The Fair Fight by Anna Freeman - Guest Review from Diarmaid McCaffrey.

Huge thanks to Diarmaid McCaffrey for his insightful review of Anna Freeman's historical fiction title, The Fair Fight...

Perhaps, more than any other genre of book novel based around historical settings is probably one of the most grueling types of fiction books any author worth can write with an audience that’s notoriously unforgiving when it comes to anything that might take them out of the novel. Inconsistencies are the death knell for any immersive experience and that’s goes double for a novel that attempts to zero in on a certain pocket of history not to mention several different  seemingly small factors having the potential to anchor and take the reader out of the book entirely. Tone, the use of past tense, relevant terminology and language fitting the time period, are all spinning plates that could topple over at any moment  if not handled well.

So if nothing else, The Fair Fight deserves to be singled out for the clear amount of research and attention to detail woven in the narration.

Set in the later half of the  1700s, the narration of the book is divided between the three main characters of the novel  Ruth, daughter of a prostitute, whose slowly making a name for herself as a female boxer. Charlotte, Ruth's backer and supporter, who finds her own motivation from Ruth to walk her own path, and finally George, best friend to Charlotte's husband and thus creating quite a sizeable awkward dynamic  with these three characters. Of course, the use of multiple narrators potentially creates the risk of all the voices becoming  bland and indistinguishable but thankfully each  voice of each character is distinct and  unique to each one’s personality

...And therein lies the heart of The Fair Fight;  how the characters interact and mingle with each other, their personalities the driving force of the novel, each one having their own distinct personalities and opinions behind them, underlining the class system that separates the two friends and the general divide their individual worlds have

Freeman's skill is clear with each page , however, as both are drawn with such depth that one has no trouble believing in their motivations, The action sequences, most of which take place during boxing matches, are rich with detail, but are far from the focus. They’re more like  devices used to segway towards each new section of the book.

Over all, The Fair Fight is a well packed hyper authentic look through a certain period of history. That’s sure to make any plane ride or train journey fly by, and anyone that’s a fan of historical fiction, warts and all will certainly enjoy this hidden gem. The story itself is certainly outside of the norm that you’re used to seeing from the genre, and thanks to that it has a quirky little charm that breaths life into its characters.

The Fair Fight is published by W&N and is available in PB and ebook format. You can order your copy, with Free Worldwide Postage, HERE. The ebook can be ordered via amazon link below:

Book Review - The Possessions by Sara Flannery Murphy.

Guest Review from Merith Jones.

The Possessions was a real surprise. I was expecting a competent psychological thriller but Sara Flannery Murphy has delivered so much more.

The first sentence plunges us into mystery and rapid character building; Patrick and Sylvia Braddock are to become central figures but whose voice are we listening to? The description is sensuous and poetic and we are quite unprepared for the introduction of a world with the assured normalisation we associate with Margaret Attwood’s prose. Nothing here is ‘our’ normal. The Elysian Society offers a service whereby the living may be reunited with lost loved ones by means of a ‘host’, a medium through which they might speak, a body which is literally possessed by the dead for the benefit of others.

We are told that the society is strictly regulated, unlike the back street services which alerts us early on to the potential abuses and dangers of the system. Whilst this world builds we come to know the protagonist and appreciate that there is much hidden in her background. Why would she take up this profession? What needs does she fulfil by negating her very existence ?

The relationship with Patrick, her client, begins to demonstrate the frailty of her sense of self until at one point it is difficult for either she or the reader to be sure who she really is? The power of the novel’s title becomes ever clearer. Even more alarming is a growing sense of how the margins between past and present become obscured. Danger looms as the tension builds relentlessly. Self is dissolving into Time, driven by her overwhelming passion and her desire to be engulfed in Patrick’s world. But perhaps he has secrets too ? And is the Society itself all it claims to be?

This is a totally absorbing experience exploring self, womanhood, loneliness and the nature of obsession. The expertly crafted movement between first and third person offers some respite from the intimate intensity of escalating events and the use of classical names adds a layer of further depth, as does the key location, Lake Madeleine, with its allusion to time past associated with Proust’s famous madeleine – the catalyst which was the trigger to memories of the past.

This is a layered novel of absolutely page turning readability. It does lose a little pace at one point when there is a great deal to be revealed at one go but it soon re-establishes the mood and tone to power towards its conclusion. This is a remarkable achievement in a debut novelist and there is still so much more I could say !  Sara Flannery Murphy is certainly a name to watch out for.  Do read it and find out for yourself.

 (Also, this edition  has sprayed page edges which makes it a physical pleasure to pick up!)

The Possessions is published by Scribe Publishing and is available in HB and ebook format. Available in all good bookshops and via amazon link below:

Book Review: 'The Truth Will Out' by Brian Cleary.

