The Catherine Howard Conspiracy by Alexandra Walsh

A new trilogy set in the mysterious Marquess House in Pembrokeshire, this is part narrated from the point of view of Perdita Rivers, a jewelry expert who inherits the house from her estranged grandmother, and partly from the point of view of Catherine Howard. Whilst I didn't always agree with the portrayal of the historical figures, for example Henry portrayed as a brutal wife beater, I appreciated that whenever the author could she used historical fact, which she explains in the footnote, and she has obviously done her research.   Walsh believes that Catherine was misrepresented by history and was not the airheaded flirt that she has been portrayed as, and I could see her reasoning and wanted to learn more. Of particular note was the idea that she had a cordial relationship with Anne of Cleaves whom she taught to dance. Some of the conspiracy elements seemed a little far-fetched at times, but it did add to the excitement of the novel and I both enjoyed reading it and wanted to read the next in the series. Perdita is an interesting character and I'm looking forward to finding out what is happening with Kit. The Catherine Howard parts were well written from a historical perspective and from the character perspective. You really feel for her as she is forced to marry the repugnant Henry to assist her power grabbing family and it's evident that whether or not he was a wife beater, he did suffer from memory issues. This is available on Kindle Unlimited and I would recommend it for readers who enjoy conspiracy theories, alternative history and historical fiction/contemporary fiction.

Best Man by Chris Delyani

More LGTBQ+ than the slash fic I often read. This is a serious, often bittersweet romantic novel from the point of view of Frank, a man who has never got over a romantic attachment for a friend and Julio, who is Frank's housemate since he divorced. Poor Frank is in a rather woeful state, locking himself up in his house avoiding Julio, so he is thrown into confusion when Jonathan turns up in his life again planning a wedding to his evil boyfriend Marcus who utterly hates Frank. Julio on the other hand is busy crushing on Marcus at his yoga classes unaware that Marcus is engaged. As a favour for Frank, Julio pretends to be his boyfriend to Jonathan and Marcus. 

I liked the characters in this book and the way that the plot kept me guessing, I thought that the first person narrative worked well in the way that the characters were not necessarily what Frank and Julio thought they were. They are all very human and every one of them does things that they are ashamed of (or should be ashamed of!). I loved the way that Frank and Julio grew as people. This is not an explicit book, but I didn't feel like it needed it, this is a beautifully told story. 

Romanov by Nadine Brandes

A book that I would have probably liked better when I was younger. Brandes takes the story of the last few months of the Romanov's lives and adds magic and a romance between Anastasia and a guard called Zash. She had obviously researched the period thoroughly, but I wasn't entirely convinced by the magical elements. To me it felt like an unfortunate hybrid between real history and fantasy. The magic and the secret magical history of Russia wasn't really explained, and it was as if you were diving into a second book in a series. I wanted a bit more world building and description. Why did the Bolsheviks ban magic? However, this may have been a deliberate choice to normalise the magic elements.

The first part takes place in the quarters where the family is held and can be quite dry at times, contrasting with the fast pace of the second part. First part Nastya is actually quite annoying, but I think she's probably quite true to life!

Anyway, I just want to say that whilst this wasn't my cup of tea, it does have some charming elements particularly in the second half and would probably appeal much more to fans of ya fantasy/magic novels with a romantic twist. This is not a genre I tend to read much of though (I am so old and decrepit ya didn't really exist when I was a young adult!).

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray

I listened to the audiobook of this, which I thought was extremely well done with some really good narrators.

The story centres around a family of three sisters, Althea, Violet and Lilian, and their extended family and how they cope when Althea and her husband are sent to jail for fraud, leaving their two daughters in limbo. Even worse, Althea and Proctor are hated by the community where they live.

