The Three Graces

This, the latest novel by Amanda Craig, has been sheer pleasure. About three 80-year-old women in Italy, The Three Graces is the first book by Amanda I’ve read. I don’t expect it to be the last, especially now that I know that she recycles her characters, and I can find some of her people in past books.

Just this thing of finding three older women is such an unusual occurrence. I’m not quite 80 yet, but I share so much with them. Not their money, nor their grandchildren, but thoughts about life. Although it begins when middle aged Enzo shoots someone, and this continues to worry and puzzle him. His opinions on foreigners and migrants are not the best, nor is he alone in how he thinks of people who are not from Tuscany.

Ruth’s grandson Olly is getting married, and with his intended bride vlogging all the wedding preparations, the whole world is watching. Children and grandchildren descend on Santorno. It – sort of – builds up to a Mamma Mia moment. You can see what must happen, but not necessarily how.

There are dogs. One of our ladies still has a husband, whom she’d quite like to kill off. Refugees are flowing into Italy, and there is no avoiding the effects of Covid or the war in Ukraine. Both are well done; for the characters as well as for us, but not too much.

Happy and sad, this is both an amusing tale, as well as offering up many pertinent thoughts on life in general, and especially on growing old, while not being too gracious about it. Amanda is doing that thing I approve of, which is to write about what you know. In this case there is Africa, Italy, Hampstead. You feel you are in good hands.

A Song for Summer

Let’s get romantic!

I don’t often say this, but it is Valentine’s Day after all.

Wasn’t altogether sure about reviewing [one of] Eva Ibbotson’s adult romantic novels, because what can you say? Do we know at the outset that the couple will end up happily ever after? Well, I’m not telling you.

This is another of Eva’s stories set in Austria, and Britain, before and during WWII, but written in the 1990s. She does it so well, knowing her Austria, and her London among the better educated. Except here we have Ellen who prefers to cook and grow a garden. Her mother and her aunts are horrified. When she could have a proper education!

The reader will be happy when Ellen sets off to work in a school in Austria, where she will work her magic on pupils and adults alike, and she does much cleaning and cooking. There is a man, of course. There are several, but one special one, even if they sometimes have to fight over who gets Ellen.

It’s a lovely period piece, if somewhat rosy. Except, the war does make itself known and it has effects, and I especially resented the death of Xxxx. And Ellen is terribly dutiful and will do what seems best, and isn’t necessarily what she herself wants, or the reader.

I loved it.

Hello

I went for a haircut the other day. I have this theory at the moment, that while it’s possible, I will go. Last December I was intending to, was ‘too busy’ one week and then we were locked down for quite a number of centimetres. Of hair.

Because I hate waiting I always arrive as close to the hour as possible. Easy, as it’s a two minute walk there. Hard, because one never knows if someone else is delaying them.

This time I had to sit and wait, and my hairdresser dragged a chair covered in magazines over to me. I did have Bookwitch on my mobile, but decided I could educate myself with a magazine. I think it was called Hello. It had the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the cover.

Ever since our last holiday in St Andrews in May, I have a problem with them. I can’t see a photo of Will and Kate without thinking ‘scones!’ and I did so this time as well. I already knew about the café where they reputedly used to hang out, falling in love and all that. But it’s always been at the wrong end of town for me, so I’d never patronised the place.

This time, however, we stayed two minutes walk away (a bit like the hairdresser…) so I ‘just happened’ to pop in a couple of times. It was too busy to eat in, or sit on the pavement, but perfect for getting a few scones to take back to our airbnb.

They were easily among the best I’ve ever eaten, and the best if I count more recent times. This is especially noticeable when most cafés overdo the raising agent, leaving me disappointed with the flavour.

So, Will and Kate’s scones rock. I can’t remember the name of the café, but Will and Kate is as good a description as any. And with every photo of them, my mouth waters. But all the hairdresser offered was tea or coffee. Maybe I should have asked?

Did the Young Adult Genre Exist in the Eighties?

It’s been almost seven years. Some of you might recall Janet Quin-Harkin‘s Heartbreak Café, which was then reissued after 25 years. Janet was a pioneer in YA books, and she did it so well. I was pleased to be surprised by the turn of events for the heroine and her exploits when having to find a job after her family’s finances collapsed.

