Pagan Rite by Leslie Scase

 

Our Rating 4 ⭐

You Can Buy Pagan Rite...here

You Can Find Out More About Leslie Scase...here

280 Pages

First published 2026

• The Blurb...

1897
Inspector Thomas Chard is sent to investigate the discovery of a mutilated corpse feared to be the work of Jack the Ripper. His investigation leads him to a ‘Festival of the Unknown’ and when a second murder occurs, rumours of demons and hell-hounds flood the public’s imagination. With the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations fast approaching, Chard has to fight his prejudices to deal with psychics, fortune-tellers, druids and scientists in order to expose a deranged killer.

• Our Review...

This is the fifth in the Inspector Chard series, the others being 

Fortunas Deadly Shadow

Fatal Solution

Sabrina's Teardrop 

Flames of Anarchy

Each has a slightly different taste but all under the genre of Victorian Industrial Noir. I dont actually know if thats a thing. I may have just made it up, but it sums up the field of expertise that the author writes in. I use the word expertise deliberatley. The author includes a section on his research at the rear of the book and it is almost as fascinating as the fictional narrative. So why do i keep coming back to this series, and why this book in particular. Well theres a few reasons..

Atmospheric Verisimilitude: Scase doesn't just describe the setting; he makes you smell the coal dust and feel the damp Welsh mist. The tension between the burgeoning industrial world and the deep-seated "old ways" of the hills is the book's strongest asset.

The Protagonist: Thomas Chard remains a refreshingly grounded lead. He isn’t a "super-sleuth" with flashes of divine inspiration; he’s a methodical, dogged, and often weary investigator who relies on local knowledge and persistence.

The "Pagan" Element: The title isn't just window dressing. Scase explores the revival of Druidic traditions and neo-paganism in the 19th century with historical nuance, avoiding the "occult thriller" clichés while keeping the stakes high.

"Pagan Rite" is a slow-burn procedural that rewards patient readers. While it helps to have read the previous books  Scase provides enough context that this functions well as a standalone mystery.

The story is set against the backdrop of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. While the British Empire is celebrating its height, Pontypridd is gripped by fear. A mutilated corpse is discovered, and the brutal nature of the crime immediately sparks a media frenzy, with headlines suggesting that Jack the Ripper has moved to the Valleys. As Chard investigates, he finds himself caught between two worlds: The Rational: A group of scientists and Victorian sceptics trying to debunk the supernatural and The Mystical: A "Festival of the Unknown" arriving in town, featuring fortune-tellers, psychics, and a revived interest in ancient Druidic rituals.

Some of the key themes and elements are mass hysteria: When a second murder occurs, the public’s imagination runs wild with talk of "hell-hounds" and demonic entities. Scase brilliantly captures how quickly a rational community can descend into panic when traditional beliefs are challenged. The clash of eras: The book highlights the friction of 1897—a time of rapid scientific advancement (the rise of forensic thought) clashing with a desperate nostalgia for ancient Celtic "pagan" roots.  The "Ripper" shadow: By invoking the specter of the Whitechapel murders, Scase raises the stakes for Chard, who has to solve the case quickly to prevent a full-scale riot during the Jubilee celebrations.

It may be a bit selfish but I also like the series because I know the locale in which it is set. I have drunk in the Llanover Arms. I have walked over the old bridge in Ponty. I have been on the Gower many times. Geographical experience always adds a little to the experience of reading a book. I recently found a website that suggests books set in the place that you are about to visit. Isnt that a good idea! The link is Trip Fiction

Unlike the earlier books, which focused more on industrial espionage (Fatal Solution) or anarchist plots (Flames of Anarchy), Pagan Rite is much more atmospheric and eerie. Chard is a fantastic "fish out of water" here; he is a man of facts and evidence who is forced to navigate a world of "miracles" and mysticism to find a very human killer. 

• Selected Quotes...

The tiny pistol’s hammer made a gentle click as it was cocked and placed against skin and bone. A crack, no louder than the sound of a snapped twig went unheard as the bullet found it’s mark…… then oblivion ………… at least for a while……

he’s a simple-minded soul, but pretty. It was her sixteenth birthday and fruit ripe for the plucking.’ ‘A chip off the old block!’ laughed the magistrate.

‘She asked about someone, and I consulted the cards. It was this one,’ said Sibylline, turning over the one in her hand, ‘the ten of swords.’ Chard looked at the image of a figure lying on the ground, pierced by blades, and felt a shiver through his spine.