The story is narrated first person by the sisters, and in letters from Proctor to Althea. The sisters, along with their brother who is not as prevalent in the story, have all been affected by their unhappy childhood after their mother died leaving them to be looked after by their stern father. Althea has married her childhood sweetheart Procter, and is kind of a pillar of the community until she gets caught, although she has a difficult relationship with her daughter Kim. Lilian lives in the house where she grew up, widowed and caring for her late husband's grandmother. Violet is separated from her wife and struggling with anorexia and bulimia. The brother Joe is the only person who seems to have got off without becoming miserable and he and his wife are pillars of the church. Kim is mixed up and feels like Althea hates her due to her mother's strict attitude to her, and Baby Vi shows signs that she is becoming anorexic as well. Althea refuses to see the girls and Kim feel like it is because she hates her.

Food and hunger is a major theme of the book, as is the imagery of a river that Althea keeps going back to in her mind. The sisters are all forced by circumstances to take responsibility for themselves and their own happiness. The characters are beautifully crafted and you really feel as if you know them and will miss them after the book is finished. Aside from the sisters, I thought the characters in the prison where Althea is incarcerated were great, and Ni Ni the Korea grandmother living in the family home was so fantastically narrated by the voice of Lilian, she really brought her to life. Althea's daughters Kim and Baby Vi also provide pivotal roles to the story.

This was a brilliant book that I really enjoyed listening to, full of beautiful little touches. It explores the history of the characters in detail and why they are the way that they are.

Region 6 by Ian James Krender

Reading alternative history books, a genre I enjoy, the most important thing is to create a believable set up. I think Krender's set up is believable and he creates a vivid dystopian alternative timeline where the Nazis have won the war and have turned 1980s Britain into Region 6, an entirely Nazi controlled outpost where the populace are controlled with water additives to affect behaviour and the people who are not affiliated with the occupiers live and work in dreadful conditions. The story follows Thomas, who is one of the people who lives in a slum and works in a TV factory, and Stephen who has wealthy parents who gift him Nazi party membership for his birthday. Stephen has a good education, living parents and a good life but both men are struggling with forbidden homosexuality. When Thomas becomes involved in a resistance organisation, Stephen is sent to investigate him and the two men form a relationship.

This is not a particularly detailed depiction of their relationship and there are no sex scenes as such. I thought the characters well drawn and their motives well thought out. Thomas in particular is a character who is a bit rough around the edges and seems believable. I liked the way that the resistance fighters were depicted, and it made me think about how we consider terrorists. The plot is good too, although I think the end seemed a little rushed. Overall though I thought this was a very promising novel and I would read more by the author.

#guiltyreadingpleasures

Only kidding, I don't think we should feel ashamed of what we read (except tentacle porn 😉). I'm just talking about the go to books when you can't face anything else. Sometimes it's re-reads for me, but most often it’s m/m fiction from Kindle Unlimited, oozing with angst and sexy times! My favourite author is Sloane Kennedy, but I will read anything that takes my fancy. I don’t take it too seriously though, as with all romantic fiction it has it’s cliches (I constantly roll my eyes at how easy it is to find the prostate). My ratings are based on what I enjoy the best of the genre. IMHO don’t bother rating it if you are just going to sneer at it!

This Saturday was a slash fiction kind of day so I took the opportunity to try a new author, in this case Alessandra Hazard’s Straight Guys series. Short novels linked to one another on the theme of straight men realising they are attracted to men.

Just a Bit Twisted is the tale of Shawn, a college boy who has been left to look after his two four year old twin sister’s since his parents died. He somehow ends up pimping himself to his professor, the chilly Derek Rutledge. Okay, so the beginnings of their relationship does require some suspension of disbelief as Derek puts himself in an incredibly dangerous position but hell I liked both the characters and what she did with them, and I thought the sex was hot! Shawn struggles with his attraction but continually tries to act in a dignified way, especially about the money. The story is from his point of view but we do get to explore why Derek is so cold and against relationships. It left me wanting more. The only criticism I really had was the absence of proper lube in the sex!

