This debut crime novel launched a series featuring DS Adam Tyler. The 29 year old heads up a cold crime unit and when a body is found bricked up in a wall in an old vicarage in a village outside Sheffield he joins the investigation team and finds himself much more personally involved than he expected.
Tyler is a bit prickly and struggles with the overlap between personal life and work. A gay officer who followed his father into the force he is still at the end of snide comments from some of his colleagues and his responses to these potentially won’t help him in his career. He does have the support of senior officer DCI Diane Jordan but in this case he certainly tests her patience.
I don’t feel I’ve completely got the measure yet of Tyler as a character but there’s certainly potential here for the author to develop him in further instalments. Style-wise, I think the novel also takes a little while to settle- the village setting gives it a traditional cosy-crime feel, at one point I think I forgot it was set in the present day but the characters and case reflect a darker edge and it takes a while for it all to meld together and not feel out of place. There’s a mixture of police procedural, thriller and whodunnit which does settle in.
Unexplained fires are occurring around the murder scene which may or may not be related but the perpetrator is recording these events on a blog site. Two elderly ladies are receiving disturbing letters and one of them has memory problems which gives an interesting perspective to the case.
Things tie up nicely in unforeseen ways. There’s the odd high-tension scene which is overegged somewhat and Tyler finds himself in awkward situations more often than you might expect. I did, however, find myself being drawn into this and the mixture of styles does end up giving it a richness which is highly satisfactory.
Since this 2020 publication the author has produced two more Adam Tyler novels (with another scheduled for April 2024) which I am certainly keen to read. Now characters have been established I think there’s potential here for a really strong crime series.
Firewatching was published by Simon & Schuster in 2020.
I’ve now read three Graham Norton novels (two in rapid succession) and there’s nothing in this work to contradict my view of him as one of the best popular fiction authors around.
“Home Stretch” has a wider scope than his other novels taking in Irish, London and New York locations and spanning over thirty years. It’s also the first time we have had sexuality as a main theme within the novel and in the Acknowledgements the author salutes those “who stayed in Ireland to fight for the modern, tolerant country it has become.” He states; “I took the easy way out and left to find places where I could be myself.” I both enjoyed this widening of the geographical scope of this and missed the intensity of the small town Irish life depicted in his first two novels. Having said that I was really involved with the sections set in London and New York.
In 1987 the Irish town of Mullinmore is rocked by a tragedy which completely and forever changes the lives of the survivors. The way in which it becomes untenable for a small community to continue with feelings of blame and guilt is so well conveyed here and Connor needs to leave. This is the tale of how things pan out following the cataclysmic incident for those who have attempted to escape and those who have chosen to stay behind.
There’s humour, there’s darkness and there’s the pull of family which both attracts and repels over more than one generation and over three novels Graham Norton has shown how well he handles these aspects. Plot-wise I did see the twists coming but it is the repercussions of such twists he handles well. Timewise there are the odd jumps back and forwards but he does always let us know what year we are in. This structure always necessitates a bit of filling in the gaps which I can feel a bit jarring but he mostly gets away with it here.
This brought him his second “Popular Fiction Book Of The Year” at the Irish Book Awards and was critically well-received. I think by this stage in his career people are getting over their “this is by Graham Norton!” surprise and are accepting him as a fine writer demonstrating a range of skills, now over three books each with a different feel.
I really enjoyed this but I must admit to a slightly stronger affinity towards his second novel “A Keeper.” His fourth “Forever Home” appeared in 2022.
Home Stretch was first published by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK in 2020.
I read 61 books this year which is a bit down on the last couple of years and short of my Good Reads goal of 70. I retired from paid employment in 2022 and I thought that would mean I would have more time for reading – that obviously hasn’t proved to be the case. Out of these 61 books, 15 got five star ratings which I think is the highest figure for top ratings I’ve ever given, which made picking the Top 10 from these very worthy books very difficult. As always, if I’ve read it this year it is included, even if it was published in a previous year, or in the case of one of the titles below, due to be published in 2023. There are 3 books on the list which were published in 2022, which seems to be the typical figure in these Top 10s.
