A Possible Life - as long as it's a grim one!

It is a long time since I read a book of short stories, and I started A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks,  whose previous work I have enjoyed, with eager anticipation. However I have been left a little dissatisfied. I somehow found it hard to connect with the characters in each of the five different stories. Each is set in a different time and place, from World War II, to Victorian England, Italy in 2029, nineteenth century France and 1970's California. The main character in each is not at ease with their life, and are striving to make the best of things, or at least endure what's being thrown at them, in the hope that a better future is coming. Sometimes this seems attainable, but more often, it is not. I felt that it was a book about the hard slog that life can be, which I suppose is true for almost everyone on the planet ... it's just that I like books to take me away from the slog, not stick the boot in with such relentless determination. Some have said that each story is linked, but I couldn't see it ... except maybe for the undercurrent of melancholy, which I'm not sure the author was going for. Whilst the writing, as you would expect from Faulks, is beautifully done, I was left feeling a bit down in the dumps. There is very little to lighten the load of the characters and scant  hope on offer. It's a short book, but it took me a ridiculously long time to read, which tells me something! Now, off I go to find something to lift my spirits.

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 294 print pages.
Price I paid: zero, borrowed from my husband.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, ebook.

Mansfield Park - a little underwhelmed

So, a Jane Austen novel, on audio format, read by the delicious Juliet Stephenson ... I couldn't have been happier ... unfortunately, this feeling didn't last. Mansfield Park is the story of a family in crisis. We start with three sisters, one of whom marries the wealthy Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, the second is widowed young and attaches herself to her well-heeled sister, and one marries the lowly Mr Price and produces nine children. The Price's are struggling, and Sir Thomas agrees to help by taking on one of the daughters, Fanny, as a companion for his own children and sets up her brother in the navy. Time moves on, and after a shaky start, Fanny finds her feet, forming a particularly close bond with her cousin Edmund. When worldly wise siblings, Henry and Mary Crawford move into the neighbourhood, things get complicated. Henry is an outrageous flirt and toys with the affections of both Bertram sisters, and Mary makes a play for Edmund, though is less enthusiastic when she discovers he is intending to become a clergyman. Fanny Price observes all the goings on, but cannot intervene. When the Crawfords take their leave, Fanny hopes things will go back to normal, despite Edmund pining for Mary. However, the Crawfords just will not stay away from the Bertrams and a scandal is inevitable. I have really enjoyed Jane Austen novels, particularly in audio format, but Mansfield Park just didn't do it for me. I found Fanny to be an insipid heroine, without much spark, and I found it hard to like any of the characters much. I felt the story to be overly long, taking an absolute age for anything to happen. Too many scenes are pretty much the same scene regurgitated again and again. There are moments when I thought, at last, here we go, but then things would just dither about again and left me frustrated. And then, at the end, everything was wrapped up so quickly it felt like the author had got so bored that she just dashed off an ending just to get it finished! I expect I wasn't in the right frame of mind for this book, and if I had read it at another time, my reaction may well have been more generous. It certainly won't put me off Austen, whose writing I hugely admire, but I would not recommend that this would be the first of her work to read.

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 400 print pages.
Price I paid: £4.95.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, dramatised audio CD, ebook., CD-ROM.

Once Bitten - not hugely thrilling!

Full moon is when the crazies come out to play, so Jamie Beaverbook knows he's going to be busy. He is a police psychologist employed to assess the sanity of unusual suspects before they are interviewed. When Jamie is asked to consult on a beautiful young looking girl, who was found in an alley crouched over a dead man, with blood smeared on her mouth, he is intrigued. He confirms her sanity, but is perplexed by the evidence surrounding her. There is no such thing as a vampire .... or is there? After her release, Jamie starts to dig into the world of the magnetic Terry Ferriman. Needless to say, he falls for her, and she seems to fall for him. But what will happen when he finds out the truth, and is the world prepared to hear it? Once Bitten is an interesting take on a vampire thriller, with some different interpretations of what a vampire could actually be (no garlic will save you in this version!), which I liked. However, the actual thriller element wasn't all that thrilling, and the romance was a bit too predictable. Stephen Leather is an excellent author, but this particular story didn't grab me in the way that his other work often does. It felt a bit rushed and predictable, and I wasn't excited by, or felt any warmth for any of the characters. It is a quick read and not very taxing, so a good book to read if you are travelling or just want something light to while away a few hours.

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 240 print pages.
Price I paid: £0.74.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, audio CD, ebook.

Dark Fire - murder and mayhem Tudor stylee!

It is the summer of 1540, and London is a hot, sticky and downright dangerous place. Matthew Shardlake is trying his best to keep his legal practice going, now that he is out of favour with his former paymaster, Thomas Cromwell. However, when he becomes involved in defending a young woman accused of murdering her cousin, the king's chief minister offers some help ... in return for a favour of his own. Although unwilling to get embroiled in the political machinations of Henry VIII's court once again, Shardlake is drawn into the search for the secret of Dark Fire ... a legendary substance that can destroy anything in its path. Shardlake is commissioned to investigate the brutal murders of the alchemists who had persuaded Cromwell that they had the formula and could deliver it to him. With their deaths, the formula has gone missing. Time is of the essence, as the king is expecting Cromwell to deliver this weapon to him in just a few days time. Things do not start well, and the body count starts to rise as Shardlake tries to juggle both cases. The pressure is on, for if he fails, many lives are at stake ... including his own. This is the second book in The Shardlake Series, written by C.J. Sansom, and it is an absolutely fantastic sequel. The reader is thrust into the sights and smells of Tudor England at a time when paranoia and betrayal were as common as the plague. Whilst most people wouldn't want to have lived during those times, it is enjoyable to visit them from time to time between the covers of a book. The characters are intriguing and rounded. The dialogue is sharp and often witty. And there are so many red herrings and wrong turns down very dangerous alleys that the reader's interest is maintained right to the end. I can't imagine anyone being disappointed by this book ... except that it comes to an end. But there is light at the end of the tunnel .... with four more books in the series to enjoy.

