Regular readers of Linda’s Book Bag will know how much I like being part of a book’s early life. Those who know me personally will know I am a huge cat lover. Consequently, combining twin passions of books and cats, it gives me great pleasure to reveal the brand new Cat Society by Ray Sadri today. I was thrilled when Ray asked me if I’d like to do this.

Let me give you all the details:

Cat Society

Cat Society is a witty and bonkers story of life and politics in Westminster – reimagining the debates, events and headlines of recent years had the world been run by cats. A lot changes. A lot doesn’t.

The country is on the brink of bankruptcy, and backbencher Douglas Schnitty is disappointed with the thousands of homeless cats sleeping by the bins. He gets frustrated with higher powers who only seem to care about their own interests and preserving the country’s finances.

He schmoozes and sabotages his way through the political elite, from assisting the bombastic Hector Perp Pahpousson to disrupting the plans of the Prime Minister. Can his conscience save him, and the slum cats, as events spiral out of control?

Doesn’t that sound utterly mad and intriguing? I can’t wait to read Cat Society.

Cat Society will be released on 28th September 2023 by the Book Guild and is available for pre-order in all the usual places including Waterstones, Foyles and Amazon.

About Ray Sadri

Ray is on a mission to provide laughs and entertainment through beautifully simple, silly, and often downright bonkers literature. With cats.

He has been a radio journalist, a central government Chief Press Officer, and now runs campaigns in the worlds of politics and business. He lives with his fiance, baby boy, and Norwegian Forest Cat, Mads — who naturally reigns supreme in the family. Ray has realised, after spending many years living with cats and working with politicians, that the two share a great deal in common. They can be intelligent, cunning, cute and lethal in equal measures. It is this realisation that helped him dream up the concept of Cat Society.

For further information  about Ray (and the cats), follow them on Twitter @CatSocietyUK, visit the website or find him on Instagram and Facebook.

My grateful thanks to Helen McCusker for sending me a copy of Alone by Daniel Schreiber translated by Ben Fergusson and to Fran Roberts at Reaktion Books for inviting me to be part of the blog tour. I’m very pleased to be able to share my review of Alone today.

Published by Reaktion Books on 1st August 2023, Alone is available for purchase here.

Alone

At no time before have so many people lived alone, and never has loneliness been so widely or keenly felt. Why, in a society of individualists, is living alone perceived as a shameful failure? And can we ever be happy on our own?

Drawing on personal experience, as well as philosophy and sociology, Daniel Schreiber explores the tension between the desire for solitude and freedom, and for companionship, intimacy and love. Along the way he illuminates the role that friendships play in our lives – can they be a response to the loss of meaning in a world in crisis?

A profoundly enlightening book, Alone explores how we want to live.

My Review of Alone

An insight into loneliness and living alone.

Alone was absolutely not what I was expecting. I thought I was going to read a novella, then, upon opening it, a series of short stories. I had not expected a personal and universal set of essays that are part memoir, part biography, part social history and which are an immersive, touching and insightful illustration of loneliness at all levels and the way we frequently live our modern lives. The elements relating to the recent Covid pandemic, for example, felt scalpel sharp and almost painful to read.

Indeed, Alone is not an easy read. Despite being beautifully translated by Ben Fergusson, the theme of loneliness is itself affecting, but this is a book firmly rooted in research as well as personal illustration so that there are many footnotes and references to consider. I found it best simply to read the eight chapters or essays and then reread them, this time taking account of the background aspects so that the initial flow of reading was not interrupted. One of the elements I so enjoyed about Alone is the way Daniel Schreiber took me back to my days of studying philosophy as part of my first degree. Not only did he provide an interesting and engaging book, that affords the reader recognition and resonance, but he reignited an interest that had lain dormant for forty years. I can envisage readers being so hooked and fascinated that Alone will take on a life and relevance beyond its covers, with further reading and considerable reflection to be had.

There is an issue with Alone for a heterosexual middle aged reader like me in a long and happy relationship. It’s very unsettling. Daniel Schreiber made me feel uncomfortable and slightly ashamed of myself for blithely meandering along, ignorant of so many more difficulties encountered by men (and women) with his experience. I had no idea, for example, that it wasn’t until 1990 that the World Health Organisation no longer defined homosexuality as a mental illness. There were aspects to this text that I found desperately sad and enraging. Reading Alone uncovered so much I’d previously been unaware of so that whilst I felt educated, it had the effect of making me feel rather ignorant and somewhat embarrassed by that ignorance. That said, there is both hope and optimism here even as it makes the reader reconsider their own life. Alone is by no means depressing, but it is a brutal and tender look at the way loneliness affects the individual.

If you’re looking for a light-hearted beach read that you’ll probably forget the moment the last page is turned, don’t read Alone. If, however, you want writing that looks at the human condition at all levels from the individual to the global, then Alone is exactly the right book. Intense, intelligent and interesting, Alone deserves several readings merely to scratch the surface of meaning and theme. I thought it was fascinating, being a book about, and for, the modern era. It won’t suit all readers, but unless you give it a try, you won’t know if it affects you as much as it impacted me.

About Daniel Schreiber

Daniel Schreiber is the author of Susan Sontag, the first complete biography of the intellectual icon (2014, translated by David Dollenmayer), as well as the highly praised and bestselling literary essays Nüchtern (2014) and Zuhause (2017). He lives in Berlin.

About Ben Fergusson

Ben Fergusson is an award-winning writer and translator. He is the author of three novels, most recently An Honest Man (2019). His debut, The Spring of Kasper Meier (2014), won the 2015 Betty Trask Prize, the HWA Debut Crown and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. In 2022, he published his first book of non-fiction, Tales from the Fatherland. He has translated numerous texts from German by writers including Daniel Schreiber, Daniel Kehlmann, Alain Claude Sulzer, Byung-Chul Han and Antje Wagner, and in 2020 won a Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

For further information visit Ben’s website and follow him on Twitter @BenFergusson and Instagram.

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What a pleasure to be on the blog tour for author and friend Annette Hannah’s latest book Lottie’s School of Dance.

It’s too long since Annette featured here on Linda’s Book Bag when I reviewed Poppy’s Christmas Wishes. Prior to that I reviewed Annette’s The Cosy Little Cupcake Van here and Annette has also featured here when I reviewed her debut novel Wedding Bells at the Signal Box Café and we stayed in together to chat all about it.

Published by Orion Dash on 31st August 2023, Lottie’s School of Dance is available for purchase here.

Lottie’s School of Dance

Lottie Daniels is dancing up the altar in Canada when she realises her whirlwind wedding is a big mistake. Chad isn’t the right person for her at all! And, in that moment, Lottie goes from dancing bride to runaway bride.

Much to her brother’s relief, Lottie decides to return to Bramblewood in the UK. But life has more surprises in store for her. After rescuing both a donkey and a little old lady called Doris – all with the help of a handsome stranger! – Lottie suddenly becomes a big part of Doris’s life. And in return for her company and doing bits around the farm, Doris offers her the barn to run her dance classes.

From broken dreams to second chances, Lottie finally has a chance to rebuild her life. And with an exciting dance audition to prepare for, who knows what might happen next?!

You are guaranteed to fall head over heels with this sweet and charming romance.

My Review of Lottie’s School of Dance

Lottie’s about to get married.

Lottie’s School of Dance is a lovely story, being entertaining, engaging, humorous and romantic. Indeed, I think Annette Hannah has found her voice in this genre very very clearly. There’s always a warm sense of community in her books and a strong sense of loyalty and friendship that I find so uplifting in what is often a depressing and aggressive world. Lottie’s School of Dance is the kind of uplit we could all benefit from. I loved the way characters I’ve met previously in Annette Hannah’s books popped into the narrative but anyone reading this book could do so perfectly happily without ever having read other books by the author.

