The Thief on the Winged Horse by Kate Mascarenhas

For two hundred years, on a small island just outside Oxford, the Kendrick family have been making exquisite dolls. As each is finished a hex is placed on it, giving it an emotion, from terror to bliss, which can be felt by anyone who touches the doll. It's a close-knit family business, with few outsiders allowed to join (and they are usually marrying into the family) The placing of the hex is a closely guarded secret even within the family, one which, although the company was founded by women, is now guarded by the men of the family; women may design and build houses and sets for the dolls but only men are 'sorcerers' allowed to fix emotions in the dolls.

Into this tight community comes a young man, Larkin, claiming to be a descendant of one of the founding sisters. He too is a maker of dolls, and now wants to claim a rightful place in the family business. Unusually for the Kendrick family, he's accepted on trust and given a position in the company, though no access to the vital magic that makes a Kendrick doll unique. His presence soon causes stirrings in the quiet lives of the Kendricks' world. Persephone Kendrick believes the dolls she creates are as beautiful as any made by the men, but as a woman she's not allowed to make 'Kendrick's' dolls but is relegated to the shop. Through Larkin she sees a way out of her stifling circumstances; a chance of a life where she can follow her ambition to create dolls of her own. 

Meanwhile a valuable irreplaceable doll is stolen, and only a family member with a knowledge of their magic could have executed the theft. There are various suspects, including Persephone's father, but most of the extended family seem happy to blame the fabled 'thief on the winged horse' - a magical character deemed responsible for much of the good - and ill - fortune of the Kendricks. 

I loved this book, from its magical elements to its all-too-real family rivalry and jealousy. Two elements lie at its heart - the daring theft, and the upheaval created by Larkin. At first he seems to slide smoothly into the family's way of things, but soon it's apparent that his arrival has caused a ripple-effect bringing long-held discontents to life.

With its mix of family secrets, betrayals and love, the tracking down of whoever committed the theft, of  Persephone's determination to challenge the status quo and follow her dream, there's something for almost everyone. This isn't 'fantasy' as such; the influence of 'magic' is slight, and for me the appeal was in its characters and their loves and deceits. The characters are well-drawn and realistically brought to life (more so then even a Kendricks' doll), while underpinning their action and the story is a knowledge of human frailties and desires.

 

The First Woman by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

 Growing up in a small Ugandan village in the seventies, Kirabo's world is far removed from modern 'western' life. Her father, Tom, and Aunt Abi visit from the city but life at home in Nattetta is still strongly traditional, following a way of life that has remained largely unchanged. Tribal hierarchies are still firmly in place, with men in charge as the owners of the land and animals which represent wealth, but the women still tell stories, passed through the generations from mother to daughter, of when they were as powerful, if not more so, than men. Kirabo wants more from life than her village can offer, and when her father sends her to boarding school she looks well on the way to achieving it, but two things still unsettle her - the identity of her unknown mother, and her love for a village boy, Sio.

The First Woman is a coming of age tale with strong themes of women's friendship and independence. It's one of those titles that you start out assuming it refers to the heroine, Kirabo, but could equally belong to others - the Ugandan version of Eve in the creation myth, Kirabo's mother (as the mother of Tom's first child), Nsuuta the first love of Kirabo's grandfather, or the country's first female president ( a role Nsuuta believes Kirabo could achieve). As the titled is multi-layered, so is the story itself.

 The story centres on Kirabo, on one girl finding her own way to adulthood, and understanding her place in the world by discovering both her past through her mother's identity, and that of her family through the friendship and rivalry of grandmother Alikisa and the 'witch' Nsuuta. On the side though I learned a lot about Ugandan history - from the influence of missionaries, Idi Amin's dictatorship and the war which ended it, to its culture and traditional way of life, and the conflict, at both a personal and wider level, between that culture and the new 'modern society' of the cities.

I hadn't heard of Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi before I caught her event at this year's online Edinburgh Book Festival. Hearing her talk about and read from The First Woman, I decided to track it down and explore more by this author billed by the festival as 'Uganda's First Woman of Fiction'. I'm really glad I did.

