The Rockpool Murders by Emylia Hall

 

Rock legend Baz Carson has assembled a party of close family and friends to celebrate his 70th birthday, and publication of his 'tell all' memoir, in his cliff-top Cornish house, but the morning after their arrival, his dead body is found floating in the swimming pool. It seems to be just an accident, perhaps exacerbated by health issues or partying the night before, and the police seem ready to dismiss it as such though at least one of the guests, Tallulah, Baz's first love from California, isn't convinced. Hearing of the Shell House Detectives, she hires them to uncover the truth, but this time Ally and Jayden may have got themselves into something a little too dangerous ...

And then a second body is found; very definitely murdered.

I really like this crime series from Emylia Hall, and this latest is no exception. There's a little change of pace from the previous two, with what is effectively a 'closed room' murder as if there is a murderer, they have to be one of those invited to Baz's party. There's an array of suspects - his ex-wife, their grown-up children, folks who knew Baz back in the old days - any of whom could have had motivation to murder, especially after reading Baz's memoir, and there's a series of twists, turns, and revelations before the murderer is pinned down.

There are changes afoot in the lives of the Shell House 'regulars' - after years of just considering her art as a hobby Ally has her first exhibition, and Jayden's former police boss turns up reminding him of the challenges and rewards of 'real' police work. Are things about to alter completely for the Shell House Detectives? I hope not.

There's everything here that I look for in cosy crime - a relatable cast of characters, an intriguing mystery, and a gorgeous setting. 

The Shell House Detectives by Emylia Hall

The small Cornish village of Porthpella doesn't seem like the setting for a murder enquiry but behind the dunes and holiday cottages something unpleasant is lurking.

Ally Bright is disturbed late one night by a distraught young man knocking on her door. Lewis Pascoe is newly released from prison, and has just discovered that his grandmother's bungalow has been sold to incomers, and his grandmother moved miles away to a nursing home..In his anger and confusion Lewis turns to the only man who might help him - Ally's husband, the retired village policeman - but unfortunately he's died while Lewis has been in prison. Before Ally can decide what to do about the situation, Lewis heads off again into the night. 

And next morning he's found at the foot of the cliffs. Alive, but unconscious.. 

At the same time, an incomer, Helena, goes missing. She and her husband are the couple responsible for buying and knocking down Lewis's grandmother's bungalow. Are the two incidents related? Did Lewis threaten her in some way?

While the police assume Lewis is responsible, and wait for him to regain consciousness,  Ally and a new acquaintance - ex-cop Jayden Weston - aren't convinced and decide to investigate themselves.

The Shell House Detectives is Emylia Hall's first foray into the cosy crime genre (although there's a taste of it in her earlier novel A Heart Bent Out of Shape). and the first of a three book series.

Ally and Jayden are an unlikely pairing - a middle-aged widow, and a young man who's left the police because of his partner's death but can't help but be inquisitive. What they have in common is a sense of curiosity and obligation to see things put right.

There are other side issues - a potential love interest for Ally, Jayden's worry of having been too quick to leave the police and relocate to Cornwall plus his impending fatherhood, the inadequacies of the new village policeman - which give a firm backdrop to the central crime investigation. 

 If you like dark psychological thrillers, then this probably isn't the book for you, but it has a twisty plot, great characters (some more fleshed out than others, but all recognisable individuals), and a lovely Cornish setting. An excellent holiday read. 

The Thousand Lights Hotel by Emylia Hall

review by Maryom

For thirty years, Kit's family has been tiny, made up of just her and her mother.  She was brought up never knowing her father's name, merely that he was a "not very nice" man, who died before she was born, and having no real idea why her mother chose to leave Italy for England. To press her mother for details always seemed to drag up such bad memories that Kit stopped asking. Then, as she lies dying in hospital, her mother admits the truth - Kit's father is still alive, and his name is Valentino Colosimo.
Weighed down by grief, Kit decides to go in search of the only relative she has - maybe to confront him with the anger her mother hoarded for all those years, maybe just to find some answers.

