Tag: Read

WWW Wednesdays – 30 August

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too? Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

AndTheBirdsKeptOnSingingAnd The Birds Kept On Singing by Simon Bourke (ebook, review copy courtesy of the author)

Pregnant at seventeen, Sinéad McLoughlin does the only thing she can; she runs away from home. She will go to England and put her child up for adoption. But when she lays eyes on it for the first time, lays eyes on him, she knows she can never let him go. Just one problem. He’s already been promised to someone else.  A tale of love and loss, remorse and redemption, And The Birds Kept On Singing tells two stories, both about the same boy. In one Sinéad keeps her son and returns home to her parents, to nineteen-eighties Ireland and life as a single mother. In the other she gives him away, to the Philliskirks, Malcolm and Margaret, knowing that they can give him the kind of life she never could. As her son progresses through childhood and becomes a young man, Sinéad is forced to face the consequences of her decision. Did she do the right thing? Should she have kept him, or given him away? And will she spend the rest of her life regretting the choices she has made?

OneDayinDecemberOne Day in December by Shari Low (eARC, courtesy of Aria Fiction)

By the stroke of midnight, a heart would be broken, a cruel truth revealed, a devastating secret shared, and a love betrayed. Four lives would be changed forever, One Day in December.

One morning in December… Caro set off on a quest to find out if her relationship with her father had been based on a lifetime of lies. Lila decided today would be the day that she told her lover’s wife of their secret affair. Cammy was on the way to pick up the ring for the surprise proposal to the woman he loved. And Bernadette vowed that this was the day she would walk away from her controlling husband of 30 years and never look back. One day, four lives on a collision course with destiny…

Recently finished

TakeCourageTake Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis (hardcover, own copy)

Anne Brontë is the forgotten Brontë sister, overshadowed by her older siblings – virtuous, successful Charlotte, free-spirited Emily and dissolute Branwell. Tragic, virginal, sweet, stoic, selfless, Anne. The less talented Brontë, the other Brontë. Or that’s what Samantha Ellis, a life-long Emily and Wuthering Heights devotee, had always thought. Until, that is, she started questioning that devotion and, in looking more closely at Emily and Charlotte, found herself confronted by Anne instead. Take Courage is Samantha’s personal, poignant and surprising journey into the life and work of a woman sidelined by history. A brave, strongly feminist writer well ahead of her time – and her more celebrated siblings – and who has much to teach us today about how to find our way in the world.

ADangerousWomanfromNowhereA Dangerous Woman From Nowhere by Kris Radish (eARC)

Briar Logan is a loner who has already survived a wretched childhood, near starvation, and the harsh western frontier in the 1860s. Just when she is on the brink of finally opening her heart to the possibilities of happiness, the love of her life is kidnapped by lawless gold miners – and she steels herself for what could be the greatest loss of her life. Desperate to save her husband and the solitary life they have carved out of the wilderness, Briar is forced to accept the help of a damaged young man and a notorious female horse trainer. Facing whiskey runners, gold thieves, unpredictable elements, and men who will stop at nothing to get what they want, the unlikely trio must forge an uncommon bond in order to survive. Full of lessons of love, letting go, and the real meaning of family, A Dangerous Woman From Nowhere is a timeless western adventure story about courage, change, risk, and learning how to unlock damaged hearts and live in the sweet moments of now

What Cathy (will) Read Next

TheIndigoGirlThe Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd (eARC)

1739 – Eliza Lucas is sixteen years old when her father leaves her in charge of their family’s three plantations in rural South Carolina and then proceeds to bleed the estates dry in pursuit of his military ambitions. Tensions with the British, and with the Spanish in Florida, just a short way down the coast, are rising, and slaves are starting to become restless. Her mother wants nothing more than for their South Carolina endeavor to fail so they can go back to England. Soon her family is in danger of losing everything. Upon hearing how much the French pay for indigo dye, Eliza believes it’s the key to their salvation. But everyone tells her it’s impossible, and no one will share the secret to making it. Thwarted at nearly every turn, even by her own family, Eliza finds that her only allies are an aging horticulturalist, an older and married gentleman lawyer, and a slave with whom she strikes a dangerous deal: teach her the intricate thousand-year-old secret process of making indigo dye and in return—against the laws of the day—she will teach the slaves to read. So begins an incredible story of love, dangerous and hidden friendships, ambition, betrayal, and sacrifice.

