contemporary fiction – Page 21

I love Jodi Picoult’s books, they always make you think and question, which I feel is pretty important in the world we live in. I took part in the Tandem Collective’s readalong over on Instagram but as my talents do not lie in creating reels or stories (is it just me that can’t seem to get half the functions to work properly?) There was also a DM chat group but I won’t be sharing anyone else’s thoughts.

This is a book set in the very recent past and dealing with 2020’s Covid-19 outbreak, lockdowns etc. I wasn’t sure how well I’d do reading about something that’s still ongoing and very raw. This is how I got on.

Diana O’Toole’s life is going perfectly to plan. At twenty-nine, she’s up for promotion to her dream job as an art specialist at Sotheby’s and she’s about to fly to the Galápagos where she’s convinced her surgeon boyfriend, Finn, is going to propose.

But then the virus hits New York City and Finn breaks the news: the hospital needs him, he has to stay. But you should still go, he insists. And reluctantly, she agrees.

Once she’s in the Galápagos, the world shuts down around her, leaving Diana stranded – albeit in paradise. Completely isolated, with only intermittent news from the outside world, Diana finds herself examining everything that has brought her to this point and wondering if there’s a better way to live.

But not everything is as it seems . . .

I was quite cross with the cavalier attitude on display here and my first instinct was to shout “don’t be so bloody stupid and irresponsible!” Going to a tiny island in the Pacific with limited health care resources is incredibly selfish. Diana should stay in New York and support Finn. But then they don’t know how absolutely devastatingly terrible things will get.

I like Abuela, she rescued a very stupid Diana, who didn’t appreciate that the hotel would be shut, even though she was warned about the lockdown before she got on the ferry. Gabriel is probably right to be upset, the world has just turned upside down and he’s worried about his family and his home. He shouldn’t be yelling at his grandmother though. Have some respect.

I can understand his motivations a bit more, he just wants to keep his family safe and he’s been through a lot. I think he and Diana will get to know each other better and explore the island.

I know that Darwin came up with The Origin of the Species and his theory of natural selection (although not the first to do so or unique) after visiting the Galapagos Islands and seeing the distinct differences in species between different islands. Gabriel is paraphrasing “history is written by the victors”, attributed to Winston Churchill. It means we don’t hear the losing sides version of events, only the successes.

I know a lot of people clapped for carers and volunteered for mutual aid things. I did the shopping for one neighbour who was quarantined and fed another’s cat when she was hospitalised (not with covid). I just wish it had lasted longer and been more permanent, we seem to have gone right back to being selfish even though it’s not over (I still shop for my neighbour and feed cats for those in hospital).

I think Diana is starting to feel very comfortable with Gabriel and he seems lonely, so it’s perhaps inevitable that something might happen.

Nina Simone’s version is one of my favourite pieces of music, a real Desert Island Disc choice.

OK, didn’t see this coming. I couldn’t get my stupid Stories to work and is this a huh? face – 😕 cos that’s how I felt.

I think Finn is dealing with a lot, and something that feels huge, and new, to Diana isn’t to him. He’s been living with the new realities of lockdown and working on the front line for a while now.

Wait! What? Please explain. I’m so confused. 🥴

So, I didn’t really do any of these because I can’t work those functions (my brain can’t cope with technology, also my phone hates me) so that was that then. I don’t know enough South American actors to cast anyone, because it would need to be accurate. I did do a flatlay, photo thing, you can see it here.

My overall thoughts: I immediately thought of my friend telling me about her sister who was working on coral reefs on another tiny island when covid hit. She had to leave her dream job and fly home when they closed the island – and the project is on hold so she’s stuck at home with no job, hard to be a marine biologist in London, and no idea if she can ever go back. Millions of people had their lives turned upside down in the last two years and with no end in sight, this will keep happening.

As the book progressed I got seduced by the idyllic island life Diana was leading, which then gets thrown into chaos by what happens next. Which I won’t spoil but will say that the second half of the book was very, very different to the first.

Once Diana is back in New York, dealing with events, working out if her relationship, job, life, is even what she wants anymore, I struggled a bit. Like many people I lost loved ones last year and it has been really hard. My mum is a nurse, and while she was covering for her colleagues who were drafted into hospitals (she retires next year and my dad is high risk so she was doing other duties behind the scenes), I saw some of what medical professionals were going through.

