Red-Blooded Heart by V.J. Chambers

3.5 Stars

In the interest of full disclosure I think I would probably have enjoyed this book a lot more if I hadn't read Caroline Kepnes' You first.  It has a very similar feel to it and has familiar themes of obsession and lack of empathy; it just doesn't manage it quite as well.  Don't get me wrong this is actually a pretty good book, there is just something missing somewhere and the ending is odd to say the least.

Whether deliberate or not, and I suspect not, Juniper is "off" from the very beginning.  Her narration makes it abundantly clear that she is not at all what she seems - even when she is mentally gushing over how hot she finds Deke.  From Deke's narration you could be forgiven for thinking that she is a victim in some way and that he is the real threat.  Unfortunately she comes across as potentially more dangerous than Deke right from the get go.  As the tale unfolds from Deke building her off grid home to Juniper moving in it becomes more about the secrets they are hiding from each other with occasional flashes of the intrusiveness of the outside world.  Throw a boyfriend in to the mix and things so go off the rails for both characters.  I know, I know not much to go on plotwise here but to mention one thing would give the domino effect away.

The plot pacing is well done and has a good range of highs and lows and I did find myself eager to turn the page on more than one occasion.  Told from the twin viewpoints of Deke and Juniper the characters are well separated and have distinct voices which is very hard to do; plus if you are ever confused every time the viewpoint shifts focus it tells you who is leading the story now.  What did let it down was the superficial knowledge of off grid living - neither Deke nor Juniper is really off grid and it began to irk me that they kept referring to themselves as such.  Plus neither of them seemed to have any real chance of surviving during the winter - lip service is paid to such survivial but from the weak preparations they have made I very much doubt they could.

Overall it is a pretty solid tale, I'm not quite sure that Psychological Thriller really suits it but it is as good a label as any.  The reader, more or less, always knows what is going on so it is more about the two main character's reaction to events than anything else.  The only guessing we have to do is what Juniper is really doing in the wilds of West Virginia (her plan) and what happened with Alice and Deke.  Other than that we are in the enviable state of knowing more than the characters.

If you have managed to avoid reading You then you will probably love this book, if you have read it then you may find this a tad disappointing in comparison.

The Pie At Night by Stuart Maconie

2.5 Stars

It's not all flat caps and whippets - unless you're in Yorkshire where they still don't have electric light or fitted carpets (sorry Lancastrian, so not sorry) - and this is what Stuart Maconie is hoping to prove here.  At least, that's what I think he's trying to prove.  It is very hard to tell between his frequent forays in to locations that are decidedly NOT the North (Sorry but Birmingham, Wolverhampton et al are in a Metropolitan County called the West Midlands - the clue is in the name for goodness sake!) and his constant references to Socialist and Sociology texts.  It all managed to make it rather tedious reading and just as you are thinking things are getting better he meanders off again.

I had a love/hate relationship with this book and found it very hard going.  It didn't help that in many ways this was a North that I genuinely didn't recognise and I have lived in Lancashire all my life.  Yes, he does manage to point out that we have a wide and varied cultural heritage up here and we know how to celebrate it BUT (yes it's a big one) somehow the whole tone felt kind of patronising.  Yes, he's from up here but it felt as thought he was a Professional Northerner rather than a Real Northener.

We didn't get off to the best of starts when talking about Crown Green Bowling - I am semi-affiliated with this peculiar phenomenon because my 26 year old son plays for two league teams.  League teams that compromise a wide age range but are mainly under fifty and I was waiting for this to be acknowledged but it still seemed to be the preserve of old men.  Then we get on to Football and Rugby League (always League round here, not of that Southern Softies garbage for us where they cuddle on the pitch - sorry have a scrum) and at least he gets the atmosphere at a game right.  What I couldn't agree with was his stance on entrance fees - ticket prices are simply ridiculous and are pricing the game out of many people's purview.

