How To Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley

 

The members of the recently formed senior citizens club at Mandel Community Centre spring into action when they learn the council is going to demolish the building and redevelop the site. Little does the council realise who they are dealing with.

Clare Pooley has two previous novels, The Authenticity Project and The People On Platform Five, so fans will have an idea of what to expect from How To Age Disgracefully. I'm happy to report that the author has worked her magic again, showing that age is just a state of mind and woe-betide anyone who overlooks someone simply because they look old.

The hilarious opening pages give us a glimpse of what to expect. A minibus carrying a mixture of pensioners and young children is stopped by the police. To much amazement various passengers begin admitting crimes and insist that they are the person that needs to be arrested. The story then jumps back a few months and introduces us to some of those passengers as they join the newly formed social club at the community centre.

Daphne is the main character. Seventy years old and feeling lonely, Daphne talks to her dead husband, the house plants and even the TV, but she doesn't talk to her neighbours. Daphne has barely left her flat in fifteen years but decides now is the time to try and make some friends. It is very easy for the reader to immediately make assumptions about Daphne, however, despite being seventy she's not a pushover. Daphne is feisty, quick-witted, speaks her mind and has some amazing hidden skills. I was convinced throughout that she was a retired spy hiding from an unknown enemy.

Art is very different. He's a little bit older than Daphne and is struggling to accept that his career as an actor is over, a career that never really took off. The main reason for Art's refusal to accept enforced retirement is that he needs the money.

When Daphne and Art stumble across the newly formed social club they meet a strange collection of people. Lydia is nominally in charge, returning to employment now her children have left home. Anna used to be a long-distance lorry driver and terrorises everyone with her mobility scooter. Ruby seems to do nothing but knit strange creations and Penelope is a forthright retired headteacher. We also meet a few others who use the community centre such as Ziggy. Ziggy is still at Sixth Form and has dreams of going to university. Unfortunately, those dreams were dashed when he became a single father. His only hope of finishing Sixth Form is the nursery at the community centre.

You cannot help but like the cast of eccentric characters, particularly when you learn more about their backgrounds. We learn not to jump to conclusions based on age, looks or where someone lives. Through a variety of situations, you are cheering each and every one of the group on. It is impossible to even consider any of them failing, mainly because Daphne is such a formidable leader, able to talk her way out of any situation. While Daphne is able to solve everyone else's problems, it looks like time has run out for her and the secret she has been living with for a long time.

How To Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley will be published on 20th June 2024 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Transworld Books for a review copy.

Author Details

Clare Pooley graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge and spent twenty years in the heady world of advertising, before becoming a full-time writer. Clare's dark but hilarious memoir, The Sober Diaries, has helped thousands of people around the world to quit drinking. The Authenticity Project, Clare's debut novel, was a BBC Radio 2 bookclub pick, a New York Times bestseller, the winner of the RNA debut novel award and a Babelio award. It's been translated into 29 languages. The People on Platform 5 is Clare's second novel, inspired by her fascination with inventing stories about her fellow passengers on her commute to work. Clare lives in Fulham, London with her husband, three children and two border terriers.

The Unforgettable Loretta, Darling by Katherine Blake

 

Twenty-year-old Margaret manages to persuade an American to finance her way to Hollywood. She has dreams of becoming a famous make-up artist, but first, she must re-create herself and learn to deal with the seamier side of the movie business.

From the very beginning, we realise that author Katherine Blake has created a fearless character in Margaret. Her wiles take her from a working-class background in Morecombe to the golden era of 1950s Hollywood, as she becomes The Unforgettable Loretta, Darling.

I’m not sure what drew me to this book. I like to take a break from reading crime now and again so always look for something a little lighter in tone. I also love the era the book is set in.

The narrative has far more dialogue than I expected, so from the very beginning you are catapulted straight into the story with its gossipy style. This style, combined with the storyline of a young northern girl fleeing to America with big dreams seemed a bit too much like the backstreet saga’s my Mum loved to read. Initially, the story makes its inevitable progress, with Margaret, now known as Loretta, working in a diner and befriended by a prostitute.

Very quickly the story takes an extremely dark turn. At the beginning of the book, the author warns of scenes that the reader may find distressing, these scenes, particularly the first one, make for uncomfortable reading. They highlight the debauchery of the time, the way in which leading actors were treated as gods and could get away with anything while women were treated as commodities. The nature of some of the hedonistic parties was frequently written about in gossip columns but using a code that only people in the industry truly understood.

