Book review: A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar, by Suzanne Joinson

 

A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar, by Suzanne Joinson

 

This is a review of the book A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar, by Suzanne Joinson. The novel follows the story of a female missionary in Kashgar in 1923, interwoven with a thirty-something woman’s search for self in present-day London.

I found this a fascinating read. Both stories hooked me in quite early, though I confess I found the story of present-day Frieda slightly more engaging. This is very likely because it was more relatable to a woman of similar age living in the same period, but it doesn’t make Evangeline, the writer-come-missionary, any less interesting. It was interesting to see how two quite disparate tales could have so many things in common, and it was quite some time before I made the connection of how they could possibly be joined into one story.

The amount of research that must have gone into this novel is staggering. To have the level of detail present in 1920s Kashgar (and elsewhere on the Silk Road) that’s given is incredible, but it doesn’t go to waste – the picture painted of the desert city ninety years ago, and the attitudes and behaviour of its inhabitants, gives a really vivid impression of what it must have been like.  Evangeline’s mix of naiveté and worldliness is also fascinating, but totally believable given her background; things which seem obvious to a 21st century reader are a mystery to her, but there is also a keen understanding of human nature which shines through and helps give her her strength.

Equally, Frieda’s story is full of vivid details that make it come alive and her adventures with Tayeb, the Yemeni refugee who she finds sleeping in her doorway one night, are symptomatic of someone who is still trying to find her way in life. I loved her confusion at inheriting the possessions of Irene Guy, an old woman she’s never heard of, and her attempts at working out the connection between them and of looking after the owl she finds in Irene Guy’s flat.

If there is anything that didn’t quite work for me, it is probably the myriad of minor characters who sprinkle both tales. Because the Kashgar and London stories are told in alternate chapters, they don’t flow as smoothly as they could and sometimes I had to find myself flicking back a chapter or three to work out who Evangeline (or Frieda) was referring to and what their role was. Once I had that sorted out, though, I had little trouble following either woman’s journey.

Overall, it is an epic tale of self discovery, happening over two centuries in two different continents. Both women learn a lot about their place in the worlds along the way, and both women eventually find themselves in situations in which, for once, they feel comfortable, their stories becoming inextricably interwoven along the way. If you like reading well-written, touching stories about adventurous women in very different circumstances, this book is for you.

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A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar, by Suzanne Joinson
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
374 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as hardcover, paperback and e-book

 

Book review: Ada’s Rules, by Alice Randall

Ada’s Rules, by Alice Randall

 

This is a review of the book Ada’s Rules, by Alice Randall. The novel focuses on Ada Howard, a middle-aged preacher’s wife in the American south, who is invited to a college reunion and uses that as the catalyst for a weight-loss campaign.

This is a journey of self-discovery more than anything. Ada fears that her husband is having an affair, and the promise of seeing an old flame at the reunion has her considering doing the same for the first time. In the twelve months that the book covers, she learns much about herself, her friends, her family and her husband, and comes out at the end a much happier woman.

I wasn’t able to relate to all of Ada’s journey. For one thing, I’m one of the few Western women who has never gone on a weight-loss binge, but then again I have a lot of friends who have so it wasn’t wholly foreign. For another, her weight was always counted in pounds. For someone who grew up on metric, I was forever having to translate her weight into kilograms in my head so I had some idea of what her progress was. These aren’t terminal problems by any means, but they did diminish my enjoyment of the book somewhat.

The other thing that was new to me, though I was happy to learn, was the aspects of African American culture that featured so heavily in the narrative. The group of women who lunched in white-owned restaurants once a month to prove to themselves (and others) that it was acceptable for them to do so was an eye-opener for me, and it reminded me that many of these battles are far from over, even fifty years after the civil rights movement. I also wasn’t aware – and this is key to the diet theme – that there is a strong “big is beautiful” belief about the female form, and that many women choose to be larger-figured because it affords them more respect and self-belief.

The book was structured well, too. Each of the chapters is titled by one of the “rules” Ada sticks with in her journey, such as “Don’t keep doing what you’ve always been doing”, “Manage portion sizes”, or “Create your own spa day”, all of which correspond to that part of her journey. Then at the end there is a chapter called “How to use my, Ada Howard’s, novel as a diet book”, which I thought was an innovative way of tying the narrative with a greater objective. As a book, it fits itself well – which I suppose is appropriate given the theme.

