The Blurb (from Goodreads):
Things haven't gone well for Simon Larsen lately. He adores his wife, Tansy, and his children, but since his business failed and he lost the family home, he can't seem to get off the couch. Simon is permanently unemployed and permanently unshaven.
His larger-than-life in-laws, the Schnabels - Tansy's mother, sister and brother - won't get off his case.
To keep everyone happy, Simon needs to do one little job: he has a week to landscape a friend's backyard for an important Schnabel family event.
But as the week progresses, Simon is derailed by the arrival of an unexpected house guest. Then he discovers Tansy is harbouring a secret. As his world spins out of control, who can Simon really count on when the chips are down?
My Thoughts:
Toni Jordan’s new book is just delightful! ‘Dinner with the Schnabels’ is a modern comedy of manners that pokes affectionate fun at many aspects of contemporary Australian society - without once losing Toni’s trademark warmth, sensitivity & wit. I’ve loved all of her books, but this one had me laughing out loud. It tells the story of Simon Larsen, a middle-aged man whose business went under during the pandemic and who is struggling to recover. He loves his family, but he feels as if he has failed them. His misery is compounded by his wife’s family, the Schnabels, who are all loud, confident, and sure of themselves. Simon feels sure they think him a failure too. To try and keep them off his back, Simon agrees to take on the landscaping of a friend’s garden ahead of a memorial service for his wife’s father. But muddles and misunderstandings abound, and it looks as if Simon is going to fail at this too.
Honestly, this book is just a joy. It’s so clever, so funny, and so true. I think it’d make a brilliant film or TV series. I’m pressing it into the hands of everyone I know. Read it!
Get Your copy of Dinner With The Schnabels HEREI first met Toni Jordan on a bus ferrying authors from our hotel to the Perth Writers Festival. We fell into conversation and afterwards I bought her book, Addition, and went along to hear her speak. She was so clever, so funny, so engaging, I’ve been a fan ever since. Her latest book, Dinner with the Schnables, is just as brilliant – it had me laughing out loud (no mean feat), and I’ve been pressing it into the hands of friends and relatives ever since.
Toni’s books include Addition (which unsurprisingly became an international bestseller), the Indie-award winning Nine Days (which I adored), Our Tiny, Useless Hearts (longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award), and The Fragments, which I described as “part-romantic comedy, part-literary mystery, and part-historical drama, all of which add up to a fresh and beguiling story centred on the lost novel of a mysterious woman writer of the 1930s.” (You can read my review of The Fragments here: https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/book-review-the-fragments-by-toni-jordan)
I would have loved to have had Toni over for dinner myself, so that we could have devoured a feast while talking and laughing and sharing writerly stories. But, you know … pandemics and lockdowns and all that jazz. So we are saving our writer dinner for when the world is a little calmer. In the meantime, Toni was kind enough to answer some of my eager questions:
1) Tell me about your new novel
My new novel is called Dinner with the Schnabels. It’s about a man, Simon, who’s at a low point in his life. He’s lost his business, his home, and his self-respect. His wife’s family, the Schnabels, have asked him to do one little job—landscape a garden that will be used as the venue for an important Schnabel family event. Simon has one week to restore his dignity and make something beautiful for his wife, but circumstances keep conspiring against him.
2) How long has this story been growing in your imagination?
This was a quick novel for me! I wrote it in 2020, in lockdown.
3) What was the first spark of inspiration?
I was streaming a lot of television in that long winter of 2020, but increasingly I found myself drawn to two shows: Schitt’s Creek and Ted Lasso. I realised I hadn’t read many novels like that: stories of people who loved each other deep down, and who often do wrong things for the right reasons. I decided to write a story about people who are deeply flawed but funny; something that would cheer me up if I read it.
4) How long did it take you to write?
About seven months! But I had nothing else to do.
5) What were the greatest challenges for you while writing it?
I wanted to write an engrossing plot, but with very low stakes! I didn’t even know if it was possible. I wanted no tragedies, no villains, and nothing bad to happen—but I still wanted it to be a page-turner. So the biggest challenge was: how can I possibly make readers care about whether or not one depressed middle-aged man landscapes a garden on time?
6) How carefully do you plot out your story before you start writing?
LOL, no! I am a textbook pantser. I don’t even know what I’ve done until after I’ve done it. I just try to sit down every day and write the best 1000 words I possibly can, and I don’t think about anything else. For me, the whole secret of writing is getting out of my own way and not overthinking things.
7) Tell me about your major characters. How do you got about making them so alive?
