Violet by SJI Holiiday

There are so many cliches we use in the world of book blogging but it’s hard not to use them when  all of them applied to this original and unusual novel. This was an unputdownable, page turning, keep me up all night, edge of your seat thriller with intriguing characters and exotic settings.

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It was refreshing to read a thriller with a female protagonist who steals all of the limelight. Added to that she has a feisty female travel partner. In a genre where women are often prey and merely a catalyst for the real action, these women more than hold their own. Violet has tired of Thailand and her boyfriend wants to stay put. Far from being the island paradise she expected Thailand has become about the same scene, people and drugs. Violet decides to follow their itinerary without him and she does it in style. She makes her way to China but feels strangely alone and dislocated. When trying to organise a ticket for the Trans-Siberian railway Violet overhears a girl talking to the travel agent about her spare ticket. Her friend has had an accident and can’t travel, but the travel agent is no help and the girl has a spare ticket on her hands. Violet follows her to a bar and engineers a meeting that turns into dinner and many drinks. By the next day Violet has scored a ticket and a new travel companion in Carrie. By this time we have a few doubts about our narrator and I worried for Carrie and whether she knew what she was taking on board.

The rest of the novel is told in sections through Violet’s eyes and the emails that Carrie sends back to her injured friend back home. The girls have a stop off in Mongolia where they experience Nomadic life, sheep’s milk tea and a shamanic experience that threatens to put their friendship on a very different footing. Violet reads like someone with borderline personality disorder; despite her narration I don’t feel a coherent sense of self. I don’t think Violet knows who she is. Carrie starts to have her own doubts on the train and tries to create some space by befriending other passengers. Violet starts to panic. What if Carrie decides to go her separate ways? Violet’s friendship has become obsessive and potentially dangerous. However, when we reach Russia we start to see what both girls are really capable of.

The brilliance of Holliday’s writing is that we never really know what the girls are going to do next. This is not helped by the copious amounts of drink and drugs the girls partake in. It’s like being on a rollercoaster ride blindfolded. Just when you think you’ve worked Violet out, something else happens and your opinion changes. I loved the travel detail as well. It isn’t romanticised. It’s scuzzy and grimy.  It dispels the backpacker myth of Thailand being a paradise better than The Beach did. Mongolia was at least an authentic experience, but the thought of ewe’s milk tea was grim. I loved the gritty realism and and the psychological manipulation. Living for a while in Violet’s head shows us how dark, obsessional jealousy manifests and left me feeling very uneasy. How much do we really know about what’s going on in someone else’s head? After all this, Holliday still surprised me with a final twist I didn’t see coming that turned everything I thought I knew on its head. It was like seeing The Sixth Sense for the first time, you want to pop back to the beginning and see it all over again with fresh eyes and try to pick up the clues. I read the end of this novel at 2am and was so blown away I had to wake up my other half and tell him all about it. This is definitely one of my books of the year.

17 Church Row by James Carol

This novel takes the term ‘domestic thriller’ to a whole new level! We meet 

Nikki and Ethan (a breakfast show DJ) who live in a large period house in 

London with their daughter Bella. On the outside they might seem like they 

have everything, but the family are recovering from a terrible tragedy. 

Bella had an identical twin killed in a road accident and ever since 

witnessing the tragedy Bella has been unable to speak, only communicating 

through her tablet. The family are supported by their housekeeper Sofia, 

who is much more than an employee. When they decide it’s time to move house,

 they feel they’ve found a unique place to live at 17 Church Row. 

Architect designed, the house seems to anticipate their needs before they know

 them. The house’s built in communication system ‘Alice’ is like Alexa on acid.

