Review: The Road to Grantchester by James Runcie

Release Date: March 21, 2019

What the Dickens?!

I adore the TV show Grantchester. I love the characters, the dialogue, the mysteries, etc. Sadly, the actor of the main character, Sidney Chambers, has left the show recently and so they've had to replace him with a new main character, who I don't dislike, but I do miss Sidney so I'd been considering reading the books to get my Sidney-fix.

This book is actually a prequel to when the show (and the first book) began, so I thought it'd be a good introduction to the books. Although it could easily be read as a introduction to either the books or the show, I really enjoyed reading about Sidney's journey to get to where he winds up in the rest of the series having already known him and some of the other characters. It explains a lot about Sidney's character and his relationship with Amanda, with all the charm, witty dialogue, and depth of character I've come to expect from the show. It didn't really have the usual mystery element, it's much more about the characters, but it was still just as enjoyable.

Advanced review copy from publisher via NetGalley. My opinions are my own.

Review: Dancing on Deansgate by Freda Lightfoot

A neglected and abused girl in wartime Manchester tries to find her way out of poverty and crime with music.

I originally picked this up because it was set during the Manchester Blitz, which my mother-in-law lived through, so I thought it might have some personal relevance. But it's really not about the Blitz. It still could have been a good story, but I found there was way too much "telling" and not enough "showing". The majority of the beginning of the book felt like a big info dump. I find I struggle to connect with the characters when that is the case because it feels more like a matter-of-fact narration than experiencing the story as the characters do. It's a shame because Freda Lightfoot has written several historical novels set in Manchester, which appeals to me since I lived there for 8 years, but not if the writing is like this.

Review: The Huntress by Kate Quinn

Release Date: February 26, 2018

There are some books that are really difficult to review because it's difficult to express just how good it is, at least not without sounding like I'm gushing or fangirling all over. This is one of those books.

In the wake of WWII, an English journalist, American translator, and Russian female pilot track down a German Nazi murderess who committed horrific war crimes before fleeing to Boston where she embeds herself in an All-American family.

Kate Quinn is a master at weaving real history into fictional characters and stories. You might think the fact that they are fictional takes away from the impact of the story but it doesn't, because although the main characters are fictional, they are usually inspired by real life historical figures, and the plot based on real life historical events. And best of all, Quinn's hallmark is her strong and compelling, yet realistic heroines.

Like "The Alice Network", this one jumps back and forth in the timeline, but only over a span of about 10 years. We see the war only through Nina's eyes, a Russian pilot who grew up in the wilderness of Siberia with an abusive father. In the scenes after the war, it's told from the point of view of Ian, a former journalist turned war criminal tracker, and Jordan, a young woman in Boston who can't get passed the niggling thought that something isn't quite right with her seemingly perfect new stepmother.

It was a little frustrating to know the whole time where "the huntress" was hiding but the characters having no way of knowing that, but it did not detract from the enjoyment of the story. For a moment in the beginning, I thought maybe Nina's identity was stolen by the huntress, but then I realized that was silly, Kate Quinn doesn't really do twists like that. It's not a mystery. But it is an incredibly good story and I had great difficulty putting it down.

Advanced review copy from publisher via Edelweiss. My opinions are my own.

Review: The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict

Release Date: January 15, 2019

A great novel on an incredible woman. Honestly, if it wasn’t true, I’d hardly believe it. A Hollywood actress who escaped an abusive marriage and the Holocaust just before it came to her Austrian homeland, and became a self taught scientist and inventor, partnering with a musician to develop an unappreciated radio guidance system for torpedoes, which wasn't adopted by the US Navy until the 1960s, and later became the basis for Bluetooth and wi-fi. I know it almost sounds like I just strung a random selection of words together, but it's true and it rightfully makes a great story. My only criticism is that I felt like the ending was a bit of a let down, being somewhat anticlimactic, which I thought might be inevitable given Hedy's life story.

