Tag: Parenting

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

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Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

Published by Penguin Viking on 2nd March 2023

Available From All Good Bookshops

What They Say

Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.

Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she cannot remember. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends and big decisions, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.

But who is the man observing Sally from the other side of the world? And why does her neighbour seem to be obsessed with her? Sally’s trust issues are about to be severely challenged . . .

What I Say

There are some authors who quite simply are auto read authors. For me Liz Nugent is one of them, because her brilliant writing where the domestic and the macabre are mixed together effortlessly, propel you into a world that is absolute proof of the saying that you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

Strange Sally Diamond starts with Sally throwing out her Dad’s body with the rubbish – because that is what he told her to do. From the opening paragraph, it is obvious to see that Sally is an unconventional protagonist, and that her literal translations of instructions, distance from the world outside and her awkwardness with people and social interactions mean that Sally is very much walking her own path in the world.

When the family doctor Angela discovers what Sally has done, having known Sally and her family for years, she steps in as Sally’s protector, navigating both the legal and personal minefield that Sally now finds herself in. As we fall deeper into Sally’s world, what becomes patently obvious is that from the moment she was born, Sally’s life has been a traumatic and incredible one, which means her own self awareness and understanding of what she has had to navigate leads her to deal with the world around her in a way that she feels she is in control.

Left alone in her family home, Sally starts to unravel her own history, and discovers how she became a member of the Diamond family – and with it, a whole barrage of secrets and things never told start spilling into Sally’s life. When Sally starts to receive mysterious presents, and messages she doesn’t understand, the past that she has no recollection of starts seeping into her present.

Little by little, as the narrative weaves backwards and forwards, and by the introduction of the character of Peter into the text, we are slowly able to see exactly what happened not only to Sally’s mother, but also the awful reality of what their life was like at the hands of her father.

As always, I think it is important to let you know that Strange Sally Diamond has some very dark themes that run through this novel, there is domestic violence, physical and emotional abuse, and a prevalent theme is paedophilia. While this is undoubtedly a very difficult and challenging novel to read, Liz’s incredible skill as a writer means that these are all tackled with extreme sensitivity, and the way in which they are the backbone of the narrative never feels anything other than absolutely integral to the plot and understanding what has brought Sally and Peter to this point in their story.

I thought it was interesting to see how Sally develops as a character as the narrative moves on, and how everything we do so easily and take for granted are huge victories for her. The confidence she gains comes from working with her therapist, and her own motivation to finally embrace the world she has been detached from for such a long time. Liz’s depiction of Sally always feels that it comes from a place of compassion and curiosity, wanting us to understand that this woman has endured so much, but in learning to process her past and know that people can be trusted, that a new world is waiting for her – which can be an amazing thing, or something that brings complications that no one could have envisaged.

Strange Sally Diamond is a novel that perfectly balances the gradual development of Sally’s character once she allows herself to open up to the world around her, set against the incredibly challenging history and life she has lived in a way that feels measured and controlled – much like Sally herself. It is a novel that show us the darkest and most macabre stories of human existence and survival are often so much closer to us than we could ever possibly realise. Liz Nugent brings us into Sally’s world so completely that as we are witness to every small victory and devastating setback she faces, and all the time want only for her to finally be able to embrace the normal life so many of us take for granted every day.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Jasmin Lindenmeir and Ellie Hudson at Penguin Viking for my gifted proof copy.

Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery

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Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery

Published by Bloomsbury Books

Available from All Good Bookshops and Online

What They Say

New York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother’s sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy men she typically meets. When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol.

Warhol is composing an unconventional novel by recording the conversations and experiences of his many famous and alluring friends. Tasked with transcribing these tapes alongside several other girls, Mae quickly befriends Shelley and the two of them embark on a surreal adventure at the fringes of the countercultural movement. Going to parties together, exploring their womanhood and sexuality, this should be the most enlivening experience of Mae’s life. But as she grows increasingly obsessed with the tapes and numb to her own reality, Mae must grapple with the thin line between art and voyeurism and determine how she can remain her own person as the tide of the sixties sweeps over her.

Nothing Special is a whip-smart coming-of-age story about friendship, independence and the construction of art and identity, bringing to life the experience of young women in this iconic and turbulent moment.

What I Say

I am always fascinated by fiction books that find their starting point in real events, and Nothing Special is the story of Mae, a young woman who finds herself working at The Factory – Andy Warhol’s studio in New York City.

Her job, along with another woman called Shelley, is to transcribe audio cassettes exactly as she hears them – every single sound and pause must be captured and typed, however insignificant they sound. This seemingly repetitive and cryptic task, was actually published as A, A Novel by Warhol in 1968. This forms the backdrop to Mae’s evolution emotionally and personally as she slowly falls under the spell of this cultural revolution, while attempting to navigate the difficult time in our lives when we are no longer children, but not yet an adult.

Mae has a problematic relationship with her erratic mother, who seems to go from no interest to an obsessive interest with her daughter. Home life veers between times of calm and times of chaos, as her mother deals with her own issues by drinking and dating, while at the same time keeping her ever present doting boyfriend Mikey hanging around – who in fact is perhaps the most stable parental figure Mae has in her life.

As Mae becomes more involved with her project, she starts to view the world differently, and feels that the life she has lived up til now has been so small and narrow. We see the power of celebrity and notoriety, and how much people want to be part of what is happening at The Factory, to be able to tell people that they are in some way connected to Andy Warhol – even if they are just famous for fifteen minutes.

