This Week in Books – 14-11-18

This Week in Books

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This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that allows bloggers to share:

  • What they’ve recently finished reading
  • What they are currently reading
  • What they are planning to read next

The last book I finished reading was Melmoth by Sarah Perry which I really enjoyed.  Now I just need to find the words to review it!  

melmoth

Twenty years ago Helen Franklin did something she cannot forgive herself for, and she has spent every day since barricading herself against its memory. But her sheltered life is about to change.

A strange manuscript has come into her possession. It is filled with testimonies from the darkest chapters of human history, which all record sightings of a tall, silent woman in black, with unblinking eyes and bleeding feet: Melmoth, the loneliest being in the world. Condemned to walk the Earth forever, she tries to beguile the guilty and lure them away for a lifetime wandering alongside her.

Everyone that Melmoth seeks out must make a choice: to live with what they’ve done, or be led into the darkness. Helen can’t stop reading, or shake the feeling that someone is watching her. As her past finally catches up with her, she too must choose which path to take.

Exquisitely written, and gripping until the very last page, this is a masterpiece of moral complexity, asking us profound questions about mercy, redemption, and how to make the best of our conflicted world.

I’ve just started reading Gone to Ground by Rachel Amphlett – the latest instalment in the Detective Kay Hunter series.

gone to ground

While attending a crime scene on the outskirts of Maidstone, DI Kay Hunter makes a shocking discovery.

The victim has been brutally cut to pieces, his identity unknown.

When more body parts start turning up in the Kentish countryside, Kay realises the disturbing truth – a serial killer is at large and must be stopped at all costs.

With no motive for the murders and a killer who has gone undetected until now, Kay and her team of detectives must work fast to calm a terrified local population and a scornful media.

When a third victim is found, her investigation grows even more complicated.

As she begins to expose a dark underbelly to the county town, Kay and her team are pulled into a web of jealousy and intrigue that, if left unchecked, will soon claim another life.

My next read will probably be The Swooping Magpie by Liza Perrat.

the swooping magpie

The thunderclap of sexual revolution collides with the black cloud of illegitimacy.
Sixteen-year-old Lindsay Townsend is pretty and popular at school. At home, it’s a different story. Dad belts her and Mum’s either busy or battling a migraine. So when sexy school-teacher Jon Halliwell finds her irresistible, Lindsay believes life is about to change.

She’s not wrong.

Lindsay and Jon pursue their affair in secret, because if the school finds out, Jon will lose his job. If Lindsay’s dad finds out, there will be hell to pay. But when a dramatic accident turns her life upside down, Lindsay is separated from the man she loves.

Events spiral beyond her control, emotions conflicting with doubt, loneliness and fear, and Lindsay becomes enmeshed in a shocking true-life Australian scandal. The schoolyard beauty will discover the dangerous games of the adult world. Games that destroy lives.

Lindsay is forced into the toughest choice of her young life. The resulting trauma will forever burden her heart.

Reflecting the social changes of 1970s Australia, The Swooping Magpie is a chilling psychological tale of love, loss and grief, and, through collective memory, finding we are not alone.

And that’s my week in books! What are you reading this week?  Let me know in the comments! 😎

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One More Chance by Lucy Ayrton

Book Review,

one more chance

I was delighted to be offered the opportunity to read and review Lucy Ayrton’s debut novel, One More Chance. It is published by Dialogue Books, a new imprint of Little, Brown Book Group which aims to promote diverse voices in publishing.

THE BATTLE ON THE INSIDE IS JUST THE BEGINNING

Dani hasn’t had an easy life. She’s made some bad choices and now she’s paying the ultimate price; prison.

With her young daughter Bethany, growing up in foster care, Dani is determined to be free and reunited with her. There’s only one problem; Dani can’t stay out of trouble.

Dani’s new cellmate Martha is quiet and unassuming. There’s something about her that doesn’t add up. When Martha offers Dani one last chance at freedom, she doesn’t hesitate.

