Category: ARC August

Book Review: A Dangerous Woman From Nowhere by Kris Radish

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ADangerousWomanfromNowhereAbout the Book

Briar Logan is a loner who has already survived a wretched childhood, near starvation, and the harsh western frontier in the 1860s. Just when she is on the brink of finally opening her heart to the possibilities of happiness, the love of her life is kidnapped by lawless gold miners–and she steels herself for what could be the greatest loss of her life. Desperate to save her husband and the solitary life they have carved out of the wilderness, Briar is forced to accept the help of a damaged young man and a notorious female horse trainer. Facing whiskey runners, gold thieves, unpredictable elements, and men who will stop at nothing to get what they want, the unlikely trio must forge an uncommon bond in order to survive.

Format: Ebook Publisher: SparkPress Pages: 273
Publication: 12th September Genre: Historical Fiction    

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ Barnes & Noble
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find A Dangerous Woman From Nowhere on Goodreads

My Review

Set in 1860s Colorado, A Dangerous Woman From Nowhere’s intriguing opening sees Briar witness her husband’s kidnap by a group of men. It seems Briar and her husband, Porter Logan, have been expecting this eventuality and have done all they can to avoid it and the disruption it will bring to the hard-won peace of their life together. Logan has knowledge and skill that is of value and his kidnappers have riches in their sights and won’t stop at anything to possess it.

Providing hints of just why she is the self-styled ‘dangerous woman from nowhere’, Briar sets out to rescue Logan, armed with an impressive array of weaponry, dogged determination and the survival skills taught her by the people who took her in as a child.

‘Briar didn’t know it then, but she was headed to a place where she would learn to shoot to kill, throw a knife so expertly she could slice a dried apple in half at sixty paces, ride a horse as if they were one, and where she also learned lessons of survival and life…’

Consciously throwing off the woman she has become, Briar channels the inner spirit she calls Mika, identified with the characteristics of the raccoon – intelligent and who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

As Briar sets out on her journey, we gradually learn more about her traumatic childhood, the emotional scars those experiences have caused and the role of Porter Logan in helping her heal to the extent she has. We also see just what a resourceful, fiercely independent and determined person she has become.

‘Her life had been and would always be about survival, and Briar knew she wanted to live, to experience the world Logan had opened up to her, to try to understand the ways of the heart more than she ever had in the past.’

Briar is just one of the powerful female characters who are the driving spirits of this book. There’s Laurie Eberhardt, an example of the strong pioneer women who matched their menfolk in battling the elements to grind out a living on the ranches of the period. And there’s Grace Perry, horse-breaker and crack shot, another loner who’s had to live by her wits to make her way in the world without the succour of home and family but who cannot resist the instinct to help Briar in her quest.

“You need me, Briar. It is impossible for me not to help. It is especially impossible for me not to help another woman.”  

All three of them have experienced hardship, cruelty and loss in their lives but survived through a combination of grit, determination and by acquiring the skills necessary to defend themselves as women alone in a brutal, often lawless environment.  And there’s Jack, a young man with his own traumatic history who has had to learn to survive on his own from early childhood and is seeking redemption for perceived past failures to act. Together, Briar, Grace and Jack embark on the dangerous journey to rescue Logan, each contributing their various skills and becoming in their own way a sort of family. As Jack reflects, “There are different ways to find a home and many people who might be called family”.

There is danger along the way despite the deceptive beauty of the landscape: ‘The sprinkling of red, gold, yellow, and orange leaves is slowly creeping higher each day, as if someone were moving from ridge to the next with a box of paints.’

A Dangerous Woman From Nowhere is an exhilarating combination of Wild West adventure story, moving love story, powerful evocation of the wild landscape of North America and celebration of female power and solidarity.

This book would have been complete perfection for me but for the epilogue. Suddenly the gritty, authentic feel the author had created throughout the rest of the novel seemed to give way to something out of ‘The Waltons’. I didn’t want to know all this stuff, I wanted to be left to imagine it for myself. I would very respectfully suggest: dump the epilogue, the book finishes quite perfectly without it.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, SparkPress, in return for an honest review.

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KrisRadishAbout the Author

Kris started writing the moment she could hold a pencil. She grew up in Wisconsin, graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a journalism degree and hit the ground running. Her father called her “the tornado”. She worked as a newspaper reporter, bureau chief, nationally syndicated columnist, magazine writer, university lecturer, bartender, waitress, worm harvester, window washer….to name a few. Her first two books were non-fiction and then Radish became a full-time novelist. The Elegant Gathering of White Snows, Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn, The Sunday List of Dreams, Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral and Searching for Paradise in Parker, P.A., The Shortest Distance Between Two Women, Hearts on a String, Tuesday Night Miracles, A Grand Day to Get Lost and The Year of Necessary Lies have won her acclaim and a great following. Her eleventh novel, A Dangerous Woman From Nowhere is being released in 2017. She is also the author of three works of non-fiction, Gravel on the side of the Road-Stories From A Broad Who Has Been There, Run, Bambi Run-The Beautiful Ex-Cop and Convicted Murderer Who Escaped to Freedom and Won America’s Heart and The Birth Order Effect: How to Better Understand Yourself and Others. She is working on a book of poetry, two new novels, a book of non-fiction and a few bottles of wine.

