Tag: 20 Books of Summer

Book Review – The Dark Isle by Clare Carson #20BooksofSummer2025

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About the Book

Sam grew up in the shadow of the secret state. Her father was an undercover agent, full of tall stories about tradecraft and traitors. Then he died, killed in the line of duty.

Now Sam has travelled to Hoy, in Orkney, to piece together the puzzle of her father’s past. Haunted by echoes of childhood holidays, Sam is sure the truth lies buried here, somewhere.

What she finds is a tiny island of dramatic skies, swooping birds, rugged sea stacks and just four hundred people. An island remote enough to shelter someone who doesn’t want to be found. An island small enough to keep a secret…

Format: Hardcover (380 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 1st June 2017 Genre: Thriller

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My Review

The Dark Isle is the third book in a trilogy. I haven’t read either of the first two but frankly I didn’t find myself at a disadvantage. In fact, if I hadn’t discovered it was part of a trilogy, I don’t think I’d have guessed because it comes across as a fully developed standalone story. However, because I haven’t read the previous two books my review may unwittingly contain spoilers.

The Dark Isle is a blend of spy thriller and family drama that moves back and forth between Sam’s teenage years in 1976 and 1989, some years after her father’s death. She’s now a rather penniless archaeology student working on a research proposal for her PhD and living in a grimy rundown flat with her best friend Becky in an insalubrious part of London.

Whilst spending the summer on a dig in Orkney, Sam catches sight of a figure from the past: Pierce, the father of Anna, her childhood friend who disappeared from her life fifteen years before. She and Anna spent the hot summer of 1976 together, having adventures inspired by the fables told by Sam’s father. Sam was rather starstruck by Anna, in awe of her boldness and maturity. The fact both their fathers worked in undercover roles, albeit employed by different government bodies, created a unique bond between them. Then suddenly it was all over. Anna’s father’s abandoned her and her mother and there has been no communication in the intervening years. It’s almost as if Anna wanted to disappear too.

Sam wonders why after such a period of absence, Pierce has chosen to reveal himself now, and why to her? What does he want from her? And what really happened between Pierce and her father? They’re questions to which Sam can’t resist trying to find the answers, especially because of fragments of conversation between the two men she overheard as a child during a holiday on Orkney.

In searching for answers she unwittingly places herself in danger, as a figure from both men’s past returns with some unfinished business. It leads to some tense and exciting scenes with Sam having to employ all the tradecraft of a spy in an attempt to outwit her pursuers. Not knowing who she can trust doesn’t make it any easier. All she can rely on is her own instincts, and the penknife her father Jim insisted she always carry.

I liked Sam’s transition from quirky teenage loner to slightly grungy, prickly twenty-something. And I really liked the contrast between the wild beauty of Orkney and the remote island of Hoy, and the seedy, rather grimy parts of London Sam inhabits. There’s also a great sense of each time period.

I think what the author did really well is, alongside the espionage element of the plot, give an insight into the impact on a family of someone involved in covert work: the sudden unexplained absences, the mood swings, the constant air of watchfulness, the barely suppressed aggression.

All of this makes The Dark Isle a really accomplished, well-paced thriller. The Dark Isle is book 7 of my 20 Books of Summer.

In three words: Intriguing, atmospheric, pacy
Try something similar: The Bone Road by N. E. Solomons

About the Author

Clare Carson is an anthropologist and works in international development, specialising in human rights. Her father was an undercover policeman in the 1970s. She lives in Brighton.

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Book Review – The Summer House Party by Caro Fraser #20BooksofSummer2025

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About the Book

In the gloriously hot summer of 1936, a group of people meet at a country house party. Within three years, England will be at war, but for now, time stands still.

Dan Ranscombe is clever and good-looking, but he resents the wealth and easy savoir faire of fellow guest, Paul Latimer. Surely a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through that, wouldn’t she? And what about Diana, Paul’s beautiful sister, Charles Asher, the Jewish outsider, Madeleine, restless and dissatisfied with her role as children’s nanny? And artist Henry Haddon, their host, no longer young, but secure in his power as a practised seducer.

