The Fell by Sarah Moss

It's November 2020, and England is in lockdown (again). Nobody should be out and about unless on absolutely vital business or their permitted daily walk. For Kate and her son Mark things are worse as they are stuck in fourteen day quarantine after coming into contact with Covid. It could be a quiet peaceful time. An opportunity to catch up on all those things you've intended to do - start a sourdough, knit a sweater, write a novel about the pandemic - but Kate has had enough of being cooped up indoors. Even the garden is beginning to feel too constricted. And no one will notice if she slips away up onto the moor for a while, she thinks. But Kate's quick walk goes dreadfully wrong when she slips and injures herself.

At home, Mark grows increasingly worried by his mother's absence, and calling in mountain rescue seems, if possible, to make matters worse by acknowledging the severity of the situation. And meanwhile next door, Alice is trying to accustom herself to living alone since her husband died, feeling cut off from her family (zoom is no way to have dinner together!) but enjoying the luxury of a bed to herself.

Rather oddly I spent a lot of the first lockdown watching 'pandemic' films in which scientists race against time to save humanity, or reading the sort of book in which a small band of survivors struggle bravely on in a post-apocalyptic world, but The Fell is a different sort of 'pandemic' story - one that's more realistic, which tells of something much closer to home, of the feelings of fear, frustration and loneliness that many of us felt. 

Against this familiar backdrop of second (or was it third?) lockdown, the author weaves a story of a woman too restless to stay confined for a moment longer, her son taking life and his mother's presence for granted until the unthinkable happens, their elderly neighbour, lonely and cut off from family, and a man who gives his time freely to help those in trouble. The dullness of lockdown soon changes to tense drama when Kate slips and cannot make her own way home. Will she be found? Will she be 'found out' for breaking quarantine? Are fines applicable if you're lost on a hillside? 

Maybe not everyone is ready for a reminder of the dark days of last autumn when it felt like lockdown would become an ever-present part of our lives but I felt that I could relate to so many of the feelings experienced by the characters, and it was good to hear them voiced by others.

My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

 

Virginia, perhaps the whole of the south-eastern US, has been overwhelmed by a series of dreadful storms, made worse by blackouts. Da'Naisha Love and her grandmother are trying to weather it out as best they can, till the day armed white supremacists come driving their Charlotteville road, terrorising the neighbourhood. Along with friends and neighbours, Da'Naisha and her grandmother flee to the hills surrounding the city, specifically to the hilltop plantation house once home to Thomas Jefferson, now a tourist attraction. There, living on snacks from the gift shop, making a rough and ready home among the antiquated rooms, they settle down to hopefully wait out the violence rampaging in the city below.

But the tranquil-seeming house holds memories of a troubled past, for alongside the Jefferson family lived slaves to run the house and cultivate the plantation, and among them was Sally Hemings, mistress of Thomas Jefferson and mother to several of his children, from one of whom Da'Naisha and her grandmother are descended.

Set in a near-future of worsening climate and racial tension, the story begins as a flight by Da.Naisha and her neighbours to somewhere, anywhere, that might offer safety but becomes a determination to make a stand and claim what is rightfully theirs - both the heritage erased by white men, and their position as equals in society. It seems unthinkable to me that, firstly, white supremacists think they are the legitimate inhabitants of the US, and, secondly, any man would think it appropriate to have an affair with a woman he 'owned' and who could not refuse his advances - so it was a book that made me angry in several ways, but the taking over of Monticello, the reclaiming of its luxurious rooms echoes the feelings of many that history should reflect the stories of everyone, not just the ruling class.

A compelling read, mixing present day fears with historical insights. I'd heard before of Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings but this left me wanting to know more about it and the family dynamics of the Jefferson household, and Jefferson's attitude to the wider issue of slavery.

