Rebecca Mascull – The Wild Air

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Aviatrixes, Book Review, Early Aviation, Rebecca Mascull, The Wild Air

Hat Trick In Three

With her third novel, the Edwardian set The Wild Air, Rebecca Mascull has done what she did in her two earlier novels – found a way to hook the reader’s heart to that of her central character, so that the reader absolutely cares about their journey, roots for them and, in this case, I was left feeling quite violent towards the prejudice and spite encountered by our quiet, shy, plain protagonist: one with the courage of a lion, hidden beneath the exterior of a mouse.

It is the first decade of the twentieth century. Cordelia (Della) Dobbs is the third daughter of a bitter, retired, theatrical star. Her charismatic father was seriously injured in an automobile accident, and his stage days are over. Della’s older sisters are beauties, one has gone on to success in the theatre, the other has made a good marriage. Her younger brother is favoured and golden. Della is the family mouse within a vibrantly extrovert, flamboyant set. A bit of a disappointment she does not have the pulchritude, the talent, the artistic creativity, the obvious personality, wit or intelligence to shine out in this family where everyone possesses at least one of these gifts.

Della likes quietness. In a family of extroverts where everyone is glittering and shining all together, there is no point in trying to outshine, or be loud enough or flamboyant enough to command attention. Della stays quiet, helpful, useful. But she does have her own talent – practical, kinaesthetic, a listening gift and passion for mechanics : how things work. Unfortunately, the time is not yet ready for female engineers. And, there is something else. Della is fortunate to come under the protective wing of her great-aunt Betty, newly returned from the States to her North East origins. Betty, a plain-speaking, adventurous woman with a similarly ungraceful, unfeminine appearance, had set out, aged 40, with her younger brother, an engineer, to the New World. Betty had married a practical man, and lived happy with him until his death brought her homewards. And Betty was fascinated by the new challenge and daring of flying. She had seen the Wright Brothers. Betty, with her strength, earthiness and willingness to ignore the constructs of graceful, eye-fluttering femininity, instead, to find her own ways towards being a strong person, a strong female person, becomes a mentor and encourager, helping Della to find her own ‘star’. Della is in love with the idea of flying. And female aviatrixes, though rare, are there to be aspirational role models

Hélène Dutrieu, aviatrix, 1911

I have to admit that my surrender to Della was not as ‘upon the instant’ as it had been to her earlier ‘sisters’. Feisty Adeliza Golding, from Mascull’s first book, The Visitors, and the wonderfully intelligent scientist, Dawnay Price, from The Song Of The Sea Maid, eccentric, flamboyant personalities both, had snaffled my interest in their stories from the off.

So, courageous for Mascull to explore this far quieter girl and woman, this introvert. Della proves, though, to be ‘still waters run deep’ She is the person in the corner of the room you don’t notice at a party, the mousy one, until by chance you discover this overlooked one has a wealth of story to tell, and a life of more strangeness and fascination than you could dream of.

One of the many facets of Mascull’s writing, which I admire hugely, is her heart and her kindness. There is tenderness here, a kind of respect for the integrity of her invented characters. She is not someone who seems to force her characters into some structure and shape. More, a sense of the author’s creation revealing themselves. Della, true to her quieter nature, takes time also to reveal herself to the reader – but she is absolutely authentic, both in her quietness and reticence, and in where she soars (literally!) when she discovers where her true North lies.

Lanoe Hawker’s (First World War flying ace) No 1611 Bristol Scout 

I read, a year or so ago, a fictionalised biography of another aviatrix, Beryl Markham. What disturbed me about that book, was that the author had to some extent played fast and loose with the facts of Markham’s life, for her ‘faction’. Something which leaves me with a kind of distaste. It is, I think, another mark of Mascull’s integrity that though she might take specific achievements and stories from the history of real people as a starting point or inspiration for her fictions, she does not mangle the authenticity of real lives for her fiction. Della is not Amelia Earhart, Amy Johnson or any other ‘real’ aviatrix, bent into Mascull’s story. Della is Mascull’s genesis, but she grows into her own shape. Something magical happens when an author so clearly ‘listens’ to the arisingness of their creation.

If you want your heroes to be full of ‘flashing eyes, floating hair’ and mesmerise you with their magnetic charisma, Della may not do, but my advice would be, stay patient and wait for her to find herself, to reveal who she is, as she discovers that for herself.

Now, I will not deny that there were some aspects that I struggled with. The book has a prologue, dated 1918, but the sequential story begins in 1909, with Della in her mid-teens so, clearly the First War is going to be a major factor. I will not reveal spoilers of course, but there are sequences of some letters, written by a couple of major characters in the book, which had my disbelief unsuspended, and thinking ‘surely………..this could not have got past the censors’ Mascull is, however, meticulous in research and, for the benefit of the interested reader tells us what is true, and where she might have stretched truth into invention. I was quite startled to discover that whilst of course censors would always do their work on anything which might reveal position, military details etc, there were letters which did get home where soldiers did reveal their fear, grief, and despair to loved ones. Although most letters were much more ‘chipper’ than the writers felt, in order to avoid alarming their loved ones, some were far more honest, and escaped censoring.

The beautiful, elegant, Blackburn Monoplane

My other challenge is that The Wild Air is much more ‘Romantic Historical’ than Mascull’s first two books, and romance is more central to the trajectory of the story. One of the genre shelves I never visit in my local library is ‘Romance’ though of course relationships, including romantic relationships, tend to be a crucial part of many if not most of the books I love. There is a very pure, whole relationship which is a central one. Perhaps it is a mark of a certain cynicism in me that felt a little like ‘Mills and Boon’ about that, and I am more comfortable reading relationships which have a dysfunctionality. I needed to lay that cynicism aside, Mascull, as said earlier, is an honest writer, and allows her characters their honesty too. I had been more comfortable with the more intellectual, greater thinking complexity of Adeliza and Dawnay, which inevitably gave a certain – tangle – to their relationships. The central driving relationship in this book is where there is a great expressed emotional honesty happening, and perhaps this leads to a clearer trajectory and clearer mutuality. The conflicts here are conflicts caused externally, not internal conflicts. And, I guess war itself creates a kind of ‘cut to the chase’ intensity.