Hedy is a flawed but enormously strong and highly intelligent woman. She uses her beauty to the best of her advantage without compromising her integrity, yet she's not vain, and in some ways, her beauty is what holds her back, as so many people can't see beyond it. She is driven by her empathy and survivors guilt to aid the US military against Hilter. Fulfilling her acting obligations at the same time, she invents a radio guidance system that solves the problem of signal jamming, something no expert with formal education in the industry could do. Sadly, the government rejected her invention until the 1960s for a number reasons, none of them justified.

I feel a little bit like Hedy must have been something of an inspiration for Legally Blonde's Elle Woods: "Did she just wake up one morning and decide 'I think I'll go to law school'?" Did Hedy just wake up one morning and decide, 'I think I'll solve radio signal jamming today'? Of course, it wasn't that simple in reality, but it parallels the movie of an underestimated beautiful woman proving the world wrong and showing everyone just how smart and capable she really is, even if it took some time before they realized it.

Advanced review copy from publisher via NetGalley. My opinions are my own.

Review: Transcription by Kate Atkinson

Release Date: September 25, 2018

Juliet Armstrong works with MI5 during WWII, first simply (and rather boringly) transcribing recordings of conversations among Nazi sympathizers. But it's not long before the world of espionage engulfs her and she is asked to do much more.

I found myself struggling to get through this. The majority of it was just so dull, with what felt like a lot of rambling. Not badly written, just not captivating. It wasn't until about half way through that things picked up and became much more interesting. I still wasn't hugely invested in the characters, but the plot at least picked up. Or at least, I thought it did, and then the WWII story line abruptly ended and jumped forward, which I was expecting at some point, since I knew it was a dual time period plot, but moving forward in the timeline meant the plot slowed down again. There was another peak in the story line at the end, but I'm still not sure all the dribble in between was worth it.

There were some things I really like about this like the writing style and the periodic witty and dry quips in the narrative. And in some ways I think this could actually make an interesting movie (slow paced, granted), but I felt like much of it was just tedious.

Advanced review copy from publisher via NetGalley. My opinions are my own.

Review: Love and Ruin by Paula McLain

Release Date: May 1, 2018

An autobiographical novel of author and journalist Martha Gellhorn, the third wife of Ernest Hemingway. A little slow paced, but well worth the read. Although the majority of the book is about Martha's relationship with Ernest, I would not call it a "romance". It's actually more about a woman finding and proving herself then anything else.

In the beginning, I thought Martha was a little foolish for falling for Ernest, not because I knew that they eventually divorced, but because Ernest didn't seem hugely likable, even in the beginning, he seemed self absorbed and fickle. I was worried the book would be too romancy, and not do justice to an amazing woman in her own right, but that was not the case. It's really about how Martha slowly came to the realization that she had to stand on her own to get the respect and recognition as a writer that she deserved, and how needy Ernest just couldn't deal with that. I loved the second half of the book, watching Martha truly become the strong and independent woman she always was deep down and go onto have an incredible career, rather than be held back by a selfish man.

Advanced review copy from publisher via NetGalley. My opinions are my own.

Review: The Bookworm by Mitch Silver

Release Date: February 6, 2018

There are two different plots in this book: one about a Russian historian who is given crucial new information about WWII, and another about a political oil scheme in Alaska. I thought for sure eventually, they'd somehow come together but by the end, I still felt like they really didn't have anything to do with one another. It just didn't make much sense and too much of the plot(s) and premise felt contrived.

The writing was okay, and the characters started off well, but wound up doing things which also didn't make much sense. Characters who don't even know what's going on somehow wind up involved but don't even question it, they just jump right in.

The ending was the worst of this - Lara gets back together with the husband that constantly cheats on her and tried to steal half her furniture and possessions? It felt like the author was just trying to make the ending unexpected, but instead it just felt like it didn't make sense.

Then there's the fact that the "bad guys" who got her to investigate the WWII recordings were supposedly doing it to get her to track down Hitler's Bible, which they apparently couldn't do on their own, even though it proved incredibly easy. Lara found it in a matter of hours with some simple internet searches. She didn't use any kind of special resources or skills, yet we're supposed to believe this makes her a master internet detective and the only one who could track down this bible. It's beyond ridiculous.

