Book Review – Love Notes For Freddie

June 27, 2015June 27, 2015 ~ fionareads ~ Leave a comment

Love Notes For Freddie by Eva Rice
Published: June 4th 2015 by Heron Books
Genres: Historical Fiction, Romance
Pages: 385
Source: Goodreads

Marnie FitzPatrick is a reclusive sixth-former from Hertfordshire with a dysfunctional family, a penchant for Pythagoras’ Theorem and an addiction to doughnuts and gin. Julie Crewe is a disillusioned maths teacher who lives vicariously through the girls she teaches, yet who once danced barefoot through Central Park with a man called Jo she has never been able to forget.

This is the story of what happened in the summer of 1967, when the sun burned down on the roof of the Shredded Wheat factory, and a boy called Freddie Friday danced to the records he had stolen. This is about first love, and last love, and all the strange stuff in between. This is what happens when three people are bound together by something that can’t be calculated or explained by any equation.

I have read both The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets and The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp and absolutely fell in love with Eva Rice’s writing style. Her books are engaging, eccentric, fantastically vintage and spilling with original characters.

As expected, I adored Love Notes For Freddie. It was an engrossing, rich and heart-warming story about new love, the ghost of love, new dreams, and shattered dreams.

The chapters alternated between Marnie’s and Miss Crewe’s point of views. I loved the parallels between the two characters, and the fact that they both loved Freddie, but for different reasons, added an intriguing dynamic to the story. I was glad that we didn’t get to read Freddie’s point of view, as I feel he was essential only as a catalyst for Marnie’s and Miss Crewe’s personal development. Miss Crewe’s fascination with him particularly was magically progressive for the story, as you got to see into her past and how it shaped her into the person she is now.

Eva Rice has a unique narrative style that is gloriously detailed and almost filmic in its vivid description of emotions, people and places. She has the ability to write about a particular era with originality and authenticity, and she makes every moment of her novels feel entirely real. You fall head over heels in love with the characters she creates and are immediately drawn into the world that they live in.

I loved Marnie just as much as Tara and Penelope, but for different reasons. The author writes with an empathy that enables you to understand the character’s feelings and actions, and fill their shoes entirely, even if you do not agree with their decisions. I love how real the story felt. There are too many novels that end with ridiculously predictable endings, and happy endings for the sake of a happy ending, even if the story has to forsake its natural direction.

Eva Rice is not scared to write a story that does not end exactly the way the reader would like it to. Her stories are unpredictable, and this is an amazing thing. She writes books that you wish you could have written yourself. Love Notes For Freddie, I believe, teaches you to make the most of the present, and to not dwell on the past. The ending was important as it let you know that love, however heart-breaking and life-changing it might feel at the time, can end, and you can live past it; that sometimes, you have to let things go, in order for them to blossom.

I absolutely adored this book, just as much as the previous two novels, if not more. Love Notes For Freddie is fantastically vivid, heart-warming, rich and truthful. I loved every second of it, and the only thing I hated about it was that it ended. I can’t wait to see what Eva Rice will write next, because I know it will surpass all my expectations and be just as loveable and brilliantly written as this novel is.

When I Was Nine…

June 12, 2015May 19, 2020 ~ fionareads ~ Leave a comment

The year was 2001. I was nine years old, a very shy little girl, and a ridiculously big bookworm. These were just a few of my favourite books that I read and reread to my heart’s content.

The Past, The Present, and The Loud, Loud Girl

Meet the Love children: oh-so-perfect Linn, airy-fairy Rowan, animal-obsessed Tor – and Ally, trying to have a normal life somewhere in the middle of it all. Which isn’t easy when you live in a house that’s a cross between an animal hospital and something out of ‘Changing Rooms’. And then there’s school and the small matter of the forgotten history project and the obnoxious new girl that – oh joy! – Ally’s been nominated to look after. It’s going to be a fun couple of weeks…

This is the first in the wildly successful, utterly loveable “Ally’s World” series.

I remember reading the Ally’s World series when I was around nine years old and they were hilarious. A really quick, funny and easy read for young readers! I remember McCombie using a lot of colloquial language which only made it funnier and more realistic. I absolutely loved the whole series, and read it over and over again. It was so relatable and laugh out loud hilarious. Ally’s family are quirky, troubled and eccentric and just suck you in. I would definitely recommend it to any pre-teens that enjoy a good read. The protagonist Ally is an awkward teenager, trying to find where she fits in with her family and the world,and to deal with the ups and downs of growing up. I would love to read it again now to see whether it is as perfect as I remember!

