Extreme choices.

Izabela meets Bill when he’s brought to her farm by the Nazis as part of a work team; the Nazis occupy Czechoslovakia but want to keep the industry going and when Izzy’s mother says that yes, they could do with some help on the farm (Izzy’s father and older brother have gone to fight in the resistance) the Nazis bring a couple of British prisoners of war. Izzy falls for Bill fairly quickly as he does her; her English isn’t good (and, to be fair, his Czech is non-existent) but it happens. And then the looks and touches and secret conversations turn into a longing to be together. Izzy makes a tremendous decision; she’ll join Bill and do a runner. The pair do so with Izzy dressed as a boy, hair shorn. It’s against everything in the wartime ‘rules’. Discovery would mean death.

The Prisoner’s Wife is an exhilarating tale of mental strength and deception. Based on a true story and told via a couple of different narratives – Izzy’s and Bill’s, which I’ll expand on in a moment – it provides an at times awful but nevertheless compelling and immersive story that leaves you with a couple of threads untied for a dramatic and meaningful finish.

Starting with the writing, Brookes’ prose is wondrous, fully of imagery and detailing that makes everything easy to picture. Too easy to picture, you might lament, when the horrors arrive, as you know they will. There are many chapters confined to very small places, yet these come alive as much as those of wider scope, owing to Brookes’ skill when it comes to description and, arguably, storytelling in general.

That then supports the earlier notion of immersion; an expansion must be made on narrative. Brookes does something very literary with her narratives. You have the regular choice – as there have been many books that do such by this time – of two narratives split by point of view as to cover both main characters, and a further choice to write one in first person and one in third. So far, so normal. But with Brookes’ story and her inclusion of language as a continual plot thread, the narrative takes on an additional purpose. Izzy’s command of English is slight, and in disguise she must remain mute so that her voice does not betray her. So then Brookes’ first person narrative shows the progression of Izzy’s English comprehension as well as provides the reader a way to know about her when she cannot speak. The latter is perhaps pretty obvious, but the former is particularly interesting for the way and times Brookes chooses to focus on it – at the start Izzy thinks a lot about English but by the end her progression is far more in the subtext. And then you have Bill’s third person narrative – it’s not so focused (he gets dialogue after all) and creates an interesting distance between him and yourself, the reader, where you end up caring far more for Izzy, the person who stands to lose so much more. You may even get irritated with Bill on occasion – he is far from the perfect person in Brookes’ narrative, away from any commentary on his situation as a prisoner of war, and is in fact often eclipsed by the other main (somewhere between main and secondary) characters.

These other characters, then, they must be noted. Staying away from where they are located and who they are exactly as to avoid spoilers, you have Ralph, who becomes very important to Izzy, Max, who is a more quiet, bookish, sort (it’s not major but there’s a book-about-books thread going on here), and Scotty, whose character development you are sure to enjoy. Indeed Brookes develops all three characters, and some others, very well so that the various themes and, certainly, the history we’re looking at here, is relaid all the better. Brookes’ employs every aspect of storytelling in her explanation of the various scenes, showing how everything contributes towards the greater whole in a particularly notable and poignant way.

Necessarily, given the circumstances, the romance is mostly confined to thoughts and certainly the thrill is in the deception. Where romantic thoughts come in they are Izzy’s, understandably. This all said, it’s in Izzy’s thoughts of romance that a fair amount of her character development can be found – she beings very much a young woman, taken up completely by thoughts of Bill and forgetting the world (which is of course really dangerous) and ends up mature beyond her years. Part of this development, which in some ways coexists with the use of language, is in Izzy’s adoption of the persona of the fictional boy she becomes. She starts to think in terms of Algernon Cousins, her secondary identity, which becomes interesting in itself.