There’s no door handle, the door opens automatically and they meet the home’s

 creator Catriona. She explains that the system represents a complete lifestyle

 change. Alice brews coffee as they get up, reminds them of their to do list 

for the day, monitors each room and enables Bella to access her private garden

, she orders their food and makes phone calls on their behalf. I immediately 

found this claustrophobic and wondered what happens when the system malfunctions

? What if they can’t leave the house? Or Alice misjudges their bath temperature

 and scalds them? I felt constantly on edge from here waiting for the first 

thing to go wrong. Sofia is as suspicious as me, choosing to make her own coffee

 and treating Alice with mild disdain. She thinks she’s rude for jumping into

 private conversations. 

The family have a few little teething problems: the koi in Bella’s fishpond 

are found dead one morning; Nikki thinks she hears her dead daughter’s voice 

in the night and gets locked in the gym with no light and the system down. 

Then Sofia has an accident by the basement swimming pool and ends up in hospital

. Was this an accident or another household glitch? The author drip feeds little

 details to unnerve the reader. The way Alice accesses their family videos 

to create a more authentic voice for Bella felt very creepy, especially when 

she suddenly laughs after months of silence. She also jumps in with Nikki, 

ringing people on her behalf without asking and almost gaslighting her by copying

 emotions and incorporating them into her speech. Only Ethan seems completely

 at ease in the new house. When Sofia’s accident happens I’m sure there is a 

plot brewing and the narrative interspersed with the chapters from Katy adds 

to the intrigue and I kept trying to work out where it fit in, 

I will not spoil the plot any further, but it will admit that it gave me nightmares

! My other half had to keep waking me up because I was convinced there was a 

presence in the house and kept moaning in my sleep. I think this was written 

with so much tension that I binged and then had to take a break. Had Alice 

been monitoring me my heart rate would have been through the roof! Paramedics

 would have been at the door. Brilliant, page turning, family dynamics with 

a very sinister villain.

Through The Wall By Caroline Corcoran

This novel is one of those quick, easy to read thrillers that you can spend a gripping few hours with one afternoon. It hinges on the modern dilemma of being connected to the whole world but not being connected to the people who live closest to us - our neighbours. It also features two heroines dealing with problems central to women’s lives in the 21st Century: fertility problems and recovering from domestic abuse. Harriet and Lexie share a wall, but have up till now, never been in contact with one another. Their impressions of each other’s lives are based around snatches of music and conversation heard through the wall. 

Lexie lives with her boyfriend Tom and has recently begun working freelance from their flat while they are also trying to start a family. Lexie has had one miscarriage and since then hasn’t conceived, despite trying for two years. Alone all day, Lexie seems to be sinking into depression. She’s staying in pyjamas all day, staying indoors and only connecting with people via social media. She envies the life of her successful and outgoing neighbour Harriet who is a composer for musicals.

Harriet lives alone since the breakdown of her relationship with her fiancé Luke. She seems to have no close friends and holds parties to have company when she comes home, but often doesn’t know the guests well. There is a hint that she has spent some time in hospital after becoming the sort of person who does bad things. This hint becomes stronger as the novel continues and we realise Harriet has been seriously mentally ill following the breakdown of her relationship with Luke. She becomes jealous of Lexie after hearing her through the wall. She sees that Lexie has friends, and also a very settled relationship with Tom where they watch films together on the couch in the evening. When Harriet sees Tom in the corridor she sees a resemblance to Luke and decides to find a way of making contact with him. Then when she hears the couple arguing through the wall, she discovers their fertility problems and sees an opening that she can exploit. 

Both of these women are portrayed as mentally unwell and Harriet, described as psychopath and sociopath, is the stereotypical mentally ill person following a dangerous obsession out of control. Lexie is seriously depressed and suffering the grief of losing her first baby and I don’t think this is given equal weight in the novel. We are made to feel sympathy for Lexie, but not for Harriet who has been a victim of domestic abuse. As Harriet’s story unfolds we get hints of emotional abuse from Luke: keeping her on edge, gaslighting her, making observations about her behaviour and character that are not true until she isn’t even sure who she is anymore. This seems to be the trigger for her obsessive and dangerous behaviour and it is Tom’s resemblance to Luke that seems to be a trigger. 