So, 61 books, 15 five star ratings, 31 four star reads and also 15 three stars. 59 of these have already been reviewed on the site and they can be found by scrolling through or using one of the two indexes – two titles, including one of the top 10 have not yet had their full reviews appear as I am holding out to nearer to the publication date in January 2023. I spent quite a considerable time thinking about the books I’d read this year in forming my Top 10 and once I had assigned positions I felt a little uneasy. Last year I had a diverse list with a 50-50 gender split, 40% black authors and 30% identifying as LGBT+. Although the latter figure stays the same there is a drop in both female and black writers (and no black female writers). In fact, I thought the gender imbalance was unprecedented but this list matches my 2014 choices with which I launched reviewsrevues.com. I’m not sure whether this is just a blip this year, I must admit some of the big female authored titles did not appeal to me, for example Bonnie Garmus’ “Lessons In Chemistry” was a title I’d had recommended to me and I know it’s one which will feature in many end of year lists but I couldn’t get beyond the very female orientated cover (nor the title actually). I like to read a balance of books, fiction, non-fiction, newly published and backlisted titles written by a diverse range of authors and this will continue in 2023. Three of the Top 10 are non-fiction and there are two debut novels and a chunky 50% of the authors have previously featured in my end of year best of lists, which may illustrate that in a year when I have had a lot of upheaval, moving house, relocating to a new area and leaving work I have been more likely to choose authors who have impressed me in the past.
Here is the first part of the list 10-6. Don’t be too shocked by the lack of female authors, there is more of a balance in the Top 5. If you would like to read the full review (and I hope you do as these are the books I want to clamber onto rooftops and shout about) just click on the title.
This is Irish author Donal Ryan’s second appearance in my Top 10. His debut “The Spinning Heart” was my runner-up in 2013. He has a real skill with characterisation. In both the books of his which have blown me away he brings a whole community to life. He is able to establish rich characters in a short space of time and he certainly does this here with his tale of four generations of a family from rural Tipperary. It is set in the same location and with some of the same characters as “Strange Flowers” which won the Novel Of The Year Awards at the Irish Book Awards. This was also shortlisted for the same award in 2022 but lost to “Trespasses” by Louise Kennedy. I think it is a superior companion piece to “Strange Flowers” (and also works fine as a stand-alone).
This is also British writer’s Hari Kunzru’s second appearance in my end of year Top 10, with his 2004 novel “Transmission” making it to number 3 in 2010. This was perhaps my biggest reading surprise as I wouldn’t have thought this tale of radicalism in late 60’s/ early 70’s England would have appealed. I was totally captivated by the story-telling and thought it was so rich a novel. It skipped around in time, which I know some readers do not like but I think it worked really well here and each time-frame was as interesting as the others. I described it as a book which explores “fighting for what you believe in and how easily idealism can become tainted so that the brave new world once thought possible goes increasingly out of reach.” In terms of scope I felt echoes of Ian McEwan’s 2022 publication “Lessons” but I think this is the stronger novel.
The authorised biography of Victoria Wood- this is a big book which I knew I was going to like, enough to get me forking out for a hardback edition. Rees gets the split between the private and public person across so well and this was a big thing for Victoria, who privately was far removed from the bubbly confidence of perhaps the greatest British comedian of all time. Rees celebrates her as a pioneer, which she undoubtedly was. I described this as “the definitive biography of Victoria Wood, no one else need bother.”
And talking of big books, this was my only 1000+ page read of the year, so thank goodness I loved it. I suspected I was onto a winner as Ackroyd is my third most read author of all time and has made 6 previous appearances on my End of Year list (although not since 2010). In fact, I had read this before in an edited edition but this full account of the life of Dickens is the real deal and made a greater impression. It is just so thorough and really got me wanting to revisit the work of Dickens (as well as more Ackroyd). It’s not actually the author’s best book- I’ll still give that to “London: The Biography” which was my book of the year in 2002 but it is extremely impressive and in the lengthy time it will take you to read this book (five weeks for me) you will be in the hands of a master biographer.