Maryom's review -  5 stars

Publisher - Oneworld Publictions 

Genre - adult fiction, literary fiction, African fiction 

World Burn Down by Steve Cole

 illustrated by Oriol Vidal

Carlos is at home, impatiently waiting for his mum to return from work, when door of his flat is broken down, and he is kidnapped. His mother's job with IBAMA, Brazil's Environmental Authority, involves protecting the Amazon forest from illegal clearing by farmers or miners, and her actions have annoyed some very ruthless men. Carlos is taken far into the Amazon forest where his abductors plan to hold him to teach his mother a lesson, but an accident gives him chance to escape. He isn't safe though as fires are raging out of control all around him. Will he be able to outrun them? or will he find himself running straight back into the clutches of his kidnappers?

This latest book from well-known children's author Steve Cole is a fast-paced adventure set against a backdrop of the destruction of the Amazon forest. Primarily it's an action story, with Carlos attempting to escape his captors, but seeming to run from one danger straight to the next. Behind the action though are important things to be learned about the destruction of the rainforest, and the reader gets to share Carlos' horror at what he sees, and his realisation of the importance of the work done by people like his mother. Till now he's seen it as just a job, something that takes her away for long hours, without maybe fully realising its global significance. His previous experience of the forest has been of sanitised tourist-trails designed to delight and enthrall; now he's seeing first hand the realities of land-grabbing, the fires which lay waste to huge areas each day, and the gold mines which turn jungle into a sterile moon-scape. It's an excellent mix of fact and fiction which will both entertain and educate.

Aimed at 8 year olds and over, as always with titles from Barrington Stoke, the presentation - font, colour, chapter length - is designed with reluctant and dyslexic readers in mind, but none of this detracts from it being a gripping, nail-biting read, with Oriol Vidal's illustrations bringing the story vividly to life.

The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird

A patient arrives in  hospital with flu-like symptoms and within hours he's dead. His illness is like nothing anyone has seen before, and before anyone has chance to act the infection is sweeping through the hospital and beyond. The most bizarre thing is that only men seem to be affected. What do you do when the world's faced with losing almost half its population, and its accumulated skills and knowledge?

This isn't published till next spring, and I'm not sure whether its relevance to this past year will work for or against it. How many want to read more about pandemics? Will we have had quite enough of them by then?I'm not sure. I've happily watched Contagion (and criticised it) during lockdown, and raced through this. Maybe it's akin to watching disaster movies or real-life medical dramas? Whatever, it's a compelling read - particularity the first half/three quarters, it slows after that - and I rather enjoyed it even when picking fault with the characters' actions.

Unfortunately we're all now experts on pandemics, so a variety of things may grate - no lockdown, no mention of R number, no segregation of men and women. And as a voracious reader and watcher of apocalyptic pandemic fiction I like to spot details that I think might not hold true, and plan how I would do things differently and, of course, better (down the Winchester for a pint), so I did somewhat pick holes in the plot as I went along. As I said, though, I still enjoyed it. It's gripping, quickly paced, and highly topical!

It would make a brilliant read for a book club, or just to discuss among like-minded, slightly survivalist friends. I'd love to hear a man's opinion of it - though he'd probably insist he'd fall into the tiny immune group.

 

The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld

 

Anyone who's visited the coast near North Berwick will have seen the Bass Rock sitting out to sea, dominating the horizon. In the same way it looms over the lives of the characters in Evie Wyld's latest novel. 

The story follows three women, close in location, but separated by time. 

First chronologically is Sarah in the 1700s - accused of witchcraft and running for her life. 

In the mid-twentieth century, Ruth is trying to start life again, after the loss of her beloved brother during WW2.  She's moved to North Berwick with her husband, a widower with two boys, and is having difficulties fitting in to this new life with a ready-made family, in a strange town.

Sixty years later, in more or less the present day, Viv, the daughter of one of those sons, is journeying between life in London and North Berwick. Her father has died, and the house needs to be cleared of personal belongings, including some belonging to Ruth, before the house is sold. 

