Star Shot by Mary-Ann Constantine

Illustrated by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

review by Maryom

Something strange is happening in the centre of Cardiff - as people move around the city, particularly close to the Museum, they are encountering silent spaces where all noise is suddenly cut off. A handful of people seem more aware of the phenomenon than others - Myra, who feels some strange, almost physical, attraction to the museum; Theo, an expert on ponds and the life found in them, who carries out 'guerilla-gardening' style pond installations; single-parent Dan struggling with the loneliness of bringing up his son; Luke carrying out a study into the use of public benches across the city, and his supervising professor - the first to spot the extant of these silent patches and their alarming growth. As the paths and lives of these five cross and connect, the puzzle of the silence grows, and initiatives are put it place to fight it but nothing seems to stop its spread.

  
Set in a off-skew Cardiff, Star Shot is a fable-like novel that speaks, to me at least, of the dangers of wiping out nature through the spread of concrete urban centres, and of the isolation of individuals in our high pressure, work-obsessed modern society. These ideas are explored, not through highly-moralistic rhetoric, but through the lives of a small group of characters, most of them rootless in the city, cut-off in some way from family and friends, struggling to form new relationships. As the story evolves, we learn more about their backgrounds, how in various ways they are damaged or weighed down by their past. The exception is Theo, the only one who lives outside the city, who you might even say 'lives and breathes' nature. Everything in his life revolves around ponds; employed during the day by corporations and councils to install them as one of their 'green' credentials, and sneaking out at night making wildlife havens on waste ground, with ponds and plants. It seems like he is the one who holds the key - not only to halting the spread of 'silence' but to bringing the others together.

After a short initial confusion, as the characters were introduced in quick succession, I found the story taking off and holding me. It's not your average 'airport' or 'beach' read but an interesting, thought-provoking comment on modern life, which, although I enjoyed it this time, I'd like to re-read in the not too distant future, knowing how the complexities of the plot work round each other.

Seren have previously published a collection of the author's short stories, All The Souls, but this is Mary-Ann Constantine's first full-length novel.

Maryom's review - 4 stars 
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, modern fable

Sugar Hall by Tiffany Murray - re-read

review by Maryom

In the run up to Halloween publisher Seren Books have been holding a read-a-long of Tiffany Murray's Sugar Hall  - one of the few ghost/horror stories that actually sent shivers down my spine and at times terrified me - so I had to join in! I find a lot of scary stories miss their mark with me - either falling flat or turning to comedy in their desperate attempts to frighten - Sugar Hall didn't.
I thought re-reading a ghost story might be a bit like going back to a crime novel, you know what will happen, all the plot twists, how it ends ...... so how did it go?  Well, actually I found it more terrifying than before ....

Lilia Sugar and her two children have moved from London to her late husband's family home Sugar Hall. It's a place full of secrets, built with money from slave and sugar trade, and it's haunted by one of those slaves - a young boy who saw his mother buried alive, and was then killed by his owner.

On the very first page we meet the ghost -  Lilia's son Dieter is fleeing from something he's seen; he knows it's a ghost, the reader knows it's a ghost but his mother and sister dismiss it as a figment of imagination or an attention-grabbing story. Dieter is lonely, he decides to make friends with the ghost, and, even at the first reading, the reader just knows no good will come of it. Dieter is both attracted and repelled by this slave boy; knows at heart that he should resist him but can't. First time through, I was hooked, wondering what would happen next; this time, knowing what would happen, I was horrified. I just wanted to shake his mother and say "Look at what's happening around you! Do something while you can!" But of course, I couldn't, and the whole ghastly tale reeled out again like a slow-motion car crash.
In some ways it seemed there was more time to 'look around' at the rest of the story, to see the other characters as more than just supporting the main plot. Lilia's story - her flight from Germany just before world war two, her relationships with the men in her life, her barely acknowledged dislike of her daughter - grabbed me more, because I was happy to be distracted from Dieter's growing dependence on the ghost.


It certainly lived up to the horror I'd felt first time .....maybe next year I'll read it again....


Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult horror ghost story

Advantages of the Older Man by Gwyneth Lewis

review by Maryom

Growing up in Swansea, Jennie has had her fill of both Dylan Thomas and poetry, but when she meets aspiring poet Peter, she soon puts her prejudice aside and finds even an open mic poetry evening can be ok so long as she can be with Peter. Sadly, the course of true love doesn't run smooth and after a fiasco at the Swansea carnival parade, Peter turns sullen and ignores her. Help is at hand for Jennie though, in the unlikely guise of Dylan Thomas - or at least his ghost - who claims he can help her win Peter's heart, but first Jennie has to help Thomas with his plans....


Advantages of the Older Man is a novella-length ghost story; not a scary one that leaves you afraid of the dark or wary of the noises in the attic, but a light-hearted, entertaining one - more Beetlejuice than The Woman in Black.
Dylan Thomas isn't as you would expect him to be either. His drunken lifestyle and moody Celtic image were apparently just an act for the punters - his real self is quieter, homelier and into long-distance running! While pursuing his own ends, he leads Jennie off on a whirlwind trip to the US where nothing goes remotely to plan but we discover the real reason behind Thomas's return from beyond the grave.

Although the author, Gwyneth Lewis, is a former Welsh National Poet, with several poetry collections and non-fiction books to her name, the only work of hers I've read is The Meat Tree , a sci-fi re-working of the Blodeuwedd myth for Seren's Mabinogion series, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Advantages of the Older Man. It probably isn't something I'd have picked up for myself but, when offered it for review, it sounded quirky and funny so I said yes - and I'm so glad I did.

It's darkly funny, filled throughout with wry humour and cleverly written with an unexpected twist at the end; an unusual find, but one I really enjoyed.



Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult ghost stories, humour

Sugar Hall by Tiffany Murray

review by Maryom

 Following the death of his father, young Dieter Sugar is now the heir of the rambling family home, Sugar Hall, on the English/Welsh border within sight of the river Severn. Left penniless, his mother Lilia decides the best thing to do is move from London to Sugar Hall, to see if it's possible to live there with her two children, selling off family heirlooms and valuables as necessary. More things have been inherited though than bricks and mortar or works of art....
 Exploring the grounds and outbuildings of his new home, Dieter meets a silent boy wearing nothing but a silver collar. At first he's terrified but still something drags him back, and he decides he and the boy will be friends; Dieter finds him clothes and food, and the boy grows in size and substance, begins to speak and lead Dieter off on dangerous games....

Now, I don't usually get on well with ghost stories written for adults - they either fall flat for me and aren't scary at all, or go too far the other direction ending up so over the top they're comic. So, since reading Chris Priestley's The Dead of Winter , a 'teen' book, and Michelle Paver's Dark Matter, I've being searching for another ghost story that truly sent the shivers up and down my spine - and I'm happy to say I've found it at last.
There's no doubt that right from the start we're dealing with ghosts at Sugar Hall - Dieter's terror on the first page convinces the reader of that, even if his family don't realise. The hook here is what horror will this ghostly boy unleash on the family?

The house itself is the perfect setting for a horror story; it's meant to be lived in by a large family with an even larger staff, so, with only three people there, it's spooky enough on its own. There are too many rooms, filled with disused furniture, stuffed animals and collections of pinned-down butterflies and moths; furniture and ornaments seem to move about of their own volition; odd noises are heard at night; the giant moths on the wallpaper seem to flutter in the lamplight; - there's no wonder that Lilia decides everyone is best sleeping in one bedroom!
Part of what I loved was that it's not just a 'simple' ghost story. There are hints at how the money behind Sugar Hall was made, with glimpses of the desperate lives of its slaves,while in its 'current' timeline, there's the buzz surrounding the trial and death of Ruth Ellis. Lilia, having already built a new life in England as part of the Kindertransport, is trying to build another after the death of her husband, while daughter Saskia is full of teenage dreams and wants to escape back to London. Interspersing their stories with Dieter's ghostly encounters, increases the growing feeling of dread, a sense that something evil has been unleashed - and not for the first time. It all adds up to a spine-shivering, unputdownable read.


Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult horror ghost story

Love and Fallout by Kathryn Simmonds

review by Maryom

Tessa is the driving force behind a struggling environmental charity Easy Green, she's a firm believer in everything eco-friendly and planet saving, with no interest beyond the practical and ethical in her clothing. So she's not best pleased to find herself set-up for a TV makeover show - and even less pleased to discover not only her best friend but her husband too were behind it all! Do they not know her at all? Is her husband really that unhappy with how she looks now? Persuaded that it will give some TV airtime to her ailing charity, Tessa reluctantly agrees to take part but the TV producers are more interested in her Greenham Common past. Tessa finds herself drawn back to memories of the life-changing months spent camping outside the US base at Greenham, a time that she'd almost forgotten but that made her the person she is today.

There are two almost unrelated threads to Love and Fallout - Tessa's experiences at Greenham Common in the autumn and winter of 1982, and her present day crises of failing business, failing marriage and failing communication with her almost grown-up children. The two threads weave in and around each other but, to be honest, I found the 'Greenham' story by far the more interesting. Recently dumped by the boy she'd envisaged sharing her life with, bored and frustrated by her meaningless job, a young, politically naive woman runs away to join the Greenham protesters. Living in a make-shift camp as the weather deteriorates, with regular run-ins with police, she quickly matures both emotionally and politically. It would have made an excellent novella on its own and the present day story-line by contrast felt a little lacking. Together they make an enjoyable read but one half outshines the other.
It hadn't occurred to me till I read this novel that the early 80s anti-nuclear peace protests have fallen into that gap of no longer current affairs but not quite old enough to be seen as history - and therefore largely forgotten. This novel gives an intriguing insight into the many reasons that woman joined in there, the hardships and prejudice they faced, and the support and comradeship they found.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult fiction, historical

American Sycamore by Karen Fielding

review by Maryom

Growing up by the Susquehanna river in rural Pennsylvania, Billy Sycamore was always drawn to it; canoeing, trading tales with the Native Americans he met on its banks but above all - fishing. It seems like an idyllic world - and it mainly is till one day, when he's 12, out fishing alone, he encounters a stranger and something dreadful happens to him which ultimately changes his life. Although he won't share the details with them, his family all too easily spot its impact and the change in Billy as he descends into increasing mental instability.

To be honest, I wasn't very attracted by this book when it arrived for review. Probably due to having watched too many 'river' based movies, I sort of imagined it to be a teenage mash-up of Deliverance, The River of No Return and The River Wild with too much fishing! - fortunately it was nothing of that kind! When I eventually picked it up, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.
American Sycamore is a quirky coming of age tale set in a wild landscape of forests and river.  Set in a small town peopled by the eccentric, weird and downright crazies, it's moving and funny by turns, and twisting and turning like a whodunnit. The story is narrated by Billy's younger sister Alice, in an off-beat, chatty style as she struggles to understand what has happened to her brother but nonetheless loving him through all his 'treatments' and hospitalisations.
I'm not sure whether to label this as teen, YA or adult but it would probably be enjoyed by all.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - coming of age, YA/adult crossover

Buy American Sycamore from Amazon

The Tip of my Tongue by Trezza Azzopardi

"When her mother is taken ill, little Enid has to go to stay with posh relations the Erbins in their mansion. Her father is struggling to cope, and Enid finds herself having to rely on her native wit and mother's advice to survive Uncle Horace, Aunty Celia and above all their teenage son Geraint. This Arthurian tale, from celtic myth cycle the Mabinogion, is retold by Booker shortlisted author Trezza Azzopardi."

