The Rose Labyrinth – Titania Hardie

Synopsis from Amazon.co.uk

Before his death in 1609, the brilliant Elizabethan spy and astrologer John Dee hid his most astonishing secrets, trusting his descendants would one day bring them to light. That time has come.
In 2003, Will Stafford inherits a strange legacy from his mother: a key and an ancient script with an enigmatic note. Intrigued, he travels Europe seeking answers to Dee’s riddles, unaware that someone is following every move. Back in London, Lucy King becomes entangled in Will’s cryptic labyrinth. As its mysterious twists take her from France to New York, and from literature to myth, in search of its hidden treasure, she has never been closer to the truth, nor in graver danger.

My Review

When Will Stafford’s mother leaves him a mysterious key in her will, he has to find out what the story behind it is. But what he finds leads into an awful lot of trouble, as religious fanatics are desperate for the story that is unravelling and will do anything for the information.

I really enjoyed this book, the tone in which it’s written is beautiful, the language really flows and just draws you in from page one. I found the contents of the story fascinating – John Dee, ‘The Rapture’, religion, Shakespeare, cellular memory – there are just so many aspects, but surprisingly they all fit together perfectly. It starts as several different threads and then as the book progresses, they all start to twine together and I really enjoyed how they started to slot into the story. I especially loved the descriptions of the various settings, it has definitely made me want to go and visit them myself one day!

The Rose Labyrinth has been likened to ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘The Labyrinth’, so I think fans of those books would enjoy this, but I think everyone could take something from this, it has a bit of everything for everyone and it’s a really great book.

4/5

Living Like You Mean It: Use the Wisdom and Power of Your Emotions to Get the Life You Really Want by Ronald J. Frederick

This is a book aimed at those people who are out of touch with their feelings and emotions, although anyone may gain from reading it. The book explains that many people are afraid of their emotions (feeling phobia) and truly do not accept them and will rationalise in their head, with their thoughts, as the emotions can be too strong for them to deal with. The book advises really feeling those feelings and emotions through the body and to leave the thinking for later. It gives examples of people and their lives and looks at the influence of their upbringing with regards to how they deal with emotions.It then gives advice how to deal with the fear and accept your own emotions in full.

I found this an interesting book, well written and easy to follow and understand. I have read some similar books before  and I wasn’t sure that this one added too much to what I’d already read – however it did make me realise that, at times, I am too quick to rationalise things other people do before feeling fully the emotion I have felt because of what they have done, and so it’s definitely given me food for thought and next time I have a roaring emotion, caused by someone else’s action, I’ll try to bear with it and let the thoughts happen later and see how it feels. I would certainly recommend it to anyone that has difficulties with their emotions and connections to other people, especially if they’ve not read anything in this area before. I can certainly imagine it could be of great use to people who had a very cold upbringing and really have never ever gotten to grips with their feelings as from childhood their emotions have been pushed away. If everyone could learn to connect with others as this book suggests the world would be a better one.

Publisher: Jossey-Bass (March 3, 2009)

Iris and Ruby by Rosie Thomas

When 19 year old Ruby decides that she has had enough of her life in London, she runs away to her grandmother Iris’s home in Cairo.  As Ruby falls in love with Cairo, Iris is in ill health and fears that she is losing her memories of wartime Cairo and the soldier she fell in love with, who lost his life in World War II.  As we learn the story of Iris and Xan Molyneaux, we also see Ruby growing up, forming a relationship of her own and bonding with her grandmother.  

 

I really enjoyed this book.  As well as being a retrospective love story (which is wonderfully told), it is also a story of Ruby’s own journey from a troubled and thoughtless teenager, to an intelligent and compassionate young woman.  The story deals with love and heartbreak, fear and memory, and in particular, how the memory of one certain time in life, can affect all the times that come after it.

Cairo is vividly brought to life – both in the modern day and during World War II – and it was very easy to imagine how Ruby felt discovering the city for the first time.  Reading the book made me want to visit there myself.

Although the love story between Iris and Xan is passionate and beautifully told, it is never cheesy or overly sentimental.  

All of the characters were entirely believable – more so for not being perfect – and the writing is fantastic.  I am determined to seek out more by this author.

By Hook or By Crook by Betty Hechtman

From Amazon ~

Meet the happy crafter who believes every mystery should be unraveled.

