Tag: contemporary fiction

A Wedding in the Olive Garden by Leah Fleming #BookReview #BlogTour @HoZ_Books

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Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for A Wedding in the Olive Garden by Leah Fleming. Thanks to Vicky Joss at Head of Zeus for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my digital review copy via NetGalley. You can find my review of A Wedding in the Olive Garden below.

FB_IMG_1582298166464About the Book

Can an island in the sun provide the second chance Sara needs?

Sara Loveday flees home and crisis to the beautiful island of Santaniki. Here, amid olive groves and whitewashed stone villas, where dark cypress trees step down to a cobalt blue sea, Sara vows to change her life. Spotting a gap in the local tourist market, she sets up a wedding plan business, specialising in ‘second time around’ couples.

For her first big wedding, she borrows the olive garden of a local artists’ retreat, but almost at once things begin to go wrong. To make matters worse, a stranger from Sara’s past arrives on the island, spreading vicious lies. Can her business survive? And what will happen with the gorgeous new man who she’s begun to love?

Format: ebook (352 pages)           Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 7th May 2020 Genre: Women’s Fiction, Romance

Find A Wedding in the Olive Garden on Goodreads

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

My Review

A Wedding in the Olive Garden is a departure from my usual diet of historical fiction but doesn’t everyone need/deserve something sweet and indulgent from time to time, such as a slice of baklava perhaps?

Having really enjoyed the author’s previous book, The Olive Garden Choir,  it was a delight to return to the (alas, fictional) Greek island of Santaniki and to be reunited with some of the characters from the earlier book. My personal favourite is Irini, on this occasion transformed from mother-in-law from hell to avenging angel.

It was also great to make the acquaintance of some new characters. One of these is Sara Loveday who has her own reasons for wanting to begin a new chapter in her life, reasons which she is unwilling to share with anyone initially (including the reader). Luckily, her new wedding planning venture requires all her attention if it’s to be a success. A number of couples amongst the island’s residents have their own very special and personal reasons for wanting to get married and it’s not long before they are making use of Sara’s services. The first wedding she organises is notable for a very unexpected arrival.

With all this going on there’s definitely no place for romance on Sara’s extensive to-do list. At least, that’s what she thinks.

I can certainly attest to the publisher’s description of A Wedding in the Olive Garden as “a gorgeous, warm-hearted and uplifting novel conjuring the local colour, traditions and close bonds of island life.” Of all the weddings featured in the book, my favourite was the traditional Cretan wedding in which the whole community pitch in to help. There are also fabulous descriptions of the islanders’ celebrations of Easter and of the feast day of Phanourios, patron saint of lost and found, whose services are definitely needed at one point.

I have to mention the luscious descriptions of food such as these offerings from the lunchtime menu of the taverna run by Northern lass Mel, her husband Spiro, and the aforementioned Irini: gigantes (butter bean stew), mountain greens in oil and lemon, salad of beetroot, garlic and walnut, village sausages, and roasted vegetable salad with feta. Oh, and don’t forget a carafe of the local wine and a raki to finish. Stomach rumbling yet?

With the author’s customary skilful blend of joyful and poignant moments, if A Wedding in the Olive Garden doesn’t have you longingly browsing travel websites ready for when ‘normal’ life returns, or even planning your own dream wedding, I’ll be surprised.

In three words: Engaging, heart-warming, joyful

Try something similar: The House That Alice Built by Chris Penhall

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Leah FlemingAbout the Author

After careers in teaching, catering, running a market stall, stress management courses in the NHS as well as being a mother of four, Leah Fleming found her true calling as a storyteller. She lives in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales but spends part of the year marinating her next tale from an olive grove on her favourite island of Crete.

Connect with Leah
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#BookReview A Life Without End by Frédéric Beigbeder @WorldEdBooks

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A Life Without EndAbout the Book

What does the man who has everything – fame, fortune, a new love, and a new baby – want for his fiftieth birthday? The answer is simple: eternal life.

Determined to shake off the first intimations of his approaching demise, Frédéric tries every possible procedure to ward off death, examining both legal and illegal research into techniques that could lead to the imminent replacement of man with a post-human species. Accompanied by his ten-year-old daughter and her robot friend, Frédéric criss-crosses the globe to meet the world’s foremost researchers on human longevity, who – from cell rejuvenation and telomere lengthening to 3D-printed organs and digitally stored DNA – reveal their latest discoveries.

With his blend of deadpan humour and clear-eyed perception, Beigbeder has penned a brutal and brilliant exposé of the enduring issue of our own mortality.