Last year was just horrible and maybe this book is just a bit too soon, and as things are starting to crack again with new variants and restrictions and the future is so uncertain, I just don’t quite know how I feel about this book.

Have you read this book? Maybe you were in a book group like I was for the readalong, let me know your thoughts in the comments. Is it too soon for literature about 2020? When is the right time? I’d really love to hear other people’s thoughts.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Bookseller’s Secret – Michelle Gable

Dec 2, 2021Nov 30, 2021 ramblingmads

From New York Times bestselling author Michelle Gable comes a dual-narrative set at the famed Heywood Hill Bookshop in London about a struggling American writer on the hunt for a rumored lost manuscript written by the iconic Nancy Mitford—bookseller, spy, author, and aristocrat—during World War II.

“Gable’s witty narrative effortlessly moves between two time periods and is enriched with cameos by historical figures and authentic, memorable characters. Historical fiction fans will be riveted from the first page.” —Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)

In 1942, London, Nancy Mitford is worried about more than air raids and German spies. Still recovering from a devastating loss, the once sparkling Bright Young Thing is estranged from her husband, her allowance has been cut, and she’s given up her writing career. On top of this, her five beautiful but infamous sisters continue making headlines with their controversial politics. Eager for distraction and desperate for income, Nancy jumps at the chance to manage the Heywood Hill bookshop while the owner is away at war. Between the shop’s brisk business and the literary salons she hosts for her eccentric friends, Nancy’s life seems on the upswing. But when a mysterious French officer insists that she has a story to tell, Nancy must decide if picking up the pen again and revealing all is worth the price she might be forced to pay. Eighty years later, Heywood Hill is abuzz with the hunt for a lost wartime manuscript written by Nancy Mitford. For one woman desperately in need of a change, the search will reveal not only a new side to Nancy, but an even more surprising link between the past and present…

MICHELLE GABLE is the New York Times bestselling author of A Paris Apartment, I’ll See You in Paris, The Book of Summer, and The Summer I Met Jack. She attended The College of William & Mary, where she majored in accounting, and spent twenty years working in finance before becoming a full-time writer. She grew up in San Diego and lives in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, with her husband and two daughters. Find her at michellegable.com or on Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest, @MGableWriter.

My thoughts: like many I’m endlessly fascinated by the Mitford sisters, I’ve read several biographies, a collection of their letters, Nancy’s novels, a section of Debo’s memoirs (written when she was Duchess of Devonshire) and the Mitford Mysteries series (which features each sister solving crimes and is a bit silly). They’re just intriguing, even the fascist ones. They lived through an incredibly complex period of modern history and were very involved with many of the major figures of the day. So I jumped at the chance to be on the blog tour for this book, which features Nancy in wartime London.

It also has a modern day plot featuring a novelist going through a bit of a slump, like Nancy in the 1940s, Katie. She’s an American who arrives in London to stay with her best friend, and finds herself drawn into intrigue at the sane bookshop Nancy once worked in. She’s also a huge Mitford nerd and can’t resist trying to find a supposedly lost manuscript.

I really enjoyed the dual narratives, both Nancy and Katie are delightful characters, clever and interesting women in search of a story. Nancy will eventually find it in the form of the classic The Pursuit of Love, but will Katie also locate a new book and find love?

And then there’s Clive, who’s eight, madly in love with Katie, I want a whole book about him and all the trouble he gets into, £100 an hour IT support and all. I think he might be my favourite character.

I got a bit fed up with Simon for all he’s part of what drives Katie forward, teasing her with tiny parts of his family story, breadcrumbs when he could just be more upfront. It just seemed a bit mean. But I suppose if he did just give Katie everything he knew, there’d be no story!

This was tremendously enjoyable, fun, witty and entertaining, much like Nancy’s novels. A real pleasure to read. The characters come to life on the page, you’re right there with Nancy and her friends, camped out in the bookshop with nowhere else to go.

*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 Hapless Husband & His Curious Wife – Helen E. Field

Dec 2, 2021Nov 30, 2021 ramblingmads

A hilarious modern day social comedy.

