Category: Reviews

Recommending… One by One by Ruth Ware

Published on by Kate BraithwaiteLeave a comment

One by One by Ruth Ware

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I hesitated over starting this book quite simply because it’s by Ruth Ware which meant once I’d started, I’d be reading it while brushing my teeth, making the dinner, (driving if that weren’t highly illegal and dangerous) etc etc.
I wasn’t wrong.
One by One gripped me from the get-go. Great claustrophobic setting (a ski lodge in bad weather), a strong cast of suspects/victims, some likeable, some not; some with secrets, some with more secrets, and an attrition/death rate that openly references Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.
For me, there was a bit too much skiing description (I hate skiing) but I enjoyed sussing out who the baddie was… and changing my mind about that a good few times along the way. A good’un.



View all my reviews

Monday Bookishness – Whose story?

Published on by Kate BraithwaiteLeave a comment

For me, one of the biggest (and toughest) decisions when setting out to write a new book is figuring out whose story I’m writing, and who is best placed to tell it. I’ve made false starts on more than one occasion. In The Road to Newgate I started out with only one first person narrator and ended up with three. I’ve read books on the topic (for example The Art of Perspective by Christopher Castellani) and I’m always interested as a reader to see what other writers do and consider how those choices impact on the way characters and plot develop.

dear edwardWhich brings me to Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano. Here’s a little bit of the blurb:

One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them are a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured veteran returning from Afghanistan, a business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor.

The novel tells two stories really. At the forefront is what happens to Edward afterwards. He leaves hospital, moves in with his aunt and uncle, and tries to cope with life and school now that he is ‘the boy who lived’, albeit without the joys of Hogwarts, Butterbeer and Chocolate Frogs. He does have his own Hermione though, a new best friend called Shay.

The other story line keeps the reader on the plane – from boarding to the crash – and its hard to read at points because here we are getting to know the hopes and dreams of individuals who we know from the very outset are going to die. And yet it’s not a gloomy book. Sad, poignant, funny and even hopeful – definitely not gloomy.

I didn’t actually do a head-count of how many different character points of view, Napolitano uses in the book, but its certainly a crowd. There’s those mentioned in the blurb above and others too. She sets up it from the get-go. By page five we have been introduced to – and been in the heads of – six characters: Edward, his brother, and his parents Jane and Bruce, a grumpy disabled man called Crispin Cox objecting to having his wheelchair tested for explosives, and a young woman, Linda Stollen, who has an as yet unused pregnancy test kit in her pocket. Another three pages in and now there’s a Filipino woman with bells on her skirt, Benjamin Stillman, a black soldier on his way to see his grandmother, an attractive air stewardess and Wall Street ‘type’ called Mark Lassio.

So what’s the key to carrying this feat off? As a reader it works for me because the narrative form is established right from the start. This isn’t a case of a writer having a primary main character and then ‘head-hopping’ into a different character without warning, just because it suits them to do so. That can be a real weakness in a story, breaking the bond of confidence that the reader has with the author. Not so here. With Ann Napolitano there’s no question that the reader can trust her. By page eight the reader/writer contract has been established. Shortly thereafter, her wider structure is clear as she alternates chapters between Edward’s post-crash life and the hours of the flight, but in both cases the narrative time-line moves forward with each point of view (even with internal back stories) firmly bolting on, one to the other, in a linear fashion. It’s really very well done!

Writing like this is not easy. Many of the interviews I’ve read with Napolitano focus, perhaps unsurprisingly, on the inspiration for the story, Edward’s character and life after trauma, but I did find some interesting questions on her process. For anyone who reads the book (and really it is super gripping, beautifully written, and moving) it’s worth hearing this from its author:

“Dear Edward took eight years to finish. I spent the first year taking notes and doing research (I don’t let myself write scenes or even pretty sentences during that period) and then I spend years writing and re-writing the first half of the book. In this novel, the plane sections came fairly easily, but I re-wrote Edward’s storyline countless times.”

Read more about Ann Napolitano and Dear Edward here:

https://bookpage.com/interviews/24705-ann-napolitano-fiction

https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=a-conversation-with-ann-napolitano-author-of-dear-edward

https://nailyournovel.wordpress.com/2020/01/14/story-as-metaphor-talking-to-ann-napolitano-author-of-dear-edward/

Check out Dear Edward on Amazon here

And follow my reading and reviews on Goodreads and Bookbub.

