Category Archives: British Literature

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth E. Wein

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Synopsis:
When her plane goes down in Nazi occupied France, a teenage Scottish spy known only as Verity has just one chance to write her confession before her captors send her off to a concentration camp.

Review:
Code Name Verity was the best read I have had all year. No contest. (Well, maybe The Devil in Silver.) I seriously just want everyone to feel how I feel when I think about “FLY THE PLANE MADDIE.” I am about to cry and I might just have to go back and re-read the book immediately.

The book is ostensibly the confession of Verity, a British spy (“I’M SCOTTISH”) who has been captured by the Gestapo. Asked to confess, she readily gives up 11 wireless codes and is eager to tell all that she can. She’s given paper and ink and begins to write–but instead of a dry listing of facts, she begins to tell the story of Maddie, a girl with a knack for mechanics and a dream of flying planes. Maddie’s dream came true when she’s enlisted to fly errands over England. There, she befriends a posh upper class girl named Queenie, and the two of them make a stupendous team.

I just can’t tell much more about the plot without revealing spoilers, so I’ll just tell you that if you’re at all interested in brave girls fighting Nazis in WWII, then you have to read this book.

“Kiss me, Hardy!”

The Child’s Child by Barbara Vine

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Synopsis:
While working on her PhD thesis on unmarried mothers in British literature, a young woman finds disturbing parallels between a violent work of fiction from the mid-20th century and her own life living with her gay brother.

Review:
Everything I love about Barbara Vine is present in The Child’s Child: a haunting atmosphere, complicated characters, and a sense of urgency to the storytelling that has nothing to do with a jam-packed plot.

The book opens with Grace, a PhD candidate living a peaceful life with her gay brother Andrew, until her brother invites his boyfriend to move in with them. Grace and James don’t get along, and he’s especially scornful of her thesis work exposing the plight of the unwed mother in English history. He says that the unwed mothers suffered nowhere near as badly as gay men were, and won’t hear anything to the contrary. Things get worse when Andrew and James witness the fatal beating of a friend upon exiting a gay club.

Grace decides to take a break from her thesis to read an unpublished manuscript called “The Child’s Child,” written by an ancestor of James’s who had published many critically acclaimed works. Because this book touched openly on homosexuality, it was never even considered for publication. Grace has been asked to read it to see if it could be published now. The story is that of Maud, a young women who falls pregnant at the age of 15 in WWII England. Her secretly gay older brother steps in with an unorthodox plan to save her, but that plan becomes the undoing of both of them and has repercussions for everyone around them.

The book-within-a-book is especially enthralling because it feels like Vine is channeling Patricia Highsmith, writing the book that Highsmith, herself a lesbian, could never have written in her own day. It’s so dark and tricky and hermetic and Vine does it exceptionally well. I was less satisfied by the framing story, which felt unfinished when the book was ended. So it’s not my favorite book by Vine, but I enjoyed it immensely.

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling

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Synopsis:
After a popular parish council member drops dead from an aneurysm, the bucolic English town of Pagford comes undone over fears about how a new council member might upset the balance of power with the encroachment of council flats from the next town over.

Review:
The Casual Vacancy isn’t quite as high concept as JK Rowling’s more familiar works, but most good novels defy my particular brand of glib summarization.

I always enjoy a complicated soap opera and I appreciated how deftly Rowling wove all the story lines together. It didn’t take me long to get everyone sorted out, even though the relationships were pretty tangled. I do have to admit that the main reason I read it was out of curiosity, to see what else Rowling has up her sleeve. And this book is certainly a departure on just about every level. I was left a little cold by the ending and I’m not sure how long it will stick with me.

The Politics of Breastfeeding by Gabrielle Palmer

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Synopsis:
Subtitled: When Breasts are Bad for Business.

Review:
The Politics of Breastfeeding is a history of the ways in which breastfeeding is challenged by societal constructs and business entities. For example, a large portion of the book outlines the ways in which formula manufacturers have spend (and continue to spend) billions of dollars to win customers. That’s not so different than any corporation–except these companies are coming up with ways to prevent mothers and babies from being able to breastfeed. In the case of Nestle, these practices have directly caused the deaths of babies in the developing world.

In Western cultures, breastfeeding is frequently framed as a choice made by the mother. But breastfeeding is chosen for mother and baby by biological hardwiring, and when breastfeeding doesn’t work something has gone wrong somewhere. Our cultural discourse points fingers at individual moms but this book rightly shows that we’re looking in the wrong place. Instead of blaming moms, we should continue to look closely at how to support mothers and babies in all facets–by helping them breastfeed with prenatal education, support during birth and in the immediate post partum period, and developing humane corporate and public practices to help moms continue to breastfeed after returning to work.