Mascull is a wonderful crafter of language itself. Now, curiously, I found myself underlining less ‘soaring prose’ in this book than I had in her other two. And, reflecting on this, I think this was also the expression of an authenticity in her writing – Adeliza and Dawnay were both highly expressive characters of brilliance, wit, flamboyance, so of course they are going to express themselves in stunning fashion. Della, as noted is a quiet person. She speaks far more plainly, less elliptically, less in metaphor. So, of course, even though Mascull is ‘third person’ narration, the think through will be through that quieter, more plainly speaking persona :

Della talked aloud to herself. She did that when it was marvellous and she revelled in the complete wonder of flying, the secret joy of it. Or when it was bad. When the mist came down or the wind got up something terrible and she was fighting the weather in order to come back alive

Adeliza and Dawnay would, I’m sure have expressed the above in fizzing expression, I would have been underlining passages of beauty all through. Della does not have that voice. Again, I come back to thinking about Mascull, who, here, does not astound the reader with her own beautiful, poetic, expressive voice – because it would not be Della’s.

Authenticity.

So, having thought through what I mainly loved, and what (and why) I struggled with, I can only raise my 4 ½ stars to 5. Mascull has done it again.

I had one slightly strange thought, an elemental one, as I read this : Mascull’s first creation, Adeliza, found her passion in earth – deaf-blind, it is initially through engagement with what grows – and through ether, the spirit, intangible world. Dawnay connects through water, for Della, that earthed, practical soul, the growth and destiny is airborne. What next……..I do hope not an arsonist!

I was extremely happy to receive an arc, via the publishers, Hodder and Stoughton, shortly before Christmas. A fantastic start to my 2017 reading year

However………as the book will be published on May 4th, I have held back publication of my review till towards the end of April. In fact, this week marks a blog tour of Rebecca Mascull’s book, and I am eagerly looking forward to other bloggers’ impressions. Mascull’s writing always presents possibilities for interested and passionate reader engagement.

I shall be searching out other reviews and they should appear as clickable links in the ‘Catching My Beady Eye’ widget, on the right hand margin

The Wild Air Amazon UK
The Wild Air Amazon USA

(Alas, I have discovered that ‘other’blogging platforms’ don’t easily transfer over to the Post I Like Widget, so you will have to find your way to other reviews yourselves, from the addresses given above!)

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Alain de Botton – The Course of Love

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Alain de Botton, Attachment Theory, Book Review, The Course of Love

Novel ‘novel’

Alain de Botton’s new novel, is, I think more of a psychoanalytical and philosophical investigation into the nature of love interspersed within the story of a particular couple. For example, something which a lot of novels (but not all) have, as ways to keep the reader engaged and turning pages, is an as yet-unknown journey – a plot of some unpredictability.

Our understanding of love has been hijacked and beguiled by its first distractingly moving moments. We have allowed our love stories to end way too early. We seem to know far too much about how love starts, and recklessly little about how it might continue

de Botton ensures, right from the start that the reader knows absolutely the major staging posts of this journey. There are five major sections – and I am tempted to call them Acts, like an Elizabethan play, and each Act has several scenes within it. (or chapters). These are named, and we are thereby told what will happen in ‘The Course of Love’ : Romanticism; Ever After; Children; Adultery; Beyond Romanticism;

Children teach us that love is, in its purest form, a kind of service. The word has grown freighted with negative connotations. An individualistic, self-gratifying culture cannot easily equate contentment with being at someone else’s call. We are used to loving others in return for what they can do for us, for their capacity to entertain, charm or soothe us. Yet babies can do precisely nothing……They teach us to give without expecting anything in return, simply because they need help badly – and we are in a position to provide it

The idea of this being a 5 act play suggested itself to me also because there is within it the idea of ‘playing a role’ – also, in classical tragedy, the chorus comments on the action and ‘de-constructs’ meaning for us, plus, there is an audience, observers, who both watch and are involved – and the role of the chorus is to take the audience out of over-involvement so that the wider picture can be seen, and happenings taken out of ‘this is an individual story’ into something more universal, with lessons for all.

Melancholy isn’t, of course, a disorder that needs to be cured. It’s a species of intelligent grief which arises when we come face to face with the certainty that disappointment is written into the script from the start

Here ‘the actors’ playing their parts, and standing for the rest of us, are Rabih and Kirsten : they are both unique individuals with their own backgrounds and family histories, and ‘everyman and everywoman’. This book follows the trajectory of their lives and relationships, with the main focus being on the internal, often unconscious, emotional landscape which drives what happens externally.

Interspersed with the events of their lives, both the major and the small, daily, landscape ones, are ‘Alain de Botton’ as the observing chorus, analyst, interpreter. He breaks one of the ‘Creative Writing Skills’ ideas : that is, show, don’t tell, by deliberately doing both. Rabih and Kirsten, for example, might find themselves in an argument over something small which has suddenly come out of nowhere – which glasses should they buy for their table – the argument happens, and then the authorial voice deconstructs what underlies, in psychological terms – very much related to patterns lid down in early childhood – the strong survival instinct responses each are experiencing.

Love is a skill, not just an enthusiasm

There is, for this reader, a fascination to what seems like a literary story, then analysed by a psychotherapist whose background comes from Bowlby’s attachment theory – the primary relationship, which affects all others, is that which the infant and then the small child has with their caregivers. De Botton, the ‘author’ of these explained sections takes us ‘inside the feelings’ of his characters – but, from the outside. We, as indeed they, are invited to understand themselves – and each other

If we are not regularly deeply embarrassed by who we are, the journey to self-knowledge hasn’t begun

I can quite clearly see that if what the reader is after is a more unpredictable story line, if what the reader wants is to submerge empathically with Rabih, Kirsten or both, de Botton’s simultaneous pull-you-in, pull-you-out-and-now-think-about-the-trajectories-of-your-own-relationships might annoy, but, for myself, I found it a wonderful piece of writing, even if I’m not quite certain what to call it.

I was underlining here, there and everywhere (mainly in the ‘authorial/analysis of subtext sections)

This was provided as a review copy, from the publishers, via NetGalley

The Course of Love Amazon UK
The Course of Love Amazon USA

H.E.Bates – Love for Lydia

Tags

Between the Wars, Book Review, H.E.Bates, Love for Lydia

The always vanishing world, remembered

Curiously, I have never read any H.E.Bates, though somehow I believed I had – a misremembered conflation with another author going by initials – L.P. Hartley, he of The Go-Between. So when NetGalley offered me Love For Lydia, I took it, and was swept away and absorbed from the off. I shall certainly be pursuing an acquaintance with more of Bates, based on this between the wars set novel, beautifully exploring a Northamptonshire set rural/small town world, the fictional Evensford,  as the giddy twenties turns towards the great recession, Hunger Marches, and, later, war. Demarcations of class are beginning to break-down, though these are certainly still firmly in place at the start of the novel.