Bugger won’t talk, despite walking into the wall a few times.’ ‘You know I don’t approve of prisoners having “accidental” injuries,’ admonished the inspector. ‘But as he’s a lying bastard of a killer, I’ll let it pass, just this once.

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The Last Murder At The End Of The World by Stuart Turton

You Can Buy "The Last Murder At The End Of The World...Here

Rating 3⭐

First published 2024

432 words (paperback)

You Can Find Out More About Stuart Turton...Here

• The Blurb...

The small group of villagers who live on the tiny island lead simple, but happy lives. There is no world beyond their shores, but they're content with what they have. Only Emory feels frustrated. Unlike everyone else on the island she doesn't yet seem to have a purpose. All she seems to be good at is asking questions.

But then one of the scientists who guides the villagers is found murdered and as there has never been a crime before, there is no detective to call on. There is only Emory and her gift for asking questions. So now Emory must explore every inch of her island - from the cliffs to the jungles, from sandy beaches to the very top of the mountain - to find clues that apparently don't exist.

How can she solve a mystery on an island where no one lies but there's still no way to find the culprit?

• Our Review...

I cant recall if I have ever read a post-apocalyptic/science fiction/murder mystery before. This may be my first. The world has ended, all that is left is a tiny island, with a few hundred people which is surrounded by a killer fog, full of killer insects. It is only kept at bay by equipment cobbled together and maintained by three scientists. They are the elders, each very different. The way of life is no longer technologically advanced but is none the less idyllic. That is until the senior scientist is found murdered. Emory our disaffected gobby chip-on-the-shoulder  villager, who just cant seem to settle into the lovely-dovey hippy-dippy vibe of the island is called upon to find the murderer when there hasn't been a murder in living memory. However she is against the clock. If she doesnt solve in a couple of days the island will be engulfed by the killer fog. 

So simple, yes? well yes and no. Here is where POTENTIAL SPOILERS come. The author has so may things going on  and they come at you at such a pace that I felt a little overwhelmed and  unable to keep up. There is a central intelligence hub that has contact with each individual mind on the island but not collectively. This intelligence can converse with each person (as a voice in their head) but the people cannot use this to communicate with each other. Its name is Abi and it acts as an addition to their own conscience. It subtly  guides the individuals. When reading we are sometimes in the point of view (POV) of Abi in the person and sometimes we are in the POV of the actaul person. So each person is potentailly not one but two unreliable narrators. A very clever trick to write an engaging tale but it can be tough to follow. In addition strange things happen to the villagers. An enforced curfew where they all just fall asleep at a given time and wake up the next day covered in bruises and scrapes. Oh and they drop dead at sixty1

In addition the convoluted clues for the murder come thick and fast. I just couldn't process all the info quickly enough or to any great depth. I felt like I was watching an episode of countdown where I could get a four letter word but everybody else was getting 6 and 7s. Perhaps I should have read it slower I did guess the perp before the end but didn't get the how and the why. 

While I did feel a little out of my depth, there is much to commend this book. The author's imagination is off the scale. The scenario and world structure are both very creative. The moral behind the tale is one that can be seen throughout the world at the moment and is (as always very relevant.) Looking through the lens of this book man's capacity for destruction and the invention of A.I. is basically fuel mixed with fire. As ever evolution will find a way....

• Selected Quotes..

From my vantage in her mind – and the minds of everybody on the island – I can predict the future with a high degree of accuracy. It’s a confluence of probability and psychology, which is easy to chart when you have access to everybody’s thoughts. Streaking away from this moment are dozens of possible futures, each waiting to be conjured into existence by a random event, an idle phrase, a miscommunication or an overheard conversation.

My only skills seem to be noticing things people don’t want noticed, and asking questions people don’t want answered.’

I’ll have to treat her like everybody else, concealing information while subtly manipulating her actions. As with every other human, her emotions make her erratic. She can’t be trusted to act logically, even in service of her own goals, which is what I’m for. Sometimes the only way to win a game is to let the pieces think they’re the ones playing it.

He was a billionaire’s son. He never had to learn to hide his emotions convincingly, or make excuses for his behaviour. The world did that for him.

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Dark Side by Belinda Bauer

437 Pages: First Published 2011

Our Rating 4.5⭐s

You can find out more about Belinda Bauer...Here

• The Blurb...

THE QUESTION IS: WHO IS HUNTING WHO?

In a small village where no stranger goes unnoticed, a local woman has been murdered in her bed.

