Tag: contemporary fiction

Acclaimed novelist Livi Michael returns with a tense novel about memory, guilt and reinvention, and the dangerous power games played by children and adults.

At the International Conference Centre in Geneva, Hannah Rossier, formerly Annie Price, comes face to face with Neville Weir, someone from her childhood whom she never expected, or wanted, to meet again. As Neville’s reasons for attending the conference become clear, the dark waters of Hannah’s past start to rise. Hannah is a psychotherapist, with a specialist interest in memory and how connections are made between past and present. She has reinvented herself successfully, moving from a small northern town in England to Lucerne, Switzerland, with her husband, Thibaut.

Nobody, not even Hannah, knows the full truth about herself. Her ‘memories’ consist of glimpses of the place where she played in childhood, known simply as ‘The Wild’. Over the three days of the conference, she has to decide whether she can avoid Neville, or whether she should submit to an encounter with him and with her past. And in her keynote lecture about the neuroscience of memory, how much to conceal or reveal. But can her specialism save her from drowning?

LIVI MICHAEL has published seven previous novels for adults: Rebellion; Succession; Accession; Under a Thin Moon which won the Arthur Welton award; Their Angel Reach which won the Faber Prize; All the Dark Air which was shortlisted for the Mind Award; and Inheritance, which won a Society of Authors Award.

She has also published several novels for young adults and children and her short stories have been published in several magazines and anthologies. Livi has two sons and lives in Greater Manchester. She teaches creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and has been a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University.

My thoughts: a terrible incident from her childhood haunts Professor Hannah Rossier but she has been able to bury it deep enough to work, marry, build a reputation, until now when an unfriendly face from the past tries to bring her world down.

Neville was a slightly strange little boy who followed Hannah (then known as Annie) and her friend Joanna around, spying on them in the way of lonely, socially awkward kids. He was caught up in the incident and blames Hannah for the shape his life took. Although she was also a child at the time.

This was incredibly fascinating, I used to play in the woods with my friend at about the same age, and we were forever coming home soaking wet or coated in mud, famously once without a shoe (left in the sinking mud that took it) but luckily nothing serious ever happened. Children’s memories are often terrible and since we know that the part of the brain that understands consequences doesn’t develop till later, they can’t always explain their actions.

To place so much blame, although Neville insists it’s not about blame, on another child, is very wrong. It was the adults (his parents, teachers, social workers, police) who let him down, who punished him wrongly, who didn’t see that he was innocent, not Hannah. Indeed they hadn’t seen each other for 40 years and she had no idea what had happened to him. Her own experience was difficult enough.

The events at the conference, the confrontation, when it comes, is shocking. Neville carries so much anger, despite overcoming it all, despite his career and life now. It would be like carrying resentment of our childhood slights or bullies all our lives – it’s not healthy.

Hannah is confused and hurt by his accusations, by his genuine anger. He can’t even really say what it is he wants from her. He insists it’s not an apology he wants, but can’t articulate it. Jopi, the conference host, attempts to resolve things, but I don’t know if it actually makes it worse. There’s still a lot unresolved at the end and I found it unsettling not knowing how any of the characters were going to move ahead.

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

Love makes you do things you never thought you were capable of…

Forbidden, passionate and all-encompassing, Margo and Richard’s love affair was the stuff of legend—but, ultimately, doomed.

When Richard walked out, Margo locked herself away, leaving her three daughters, Rachel, Imogen, and Sasha, to run wild.

Years later, charismatic Margo entertains lovers and friends in her cottage on the Isle of Wight, refusing to ever speak of Richard and her painful past. But her silence is keeping each of the Garnett girls from finding true happiness.

Rachel is desperate to return to London but is held hostage by responsibility for Sandcove, their beloved but crumbling family home.

Dreamy Imogen feels the pressure to marry her kind, considerate fiancé, even when life is taking an unexpected turn.

And wild, passionate Sasha, trapped between her fractured family and controlling husband, is weighed down by a secret that could shake the family to its core…

The Garnett Girls, the captivating debut novel from Georgina Moore, asks whether children can ever be free of the mistakes of their parents.

My thoughts: I had been waiting for this book for a while as I follow the lovely Georgina Moore on Twitter and in her other guise as a publicity guru she has sent me a few books to review. Every little hint dropped told me this would be a great read, and it was.

I am drawn to books about complicated, messy families, probably because mine is pretty boring! The Garnetts are an all female clan, plus a few husbands, boyfriends and hangers on. After Richard, Margo’s husband, leaves her with three small children, she reclaims her maiden name and forbids discussion of what has happened.

This does not do anyone any good – all of the girls have questions and eldest daughter Rachel has some pretty sad memories too. Of her mother’s breakdown after he leaves, of trying to parent her little sisters far too young. Now she’s feeling trapped in the family home, miserable and worried her husband might be drifting away.

Middle child Imogen is struggling with her identity, used to playing peace keeper, she’s not willing to rock the boat but needs to be honest with herself. And her family.

Youngest Garnett, Sasha, is harbouring secrets, and stuck with a horrible husband, in love with childhood friend Johnny, and furious with her mother.

