The Girl in the Photograph by Kate Riordan (2015)

Firecombe is a place of secrets. They fret among the uppermost branches of the beech trees and brood at the cold bottom of the stream that cleaves the valley in two. The past has seeped into the soil here, like spilt blood. If you listen closely enough you can almost hear what's gone before, particularly on the stillest days. Sometimes the very air seems to hum with anticipation. At other times it's as though a collective breath has been drawn in and held. It waits, or so it seems to me

The prologue of the book opens in 1936, in a strange and eerie place that the narrator, Alice, has been in for three years. This place, she tells us, has changed her in imaginable ways, and now, three years after her arrival, it is time for her to acknowledge the uhealed rifts in the valley by telling their story.

The novel then journeys back to London in 1932. Alice, unlike most women in her time, has graduated from grammar school. Educated and intelligent, she is bored in her job as a typist and disconnected from her working class parents (in particular her mother), who thinks she has ideas above herself and should quit her job and work in a shop where she can meet a man. On on "particularly silent, stultifying day", the handsome and charming James Elton walks into her office and Alice is in love. James is married but (in a tale as old as time) he is going to leave his wife...until he doesn't, leaving Alice pregnant and alone in a time where being a single mum is not an option. Alice's mum sends Alice to Fiercombe Manor in the countryside, where an old school friend of hers works as a housekeeper. Once Alice has her baby, she will return to London and put it up for adoption.

Fiercombe Manor is an unusual place, where unusual things happen. It's at the bottom of a valley and, as she descends in an old horse-and-carriage driven by the gardener, Ruck, her watch stops working. The motif time as stopped, stilled or moving in unusual ways continues throughout the novel. The housekeeper and her mother's friend, Mrs Jelphs. Mrs Jelphs is also an unusual character: alternately friendly, open, reserved, withdrawn and oddly over-protective. The house seems to have a life of its own, and at night while she sleeps Alice feels presences wandering around. She is convinced there is a secret to be found and, quietly, she starts to investigate the story of the family who own the house but who never, ever go there.

Once Alice arrives at Fiercombe, a new voice is introduced into the novel. Elizabeth was the mistress of Fiercombe 40 years before Alice arrived there, but a different Fiercombe. She lived in Stanton House, an imposing monstrosity built in the Italian style; a house that was so huge it changed the feel of the valley but now gone, leaving no trace. Like Alice, Elizabeth is pregnant and apprehensive about what will come after her baby leaves her body. Linked by the new lives within them and their strange connection to the place in which they live, The Girl in the Photograph tells Alice and Elizabeth's stories, culminating in a dramatic, shocking end.

The Girl in the Photograph has strongly gothic overtones. These are quite overt: Mrs Jelphs and Alice eat in the Red Room and at one stage Alice jokes about having Mr Rochester as a husband. It reminded me a lot of Rebecca, with an overwhelming sense of mystery and intrigue and hidden knowledge. Unfortunately, with this type of storytelling it's a problem if one of the stories is more interesting than the other one - I liked the Elizabeth storyline a lot better than the Alice one, mainly because the Alice one was all in her own head and she just wasn't as interesting as Elizabeth was! I found the book engaging and well-written but quite slow moving. The author really needed to either cut out about 100 pages or really beef up the secondary characters. Using Rebecca again as a model - it is much shorter than The Girl in the Photograph while covering the same sort of area and it therefore packs much more of a punch.

The Girl in the Photograph was interesting and engaging but ultimately too long and slow-moving book: three stars. I will definitely keep an eye out for this author's work in the future.

I'll Have What She's Having: My Adventures in Celebrity Dieting by Rebecca Harrington (2015)

The hardest line for me to write of a review is the first. Always, every time, I struggle to find the right words to capture the essence of the capture of the book I am trying to express. So, week after week, I open my review explaining how I got to be reading a particular book...

This week is no different. I found the author Rebecca Harrington through her hilarious series in NY Mag in which she trials the different almost always crazy diets of the stars. It's got everything - bizarre mixes of sour cream and cottage cheese (why, the seventies, why?), poking gentle fun at the stars, and loving Gwenyth the way she should be loved. I then read her novel, Penelope, which I liked a lot but did not love (which, by the way, is better than many of the books I read, which so often bore, infuriate and frustrate me that if I added up the first 50 pages of books I then either threw at the wall or calmly returned to the library, I'd read about 300 books a year). I periodically kept checking the NY Mag series and it was with delight that I discovered Harrington would be writing a book based on her adventures in celebrity dieting.

