I’m delighted that this month I’ve actually found time to read My Life by David Jason, the book chosen by the U3A book group to which I belong.

Published by Penguin imprint Arrow on 5th June 2014, My Life is available for purchase through the links here.

My Life

Born the son of a Billingsgate market porter at the height of the Second World War, David Jason spent his early life dodging bombs and bullies, both with impish good timing. Giving up on an unloved career as an electrician, he turned his attention to acting and soon, through a natural talent for making people laugh, found himself working with the leading lights of British comedy in the 1960s and ’70s: Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Bob Monkhouse and Ronnie Barker. Barker would become a mentor to David, leading to hugely successful stints in Porridge and Open All Hours.

It wasn’t until 1981, kitted out with a sheepskin jacket, a flat cap, and a clapped-out Reliant Regal, that David found the part that would capture the nation’s hearts: the beloved Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter in Only Fools and Horses. Never a one-trick pony, he had an award-winning spell as TV’s favourite detective Jack Frost, took a country jaunt as Pop Larkin in the Darling Buds of May, and even voiced a crime-fighting cartoon rodent in the much-loved children’s show Danger Mouse.

But life hasn’t all been so easy: from missing out on a key role in Dad’s Army to nearly drowning in a freak diving accident, David has had his fair share of ups and downs, and has lost some of his nearest and dearest along the way.

David’s is a touching, funny and warm-hearted story, which charts the course of his incredible five decades at the top of the entertainment business. He’s been a shopkeeper and a detective inspector, a crime-fighter and a market trader, and he ain’t finished yet. As Del Boy would say, it’s all cushty.

My Review of My Life

A first person account of the life of one of Britain’s most well known television actors.

I rarely watch television or visit the cinema and I’m not remotely interested in celebrity lifestyle so when My Life by David Jason was chosen for the U3A book group to which I belong my heart sank. I was completely wrong to have this reaction. My Life is a hugely entertaining and engagingly written book that I found totally absorbing and interesting.

I found My Life quite funny and chuckled aloud on several occasions. I thought the tone of the book showed David Jason as surprisingly honest and self-deprecating, especially in his assessment of his reluctance to commit in relationships and in the references to his physical stature. He writes with a wit and intelligence that makes My Life a pleasure to read and the asides to the reader make it feel as if he’s simply talking through his past with a friend. I very much enjoyed the mini chapter summaries which are frequently quirkily deadpan and surprising such as ‘How I delivered Bob Monkhouse’s babies’ or ‘Some questionable behaviour with bongos’.

I particularly enjoyed David Jason’s obvious affection for some of those he’d worked with like Ronnie Barker, and his sometimes blunt assessment of how he got on with others!

I think what appealed to me most was the trip down memory lane that My Life afforded me. I remembered the programmes from my childhood and the actors in them that David Jason writes about with such clarity and with frequently surprising anecdotes. His prose certainly made me feel nostalgic, especially his reference to Apethorpe Hall as I spent the first eight years of my life in that village, my father working at the hall, so all kinds of wonderful memories were kindled outside the actual content of the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed My Life. David Jason has managed to illustrate that missing out the autobiographical genre from my reading means I’m missing out on memory, entertainment and enjoyment. I’ll be including more memoir in future!

About David Jason

Sir David Jason was born in 1940 in North London. His acting career has been long and varied: from his theatre work in the West End to providing voices for Mr Toad from The Wind in the Willows, Danger Mouse and The BFG; and from Open All Hours and The Darling Buds of May to his starring roles as Detective Inspector Frost in A Touch of Frost and, of course, Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter in Only Fools and Horses. He lives with his wife, Gill, and their daughter, Sophie, in Buckinghamshire.

I’ve been a huge fan of Orenda Books for ages but when Louise Beech’s Call Me Star Girl arrived I was especially delighted as I love Louise Beech both as a writer and as a person. I’d like to extend my incredible gratitude to Karen at Orenda for sending me a copy in return for an honest review.

The first time Louise featured on Linda’s Book Bag was back in 2015 when I reviewed How To Be Brave here and I can’t believe it’s 18 months since I read and reviewed Maria In The Moon, here. I still have Louise’s The Mountain in My Shoe and The Lion Tamer Who Lost waiting patiently on my TBR pile!

Call Me Star Girl was published by Orenda Books on 18th April and is available for purchase through the links here.

Call Me Star Girl

Stirring up secrets can be deadly … especially if they’re yours…

Pregnant Victoria Valbon was brutally murdered in an alley three weeks ago – and her killer hasn’t been caught.

