Category: 20 Books of Summer

The English Wife by Adrienne Chinn #BookReview #BlogTour @0neMoreChapter_ @rararesources

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The English WifeWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The English Wife by Adrienne Chinn. And what a stop it is with so many fabulous book bloggers joining in! Do check out their reviews using the Twitter hashtag #TheEnglishWife.

My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to take part in the tour and to One More Chapter for my review copy via NetGalley.

The English WifeAbout the Book

Two women, a world apart. A secret waiting to be discovered…

VE Day 1945. As victory bells ring out across the country, war bride Ellie Burgess’ happiness is overshadowed by grief. Her charismatic Newfoundlander husband Thomas is still missing in action. Until a letter arrives explaining Thomas is back at home on the other side of the Atlantic recovering from his injuries. Travelling to a distant country to live with a man she barely knows is the bravest thing Ellie has ever had to do. But nothing can prepare her for the harsh realities of her new home…

September 11th 2001. Sophie Parry is on a plane to New York on the most tragic day in the city’s history. While the world watches the news in horror, Sophie’s flight is rerouted to a tiny town in Newfoundland and she is forced to seek refuge with her estranged aunt Ellie. Determined to discover what it was that forced her family apart all those years ago, newfound secrets may change her life forever…

Format: Paperback (400 pages)     Publisher: One More Chapter
Publication date: 23rd June 2020 Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance

Find The English Wife on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Amazon UK | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

What sounds from the book description like a dual timeline story is actually a triple, if not quadruple, timeline story although most of the first part of the book takes place either in WW2 Norwich or in Newfoundland in 2001.  Some concentration is needed to keep track of the different storylines as the chapters switch frequently back and forth in time. However, it’s well worth the effort as you’re soon drawn into what is an increasingly multi-layered story.

In essence, all roads lead to the quaintly named Tippy’s Tickle in Newfoundland. Coincidence or fate? Ellen arrived there in 1946 as a war bride to join her husband, Thomas, and Sophie, Ellen’s niece, finds herself there when the plane in which she’s travelling to New York is rerouted to Newfoundland due to the 9/11 terror attacks. As to how Sophie ends up in Tippy’s Tickle, well, that’s less “of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine” from Casablanca as “of all the tea queues in all the world he ends up in mine”.

In dual time stories I sometimes find myself more invested in the story set in the past than in the present. This wasn’t the case with The English Wife. Not that the events that see young Ellen travelling across the world from her home in Norwich aren’t compelling, it’s just that the reader pretty much knows the trajectory of her story from the book description. Although, having said that, there are secrets to be discovered even there and the author keeps the reader waiting quite a while until these are revealed.

Sophie’s unplanned – and unwanted – stopover in Newfoundland in 2001 is an obstacle in her otherwise organised-to-the-last-detail life. (Her determination to get to New York for an interview reminded me of the wonderful 1945 film I Know Where I’m Going, in which Joan Webster, played by Wendy Hiller, is prevented by bad weather from making the crossing to the island of Kiloran.) Sophie soon falls under the spell of Tippy’s Tickle and who could blame her because there’s a lovely sense of community about the place and it is surrounded by beautiful, rugged landscape. Although outsiders are known as “Come-From-Aways”, its inhabitants are welcoming and hospitable as well as accepting of difference. It was good to see diverse characters playing such a part in the story. As it happens, Tippy’s Tickle isn’t the only thing to cast a spell on Sophie during her stay. However, sometimes things don’t work out the way you want.

Ten years later – to the day – Sophie is travelling back to Tippy’s Tickle on an assignment for the architectural practice for which she works. They are planning a lavish leisure development – hotel, golf course, the works. If you know the film Local Hero [Ed: that’s enough of the film references], you’ll have an idea that the plans may not be greeted with universal enthusiasm, especially as it affects people to whom Sophie has grown close. For some, it threatens their sense of security and a way of life that is all they have ever known; something they will do anything to prevent. How will Sophie negotiate this dilemma? You’ll need to read the book to find out.

I can’t finish this review without commenting on the fabulous insight into Newfoundland culture the book provides, including colloquialisms such as being “gut-foundered” (hungry).

The English Wife is a skilfully-crafted, multi-layered story about family secrets, missed opportunities, second chances and finding out what’s really important in life.

In three words: Sweeping, dramatic, emotional

Try something similar: The Sea Gate by Jane Johnson

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The English Wife Author PhotoAbout the Author

Adrienne Chinn was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, grew up in Quebec, and eventually made her way to London, England after a career as a journalist. In England she worked as a TV and film researcher before embarking on a career as an interior designer, lecturer, and writer.

