Tag Archives: Netgalley

Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry

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Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry has just been published and I was lucky enough to be sent a digital copy of the book by the publisher Canongate via Netgalley.

The setting is Edinburgh, 1853, where Raven is finding life tough as a father to little James who always seems to be crying and it’s taking a toll on his marriage as Raven spends a lot of his time avoiding family life.  When he gets a message that he’s needed, body parts have been found at Surgeons’ Hall, it’s grim but Raven is glad of the excuse to get out of his home and avoid more tantrums from his small son.

The city is being visited by an American mesmerist who is holding meetings and trying to drum up interest in it, claiming it as being scientific. Sarah, Raven and Simpson’s assistant is frustrated at not being allowed to study to become a doctor, despite her knowledge and experience, she’s keen to find out more about mesmerism, hoping it might be a way forward for her.

When more body parts are found McLevy the detective has to be told, and he always does his best to make things even worse than they are.

This is the fourth book by Ambrose Parry – aka the author Christopher Brookmyre and his consultant anaesthetist wife Marisa Haetzman, I believe that she provides the details of the medical history, amongst other things. I’m really enjoying this series which combines murder mysteries with history and social history in a Victorian Edinburgh setting.

 

 

 

Digging for Victory by Cathy Faulkner

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Digging for Victory cover

Digging for Victory by Cathy Faulkner is set in Devon in 1941. Ralph Roberts has just got his papers and will be joining the RAF, Two-Six-Six squadron. His twelve year old sister Bonnie is excited about that, Ralph has always been her hero and she feels that she has to do something for the war effort too. Something more than just growing vegetables.

With Ralph’s bedroom now being empty it isn’t long before the family has a lodger allocated to them. Mr Fisher is in an RAF uniform, but he doesn’t seem to do anything but sit around in the house during the day. When Bonnie’s schoolfriends realise this they begin to bully Bonnie. Her lodger must be a shirker, or maybe even some sort of spy. Mr Fisher never speaks to anyone, so there’s nothing that Bonnie can say in his defense. Her contribution to the war effort doesn’t get any more exciting than trying to grow stuff and collecting rags, she feels such a failure.

Eventually Bonnie realises that Mr Fisher’s work is being done overnight, while most people are asleep. It is of course very important and dangerous work but it’s completely hush hush, so Bonnie still can’t tell her classmates about it. But she and Mr Fisher have become friends and he’s teaching her all about circuitry and electronics, which all helps in the coming emergency.

This book is aimed at 9-12 year olds, and it’s a great way of them learning about World War 2 and the Home Front.

I was lucky enough to be sent a digital copy of this book by the publisher Firefly via NetGalley. Thank you.

Digging for Victory is due to be published on the 4th of May.

Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown by Alison Weir

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Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown cover

There have been plenty of books, fiction and non-fiction about the wives of Henry VIII, but in Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown the author Alison Weir has chosen to write from the perspective of King Henry himself. He’s usually portrayed as a monster, certainly a nightmare of a husband, but he didn’t have his troubles to seek. The first thing any monarch wants is ‘an heir and a spare’ and in the Tudor court girls just didn’t count. There’s no doubt that the pressure to keep the Tudor dynasty going weighed heavily on Henry for his entire adult life, as can be seen in this book. I lost count of the number of miscarriages that his wives (and he) suffered, but I think it was at least 15 deadly sorrows and disappointments – lost futures – all of them. No wonder he thought that his god was against him.

I really enjoyed this book which I have no doubt was well-researched. If you’ve already read some of the many books about Henry’s court then you would have realised how much he allowed himself to be manipulated by the various factions within his court, despite having apparently been warned about that likelihood by his own father before he died. No doubt Henry was happy to agree with his dukes if the end result suited him, then he could blame them for the outcome, such as the execution of Cromwell, and other people he had regarded as friends. That helped salve his conscience.

This was a time of huge changes within England which tend to be ascribed to Henry’s need to get rid of his first wife Katherine, however I suspect that all those religious changes would have taken place anyway, but maybe just a bit later. Henry needed the vast amount of money that the Roman Catholic church generated (through selling indulgences and such) and sent to Rome, instead of it being kept within England. The Roman church at that time was mired in chaos and scandals and with Martin Luther doing his thing in Europe, there was change in the air.

As ever though what strikes me most is what a tiny fish pond that Tudor court was, with just a handful of families who were all related to each other being at the top of the pile. It might help explain all those miscarriages!

I’m grateful to the publisher for giving me the chance to read and review this book in digital form via Netgalley.

I’m a bit previous with this review as the book isn’t due out until May the 9th, 2023.

Music in the Dark by Sally Magnusson

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Music in the Dark by Sally Magnusson begins in 1884, Rutherglen which is close to Glasgow. Jamesina Ross moved to Rutherglen from the city after all but one of her children had died because of the poor living conditions in Glasgow, her doctor had said it was the only hope for her last child. Jamesina had had dreams of a very different future for herself as she had had a classical education, but it wasn’t to be.

