Redder Days by Sue Rainsford

At some unspecified time (presumably) in the future, twins Anna and Adam live in the remains of the commune where they were brought up. Their mother left when she felt they were old enough to survive without her, and the other commune members have slipped away over the years. The twins' only companion is Koan, once the leader of the group holding a fierce control over the lives of everyone, but now much diminished, physically and mentally, by age. 

The twins' lives follow a pattern of rituals, preparing for an expected cataclysmic end of the world, quenching the fires that burn from an underground mine, and keeping the area free from people and animals who show signs of the 'redness'. When former commune-members return, it becomes apparent that what the twins have been brain-washed into believing might not be true ... 

Redder Days is a disturbing, dystopian novel, one in which a virulent disease is sweeping the world, endangering humanity, while society as we know it appears to have completely collapsed to be replaced by small communes, subject to their own rules. Against this backdrop, Sue Rainsford looks at at the undue influence one man can have over a group of willing followers, and how he manipulates and abuses his power. 

The writing is dark, disturbing, uncomfortable with the story unfolding through a number of first-person narratives (not all reliable) set in different time-frames. This makes things a little difficult to follow at first. The reader is dropped straight into this strange world with no explanation, and I feel that having read it once, I'd like to go back, specifically to the early chapters, as I think I missed a lot of nuances. A lot is left for the reader to decide for themselves, particularly about the motivation of characters - for example how much did Koan deliberately mislead others? Was he acting maliciously or was he just mistaken?  It's certainly a book which left me intrigued, and wanting to read more by the author.

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex

 Far out to sea off the Cornish coast, the Maiden lighthouse rises 50 metres above the waves; a tribute to Victorian engineering, and home to three men - principal keeper, Arthur Black, assistant keeper Bill Walker, and relative new-comer the supernumerary assistant Vince Bourne.

In December 1972 those men disappeared. The entrance door was bolted from the inside. The clocks stopped at quarter to nine. The table laid for two places. Investigators from Trident House can find no explanation for the event.

Twenty years later, Dan Sharp, a writer of maritime adventure novels, approaches the women left behind. Arthur's wife Helen has tried to accept that the men must have been washed out to sea by a freak wave - the most logical of the various explanations, she believes. Jenny, Bill's wife, refuses to believe any of the theories she's heard, insisting that somehow the men must still be alive. Younger than the other women, Vince's girlfriend Michelle is the only one who's tried to move on, marrying and having children with a man who'll never quite compare to Vince. Talking to Sharp brings back memories the women would rather forget, but maybe this way the past can eventually be laid to rest.

Inspired by the disappearance of three keepers from Scottish lighthouse in 1900, this stunning novel from Emma Stonex is a classic closed-room mystery, and an exploration of the lives of keepers and their wives -  love that keeps them together, the independent temperament needed by both, the strains that long separations put on a relationship. And on almost every page, there's the sea - shimmering on a summer's day, raging in storms, calm under a full moon - and the Maiden lighthouse, almost a character in herself, standing firm through the worst weather, forming a third party in any relationship, and through loneliness and monotony ultimately twisting the men's minds. 

It is a brilliant book, which had me engrossed from the first page! It has everything I want from a mystery - characters that feel like real people, lots of atmosphere, a satisfying ending, neither too prosaic nor too supernatural. 

The Maiden has cast her spell over me too. There's something quite extraordinary about a man-made structure standing alone at sea. A remote island has a certain fascination but with a tower lighthouse there's no surrounding ground - the tower sits solitary above the waves. I've seen them plenty of times off the coast but never really thought about them. Now Emma Stonex has really sparked something in me - a desire to run away to a lighthouse, to feel the waves crash over it and the building shake, but still but sheltered from the elements - that's excellent writing!

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Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

 

Kathy, Ruth and Tommy were all students at the rather 'select' Hailsham school. Raised there from early childhood, their lives were free from outside influences and stress; in many ways it was an idyllic time. Now in her early thirties, Kathy reminisces about their years together, at Hailsham and afterwards, and the gradual realisation that their lives, and deaths, have been planned out for them.

This must be the fourth or fifth time I've read Never Let Me Go and it never fails to pull me in, to enfold me in its parallel world; one which seems so normal on the surface but is dark and dystopian underneath. 

At different times, it strikes me in different ways. Sometimes it's a coming of age tale, A fairly normal one of childhood tiffs and squabbles, of 'queen bee' Ruth who must be humoured else she'll make everyone's lives a misery, of the obvious differences of being brought up in an institution, even if it's one as supportive as Hailsham, Sometimes, it's far more sinister - a chilling tale of  human clones being bred to become organ donors. Or it can be nostalgic for the past, in which Hailsham represents a more caring world which no longer exists.

However it strikes me, Kathy's narrative plays out carefully, hinting at, but never outright declaring, the fate which awaits her, Ruth, Tommy and their classmates. Expressions such as 'donations' or 'completion' are bandied about as if both the children and the reader know what they fully entail; then the full enormity is revealed, and it's not quite a surprise, just a dreadful acknowledgement of what we'd suspected, but ignored, all along. That implicit acceptance leads to a far more chilling ending than if Kathy had raged against her circumstances throughout.

Nick by Michael Farris Smith

 Anyone who's read The Great Gatsby, or even just seen a film adaptation, will be familiar with Nick Carraway - Daisy Buchanan's second cousin who accidentally rents a house across the bay from her, and right next to Gatsby's huge mansion - but beyond his role as narrator he doesn't really exist.

For Fitzgerald, Nick seems little more than a convenient plot device, sitting watching a love triangle tragedy unfold around him, privy to the desires and actions of all sides, fully committed to none.