Equally, I so appreciated the age range of the characters because many, like Doris, are older but show that they still have life, interest and vitality. They prove that romance isn’t merely the domain of twenty to thirty somethings. That said, I was totally invested in Lottie’s story and found myself more than a little in love with Marco too. I thought using Denni as a catalyst for much of the action was inspired. Who couldn’t help loving him? You’ll have to read Lottie’s School of Dance for yourself to find out why! 

I do have one issue with Lottie’s School of Dance because Annette Hannah appeals to the reader’s senses and has such glorious references to food and taste that, frequently, reading the book made me ravenous. However, given that she also made me want to get dancing too in order to burn off the calories I think I consumed just reading about Lottie, I’ll forgive her. I loved the reference to real singers and songs because they added a layer of authenticity to the story. The descriptions here are totally convincing.

I think what I enjoyed so much about Lottie’s School of Dance is the way it made me feel. There’s drama and tension resulting from the dance competition, but there was never a moment when I thought things wouldn’t resolve themselves satisfactorily, and in the present climate of war, climate change and general negativity, this book gave me sheer respite and escapism. I highly recommend that you give yourself a break from life and simply enjoy meeting Lottie for yourself. It’s a gorgeous story.

About Annette Hannah

Annette Hannah is a Liver Bird who relocated to leafy Hertfordshire in the 80’s and now lives near a river with her husband, two of their three grown up children and a crazy black cocker spaniel. She writes Romantic comedies in settings inspired by the beautiful countryside around her and always with a nod to her hometown.

She worked in Marketing for many years as a qualified Marketeer which she loved as it tapped into her creative side. As an avid reader, she began to review the books she read, became a book blogger and eventually plucked up the courage to fulfil her life long dream of writing a book.

For four years she was a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s new writers’ scheme, during which time she wrote a book a year. After signing a two book deal with Orion Dash in 2020 she graduated to full member of the organisation and is also their Press Officer. She loves long walks along the river, travelling to far flung places and spending time with her friends and family.

You can find out more by visiting Annette’s blog or website and following her on Instagram and Twitter @AnnetteHannah.

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My enormous thanks to Ned at FMcM for sending me a copy of How to be a French Girl by Rose Cleary in return for an honest review. I was disappointed not to be able to participate in the blog tour, but with my Mum’s 90th birthday celebrations, her continuing illness and going away for our 40th wedding anniversary, I simply couldn’t fit it in. However, I’m delighted to share my review today.

Published by Weatherglass on 10th August 2023, How to be a French Girl is available for purchase here.

How to be a French Girl

If you no longer want to be you, be careful who you become.

She’s from Southend. She wanted to be an artist and ended up at the best art school in the country. But that didn’t work out.

Now she works as a receptionist in an IT firm, where her only creative outlet is arranging the sandwiches she’s ordered in for other people’s meetings. And she still lives in Southend.

Outside work, soulless sex has become a symptom of her boredom.

Then Gustav appears: older, perceptive, attentive. And French.

He’s her way out, she thinks. But more than that, a chance to be creative again: to become someone new.

How to be a French Girl is a fierce, disturbing and funny debut novel about desire, art and what we’ll risk to change ourselves.

My Review of How to be a French Girl

The girl wants her life to change.

Brimming with ennui that is pitch perfect, the atmosphere in How to be a French Girl is mesmerising as Rose Cleary illustrates the modern condition of loneliness and the need to be someone – anyone – with razor sharp accuracy. 

This is a kind of road crash of a book you want to read through your fingers as the protagonist spirals into more desperate and mad behaviour. I found myself exclaiming aloud, begging her not to take whatever action she was about to do. The image of her prosaic working life is astonishingly depicted. She is a small, nameless nobody in a huge corporation whom Rose Cleary ironically sees with total focus and wry humour. 