Once Loretta had glimpsed the seamier side of Hollywood I had hoped that the story was going to become an exposé of the darker side of the film industry during the 1950s, however, it continued to focus on her quest to become a famous make-up artist.

I liked the supporting characters and the frequent nods to real-life stars of the 1950s. Thanks to the descriptions I felt fully immersed in the backstage life on a movie set. We are given a glimpse into the magic of make-up and the studio trickery to make actors even more glamorous. The story could have been so much bigger, however, if it had picked one direction, either chasing dreams or an exposé and stuck with that. The ending does leave things open for a sequel and I’d happily spend time finding out how Loretta is doing chasing her dream.

The Unforgettable Loretta, Darling by Katherine Blake will be published on 20^th June 2024 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Viking Books UK for a review copy.

Author Details

Katherine Blake is a pseudonym for Karen Ball, an author who has written over twenty-five children’s books and was a Bookseller Rising Star thanks to her publishing consultancy, Speckled Pen. She regularly appears on podcasts, including The Bestseller Experiment and SJ Bennett’s PrePublished. She lives in London and runs a biweekly newsletter filled with fun news, book reviews, and regular updates about her miniature schnauzer.

Redemption by Jack Jordan

 

Evelyn Moore has been waiting eleven years for the man who killed her son to be released from prison. She has one thing on her mind, revenge for the death of her nine-year-old son. Evelyn’s husband, Tobias, loves his wife deeply and has stuck by her in the intervening years, hoping that he can persuade his wife not to carry out her deadly plan.

Having read Jack Jordan’s previous two novels, Do No Harm and Conviction, I know that the author writes about protagonists who are forced to face moral dilemmas. The author’s latest novel, Redemption, features people facing moral dilemmas but this time around it seems to be on a much greater scale. Evelyn isn’t being coerced to take a life, it’s her own choice.

The heart of the novel is about grief, and how we move through the different stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. We see two people who are at different points on this journey. After eleven years Tobias has reached acceptance but his wife hasn’t moved past the anger stage. As a result, their marriage is strained. We get brief glimpses of the young couple in the early years of their relationship and learn that Tobias still loves his wife. It’s his love that has kept him in the relationship, he knows what Evelyn plans to do and hopes that he can prevent her from carrying out her plan.

Evelyn is single-minded. She has planned what she is going to do for eleven years. The author has given us a glimpse into the mind of a grieving mother bent on revenge and it is intense. This is a woman who will stop at nothing and will not let anyone get in her way. She knows that her husband doesn’t share her convictions, she sees him as a hindrance, so plans to move on without him as soon as possible.

Aaron Alexander is the third person in this story. We learn about his terrible childhood, his teenage years as a petty criminal and the fateful night when he ran over Joshua Moore and left him for dead. Aaron seems to have given up on life, he’s existing from one day to the next.

All of the characters elicit sympathy. Jack Jordan has written the characters in such a way that you can get inside their minds, you understand what is driving them. You may not agree with what they are doing but you understand why.

This novel is set in Nevada, USA rather than the UK. This was obviously necessary for the plot. Wide open space, miles between inhabited areas and a sparse population allow for a drawn-out cat-and-mouse chase. The desert setting also adds an apocalyptic feel, as if you are at the end of the world with no hope in sight.

The body count is high and the violence is extreme, the author has pulled no punches as Evelyn is consumed by her goal. There are a couple of scenes in particular that made me wince, I’d have been covering my eyes if this had been a film.

Redemption by Jack Jordan will be published on 20^th June 2024 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK for a review copy.

Author Details

Jack Jordan is the global bestselling author of Anything for Her, My Girl, A Woman Scorned, Before Her Eyes, Night by Night, Do No Harm and Conviction, and an Amazon No. 1 bestseller in the UK, Canada and Australia.
Do No Harm was described as ‘chilling’ by Sarah Pearse, ‘brilliant’ by Lesley Kara and ‘pulse-racing’ by Louise Candlish. It was an instant Times bestseller on first publication and a Waterstones Thriller of the Month pick. 

The Revenge Club by Kathy Lette (Audiobook)

 

Four female friends, all sidelined in some way by men, hatch a plan to wreak revenge.

I will freely admit I haven't been near a Kathy Lette novel in about twenty years. My tastes changed, but now I'm more than happy to intersperse my usual diet of crime and thrillers with something a little lighter, romantic fiction or uplifting fiction fits the bill perfectly. Hence, I decided to give  The Revenge Club a go.

