Second Life by S J Watson

 review by Maryom

Julia has a seemingly perfect life - the lovely house and caring family that most aspire to - but she's about to put it all at risk. When her sister Kate dies in mysterious circumstances, Julia finds herself trawling internet dating sites for clues to Kate's last movements. Soon though she finds herself attracted to one of the men she meets there....and living a double life.

Now, S J Watson's debut  Before I Go To Sleep was a stunner - and left wondering how he could ever follow it. BIGTS had a special 'hook' -  the mere thought of waking up each morning with a memory wiped clean is terrifying  - which is missing this time. Second Life is, should I say, a 'normal' thriller - but even so it's brilliant!

It starts a little slowly and it's not obvious at first which way the plot is going (and I'm not going to tell you) plus, in the way of the best thrillers, some truths only come tumbling out of the woodwork at the very end. But give it a chapter or two and it will have you hooked - much as Julia is!

 I got the impression from the very start that Julia was a little bit bored with her safe respectable husband, the guy who 'saved' her from her younger more wayward self, so she was ready and willing to stir things up a bit and get some excitement back in her life. What she finds, though, is an obsession or addiction taking over her life, leading her on to increasingly risky behaviour that could end up with her losing everything and everyone she holds dear. I was reminded in part of Deborah Kay Davies novel of obsession True Things About Me but Second Life has an additional hook - who killed Kate? was it an almost motiveless attack or did something more sinister lie behind it?
 I'm glad to say that Second Life lived up to all my expectations - a tense, mesmerising thriller that you'll want to read in one sitting, with an ending that stunned me!

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars

Publisher - Doubleday

Genre- adult psychological thriller

Losing It by Helen Lederer

review by Maryom

50-something Millie has problems - she's divorced, in debt and over weight. When she's asked to front an ad campaign for a new diet pill she thinks she may have found the answer to two of those, if not all three - surely if she were thinner she could find at man to take her to the cinema at least? Life isn't that simple of course and when the weight doesn't instantly drop away poor Millie finds herself harassed and harangued into all manner of 'helpful' activities from jogging to tantric sex ....


Losing It is the debut novel from comedian and actor Helen Lederer, and, as you'd expect from someone who's served their time in TV comedy and stand up, it's an incredibly funny book, packed full of ludicrous situations just waiting to trip heroine Millie up. However you describe it - chick lit for grown-ups/almost-oldies or Helen's preferred mid-lit - it's a delight to read. Although the emphasis is definitely on the comedy, the author shows enough perception and insight for the characters to ring true. Heroine Millie is someone the reader can easily empathise with; she's a mid-fifties singleton, with worries about her finances, her weight, and her daughter's career and love life, but still naively optimistic - even if we've not quite been there, these are all feelings we can relate to. Millie's attempts to get her life, and weight, back in order lead to the most cringe-making moments imaginable.
Anyone who regularly reads my reviews knows that in between the deep literary works and the nail-biting crime thrillers, I like some 'down-time', something lighter but not mind-deadening, and I think Helen Lederer is going to be a great addition to my favourite chick-lit authors - Sophie Kinsella, Hester Browne and, err, Matt Dunn. I loved Losing It and I hope there'll be further follow-up adventures for Millie soon.




If you want to hear more from Helen Lederer about Millie and Losing It check out our Q+A with her, part of a blog tour celebrating the book's launch.

Maryom's Review - 5 stars
Publisher - Pan Books
Genre -chick lit, humour,

Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekback

review by Maryom

Blackasen Mountain is a remote virtually uninhabited area of Swedish Lapland. Summers are brief and winters harsh. In 1717 a new family of settlers arrive in this inhospitable place; Paavo, who wants to put as much land between him and the sea as possible, his wife Maija and their two daughters, Frederika and Dorotea. Wolves and bears roam the land, and when Frederika discovers the dead body of one of their neighbours, wild animals are easily blamed. Maija isn't convinced though - to her, the slashes on the body look more like the work of a sword or rapier than a clawed foot. Enlisting the help of the priest, another comparative newcomer, Maija refuses to let the matter go ....but in a place where people can go for days without seeing their neighbours secrets are easily hidden and hard to expose.

Wolf Winter takes the whodunnit murder mystery and transports it to a time and place far removed from the modern urban landscape. In the early eighteenth century the far north of Sweden is remote and empty; a place where life itself is a struggle against the vagaries of the weather and the loss of a harvest can mean starvation. In the long, hard, dark winter, wolves howl at the doors, fear and loneliness build and the barriers between 'modern' logical beliefs and old pagan traditions break down. It's an atmosphere in which the supernatural is easy to believe in, and Frederika's visions of wolves are as believable as the real animals.