 

Book recommendation: The Suspects by Katharine Johnson

Published on by Kate Braithwaite1 Comment

After all these last busy days talking about Nellie Bly, it’s a pleasure to take a break and celebrate someone else’s publication day! Fellow Crooked Cat author Katharine Johnson’s The Suspects is out today. Katy’s books are perfect for curling up with: engrossing crime stories with great characters with lots of secrets. Who doesn’t love a book with a secret! Here’s  my review…

thesuspects“The Suspects is a gripping page turner, full of strong characters with dark pasts and secrets – all revealed at just the right moments – by talented thriller writer, Katharine Johnson. Five graduates in late 1980’s Bristol buy a house together, despite knowing little of each other outside of their new workplace. Tied together financially, they have no idea how they will be tested when they discover the body of a man in their basement after a drunken New Year’s Eve party. The Suspects works so well because the strength of its characters and the secrets they’re hiding. Their actions and reactions are believable. As the police close in on the truth, the tension experienced by narrator Emma, and the rising panic and mistrust felt within the group, is palpable. This is a book to be read in one or two great gulps. Addictive reading.”

Here’s the official book blurb…

Shallow Grave meets The Secret History in this quirky psychological thriller.
When you’re bound together by secrets and lies who do you trust?
Bristol, 1988.
Five young graduates on the threshold of their careers buy a house together in order to get a foot on the property ladder before prices spiral out of their reach. But it soon becomes the house share from hell.
After their New Year’s Eve party, they discover a body – and it’s clear they’ll be the first suspects. As each of them has a good reason from their past not to trust the police, they come up with a solution – one which forces them into a life of secrets and lies.
But can they trust each other?

I loved both Shallow Grave and The Secret History and wanted to see where Katy would take this. Both that movie and the book were very much in my mind when I started reading but almost at once I forgot about them and became immersed in this totally original story. Congratulations, Katy! It’s another great book.

For more about Katharine Johnson’s novels, click on the book cover above or find her on Goodreads, Bookbub and Amazon.

Book recommendation – The Departed by J.V. Baptie

Published on by Kate BraithwaiteLeave a comment

the departedA body is found in a car boot following an accident, and Detective Inspector John Morrison is under pressure to identify the killer. Was it someone who had murdered before, several decades ago? Or is it a copycat killing?

Meanwhile, Trish, John’s ex-girlfriend, had been working hard to forget the past – until she finds new evidence about her aunt Moira’s disappearance nearly two decades earlier.

Did Detective Inspector Helen Carter miss something in the initial investigation in 1978, and could she live with the consequences if she had?

The past and present intertwine in this gripping case of murders and missing persons.

A week or so ago I was excited to receive a copy of J.V. Baptie’s second novel, The Departed. In a nutshell, it’s a crime novel set in my home town of Edinburgh with a dual timeline that I just loved.

Baptie’s first novel, The Forgotten was set in Edinburgh in the seventies and, reluctant as I am to call part of my own life ‘history’, Baptie got the historical flavour of the city and that period just right. I loved her female policewoman, Helen, and was keen to see what would happen to her in this follow up.

Well it was very interesting. Yes, Baptie went back to the seventies, but she also jumped her characters forward in time to 2008. Helen is still in the force, now working on cold cases, but a new case links back to a murder she worked on in 1977. Then there’s also the unsolved disappearance of Moira McKenzie. So how does that connect to the death of a young student, Sarah Smith?

The Departed is well plotted and moves at a great clip. Baptie adeptly handles a fairly large cast of characters, and her writing sparkles with crisp descriptions. I felt I could see everything very clearly and this would adapt really well for T.V.

Often these kind of books can be read as stand-alone and I guess that this is true here, but I’d strongly recommend reading The Forgiven first. It’s a great story too. You can’t get too much tartan noir in my experience.

baptieJ.V. Baptie graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2017 with an MA in Creative Writing. When not writing, she is also an actress and has appeared in a variety of children’s show and stage plays.

 

2 weeks to go…

Published on by Kate BraithwaiteLeave a comment

With 2 weeks to go until the official publication date for The Road to Newgate, I thought I’d do a little update post on the kind of things keeping me busy/awake at night.

