Are there books you would live in? Of course there are! I have chosen a few – which, either because of their location, atmosphere, or events (likely all three!) – really appeal to me, and when I close my eyes, I can imagine I’m there.
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Who wouldn’t live on Prince Edward Island given the chance? Who wouldn’t live in Anne’s wonderful world of positivity? The books are full of nature, friendships, humour, mishaps and quirks. A perfect home for me.
Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
Botswana! I’d never thought of going to Botswana before I started reading the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books… Ah, but Alexander McCall Smith describes the country so wonderfully, and his main character, Mma Ramotswe, has such a splendid life and career. They are just some of those perfectly written, perfectly depicted, oh so lovely books that evoke such a cosy feeling, that you just want to fall straight into the pages.
Five Have a Wonderful Time by Enid Blyton
I longed to be in the Famous Five books when I was younger. What adventures they had! How wonderful to be free of parents and left to your own devices! How I wanted to go off in a caravan with them and eat food blagged from a friendly farmer, after stumbling on a plot to kidnap the local vicar who turned out to be a spy, and saving the day, naturally. A true childhood dream.
Marrow Jam by Susan A. King
Beattie Bramshaw’s life is all baking, village fêtes and WI. Sounds great to me already, but chuck in Susan A. King’s delightful humour, sense of adventure, and obvious love for crime capers, and I’m sold. I’d have a load of fun in these pages!
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
I really loved this book, and it surprised me how much I really wanted to get in there! Who would’ve thought I’d want to live in a retirement village? But, why wouldn’t I? You have a lovely apartment, beautiful surroundings, plenty of friends around you, an abundance of activities to choose from, and eateries on site. Not only this, but there is a murder or two to be solved. That’d keep the brain cells ticking over! This book gave me such a sense of cosiness and positivity that I wouldn’t hesitate to pack my bags and get down to Coopers Chase to live with the old folk.
The English Girl by Katherine Webb
After reading this perfect book by one of my very favourite authors, I was a bit obsessed with the Empty Quarter – that vast sand desert on the Arabian peninsula. Of course, I wouldn’t want to live in the Empty Quarter – but I’d definitely visit the edge of it… And I’d definitely live in this book! It’s so exotic and historical and adventurous. Katherine Webb’s descriptions and prose are truly evocative and enticing to me. I’d live in any of her novels.
The Visitors by Caroline Scott
Cornwall in summer anyone? It’s the 1920s and life is slow and easy for the residents of Espérance, as Esme, the main character, finds when she visits four friends who have come together to help each other heal after the traumas of the Great War. This is the first novel I’ve read by Caroline Scott and her descriptions of the Cornish countryside are so dreamy and idyllic, and I just want to follow in Esme‘s footsteps and get a train down to this beautiful part of England. The Visitors is a book full of nature appreciation and friendship – reading perfection for me.
The Lights of Riverdell by Marianne Rosen
The eagle eyed amongst you would have noticed that most of my chosen books for this post are not just single books, but are literary series. Marianne Rosen’s intricate Riverdell saga stretches over four chunky books and focuses on a wealthy, dysfunctional family from the rural English county of Shropshire. The location is idyllic, the setting is contemporary, and the attitude is fierce. I could very easily jump in and spend my mornings in the luxurious kitchen of Riverdell drinking coffee after coffee with Kate, and having a good old gossip. I could easily imagine myself having money to throw around and flying off to India whenever the mood takes me. Yes, I’d definitely put up with a flawed, defective family for this extravagant life.
Spreading out away from her the water was calm and pensive, a mist dancing across its surface with a playful swirl of colours. It reminded her of Riverdell, and the river in the early morning of a winter’s sun, when light and sound seemed to play with the garden.
Ah, Riverdell.
I have travelled with Isabelle, Kate, Moth and Kit to the last page of their stories. This final book in the Riverdell quartet is the bringing together of all the threads introduced two years ago when I first walked through The Doors of Riverdell. I instantly loved the grand setting of the big imposing riverside house in Ludlow, and although it took a while for me to fall in love with its wealthy, seemingly spoilt, self-centred, bickering and highly dysfunctional residents, fall in love I did. Indeed, by the second book I was highly enjoying being in their company and couldn’t wait to snuggle down on the sofa with them. The characters and personalities in Riverdell are gorgeously distinctive, beautifully crafted and developed by their creator, and each given a narrative to do them justice, so that their complicated, eventful and vibrant lives jump straight off the page. These are characters readers do not forget.