University friends Tilly, Penny, Jo and Cressida haven't seen each other for twenty years. They had a strong bond at university, they even formed a group, but careers and families mean that they have drifted apart. It is therefore a surprise when Jo suggests they rekindle the friendship.

Tilly, Penny and Cressida are detailing what they have done since leaving university when a strange man approaches their table. They are shocked and amazed to discover that it is their friend Jo, masquerading as Joe. Jo explains that her career as a leading special effects artist ground to a halt when a director decided she was "past it". Using her skills she disguised herself as a man and had the chance to work with the same director who thinks her new persona is brilliant and Joe is now in great demand.

Jo/Joe's tale causes the other three women to begin to recount how their lives have changed now they've passed the 40 mark. A successful novelist has been dropped by her publisher (her writing is no longer relevant), a TV journalist has been dropped in favour of a male colleague (too old to be on screen) and an actress is now only being offered jobs aimed at much older people (roles advertising incontinence pads). Added to this a husband has taken on a much younger mistress. The descriptions in which the women have been sidelined will not come as a surprise to female readers, they are the sort of thing we see and hear on a regular basis. It is refreshing to see that the author is now writing about an older generation of females but, as one of the characters points out, forty is hardly old. 

The quartet agrees to seek revenge on the men who have wronged them using Jo's disguise to help. Luckily they discover allies to help them carry out their plans. Some of the allies come from surprising places but also show that not all men are the same.

The dialogue is razor sharp, as you would expect from Kathy Lette, but I felt that it became a little preachy at times. I enjoyed the twists which added unexpected elements to the storyline, making this much more than just a tale of revenge.

Author Details

Kathy Lette first achieved succès de scandale as a teenager with the novel Puberty Blues, which was made into a major film and a TV mini-series. She has written 20 books which have been translated into 19 languages. Kathy has two children and divides her time between Sydney and London. Kathy is an autodidact (a word she taught herself) but has three honorary doctorates. She is a TV presenter, newspaper and magazine columnist and also an ambassador for Their World, the National Autistic Society and Ambitious About Autism. Kathy recently completed a tour of her one-woman show, "Girls Night Out", and is pleased to report that she didn't fall out with the cast.

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra

 

In the middle of the night, a mother gets up to check on her two young children. Hearing a noise she is convinced that there is someone in the house. When she sees the outline of a stranger on the stairs her only thought is of the survival of her and her children.

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra is another of those books that has gained a buzz on Twitter, hence it joined my TBR pile. I was desperate to read it but I'm a bit of a wimp so had to pick my time perfectly, I have been known to stop reading if a book scares me. Initially, it was going to be holiday reading but I decided against reading this in a strange house. After that, I had to think about the timings of my OH being away from home.

This book is so gripping that you are likely to read it in one sitting. The opening chapter, in fact, the opening line, is chilling and sets the tone for the remainder of the book. The setting adds to the atmosphere; an old house, which some locals are convinced is haunted, a remote setting, heavy snowfall, the middle of the night and a woman alone with young children. 

The old rambling house is as much of a character in the story as the mother and the intruder. The mother's knowledge of all the noises the house makes is what first alerts her. You then feel her terror and the frantic race against time to collect her children together and hide. Luckily there is a panel that leads to a small crawl space, a panel so well disguised that it is almost impossible to spot.

With her children safe they then have to listen as the intruder searches. Once again it's her knowledge of the sounds the house makes that allows her to track his movements. As she listens she realises that somehow this stranger knows them, that she has seen him somewhere before.

I'm not going to add any more, this really is one of those books where saying anymore is likely to spoil the tension. You have to read it for yourself, experience the terror, the loss of control and wonder what you would do in a similar situation.

Author Details

Tracy Sierra was born and raised in the Colorado mountains. She is an attorney who currently lives in New England in an antique colonial-era home complete with its own secret room. When not writing, she spends time with her husband and two children. Nightwatching is her debut novel.

The Chamber by Will Dean

 

A team of six saturation divers face a job where they are confined together, under extreme pressure, to a small capsule. Shortly after the job begins one of them is dead. Was it natural causes or murder?

Will Dean has produced the ultimate in locked room mysteries with his latest offering, The Chamber. The protagonists are saturation divers, they live in a small chamber on the deck of a ship. The chamber has been pressurised to match the depth at which they will be working on the sea bed and takes days to change back to normal. The chamber is one room, the size of an SUV, and a separate ‘wet pot’ for bodily functions and showering. With six people in such a confined space, with nowhere to hide, we are faced with a locked room mystery that leaves no corner to hide.

