Grand Central – by bestselling authors Melanie Benjamin, Jenna Blum, Amanda Hodgkinson, Pam Jenoff, Sarah Jio, Sarah McCoy, Kristina McMorris, Alyson Richman, Erika Robuck and Karen White

A collection of post war stories set on the same day in September 1945 and in the same place Grand Central Terminal, New York. The stories are written in a mixture of styles, some written in first and some in third person. I enjoyed all of them. Each story stands alone, but also picks out a character or two from the previous story, which I thought was cleverly done. I liked the fluid feel to each story, which captured the sense of place with everyone on the move, some coming home from the war, some embarking on a new life and others escaping their past.

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

The story opens in 1961 when sixteen year old Laurel Nicolson witnesses a shocking event concerning her mother Dorothy, and a stranger. She and her mother are the only ones who know the truth, but it has never been discussed. The story then jumps forward fifty years and Laurel, who is now a famous actress in her sixties, has been summoned to the family home as her mother is dying. Laurel has always been haunted by the shocking event and, before her mother dies, she wants answers. The story then alternates between 2011 and 1941.  The chapters in 2011 are narrated by Laurel, but the 1941 chapters are narrated by Dorothy, her boyfriend Jimmy and her friend Vivien. I especially enjoyed the chapters from Vivien’s point of view. I found myself skipping pages as I felt there was a lot of overwriting with lots of unnecessary scenes. I am glad I had the patience to finish this book because the twist at the end was worth it.

Before We Met by Lucie Whitehouse

Before We Met is a thriller based on the secrets within a marriage.  It also explores the relationship between siblings.  The narrator, Hannah Reilly is happily married after a whirlwind romance - she met her husband Mark while he was on a business trip in the US and she was living there.  Now they have moved to his luxurious London home.  Mark is a successful businessman running his own software company and is away on business quite a bit.  Hannah is coming to terms with married life and the loss of her financial independence as she struggles to find a job.  The story opens with Hannah waiting at Heathrow for the arrival of Mark who is flying back from New York.  As the passengers file through arrivals we feel Hannah’s anticipation and then gradually the feeling is replaced by worry as Mark fails to arrive.  The worry is intensified as Hannah tries unsuccessfully to contact him.  The worry is later replaced by suspicion as Hannah searches for clues as to why Mark has failed to arrive.  I found it a fast paced read.       

Kind of Cruel by Sophie Hannah

This is the first Sophie Hannah book I have read and it won't be the last.  Amber Hewerdine is suffering from insomnia and goes to see a hypnotherapist not expecting it to help.  She is obsessed by an event that happened several years earlier when her sister-in-law, Jo, rented a large house, Little Orchard, for the whole extended family to stay one Christmas.  While there, Jo, her husband and their two sons went missing for 24 hours on Christmas day.  They returned unharmed, but no mention was made of it again.  While under hypnosis Amber utters the words ‘kind, cruel, kind of cruel’ – these words mean nothing to her, but as the story unfolds she realises she has seen the words before.  She thinks she must have seen them at Little Orchard.  She is arrested two hours later as a result of having said the words.  The words are somehow connected with the murder of woman Amber has never met or heard of.  I liked the intrigue from the start.  The story is mostly narrated by Amber, but there are also chapters narrated by the hypnotherapist.  I was a little disappointed by the end.    

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

Winner of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize.  The story is a fictionalised autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett.  The novel details Daisy’s long, at times mundane, life.  It is structured in ten chapters starting with her Birth in Canada in 1905 and ending with her death in a nursing home in Florida.   I liked the use of different narrative voices and devices – it is written in a mix of first person, third person and uses letters, lists, tributes to tell the story.  The book contains a family tree and family photographs to complete the biographical feel.  I enjoyed more sections than others.    

The Other Side Of The Bridge By Mary Lawson

The story is set in a rural community in Canada in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.  It is a book about relationships.  The story revolves around the Dunn family farm.  We know from the beginning that Arthur Dunn and his younger brother Jake have always had a turbulent relationship.   Ian, who is fifteen, goes to work on the Dunn’s farm to escape the tensions of his home life and because he has a schoolboy infatuation with Arthur’s beautiful wife, Laura.  Ian becomes adept at helping on the farm and gradually gets to know and respect the sometimes reticent Arthur.   Everything seems peaceful on the farm until the day that Jake comes home.   The chapters alternate between Arthur’s point of view in the 1930s and Ian’s point of view in the 1950s.  