There’s a riveting sense that any one of us could descend into the madness of the girl in this story that makes reading How to be a French Girl hugely entertaining and not a little terrifying. This sensation is compounded by the fact the protagonist is never named. She is just a young woman, any young woman or an everywoman. There’s very much the sense that, if we were brave enough, or desperate enough, all of us could behave as she does. 

How to be a French Girl is written with such insight and skill. The lack of speech marks enhances the concept that the girl has no real place in society, as if she is not fully formed because even what she says is unformed. Similarly the lack of such punctuation gives the sensation of a lack of control; the concept that the girl could spin beyond the confines of convention at any moment. Add in her rash casual sexual liaisons, her stifled creative talent, her poverty and even her rotting tooth and throughout there is a tension as well as a dry, sardonic humour, suggesting that something is going to give.

I really enjoyed How to be a French Girl. It has both universality and individuality in a nuanced blend of convention and anarchy. I think it might divide readers, but I can’t envisage any reader not having an opinion as a result of Rose Cleary’s clever narrative. Try it for yourself! 

About Rose Cleary

Rose Cleary, born 1990, is an author and writer from Essex. Her writing has been previously published in New Socialist, The Southend’s Twilight Worlds, Hyperallergic and TOMA. She has exhibited her art internationally at galleries including Nahmad Projects and The Vaults in London, and Backlit Gallery in Nottingham. How to be a French Girl is her debut novel.

For further information, visit Rose’s website, follow her on Instagram.

My enormous thanks to Natasha Gill at Harper Collins for a copy of Evil Eye by Etaf Rum in return for an honest review. I’m delighted to share that review today.

Evil Eye is published today, 5th September 2023 by HQ and is available for purchase through the links here.

Evil Eye

The powerful and poignant new novel from the author of the much-loved A Woman is No Man.

Raised in a conservative Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur. Now, she has a good job at the local college, and balances that with raising her two daughters and taking care of their home. Yara knows that her life is more rewarding than her mother’s – so why doesn’t it feel like enough?

After Yara responds to a colleague’s racist provocation, she is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counselling. Her mother blames a family curse for Yara’s troubles, and while Yara doesn’t believe in superstitions, she still finds herself growing increasingly uneasy about falling victim to the same mistakes as her mother.

Yara’s carefully constructed world begins to implode and suddenly she must face up to the difficulties of her childhood, not fully realising how that will impact not just her own future, but that of her daughters too.

My Review of Evil Eye

Yara’s searching for happiness.

Evil Eye is a remarkable book. Etaf Rum imbues her writing with such an insight into marriage, mothers, fathers and daughters, cultural mores and expectations that the narrative becomes almost a universal handbook for modern times.

The story is essentially simple with Yara increasingly unhappy in her marriage. Much of the text relates to her introspection with most of the action, such as Baba’s treatment of her mother, happening off stage as it were, through memory and reflection. This is what makes Evil Eye so powerful. Etaf Rum steers the reader through discord as Yara’s family have been displaced from their homeland, through coercive and abusive relationships and through the concept that our past, our treatment by others and our perceptions shape who we are today. There’s a profound understanding of humanity and history here that is stunning. 

I found Yara so complex, layered and fascinating. I loved the way she lives her life behind her camera lens as a metaphor for the barriers restricting her life. There were times when I was as frustrated by her as Fadi, wondering why she couldn’t simply accept her life. There were times when I raged on her behalf, wanting to launch myself into the text and haul her out with me so that she could have a better chance at personal fulfilment, and there were moments when reading about her, hearing her innermost thoughts and experiencing her insecurities with her, made me consider my own life and appreciate its privileges all the more. 

The themes in Evil Eye are uncomfortable but sadly all too realistic. Racism, sexism, oppression of many kinds including self blame and negativity for example, should make Evil Eye a depressing and frustrating story and I think some readers will find it hard to read. However, it is also a story of deep love, friendship, creativity and bravery that affects the reader profoundly.