The whole series of books are now published in time for Valentines Day, and below Janet muses about YA and her role in it:

“I was very proud, a couple of years ago, to be given an achievement award by RT Magazine for being a pioneer in the YA genre. When I was asked to write my first YA novel I went to the bookstore and there were only four or five YA books. They were rather dark and angst-ridden—most with a male hero.

So I was at the forefront of a revolution. My early teen romance books were ground-breaking. Until then books for young people were selected by adults—librarians, well-meaning aunts. With the advent of cheap paperbacks teens could choose their own books, even afford to buy one a week. So they became incredibly popular.

Some of my books sold through a printing of 100,000 in a week or two. I got hundreds of fan letters (real letters in those days that all had to be answered with pen and paper). This worked so well until the market became flooded with inferior writing and teens tired of reading the same thing over and over.

One thing readers have always liked about my books is that they are unconventional. I don’t write the regular boy meets girl romances. Instead there are quirky characters, strange mishaps, embarrassing moments—much more like real life, in fact. I was lucky that I had teenage girls at the time and I confess to shamelessly using some of their more embarrassing moments and weird conversations.

It’s a shame that YA fiction has become dark and violent again, maybe spurred by the success of things like the Hunger Games. Also teens have so many more options to entertain them: Xbox, streaming movies, TikTok. If it weren’t for Harry Potter I think books might have gone the way of the Dodo.”

The Morning Gift

I 95% adored this adult novel by Eva Ibbotson. It came highly recommended by several people whose taste I respect, and my knowledge of Eva Ibbotson’s children’s books backed this up.

To begin with I sat back and basked in the way Eva put her words together, how she described the background to what happens in The Morning Gift. The plot is good and the characters loveable and interesting and the setting in prewar Austria/Vienna was enough to make me want to go back there.

We meet the family of the heroine, Ruth, who is 20 when the real action begins in 1938. Prior to that we’ve learned how her parents met and how the well off Viennese intelligentsia lived. We also meet the British hero, Quin, who is everything you want from the romantic, but also kind, intelligent, rich man in your life.

When the Germans take over in Austria, the family flees to England, but due to a technical mishap Ruth does not manage to leave. Enter Quin, who obviously wants to help, and in the end this help has to take the form of a marriage of convenience.

If you’ve read romantic fiction before, you will know what to expect, except here you can expect it in a wittier and more intelligent shape than average. This is Eva Ibbotson we’re talking about.

You know it will end well, even though we are just coming up to the beginning of the war. You know that London in 1938/39 will lead to six years of a very bad time, and these are Jewish refugees we’re talking about. Added to which is the lack of acceptance by white English people who are not too keen on foreigners.

So the war is perhaps 2% of my ‘negative rating.’ The other few percent, well, this is set – fairly realistically, I would say – in the 1930s, and the book was published in 1993, written by someone who had experience of prewar London. Had I read it back then, I’d not have seen much of a problem when Ruth and Quin finally ‘get together’ properly. But now, in 2021, this is #metoo territory. And, well, I felt uncomfortable.

It quickly returns to most of its charm again, and all is well. Only, the degree Ruth worked so hard to get, is no longer needed once there is a happy ending. Not even in this modern version of a time when that would have been the norm (or so I imagine).

On the other hand, how can you not love a heroine who knows herself; ‘Would you like me to stop talking? Because I can. I have to concentrate, but it’s possible.’ So is reciting poetry – in German – to a sheep.

The Silent Stars Go By

This new book by Sally Nicholls is everything you’d want it to be. It tells the story of 16-year-old Margot who becomes pregnant just as her fiancé Harry goes off to fight in WWI in 1916. Harry doesn’t know, and when he’s reported missing in action, Margot eventually has to tell her parents about the baby. Her father is a vicar, and it’s not welcome news.

Three years later, Harry – who is not dead – returns home, and wants to see Margot, who is back for Christmas, and she has to decide what to do, what to tell him.

Set at a time when unmarried mothers were much more frowned upon than today, and also at a time when prospective future husbands were far fewer than some years earlier, this is not an easy problem to solve. Added to which is the fact that Margot’s parents adopted her son, so she can’t very well ‘take him back’.

Margot is lovely, and so is Harry. The whole village is pretty lovely. But there is still a problem to be solved. And there was a fact about adoptions I didn’t know before reading Sally’s book.