At first the storyline seems to jump about here and there, but persevere as it builds into a compelling but disturbing read. For all three women life is defined by rules created by men - how they should behave, what they are allowed to do (sometimes even think) - and, of course, if men are provoked to violence it's the women's fault. 

Wyld's writing is perceptive and empathic, bringing the characters to life through close observation of their actions. An initial feeling of slight weirdness builds imperceptibly into a feeling that dreadful things could be about to happen at any moment. 

Throughout, Bass Rock is there in the background, a constant brooding presence, watching every move. In part its presence seems malevolent, an all-seeing eye which will take action if anyone steps out of line (a bit like The Prisoner's 'Rover'), but at times I felt it could be seen as an unattainable land of safety.

Maryom's review -  4.5 stars

Publisher - Jonathan Cape

Genre - adult fiction, literary fiction

As You Were by Elaine Feeney

Sinéad Hynes is in hospital, ostensibly with a respiratory infection, but she's been aware for months that she has cancer, which is now spreading as she's refused treatment. Her family don't know, her fellow patients don't know, and at first even her doctors don't know.
For now, life is reduced to this one hospital ward - to the comings and goings of staff and visitors, and to the stories of fellow patients. Confined in one room, with little chance of physical privacy, the barriers that might have separated these people in normal life come tumbling down.
It's a mixed ward, but the two men are mostly silent, and the women take centre stage, representing different ages and 'types' of Irish womenhood.
Margaret Rose is a matriarchal figure, in constant touch with her large family via phone, trying to track down her missing husband and sort the problems her daughter has got into. Ex- teacher Jane, now suffering from dementia, can remember the past clearly - her one true love, and the awful toll enacted on unmarried mothers - but doesn't understand why she's here in this strange place - is it a shop, or a hotel? she wonders.
Sinéad is a more modern woman. The only girl in a family of boys, bullied by her aggressive father,
 she now seems to have taken on the male role in her family - her husband being more nurturing and home-centered than she - with her property business and a string of casual infidelities.


As You Were is a stunning debut novel from Irish poet, Elaine Feeney. Through these lives Feeney explores what it is to be a woman, and the various choices life forces upon us. The narrative technique is unusual, mixing flashbacks to Sinéad's childhood with things she overhears on the ward, but perfectly conveys the random intimacies and sudden friendships when people are forced together. And, considering the setting, it's a story surprisingly full of life and hope.

Maryom's review - 5 stars 
Publisher - Harvill Secker
Genre - adult

Strange Flowers by Donal Ryan

 In 1973, Moll Gladney runs away from her home in rural Ireland, leaving her distraught parents, Paddy and Kit, with their lives turned upside down, terrified of what may have become of their daughter, attempting to continue with their daily routines while fending off both the sympathy and inquisitiveness of their neighbours.
Time passes, as it's bound to, with no word from Moll, till five years later she returns, turning up out of the blue one day, followed shortly afterwards by her husband, Alexander, and baby son, and life for the Gladneys takes another surprising turn.

 Strange Flowers is a story of family, loss, and redemption, of three generations bound together by love, but torn apart by secrets. It takes the characters and readers from the quiet slow life of rural Tipperary, to hectic, bustling London, following the characters closely as their stories play out, though retaining some secrets till the end. Life in the Gladney's small close-knit community may seem idyllic, but there are drawbacks. It's a place where it's hard to keep a secret, where everyone must conform to what's expected, and anything or anyone out of the ordinary is looked upon with suspicion. London by comparison seems an anonymous city where you could perhaps be your true self, but it's an impossible place for Moll and Alexander to raise their son.


I've loved Ryan's writing since I first read The Thing About December, and Strange Flowers is another utterly stunning book. As always, his storytelling is beautiful and lyrical, enveloping the reader with the lilt and cadence of his native Tipperary, occasionally shocking them with abrupt outbursts of violence, but always full of compassion and warmth.               

.Maryom's review - 5 stars

Publisher - Doubleday

Genre - adult fiction