In this reworking of the Mabinogion story "Geraint, son of Erbin", Trezza Azzopardi turns the tale around - Geraint is relegated to a supporting role and 'the maiden' Enid takes centre stage; their journey is no longer through the dangerous countryside of Medieval Wales with villains lurking behind every tree, instead Enid makes a journey of emotional discovery following her mother's illness, and her special 'skill' has changed from speaking out to listening in.
 Growing up in Splott, Cardiff, Enid is a seven year old girl who wants to become a spy. Told in the first person from Enid's point of view, the story captures a child's-eye view of the adult world, full of mysteries and miscomprehensions. She tries to make sense of the adult world and improve her 'spying' skills by listening in on conversations that the adults would rather keep from her, and which she then repeats without fully understanding. When her mother is taken ill, Enid is sent to live with rich relatives, the Erbins and their teenage son Geraint. Geraint has a whole set of rules and restrictions he expects her to follow - things she isn't to touch, lines of demarcation in his bedroom that she must not cross. Enid, true to her Mabinogion original, immediately disobeys him.

Despite not always being able to relate this back to the original story, I really enjoyed this. Azzopardi does an amazing job of seeing the world from a child's perspective and relaying it through a child's thoughts. It becomes a tale of coming to terms with grief and forging new relationships to replace the old. But it's not down-beat and gloomy - despite the underlying sadness, Enid's mix-ups and misunderstandings are often so very funny.

This is the last in Seren's series "New Tales from the Mabinogion" and although I haven't read all of them, links to those I have can be found here.

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, folk tales

Buy The Tip of My Tongue: (and Some Other Weapons as Well) (New Stories from/Mabinogion) from Amazon

Fountainville by Tishani Doshi

review by Maryom

 "Fountainville is a strange, lonely town on the edge of everywhere, with its own healing secrets, as revealed by Luna, assistant to Begum, the Lady of the Fountain, in this retelling of celtic Mabinogion myth by poet and novelist Tishani Doshi. Under their care the town flourishes, but when the mysterious Mr Knight arrives at their house of 24 women everything begins to change. Aided by Rafi, the giant of the woods and the all-action Leo, events begin to unravel fast for Luna and Begum."

Fountainville is part of Seren's series New Stories from the Mabinogion, in which a variety of authors re-tell the ancient folk-tales in new and surprising settings. In it, Tishani Doshi takes The Lady of the Fountain and transports it from Medieval Wales to modern day Asia, from a world of castles and knights to one of rent-a-womb pregnancies and drug lords.
I wasn't familiar with the original, which is one of those slightly rambling stories of knights fighting other knights for no apparent reason other than that's what they do, beautiful ladies living in castles waiting for the victor to claim them, strange exotic beasts roaming the countryside etc etc. Despite being called The Lady of the Fountain, the lady herself seems a rather peripheral figure and it feels that the focus of the story may have been lost over centuries of re-telling. As you would expect from a modern story, Fountainville has more form and structure to it - a proper beginning, middle and end. The emphasis of the story has changed too, moving from the knight Owain to the women - from passive figures decorating the background, they, and their health-giving fountain, now take centre stage. I felt a little that the connection to the old story was less strong than in some of Seren's series but this may be down to my only reading the original afterwards.

The author's afterword sheds light on the creative process that changed The Lady of the Fountain into Fountainville - the coincidence of catching a documentary on the surrogacy business, the development of the new story and it's changed emphasis. She also mentions two alternative paths the re-telling could have taken - a lion escaped from a circus or a war-time story about a French wish-giving well. I'd really love to read both!


Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, folk tales

Reviews for some of the other stories from this series, and an interview with one of the authors can be found elsewhere on the blog 
 

Buy Fountainville (New Stories from the Mabinogion) from Amazon

All The Souls by Mary-Ann Constantine

 review by Maryom


'Stories of the living and the dead', it says on the cover -  and that sums up this otherworldly collection of nine short stories and a novella very neatly. Don't expect Hammer House of Horror ghostly goings on or vampires and zombies though - they're something far more subtle. They rather reminded me of the classic Curious, If True stories from Mrs Gaskell or, for a more modern take, Alois Hotschnig's collection, Maybe This Time, from Peirene Press.