Nothing Special is also about the notion of the artistic gaze, and how we view both the art itself and those who create and participate in it. Mae finds herself more involved with The Factory, and the reader become more aware of how important it is for those around her to be seen, and to be part of Warhol’s history whatever the cost. We see how many of the people – including Shelley, want to be immortalised by Warhol, and have no scruples in doing whatever he wants them to do on screen in order to be able to say that they have been filmed by him.

Mae and Shelley are only needed until they finish transcribing the tapes, and when A is published, they are not mentioned, so are eradicated from the history of the very place they were so desperate to be part of. Nicole Flattery’s understated style of writing works so well for me, in scenes like this, because when life changing and at times upsetting things do happen to Mae, they are made even more poignant by the fact the language used and the words chosen focus you explicitly on her.

Nothing Special captivated me from the very first page, and when I had finished reading it, I sat and spent time reading about Warhol and more importantly, the people who came and went from The Factory. The captivating thing about Nicole’s brilliant novel is that Warhol is a figure on the periphery, the enigma around which everyone else orbits, and Mae’s life becomes the focus. This is a novel which asks us to consider not only the notion of how art is made and the legacy of Warhol, but also makes us think about the people whose names we will never know, but without whom, Warhol would not have been able to create the art we admire today.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Tabitha Pelly and Bloomsbury Books for my proof copy.

Other Women by Emma Flint

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Other Women by Emma Flint

Published by Picador Books on 23 February 2023

Available from West End Lane Books and All Good Bookshops

What They Say

Mesmerising, haunting and utterly remarkable, this is a devastating story of fantasy, obsession inspired by a murder that took place almost a hundred years ago.

In a lonely cottage on a deserted stretch of shore, a moment of tragedy between lovers becomes a horrific murder. And two women who should never have met are connected for ever.

Six years after the end of the Great War, a nation is still in mourning. Thousands of husbands, fathers, sons and sweethearts were lost in Europe; millions more came back wounded and permanently damaged.

Beatrice Cade is an orphan, unmarried and childless – and given the dearth of men, likely to remain that way. London is full of women like her: not wives, not widows, not mothers. There is no name for these invisible women, and no place for their grief.

Determined to carve out a richer and more fulfilling way to live as a single woman, Bea takes a room in a Bloomsbury ladies’ club and a job in the City. Then a fleeting encounter changes everything. Bea’s emerging independence is destroyed when she falls in love for the first time.

Kate Ryan is an ordinary wife and mother who has managed to build an enviable life with her handsome husband and her daughter. To anyone looking in from the outside, they seem like a normal, happy family – until two policemen knock on her door one morning and threaten to destroy the facade Kate has created.

What I Say

A very long time ago, when Years of Reading wasn’t even an idea rattling around my head, I picked up a novel called Little Deaths by Emma Flint. I was completely captivated by this novel of a woman called Ruth Malone, and whether or not she was implicated in the disappearance of her children. You know when you love a novel so much you can’t wait to read what the author writes next? Well, I have been waiting since then to read Emma’s next novel, and let me tell you, I think Other Women is even better.

Using a real life case as its inspiration, Other Women tells the story of Beatrice Cade and Kate Ryan. Beatrice is an older single woman, with no immediate family, living in London, with a room in Bloomsbury, and a job as a book keeper in the City. Existing but not really embracing life, she wants to find love and to have a family, but this is the world after the First World War, still reeling from cataclysmic events and processing the incredible loss so many people have had to endure as a result of so many men losing their lives.

Beatrice feels slightly out of place in her office, with the younger women so much more confident in themselves and what they want, and while she dutifully carries out her job, and tries to engage more with the women she lives with, it all just feels slightly forced, and you feel her discomfort as she tries to fit in.

When Tom Ryan comes to work in her office, she is totally and utterly captivated by him, and dares to think that he might feel the same way soon. Their tentative friendship slowly blooms into a relationship, and for the first time, Beatrice allows herself to believe that she might actually be able to get the domestic dream she has wanted for so long.

Their relationship is conducted privately, away from prying eyes and the possibility of being seen by anyone who shouldn’t see them. While to Beatrice this seems romantic and passionate, slowly it becomes clear that there is a very good reason as to why Tom doesn’t want anyone to know about their relationship.

Kate Ryan has always been the dutiful wife that Tom wants. She has created an idyllic home life for him and their daughter Judith, but Kate is not naive, and knows that Tom has had relationships with other women through their marriage. Kate is also very aware of the implications of not staying married, and that divorce is not an option. Their life may seem perfect from the outside, but only Kate and Tom know exactly what happens when they shut the door at night.

As Tom finds himself further involved with Beatrice, who is utterly besotted with him, and Kate realising that Tom is pulling away from her again, a desperate chain of events unfurl that leaves Kate reeling, as her carefully constructed world starts to implode. Tom has done something that she cannot believe or comprehend, but as the puzzle starts to come together, Kate is faced with a choice that brings her closer to Beatrice than she could ever imagined. After years of having to ignore what Tom has chosen to do to their marriage, she now has the power to change everything – if she is brave enough to do it.

One of the many things I loved about this novel is the way in which you are totally immersed in the women’s lives, and the society they inhabit. Emma’s writing transports you completely to post war London and you feel part of this strange new world where people are trying to get on with their daily routines, adjusting to what has happened to the world. There is always this ominous sense of tension right from the start of the novel, that never feels forced or calculated, but instead slowly seeps through the pages and as a reader you know something awful is going to happen – and when it does, it is all the more devastating because of the unwavering belief Beatrice has that Tom is the man of her dreams.

