My Best Reads of 2014

One of the most exciting things about my first 6 months as Lotus Flower Book Club, has been all of the new books that have come my way. I set a target with Goodreads at the beginning of the year to read 150 books and I am 8 books away from my target. This was helped along by the reading I do for university, but also because this was a great year for reading. After completing the decisions on website and logo I started taking orders in June. An unexpected bonus of using social media for the business has been the offer of writing work; I am now writing reviews on new books and blogs on the experience of reading. Sometimes, I even get pre-publication copies through the post, so I look forward to the postman arriving! So, out of all the books I’ve read this year here are my best reads of the year.

Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield  

Diane Setterfield’s second novel is an unsettling tale of a young boy, William Bellman, who designs a catapult to impress his friends. On a sunny day they compare designs and William wagers he can hit a rook in the next field and to their enormous surprise he does. As they examine the dead bird they notice the colour of the feathers and how the light hits the black creating green and purple highlights. It becomes a thing of wonder to them, but as William walks home later in the dusk he becomes unnerved by the sight of a boy in black in the same field. Years later Bellman is a very successful man through developing the local mill and has made a good marriage to Rose. The couple have many children and to those who know them, Bellman seems to live under a blessing.  Yet strange things start to happen around him. His uncle, the mill owner, dies leaving him in charge. Then his childhood friend dies and Bellman starts to wonder about the strange man in black he sees at the funerals. Why can he never recall his face properly and what does he want? This is a great thrilling ghost story, with increasing tension written into every chapter. I recommend this for curling up in front of a fire with one winter evening.

ISBN: 9781476711959    Publisher: Random House

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

A brilliant debut novel set in 17^th Century Amsterdam where wealth and stifling religion go hand in hand. Country girl Nella Oortman arrives as the new bride of wealthy merchant Johannes Brandt. Nella is intimidated by Johannes sister Marin and the secrets of the huge townhouse that is now her home. Johannes is never at home, but he sends his new wife the gift of a cabinet house; the house is a complete replica of their own and Nella finds a miniaturist to make some special pieces for the best rooms. However, the miniaturist seems to have an agenda of her own and sends Nella mysterious pieces she didn’t order, pieces which could explain to her the secrets of the Brandt household. Despite appearing to be respectable members of society, the Brandt siblings have secret lives that they must keep concealed or lose everything. Burton’s great skill is to combine the historical detail with a surprising revelations and an awful lot of suspense. How does the miniaturist knows their greatest secrets but is she a benevolent observer or will she bring their reputation and even their lives to the brink of destruction. This is an intelligent read that becomes a real page turner as we long to solve the mystery and know the fates of the all the characters.

ISBN: 9780062306814  Publisher: Ecco 

Meeting Jessie Burton author of The Miniaturist

A Song for Issy Bradley by Carys Brady

This is a beautifully observed debut novel about the deeply religious Bradley family coming to terms with the loss of Issy who was the youngest member of their family. Taking each family member in turn the book explores their grief in both a moving and humorous way. Father, Ian Bradley is a Mormon bishop who trusts in his faith and is sure everything will turn out right. His wife Claire is less trusting, and needs a sign to help her carry on or at least a pause button till she is ready to re-join the world. Meanwhile their remaining children flounder; Zippy is distracted with first love, while Al has more time for football than the church, and Jacob has more faith than all of them put together and feels the responsibility of keeping his fractured family together. In the church, family is of the utmost importance and this book explores what happens when a family of faith has their world broken apart. Always poignant, the book can be incredibly funny, especially where the children’s understanding of their faith is explored. This is a great book for anyone interested in family relationships and reactions to trauma.

ISBN: 9780553390889  Publisher: Ballantine Books

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Another debut novel, this book is set in 19^th Century Iceland and is based in its bleak landscape. The book tells the story of Agnes, a servant who is found guilty of the murder of her former master and stays on an isolated farm awaiting execution. Agnes’s story is told in flashback as she recounts it to the priest sent to prepare her for her upcoming execution. Toti is the priest willing to try and understand her, despite the suspicion of the farmer’s wife and daughters; they belief the official version of the events and are very reluctant to keep a murderer in their home. However, as the weather turns even worse and they are confined to their small cottage, the women begin to hear a different version of the truth as they overhear Agnes’s story. The book reminds us that everyone has a right to have their story heard and although Agnes is still executed, it is hard to put down because you want to know her part in the murders. Just as the family do, we become drawn in by her tale, but which version is the truth?

ISBN: 9780316243919  Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Spare Brides by Adele Parks

This novel starts on New Year’s Eve 1920 and four friends reflect on the recent end of the Great War, and the new decade to come. There is an air of novelty about this new decade, full of promise and possibility. However, the war casts a long shadow, especially for Sarah who paid the ultimate price in the loss of her husband and for Lydia who can only feel her husband’s cowardice as he stayed behind in a desk job. There are so many women for so few men so it seems that to catch a husband one must be both beautiful and wealthy, but Beatrice is neither and seems destined to stay a spinster. Finally there is Ava, who is both beautiful and wealthy but feels restricted by her marriage now that her husband is home. An incredibly handsome officer comes into their midst, but he is haunted by his war experiences. Once the women encounter him it can only lead to more changes in their lives and everyone around them. This novel is the one of the first I read this year about this period of history and shows how the war broke apart the class structure and gender roles that had been entrenched for centuries.