Just a Bit Obsessed is the tale of Alexander who is pretty much forced into a threesome with his girlfriend and Christian (friends with Shawn from book 1 of Straight Guys). His girlfriend is bizarre and completely self-obsessed, Alexander REALLY DOESN’T WANT to do a threesome, he has some major issues with his father staying with his mother whilst still dicking around with men. He’s a bit of a control freak too. Yet she still forces him into it as she has a crush on Christian. She’s majorly turned on when he finally loosens up enough to kiss Christian then is surprised when it all goes sour and he only has eyes for the other man! Good characters, some hot sex and it left me wanting more.

The Dollmaker by Nina Allan

A wonderful novel of a dollmaker travelling to meet a woman whom he has fallen in love with who lives in a kind of home for people who are suffering from mental illnesses. The novel combines the story from Andrew Garvie’s perspective, the letters Bramber writes to him telling her about her day to day life and her past, and the beguiling short stories Andrew is reading by the fictional author and dollmaker Ewa Chaplin.

The short stories are original in the way that they leap straight into the stories as if they are almost novels in their own right, and they are full of magic realist wonders, transgressive love stories and populated by little people and people with disabilities and disfigurements. Andrew himself is exceptionally short and I think the way that the characters are portrayed is really well executed. Andrew comes to wonder if the stories are actually influencing his own plot as he sees the similarities in the stories he is reading with what he is currently doing.

Whilst Bramber is afflicted by a sense of guilt Andrew has his own demons to contend with - I liked the parts where he has discussions in his head with the doll ‘the Artist’ who orders him around. This is a magical book I devoured. 

The Trouble with Goodreads and a Review of the Passing Tribute

I recently completed an ARC of this on #Pigeonhole 
It was rather a departure for them and not as well received as many of the books on there which I thought was rather disappointing. A few of the readers complained it was “too wordy” and not for them, so gave it up quickly, which is fair enough. However, what I thought was highly unfair was the subsequent one star reviews on Goodreads, particularly by people who didn't even finish it.

The book currently has an average review of two stars. One of the reviewers has complained that the author should basically be resigned to any level of criticism after he reported her review for spoilers. This must be the ultimate punch in the gut after she's had the opportunity to read his book for free. I can't say that I would feel comfortable doing that even if I disliked the book. I'll write an honest review wherever I can but I have to acknowledge the effort someone has put into it. Maybe if it was poorly edited or factually incorrect or problematic maybe you would be justified, but not on the basis that it was too hard for you to read!

Sorry guys, that's the way it is.

Anyway, on to the review. Yes, this is not a casual read. The author has experimented with the postmodern idea of avoiding 'the tyranny of plot’, comparing this to the work of Virginia Woolf. There are overarching themes and things that happened, but they are not linked together, this is to give a more naturalistic feel to the story. A series of impressions to give a feeling of what is happening. It particularly suits the settings of post war England and Vienna with the themes of desolation and rebuilding. It's an incredibly lyrical, poetic story which does use some words considered archaic or obscure, but I think it's justified. This is a story about two brothers, one living in England, the other in Vienna.

I thought the parts of the story set in Vienna worked better, particularly due to the character of Millie, who works as some light relief in what could have become rather a heavy story. In contrast, I found Richard's parts a bit more difficult due to his relationship with Helene who is enigmatic to the point that I didn't feel like I could get to grips with either her character or their relationship. I feel like I may have read it a bit too quickly and that maybe Pigeonhole didn't really work as a platform for it. This is the kind of book to savour the language, to re-read and to go back to previous parts to link it all together in your mind. It's not really a page turner, but can anybody really say that postmodern novels are? However, the fear of people giving poor reviews should never put an author off experimenting, else we would all still be reading the proto novels of people like Richardson and Defoe or confining ourselves to the same type of books time and time again.I hope that the poor reviews don't put people off reading it.