When Bretherton woke, beer-flushed, with belches of discomfort, at the sound of the caddy spoon on the side of the teapot, he looked like one of those porkers, fat and pinkish, squatting on its hind legs with an advertisement for sausages in its lap, that you see in butchers’ windows. The sausages were his fingers. They glistened, a pink-grey colour, as they grasped tremulously at each other and then at his tobacco-yellow moustache. They were tipped with black moons of dirt that presently scraped at the forefront of his thinning scalp while in the first startling unpleasantness of waking he banged his squat scrubby elbows on the desk, his thick white fingers flapping.

The central character and narrator, Richardson – his first name is never revealed,  is looking back on his earlier youth. He was a young, callow, bookish man, both aspirational and dreamy, in his very late teens/verge of his twenties. He had a couple of firm friendships from his school-days. Tom Holland, a young farmer, symbolising a thoroughly decent, uncomplicated kind of Anglo-Saxon English yeoman, whose warm, large family have had their roots in the countryside, with a keen sense of home, for generations. His other friend, Alex Sanderson, no less innocent, is more highly strung. It is less clear, with both Richardson himself, and Alex, what their eventual place in the world will be. At the start of the novel, Richardson is working, not very successfully, not very willingly, as a reporter on the local paper, a job he throws up for a less demanding, more casual place as a clerk in one of the local leather and shoe manufacturing industries. There is a hint that more ‘bookish’ concerns will draw him – and his work background has similarities to Bates’ own. Alex is from a financially comfortable background, his father a businessman. The three friends are comfortable middle class, and certainly there is no real hint of poverty, struggle or want here. Peculiarly, the idea of less security is suggested by both the class above and below. Blackie Johnson is the son of one of the local garage car (or as it was, now changing rapidly) coach repairers and ‘cabs’ Blackie’s father is still respectful and subservient to those of higher status; Blackie himself holds no truck with forelock tugging.

Rushden Hall, Rushden, Northants, which Bates, as a young reporter, visited, like his narrator, Richardson – Rushden Hall was the model for the novel’s Aspen Hall

Shaking up this more-or-less settled state of affairs comes Lydia Aspen. She is the niece (and eventual heir) of one of the district’s ‘aristocratic’ families – at least in status, though not in title, the Aspens. A distinct sense of having come down financially in the world adheres to the family, and Lydia’s origins are a little vague, some hintings that her father may have made a ‘marriage beneath’. Lydia is out of class for everyone, but, because class itself is changing, and there are few young people of her own class, geographically close, Richardson, and later his friends, will be the ones to show Lydia Evensford society. Lydia is magnetic, warm, voluptuous, fickle and in love with both her own strong, excited desire to embrace ‘life’ and in the love and devotion she lures out of all who come under her spell. She will wreak havoc with, change, and both destroy the stability of all of the young men, whilst also providing an awakening into the glories of first love and the pain of first loss.

Whenever I went through the gates and along the avenue there was a wonderful belling chorus of thrushes that expanded under a closing framework of branches, madly and most wonderfully in the long pale twilight when the air was green with young leaves and the acid of new grass after sunset and spring rain. Nearer the house there were random drifts of pale blue anemone, bright as clippings of sky among black clusters of butchers broom, and then, leading up to the house, daffodils in thousands, in crowds of shaking yellow flame

There is a wonderful story here. It has a kind of mythic, operatic Greek tragedy to it, but bound to an English restraint, a sense of things not spelt out, but inherent. Bates’ prose, particularly in description of the natural world, the land, the changing seasons is lyrical and strong – I was reminded of Laurie Lee, that same sense of writing about landscape from someone who had learned a relationship with it primarily through living with it and working it, not from reading about it. Bates is as observant and surprising in all his descriptions though, whether these are of hedgerows, landscapes through seasons, or the physical quirks and particularities of character. That sense of an English mythic, the relationship with land beginning to change, through the incursion of ‘modern’, and through ancient and formalised structures (like class) shifting, sometimes quite painfully, also reminded me of a writer a couple of generations earlier – Hardy, though Bates is, I think, more accessible, punchier, of course ‘modern’.

He began to get some idea of the monstrous iron that bound the McKechnie household. No cooking on Sundays, no music, no jokes, not even much talking, no papers, no reading except of sectarian things. A prayer-meeting once a week and often, especially in winter, twice or three times; a long dry scouring word of the Lord before breakfast every day. A hardness, an enamel of twice-fired prejudice and precept, held the family, the eldest son, a man of forty, in a kind of isolated and awful fealty

Bates’ writing has a very satisfying tension between feverish page-turning, a desire to know ‘what happens next’ and an equally strong ‘whoa, slow down, savour each moment’ quality, because he is so very adept at describing the texture of being in each moment : his writing is kinesthetic. And that tension mirrors beautifully what the narrator experiences – the desire to hold on to moments, whilst the sense of life inexorably driving onwards is happening – not to mention the fact that we (and he) know that past has gone, even though it might seem tantalisingly close, because Richardson is recounting all this, looking back from the knowledge of everything that has happened. He is writing from memory, and memory shapes the events of the past into patterns; patterns not seen whilst living within them

Nicola Benedetti with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton, playing Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, which has nothing to do with Bates’ book, except for a powerful connection to an idea of ‘English Music’ – writing fed by a sense of the land seems to me such a part of another way of hearing ‘English music’

Bates’ strong story lines, wonderful dramatic characterisation and ability to give such a very present sense of time, space and realism of course made his writing a natural for TV drama – Love for Lydia became a 6 part drama series for Thames in the 70s. The Darling Buds of May and Fair Stood The Wind for France also were televised. I have never seen any of these – possibly wrongly, probably snootily sniffily, I have a tendency to avoid TV dramatisations (and often, films) of books I know have some kind of lit-ficciness about them, as I always want to read the book FIRST, in order to have a direct relationship with the writing, and the formation of my own sense of look, feel, texture.

