How Do You Do It?

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As well as writing reviews and talking about books I have loved, I often find myself thinking about Book Blogging and the marvellous world I fell into three years ago.

For me, part of doing all this is sometimes to stop and take stock of where I am and where I want to be, and well, seeing that this is my blog, I guess it is also my space to talk about things that I think about when I am talking to you about all things bookish.

I have to tell you that something has been really bothering me for a while, and so I am just going to put it out there.

How do you deal with all the books you have on your teetering TBR? The books that have been on your bookshelves for so long that you stumble upon them by surprise? The ones you promised yourself you would definitely read and review for a publisher this month – but never do..

I want to ask specifically about the books you have asked for – when the fabulous publicists ask for Bloggers and Bookstagrammers to put their hands up for a copy.

That’s right, how do you feel when you have asked for a book – and you don’t manage to read it- even though at the time you told yourself you definitely would?

Do you try and post a picture and a tweet/post about the book on publication day, or do you do nothing? Or are you disciplined and you only ask for those books you know you will definitely read and review?

We’ve all done it, fallen down that rabbit hole where the delicious promise of the new book being offered is too hard to resist, and that ever present Fear Of Missing Out kicks in. It makes us believe that if we don’t manage to get a copy of the book everyone is talking about, that we are losing out on some shared bookish wonder, and that we are not part of the ‘gang’..

If you are lucky enough to get a copy of the book, it arrives, you post it on your social media channels, making sure you tag and thank all the people you know you should, put it on your bookshelf ready to read at the right moment – and sometimes, for whatever reason – you don’t.

My Bookshelves are right next to where I sit, and as I am typing this and glance to my right, there are all my latest books and proofs filed in publication date order, patiently waiting for their chance to fall in my hands so I can read and shout about them to you all.

I would love to hear how you deal with your ever increasing reading pile and especially the books that you have asked for. I’ve done it, and have got to the point where I have had so many sitting on my shelves that I feel completely embarrassed and honestly, truly guilty for asking for a book when I have no clue when I will actually have time to read and review it.

Recently, sometimes when I have emailed to request a proof, I have been asked where my review will appear with a request that I tag the appropriate people when I do it. I completely understand that. Proofs cost money to produce, and in recent times that is more pertinent than ever, so if a physical copy is being sent out, it seems only right to me that you should be asked where your review will be posted.

I like the fact that I am being held accountable for asking for a book, and I always keep in the back of my mind the fact that lots of other Book Bloggers would love the chance to read and review it. By reading and reviewing, I feel I am helping show the publishers how crucial and dedicated Book Bloggers are in spreading the word about their books.

How as Bloggers do we find the balance between wanting to shout about books we are excited about, but also in being honest to the people who follow us and trust our book recommendations? Can you request a book, post about it and then never read it? Do people ever ask you what you thought about a certain book and you haven’t actually read it, and if so, did you feel embarrassed about admitting it?

I just honestly wonder now whether increasingly sometimes the thrill of the chase and the collecting of the books takes precedence over actually reading and reviewing them. Perhaps it’s when you are confronted by the groaning bookshelves in front of you do you realise you are never going to be able to read them all – and that’s a difficult thing to admit to yourself, and even harder to say to everyone else too.

I don’t have an answer, and I am sure lots of you have your own opinions about how you deal with your TBR pile, and the right and wrongs of asking for books. I feel like I just needed to put my thoughts down in a post to get them straight!

2020 has been a pretty challenging year for lots of us for many reasons, and in my toughest months, it has been reading and sharing with you about books I have loved that quite honestly, have kept me going this year. Perhaps I need to remember that the very reason I started Years of Reading was not to be in some sort of bookish race – be it reading the most or having the latest releases, but quite simply to be totally authentic about books I have read and loved, so I can be honest in my recommendations to you and help you find the books that you love as much as I do.

Love

Clare xx

The Lies You Told by Harriet Tyce

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The Lies You Told by Harriet Tyce

Published by Wildfire Books

Available from all Good Bookshops and Online.

What They Say

Sadie loves her daughter and will do anything to keep her safe.

She can’t tell her why they had to leave home so quickly – or why Robin’s father won’t be coming with them to London.

She can’t tell her why she hates being back in her dead mother’s house, with its ivy-covered walls and its poisonous memories.

And she can’t tell her the truth about the school Robin’s set to start at – a school that doesn’t welcome newcomers.
Sadie just wants to get their lives back on track.

What I Say

I was lucky enough to read Harriet’s debut novel Blood Orange as a proof, and absolutely loved every single page. When I heard that she had written The Lies You Told, I really wanted to read it. The thing is, when someone’s first novel has been so memorable, I am always worried that the second novel may not live up to the first one.

I could not have been more wrong. In fact, just between us – I think The Lies You Told is even better.

Sadie’s marriage to Andrew has ended, and she has left him in the United States to bring their daughter Robin back to the UK. They have to move back in to Sadie’s now run down childhood home which in a calculated decision by Sadie’s late mother Lydia, has only been left to Robin. Lydia and Sadie had no relationship, she resented Sadie for ruining her chance at a career, and was cruel and indifferent towards her. Lydia could not forgive her daughter for giving up her promising career in law to have Robin and destroyed everything in her bedroom as a way of showing her anger. Even from the grave, Lydia has exacted her revenge, by stipulating that Sadie and Robin can only live there if Robin attends Ashams school – the same school Sadie went to, and hated.

Just as Robin is petrified of attending a new school as a Year 6 student, Sadie also has to deal with the group of über parents at Ashams – led by Julia, the unequivocal Queen Bee. What Harriet captures so well in this novel is the absolute awfulness of people like Julia and her school mum clique which sent a chill down my spine, as it all seemed too familiar! The way in which they decide who is to be talked to and who is to be ignored. The desperate need those around Julia – like the subservient Nicole, have, to be acknowledged by her to feel that they exist. Perhaps even more troubling is the way in which these parents project their own aspirations and drill their children into believing that passing the eleven plus to get into the best secondary school is the only thing that matters.