Follow the madcap lives of the sassy Brooke and her anxious husband Dean, as they navigate the chaos caused by their double lives: secrets, syndicates and stress… money, madness and McDonald’s… political incorrectness, punters and posh people… betting, blood pressure and ballet… haves, have nots and horseracing…diversity, dilemmas and days out…gender, gyms and gentility. TRIGGER WARNING: If you are easily offended, ‘woke’ or work in human resources you may be traumatised by this author’s irreverent sense of humour.

Essex girl Brooke secretly works for Lady Townsend, who’s attempting to transform her into a lady, by offering her an eye-opening education. She exposes Brooke to some mind-boggling experiences and a class of people a million miles away from her own, resulting in some seriously funny social faux pas along the way. Brooke’s outlook changes as she takes advantage of these opportunities to better herself, with often comic results! Meanwhile her husband Dean is clueless as to why his normally ditsy wife appears to be acting so weird.

Meanwhile, Dean has been set a challenge by his boss. He’s been tasked with making their workforce the most diverse in the industry, but Dean’s unorthodox approach to recruiting, reveals that he struggles with the very concept of what he considers a ‘woke’ request. In addition, he’s still keeping his mystery shopping side hustle a secret from his demanding wife, ensuring he gets some ‘me time’ away from her and their boisterous toddler Paige.

The farcical situations they find themselves in as a result of their lies, cause off the scale stress for them both. How much longer can they withstand the deceit? Will Brooke’s transformation make her long-suffering husband feel left behind? Or will it improve all their lives? It’s that or even more chaos…

The story pokes fun at a myriad of people and institutions and is a wonderfully eclectic mix of Gavin & Stacey, Pygmalion and Legally Blonde!

Helen Field is a business woman, writer, publisher of greetings cards, funny poet, speaker, traveller and author of The Mystery Shopper & The Hot Tub.

She was born and brought up in Waltham Abbey in Essex and currently lives in a small village in North West Essex, so it would be fair to say she has earned her “Essex girl” badge!

Helen has had a varied and interesting career in retail and hospitality in UK, Europe and USA, including setting up and running her own restaurant. She runs her own training consultancy to the hospitality industry. One element of her business has been designing and implementing mystery shopper programmes all over the UK for some of the most well-known organisations. With inside knowledge of the industry and armed with thousands of funny mystery shopping incidents, she was inspired to write her debut novel, The Mystery Shopper & The Hot Tub.

Helen has recently spent time combining work and writing with travelling with her husband, including four months in Europe in a 20 year old campervan, a completely wild four-month ride round India by train and a month in an isolated log cabin in Finland.

She rides a motorbike and has three talented and amazing grown up children.

P.s. She doesn’t have a hot tub… yet!

My thoughts: I felt sorry for Brooke, she’s clearly very clever and all she wants is to expand her horizons and see what else there is beyond the Essex girl stereotypes her husband is so keen on her sticking to.

Her friendship with Lady Townsend is opening her eyes and allowing her to learn new things, like Latin, and experience a whole other world. But her controlling husband doesn’t want her to work, have her own bank account and expects her to respond to his every message immediately.

Meanwhile he’s busy acting like an idiot at work, recruiting people for one characteristic, like their ethnicity, instead of hiring the best people for the job, all to win a stupid award. I can’t believe none of his recruits have told him off, although Chloe’s mum just might! He’s also being ridiculous with his secret shopper gig, keeping it from Brooke and tying himself in knots to carry out the assignments.

They both need to sit down and have a long, long conversation about things. There’s no way all this secrecy and silliness can be sustainable. And they need to stop shoving lollipops in their daughter’s mouth or her teeth will rot as she grows them!

Bits of this were very funny, bits made me slightly uncomfortable. I know a Brooke or two and the occasionally Pygmalion-esque moments (the horse racing straight out of My Fair Lady) made me cringe for her. Being working class isn’t a crime or the worst thing ever – being a snob is definitely less appealing. She just wants to educate herself and be more independent and take an interest, there’s no harm in that.

*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: Pacific – Trevor J Houser

Nov 30, 2021Nov 24, 2021 ramblingmads

A FAST-PACED STORY OF ADVENTURE, FATHERHOOD AND DISCOVERY

“Very heartfelt and amazing story, loved it.” –Gus Van Sant

“If you are a father, or know one, Trevor Houser’s Pacific, is a wild, quixotic ride that will challenge your understanding of what it is to be a parent.”