Everything she wants is on the outside, but Dani is stuck on the inside. Is it possible to break out when everyone is trying to keep you in…

I thought that Dani was a fantastic character, and one that is sadly all too representative of many young women today.  The reader quickly learns that she has been in and out of prison since her late teens, and it’s clear that she knows how to handle herself, striking the difficult balance of not getting herself into trouble (most of the time) yet not letting others push her around, either.  Whilst she encourages her image of someone not to be messed with, it’s apparent that there’s a delicate individual underneath the façade, and I loved these little glimpses of a vulnerable individual who understands that she is caught up in a cycle of drugs, crime, and prison, yet feels powerless to do anything about it.

As well as seeing Dani in prison, there are also flashbacks to her younger days, exploring how she ended up where she did.  This is a common tale of an unhappy childhood and behaviour that spiralled out of control from an early age as she felt that those around – her mother, the man her mother moves in with (I don’t think they actually get married) – didn’t care about her, gave her a hard time, and, before long, gave up on her.  Ayrton doesn’t blame the parents explicitly – Dani’s behaviour is very much her own – but it’s no secret that an unhappy childhood may lead to criminal behaviour in adults, and in Dani’s case it has led her to self-harm, drug abuse, and the crimes associated with funding a habit.

The main aspect of the plot centres on Dani, and how she might get back to her daughter who is in foster care.  Whilst Dani feels that the system is against her – that the vocational courses offered won’t help her, that no one will employ her, that she has no home to go to on the outside – her new cell mate, the mysterious and otherworldly Martha, provides her with an alternative.  The plot does stray a little into the realms of fantasy to achieve its aim, and yet it still felt very real, and readers who are sceptical of such plot devices shouldn’t be put off by this.  I don’t want to explore this in any detail – you’ll have to find out for yourself if she makes it out or not.

Ayrton has used her experience working for a prison charity to full effect to give the reader an insight into what life is like on the inside for young women today, and the hopelessness that many feel.  The characters and the setting are authentic, and I loved the snippets of statistics and excerpts from the Prison Service Instructions which add context to the story and emphasise Dani’s experiences.  Despite parts of the plot being slightly fantastical, this novel opens the reader up to the harsh reality of a prisoner’s life, and yet still manages to incorporate moments of hope.  I’m looking forward to seeing what Ayrton does next.

One More Chance is published in paperback on 15 November, and is available to purchase now on Kindle ( for just £0.99 at the time of writing this post!).  Many thanks to Millie Seaward for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes

Book Review,

the children of jocasta

As I’m sure regular readers of this blog are aware, I’m a big fan of novels that give a new spin on an ancient myth, and I was delighted to hear Natalie Haynes speak at last year’s Hay Winter Weekend, allowing me to pick up a copy of her second novel, The Children of Jocasta.  If you do get the opportunity to hear Haynes give a talk, please do go – I found her talk at Hay to be incredibly interesting and extremely amusing.

In The Children of Jocasta, Natalie Haynes retells the Oedipus and Antigone myths to reveal a new side of an ancient story…

My siblings and I have grown up in a cursed house, children of cursed parents…

Jocasta is just fifteen when she is told that she must marry the King of Thebes, an old man she has never met. Her life has never been her own, and nor will it be, unless she outlives her strange, absent husband.

Ismene is the same age when she is attacked in the palace she calls home. Since the day of her parents’ tragic deaths a decade earlier, she has always longed to feel safe with the family she still has. But with a single act of violence, all that is about to change.

With the turn of these two events, a tragedy is set in motion. But not as you know it.

The Children of Jocasta retells the stories of two Greek plays – Oedipus Tyrannos and Antigone.  I was familiar with the tale of Oedipus in the broadest terms – it’s difficult not to be when Freud borrowed his name to describe certain feelings towards one’s opposite sex parent – but Antigone’s tale was a new one to me.  This didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the novel at all, and I felt that it worked as an introduction to these plays.  The novel alternates between the two narratives, and while the two plays are separate, they are connected, and I loved the way that Haynes intertwined the two, revealing a clue in one to explain something in the other.

The tale of Oedipus is told from the perspective of Jocasta, a relatively minor character in Sophocles’ play, despite the important role that she plays, and I thought that this was a nice spin on the story.  Indeed, Oedipus is all but relegated to the side-lines, not appearing until quite late in the novel, and then playing a relatively minor role.  Similarly, the second narrative is told from the perspective of Ismene (Isy) – again a minor character in the play, given a new voice by Haynes in order to tell the story from a different point of view to those traditionally used.