The Passengers by John Marrs

A very clever set up leads to a fantastic thriller full of twists and turns and unexpected moments.

Set in a future not unlike the present where society has come to rely on autonomous cars to the extent that the government is outlawing the use of non autonomous cars; Libby is participating in a jury considering if an autonomous car is responsible for killing some pedestrians or if it was their own fault when someone hacks into the cars and takes control. What follows is a rollercoaster ride where the jury are forced to decide who lives and who dies. This is all made worse by the inevitable online publicity, and a great feature of this book is online snippets that add to the realistic feel of the novel.

The characters are well drawn and there are some great funny moments particularly with the aging actress trapped in a car who has no idea what's going on. I think the author has made great use of his former experiences of writing articles about celebrities!

Whilst this is a really entertaining read, it does also make you think about reliance on technology and how it can encourage snap judgments based on little more than how a person appears and a mob mentality. The inquest where the jury are deciding is attended by an expert who is more excited by the online stats generated by what's happening than by the thought that someone is about to die.

This month the book is 99p on Kindle and would make a great holiday read.

Nelly Dean by Alison Case

Billed as a return to Wuthering Heights, Nelly Dean is the story of WH from the point of view of the servant who partially narrated the story. In it, Nelly has written her story down addressed to Mr Lockwood without sending it.

I think the most important thing about this is whether it adds to the story of WH, and out of the #backstairs books I’ve read, I think this one adds the most to the story. Nelly is a fully imagined character who sheds a great deal of light on Mr Earnshaw and particularly on Hareton who she has a really close, motherly relationship with. She also has a relationship with Hindley and sheds light on the way that he degenerates due to alcohol. The book doesn't go into a great detail about Heathcliffe and Cathy's relationship, but I don't think it needs to. However, it brings in all the themes of the moors, doomed love and the supernatural in anyway.

Aside from the WH characters, the author also brings Bodkin, the son of the family doctor who is a friend and advisor to Nelly. He brings in a welcome outside perspective to a story that can seem insular with its settings of the home and the Moor. The story can be heartbreaking at times, especially when Nelly is seperated from Hareton but her relationship with Bodkin often lightens the book without taking away the tragedy of the situation

A selection of books on a similar theme

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

Reclaiming the Victims of Jack The Ripper

The Grave of the final victim

https://castbox.fm/vb/133741532 The Guardian podcast on Why we have forgotten Jack the Ripper’s Victims.

This book is a very timely exploration of the way that we view victims of these terrible crimes. In it, Hallie uses a quotation from 2008 for the trial of the Suffolk Strangler where the judge told the jury to disregard the lifestyles of the women he murdered as he felt that the jury may be influenced by their jobs as sex workers. This is a great point as we are still in a society where victims of crime such a rape are judged for their appearances.

She explores the lives of these women in a very accessible way, showing that although  it is widely believed (and indeed almost romanticised as such) that they were not all prostitutes and that we are doing them a disservice to believe the myths and focus on the murderer. Victorian society made it impossible for a woman to survive without men and any perceived transgression led to a woman being branded as ‘fallen’. All of these women had in one way or another suffered ill luck through their circumstances and suffered complete degradation as a result. This is a story of workhouses, doss houses, tramping the street, being cast out by your family and just trying desperately to survive. Alcohol was a major factor in two of the stories, the women were addicted to it as it was cheaper than food, numbed the pain and made them feel warm.

Rubenhold is a brilliant storyteller who brings the women to life so that you almost feel like you know them. She has also obviously done a great deal of difficult research, having to disregard biased and incomplete evidence.

I have been fascinated by the debate on twitter that she has begun about the way that Jack the Ripper is taught in schools as a way to draw teenagers into the history of Victorian slums and the business of the museums and tours where people seem to revel in the murders. It’s shocking some of the brutal and gory teaching materials she has found (work out the price of a prostitute, draw the dead victim etc.). She does not include anything about the murderer and not much about the murders, just where they took place and what the victims were carrying at the time. If you are looking for a book where the author provides any speculation about who the Ripper was or what happened when he murdered the victims this is not it, what it is is a meticulously researched biography of women who are traditionally overlooked.