6. The New Life – Tom Crewe (Chatto & Windus 2023)
(Read in December. To be reviewed)
Advance warning for this outstanding debut which will be published in the UK on 12th January. The author is a former editor of the London Review Of Books and he puts his literary awareness into play with this Victorian set novel which is described as “a daring new novel about desire and the search for freedom in Victorian England.” My full review of this will follow in the New Year. Expect comparisons to “The Crimson Petal & The White” and “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”- two of my all-time favourites.
I hope this has whetted your appetite for my next post – The Top 5
I have at last got round to a book I highlighted in my annual “What I Should Have Read” post back at the end of 2020. Excellent reviews on publication and fulsome praise by Bernardine Evaristo on the teatime Richard & Judy Bookclub during lockdown had me eagerly anticipating and I bought the paperback the day it was published. That was February 2021 and inexplicably it just stayed on the shelf. I was beginning to think it might not live up to my long-held expectations and that may have been the reason I was choosing other titles. The recent series of BBC’s book show “Between The Covers” saw more praise from author and comedian Deborah Frances-White who described it as “so beautiful, so literary” when selecting it as her favourite book pick. This made me realise I had procrastinated for too long.
I knew the outline for this book, Jesse, a young black male from the Midlands who has grown up as a Jehovah’s Witness is disfellowshipped because of rumours about his sexuality and flees to London and becomes a sex worker. I knew it would be edgy, explicit, and that debut author Paul Mendez enjoyed proclamations that an important new British voice had arrived with his writing which was said to have a strong autobiographical element.
This only goes someway. It actually begins in the 1950s with recent immigrants Norman and Claudette and their two small children discovering the British dream they’d been tempted by wasn’t quite true and with Norman becoming unwell Charlotte was having to hold down two jobs while he looked after the children. Jesse’s story begins 50 pages in and it is not clear for a considerable time how the two strands connect.
Despite Deborah Frances-White’s TV recommendation I was still surprised by how well rounded and literary this debut is. It increasingly reminded me of the best work of Booker Prize winning Alan Hollinghurst. Yes, it is explicit and I hope that the details of how the young Jesse makes his money to survive in London will not deter readers because this is just one element of a story which amazingly given the subject matter is full of hope and life-affirming.
Mendez handles language very well and there is a multi-sensory richness to his work. He uses two potential pitfalls well. He’s not afraid of dialect, especially in the early scenes where Jamaica meets Black Country. At one point a French character is introduced and whilst reading a lengthy explanation from her I wondered if Mendez was just pushing this a little too far but her role in the novel is brief. The other thing which he does well which is not always a success in fiction is rooting in its time through the use of many music references. The sound of the Sugababes, turn of the Millennium R&B and hiphop and earlier bands such as Joy Division permeate and enhance this novel. This is a very strong, confident debut and I hope that given the two years since publication that Paul Mendez will soon be ready with something else to further boost his reputation.
Rainbow Milk was published in 2020 by Dialogue Books
David Leavitt is an author I’ve not read for about ten years but who is responsible for one of my all-time favourites “The Lost Language Of Cranes” (1986) which I first read not long after publication (when Leavitt was 25) and last re-read in 2008 to see if it had lost its shine and as a re-read it came 2nd in my Books Of The Year. His 1998 novel “When England Sleeps” also made it to my end of year Top 5 in 2012. Two outstanding novels from this American author. I have also read and fully enjoyed his short story collection as well as books he has edited with Mark Mitchell. I enjoyed but didn’t love “The Body Of Jonah Boyd” (2004).
“Shelter In Place” is his 10th novel, published seven years after his 9th. It’s one of those novels where I’m not sure what I think, which certainly suggests it’s not on the same level as my favourites by him. This is a waspish comedy of manners, peopled by characters it is hard to care about and yet I would still recommend it.
It is set in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election in 2016 and the horrors of this causes New York society doyenne Eva Lindquist to want to relocate to a life of faded grandeur in Venice. Eva is at the centre of a group of friends, most of whom she doesn’t seem to care very much about and the novel is largely a response to her fears of the Trump administration.
Although American politics is the catalyst for action it is not especially a political novel, the characters’ immediate concerns are dominated by the trivial, will interior designer Jake agree to work on the Venetian apartment? Will Min rescue her job in magazines by getting a front cover from the apartment? Will husband Bruce allow Eva to buy the apartment? Will Eva’s Bedlington Terriers do their number ones and twos on their walks with Bruce?