Bad Girls

Shy, mild Mandy has been bullied at school for as long as she can remember. That’s why she is delighted when cheeky, daring, full-of-fun Tanya picks her as a friend.

Mum isn’t happy – she thinks Tanya’s a BAD GIRL and a bad influence on her daughter. But Mandy loves spending time with her brilliant new friend, and is sure Tanya can only get her out of trouble, not into it . . . or could she?

Now I still own my original copy of this book, and it is falling away from the spine it has been read so much. I remember literally just finishing it and starting over again from the beginning, straight away! It was my favourite Jacqueline Wilson book for many, many years. I remember identifying with Mandy hugely, as I was always the shy, timid and sensible one in every situation. I think there are lots of valuable lessons to be learnt from it with regards to growing up, finding yourself, and how to deal with bullies and the feeling of isolation that many young people can face.

Danny Champion of the World

Danny’s life seems perfect: his home is a gypsy caravan, he’s the youngest car mechanic around, and his best friend is his dad, who never runs out of wonderful stories to tell. And when Danny discovers his father’s secret, he’s off on the adventure of a lifetime. Here’s Roald Dahl’s famous story about a 9-year-old boy, his dad, and a daring and hilarious pheasant-snatching expedition. Just as important, it’s the story of the love between a boy and his father who, in Danny’s own words, is “the most marvelous and exciting father a boy ever had.”

This was a family bedtime favourite! My mum used to read this to me and my brothers every single night before bed, and we even had it on a tape that we used to listen to as we were drifting off to sleep. Remembering the story gives me such fond memories. It has a humour and lightness of spirit to it, like Roald Dahl’s other books, but it is also more serious, and has a very nostalgic, homely feel. Danny’s father is a fantastic, fantastic character and when Danny calls him the best father in the world, you agree with him. It is a very heartwarming story that I think any child would love, and it remains my favourite Roald Dahl book to this day.

Heidi

What happens when a little orphan girl is forced to live with her cold and frightening grandfather? The heartwarming answer has engaged children for more than a century, both on the page and on the screen. Johanna Spyri’s beloved story offers youngsters an endearing and intelligent heroine, a cast of unique and memorable characters, and a fascinating portrait of a small Alpine village.

My Nanny gave me a copy of this book at Christmas, 1999. She wrote in the inside cover: ‘I hope you have as many hours of enjoyment from reading Heidi as I did when I was young. I read it at least ten times!’ I then proceeded to read it at least ten times! It is my ultimate favourite childhood book and I seem to love it more and more every time I read it. Even now, as an adult, I can appreciate how lovely it is. It transports me to a world of purple mountains peaks, jumping goats, a bed made of hay, and windows that pile up with snow during the winter. It is so precious. The scenery is vivid, the story full of truth, and Heidi herself is a feisty, strong and independent spirit who I remember completely idolizing as a little girl.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter, along with his best friends, Ron and Hermione, is about to start his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry can’t wait to get back to school after the summer holidays. (Who wouldn’t if they lived with the horrible Dursleys?) But when Harry gets to Hogwarts, the atmosphere is tense. There’s an escaped mass murderer on the loose, and the sinister prison guards of Azkaban have been called in to guard the school…

This is an obvious one. I read Harry Potter from the age of seven, all through my childhood years, and now, as an adult, I continue to read it just as much. I still find new things in it that I missed the first ten times round! Prisoner of Azkaban has always, always been my favourite Potter. In 2001, Goblet of Fire had just been released the previous year, but I still reread this particular book like it was about to disappear. I actually visibly remember reading it whilst walking, maybe through a park or down the street, and my mum telling me off because it was a hazard! I think that tells you how much I adored it. I can quote whole passages off by heart. It was, and remains to be, my favourite out of the whole series, although even now, I couldn’t really tell you why.

As J.K. Rowling said, ‘I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.’

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Book Review – The Hourglass Factory

June 1, 2015June 24, 2015 ~ fionareads ~ Leave a comment

The Hourglass Factory by Lucy Ribchester
Published: January 15th 2015 by Simon & Schuster Ltd
Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Feminism
Pages: 504
Source: Goodreads

The year is 1912 and London is in turmoil…

The suffragette movement is reaching fever pitch but for broke Fleet Street tomboy Frankie George, just getting by in the cut-throat world of newspapers is hard enough. Sent to interview trapeze artist Ebony Diamond, Frankie finds herself fascinated by the tightly laced acrobat and follows her across London to a Mayfair corset shop that hides more than one dark secret.