Better get to history – I’ve spoken about near everything else at this point! Brookes ups the anti and fools you sometimes into thinking it’s alright (well, alright as alright can be in the situation). You do become somewhat immune to everything after a few chapters – oh, they’re on the run but they’re finding places to sleep… oh a POW camp is scary but there’s an established routine – but the answer to ‘how much worse can it get?’ is, probably (I won’t assume how much you know about the war) ‘worse’, every time. There are some unapologetically realistic authors of wartime fiction – people such as Kristin Harmel with her baby murders, Jennifer Robson with the gas chambers, and Vincent Lamb with things I’m still trying to forget to this day; Brookes is on the same level. This is the war, and you can have a romance and some happier times, but it is still a war.

Two last things of note. Firstly the question of class that is looked at in the novel – it takes a backseat because it’s not as important as… well, the subjects included in the previous paragraph, but Brookes does include a small study of classism in the army through one of her characters and the effects it has on a general level. This happens in a POW camp and in the POW camp we also see – second thing of note – some of the lesser-known tasks given to dissenting prisoners. Brookes spends a good few pages on the subject – it’s yucky. It’s also something this reviewer’s never read about before and she’s read a fair number of wartime novels.

In sum, then, The Prisoner’s Wife is an expertly written, page-turning, novel that will do well on the shelves of any reader of WW2 fiction and historical fiction in general. It has the characters, it has the facts, and it has its romance when the time is right.

Publisher: Century (Penguin)
Pages: 396
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-529-12428-6
First Published: 16th April 2020
Date Reviewed: 29th August 2024

The rom-com of the summer.

Maya rushes to the Tube train; she’s late for work again. As she puts her makeup on she notices the incredibly hot guy sat across from her is looking at her; they begin conversing. Noah only recognises they’ve reached his station when they arrive and he rushes off the train, gesturing to Maya to call him. But he didn’t give her his number – they didn’t exchange any details. Then Maya finds the notebook he’s left behind; when, later, her co-workers push her to open it, she finds it’s full of a ‘thirty things to do before turning 30′ list. With her friends’ influence, she decides to go through the list herself one thing at a time, adapting the goals as needed (Maya’s never going to be a physiotherapist and she’s not sure about jumping out of a plane), in the hope that she’ll run into Noah at some point, give him back his notebook, and maybe forge a lasting connection. But in starting the list she meets an irritating guy at an art class, and then when her parents find out she wants to pursue her Masters, they request she starts looking for a husband at the same time. Maya’s life has been monotonous for years; she’s going to change that right now.

The Thirty Before Thirty List is Tasneem Abdur-Rashid’s second rom-com following 2022’s Finding Mr Perfectly Fine. If you had been hoping that book 2 (well, book 3 if you count her pseudonym) would be just as good as the first you’re in luck – it’s not just as good, it’s even better.

Leaving that there before I end up in full Marks And Spencers puns territory, The Thirty Before Thirty List has everything: solid plot, solid character development, a highly satisfying case of author answering the reader’s questions when they have them, and good pacing.

Told in the first person, you get a great sense for who Maya is but Abdur-Rashid never shies away from letting the reader figure things out before Maya does when it makes sense. There is in fact only one place where it takes Maya too long and that is arguably to show how in her own head Maya is; flawed characters, highly realistic and relatable characters, are Abdur-Rashid’s bread and butter.

There are many characters in this book that in other books might be too large a number, but here each character is developed enough within the scope of their literary placement (main, secondary, and so on) that it never becomes difficult to keep up and you never forget any of them either. Shout outs should be given to Maya’s mother, Maya’s brother Malik, cousins Pinky and Pretty, and co-worker Lucy, whose role as ever-closer-friend as the journey continues is rather lovely. There’s another interesting thread of friendship throughout as Maya gets to grips with best friend Dina’s continued (but not large) distance as the latter takes more time for her growing family and Maya works with these changes, learning to turn to others when Dina isn’t available and taking the moments Dina is available as special. (Anyone who’s at or been through that age when your friends or yourself are going through the changes brought about by having children will appreciate the author’s approach.)