This book is about the Highland Clearances, particularly at Strathcarron in 1854 when the inhabitants were brutally forced out of their homes which were then set alight and pulled down so that there was no shelter at all. Jamesina was one of the women caught up in it and the beating she took from the police has affected her whole life, now as she gets older it’s more obvious that her brain has been impaired. She was left with a dent in her head and a mashed up jaw from a police baton.

I must admit that I found the first half of this book to be rather slow, but the second half was more interesting as Jamesina and her second husband, also a Strathcarron survivor travel back to the scene of the attack.

Music in the Dark is obviously very personal to the author as it’s based on the clearance experiences of her great-grandmother. I had to laugh when she wrote. – There was hardly a man’s name in the Highlands that someone had not had the bright idea of burdening a baby girl with by adding an – ina.

When I worked in libraries in the west of Scotland I obviously knew the names of the readers, there were women called Jamesina, Hughina, Andrewina and Donaldina and of course Williamina. I thought it was just a very local thing – but apparently not.

In the 17 and 1800s landowners in Scotland decided that they could make much more money from the land by filling the place with sheep. It meant that the crofters had to be removed, sometimes they were rounded up and put onto ships bound for America or the colonies, they didn’t have any say in the matter. Others made their way to Glasgow looking for work, presumably that’s how my own ancestors came to be in Glasgow. Going by the letters written home from the colonies, the Glaswegian Highlanders were the lucky ones.

I didn’t enjoy this book as much as the author’s previous ones. This book will be published in May 2023.

I was sent a digital copy of this book by the publisher John Murray Press via Netgalley for review. Thank you.

Queens of the Age of Chivalry by Alison Weir

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Queens of the Age of Chivalry by Alison Weir is subtitled England’s Medieval Queens and it tells the stories of the lives of the five queen consorts in England in the 14th century, the Plantagenet period from 1299 to 1399, but inevitably it’s a lot more than that as while writing of the experiences of the women and their husbands, the history of their era and how it affected them also has to be written about.

The five Queens are: Marguerite of France (Edward I’s second wife), Isabella of France (Edward II’s wife), Philippa of Hainault (Edward III’s wife), Anne of Bohemia (Richard II’s wife), Isabella of Valois (Richard II’s second wife).

These Planatgenet wives were far from being shrinking violets, it was quiet an eye-opener how much power and influence they could have. Reading this book you learn an awful lot about English history but also the history of Scotland and the various European countries that become embroiled in English history. It’s a painless and entertaining way of learning. I’m constantly amazed by how many documents and personal letters are still in existence from so far back in history. What a thrill it must be to be able to see and possibly even touch them.

This was a really enjoyable and interesting read. I received a digital copy for review from the publisher via Netgalley, for which many thanks.

The Douglas Bastard by J.R. Tomlin

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The Douglas Bastard by J.R. Tomlin is part of a series of historical fiction, none of which I had read, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying this book.

The story begins in 1338 and young Archibald Douglas’s mother has just died of the flux and his father Sir James Douglas is already dead. Archie is only nine years old but his friend King David is fifteen. Both of them are exiled in France and when David says that Archie will need a foster father Archie isn’t keen, but he’s quickly settled as a page in the royal household to be taught everything someone of his status should know – eventually. As Archie is illegitimate he’s lucky to be in such a position. Archie dreams of getting back to Scotland to fight the English and with the help of his father’s relatives who recognise him as Sir James’s son he manages to do that.

This is a good adventure tale and although there are a lot of gory battle scenes which I generally don’t like I still enjoyed it enough to wish I had read the previous three books in the series although this can be read as a standalone book. It was good to be reading about Scottish history which doesn’t revolve around Jacobites which is the era that most fiction authors tend to focus on.

The author seems to have done lots of research, and there’s a glossary at the back for those that might not understand mediaeval or Scots words.

Thank you to Albannach Publishing who sent me a digital copy of the book for review via Netgalley.

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph

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Charles Ignatius Sancho was an actual person and the actor Paterson Joseph chose to write about him in his first foray into novel writing. It’s quite an enjoyable read although I found the mid section which is epistolary to be less than gripping although necessary I suppose.

Sancho was born into slavery on a slave ship and this book is in part made from his diary entries which he’s relating to his surviving son William.

Sancho arrives in London at the age of three and is sent to live in a household of three maiden sisters, treated as a cute toy to dress up really. But as he grew the sisters were against him being educated and he had to secretly teach himself to read. Walking around London was dangerous but more so for a black boy and Sill an evil slave catcher seemed always to be on the lookout for him. A narrow escape from Sill led to Sancho making a very useful friend and ally, the second Duke of Montagu, who taught him to read and encouraged his interest in literature and music. Sancho became the first black man in Britain to have the vote and he composed music. but his life had ups and downs – as they do.

This is well written and I enjoyed it. I had never heard of Charles Ignatius Sancho before so when I began reading this book I didn’t realise that he wasn’t fictional, however I do know of a descendant of one of the other characters who lived close to where I used to live, so when his ancestor was mentioned I realised that the author had done his research.

I’ve seen Paterson Joseph act in a few things now and he’s a talented actor too.