The Children of Riverdell is a grand and beautiful finale. True to style, Marianne Rosen has a few surprises and twists for us, and the paths followed meander and weave, making us sometimes linger with anticipation, sometimes stop with surprise. Kit’s journey takes him to India to make sense of the biggest loss in his life; Moth returns to Riverdell only to find more complications, urging him to either fight or take flight; Isabelle, having secured her place as head of the family, is trying to fill in the gaps; and Kate is contemplating her deepest regret…
This is modern literature of modern times at its finest. Marianne Rosen knows her subject, knows her characters, and is fiercely loyal to her story. The narrative is seamless, the language is gorgeous, the dialogue is out of this world perfection, and the feel of the whole series is consistently brilliant and fresh. The mentions of the beginning of the Covid pandemic reinforce the setting of the now, and helps provide that familiarity that we all need in books if we are to truly love them.
The goodbye of this novel, of this series, is thrilling, touching and heartfelt. If you have been on the Riverdell journey, you hopefully will have experienced this saga in all its magnificence and emotion, as I have. And if you haven’t yet, this is one big recommendation from me. It is an epic chunky series about family relationships and dynamics that has entertained me no end over these last two years. It has been such a fabulous reading experience and I am so looking forward to Marianne Rosen’s next literary series which I am sure will shine just as bright. I am very very curious as to what she has in store for us next!
From the kitchen windows she heard a muffled crash and closed her eyes in despair. They never lasted, these brief moments of respite. Parenthood was an unravelling. A complete unpicking of life. A sprawling disarray of all the components of what had once made sense and been functional, into a never-ending interruption at her best efforts to remake it into something complete.
It seemed a long wait to finally dive into the third book of Marianne Rosen’s Riverdell family saga, but Wow! And I really mean wow – this book gave me so much pleasure. That’s not to say that it didn’t present uncomfortable reading at times, but I’ve always maintained that Marianne (along with the Threlfall family) knows how to give you a stinking big rollercoaster of a ride!
The Lights of Riverdell is a fantastic continuation of Moth, Kit, and Isabelle’s stories, with the added perfect storm of Rose’s narrative – all characters first introduced in The Doors of Riverdell. With this saga you get exceptional character development, and it is certainly one of the many allures of the series. To start with, Moth has grown up and is more communicative and interactive with others. He’s settled – for want of a better word – in a Turkish refugee camp and living a life of both adventure and hardship, but doing his best to help others. He’s still rejecting all he’s known; his past and his family, but he’s doing something with passion now rather than just running away. I love Moth in this book; the refugee camp setting is depressing of course (and what does him staying there rather than returning to Riverdell say about his feelings towards his so-called home?), but it’s also a journey of exhilaration and discovery. It’s up and down for Moth, rather than just down, and his efforts to save two Syrian boys is compelling and moving.
I also love Isabelle‘s story. In becoming a mother she has found some peace and is enjoying her domestic bliss – something I can wholeheartedly relate to. She is revelling in simple pleasures and finding her place in the world, even though that place may not be exciting nor fulfilling the expectations of others. In motherhood she is becoming a stronger person – she has a direction – even though life still contains little niggles.
I am addicted to Marianne’s narrative structure – long chapters and time hops, which, I admit, took a little getting used to in the first book, but is now taken as a strong feature of her storytelling – both wonderful and unique. Jumping storylines with Marianne is a lot of fun, and I liked how I was forever switching allegiance and favourite narrative. At first I enjoyed being with Isabelle and Kate at the Riverdell residence, sipping coffee and making soup…Then I’m really uncomfortable because a character is getting angry with another character…Yet, I’m dreading Moth’s storyline because it’s depressing…But then I’m with Moth again and I’m delighted because what’s now happening is heartwarming, showing the caring and sensitive side of life…And then events escalate into action packed thrills! What more could I ask for?!
Let’s not forget Kit, though! Kit is struggling somewhat, and if, on the outside, it may seem like he has the perfect life and everything he wants, his narrative leads us down the path of his dissatisfaction. What exactly does Kit want? What will it take to make him happy? While in the previous two books he was always the man with the plan and his confidence was seamless, demanding admiration, this third book highlights his insecurities and loneliness. Does Kit have it all? Is a gorgeous boyfriend and a highly lucrative and successful career enough for him? The Lights of Riverdell questions all that, and we are taken deeper into Kit’s psychology.
