Live A Little by Madeleine Reiss

          3.5 Stars

Lottie, Tina and Mia; three sisters who grew up in a shattered household.  Three sisters who could only rely on each other; certainly their warring parents could not be relied on.  Now there are only two and with Lottie about to get married Tina is determined that they have some fun together first.  So, American Road Trip it is.

To be honest I didn't really like either of the sisters. 

Tina is self-centred and selfish, but puts this film of insouciance over her behaviour.  She tells everyone that she is spontaneous and lives in the moment when really she is deeply afraid of being seen as ordinary and somehow afraid of being noticed.  This leads her to behave in ways not only unbecoming to her aging years (okay she isn't THAT old but she acts like a perennial teenager) but makes her discount others so easily.  Case in point is her real reason for suggesting (forcing) Lottie to take this trip with her.

Lottie is the eternally sensible girl; the one who never takes risks and likes to blend in to the background.  Her relationship with Dan sounds stultifying and I never really got a sense of them having an adult relationship, he feels more like her protector from the world.  There's nothing inherently wrong with being a sensible person but she comes across as being pretty sanctimonious with it and I just couldn't take a shine to her at all.

It's all a little bit Thelma and Louise but without interesting protagonists.  Sure we have the pretty boy along for the ride and there is the odd injection of danger but it just didn't work for me.  I wasn't invested in the outcome of the road trip, I wasn't invested in the sister's relationship with each other.  Fortunately we are kept guessing for quite a bit of the book about what happened to Mia (all we know at the outset is that she is dead) and that is what kept me reading.

As a novel it passes the time well enough but it didn't enthrall me or make me want to stay up to read just another chapter.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK PROVIDED BY READERS FIRST.
       

Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

This is quite possibly the best of the Rivers Of London series.  There, I said it.  Unfortunately I have already given all the previous four novels five stars so have nowhere to go with this one.

Initially I was unsure how this one was going to work, Peter Grant away from London, away from the Folly.  After all they both loom large in the books and are almost characters in their own right.  Oddly, it works all too well and seeing the countryside through his townie eye (as well as his magical one) makes for a real page turner.  At first the disappearence of two young girls doesn't seem to have much of the Falcon about it but as one of the few survivors of Etterburg lives locally it seems best to check, plus Peter is really persona non grata in London at the moment after being there at the Skygarden's destruction (and likely instrumental in it).

Peter Grant is his snarky, bewildered self and maybe this is the real joy of the books; as a narrator he is so refreshingly bumbling at times you can't help but feel drawn to him.  Despite the local law enforcement's reluctance to accept him when things take a turn for the possibly mystical (invisible friend that just happens to be a unicorn) they absorb him in to the investigation.  Unfortunately for them this is definitely a case for Falcon and with Peter without the guiding hand of Nightingale things could go South very quickly.  Fortunately Bev is on hand to help steer him, even if she has her own machiavellian plots going on - never trust a River Goddess (even one that drive a steam engine!).

Thunderingly good plot that makes the fantastical seem rational and logical.  Strong characters that don't suddenly behave in unusual ways (often an issue with long running serials) and with the injection of some new blood that is just as deftly created it really sucks you in.  Even better we get introduced to another realm - after River Goddesses and the Quiet People we now have another race breathing in Peter's rarefied world.  A race that throws illumination on to Molly's true character (I admit it now, my gut feeling about her true nature was way off the mark).

Despite there being only the odd cameo by Nightingale and no Molly or Toby at all I thoroughly enjoyed this rural romp.  I'm not sure that I am looking forward to Peter returning to London and The Folly but return he sadly must.

Honestly, if you enjoy Urban Fantasy novels then I urge you to pick up the Rivers Of London series.  With a well thought through supernatural world bubbling alongside one we recognise, a narrator that is charmingly bewildered and strong plotting you will not be disappointed.

The Bus On Thursday by Shirley Barrett

This book is what I can only describe as strange.  It seems to settle uneasily across a couple of genres and not really fit within either.  First off you have the tale of how Eleanor deals with her diagnosis of Breast Cancer and subsequent tenuous remission.  Then you have her tale of mental decline in the aftermath of her treatment, increasing isolation from friends and family and ultimate decision to take a teaching job in a remote township.  The locale she moves to is peculiar to say the least with it's mad-monk priest and bizarre inhabitants.  Finally there is an almost horror story aspect to the ending.  All mashed up together it makes for peculiar reading.

