The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

The Guest Cat is a gentle, thoughtful read.  It is about a couple in their thirties who have lost their way and have stopped communicating with each other when a cat starts to visit them.  The uninvited guest keeps coming back and brings a cheerful respite in their daily grind.  They become attached to the animal closely observing its habits.  They look forward to the cat’s visits.  The author is a Japanese poet and the writing is lyrical.  The story has been translated from Japanese and offers a window to a different culture but, because of the translation, I think I missed some of the subtle messages the author was trying to get across.

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Set in London in 1922 and told from the point of view of Frances Wray, a woman in her twenties.  The story conveys the aftermath of war, how the class system is changing and how women are seizing these changes.  Frances would dearly love to be one of these women, but her sense of duty to her mother keeps her tied to the family home.  Her father has died and she has lost her beloved brothers in the war.  The Wrays are struggling to make ends meet.  They can no longer afford the luxury of servants and the daily chores of running the house falls to Frances.  We feel her resentment towards her father for his bad management of the family affairs.  Frances persuades her mother to take in some lodgers and the story begins with the arrival of Mr & Mrs Barber, a lively couple in their twenties.  At first the house feels strange with its new occupants and there are embarrassing moments when the daily minutia is played out such as accessing the outside toilet, but the bills have to be paid and the money is useful.  Frances is attracted to the colourful flighty Mrs Barber and, before long, the two become unlikely friends.  I liked the character of Frances – a woman keen to explore her sexuality, but reluctant to abandon her mother.  The descriptions are rich and vivid and I was easily transported to the place and time.    

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty

I am a big fan of psychological thrillers and this book didn’t disappoint. The story opens in a courtroom with the narrator, Yvonne Carmichael, in the dock.  Yvonne is fifty-two years old, an eminent scientist with a good marriage and two grown up children.  Throughout her life she has always done what has been expected of her.  Then, on a visit to the House of Commons to talk at a select committee and she embarks on a seedy affair.  The affair provides a thrilling distraction from her ordinary life.  Soon Yvonne becomes obsessed with her lover.  She doesn’t know much about him and draws her own conclusions to what his profession is.  Things start to unravel rapidly and it is clear from the opening of the story that the outcome is going to have devastating consequences.  I liked the style of writing - it is written in the second person, as though the narrator is talking directly to the reader, which creates a feeling of intimacy.  Sometimes I found myself questioning if Yvonne would act in such a way and then I would turn the page to find some backstory that made things slot into place and her actions more believable.    

The Sea Garden By Deborah Lawrenson

I was lucky to hear Deborah read extracts from The Sea Garden at the Parisot Literary Festival last month.  It was made the more poignant as I finished reading it on Armistice Day.  The Sea Garden is made up of three linked novellas.  The first story is set in the present day and is about Ellie Brooke a young woman recently widowed, who travels to Porquerolles, an island off France’s Azure Coast.  Ellie is a landscape gardener and has been asked by a wealthy, eccentric client to restore a memorial garden at the Domaine de Fayols.  All is not what it seems though and, in contrast to the beautiful island, there are some dark, mysterious happenings at the Domaine de Fayols.  

The second story is set in 1944 at the height of the resistance movement in Provence.  It is the story of Marthe Lincel, a trainee perfume maker, who is blind.  Marthe is a character from Deborah’s previous novel The Lantern.  This story culminates in a resistance night flight operation, which is fraught with tension. 

The third story begins in the Second World War and is about Iris Nightingale a junior intelligence officer.   This is different in that it follows Iris from her war days to the present day when she is in her nineties.  It is in this story that the link between the three women becomes clear.  I enjoyed this story the most because it tied up all the loose ends.  The cover of The Sea Garden is stunning and you can almost smell the lavender fields of Provence thanks to Deborah’s sensuous writing.

The Shore by Sara Taylor

I was lucky to hear Sara read extracts from The Shore, her debut novel, at the Parisot Literary Festival. The book was long-listed for the 2015 Bailey’s Prize.  The Shore is a book of thirteen interwoven short stories, the earliest of which is set in 1876 and the latest in the future, in 2143. The setting is The Shore, a collection of small islands off the coast of Virginia.   It is a dark read, dealing with abusive relationships, so it’s not for the faint-hearted.  There is a strong sense of place seen through the eyes of the different narrators.  The stories ebb and flow just like the sea, which is a huge part of island life.  I was blown away by the vivid descriptions and heart felt emotion, which seem so right for the particular narrator, the time and the place.  My only criticism would be that some of the stories have similar themes and many of the female characters seemed obsessed with motherhood.  The structure of using connected short stories is interesting and the fact that they are not written in chronological order means the reader has to do some work, which I liked.   Different viewpoint styles make the narrators voice distinctive with some stories written in the first person, some in the third person and one in the second person.  There is a family tree at the start of the book and I kept having to refer to this to see how all the different characters were linked, but this wasn’t a problem and I found it added to the overall intrigue and kept me turning the pages.  The first two stories were my favourite.  I could read this book again.  I look forward to reading more from this author.

The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse

The Taxidermist’s Daughter is a gothic thriller, set in 1912.  The story is told over a short time frame – just four days.  It is a story inspired by place, the village of Fishbourne in West Sussex with its marshes and wild weather and the reader gets a real sense of foreboding from the descriptions.   The heroine of the story is Connie Gifford, a young woman who, ten years before, had a serious accident resulting in amnesia.  Occasionally she glimpses moments from her past and these episodes always leave her bewildered and exhausted.  Her father was a famous taxidermist, but having turned to drink after Connie’s accident, and forced to sell his beloved museum, he no longer has the skills or the inclination to carry on.  Connie has inherited his gift and, although women aren’t meant to be taxidermists, practices the art successfully.  As the story unravels it becomes clear what happened on the night of Connie’s accident and what the consequences are.  I’ve been lucky to hear Kate Mosse talk about this novel at the Guildford Book Festival last year and at the Parisot Literary Festival last weekend, when she said she set out to write something completely different and had great fun writing it.  It is a bit gruesome in places, but an easy read.   

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Theo Decker is thirteen when his mother is killed in an explosion in a New York museum.  Theo miraculously survives the blast and, whilst he is recovering, unable to find his mother, he comforts a dying man.  The man gives him a signet ring and an address and urges Theo to take a famous work of art, The Goldfinch, a painting that his mother loved and had been admiring before the blast.  Alone in the world he is taken in by the wealthy parents of Andy, a school friend.  He settles down to some normality, but is still struggling to accept his mother’s death.  He goes to the address given to him and meets Hobie, an antiques dealer/restorer.  He gives Hobie the ring, but omits to tell him about the painting.  He starts to visit Hobie more and more and finds it is the only place he feels at peace.  The authorities manage to trace his alcoholic father who takes him to live in Las Vegas.   It is here Theo meets Boris and the binge drinking, drug taking and stealing begins. Over the years, Theo keeps the painting thinking of it as his one link to his mother.  It is the painting that later leads him into the criminal underworld. I found the characters, with the exception of Hobie and Andy, fairly unpleasant, but that was ok as I found Theo interesting.  It is told from Theo’s point of view so the reader feels the emotional turmoil he is going through.  A long read at nearly 800 pages, I found the first half of the book gripping; the second half less so, when I became a little frustrated and found myself skimming sections.  That said I’m looking forward to reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt.