The Star of Istanbul by Robert Olen Butler

review by Maryom 

It's 1915 and American war correspondent Christopher Marlowe "Kit" Cobb is being sent to war-torn Europe with a double mission - to send back exciting copy for his newspaper, but also to do a little spying on the side - after all, no one's going to think twice about a nosy reporter asking questions are they? Sailing on the Lusitania, Cobb's instructions are to keep track of Walter Brauer, a German-American, an expert in Islamic studies lecturing at King's College in London and suspected German spy, but he soon finds himself distracted by the charms of movie-star, Selene Bourgani. Bourgani is as enigmatic as she is beautiful, and seems to have links to Brauer and possibly even be working with him. As Cobb follows the pair to London and on into Europe he uncovers a plot that could change the whole course of the war.....

The Star of Istanbul is a thrilling spy adventure set in the early part of World War 1, before the US involvement so Cobb is able to travel fairly freely throughout Europe. Although he doesn't find himself in any actual war zones, there's danger enough as the Lusitania is attacked (yes, he's on that voyage!), London is bombed from Zeppelins, and the German secret service try to stop Cobb in more personal ways.
There's a dash of Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands and John Buchan's Richard Hannay thrillers, written more or less at the time of WW1, about it all, with glamorous spies, dastardly Germans, and a hero out to foil the bad guys' plot and save his country. Throw in an exotic location - Istanbul - and what more could you want?
It's a tense, twisty read, that takes the reader back to an age before hi-tech spying gadgets, when the hero had to rely on his quick wits alone. As a whole I found it really enjoyable book, full of treachery, intrigue and suspense, but occasionally a little too wordy which slowed down the action. Cobb isn't a 'professional' spy and some of the things he has to do sit uneasily with him, even when they're absolutely vital to his survival. Selene Bourgani though is rather a typical femme fatale style spy, with a mysterious past and deadly agenda, which I found a bit of a shame; I'd have liked to see a more rounded, fully developed character.


I haven't read the first Kit Cobb story, The Hot Country, but found no problems (other than maybe plot spoilers for previous book) in jumping in here.

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - No Exit Press
Genre - Adult historical spy thriller World War 1

Spare Brides by Adele Parks

 review by Maryom

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll remember me singing the praises of Spare Brides when it was first published back in February. Now, for anyone who missed it or read and loved a library copy, it's out in paperback!

Beginning on New Year's Eve 1920, Spare Brides is the story of four very different friends; of how, in a world radically altered by the First World War, their lives, hopes and expectations have changed too. All come from privileged, wealthy backgrounds but there the similarities end. One is a widow, one rather dully married, one not interested in the marriage market and one desperate to find anyone to love.

 "Spare Brides has got everything you expect from a conventional romantic novel - glamorous parties, gorgeous clothes, an enigmatic hero and a passionate love affair - but it's far from a piece of light fluff. Alongside the glitz and glamour lies the heartbreak and devastation of the War, and it's continuing emotional impact. The story also takes a shrewd look at the changing roles and expectations of women in this period. All four women have been brought up to believe that their role in life will be as wife and mother, nothing more. But times are changing; husbands are few and far between, and women have more freedom and possibilities; hopes and ambitions need no longer be confined to the drawing room and nursery.
It's another great, absorbing read from Adele Parks. One that once started you won't want to put down, I certainly didn't.
The ending might be a little predictable but so what? Show me a Jane Austen ending that wasn't obvious a mile off!"

If you're intrigued, you can find out more on the author's blog

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Headline
Genre - Adult, historical romance,

Line of Fire - The diary of an unknown soldier

Review by The Mole

Translated by Sarah Ardizzone
Introduced by Michael Morpurgo
Illustrated by Barroux

Barroux found the diary of a French soldier from the first world war in a rubbish tip in Paris. The diary tells us little of the man but much about his experiences during August and September of 1914 - the start of the first world war in France.

Because the audience it is written for is himself alone (or maybe his family if it found it's way home) it is honest and forthright, containing his emotions of the moment. He started out patriotic with high morale but quickly misses his family and starts to encounter the confusion of war as people are moved, pushed, advanced and retreated around the country. He shares with us the full horrors that we normally hear of third hand through fiction and documentaries. He becomes injured and has to seek medical help and feels guilty about not being with his comrades to help protect his family who are in Paris while the German army are closing in.

Translation is always a little awkward in so far as you will inevitably end up paraphrasing something but here the translator has managed to stay very close to the original. Those with a smattering of French can attempt to read the few reproduced pages and appreciate the quality of the translation which greatly enhances this book.

The diary stops on 12th September 1914 while he is out of the line of fire and recovering in hospital. What became of the soldier? We will never know but we do get an insight into what life was like for an infantryman at that time.

