Brick Mother by SJ Bradley

Review by The Mole

The story is set in a secure psychiatric hospital where patients with very varying illnesses are kept. The staff are constantly short handed and competence levels seem to vary immensely. The reader knows from page one that this is a powder keg ready to blow and awaits each new page for it to happen. There isn't one hero and one villain, in fact I'm not sure there's a hero at all, but we experience a little of what life is like for the staff with their power struggles and capabilities.

I was amazed by this book because I was over half way through before I realised that nothing had actually 'happened' but I was still reading. Despite the setting for this book the reader will see parallels in almost every employment sector they have been in - people held back by being too much of a threat; people promoted beyond their competence; people without the authority to stop what they see shouldn't happen; people recruited to fill seats without adequate training and understanding and much more.

I did find it compelling and slightly worrying, and the ending is not what I would have voted for.

My version was a review copy as it was nominated for the long list of The Guardian's "Not The Booker prize 2014" and I have to admit to being disappointed by the quality of the editing in MY COPY and also the fact that it hasn't made the short list.

A disturbing read but one that will keep you reading and make you wonder about mental heath care.

Publisher - Dead Ink Books
Genre - Adult contemporary fiction

Any Other Mouth by Anneliese Mackintosh

Review by The Mole

This is a semi-autobiographical telling that is 68% true and 32% fiction and the author will say no more.

I needed to choose a book from the pile - something quick, something easy - so I selected 4 books and started reading a bit from each. The first three were OK but I was going to try the fourth before I made a decision. Any Other Mouth was the fourth. I was several chapters in before I realised that the decision had been made!

People who have had sound bites quoted have said things like "shocking", "brutally honest", "this is the best thing I've read in years" and on the whole I found it all to be true, although while I would say it is now my book of 2014 but whether it is "the best I've read in years"... the jury is out on that one.

What I found very surprising about it was that while many things happen in the telling that are immensely sad, truly horrific, terribly shocking or merely very deep the author doesn't pull you in and involve you but merely seeks to inform you. It's a ploy that keeps you reading when you might otherwise feel that you can take no more and close the book - but I still developed a degree of empathy for the author.

Relationships, self harm, rape, grief are all covered and I came away with one big regret and that is that I missed seeing her at Edinburgh as her event was over before we even set out on our annual sojourn. While on the subject of Edinburgh International Book Festival... if you find yourself in that neck of the woods why not slip into the bookshop, pick up a copy, start reading it and see if you can put it down - and then consider voting for it as the début book of the year? I did.

Publisher - Freight Books

Genre -  Adult, contemporary fiction

The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh

review by Maryom

I first reviewed this back in February but as it's now out in paperback I thought I'd give it another shout out.
I'm not normally a romantic beach reads kind of person but this isn't your average romantic beach read - yes, there's plenty of steamy passion but also a subtle insight into the stresses and boredom of a long-term relationship, and middle-aged Jenn's need to feel attractive and desired again.



Here's most of what I said in the earlier review but see here for all of it

The Lemon Grove is hot, steamy and full of illicit passion but it's more than a summer sex romp. It's also a wonderful portrayal of a family reaching a turning point in their lives; the dynamics of their relationships are changing and they aren't accustomed to their new 'roles' yet.
Jenn particularly is starting to feel middle-aged, a little bit past it, no longer as sexy and desirable as she was. Her relationship with Greg is comfy and familiar. She's no longer needed in her role as mother-
substitute but Jenn hasn't settled into the new 'adult' relationship with Emma. Into this situation add one hot 17 year old boy/man - and Jenn is about to be swept off her feet - not by love, but plain lust. Nathan represents everything young, sexy, passionate and edgy missing from Jenn's comfortable life - and means nothing but trouble!
Told in the third person from Jenn's point of view, the reader feels all her yearning, guilt and helplessness in the face of this sexual infatuation, but stands back enough to realise that things can not end happily, that at best Jenn will end up looking foolish. It's a very addictive read, with descriptions that bring place and people vividly to life; a page turner in a 'will they, won't they' kind of way, but one that captures the subtle undercurrents and tensions of family life as well as Jenn's desire.


 Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher -  Tinder Press
Genre - Contemporary adult fiction, beach read

The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh

review by Maryom

Jenn and Greg have holidayed at the Villa Ana for the past 10 yrs. With its own pool and situated in a lemon grove on the rugged west coast of Mallorca, they've always found it to be an idyllic spot. This year though their peace and tranquillity is about to be disturbed. Even alone with Greg for the first week, Jenn has found it harder to relax into a holiday mood; the holiday hoards and hippies camping rough in caves at the beach have all niggled at her. Then step-daughter Emma arrives with her boyfriend Nathan and everything is about to fall apart.
The Lemon Grove is hot, steamy and full of illicit passion but it's more than a summer sex romp. It's also a wonderful portrayal of a family reaching a turning point in their lives; the dynamics of their relationships are changing and they aren't accustomed to their new 'roles' yet.
Jenn particularly is starting to feel middle-aged, a little bit past it, no longer as sexy and desirable as she was. Her relationship with Greg is comfy and familiar. She's no longer needed in her role as mother-
substitute but Jenn hasn't settled into the new 'adult' relationship with Emma. Into this situation add one hot 17 year old boy/man - and Jenn is about to be swept off her feet - not by love, but plain lust. Nathan represents everything young, sexy, passionate and edgy missing from Jenn's comfortable life - and means nothing but trouble!
Told in the third person from Jenn's point of view, the reader feels all her yearning, guilt and helplessness in the face of this sexual infatuation, but stands back enough to realise that things can not end happily, that at best Jenn will end up looking foolish. It's a very addictive read, with descriptions that bring place and people vividly to life; a page turner in a 'will they, won't they' kind of way, but one that captures the subtle undercurrents and tensions of family life as well as Jenn's desire. 
I absolutely loved it, even the way it ended. It will make a wonderful holiday read later in the year but, for now, read it with the rain lashing down outside and find yourself transported to an island in the sun.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher -  Tinder Press
Genre - Adult fiction 



Other reviews; The Little Reader Library

When It Happens to You by Molly Ringwald

Review by The Mole

"When It Happens to You" is a story of life crises that hops from one person to the next. It starts with Greta and Philip and the disaster that is Philip cheating on his wife. The story switches to a school friend of their daughter. The stories move to neighbours, relatives and lovers before finally returning to Greta and Philip.