However, since doing my normal blog review research into background, I discovered that a film I dearly loved – Michael Apted’s The Triple Echo was a dramatisation of a Bates novella. My memory of the film is shrouded in the mists of time, though I do remember a very beautiful young Brian Deacon. The film also starred Glenda Jackson and a magnificently over-powering Oliver Reed, long before Reed became a byword for a certain kind of self-destruction. I have discovered it is out there on YouTube, and I will no doubt be availing myself of that opportunity – but, first, of course, the novella must be sourced and devoured.

Bates (1905-1974) is someone who will definitely be appearing again on this blog! Love for Lydia was first published in 1952.

Thank you to Bloomsbury, who are re-publishing much of Bates, and to NetGalley. Strangely, these republishings are not showing this side of the pond, and only older versions, or eReads, seem available. Lucky Statesiders!

Love for Lydia Amazon UK
Love for Lydia Amazon USA

Margery Sharp – The Nutmeg Tree

Tags

Book Review, Humour, Humour and Wit, Margery Sharp, The Nutmeg Tree

A woman of impeccably loose morals.

Julia ,’by marriage Mrs Packett, by courtesy Mrs Macdermot’ is the central character of three strongly delineated women, in Margery Sharp’s delightful The Nutmeg Tree.

Sharp, a deliciously witty writer of rather eccentric English romances and childrens’ books, from the 1930s to the 1970s, had sadly gone out of print, and was only available as lucky finds in second hand shops or sometimes on line at some eye-watering prices.

Fortunately, Open Road Integrated Media who have a wonderful reputation for reissuing ‘minor’ classics in good, digital format, have now reissued a generous couple of handfuls of her titles.

And this is one of them, and I was delighted to be offered The Nutmeg Tree by Open Road, as a copy for review

Julia is a middle-aged actress, member of the chorus, and any kind of vaguely theatre related work she can get. She is a woman of impeccably loose morals. Promiscuous in part because she has a generous heart (and even more generous bosoms), she cannot bear to disappoint or embarrass a suitor. Not to mention the fact that she is hopeless with money, will squander what she has on a good time and good friends, and, when treading the boards work is slender, a man might take her out for a meal. She is not averse to undertaking the odd swindle, to part a fool from his money, either

It is Sharp’s particular genius, her wit and her warmth, to take this seemingly unprincipled woman, and make us root for her, delight in her, and understand exactly why so many who meet her, both men and women, happily fall under the spell of her charms. Despite her dishonesty, she is remarkably honest with herself about her failings, and really dislikes hurting or offending those whom she fleeces.

The opening paragraph of the book immediately showed me this was going to be a sparkling and good humoured read:

Julia, by marriage Mrs, Packett, by courtesy Mrs Macdermot, lay in her bath singing the Marseillaise. Her fine robust contralto, however, was less resonant than usual, for on this particular summer morning the bathroom, in addition to the ordinary fittings, contained a lacquer coffee table, seven hatboxes, half a dinner service, a small grandfather clock, all Julia’s clothes, a single bed mattress, thirty-five novelettes, three suitcases, and a copy of a Landseer stag

I was already laughing so hard by this point, with the tune of ‘On the twelfth day of Christmas’, rather than the Marseillaise, playing in my mind, that I half expected the sentence to end with the proverbial partridge, pear tree and all.

Julia, on her uppers again is the mother of a grown-up and extremely intelligent daughter, presently at Girton. She was never the most motherly of women, and Susanne, or Susan as she is now called, has been brought up by Julia’s mother-in-law, a well-to-do woman whom Julia admires, and who has always treated Julia kindly. Even if she does nurture a rather peculiar fantasy that her daughter–in-law would make a great success if she would only open a cake-shop in Knightsbridge.

Julia hasn’t seen her daughter for years, but Sue wants to get married to a man, whilst her grandmother wants her to wait till she is twenty one. Susan sends a letter to her mother asking her to come to France (where she and her grandmother are holidaying) to help persuade Mrs Packett senior to accept Sue’s beau, Bryan, and a speedy marriage.

Dormant mother love is wakened, and the story follows Julia’s eventful journey to France, and the amusing encounters which await her there

In a neat twist, it is Julia, and even the older Mrs Packett, who are the flexible and adventurous ones, whilst Susan, bar a desire to marry a little young is implacably rigid and insufferably worthy

Susan was a prig. Not an objectionable prig, not a proselytising prig, but a prig from very excess of good qualities.. Like all the right-minded young, she wanted perfection; the difficulty was that her standards of perfection were unusually high. Exquisite in her own integrity, she demanded an equal delicacy and uprightness from her fellows

Susan – unlike Julia – is not a lot of fun, Take, for example, this typical throwaway Margery Sharp gem, about Julia’s pecuniary embarrassment and the detail of her underwear :

Julia decided to take single instead of return tickets, and to buy a new dinner dress with the money saved. She also purchased a linen suit, a Matron’s model hat, and three pairs of cami-knickers. She had indeed plenty of these already, but all with policemen embroidered on the legs

I shan’t (of course) reveal spoilers, but do just need to say that I thought the ending was utterly brilliant, and done with panache.

A film version, or should I say an extreme ‘based on’ was made, starring Greer Garson. Whatever the merits of the film, most of the elements of Sharp’s novel have been bent into unrecognisable shape. The title of the film was Julia Misbehaves

I enjoyed this book enormously; though Sharp is writing light, witty romance, it is in a unique and wonderfully executed manner. Her characterisations are brilliant, her humour never laboured and, knowing more Margery’s are waiting for me, accessible, and reasonably priced is enchanting.

Thank you Open Road! And thank you to Jane at beyondedenrock, who probably woke us all up to Margery

The Nutmeg Tree, and other Margery titles are being published on April 12th. Not long to wait!

The Nutmeg Tree Amazon UK
The Nutmeg Tree Amazon USA

Dodie Smith – I Capture The Castle

Tags

Book Review, Cold Comfort Farm, Dodie Smith, Humour, I Capture The Castle, Pride and Prejudice

A Trip Down Memory Lane Even Better Than The First Time…..