ISBN: 9781472205391  Publisher: Headline

The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman

Set in New York City in the stormy first decades of the twentieth century, Alice Hoffman’s latest book is a love story set between two very different people. Coralie Sardie is the daughter of a Coney Island freak show owner and is made to perform in his museum because she has webbed fingers. He creates a water tank and a tail and she performs as a mermaid by day, while in the early morning he trains her to swim in the Hudson River to create the story of a river monster. One morning, she swims off course and climbs out of the river where the city meets forest and she accidentally meets Eddie Cohen. Eddie is a photographer who has run away from his father’s Russian Orthodox community and his job as an apprentice tailor. The two have an instant connection, but Eddie is embroiled in the mystery of a girl who went missing during the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and Coralie is kept almost prisoner by her father, and his requests of her become more disturbing. This is a magical story set in an incredible world of Wolf Men, Butterfly Girls and ancient turtles. Despite the engaging love story at its centre, the star of this novel is the developing city of New York in all its wonder.

ISBN: 9781451693560  Publisher: Scribner

How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran

This novel is really a slightly disguised autobiography of Moran’s first years as a writer for a music magazine in the 1990’s. Johanna Morrigan is an intelligent, but uninteresting teenager who is a social recluse and makes a fool of herself on local television. Using all her experience of writers from Jo March to the Brontes, Johanna decides she will save her poor family through writing. She reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde – music reviewer and Lade Sex Adventurer. For someone who grew up in the 90s this is a hilarious romp where Dolly does all the things I wish I’d done – she sleeps with sexy band members, drinks, smokes and rips crap bands apart in 600 words. I spent half the time laughing, and the other half trying to work out who the band members really were. Moran captures all the awkwardness of being sixteen, poor, and a little bit fat. This book is glorious.

ISBN: 9780062335999  Publisher: Harper

The Missing One by Lucy Atkins

Kali Mackenzie has had a difficult relationship with her mother and after her death there are so many unanswered questions. As she clears out her mother’s things she finds a series of postcards from a woman called Susannah and they all say ‘thinking of you’. Kali has never heard of this woman and in a desperate attempt to find out about her mother’s life she decides to take a trip to British Columbia and visit this woman. The remote island where she lives is known for storms and killer whales and Kali finds out that her mother studied these creatures back in the 1970s. Susannah is an enigmatic person and she doesn’t give up her secrets easily, but is she slightly too interested in Kali’s son Finn and why is her behaviour becoming erratic? This is a great story of a relationship between mother and daughter and how keeping secrets, even to protect our children, can sometimes be the most dangerous thing to do.

ISBN: 9781848663206  Publisher: Quercus

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

This is the second book about post WW1 that I read this year and from one of my favourite authors who never disappoints me. Set in 1922, Frances and her mother live in a villa in Camberwell, South London. This has previously been a genteel area and the Wrays have been used to house filled with a husband, and a brother, plus a few servants. Now entirely alone and still struggling with their bereavements and lowered circumstances, they feel the need to take in lodgers in order to keep their home. Their new tenants, Lilian and Leonard Barber are from the new ‘clerk class’ and will shake up their lives more than they ever imagined. Frances and Lillian have an instant connection, but Frances has given up a potential relationship in the past in order to stay with her mother. Waters explores all the rules of the pre-war society and how they have been dismantled by war. Women who have worked through the war no longer want to return to the home sphere, and the classes move more freely together than ever before. This is both a love story and a thriller, with the wonderfully rich backdrop of a country in mourning and all the upheaval of social change.

ISBN: 9781594633119      Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover

Wake by Anna Hope

This is another book set where society is hovering between the days of Empire and Modernism. Wake set against the backdrop of an unknown soldier being returned from Northern France to be buried at Westminster Abbey. It follows three very different women dealing with the changes WWI has wrought in their lives. Hettie is a dancer for sixpence at the Hammersmith Palais; Evelyn is a civil servant in the pension’s office; Ada is a housewife who is unable to move on after the death of her son and sees vision of him, but when a visitor arrives at her door with a war mystery it binds all of them together. Set over five days in the year 1920, the mystery slowly unravels towards the day the Unknown Soldier arrives to crowds of people in London. This novel has beautiful period detail and captures that feeling of being on the brink of a new era.