Ada’s Rules is an enjoyable, easy read which handles some very sensitive issues with grace and tact. It’s easy to pick up and hard to put down, and leaves the reader feeling satisfied – and (for me at least) also that they’ve learned something. Overall, it’s a well written insight into southern America and into the mind of an intelligent yet somewhat insecure heroine. I believe it’s well worth looking at.

 

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Ada’s Rules, by Alice Randall
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
342 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as hardcover

Book review: I am an Executioner, by Rajesh Parameswaran

 

I am an Executioner, by Rajesh Parameswaran

This is a review of the book I am an Executioner, by Rajesh Parameswaran, a series of short stories purporting to be about love. I say “purporting” because, while they are indeed love stories – even if you stretch the definition somewhat – I found the title of the book very revealing, because most of them seemed to be as much about death as they did love. In addition, while love did feature heavily as a theme, romantic love did not, so using the term “love stories” on the front cover could be interpreted as being misleading.

The stories are in many ways disturbing. As a mother with a baby, I had trouble reading the first story from the POV of an escaped tiger and its treatment of the “human cub” it comes across. The story of the repressed wife who goes to Thanksgiving dinner with her husband dead on the living room floor is, again, something out of my comfort zone. But then again, this isn’t a bad thing, and I find it helpful to leave my comfort zone occasionally. The tone was helped by the liberal helpings of humour, often black and certainly always dark, but nonetheless there, which was a welcome distraction. There is perhaps an over-reliance of the experiences of Asian migrants living in the United States, which is part of Parameswaran’s own story, but then again if one does not write what one knows – to some extent at least – then the work can come off feeling contrived and unbelievable. These stories, even those from the perspective of animals, are neither of those.

My one criticism is that some of the stories felt unfinished. Four Rajeshes I thought was too open at the end, and Elephants in Captivity (Part One) did feel like it would have benefited from Part Two and perhaps even Part Three. Even the final tale, On the Banks of the Table River, left a little too much unanswered for my taste. Perhaps Parameswaran’s writing is too subtle for my palate, which is certainly possible, but it did leave a sense of vague dissatisfaction upon completion of the book.

That said, however, it is an exceptional first collection of short stories. They are well written, original, inventive and ultimately believable, if occasionally unnerving, and are certainly not the bland tales which one may expect from a debut author. Ultimately, if you are looking for a collection which will stay with you long after you finished the last word, then I am an Executioner is a book for you.

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I am an Executioner, by Rajesh Parameswaran
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
260 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as ebook or paperback

 

Book review: Life! Death! Prizes! by Stephen May

 

Life! Death! Prizes! by Stephen May

 

This is a review of the book Life! Death! Prizes! by Stephen May. The novel follows the experiences of nineteen year old Billy Smith, who is faced with looking after his six year old brother Oscar after the sudden death of their mother. The book takes its name from those magazines which ask readers to contribute their stories to fill pages, which are not actually called Life! Death! Prizes! but they might as well be. Billy refers to these magazines as “trauma porn”, which I suppose they are, but he devours them nonetheless. Or perhaps he devours them because of that. I leave that open.

The book is a very realistic portrayal of a teenager caught in this situation, trying to convince his aunt, Oscar’s school, social services and the world in general that he is well and truly capable of looking after his brother. The reader is less convinced, with the evidence of inappropriate television habits, random bedtimes and Billy’s strategy of, when his mother’s cashcard finally runs out, of just not paying the bills because the electricity and gas companies wouldn’t dare disconnect them, going against his confidence. He does, however, mean well, and believe he is doing the right thing, and for that we can love him.

Without wanting to give too much away, the fact that the book is in first person from Billy’s POV is used very well in misdirection. His history of Aidan Jebb, the boy who killed their mother, is convincing, and there are times when we are not sure whether we are seeing reality of some drug-induced hallucination. Billy isn’t sure, either, so I appreciate that’s the point. There are a couple of places, though, where I’m still unsure whether the misdirection is deliberate or not. For example, the bit where Billy’s attempted girlfriend Lucy is reading AA Milne to Oscar, Billy considers that a poem like that telling the story of James James Morrison Morrison wouldn’t be tolerated today, as it’s about child abduction. The thing is, of course, that it’s not about that at all (it is James James Morrison Morrison’s mother who disappears, not the boy himself), which leaves me unsure about whether it’s Billy or the author who is making this mistake.

