Tag: historical fiction

#BlogTour #BookReview The Woman with the Map by Jan Casey @AriaFiction @rararesources

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The Woman With The MapWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Woman with the Map by Jan Casey. It was published as an ebook on 17th March and will be available in paperback on 12th May. My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Aria for my digital review copy via NetGalley. Do check out the posts by my tour buddies for today, the team at Chick Lit Central, The Page Ladies, Ceri at Ceri’s Little Blog and Helen at Helen Rebecca Reads.

The Woman with the MapAbout the Book

February 1941. The world is at war and Joyce Cooper is doing her bit for the effort. A proud member of the ARP, it is her job to assist the people of Notting Hill when the bombs begin to fall. But as the Blitz takes hold of London, Joyce is called upon to plot the devastation that follows in its wake. Each night she must stand before her map and mark the trail of turmoil inflicted upon the homes and businesses she knows so well.

February 1974. Decades later, from her basement flat Joyce Cooper watches the world go by above her head. This is her haven; the home she has created for herself having had so much taken from her in the war. But now the council is tearing down her block of flats and she’s being forced to leave. Could this chance to start over allow Joyce to let go of the past and step back into her life?

Format: ebook (431 pages)              Publisher: Aria
Publication date: 17th March 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Oh my goodness, did this book put me through the emotional wringer. I’ll freely admit to shedding tears at some points.  Alternating between 1974 and the period of the Second World War, we gradually come to see why the devastating losses Joyce experienced during the war have made her the way she is, reluctant to get close to anyone for fear they may disappear from her life and preferring to live a solitary, self-contained existence following her established routines. Her little basement flat has become her sanctuary, the place that gives her a sense of stability.  Gradually we come to understand just why it is such a wrench for her to leave it.

The details of Joyce’s wartime work, plotting the location of bombs dropped on London during the Blitz, was fascinating. I was struck by the contrast between the chaos in the streets above and the methodical operation of the Report and Control Centre with its forms, log books and detailed procedures that define  the colour of pins to be used to denote the various levels of destruction and casualties, or the precise diameter of the circle to be drawn to identify V1 rockets.

It was impossible to read the descriptions of the horrific damage and loss of life inflicted on London (and other cities) by German bombing raids without thinking of the atrocities being committed in Ukraine at the moment.  As the war continues, Joyce’s experiences reflect those of many Londoners during the Blitz – never knowing whether this moment might be your last, homes damaged beyond repair, people desperately scrabbling in the rubble of bombed-out buildings, finding yourself left with just the clothes you stand up in and reliant upon the kindness of strangers, loved ones injured or literally blown to oblivion.  And it never stops, for year after year. ‘Everyone was hungry; everyone was cold. They all had spots or skin the colour of the pall of smoke that hung over the city and stomach upsets and earaches and missing fingers and swollen joints…’ Although there are snatched moments of happiness they prove transitory. And, just when you think it can’t get any worse for Joyce, it does. (The chapter headings become positively chilling.)

I fell in love with Joyce and if she were my neighbour I’d want to give her a big hug and join her in a cup of tea and a vanilla slice.  Taking the first tentative steps to remove the protective barrier she has built around her takes courage and Joyce proves once again, as she did during the war, that she has it in spades.

The Woman with the Map is one of the most moving books I’ve read for a long time. The parallels with events in Ukraine make it especially poignant and chillingly prophetic. Attending the celebrations at the end of the war, Joyce listens to Winston Churchill proclaiming that in years to come whenever people had their freedom threatened they would look back at the ‘stubborn determination and stoic endurance’ of the British people and say, like them, that they would rather die than be conquered’. Slava Ukraini!

In three words: Moving, authentic, powerful

Try something similar: Where Stands a Winged Sentry by Margaret Kennedy

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Jan CaseyAbout the Author

Jan Casey’s novels explore the themes of how ordinary people are affected by extraordinary events during any period in history, including the present. Jan is fascinated with the courage, adaptability and resilience that people rise to in times of adversity and for which they do not expect pay, praise or commendation. Jan is also interested in writing about the similarities, as opposed to the differences, amongst people and the ways in which experiences and emotions bind humans together.

Jan was born in London but spent her childhood in Southern California. She was a teacher of English and Drama for many years and is now a Learning Supervisor at a college of further education. When she is not working or writing, Jan enjoys yoga, swimming, cooking, walking, reading and spending time with her grandchildren. Before becoming a published author, Jan had short stories and flash fictions published.