The Family by Naomi Krupitsky

Sofia and Antonia have been friends since childhood. Born to Italian-American families living next door to each other in Brooklyn their lives have been intertwined since birth. But there's more than proximity that binds them together. Both their fathers belong to the American Mafia, which envelops them in a wider family, while putting a distance between them and other children in the neighbourhood and at school.As a result the two girls become closer. Even so, from an early age there are marked differences between them - one happy to accept the role laid out for her, as wife, mother and home-maker; the other always wanting more, from eavesdropping the men's conversation as a child to wanting to earn her own place among them as an adult - but despite their differences, friendship holds Sofia and Antonia close, the way the Family does, even when the Family itself drives a wedge between them, after the 'disappearance' of one of their fathers.

This astounding debut is a story of friends, family and Family; a big warm novel exploring the ups and downs of female friendships against the backdrop of the totally male world of American mafia. I recently read an article on Crime Reads that 'family' with a small 'f'' was at the heart of the great Mafia stories like the Godfather and the Sopranos - that that sense of belonging and desire to protect family lifted them above other gangster movies /tv series and gave them something that everyone could relate to. The same is true here. Family lies at the heart of Sofia and Antonia's world - in fact, it's all encompassing; children are protected from knowledge of what their fathers parents actually do for a livelihood, and later boys are found a place within the business, girls expected to marry into the family. But this is a Mafia story with a difference - one told mainly from the perspective of the women who sit waiting and worrying when their husbands are later home than expected, or turn up with injuries and blood on their hands, but know that they won't receive honest answers if they ask where, why or who.

Spanning twenty or so years, from the 1920s to late '40s, it follows Sofia and Antonia from childhood as they grow into women, marry and have children of their own, and to an era when the Family's prohibition and war-time profitability is on the decline, and new money-making schemes are needed. I loved it for its characters, its scale, its writing style which drew me in and held me. I rather hope this isn't the end of the Family's story. 

Currently available in the UK on Kindle, and in hardback from January 2022

The Lighthouse Witches by C J Cooke

On the island of Lon Haven off the Scottish coast stands an old, decommissioned lighthouse. This was in its turn built on the remains of an ancient broch underneath which lay a cave where, during the 1600s, women accused of witchcraft were imprisoned awaiting trial and execution. It's a place the locals fear, and keep well clear of, but now (1998) it's been bought, and the new owner has employed an artist to help turn the forbidding tower into a writer's studio. 

Liv Stay doesn't believe in witches or ghosts, but there's certainly something spooky about the lighthouse she's been commissioned to paint. She's barely settled into the adjacent cottage before strange things start to occur, and within months her and two of her daughters have disappeared, like so many islanders before them. The surviving daughter, Luna, has spent her life moving between foster homes, keeping well away from Lon Haven, trying to forget what happened there, but over 20 years later she's drawn back to the island when one of her sisters is found at last - but not having aged at all. 

I'm always on the look out for good supernatural stories, and I thought from what I'd heard online that this would be one, but overall I feel it disappointed.

It starts excellently. The author builds up the atmosphere of strange goings-on, of sightings of a small unknown child, of possible tell-tale signs of witchcraft activity gradually and carefully - enough to keep the reader intrigued; not so much that it seems completely over the top. The island's inhabitants tell of dreadful things happening in the past - the disappearance of children and their replacement by changelings - and hint that it still happens. It's enthralling; very dark and gothic, mixing terror and superstition.

But then - half, maybe three-quarters, of the way though I realised what the plot twist was, and from then I just wanted the characters to hurry up, see what was obvious to me, and solve the mystery. A bit like guessing the murderer in a whodunnit, it took the edge of the latter part of the book. 
 

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow

"There's no such thing as witches. But there will be."