–Larry Colton, author of Southern League and Counting Coup

Would you be willing to kidnap your child and take them halfway across the globe for a chance at saving his life when everyone else has given up? When it means you may lose everything regardless of the outcome? Pacific by Trevor J. Houser (November 23, 2021, Unsolicited Press) discovers what a desperate father is willing to do to save his son…even if it means braving deadly storms at home and on the run.

On a remote Puget Sound Island, police chief Bell navigates his job and marriage in the wake of his son’s near-death brain surgery. When his wife no longer wants to tempt the fates of experimental medicine, he takes matters into his own hands. With the help of his spaced-out fisherman friend, Bell kidnaps his boy and sets sail for Guatemala in search of the mysterious Dr. Haas. On the way, they’ll brave the seventh biggest storm, befriend two behemoth fly-fishing Nords, and try to outrun the ex-Navy captain hired by his wife to find them.

With mesmerizing descriptions of the Pacific Northwest, Central America, and the miles in between, Houser captures the heartbreak and hope of a desperate parent, while still maintaining a sense of dark humor and playful language that turns the mundane into something mythic. For fans of Denis Johnson, Richard Brautigan and Jenny Offill, Pacific reminds us that there’s magic, beauty and hope in the world, if we’re just willing to go and look for it.

Trevor J. Houser is an advertising copywriter living with his family in Seattle, WA. He studied creative writing under Thomas Beller at Columbia University. His stories have been published in dozens of literary journals, including Zyzzyva, Story Quarterly, and The Dr. TJ Eckleburg Review. He’s been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. He also received special mention in Best American Fantasy Vol. 2. You can find the author on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and at www.houserfiction.com. Pacific is his debut novel.

Author Q & A

Question: This is your debut novel. How did writing a full-length piece differ from the short stories and other pieces you have published?

Trevor J. Houser: Although this is my first published novel most novelists have a closetful of novels they’ve already written that didn’t make it for one reason or another. For me the biggest difference in writing a novel is maintaining the energy of that initial idea. To maintain the consistency of that voice, of that style over the course of many months.

Q: Family and fatherhood is a major theme throughout Pacific. Did your own family life inspire your writing for this book?

TJH: I have a son who was diagnosed with a rare brain disease. After years of navigating all the unknowns and not really writing there was suddenly some light at the end of the tunnel with his prognosis and soon after I found myself writing this book. Pacific is somewhat based on the experiences we’ve been through with our son, but a lot of it is the made-up fantasy of a parent who wishes they could do something more just than talk to a million doctors and not sleep at night. Even though the way in which Chief Bell shows his love for his son might be considered unconventional, it demonstrates how fathers are just as capable as mothers in the depths of their feelings and devotion.

Q: How did the Pacific Northwest influence your story?

TJH: I grew up in Oregon, but afer leaving for college I lived for years in places like New York, San Francisco and Argentina. When I returned to the Pacific Northwest with my family a few years ago I think I forgot just how exotic and rich this place is. It took being away for so long to appreciate the strange beauty of it, which is what I hoped this book would be: strange and beautiful.

Q: Fans of which authors/books do you think would enjoy Pacific and why?

TJH: Hopefully fans of authors such as Kate Jennings and Jenny Offill will like it because of their sentence level precision in telling stories of hope and heartbreak. Donald Barthelme and Richard Brautigan for their playfulness with language and form, and their sense of humor. Denis Johnson for his melancholy strangeness. All my favorite writers tend to elevate the everyday through their language to make the mundane transcendent. To make regular life almost mythic. It’s something I try to accomplish on a sentence level and keep building it so that courses through the entire narrative

Q: What’s next for you and Pacific?

TJH: My second novel is coming out in 2023. It’s about a math hobbyist, who believes he’s discovered a theorem that might predict when and where the next mass shooting takes place.