The story itself is told in blog posts so we only get one perspective on everything that happens.  Unfortunately for Eleanor, as a narrator, she transcends unreliable and moves in to the realms of truly deluded very rapidly.  It is clear to the reader that she has suffered major psychological trauma along with physical trauma and that the help provided her she seems willing to brush off.  The real problem, for me, was trying to figure out what was really happening in her life and what were delusions.

I enjoyed the format of the story as it allowed the author to pare the story back to just one view point, one experience related by the sufferer (and suffer Eleanor does).  Unfortunately there is something inherently distasteful about Eleanor, something selfish and self-serving that maybe she is entitled to after such a traumatising diagnosis so young but that still sits uneasily with me.  It doesn't help that rather than make decisions she just acts and this leads her to engage in behaviour that is rash and damaging (throwing away her tamoxifen, stopping her anti-depressants, getting involved with a handsome local).  It also doesn't help that she is so judgmental about the local townsfolk.  Yes, they are a weird bunch when seen through her eyes but as she clearly cannot be trusted to tell the truth maybe they aren't that bad.

Ultimately I'm not sure how much I enjoyed this book.  It did make me squirm but it gave me the chills that a good horror story gives you so that's a point in it's favour.  To be honest I think this one will take a couple of read throughs to get the nuances and to even begin to understand the author's plot trajectory.  I'm also not a huge fan of a cliffhanger ending and this sort of has that feel to it but it does leave you hanging in the middle of a sentence which annoyed me; I understand the "literary" device but it seems out of place here.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK SUPPLIED VIA THE PUBLISHER.

Dark Inspiration by Russell James

This is as much about the prejudices of a small town as it is about the Ghost Story.  Yes, the bulk of the story is about Galaxy Farm but it was the little bits tossed in there about the locals reactions to out-of-towners moving in to the Old Hutchinson place that really stuck with me.  In particular when Laura starts working as a long term substitute teacher at the Local Elementary School, the staff reaction to her is downright chilling.  Yes, this is a tiny bit of the story and related in an almost throw away style but I found it probably more disturbing than the actual ghost story.

I was relieved this wasn't about the house itself being evil - I will admit to having a few reservations that this was going to be a "take" on Shirley Jackson's Hill House.  There are similarities but only because you have to explain where the hauntings come from, at least there is no flashback device used here - we find out the history of the house along with Doug when he sets out to investigate the history of the house after Laura starts having very specific dreams about twin girls and even hears something like child's laughter.

The tension builds slowly up to the climax and I found it sucked me right in and I kept having that "just one more chapter" feeling.  The author does a great job of almost normalising Doug's breakdown after he finds the hidden attic and starts to unlock it's secrets - of course an attic cannot be hidden, there is always going to be that roof space but someone did a good job of trying to hide the access to it.  Some bits did remind me of The Shining, especially Laura's reveal at the end of the book about what she found when she investigated Doug's Great American Novel.

This was so much better than I expected it to be, I think it took me a little bit by surprise.  The tale is narrated by both Laura and Doug and you get a great sense of each protagonist on the page and there is a matter-of-factness to the events at Galaxy Farm.  The ghost story itself is wound quite deftly in to their tale and although there are scenes that shock, they are not shocking (if that makes sense) and I was never left feeling that something was there just for effect (sadly something that proliferates in the genre).

Well plotted and full of suspense.  This book really gave me hope that the horror genre still has a lot to give.

Demonic Indemnity by Craig McLay

The blurb for this one grabbed me immediately.  I love a bit of Urban Fantasy and could you imagine the claims you'd get to investigate if you worked for an Insurance Company in a world where all those horror story creatures live alongside humanity.  To be honest, I fully expected to be disappointed in this book as my imagination was already well away with demons and vampires and werewolves...Oh My!  What I didn't expect was to be swept up into such a vividly realised fictional world that completely sucked me in.