Tonight is Stella McKeever’s final radio show. The theme is secrets. You tell her yours, and she’ll share some of hers.

Stella might tell you about Tom, a boyfriend who likes to play games, about the mother who abandoned her, now back after fourteen years. She might tell you about the perfume bottle with the star-shaped stopper, or about her father …

What Stella really wants to know is more about the mysterious man calling the station … who says he knows who killed Victoria, and has proof.

Tonight is the night for secrets, and Stella wants to know everything…

Call Me Star Girl is a taut, emotive and all-consuming psychological thriller that plays on our deepest fears, providing a stark reminder that stirring up dark secrets from the past can be deadly…

My Review of Call Me Star Girl

Stella is about to broadcast her last radio programme.

I had heard exceptionally good things about Louise Beech’s Call Me Star Girl, but nothing quite prepared me for what a magnificent book this is. I absolutely devoured it because it held me completely spellbound. The quality of the prose is glorious. Whilst the writing is poetic, dramatic and striking it is also incredibly intimate so that the reader feels complicit in the action and seduced by Stella and Elizabeth in a way that is almost visceral.

As well as being a captivating thriller, Call Me Star Girl is a searing portrait of obsession and love at its most profound. I knew from reading other of Louise Beech’s books that she can write with passion and emotion, but for me, Call Me Star Girl surpasses her other work through its exquisite tension and depth. There are extremes here that feel utterly right for the characters and plot.

And what a plot this is. Baldly it is an account of a few hours in a radio station on Stella’s last evening, but my goodness the structure is effective. The breaks in the narrative for news bulletins, phone calls and flashbacks coupled with the time counting past as the evening progresses made me feel tense, with my pulse racing. I don’t think I blinked much as I read. I didn’t want to miss a beat. The cinematic themes and imagery running through the narrative and the staccato sentence structure to the endings of most chapters simply removed my free will. I had to read on. I even found tears slipping down my cheeks at one point and I hadn’t even realised I was crying because I was so immersed!

Reading Call Me Star Girl was as if I were listening to Stella broadcasting to me alone, so clear was her voice in my head. I completely forgot that Stella is a literary creation and not a living, breathing human. The way in which she is a product of both her nature and nurture has left my mind in a whirl since I finished the book and I wonder how I might behave in her position.

Call Me Star Girl feels as if Louise Beech has poured her own soul into her writing so that my own soul feels touched and altered as a result. This truly is an outstanding read because Call Me Star Girl is potent, affecting and disturbing. I thought it was brilliant.

About Louise Beech

Louise Beech is an exceptional literary talent, whose debut novel How To Be Bravewas a Guardian Readers’ Choice for 2015. The follow-up, The Mountain in My Shoe was shortlisted for Not the Booker Prize. Both of her previous books Maria in the Moon and The Lion Tamer Who Lost were widely reviewed, critically acclaimed and number-one bestsellers on Kindle. The Lion Tamer Who Lost was shortlisted for the RNA Most Popular Romantic Novel Award in 2019.

Louise’s short fiction has won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting for the Bridport Prize twice. Louise lives with her husband on the outskirts of Hull, and loves her job as a Front of House Usher at Hull Truck Theatre, where her first play was performed in 2012.

You can follow Louise on Twitter @LouiseWriter and find her on Facebook or visit her website for more details.

I’m beginning to get rather excited as I am privileged to be interviewing Elly Griffiths at my local Deepings Literary Festival at the end of May and, having heard her speak at several other events and loving her writing, I was thrilled when a surprise copy of Elly’s latest Ruth Galloway novel The Stone Circle arrived. My enormous thanks to Hannah Robinson at Quercus for sending it to me.

The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths was one of the first books I reviewed when I began blogging and you’ll find that review here. My review of The Crossing Places is here and of Smoke and Mirrors is here.

(I also have a review of Elly’s Domenica de Rosa novel One Summer in Tuscany here.)

Published by Quercus on 7th February 2019, you can purchase The Stone Circle in e-book or hardback or pre-order the paperback through these links.

The Stone Circle

DCI Nelson has been receiving threatening letters telling him to ‘go to the stone circle and rescue the innocent who is buried there’. He is shaken, not only because children are very much on his mind, with Michelle’s baby due to be born, but because although the letters are anonymous, they are somehow familiar. They read like the letters that first drew him into the case of The Crossing Places, and to Ruth. But the author of those letters is dead. Or are they?

Meanwhile Ruth is working on a dig in the Saltmarsh – another henge, known by the archaeologists as the stone circle – trying not to think about the baby. Then bones are found on the site, and identified as those of Margaret Lacey, a twelve-year-old girl who disappeared thirty years ago.

