The Blurb (from Goodreads):
Based on a real letter to the Times by a Victorian schoolmaster reporting a mermaid sighting, Secrets of the Sea House is an epic, sweeping tale of loss and love; hope and redemption; and how we heal ourselves with the stories we tell.
Scotland, 1860. Reverend Alexander Ferguson, naïve and newly-ordained, takes up his new parish, a poor, isolated patch on the Hebridean island of Harris. His time on the island will irrevocably change the course of his life, but the white house on the edge of the dunes keeps its silence long after Alexander departs.
It will be more than a century before the Sea House reluctantly gives up its secrets. Ruth and Michael buy the grand but dilapidated building and begin to turn it into a home for the family they hope to have. Their dreams are marred by a shocking discovery. The tiny bones of a baby are buried beneath the house; the child's fragile legs are fused together - a mermaid child. Who buried the bones? And why? But can the answers to Ruth's questions lie in her own past.
My Thoughts:
An intriguing and atmospheric novel set in the Hebrides Islands of Scotland, the narrative moves between the contemporary story of Ruth and her husband Michael, and the islands in the 1860s when crofters are being forced to emigrate and science and religion are in conflict.
Ruth and Michael are living in, and renovating, the ramshackle Sea House on the Hebridean Island of Harris. Ruth is haunted by feelings of fear and grief, and worries they have made a mistake in sinking all their savings into this remote and run-down house. Then they discover, buried beneath the floorboards, the tiny bones of a dead child. Its legs are fused together, its feet splayed like flippers. The discovery unsettles Ruth, reminding her of her dead mother’s strange tales of a selkie ancestry. She begins to try and find out how the skeleton came to be buried under the house.
The story moves to 1860, and the alternating points of view of the young and handsome Reverend Alexander Ferguson and his intelligent yet illiterate housemaid, Moira. Alexander’s obsession with mermaids and selkies, and his forbidden attraction to the daughter of the local laird, lead to grief and betrayal and death.
The weaving together of the two threads is masterfully done. The story is powerful, beautiful, and magical, and Ruth’s struggle to overcome the shackles of the past is sensitively handled. Hard to believe this s a debut author – definitely one to watch.
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
Is it more dangerous to forget ... or to remember? A compelling drama about broken dreams, first love and the mystery of a lost sister, for all fans of Hannah Richell and Kate Morton. She remembered this part of the trip during the day time. Her sisters on either side in the back. The sunlight flickering through branches was like looking through a kaleidoscope. How could that be so long ago? How could so much have gone wrong?
Phoebe's life has fallen apart and there's only one place left to go. Alone and adrift after a failed marriage proposal, she flees Sydney to her family's abandoned holiday cottage.
On the slow-moving river Phoebe is confronted with the legacy of her older sister's suicide, a year before. Why did Karin leave a note written in flowers and walk into the water?
Phoebe's childhood love, Jez, has moved back to the beautiful old house, Driftwood, one jetty down. He's married now and the home has become a refuge for an unlikely little community.
As the river begins to give up its secrets, Phoebe finds herself caught up in old feelings and new mysteries.
The Lost Summers of Driftwood is a story of lost loves, rekindled passions, tragedy and betrayal set against the backdrop of an idyllic south coast town.
My Thoughts:
An atmospheric and evocative mystery about a young woman whose life has fallen apart after her beloved sister commits suicide, and who returns to the place of her sister’s death to try to make sense of it all.
Phoebe seems as if she has it all – a glamorous job, a good-looking boyfriend, stylish clothes – but since her sister Karin died, she’s been struggling to keep it all together. When her relationship breaks up, she heads to the small country town where she and her family had always spent their holidays to try and heal. Memories of her childhood – and her sister – haunt her, however. She is also unsettled to find her childhood sweetheart is still living there, with his marriage in trouble and their past unresolved.
Slowly Phoebe begins to suspect that Karin’s’ death was not her choice, and as bushfires threaten her town and new home, she uncovers dangerous secrets that will change everything.
The thing I loved most about this novel was the wonderful evocation of the Australian summer – it reminded me of so many of my own family holidays, and the bushfires scenes were particularly tense and compelling, as my own skies were dark with smoke and the smell of burning eucalypt. The mystery was clever too (though I did guess the identity of the murderer!)
