AN ALMOND FOR A PARROT by Wray Delaney

I loved this, a wonderfully sensual, erotic and sumptuous fairy tale novel of a young woman who, against all the odds, is a survivor. The gorgeous cover illustrates perfectly the colour, imagination, distortion, magic, luxury and decadence of the world of the courtesan in the mid-1700s, when apparently one in five women in London worked as a prostitute. 

Tully Truegood is the narrator of this story, it is her story she is telling. It opens with her in Newgate Prison, awaiting trial and probably the death penalty for murder. She is writing her story in the form of a letter to an ex lover, knowing that it is unlikely to ever be read, detailing how her life brought her to such a catastrophic end. And what a tale it is. 

Her mother dying in childbirth, her father a no-good drunk gambler, she lives in London, looked after by Cook. For reasons not disclosed till later in the book, Tully is married off at the age of 12 to a young man whom she does not know. This is the defining event in her life, which is what ultimately leads to her being in Newgate. But her life also takes another path when her father marries Queenie Biggs, bringing into the house not only order, clean clothing, good food, an education  but also love, care and companionship for Tully in the form of two young women, Hope and Mercy.

Queenie is actually a brothel owner, of the Fairy House, a high class and popular house in London. She has a number of courtesans under her care/control, of which Hope and Mercy are part of, and in due course Tully also. Tully is not only gifted in the art of lovemaking, she also has the gift of magic, expressed in many and various ways, which is recognised by the magician Mr Crease. Over the course of the next few years, Tully rises through the courtesan ranks, falling in love and out of love, her supernatural powers beguiling and terrifying those around her, her notoriety following her far and wide, famous for her many talents. 

The great thing about Tully is that she never gives up. This is a society and time where if you were female, it didn't matter a jot if you were born into wealth or poverty, you were simply a commodity to be traded, used and discarded at will by men. Tully always believes in love, she believes in her self worth. She knows she is clever, she knows her beauty and desirability  is not just in her looks, she uses her magic gift carefully, she is loyal and determined to break out of the courtesan life, becoming self sufficient and independent in her own right. 

Like any good fairy tale, wickedness and malevolence are never far away, and Tully has to use all her powers to outwit and destroy the evil that continually threatens to destroy her and those she loves. This is all told in the most wonderful writing, sensuous, descriptive and so vivid. Some of the writing is graphic, erotic, but it is never inappropriate, the sexual awakening of a young woman delightfully, deliciously and outrageously told. You will never look at a maypole the same way again. 

This is the first adult novel for this writer who has written it under a pseudonym. She is actually Sally Gardner, a children's writer and illustrator who has won many awards for her books. A quick bit of Google research reveals that many of her children's books also have magic and fantasy in them, and here she has brought this magic realism to an adult novel, managing to make it believable and entertaining, a joy to read. 

THE WORLD AT NIGHT by Alan Furst

Having recently read and reviewed the thirteenth out of fourteen novels in the Night Soldiers series which I enjoyed enormously, I thought I would try one earlier in the series, randomly picking number four, published way back in 1996. Not quite as good in plot and character development, but superlative in describing and evoking what occupied Paris and France may have been like in 1940 after the Germans waltzed in. A frightening and confusing place - who can be trusted, who is watching you, keeping your head down, queuing up for bread, sorting ration cards, what you are willing to do to get food, petrol, out of Paris, out of France, citizens now refugees leaving the city with nowhere to go or means of getting there.

Jean Casson is a film producer, lives a good life, divorced, more women than he knows what to do with. When the Germans arrive, and the French government gives in without a fight, it sets something off in Casson. He realises he is still crazy in love with the beautiful Citrine, an actress who has fled to the south of France. Jean himself is asked to produce a movie which may or may not be Nazi propaganda, and may or may not be run by a bunch of allied spies or Nazi spies, and in the process, somehow, gets involved with a group of money smugglers. His first trip is to Spain where things don't go entirely to plan, bringing him to the attention of the German occupiers. And then his problems really start, always trying to stay just one step ahead of the SS. So pretty good plot line really, but it is all sort of disconnected, things happen and you can't quite recollect how the happening happened. Despite going back through the pages looking for the connection.