Our lead character, Tim, is a bit of a bumbling buffoon but quite charmingly so.  His frustrations with his brother sharing his small apartment and the mess he leaves behind (honestly, scabs crumbs down the couch, drained blood bags on the counter tops who wouldn't be mad?) are relatable to anyone who has shared living space with anyone ever (even if the issue of blood bags hopefully has never arisen).  His Imposters Complex at work, especially since his promotion, are realistic too - it just happens that as the token human in the SIU he is probably right as it does all smack of positive discrimination and his co-workers make sure he knows that.

There are issues with editing in the book but it such an enjoyable novel I actually managed to overlook plot holes, grammatical foul ups and even mid-sentence personnel changes.  Who cares if Tim suddenly changes his name for a sentence, I found that I didn't.  I did wonder how he kept getting himself in to such diabolical (in the most literal meaning of the word) scrapes and why a mere Insurance Investigator would go to such lengths to investigate what happened at the back street psychic parlour and then I remembered - insurance companies never want to pay out so he was, after all, just doing his job.

I am looking forward to reading more books by this author as the overall novel is fun, fast paced and put a huge great smile on my face.

Summer Secrets by Jane Green

At first I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this book.  Having an alcoholic as your central character is a risky decision and I was expecting this to descend in to a parody of the condition as most books usually do.  Fortunately, there is no parody here and Cat's story of how she comes to rely on alcohol to get her through the day and the descriptions of how tightly it grips her are unsentimentally described.  Her refusal to see her predicament, her reluctant attempt at sobriety to keep the man she has fallen in love with, her spectacular fall off the wagon she was desperately clinging to and then her genuine attempt to put alcohol in her past are dealt with sensitively and yet have the brutal edge of reality.

I actually really liked Cat, despite her many flaws.  She felt entirely real on the page and the contrast between her apparently glamorous media job and the disaster that was her home life felt entirely believable.  I also loved her wit, even in her darkest hours she seemed to find a turn of phrase that would elicit a wry smile.  There is also a good attempt to explore the nature of alcohol addiction and how much of it we are predisposed to - the nature vs nuture debate - and in Cat's case there are strong indicators that it is a genuine mix of both (unstable early life with a depressive mother and a controlling father figure who leaves her feeling than she is worthless, a father who she didn't know about who has his own problems with alcohol and writes them off as being his heritage).  I even enjoyed her AA sessions, yes the whole "higher power" thing they eschew makes me VERY uncomfortable but there is no doubt that it can and does help an awful lot of people and this novel illustrates how it works.

However, the book is about so much more than Cat's alcoholism.  It is about the struggles that life throws at us and how you just have to knuckle down and get on with it.  If you are lucky you have a support network to get you through and hopefully that is your family.  This book deals with Cat's struggles to find that family and about how friends can become your family.  It is beautifully written and I got really sucked in to the author's fictional world.  The only downside for me were the Nantucket sections, I have only read two Jane Green books and they both heavily feature Nantucket so it had a vague air of Deja Vu about it in places.

The ending does leave the reader feeling a little cheated with its will-they-won't-they.  However, I kind of liked that as it leaves the reader to make up their own mind about how events unfold for Cat, Jason and Annie after that fateful summer.

Home Truths by Susan Lewis

          For me this book tried too hard to look at the darker strata of society.  The small town of Ketsley has everything - County Lines Drug Gangs, forced prostitution and people trafficing, a suspected paedophile ring, a thriving homeless population and for a small town a lot of dead young people.  Honestly it is worse than any inner city.  I'm not saying that I want the real world to be pushed out of my reading and that these things do not have a place in a novel BUT it just feels over blown and over done here. 

The bulk of the book deals with Angie Watts and the aftermath of her husband's brutal murder on a local sink estate.  Couple this with the onset of Universal Credit and her and her children end up in a spiral of debt that leads them in to the darker strata of society.  Of course, being a novel, there is a Guardian Angel just waiting to rescue them - so if the darkness gets too much just bear that in mind.

The issues that I had with this are that whilst it makes mention of the Widows Allowance for the first 12 months what it doesn't mention is the Victim Compensation scheme.  In a case such as Angie's they would not have been in such a precarious precidament as their situation (a small child (7 year old Zak) and a teenager (13 year old Grace) along with a young widow) would have meant they got a hefty payout.  Yes, this would not have brought Steve back but it would have meant they weren't in danger of the terrible things that happen to the family after the event.  For all the undoubted research the author has done for this to be missed irritated me and everytime money woes were mentioned it leapt in to my mind.

