The Blackwater Lightship - let go of those grudges!

And onto the letter T ... Set in Ireland in the 1990's, The Blackwater Lightship, by Colm Toibin, is a story of heartbreak and humour within the Devereaux family, as told by Helen, who became estranged from her mother Lily some ten years previous to the opening of the story. Helen is contacted by a friend of her brother Declan. Her beloved sibling is dying of AIDS and is in hospital, but this is the first Helen is hearing about his illness. So instead of departing on her own family's planned holiday to Donegal, she goes to spend time with him. But Declan wants to leave hospital and visit their grandmother, who he and Helen lived with during their childhood at a time when their own father was dying. This brings the grandmother, mother and daughter together in the same place at the same time for a decade. Into this mix are two of Declan's closest friends who also come to stay. As Declan's condition deteriorates (and no details are spared here), this proves to be a catalyst for the family who are desperate to support Declan but who cannot help but bring up grievances and deep felt hurt from the past, which lead us to the root cause of the estrangement. Whilst this could be an overly sentimental story, there is grit and edginess in the dialogue that is very convincing of a family who have held onto grudges for a long time. There are lighter moments, especially between Declan's friends and Dora, the grandmother, which are very welcome. The characters are distinct and well drawn, although I found Lily, the mother, maybe not quite so three dimensional as the others. There are beautiful passages, and emotions do run high, but overall a very satisfying read that reinforces the adage that  you shouldn't wait for a tragedy to bring healing to a broken relationship - because then it might be too late!

My STAR rating: FOUR

Length: 288 print pages.

Price I paid: £2.98

Formats available: print, unabridged audio download.

Paris Echo - dreamlike, with the odd nightmare thrown in!

Today I bring you the letter F, which gave me the chance to read Paris Echo, by Sebastian Faulks, a book my big sister gave me as a birthday present last year. Set in Paris, this novel brings together two characters who seem to have very little in common. There is Hannah, an American postdoctoral researcher who is looking into the lives of women living in Paris during the German Occupation of the Second World War, and Tariq, a Moroccan teenager who has run away from his home in Tangiers, who thinks he might be able to find out something about his mother's history. Tariq ends up living in Hannah's spare room and, occasionally, helps her to translate some of the narrated histories of the women Hannah is researching. To earn money, he works in a fast food restaurant, but he becomes swept up in the boulevards, Metro stations and people he meets in the city. While Hannah begins to uncover the lives of the women, it stirs up memories and feelings from a previous relationship which has affected her more deeply than she would probably admit to. Tariq is full of wonder and keen to experience pretty much everything, whereas Hannah is more reserved and thinks only of her work, at least until an old acquaintance appears on the horizon. This is an exploration of a city the author obviously loves and the people who inhabit it, both in the past and the present. Sometimes it's hard to get a grip on it and the narrative has a dreamlike quality in places, but that kind of worked for me. There are sections to do with the Occupation that are incredibly hard to read, but stick with it and you will be rewarded. This book has received quite mixed reviews and while it may not reach the heights of, say, Birdsong (one of my all time favourite books), there is still much to admire and enjoy.

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 320 print pages.

Price I paid: free.

Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, ebook

The Word Is Murder - Crackingly Good!

So, for the letter "H", my choice was The Word Is Murder, by Anthony Horowitz. This is a murder mystery like no other. A woman walks into a funeral home and makes arrangements for her own funeral. Later that day, she is murdered. Coincidence ... I don't think so! And neither does ex-policeman Hawthorne, who now works as a consultant for the force, as well as consulting on TV crime dramas such as Foyle's War, which is how he knows Anthony Horowitz, as he is the scriptwriter for it. Hawthorne approaches Horowitz (yes, the author has placed himself into this fictional novel) with a proposition - to write a book about his investigation into the murder of this woman, a Mrs Cooper. Horowitz doesn't really like the man or his idea, but is finally persuaded to give it a try, and so begins a twisty-turny story with trawler loads of red herrings. Hawthorne is brusque, sweary and not much fun to be around, and Horowitz thinks he's made a big mistake in becoming this man's "Watson". But as time progresses, the investigation takes hold and he puts up with all the irritations of this modern day "Sherlock", as he really wants to solve it - becoming almost gleeful when he thinks he's found a clue that Hawthorne has missed. When Damian, the famous actor son of the murder victim is also found dead within a couple of hours of her funeral, things really begin to heat up. Everything points to these violent crimes being an act of revenge for something that happened 10 years ago, but that would be too easy ... wouldn't it, or would it, or wouldn't it???? The investigation is interwoven with what purports to be real events from Anthony Horowitz's real life - like a meeting with Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson regarding a film script for another Tintin movie. The reader doesn't really know whether none, some, or all of these things are made up - but they all help to make the lives of the two protagonists, and how they interact, totally believable. Excellent characterisation and a crime thriller that keeps you guessing right to the very end. I can highly recommend this book, especially the audio edition which is brilliantly narrated by the fabulous Rory Kinnear.  

