Book Review: FINDING HANNAH by Fiona McCallum

Title: Finding Hannah

Author: Fiona McCallum
Publisher: Harlequin Australia
Read: April 2017

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Hannah Ainsley has the perfect life — an adoring husband, a close relationship with her parents, a wonderful job, and amazing friends. Best of all, it's Christmas — her favourite day of the whole year! It's a time to share with her family and friends, and enjoy the festivities.

But this year will be like no other. Tragedy strikes and Hannah's world is shattered. If she's going to cope, she's going to need all the support she can gather and draw on every bit of her strength. Life will never be the same again but it's soon clear she has no alternative but to pull together a future from the remaining fragments.

As Hannah heads towards the next festive season she will have to make a decision — should she stay with the people who have supported her or should she leave? Could the answer lie in a delayed gift?

Fiona McCallum's most touching novel so far is a rich tapestry of deep emotions that is sure to capture the hearts of many.

My thoughts:

Hannah Ainsley loved Christmas. Always had.

She just couldn’t get her head around Christmas not being a huge deal - for anyone.

It was her favourite time of the year, cooking up a storm surrounded by all the people she treasured most in the world, and she wouldn’t have traded this time together for anything. Until tragedy struck one Christmas Day, and Hannah’s whole world fell apart. Christmas – no, her whole life – would never be the same again. How would she find the courage to move forward, when everything she held dear had been taken from her?

Working in an emergency services and hospital setting, I am often present at the scene of tragedy. Knowing that from this day forward, the lives of all people involved will be irrevocably changed, that each step forward will take them into uncharted territory, that they will have to rebuild their lives around the big gaping hole where a loved one used to be. In my job, I don’t allow myself to dwell on this, or I would surely go crazy, but every now and then it is helpful to open that door to confront those locked away emotions to better understand what lays ahead for the survivors of trauma, those who have lost loved ones. It appears that Fiona McCallum is no stranger to grief, sensitively exploring the aftermath of loss in Hannah’s life as she steps forward into a tomorrow that is no longer the safe and secure haven she has known for so long. There are wonderful little nuggets of insight hidden amongst the pages, which everyone who has ever lost a loved one will surely relate to. Other things may seem a bit strange, but such is the nature of grief, no one deals with it in exactly the same way.

She had to start to accept that this was her new normal.

Whilst I loved the delicate way in which McCallum tackles such a difficult and sad topic without sounding too preachy or offering quick fix solutions that don’t ring true, Finding Hannah was a bit of a mixed bag for me. On one hand, every step in Hannah’s journey was realistically and sensitively drawn. However, I did struggle at times to connect with Hannah, and didn’t yet feel invested enough in the characters at the time tragedy struck to really experience their loss or grief.

I am also the first one to admit that with Finding Hannah I totally stepped out of my genre-comfort-zone. Usually I consider myself a committed murder/mystery girl who is somewhat addicted to the adrenaline rushes the genre offers up so generously. As pages and pages went by without much action, I found my constant craving for a plot twist or some unexpected event distracting, as was my disappointment when it was ultimately thwarted. Finding Hannah is a slow, contemplative exploration of grief, of second beginnings, of moving forward after your whole life has irrevocably changed. Not much actually happens. To be honest, at times Hannah’s life struck me as a bit dull, and way too sedate for the early-thirties woman she was supposed to be (the woman has never even been on a plane, for crying out loud!). Even her sixty-something parents, who willingly gave up their driving licences and moved to a retirement village to see out the rest of their days (isn’t sixty the new forty or something???) appeared older than some of my sprightly ninety-something year old patients who still get up every morning to drive the tractor and milk the cows. On the upside, it made my own rather predictable existence appear like an adventure park thrill-ride in comparison! And whilst I love to challenge myself in my reading and venture outside my little genre-kingdom, looking past my Alpine TBR pile of murder and mayhem to explore a deeper, more meaningful side to humanity, I did miss a bit of action. Just a little bit. A conflict, perhaps, an illicit one-night romance, or things that go bump in the night. Just that little sprinkle of spice in the soup that leaves a slight tingle. I just don’t think Hannah was a chilli kind of girl, or one that knew the meaning of the word adrenaline rush. Never mind.