The thing about the North isn't what we do for play so much as how we try and make work play.  I see it daily in our office and have done in my past 20+ years of work.  There is a camaraderie and a sense we are all in it together - even with that annoying apprentice in Finance or the slightly weird guy that nobody knows what he does but he turns up every day so we tolerate him.  He does at least attempt to recreate some of the bizarre conversations that people round here have - trust me the things you hear on Blackpool Prom are pure comedic bliss.

I've been told that Pies And Prejudice is a much better book but after reading this I'm not entirely sure I want to dip my toe in to those waters.

Identity Crisis by Ben Elton

I think we can all agree that Social Media has a place in modern life, even if only by virtue of it's ubiquitousness.  I think we can also agree that at it's worst it is manipulative and clogged with lies and misinformation designed merely to instigate a reaction.  Those trending hashtags are they real or manufactured?  How much truth is contained in any one post - be it from a keyboard warrior in the comfort of their own home or from the desk of a conglomerate?  Just how do those posts from people we have never heard of, causes we have not registered an interest in arrive in our various online feeds?

Ben Elton has taken these questions and run with it.  Set in the near future against the backdrop of a referendum for England to leave the United Kingdom with some murder and suicide thrown in it shows how the major tool now is not mass media but mass social media.  Whilst we all know, and are relatively inured to, the national media having their own political axe to grind we are less aware of the political leanings of Social Media or even who is responsible for those provocative hashtags.

Set in an increasingly "politically correct" age Matlock finds himself floundering as he investigates the brutal murder of a young woman in a leafy park.  A single blow to the back of the head kills a young woman, no evidence of robbery, no evidence of assault beyond the death blow, no evidence period.  As he tries to fumble his way through the mine field of press statements and a rather irritating pathologist (honestly, she genuinely thought that this information was NOT of major importance to a criminal investigation?) he just gets deeper and deeper in to the mire of being on the "wrong side of history".   There is a large cast list here to deal with and each genuinely has their place in the book.  Mathematician Malika and her job writing algorithms for Communication Sandwich, Hilary and her Reality TV productions and many, many more.

I can well imagine this book will cause major arguments in Book Clubs around the globe.  It's main premise just happens to be one I agree with - never trust what you read online.  It makes the, what to me is a, very valid point that you see all this outrage online and yet never meet anyone in the street that has this same level of vitriol about the subject.  If you never meet anyone that feels this strongly then who is making those posts?  You only have to look back 1000+ days to the pre-Brexit Referendum and the absolute garbage posted daily to people's feeds by both sides to realise that social media manipulation is the be all and end all for any movement.

Beyond that this book also deals with what has long been termed "political correctness gone mad", and it really has gone mad.  With new gender pronouns seeming to arrive on a daily basis, another group claiming they are marginalised because of their colour/gender/sexuality (or lack thereof)/taste in biscuits and demanding that they be positively discriminated against.  The clue is in the term, whether seen as positive or negative it is still discrimination.  I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with the rather bewildered Matlock as he tries to negotiate the new climate.

Yes, Mr Elton has extrapolated past and current events to an outlandish degree and it does all seem a little overblown and ridiculous.  After all, we have common sense and nobody in the wider world would really let things get this far.  Honestly, I think he is right on the money and that we are already here, meshed in this web of lies, lies that are told to us because we will believe them so readily as they tap in to our innermost ideals - ideals we are maybe embarrassed about admitting in day to day life but the internet knows us, it allows us to express them and if Bot A agrees with us then we are validated.

I can understand people thinking the whole concept is ridiculous.  I can understand people believing that what they read online is true and accurate.  I can understand people getting angry about gender bias, homophobia, racism and a myriad other things.  What I cannot understand is people writing this book off because they do not agree with the politics in it.  It is well written and has a plot that is expressed through several different characters and scenarios - some far less palatable than others this is true.  Yes, I happen to agree that the whole manipulation of media is here to stay, I happen to agree that we now have no freedom of speech because absolutely anything can be interpreted as "hate speech" and that the definition of this moves on an hourly basis.  I also happen to think that this is a genuinely funny book and the ridiculousness of some of the scenarios just highlight a lessor truth.

