Astral Travel by Elizabeth Baines

 Review by The Mole

 About a charismatic but troubled Irishman and his effect on his family, explores the way that the secrets forged by cultural, religious and sexual prejudice can reverberate down the generations. It’s also about telling stories, and the fact that the tales we tell about ourselves can profoundly affect the lives of others. In a framing narration that exposes the slippery and contingent nature of story, an adult daughter, brought up on romantic lore about her now dead father but having experienced him very differently, tells how she tried to write about him, only to come up against too many mysteries and clashing versions of the family’s past. Yet when a buried truth emerges, the mysteries can be solved, and, via storytelling’s power of empathy, she finally makes sense of it all.

An author decides to write the biography of her father, a man who seemingly never loved her and a man she spent most of her growing up years in conflict with. But to flesh it out she needs to reconnect more closely with her family. It's then that she finds that there was so much that she didn't know.

Be prepared to become involved in the story as it unfolds, piece by piece, in random order, like a jigsaw, only revealing the picture to the reader and narrator at the end of the telling. He is a man that sees the worst when there's nothing to see. He's prone to very violent fits of rage that he turns against his family. But he's a man protecting a secret - one that the writer doesn't know but her sister thought everyone in the family knew.

It's a very tumultuous journey for the reader but a journey worth staying on. 

The more I learned, as a reader, about the man then the less I liked him but I couldn't stop reading. It's very well written and there are pieces along the journey many of us can relate to, but don't expect a happy ever after. I was left sympathising with the narrator and her family but also understanding a little of why she had missed so many signs growing up while her sister hadn't.

I really loved this story, which I received an ARC PDF version of, but it's not for the faint hearted. Highly recommended.

There ought to be a "If you are affected by any of the issues in this book..." to accompany it - but if you are then PLEASE find someone to talk to about it.

Genre: Adult fiction

Publisher: Salt Publishing

He Wants by Alison Moore

A while ago - a long while, actually - at the launch for Alison Moore's novel Missing, I picked up a copy of one of her previous books, put it on a shelf, and half forgot about it. I have quite a stack of my own personal books which tend to get neglected in favour of review copies, but this last month or so I've been trying to take time out to read them. So here I am, over a year later, to tell you about He Wants.

Lewis is a retired school teacher. He's had an uneventful life, and retirement is even less exciting. Now a widower, he still lives in the village where he grew up. His daughter visits regularly, bringing lunch that he doesn't really want, and making sure he's okay, but there seems to be little love or companionship between the two. This isn't the middle-age he wanted, in fact much of his life he seems to have just drifted along the easiest path rather than make active choices. With time on his hands, Lewis wanders through his memories, regretting chances he never took, wishing he'd done things differently. He's made to feel worse by the return of an old friend, Sydney, who seems quite glamorous in comparison - he's traveled and seen the world, and seems to have generally made a success of his life.

As with Alison Moore's other work, this is a gently-paced, quiet, contemplative story, focusing on the inner turmoil and hopes of her characters.

I read this at a point when I was feeling very low, and although, with its themes of loneliness, regret and missed chances, it's hardly what you might call a cheerful book, I found it soothing. It's not all doom and gloom though. There are many instances of Moore's wry humour, and the ultimate message is one of hopefulness. To me it said 'it's never too late; if you've got an unfulfilled dream, give it a go'

Flotsam by Meike Ziervogel

Anna and her daughter Trine live on the German coast, by mudflats that are covered twice a day, and whose form shifts with the tides. Their life is lonely, haunted by the ghosts of war. Anna is emotionally and artistically paralyzed by grief. She spends her days collecting debris washed up by the tides, with which she intends to create something - but can't find the spark within herself to start. Trine, forced into more social contact through school, is more resilient, finds it possible to put the past behind her and move on.

Set in 1950s Germany, Meike Ziervogel's latest book tells the story of a mother and daughter trying to come to terms with grief and the past. Anne and Trine live, damaged and adrift, like emotional flotsam on the blurred edge between land and sea. The mudflats, shifting and changing form with each tide, echo the women's thoughts and memories - there's only one safe way through, otherwise you'll sink and be caught by the tide. 

Ziervogel's writing is, as always, concise and sparse; her characters troubled and arresting. It's a story which sticks in the mind, with a lot of impact for such a slim volume.


This isn't by any stretch of the imagination a 'traditional' post-apocalypse story, but mulling over what exactly I'd say in this review, perhaps due to how my thoughts are running at the moment, it struck me that there were similarities. Isolated, bleak, drab, their location seems spot on for post-apocalyptic fiction. And then, imagine the mindset of the German people in the immediate post-war years. No matter whether or not they supported the Nazi regime, believed its propaganda or thought it was all lies, the end of the war marks the end of an era; everything that shaped their lives has been swept away, leaving huge uncertainty in its wake. For them, this is post-apocalyptic life.


Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - adult literary fiction, coming of age, 

Sunny and the Ghosts by Alison Moore

'Sometimes, when you open a door or lift a lid, you find exactly what you expected to find: coats in the coat cupboard, bread in the bread bin, toys in the toy box. And sometimes you don’t.'

illustrated by Ross Collins

review by Maryom 

Sunny's parents like old things - clocks and pianos, books and ornaments - so bought an antique shop, with a flat above where they live. Sunny helps in the shop by polishing mirrors, brass coal scuttles and copper kettles, out of which he always thinks a genie might appear. It isn't a genie he finds hiding among the old blanket chests and wardrobes, though, but a ghost ... then another ... and then a third is found locked in a cupboard! The ghosts all seem friendly, and hardly any trouble at all (unless you count playing the piano at night), but someone seems to be causing trouble in the shop. Books are thrown off their shelves, an ornament broken, dozens of cats let in to wander round the shop, sit on furniture and cushions, sleep in pots and pans. Sunny suspects there must be another ghost, a naughty one, playing pranks and getting up to mischief, but how can he make the ghost show himself, and then leave?

You'll probably have heard of Alison Moore as an award-winning author, listed for the Booker and such, but this is her first book aimed at a younger readership. 

It does share some characteristics of Moore's 'adult' novels - an interest in the meanings behind words and phrases, a brevity of words to describe people and situations, but it most definitely isn't a grown-ups novel dumbed down for children. It's a light-hearted and fun read, with line-drawings by Ross Collins bringing characters and situations to life, eminently suitable for children who find scary, hide under the bedsheets ghost stories just too frightening. The plot moves along quickly, and once Sunny finds one ghost, more seem to appear every day, popping up in all sorts of odd places around the shop. It's all jolly, apart from the puzzle of who, or what, is behind the trouble in the shop. Sunny's parents seem inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, and don't blame him for it, but I'm not sure they really believe his tale of ghosts either. With a little help from his spectral friends though Sunny manages to track down the trouble maker, and find a way to settle the problem. 

Further stories are planned so this looks like being the beginning of quite an adventure for Sunny and the Ghosts.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - children's ghost stories 9+

Missing by Alison Moore

review by Maryom

Alison Moore's latest little gem (less than 200 pages) follows Jessie Noon for a few weeks in winter - from late November to the start of January - as she goes about her life in the Scottish Borders town of Hawick. It's a life which feels strangely cut off and isolated, from neighbours, friends and family. For the past year she's been living alone with just a cat and a bizarrely named dog for company, after her (second) husband walked out one morning leaving a parting message in the steam on the bathroom mirror. As the story progresses, Jessie starts up a new relationship, tries to get in touch with her grown-up son, who she hasn't heard from in years, and to improve her relationship with her parents and elder sister, but something is missing. She's haunted and weighed down by a dreadful event from her past, which leaves her wandering around in a fog - able to concentrate on the tiny, mundane everyday things immediately around her but unable to see a bigger picture.

Jessie's story unfolds in two ways. As we follow her day to day (frankly quite dull) routine, Jessie slips, stream of consciousness-like, into random reminiscences brought about by the things she sees. These chapters are interspersed by sections set back in 1985, as events move relentlessly towards the tragedy which has shadowed Jessie and her family since.

The writing is wordy in the way that Moore's books often are - not in length but in playing with meanings. The power of words is central to the tale; a misunderstood instruction led to the dreadful event which plagues Jessie's life - ironic as she's a translator by trade, and spends hours, if not days, mulling over the subtle meanings of words, trying to find an exact English match for each one.
So I found myself, of course, thinking about 'missing' and all its various forms - a missing person, missing someone who's no longer in your life, missing your bus, missing your step, missing a turning, a near miss, or just missing out on life, as Jessie is. Her life has been irrevocably changed by a child going missing, and other people disappear from her life with seeming regularity, but smaller things also get lost - a jigsaw piece, items of jewellery, a jar of marmalade - and perhaps the finding of them towards the book's end marks a turning point in Jessie's life.
There's also a feel of things and people being in limbo - waiting for some dramatic revelation or event to give meaning and purpose to them. 

In part, it's a book in which little seems to happen but beneath that superficial appearance so much does. Moore's words hold the reader, building atmosphere and emotion, but then in a tender, heart-warming or -breaking moment there'll be a burst of unexpected humour to flip the mood around.
It may be short, but has plenty to get your (literary) teeth into and certainly left me with plenty to mull over.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult literary fiction

The Giddy Career of Mr Gadd (deceased) by Marie Gameson

review by Maryom

Following a moment of revelation on a mountain top in Taiwan, Winifred Rigby believes she's attained a state of enlightenment, discarding all thoughts of  'self' along with her memories. Now forced by her family to return to London, she tries her best to live a life of Buddhist detachment and mindfulness, concentrating on the present, and forgetting the past, but is puzzled and frustrated by the almost obsessive care shown by her mother and sister, and, despite her intentions, the past seems unwilling to let go of Winnie. First she's approached by one of her former teachers who believes he is being haunted by his father, Mr Gadd, and that the answer to how to appease this ghost is to be found in an old school essay's of Winnie's - The Giddy Career of Mr Gadd (deceased). This leads to other random encounters  - with her best friend from her teenage years, and a former boyfriend - and more deliberate journeys into the past through her school essays. Maybe Winnie needs to re-connect with her past to find a future?