To party or not to party?

One of my main preoccupations in the last month or so has been trying to decide whether to have an actual in-person book launch. I am not good at such things and the whole look at me, look at me, aspect makes me feel deeply worried! Add to that that over here in the Mushroom Capital of America (aka the Kennett Square/West Chester area of Pennsylvania) we are already in week 3 of the long summer holidays and lots of people are away and… nope. No party planned.

Titus_OatesBUT… I am having an online launch on facebook. Not quite sure how this will go, but I’m hoping to do some giveways and have some friendly authors talking about books and particularly about the importance of antagonists to make stories exciting to read. I will talking about this unpleasant chap (among others!)

 

Here’s a link to that: Book launch for The Road to Newgate

 

Book blogs

Ah, book blogs. Book bloggers are awesome at a) reading lots of books and b) sharing their love of books. For The Road to Newgate I’m doing a couple of tours – one this week and another in August. I’ve also done some outreach of my own and so hopefully there will be people reading the book very soon and talking about how they found it. All fingers and toes are crossed. Links will be posted as things appear.

Writing about stuff about the book (Yay. This is the bit I love)

Recently I’ve written about 17th century coffee shops – very important to my character Nat but not the favourite place of his lovely wife Anne. Read that here.

I’ve also done a piece about jobs for women in the 17th century, a time when a married woman pretty much belonged to her husband. Read that one here.

And I have another coming out next week about childbirth and midwifery. Loved writing that one. Will post a link when it is published but here’s a picture from one of the books I refer to in the article, Jane Sharp’s The Midwives Book, published in 1671.

Other bits and bobs are in the works too.

Foetus_in_the_womb

Posting books

Today I posted off 2 signed copies of The Road to Newgate plus two of the little books my mum has made. One went to a friend’s mum, someone who super kindly read my last book as it struggled through the proof reading stages and helped me catch some late errors that the publisher had missed. And the other went to the winner of a blog giveway. It’s a funny thing to send your words out into the world!

New writing

Oh yes that. Mmm. Well it’s not easy to make a lot of progress during the summer with 3 kids at home and either demanding food or to be driven somewhere. Plus there is the World Cup and now Wimbledon to distract me. However, I am plotting and thinking and doing all that background stuff that will pay off when the time comes. Soon I hope!

Book review: A Jane Austen Daydream by Scott D. Southard

Published on by Kate Braithwaite2 Comments

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen did not write enough books. Only six. Six! And those six are so well loved that a whole industry has risen up to supply the unending demand for more things Jane. I’ve read my fair share, with mixed feelings in some cases, but this latest one to come my way was a pleasure to read from start to finish.

perf5.500x8.500.inddThe book in question is A Jane Austen Daydream by Scott D. Southard.

The key word here is ‘daydream’. This novel is a fictional – almost speculative – biography of Jane Austen in her twenties. While Southard uses lots of biographical facts about Jane and her family for his plot, this is not in any sense a dramatization of her known biography. Instead it’s an imagined life, a what might-have-been (but probably wasn’t). And it’s a lot of fun.

The novel opens – in the spirit of Pride and Prejudice – with Jane and her elder sister Cassandra being invited to a ball. Mrs Austen, very Mrs Bennett-esque, is greatly excited at the prospect of marrying off her two daughters, and Jane, to be fair, is equally ready. Having heard from a gypsy that she will fall in love, when Jane encounters a handsome, eligible young man in the library at the ball, she is more than ready to cast him as her husband-to-be. But ‘the other Austen daughter’ – as she is known in a clearly disparaging contrast to Cassandra – does not find her path to love, or publication, runs smoothly.

Screen Shot 2018-04-23 at 8.20.12 PMSouthard’s Jane is an engaging, witty character. She is a little silly at points but matures nicely and learns from her mistakes (think Emma, anyone?). Jane’s search for success in love and literature had me turning the pages, and the cast of characters surrounding her is well-drawn and often amusing. I particularly liked her brothers, both in terms of their characters and their crisp and engaging dialogue.