The Snow Gypsy by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

2.5 Stars

I was really disappointed with this novel, having read a couple of others by this author I was really looking forward to this one.  As a departure from her previous fare this book does not seek to fictionalise a real persons life but is about wholly fictional characters set against a back drop of fact.  Well, fact to a point there is a lot of very shaky Spanish Civil War history and Gypsy cultural history.  I think it is the shakiness of these foundations that ultimately spoilt my enjoyment of the novel.

The characters never really seem to be anything other than words on a page.  With all that has happened to Lola (witnessing a massacre as a teenager, raising an abandoned child, living with the fear of oppression) I never felt that I really knew her.  Now, this would be fine if she was supposed to be an enigmatic character but we are supposed to feel empathy towards this person as a major supporting character but she is nothing more than a series of unfortunate events upon a page.  Rose, our central character, is much the same.  We do get to share some of her feelings surrounding the disappearance of her brother but only superficially, the author doesn't take the reader in to Rose's world merely allowing us to stand on the sidelines and watch events unfold.

That is the other problem there is so much going on here that remains unexplored.  Instead of settling on the historical event that led us to this point in time and then a major event for each woman to deal with in the present it is a constant stream of events.  This means that nothing is really explored on the page and the reader can never truly become immersed in the world.  Perhaps the worst handled is Lola's experience after returning home from the Fiesta, it is told in great detail what happened to her but then her way out of the situation seems merely glossed over; for me this was an opportunity missed.

On the whole plot and characterisation let this book down completely and as they are the main things I look for in a read then this was not for me at all.  Such a shame as I know this author is capable of writing both in such a way that you get completely sucked in.

The Dressmaker Of Draper's Lane by Liz Trenow

This novel is a sequel, of sorts, to The Silk Weaver which I didn't realise until I started reading it and characters I recognised (Henri and Anna) started cropping up.  Unfortunately, for me, this book just did not live up the previous one.  The richness of the setting is completely lost along the way and the newly introduced characters really aren't sufficient to carry the story or hold your interest.  This isn't helped by having an Ann and an Anna and the main character Charlotte also being known as Agnes.  If you read the book in a couple of big chunks this wouldn't be a problem but picking it up several times over a couple of days it does become an issue; well, it did for me.

It doesn't help that the threads of Charlotte running her costumier business are interwoven with the Foundling Hospital that raised her and also her sister's strained marriage to a fire and brimstone Vicar.  Nothing really sits together and it all felt like a couple of different stories smooshed together with the filling that was supposed to link running away into the cracks.  Unlike with The Silk Weaver everything felt slightly artificial and contrived rather than absorbing you in the time and the place.

Characterisation takes second place to the plotting of the book so I never really felt that I knew Charlotte/Agnes and less so her sister Louisa.  In many ways things just happen to Charlotte and she rapidly became just a conduit to discuss child abandonment, abuse of servants, struggles of extended family and women in business in the 18th Century.  Louisa is mainly there to show abuse within marriage.  There is a plot twist towards the end but it comes as neither a surprise or of much interest by this point - all that's important is that we are nearly at the end.  Even the conclusion of the book was strangely dissatisfying and a bit "happy clappy".

One saving grace was the sub title of each chapter providing you with a description of a popular fashion item of the period or a popular cloth; these short snippets were informative and I finally know what a sackback dress would have looked like and why.  I suppose I should have known it didn't bode well when something that was not an intrinsic part of the story was the most enjoyable bit of the book.  There are some good insights in to the structuring of society but you have to dig for them and the relentless pursuit for everything to come out for the best for all characters did become a little wearisome.

