A House Called Askival by Merryn Glover

review by Maryom

For over 20 years Ruth Connor has been estranged from her family - travelling the world and living anywhere so long as it isn't back home in India. As a child growing up in Mussoorie in the north of the country, she always felt that her parents' hospital and missionary work took precedence and she only held second place in their affections. Now, with her father dying, she's heading back there - to try to bridge the gulf between them and to face the dreadful events that led to her leaving...

A House Called Askival is a mix of family epic and historical fiction -  a story of family conflict set against the backdrop of the greater conflict that is India's recent history. Three generations of American missionary family, the Connors, have lived at Askival, situated in a formerly-splendid Hill Station where the wives and families of the British Raj escaped from the heat of India's dry season. Their lives have been shaped by India, its people, its devastating poverty and violent upheavals, and both Ruth and her father are haunted by tragic events in the past.
The story starts as Ruth returns home after a 24 year absence, but progresses through flashbacks to her own and her father's childhood and teenage years, giving hints to the reasons behind their falling out and the guilt that both have carried for years, teasing the reader along, but saving the big reveals till very near the end (as you'd expect).

The star of it really is India - its sights, sounds and smells, and turbulent history from Partition to the death of Indira Gandhi. The life-changing events that occur to both James and Ruth happen while India is in a state of lawlessness - for James, it leads to dedicating his life to serving India, regardless of personal sacrifice; for Ruth, it severs the final link that tied her to India and her family, and she can't leave quickly enough.

 Just occasionally I thought there was a little too much obsession with the minutiae of 'school-life', at the expense of moving the plot forward. Boarding school I imagine can be a very insular place, a closed community wrapped up in its own concerns and priorities, but even so I found Ruth amazingly ignorant of events in the outside world. Maybe in part this was a plot device to explain the background of politics and racial tensions to the reader but it did make Ruth seem very blinkered and undeserving of sympathy.

Maryom's review - 4 stars

Publisher - Freight Books

Genre -  Adult, historical fiction

No More Kisses For Bernard by Niki Daly

Review by The Mole

With four Aunts young Bernard was tired of getting messy kisses whenever any of them came to call but come his birthday all four came to see him and it really was too much so he donned his helmet and visor and declared "No More Kisses!". If only all of his aunts would have taken "no" for an answer though.

This is rather an interesting book because while it is, undoubtedly, for children with it's brightly coloured busy pictures, snaking words and simple vocabulary it also has a message for adults - and it's an important message - "children need to be respected". The situation in this book is arguably a minor situation and the "crime" not that serious it still gives food for thought to adults who may be sharing the book with a child or reading it to them for bed time reading.

An extremely nice book for sharing or as an early reader.

Publisher - Frances Lincoln
Genre - Picture Book, early reader

Disraeli Avenue by Caroline Smailes

 review by Maryom

This collection of short stories grew out of Caroline Smailes' debut novel In Search of Adam which told the story of Jude Williams who lived at 9 Disraeli Avenue. Exploring themes of abuse and self-harm, it had a massive response from readers who had suffered themselves and in an effort to do something to help, the author wrote this collection of short stories, giving all the royalties from it to the charity One in Four which provides support for victims of abuse.

Disraeli Avenue, New Lymouth is a street like any other; 32 semi-detached houses, seemingly like but behind each brightly coloured front door hides a tale. Through the voices of its residents we hear of love affairs, money troubles, hopes, dreams and regrets. Some will have you laughing; others bring you close to tears; some just shock you!

Brought to life through a variety of styles - from talking direct to 'camera' to telephone conversations or even text messages - house by house the individual tales build up to a portrait of the street.

I've come to Caroline Smailes' novels a little late in the day, starting with her fifth  The Drowning Of Arthur Braxton last year.  That was a merging of myth and real life, but Disraeli Avenue is very firmly planted in the real world.
At first the stories seem to jump about a bit - each resident, after all, has their own priorities - but if you find it hard to slot all the stories together, there's always the "Queen of tittle-tattle", Mrs Clark at number 14, and her best mate Mrs Symons (No 11) to give a quick low-down on everyone's comings and goings.

If there's a downside, it's that there are probably plot spoilers in there for In Search of Adam, but I was left intrigued enough to want to track it down and read it.

Maryom's review -  4.5 stars
Publisher - The Friday Project
Genre - Adult fiction, short stories,

The Very Noisy House by Julie Rhodes and Korky Paul

Review by The Mole

When the old lady starts walking with her stick around her house it upsets the dog in the room above and noises start to cascade through the house. The noises spiral out of control until the lady starts knitting... but can the house become quiet and stay quiet?

This picture book is designed to be read sidewards-on and each page has brightly coloured and very busy illustrations. The style is very cartoon and each page builds on the preceding one in a comical manner that will entertain the young reader.

With lots of detail to find and talk about this is an ideal sharing book but it is difficult to see how any child would want to read this quietly to themselves.

Another very nice touch is that the end papers were drawn by 9-11 year old children and show how they would draw the house.

A lovely picture book/early reader that should prove very popular with any child so may come out for sharing on a regular basis.

Publisher - Frances Lincoln
Genre - Picture Book, early reader

1984 by George Orwell

review (or ramblings) by Maryom

BEWARE - SPOILERS!

"Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal."

We all know - or think we know - George Orwell's 1984; the story of dull office worker Winston Smith who rebels against The Party and ends up in Room 101....with rats.....  I first read it many, many years ago as a teenager and at some point between then and now I've re read it a couple of times but my memory of it was a little vague so as it was lying around the house (daughter's A level reading) I picked it up...