There are a lot of dinner parties, catered by a procession of nondescript (to the rest of them) young gay men and there’s a lot of dialogue with brittle humour. This makes it a quick fast-moving read even when plot-wise there’s not too much happening.
The author seems fully ensconced in American literary academia as Professor of English at the University of Florida and he obviously feels confident enough in this world as, through the voice of his characters, especially disgruntled book editor, Aaron, he is very sniping of the US literary establishment with Barbara Kingsolver, Paul Auster, Lydia Davis, Jonathan Franzen, Jeffrey Eugenides and Jonathan Safran Foer amongst those facing his vitriol. Hopefully, they know Leavitt well enough to take this dismissal of their work.
It is interesting that the cast for this are generally in their fifties or above, which feels unusual for a novel of this sort which tend to be peopled by bright young things. This gives an added dimension as they are facing change which Trump might bring about at a time when questioning their own positions as less relevant to the modern world.
There’s only one act of kindness in this book and that has to be carried out under the radar with the character responsible constantly questioning their own actions. Towards the end another character fills in back story in a section which could potentially have been a more impressive novel than the one Leavitt has actually written- I wonder if he is toying with us here, showing us glimpses of what might have been?
My four star criteria is always based on whether I would want to read it again and I think here the answer is yes, despite me not really caring for the characters nor the world they inhabit as they did still very much draw me in. It was humorous, involving and with a lot more depth than the shallow lives portrayed here which just nudges this book into the four star category. I can see why some people wouldn’t like it but I can’t see that many would proclaim this Leavitt’s finest work.
Shelter In Place was published in the UK in 2020 by Bloomsbury.
Here’s a big book, the authorised biography of Victoria Wood that I’ve only just got round to despite it being one of my books I’d wished I’d read in 2020 (still only up to 70% of this list). I think I’ve been a little nervous of this really hoping that Rees gets the balance right between the career and public persona and the very different private person and juggling also the humour of her work and zest for life with the inevitable sadness at reading of a life which ended too soon.
I don’t know of the author, but as a journalist, he seemed to have a professional but not close relationship with Victoria Wood in her latter years. I was heartened by this book appearing on a number of Best Book Of The Year lists and one description of it was that it was “impeccable”. It certainly is thorough. This is the definitive biography of Victoria Wood, no one else need bother. Rees has had access to all the right people and material and herein is included really all we would need to know.
He does indicate at the start that Victoria Wood was collecting material for a memoir, making audio tapes which he had access to. It would have been fascinating to see how such a private person would have approached such a publication but it is unlikely that it would have been as thorough and probing as this biography.
It was so important to me that Rees got this right as Victoria Wood (1953-2016) is, in my opinion, the greatest British comedian. I don’t think a single day goes by without at least one of her lines coming into my head. Whilst reading this book I dug out a DVD of her award-winning “As Seen On TV” and was staggered to see how many of these were almost low-key asides in their original setting rather than fanfared jokes; often said by characters who were not central in the sketch. This shows how good her writing was on every level. And, despite this genius, not everything she did hit home, the same viewing showed that some of the early songs at piano have not dated well and yet, for many years, this was her bread and butter and the first flush of fame came when she performed comedy songs on 70’s TV talent show “New Faces” and topical songs on “That’s Life”.
As a shy, private person it must have been difficult for Victoria as fans felt that they had such a personal bond with her. She tried to keep a brave face on in public but people could find her prickly and taciturn away from the limelight and even when in it. I lived in Highgate when she did, would often see her around and was one time rendered speechless by her when teaching as she appeared in my classroom on a school visit for prospective parents (both of her children attended the Primary School I worked at). This was a school which had more than its fair share of notable parents but this was the first time I felt myself floundering in presence of celebrity. With someone as good as she was at analysing speech I felt my words being analysed as I spoke to the class, when, in reality, even if she was listening, she was just a mum looking around.