The story (apart from a short 'epilogue' is narrated by Winnie herself, and at first I took her words as 'true'. She believes that her family have tricked her in various ways - pretending her sister was ill to make Winnie come home from Taiwan, clearing a large amount of money from her back account, acting as if her father were dead when Winnie herself has seen him selling Big Issue at the tube station. I loved the tone of Winnie's voice, but it's obvious from the first page that Winnie and her family aren't quite communicating on the same wavelength and gradually I began to get the feeling that Winnie wasn't exactly the most reliable of narrators. Soon a number of mysteries emerge - why does her sister Ursula keep such a close eye on Winnie? what really happened to bring Winnie home from Taiwan? has Winnie chosen to forget the past or has she lost her memory in some way?  - and, of course, I needed to know why/what/ how, and was hooked.
Thought-provoking is a tag often used when reviewing books, but here, without stressing or labouring over them, the author introduces a variety of themes to mull over or discuss with bookclub friends - how do you care for or continue to love a person who has undergone a radical personality change? isn't change of some sort necessary to personal growth? is it good or bad to cut oneself loose from the past? is the detachment that Winnie seeks necessarily a good thing or can it make us careless of other people's emotions? It's a book I feel I could return to time and again, and always find something new hidden there.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult fiction

The Photographer by Meike Ziervogel

review by Maryom

Based on the story of her grandparents, Meike's Ziervogel's latest novel returns to the scene of her first, Magda - Germany in the 1930s and '40s. This time though the focus is not on the Nazi elite, but on an 'average' couple - Trude and Albert.
They meet in 1933, and, despite Trude's mother's objections, after a whirlwind romance leave Germany to travel round Europe while Albert begins to make his mark as a photographer. With war approaching they return home to Pomerania in the east of Germany, but Albert is soon forced to join the army, and as the war sweeps first east then west, the family is separated by forces beyond their control.
Through this small family of mother, daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, we see the desperate hardships and heart-breaking decisions that faced many German families - to volunteer or try to avoid conscription, to remain in the family home or flee with only the minimum of clothing and mementos; it's a story that in many ways is being echoed today in other parts of the world.
So many war-time 'romances' end with the return of the soldier to a hero's welcome; the Photographer doesn't. Trude and Albert's story continues in the harsh environment of refugee camps, where they have to readjust, learn to love each other again, and Albert particularly has to forget the past few years and rediscover the person he was before. The horrors he's seen are largely unmentioned, but have obviously affected him; as he wanders around, picking up his camera but never ready to commit to actually taking a photograph, there's an almost unbearable sense of a man lost and not able to find his way back to 'normality'.
In length, the story is short - 170 pages - but it's not one to rush. Take your time, because every word counts. Ziervogel's prose is pared back, almost to a minimum, and leaves the reader to put in some effort. At times the motivation behind the characters' actions is left a little 'open', and the reader can maybe choose their own interpretation  - for instance, one may see Trude's mother as an interfering busybody, another as a concerned, patriotic mother. I quite like this in a novel - the story isn't cast in stone, but can be re-interpreted according to my mood or influences outside the book.


Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult historical fiction, WW2, 

Billionaires' Banquet by Ron Butlin

review by Maryom


It's 1985, the middle of the Thatcher era, and in Edinburgh three unemployed ex-students - Hume (philosophy PhD), "St" Francis (dropped out of training for priesthood)  and the Cat (awaiting results of her Pure Maths degree) are living amicably enough in their cheap, down at heel fourth floor flat, drifting along with no clear plans for their future but with the hope that something with turn up one day - even when the Cat disappears mysteriously in the middle of a party their lives continue with barely a flicker of concern. But change is coming from outside - even on Edinburgh's streets you can see homeless people sleeping rough, and Hume's new girlfriend DD isn't happy with his attitude to life, so delivers an ultimatum; basically, get a job or I'm off!
With this threat hanging over him, Hume decides to ditch his theoretical philosophy in favour of something more money-making, dragging St Francis along with him into a scheme providing butlers for up-market gatherings.  Hume is on his way to making loadsamoney ...
Their story is picked up twenty years later, as Edinburgh is occupied by anti-G8 protesters and London shaken by bombs, and Hume hosts a "Billionaires' Banquet" at which the winners of a lottery will be waited on hand and foot, and the losers doled out rice and water ...

Billionaires' Banquet is a rags to riches story, invoking the heady get-rich-quick schemes of the Thatcher era, and the human cost underlying them. Hume's business is typical for the times, conjured up from nothing more than a few props, hot air and wishful thinking, but it caters to clients' feelings of self-importance and Edinburgh falls for it. It isn't without its downside though - for both the people Hume employs and his family.
It's very much a novel of Edinburgh too, of the changes made to it by time and economics, as one area rises in status while another declines, and, something I always love, streets and parks are named so you can follow the characters' movements in your mind or on a map.

