Today I’m delighted to welcome Rosie Thomas to One More Page to talk about her new novel, Daughter of the House which is released tomorrow. Rosie is the author of a number of celebrated novels, including the bestsellers The Kashmir Shawl, Sun at Midnight, Iris and Ruby and Constance. Once she was established as a writer and her children were grown, she discovered a love of travelling and mountaineering. She has climbed in the Alps and the Himalayas, competed in the Peking to Paris car rally, spent time on a tiny Bulgarian research station in Antarctica and travelled the Silk Road through Asia. Welcome Rosie!

Your new novel, Daughter of the House is released on 30th July; please could you tell me a little about it and what inspired you to write it?

The central character is Nancy Wix, the daughter of a theatrical family and therefore already on the margins of polite society. Her adolescent discovery of her own clairvoyant powers sets her even further apart, and therefore some of the story that unfolds lies in her struggle to find her niche in the world and – when she falls in love – to deal with the great divides of class and money.

The book is set in the aftermath of World War One at a time off great change and opportunity, particularly for women – what drew you to this period?

It’s a fascinating period because women had to re-imagine their personal and public roles yet again after the freedoms the First War had lent them. They had done men’s work in factories and in the fields, they had headed families and dealt with money and taken on responsibilities for which achieving the vote and having the first woman MP to speak for them were really only emblematic. When the men came home again they naturally expected to take back the reins. They found that the rules of engagement had changed – but there were still many battles. Nancy’s story continues the theme of powerful women trying to sidestep conventions that I began with her mother Eliza in The Illusionists.

How did you go about the historical research for the book and what was the most surprising fact that you uncovered?

I read very widely, and built as best I could on my sketchy historical knowledge! One of the things I really didn’t know about was the immense popularity of Spiritualism in the years after 1918 – all sorts of people followed it, from the Duchess of York (later the Queen and then Queen Mother) to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So many young men had been massacred and those left behind longed for a way to reach beyond the grave, or at least to make some sense of their loss.

For readers interested in the period what contemporary novels or non-fiction books would you recommend?

Oh, there are lots of wonderful novels that span the inter-war years. One of the reasons I was drawn to the period was my enjoyment of books like Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate, and the early books of Anthony Powell’s great series A Dance to the Music of Time. I read all kinds of history by way of research but D.J. Taylor’s Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918-1940 was my absolute go-to for all kinds of useful facts and insights.

There’s an element of the paranormal as lead character Nancy is clairvoyant. What drew you to this theme and how do Nancy’s abilities shape her character?

The paranormal and its theatrical exploitation seemed a natural development from The Illusionists, which deals with Victorian music hall magic. Using stage illusionists’ tricks ‘paranormal’ phenomena were regularly presented on stage and in private houses, in séances and sittings, and clever but immoral performers could make good money by persuading bereaved people that they could reach and speak with those on the ‘other side’. I thought it was a nice twist that Nancy really does have paranormal abilities but wishes she could be ordinary. Her abilities make her an outsider…and I strongly identified with this and with her as I wrote, because writers are necessarily outsiders too.

You love to travel but if you could find a time machine and travel to any time and place throughout history, where and when would you go to?

Hard one! Maybe to the French Riviera in the 1920s, to hang out over cocktails with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and the Hemingways and Picasso?

And finally … What can we expect next from Rosie Thomas? 

You catch me just in the middle of one of the great joys of being a writer – the sudden gift of an IDEA! I have been planning to write one book for a couple of years now, and dutifully mentioning it and doing the background reading and doodling with plot and characters. Then, only a week ago, I was somewhere quite different on a short holiday. In a casual conversation heard a detail of time and place that made the skin on the back of my neck tingle…and that’s a sure sign. I’ve ordered some books around the subject, and I plan to spend the next couple of weeks looking into it.

Not saying any more yet…

Thanks Rosie and good luck with the new idea!

Daughter of the House is published on 30th July in Trade Paerback and ebook formats.

Find out more about Rosie and her writing at: http://rosiethomasauthor.com/

The crash is the unravelling of Margaret Holloway. Trapped inside a car about to explode, she is rescued by a scarred stranger who then disappears. Margaret remembers little, but she’s spent her life remembering little – her childhood is full of holes and forgotten memories. Now she has a burning desire to discover who she is and why her life has been shrouded in secrets. What really happened to her when she was a child? Could it have anything to do with the mysterious man who saved her life?