I first read Dodie Smith’s impeccable `I Capture The Castle’ way back in nineteen hundred and frozen to death when I was some few years younger than her precocious, intelligent, wise beyond years and yet innocent narrator, Cassandra – she is 17. No doubt I was equally precocious, at least. Cassandra, daughter of a highly eccentric, impecunious writer-with-a-block, fancies an authorial career for herself (as indeed to some extent I did in my early teens)

Cassandra Mortmain, her beautiful older sister Rose, her even more beautiful stepmother, Topaz, artist’s model and artist herself, ferociously intelligent younger brother Thomas, and unwaged Greek God handsome-but-with-a-slightly-dim-expression general help Stephen, her aforementioned writer Father, and her dearly loved dog and cat, live practically below the breadline, in a stunning, decaying castle. Everyone had seen better times, financially, and everyone is aware that a tea of bread and margarine might come to seem luxurious any time soon:

Rose is ironing……it will be a pity if she scorches her only nightgown. (I have two, but one is minus its behind.)

Dodie Smith set her book, published in 1948, before the war, in the probably early 30s. She had begun writing it in 1945, and had worked and re-worked it revising it for two years. The book shows evidence of the painstaking work only in its perfection. It is beautifully crafted, and has that gorgeous felicity of seeming to have sprung in effortless ease, trippingly, from the authorial pen. There is no sense of the blood, sweat, toil and tears of its gestation.

Dodie of course also wrote 101 Dalmatians

Cassandra, wanting to exercise and develop her writerly skills, keeps journals (you have a sense Dodie herself may well have had a similar history) She is a witty, almost but not quite winsomely so, young girl, full of feeling, the ability to be cynical, but warm-hearted and affectionate. And, like many young girls, she has some dreams about her own future, which involve both romance and vocation. This is the story of both, starting from a place where the family’s finances preclude them ever meeting suitable young men, despite the fact that the more worldly Rose realises that marriage to a moneyed man is probably the family’s best option, and that she is the only one placed to achieve this. Both Rose and Cassandra realise they have certain parallels to an earlier pair of sisters – Jane and Lizzie Bennet, especially when a well-heeled couple of Americans take up residence in a nearby grand house

Especially for my dear fellow blogger Fiction Fan, there is indeed a bathing in wild water scene (tasteful and very very funny) but not involving Colin Firth

Another sparkling literary nod may have been to Stella Gibbons – Topaz, with her tendency to commune with nature (running out into the fields in her nightgown with probably nothing on underneath, and creating symbolic art works) could be some kind of relation to Elfine in Cold Comfort Farm. Stephen, whose Greek God looks will make him something of a hit with a Bohemian set, is a little like a reluctant, noble, introverted Seth.

Cassandra’s joyous combination of intense feeling, curiosity, intelligence and most particularly her already well-developed powers of observation and mastery of writerly skills make her an absolutely enchanting first person narrator. This is a book to relish, word by word, from start to end.

Some have expressed frustration with the ambiguous ending. Personally, I find that it, too is sheer perfection. That is certainly what I feel as a more sophisticated reader than the 13 or 14 year old I was when I read it last. And I suspect (as I was precocious) I may well already have approved the ambiguity.

This is not a `book for young adults’ (though it certainly can be read with great enjoyment by them) It is a book for anyone who might like to see the world through the eyes of a particularly enchanting young woman, and for anyone who appreciates light touch wit, irony and enjoys literary referencing.

How can you not want to embark on a journey whose first sentence begins

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea cosy……….I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring-I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn’t a very good poem. I have decided that my poetry is so bad that I mustn’t write any more of it

I can begin to see how Smith influenced several other writers, too

Recommended. Perhaps best saved for a day when the world seems sad and bleak, and your get up and go has indeed got up and gone. A feel-good book, but one which won’t leave you longing to eat chilli peppers and horseradish to get rid of the cloying taste of saccharine

It was made into a film in 2003………..unfortunately, the trailer (on You Tube) rather made me gag and reach for the chilli and horseradish. Romola Garai as Cassandra, Bill Nighy as her father and Sinead Cusack as the forceful American mother of ‘ Darcy and Bingley’ were all, I’m sure, wonderful value – but it was the saccharine of the trailer which rightly or wrongly made me feel that a chocolate box cover approach may have been taken. The opening out of the story so that other people’s point of view happens, rather than everything seen and recorded through Cassandra’s filter, means I shall likely give this one a miss, and let Dodie’s sharp and tender pen be the onlie begetter

I Capture The Castle Amazon UK
I Capture The Castle Amazon USA

Kate Forsyth – Bitter Greens

Tags

Adult Faerie Tale, Bitter Greens, Book Review, Kate Forsyth

Easy read Bon-Bon with surprisingly satisfying dark, tough centre. And a feminist, and erotic tale, to boot!

This is a clever page turner, kind of easy, kind of straight forward. Absorbing, almost compulsively engaging until you realise that there’s a lot more going on, including neat and clever games with plot – a story being told within the central story which is also yet another story. Yet Kate Forsyth manages this without confusion or artifice, and the reader can easily hold the braided threads together

Bitter Greens is both a historical novel, a romance, and a fantasy, a fairy story – and at the centre of it all, are 3 strong female characters, fighting the powerlessness of a woman’s lot, in their differing ways. (And, of course, twining 3 stories together is a kind of plait of stories, to mirror the plait of hair – more of which, later)

The central character is a real character, who lived in Versailles, the King’s Court, during the reign of the autocratic Louis XIVth, the Sun King, to whom she was related, This was the time when the Catholic ruling elite were moving towards the eventual stifling of ‘dissenting’ Protestant religion. Louis XIVth’s reign saw the degree of religious toleration brought in by his grandfather, Henri of Navarre, being rapidly eroded. Louis was very far from being a tolerant king, and in 1685 revoked the freedom of worship act, The Edict of Nantes, which had been passed in Henri of Navarre’s reign. Huguenots were forced to ‘convert’, and to try to leave the country in order to avoid this, was punishable in some cases, by death.

Louis XIV in 1685, the year he revoked the Edict of Nantes. Unknown artist, Wiki Commons

Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force, the main character, (whose childhood nickname in the book is Bon-Bon) was a relatively plain, highly intelligent woman, one of Louis’ cousins, who became a well regarded writer. She had several lovers, but did not marry (scandalously) till she was middle-aged. Her family were Huguenot, and she ‘converted’ to Catholicism, around the time when such conversions were enforced. She was exiled by Louis to a convent (a fate imposed on many women who displeased men, and particularly, a fate meted out to Huguenot women) So, ‘Bitter Greens’ is her first person narrated story, mainly taking place at the end of the seventeenth century, in that convent, as she looks back on her life. However, Charlotte-Rose is the writer who is known as the author of the fairy-tale initially known as Persinette – (a kind of variant on Parsley,which features in the story) ‘Persinette’ later was retold by the Brothers Grimm as ‘Rapunzel’ – or, to give it a similarly herbal flavour, a variant on ‘rampion’

Rapunzel is of course the story of the powerlessness of a young girl, who falls foul of a powerful witch, and is imprisoned in a tower (or convent, in Charlotte-Rose’s case, after she fell foul of a powerful despotic monarch) It is also a deeply erotic story, though the eroticism is covert in the children’s version. Rapunzel is rescued by (who else) a prince who climbs her outrageously snaky, ever-growing, shimmering ladder of hair.

