General fiction
The Auschwitz Violin by Maria Angels Anglada
In Poland in the early 1990s, a violin sings. The maestro who owns it produces such a music from it, people are forced to take note. They'd be even more amazed if she could bring herself to state exactly how the instrument came to be. For this was the work of Daniel, suffering in a subsidiary camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Stumbles, chances, half-lies, all conspire to allow Daniel to take time off his enforced labour and engage in his real-world career. But is there a price to pay in doing something you love, just for a man you can only hate? Full review...
Two Times Twenty by Bethan Darwin
You can tell from the beginning of this novel that you're in Wales. The young Anna (as we travel back in time) is meeting what will be long-term friends, Bob and Jane. We find Anna rather proudly introducing her two young sons and Bob butting in with 'Duw, good-sized boys for their age ... Make good rugby players one day.' But the Welsh location and all things Welsh is given a subtle touch. Full review...
CODEX by Adrian Dawson
When I read the resume on the back cover I immediately thought that it was going to be one of those high-octane, action every second paragraph, type of thrillers. All action and perhaps very little substance. I was happily proved wrong. And very early on in the novel, as well, which was good. Full review...
The Chocolate Assassin by Peter Durantine
In the final days of the Second World War as the allied guns came ever closer a young German was sent on a secret mission to America. He was only in his late teens but still resisted telling anyone, including the U-boat captain who took him across the Atlantic, about the nature of his mission. Fifty five years later the U-boat captain, Eric Hoest, long settled in the States, was murdered at his beach home. Samuel Grey, police detective and part-time student was called in to investigate the murder. The local police chief thought that the most likely murderer was the neighbour who had reported the crime, but Grey suspected that the truth was hidden somewhere in Hoest's background. Full review...
A Season to Remember by Sheila O'Flanagan
We first meet the Lodge owners, a likable couple. They find running their upmarket country house type hotel both exhilarating and exhausting. The novel is bang up to date so O'Flanagan gets in the whole recession/banker-bashing thing early on. As the festive season looms, the unthinkable has happened. Empty rooms. They're not used to empty rooms, at any time of the year. Normally the Lodge is a full house. But then a slow and steady trickle starts as our characters book in - and the story starts proper, so to speak. Full review...
Last Mission: the last hours of the Third Reich by Jack Everett and David Coles
We first meet a couple of characters living in the United States. A husband and wife and a relation of theirs called Paul. On the surface, they appear to be enjoying happy, normal lives. But all is not what is seems. We soon find out that the husband, Carl has some secrets. Pretty big ones. He keeps a picture of Adolph Hitler on display - somewhere - in his home, for example. Links with Germany and his past life are often talked about, or rather whispered about, with a handful of trusted 'acquaintances' over a beer or two. Full review...
The Drawing Lesson: The First in the Trilogy of Remembrance by Mary E Martin
Alexander Wainwright is the UK's premier artist. He's just won the Turner with The Hay Wagon – a painting with a luminous, moonlit landscape. He should be at the peak of his powers, but he's about to lose his muse and, more worryingly, there seems to be something wrong with his sight and the year to come is going to be traumatic. The story of it is told by his friend, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, who has pieced together what he knows, what he's heard – and used a little artistic licence to fill in the gaps. It's a most unusual story which will take you deep into the world of artists and writers. Full review...
The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine
The novel begins with Joseph Weissmann, or Josie as he is known, deciding at the age of 78 that he no longer wants to be married to Betty after 48 years together. In an attempt to save Betty's feelings he cites irreconcilable differences, but the truth is he has fallen head over heels in love. Betty is devastated, her life in tatters, with even the beautiful Central Park apartment she adores soon lost to her. Full review...
Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving
We start in 1954, in the middle of nowhere, in a log-cutters' encampment. The cook lives alone with his twelve year old son, in some kind of comfort - a decent job, familiarity with the harsh surroundings and the hardened people inhabiting it. But a pair of tragedies - one involving a fatal work accident with a young teenager new to the job, force the pair to flee. They leave behind a red herring that they hope will force the local brutal policeman to get the wrong impression, and a best friend in the shape of Ketchum, the most hardened logger in the camp as a kind of safety-net, but their destiny, spread over the next few generations, will prove to still be populated with tragedy, romance, despair - and the constant look over their shoulder to the tiny settlement of Twisted River. Full review...