Format: Paperback (304 pages)  Publisher: World Editions
Publication date: 16 April 2020 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Find A Life Without End on Goodreads

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

My Review

For a fair bit of this book I found myself trying to work out whether it was fiction or non-fiction. I came to the conclusion that it’s a mixture of both. Many of the people Frédéric meets do exist in real life (thank you, Google) and hold the positions in the scientific and commercial institutions mentioned. Without a lot of research, I’m unable to say how much of what they tell him about their discoveries and how they might be used is accurate, but I’m betting most of it is. That’s a bit scary in some cases.

This is my first book by the author but, reading up on him, I learned that there is a strong autobiographical element to his work. For instance, in the book, the narrator is married to his second wife and has two daughter, as does the author (although the names of his wife and daughters have been changed). I’m unsure if he shares with the narrator a seeming preoccupation with women’s breasts.

There are some great one-liners such as the author’s observation about the current obsession with selfies that, “Modern man is a collection of 75 trillion cells all striving to become pixels.” In fact, the subject of selfies is a bit of a running joke. There are also quirky touches such as tables entitled Advantages and Disadvantages Of Death, Some Differences Between A Thirtysomething Single Guy And A Fiftysomething Father (‘Goes clubbing in Ibiza vs. Buys a holiday home in the Basque Country’) and Key Differences Between Human And Robot (‘Cogito ergo sum vs. Cogito ergo sum coniuncta ad Wi-Fi’).

Great fun is had with Pepper the Japanese robot who accompanies Frédéric and his daughter, Romy, on their travels to interview scientists and doctors in his quest for the secret of immortality. There are some scenes in a spa resort they visit that are laugh out loud funny.

Encompassing topics as varied as genome sequencing, psychoanalysis, cell renewal, transgenic foods and blood transfusions, the book addresses serious issues as well and contains some sobering statistics, although true to the author’s style these are delivered with humour. ‘Life is a hecatomb. A mass murder that slaughters 59 million people a year. 1.9 deaths per second. 158,857 deaths a day. Twenty people have died around the world since the beginning of this paragraph – more if you’re a slow reader.’ [I had to look up hecatomb as well. It means the sacrifice or slaughter of many victims.]

To begin with, I wasn’t sure I was going to like this book but in fact I found it fascinating, albeit a little chilling at times, especially the chapter in which the author sets out a distinctly dystopian view of the future. Frédéric’s wife, Leonore, a trained scientist, provides a counterbalance to her husband’s belief in the benefits of immortality. She argues, “A life without end would be a life without purpose” and later, tiring (and who can blame her) of his incessant search for the secret of defeating death, describes it as “a fantasy designed to humour infantile, ignorant, narcissistic megalomaniacs who can’t bring themselves to face the inevitable.”

As well as being a very funny book, the narrator’s relationship with his elder daughter is rather touching and the end of the book is surprisingly moving. Does Frédéric find what he’s searching for? As one character tells him, “Perhaps if you publish it the ending will change. You know better than anyone that literature can conquer time.” Do you see what he did there?

I can’t end this review without commending the translator for his skill in reproducing the author’s self-mocking style and communicating with clarity such complex scientific information. If I wasn’t able to grasp quite all of it, that’s definitely my failing not his.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of World Editions.

In three words: Playful, thought-provoking, satirical

CROPPED-Beigbeder-F-c-jf-Paga-GRASSET-500x500About the Author

Frédéric Beigbeder is a French journalist and critic, and is responsible for the literary section of Le Figaro Magazine. Also a bestselling author, his novel 99 Francs both got him fired from his advertising job and established him as a controversial force within French literature. For his other novels, he has been awarded various prizes including the 2003 Prix Interallié and the 2009 Prix Renaudot, and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2005 for his novel Windows on the World. He is a regular guest on French national morning radio, and a frequent contributor to El País Icon (Spain), Interview (Germany), and Esquire (Russia).

About the Translator

Frank Wynne is a literary translator and writer. Born in Ireland, he moved to France in 1984 where he discovered a passion for language. He began translating literature in the late 1990s, and in 2001 decided to devote himself to this full time. He has translated works by Michel Houellebecq, Frédéric Beigbeder, Ahmadou Kourouma, Boualem Sansal, Claude Lanzmann, Tómas Eloy Martínez, and Almudena Grandes. His work has earned him a number of awards, including the Scott Moncrieff Prize and the Premio Valle Inclán. Most recently, his translation of Vernon Subutex by Virginie Despentes was shortlisted for the Man Booker International 2018.