Review of 'No Plus One'* by Steph Young and Jill Dickman

This is actually the first book I've ever been sent to review for my main blog, Nourish ME (which you can check out here). This was really exciting for me, and something that I've been hoping will happen for my main blog for SO LONG. Anyhow, as I was reviewing it over there, I figured I couldn't leave you guys out, so here we are.

No Plus One is honestly like nothing I've ever read or reviewed on here before. We all know I'm a fiction kind of gal, and even within that category, my sub-categories are often fairly limited. This book however, really encouraged me to consider widening my boundaries, and stepping outside of my purely fictional comfort zone. I would probably describe it as a self help manual. This is definitely the kind of thing that, were I to stray slightly from fiction, I would invest my time in.

No Plus One is set out in terms of lessons - each chapter is a lesson and ends in 'homework'. The book is aimed at single women in their 20s or 30s (the age is a guess, but this is how it came across to me!), and attempts to teach its readers how to live a fulfilling life without feeling like half a person without their 'other half'. It discusses all the big things that single women often stress about, including how to meet people, how to deal with judgmental friends, how to keep your self esteem up, and what to do about sex. 

I found it a genuinely interesting read, and at points I even had a little chuckle to myself. General advice is interspersed with personal anecdotes that serve as a fab reminder that you are not alone in your singledom. All in all, No Plus One celebrates the idea that as a woman, you do not need to be in a relationship to improve any aspect of your life, and this is a lesson I think we can all get behind!

Have you read it? What did you think?

Review of 'The Girl With No Past' by Kathryn Croft

I've mentioned before that thrillers were became my favourite genre in the second half of 2015, and this seems to have seeped in to 2016 more than a little bit! This creepy novel got me thinking about all the mistakes I've made in life, and whether I should be held accountable, just like the protagonist of The Girl With No Past is. This isn't a spoiler in case you were concerned, you know this from the offset! It made me wonder whether people can forgive and forget, and whether perpetrators are aware of just how negative an impact they can have on someone's entire existence if they aren't punished in the long term.

All Leah wants is to be normal, but with a past like hers that feels as though it's off the cards. Moving away from her old town and old life have helped her feel a little distanced from what happened, but Leah knows that any happiness she feels with her one friend or at her job at the library is undeserved because of her past. Ever threatened by the fear of what might happen if people find out what she did, Leah eventually joins a dating site and hopes that the memories of her and Adam don't come on too strong. Finally Julian comes along and Leah's found someone she's actually willing to put a limb out for and meet, but what will happen when her past starts creeping up on her? And who is making it happen?

Have you read it? What did you think?

Steph x

Review of "Never Too Late"* | Q + A with Christina Courtenay

I love love love this quote, and haven't found another description quite so accurate in a while! Christina Courtenay earnt a little soft spot in my heart when I read Monsoon Mists (review here), which was my favourite book of the summer. Never Too Late was kindly sent by Choc Lit to me and I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to have a mini interview with Christina Courtenay herself! This novella is a really quick, easy read which you can finish in a couple of days, or is brilliant for a long coach/plane journey.

Maude and Luke, young lovers, seek to elope, but their plans are thwarted at the last moment. Set during a period in which Maude's father can control her life, their plans are discovered and she is locked up at the last moment, a fact that Luke remains unaware of. Forced to marry his older brother Edward, who is the inheritor of the family estate, Maude lives a miserable life until he dies and Luke must move in. Despite their rocky past, can their feelings overcome their fate?

Question and Answer with Christina Courtenay

1.) What time period is Never Too Late set in? And what were your inspirations for writing a novella set during this period? 

It is set during the Regency period, in about 1812-13. I didn’t have an exact year in mind but the hero has fought in the Peninsular War which lasted until 1814 and has had to sell his commission to come home and take over the running of his late uncle’s estate so it’s before the end of the war. My main inspiration was the incomparable Georgette Heyer – I have loved her books from the moment I first found one in my school library. She made the Regency period come alive and that’s what I tried to do too, although my story is a bit more provincial than most of hers.

2.) Having read Monsoon Mists, what are the benefits of mixing romance with crime//mystery?

I think having a mystery as well as a romance adds depth to a story and hopefully makes it more enjoyable for the reader. You don’t just have the “will they-won’t they” questions of the romance, but also “will they even survive to have a romance” added to the mix. I didn’t actually set out to have a crime/mystery in this particular story, it just sort of evolved that way once the idea of the stolen talisman entered my mind. I figured it was the sort of object that was bound to cause greed, corruption and envy.

3.) I've noticed that your sex scenes are quite realistic and tend to steer away from the "50 Shades of Grey" bandwagon that a lot of contemporary authors have jumped on. What do you think of this craze? 

