AN IMAGANITIVE EXPERIENCE by Mary Wesley

Ever since reading 'The Chamomile Lawn', probably Mary Wesley's most well known book, I have actively sought out her other books. She had quite a life, and when she came to begin her career as a novelist in her seventies, there sure was a lot of life to draw upon for her story telling and her characters. Her stories centre primarily on a female, usually young, who has not had an easy road through life - orphaned, abused, depressed, pregnant. You get the picture. They are all feisty, trying to look after themselves, fight their way through the life circumstance they find themselves in. Her characters are richly and  gorgeously drawn, not all of them are nice people, but the nice ones are the types of characters who gradually wriggle themselves under your skin. The baddies generally stay that way!

So this novel, first published in 1994, is just as intriguing, off beat, and finally comforting as her other novels. It centres on Julia Piper, a young woman who first draws attention to herself when she pulls the automatic brake on a train so she can dash out and rescue a sheep she has seen lying on its back in a passing field. Two people on the train take a special interest in this young woman whose face seems full of tragedy and has brought the train to a standstill - Sylvester Weekes, a publisher going through a nasty marriage break up; and Maurice Benson, ex-private detective now bird watcher, and general busy body. One has honourable intentions, and the other doesn't. From such a bizarre incident, the paths of these three inevitably cross, and the story behind Julia's sheep rescue gradually unfolds.

Betrayal features in so many of Mary Wesley's books, and it is a dominant theme here.  But also of hope, overcoming the adversity of broken lives, healing, and finding new life within yourself and with others. It is typical Mary Wesley, and why I love her books so much. 

THE LAKE HOUSE by Kate Morton

The present meets the past in a most unlikely coincidence of events in this recent novel by the latest most successful Australian author you may not have heard of. Like me. Looking at her profile, that her books have sold more than 10 million world wide, and that she has been on the New York Times bestseller lists four times, it seems fairly obvious I have missed something. So I was very much looking forward to getting myself lost in this novel, set like so many of her previous novels, somewhere in Cornwall. Cornwall would appear to be not the only common factor - in her past novels, there is a mystery of some sort surrounding people who live/have lived in said Cornwall, often something/someone abandoned, a family link from the present to the past, and a modern day character, usually female, going through some sort of crisis who ends up reconciling or solving whatever the mystery may be. A winning formula, and fully embraced in this latest novel.

Ms Morton is a master at weaving her plot, the many strands, threads and tenuous links that keep the reader involved and constantly wondering what the next reveal will be. The opening pages, in August 1933, have a female traipsing through mud and rain in the early dawn, digging a hole with a spade, burying a box in it, and covering the evidence. Well, if that doesn't set a scene for a mystery, then I don't know what will!

The many faceted plot essentially focuses on two people. Alice Edevane, now very elderly and living in London is a prolific and successful writer of whodunnits. Alice has never got over the disappearance of her 11 month old brother Theo at a midsummer's eve party in June 1933. The party was at her family's historical country house in Cornwall. She suspects who was involved in the disappearance but with no body or evidence of foul play ever turning up, this is actually the biggest mystery of her life. Seventy years after the disappearance, Sadie Sparrow, a young woman detective, is going through a particularly difficult time in her work. On leave visiting her grandfather in Cornwall, she stumbles upon the old house, now derelict and deserted. Her detective brain immediately senses that something happened here, and she takes it upon herself to solve the long standing mystery of the disappearing child.

The plot development, with its red herrings, taking the reader up the garden path and back down again is superbly done - it really and truly is a mystery, and many many pages are read as each twist and turn is fully explored, then either discarded or put into the memory bank for later use. And so you keep turning the pages, to find out what happened to this family way back in June 1933. Alice was sixteen, a young girl of enormous intellect and imagination passionately in love with Ben the  gardener,  her elder sister Deborah is about to be engaged, younger sister the free spirited Clemmie, and of course baby Theo. Their parents are Eleanor and Anthony who are doing their utmost to deal with the fallout of Anthony's WWI experiences in France - clearly post traumatic stress, but of course undiagnosed and not fully understood at that time. And there are other characters too who were part of the household who may or may not be equally implicated in the baby's disappearance. Like the novels that Alice writes, her life has also been a big whodunnit.

