Tag: NetGalley

Book Review: All the Beautiful Girls by Elizabeth J. Church

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All the Beautiful Girls UKAbout the Book

It was unimaginable. When she was eight years old, Lily Decker somehow survived the auto accident that killed her parents and sister, but neither her emotionally distant aunt nor her all-too-attentive uncle could ease her grief.  Dancing proves to be Lily’s only solace, and eventually, she receives a “scholarship” to a local dance academy – courtesy of a mysterious benefactor.

Grown and ready to leave home for good, Lily changes her name to Ruby Wilde and heads to Las Vegas to be a troupe dancer, but her sensual beauty and voluptuous figure land her work instead as a showgirl performing everywhere from Les Folies Bergere at the Tropicana to the Stardust’s Lido de Paris. Wearing costumes dripping with feathers and rhinestones, five-inch heels, and sky-high headdresses, Ruby may have all the looks of a Sin City success story, but she still must learn to navigate the world of men – and figure out what real love looks like.

Format: ebook, hardcover (368 pp.)                   Publisher: 4th Estate
Published: 6th March (ebook), 5th April 2018    Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting local UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find All the Beautiful Girls on Goodreads

My Review

From the book description, I was expecting to be immersed in the atmosphere of 1960s Las Vegas and I definitely got that.  Elizabeth Church shows the reader both the surface glamour – the famous names, the glitzy costumes, the fantastic parties, the extravagant gifts – and the seedy underbelly – the drugs, the physical toll, the expectation to charm men attracted to the casinos by the beauty of the showgirls, to ‘give them memories’ to take home to their dull, everyday lives.  Lily/Ruby mingles with Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. (‘a hepcat seducer who lured with junkie, fast-talking patter’), Paul Anka, Joe DiMaggio, Tom Jones.  She learns of key events of the 1960s – the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the moon landings – while Vegas carries on regardless. However, eventually the glitter fades revealing a life that is shallow and empty. ‘Ruby was well aware that no one wanted her for who she was, for what she read or thought…To them, she was just like Vegas – all glitz and glamour.  An anonymous blur, like a passing freight train.’

However All the Beautiful Girls is more than just the story of a Las Vegas showgirl.  It’s a bildungsroman that charts Lily’s emotional journey as she struggles to overcome family tragedy, a traumatic childhood, thwarted ambition, the lure of the darker side of the showgirl lifestyle and find a sense of self-worth, acceptance and love.

When she leaves her hometown of Kansas, she seeks to reinvent herself, adopting a new name – Ruby Wilde.  ‘If Kansas could go from sea to prairie, if a frog egg could radically transform itself from an almost-fish with gills to an amphibian that left water for land, then Lily could transform, too.’  She dreams of becoming a dancer; dance being the one thing in her life that brings her joy.  Arriving in Las Vegas she sees only possibility, star struck by the glamour of her new surroundings.  ‘This, Ruby realized, is what happiness feels like.  Freedom.  Bubbling champagne, yellow birds, music and dance and neon and possibility.’

You somehow know it’s not going to be that easy.  The scars Lily bears are not just psychological and hers will be an emotional journey of success, love, loss and betrayal.  Aside from a few valued friends, the one positive and constant presence in Lily’s life is her faithful benefactor – the equivalent of a ‘fairy godmother’ – driven by motivations of their own.   In the end, it transpires that Lily is not the only one with secrets and I’ll readily admit the author took me completely by surprise at one point.  I do love an “I wasn’t expecting that!” moment in a novel.

I really enjoyed All the Beautiful Girls.  It turned out to be a much more intense read than I’d been expecting – in a good way – but it has to be said there are some scenes that are hard to read.   I loved Lily for her determination to follow her dream and to believe in herself, despite everything that happens to her along the way.  The way Lily overcomes the tragedies that befall her made me think a little bit of the film ‘A Star Is Born’, starring the wonderful Judy Garland.  What made it just short of 5 stars for me was the ending which wrapped up everything a little too quickly.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, 4th Estate, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Powerful, emotional, intense

Try something similar…Woman Enters Left by Jessica Brockmole (click here to read my review)

Elizabeth J ChurchAbout the Author

Elizabeth J. Church is the author of The Atomic Weight of Love, which was a #1 Indie Next List selection and a Target Club Pick, and was shortlisted by the ABA Indies Choice Book Awards for adult debut book of the year and the Reading the West Book Awards for best adult fiction. All the Beautiful Girls is her second novel.

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Book Review: Entanglement by Katy Mahood

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EntanglementAbout the Book

2007: At the end of a momentous day, Charlie, Stella and John cross paths under the arches of Paddington Station. As Charlie locks eyes with Stella across the platform, a brief, powerful spark of recognition flashes between them. But they are strangers … aren’t they?

Plunging back thirty years we watch as, unknown to them all, the lives of Stella and John, and Charlie and his girlfriend Beth, are pulled ever closer, an invisible thread connecting them across the decades and through London’s busy streets.  For Stella, becoming a young mother in the 1970s puts an end to her bright academic career in a way John can’t seem to understand. Meanwhile Charlie gambles all future happiness with Beth when his inner demons threaten to defeat him.

Format: ebook, hardcover (320 pp.)               Publisher: The Borough Press
Published: 22nd March 2018                             Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Pre-order/Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀBook Depository ¦ Hive.co.uk (supporting local UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

 Find Entanglement on Goodreads

My Review

A story inspired by a concept from quantum physics?  Well, yes.   Put simply (thank you, Wikipedia), quantum entanglement is the idea that entangled particles remain connected and that actions performed on one affect the other even when separated by great distances.   It’s what Albert Einstein dubbed ‘spooky action at a distance’.  Katy Mahood uses this concept as the inspiration for the story of two couples whose life journeys overlap, mirror and just occasionally come into brief contact with each other.  Following the chance presence of Stella and Charlie, two complete strangers, at one momentous event, it’s a story of repeated ‘almost encounters’ that may be no more than a fleeting glance or  a glimpse from a park bench.  Ships passing unnoticed in the night, as it were.

The reader witnesses the ups and downs of their lives as both couples experience joy and loss, love and betrayal, and struggle with mental and physical illness, alcoholism and unfulfilled dreams.   The author recently spoke in an interview for The Daily Mail about how her own husband’s illness became the motivation to write the book.  

I’ve loved being entangled in the lives of these two couples for the past few days and seeing how, if at all, their stories might converge.  It’s an emotional journey that is beautifully described and feels absolutely true to life and authentic.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, The Borough Press, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Clever, compelling, emotional

Try something similar…for more ‘spooky action at a distance’, Oliver Loving by Stefan Merrill Block (click here to read my review)

Katy MahoodAbout the Author

Connect with Katy

Katy Mahood was born in 1978 and studied at Edinburgh and Oxford Universities.  After a brief career in publishing, she has since worked in marketing, most recently for the cancer charity Maggie’s.  She has contributed to a number of publications on architecture and health and writes a blog which features occasional poetry and short fiction.  She lives in Bristol with her husband Matt, a teacher, and their daughters, seven and nine.  Entanglement is her first novel.

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