Past Continuous by Tony Bayliss
The author's note tells the reader that this book 'was inspired by the suicide of the author's son.'
Chapter 1 opens with the reader being in no doubt that the schoolboy Matthew has a knack with computers. He's a bit of a whiz-kid. He's also shy and tongue-tied which makes him a bit of a loner as well. He stands out at school for all the wrong reasons but he's coping with it - just. And early on in the book we meet Sophie. She's a big part of this book. She's around Matthew's age. She is bright and clever. Her adoptive parents would probably say that she's too clever for her own good. Full review...
Someone Else's Son by Sam Hayes
The book opens with Carrie Kent. Successful television presenter and mother of teenager, Max. Ms Kent immediately comes across as hard-headed, business-like, aloof and rather distant but that's the whole point, of course. Very good at her day job. But as a mother? Her television show is a reality programme, dealing with well, basically the dregs of society: single, young mums, drug addicts etc. Carrie knows that these people keep her in designer shoes and bags but she keeps them at arm's length. She wouldn't want to catch something. Carrie sails through her life with a self-satisfied smile on her face. You can just tell. Full review...
Trapped by Brooke Morgan
Ellie Walters is 36, divorced and keen to start a new life away from her cheating and control-freak ex-husband. Fulfilling a life-long dream, she decides to take her 15-year-old son, Tim, to live with her in the small town of Bourne. As she soon becomes good friends with her next-door neighbour, Louisa Amory, Ellie finally feels she is making a life of her own. She begins to feel a sense of freedom and independence but for how long? When strange events start occurring Ellie is forced to face some painful and guilty memories connected to a tragic accident nineteen years ago; memories which she would rather forget. It is clear that someone has discovered her well-kept secret and is reluctant to let her forget about it. As a campaign of terror against Ellie unfolds she must come to terms with what happened all those years ago and try to discover who her tormentor is. Vulnerable and afraid, she relies on Louisa's friendship to help her through the ordeal. However, when a misunderstanding causes a rift between Ellie and Louisa's son, Joe, the women's friendship is threatened. Alone and afraid, she suddenly finds herself trapped in a nightmare from which she must do all she can to escape. Full review...
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
In the near-future USA that they call Gilead, society has changed. For the worse, of course. The population is dying out, and people who are capable of breeding the next generation are given a cherished status of Handmaid - gifted to any male of enough esteem, called a Commander, who balances the household with his wife and what is practically a walking womb. Other women get drudge work, or run horrid finishing schools for the Handmaids, or are packed off to what are reported to be polluted hellholes abroad, for laborious work for life. Men are restricted too - Handmaids are off-limits to everybody but their Commander, and those households are patrolled carefully by other eunuch types. It's up to our nameless narrator and main character, however, to show us just how cherished the status of Handmaid feels. Full review...
The Homecoming Party by Carmine Abate
Every year young Marco eagerly awaits his father's return, when he can for a few months spend precious time with him before he leaves again. Marco's father Tullio is a migrant worker forced through poverty to work in Northern France doing hard manual work. In this way he manages to earn enough to help his family have a decent living. The family, his eldest daughter Elise now at college, Marco his only son and a younger sister known only as 'la piccola' along with his wife and elderly mother live in Calabria, an economically depressed area of southern Italy. They belong to the minority Arberesh community, descended from Albanian immigrants settling small villages in the mountainous regions of La Sila. Just as the Calabrian people are looked down upon by other Italians the Arberesh people are even looked down upon by the Calabrians. Full review...
The Secret Crown by Chris Kuzneski
The riddle is the whole crux of the book. So we're taken right back, albeit briefly, to Bavaria in the year 1886, via the Prologue. So, the scene is now set, foul play is most definitely afoot and lots of questions should pop into the reader's mind. Such as who? Why? etc. So far, so good, I thought. We then fast-forward straight to present-day Germany and due to an unfortunate hunting accident, something which was a secret, is no longer. Full review...
The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell
So, what is a novel? Does it need a plot, climax and resolution? Characters who grow? A setting? Themes which explore the human condition? And must it entertain? Padgett Powell challenges our perceptions of fiction with a book that explores what it is to be a novel, but without any preconditions. How far he succeeds is down to the individual reader. But I thought I'd give it a go. Full review...