Tarot Card of The Tower, Flicr Paul Walker

However, an earlier version of the story exists, from the pen of an Italian writer, Giambattista Basile, published some 60 years earlier, as Forsyth relates, but scholars have puzzled how (or if) Charlotte-Rose might have read it as the story was written in Neapolitan, and was not translated out of Neapolitan till many years after Charlotte-Rose’s death. As she never went to Italy, and did not speak Neapolitan, it is something of a mystery. One which Forsyth wonderfully disentangles, explores, invents, surmises.

So, the second story is that of ‘Marguerite’ a fairy story told by a wise nun, who is the convent’s infirmarian and herbalist, Soeur Seraphina. Marguerite, (another plant, name ‘Daisy’) of course, is the girl who becomes ‘Persinette’ and she too, like Charlotte-Rose, will transcend the powerlessness imposed on her by the witch.

Where do malevolent witches come from, however – in this story, we get to understand, and see a further story about the powerlessness and lack of choices available to women.

It is a marvellous tale within a tale within a tale – and, moreover, Forsyth upends the ‘victim’ status of her imprisoned female, – though there are some attractive princes, even princes may be imprisoned by those more powerful than they – kings, fathers opposed to rebellious sons.

Interspersed are also various poems by other writers on the ‘Rapunzel’ theme.

Hopefully, the fact that I’ve unpicked some of the rich substance to the story will not put potential readers off – this is a wonderfully told tale, with 3 extremely interesting major characters, one of whom (Charlotte-Rose) is wonderfully witty, sardonic, amused – and a remarkably sensual woman as well as a highly intelligent one. So the book has its degree of raunch as well!

There is a wealth of historical, literary, artistic information, in here, but Forsyth wears her obviously careful research lightly, seamlessly, gracefully. You learn without ‘being lectured’

Highly recommended, and I shall certainly investigate her second book for adults, which again mixes history and fairy story as it is about one of the Brothers Grimm.

Bitter Greens Amazon UK
Bitter Greens Amazon USA

Katarina Bivald – The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

Tags

Book Review, Books about Books, Iowa, Katarina Bivald, Swedish Author, The readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

…And they all read happily ever after in small-town Iowa

I received this enchanting, quirky, feel-good romance with a definite fairy-tale structure from the publisher, Chatto and Windus, via NetGalley, in return for an honest review.

And my honest review is as cheerily warm and appreciative as the book itself

Anyone who knows my book reading habits knows I have a predilection for hefty, often existentially suffering lit-ficcy stuff.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t be utterly delighted by much more cheerful fare – as long as it has a bit of bite and tang along with the sweetness – and this has, oh it has, because of the well drawn, individual characters, some of whom are distinctly crotchety and odd-ball.

Sara Lindqvist is a shy, spinsterish Swedish woman who adores reading, and worked in a bookshop. She strikes up an epistolary friendship with an elderly woman from Iowa, Amy Harris, who is also a great lover of books, and lives in a small town, Broken Wheel, which is dying. Much of their letter writing exchange, which goes on for over 2 years, is about books, and they send these to each other. Amy is clearly the kind of person with a big heart, and a lot of wisdom and patience, who rather enjoys the small foibles of humankind, and nonetheless has visions of wider horizons.

John says I think about historic injustices too much. Maybe he’s right, but it’s just that it doesn’t feel historic to me. We never seem to be able to accept responsibility for them. First, we say that’s just how things are, then we shrug our shoulders and say that’s just how things were, that things are different now. No thanks to us, I want to reply, but no one ever seems to want to hear that

Eventually, Sara sets out for a 2 month holiday to visit Amy.

Unfortunately Amy happened to die whilst Sara was en route…………..

Flicr, Commons, photographer TumblingRun

So, what IS this book about – small people with a fair share of problems, a lot of humanity, and the fairy tale of a person who is the glue who brings people together. Amy was that person for Broken Wheel, and Sara, to her surprise, discovers that she is some kind of combination of both fairy godmother AND Cinderella, and, indeed, that pretty well everyone can go to the ball!

Tipping a definite nod to the that true story of how bibliophiles engaged across the ocean – Helen Hanff’s 84 Charing Cross Road, The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend…., features both the letters between Sara and Amy, and the strange and magical account of what might happen when a passionate reader rides into town with her cavalry of books, and somehow magic happens

Rest assured, to those who dislike the genre, this is not ‘magical realism’, it is, however, realism made out of ‘in an ideal world’ rather than realism full of grit and despair.

Flicr Commons

Passionate readers will delight at the appearance of all sorts of books, from the very highest of brows, to the most populist of beach reads.

The last thing Sara had done was get hold of a new shelf, on which she placed every unreadable book she could find, alongside every Pulitzer Prize-winner, Nobel Prize recipient and nominee for the Booker Prize

First-time author Katarina Bivald had her book published in her native language (Swedish, of course) in 2013. And I can offer no higher praise to her translator Alice Menzies than to say I had to keep checking the title page in disbelief that this was a novel ‘in translation’ Beautifully done.

And Bivald, like her heroine, is also a bibliophile who is not quite sure whether she doesn’t prefer books to people……….though the evident generosity in her writing, and her viewpoint shows she rather loves both

Bivald’s lovely warmth, humour, whimsicality and heart in the creation of her small-town community reminded me, yes, of the Hanff book, yes. of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, but also of Armistead Maupin’s wonderful community in his ‘Tales of The City’ novels. It’s not just the subject matter which brings up comparisons, its also the joyousness, the heart, the humour and the artistry

We have perhaps become too used to thinking of Scandinavian writers as being the source of noir crime fiction. If this book is an example of Scandi RomCom – bring it on!

