The Betrayals by Bridget Collins

The world renowned Montverre academy has for centuries been a place where promising youngsters are trained in the discipline known simply as the 'grand jeu', a mix of music and mystical moves, but behind its prestige and fame lie secrets and tragedies. Léo Martin was once a student there, a winner of awards, but he gave it up and turned to politics. Now, after a rash comment in the wrong place, he's back at Montverre, in exile, with his promising career in tatters. His old college has changed though; one of their highest teaching posts is held by a woman, Claire Dryden, towards whom Léo is drawn, despite her seeming disdain for him.

As with Collins' previous novel The Binding, this is a multi-layered, multi-faceted story, of love, deception, and betrayals of several kinds, set against a backdrop of a world that isn't quite ours. Montverre in its mountainous setting sounds French but feels like it belongs further east. The government that Léo offends has many of the hallmarks of the early stages of the Nazis rise to power - a leader demanding absolute loyalty, persecution of a religious minority, the shutting down of educational and artistic academies who aren't prepared to support the Party fully. Against this menacing backdrop, the stories of Léo, Claire and others within Montverre play out, moving between 'present day' and Léo's student days which ended in tragedy.

It's captivating and escapist, while at the same time warning of the dangers of allowing arts and education to become twisted for political ends. Since reading The Betrayals, I've watched The Queen's Gambit on Netflix, and I think if you've been gripped by that then this is a book for you.
 

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Harper Collins (The Borough Press)
Genre - Adult fiction

Picks 2019

My reading/reviewing took a knock last year, and I haven't read anything like the number of books I usually would. As a result, I haven't gone for a full Top Ten of the year (also, you might note, I'm late posting this). Anyway, here we are, with some of my favourite books of 2019





Stillicide by Cynan Jones. Breath-catching, heart-wrenching, stunning - a series of self-contained but linked short stories set in a bleak, not-too distant, future where providing water to big cities requires military precision and armed guards. Although it's a long step from Jones' previous works set in rural Wales, there's the same precision and attention to detail, his ability to get inside a character's head and create living, breathing people is just the same.






The Sea Within Me by Sarah Dobbs. More dystopian sci-fi, this time in an England threatened by rising sea-levels and terrorists. In grim, beleaguered Newark by the Sea, the government is trialing a scheme to combat crime and fear which erases anything unpleasant from people's minds - a way to keep the population happy, or a form of mind control?







The 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' vibe continues with Bridget Collins' The Binding. A gripping tale of betrayal and hidden secrets set in a vaguely Victorian setting, unhappy memories are gathered by a form of magic, and bound into books. When Emmett is apprenticed as a bookbinder, he starts to uncover his own hidden memories - and his view of the world changes completely.





And The Wind Sees All by Gudmundur Andri Thorsson Another collection of short stories, this time fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle to paint a portrait of the inhabitants of an Icelandic fishing village. At a cursory view they seem happy, respectable, comfortable in their life and ways, but behind the smiling faces heartache, betrayal and deceit lurk.









My last pick - Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield - is a bit of a cheat as I also included it in last year's 'best of' list; it was only available then as an e-book, now it's in 'proper' book form. It's an astounding piece of storycraft - a tale as much about the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the frequently puzzling world, as it is about a girl rescued from the river one dark, stormy night.

The Binding by Bridget Collins

Emmett thought his life was all planned out - that he'd stay in the village where he was born, be a farmer like his father, marry one of the local girls. Then a letter arrives announcing that he's to be taken on as an apprentice Binder. Working with books is a dubious profession. There's a lot of superstition and fear surrounding them, as they aren't books as we know them. Instead they're repositories for people's unwanted memories. Lost someone you've loved? Done something dreadful that you want to keep hidden from the world? A Binder will erase your memories and store them in a book.
Emmett apparently has a talent for the work, but it also transpires that he has memories bound into a book - and when chance leads him to re-awaken those memories, his world changes completely.

If you've ever seen The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you'll immediately spot similarities; central to both stories is the ability to erase memories, specifically those relating to an unfortunate love affair. But, whereas Eternal Sunshine has a contemporary setting, and some computer thingamajig erases memories, The Binding is set in an alternative world with an early Victorian factories feel to it, and the act of 'binding' is more like a magical skill.
In this alternative world, there are no novels. Practical textbooks are considered acceptable, but fiction doesn't exist. Books are lifted whole from a person's memories, wiping away sorrow or pleasure, and  should then be safely stored away, never to be read by anyone, but there are always the unscrupulous practitioners willing to corrupt the art of Binding in various ways, to profit from hiding dark secrets through Binding, or to sell the subsequent book for others' enjoyment.

The world building is brilliant, the story-telling wonderful, and, although when I'd reached the end I began to think that maybe some of the ideas don't quite add up, it doesn't matter, because while reading I was swept along by the story.

In short, i loved it, and it will probably end up in my picks of the year!

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Harper Collins (The Borough Press)
Genre - Adult fiction, fantasy