Review of SISTERS OF A HALVED HEART by Nayantara Roy (New Release)

 3.5 Stars

As the title clearly suggests, this novel is about the bond between sisters and how difficult it can be to repair that bond if broken because of a betrayal.

Mira Guhathakurta is a poetry editor for a niche literary magazine. The novel opens with her returning to New York from London where she spent the last five years. The return is difficult because it brings back memories of her breakup with Jack, a man she loved. She avoids her sister Joy until a family situation forces them together. Tensions are high between the siblings; though the exact nature of the betrayal is not immediately revealed, it is obvious that Joy hurt her sister deeply so Mira has difficulty forgiving her. But Mira has a job she loves, is able to spend time with her best friend Lena, and tentatively begins a romantic relationship with a new man, Marlon Hughes.

I do not have a sister so cannot relate to the relationship between Mira and Joy. They were very close when younger though they vied for their father’s affection. Because they know each other well, they know exactly how to hurt each other. For instance, Mira knows that Joy desires, more than anything, a good relationship with her sister. Understanding that “the greatest punishment to Joy would be to deny her my presence in her life,” Mira does exactly that for years. I imagine that the love/hate relationship is realistically portrayed: “The desire to do her harm coupled with the fact that I could not bear her unhappiness – it had always been my undoing.”

I found myself very frustrated with Mira. She seems so immature. She runs from problems and keeps secrets that serve little purpose. And she makes infuriating choices. Mira is over 30; in someone that age I’d expect more self-awareness. Marlon tells her, “’when we’re hurt, we tend to . . . go blind a little,’” but Mira sometimes seems downright delusional. It is understandable that she feels anger and grief because of the painful breakup and her sister’s actions, but she’s had five years to recover. She likes to portray herself as a victim of betrayal but conveniently forgets about how she and Jack betrayed Frankie!

There is a surprise ending which does force the reader to reconsider what s/he has just read. I don’t like such a big reveal that logically would have been discussed earlier; it just feels too manipulative. It does explain more about the reason for Mira’s behaviour regarding Jack, but I found myself disliking her more because of her lack of emotions considering what she did four years earlier. And considering Lena’s role for the last four years, why would she even ask Mira if she’ll ever reveal the truth to Joy?!

In the first half, the pace dragged. It takes so long for the extent of Joy’s betrayal to be revealed, though I think most readers will guess it long beforehand. And there are other parts that are predictable as well. The mystery about the manuscript that is sent to Mira is certainly not a mystery. Of course Mira’s thoughts do emphasize the theme of how we avoid or are unable to see truths obvious to others.

In books focused on female characters, I often find that the male characters are portrayed negatively. In this novel, however, the men seem too earnest so some of the dialogue is just unbelievable. Jack, Marlon, Sebastian, and even Lee are all so enlightened in their treatment of women.

This may seem a trivial complaint, but does it make sense that an American would choose to study law in England if intending to practice in the US? Surely there are differences in law. A cursory Google search suggests a lawyer educated in the UK is not automatically allowed to practice in the US. At least, s/he must sit the bar.

Anyone who has had a tumultuous relationship with a sister will probably find much to like in this novel. Personally, however, I just couldn’t connect to the main characters and so had difficulty caring about what happened to them. Both Mira and Joy exhibit all the traits of an immature person: a lack of emotional control, poor accountability, and an inability to understand another’s perspective. Yet they somehow attract these almost too-perfect men?

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of THE EMILYS by Heather Abel (New Release)

 2.5 Stars

This novel with its meandering plot touches on a number of issues; unfortunately, it feels unfocused and scattered.

It is set in post-pandemic Northampton, Massachusetts. Forty-four-year-old Eve, having moved back with her two children, meets her childhood friend Demeter. Lonely and bored, Eve is so happy to reconnect. Quickly she becomes dedicated to helping Demeter whose daughter Persephone is suffering from sudden, unexplainable photosensitivity. This condition means she avoids the outdoors and even rooms with lighting. Others in the community are also afflicted. Some label the condition as post-pandemic syndrome while others suspect a tick bite might be the cause.