As well as the post war trauma theme, the loss of a child is a recurring theme. Not only with the disappearance of young Theo, but also still birth, adoption, child abandonment, what a mother will do to protect her child, and what happens to a mother in the protection of her child. These themes are sensitively and honestly handled, and all lend credence to the story line.

However for me, there were elements of disappointment. Firstly the cover, as beautiful and enticing as it is, has nothing to do with the story. And I am always a little suspicious of covers with the author's name in bigger and bolder font than the book's title. Secondly it is way too long - 591 pages: not just from a physical point of view of lying in bed and holding this thing up/open, but also from a content point of view. It could easily be a 150 plus pages shorter and nothing would be lost in the story telling or mystery solving by doing so. The major problem for me, however is how neatly and tidily everything is resolved at the end. For a narrative with so many twists and turns, possibilities and unexpecteds, the ending was a big anti climax, albeit unexpected in itself. And so I shut this book with a frustrating big bang and thought well, after 591 pages of tension and expectation, this was just too happily ever after for words.

But if you are looking for a great holiday read by the pool/beach/lake,  this will do very nicely. Take a lectern or book stand though so you don't get strained wrists from holding it up and open.

THE NIGHTINGALE By Kristen Hannah

Extraordinarily excellent book, must be one of the best I have read all year. So many novels have been written in recent years set against the background of WWII and the ordinary people who suffered, survived, and  retained their humanity against all odds and the brutality of the Nazi regime. Ordinary people who did extraordinary things. And here we have another truly amazing novel that will completely grip you, wring you out emotionally. Two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle Rossignol (French for nightingale), have lived quite separate lives due to the death of their mother when they were children. Vianne has married her childhood sweetheart who has left to fight, and with her young daughter they live in a town in Nazi controlled France. Her war involves basically staying alive, having to fight off starvation, losing neighbours and friends to deportations, while also having to billet Nazi officers. Her sister Isabelle has quite a different war, finding her calling working in the Resistance, and risking her life every hour of her waking hours. It is marvellous stuff, I can't recommend this book highly enough - suspense, betrayal, love, tragedy, the whole package. Well paced, great plot development, imperfect and real characters with great humanity who never give up hope. I do have one criticism - the author mentions in her introduction that the catalyst for her novel was reading about a young woman who created an escape route across the Pyrenees for allied airmen. I really think she should have said who this woman was - I wonder if it was Nancy Wake - the White Mouse who was on Hitler's wanted list. If her story is based on real people, then I think the author is honour bound and almost obligated to name them so a to ensure that their memory is revered and remembered. It wouldn't have taken much for her to name, thank and revere these people who did so much, and more often than not died for their actions.

THE STORY OF A NEW NAME by Elena Ferrante

My word, this woman can write. I was fairly luke warm about part one in the four part Neapolitan Novels - My Brilliant Friend, but this one, the second novel in the series, has converted me to the brilliance of her writing and her story telling. Picking up where My Brilliant Friend finished - Lila's wedding - we are immediately thrust into the rest of the reception.  The two childhood friends are now 16, and this novel covers much of the next ten years in their lives. As much a story about friendship and growing up as a story of the savagery of the society they  live in, it really is gripping reading. Both girls are struggling to break out of the poor, downtrodden, violent community they have been born into, finding different ways and means, not always successful. The book is huge, and really over the ten years there is not a great deal of plot. But what is so stunning is the author's, and it also has to be said her translator's, skill and uncanny ability to dig deep into the souls of her characters. Books three and four also look like whoppers, and no doubt will be just as grim, but riveting reading as this one. 

THE PRETENDER'S LADY by Alan Gold

"Her name will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour." So wrote the famous diarist and biographer  James Boswell of his compatriot Flora MacDonald, the never to be forgotten heroine of Scotland for her single handed role in the perilous escape of  Bonnie Prince Charlie from the clutches of the rampaging English. 

What a woman - born 1722 in the Scottish Hebrides, her life is well documented. Her passion for a Scotland free from the iron grip of the English led her into many adventures and many troubles - not just risking her life to save the Prince, but also spending time locked up in the Tower of London on a charge of treason. In the 1770s she lived for a time in North Carolina with her husband and children, only to be caught up in the War of Independence, and then surviving a raid by pirates on the return journey to Scotland. By any account she was an extraordinary woman, and her legendary place in Scottish history is well deserved. And hardly surprising either that there is a mystique and aura about her, that continually fuels the fires of independence, resilience and fierceness so part of the the Scottish identity. 

