Friday 29 September 2017

Leap of Faith by Jenny Pattrick


A vivid novel about ingenuity and hard slog, crooks and dreamers, bootleggers and love.

Billy is a young, impressionable dreamer. In 1907, at only 14 years old, he strikes off on his own, keen to prove himself an able worker on the new railroad. It's being cut through steep mountainsides and across deep gullies to join the two ends of the Main Trunk Line. Also drawn to the remote worker settlements are miners from Denniston, young men fresh off the boat, sly-groggers, temperance campaigners, women following their menfolk, local Maori and a varied assortment of people after a new life or a quick buck. Among them is a preacher, Gabriel Locke, who is running from a shady past and determined to avoid the daily grind. With untimely and suspicious deaths, the horrendous weather, impossible deadlines, the rugged landscape and a blossoming romance, it will take a lot more than a leap of faith for this disparate group to complete the railroad and build the magnificent Makatote viaduct ...

Jenny Pattrick takes us on a journey into the world of early New Zealand railway work and its often dangerous environment.

This book particularly appealed to me with Billy going out on his own at such a young age. I remember my own father telling me of leaving home at 14 to work on the fishing boats in the Arctic Ocean and the harsh, freezing conditions they survived through. I found myself comparing situations and wondering how young boys of today would cope. Jenny Pattrick, like so many great fiction writers, uses the experiences of real people to develop her characters. What would my father’s or your father’s stories become in the hands of a writer like her? Would their voices be used to create a character like Billy?
 
Identified by Nicky Pellegrino as 'one of this country's most talented storytellers', it has been said that she creates 'an authentic stage for a cast of characters who interact in ways that always ring true' (The Christchurch Press).

Reviewed by Hastings District Libraries

Jenny Pattrick is in Hawkes Bay for the Harcourts Hawke’s Bay Arts Festival Readers & Writers programme. Don’t miss her Family Fiction with Mary-anne Scott in the Spiegeltent, Havelock North Village Green, Saturday 30 Sept, 5.30pm and Keeping the Faith at the MTG Century Theatre, Napier, Sunday 1 Oct, 11.00am. We’ll see you there!

Catalogue link:  Leap of Faith

Thursday 28 September 2017

The Traitor and the Thief by Gareth Ward



Having met the author, seen him perform as the Great Wardini, and shopped at his beautiful bookstore, I really REALLY wanted to like this book. Friends who had gone to his Steampunk ball book launch had all raved about it (both the book and the ball), and while people always say not to judge book by its cover, I'm sorry but I do (and this one has such a wonderful cover).

I thought that because of all the high hopes and expectations I had for the book that there was no way it would be able to live up to them all.
I’m happy to say that I was wrong.

Gareth Ward wrote a magical adventure story that I could not put down. With spies, mysteries and Steampunk gadgets it was a wonderfully crafted story that has left me wanting more. The story follows Sin, a 14 year old orphan boy who lives on the streets and makes a living by stealing and fighting for a man named ‘The Fixer’. However one day he is offered an escape from his life of crime, and a chance to become a spy for COG (the Covert Operations Group). He is given new clothes, delicious food, and a luxurious place to sleep. It seems too good to be true. It doesn’t take Sin long to realise that there is a spy in COG and that if he wants to find out more about his mysterious past, he must first work out who the traitor is.

Who can he trust? A life of the street has meant that he thought he had all the skills needed to survive, but in secret organisations, surrounded by fighting experts and scientists he realizes that he might be outclassed.

The story also has an eccentric and interesting group of supporting characters. There is Zonda Chubb the tech-wizz, Velvet Von Darque the rich school bully, and a range of fascinating staff members at the school (including Major C who seems to be half man, half steampunk robot and a mysterious magician Noir).

Fans of Harry Potter, CHERUB, Alex Rider, Oliver, or really just fans of fun adventure stories -  this book is for you.

Seriously Wardini - I hope you're writing the next one already!

Gareth Ward joins award winning writer Kate de Goldi in the Spiegeltent, Sunday 1 Oct, 2.30pm for It’s a Kind of Magic chaired by Jessica Soutar Barron. We’ll see you there!

Reviewed Sas Hill

Monday 25 September 2017

More Book Chat Reading

The Midwife’s Confession by Diane Chamberlain

Noelle was a caring and hard-working midwife who embraced life. So why did she commit suicide? A letter divulges a heart-breaking secret, leaving her friends, Tara and Emerson, to find out more about Noelle, a story of love and betrayal, compassion and deceit. A riveting read with a surprise ending.