The overall message of Finding Hannah for me was that grief is a very individual experience, one that will confront our worst nightmares and shatter our world. As Hannah encounters various people on her journey, she picks up little nuggets of wisdom from those who have been in her place before, but most of all, the courage to follow her own heart and give herself time to heal. Finding Hannah may offer great comfort to readers who have been on that journey and want some of those feelings validated, or to feel that they are not alone. 

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a free ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: DON'T CLOSE YOUR EYES by Holly Seddon

Title: Don't Close Your Eyes

Author: Holly Seddon
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine
Read: March 2016

Expected publication: 4 July 2017

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Twin sisters Robin and Sarah haven’t spoken in years.

Robin can’t leave her house. A complete shut-in, she spends her days spying on her neighbors, subtly meddling in their lives. But she can’t keep her demons out forever. Someone from her past has returned, and is desperate to get inside.

Sarah can’t go home. Her husband has kicked her out, forcibly denying her access to their toddler. Sarah will do anything to get her daughter back, but she’s unraveling under the mounting pressure of concealing the dark secrets of her past. And her lies are catching up to her.

The novel takes readers back in time to witness the complex family dynamics that formed Robin and Sarah into the emotionally damaged, estranged young women they’ve become. As the gripping and intricate layers of their shared past are slowly peeled away, the shocks and twists will keep readers breathless long after the final page.

My thoughts:

In 1989, twins Sarah and Robin are the much-loved daughters of Angela and Jack Marshall, living in an ordinary household in Essex, hanging out with their friends and going to school. On weekends, the Marshalls spend time with their neighbours, Hilary and Derek Granger, who have a son the same age as the twins. There are family barbeques and game nights and weekends away, and everyone gets on famously. Life is good.

Fast forward to 2017, and Robin is a virtual prisoner in her own home, whilst Sarah has been kicked out of her house and denied access her toddler Violet. What has happened in the years between to derail the two sisters’ lives so completely? What terrible family secret has severed their strong childhood bond and is still standing between them after more than 20 years?

As in her debut novel Try Not to Breathe, Holly Seddon is not afraid to explore the dark and sinister side of family life in her new book Don’t Close Your Eyes. Whilst the beginning seems innocuous enough, don’t be fooled – this is an author who knows how to skilfully sow seeds of unease which soon bloom into dread as her increasingly dysfunctional characters start on their path of self-destruction. Life is good – until it isn’t. One wrong step has blown the fuse, and no one will ever be the same again.

With fundamentally flawed characters, who not only destroy their own lives through the poor choices they make, but also the lives of those close to them, the sisters’ life story reads like a tragic tale of how childhood trauma and dysfunctional family dynamics can shape our lives. I was stunned and shocked about some of the terrible decisions the parents in Seddon’s latest book make on a regular basis, and the fallout was terribly sad in every way. Constantly vacillating between disbelief, anger and sadness, this was an emotionally exhausting read for me, and one that hovered in sepias and greys in my mind as I watched it unfold with cold dread clutching at my heart.

Family dynamics lie very much at the centre of this character driven novel, which to me read more like a family drama than a psychological suspense story, although there are several surprises in store for the reader at the very end of the book. Whilst I did not love the story as much as Try Not to Breathe, which was one of my favourite reads for 2016, I thoroughly enjoyed Seddon’s writing style and her brutal honesty with which she exposes her characters’ darkest secrets. Perhaps I just never bonded with Robin or Sarah as I did with the alcoholic Alex, which made me feel more like a spectator than a participant in the story. Nonetheless, Don’t Close Your Eyes is a skilfully woven tale, which will appeal to lovers of domestic noir and those who appreciate the extra tension unreliable narrators manage to instill into the storyline.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review: THE ORPHANS by Annemarie Neary

Title: The Orphans

Author: Annemarie Neary
Publisher: Random House UK, Cornerstone
Read: March 2017

Expected publication: 15 June 2017

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Goa, 1992.
Six year old Jess and her little brother Sparrow are on the beach, playing at the water’s edge. They look to the place where Mama and Pa had been sitting, but there’s no one there. Jess and Sparrow hold hands and sit on the sand so that they can catch the moment when their parents come back. But nobody comes back.

