Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Elizabeth Haynes

Another week has flown by and today I have the pleasure of introducing a new guest who is tasked with the challenge of nominating five new books to be added to my Decades Library. If you haven’t encountered my Decades Library yet then a quick recap will help.

Each week I ask my guests to select five unmissable books which they would want to see added to the Ultimate Library. I began this challenge with zero books and week by week the shelves are filling with some truly amazing titles. If you want to see all the books which have been recommended you can see (and buy) them here: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/grab-this-book-the-decades-library

Picking five books just seemed a bit too easy though so I added a second rule: each guest must only select one book per decade from five consecutive decades. So their final five choices will come from any 50 year publication span. Flexing of the rules is quite commonplace as you will see in the very near future.

This week I am delighted to pass the Decades curator’s hat to Elizabeth Haynes. Elizabeth was one of the first authors I met after I began blogging. Thanks to the brilliant Encounters festival which North Lanarkshire ran I got to head to Motherwell Library to hear her talking about her books. A fabulous evening was had and if, in future, you get a chance to see Elizabeth at any events make booking your ticket a priority.

Enough from me, let me hand you over to Elizabeth so she can share her five selections:

Elizabeth Haynes is a former police intelligence analyst who lives in Norfolk with her husband and son. Her first novel, Into the Darkest Corner, was Amazon’s Best Book of the Year 2011 and a New York Times bestseller. Now published in 37 countries, it was originally written as part of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), an online challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.

She has written a further three psychological thrillers—Revenge of the Tide, Human Remains and Never Alone—and two novels in the DCI Louisa Smith series, Under a Silent Moon and Behind Closed Doors.

Next came her highly praised historical novel The Murder of Harriet Monckton (a Sunday Times Summer Read) which is based on the 1843 unsolved murder of a young school teacher in Bromley, Kent.

Elizabeth’s latest novel, You, Me and the Sea is a contemporary story of love and redemption set on a remote, windswept Scottish island.

DECADES

At the time of writing, I’m four days away from my 50^th birthday. I suspect most of Gordon’s guests have also gone through the internal battle wondering where to begin; I suppose the impending half-century made this decision easier for me! So I’ve decided to use the first five decades I was here and use this as a wee self-indulgent trip down memory lane…

1970s: Z for Zachariah, by Robert C. O’Brien (1974)

I was born in 1971 so I’ll admit I didn’t read this book until the early 1980s, but it has stayed with me ever since. It’s a post-apocalyptic story of a girl surviving in a remote, sheltered valley, managing quite well on her own and assuming everyone is dead, until a stranger in a haz-mat suit turns up and suddenly everything becomes a lot scarier.

I read a lot of science fiction as a teenager. In particular I loved Ray Bradbury’s short stories, which made me want to write, not for anyone else, just for myself: the joy of creating worlds, inventing people and giving them problems to solve, kept me busy. I think as an only child, and at times quite lonely, inventing people and putting words in their mouths was a form of social interaction. And yes, before I discovered fiction, I did have imaginary friends.

I remember reading Z for Zachariah in a cupboard. Our spare room had a giant, built-in cupboard in the void above the staircase (I say giant, I guess it was about a metre square in terms of floor space) and I built a ‘den’ in there out of stored blankets and old pillows. This was my reading haven in which I could imagine any possibility, including a nuclear holocaust.

1980s: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾, by Sue Townsend (1982)

Like Adrian, I was an avid secret diary keeper – I still am – and I saw a lot of myself in him. The desperate desire to be liked, to belong, to understand what adults really meant and how the world worked. My parents also divorced and the effect on me is something I’m only really understanding now – at the time it was just something profoundly life-changing that happened, over which I had no control. Aside from that – finding my identity through a fictional diarist – the book was just tremendously funny, which was very helpful.

1990s: Feel the Fear and Beyond: Dynamic Techniques for Doing it Anyway, by Susan Jeffers (1998)

Cheating a little, because Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway was originally published in 1987, but I only got to read it in the 1990s. This was the decade in which I finished university and started on the career ladder, mainly in temp admin jobs, but notably also selling cars (my first ever job). It’s fair to say I had very little self-confidence, and Susan Jeffers proved to be quite an eye-opener when I read it. It became the book that I gifted to everyone for many years. I still re-read it regularly now. The message behind it is so simple and true: life is so very much better if you can be a little bit brave.

2000s: The Bride Stripped Bare, by Nikki Gemmell (2003)

In the wake of the ‘Fifty Shades’ fever that gave us all permission to enjoy erotic fiction and talk about it afterwards, The Bride Stripped Bare was presented as being ‘perfect for fans of Fifty Shades’ and used a similar styling (along with countless others) – which is a bit of a shame. Originally it was published anonymously, which added to the intrigue, but what sets it apart is that this book is beautifully written. It’s the story of a misfit couple on honeymoon in Marrakech, and the way the relationship unravels afterwards. Told almost directly from the consciousness of the woman, it’s deep and lyrical and searingly beautiful. I’ve never found a writer who is able to speak that truth in quite such a powerful way. This is the sort of writing that I absolutely aspire to.

2010s: All The Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr (2014)

This is the decade in which I was published, and it’s so tempting to choose any one of the brilliant books I’ve read by authors that I now think of as friends, but to do so would be to leave out so many others. It’s a hard choice to make! So I’m going with a book I only read recently, late to the party as always – the tale of Marie-Laure and Werner, teenagers on opposite sides of global conflict, but with so much in common. When they eventually meet – all too briefly – it feels like a pivotal moment for the whole world.

Thank you to Gordon for letting me join in the Decades challenge! And thank YOU for reading. I hope I’ve given you some inspiration for choosing your next book….

DECADES WILL RETURN

Category: Decades, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

August 20

Decades: Compiling The Ultimate Library with Steven Kedie

My favourite part of the week is when I get to put together the new Decades post. It is my hope that someone will read the selections my guest has made and will discover a new book which they too will fall in love with.

If you have not encountered Decades before today then let me quickly bring you up to speed. Each week I invite a guest to join me and I ask them which five books they want to see added to my Decades Library. I started with zero books back in January and now we have had 150 recommendations – each of which can be seen here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/GrabThisBookDecades

Choosing any five books just seemed a bit too easy so I added an extra rule which all my guests need to give a little more thought to – you can only select one book per decade over five consecutive decades. This week we have the 1970s to 2010’s and a great mix of titles too.