ISBN: 9780857521941  Publisher: Doubleday 

The Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Pheonix by Paul Sussman

This is an excellent novel ; a dark, funny and utterly delightful look at the Twentieth Century through one man’s eyes. I saw the cover and simply knew it was for me. Raphael Ignatius Phoenix lives alone in an isolated castle by the sea as the millennium draws near. Born in 1900, he is determined to die on the eve of the new millennium and to help him he has a mysterious pill. However, before he ends it he feels a need to get his affairs in order and write down his incredible history. Using the walls of the castle as his manuscript he begins to write an extraordinary personal history, but wonders how to structure his story. Starting with his first adventure with his mysterious friend Emily, he then splits his life into chapters and each chapter is structured around one of his ten murders. Despite his murderous nature, Raphael is an excellent storyteller and it is hard not to enjoy his riotous and unusual gift for weaving a story. Quirky and darkly humorous.

ISBN: 9780857522184      Publisher: Doubleday

So, a wonderful year of reading with some surprises and some interesting themes that occurred unconsciously such as post WWI novels. I feel like I was given a gift every time I discovered a new novel or author. There are just as many book I discovered in 2014 that were published earlier such as The Girl With The Glass Feet by Ali Shaw or Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I am looking forward to a new year of discovery and possibility. Happy New Year and Happy Reading!

Reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Reading The Night Circus

I had read the book a couple of years ago and it was one of those novels where I was completely sucked in by the cover. A stylish mix of black and white with flashes of red made it eye catching. The paper cut technique gave the feel of Victorian silhouettes and the promise of magic sealed the deal for me. There is nothing I like more than a mix of Victorians and magic. I fell in love with this book from the first illusion and I thought it would be a treat for my book group as we came back together in the Autumn. I re-read the book to prepare, but also checked out some online reviews to see how other people felt about the book. I was taken aback to see one star reviews and then started to worry that my ladies wouldn't feel the same as I did. Maybe I was the only one to have fallen under its spell!

I needn't have worried. Despite the online reviews giving the impression of the book as a sort of literary Marmite, the group wholeheartedly welcomed the enchantment. So we started the lovely evening with a discussion about those reactions. First of all there were criticisms of the structure of the novel online with some readers feeling it was so disjointed it was difficult to follow. My readers didn't feel that way. The novel shifts in time and perspective with some sections following Bailey or Heir Theissen as they fall in love with the circus and become reveurs. Other parts go back in time and follow Celia and Marco as they are bound together by their mentor’s magic but also pitted against each other in a competition with the circus as a venue for their exhibition of magic. There were also short sections that describe a room or act at the circus that address the reader directly and take them on a journey as if they are experiencing the circus first hand. Some readers felt that this structure took some serious concentration and sometimes having to go back a few pages to make sure they had just read what they thought they had. In this way the book works like a magic trick; the author has revealed something just enough for you to wonder, but not enough for you to see how it was done. The structure also shows exactly how many people become drawn in to the circus and how it becomes a ripple effect.

We then talked about which illusions were our favourites. The clock had made a huge impression on readers with most of us saying how much we wanted one. It was an incredible piece of description that defied belief with the incredible juggler who juggles an extra ball every hour. It was pointed out that this was more of a feat of engineering than of magic and we went on to discuss how the ‘real’ parts of the circus add to the illusion that there are ‘tricks’ instead of real magic. The carousel is real but Celia adds a tiny bit of magic leaving visitors wondering how it is done. Other readers loved the room made from ice, with the frosted trees but also the wishing tree where wishes were representing by the lighting of a candle. This made me think of a tree installation I saw in NYC by Yoko Ono where people wrote their wishes on a luggage label and tied it to a branch. Readers were dazzled by the incredible descriptions of illusions and the performer’s clothes. Celia’s ability to change the colour of her dress was noted, as well as Madame Padva’s real creations worn by all the women. The parties given by Chandresh where the circus is first discussed were the sort of parties you want to go to; an incredible mix of beautiful and interesting guests, spectacular clothes and food, followed by interesting talk and entertainment.

Re-readers were surprised by how dark they found the novel on a second reading. Celia’s father particularly was harsh in his training and his attitude towards her as a project rather than a daughter. He shows her no warmth or love. Furthermore, the methods of training her are painful and sadistic. For a start the ring that binds her to her opponent is burned into her finger with searing pain. Then when teaching to break things and put them back together he cuts her fingers till they bleed again and again until she can heal then. On one occasion he breaks her hand and it takes her a long time to heal the broken bones. His need to win the competition overrides his daughter’s happiness and it is only later in the novel that Celia fully understands the challenge and what it means for both winner and loser. She has no idea that there have been other opponents before her until the contortionist Tsukiko reveals that she has completed the challenge long ago and she is alive because she was the winner. She lowers her kimono and reveals her ring burned into the skin of her collar bone. Celia knows then that whether she or Marco gains the upper hand, nobody will win.

