A Catch-up with Hastings Library Book Chat

There’s been a lot about the Booker Prizes lately with the recent awards ceremony. (Congrats to Samantha Harvey for her win with Orbital). One of the long-listed books was Richard Powers’ novel Playground which has Eve, an 82-year-old woman looking back on her life. She was a kind of guinea pig for the development of the aqualung, her father working alongside others like Jacques Cousteau. Over time the ocean becomes her favourite place to be. Others in the story are also part of a new experiment to send autonomous floating cities out to sea. Our Book Chat reader thought the book took a little while to get into but was well worth the effort.

Bridget Collins’ novel The Silence Factory blends historical fiction with fantasy to create another fascinating story, even if does stretch the imagination somewhat. It follows James, a botanist in the 1820s, living on a Greek island where he is on the hunt for a particular spider - the silk of which can block all noise. Decades later a factory is designed to make this silk, in the hope of curing a young girl’s deafness. While the book had a disappointing ending, it was interesting for its theme - that not every invention is a good idea.

Another book that blended a futuristic idea with events from the past was The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. This sounded like a really promising novel, being set a little in the future, the story including time travel, espionage and romance. A civil servant is tasked with assisting and monitoring an “expat” known as 1847, a Commander Gore who died on Franklin’s doomed expedition to the Arctic in 1845. She’s part of a project to discover whether time travel is possible. “An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas” says the blurb, but our reader found it unfortunately not well written and hard to read.

There were however some very readable historical novels, including The Dressmaker and the Hidden Soldier by New Zealand author Doug Gold. Based on real events, it is the story of Peter Blunden, a Kiwi soldier captured on Crete in 1941. His escape and rescue by the Greek Resistance Movement is a tense and page-turning read.

The Deal by Alex Miller was an unusual book, set in Australia in the 1970s. Andy McPherson is an artist with a family, forced to take on a part-time teaching job. Here he meets Lang Tzu who pressures Andy to broker a risky deal for an important piece of art. A psychological drama that is also an original story and a very good read.

The British Booksellers by Kristy Cambron is set in Coventry and takes you from World War I through the aftermath of the war, with former sweethearts, Charlotte Terrington, an earl’s daughter, and farm boy Amos Darby. Their lives shattered by the war, the two find themselves both running bookshops in the same city as another war looms. A fabulous read.

Another story about the after effects of war that was just as interesting, was Beyond Summerland by Jenny Lecoat. This novel is set just after liberation in 1945 on the island of Jersey. Jean Parris and her family are waiting for her deported father to return, while new tensions arise on the island. There are family secrets set to emerge, and uncomfortable truths in this story about redemption and retribution.

A gripping historical read was Kāwai: for such a time a this, Monty Soutar’s first book in his historical trilogy. The book looks at a pre-colonial Aotearoa, and in particular, a young man training to be a warrior – the legendary Kaitanga. Soutar describes a highly sophisticated culture, but doesn’t shy away from the brutal realities of the time. Our reader found this book a little slow at the beginning, but then it becomes really interesting.

Another reader picked up a second book by Jessie Burton (The Miniaturist), and discovered The Muse was another engaging story. In the 1960s, Odelle, an immigrant from Trinidad, takes on secretarial work at an art gallery, under the tutelage of enigmatic Marjorie Quick. There’s a lost masterpiece and a secret that goes back to Spain in 1936, the time of the Spanish Civil War. An enthralling historical read.

Following the recent Hawke’s Bay Readers and Writers Festival, one reader picked up Stacy Gregg’s book Nine Girls, having enjoyed her discussion with other authors of junior fiction. Nine Girls seems fairly simple to start with, following Titch and her family who leave Auckland when her father loses his job, returning to her mother’s birth place in Ngaruawahia. The story becomes more complex as young Titch learns of her Māori heritage while the story of the past is told through the character of an eel. A stunning read and a book for all ages, says our reader.

There was also quite an assortment of crime fiction on the table. A second-hand bookshop find was Killing Me Softly, an early stand-alone novel by Nikki French. A passionate affair leads a young woman to give up the friends and the steady boyfriend who have ordered her life. She plunges into deception and danger with a handsome and heroic man and a situation of coercive control. This is an intense read, not a happy story, but it keeps you turning the pages.

After the intensity of the previous book it was nice to take a break with Ann Cleeves’s first book in the Vera series: The Crow Trap. The story follows three women who come together to complete an environmental survey, but discover a body, which is at first considered to be a suicide. Only the unconventional detective, Vera Stanhope, can possibly piece together what really happened.

We have continued to enjoy Tim Sullivan’s crime series featuring DS George Cross with us all agreeing it’s nice to have a different kind of detective. Cross is autistic, and doesn’t always manage working well with others, but DS Ottey helps smooth out the ripples, allowing Cross to do what he’s good at - solving murder cases. The Monk concerns the discovery in some woods of a monk's body, savagely beaten. Can clues be found in Brother Dominic’s past? But discovering who the monk was before joining the monastery only throws up more questions. Another entertaining read.

Peter May is a regular author at Book Chat known for his knack for moral dilemmas and atmospheric settings. This is certainly the case with A Winter Grave, a novel about Cameron Brodie, the detective investigating a body discovered at a mountain top weather station, entombed in ice. Brodie has a bunch of ghosts to deal with as he faces an uncertain future, while there’s a killer out there determined to keep his own secrets safe. Another gripping read.

We loved Tana French’s previous book, The Searcher, and now Cal Hooper is back in The Hunter. As we recall, Cal is a retired US cop, finding peace in rural Ireland, but he can’t help getting involved in the lives of the locals – particularly young Trey Reddy who’s from a dysfunctional family. Now Trey’s father has returned with a hair-brained scheme to find gold. How can Cal protect Trey from the fallout? Great storytelling, says our reader.

Among the contemporary fiction finds was Earth by John Boyne, another great read from an author who never disappoints. This is the second of his quartet of short novels that began with Water. The characters may not be all that likeable in this novel that shines the light on a sexual assault case, but the writing and the way Boyne builds his story are, as ever, superb.

One reader picked up Lottie Hazell’s debut novel, Piglet, because she liked the cover. This was easy to read, following the relationship of a couple (Kit and Piglet) about to be married and the devastating secret Kit imparts to his fiancée before the wedding. As she realises she’s built a superficial relationship with Kit, become a different kind of person to live a dreamt-of life, things begin to crack. Our reader found the story frustrating in that you never discover what Kit’s terrible secret was – which made for an ultimately disappointing read.

Finally, the only non-fiction book discussed on the day: Queen of Codes by Jackie Ui Chionna. This is the biography of British codebreaker, Emily Anderson. She really did have a secret life too, working for British Intelligence for over three decades. She worked at Bletchley Park and in the Middle East, and was said to be among the top three codebreakers in the world. She was also a brilliant musicologist, deciphering the letters and diaries of Mozart and Beethoven. Her double like is described in this book and it’s a fascinating story, if only the book didn’t read so much like a text book.

28 November 2024

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