This is PC Jonas Holly's first murder investigation. But he is distracted by anonymous messages that seem to come from the killer . . .

Is Jonas going to be able to solve the crime, whilst being taunted by a psychopath?

• Our Review...

Regular visitors to this site (if there are any...) will know that we love a Belinda Bauer novel, and have reviewed a few here. (see reviews by author) and Dark Side is another brilliant addition to the cannon, albeit I am 15 years late to the party with this one. 

In the sleepy little village  of Shipcott on Exmoor nothing happens, nothing changes until the day it does. A paralysed old lady is murdered and the village bobby Jonas Holly ( played in my head inexplicably by Jimmy Carr, but a nice version) is powerless to help protect his people.  The killer begins to leave cryptic notes for Jonas as the out of town, bid city detective swoops in with his entourage. The Detective inappropriately named Detective Marvel is a crude, opinionated bully. Think Gene Hunt from "Life on Mars" and you would be about right. He disrespects Jonas. More kiliings of people deemed a burden on society happen. Jonas tries to help the investigation but he also needs to care for his disabled wife. In addition The dark history of the seemingly idyllic village resonates throughout the investigation.  

So the scene is set for the hunt for the killer. 

Belinda Bauer is a very gifted writer. She can create compelling, deep and dark characters that are nuanced and multilayered. However the real genius is in mixing very dark, very relevant humour to situations that shouldn't be humorous to the average sensibility. I realise she is a crime writer and as such death is something that happens in her stories but she takes the emotional baggage of death and right and wrong and moulds them into a challenging, emotional atmosphere that envelopes the narrative and demands debate. This is true for the other novels of hers that I have read namely Rubbernecker, Blacklands, Snap and Exit. To simplify she blends dark characters, dark humour and death into a wonderful thought provoking story. Often in the end nobody wins. A bit like real life then?

• Selected Quotes...

Margaret Priddy awoke to the brilliant beam of light she had been anticipating with fear and longing for years. Finally, she thought, I’m dying.

Jonas understood how almost everything important happens underneath, and away from public view – that signage and medals and headlines are just the tip of the village iceberg, and that real life is shaped long before and far below the surface in the blue-black depths of the community ocean.

She had always liked horror films. As a teenager they had just been a way to allow a boy to put his arm around her at the movies without feeling as though she was being a slut.

Marvel watched the empty ribbon of tarmac lined by dirty brown moor race at them out of blackness and disappear as soon as the lights had passed over it. It was like travelling through space, or a lower intestine.

She’d pat his hand and look into the past, which was somewhere over his left shoulder.

Robert Springer was both an ardent horseman and an ardent smoker – two hobbies that Marvel gathered should be kept apart, like wives and girlfriends.

the police grapevine had whispered of Marvel squeezing the facts to make them fit a suspect – or squeezing that suspect to make him fit the facts.

It made him think of his nan sellotaping names to her nick-nacks, so they’d all know who was getting what when she died.

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The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Rating 3⭐s

You can buy The Picture of Dorian Gray...here

You can find out about the author...here

253 pages

• The Blurb...

Oscar Wilde's alluring novel of decadence and sin was a succès de scandale on publication. It follows Dorian Gray who, enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his depravity. This definitive edition includes a selection of contemporary reviews condemning the novel's immorality.

• Our Review...

Wilde's famous for his one and only novel. Dorian a young, very wealthy and strikingly handsome man loves himself so much he wishes for eternal youth as he is sitting, having his portrait painted. Low and behold after a while he notices his picture is ageing cruelly, but he is not. Dorian decides his life from now on will be one of excess and hedonism, knowing that there is no cost to his depravity (at least in the physical.) But how much depravity can one man sustain. How will it end. Will his past come back to claim revenge at some point?

Wilde famously was sent to prison for homosexuality, in a time when this was illegal. Reading The Picture of Dorian Gray (TPODG) feels like it is written by a man who wishes there was no consequences to his vices. If only Wilde could drain the shame out of himself and trap it in a painting, leaving him to lead a care free life. Of course the irony, these days his actions would not be illegal, he would suffer no guilt or shame. One century's crime is another centuries freedom.

Famous his wit and insight into society, TPODG is rife with razor sharp wit, beautifully balanced one liners and sage like asides on life and class. See selected quotes for just a few. So why only 3 stars? Well I feel the novel is less than the some of its component parts. It is pure upper middle class indulgent naval gazing, where the most pressing issue is how to deal with "ennui." No, i didn't know what it was either, It's a deep, existential weariness that comes from feeling like nothing is worth doing. I don't think i have ever been that far up the financial food chain to be rich enough from what is essentially very posh boredom. 