StrangerStranger by David Bergen (paperback, review copy courtesy of Duckworth)

Íso Perdido, a young Guatemalan woman, works at a fertility clinic at Ixchel, named for the Mayan goddess of creation and destruction. Íso tends to the rich women who visit the clinic for the supposed conception-enhancing properties of the local lake. She is also the lover of Dr. Mann, the American doctor in residence. When an accident forces the doctor to leave Guatemala abruptly, Íso is abandoned, pregnant. After the birth, tended to by the manager of the clinic, the baby disappears. Determined to reclaim her daughter, Íso follows a trail north, eventually crossing illegally into a United States where the rich live in safe zones, walled away from the indigent masses. Traveling without documentation, and with little money, Íso must penetrate this world, and in this place of menace and shifting boundaries, she must determine who she can trust and how much, aware that she might lose her daughter forever.

TheSmallestThingThe Smallest Thing by Lisa Manterfield (ebook, review copy courtesy of Xpresso Tours)

The very last thing 17-year-old Emmott Syddall wants is to turn out like her dad. She’s descended from ten generations who never left their dull English village, and there’s no way she’s going to waste a perfectly good life that way. She’s moving to London and she swears she is never coming back. But when the unexplained deaths of her neighbors force the government to quarantine the village, Em learns what it truly means to be trapped. Now, she must choose. Will she pursue her desire for freedom, at all costs, or do what’s best for the people she loves: her dad, her best friend Deb, and, to her surprise, the mysterious man in the HAZMAT suit? Inspired by the historical story of the plague village of Eyam, this contemporary tale of friendship, community, and impossible love weaves the horrors of recent news headlines with the intimate details of how it feels to become an adult – and fall in love – in the midst of tragedy.

Book Review: The Wardrobe Mistress by Patrick McGrath

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TheWardrobeMistressAbout the Book

January 1947. London is in ruins, there’s nothing to eat, and it’s the coldest winter in living memory. To make matters worse, Charlie Grice, one of the great stage actors of the day, has suddenly died.

His widow Joan, the wardrobe mistress, is beside herself with grief. Then one night she discovers Gricey’s secret.

Plunged into a dark new world, she realises that the war isn’t over after all.

Format: ebook Publisher: Cornerstone Pages: 320
Publication: 7th Sep 2017 Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Waterstones UK
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Wardrobe Mistress on Goodreads

My Review

Firstly, as an aside, can I say how good it is to come across a book blurb that is concise and doesn’t give too much away! Secondly, can I admit this is the first book I’ve read by Patrick McGrath but, on the strength of The Wardrobe Mistress, it certainly won’t be the last.

The book opens at the funeral of Charlie ‘Gricey’ Grice and the reader is immediately introduced to the ‘chorus’ who will be the book’s narrators, omnipresent onlookers to all the action. There is a sense that they already know what’s going to happen, that events are playing out in front of them as if in a play.

Gricey’s widow, Joan, is grief stricken at his death, finding solace in the touch and smell of his clothes, imagining she can hear his voice and sure she can sense his lingering presence. Her belief that Gricey’s spirit lives on is confirmed by the uncanny ability of the actor who takes over Gricey’s part in the play – Frank Stone – to enact the role exactly as her husband did – every mannerism, gesture and mode of speech exactly as he would have performed it. But, of course, everyone else knows Gricey is dead.

‘It’s certainly what we thought, and to think otherwise was mad, frankly, and heartbreaking too, poor Joan. But it seemed she could think both things at once, that he was dead, and alive too, in the body of another man.’

Frank’s performance – his ability to inhabit so perfectly the role performed by Gricey – is the spark that brings him and Joan together.   In addition, Frank’s obvious poverty as a not very successful actor and his aura of neediness awaken something in Joan. Only later does she begin to detect the fierce streak of ambition under the surface.