"Yipee!" I said, and immediately requested that my lovely local library purchase a copy. They did, and I impatiently waited for it to arrive, refreshing the "reservation" screen every time I hit a roadblock in my own writing (read: quite often). The "your item is in stock" notification came in, I picked up the book and I was kind of disappointed.

Firstly, the book is tiny.

It's just slightly taller than a DVD case but a bit thinner. Not very substantial in modern publishing terms.

The opening was great:

I have always noticed diets. Diets are everywhere. You can't be a woman and not think you need to go on a diet or get a face transplant. Preferably the face of a famous person so that you can never get lost. But noticing diets is completely different from doing many of them in succession. Who would do that? Me. Here is the story.

The premise of the book is that Harrington purchases a celebrity's diet book (or that of their personal chef) as well as the book/DVD of their exercise plan. The first one is Gwenyth's, which is (unsurprisingly) completely fab and incredibly ridiculously expensive. The celebrities go from Classic Hollywood (Greta Garbo was a notorious calorie counter who followed fad diets her entire life; she ate a ridiculously disgusting celery pie), Classical-ish Hollywood (Elizabeth Taylor is "an excellent broad with really bad taste in food") through to modern hardcore dieters like Elizabeth Hurley ("I wish I could stop finding diets that Liz Hurley has done. Then I could stop this nightmare" - Harrington only lasted four days following Hurley's punishing routine). It's really funny! Harrington is able to effectively identify the ridiculousness of celebrity lifestyles while gently and affectionately poking fun at the celebrities and those of us who emulate their lifestyles. The thing is, it's just her NY Mag series printed in a book. Other than a few extra celeb diets (maybe three or four?), there's nothing in here that I couldn't get from the mag itself. So, I would absolutely recommend this book, but I would also find it hard to explain why they should pay for content that they can just get for free from the Internet.

Finally, one thing that I found really disconcerting was the typesetting of the book. There were really huge gaps between each paragraph:

Usually that indicates a new section but it didn't here - they were all consisently that size. It was weird and annoying.

Overall, a funny book but with some major flaws. Three stars, but Rebecca, I would come to any of your dinner parties any time! Let's be friends :)

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (2015)

Every morning, Rachel gets up and catches the 8.04 commuter train from Ashbury to London. Every day, about halfway through the journey it stops at a signal in Witney, sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes for a few minutes. While sitting their waiting, Rachel can see into the houses that back onto the line. She watches the people inside, having breakfast, getting ready to leave and she imagines lives for them, assigning them them names and careers. Her favourites are Jess and Jason. Jess, a beautiful blonde, Rachel has decided works in the fashion industry and is an artist. Her handsome husband Jason is a doctor, whose frequent absences Rachel attributes to a doctor who specialises in foreign aid. Jess and Jason are very much in love and remind Rachel of her true love, Tom, and the blissfully happy times they spent together. In the evening, Rachel takes the 17.56 home and she checks in on the Witney residents. These events structure her day and, I suspect, her life. 

The interest Rachel has in Witney is intense. Her day is structured around those two stops and her surveillance is constant and odd. While reading, I started to ask myself why does she care so much; why is she so invested in other people's lives? As we start learn more about Rachel, we find out she was happy and now she is not. Something happened, something big, that resulted in her happy loving marriage ending and Racel lodging with a university friend Cathy, a woman she describes as "a nice person, in a forceful sort of way She makes you notice her niceness. Her niceness is writ large, it is her defining quality and she needs it acknowledged, often, daily almost, which can be tiring." Something bad has happened for Rachel to be in the place where she is, and the spectre of this bad thing hangs over the opening chapters of this novel, building tension and setting up Rachel as one of my favourite literary figures - the unreliable narrator.

One morning, Rachel is shocked to see Jess kissing another man, betraying Jason, who Rachel has decided is the perfect husband. The next day, she is shocked to see Jess's face plastered all over the news. Her name is actually Megan she has gone missing. Her husband is not Jason but Scott, who works in IT and is prime suspect number one. Rachel is convinced he is innocent and has decided she must tell him and the police that Rachel was unfaithful, but can she leave the isolated half-life she's been living in order to do this? Is she able to take the step from being the girl on the train to being involved in a real-life missing person's case?

