Tag: Reading Challenges

About the Book

In the glittering and ruthlessly competitive world of opera, Maria Callas is known simply as la divina: the divine one. With her glorious voice, instinctive flair for the dramatic and striking beauty, she’s the toast of the grandest opera houses in the world. Yet her fame has been hard won: raised in Nazi-occupied Greece by a mother who mercilessly exploited her, Maria learned early in life how to protect herself.

When she meets the fabulously rich shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis, her isolation melts away. For the first time in her life, she believes she’s found a man who sees the woman rather than the legendary soprano. Desperately in love, Onassis introduces her to a life of unbelievable luxury, mixing with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

And then, suddenly, it’s over. The international press announce that Onassis will marry the most famous woman in the world, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, leaving Maria to pick up the pieces.

Format: eARC (336 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 14th March 2024 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

It’s 1956 and Maria Callas is at the height of her fame but conscious that her extraordinary vocal ability cannot last forever. Her life is a whirlwind: travelling to different cities across the globe for performances, having dress fittings with her couturier and attending glamorous parties – the sort of parties where Cary Grant greets you as he walks past your table, Maurice Chevalier comes over to wish you happy birthday, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor pop over for a chat.

But maintaining the persona of la divina comes at a cost. Conscious of having been overweight as a child, Maria seemingly subsists on a diet of steak tartare and green salad in order to maintain an unnaturally trim figure, hides her shortsightedness behind sunglasses and avoids anything that might risk damaging her voice.

The author shows us Maria the woman, not just the diva. Maria’s relationship with her mother – never strong because of Maria’s suspicion that she always favoured her sister – has broken down completely and will later descend into a war of words and accusations. She’s in a stale marriage in which her husband has become more a manager of her theatrical engagements than a lover. (He, however, remains fiercely devoted to her and I felt great sympathy for him.) Although surrounded by people, she comes across as rather lonely, with her maid the only person she can truly rely on or confide in.

It’s no surprise then that Maria is attracted to Aristotle Onassis, who showers her with attention and a constant stream of expensive gifts. She believes it is Maria Callas the woman he desires, not Maria Callas the opera star. They embark on a passionate affair, under the nose of Onassis’s wife who is finding her own pleasure elsewhere. (I confess I found the sex scenes between Onassis and Maria a little squirmy.) Ignoring the warnings of others and despite being aware of Onassis’s many past dalliances, she believes their relationship is different. ‘Maria knew that she was not some conquest, she was his equal: a Greek of humble origins who had made herself into a world-famous star but who, underneath, was like him – a simple soul.’

Oh dear, how wrong can she be… As she eventually discovers – and only after an act of the utmost cruelty and a very public humiliation – she’s just one in a long line of conquests. Another notch on his bedpost, if you like. While he’s servicing the current conquest, he’s already grooming the next one. And setting his sights higher than the world’s most famous opera singer, as it turns out.

In the end, all Maria is left with is what dignity she can muster and her ability to hold an audience spellbound with that glorious voice, a thing that only time can take away.

Diva gives us the highs and lows, the triumphs and tragedies of Maria’s life. It’s an absorbing work of fiction but necessarily departs from fact in some places.

If you’re keen to learn more about the life and career of Maria Callas, The Callas Imprint: A Centennial Biography by Sophia Lambton contains never-before-seen correspondence, including letters between Callas and her manager, and interviews with friends of Callas, many of whom have rarely spoken before.

The Callas Imprint was published on 2nd December 2023, the 100th anniversary of Maria Callas’ birth. You can find more details about the book here.

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

In three words: Romantic, glamorous, compelling
Try something similar: The Second Marriage by Gill Paul

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About the Author

Daisy Goodwin’s work as a TV producer and presenter includes Reader I Married Him, Bookworm and The Nation’s Favourite Poems; she is also the creator of Grand Designs and the hit Itv drama Victoria, which has sold to 134 countries. She has edited numerous poetry anthologies, including the bestselling 101 Poems That Could Save Your Life, and is the author of Silver River, a memoir, as well as three bestselling novels: My Last Duchess, The Fortune Hunter and Victoria. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages. (Photo/bio: Publisher author page)

Connect with Daisy
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About the Book

1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep.

Unaware of the stranger’s intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them.

Meanwhile on the mainland, John’s wife Mary anxiously awaits news of his mission.

Format: ebook (149 pages) Publisher: Granta
Publication date: 7th March 2024 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Clear is set on a remote Scottish island during the Highland Clearances, a period in which much of the rural population of the Scottish Highlands and Islands was forcibly evicted from the land to make way for the much more profitable large scale grazing of sheep.

John Ferguson accepts the task of travelling to the island to evict (‘clear’) its sole inhabitant, Ivar, who has lived alone there for many years. For John the task is borne out of financial necessity in order to earn the funds to establish a new church.

His wife, Mary, has doubts about the morality of the mission, mindful of the human impact of what John has been tasked to do. ‘Into her mind a picture came of this vast emptying-out – a long grey and never-ending procession of tiny figures snaking their way like a river through the country. She saw them moving away with quiet resignation, leading animals and small children, carrying tools and furniture and differently sized bundles, and when at last they disappeared she saw the low houses they’d left behind, roofless hearths open to the rain and the wind and the ghosts of the departed while sheep nosed between the stonework, quietly grazing’. She also worries for John’s safety, prompting her to embark on her own journey. I loved the little details the author gives us about her life, meaning she never feels like a character on the periphery.

When John is injured shortly after reaching the island and rendered unconscious, Ivar takes in what is a complete stranger and tends to him. There are moments of great intimacy as Ivar, who seems to sleep only rarely, keeps watch over John and cares for his bodily needs. Close proximity born out of necessity becomes companionship as John recovers his bodily strength, and then develops into something more for both men. John, though, is plagued with guilt that Ivar does not know his true reason for coming to the island, a mission that will uproot Ivar from everything he has known.

I loved the role that language plays in the book. Initially, John and Ivar cannot communicate; Ivar speaks little if no English and John knows nothing of the language Ivar speaks. (The author has based this on Norn, a long extinct language once spoken on the islands of Orkney and Shetland.) They have to communicate in gestures until, little by little, John begins to learn some words. He marvels at how, in Ivar’s language, a word can often have more than one meaning. It’s an immensely descriptive language with many words for different weather conditions, for example.

The writing is simply beautiful, especially the descriptions of the island. ‘There were days when the mist fell like a cloak on to the island’s shoulders; when rain fell in big, coarse drops, melting the soil into a soft brown soup; when a cold, light wind blew over the ground, making the bogs shiver.’

The author resists the temptation to provide an unambiguous resolution to the story, instead leaving the reader to imagine the future lives of the three characters.

Clear is a tender love story, a hymn to a lost way of life and to the raw beauty of the natural world.

I received a review copy courtesy of Granta Books via NetGalley.

In three words: Poetic, intimate, moving
Try something similar: The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elisabeth Gifford

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About the Author

Carys Davies’s debut novel, West, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, runner-up for the McKitterick Prize, and winner of the Wales Book of the Year for Fiction. Her second novel, The Mission House, was first published in the UK in 2020 where it was The Sunday Times Novel of the Year.

She is also the author of two collections of short stories, Some New Ambush and The Redemption of Galen Pike, which won the 2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the 2015 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She is the recipient of the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Prize, the Society of Authors’ Olive Cook Short Story Award, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, and is a member of the Folio Academy. Her fiction has been translated into nine languages.

Born in Wales, she grew up there and in the Midlands, lived and worked for twelve years in New York and Chicago, and now lives in Edinburgh.

Connect with Carys
Website | Goodreads