Filled with completely relatable yearning and achingly beautifully written, Evil Eye is a wonderful, moving and absorbing story of identity and belonging and learning to love yourself. I thought it was excellent.

About Etaf Rum

Etaf Rum was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, by Palestinian immigrants. She teaches college English literature in North Carolina, where she lives with her two children. She also runs the Instagram account @booksandbeans.

For further information follow Etaf on Twitter @EtafRum or find her on Facebook and Instagram.

I have had Mine by Marlene Hauser waiting on my TBR pile for 18 months and so I’m delighted finally to review it as part of the blog tour organised by Anne Cater of Random Things Tours.

Published by Book Guild Publishing on 23rd May 2023, Mine is available for purchase here.

I’ve previously reviewed Marlene’s Off Island here and Geraniums here and I was thrilled to find myself quoted on the cover of Mine!

Mine

When is enough, enough?

High-powered Sophie Taylor thinks baby-making can happen on the fly. Managed alongside work, marriage, an MBA and travel, she decides to launch Project Bébé. Successful at everything, Sophie expects and always scores one hundred per cent. That is until the shocking failure of one fertility treatment after the next.

As the heart-breaking reality of infertility sinks in, Sophie owns up to another almost unspeakable loss and faces difficult decisions when she’s targeted as the love interest of a high-powered financier. Through a colleague, a mother of four, she learns that motherhood is not all it’s cracked up to be. Just as Sophie feels satisfied with the advantages of a childfree lifestyle, a fateful meeting changes everything…

Triumphant, joyous and full of hope, Mine is a captivating story about a less understood route to motherhood: the fertility option Sophie almost forgot.

My Review of Mine

Sophie has it all – doesn’t she?

Set in the recent past immediately before the turn of the last century when the internet was just taking off, Mine explores the chasm between advances in technology and of professional success and the personal, time immemorial desire for motherhood. I thought the balance between these two elements was intelligently and sensitively achieved by Marlene Hauser.

I have absolutely no interest in motherhood so I think it’s testament to the author’s craft that I was educated about the processes so many women endure to have that longed for baby, and indeed, after an initial indifference to her desire, by the end of Mine I felt invested in the outcomes for Sophie. I gained a thorough understanding of her desperation for a child, fully appreciating the impact that need has so that I felt reading Mine gave me a greater affinity with other women.

The technological elements concerning different fertility routes are authoritative and convincing and, as I have come to expect from Marlene Hauser’s writing, Mine is frequently beautifully crafted, with such evocative appeal to the senses that settings leap from the page. I did find the .com sections impersonal and frustrating because they didn’t seem to hold the deep humanity I’m familiar with in this author’s writing. It wasn’t until the very end of Mine that I understood the significance of this theme and how they had been presented. That immersion in work, financial gain and professional recognition can become an obsession to mask the true internal desires of so many. There’s a quietness, almost a spirituality, at the end of the narrative that accentuates this sensation, but you’ll have to read Mine for yourself to see what I mean! 

Given that the themes in Mine are both modern and traditional, I thought the structure of three parts was perfect, being reminiscent of a traditional three act play. There’s a universality here that means the book will endure and have relevance long after it’s published. 

Mine is an interesting and thoughtful book. It explores our humanity, our connections and the risks we are prepared to take when nature and biology take over our lives. I found it extremely thought provoking because it has made me reconsider what family is and how we achieve balance in our lives. I don’t think Mine is a book that will leave any reader unmoved or without an opinion.

About Marlene Hauser

Marlene Hauser is a professional writer based in Oxford, UK, where she lives with her husband and teenage son. She served as editor of the Writer’s New York City Source Book and originated the television film Under the Influence, going on to serve as Associate Producer and Technical Consultant. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University and has received numerous awards, including a residency at the Millay Arts Colony in Upstate New York.

For more information you can visit Marlene’s website or follow her on Twitter @mhauser_author, Facebook and Instagram.

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