Eve is joined by others on the hunt for a cure. There’s Ruth, the local librarian; Stephen, whose son suffers with the condition; and Will, a young man hoping to make amends for past mistakes. They learn about a plant that might provide relief so they set out to find it, though the spring ephemeral may very well be extinct. Eve becomes so obsessed that she keeps secrets from her husband, neglects her children, and even quarrels with Demeter.

I found it difficult to determine the purpose of the book. It touches on many topics, including motherhood, friendship, and climate change. It is marketed as a book about love of many kinds and it does indeed show varieties of love: parental love for children; romantic love in heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual relationships; love between friends; and love for nature and the planet. The problem is that each relationship is described in detail. For instance, we learn about Ruth, Stephen and Will’s past loves so we are introduced to many secondary characters like Jeremiah, Quinn, Arielle, Ritu, Jessie, Ramona, and Antonia. Ruth and Stephen were even married to the same woman.

One main message is that we are destroying our planet. One chapter, narrated by a tick, explains how ticks nearly disappeared but came back because of human behaviour. There is repeated reference to the effects of a warming climate; warming winters, wet springs, trees leafing early, and invasive species moving in. Of course, human relationships with nature have changed over time as well: “We largely ignored the plants when we had them, but so much depended upon them. We were living with a flat-out miracle, this green earth a wonderment.” There’s even the suggestion that the photosensitivity is a sickness “as response to a sick world.”

It is difficult to connect with the characters because there are so many of them. Besides the ones already mentioned, there are many others that make an appearance: Lev and Sonya, Eve’s children; Henry James, Eve’s husband; Joan Yalen, Eve’s mother; Kiran, Stephen’s son; Claudine, Jeremiah’s niece; Ellen, Ruth’s friend; as well as other characters named Pax, Ishmael, Aengus, Corin, Indigo, and Lenore and Clement Folkenflick. Then there are the characters given more than one name: Pan/DJ, Orian/Ryan; Ellen/Ellis, and Claude/Claudine. Many of the characters come complete with a back story, though many of those prove to be largely irrelevant.

Eve, a main character, is difficult to like. She lets her husband do as he wants so child care falls solely to her while he commutes from New York only on weekends. She wants to be “crowned queen of mothers” yet virtually abandons her children at times in favour of Demeter and her daughter. She often behaves immaturely; I found myself comparing her flirting with Will to Persephone’s behaviour with DJ.

The book lacks focus because of too many tangents. The pace is slow so there’s little tension and nothing much happens for the longest time. The overly large cast of characters is sometimes just confusing. The novel needs some editing since it is unnecessarily lengthy (over 400 pages). I did not enjoy it but others with more patience might want to give it a try.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of THORNBY MANOR by Stephanie Bramwell-Lawes

 4 Stars

This book is perfect for Gothic fiction lovers. If you enjoyed Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier or Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights by the Brontë sisters, this book is definitely for you. (Even the author’s surname – change the m to an n – may make you think of the Brontës.)

Briar Monroe, after the death of her parents, is set to act as a travel companion for her aunt. Because of illness, her aunt arranges for Briar to stay at Thornby Manor, the home of Lady Elizabeth Danville, until she can join her niece before they embark on their travels. When Briar arrives at Thornby Manor, she learns that Lady Danville died recently, but Lord Danville insists Briar stay as a guest. Lord Danville is often away so the manor is left in the charge of Marie Clara, the governess – though the only Danville child is an adult son named Gabriel.

It is immediately obvious that Thornby Manor is home to many secrets. For instance, Lady Danville died under rather mysterious circumstances. Gabriel, troubled by his mother’s death, has a difficult relationship with his father. When Gabriel arrives, he and Briar team up to uncover the truth of Elizabeth’s illness and death.

The novel has all the classic Gothic elements. In terms of setting, there’s the isolated Victorian manor house which always seems shrouded in mist which circles the house like a vulture. Briar thinks of the manor as “a talisman of darkness, an emblem of death.” There are dark passageways and shuttered rooms in the attic. The dining room is described as being “reminiscent of a narrow coffin.” The weather is always extreme with howling winds and rain: gales make “creaking banisters groan like waking ghouls.” Trees resemble “skeletons shedding skins of scarlet, amber, and gold.”

