Tag: advance review copy

#BlogTour #BookReview The Fall by Rachael Blok @AriesFiction

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Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Fall by Rachael Blok. My thanks to Sophie at Ransom PR for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my digital review copy. Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today, Rachel at Rachel Read It.

The FallAbout the Book

The wind is cold this high up. The man shouts out, but nobody hears. The cathedral roof has caught his fall, but it will not hold him for long. The night is dark. And it is such a long way down…

On Good Friday, the verger of St Albans cathedral was supposed to be preparing the Easter service. Instead he discovers a man lying dead, fallen from the famous fifty-foot-high spire. Did he jump, or was he pushed?

For DCI Maarten Jansen, it’s a simple case of suspected suicide. Until a stranger, Willow, who witnessed the jump, prompts a deeper investigation into a long-buried past, involving a mental hospital, a pregnant woman, and fifty years of silence. As Willow’s own family history entwines with the case, Jaansen starts to wonder how everything is connected.

Format: Hardback (400 pages)      Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 14th April 2022 Genre: Crime, Mystery

Find The Fall on Goodreads

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Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

The Fall is described by the publishers as a ‘literary thriller’ but don’t let the word ‘literary’ put you off because the writing is no less accessible than a typical contemporary crime novel. The ‘literary’ element is perhaps the fleeting references to Paradise Lost, Milton’s epic poem telling the biblical story of the ‘Fall of Man’ (the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden). Paradise Lost is a text that means a lot to Willow Eliot. Her grandmother, Nonie, read it to her when she was young and some very early drafts of Paradise Lost form part of the exhibition she has organised. I’m not sure if I’m reading too much significance into it but there are also a number of characters in the book with names drawn from the Bible – Michael and Gabriel (who were both archangels), Joel, Noah and Martha.

The first part of the story unfolds quite slowly and is narrated from the points of view of Willow Eliot, one of the witnesses to the verger’s fall from the roof of the cathedral, and DCI Maarten Jansen, the police officer in charge of investigating the case. Although The Fall is the fourth book in the author’s series featuring DCI Maarten Jansen it can easily be read as a standalone (as I did). In fact, those who don’t have much time for police procedurals can be reassured this doesn’t form a major element of the book. It’s much more about buried family secrets that gradually emerge.

Every so often another point of view interrupts the modern day story, that of a young girl named Alice. Set in the 1960s, hers proves a very powerful and emotional story that touches on the stigma attached to mental illness and neurological conditions at the time, and the harsh and often ineffective treatments sufferers were subjected to.  I thought this was the most compelling element of the book and it also forms another connection to the subject matter of Willow’s exhibition.

Running alongside the police investigation are preparations for the marriage of Willow’s identical twin sister, Fliss, to Sunny, one of the detectives in Jansen’s team.  I have to say I admired Willow’s patience with Fliss who seemed to me entirely self-absorbed and prone to temper tantrums I didn’t think could just be put down to wedding day nerves. Although I appreciate the author was seeking to explore the notion of the special bond between twins – for reasons which will become apparent – personally I could have done without this element of the story. Fliss’s antics are one of the reasons why Willow seems to spend remarkably little time attending to the exhibition she has organised although it does provide a key to the eventual solution to the mystery.  Along the way, the author skilfully directs the reader’s suspicions in the direction of just about every character.

St Albans Cathedral makes a suitably atmospheric setting for the book and I’m sure I won’t be the only reader prompted to search for images of the building, especially its tower and roof. (To save you the trouble, you can visit the cathedral’s website here where you can access a 360 degree tour of many of the parts of the building mentioned in the book.)

The Fall is a carefully constructed crime novel set in an interesting location that offers plenty of surprises in the closing chapters.

In three words: Intriguing, well-crafted, engaging

Try something similar: After the Storm by Isabella Muir

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Rachael BlokAbout the Author

Rachael Blok grew up in Durham and studied Literature at Warwick University. She taught English at a London Comprehensive and is now a full-time writer living in Hertfordshire with her husband and children. Her thrillers Under the Ice, The Scorched Earth and Into the Fire have been widely acclaimed.