Huge thanks to Merith Jones for her guest review of The Truth Will Out. I read and review as many titles as I physically can, but have a handful of readers that I trust to help me out when I cannot catch up. Merith has a wonderful way with words and, like me, is a voracious reader. I really appreciate all her help.

THE BLURB

The novel is set in Ireland. The friendship of Jamie, Shane and Mary Kate is tested to the limit after Mary Kate is brutally raped and lies in a coma. The evidence against Jamie is overwhelming and is compounded by the fact he maintains he cannot recall what happened that night. However, the one secret that Jamie has never disclosed can prove his innocence. Corrupt guards, a narcissistic film director and his mercenary private detective, an ex-girlfriend, a serial killer and an inept solicitor all weave a complicated compelling plot with twists and turns right to the end. A gripping read.

Guest review from Merith Jones.

Cleary throws us straight into the conversation between a lawyer and the prisoner he defends who desperately hopes to finally gain his freedom after forty years. Is this man innocent? Could there have been a gross miscarriage of justice? Or is the truth more complex?

We are taken back to the 70s and Jamie’s childhood recollection of his affections, loyalties and frustrations; a time of sometimes uncontrolled anger but also the potential for friendship and burgeoning teenage romance.  As he reaches his teenage years he confronts the often brutal world of The Sweeney-like policing of the era, particularly centred around the aftermath of a night of heavy drinking about which he has no recollection. His childhood friend has been raped and violently murdered; Jamie doesn’t know himself how culpable he is.

As the investigation moves forward Jamie is increasingly dependent on his best friend Shane as the net appears to close around him and court appearance looms. And then…

Cleary gives us an unpredictable and daring twist at the half way point just when the reader has become comfortable with this fast paced procedural and throws our preconceptions up in the air. The pace increases and, with the introduction of an American PI and a manipulative film producer after a new blockbuster story the tone changes.

This is a debut with much to recommend it. The two time settings are skilfully interwoven and the psychological profile of Jamie is convincing. There is promise in both halves of the story and it is to Cleary’s credit that he manages to bring some disparate elements to a cohesive and punchy finale.

If you love a plot driven thriller full of page turning twists and turns then you’ll really enjoy this one – I read it in one sitting and look forward to what Mr Cleary comes up with next !

The Truth Will Out is available in PB and ebook format. You can get your copy in bookshops or via the amazon link below:

Book Reviews - 'Danny Brown and the Monster Toothbrush' and 'Danny Brown and the Talking Teeth' by Brianóg Brady Dawson, Michael Connor and Alan Nolan.

DANNY BROWN AND THE MONSTER TOOTHBRUSH

Written by

 Brianóg Brady Dawson, 

Illustrated by

 Michael Connor, 

Coloured by

 

Alan Nolan

Danny hates brushing his teeth, so when he gets a new toothbrush he wants to get rid of it! He tries blushing it down the toilet, burying it in the garden and throwing it for Keano, his dog, but it keeps coming back!

A fun story about a boy who can't help getting into trouble. Illustrated in colour throughout.

DANNY BROWN AND THE TALKING TEETH

Written by

  Brianóg Brady Dawson, 

Illustrated by

 Michael Connor, 

Coloured by

  

Alan Nolan

Danny Brown is always in trouble. Why did he take Granny’s teeth to school? Just WHAT was he thinking? Now Mum is cross, teacher is cross, and Granny is VERY cross.
But Danny was only having fun, wasn’t he?

The best way to review children's books are to read them with kids and see their reaction. I passed these books on to my latest 'guest reviewer', Rosaleen, aged five. Here is what herself and her Mum, Roisin, thought of Danny Brown...

Guest Review from Rosaleen, aged 5. (via Mum, Roisin).

Danny Brown: the Irish horrid Henry.

Rosaleen loved the books, she laughed and was equally grossed out at the disgusting bits, like when Danny Brown put granny's teeth in his mouth or when he was trying to get rid of his tooth brush and played fetch with it for the dog!

Rosaleen is learning to read at the moment and she was able to pick out words she recognised as I was reading. Short sentences on the pages made it easy for her to follow when I was reading to her.

We would give these books 10/10 and would highly recommend them.

