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| BiP staff review by Leonie |
Peter Twohig
Feb 2015 | Fourth Estate | *BiP Price $24.95pb
The hero of Peter Twohig’s The Cartographer makes a triumphant return in The Torch. It is 1960 and young Blayney is soon to start secondary school, but meanwhile he is making the most of the holidays. He has moved with his mother into his grandad’s house after their home burnt down. The chief suspect, Keith Kavanaugh, has disappeared. Our young hero is constantly in trouble with his mother, who is finding it hard to cope with everything that has been thrown at her. East Richmond is a hotbed of crime and a fascinating playground for young boys; Blayney and his friends are members of several ‘secret gangs’. Well-taught by his decidedly shady grandpa he finds himself involved in theft, snooping on Russian spies and trying to track down ‘Flame Boy’. In an action-packed summer the Blayney kid gets his first kiss, his first girlfriend and ends up in hospital. Those who loved The Cartographer will enjoy The Torch just as much. It is a wonderful picture of the early 1960’s, and is especially nostalgic for anyone who grew up in this period.
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| BiP staff review by Christine |
Vanessa and Her Sister
Priya Parmar
Feb 2015 | Bloomsbury | $29.99pb
Will fascination with the Bloomsbury Group ever fade? Not so far, it seems, and I for one am happy about that. Vanessa and Her Sister is an imaginative glimpse into the lives of the Stephen children in their Bloomsbury house at the turn of the last century. Freed from parental constraint and careless of current convention Vanessa, Virginia, Thoby and Adrian gather around them a glittering host of artistic cohorts; John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, Lytton Strachey and Leonard Woolf among them. Within such an eccentric, outrageous, milieu friendships, love affairs and artistic brilliance bubble together, creating an intense tale of fascination and intrigue. I like novelists who write historical fiction: I like them for having a go, prodding our imaginations into wondering what it might have been like.... Vanessa and Her Sister is great fun.
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| BiP staff review by Christine |
Secrets of Midwives
Sally Hepworth
Feb 2015 | Macmillan | $29.99pb
Floss, her daughter Grace and her granddaughter Neva are bound by family lies and their occupations as midwives. When Neva announces her pregnancy and plans to keep secret the identity of the baby’s father, her mother is thrown into confusion and Floss into turmoil as her past resurfaces and looks horribly like Neva’s future. This engaging tale does not have the grit of Call the Midwife but I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the birthing bits!
Review by Christine, who did her midwifery training at the Mercy Hospital in 1977.
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| BiP staff review by Christine |
Ridley Road
Jo Bloom
Feb 2015 | Orion | $29.99pb
Jo Bloom takes the reader back to London in the Swinging Sixties. Manchester hairdresser Vivien Epstein has come to London after the death of her father, seeking excitement and hoping to find Jack Fox, a young man she had a short love affair with at home. Caught up in the whirlwind of London’s hedonism, Vivien finds Jack but is shocked to discover his involvement with the anti-fascist movement the 62 Group. I knew nothing of the unrest and violence in London’s past and I had to find out more. Jo Bloom was inspired to write Ridley Road when she met a Jewish anti-fascist who'd lived in the East End all his life and participated in numerous street battles with the fascists alongside both the 43 Group and the 62 Group. Imaginative re-tellings of historical events are informative as well as entertaining. I liked Ridley Road a lot.
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| BiP staff review by Leonie |
Lila
Marilynne Robinson
Oct 2014 | Little, Brown | $29.99pb
Marilynne Robinson has come back to Gilead. Lila arrives in the small town homeless and penniless. To get out of the rain she steps into the church. That one action will change her life and that of Minister John Ames. Deserted by her family when she was a toddler, Lila was taken in by Doll, a tough young itinerant worker. They spent her childhood on the road with a ragtag group of seasonal workers. Though hard, her life also brought laughter and friendship. She had a year at school where she quickly learned to read, write and do simple maths, skills she will need to use in later years. In her usual slow-paced narrative Marilynne Robinson gives the reader a glimpse into the lives of her memorable characters. If you haven’t read Gilead or Home they are well worth reading.