As these guests gather, none has any inkling the choices they make will have fateful consequences, lasting through the war and beyond. Or that the first unforeseen event will be a shocking death.

Format: Hardback (512 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 6th April 2017 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

The Summer House Party is book 5 of my 20 Books of Summer 2025. Shamefully, it has been on my bookshelf since the publishers sent me a copy back in 2017. It was only once I started reading the book that I remembered I’d read the sequel, Summer of Love, in 2018. That book focuses on the post-war lives of the characters, including those who are only children in this book.

I remarked in my review of Summer of Love that there were spoilers from this book, even in the blurb, and I now realise why the consequences of some of the events in this book – including an extremely significant one – felt under-developed. Presumably, it was always intended there should be a sequel. I don’t think I would be alone in finding it frustrating for some things to be left hanging at the end of this book.

I confess that for a lot of the book I found very little to like about many of the characters. Their lives seemed very self-idulgent and remote from those of ordinary people. Diana’s hedonistic lifestyle is a whirlwind of cocktail parties, boozy lunches and night clubs. It’s all ‘simply too divine’. She’s pretty free with her sexual favours too. Conversely her brother Paul is a straightlaced and rather pompous individual who eulogizes male friendship, has a very dismissive attitude to women and expresses views which border on the anti-Semitic. Dan is a philanderer who views every woman as a potential conquest so his professions of love are rather difficult to believe. Meg comes across as very naive and eager to please. For some unfathomable reason, she idolises Paul. Sonia, wife of artist Henry Haddon, is the perfect hostess but has a strangely distant relationship with her young daughter Avril who is invariably consigned to the care of a nanny. Sonia seems unable to see that Avril’s frequent tantrums are a result of this neglect, especially since Avril’s father is usually cloistered away in his study.

The days consist of a seemingly endless round of cocktails, long lunches and idle chitchat with a few games of tennis thrown in. Events in Europe (this is 1936) seem far away with more concern given to the difiiculty of finding reliable servants than what may be on the horizon. The only concession to world events is Charles Asher’s announcement that he is off to fight in the Spanish Civil War, greeted with particular dismay by Paul. During the house party at Woodbourne House there’s a lot of flirtation and late night knocks at bedroom doors. The relationships that form that summer, including the love triangle that is at the heart of the book, have repercussions that persist for years.

Meg, finding herself in a rather sterile marriage, struggles with the competing demands of love and responsibility. Trying to ‘have her cake and eat it’ means deceiving those around her in order to find snatched moments of happiness, usually followed by intense feelings of guilt on her part. Despite the risk of discovery, she is unable to find the courage to commit wholly one way or the other. It’s a situation that cannot continue, with tragic consequences.

Once war breaks out, I found the characters became more appealing as we see other sides to their characters. Sonia discovers life can be lived without servants doing everything for you and rises to the challenge of keeping the household supplied with food. Woodbourne House becomes a place of refuge as German bombing raids on London intensify. Dan and Paul demonstrate courage whilst on active service. And Meg experiences first-hand what many in London are suffering leaving her with an intense feeling of displacement.

The book perfectly captures the milieu of upper class society in the years before World War Two, epitomised by the carefree atmosphere of a summer house party in an idyllic setting. The travails of the war years intervene bringing with them a sense that some social changes are irreversible (even if Sonia does still yearn for the days when a servant would draw her bath for her). The book demonstrates the very complicated nature of human relationships. Indeed, to quote from Sir Walter Scott’s poem Marmion, ‘Oh what a tangled we we weave, when first we practice to deceive’.

Caro Fraser sadly died in April 2020.

In three words: Romantic, engaging, evocative
Try something similar: The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard

About the Author

Caro Fraser was the author of the Caper Court novels, based on her own experiences as a lawyer.

The daughter of George MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman novels, she died in April 2020.