I really enjoyed this book. The tension at the centre of the tale is established early and effectively and grows steadily throughout the book as the story is told by different characters, including Megan. Comparisons have been made between The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl. They are both tense psychological thrillers but they are different in that The Girl on the Train is less dark than Gone Girl and the characters will be much less polarising. I think if you liked Gone Girl you will probably like this but also the audience for The Girl on the Train will find the book less polarising.

A cracking read that I finished in an afternoon. Five stars.

The Rich Kids of Instagram (2014)

Instagram is an interesting phenomenon. A platform for people to easily edit and share photographs, it has been criticised for devaluing traditional photography, creating an environment in which everyone's photos look the same and encouraging the promotion of unreal and unattainable lifestyles. One of the most critique-worthy things to come out of Instagram is the Rich Kids of Instagram hashtag and blog: the pictures of the wealthy teenage children of the richest people in the world, who use Instagram to show off their expensive possessions and lifestyle. They love to remind everyone how much money and stuff they have; those who follow #RKOI love to use them as examples of everything that's wrong in society today.

I love Instagram and I use it all the time but mainly for looking at pictures of cats (#catsofinstagram). I've avoided #RKOI due to a complete lack of interest but I was intrigued to discover that in 2014 the blog Rich Kids of Instagram had been fictionalised in Rich Kids of Instagram: A Novel. The book follows the trials and tribulations of several bright young things, including the daughter of a wealthy media mogul; a minor European royal; and the son of a Hollywood producer. These teenagers are joined by a network of wealth and privilege: they go to the same parties, shop at the same exclusive stores and holiday in the same expensive destinations. Their world is briefly disrupted by the arrival of internet Wunderkind Josh Evergreen, a prodigy who has sold a website that changed the face of music for a phenomenal amount of money and who enters the world of the wealthy. The bright young things want to know: where did this mysterious man come from, what will he do next and (most importantly) what can he do for them?

Designed to be a satire, Rich Kids of Instagram: A Novel follows some well-worn paths. Money can buy you lots of things but it can't buy happiness. The sins of the father are visited upon the children. Conspicuous consumption of things always involves conspicuous consumption of drugs and alcohol (are there no wealthy people who don't have substance abuse problems?). These are pretty standard tropes and are on their own quite a bit blah. However, what this book does do really well is highlight the uncomfortable truth that while money may not buy happiness, it can cushion you from having to experience a lot of unpleasantness or even acknowledge that unpleasantness exists. When you can touch $5 million worth of stuff before leaving the house (the comfort ritual of one of the teens), you really are living in a different place to the rest of us.

This book is nothing remarkable and I absolutely would only borrow it from the library but, given that all the characters are completely awful, I was surprisingly engaged. Three stars.

Vintage Weddings by Katie Fforde (2015) or, the book that made me bake a loaf of wholemeal bread

Beth, newly graduated from university, has run away from home. Having agreed to organise her sister's wedding on a shoestring budget, her in-laws to be have lent her a cottage in the charming Cotswald village of Chippingford. Looking for work and some social contacts, Beth attends a village function at the falling-down village hall, where she meets Rachel and Lindy, the other young, single women of Chippingford. Rachel and Lindy have their own problems: Rachel is divorced and, although she bought her dream house and is living her dream life, is not as happy as she thought she'd be, while Lindy, at just 23 years of age is (as she calls herself) the youngest middle-aged woman in the world.

To build on their fledgling connection, the three women depart to the local pub and an idea is born: using each of their individual skills - Rachel with numbers and organisation, Beth with her web and marketing skills and Lindy with the local contacts and excellent seamstressing (is that a verb? It is now), the three women start a business that plans weddings on a budget. Frugal and sensible but not cheap, Vintage Weddings begins.

This novel is quite frankly charming and, as befits a charming novel, the highs and lows are gentle and easy. Each of the women is working through issues of their own. Rachel's organisation masks an OCD-like need for cleanliness and order. Beth acts more like a teenager with rebellion issues than a university graduate and Lindy has already given up on life to devote herself to her children. Of course, there are the requisite handsome and charming men to help them exorcise their demons: Raff, the raffish local scrapyard owner with the charming hoarder mother; Charlie, the scampish local farmer and Angus, an architect with an impractical dream. With the support of the village and some very good luck, Vintage Weddings begins to develop from an idea supported by a few glasses of red wine to a thriving business. The question remains, though - will Beth's sister be happy with the vintage wedding she is getting and will each of these women work through their own issues in order to recognise that true love is in their reach?