Undoubtedly, this is a novel about women and how they are treated by a society still reeling from the after effects of a World War. Beatrice never quite fits in – she is unmarried, has no children, and quietly goes about her business, but wants to achieve the domestic dream she believes Kate Ryan has – Beatrice even turns up on her doorstep once, desperate to see Tom. Yet as the novel progresses, we see how Tom also tires of Beatrice when she becomes too demanding of him, and he treats her appallingly, as an annoyance rather than a person. Even in court, she becomes an exhibit to procure evidence from, her life is reduced to a series of statements and reports, and Beatrice will be forgotten when the case concludes.

Kate seemingly has it all – a loving husband, beautiful daughter and a desirable home, but at what cost? The image of the dutiful and benevolent wife hides the fact that Kate is attempting to hold her marriage together by constantly excusing Tom’s behaviour and accepting that this is her life – because that is what good wives do. Emma’s understated and measured characterisation of Kate, and the way in which she perfectly captures Beatrice’s change from unassuming and invisible, to a woman who believes she finally has everything she wants with a man who doesn’t really want her is heartbreaking to witness, and testament to Emma’s absolute understanding of the women she is depicting.

Other Women is a truly unforgettable novel, that gets completely under your skin as soon as you meet Beatrice and Kate. As a reader you realise that in this world where a man’s word is deemed to carry more power than a woman’s, lives could be changed forever in a simple sentence. Kate and Beatrice may be poles apart in terms of the trajectories of their lives, but they both simply wanted the same thing. To love and be loved, and to live their lives believing that the man they had chosen to share it with loved them back too.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Picador Books for my proof copy.

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

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The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

Published by HQ Stories on February 16th 2023

Available from West End Lane Books and All Good Bookshops

What They Say

A brilliant debut and powerful tale of sisterhood and home, set on the beautiful beaches of the Isle of Wight…

Flawed, complicated, secretive, big-hearted, you’ll fall in love with the Garnett girls. Margo and Richard’s love affair was the stuff legends are made of – forbidden, passionate, all-encompassing. But ultimately, doomed. When Richard walked out, Margo shut herself away from the world, leaving her three daughters, Rachel, Imogen and Sasha, to run wild.

Having finally put the past behind her, the charismatic Margo holds court in her cottage on the Isle of Wight, refusing to ever speak of Richard. But her silence is keeping each of the Garnett girls from finding true happiness. The eldest, Rachel, is desperate to return to London, but is held hostage by responsibility for Sandcove, their beloved but crumbling family home. Imogen, the dreamy middle child, feels the pressure to marry her kind, considerate fiance, even when her life is taking an unexpected turn. And wild, passionate Sasha, the baby, trapped between her increasingly alienated family and her controlling husband, has unearthed the secret behind Richard’s departure… and when she reveals it, the effects are devastating.

Set on the beautiful beaches of the Isle of Wight, The Garnett Girls asks whether children can ever be free of the mistakes their parents make.

What I Say

Honestly? As soon as I heard that Georgina Moore was writing a novel, I wanted to read it, because book blogging is the very reason that we met, and as a brilliant supporter of bloggers, Georgina not only sends me fabulous books, but we have found over the years that our reading tastes are very very similar.

Honestly? When I knew that Georgina was very kindly going to send me a proof copy, I was nervous, because this would be a book written by someone I knew, and what would I do if it wasn’t for me?

Readers, let me tell you, that as soon as I started reading it, I knew that The Garnett Girls was not only going to be fabulous, it was just the novel I needed to read at that moment.

Margo is the matriarch of the Garnett family. Confident, engaging, unapologetic in asking for what she wants – and usually getting it, she knows who she is and what she needs, and she also is embracing life and sex, while all the time overseeing her family and getting involved in their lives.

Rachel, her eldest daughter, and her husband Gabriel, now live in Sandycove, the Garnett family home on the Isle of Wight, while Margo lives in a cottage nearby referred to as The Other Place. Rachel misses the life and vibrancy of her work and life in London, and is not enjoying being at Sandycove with all the duties and responsibilities it brings. Gabriel, who gets on famously with Margo, and runs the house while she works, also seems to be drifting from Rachel, and seems more interested in his phone than talking to her.

Imogen is a playwright, engaged to William – more from duty than because she loves him, and when she meets Rowan, the actress who will be the lead in her play, Imogen realises that she is incredibly attracted to her. It is the intensity and power of her relationship with Rowan that will cause Imogen to question everything she thought she knew, but we also see that Rowan’s need to be front and centre of Imogen -and indeed everyone’s world, makes Imogen realise that she has some really difficult choices to make.

Sasha, the youngest child, seems to be moving further and further away from her family. Her husband Phil is to be far too involved in her life and is controlling her world more and more, and Sasha is losing her sense of self at home, living for the times she can escape from her house and her marriage however briefly. When Sasha decides to look into her past, she sets off a chain of events that threatens to blow the family apart.

As the lives of the women are firmly at the forefront of this novel, always present in the background are two things. The ever present house, Sandycove, which may be in need of some attention, but every single part of it contains the memories, shared experiences and the good and bad times of the Garnett family. The other issue that is never mentioned is that their father, Richard, abandoned them all when the girls were very young, leaving Margo bereft and broken, unable to look after her daughters for a period of time. When it seems that Richard may come back into their lives, Margo and the girls find their worlds turned upside down, and they also have to look to their own lives to understand that they too have issues that are threatening their own happiness.

What I loved about this novel is the way in which from the very first page you are completely immersed in the world of The Garnett Girls. Sandycove, The Other Place and the Isle of Wight are so vividly brought to life, that you can see and feel every thing – the warmth of the beach, the food they eat, and the comfort and cosiness of Sandycove and the vivid depiction of the characters make it so easy to see them in front of you.