Angie herself also infuriated me.  From sticking her head in the sand about their situation - okay, that I do get; debt is very, very scary and having bailiffs ringing you up and knocking on your door is not a great position to be in but you have to bite the bullet for the sake of the children.  Her work at Bridging The Gap is definitely worthwhile but to stick to that even whilst spiralling deeper and deeper when it's not paying more than minimum wage is rash and she is simply unable to see this.  Then ultimately she does not claw herself out of the mire she relies on someone else to do this for her and the final reveal about Shakil just made me shake my head in disbelief.

The writing itself is well paced and the characters are drawn well.  The problem with the characters is that they don't have more than a couple of traits.  Angie is downtrodden and, not to put too fine a point on it, pathetic.  Martin is just revoltingly perfect.  Grace is incredibly naive and read more like a ten year old than the thirteen she is supposed to be - especially for the location she lives in.  The only character that really felt like she had any real depth was Emma.

I can see what the author was trying to do and it does open sections of society that we would prefer not to think about.  However, it tries much too hard and by trying to add hope to the story it almost becomes a parody.  If it had stuck with the spiral of debt and the true horrors that brings about then it could have been a stronger, more compelling book.  Instead it spreads itself way too thin and dissipates the "message".

Although I have given this 3 Stars I cannot really recommend it unless you like misery-lit.  The hope supposedly in the tale is far too removed from reality and belongs in a fairytale.  The situations written about for the Watts family are unrealistic based on the situation described.  In fact as I write this I am wondering if 2 Stars wouldn't have been a truer rating but I will stick with my initial notation from when I completed the book.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED FROM READERS FIRST.
       

Dorothy And The Glass Key by Christopher J Finn

Starting in a privately operated Mental Health Facility, the book initially introduces us to the administrator, Ellen, who is dismayed to have her peaceful Monday shattered by the wealthy Ragesh Dutta and his ward, Dorothy.  Taking over a suite of rooms Ellen is shocked to find all the furnishings and decor removed from the room and, even more shocked to find out that Ragesh seems to insist that Dorothy and he were 14 year olds together when it is quite clear that there is a huge age gap between them.  Still, this is a wealthy man who is willing to pay for their facilities so Ellen feels like she has no option but to sit and listen to Dorothy's story, as best as Ragesh can tell it.

I felt this was a strong opening to the book and it really sucked me in to the world that the author was creating.  However, once Ragesh begins his tale to Ellen Dorothy's voice takes over and the bulk of the story is about how Dorothy ended up in a persistent vegetative state.  There is a lot of woe-is-me teenage angst, stubborness and complete inability to see past her own needs and wants - in short, Mr Finn perfectly captures the average 14 year old.  The problem for me was that whilst I could empathise with her situation (alcoholic father and dead mother) I never felt that I could actually like her and as the bulk of the book is told by, and about, her this is a bit of a problem.

The idea of a key that can unlock another world is a good one and provided a good parallel to how a fantasy life (be it experienced through books, film, video games, or just good old imagination) can be of benefit.  Initially the key world provides Dorothy with the solace she doesn't get in her daily existence and as she meets Charlie and Ragesh they become the Three Key Children and provide each other with the support they need to get through the horrors (real and imagined) of their daily lives.  In fact, compared to Charlie and Ragesh Dorothy really has it easy.  Exploring the world by combining their keys in different configurations was a great idea and although a lot of these worlds are visited only briefly the reader is given a decent enough overview of the children's experiences.

The problems really only came for me in the second half of the book with the introduction of The Spintwister.  Whether it was just me I'm not sure but it all seems to get very confused and the narrative begins to jump all over the place for much of the second portion of the book.  As an ogre like figure I understand the point of The Spintwister but rather than add to the narrative he just interrupted it.  The author does manage to pull it back together by the end of the book and the reveal has a nice twist to it that I didn't see coming.