What a fantastic volume this is! It’s so great to be back with the Threlfalls. Once you begin a journey with a literary series like this you are absolutely invested in the characters and you want to follow it to its conclusion. Marianne has done this to me. She has captured me with her detailed and indulgent storytelling and her sublime, enticing prose. How can I fault this book? I don’t think I can. Marianne paints such a vivid picture in this domestic saga – there is such preciseness in her dialogues, and her characters are ones to have strong opinions about. It’s both so realistic and so entertaining – a darn good melodrama. It’s LBTQ+ representation is refreshing and it has a thoroughly modern feel. It is a superb piece of fiction and wouldn’t be out of place in any library or book group. It is certainly one of the best books I will read this year.
He kissed her on the cheek and walked past. His scent, that clean fresh scent that could reorder the universe, lingering with her. She closed her eyes against the urge to run after him, heard his steps clattering down the stone stairs, away, out of the villa. The car roaring to life and leaving, gravel falling back into the silence behind. Rearranged in a new constellation.”
I was delighted to read the second book in the Riverdell series by Marianne Rosen. I must declare that Marianne gifted me the paperback, but it was the kindle format I actually read, which I bought myself. I wasn’t obliged to review this book and the buddy read of it was independent of Marianne. My review is totally honest.
Well! What a rollercoaster ride this was. I read The Halls of Riverdell as a read-along with some of the original launch team of the first book, and it seems most of us are of the same opinion that this was one hell of a journey!
Riverdell is a family saga about a dysfunctional, wealthy family, in modern day Britain. The Threlfalls seemingly have it all: money, property, land, freedom – and yet no one is as happy as they should be. Why? That’s the beauty of a saga – you gradually find out the whys and wherefores as you read on.
If book one introduced us to the characters and gave us a solid establishing shot of the story, book two shook us up, swept us away, and granted us a whale of a time. It was a delight returning to Riverdell and meeting up with the players; entering their world, and getting tangled up in their weird and wonderful minds. Indeed, one of the marvellous things about Riverdell is the multi-perspective narrative. We slither into four different heads, each with their joys and troubles (mostly troubles), painting, a sometimes colourful, a sometimes grey, picture of what it is to be a Threlfall.
The Halls of Riverdell is contemporary, passionate, and melodramatic. It doesn’t shy away from tough subjects or graphic sex scenes. It’s openness and originality is a breath of fresh air. It’s like a beautiful literary soap opera that often leaves you gripped, shocked, and hanging on a cliff edge. It’s a unwavering piece of entertainment, gorgeously plotted and constructed, and wonderfully presented to us with bounds of confidence and sophistication. Read it and weep. A definite five stars.
The autumn of that year was the most beautiful I can remember. For weeks after harvest-tide the weather stayed fine, and only slowly that year did summer’s warmth leave the earth. In October, Wych Farm’s trees turned quickly and all at once, blazing into oranges and reds and burnished golds; with little wind to strip them the woods and spinneys lay on our land like treasure, the massy hedgerows filigreed with old-man’s-beard and enamelled with rosehips and black sloes.
All Among the Barley is the second book by Melissa Harrison I have read this year; and the first, At Hawthorn Time, readily prepared me for what was between its pages. I knew I wasn’t going to be reading a happy, uplifting book, but I also knew I was going to be treated to a slice of our natural world – a love and celebration of it, and beautiful detailed descriptions of nature and the changing seasons. It was, for me, a fair trade-off.
Fourteen year old Edith (Edie) finds friendship with journalist Constance FitzAllen when she becomes a regular visitor at the girl’s family farm. She has been commissioned to write a series of articles about upholding the old rural traditions for a magazine. Edie is captivated by her easy and confident personality and impressed by her charm and winning ways with people. But Constance is not all she seems and Edie has her own mounting troubles.
This is a novel with an undertone of disaster and some very dark themes. The personal is political here. Folklore, poverty, debt, mental breakdown, suicide, domestic violence and sexual abuse, intertwine with both traditional and progressive ideas, industrial change and modernisation, class division, patriarchy, nationalism and emerging fascism.