You might also like to read my review of The Dry by Jane Harper:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/vintage-book-review
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
The untold story of the man who brought a mastermind of the final solution to justice.
May 1945. In the aftermath of the Second Word War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. As Kommandant of Auschwitz, Höss not only oversaw the murder of more than one million men, women, and children; he was the man who perfected Hitler’s program of mass extermination. Höss is on the run across a continent in ruins, the one man whose testimony can ensure justice at Nuremberg.
Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss’s capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day. Moving from the Middle Eastern campaigns of the First World War to bohemian Berlin in the 1920s to the horror of the concentration camps and the trials in Belsen and Nuremberg, it tells the story of two German men- one Jewish, one Catholic- whose lives diverged, and intersected, in an astonishing way
My Thoughts:
The author of this utterly riveting and chilling book found out, at his great-uncle’s funeral, that the mild-mannered old man he had known had once been a Nazi hunter. And not just any Nazi. His Great Uncle Hanns had been the man who had hunted down and caught Rudolf Hoss, the Kommandant of Auschwitz and the architect of the Final Solution that saw millions of people efficiently and cold-bloodedly murdered.
Thomas Harding was so surprised and intrigued by this revelation, he began to try and found out more. His research led him to write this extraordinary book, which parallels the lives of the two men from birth till death.
Rudolf Hoss was born in 1901 in Baden-Baden, and ran away at the age of 14 to fight in WWI. He was a Commander at just sixteen years old, and joined the National Socialist Party after spending time in prison after murdering a traitor.
Hanns Alexander, meanwhile, was born in 1933 in Berlin to a prosperous middle-class Jewish family. He managed to escape Germany in time, but his great-aunt died in the concentration camps and his family lost everything. When WWII broke out, he fought for the British army, along with his twin brother.
Hoss, meanwhile, was busy fulfilling his orders to make Auschwitz ‘a site of mass annihilation.’ The chapters set during this time are truly disturbing and had me in tears more than once. Then, as Germany lost the war, Hoss escaped – abandoning his wife and children - and hid himself in an assumed identity.
After the concentration camps were discovered, the War Crimes Commission was established and Hanns Alexander was chosen to help track down war criminals. How he tracked down Hoss makes for riveting reading; in parts, it feels more like a thriller than non-fiction. An utterly brilliant book which I recommend very highly.
You might also like to read my review of Aneasthesia here:
BOOK REVIEW: Anaesthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and The Mystery of Consciousness by Kate Cole-Adams
The Blurb:
December 1940: Christopher Larkham finds an ancient Roman ring inscribed with a phoenix on the banks of the Thames. As he takes shelter from the firestorm of the Blitz, the ring glows, and pushing open a door, he finds himself in 1666 and facing the Great Fire of London. Fire-and-brimstone preacher, Brother Blowbladder, and his men of the Righteous Temple have prayed for the ancient gods of fire to bring flames down upon London, a city of sin. Could Christopher be their messenger? And why do the Righteous men wear the same phoenix symbol as the engraving on Christopher’s ring?
The Fire Watcher trilogy blends time-travel, history, mystery and action into adventure as Christopher and his friends race to untangle the truth of the phoenix ring, and mysterious Righteous Temple
My Thoughts:
A boy named Christopher Larkham is living through the Blitz in London in 1940. His father is missing in action, his mother is a fire warden, and his life is ruled by air-raid alarms and the sound of bombers roaring overhead. One day he finds a mysterious phoenix ring, and is suddenly thrown back in time, to the Great Fire of London in 1666. It’s an absolutely fabulous premise, and Kelly Gardiner pulls it off with such panache. The characters are lively and believable, and both historical settings are compelling and action-packed. And there’s plenty of humour to leaven the suspense. This is middle-grade fantasy at its superb best, and I for one cannot wait for the rest of the series.
GET YOUR COPY OF BRIMSTONE HEREYou might also like to read my review of The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty:
VINTAGE POST: The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
Oct. 11th, 1943 - A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun.
When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn't stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she's living a spy's worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution.
As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage and failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?