It is clear from the start that neither the other pupils or mothers want Sadie and Robin there, even more so when Robin performs brilliantly academically, proving to be a real threat to the chances that the other girls will have for getting their place in secondary school. Sadie is trying to navigate the social minefield of school life, whilst at the same time is trying to make an impression at work in chambers. She is helping with the defence for a case where a teacher called Jeremy has been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a pupil called Freya, and she and her colleagues are working to prove that he is telling the truth, and that Freya is the one lying.

As Sadie strives to resurrect her career, she finally reaches breaking point with the vindictiveness of Julia, Nicole and their clique. It is only when she shows them that she used to attend Ashams herself, suddenly the defences are down and chillingly she is welcomed unquestioningly into the group with open arms. Although Sadie might believe this will make her and Robin’s life far easier, this acceptance into the Queen Bee’s world triggers a chain of events that shows how disturbingly far some parents will go to get what they believe their children are entitled to (no spoilers here, you need to read the book!)!

The Lies You Told works so well, because Harriet has recognised and honed absolutely in on what drives so many parents – the need to be able to show how much more their child has achieved than everyone else’s. It is a novel that totally absorbed me, and Harriet knows exactly when to turn up the pace and when to slow down the plot so that the relationships between the characters can come to the fore. Her depiction of Sadie and Robin’s relationship really resonated with me, as she perfectly describes the love, protectiveness and sheer frustration that you can have with your children – often within the same ten minutes!

It is also a very insightful and articulate novel about the pressure and stress we increasingly put our children under, believing that we know best as to what they should be achieving, as oppose to sometimes stopping to listen to what they are telling us. I loved how when Sadie is ‘allowed’ to join the clique, that little by little, Julia and Nicole slowly reveal themselves as their guards come down. Initially you start to feel empathy with these women and the immense strain they are putting on themselves to appear to be the perfect parents, but Harriet skilfully and slowly reveals how these women are anything but defenceless.

It was also interesting how the narrative was split between Robin and Sadie’s experience of Ashams School, and the legal case Sadie is working on. At work, as well as having to prove herself after a long absence, she starts to sense that Jeremy is not as innocent as he pleads, and is being protected by those around him. One of the themes in this novel I felt, was the notion of identity and fitting in. We see how Sadie has to try and find her place at the school and work, as does Robin. Jeremy presents one identity to the court to seem like the innocent party, but slowly starts to reveal who he really is. Julia, Nicole and the parents at Asham, show how their identities are inextricably linked with their children, and how they have to mould themselves into what is expected of them, so that they seamlessly fit in – irrespective of how much that goes against who they really are.

I found The Lies You Told impossible to put down. As with all accomplished writers, just when you smugly assume you know where the novel is going, Harriet pulls the rug from under you and you realise you were absolutely wrong. The pieces of the puzzle fall slowly into place, and the truth starts to emerge at a deliciously perfect pace. The novel pulls us towards a breathtaking conclusion that when you have finished, leaves you questioning every line you have just read and wondering how you missed the clues – and that for me really is the sign of a brilliant book.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Rosie Margesson for my gifted proof copy of The Lies You Told in exchange for an honest review.

Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

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Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

Published by Fig Tree Books on 15th October

Available from all Good Bookshops and Online

What They Say

Nina Dean has arrived at her early thirties as a successful food writer with loving friends and family, plus a new home and neighbourhood. When she meets Max, a beguiling romantic hero who tells her on date one that he’s going to marry her, it feels like all is going to plan.

A new relationship couldn’t have come at a better time – her thirties have not been the liberating, uncomplicated experience she was sold. Everywhere she turns, she is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are fading, ex-boyfriends are moving on and, worse, everyone’s moving to the suburbs. There’s no solace to be found in her family, with a mum who’s caught in a baffling mid-life makeover and a beloved dad who is vanishing in slow-motion into dementia.

Dolly Alderton’s debut novel is funny and tender, filled with whip-smart observations about relationships, family, memory, and how we live now.

What I Say

In 1992, when I was 21 years old, I thought that I was going out with the man of my dreams. We had met through some voluntary work I was doing while at Leeds Uni, and he seemed to me to be perfect.

At the time I ignored the fact he didn’t turn up when he said he would, understood how he was always working and that’s why he was never in when I called (these are the days long before mobile phones), and brushed aside the fact that our ‘dates’ lasted no longer than a couple of hours at best. One day he dropped me off at my new house share in Leeds, carefully took (and repeated back!) my new number, promised to call me later and I never saw or heard from him again. That was until I saw him in a Leeds pub with his new girlfriend, and watched the colour drain from his face as he hurried them out of the door.

Six months after the last time I saw him, broken hearted, devastated and with my self confidence in pieces, I went to my friends house for dinner, to discover that they had set me up on a blind date.

Twenty eight years later, and married still to my Blind Date, it was the best dinner party I’ve been to.

The reason I wanted to share that story, is because Dolly Alderton’s first novel Ghosts resonated with me completely. It perfectly captures not only what it feels like when someone ‘ghosts’ you, but also shows how difficult it is to navigate your way through the unexpected demands of adult life when everyone and everything else around you seems to be so organised and settled.

Nina Dean is a food writer who is starting the next phase of her life by moving into a new flat after breaking up with her long term boyfriend Joe. With the encouragement of her quite frankly fabulous (I loved her!) friend Lola, Nina decides to start online dating, and meets Max.

As they tentatively start a relationship, Dolly perfectly captures the delicious anticipation of the first meeting, the first kiss and the long, perfect conversations to try and learn everything about each other as Nina and Max become closer. While Nina starts her relationship with Max, she is also aware that Katherine, her oldest friend, as well as physically moving away, is emotionally becoming distant from her as Katherine deals with the reality of the not always Instaperfect grind of motherhood.

Their once unbreakable bond is starting to fracture, as Nina and Katherine are taking different paths, and neither can fully understand or appreciate what the other is dealing with. Nina finds this hard, and doesn’t want to lose her best friend, but feels that they have less and less in common. Katherine is occupied with her husband, daughter Olive, and being pregnant, while Nina is trying to maintain her career, have a relationship with Max, and deal with what is happening with her parents.