The depiction of British rural life between the World Wars is captured like I’ve never encountered before in a novel, and its sense of realism communicated through it’s vivid detail of how life was lived, would not be out of place in a non-fiction book written at the time. The characters for me seem secondary to the big themes that are going on. But each character is perfectly placed to convey an idea or ideas essential to the storytelling of an exact time and place. At first, everything seems subtle and everyday, but then the realisation hits you that it is exactly this that leads on to the bigger things in life: the change, the fortune, the tragedy, the make or break.
All Among the Barley was an education for me. I learnt the names of plants, birds, words and phrases that I previously wasn’t familiar with, and happily looked them up. I now know what a landrail looks like and what a barley-rick is. I loved this aspect of it. Although not an entirely enjoyable novel, simply because of its subject matters, it has much beauty and depth. I wholly recommend it’s talented author with her absolutely gorgeous nature writing and hypnotic prose.
Beautiful descriptions of rural England in the 1930s
‘You come from war?’ The old woman reached out and patted Aisha on the knee, and this time she did not pull away or jump in fear. ‘Seeking refuge? That’s all right.’ She beckoned to Aisha. ‘Come and shelter in old Elder’s wood. Aisha stay here with my wartime spirits.’
I have read many beautiful books; some of them beautiful and powerful; some beautiful and wondrous. While thinking about what makes a beautiful book for me, I conclude, yes, the beauty of the words used, the words together, the types of words. But probably over and above this, it’s the reality of the words. The deep seated human connection it has with its reader, I think, is very important. It’s the core of it all. Anything can be said with pretty words, but it’s the meaning that makes it beautiful.
Red Leaves by Sita Brahmachari shines for me. The truth in its pages is dazzling. Books like these reach out and touch the heart of the reader. There is something recognisable or familiar, either an experience or an opinion or a set of values – whatever it is, it clicks it all into place for you. This wonderful YA novel covers the themes of homelessness and seeking refuge after tragedy whether in your own country or another. It is an epic subject, a subject which is often swirling around somewhere among my thoughts. Because isn’t this the ultimate fear? Having something awful happen in your life that separates you from your family and your home and everything that you know? Losing your children, parents, or siblings? Losing all your security and being thrust into the darkness of life?
Aisha is one such child who had everything taken away from her after witnessing the most horrific acts. Everything including her childhood and peace was snatched from her and thrown away. Children should never see what she saw and experience what she had lived. Aisha’s world was destroyed. Coming to the U.K. and finding some sanctuary with her loving foster mother, Liliana, goes a long way in settling her into a stable happy life, but when she is faced with the prospect of having to leave another home and all that she has made familiar, Aisha makes the decision to run away. She finds herself hiding in the ancient city wood not far from her neighbourhood. There, she meets Zak, a boy struggling to cope with his parents’ divorce and Iona, a homeless girl, whose own family life was shattered long ago. Unexpectedly, they find solace in each other and their natural world surroundings, and together with Elder, an old, somewhat mystical, homeless woman, they each try to make sense of their pasts and find a way to make a brighter future for themselves.
This poetic story connects past and present with heartbreaking scenarios; the casualties of war, war orphaned children, parent-child separation, broken homes and homelessness. The loss of something – often everything – precious; and the continuous coping and building, and the searching for equilibrium, even happiness. It is harrowing yet uplifting in its themes and message. The essence of the human spirit, the resilience, the strength as life goes on, despite the horrors some people witness. It is very much a story told from a young person’s viewpoint, and in this way it is a tremendous book for children and teenagers as it seemingly effortlessly encourages compassion and tolerance. It highlights the inequality and discrimination of refugees, and inspires an empathetic response.
Red Leaves is a book to be read as a youngster and as an adult. I cannot recommend it enough if you are touched by this subject. It is not just a book with a beautiful cover; it is a book with a beautiful spirit and a beautiful core. It encompasses so much of the bare bones of life; what we need and what we, sometimes unknowingly, have to have in order to feel human. It strips it all back.
How could you have a past like Aisha’s and still want to sing?
She glanced past Moth to see Riverdell in the background, high-browed and proud in the vibrant grass embankments. Home was this place, this moment. The river running beneath her waiting feet, the meadow stretching away on the other side, the woods hovering above, the lawns like tempting velvet, the house watching it all. Every view was home.
The Doors of Riverdell is the first novel in a four book saga about the Threlfalls, a privileged and dysfunctional family residing in a rather grand old house in the historic English market town of Ludlow. But this is no Downton Abbey – it has a solid contemporary setting with short flashbacks no further in the past than the 1950s. It is author Marianne Rosen’s debut – and what a debut! At well over five hundred pages, it’s an epic and fitting introduction to a somewhat unhappy and unsatisfied family on the brink of change.