In this novel, the Australian author has taken the bones of Flora's life and created a rollicking good read that will appeal to a wide variety of readers, and not just those of Scottish descent or  can lay claim to being descended from a MacDonald of the island of South Uist of the Outer Hebrides. She will be forever known as the saviour of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, aka the Young Pretender,  and this is the central narrative of the story. Plus what would a good historical novel be without a bit of romance and bodice ripping in the Scottish highlands surrounded by heather and blustery winds? The background to all this however is just as important to the story. The author has thoroughly researched the history of the time - King George II, his son the Duke of Cumberland whose army famously defeated Charlie at Culloden in 1846 and later known as the Butcher Cumberland for his murderous treatment of the Scottish after this uprising, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Johnson, the American War of Independence - all in very rich and exciting detail. 

Comparisons of the author's style of writing have been made with Phillippa Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl) and Alison Weir who both write historical novels from the view point of key characters. As a result, fact is used as the starter for the story, but is not necessarily 100% factual in its content. The key word here, emblazoned on the front cover of such books is 'a novel'. A great starting point for further research and reading. For me, the key point of such historical novels, is that we learn so much about stuff - these books are page turners, they draw us in, real people and real events become vivid in our imaginations, such writers make history come alive.  How clever is that! And more importantly, provide background to the nature of the world we live in now. For example, why did thousands leave Scotland from the mid-18th century onwards for the greener pastures of unknown lands in America, Canada, and New Zealand? Aside from the weather...

This is a terrific story, well told, great characters both good and bad, and in the light of the referendum that took place last year for Scottish independence very timely. The relationship between the two nations may be cordial now, but it has not always been so, in fact many times over the centuries completely the opposite. Such a story makes me very proud of my Scottish heritage, and has sparked a wish to go to the Hebrides. My only criticism? Some pictures of Flora and Charlie would not have gone amiss, and a couple of maps would also have helped greatly in conjuring up images of the intrepid journey Flora and her prince made. 

THE LIST OF MY DESIRES by Gregoire Delacourt

Such a divine book, with its simple enticing cover - buttons: who would have thought. With the added bonus of large font, sizeable line spacing, just 200 pages of heart rending, poignant, beautiful story telling. 

Jocelyne 47, married to Jocelyn for 20-something years, two grown up children, owns and runs a haberdashery store in a town in France, considers herself very ordinary, ordinary husband, ordinary marriage, ordinary life. Sometimes she thinks, dreams about what could be or could have been, how things could be different, but of course there will never be a chance really to make big changes in her life. And so she just keeps on reflecting and wondering what if. Until one day, she wins the 18 million in the EuroLotteries. Then everything changes. For good and for bad. Can and will Jocelyne realise her dreams, and change her life, or will she lose the courage to do so?

Aside from this being such a great fable of modern living, the first person voice of Jocelyne is written by a man. He captures the essence of an ordinary woman, in her ordinary life extraordinarily well. I loved the woman I was reading about, and it raises so many questions as to what one would do if so much money was won. Loved it. 

MY BRILLIANT FRIEND by Elena Ferrante

What a cover - you just want to open it and follow the just marrieds into their new lives. And those three little dolls following on behind! You won't get that on a Kindle. Anyway there is a lot of hoopla surrounding this novel, book one of the Neapolitan novels, and hoopla also around the very mysterious and reclusive author.

It's a marvellous story - two small girls who meet and become best friends in a poor rundown neighbourhood in Naples in the 1950s. Book one focuses on the ten years from roughly six years of age to sixteen years. Life is tough for these families, eking out existences as shoemakers, carpenters, porters, bakers, shop owners. Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo are the stars of the story, both intelligent and clever girls, Lila being particularly gifted. There is a lot to navigate in their small communities - desire for an education beyond primary school, other children, rivalries, family problems, young love. All the usual stuff children and  young people have to deal with, but in this case set against the hard life of the poor streets of post war Naples. Not easy.

It is a good story, and I am looking forward to reading book two, but I did not find it an easy book to read. It took considerably longer than I would have thought to finish it, and it is a bit of slow burner with the second half considerably more riveting than the first. I wasn't expecting it to be chick lit, but I did think it would be easier to read than I found it. Still, roll on book two! Now that the girls are sixteen what does life have laid out for them?