My guest this week is no stranger to the fun which accompanies reaching out to new guests and assembling a weekly blog post. However, Steven Kedie is very much a fan of music and the Eight Albums website sees his guests chatting through their eight favourite albums. It is one of my favourite weekly reads and I have discovered some great music through following recommendations I found there.

Time to hand over to Steven to introduce his selections:

Steven Kedie is a writer and co-founder of music website www.eightalbums.co.uk, who lives in Manchester with his wife and two children. He spends far too much time running, writing, talking about albums and trying to complete television. All of which get in the way of his football watching habit.

His debut novel, Suburb, due to be re-released this year, tells the story of Tom Fray, a young man at a crossroads in his life – not a kid anymore, not quite an adult yet – who returns home from university to find no-one has changed but him. When he starts an affair with a neighbour, his simple plan to leave home and travel becomes a lot more complicated.

Steven will release a second novel this autumn. Running and Jumping tells the story of British Olympian Adam Lowe and his rivalry with American athlete Chris Madison. The novel deals with the question: What if you had your greatest ever day and still didn’t win?
Details of his writing can be found at www.stevenkedie.com

DECADES

I’m a man of simple pleasures. I like books, music, films and sport. So, when I started thinking about my Decades library choices, I thought I should try and incorporate those things into my selections.
I’ve come up with the below.

All The Presidents Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein — 1974

The story of Watergate, told by the men who wrote the stories of Watergate in the Washington Post. The book is more than the source material of the fantastic film that followed. Watergate defined America. And this book – inside account of what it was like to break the biggest political scandal in American history – captures that moment brilliantly.

Knots and Crosses, Ian Rankin— 1987

Ian Rankin’s Rebus series has been part of almost my entire reading life. I can remember the first time I picked up a copy of a Rebus novel, Strip Jack (fourth in the series), at a friend’s house. His mum was reading it. I read the first chapter and was hooked. I had to force myself not to read on because I’m someone who has to start a series at the beginning.

My girlfriend (now wife) was working at the Trafford Centre, so that night, I went early to pick her up so I could go to the bookshop and buy the first Rebus book. I bought the first three. I clearly remember being sat in the car reading Knots and Crosses and instantly knowing I was a fan. As I type these words, eighteen or so years later, the book I’m currently reading is A Song for the Dark Times, the latest in the series.

I run a music website called eightalbums.co.uk (along with a friend, Matt) where we ask people to write about eight albums that are important to them and why. Early on in the site’s life, I approached Ian Rankin, thinking, given his well-documented love of music (a thread that runs through the Rebus novels), he would enjoy the site as a reader. He actually offered to take part and submitted his own Eight Albums entry. The day his entry went out was absolutely fantastic for me personally, with one of my heroes taking part in something I’d created. It also opened up the site to a whole new audience of people. I’ll forever be grateful to Ian for that.

Anyway, back to the book. I’ve chosen Knots and Crosses because it’s the first in the series. And you should always start with the first one.

Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger — 1990

I love books by people who are embedded within a team. There are some fantastic examples over the years: John Feinstein’s A Season on the Brink and the wonderful The Miracle of St Anthony’s by Adrian Wojnarowski, about basketball coach Bob Hurley and his life-transforming high school team.

Sport can often be a vehicle to tell us about the people involved or the society in which they exist. Friday Night Lights is the best example of this concept. Bissinger, a journalist from Philadelphia, wanted to explore the idea of a high school sports team keeping a town together. When he decided to move to a town and experience life through a team, (to quote the opening page): “… all roads led to West Texas, to a town called Odessa.” The town’s high school American Football team, the Permian Panthers, played in front of 20,000 fans on a Friday night.

Through this lens, Bissinger tells the story of a town whose best years seem behind it, of race and class, of what happens when society makes heroes and celebrities of kids (most players are 17), and what the fall out of that is when they stop playing.

The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock, John Harris — 2003

A book from the noughties that is very much the story of the nineties.

I turned 8 thirteen days into 1990 and 18 thirteen days after the decade ended. The ‘90s defines who I am as a person. When it comes to the music I love, no era has influenced me more. Britpop has soundtracked much of my life.

Harris’ book covers a period from ‘94 to ‘98 and looks at Britpop and the rise of Tony Blair and the Labour Party as they went on to win the 1997 General Election. Although the book talks about what a great period it was, it isn’t always a love-in of the era. It doesn’t always look back on it as fondly as my hazy memory does. But it’s a book that documents the merging of music and politics, the change in the country, the excitement and feelings of hope at that time. Definitely (Maybe) one that should be in the Decades library.

The Force, Don Winslow — 2017

This decade’s choice took a lot of consideration. Eight Albums and my own writing has allowed me into a world of creative people I didn’t ever think possible at the start of the 2010. I’ve got friends who have written fantastic books and I probably should’ve done them solid and picked one and talked about how great they are. But the truth is when I think about my last ten years of reading, there’s only one name I kept coming back to: Don Winslow.

I once joked when I grow up, I want to be Don Winslow. I wasn’t really joking. The man writes powerful, thought provoking, entertaining crime books. His Cartel trilogy is an important work that tells the story of the US’s failed War on Drugs. His Boone Daniels series is one of the most entertaining private detective series I’ve read. I could go on. But don’t worry, I won’t.

I’ve chosen 2017’s The Force because it’s a standalone novel. It tells the story of Denny Malone, a star New York detective, and his crew of men who police the streets of New York with their own rules and style. Denny’s story is one of corruption: his own and that of the city he works. It’s a superb piece of crime fiction. Don Winslow is a unique and interesting voice and if someone came to the Decades library looking for a new crime writer to read, The Force would be a fantastic introduction to Winslow and what he’s all about.

I think this week Steven has captured exactly what I love about Decades. There is a “how was this one not mentioned before now?” an “I’ve never heard of that one (but it sounds like something I would love)” and even an “ah yes – that’s a belter, I am glad it was picked.” Terrific choices.

Eight Albums is one of my favourite reads each week. Just looking at the recent guests I spot Tony Kent, Morgan Cry and Simon Bewick – it is my hope I can also persuade all three to take on Decades one day too!