At the start of the novel four girls meet at boarding school and seemingly form a lifelong friendship, bonding over absent parents and their unknown place in the world. Fast forward fifty odd years and we meet their children – all but one, the estranged Threlfall heir, who has been killed in a car accident along with his wife, And so begins the drama of Riverdell…
We follow Elsa: the Threlfall matriarch, trying her hand at a second wave of parenting; Isabelle: her thirty-something niece, freshly back from India; Kit: Isabelle’s pursuer – a lusty workaholic control freak; and Moth: Elsa’s newly orphaned teenage grandson – all knowing, moody, secretive, with a great big chip on his shoulder. The four points of view run through the book, nicely blended after the initial hurdle of getting used to the novel’s tone and pace and multiple timelines.
For such a big book, The Doors of Riverdell speeds along, sweeping its reader off to the world between its pages – a world of family troubles, conflict, complications and passions. It’s sometimes difficult to relate to the characters as they seem so rich, privileged and spoilt. They can come across as distant, with the exception perhaps, of Kit and Kate, who have much more feistiness than the rest of the players. Moth is a troubled young man that frustrates in his overtly secretive manner, compelling the reader to want to give him a good shake. Isabelle is flaky, and her inconsistency and commitment phobia grates. Elsa is in the shadow of Kate, her ancient BBF, and we wonder what’s going on in the background with her. But, remember, this is a series and character development is ongoing. It’s a sign of a good book where the characters take you on their own personal journey, with its ups and downs, triggering dislike sometimes and admiration at other times. After all, life is like that; people are like that.
The overriding aspect of the novel that stands out for me – and much more than this, made me all warm and tingly when reading – is the sumptuous, the beautiful, the lovingly descriptive, prose. I used to read, read, read, not really knowing why I liked certain books and not others. I used to say it was all about the story – I was a story lover and it was that that did it for me. Yet, it’s only fairly recently that I realised it’s the writing that really ignites my spark – the detailed, descriptive prose. I want to know what the room looks like, I want to know what the weather is, I want to get inside the protagonist’s head, I want to be able to see what the characters see, and picture in my mind every scene. Descriptions are important to me. They enable me to feel an atmosphere unique to that particular book, and add to it my own imagination. Marianne provides this satisfaction for me in Riverdell. The detailed writing does its job of creating a sense of place, of time, of character, so well that I am taken down into its depths, lost in a good book, as they say.
Ludlow is the setting of Riverdell, and I relish a real place setting, especially if I’ve been there and especially if it’s not a widely known place. Who has been to Ludlow? I’m hoping that everyone has had the pleasure, but it’s a fairly small town in rural Shropshire, and if I didn’t have past family connections there, I probably would not have heard of it. Ludlow is magnificent in its historic prettiness and has a lovely feel to it. As I remember, it has bookshops galore, and so it is really worth a visit or two. Marianne’s admiration for the town comes wonderfully across in her narrative, painting a vivid picture of her hometown. It’s a gorgeous tribute to Ludlow.
At the reaches of her flawed vision, the hills were shimmering, trees cavorting shadows across their flanks. She picked out land points, that compressed golf ball of the radio station shining on the Clee, the Mynd a long frown on the northern horizon, the grasses rippling across the meadow flanks of Climbing Jack and tumbling into the deep creases of the valleys, The breeze was firm, blowing across the long valley of the Teme, wafting the country up to her. The richness of the fields, the unctuous fumes of the traffic, the dust from the development of the old petrol station, the teasing odours of bread, coffee, pie. She grabbed her bag, leaving the calm oasis and plunging into the town’s belly, the tune of the vagrant piper following her through the streets.
Old Ludlow postcard
As part of the launch team for The Doors of Riverdell, I loved reading the book with some bookster buddies. It is a great meaty novel for a read-along or with a book club, although as it’s a series, be warned that there are a few loose ends to be tied up in later books. However, don’t let this put you off as I am sure having read this one, you will want to continue with the saga of the Threlfalls and their associates at Riverdell.