The story is insightful, funny, scathing, and farcical by turns but I think you need a liking for dark satire to really appreciate it, and possibly a re-read to catch all the nuances. As such, I think it may not be an instantly appealing book but a slow-burner that simmers at the back of your mind for longer.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult fiction

The Other World, It Whispers by Stephanie Victoire

review by Maryom

These nine short stories make a deliciously spine-tingling collection that treads that fine line between the real world and the ghostly, faery one. 

A boy lets a silent girl into his house from the snow, hoping she will rescue him from his domineering mother; another is uncomfortable in his body and longs to change it, with the help of a little magic; a life-sized wooden sculpture of a man comes to life to commit a crime; in an 'alternative' version of Red Riding Hood, a young girl armed with an axe takes revenge on the predator stalking young girls in the forest; beautiful flowers hide a deadly secret; spirits journey on a train in the resting period before they're sent back to be born again and life another human life. Deals are made with gods, the fey queen, a witch and an old man who may actually be the devil - but you can't use magic to further your ends and ambitions without some sort of pay-back, and when revealed, will the cost be too high?


When it comes to scary reads, I'm always a fan of the subtly disquieting rather than over-stated horror, and of stories that, although they involve magic, still speak of very human feelings and failures - of love, revenge, fear or desire. These stories do just that. Some are downright creepy, others more like fairy-tales with a twist, but they all echo real emotions and situations. I loved them. 

The writing too is wonderfully atmospheric, whether describing the gloom of forests, the lure of the sea or the sparkle and glitz of a masked ball the author makes the scene appear before the readers eyes.


Unfortunately, this collection isn't published till mid-November. Otherwise it would make an ideal read for Halloween when the veil between worlds is weak.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult fiction,short stories, ghosts, fairy tales, fantasy

Ace of Spiders by Stefan Mohamed

review by Maryom

Stanly Bird is no ordinary teenager. On his sixteenth birthday he discovered he had 'super powers' - the ability to fly, and move objects via telekinesis. Now, nearly two years later (and after the adventures related in Bitter Sixteen), he's living in London with similarly 'empowered' friends, being encouraged to hide his powers, but feeling that he shouldn't waste them. 
His comparatively quiet life comes to an end though when an assassin is sent after him. Although this time the threat is fought off, Stanly and his friends seem to be under surveillance by the secretive Angel Group, and Stanly refuses to sit idly by while the mysterious corporation pick off those with special powers one by one ... and finds their actions have opened a whole can of worms (and far more scary monsters).

Firstly, I have to admit to not having read Bitter Sixteen as I wasn't actually sure that a YA super-hero story was my kind of read, but Ace of Spiders turned up for review, worked it's way to the top of the TBR pile, and I thought I'd give it a go. I'm so glad I did, as i was soon completely hooked, and now I understand why readers and reviewers were so enthusiastic about the first book in the series!

Stanly starts out looking for some excitement in his life. Influenced by all the super-hero stories he's read, he's looking for a way to put his powers to some practical use helping people, preventing crime, catching criminals and such, so, when he finds out the world itself is under threat from the Angel Group's experiments, he's the first in the queue to try to stop them. He's joined, though maybe a tad less enthusiastically, by his old friends, who'll be familiar to readers of Bitter Sixteen, and some new ones, as the very fabric of the universe tears apart - and hideous monsters crawl and fly through. It may start quietly but soon it's a roller-coaster of action adventure!

Theoretically it's a Young Adult novel, but if you're that bit older (like me!) don't let that put you off. If you're looking for something a little different, full of action, evil villains, good guys trying to save the world and bizarre out-of-this-world monsters - it's just like your favourite video game - give this a read. There's a little of The Matrix, a fair bit of Primeval and references to all sorts of graphic novels/comics mixed in, and it's so refreshing to have a super hero who isn't American and clad in garish Lycra! 
Oh, and it's funny, and there's a talking dog who frequently saves the day (and Stanly), and lots of improbable scary monsters (did I already mention those? well, they're worth mentioning again).

Obviously, as the second book, Ace of Spiders carries spoilers for its predecessor, so it's probably better to read the series in order, but I picked the story-so-far up easily and was quite prepared to run with it from this point. 



Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - YA/adult sci fi fantasy action adventure

Death and the Seaside by Alison Moore

review by Maryom

As she approaches the age of thirty, Bonnie Falls' parents have made it clear that it's time she moved out, so she finds a cheap ground floor flat, where she tries to pursue her writing while holding down dead end casual jobs. She settles in, starts sorting out the previous occupant's left-behind junk, and continues working on her current story, about a young woman, Susan, who moves to the seaside, and discovers enigmatic notes being left in her attic bedroom. Then her landlady Sylvia Slythe begins to take an interest in Bonnie, dropping round at odd hours and suggesting they go away to the seaside together. To the reader, her motives seem suspicious but Bonnie seems to remain blissfully unaware...

Death and The Seaside is a difficult book to categorise - if I say 'psychological thriller' a certain highly dramatic style of writing and plot development is expected, and this is far from that. Maybe it's better to say that it's a study of failing and manipulation ... but that sounds rather serious and dull, so again doesn't quite fit.