DECADES WILL RETURN

Category: Decades, From The Bookshelf, Guests | Comments Off

August 8

Holiday Reads: No Time To Cry and The Long Drop

The pouring rain outside and the fact it is my birthday week mean that Summer is over. I have been able to get a few relaxing days away from the day job and this quiet time has allowed me opportunity to blitz my TBR backlog. So I now have a few reviews to write and I am keen to do some catching up – double review time again.

No Time To Cry – James Oswald

Undercover ops are always dangerous, but DC Constance Fairchild never expected things to go this wrong.

Returning to their base of operations, an anonymous office in a shabby neighbourhood, she finds the bloodied body of her boss, and friend, DI Pete Copperthwaite. He’s been executed – a single shot to the head.

In the aftermath, it seems someone in the Met is determined to make sure that blame for the wrecked operation falls squarely on Con’s shoulders. She is cut loose and cast out, angry and alone with her grief… right until the moment someone also tries to put a bullet through her head.

There’s no place to hide, and no time to cry.

First published back in July 2018, No Time To Cry was the first in a new series from James Oswald. Book 2 (Nothing to Hide) has been released and I understand the third book will be released before the end of this year. Which means I have a couple of months to read Nothing to Hide so I can roll straight into the third book – I absolutely loved No Time To Cry and I know know I don’t want to miss out on the Constance Fairchild novels.

Constance (Con) Fairchild finds her boss Pete Copperthawite murdered in the rooms the police had been using to run an undercover operation. As the most recent visitor to the rooms her colleagues question whether Constance was sufficiently careful to ensure she had not been followed thus blowing Pete’s cover. Pressure mounts on Con and to ensure her safety she takes herself away from work and heads back to her childhoom home.

Not that Con has missed home, she has had a complicated upbringing and her career choice is not one her family could understand. However, a childhood friend has asked Con to help find her younger sister who seems to have disappeared and hasn’t been in contact with her family. As Con digs deeper into the missing girl’s background she uncovers troubling evidence to suggest there is very good reason behind her absence. But this is not information which powerful people will allow to come to light and Con finds herself in even more danger than before.

Fans of James Oswald know he writes a great thriller and No Time To Cry is no exception. I flew through this one in a couple of days and had a huge grin on my face when a cameo appearance from a character in the Inspector McLean books suddenly popped up in Constance’s world.

Annoyed at myself for not reading this book sooner – terrific fun, I need more Constance Fairchild on my shelves.

The Long Drop – Denise Mina

Glasgow, 1957. It is a December night and William Watt is desperate. His family has been murdered and he needs to find out who killed them.

He arrives at a bar to meet Peter Manuel, who claims he can get hold of the gun that was used. But Watt soon realises that this infamous criminal will not give up information easily.

Inspired by true events, The Long Drop follows Watt and Manuel along back streets and into smoky pubs, and on to the courtroom where the murder trial takes place. Can Manuel really be trusted to tell the truth? And how far will Watt go to get what he wants?

This is utterly compelling reading. The Long Drop takes the real events which surround the Peter Manuel case and Denise Mina weaves her story around it to recount a dark period from Glasgow’s past.

In the late 1950’s Glasgow was a dark and dangerous place, Denise Mina depicts the life of the city, the atmosphere and its citizens astonishingly well – you feel yourself drawn into the book and the world around you fades away as masterly storytelling builds a new environment around you.

Peter Manuel is known as one of the most notorious serial killers. He hanged for his crimes but it seems there was always the belief he committed more murders than he faced trial for. In this book we see Manuel up close, the story addresses what he may have been like to those around him and the lengths he would go to to convince the world of his innocence. We also get focus on William Watt, his family have been murdered and he will do anything to find who was responsible.

It is a story of an obsession for the truth. The writing is so tight, not a word seems wasted as this short but powerful story drills down into the men at the heart of a dark, dark incident. Not a crime thriller which you would read for “fun” and the subject matter dictates this is a disturbing tale too. But it is a fascinating read and one I couldn’t stop reading once I had started it.

Category: From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

August 7

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Karen Sullivan

The Decades Library is growing beyond anything I could have imagined. I started this project back in January when it was dark outside and the rain was lashing against my windows. Now here we are in August, it is still dark outside and the rain is still lashing against my windows (I live in Scotland) but every week since February a new guest curator has joined me to add new books to my Library.

The five books which follow will bring the number of Decades book recommendations made by authors, bloggers, publishers and journalists to 130 – there have been fewer than five titles nominated by more than one person. As readers we are blessed for choice.

What is the Decades Library? My guests are all given the same challenge. Nominate five books to my Decades Library which they consider to be essential reading. But they can only pick one book per decade over five consecutive decades. Easy? Have a go and see if you can pick five of your favourite books from a fifty year publication span.

A further reminder that the Library is now also a Decades Bookshop over at Bookshop.org. You can buy any of the nominated titles through this link (which is an affiliate site): https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/grab-this-book-the-decades-library

This week’s guest needs no introduction (which is lucky as I forgot to ask her to write one). If I say Orenda Books you will surely know the force of nature that is Karen Sullivan.

Karen founded Orenda Books in 2014 and the first books were published in 2015. In 2016, Karen was a Bookseller Rising Star, and Orenda Books was shortlisted for the IPG Nick Robinson Newcomer Award in 2015 and 2016. Orenda won the CWA Crime & Mystery Publisher of the Year Dagger in 2020 and were a regional finalist for the Small Press of the Year Award in the British Book Awards in 2021.

DECADES

Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908)

The ultimate coming-of-age novel, classic children’s literature that appeals to readers of all ages. Anne Shirley is an unforgettable character – tragic, unwittingly feminist, eternally optimistic, accident-prone, proud, intelligent, funny – and the snapshot of (my native) rural Canada at the turn of the century is immensely evocative. My own personal manta is drawn from this book: ‘Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?’

The Rainbow, D H Lawerence (1915)

D H Lawrence won my teenaged heart while I was at university, appearing to encapsulate what I perceived to be the human condition and all its existential angst in every book. This is a book about love in many forms, about relationships, about desire, and the fact that it was banned when it was published indicates its forward thinking. It also gives us an invaluable insight into life in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton (1920)

My high-school English teacher described this book as ‘ravishing’, and the story and its themes have stayed in my mind ever since. It’s about desire and deception, about rebelling against society and the decimation of innocence – a metaphor for the growing disillusionment about the ‘American Dream’. Its sophistication is breathtaking.

Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder (1932)

Another children’s book, and one that lays bare the struggles of American settlers, with bold, inspirational themes of survival, the importance of family, and the power of hope. It’s a classic for good reason, and although there are often shocking and dated attitudes towards Native Americans, it does serve a purpose in enlightening us to cultural beliefs and mores at that time, fed largely by ignorance and fear, and is upon reflection a lot more positive than it might seem. Few can fail to be inspired by this book.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith (1943)

A beautifully written coming-of-age story about a young immigrant girl in early 20^th-century Brooklyn, it embodies the bright, often blind hope of the American Dream, and highlights a period of vast social change. Its inspirational messages – that anything is possible if you persevere, believe – provided comfort to and renewed determination for the American people during the war.

It’s been an absolute delight to have Karen take part in my Decades challenge. When I was struggling to get Grab This Book established Karen was hugely supportive and entrusted me with early review copies of the first Orenda books which were making their way into the world. Watching Orenda Books grow has been a joy and Karen’s support and encouragement still keeps me going.

DECADES WILL RETURN

Category: Decades, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

August 4

The Night She Disappeared (audiobook) – Lisa Jewell

2017: 19 year old Tallulah is going out on a date, leaving her baby with her mother, Kim.

Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits.

The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah’s friends who tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a party at a house in the nearby woods called Dark Place.

She never returns.

2019: Sophie is walking in the woods near the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started work as a head-teacher when she sees a note fixed to a tree.

‘DIG HERE’ . . .

A cold case, an abandoned mansion, family trauma and dark secrets lie at the heart of Lisa Jewell’s remarkable new novel.

I recieved a review copy of The Night She Disappeared from Penguin Random House. I’d like to thank Georgie Fenn for the opportunity to listen to this brilliant new audiobook.

Regular visitors will know I love getting lost in a new audiobook. Sometimes however, the day job can get a bit chaotic and I need to give full focus to that and an audiobook takes longer than expected to complete.

Not being able to listen to The Night She Disappeared as frequently as I wanted has been extremely frustrating. I was delighted this week’s holiday gave me the chance to finally spend some quality time with this cracking audiobook production.

In 2017 Kim’s daughter Tallulah left her infant son with Kim in order to go out for an evening with her boyfriend and her college friends. The pair did not return home that evening and in the morning Kim is becoming increasingly worried.

A jump ahead to 2019 sees crime writer Sophie moving to the same village as Kim and Tallulah lived. She realises that she recognises Kim and recalls the story of her missing daughter, there are still appeals for help in finding Tallulah. Her curiosity is raised and even more so while exploring the area she finds an abandoned house and a sign suggesting someone should “Dig Here”.

That drew me in. Dual timeline stories are a bit of a favourite of mine at the moment. In the right hands an author can tease out reveals, drop red herring and keep vital information back from the reader (listener in my case). This means my perception of different characters will swing wildly from supportive to distrusting and will almost certainly ensure I have no clue where the journey will take us. Lisa Jewell is clearly an author that revels in this position of power – she had me second guessing everything!

Getting to know Tallulah in when she was the focus of the narrative POV was a bittersweet experience as we know she disappeared after a night out. Is she AWOL? Dead? Hiding from her mother and son?

Her relationship with her boyfriend (who is also father to her son) is “complicated” and he is also missing. Is he a victim too or does the fact he has a bit of a temper mean we need to treat him with suspicion? What about Scarlet? She is at Tallulah’s college and the pair have little in common yet seem to be bonding – at Scarlet’s decision.

So many questions. And through Sophie in 2019 we feel we may be seeing some of our questions answered. Or not. More secrets and mystery will follow here and Lisa Jewell is toying with us as readers.

It’s a story which does give a satisfying resolution. Having being wrong with many of my predicted outcomes I felt I was given a fair reward for the investment in the story.

All audiobook reviews need to include reference to the narrator too. A good book is too frequently let down by a listeners niggle with the voice they choose to listen to for over ten hours.

The good news here is that Joanne Froggatt delivers The Night She Disappeared brilliantly. I knew she had nailed it when early in proceedings Kim visits some of Scarlet’s friends and Joanne Froggatt nailed their disinterested vague attitudes. Oh I was raging at them!

My first time listening (or reading) Lisa Jewell. The Night She Disappeared ensures I will be back for more.

The Night She Disappeared is available in Hardback, Digital and Audiobook format.

Category: From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

July 30

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Nick Triplow

So soon we are back! I have the honour of welcoming a new guest to Grab This Book today. Another booklover who has five wonderful books to add to the shelves of my Decades Library. Five books which Nick Triplow feels no self-respecting book collection should be without.

Before I allow Nick to introduce himself and share his five chosen books I will quickly recap the Decades challenge. In assembling the Decades Library I ask each guest to nominate ANY five books they would like to see added to the collection. However, there may only be one book per decade over any five consecutive decades. So it’s five books from a 50 year publication span. I want the Library to give readers the best reading choices.

I would also like to remind you that all the books which feature in my Decades collection can be purchased through the Grab This Book Decades page at bookshop.org : https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/grab-this-book-the-decades-library This is an affiliate site and 10% of the cover price will go towards supporting Indy Bookshops. I also get a small cut. You can visit the site to see all the books which have been nominated by my guests. If you see a book which takes your fancy you can see the guest responsible for nominating that book (I have added this info) and return here to read their original post. The search function in the top left of this page is your friend.

This week brings news that Nick Triplow will be writing a forward to two Ted Lewis novels which will be returned to print by No Exit Press. E-books are out next month for Jack Carter’s Law and Billy Rags, paperbacks following in Spring 2022. I am thrilled that Nick is joining me today so it’s time I shuffled off and handed him the microphone…

DECADES

I’m Nick Triplow, author of the biography of noir fiction pioneer, Ted Lewis, Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir; the South London crime noir novel, Frank’s Wild Years; and the social history books Family Ties, The Women They Left Behind, Distant Water, and Pattie Slappers; well as short stories, including Face Value, a winner of the Northern Crime Short Story competition.

Along with Nick Quantrill and Nikki East, I’m a founder/director of Hull Noir Crime Fiction Festival and co-host of Hull Noir’s Three Book Friday (Hull Noir YouTube channel). I’m a graduate of Middlesex University’s English, Writing & Publishing degree and the MA Writing course at Sheffield Hallam.