And one sleep goes by and then two, and then twenty-two, then forty, then ninety-five, right to the end of numbers. And nobody came back.

London, 2017.
Jess, now a lawyer, wife and mother has become a locker of doors. She has built walls around her life and her ordered home to keep further disaster at bay.

Ro has taken a different path. He has followed his missing mother all his life in the hope that one day he will find her and she will love him again.

When Ro steps through the garden gate back into Jess’s carefully guarded world, bad things start to happen.

The time has come for Jess to find out what happened on the beach that day.

My thoughts: 

If you had Mama for a day, what would you ask her? If you had Mama for a week, where would you want her to take you?

In 1992, Jess and Sparrow are two naked golden-skinned children on a golden beach in Goa, digging in the sand and looking for shells, living a carefree life with their unconventional hippie parents. But their childhood is about to change forever when both their parents disappear without a trace. One minute they are right there with them, the next they are gone. Whilst their father‘s body is later discovered in a nearby copse of trees, a suspected drug deal gone wrong, their mother has never been found. Now in their late twenties and early thirties, the siblings are still haunted by the mystery of their mother’s disappearance. Is it possible that Sophie could still be alive? Sparrow, who has spent his entire adult life chasing leads that may lead him to his mother, firmly believes so, and is off to Ireland to track down his latest lead, an old friend of Sophie’s from their wandering years. Jess, on the other hand, has moved on with her life by blocking out her childhood trauma, although deep down she knows it has affected her in many subtle ways. Knowing how to be a good mother to her toddler Ruby, for example, who at times seems more attached to their horrible nanny Hana than she is to Jess. Or the way she buries herself in work and turns a blind eye to her husband’s infidelities, for the simple fear of further abandonment and tragedy.

One disaster doesn’t stop the others from lining up to take its place.

When the police contact Jess to tell her that an old passport of her mother’s has been found in the caravan of a dead woman in Ireland, history comes back to haunt her once again. How did it get there, and why is it in her mother’s maiden name, with a photo Jess does not recognise? And worst of all, where is Sparrow, and what is his involvement? So many questions without answers. Jess, who has successfully suppressed the memories of that fateful day for decades, realises that she can no longer run away from the past.

It still seems impossible, the comprehensive loss of both parents. Not a scrap of evidence. Just the disbelief, the sudden void, the constant chatter of voices she didn’t understand, the fear that nothing would ever be safe again.

The Orphans is a poignant story of tragedy and grief, and the after effects of one of the most devastating of all losses – the death or disappearance of a parent. Having lost my own mother at a young age, I could fully relate to the gaping hole Sophie’s disappearance has left in the siblings’ lives. Jess, who is constantly searching for her own identity as a woman, wife and mother. And Sparrow, who has forever remained a small boy at heart, putting his life on hold to invest all his energies in trips around the world in the hopes of finding his mother alive and well. Seeing her image in every stranger who remotely bears a resemblance to the Sophie of his childhood, the older woman she may have become.  

Yes, I do, I miss her. I have always missed her. I am only a scrap of the person I should be.

With the discovery of Sophie’s old passport, the old wound is ripped open again, and Jess must face up to the prospect that their mother willingly abandoned them. Is the possibility that Sophie is alive and choosing not to make contact with her family worse than the thought of her being dead? Suddenly all the excuses Jess has made for her mother, all the scenarios she has pictured in her mind, come crashing down in the face of that huge possible betrayal.

 And there, into the space Jess has made for her, comes Sophie Considine, who was Mary really, and who, it seems, will never go away but linger uselessly at the margins – a reminder of the traps life lays for the unwary, and of the numerous ways a mother can fall short.

The Orphans is a sensitively drawn and sometimes heart-breaking story of growing up in the shadow of childhood trauma, with the gaping hole left behind by the death or disappearance of the people who are supposed to love us most of all – our parents. With small flashbacks to that fateful day on the beach, and mounting tension as the siblings must face up to the past once more, the reader is drawn into a story where tragedy is always just a step away. I very much enjoyed Nearys’ writing style, and look forward to reading more from this author in future.

