Last Letter Home – Rachel Hore

Historical Fiction
4*s

I do love a good dual time-line story and this one has two geographical references to enhance the experience even further.

In Last Letter Home historian Briony Andrews visits Italy with her friends and finds a link to her past in an old derelict house. Not totally unsurprising as she knew that her Grandfather had fought there during the war, but even so what could be more magical than to see him on an old reel of film. Even better she is handed a letter written by one Sarah Bailey to an as yet unknown man.

In 1939 Sarah Bailey settled in Norfolk after spending some time in India. She lives with her mother and sister mourning the loss of their father. While there she meets a distant relative of their neighbours at Westbury Hall, a young man Paul Franklin who is half-German. Not a great nation to have hailed from at this time!
The past story is a particularly interesting twist on the usual WWII storyline due to the inclusion of Paul Franklin. I think few of us consider what it must have been like to be a settler in the UK at this time as a German. How would your neighbours react? Where would their loyalties lie if they were to fight? And a myriad of other questions are subtlety posed through the characters Rachel Hore has so richly drawn.

Of course being Rachel Hore this isn’t simply a character study, her books, and I’ve been a fan for years, all are backed up with meticulous research. In this book we learn about the campaign in Naples in 1943 and we are not spared some of the crueller realities of what war is really like some of which we view in letters home from the front-line, others are told through the research our fictional historian carries out in her quest to find out what became of Paul and Sarah after the war was over.

Briony’s story is also fascinating as she lives a modern life as a single woman with a close friend Aruna. As the story opens it is social media that is in the spotlight as Briony is invited to do a piece on TV for which she gets mauled. The contrast between 2016 and the past could not be more clear despite Paul being distrusted by some of his peers back then. The holiday to Naples is born from Briony’s mishap and Aruna’s new boyfriend Luke is more than welcoming even if the other couple are of the kind that you’d rather not be stuck on holiday with!

Rachel Hore has excelled with both her characterisation and the descriptions of her settings, I was easily transported to Italy in both the past and present. However it is well-rounded characters and interesting storylines that make these kind of historical novels and although I was inevitably drawn towards the mystery of the past, Briony’s life in the present was far from boring giving a story that had me longing to know what would happen in both the past and the present.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to Simon & Schuster UK who allowed me to read an advance copy of this book ahead of publication on 22 March 2018. This unbiased review is my thanks to them.

First Published UK: 22 March 2018
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
No of Pages: 560
Genre: Historical Fiction 
Amazon UK
Amazon US

The Dark Angel – Elly Griffiths

Crime Fiction
5*s

Well I just love this series with the balance between the look at old bones, and often new ones too, with the ongoing drama in Ruth Galloway’s own life along with that of DCI Harry Nelson and the rest of his team.

In The Dark Angel rather than Ruth’s boss Phil taking to the television we have an Italian archaeologist who is about to reveal some Roman bones to the audience when something interrupts filming. Desperate to provide some authenticity to his dig and tempt the TV crew back, Dr Angelo Morelli invites Ruth to Italy to lend a helping hand. Ruth is in a bit of a rut, her mother died recently and there has been some other unwelcome news in her personal life and anyway Kate could do with a holiday so she decides that Italy is the perfect answer. Inviting her friend Shona and her son Louis the party board the plane for Italy and Angelo’s apartment in a hilltop village.

Meanwhile in Norfolk Nelson is warned that a man jailed for a heinous crime ten years previously has been released. Mickey Webb made some wild threats at the time he was jailed aimed at Nelson but it seems that he has come out of prison a reformed character and one who has found religion, and a good woman to boot.

Italy has plenty of history and of course although Ruth is there to look at some Roman bones the party have hardly made themselves at home before they are informed that they are staying in the home of a former hero of the Second World War when Italy was occupied. And this is exactly why I love this series, no matter the crime, and there are I’m pleased to report, there is one, there is so much detail to enjoy on the periphery to the storyline all told in such a ‘chatty’ manner it is listening to a friend. That combined with catching up with the latest escapades which entertain me enormously while bones are tested, theories are expounded and suspects questioned.

With events happening in two different countries, both personal and criminal, the action moves quite swiftly despite the somewhat more relaxed holiday feeling to brighten the darker moments in Italy.

Elly Griffiths has compiled a great character in Ruth. She is intelligent without being condescending, worried about her appearance but also not overly envious of those with looks. She has turned into a pragmatic single mother to Kate and yet she is no angel – the asides when Louis breaks glass after glass in the apartment provides a wry smile from anyone who has ever had to spend an extended amount of time with a child that doesn’t behave like your own. She has moments of fierce introspection and yet she is obviously a capable and inspirational forensic archaeologist – someone I’m sure would fascinate me if she was a real live breathing person.