An atmosphere of dread and mystery, with unexplained occurrences, permeates the book. Briar senses she is being watched, and others admit to seeing ethereal figures. Briar hears strange noises and has “ghoulish visions.” Imagery is used to great effect: skeletons; a dead magpie; “snaking trails of mottled mist bled between the trees like weeping wounds”; bars of the iron gates “tipped with a pointed spear like Cerberus’s teeth”; flames “like snakes on a charm, licking at the grate with eager tongues”; piano keys “gleamed like bared teeth”; and eyes that “glittered like a beast’s.”

A common Gothic trope is the damsel in distress. Briar is certainly isolated and in a vulnerable position because of her father’s actions, but in many ways she is a bit of an anachronism. She is not the typical 19th-century woman. She is outspoken and headstrong and more than once is reminded that her behaviour is outside acceptable societal norms. She champions those who are vulnerable or treated unjustly.

Besides being entertaining, the novel does touch on some serious themes. The role of Victorian women and the treatment of mental illness are highlighted. “Hysteria, intemperance, nervousness, excitement, feebleness of intellect, strength of intellect, excessive sexual appetites” were all reasons used to admit women to insane asylums. And “How many locked away for spurious crimes, for disobeying their husbands, or simply for convenience?” (I was reminded of Liberty Street, a recent novel by Heather Marshall, a Canadian writer, that also examines the institutionalization of women for subjective misbehaviour.)

There are times when the high emotion – intense anger and sorrow – grated on my nerves. Of course, melodrama, exaggerated feelings, and over-wrought imaginations are very much characteristics of Gothic fiction. So it is to lovers of Gothic literature that I recommend this novel.

Review of DAUGHTERS OF THE SUN AND MOON by Lisa See (New Release)

3.5 Stars 

Lisa See’s latest historical fiction begins in 1870 and is set primarily in Los Angeles which at the time had a population of about 5,000 of which 179 were Chinese.

The novel focuses on three Chinese women. Two of them arrive on the same ship. Dove is an innocent 17-year-old with bound feet. Her marriage, as second wife, has been arranged to an older merchant. Petal is 18 years old. Her parents sell her to help their impoverished situation; her fate is to be a hundred men’s wife, a woman always holding up her legs. She must work in a brothel for a minimum of four years. Once in L.A. the two meet Moon, a 26-year-old woman who is married to a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. She is educated and fluent in English; her sorrows are that she walks with a limp because of a failed foot binding and that she has not succeeding in getting pregnant. The three women all face challenges and heartbreak but endure and find comfort in friendship.

As always in See’s novels, there is a great deal of historical information. The reader is made aware of the strong anti-Chinese sentiment at the time. They are considered heathens who live in dirty conditions, bring filth and disease, covet white women, and take jobs from whites. This racism culminates in the Night of Horrors on Oct. 24, 1871, a massacre targeting Chinese immigrants.

What is also interesting is the opinions of the Chinese of Whites. Petal, for instance, refers to them as white ghosts with hair “in the demon colors of yellow, brown, and red . . . [with men having] bushy hair growing out of their faces. Disgusting.” Dove thinks of Whites as barbarians: “The way they eat with knives and forks, letting them clank against each other when even the poorest of our countrymen eat quietly with chopsticks.” The message is that people tend to look askance at what is different.

The three women have distinct personalities which are clearly differentiated though they share traits of bravery, resilience, and determination. The three realize that they have no value: one women states, “’Just as in China, we are the property of men. We can be bought. We can be sold. We can be traded. We can be discarded when we lose our beauty or our abilities to earn a dollar.’” Petal feels the same: “Property. Not a girl. Not a woman. Not even a human. We were property” and wonders “Will I ever have control over my own life?” The Chinese community is dominated by two rival tongs constantly jockeying for power and the women are often pawns: two women are kidnapped, one repeatedly. Though victims of both racism and sexism, the three fight to have their value recognized and succeed in going from “having little choice, little power, and little opportunity” to unearthing “bravery, endurance, and the ability to eat bitterness.”

