aspiring novelists. Inspired by the comments of tutors on the memoir writing course, she began “A Stranger in Paris.”

Passionate about theatre, and script-writing, Karen has also written plays, several short stories and a novel – all of which are lurking in the bottom drawer. “A Stranger in Paris” is her first published work, and is the first novel of the trilogy La Vie Française.

Karen now lives in Gascony with her husband and son, and has a grown-up daughter who works in London. Much of her writing is inspired by the North West of England where she grew up, and France which became her country of adoption.

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Book Review: The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman

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I was gifted a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley with no requirement to review.

Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves
A female cop with her first big case
A brutal murder
Welcome to…
THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves The Thursday Murder Club.

When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case.

As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late?

My thoughts:

This book was brilliant. Funny, smart, intriguing (insert superlatives here). I thought it was just excellent basically.
The plotting was clever, the characters very enjoyable, all the little side narratives added and not subtracted from the main plot, building a more complete world.
My husband more than once looked at me like I’d gone nuts, that’s how much I was laughing.

I really hope this is the start of a series with the Thursday Murder Club solving as many crimes as possible.

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Blog Tour: A Ruined Girl – Kate Simants*

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TWO BOYS LOVED HER.
BUT WHICH ONE KILLED HER?

On a dark night two years ago, teenagers Rob and Paige broke into a house. They beat and traumatised the occupants, then left, taking only a bracelet. No one knows why, not even Luke, Rob’s younger brother and Paige’s confidant. Paige disappeared after that night. And having spent her life in children’s homes and the foster system, no one cared enough to look for her.
Now Rob is out of prison, and probation officer Wren Reynolds has been tasked with his rehabilitation. But Wren has her own reasons for taking on Rob as a client. Convinced that Rob knows what happened to Paige, and hiding a lifetime of secrets from her heavily pregnant wife, Wren’s obsession with finding a missing girl may tear her family apart…

My thoughts:

This was a tense thriller, full of secrets and twists. As Wren tries to unravel the mystery of what happened to Paige and keep everything from her wife, she might have bitten off more than she can chew.

The writing is concise and compelling, the mystery of what happened to Paige and why she and Rob conducted their burglary are revealed slowly and add to the mystery, leaving more questions than answers as the plot unrolls.

Clever, gripping and with an ending you won’t see coming, this is a smart, modern thriller.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.