Review of The Sacred River by Wendy Wallace

Last year I read The Painted Bridge by Wendy Wallace and loved it, so I was thrilled to receive a proof copy of her latest novel The Sacred River.

Twenty three year old Harriet Heron has struggled with ill health for as long as she can remember. She lives with her parents and her only real love is studying Ancient Egypt and hieroglyphics. She persuades a doctor to advise that she should travel to Egypt for her health and soon sets out accompanied by her mother Louisa and her aunt Yael.

There is a strong sense of mystery enveloping this novel and it is on the voyage to Alexandria that a chance meeting threatens to open up secrets that Louisa thought were long forgotten. This is where the book really changes pace and you can see Louisa’s panic and Harriet’s excitement challenging each other. As Louisa fights to keep her past buried, Harriet unwittingly threatens to bring everything to the surface through her new friendship.

I loved reading this book and thought that the setting of Egypt was very evocative – you can almost feel the intense heat and see the ancient sights that they saw. I was rooting for Harriet all along and she was, by far, my favourite character. I liked the way that Wallace brings a number of external characters into the plot and devotes a good amount of time to them -  I was particularly intrigued by Eberhardt Wolfe.

This book is beautifully written and the description of nineteenth century Egypt is just mesmerising. It will definitely be on my top books of 2013 list.

I highly recommend The Sacred River, especially for fans of historical fiction.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster for sending me a copy to review.

Review of The Killing Room by Richard Montanari

Crime inamoratos, settle in your favourite niche, have food and drink to hand, open this book and you`re away! Set in the city of Philadelphia in the grip of a severe winter, a city which once had a church on nearly every street but whose previously religious-minded population has abandoned those streets and churches to poverty and neglect, this is a book which is charged with horror, fear and electrifying emotion.

 “One God, seven churches.” ” You will find the first of the dead at….”. The chilling call taken by detective Jessica Balzano at Police HQ begins the nightmare. She and her partner Kevin Byrne are on the trail of a ruthless killer who uses the basements of the city`s abandoned  Catholic  churches as killing rooms. Each murder is different: an ex-policeman wrapped in barbed wire and kept alive for 10 days: the second victim frozen in a block of ice….. The list goes on, shocking the citizens of the city. The Press, and in particular television  reporter Shane Adams, whose methods of discovering the dirt on people are, to say the least, unscrupulous, are desperate to supply their own reasons for what is going on but are as baffled as the investigators. Jessica, Kevin and eventually their whole team are involved with the case - a killer who leaves pointers: missals with each body, the differing m.o.s of the crimes: are there perhaps clues in the Bible, in particular in the Book of Revelations as to motive and means? Is there something in the perpetrators` past leading them to do this?

The reader is confronted with brilliantly conceived twists to the story – characters appear who lead us to develop, rightly or wrongly, our own possible solutions and adding further to the excruciating suspense. What kind of a person would do this and why?

Excellent read. I could not put the book down! I would highly recommend this author and look forward to reading more of his work.

Reviewed by Liz.

Thank you to Sphere for sending us a copy to review.

Interview with Sophie Hart - Author of The Naughty Girls Book Club

I am delighted to welcome Sophie Hart to Today I'm Reading. The Naughty Girls Book Club is a fantastic novel that is one of my favourite books of the year so far.

Please tell us a little about The Naughty Girls Book Club
The Naughty Girls Book Club owes a lot to the recent erotica trend, but isn’t actually erotica – it’s best described as chick-lit with a saucy twist! It starts with Estelle, who owns a struggling cafe in the suburbs of Bristol. When she sees the local independent book shop close down, she doesn’t want the same fate for her cafe, so comes up with the idea of running a book club to bring in some extra custom.
A variety of people turn up to the first meeting – such as newlywed Rebecca, who’s looking to put the spark back into her flatlining marriage, and feisty feminist librarian Gracie, who loves everything 1950s. After Tess of the D’Ubervilles doesn’t exactly get their juices flowing, the group decide to read erotica instead, with titles ranging from Lady Chatterley’s Lover to Riders by Jilly Cooper. Over the course of the novel, the characters gain the confidence both to experiment in the bedroom, and to go for what they really want in life.