This is a series where you should start at the beginning as the story arc becomes more and more integral to the enjoyment of the books as the series goes on and to be honest the ‘non-crime’ sections are a bigger proportion in this episode than the previous books but if you are already a fan, you are in for a real treat.

Dr Ruth Galloway Books in order

The Crossing Places
The Janus Stone
The House at Sea’s End
A Room Full of Bones
Dying Fall
The Outcast Dead
The Ghost Fields
The Woman in Blue
The Chalk Pit

 

First Published UK: 8 February 2018
Publisher: Quercus
No of Pages: 368
Genre: Crime Fiction – Series
Amazon UK
Amazon US

Other People’s Secrets – Louise Candlish #20booksofsummer

Contemporary Fiction
3*s

A boathouse by Lake Orta sounds the most wonderful place for a holiday, and it is a break from life that Ginny and Adam Trustlove need. They have recently had a stillborn son and need to reconnect and find a way forward from this terrible tragedy. The boathouse seems to be the perfect place to do so, peace and quiet and a beautiful blue lake.

The couple have only just begun to settle in when the peace is shattered by Bea and Marty Sale and their three children, Dom, Esther and Pippi who have come to stay at the main villa. Noisy and full of life the couple are spending a last holiday together with their adult and teenaged children before the last, Pippi flies the nest.

The clue to this story really is in the title. All of the holidaymakers are hiding a secret of one sort or another, some easy to discern, other’s less so. From successful Marty who has promised to take a well-earned break from their clothing line who is only too glad to widen the party to include the less outgoing Trustloves to Pippi and the young man she draws into the circle hoping for a summer romance.

The book follows the summer break of both parties though the days of the holiday, and we get to see how the newcomer to the group, Pippi’s find Zach fits in. Because, yes you’ve guessed it he is also hiding a secret!
This book lets us examine each of the characters but the two that stand out for me are Bea who is questioning the intervening years since she was fully involved in what has become Marty’s business and Pippi who is an entitled spoilt little rich girl who is totally unused to getting what she wants.

There are some big themes in this story, notably grief and adultery but there are some other aspects of relationships that are less often explored in this type of books – I can’t tell you what because it’s a secret!!

Louise Candlish is excellent at setting the scene, I had no trouble picturing the setting at all but I wasn’t quite so convinced by the characters in this book as I have been in other books by this author. Part of the problem is the speed, all within a two-week holiday, that all the secrets come tumbling out, the characters are so busy reacting to the latest bombshell for them to feel like people you’d know. It isn’t so much that their actions were unrealistic, more that I didn’t have a baseline as a starting point. I wasn’t overly convinced that Bea and Ginny would have shared their innermost thoughts quite so readily, the women came from different worlds and didn’t really have an awful lot in common because of that. But hey this was a holiday and we all know anything can, and does happen then.

Although maybe not as suited to my reading tastes as the other books by this author this is an entertaining read which is entirely suited for holiday reading where you can be transported to another life which is, hopefully, far more hectic than yours.

First Published UK: 2010
Publisher: Sphere
No of Pages 372
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Amazon UK
Amazon US

Other Books by Louise Candlish
The Sudden Departure of the Frasers
The Disappearance of Emily Marr
The Swimming Pool

Bloody Women – Helen Fitzgerald

Psychological Thriller
4*s

Helen Fitzgerald’s novel Bloody Women is told in three parts, and for anyone who has read any of her other books will already know that they should expect the unexpected and that the tale being told is a commentary on a world far wider than the characters that inhabit the small one inside its pages.

In a tiny prison cell sits a young woman who didn’t get married because she was arrested for murder on the morning of her wedding. Not just one murder, three. And these were murders with a particularly spiteful twist, each of the men were missing a vital appendage! The three men were exes of Catriona’s, men she met in the week before her wedding whilst coming to terms with the fact that her home would soon be Italy with Joe and not Scotland where she has been a TV celebratory on an interior design show. So now Catriona sits at the mercy of the prison guard she names ‘The Freak’ awaiting trial and hoping her fiancé Joe will come to visit.

We learn all about this crime through Catriona Marsden own view of events as well as one of those hastily written, sensation seeking biographies that spring up around certain true crimes. Catriona, her mother and her best friend Anna were all interviewed for the book but Cat can’t see any of her words amongst the pages.