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore

I found this a dark sad tale.  The loneliness seeps from the book.  The story opens with Futh as he sets out on a ferry for Germany.  He is newly separated from his wife and is taking a restorative walking holiday in Germany.  Futh is awkward and not good at handling emotions or social situations.  As he walks he contemplates.  He remembers his childhood, his mother, father and wife.  The book is permeated with smells and these act as triggers for Futh’s memory.  Interspersed with Futh’s narrative we hear Ester, another lonely person looking for affection.  Their paths cross when Futh spends the first night of his walking holiday at Hellhaus, the hotel Ester runs with her husband Bernard.  Their paths cross again at the end of the book.  It is a short read at 182 pages.  I enjoyed it and found it a thought provoking read.

The Art of Falling by Deborah Lawrenson

Set in Italy the story opens with Isabel Wainwright as she embarks on a trip to the town of Petriano.  Her father, Tom Wainwright, arrived in the town in 1944 as a British soldier, just as the Second World War was coming to an end.  Here he got to know the Parini family and fell in love with their eldest daughter, Giuliana. It was here that he saved a child’s life from a bombed building.  To honour his heroism the town want to rename a piazza after him and Isabel goes to Italy to accept the honour on her father’s behalf.  She struggles to explain to the people who so warmly welcome her that she doesn’t know whether her father is dead or alive because her father left home twenty years ago, when she was seventeen, and he hasn’t been heard of since.  He went out one day and never came back and she and her embittered mother, Patricia, have been trying to come to terms with this fact ever since.  Isabel remembers that her father was infatuated with the Leaning Tower of Pisa so it is here she goes in the hope of retracing his footsteps and to learn more about him.  Here she meets Matteo and falls in love.  The book alternates between the point of view of Isabel in the present and Tom in the past.  The descriptions of Italy were magical.  A thoroughly enjoyable read.

Friday Nights by Joanna Trollop

Friday nights have become a regular meeting time for six women of different ages and from different backgrounds.  The nights were first started by Eleanor a former senior administrator and now retired with time on her hands.  She chose to live a single life concentrating on her career and now realises she doesn’t have many friends.  She is an astute observer of people and spots two lonely single mothers and suggests they meet up for a drink at her house.   As they get to know each other their group expands.  They become friends and learn to rely on each other.  Then Paula, one of the members of the group, meets a man, Jackson, whom she introduces to her friends and things are never the same.   I liked the way Joanna Trollop seamlessly flitted between all the different points of view.  

The House at Zaronza by Vanessa Couchman

This is the first novel by Vanessa Couchman.  The story opens with Rachel Swift who arrives in Corsica to find out more about her Corsican grandmother, whom she never knew.  While staying at a guesthouse she discovers some passionate love letters that the proprietor found when he was restoring the house.  The letters are unsigned and simply addressed to Maria.  They captivate Rachel’s imagination and, in her quest to find more, she ends up meeting an old woman who gives her Maria’s memoir to read.    The story is then Maria’s as the reader is taken on the journey of her life from the confines of a strict bourgeois family to France and the horrors of WW1, where she nurses the wounded.  There is a strong sense of place in Vanessa’s writing, which I loved.  The descriptions of Corsica are beautiful.   I’m very much looking forward to reading Vanessa’s next book.  

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter is about the consequences of one action and the effect that it will have on many lives.   The story starts in 1964 with Dr David Henry forced to deliver his wife’s baby as the obstetrician is unavailable.  Dr David Henry is a specialist in bone and joint surgery, but with the help of his colleague, nurse Gill, he knows he can deliver his baby safely.    But what he doesn’t know is that his wife, Norah, is expecting twins.  David’s son Paul is born a healthy boy.  At this point Norah is exhausted and doesn’t know what is happening.  He delivers the second baby, a girl.  It is obvious to Dr Henry that she has Down’s syndrome.  He instructs nurse Gill to take his daughter to a home where she can be brought up.  When his wife wakes he tells her that she had twins, but the little girl died.  This one action will haunt David for the rest of his life.  The story unfolds following the lives of David, Norah, Caroline Gill and the two children Paul and Phoebe.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading it for the second time.  