I expect living in France during this time was quite surreal and disorienting.  This certainly comes through in the writing, a frightening and horrible time. So maybe the loosely held threads are supposed to be like that. But there is no getting away from the vivid descriptions of Paris and France, the fear of the population, the brutality of the Germans, and the looking away of many of the locals. Suspicion and betrayal saturating the air. It's not a bad read, but could be better. 

THE BOOK OF MEMORY by Petina Gappah

This is such a wonderful book, so beautifully written, heart breaking and uplifting all at the same time. It is story of a life that has been sentenced to death, a mystery surrounding another death, how the memories of a child are often distorted from the reality. 

Memory, or Mnemosyne in Zimbabwean, is languishing in the Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison in Harare for the murder of the man, Lloyd Hendricks, to whom she was sold as a child. She denies the murder, and although there is much mystery about her relationship with Lloyd through most of the book, it is fairly clear she did not murder him. 

She is however,  a woman of two different worlds. For Lloyd was white, a university professor, who lived in an affluent part of town. She comes from an impoverished, traditional village life  background, and flourishes in her new white world. Just as unusual is that Memory is a black albino, so finds that she is neither white nor black, a creature of oddness in both the black community and in the white community. Suspicion and mutterings follow Memory everywhere, and when Lloyd is found dead, Memory is the one charged, found guilty and sentenced to death. In an attempt to make sense of her life and how she has ended up in prison, she is writing a memoir that may also help her appeal to find her innocent. 

The story moves effortlessly from the day to day tedium and anxiety of daily prison life, to Memory's childhood, her parents and siblings. As a child, she has some unanswered questions such as why there were never any grandparents or aunts, uncles and cousins in their lives as all the other children had. Two of her siblings are  dead, was this why her mother was such a troubled soul? There comes the day when Memory, at age eight, is sold to Lloyd, and the next phase of her life begins, so leading up to the time she is charged with the murder. .  This is all set against the backdrop of political unrest and fight for independence that dominated Rhodesia/Zimbabwe in the 1970s-1980s, as well as the seizures of white farmers' land and often their murders in retribution. 

By the end of the book, Memory has dissected her memories sufficiently, and with some unexpected knowledge from a surprising source, she finally finds the answers that make sense of the confusing childhood and family life she had.  

I loved the way how the characters are so carefully developed and revealed through the course of the book - her parents and other adults of her village, her fellow prisoners and prison guards, Lloyd. It is almost as if we are part of Memory's own remembering of her life, this is our journey as much as hers. At the end, as with much of Memory's life to date, she is neither a free woman, nor an imprisoned woman. But a type of peace is reached. 

THE LAST TIME WE SPOKE by Fiona Sussman

Copy of book for review provided by the author.

Two boys, born two years apart in Auckland. One, Jack Reid, born to white middle class parents, Carla and Keith, teacher and farmer respectively.  A much longed-for only child, born when his parents had long given up hope of ever becoming parents. Now 18 years old, Jack works in a bank in the city, has a girlfriend and has come home for the night to help his parents celebrate their 27th wedding anniversary plus to break the dreaded news that he doesn't want to be a farmer like his dad.

Not too far away geographically, but very far away in every other respect, lives Ben Toroa, 16 years old, survivor of an abortion attempt, living in poverty and chaos with his younger siblings, under the care of his mother who is a punching bag for her latest partner. Unlike Jack, for Ben there is no hope, little education or skill set for adult life, no order or structure, no love. Belonging to a gang, and proving yourself to that gang are the major sources of self-esteem, belonging and making it in this world.

 It is on the night of Carla and Keith's wedding anniversary dinner that these two widely opposing   worlds collide in the most brutal of circumstances leaving one person dead, and another who may as well be. Carla is faced with her world, everything she has known, loved, and given herself to completely destroyed; Ben is facing a life in prison.  What follows unfolds over eight or nine years, as both Carla and Ben deal with the enormous fall out of this arbitrary act of violence. The process, as you can imagine, is fraught. For both of them. Carla is overwhelmed by grief, anger, hopelessness, fear, loss. Ben, only 16 we must remember, is also overwhelmed by the violence in his prison world, the impact on his mental health, the hopelessness of his situation. The one thing, however, deep inside his memory that might, just might offer the slenderest of hopes for him, is that he does remember a mother who once loved him, when he was very small, before the endless cycle of pregnancy, poverty and punching bag took over.