It was also interesting to see how Georgina wrote about sex and sexuality in The Garnett Girls, and so refreshing that age was not seen as a barrier to a woman relishing in her self and desires. Margo has lovers, and acknowledges that she needs to feel desired and to have sex, Rachel is struggling to keep sex alive in her marriage, while Imogen is not sure about her sexuality and Sasha’s unhappy marriage to Phil is no match for the attraction she feels to Jonny, a family friend. The ease with which Georgina wrote about these women and their sexuality felt frank and direct, and for me, made me feel closer to the characters.

The other theme I thought was handled brilliantly by Georgina was the dynamics of family relationships – something I love reading about. For me, I am always intrigued by how even the most seemingly perfect family a can be a myriad of things not said, of words swallowed down to avoid upsetting people, and how refusing to acknowledge a shared trauma a family has been through, like the Garnett Girls, has such an unconscious and wide ranging impact on their lives and relationships. Their lives are often complicated and messy, and I liked how behind closed doors and indeed in front of them, the Garnett family had to deal with it all, in a town where everyone’s business is everyone else’s business.

As Rachel, Imogen and Sasha come to terms with the issues in their own lives, we see how they share the unconscious bonds of sisterhood, being there for each other and trying to navigate their way through a devastating secret that eventually comes to light. I thought it was also interesting to see how Margo had controlled their world so that every trace of their father was eradicated from their narratives, but that she had to reconcile with the fact that her daughters needed to understand and know why their father had made the decisions he did.

The Garnett Girls is a novel that when you have finished it and sat back and thought about it, you realise how much is contained in its pages. There are the mother daughter relationships, the complexities of family life, the secrets that all families have, and the ever changing landscapes of what defines a successful relationship and marriage. However, for me, The Garnett Girls is ostensibly about celebrating women, and Georgina implicitly understands how much we need to see women who are relatable, real and not always perfect. Imogen, Rachel, Sasha and Margo show us that we should not define or restrict our choices, but instead we should be unafraid to articulate what we want or need, and for that reason alone, The Garnett Girls is a timely and utterly enchanting debut novel that I absolutely loved.

Thank you so much to Georgina and HQ Stories for my gifted proof copy.

The Year Of The Cat by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

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The Year of the Cat by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

Published by Tinder Press on 19th January

Available from West End Lane Books and

All Good Bookshops

What They Say

I looked around at my flat, at the woodchip wallpaper and scuffed furniture, and realised that I did have a life after all. What it didn’t have in it was a cat.

When Rhiannon fell in love with, and eventually married her flatmate, she imagined they might one day move on. But this is London in the age of generation rent, and so they share their home with a succession of friends and strangers while saving for a life less makeshift. The desire for a baby is never far from the surface, but can she be sure that she will ever be free of the anxiety she has experienced since an attack in the street one night? And after a childhood spent caring for her autistic brother does she really want to devote herself to motherhood?

Moving through the seasons over the course of lockdown, The Year of the Cat nimbly charts the way a kitten called Mackerel walked into Rhiannon’s home and heart, and taught her to face down her fears and appreciate quite how much love she had to offer.

What I Say

The pandemic and lockdown we all went through now seems for me to be a time I can remember parts of, but also feels slightly surreal, like it happened to someone else. It is also undeniably a shared collective memory that will forever unite a generation who lived through it, and I am endlessly fascinated to read people’s accounts of their experiences as a way to understand mine.

The Year of the Cat by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett takes us through that period as Rhiannon and her husband decide to get a kitten, and while this memoir may start as a love letter to cats, and the irrefutable impact that they have had on women’s lives and the stories that surround them, this book evolves beautifully into one that holds so much in its pages.

This is a book not only about Rhiannon’s experiences of owning cats through her life and how Mackerel her kitten came to be such a part of it during the pandemic, but it is also an honest and visceral memoir about trauma, PTSD, mental health, motherhood, family and caring.

Adopting Mackerel during such a strange and unknown time, when going outside became something we would never take for granted again, means that as well as focussing on Mackerel and how to look after him, Rhiannon has plenty of time to be alone with thoughts and memories. Unimaginable events that Rhiannon has lived through – a vicious assault by a stranger, and being in Paris at the very time terrorist attacks were taking place, leads her to think about her past and future, as she contemplates whether having mental health issues impact her ability to be a mother.

What Rhiannon captures so perfectly in these pages is the thoughts that so many of us have, but are afraid to articulate for fear of being judged for having them. I had an overwhelming desire to have children, but believing that my own emotional shortcomings and the fact that I didn’t know if I could care for a human being when I found it difficult to look after myself, led me to write my own lengthy diary entries as to the pros and cons of me taking that step. Reader I did, which for my first child led me down paths I never dreamed I would ever follow.

This leads me to the other part of Rhiannon’s memoir that resonated deeply with me as a full time carer, and led me to use up all the post it notes I had to hand. Rhiannon’s brother is severely autistic and in a care home, and the lockdown leads to a heartbreaking separation for them. What Rhiannon does so wonderfully in her memoir is not only to articulate what it means to not be able to visit the ones we love, but also what it means to care for someone who has special needs. The love you have is overwhelming, but like Rhiannon and her Mum, you cannot explain to someone what it means to be a full time carer unless they have lived it. To understand what it means to be in a constant state of fighting for everything and explaining repeatedly the same story told in numerous ways according to which professional and which department you are talking to. Rhiannon writes with an innate compassion and understanding that made me teary a few times, because I knew exactly what she and her Mum were feeling.