Thank you, I’m glad you think they are realistic! I have to admit I haven’t yet read 50 Shades – I know, shock, horror! I just haven’t had the time – but apart from the sex it obviously has some very special characters to have attracted so many readers. Jumping on any bandwagon is never good though – publishing tends to move quite slowly so if I were to write a story like that now, it wouldn’t be published for at least a year, if not more, by which time that craze will almost certainly be over. It’s been great for those authors who already had similar stories ready, but now it’s too late. I think it’s better to write the kind of stories you want to write, as well as you possibly can, and hope it’s what your readers will like.

4.) Where do you seek inspiration from to create such diverse books?

I find inspiration from lots of different things and anything can spark a scene in my mind – a house, a person, an object. I can’t remember what made me write Never Too Late, but Monsoon Mists came about because the hero, Jamie, had seemed to be one of the bad guys in the previous book in the Kinross trilogy (Highland Storms), but in reality he wasn’t. So I wanted him to be allowed to tell his version of events. Some of my other stories have been inspired by for example a ghost in a house I used to stay in (I never saw it but the owners did), an extraordinary painting in the National Gallery and a replica of an old sailing ship.

5.) Who are your favourite male and female characters that you've created and why? 

I have a soft spot for Killian Kinross, Jamie’s father (and the hero of Trade Winds) because he’s

gorgeous, has a great sense of humour and is very mischievous – he’s the archetypal “bad boy” I suppose you could say and I love those! I like his wife Jessamijn too – she stands up her step-father who tries to bully her. But I also really like Nico Noordholt and Midori Kumashiro, the hero and heroine of The Gilded Fan. It’s difficult really because as an author you are usually totally into whichever hero/heroine you are working on at the moment. Right now I’m writing about a Cavalier with long dark hair and green eyes … 

Thank you!

Thank you very much for inviting me!

Any comments/questions are always very welcome :)

Steph

Review of Piano From A 4th Storey Window*

So, this review has been a long time in coming. End of term commitments pushed everything bar frantically working, not sleeping and going out from my mind. But, I've finally gotten round to finishing this. Do you ever have books that make you think to the extent that you don't want to start a new book for a couple of days? Well I do, and this was one of them - I finished it two days ago and am still procrastinating starting a new one. But (and this is a big but) you have to suffer the first 50 pages or so. The sex scenes were pretty unrealistic in this part .... for starters I don't know anyone male or female that would want to engage in sex either whilst on, or with someone who is on their period when they have sex with each other for the first time. There were a few other problems I found with it, but that one really (unfortunately) imprinted itself to my memory. Anyway, PUSH THROUGH THIS - the book is really incredibly written in my opinion. And for an English reader there's a whole host of moments during which you can really feel at home here.

Marin Strang is a woman struggling to cohere her religious upbringing in a Jehovah Witness' household with her *ahem* someone licentious mode of living. She moves to Brighton and almost immediately meets Lawrence Fyre, ecclectic bookshop owner and all-round oddball. Immediately they hit it off, but, as we know, the course of true love never does run smooth ... Filled with tragedy, love and an over-riding investigation into what makes a family, Piano From A 4th Storey Window is a brilliant read.

I find that modern romantic fiction often has a tendency to be pretty poorly written (what ever happened to the likes of the writing in Wuthering Heights?!), but, this is actually successful, good even. And the story ... well, once, as I said, you get over the first section, you really begin to get a sense of these characters. I personally love a good bit of back story in a novel, and this gradually released one, bit by bit, for each character. So, when tragedy strikes, you almost feel Marin and Lawrence's pain yourself. 

It raises so many questions about identity *spoiler alert*: what impact does one's upbringing have on one's adult life? What happens when you lose a child which you never really met? How do you deal with that? How do you deal with a lover's relationship history? What is living in Brighton really like?

Have you read it? What did you think?

Is the greatest downfall of Shakespeare’s male tragic figures the fact that they underestimate the power of women?

The “heroes” of Shakespeare’s tragedies are often said to have a “fatal flaw” which leads them to their ruin. This fatal flaw could be hubris, jealousy, greed, or a variety of other emotions or drives. However, in many of Shakespeare’s tragedies the protagonist’s ruin is inextricably linked with the impact women in the play have upon his life. This appears to be true of Othello, Macbeth, King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra. All of the eponymous men of these tragedies are thwarted because they neither see the plots women are constructing nor do they appear to believe them capable of such a thing.

