Slade House by David Mitchell

review by Maryom

" Turn down Slade Alley - narrow, dank and easy to miss, even when you're looking for it. Find the small black iron door set into the right-hand wall. No handle, no keyhole, but at your touch it swings open. Enter the sunlit garden of an old house that doesn't quite make sense; too grand for the shabby neighbourhood, too large for the space it occupies."

This strange building, Slade House, lies at the heart of David Mitchell's latest novel like an evil witch's hovel in some ghostly horror tale - and every nine years someone is enticed within its walls and never seen again! In 1979, a mother and son are invited to a musical garden party; nine years later, Detective Inspector Edmonds is following up a lead to their disappearance; another nine years, and a group of students investigating paranormal activities find their way to Slade House; in 2006 the journalist sister of one of those students comes seeking further information; and in 2015 a Canadian psychiatrist with an interest in abduction psychoses finds her way into the mysterious garden of Slade House. With each section the tension builds, a little bit more of the House's origins are revealed, and the horror that lies at its heart grows....

 I've been longing to read this book since I heard David Mitchell read the opening section at Hay Festival last May, but as always there seemed to be something else that needed to be read first so it's taken me quite a while to get round to it. That taster definitely set the tone for the book with that 'read if you dare' feel of a good ghost or horror story, which terrifies you but encourages you to carry on reading; you know that no matter how scary, you are NOT going to put this book down till the end!
 I've fairly recently read The Bone Clocks for my book club, and while I enjoyed it, it was a slow drawn-out read; Slade House is the opposite. Possibly because at 230 or so pages it's a lot shorter than other David Mitchell books, possibly because of the way the story falls into five almost self-contained parts, possibly because each section lures the reader towards both its own climax and then the next 'episode', I raced through it.
 With the book splitting into five self-contained sections, you might expect a slight skimping on character development, but no, with the skill of a short-story teller, Mitchell develops each and all of them, relating the stories in first person to make the reader privy to their thoughts and attitudes. We're introduced to an autistic boy struggling to quite 'fit', a world-weary policeman still gullible enough to be seduced by an attractive woman, students with their mix of attitude and cool, a journalist plagued by guilt, - every one a believable 'real' person.
 Slade House inhabits the same 'world' as The Bone Clocks, and makes several passing references to events and characters from it, but stands alone, so there's no real need to have read one to enjoy the other. I actually think if you've heard of David Mitchell, and been intending reading his novels but been put off by the length, Slade House is a brilliant place to start.



Maryom's review -  5 stars
Publisher -  Sceptre
Genre - ghost/horror stories,

Penance by Theresa Talbot

 review by Maryom

TV journalist Oonagh O'Neil is on the trail of a story about the scandal of the Catholic Church's Magdalene Institutions, particularly one in Glasgow, but her investigations are thrown off course by the sudden death of a potential informant Father Kennedy. Her private life is in turmoil as well, as her married lover doesn't seem to accept that their affair is over .....and, when the police begin to think there may be a link between him and Father Kennedy's death, things are going to get even worse for Oonagh...

With a considerable cast of characters, and events unfolding in both 2000 and in flashback to the 1950s, I found this a little difficult to get into at first. Once people and events were straight in my mind though, I could hardly read fast enough! I really wanted to leap to the last chapter, or even the last page, to find out whodunnit without having to go through all the twists and turns and red herrings. As you might guess from that, the plot is far from simple - a different culprit presents themselves almost every chapter - and keeping track of everyone  - Oonagh, her lover Jack, her friend Catholic priest Tom Findlay, sleazy journalist Charlie Antonio, DI Alex Davies in charge of the investigation plus other supporting cast - remembering what they know, where they've been, who they've seen and talked to - is enough to leave your head buzzing.

Oonagh is the sort of female character who gets labelled as 'feisty', sometimes too feisty for her own good I rather thought, but, like any good journalist, once she's given a lead she won't put it down until she's followed it to the end, no matter how bitter.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Strident
Genre -adult crime

Exposure by Helen Dunmore

review by Maryom


Simon Callington is an minor bureaucrat at the Admiralty, working with sensitive 'official secrets' documents though not at the 'top secret' level. He plods along as anyone might at any old office job, but then an old friend is hospitalised and calls on Simon to do him a favour....  which will land him in far more trouble than he can imagine. For, unknown to Simon, that old friend Giles has been passing secrets to the Russians, and the favour involves returning a 'top secret' file that should never have left the Admiralty offices. Before long Simone finds himself arrested on a charge of spying, and his wife Lily is left with three children to look after, the press hounding them and in fear of what may happen next.