An Event in Autumn by Henning Mankell

This is is a quick read, a novella which picks up the career of Swedish policeman Kurt Wallander as he nears retirement. When he inspects a house he is considering buying, Wallander discovers skeletal remains in the garden and finds himself working on a cold case. A beautifully written whodunit that leaves you wanting more.

Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom

Albom is perhaps better known for his best seller, Tuesdays with Morrie. This inspiring book begins when an elderly rabbi asks him to deliver his eulogy for him, an experience which makes Albom discover much about his own faith. Full of heart-warming and humorous stories, and even poems, this is a charming book designed to make you think.

The Seekers by Wanda Brunstetter


Heidi runs cooking classes on her Amish farm, which are attended by an odd mix of people with a range of problems and challenges. Soon her classes are turning into lessons for life. A charming, restful read full of wisdom and good food. The first in Brunstetter’s Amish Cooking Class series.

When It Grows Dark by Jorn Lier Horst

Horst, a former police detective himself, has created a likeable detective character in William Wisting, who in this novel, returns to a cold case he investigated as a new policeman. As usual he combines a talent for logic and trusts his intuition to solve a case his predecessors had put aside. Great writing in the classic whodunit style.

The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan

The Silk Roads, the traditional trading routes across Europe and Asia, have been a meeting place for east and west for centuries. Oxford academic, Peter Frankopan traces how they have affected and developed trade, war and the spreading of religion and ideas over two millennia. It’s a less Eurocentric view of history, to create an interesting read with lots of fascinating detail.

Friday 22 September 2017

Right Behind You by Lisa Gardner

I like books that draw me into the story so that each time I open the page I am once more a part of the action, surrounded ( in my mind) by the smells, tastes and sights, so that each time I stop there is a small wrench as I return to reality.

Lisa Gardner books do this for me. From the very first page she draws us into the story, pulling us along at breakneck speed until we are left breathless and exhausted, not wanting to stop, needing to be there, in the middle, watching and processing.

I also like books where the climax of the story isn’t telegraphed in capital letters, where right up until the end there is still uncertainty and doubt about what is really happening and who the real protagonists are.

This book sees the return of retired FBI profiler Pierce Quincy and his partner Rainie Connor, very popular characters created by Gardner and back here in their seventh book. However, the story does not revolve around them, but their soon to be adopted daughter Sharlah and her brother Telly Ray Nash. As Sharlah herself tells us in the book, the one thing best about her new family: they are all experts on monsters!

Eight years ago Sharlah May Nash’s older brother Telly Ray beat their drunken father to death with a baseball bat and then went on to break Sharlah’s arm with that same bat. She hasn’t seen Telly since that day. Now thirteen, Sharlah has an about to be forever family and is starting to trust again.

Then the call comes in. A double murder at the local petrol station followed by the discovery of two more bodies, and the face in the video footage is that of Sharlah’s brother Telly.

Why after eight years has he started killing again? Why are photos of Sharlah found in his room and is Sharlah his next victim? Once upon a time her big brother saved her life. Now she has to ask herself: is her brother a hero or a killer? As Sharlah knows, the biggest danger is the one standing right behind you, so where is Telly Ray Nash?

Posted by Fiona

Catalogue link: Right Behind You

Thursday 21 September 2017

The Wish Child by Catherine Chidgey

It is always difficult to review an award-winning book, like this novel, which won for Chidgey the 2017 Ockham Award for fiction. First off The Wish Child is not a rollicking read. You don’t tear through it determined to get to the end to see what happens.

The story follows two German families beginning in 1939, and in particular two children. What would it be like to grow up in Nazi Germany? You might well ask.

On a farm near Leipzig, Erich Kroning is the only child of Emilie and Christoph. There is a cloud around his birth, the hint of a secret. At home his parents are dutiful Germans with a copy of Mein Kampf on the shelf. Christoph goes off to the Russian front, but this doesn’t seem to dent Emilie’s ardent patriotism.

In Berlin, Sieglinde Heilmann grows up with her two brothers, her father doing important censorship work he cannot talk about, while around them are signs of the persecution against the Jewish population. House lots are being auctioned off and Mrs Heilmann acquires a samovar. There are droll scenes of the children attending factories, the teacher demonstrating Aryan supremacy, or witnessing piles of clothing being checked for jewellery sewn into hems.

It’s all stuff we’ve heard before, but through the eyes of children, it seems more insidious. There is a powerful pull in a novel like this, and the writing is beautiful, evocative when it needs to describe scenes of country life or the aftermath of a bombing. And what keeps you going, as with any war novel, is wondering about the long-term effects on the characters of such a war of attrition and the shattering of ideals.

The Wish Child is at times a challenging read, but it does draw you in, and gives you a lot to think about – well worth the effort.