My STAR rating: FIVE.

Length: 400 print pages.

Price I paid: £5.84.

Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; audio CD; ebook.

Single & Single - What just happened?

When the letter L was pulled out for my next read, I was happy to find that John Le Carre was listed under that letter. I have read a few of his books in the past (The Constant Gardener definitely being a highlight) and so was more than happy to pick up one of his titles from my husband's bookshelf. Single & Single opens with a corporate lawyer being shot somewhere in Turkey, then cuts to a children's entertainer in Devon, who is called in to his bank to explain a sudden influx of cash. The latter, Oliver Single, isn't all that he seems - he is the son of a celebrated London financier who has just disappeared, and Oliver is sucked into the world he had previously turned his back on, in an effort to find out what is going on. But he is not the only one and things take a more ominous tone when he comes up against dangerous businessmen and shadowy "official" figures. This is certainly a thriller, which is usually a winner for me, but I found this book incredibly hard to get into. I had to reread the first 50 pages as I realised at that point that I wasn't entirely sure who anyone was or what they were doing. But I'm not sure even that helped. I spent most of the book wondering what was going on, and even though at times I felt I was starting to get a grip on things, the story slipped from my grasp once again. There were a lot of characters, as well as multiple locations and the scenes chopped and changed very quickly. I didn't find any of the characters sympathetic, which didn't help. I have to say that I ploughed through this book, page by page, waiting for some clarity, but it never came. It left me confused and slightly annoyed, particularly as even the ending left matters kind of hanging. Disappointed.

My STAR rating: ONE.

Length: 416 print pages.

Price I paid: free, borrowed from my husband.

Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, ebook.

Shangai Tango - an unusual memoir

So, hot on the heels of the letter Z came the letter X! This might have presented a bit of a challenge until I came across Shanghai Tango by Jin Xing in the e-library collection. This is an autobiographical account of Jin Xing, who was born a boy, but became a prima ballerina and one of the brightest stars of the Shanghai Ballet. This boy loved to dance from an early age, but never quite felt comfortable in his own body. At age 9, he joined the People's Liberation Army, to receive both dance and military training. He excelled at dance and, aged 19, received a scholarship to study dance in New York. It was here that Jin Xing experienced different forms of dance as well as having his eyes opened up to the possibilities of a different way of living. Always attracted to men, Jin engaged upon numerous relationships - feeling that he was relating to them as a female, rather than as a gay man. Then, when he discovered that it was feasible for someone to change sex, he took the decision to return to China to make his dreams come true and physically undergo surgery to become the woman he'd always felt he was. The surgery was almost a disaster, and almost wrecked her career, but she was determined to continue dancing and finally achieved her goal, being lauded throughout her country and becoming an ambassador for China through her artistic work. Whilst this story is amazing, I found this book quite bitty and unsatisfying. I think it was because it felt quite superficial and more like a list of dates/events - some of which were monumental in her life - but which weren't explored in depth. For instance, I never quite understood her inner feelings or what she was really thinking at key moments in her life. I wanted to feel the emotions that she must have been experiencing, but they didn't come across. I would rather have had more time on this than the descriptions of her numerous sexual exploits, which left me quite cold. Still, this book does give an insight into some elements of communist China which will surprise the reader, so for that, I am thankful. 

