Category: Adult Fiction

‘Then She Was Gone’ – Lisa Jewell

Laurel Mack has a seemingly perfect life. Loving husband, three beautiful children and a sense of enjoyment. Then her youngest daughter, Ellie, doesn’t come home one day and the family are launched into a nightmare that has some considerable impact, even years later.

When we’re introduced to Laurel it’s ten years since her daughter went missing. The family have split and she has become a shadow of the woman she was. Then she meets Floyd in a cafe and things seem to be looking up.

Not surprisingly, things are not what they seem. When she’s introduced to Floyd’s younger daughter, Poppy, Laurel cannot get over the similarity between her and Ellie.

As a reader I felt I was a little ahead of the characters. The key plot details were signalled, and at times I wondered whether things really would take the turn I expected. Often, they did.

As we start to unearth details – not long after Ellie’s bones are discovered – we gain a new narrative voice and this helps delay the inevitable, creating tension that we expect but also welcome.

Some of the details surrounding the key players felt unnecessary. They often felt like an attempt to misdirect or divert our attention from what we really wanted to focus on.

‘Normal People’ – Sally Rooney

When Connell and Marianne first meet they are in school, and their lives are worlds apart. There is, however, an attraction between them and though nothing is ever shared with classmates they start a relationship (of sorts).

Each is messed up in their own way. They’re lost and wanting something. Neither really knows what, but we watch them go through time in this on/off relationship.

At varying times each finds someone else. Through university the pair maintain this relationship, but as we learn more about their backgrounds some of their quirks become a little more understandable.

Perhaps this will resonate with some, but I found the self-consciousness of the writing a little off-putting and it was, at heart, quite a miserable read. I can see how the soul-searching might appeal to some, but life is too short to waste on such a miserable situation.

‘This Child of Ours’ – Sadie Pearse

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a topical and thought-provoking read.

Riley is seven and a strong character. At the start of the book a long time is spent showing us how cosy and (dare I say it) comfortably middle-class her parents are. They were even a little irritating. However, when she announces that she wants to be a boy, so many things are questioned and the parents veer into unknown territory.

Do they support Riley in what is expressed, or, at seven, should they keep things ‘normal’ until their child is older and better able to understand the consequences of their actions?

There’s no escaping that this has no answers. Who’s to say what you do for the best in such a situation? I’m sure some readers will be outraged that the parents take the actions they do and others will be horrified by the bigoted response of certain characters.

I don’t think this is something anyone expects to deal with, but it was certainly something that encouraged me to look at a range of views and consider why each felt as they did. I felt that Riley’s behaviour at the end made it all rather easy and I don’t think some of these experiences would go as they do in the novel. Still, a timely look at a subject that many will have strong views on.

‘The Roanoke Girls’ – Amy Engel

A tricky book to review as so much about it is horrid – subject matter, characters and the environment described – but it is done in a way that draws you in.

Lane is a teenager when she first goes to Roanoke to live with her grandparents and cousin, Allegra. Upset from the suicide of her mother Lane struggles to feel comfortable in this new environment, but she seems to blossom under the care of her grandfather, the attention of her cousin and the excitement of her relationship with local bad boy, Cooper.

When we meet Lane she is an adult, and has not been to Roanoke for some years. We don’t know why, but over time we get some answers. They’re hard to read, particularly as we unearth some of the mysteries surrounding the infamous Roanoke girls. Alongside this we have the mystery of Lane’s disappearance.

I don’t want to reveal too much of the book as it’s definitely more impactful if you don’t know what’s coming. The characters – even our main character – are not likeable and yet I came to like Lane more as I realised what she’d loved with/the background to her story.

‘Vox’ – Christina Dalcher

‘Vox’ is being heralded as ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ for a new generation. If that’s the push people need to pick this up then so be it., as this is a book that really should be read. By everyone.

Dr Jean McLellan is an eminent neuroscientist. She has her personal flaws but in her career she was at the forefront of studies into the brain and how it’s impacted by illness. I use the past tense because when we meet Dr Jean her role has been drastically reduced, like that of many women.

In this America women are no longer part of the work force. Their role is to nurture children and keep the home. Their rights have – as we learn in bits and pieces – been eradicated. This alone was enough to anger me, but the fact their voices are taken away was jaw-dropping. Each female wears a wrist counter. It allows them 100 words a day. 100!

The fact that nobody openly questions this tells us just how different things are in this imagined world.

The premise of this story was absorbing. I particularly liked the way we learn how such a situation came into being. Like so many periods in history where such things happen it’s always easy to look on in hindsight and question the actions of those alive at the time. Sadly, Dalcher paints all too vivid a picture of how this came to pass.

The story was chilling as we come to understand just what is at risk here. A timely reminder of the need to question decisions made by those in power.

Thank you NetGalley for granting me access to this prior to publication.

‘The Tall Man’ – Phoebe Locke

Thank you NetGalley for letting me read my oddest of 2018 so far.

There were issues with my ARC – parts of text missing or disordered – and this meant there was some inevitable confusion as I tried to keep fixed who was the focus/what was happening. Those issues fixed, I think this will be the kind of read you’ll either fall hook, line and sinker for or you’ll be ambivalent about. I, sadly, was somewhere in between.

For me, the start of the story was not quite there. We’re expected to fall for The Tall Man story but without really being given enough detail to justify such a reaction. Throughout, the supposedly creepy references to this mythical figure felt forced. I never felt I had enough to substantiate this, feeling it was always something of a smokescreen for another story.