These two delightful early readers are available from The O'Brien Press and are published in paperback and ebook format. The ebooks can be ordered via amazon links below:

          

Book Review - 'Through the Barricades' by Denise Deegan

Guest Review from Emma Crowley

I’ll readily admit I haven’t read a Denise Deegan book in a long time. I think Turning Turtle must have been the last book I have read from Denise but when I saw a few people talking about this new young adult book Through the Barricades and saying how good they were finding it I knew I wanted to give it a try. I love historical fiction and although this was released late last year it places the spotlight on the events of 1916 which were the focus of major attention here in Ireland during 2016 as the 100th anniversary was celebrated. The cover for the book  made me want to get stuck straight into the story all the more. I know this was a young adult book but I do think anyone could read it and take just as much if not more from it. At times I did think would it be a little too detailed for young teenagers. I was thinking in particular sixth class as I teach in a primary school. It was quite a long book and I felt if a class were to read it their attention may waver ever so slightly. Saying that this was a very good, eye opening read and it was evident Denise Deegan had undertaken plenty of research into the years of the residents living in Dublin leading up to 1916 and in to World War One where our main male protagonist finds himself fighting on the enemy lines. I did find the book quite slow to get going and wondered what direction it would eventually take but when we reached part two I felt the pace and the general development of both the plot and the characters picked up significantly and it needed to do so to keep the reader engaged as my attention had begun to wander by this point. But I was glad I persisted because if I had not I would have missed out on interesting historical story combined with a riveting romantic element.

The book opens with a brief prologue in 1906 as a fire engulfs the home of Maggie. Her father throws her out the window to safety saying’ Make a difference in this world Maggie’. This is a motto/advice that Maggie lives by throughout the course of this story and in times of desperation and struggle she remembers the words her beloved father told her and carries on no matter how tough the situation is that she may find herself in. Part one of the book follows Maggie and Daniel as their paths converge on the streets of Dublin as Maggie battles with a flat bicycle tyre. Right from that first point of contact the reader can sense that although they may be from different class backgrounds they have a connection, a spark which will weather many storms and obstacles yet at all times their affinity and respect and eventual love for each other shine through even at the most despairing of times. I felt the first part of the book was a slow and gentle introduction leading up to more wider events taking place in the coming years. It did give the reader a good insight into the lives of people living in Dublin at the time and how they were dealing on a daily basis with the repercussions of the Lockout. Maggie and her mother volunteer in a soup kitchen and here is where the character of young Lily is introduced and soon taken under the family’s wing. There wasn’t a huge amount of interaction between Daniel and Maggie at this point. Yet Daniel was always there hovering away in the background. He would do anything for Maggie and never wanted to see any harm befall her. It was wonderful to see such compassion in someone so young. He too volunteered at the soup kitchen which would have been frowned upon if his lawyer father had discovered this but to me it showed the love despite his age that Daniel had for Maggie. That he would do anything to be near her even if it meant going against his parents and keeping things hidden from them. I did think it’s sad that in today’s society that we could say that soup kitchens are very much in use in Ireland today and it makes one wonder have we really come all that far in some ways as a country since 1916?

As I have mentioned the book for me was slow to begin with and then as Maggie and her family and even Daniel become embroiled in events in Dublin and the build up the Rising of Easter 1916 the history buff in me loved every aspect of this and it was great to see the story we have read about in history books since primary school come to life in a fiction book but in a way that became more easy and accessible the further I read. My only worry would be would readers from outside Ireland get everything connected with 1916 and the fight engaged in by both Maggie and Daniel for freedom? Yes there may be readers not from Ireland but who take a keen interest in Irish history and would know the background to the story but maybe others would just read the book for the love story involved. I suppose everybody would take something different from it. As events in Eastern Europe began to make headlines in 1914 the cosy relationship between Maggie and Daniel took a different turn and therefore resulted in different sides of our two main characters emerging. Both were pushed to the pin of their collar and tested in more ways than one. Yet Maggie was a character who showed unbelievable strength and tenacity and she wanted to be out there doing her bit even if the general belief held by many was that a woman’s place was in the home behind closed doors. It was almost as if she could sense times were changing and she wanted to be at the forefront of everything and I suppose she did have the words of her father echoing in her ears. 

As Daniel finds himself signing up for the war effort and far from home the author never spared any details about life on the battle front and even though this may have been a young adult novel I felt the detail needed to be there. The horrors of war should not be spared at all and the later half of the book would not have had the same impact on me if they had not been present. Daniel does an awful lot of growing up pretty quickly yet I felt his deep longing for Maggie and in one way I wanted to tell him why put yourself through this? Why have a forced separation from the one you love and in turn put them through so much agony and heartache? Yet maybe he felt obliged deep within his soul to do his best for his country and the wider world. I kept reading eagerly to see how all the events would lead to a big climax to the story. Denise Deegan should be proud of Through the Barricades. She has written an excellent story with plenty of historical fact mixed well with a beautiful love story that aims to endure for as long as possible despite all the barriers and hurdles placed in its way. I did feel the ending left room for a sequel and heading into the 1920’s and the setting that could be possible with another book would make for another great read. Through the Barricades was an honest, emotional and at times intense read but it is one I am glad I took the time to read. I would urge you to do the same.

Through the Barricades is available in PB and ebook format. You can order your copy via amazon link below:

Book Review - "Rescued" by Maria Murphy. Guest review from Kelly Spillane.

Huge thanks to Kelly Spillane for her guest review of Rescued by Maria Murphy.