            Firstly, in Othello both Othello himself and Iago are doomed because they underestimate the power of the women in the play. Othello underestimates the power of Desdemona’s chastity. This leads him to believe Iago’s empty “evidence” for her infidelity and thus kill his newly-wed bride. In a sense Desdemona is powerless because she cannot control the manipulative lies spun by Iago, but the fact that Othello is driven to murder because of her sexual power shows that she has a great deal of this type of power simply because she is a woman. Moreover, the power women have to undermine the power of men in the play is highlighted in the fact that the volta of the play occurs when Emilia hands Iago the handkerchief; this piece of evidence is vital to the construction of his case for Desdemona and Cassio’s affair. Thus, without Emilia Iago may never have had the power to cause Othello’s downfall. Othello could never fathom the idea that Emilia may have stolen the handkerchief from Desdemona and given it to Iago because he is irrational and acts rashly rather than considering other possible ways in which Iago may have ended up with the handkerchief. Iago never acknowledges the help that Emilia gave him and appears to believe that his plot functions purely because of his own brilliant cunning. However, when Emilia exposes Iago to Othello at the end of the play as having constructed the plot which lead to Desdemona’s death Iago appears to realise that he has underestimated her. He underestimated the love that Emilia had for Desdemona, and for this he is ruined.

                        Similarly, the work of Macbeth in his eponymous play is driven forwards by his wife Lady Macbeth. Macbeth never truly appears to recognise to what extent he is controlled by his wife; this underestimation of her power causes his downfall. The murders of his intimate friend Banquo and the King he ought to respect are orchestrated by her. As soon as she latches on to the hope of him gaining power she becomes obsessed with it and drives him to seek more power. For this reason I believe that ambition is Lady Macbeth’s fatal flaw, not Macbeth’s. From the point at which she can see a powerful future, Macbeth becomes somewhat of a puppet for her bidding. Likewise, Antony in Antony and Cleopatra becomes a powerless man when he falls in love with the ambitious Cleopatra. Unlike Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra does not encourage Antony to do anything; he merely does what he thinks she would like him to do because he is so utterly besotted with her. To see a martial man so weakened in this way makes him a figure of ridicule; even his suicide is carried out for such a trivial reason that it is almost laughable. His death is directly caused by the hold that Cleopatra has over him, which even she underestimates. He never appears to understand that she is manipulating him, which allows him to underestimate the power she has over him and thus for her to cause his ruin.

            Lear on the other hand is not ruined by a lover but by his daughters. He does not believe that there could be untruths behind Regan and Goneril’s professions of love for him and thus hands over all of his lands to them. This makes him a powerless figure from very early on in the play as, without his lands, he has lost all of his authority as King. Moreover, he underestimates the fact that Cordelia could be wise and thus disinherits the only daughter who truly loved him. The further plotting of the two landed sisters results in both Lear and Cordelia being imprisoned which is closely followed by their deaths. Finally, by underestimating the power of all three of his daughters Lear not only causes his own ruin, but also that of the country.

A Historical Reading of White Oleander

Janet Fitch was born in 1955 in Los Angeles. Not only had she lived there for the entirety of her life when she wrote White Oleander, but as two previous generations of her family lived in the city she clearly has an expansive and personal knowledge of it which allows her to inject a level of geographical accuracy into the novel which not only heightens its interest for local readers, but also for those worldwide for whom the accuracy gives the text a level of authenticity. As a child she had a difficult relationship with her mother, whom she believes lacked the necessary skills for motherhood  (there appears to be a slight insertion of her own history into the text on this theme). She studied history for a period in Keele University in England, having been inspired by the concept of stories within history. However, she eventually realised at the age of 21 that she did not want to merely read stories; she wanted to write them, and thus began her journey as a writer.

Fitch finally finished writing White Oleander in 1999. This was a turbulent time in Los Angeles as certain parts of America, including here, had undergone a rapid economic decline and resurgence within just over a decade. The tension at this time was further heightened by the fact that the Cold War finished only 8 years earlier, whilst Fitch was in the process of creating a text; the uneasiness of American citizens was not immediately extinguished by this time, as they had suffered over thirty years of fear and anxiety. Moreover, perhaps the most significant cause for anxiety for the citizens of Los Angeles during this time however was the 1992 riots and their aftermath. They commenced after a video of a black man being beaten by a group of white policemen was filmed and realised to the public and the trial saw the all-white jury acquit the men of this crime; the riots broke out within hours. People lived in fear for their lives, and some did not make it. Not only were there violent, sporadic killings, but over $1 Billion worth of damage was caused, largely through arson. This rupture in the quotidian social climate meant that life has not been the same in Los Angeles since. These factors which induced high levels of anxiety in citizens are reflected in the book: Astrid constantly fears for something; Ingrid is unsettled and eventually finds happiness in the structure of prison; the instability of the various domestic lives of the foster homes, particularly Claire’s depression and anxiety issues.

The novel also reflects movements in the world as a whole at the time in which it was written as the 1990s in the Western world in particular was recognised as being a time in which the growth of multiculturalism was seen. This is seen through the variety of races which Astrid encounters on her journey through life and the way in which Fitch allows them to each have their own identities within their race. However, as capitalist markets in the Western world boomed so did racial and class tension, which is again explored in the text. This was a time in which the world saw the rise of Third Wave feminisms, which not only differ from the second wave in that this was more racially motivated than before, but it also saw the rise of antifeminisms, some key ideas of which are included in the text.