Molly Pink’s crochet group has a new mystery on their hands when they find a paper bag that contains a note that speaks of remorse, a diary entry of the sorrow of parting, and a complicated piece of filet crochet that offers an obscure clue in pictures. Things get even more complicated when they find the talented crocheter—murdered by a box of poisoned marzipan apples.

Molly Pink can’t seem to stay away from a murder investigation. While the Tarzana Hookers are selling their crochet items at a fundraiser for the state park, they find a bag left on their table. Inside they find a diary entry from 20 years ago, a note that has a tone of regret, a beautiful piece of filet crochet filled with clues, in the form of symbols. Determined to return the bag to its rightful owner, Molly and the rest of the Hookers, start trying to figure out what each symbol means. But when Molly shows up at the home of the woman she believes is the owner of the bag, she finds the woman dead. Luckily, this time she isn’t considered a suspect. What starts off looking like an accidental death, turns into a case of murder – by poison. Now Molly is more determined than ever to find out the story of its owner, as well as figure out who killed her, regardless of the warnings to stay away. All of the old characters from the previous books are back, along with a few new faces. Including Camille, the super rich daughter & wife of the producer of CeeCee’s show, who is doing what her life coach says, and trying to act like the “little people”. I love how even in this third outing of this series, Adele still hold a grudge against Molly for taking the job she wanted. To top it all off, Molly’s parents have taken over her house for rehearsals for her mothers singing group reunion. And Molly continues to struggle with her feelings for both Barry and Mason. This is a well crafted mystery that gets unraveled one strand at a time, leading to the unfolding of a murderer I never even considered.

For One More Day by Mitch Albom

Synopsis from Amazon:

‘Every family is a ghost story …’ As a child, Charley Benetto was told by his father, ‘You can be a mama’s boy or a daddy’s boy, but you can’t be both.’ So he chooses his father, only to see him disappear when Charley is on the verge of adolescence. Decades later, Charley is a broken man. His life has been destroyed by alcohol and regret. He loses his job. He leaves his family. He hits rock bottom after discovering he won’t be invited to his only daughter’s wedding. And he decides to take his own life. Charley makes a midnight ride to his small hometown: his final journey. But as he staggers into his old house, he makes an astonishing discovery. His mother – who died eight years earlier – is there, and welcomes Charley home as if nothing had ever happened. What follows is the one seemingly ordinary day so many of us yearn for: a chance to make good with a lost parent, to explain the family secrets and to seek forgiveness.

This is the first Mitch Albom book I have read, and it has placed him in high stead. This book is very easy to read. It draws you in and pulls on your heart strings a bit. It is engaging and gripping. Yes,predictable but that does not spoil the story.

Albom touches on several issues in this book – divorce, alcoholism and death – all with a good degree of success. He talks about divorce in a time where it was not the done thing, and he examines how the children were pitied and the mother was shunned. He looks at how easy it is to fall into alcohol abuse, and what damage that can cause, and he looks at death – from the reasons behind attempted suicide to dealing with unresolved issues when someone you love dies. It is only a short book but all these issues are dealt with a satisfying and sensitive way.

The story does jump around in time as Charley remembers the past, deals with guilt from always trying to please his father and learns his mother’s life story.

This is a touching book. As I said, it is predictable but a lovely book all the same, as Charley gets answers to his questions and deals with his guilt, and ultimately, gets one more day with his dear Mum. This is well worth reading. It is hard to put down and hard to criticise.

9/10

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Date of Publication: 1998, Picador USA

Number of Pages: 226

Synopsis (from back cover): Passionate, profound, and deeply moving, The Hours is the story of three women: Clarissa Vaughan, who one New York morning goes about planning a party in honor of a beloved friend; Laura Brown, who in a 1950s Los Angeles suburb slowly begins to feel the constraints of a perfect family and home; and Virginia Woolf, recuperating with her husband in a London suburb, and beginning to write Mrs. Dalloway. By the end of the novel, the stories have intertwined, and finally come together in an act of subtle and haunting grace, demonstrating Michael Cunningham’s deep empathy for his characters as well as the extraordinary resonance of his prose.

Review: I had several reasons to read this book. First, Mrs. Dalloway is one of my favorite books and the film adaptation of The Hours is one of my favorite movies. So, I was prepared for something profound, but I was not expecting a book that would speak to me the way this one did. Michael Cunningham has a way of describing his characters’ thoughts and feelings that makes me feel like he’s inside my own mind. The fears, sensations, and oddities of Virginia, Laura, and Clarissa are so much like my own and it forced private feelings that I have never really acknowledged to come to the surface. Reading this book was a a very personal experience for me, but I believe that any reader will be able to enjoy it. Cunningham explores an incredible variety of emotions and demonstrates a unique understanding of human nature. I would recommend this book to pretty much everyone I know.