We received a copy of this title, from the publishers, in return for an honest review...

Kelly's Review

It's 1889, in West Cork. A well off young man, named Blake washes up on a beach after crashing his boat in a bad storm.  He washes up on the Mizen peninsula, where he is found by a fisherman's daughter, called Ellen.  Ellen is a healer and is able to take the pain away from Blake, therefore saving his life.  However, when she meets Blake and realises that there is an attraction between them, she remembers a warning that she was given by her Grandmother when she was a little girl.  Ellen decides that in order to protect herself, the way she promised her Grandmother, she would have to remove Blake from her home and never allow him to come back.  Blake finds that he has fallen head over heels in love with Ellen and sets out to find her.  On their third meeting, the realise that they are made for each other and decide to be together.  But the course of true love never does run smooth and it's not long before Blake and Ellen are facing many obstacles in order to be together.

I loved that this book was set in Cork. Being from Cork myself, I liked being able to read about areas that I am familiar with.  I also loved how this was a classic love story that could have been set in any place in the world in any era and it still would have been the same story being told.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that it touched on topics such a same sex marriage and abortions, both of which are still something of a taboo subject for many people today, let alone nearly 130 years ago.  In my opinion, the nicest thing about this book is how the relationships of the characters are so well developed.  It is clear to see how much the characters care about each other from the very start of this novel until the very last page. I love that the cover falls in perfectly with the story line.  It is extremely eye catching and would doubtlessly make me pick it and have a look at it if I came across it in a book shop. 

Recently, I have discovered the magic that is Historical Fiction and I can’t seem to get enough of this genre lately.  However, this book wasn't exactly my cup of tea.  I felt nothing for the characters and found that I didn’t really care what happened to them at any point throughout the book.  I found 'Rescued' to be a very hard read, and I got through it very slowly.  If it wasn't for the fact that the characters have to travel everywhere in a pony and cart, I would never have believed that this novel was set back in the 1880's.  For me, it lacked the detail that makes a Historical novel sparkle.  It didn’t describe the era enough and I would have very much liked to discover something new about this time frame, as it is one that I know very little about.  I also felt that there were way too many characters that were vital to the story in order to make it work.  I know that it centered on two characters mainly, but I found it very hard to remember who was who of the background characters.  I found myself picking this up and putting it down a lot, reading only one or two chapters at a time.  I just could not get into this book and even as the story developed more and became a little more interesting, 'Rescued' still failed to grab my attention for long periods of time.

I'm still not sure how I feel about this particular read.  I found it to be a very slow burner and it took me much longer than usual to finish it.  That being said, I am known to give up on books that I don't like, and I saw this one out to the end.  It's not a bad book and it actually has a lovely story once you get into it.  For me, the main problem was that it could have been set in present day as well as in the past.  It didn’t delve into the era well enough, containing too little description about the 1880's for my liking. It lacked depth and left me feeling cold when I finished it. This book would be perfect for people who love the classics and I'm sure that fans of Historical Fiction would find this to be a great read, it just wasn't for me.  If we all had the same tastes the world would be a very boring place.

Rescued is published by Poolbeg Press and is available in TPB and ebook format.  You can order your copy, with Free Worldwide Postage and 15% discount, HERE.  The ebook can be ordered via amazon link below:

"I Am No One" by Patrick Flanery. Guest Review from Orla McAlinden

We received a copy of this title, via Gill Hess, in return for an honest review...

Guest Review from Orla McAlinden

If, like me, you are often slightly horrified by the detail in which your friends record their lives online, you will find the premise of I am no one, by Patrick Flanery, terrifyingly tantalising. In this post-Snowdon, post-Wikileaks world, Flanery has chosen a fascinating, relevant and important topic to explore in his third novel. 

I was raised in Northern Ireland, the most heavily policed district of Europe, from the early 1970s to the 90s, and I was delighted to receive I am no one to review — a timely examination of mass State Surveillance and data-mining. All through my childhood I knew people who wouldn’t answer their phones unless you knew the secret morse code of ringtones, I knew people who wouldn’t speak in public places, or who would only speak in public. As Heaney wrote of Northern Ireland at the time, “Whatever you say, say nothing.”  On a friend’s wall was a poster that read “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you!” and the protagonist of I am no one appears to be gloriously paranoid.

Jeremy O’Keefe is a disappointed academic, banished from Columbia University for a secret misdemeanour that is alluded to throughout the book, but never revealed. His failure to achieve tenure coincides with the end of his marriage and, in retreat, he takes a position at Oxford University, where he spends ten years in exile before returning to New York University, as the book opens.