 In the best tradition of murder mysteries, there's an abundance of suspects - despite the unpromising sparsely populated nature of the area. The indigenous nomadic Lapps, whose traditional grazing grounds are now being parcelled out to settlers as farms, are viewed with suspicion by the incomers and are the automatic suspects for anything untoward, but all of the settlers seem to have arrived at Blackasen with secrets or running away from something; from involvement in political or court intrigues to Paavo's fear of the sea or what we would see as post-traumatic shock in men returned from war. Maija's poking about uncovers all manner of things that people would rather have kept hidden!

Add to this the amazing descriptive passages capturing the endless days of Blackasen's brief summer or the incredible fury and power of a raging blizzard and it all makes for a very special book.




 Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Hodder & Stoughton
Genre - adult fiction, historical crime

Helen Lederer - Losing It - Blog Tour!

Helen Lederer, actor and comedian, is soon to add author to her CV with her first novel "Losing It" to be published next week (12/2/15) - a laugh-out loud comedy about 50-something Millie, who desperately wants to lose her debts and some weight, and hopes fronting a diet-pill campaign is the answer to both worries.... 

So, as part of her blog tour, we took the opportunity to ask Helen some questions about writing, comedy and tantric sex.....


Firstly - I'm old enough to remember the days of Naked Video and the first showings of the Young Ones and Ab Fab, but how would you briefly sum up your career ....
You've obviously written comedy material for stage and TV before, how different is settling down to write a full length novel?  

Well the early monologues for Naked Video were co-written, it has to be admitted, by wonderful Ian Pattison who wrote Rab C Nesbit. We had such fun writing them – his style was outrageous and SO RUDE! My character was a precursor to the Bridget Jones type and the first single women with half a brain to be found musing with a filo fax. I’m proud  of that and thank you for remembering Naked Video !  My career began after I did stand up comedy –and as de- railing as it was, it was a great way to learn how to write sparsely but with content  in order to attempt to induce laughter! Writing the novel was an amazing adventure. I’d write for ten hours at a stretch and forget to breathe - sadly I was able to make regular trip to the fridge –just as Millie would. I loved the freedom to venture inside the bitter private negative head space - as  well as describe places and people -in a way stand up would not allow – no time you see!

.... and was this something you'd toyed with before, maybe slaved over in secret for many years, or something that popped into your head almost ready-written?

 I always used to write –in fact I have a teenage file which has the word ‘anthology’ written on it. I used to write poems a lot and read them out loud to people (or  ‘over share’ as we might describe it now) I abandoned  three novels before Losing It was born - and I’m glad I did  - now I am in the zone. 

Will this mark a permanent move away from acting and stand up?
I’m hoping to write the next book as soon as I finish in Hollyoaks, but when you get the call – you get the call – I might turn up on stage again. 

With a 50-something heroine, Losing It falls into a genre that I like to call 'chick lit for grown-ups'. Do you think that's a fair description of the genre? Do you have a better way to describe it? 

I love the term chick lit for grownups. I labelled it  ‘Mid Lit’ as this is  a shorter  way of copying Chick Lit – but differentiates  itself  from ‘Granny Lit’ – as that role has as yet not happened to me and I’m not sure what Granny Lit gets up to…Knitted Thongs… ? Noooooo 

I found Millie to be someone I could easy empathise with, and, however bizarre they are at times, her experiences always ring true. Did you base her and what happens to her on personal experience?  

Yes –always. I did  attend a tantric  sex couples workshop where the straddle was demonstrated ( I was writing about it!)  – and yes, I was invited to take a herbal diet pill for money and strangely I’m still not slim  …

Do you think today's average 50/60 year old is looking for more from life than previous generations? That we're no longer prepared to be written off as old and past-it? 

Definitely! We are closer to our own offspring in lifestyle –we tend  not to favour a twin set and a perm and  we rarely wear sensible shoes. We look and act younger and offer value in the work place – as well as socially. Life is for living in the fast lane.  

Do you have plans for any more novels? Perhaps some further adventures for Millie... 

Oee yes!! I know this area now and I can’t wait to start the next book – it’s called ‘Extra Time’

Thank you Helen for taking the time to join us today and best wishes for this and future writing projects. 




Next week Maryom will be reviewing Losing It but meanwhile catch up with the blog tour so far

The Rocks by Peter Nichols

review by Maryom

Divorced couple Lulu and Gerald have lived almost side by side on the island of Mallorca for the past 50 years; Lulu at her welcoming, guest-filled hotel Villa Los Roques, Gerald in quieter style at his farmhouse C'an Cabrer among his olive and lemon trees. The incident which ended their relationship caused a rift between them which could not be healed, so despite their proximity, they've rarely seen or spoken to each other in all that time. Their story starts at its end and unwinds backwards to its beginning - almost like a film shown in reverse - through the complex relationship between their families, to the event that altered their lives and shaped their futures.


