Author Archives: Emma @ The Stacked Shelf

Kathy Reichs’ ‘Bones Never Lie’

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Bones never lieThe latest installment in Kathy Reichs’ long running crime series featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, ‘Bones Never Lie’, continues in the vein of her previous novels – fast paced, full of twists and turns and a great main character that readers can relate to.

When young girls start showing up dead in circumstances that are strikingly similar to one of Tempe’s old cases, she is forced to face her demons as she, along with her team, try to catch ‘the one that got away’.

This ‘one that got away’ is a sadistic killer with every reason to hold a grudge against Tempe. But is the same person behind this latest spate of killings? With little evidence to go on, Tempe goes back over every detail of her old files, hoping to find the one thing that will break the case. But it’s not long before things get personal – and Tempe has to fight tooth and nail to stop the culprit before it’s too late.

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‘A Place called Winter’ by Patrick Gale

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a place called winterWhen Patrick Gale’s latest novel opens, protagonist Harry Cane is incarcerated in a mental asylum. As we read on, we find out more about his life and how he ended up there.

Born as raised in England as the eldest son of a wealthy businessman, Harry lives a relatively idle life. Shy and with a stammer that embarrasses him, he enters into a happy but platonic marriage. When he enters into an illicit, passionate affair, he starts to discover more about himself and his sexuality.

When he’s inevitably discovered, he’s forced to leave his family behind under the threat of scandal and imprisonment. Harry emigrates to Canada, where he’s allocated a remote homestead in a place called Winter. It’s a harsh environment, and to succeed in his new life Harry has to learn a whole new set of skills – building a home from scratch and clearing his land for farming.

On his travels he meets Troels, a dangerous and sadistic man who makes a living from exploiting the many homesteaders that fail in their efforts to start afresh in the Canadian prairies. His relationship with Troels is dark, twisted and unsettling, and his negative influence pervades the whole book, even after Harry forms a new bond with his neighbour, Paul, and his sister, Petra. Eventually, this troubled relationship forces Harry to make a terrible decision.

Harry at the beginning of the novel is shy, withdrawn and has no real purpose in life. He drifts aimlessly, whiling his days away as best he can. His marriage and its breakdown, plus the irrevocable spilt with the only family he has, shakes him to the core – but it also wipes the slate clean in a sense. After his enforced new start in Canada, he discovers the value of working for himself, a sense of achievement and real love and friendship for the first time. Continue reading →

Antoine Laurain’s ‘The President’s Hat’

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the presidents hatEverything begins when Daniel Mercier sits down for dinner on the table next to the French President, Francois Mitterrand. When the president gets up to leave, he leaves behind his hat. Daniel seizes the opportunity and takes the hat with him as he leaves.

When he wears the hat, Daniel seems to feel different somehow. He’s more emboldened, more confident, more direct and ultimately more successful. It’s as though putting the hat on his head has allowed him to come out of his shell and become the person he should always have been. Astonished by his good luck, Daniel clings to the hat as a symbol of everything he’s achieved. That is, until he leaves the hat on the train and it’s picked up by a new wearer, who might just need a little inspiration of her own.

From here, the hat continues to change hands while Daniel continues his hunt to get it back again. Wearing the hat seems to give each character the motivation they need to make changes in their lives. As readers, we’re left to wonder whether this newfound confidence really comes from the hat, or if the hat is just a catalyst that unlocks what was there all along.

It also raises the question of fate, and how we have the ability to make our destinies and to carve out the path that we want, even if it might seem impossible. Continue reading →

‘The Museum of things Left Behind’ by Seni Glaister

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Museum of Things Left Behind‘The Museum of Things Left Behind’ is set in the entirely fictional country of Vallerosa, which is supposed to sit somewhere in the middle of Switzerland, Italy and Austria.

Lizzie, a British student, arrives in Vallerosa aiming to widen her horizons, intending to give to those judged less fortunate than herself by helping out in a hospital, orphanage or similar institution. What she finds is very different.

Run by an elected dictator, who inherited the job from his father, Vallerosa’s government seems entirely hung up mindless bureaucracy – a committee to decide the name of a committee or a meeting with the under-secretary to arrange a meeting with the Secretary.

Positions of power are inherited, women are scarce and the President himself is consumed by self-doubt. The country is neatly divided into those in government and those that are more working class – and the two groups really mix socially. But at the same time, everyone is educated, employed, healthy and generally happy.

Lizzie is initially at a loss as to what to do with her time. But she quickly learns that she can give seething back to this country, albeit not at all in the way she’d planned. Confusion over her identity pushes her straight into the heart of government, giving her a unique opportunity to see life from the viewpoint of the countries many dedicated officials. At the same time, she goes out of her way to speak to ordinary people. Initially, she sets out to find a way to fix the town clock, and in doing so, she may have the opportunity to bring the country even closer together.

At the same time, Vallerosa might also be able to give her something that she didn’t have before – a new sense of self-awareness and an appreciation for a simpler, more honest way of life. Continue reading →

‘The Stranger You Know’ by Jane Casey

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The Stranger You KnowDetective Maeve Kerrigan has a strained relationship with her boss – the chauvinistic, obnoxious, but occasionally charming DCI Josh Derwent. But when a recent spate of murders in London starts throwing up parallels to the murder of Dewent’s girlfriend twenty years earlier, it soon becomes clear that her superiors suspect that he might have a darker side.