The Parisot Literary Festival 2014

The Parisot Literary Festival was such a resounding success last year that it is back this year on 10, 11 and 12 October. Among the authors appearing is Vanessa Couchman who will be presenting her debut novel, The House at Zaronza.  Amanda Hodgkinson, who gave an entertaining and informative talk last year on her first novel, 22 Britannia Road, is returning this year to talk about her second novel, Spilt Milk.    Information on all the authors speaking at the event can be found here.  

Mourning Ruby By Helen Dunmore

Another story about loss (I seem to be reading a lot of them at the moment!)  Rebecca was abandoned as a baby so her past is unknown.  She is brought up by indifferent adoptive parents.   She becomes friends with Joe, a writer, and moves in with him.  They have a complex relationship, platonic, but deeper than mere friendship.  It is through Joe that she meets and marries Adam.   Shortly after their marriage she gives birth to Ruby and the three of them settle into family life.   I read on with a sense of trepidation knowing at some point Ruby was going to die.  The story is mostly narrated by Rebecca, although there are a couple of chapters where we hear the voices of Adam and Joe.  Helen Dunmore describes the loss of Ruby in a sensitive, heart-wrenching, realistic way.  After the loss of Ruby, Rebecca’s relationship with Adam falls apart and she starts a new life working for Mr Damiano, a former circus performer who runs a chain of hotels.  Rebecca learns more about Mr Damiano, who has an interesting past.  Rebecca tries to lose herself in this job, travelling the world.   It is on one of her business trips that the plane has to make an emergency landing and Rebecca thinks she sees Ruby.   She decides she needs to leave her job, realising she hasn’t dealt with the loss of her daughter at all.  The story is told in a disjointed fashion flitting from past to present.  Part two of the novel is about the story Joe is writing.  He has sent a draft to Rebecca for her to read.  I didn’t see the point of this as it only had a tenuous link to the rest of the story.  

Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty

The story opens with the news that Laura and David’s nine year old daughter, Betty, has been knocked over and killed as she made her way back from school.   We learn this on the first page.   Laura is the narrator.  The story explores the impact that Betty’s death has on Laura and those around her.   It is written in first person so immediately we get a sense of Laura’s anguish and confusion.  Her pain is palpable.   We are privy to her thoughts as she looks back to the events that led up to the tragedy.  Her relationship with David is also examined.  Another hook is introduced early on when a reference is made to an anonymous letter.  It turns out that Laura has been receiving these sinister letters for some time.  Slowly as the fog of pain starts to clear Laura learns who was responsible for the death of her child.  The reader is taken on Laura’s journey as she seeks answers and ultimately revenge.    I found it a real page turner.  Incidentally, I read Louise Doughty’s non-fiction book “A Novel in a Year,” a few years ago and it is well worth a read if you are thinking of writing a novel.  I now want to read Apple Tree Yard.

Marlford by Jacqueline Yallop

I was lucky to hear Jacqueline Yallop read extracts of this book at an author reading at the library in Parisot, Tarn-et-Garonne.   The book is set in 1969.  The main character, Ellie Barton is a young woman who has grown up in a crumbling manor house.   She has led a sheltered life, her only companions being her ancient father, Ernest, Oscar Quersley who works on the estate and runs the memorial library with Ellie, and three old men who live on the estate.  Ellie’s grandfather was a philanthropist who built Marlford the village, but the family money has long since dried up and everything is in a state of decay.  Then one day two radical young men, Dan and Gadiel, show up at the manor.  Their arrival is the impetus for the change that has been building within Ellie.  Dan and Gadiel decide to set up a squat in a disused wing of the manor.   Ellie has been protected from the outside world, cocooned and controlled by the men on the estate.   It is Ellie’s unworldliness that attracts both Dan and Gadiel and it is they who open Ellie’s eyes to the wider world.  I found the setting well drawn, the descriptions dark and some of the characters unsettling.  

The Light Behind the Window by Lucinda Riley

The main characters in this story are Emilie de la Martiniéres and Constance Carruthers.  The story alternates between the 1990s and 1943/44.    It opens with Emilie who is finalising the affairs of her mother’s estate.   Emilie, an only child, has inherited the family fortune, including a chateau in the South of France.  Emilie’s parents had always seemed distant to her.  Her father, who was a lot older than her mother, died when she was young and her mother was too busy socialising to give Emilie any attention.  Emilie had turned her back on her aristocracy ancestry to forge a career as a vet.   In the opening chapters, I found the character of Emilie too gullible and a little unbelievable.  However, her character does improve once the story progresses.   Emilie is finding the prospect of sorting out the chateau daunting and, when she meets Sebastian Carruthers, he feels like her knight in shining armour.  He tells her that his grandmother knew Emilie’s family. 