There are themes running through it of the power of names, and suggestibility, with more than a hint of the old question 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?' Are our destinies fixed by our names, and others' perceptions of us? But of course, this is a story, and so the names are deliberately chosen to fit the nature of the characters.

Bonnie's life is one of missed opportunities. She appears to have been hampered by people's expectations - her surname 'Falls' for starters, or her parents' attitude that she is bound to mess up anything she attempts - and her susceptibility to outside influence - she's easily swayed by advertising or even just a passing comment from someone. It seems as if she is destined to fall, figuratively or physically; she has a history of both - abandoning her university course to settle for dull minimum wage jobs, and a childhood tendency to jump off piers.
 Sylvia, on the other hand, is sly with a snake-like hypnotism and menace - again a reflection of her name with its echoes of Slytherin house in Harry Potter, which led me to liken her actions to those of the Snake in the Garden of Eden. She's interested in self-fulfilling prophecies, suggestibility, and how expectation influences behaviour; Bonnie seems like an ideal candidate to study.
Tension mounts when we realise that Sylvia is not a hands-off observer but someone who likes to manipulate and see how far she can push her 'subject'. Can Bonnie kick against her conditioning, upbringing, and the inevitability of falling/failing to see where Sylvia's devious plans are leading?

It feels rather like a beautifully shot film, lingering over the tiniest of actions, but not necessarily letting us inside the characters' heads, so while Sylvia's history sheds light on her character, Bonnie remains enigmatic. I didn't know whether she was happy with her life, frustrated or just resigned to how things had turned out; she certainly seems emotionally detached from the world.

Read it with an eye looking for parallels between life and books, or glimpses of the relationship between author and character, and there are plenty. As Bonnie's story advances, so does the story she's writing about Susan. There are similarities between the two, emphasised and played on by Sylvia, but there comes a point where life and art go separate ways. Of course, the whole story is 'art' (and sometimes I feel my thoughts running round a Mobius strip while trying to review this book!)

The ending comes with a feel of a last jigsaw piece dropping into place, or one of those wooden mind-bending 3D puzzles that won't hold together without the last section; only at this point is the whole structure revealed. For me, it's a book that has more impact once finished than it did while reading.

So I've ended up with the thought that it's a psychological thriller about life, art, and inescapable fate - lets hope the author thought it was too! In another writer's hands, this would easily have turned into a high drama psychological thriller, Moore takes an altogether subtler approach, letting the menace slowly ooze out; I rather found myself wishing that she'd written Gone Girl ...

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult literary fiction

Melissa by Jonathan Taylor

review by Maryom

When seven year old Melissa Comb dies in her home in Stoke on Trent, her neighbours all experience the same hallucination - at first a shrieking, headache-inducing noise, which makes them go into the street, followed by uplifting "old-fashioned" music, which spreads a mood of happiness and pride among them. For a short while, the inhabitants of the street come together, putting aside their differences and behaving as old friends. But soon the media move in, followed by scientists trying to pin down the cause of the phenomenon, then religious groups/new age believers set up a camp in the street, and this small part of Stoke becomes a destination for spiritual holiday tours. While all this is unfolding, the only family who DIDN'T hear anything, Melissa's own, are having to come to terms with their loss. Hiding behind their drawn curtains, the Comb family is slowly falling apart...

Melissa avoids the sensational, sentimental, and over-emotional traps and offers an unblinkered view  of a family trying to make sense of tragedy. So far, it's rather like Carys Bray's A Song For Issy Bradley , but whereas the Bradleys for all their differing opinions behave as a family, the Combs lack that cohesion and act as individuals, each filled with frustration, anger and grief. Melissa is definitely a darker yet quirkier read.
Having been the one most closely involved with Melissa's illness, her mother Lizzie is the one most prepared to pick life up, and start again, but another blow that comes through the media's interference almost floors her. Teenaged half-sister Serena doesn't know how to grieve; her mother is abroad, contributing only financially to Serena's life, and father Harry is lost in his own world since Melissa's death. Although they try their best, her friends just don't know how they can help her, and Serena is left to work things out alone. Harry, though, is the one who really can't cope. He just can't see how carrying on is possible but wishes that, like a piece of music, life would end; gradually he retreats into himself - from work, from communication with his family, from the world.

Melissa is a curious read -  it's told in a variety of styles (with snippets from newspapers and scientific journals), it's not as straightforward as you may like (starting with the musical phenomenon then moving back to Melissa's illness), and it only gradually seems to focus in on the real heart of the story - but its quirkiness appealed to me. Of course it's bleak - after all it's dealing with the death of a much-loved child, and the family's disintegration afterwards, but it's told with a sense of wry humour (particularly as regards the habits and 'goings-on' of the neighbours), and the 'coda' at the end leaves the reader feeling that, no matter what, life does carry on. 

Is it a book I'd say I loved? Well, it's too dark for that, but it's a quiet, slowly revealing story one I could read again and again.

Jonathan Taylor's earlier novel Entertaining Strangers didn't quite grab me when I first read it - too many ants among other things! - but I always felt it was a book worth re-reading. Having been so impressed with Melissa, it's time I did just that!