To read Rhiannon’s memories of living with her brother and mother, and the highs and lows of that time, along with some brilliant anecdotes – including an unforgettable supermarket visit I don’t think anyone will ever forget, added another layer of humanity to this unforgettable memoir, and I loved it. As Rhiannon starts to question her own ability to be a mother, we as readers already know that her lived experiences have given her so much experience already, and that we will her to see what an amazing Mum she will be, and hope she gets exactly what she desires.

The Year of The Cat will connect with many people in many different ways because Rhiannon writes about her own experiences with such candour that you cannot fail to be moved. It is also the first time I have read a book that describes so perfectly the numerous internal conversations about motherhood and the responsibilities of caring for someone else which I had before having children, and that that are still part of my world twenty one years after having my first child, which is why I will endlessly recommend Rhiannon’s book.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Mary-Anne Harrington and Tinder Press for my gifted proof copy.

We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman

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We All Want Impossible Things

by Catherine Newman

Published by Doubleday Books on January 12th

Available from West End Lane Books and all Good Bookshops

What They Say

Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self? Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years. Since childhood they have seen each other through life’s milestones: stealing vodka from their parents, the Madonna phase, REM concerts, unexpected wakes, marriages, infertility, children. As Ash notes, ‘Edi’s memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.’

So when Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ash’s world reshapes around the rhythms of Edi’s care, from chipped ice and watermelon cubes to music therapy; from snack smuggling to impromptu excursions into the frozen winter night. Because life is about squeezing the joy out of every moment, about building a powerhouse of memories, about learning when to hold on, and when to let go.

What I Say

There are novels you read and love, and then there are novels you read and love and nod your head in recognition, that make you laugh and add lots of post it notes so you can go back and reread the passages because they are so wonderful – and We All Want Impossible Things is one of them.

If you are looking for a sweet, subdued book about friendship – then this is not for you. If however like me, you love novels that show friendships in all their glorious, messy and magical forms, then this should absolutely be on your reading list.

Edi and Ash have been friends for longer than they can remember, and have that wonderful connection that comes with a lifetime of shared experiences and moments they only understand.

When Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Edi’s husband Jude decides that to avoid their son Dash having to see his Mum pass away, that Edi will move into a hospice close to Ash, and Ash will provide the daily support she needs.

The power of Catherine’s storytelling is steeped in every single page of this novel. Not only must Edi and Ash now navigate a new and uncharted path through their friendship, but dealing with the day to day unglamorous realities of cancer, the etiquette of grief and dying, and the ever present knowledge that Edi is not going to be here for much longer, makes the women appreciate what they have now and all the things they have ever had together.

Ash seems to be split in two – dealing with Edi and being the present and unshakeable friend in her presence, but at the same time unravelling when she is away from Edi, seemingly separated from her husband and ricocheting from relationship to relationship as she tries to hold everything and everyone together. At times I felt completely frustrated with her, but it also makes you understand that there is no prescriptive way to deal with grief, and while we may not understand why Ash behaves as she does, it is not for us to judge her.

It is also important to say that this novel does not shy away from Edi’s condition, and this is not some airbrushed version of cancer. The day to day realities of what it’s like to have a terminal illness, and the physical, emotional and medical stresses that Edi and her family go through are laid bare. It was at times undoubtedly hard for me to read, having lost a Mum to cancer, but at the same time I was pleased that Catherine told Edi’s story with compassion and candour.

Catherine Freeman also perfectly understands the complicated and awkward nature of dealing with a loved one who is dying, and that there should be no shame in acknowledging the humour too. If Edi’s heart’s desire is to taste the cake from a recipe no one can find, that Ash will do everything she can to get hold of it, whilst at the same time Ash wonders when the most appropriate time would be to ask Edi if she can have the favourite t-shirt back she borrowed! This is what Catherine does so well – her characters are real, relatable and not perfect – and it made me love them even more.

We All Want Impossible Things is a glorious love letter to female friendships in all its unremarkable, remarkable and perfectly imperfect forms. Edi and Ash are characters who not only have the emotional shorthand that so many of us long for in friendships, but also resonate so deeply because they are just like us – not perfect, not always likeable, but they would do anything for each other however difficult that might be, and I completely loved them for it.

Thank you so much to Alison and Doubleday books for my gifted proof copy.

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

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Age of Vice

Deepti Kapoor

Published by Fleet Reads

Published January 3rd 2023

What They Say

This is the age of vice, where pleasure and power are everything, and the family ties that bind can also kill

New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the kerb, and in the blink of an eye five people are dead. It’s a rich man’s car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold.
Deftly shifting through time and perspective in contemporary India, Age of Vice is an epic, action-packed story propelled by the seductive wealth, startling corruption, and bloodthirsty violence of the Wadia family-loved by some, loathed by others, feared by all.

In the shadow of lavish estates, extravagant parties, predatory business deals, and calculated political influence, three lives become dangerously intertwined: Ajay is the watchful servant, born into poverty, who rises through the family’s ranks. Sunny is the playboy heir who dreams of outshining his father, whatever the cost. And Neda is the curious journalist caught between morality and desire. Against a sweeping plot fueled by loss, pleasure, greed, yearning, violence, and revenge, will these characters’ connections become a path to escape, or a trigger of further destruction?

Equal parts crime thriller and family saga, transporting readers from the dusty villages of Uttar Pradesh to the urban energy of New Delhi, Age of Vice is an intoxicating novel of gangsters and lovers, false friendships, forbidden romance, and the consequences of corruption. It is binge-worthy entertainment at its literary best.

What I Say

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor was published on January 3rd, and hand on heart when I read the synopsis, I didn’t think that it was my kind of novel at all. A high octane thriller set in India which is about the Wadia family and the vice and corruption that permeates it? Absolutely not my sort of thing thank you.