Despite being under strict instructions not to talk to Derwent about the details of their current investigation, Maeve finds herself increasingly torn between following orders and allowing Derwent to help her in her attempts to find out what really happened to his girlfriend all those years ago.

Although Maeve doesn’t believe Derwent capable of killing, the cases throw up more and more disturbing similarities. As more bodies are discovered, and the cold case brings old feelings to the surface, Maeve becomes increasingly unsure if she really knows her colleague at all. Continue reading →

Literary locations of New York

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IMG_2019A few months ago, I published my guide to London’s top literary locations. I’ve been lucky enough to have taken a trip to New York recently, and I thought that this month I’d give you a round-up of my literary picks for the Big Apple. Continue reading →

Jane Smiley’s ‘Some Luck’

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some luckSome Luck follows the lives of Walter and Rosanna Langdon, year by year from 1920 to 1953. From a young couple starting their lives on a farm in Iowa, the book follows their family as it grows and expands, following them across the country and beyond as they find love, go to war, discover new things about themselves and have children of their own.

All of this is set against the backdrop of wider global issues taking place at the time, placing this one fictional family firmly in the middle of some of the most important events of America’s twentieth century – from the Great Depression to the prohibition to the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War.

Walter and Rosanna are a typical Midwest rural farming couple, and they raise a family in the hope that their children will go out into the world and choose their own paths. They sacrifice everything they have to keep their family going – enduring drought, falling prices and poverty to make sure that there’s food on their table and that their children never go without an education. Continue reading →

Iona Grey’s ‘Letters to the Lost’

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Letters to the lostIn wartime Britain, American airman Dan Rosinski falls in love with the newly – but unhappily – married Stella Thorne. Against their better judgement, they embark on a passionate affair. But the odds are stacked against them. Dan risks his life every day and Stella is trapped under the weight of social conventions, and their relationship is soon tested to its limits.

Many years later, a young girl is hiding out in an abandoned house on the run from an abusive partner – ill, broke and with no plans for the future. But when Jess opens a letter addressed to an ‘S. Thorne’, she’s immediately drawn into a love story that spans over half a century.

Now ninety years old and living in the USA, Dan is determined to find the girl that he fell in love with all those years ago. As Jess reads through a box of old letters she finds in the house, she becomes determined to help him to find an ending to his story. Continue reading →

‘The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August’ by Claire North

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first 15livesofharryaugustIn the First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, author Claire North plays with our concept of time. In her vision, time runs over and over on a constant loop. Some people have the ability to retain their consciousness from one life to the next, and are born again and again – always in the same time, in the same place and to the same parents, but with the knowledge of the lives lived before.

Here, being reborn isn’t reincarnation, it’s more like doing endless laps around a track. People like Harry cross paths with the same acquaintances every life, and develop relationships that span more lifetimes than they can remember. Major events and landmarks pass by again and again, and even with their extensive knowledge, there’s nothing they can do to stop or change them.

For Harry and those like him, life is both a constant experiment and a bit of a bore. Childhood is a chore to get through. Death isn’t final and is sometimes, in extreme cases, welcomed. But then news of a disaster starts to filter through from the future. The end of the world is coming, and it’s getting closer with every generation. Someone is disrupting the balance, inventing technology far before its time with devastating consequences. When people start disappearing, murdered in the womb before they can be born and breaking the cycle for good, it becomes obvious that this threat is very real. Continue reading →

James Hannah’s ‘The A-Z of You and Me’

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A-ZIvo, aged just forty, is dying of kidney failure in a care home when nurse Sheila tasks him with making his way through the alphabet, thinking of a story for each part of the body. Each letter inspires a kaleidoscope of different memories, as each body part takes him back to a different moment, feeling or person. As he works his way through the body, starting at Adam’s Apple, we gradually build up a picture of how his life has played out and how he’s ended up in the hospice.

For the most part, Ivo’s memories are dominated by two people – his ex-girlfriend Mia and his best friend Mal. Friends since they were at school, Mal has always been the reckless, outspoken leader of the group. As they get older, Mal and the rest of Ivo’s friends draw him into destructive cycle of drugs and alcohol. When he meets Mia, he gets a taste of what life could be like if he followed a different path. As his memories unfold, we’re thrown right into the middle of the key defining moments of his life to witness as Ivo makes choices that could affect the course of his future forever.

I didn’t find Ivo to be the most sympathetic of characters – and this may be down to the matter of fact and brutally honest writing style of author James Hannah, which exposes his characters’ every flaw. His life is filled with regrets and things that he should have done differently. He deliberately neglects his health, wilfully ignoring the seriousness of his diabetes diagnosis. Mal is undoubtedly a bad influence, but Ivo shows very little restraint, is easily led and refuses to take responsibility for his actions. Even though he loves his Mia, his choices keep pulling him away from her at every turn. In the end, his devil-may-care attitude has devastating and irreversible consequences. Continue reading →