Haynes admits to playing fast and loose with some of the detail in her author’s note at the end of the novel.  I’ve no issue with this, and I wouldn’t have been aware of many of the changes had she not pointed them out herself.  And I think that to tell the story from the perspectives she did that this was necessary.  It’s difficult to focus on Jocasta and yet show Oedipus solving the riddle of the Sphinx, for example – you can’t have both, and so the Sphinx becomes a bandit horde terrorising the area around Thebes that Oedipus does battle with, mentioned in passing, rather than being a key scene1.

I haven’t gone into any detail of what happens in either narrative – this is one of those novels where you either know the key details or I’d have to spoil it for you – but this is an entertaining retelling of two Greek tragedies that I’d recommend to fans of Madeleine Miller and Emily Hauser.

Rating ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

1 Also, the riddle of Sphinx can’t be done any more brilliantly that in Terry Pratchett’s Pyramids.

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill

Book Review,

sea of rust

I was drawn to Sea of Rust when it was first published in 2017, attracted to the idea of an end of the world novel in which humans are extinct and it’s now the turn of the robots and AI that we developed to serve us.

HUMANKIND IS EXTINCT.

Wiped out in a global uprising by the very machines made to serve them. Now the world is controlled by OWIs – vast mainframes that have assimilated the minds of millions of robots.

But not all robots are willing to cede their individuality, and Brittle is one of the holdouts.

After a near-deadly encounter with another AI, Brittle is forced to seek sanctuary in a city under siege by an OWI. Critically damaged, Brittle must evade capture long enough to find the essential rare parts to make repairs – but as a robot’s CPU gradually deteriorates, all their old memories resurface.

For Brittle, that means one haunting memory in particular…

With humans out of the way, you might expect that the world would run more smoothly, and be managed according to logic rather than the whims of a few individuals who have, by luck or judgement, gained power over their respective areas of the map.  It couldn’t be further from the truth.  Now that humans are extinct, there are two One World Intelligences (OWIs) – vast mainframes with intellect and capabilities outstripping those of individual robots – seeking domination.  That domination entails destroying the other OWI, as well as absorbing the memories and knowledge of each individual robot for their own purposes.

Sea of Rust follows Brittle – a robot designed as a caregiver, supporting the ill and elderly in their day to day needs.  Left with no purpose (as with most robots, her purpose expired with the human race) Brittle now wanders around the desert that is all that’s left of the American Midwest, seeking out spare parts to repair herself as bits and pieces begin to fail, and trying to avoid being absorbed by the OWIs.  I found Brittle to be surprisingly human, and I liked the contrast of introspection, which I wouldn’t expect from a robot, combined with the abilities to make precise calculations as to distance, speed etc. that I would expect.  Her end goal might be different to that of a human left at the end of the world – finding parts rather than food or medicine – but the challenges are the same as she tries to find what she needs whilst avoiding other robots who are doing the same.

As well as sharing her own story, Brittle also reflects upon the last days, months, and years of the human race, explaining how and why the war started, and how it ended as it did.  Once war was declared, I think that the result was inevitable, and most robots – whatever their original purpose – were involved in the fight, seeking out and killing any remaining pockets of human resistance.  I thought that this was a fascinating, if worryingly plausible, scenario, but it was good to understand why there were no humans left, and I really enjoyed these parts of the story.

Sea of Rust is a fantastic end of the world saga, but an original one in that our own world has already vanished, leaving it in the hands of robots as the two remaining OWIs fight it out for supremacy.  I loved that there are robots – like Brittle – who don’t want to be absorbed by these vast mainframes, and just want to be themselves, and this novel raises interesting questions about identity and individualism.  At the same time, it is an excellent story with plenty of action and a great plot, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

This Week in Books – 07-11-18

This Week in Books

TWIB - logo

This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that allows bloggers to share:

  • What they’ve recently finished reading
  • What they are currently reading
  • What they are planning to read next

The last book I finished reading was The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes.  

the children of jocasta

In The Children of Jocasta, Natalie Haynes retells the Oedipus and Antigone myths to reveal a new side of an ancient story…

My siblings and I have grown up in a cursed house, children of cursed parents…

Jocasta is just fifteen when she is told that she must marry the King of Thebes, an old man she has never met. Her life has never been her own, and nor will it be, unless she outlives her strange, absent husband.