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult literary fiction

Used to Be by Elizabeth Baines

Review by The Mole

This anthology of short stories is split into 2 - "What Was, What Is" and "What May Be".

The first collection is very much about the past: a car journey that is fraught with tension as a nervous passenger is bombarded with stories by a driver who may, or may not, be paying enough attention to the road; revisiting places of youth and trying to find things that were landmarks; infatuations of youth that are not what they seem; the death of a stranger that means nothing; the story of extended family and the tugs of love and resentment with in it; and a ghost story - or is it?

The second part  is about possibilities: an incident that causes a train to be late and some of the people affected by it; a woman reflects on a summer when she had to choose between safe boyfriend or risky artist; someone meets a person whose language she can't speak and questions what they want from them; what happens when someone starts falling over; when your career and life is going nowhere and there are choices to be made; a visit to the sea that leads to reflection on the future.

I found myself wondering where I had read stories so like a few of these before that it was distracting. Fortunately the acknowledgements in the back revealed all - Unthologys! That, in itself, says a great deal for the quality of the stories and writing in this collection. I am a huge fan of the Unthology collections and anyone who is part of any of those collections has to be worthy of a further read.

Each and everyone of these stories will give you cause to pause and think - and the last story is one of those "why did the author stop there leaving me to chose 'what next'" stories (possibly the worst way to end a book? Discuss).

A really great collection that you will enjoy, identify with, wish that worm hadn't got into your head - and each of these in equal measure.

Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult fiction, short stories

Kauthar by Meike Ziervogel

review by Maryom

All her life Lydia has been looking for something to which she can dedicate herself. As a child she wanted to follow her father and become a champion gymnast, to gain the adulation and admiration of a spellbound crowd. As an adult, trying to regain her self-respect after a disastrous affair, she discovers Islam - the cleansing and prayer rituals, the rules by which she must live her life offer a framework within which she can lose herself and find love.
Lydia changes her name to Kauthar, wears hijab, marries a Muslim Iraq-born doctor and her life seems complete. But somehow she still doesn't feel quite fulfilled - maybe a child will fill the gap, or joining her husband helping the injured in his war-torn home country.....  What Lydia/Kauthar encounters there leads her towards what she sees as the ultimate sacrifice of self but others view as terrorism.

It's a bit flippant to say that Meike Ziervogel likes to explore the concept of  'women behaving badly' but here again, as with Magda, she does just that. The book opens, as it ends, with a suicide bombing - a horrific act, designed to shock and terrify, but that leaves us wondering why would someone do such thing. Through hate, or a desire for vengeance? well, from Kauthar's perspective it's an act of love. The story doesn't dwell on the sensationalist aspects  - the scattered body parts or the number of dead and injured  - but is interested in that question "Why?"
There's obviously no easy, one-size-fits-all answer but the author offers a plausible account of how one well-educated, white British woman might come to commit such a devastating act. Moving between childhood and adult years, the reader follows Lydia/Kauthar's life, trying to understand her, her reasoning and motivation, the psychological triggers that have pushed her and shaped her. As before in Ziervogel's work, there's a hint of the troubled relationship between mother and daughter. Lydia feels closest to her father, and her mother frequently seems dismissive of Lydia, belittling her and her aims and ideals as both child and adult.

 In 144 pages, the author draws a portrait of a woman struggling to fill an empty, gaping hole in her life - there never seems to be enough, or maybe the right sort of, love, to satisfy her need, and in desperation she twists her religion to fill that void.  This is without doubt another stunning, thought-provoking novella from Meike Ziervogel. Like those she publishes, the stories she writes tackle subjects that others might shy away from; they may be short but are deep and satisfying  - it doesn't feel an extra page or dozen would add anything.

There's a proverb (French I think) that claims that to understand all is to forgive all - and Kauthar (again like Magda) has committed an act that feels impossible to forgive. I certainly felt I understood Lydia/Kauthar but would I be able to forgive her? I don't think so.



 Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult fiction, literary

Sweet Home by Carys Bray

review by Maryom

This book first came our way nearly two years ago, but short story collections usually end up with The Mole so he reviewed it then and it was only after reading the author's debut novel A Song For Issy Bradley that I thought of reading it for myself. What a delight I'd missed!

These stories all relate in one way or another to home and family, but none really live up to the expected idyll of  "Home, Sweet Home"; rather they explore the stresses and strains of everyday life, and the gap between expectations and reality. Even if they've never been in precisely the same circumstances, parents will find much to relate to here - the tiresomeness of following the 'rules' of good motherhood, a father's fears of accidentally hurting his fragile baby, another's desperate attempts to save his drug-addict son, or the understanding that comes too late of why parents' behaviour can seem so mean to a child.  I hope I'm not making this sound like a collection filled with doom and gloom - it's far from that; laughter bubbles through, sometimes, especially from children, in the most inappropriate of moments.
 There are also new twists on the Gingerbread House from Hansel and Gretel, and the Russian folk tale Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden, and a wry look at what you might actually purchase in the supermarket's 'baby aisle'.

I think it's fair to say I loved each and every story in its own way, and, with a blend of the literary and accessible, Carys Bray is fast growing into one of my favourite authors, for short or longer fiction.


 Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult literary fiction, short stories

Clara's Daughter by Meike Ziervogel

 review by Maryom

 Michele appears to be a woman who has everything - a successful career, two grown up children and a happy marriage - but cracks have started to form underneath the surface and her world's about to crumble. 
Don't read my summary and expect a thriller! Meike Ziervogel's second novel is a quiet, intimate portrayal of a life falling apart as Michele is pulled in opposite directions by loyalty to her husband and mother. Things start in an idyllic seeming way - a cycle ride and an early morning swim shared by Michele and husband Jim but already there are signs that Jim expects life to be lived his way and that, now the children are independent, his wife's attention should be on him.  Michele has other concerns and obligations though - ideally she'd concentrate her time and efforts on her work, an important deal is in the offing and as CEO she wants to be there and in charge .... but then there's her elderly mother, Clara, who increasingly needs to be looked after. Her sister Hilary would love to help out, so she says, but always finds a reason not to, while manoeuvring Michele into doing everything. A care home would be ideal but will Michele's conscience allow her to send her mother there?  Where is the midst of these conflicting ties is there space for Michele herself?

As in Meike Ziervogel's debut novel  Magda, the central relationship is that between mother and daughter; how it changes through the years, with the balance of dependence and help shifting between the two. Jim shares the idea that I feel is in the back of many couple's minds that once the children have grown, then their time will be free to do with as they please - a luxury cruise, golfing holidays in the Algarve or, in Jim's case, downsizing to a remote cottage by the sea. Life isn't that simple though, there are always obligations to be met and, as parents age, children, once cared for become the carers themselves. Clara I felt to be just as much the victim of circumstances as her daughter - although terrified at the thought of being institutionalised in a home or hospital, living as a dependant in a converted basement was certainly not how she'd have chosen to spend her old age.
Alongside this core, it explores Michele's relationships with her self-centred, laid back husband and manipulative sister, and looks at the different roles we play at various stages of life - daughter, mother, sister, wife, artist, businesswoman; how they pull us in opposite directions, are sometimes impossible to combine, some having to be sacrificed for others and how ultimately they shape and define us, rather than us choosing and determining our own future.

 It's a short book, just over 130 pages, but one that requires a little effort on behalf of the reader, in the form of some input and response. Don't sit back and expect everything to be laid out in plain sight - it's a little like watching a play; the characters' feelings and motivations have to be interpreted from their words and actions, and I suspect everyone will see things slightly differently, informed by their own feelings and experiences.

The structure is a little curious - two timelines, one of which charts a week leading up to a decisive point in Michele and Jim's relationship; the other darting ahead into the future, a month, six months, a year, eighteen months, charting the more lasting effects- so the reader needs to retain track of both to fully appreciate he unfolding of events.
Clara's Daughter is an amazing book, packing so much into such a short space, and one that while telling a very specific story about two women raises matters that are of consequence to all of us. Best of all, it's a book that I expect to improve with further reading.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult literary fiction

Author Events - Nottingham

 by The Mole

 Last week was a busy week for us with two separate and very different author events being held in Nottingham.

The first event was Alison Moore, author of The Lighthouse which was, of course, Booker Prize short listed. The event was to cover the launch of her latest book The Pre-War House and other stories, published by Salt and nominated for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award 2013. The event was held on the ground floor of Waterstones which offers a cosy environment amongst the book shelves laden with their cargo of stories. When we arrived we were greeted by a glass of bubbly as this was, after all, a book launch. The audience was the usual mix of couples and after a brief introduction to her route into publishing - which started as many authors do, through short stories -she read a couple of complete stories from the collection, Jetsam and The Smell of the Slaughterhouse. She then followed this with a reading from the beginning of The Pre-War House. The Q&A seemed to focus, unsurprisingly, more on The Lighthouse and how she got published (a topic that so many of these events tend to raise). The book signing and one-on-one that goes with it ensued.    

Rachel Caine's event was the second event she had held at the store and so the larger, more formal location of the Sillitoe room was chosen. The event was to promote Fall of Night, the penultimate book in the The Morganville Vampire series. With most seats taken, it brought a smile to my face when I looked around the room and found less than 10 men in the room and most of them were accompanying their partners, although there were one or two that had come on their own. Rachel started by explaining her name. Yes, it's a pen-name but she explained she has also written as Roxanne Longstreet and Roxanne Conrad. She has written under a couple of other names as well but these she didn't mention. Rather surprisingly there was no reading but instead she recounted events along the way to getting Fall of Night published and how the first book came about. Although the emphasis was on The Morganville Vampire series she has written a few other series of books namely Outcast Season, The Revivalist and The Weather Warden. Neither Maryom nor The Mole has read any of her books (though our daughter has) but despite that the evening was very entertaining and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The last Morganville book comes out before the end of the year and she has another book out later this year in The Revivalist series. Clearly she is not only a great speaker and entertainer (everything was tinged with humour) but she is also a prolific author. After a Q&A which focusssed on The Morganville Vampires the book signing snaked slowly around the room and people left gleefully excited that THEY had spoken to Rachel Caine. Another great event from Waterstones.