Then Ebony Diamond mysteriously disappears in the middle of a performance, and Frankie is drawn into a world of tricks, society columnists, corset fetishists, suffragettes and circus freaks. How did Ebony vanish, who was she afraid of, and what goes on behind the doors of the mysterious Hourglass Factory?

From the newsrooms of Fleet Street to the drawing rooms of high society, the missing Ebony Diamond leads Frankie to the trail of a murderous villain with a plot more deadly than anyone could have imagined..

The Hourglass Factory is set in my favourite historical era and I am just slightly obsessed with the Suffragettes. There is a lot of hype surrounding this period in history at the moment, which I imagine is all due to the release of the movie Suffragette, which will be in cinemas this coming October. This is the only reason that I picked up the book to begin with, along with the stunning front cover, which was hard to miss! I read it in two days, and it is definitely one of the better books I have read this year.

You spend the majority of the story travelling around 1912’s London with Frankie, the strong female protagonist, on foot, and this creates plenty of opportunities to visualise the society of the time and how it would have been. Ribchester is successful in creating very realistic imagery that truly leaps out the page, and the reader can almost witness every sight, smell and noise that is presented to Frankie in her travels and tribulations. The period clothing, Frankie’s trouser suit and cigarettes, along with Ebony’s corsets really add an intricate detail to the historical aspect of the story. It made me want to jump into the pages; I love this particular era so much!

I thought that a third person narrative throughout the novel was perfect, and switching from Frankie to DI Primrose kept me engaged and eager to turn the pages, offering me two points of view on the suffragettes and the crimes they were involved in. At times, I was so hooked that I couldn’t put it down, literally! I kept myself up until ridiculous o’clock in the morning to find out how it was all going to pan out.

Frankie is impulsive, impetuous and stubborn. When she’s knocked down she’s not deterred but keeps on fighting. She’s sharp, clever, observatory, smokes cigarettes and wears trousers. But she is also a substantially realistic character as she has unlikeable characteristics and you do not always agree with her decisions. I think Milly, the snake dancer at Jojo’s Bar who develops into a pretty central figure, was definitely my favourite character, and I would have loved to have found out even more about her. I would certainly read a sequel if it was based on her life!

It was the mysterious aspect of the plot that kept me turning the pages. Every step and character was filled with intrigue, from our first meeting with Milly, to Olivier Smythe, the Parisian Corsetiere, to Ebony’s disappearance and beyond. Whilst reading, you get the feeling that the only character you truly know is Frankie. The imagery during the pivotal scene was excellent. It was full of action and excitement, and was perfectly fast-paced. I appreciated the switch between DI Primrose and Frankie’s journeys, and it was interesting to see how the Police apparently reacted to the Suffragettes. I also loved the insight into prison life, with the force-feeding of the male suffragette. Ending the story on the Derby Day that Emily Davison was killed was a perfect way to finish, although it threw me a bit when it was suggested that the three of them hadn’t all kept in touch.

My only problem was that it was, more often than not, historically inaccurate. This was made up for by the interesting storyline, and Ribchester acknowledges her own inaccuracy at the start of the book. However, I definitely feel that it would have been better if she had undertaken more thorough research to make it historically factual. I also found the journalist Frankie slightly too irritating for a protagonist. As much as I loved the story, I didn’t particularly love her.

Overall, the story was richly imagined but wasn’t too heavy, and it remained light-hearted and easy to read although it often dealt with more serious issues. The Hourglass Factory was an exciting, fast-paced, and intriguing read that kept you guessing until the last page. Considering it was a debut novel, it was absolutely fantastic, and I eagerly look forward to what Lucy Ribchester will be writing next.

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May Reads

May 1, 2015May 19, 2020 ~ fionareads ~ Leave a comment

It’s May already – where have the first four months of this year gone?! As usual, I have a huge list of books piled up that are screaming at me to be read from my very overfull bookshelves. I am definitely a compulsive book buyer, and cannot resist a book with a pretty cover. I also have a habit of pre-ordering books from my favourite authors without even reading the blurbs! I have yet to be disappointed, but it’s definitely an expensive pastime. Here is a list of the books I am hoping to read in May. However, It might well extend into June… I very rarely stick to any TBR lists that I set myself, so definitely take this with a pinch of salt!