Despite the dark undertones, that build as the novel moves along, most readers came away with a sense of awe and wonder. Despite negative reviews about the sheer amount of description in the novel all of my readers luxuriated in it, rather than worrying that the story was being slowed down. The structure is like visiting the circus; you have a destination in mind, but keep getting tempted into other tents where what you see makes you want to stay. Just as Bailey keeps finding new parts of the circus despite his familiarity the novel keeps revealing a new layer that you didn’t know was there. One reader commented on the circus being like a Tardis – at one point the twins take Bailey upstairs and you realise there are levels as well as all the side streets and unexplored alley ways. When the readers thought of the circus they were imagining a particular size surrounded by gates but once you get inside its much larger. There were also comments of the fact that the circus repels those who shouldn't be there. No one can get inside when it is closed, yet Bailey can slip through the bars unnoticed. We then discussed the circus as a living, breathing entity of its own. Even though it has been set up by the group meeting for dinner, with underlying purpose of hosting the challenge, the circus lives. Somehow it knows that it needs Bailey to ensure its future and it bends the rules so he can meet his destiny in Poppet.

The love story was discussed with many different ideas put forward. One reader felt like the rings burned into Celia and Marco’s wedding finger sealed their destiny – not just in relation to the challenge but as lovers. It was like an arranged marriage where they have been betrothed from birth and nothing they do in the meantime matters. The love connection is so strong that Marco’s existing relationship with Isabel doesn't stand a chance; even she can see that their love is inevitable. Another reader wondered if it was the fact that the ring was on their fingers that meant they fell in love, but then later it became clear that Tsukiko felt the same way about her opponent. It is only then that Celia realises that the object of the challenge is not to test their skill but their stamina. The illusions themselves don’t matter, as long as one of them outlasts and outlives the other. Ironically it is Celia’s father’s invisible state that gives her the hint of an idea that might change the outcome of the challenge. What if she and Marco become like him, invisible and living within the confines of the circus? One reader described them as in another dimension, while another calls them ghosts haunting the circus forever. Their ability to be free and be together overcomes the confines of the challenge completely but we are not sure whether her father will learn his lesson or whether he will simply find a new subject for his training. Now that Marco’s mentor has proved he could take an orphan off the street and teach him there are no barriers to the challenge carrying on indefinitely. We finally discussed other books that readers might enjoy such as Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke or The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton.

Reading The Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Phoenix

Something very strange happened while I was reading Paul Sussman’s book. I was up at night feeling unwell and made it half way without even taking a break. I had never read any of his books so as far as I knew this could have been a debut novel or one of hundreds. I launch straight into books without reading introductions, forewords or acknowledgements because I don’t like to be swayed by them. I don’t want someone else to tell me how to read a book, or in what context; I like to make up my own mind. I must admit on this occasion I was drawn in by the cover, but beyond that and the back cover blurb I knew nothing.

I realised half way through that I was reading with a smile on my face, despite feeling physically grotty! It made me smile because of the dark subject matter, the humour and sheer ingenuity of Raphael. I put it to one side and thought ‘I really wish my husband Jez had been around so I could read this to him’. He died 7 years ago and prior to his death he couldn'tJez himself. This is one of those books. I then turned to the foreword and noticed it was written by Paul Sussman’s wife Alicky.  I was so sad to read that she had been through the same loss I had, but amazed by the parallel.       

hold a book and couldn't see to read for himself. He could get listening books but there were certain, funny, books that we liked to share so we could fall about laughing together. They would usually be ingenious, darkly comic and just a little bit bad – rather like

The character of Raphael Phoenix is irresistible. A cantankerous old pensioner, living alone in a castle, he decides that 100 years of living is enough. He has a plan and he also has a pill. He has had the pill his whole life since his birthday party with his childhood friend Emily. Emily’s father is a chemist and in his poison cupboard, among the ribbed glass bottles, is an innocuous white pill with a simple nick in one side. It has very particular ingredients that ensure an almost instant and painless death and it is the only thing he wants for his birthday so the pair replace the pill with mint of the very same size, with a nick from the edge to match. Raphael keeps the pill with him through his incredible life either in his pocket, in a gold ring or in more difficult circumstances, sellotaped under his armpit. He trusts his pill and knows that it will deliver the death he wants as he sits in his observatory, with an expensive glass of red wine (over £30 a bottle) watching the millennium fireworks. However, before then he has a story to tell us, several stories in fact, which take us through some of the most important periods of the 20^th Century and he has a very peculiar way of splitting these stories into sections.

I had no idea what to expect and so I was surprised and charmed by this magical piece of work. It manages to be both, earthy and funny, but also incredibly poignant. The only two things he can depend on through his life are the pill and his friend Emily. Emily isn't always by his side, but just manages to be there at the right times and seems to set his various destinies in motion. Raphael works backwards with his tales until the reader is desperate to know how all of these incredible twists and turns are set in motion and also whether his trusty pill will work so he gets the end he has been working so hard towards. I would read this if you enjoy dark humour and tall tales and like your narrators to be, ever so slightly, morally ambiguous. It is darkly enchanting and I fell in love with it.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Reading Perfect by Rachel Joyce

I read Rachel Joyce's book Perfect having never come across her writing before. I have had the The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry on the bedside pile for a while but Perfect appealed first, probably because of my mental health background.