As the Margaret Lacey case progresses, more and more aspects of it begin to hark back to that first case of The Crossing Places, and to Scarlett Henderson, the girl Nelson couldn’t save. The past is reaching out for Ruth and Nelson, and its grip is deadly.

My Review of The Stone Circle

The past is about to catch up with Dr Ruth Galloway and DCI Nelson.

I have a confession. I have all the Dr Ruth Galloway novels sitting on my shelves awaiting reading and I kept thinking I couldn’t read the latest until I’d caught up with all the others. How wrong can a person be? The Stone Circle is possibly enhanced by knowing a bit about the other stories, but coming to it without having read anything else by Elly Griffiths wouldn’t matter at all. The ease with which past histories for her characters are slipped naturally into the writing is just fabulous to read. Elly Griffiths has a smooth, sophisticated and completely accessible style that I’m sure other writers can only dream of, so that The Stone Circle can be read as a complete stand alone despite being part of a series.

The plot to The Stone Circle is so captivating because it is entirely plausible and yet still takes the reader by surprise. Part of the joy in this is the almost deadpan manner in which major events are sometimes revealed and the wonderful touches of humour. I love the undercurrent of mysticism too as it is only ever a suggestion that can usually be explained but still manages to be entirely beguiling. The misty, superstitious Norfolk setting adds to this atmosphere, as past and present echo and reverberate through the story.

But for me, despite being entirely engrossed in the narrative, it is the characters who make Elly Griffiths such a pleasure to read. The people in The Stone Circle are so human and real with their flaws, their desires and the messy realities of their lives that reading about them made me want to meet them and to be part of the action with them. Dr Ruth Galloway is a wonderful almost anti-heroine and all the more attractive for that. She lives in splendid geographical isolation and I thought the way in which she is presented almost at a tangent to the main action in The Stone Circle, and yet is still absolutely necessary to the plot, was just perfect. And I am, without doubt, completely in love with Nelson!

It’s hard to pin down the captivating quality of Elly Griffiths’ writing in The Stone Circle. The writing is accessible, the plot is wonderful, the setting vivid and the characters completely believable and yet somehow those elements add up to something greater than their sum should be. Elly Griffiths has a magic touch in this Dr Ruth Galloway series and I loved The Stone Circle without reservation. It is another winner.

About Elly Griffiths

Elly Griffiths was born in London. She worked in publishing before becoming a full-time writer. Her bestselling series of Dr Ruth Galloway novels, featuring a forensic archaeologist, are set in Norfolk. The series has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, and has been shortlisted three times for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.

Elly’s The Brighton Mysteries series is set in the 1950s and 1960s. She lives near Brighton with her husband, an archaeologist, and their two grown children.

You can follow Elly on Twitter @ellygriffiths, find her on Facebook or visit her website for more information.

My grateful thanks to Katie Olsen at Little Bird Publicity for a copy of Only Ever Her by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen in return for an honest review.

Only Ever Her is published by Lake Union today, 7th May 2019, and is available for purchase here.

Only Ever Her

It was to be the perfect wedding—until the bride disappeared.

Annie Taft’s wedding is four days away, and it will be one of the grandest anyone can remember in her small South Carolina town. Preparations are in order. Friends and family are gathering in anticipation. Everything is going according to plan. Except that Annie herself has vanished. Did she have second thoughts? Or has something much worse happened to the bride-to-be?

While her loved ones frantically try to track her down, they’re forced to grapple with their own secrets—secrets with the power to reframe entire relationships, leaving each to wonder how well they really knew Annie and how well they know themselves.

My Review of Only Ever Her

Annie is about to get married but her mother’s killer is also being released from prison.

Initially I didn’t think I was going to enjoy Only Ever Her because it took me a while to attune my British reader eye to the American tone of the book. However, once I had done so I thought Only Ever Her was a hugely compelling narrative and one I thoroughly enjoyed.

The plot veered me away from my expectations almost immediately. With doubt over the newly released Cordell Lewis’s conviction for killing Lydia, I assumed this would be the main focus of the story but Marybeth Mayhew Whalen had other ideas. I found it very entertaining to be wrong-footed so that there was much more to the story than I had anticipated.

Only Ever Her illustrates the close-knit, claustrophobic, small town America atmosphere brilliantly. Although everyone knows everyone else’s business, the undercurrent of deception and distraction makes the reader feel they are part of the action because they know elements the characters do not. I felt Only Ever Her had quite a Twin Peaks feel to it and it would make an excellent television series.

