Category: Adult Fiction

‘Sad Cypress’ – Agatha Christie

A mystery that breaks the unwritten rules that mean we should be able to work out the truth if we’re paying attention. In this Poirot story, he plays his cards close to his chest and only reveals a key detail at the latter stages. Frustrating at the time of reading, but a nice change from the other Christie books I’ve read.

The story itself centres around Elinor Carlisle who is on trial for the murder of Mary Gerrard, a young woman befriended by Elinor’s late aunt. Elinor’s fiancé, Roddy, travelled down with her to visit their aunt, sees Mary and falls in love with her. The suggestion is that Elinor, wracked with jealousy, poisoned the object of her fiancé’s blossoming affections.

The truth is far simpler (and stranger).

Sad Cypress is organised into three distinct parts. We begin with an introduction to the characters and their situation. The second part focuses on Poirot’s casual interrogation of the key players. Finally, we have the trial, evidence and eventual revelation of the crime. Very distinct sections, and it did feel rather slow.

 

‘The Snowstorm’ – Triona Walsh

I was able to read and review this thanks to NetGalley.
A remote Aran island. A storm cutting the island off from the outside world. Six friends gather to mark the anniversary of a terrible tragedy that changed them all, and one of them is found dead. The killer was someone on the island, so it’s up to Garda Cara to try to work out what happened.
I like a locked-room story as much as anyone. Unfortunately, our locked room was an island so the tension was somewhat dissipated by the comings and goings, and endless scenes involving a search of yet another potential site of interest.
The group of friends consists of Cara, the outsider whose position is reinforced by her job, and her childhood friends. Each of them has their history and this is exploited as Cara tries to work out who killed her best friend, Maura.
While the story sounded tense, the pacing of the story was not quite what I thought. Events took a while to unfold, the additional characters muddied the water and delayed the truth being discovered, and the resolution felt like something that would have been known on some level a lot earlier. I found the characterisation of all but Cara quite superficial, and I always felt as if something was being held back.
There were some evocative descriptions of the storm, and I found the creation of the environment in which the story took place quite intriguing. The inclusion of two languages is integral to the book, though this in itself started to feel like another detail included simply to serve a point later on.

 

‘Still Alice’ – Lisa Genova

Still Alice tells the story of Harvard Professor Alice Howland. Published author, celebrated scholar, trusted professor…as she approaches fifty she starts to become increasingly disorientated and forgetful. Always used to being busy, she sees this as part of her lifestyle and a warning to slow down. Thinking she may be menopausal she goes to her doctor for advice.

Then Alice is told she has early onset Alzheimer’s.

Told from her perspective – which becomes increasingly vague as she degenerates – there is no doubt that this book highlights the cruelty of Alzheimer’s. At any age this is a horrible disease to watch progress, and it’s particularly scary in the way it’s presented in someone who has a clear neurological advantage over many.

Watching Alice slowly withdraw from everything that made her who she was felt tough. Seeing the way her family responded to her illness felt authentic, and it is a definite emotional ride.

This is certainly a story that sticks. I was frustrated by the ending, though I’m not sure I’d have enjoyed reading further into Alice’s decline. It was good to see some of her wishes fulfilled, and be left to wonder what came next.

 

‘The Ex Hex’ – Erin Sterling

At the age of nineteen Vivienne falls hard for Rhys, and is devastated when he tells her that his father expects him to marry someone of his choosing. Though she is a witch, she believes she has no powers and is amused by the curse she places on her ex.

Unfortunately, years later Rhys has to return to the town to carry out part of some ritual. Upon his arrival it’s clear that the strange accidents taking place around him are not something he has experienced before. The curse seems to have worked, but only if he’s in the town where Vivienne lives.

What follows is a rather mixed bag. They have to work together to defeat the curse, and along the way be honest about their feelings. We watch their attempts, some of which work better than others.

This was a romance with a little extra, but I’d hope that this element could be more developed.

 

‘How to Fake it in Hollywood’ – Ava Wilder

Two Hollywood actors – one TV fodder and one A-list – have their reasons for needing their career kickstarted, so when their publicist comes up with the plan for them to fake-date they’re willing to go along with it. What neither Grey nor Ethan realise is that this will be the start of something very special…
From the outset it’s clear these two are going to hit it off. However, this was no lightweight romcom…there’s plenty of baggage on both sides and a fair amount of angst to work through.
I enjoyed the verbal sparring between these two. There was chemistry between them, but the best moments came when they were working through things. There’s a fairly big cast of additional characters, some of whom were discarded once their part was played, and I do feel that some of the bigger issues being faced by these two were rather overlooked.
All in all, an entertaining read that delivered what it promised.

 

‘Learning to Swim’ – Clare Chambers

Families are a funny thing. You never know what goes on behind closed doors, and never has this been more true than in the story of Abigail Jex (née Onions) and her memories of her childhood friend Frances Radley.

Abigail, when we meet her, is a cellist in an established orchestra and it is not until she attends an after show party and is introduced to Marcus Radley that we start to get a glimpse into the life of this young woman. When she was younger, Abigail was reserved and had few friends. An only child she was serious and had little in common with her peers. Then we are told of her fledgling friendship with the new girl, Frances.

Before we know it Abigail has found herself taken under the wing of this family. She is in awe of Frances’ brother, Marcus (known only as Rad), and finds herself subsumed into the daily lives of the Radley family. As an honorary member of the family she is privy to much of their daily life, but some of the intricacies are lost on her.