Rating: 10/10

Reviewed by Sarah

Perfect Family by Pam Lewis

Synopsis ~

A story of a family secret with deadly consequences.When Pony Carteret is found drowned in the waters of Lake Aral her family is quick to accept a verdict of accidental death, but something doesn’t seem to fit: how could Pony, an able and experienced swimmer, die within feet of their exclusive holiday home while her toddler son played on the shore? Pony’s death opens a whole Pandora’s box of questions: who is her son’s father? Who was the man a neighbour saw arguing with her only hours before she died? What had she meant to tell William, her older brother, whom she had summoned to the house that day? William is absolutely shattered by his favourite sister’s death, and as he begins to challenge the official version of events he makes a devastating and very personal discovery. And how should he respond to Keith Brink, a stranger who spoke at Pony’s funeral, and has now begun to insinuate his way into the life of their vulnerable younger sister, Mira?

‘Perfect Family’ is the story of the Carterets who are anything but a perfect family, William, the eldest, finds out. Following the death of his youngest sister, Pony, William and the rest of the family are in turmoil. Jasper Carteret their father fails to recognise, along with his remaining daughters, Tinker and Mira that Pony’s death was suspicious. As the story progresses, you find out more of the family’s secrets, told in separate chapters with each character which was interesting to read because you were focusing on that particular character.

I enjoyed ‘Perfect Family’, it was slow paced but in a good way, leading up to the conclusion, you saw the family changing as the story progressed, in positive and negative ways, I felt quietly relived for the characters at the end.

‘Perfect Family’ is an engaging read with lots of suspense, an interesting story of families and the damage that secrets can cause.

Rating: 10/10

Review written by Gyre

Jesse’s Girl by Gary Morgenstein

Blurb from Amazon:

The story opens as a jarring phone wakes lifelong Brooklynite and widowed father Teddy Mentor well after midnight. It’s the Montana wilderness program saying that his 16-year-old adopted son has run away – and they haven’t a clue where he’s gone. Only two weeks ago, Jesse had been taken to the program by escorts to deal with substance abuse problems. Jeopardizing his flagging PR job in New York, Mentor rushes across the country to find Jesse, who is off on his own quest: to find Theresa, the sister he’s never known. When Teddy finally discovers Jesse at a bus stop in Illinois, he is torn between sending him back or joining his son on a journey to find this girl in Kentucky. But he decides to go and they become embroiled in a grisly crime when Theresa’s abusive husband Beau attacks her – Jesse stabs the big beast of a man, leaving him for dead.

My review:

Jesse’s Girl is a very dark, fast paced thriller which despite some weaknesses kept me hooked from start to finish. It portrays middle aged Teddy who is struggling to keep his son, and himself, afloat after the death of his wife: teenage Jesse has gone wild as he sinks deeper and deeper into drugs and searches for his biological family, and his father is overwhelmed by his position as a single parent.

I was slightly worried as I started this that it would be too much of a sentimental drama on the issues of addiction and adoption… Both difficult themes to write about. But it is in fact a captivating novel which shows us the characters’ struggles rather than over analysing them. Teddy and Jesse’s conflictual relationship in particular, is shown rather than discussed. The reasons behind Jesse’s family search, Teddy’s complicated feelings over his dead wife, Theresa’s motivations… are all implied rather than forced upon the reader.

This means that all is not resolved by the end of the book, some developments remain partly unexplained, some characters are still somewhat a mystery… But it is up to each reader, as in real life, to interpret the facts in his own way.

All the characters are nicely shaded and often intriguing. Theresa in particular, at first sight a bit of a Mary-Sue, evolves in a wonderful character. Even Beau, a truly despicable villain, is portrayed with just the right sliver of feelings which, whilst far from enough to redeem him, make him more human in the reader’s eyes.

Unfortunately the style is sometimes inconsistent, lapsing in cheesy comments which don’t really fit in with the general atmosphere of the book. And the reading is slightly impaired by some typos and a lot of swearing. I’m sure that this last point would depend on each reader’s sensibility and a limited amount of it does serve the atmosphere and fit the characters, but at some points I just felt it was too much.

Overall though, Jesse’s Girl remains a gripping novel which kept me on the edge of my seat over the few days it took me to finish it… More so than any other book I read recently!

