Ronali Collings had a fascinating journey to publication. Her children getting older, she realised how much of herself she’d given to everyone else and started writing and taking courses (an MA with Bernadine Evaristo as her mentor) before dropping out of her PhD, stopping writing, and then starting again under the mentorship of her now agent. She kept going this second time and Love & Other Dramas was the phenomenal result.

The book follows Tania and Priya – both in their forties – as well as Helen, Tania’s 66-year-old mother. Tania is newly divorced and looking to find herself (she’s somewhat based on Collings), Priya did not receive a much hoped for promotion after giving her all to her long-standing employer, and Helen is discovering herself after years as an unhappy wife (unhappy is an understatement). The book covers their transitions to new milestones.

There is something incredibly special about Collings’ book and, dare I say, utterly unique. (The more I read, the more I find that there is something unique about the vast majority of authors, but it still deserves a mention, particularly here.) To speak personally, I got to the end of this book, blissfully happy about the film scenes I had had playing in my head and the characters whose faces and general looks I had created and seen in detail, but couldn’t work out what I thought of the writing itself. It took a few minutes of further thinking before I realised that the fact that Collings’ book raced by, as well as the fact it was so easy to visualise, easy to feel deeply about the characters and the connections between them, whether romantic or familial, themselves summed up the writing. Collings is a superb writer. So as not to reiterate what I’ve just listed as positives, the author’s use of character (and with it development) is bar none. This is very much a character-driven book, and highly relatable – they are very British, very multicultural, and just like any person you might meet on the street. The very fact of their everyday-ness is a winning factor and with everything that happens to them being completely believable, it is impossible not to feel a lot for them.

This doesn’t necessarily equate to actively liking them. Tania in particular keeps making the same mistake which is frustrating, if incredibly realistic. Priya could often do with a bit more self-awareness. (Helen gets a pass here as she’s been through hell.) But perhaps that is part of the point – these women and, often, the other people around them, are just so true to life that they make you question your own life decisions, which isn’t generally a comfortable thing to do.

As well as the theme of women coming into their own, the racial backgrounds add a constantly-running background question about how British people of colour, particularly, in this case, people of South Asian heritage, are treated. Priya’s done very well in her job but she’s not done as well as she could due to being a British Indian; she’s the wrong colour. Tania wanted to do ballet when she was younger, but her skin colour didn’t fit the look. She also wasn’t able to cook Sri Lankan food at home without wafting the smell away because her white husband didn’t like it. It’s the things that keep adding up and adding up.

A mention must be made of Helen’s newly found happiness – she starts blossoming from the beginning but once she discovers love her story becomes perhaps the best. She represents an age group in women that is generally forgotten and Collings brings not only her story to life but shines a light on older women as a whole. Helen’s burgeoning relationship with Oscar is a joy to read and she is the character that ends the tale with the most tied threads.

The ending is interesting, both sudden – you’re likely to expect it to continue for a bit longer – and absolutely perfect. You’ll want to read more about the women whilst at the same time recognising and appreciating why Collings leaves it where she does.

Love & Other Dramas is simply wonderful. It’s a book with the power to hit you in a way you haven’t experienced in reading before and the amount is does within its limits of being a look at everyday characters and lives is incredible. Without a doubt, one of the best books of 2022.

Publisher: Embla (Bonnier)
Pages: 269
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-471-41308-7
First Published: 19th July 2022
Date Reviewed: 4th May 2023

Kristina McMorris’ 2018 novel, Sold On A Monday, just recently reached the 1 million mark of copies sold. It’s not difficult to see why, nor why it’s the author’s most rated book on GoodReads – inspired by a real photograph taken in 1948 of children sat on a porch, a sign saying ‘4 children for sale’ in front of them, it offers a rather unique premise.

McMorris sets her tale in 1931, and her fictional photograph sports two children rather than the four seen in real life. Ellis, a photographer and reporter in Philadelphia, originally sees two children ‘for sale’ on a non-work related trip out and, when his photograph of the scene is lost after having been shown to an appreciative boss, he goes back to the location and stages a new photograph, this time with different children. This may or may not lead to Ellis’ big break – he’s been wanting to be more than a society pages writer for ages – but it will definitely lead to the contents of this new, staged, photograph, becoming a reality. In tandem we have Lily, a single mother who is hoping to rise beyond her current station of secretary, to become a reporter. Lily is the person who introduced the boss to Ellis’ work.

McMorris’ decision to focus on Ellis and Lily’s experiences may be surprising (certainly I was expecting the story to focus on the children from the perspective of those children) but it is nevertheless a fascinating decision. Hailing from a media background herself, McMorris has steeped the book in the world of the newspaper and the historical details and storytelling in general mean it is rich in atmosphere and period dialogue. Interestingly, the book is pretty long, with lots of twists and turns as it moves towards its conclusion, but thanks to the overarching idea of the news, the busy nature of it all ensures the book never drags.