Excerpt- Chapter One

I have a family. In the gray island-mists north of Seattle I have them. We bought a house in a place called Wolf Island with big Asian maples overlooking Padilla Bay. That first spring I drank wine on the porch and felt so proud. Sunlight through the mist and mossy trees. Feeling like life made sense. Do you know that feeling?
Except now we have a child who might die.
No one is sure. So many children die. But this is our child, so it’s different.
He has a rare brain disease. Like so rare if you say it in most hospitals they look at you with eyes that are kind but vacant, like a trout’s eyes as you lower it back into a cold spring stream.
Now I sit on street corners. I sit there and look at mountains or apartment buildings between me and the mountains. I sit there and look at cars and houses and lawnmowers with icicles on them.
Once we spoke to the doctors and they laughed. We all tried to laugh. We all tried to make it like it was something we could control. It was something humans had power over like the stock market or electronica. It was something that didn’t make you want to go back in time to when the world was saturated and beautiful and untouched.
That was a different person. That was a person putting a little blue sweater on this boy. He hated hats. He hated putting on shoes. He hated so many things.
Now we go to the doctor and laugh.
He looks at nurses and makes jokes and runs up and down the halls and they laugh. Bells. Stars. Planets go by. He is underneath all of that and he shows God what it means. God probably looks down. God looks down, I’m sure. God watches him and his rare diseased brain that is so rare and diseased his pediatrician had never heard of it.
One afternoon, I cried over the sink while eating an avocado.
It was an old avocado that I ate still in its cling wrap as more clouds formed above our small, lumpy yard. I was eating the avocado and looking out at our yard, the mysterious lumps, the sky, the trees. I just sort of smooshed half the avocado into my mouth, thinking of my son. His brain has blood vessels that are too large. His small heart. His small heart is so small.
I could become important. I could drive a speedboat over an iceberg with the Dave Matthews Band playing on the prow and nothing would change. I could become a Navy Seal, the best ever, and his brain would still have too much blood inside it. Those vessels would become enlarged.
His eyes would widen as we watch some muted game show on the TV that’s bolted to the wall surrounded by other children facing the possibility of death. His brain would expand. Or it already has.
On Sundays, we play Captain America.
He has the pajamas with the stars and stripes. He runs so fast and jumps nearly over the bed. He runs and jumps on the bed and makes this noise that isn’t a scream but has the same energy of a scream.
He makes noise.
He jumps and laughs.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Imperfect Art of Caring – Jessica Ryn

Nov 25, 2021Nov 23, 2021 ramblingmads

One small act can make a big difference

Violet Strong is strong by name but not by nature, or so she thinks. She listens but never talks about herself. She’s friendly but doesn’t have many real friends. She’s become good at keeping people at a distance ever since she left home at eighteen and never looked back.

But when Violet is forced to return home to care for her estranged mother Glenys, she quickly finds out that life as a carer isn’t easy. Feeling overwhelmed, she’s forced to turn to the other local carers, including childhood friend Adam, for help. Although returning home still feels like a mistake, maybe it will help Violet right some wrongs. After all, she can’t keep running from her past forever, and in learning to look after others, perhaps Violet can start to finally love herself.

My thoughts: I loved Jessica Ryn’s first book, The Extraordinary Hope of Dawn Brightside, and this is brilliant too. It made me cry, I felt so connected to the characters. I’m technically a carer, although I have my own disabilities, my husband is a paraplegic and I care for him. It can be very lonely at times, when things have been bad, and I totally related to the caring figures in this book. But I also related to Abbas, and his mental health issues, I have depression and anxiety, there are days when I can’t cope, can’t get out of bed, can’t do simple things. So I understood him, and Violet’s mum Glenys, too.

This book was so lovely and sweet and sad, and I wanted to reach into the pages and hug Violet and Tammy. Honestly if you need a dose of comfort reading, full of friendship and hot chocolate and soup, and love, then read this.

*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 Memory Box – Kathryn Hughes

Nov 14, 2021Nov 10, 2021 ramblingmads

Jenny Tanner opens the box she has cherished for decades. Contained within are her most precious mementoes, amongst them a pebble, a carving and a newspaper cutting she can hardly bear to read. But Jenny knows the time is finally here. After the war, in a mountainside village in Italy, she left behind a piece of her heart. However painful, she must return to Cinque Alberi. And lay the past to rest.

After a troubled upbringing, Candice Barnes dreams of a future with the love of her life – but is he the man she believes him to be? When Candice is given the opportunity to travel to Italy with Jenny, she is unaware the trip will open her eyes to the truth she’s been too afraid to face. Could a place of goodbyes help her make a brave new beginning?