I read this book while on holiday and it seriously made me want to shift my holiday to a Cotswald village for a month. The descriptions of the village lifestyle - the charming scenery, the excellent local produce, the eccentric local characters - were delightful. Since unfortunately I can't actually head off to England for a month, I settled for making a nice wholemeal loaf of bread instead:

It was a pretty good substitute! A very nice no-stress read, three stars.

What Came Before by Anna George (2014)

"My name is David James Forrester. I'm a soliciter. Tonight, at 6.10, I killed my wife. This is my statement."

It's not often that a reader can hear from the victim after their untimely death, but that's the unique premise of What Came Before. The book opens with David Forrester, covered in blood, panicked and physically ill due to the act of violence he has just committed against his wife. The story then shifts to Elle, who is floating above her body, a disembodied presence watching her lifeless figure. Over the course of the novel, both David and Elle tell the story of their relationship, explaining what came before Elle's gruesome end.

It seemed oddly coincidental that I picked up a book on domestic violence in the same week that domestic violence advocate Rose Battie is recognised as Australian of the Year and the federal government cut funding to support services for victims of domestic violence. But it's not actually surprising: What Came Before adds to a growing body of work by Australian authors that looks at domestic violence and its often fatal impacts (including Lianne Moriarty's Big Little Lies, which I reviewed here). Elle was a successful lawyer who left the law and become a screenwriter and director. Her first feature film, Daisy, was a critical and commercial success and she is working on her second film, Limerance. Limerence (as described by Elle), is "a termed coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in the seventies to describe that heady, in-love state felt typically in the early days of a relationship, those all-consuming and intense feelings that inevitably pass." She first meets David at her going-away party from the law firm that he has just started at. He never forgot her, so when he sees her four years later at a Almodavor retrospective at the Sun Theatre, he immediately approaches her, they hit it off and she takes him to her home for what she plans to be her first one-night stand. David, however, has other plans.

This first night proves to be symptomatic of their entire relationship. Even after she clearly tells him she doesn't want to see him anymore, David entices and manipulates Elle into beginning a relationship with him. Each time she pulls away, he finds ways to get what he wants until their relationship is dominating heir life. As the book continues, the violence escalates in a subtle yet dreadful way, until it almost hard to read. This is a broken, twisted relationship, and having both protagonists telling their story adds to its emotional power.

What Came Before is Anna George's first novel, and her lack of novel-writing experience is clear. At times, the prose seems somewhat overworked and the word "Seddon" is used an awful lot of times (I get, it, you're in Seddon. The location says stuff about the characters. Enough with the Seddon references.). I also thought some of the metaphors were a bit heavy handed, like the Seddon/character one and the vagina as relationship barometer. That said, these are minor quibbles for a book I read in one sitting. I look forward to Anna George's next novel - four stars.

Cat Out of Hell by Lynne Truss (2014)

Cat Out of Hell opens with retired librarian Alec Charlesworth holidaying on the coast of North Norfolk. It is midwinter, and the cold weather matches Alec's mood as he mourns the recent death of his much-loved wife, Mary. While away, he opens an email from a former colleague, Dr Winterton, that tells an odd tale of a murderous talking cat...

I select books to read for a number of reasons. I do quite a lot of reading for work - some, admittedly, more enjoyable than others. As I explained here, sometimes I read a book just because everyone else is (no, I wouldn't jump off the cliff but I would certainly drive to the location just to see why everyone else is doing it). Cat Out of Hell I borrowed just because I really really liked the cover:

See what I mean? It's a really great cover. That said, given that cover appeal was literally the only reason I picked the book up, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I have read and very much enjoyed Eats, Shoots & Leaves so was not surprised when the novel was perfectly punctuated. It was also not surprising that the novel was incredibly well steeped in literary heritage. Set in an academic library in the university town of Cambridge, references to great works of literature are scattered throughout the text. I was, however, a little bit surprised at the gruesome murders, until I flicked to the back of the book and realised it was published by Hammer Books, a Random House imprint that publish horror books.

Genre placement sorted out and cover close at hand to look at whenever I felt like, Cat Out of Hell is an entertaining ride. Moments of genuine pathos as Alec copes with his grief are contrasted with biting black humour (Roger the talking cat is well travelled and read and possesses an acerbic wit and charm) with the obligatory horror genre gruesome deaths thrown in for good measure. That said, the plot contains many gaping holes (which Truss acknowledges but doesn't fix, which I thought was a bit of a cop-out). Following The Paying Guests and preceding Americanah, it's also blessedly short. A charming yet fatally flawed book: three stars.