Sweet Home by Carys Bray

Review by The Mole

A collection of 17 short stories of suburbia. But these are tales of the darker side of suburbia. Starting with a mother who is trying to be the best possible mother by reading anything published on the subject to the story of a father who desperately wants to rescue a son from a life of drugs with many tales in between. A retelling of the story of Hansel and Gretel in a modern setting will get you thinking and warrants that the police re-examine the evidence. There is a story of a sculptor and his wife who so desperately want a child that he carves one from a ball of ice - again a story based around folk tales.

With longest of these short stories being just 15 pages long they are a genuine coffee time read. That is if you can resist starting the next. And the next. They are not, by any stretch of the imagination, all similar tales but vary tremendously from story to story, some darker than others and some amusing but all of them thought provoking.

Yesterday I read "I will never disappoint my children" and for the first time in many years I went out and built a snowman - with my wife - while our daughter stayed inside. The story must have been written about my wife I think.

An excellent collection that I'm sure readers will enjoy.

Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult short stories

Buy Sweet Home from Amazon

Magda by Meike Ziervogel

 review by Maryom

"In this daring portrayal of Magda Goebbels – wife of Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels – Meike Ziervogel unveils an historical tale of abusive mother and daughter relationships that reaches a terrifying conclusion in the last days of Nazi Germany.

Magda is born at the beginning of the 20th century, the illegitimate child of a maidservant who feels burdened with a daughter she does not want. The girl grows up to become an ambitious woman, desperate for love and recognition. When Magda meets Joseph Goebbels, he appears to answer all her needs, and together they have six children. Towards the end of the Second World War, Magda has become physically and emotionally sick. As she takes her children into the Führer’s bunker, her eldest daughter Helga experiences an overwhelming sense of foreboding."

 When I was first offered a review copy of Magda, I was more intrigued by the fact that it was written by the founder of Peirene Press than by its story-line. After all Peirene has become noted for its short, perceptive fiction, so I wondered what and how Meike Ziervogel would write herself, whereas a fictionalised biography of Frau Goebbels didn't seem overly appealing. So did it measure up? Yes!

As I half expected, Magda is a short book - under 120 pages - but one that packs a punch. It's a powerful, emotionally draining novel that takes the reader behind the public façade and gets into the mindset of someone who commits the cruellest of acts in the belief that they are doing a kindness. The author doesn't try to find excuses for Magda's behaviour but to uncover her possible thoughts and motivations, starting with her rather lonely, institutionalised childhood, through finding purpose as a supporter of the rising Nazi party, to the peak of her career as wife of Joseph Goebbels. I didn't know anything of Magda Goebbels before reading this and would probably have dismissed her as a fairly brainless 'trophy' wife. By the time I reached the moving end, I felt that I understood her, even if I didn't approve.
Magda isn't the only character of course. I particularly liked the portrayal of her mother - being questioned by a Russian commissar and trying desperately to distance herself from any involvement in her daughter's acts. Magda's own daughter, Helga, seemed a little too trusting for her years - a combination of innocent yet brain-washed due to her upbringing within Hitler's inner circle.

A disturbing book but one I'd recommend to anyone with interests from psychological profiling to Hitler's Germany.

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult fiction, historical fiction

If this has intrigued you, find out more in our Q+A with Meike Ziervogel

Entertaining Strangers by Jonathan Taylor

review by Maryom

 "Entertaining Strangers is a tragi-comedy about the eccentric Edwin Prince – a depressive intellectual obsessed with high culture and ants – and the mysterious, homeless narrator Jules, who gradually unravels Edwin’s impossible relationships with his landlady, neurotic mother, psychotic brother, domineering ex-wife, dead grandfather and, above all, his ant-farm. At the same time, Jules continually experiences traumatic memories full of fire and water, and gradually a terrible pre-history emerges from beneath all of the other stories, which seems somehow to shape both Jules’s fiery dreams and Edwin’s obsessions – a great fire, massacre and one girl's drowning in Smyrna, 75 years earlier."

Homeless Jules accidentally stumbles into the house and life of Edwin, an eccentric high-culture buff with a fascination for ants. Living in chaos, surrounded by broken relationships, Edwin tries to find order and a perfect world in his ant colony. His family is, at best, dysfunctional; all of them scarred by his grandfather's experiences in Smyrna, 75 years earlier. Is Jules destined to save them from themselves?

From its double-edged title to the equally ambiguous narrator, Jules, Entertaining Strangers is a difficult novel to pin down and describe. If you could imagine a mash-up of  It's A Wonderful Life and Withnail and I with copious amounts of vermouth you'd perhaps be coming close. I probably wasn't the best person to read this, having a 'deaf ear', therefore no understanding of music, and a deep seated repugnance for ants - so I'm sure many subtleties either drifted past me or I shied away from. At times I was pulled in and fascinated; others not so much; but it's definitely a book I would return to. 

Maryom's review - 3.5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult fiction

Buy Entertaining Strangers (Salt Modern Fiction) from Amazon