Nina and her Mum Nancy – who has decided she now wants to be called Mandy, in a never ending quest to live her life to the fullest, are having to come to terms with the fact that Nina’s Dad Bill, who was a well loved and respected teacher, is facing the reality of life with dementia. Dolly writes so insightfully and knowingly about the impact of dementia on a family. The creeping realisation of the strain of caring for someone 24 hours a day, and the grieving process you have to go through for the future that you never wanted anyway, elevated Ghosts to another level completely for me.

Nina and Nancy have not been close for a long time, and they know that they have to attempt to connect with each other as they try to navigate this unforeseen life. They have to face the fact that the man who has created so many memories for them and countless others is now increasingly becoming frustrated and bewildered by a world he no longer recognises – and for the reader it is just as heartbreaking to read. I wondered if the title Ghosts was also about the idea that as we grow up, there are times that people can no longer be truly fully present in our lives, and that all we have are the memories of what they once were.

As Nina tries to come to terms with what her dad is going through, the fact that Joe is now happily in another relationship with Lucy, and the publisher’s rejection of her latest book, she believes at least she has a relationship.

Until one day Max simply disappears.

Nina’s attempts to contact him come to nothing, and suddenly the future she believed she was going to have, has been denied by the one person she wanted to share it with.

What worked so well for me about this novel was that Dolly writes such real and believable characters. I felt such empathy with Nina as she tries to process what has happened, and that is because I really liked her. When Lola is ghosted too by her boyfriend Jethro, who has promised to marry her, Nina visits him and in her anger at his betrayal, she perfectly articulates the difference in how men and women are allowed and expected to behave in relationships. That scene works so well and makes such an impact- because it’s true.

Max’s eventual reappearance and remorse for disappearing from Nina’s life, could in a lesser writers hands have been clichéd and formulaic. As Nina comes to terms with what Max has done and what their future holds (no, I’m not going to tell you, read the book!), she has to make decisions about their relationship and her life and Dolly uses the plot and our connection to Nina to do this perfectly – because she makes you really care about all the people in the novel.

The pace and narrative is natural and moves along at just the right speed. There are numerous brilliant observations and scenes which depict the horrors of hen dos, the difference as to how men and women prepare for weddings, and how they deal with parenthood. Ghosts is filled with so many funny and relatable scenes about families and relationships that I just wanted to underline paragraphs and pages to come back to.

Ghosts is a novel not only about the ever shifting social minefield that is the changing friendships and relationships as we get older, but is also a perfectly pitched and tender exploration as to the demands and stresses that a family has to go through when someone you love so deeply is becoming a ghost of their former selves. Dolly Alderton writes with total clarity and insight about love, family and the fear and ultimately grief you have to endure when a family member slips away from you in front of your eyes.

Ghosts undoubtedly for me is that very rare thing – a novel I absolutely didn’t want to end.

I completely loved it, and it will be one of my #MostSelfishReads2020.

Thank you so much to Hannah Sawyer at Fig Tree for my gifted proof copy in exchange for an honest review.

Sisters by Daisy Johnson

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Sisters by Daisy Johnson

Published by Johnathan Cape

Available from all Good Bookshops and Online

What They Say

Something unspeakable has happened to sisters July and September.

Desperate for a fresh start, their mother Sheela moves them across the country to an old family house that has a troubled life of its own. Noises come from behind the walls. Lights flicker of their own accord. Sleep feels impossible, dreams are endless.

In their new, unsettling surroundings, July finds that the fierce bond she’s always had with September – forged with a blood promise when they were children – is beginning to change in ways she cannot understand.

Taut, transfixing and profoundly moving, Sisters explodes with the fury and joy of adolescence. It is a story of sibling love and sibling envy that fans of Shirley Jackson and Stephen King will devour.

What I Say

“I am a shape cut out of the universe, tinged with ever-dying stars – and she is the creature to fill the gap I leave in this world.”

Sisters by Daisy Johnson was a novel that was firmly on my most anticipated reads at the start of this year, and I was thrilled to be gifted a copy by Mia. However, as any book blogger knows, putting any book on such a list immediately puts a lot of pressure on that book and yourself – what if it doesn’t live up to your expectations? How do you review it after hyping it up so much?

Honestly, it was not the novel I was expecting, but it was all the better for it. Sisters is a story that right from the start is filled with the uneasy sense that something is very amiss in the family who have travelled hastily to a remote location in Yorkshire called Settle House.

Sheela and her daughters July and September arrive at their new home and as soon as they get inside, Sheela disappears upstairs and leaves the girls to get on with it. This sets the tone for the novel in that the focus is totally on the sisters, born ten months apart and who are not only inseparable, but also are so close that it is difficult to see where one sister starts and the other one ends.

As the girls explore the delapidated house, which is cold and unwelcoming and still has clothes and belongings from previous residents, they are left to fend for themselves as their mother stays in her bedroom. As they attempt to find something to eat, to amuse themselves and ease into their new house, it seems that they are almost feral and unworldly in their appetites, and their mother has decided to hide herself away from them.

The mother’s immediate disconnection and inability to deal with or care for her daughters makes you wonder what has happened and whether the mother has any maternal feelings for her daughters at all.

The location and inaccessibility of the house adds to the mysterious and unsettling tone that permeates every page of this novel. There is the sense that the intense relationship between the sisters is not quite as straightforward as we would think, and that something we are yet to discover has sent the family to this remote place.

Life at school has been difficult for July, who has been bullied and exploited when she is co-erced into sending an explicit picture to a phone number who she believes is Ryan, the boy she is attracted to. There are also hints that an incident happened at the school tennis courts and that from then on, July and September’s world was never the same again.

Daisy Johnson has created sisters that seem to have this innate unspoken power, existing in a world that they inhabit so completely that to allow anyone else in would some how diminish their bond. This is what makes the novel even more intriguing, as nothing is explicitly stated – it is up to the reader to try and piece the plot together.

