Month: August 2024

Book Review: Honeybee by Dawn O’Porter

Posted on by Libby Price

I have historically LOVED Dawn’s books – in fact for a few years, if anyone asked for a book recommendation, then ‘The Cows‘ was my go to. However, I didn’t particularly enjoy her last fiction book, and so was nervous of reading another one – but decided it was 2 year later and I would be big and brave when I was offered an advance review copy of Honeybee and hoped that my cat allergy was the issue last time.

Here is the blurb:

“For best friends Renée and Flo, adulthood isn’t the party they expected.
Renée’s dreams of being a writer are going nowhere. Flo’s hiding a secret shame. They’re both failing in work and love.
Why did nobody warn them? Why does adulthood feel less like freedom, and more like a trap?
Careening from one disaster to the next, and learning to spread their… wings, Renée and Flo must uncover the secret to living their best lives.
But maybe we never stop growing up. And maybe they’ll survive the course – if only they stick together.”

I hadn’t, until I started the book, realised it’s a sequel to Dawn’s Young Adult book ‘Paper Aeroplanes’ which I’ve never read – so I might be coming at it differently to someone reading a follow up to a much loved previous novel.

The book starts with Renée and Flo being reunited, after 3 years, at a funeral on the island of Guernsey where they (and in fact Dawn O’Porter herself) grew up. They are in their early 20s (so a similar age to my eldest daughter) and their lives aren’t panning out as they’d expected.

Having read 2 wonderful, literary books most recently, I was little concerned about my next read being a disappointment – but I need not have been concerned, this was wonderful. Just so different to either of them – but early in the book Renée’s first day at work had my literally laughing out loud!

Whilst it is part ‘coming of age’ it also deals with infidelity, mental health, grief, menopause, strained parental relationships – but not in a deep, depressing way – just in the way that most people’s lives are complicated with lots of different strands.

The setting of Guernsey is really well described as well – I’d definitely like to go and visit having never ‘done’ a Channel Island.

I hadn’t fully appreciated the time period of the book until a huge international event takes place – one of those times when you will always remember where you were – and I thought Dawn captured both the unfolding of the event – but also how everyone felt in the aftermath – really well.

The book is told alternately from Renée and Flo’s points of view – but the supporting cast of characters – family members, neighbours, colleagues, even bees – all provide a rich tapestry for the storyline. I romped through it – keen to see how everything turned out for our leading ladies. There would definitely be room for another instalment in their lives in the future too.

Overall a thoroughly enjoyable, escapist read – it would appear I prefer bees to cats!

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my ARC. Honeybee is out in September 2024 and can be pre ordered now.

Book Review: Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent

Posted on by Libby Price

I feel like I’ve ‘known’ Susie Dent forever – she’s been in Dictionary Corner on Countdown since 1992 – which is a very long time. I heard her interviewed on a podcast recently and really enjoyed hearing about her being herself, not just the lexicographer and etymologist that she is famed for being on TV. When I heard that her first novel was being released, I was delighted to be granted an advance review copy. Here’s the blurb:

“Guilty by Definition is a love letter not only to language but to the city of Oxford, wrapped within an intriguing mystery of a missing woman and considering the emotional aftershocks of her disappearance on those left behind.
She’d known there would be ghosts in Oxford. Martha wasn’t afraid of any headless horsemen, or nuns haunting the local ruins; it was Charlie, always Charlie she was afraid would find her.
When an anonymous letter is delivered to the Clarendon English Dictionary, it is rapidly clear that this is not the usual lexicographical enquiry. Instead, the letter hints at secrets and lies linked to a particular year.
For Martha Thornhill, the new senior editor, the date can mean only one thing: the summer her brilliant older sister Charlie went missing.
After a decade abroad, Martha has returned home to the city whose ancient institutions have long defined her family. Have the ghosts she left behind her been waiting for her return?
When more letters arrive, and Martha and her team pull apart the complex clues within them, the mystery becomes ever more insistent and troubling. It seems Charlie had been keeping a powerful secret, and someone is trying to lead the lexicographers towards the truth. But other forces are no less desperate to keep it well and truly buried.”

The book is set at the ‘Clarendon English Dictionary’ offices in Oxford. I know Susie has worked for Oxford University Press in the past – so I’m guessing she’s drawing on personal experience for a lot of the setting (maybe novel 2 will be set in the world of TV?!)

Martha has returned from working in Berlin to a role at the CED – where her older sister, Charlie, had been employed before she disappeared many years before. Martha and her colleagues, and other people connected to Charlie, start to receive cryptic letters and postcards which they try to decipher.

I have to say some of this deciphering went over my head a bit – as my Shakespeare knowledge is not extensive – but that didn’t detract from enjoying the book. And whilst I haven’t read any more Shakespeare than my GCSE syllabus required, I did grow up close to Stratford Upon Avon – so am familiar with him and his family. In fact I grew up thinking the expression ‘It’s black over Bill’s Mother’s’ – when a storm was incoming – was due to the fact the clouds were gathering from a Southerly direction where Mary Shakespeare (nee Arden)’s house was. However, having attempted to fact check that (I’ve been ‘influenced’ by the book) it would appear this is one explanation – but actually people all over the UK use the same odd phrase and it may well refer to Kaiser Wilhelm II from Germany instead.