And yet, in small baby steps, some forward and some back, both Carla and Ben rediscover life, a purpose for living, make connections, and begin to find a way forward. One would think this would be easier for Carla living outside the physical confines of a prison, but it is actually Ben who grows the most, finding within the close confines of the prison system the basic human needs of love, respect and in turn self respect that enable him to create a life of value and meaning.

This novel has been some years in the making. A number of rural home invasions in New Zealand in the 1990s were the catalyst for Fiona Sussman's immersion into the violent world of youth offending, gang initiations, prison life, childhoods of deprivation, violence and dysfunction. She spent time visiting prisons, meeting with prisoners, speaking with police, victim impact organisations,  It must have been very confronting for her to spend time in the underbelly of our society, an underbelly that the vast majority of us do not want to know about or ever had any exposure to. It is easy for most of those who read this novel to identify with Carla and her grief, but not so easy to begin to have any understanding of the world that Ben comes from. Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff was very confrontational for many people, lifting a veil from what most of us either chose not to see, or simply did not think existed. This novel takes us deeper into the violent and despairing life of many Maori in this country, essentially a result of colonisation by the British in the 1800s, forfeiture of land, and breakdown of traditional mores, cultural and family bonds.  It is not a novel written in anger, but there is a certain despair and powerlessness that has allowed such a deprived strata of society to develop. Fiona Sussman digs deep into the essence of the wounded and damaged themselves, in this case Carla and Ben.  Time may not heal, but it certainly dulls and softens the pain, suffering and despair, our natural healing processes allowing for hope and optimism to enter and begin to work their magic.

This really is a remarkable book, I cannot praise it enough. It touched something deep inside me. As a 6th generation NZer, who has had a very comfortable and easy ride in this country, I am ashamed that at the same time my predecessors have done well in this country, there are many who have not. The author is a new citizen of this country, and yet she has such insight and compassion into such a big issue. New Zealand is of course not the only British colony to have its indigenous population decimated, the author's own country of South Africa with its more turbulent and disturbing history. But New Zealand is her country now too, and she has done what good writers do  - educate and inform, open our eyes, show us a different way of looking at things and ourselves. Transport us. Read this, be humbled and see how we can all make a difference.

THE LAST TIME WE SPOKE by Fiona Sussman

Copy of book for review provided by the author.

Two boys, born two years apart in Auckland. One, Jack Reid, born to white middle class parents, Carla and Keith, teacher and farmer respectively.  A much longed-for only child, born when his parents had long given up hope of ever becoming parents. Now 18 years old, Jack works in a bank in the city, has a girlfriend and has come home for the night to help his parents celebrate their 27th wedding anniversary plus to break the dreaded news that he doesn't want to be a farmer like his dad.

Not too far away geographically, but very far away in every other respect, lives Ben Toroa, 16 years old, survivor of an abortion attempt, living in poverty and chaos with his younger siblings, under the care of his mother who is a punching bag for her latest partner. Unlike Jack, for Ben there is no hope, little education or skill set for adult life, no order or structure, no love. Belonging to a gang, and proving yourself to that gang are the major sources of self-esteem, belonging and making it in this world.

 It is on the night of Carla and Keith's wedding anniversary dinner that these two widely opposing   worlds collide in the most brutal of circumstances leaving one person dead, and another who may as well be. Carla is faced with her world, everything she has known, loved, and given herself to completely destroyed; Ben is facing a life in prison.  What follows unfolds over eight or nine years, as both Carla and Ben deal with the enormous fall out of this arbitrary act of violence. The process, as you can imagine, is fraught. For both of them. Carla is overwhelmed by grief, anger, hopelessness, fear, loss. Ben, only 16 we must remember, is also overwhelmed by the violence in his prison world, the impact on his mental health, the hopelessness of his situation. The one thing, however, deep inside his memory that might, just might offer the slenderest of hopes for him, is that he does remember a mother who once loved him, when he was very small, before the endless cycle of pregnancy, poverty and punching bag took over.