I was born in the 1970's with a mum who had clinical and possible post-natal depression. There were long periods where mum was unhappy and found life very difficult. Bringing friends home was a struggle for her during my early childhood and we were aware that she became anxious in social situations. On the other hand mum was unusually imaginative and great fun to be around. She would join in with our games and fantasies entirely often joining in with dressing up, making dens and having make-believe adventures. I sure this experience with mum led to me working in our local mental health team for the past fifteen years and studying psychology. I am now in my final year of counsellor training and practice at my local MS Therapy Centre (I have MS and so did my late husband) as well as helping with mental health drop-in groups in my local town. I empathise enormously with anyone who is having difficulties because of some trauma or bereavement, but also with those people who can't manage 'normal' everyday life. These experiences and interests definitely persuaded me to read this book and I finished it in 24 hours.

Several of the characters in this book are either openly or secretly dealing with mental health problems. In the present day Jim is living in a van and cleaning tables in his local cafe. Jim is lonely and exhausted by the OCD rituals that have governed his life. Jim has had underlying mental ill health most of his life and the need to repeat small rituals 21 times has become his coping mechanism. Back in 1972 we meet Byron who lives in a small town on the edge of a moor. He and his sister, Lucy, go to private school because their father wants them to have the right start in life. All week they live in their big house with their mother in the country and his mum has a brand new Jaguar to drive them to school in the morning. Byron's father works in the city and only comes home on weekends arriving at the train station at the same time every week. Byron's father Seymour likes everything to be done correctly and often telephones home in the week to check on his wife Diana to make sure she is following the schedule and has no visitors. Seymour worries if anything appears to stray from their normal routine of getting up at the same time, dressing, eating, doing housework and then going to bed at 10pm and doing it all over again. Byron is fascinated with an article he has read in the newspaper that explains the how time is out of sync with the movement of the earth and the need to add two seconds to time. Byron constantly checks his watch in case he can capture the moment the two seconds are added. One morning, as they veer slightly from their normal schedule and Byron's watch seems to jump, they are involved in an accident that triggers 'Operation Perfect'. The operation is Byron and his schoolfriend's plan to monitor Diana and her new friend Beverley who is from the lower class Digby Road. Women like Diana did not socialise with women like Beverley and the friendship would never have happened without the accident and those two seconds.

As well as the obvious mental health problems of Jim, there are other characters in the book who struggle with their mental health and there are interesting differences between those who are open about their problems and those who are not. It is plain for all to see that Jim is not 'normal' because he struggles to speak, he lives in a van and he is isolated by his history of being a patient at Besley Hill mental home. How Byron's father, on the other hand, has serious mental health issues because of the way he treats his family but they his problems only appear in secret. His obsession with schedules and perfection impacts heavily on his family. Diana is nervous and completed isolated by his need for control. She is not allowed friends or a job and has to be a perfect middle class wife. Seymour is constantly worrying about what others might think, about whether his wife is seeing the wrong sort of people or whether she might be tempted into an affair. He places so much pressure on Byron expecting him to be a little man who watches his mother and does well at school. Byron must study hard, appear tidy and presentable and have the right sort of friends. Seymour imagines that Byron will be well educated, go to Oxbridge and become a professional. He wants his family to be perfect and they all keep their accident from him because of fear.

Diana is a nervous woman who is constantly vigilant for signs that she is failing her husband's very high standards. When she makes friends with Beverley it is so taboo that she has to remove every trace of her before Seymour comes home at the weekend. She pressures Byron to lie about who has been to the house and where the mysterious blank stubs have come from in the family cheque book. When Diana realises the implications of the accident she begins to come apart at the seams; her schedule falters, she begins to wear different clothes and appears unkempt. The closer Seymour comes to finding out her big mistake she starts to drink and not get out of bed. This causes even more pressure to be placed upon Byron who enlists his friend to help get the family out of this difficult situation without telling his father. His friend draws up 'Operation Perfect' and is on the end of the phone daily taking transcripts of conversations and making diagrams. Byron chooses this friend because he is so particular and seems to know so much about grown-up things. He is the one who talks to Byron about the two-seconds because he is interested in time, but he also likes to wonder about life and what is real; he reads articles on whether the moon landings were fakes and on time simply being a concept. He becomes drawn further and further into Byron's world and worries about Byron's beautiful but very fragile mother.

In the present day Jim is frightened of the bold and loud woman who cooks at the cafe. She is called Eileen and he is fascinated by her flame red hair and loud laugh. Eileen swears a lot, walks up the customer stairs instead of the staff stairs and generally ignores all the rules. When she is fired Jim is sorry he won't see her again but then another chance accident brings her back into his life. Whereas Jim has obvious problems Eileen's issues are hidden by her brazen attitude and loud personality. As he overcomes his fear to get to know her he finds that she is hiding a deep well of sadness that won't go away. Eileen's daughter went missing and never returned several years ago and this loss is very raw. Everyone has the wrong idea about her and Jim starts getting to know this softer side, that is so fragile it is never seen by others. The descriptions of Jim's past in Besley Hill where he suffered electric shock treatment for his breakdown and was abandoned by his family are heartbreaking.