Sara couldn’t help but wonder what life might be like if you couldn’t daydream about Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy (how had she decided on that name? One of literary history’s most inexplicable mysteries), because you yourself had created him.

If I were to be a little picky, I think the book might have been a tad tighter as we got towards the end we are inevitably getting towards, and Bivald could perhaps have stepped on the accelerator, as within the last few chapters we know the destination, and kind of want journey’s end, rather than to admire the view one last time, but this is a small observation. 4 ½ stars, easy (rounded up to 5)

And, unless you are lucky enough to be a NetGalleyer or some other recipient of ARCS, Patience, I’m afraid, is needed as publication is on June 18th, and I will flag a reminder as the date approacheth…

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend Amazon UK
The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend Amazon USA

Mary Stewart – Nine Coaches Waiting

Tags

1950s setting, Book Review, France, Gothic Romance, Jane Eyre, Mary Stewart, Nine Coaches Waiting, Romantic Thriller

Now I am not, in the general run of things, a reader of the Romance genre. Not unless there is a lot more going on than just the simple story of boy/girl meets boy/girl, there is some sort of problem, there may also be some sort of rival boy/girl and the main couple will/will not surmount the obstacle and live happily ever after/die a horrible death.

In fact, it has to be said I infinitely (in literature!) prefer the tragic end/star crossed lovers scenario than the Hollywood, sunset, hearts, flowers, wedding bells wrap. Unless skilfully done, with lots more going on (yes, that’s you, Jane Austen, incomparable writer of fine romance and much more) the genre leads to a sugar overload which might predispose regular readers to diabetes.

So, it is no wonder that I never encountered Mary Stewart, as she does belong firmly on the Romance shelf – and, but, and, but I would therefore never have ventured there – till my interest was piqued by fellow blogger Fleur In Her World who likes the same sort of lit-ficcy stuff I do, and for very similar reasons. She was praising Stewart to the skies. So I asked her to recommend one. And this is it.

Cinderella’s glass slipper, JennaLee27, Deviant Art Commons

Now, for sure this sits firmly within the genre, in that there is a man and a woman who will meet, there are problems ahead, there is indeed some possible rival and there will be/or not some resolution of satisfaction or dissatisfaction for our central characters (and no, I shan’t tell, you’ll have to read the book if you really want to know) Suffice it to be said though that Mary Stewart, now having some of her work re-issued in the `Modern Classic’ category, was a prolific writer of Gothic romance-thrillers. Oh, and ‘Gothic’ is not used in the twenty first century sense to mean that you are going to be unpleasantly surprised to find a job lot of vampires werewolves zombies and ghosts have somehow got trapped within the pages. Think, more, the idea of dark secrets, high drama, possibly an isolated setting, or the idea of all this in the mind of our doughty probably female protagonist. She writes with a history which happily acknowledges `Gothic’ in the sense of Austen’s Northanger Abbey, or, even more pertinently for THIS book, Jane Eyre, rather than Hammer Horror Central Casting. The Gothic is very real and very human.

Still from Robert Stevenson’s 1944 film of Jane Eyre

I was hooked from page one to page-the-end. There is indeed a dark thriller, we have men tall, dark, handsome, charismatic and probably not to be trusted. It is the 1950s. Our central character , Linda Martin. (shades of Jane Eyre, which even she acknowledges, as she is a well-read young woman) is an orphan, whose parents died when she was young. She spent the second half of her childhood in an orphanage, and then, as a young assistant in a dreary school. Chance comes Linda’s way to become a governess (hello Jane!) to a little boy, scion of a family with a dark past and a probably darker future, deep in the French countryside. The family have a slightly different version of Mr Rochester on board. For reasons which are perfectly intelligent Linda, who is half-French (French mother, English father) and who lived in France until her parents’ death pretends that she speaks very little French and understands even less – the employer was strict in their requirement for an ENGLISH governess as they wanted the boy spoken to only in English – though there may be other reasons for this. Linda’s hiding of her perfect French and her French ancestry gives rise to a lot of intentional humour for the reader.

if filet mignon can be translated as darling steak this was the very sweetheart of its kind

Linda is a most attractive heroine, given to self-mockery, and is someone who rather enjoys winding up the bad-tempered people she meets with deliberate mangling of `Franglais’ to annoy. And her incisive thoughts about certain people are a joy:

She radiated all the charm and grace of a bad-tempered skunk

Thonon-les-Bains, Haute Savoie, where the book is set. Wiki Commons

There are apposite little quotes, often from Shakespeare, as sub-chapter headings – our heroine/narrator, as stated earlier, is a reader.

Stewart is a wonderful writer – and particularly, a wonderful evoker of landscape. As I did some exploration into her life and works, I was utterly unsurprised to find she was a passionate gardener. Anyone who can so beautifully and evocatively describe plants, trees, skies, light and the scents, sights and sounds of the natural world is someone who has spent loving time within that world.

….the little dell…was sheltered and sun-drenched, a green shelf in the middle of the wood. Behind us the trees and bushes of the wild forest crowded up the hill, dark holly and the bone-pale boughs of ash gleaming sharp through a mlst of birch as purple as bloom on a grape

And, just like Miss Austen and Miss Bronte, Miss Stewart comes from a time when what is undoubtedly sex and desire is rendered much more potent for the fact it is not laid out for us. She is much more interested in exploring the subtle workings of the human psyche, than the rather more prosaic exploration of removed garments and anatomical diagram!

Haute Savoie region, Wiki Commons

And, suffice it to say I have now downloaded Stewart’s My Brother Michael, also highly praised by Fleur, and will be skulking the Romance shelves of my local library to find more by this fine author.

Nine Coaches Waiting Amazon UK
Nine Coaches Waiting Amazon USA

Matthew Quick – The Silver Linings Playbook

Tags

Book Review, Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook

Warmth and tenderness about mental illness, family dysfunction, relationship breakdown. And American football.

If you have no interest in the latter, you may still appreciate this book, despite perhaps learning much more about the Eagles than you never wanted to know anyway! As this becomes a delightful, frustrating, sometimes (to a female) incomprehensible, irritating but wildly funny example of some of the frankly WEIRD ways in which chaps bond!. And if you adore American football, and even more if you are an E-A-G-L-E-S! EAGLES! Fan, delighting in making the shapes of the letters with your legs and arms when with your buddies watching at home, or being present at, a game, you will love this.

