Category: Second Novels

Secrets of the house: The Two Houses & The Hoarder

27/3/2018

I’ve recently been reading two second novels in which a woman sets out to uncover a family’s tragic secret lodged within a large historic house, aided and abetted by a presence that might or might not be a ghost. In the first, the woman and her husband buy a crumbling manor house as a weekend retreat from London; in the second, the woman is employed in the London mansion as carer for a man who can’t throw anything away. Both have strong voices and characterisation, with beautiful descriptions, but differ sufficiently that you could happily read both. For other novels about mysterious houses see Fell by Jenn Ashworth and post What’s haunting these houses?

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Perfect communities? from Celeste Ng & Thomas More

8/1/2018

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Given the chance, wouldn’t you live in a comfortable right-on community where none of your neighbours voted for Brexit or Trump? Where people read books, and supported libraries, and no-one hung plastic bags of dog poo from the trees? But you know what would happen if you packed up and moved there? You’d have the neighbours on your back for putting out the bins too early, or letting your dandelions run to seed. Because it’s in the nature of utopian societies to have a downside, often manifest in a denial of our baser human instincts and/or excessive control. It makes great fodder for fiction, however, as I hope to show in my review of Celeste Ng’s latest novel set in 1990s suburban America. Alongside that, I’ve gone back to basics with my first-time read of the original Utopia, published 500 years ago.

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Two novels about contemporary inequalities

26/12/2017

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Some moral questions to end the year and see us into the next! Is it okay for some to go hungry while others feast? Is it okay that the accident of where we are born, and to whom, determines our life chances? Does it matter that, with modernity and the march of capitalism, the gap between the haves and have nots is widening? Neither this tragicomedy set in Edinburgh nor this scattershot novel set in India have the answers, but they can entertain us while making us reflect on the issues.

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A day / week under the skin of a community: Johannesburg & Histories

14/12/2017

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From a day in the life of a city in mourning to a week in a busy hospital, in both these novels a large cast of characters tell not only their individual stories, but the story of the settings that shape their interlinked lives.

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Angels of Nigeria? Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo

26/11/2017

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Chike Ameobi has dedicated his life to the army but when, after twelve months protecting the oil barons’ interests in the Delta, his commanding officer orders the burning of an entire village, he walks out. With him is his only friend, and loyal follower, the uneducated and low-ranking Yemi. As they flee, they enlist a young rebel militant, Fineboy, to guide them to the road, while teenager Isoken, recently saved from rape by her tight jeans, comes under their protection. Boarding the bus to Lagos, Chike is seated beside Oma, the runaway wife of an abusive husband.

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Two fictional young Americans wondering what it’s all about

6/10/2017

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If we leave home at eighteen, it’s often to a particular kind of institution. For me, as for Selin in The Idiot, that means university; for Billy Lynn, as for many young working-class adults who are less academically inclined, it’s the military. While, as Selin discovers, universities encourage questioning, not all questions are received with equal relish. On the other hand, as Billy learns, the army might discourage independent thought, it can’t prevent his wondering. Will these young people find the answers they’re looking for? Read on!

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Two novels about male infidelity and its meaning for the women affected

29/8/2017

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When I plucked A Separation from my TBR shelf shortly after reading The Squeeze, I wasn’t sure I’d get away with pairing these two novels. After featuring fictional female infidelity a few months ago, introducing you to Mats and Christopher is a way of redressing the gender balance, but neither of these novels is really about the act of sex outside marriage. It wasn’t until I read the much more philosophising A Separation, that it struck me that the more plot-driven The Squeeze is also about the impact on the meaning and relationship status the women (one wife, the other a sex worker) carry in their minds, irrespective of the bonds of legality.

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Two novel encounters with the wild: Under a Pole Star & Green Lion

21/8/2017

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A historical novel about Arctic exploration or a novel set in a near-future South Africa? A romance or an account of a relationship falling apart? A motherless girl or a fatherless boy? Wild animals or ice? Both of these novels explore the conflict and compassion that connects us to the natural world, but it was a bonus for me to read that the protagonist of Green Lion told his friend that his father was killed in a hunting accident in the Arctic, the setting of Under a Pole Star. Read on to see if I was right to pair these reviews.

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Two novel takes on family secrets and vulnerability

14/8/2017

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I didn’t expect to pair these two novels. I’d already begun reading another Second World War novel to accompany The Sixteen Trees of the Somme, and The Angel in The Stone was going to wait for another novel on mental health. But the latter seemed a good fit for the latest flash fiction challenge and, as I’ve mentioned recently, it’s fun to find unexpected links. Both these novels feature families across three generations; address conflict between brothers; are wholly or partly set in Scotland; and showcase the characters’ musical tastes. Both fictional families have hidden some of their history from the younger generation in a manner that makes life just that little bit harder. Read on, and see what you think.