Both women struggle with behaviour I see a lot from young women in my counselling room. They have either left behind or isolated themselves from real friends and family, and seem to be conducting their interactions with others solely from social media. Lexie in particular is haunted by old friends flaunting fairy tale marriages and pregnancy, without wondering if they are portraying their lives accurately. I tell clients the old adage that ‘comparison is the thief of joy’ and this advice would certainly change the outcomes here. Harriet thinks Lexie is living in the perfect relationship and doesn’t appreciate Tom. Lexie thinks Harriet is a proper grown-up with an exciting job and loads of friends. If either of them actually spoke to each other they would know differently. When Lexie makes real contact with friends on a night out and is honest about being depressed over their fertility problems a friend is able to empathise. She too has been struggling to have a baby, and they can share their feelings. Afterwards, Lexie feels much better and it is clear that both would benefit from spending time in the real world, being open and allowing those close by to support them. Harriet has slowly isolated herself as friends and family showed their doubts about Luke. This is classic abuser’s behaviour and means Harriet is alone, with only Luke as company, leaving her easier to abuse. 

I would liken the novel as fast food, as opposed to fine dining. It is quick, tasty and enjoyable, but not exactly memorable. It is perfect for those times when you want a page turner you can devour in a weekend. 

We Are All Made Of Stars by Roman Coleman

This book was originally published in 2015, but it’s the first time I’ve read it. I was only introduced to Rowan Coleman this year through her novel The Girl at the Window. I do like to feature books as I discover them, rather than trying to chase the latest or next best thing.This may sound weird but I actually picked this up as light relief between a couple of deeply dystopian reads. I think there is an incredible skill in writing about such a serious subject but with such a lightness of touch and an edge of romance. Coleman has a group of characters, all linked to the Marie Francis hospice in some way. The story comes from all their points of view interspersed with letters written from patients in their final days, revealing secrets and emotions that have been held back, offering advice or instructions on where the money has been left.

These letters are written by Stella, who works at the hospice at night, giving her plenty of time to listen to patients and capture their last words. Behind her professional exterior Stella has her own problems. Her night shifts have become a way of avoiding problems at home. Her husband Vinny was a soldier and has returned home after losing his leg in a bomb blast. Now they feel like different people who are unable to connect and Stella runs miles every day to avoid her fear this is the end of their marriage. One of the letters Stella writes leads us to Hugh.

Hugh is an academic researcher and collects artefacts relating to death such as death masks, Victorian  mourning brooches and photos of dead loved ones. Hugh’s mum left when he was small leaving a suicide note. This personal tragedy has possibly lead to his research and has left him very isolated and scared of connection. When a single mum moves next door with her son, Hugh’s cat Jake starts to spend time there and they name him Ninja. This shared cat brings them closer, but will Hugh be able to form a relationship with his new neighbours and how will he cope when Stella delivers a letter that will change his life?

Finally, we meet Hope who is a young woman with cystic fibrosis recuperating at the hospice before returning home. Hope’s best friend and lifelong hanger on is Ben. They have been close friends for years and he has seen her in the worst moments of her illness. He visits every day at the hospice, and patients and staff start to notice that maybe there’s more than friendship here. Hope doesn’t think so, but she is starting to realise that she is missing out on things in life. Her friendship with a young girl, Issy, begins to make her think. Issy is terminally ill and tells Hope how sad she is to be leaving life when she has experienced so little. She makes Hope promise to live life to the full and try all the experiences Issy has missed out on. This inspires Hope and she asks Ben to help her fulfil this promise, knowing it might change their relationship forever.

It was Hope and Stella’s narratives that most resonated with me. I knew how I wanted their narratives their narratives to end happily. I know how it feels to have your plans cut into by an illness so young, the need to have new experiences and live like any other girl in their early twenties. I remembered the hen nights missed and friends celebrating graduations, weddings and births of their first children when I had none of these things in sight. So I identified with Hope’s need to do as much as possible before time runs out. Yet, I also felt for Stella, who tries her hardest to make people’s last wishes a reality while her own life is falling apart. She gives constantly, at home and the hospice, so when she finds she can maybe reunite two people she throws caution to the wind. I wanted her and Vinny to find their way through their difficulties and come together again, but with his survivor’s guilt and difficulties coming to terms with his amputation it’s no easy task.