Set in London in 1960, Exposure is an unusual spy-thriller - almost, I'd say, one for readers who don't normally like the genre. It's not about cloak and dagger secrecy, dead-letter boxes and coded messages but the human cost particularly to people who innocently get caught up in events. Giles' unfortunate accident behaves like a pebble thrown into a pond, though not only sending ripples out across it but raking up all the mud from the bottom too. For all three have secrets they've kept well-hidden; obviously Giles' espionage activities, but also Simon's relationship with him, dating back to university days, which if exposed could cause at least as much trouble for both of them; and for Lily, it's her secret struggle as a Jewish refugee from Germany, trying to fit in and become as English as possible but still holding a fear of authority and a gut feeling that the only person you can rely on to protect you, is yourself. Of the three, Lily turns out to be the strong one.
Giles is essentially a risk-taker and gambler, both professionally and personally, maybe even thriving on danger - but he's become sloppy over time and his past is about to catch up with him.
Simon is the sort of man who drifts through life and has things happen TO him, rather than make them happen. He drifts into an illicit love affair with Giles, drifts again into marriage and fatherhood, and now he's drifted unthinkingly into the middle of a spying scandal.
Lily though, following her mother's example, believes in taking things into her own hands. She isn't prepared to just rely on Simon's upper-class family to come to her aid but puts measures in place herself - and (without spoiling the ending I hope), it's fair to say that it's Lily's actions which save her, Simon and their family.

As an unusual twist on a familiar scenario, I really enjoyed this, and would definitely recommend to readers who normally shun the 'spy' genre.





 Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Hutchinson
Genre - adult, spy thriller, psychological thriller,

Journey to Death by Leigh Russell

Review by The Mole

When Lucy Hall is taken on a holiday to the Seychelles by her parents, after a break up with her boyfriend, events unfold that threaten the lives of both Lucy and her mother.

Lucy's mother goes missing very early in their holiday and neither Lucy or her father are convinced the authorities are taking her disappearance seriously enough.

Then events unfold that seem to be threatening Lucy's life but both her father and Adrian, someone she meets in the hotel they are staying at, try to convince her that the heat is making her hallucinate.

This book was certainly compelling and I enjoyed it immensely BUT... Yes, that is a big but. This is Lucy's first "outing" and Russell's other lead characters are both detectives. Detectives are allowed detective type thoughts and reasoning but Lucy is an innocent member of the public and I feel that Russell has yet to understand Lucy fully. At times naive to the point of an airhead, at others as strong as any character can be, at times using logical conclusions and at other times off in some fairy tale land somewhere Lucy has some maturing to do - and she will be a great character when she achieves it.

A new approach to thrillers for Russell and when it comes right it will be another great series but I say again - I did find it compelling and I did enjoy it immensely. Leigh and Lucy just need to go out for a few drinks together and get to know each other better.

Publisher: Thomas and Mercer Publishing
Genre: Crime Thriller

The Ballroom by Anna Hope

review by Maryom



For the patients at Sharston asylum, Friday evenings are special. The men and women, so carefully segregated the rest of the week, are allowed to meet in the fabulous ballroom at the heart of the building, to listen to music, to dance, to meet and behave as 'normal' people. In this unlikely setting, John and Ella meet, and fall in love. But participation is a treat reserved for the 'well-behaved', permission is given and withdrawn on the whim of the doctors, and not all of Ella's efforts to 'be good' can avoid the couple being parted.

For this her second novel, Anna Hope goes back to 1911, to a remote asylum on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, for a story about finding love in the most unlikely place, a story in which human feelings clash with science and ambition.
The story unfolds from three points of view - those of John, Ella and Dr Charles Fuller. The reader is introduced to the asylum through Ella's eyes as she is first admitted - the reason for her incarceration is a fit of temper or despair at the mindless,monotonous drudgery of life at the mill where she works. In her frustration she breaks a window, and fights viciously with the men who try to restrain her, but while she expects to be arrested for her act, finding herself in a mental asylum comes as a shock. She soon realises that the only possibility of leaving lies through following her mother's advice 'be good'.
John is melancholy and depressed, but Ella opens up new possibilities for him, of love, freedom and hope.
Initially the regime at Sharston asylum seems progressive and comparatively enlightened - there's none of the electric shock treatment or cold plunge baths that I've read of elsewhere; perhaps those forms of treatment are reserved for the chronically ill who disappear to their own wing of the building unlikely to ever emerge. For those deemed 'acute' and therefore curable, rehabilitation consists mainly of a combination of strenuous physical work in the mornings and quiet reflective times in the afternoons when one of the younger doctors, Charles Fuller, has introduced the concept of playing the piano to calm his patients' anxieties. But the lives of the patients still depend entirely on the whims of the staff and doctors  - and as Fuller begins to feel these enlightened ideas leading him down what he sees as a slippery slope to depravity, he reacts by adopting a hostile, repressive attitude. Oddly, perhaps, as I felt no sympathy for him, Charles' character development was the most interesting of the three; from seeing his patients as people in need of solicitude and encouragement, he becomes eager to oppress them whenever possible, turning his feeling of self-hatred on to them.