Originally from South East London, I moved to Barton upon Humber (still south of the river) in 2001.

PHILIP LARKIN – THE WHITSUN WEDDINGS 1964

Larkin had arrived in Hull in 1955. Interviewed some years later, he said, ‘I never thought about Hull until I was here. Having got here, it suits me in many ways. It is a little on the edge of things.’ Exactly that. The poems are about the reality of Larkin’s life and reflections on the society that surrounds hi. They have a sense of Saturday teatime melancholy: a recognition of how time and tide diminishes each of us and of the details that matter fleetingly along the way.

Many of the poems in The Whitsun Weddings have an anecdotal, conversational tone. The language is colloquial, the poems entirely accessible. To capture a sense of the place and how perfectly Larkin walks us into the lives of people mostly like us, I can recommend watching Dave Lee’s short film of Here, read by Tom Courtenay:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZEgh5vhPVk]

JOHN LE CARRE – TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY 1974

In John Le Carré’s classic cold war novel, the spymaster George Smiley has a classic ‘tell’. In moments of reflection, the man charged with hunting for the Soviet agent buried deep inside the British secret intelligence service, cleans his glasses with ‘the fat end of his tie’, a character trait, from which we infer that somehow, beneath the multiple layers of his intellect, Smiley has access to a deeper tier of perception than those around him.

I’m on my third copy, the other two having fallen apart on the road somewhere. It has been, by turns, a companion novel on suburban commutes, through sleepless nights in box rooms in shared flats, in London parks on summer afternoons. You get the picture: it’s a book for life.

TED LEWIS – GBH 1980

As Ted Lewis’s biographer, I should register an interest.

The critical reappraisal that followed the No Exit Press reissue of GBH last year rightly regarded it as an overlooked noir classic. A brief biographical note: by 1979, Lewis was unwell, coping with diabetes and the effects of alcoholism. Taking himself to the places GBH inhabits demanded commitment to the depths of his own imagination and experience. This is the book about which Derek Raymond, himself no stranger to dark themes in his writing, wrote, was ‘a novel as direct as it is stunning … which never relaxes its grip for a paragraph … an example of how dangerous writing can really be when it is done properly.’

PAT BARKER – REGENERATION 1991

A quite extraordinary piece of historical fiction that says as much to us now about the insanity of mental health and its treatment and it does the course and causes of the trauma among First World War combatants, and the humanity of the doctors, namely W.H. Rivers, who pioneered approaches that regard patients as individuals, rather than the sum of their symptoms.

It’s a superbly written story whose historical detail blends seamlessly into the narrative texture. It’s immediate, alarming, thought provoking and thoroughly entertaining. It’s also a go-to for me as a writer. If I’m stuck, I’ll take Regeneration down from the shelf and ask: how does Pat do it?

CATHI UNSWORTH – BAD PENNY BLUES 2009

Republished by Strange Attractor Press earlier this year with a striking mod-noir cover design and an introduction by author, music journalist and cultural critic, Greil Marcus, Bad Penny Blues is a fictionalised account of the case of a killer (or killers) who, between June 1959 and February 1965, murdered eight women and left their bodies in or along the Thames in West London.

Seen through the eyes of Stella Reade, a young art student and designer haunted by visions of the murdered women and Pete Bradley, an aid to the CID at Notting Hill Police Station transferred to the notorious West End Central, Cathi Unsworth shows what the crime novel, particularly one so committed to the truth, is capable of. It’s complex and coercive, a classic London noir.

My thanks to Nick for these five brilliant recommendations. Regeneration released when I was a young bookseller working my way through university holidays. I remember selling dozens of copies and every single time I rang a sale of Regeneration through the till I was reminded of my colleagues mocking me as when I first heard about it as I thought it was a new book about Doctor Who. I was very much a young geek in training – happy days.

DECADES WILL RETURN

Category: Decades, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

July 25

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Marina Sofia

My favourite part of the week is when I get to share another Decades post. Over the past few weeks I have received more selections which I shall share with you soon and will ensure Decades continues well into August. I still have a long wishlist of guests I would love to join me in the future.

The only downside to having a pipeline of new guest posts is that I know which books are coming up each week. So imagine my surprise and delight when Decades left the building and a selection of five titles appeared on Marina Sophia’s blog over at Finding Time To Write. I offered Marina the opportunity to make her selections official and join me as a guest to curate her titles into the Library. But I also offered the opportunity to make five different selections. So this week you can scroll down for the five “official” Library additions but also use the links provided to see the initial five too – it’s a double win for sharing the booklove.

If the Decades Library is new to you then let me quickly explain what happens. I am populating the Ultimate Library starting from zero books and inviting booklovers to join me each week to add new books to the Library. Each guest has just two rules to follow when making their selections:

1 – Select ANY five books
2 – You can only select one book per decade from any five consecutive decades.

Easy – five books published over a fifty year span.

Time for me to step back and allow Marina Sophia to introduce herself and to share her five choices.

DECADES

Five Books in Five Decades: 1920-1960

Translated Fiction

I should confess that I am a thief! I enjoyed the concept of Decades so much that I ‘borrowed’ it for my own blog, using the five most recent decades. In an attempt to halt any further poaching, Gordon kindly invited me to participate in the proper version of it. I couldn’t resist, since it gives me the chance to add to the favourites I missed last time round.

I started using the pseudonym Marina Sofia for all of my literary endeavours because I was working in a very competitive and strait-laced corporate environment at the time, but now I’ve become so fond of the name that it even features on the novels that I translate. I write mainly poetry and crime fiction, although I have yet to publish a full-length volume of either. For many years I was an avid reviewer for Crime Fiction Lover before embarking on a third (fourth? fifth?) career as publisher of translated crime fiction with a social edge at Corylus Books. So it might surprise you that I did not pick crime fiction for each decade, although I did focus entirely on translated literature. I also chose five earlier decades than I featured on my blog, since these decades are among my favourites in world literature.

1920s

The Threepenny Opera – Bertolt Brecht

The First World War and its aftermath featured quite heavily in the literature of the Roaring Twenties, so I was going to suggest The Forest of the Hanged by Liviu Rebreanu (1922), one of the most poignant descriptions of having to fight against your countrymen when you are part of a declining Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, the English translation is obsolete and out of print, so I cannot recommend it with a clear conscience. Instead, I will suggest a far-better known piece of work. Bertolt Brecht’s Dreigroschenoper (1928) is a translation and modernisation of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, so is supposedly set in London, but it describes the folly, hedonism and poverty of Berlin during the Weimar Republic superlatively well – and in fact, any society undergoing profound social transformation, as I discovered with Eastern Europe in the early 1990s. Better still, go and see this performed if you can, because the Kurt Weill music is fantastic!