Love Notes for Freddie

This one isn’t actually due to be released until the beginning of June, but I am so excited to read it that I just had to include it. I have read both The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets and The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp, and absolutely fell in love with Eva Rice’s writing style. Her books are addictive, eccentric, fantastically vintage and spilling with original characters. I am sure her next book will live up to the hype. The story sounds intriguing and I can’t wait to read it!

Small Wars

What happens when everything a man believes in — the army, his country, his marriage — begins to crumble? Hal Treherne is a young British soldier on the brink of a brilliant career. Transferred to Cyprus to defend the colony, Hal takes his wife, Clara, and their daughters with him. But Hal is pulled into atrocities that take him further from Clara, a betrayal that is only one part of a shocking personal crisis to come. Small Wars is a searing, unforgettable novel from a writer at the height of her powers.

So far, I have only read the author’s debut novel, The Outcast, but it was passionate, beautifully written, and harrowing. I absolutely adored it, and have read it several times. I am very excited to read this. I love novels that are set in the Second World War, and this sounds like it will be just as dramatic and hard-hitting as Jones’s debut novel. She seems to have a talent for writing compelling, engrossing narrative that burrows deep under your skin.

The Hourglass Factory

The year is 1912 and London is in turmoil. The suffragette movement is reaching fever pitch but for broke Fleet Street tomboy Frankie George, just getting by in the cut-throat world of newspapers is hard enough. Sent to interview trapeze artist Ebony Diamond, Frankie finds herself fascinated by the tightly laced acrobat and follows her across London to a Mayfair corset shop that hides more than one dark secret.

Of course there is nothing I like better than a novel about Suffragettes (Opal Plumstead and Parade’s End are amongst my favourites!) Add in some murder mystery, Fleet Street, and the circus, and it could be a thrilling read. It definitely sounds like it will be a gem, and it looks like it too. It was the beautiful cover that drew me to buying it in the first place. This is a debut novel from Lucy Ribchester so it will be interesting to see if it’s as fast-paced and exciting as the blurb makes out!

The Sun In Her Eyes

‘Before your mother died, she asked me to tell you something …’
When Amber Church was three, her mother was killed in a car accident. A stranger was at the scene and now, nearly thirty years later, she’s desperate to talk to Amber.
Living in London and not-so-happily married to Ned, Amber is greeted one morning by two pieces of news: she’s to be made redundant from her City job and her beloved father, across the world in Australia where she grew up, has been felled by a stroke. She takes the first plane out to be by his side, leaving Ned uncertain as to when she will return. Reunited with her old friends, Amber is forced to confront her feelings for Ethan Lockwood, the gorgeous, green-eyed man she fell for as a young girl.
And then Amber receives a letter that changes everything …

I can be a bit of a book snob, not proudly, and am an avid hater of the endless stream of ChickLit that graces the shelves of Waterstones. However, someone who does not fit this narrow genre is Paige Toon. Although officially ‘ChickLit’, her books are clever, and a little deeper than the average romantic, love-triangle story that is so common in the genre. I absolutely love her writing style, and the way that she manages to weave her characters in and out of each other’s books. This should definitely be a great, easy, beach read, and she hasn’t disappointed me yet.

Celandine

Set seventy years before The Various, the second book in the trilogy follows the adventures of young Celandine at the onset of the First World War. Having run away from her detested boarding school, Celandine is too afraid to go home in case she is sent back. As she seeks shelter in the Wild Wood near her home, little does she think she will encounter a world where loyalty and independence is fiercely guarded, and where danger lurks in the most unlikely of places. Celandine’s troubled character finds both refuge and purpose among the secret tribes of little people that she alone believes in.

The novels of the Various trilogy are full of mystery, beauty and adventure; this second novel is both page-turning and life-affirming.

This is the second book in the Touchstone trilogy, and I read the first, The Various, almost thirteen years ago, when I was ten years old. I haven’t picked it up for a long time, but even now, I remember how magical and beautiful the story was. Steve Augarde is a fantastic writer. It’s pages were full of beauty and adventure and now they seem to fill me with a deep-seated longing to be a child again. I will definitely re-read The Various before beginning Celandine. It’s a little battered compared to this brand new copy that I received for Christmas from my mother. I must have read it a hell of a lot for her to remember it from over a decade ago. Someone said to me recently: ‘It’s extremely important to keep reading children’s literature. It keeps your heart young.’ And I couldn’t agree more.