I found Anna Hope's debut Wake moving and engrossing, and the Ballroom is too - but even better! The slow reveal of character, the balancing of a love story against the building of tension between John and Charles, the growing dread that in his role as doctor, Charles has the opportunity to enact revenge in the name of science and progress, all add up to a wonderful read. As with so many novels that I love, it can be read at various 'depths' - take it at its surface as a compelling read or seek out the underlying issues, both scientific and personal. I loved it, and I think it will be one of this year's 'must reads'.

Maryom's review - 5 stars

Publisher - Doubleday

Genre - adult historical fiction,

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

review by Maryom 


A 30-something childless Japanese couple live quietly in the former guest-house to a large mansion-like property, till one day their life is intruded upon by a cat belonging to one of the neighbours. The cat, like all felines, has no sense of boundaries and belonging, and is happy to share its time between the two houses, eating, sleeping and generally making itself at home in both. Both husband and wife become quietly obsessed by the cat, watching her comings and goings, playing with her, and gradually it comes to fill a void that they didn't realise existed.

This was one of my book club reads, probably one I wouldn't have chosen for myself but reading is all about exploring new things as well as sticking to the familiar. I don't quite know what I was expecting - possibly a cross between Tom Cox's cat books, Talk To The Tail or Under The Paw, and John Grogan's Marley And Me - but this small volume wasn't at all like either of them.
 Narrated by the husband, the story tells how the cat turned up, how, despite not really being pet-lovers, they became enchanted by its ways, but as I read, I was unsure whether this considered itself as a novel or a memoir - it certainly reads very like the latter! - and somehow I just felt something was lacking. I often criticise stories that I feel are too much 'tell', and not enough 'show', and I think that was a big problem here; I could see how the cat came to feel like part of the couple's life, but I didn't feel for any of the characters. In part this may have been due to the translation, to American English, not British; some words jarred, and some of the phrasing and expressions seemed odd - so much so that at times I felt that I couldn't engage with the story. At other points, I wondered if the author had intended to be funny, but humour doesn't translate well, and I wasn't sure. 
It's an award-winner in Japan, and a best-seller in France and the US, so I think somehow, somewhere, I missed something. It just didn't grab me but I'm going to pass it on to my cat-loving neighbour and see how she feels.

Maryom's review - 2 stars

Publisher - Picador

Genre -adult, cats

Used to Be by Elizabeth Baines

Review by The Mole

This anthology of short stories is split into 2 - "What Was, What Is" and "What May Be".

The first collection is very much about the past: a car journey that is fraught with tension as a nervous passenger is bombarded with stories by a driver who may, or may not, be paying enough attention to the road; revisiting places of youth and trying to find things that were landmarks; infatuations of youth that are not what they seem; the death of a stranger that means nothing; the story of extended family and the tugs of love and resentment with in it; and a ghost story - or is it?

The second part  is about possibilities: an incident that causes a train to be late and some of the people affected by it; a woman reflects on a summer when she had to choose between safe boyfriend or risky artist; someone meets a person whose language she can't speak and questions what they want from them; what happens when someone starts falling over; when your career and life is going nowhere and there are choices to be made; a visit to the sea that leads to reflection on the future.

I found myself wondering where I had read stories so like a few of these before that it was distracting. Fortunately the acknowledgements in the back revealed all - Unthologys! That, in itself, says a great deal for the quality of the stories and writing in this collection. I am a huge fan of the Unthology collections and anyone who is part of any of those collections has to be worthy of a further read.

Each and everyone of these stories will give you cause to pause and think - and the last story is one of those "why did the author stop there leaving me to chose 'what next'" stories (possibly the worst way to end a book? Discuss).

A really great collection that you will enjoy, identify with, wish that worm hadn't got into your head - and each of these in equal measure.

Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult fiction, short stories