 The Rocks is a story of love and betrayal played out over three generations against a backdrop of sun, sea and, yes, sex in the Mallorcan village of Cala Marsopa, once a remote, off the beaten track spot which changes through the 1960s as the tourist-trade booms and the stark beauty of the island is 'developed' as a holiday destination; the pleasure-seeking lifestyle of Lulu and guests, more in tune with the new influx of visitors, contrasts sharply with Gerald's deep attachment to his land. It's a place I've never visited but, as when I read Helen Walsh's The Lemon Grove, I felt myself to be absolutely there - swimming off the rocks or strolling along dusty lanes and through olive groves.
Against this wonderful backdrop, the lives of Lulu, Gerald and their families play out, and from the way little accidental happenings shape events, generally for the worst, it's almost as if the old Greek gods were behind the scenes pulling the strings. 
 The story develops in an unusual way by starting in the present, 2005, and moving backwards to 1948, evolving in a thriller-type way with the big reveal saved till last. As the reader travels back in time, they uncover the failed relationships and doomed love affairs that tie these two families together; the characters are obviously fully aware of what has happened, but the reader is in the dark and I was constantly intrigued by the hints dropped of what happened in, say, Algeciras or why Gerald abandoned his plans to trace Odysseus's route home from Troy to Ithaka.
It's a story of misunderstandings, mishaps and failures in relationships, which doesn't sound like a good read - but it is! An excellent one, in fact.
Right now it's a great way to lose yourself somewhere warm and sunny far away from February's cold and damp, but for me at least, it will be a book to come back to, even though I know the ending(or beginning), to trace the intricate plotting and see how the jigsaw pieces fit together.



Maryom's review -  5 stars
Publisher - Heron Books (Quercus)
Genre - Adult

The Darkest Hour by Tony Schumacher

review by Maryom

The year is 1946, WW2 is over, but the Germans have won and now occupy London. Once a highly decorated British war hero, John Henry Rossett has now been assigned to the Office of Jewish Affairs, and put in charge of rounding up Jews and packing them onto trains for deportation. A man who's abandoned hope after the death of his wife and child, he goes about his work unthinkingly, with his eyes blinkered, not wanting to know what happens once the trains leave. Then one day his conscience is sparked by Jacob, a young Jewish boy found hiding in an empty house. Unable to leave him to his fate, Rossett resolves to get the boy to safety, but as word gets out that Jacob knows the whereabouts of a treasure in gold or diamonds, it seems like most of London is in pursuit of them.

Starting from the alternative historical standpoint of a German victory leading to the occupation of Britain, Schumacher weaves a tense thriller around a change of heart for a disillusioned man and his attempts to save the life of one young Jewish boy. Alternative history is always fascinating with its exploration of what might have happened if..... and as you might expect in any occupied country, people are divided between collaborators, resistance and those who just try to get on with their lives and ignore wider events - till his conscience is stirred, Rossett definitely falls into this latter category. Even when he decides to save Jacob, it isn't clear what his motives are - a humanitarian gesture or an interest in the 'treasure'?
Perhaps it isn't the right way to approach a novel, but I wondered at times why Schumacher had chosen a fictional London as the setting - with a few changes to names and locations the story could easily have happened in a real occupied France. It's a more straightforward action-adventure than  Owen Sheers' Resistance (set in a German occupied remote Welsh valley), lacking some of the emotional and moral ambiguity, but it's highly entertaining with the action moving along quickly, and Rossett barely escaping from one dangerous situation before plunging into another.
The supporting characters are nicely nuanced; the Germans not all bad -and with a surprising amount of humour about them; the English not all good - with several claiming to support one side while secretly helping the other, and leaving Rossett with no one he can really trust. There's enough ambiguity in the ending to leave the way open for a sequel, maybe even a series, in which case I'd hope to read more of Rossett's back story, to flesh him out from the slightly enigmatic figure I found him to be.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Harper Collins (William Morrow/Harper360)
Genre - adult, thriller, WW2, alternative history

Refrigerator Cake by Dickson Telfer

Review by The Mole

This is Telfer's second book of short stories which, in my opinion, is every bit as good as "The Red Man Turns To Green" - his first collection.

With some stories being just a page or two (I do NOT count Sinkho, which is just a title, as a story - sorry) while others run to 20 or more then this is very much a varied collection.

Short stories are not defined by their length but by their content and that is, once again, as varied as their length.

There is the dog walker who finds the ideal place to walk his dog - but looks can be deceptive. There is the funeral where the widow learns about refrigerator cake, or the chap who's good at his job although he hates it or "Hot Cakes" - what does that mean?

The subjects are very varied and there really is something to suit everyone, although with they all suit everyone? Personally I found The Panini Thief left me a little uncomfortable - but I enjoyed it none the less.

Another excellent collection from this author who seems to really know what the readers want from a short story.

Publisher - Fledgling Press
Genre - Adult short stories