The Playdate by Louise Millar

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Synopsis:
A single mom decides to return to work, inciting a chain of events that puts her daughter in jeopardy.

Review:
The Playdate felt like a great follow up to Gone Girl. It’s not that they are so similar in terms of plot or genre. But they both built great suspense from intimate relationships, and had plenty of twists and turns.

I also really loved the way the book dealt with the stresses faced by working moms in the creative sector. It’s so competitive and nobody cares about your personal troubles. And in order to be creative, you have to be able to separate emotionally and focus when you’re away from your kids. I really connected with Callie’s dilemma, and am really thankful for my husband, because I couldn’t do any of it without him.

Misfortune Cookie by Michele Gorman

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Synopsis:
When Hannah moves to Hong Kong to be with her boyfriend, she’s frustrated, disappointed, and paranoid to find out that he’s spending more time with his hot boss in Ho Chi Minh City than with her–and she’s desperate to make sure she hasn’t made a mistake.

Review:
Misfortune Cookie is a sweet chick lit romance that kept my interest. I actually really felt for Hannah’s situation, even though I occasionally got frustrated with her for vocalizing her paranoia in such an obvious way. I loved that the book is set in Hong Kong, and I also appreciated how much Hannah’s work meant to her. The details were really convincing. All in all, a fun read!

Many thanks to Michele Gorman for the review copy.

The St. Zita Society by Ruth Rendell

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Synopsis:
When the servants of the residents of a tony London neighborhood get together to try to improve their collective lot, they have no way of knowing that their cozy way of life is about to explode–thanks to the secrets they’re all protecting.

Review:
The St. Zita Society took some time for me to warm up to it, mainly because there was no one I felt like I could connect with. But Rendell is such a brilliant writer that she kept me interested, and when it ended I was pleased with the masterful way she manipulated my sympathies. Plus the mystery itself is a fun one, because we know the identity of the murderer before it happens, but there’s still plenty of suspense and tension.

The Vault by Ruth Rendell (Inspector Wexford)

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Synopsis:
An underground vault with four bodies is found underneath a picturesque London home–and one of them was put in there much later.

Review:
I love Ruth Rendell but I was really bored by The Vault, a sequel of sorts to A Sight for Sore Eyes, which I really enjoyed. I think it’s that I don’t really care for Inspector Wexford as a character. I’ve read a few of those books and I haven’t liked a single one. I also found the mystery just not that thrilling. I kept getting the characters confused, which is not at all what I expect from Rendell.

Oh well–she is prolific enough that I can live with that.

The Face of Trespass by Ruth Rendell

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Synopsis:
A poverty-stricken writer flees a failed affair, but things may have already gone too far.

Review:
The Face of Trespass is an early novel by one of my favorite writers, Ruth Rendell. It’s a short book and a quick read, yet packed with psychological complexity and fascinating characters. I loved the hermeticism of Gray’s world and his believably strange relationship with his French stepfather Honoré. Not as transcendent as some of her best works (Judgment in Stone in particular) but well worth the read.

Ninepins by Rosy Thornton

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Synopsis:
A single mother of a troubled pre-teen takes in a 17-year-old girl with a history of arson, and finds her image of herself as a mother challenged and strengthened.

Review:
I loved Rosy Thornton’s Tapesty of Love so I leapt at the chance to review Ninepins. Thornton is a gorgeous writer and in Ninepins she offers a compelling situation that reads like a thriller.

Laura is an academic living in the fens outside of Cambridge. Her asthmatic daughter Beth is 12 and just starting at a new school, dealing with peer pressure and growing up. Laura is flummoxed by Beth’s changing demeanor and explorations with rebellion, but tries her hardest to keep the lines of communication opened. Her home is a former pump station, where the marshy, boggy fens were fought back by engineering but still pose a threat to the aging dikes. She rents out the pump house, converted into a bedsit, and she’s approached with an unusual request: to accept as a lodger Willow, a 17-year-old who has been “in care” (think the foster system/juvenile detention) because of a case of arson when she was not much older than Beth. Willow’s mom is a mess, a hippie who has never been there for her daughter. Laura’s heart goes out to the girl, whom she wants to rescue and whom she also sees a potential savior for Beth.

I’m sure you can imagine how these plot threads might come together, but what you can’t imagine is how hard it is to put this book down! It may seem like a quiet character study but the emotional drama is just riveting. And while it’s not exactly a mystery or a thriller, the atmosphere and mood maintained a wonderful level of suspense and tension. I’m not sure how well known Thornton is outside of the UK, but she really deserves a wider audience. She’s a kindred spirit to another of my favorites, T. Greenwood, so if you like her please do check this one out.

Many thanks to Sandstone Press for the review copy.