Each chapter focuses on one of the women. Petal is a first-person narrator who describes events as they happen to her. Dove’s sections are narrated in third-person. Moon is also a first-person narrator, but speaks from the perspective of an old woman living in 1926 and looking back at meeting Dove and Petal and the events before and after the Night of Horrors. Moon offers the most interesting viewpoint because she reflects on what happened but I found her foreshadowing to be heavy-handed: “I didn’t press her either. A regrettable mistake on my part . . . ” and “much would happen between that first shooting and then . . . ”

This book suffers from a slow pace, dialogue that feels stiff and unnatural because it contains too much information, and too many male characters who are flat and lack distinctiveness. It excels in elucidating a history about which many people will have little knowledge. Considering anti-immigration views being expressed these days, the novel is timely.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of LAND by Maggie O'Farrell (New Release)

 4 Stars

O’Farrell’s latest novel is historical fiction and a family drama with a touch of magic realism.

It opens in IreLAND in 1865, about ten years after The Great Hunger. Tomás and his 10-year-old son Liam are working for the Ordnance Survey project to map the entire country. Tomás is determined that his maps will be a record of the The Great Famine, but he is sent off course by an encounter with magical waters in an unsettling copse on a western peninsula. Tomás emerges changed and his life and that of his family is never the same. The novel follows the lives of Tomás, his wife, and their four children: Enda, Liam, Rose, and Eugene.

Though most of the novel focuses on life post-famine, there are flashbacks to the potato famine. Both Tomás and his wife suffer devastating loss during the famine. There are also flashbacks to the past on the peninsula, millennia earlier, where we meet a girl named Brith and then the reader is given a brief history of the changes on the land until Tomás arrives with his family.

This is a multiple-perspective narrative. The perspective of each family member is presented at different times, even one in utero “the size of a pear,” but the novel also includes that of others: Bran, the family’s Irish wolfhound; Father Joseph, the local priest; Brith, a child living in an Iron Age ringfort; and even a skylark.

As always in O’Farrell’s novels, the characterization is outstanding. For instance, the four children emerge as distinct personalities. Enda is the restless one; music becomes her outlet. Liam, scarred by what happened to his father at the magical spring, turns to religion. For Rose, family is of tantamount importance. Eugene cannot speak but communes with the land.

And that land is very much a character. Land shapes people’s lives. Though it remains “indifferent to the bloody and fearsome shifts going on around it,” it remembers. Tomás tells the priest, “’the land was inhabited long before you and your kind ever arrived . . . You will never understand how the land remembers, how deep the roots grow, how fast the stream.’” Humans inhabit land for only a short time, but the land is permanent; it is not static because it changes as people shape it, but it remains even when humans leave it or die: “After these people will come someone else, and then someone else, and on and on it will go until the end of the world.” Eugene sees no delineation between past and present: “He lives much as his ancient forebears did: on and by the land, watching the weather, feeling one season blur into the next.” And the land remains part of the people who lived on it: Tomás desperately wants to find the valley where he lived as a child, “to find where he is from, to walk the soil where he began,” and Enda is on another continent yet “The music she plays is the land: it summons it; it conjures it here, to this street corner.”

Of course people try to shape the land too. They build on it and fence it in. They use its turf for heat. Tomás realizes that mapping the land makes it easier for people to exploit it. Tomás tells his son, “’To map is to assume power.’” He argues that “maps are acts of colonisation, enemy tools that must be destroyed.” Though he needs to make maps to provide for his family, he sees himself “as the lapdog of the redcoats, taking their money, helping them to tighten their hold on the land.” What Tomás wants to do is create “a map of how this land really is, of how it has always been, of what lies beneath whatever order or disorder others might impose upon it.”