Jeremy descends into paranoia and fear as it becomes apparent that he is being followed and that his online and cellphone activity is being monitored, exploited and even altered.  The initial incident is minor — an email sent from his own account to a student, that he has no recollection of writing. Couldn’t he just have forgotten? Is he showing signs of dementia? Has his daughter noticed anything untoward? But within days these questions take on a more sinister tenor — has he been hacked, by whom and to what avail?

A mysterious package is hand delivered to his concierge service; could it be a bomb? The tension is high as he gingerly unwraps the first package. No explosions, but a detailed record of every email transaction he has carried out in the past ten years.  At this point I still thoroughly expected the story to take off and become the gripping page-turning thriller that the book’s cover and blurb implied. I really, really wanted to love this book. But I couldn’t, try as hard as I might.

It’s not so much that Jeremy is an insufferable bore and an elitist snob who behaves badly and I wanted to shake him. I have no problem with unsympathetic, or outright hateful narrators. It’s not the long rambling sentence structure (perfectly constructed as far as grammar goes, I might add) which often encompass three hundred or more words.  It’s not the endless, endless flashbacks which appear in the oddest places, sometimes right in the middle of conversations. It’s not even the constant intrusion of the writer, showing us how much cleverer than us he is, and how much he knows on dozens of very interesting topics like the cinematic exploration of totalitarian East Germany, or the philosophy of betrayal. All of these quirks are annoyances, nothing more.

Where the book falls is its absolute dishonesty. We spend chapter after chapter on a journey with a man who fears that he is going mad, suffering paranoiacal delusions, even to the extent that he may be suffering from dissociative personality disorder — bugging his own phone and recording his own email correspondence — without conscious knowledge.

The other possibility is that he is under surveillance by the state and he knows that is impossible, he has done nothing to deserve this, he wails self-pityingly “I am no one!” It is truly gripping as a reader to accept that in this tech-obsessed world, replete with drones, CCTV, spy cameras, bots trawling through our online communications — any one of us could, in a heart-beat, become the mistaken victim of this kind of horrific government intrusion. In an agonised soliloquy he wonders whether his use of the phrase “I have become radicalised…” in an email almost ten years ago could have been enough to draw him to the attention of the authorities and the reader catches her breath and thinks, wow, I need to be more careful.

As the book winds it’s slow and rather dull way to the mid-point we suddenly find out what the reason for his surveillance is. And that’s where the book ended for me, I am afraid. What O’Keefe has done in his final years in Oxford is so stupid, so damaging, so utterly worthy of international alarm bells ringing, that it is immediately obvious that either he knew all along the reason why he was being observed, or he is an utter moron. And one thing that Prof. Jeremy O’Keefe, world-expert on the Stasi, renowned scholar of state surveillance in post-war Europe is not, is a moron.

I know that I could have loved this book and learned just as much from it if it had been written as an actual thriller, instead of in its current hectoring, didactic, and inexcusably dull format. What a shame.    3 stars

   http://www.orlamcalinden.com

Greenbean Novel Fair finalist 2016, Irish Writers Centre. The Flight of the Wren.

Eludia Prize winner 2014, The accidental wife and other stories, forthcoming Summer 2016 

Book Review - "A Letter From America" by Geraldine O'Neill.

We received a copy of this title, from the publishers, in return for an honest review.  Many thanks to my new guest reviewer, Martina, for her insightful review...

Guest review from Martina O'Connor.

The Tracey family are like any Irish family living in 1960s Ireland. Seán and Nance Tracey are the parents of three girls, Fiona, Angela and Bridget. Fiona lives at home and helps out in the family run shop and public house while Angela lives independently in Dublin and Bridget is on course to become a nun while living at a convent in Athlone. Throughout the book, we get an insight into the Tracey family through the perspectives of Fiona, Angela and Bridget.

            Geraldine kicks off by introducing Fiona, the eldest daughter, who receives a letter from America from her friend Elizabeth, who informs her that she has been successful in getting a nanny position with a family in New York. Looking forward to her new adventure in America, Fiona helps her parents during the busy Christmas period in the shop and the pub until she leaves for New York in the New Year.

            When the reader is introduced to Angela, they also get introduced to an independent young woman who has suffered from polio, which affected her leg, from a young age. Angela has not let this hold her back as she manages to get around. She lives amongst people who suffer from the same disability as her so she feels comfortable in her surroundings. Throughout the book, you feel the tensions Angela feels towards her mother, as she doesn’t feel close to her parent as much as Fiona would.

            Bridget, the third daughter, is living in a convent with the hope of becoming a nun. Bridget also has her independence but is set on completing her vocation as she has strong religious beliefs.