Set mainly in remote reaches of Wales or Brittany, where old folk traditions linger on, by pools and ponds, the traditional gateways to the underworld, this is an unsettling, intriguing collection of stories. Ghosts speak to their still-living friends, a lonely man makes friends with a monk from the sixth century, from an undefined date in the future an old woman reminisces about the good old days when everyone drove cars...
I suspect these stories won't be everyone's cup of tea - they aren't simple, straightforward reads - but I rather liked them, though a couple were a little too enigmatic and vague for my liking.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, folk tales

Buy All the Souls from Amazon

The Scattering by Jaki McCarrick

review by Maryom

The Scattering is the debut collection of short stories from Jaki McCarrick. There are 19 in all, set mainly in the border area of Eire and Northern Ireland though the location can move to London or the US, and backwards and forwards in time.
Borders of one sort or another run through a lot of the stories - between North and South, life and death, the 'real' world and the supernatural. Not firmly fixed or sharply defined borders either but shifting, ambiguous ones.

Many of the stories deal with the darker side of life - with pain and loss - which gives the collection a rather melancholy feel though with touches of dark humour.
The Past is ever present, too - sometimes in the guise of a 'golden time' from which people don't want to move on; more often in the legacy of the Troubles which still casts a shadow over people's lives.
Did I enjoy the book? I'm not sure 'enjoy' is the right word but certainly I was moved by many of the stories.
My favourite was The Tribe - in which a man travels back in time to try to prevent the destruction of Earth by Mankind. Does he succeed or is he stuck in the one of those loops that plague everyone trying to change history? It's for the reader to decide.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, short stories

Buy  The Scattering from Amazon

See How They Run by Lloyd Jones

 review by Maryom

 Llwyd McNamara is a  not-very-succesful academic, just given the chance of a lifetime  - access to the research and notes compiled by deceased rival Dermot Feeney on the life and career of Big M, Dylan Manawyddan Jones, a Welsh rugby star whose sporting career came to a dramatic and untimely end with the death of his brother Ben. After that Big M's life has been a chequered one - running a hotel on the wild coast of Wales, then a pub, setting up a shoe shop and various other enterprises, always moving on to somewhere new after falling foul of the locals. As he scrolls through, and then deletes, the information on Feeney's memory sticks, Llwyd begins to discover links between his life and Big M's.

Seren's series of New Tales from the Mabinogion aims to take the old Welsh folk tales of heroes and kings and re-imagine them in a modern setting, so who better to take the place of a god-like hero than a Welsh rugby star?

See How They Run is a re-telling of the Third Branch of the Mabinogion: Manawyddan son of Llyr, and is actually one of the tales with which I was at least vaguely familiar - I've even read a previous re-working in Not For All The Gold In Ireland by John James - so I could see where the plot was going, how and where it fitted around the old one. What I didn't grasp while reading was why the story was told at second or even third hand as Llwyd read the story through Feeney's notes. Having finished, I read the afterword which helped slot things into place - so maybe just this once I should have read that first.

Maryom's review - 3.5 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, folk tales

Buy See How They Run (New Stories from the Mabinogion) from Amazon

Bringing Down the Giants – Cynan Jones talks about taking on Peredur.

One of the things I love about book-blogging is discovering books and authors that may not have come to my attention through my local bookstore or library. Oddly, though, my attention was drawn to Seren Books' series of re-worked tales from the Mabinogion by a clothing website. The series is now drawing to a close with Cynan Jones, author of Everything I Found on the Beach , being asked to adapt the tale of Peredur to a modern setting. The result is Bird Blood Snow and we are lucky enough today to have Cynan explain how he went about it.

I was the last of ten authors to be invited to write one of Seren’s ‘New Stories from the Mabinogion’: I got Peredur. The tale everyone else had left.

When I read it I thought: Shit. I came away with one image – the bird and the blood in the snow; and a sense that the hero of the tale was a delinquent. There were reasons why every other writer had avoided the story.

However, such was the totality of my reaction, that I had no doubt how to approach it.

Writing Bird, Blood, Snow was a “bicycle kick”. There was the surety of what I wanted to achieve and the necessity to achieve it immediately.