Aimed at the 11+ reader then the pictures - making this a "graphic novel" - add appeal but this is non-fiction so that title is errant and it's appeal is to a far wider audience including adults of all ages.

Publisher - Phoenix Yard Books
Genre - 11+, Non-fiction, History

Buy Line of Fire: Diary of an Unknown Soldier August - September 1914 from Amazon

Toby's Room by Pat Barker

 review by Maryom

"Pat Barker returns to the First World War in Toby's Room, a dark, compelling novel of human desire, wartime horror and the power of friendship.
When Toby is reported 'Missing, Believed Killed', another secret casts a lengthening shadow over Elinor's world: how exactly did Toby die - and why? Elinor determines to uncover the truth. Only then can she finally close the door to Toby's room. Moving from the Slade School of Art to Queen Mary's Hospital, where surgery and art intersect in the rebuilding of the shattered faces of the wounded, Toby's Room is a riveting drama of identity, damage, intimacy and loss. Toby's Room is Pat Barker's most powerful novel yet."


When this first arrived with us it was read and reviewed by The Mole  but I'd always intended reading it myself. With other -unreviewed books piling up, it took a while for me to get round to it - and when I did I wasn't overly impressed so I didn't put up my own thoughts. Then, earlier this week, I read a review of it on  Beauty Is  A Sleeping Cat blog as part of this year's Literature and War Readalong, so I've decided to chip in with my bit after all.

Elinor and her brother Toby are closer than normal siblings; a dangerous closeness that leads to incest and guilt which shadows Elinor's life afterwards. Via art school and medical training, the story moves forward to WW1 and Toby's death. The details of it aren't made public and Elinor is determined to find out what precisely happened. Meanwhile, she's accepted a position drawing and documenting the surgery involved in facial reconstruction which brings her into contact with mutual friends who might hold the key to Toby's death.

Despite all the praise lavished on it, this wasn't a book that grabbed me at all. I couldn't really grasp where the story was going; first it seemed to head one way, then move off at a tangent.  Was it meant to be a story of family secrets or artistic development or the horrors of war? Perhaps this randomness is more like 'real' life than fiction - but it failed to capture me because of it.
A lot of the characters also fell flat, seeming rather two-dimensional and hollow. Elinor particularly, though torn between closeness and repulsion for Toby, mainly came over as cold and unfeeling, and I just didn't care what happened to her. In checking links etc for this review I've discovered that several of the main characters, Elinor, Paul Tarrant and Kit Neville, appeared in a previous book by Pat Barker, Life Class set at the Slade School of Art and I wonder if not having read that has made a difference to my reading of Toby's Room.
I didn't think there was too much of a mystery about what happened to Toby - maybe there was for Elinor but not for me, picking up the clues as I read along.
All in all, it just left me rather unmoved and uncaring.

Maryom's review - 3 stars
Publisher - Penguin
Genre - adult, WW1

Spare Brides by Adele Parks

 review by Maryom

It's New Year's Eve, 1920 and four friends are getting ready for an extravagant ball to usher in the new decade. There's hope that it's now time to move on to happier, more hopeful times, but the shadow of the War still lingers in the horrendous loss of so many lives and the guilt felt by the survivors.
Spare Brides is the story of four very different friends; of how, in a world radically altered by the First World War, their lives, hopes and expectations have changed too. All come from privileged, wealthy backgrounds but there the similarities end. Ava is the daughter of an industrialist, made richer by the War; glamorous and fashionable, she turns heads where-ever she goes and can get away with almost anything but her life of parties and shallow love affairs is beginning to pale. Lydia, married to the Hon. Lawrence Chatfield, is sheltered and cosseted, living a life where harsh realities rarely intrude except for her one big disappointment, that after 8 years of marriage she remains childless. Sisters Sarah and Bea live very differently; after the death of first their parents, then Sarah's husband, they are now dependant on their crippled brother for house and home. Sarah with a war-widow's pension and two children is slightly better off but feels that life is over for her. Bea's life never really got started - all her dreams of marriage and a home of her own went out of the window with the death of her only suitor; she's too tall and too plain to find another in a world where eligible bachelors are in such short supply and so poor that she has to alter her old dresses to fit new fashions, . Their pre-war connections still see the sisters invited to fashionable parties but only out of sympathy and as favours to their richer friends.
What does the new decade hold for them? These are desperate times, when a woman needs to catch at every chance of happiness no matter where it may lead, so a chance meeting with a mysterious, extraordinarily attractive soldier shouldn't be overlooked.