            Like every family, tragedy strikes when you least expect it to. When a tragedy strikes the Tracey family each of the girls deal with this event in their own way and Fiona is forced to postpone her trip to New York. She does this so that she can help her mother run both the shop and the pub but when her mother falls ill, Fiona has no choice but to cancel her trip altogether and look after her mother at home. Fiona soon finds herself yearning for the independence her sisters have. Bridget has her religion to help her through the tragedy and Angela is busy with work in Dublin so both are away from home and Fiona is left to take on the responsibilities of two businesses and looking after their mother by herself. This aspect of the book made me feel sorry for Fiona as she had her hopes and dreams for the future taken away from her. Fiona feels like she is left looking after things at home on her own as her sisters are unable to return home from their own responsibilities. I also get the idea that Angela is reluctant to return home, which is unfair on Fiona who is left to look after their mother on her own.

Soon, the story gives hope to the reader that Fiona can find happiness again, when a handsome American books into one of the rooms above the pub. Fiona immediately finds herself attracted to the American tourist, Michael O’Sullivan, and a romance blossoms. Could things work out for Fiona? Only one way to find out.  

Geraldine O’Neill’s writing is extraordinary. She finds a way to draw the reader in with her dialogues and depiction of family life in Ireland at this time. Throughout the book, we get a sense that there are family secrets and tensions when we are introduced to Nance’s relationship with her sister Catherine. Fiona, Angela and Bridget don’t understand the tension between Nance and their aunt and this tension keeps the reader turning the page to find out what is the reason behind this fallout. The girls get caught in the crossfire as all three sisters hear something that could change the family for good. What is the secret that has caused this tension in the Tracey family? Geraldine O’Neill keeps the reader hooked from start to finish in order to find out.

Throughout the book, many characters are introduced. While most characters are likable, there are one or two characters that the reader would find less appealing. For me, Fiona is the most likable as she is a strong character. She shows great strength in the way she runs the family businesses while looking after her sick mother. People would be able to relate to her after she had to sacrifice her trip to America to look after things at home.

On the other hand, a character I disliked, to some degree, was Nance Tracey. She started off as a strong character with a happy marriage and three beautiful daughters. However, when she fell ill, she didn’t show the strength that she portrayed at the beginning of the book and showed no interest in getting better which affected Fiona the most. In my opinion, Nance holds Fiona back from following her dreams and holds her back from gaining real independence, which she aches for. Also, when she pushes her only sister away because of the fallout they had, it just doesn’t give a good insight to the character.

There are many twists and turns throughout the course of this book that are exquisite. Geraldine O’Neill has a talent for bringing up plot twists at just the right moment. Each character in the book is dealt with a challenge that throws their future plans in the balance. Angela finds out what the Tracey secret is at a moment when her relationship with her mother is looking up. Fiona is unsure what her future holds and doesn’t know whether her dreams for America will happen and what that means for her relationship with Michael O’Sullivan. Another incident puts Bridget’s vocation in jeopardy. Nance also reaches a new low with her illness that threatens her life. Will the Tracey family be able to overcome these challenges in order to find true happiness for themselves?  My advice, read “A Letter from America” to unfold all the secrets, sadness and happiness that the Tracey girls become subject to in Geraldine O’Neill’s magnificent story about family, grievance, romance and new opportunities. 

A Letter from America is published by Poolbeg Books and is available in TPB and ebook format.  At the time of posting, Poolbeg are running a 50% sale on all their fiction titles. You can check out their range here.  The ebook can be ordered via amazon link below: 

"Children's Children" by Jan Carson. Guest review from Orla McAlinden.

We received a copy of this title, from the publishers, in return for an honest review... 

Reviewed by Orla McAlinden, finalist in the Greenbean Novel Fair, 2016. orlamcalinden.com

  In reading, as in life, it is important to acknowledge and face one’s own prejudices and bigotries. Two years ago, when sent a debut novel by a Northern Irish writer (and theology graduate) with the rather evocative name of Jan Carson, entitled Malcom Orange Disappears, I had a good look at my own preconceptions, before turning the cover. To my confoundment, the story was a joyous and imaginative romp in the magical realist genre, set in Portland, Oregon. Malcom quickly became my book of the year.

In Children’s Children, Carson, who was born and raised in Ballymena, County Antrim, has come home with a bang. Having worked as Arts Outreach Officer in Belfast’s Ulster Hall for several years, Carson has set her debut collection of stories in east Belfast, the location she now calls home. The stories reek of Northern Ireland, authentic and richly imbued with the dialect and black humour of the people. From Bill exacting his petty meanness and revenge on his wife’s doorstep, to Samuel the Jon Bon Jovi fan, these people could have come from nowhere else but the cold and brittle streets of the six counties (or “Northern Ireland”, as some of them would very definitely prefer.) These are our people. And how will the people fare? Will we come together, for the greater good? Carson does not answer her question, leaving us to wonder whether we can make the necessary changes within ourselves.