Because Southard’s main character is Jane Austen, her every exchange offers an opportunity to link to the books that we all know and love. Jane’s story parallels those of her literary creations at times – especially Elizabeth Bennett and Anne Eliot. She meets a Mrs Catherine de Bourgh, a Mary Crawford, and a man putting on a performance of Lover’s Vows, the play that caused so much distress to Fanny in Mansfield Park. There is a comic Reverend, a best friend called Harriet… I could go on, but I won’t spoil the fun.

Serious bravery is required to take on Jane Austen and mess with her in fiction. Janeites know their stuff. Even non-Janeites (like me) know quite a bit. I’ve read all the books. Some of them several times. And I’ve a sketchy knowledge about Jane Austen’s life, at least in terms of her death and love life. But I’m confident that fans of Austen who open this book in the right spirit – ready to be entertained and enjoy a Jane that might not quite match up to their own preconceptions – will thoroughly enjoy their trip to a well-written, witty Regency England, full of references to those six wonderful books. Highly recommended.

Scott Southard author pic(1)Scott D. Southard, the author of A Jane Austen Daydream, swears he is not obsessed with Jane Austen. He is also the author of the novels: My Problem with Doors, Megan, Permanent Spring Showers, Maximilian Standforth and the Case of the Dangerous Dare, and 3 Days in Rome. With his eclectic writing he has found his way into radio, being the creator of the radio comedy series The Dante Experience. The production was honored with the Golden Headset Award for Best MultiCast Audio and the Silver Ogle Award for Best Fantasy Audio Production. Scott received his Master’s in writing from the University of Southern California. Scott can be found on the internet via his writing blog “The Musings & Artful Blunders of Scott D. Southard” (sdsouthard.com)  where he writes on far-ranging topics like writing, art, books, TV, writing, parenting, life, movies, and writing. He even shares original fiction on the site. Currently, Scott resides in Michigan with his very understanding wife, his two patient children, and a very opinionated dog named Bronte.

 

 

Books and terrorism

Published on by Kate BraithwaiteLeave a comment

A post a little off my normal historical reading and writing beat…

First, a little background. Between 1991 and 1998 and again between 2004 and 2008, Chris and I lived in south Manchester – in Heaton Moor, Sale and Bramhall to be be precise. Maddie (now 12) was born at Stepping Hill in Stockport. And with friends and family still living there we were so saddened by the terrorist attack at the Ariana Grande concert – at a venue we have loved going to, and one that on that night was full of kids around Maddie’s age.

It’s not the act of terror that I want to focus on however, but the response to it. As far as I can tell from the other side of the Atlantic, the people of Manchester’s response has been wonderful: not just ‘keeping calm and carrying on’, but actively choosing to be optimistic and openhearted, instead of frightened, angry and afraid. This has made a great impression on me, particularly because I’ve just read and reviewed an amazing novel on this very topic.

Screen Shot 2017-06-12 at 12.28.26 PM

A Good Country by Laleh Khadivi tells the story of Rez, an American teen whose parents were immigrants from Iran. It is wonderfully written and very hard to read – especially if you have teenage kids like we do. My full review for Bookbrowse is here:

Review of A Good Country

And here is the link to the Beyond the Book article that goes with it about terrorism in the US:

Where do terrorists in the US come from?

Without giving the game the away, A Good Country starts with a likeable sixteen year old, Rez, who seems to have a bright future. His family have a very comfortable life in California and Rez’s grades are great. But this is the world of the Boston Bombing. And it is the impact that that event, and another fictional terrorist atrocity in a local shopping mall, and how they play into Rez’s isolation and rejection of his future in America, that really stand out for me. In the wake of these events, Rez sees white, middle-class Americans – neighbours and school friends – turn away from him, or glare at him with suspicion because of his Iranian heritage. He is pushed away by the world he has grown up believing he was part of, and he reaches out instead for a sense of belonging and brotherhood with other sons and daughters of immigrants. Through this, Raj falls prey to extremist ideology, the dark side of the internet and promises of a false future.

A Good Country is one of those books that you read with a sense of watching a train wreck that you can do nothing to stop. But although there were many reasons for Rez’s choices, I did feel that the way he was treated after the terrorist acts could have and should have been different. I hope that for young men of immigrant families in Manchester, it will be.

Screen Shot 2017-06-12 at 12.32.54 PM
i love manchester