Reviewed by JAM

Catalogue link: The Wish Child

Monday 18 September 2017

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Mortals rule the desert nation of Miraji, but mythical beasts still roam the wild and remote areas, and rumour has it that somewhere, djinn still perform their magic. For humans, it’s an unforgiving place, especially if you’re poor, orphaned, or female.

Amani Al’Hiza is all three. She’s a gifted gunslinger with perfect aim… Then she meets Jin, a rakish foreigner, in a shooting contest, and sees him as the perfect escape route. – Penguin Books

I know that they say don’t judge a book by its cover, but I couldn’t help it – it’s such a beautiful cover! I couldn’t help but pick it up. When I turned it over to read the back I was hooked at the premise – a young female sharpshooter in a small town where women end up ‘wed or dead’. She wants nothing more than to escape the horrible future in store for her (married to her Uncle, working in his shop for the rest of her life), and will do whatever it takes to make it happen.

This is a story about a girl who wants to escape a boring life that she detests. A life where she is told to be ashamed of her gender, and is told she will never amount to anything more than being someone’s wife. She wants to belong in a world where that doesn’t matter. She wants to be judged on her skills, not her gender, and because of this she is a badass (and she knows it).

Described as a cross between the wild west and Arabian Nights, this is a book about one girl's desire to be free, and the rebellion she ends up in the middle of. A world of magic and war, and (of course) love.

Posted by Sas

Catalogue link: Rebel of the Sands

Thursday 7 September 2017

Cousins by Salley Vickers

Salley Vickers’s new novel, Cousins, is the story of a family beset by tragedy and the curious way that history repeats itself through the decades.

Told by three generations of women in the Tye family, the opening scene describes the aftermath from Will Tye’s near fatal accident – a fall from the roof of a Cambridge college. His young sister Hetta picks up the narrative thread and fills you in on the family background.

And what an interesting family they are. Grandpa Tye, socialist and wartime conscientious objector, fills his retirement translating ancient Greek classics, a passion he passes on to Will. Betsy, Hetta’s grandmother, harbours a guilty secret which she feels was the cause of an almost identical tragedy a generation before involving her son Nat.

Then there’s Betsy’s daughter Belle, both beautiful and wild, who makes up for a lack of childhood affection by having affairs. Her daughter Cele is Will’s cousin and soul mate. She is the quiet one you have to watch, for beneath her placid exterior is a mass of anxiety, a mark of her negligent upbringing.

The passions, secrets and insecurities of the Tye family members, their politics and obsessions, intermingle to create a domino effect on the plot, making for a really satisfying read. The story builds to a tense finale, as secrets are slowly revealed, an ending that is somehow apt as well.

In the background you are aware of the course of events of the twentieth century – the Spanish Civil War, the Blitz of WW2, the development of socialism and the education of women all affect one character or another. And the physical settings are lovely, particularly the Northumberland home of Dowlands which is the Tye stamping ground, but also Cornwall and Ely.

Cousins is a brilliant book, written in the crafted prose and with the psychological insight we have come to expect from Salley Vickers. Her books may be few and far between, but are always worth the wait.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: Cousins

Monday 4 September 2017

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny

Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache novels frequently pick up crime fiction prizes, including six Agatha awards. The Long Way Home is the tenth in a series now numbering thirteen, and having read only two before and in no particular order, I wondered how I’d get on.

The series is set in Quebec and in this book, Gamache has recently retired to the village of Three Pines where most of the crimes from previous novels have taken place. There are the usual characters we’ve met before: Olivier and Gabri who run the antique shop/cafĂ©; the prickly old poet, Ruth, whose only friend is her pet duck, etc.

Portrait artist Clara Morrow is worried about her husband Peter who has failed to arrive home as expected. Peter has been plagued by jealousy over his wife’s successful career, while his seems to have stalled. He has spent a year away, in search of inspiration, but now Clara wants to know why he hasn’t returned.

Gamache and his detective son-in-law Jean-Guy, Clara and Myrna, the bookshop owner, study Peter’s terrible pictures and dig into the past for clues, before embarking on a journey to the mouth of the St Lawrence River. It's a wild place as well as the home of a former art teacher with a potentially dangerous philosophy.

The Long Way Home starts out as a cosy mystery, but things take a sinister turn as Gamache and co. fear the worst and discover how artistic envy can drive someone to plan a very unpleasant and unusual murder. It’s a brilliant read; Penny has a real knack for throwing out interesting clues and enough action for things to seem desperate just when they need to be.

I loved the quirky characters who have philosophical discussions over delectable meals, and the settings are enough for you to want to plan a holiday to Quebec. And while it didn’t seem to matter that I hadn’t read all the previous books in the series, I will be putting them all on my must-read list.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: The Long Way Home