Margery Sharp Day: The Nutmeg Tree

January 25, 201624 Comments

One of the things I love about book blogging is being introduced to authors I would otherwise never have thought about reading. Margery Sharp is one of those authors. Jane at Beyond Eden Rock hosted a celebration of Margery’s work on her birthday (25th January) last year but I wasn’t able to take part, so I was pleased to see that she was doing it again this year. Not knowing much about any of her books, I picked her 1937 novel The Nutmeg Tree, which I hoped would be a good place to start.

And it was a good place to start! I found it a light, entertaining and witty story with a main character I loved. Her name is Julia (“by marriage Mrs. Packett, by courtesy Mrs. Macdermot”) and as the novel opens, she is in the bath singing the Marseillaise while men from the Bayswater Hire Furniture Company are removing her furniture. The reason for this is that she needs money for a journey to France to visit her daughter, Susan. Susan was the product of Julia’s brief marriage to a soldier who was killed in action, and being young and keen to pursue a career as an actress, Julia had left her daughter to be raised by her in-laws. Now, after nearly twenty years, Susan has sent a letter to her mother, begging her to come to visit the family in France. She wants to get married, she says, “and Grandmother objects”.

Reunited with her daughter after such a long absence, Julia finds that Susan is very different from herself: sensible, reliable and with strong principles. However, when she meets Bryan, the man Susan intends to marry, Julia immediately knows he is one of “her sort”. She is sure he won’t make Susan happy, so she has a decision to make. Should she support the marriage or oppose it? To make things worse, Bryan also recognises Julia as a kindred spirit. Will he expose her true character to her in-laws, to whom she has been trying to pass herself off as a respectable lady?

I wasn’t sure at first whether Julia would be a character I was going to like, but I did warm to her very quickly and enjoyed reading about her exploits as she stumbled from one disaster to another. She has such a mixture of qualities, some good and some bad: she can be irresponsible and often acts without thinking, but she’s also warm, friendly and fun-loving. She may have made mistakes in the past (and continues to make them in the present) but her heart is in the right place and she tries so hard to be ‘good’ that it’s easy to forgive her. I ended up loving Julia, though I couldn’t help but wonder what readers in 1937 would have thought of her!

Julia is the star of the story, but some of the other characters are wonderful too, particularly Susan’s grandmother who is convinced that Julia is going to open a cake-shop (and even starts collecting recipes on her behalf), and Sir William, Susan’s guardian, who is also visiting the family and with whom Julia finds herself falling in love. I desperately wanted Julia and Sir William to get the happy ending they deserved, though I’m not going to tell you whether that happens or not, of course! I did think the ending seemed quite abrupt, which I found slightly disappointing at first, but on reflection it was probably the best way the story could have ended.

I’m so pleased that my first experience of Margery Sharp’s work has been a good one and I’m sure I’ll be reading more of her books in the future.

Amberwell by D. E. Stevenson

January 14, 201617 Comments

The property was situated in a fold of the hills and sloped gently down to the sea. It consisted of meadows and a little wood and some moorland; there was a well, built of glowing yellow stone, which was fed by a spring and was always full of ice-cold water. The water itself was as clear as crystal but the reflection of the stone gave it the appearance of amber…it was this well which gave the property its name, Amberwell.

A few years ago I read one of D. E. Stevenson’s most popular novels, Miss Buncle’s Book. I found it a lovely, charming read, but as I said in my review at the time, I thought it ‘lacked that special spark’. I hadn’t really thought about reading any more of her books until I noticed that some of them were being reissued by Endeavour Press. I liked the sound of Amberwell and decided to give Stevenson another chance to impress me.

Amberwell is the name of a house and estate in the south west of Scotland, home to Mr and Mrs Ayrton and their five children: Roger, Tom, Connie, Nell and Anne. The Ayrtons show little interest in getting to know the children; the two boys are sent away to school as soon as possible, their future careers mapped out for them by their father regardless of their own wishes. Education for the girls is not considered important – they remain in the nursery at Amberwell to be raised by Nannie and taught at home by Miss Clarke, who comes in daily.