1930s

Vol de Nuit – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

It might surprise you to know that under duress I might have to confess that my favourite book in the whole wide world is The Little Prince, which always makes me cry no matter how many times I reread it. However, that was published in the 1940s, so instead I’ve picked another book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: Vol de Nuit (Night Flight) (1931). With its themes of loyalty, courage and sacrificing individual lives for a greater cause, it was a timely novel which hit all the right nerves and become a great bestseller, was turned into a film and Guerlain even had a perfume created in its honour, with an iconic inverted heart bottle.

1940s

A Shameful Life – Dazai Osamu

Another decade, another war to ponder over and few do it better than Japanese writer Dazai Osamu. His two major novels, which are still hugely successful and influential in Japan, were both published immediately after the war and are tales of defeat and despair. Setting Sun (1947) is not just the portrait of a family, but also describes the directionless anomie of post-war Japan, while No Longer Human (1948) is far more personal – in fact, the author committed suicide shortly after completing it. There is flicker of hope in the former novel, while the latter is relentless in its gloom. Nevertheless, I would recommend the latter, not least because it’s out in an exhilarating fresh translation by Mark Gibeau under the title A Shameful Life.

1950s:

The Waiting Years – Enchi Fumiko

After so many men, it’s finally time to bring in a woman author, and I’ll stick to Japan. Enchi Fumiko’s The Waiting Years (1957) is a subtle study of unequal marriages and the challenges of ageing for women. Although Japanese society still discriminates against women, this book shows us how much worse it used to be a few decades earlier. The devoted wife of a government official has to not only resign herself to him taking on a second wife or concubine but also has to actively select the suitable bride herself. This novel tells the story of how they accommodate themselves to each other over time, in a restrained, beautiful style, sad, without soap-opera melodramas.

1960s:

The Sculptor’s Daughter – Tove Jansson

I had to fit in one of my favourite authors somehow, even though she wasn’t quite as productive in the 1960s as one might have expected. Tove Jansson’s Moomin days were largely behind her (published in the 1940s and 50s), while her novels for adults started coming out in the 1970s. However, she did publish a collection of semi-autobiographical short stories in 1968 entitled The Sculptor’s Daughter, which give a fascinating insight into her life as the daughter of two extremely creative parents. Needless to say, Tove is a painter both with her brushes and with her words: nobody can capture the beauty and loneliness of snowfall quite like her!

You can find me on my somewhat optimistically named blog Finding Time to Write or far too frequently on Twitter as @MarinaSofia8 and do please follow us also at @CorylusB.

My thanks to Marina for sharing her selections and be sure to check out her original post too. Although these five are the titles which will officially enter the Library, the selections are part of the fun too and there can never be too much booklove!

Something new now. I have set up a Decades Library over at Bookshop.org . Over the next few days I will add all the previous Decades selections to a Grab This Book Decades store. This will allow everyone to see all the selections which have been made since I began this challenge back in January. Sophia’s selections are already uploaded.

Grab This Book Decades allows you opportunity to purchase any of the books which have been added to the Decades Library. I also list each person that nominated the books so you can return here if you want to learn more about why any title was nominated. It is an affiliate account and this means that 10% of the cover price of the book goes to support indy bookshops, if you buy through my Decades Library shop I also get paid a percentage. I am not going to retire on any sum I may receive from this but any way to support independent booksellers is a bonus as far as I am concerned. The Decades Library is here: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/grab-this-book-the-decades-library

DECADES WILL RETURN

Category: Decades, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

July 17

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Derek Farrell

It is a thrill to welcome Derek Farrell back to Grab This Book, particularly as I can welcome Derek in his latest publication week. The new Danny Bird novel, Death at Dukes Halt, released yesterday and the book with accompanying (very cool) merch is available from the Fahrenheit Press website.

Full introduction and purchase links in a second, first a quick introduction to the challenge I set Mr Farrell.

This is Decades. I am inviting book lovers to join me and asking them to help me assemble the best library of books. I began this quest back in January and I had no books on my library shelves. Each week I invite a guest to join me and they are asked to select five of their favourite books to be added to my Ulitmate Library.

Now picking five books is a little too easy so I add a second rule which governs the choices each guest makes. They can only select one book per decade over five consecutive decades. I am told this leads to some angst.

So it is time to hand you over to Derek to introduce his selections. One of my all-time favourite reads is in the mix today, can you guess which?

Derek Farrell is the author of the Danny Bird mysteries ‘Death of a Diva’ ‘Death of a Nobody,’ ‘Death of a Devil,’ ‘Death of an Angel,’ and ‘Death at Dukes Halt,’ as well as the novellas ‘Death of a Sinner,’ and ‘What goes around.’

Derek is married and lives with his husband in West Sussex. They have no cats dogs goats or children, though they do have every Kylie Minogue record ever recorded. Twice.

He can be reached on twitter @derekifarrell or via his website www.derekfarrell.co.uk

His books can be purchased directly from the publisher here https://fahrenheit-press.myshopify.com/search?type=product&q=derek+farrell

Or from Amazon here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Derek-Farrell/e/B06XJ9C6XB?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1603393406&sr=8-1

DECADES

Thanks so much for having me on this feature. I’m honoured to have my submissions joining those of so many amazing contributors before me.

I have always loved libraries and in fact my first book ‘Death of a Diva’ was dedicated to my dad, who took me to the library and gave me a universe to play in. Public Libraries are what made it possible for a kid like me to read any- and everything I wanted, to find the stuff I loved, and to dream of being a writer.

But it was my dad who showed me that reading is a joyful activity, and should always be joyful. “Read the classics, if you want to,” he told me once. “Or don’t, if you don’t want to. The key thing is to love what you read.”

My choices are below, and I hope they inspire some of your readers to find some new loves.