To be honest, now I have read it once I have a suspicion that a second read through would be far more enjoyable.  As a debut novel this is a fresh story that does entertain it just gets itself muddled part way through.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK SUPPLIED VIA THE AUTHOR.

Gods Of Jade And Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Casiopeia Tun has an unenviable life.  Taken in by her mother's wealthy family after the death of her father her mother and her are treated like servants rather than family.  As you would expect this doesn't quash her spirit, it just makes her dream of the day she can escape her controlling family and get away to the city where Jazz Babies with their flashing ankles and shingled hair dance to fast music, swim in the ocean and drive automobiles.  When her grandfather punishes her by making her stay home instead of joining the monthly pilgrimage to the Cenotes she lets her inquisitive nature take hold and opens the mysterious traditional Mayan decorated trunk in his room.  Like Pandora before her this brings disaster upon her and her family.  Rather than releasing the ills of the world it releases Hun-Kame, an ancient God who was imprisoned by his twin brother Vucub-Kame with the assistance of her grandfather.  Cue a race across Mexico to retrieve Hun-Kame's missing ear, finger, jade necklace and eye and an ultimate showdown on the Black Road of Xibalba between the brothers and also Casiopeia and her cousin Martin Leyva.

Unfortunately, for me the telling was all a little pedestrian and I found it very difficult to really care about any of the characters within it.  There is an attempt at characterisation but I never really got a sense of any of the protagonists as anything more than ciphers on a page.  The exception to this was Martin Leyva, despite his obvious flaws he was the only one that really came across as a person beyond the page.  This was quite a surprise as the majority of the book is told from Casiopeia's point of view and we only hear from Martin a handful of times.  It seems that these were enough to give the impression of a boy floundering in to manhood and struggling to find his place both within the familt hierarchy and the larger world.

The mythology that forms the basis of the book is well described and I did find it quite informative about Mayan beliefs.  It only really deals with the Lords of Death and their realm of Xibalba but it was well explained whilst treading the fine line between treating the reader like an idiot or assuming they already knew these creation tales.  I did find it quite startling how similar to other belief systems these tales and locations where as I knew very little about Mayan civilization (apart from ritual human sacrifice).

The story itself is more of a romance mixed with a coming of age for a young woman of impecunious means.  Not really what I was expecting from the blurb.  Overall this was just an okay read.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED FROM THE PUBLISHER.

Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howard

          3.5 Stars

As is now a fairly standard trope the story starts with a murder and then works in a timeline of events to get to it.  Although there is an awful lot of jumping around within the story between pre and post the cataclysmic event and this actually works to the tale's detriment.  It all gets very confused, very quickly and the vast cast of characters don't help.

Unfortunately, as soon as one particular is introduced you know exactly who murdered the ill-fated Natalie Marie O'Connor Kerr and you even know why.  As this happens about a third of the way through the book it sort of ruins the rest of it a little.  The huge cast doesn't help matters, especially as they all seem to get to have their point of view immortalised on the page.  I can see how this was intended to disperse and then build tension but it just wasn't taut enough to achieve this - a firmer editorial hand was required methinks.

None of the characters is particularly strong and there are A LOT of characters to get to grips with.  Some of them serve a genuine story purpose, others are there merely as padding (or so it seemed to this reader) and others are clearly there to act as red herrings.  Unfortunately, none of them really managed to capture my imagination or even break out of their two dimensional paper prison.  The nearest one was Andrew but even he became a series of cliches rather than a real person.

Focused around the disappearance of Instagram Influencer Natalie O'Connor and fledgling journalist Audrey Coghlan's attempts to investigate the reader is taken from a vibrant Dublin to the bleak coastal town of Shanamore.  The difference between the two locations is stark and does work quite well.  The settings are probably the best bit of the book and have a life that the characters simply don't have.

Ultimately, this was a somewhat disappointing read that didn't really conceal any surprises.  It does try to raise topical themes (such as The Dark Web and Influencers) but in a fairly superficial way that leave the story stranded at that Shanamore high tide line.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK SUPPLIED BY READERS FIRST.
       

The Bastille Spy by C. S. Quinn

          Attica Morgan is one heck of a heroine.  She may be from the wrong side of the tracks and not at all at home in London's High Society but her paternity means that is where she belongs.  Strong, smart and with an overwhelming sense of justice nothing is going to stop Attica and her Mangbetu knife.  Throw in a spy ring, a pirate and an impenetrable prison and you know you are in for a bumpy and breathtaking ride.