The characters are distinct and realistic. I don’t usually like books where there are several threads with different chapters allocated to individual characters but here it worked very effectively because they are all so well-defined. It fascinated me how Marybeth Mayhew Whalen managed to manipulate me as a reader. For example, I didn’t warm to Laurel at all at the start and yet by the end of the story I felt I understood her well and had come to like her. It’s also incredibly clever how the entire plot revolves around Annie and yet she is hardly present at all. It was as if I had taken ownership of her without really knowing her – in much the same way the townsfolk do.

The themes of Only Ever Her have huge relevance to today’s society. There’s injustice and prejudice, loyalty and deception, love and longing so that the small town setting of the book could be applied to any location, making it all the more pertinent for any reader.

Having begun reading Only Ever Her feeling quite detached, I ended the book with a lump in my throat and the sensation that I had been fully entertained. I really enjoyed it.

About Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen is the author of The Things We Wish Were True and five previous novels. She speaks to women’s groups around the US. Marybeth is married to Curt and they are the parents of six children, ranging from young adult to elementary age. The family lives in North Carolina. Marybeth spends most of her time in the grocery store but occasionally escapes long enough to scribble some words. She is always at work on her next novel.

You can find out more by following Marybeth on Twitter @marybethwhalen and visiting her website.

This is going to be a longer blog post introduction than usual! Reviewing Number Ten has a special relevance for me, not least because I have previously featured Robin Hawdon’s writing before on Linda’s Book Bag when I reviewed his children’s book Charley Poon’s Pomes here.

Also, one of the best books I have ever read and which I still recommend at every available opportunity, was written by another member of Robin’s family, Lindsay Hawdon. I reviewed Lindsay’s Jakob’s Colours here when I very first began blogging (although the blog has evolved somewhat since then) and I was privileged to interview Lindsay about it when Linda’s Book Bag was a year old. That post can be found here.

Now add into the mix Jason Hewitt, whose own brilliant Devastation Road was another of the very early books I reviewed here, who contacted me and asked it I would be prepared to review Number Ten. Jason interviewed the much missed Vanessa Lafaye on the blog when her stunning At First Light was published. You can find out all about that here and read my review of At First Light here. With so many fabulous authors and books in the mix you can begin to see why I feel so emotionally involved in this blog post and I couldn’t resist accepting Robin Hawdon’s Number Ten too – even if I do genuinely have over 900 hard copies of books awaiting reading!

Number Ten was published by Brown Dog Books on 9th April 2019 and is available for purchase here. My enormous thanks to Jason Hewitt for sending me a copy in return for an honest review.

Number Ten

Unknown forces attempt to assassinate radical new British Prime Minister, James Torrence.

No-one knows whether they were organised by business magnates, criminal oligarchs, or jihadist extremists, all of whom are threatened by his rule.

What is known is that they are getting information from inside Number Ten Downing Street.

Paul Gunter, bright young member of the PM’s staff, is arrested by MI5 in the middle of the night, and finds himself falsely implicated in the assassination attempt. He has to fight for his life against all involved parties, using his inside knowledge of Downing Street processes, and the reluctant help of senior staff member, Andrea Holt, to extricate himself.

Will the pair survive against vastly superior forces?

Will James Torrence and his fragile government endure amidst the revelations?

Will love win out against political intrigue?

Suspense, romance, and high action ranging across modern London’s extraordinary cityscape and beyond. Explosive new post-Brexit thriller from one of Britain’s most prolific writers.

My Review of Number Ten

A series of bomb attacks leads to a tangled web of action.

Wow. Number Ten begins in explosive fashion and maintains a high-octane, fast pace until the very last word. Reading Number Ten felt akin to riding a rather breathtaking fairground ride and I hardly had time to catch my breath. Although this is fiction, so many similar events to those in the plot have happened recently here in the UK and abroad in countries like Sri Lanka, after Number Ten‘s publication, that any suspension of disbelief that might have been needed simply evaporated. The action in Number Ten felt real, vivid and only too scarily possible.

It is obvious that Robin Hawdon writes with a director’s eye. He understands exactly what information is needed to hook the reader, to create setting and to drive the action, making reading the book an almost cinematic experience. Number Ten would translate into the most fabulous television series because the pace is perfect and there are surprises that shock in a scenario that is utterly believable. On occasion, the reader only receives information at the same time as the characters so that it feels as if you’re part of the action too. Indeed, I found the quality of the writing completely engaging. The present tense used for Rafik creates an immediacy and ongoing threat and those passages involving Paul are slick, sophisticated and superbly crafted. I think the natural quality of the direct speech adds to the sensation that Number Ten is something special.