The story is told from the perspective of Ellen Brooke, the only female among the team of six. Ellen knows four of the other divers, they’ve all worked together at one time or another. The job is so specialised that the field of suitable candidates is small. The sixth diver, Tea-Bag, is new, it’s only his second saturation dive. Within hours of being in the pressurised chamber, Tea-Bag is discovered dead in his bunk. The group are faced with two problems; firstly, it will take four days to return the pressure in the chamber to normal, and secondly, how did their colleague die?

As the crew grapples with their enforced confinement, we learn how dangerous their job actually is. Not only do they face peril from the things we expect, they also have to deal with issues we would consider to be minor. The pressure means that the chamber is a hothouse where bacteria can multiply rapidly. The divers must ensure that everything is kept scrupulously clean. Being so reliant on everyone doing their utmost to ensure everyone is kept safe, along with the specialised nature of their job, gives a sense of camaraderie. As they begin to wonder if that trust is misplaced a sense of paranoia begins to set in, showing us that the dangers are psychological as well as physical.

Confined quarters and growing distrust leads to introspection. The surviving divers share memories of some of the jobs they have worked on previously and this makes for grim reading as we learn about the disturbing reality of some well-known maritime disasters. Thankfully, Will Dean doesn’t go overboard with the descriptions.

The conclusion becomes a life-or-death race against time, with the claustrophobia and tension building to the point of explosion. My nerves were on edge as I was willing away the minutes until the hatch could be opened and the truth revealed.

The Chamber by Will Dean will be published on 6^th June 2024 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for a review copy.

Author Details

Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands and had lived in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. After studying Law at the LSE and working in London, he settled in rural Sweden where he built a house in a boggy clearing at the centre of a vast elk forest, and it’s from this base that he compulsively reads and writes. His debut novel, Dark Pines, was selected for Zoe Ball’s Book Club, shortlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker prize and named a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year. Red Snow was published in January 2019 and won Best Independent Voice at the Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards, 2019. Black River was shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Award in 2021. The Last Thing to Burn was released to widespread acclaim in January 2021. First Born was published in 2022.

Welcome To Glorious Tuga by Francesca Segal

 

Vet Charlotte Walker takes up the offer to study tortoises on the remote island of Tuga. Reptiles are her passion, but she has another motive. Charlotte believes the father she’s never met is from Tuga.

Francesca Segal has created a charming fictional island, filled with eccentric characters, in Welcome To Glorious Tuga. Tuga is a tiny British overseas territory, miles from anywhere, that is cut off from visitors for half the year. When you set foot on Tuga it is like being transported back in time – some say to the 50s but they are unsure if that’s the 1950s or the 1850s.

Despite the location and other drawbacks of Tuga, Charlotte Walker jumps at the chance of a year-long study of the tortoises native to the island. Charlotte is an introvert, better with animals than people, and focused on her study. She does, however, have an ulterior motive for visiting the island. Her mother has never disclosed to her the identity of her father. Just one small clue has convinced Charlotte that her father is Tugan.

During the long sea voyage to Tuga, Charlotte continually suffers from sea sickness. Luckily, one of the other passengers, Dan Zekri, is a doctor. Dan is from Tuga and is returning home after living in England. Over the course of the journey, a friendship is formed, and Charlotte has dreams that it could blossom into something more.

The island is populated by a host of engaging characters, some of whom are used to great effect to further the storyline. One of those characters is the island “bad boy” Levi. Charlotte is initially cold and unfriendly towards Levi, she sees him as rough and uncultured. Levi doesn’t have a high opinion of Charlotte either, seeing her as aloof and unfriendly. You can see immediately where this storyline is heading – will Charlotte end up with Dan or Levi?

While I found it easy to fall in love with Tuga and its inhabitants, I just didn’t warm to Charlotte; I didn’t really care about what happened to her. I also felt that the pacing was a bit erratic. Huge time jumps seemed to come out of nowhere, with little explanation. Characters such as Levi and Taki brought the story alive; for others, such as Grand Mary, I couldn’t see the point in why they had such a prominent role in the story.

Welcome To Glorious Tuga by Francesca Segal will be published on 6^th June 2024 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Chatto & Windus for a review copy.

Author Details

Francesca Segal is an award-winning writer and journalist. She is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, The Innocents (2012) and The Awkward Age (2017), and a memoir of NICU motherhood, Mother Ship (2019). Her writing has won the 2012 Costa First Novel Award, a Betty Trask Award, and been longlisted for the Women's Prize.