The book takes you from Empress Catherine's Russia to the salons of London; from the parliament buildings of Westminster to an elegant Pirate rig; from the streets of Revolutionary Paris to houses of ill repute; from the plaster mines under Paris to the very heart of the Bastille.  Attica never stops for long and drags the reader tearing along with her.

There is just enough historical accuracy thrown in to the mix to give the story a nice edge of veracity.  Certainly the tension on the French streets is well realised on the page and there is a genuine sense of peril.  I particularly loved Robespierre's misunderstanding of the codenames - even so early in the book that gave me a little chuckle (although for some reason my mind kept going to The Black Fingernail rather than The Scarlet Pimpernel).

The plot swoops along at a fair old lick and you do need to pay attention to keep up.  There is a little bit of switching up the points of view going on so you do get to hear directly from Robespierre (actually, he is quite sympathetically drawn in the book and not the cardboard cutout villain that he easily could have been).  There are also little sections narrated by the duped Grace Elliott but the majority of the tale is told by Attica.  This is no bad thing as she is a fun, and flawed, character with a strong voice that comes alive in your mind as you read.

There are some strongly realised action scenes, particularly when you toss Jemmy in to the mix and the assault on the Bastille is both highly enjoyable and perilous.  Loved the swooping from on high in true piratical fashion.

This was a fun story that gave me an awful lot of pleasure in it's reading.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED FROM READERS FIRST.
       

No One's Home by D. M. Pulley

3.5 Stars

This was a pretty good book that, initially, certainly ratcheted up the tension.  With multiple storylines centred around the history of the sprawling Rawlingswood mansion.  It seems that the house is plain old bad news and that nobody has ever been happy here - well, almost nobody.

For me, it was just a shame that the final reveal felt like a bit of a cop out.  From the identity of the shadowy girl that seems to be haunting the mansion and the Spielman's to the secret, literally, buried in the garden.  By the time I got to the end I was pretty much just reading to complete the book rather than to find out what happened.  It didn't help that the majority of the book was set in the present day and centred around the Spielman's - a dislikeable pair of parents and a pretty standard teenage boy.  To be entirely fair Hunter is the best of the three but Myron and Margot are unlikeable characters, I get the whole tragedy has shaped them thus thing but wow, what a pair.

The whole is interspersed with flashbacks to various inhabitants who have all met with various tragedy under the roof of Rawlingswood.  All except the Bells; seems they had a pretty good shot at living there on the whole.  It just never really seemed to settle in to a cohesive whole and left me feeling a little blah about the whole thing.  The identity of the shadowy figure was flagged way too early on and I did find it hard to generate any sort of enthusiasm for the haunted aspect of the book.

Far too much gets thrown in to the story somehow and there is little doubt in my mind that all the history of the town and the land is a distraction to the actual tale.  It may have helped if Hunter and his friend Caleb didn't keep mentioning the film Poltergeist as a touchstone for what was happening in the house - to then have a similar plot point roll out just made me roll my eyes somewhat.

Not a bad novel but it failed to grip me as much as I would have anticipated.

The Cactus by Sarah Haywood

I'm not entirely sure if I enjoyed this book or not. 

It is certainly very well written.  It certainly has strong characters.  It has a believable(ish) plot that moves fairly smoothly.

However, I did find that I couldn't actually read for more than an hour without having to put it down and go and do something else.  I'm not entirely sure why this was but it was perhaps more to do with Susan's character than anything else - abrasive doesn't begin to even cover it.  Sadly, I did recognise myself in a lot of Susan - particularly when at work and her desire to generally avoid human to human interaction.  Maybe this just made it all cut a bit close to home but I'm genuinely not sure.

It also didn't help that I found the romantic facet of the story to be a rather strange.  Yes, you can guess where it will all end up more or less from their first meeting but getting there wasn't exactly fun.  Despite Susan's protestations of self-reliance it all feels a little bit desperate and hostile rather than insouciant with hefty dollops of "methinks the lady doth protest too much".  I did like how Susan's character softens throughout the story though and how this was shown as being due to friendships that crept up on her rather than merely hormonal.