So I stopped thinking and just went for it.

I brought in different voices, perspectives, techniques. Tried a sense of performance, of pantomime. Half-did things. Wrote incorrectly. Caused confusion. Added pictures. Mind maps. Crossings out. I threw it all in.

There was a thrill to working like this and a necessary pace. Like a bicycle kick, I figured if I missed the target, what the hell: it would be a worthy effort, and entertaining. If I hit the net, all the better. The only issue was if I missed completely and landed on my arse.

I wasn’t going to know until I handed in the manuscript. But Penny Thomas, the series editor, had been clear: I had a totally free creative remit.

Luckily, she liked it.

When were you awarded the commission to write the book?

I was awarded the commission at the start of 2012. The book was due for October ’13 and would have been the final book in the series. Then Seren asked whether we could bring things forward a year. That was March ’12. They needed the manuscript by June. I said yes.

If I’d had longer I might have taken a different approach. I might have looked at telling the story of Peredur’s mother and father, bringing it to the point where Peredur is taken from things – the point the original tale starts. It would have been more like my other work. More considered, scant, controlled.

Was there a lot of research involved in writing the book?

I usually research heavily. It’s part of the process of limbering up to write. Given the shift of deadline, research went out of the window this time. I think that fed into the book. I’m fully aware the psychiatric treatments I describe are outdated. The mishmash of voices is deliberate. I use the anachronisms with intent.

The key work, other than the writing, was consuming the various novels and other texts I wanted to bring into the story in order to create echoes.

I wanted readers to feel that they recognised the piece, to reflect the fact that the motifs, occasions, references in the original would have been understood by the audience. I added echoes of other books. Sometimes verbatim, other times parodied or hinted. I bent Welsh nursery rhymes into the story.

What were your chief aims when deciding on the approach you took to the book?

I wanted to repeat the sense I had from the original that it was written down – and therefore ‘solidified’ – before it was ready. That it hadn’t matured properly, (much like Peredur himself), before it was sent out into the world.

I wanted to bring in the fact the original was an oral tale and would have been performed. Performance would have brought emphasis and exaggeration and spontaneity to the otherwise dry language. I had to get that back in somehow.

I wanted there to be a degree of celebration. The original tale is violent and nasty, and I couldn’t shy out of that. But there had to be something of the romp to it! It had to be visceral and colourful and compelling, but it had to be fun.

In the end, though, a book can’t rely on party tricks. It has to work as a coherent whole.

I hope it does for you. 

It most certainly did for me! Many thanks for letting us in on the working process. 

Maryom's reviews of the Seren tales from the Mabinogion can be found here

More information on Seren’s ‘New Stories from the Mabinogion’ can be found here and if you are not familiar with the Mabinogion tales then brief information on the Mabinogion can be found here and more specifically the Peredur story here

Cynan Jones' website can be found at www.cynanjones.net and you can follow him on Twitter as @cynan1975

Bird, Blood, Snow by Cynan Jones

review by Maryom

The original Peredur tale recounts the adventures of a youth bent on recognition as a knight in King Arthur's court. In true questing fashion, he defends maidens, defeats giants, and eventually overcomes the witches who have cursed him. In Blood, Bird, Snow, Seren's tenth in it's New Stories from the Mabinogion series, award-winning author Cynan Jones turns the tale into a modern Quixotian romp.

Peredur has been taken by his mother to live away from the housing estates in the hope of raising him away from the culture of gangs and violence that predominates there. Of course nowhere can remain isolated for ever and the arrival of a couple of kids on fancy bikes, inspires the young Peredur to customise his own and try to join their gang. His desperate attempts to impress them lead him to violence and brutality, and, despite the attempts of foster families and social services to channel his strength into more acceptable channels, he looks on track for an unhappy, extremely violent end.