My STAR rating: TWO.

Length: 288 print pages.

Price I paid: free, borrowed from the library.

Formats available: print, unabridged audio book, ebook.

How Much of These Hills Is Gold - It lost me!

And so onto the letter "Z" - I was a bit worried about finding a suitable author, but after a quick search, I came up with C Pam Zhang, which is why I found myself reading How Much of These Hills Is Gold. This is the story of Lucy and Sam, who, at age twelve and eleven respectively, find themselves on their own towards the end of the gold rush in the American West. When their Ba dies (Ma already having left them some time earlier), they leave their ramshackle home in search of a new life. Lucy tries to take charge, but it is Sam who dominates and, Lucy discovers, has hidden Ba's body in the trunk their horse is carrying. Sam is determined to find the proper place to bury Ba, deep in the country where buffalo still roam and veins of gold run deep. But the two siblings have different ideas of how they want their lives to go, and while Lucy heads for the security of a town, Sam disappears into the country. Lucy tries to fit in, but is always aware that, as a child of Chinese immigrants, she may never quite fit in, and it isn't until many years later, when Sam reappears, that she realises how much she has missed her sibling and the relationship and shared history that they had. Sam allows her to be truly herself again. Much of the story is told in a series of flashbacks, not necessarily in a linear timeframe. We see how the dreams of, and promises made to, Chinese immigrants who were tempted by the stories of gold, never came to fruition and that the odds were always stacked against them. We also see how the land was stolen from the native American population and how the rich get richer and the poor, poorer. The two main characters are very engaging and there is a real sense of sibling friction, interwoven with an immense amount of love, that felt very real. This is certainly a perspective on history that is new to me. The book is well crafted and the description of the beautiful scenery, juxtaposed with the grim living conditions of those people living on the outskirts of what "civilised" society purported to be, are well told - beauty and ugliness in equal measure. I was totally engaged until the last section of the book, which, for me, suddenly seemed to lose its way and kind of petered out. Maybe it was because what I thought was going to happen didn't, and I didn't get the end I actually wanted. Still worth reading, and for anyone interested in the American West and the Gold Rush, there's a bucketload of things to enjoy!

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 288 print pages.

Price I paid: £3.00.

Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, ebook.

Neverwhere - for those who fall between the cracks!

I was delighted to pull out a "G" from the alphabet bag for my next read as it provided me with the opportunity to plunge into the catalogue of Neil Gaiman once again, an author I usually enjoy immensely. Neverwhere follows Richard Mayhew, an average man with a dull job and a very demanding fiancee, who comes across an injured girl in the street, and stops to help her. The next morning, the girl has disappeared and, so it appears, has Richard's normal life. His bank card doesn't work, he can't get a taxi and his landlord seems to be renting out his apartment. Even when he gets to work, no one knows who he is, or even seems to see him. Determined to get his life back on track, Richard sets out to find the mysterious girl to get her to put it right ... and so begins his adventure in the dark, brooding underbelly of London. The girl is the Lady Door, a person of power and nobility who is on a quest to find those responsible for the slaughter of her family, and who now appear to be hunting her too. Richard thinks that if he can help her on her quest, he can find his way back to the London he knows. Along the way, he meets strange and mystical people, as well as forces he never believed could exist, including an Angel called Islington and an Earl who holds Court on a tube train. It is hard to know who to trust, let alone make sense of what's happening under the streets of London. But Richard has a destiny to fulfil - he just doesn't realise what it might cost him! Gaiman brings his chaotic world, populated by bizarre characters, to life with ease and aplomb. Full of danger, delights and utter strangeness, you cannot help but get sucked into this story of a fish out of water who has to reach deep into himself to survive and stay sane. For such a dark book, there is, as usual with Gaiman, an immense amount of humour. An absolute tour de force I would recommend this to anyone looking for a thrilling adventure with a dark plot and even darker humour (thank you Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar for the most bloodthirsty comedy double act ever!) Packed with twists and turns, superb dialogue, great set pieces and some unexpected treats - just read it!

My STAR rating: FIVE.

Length: 400 print pages.

Price I paid: £5.84

Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, audio CD, ebook.