And it’s not long before Joan discovers that her beloved Gricey wasn’t the man she thought he was. He’d concealed things from her, things that would have made her think quite differently about him: ‘Gricey – the hypocrite. Gricey the deceiver. The betrayer. The charlatan, the traitor. Oh, he was a character all right…’ It becomes apparent that his life outside the theatre was as much a performance as when he was on stage: ‘Their life together now seemed nothing but an elaborate performance of pretence and disguise, yes, his whole life a performance, he’d never stopped performing…’

Joan’s disgust when she finds out the truth leads her down a path that will have far-reaching consequences and only increase her sense of grief, loneliness, betrayal and desperation. ‘It was another kind of grief she felt, and far worse, with what she thought of as the second death. Her sorrow now was for herself, that he hadn’t allowed her to hold him in her memory as she would have liked to, but had left her with only a mask.’

The author evocatively conjures up the atmosphere of post-war London: the food shortages, the cold, the grime, and the people struggling to get by.  ‘Magnificent in victory, oh yes – and bankrupt. Morally magnificent and economically broke. Exhausted. Oh, England. Smog, ruins, drab clothes, bad food, bomb craters and rats. There was work to be had – demolition.’  And although the war may be over, it isn’t the end of the evil forces that caused it or the need to fight against extremism and hate (a need which, sadly, continues to this day).

Against this backdrop, it’s easy to see the lure of the theatre with its bright lights and ability – if only temporary – to transport the audience to another place, away from the everyday struggle to earn a living, to keep warm.   If it isn’t too obvious a metaphor, the theatre plays a starring role in the book along with the recurrent theme of performance.  The craft of the actors on stage and the thrill of live performance is celebrated.

‘He had of course that fierce bright fire in his eyes, it was always there when they came off stage at the end of the night, when they were full of life and of themselves.’

The role of the backstage staff, like Joan, proud of her skill as a wardrobe mistress and ruling the sewing room with a rod of iron, is recognised as well.

‘For it was an assault, what was suffered by the costumes in which actors stepped out each night then ripped off between scenes, until Joan and her girls took them in hand, applied sharp needles and, whispering soft words, brought them back good as new before sending them out to be ravaged again the next night.’

And as the book shows, it’s not only actors who use costume as a means of creating a character for themselves.  Nowhere is the single-minded intensity needed to be a successful actor more effectively conveyed than in the character of Vera, Joan’s daughter. In Vera, the insecurities of an actor preparing for performance are writ large. One moment she’s withdrawing into her own private space and the next she’s almost preying on others to harvest the real-life experiences needed to produce her stage performance.

The Wardrobe Mistress had it all for me: atmospheric period setting, intriguing mystery and well-developed characters.  I also enjoyed its very moving exploration of grief and betrayal, its joyful celebration of the theatre and insightful examination of the act of performance.  Highly recommended.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers Cornerstone, return for an honest review.

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In three words: Atmospheric, compelling, moving

Try something similar…Miss Treadway and the Field of Stars by Miranda Emmerson (click here to read my review)

PatrickMcGrathAbout the Author

Patrick McGrath was born in London in 1950. He grew up in the grounds of Broadmoor Hospital, the largest top-security mental hospital in the UK, where his father was Medical Superintendent. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit public school in Lancashire. In 1967 he left Stonyhurst under a cloud. In 1971 he graduated from the City of Birmingham College of Commerce with an honors degree in English and American Literature, awarded externally by the University of London.

Later that year he moved to Penetang, Ontario, where he worked in the Oakridge top-security unit of the Penetang Mental Health Centre. He then moved to British Columbia. There he worked as a kindergarten teacher, a bar-room musician, and a graduate student at Simon Fraser University. Since 1981 he has lived in Manhattan. He is married to actress and theatre director, Maria Aitken, and lives in New York City.

In 2017, Patrick McGrath accepted the offer of an honorary doctorate from the University of Stirling, in Scotland.

Connect with Patrick

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