My STAR rating: FIVE.

Length: 581 print pages.
Price I paid: £0.00, borrowed from my husband.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download, audio CD; ebook.

The Mangle Street Murders - a punt that paid off!

Don't you just love it when a complete punt on a book written by an author you've never heard of pays off. I am pleased to report that this has been my experience with The Mangle Street Murders, by M.R.C. Kasasian. Set in 1880s London, Sidney Grice, London's most famous personal detective and rampant tea-drinker, has become the guardian of his god daughter, March Middleton. He begrudgingly welcomes her into his home, but doesn't particularly like what he sees. And as far as March is concerned, the feeling is entirely mutual! He is set in his ways, opinionated, critical and unbending in his feelings of superiority to everyone else, particularly women. She is smart, sensitive and determined. Needless to say, their relationship does not get off to a good start, and it is almost a relief to them both when Sidney is called out by Inspector Pound to interview a man suspected of murdering his wife in the bloodiest of fashions. He is convinced of his guilt, but March is not. When she persuades her guardian to investigate further, she tags along and together they follow the twists and turns of what is a great plot. This is a book that really does keep you guessing and where nothing is as it seems. Lots of clues are revealed that seem to lead one way only for them to end up leading somewhere else. The back story to both lead characters is only partially revealed and leaves you wanting more. They are often at loggerheads, giving the author plenty of opportunity to give the reader incredibly entertaining and spiky exchanges. As the body count mounts (it is a crime thriller after all), and the blood starts to flow, there is still an immense amount of humour to keep things from getting too dark. The audio edition I read was presented exceptionally well by Emma Gregory, who I thought brought the correct level of vigour to this Victorian romp. The author has created an interesting and entertaining crime-fighting duo and it comes as no surprise that this book is just the first of their adventures in The Gower Street Detective Series. This could be the start of a beautiful relationship!

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 336 print pages.
Price I paid: £2.92.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; unabridged audio CD; ebook.

Sweet Caress: The Many Lives of Amory Clay - not always so sweet!

When she was eleven, Amory Clay's father returned from the trenches of the First World War. But his experiences had broken him, and he was no longer the father who used to stand on his head just to amuse his family. Never was this more obvious than when he came to her school to take her out on a trip, and then drove the car into a lake in an attempted suicide. They both survived the ordeal and it may have been this event which triggered Amory to live her life to the full, which she definitely goes on to do. She loves photography and, despite all opposition, sets out to become a professional photographer with the help of her Uncle Greville. This profession takes her to 1920's Berlin, 1930's New York, the blackshirt riots in London and then, as a war photographer, to the Second World War. The reader gets to view her life while she is reflecting upon them as she compiles a journal during 1977. In her memoir, she relates the most intimate moments in an unflinching and unsentimental way - the way I imagine a photojournalist of the time would indeed take a picture - you shoot what's there, nothing more, nothing less. This, for me, sometimes made it hard for me to like Amor, but I did warm to her in the end. We hear about her lovers, the near-death experiences she had trying to get the shots she needed, and also her family. We also get a bit of the Vietnam War thrown in for good measure, almost as a last hurrah for a much older Amory. Sweet Caress: The Many Lives of Amory Clay is by no means a perfect book and I have to admit that I wasn't totally convinced by the ending. You do get to see much of the main events of the 20th Century through the lens of a female photographer, which is different, but at the same time, not totally believable that this one character would get to be there at all those crucial moments. Don't get me wrong, William Boyd is a tremendous author, and many of the passages were a joy to read, but for me, there were not enough of these to really make me gush about this book. I wish I'd liked it more!

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 465 print pages.
Price I paid: £2.92.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.

Kitchens of the Great Midwest - food, family and friendship

I have found Kitchens of the Great Midwest a hard book to categorise. At the beginning, it seems to be about a food loving chef whose wife leaves him, literally, holding the baby. He determines to bring his beautiful daughter up by himself, without bad-mouthing her mother ... but just as you are settling into this, the chef dies! What? Where's this going thought I. We then find out what happens to the baby ... one Eva Thorvald ... throughout the remainder of the book, by following a disparate and seemingly unconnected set of characters whose lives intersect with Eva. Each of these stories is perfectly drawn and apparently independent, so much so that you start to wonder what the heck they have got to do with the story. But somewhere down the line, up pops Eva, sometimes in person, and sometimes just in conversation. Whilst Eva features in all these "chapters", the absolute core to the book and the glue which binds them altogether is food. In fact, so important is the food element, that there is a liberal sprinkling of the recipes written out in full of the dishes cooked by the various characters. It is a study of the lives of ordinary and extraordinary people ... of whom one thing is common to all ... how important food is to our identity. We really are the food we cook and the food we eat. In this, his first novel, J. Ryan Stradal has given us what feels like a personal and enjoyable read, and I might just be trying some of those enticing recipes that got my taste buds tingling in anticipation!

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 400 print pages.

Price I paid: £0.00 for the ebook which was on an offer at the time.

Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.