This book seems so light and easy to read but is packed full of real, honest and deep emotions across the characters. Maybe I found the subject easy to enjoy, because I’m used to this world. I know people who might read the hospice setting and pass it over, but they’d be missing out. This book relates what life limiting illness is really like; it’s not easy, but you can still live well and all the other parts of life like learning, being fulfilled, finding meaning and feeling love are still very much part of the experience. Within these characters, and the letters Stella writes for her patients, are glimpses of human life that take us far beyond them as patients and closer to them as people.

The Diver’s Game by Jesse Ball

Wow! People need to urgently read this book. It is a stunning, breathtaking novel that is both haunting and beautifully written. I won’t forget it easily. I wish I had half of the author’s imagination and ability to weave serious political issues with such an otherworldly, dreamlike setting. I’ve never read this author before but I will certainly be reading more in the future. 

The book is set in a dystopian future, but not too far away away from our own. The issues that make our headline news have exploded to create a society where attitudes to xenophobia have spawned lethal solutions. Violence is commonplace and empathy is lacking. In different sections the author introduces us to loosely connected characters who all live within this dark world. These are young people whose responses to their society seem cruel and heartless. However, this is all they have ever known and the violence is their normal. The population is split into two groups: quads and pats. The pats are native to this world and have certain privileges whereas the quads are refugees and are branded and have a thumb removed to make them recognisable. The pats have to carry gas canisters around for protection and can use them to kill a quad without sanction if they feel bothered or threatened. 

This dog eat dog society feels to me like the nightmarish result of current upheaval such as Brexit, the politics of Trump and other right wing politicians, plus the divide in society that has widened even further between those with money and those without. In the section that inspires the title, Ball writes an allegory where children put their lives on the line to change their position in society. This fable concerns a tunnel where two ponds connect and to escape to the other pond involves a brutal free dive through the underground tunnel. The child has to use all their strength and pass through dizziness, vision problems and almost passing out to kick their way to the surface. It could have filled me with despair, but for the last section where a woman who has killed a quad starts to feel remorse for her actions. It gave me hope that the society could possibly change. 

The book is horrifying because it takes today’s society and holds up a mirror to tell us this is where we could be, if we don’t check ourselves. The current rise of far right politics, putting refugee children in cages and Trump’s racist rhetoric make it seem even more possible. I applaud the author for creating such a terrifying, clever and relevant novel that brings home to us what happens in a society where people are not considered equal. We clearly haven’t learned from history so maybe we might learn through literature. 

I Carried A Watermelon by Katy Brand

I Carried A Watermelon by Katy Brand 

Like Katy Brand, I was a teenager when Dirty Dancing was released in cinemas and I loved it. I wasn’t allowed to go and see it at the cinema so I had to wait until my friend got it on VHS and we organised a sleep over. I loved it immediately and since then have watched it countless times. I can’t say I’d ever thought about it as obsessively as Brand does but it does stand out for me as a rare film with a female protagonist and I wanted to be Baby so badly. I blame her for my perm. 

Brand’s book is a must for Dirty Dancing fans. It treads a fine line between autobiography and academic study of the film. There’s no doubting she’s a super fan but she also makes observations that show this is not simply a feel good film about dancing. The reasons I loved Baby when I was 14 still stand today. In a decade of the kind of glamour shown by her sister Lisa or dancer Penny, she isn’t overtly sexy. Although her clothes become skimpier, it’s for the dancing and because she’s a girl becoming more aware of her body and its ability to move. Before the final showcase her sister offers a makeover but relents: ‘you’re prettier in your own way’. She’s also intelligent and has aspirations beyond her looks: she reads, she keeps up with world affairs and wants to join the Peace Corps. 