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Book Review – The Casual Vacancy

December 23, 2014June 23, 2015 ~ fionareads ~ Leave a comment

casual

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
Published: on September 27th 2012 by Little, Brown and Company
Genres: Mystery, Contemporary, Adult Fiction
Pages: 503
Source: Goodreads

A BIG NOVEL ABOUT A SMALL TOWN …

When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.
Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils … Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

I am a ridiculously obsessive Harry Potter fan. I have been since I was seven years old, and I’m now twenty-two. So, I am not ashamed to admit that the only reason I purchased this book (on release date) was because it was written by my literary idol J.K. Rowling. How can anything written by a storyteller such as her be disappointing?

However, on my first attempt at reading it, disappointed was what I was. I’m not sure I even made it past the first ten pages. It was a whole two years later that I finally picked the dusty copy off my bookshelf and decided, determinedly, that I was going to read the whole thing, regardless of how disappointing it was. It is an adult novel, after all. Undoubtedly, it is going to be entirely different to the Harry Potter series.

The blurb on the inside cover of the hardback copy I possess, synopsises the novel as ‘a big novel about a small town.’ Barry Fairbrother holds a seat on the Parish Council of the small West Country village of Pagford. However, when he dies, unexpectedly and suddenly, in the car park of his local golf club, the town of Pagford is left in shock and disarray. Barry’s casual vacancy from the Parish Council brings on an election for someone to fill his seat.

On first glance, and even the first one hundred pages, it really does seem to be a dull and mundane book about a small town full of dull and mundane people. The deeper you get into the novel, however, and the deeper into the protagonists lives the author takes you, you realise and remember that yes, J.K. Rowling is indeed the best storyteller our world has ever known.

The novel is executed so understatedly, and so cleverly. It follows the daily goings on of the village residents of Pagford and of the nearby council estate The Fields. There is a sharp contrast, highlighted subtly, through morning chats in bed, telephone calls between mother and son, family arguments, and schoolgirl truanting, between the deeply troubled and addiction-riddled Fields and the snobby, gossipy and conservative Pagford. The blurb states that the book is about the election for the empty seat, but it is about so much more than that. There are times when I had tears rolling down my face, times when I laughed out loud, and times when I literally gasped in horror. JKR has proved herself to be an even more talented, honest and intuitive writer than I ever imagined her to be.

How is it that she understands the injustice and horrors of a family with a mother as a heroin addict? Her portrayal of that dark and misunderstood side of life is scarily realistic and shocking. Krystal Weedon lives a rough and raw life, at sixteen years old, in a dirty, unkempt house with her smack-addicted mother and her baby brother Robbie, whose mother keeps him in sodden nappies, even though he is three years old, and is hungry, moaning constantly, with a red-raw bottom. This brutally realistic portrayal literally made me cry. The horrendous gossiping and judgemental attitudes of the Daily Mail readers of nearby Pagford towards Krystal make you angry at the injustice of a world full of people who are incapable of empathy and are shallowly wrapped up in their own pristine lives.

This book struck a chord with me. It may have taken a while to truly understand and get into, but once you are in it, you feel as if you cannot get out. Rowling has achieved what I imagine she set out to do. Nothing much happens in this book. Everything happens behind closed doors, and every family is not as they seem to outsiders. Andrew Price’s family live in fear of their father, who everyone thinks is such a quiet, normal man, but beats them up just because he is in a bad mood and calls his son ‘Pizza-face’ due to his teenage acne. Sukhvinder Jawanda is a timid, self-harming and shy girl with dyslexia, and a mother who favourites her other two children over her, due to her inability to succeed on an academic basis. She self-harms and is cyber-bullied by Fats, the popular, lanky, and ‘cool’ boy at school, who plasters her Facebook page with definitions of lesbianism and hermaphroditism. Samantha Mollison is a middle-aged wife with two girls, and a husband she is sickened by, as he slowly turns into his arrogant and snobby father. She watches her daughter’s DVD of a teen boy band on repeat and closes her eyes when she has sex with her husband, imagining she is nineteen years old again, and that her husband is the twenty-one year old boy band member. Krystal Weedon is a foul-mouthed bully, but she is also just a sixteen year old girl, with the responsibility of her heroin-addicted mother and her underfed and neglected baby brother on her shoulders. Barry Fairbrother was the only man to ever understand her and give her a chance, and her position on his school rowing team was the making of her. When he dies, she is left with nothing, like before, and her status as the school bicycle is merely a reflection of her harrowed and troubled life and her lack of self-worth.

This book is full of nothing much really, but absolutely everything of massive, political and personal, importance. J.K. Rowling’s first adult novel is a huge political statement, and is honest, subtle, and true, true genius.

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