I also felt that there were constant connections between how the Settle House is described, and the changes that take place in the girls. At times it seems that the house is creaking, growing and keeping secrets stowed safely in its walls, and now that July and September are living here, they too are part of the life cycle of this house. This connection is depicted even more strongly in Part Two as we see all the events and family events the house has borne witness to over the years.

As the narrative shifts between July, and her mother Sheela we discover both the difficult history of the family and the house. As the novel moves between scenes of domestic life and almost folklore horror, the truth about this family slowly and tantalisingly emerges – and left this reader somewhat speechless.

Sisters is not only an engaging and absorbing novel about the claustrophobic relationship between July and September, it is also a story of a family adrift and in the depths of grief that constantly changes direction and pulls the reader along with it. Daisy Johnson’s narrative moves along so well and with so much conviction in all of her characters, that when you have finished it, you feel that you understand July and September so well that the ending couldn’t possibly have been anything else.

I loved it.

Thank you so much to Mia Quebell-Smith at Jonathan Cape for my gifted copy.

Dear Reader by Cathy Rentzenbrink

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Dear Reader by Cathy Rentzenbrink

Published by Picador on 17th September

Available from All Good Bookshops and Online

What They Say

For as long as she can remember, Cathy Rentzenbrink has lost and found herself in stories. Growing up she was rarely seen without her nose in a book and read in secret long after lights out. When tragedy struck, books kept her afloat. Eventually they lit the way to a new path, first as a bookseller and then as a writer. No matter what the future holds, reading will always help.

Dear Reader is a moving, funny and joyous exploration of how books can change the course of your life, packed with recommendations from one reader to another.

What I Say

“And I know that whatever else may happen in my life, I will love talking to strangers about books. Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved books. She still does. She always will.”

I was going to do a video review for Dear Reader – you know me, there’s nothing better I like than having an opportunity to talk about books I adore to an audience – no matter how few people are watching! To be honest, I realised that two minutes twenty seconds of a Twitter video isn’t long enough to tell you why I loved Dear Reader.

Life at the moment doesn’t really lend itself to me shouting about books on Twitter and Instagram. Personal circumstances have meant that books and blogging have had to take a total back seat whilst I concentrate on looking after my family. Just between us, not having to do it has felt like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders too.

I wanted to tell you that because that’s why I needed to take a break from book blogging and social media. Suddenly shouting about books and retweeting things didn’t seem that important. I’ve still been scrolling through Twitter and Instagram don’t get me wrong, but it’s been a strange experience. It’s as if you are standing outside the school playground when you can still see everything going on through the fence – who is playing nicely together, who is shouting the most, or the loudest, and who is picking on who – I just decided not to step through the gate for a bit.

I posted the blog posts I had promised, as well as pictures of the books that had arrived (thank you so much to everyone who sent me something) but for the last two weeks I have been existing in some kind of bookish limbo – aware of my commitments to people, but having absolutely no desire to pick up a book and read anything.

When the fabulous Camilla Elworthy at Picador very kindly sent me a copy of Cathy’s book a while back, I put it on my shelf to read later because I didn’t feel like I needed it. The past fortnight has been one of huge ups and downs, and on Saturday, feeling slightly overwhelmed and a little concerned by my complete and total lack of bookish enthusiasm, I pulled it down from my shelves and started reading.

The thing is, I couldn’t stop.

Dear Reader made me laugh, made me cry (a lot!), and also made me nod furiously as I read it. I was reading about myself in these pages. Finally someone had totally articulated the pure unadulterated joy of books and reading, and I loved every single page.

I remember the numerous times I have put off doing something so I can squeeze in another chapter, the sheer delight of choosing a book and curling up with it uninterrupted, and the quizzical looks from someone who just doesn’t understand the joy that reading brings. All of this is in Cathy’s book – I said in a comment on Instagram to Cathy that I had never felt so seen!

Cathy intersperses chapters from her own personal life – how she started reading, her career as a bookseller at Waterstones and then working for Quick Reads before becoming a writer, with almost prescriptions for us, books on different topics and themes, to help and educate, to reignite the reading passion we may have lost.

The most poignant part of the book for me is when Cathy talks about her grief in losing her brother Matty. I read Cathy’s memoir The Last Act of Love when it was published, and apart from openly sobbing at some points, I remember feeling her pain and loss so acutely, and was in awe of the all encompassing love she felt for Matty and how she described the feelings of grief so perfectly.

When my Mum passed away last year, I turned to reading as I talked about here – it became the cure to the uncharted heartbreak I was drowning in. Yet this time things are different. I feel overwhelmed by the world beyond my living room, and can’t really connect with anything. As I sit writing this, to my right are my bookshelves, groaning with so many unread books to read that it’s ridiculous – and yet I still ordered two more yesterday. That’s the thing that Cathy understands so well – that the way we feel about books is in our subconscious, and however unlikely it seems, it is always there whatever life may throw at us.

Dear Reader really made me stop and think about my whole approach to reading. In saying this, I am probably ending any chance of ever being sent a proof again, but here’s the thing. Why as a reader and blogger have I become so hung up on having the latest releases to shout about? When I started blogging I simply read what I fancied and talked about it, but as I have told you before, I have noticed recently how having the latest releases it is seemingly all that matters and honestly, I am weary of it.

Cathy’s book gave me the breathing space I needed. She made me realise that reading is not a race, that there is nothing wrong with simply stepping back and looking at the books I already have, rather than being desperate to have the books everyone is telling me I need to be a contented reader. It was as if the answer to my literary dilemmas had been sitting in this book all the time, and now I finally understand it.

Dear Reader is absolutely the book I wish I had had when I was younger. As a teenager I was frequently teased about my love of books and reading. People just didn’t seem to understand my need to have books, the delight in searching other people’s bookshelves, the satisfaction in working my way round the library from children’s fiction to the tantalising moment when I started reading adult fiction. I was lucky in that both my parents read avidly, and when my mum passed away, the only thing I really wanted of hers were the books on her bookshelf, still with the bookmarks in, even though forensic science and social workers memoirs were never my kind of read!