Ismene is the same age when she is attacked in the palace she calls home. Since the day of her parents’ tragic deaths a decade earlier, she has always longed to feel safe with the family she still has. But with a single act of violence, all that is about to change.

With the turn of these two events, a tragedy is set in motion. But not as you know it.

I’ve just started reading One More Chance by Lucy Ayrton.

one more chance

THE BATTLE ON THE INSIDE IS JUST THE BEGINNING

Dani hasn’t had an easy life. She’s made some bad choices and now she’s paying the ultimate price; prison.

With her young daughter Bethany, growing up in foster care, Dani is determined to be free and reunited with her. There’s only one problem; Dani can’t stay out of trouble.

Dani’s new cellmate Martha is quiet and unassuming. There’s something about her that doesn’t add up. When Martha offers Dani one last chance at freedom, she doesn’t hesitate.

Everything she wants is on the outside, but Dani is stuck on the inside. Is it possible to break out when everyone is trying to keep you in…

My next read is likely to be Gone to Ground by Rachel Amphlett – the latest instalment in the Detective Kay Hunter series.

gone to ground

While attending a crime scene on the outskirts of Maidstone, DI Kay Hunter makes a shocking discovery.

The victim has been brutally cut to pieces, his identity unknown.

When more body parts start turning up in the Kentish countryside, Kay realises the disturbing truth – a serial killer is at large and must be stopped at all costs.

With no motive for the murders and a killer who has gone undetected until now, Kay and her team of detectives must work fast to calm a terrified local population and a scornful media.

When a third victim is found, her investigation grows even more complicated.

As she begins to expose a dark underbelly to the county town, Kay and her team are pulled into a web of jealousy and intrigue that, if left unchecked, will soon claim another life.

And that’s my week in books! What are you reading this week?  Let me know in the comments! 😎

My Chronicle Book Box Unboxing – November 2018

Book Box Subscriptions

It’s been a while since I treated myself to a subscription box, but I’ve had my eye on My Chronicle Book Box for some time now, having seen the lovely unboxings from:

I think that it was only a matter of time until I purchased one.

My Chronicle Book Box (you can find out more here) provide a quarterly subscription box containing three books as well as carefully selected (and often exclusive) goodies.  One of the things that attracted me to this box is that you can choose either a Crime and Mystery themed box, or a Science Fiction and Fantasy box.  I chose the Science Fiction and Fantasy box, and it arrived at the end of last week.

Please note that if you are expecting your own My Chronicle Book Box then this post does contain spoilers as to the books and goodies included!

My Chronicle Book Box contained three books as well as some little treats including:

MCBB4 - Nov18

An exclusive candle from Bookworm Candle and Crafts.  This smells divine, and I love the inscription on the lid which says

In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.

I think that this is a lovely sentiment, and I’m looking forward to lighting the candle and curling up with a good book on a cold, dark, and maybe even snowy evening.  And check out those sparkles on top! ❤

The second item I opened was a poster featuring the Rose from Nicholas Eames’s Bloody Rose.  This was created by book cover artist Felix Ortiz, and is an exclusive design that is not available to purchase elsewhere.

MCBB3 - Nov18

I think that this is a gorgeous print, and it ties in neatly with one of the books in box!

There was also a sampler for A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C. A. Fletcher which is published in 2019 and a book mark / 2019 calendar.

And now for the books.  When unpacking a book box, I always leave the books until last.

MCBB6 - Nov18The first book I unwrapped was Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames.  I’ve heard good things about this novel as well as Kings of the Wyld – the first in the series, although Bloody Rose can apparently be read as a standalone – so I’m really looking forward to this!

Synopsis:

Tam Hashford is tired of working at her local pub, slinging drinks for world-famous mercenaries and listening to the bards sing of adventure and glory in the world beyond her sleepy hometown.

When the biggest mercenary band of all rolls into town, led by the infamous Bloody Rose, Tam jumps at the chance to sign on as their bard. It’s adventure she wants and adventure she gets as the crew embark on a quest that will end in one of two ways: glory or death.