In 1943, Constance Carruthers, a young office clerk, is drafted into the Special Operations Executive and arrives in occupied Paris.  Unfortunately the members of the resistance team she is meant to be helping have disbanded or been arrested by the Gestapo.  She ends up at a safe house belonging to Edouard de la Martiniéres and is forced to masquerade as Edouard’s cousin for her own safety and his. 

As Emilie sorts out the family affairs and begins to unravel the family’s past she eventually discovers how Sebastian’s family and hers are connected. 

The end was tied up a little too neatly for me, but I found it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story.  It was an easy enjoyable read.

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

A friend lent me this book.  It is not my usual read, but I always like discovering authors I have never read before.  The novel was first published in 1952/3 and is semi-autobiographical.  It explores the role of the Christian Church in the lives of African-Americans.  It is a short book, but is packed with emotional and racial tension.  The story is set in Harlem in 1935.  The book is divided into three sections.  “The Seventh Day,” which focusses on John Grimes, who is 14 and is debating whether or not to turn away from his father’s religion; He is afraid of his father, Gabriel, who is a preacher, but has a secret sinful past.   The second section, “The Prayers of the Saints,” depicts a revival church service where we glimpse the past life of John’s aunt Florence, his father Gabriel and his mother Elizabeth.  Florence was my favourite character - strong and feisty.  In the last section, “The Threshing-Floor,” John is possessed by the spirit and is saved – or is he?   I now want to read Giovanni’s Room also by James Baldwin.

Plain Truth By Jodi Picoult

I found this an enjoyable read and I learnt something about the Amish way of life.  The book opens with Katie Fisher, an Amish girl, awakening from a dream about her dead sister.  Her sister drowned whilst skating on the lake and Katie blames herself for her death as she was with her.  Katie is in pain and realises she is in labour.  She goes down to the barn so as not to disturb her family.  She has refused to acknowledge that she is pregnant and has managed to hide the pregnancy from her family and friends.  Alone in the barn she gives birth to a little boy.  She prays to God for guidance and exhausted she falls asleep.  When she wakes the infant is gone.    It as if her prayer has been answered and she was never pregnant.  The dead infant is discovered later that morning.  Katie swears she has no idea how the baby died and that it is nothing to do with her.  It is obvious from medical examinations that she has just given birth and that the infant was hers.  The whole community is in shock.   Ellie Hathaway, a disillusioned big-city attorney, comes to Paradise, Pennsylvania to stay with her aunt and uncle – her aunt used to be Amish.  She ends up defending Katie and two cultures collide.  I saw the twist coming at the end a long time before it did and, although I thought it was a little unrealistic, it didn’t detract from the story as a whole.  

Fair Exchange by Michèle Roberts

The story opens with a confession.  Fearing she is about to die, Louise Daudry, a French peasant woman calls for the priest to tell him her secret.  In order to confess she needs to start her tale from the beginning.  The story, told from different narrative points of view, is about the consequences of one foolish act.   The imagery of food and French rural life is fantastic, although I felt the story could have gone deeper.   I wanted to know more about the time the story was set, i.e. the French Revolution.  I also felt the characters were too modern for the setting and not as fully formed as they could have been.  The story was inspired by the lives and the affairs of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Wordsworth. I read Daughters of the House by Michele Roberts a few years ago and I preferred that book to this one.  

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Harold Fry has just retired.  He is wondering what to do with his day.  His wife, Maureen is hovering upstairs, when a letter arrives in a pink envelope addressed to Harold.  The letter is from Queenie Hennessy, an old work colleague of Harold’s.  Harold opens the envelope under the watchful eye of Maureen.  Queenie is writing from a hospice where she is dying of cancer. She has written to say goodbye.   Harold writes a short reply and goes out to post it, all the while thinking his reply is inadequate.  He hesitates at the first post box and decides to walk to the next one.  In the end he decides to walk to Queenie. On his pilgrimage of 627 miles he meets some colourful characters.  As he walks he thinks about his past, of the things he has left unsaid or undone.  It is a story about the importance of relationships.  I found it laugh out loud funny at times and at others incredibly sad.  I enjoyed it, but felt the pace lagged in places, especially when he is joined by the other pilgrims.