I was very quickly intrigued and thinking 'Desperate Housewives' without the comedy but with more reality added. Each character had their own tale to tell, and one very different to the others.

I have to admit, though, to a little disappointment during the second half of the book when the story stopped its jumping but focussed on one story, as it returned to Greta and Philip and began to look like romantic fiction.

Some people are describing it as a collection of short stories, but you you can dip in and out of a collection but here you must take each story in turn.

The tales are captivating and enjoyable as the story weaves its way back and forth but how would I describe it's genre? It's romantic fiction, but not romantic fiction perhaps it's better to say it's contemporary fiction and will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers.

Publisher - Simon & Schuster

Genre - Adult Contemporary Fiction

Buy When it Happens to You from Amazon

Another Life by Keren David

The Truth From Archie
Review by The Mole

Archie manages to get himself expelled from boarding school and Ty is sentenced to a spell in a young offenders institution while going under the name Luke Smith.

Archie is worried about Ty and decides to help and find out what really happened. Archie starts to learn of love, family truths and the hard knocks of life. The truths Archie starts to learn are not the ones he expected and he starts to doubt Ty but needs to hear what really happened from Ty in order to believe it.

One of the great things about book festivals is that publishers do an early limited release of books at them and although not published until 6th September 2012 Another Life was available and Keren David was signing books in the bookshop after  reading and talking about it - double whammie! There may still be books on the shelf at the book festival this week if you are quick!

Written with two voices I was amazed at how easily and distinctly the reader knows whose voice is being used at the start of each chapter. I have found this with authors that write in accents but David hasn't done that - even when Archie is being 'chav' she still doesn't resort to accent and I was seriously impressed!

As with When I Was Joe and Almost True I found putting this book down difficult and found my loyalties between Ty and Archie changing regularly. David says that while she wrote him in Almost True as an unlikeable chap, she enjoyed writing Archie in Another Life and grew to like him.

A really enjoyable sequel to the series of books and every bit as good as the first. A must for readers of contemporary teen fiction.

Publisher - Frances Lincoln
Genre - Teen/YA Contemporary Fiction

Buy Another Life from Amazon

The War of the Wives by Tamar Cohen

review by Maryom

When Simon Busfield dies in strange circumstances his wife Selina not only has grief and shock to cope with but the sudden appearance of another wife, Lottie, and a daughter! She soon discovers that for 17 years, while she thought he was away on business, Simon was living with his other family. While the two women struggle to come to terms with the startling turn of events, the police begin to query why Simon was in London when both wives believed him abroad and where he's siphoned off huge amounts of money to.

Told alternately from the point of view of Selina and Lottie, the writing captures their differing characters and reactions to his death and the revelations about his life that seem to just keep coming. They are very different women - Selina's a well-preserved 51 year old housewife, living in a huge house, frequenting an expensive gym, one of those ladies who 'lunch'; Lottie is completely different - younger, artistic, a much freer spirit. Sometimes I felt one deserved my sympathy, sometimes the other.
It's cleverly plotted with five sections  - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance - relating to the emotions experienced on hearing of the death of someone close (I'm not sure if the author intended this to be a reference to a Simpsons' episode in which Homer learns of his imminent death and reacts in these ways - perhaps I'm making connections that aren't intended to be there)

I was pleased that the story didn't descend into soap-style bickering and fights  - two wives at a funeral has a lot of potential for screaming and cat-calling - but at the same time I'd expected a somehow more dramatic ending.

Maryom's review - 4 stars

Publisher - Doubleday

Genre - adult fiction,  

Buy The War of the Wives from Amazon

Ramshackle by Elizabeth Reeder

Brilliance in spades!!
 Review by The Mole

 Roe is your average15 year old. Living in Chicago she has all the worries of your average teenage girl: school, boyfriends and friends starting to do less than normal things. Until, that is, her father just disappears. Well, her adopted father because her mother died many years ago. It's then that she finds out many things about her father, herself and her friends. Things that will change her life forever.

I had expected this book to become a whodunnit or a thriller or a romance but it isn't. So what is it?  Well... that is difficult to explain. It's a journey for Roe. A sad one, an angry one and one of learning and growing.

I found this book to be extremely engaging and well told. It's written from inside Roe's head so we jump from the present to the past without so much as a 'by your leave' but that, after all, is the way we think so why shouldn't Roe? But it's by this technique that we get to feel so much of what Roe feels. There are happy moments but these are mostly memories although we get to experience just about every other emotion going.

I can imagine this book being read and enjoyed by older readers as well as the YA market and even more mature teens. But when I say enjoyed then I mean really enjoyed.

I found this book to be brilliant and a disappointment to finish - do you know that feeling when you have to start reading about something at a totally different pace and mood? It's described as 'An extraordinarily assured début' and for once I agree with a jacket comment. Another comment suggests 'beautiful' but I am afraid that word is too weak and watery.

It does brilliance in spades!!

Publisher - Freight Books
Genre - Contemporary Fiction

Buy Ramshacklefrom Amazon