Review: The Shadow Hour by Kate Riordan

The Shadow Hour by Kate Riordan

Publisher: Penguin - Michael Joseph

Release date: 25 February 2016

Rating: ****

Back cover blurb: Nineteen twenty-two. Grace has been sent to the stately and crumbling Fenix House to follow in her grandmother's footsteps as a governess. But when she meets the house's inhabitants, people who she had only previously heard of in stories, the cracks in her grandmother's tale begin to show. Secrets appear to live in the house's very walls and everybody is resolutely protecting their own. Why has she been sent here? Why did her grandmother leave after just one summer? And as the past collides with the present, can Grace unravel these secrets and discover who her grandmother, and who she, really is? 
 

I loved Kate Riordan's first novel the Girl in the Photograph, so I was thrilled to be able to read the Shadow Hour pre-publication.

The author has such a wonderful way with words, and as regular readers of my blog will know, I am a big historical fiction fan (and not necessarily always easy to please!)

Fenix house has seen better days when Grace Fairford arrives from Bristol to take up the position of governess recently advertised in the press. Harriet Jenner, Grace's grandmother worked at Fenix house decades before and told Grace such wonderful stories that she felt drawn towards the position.

When the child allegedly in Grace's care is unavailable to meet on her first day, she doesn't think too much about it , but as the days draw on and there is still no sign of Lucas, Grace begins to wonder if she shouldn't just leave.

Fenix house is nothing like her Grandmother described!

But then she meets Lucas, and her Grandmother's letters start to arrive, and Grace begins to realise that there is a lot more to Fenix house than first meets the eye...

Told both from Grace's and Harriet's (retrospective) points of view, the Shadow Hour is a beautifully written, very atmospheric novel and I very much look forward to the authors next.

The Shadow Hour is available from 25 February 2016.

You can pre-order it now via Amazon online.

      Many thanks to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review: the Drowning Lesson by Jane Shemilt

The Drowning Lesson by Jane Shemilt

Publisher: Michael Joseph (Penguin UK)

Release date: 24 September 2015

Rating: ****

Back cover blurb: Emma and Adam Goodhew are doctors at the top of their fields and so when they are offered the chance to take their three children to Africa for a year for a research placement it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. It's going to be an experience they'll never forget. But for all the wrong reasons.  When Emma arrives home one night to the sickening sight of an empty cot, their family's dream adventure turns into their worst nightmare. Thousands of miles from home and from anyone who can help, they must discover the truth. Is this a random abduction, a tragic accident or something far more sinister?







I loved Daughter by Jane Shemilt so when I saw she had a new novel out I just couldn't resist. Although the themes behind the two novels are similar (they both feature missing children) they tell a very different story.

Emma and Adam Goodhew are both successful Doctors at a local hospital. Both are hugely competitive and when Adam is offered a research project in Botswana, Emma is at first reluctant to uproot her young family, thinking she could stay behind look after them, and continue with her own research project. But something persuades her that the sunshine will be good for them all and off they go.

At first thinking that she won't work, and will use her new found free time to spend with her children and doing research, Emma is initially happy to spend time at 'home' but when some work comes up at a local clinic, Emma is delighted, realises she is not really needed at home and accepts without hesitation.

One awful day Emma returns from the clinic to find Sam missing. Immediately the suspicion falls on to their house staff. The hired help that Emma feels now she was too willing to accept. Did they think she didn't love her child? Or did they see an opportunity for money?

As Emma and Adam help the police with their enquiries, their already struggling relationship is tested to its limits, and ultimately Emma returns home to the UK with her children leaving Adam in Botswana. Then another incident occurs that means Adam must return home, entrusting the Botswana police to continue searching for their son.

A year on and there is still no news so the family decide to return to Botswana. What they find is shocking and makes them question if they ever really knew what they were getting themselves in to when they first moved abroad.

The Drowning Lesson by Jane Shemilt is available to buy now from Amazon online and all good book shops.

 
Thank you to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review: the Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jefferies

the Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jefferies
Publisher: Penguin Books UK

Release date:  3 September 2015

Rating: **** 

Back cover blurb: Nineteen-year-old Gwendolyn Hooper is newly married to a rich and charming widower, eager to join him on his tea plantation, determined to be the perfect wife and mother. But life in Ceylon is not what Gwen expected. The plantation workers are resentful, the neighbours treacherous. And there are clues to the past - a dusty trunk of dresses, an overgrown gravestone in the grounds - that her husband refuses to discuss. Just as Gwen finds her feet, disaster strikes. She faces a terrible choice, hiding the truth from almost everyone, but a secret this big can't stay buried forever . . .

the Tea Planter's wife is a beautifully written historical novel, my first by author Dinah Jefferies.