Pat is a man in his mid-thirties, though he believes he is some years younger, having spent more time than he realises in a ‘neural health facility’ in Baltimore (a psychiatric hospital). Pat committed some sort of violent act, and has an obsession with his ex-wife. He is an incurable optimist, dedicated to happy endings in films and determined that the silver linings on clouds, and the happily ever after, must happen. Following his release from the hospital, engineered by his loving mother, he must agree to regular therapy, and a regimen of psychiatric drugs. He has returned to living in the parental home. He has agreed to all of this, and is working hard on shedding the weight he put on in hospital, his goal being to become again the sports and history teacher with a great body which he had when he met and married his ex-wife. He is convinced they can get together again. He is also an absolutely dedicated Philadelphia Eagles Fan. As are all the males in his friend and family network. The women feel rather differently. As a non-American, and as a woman who is supremely uninterested in teamsports games, whether from this side of the pond or any other, the making-of-the-E-A-G-L-E-S with the legs and arms jokes made me laugh a lot and pull superior womanly faces

Photography by Kevin W. Burkett, Flicr, Commons

In his life he has : a loving mother, a great and supportive and successful brother, a best friend, whose wife has a sister with mental health issues of her own, the kindest and in some ways most unprofessional of therapists, another great friendship with a fellow inmate in that ‘neural health facility’. He also probably has Asperger’s – at least, this is what accounts for his voice, which sounds not cold, but without emotional nuance and subtlety. Pat, despite being prone to a violence he barely understands when he hears smooth jazz music, particularly a specific piece of music played by Kenny G, is a ‘good person’ with a warm and open heart. He is actively working on ‘being kind’. He also has an extremely dysfunctional father, who is deeply depressed and emotionally cold.

Part of Pat’s journey to try and get re-united with his ex-wife, an artistic, intellectual literature major and teacher, is to begin to read through some of her favourite books, particularly those she taught to her students. So he reads, and responds to such books as The Great Gatsby, A Farewell to Arms, Catcher In The Rye, The Bell Jar, responding to them with approval or dismay according to his ‘Silver Lining’ philosophy, and need for the happy wrap. There is a lot of warm humour in the author’s use of this.

I held back from the final star because the overall tone of this warm, charming and sweet book, despite the bleakness which appears along the way at times, is perhaps a little too anodyne and Hollywood. This did not quite equal my first acquaintance with Matthew Quick: Forgive me Leonard Peacock, which I preferred. Nonetheless, recommended.

This was made into a film, which I haven’t seen, and didn’t know about, so my review is from someone coming new to the book, purely from my appreciation of Quick’s writing in Leonard Peacock’

The Silver Linings Playbook Amazon UK
The Silver Linings Playbook Amazon USA

Jodi Lynn Anderson – Tiger Lily

Tags

Children's Book Review, Disney Film, J.M.Barrie, Jodi Lynn Anderson, Peter Pan, Tiger Lily, Young Adult Fiction

Tiger-Lily, not Wendy, is the Darling: Women Who Run With The Crows

Jodi Lynn Anderson has written a darker version of Peter Pan, Although this is probably aimed at readers who are early teens girls, the quality of the writing, and the exploration of the world, meant that this very far away from any teen-age reader, was thoroughly absorbed and admiring of it

Do not think of any sort of popcorn Disney version, or even the sweet safety provided by the Darling pere and mere, Nana or Wendy as proto-mama in training to Lost Boys.

Instead, this is a story of first love and the absolute potential pain of that – of being betrayed or worse, never even figuring on your beloved’s radar; it is a story of death, violence, of being outcast and beyond the pale of your tribe, of the corrupting, dictatorial nature of patriarchal religion; a story of impossible demands of duty and loyalty to the belief systems of your tribe, of the confusions of gender identity and ‘what a girl should be’ and how small, delicate balances between differing groups of people occupying a territory (Pirates, Lost Boys, The Tribe) can be undone by the smallest of taboos being broken, the smallest of alliances being made, causing a tidal weight of change.

It’s not like this:

The narrator for Anderson’s dark story, whose central character is a strong, complex, feisty, deep thinking and feeling Tiger Lily, is the ‘do you believe in fairies’ Tinkerbell. And moreover this Tinkerbell has a subtle ‘Nana like’ care for Tiger Lily as that dog did for the well-scrubbed, well-heeled Darling children in Barrie-land

However, this is also a Tinkerbell who falls deeply and hopelessly in love with Peter, as both she and Tiger Lily do and is then caught on the painful place between love, loyalty and care for Tiger-Lily, and the intense jealousy she feels that Tiger Lily is Peter’s chosen one, at least for a while. So there is also something about the challenges of friendship versus self-interest, when they conflict.

Tink is as complex and enjoyable a narrator as someone who can’t actually speak words out loud can be She can communicate by thought, in words – the reader can receive her thoughts, but she is incapable of vocalisation, so she can only nip, bite, buzz in an insect like way to attract or distract the attention of humans, or indeed vicious mermaids. And most of those nipped and buzzed at humans will probably think the nipping was done by a gnat, and account said gnat of no value at all. At least (occasionally) Peter and Tiger Lily do seem to notice she is something other than featureless gnat.

Tiger Lily is a magnificent heroine. Adopted daughter of a shaman, wise, individualised, challenging and thoughtful, this is no princess needing rescue. In fact SHE is the rescuer – though her rescuing of a washed up sailor is the event which begins to unravel Neverland.

Life is not always easy for challenging heroines however. Even wild Lost Boys who appear to admire strong, intelligent, truthful independent females may prove rather sickening pushovers for manipulative females playing their simpering wiles. Yes, that is Wendy, when she eventually appears upon the scene. And how we are taught to despise her (and Peter too) Hiss, boo the Wendy villain!

This is an excellent, provocative reading of a Shadow-Side Neverland. Anderson rescues some of the more peripheral characters from Barrie’s story, and places them centre stage.

Her cast of characters are fearsome, entertaining, hateful, loveable, irritating and all are recognisably individual. A page turning pacy plot, whether or not you are familiar with the original Barrie and the more winsome Disney or not, this is enjoyable. But probably MORE so if you have an awareness of the original, and can then absolutely appreciate the clever subversion of this.

Audience: YA and adults who love other readings of childhood staples.

I received this as a review copy from the Amazon Vine UK programme

Tiger Lily Amazon UK
Tiger Lily Amazon USA