The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby

A Victorian gothic novel which investigates ideas that a person can be born 'bad’ and can be identified as a criminal by their features. The story centres around Cora Burns, a young woman who has grown up in a workhouse, an asylum and has spent time in gaol for a crime. She finds a position in a mysterious house where the owner is doing research mainly on Violet, a mysterious little girl.

The storyline is very well plotted, using different timelines and journal entries from another researcher who is hypnotising a woman in an attempt to find more about her. There is a strong sense of mystery about the story, and the reader has to prize out the puzzle of what is going on, what happened in the past and how the characters are related. I thought this was brilliantly done and kept me guessing until the end.

Cora is an incredibly interesting character, at turns meek and submissive, then resisting violent emotions and desires to hurt people who cross or annoy her. I love what the author did with her friend Alice, I thought that was really clever. Cora develops throughout the story from someone who has no control over what happens to her and is institutionalised to a woman who is fully in control and making her way in a society which stands against her. The story perfectly illustrates the position of lower class women and in particular the lives of the outcasts in society and how they were treated in the period. I thought that the author presented a historically accurate view - this was a tragic childhood but it was not all beatings and starvation, she was treated reasonably by some of the staff, who just didn't know what to do with her. I loved what the author did with the idea of photographic images in the book, whether or not the appearance gave an indication of the person's character.

Overall, I thought this was a good story and particularly liked the inclusion of the journal entries. The gothic elements were well handled and didn’t become too over the top. It was also a book that made me think but without becoming too obvious about it.

The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

I think this is probably going to be one of my favourite books of the year. A beautifully written magic realist historical novel set in Malay during the 1930s. The story centres around Ren, a young boy who is given a mission by his British master (who has died) to return his missing finger to his grave, preventing the master from walking the earth in search of it, and Ji Lin, a young woman who works as a dance partner but wishes to become a nurse. Along with Ji Lin's stepbrother Shin, they are mysteriously connected by the Confucian virtues.

A great part of the story is taken up with Chinese traditions and mythology, which is fascinating. The main motif of the story is that there is a were-tiger killing and mauling people, this is part of the magic realist aspect as well as imagery the author uses to describe the reoccurring dreams where Ren and Ji Lin communicate.

The time period and the place are perfectly chosen as you get the amazing imagery of the tiger and the sense that things are changing as the expats live and work in Malay, mostly as doctors and missionaries. Another important character is William, who works as a doctor and is Ren's new master. There is a sense of the western world colliding with the eastern world, as well as old versus new and Ji Lin's role as a woman is changing. She longs for the freedom of escaping from her family by becoming a nurse, but at the same time she feels tied to her mother and to her stepbrother, whom she is in love with. The characters are also very well written and it's the kind of book that you could easily re-read to pick up more of the hints in the story. The characters are never quite what they seem, no-one is perfectly good or evil although Ren has such innocence and is masterfully written, something I image was difficult as he is so young. The unexpectedness of the characters make them even more human and is a big part of why I think this is such a magical book.

As readers have found on Quercus's brilliant #NightTigerTogether Twitter book club, it makes for some brilliant discussions and would make a perfect book club read. Yangsze Choo has participated in some of the discussions and has provided a brilliant insight into the writing process, she is currently in talks with Netflix about making her novel The Ghost Bride into a TV series. Can't wait to read it or see it as she provided some hints about it in the novel. She is also doing a Q&A on Twitter next week, so I will be looking forward to participating in this too.