And yet, in small baby steps, some forward and some back, both Carla and Ben rediscover life, a purpose for living, make connections, and begin to find a way forward. One would think this would be easier for Carla living outside the physical confines of a prison, but it is actually Ben who grows the most, finding within the close confines of the prison system the basic human needs of love, respect and in turn self respect that enable him to create a life of value and meaning.

This novel has been some years in the making. A number of rural home invasions in New Zealand in the 1990s were the catalyst for Fiona Sussman's immersion into the violent world of youth offending, gang initiations, prison life, childhoods of deprivation, violence and dysfunction. She spent time visiting prisons, meeting with prisoners, speaking with police, victim impact organisations,  It must have been very confronting for her to spend time in the underbelly of our society, an underbelly that the vast majority of us do not want to know about or ever had any exposure to. It is easy for most of those who read this novel to identify with Carla and her grief, but not so easy to begin to have any understanding of the world that Ben comes from. Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff was very confrontational for many people, lifting a veil from what most of us either chose not to see, or simply did not think existed. This novel takes us deeper into the violent and despairing life of many Maori in this country, essentially a result of colonisation by the British in the 1800s, forfeiture of land, and breakdown of traditional mores, cultural and family bonds.  It is not a novel written in anger, but there is a certain despair and powerlessness that has allowed such a deprived strata of society to develop. Fiona Sussman digs deep into the essence of the wounded and damaged themselves, in this case Carla and Ben.  Time may not heal, but it certainly dulls and softens the pain, suffering and despair, our natural healing processes allowing for hope and optimism to enter and begin to work their magic.

This really is a remarkable book, I cannot praise it enough. It touched something deep inside me. As a 6th generation NZer, who has had a very comfortable and easy ride in this country, I am ashamed that at the same time my predecessors have done well in this country, there are many who have not. The author is a new citizen of this country, and yet she has such insight and compassion into such a big issue. New Zealand is of course not the only British colony to have its indigenous population decimated, the author's own country of South Africa with its more turbulent and disturbing history. But New Zealand is her country now too, and she has done what good writers do  - educate and inform, open our eyes, show us a different way of looking at things and ourselves. Transport us. Read this, be humbled and see how we can all make a difference.

LIE WITH ME by Sabine Durrant

Review copy provided by Hachette NZ via Booksellers NZ.

Ambiguity and double entendre are rife in this novel, on almost every page, with every character seemingly guilty of some sort of lie, flexibility with the truth, cover up, or self-preservation tactic. Starting with the title, even before you open the cover. Who is lying, who isn't, who is lying with who, who is sleeping with who, who is pretending, who isn't? The intrigue is absolutely bursting out of the pages, and the reader simply does not know what is going on.

This novel is the latest in the amnesia/psychological thriller genre that first started with ‘Before I Go To Sleep’ by Susan Watson way back in 2011, coming into prominence with ‘Gone Girl’ by Gillian Flynn a couple of years ago, then Paula Hawkins’ ‘The Girl on the Train’. And I expect this one will also take off and be just as successful as these other novels. Because,  just as we may be starting to have amnesia-overload, the protagonist in this novel is not a young woman victim, caught between a rock and a hard place, confused, cornered, either manipulating or being manipulated. No, in this novel, we have a man, Paul Morris, 42 years old, supposed master of his universe, who finds himself in a net that may or may not be of his making. From page one – ‘How much do we collude in our own destruction? How much of this nightmare is on me?’ And the reader does not know either.

Paul is not an appealing character - arrogant, lazy, bludger, heavy drinker, broke, string of broken relationships, hedonistic. He calls himself a writer, and had some success with a novel some twenty years earlier - his best friend calls him The Great Literary Success. On the second page Paul, who is the first person narrator, tells us that ‘Plenty of friendships, I am sure, are based on lies’.  Warning bells... that are not heeded by Paul or the reader. But since that novel, he has done very little with his life, continuing to dine out on this success, with no literary follow-up, is now living with his mother, no job prospects and his latest fling over.

