The Latest from Hastings Book Chat

Historical fiction, mysteries and books about real events or people were popular reads at this month’s Hastings Library Book Chat.

The Immigrants by Moreno Giovannoni is according to the blurb “a story of love, dreams, exile and tragedy, told wit heartbreaking beauty”. It’s fiction but based on the author’s family’s experience of moving from Italy to Australia and looks at whether it was a good move for them. It wasn’t an easy read, but our reviewer was glad to have read it.

Another book based on fact and set in Australia was The Secret Year of Zara Holt by Kimberley Freeman. We’re in Melbourne 1927, where Zara is a secretary designing clothes, meeting Harold Holt at a dance. Forty years later, Prime Minister Holt disappears while swimming, leaving Zara to look back on their life together. This was a brilliant read

33 Place Brugmann by Alice Austen is a novel set in Brussels during WWII, and follows the lives of the occupants of an apartment building, set to change forever when the Nazis invade. One family, the Raphaels, disappear in the night and we pick up their story across the channel where they must reinvent themselves. A fabulous read that makes you want to know what happens next.

Another reader enjoyed The Ghost Ship by Kate Mosse, the third book in the Joubert Family chronicles. The “ghost ship” of the title is a mysterious vessel, eerily silent off the Barbary Coast in 1621. You learned a lot about shipping around Spain and Morocco and people involved in hunting out pirates to free slaves in the 1600s.

Class act thriller writer, Robert Harris takes us to the start of WWI in his novel Precipice. It describes the affair between Venetia Stanley and the Prime Minister, H H Asquith. As Britain is plunged into war there’ s pillow talk, a leak of top-secret documents and the investigations of a young intelligence officer. Lots to enjoy in this novel based on fact.

Our reader enjoyed The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon which follows Martha, a midwife in a Maine settlement in the late 1700s. When a body is found frozen in the river, she is asked to examine it and determine cause of death. She finds herself investigating a murder as well as the rape of a preacher’s wife. The book is well researched and based on the life of a real person.

The Gentleman from Peru by André Aciman was an enjoyable read, although you have to suspend belief, one reader said. It follows a group of college friends on holiday when they find themselves stuck at a luxury hotel on the Amalfi Coast while their boat’s being repaired. They befriend an enigmatic stranger with unusual abilities who tells a life-changing story.

Daisy Lafarge’s novel Paul is a coming-of-age story about Frances, an English girl whose studies in Paris have become derailed amid scandal. Picking vegetables in rural France, she meets a charismatic older man. A novel about control and the cost of “being good”. The prose of this novel is beautiful – highly recommended.

Air by John Boyne is the last of his Elements series of four novellas. It follows Aaron who is travelling with his fourteen-year-old son to meet a woman who doesn’t know they’re coming. Aaron is at a crossroads in his life, contemplating the past that has made him what he is, as well as worried about his relationship with his son. Another finely written story and which ties all four books together.

The change in the Irish divorce laws in 1994 is the background to The Coast Road by Alan Murrin. The lives of three women: Izzy, Collette and Dolores become entangled, each dealing in different ways with an unhappy marriage and each assessing the cost of their decisions. A powerful read, empathically told.

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy is a slightly post-apocalyptic novel in which Franny Stone takes a boat south to follow the possibly last migration of Arctic terns to Antarctica. During her journey, Franny’s past emerges – the family secrets, an impulsive marriage, a shocking crime. A story of hope against the odds and a very good read.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway is a classic, about a friendship between an old man and a young boy and then there’s the fish. A book with so few pages but has so much to say. Wonderful, says our reader.

Not quite wonderful, but still a very good read was Bye Bye, Baby by Fiona McIntosh the first in the DCI Jack Hawksworth mystery series. Jack is a rising star in the force in the south of England, combining modern methods with old-school nous. The investigation follows a spate of murders – all men of an identical age.

Dervla McTiernan was fascinating at a recent author talk held at the library. Her novel, What Happened to Nina?, is a standalone mystery set in the USA, about a young couple, Simon and Nina who are on their way to Simon’s family cabin in Vermont. When only Simon comes home, his explanation doesn’t add up. As Nina’s family push for answers, Simon’s family hire expensive lawyers. A really good read was the verdict.

The Patient by Tim Sullivan is the third DS Cross mystery – a series that is very popular at Book Chat. Cross’s crime unit is all set to close the case of a woman found dead due to a lack of clues. The coroner rules suicide but Cross is not convinced and soon discovers motives and suspects to investigate, but he’ll have to move quickly to convince his boss. Brilliant characterisation and writing as well as a complex case.

Coffin Island is number 28 in the DI Wesley Peterson series by Kate Ellis and has our detective investigating the case of three bodies uncovered by a storm on the tiny island of St Rumon’s. Two are ancient skeletons but the other is more recent and appears to have been murdered. Of course, Wesley’s friend the archaeologist Neil Watson is soon caught up in the history of the priory where the remains were found. Another enjoyable read that was like revisiting old friends.

One reader picked up Reykjavik by Ragnar Jonasson for Turn Up the Heat (the ‘book set in a cold place’ challenge). It follows Valur, a journalist investigating what happened to Lara, a fourteen-year-old girl who went missing from a small island off the Reykjavik coast in 1956. But someone is desperate for the truth to remain hidden. A classic Nordic Noir mystery.

The feel-good read of the day was The Phoenix Ballroom by Ruth Hogan. Recently widowed Venetia is left a huge house and plenty of money and suddenly feels a sense of purpose. She buys up the old Phoenix Ballroom, with its drop-in centre and church, and gets to know the stories of the damaged and lonely people who meet there.

Always Home, Always Homesick is a memoir by historical fiction author Hannah Kent. Visiting Iceland on a student exchange, Hannah discovers a life-changing story as well as a stunning country full of myths and a fascinating culture. Years later she returns to research her breakout novel Burial Rites about the last woman executed in Iceland. Here she writes an ode to this inspiring country.

Hastings Library Book Chat meets on the third Wednesday of the month at 10:30 am. All welcome.

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