Redemption Road by Lisa Ballantyne kept me hooked from its explosive opening chapter right to the end. This is the story of Margaret Holloway who is rescued by a stranger from her car following a motor way pile up. As you would imagine, her near death experience has a profound affect on Margaret and she is keen to know more about the mysterious scarred man who saved her life. But the crash also throws up frightening and confusing memories and feelings for Margaret forcing her to confront her past and childhood events that had been blocked from memory.

I thought Margaret’s reaction to the crash was realistically written and my sympathies for her grew stronger as I learned more about her job as a teacher, her role in helping struggling students and her relationships with her husband and children. Ballantyne paints a picture of a strong, capable and successful woman and I found it fascinating, emotional and sometimes painful to read as Margaret tried to come to terms with what has happened to her.

The novel is mainly narrated from three key perspectives and moves easily between the past and the present to tell Margaret’s story. In addition to Margaret we hear from Angus Campbell, Big George and Kathleen Henderson and I enjoyed the perspectives that the different characters bought to the sotry. This isn’t a novel of big shocking reveals but it subtly builds and as a reader I enjoyed the way that Ballantyne delved into the character of her narrators and kept me guessing about what would happen next. Angus has the honour of being one of the least likeable characters I’ve encountered in a while – he really did make my skin crawl! My feelings for Big George were completely mixed and Ballantyne skilfully takes the reader on a journey of discovery with George as he finds himself in an increasingly complicated and hopeless situation.

George’s relationship with his daughter is heartbreaking yet beautiful to read and I thought Ballantyne made the point well that what the outside world sees or can be led to see by the press is often very different to the situation as it really is. This would make a great novel for discussion with a book group as I imagine opinion could be quite divided on the events of the story and their consequences.

The book features some excellent ‘extras’ including an interview with Lisa and an extract from her previous novel. The theme of redemption is strong throughout the book and I thought the ending particularly poignant and well done. Ballantyne writes about difficult issues with sensitivity and emotion whilst keeping the reader engrossed with a well paced story. I enjoyed this family drama and the different perspectives given and I’m now keen to read Lisa’s debut, The Guilty One.

4/5

Redemption Road is out now in paperback and ebook formats.

I’d like to thank the publisher for providing a review copy of this novel.

Find out more about Lisa and her writing at: http://www.lisaballantyne.com/

I love it when a publisher contacts me about a book that piques my interest and I love it even more when that book turns out to be just as good as I’d hoped! The Book of Speculation is one of my surprise favourites of the year so far and has jumped straight into my ‘top books of the year’ list. Erika Swyler’s debut is a wonderful combination of magical realism, mystery, myth and the power of words and books.

Simon is sent an old and rare handwritten and illustrated manuscript by an antiquarian bookseller because it features the name of his maternal grandmother at the back and so begins an intriguing mystery that threads through generations of showmen and women and links to Simon and his sister in the present day.

Moving back and forth between past and present, The Book of Speculation charts the history of a travelling show in the 1800’s and it’s key characters in the past. With characters such as The Wild Boy, The Fortune Teller and The Mermaid, The Book of Speculation is filled with vividly descriptive language and I found the imagery used mesmerising – particularly the detailed descriptions of tarot cards and their meanings.  This novel is only available as an ebook in the UK at present but I can’t wait to get my hands on a paper copy!

In the past, the characters are a wonderful mix of practical and otherworldly fighting for survival whilst weaving an almost fairytale like existance. In the present the story focuses on Simon, his attachment to the book and his desire to uncover the mysteries held in it making it a family saga with a difference.  Simon is a librarian working with a local library and worrying about his wayward sister, the tumbledown house he has inherited and living in the shadow of his parents’ deaths. The mysterious book gives Simon something to fix onto amidst the tumult but there’s also a hint of romance in the story and I found events in the present almost as interesting as those recounted in the past.

As Simon begins to research more into the names in the book, and the past narrative moves forward to meet the present there were numerous twists and turns to the story to keep me guessing and speeding through the pages. That the twists came in both the past and present gave the book great pace and as the pieces of the mystery began to slot together the plot builds to a fantastic and dramatic finale.

As with many of the novels I read, I was drawn to the theme of the sea and water in this book. Simon lives in a house teetering on a cliff. The house isn’t the only thing teetering on the edge throughout the story and I thought the theme of impending danger or disaster throughout added a real edge to the narrative!

5/5

The Book of Speculation is out now in ebook formats from Corvus.