The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd

In 1903 Mary Mackenzie sails from Scotland to China to marry Richard Collingsworth, whom she barely knows.  She describes the voyage through letters and diary entries.   They marry shortly after her arrival and move into a house in Peking.  Richard has strict ideas and doesn’t allow Mary any money or freedom – a familiar picture for women at the beginning of the 20^th century.  Richard is the British military attaché and as such his job takes him away from Mary for long periods of time.   It is shortly after the Boxer uprising and tensions are still running high.  Mary has just had their first child, a little girl.   She is bored, alone for a lot of this time in a strange culture.  It is on one of Richard’s long absences that she has an affair with Count Kurihama, who is serving in the Japanese army.   She falls pregnant with his child.  Richard returns months later to discover his wife is carrying another man’s child and not just any man, but a Japanese man.  He throws her out of the house refusing to allow her to take their daughter.  With help from the Count she moves to Japan where she gives birth to a son.  She settles in Japan and The Ginger Tree tells her fascinating story of survival in an alien culture.  The whole story is written in the form of diary entries or letters in such a realistic way that Mary seems real and not a fictional character.  The reader is privy to Mary’s secrets and inner thoughts.  Of course the reader only gets to hear Mary’s side of the story and I would have liked to know what the other characters were feeling.   The only downside for me was the leap from 1928 to 1941.  Mary’s voice is convincing and the language used perfect for the era.   I discovered this book while browsing through travel guides in Stanfords Book Shop in London.  I’m so pleased to have found it as I know I will read it again and again.  The book is published by Eland.

The Railway Man by Eric Lomax

Published in 1995, is the true story of Eric Lomax’s experience during the Second World War.   The first two chapters set the scene of life for an ordinary boy growing up in Scotland and his love of trains.   These first chapters are in stark contrast to the rest of the book.  At the age of 20 Lomax joins the Royal Corps of Signals and is in Singapore during the Second World War when it falls to the Japanese. Captured, he is taken to a POW camp in Kanburi, Thailand.  The camp is on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway.   To start with the POW camp in Kanburi is fairly relaxed and Lomax is among a group of POWs who, because of their technical knowledge, are needed to work in the camp’s workshops repairing engines.  Slowly the tension increases as more and more POWs are sent to work on building the railway track itself.   Lomax and his fellow workers get over confident and steal components to make a crude radio in order that they can hear the news and follow the progress of the war.  They set up communication channels with men passing on news bulletins further up the line.  The radio is discovered and Lomax has to face the brutality of his Japanese captors.   The story is told in a measured, honest way.  I found the scenes of torture hard to read, but the story isn’t just about suffering, it is about the camaraderie between the prisoners and their courage.  It also highlights the strength of the human spirit.   Lomax survives his ordeal and the war ends.  Lomax’s physical wounds start to heal, but the mental scars of torture don’t and so, with an unexpected sadness, the reader is taken on Lomax’s journey back home where he is expected to pick up the pieces of his old life and carry on.  It is, at times, a harrowing read.  It never ceases to amaze me the brutality humans can inflict on each other, but the climax to the story is uplifting as Lomax faces one of his tormentors.  The story of their meeting is told in a measured, unsentimental way and shows the power of forgiveness.  It is an extremely moving read.       

Spilt Milk by Amanda Hodgkinson

The story begins in 1913 on the banks of a river in Suffolk with three sisters, Rose, Vivian and Nellie Marsh.  Rose has raised Vivian and Nellie and they live a simple, almost reclusive life in their cottage by the river.  It turns out that Rose had secrets of her own.  The death of Rose and the arrival of a stranger causes conflict between the two remaining sisters forcing them apart.  But Nellie can’t stay away from the river for long and returns in time to save Vivian, but not Vivian’s new born baby.  Nellie buries the baby in the river to avoid any questions and scandal.  This one impulsive act will remain a secret between the sisters, casting a shadow over their future.  Vivian and Nellie had promised Rose that they would never marry and would always stay together in the cottage by the river.    With the arrival of war, things change forever.  The sisters marry and move away, leaving their simple life and home by the river.  It takes Birdie, Nellie’s daughter, to close the circle and to finally bring peace to all their lives. 

Cultural references are used such as films, music, fashion to indicate each new decade with great effect.  The story covers a much longer period than Amanda’s first novel, 22 Britannia Road, and hence there are more characters, all realistically drawn.  Amanda’s prose is beautiful.  I like the way that the story starts and finishes with the river in flood. 