The start of each chapter features an unusual word which is then explained (some I knew, some I didn’t – but do now) and as you would expect, the language throughout the book is just wonderful. I felt like I was being educated whilst enjoying a fantastic book at the same time! This did mean that at the start the storyline felt quite slow – as lots of page space was taken up explaining the meaning of words – but I enjoyed that. I’m not sure if I just got used to that – or if the pace did pick up – as the ‘mystery’ element of the book seemed to gather momentum throughout.

The relationships between Martha and her colleagues are explored – and Martha and her parents and particularly how that changed after Charlie disappeared. The fact that someone who disappears / dies is remembered through rose coloured spectacles is also looked at, along with ‘recollections may vary’ between different parties of the same experience and ‘survivor’ guilt. That makes it sound really heavy – but it’s not at all – it’s a great read.

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole book – from an educational standpoint – but also as a well written mystery novel. A huge thank you to the publishers for my ARC. It actually was released 2 days ago – so if it’s taken your fancy, you can order it right now.

My only ‘slight’ quibble, is that a certain pop group from the 1990s were never mentioned…………….


Book Review: The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

Posted on by Libby Price

Having loved Kate Quinn’s previous book, The Rose Code, I was delighted to be offered an advance review copy of her latest book, The Briar Club. (Whilst it was advance to me, my reading has been a little slow, so it’s already out – but that means I won’t be tempting you too far in advance if you like the sound of it!)

“Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman’s daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare. Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?
Capturing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and evoking the changing roles for women in postwar America, The Briar Club is an intimate and thrilling novel of secrets and loyalty put to the test.”

The book is set in Washington DC – and that in itself was great, as it meant I could reminisce about a trip with my husband a few years ago (which was back when my blogs weren’t all just book reviews!) It’s Thanksgiving 1954 and someone has been murdered in the top floor room – and the house itself is telling the story. Each chapter than covers what’s happened in the last 4 years, from the point of view of the family who own the house and then each of the residents in turn. The chapters stand alone as a story of an individual – and all included a recipe for that person and a song to listen to when enjoying the food – it was really clever and special.

The house then gives a few more clues as to what atrocity has just happened all cleverly linked to the back story you’ve just read. Each of the stories intertwines amazingly – and despite being a huge pedantic geek I didn’t spot a single inconsistency (well done Kate Quinn and your editor!)

Some of the characters are more likeable than others – but they make for a rich tapestry of a book. It also taught me quite a lot about that era that I didn’t already know.

I don’t want to give any spoilers – but it is brilliant! The best book I’ve read in a while that’s for sure. The writing is exquisite, eloquent and evocative – just like Kate Quinn’s previous book. It feels like an awful lot of time, care and research has gone into each of them.

I also adored that the final section, once the story itself is finished, goes through each of the characters and explains who or what they were based on – and how much was fact, fiction – or a mix of the two. I remember at the end of The Rose Code spending lots of time Googling – so this was super helpful. I was also delighted that I’d spotted the ‘Easter Egg’ that one of Fliss’s English relatives was a character in The Rose Code – gold star to me!!

A huge thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for my ARC.

Book Review: HRT: Husband Replacement Therapy by Kathy Lette

Posted on by Libby Price

“An outrageously funny, heartbreaking read – when Ruby finds out she has cancer on the brink of her 50th birthday, she decides to start living instead of complying…
Ruby has always been the generous mediator among her friends, family and colleagues, which is why they’ve all turned up to celebrate her 50th birthday.
But after too many glasses of champers, Ruby takes her moment in the spotlight to reveal what she really thinks of every one of them. She accuses her husband of having an affair and lambasts her mother for a lifetime of playing her three daughters against each other – it’s blisteringly brutal.
As the stunned gathering gawks at Ruby, the birthday girl reveals that she has terminal cancer, and has cashed in her life savings to take her two estranged sisters cruising into the sunset for a dose of HRT – Husband Replacement Therapy. But is Ruby being courageous or ruthlessly selfish?”

Having just turned 50 and with 2 sisters myself – I felt I had to say yes to an advance review copy of this! (Although thankfully I got through my 50th without a cancer diagnosis or upsetting anyone, despite too many glasses of champagne!)

I have to say when I started the book it felt incredibly similar to another Kathy Lette book I read recently, and whilst the wise-cracking humour was amusing – I wasn’t sure I could cope with something almost identikit – group of middle aged women against the entire male population. I almost gave up – but I’m glad I didn’t – as once the sisters were back from the cruise the book improved dramatically and had much more interesting storylines.

It looked at sibling relationships as well as romantic relationships, plus parental ones both as the parent and as the offspring. I also loved the setting in Sydney (having lived and worked there for a few months back in 1999 – it will always have a special place in my heart)

Overall I enjoyed the book – and I think most women of a certain age would! (But I won’t be booking on a cougar cruise any time soon!!)

Thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for my ARC – and it’s out NOW if you fancy the sound of it!