60s – The Jewel in the Skull by Michael Moorcock (1967)

What’s it about: In a post-nuclear holocaust future, where science and sorcery co-exist. the Dark Empire of Granbretan  is expanding across Europe. Baron Meliadus, an emissary of the empire, is sent to the castle of Count Brass to try to persuade him to side with the empire against the other European courts. While in the castle, he begins to court the Count’s daughter, Yisselda, but she refuses to elope with him. Meliadus attempts to kidnap her, but is defeated by Count Brass and swears an oath on the legendary Runestaff to gain power over Count Brass, gain Yisselda and destroy their lands.

In order to achieve these ends, he sends a newly-captured Rebel – Duke Dorian Hawkmoon Von Koln – to the castle, and to ensure Hawkmoon does not betray him, he uses dark sorcery to embed a black jewel in the middle of Hawkmoon’s skull, the jewel acting as a camera that will transmit everything Hawkmoon sees and hears back to Meliadus…

Why it should be in the Library: I discovered these books in the early 80s, having never been much of a sci-fi or fantasy fan. I’m still not a huge reader of those genres, but I spent a summer reading this seies (“The High History of the Runestaff”). The stories, the characters and the feeling of just HAVING to know what happens next, has never left me. This book taught me that regardless of genre, a great story is a great story, and these are great great stories.

70s – Curtain by Agatha Christie (1975 – or was it?)

What’s it about? The novel features Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings in their final appearances in Christie’s works. It is a country house novel, with all the characters and the murder set in one house. Not only does the novel return the characters to the setting of her first, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, but it reunites Poirot and Hastings, who last appeared together in Dumb Witness in 1937 as they hunt for a serial killer who has already gotten away with murder five times. But this time, Porot is determined that justice will be served.

Christie actually wrote this book in the middle of the Blitz as bombs rained down around her. A sign of how deeply a writer can become enmeshed with their characters is that instead of worrying about her own safety, she began to worry about what would happen to Poirot if she were to be killed in a bombing.

So she wrote the final Poirot novel, which was delivered with instructions that it was to be published only after she had died. The manuscript was then then kept in a safe (with a copy in a similar safe at her New York publishers) for over thirty years.

Why Should it be in the Library? Because whatever your feelings about Christie’s work, her impact on the crime genre is unarguable, and Curtain is a wonderful mystery novel, the clues woven seamlessly through an admittedly somewhat contrived scenario. Poirot has always been an old man, but here he’s close to decrepit, wheelchair-bound at times, and raging at the cruelty of time that can decay a body but leave his little grey cells as vital as they ever were. Plus, the ending <no spoilers> is a genuine GASP moment that stays with anyone who knows Poirot long after the book.

80s – Blue Heaven by Joe Keenan (1988)

What’s it about? Philip Cavanaugh is surprised to hear that his best friend Gilbert is engaged to be married to Moira. There are two reasons for his surprise: Gilbert loathes Moira with every fibre of his being. But more importantly, Gilbert is flamingly gay.

Gilbert finally confides in Phillip that the entire marriage is a sham designed to maximise the cash gifts from the family of his new Italian-American stepfather, and by the time the trio realise that said family are the Mafia, and that their little attempted fraud may well end up with the three of them wearing concrete overcoats and taking a dip in the East River, they are in too deep to walk away.

Joe Keenan wrote three novels featuring Gilbert and Phillip as well as a rather sweet Broadway musical before becoming a writer and Executive Producer for Fraser and working on Desperate Housewives and Glee.

Why Should it be in the Library? Because it’s quite simply one of the funniest and best plotted / paced / written books of all time. I read it they year it was first published and it has never been off my bookshelves since.

90s – The Burglar in the Library (1997)

What’s it about? For Bernie Rhodenbarr, bookseller and compulsive burglar, a weekend at a country bed & breakfast inn takes an unexpected twist when a valuable book is stolen and dead body turns up in the library.

Why Should it be in the Library? In the early 2000s I attended a crime fiction course at City Lit in London. On the first night we each had to declare our favourite crime writer. I, of course, made my case for Agatha Christie. But a woman who would eventually become a dear friend and mentor to me talked about this guy called Lawrence Block – an American who had written dozens of books and won dozens of prizes. Block’s not James Joyce. His career was not built on groundbreaking origination, but on consistently and conscientiously producing excellent work within a genre he clearly loves. This has to necessitate, at times, playing with the tropes of that genre, and here we find Bernie in basically a Golden Age country house mystery. Every character is not only a suspect, but suspicious; everyone has both a motive and an alibi; and circumstances conspire to ensure that the murderer must be one of the people trapped in the inn.

Block is normally recognised for his darker Matt Scudder novels, but I think that the Bernie the Burglar books more openly reflect his sheer joy in the genre. This one’s playful but fiendishly well plotted, and I’m putting this one in to the library because it’s a book that has given me much joy by a writer whose work I admire greatly. And really, if you can’t love the books in your library, what’s the point in having a library?

00s – The Lost Army of Cambyses by Paul Sussman (2002)

What’s it about? 523 BC: the Persian pharaoh Cambyses dispatches an army across Egypt’s western desert to destroy the oracle at Siwa. Legend has it that somewhere in the middle of the Great Dune Sea his army is overwhelmed by a sandstorm and lost forever.

Two and a half millennia later, a mutilated corpse is washed up on the banks of the Nile at Luxor, an antiques dealer is savagely murdered in Cairo, and a British archaeologist is found dead at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara.

The incidents appear unconnected, but Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor police is not so sure.

And so he begins an investigation that will lead him into the forbidding, barren heart of the western desert, and the answer to one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world…

Why Should it be in the Library? Because it’s a brilliant thriller nobody’s ever heard of from a writer who was taken from us tragically early. Paul Sussman was an archaeologist, a journalist and an author whose Middle-Eastern set thrillers mixed high octane page turners with genuine humanity, and confronted the heart-breaking complexities of the region while never losing sight of their primary function: To keep you turning those pages.

He died of a ruptured aneyurism just weeks before his 46th birthday, and days before his final novel “The Labyrinth of Osiris” was published. That book, in particular, is one of the best and most heartbreaking thrillers I’ve ever read.

Sussman’s work is pacy, tight, thrilling, and human. It carries a vast amount of historical research so lightly that the reader doesn’t even know how much they’re learning as they read these hugely enjoyable books. And his tragically early death is a reminder to each and every one of us to strive every day to live the best life possible, and to write the best book we possibly can.