Now Michael Farris Smith has brought Nick into the limelight. From his Mid-West childhood, where his life stretched planned and orderly in front of him, through the chaos of  World War 1 trenches, and a doomed love affair in Paris, to the violent saloons of New Orleans, Nick makes his winding way to a small house in West Egg on Long Island, and the green light shining across the Bay.

I'm normally a bit wary of 'spin off' books, which give characters lives way beyond the ones dreamed of by the original authors, but I read an online article by Michael Farris Smith about the inspiration behind Nick, and it somehow appealed. 

If you saw The Great Gatsby as a romantic tale of unrequited love, played out against a backdrop of fabulous parties, huge mansions, and flash cars, then this probably isn't for you. It's far grittier and more violent - like Hemingway rather than Fitzgerald - but I very much enjoyed it. It's a story that could well have stood on its own - naive young man traumatized by war, and unable to fit back into the world he left behind - but being the story of Nick Carraway gives it an extra twist. We know where he's going to end up; just not how.  

The Great Gatsby is now out of copyright so there are bound to be an endless number of spin-offs. Get in early and read this one. 

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin

 Lenni is seventeen; Margot is eighty-three. They're an unlikely pair to become friends, but when they meet up at a hospital art class an instant bond forms between the two. 

Lenni knows she doesn't have long to live but with Margot around that doesn't seem to matter. Together they decide to paint a hundred pictures to mark their joint hundred years, to celebrate the lives they've lived rather than mourn the years they'll miss.

I think you'd expect that a story involving a teenager diagnosed with a terminal illness would be full of sadness. But Lenni herself isn't - she's full of life, enthusiasm and humour - and her story reflects that. Margot on the other hand seems to be someone who's always missed out on things in life, but with Lenni's encouragement she determines to make one last grab for happiness.

This is a lovely, life-affirming, heart-warming tale of an unusual friendship in unusual circumstances, and of two women finding out that it isn't the length of life that matters, but of making the most of the time we have.

Superior by Angela Saini

"Where did the idea of race come from, and what does it mean? In an age of identity politics, DNA ancestry testing and the rise of the far-right, a belief in biological differences between populations is experiencing a resurgence. The truth is: race is a social construct. Our problem is we find this hard to believe.

In Superior, award-winning author Angela Saini investigates the concept of race, from its origins to the present day. Engaging with geneticists, anthropologists, historians and social scientists from across the globe, Superior is a rigorous, much needed examination of the insidious and destructive nature of the belief that race is real, and that some groups of people are superior to others."

Non-fiction books on politics and social issues don't usually form part of my reading, but I'd been watching David Olusoga on TV where he mentioned race science as part of the justification of slavery, then caught Angela Saini at the online version of  Edinburgh Book Festival talking in greater depth about the subject, and wanted to know more about how pseudo-scientific ideas take root and influence public opinion.  

In a vague way I knew before of the theory that people can be divided into different races, and that some are not as intelligent (or even as 'human') as others. It was used to give 'justification' for the slave trade, for robbing indigenous peoples of land and wealth, and returned in a different form in Nazi Germany. It's a ludicrous idea, and one that I believed was totally discredited today, not one still lurking around. Superior has definitely proved to be an eye-opening read.

Saini takes the reader through the development of race theory, how it affected Europeans interaction with indigenous population of  Africa, Australia and America, and how it continues today in the social and economic effects it has on black people. What surprised me most was its proliferation today. Modern genetic studies have surely proved once and for all that 'race' is a social or cultural concept, but people still want to believe they are in some way 'better' than others - than their neighbours, the folks in the next town, neighbouring country - and unfortunately there'll be someone on the internet or in specialist, right wing journals, ready to support their claims with alleged scientific evidence. 

Superior is definitely a book that deserves the adjective 'thought provoking'. I understand now where the prejudices of my parents' generation came from, and was left feeling that it's so very easy to feed those prejudices with dodgy scientific 'facts'.

Astral Travel by Elizabeth Baines

 Review by The Mole

 About a charismatic but troubled Irishman and his effect on his family, explores the way that the secrets forged by cultural, religious and sexual prejudice can reverberate down the generations. It’s also about telling stories, and the fact that the tales we tell about ourselves can profoundly affect the lives of others. In a framing narration that exposes the slippery and contingent nature of story, an adult daughter, brought up on romantic lore about her now dead father but having experienced him very differently, tells how she tried to write about him, only to come up against too many mysteries and clashing versions of the family’s past. Yet when a buried truth emerges, the mysteries can be solved, and, via storytelling’s power of empathy, she finally makes sense of it all.

An author decides to write the biography of her father, a man who seemingly never loved her and a man she spent most of her growing up years in conflict with. But to flesh it out she needs to reconnect more closely with her family. It's then that she finds that there was so much that she didn't know.

Be prepared to become involved in the story as it unfolds, piece by piece, in random order, like a jigsaw, only revealing the picture to the reader and narrator at the end of the telling. He is a man that sees the worst when there's nothing to see. He's prone to very violent fits of rage that he turns against his family. But he's a man protecting a secret - one that the writer doesn't know but her sister thought everyone in the family knew.

It's a very tumultuous journey for the reader but a journey worth staying on. 

The more I learned, as a reader, about the man then the less I liked him but I couldn't stop reading. It's very well written and there are pieces along the journey many of us can relate to, but don't expect a happy ever after. I was left sympathising with the narrator and her family but also understanding a little of why she had missed so many signs growing up while her sister hadn't.

I really loved this story, which I received an ARC PDF version of, but it's not for the faint hearted. Highly recommended.

There ought to be a "If you are affected by any of the issues in this book..." to accompany it - but if you are then PLEASE find someone to talk to about it.

Genre: Adult fiction

Publisher: Salt Publishing