As the years go by and World War II approaches, the Ayrton children begin to follow their own paths in life. Roger and Tom go off to war while Connie and Anne (under very different circumstances) both leave home, with only the middle sister, Nell, left behind to care for Amberwell. Amberwell itself remains at the centre of the story and even as the Ayrtons move away or move on, it continues to hold a special place in each of their hearts.

I loved Amberwell. I found it very different from Miss Buncle’s Book (a more serious, poignant story rather than a humorous one) but much more to my taste. I was particularly interested in the portrayal of the effects of war on a wealthy family living in a quiet, rural area who at first are shielded from what is going on elsewhere but eventually find that their own way of life is changing too. I could understand Roger’s anger during a conversation with his parents in which he discovers that they are more concerned about losing their servants than they are about Roger himself, who is risking his life for his country.

This is not just a book about war, of course. It’s also a book about Scottish society before and during the war and what it was like to be a young woman growing up in that time and place. And it’s a book about the relationships between brothers and sisters and between parents and children – and the damage which can be caused by a lack of understanding, attention and affection.

The beautiful Connie is the conventional one who does what is expected of her and as such she is the least interesting of the Ayrtons to read about as well as being the hardest to warm to, but I cared very much about the fates of the other four siblings. Anne’s life takes a dramatic turn following a visit to her Aunt Beatrice and we have to wait until the end of the novel to hear the full story of her adventures, while Tom and Roger are both easy to like and their love for Amberwell and their sisters shines through strongly. But this is really Nell’s story – Nell’s and Amberwell’s – and Nell is a wonderful person, offering help and support to those who need it and ensuring that her brothers and sisters have a home to come back to when the war is over.

After finishing this book I was pleased to find that there is a sequel, Summerhills, which I will be reading as soon as I have the opportunity. I would love to know what happens to the characters I’ve become so fond of, particularly Nell, my favourite. I also have a copy of another Stevenson novel, Vittoria Cottage, which I’m looking forward to now that I’ve enjoyed this one so much.

I received a copy of this book for review from Endeavour Press via NetGalley.

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

December 21, 2015February 25, 20169 Comments

It’s been nearly three years since I read my first Kate Atkinson novel, Life After Life, in which Ursula Todd lives her life over and over again, each new life giving her a chance to alter decisions and mistakes made in the one before. Since then I’ve been catching up with Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie mystery series (I only have one of those left to read) but last week I decided it was time to pick up her latest novel, A God in Ruins, and reacquaint myself with the Todd family.

A God in Ruins is not exactly a sequel to Life After Life – it can be better described as a ‘companion novel’ – and both do stand alone. There are some similarities between the two novels, but there’s also a big difference. While Life After Life follows several different versions of the same person’s life, A God in Ruins concentrates on someone who lives just one life: his name is Teddy Todd and he is Ursula’s younger brother.

Teddy’s story is told in non-chronological order, so that a chapter about his childhood is followed by one set towards the end of his life and then another describing his time as a World War II bomber pilot (there are several wartime chapters interspersed throughout the novel). We also get to know Teddy’s wife, Nancy (who was literally the ‘girl next door’), their daughter, Viola, and grandchildren, Sunny and Bertie. The stories of each of these people unfold gradually, chapter by chapter, and the non-linear timeline means that we are sometimes given hints of something that has happened in the past or will happen in the future but have to wait until later in the book for a revelation. Flashbacks and ‘flashforwards’ often happen in the middle of a paragraph or even a sentence, which I found intriguing rather than confusing.

I enjoyed A God in Ruins but didn’t love it as much as I loved Life After Life, maybe because it felt less innovative without the device of one person living many different lives. Still, many of the same themes are here: life and death, fate and the ways in which our actions in the present can have big consequences in the future, and, of course, the effects of war. I mentioned that there are several chapters on Teddy’s experiences piloting a Halifax bomber during the war. I didn’t initially find these sections very engaging (in the words of Nancy, Teddy’s wife, “Let’s talk about something more interesting than the mechanics of bombing”), but eventually I was drawn in and started to enjoy those chapters as much as the others.