Yet one thing I have learned since I started blogging is to never dismiss a book until you have tried it, and as soon as I started reading it, I knew that this was an incredibly special novel. It may be 560 pages long, but I promise you, that is the last thing you are thinking about when you read it.

This is a story of a family – The Wadias, who seemingly are everywhere in India. From the very top of the social and political worlds, right down to the people who may otherwise be disregarded. Their power and influence permeates every single part of society – and they refuse to be stopped by anyone.

The novel starts with a fatal car crash, and a young man called Ajay who survives it. Alongside Sunny Wadia, and a journalist called Neda, Ajay provides the third main narrative of this novel, from which an incredible and far reaching epic novel spins out. Age of Vice may cover politics, corruption, power and addiction, but it is also a story of a family who are so used to being in control, that they cannot imagine a world where their very presence does not imbue those around them with an instant mix of fear and respect.

The novel starts with Ajay’s story. A young man who lives with his mother and sister in Uttar Pradesh after his father is murdered, he is sold by his mother to child traffickers, who in turn sell him to a man and his wife who ‘employ’ him (they tell him his wages are being sent to his mother). When he meets the irrespresible Sunny Wadia, Ajay recognises that his best hope for the future is to become Sunny’s servant, the silent and accommodating person who effortlessly runs Sunny’s life and caters to his every whim whilst never drawing any attention to himself.

Sunny comes to absolutely rely on Ajay for every aspect of his life, and in turn, as well as finding stability and a regular wage, Ajay is now subsumed into and inextricably linked to the Wadia family for as long as he is alive. Sunny Wadia is regarded as a hedonistic playboy, whose life is one long party and in spite of him seemingly projecting a confident and assured persona, what we discover is all that he wants is the approval and love from his father Bunty, and acceptance from his uncle Vicky, who takes the family business to such a level that he seems unreachable. Yet Sunny also realises that being Bunty Wadia’s son means that his own identity and life has to take second place – unless he is brave enough to stand up for what he wants.

As Sunny spins increasingly out of control, and Ajay is left to ensure no traces of his wrongdoings are left in plain sight, Neda, a journalist, finds herself drawn to him, as she wants to understand the man behind the myths, but she too falls prey to the world that the Wadias have created. Her life changes in ways she could never have imagined, but in spite of it all, even when they are separated by thousands of miles, she feels inextricably drawn back to him.

Age of Vice is a bold, no holds barred novel about the realities of what it means when one family has such power over the world it is in. It is a totally immersive and epic novel that pulls no punches in its graphic depiction of the violence and horror that is part of the fabric of their every day lives.

Kapoor is not afraid to show how deeply and absolutely this world is controlled by those that have, and feared by those who have not. It looks at so many issues such as poverty, wealth, corruption, drug addiction, family and duty, but for me something else sits at the heart of this incredible novel. It is the fact that Sunny simply wants to be loved by his father, and by Neda unquestioningly. His erratic and self destructive behaviour hides the fact that he simply wants to be seen by his father and that when it becomes obvious that is not happening, he makes a series of decisions that change his life forever,

Age of Vice is a novel that makes you care about all the characters in it, as we start to understand how much of their selves and their identities are wrapped up in the all consuming reign of the Wadias. It is a world where you never know who you can trust, and that tension and sense of foreboding seeps through every single page, making it impossible to look away.

This is a novel that if I had simply read the synopsis, honestly, I wouldn’t have picked it up. Age Of Vice is that very rare thing, it is a novel that may seem epic and all encompassing in its scope, but you connect to it on an individual level because of the masterful way in which Deepti Kapoor writes with such understanding about the different worlds so many people inhabit, understanding that all human experience is important, and that the most vital connection of all relies not on money or wealth, but simply to find their place in the world and to love and be loved without conditions or fear.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Celeste Ward-Best and Fleet Reads for my gifted proof copy in exchange for an honest review.

Age of Vice is available from West End Lane Books and all good bookshops now.

And Just Like That, 2022 is done

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I’m not quite sure why I am writing this blog post on the last day of 2022. I haven’t read a huge number of books this year, I’ve been at times lackadaisical in posting on my blog, and have often felt like Twitter and Instagram have been changing the rules so often that I have no clue as to what the best way is to shout about books anymore!

Book blogging has been my thing for such a long time now, and while it’s introduced me to a world where I finally feel that I belong, has given me opportunities I could never have dreamed of, and has given me incredible friendships I now couldn’t be without, I am ending 2022 feeling a bit lost.

I am a firm believer in being honest about my blogging, and as 2022 comes to a close, and 2023 looms large, honestly, I have been feeling overwhelmed with it all at the moment. It’s hard to keep the energy and enthusiasm sometimes – I still love reading but by December (probably like lots of you!) I felt a bit like I was back on the bookish conveyor belt of reading books in a certain order so that I am ready to review them for publication date.

I have taken a complete break from social media over Christmas – and it’s been lovely. I’ve watched a lot of films, spent a lot of time with my family and put my phone down for days – which not surprisingly has meant I have read a lot more! It has been so refreshing to just sit and read without constantly thinking of what I am going to say in my review, and instead have just read for the sake of reading!

There are a few things I know I want to do now. I need to feel confident in my voice again, and find the joy in blogging. For me, it’s hard to keep posting when you feel like no one is listening – I know it shouldn’t matter, but when I read a brilliant book, I just want to make sure as many people as possible know, and honestly, I still get frustrated sometimes because I don’t know the most effective way to do it, and feel like I have let the authors down.