My thoughts: this was a lovely, sweet and moving book about reconciling with your past and memories. Jenny is 100 and knows that time is short, she has a lot she wants to resolve. With the help of Candice, a carer at the retirement home she lives in, she plans to travel to the Italian village she once lived in to say goodbye.

Candice is in a horrid relationship with a terrible, spoilt, manipulative man who needs a good slap. She can’t see the wood for the trees and Jenny is trying to encourage her to set herself free and be happy.

Jenny has a lot of regrets, the way she left her little brother, the deaths of her in-laws and a little girl called Eva. But in travelling to Italy and telling Candice her story, she is able to set some things right and learn some truths hidden from her for 75 years.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: My Secret Sister – Lauren Westwood

Nov 12, 2021Nov 10, 2021 ramblingmads

Two DNA tests, one big lie…
“As I speed off in the ambulance holding my daughter’s hand, I wonder how I could have been so stupid. I should have made the bargain, paid the price – anything to avoid being right here, right now.
A voice whispers in my head that I can’t silence. This is all your fault. You killed her. It’s her voice, the one I hear in my nightmares. The woman who stole my memories, the woman who stole my life.
And, this time, I know she’s right.”
How far would you go to save your child?
Claire is living every mother’s worst nightmare. Her daughter, Jess, has been diagnosed with a rare illness and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant. With no match on the registry, Claire turns to a charismatic geneticist for help and embarks on a Genetic Journey to seek a familial match for her daughter.
On the other side of the country, Marianne suffers her eighth miscarriage. Her perfect life is rotting underneath, but she is determined to do whatever it takes to have a baby.
When DNA test results reveal that Claire and Marianne are half-sisters, Claire must face the dark lies of the past and make impossible choices about the future. Is her secret sister the answer to her prayers, or will she cost her everything?
My Secret Sister is a tense and emotional family drama with a moral dilemma at its heart. Fans of Liane Moriarty, Jodi Picoult, and John Marrs’ The One will be gripped.
Purchase

My books explore the darkness and the light of the human spirit, and take you on an emotional journey. My Sister’s Secret is a tense and emotional drama about a mother’s race against time to save her daughter’s life. My Mother’s Silence is a gripping and romantic drama about homecoming and family secrets set in the wild Scottish highlands. It was shortlisted for the Jackie Collins Romantic Thriller Award 2020. The Daughter She Lost is a dark journey of self-discovery and overcoming the secrets of the past. My holiday romance Moonlight on the Thames is a love story to classical music and the healing power of love. It was a bestseller in urban fiction and top 100 Kindle book. My first three novels: Finding Home, Finding Secrets and Finding Dreams all feature mysterious old houses and intelligent, feisty contemporary heroines who set out to unravel the mysteries of the past. I also write award winning children’s books as Laurel Remington. I am originally from California, and now live in Surrey, UK with my partner and three daughters.

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My thoughts: I’m a bit dubious about these DNA ancestry websites and this book doesn’t make me any less sceptical. Maybe it’s because I worked on the admin side of a blood testing lab for a bit and know a little about how complicated DNA matching actually is, and how hard it can be to find a match, even when lives are at stake, so the idea a tiny cheek swab can tell you your entire family history makes me concerned.

In this case it throws up a lot of problems, both Claire and Marianne think they knew their dad, their family, and discovering they didn’t is a shock. In the end it isn’t the worst thing ever, but it takes time to get there and there are lots more lies, misunderstandings and heartbreak to get through first. Turns out their shared father is basically a terrible person, and not that great a dad or husband. Both women are already dealing with a lot. Claire’s youngest daughter has a rare life threatening disease, her eldest is struggling to find her place and Marianne’s dreams of being a mum appear to be all but over, and her marriage too.

What the two are going through are terrible things, but finding each other, even accidentally, might just be something good after all the sadness. Moving and shocking, this book is full of secrets and hardship but ultimately it’s about family.

*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: To The Lake – Yana Vagner, translated by Maria Wiltshire

Nov 11, 2021Nov 9, 2021 ramblingmads

A deadly flu epidemic sweeps through Moscow, killing hundreds of thousands. Anya and her husband Sergey decide they have no choice but to flee to a lake in the far north of Russia.

Joining them on their journey are her son and father-in-law; Sergey’s ex-wife and son; and their garish neighbours. But then some friends of Sergey show up to complete Anya’s list of people she’d least like to be left with at the end of the civilised world.

