Wonderful.
As Maggie O’Farrell always is.
Never be deterred by the blurb.
Author page: This Must Be The Place – Maggie O’Farrell
This Must Be The Place – Maggie O’Farrell
Genre: Modern fiction
Tree Surgery for Beginners – Patrick Gale
I think I might have tried to read this one before. If I did, a second attempt was no more successful and I abandoned this novel after a couple of chapters.
Perhaps I’ve just read too many Patrick Gale novels recently. You can have too much of a good thing.
Author page: Tree Surgery for Beginners – Patrick Gale
Cousins – Salley Vickers
The tale of three generations of the Northumbrian Tye family, told by three generations of Tye women – Betsy, Bell and Hetta.
The main focus is the men in their lives, in particular Will – Hetta’s brother, Bell’s nephew, Betsy’s grandson – who like his uncle before him, was inspired (in part) by The Night Climbers of Cambridge to climb one of the spires of King’s College, Cambridge, and, like his long dead uncle, fell.
Publisher’s page: Cousins – Salley Vickers
The Wife – Meg Wolitzer
The Wife is my first Meg Wolitzer. I only picked it up because I’d been unable to find The Interestings on the Barbican Library bookshelf, my appetite for that particular Wolitzer whetted by her recent turn on BBC Radio 4’s World Book Club.
It wasn’t until I looked at the cover of The Wife that I realised she’d written the book behind the recent film starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. Not that I’ve seen the film, but it did mean I read the book knowing the final twist, and able to spot the clues en route.
A slim novel, and thoroughly enjoyable.
Publisher’s page: The Wife – Meg Wolitzer
A Sweet Obscurity – Patrick Gale
Nine year old Dido skilfully looks after for her depressed mother, Eliza (who we soon learn is her aunt), in a windswept London council tower block. Some weekends she stays with her sort-of step-dad Giles and his newer girlfriend, Julia in the former family home – a fine north London residence.
Down in Cornwall we are introduced to Pearce who took on the family farm, reluctantly, when his father died. His separated sister Molly and her daughter Lucy live in a nearby town. Not one of the pretty ones.
Elizabethan madrigals and Roger Trevescan, a disgraced sixteenth century Cornish courtier, brings everything and everyone together.
Author’s page: A Sweet Obscurity – Patrick Gale