This was an interesting book that was sad but hopeful too. It seems to say that we need to allow ourselves to be open even if we are frightened and hurting. It showed that even the most respectable person from the best family can suffer from mental health problems and how it can be passed from parent to child in many different ways. Seymour is so buttoned up because of the way he was treated by his own father, but instead of being open and asking for help he becomes cold and strict creating anxiety in his own son. I found the detail of how the character's felt very moving and realistic. The inner monologues were beautifully written and I was so attached to the character of Jim, probably because he reminds me of individuals I have worked with. Through Jim the author explores the idea that every person, no matter how different they seem, has the same hopes and dreams for their life as anyone else. It showed how subtle differences like money, class and control over those around you can keep people from seeing you as mentally ill. The very expectations we place upon people in society act as controls and deterrents against appearing different. Byron's school friends has one of the most insightful ideas when he explores the concept of time as a construct. It is good to remember sometimes that time was a concept dreamed up by men and that outside of time and other societal controls we still exist. Diana and Jim probably come closest to being free by understanding that all people are the same and by communing with nature either around the pond or for Jim out on the moor. On the moor concepts like time and schedules become meaningless because the moor is timeless and endless. Jim sits out there and feels the grass, feeling the wind and listening to the sounds of nature and feels more grounded and at one with the world than when he is at home and fenced in by societal expectation and the rituals he has had to create in order to cope with it.

Perfect is a very meaningful book disguised inside easily accessible characters and dialogue. I loved it and I will now be reading The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry before her new novel comes out.

The Fortune Hunter by Daisy Goodwin

I was lucky enough to be sent a pre-publication copy of The Fortune Hunter via Twitter. I had never read Daisy Goodwin's novels just her collections of poetry so this was a first for me and I was pleasantly surprised.

I like historical fiction and love the Victorian period particularly so what caught my imagination first were the historical details. I love clothes so the intricate descriptions of Victorian clothing for the women in the novel were very enjoyable. The detail of protocol was interesting too; when and where certain clothing was worn and the class hierarchy were all fascinating and accurate. In a world where the only detailed protocol we still use is probably at our weddings it is amazing to think that this is how the upper classes lived their everyday lives. Having studied Victorian art as well as literature I was fascinated with the details of the heroine Charlotte Baird's hobby of photography and then gradually I fell in love with Charlotte herself.


Charlotte is an heiress of the Lennox fortune and is a target for fortune hunters everywhere. Far from being the usual simpering Victorian heroine Charlotte is more of a bluestocking girl. She is educated and very intelligent. Instead of being caught up in the social whirlwind favoured by her brother and sister-in-law Charlotte does not much care for clothes, parties or the famous Lennox diamonds she owns but does care passionately for her hobby of photography. Meanwhile her brother and his wife engage in the social life she dislikes as the guardians of her fortune they live from the interest until Charlotte marries and takes the reins for herself (or more likely her husband does). At a party Charlotte meets the handsome and infamous Bay Middleton who is a horseman, hunter and famous playboy in his social set. They seem an unlikely match but Bay is drawn to Charlotte's quiet manner and intelligence. She is not a great beauty so those around her are very keen to protect her from what they see as fortune hunting. Yet Bay seems sincere about his fondness for Charlotte until a rival appears on the scene. It is not easy when your rival is the Empress of Austria.

Elizabeth (known as Sisi to close friends) was married when she was 16 to the Emperor of Austria. They had nothing in common but Eizabeth soon became known as one of the most beautiful and fashionable woman in 19th Century Europe. Her passion in life is riding and she arrives in England for the hunting season with a string of ponies and huge household. She cannot be rivalled in the hunting field but in England she does not know the terrain. Worried that she will lose her way or at worst, take a bad fall, it is suggested she should have a 'pilot'. A pilot is like a guardian who hunts alongside her, making sure she knows the way and getting her home safely. Bay Middleton is in a rest period before attempting his life's ambition to win the Grand National and he is suggested for the role with the Empress. On the day of the hunt and for their first glimpse of the royal visitor Charlotte has set up her camera. She aims to capture the hunt in all their glory and is also tempted to take a photo of the Empress who is renowned for her hatred of photographs. Sisi knows she is not the unmarked beauty she was ten years ago and is at great pains to salvage her complexion by swathing her face in veal during the night. Charlotte takes a shot which the Empress deflects by holding up her fan, but the photo shows something else; Bay's face shows his immediate and total enchantment with Sisi. The photograph has the potential to break Charlotte's heart.