In characters like Baby and Jonny, as well as the decline of Kellermans and old fashioned characters like the waiter Robbie, the film presents us with a microcosm of social change. Women like Mrs Houseman, who incidentally rarely speaks, are the old order. Baby and Penny represent the new feminism - they have different aspirations and progressive moral values. Brand makes the point that the abortion storyline central to the film’s set-up is handled without any moral angst or disapproval. It makes the political point of access to safe, legal abortion but Baby borrows money from her father for Penny without any comment or question. Similarly, Dr Houseman treats her afterwards without any moralising on his part. He is disappointed that Baby has lied to him and borrows money for something illegal but he doesn’t utter a word against Penny for her choice. It’s observations like this that take the book above mere fandom and into a proper analysis of the film that makes you think. 

Added to this is insider gossip from on set and from the original Kellermans where you can still stay on very popular Dirty Dancing weekends. I love Brand’s enthusiasm and unapologetic love of the film. This is a great gift for someone who loves the film and wants to know more about the background to the film’s production, but also more about where it sits in terms of social commentary. It will make you want to watch the film all over again. 

The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman

This was a much anticipated read for me as Alice Hoffman is probably my favourite writer. Most people know her for Practical Magic, but I think her more recent novels have been remarkable. The World That We Knew stands with them. It was sad, unflinchingly honest and strangely magical. 

We join Hanni Kohn and her daughter Lea in Berlin at the beginning of WWII.The verbal propaganda against German Jews is now turning into action and after Lea is attacked by a soldier on her way home, Hanni intervenes with terrible consequences. Now Hanni knows she must get Lea out of Berlin, but how can they both leave when Hanni is looking after her elderly mother. Desperately looking for some way of protecting Lea, Hanni falls on the idea of a Golem - a mythical Jewish creature animated from clay. First she approaches the rabbi, who turns her down, but the rabbi’s daughter Ettie is listening and spies a chance to escape home. She assures Hanni she has the necessary power and learning to create such a creature, programmed to protect Lea, but only on the basis that Ettie and her sister can travel with them. They gather river clay, water and blood to create Ava, a strong woman with dark eyes and hair, who will travel as Lea’s cousin. However, all Golems must be destroyed once their purpose is done, so Hanni leaves instructions in Lea’s locket to ensure she can carry this out. 

Hoffman’s story blends historical fact, outlining the fate of Jews in Berlin and France while the world claimed ignorance, with the story of the four girls. One is lost before they leave the country leaving behind a loved one intent on getting their revenge. There are other characters in the novel bringing their own story and perspective to the story. Despite having their own narrative Hoffman cleverly weaves their stories together they encounter each other at some time during the war. On Lea and Ava’s travels in France we meet Julien, his brother Victor and their parents. As a Jewish family resident in Paris their parents imagine themselves safe from the fate of Jewish refugees like Lea and Ava. At huge personal risk they let Lea and Ava join the household as their servant Marianne has left that morning. Ava takes to kitchen work while Lea forms a friendship with Juliet. Victor is mourning Marianne who we follow back to her father’s farm in the mountains bordering Switzerland. Victor decides to leave soon after, but his travels take him into the Resistance first where he meets a certain young woman hellbent on revenge. Julien is left behind, when Ava and Lea leave, and he watches as his parent’s assumptions are all proved wrong and they are lead to a stadium in burning heat. They are stripped of their jewellery and other valuables and kept without sanitation or food until they can be transported to the death camps, bewildered and broken. Julien hatches a last minute plan and manages to slip out of the stadium and into the labyrinth of streets until a special messenger gives him an idea of where Lea might be. 

We follow these various characters through the Germany, to Paris, to a convent where silver roses bloom, and a farm in the mountains where over three thousand Jews are walked to the mountains and freedom. In between the many horrors of war sits the beauty of nature, strangely incongruous and almost mystical in that it carries on without or even in spite of us. I love the audacity of Hoffman’s magic realism in juxtaposing the Holocaust with a mysterious heron who dances in the moonlight, at the river’s edge, with a very unusual woman. 