I thoroughly enjoyed the characterisation and as I abhor injustice I was immediately on Paul’s side even before I’d been given all the information about him. It came as no surprise to me that there is corruption in the heart of power and that a minion like Paul can be used and abused by both that power and external forces. I thoroughly enjoyed the manner in which the mundane elements of his life prove essential in what is happening to him, although I can’t say too much for fear of spoiling the plot for others. Themes of corruption, love, loyalty, betrayal, threat, politics in many forms, idealism, policing – I could go on – weave their way through this exciting story so naturally, making Number Ten all the more captivating.

I so enjoyed Number Ten. If I say that I had to give up trying to sleep at three in the morning because I only had 40 pages or so left to read and I kept wondering what was happening in my absence, you’ll know how powerful a hold the narrative had on me.  Number Ten is a glorious thriller that kept me enthralled throughout. I really recommend it.

About Robin Hawdon

Dividing his time between Bath, Australia and the South of France, actor, playwright and grandfather Robin Hawdon has enjoyed a successful forty year career in the entertainment industry. During the early years he was a regular face on British TV — appearing in many series and co-starring with Michael Crawford in ITV’s ‘Chalk and Cheese’ and starring in a number of films. He has trod the boards as Hamlet, Henry V and Henry Higgins in Pygmalion and in leading roles in London’s West End.

Later his love of writing dominated his career and he is now recognised as one of the UK’s most prolific comedy playwrights —with productions including The Mating Game which has played in over thirty countries and Don’t Dress For Dinner which ran in the West End for six years before playing on Broadway and around the English speaking world. Many of his plays are published by Samuel French and Josef Weinberger. Robin has also directed a number of stage productions, and in the 1980’s founded the Bath Fringe festival, and subsequently became Director of the Theatre Royal Bath, England’s premier touring theatre.

He has written several novels including A Rustle in the Grass, published by Hutchinsons in 1984 and republished recently by Thistle. A second novel, The Journey was published in 2002 by Hawthorns and a third, Survival of the Fittest, by SBPR in 2013.

You can find out more about Robin on his website and by following him on Twitter @AUTHORDEBATE.

My enormous thanks to Strauss House and the team at StonehillSalt PR for a surprise copy of children’s book Jasper: Space Dog by Hilary Robinson, illustrated by Lewis James. I so loved Peace Lily by Hilary Robinson, reviewed here, that it was one of my top three books in 2018, so I was delighted when Jasper; Space Dog was waiting for me in my bookpost on my return from a recent holiday.

Jasper: Space Dog was published on 4th April 2019 and is a 50th moon landing anniversary book available for purchase here.

Jasper: Space Dog

Jasper: Space Dog is the first in a series of hilarious stories about the ambitions of Charlie Tanner and his dog, Jasper.

Released to mark the 50th anniversary of the moon landings, the story cleverly weaves facts about space missions with hilarious ideas about space.

In their quest, Jasper and Charlie consult space experts to see if Jasper might make history too.

Several considerations regarding the design and layout of Jasper Space Dog have been made including the use of dyslexie font and cream paper stock to assist those who may find some aspects of reading challenging.

My Review of Jasper: Space Dog

Jasper, Charlie Tanner’s dog, has ambitions!

What a brilliant children’s book. Never mind children, it took me right back to the moon landings when I was the same age as 8 year old Charlie Tanner and I think adults of around my age would love this story just as much as the children at whom it is aimed. So many memories were rekindled by reading Jasper: Space Dog that I now feel incredibly nostalgic.

Jasper: Space Dog is perfectly plotted for independent or shared reading. There’s a clear font with an excellent balance of text to illustration and the email structure gives natural and frequent breaks to those children who struggle with reading. The illustrations deserve praise in their own right because, whilst they are professional and fitting for the text, they have a level of naivety that is perfect for the age range aimed at.

I loved the humour in Jasper: Space Dog and think children will too. However, the best part of the book for me was the manner in which facts, science and history are interwoven so that children are learning without realising because they are simply enjoying a smashing story. This is such skilful writing for children and I can see the book shared at home or at school very successfully.

It’s obvious that a considerable amount of time and effort has gone in to creating an accessible, entertaining and educational story in Jasper: Space Dog that is wonderful for children of all ages! I really recommend it.

About Hilary Robinson

Hilary Robinson is an author, radio producer, broadcaster and feature writer. She was born in Devon and brought up in Nigeria and England. The author of over forty books for children she is best known for Mixed Up Fairy Tales. Her books have been translated into a number of languages and are sold across the world. She lives and works in London and Yorkshire.