He is forever naval gazing and talking about himself. It is so very narcissistic and self indulgent. It is not a very attractive quality. "But it's just the character of Dorian Gray"  you say. But for reasons stated earlier Gray and Wilde seem to me to be one and the same person. His attitude to the lower class in general and women in particular speak to a lack of empathy. Yes he is insightful and witty but that wit is disparaging and cruel and self aggrandising. I can appreciate the humour and societal analysis but I don't think I'd go for a pint with Oscar Wilde/Dorian Gray.

• Selected Quotes...

The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live—undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet.

"she is a peacock in everything but beauty,"

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself,

I should fancy that the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege of the rich."

In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all.

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The Quiet American by Graham Greene

 

208 pages

Our Rating 5 ⭐s

You can buy The Quiet American...Here

You can find out more about the author...Here

• The Blurb...

Into the intrigue and violence of 1950s Saigon comes CIA agent Alden Pyle, a young idealistic American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious 'Third Force'.

As Pyle's naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch. But even as Fowler intervenes he wonders why: for the greater good, or something altogether more complicated?

• Our Review...

This is the third Graham Greene that I have read, after Brighton Rock and The Power And The Glory, and it is once again excellent.

Set in Vietnam in 1952 when the Vietnamese forces were fighting the French colonial power before they went on to defeat the USA. The tale focuses on three people. 

The old cynical English journalist Fowler, whose weapons of choice is a witty mind and a cruel tongue

His young local lover Phuong

An a newcomer to Indo-China. Pyle a young brash American. He is the human equivalent of a Labrador puppy. All innocent and bouncy but sadly lacking in nuance and decorum. He is working for the USA government in some pseudo industrial cartel/quango.

So the scene is set the males both want to be with Phuong. Phuong just wants a comfortable life. Pyle just turns up and oblivious to everyone else just blunders in  and Fowler is just hanging  on knowing his golden era is long gone but is just hanging on to the vestiges of life and love with Phuong. And so the three leads are obviously analogous to the politics of the time. ie the tug of war between the old powers and the new powers for countries that really just to be left alone. They have no interest in capitalism, communism or colonialism. They just want food, health and to be left alone. 

Greene manages to create a romance book about political intrigue in an historical flash-point that includes a whodunit and all the while it is an anti-war novel. That takes some doing not only that, it is one of the best books that I have ever read. 

In some ways Greene's novels are very diverse. Brighton Rock is about English Gangsters, The Power and the Glory is about the persecution of Catholic priests in Mexico, and the Quiet American is about political interference in Vietnam. However the backdrops may be different the same themes run through all. Morals, introspection, corruption both of the soul and the real world, loss, love and hope. 

The book is 73 years old but unbelievably it is more of the now than ever. I was born in 1967 so 73 years before that would have been 1894. I can't imagine a book written in 1894 being relevant in 1973 as The Quiet American is now. It forewarned of the naive, USA getting itself involved in a draining war over decades, which it had brought on itself by interfering in a different part of the word and a very different culture to itself which it has no idea about. For Vietnam 1955-1975 see Iraq 2003-2011, Afghanistan 2001-2021.

Similarly a film version was made starring Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser in a classic case of bad timing it was test screened in Sept 2001 but after 9/11 it was shelved for a few years as it was thought to be anti American.

However to focus on the political landscape of the novel would be to do it a disservice. There is so much more in this novel as hopefully the selected quotes will show. It encompasses a huge range of emotions and dilemmas. There are no good guys just guys who do the things they do for different reasons with different outcomes. No black and white just grey and shades.   

He just has an awareness of how emotions link  into small lives that link into bigger actions that develop into political and moral concepts. How everything in life relates to everything else like a circular butterfly effect.

I know others will read Greene and think  meh! 🤷 but he is just on my wavelength. I will read more Greene and look forward to reading his autibiography.

• Selected Quotes...

The Minister had a great respect for Pyle—Pyle had taken a good degree in—well, one of those subjects Americans can take degrees in: perhaps public relations or theatrecraft, perhaps even Far Eastern studies (he had read a lot of books).

Vietnamese Sureté that seemed to smell of urine and injustice.

It’s always the same wherever one goes—it’s not the most powerful rulers who have the happiest populations.’