  

 Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review: LAST BREATH (Detective Erika Foster #4) by Robert Bryndza

Title: Last Breath

Author: Robert Bryndza
Publisher: Bookouture
Read: April 2016

Expected publication: 12 April 2016

Synopsis (Goodreads):

He’s your perfect date. You’re his next victim.

When the tortured body of a young woman is found in a dumpster, her eyes swollen shut and her clothes soaked with blood, Detective Erika Foster is one of the first at the crime scene. The trouble is, this time, it’s not her case.

While she fights to secure her place on the investigation team, Erika can’t help but get involved and quickly finds a link to the unsolved murder of a woman four months earlier. Dumped in a similar location, both women have identical wounds – a fatal incision to their femoral artery.

Stalking his victims online, the killer is preying on young pretty women using a fake identity. How will Erika catch a murderer who doesn’t seem to exist?

Then another girl is abducted while waiting for a date. Erika and her team must get to her before she becomes another dead victim, and, come face to face with a terrifyingly sadistic individual.

Gripping, tense and impossible to put down, Last Breath will have you on the edge of your seat, racing to the final dramatic page. 

My thoughts:

I am glad that Robert Bryndza is a fast writer, so the wait for the fourth instalment in his totally addictive Erika Foster series was not too agonisingly long – and now hoping the fifth one will be out soon (hint, hint!). Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity to apply for an early review copy and did my little happy dance when I received the approval from Netgalley, even if it meant getting in trouble with my family for barricading myself in my room in anticipation of an all-night read-a-thon, leaving the dishes unwashed and the dog unfed (she hasn’t forgiven me yet).

In Last Breath, Detective Chief Inspector Erika Foster is still serving her time in exile in Bromley shuffling paperwork and feeling perpetually bored, her latest application to get back on the murder squad once more declined by her archenemy Superintendent Andy Sparks. When the mutilated corpse of a young woman is found in a dumpster, it is exactly the kind of case Erika feels passionate about, even more so when she discovers a link to the cold case of a missing runaway.

She cared deeply about the victims, and like so many of the cases she had worked on over the years, it was not only the terrible circumstances of the victims’ deaths which haunted her, it was the lives that had been snuffed out prematurely. Young women with so much life left to live: careers, babies, holidays, and all those joys now denied them.

Determined to be involved in the investigation at all cost and convinced that she can bring the murderer to justice, Erika is prepared to eat humble pie to change Spark’s mind, even if it means begging on her knees to get her old job back. The meeting takes an unexpected turn – you will need to read it yourself to find out how! This is my clue to stop here and let the book do the talking, because it wouldn’t do at all to give away any spoilers.

Be assured that Last Breath is a cracker of a thriller, and just as fast-paced and addictive as the previous books in the series. I love Bryndza’s direct writing style, offering short action-packed chapters that move the story along at a pace that sets your pulse racing. Since the killer features very early on as one of the central characters, Last Breath develops into a cat-and-mouse game where the murder team always seem just one little step behind the murderer, racing against the clock to prevent more young women from dying. I found the details regarding CCTV technology and other types of modern surveillance fascinating – living in a small country town I feel very naive and sheltered from these types of urban realities. Bryndza’s central theme of the dark side of social media offered some clever plot twists and served as a reminder to be more mindful of how this modern tool can be exploited by a twisted mind.

Erika is a wonderful protagonist, and I was happy to see   all the other much-loved members of the squad back in this one, with its usual dynamics and vivid dialogue. Erika is perhaps a little bit mellower in this book as her friendship with Peterson develops into something a little bit more, although her passion for her job has not diminished. If I were ever in trouble, I would definitely want her on my case!

“It would be really good if you could catch this one’” said Doug, his face set in grim sadness. Erika nodded. “I will. I always do.”

Last Breath is the type of book where you need to set aside plenty of reading time, knowing that nothing will get done until the last page has been turned. So order a take-away, lock all the doors, put the phone on silent and settle in for a cracking good read. Very highly recommended!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. 

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If you haven't discovered the Erika Foster series yet, I recommend starting with Book 1 and reading your way through all the books in order - you can thank me later ;) Whilst every one of them offers a cracking good murder-mystery in its own right, it's great to see the inter-personal relationships develop and watching the characters grow in depth in every book. Click on each cover for a link to the Goodreads page.

