Tag: authorreviewpile

More Tales From My TBR Pile

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Today I’m once again directing the spotlight on a particular section of my To Be Read Pile – review copies I’ve received from authors.

I’m currently closed to review requests but before I pulled up the drawbridge (so to speak) I’d already amassed quite a few books sent to me for review by authors. I’ll confess I’ve not made as much progress as I would have liked in reducing my author review pile and some of the books have been languishing there for quite some time.

Therefore, in highlighting a few of the books in my author review pile, I’m hoping to assuage my guilt at the length of time they’ve been there, reassure their lovely authors that I haven’t forgotten my promise to read and review them, and perhaps tempt other readers into adding them to their own TBR piles.

ArtefactsArtefacts & Other Stories by Rebecca Burns

That dandelion. A flash of stubborn yellow in a dark box of space. It had promised sunshine but had tasted sour.

Artefacts. A dandelion. A mayfly. A family, bereft. Items and mementos of a life, lived hard and with love, or long, empty, bitter.

In these sharply drawn and unflinching short stories, Rebecca Burns unpicks the connection between the lives we live and what we leave behind.

355 The Women of Washington's Spy Ring355: The Women of Washington’s Spy Ring by Kit Sergeant

Who was the mysterious 355?

Culper Ring members such as Robert Townsend and Hercules Mulligan are well known for the part they played in the Revolutionary War, but who was the mysterious 355 that could “outwit them all”? Inspired by many of the same characters featured in AMC’s Turn: Washington’s Spies and the Broadway musical Hamilton, 355: The Women of Washington’s Spy Ring chronicles the lives of three remarkable women who use daring, skill, and, yes, a bit of flirtation, to help liberate America.

British sympathizer Margaret (Meg) Moncrieffe expects to find the carefree America she remembers as a youth when she returns from her Irish boarding school. Instead she finds the new country at war, with her father on one side and her new love, Aaron Burr, on the other. When her misguided attempt to end the war results in dire consequences for the Continental Army, Meg switches allegiances in order to amend the damage she caused.

After her husband Jonathan is captured by the British and dies aboard one of the notorious prison ships, a pregnant Elizabeth Burgin realizes she is stronger than she once thought. When a prominent member of the Culper Ring enlists her help on a heist of the prison ships, Elizabeth readily accepts, putting herself and her family in jeopardy in order to save the lives of strangers.

Patriot Sally Townsend wants nothing more than freedom for America. When her family is forced to take in enemy soldiers, Sally seizes the opportunity to garner information from them and pass it on to her brother, Robert, knowing that one false move could result in the noose for both of them. Instead of finding herself in danger when British intelligence officer Major John André shows up at her family’s doorstep, Sally finds herself falling in love. But Major André is playing the same dangerous game as her and Robert, albeit for the other side.

Told from the viewpoints of these three women—including the one operating under the code name 355: The Women of Washington’s Spy Ring is an absorbing tale of family, duty, love, and betrayal.

Burning ColdBurning Cold (Cara Walden Mystery #2) by Lisa Lieberman

Budapest: 1956. Newlywed Cara Walden’s brother Zoltán has disappeared in the middle of the Hungarian revolution, harboring a deadly wartime secret. Will Cara or the Soviets find him first?

Cutting short her honeymoon in Paris to rescue a sibling she’s never met was not Cara’s idea, but her husband Jakub has a reckless streak, and she is too much in love to question his judgment. Together with her older brother Gray, they venture behind the Iron Curtain, seeking clues to Zoltán’s whereabouts among his circle of fellow dissidents, all victims of the recently overthrown Communist regime. One of them betrayed him, and Cara realizes that the investigation has put every person they’ve met at risk. Inadvertently, they’ve also unmasked a Russian spy, who is now tailing them in the hope that they will lead him to Zoltán.