My other criticism is about the twist at the end, which I don’t want to go into in too much detail. However, I think I can say that I didn’t really feel convinced about Billy’s intentions. While that sort of thing is touched on during the story as a whole, I didn’t get enough sense of him heading in that direction. It felt a little contrived, like he was going through the motions rather than actually being in the state of mind to carry it out. Perhaps he was; perhaps that was the point and I missed it, but I got the impression that he was serious. I just didn’t feel it.

Aside from that, it was a very touching book. The relationship between Billy and Oscar was heartwarming, and the lengths that he went to to try to keep things the way they were, much as they could be, was rather endearing. Sure, he didn’t always make the right decisions, but he was trying, and that counts for something. Well written, funny and in some cases painfully honest, it is well worth a read for anyone looking for a contemporary story about family, hope and dreams.

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Life! Death! Prizes! by Stephen May
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
245 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as ebook or paperback

 

Book review: The Namesake, by Conor Fitzgerald

The Namesake, by Conor Fitzgerald

This is a review of the book The Namesake, by Conor Fitzgerald.  The novel is an Italian crime story, and follows an American-born police commissioner, Alec Blume, as he is drawn into the world of the Calabrian mafia.

I quite enjoy crime fiction. I have a real weakness for a well-written whodunnit, and find it easy to lose myself in that atmosphere. However, I am unused to Italian crime stories, aside from the odd television series like Inspector Montalbano  and Rex in Rome. And yes, this does make a difference. For example, the judicial processes in Italy are quite different from what you would see in your usual American or British crime story, in that the judiciary are involved in the investigation from the start, rather than just the trial. For someone unfamiliar with this, it can take some getting used to.

The other thing that makes Italian crime stories different is the common inclusion of the Mafia or other organised crime. Again, if you’re familiar with how it all works and how those families go about their activities, then that’s fine … but if you’re not, it can be a little bewildering.

Of both of these there was some explanation in the glossary at the end, which was definitely welcome. For me, though, it didn’t quite go far enough – while we learnt the equivalents in the UK and US of Blume’s position in the police force, there was no explanation of exactly what role a magistrate plays in a criminal investigation. Even with my smattering of Italian television, I still don’t really understand how that works.

This is all a roundabout way of saying that there were some aspects to this book that I had trouble following. The intricacies of familial structure within the Calabrian community was a little confusing to my uninitiated mind, and at times I felt there were too many aspects to the narrative. Yes, they were all joined up and linked at the end, but it felt a little like a marathon to get them there.

That said, like all good crime fiction I did enjoy it. Trying not to ruin it for anyone with spoilers, I found the Konrad Hoffman story very enjoyable, and I liked the way we got to know those on different sides of the law, so that their actions became more understandable than they would perhaps have been otherwise. Alec Blume was an interesting character in his own right, too, and I felt a genuine sadness when he found the burnt remains of his trusty shellac-coated suitcase. I would have liked to see more of Caterina, and indeed of Matteo Arconti, the murder of whose namesake gave the story its title, but then again this is the third in a series of Alec Blume stories, so perhaps if I were to read the first two I would get more of that aspect of his life.

All in all, it was an entertaining book. When everything came together at the end it was much more satisfying than I had expected it to be, and I feel I have a much better understanding of not just the Italian police and organised crime, but of Italy itself. Sure, it wasn’t all flattering, but that made it feel all the more real and all the more believable. If you like crime novels, it’s well worth checking out.

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The Namesake, by Conor Fitzgerald
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
357 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as ebook or paperback

Book review: Alison Wonderland, by Helen Smith

Alison Wonderland, by Helen Smith

This is a review of the book Alison Wonderland, by Helen Smith.

The novel follows the adventures of Alison Temple, a twenty-something Londoner who joins the detective agency she hired to find out if her husband was cheating on her. (He was.) Tasked with finding out about a secret project near Weymouth, she finds herself involved in a complicated mix of genetic engineering, the magical properties of abandoned babies, and mistaken identity.

While an enjoyable read, the book could have, I felt, been better. Alison’s sections were narrated in first person, so when the POV changed to a different character (eg, the intriguingly-named Ella Fitzgerald, head of the detective agency; her brother Clive; or Mr Bird or Mr Flowers, who were trying to hide the experimentation Alison was investigating) and switched to third person, it was a bit distracting. I felt that if Alison was in first person, then it should have been all her story – and if we were going to use the POVs of other characters then maybe it should all have been in third.