The canal was full of bodies: I am reminded now of an Irish stew containing too much meat. The bodies overlapped: one head, seal-grey, and anonymous as a convict with a shaven scalp, stuck up out of the water like a buoy. There was no blood: I suppose it had flowed away a long time ago. I have no idea how many there were: they must have been caught in a cross-fire, trying to get back, and I suppose every man of us along the bank was thinking, ‘Two can play at that game.’ I too took my eyes away; we didn’t want to be reminded of how little we counted, how quickly, simply and anonymously death came.

Wouldn’t we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife a husband, a lover a mistress, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that’s why men have invented God—a being capable of understanding.

‘And if you lose Phuong, will you be sensible?’ ‘Oh yes, I hope so. And you?’ ‘I doubt it. I might even run amok. Have you thought about that, Pyle?’ ‘I wish you’d call me Alden, Thomas.’ ‘I’d rather not. Pyle has got—associations.

You and your like are trying to make a war with the help of people who just aren’t interested.’ ‘They don’t want Communism.’ ‘They want enough rice,’ I said. ‘They don’t want to be shot at. They want one day to be much the same as another. They don’t want our white skins around telling them what they want.’

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Sinister Inheritance by Graham H Miller

 

Our Rating...4⭐s

You can buy Sinister Inheritance...Here

You can find out more about the author...Here

• The Blurb...

Melinda Lewis was the sole survivor when her family was murdered twelve years ago. She went on to die four years later. Which leaves Jonah Greene wondering why he's seen her in a cafe in France.

Anthony Bailey appears to have died in his sleep. But he leaves behind a property empire, and a widow that no-one in his family has ever met.

These are two of the cases that Jonah Greene must wrestle with when he returns from a break in France, while the powers that be try to shut both cases down. As the politics get more complicated, Jonah must use all his skill to investigate under the radar, and ensure justice is done.

• Our Review...

At last he is back.. "The Canton Columbo, The Shoestring of Splott." After 6 long years Jonah Greene, the Cardiff Coroners Officer returns to tackle not one but two cases of dodgy inheritance.

After recently reading a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, reading Sinister Inheritance felt like having a meal of fish and chips, after having a week on the froi gras and port. Simple but tasty but just what was needed after such a rich diet. 

So we have two potential perps (as the kid's say.) in one, if the person of interest is guilty they may have had provocation and mitigating circumstances. The other perp in the second crime is just an out and out wrong un. Contrast the two and even though both crimes are similar we view them in very different ways.

In the main case there is very little face to face confrontation. So much so that there is no direct dialogue between Jonah and his adversary until the last scene. This, I feel actually adds to the narrative. It has a feel of a cold war submarine war film. Both combatants, probing from a distance finding each others weakness. Imagine fighting an enemy you can't see.

I like the fact that Jonah is a semi-insular soul. Yes he has acquaintances and relationships. Yes he works for the coroner but he is a department of one. He doesn't spend a great deal of time with any one group or even one person including his wife. He is of his time I think in that he is in large part a loner, and he is comfortable with that. This seems to be the trend in modern society. 

Oops I'm rambling again. Back to the book. I really enjoyed it, as I knew I would. It bears the hallmarks of Graham H Miller, intriguing, interesting and easy to read.

This is Jonah's third outing after "The List" and "Buzzard House" both twisty police procedural novels. Once again in my head Jonah is operating in my head in the same literal universe as DI Mandy Wilde in the novels of Jacqueline Harret and possibly DI Mark Fagin books by Jason Chapman. I can get all the murder mystery I want without leaving Glamorgan, Gwent and Powys!

Graham H Miller never lets you down. But please don't make us wait another six years for the next instalment. 

• Selected Quotes...

Despite the warmth and friendly atmosphere he felt a sudden melancholy. It was the forced recognition that his children were growing up, forging their own lives. He knew they'd always need him, but not as much as previously. He'd be someone in their lives, just not at the centre of it.

November in Wales was never going to be good for someone’s mental health.

'I know it's not fashionable and probably doesn't fit in with modern restorative justice theories, but some people are just born wrong. With something missing. They are evil. Hundreds of years ago they'd have been driven out of villages or hanged. Now, they just walk among us.

closure.' He chuckled to himself although there was no humour in it. 'Stupid American phrase. What are those parents meant to do, once they get the news? Their only child was killed. Once they know, are they supposed to close that chapter? Just forget and get on with their lives.'

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Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

 

Our Rating 5⭐s

You can buy Demon Copperhead...Here

Find out about the author...Here

• The Blurb...

Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single wide trailer, looking like a little blue prizefighter. For the life ahead of him he would need all that fighting spirit along with buckets of charm, a quick wit and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.

In the southern Appalachain Mountains of Virginia, poverty isnt an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents and friends. "Family" could mean love or reluctant foster care For Demon born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day.

Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between.

 

• Our Review...

Often, when I read a book that has won multiple awards and received huge hype I find myself sub-consciously raising the bar that the book get over to genuinely feel loved by me. It's a " you come into my zone all hyped up with your medals thinking you can win, well we'll see about that!" There have not been many up to the challenge. Barbara Kingsolver has done it easy pops. 

What a ride. Famously based on Charles Dickens's David Copperhead, it also feels a little like trainspotting meets The Dukes of Hazzard but without the happy bits. But OMG what a powerful, emotional book.. 

We follow the life of Damon, a melungeon child, from birth to adulthood. Damon (or Demon as he becomes known) does not win the lottery of life.. No life of Princes William or Harry for him. He is born to an  addicted, trailer-dwelling, poor mother with a dead father. And things just get worse from here on. It is hugely Dickensian in its depiction of childhood poverty and exploitation. Add to this mix an abusive stepfather, cruel foster homes and the cherry on the cake, massive industrial scale opioid abuse. It sounds like a horrific read and yes at times it is very challenging. If you have even an ounce of empathy it will make you cry. But this book makes you feel everything.

The novel is written in southern USA states vernacular which it had to be as the location is intrinsic to the story. It does take some getting used to as a Brit. But it is worth it as it adds an authenticity to the narrative. I felt a strong association with the people of Appalachia. A historically strong coal mining area that was the powerhouse of the country, both now having been sucked dry of both coal and money have been left to rot by their national political overlords. Good people that have been ridiculed in the media as stupid, incestuous, bestial. It seemed to me that she could have been writing about Wales, and it broke my heart just a little more. 

The book was choc full of literary gems. See selected quotes for a few. When reading I highlighted 60+ quotes that I could use to demsonstare Kingsolver's similie and metaphor use or to show her clarity of thought. A gifted writer she can explain complex situations in few words.. Masterful.

Over the years I have often read of the mythical quest to find the great American novel or author e.g. Hemmingway, Faulkner, McCarthy, Steinbeck. All of these authors I feel searching for the distillation of what is America. I get the impression that they see the essence of America as a candle light in the darkness, a hope that truth and justice will guide us home.  I feel Kingsolver sees  it for what it is. An oncoming train heading down the tunnel.A train  that doesn't care if it goes through you, your friends, your family or your people. People are a resource or source of income to be used and abused. Government of the people, by the people, for the people = absolute bollox. And the same applies in the UK. Corporations, Media, Tech, power, super wealth, corruption it all stinks like a whores draws. Nothing is done for the people and hasn't for a long time. Kingsolver sees this and this is why this is the great American novel.

When reading this book I think it helps if the reader is of a certain age and has suffered some of what circumstance and poverty can inflict. Demon may be our protagonist but ultimately it is the backdrop that takes centre stage. Life in all it's rawness will engulf us all at some stage. It can overwhelm for entire lifespan if we let it. Ultimately this book isn't about poverty, addiction, loss or fate, it's about a more important thing than that. It's about how we face these things. Do we curl up into a ball and just take the kicking or say no I am not accepting that. I am going to be better and tomorrow I will be better than today. What is inside me is more important than what is outside. 

This is a great book. It will be in my top 10 of all time and I will read the Poison Wood Bible. 

• Selected Quotes...

Kid born to the junkie is a junkie. He’ll grow up to be everything you don’t want to know, the rotten teeth and dead-zone eyes,

A whole new life for young Demon was Stoner’s plan, described to me one morning at breakfast after Mom left for work. I was going to learn self-discipline, like they teach you in the army. Not that Stoner had done military service, mind you. I reckon he saw the movie.

By the time Mariah got to the courtroom her scars were healed. Not his. If you’ve noticed, it’s the prettiest people that everybody wants to believe,

If you’re standing on a small pile of shit, fighting for your one place to stand, God almighty how you fight.

We both lay back down, and she looked at me in the eyes, and we were sad together for a while. I’ll never forget how that felt. Like not being hungry.