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Synopsis from Amazon:

Small town Louisiana has a big problem – or rather a number of big problems. And now some of them have come knocking on Sookie’s door …Sookie is an unassuming cocktail waitress in an (outwardly) unremarkable town. She’s quiet, keeps to herself and doesn’t get out much. Attractive as she is, her hidden ‘talents’ send men running. For some reason her mindreading skills are just a bit threatening …Then the unreadable Bill appears on the scene. Tall, dark and handsome, Bill seems to be the man of her dreams. Except he’s not technically human. Bill is a vampire and a vampire who keeps seriously bad company, some suspected – unsurprisingly – of murder. Things get a bit close to home when a co-worker is murdered and Sookie starts wondering whether she will be next …

Well it is fair to say Charlaine Harris really does know how to write a good story. This is the first book in her Sookie Stackhouse series. Sookie is a waitress in a small town, where everyone knows everyone else. Yet she has a gift; she can read people’s minds, which makes her the strangest person in the community. But things are set to change in this sleepy town, as vampires are now legal beings and are trying to “go mainstream” and live in amongst humans. This is good news for Sookie – it gets her a boyfriend – a tall, dark, handsome vampire. But not everyone is happy with having vampires roaming around, and soon there are girls dying, girls who Sookie works with and who associate with vampires. With fear and death all around, Sookie fears she will be the next victim….

This book had action right from the first page to the last. Harris weaves a great web of suspense, suspicion and fear. She writes in several characters, all of whom could be committing the crimes. The deaths themselves were gruesome. She had no fear in writing a realistic murder. I liked how she wrote about vampires too. She stuck to the traditional ideas about vampires – such as them keeping out of sunlight and feeding on humans. Although I thought it was interesting that she invented “fang-bangers”: those who wanted to be bitten by vampires; I thought that was original.

I liked Sookie. She seemed strong and sensible, and fairly likable. I loved her Gran though – her interest in the vampires was fairly amusing. I couldn’t figure out her brother – his character kept changing. That makes me wonder if he will feature more further on in the series. Of course, the other key character was Bill. For a vampire, I liked him. I couldn’t work out how vampires don’t have emotions but do fall in love but I liked how he was written. He was dangerous, and he showed that, but he had affection too.

My complaint would be the amount of sex in the book. There was a lot. It did seem that when they weren’t out investigating, they were having sex. I didn’t think the book needed quite that level of intimacy – in a way it did spoil the book for me a little bit. However, I did enjoy the book for the most part and would recommend it. It didn’t take long to read; it was gripping and exciting; and Harris keeps her status as one of my favourite authors.

8/10

Bones to Ashes by Kathy Reichs

Synopsis from Amazon:

Under the microscope, the outer bone surface is a moonscape of craters…

The skeleton is that of a young girl, no more than fourteen years old – and forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan is struggling to keep her emotions in check.

A nagging in her subconscious won’t let up. A memory triggered, deep in her hindbrain – the disappearance of a childhood friend; no warning, no explanation…

Detective Andrew Ryan is working a series of parallel cases, and requires Tempe’s forensic expertise. Three missing persons, three unidentified bodies – all female, all early-to-mid teens… Could Tempe’s skeleton be yet another in this tragic line of young victims? Or is she over-reacting, making connections where none exist?

Working on instinct, Tempe takes matters into her own hands. But she couldn’t have predicted where this investigation would lead, or the horrors it would eventually uncover… Can Tempe maintain a professional distance as the past catches up with her in this, her most deeply personal case yet?

I have only just started reading crime novels and this is the first Kathy Reich’s book I have read – and it certainly encourages me to read more of this genre and more of her work.

In this novel, Tempe is working with several skeletons – most of them from Ryan’s missing girls and cold cases. Except, it all gets a little personal. When a young girl her friend disappeared without a trace, and Tempe worries that one of the skeletons is her friend. With this in mind, she and her sister start their own investigation, which leads them into danger….

This was an exciting book with plenty of turns and twists and I didn’t work out the ending. It seemed very realistic – full of scientific knowledge and crime knowledge. Reich’s writing is engaging and gripping. She writes about more than just the crimes, there is love and friendship and family explored too, adding depth to an already good book. Through these she is able to explore the characters more fully.

My only complaints were lots of the conversation was in French, which then had to be translated, and there was so much science I didn’t understand! Other than that, this was a good book and well worth reading.

8/10