Thank you! For me, it all begins with dialogue. I’m actually pretty terrible at describing people—I’m not very visual and I find that kind of thing to be very difficult. But I’m good at listening carefully when people speak. Once I can hear how my characters would say something, I get a very clear idea about their characters. Simon was great fun to write, because he gets a lot of things wrong. He’s clueless—partly because he’s a bit depressed. Life hasn’t worked out how he imagined it would. I can relate to that!
8) Are you a daydreamer too?
Of course! I was always in so much trouble with my parents for being away with the fairies.
9) Have you always wanted to be a writer?
It never occurred to me until I was in my mid-thirties, when I enrolled in a TAFE writing course in order to start my own business as a scientific and technical writer. I chose a fiction subject just for fun, because I loved reading novels so much. Once I started writing fiction, I just couldn’t stop. I am an accidental novelist!
10) Where do you write?
At my desk, in my little study at home in Collingwood.
11) What is your favourite part of writing?
I love everything about it. Being able to sit down every day and make up stories is an incredibly privilege.
12) What do you do when you get blocked?
Sometimes the story is slower than I’d like it to be—but that means I have to be patient. My unconscious mind works on its own timetable and it’s the boss, not me.
13) What’s next for you? Are you working on a new book?
I’m not finished with the Schnabels yet! I’m working on a book about Kylie, the oldest Schnabel sibling.
You can read my review of Dinner with the Schnabels here (link to WKR review), and connect with Toni on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/authortonijordan
And if you haven’t read any of Toni’s work yet, I can promise you are in for a treat!
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything—beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses—but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Imperious self-made Mab, product of east-end London poverty, works the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see the potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and soon Beth spreads her wings as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. But war, loss, and the impossible pressure of secrecy will tear the three apart.
1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, three friends-turned-enemies are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter--the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum. A mysterious traitor has emerged from the shadows of their Bletchley Park past, and now Osla, Mab, and Beth must resurrect their old alliance and crack one last code together. But each petal they remove from the rose code brings danger--and their true enemy--closer...
My Thoughts:
Kate Quinn has become one of my favourite writers in the last few years. Her historical novels have strong narrative drive, characters who feel real, and fascinating plot premises. The Rose Code may well be her best book yet, and that’s very high praise indeed as I loved her earlier World War II novels.
It might be because her latest is set amongst female code breakers in Bletchley Park, a subject that has fascinated me for a long time (I actually have a scene set there in my latest work-in-progress!) I’ve always loved secret codes and invisible ink and hidden messages, and so The Rose Code really struck a spark with me.
In brief, the book tells the story of three close friends who work together at the top-secret country estate, the nature of their work kept hidden from anyone outside the facility. Each of the three women are very different, but their friendship is deep and real, forged by the intensity of the war and the difficulty of their tasks. However, something happens to smash their friendship – and one of them ends up committed to a mental asylum. We don’t know what that something is – a large part of the suspense of the novel is wondering what it could possibly be. The story moves back and forth in time, between the early 1940s when the three young women first meet and become friends, to 1947 when the three women are now all enemies and a letter written in secret code arrives saying ‘help me’.
It’s a humdinger of a story! One of the best I’ve read this year.
You might also like to read my review of The Huntress by Kate Quinn:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/book-review-the-huntress-by-kate-quinn
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
London, 1920s: Kit Scott, a privileged young Australian aiming to become a star, arrives in the city to find the Jazz Age in full swing. Cast in a West End play opposite another young hopeful, Canadian Zeke Gardiner, she dances blithely into the heady lifestyle of English high society and the London theatre set, from Noel Coward to Fred Astaire and his sister, Adele.
When Kit is photographed dancing the Charleston alongside the Prince of Wales, she finds herself at the centre of a major scandal, sending the Palace into damage control and Kit to her aristocratic English relatives - and into the arms of the hedonistic Lord Henry Carleton. Amid the excesses of the Roaring Twenties, both Zeke and Kit are faced with temptations - and make choices that will alter the course of their lives forever.
My Thoughts:
A delightful historical romance, The Charleston Scandal tells the story of a young Australian actress trying to make her way in the glamorous world of the theatre in 1920s London. Kit Scott comes from a privileged background, with her father being the Dean of the St Andrews Cathedral in Sydney. She has always yearned for a life on the stage, however, and so is ecstatic when she wins the role of an ingenue in a West End play. She dances, sings, and acts alongside a young Canadian named Zeke, who has a very different back story to hers – he comes from poverty and violence and sends much of what he earns back to his struggling mother in Canada. Kit is drawn to him, but their backgrounds are very different, and it seems the gap is too large to bridge. Matters are further complicated when she inadvertently sparks a scandal by being photographed dancing the Charleston next to the Prince of Wales. She is strong-armed by the Palace into pretending to be dating a charming but spoilt young aristocrat who draws her into a fast set that threatens to turn her head and make her choice of career even more difficult than it already is. I particularly enjoyed the vibrant cameo appearances from Noel Coward, Fred Astaire and his sister Adele, and the future King Edward & Mrs Simpson. Pamela Hart has such a deft, light touch & explores deeper issues of women’s empowerment, post-war malaise, gender fluidity & class without once sacrificing pace and verve. Top-notch!