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
This is a thumping, great read at 850 pages. We meet a clutch of families who are all vastly different in terms of class, outlook, values etc. I have to admit at the outset that this is the first Ken Follett book I've read even although two of his previous books are in my ever-growing 'to read' pile. So although I know of him, my reading expectations were wide-open. Full review...
Paper Wings by Linda Sargent
In a wood in Kent two children played happily and as is the way with children they sometimes went where they shouldn't, but it was the nineteen fifties and the worry was more about whether they would injure themselves by falling down an abandoned well than the problems which we worry over half a century later. It was a place for plans and games, projects they didn't always tell their parents about and generally growing up. Ruby loved climbing trees and longed to fly. Peter was more sensible but the pair were inseparable. Full review...
Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
It's January 1937 and dark clouds of impending war are gathering over Europe. Jack Miller is in London, working as a clerk and living in one lonely room. He should probably think himself lucky because many people have neither job nor home in this Great Depression, but he doesn't. He feels lonely and isolated and angry that a career in research physics was snatched away from him by economic circumstance. So when the chance of becoming the wireless operator for an Arctic expedition comes along, he jumps at it - even though the team comprises of the exact privileged young men he most resents. Full review...
Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich
Take one rather ditzy girl. Add a funny, extrovert friend, and another, more sensible one. Stir in two seriously attractive men, an unhinged pet or two, a slapstick plot and an unending series of cars. What have you got? A Janet Evanovich novel! This has been the formula for the winning 'Stephanie Plum' series for years, about a hopelessly incompetent bounty hunter who never quite manages to choose between the two hunks in her life, and it has given much pleasure and amusement. But even the best formulas get stale, so this year Ms Evanovich has branched out into something new. Well, almost. Full review...
Two Unknown by Alan Hamilton
The story is based 'between the wars', the 1920s to be exact. We're introduced to the main characters: a small family unit of mother, father and two children. On the surface this normal, middle-class set-up all appears fine - but underneath, things are far from fine. The father, Ian is actually the step-father to the twins. And through various detailed and sometimes unusually lengthy parent-child conversations and chats the reader is filled in with the background story. A bit staccato in places, I have to admit. Full review...
The Bone House by Brian Freeman
The novel opens with one of the central characters, Mark. And straight away we see that he has an eye for the girls - young girls, it would seem. He's a married man, so tongues start to wag. The book's front cover depicts a house going up in flames and on the very first page there's another mention of fire, Billy Joel's hit song 'We Didn't Start The Fire.' So, fire seems as if it's going to play an important part in this book. And it does. Big-time. Full review...
Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt
For a couple of years now Esther Hammerhans has lived alone and money is a little tight. She works in the House of Commons library but it doesn't pay particularly well. Letting the spare room to a lodger seemed like a good idea, but she's somewhat surprised when she sees Mr Chartwell's silhouette. It's the size of a mattress and Mr Chartwell is a dog. A large black dog.
At home in Kent, Winston Churchill wakes up. He's reaching the end of his time in parliament and in some ways he's not surprised to sense that there's a visitor in the room. It's someone he hasn't seen for a while, but the presence of the huge, mute hulk who watched him with a tortured expression was only to be expected. Winston's black dog was back. Full review...
Welcome to Life by Alice de Smith
It's the 80s. Freya is 14 and an only child. She lives with her parents in Cambridge. So far, so normal. Except... Freya's home life is slightly a-typical. She's on first name terms with the parental figures (no affectionate Mum or Daddy here) and is under the distinct impression that they spend their days imagining life without her. Her best friend is a middle aged housewife on whose son she has a rather too obvious crush. Her mother communicates with her through lists and shows her affection in the oddest ways. Her father has just moved his business associate in, but he's not just sleeping in the spare room. Full review...
The Blind Spy by Alex Dryden
The author writes under a pseudonym and he has worked in intelligence, so he should know what he's talking - and writing about. He concentrates on the battle for supremacy (and we've been here before) as Russia and the USA clash. The story itself is an intricate one. Full of agents/counter-agents, spies/double spies and the like and appearances by members of the CIA and MI6 amongst others. If you like spy thrillers, then this novel will suit you down to the ground. Lots of furtive and secretive missions all over the place to keep the reader guessing and interested. Full review...