The main characters are well drawn, with both characters effectively sharing the theme of family; Lily’s has motherhood included. Ellis is driven in his career not just for his own benefit but to prove to his father his worth as a son. Lily is driven similarly, wanting to be a reporter for herself but also seeing the need to better her situation for her son; her parents own a business but this is the post-WWI 1930s and she wants her own career; she sees a role model in Nellie Bly, the (factual) journalist who emulated Phileas Fogg.

Another character in particular deserves a mention – Clayton. He is a star reporter at the Philadelphia paper and McMorris has done a splendid job in her portrayal of him. It’s not even a question of character development, just the way she’s written about him each time he is either in a scene or mentioned by others (generally Lily). Is he friend or foe? Is he the right choice or not? In the plot thread he is most included in, McMorris does a great job at really making you believe something is possible even when common sense and any experience in reading will tell you it’s not, and whether or not it does happen (I won’t spoil it) doesn’t, to that end, really matter. A brief mention should be given to co-worker ‘Dutch’, who also defies literary stereotypes, just to a much lesser extent than Clayton.

So to those twists and turns, as said, there are a lot of them but they work. After a chunk of time spent focusing on Ellis and Lily, McMorris moves on to the children, albeit still through Ellis and Lily’s eyes. It’s worth noting that McMorris has significantly improved the outcome of the major event when compared to the real life story – thankfully, it must be said; read the reality and McMorris’ tale is a welcome change. The twists and turns themselves keep coming to a degree but they always move the story on, and, perhaps, given what I’ve said about Clayton, one of McMorris’ overall aims is to show the grey in every story; you very often think you’ve spied a villain only to be given cause to wonder if that’s quite correct.

Sold On A Monday tells a difficult tale in a very good way. Its secondary focus on family and motherhood is rather wonderful and helps in the exploration of the primary idea, while never losing sight of the historical context. This is a fantastic book.

Publisher: Sourcebooks
Pages: 289
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-492-66399-7
First Published: 28th August 2018
Date Reviewed: 2nd May 2023

Three full books, almost half another book and a couple of hundred pages of another; I will take it. The reading is going better than it has for months so that is a definite positive.

All books are works of fiction.

Kate Thompson: The Little Wartime Library – When Bethnal Green Library was bombed during the Blitz, the remaining stock is moved to the unfinished Bethnal Green Underground Station which is being used to house East Enders safely away from the streets of London; we follow children’s librarian Clara and her friend Ruby as they help keep up the borough’s morale through the wonders of reading. This is a book big on community and looking at the small pockets of goodness that happened during the war, focusing of course on the value of reading, and while the reading may be important, the community is the best bit. Thompson’s use of language is also great – very British, very right for its time and location.

Kristina McMorris: Sold On A Monday – Ellis takes a posed photograph of two children with a sign beside them that states they are for sale; the family is poor but doing okay, however the photograph leads to the sign being taken literally. A book full of the ways 1930s newspapers worked, this is a delight to read (perhaps so long as you go in knowing it’ll focus on things from the angle of the newsroom rather than the children themselves).

Orlando Ortega-Medina: The Fitful Sleep Of Immigrants – Marc takes on a couple of cases that are the antithesis of the cases his company usually works on and finds himself with an obsessed client. Meanwhile his partner, Issac, receives letters to attend court for deportation over his earlier arrival in the US as an undocumented asylum seeker. A very satisfying thriller and book in general.

This coming month I’m hoping to finish These Violent Delights, maybe (hopefully) Voyager, and get started on a number of others.

What did you read this month?

Allow me another of these in such a fairly short period of time. I’m deep into Voyager now, 300 or so pages in but it’s got to the good bit (where you know it will go if you’ve read the second book) and so I’m reading it in earnest. I’ve been watching season 2 of the show, and may well start watching season 3 within the next few days, just staying behind where I’m up to in the book. I’m still finding reading and then watching very satisfying and my high opinion of the show and the changes they’ve made continues to stay the same.

Spoilers incoming for Dragonfly In Amber: The one thing I’m really struggling with, on both sides as it happens now (which in many ways is another plus for the show because they are faithful to the book the majority of the time) is Roger and Brianna’s relationship. I’m thinking of writing a dedicated post on this but having spent time mulling it over I wonder if the reason has to do with the relationship being relatively mundane and ‘normal’ when compared to a heady and exciting time traveller romance where the focus on the handsome historical man is rather paramount. I wonder whether the fact that Roger and Brianna are present day (well, 1968 to be exact) is part of it, and I wonder whether their relationship is very bog standard and unexciting deliberately to either further highlight the romance between Claire and Jamie or as some sort of comment on the fact that Claire and Jamie’s is a once-in-a-blue-moon, literally fantastical relationship, whereas Roger and Brianna are realistic (well, beyond their capacity to time travel, as it appears they will be doing… and I’ve seen the screenshots of the show of them in historical dress). That latter thought, though, is, I realise, me applying literary thought to the book where it may not be warranted. I really hope the chemistry improves – for starters, I badly need to see more of them to start believing it, and this is where I think the show will do better than the books as the TV team were quicker to show a variety of viewpoints than Gabaldon is in her novels.