All these words and not one about the romantic aspect… like Finding Mr Perfectly Fine, there are a few contenders here. There’s obviously Noah, the guy from the train; there’s Zakariya from art class (because you know he’ll be there somewhere); and then there’s the man Maya’s parents set her up to meet in a dekha dekhi arrangement. There are also a couple of other men involved in romances. Please note, artistic license may have been used here to prevent spoilers.

You find yourself working out what you think will happen, Abdur-Rashid says, ‘not so fast’, and this repeats throughout. It’s exhilarating – when you put the romance thread together with the use of communication in the book, Abdur-Rashid’s priorising of reader questions, laugh-out-loud humour, and nods to popular culture (Bridgerton gets two nods, thank me for that info later) you get a book that you want to finish as quick as you can because you want to find out what happens. You also find yourself in a situation where you mourn the loss of your ability to read in a more measured fashion because you know books aren’t written over night and you’ve a long wait ahead of you for the next book because it hasn’t been written yet. (Unless you haven’t read the author’s first book in which case I’m very envious. You’re in for another treat.)

All that to say – okay, really I might just have got carried away with how well this book is written – the romance is top-notch, brilliantly done. You’re unlikely to disagree with who (if she does pick one) Maya chooses because the author again never shies away from details. There are no really bad guys here but there are definitely ones more suited than others.

So to the promised inclusion of what happens to Zara (the main character from the author’s previous book)¹ – you get a good number of pages to not just find out where Zara ‘went’ after her book was over but to enjoy a bit of the ride along with her. And perhaps the best bit – you’re not left hankering for more after she makes her exit. It’s a very decent closure.

Last thing – you’re going to get hungry reading this. Food is a big part of the novel. It’s there for the regular mealtimes, it’s there for gatherings, and it’s there when people need another person to lean on and talk to. It’s there for meetings and karaoke and post-shopping refuelling and potential in-laws all meeting for the first time.

The Thirty Before Thirty List is excellent. It’s fun, it’s well-written, and, as a bonus, it leaves just enough questions at your feet for you to spend a good time afterwards thinking about whether you agree with one or two characters’ actions. This is always a great thing to close a book on, and also a review – I’m still questioning one character’s resolution and I like the fact that I am very much.

I was invited to and attended the launch of this book.

Publisher: Zaffre Books (Bonnier)
Pages: 380
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-838-77818-7
First Published: 18th July 2024
Date Reviewed: 15th August 2024

Footnotes

¹ See my interview with Tasneem, episode 85 of the podcast.

Kristy Woodson Harvey wanted to write about a wedding veil. Her agent suggested a historical wedding veil, and when Woodson Harvey started thinking about the Vanderbilts (because she loved visiting Biltmore House, the family’s home in Asheville, North Carolina), on a whim she Googled one of the women of the family to see if there might be a veil included somewhere. There was.

In the present day, Julia is about to marry Hayes, her long-term on-again-off-again boyfriend. During her bridemaid’s lunch at Biltmore House the day before, there’s a sudden load of pings; all the women’s phones go off with notifications. Someone has filmed Hayes cheating and sent it to everyone at the lunch. Julia is devastated but she’s been with Hayes so long and they always make up and get back together, so she says she’ll still marry him. The next day she puts on the family wedding veil; it brings good luck. And she will marry Hayes… well, she means to but then to heck with it, she does a runner and by the end of it all she finds herself on her honeymoon by herself thinking about all the things she gave up and being drawn to a man she meets early into the holiday. At the same time, narrative-wise, in the 1800s, Edith Dresser is about to marry into the Vanderbilt family; she wears her family’s wedding veil (yes, there is no sense in hiding it – there is a connection) and finds herself in a happy marriage that later produces Cornelia, the next in line to inherit the family’s wealth.