By chance, Paul meets up with an old university ‘contemporary’ as he calls him, Andrew, whose sister Paul has vague recollections of dating at one stage when they were all at Cambridge together. Paul finds himself invited to dinner to Andrew’s, where he meets Alice, a young widow in her forties, with two teenage children. Things go swimmingly well between Paul and Alice, and before long Paul is invited to accompany them all on a two-week holiday to Greece - Alice and her children, Andrew, his wife Tina and their three children. Alice has another mission on this holiday - it is ten years since Jasmine, the fourteen year old daughter,  of another holidaying couple disappeared, and Alice has worked tirelessly over the years to keep the search for this girl alive. Alice and Andrew's families were all holidaying in the town when the girl disappeared, and got to know her parents. Now, ten years later, the three families are meeting again to mark the anniversary.

Into this complicated web of relationships and history, Paul bumbles his way through, lying through his teeth about what he does, how much money he has, his life, digging bigger and bigger holes for himself. But as he slowly discovers he actually has much greater things to worry about.

This is a tightly held thriller, with the web tightening in very surprising ways around Paul. He is a walking time bomb, completely delusional about his place at the centre of his own universe, the reader figuring out fairly early on that his walk is taking him into a whole heap of trouble, largely of his own making. But his hazy memories of just about everything of course make it impossible to tell what the big reveal will be. There is not one single likeable character in this book, with the exception perhaps of Tina, Andrew's wife. The manipulation, the cover ups, the denials, the lies, the tit-for-tats, the furtiveness, the perversions - it is a never ending feast of nastiness. But what a great read. Don't take it on holiday, especially to Greece, you might find you never leave....

LAB GIRL by Hope Jahren

I just love taking a punt on a book that in any normal circumstance you wouldn't even look at. Although that cover is certainly worth a second look, extremely appealing. A bookseller, at a bookclub night such as many  independent bookshops run, told us about this book that he had recently read. What at first looks like a scientific geeky nerdy heavy handed botany text is anything but. Lab Girl is the author, Hope Jahren. Hope has spent her whole life in a lab. Growing up in the freezing climes of Minnesota, in a very closed off, emotionally distant Scandinavian family, Hope's life was in the community college laboratory that her father taught physics and earth science in. This was her happy place, her playground, her world, where her passions for discovery, experimentation and problem solving first came together.

From those early beginnings, Hope Jahren is now a tenured professor at the University of Hawaii. She is what is called a geobiologist, applying "the principles and methods of biology and geology to the study of the ancient history of the co-evolution of life and Earth as well as the role of life in the modern world." (Thanks Wikipedia - had no idea where to start defining that.)

She is  very highly regarded and respected in her profession, having won many awards and scholarships. widely published and influential. Her career has taken her from Minnesota to Berkley, Atlanta, Norway, Hawaii. It  hasn't, however, been without its difficulties. Widespread sexual harassment and discrimination have arisen from her working and being successful in a male dominated profession. She is very candid about the difficulties and frustrations in getting funding for research projects, space to build her labs, staff, recognition, and has become somewhat of a spokeswoman for women working in the science/research sector.

But the above is only a very small part of this wonderful book. Not only a memoir, she humanises her science - we feel her love for her work, her sheer passion and joy and in what she discovers - it all comes shining through in this marvellous memoir. Every alternate chapter takes the reader away from the lab, the trials and stresses of Hope being who she is, and takes us into the life of the plant - the backbone of all life on earth. From the soil, the roots, to the leaves, the trunk of the tree, the flowers and the fruit, the tree also becomes as human as we are. Not only is Hope Jahren a gifted scientist and researcher, she is also a most gifted writer.

It's not all test tubes, microscopes, and hours of hard research slog.  There is some raw reading in this: mental illness, depression, and bipolar as well as a harrowing account of childbirth! Reminded me of being back in ante-natal groups having to look interested and engaged listening to other women's accounts - new meaning to sharing and caring.

Most wonderful of all in this memoir is her relationship with fellow genius scientist Bill, who remains her most constant and reliable companion through all these years. I doubt she would have achieved all she has without Bill's constancy. A most unusual man, happy to take second seat, he looks out for her, and she in turn looks out for him. Together they are unstoppable.

Educational and inspiring, this is an unusual book. It may well take a chapter or two to get into as the writing is intense and the style takes a bit of getting used to, it is sort of all over  the place, but it just makes it that much more memorable. One of my favourites this year.