Having finished Orlando Ortega-Medina’s The Fitful Sleep Of Immigrants – which I did very much enjoy – I started Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights. It has started pretty strongly but a little confusing in terms of motives for the characters, who in this book are gang members – the story is based on Romeo And Juliet – and I’m hoping for a strong set of reasons to feel empathy for the characters beyond the fact of their relationship to Shakespeare. The commentary surrounding colonialism, various countries taking their slice of Shanghai, and China in general, has a lot of promise.

My next book was supposed to be Amanda Prowse’s All Good Things but I’ve had a time of it on the download attempts front and so am not sure if that will happen – Chloe Gong’s book is me moving on in my reading for now. One I have added and successfully downloaded however, is Phoebe McIntosh’s Dominoes – Andrew Blackman wrote a very positive review of Dominoes on his blog and so I went looking for a copy. I’m very excited to get started on it.

What are you looking forward to reading after your current book?

Orlando Ortega-Medina’s third novel, publishing a few years after the almost psychedelic in atmosphere, semi-religious The Savior Of 6th Street, offers a difference to his previous books. Whereas the others have been quite individual in terms of content and specifics of genre (though they are no less fantastic for it), The Fitful Sleep Of Immigrants sees the author turning 90 or so degrees towards the mainstream; the book, whilst still sporting what could be termed classic psychological and thriller Ortega-Medina elements, offers its story to an additional audience or two.

This new novel looks at a few impactful periods in the life of one Marc Mendes, a lawyer from San Francisco via Los Angeles, via, in heritage, Cuba, Spain, Syria, and Israel. Marc’s religion, and religious and cultural heritage, as well as his sexuality, inform almost every part of this novel, and it’s to stunning effect. In the ‘present day’, which in this book is 1997, Marc is in a happy and long-term relationship with Issac, a political refugee from El Salvador. This starts to change when Marc’s law firm is approached first by a man who has been accused of murder and then, later, when Issac finds himself looking at possible deportation for illegal entry and settlement in the US. Surrounding and informing this present day narrative is Marc’s relationship history, a romance in his younger years that later took a very sorry turn.

Ortega-Medina takes these subjects and many more and handles them with aplomb. Using his unique style of writing – conversational on the surface with a tougher interior – the author takes his character on a personal and relational journey that begins with of all his life’s problems cropping back up at once. It’s fast-paced, and every so often verges on the confusing, which is absolutely on purpose. You are always with Marc and, as Marc is told himself, he can be an unreliable narrator.

The keyword of the title, ‘immigrants’ wraps around everything else in the novel, holding it together with a couple of different glues. The main aspect of the novel in a variety of ways, immigration and its link to asylum and forceful exportation comes into play in Marc’s thoughts of his family heritage and, more so, understandably, Issac’s presence and life in the US. The author’s explanation of Issac’s situation is slow with fair reason; set in the 90s, people in the US especially would have hopefully had some idea of the situation but, more importantly and more notably, Ortega-Medina asks us as readers to decide for ourselves what should be the outcome for Issac based on more than the simple laws because the simple laws do not allow anywhere near enough space for specifics; there is then the point that every case needs to be looked at personally and with empathy in addition to the idea of specifics. And so we see Issac as Marc sees him, as many people see him – a phenomenal person who has triumphed, who has given back in spades to the country he came to live in, and who has made a comfortable long life with a US citizen. When Ortega-Medina does fill you in completely, towards the end, it only adds spades more to how you feel that it is right that Issac be given the lawful right to stay.

So Issac is a wonderful character, and it would be great to hear even more from him, but here we are with Marc. Marc’s life is very messy. A key part of his progression as a character comes in the form of Alejandro Silva, a client who Marc is drawn to due to a resemblance to a past partner, Simon. Alejandro does his best to get Marc’s attention and does so on a number of occasions due to Marc’s conflation of him with Simon, and whilst the plot thread is drawn out possibly to your distraction (but utterly necessarily in terms of the book) it has a particular relevance to Marc’s life that shows itself in time.

Marc has a lot of reckoning to do with himself and as the novel continues on he gets better at it – an incredible shaky start leading to some absolutely ‘bravo!’ moments – and you could be forgiven for wondering how much time there will be for Issac’s conflict arc. Suffice to say when it gets to the climax the pace picks up, the plotting and writing is more incredible than before, and it’s nail-biting. You get a real sense for the immigration system that was in place (still is in place in many ways) and the difficulties therein for the individuals facing deportation. The end itself is a brilliant mix of ends and beginnings and of hope.

The Fitful Sleep Of Immigrants shows that what we thought was great fiction from the author previously, was but an alright opening first serve. This latest work has raised the bar significantly.

Publisher: Amble Press (Bywater Books)
Pages: 265
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-612-94263-6
First Published: 18th April 2023
Date Reviewed: 7th April 2023

I received this book from the author for review.