Besides The Great Hunger and its enduring trauma on people and the land, the novel also examines colonization and the influence of the Catholic Church. Elements of folklore also make an appearance. For instance, there’s a spring that is said “to bestow what is needed, not necessarily what is wanted, which is not always the same thing.” Magic realism is not something I enjoy, but it’s handled with a light touch so the narrative never feels overwhelmed by it.

My husband and I spent almost a month touring Ireland in 2024 so this novel really resonated with me. We saw the Famine Memorial in Dublin and the memorial in the Doolough valley and they haunt me still, as will the scene the child Tomás witnessed with the earl’s pigs. The symbolism is perfect! We visited ring forts and I bought earrings “decorated with interlocking swirls.” And we heard tales of the fairy folk who inhabit underground mounds and serve as guardians of nature and ancient sites, tales I remembered as I read about Brith’s father’s people disappearing into the ground.

This is another Maggie O’Farrell masterpiece. It is emotional and thought-provoking, has memorable characters, a strong sense of place, and thematic depth, and is written in beautiful prose.

See my reviews of other Maggie O’Farrell novels:

After You’d Gone - https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/08/review-of-after-youd-gone-by-maggie.html

The Marriage Portrait - https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2022/11/review-of-marriage-portrait-by-maggie.html

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2019/08/review-of-vanishing-act-of-esme-lennox.html

Instructions for a Heatwave - https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/11/review-of-instructions-for-heatwave-by.html

The Hand that First Held Mine - https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/12/review-of-hand-that-first-held-mine-by.html

Hamnet and Judith - https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/07/review-of-hamnet-and-judith-by-maggie.html

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of HUNGER AND THIRST by Claire Fuller (New Release)

 3 Stars

I’ve read four of Claire Fuller’s novels so was interested in her latest offering. Unfortunately, this psychological horror was not for me.

There’s a dual timeline: 1987 and 2023. In 1987, 16-year-old Ursula Major, after years in the care system, has a job at a local art school and a bed in a halfway house. She meets Sue who is two years older and the two quickly become friends. Eventually Sue insists Ursula move into a squat, the Underwood, with Sue’s friend Vince. The house has a tragic past and then another tragedy occurs which alters Ursula’s life forever.

Thirty-six years later, Ursula is a successful but reclusive sculptor living under the pseudonym Uschi. A true-crime documentarian finds her and asks her to speak about what happened at the Underwood so long ago. Ursula had hoped to escape the past but that is not to be.

The first half of the book focuses on Ursula’s friendship with Sue. It is not the healthiest of relationships. Ursula is lonely and vulnerable and hungry for love, friendship, and family that have been missing from her life. Sue is erratic, controlling, and selfish; she thirsts for a different life, that of a director of horror films. Ursula is warned about Sue: Vince tells Ursula, “’what Sue wants, Sue gets’” and Sue’s brother even says, “’She changes her mind a lot, Ursula, and she’s done this before, you know. Had other friends she’s let down. . . . you need to work out what you want to do with your own life. Don’t do what Sue is doing.’” Ursula herself realizes that Sue cannot be trusted to keep secrets. Desperate to have a friend, however, Ursula cannot resist Sue who gives her not just friendship but a connection to a family as well.

One of my problems with the book is that I didn’t really like any of the characters. Neither are they memorable. Terry and Vince are just obnoxious. Sue is manipulative, though she is not as extreme as suggested by the publisher’s note which describes her as a wild-child with extreme behaviour and demands. Ursula is the most sympathetic. A damaged child, traumatized by her mother’s fate and her unstable life in foster homes, her neediness overwhelms her. The problem is that it’s difficult to know what to believe because as a narrator, she’s not totally reliable.

I had issues with some of the events. A social worker lets a 16-year-old girl live in a halfway house with recovering alcoholics, ex-junkies, and men recently released from prison? Then, when she learns that Ursula has moved into a squat, the social worker doesn’t really do anything to help? I understand that the child protection system may be overburdened, but there seems to be no attempt to remove Ursula from dangerous environments? Then when Ursula contacts the police about events at the Underwood, no one believes her and the police don’t do a proper investigation? Vince finds Ursula even though she hasn’t really moved in to her new home? And there’s the reference to Ursula suffering from hirsutism; this hairiness befits the linguistic root of her name, but its significance is unclear.