Having said that, the characters were second to none. Alison, her somewhat flaky friend Taron, lovesick neighbour Jeff, Ella, Clive, even the farmer they caught on the hillside with the shig – they were all well developed and with clear motivations. I admit I didn’t necessarily relate to Alison or Taron, possibly because of the casual drug culture they adhered to. Equally, I couldn’t understand how Alison could suddenly be looking after an abandoned baby with no one asking questions about how she got it or where it came from. However, I was willing to overlook that in the interests of poetic licence – it is, after all, a work of fiction.

I was also amused by the tizzy that Messrs Bird and Flowers got themselves into over Alison’s investigations, when really she didn’t have a clue what they were up to. Stealing what they thought was her address book and roughing up someone else’s friends was a nice touch, as was Jeff and his role in the whole affair. Overall, though, it felt like the book promised more than it delivered. There were amusing parts, but as a narrative it felt a little confused and disjointed.

I did enjoy Alison Wonderland. It was fun, lively and entertaining, and the mental image left from Alison and Taron’s visit to the fertility site on the hillside will stay in my mind for a long time. For a debut novel, it ticked a lot of the boxes and certainly made for a good afternoon’s reading. I just felt that it could have been better.

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Alison Wonderland, by Helen Smith
Published by Amazon Encore
201 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as ebook or paperback

Book review: The Mountain, by Drusilla Modjeska

The Mountain, by Drusilla Modjeska

This is a review of the book The Mountain, by Drusilla Modjeska.

Drusilla Modjeska is a highly respected Australian non-fiction author, and this is her first foray into fiction. I had read a few of her earlier works (Poppy, in particular, stands out, though I also enjoyed Stravinsky’s Lunch) so to be presented with this book was like a special treat.

The story is in two parts. The first, set in 1968 and the years following, tells the story of Dutch-born photographer Rika and her English anthropologist husband Leonard, as they come to Papua New Guinea to make a film about the indigenous population, in the process falling in with the locals, both indigenous and colonial, who are making lives for themselves in this Australian colony seeking independence. The second part, set in 2005, looks at the experiences of the next generation as they try to make sense of what their country has become.

I’m hesitant to say too much because most of what I say could be considered spoilers, but at the risk of ruining things for others I will make some comments. Modjeska is very good at hinting at things without saying them outright, therefore making exposition seem more natural, but there were times that I wished she would just come out and say what she meant. The second part of the book, for example, seeks to explore why the tight friendship between Rika, Australian expat Martha and local Laedi fell apart and why Rika felt betrayed by the others, yet even when the events were revealed I still wasn’t really sure what the issue was. I had trouble with some of the clan relationships, too; Jacob and Aaron were said to be brothers, yet were from rival clans. It’s possible that this was explained away and on both my read-throughs I just missed it, but I did feel that the occasional clear explanation would have been merited.

Furthermore, I felt that the experience would have been enriched if there was more description of what the bark-cloth paintings actually entailed; how the bark-cloth was made, its texture, and maybe even a photograph of similar art on the back cover to really give the reader a feel for it. I spent much of the story trying to work out what bark-cloth actually was, and while the illustrations on the inside front and back covers give an idea, they still don’t really indicate what a work of art the finished product is.

That said, though, it was certainly a haunting book. Rika’s experiences with Aaron, her estrangement from his clan (whether real or imagined initially, it was obviously there at the end) and I could feel Jericho’s frustration in the second part as no one seemed to be able (or perhaps willing) to explain things to him. Milton’s story, for a while seeming to be there almost as comic relief, became much more poignant as the book went on, and the progress of not only Laedi and Jacob during the years of independence, but also Bili (and, across the seas, Jericho) felt only fitting to how they had been depicted in the first part. There was a real sense of place; Port Moresby, the Mountain of the title, the fjords and Collingwood Bay – I could picture them all, and almost felt I had been there. The setting, and the characters within, are nothing if not evocative. The clans, too, were real and very human, from the subjects of Leonard’s film on the Mountain, to Aaron’s family in the fjords. All had strong characters and easily understood motivations, even if their cultures were unfamiliar. In that, she did an incredible job.

Equally, the politics of the time was captured incredibly well,with the reluctance of some of the indigenous population to accept a relationship between a black man and a white woman, the violence, the move towards independence and the struggles some of those living outside the capital had in making sense of what was happening. Modjeska truly captured the feel of a country torn in two as it tries to establish itself.

All in all, The Mountain is a very well-written and researched book, and I have certainly learned much about Papua New Guinea and its history from reading it. There was something missing, however – whatever it is that makes you want to read on at any cost, that need to know more. I appreciated this book and I respect it. I only wish I could have enjoyed it more.

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The Mountain, by Drusilla Modjeska
Published by Random House Australia
432 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as ebook, or Booktopia (Australia) as paperback

Book review: The Light Between Oceans, by ML Stedman

The Light Between Oceans, by ML Stedman

This is a review of the book The Light Between Oceans, the haunting debut novel by ML Stedman.

The main thing that struck me about this book was the emphasis on choices, and the ramifications they can have. Every choice made in the book was realistic, believable and understandable, yet in some cases horrific in what they meant for others. The tagline, “a story of right and wrong, and how sometimes they look the same”, absolutely captures the essence of the book.

Without giving too much away, the story centres around Tom and Isabel Sherbourne, who maintain the lighthouse on a remote Western Australian island in 1926. One day a boat washes onshore, carrying a dead man and a crying baby, no older than two or three months. The Sherbournes, still reeling from two miscarriages and the stillbirth of a son just two weeks prior to the event, decide not to report the incident, instead burying the man and raising the child as their own. Things come to a head, though, when they discover that the mother is still alive and searching for her missing husband and daughter.

As a mother myself, I could totally understand the decision to keep the baby, especially when it seemed she had no family of her own. Equally, I can understand the birth mother’s determination to find her family no matter what. Some of the choices the characters make in this story are unbearable and would be unconscionable under any other circumstances, yet,  heart-wrenching as they are, they are also logical for the situation and within character for the people concerned.

Finally, the emotion that so charges the situation was palpable. I could feel each character’s hopes and fears, and what drew them. I was reduced to tears at the end (perhaps not a huge sign, as I cry at everything. To quote The Simpsons, my husband tells me that I cry when I do long division and have a remainder left over) as these people faced to an outcome that was ideal for no one yet had to be acceptable for everyone. This was a compromise that affected people’s lives to the core.

There were some parts of the novel that didn’t quite sit right with me, though. I was puzzled at the occasional use of present tense, as it seemed to serve no purpose and instead just distracted me from the story. In addition, there were large swathes of back story at the start that I felt might have been better incorporated in another way, so the reader didn’t feel fatigued by the weight of information. All in all, though, I thought this was an incredible book, and I am totally unsurprised that it is being released into so many markets, and there is talk of a film option. If any debut novel deserves that treatment, it’s this one.

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The Light Between Oceans, by ML Stedman
Published by Random House Australia & various international publishers
362 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as ebook or hardcover, or Booktopia (Australia) as paperback

Book review: Linked, by Hope Welsh

Linked, by Hope Welsh

This is a review of the book Linked, by Hope Welsh, a paranormal romance / thriller.

I am always a little cautious about paranormal romances, probably because of the Twilight effect – namely, that after the success of Twilight the market was flooded with teen paranormal romance titles, often of dubious quality. As a result, anything with vampires, especially, usually has me running for the hills. On that note, Linked was a pleasant surprise, with not a vampire to be seen. Evil spirits and shapeshifters, yes, but not vampires.

The book is short, and this is both a curse and a blessing.  A blessing because it’s refreshing to have a well thought-out story expressed with so few superfluous words and scenes; a curse because I felt that some aspects of it should have been fleshed out more.  The romance aspect, without giving too much away, felt a little rushed – while a connection like that in the short space of time in which the story takes place doesn’t bother me in itself, I didn’t really feel the relationship. Perhaps if more space was allocated to the feelings of the characters, their yearnings, confusion, maybe even fighting against the surprising strength of their attachment, it would have felt more convincing.

In addition, I would have liked more exposition about the evil spirit that is stalking the heroine, because that also felt underdone. Perhaps more elaboration on the spirit’s history and why it took the prophecy so seriously might have helped.  I quite liked the lack of information at the start because it felt more mysterious and made me want to read more, but by the end I still felt that spelling it out more would have been useful. As this is the first book in a series, though, it’s likely that I just need to read more books to find out what I thought was missing.  :)

That said, though, it was an entertaining read – easy, engrossing and well written. The story was well thought out and had enough suspense for me to keep turning the pages (or hitting the “next page” button on my kindle – but you know what I mean) to find out what happened next. The characters were solid and believable and the premise well thought out. If you are looking for a decent, quick read with a bit of suspense and paranormal themes, I can recommend this book wholeheartedly.

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Linked, by Hope Welsh
Published by ROM On Line
136 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as ebook or paperback