Being checked out of school mentalwise for the last year and then some, I was so far behind it looked like a race with my own ass. But the weirdness wasn’t in what I didn’t know. It’s what I did know. How to watch your back at all times. What a hooker means by “fun” and an asshole means by “discipline” and a caseworker means by “We’re working on it.” And money. Christ. Watching these kids pull it out of their pockets in fistfuls of fives or ones or tens, holding out the whole wad for the lunch lady to pick through, like they don’t know the difference. Or don’t care.

wondered how it would feel to like who you are,

Certain pitiful souls around here see whiteness as their last asset that hasn’t been totaled or repossessed.

The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between.

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You can buy The Boy From The Sea...Here

You can find out more about the author...Here

Our Rating 3⭐s

• The Blurb...

In 1973 on the west coast of Ireland, a baby is found abandoned on the beach. Who is he? Where is he from?

Ambrose a local fisherman, is far more interested in who he will become and – with a curious community looking on – takes the baby home and adopts him. But for Declan, the baby’s new brother, this arrival is surely bad news. Rivalries can be decades in the making . . .

Set over twenty years, The Boy from the Sea is about a restless boy trying to find his place, in a town caught in the storm of a rapidly changing world.

• Our Review...

The Boy From The Sea (TBFTS) tells the story of Brendan a new born baby washed ashore in half barrel to the shores of the West of Ireland. Taken under the wing of the village as something akin to a spiritual gift from the Sea Gods. He swiftly ends up being ensconced in the Bonnar household with kindly, hardworking dad Ambrose, caring and nuturing mum Christine and jealous as hell older natural born brother Declan.

We follow their adventures over the following decades through the trauma of Christine's fathers illness, the self sacrifice of her sister Phyllis, the ups and downs of the fishing industry and the slow depressing grind of Donegal catching up with the late 20th century and all that it brings. The main relationships feel like a battle. Always fighting repression, resentment and economic erosion. Will the adoptive brothers ever treat each other with love? Will Phyllis and Christine come to terms with the roles that they have slipped into? Will his family ever give Ambrose the peace he is looking for? The questions are well set but the answers, if they are answered at all, aren't what we desire. 

 The enduring after taste is one of sadness and depression. It took an unexpected left turn when of the main characters dies, and not just dies but dies off screen, so to speak. We only get to hear about it via a letter from a family member, which just felt odd. There doesn't seem to be a resolution to any of the conflicts raised between the family members, The plot doesn't feel like a plot, more just an unending soap opera with an Irish setting . It's ending just sort of drifts and doesn't actually end. Is there a message? if there is it must be that life is an awful grind so be prepared.

This wasn't my cup of tea, it took me almost a month to get through.  This is probably down to my foibles and subjectivity although on the plus side I have discovered though that family saga novels may not be for me. I have no doubt that anyone who enjoys this genre may well give this 5 stars instead of the 3 stars that I gave it. 

That's not to say this novel is without merit. On the contrary the author does an excellent job of evoking the West of Ireland in the 70s and 80s. Laced through out the narrative are occasions of Irish charm and and whimsy but overall it left me feeling a little bit sad.

• Selected Quotes...

The tide brought the child in,’ he said, ‘he was laid in a barrel.’ Attempts were made to get sense out of him. ‘Who’s he belonging to?’ asked Justine O’Donnell. ‘He’s a gift from the sea,’

this was before contraception so things were simpler, so simple some of us went a year or two unsure if we were technically virgins or not.

By making it clear he wanted to impress her, Ambrose had handed Christine the role of being hard to impress, and therefore put her in command. She decided to keep hold of this position.

fundamentally, every child comes in from the sea, washes up against the ankles of their parents, arms outstretched, ready to be shaped by them but with some disposition already in place, deep-set and never quite knowable.

When Ambrose was young, shortage still looked like it did in history books: poor people had no electricity, no bank account, no teeth, but they didn’t have debt either; they lived outside money, in inherited cottages and supported by relatives and the community. But those people were gone, everyone had money now, just not enough. Shortage had become pernicious and harder to recognize. It crept into your brain and gave you no peace, keeping you at every moment aware of your home’s easy crushability. And it was almost impossible to talk about. Many families were this way, but you still felt alone with it, so alone.

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Still Life by Sarah Winman

  

Our Rating 4.5⭐s

You can buy "Still Life"...here

You can find out about the author...here

• The Blurb...

1944, Italy. As bombs fall around them, two strangers meet in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa and share an extraordinary evening.

Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner a 64-year-old art historian living life on her own terms. She has come to salvage paintings from the wreckage of war and relive memories of her youth when her heart was stolen by an Italian maid in a particular room with a view. Ulysses’ chance encounter with Evelyn will transform his life – and all those who love him back home in London – forever.