While we get to glimpse this family from the outside, we also see into the life of Abigail and her family. Nothing is quite what eleven year old Abigail realised, and we watch as she slowly becomes aware of the shifting nature of her relationships. There are moments of beauty as Abigail observes these colourful characters, never quite realising the significance of some of her interactions. As she grows up and realises how fragile some of these relationships are we watch Abigail mature. The focus really is on Abigail’s shifting relationship to those around her, and though the plot was a little rushed towards the end it had a hopeful quality to it that I found quite endearing.

 

‘Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone’ – Benjamin Stevenson

As soon as I saw the title while bookstore browsing, I was intrigued. This is the kind of book that won’t necessarily be one I’ll rave about but it was darkly humorous and cleverly put together.

The story itself focuses on a decades-old crime and a rather common situation. However, when we begin it’s fair to say that the links between this past crime and the present are not apparent.

Ernest Cunningham is something of a fan of crime books. He has got used to life as one of the Cunninghams, a family that have had their share of hard luck. However, when we’re told that every member of the family has killed someone I couldn’t help but wonder what we were about to get. The truth is not something you’d easily come to, so it’s best to sit back and enjoy the ride.

From the moment we know Erin was caught up in a shooting and that he is sitting on several hundred thousand dollars for his brother I really couldn’t have guessed where this would end up. As the bodies pile up and we start to learn exactly who the mysterious body at this holiday resort is, I was desperate to learn exactly what had happened.

 

‘The Wilderness Retreat’ – Jennifer Moore

The Wilderness Retreat takes place in a remote Swedish setting. Bella is treated to a luxury stay at the retreat by her sister to help her cope with the sense of loss after dropping her teenage son off at university. We sense her unease from the outset, and as she is introduced to the other guests it appears there are tensions between them. When the bombshell of another guest is dropped on the group, we are privy to the fact that this is the father of Bella’s child.

Watching Bella unravel was a rather slow process. The first half of the book focused on introducing the characters and creating a general sense of unease. Slowly, we are told of other events that are throwing Bella off her stride but it’s hard to tell whether these are genuine threats or Bella’s own fears manifesting in other ways.

As things start to build up we can sense there’s more to this story. However, at this point things felt clunky and somewhat manufactured. When we are finally told the truth of what’s happening then it becomes a lot more obvious just how heavy-handed some of these hints were. This was a book that had promise, but which (for me at least) ultimately failed to deliver.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this prior to publication.

 

‘This Time Tomorrow’ – Emma Straub

My third book of the new year, and this was much more like it!

This Time Tomorrow has forty year old Alice as its protagonist. She doesn’t feel as if she has done much with her life, and regrets not having her life sorted in the way she envisaged it being. She misses her father – the eccentric novelist who wrote a celebrated novel about time travel – and with him asleep in a hospital bed Alice is not sure if she will ever get the chance to speak with him again.

Context is everything, and at the heart of the novel is Alice’s changing relationship with her father. So it is not really surprising when events take place that result in Alice travelling back in time to the morning of her sixteenth birthday.

Her initial return to the past is explored in great detail, and it was fascinating to see Alice explore the various strands of her life and to make little changes to see how this might impact on her life in the present. However, we soon learn that Alice will have the ability to return to this day when she chooses – as long as the initial conditions are met – and this brings its own problems.

As Alice tinkers with the details of her life/lives, she has to work out which elements are the things she wants and which she would be happy to lose. While it might have been interesting to see these attempts in more detail, the number of times Alice clearly tried this was emphasised by the scant details given about each occasion. Her inability to alter the one thing that she clearly wanted to change was poignant, and led to an emotional resolution.

This Time Tomorrow is certainly a book that I would recommend to others, though I think it will be more satisfying to readers who have already had to start thinking about some of the issues raised within its pages.

 

‘Yellowface’ – R.F. Kuang

Though I have a number of books by Kuang on my TBR pile, this seemed an interesting one to start off my 2023 reading with. Yellowface is a book that explores the publishing industry and its intricacies. I’m not sure how realistic it is, but this definitely seems to be a book written by someone who has, perhaps, had to grapple with some of the dilemmas posed here.

Our main character, Juniper Song Hayward, has always wanted to be a writer. She has been published, but has had nothing like the success of her friend Athena Liu. There seems to be some professional jealousy on Juniper’s side but because Athena dies early on, we never really get to see anyone else’s view.

When Athena suffers her freak accident, Juniper is with her. She tries to save her, to no avail, but she also leaves Athena’s apartment with a first draft of a manuscript for her latest novel. For reasons that are never satisfactorily explained, Juniper uses the draft and rewrites elements of it, passing it off as her own. It seems she’ll get away with it…at least at first.

The publication of Juniper’s latest novel causes problems. Rumours of plagiarism follow her, but more damning is the fact that a white woman has written about something she has no experience of.

Once we enter into the territory of authorship and narrative voice, I honestly found myself feeling as if everyone else was in on a joke that I hadn’t quite understood. The narrative became acutely aware of how it would be perceived and I was never sure what was the writer’s voice/commentary on the issues and what was the view of the character. By the end it felt as if the plot was tying itself in knots as it tried to set up something far cleverer than was needed for the occasion.

From the reviews of Kuang’s other novels I understand this is something of a departure for her. In some ways that’s good because this didn’t quite hit the mark for me, and I had been really looking forward to reading Babel. I might opt for something in between, though I’m grateful to NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this prior to publication.