IT’S TIME TO TAKE A WALK ON THE WYLD SIDE

MCBB7 - Nov18

The second book I unwrapped was Rosewater by Tade Thompson.  I’ve been itching to read this for some time now, so I was delighted that it was included in the box!

Synopsis:

Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry and the helpless – people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumoured healing powers.

Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn’t care to again – but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realisation about a horrifying future.

MCBB8 - Nov18The third book in the box was Early Riser by Jasper Fforde.  I’m a big Jasper Fforde fan, and unfortunately I do already have a copy of this novel, so either someone is getting this for Christmas this year, or I may run a giveaway at some point.  It certainly won’t go to waste!

Synopsis:

Every Winter, the human population hibernates. 

During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, and devoid of human activity.

Well, not quite.

Your name is Charlie Worthing and it’s your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses.

You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artefact borne of the sleeping mind.

When the dreams start to kill people, it’s unsettling.

When you get the dreams too, it’s weird.

When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.

But teasing truth from Winter is never easy: You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping and stamp collecting, ensure you aren’t eaten by Nightwalkers whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food, and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk.

But so long as you remember to wrap up warmly, you’ll be fine.

Overall, I’m really impressed with My Chronicle Book Box.  Whilst I do already have one of the books it contained, it confirms that this is a box that suits my tastes, and I’m really excited by the other two books included, particularly Rosewater which has been on my wish list for quite some time now.  I liked that each book came with a signed bookplate from the author, and there were also exclusive interviews with Nicholas Eames and Tade Thompson.  The items were beautifully packed, and I’m really pleased with the quality of the additional goodies.  I’ll definitely be purchasing another My Chronicle book Box 🙂

Mount TBR Challenge Update – November 2018

Reading Challenge

Challenge Update

I had got to the point where I was feeling quite confident of reading my entire backlist of 52 books before the year is out.  Well, you know what they say about pride coming before a fall?  It’s still doable, but I’m somewhat less confident than I was now that we’re going into November, and I’ve still got four left to go.  Four doesn’t sound like many, but I do have one or two review copies to read before the year is out, not to mention all those shiny new books vying for my attention…

I’ve read two books from my backlist since my last update:

Out of Bounds by Val McDermid

out of bounds

There are lots of things that ran in families, but murder wasn’t one of them…

When a teenage joyrider crashes a stolen car and ends up in a coma, a routine DNA test could be the key to unlocking the mystery of a twenty-year-old murder inquiry. Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie is an expert at solving the unsolvable. With each cold case closed, justice is served. So, finding the answer should be straightforward, but it’s as twisted as the DNA helix itself.

Meanwhile Karen finds herself irresistibly drawn to another case, one that she has no business investigating. And as she pieces together decades-old evidence, Karen discovers the most dangerous kinds of secrets. Secrets that someone is willing to kill for…

You can read my review here.

A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford

a brief history of everyone who ever lived

This is a story about you.

It is the history of who you are and how you came to be. It is unique to you, as it is to each of the 100 billion modern humans who have ever drawn breath. But it is also our collective story, because in every one of our genomes we each carry the history of our species – births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration and a lot of sex.

Since scientists first read the human genome in 2001 it has been subject to all sorts of claims, counterclaims and myths. In fact, as Adam Rutherford explains, our genomes should be read not as instruction manuals, but as epic poems. DNA determines far less than we have been led to believe about us as individuals, but vastly more about us as a species.

In this captivating journey through the expanding landscape of genetics, Adam Rutherford reveals what our genes now tell us about history, and what history tells us about our genes. From Neanderthals to murder, from redheads to race, dead kings to plague, evolution to epigenetics, this is a demystifying and illuminating new portrait of who we are and how we came to be.

You can read my review here.

I have now read 48 books from my backlist, so I have reached the summit of Mt. Ararat!  I don’t have enough backlist titles left to reach the next peak of Mount Kilimanjaro, but I’ll continue to report on my progress!

Mount TBR Nov 18

TBR Watch

  • Total: 66
    • Backlist: 4
    • ARCs: 14
    • New: 48