Uplifting, sweeping and full of unforgettable characters, Still Life is a novel about beauty, love, family and friendship.

• Our Review...

This is a very different book for me to read, totally not of my usual fare. I normally go in for twisty plots, thrilling chase to a climatic end and a denouement of the arch villain. This book isn't like that. It is akin to a family saga (although the protagonists are mostly unrelated) that covers roughly 75 years from about 1900 on. It does so in two stages 1945 to 75ish and the last part of the book relates to Evelyn remembering her early twenties.

Evelyn and Ulysses cross paths during the war and the story follows them as they weave their way through the subsequent years until they both end up where they first met in Florence, birth place of the Renaissance. Indeed Florence is as much a presence in this book as any of the characters. It and its art and its architecture and its soul are intertwined in every chapter. You would do well to keep a phone or PC next to you when reading this book to look up the numerous works of art and areas of the city that are constantly mentioned throughout. I only did this towards the end of the novel and wished I had started doing so earlier.

So the author clearly has a huge passion for both Florence and the appreciation of art. The love of art in this narrative is borderline obsessive with a sprinkle of pretentiousness. hence the 4.5 instead of 5 stars. Maybe I am a bit too basic in my outlook. I think art is a pleasure in life, this novel puts art on a level with love as being one of the vital drivers of life which is a little bit of a reach for me. I suppose the pursuit of art becomes more of a priority if you don't have to think about where your next meal, or the payment for the roof over your head is coming from. This is not a criticism, it is just my lived experience. 

The decades long soap opera of a story follows the working class found family of Ulysses in London's East End and the life and loves of Evelyn a teacher and art lover from a very privileged background, who comes across many famous artists and authors including a young E.M. Forster. The cast is wide and deep including a very wise old man, who doesn't really know how wise he is, a love interest who is hard as nails and a heartbreaker and the most intelligent and linguistically gifted parrot in the whole of literature. Life happens to them all. Lifelong unrequited love, coming of age, loss, friendship, good luck, bad luck and serendipity. Fortunes are never too good nor too bad but a little of both and at often at the same time. From the book I think the lesson is it matters not what tribulations may come it is how we face them that is of more importance. And the best way to do this is with friends and above all kindness. What can I say, I like books with a moral compass.

However, where this book towers above the herd is how the author delivers the big poignant moments in life. You don't read this book, you feel it. It'll make you double cry, tears of both happiness and despair.  There are times in life e.g. when your father passes away or when you hold your grandchild in your arms for the first time, when time stops, and you connect with...with well everything and the author conveys these many moments in this novel. The sweet sadness of life and the sad sweetness of death tear on the threads in your emotions. It feels as if you are living the opening scene of Disney's "Up" or that scene from Jon Voight's "The Champ." It is amazing to think that just looking at words in a book can induce such wild emotions in the reader. It really is a kind of magic or legal drug dealing. Sarah Winman should change her name to Houdini Escobar. Wow.. just wow.

• Selected Quotes...

The man was a dreamer, he said. Had a loser’s luck and a winning smile and was never happy unless he had a churn in his guts that denoted money riding on an outcome. A feeling he often equated to love.

We like beauty, don’t we? Something good on the eye cheers us. Does something to us on a cellular level, makes us feel alive and enriched. Beautiful art opens our eyes to the beauty of the world, Ulysses. It repositions our sight and judgement. Captures forever that which is fleeting.

She’s gone up in the world. Typist. Sixty words a minute and that’s just her gob.

You’re a good mum, Peg. No I’m not but it’s good of you to say. Your mum was a good mum, Temps. That’s what a good mum is. Mine was competition.

Her beauty had been her currency. Always had been. No one talked about when the bank ran dry as it inevitably would.

We shall be at war one day with your European brothers, as you call them, Mr Collins. It’s inevitable, said Mr Lugg. They’re not like us. But they want what we have. And do we not want what they have, Mr Lugg? Michelangelo? Dante? Beauty? Wine on a sun-drenched terrace? Villas nestled in the hills going for a song? Mr Lugg ignored Mr Collins and reached for a plate of stinking goat’s cheese. Yes, but will you fight? said the reverend, bringing the conversation back to British imperialism. It’s a simple question. For what cause? said Mr Collins. Cause is irrelevant. Cause is not irrelevant. To teach another nation a lesson, then, said the reverend. A nation is not a person. And so I will not.

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      Sarah Winman author of Still Life