My favourite thing about Kate Atkinson’s writing is the way she creates characters who feel so real and believable – even if some of them are not easy to like, they are still interesting and fully developed. Viola, for example, is a cold and bitter person, unable to offer her children any love and affection, and as her father grows older, resenting every minute of the time she has to spend caring for him. At first it seems that there is no reason for Viola’s selfish behaviour, but later in the novel we learn of something that happened in her childhood that could provide an explanation.

I also liked all the little literary references Atkinson slipped into the story. I was particularly pleased to see that Teddy was an Anthony Trollope reader! As for the ending of the book, I think it’s probably best if I say nothing at all – other than that it’s one of those endings people will either love or hate. Personally, I thought it was perfect; it changed the way I felt about the entire book and left me with a lot to think about, which is what all good novels should do.

The Old Man’s Birthday by Richmal Crompton

September 3, 201518 Comments

Richmal Crompton is best known for her Just William stories for children, but she has also written a large number of books for adults. I read one of them – Family Roundabout – last year and enjoyed it, so I was pleased to see that Bello have been republishing several more of her adult novels, including this one, The Old Man’s Birthday.

Matthew Royston, the old man of the title, is preparing to celebrate his ninety-fifth birthday with a family party to which he has invited all of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Nobody has been left out – not even Matthew’s grandson, Stephen, who has become estranged from the rest of the family because he is living with a woman who is not his wife. Not a problem in modern society, of course, but scandalous in the 1930s! Matthew is determined that Stephen’s partner, Beatrice, will be made to feel welcome, so in the hours leading up to the party he takes her from house to house to introduce her to the Roystons.

The whole novel takes place over the course of that one day, beginning with Matthew waking up on the morning he turns ninety-five and finishing with his birthday meal. In between, we meet each member of the Royston family – and as Matthew has five children and some of those have children and grandchildren of their own, there are a lot of characters to get to know! My advice to anyone planning to read this book is to draw a family tree as each person is introduced; it didn’t occur to me to do that until I was halfway through the novel, but it definitely would have made things much easier.

This is not a book with a lot of plot, but I hadn’t expected that it would be. The strength of the novel is in the characterisation; Crompton gives so much depth to every family member that on reaching the end of the book I was disappointed that I had to leave them all behind. I would like to tell you about all of them, but as I don’t want to spoil too much of the story for future readers I’ll just highlight two or three that I found particularly memorable. First there’s Enid, Matthew’s unmarried granddaughter, who runs the village hockey team. She’s probably not a person I would like in real life (despite the hero worship she inspires among the younger women at the hockey club) but she’s one of the strongest characters in the novel and I eventually found that behind her loud, overbearing exterior lies a shy and insecure woman whom she doesn’t want anyone to see.

Secondly, there’s Matthew’s son Richard, an elderly bachelor who has spent years running away from responsibilities and burying himself in his books. An unexpected friendship formed with one of his nieces on the day of the old man’s party could change Richard’s life for the better. And finally, there’s Pippa, one of Matthew’s great-granddaughters. Sixteen-year-old Pippa has always felt like a poor relation compared to her cousins, Pen and Daphne, so when she is given the opportunity to fulfil an ambition she’s determined to make the family proud of her. These three characters – and all of the others – are well-drawn and convincing, and considering that the novel only covers one day in their lives, we also see a surprising amount of character development.

I loved The Old Man’s Birthday, if I haven’t already made that clear! One slight criticism would be that I found the ending very easy to predict – but having said that, it was the perfect way to end the story, so I didn’t mind the predictability too much. I enjoyed celebrating Matthew’s special day with the Royston family and now I’m looking forward to reading more of Richmal Crompton’s books.

I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Girl at War by Sara Nović

May 24, 201515 Comments

When I visit another country I like to read something, if possible, set in the place I’m going to. I read Girl at War on my recent trip to Dubrovnik and while the Croatia portrayed in the novel was (thankfully) very different from the one I was visiting, it was good to learn a little bit about its history and what it was like to live there during one of the most turbulent periods in the country’s past.