You might also like to read my review of The Desert Nurse by Pamela Hart:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/book-review-the-desert-nurse-by-pamela-hart
You might also like to read my review of The Desert Nurse by Pamela Hart:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/book-review-the-desert-nurse-by-pamela-hart
The Blurb (Goodreads):
Coming home dredges up deeply buried secrets...
Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences.
The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home.
Kieran's parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn.
When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away..
My Thoughts:
Another clever and atmospheric Australian crime novel from Jane Harper, set in a small coastal town in Tasmania. The wild, rugged cliffs and unpredictable sea are vividly evoked, and the mystery is slowly but compellingly unfurled. Once again, Jane Harper has avoided a conventional detective novel, focusing instead on the interlinked lives of local people whose families were torn apart ten years earlier by a cataclysmic storm. The main character is a young man named Kieran Elliott, who feels deep corroding guilt over the death of his elder brother on that night. His wife lost her best friend, and one of his oldest mates also lost a brother. The whole town still blames Kieran. The discovery of a young woman’s body on the beach rakes up old grudges and bad memories, as long buried secrets begin to emerge.
You might also like to read my review of The Lost Man by Jane Harper:
BOOK REVIEW: The Lost Man – Jane Harper
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
The mesmerizing and untold story of Eva Gouel, the unforgettable woman who stole the heart of the greatest artist of our time.
When Eva Gouel moves to Paris from the countryside, she is full of ambition and dreams of stardom. Though young and inexperienced, she manages to find work as a costumer at the famous Moulin Rouge, and it is here that she first catches the attention of Pablo Picasso, a rising star in the art world.
A brilliant but eccentric artist, Picasso sets his sights on Eva, and Eva can't help but be drawn into his web. But what starts as a torrid affair soon evolves into what will become the first great love of Picasso's life.
With sparkling insight and passion, Madame Picasso introduces us to a dazzling heroine, taking us from the salon of Gertrude Stein to the glamorous Moulin Rouge and inside the studio and heart of one of the most enigmatic and iconic artists of the twentieth century
My Thoughts:
I have always been fascinated by the lives and loves of famous painters, and Pablo Picasso is no exception. Well-known for his many destructive relationships with women, whom he loved and painted and left, Picasso’s romantic entanglements make for fascinating reading. Up until now, I’ve only read biographies and memoirs. Madame Picasso by Anne Girard is the first novel I have read that has sought to bring the mesmerising power of the great Spanish artists to life.
Most of the action takes place in Paris, on the streets, in the artists’ studios and backstage at the Moulin Rouge, all of them vividly brought to life. The character of Eva herself is bright and appealing, and her romance with Picasso is deftly and subtly wrought. I particularly loved the scenes in which Picasso talked about his aims and inspirations – it really brought him to life.
I did not know Eva Gouel’s tragic story before I read Madame Picasso. (I must have read about her in the biographies of Picasso I have read, but that was so long ago, I had forgotten her story). So the story was new and surprising to me, and very moving.
A really lovely, sensitive and rather sad story of a woman who helped inspire artistic genius.
You might also like to read my review of Josephine’s Garden by Stehpanie Parkyn:
BOOK REVIEW: Josephine’s Garden by Stephanie Parkyn
The Blurb (Goodreads):
For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.
In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures
My Thoughts:
I feel like everyone else in the world has read Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens – it’s one of those books that has seized the popular imagination and become a cultural phenomenon. It’s sold more than 11 million copies, been made into a movie, and caused a lot of talk, particularly about some of the uncanny parallels with the author’s own life.
I was not sure what to expect when I came to it – I often find that books that have been so popular leave me underwhelmed. I loved Where The Crawdads Sung, though. I thought it was beautifully written, cleverly constructed, & filled with vivid urgent life like the marshes themselves. I was moved by the character of Kya, the little abandoned girl who struggles to survive alone in the swamp, and who longs only to be loved; and the depictions of the life in 1950s and 60s North Carolina reminded me a little of A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter which I have always loved for its depiction of the swamplands of Indiana and its passionate defence of nature and wildness. The denouement of the mystery came as no surprise to me, but it did feel psychologically true, even if morally troubling. I’m glad that Kya found someone to love her and care for her, and was able to build a rich and satisfying life for herself.