   

Book Review: THE SONG OF THE STORK by Stephan Collishaw

Title: The Song of the Stork

Author: Stephan Collishaw
Publisher: Legend Press
Read: March 2017

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Fifteen year old Yael is on the run. The Jewish girl seeks shelter from the Germans on the farm of the village outcast. Aleksei is mute and solitary, but as the brutal winter advances, he reluctantly takes her in and a delicate relationship develops. As her feelings towards Aleksei change, the war intrudes and Yael is forced to join a Jewish partisan group fighting in the woods. Torn apart and fighting for her life, The Song of the Stork is Yael's story of love, hope, and survival. It is the story of one woman finding a voice as the voices around her are extinguished.

My thoughts:

It is 1941, and the German army is occupying Lithuania, trying to force its way across the Eastern Front into Russia. 15-year old Yael, a Jewish girl driven from her home by German soldiers, is fighting a daily battle to survive in the forest with a group of partisans, knowing that discovery will mean certain death. Malnourished, dirty and all alone after her last friend has succumbed to a sudden and swift illness, Yael stumbles across a lonely farmhouse owned by a young mute man, Aleksei, shunned by the rest of the community as being crazy. Sheltering in the henhouse for warmth, Yael drinks water from the well and ekes out a meagre supply of food from the scraps on the compost heap, until the first days of winter cold force her to knock on Aleksei’s door for shelter. Afraid for his life, Aleksei sends the young girl away, refusing to help her. But the same evening, Yael finds a small plate of food left for her near the henhouse. Over time, a tentative friendship between the two young people forms, and in this coldest winter of 1941, Yael comes to find refuge in Aleksei’s home.

The Song of the Stork is a beautiful story of courage and survival, and of love found in the most unlikely places. Character driven and with vivid imagery, the author evokes the harsh realities of living in fear, of trying to survive in a cold hostile place against all odds. And yet, in this darkest chapter of history, humanity still shines through in small acts of kindness, in a shy friendship forming between a young orphaned girl and a solitary young man. I loved the scenes describing Yael’s life in Aleksei’s house, the simplicity of the small pleasures, of feeling safe and sheltered, of having food and water to wash, of being able to sit in front of a warm fire. How we take all those things for granted! The complete isolation of Yael and Aleksei’s life in the remote farmhouse away from civilisation and at the mercy of nature reminded me of scenes from Our Endless Numbered Days, as Peggy and her father try to survive the cold winter with just each other as company.

Is it possible, she thought, that here, in the middle of war, as on all sides carnage and murder stalk the world, is it possible that there can exist this pocket of peace? Of joy? Of sanity? Are there more?

I would have been very happy to stay there with them and read more about their daily struggles to find food, cut wood, stay warm and safe keep their hopes up that this terrible war would soon be over. But once the cold winter ends and the snow retreats, so does their safety, and the second half of the book took an unexpected turn which saw Yael’s life in turmoil again.

Yael was torn with the irony that with the spring, with this resurrection of the earth, war once more became possible; death could continue its rampage across the continent.

I was impressed by Collishaw’s writing, and it totally swept me away into a different time and place. There are many books out there about the events during WWII described, but The Song of the Stork touched me deeply, without some of the overly graphic scenes used by other authors to describe the horrors of war – Collinshaw manages to convey this message in the simple everyday battle of survival and the tentative emotional bond that forms between the two main protagonists. I admit I liked the second part of the story a lot less and was a bit disappointed with the ending, since it left many questions unanswered. However, I must concede that in Yael’s reality as a displaced person the longed for happy conclusion was merely wishful thinking on my part. In summary, The Song of the Stork is a contemplative coming-of-age story of a young girl displaced by war and trying to survive in a hostile world. Atmospheric and focusing on inter-human relationships, it drew me in deeply and transported me to another time and place like only few novels can. Recommended to anyone who enjoys historical fiction set in WWII.

Quotes:

It was not in the thunder nor the lightning, nor in the strong wind, but in the still small voice that God was.

If nobody knows I am here, she thought, if there is nobody to say my name, then do I really exist? 

Was this then love? she wondered. Not a fairy tale, not the romance and passion she had dreamt of. Not dramatic. Not inexplicable. But rather a deep, penetrating thankfulness for the kindness of another.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.