A Bouquet of Barbed Wire by Andrea Newman
For those of you who've never heard of it, A Bouquet of Barbed Wire was most famous as a landmark 70's TV series based on this 1969 novel by Andrea Newman. I'd never read the book before - in fact I'm not even sure I knew there was a book - or seen the TV series but I was aware of the controversy it created at the time of release so lapped up the chance to read the rerelease, accompanying the remake of the TV series which has just started. Full review...
11:59 by David Williams
The back cover blurb informs the reader that this novel was a semi-finalist in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. And the front jacket is stylish and a bit Hitchcock-esque. All the signs looked promising for a decent read. But did it deliver? Full review...
All the Hopeful Lovers by William Nicholson
I had previously read Nicholson's The Society Of Others and thoroughly enjoyed it so I was looking forward to reading this book. Nicholson writes a modern-day story which is relevant and bang up to date. We first meet Laura and Belinda. Two middle-aged, middle-class wives and mothers. Feeling sort of okay with their lives generally but all too aware also, that the marital 'spark' in their marriages is now a low peep - if there at all. Belinda in particular, knows she is bumbling along in life. She's not sure what to do to make things more interesting in the sex department. A fling would probably help - but would it be the answer? Full review...
The Woman Before Me by Ruth Dugdall
We're introduced to one of the female central characters, Rose. There's been a serious house fire and a baby has been involved. Rose is implicated. But is she innocent or guilty? Unfortunately for Rose, she's been in the wrong place at the wrong time - and she's put behind bars. Five years is a long time for a young woman with the rest of her life to lead. Even more so, if you're telling anyone and everyone that you are, in fact, innocent of the crime. But is anyone listening? Full review...
The Island of Sheep (John Hannay) by John Buchan
Richard Hannay is feeling old. He looks at himself and his contemporaries and sees a spread of complacency. Luckily - or perhaps very unluckily - an old pledge will come to haunt him. His earlier career in Africa saw Hannay and his friends swear to protect a man from others - and now a second generation of animosity is ripe for Hannay to step in and be a protective detective. Add in a supposed treasure hoard, and who knows where his last journey might end up? Full review...
The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld
It's three years since we were all blown away by The Interpretation of Murder but Jed Rubenfeld is back with the sequel, which takes place ten years later. And what a decade that has been, with the appalling tragedy of the First World War and the influenza outbreak which followed. There's a hope that things are getting better as New York moves into the twenties and Stratham Younger and Captain James Littlemore meet up for the first time in ten years. They're in Wall Street on September the sixteenth – just as a quarter of a ton of explosives is detonated in the worst terrorist attack in the country's hundred and fifty year history. Full review...
The Body in the Fjord by Katherine Hall Page
Page gives us another The Body In The... book within a tried and tested format. The book jacket covers are always bright and jazzy and this one is no exception. We're deep in Norway, its picturesque countryside and world-famous fjords. We are in the company of two different but interesting women. Mother and daughter. Pix, the daughter (I think the name sounds as if it belongs to someone young) is a mother in middle-age with teenage children. She has responsibilities, but at times she behaves like a sixteen year old and I suppose that is part of her appeal. She cannot seem to say no to anyone and now finds herself enlisted to solve an unexplained death and a missing person. The latter is the more important as the missing person, Kari, is related to Ursula's best friend. Yes, perhaps a few too many names at the beginning of the book to grapple with but it soon settles down. Full review...
Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras
Initially I was very excited and interested when The Bookbag was given this novel to review. Set at a time in which I lived in Buenos Aires, I was looking forward to a fictionalised account of these traumatic years - made all the more appealing, as the narrator purported to be the eldest of the family's two sons - 10 year old 'Haroldo' as he comes to be known, having by necessity left his former identity behind. In this respect, I was to be sadly disappointed. The majority of the novel comprises recollections from an adult Haroldo - not quite what the Amazon blurb, nor the précis on the cover, leads the reader to believe! In fairness, the author can't be blamed for this - but I felt mislead by the dust jacket - which may have coloured my enjoyment, and which lead, in part, to the relatively low star rating which I gave the book. Full review...