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#BookReview The Physician’s Daughter by Martha Conway

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The Physician's DaughterAbout the Book

It is 1865, the American Civil War has just ended, and 18-year old Vita Tenney is determined to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a country doctor like her father. But when her father tells her she must get married instead, Vita explores every means of escape – and finds one in the person of war veteran Jacob Culhane.

Damaged by what he’s seen in battle and with all his family gone, Jacob is seeking investors for a fledgling business. Then he meets Vita – and together they hatch a plan that should satisfy both their desires. Months later, Vita seemingly has everything she ever wanted. But alone in a big city and haunted by the mistakes of her past, she wonders if the life she always thought she wanted was too good to be true. When love starts to compete with ambition, what will come out on top?

Format: Hardback (480 pages)      Publisher: Zaffre
Publication date: 3rd March 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find The Physician’s Daughter on Goodreads

Purchase links
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Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

I was first introduced to Martha Conway’s writing when I read The Floating Theatre back in 2017. There are echoes of the theme of that book, a young woman having to make her own way in the world, in The Physician’s Daughter.  A neat touch is the inclusion at the beginning of each chapter of quotations from books and periodicals dating from the period. Some of these are laugh out loud funny for their outrageously outdated views on the role of women and the ‘trials’ of marriage.

I confess I found the book very slow to begin within.  For me the most compelling part was Jacob’s story. I felt his experiences during the Civil War and its aftermath allowed the author to explore the impact of war not just on the individuals involved but on their loved ones. For Jacob, the memories of what he saw and endured as a prisoner of war have taken a heavy psychological and emotional toll. ‘He woke up shaking and sweating, his heart thundering in his chest.’ (I’ll confess the existence of the Confederate prison of war camp at Andersonville and the atrocities that went on there was new to me.) Although the project he and his friend, killed during the war, planned to pursue together provides him with a degree of focus, he is resigned to leading a rather solitary life… until he meets Vita.

I admired Vita’s determination to follow her dream in spite of the opposition of her father and the limitations placed on women’s independence by society. The spiteful remarks of her sister, Amelia, don’t help either. At times I became frustrated that Vita was so easily swayed by the comments of others, often just snatches of overheard conversations. Having arrived at an arrangement that might offer the freedom she seeks, her misinterpretation of a chance remark results in her making a series of rash decisions. There were a number of occasions where I wanted to say ‘Vita, don’t do that!’ or ‘You’ve got it all wrong’.

Vita’s family has also been affected by the war. Her father is consumed by thoughts of what might have been and, ironically, Vita’s ambition to become a doctor, following in his own footsteps, only makes his anguish worse. Meanwhile Vita’s mother seeks other ways to dull the pain of loss whilst being more supportive of Vita’s desire to make something more of her life than just marriage and motherhood.

Vita definitely grows as a character as the book progresses. In particular, she is very open to acknowledging her strengths and weaknesses, recognising that there is more to being a doctor than memorising conditions and medication; listening – really listening – to your patients is important too.  This really comes home to her in some dramatic scenes towards the end of the book.

The outcome I’d hoped for eventually does come about and the book concludes on a hopeful note. I was left with the sense that although Vita’s pursuit of her ambition is going to be an uphill task with the right support she will get there.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Zaffre via NetGalley.

In three words: Engaging, well-researched, detailed

Try something similar: The Unquiet Heart by Kaite Welsh

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MarthaConwayAbout the Author

Martha Conway is the author of several novels including The Underground River, which was a New York Times Book Editor’s Choice (entitled The Floating Theatre in the U.K.). Her novel Thieving Forest won the North American Book Award for Best Historical Fiction.

Born in Ohio and one of seven sisters, she now makes her home in California.

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