Tracking him down to the Hotel Mille Luci on Elba, Kit discovers a man nothing like her expectations. This Valentino is charming and kind, welcoming to all his guests, catering for their smallest needs, trying to anticipate every desire. Kit is taken aback - this surely can't be the man her mother despised so much? While she's trying to build up the courage to confront him, an added complication comes along in the shape of Oliviero, the hotel's chef, to whom Kit finds herself attracted before discovering he's presumably her half-brother! 

The Thousand Lights Hotel is Emylia Hall's fourth novel, and another one I've completely loved. The story is one of a young woman searching for identity and a place to belong, of the complexities of personal relationships, the steadfastness of love, and the sometimes disastrous results of trying to do the right thing. There are misunderstandings, and twists and turns enough for a crime novel, on the way to Kit and Valentino finally unravelling what happened thirty years before.
BUT the extra somethings that bewitched me and made me fall completely in love with the book were, firstly, the atmospheric setting - a cliff-side garden filled with an abundance of flowers, herbs and shrubs, a terrace strung with twinkling lights, the sea as backdrop. It's not the same, but there's a lot that reminded me of the garden of San Salvatore in The Enchanted April  and the feeling that as near as is possible here's a little piece of paradise on earth. For the ladies visiting San Salvatore, though, Italian food is a mystery, something to be braved and endured, whereas Hall and her characters delight in it; which brings me to the second wonderful aspect of this book - the food!  From breakfast pastries, through biscuits of almonds and chocolate fresh from the oven, platters of antipasti with sunset-coloured aperitifs as the sun goes down, to dinners of pasta in all its shapes and tastes, with breads strewn with salt, rosemary and even strawberries, every morsel is a joy and I wanted to try it all! Hall's evocation of Hungarian food in The Book of Summers hooked me in the same way, and her love of these tastes, textures and flavours shines through; it's like watching Nigella enthuse as she whips up a little something in her studio kitchen.

The Thousand Lights Hotel is a perfect beach read, but not a book you'll casually throw away at the end of summer. It's one to treasure, savour it as you might the food, to read in winter when summer seems so far away, and dream of being at the Hotel Mille Luci.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Headline
Genre - adult,

Emylia Hall - guest post

Today we're delighted to welcome Emylia Hall back to the blog to talk about the joys of the out-of-season seaside .....


The highs of low season

I spent several weeks in Cornwall’s far west when I was writing The Sea Between Us, and my most atmospheric trips were undoubtedly outside of the summer, times when beaches belonged to the dog-walkers, the hardy surfers, the watchful gulls. There were no tail-backs in the lanes then, and the palms of Penzance blew like ribbons in the wind. I had a week in rain-lashed early April where, bar one day of sparkling sunshine, I hid beneath the hood of my Parka as I tramped coast paths and clambered down to rocky coves that were yet to see spring. There was another week in November, huddled up on a writing retreat I ventured out into the bright light and cheek-slapping cold for restorative yomps between all the words. Then we had a few days in December, just before Christmas – more pleasure than writing business - where we showed my baby son the fabled Mousehole Lights. As he slept bundled up in his pushchair we drank cups of mulled wine and warmed our hands on pasties, wandering the steep streets at dusk, breathing in curls of wood-smoke and that delicious salt-heavy air.

Mousehole Christmas lights

Much as I love the sweet blaze of summer (oh the patchworks of beach towels, the splashing of pot-bellied toddlers, the tan-bodied surfers with wetsuits rolled to their waists, the rainbow ice cream and the crackle of barbecues and the coconut scent of sun-cream!) there’s something about the winter months that make staying by the sea feel… intrepid. I like to soak up whatever the elements throw at me, lift my face to the wide open sky, let my ears thrum with the crash and roll of surf. Then I hunker in the cosiest spot I can find as my nose runs, and my fingers and toes sting their way back to feeling, and that first sip of beer, tea, hot wine, feels like some kind of a reward. Never has the inside-outside contrast been so happily felt.