Gwendolyn Hooper is just nineteen years old when she leaves England to join her new husband, a tea planter in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Aboard the ship she meets a handsome stranger; Savi Ravasinghe, who claims to know her husband. She is taken in by Savi’s charm and grateful of his company when she loses her husband’s instructions for meeting at the port, over the side of the ship.

Laurence Hooper is an intriguing and charismatic man, devastated by the death of his first wife Caroline and their child, but determined to love Gwendolyn and give her everything she needs to run the household whilst he runs his tea business.

But Laurence’s sister, Verity and brash American friend Christina do little to make Gwendolyn welcome. Both of them are jealous of her arrival in their own way, for she has taken Laurence’s affections away from them. Something neither of them is used to.

Gwendolyn is in turn wary of both Verity and Christina as both of them seem to have a hold over Laurence that she cannot break through. Gwendolyn is convinced that Laurence is hiding secrets about his previous wife and child, but she cannot get him to open up to her.

When she becomes pregnant unexpectedly, Gwendolyn is faced with making a sudden, life changing decision that will have consequences far reaching in to the future for all of the family. Will her new family bring her closer to her husband? Or will Gwen's devastating secret tear the family apart?

I really don't want to give any more of the wonderful plot away, so I am reluctant to say much more, but the Tea Planter's Wife is a novel that you should definitely try for yourself.

The Tea Planter's wife is evidently well researched and as a tea lover, I really enjoyed reading about the tea producing process. Hats off to Dinah Jefferies for a wonderful thought provoking novel.

The Tea Planter's wife is available from 03 September 2015

You can pre-order it now from Amazon online and Penguin Books UK



Thank you to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Blog Tour: Unravelling Oliver

Unravelling Oliver Blog Tour  Day 4   Today is Day 4 of the #MeetOliver blog tour uncovering extracts from Liz Nugent's excellent crime debut: Unravelling Oliver.

Yesterday's extract: https://ravencrimereads.wordpress.com

Tomorrow's extract: http://myreading-corner.blogspot.co.uk

       

Extract 4  

Alice’s mother died suddenly in 1986, at the end of our fourth year of marriage. Thanks be to God. I can’t stand old people. Can’t stand it even more now that I am getting to be one.

I used to make excuses to avoid visiting her and her doily-draped furniture. Used to pretend to be too busy to eat with them when she came to visit us. It was never pleasant to witness her struggling with her dentures, the half-wit dribbling by her side. Her death was a mixed blessing.We got the house. But we also got Alice’s imbecilic brother. The house is quite a pile on Pembroke Avenue. The brother goes by the name of Eugene. 

Alice begged me to let her keep him. Until now, that was the biggest upset in our marriage. Bad enough to have a child, but this was a 27- year-old, fifteen-stone dolt we were talking about. Eventually, I had him accommodated

in a home for the ‘mentally handicapped’, or those with ‘special needs’, or whatever they are calling them this year, at considerable personal expense.

When we got engaged, I made it very clear that children were not on the agenda. Well, I said I didn’t want children, and she agreed. I should have got that in writing. She must have been extraordinarily besotted with me to sacrifice something so fundamental to her in order to marry me. Maybe she thought I would change my mind, because it seems that lots of men do. Or maybe she knew that if I didn’t marry her, I’d marry the next quiet one that came along.

Of course, five years into our marriage, Alice began to whinge, and grew more shrill with each passing month. I reminded her of our agreement. She claimed that at the time, that was what she had wanted too, but now she desperately wanted a child. I am nothing if not a man of my word.

I couldn’t depend on her to protect herself, so I took control. I made a ritual of bedtime cocoa with a little crushed pill as an added extra. Alice thought that was so romantic.

I haven’t exactly been a saint within our marriage. Women, by and large, are attracted to me and I do not like to disappoint them. Women you would never expect. Even Moya, for God’s sake. I eventually resent the ones who try to cling.

In later years, I had begun to satisfy myself with some tarts that operated near the canal. I never objected to them, even before I became a client. They were objects of curiosity. They were cheaper and more desperate, mostly addicts with raddled bodies and ropey veins, but perfectly adequate for my needs. I would order them into a shower before any congress was allowed and I always provided a new toothbrush. Some of them took it for a gift. Pathetic. They are usually too emaciated to be good- looking. One would think that they might make an effort to make themselves attractive. Alas, they were only selling their various orifices; the packaging was immaterial. But still, they held a fascination for me. After all, my mother was one, or so my father said.