The Wedding Veil is Woodson Harvey’s wonderful stand-alone novel of the lasting power of female friendship and familial love, romantic love and being who you should be… and the mystery behind where Julia’s family’s wedding veil came from. Told via four narratives (Julia’s grandmother Babs and Cornelia Vanderbilt round us off) the book offers a wholesome, winsome, story that is pretty much guaranteed to delight.

Woodson Harvey is great at character development and her way of writing is absolutely lovely; from the first page you’re very much invited to join the story. The author has a particular talent for writing characters which means that even if there’s one you don’t like (you’re not going to like Hayes, for example, and for a few pages you may not even like Julia) you’re totally invested in the tale. And in the case of Woodson Harvey, writing definitely needs to be placed in the same paragraph in a review as her character development because they are part and parcel of each other; in the author’s Southern States setting and general ambiance, you get a complete sense of calm, of escape, of knowing you’re about to be whisked away into a well-told story.

That is, I think, the exact defining element of this author’s work – her ability to give you that promise, through her writing, of having chosen the right book and take you on a great journey; maybe you know where it’ll end up, maybe you won’t (Woodson Harvey definitely knows how to get the balance right between mystery and predictability), but you are guaranteed a satisfying story no matter what.

So you’ve got four fab narratives here – 1800s’ Edith Vanderbilt, whose husband George built the Biltmore House in Asheville, Cornelia (their daughter) born in 1900, and then Julia and Babs from the present day. Edith’s narrative allows you to see the Vanderbilt family in their prime, and then Cornelia’s shows the slow decline, her narrative straddling the fence of before the Great Depression and the aftermath. There is also, of course, the look at both women in their own rights as well as their relationship with each other and the way they both ‘deal’ with romance. Julia’s narrative offers a sad but busy beginning and a happier forward journey, showing how one can get swamped and lose themselves in a bad relationship and the change that can come from a better one, whereas Babs shows two good relationships – one in absentia, so to speak (Reid is dead) – and, perhaps most importantly, that love can happen at any age. Writing older women, giving them a voice and putting them front and centre of the narrative is another thing that Woodson Harvey does well.

Of the Vanderbilts’ lives, then, you see the opulence and the glamour but also – perhaps in part due to Woodson Harvey’s knowledge of Biltmore – the real life, down-to-earth stuff, too. You get the Gilded Age and the way the family looked after all the employees and tenants of the estate, and the perspective, narration-wise, that Woodson Harvey uses, allows for a particular readerly intimacy with it all.

But Julia and Babs would say they are just as important. They might not have the same glamour but they do have their modern day relatability and two lovely romances. Both also have their character progression and their relationship with each other which, I think this can be said without spoiling the book, is what we end the story on.

There’s a lot to love about this book – Julia spends a while (page-wise) in the Virgin Islands, sun, sea, sand, Babs’ retirement village is very well described and fun, and the Vanderbilts bring some fascinating history into the mix. The romantic leads are winsome, whilst being very much secondary characters and rightly so.

In short, if you haven’t already figured it out by what I assume is my very obvious attempt and failure to explain exactly what I like about this book, it’s the atmosphere and the sum of the writing and the specific vibes that make this book what it is – things that are difficult to describe.

The Wedding Veil just… rocks. It’s poignant, it will occasionally make you want to tell a character to stop thinking what they’re thinking (okay, not ‘a’ character, mostly Julia when she’s thinking that maybe her cheating fiancé isn’t so bad), and it simply provides a glorious reading experience. The ambiance ensures that while, over time, you might forget the little things, you certainly won’t forget the feeling of reading this book and you will certainly miss it once it’s over.

Publisher: Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster)
Pages: 395
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-982-18071-3
First Published: 29th March 2022
Date Reviewed: 4th December 2023

Amanda Geard did not know much abut her home country’s role in the war. Everything she knew was about Europe, not Australia. With this book, she has fixed that, and taught us all, too.