The collection embraces a variety of styles: realist, surrealist to fantastic. We have the mundanity of a life in the day of an unpaid family-carer, but we also have floating infants who must be tethered to the ground, and writers who recycle their unpublished novel of six years, in the hope that it may come back to life as a dictionary, or something useful. Hope, despair, loss, isolation, and a deep sense of duty; duty to a parent, to an unwanted child, to a spouse at home waiting for his ice-cream, to a dream of a life once to be lived, now nearing its end — a gorgeous smorgasbord of stories to be enjoyed in several giant mouthfuls, or savoured, story by story.

Whilst reading In Feet and Gradual Inches, my left hand flew up to my mouth in distress and remained clamped there until the very last word, a rare corporal reaction to the printed word that last happened to me while reading the final story of Laura Weddle’s collection Better than my own life.

A tear slid down my face during the spare and pared-back Den and Estie do not remember the good times, and although I often cry when I read, I will not forget this plain, simple story quickly.

The family in the sixth story must be cousins of the criminal family in Bernard MacLaverty’s classic Belfast story, The Trojan Sofa. Carson’s story evoked that same, pragmatic northern world so clearly that I had to set the book aside and dig out and reread MacLaverty’s (Matter of Life and Death, Vintage 2006). Carson’s tale, We’ve got each other and that’s a lot, is a funny and back-handed glance at middle-class stiff-upper-lipness, and the importance of not being made to look foolish in front of the neighbours. The story also brought to mind the kidnappings of Elizabeth Browne and Patrick Berrigan from Dublin in 1950 and ’54, and it is perhaps no coincidence that both of those children were eventually found in a respectable Belfast home.

Carson has had a wide and varied role in her career as Arts Outreach Officer in the Ulster Hall, and is particularly proud of her Tea-Dances for senior citizens. She has collaborated with other artists to raise funds for the Alzheimers Association’s “Singing for the Brain” workshops. These events use music as therapy for those with dementia, recalling the vital role of The People’s Committee for Remembering Songs which is pivotal in rescuing Malcolm Orange from his incipient disappearance. In this new collection, Carson invites us to look afresh at our society, and at how we treat our most vulnerable; our young, elderly, demented or simply lonely citizens. A prayer of a book, without a word of preaching, even in the penultimate story which is a gentle, carefully nuanced look at faith, and how it is absorbed and passed on.  

Highly recommended.

Children's Children is published by Liberties Press and is available in paperback. You can order your copy, with Free Worldwide Postage and 9% discount, here.  

Book Review: 'How To Get Ahead In Television' by Sophie Cousens. Guest Review from Kay Mitchell.

A sparkling comedy romance set in the madcap world of TV broadcasting.

From the winner of the #LoveatFirstWrite competition from Corvus and Lovereading.  

Poppy Penfold desperately wants a career in television. After months of dead-end applications, she gets her big break with a temporary job as a runner for RealiTV. But to land a permanent role, Poppy will need to go head-to-head with fellow runner Rhidian: arrogant, highly competitive – and ridiculously good looking.

Poppy goes all out to impress, but somehow things don’t go to plan. Whether failing to prevent a washed-up soap star from becoming roaring drunk during Scottish game show Last Clan Standing, or managing to scare the horses during the filming of Strictly Come Prancing, Poppy gets noticed for all the wrong reasons. With highly strung presenters and distractingly handsome producers in the mix, it’s Poppy’s determination that will see her win or lose her dream job, and maybe her dream man too…

Featuring TV programmes such as:

Can Your Dog Do Your Job?

Strictly Come Prancing

Changing Grooms

Till Death Do Us Party

Sophie Cousens has worked in television for twelve years. She attributes surviving this long to always knowing where the Post-it notes are kept, and her ability to carry six coffee cups at once. This is her first novel.

Review from Kay Mitchell

Well if you want an entertaining read this is the one for you. This book fits into the coming of age category with lots of hilarity thrown in and I do mean spontaneous laugh out loud moments. Fans of Bridget Jones-this is one to add to the repertoire with a little less angst and soul searching.

The reader is immediately drawn into the narrative as Penny Penfold seeks to find her way in the world as a working girl now that her halcyon days of University have come to an end. Typical of any girl in her early twenties who wants to carve out a path in an area she has a passion and an interest in, she has to fend off her mother’s well intentioned advice to steer clear and head to a steady career in banking. Perseverance pays off eventually and she secures a contract despite the mishaps surrounding her initial interview.

Penny is quickly involved in the day to day background goings on associated with the Media industry. As in all walks of life she has to negotiate how the pecking order works and quickly learns that she faces strong competition to secure a contract from the very handsome and charming Rhidian.

Many escapades later Penny finds herself in a compromising situation with the well-known lady killer James but makes a quick exit after a light bulb moment as to what is really going on.

As a light hearted read it works well. It is an easy read that will take you over a wet weekend without a doubt and what it lacks in depth it makes up for in entertainment.