The noir film of Graham Greene’s The Third Man inspires Lisa Lieberman’s historical thriller. Burning Cold features a compelling female protagonist who comes to know her own strength in the course of her adventures

#BookReview The Tides Between by Elizabeth Jane Corbett @OdysseyBooks @lizziejane

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The Tides BetweenAbout the Book

She fancied herself part of a timeless chain without beginning or end, linked only by the silver strong words of its tellers.

In the year 1841, on the eve of her departure from London, Bridie’s mother demands she forget her dead father and prepare for a sensible, adult life in Port Phillip. Desperate to save her childhood, fifteen-year-old Bridie is determined to smuggle a notebook filled with her father’s fairytales to the far side of the world.

When Rhys Bevan, a soft-voiced young storyteller and fellow traveller realises Bridie is hiding something, a magical friendship is born. But Rhys has his own secrets and the words written in Bridie’s notebook carry a dark double meaning.  As they inch towards their destination, Rhys’s past returns to haunt him. Bridie grapples with the implications of her dad’s final message. The pair take refuge in fairytales, little expecting the trouble it will cause.

Format: Paperback, ebook (300 pp.)         Publisher: Odyssey Books
Published: 20th October 2017        Genre: Historical Fiction, YA

Purchase Links*

Amazon.co.uk ǀ Kobo  
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Tides Between on Goodreads

My Review

The author conveys in convincing detail the terrible conditions endured by those, like Bridie and her mother and stepfather, travelling in steerage: the heat below deck, the cramped accommodation, lack of privacy and risk of disease. Not to mention the terrible seasickness caused by the motion of the ship. There are particularly vivid descriptions of the terror experienced by the passengers as the ship rides out storms on the voyage, not least those in steerage where the order ‘batten down the hatches’ means them literally being sealed below decks.

For Bridie, the storytelling sessions she shares with Rhys and his wife, Sian, provide a welcome distraction from the privations of the voyage, her continuing grief at the death of her father and her difficult relationship with her mother’s new husband, Alf, that cause her to misunderstand and reject his attempts to guide her and prepare her for their new life in Australia. In addition, Bridie must come to terms with the signs that she is moving from childhood to being of marriageable age.

The emigrants undertaking the long and arduous voyage to Australia are doing so in the hope that a new and better life with more opportunities awaits them. But some, including Rhys and Sian, are also keen to leave behind the past and avoid discovery of secrets they wish to keep hidden. However, from time to time there are precious snatched moments of conviviality as the passengers come together to sing songs and listen to stories, especially those performed by Rhys and Sian.

Tragedy awaits many of those who undertake the voyage and even when they arrive at their destination it’s clear more challenges await them. The open-ended nature of the book’s conclusion means the reader can indulge their own imagination about Bridie’s future… or possibly await a sequel?

The Tides Between is an absorbing, skilfully crafted coming-of-age story that takes the reader – like Bridie and her fellow passengers – on an often turbulent and emotional journey.

I received a review copy courtesy of the author. Find out more about Elizabeth’s writing journey and the inspiration for the book in her Q&A with bookblogger, Linda Hill.

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In three words: Emotional, dramatic, immersive

Try something similar: Fled by Meg Keneally (read my review here)

Elizabeth Jane CorbettThe Tides Between TeaserAbout the Author

When Elizabeth Jane Corbett isn’t writing, she works as a librarian, teaches Welsh at the Melbourne Celtic Club, writes reviews and articles for the Historical Novel Society and blogs at elizabethjanecorbett.com.

In 2009, her short-story, ‘Beyond the Blackout Curtain’, won the Bristol Short Story Prize. Another, ‘Silent Night’, was short listed for the Allan Marshall Short Story Award. An early draft of her debut novel, The Tides Between, was shortlisted for a HarperCollins Varuna manuscript development award.

Elizabeth lives with her husband, Andrew, in a renovated timber cottage in Melbourne’s inner-north. She likes red shoes, dark chocolate, commuter cycling, and reading quirky, character driven novels set once-upon-a-time in lands far, far away.

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