This beautiful novel weaves together the realities of a terrible war, with an element of ancient magic. Hoffman creates a story about the lengths people will go to in order to survive, protect those they love and fight for what they believe in. We also see the amazing healing power of love and forgiveness. Most of all, against a backdrop of the most evil and inhumane act of the 20th century, Hoffman uses the character of Ava to make us truly think about what qualities make us human.

Here To Stay by Mark Edwards

Mark Edwards has an amazing way of sucking me into his novels so quickly that I’ve devoured half of it in one evening. I became so invested in Elliot’s life, that I almost need therapy afterwards! 

Elliot is a self-made man, with a business promoting science within schools and a house he has worked on till it’s perfect. He loves his neat, well-ordered, existence. It’s just him and his cat Charlie, and he is friends with Amira his business partner and George his next door neighbour. Gemma comes into this quiet existence like a whirlwind and although Elliot doesn’t know much about her, he does know he loves her. They get married only eight weeks after meeting and although friends worry they have rushed into it, they are happy. Soon after, Gemma’s parents come back into her life. They have been living in France with Gemma’s sister Chloe and seem to be leaving in a hurry. Gemma says it will only be a couple of weeks till they find their own place. Elliot lets them stay, but they arrive with Chloe seemingly in a fever and immediately start treating the place as if it is their own. Lizzy is allergic to Charlie and Elliot suspects she has been locking the cat flap to stop him coming in. Jeff is loud and messy, leaving dishes everywhere and having the TV on too loud. But Elliot has been alone for a long time since the death of his parents so he does find it hard to share space and it’s only for two weeks isn’t it? 

Even though I’d expected some of what transpired, the book still kept me gripped. I hated Lizzy and Jeff with a passion that could only come from someone who’s lived alone for six years and now shares a bathroom with four people. It becomes claustrophobic as every ones of Elliot’s senses are invaded; the noise is intolerable, the smell of Lizzy smoking out of the window, the piles of mess everywhere and his constant worry about the welfare of his cat. I felt the panic and his feeling that his haven is being invaded and will never seem the same for him again. I suspected Gemma, her brother Stuart and even Chloe who seems stuck on her sickbed in a catatonic state. It’s clear from very early on that the mystery of why the family are here hinges on Chloe’s testimony, but so far she can’t or won’t speak. 

Disturbed by the feeling of having someone in his house he’s still not met, Elliot tries to talk to Chloe. He is so worried about her physical state he asks his neighbour George if he would pop round and check on her. George is a retired GP and he manages to pop round at just the right moment to see Chloe. Unfortunately, they are discovered and while Jeff shouts and wakes the rest of the house, Elliot notices that Chloe whispers something to George. Elliot is still unsure about exactly what is wrong in the family and wonders if he’s jumping at shadows, but there are tiny clues. Why does Gemma have scars across her stomach that she never talks about but touches every time she’s nervous? Why does no one talk about their life in France and why did Chloe’s parents follow her out there? One evening the four of them go out for a meal and Gemma chokes slightly, but cowers as her father gets up to help her. Little does Elliot know that when they return, he will make a discovery that changes everything. 

There were moments of this book when I found myself livid about Gemma’s parents. Every time Elliot thinks of something that will get rid of them I felt so relieved, then so frustrated when he realises it won’t work. It’s as if what Gemma says is true - in her parent’s world everything is upside down and the normal rules don’t apply. They are like whirlwinds and everything that gets sucked in is destroyed. I won’t write more for fear of ruining all the twists and turns to come. This is a book where you have to know the ending and you’ll keep reading till 3am to find out. I believed in the characters, even when their behaviour was completely unbelievable. Be prepared to shake with rage as these cuckoos carry out their awful plan and Elliot desperately tries to find a way out.