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#BookReview The Marsh House by Zoë Somerville @HoZ_Books

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The Marsh HouseAbout the Book

December, 1962. Desperate to salvage something from a disastrous year, Malorie rents a remote house on the Norfolk coast for Christmas. But once there, the strained silence between her and her daughter, Franny, feels louder than ever. Digging for decorations in the attic, she comes across the notebooks of the teenaged Rosemary, who lived in the house years before. Though she knows she needs to focus on the present, Malorie finds herself inexorably drawn into the past…

July, 1930. Rosemary lives in the Marsh House with her austere father, surrounded by unspoken truths and rumours. So when the glamorous Lafferty family move to the village, she succumbs easily to their charm. Dazzled by the beautiful Hilda and her dashing brother, Franklin, Rosemary fails to see the danger that lurks beneath their bright façades…

As Malorie reads on, the boundaries between past and present begin to blur, in this haunting novel about family, obligation and deeply buried secrets.

Format: eARC (352 pages)             Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 3rd March 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery

Find The Marsh House on Goodreads

Purchase links
Bookshop.org
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

Initially the most obvious connection between the two women – Malorie and Rosemary – is the Marsh House of the title, a remote house close to marshland on the North Norfolk coast. By the time Malorie, along with her daughter Franny, arrives there it has become rather rundown and has all the features of an old, neglected building. ‘The house was quiet. Not silent, it was never completely silent: there was a constant undercurrent of creaks and whispers and rustles, as if it were being tossed about on the sea.’

The book features that oft-used narrative device: the secret journal. Although I recognise that discovery of a journal adds an air of mystery, I’m never quite sure about the choice of this over an additional first person narrative, finding it difficult to get past the artificiality of it. However I appreciate this is a reservation others may not share.

Writing from an unspecified place of confinement, Rosemary’s testimony unfolds bit by bit, gradually revealing the events that resulted in her finding herself in that situation. It’s a story of a vulnerable, naive young woman who, lacking the influence of a mother, finds herself taken advantage of in the most despicable way. It also explores the desire by some members of society to conceal things for the sake of appearances, the view of illegitimacy as a sign of moral turpitude or even a disease inherited from a degenerate mother. (Incidentally, I was puzzled by Rosemary’s lack of curiosity and inaction as regards her mother’s situation.)

Malorie becomes obsessed with Rosemary’s story, seeking to find out more about the events described and what happened to Rosemary. It also provides a form of distraction from her more immediate worries. The inhabitants of the village seen strangely unwilling to talk about Rosemary and the past history of Marsh House but eventually Malorie finds the answers she is looking for. She discovers a closer connection than she might have imagined. Although I’m not sure it will come as complete surprise to many readers, the circumstances may well do.

A standout feature of the book is the description of the local landscape, especially the bleak and deserted marshland around Marsh House which give an underlying eerie quality to the story. Being set in winter, with heavy snow blocking the roads and preventing any means of escape, adds to the feeling of claustrophobia.  Additional otherworldy elements contribute to the sense of unease: the deserted (or is it) cottage across the road, the telephone that rings but which only Malorie hears, the shadowy figure she believes she glimpses – ‘the dark shadow she kept seeing… as if there was something out there that was malign, that wanted to hurt them’. I was particularly struck by mention of a sampler hanging on the wall of one of the bedrooms depicting former inhabitants of the house which made me think of the M. R. James’ ghost story ‘The Mezzotint’. But are these things the product of Malorie’s mental turmoil caused by the breakdown of her marriage, her overuse of medication, her feverish imagination or something supernatural? The occasional sections by a third narrator perhaps give a clue.

The Marsh House is described by the publisher’s as ‘part ghost story, part novel of suspense’ and it certainly delivers both those elements. It’s full of atmosphere and an absorbing read.

I received a review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus via NetGalley.

In three words: Atmospheric, intriguing, mysterious

Try something similar: Call of the Curlew by Elizabeth Brooks

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Zoe SomervilleAbout the Author

Zoë is a writer and English teacher. Her debut novel, The Night of the Flood, was published in September 2020 by Head of Zeus. It is inspired by her home county, Norfolk and the devastating flood of the 1950s. Her second novel, The Marsh House is set in the same austere seascape of the Norfolk coast and is about mothers, daughters and ghosts.

Zoë has worked as an English teacher all over the world. This has included teaching English in Hagi, Japan, the Loire Atlantique, France and the Basque Country; several years in comprehensive schools in South London, Bath and Bristol; four years for the Hospital Education Rehabilitation Service in Somerset; and an international school in Washington, D.C. After completing a creative writing MA at Bath Spa University in 2016, she now combines writing and tutoring, and is settled in Bath with her family. (Bio: Author website)

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