The story begins in 1991, just as Croatia declares independence from Yugoslavia and becomes a country at war. Our narrator is ten-year-old Ana Jurić, who lives in Zagreb with her parents and baby sister; just a normal child whose life revolves around going to school and playing football with her best friend, Luka. With the outbreak of civil war comes big changes and suddenly Ana finds herself running for shelter during air raids, coping with food and water shortages, and wondering how her little sister will get the medical treatment she so desperately needs. But things are about to get even worse, and when a tragedy tears Ana’s world apart, she is forced to experience unimaginable atrocities that no child should ever have to face.

Ten years later, the war is over and Ana is living in New York where she is studying literature at university. She has chosen not to reveal the truth about her childhood to anyone – not even to her boyfriend – but her painful memories are still very close to the surface. Ana finally makes the decision that before she can move on with her life she will have to return to Croatia…but what will she find when she gets there and how will she come to terms with the horrors of her past?

It’s hard to believe that Girl at War is Sara Nović’s first novel; I found it a very compelling, moving and emotional story. I particularly enjoyed the early chapters, describing Ana’s life at the onset of war – child narrators don’t always work for me, but in this case seeing war through the eyes of a ten-year-old girl was very effective and the perfect way to tell the story. The end of the first section was unforgettable and one of the most harrowing moments I’ve read in fiction for some time. Jumping forward ten years to Ana’s life as a student in America was slightly disappointing as I really wanted to stay in Croatia and follow Ana’s wartime experiences, but I understood why the author chose to do that and I was pleased that the gaps were filled in later.

Before starting this novel, I knew very little about the war in Yugoslavia; I was still at school when it began and although I can remember seeing it on the news, I think I was just too young to have really understood what it was all about. Reading Girl at War hasn’t added very much to my knowledge of the reasons for the war or the politics behind it, but what it did do very successfully was show me what it’s like to be an innocent child caught up in conflict and how the emotional effects of those experiences never completely go away.

As I approached the final chapters of this novel, I was prepared to say that this was one of the best books I’d read so far this year. Sadly, though, I thought it was let down by a poor ending which felt abrupt and unresolved, and I finished the book feeling sorry that Ana’s story hadn’t been given a more satisfying conclusion. Despite this, I would still recommend reading Girl at War for its emotional impact and fascinating insights into a traumatic period of history. I’ll be looking out for future novels by Sara Nović.

Nora Bonesteel’s Christmas Past by Sharyn McCrumb

December 23, 2014December 23, 20146 Comments

Sharyn McCrumb is a name I remember from about fifteen years ago when I read two of the books in her Ballad mystery series, She Walks These Hills and The Ballad of Frankie Silver, both set in the Appalachian Mountains and steeped in history and folklore. I know that I enjoyed those two books, but the details have faded from my mind now, so when I saw this new novella available on NetGalley I couldn’t wait to read it and reacquaint myself with Sharyn McCrumb’s work. I hadn’t even realised that she had been continuing to write Ballad novels and that there are ten in the series now!

Nora Bonesteel’s Christmas Past is described as a novella, but it’s really two separate short stories which alternate with each other throughout the book. In the first, we join Sheriff Spencer Arrowood and his deputy Joe LeDonne who have been given the unwelcome task of arresting a man on Christmas Eve. Arriving at the alleged criminal’s home – a remote mountain farm – they encounter problems they had never expected and end up spending Christmas Eve in a very unusual way.

Meanwhile, Nora Bonesteel, an elderly woman with the gift of ‘the Sight’, is being visited by her new neighbour, Shirley Haverty, who has moved into the house Nora still thinks of as ‘the old Honeycutt place’. The Havertys have bought the house as a summer home but have decided to stay on this year and experience a traditional Christmas in the mountains. After a few unexplained mishaps Shirley has become convinced that the house is haunted…and that the ghost doesn’t seem to approve of their bright pink artificial Christmas tree! Can Nora use her psychic abilities and her memories of the house in days gone by to lay the ghost to rest?

