Reading for the Rain

Yes, this winter it has rained – a lot. So what better reason could you find for settling down with a good book or two? These are the books I have been enjoying while it’s been raining outside…

Breaking the Silence by Diane Chamberlain ****

Chamberlain’s writing is always deep and thought-provoking and this novel is no exception.

Laura Brandon, successful astronomer, lives with her young daughter Emma and her husband Ray. Ray is not Emma’s biological father; he was a friend who offered to marry Laura when she was pregnant and wanted to keep the baby, but felt vulnerable and insecure.

Just before Laura’s father Carl dies, at the start of this story, he asks Laura to look after Sarah Tolley, a woman she has never heard him mention before, who lives in a nearby retirement home. Laura starts visiting her, to respect his dying wish, despite being warned off by her husband, her husband’s brother and later, by anonymous letters.

Sarah has the beginnings of Alzheimer’s Disease, but through her long-term memories, we learn her story, as Laura gradually begins to piece together the whole picture, and the reason her father asked her to look out for Sarah becomes clear.

It is an interesting journey, which takes the reader to the stars and the skies – through a telescope and a hot-air balloon – although there are some disturbing elements, for example how certain institutions dealt with mental health in the name of research in the 1950s and 1960s, and also the trauma of PTSD and mutism.

Fascinating and highly readable.

 

Our Holiday by Louise Candlish ***+

As usual, Louise Candlish takes a cast of upper-middle class Londoners, and this time, places them on holiday in Dorset. However, the locals don’t want them there. A group: NJFA (not just for August) are objecting to the fact that these well-to-do Londoners own second homes in prime positions in their part of Dorset, and yet are hardly ever there, while some young locals live in caravans because there are no local homes cheap enough for them to rent or buy.

Tensions rise, not just between the holidaymakers themselves, but between NJFA and the Londoners. And then disaster strikes. At first, it seems to be a relatively simple matter of destruction of property, but it turns out that someone died – and that wasn’t meant to happen at all…

The book is well-written, of course, and Candlish’s novels always sizzle with tension, but I have to say, there wasn’t one character I found remotely appealing. Even so, I still found it a good read.

 

Question 7 by Richard Salinger ***

This one is part autobiography, part history, part re-construction, part existentialism… all based on the premis of ‘Question Seven’ which is, according to Chekov – ‘who lives longest, a man or a woman?’ Pretty much an unanswerable question.

Equally unanswerable, is the conundrum in which the narrator finds himself. His father was a POW in Japan. If Hiroshima had not happened, his father would have died and the author would not have been born. Similarly, if Rebecca West had not kissed HG Wells, and he had not in consequence written a certain book, then the atomic bomb might never have been built (or so says the author).

If all this sounds rather confusing, then you will have to read the book to try and make sense of it. I found it interesting, informative, not my usual type of read, but a challenge I quite enjoyed.

 

Pictures of Him by Claire Leslie Hall ***+

This was Claire’s first published novel – and there are similarities to the successful Broken Country. For starters, it’s intense and it’s a love story…

It is set in three time-frames using the viewpoints of Catherine and Lucian. Theirs is the love story to beat all love stories – they are soul-mates and they can’t get enough of each other. But… when something goes wrong, Catherine leaves without explanation and both of them must bear the consequences.

Lucian goes on to suffer from depression and near alcoholism, while Catherine runs away by marrying loyal, dependable Sam and having children with him. She does not want to dwell on the events that caused her and Lucian to break-up, but circumstances catapult them back together, with an even more dramatic break-up this time.

The moral perhaps is that until you really deal with the past, you can’t move on. It’s well-written, of course, and is an immersive read, but very sad, so have a box of tissues by your side.

 

Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell ****+

Lisa Jewell does it again in a fast-moving, gripping, domestic noir of a plot.

When Alex’s father Paddy dies, Alex and her mother Nina are thrown into grief. However, an old colleague of Paddy’s gets in touch, and before long, he and Nina have become an item, which for Alex, is very hard to take.

Meantime, new characters enter the fray with their own story-lines, and gradually, the connection becomes clear.

This is not one for the faint-hearted, but it has an excellent moral – be careful who you let into your life. Be wary. If they seem to be too good to be true, then they probably are.

Lisa Jewell expertly weaves her story-lines into one connective narrative, until finally the truth emerges. I totally could not put it down. Highly recommended.

 

Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister ****+

Clever, clever, clever. This is a dual viewpoint novel written in two time-frames seven years apart, and set in London.

Cam is introverted by nature. She works as a literary agent, and is happily married to extrovert Luke (a ghost-writer, whom she also represents) with whom she has a young daughter, Polly. But on the day that Cam is due to return to work after maternity leave, she wakes up, and Luke isn’t there. He has left her a note, which says very little, and the next thing she knows… he is featuring in a real-life hostage/ siege situation nearby, and the police are involved.

Cam has always considered Luke to be one of the good guys. And so, seven years later, she is still struggling to come to terms with what has happened, still trying to move on. She has no idea if Luke is alive or dead, but she cannot forget him.

Meanwhile, Niall, the hostage negotiator, is fighting his own personal demons. He got it very wrong with Luke, and seven years later, he is still trying to discover the truth.

McAllister expertly lays clues along the way; the book is multi-layered and gripping. In her hands, this strange situation seems authentic and believable, and her main characters are warm and complex, making this an emotive read as well as a fast-paced one. Very highly recommended.