You can follow Hilary on Twitter @HilsRobinson and visit her website for more information.

It’s been a while since I featured poetry here on Linda’s Book Bag and I’m delighted to remedy that today with my review of On the Occasion of a Wedding by Ollie Bowen. My enormous thanks to Ollie for sending me a copy of her collection, written as a wedding gift to friends, in return for an honest review.

On the Occasion of a Wedding is available for purchase here.

On the Occasion of a Wedding

On the Occasion of a Wedding is a collection of poetry celebrating what it means to truly love another person. From the soulfully simple to the humorously erotic. From the deeply spiritual to the painfully profound.

Composed as a wedding gift for a dear friend, the book is divided into four chapters, each blending a variety of literary styles.

• Flores Caelesti (heavenly flowers)
• Caelo Marique (sky and sea)
• Amor Insanus (crazy love)
• Pluit et Lucet (rains and shines)

Readers are taken on a heartfelt journey through love’s blessings, joys, and tears. Because it is the sting of love that makes it so beautiful.

My Review of On the Occasion of a Wedding

What could be better as a wedding gift than a collection of love poems?

On the Occasion of a Wedding is an incredible volume of poems to which I don’t think my reader brain or this review can do justice.

On one level, all the poems in On the Occasion of a Wedding can be enjoyed relatively easily and superficially for the beauty of their appearance, their rhythms and cadences alongside some wonderful illustrations and for their ease of accessibility. On other occasions I found I had to think hard to understand their meaning and references. This is by no means a criticism but an extra joy in reading and discovering something new to me. I had no idea what the Zaimph of Tanit was, for example, and scurried off to the great god Google to find out. As a result, not only have I enjoyed beautiful imagery, clever structure and moving imagery in the poems in On the Occasion of a Wedding, but I have learned something new along the way so that this slim volume has kept me entertained, moved and educated for hours more than the initial reading of its contents and the size of the volume might suggest.

It’s difficult to convey how much there is to enjoy in On the Occasion of a Wedding. I found Ollie Bowen’s writing emotional, funny and sensual and I adored the natural images that pepper the verse. I kept changing my mind about which poem I liked the most because every time I went back to reread them I found something new, innovative or mystical to contemplate. The simplicity of Everything I thought was beautiful and I genuinely think I’d like to have Quando read at my husband’s funeral (assuming he dies before me some time in the distant future!).

In a sense, I shouldn’t be reviewing On The Occasion of a Wedding as I don’t feel I’ve finished reading it. I’ve certainly read each poem at least three or four times, but I have only scratched the surface of their meanings and I feel I have so much more to discover as I return to Ollie Bowen’s writing time and again. I can only recommend that you read On the Occasion of a Wedding too and see if you can do it more justice than I have!

About Ollie Bowen

Ollie bowen is an author and scholar.

She holds degrees in education, business, and science, though her favorite subject is rhetorical argument.

She currently resides in Northern California with her one husband, plethora of children, and semi-loyal dog.

You can find find Ollie on Instagram and Pinterest or follow her on Twitter @olliebowenbooks and visit her website for more information.

My enormous thanks to Charlotte Hollinshead at Penguin Random House for sending me a copy of Rough Magic by Lara Prior-Palmer in return for an honest review.

Published by Penguin imprint Ebury on 6th June 2019, Rough Magic is available for pre-order through the links here.

Rough Magic

The Mongol Derby is the world’s toughest horse race. A feat of endurance across the vast Mongolian plains once traversed by the people of Genghis Khan, competitors ride 25 horses across a distance of 1000km. Many riders don’t make it to the finish line.

In 2013 Lara Prior-Palmer – nineteen, underprepared but seeking the great unknown – decided to enter the race. Driven by her own restlessness, stubbornness, and a lifelong love of horses, she raced for seven days through extreme heat and terrifying storms, catching a few hours of sleep where she could at the homes of nomadic families. Battling bouts of illness and dehydration, exhaustion and bruising falls, she found she had nothing to lose, and tore through the field with her motley crew of horses. In one of the Derby’s most unexpected results, she became the youngest-ever champion and the first woman to win the race.

A tale of adventure, fortitude and poetry, Rough Magic is the extraordinary story of one young woman’s encounter with oblivion, and herself.

My Review of Rough Magic

In a moment of rashness, Lara Prior-Palmer enters the Mongol Derby

I almost never read memoir or auto-biographical writing and this fantastic book by Lara Prior-Palmer has served to illustrate what a wealth of delight I am missing. I adored Rough Magic and hurtled through it over a weekend because it held my attention so completely.