Books give me that emotional connection, an unspoken link with someone else, and a shared memory that can never be forgotten. They are a way for me to start a conversation, to escape from my world for a little while and to learn about new ones, and for me nothing feels better than finding a novel you want to tell everyone they need to read.

Quite simply, books and reading bring me joy, and Dear Reader is an unapologetically glorious love letter to both. I would go as far to say that it is required reading for anyone who has ever felt that they are alone in their love of books. Dear Reader will help you see that in fact that there are numerous people who feel exactly the same way as you do – and it’s a revelation!

It is a book that not only reignited my passion for reading, and added a lot of books to my reading list, but in reading Cathy’s story it made me feel that like her, I will carry on talking to people about books for as long as I can, and reminded me that little girl who loved reading is always there too.

Thank you so much to Camilla Elworthy for my gifted copy.

An Archive of Happiness by Elizabeth Reeder

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An Archive of Happiness by Elizabeth Reeder

Published by Penned in the Margins on 15th September

Available from all Good Bookshops or Online

What They Say

An Archive of Happiness is set in the Scottish Highlands over the course of one day during the Avens familys annual get-together. Its the summer solstice and theirs is a fractured family, broken by arguments, by things said and not said, by a mother who has left and a father who was left behind. What happens on this day will force them to cleave together to survive and redraw the traditional bonds of family.

What I Say

As soon as I heard about Elizabeth Reeder’s novel, I was immediately intrigued, as a fractured family coming together for one day is something that always draws me to novels. As I have a very small family, geographically distanced, and with our own personal challenges, getting us all together is not a common event.

In this novel, it is clear that the Avens family may be separated too, but that the familial bond, fuelled by childhood disappointments and issues that have dogged them for years, draws them back together more tightly than they could ever have envisioned.

The story seemingly takes place over one day, but in fact the novel is made up of all their life stories, the choices they have made and the lives they have lived until this point. When the plot culminates in them coming together one Summer Solstice Day – it paves the way for a tragic event that will mean they have to come together and face the world as a united family.

The Avens family we meet is made up of very different characters. The father Sonny, the mother Viv who one day simply disappears, and their children Ben, Nic and April. Viv’s sister Grace also lives nearby and has become a surrogate mother to the children, and a shoulder to lean on for Sonny, who has struggled with the challenges of looking after three children on his own. The ramifications of Viv’s disappearance affects each child in very different ways, and is felt intensely by each of them, although they show it differently.

Ben we learn was physically assaulted by Viv and he retaliated. His life after her leaving is peppered with anger and his inability to settle, and his sensitivity and unhappiness and distance from his Dad at one point led him to attempt suicide – when his sister covered for him.

Nic has a determination to lead her own life and is fiercely independent. She decides to buy a Croft on her own, and wants to set herself up in business fixing and designing tools. Even when she meets Charlie, her future husband, she is insistent that she does what she wants, and will not be limited by other people’s expectations.

April and Nic have always been close, and after not being able to find a job April likes, she has started working in a local pub, and has found her own happiness and talent in working there. She has also met someone – Col, who is going through his own challenges and is quietly undergoing his own personal transformation.

As the novel moves through the day to the time when the family are due to meet up, each chapter has a timeline at the top with the current time in bold lettering, and also there are clock symbols depicting the current time through certain chapters. This stylistically gives a sense for the reader as to where we are in the day. Right from the start, you are aware that something momentous is going to happen – you don’t know when and how. Elizabeth Reeder pushes and pulls the reader through different times – the past, the present and the future, and the only way you know this is by looking at the clock and the chapter headings. It serves to bring you closer to the characters as each time shift tells us more about them.

At times, this can be slightly disorientating – you have to concentrate and I found myself trying to focus where I was in terms of the time of the characters stories. However, I think this works, because it also gives the story that sense of how our memories and recollections work. We may start at one place and find ourselves somewhere totally different- but the fact of the matter is that this is what our memories of families are – disjointed, sprawling, true and unique to each of us.

It is impossible to talk about this novel without acknowledging it is firmly rooted in the natural world, and the Avens family’s daily lives and experiences are absolutely intertwined with the environment around them. The language is poetic, the descriptions of the landscape and the weather are evocative and you feel you could lose yourself in this world. There is always the sense of the magnitude of nature, and how insignificant we are, but this is balanced by the fact that the characters also feel hemmed in at times by this place, and the need to forge their own identities.

An Archive of Happiness is a novel that for me defies categorisation. There are so many different themes carried throughout the pages – love, grief, parenting, anger and LGBTQ are just some of them. The thing is, it works well because they are integrated seamlessly into the plot, and I genuinely liked all the main characters too. They felt real, relatable and you understood why they did what they did – and at times your heart aches for them. There is a huge life changing event for all of them – (no, I’m not going to tell you) and this not only was totally unexpected, but was also the very thing that made everyone realise how crucial they really all are to each other’s lives and happiness.

If you love novels that are not usual linear narratives, and really push the reader in terms of emotional connection and an understanding of the inner workings of a real family, this is just the novel you are looking for.

Thank you so much to Kate at Penned In The Margins, for my gifted proof copy in exchange for a review.

The Harpy by Megan Hunter

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The Harpy by Megan Hunter

Published by Picador Books on 3rd September

Available from all Good Bookshops and Online

What They Say

Lucy and Jake live in a house by a field where the sun burns like a ball of fire. Lucy works from home but devotes her life to the children, to their finely tuned routine, and to the house itself, which comforts her like an old, sly friend. But then a man calls one afternoon with a shattering message: his wife has been having an affair with Lucy’s husband, he wants her to know.

The revelation marks a turning point: Lucy and Jake decide to stay together, but in a special arrangement designed to even the score and save their marriage, she will hurt him three times. Jake will not know when the hurt is coming, nor what form it will take.

