Book reviews: London: The Hidden Corners for Curious Wanderers, The Novel Life of Jane Austen, Burn After Reading, The Marriage Vendetta, No Greater Love
Janet Gordon, who lives in Takeley, reviews best-sellers and debut fiction for the Indie
Dear readers, I do hope you had a wonderful Easter break with lots of chocolate - pistachio is my new favourite- and lots of comforting food.
With my husband recovering from his Princess Alexandra Hospital adventure, we just spent a quiet break at home with the television, books, chocolate and more books whilst our granddaughter and daughter-in-law were gallivanting around Europe on a girly escapade.
London: The Hidden Corners for Curious Wanderers by Jack Chesher (Frances Lincoln Publishing £15.99)
My husband, although now retired as a London black cab driver, finds it almost impossible to switch off from identifying London scenes and so he was thrilled when this dropped through the letterbox.
This is the most beautifully illustrated (illustrations by Katherine Fraser) and wonderful dip-into read, complete with maps to help you discover your favourite hidden corner of the capital. It is a follow up to London: A Guide for Curious Wanderers. Next time we go up to Highbury to visit the family, Curious Wanderers is coming with me.
I’ve just opened the page explaining how to get a perfect view of Tower Bridge by wandering through a black gate known as Horselydown Old Stairs, which lead down to the Thames. I’ve actually done this – working at London Bridge Hospital, my husband and I often used to walk down to the river steps after having breakfast in a lovely little Italian restaurant (sadly demolished in the name of progress!) and I even managed a little walk on the foreshore.
I can’t wait to explore all these hidden corners. Who knows where Dead Man’s Hole is? Or Whitechapel’s Hidden Anarchist Bookshop? What a wonderful, wonderful read.
The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography by Janine Barchas and Isabel Greenberg (Quercus £20)
I keep banging on about it being the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth and, of course, there are events taking place everywhere she ever visited.
I’ve been sent yet another Jane Austen publication and this one is a graphic novel. I’ve never read one of those before, but I loved it.
The illustrations perfectly show Jane and Cassy exploring Bath, visiting the circulating library and the circus, and then their move downward as their finances deteriorated and Jane’s endeavours to be published.
It’s such a lovely way to retell the Austen story and ideal for anyone – particularly tweens and teenagers – who’d love a potted Jane Austen history.
Burn After Reading by Catherine Ryan Howard (Bantam £13.99)
I’ve read some of this author’s books previously and she always writes a scary read.
In Burn After Reading, Emily wrote a best-selling thriller many years ago having received a huge advance in a two-book deal. But not only has she not even started the second book, she’s convinced she’ll never ever write it.
Her publishers give her an ultimatum. She must ghost write an autobiography for world-famous cyclist Jack, who has faced accusations of murdering his wife ever since she was found dead in a suspicious fire at their home and forensics show she was dead long before Jack rescued her, or return the huge advance – money she obviously doesn’t have.
And so Emily flies to a secluded beach house somewhere in the US where everything has been laid on. But she has that tingling on the back of her neck which she knows means she is being followed.
Cyclist Jack is his usual charming, amiable and hopefully innocent self, happy to chat and oblige Emily’s every wish, although there are some strange house rules. But there are also anonymous and very scary notes pushed under her bedroom door and so Emily decides she can’t trust anyone, although she really wants to believe that not only is Jack innocent, but that he’s trustworthy.
This is one really twisty, turny read, so much so I had no idea who or what had done it or why and who, if anyone, Emily should trust.
It’s a real can’t-put-it-down read. Whilst my husband and dog Rollo were lying in bed snoring (yes, both of them) I read on into the night just grateful that, although the pair of them were fast asleep, I wasn’t actually alone in the house!
The Marriage Vendetta by Caroline Madden (Eriu £9.99)
This novel is totally bonkers.
Eliza is a concert-level pianist, but becomes a Stepford wife when husband and aspiring playwright Richard persuades her that his new job offer of running the most prestigious theatre in Dublin is good for them all. Good for daughter Mara, who has to change schools, good for Eliza, who is (un)happily sorting out a new house, new school, running the household and also dealing with all of Richard’s paperwork.
The only piano playing she’s doing is when she unconsciously has her fingers tapping out keys on her lap. In truth, Eliza is inwardly seething.
Meeting another mum at the across-the-road-from-the-school café, Eliza is given the name of a therapist – a therapist she feels she needs to see since she was sent a photograph of her husband with another woman in a suggestive pose.
Therapist Ellen Early suggests odd and unusual remedies and convinces Eliza that she must follow them.
This is such an unusual read – witty, murderous and packed with all kinds of twists and laugh-out-loud moments. I read this straight through in one night.
No Greater Love by Margaret Dickinson (Pan £9.99)
Saga lovers always eagerly await a new Margaret Dickinson.
Here we have aristocratic Lady Elizabeth faced with straitened circumstances following a broken engagement and forced to seek employment. In 1904, what employment could she obtain other than as a nanny, so she’s charged with looking after four-year-old Charlie.
Charlie is a wild child who, I guess, today would be diagnosed with something or other, but then he was simply wild and rebellious. His exhausted family are only too happy to hand their son over to Elizabeth, but, somehow, with patience she tames him.
Not only that, she begins to feel love could beckon with James, brother to the master of the house. But with the First World War looming, can Elizabeth’s happiness last?
Once again a wonderful saga for lovers of the genre.