Really the best I can say about the book is that it is relatively non-offensive and passed the time adequately without making me feel like I had completely wasted the hours spent reading it.  I did expect much better from the author though as I have read a couple of her previous books and thoroughly enjoyed them - I think nostalgia for those and the hope that this is just a blip is why I have rated this 3 Stars instead of the 2 that it probably deserves.

Cruel Acts by Jane Casey

Somehow, and I am not sure how, Jane Casey is a completely new author to me.  This strikes me as particularly odd as this is a genre that I have read extensively in and she is hardly a new author.  I might be late to the delights of Kerrigan novels (this is the eighth after all) but this is definitely a case of better late than never.  Despite having no knowledge of the characters it is easy to slot in to their world and I never felt like I was missing out on anything except some personal history between her and Derwent.  It also appeared that there was little regurgitation of previous storylines so this worked as a more or less stand alone story.

The thing that really stood out for me was the relationship between Derwent and Kerrigan.  The banter between them and the way they could completely frustrate each other was wonderfully detailed on the page, the dialogue in particular was crisp, sharp and wholly believable.  In all honesty the relationships between everyone we meet on the MIT are very realistic and with only a few short sentences a rich world is revealed to the reader, more importantly (and impressively) a wholly believable one.

I am not going to talk much about the plot here.  The blurb tells you more or less what to expect from the criminal investigation side of things and I fear that even mentioning some of the characters will lead me down the path of revealing far more than I should.  Suffice to say it is cleverly crafted with enough twists, turns and red herrings to keep you scratching your head and mentally crossing out your theories as time goes on.  Despite the grim horror of the crimes nothing is sensationalised and there are no flashbacks to the crimes here beyond witness statements, so no real blood, guts and gore which does make a refreshing change for the genre.

This is an accomplished book with strong characters, a free flowing and elegant plot and some genuine laugh out loud moments.

THIS IS AN HONEST AND UNBIASED REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED VIA THE PIGEONHOLE.

Blast From The Past by Ben Elton

I really wasn't sure about this book initially as it does take quite a long time to get going and Polly's voice is initially whiny and irritating; put simply she seems to enjoy playing the victim.  When her phone rings at 2:15am she initially worries that it is her stalker and as there is, as yet, no law against Peter's actions and nobody seems to take his behaviour as being a threat to her there is every chance it will be.  Cowering in her bed she listens as the answering machine picks up and it is worse than she could have thought - sixteen years and two months ago she had an ill-fated love affair and now Jack is very definitely back.

Much of the book is set in flashback and deals with the Greenham Common protest camp that sprang up around the storage of Cruise Missiles at the base.  By setting Polly and Jack on opposite sides of the camp fence Mr Elton gets to provide us with a nice chunk of political satire.  Despite these very politics forming part of his act at the time of Greenham Common he manages to give a balanced view of both the protestor's take on the situation and that of an American career military man - the fact he is American is important.  It also covers feminism, liberalism and the changing attitudes of society within the 16 years that form the setting of this book.

Whilst being undoubtedly political in nature there is enough humour to dilute some of the more tub-thumping sections.  Strangely it is Jack's arguments that carried more weight with me and I found Polly to be rather woolly in her cognitive processes and whilst this was mainly endearing when she was 17, now she is in her thirties it just made me want to slap her.  There are nice little side steps covering the rash of sexual harassment complaints levelled against members of the American Armed Forces and their President (Nibs made me laugh quite a bit) and Jack's explanation for them (boys will be boys) whilst feeble was relevant to how many people viewed them at the time.

Alongside the political activism there is the story of Polly's modern day stalker, Peter.  He is clearly a very disturbed man and whilst only accidentally coming in to Polly's orbit he is genuinely obsessed with her.  He is also far more dangerous than anyone knows.

The various strands weave together well and the time and narrator shifts blend seamlessly together.  Altogether an accomplished bit of writing that thoroughly entertains and gives a good waft of nostalgia for those readers old enough to remember this turbulent time.