I did like the friction between Susan and Edward; fraternal relationships can be so difficult.  The battle surrounding her deceased mother's estate was well constructed and all too realistic - right down to the needless litigation.  Although, the conclusion of that felt like a little bit of a cop out somehow.

On the whole I was left a little bit confounded by this book and although I finished it nearly a week ago now I'm still undecided as to how enjoyable I found the reading experience.

A Summer To Remember by Sue Moorcroft

This was an okay read but somehow I never really felt immersed in the setting or found myself really caring about the cast of characters.  There was a bit too much relying on misunderstandings and happenstance in the plot for me and strangely, one too many plotlines straggling through made it overpopulated and somehow "bitty".  I'm all for complexity and depth but prefer this to come from my characters rather than the scenarios and with so much going on for, and around Clancy it all became a bit much.

Variously this book deals with the aftermath of a jilting at the altar, an affair that is revealed in a dramatic way, loss of a business, difficulties of rural living, same gender relationships, parental pressure, the dangers of gossip, new love, intrusive family and probably a lot more.  Certainly every chapter brings some new dilemma and seeks to address an ongoing one.  To be honest it all got a bit overdramatic and wearing by about halfway through.  For me this needed stripping back and the number of issues facing Clancy and, to a lesser extent, Aaron needed to be pared back to allow a fuller exploration of the themes.

The writing, as always, is really good.  Unfortunately, the story lets it down.  The plot is so all encompassing that the only pace is urgent and breathless as you jump here, there and everywhere without really settling and exploring any one facet.  The characters of Clancy and Aaron are quite well drawn but everyone else is almost a caricature (Alice - entitled and selfish, Hugo - scuzzy, Will - attractive and untrustworthy, Lee - frail and damaged) and it does distract the reader and detract from the overall story.

It would make a good holiday read where you tend to pick up and put down a book several times a day for brief periods.  The constant shuttling about and ever changing problems are less obvious that way.  The only thing that saved this for me was the warmth of the writing.

City Of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

4.5 Stars

I fell in love with this book almost from the very first page.  The writing is vibrant and the narrating character, Vivian, is full of verve and pluck that just shines right off the page.  The story itself takes the form of a longform confessional statement made by Vivvie to the mysterious Amanda.  All we know is that Vivvie knew her parents and that Amanda has informed of her of her father's passing but now her mother too has passed and she is in contact again.  Why this has led to Vivvie writing this piece we, the reader, aren't sure and neither do we know who Amanda is but somehow that doesn't matter as it is absorbing reading.

Set in the 1940s Vivvie is a woman way before her time.  Raised in a privileged and wealthy family she is somewhat of a disappointment.  Crashing out of Vassar, failing to meet a suitable husband and just generally cluttering up her parent's home she is sent to stay with her bohemian Aunt Peg in New York City.  Somehow the whole feel of the early years of Vivvie's life felt more 1920s than 1940s but they really drew me in and me want to be right there alongside her.  Life at The Lily Playhouse is one long hedonistic whirl for Vivvie and populated with wonderful characters - the stunning showgirl Celia Ray, the dour Olive and the impeccable Edna Parker Watson.

My only real problem with the book was that after her somewhat shocking fall from grace and her banishment back home to rural stultification some of the colour is lost from the book.  Everything suddenly becomes rather rushed and rather than a languid recollection of early days it is a rapid fire recounting of the war and post war years.  Unusually I found myself wanting more pages rather than less (not a usual occurrence).

This is a wonderful novel that beckons you in to a lost world.  A world that at once feels wholly nostalgic, entirely real and yet completely fantastical.  The narrator's voice is strong and although we never hear from any of the other characters (or even Amanda's rebuttal) somehow Vivvie makes them come alive for you.  Boiled down to it's bare bones it is a story of one woman who breaks the mould of her time by embracing her sensuality and following her heart (and her sewing machine) wherever it leads her - even if that means trouble.

Warm, funny and heartbreaking in it's honesty.  This is an almost perfect read that will silently steal hours from your day and give you a great big grin on your face.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK PROVIDED BY THE PUBLISHER.