This book has the ability to grab you and keep you reading. I started one day and read right through to finish the following night. I missed sleep to find out what would happen to Charlotte. The book has just enough detail to anchor you totally in the upper class Victorian circle depicted without bogging the reader down in swathes of description. It moved quickly and had me rooting for Charlotte all the way through because I felt a kinship with her; not quite beautiful, but patient, kind and modestly talented it is hard not to like her. By contrast Sisi is exposed as a frightened and spoiled woman who is used to getting what she wants without having to fight for it. She is worried about losing her looks and this is her main frailty. Sisi needs Bay in a way Charlotte does not; Sisi is fragile and melancholy and needs something to break the suffocating formality of her role whereas Charlotte, though heartbroken, has a plan to survive and live life her own way. I would say that the character of Bay loses out to the women in the novel. He is not as vividly drawn as the Empress and I didn't feel anything for him. I started to feel sorry for the Empress even as I disliked her and Charlotte infuriated me with the passive way she was dealing with Bay's obvious affair with the royal visitor. Despite being shamed publicly by Bay's behaviour she keeps her cool right up to the point of the exhibition at the academy and the displaying of that photograph. I won't reveal the end, only to say that I half wished to read about Charlotte's adventures as a photographer and pioneer in the USA!

The Missing One by Lucy Atkins

I have raced through the book over a couple of days because I was dying to find out what happened back in the 1970s to Elena and Susannah. A terrifying and traumatic event links these two women until the present day and it can’t stay a secret for ever. In the present is Elena’s daughter Kali, who has just lost her mother to breast cancer a mother she could never make sense of or bond with as she wanted.

Lucy Atkins

In the aftermath of Elena’s death, Kali is trying to make sense of her difficult relationship with her mother when she finds a hidden pile of postcards from a woman called Susannah in her mother’s things. Thinking she has found the clue to her mother’s past she pursues this woman to find out about events leading up to her birth and a family history that has resolutely stayed hidden. Driven forward by grief and the worry that her husband is having an affair Kali takes her son Finn on an odyssey to find her mother and herself. She has many theories about what she might find: maybe her father had an affair; maybe Susannah was his lover or her mother’s. Yet, what she finds is something she never suspected. Set against the backdrop of wild North America and Canada we learn about a woman’s quest to understand the Orca. Distressed by witnessing the killer whales at Seaworld in California while doing her PhD, a young Elena leaves everything to record killer whale pods in the ocean. The Seaworld orca gave birth to a calf that was so disorientated by his tiny tank he kept banging himself against the glass trying to navigate through echolocation. His desperate mother keeps pushing him away from the sides to protect him from damage, but in her efforts to protect she forgets to nurture and the calf dies because she has forgotten to feed him. Kali was similarly starved of nurturing by her mother because she was so intent instead on protecting her from this awful secret.

The novel is an incredible insight into relations between mothers and daughters. Kali’s sister Alice has a great relationship with her mother that seems easy, whereas Kali and Elena clash over everything. Kali sees that her mother finds her hard to nurture and believes it is her fault. It takes putting herself in danger to find out why and in finding out she also discovers that essential piece of the jigsaw that tells her who she is and grounds her in a history. The novel shows how when you become a mother it becomes more important than ever to know where you are from and how you belong. It also shows how the secrets of one generation have a huge impact on the next, even if the secret is kept with the best of intentions. The book cleverly shows the difference between generations since we have now moved into a world where we put our own lives on show for fun. In a world where counselling and therapy are becoming the norm it is no longer seen as acceptable to keep such huge secrets and we know as post-Freudians what effect those early years of parenting have on the adult we become.

Aside from the complex human relationships are the family ties within the Orca families. We see how there are resident pods and transient pods with different feeding habits and rules to abide by. It is also clear that parallels can be drawn between the whale relationships and the human ones. Elena is so moved by their mothering instincts and the possibilities to map their language and understand their emotions.  She gives up everything to spend as much time with them as she possibly can even going to sleep on her floathouse with the sounds of whales drifting up from a microphone in the water. I learned so much about these incredible creatures without losing the majesty of them and the awe a human being feels when a huge tail rises up out of the water next to their boat.

The book reads as a dissection of family relationships, a thriller, a study of whales and a study of grief. Grief causes Elena to suffer with depression throughout her life, grief traumatises Susannah to the extent that she is unbalanced by the things she has witnessed and it is grief that compels Kali to jump on a plane to Vancouver with nothing but a few postcards and the internet to go on. I struggled to put the novel down because of the thriller element. Like a good crime novel, you desperately want to know the truth of who- dunnit. Yet it is those final chapters I like best, after everything is resolved and each character is living in the aftermath of exposed secrets and recovery from physical and mental injury. The novel could have ended there and I am glad that it went further, back into Elena’s past so that we can see her happy on her floathouse making coffee and then hearing those whales come to greet her. As a widow of eight years I found those final words of Elena’s deeply moving:

She would go back to that throughout her life, right to the very end. But the last time, when the world had shrunken to the contours of her skin and she leaned over the railings, it wasn’t the whales that she saw in the water. And so she jumped.

It made me very hopeful for whoever might greet me when that time comes.

my missing one

Guilty Pleasures

I was asked a few weeks ago on Twitter what was my favourite beach read. I don't know the difference between a beach read and any other read; I guess it depends upon whether you want it to be relaxing or whether you like to be challenged with something meaty while lying on the beach. It depends what you do in your work time I guess. I read a few other answers before I replied and was interested to see a lot of beach reads described in the following terms; trashy, easy, throwaway, and 'airport' reads. I saw some described as 'guilty pleasures'.