Sennen winter

The Sea Between Us came out in August, and the sunset on the cover evokes summer’s end. Certainly it’s filled with sunshine - days where wildflowers wilt in the lanes and rock-pools are warm as a bath – but the sections I perhaps enjoyed writing most are where I let the weather rip. Robyn zipped up in a winter wetsuit, bristling with cold as she bursts into the water with her surfboard. Rain coming down all over the headland as Jago’s torch-beam searches for someone they’ve lost.
Wipers squeaking as Robyn and Jago drive home together in the mizzle. The story moves though seven years, and we see the residents of White Sands and Hooper’s House over several Christmases. There are holly berries on the cliff-tops, salt-spray on bobble hats and wellington boots. Snowflakes melt as they touch the water. People huddle closer in the winter months, and at Christmas, perhaps more so than at any other time of year, they try to tell each other that they matter.

I put lots of the things I love about a coastal winter in my story, and although I no longer have the excuse of research, I’m heading to Cornwall again in deepest January, to work on my new book. It’s not a sequel to The Sea Between Us, rather it’s set during an Italian summer – but the combination of blasting weather and cosy bolt-hole, stirring seas and whirring mind, makes for my kind of writing retreat. If I’m feeling brave I’ll channel Robyn and pack my board along with my notebooks. At the very least I’ll feel the wind coming off the water and let it fill me up, propelling me forward and onwards. Cold hands, warm heart, keep writing.  

The Sea Between Us by Emylia Hall

review by Maryom

 When her parents decide to move and live by the sea in Cornwall, Robyn Swinton doesn't expect to settle and make her home there - after all she's already finished her first year at university and is looking forward to striking out on her own in some more glamorous, bustling, generally exciting place like London. Then she discovers her own private cove almost at the end of the garden and the beginnings of a love affair, or two; one with surfing, the other with Jago, the boy-next-door. For when a boy rescues a girl from the sea, they have to fall in love, don't they? If only life were that simple!


This, Emylia Hall's third novel, is the nearest yet to a straight forward love story. The relationship between Robyn and Jago grows and changes over a seven year span, as instant attraction turns to something deeper, but fate seems determined to push them apart. Theirs is a story of missed chances, of so often being in the wrong place at the wrong time, of letters and messages going astray, of other relationships getting in the way - a little bit like Friends' Ross and Rachel, a little like Emma and Dexter from David Nicholls' One Day - but while it's a love story, there's so much more to it than that.
What I've loved about Emylia Hall's previous books, and has made them stand out for me above so many others, has been the capturing of place and atmosphere; in The Book of Summers it's the hot, lazy days of Hungarian summers; in A Heart Bent Out of Shape it's the snow-filled streets of Lausanne in winter. This time, she's chosen a setting closer to home - the far west of Cornwall - and almost every page is filled with yearning for the sea and surf, from the shock of the first cold wave to the elation of a few seconds upright catching a wave, she captures that tug that the sea exerts on many of us, a longing to throw oneself in and become part of it. From her first surfing attempt with a huge board and her wetsuit on back to front, comical but charming in the way of a toddler's first steps, Robyn is hooked on it!
I also loved the artistic passion that permeates the story - from Robyn's attempts to capture the pull and sweep of the waves or the play of light on the ocean through painting, to Jago's instinctive understanding of wood or the 'high' that Eliot gets playing music on stage in front of a live crowd. It's very much a book fizzing with the joy of life, and the delight in finding the thing that one 'must' do.

With it's sea-swept atmosphere, it's a great book for summer, but it's one that will linger with you far longer than a lot of other holiday reads.


Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Headline
Genre - Adult fiction

A Heart Bent Out of Shape by Emylia Hall

review by Maryom

 19 year old Hadley Dunn has led a quiet, unremarkable life with no great upheavals, happy or sad, to disturb her. Then a chance sighting of a brochure inspires her to spend her second year of university in Lausanne, on the shores of Lake Geneva, and she begins to live with an intensity she'd never thought possible. She quickly forms a strong friendship with Kristina - the sort of friendship that should have lasted a lifetime - but then the unthinkable happens and Kristina dies. Stricken by loss and guilt, Hadley turns to the only other people she feels close to - Hugo Bezier, a strange old man met accidentally in a bar, and her American Literature professor, Joel Wilson. The first encourages Hadley in her attempts to track down Kristina's mysterious boyfriend Jacques; the latter offers support of a more emotional nature - and the two soon find themselves heading towards a relationship that could land him in serious trouble.

Just occasionally a special book comes my way - one that I pick up, read a page and don't want to leave till the last. Emylia Hall is showing herself to be the kind of author who knows how to write such a book! Her debut, The Book of Summers, had me enthralled so I've been waiting rather anxiously for her follow up, A Heart Bent Out of Shape. I say anxiously because there's always the nagging fear that an author might not live up to the promise of their first book - I needn't have worried though, A Heart Bent Out of Shape is easily as compelling as The Book of Summers and perhaps even better!
There are certain similarities; mainly the importance of place and a 'coming-of-age' aspect. This time the setting is the cosmopolitan sophisticated city of Lausanne with its steep streets, elegant hotels, wonderful lake and mountain vistas. Against such a backdrop how could anyone fail to live intensely? Kristina's enthusiasm for life and her insistence on savouring every minute rubs off on Hadley, who begins to live for the first time in her life with passion - for her friend, for the works of Hemingway, for Joel. But, as various characters stress throughout the story, this aspect of Lausanne is only a setting; a veneer beneath which it's the same as anywhere else. Welcoming passion and love into her life comes easily for Hadley, but there's a flip-side to life with tragedy, death and disappointment waiting for her - the emotions that will lead to her leaving Lausanne, an older, more experienced, more 'grown-up' person.
There's an additional element to this second novel - almost a whodunnit feel to the latter half of the story with suspicions and plot-twists that kept me up and turning pages till way past midnight.

I may be gushing a bit here but I absolutely adored A Heart Bent Out of Shape. If you've already discovered Emylia Hall, you'll delight in this; if you haven't, maybe you should - great for fans of Maggie O'Farrell etc.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Headline
Genre - Adult fiction

Edinburgh Book festival - author event - Emylia Hall

by Maryom

Although this was actually a joint event with Lucy Ellman, I have to admit that for me Emylia Hall was the big draw. I totally fell in love with her first novel The Book of Summers, a coming of age story set in the long, hot summers of Hungary, and was disappointed to miss her at last year's Edbookfest. As it happened, this year's event sold out the day after I bought my ticket, so I nearly missed out again!

Emylia was in Edinburgh this time to promote her new novel A Heart Bent Out Of Shape, out officially in September but copies were available in the Festival bookshop. "A Heart Bent Out of Shape is the story of a first love, a terrible tragedy, a snow-filled paradise; a year that will never be forgotten." says the Amazon blurb and - in slightly less flowery words - this was the impression I got from Emylia's description of it. Hadley Dunn has led an unremarkable life with no great traumas or joys - until she decides to spend a year studying in Lausanne. There she forms strong friendships and falls in love but seems to be heading towards tragedy and disappointment. The feeling of place played an important part of the appeal of the Book of Summers and seems to do so again in Heart Bent Out of Shape. Hungarian heat is replaced with Swiss snow; lush green countryside by a bustling, vibrant city. I can't wait to read it!
As is usual at such events, things kicked off with readings from the authors' novels - with a slight difference. Lucy Ellman's latest novel, Mimi, is told in the first person from the perspective of an eminent, rather jaded-sounding, male plastic surgeon - so the 'taster' was read by the author's husband to give a more authentic flavour. These readings were followed by a discussion between the authors and the chair, and then questions from the audience. I got the impression that Emylia Hall was the lesser known author of the two; that the majority of people were there to see Lucy Ellman and certainly had more questions for her. Despite being on a Richard and Judy reading list, I don't think many people have discovered Emylia Hall - and I think they should!

