By the Green of the Spring, by Paddy Richardson
A much anticipated sequel to Through the Lonesome Dark, By the Green of the Spring takes our three young people: Otto, Clem and Pansy on with the lives that hung in a troubling denouement at the end of the first book. There is also Lena, Pansy’s daughter, who takes up the story of her parents’ lives through a child’s eyes.
Continue reading “By the Green of the Spring – book review”All the light we cannot see, by Anthony Doerr
This is another war story (they are so unavoidable). It’s the story about the frog in the pot of water: the one where the frog will jump out of boiling water, but won’t take action if the heat is applied slowly, and so cooks. Here it’s used as a metaphor for complacency as the Germans move in and occupy France, and also, I think, of the German people themselves becoming immune to the violence building in their own country. Interesting in that we are invited to have sympathy for both the main characters as victims of war, even though one is a blind French girl and the other a partly radicalised Nazi youth. If you’ve wondered how nice kids were turned into Nazis, here it suggests they were put in the pot when the water was cool and inviting, and were cooked from the inside out.
Continue reading “All the light we cannot see—book review”The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
Bletchley Park is all about the Enigma machine and Alan Turing who broke the German codes and won the war, pretty much single-handedly, right?
It’s quite alarming how a good story comes to dominate the historical narrative. On the periphery of Turin’s story is a cast of thousands, and The Rose Code, with barely a mention of Turin, brings these outsiders to the core and shines a light on their extraordinary achievements.
Continue reading “The Rose Code – book review”The Telegram by Philippa Werry
I love a good YA fiction that goes deep, and The Telegram by Philippa Werry certainly delivers. A young reader will enjoy the story of Beatrice cycling around her small kiwi town on her bike, changing from a schoolgirl to a young woman with the harrowing responsibility of delivering telegrams during the first world war. She makes and loses friends, delivers news of celebration and (more often) tragedy to families, writes letters as she waits for the boy next door to return from the front, and celebrates the war’s end just as the ‘flu rolls into town. Continue reading “The Telegram – book review”
Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
I read this last year and didn’t review it at the time because of my self-imposed ban on war as a setting. I bang on about it, but it does worry me that our go to narrative for intense emotion is war. Is this why we’ve been systematically at each others throats since the dawn of time? Because we crave powerful emotion?
With that off my chest, I have to say this is a terrific story. Continue reading “Everyone Brave is Forgiven – book review”
Birds without wings by Louis de Bernières
God, this is horrific. If you’re looking for a sweet but deep sequel to Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which is what the bloke in our book club thought he was giving us, this is way out of your depth.
This is Turkey before, during and after WWI, the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. I don’t voluntarily read war stories, but this was for book club and having been brought up on the glorious allies, I was interested to read the perspective of the other side’s glorious allies. But I was sickened by the brutality and inhumanity in this story. De Bernières writes with such clarity and perception there are images painted in my head I will never wipe clean. Continue reading “Birds without wings – book review”
Evie’s War, by Anna Mackenzie
A fictionalised diary is a difficult way to tell a story because although you hear the intimacies of one person’s mind, you get no one else’s point of view and none of the direct action. The story is delayed—you are told about events afterwards, once the immediacy has gone. It’s a hard format to pull off. Could Evie hook me? Continue reading “Evie’s War – book review”
Cristina Sanders' blog 