Spare Brides has got everything you expect from a conventional romantic novel - glamorous parties, gorgeous clothes, an enigmatic hero and a passionate love affair - but it's far from a piece of light fluff. Alongside the glitz and glamour lies the heartbreak and devastation of the War, and it's continuing emotional impact. The story also takes a shrewd look at the changing roles and expectations of women in this period. All four women have been brought up to believe that their role in life will be as wife and mother, nothing more. But times are changing; husbands are few and far between, and women have more freedom and possibilities; hopes and ambitions need no longer be confined to the drawing room and nursery.
It's another great, absorbing read from Adele Parks. One that once started you won't want to put down, I certainly didn't.
The ending might be a little predictable but so what? Show me a Jane Austen ending that wasn't obvious a mile off!

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

Wake by Anna Hope

review by Maryom

November 1920 - and the body of an unknown soldier is being transported from the battlefields of France to a state funeral in London that will commemorate Armistice Day and the ending of the Great War. Will this help the nation stop mourning the past and start looking forward to the future, or will it just open barely-healed wounds?

For the five days of the Soldier's journey, we follow the lives of three women of different ages and walks of life - Ada, a middle-aged mother who still hopes against hope that her only son may be alive somewhere, and even believes she's seen him on the streets near her home; Evelyn who's mourning her dead lover, hoping to find a new purpose through work at the Pensions Office helping those wounded in the war; and Hettie, the youngest, a professional dancer at Hammersmith Palais, immersing herself in the world of nightclubs and jazz in the hope of finding someone who will take her away from her humdrum life. All of them have been deeply affected by the War and can see others around them picking up the pieces of their shattered lives and moving on, but can't seem to do it themselves. Through their lives moves a young soldier with a tale to tell of the horrors of the battlefield, linking Evelyn's brother and Ada's son.

Wake is a brilliant debut novel, deeply moving, well-plotted and engrossing, about the aftermath of war and its effects not only the combatants directly involved but a far wider circle. At the heart of it lie the stories of three very different women trying to cope with the emptiness of their lives. Along the way there are 'nods' to a lot of 'issues' - women's wartime munitions work, army discipline, the treatment of injured soldiers, the horrors of the trenches or the desperate measures forced on the inhabitants of the war-ravaged countryside  - not as a churning out of facts and statistics but as part of the backdrop to life, helping to create a feel for the era.
There are four plot lines to keep up in the air and moving, but the author manages the balancing act really well, giving them equal attention and not letting any of them falter. The writing style is sparse, letting the characters speak for themselves through words and actions; at times the dialogue says more then several pages of description could have done.

Wake isn't published till January 2014 but as I had an early review copy, it seemed fitting to read over this last weekend in the run up to Armistice Day - at the time of year when it's set.

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars

Publisher - Doubleday

Genre - adult historical fiction, WW1
 

SOS Lusitania by Kevin Kiely

Review by The Mole

When 13 year old Finbar Kennedy dreams of a ship sinking at sea he decides it's an omen that his dad, Jack Kennedy- the Staff Captain of the Lusitania, is in danger and so decides to run away from home, stow away on the Lusitania and protect him. Little did anyone know of the events that were to unfold when the Lusitana was making her return to Liverpool.

We all know of the fate of the Lusitania on that trip. Or do we? In this story for the younger reader Kiely unfolds that history for the reader. Sadly I have to admit that many of the facts he includes I was not aware of - but the historical notes in the rear of the book make it clear what was fact and what was fiction and I make no dispute. Some things, like a conspiracy theory, he speculates on and does not purport to be fact but other parts, like the carrying of arms for the war and gold for the Bank of England, he states as documented fact.

But lets not get carried away with the history, yes it's there but primarily this is a work of fiction to entertain the younger reader - something it will do in aces. It's a great story and it's told extremely well. When Finbar describes the ship and it's size from his perspective and not in feet, yards, football pitches or anything else,  I felt, for the first time, that I knew just how big such a ship actually was. And when Finbar sees New York for the first time... I really felt like I was seeing it through his eyes. Clearly this story, in which 1200 people will die, is not all happy and Kiely will bring a lump to the reader's throat more than once.

An excellent read for girls and boys alike. And I'm sure there are bits of history adults will meet for the first time too.

Publisher - O'Brien Press
Genre - Children's Historical Fiction 10+

Buy SOS Lusitania from Amazon

World War One History in an Hour by Rupert Colley

Review by The Mole

We normally start a review with a synopsis but I think most people are aware of this event in history and it's outcome, but how much do we know about how it started and who the main participants were? I set out reading this with an admission that my knowledge of these events was pretty poor so wanted to see how much I could find out 'in an hour'.