Rees gets this private/public person split very well. She was demanding to work for, rewriting and striving for perfection and insisting on actors being word-perfect and not deviating from her script. She was driven, as indeed she had to be, at the time there was no woman writing comedy in this way, there was much resistance to female led female written comedy on British television (“As Seen On TV” predated the first French & Saunders TV series by three years). She was a pioneer, who achieved so many firsts in her career. Jasper Rees is also strong in celebrating this, it made me want to go back and experience her work again, always a good marker for a biography. What I don’t think I need to do is read any more about her life as it is all here- the years of struggling after the New Faces appearance, her marriage, the children, divorce and final illness set alongside the comedy magic she produced. This book deserves my five star rating.
Let’s Do It: Authorised Biography Of Victoria Wood was published by Trapeze in hardback in 2020 and paperback in 2021. Since then Jasper Rees has put together a collection of unseen sketches, songs and other memorabilia in his November 2021 publication “Victoria Wood Unseen On TV” which I am adding to my To Be Read list.
The first of my “What I Should Have Read In 2021” that I’ve got round to reading. In that post I mentioned I was kicking myself because I saw a copy on the library shelves and was too slow off the mark but a couple of days later it was back again (must have been borrowed by a quick reader) and this time I didn’t hesitate.
This is only the second Ann Cleeves I’ve read but it is really evident that this is an author who knows exactly what to do with a crime series. “The Long Call” had a murder which had great personal and professional implications for the protagonists which would have had long lasting repercussions (and this case is referred to a number of times in this book). Here, things are scaled down a little with some echoes of what had been obstacles before, especially as regards to Detective Matthew Venn and his relationship with his local community arts centre manager husband, Jonathan, and the overlap between the private and professional within a small community.
The rest of Venn’s team, Jen Rafferty and Ross May have their roles beefed up a little but Cleeves’ handling of this ensures there’s not too much given too soon. Jen, however, does find herself more central than she would like when a party she attend.s and gets somewhat inebriated at, is also one of the last sightings of a man who she thinks was chatting her up and is afterwards found murdered in an art studio.
This complex of art buildings, farm and large house, Westacombe, becomes the focus of an investigation which develops very nicely throughout to a conclusion I certainly hadn’t foressen. It’s exactly the sort of follow-up I would have both expected and hoped for. Cleeves handles the characterisation, subject matter and twists in the plot with consummate skill.
“The Long Call” did feel fresher and more rooted in its location and I would give it the edge but I felt that became more entrenched in my mind by reading the book and watching the TV adaptation (good but not exceptional) quite soon after one another. The quality of this “Two Rivers” series is maintained and there’s loads of potential for more cases.
The Heron’s Cry was published in hardback in the UK by Macmillan in September 2021. The paperback is scheduled to appear in February 2022.
This debut novel arrived last year with much critical acclaim and won the author the Best First Novel at The Costa Book Awards. Set in Trinidad and New York it features the interspersed narratives of three characters- Betty, a school admin assistant who takes on teacher Mr Chetan as her lodger and her son Solo. Spanning Solo’s adolescence and young manhood this contemporary novel focuses on the relationships between the three and the themes of love and forgiveness.
All of the characters have secrets, Betty was involved in the demise of her abusive husband; Mr Chetan is hiding his sexuality and Betty’s secret causes Solo to develop self-destructive, disturbing habits. The tone is conversational from all three narrators with the use of dialect, potentially off-putting for some readers, giving it a real vitality with the layout of these narratives making it easy to read. Perhaps an author with more experience might have been able to more strongly differentiate between the three voices but I didn’t feel this affected the quality of the writing here. Trinidad-born Ingrid Persaud excellently conveys life in a country I know very little about and is keen to illuminate the positives and negatives of this island life.
I will admit that it took me a while to really get into this book but then at one point I realised I really cared for the characters and this built as the book drew to its conclusion with some shocking turns of events along the way, which had me reeling because of the emotions I was investing into these characters. I then knew that the author had really drawn me in. The sun-drenched cover implies a more idyllic read than it actually was, there are some dark moments to be faced here which I wasn’t expecting. There is also much humour and beauty.
I felt quite purged by the end of the book and felt I had gone a long way with these characters and that they will remain with me. That’s an achievement and I’mnot surprised that Ingrid Persaud found herself being shortlisted for and winning prestigious awards for this debut.