Harrowing and beautifully written, Elizabeth Wein creates a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how far true friends will go to save each other. Code Name Verity is an outstanding novel that will stick with you long after the last page.
My Thoughts:
I’ve been hearing some slowly building buzz about this book for some kind, which grew much louder after it was named a Michael L. Printz Honor Book and shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Then I met Elizabeth Wein at the Brisbane Writers Festival and so grabbed a copy. I’m so glad I did. I loved this book so much. ‘Code Name Verity’ begins with the first person account of a young English woman who has been captured by the Nazis in German-occupied France during the Second World War. She has been tortured and has agreed to tell her interrogators everything she knows. Instead, however, she writes about her growing friendship with Maddie, the female pilot who had dropped her into France. The first person voice is intimate and engaging and surprisingly funny; the descriptions of flying are lyrically beautiful; and the growing fear for our heroine masterfully built. At a high point of tension, the narrative voice suddenly swaps to Maddie, and we hear the rest of the story from her point of view. This switch in view destabilises the whole story in an utterly brilliant and surprising way. I gasped out loud once or twice, and finished the book with eyes swimming with tears. Once of the best YA historical novels I have ever read.
You might also like to read my review of The Girl In The Tower by Katherine Arden:
BOOK REVIEW: The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden
The Blurb:
On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more.
Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone's throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga - Greece's former leper colony. Then she finds Fotini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip...
My Thoughts:
Published in 2005, and selling in the millions, The Island is set on the Greek island of Crete in the ‘40s and 50s, with a modern-day frame story. The British author, Victoria Hislop, had one of those dream runs that other authors try not to be jealous of – The Island was chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club, spent weeks on the bestseller lists, and has been turned into a TV series.
I bought it because I am also writing a novel set in 1940s and contemporary Crete, and I was curious to see how she did it (both the telling of the story and the selling in the millions).
The book begins with Alexis, a modern British woman whose mother Sofia was Cretan. Her mother never speaks about her past, and so when Alexis goes to Crete on holiday she thinks she might try and find out a little about her mother’s life while she is there. Most of the book then concentrates on the lives of Alexis’s great-grandmother Eleni - who in 1939 is diagnosed with leprosy and sent to the isolated leper colony at Spinalonga - and that of the two daughters she is forced to leave behind.
The eldest girl, Anna, is selfish to an astonishing degree. Her younger sister Maria is her exact opposite, being warm-hearted, hard-working, and self-sacrificing. As their lives unspool, the contast between the two sisters is heightened. Anna marries well, and has all the riches she ever wished for, but is unfaithful and uncaring. Maria, however, finds she has contracted leprosy herself, just days before her own wedding. She too must leave everything behind and go to Spinalonga, where her own mother had lived until her death from the disease many years before.
It’s a fascinating premise, and Victoria Hislop brings it all vividly to life. Particularly interesting are the scenes set in the leper colony. The book is very plainly and directly told, which means it was an easy read, but I did not feel deeply invested in many of the characters. The book also takes place over many years, in the tradition of family sagas. The whole occupation by the Germans – my key area of interest – is covered in what seemed like just a few pages. So I found that swiftness of pace – years covered in a few paragraphs – a little disconcerting too.
However, the story itself is so powerful and the Cretan setting so vivid and alive that these are small quibbles, easily forgiven.
You might also like to read my review of Beyond the Orchard by Anna Romer:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/vintage-book-review-2
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
A parcel of patterns brought the plague to Eyam. A parcel sent up from London to George Vicars, a journeyman tailor, who was lodging with Mrs. Cooper in a cottage by the west end of the churchyard.
So begins Mall Percival's account of how her village of Eyam struggled against the plague. George Vicars dies on September 6, 1665, and by the end of October, twenty-five more townsfolk have been buried. As the deaths continue, the villagers, including Mall, begin to panic--helpless to fight off the disease. Uncertain as to how it is contracted and passed from one person to another, Mall forces herself to make a sacrifice that radically changes her life--she decides to stops seeing Thomas Torre, a man from another village, the man she hopes to marry. In June of 1666, at their minister's urging, the entire village makes a pact to protect those who live in the surrounding countryside by staying within the boundaries of Eyam.