It’s all going to come out in the end, the closeness of the Garnett Girls will force these bubbling issues to the top, and finally the air will be cleared. But it’s not going to be easy.

For all Richard is not really part of this story – it all revolves around him. Around his absence, around the love story his children have created, around the tiny glimpses they’ve had from other people – their aunt, neighbours, family friends, memories that they don’t all share due to their ages.

The relationship between the sisters, and their mother, and her sister Alice too, another Garnett, is what the story centres around. The secrets and lies of the past catching up with them, the things that have long needed talking about. There’s a lovely scene where the men are standing on the beach watching the Garnetts swim and realising that they don’t really matter in the grand scheme of the family. It’s sad but also pretty true.

Instead of all the parties and drinking, what Margo needs to do is just talk to her beloved daughters. But protected by their close knit community on the Isle of Wight (a character all of its own too) and sheltered by the old house, inherited from her parents, there’s always someone else or something that needs attending to and conversations are avoided.

The writing is clever and funny and crackles along, full of life and the complicated messiness of things. I really enjoyed reading The Garnett Girls and I think you will too!

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

‘‘I was born in the Black Country and have lived there most of my life. I’ve
always felt that it, and the texture of its part-industrial, part-rural landscape
provokes a unique sensation of place, and I try to emulate that in my writing.
In God’s Country, the Black Country doesn’t just operate as background
scenery, but as a resonant, ever-present figure, and my characters have to
deal with that’ – KERRY HADLEY-PRYCE

Kerry Hadley-Pryce has become synonymous with menacing fiction from the Black Country. In this delicious tale a funeral provides the impetus for a
claustrophobic narrative packed with threat and paranoia.
Guy Flood returns to the Black Country with his girlfriend, Alison, to attend his
identical twin brother’s funeral. The reasons he left, and the secrets he left
behind, slowly become clear. A chilling dark fiction, dominated by unknown
and all-seeing narrator.

KERRY HADLEY-PRYCE was born in the Black Country. She worked
nights in a Wolverhampton petrol station before becoming a secondary
school teacher. She wrote her first novel, The Black Country, whilst
studying for an MA in Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing
School. She is currently a PhD student at Manchester Metropolitan
University, researching Psychogeography and Black Country Writing.
God’s Country is her third novel She lives in Stourbridge and tweets
@Kerry2001

My thoughts: this is a strange and woozy novel, written in the second person, making it hard to fully understand the characters and relate to them, at a remove. Having returned to his family’s farm for his twin brother’s funeral, Guy is truculent and remote. His girlfriend Alison isn’t sure what to expect as Guy doesn’t speak about where he comes from, he’s changed his accent, and she’s surprised at how he reacts to his relatives.

There’s secrets and old resentments boiling away as the family gather, Guy’s father is gruff, bordering on hostile and his sister seems to be mentally elsewhere. Alison feels awkward and unwelcome as father and son circle one another.

She’s trying to find out why Guy left, why his relationships turned so sour but he’s shutting her out, and in the remote farm, there’s little relief to be had. Soon it all comes to the surface, none of it pretty.

Written in the distinctive Black Country dialect, Alison is an outsider who can’t always understand what’s being said, who doesn’t understand the ripples between the family, much like the reader, she’s kept at bay. An unsettling and unusual read.

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

One day, five lives, but whose hearts will be broken by nightfall?
It started like any other day in the picturesque village of Weirbridge.
Tress Walker waved her perfect husband Max off to work, with no idea that she was about to go into labour with their first child. And completely unaware that when she tried to track Max down, he wouldn’t be where he was supposed to be.
At the same time, Max’s best friend Noah Clark said goodbye to his wife, Anya, blissfully oblivious that he would soon discover the woman he adored had been lying to him for years.
And living alongside the two couples, their recently widowed friend, Nancy Jenkins, is getting ready to meet Eddie, her first true love at a school reunion. Will Nancy have the chance to rekindle an old flame, or will she choose to stay by Tress’s side when she needs her most?
One Day with You – two fateful goodbyes, two unexpected hellos, and 24 hours that change everything.
Purchase Link

Shari Low is the #1 bestselling author of over 30 novels, including My One Month Marriage and One Summer Sunrise and a collection of parenthood memories called Because Mummy Said So. She lives near Glasgow.

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My thoughts: Shari Low knows how to play on your emotions – this book made me laugh out loud and then want to sob, so keep some tissues handy.

On an ordinary day several lives will be changed forever. Births, deaths, old flames and new loves, truths revealed and lies told. The people at the centre of this story will go through it all in 24 hours.

Tress is pregnant with her first child, but not due for a couple of weeks, so waves husband Max off on a business trip. A trip his best friend Noah’s wife, Anya, is also on, she and Max work together.

Next door neighbour Nancy is getting all dressed up for a high school reunion that will bring her together with old boyfriend Eddie. She’d love pal Val (a familiar face if you know Low’s other books) to join her but husband Don has dementia and she worries about leaving him at home.

Things aren’t going to go to plan and a lot will happen to everyone before the end of the story and both characters and reader will be feeling differently by the end.

Another excellent, funny, sweet, clever and moving read from expert storyteller Shari Low.

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