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable read.              

The Siege by Helen Dunmore

The Siege is set in Leningrad.  The story begins in the spring of 1941 with twenty three year-old Anna who is reminiscing about her childhood as she plants vegetables for the winter at the family’s Dacha (country home).  Anna’s mother died giving birth to her younger brother, Koyla and now Anna is responsible for five year-old Koyla and her father, a dissident writer.  As spring turns to summer German forces invade and the family retreat to the City.  The people of Leningrad fight back, but their desperate attempts are overthrown by the might of the German army and soon German forces surround Leningrad and major supply routes are cut.  Winter arrives.  The story follows Anna and her loved ones as they struggle to survive as food and fuel run out.  I found the descriptions of the peoples’ battle to survive extremely moving.  The narrative point of view jumps around a bit too much for me.  The reader gets to hear a lot of characters’ voices, but I felt I didn’t really get to know any of them and I would have preferred to stay with Anna’s point of view.   It is a piece of history I knew little about and I found it an interesting and poignant read. 

Espedair Street by Iain Banks

This is one of Iain Banks’ earlier novels.  It is about Daniel Weir or Weird (Weir.D) as he is known.  Daniel is a famous rock-star who, in his early thirties, has retired from the limelight and now lives in a church in Glasgow.  He is tall, gangly and clumsy so not your normal pop star material.  We join Daniel as he reminisces about his hedonistic days on the road.  The tale switches between the past and the present where we follow him on his drunken escapades with his heavy-drinking working-class pals who don’t know his true identity.  We see Daniel struggling with the guilt he feels for various things that have happened in the past.  In the end he meets up with his first love.  It is a short book, but felt long to me as I didn’t enjoy it.  I don’t think I cared enough about, or particularly liked any of the characters.  I found the characters were similar to those in "The Steep Approach to Garbandale," which I enjoyed.  It has left me wondering if all Iain Banks’ novels are written using the same type of characters.      

The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason

I saved this book from being put in a rubbish bin.  I’m so pleased I did.   It is 1886 and Edgar Drake has been summoned by her Majesty’s Government to go to Burma to tune a rare Erard grand piano.  The piano is owned by the infamous surgeon-major Anthony Carroll.  As Drake embarks on his voyage, leaving behind his beloved wife Katherine, he learns much about himself.  His eyes are opened by the journey, by the Burmese and by an exotic elusive woman called Khin Myo.  Drake is very much out of his comfort zone and It is not long before he feels a changed man.  Daniel Mason’s writing is evocative of Burma at a time of British colonial power. His writing is gentle, yet compelling. I particularly liked the penultimate paragraph where Drake’s memories of both the women he loved merge under the image of a parasol.  The book stayed with me long after I had finished it.  I’ve just found out he has written a second book, A Far Country, which I will add to my reading list!   

Another World by Pat Barker

This is a dark tale of a modern dysfunctional family.  Nick and Fran have moved to an old Victorian house on the edge of a rough estate.  They are hoping the bigger house will give them the room they need to reconcile the different strands of their respective families.  The story opens with Nick going to meet his teenage daughter who is coming to stay with them while her mother, his first wife, recovers from an illness.  Meanwhile, the heavily pregnant Fran is trying to cope with their toddler, Jasper and her eleven year-old son, Gareth.  Gareth has behavioural problems and is jealous of Nick and his step-brother.  On top of all this Nick’s grandfather, Geordie, a First World War veteran, is dying and it falls on Nick to help care for him in his final days, thus leaving Fran to cope with all the conflict on her own.  Whilst redecorating the house the family uncover a sinister painting of the Fanshawe family the previous Victorian occupants of the house.  Nick can’t stop thinking about the grotesque painting and researches the Fanshawe family only to discover that the youngest Fanshawe child died in horrific circumstances.  At times, Nick fears that history may be repeating itself.  Meanwhile, he sits by his grandfather’s bedside and tries to alleviate Geordie's suffering as Geordie struggles to lay his own ghosts to rest.  I enjoyed seeing the situation through all the character’s eyes and the different narrative viewpoints were handled in a seamless way.  The writing is dark, but there is humour too.  The characters were strong and believable.  The story could have ended in a more brutal way, but I’m glad it didn’t.   I thoroughly enjoyed  Pat Barker’s writing style.