How To Get Ahead In Television is published by Corvus and is available in ebook format.  You can order your copy via amazon link below:

"A Treacherous Paradise" by Henning Mankell. Guest review from Kay Mitchell.

Thanks to Kay Mitchell for reviewing this title...

The Blurb

Hanna Lundmark escapes the brutal poverty of rural Sweden for a job as a cook onboard a steamship headed for Australia. Jumping ship at the African port of Lourenço Marques, Hanna decides to begin her life afresh.

Stumbling across what she believes to be a down-at-heel hotel, Hanna becomes embroiled in a sequence of events that lead to her inheriting the most successful brothel in town. Uncomfortable with the attitudes of the white settlers, Hanna is determined to befriend the prostitutes working for her, and change life in the town for the better, but the distrust between blacks and whites, and the shadow of colonialism, lead to tragedy and murder.

Henning Mankell's A Treacherous Paradise is an engaging read as the reader's curiosity is whetted from the beginning about who Hanna Lundmark was who left her diary under the floorboards of the Africa Hotel in Beira. The reader is then back in 1904 this time the story is unfolding at sea on a ship bound for Australia where Hanna has been placed as a cook. Mankell's positioning of Hanna as the outsider is the prism through which this story unfolds; she has unusually been appointed cook in a world normally dominated and occupied by males on board ship that carries cargo not passengers. It soon becomes clear that Hanna has been sent from home by her mother as she can no longer afford to keep her and feed her at home after the death of her father at a time when yet another famine may descend on their homeland.

The introductory quote from Plato can be read as a summation of this novel 'There are three kinds of people: those who are dead, those who are alive, and those who sail the seas.' Hanna has sailed the sea and has already been on a journey of discovery prior to setting foot in African soil. She has been married, widowed and lost a baby within a very short space of time and now she embarks on yet another level of experience. Finding herself in a brothel which she had assumed was a hotel is as far removed from home as one could imagine.

The landscape is no longer the sea but the prejudice and injustice dished out by self serving Europeans on the African people enslaved in their homeland. The reader is well aware that the topic is not new and has been dealt with in many variations such as Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible or from the native perspective of Chinua Achabe's works such as Things Fall Apart. However, Mankell's perspective uses another perspective. His is a tale of racist discrimination with another layer added in. This is the story of racism and discrimination from the female perspective. The story is of those outside the fold not only because they are black but they are women and prostitutes and as in Hanna's case, the outsider without a male to escort or protect her and who struggles initially with the language with which to communicate. Initially her only security is the money given to her by the ship's captain Svartman but as it runs out she makes a pragmatic decision to marry Vaz to ensure her safety.

Time and again the text reveals the blindness of the white man to those he enslaves. The African people are intuitive and wise and full of generosity to those in need.  It was Felicia and Laurinda who cared and looked after Hanna while she miscarried and at her most vulnerable they looked after her basic needs. African women who earned a living through prostitution overcame any prejudice they may have understandably have had towards a white woman and a stranger in their midst. Felicia tells her:

 " I did not know how you were or where you came from......But I got to know

  you through your blood"

It is ironic the Attimilo Vaz, himself a fraudster considers all the women who work for him as liars and engages the services of a white nurse to care for Hanna who is already on her way to recovery anyway.  Ana Dolores' examination and approach to Hanna is clinical and abrupt a total antithesis to her experience with Felicia and Laurinda. By the end of the novel Ana Dolores has taken over the business of breeding white hunting dogs bred specifically to hunt down the native population and kill and yet the farm she takes possession of has become a mirror of her true self, unkept and unclean.

This is a novel well worth reading and it can be read through many prisms. It works as a tale of growth and development for a young girl forced through poverty to learn to survive on the sea of life. Hanna marries for love and marries for survival. She learns how to communicate in a language and negotiate cultures very alien to those she grew up in. It also works as a study of everything that is wrong about colonisation and enforced dominance by those only interested in their own ideologies. Carlos is a living trope for the ridiculous cruelty of enslavement whatever form it may take A wild animal dressed as a waiter in a waiter's outfit who is expected to behave like a human reverts to his true nature by escaping to the wild where he may have lost his ability to function as his true self. He has been positioned by his captors in no man's land neither truly human or animal.

The story concludes on the cusp of what may be another adventure for Hanna or an end as she swallows a potion left to her by Moses. The reader is left to draw their own conclusions. A fitting ending to a story that cannot reach a definitive end as the issues of bigotry, injustice, prejudice and enslavement live on in a world that considers itself to be advancing rapidly on so many levels. Man has enough knowledge to fly by Pluto yet the basic fundamentals of human rights and civil justice are still to this day not a given but a dream. 

A Treacherous Paradise is published by Vintage and is available in paperback and ebook format.

This title can be ordered, with Free WorldWide Postage, and 19% discount Here and the ebook is available via Amazon link below: