Great Summer Reading 2015: Rosanna’s Reviews

I recently read an article about negative criticism, and how authors feel about bad reviews. Terrible, obviously. But this is the real world and it’s unrealistic to expect that everyone will love what we write. Thankfully, readers are all different and what one reader loves, another may loathe. Should such bad reviews be posted in the first place though? Probably not if they’re unfair or nasty. But everyone is entitled to their opinion. If the reviewer is a real person who has read the book then I guess they are entitled to their voice. On the other hand, reviewers should remember that (most) authors work very hard and it can be heartbreaking to feel that someone is destroying that with one thoughtless review. For myself, I try to give an honest opinion of a book and some idea of genre and style within a short and subjective review. I try to appreciate the positives over the negatives, but if I haven’t liked the ending for example or the way a book is structured, I will say. If I love it, I will also say.

As a writer I expect a mix of reviews. But I am thrilled by the good ones. It’s amazing when readers love one of your novels and post a review about it. Constructive reviews are good too. How else can we try to do better? And so…

Amy Snow by Tracy Rees

Amy Snow is a character who captures the reader’s imagination immediately. We are drawn to her and her situation; found naked in the snow as a newborn, she is taken in but not fully accepted by the grand Vennaway family and she proceeds to go on a long journey, aided and abetted by her great friend Aurelia. Tracy Rees tells Amy’s story with great wit and imagination. Her writing is fresh and original while the mysteries of how Amy came into the world and what happened to Aurelia are gradually revealed through the ‘treasure hunt’ and rites of passage that readers embark on along with Amy. The world of the 1830s and 1840s with its class system and balance of power is delicately and authentically drawn and is thoroughly convincing. A delightful novel.

 

The Italian Wife by Kate Furnivall

I read this novel while I was in Naples – how perfect was that? Because Kate Furnivall writes with all the senses as she captures the tastes and flavours of Italy – the landscape, the food, the architecture. The book begins with drama. Architect Isabella Berotti is drinking coffee in the town square of Bellina – the striking new town she has helped to build in 1932 when Mussolini’s power was at its strongest – when she is approached by a woman she has never met. The woman simply asks Isabella if she will watch her daughter for a moment. It seems an innocent request – but it begins a chain of dramatic events which take Isabella back to face the demons of her past as she discovers that some secrets are more dangerous than she could ever have imagined. The drama in this novel is compelling and it is historically fascinating too. Sweeping, sensual and overwhelmingly romantic, I would certainly recommend this novel for a cracking escapist read.

 

The State We’re In by Adele Parks

I like Adele Parks’s style of writing – she’s such a talented author. But I have to admit that I struggled a bit with this novel, at least at the start. I got confused with all the different viewpoints and characters and had to keep going back to check who was who and how they were connected. In a way this is the point of this book – random connections (which unfortunately tends to mean coincidences) and different perspectives on the same situation. Which actually I find fascinating. Because of this and because of the skill of the writing, I enjoyed the book, especially once I got past the first third and understood who everyone was. OK, the main character of Jo is annoying at times – but you can see how she got to be how she is, and this is a lesson on parenting as much as anything else. The character of Dean was very well drawn. Eddie was unredeemingly selfish and this was stressed throughout so it was pretty hard to empathise with him. Clara seemed too good to be true so it was a relief when she decided to ‘come clean’ and be true to herself, though the ending of her story was disappointing. One would hope that it is not too late (in your fifties) to start a new life following a life-changing event/ decision. Ah well. I have to admit that although I enjoyed reading and was gripped at times, I was disappointed by the ending of the main story too. I remain however an Adele Parks fan.

 

The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jefferies

Another romance, another exotic location and thankfully much more to it than that. (I can talk, eh?) In this latest novel – her second – Dinah Jefferies explores the theme of white prejudice in colonial Ceylon, but also the struggles between internal indigenous races and some of the problems that can occur between a husband and wife. The life of a tea planter’s wife sounds easy going on many levels, but Gwen is young, naive and has to contend with a difficult sister in law, a moody husband, a woman who may still be in  love with that husband, and a native household who like to go their own way. Gwen is an authentic character – she has both strengths and vulnerabilities – and is soon put into a position that would test even the strongest woman. It is how she deals with this as a mother and wife, how she finds out what she needs to know about the secrets of the past and how the fortunes of the tea planter changed in the 1920s and 30s (on a more worldly level) which are at the core of this authentically written and vividly descriptive novel.

 

Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey

Gosh. I fell rather in love with both the heroes of this novel – both in the contemporary story (Will) and in the past story too (Dan). Especially Dan. Do men like this really exist???

OK, on to the book. It’s written using letters as you might expect. The past story seems to be the heart of the novel and it unfolds using both Stella’s viewpoint and the letters written to her by Dan. Stella is slightly irritating but very much an authentic woman of her time; even so, I couldn’t quite see why someone as amazing as Dan would be so smitten with her… The past story is sad, poignant, believable and frustrating, all at the same time, which testifies to Iona Grey’s skill as a novelist. Her research is also in evidence (in a good way) and the wartime setting is detailed and authentic. The present story is necessary because of the way the story is structured, but for me, it didn’t have the same strength and poignancy. (Perhaps that would have been too much?). Jess was again not as lovable as Will, but together they got nicely involved with the past story which did take up most of the book.

This book was beautifully written. Definitely one that I will be recommending.

Rosanna Ley June 2015

Dear Saffron Trail

Well, we’ve come to publication day at last and you know what this means. It’s been a long road. It started at the beginning of June 2013 when I first decided I wanted to write about saffron – I didn’t even know the most mysterious and exotic spice of them all came from a crocus at that point. The trail continued through the initial ideas – deciding I wanted to explore female friendship and the father/ son relationship for example – and early bits of research. (I couldn’t concentrate on you properly at that stage as I was still working on your older sibling doing revisions on ‘Return to Mandalay’). You were there though nevertheless. Growing.

But the first real spark came when I went to Morocco. In order to write about it, any setting has to draw you in, make you fascinated by the culture, the history, the landscape – and I was. The maze of the Marrakech medina seemed to echo the tangled relationships that were already forming in my head and which would become the main contemporary plot of the novel, whilst the hippie laid-back atmosphere of Essaouira fitted in perfectly with my emerging ideas for the 1960s sub plot. The saffron farm in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains had the tranquillity I’d hoped for and the visit to the waterfall gave me a new idea about transformations…

And so the writing began. It was October 2013 by now. More research came up – about the Vietnam War, about Bridport when the GIs came to town in World War 2, about Moroccan design, architecture and cuisine… But throughout, saffron remained the most important element in the book. I got in touch with Dr Sally Francis who runs the Norfolk Saffron Farm http://www.norfolksaffron.co.uk/ and I started doing my own cooking with saffron. Meanwhile the story – your story – began to take shape.

Suddenly it was late spring 2014. How did that happen? The first draft was completed, the cover had been chosen, the stories were interwoven, and it was time to send you off to lovely agent and lovely editor in the hope that they liked you. The revisions were done in the summer, the copy editing and proof reading in the autumn. By then I was working on the next novel, but you refused to be forgotten. And the following spring the pre-publication publicity work began… It was March 2015 and you were about to come into the world.

And now here we are. It’s May. We’ve had your launch party in Bridport, we’ve had your publication day celebrations in London and it’s time for us to say goodbye. You’ll always be close to my heart but you belong to the readers now. Thank you. Good luck. Have fun. I hope you are everything I wanted you to be.

Love from Rosanna xxx

Three great books that I have read in the past few months and enjoyed… Happy Spring Reading!

We are Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

It’s always refreshing to read a surprising book and this is one! It’s also thought-provoking and tackles a big subject: is it ethical to use animals in experimentation for either medical research or to increase our knowledge of their behaviour? Furthermore, is it ethical to use certain means to try and stop such research? Whilst most commentary on this subject focuses on the psychological effects on the animals, this story focuses on the psychological effects on the human beings involved in the experiment. Karen Joy Fowler uses a first person narrator and a ‘journal style’ conversational approach which makes the subject personal and accessible. As a child, Rosemary the narrator never stopped talking; as a young woman, she has protected herself with silence. What happened to make her this way? Naturally, the reader wants to find out. I also liked the way in which the author plays with structure and tells the reader why. She starts with the middle and works backwards and then forwards; backwards and then forwards until (somehow) the end. This sounds confusing but it isn’t. The technique ensures in fact that we see the personal relationships first, before we understand the background, underlining which is the most important for the author. Brilliant characterisation and an interesting and multi-layered read. Highly recommended.

The Accident by CL Taylor

This story has a forceful beginning which draws the reader in; indeed the author makes good use of narrative tension throughout. If you are looking for suspense along the lines of novels such as ‘Gone Girl’ then this is one for you. Various plot steps and new disclosures increase the pace and drama of the story and underlying the developing narrative lays the secret held by Charlotte, the subject of ‘The Accident’, the girl in a coma. The contemporary story hinges on this, whilst also charting the former life and relationships of Charlotte’s mother, the narrator, Sue, which have led to her current mental and emotional fragility. The author uses a dual narrative structure with a twenty year lapse between the two, using Sue’s diaries from the 1990s to parallel the reading of Charlotte’s diary in present time, to provide some insight into what has happened to her daughter. The reader travels the journey of discovery alongside Sue, whom I found slightly implausible and irritating at times. Nevertheless, the exploration of the abusive relationship she suffered is penetrating and authentic and the excellence of the pace and tension creates great suspense. The core of this story is as compelling as they come and this reader was gripped and had to read on!

Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain

I thought at first that this book had no connection to what I was writing (my book is set in Cuba and Bristol, this one in North Carolina) but the main theme of this novel is power and the abuse of that power, with reference to poor families – often black – working for a wealthy landowner on a tobacco plantation, to so called ‘modern marriages’ of the 1960s and last but not least to the Eugenics programme of sterilisation which was used by North Carolina’s welfare state at that time. This theme of power and abuse very much echoes one of my own current themes, so I read the book with particular interest.

Diane Chamberlain takes the viewpoint of two women who seem to be very different – certainly in the circumstances of their lives – but who in fact have life stories with many parallels. Perhaps because of this, and because of their needs and situations, they gradually form a close bond. Fifteen-year-old Ivy – an epileptic herself – cares for her aging grandmother, struggles with the mental illness of her older sister, and looks after her young nephew in a household battling to survive. Jane Forrester, an inexperienced social worker and newly married to a successful doctor, becomes emotionally involved with her clients’ lives and risks losing everything as she discovers the dark secrets that have been kept hidden on the tobacco farm.

What I loved most about the book was the close attention to detail – especially in the description of the minutiae of their lives – and the skilled way in which the author gradually reveals the background of their stories. Plus, the plot-line is intensely gripping; you simply have to know what will happen to them both. My one criticism would be the slight sentimentality of the ending – this felt less than authentic; certainly not likely – but having said that, there is a part of me that likes to have all the ends tied! However, the writing is fluid and compelling and the characterisation excellent. Highly recommended.