You might also like to read my review of The Last Days of the Romanov Dancers by Kerri Turner:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/the-last-days-of-the-romanov-dancers-by-kerri-turner
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
March 1912: Twenty-four-year-old Elspeth Dunn, a published poet, has never seen the world beyond her home on Scotland’s remote Isle of Skye. So she is astonished when her first fan letter arrives, from a college student, David Graham, in far-away America. As the two strike up a correspondence—sharing their favorite books, wildest hopes, and deepest secrets—their exchanges blossom into friendship, and eventually into love. But as World War I engulfs Europe and David volunteers as an ambulance driver on the Western front, Elspeth can only wait for him on Skye, hoping he’ll survive.
June 1940: At the start of World War II, Elspeth’s daughter, Margaret, has fallen for a pilot in the Royal Air Force. Her mother warns her against seeking love in wartime, an admonition Margaret doesn’t understand. Then, after a bomb rocks Elspeth’s house, and letters that were hidden in a wall come raining down, Elspeth disappears. Only a single letter remains as a clue to Elspeth’s whereabouts. As Margaret sets out to discover where her mother has gone, she must also face the truth of what happened to her family long ago.
My Thoughts:
One of my favourite books is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Schaffer. It is an epistolary narrative which simply means ‘told in the form of a letter or letters’. Extremely popular in the 18th century, this narrative form fell out of favour in the 19th century and has not been used much since. It seems that Mary Anne Schaffer may have revived the form, however, for this new novel by debut author Jessica Brockmole is told entirely in letters. It moves between two historical periods: the First World War and the Second World War. The primary narrative is that of the relationship of a young Scottish poet who lives on Skye in and an American university student who writes in March 1912 to tell her how much he admires her poetry. Slowly friendship blossoms into love, but many obstacles stand in their way, including the fact that Elspeth is already married and their world is on the brink of a cataclysmic war. The device of driving a narrative through an exchange of letters can be hard to pull off (one reason why it fell out of favour), but Jessica Brockmole has created an engaging and very readable suspenseful romance in Letters from Skye
You might also like to read my review Ember Island by Kimberley Freeman:
VINTAGE BOOK REVIEW: Ember Island by Kimberley Freeman
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
1792. As a teacher at her parents' Academy for Young Ladies in the heart of London, Madeleine Moreau has lived her life sheltered from the outside world. But on the night of a dazzling Masquerade, tragedy strikes and she is left alone in the world. Desperate to find the family she never knew, Madeleine impulsively travels to France in search of them. But with war around the corner, and fearing for Madeleine's safety, the enigmatic Comte Etienne d'Aubery offers her shelter at his home, Chateau Mirabelle.
Chateau Mirabelle enchants Madeleine with its startling beauty, but it is a place of dark and haunting secrets. As the Revolution gathers momentum and the passions of the populace are enflamed, Madeleine must take control of her own destiny and unravel events of the past in order to secure a chance at future happiness.
The Chateau on the Lake is a breath-taking historical novel set during the time of the French Revolution; rich, evocative and immersive. If you love Philippa Gregory and Joanne Harris, you will adore Charlotte Betts.
My Thoughts:
I love books set in France, and have had a particular fascination with the French Revolution since reading my grandmother’s ancient copies of The Scarlet Pimpernel by the Baroness d’Orczy when I was a teenager. I settled down with a cup of tea, hoping for a great swashbuckling romantic adventure. I was not at all disappointed. The voice of the heroine Madeleine is pitch-perfect – intelligent, highly educated and argumentative, she is the daughter of a French nobleman and an English lady. Fallen on hard times, they have opened a school for rich and well-bred young ladies, where Madeleine teaches. There are secrets in her parents’ life, however, and when they die tragically, Madeleine sets out to discover her hidden heritage. Her search takes her to France, and she witnesses the execution of the French king, Louis XVI, which shakes her understanding of the world to the core. Trapped in a France gone mad with bloodlust, Madeleine finds herself falling in love …
The Chateau on the Lake is one of the best historical romances I have read for a while, and I was pleased to realise that I had previously read and enjoyed one of Charlotte’s earlier books, The Apothecary’s Daughter … and she has a few other books in her back list. I’ll be hunting them down forthwith!
You might also like to read my review of Josephine's Garden by Stephanie Parkyn:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/book-review-josephines-garden-by-stephanie-parkyn
