Category: Fiction

‘Weyward’ – Emilia Hart

Three Weyward women: Altha, Violet and Kate. Separated by time, but linked by blood. Both victims and survivors, these women share a bond.

Altha, a healer, was on trial for witchcraft. Violet, raped at sixteen by a family cousin and disowned by her father. Her only solace the insects that so fascinate her. Kate, in the present, escaping an abusive relationship. She flees to Crows Beck, a remote Cumbrian cottage left to her by her eccentric great-aunt Violet. Upon her arrival she starts to unearth her family history.

Multiple points of view can be distracting, but these blended almost seamlessly. With interwoven elements it was fascinating to read about each woman and to see their growing personalities as they each challenge the expectations of their time.

While it’s infuriating to see the ongoing issues women who do not conform to society’s expectations face, I feel that the author focuses on the developing strength of each woman and growing courage to stand firm in her own identity. I adored the way nature was presented here, in each time period.

This is part of a growing trend in books focusing on witches and exploring womens’ identity. While the character of Kate is presented as the one who is uncovering the family history and the one who may be seen by a contemporary audience as most sympathetically presented, I found Violet and Altha the characters who most caught my interest. Their stories, sadly, may have been common and I – like Kate – was eager to learn more about the two women who took on the patriarchy in their own ways.

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

‘She is a Haunting’ – Trang Than Tran

I’m grateful to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this prior to publication. It was a very different reading experience for me, focusing as it did on Vietnamese culture and it required quite a lot of focus to keep track of who was who at key moments. There were some formatting issues which leads me to believe some elements were rather lost.

Even after finishing, I’ll confess to not being entirely sure how to talk about this book. It was truly a book that unsettled me and the content definitely made me a little squeamish on occasion. I can’t say I enjoyed reading it, but it evoked such a reaction that I feel it’s a book I may return to.

The basic story focuses on Jade being manipulated into spending the summer with her father in Vietnam so that he will support her university costs. Upon arrival, her discomfort in this environment is evident. However, little details given then indicate that her discomfort may have a more supernatural element. Her father’s home seems to be haunted.

As we follow Jade through this experience, we see that her relationships with family are at the heart of the story. The haunting also serves as a timely way to introduce talk of colonisation and to explore attitudes to race and culture. While I have to say I know little of this era/place, it was certainly a fascinating read.

 

‘Becky’ – Sarah May

Having no knowledge of Vanity Fair (another classic I feel that I should have read but have never got round to) it’s hard to pass comment on the success of this modern retelling.

In ‘Becky’ our main character is journalist Becky Sharp. Determined to escape her home-town and poor childhood, Becky wants to be noticed. A quick learner, Becky is adept at getting what she wants. We follow her through her rise through the ranks, to her ultimate involvement in some murky events that bring many of her contemporaries (and her) down.

From the details we get it’s clear that Becky is a character who is ruthless in her quest to make a better life. She is used to using situations and people to her advantage. While these are unpleasant qualities, as we learn more about her life and see those around her I found myself less judgmental.

I’m unsure about the character who seems to be regarded by many as the heroine of the original, Amelia. In this she was insipid, we saw little of her to be able to really form an opinion of her and she did little to suggest she was there as anything other than to show an alternative to the behaviours exhibited by Becky. For all her faults, Becky was a much more interesting character.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this. And now I suppose I should think about reading the original!

 

‘Hex’ – Jenni Fagan

It’s 1591. Fifteen year old Geillis Duncan is imprisoned, several floors below Edinburgh’s High Street. Accused of being a witch, Geillis is about to be killed for the crime she has been accused of. During the course of her last night, Geillis is visited by Iris, a visitor in the shape of a crow who claims to be a woman from the future and sympathetic to Geillis.

Over the course of her last night we hear Geillis recount the story of how she came to be in prison. It is an age-old story of jealousy and persecution of something unknown/different. The story of her arrest, brutal torture and forced confession is appalling…and I felt incredibly angry reading it.

For such a slim book this packs a powerful punch. It is more powerful for the fact that hundreds of years later we see similar tales of persecution and injustice. A warning tale of the dangers of being ruled by fear, and I would love to see extracts used alongside ‘Macbeth’ to offer students another view of the supernatural and contemporary views of women in power.

 

‘The Cloisters’ – Katy Hays

A coming-of-age story with a dark undercurrent reminiscent of The Secret History.

Ann Stilwell has moved to New York to take up a research post. Upon her arrival she learns the post no longer exists, but a chance meeting sees her seconded to The Cloisters, a gothic museum. Under the tutelage of the curator, Patrick, Ann is tasked with research. What she is looking for is not immediately apparent, but it is linked to ideas about fortune and fate.

Drawn slowly into this world of academia, it’s evident that nobody is quite what they seem. Ann’s curiosity soon becomes obsessive and it is clear that her unexpected discovery is going to become something significant. She is warned about Rachel, the graduate who takes her under her wing. But it soon becomes clear that Ann is not quite the naive ingénue she depicts herself as.

A slow burner. The atmosphere builds slowly, developing in a very unexpected way. I found myself rather open-moved at the revelation about Ann very near the end of the book, but this then helps to explain a particularly unexpected course of action.

I’m grateful to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this prior to publication and look forward to sampling more by this debut author.

 

‘Becoming Ted’ – Matt Cain

I always take it as a sign of a great read when I’ve never read anything by the author beforehand and then find myself checking out their other titles and thinking about reading them before I’ve finished the book in question. This was my first Matt Cain read, and I’m so grateful to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this. It certainly won’t be my last!

A coming-of-age story with a difference. Tender, heartwarming and genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, Becoming Ted is a story that needs to be told.

Ted works in his family’s ice-cream business. He hates ice-cream. He has been happily (he thinks) married for decades and is shocked when his husband says he’s found another man and wants to split up. Such a period of upheaval would derail most people, but this begins a period of growth where Ted reflects on himself and his relationships before starting to live a life true to himself.

We follow Ted as he learns what makes him happy, finds a new love and works out what to do about his family and the pressure he feels to stay in a business he hates.

There’s a large assortment of characters, a thoughtful examination of attitudes to homosexuality over time and an interesting insight into the process of drag. Occasionally some events/interactions seem a little contrived, but this was a story that it’s hard not to open your heart to. Is it wrong to say I’d love to see this as a movie?

‘Austenland’ – Shannon Hale

I’m really not sure what to make of this. I picked up Austenland as it fulfilled a prompt for the 2023 PopSugar challenge, and I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have read it otherwise.

Much as I like Austen, the thought of people being so obsessed with her works that they will pay to take part in an immersive Regency experience seems odd. Jane is a successful woman, living in New York, but she is presented as lacking something because of her infatuation with Colin Firth as Mr Darcy. When a relative dies, the one thing she leaves in her will is a paid trip for Jane to Austenland.

What follows is just bizarre. Jane and other paying guests spend their days living as the kind of characters Austen would focus on. There are many rules, and Jane finds this hard to manage. Determined to not be a cliché she ends up acting in a way that marks her as the very character she’s determined not to be.

There is a love interest, but it felt a little contrived (perhaps because it wasn’t clear what was performance and what was real). So, not quite what I expected but an entertaining enough read.

 

‘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.