As the couple submit to a delicate game of crime and punishment, Lucy herself begins to change, surrendering to a transformation of both mind and body from which there is no return.

Told in dazzling, musical prose, The Harpy by Megan Hunter is a dark, staggering fairy tale, at once mythical and otherworldly and fiercely contemporary. It is a novel of love, marriage and its failures, of power and revenge, of metamorphosis and renewal.

What I Say

I asked my mother what a harpy was; she told me that they punish men, for the things they do.

There are few novels that serve to unsettle the reader so deliciously and perfectly, blurring the lines between the mythical and the real. The Harpy is a novel that may be short, but it builds in momentum to a moment that is the perfect ending to a story of love and revenge and imprisonment and freedom.

Lucy and Jake seemingly have an idyllic marriage. They have two sons called Ted and Paddy, and are caught up in the usual concerns and constraints of parenting and marriage. Lucy works at home as a copy writer, and juggles parenting with her job, while Jake works long hours as a University academic.

Then one day, Lucy receives a phone call which shatters the world she knows. Jake has been having an affair with a woman called Vanessa that he works with. Lucy’s world has changed forever and she has to face the man she thought she knew better than anyone.

This is not a straightforward story of a woman scorned and a penitent man. At the heart of the story is The Harpy, a mythical creature which has a woman’s head and body and a bird’s wings and claws. It is here the novel shifts between magical realism and the claustrophobic domestic narrative.

The narrative is physically split in the novel between Jake and Lucy, and the other story – how Lucy has always been fascinated by the story of The Harpy. There is the underlying notion that her interest comes from the fact that Lucy is closer to understanding a what a Harpy is than we could possibly imagine.

As Jake and Lucy struggle to repair their marriage, and acknowledge the pain that Lucy is suffering, Jake tells Lucy that she can hurt him three times – he will have no forewarning, and when it’s done, Lucy’s revenge will be complete.

This turns the novel in a new and dark direction. We know that Lucy feels an affinity with The Harpy, and has done since she was a child, and has studied it extensively. The clues in the text seem to suggest it is a side of Lucy’s personality she has subsumed for a long time. Now it has been awakened, and Lucy is ready to fully embrace all the chaos and mayhem the Harpy will bring to ensure that Jake is published for his betrayals.

For so long Lucy has done exactly what is expected of her in the marriage and has played the role of dutiful wife and mother. Now she has this immense power and tantalising freedom to do what she wants when she wants, this is tempered by the fact that this is not easy for Lucy, but for her to move on it she knows has to be done.

After she has hurt Jake twice, things start to twist and turn and Lucy’s world is shaken by a decision Jake makes after everything he promised. As the novel draws to its heartstopping conclusion, the spectre of the Harpy looms ever closer, and it becomes more difficult to see where Lucy ends and the Harpy begins. There is a building tension and as Lucy physically runs away from her marital home, the descriptions become more raw and sensory as she is aware of the environment around her. It is as if Lucy is leaving behind her domestic world and entering the magical and natural one to absolve herself of what pain she has inflicted on Jake and the pain he has caused her.

The Harpy works so well because of how Megan Hunter has captured the reality and limitations of the domestic sphere and the grinding reality of a world where Lucy is constrained by the expectations of her husband and her sons. You feel her frustration as if she is caged, her desperation as her marriage implodes, and her realisation of the power she has if she gives finally gives way to the Harpy. It is a chilling and beautifully written book that may be short, but perfectly captures both the nuances of a marriage in crisis, and a woman who unearths the strength she has kept buried for so long.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Camilla Elworthy at Picador for my gifted copy of The Harpy.

Sad Janet by Lucie Britsch

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Sad Janet by Lucie Britsch

Published by W&N Books on 3 September

Available from All Good Bookshops and Online

What They Say

Meet Janet. Janet is sad. Not about her life, about the world. Have you seen it these days? 

The thing is, she’s not out to make anyone else sad. She’s not turning up to weddings shouting that most marriages end in divorce. She just wants to wear her giant coat, get rid of her passive-aggressive boyfriend, and avoid human interaction at the rundown dog shelter where she works. 

That is, until word spreads about a new pill that promises cynics like her one day off from being sad. When her family stages an intervention, and the prospect of making it through Christmas alone seems like too much, Janet finally decides to give them what they want. What follows is life-changing for all concerned – in ways no one quite expects. 

Hilarious, provocative and profound, Sad Janet is the antidote to our happiness-obsessed world. 

What I Say

Love is like gluten, I should have told the doctor. I can’t process it properly.

I know I should start with some measured and profound statement about Sad Janet, but I’m just going to say this. I absolutely and completely LOVED this book. One of my #MostSelfishReads2020 without a shadow of a doubt.

Right, now we have got that out of the way, you need to know why don’t you?

Janet lives her life in a perpetual state of sadness, but she is aware of it. She is fine just working and being at home and doing little else. The thing is, everyone else wants to ‘fix’ her, and mould her into the person they think she should be – happy, sociable and basically no trouble to her family. They want her to fit in, so they no longer have to explain her to anyone.

After graduating, she has decided to work in a crumbling dog shelter out in the middle of nowhere, with the formidable feminist powerhouse that is Debs, and Melissa, a positive and happy soul who is the exact opposite of Janet.

When she separates from her boyfriend, and aware that it actually doesn’t upset her that much, Janet starts to think about her life. All around her, people are happy- but not authentically. Self medication is mainstream, and viewed as the norm. When Janet is offered the opportunity to be part of a trial for a new pill claiming to provide happiness for the person taking it, and the prospect of a horrendous family Christmas on the horizon, Janet decides to sign up.

Part of the trial involves Janet going to an excruciating weekly meeting, with other trial participants, and it is there she sees a group of people who are just like her, and are really just there to talk about themselves or get the necessary boxes ticked to complete the trials. It’s run by a group leader called Karen who has a badly prepared marketing script and intends to stick to it, and a man from the Pharmaceutical company who is rather chillingly observing the group.