I’d like to thank the publisher for sending me a review copy of this book.

Find out more about Erika and her writing at:

 

Sweet Ache is the sixth novel in Kelly Bromberg’s Driven series but don’t worry if you haven’t read any of the others – I hadn’t either and this story stands perfectly well on its own.

This is the story of Hunter and Hawkin Play (such great names!) and their turbulent relationship as brothers. There’s emotional turmoil a-plenty and having pegged Hunter as the quintessential bad boy rocker at the start of the book, I was surprised as his back story was revealed. If you weren’t already enraptured by his flirtatious personality, good looks and musical talent, I think you’ll find it hard not to love him when you find out what he’s gone through and is still going through in his life!

Quinlan Westin makes a fab female lead and can certainly give as good as she gets. The banter between Quin and Hawke sparked off the page from the start. With a very well written love/hate relationship, Bromberg sure knows how to build the tension between her leading man and woman and I was hooked from the beginning.  This book comes with a hot, hot, hot romance rating from me and boy do those sparks fly!

I liked the way Bromberg put Hawk into a situation that was out of his comfort zone and set the scene for him to meet Quin but aside from the romance element to this novel there is a dark and emotional side that tore at my heart strings. As Hunter and Hawk’s back story and relationships with their parents was revealed, I was shocked – it takes a lot to surprise me in a book but I did not see the twist in the tale coming which makes Sweet Ache a story that I won’t forget easily.

It’s always good to discover a new author and I really enjoyed this book so it’s great to see that Kelly has a large back catalogue for me to read in future!

4/5

Sweet Ache is out now in paperback and ebook formats from Piatkus.

Find out more about K Bromberg and her writing at: http://www.kbromberg.com/

I’d like to thank the publisher for sending me a review copy of this book.

Perfect for fans of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight,The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak is Stonewall Award-winning author Brian Katcher’s hilarious he said/she said romance about two teens discovering themselves on an out-of-this-world accidental first date at a sci-fi convention.

When Ana Watson’s brother ditches a high school trip to run wild at Washingcon, type-A Ana knows that she must find him or risk her last shot at freedom from her extra-controlling parents.

In her desperation, she’s forced to enlist the last person she’d ever want to spend time with—slacker Zak Duquette—to help find her brother before morning comes.

But over the course of the night, while being chased by hordes of costumed Vikings and zombies, Ana and Zak begin to open up to each other. Soon, what starts as the most insane nerdfighter manhunt transforms into so much more …

Ana and Zak are like chalk and cheese or that’s what we’re led to believe at the start of this fun, funny and quirky novel by Brian Katcher. We all know opposites attract but Ana and Zak really do seem to come from different planets. Zak; slacker, gamer, geek. Ana; achiever, striver, focussed. But what The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zac teaches us is that no matter where you come from or where you’d like to go there is probably more common ground than you think and first impressions are almost never what they seem!

This is a fast and furious adventure through a Comic Con type event combined with a sweet romance and a fab twist in the traditional coming of age story. I’m sure I missed some  (many!) of the references as Ana’s little brother runs off for a bit of fun at Washingcon whilst the siblings and fellow classmates are supposed to be tucked up safely in a hotel preparing for the final of their regional schools quiz. But there were plenty of references that I ‘got’ and with nods to The Hunger Games, Star Wars, Star Trek and many more, Ana and Zak is an engaging testimony to much loved popular culture.

Partly tongue in cheek, The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak isn’t afraid to laugh at itself but also makes a series of important points about growing up, dealing with family changes, personal changes, grief, bereavement and first love. I loved the variety that the convention backdrop gave to the scene setting in the book and with everything from an amazing intergalactic wedding, a vampire ball to a brutal battle, the book is excellently paced. It’s also a really fun adventure and whilst nothing is unbelievable, there is a sense of the surreal and that anything can and probably will happen!

Ana and Zac and their supporting cast are all great characters. I loved how comfortable Zak was in his own skin – especially while he was in his favourite place. For me, Ana was the more complex of the two in the sense that her back story was more complicated and she was thrown into a situation that she had no knowledge or experience of and a lot to lose. For these reasons I had great admiration for her even if she wasn’t particularly nice to poor Zak in the beginning!

A great read, ideal for fans of The Big Bang Theory and the novels of Rainbow Rowell.

5/5

The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak is out now in paperback and ebook formats from Harper 360.