Needless to say, the premise felt flimsy, the plots disjointed, and the characters artificial.

Advanced review copy from publisher via Net Galley. My opinions are my own.

Review: The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

I thought this was a very interesting way to essentially tell the story of Louise de Bettignies, a French female spy for the British during WWI. It covers two time periods, one during WWI, and the other just after WWII. It was strange the way Europe was still recovering from WWII in the later time period, and yet in the "flashback" chapters, we're in the midst of WWI, not in the midst of what created the devastation we see in 1947. I had to remind myself sometimes that two different wars were at play in this story. It put into perspective the fact that the World Wars weren't that far apart, and that the effects of war are inevitably the same.

But it was also about so much more than just Louise de Bettignies. It tells her story, and does her justice, but it also tells the story of many fictional characters, and in spite of being fictional, their stories are very real. It deals heavily with issues of PTSD and the human side of war, but it's also about a young woman finding her way in life, and an older woman coming to terms with her past.

It was wonderfully well written with characters that fully come alive, and a compelling plot that literally made it impossible to put down at times. I can't say enough good things about it - just read it and see for yourself.

I only have one question - is that a morally questionable hat on the cover?

Review: All That I Am by Anna Funder

Buy from Amazon

Slow paced and political, this literary novel about German playwright Ernst Toller and German journalist Hans Wesemann during the lead up to WWII, won't appeal to everyone. It's half told from Toller's point of view, during his exile from Germany in New York during the 1930s, where he dictates his story and reminisces about the love of his life, activist Dora Fabian. The other half is told from the point of view of a pseudo-fictional character, the wife of Hans Wesemann and also the beloved cousin of Dora, Ruth. The story jumps around a lot (and doesn't always make clear from the start where in the timeline it's jumped to), from Ruth's old age in Australia of 2002, to her memories of the 1920s and 30s; and from Toller's exile in the 1930s to his own time in Germany in the 1920s. The four start out as friends, so their stories are entwined.

As it's told mostly in present tense, I struggled to get into it at first, but soon realized there was a logic and consistency to the choice of tense. Ruth's memories are told in past tense, while her present thoughts are naturally told in present tense. Toller's characters were a little more confusing since they are entirely told in present tense regardless of the time period. The story addresses this when his transcriber asks him why he dictates about the past in present tense and he explains his reasons, which I won't mention because I don't want to reveal to much.

Because of the way it was written and the way it jumps around in the timeline, it could be difficult to follow at times. On the up side, there were some really great moments. It's mostly about the relationships between these four characters (which are fabricated relationships but that doesn't cheapen the story), how they individually deal with the loss of their home land to the Nazi party, and how they secretly fight back with espionage-like methods to publicize the truth to the world.

It was a great story but sometimes the way it's told let it down a little bit. I wanted to love it more than I did but I was still glad I read it.

Review: Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole

This is an endearing novel made up of fictional letters between the main characters, which I won in a giveaway. It’s a somewhat unique approach to tell a story entirely in letters but it tells a story of a long distance romance between a woman in Scotland and a man in Illinois during the early 20th century, around the time of WWI. It also consists of letters between the same woman and her daughter and others during WWII and through them pieces of the past are put together. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about this approach but it wound up working really well, the scenes manage to come alive as the characters recall and reminisce to each other.

Due to the format of the storytelling, I didn’t quite get a sense of the historical setting. The book description says “full of captivating period detail” but I’m not sure I’d fully agree with that. Apart from talk about the world wars, the history didn’t really come alive for me.

But on the other hand, the relationship between the two main characters really struck a chord with me since my English husband and my American self met online, first communicating by email, then “instant messenger”, then phone, and then finally meeting in person. The letters reminded me of the emails between my husband and I - the feeling of knowing someone so well before you’ve even met them in person, feeling so connected to someone who is so far away, eagerly awaiting the next letter from them, the thrill of meeting them in person for the first time.

It was a little bit predictable but that’s okay because the end game isn’t what this book is about, it’s about the characters and their relationships and their journey, which was really well done.