Did you have a favourite character in the book?
It’s very hard to pick one! I really enjoyed writing about Sue, even though she’s the oldest character and very different to me. She’s recently retired, and sees it as a chance to seize life; to do and see all the things she’s never had the opportunity to before.  Her husband, George, has the opposite view, and just wants to relax in his chair, watching the television. She’s very frustrated with him, and their marriage reaches a crisis point.
I also have a soft spot for Reggie, the only male in the group. He’s a PhD student at Bristol University, and only joins the group because he thinks it will be useful for his thesis. He’s initially quite dismissive of the group, and of the women who attend, but he’s gradually won over by them. Since The Naughty Girls Book Club has been released, there’s been a lot of love for Reggie from the reviewers and on Twitter!

What are you currently working on?
I’m working on a new book, but it’s in the very early stages. If anyone would like to read more from me though, I’ve written a short story for an ebook compilation, alongside wonderful authors such as Julia Williams, Stella Newman and Anna-Lou Weatherley. It’s called The Perfect Escape, and is completely free!

Do you have any advise for aspiring writers?
Just go for it! Don’t think it has to be perfect first time, because it doesn’t. Jot down the seeds of any idea you have, and then work on it, build around it and keep revising it until it’s the best you can possibly make it. It needs to be of a very high standard before you submit to agents or publishers, but it doesn’t need to start off that way, so take the pressure off yourself and allow yourself the freedom to write utter rubbish for that first draft!

What do you like to do outside of writing?
Like most writers, I love to read – especially in my own genre of chick-lit, and also more literary novels, like Kate Atkinson and Philippa Gregory. As it says in my biography, one of my hobbies is trying to keep fit – trying being the operative word, as it doesn’t come naturally to me! I really have to push myself to head out for a run, or go to a zumba class. I also spend more time than I should on social media – especially Twitter and Facebook. It’s a great way to chat with my readers, and I’ve met some great people through it, as well as running an online naughty book club! If you fancy joining in, or just saying hello, I’m @Cafe_Crumb.

Thanks Sophie!
 

 

 

Review of Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

Beautiful Ruins is a fascinating and magical novel set between the 1960s Italy and present day Hollywood.

On a remote part of Italian coastline called Porta Vergogna, a young man is determined to run a reputable hotel, which will attract American tourists. However, the hotel that he grew up in and inherited, which is called Hotel Adequate View, is not quite a luxury establishment. When a beautiful young american actress arrives at his hotel by boat, Pasquale thinks this is the beginning of his dreams. Then, he finds out that the actress is dying and has been sent here by the producers of the Cleopatra film, in which she was due to star.

The actress is Dee Moray and Pasquale is captivated by her. Despite their language barriers the two hit it off well and Pasquale will do anything for her. Fifty years later Pasquale turns up at a Hollywood studio looking for the beautiful actress who stayed in his hotel in 1962. We then see the story unravel and have to work out what happened in the meantime. There are a lot of surprises in this book and I particularly liked the way that each character seemed to have an equal amount of time devoted to them.

I really enjoyed this story and found myself completely hooked. It is filled with humour, despite the problems faced by most of the characters. There is a lot going on in this book, but I didn't at any point feel lost or confused. I absolutely loved the description of the setting in Italy. It is a real roller coaster of a read that I didn't want to put down.

This is a wonderful book, it is romantic, moving and compelling to read. I highly recommend it.

Thank you to Penguin for sending me a copy to review.

An Evening with Cora Carmack

Last week I was invited to Random House to a fantastic event with new adult author Cora Carmack. I met up with Kate from The Friendly Shelf beforehand and we collected our name badges and got a delicious elderflower cocktail each.

The evening began with a fascinating talk by Cora.