Maryom's Picks of the Year

 I'm starting with a rather obvious sort of choice; Hilary Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies, the 'sequel' to Wolf Hall and the continuing political machinations of Thomas Cromwell. Not everyone's cup of tea but I loved it!








Next - two very atmospheric and very different novels

Archipelago by Monique Roffey  - a hauntingly beautiful story of loss and recovery set against the backdrop of the Caribbean

 and
The Book of Summers by Emylia Hall  - a wonderful evocation of long, hot Hungarian summers mixed with long hidden family secrets









Two historical novels both asking the question How do you define family - by birth or by upbringing?

Ben Elton's family-history inspired Two Brothers


and ML Stedman's The Light Between Oceans










 Two crime novels;
 The Calling by Neil Cross - spin off from BBC's Luther series; hard-hitting and violent, a story that left me reeling.

and the marginally cosier (though not by much) Vanished by Liza Marklund








                                                    


Three books that I'll rather loosely label as 'local'

David Calcutt's re-telling of the traditional tales of Robin Hood




Steven Dunn's rather too close to home thriller, Deity






and Edward Hogan's The Hunger Trace

For teens, YA and anyone really  - Celia Rees' This Is Not Forgiveness 

 a compelling, disturbing read that I couldn't put down 

For younger readers, the magical Wolf Princess by Cathryn Constable -  a wonderful, enthralling delight of a book set in an abandoned Russian palace in the depths of a snowy forest.

The Book Of Summers by Emylia Hall

Long Hot Hungarian Summer
review by Maryom

One day Beth's father comes on a surprise visit, bringing with him a parcel sent to her from Hungary. She knows who it will be from - the handwriting on it is that of her estranged mother's Hungarian artist partner, Zoltan - and at first she determines not to open it.
For seven years after her parents' separation, Beth made the long journey to Hungary for a week long summer holiday at their home, Villa Serena. At the time these weeks seemed idyllic -in comparison to her dull, plodding life at home with her quiet, almost silent father, Beth found Hungary to be hot, exotic and vibrant - but after they came to an abrupt end Beth has tried to block all memory of them.
Curiosity wins over her original decision - and inside the parcel she discovers The Book Of Summers, a scrapbook with an exquisitely painted cloth cover, compiled by Beth's estranged mother, Marika, filled with photographs, postcards and pressed flowers celebrating the holidays Beth spent with her in Hungary. Beth finds herself drawn back into her life there, rediscovering the joyful summers and the traumatic ending to them.

In essence The Book Of Summers is a coming of age story, a journey of self-discovery while facing up to hidden, unpleasant truths, one in which the heroine cannot build a future without coming to terms with the past. But what makes it stand out from so many similar tales is the way in which it is told.
The Book Of Summers brought the sights and smells of the Hungarian countryside to life for me. It's one of those novels that can transport you to a different time and place - I read it last week in the biggest freeze so far this winter and would swear I could feel the heat of the Hungarian summer as I read. It's such a beautiful evocation of hot, lazy summer days, of meadows disappearing into heat haze, hidden forest pools and not forgetting the wonderful Hungarian food - goulash, spicy sausages, juicy water melons, bullet-holed cheese.

I wondered slightly as I was reading, entranced as I was, quite where the plot was leading - whether it was solely a series of enchanting snap-shots. Then without warning, wham, came a lightning bolt of a plot twist - one that stopped me in my tracks and made me reassess the story so far.

I was told that this was a book that I would adore - and I do!

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Headline
Genre - adult, literary fiction