I have heard this term applied to music, in fact I have a CD in the car marked as 'guilty treasures' and I use it to annoy my friend as we drive down to Cornwall. It is a fun mix of Girls Aloud, Kylie, Justin Timberlake, Britney, Christina Aguilera and other artists that drive her mad. It is not my usual listening. I certainly wouldn't buy a whole album of it. Yet, in the car and on holiday I sing a long to the pop and enjoy myself immensely. I feel the term had to be invented by people scared of being written off by music snobs. Those people who apparently see it as their God given right to criticise other people's musical taste and who go to concerts to nod and rub their chins a lot in a pseudo intellectual way. I think the term is being applied to literature in the same way and I don't like it. All reading is reading - apart from Fifty Shades of Grey which is an abomination to reading and feminism alike. It is a similar snobbery that labels some authors as chick-lit in my local WH Smiths. I am currently writing a whole blog on this so I won't go crazy here except to say that who decided that male writers have the position of being literary fiction and some women authors are relegated to chick-lit shelves where candy pink covers reign supreme never mind the contents. Some women authors - Jojo Moyes, Kate Morton, Adele Parks, Helen Fielding, Marian Keyes - are completely dumbed down by publishers, when I can't distinguish some of their novels from their so-called literary counterparts.

I don't think anyone should be made to feel bad because of what they read. I even defend your right to read Fifty Shades if you must. I think there is far too much snobbery in the literary world and if you are reading it, and enjoying then that's your business. I don't know why we have to define them as holiday reads or guilty pleasures before other people can accept our liking of them. I noticed so many 'beach reads' being presented in terms that are often used when we do the other thing we are not allowed to do anymore - eating cakes or chocolate. I read the phrases 'I'm often naughty with my summer reading', 'I'm going to splurge, binge, over do it' and even 'I read loads of literary fiction lately so I deserve it'. Who are these reading police that we're all sucking up to?

So for all of you scared, under the bedclothes, readers out there I am going to come out and say I read all sorts of novels defined as tacky, easy, trashy, junk and I really do enjoy them. I think it goes back to raiding my mother's book shelves for Judith Krantz or Shirley Conran novels. They were called 'bonkbusters' because of the sex, but also because of their size and that size is not due to being padded out with the same sex scene over and over again. There is a story and one or two strong female heroines between those trashy covers. I'm thinking of Lace where a girl is looking for her mother among a group of four friends who all have great jobs, great friendships and secrets in their past. Similarly Krantz's Scruples and the sequels centre around Billy Ikehorn who creates a huge women's fashion store and catalogue in LA. She works hard, gets married a lot and is a damn good read. Other heroines are either publishing magnates, advertising execs, directors, designers, writers or artists. They travel the world and meet incredibly different men and build strong bonds with other women that last a lifetime. They may be thought of as trashy but at least the women are ballsy and ambitious!

A later favourite, described as rollicking good romps, are the novels of Jilly Cooper. They may have wandered off a little lately but those early Rupert Campbell Black novels are glorious fun. The novels Riders, Rivals and Polo were introduced to me in sixth form and any book where nude tennis is being played is a must read to a 16 year old! Jilly Cooper is a great writer dismissed by critics completely but nonetheless incredibly popular. Riders introduces us to Rupert Campbell Black the devastatingly sexy show jumper from Rutshire (of course) and his exploits as he goes around the world showjumping for England. I learnt just as much about horses as I did about sex in these novels where the women play and work as hard as the men. of course it takes a completely subservient woman to tame RCB but I'll forgive her that. The books are witty, even hilarious in parts, with inventive sex scenes and interesting characters. Rivals moved into the world of television and a group bidding for a local TV franchise. Polo is probably the best of the three with its central character being the haughty but beautiful Perdita who was conceived at a 60's orgy and now wants to be a polo player. She has an incredible ability to ride and through her we see the glamorous world of the polo player from the Home Counties to Argentina, the Far East and Los Angeles. Perdita has to be as good if not better than the men and although she's a spoiled brat you can't help hoping she'll do it. Later books focus around the satanic conductor Ranaldini and we are taken into the world of the orchestra and making a film from an opera. Then Pandora takes us into the art world with Emerald who is the adopted daughter of a poor but middle class couple and is desperate to be part of the glamorous and wealthy art world. The book follows her trying to find her father and takes us through 1960's London art scene to the YBA era of Damien Hurst and Tracey Emin. All of her books are chunky, fun reads that you'll get through in a couple of days on holiday.

My holiday reading this year has veered between what would be considered more literary fiction such as Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist, to comic novels such as Caitlin Moran's How to Build a Girl, and Lucy Atkin's thriller The Missing One. I'm not sure we can define beach reading any more than we can define what is a guilty pleasure. Lets stop trying to intellectualise reading and just enjoy it,