Readers must be willing to accept a lot of ambiguity. What exactly happens at Underwood? Should we believe Ursula’s version or does she suffer a psychotic episode as a result of the trauma in her past or because of substance use? Is she imagining things, influenced by the horror films she repeatedly watches? Is she blaming herself unfairly because of what happened to Sadie? Do not expect clear answers.

Others may enjoy this book, but the haunted house trope has never appealed to me and neither has the concept of possession. Like Raymond, I believe in science and proof, so I’m obviously not the intended audience for this novel. I recommend the book to readers who like the horror genre and are comfortable with a lack of clarity and a lot of uncertainty.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of THIS IS GOING TO HURT: SECRET DIARIES OF A YOUNG DOCTOR by Adam Kay

 3 Stars

This book is an account of the life of a young doctor working for the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It is structured as a series of diary entries between August 3, 2004, and December 5, 2010. He recorded things that happened to him; some were hilarious and some were heartbreaking.

The book reveals the reality of the NHS. What is exposed is an underfunded health care system with a management that does not make decisions in the best interests of medical staff or patients. The author claims doctors are underpaid and overworked. He describes working while exhausted and worrying about providing competent care without making errors which could result in life-threatening consequences. He bemoans “hospitals’ willful ineptitude when it comes to caring for their own staff.”

The personal toll of working in healthcare is highlighted. The author’s relationship with his partner suffers because of the long hours he works; even friendships are impacted when people outside the medical field do not understand the grueling working hours. He also mentions the high percentage of doctors who have experienced mental health issues and the high suicide rates because of the demands of their profession: “being given huge responsibility, minimal supervision, and absolutely no pastoral support.”

One thing that surprised me is the medical career path in the UK. Students choose medicine at 16, long before they understand what the profession entails. This is certainly different than in Canada where students must complete an undergraduate degree before applying to a medical school. This Canadian (and American) approach is the one the author approves: “getting a medical degree is a decision you should make in your early twenties, not as a teenager.” The amount of support junior doctors receive in hospital settings varies; the author describes a hospital where the approach was “see one, do one, teach one” as if watching a procedure automatically qualified someone to perform that procedure.

There are many anecdotes, but I didn’t really find them that surprising or original. One of my friends is an emergency physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, the largest trauma centre in Canada, so I’ve heard some of these types of stories before. I also worked in a hospital for four summers when I was in university so I have tales of my own.

Some of the anecdotes are amusing, but after a while they feel formulaic and repetitive. There is always a punch line at the end. Early on I felt that these would work better as part of a stand-up comedy routine. Sometimes Kay just makes cheap shots at a patient’s intelligence, weight, or sexual activity. And there is a preponderance of jokes about bodily fluids and random foreign objects in body cavities.

I admit to not really liking the author. I understand that humour is a coping mechanism but it sometimes feels exploitative. He uses patients to gain a laugh, and some of his comments are inappropriate and/or insensitive. There’s a condescending tone in his dismissal of colleagues, suggesting some needed prescriptions for common sense and giving examples of incompetence. He makes comments about old people: “a bunch of grannies with pelvic floors like quicksand and their uteri stalagtiting into their thermals.” Some of his comments border on cruelty: he wants a father to stop talking during a delivery but suggesting that he might deliver a blue baby is over the top. Out of spite, he reveals the gender of an unborn child. He is especially judgmental about religion: he repeats how Jehovah Witnesses are stupid and jokes about asking a Muslim man for a BLT and a bottle of vodka. The author does show compassion in some situations, but they are undermined by his ridicule of others. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable having him as a doctor.

The book is good in spotlighting the sacrifices made by medical professionals whom we forget are human beings, not infallible superheroes. Learning about some of their moral and ethical dilemmas might change public perception. I just got the impression that the author didn’t think much of the people who came to him for care, though perhaps my dislike of humour that belittles others is colouring my impression.