Afterwards, we we were able to pick up delicious cupcakes, make book covers and have our books signed by Cora.

Here is a picture of the delicious cupcakes.

A selection of Cora's books

Here is a picture of the lovely goody bag that we got to take home:

Thank you so much to Hannah at Ebury for inviting me to this event. Look out for my review of Faking It, which is coming soon.

Review of The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway

The River of No Return is an enchanting and compulsive read by debut author Bee Ridgway.

It is a time travel novel that follows Lord Nicholas Falcott, Marquess of Blackdown who disappears in the heat of battle at Salamanca in the eighteenth century and re-appears in the twenty first century. He is adopted by The Guild, an organisation of time travellers and is soon immersed in twenty first century culture and taught to be a modern man.

I was fascinated by this dramatic storyline where people were suddenly thrown hundreds of years into the future. Nick is initially told that once someone has arrived in the future, there is no way of going back. Just as he starts to enjoy his twenty first century life in America, he is summoned back to the Guild and given an important mission. The problem is that this mission goes against everything that Nick has been taught for the Guild want him to go back in time, but if that is possible after all then just what else is the Guild hiding?

There are a lot of sub plots woven into the storyline. It is a long book which begins at a gentle pace, although the action certainly picked up towards the end of the story. I loved the romance element of this novel and Ridgway kept me on my toes wondering if anything would happen between Nick and Julia.

I really enjoyed reading this beautifully written book and will definitely be looking out for future work by Bee Ridgway. The River of No Return will appeal to fans of historical and romance novels.

The cover on this book is absolutely stunning!

Thank you to Penguin for sending me a copy to review.

Interview with Nick Taussig - Author of The Distinguished Assassin

I'm delighted to welcome Nick Taussig to the blog today. Nick has answered a few questions for us here...

Please tell us a little about yourself
I have a propensity for seriousness that I'd rather not possess, which is best tempered by wife Klara, my son Theo and a few choice friends, all of whom help me lighten up and realise that, in spite of how dark reality might sometimes seem, it should always be challenged with humour and light.

Can you tell us about The Distinguished Assassin and your inspiration for the book?
The inspiration, and forgive me, but I will sound serious now, was Alexander Solzhenitsyn who concluded in his Gulag Archipelago that every human being is “at various stages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being, at times close to being a devil, at times to sainthood.” I wanted my hero to walk this line between being a devil and a saint, and to explore the idea of a good man turned bad by a bad system which has inflicted great suffering on him. Inspiration was also David Cronenberg's film Eastern Promises, which led to a fascination with Russia's elite criminal class, the thieves-in-law, and far too much Russian literature, which I consumed with a feverish passion as an intense, and likely, rather morose undergraduate. 

What aspects of Stalinist Russia fascinate you the most?
The gulags, the thieves, the intellectuals - the last of these forbidden from exercising free thought. If they did, they were killed. The question which most fascinates me is how did a man such as Stalin reign for almost three decades? Possibly because the ideology he claimed to uphold, unlike Nazism, was noble and decent in aspiration: it promised a perfect utopia on earth. It seemed, therefore, that the Russian people were willing to sacrifice millions of their own in pursuit of this utopia, which Soviet Communism was meant to deliver, even though Stalin's murderous actions increasingly pointed to the fact that this utopia was nothing more than a fantasy, a delusion. 

Are there any aspects of modern Russia that you would like to explore further?
Yes, why the Russian people continue to put up with authoritarianism, Putin's now rather than Stalin's. And the extent of criminality within the FSB, Russia's Security Services, now the most powerful government agency in the country.

What are you currently working on?
Writing nothing, rather concentrating on producing films, and when I'm not doing this, reading. Sometimes it helps to stop writing for a bit and to focus solely on reading other writers. It's when you do this, and come across a good one, that you realise, in the best possible way, quite how much you still have to learn.

Thanks Nick.

You can find out more about Nick Taussig on his website: http://www.nicktaussig.com/