As the reader, you want everything to work out perfectly, but you can’t see how it can be done. Or which part of almost perfect it will end up having to be.

But take it from me, Sally Nicholls just gets better and better.

Madam, won’t talk

In case you missed it, and it’s a wonder I didn’t, since I never listen to the radio: Radio 4, Mary Stewart’s Madam, Will You Talk? part one today, second part next Sunday.

It was bliss, even at the halfway mark. I’m never sure I will be able to tell the characters’ voices apart on radio, but this worked fine. And their David is perfect. As is Mr Byron/Coleridge/Shelley/Wordsworth.

Over eleven years since I reviewed the new edition of Mary Stewart’s best book, and many many years since I first read it. Obviously. That review revealed that I now know lots of fans of this gorgeous romantic thriller, but I note that we still haven’t gone on that group trip to Stewart settings.

The Enchanted April

April 2020 might not feel all that enchanted, but it still seemed appropriate to read Elizabeth von Arnim’s The Enchanted April right now, seeing as it was available. It features the beauty of Italy in April, but I have to say that my part of Scotland has managed to look enchanting in its own way.

Having known nothing about the author, except recognising her name, I discovered this novel in the Guardian Review a while ago, and felt the recommendation was strong enough that I would actually order the book. And read it.

Set in 1922, four women – strangers to each other – take up the offer to spend April in a castle in Italy after seeing an ad in The Times. We meet them as the first two, Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot, slowly come to the realisation that by sharing the let, and allowing themselves to use their nest eggs, this could be a dream come true. They advertise for two more women to share the cost.

So it’s a sort of strangers in an airbnb.

Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot leave behind Mr Wilkins and Mr Arbuthnot in lowly Hampstead, whereas the elderly Mrs Fisher is a widow and the young and gorgeous Lady Caroline just wants to be left alone. (Too many admirers.)

Lotty (Mrs Wilkins) and Rose (Mrs Arbuthnot) enjoy the freedom of not having to always put their husbands first. Mrs Fisher is a bit bossy, and Lady Caroline, aka Scrap, complains all the time but does it so nicely that everyone is charmed.

It’s clear that Lotty is somewhat of a witch, in that she ‘sees’ things. And her seeings do have a tendency to come true, however annoying Mrs Fisher finds her.

The castle truly is enchanted, or how else do you explain the changes in the four women? And the effect it ends up having on several other people. It’s not only the quiet, beige, Lotty who flourishes. There is magic for everyone.

It’s not quite what I had expected, but such fun and so lovely. We could all do with enchantment and wisteria, whether in Italy in April, or by some other means. Even if it’s not going to happen this year.

Turning an ebook into pasta

From Good Friday you can buy a new ebook by Claire McFall, Making Turquoise, a post-industrial retelling of Romeo and Juliet.

For the next three months all proceeds will go towards food banks supported by The Trussell Trust. By buying the right kind of pasta one book will pay for more than one pack.

Go on, it’s cheap enough! You can order it now, and like an Easter egg, it will pop up on your Kindle on Friday. Or so I hope anyway. You know what I am like with ebook buying…

(Thinking about it, I doubt that very many Easter eggs will be popping in any e-readers at all. It’s not the way of eggs.)

I’m guessing it will be a good, if short, read. There is a warning that it contains ‘strong language and elements of drug taking, teenage pregnancy, abortion and abuse.’ But you’re fine with that.

Jane Eyre

It was good to revisit Jane Eyre after all these years. Barrington Stoke have just published a dyslexia friendly, short, retelling of the famous Charlotte Brontë novel. Tanya Landman has written a more than creditable short version, and one that I enjoyed a lot.

I wasn’t sure how hard it would be to make such a long novel into a short one; one that actually works. I’m certain it was neither quick nor easy, but the result is a perfect literary summary of an old classic.

Tanya’s version contains most of what I remembered, skipping over one or two sub-plots with just a few paragraphs (which is obviously how one does it) to get on with that which matters. The only major fact missing is Jane’s inheritance, but in the long run it’s not massively important.

She can still marry Mr Rochester and live happily ever after. (I hope this doesn’t count as a spoiler..?)

A classic has to be one of the hardest things to access if reading is difficult. I guess watching the film is the nearest, but won’t give so much flavour of the real deal. That’s what you get in something like this Jane Eyre.

I hope the book will be a happy discovery for many. Jane is still a most interesting heroine.