This is a short book and could easily be read in one or two sittings (though I didn’t manage that due to choosing a busy time to start reading it). It’s not necessary to have read any of Sharyn McCrumb’s previous books, though I did remember the characters of the Sheriff, Joe LeDonne and Nora Bonesteel.

The two stories in the book are, as I’ve said, completely independent of each other and never come together at all, not even at the end. I found this a bit disappointing and I think it might have been better if they had been presented as two entirely separate stories rather than giving us a few pages of one followed by a few of the other. What the stories do have in common is the Appalachian setting and the fact that they both deal with the subjects of Christmas traditions and the mountain lifestyle.

Nora Bonesteel’s Christmas Past doesn’t have the depth or complexity of the longer novels in the Ballad series and unlike the full-length books there’s no mystery to be solved, but it’s an enjoyable, undemanding read and perfect for the Christmas season.

And now I’m going to end this post on an appropriate note by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas! I should be back between Christmas and New Year with another winter-themed review and my end-of-year lists.

The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson

November 19, 2014November 19, 20146 Comments

One of my favourite books of last year was James Hogg’s weird and wonderful 1824 classic The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. The Testament of Gideon Mack is a contemporary novel but when I discovered that it was inspired by The Private Memoirs and Confessions I knew I would have to read it.

Gideon Mack is the name of a Church of Scotland minister who disappears from his home in the small Scottish town of Monimaskit never to be seen again. Following his disappearance, a manuscript is found and given to a publisher; this document, which was apparently written by Gideon Mack himself, is an account of his entire life, from his childhood to the moment he sets off to climb the mountain Ben Alder – a journey from which he never returns.

As Gideon’s last testament unfolds, we are given a detailed portrait of a flawed, complex but very human character – a man who, despite not believing in God, becomes a minister like his father; a married man who would rather be married to his best friend’s wife; a man who is never happier than when he is out running alone in the woods. But when he falls into a ravine called the Black Jaws, is swept away by the river and emerges several days later claiming to have met the Devil, it seems that Gideon has lost his mind. Or has he?

Books that are a little bit unusual and quirky always appeal to me and The Testament of Gideon Mack was certainly both of those things! I found it a fascinating and imaginative story, but in the end I was slightly disappointed as it was not quite what I’d hoped it would be. Apart from a storyline involving a standing stone that mysteriously appears in the woods, and the inclusion of an eerie Scottish folktale, there was little of the gothic atmosphere the blurb and quotes on the book cover had hinted at. Gideon’s encounter with the Devil, which I’d thought would form a significant part of the plot, doesn’t take place until near the end of the book (over 250 pages in) and when it finally happened it felt like an anticlimax.

This wasn’t the dark, supernatural story I was expecting, then – and definitely not as good as Hogg’s fantastic novel, despite sharing a few plot elements – but once I’d realised that, I was able to accept it for what it was. Gideon, as I’ve already mentioned, is an intriguing character and I enjoyed watching his story unfold. The chapters in which he describes his early life, growing up as the son of a strict church minister, were my favourites. I particularly loved his account of how a television first arrived in the manse and how he would always watch the first part of Batman on a Saturday but never knew how the story ended because his father had banned television on Sundays. And as a book lover myself, it was good to see the young Gideon discover the joys of reading as he worked through the novels of Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott.

Although The Testament of Gideon Mack is a modern novel, published in 2006 and set in the very recent past (with contemporary references to things like the Gulf War and Scottish devolution) the writing style and the way it is structured make it feel more like a 19th century one. It’s a very similar structure to The Private Memoirs and Confessions: Gideon’s testament is presented as a long manuscript with editor’s footnotes, a publisher’s prologue describing how the document came into his possession, and an epilogue written by an investigative journalist. I couldn’t help thinking a more historical setting would have been better suited to the style of the novel – although I tend to think all novels would be better with historical settings, so other readers will probably disagree with me on that point!

So, did Gideon Mack really meet the Devil? Was he telling lies? Did he just imagine it all? And what happened when he arrived at Ben Alder? Those questions are never really answered but using the information given in Gideon’s own testament together with the statements of witnesses and people who knew him well, we are left to decide for ourselves.