In case you haven't discovered the series yet, Seren's New Stories from the Mabinogion series takes these ancient Welsh legends and folk tales and re-interprets them in a modern, or even futuristic, setting. Bird, Blood, Snow is an imaginative re-telling of the tale of Peredur, son of Efrawg, told through a journalist's notes and interviews, copies of police and psychiatric reports and newspaper cuttings. The reader is aware from the beginning that something horrific has occurred and is being investigated by the police, though we only discover what at the very end.  Whereas the original tale had Peredur as a hero, Jones' re-telling has him as a troublesome teenage thug. The qualities that made the medieval Peredur an heroic legend - his belligerence, aptitude for fighting, his persistence in the face of opposition - are out of place today and only lead to him into trouble. It made me wonder how many of Arthur's famous knights would feel comfortable in the modern, humdrum world; maybe they're best left in legends.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, folk tales

Big Low Tide by Candy Neubert

review by Maryom

On the small Channel island of Port Victoria everyone knows their neighbours' secrets. it's barely possible to walk down the street or argue behind closed doors without someone noticing.

In this atmosphere live Peter, his estranged wife Brenda and their two children. Unable and unwilling to cope with the demands of motherhood, Brenda has abandoned the old family farmhouse and now lives in a flat in town, working as a barmaid. She's also found herself a new boyfriend - even if he doesn't seem to share her feelings.

My review copy of Big Low Tide arrived with a press release quoting the synopsis which appears on Amazon - "In Candy Neubert's novel 'Big Low Tide' set on a small island in the Channel, Brenda, a feisty barmaid at the local pub suddenly finds herself raising her two young boys alone as her estranged husband, Peter, realizing he cant take the children with him leaves for Ireland in search of better prospects and a trip at sea. Worn down by the constant struggle and pregnant with a third child whose father is nowhere to be seen, Brenda's spark begins to dwindle and her children become more and more unruly. No longer able to cope she moves in with her sister in law, Elsa, who without warning walks out one day leaving the run of the house to Brenda. Seeing Brenda's slow decline, a friend persuades Peter to return and soon after on a wild and windy night, her youngest son disappears. As they search for the boy little do they know how close they are to finding something dark and terrible."

Having read this, I had expectations of what the plot would be, how it would evolve and, even to a certain extent, conclude. Therefore, I was considerably wrong-footed as half the book passes before these events unfold. I think this spoiled  my appreciation of the story as a whole - it is much more one of father/son bonding, of a woman's renunciation of her children and obsession with a new boyfriend and unbreakable ties to the island.

I loved Neubert's descriptions of the island, zooming over it with a bird's eye view and her image of it as an amoeba-like entity, drawing its sustenance in through the port and washing away its waste with the tide.
Big Low Tide is a book I want to come back to at some future point as I think it will improve with further acquaintance. 

Maryom's review - 3.5 stars

Publisher - Seren Books

Genre - adult fiction
Buy Big Low Tide from Amazon

After Brock by Paul Binding

 review by Maryom

18 year old Nat Kempsey has been missing on the Berwyn mountains for 5 days. Home safe after a police helicopter rescue, Nat's adventures have rekindled memories of his father Pete's similar experience back in the 70s - but the reasons behind the two events couldn't be more different. Infatuated by his charismatic but volatile friend Sam, Pete had gone along on a midnight dash looking for UFOs- a trip that was to end in physical and emotional disaster- the memories of which he's tried to repress. Under the probing of a local journalist it soon becomes apparent that Nat's disappearance was maybe not so accidental.

The Berwyn mountains are a strange other worldly place associated in Welsh myth with the entrance to the underworld Annwn. For both Nat and Pete the ascent of the cliff by Pistyll Rhaeadr Waterfall to reach the open moorland above represents a physical and emotional high. Here they discover a place to be at peace with oneself and at one with nature - the world waiting for them after the descent is not so kindly or forgiving.