This novel shows Helen Fitzgerald’s ability to write black comedy that doesn’t let up but nor does it become in any way predictable. At the time the book was published, 2009, British TV was just coming out of the surfeit of design shows like the one that Cat presented – her comments about the rooms she made-over and her ‘clients’ were absolutely spot-on. She also taps into the culture of the Scots and the Italians, throws a few mental illnesses into the mix and stirs it all up with a few dashes of heartbreak. In other words this isn’t a straightforward mystery, although that element is there too but more a look at life for someone who doesn’t fit into what’s expected.

As the book moves from part to part the change of time and circumstance allows the reader to fill in the gaps with the new knowledge revealed. This is a refreshing type of device, although it took me a couple of pages to find my bearings at each swap point, it served to up the feeling of unease which pervades throughout the book. What happens is there are more people to worry about, because although I didn’t ‘take’ to Cat, or any of the other characters if I’m honest, I did sympathise with her. It takes a stone-hearted soul that doesn’t feel something for a young woman who has lost her way, as so many of Helen Fitzgerald’s female characters have.

I really enjoy the writing style characterisation and pace and this has only confirmed to me that this is an author with a huge amount of talent!

This book has been on my kindle since February 2014 and is the fourth of this author’s books I’ve read. Bloody Women was published by Polygon in 2009.

Other Brilliant Books by Helen FitzGerald

The Cry

When a baby goes missing on a lonely roadside in Australia, it sets off a police investigation that will become a media sensation and dinner-table talk across the world.

The Exit

82 year old Rose, is convinced that something sinister is going on in Room 7 and that her own life is under threat. But Rose has dementia – so what does she actually know, and who would believe her anyway? As Catherine starts investigating Rose’s allegations, terrible revelations surface about everyone involved. Can Catherine find out what’s really going on?

Viral

A steamy video taken in Magaluf of young Sue Oliphant-Brotheridge while she was holidaying with her sister Leah, it’s upload to the internet causes Sue to hide away. This is a book about far more than a seedy holiday and the internet, a book that explores far more issues than the title would lead you to believe.

My Husband’s Wife – Jane Corry

Psychological Thriller
4*s

This is a domestic thriller with a difference, far more subtle than the normal fayre and dare I say it, with a less simplistic message than some.

The book opens on 20 October 2015 with an excerpt from The Telegraph announcing the death of a famous artist, he’d been stabbed. We then move straight back in time to the turn of the millennium in the year 2000 and meet Lily who is a solicitor facing her first day assisting the defence in a criminal case. The subject is Joe Thomas an incarcerated man accused of murdering his girlfriend. It is also Lily’s first day back at home in her Clapham flat as a married woman, she has married an aspiring artist, Ed, who works in advertising to pay the bills.

Next we meet Carla who is a child of nine who lives downstairs from Lily and Ed with her Italian mother Francesca. Carla’s father died when she was a baby and she longs for the things the other girls at school have but most of all she longs not to be different. While Francesca works Carla is looked after by Lily and becomes a subject for Ed to draw and paint.

The first half of the book follows these flawed five characters throughout the time that Lily is building her case to free Joe Thomas. The hours are long and her marriage to Ed less than perfect. We know that Lily misses her dead brother Daniel, and that she feels guilty about something that happened before she married, but whatever caused the guilt, Lily is not telling anyone. But there is no doubt that she sees something of Daniel in her client Joe. The author also paints a worrying picture of a young girl who learns to lie to and manipulate those around her to ease her unhappiness.

One of the most brilliant things in the book is precisely that all the characters are a mixture of good and bad. Does being good in one area of your life redeem yourself for those times that you behaved less well? This theme runs into the second half too when we meet Carla in 2013 as an adult, a beautiful young woman who is determined not to end up like her mother, alone and unhappy. She decides to seek out some old friends and so enters Lily’s life once more.

Along with the complex and enthralling characters we have other reoccurring issues including Asperger’s syndrome, fidelity, deception and lies and we all know one small lie can easily multiply to become something huge!

The chapters alternate between Lily and Carla which kept me reading long after I should have put the book to one side, as they revealed not only parts of their own characters but also of those around them. This isn’t a fast paced book, the author covers a lot of ground and the depth of the story being told becomes apparent as the layers are peeled back on the characters. Using her writing, rather than a jaw-dropping twist, the feeling of dread increases quite alarmingly once the second half of the book begins. After all we now know something of what each of the characters we’ve met are capable of, but how does that link to the tantalising opening headline? If you want to know, you really should read My Husband’s Wife which is published today, 26 May 2016.

I’d like to offer a huge thank you to Penguin UK who gave me an advance copy of this book for review purposes. This review is my unbiased thanks to them.