Mona Lisas and Little White Lies

This is a gentle romance with a well written although ultimately rather passive female lead. Although Lily has unknowingly been placed on a pedestal by Ryder, she defies expectations by being a motor mechanic who is treated as 'one of the boys’ by the men she works mkwith. She seems to feel rather awkward in expressing her femininity, she doesn't wear makeup, finds it difficult to flirt and is obsessed with cars. Her date with Evan is an example of how awkward she feels, he takes her to an expensive restaurant where she is unsure of what she's wearing and how to behave. The author has a very delicate way of showing how Lily feels and who she is, she's a very nuanced character.

She's very passive during dates with Evan and she constantly worries about ‘keeping her slim figure’. Her relationships are unequal conversations are one sided. When she meets Ryder he doesn't ask her anything about herself except what she does which she lies about. When he asks her about her childhood dreams she describes wanting to be a beautiful doll.

Ryder had told her he knew everything he needed to know because he knew her deep down. He’d promised. Lily had tried to tell him more, but he didn’t seem interested in knowing more.

I think that the portrayal of the relationship could possibly be the weakest part of the book, probably due to Lily's self esteem issues. She just seems to spend her time asking her boyfriends about themselves and mentally not believing herself worthy. This is problematic as potentially she is looking for self worth by finding a boyfriend. There is part of me that wishes we could have had more of Lily discovering her fabulousness with Aaron and Brooke, but the novel was too short and focussed on the relationship with Ryder. It's a sweet, romantic novel but by no means that steamy. It gets a wouldn't make Grandma blush rating.

The Burning House by Neil Spring

Delighted to find this Neil Spring novel on Netgalley, having enjoyed The Watchers and Ghost Hunters. Spring writes a good variety of fiction related to the unexplained and even better, he's from South Wales 😉.

I didn't realise until the end that he had taken the story of the real Boleskin House and weaved the story around it. Boleskin sounds an absolutely fascinating place, owned by Alestair Crowley and Jimmy Page and reputedly incredibly haunted and the site of some odd rituals and occurrences. Spring explains in a footnote that a mysterious fire did really happen, do unfortunately you can't exactly visit the real place.

Boleskin house after the fire. 

The story is a fantastic mix of the paranormal and a psychological thriller. Clara is working as an estate agent trying to escape her tragic past by living in a small Scottish village on the edge of Loch Ness. In the course of her job she accidentally kills a man which is witnessed by a stranger, a man who had an unusual interest in the creepy dilapidated Boleskin house and is extremely into mind control and the rituals Crowley performed at the site.

The plot is skillfully woven around three main characters, and is gripping enough that I didn't want to put it down. Clara is a great character, and I thought that Spring did a good job with the mysterious stranger and Karl, Clara's abusive ex. The descriptions of Boleskin house are also very good. I would be interested to find out more about Crowley's philosophy, the philosophy of Thelema. The fantastically named Oswald Catternach believes that this philosophy entitles him to do whatever he wants, no matter how unethical. This is a shocking, sometimes gruesome but very well researched book and I highly recommend it.

Read Harder Challenge

Checking my reading list lately it occurs to me how many books I read that are by European white men, especially of the dead variety. Although I own lots of books by women and people of different races, I think I've got a bit stuck in a rut of reading books from the same perspective and in particular nineteenth century classics and books set in that time period.

So this month I have decided to try and challenge myself to try and broaden my horizons. I am not going to ban myself from reading books I've already started, but I'm hoping that all the books I start will be by alternative authors.

So far I have continued the French theme I have been pursuing by reading The Lost King of France, a history book describing the downfall of the French royal family and attempts to trace Louis XVII through DNA testing. Although I enjoy reading history books I don't often read books with forensic analysis. This was very interesting and obviously well researched. Deborah Cadbury's description of the treatment of the Dauphin was heartbreaking but avoided becoming too melodramatic. 

Tigers in Red Weather, on the other hand, was wonderfully melodramatic. Full of lurid family secrets and deeply flawed characters. I liked how the story is teased out through the shift in narrative viewpoints so that the reader is not actually sure about the heart of the mystery until the end.