Some reviewers have commented on the fragmented nature of the setting. This is disconcerting on occasion, but it does make sense as we learn more about Sophie, Miles and their daughter, Amber, as she is being followed by a film crew for a documentary about a murder. Certain details hint at there being more to certain characters and the events unfolding, but it’s not until later that we get to piece everything together.

‘The Last Time I Lied’ – Riley Sager

A complex multi-layered story that shifts from present to past seamlessly as we uncover the mystery surrounding Camp Nightingale.

15 years prior to our story, Emma was a camper at Camp Nightingale. Forced to room with older students she is taken under the wing of Vivian and her friends. For the short time she is at the camp Emma is intrigued by Vivian and her obsession with the game Two Truths and a Lie. There is something compelling about the girls’ need to twist the truth, and how they manipulate those around them to suit their needs and interests.

When our story begins Emma is a painter of some renown. She is well-known for a series of paintings. Unfortunately, this series is borne from Emma’s need to make sense of the events that happened many years earlier when the girls disappeared from the camp. She hints at hiding things and we are never entirely sure to what extent she may or may not have been involved in the disappearance of Vivian, Allison and  Natalie.

As we watch her return to camp to teach the students there, it’s clear that there are many secrets in this place. Emma gets caught up in a potentially deadly game as she tries to establish what happened. She wonders why there is a security camera trained on her dorm, who is watching her in the shower and what the hidden clues left by Vivian all those years ago may or may not mean.

The shifting time scale means we’re never certain who’s hiding what, or what piece of information has been left out. Slowly getting to know the girls was an intriguing process. It was an interesting idea to replicate the set-up with the girls in the present time. Using this derivative plot for the present makes perfect sense once we know a little more of what’s happening.

Personally I’d have liked to know a little more about exactly what prompted certain actions but the story was well-executed and I was never certain how much our narrator was to be trusted.

Thank you NetGalley for providing access to this. A great read.

‘February’ by Lisa Moore

In 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland during a Valentine’s Day storm. All eighty-four men aboard died. February is the story of Helen O’Mara, one of those left behind when her husband, Cal, drowns on the rig. It begins in the present-day, more than twenty-five years later, but spirals back again and again to the “February” that persists in Helen’s mind and heart.

In ‘February’ we follow Helen at various points in her life, but the whole story seems to pivot on the moment of the rig collapsing.

We see her in the present, in her role as grandmother, as a young woman and as a wife whose husband is one of the many killed when the oil rig he is working on collapses.

At times, the story felt like rummaging through one of those memory boxes. Some recollections were more vivid than others – and it was only Helen and her son, John, who really felt clearly portrayed – but the events recollected combine to form a picture of one woman and her life.

What was evident throughout this story is that Helen is not, in many ways, a remarkable woman. She lives her life and deals with what life throws at her with stoicism, but throughout we are given a picture of resilience and strength.

This is not a fast-moving story, rather ideas are unravelled and we slowly come to understand this character.

‘Only Child’ – Rhiannon Navin

After finishing this I was reminded of the cliché ‘out of the mouths of babes’…

Part of me wishes stories about school shootings were not such high-profile at the moment but, with recent events in America, it seems to be a problem that is not going away. This will not be a book for everyone. The topic is hard to read about, and there’s an element of earnestness to the message that doesn’t sit comfortably with me.

Our story begins with first grader Zach hiding with his teacher and classmates in the closet. He recounts the reactions of those around him as he listens to the repetitive pop-pop-pop sound that signals a gunman has entered the building.

From the outset we are placed in the middle of what must be a terrifying experience. For anyone. Zach’s youth and innocence mean we are seeing this through very different eyes and it’s hard to take. I sighed with relief as Zach and his classmates are escorted out of the building. This didn’t last long.

As Zach is collected by his mum we learn that his older brother, Andy, is missing. From this point onwards the pain level is hiked up.

Sadly, Andy is one of the victims. Through Zach’s eyes we watch how this event shatters and tears apart the family.

Zach has, at times, a voice just that little too adult and knowing. I can’t picture many six/seven year olds articulating some of their thoughts in the way he does. However, his observations of the family and those around them as they exist in the months afterwards are telling.

The child-narrator means we miss some of the details we’d like to know. Much of what Zach experiences is either directly related to him or gleaned from half-heard conversations. But what we get is enough.

By the end of the novel – perhaps because it would be simply too depressing otherwise – we are given signs that things may settle down with the family. There is hope.

Unfortunately, the question of the shooter, how he has access to the guns and how steps could be taken to prevent such events happening are never explored. They can’t feasibly be in this (probably not questions a seven year old would dwell on/even raise unless repeating things said around them), but it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this prior to my publication. I’m sure readers’ “prayers and thoughts” will be with all the characters in this fictional story – as they are every time another school shooting takes place – but, ultimately, that changes nothing.

‘The Girl in the Tower’ – Katherine Arden

The magical adventure begun in The Bear and the Nightingalecontinues as brave Vasya, now a young woman, is forced to choose between marriage or life in a convent and instead flees her home—but soon finds herself called upon to help defend the city of Moscow when it comes under siege.

After a very slow start (the first part I’m afraid was a slog), we catch up with Vasya and follow her on her reckless journey.

Having run from home Vasya is disguised as a boy and travelling the country. She gets caught up in all manner of political intrigue, but from the moment she reappeared in the story I couldn’t put the book down.

There’s a wonderful blend of political and fairy-tale, and Arden’s focus on the supernatural lends a real charm to the story even when she is focusing on deeply unpleasant elements. There was something magical about the characters Vasya encounters with her willingness to see beyond the confines placed on people by society.

From part two onwards this story zipped along and built to a dramatic climax. I didn’t want it to end.