The Moon Gate follows a number of characters but three in particular, across three time periods. In the 1930s-40s, Grace has travelled from London to Tasmania to get away from the war and whilst neglected by her chaperone – her mother’s favourite, Rose – and her aunt, finds peace in both the cultural and literal landscape of her new home. In the 1970s, Willow and Ben are surprised to be named the beneficiaries of a trust that gives them a house n the west coast of Tasmania, and Ben wants to find out who their benefactor was. And in 2004, Libby is looking to find out more abut her father, Ben, who died in the Moorgate Tube Crash when he was visiting London on a mission to find out about her mother’s family.

The Moon Gate is a superb tale of grief and rebirth, focusing on aspects of history that are not well known.

Geard has written an incredibly immersive story that is worth every line of its 495 pages. Looking at three time periods, changing perspectives when it will add context and interest, and adding twist after twist after twist, The Moon Gate is an exemplary example of multi-narrative fiction that will sate the appetites of a great many readers of the genre. (I’d also like to note that the book has no filler sections – I really do mean it’s worth all those pages.)

It would be difficult not to say this is not a character-driven book – it absolutely is that – but the plot is thrilling nonetheless. And the theme work, whilst certainly running behind them, is not far off. You have Grace, a resident of Mayfair who is neglected by her mother in favour of the housekeeper’s daughter. Grace’s mother is a member of the British fascists and gives us the most memorable line of the book: ‘You are very difficult to love’. Spoiler alert but not really: there’s nothing wrong with Grace.

Then you have Ben in 1974-5. (His wife, Willow, isn’t seen so much here but her life spans two of the time periods, so she’s fully involved.) Ben is on a mostly one-man mission to find Willow’s birth parents because it makes sense to his that they are the people who bestowed upon Willow and Ben the house on the west coast. Ben’s mission is informed by his life in the system – having never known any parents at all, he is doubly keen to find Willow’s birth parents. And Libby, who has lost both her father and fiancé, trades a Tasmanian summer for a British winter, to find out if she can find out more about her father – her mother doesn’t know much and is quiet about what she does know.

Geard’s focus, in the ‘first’ timeline WW2’s impact on Tasmania, lends the book a particular uniqueness; she looks at both civilian and military history. Geard has included a fair amount of information about West Coast Tasmania mining, Huon pine (a type of tree that doesn’t rot easily), and the book is pretty steeped in its historical local community, which is no mean feat when you consider that so much of the goings on happen at the house. As to military history, with one of the characters being involved as a soldier in the eastern theatre of the war, there is information as to the lives of Tasmanian soldiers, as well as the worries of the regular civilians.

And if we are to speak of the wider country, which we should, then we must include Banjo Paterson: Geard has woven the famed Australian poet’s work into her novel, using it to drive parts of her character’s lives forward as Grace starts to write herself.

Paramount to the book’s themes is the look at grief. Most people in The Moon Gate have lost someone, and there is a particular case where the reader witnesses a death themselves. Many people in the novel have lost a parent and some have lost their partners. Geard’s inclusion of the Moorgate Tube Crash warrants a mention because it is an absolutely important event in London to know about but certainly for this Brit, Geard’s book is the first she’s heard about it; much like Kate Thompson’s employment of the Bethnal Green Tube Disaster of WW2 (for The Little Wartime Library), it’s a piece of history that shouldn’t be forgotten. And talking of grief, Geard’s look at loss of one’s partner is wonderfully done in the form of Libby’s remembrance of Krish, which impacts the choices she makes.

The Moon Gate may deal with difficult subjects but the reading experience itself is absolutely sublime – I’ve used that word for this book before and I likely will again. And as I have also said before, this book puts Geard’s debut The Midnight House to shame; how she will continue to advance from here I do not know but I have every belief that she will.

Publisher: Headline Review (Hachette)
Pages: 495
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-472-28375-7
First Published: 14th July 2023
Date Reviewed: 18th August 2023

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