I’d like to thank the publisher for providing a review copy of this book.

Find out more about Brian Katcher and his writing at: http://briankatcher.com/site/

Meg’s life has taken a turn for the perfect. She is the envy of millions with her drop dead gorgeous husband, their two beautiful sons and her new mansion in Henley. Her celebrity PA days are over. But desperate to keep up with her rock star husband, Johnny Jefferson, she uproots her perfect family and moves back to LA.
Meg has to learn to live with her new celebrity status and the insecurities of her old life, which keep reappearing. Under the paparazzi flash of an A-List party, complete with red carpet, champagne and canapés, Johnny’s rock star past catches up with him and Meg’s worst nightmare becomes a reality…

Regular blog readers will know that I’m a big fan of Paige Toon and I’ve read almost everything that she’s written! This summer I’m taking the opportunity to catch up with books (hard copy and on my Kindle) that have been waiting for me to read them for a while. I’m taking part in the blog tour for Paige’s new novel, I Knew You Were Trouble early next month so have started my catch up with Johnny’s Girl.

Johnny’s Girl is an ebook short story set after Baby Be Mine and if you haven’t read that or the earlier book featuring Johnny Jefferson, Johnny Be Good then you might want to stop reading now! For those starting here, this short story gives a summary of all that has gone before so if you haven’t read the books that introduce us to Johnny and Meg then this quick read will bring you bang up to date!

Johnny’s Girl gives a lovely update on Meg and Johnny and I was so happy to be back in their (very glamorous) world. I loved seeing Meg and Johnny as parents and catching up with other old friends in LA from Paige’s previous novels. Going back to where it all began and seeing things from a new perspective. Paige really does give the sense that her characters and their worlds are real.

Things seem to be going beautifully for the lovebirds but of course there has to be a spanner in the works and this one comes in the form of an exciting new character to get to know! The story leads into Paige’s first Young Adult novel, The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson which is next on my reading list so look out for a review of that soon and please do check out the blog tour for I Knew You Were Trouble!

Johnny’s Girl is out now as an ebook exclusive.

Johnny Be Good, Baby Be Mine and The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson are out now in paperback and ebook formats.

I Knew You Were Trouble will be released in paperback and ebook formats on 30th July.

Find out more about about Paige Toon and her novels at: http://www.paigetoon.com/

 

The winners are …

Chris P, Rhonda and Emma

Congratulations! I have sent you all an email. Thanks to everyone who entered. Look out for more giveaways very soon!

I love the cover and intriguing premise for Tracy Buchanan’s next novel, My Sister’s Secret and am really looking forward to reading it. The ebook is released on 21st July with the paperback following on 13th August!

 

Willow’s memories of her parents are sun-drenched and full of smiles, love and laughter. But a mysterious invitation to a photographic exhibition exposes a secret that’s been buried since a tragic accident years ago.

Willow is forced to question everything she knew about Charity, her late mother, and Hope, the aunt she’s lived with since she was a child.

How was the enigmatic photographer connected to Willow’s parents? Why will Hope not break her silence?

Willow cannot move forward in her life without answers. But who can she really trust? Because no one has been telling the truth for a very long time.

 

Find out more about Tracy and her writing at: http://www.tracybuchanan.co.uk

It is 1922, and in a hushed south London villa life is about to be transformed, as genteel widow Mrs Wray and her discontented daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers. Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the ‘clerk class’, bring with them gramophone music, colour, fun – and dangerous desires. The most ordinary of lives, it seems, can explode into passion and drama . . . A love story that is also a crime story, this is vintage Sarah Waters.

I was delighted to be asked to be part of the Waterstones Book Club this summer and to review and discuss Sarah Waters’ latest novel, The Paying Guests. Having enjoyed Sarah’s previous novels, I was very much looking forward to this one and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed chatting to fellow bloggers about the book (I’ve linked their reviews at the end of this post so that you can see all of our thoughts).

The Paying Guests is written in three parts and there were three very distinct sections to the story. Part one sets the scene beautifully; the sense of time and place that Sarah Waters creates in her writing is wonderful. Reading The Paying Guests I felt like I was transported to 1920s post-war London. The world and characters depicted were as clear to me as if I was watching them on television and so caught up was I in this world that it was a bit of a disappointment to stop reading and come back to the modern world.