Once upon a time there were witches to be found in every town and village, but after systematic pursuing of anyone suspected of witchcraft everyone assumed that it was a thing of the past, not to be found in the modern world of 1893. But unknown to most, it lingered on in nursery rhymes and songs sung to children, and when the Eastwood sisters decide to pursue witchcraft as a means of gaining women's independence they find many people coming forward with knowledge of the old ways and eager to support them. Obviously they have opponents - most noticeable and dangerous being the new mayoral candidate Gideon Hill, a man who, despite his opposition to witchcraft, seems to command even shadows to do his bidding. The sisters must put aside their differences and work together as maiden, mother and crone to survive.

I totally adored The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E Harrow's debut novel, and was hoping to find the same enchantment with The Once and Future Witches, but while I found it an enjoyable read it somehow didn't have the same magic. I suspect this is something extremely personal and quantifiable so don't let me put you off. The story is an intriguing one, set against a backdrop of a subtly-altered late 19th century when women were campaigning to be given the vote. In part it's about the freedom of women (and even men) to act and love as they choose; in part it's about the return of witchcraft to further those aims. 

Winter Flowers by Angelique Villeneuve

 translated by Adriana Hunter 

As the first world war is drawing to a close, Toussaint Caillet finds himself heading home from the Val-de-Grace military hospital where he's been undergoing facial reconstruction for wounds received two years before. At home wait his wife Jeanne and Leonie, the daughter he barely knows. Their reunion should, they feel, be a time of utter joy, but both feel separated and changed by the years they've spent apart. Short, but moving, the story follows them, particularly Jeanne, as they attempt to build a new life when their future has been snatched away.

It seems to me, though it could just reflect my reading, that there are more books written about soldiers coming home from war, than there are about the necessary adjustment that has to be made by the women to whom they return. Winter Flowers places the emphasis on the wife, Jeanne, as she attempts to re-connect with the almost-stranger who has returned from war. While her daughter Leonie struggles to find a resemblance between the photograph of the handsome father in soldiers' uniform and this newcomer with his masked face, Jeanne can't seem to recognise him at an emotional level. His injuries have turned him into an uncommunicative, morose man; his mask, which is supposed to protect the world from the sight of him, also becoming a way to hide from the world.

Throughout the war both Toussaint and Jeanne have kept secrets  - to spare the other from the horrors of the battlefield, or to hide the shortages of food and fuel that Paris is suffering from. These are comparatively small harmless deceits but they add to the gulf the two of them must now bridge. Slowly, gently, the story follows them as they reassess the missing years, and find a way to go forwards.

Night Waking by Sarah Moss

This book has been sitting for far too long (years!!) on my TBR pile. One of so many that I've acquired (I think I won it in a competition) and never read. In this case, I think what slightly (and rather oddly) put me off was that everyone I knew said how good it was, and I didn't want to be let down, and them to be proved wrong.

Well, I didn't have worried. It is brilliant!

  Anna and her husband, both academics,  are spending summer on a remote Hebridean island belonging to her husband's family. Other than their family, and some visitors who arrive later, the place is deserted, and the idea is that the isolation will be good for them, allow them to get on with research and book-writing but while Giles disappears much of the day observing puffins, Anna has to juggle the demands of childcare - a toddler who still doesn't sleep through the night, and a seven year old pre-occupied with worries about global warming or natural and man-made disasters - with her writing about the perceptions of childhood, and how to best bring up children in the eighteenth century.

The novel starts as a sharply observed portrayal of a sleep-deprived mother in fear of losing her academic self under the weight of motherhood. In Anna's first person narrative, Moss carefully treads the tightrope between love and despair, dark humour and hysterical tears; the struggle to get through each day, longing for peace and quiet to pursue her own interests, alternating with exhaustion when the children eventually sleep.

And then, when the bones of a child are found buried in the garden, there's a mystery added, and research into Giles' family history helps Anna find a way out of her situation. Plus the visitors to the holiday cottage on the island give Anna a change to see motherhood from the outsiders point of view, and perhaps gain some perspective on her own life.

It's so, so good; a book which kept me enthralled, though maybe it's best not read while you've got sleepless children of your own.