  

Oliver Ryan is a handsome and charismatic success story. He lives in the suburbs with his wife, Alice, who illustrates his award-winning children's books and gives him her unstinting devotion. Their life together is one of enviable privilege and ease - enviable until, one evening after supper, Oliver attacks Alice and beats her into a coma.

In the aftermath, as everyone tries to make sense of his astonishing act of savagery, Oliver tells his story. So do those whose paths he has crossed over five decades. What unfolds is a story of shame, envy, breath-taking deception and masterful manipulation.

Only Oliver knows the lengths to which he has had to go to get the life to which he felt entitled. But even he is in for a shock when the past catches up with him.

Don't forget to visit
     http://myreading-corner.blogspot.co.uk

 tomorrow for the next extract!

    Thank you to Catherine Ryan Howard at Penguin for organising the blog tour and allowing me to take part.

Review: Disclaimer by Renee Knight

Disclaimer by Renee Knight
Publisher: Random House UK/Transworld Publishers
Release date: 9th April 2015

Rating: ****

Back cover blurb: What if you realized the book you were reading was all about you? When an intriguing novel appears on Catherine’s bedside table, she curls up in bed and begins to read. But as she turns the pages she is sickened to realize the story will reveal her darkest secret. A secret she thought no one else knew…

I still can’t quite get my head around the fact that Disclaimer is Renee Knight’s debut novel. You’ll understand my disbelief when you read it. It is the novel of a seasoned professional.

When Catherine Ravenscroft receives a book from an anonymous stranger in the post, she is intrigued and can’t help but pick it up. Quicky drawn in to the novel by the quality of the writing she is horrified to discover that its contents are about her, and something that happened in her past that no-one, not even her beloved husband or son knows nothing about.

The novel's author is unknown to Catherine, or so she thinks. But how exactly do they know so much about her life, and how have they got the very thing that matters so very wrong? Catherine destroys her copy of the novel in the dead of night, naively believing that this will end her discomfort. But when her husband Tom catches her in the act, she suddenly finds herself with an awful lot of explaining to do.

Disclaimer is exactly the kind of novel that I love. The kind that has you on the edge of your seat, not knowing who to trust, or what is going to happen next. Your sympathies and allegiances between characters will switch as the novel progresses.

If you are anything like me then you will have a love/hate relationship with several of the novels major characters. On first appearances they appear to be acting foolishly, but as the novel progresses you will understand why they did what they did, and your opinion of them may change.

An exciting debut that is sure to have people talking. Disclaimer is a must read.

 

 Disclaimer is available to buy now from Amazon online and all good book shops.

Thank you to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Into the Night by Jake Woodhouse

Into the Night by Jake Woodhouse
Publisher: Penguin (Michael Joseph)
Release date: 26 March 2015

Rating: ****

Back cover blurb: A woman is pushed in front of a train by a man in police uniform. And a body is left on a rooftop, its hands scorched and head missing. Another day in Amsterdam: Western Europe's murder capital. The killer announces to the world that this is merely the beginning. The man tasked with stopping the bodycount is Inspector Jaap Rykel. But as Jaap searches the beheaded body for clues as to its identity, what he finds makes his blood run cold. Why on earth are there pictures of himself - and his home - saved on the victim's phone...?

 

So I was all set to give Into the Night 5 stars, until the very end. I am sure there will be lots of readers of this novel with whom the ending is popular, but for me personally, it just felt like a little bit of an anti-climax, and a slight overuse of violence within the last few chapters to get to  that point.

Into the night is the second book of a quartet, and I would be interested to read the others in the series. Perhaps I would like the ending of the novel more after reading the beginning of the third novel. I guess I will have to wait and see!

Into the night opens with the discovery of a gruesome body, bloodied, be-headed and burnt. Inspector Jaap Rykel is called to the scene to investigate and becomes increasingly uneasy as he realises that the victims phone holds a picture of himself.

When another body appears whose phone holds details of Jaap's lover, Jaap really begins to worry. As an inspector he is used to people holding grudges against the police, but he has never seen anything like this. Is the killer indeed someone that is holding a grudge. Or are they just trying to throw Jaap off the scent?

As Jaap is trying to figure out exactly what's going on, a homeless woman is pushed in front of a train by a man in a police jacket. Jaap has to question, is it one of his own with a grudge? Or is there just someone out there that really hates the police force in general?

Jaap has to work hard to get his answers, and this book requires quite a bit of concentration as there are several cases closely linked to each other and quite a lot of police characters to keep a track off. Although I might have found this a little easier if I'd read the first book in the series.

Although I was personally disappointed with the ending, I had been throughly engaged in the novel up until that point and would recommend it to any crime fiction fan.

Into the night is available from 26 March 2015. You can pre-order it now from Amazon online.

 

    Thank you to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.