Part memoir, part travelogue, part history, part coming of age narrative, Rough Magic is totally captivating. Hearing about the race is exciting enough, especially with the added peril of Devlan riding ahead of Lara for most of the race, but I hadn’t expected quite such beautiful and atmospheric language. Lara Prior-Palmers prose has the same kind of resonance as Dylan Thomas’ verse and the recurring references to Shakespeare’s The Tempest add to the other-worldy feel of some of the passages. The writing is vital, lively and evocative.

I loved the way Lara Prior- Palmer transported me to a life so different from my own. Her naivety afforded a freshness to her descriptions that took me to the heart of Mongolia and the race itself. There are so many aspects of the writing that I want to explore further that great joy and entertainment lasts long after Rough Magic has been read. Save for an afternoon on an Icelandic pony a couple of years ago, it’s about 45 years since I last rode and yet Lara Prior- Palmer’s words brought that connection between human and animal flooding back. Indeed, so vivid are her descriptions that a reader needs to know nothing about riding to be immersed in, and captivated by, this adventure.

However, the element I enjoyed the most in Rough Magic was getting to know the author  – as much as that is possible, given that she hardly seems to know herself. Her sense of isolation, of always striving for something that is just out of reach, of never really being allowed just to be herself, shines from the page so that it is impossible not to like and admire this incredibly feisty young woman. She made me smile with her ignorance and her vitality. She drops life changing details into her writing almost as asides and Rough Magic has made me admire Lara Prior-Palmer enormously.

Having thought I wouldn’t be much interested in Rough Magic, I have finished the book feeling energised, entertained and privilged to have had a glimpse of Lara Prior-Palmer’s personality and experiences. I thought Rough Magic was magnificent and can’t recommend it highly enough.

About Lara Prior-Palmer

Lara Prior-Palmer made headlines in 2013 when she became the first woman — and the youngest ever competitor — to win the Mongol Derby. Born in London in 1994, Lara routinely packed and unpacked her bags as a child, despite having nowhere to go.

She studied conceptual history and Persian at Stanford University, and has lived and loved, for varying lengths of time, in California, England, Iran and Wales. Rough Magic is her first book.

You can follow Lara on Twitter @LaraPriorPalmer and visit her website for more information.

I was thrilled to be invited to an afternoon tea in Covent Garden at the end of last year celebrating the forthcoming fiction for Orion in 2019. You can see all about that event here.

One of the books I was lucky enough to bring home was Cape May by Chip Cheek and I’m delighted to be reviewing it today.

Cape May is published by Orion imprint Weidenfield and Nicholson today, 30th April 2019, and is available for purchase through the links here.

SEPTEMBER 1957

Henry and Effie, young newlyweds from Georgia, arrive in Cape May, New Jersey, for their honeymoon. It’s the end of the season and the town is deserted. As they tentatively discover each other, they begin to realize that everyday married life might be disappointingly different from their happily-ever-after fantasy.

Just as they get ready to cut the trip short, a decadent and glamorous set suddenly sweep them up into their drama – Clara, a beautiful socialite who feels her youth slipping away; Max, a wealthy playboy and Clara’s lover; and Alma, Max’s aloof and mysterious half-sister.

The empty beach town becomes their playground, and as they sneak into abandoned summer homes, go sailing, walk naked under the stars, make love, and drink a great deal of gin, Henry and Effie slip from innocence into betrayal, with irrevocable consequences that reverberate through the rest of their lives…

My Review of Cape May

Henry and Effie’s honeymoon will be more than they could have imagined.

Cape May is a brilliantly written sensuous, and sensual, portrait of a completely hedonistic and sybaritic lifestyle that both fascinated and slightly repulsed me! It reminded me so much of The Great Gatsby but with greater carnality, and some readers might find the sexual references too frequent or graphic for their tastes, but I thought they were essential in creating the atmosphere. I felt Chip Cheek conveyed the brittle, sparkling veneer of a rotten and corrupt lifestyle in a manner that filled me with admiration. I actually felt quite tainted by events and almost voyeuristic of them at times. This is such effective writing because Chip Cheek made me experience first hand some of the emotions Henry in particular feels. Much of this effect comes through the taut, precise prose and imagery. There is, for example, great power and excitement in the crashing waves on the beach, but there’s also huge threat too so that disaster is never very far away.

The frenetic desire to enjoy life demonstrated by the claustrophobic quintet of Alma, Effie, Henry, Clara and Max has a feeling of desperation that made me glad of my mundane and monogamous lifestyle. For all the drinking, sexual activity and partying, I felt an underlying sadness for each of the characters. They seemed so real that I felt sorry for them in their pursuit of happiness and fulfilment. Reading Cape May made me wonder how much we every truly know those closest to us and how and why their lives turn out as they do.