Finally, I finished A Little Life, something that had been on my reading list for a while. Not an easy book to get into due to the subject matter and it seemed like most readers either loved it or hated it. I was in the minority of appreciating it. I thought that the writing was really good, I could appreciate the uplifting moments (I cannot understand people giving books low ratings for being depressing, especially books that are about child abuse) and I was moved and horrified by the story but I also recognised the criticisms, that perhaps Yanagihara missed out on portraying homosexuals and homosexual relationships in a positive way and that the abuse depicted is so very extensive and revealed throughout the book in such a way that it starts to read a little like a hurt/comfort fan fic where the poor protagonist is heaped with such a litany of horrifying things happening to them that it kind of numbs the reader. Once I got into it, I raced through it but the second half got a little frustrating with Jude continually apologising and refusing to see a psychiatrist or do much else to help himself. Anyway, it got 4 stars and I didn't write a review on Goodreads. 

As a follow up I have started The Goldfinch. I haven't had a great history with Donna Tartt, I hated The Secret History to the point of blocking it from my mind and I can't even remember if I actually finished it. But so far I have been impressed with the writing and the plot. 

I am also considering continuing with the French theme by reading a book that's been on the old 'to read' list for a long time, A Place of Greater Safety. I've started it a few times but somehow never got into it. 

Otherwise, I am not sure where the read harder challenge will take me, although I think I'd like to read a little bit more history and also Villa America.   

Where to next?

Had a bit of a binge on the Victorian pastiche, and I've now finished The Quincunx, as well as The Unburied and Rustication (all Charles Palliser). Then I went onto Kept (D J Taylor) and I'm about the finish Derby Day. I think that the two authors differ in that Palliser's novels are more centred on the plot and read more similarly to Dickens or Wilkie Collins. They are both postmodern, but somehow I find Taylor's postmodernism more extreme. Palliser's novels take the Victorian elements such as the coincidences and links between characters and multiply them to the extreme. The mysteries seem genuine mysteries which, in the case of the Quincunx, are not necessarily satisfactorily solved by the reader due to the unreliable FPN. Taylor's novels don't exactly read as murder mysteries, much to the disgust of some of the Goodreads reviewers, the mystery is more like how and why the characters are linked, and Taylor meticulously recreates Victorian atmosphere with references and excerpts from novels of the period as well as from recreated newspaper reports and letters. So far I have enjoyed all of them, but I have to say The Quincunx has been my favourite and one I'd like to re-read at some point.

So, I have sort of reached the point where I am not sure whether to go on with Victorian mysteries or move onto something else. I think I'd like to read An Instance of the Fingerpost before I get out of the genre for a spell; I know it's not Victorian but I think it would round it off nicely.

Otherwise, I have finished The Black Moon (Poldark). I am still meandering through Balzac, a couple of the stories have been a bit forgettable, but I think I will probably continue, although I feel like I am cheating a little on my Goodreads count as if I have a quiet day I can get through one or two in a few hours. I suppose it makes up for the giant books I am trying to read though. Otherwise, not a huge amount of progress on the other books I'm reading as I've been reading a couple of library books in the meantime.

 

Havisham by Ronald Frame (spoilers),

I loved this book so much, and I can't understand why it didn't get better reviews on Goodreads. From what I can make out, I think people were disappointed by the way that Frame depicted the relationship that broke Miss Havisham's heart, expecting it to be something like Wuthering Heights, madness included, but it was far more subtle than that. Havisham describes the reason that Catherine falls for Compeyson in the first place and why she reacts in such a way to his rejection. Coming from a socially climbing family, she loses her mother at a young age, growing up without companions convinced that she is not really beautiful. She feels rejected by her father when he brings her loathsome secret half-brother to live with them and sends her away to live with another family to become more ladylike. Catherine slowly discovers that most of the people in her life have hidden agendas, so it is pretty much inevitable that she will fall in love with a man who pays her attention, only to feel utterly devastated when he jilts her at the altar.  Compeyson also manages to wreck the brewing business she attempts to run when her father dies, so she is pretty much left with nothing.