This is one of the biggest selling books of the last year or so and is performing extremely well as a paperback. It is the 7th adult novel for an author whose reputation continues to grow with each publication and who has been tremendously successful as a children’s author and writer of non-fiction focusing on mental health.
The popularity of his latest is significantly due to it capturing the mood of a nation where the need to personally protect mental health has become essential. We are living in a world of uncertainty, fear and social isolation due to lockdowns and we have probably all had time to re-evaluate our existences.
A central theme here is regret and putting that into perspective within the framework of a parallel universe novel. The conceit within this work is a place between life and death. For main character Nora, this takes the form of the Midnight Library where there is an opportunity to try on her lives which could have been lived. It is a fast-paced, quick read which is surprising given its philosophical and quantum physics slant.
I have struggled a little as to how I feel about it as a book. It is undoubtedly very enjoyable, has an emotional pull and deserves its success. However, it fell a little short in what I was expecting as it skimmed the surface of so many issues and maybe there’s a slight glibness to its resolution. I couldn’t help feeling that Nora, plunged into new lives, was helped out tremendously by other characters feeding her information on the life she was living which did jar a little too often. I think technically it relies too much on exposition which I find surprising.
Ultimately, however, it is a novel with its heart very much in the right place. My usual criteria for a four star rating is would I want to hold onto a copy to read again and here (hence my struggle) I’m not sure whether I would but I feel this rating is deserved because of its significance in 2021 and because I think the many captivated by it will continue to love this novel and I cannot doubt that it has therapeutic value. It would be a perfect book for a bibliotherapist to recommend yet it is also, away from its worthiness, a really strong read so I heartily recommend it despite my own odd personal niggles.
The Midnight Library was published by Canongate in 2020.
Another book from my What I Should Have Read In 2020 post (I’ve now managed to get through 60% of these). Here was one I suspected that I would really like but I enjoyed it even more than I imagined. This is American author Brit Bennett’s second novel and after this I would certainly be keen on seeking out her 2016 debut “The Mothers”.
This, however, is the book that has established her breakthrough into the big time, appearing on so many Best Of The Year lists and has been shortlisted for the 2021 Women’s Prize for fiction. The hype has built up which is often a dangerous thing for me and my expectations, but I’ll emphasise this, my expectations were exceeded here.
I came to it knowing roughly what it was about but there was so much more to it . Two light-skinned black twin sisters disappear from their small-town home and head for the excitement of New Orleans. One, Desiree, eventually pairs up with an abusive, dark skinned man and has Jude, whose blue-black darkness of her skin shocks the residents of her home town, Mallard (where its black residents generally have a much lighter tone) on her return whereas her twin, Stella, ditches Desiree to disappear once again and decides to “pass” and live her life as a white woman. In a decades spanning time frame we have as our starting point 1968 when Desiree returns to Mallard with her young daughter.
There are so many discussion points in this novel regarding identity that one might expect it to feel issue-driven but no, plot and characterisation are both very strong and that together with its immersive readability provides an extremely impressive rounded work. Those plot lines and unpredictable turns do drive the reader forward. It’s not without a healthy dollop of melodrama and on a few occasions the authors use of cliff-hangers resembles the soap operas that one of the characters makes a name for herself on, but this is also a good thing, making it feel highly commercial, this together with its relevance where its publication alongside the media coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement created publicity at a time when lockdown ensured the usual avenues of publicising their work were not open to most authors. This book deserved the exposure, however, not because it was of the moment but because of the sheer quality of the handling of all areas of the book.
Performance has a major part to play. Many of the characters are donning a disguise and playing a part, some professionally and some within their lives and even within their closest relationships. I found the implications and repercussions of this fascinating. It has the unusual advantages of being both a thought-provoking important novel and a great holiday read and I hope many more people will discover this work over the summer. My only criticism of a book I found very difficult to put down is that perhaps the ending felt a little flat and less defined than I would have hoped but that may have been because it was the end of the novel and there was no more to read about these characters.
The Vanishing Half was published in the UK by Dialogue Books in 2020. The paperback edition is out now.
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