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Book Review: The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting

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TheSixteenTreesoftheSommeCoverAbout the Book

Edvard grows up on a remote mountain farmstead in Norway with his taciturn grandfather, Sverre. The death of his parents, when he was three years old, has always been shrouded in mystery – he has never been told how or where it took place and has only a distant memory of his mother.  But he knows that the fate of his grandfather’s brother, Einar, is somehow bound up with this mystery. One day a coffin is delivered for his grandfather long before his death – a meticulous, beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Perhaps Einar is not dead after all. Edvard’s desperate quest to unlock the family’s tragic secrets takes him on a long journey – from Norway to the Shetlands, and to the battlefields of France – to the discovery of a very unusual inheritance. The Sixteen Trees of the Somme is about the love of wood and finding your own self, a beautifully intricate and moving tale that spans an entire century. (Translated from the Norwegian by Paul Russell Garrett.)

Format: ebook Publisher: MacLehose Press Pages: 480
Publication: 10th Aug 2017 Genre: Literary Fiction    

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ Waterstones UK
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Sixteen Trees of the Somme on Goodreads

My Review

The death of Edvard’s grandfather, Bestefar, and the facts that come to light as a result, change everything for Edvard. They see him embark on a journey that will take him away from the isolated Nowegian farm where he has grown up to the Shetlands and France as he searches for the truth about the cause of his parents’ death and the four days afterwards when he was missing. It also stirs up vague fragments of memories – a scent, the sound of a voice, the texture of a fabric, a discarded toy – that don’t make any sense but convince Edvard that he needs to find out more about his parents’ death.

‘Because there was something about Mamma and Pappa’s story that was stirring, quietly, like a viper in the grass.’

As is often the case when unearthing secrets from the past, Edvard is forced to confront unwelcome possibilities and make agonising choices. Edvard’s search reaches back in time to WW1 and WW2, bringing to light painful facts from the past – death, injury, separation and betrayal – but also revealing stories of courage, determination and devotion.  It provokes questions such as whether it is better sometimes not to know the truth, to be careful what you wish for, that actions have consequences even if unintended, and the fulfilment you seek may be closer to home than you think.

I found the story absolutely enthralling and I loved the fantastic sense of place created in each location. From the author’s beautiful, heartfelt descriptions, I felt as if I could look out my own window and see the farm in Norway laid out before me.

‘Redcurrant bushes dense with berries, the flag-stoned path leading to the swimming hole at the river, the creek which cut through the potato fields and disappeared from sight behind the barn. The fruit trees, the pea pods that dangled like half moons when we got close to them, so plentiful that we could fill up on them without taking a step. The dark-blue fruit of the plum trees, the sagging raspberry bushes just waiting for us to quickly fill two small plates and fetch some caster sugar and cream.’

In particular, I loved the way the author captured the remote beauty of the Shetlands and the sense of a community where everyone knows what goes on, who’s arrived on the ferry, whose car has just passed them on the road. The author roots the various parts of the story each in their distinct time, in particular, using popular music as the background to Edvard’s journey. (I get the impression the author is a bit of a music fan, perhaps attracted at some point in his life to a girl by the way she browses in a record shop.)

At times, Edvard feels as if he has come to a dead-end in his search but still he continues searching for clues, motivated by curiosity but also by a sense of obligation to the dead – those known to him and those victims of two world wars unknown to him: ‘I wanted to be someone the dead could rely on.’

As the author of the left-field hit, Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way (now also an activity book), it’s no surprise that wood is at the heart of the story. It is part of the plot in a number of ways – in fact, more and more ways as the story progresses – but it is also celebrated in the book for its form, history and beauty. Similarly, there is real regard for the craftsmanship that can fashion a piece of wood into an object of beauty, utility or religious symbolism.

The Sixteen Trees of the Somme has a compelling, enthralling story line with wonderfully atmospheric settings and well-developed characters. I was completely immersed in Edvard’s search for the truth about his parents’ death; like him, all the time fearing the dark secrets he might uncover but compelled to find out nonetheless.   A fantastic book, highly recommended.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers Quercus Books/MacLehose Press in return for an honest review.

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In three words: Enthralling, dramatic, compelling

Try something similar…The Signal Flame by Andrew Krivak (click here to read my review)

LarsMyttingAbout the Author

Lars Mytting, a novelist and journalist, was born in Fåvang, Norway, in 1968. His novel The Sixteen Trees of the Somme was awarded the Norwegian National Booksellers’ Award and has been bought for film. Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way has become an international bestseller and was the Bookseller Industry Awards Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2016.

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