Having a chance to pause over Christmas has also given me time to think and reflect on Years Of Reading Selfishly and what I want it to be going forward next year. I am sure no one is really bothered, but for me I need to feel enthusiastic about it or I just won’t do anything! Perhaps in writing this blog post I am making myself accountable and can look back on it in 2023 to make sure I actually do what I say.

When the brilliant author Harriet Evans wrote her article for The Bookseller this year about how women over 45 love books, and that the book trade should love them back, I was lucky enough to be quoted in the article, and I also felt that Harriet perfectly articulated what I have been thinking for a long time too. As a 52 year old woman, at times I have felt invisible, at one point this year seriously contemplated stopping blogging – but do you know what – I don’t want to lose my voice or feel my thoughts about books don’t matter. There should be room for everyone to talk about the books they love, however they want to do it, and my voice and opinions count – I need to remember that, and make sure that we support each other too.

The other thing I have been thinking about a lot, is how to combine book blogging with being a carer for my adult son. I told you all this year that I am going to keep talking about the realities of caring, because as a society we don’t, and books have given me the perfect peace and space I have needed to recharge this year – because it’s hard and full on sometimes.

In 2023, I want to read and share books written by people who are carers like me, to use my blog as a way to amplify the voices of people whose stories you may not know but need to be heard. I am pulling together a reading pile of books, and am having a think about the best way to do it – more on that soon, but in the meantime I’d also really love it if the publishing industry didn’t do away with online events. Just because book lovers can’t physically be somewhere doesn’t mean we don’t want to take part…

Looking back on what I’ve written it seems like such a lot. It’s up to me now to practise what I have been preaching, but the one thing I know for sure is that while at times I do feel like I am done, that there is also something that keeps me here – and that’s the fact that sharing my love of books and reading brings me joy – and I know that I need that in my life now more than ever.

Here’s to 2023, and all the books we have waiting for us, the love of books that we want to share, and to you, the incredible bookish community who absolutely understand the joy of books, reading and shouting about them!

Lots of love,

Clare

Xxx

Where I End by Sophie White

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Where I End by Sophie White

Published by Tramp Press 13th October 2022

Available from West End Lane Books and all good Bookshops

What They Say

My mother. At night, my mother creaks. The house creaks along with her. Through our thin shared wall, I can hear the makings of my mother gurgle through her body just like the water in the walls of the house… Teenage Aoileann has never left the island. Her silent, bed-bound mother is a wreckage, the survivor of a private disaster no one will speak about. Aoileann desperately wants a family, and when Rachel and her young baby move to the island, Aoileann finds a focus for her relentless love.

What I Say

When the first line of a novel starts ‘ My mother. At night, my mother creaks’, you know that this book is certainly going to be nothing like you have read for a while!

In Where I End by Sophie White, we are introduced to Aoileann, a young woman who lives with her grandmother and bed bound mother in a remote cottage, where they can live their lives away from the curious and disgusted looks from the locals on the island. Aoileann’s mother is not from the island, but her father was. He is now only a monthly visitor to the island, and every day Aoileann and her grandmother are responsible for the daily care of her mother.

Let’s be clear from the start, that this is not a caring and loving relationship that exists within the walls of the crumbling and decrepit cottage. Aoileann’s mother has physically degenerated, and is referred to as ‘it’ or ‘bed thing’ by the women. They have a daily routine in place to care for her, and they rely on rope and winches to lift and move the mother to the bathroom where she is cleaned and to the kitchen where she is strapped in to eat, and back to her bedroom where she is stripped, cleaned and changed.

They resentfully clean her and change her nappies, hurl insults at her, talk over her and treat her in ways that are incredibly emotionally difficult to read. and make us aware of how inhumane they are in their treatment. We are given no explicit reason as to what happened to Aoileann’s mother or why, but all we are witness to is the incredible anger and resentment that both women – but especially Aoileann have towards her.

Aoileann’s daily life is punctuated by routine and thankless tasks, interspersed with taunting and humiliating her mother for the life she cannot have and the mother she cannot bond with. It is while scrubbing the floor of the cottage that she starts to see markings scratched on the floors where she realises that her mother has attempted to escape during the night, and when Aoileann writes them all down, she realises her mother has secrets and a past that that will slowly come to light which will impact her world in ways she cannot imagine.

Aoileann is treated with suspicion and malice by the islanders, and doesn’t interact with them. She has no friends and little time for herself. Her only respite is when she can escape to swim in the sea, away from the responsibilities and demands that caring for her mother brings.

It is when she is on the beach that she meets Rachel, an artist and single mother of a young baby that Aoileann finds herself immediately drawn to. Watching Rachel with her baby causes Aoileann to see the maternal connection that she has never had, the love that so many take for granted she has never experienced. She becomes fixated with Rachel and longs to be as important to her as her baby seems to be.

When the local wool factory is deemed by the mainlanders as ripe for redevelopment and investment, Aoileann’s grandmother is employed to collate her remembrances of the island, which means she now leaves Aoileann alone with her mother. Aoileann sees this as a way for her to spy on Rachel, to ingratiate herself into her lfe so that she will become indispensible to her, and this where the novel becomes even more unsettling as events spiral and twist in ways you cannot possibly imagine.

The world inhabited in Where I End is a finely balanced and yet all encompassing one. When you are reading the scenes set in the cottage, you feel how incredibly claustrophobic and exhausting the domestic sphere is, where everything is tightly controlled. Every day is centred around caring for the mother, with three women trapped in a world with no joy. Yet this is also balanced by the wildness and uncontrollable and mystical natural world of the island, that Aoileann yearns for, and the other residents who are grotesquely fascinated by Aoileann and her mother.