After Brock is an interesting, enjoyable read from a 'new-to-me' author, dealing with teenage relationships with peers and parents, the struggle of finding oneself among conflicting opinions and 'becoming a man'. Both Pete and Nat are portrayed at turning points of their lives; the time spent in the mountains being almost a rite of passage into adulthood. It look me a while to 'warm' to either of these characters though my sympathy for Pete increased as the true nature of his devastating loss became apparent.
A lot of the story is told as a flashback to Pete's teenage years and there's rather a nostalgic look at the 70s - at an era I thought I remembered, but, from the amount of things that surprised me, obviously not too well. One thing left me really puzzled though - where have all the UFOs gone? I haven't heard of any for years!


Maryom's review -  3.5 stars
Publisher - SerenBooks
Genre -  adult fiction

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Jack The Ripper: The Hand of a Woman by John Morris

review by Maryom
Most of us are to some extent aware of  the infamous murderer known as Jack the Ripper even if, like me, most of your knowledge was gained through watching Whitechapel on TV! In 1888 he struck terror among the residents of the Whitechapel area of London with a series of gruesome killings. Despite the best efforts of Scotland Yard, no one was ever convicted of these murders, which has led over time to many theories about the identity of the killer. For the most part, researchers have assumed the murderer was a man but this book puts forward the idea that 'Jack' was in fact a woman.

John Morris' interest was piqued by another 'Jack the Ripper' book which suggested Sir John Williams, a famous highly-esteemed gynaecologist, as the murderer*. While intrigued by this theory, Morris wasn't convinced. His father, an enthusiastic amateur historian, had just finished researching Williams and he refused to believe that such a talented doctor would have turned into the horrific murderer. Together they set about sifting through all the evidence, theories and books about Jack the Ripper, eventually stumbling on a new possible identity for him.
Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman takes the reader through Morris' research and reasoning, following the victims on their last days to their unhappy meetings with Jack.
Not really knowing much about the facts surrounding the Ripper murders, I can't say how plausible Morris' ideas are in comparison to others put forward over the years. At times, when he showing his reasoning, I felt there was more than one interpretation that could be put on the facts.

The Hand of a Woman is certainly an interesting read but I suspect one that it raises as many questions as it answers. 

* "Uncle Jack" by Tony Williams

Maryom's review - 3.5 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - Adult Non-Fiction, Crime

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Daniel's Beetles by Tony Bianchi

A Fascinating Study - but NOT of Beetles
review by Maryom

Daniel has always been fascinated by insects - from minuscule creepy-crawlies to dazzling Monarch butterflies - almost to the exclusion of the rest of the world. His boyhood revolved around finding them, taking notes of each species as he found it for the first time, experimenting with ways of preserving them. His career has followed this inclination and now he works at a museum caring for their collections of insects. A nerdy, socially inept person, this is where he's always been at his happiest and most comfortable, still as an adult taking refuge from the world in categorising and arranging these creatures.
Then he's introduced to a strange organisation called Tŷ Dedwydd - the House of Happiness. Here, alongside drama lessons and kite flying, he discovers stranger ways of making people happy - including tampering with their memories - and wonders if he can find a way to re-make his past and wipe out all the bad things.

Daniel's Beetles is a slow moving read but one that had me mesmerised. The reader is gradually drawn into the life, if not inside the head, of Daniel. Tony Bianchi really captures this nerdy, almost compulsive obsessive man, trying to categorise everything he encounters - insects, dialects, people. It raises questions about memories and their accuracy, how we perceive our past, the shifting borderlines between truth and fiction and whether a little delusion is good for us. All in all, a thought provoking read. Having reached the end I feel there were lots of 'pointers' and subtleties along the way that I missed, so I'll certainly read it again. For now, I'm going to give it 4 stars but feel that a re-read could easily have me upping that figure.

Originally written in Welsh - Pryfeta - and translated by its author, it still contains snippets of Welsh here and there which add to the overall feel of the book - don't let them put you off!
Oddly it reminded me of two very different things - something indefinable in the style or wording reminded me of AS Byatt's novels, so if you've enjoyed them, try this one, but also my inner sci-fi nerd was reminded of We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K Dick and the film based on it, Total Recall - a strange mix of books for one sentence!

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Seren
Genre - adult, literary

Buy Daniel's Beetles from Amazon - on pre-order till June