The atmosphere of the setting, of Cape May and the empty, off season houses, vibrated with menace so that I fully expected an implosion at any moment. The vacant houses represented the vacant souls of the characters for me in a way I found surprisingly moving. I loved the way the book ended because it conveyed so perfectly the way in which a moment or decision can affect an entire life.

Cape May is a book I suspect will polarise readers. References to sexual acts and body parts may not suit all, but never did I feel they were inappropriate or gratuitous. In Cape May Chip Cheek is taking the reader on a voyage of self-discovery with Effie and Henry and the journey isn’t always a comfortable one.

I thought Cape May was sensitively and honestly written, atmospheric and affecting. I suspect I’ll be thinking about it for some time.

About Chip Cheek

Chip Cheek’s stories have appeared in ​The Southern Review​, ​Harvard Review​, ​Washington Square, and other journals and anthologies. He has been awarded scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Summer Writers’ Workshop, and the Vermont Studio Center, as well as an Emerging Artist Award from the St. Botolph Club Foundation.

He lives in El Segundo, California, with his wife and baby daughter.

You can follow Chip on Twitter @ChipCheek and visit his website for more information.

My huge thanks to Rachel Kennedy at Penguin Random House for a copy of One More Lie by Amy Lloyd in return for an honest review.

Published by Penguin imprint Century, One More Lie is available for purchase through the publisher links here.

One More Lie

How do you live with yourself as an adult when you were convicted of murder as a child?

And when you can’t remember the crime…
HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU’RE GUILTY?

Charlotte wants a fresh start. She wants to forget her past, forget her crime – and, most of all, forget that one terrible moment.

It’s the reason she’s been given a new name, a new life. The reason she spent years in prison.

But even on the outside, with an ankle monitor and court-mandated therapy, she can’t escape the devastating memory of the night that turned her and her only friend into national hate figures.

But now her friend has found her.

And despite the lies she tells to survive, she soon finds herself being dragged deeper and deeper into a past she cannot confront.

Even if it’s going to cost Charlotte her life…

My Review of One More Lie

A new life for Charlotte doesn’t mean the past can be escaped.

Oh my goodness – YES! I loved One More Lie. Amy Lloyd’s writing held me gripped from the very first word until the final full stop. Her style is just perfect for the genre, with a range of sentence structure that filled me with admiration because it matched so brilliantly the atmosphere of the moment. The narrative voice of Charlotte’s younger self is completely convincing. Amy Lloyd’s ability to convey taut, ominous, emotion through a single word or a lengthier sentence makes One More Lie an absolute masterclass in effective writing. It was only when I finished reading One More Lie that I realised I’d been holding tension in my body throughout. The book is so good that it had a physical effect on me.

Alongside that palpable tension is a first rate story. The plotting simply didn’t allow me to put the book down. I felt as ensnared by wanting to know what happened as Charlotte feels by the life she now has and her attempts to remember the past. The pace is fast, the balance of ‘Then’ and ‘Now’ as well as ‘Her’ and ‘Him’ and the gradual uncovering of the truth is completely hypnotic. Events are familiar to the reader too, as similar things have happened in real life which adds to the compelling nature of the read.

Both Sean and Charlotte are superb creations. Flawed, obsessive, vulnerable and deceptive they wormed their way into my mind so that I couldn’t help admire and like them in spite of the terrible crime they have committed. The way their relationship unfolds and the past and present gradually come together is fascinating.

I thought the themes explored were also brilliant. Amy Lloyd weaves in society’s rapid jumping to conclusions, and the treatment of difference, the impact of nature and nurture and the consequences of how a small untruth or event can unravel several lives,  completely perfectly. The author never preaches and is never obvious or unsubtle but still manages to make the reader consider their own standpoint and to experience what life on the outer edges of society can be like through those passages relating to Sean and the women in Charlotte’s accommodation, especially.

One More Lie is manipulative of the reader as it is impossible not to become embroiled in the story on so many levels. It is deceptive and shocking. I thought One More Lie was stunning and I can’t recommend it enough.

About Amy Lloyd

Amy Lloyd studied English and Creative Writing at Cardiff Metropolitan University. In 2016 she won the Daily Mail Bestseller Competition for her debut novel The Innocent Wife which, when it was published, became a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. Amy lives in Cardiff with her partner, who is also a published novelist

You can follow Amy on Twitter @AmyLloydWrites and find her on Facebook.