Huge thanks to Derek for adding a great mix of titles to my Library. I know each week someone’s TBR grows thanks to the recommendations of my guests – I hope that you will also add Death at Dukes Halt to your shopping this week.

DECADES WILL RETURN

Category: Decades, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

July 3

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Sara Sheridan

Welcome to the Decades challenge. It didn’t begin life as a challenge but as each week goes by I am becoming increasingly aware of the scale of the task I have started.

In January I asked myself the question “Which books would be added to the Ultimate Library? If I were to build a brand-new Library and start with no books, which titles should I add to the empty shelves to get the very best selection available for the Library visitors?”

I knew this was not something I could undertake alone so I have been inviting authors, bloggers, journalists and publishers to join me and help me decide which books should be added to the Library. Each guest is asked to nominate five of their favourite books to add to my Ultimate Library. But there is a small catch – my guests can only select one book per decade over five consecutive decades.

So while my challenge is to get the best books. My guests have the harder challenge – they have to decide which 50-year span they want to choose from and then work out which book best represents each decade within those 50 years. I am told this is a “frustrating” process.

This week I am delighted to welcome Sara Sheridan to Grab This Book.

Sara Sheridan writes history – both fiction and nonfiction. Her Mirabelle Bevan murder mystery series is set in the 50s and she also writes in the late Georgian/early Victorian period – her latest novel The Fair Botanists is out in August and is an intrigue set in 1820s Edinburgh. She remapped Scotland according to women’s history in Where are the Women. You can find her on twitter @sarasheridan where she posts historical research, writing snippets and ice cream tips. Sara’s own books and reading picks are available on her curated page at: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/sarasheridan

DECADES

4.50 From Paddington by Agatha Christie 1950s I mean there had to be a Miss Marple, right? Long term role model and Queen of Mystery. Right on brand for me and I’m obsessed with the 50s (among other things)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark 1960s I’m so conflicted about Muriel. Gawd. She was unbelievably uncomfortable in her own skin and was super-mean to her son but I love this book, which speaks so much of mid century Edinburgh where I was brought up.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison 1970s and a book which racists keep trying to ban. Morrison’s first novel and so ahead of the game. An absolute must-read.

Water Music by TC Boyle 1980s The single most rambunctious, dirty, tough historical novel I’ve read. I recommend this book to everybody who is interested in British culture. It’s all about where we came from.

The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson 1990s Never mind the Queen, God Save Eva Ibbotson. All her adult fiction is gorgeous, good hearted and full of love. The. Best.

My thanks to Sara for these fabulous selections. Some new reading for me in these selections and but some old favourites too. The best moments for me are when I first read the five choices my new guests have made and I nod and smile my way down the list. Opening with Agatha Christie got the smile in place from the outset.

You can visit the Decades Library and see all the selections which have been made thus far by clicking here: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=5113

DECADES WILL RETURN

Category: Decades, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

June 26

Fragile – Sarah Hilary

Everything she touches breaks . . .

Nell Ballard is a runaway. A former foster child with a dark secret she is desperately trying to keep, all Nell wants is to find a place she can belong.

So when a job comes up at Starling Villas, home to the enigmatic Robin Wilder, she seizes the opportunity with both hands.

But her new lodgings may not be the safe haven that she was hoping for. Her employer lives by a set of rigid rules and she soon sees he is hiding secrets of his own.

But is Nell’s arrival at the Villas really the coincidence it seems? After all, she knows more than most how fragile people can be – and how easily they can be to break . . .

My thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Blog Tours for the opporunity to host this leg of the Fragile Blog Tour. I was very grateful to recieve a review copy through Netgalley.

I always enjoy reading Sarah Hilary, her Marnie Rome books are among the best police thrillers currently being published and she never shields her characters from the worst experiences. Readers can normally expect a comforting security when reading about recurring characters – the danger happens elsewhere, to other people, leaving our favourite cops free to sweep in and catch the killer or lock up the bad guys. Not so with Sarah Hilary’s books, she is one of the few authors where you do feel the gloves are off and every single person she creates can just as easily be destroyed. The gut-punch twists she works so well into her stories are what bring me back every single time.

Knowing that Fragile was a stand alone novel I started reading with one thought uppermost in my mind – anything could happen here!

Nell was a runaway, living on the streets of London with Joe and the pair of them doing what it took to survive. Then one night Joe vanishes leaving Nell alone. She knows where she saw him last and returns to the street to watch for him. She eventually spots Starling Villas – a tiny doorway in a busy street which leads to the house behind. This is where Joe was last seen, going into this house and Nell is going to find out what happened to him in there. Starling Villas is the main hub of activity for the events unfolding but the history Nell and Joe share are equally relevant to the current events so readers will revisit Nell’s past to understand how she comes to find herself knocking on the door of Starling Villas applying for a job she finds out about by chance.

Nell had been brought up in care. From a very young age she cleaned, cooked, scrubbed, mended and did whatever else was required to appease the woman who was acting as her guardian. On learning the mysterious and enigmatic Robin Wilder needed an assistant in Starling Villas Nell makes herself available as a housekeeper. Her responsibilities are meticulously laid out, her every waking moment appears to be planned and her new employer gives away very little, even to the point of virtually ignorning Nell’s existence. She want’s to investigate the house to look for signs of Joe but so carefully plotted are her responsibilites it is hard to see how this could happen.

The pair have a very strange, controlled existence in Starling Villas but that precision is about to be shattered as Wilder’s wife adds an infusion of chaos to the dynamic. Nell hates her from the outset but also knows that this woman is involved with Joe’s disappearance. Things are about to get intense and with Sarah Hilary pulling the strings there is just no telling where we will end up.

Fragile was a fabulous read. For large parts the story felt out of its time. Starling Villas and the seclusion it brought from the outside world, the role of cook and housekeeper for the young girl who also washes, mends and does the shopping for her master. It had an old-world feel but then a mobile telephone is mentioned and you are brought back to the reality of a modern world but with a strange relationship and cirsumstance within this unusual house and its quirky residents.

I fully understand why Fragile is described as modern gothic The writing is beautiful, the depiction of Starling Villas and Nell’s challenging world were vivid and detailed in my imagination. For large parts of the book I had no idea where events may lead but I was fully caught up in the story and I was there for every step of that journey. Highly recommended.

Fragile is published by Macmillan and is available in hardback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08KQGC527/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Category: From The Bookshelf | Comments Off