This is a book to be savoured and enjoyed over long reading sessions with plenty of hot drinks and sweet treats. It is gorgeous inside as well as out, beautifully constructed and sumptuously written. Marianne Rosen has presented us with a magnificent debut showcasing her wonderful talent for interweaving storytelling and silky rich prose.
“She should not have been doing the cooking,” said Mrs. Wright strongly.
“Well, of course, there is the root of our trouble. Certainly she should not have been doing the cooking if her intention was to destroy all of us with poison; we would have been blindly unselfish to encourage her to cook under such circumstances. But she was acquitted. Not only of the deed, but of the intention.”
“What was wrong with Mrs. Blackwood doing her own cooking?”
“Please.” Uncle Julian’s voice had a little shudder in it, and I knew the gesture he was using with it even though he was out of my sight. He would have raised one hand, fingers spread, and he would be smiling at her over his fingers; it was a gallant, Uncle Julian, gesture; I had seen him use it with Constance. “I personally preferred to chance the arsenic,” Uncle Julian said.
For a little book, We Have Always Lived in the Castle makes a powerful impression. I expected something like I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, and I suppose it is in a way, with the teenage female protagonist and the place of residence. But of course, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is much darker in its subject matter, yet still humorous and light hearted all the same.
Merricat is our narrator and she lives with her older sister Constance and her Uncle Julian. Six years earlier, Constance had stood trial for her parents’, brother’s and aunt’s murder, but was exonerated. Now, the three remaining family members live in isolation, if not ‘exile’, in their grand aristocratic summerhouse-come-all-year-round-home, the ‘castle’. Merricat is one hell of a character and she owns the book, telling her story exactly how she wants to. We quickly realise how unreliable she is, yet it doesn’t matter because this is her tale, and her voice is the only voice we hear – we need no other. She is enchanting, imaginative, twisted, and mischievous. She is idle yet dominant, optimistic yet psychotic.
This is a fantastic story with a gothic feel. Despite having murder at its heart, it isn’t as sinister as you’d expect and the creep factor is replaced by humour and fun and love and laughter between two sisters.
I loved the book and am delighted my copy was enriched by a wonderful afterword by Joyce Carol Oates, giving her own perspective on the story. It is widely considered to be Shirley Jackson’s greatest work, and as it is the only one I have read, I can’t argue with that. It’s strange and addictive, and cosy and charming, with delicious descriptions of food to boot. A lovely read for Halloween. It is the kind of book, as most good books are, that encourages different readers to get different things from it. It is a multi-layered masterpiece.
As the great range of hills slumbered in evening shades of rust and indigo, we listened to soupy jazz on the CD player. We’d cook together, drinking rosé and talking in companionable murmurs. Sometimes we’d light the sconce on the wall outside the kitchen. It is a sinister creation: a disembodied arm emerges from a wrought-iron picture frame, extending a candle. It was left by a previous occupant; we would almost certainly not have bought such a grotesque artefact; yet we left it hanging there, and often lit it. Inside and out, pools of light burned from hurricane lamps, candelabras, chandeliers, tea lights, and the rusty lantern we found in the courtyard and used on the dining table on the terrace.
This is the book that led me back. Back to the beauty of the half and half: a dual narrative with a contemporary story and a historical story; a firm formulaic favourite of mine. It’s just my cup of tea: a lush and sophisticated novel full of sumptuously descriptive language: prose that will totally transport me to its geographical setting and fully immerse me in its emotional atmosphere. This is my ideal read whatever the weather. This is the type of book that deepened my love for sitting alone and delving into the pages of a story.
The Lantern is told in first person by Eve, a twenty-something commercial translator who is swept off her feet by Dom, an entrepreneur turned composer. Dom has a passion to move to the French countryside, so when they find the perfect crumbling farmhouse in Provence, they set up their dream home. However, what begins as a wonderful whirlwind romance quickly turns into an uneasy and increasingly sinister union. Dom has secrets, and his distance from Eve disturbs the whole equilibrium of their perfect life.