I am a slow reader so it did take me more than an hour but not a great deal more. But how much is actually covered? There is very little time for waffle in this account so be prepared for facts to come at you like the proverbial machine gun fire. The narration is well structured to keep all events moving along chronologically - something that is not easy when war was raging on so many fronts at the same time - and you arrive at the end dizzying over the amount that has been presented to you in such a short time. Perhaps I should have read it as several smaller sessions, but my memory is poor and I will have to go back and reread to try to absorb more of it.

"Thoroughly enjoyable" somehow doesn't do it credit. Extremely well done and extremely informative.

Publisher - Harper Press
Genre - Non-Fiction, War, History

Buy World War One: History in an Hour from Amazon

A Time For Heroes by Frank Barnard

review by Maryom

Guv Sutro is a hero - a pioneer of aviation in its infancy then a fighter pilot in WW1 and a breaker of aviation records after - but heroes often turn out to have feet of the muddiest sort of clay. His son Tim and childhood friend Will have always accepted this 'hero' version of Guv - Tim trying to step out from his shadow and Will trying to emulate him. It's only when as pilots themselves during WW2 they visit Guv's wartime French airfield that they get the first inkling that he might not have been quite the honourable chap he's been built up to be.

To be rather, or very, simplistic this a story of what happens when too much praise goes to a person's head. I wasn't actually sure how much I was going to like this book - from the blurb it seemed a bit of 'boy's own' Biggles-type adventure and at just under 500 pages seemed a little long. But once I'd started, it was very hard to put down as I uncovered a long family epic of secrets, betrayals and cover-ups. It definitely isn't merely about high jinks in the sky - though they do play their part.  I don't know if Barnard did any hands-on up-in-the-sky research but I really felt 'there' in the flimsy aircraft soaring above war-torn France.
A really enjoyable read and not just for flying buffs.

Maryom's review -  4.5 stars

Publisher - Headline 
Genre - Adult, war, family epic

Toby's Room by Pat Barker

Closure
Review by The Mole

The story starts in 1912. Elinor and her brother, Toby, are also best friends and share secrets. While Elinor is at Slade art school and her brother studies medicine close by, she meets Kit and Paul and the 4 of them are to find their lives touching throughout the forthcoming war years. The story then skips forward to 1917 and Toby is reported 'Missing, Believed Killed' and Elinor has difficulty accepting this. Someone must know for sure what happened.

The first half of the story hinges around Elinor and her determination to become an accomplished artist, despite the dependence others seem to place on her; Toby when he's seriously ill; her mother when the news of Toby is delivered; Paul when he returns from France, injured. During this part of the story we encounter some of the truly horrific facial injuries that soldiers actually sustained during the first world war.

The second half of the story is Kit's back story. Kit worked as a stretcher bearer under Toby's command on the very front line and is the most likely person to know what happened to him. Suffering a facial injury and dreaming (or are these nightmares?) under the effects of morphine for his pain we learn of the horrors of the front line and the sheer terror Kit lived under.

While all the horrors painted by Barker come through clearly and impact the reader, that impact is not presented in the stomach churning way that it could turn squeamish readers off, more that they make you think that 'yes, there must have been many people that were maimed in this way and had to live with it after the war' whether that injury was bodily or mental.

A book that is extremely riveting and thought provoking covering issues that many people won't be comfortable with but in a way that makes it totally acceptable. Also, despite, great loss in the story this is not really a tear jerker as it manages to stand to one side on all these issues.

So many books I have read lately I have not 'enjoyed' - but what does that mean? A happy ending? A happy getting there? But that's not required to feel it was a great read, one you couldn't put down and were hankering to get back to and that you end up glad you read and continue to think about after you have finished it. This was certainly one of those books.

Publisher - Penguin
Genre - Adult Historical Fiction

Buy Toby's Room from Amazon

The Soldier's Song by Alan Monaghan

A true anti war book
Review by The Mole

The story is about Stephen Ryan, a maths student from Dublin and follows his life from the start of the first world war when he volunteers and becomes an officer in a Dublin regiment.

I was warned it would be about family conflict around the Easter Uprising because so many are. It wasn't.

It's a love story that so rings true it is beyond belief. It is about family in conflict during war. It is about stress and trauma on the battlefield. It is about 'bravery' whatever that actually is. It is about social class.

This book was a brilliant book. It was compelling to read as well as easy to read.

The story takes Stephen from conflict to conflict while at the same time building a bond between himself and his younger brother and finds this shy, if not aspergic, individual falling for Lillian, a student at the same university before the war. It exposes Stephen to about every form of shock and trauma that the war could throw at him in an effort to try to get the reader to understand the full horror that a war can create.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough and if it doesn't make the best seller lists for 2010 then there is no justice. Please, Please try this book.

Publisher - Macmillan
Genre - adult, war, fiction