As Janet goes through the trial, her family are eagerly waiting for the new and transformed ‘happy’ Janet, and especially Janet’s Mother, who is eager for a daughter she can finally show off and bond with. This for me is the crux of the novel, and what makes it so relevant and true. We are so insistent on presenting and wanting ours and others best selves constantly, using filters and editing what we show people, making sure our lives are liked and retweeted. Our stock answer to any question about ourselves is ‘fine’, because to be truthful is unpalatable to hear. Janet is unique because she doesn’t subscribe to that – and it unsettles people because it means she is an individual in a world of sameness.

Little by little, Janet apparently seems to be benefitting from the medication, and is more aware of her feelings and those of other people. She even agrees to take an agonising trip to the Mall with her mother under duress in an attempt to try and feel what she thinks she should. That scene for me encapsulated perfectly the divide between how Janet functions and what her Mother wants her to be, and I absolutely felt Janet’s awkwardness and horror at being at the Mall!

Does this magical pill work? You will have to read Sad Janet to find out because I’m not giving any spoilers..

What I will say, is this novel repeatedly made me laugh out loud, and there were lines and paragraphs I wanted to underline because they were so perfectly written. Although it may seem that Sad Janet is a humourous novel about a woman trying to find happiness – that is not doing it the justice it deserves. It’s so much more.

It is an astute and incisive commentary about our world today, and possibly a near future where worryingly self medication becomes the norm, to deal with the fact we are not feeling or reacting in the way others believe we should. The story moves at a perfect pace, and as the novel progresses, you understand that Janet is finding what works for her, and she has exactly what she needs around her already – she just has to see it. Janet is a character who not only thoroughly entertained me, but also kind of made me feel that perhaps being more Janet is exactly what we all need to be right now.

I absolutely loved it.

Comedy Women In Print Shortlist Shadow Panel – The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman

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The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman

Published by Headline

Available from all Good Bookshops and Online

What They Say

Meet Nina Hill: A young woman supremely confident in her own. . . shell.

Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, an excellent trivia team and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book. 

So when the father she never knew existed dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! She’ll have to Speak. To. Strangers. 

And if that wasn’t enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny and interested in getting to know her…

It’s time for Nina to turn her own fresh page, and find out if real life can ever live up to fiction. . .

What I Say

“Biology is not destiny, and love is not proportionate to shared DNA.”

This is the final novel I have to review for the Comedy Women In Print Shadow Panel, and apart from it having been an absolutely brilliant experience, and opening my eyes to lots of different authors, it has also challenged my preconceptions of what a ‘comedy’ novel is.

In judging this shortlist, sometimes it is a scene or a description, a character or an incident, or even the words that are used at a particular time.

Nina Hill sparkles because of her wit and smart one liners – her ability to comment with the perfect line with perfect timing means this novel zings off the page. If I was to tell you that I could absolutely see it being made into a film, and that it would be one of those quirky romantic comedies that I am a complete sucker for (When Harry Met Sally anyone?) does it sound intriguing?

Nina works in Knights Bookshop and manages her day to day life by writing copious to do lists. While this seems an endearing trait, it is also a way for her to control her anxiety, and gives her a focus. She feels that this way she can compartmentalise and cope with the world outside her apartment and at her job. I thought it was really interesting to see how Nina’s anxiety is portrayed, and that in making it a part of the main character it brings it to the forefront of the story, whilst at the same time it is dealt with in such a way that it deepened my understanding of how crippling anxiety can be.

What is evident from the writing in this book is how much love Abbi Waxman has for books, reading and bookshops. She absolutely understand the joy it brings so many people (myself included!)! I found myself nodding along as she describes the joy Nina gets from her job, from finding books for readers, to setting up all the different clubs and events, and the genuine delight she has when she helps children engage with books.

Nina is seemingly contented, living with her cat Phil, and filling her days with work, and her evenings attending book groups and taking part in quizzes with her team. Nina’s mother is a photographer who has assignments all around the world, checking in with Nina as and when she can. We learn that Nina considers her Nanny Louise her real mother, and Abbi deftly shows the reader how sometimes the strongest bonds are not necessarily blood ones.

One day, Nina’s life is changed forever when she is told the father she never knew has passed away, and she now has a rather large and complicated family who live tantalisingly close to her. Nina discovers that her father was married multiple times until his death and she has inherited a whole family. Bursting into her life is a new and opinionated family, a plethora of brothers, sisters, step mothers and cousins. As she starts to meet them, Nina realises that maybe her way of living is not the only way if she could just start to have a little more confidence.

Alongside this, Nina is in denial about her attraction to Tom, a member of a rival quiz team – who she can’t stop bumping in to and absolutely everyone can see they are meant to be together. It’s just that Nina and Tom can’t.

After Nina attends the reading of the will, she starts to learn about who her father really was. Everyone has a different relationship and perception of him, and Nina has to try and fit together these very different snapshots of a man she never knew. As Nina spends more time with her family, she starts to see how some of them have similar traits to her, and Nina starts to understand that this group of strangers might become the very family she has needed for so long.

The different family members are captured perfectly, and I thought the way in which they react to Nina and deal with this stranger coming into their lives was dealt with so well. Some embrace her instantly, some are reserved, and one (Lydia) decides that Nina is out for all she can get- but I liked them all!

When Nina discovers that her beloved Knights Bookshop is threatened with closure as Liz the owner hasn’t been able to pay the rent, Nina has to try and find a way to save it as well as finally admit to herself that she and Tom are destined to be together. It could be that the inheritance from her father could be the very thing that changes her future and finally brings her family together as one.

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill is a novel that is like falling into a huge marshmallow filled with books! It is comforting and sweet, with a heroine who is endearing and kind, characters who are unique and interesting, and is impossible to dislike. It is the perfect novel for losing yourself in entirely. If you are looking for a gritty and action packed novel that is emotionally challenging to read, then this is not your next book. If however you want to read a feel good story about love, new opportunities, families and finding the courage to change your life however scary that may be, then you need to meet Nina Hill very soon.