When not up a ladder or at the computer, she can usually be found rummaging through flea markets or haggling in the Marrakech souk. Her second novel, The English Wife – a timeslip story set in World War II England and contemporary Newfoundland – is published in June 2020. Her debut novel, The Lost Letter from Morocco, was published by Avon Books UK in 2019. She is currently writing her third novel, The Photographer’s Daughters, the first of a 3-book series, to be published in 2021.

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The Colours by Juliet Bates #BookReview @RandomTTours @FleetReads

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FINAL Colours BT PosterWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Colours by Juliet Bates. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Fleet for my digital review copy.

9780708899373About the Book

Ellen sees the world differently from everyone else, but living in a tiny town in the north-east of England, in a world on the cusp of war, no one has time for an orphaned girl who seems a little strange. When she is taken in to look after a rich, elderly widow all seems to be going better, despite the musty curtains and her aging employer completely out of touch with the world. But pregnancy out of wedlock spoils all this, and Ellen is unable to cope.

How will Jack, her son, survive – alone in the world as his mother was? Can they eventually find their way back to each other?

Format: Hardcover (384 pages)    Publisher: Fleet
Publication date: 9th April 2020 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find The Colours on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Amazon UK | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

When her father dies, Ellen and her older brother, Henry, are separated and Ellen is sent to the Sacred Heart convent school. She struggles to conform to its strict regime (echoes of Frost in May by Antonia White) but is rescued by the offer of a role as companion to an elderly, blind widow, Mrs Tibbs, who lives in a large, secluded house. Gradually, Ellen encourages the old lady to focus on the present rather than the past. I was reminded of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, especially when Ellen and Beadie, the cook/housekeeper, open the shuttered windows of the house to let the light stream in. Ellen becomes Mrs Tibbs’ eyes to the outside world, describing the scenes she can see from the windows.

Ellen has a distinctive vision of the world in which scents, sounds people and even emotions are manifested in colours (the medical term is synesthesia). During her time at the Sacred Heart, weekly confession is “a dull purple” and mass “a deep unpleasant brown”. At night, the whispers of the girls with whom she shares a dormitory are “shaded with a pale pink tint” although the girls themselves are white, “ghost white, like badly painted whitewash with just a hint of colour showing through.” And when she thinks of Beadie it is as “the colour of stewed prunes”.

For Ellen a colour is more than just blue, green and so on. For her, blue can be the blue of a kingfisher’s wing, a jay’s feather or cornflowers; green is the green of a cooking apple, an oily puddle, the leather cover of a book, lichen growing on a wall, the scales on a monkey puzzle tree.

Ellen’s son, Jack, whom the reader first meets as a young boy in 1931, shares some of his mother’s visual sensitivity but in his case this is initially expressed in an awareness of symmetry and perspective. Parted from his mother, who has withdrawn into her own inner world, Jack has only his uncle Henry to guide him through life. Jack secures an apprenticeship in a drawing office which seems to solidify his view of the world as black and white, expressed “in bold horizontals and verticals, in plans and elevations”. He delights in the lines he draws “straight and shining, no smudges or blotches, no multicoloured stains, no random pools of colour”. Later, Jack’s artistic talent expresses itself in less rigid ways.

Religion, in particular Catholicism, lurks in the background of the story and in the slightly creepy figure of the local priest, Father Scullion. Ellen’s brother is a devout Catholic but seems in a perpetual struggle between the teachings of his faith and his natural inclinations. Ellen’s experiences have left her with doubts about the existence of an afterlife. Perhaps, this is all there is, and it’s enough?

Alternating between the points of view of Ellen and Jack, and spanning a period of seventy years, the reader gradually learns of the events which have shaped both their lives, some of which are sad echoes of what has gone before. The book reveals the consequences of breaching societal norms or simply of having an outlook on the world that is different from that of other people.

A slow burn of a book, The Colours is a tender exploration of love, loss and the legacy of the past.

In three words: Gentle, insightful, imaginative

Try something similar: The Sea Gate by Jane Johnson

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Juliet BatesAbout the Author

Juliet Bates was born in the north-east of England. After studying art and art history, she has worked as a lecturer in art schools in the UK and now in France. The Colours is Juliet’s second novel; her debut, The Missing, was published by Linen Press in 2009, and her short stories have appeared in British and Canadian journals and magazines.

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