She is depicted as being both rather self-obsessed and blind to both the faults and good qualities of others. However, I think Frame manages to make the reader sympathetic to her eventual madness, and avoids descending into Gothic melodrama. Again, this is handled subtly.  He explains the slight changes he makes from the source material as Great Expectations being a novel that Pip is writing, but I didn't find the deviations jarring.

I thought that the way he describes her end as being beautifully handled and quite spiritual.

It did remind me a little of Wide Sargasso Sea, although it is less experimental and probably doesn't delve quite as deeply into the protagonist's psychological state.

Night Film by Marsha Pessl

I was not sure how to review this. I think if you ignore its literary pretensions, the over-use of italics, the rambling, cheesy ending, and the poor editing and proofreading, what you are left with is quite an entertaining (if bonkers) novel. Prepare yourself for a rollercoaster ride where you will question your grip on reality as you encounter documentary evidence relating to the mysterious film director Cordova and his family. It can be eerie at times and I thought the way that Pessl blended fiction with reality was quite clever at times. I also liked the use of the mocked-up webpages and other documentary evidence. It definitely could have done with more work on the writing, however.
I admit, I enjoyed reading some of the awful reviews it got (people mostly seemed to love it or loathe it) and I agreed that the protagonist didn't really need his own Scooby gang to join in the investigation, as much as they might have added colour and assisted a man who seemed to be mostly obsessed with the clothes the people he encountered were wearing. It doesn't really work as an investigation type novel though, as Scott is a poor investigative journalist whose main tactic seems to be bribe as many people as you can, and if the author can't think of how he might get some information, one of the Scoobies can always supply it for him.

If On A Winter's Night a Traveler

Having been warned by reviews that this was a 'difficult' book I ploughed on, undaunted. And gladly. I sometimes wish that people wouldn't label books this way, although I am attracted by a challenge. I can see why people would hate it, it is like a Russian nesting doll of novels and makes you question the very nature of reading itself. It can mess with the brain, yet here I am in the sure knowledge that I could read it dozens of times and still get something out of it.
The structure is somewhat mind-bending in the way that it is narrated. The book begins in the second person describing how you, 'the Reader' goes to a book shop looking for Calvino's new novel and begin reading it, the second chapter is purportedly that novel, but only the first chapter. At the end of the first chapter, the novel returns to 'the Reader' who realises that he is not reading the book he is supposed to have bought, and the rest of the novel is missing. The rest of the book is divided into second person narrative sections describing 'the Reader' on a frantic, fruitless quest for the rest of the novel, and the ten first chapters of the rest of the novels he encounters, all vastly ranging in genre and breaking off at a plot climax. If you didn't know what you were letting yourself in for, you would probably find it a really frustrating book to read, but there is some sort of plot in 'the Reader's' quest and his meeting of a fellow reader, Ludmilla and the other characters. It could all become too mind-bending, but is saved from this by the author's playfullness and the fact that it is not just one good story to read, but at least eleven (not counting the anecdotal stories 'the Reader' hears on the way).      
It's an extremely postmodernist book and I can see the way that it relates to the dreaded structuralist and post-structuralist texts I had to study at uni. On one hand it would have been great to study this alongside that part of the unit, on the other hand, I'm not sure I would have 'got' it at the time. We can't all be David Mitchell (the novelist who wrote a review in the Guardian describing how he was amazed as an undergraduate but not so much re-reading it). It also relates to the idea of the death of the author in that there is seemingly no unifying 'author' or 'authorial voice', there is the narrative voice of 'the Reader' sections, then the voices of the ten other authors. I can also see how it has influenced subsequent fiction. 
Anyway, hopefully I will re-read it again one day and perhaps study it in more detail.