It is a novel that encompasses so many things. What it means to be a mother, the mother daughter relationship, duty, desire and anger too. In Aoileann, White has created a character who works so well because we are fascinated as to why she hates her mother, yet still cares for her. We see how Aoileann is desperate to love and be loved, but comes to hate her mother for the life she is forced to live.

Where I End is an incredibly layered and nuanced novel and White does not shy away from tackling challenging themes, and continually confronts the reader with events and interactions that are at times very difficult to read. At the heart of this novel is Aoileann and all the thoughts, feelings and emotions she has never been taught to express. We are witness to a young woman’s twisted logic as we come to understand she can only articulate what she wants in an increasingly destructive and horrific way as she finally decides to take control over her future.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Sarah Davis-Goff and Tramp Press for my gifted proof copy.

One Day I Shall Astonish The World by Nina Stibbe

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Published by Penguin Viking on April 21st 2022

Available from West End Lane Books

and all Good Bookshops

What They Say

Susan and Norma have been best friends for years, at first thrust together by force of circumstance (a job at The Pin Cushion, a haberdashery shop in 1990s Leicestershire) and then by force of character (neither being particularly inclined to make friends with anyone else). But now, thirty years later, faced with a husband seeking immortality and Norma out of reach on a wave of professional glory, Susan begins to wonder whether she has made the right choices about life, love, work, and, most importantly, friendship. 

Nina Stibbe’s new novel is the story of the wonderful and sometimes surprising path of friendship: from its conspiratorial beginnings, along its irritating wrong turns, to its final gratifying destination.

What I Say

Before I tell you about Nina’s novel, and what I think of it, I have a confession to make. I usually write my reviews by referring to the notes I have taken as I write it,

I didn’t write a single note about One Day I Shall Astonish The World because I was too absorbed, and didn’t want to put it down! I was sat outside on my patio on Easter Sunday (possibly with an Easter egg!) reading it, laughing out loud and reading numerous passages to Mr Years of Reading.

It’s a brilliantly funny, incisive and emotional novel that absolutely understands not only the complexities of female friendships, but also the realities of life for so many women that it’s impossible not to be genuinely moved by it.

Susan and Norma are lifelong friends, who first meet when Susan starts working in The Pin Cushion, the haberdashery shop that Norma’s family owns. Norma breezes into Susan’s life and wants to learn about literature from her so that she can apply for courses and leave her life at The Pin Cushion behind.

While Norma forges ahead with an academic career, Susan has stayed in Brankham, married Ray – the marketing manager of the local golf club and and has dropped out of her degree course to be a full time Mum to their daughter, Honey. Norma seems scornful of the life choices that Susan has made, and yet makes her own romantic choices based on the opportunities the men afford her. She marries her first husband, Hugo Pack-Allen, the man who has invested in The Pin Cushion, and Susan cannot understand what the attraction is. Unfortunately, after they Norma and Hugo are married, certain proclivities come to light that reveals Hugo to be someone who is not what Norma thought, and a twist of fate means that she finds herself alone a lot sooner than she thought.

As Norma sets on a path of carving out a career in academia for herself, Susan is feeling increasingly trapped at home. She is knows she is ever more isolated from Ray, and when they discover Ray has a daughter called Grace from a previous relationship, Susan starts to question exactly what she is getting from the life that seems to be whizzing past her without her making any mark in the world.

It’s also important to say that Norma and Susan’s relationship is an interesting one. They are in each other’s lives, but there always seems to be an ebb and flow in the relationship, and they seem to take a delight in the passive aggressive towards each other. Yet that is what made me love them even more. The fact that they quite frankly wind each other up and sometimes seem to take delight in the other woman’s misfortune is what adds another dimension for me. I loved the fact that their friendship wasn’t saccharine sweet and cosy confidences – because friendship isn’t always like that.

The turning point is when Susan decides to apply for a role at the local University – first in the Estates Office and eventually she ends up working for the Vice Chancellor. As someone who worked in a University, I can tell you that Nina has absolutely nailed what it is like to work in a place like that! On the one hand it is steeped in tradition with a dedicated group of people determined to ensure the University never changes, on the other is the outside ever changing world and the voices of those who know that in order to thrive, it has to understand the very students it needs to come through it’s doors.

Susan feels herself increasingly drawn towards the enigmatic VC and finds herself romantically imagining a life with him, Norma is suddenly again putting herself front and centre into Susan’s life. She decides she wants the VC for herself – while also keeping other relationships on the back burner just in case! Norma soon marries the VC and Susan wonders if she ever really had a friend in her at all.

As we follow both women through their lives from 1990 right up to the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic, we see how their worlds weave in and out of each others, and how whether they like it or not, in the absence of other female friends, they have this really deep, but not always comfortable bond that always brings them back together.

One Day I Shall Astonish The World is an incredibly funny and touching novel about women, friendship and the lives we somehow find ourselves in. For me, one of the many brilliant things about Nina’s writing is that she has that perfect balance of humour and emotion. She intuitively understands her characters and it is testament to her writing that each and every one of them is unforgettable and relatable, and that is why you can’t put this book down.

If I had to tell you just one reason why I loved One Day I Shall Astonish The World, I would say that in a world which at the moment for me seems unsettling and confusing, this book brought me such utter joy, that to be able to lose myself completely in it was just what I needed until I really did have to put it down. That for me is the sign of a brilliant writer, and Nina Stibbe is undoubtedly that.

I absolutely loved it, and this is without doubt one of my favourite books of this year.

Thank you so much to Ella Harold and Penguin Viking for my gifted Proof copy.

You can buy your copy from West End Lane Books here.