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A huge thank you, as a second novel is born!

25/5/2017

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Happy publication day to me! I must admit it doesn’t feel the huge leap it did the first time round, but I’m still excited, albeit not breathlessly so. There’s a quieter satisfaction in having more than one of my own novels on the shelf, making the transition from writer to author to novelist. This post is to thank those who’ve helped me on my way. While writing is a solitary activity, no writer is an island. Our achievements arise through hard work, good luck and not a little help from our friends.

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What makes us who we are?

25/4/2017

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What do you think has most shaped your identity? Is it the genetic code inherited from your parents? Is it the culture into which you were born? Is it the way you were nurtured or not in infancy? Okay, a single blog post can’t begin to answer those questions but, with an overdue book review, a memoir and flash fiction prompt deadlines looming, I’m set to dip into the terrain.

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Art’s capacity to disturb

20/3/2017

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With a little over two months until the publication of my second novel, the focus has moved from improving the text itself – apart from scouring the proofs for a stray comma or worse – to ways of articulating what the story is about. You’d think that page upon page of carefully selected words could speak for themselves, but no. To interest readers, I have to write and talk about what’s between the covers.

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A difficult second novel? I’m about to find out!

19/2/2017

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When I was struggling to find a publisher for my first novel, if there was one thing that annoyed me more than advice to keep trying, you’ll get there if it’s good enough; it was moaning about the difficulty of producing a follow-up. While I’m not renowned for my glass-half-full mentality, I’m screaming first world problem to the power of ten. These writers were blessed with a burden I’d have willingly taken from their shoulders, so how do I feel now I’m about to release a second novel of my own?

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Family dynamics: Swimming Lessons & Our Magic Hour

26/1/2017

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I decided to pair these novels after reading blurbs suggesting both were about young women adapting to significant losses: the mother’s disappearance in Swimming Lessons and a close friend’s suicide in Our Magic Hour. But, on reading the latter, I felt the main character’s issues predated that particular tragedy, originating with a highly ambivalent mother in a difficult marriage. Unfortunately for the character, but very accommodating for my reading and blogging schedule, the same applies to the first novel. I hope one or both of these will appeal but, if not, you’ll find several other posts and reviews on the theme of family dynamics if you follow the link.

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Land and sea survival: Beast & Cove

18/1/2017

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I’m sharing my thoughts on two short books from independent publishers, in which a lone man, estranged from himself and the community he’s come from, has to fight for survival after being injured in a storm, the first on land and the other at sea.

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150 years of Chinese-Americans: The Fortunes by Peter Ho Davies

6/12/2016

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When I was growing up, it was said that every fourth child was Chinese. As the fourth child of a white working-class Catholic family, I saw no contradiction in applying that logic to myself. I don’t remember how and when I was disabused of this notion, but I imagine being disappointed. Although probably too young to have a concept of Chinese identity (I think it was prior to my family frequenting Chinese restaurants), the idea of being different made perfect sense. Perhaps that’s what attracts me to reading and writing about diversity, but the Chinese are still relatively unrepresented in my fictional world (Everything I Never Told You an exceptional exception). So, having enjoyed his debut, The Welsh Girl, I looked forward to having my horizons widened by Peter Ho Davies’ new novel about Chinese-American identity, courtesy of Sceptre Books.

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Two novels about “Everything”

27/11/2016

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Not really, of course! But I thought it would be fun to combine my reviews of two novels with “Everything” in the title, especially when both explore the nature of memory and require the reader to work a little harder to figure out who is speaking sometimes. Oh, and they both have blue covers!

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The aftermath of war in The Gun Room & Now and Again

10/11/2016

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These two novels explore the impact of two of America’s controversial wars (Vietnam and Iraq) on combatants, observers and their nearest and dearest.

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Hotels and expectations: Lover by Anna Raverat

16/10/2016

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Kate has a new job as an executive for a hotel chain and two young daughters when she discovers her husband is having an affair. As her marriage implodes, the pressure mounts in the workplace where Kate finds it increasingly difficult to reconcile the competing demands of caring for the guests and providing dividends to the shareholders.

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The Empress and the Cake & A Beautiful Young Wife

25/9/2016

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Two short reviews about two short European novels in translation, both shining a light on human disturbance, both of which I can recommend as a good read.