I remembered a gripping dystopian novel full of tension, but this time it just seemed flat and boring - in fact my overwhelming thought was 'How dull!' For a long while, the most exciting thing to happen was the un-blocking of a drain! Left to my own devices it would easily have succumbed to the 50 page rule - if it's not grabbed me by then, I don't feel there's any point in continuing - but there was a certain amount of nagging in the form of "I've had to read it, so you should" from my daughter, so I struggled on. And to be honest, it was a struggle.
Orwell's dystopian, totalitarian future might have been shocking back in the day but it's too familiar now and lots of spy thriller or sci-fi novels have given a better portrayal of life under such a regime. Aspects have migrated into popular culture, and suffered on the way; Room 101 has become a BBC comedy programme, consigning celebrities' pet hates to oblivion; Big Brother's now a TV reality show; and parts of the torture scene seem to have been directly lifted to appear in Star Trek TNG (ep 137 Chain of Command II) where they actually appear more terrifying.
  1984's main problem for me though was that none of the characters to gained my sympathy. Neither Winston nor his lover Julia appeared fully fleshed out, and I cared about neither of them; O'Brien's role seemed obvious from his first appearance, though, ok, I've read it before, but Winston must have been extraordinarily naive to trust him; the torture scenes were mild in comparison to many I've seen on TV or film; and what happened to the rats? In my memory they'd had a much larger, far more terrifying role.

My reaction would probably have been very different if I'd read this back in 1948 when it was published, and I'm sure it was different when I first read it in the 1970s but now it just seems tired and showing its age.

Not so long ago I read Yevgeny Zamyatin's  "We" , a much more engaging read, with a very similar plot and written earlier than Orwell's novel.

Publisher - Penguin Classics
Genre - adult fiction, dystopian, classic

The Recruit by Robert Muchamore

Review by The Mole

James is a troublesome kid. He is clever, hot headed and bored at school. All of this gets him expelled from school and while he is terrified of his mum finding out she dies. James and his step sister, Lauren, are temporarily taken into care before Ron, James' step dad, takes Lauren and leaves James in a children's home. Things are pretty grim for James and he gets in more trouble before waking up and finding himself in a new home, a new school, a new... Where is he?

He has been selected for a possible recruit into Cherub, a highly secret organisation that uses children to spy for the government - because no-one suspects kids of anything more than nosiness and vandalism. Agreeing to join the group James has to face his worst fears and learn many new skills in a ruthless training session designed to make people fail.

Will James survive the training and will he get a mission?

This is one of those books that children really see themselves being a part of and maybe even role-playing. It's compelling, fast action and you can take nothing for granted as the story jumps around.

Written ten years ago, technology has really moved on and while James is obsessed by his playstation it somehow doesn't matter as it's still technology that kids can identify with. There are plenty of characters of ages 10-17 of both genders involved - in fact Amy is his swim teacher and becomes his first mission leader and can knock seven bells out of James in the dojo too - so there has to be a wide age group appeal as well as an appeal to both girls and boys.

Hugely popular and a million selling series, a second series of books is now being written and published in parallel to a  reprint of series one. The reprint is being published at a rate of one every six months, so book 2 ("Class A") will be republished in October 2014.

If you're looking for holiday reads for children then this may well be a series for them with everything the young adventure reader could want.

Publisher - Hodder Children's
Genre - Children's(10+), action adventure

Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Thomas Sweterlitsch

review by Maryom

Ten years ago, Dominic lost his wife and unborn child in a nuclear blast that reduced Pittsburgh to ashes. Still unable to get over his grief, he spends as many hours as possible immersed in the Archive, a virtual re-building of the city, which enables survivors to go back in time, meet with their lost loved ones, and live through their final hours again. Another use has sprung up though, which is Dominic's other reason for spending so much time there - researching possible insurance fraud and even murder. In this way, trying to trace the movements of a missing student, he comes across tampering in the Archive, a deliberate attempt to erase all record of her. Dominic's increasingly obsessive investigations into who is doing this and why lead him onto a dangerous trail, where not only him but his memories are threatened. He's already lost his wife once, is it possible to lose her again?

For a debut novel this is an absolute stunner - I haven't been this impressed with a sci-fi novel since I first encountered Philip K Dick.

There's a double layer of dismal futuristic vision - the complete annihilation of Pittsburgh, and the dystopian porn-ridden society that Dominic accepts as the norm - coupled with a Raymond Chandler-style thriller and a moving portrayal of grief and loss.

The first thing to grab me was the world-building. The story is set in a not too distant future, a time when almost everyone has implants connecting their brain to 'Adware' - a constant streaming of news, information, adverts and reality TV style porn. It's easy to see how some of these concepts - selling TV rights to murder scene footage, shows which poll the 'hottest' corpse - are extensions of today's reality-TV obsessed culture, just merely taken a step or two further, to a point where people will do anything for their 15 minutes of fame and the cash that comes with it.

Then there's the Pittsburgh Archive - made up from CCTV, webcam footage, home videos, anything and everything to create a realistic picture of the city before it was obliterated, it gives grieving relatives the chance to go back in time and say goodbye to their loved ones. But for some, such as Dominic, it's become a dangerous obsession, a constant reminder of what they've lost, holding them in that first wave of grief and not allowing them to move on.

Dominic himself is far from the standard barely-more-than-2D sci-fi hero. He's consumed by grief, still hankering for the family and future he's lost and filled with guilt that he's survived.

Last but not least, is the thriller element, with all the twists, turns, and double-crossing you'd expect from the genre.

Each component would have been good on its own, together they're brilliant!
As I said, this is Thomas Sweterlitsch's first novel and I just hope he can produce many more such wonderful and complex stories.


Maryom's review -  5 stars
Publisher -Headline
Genre - sci-fi, dystopian, crime