It has loud echoes of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca: a naive protagonist cast under the spell of a mysterious older man with skeletons in his closet, and a house filled with ghostly memories of the past desperately trying to escape. Eve is not even our leading lady’s real name as her narrative conveys, drawing explicit parallels with Rebecca’s young narrator. She is overcome with thoughts of Dom’s ex-wife and what happened to her; and her sinister suspicions, along with Dom’s refusal to talk, drive a dangerous wedge between the two. The tension is rife and we are sucked into Eve’s lonely world of unease, trepidation and doubt. Our other leading lady in the historical thread of the narrative is Benedicte, an equally, if not more so, haunted figure. Alone in her memories – if not for her frightening visions and visitations – Benedicte tells the story of her family and her life in the house. At one time it was blissful but gradually she reveals hardships and heartbreak. Benedicte and Eve are connected by location, but they are also drawn together by mysteries and unresolved rifts in their lives. However, while Eve strives for answers, Benedicte is much more placid and accepting of her situation, making an interesting and curious parallel.
The Lantern is a spooky story that will appeal to the lover of mystery, ghosts, and old houses. It will pull you in if you love rich, lavish and heavenly descriptions of location and experience. For the greatest joy of The Lantern is it’s sense of place: seeing it, feeling it, smelling it. There are a thousand things I could say about the descriptions in this book, but I’ll leave it at this: I’ve been to Provence and I loved it. Thank you Deborah Lawrenson.
When I smelled that perfume, I was drawn back helplessly into a sunlit world of Maman’s flaky almond biscuits with a hint of bitter apricot kernel, earth-like cocoa powder clinging to her bare legs, light, warm winds sifting sugared scents from the kitchen where orange mirabelles were being bottled; and on, far beyond the aromatic, to the distant sound of the goat bells, and the whispering of the trees, the butterflies on meadow flowers and the scrubby spikiness of the land underfoot as we chased them, the taste of dried cherries sucked from their pits and of the honeyed nut wine; the soft, guttered candles waiting on the table in the courtyard where we dined at night, cool at last, a floury embrace before bedtime: all the fragrances in one, of the four months of the year when we all lived outside in the immense wide open valley, a season of warmth and enchantment…
From its title, you may think this book is a retelling of Noah’s Ark, or it may even conjure up images from a certain song by Bloodhound Gang, making you wonder if there’s a naughty theme in there somewhere – but it’s neither of these. Not really anyway. It’s a love story – a love story of love stories. It has alcohol and sunsets, exotic places and simple pleasures. It’s the best kind of love story – one of friendship and strong bonds.
During their single week on Palolem they visited a spice farm, learnt to ride motorcycles and tried yoga for the first time. One day they climbed over the rocks at the end of the beach and found another beach with rocks at both ends. Over those rocks they’d found yet another beach which they walked down for about an hour, and then, at the other end of this beach, they’d found more rocks. It was a magical week.
The central story is between two Jans, a boy and a girl, who become world travellers, both together and apart. But it is their togetherness that the book yearns for, and which one of the Jans (Manjan) is hoping to encounter again. For, at the opening of the book he is standing on a beach in Goa, waiting for a sighting of the girl (Ladyjan) who stole his heart and his passport in 1970, and whom he now hasn’t seen in thirty-eight years. As the sixty-four year old Manjan sits, sipping his red wine, a young traveller named Shakey approaches, inviting him to a silent disco, and what follows is a somewhat reluctant recounting of the significant bits of Manjan’s life to a somewhat distracted listener.
We Are Animals is a homage to both the enthusiastic and the weary traveller. It’s about escaping, and searching for something you think you want, but discovering something else. It’s about finding what you didn’t know you wanted and then losing the only thing that mattered. It’s about holding on and letting go. These themes repeat throughout the book and it’s quite cathartic. It has a certain and poignant truth to it that I found it very life affirming.
The tale of Manjan and Ladyjan is humorously told by its author, Tim Ewins, a part time comedian. You have to be funny to be a comedian and Tim is exactly that. The prose is flawless in its wittiness. Gentle sarcasm, observational humour, and much attention to detail make his debut novel a joy to read. The main story is interspersed with tales – the joys and woes – of different animals along the way. They are all hugely lovable and their individual narratives are quite emotional. It’s such a touching portrait of life – of the ordinary person and the ordinary animal – caressing your feelings of empathy and compassion, while also tickling your insides with merriment. I’m a huge fan of humorous writing and here I’ve found a king. We Are Animals is a book that will break your heart a little, warm your cockles a lot, and have you giggling into your beverage of choice. Five stars.
‘I think I’m glad I’m home,’ Jan said to his mother as he threw his stick-and-bed-sheet bag onto the kitchen table, ‘I wanted to come home when I saw your face in a dying fish.’ Jan’s mother sat down, feeling both offended and loved at the same time.
A Little Bright Corner 