My thanks to the publisher who gave me the opportunity to read this book via NetGalley.

Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk

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Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk has just been published but I was sent a digital copy for review via NetGalley. I must say that I was slightly depressed when I realised that it must be a massive book after being stuck on 1% for what seemed like a very long time. Anyway I clicked on for days and it wasn’t until well over halfway that I began to sort of get into it.

The setting is the Mediterranean island of Mingheria, the ‘Jewel of the Levant’ in 1900. The island is inhabited by Turks and Greeks, Muslim and Christian and there has always been a bit of tension between them, and when a plague arrives there’s suspicion and conspiracy theories galore with the two factions blaming each other for the disease. Did the plague arrive via rats from one of the Greek ships, or was it brought back by Muslims who had been on a pilgrimage?

The Sultan sends for a well-known quarantine doctor to deal with the epidemic. Dr Nuri Bey had recently married a Princess Pakize who had been locked up with her family for years, her uncle had imprisoned all the members of his family who might have threatened his rule. The doctor has a tough time trying to persuade people to take the quarantine seriously. The Greeks want to get off the island and lots of them manage it as the fishermen are more than willing to take them out under cover of darkness, even when there’s a blockade of warships to stop them from leaving.

There are a couple of romances going on, unusually between already married couples (for religious reasons I suppose) lots of history, a murder mystery and a lot about the Mingherian language which is on its last legs as most of the people who spoke it are dead and the young people speak either Greek or Turkish. It’s in an even worse position than Scots Gaelic, luckily Mingheria is an entirely imaginary place though!

I read this one on my Kindle and my heart sank when I realised how long the book must be as it was ages before I got to 2%. As with most long books it could have been improved by being shorter, I have a feeling that Pamuk wanted to get the history of the Ottoman empire written into a work of fiction, but it really didn’t work for me, it took me until 66% before I began to find it a bit interesting. The book was translated by Ekin Oklap and there were only a couple of clunky bits.

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read it.

The Wartime Bookshop by Lesley Eames

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I was sent a digital copy of The Wartime Bookshop by Lesley Eames for review – by Netgalley. The book isn’t really my usual fare but the wartime aspect of it attracted me and I did enjoy it. It’s very early on in WW2.

Alice Lovell has moved to the small village of Churchwood with her father who has just retired as a doctor. The village seems to be run by Naomi Harrington, a lady of a certain age who has set herself up as the most inmportant inhabitant – in her mind anyway. Sadly as she has money a lot of the villagers are happy to take their cue from her, as they are afraid of upsetting her.

Alice has had an accident which means that she doesn’t have much use of one of her hands, she’s very self-conscious about it and dreads people looking at it. The only bright spot in her life is Daniel who had been a neighbour before her father had decided to move to the village. She’s in love with him but won’t really even admit the fact to herself, since her recent accident she doesn’t want him to feel he has to marry her.

In an effort to settle into the village she decides to volunteer at the hospital which is beginning to fill up with injured servicemen. Stuck in bed and not even allowed to go to the loo the men are bored stiff. Alice decides to read to them and almost all of them look forward to her and her reading sessions, but there’s a paucity of reading material. Will Mrs Harrington help or hinder?

This book is light entertainment, sometimes just what you need, although it has its fraught moments as you would expect.

I was glad to be sent a copy of this book by the publisher Transworld via NetGalley.
I was however perplexed by a couple of things. For some weird reason every time there was a double ‘f’ in the middle of a word they were missing and sometimes it was the ffs and an l which were missing. So the word different comes out as dierent, and it’s amazing how many words that a’ects!

Also in my usual nit-picking way I noticed that nurses mentioned how thankful they were that they now had antibiotics to use on their patients. However they weren’t available that early on in the war, pre Dunkirk. 1941 is the important date and even then they were not widely available.

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

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Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson is set in 1926 London and it begins with a large crowd gathering outside Holloway prison which (Ma) Nellie Coker is just about to be released from. She’s something of a celebrity, the matriarch of a large family business as she owns a string of nightclubs, all catering for different types of clientele. Her six adult children have arrived in their two Bentleys to whisk her away, but not before the press photographers have snapped their mother.

Chief Inspector John Frobisher of Scotland Yard is also among the crowd. He has been sent to Bow Street Station to shake them up, it’s thought that there’s a lot of corruption in that police station. He’s not the usual type of police inspector, he’s keen on books and might take to writing himself.

It looks like Nellie hasn’t fared well in prison, it’s the first time she had ever been there and she’s no spring chicken. Some gangsters intended to take advantage of the situation and move in on her business. There’s also a corrupt policeman making a nuisance of himself and some of Nellie’s children are less than supportive.

I loved this one which I think has an authentic atmosphere of the post WW1 society with the Bright Young Things and their excesses, including drugs, but there’s also a more domestic thread with some runaway girls being sought by Frobisher and his undercover temporary sidekick.

In general I really love Atkinson’s writing – except for When Will There Be Good News? which was far too depressing for me.

My thanks to the publisher Random House UK and NetGalley who sent me a digital copy of the book for review.

Shrines of Gaiety is due to be published on the 27th of September 2022.