The Paying Guests is an evocative examination of the post-war world and its impact on individuals and wider society Frances and her mother have been forced to open up their home and take in lodgers to make ends meet and the book charts what happens when Lilian and Leonard Barber move in. I liked the way that the complex social structures and changes wrought by World War One were threaded through the novel and brought down to the level of individuals with the Barbers representing the upwardly mobile clerk class; Frances and her mother the traditional middle classes and I particularly enjoyed the contrasts with Lilian’s family.

There’s much talk of what is ‘done’ and a complex code of subtle social etiquette underlines  the relationships in the book. Having listened to my own gran and great aunts discuss similar in the past, the lives depicted felt completely believable and I admire Waters’ ability to present domestic life in the 1920s so vividly.  The story burns slowly as the two families work out how to live in their new spaces and I enjoyed reading as the relationships developed with secrets revealed. Waters builds the tensions brilliantly with a series of peaks and troughs and kept me guessing as a reader and I enjoyed the romance of this part of the novel.

Part two delves deeper into the relationships between the key characters and the novel swiftly moves to become a crime story with the final part focusing on the outcome of said crime and it’s repercussions. I’m not a huge fan of crime novels and I did find this part of the book more difficult to get my head around. Although there is a wonderful amount of detail as to the ins and outs of 1920s criminal investigations and court cases, it was the love story element that held my interest and I would have liked to have seen what would have happened to Lilian and Frances had the crime element not got in the way!

I really enjoyed discussing this book with Kariss, Alice, Sophie and Kara and would definitely recommend it to book groups as we found that we all had plenty to say about the characters and events depicted. The Waterstones Book Club edition comes with exclusive extra material including an interview with Saarah Waters and a great list of question prompts for book groups to discuss.

4/5

The Paying Guests is out now in paperback and ebook formats.

I’d like to thank Waterstones for providing me with a review copy of this novel.

Find out more about Sarah Waters and her novels at: http://www.sarahwaters.com/

Read Alice’s review at: http://ofbooks.org/2015/07/06/review-the-paying-guests-by-sarah-waters/

Read Kaara’s review at: http://queenofthelbd.com/2015/07/05/the-book-review-sarah-waters-the-paying-guests/

 

 

On 24th November Yasmin and her deaf daughter Ruby arrive in Alaska.

Within hours they are driving alone across a frozen wilderness

Where nothing grows

Where no one lives

Where tears freeze

And night will last for another fifty-four days.

They are looking for Ruby’s father.

Travelling deeper into a silent land.

They still cannot find him.

And someone is watching them in the dark.

There’s a certain irony to reviewing a book set in the frozen wilds of Alaska whilst enduring a heatwave here in England but despite the scorching temperatures here in London at the moment this book certainly made me shiver! The Quality of Silence is a tense thriller, a gripping family drama and a poignant story of a two parents and their deaf daughter.

It is a story that grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go making me race through the pages to get to the final outcome, but at the same time, The Quality of Silence is a beautiful novel that explores our relationship with our senses and how we as humans cope when pushed to our limits.

Without a doubt, my favourite character in the novel was Ruby; the ten year old daughter of Yasmin and Matt. Ruby is deaf and her deafness is a key part of the story as she embarks on a dangerous journey with her mother into the frozen, dark, wilds of Alaska to search for the man that they love. Ruby’s ‘voice’ was just wonderful and the parts of the book that she narrates really stood out for me. This is as much a story of a mother coming to understand her daughter as it is a dramatic thriller and I really enjoyed the balance of the two aspects.

The brutal Alaskan setting is as much a part of the story as the characters and events and I loved the way that Lupton showed the cruelty of the landscape and elements aside their beauty. The journey that Yasmin and Ruby take is an immense physical challenge but it also poses a huge mental challenge for Yasmin in particular and I loved the way that this was used to reflect Ruby’s ‘silent’ world and to get me as a reader to begin to understand the complexities of Ruby and Yasmin’s mother-daughter relationship.

Rosamund Lupton creates a brilliant tension from the beginning as Yasmin is greeted by a stranger at the airport and instead of the confrontation she had planned with her husband, she is faced with a completely different and horrifying situation. The twists and turns that the story took continued to surprise me and the drama and danger give the book excellent pace with the threats faced by Ruby and Yasmin keeping the tension high – my heart was often in my mouth as I read!

5/5

The Quality of Silence is released today in hardback and ebook formats.

I’d like to thank the publisher for providing a review copy of this novel.

Find out more about Rosamund Lupton and her novels at: http://www.rosamundlupton.com/