Although Mall longs to see Thomas, she remains steadfast in her resolution, until one day Thomas runs into the center of Eyam, knowing that he will not be allowed to leave, yet fearing that Mall has died. Mall and Thomas marry, but their happiness is short-lived. Finally, in October of 1666, the pestilence subsides. Mall, overwhelmed by grief and sorrow, decides to write a chronicle of all she has witnessed in Eyam, hoping that it will set her free.
My Thoughts:
I spent a weekend in the Peaks District during my time in the UK this month. Given a choice between visiting Chatsworth House (the opulent seat of the Duke of Devonshire which was used as the site of Pemberley in the 2005 film adaption of Pride and Prejudice) and a small local village called Eyam (prounced ‘eem’), you might be surprised to know I chose the latter. Eyam, however, is the famous ‘plague village’ which isolated itself voluntarily in 1665 after the Black Death arrived in a flea-infested parcel of cloth. Only 83 villagers survived from a total population of 350. One of my all-time favourite books, ‘Year of Wonders’ by Geraldine Brooks, published in 2001, imagines what may have happened in that village in that year. ‘A Parcel of Patterns’ by Jill Paton Walsh, published in 1983, was one of the first fictional attempts to grapple with the subject. It is told from the point of view of a young woman named Mall, and shows how the coming of the plague destroyed lives and loves, and faith and fealty. It’s a delicate little book, and very sad.
You might also like to read my review of The Silvered Heart by Katherine Clements here:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/vintage-book-review-the-silvered-heart-by-katherine-clements
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
The story of a year spent by two Australian writers on the Greek island of Kalymnos in the 1950s.
My Thoughts:
This book was given to me by my aunt when I was in my 20s, as I had always wanted to go to Greece. I have read it a few times, and it never fails to delight me. Charmian Clift was an Australian journalist and novelist who moved to Greece with her husband and two young children in the 1950s. They find themselves on Kalymnos, as they are interested in the island’s age-old tradition of sponge-diving and are thinking of writing a novel inspired by the lives they encounter. Life there is simple but intense; the sponge-divers are often crippled by their work and everyone is poor. There is a lot to be learned on this tiny Greek island, however, about living joyously and intensely, and Charmian Clift charts a year in their life there with considerable lyricism and charm. She should be much more widely celebrated.
You might also like to read my review of Half The Perfect World by Paul Genoni and Tanya Dalziell:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/book-review-half-the-perfect-world-writers-dreamers-and-drifters-on-hydra-1955-1964-by-paul-genoni-and-tanya-dalziell
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
The spellbinding diary of a teenage girl who escapes persecution as a witch--only to face new intolerance in a Puritan settlement.
Enter the world of young Mary Newbury, a world where simply being different can cost a person her life. Hidden until now in the pages of her diary, Mary's startling story begins in 1659, the year her beloved grandmother is hanged in the public square as a witch. Mary narrowly escapes a similar fate, only to face intolerance and new danger among the Puritans in the New World. How long can she hide her true identity? Will she ever find a place where her healing powers will not be feared?
Just two weeks after publication, Celia Rees's WITCH CHILD spirited its way onto the Book Sense Children's Only 76 list as one of the Top 10 books that independent booksellers like to handsell. Within a month, this riveting book sold out its first two hardcover printings. Now, Candlewick Press is pleased to announce the publication of WITCH CHILD in paperback.
My Thoughts:
This wonderful historical novel for teenagers begins: ‘I am Mary. I am a witch.’ It is set in 1659, during the tumultuous months after Cromwell’s death and before the return of Charles II. Her story is purportedly told in diary entries that have been found sewn inside a quilt. It is a tragic and powerful tale, which begins when Mary’s grandmother is arrested and tortured by witch-finders and then hanged in the town square. Mary is rescued by a rich woman who she suspects may be her real mother, and sent to join a group of Puritans fleeing to the New World. However, the Puritans are stern and narrow-minded and quick to blame any misfortune on witchcraft. Mary finds herself in increasing danger as the party lands in Salem, Massachusetts. A growing friendship with a Native American and his shaman grandfather increases her risk. A simple yet powerful tale that explores the nature of magic and superstition, faith and cruelty.
You might also like to read my review of The Familiars by Stacey Halls
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/the-familiars-by-stacey-halls