As the wave of infection expands from the capital, their food and fuel start to run low. Menaced both by the harsh Russian winter and by the desperate people they encounter, they must put their hatreds behind them if they’re to have a chance of reaching safety…

Inspired by a real-life flu epidemic in Moscow, To the Lake was a number one bestseller in Russia, and has now appeared in a dozen languages and been adapted into a Netflix TV series.

My thoughts: it took me a while to get into this book, I might be a bit pandemic fiction-ed out, but as I went on reading and Anya’s convoy went on driving across Russia, I got more into the story of these determined survivors crossing the snow in search of refuge.

You forget how vast Russia is, even though I’ve been there, I travelled from Moscow to St Petersburg on the sleeper train, completely unaware in the dark of the distance. There’s also 9 different timezones. The lake in question is not far from the Finnish border, which seems crazy when you look at a map, Russia is absolutely huge. It takes them 12 days, including a few stopped in a small summer cottage, to reach it. You can drive from one end of the UK to the other in less than 2.

Thankfully those 12 long days mean that a lot can happen in a book, interactions with people, friendly and not so, the farmer who rescues them from the snowdrift was kind and they behaved badly, which is a shame as they were “good people” in his eyes. I’m glad Anya made a canine friend, animals are always worth having around and he made he feel better. I felt bad for Mishka, wanting to be an adult and be with the men, but often treated like he’s still a child, like Dasha and Anton.

I’m not sure how well they’re all going to get along on the island, lots of personalities clashing, and Ira stirring up trouble because she’s still angry that Sergey left her. At least he came to get them and took her and Anton with them. Yes, I got very involved with the characters in a book again, it happens! And now I’m going to watch it on Netflix and see if the way the actors play the characters reflects the way I saw them when I was reading.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Fallen in Soura Heights – Amanda Jaeger

Nov 9, 2021Nov 7, 2021 ramblingmads

Fey Anderson has dreamt about Soura Heights and how picture-perfect it appears to be. What she never expected was for her husband’s body to be found in the forest. Determined to find out the truth behind his death, she moves there and finds herself weaving into the fabric of the small town.

But things aren’t always as they seem. As she learns more about Bruce’s “accident,” she unravels secrets about the town and its people she wishes she never learned. It’s all about survival in Soura Heights. Will Fey uncover what happened and bring justice for her husband, or will she be the next to fall?

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Amanda Jaeger has always had an interest in true crime, suspense, and mystery. As a long form copywriter, she has always had a hand in writing creatively for businesses to boost their income. She’s the wife of her college sweetheart and the mother of two spit-fire girls, but she’s also been a sign language interpreter, transcriptionist, and a book slinger. Working with words isn’t her job, it’s her career. Now, she uses her knowledge and experience in engaging an audience and applies it into her author career, crafting suspense and mystery to keep readers on the edge of their seats. Residing in Virginia, you can bet on Amanda listening to true crime podcasts, watching cold case documentaries, and playing with her kids. (Not simultaneously.) Website Goodreads Instagram Twitter

My thoughts: this felt like a grown up Little Red Riding Hood with its “stay out of the forest and don’t stray from the path” warning. Fey is vulnerable and young, at only 20 she’s just lost her husband, high school sweetheart, Bruce and has moved to Soura Heights to investigate his death. Swept under the wing of Frankie, the local diner owner, she’s not making much progress in solving Bruce’s death. But there’s definitely something weird going on.

Dealing with grief in fiction can be hard, but Fey’s listlessness and constant memories help the reader understand her pain, she’s drifting through her life and trying to survive each day as it comes, surrounded by people she doesn’t know that well, and with only a potted fern for company.

Her obsession with and fear of the forest grows as the anniversary of Bruce’s death, and her birthday, approaches. Frankie’s overzealous insistence on a birthday surprise, a treat, should maybe have triggered a few concerns but Fey just plods along. When she learns the truth however, she’s galvanised into action. She can’t bring Bruce back but she can change the future for herself and others. An intriguing modern horror story featuring the one thing humans have always feared – the forest and the things that dwell within.

*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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Tag: contemporary fiction

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Blog Tour: The Fallen in Soura Heights – Amanda Jaeger