Imperfect Women by Araminta Hall

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Imperfect Women by Araminta Hall

Published by Orion Books

Available from all Good Bookshops and Online

What They Say

Nancy, Eleanor and Mary met at college and have been friends ever since, through marriages, children and love affairs. 

Eleanor is calm and driven, with a deep sense of responsibility, a brilliant career and a love of being single and free – despite her soft spot for her best friend’s husband.

Mary is deeply intelligent with a love of learning, derailed by three children and a mean, demanding husband – she is now unrecognisable to herself and her friends.

Nancy is seemingly perfect: bright, beautiful and rich with an adoring husband and daughter – but beneath the surface her discontent is going to affect them all in terrible ways. 

When Nancy is murdered, Eleanor and Mary must align themselves to uncover her killer. And as each of their stories unfold, they realise that there are many different truths to find, and many different ways to bring justice for those we love…

What I Say

Women, Eleanor thought, carry guilt and responsibility like a second skin, so much it weighs them down and stops them ever achieving quite everything they should.

Over the years, I have come to realise that the kind of novels I love to read are ones where they are female led, the same age as I am, but most importantly with a moral and ethical code far removed from mine. Why? Well, in my opinion they make the most interesting and compelling stories.

Close enough to me so I can relate to their hopes and fears, but just deliciously twisted enough so that I can delight in the dilemmas and situations they find themselves in!

Do I seem that sort of person? Maybe you have a different view as to what kind of person I am, and that right there is the whole crux of Imperfect Women. Who really knows us, and what is the difference between our public and private selves? After all, we know that #PerfectionIsOverrated don’t we?

Three seemingly close friends Mary, Nancy and Eleanor met at University and have been together ever since. They have been there to support each other through affairs, marriage, childbirth and secrets.

These women seem to be the perfect and supportive friend group – until one day Nancy goes missing after having dinner with Eleanor and she is found dead. Instantly their world is turned upside down, and when Eleanor goes to Nancy’s house, Nancy’s husband Robert, confesses he believed that Nancy was having an affair. The thing is, Eleanor knew – but only that the man was called David and she had met him at work.

From this point on, the lives that these women have held together for so long starts to unravel in ways they could never have imagined. Eleanor and Mary are left facing the reality that the woman they believed they knew so well was someone they didn’t really know at all. Eleanor and Mary are desperate to find out what happened to their friend, but don’t for one minute think this novel is a murder mystery.

Imperfect Women is so much more.

As we hear the stories of each of the women – each has a section of the novel’s narrative to herself, what becomes increasingly apparent is this is a novel about the choices women make or are expected to make. It also shows the unpalatable truth that whichever one you choose it won’t be the right one. Nancy is a stay at home mum with an apparently fabulous and carefree lifestyle, Eleanor has dedicated her life to her career working for charity, and Mary has put aside any ambitions to dedicate her life to her ungrateful academic husband and her three children – and she has become invisible to society.

Little by little we start to understand what exactly is going on for each of the women, and how the lives they have lived and projected to the outside world may have seemed to be one thing, but in fact it is only when we read each of their narratives do we understand the way in which they constantly judge themselves and their friends.

Nancy is apparently living a fabulous life – she doesn’t have to work, she has a house in the city and one in the country for weekends, and a husband called Robert who adores her and their wonderful daughter Zara. Scratch beneath the surface and you see a woman who is living in a gilded tower, whose husband has basically forbidden her to work, and has struggled with the isolation and mundanity of motherhood and bringing up a child. It seems understandable that she should be drawn to seeking something beyond the confines of her marriage. I really felt Nancy’s frustration and desperation to feel something, anything that wasn’t what she was told or expected to feel. It seemed almost logical that an affair would give her this sense of liberation from her life – but not that it would culminate in her death.

Eleanor has established herself as the career woman, who is apparently the most independent and driven of the three. She works hard and loves what she does, but as a reader you get the sense that she does question whether she has made the right choices. Having children was not part of the equation for her, and it is interesting to see how everyone else felt it was their place to comment on her choices. I felt she was envious of Nancy, and when the opportunity comes up for her to be closer to Robert – she has no qualms about taking it. This is the thing with all these women. They assure each other that their bond is unbreakable, but at certain key moments, they each prove their morals take second place to their own needs and wants.

Mary was the character I felt closest to. She is married to the unappreciative and quite frankly odious Howard. He has systematically stripped away her self belief and confidence over the years as he slides from affair to affair, all the while berating Mary for not living up to his expectations. Her intelligence and own hopes and dreams have been disregarded as she has to look after her three children (four if you count Howard!) and she is becoming increasingly jaded and accepting of her own life. She loves her children passionately and devotes her life to them, but she has also lost her own identity and I think this is so true of many women over forty. We are someone’s wife, someone’s Mum, but as Mary realises, when the chance presents itself, she has to find the courage to change everything and become Mary again.

As I read the novel, what worked so well for me were the revelations not only about each of the women, but also about the connections they had with each other too. Little by little, Araminta Hall drip feeds little pieces of information that slowly start to come together, and then the realisation hits you as to how much and how little these three friends really know about each other!

When the identity of Nancy’s lover is revealed (no of course I’m not going to tell you, read the book!) the lives of the women are changed forever, and I loved how this gave Eleanor and Mary the impetus to take control of their lives. As the novel moves to its conclusion, which is done so well and is not what I expected, I thought it was poignant how Mary and Eleanor reconnected and how the longevity and unspoken bond of their friendship was what gave them strength to carry on- even though they still weren’t being entirely honest with each other.

Imperfect Women is a novel that will reinforce what you already know about women today – that they can be career orientated or stay at home to raise their families, but that both choices are seen as imperfect, and to mix the two is regarded as taking neither seriously enough. It also raises many complex questions about who decides what women should do, and why we still allow ourselves to be defined by others expectations and needs and desires, and still lack the confidence to put our own demands first.

I loved it.

Thank you very much to Francesca Pearce at Orion for my gifted copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. Check out what these other brilliant bloggers have been saying too..