Tag: Reviews

My Week in Books – 26th June 2022

whatcathyreadnext

MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared my review of Seek The Singing Fish by Roma Wells.

Tuesday – I published my review of Tasting Sunlight by Ewald Arenz as part of the blog tour. 

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is my weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading. 

Thursday – I made another visit Down the TBR Hole challenging more books on my Goodreads To-Read shelf to fight for their survival.  

Friday – I shared my review of the winner of this year’s Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, News of the Dead by James Robertson.

Saturday – I published my review of Kezia and Rosie by Rebecca Burns.

New arrivals

Twelve NightsTwelve Nights (The Heavenly Charmers #1) by Penny Ingham (eARC)

London, 1592. When a player is murdered, suspicion falls on the wardrobe mistress, Magdalen Bisset, because everyone knows poison is a woman’s weapon. The scandal-pamphlets vilify her. The coroner is convinced of her guilt.

Magdalen is innocent, although few are willing to help her prove it. Her much-loved grandmother is too old and sick. Will Shakespeare is benignly detached, and her friend Christopher Marlowe is wholly unreliable. Only one man offers his assistance, but dare she trust him when nothing about him rings true?

With just two weeks until the inquest, Magdalen ignores anonymous threats to ‘leave it be’, and delves into the dangerous underworld of a city seething with religious and racial tension. As time runs out, she must risk everything in her search for the true killer – for all other roads lead to the gallows.

A Possible LifeA Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks (Vintage)

Terrified, a young prisoner in the Second World War closes his eyes and pictures himself going out to bat on a sunlit cricket ground in Hampshire.

Across the courtyard in a Victorian workhouse, a father too ashamed to acknowledge his son.

A skinny girl steps out of a Chevy with a guitar; her voice sends shivers through the skull.

Soldiers and lovers, parents and children, scientists and musicians risk their bodies and hearts in search of connection – some key to understanding what makes us the people we become.

Instances of the Number 3Instances of the Number 3 by Salley Vickers (4th Estate)

Bridget Hansome and Frances Slater have only one thing in common. And that’s Peter Hansome, who has died suddenly.

Without their husband or lover, the women find that before they can rebuild their lives they must look to themselves and unravel mysteries that they had never before even suspected.

So begins an unlikely alliance between wife and mistress and a voyage of discovery that is as comic as it is profound.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Nothing Else by Louise Beech
  • Book Review: Tomboy by Shelley Blanton-Stroud
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Sweetheart Locket by Jen Gilroy
  • My Five Favourite June Reads
  • #6Degrees of Separation

#BookReview Kezia and Rosie by Rebecca Burns

whatcathyreadnext3 Comments

Kezia and RosieAbout the Book

When sisters Kezia and Rosie arrive at their grandparents’ house in the summer of 1986 they aren’t sure when they’ll see their Mum and Dad again.

While her younger sister Rosie is content playing on the allotment gate and having picnics in the garden, Kezia begins to realise that things aren’t quite what they seem. While embraced in Granddad and Grandma’s loving care, it’s not long before seven-year old Kezia begins to notice strange looks between them, hushed whispers, and secret phone calls. She realises she must step into the frightening adult world if she is to make sense of her parent’s troubled marriage.

Format: Paperback (128 pages)       Publisher: Dahlia Publishing
Publication date: 26th March 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find Kezia and Rosie on Goodreads

Purchase link
Amazon UK
Link provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

Although described as a linked short story collection, I would characterise Kezia and Rosie as more like a novella.  There is a narrative thread that runs through the book which means that, in my opinion, the ‘stories’ are best read in sequence rather than dipping in and out in the way you might do with a short story collection.

Narrated from the point of view of seven-year old Kezia, the author really captures the experience of being at an age where you start to understand things you hear whilst not understanding others. In just one of the imaginative metaphors in the book, ‘Words give answers and are windows but sometimes the glass is glazed’. Her mind is full of questions: just why has their mother gone away, and to another country, why do her grandparents need to talk to Roy’s son, and why is their grandmother so antagonistic towards their father? There are also memories of an incident that she tries to push away.

As someone with a younger sister, whom of course I love, I could appreciate Kezia’s occasional frustration with her sister’s maddening antics and the way she is indulged by their grandparents. Sometimes a two year age gap can seem much more and the role of elder sibling can feel like an unwelcome burden especially when her grandfather reminds her ‘there are things that can’t be said around Rosie’. No wonder Kezia comes to think of the adult world as a ‘maze… a lattice of things that can and cannot be said’. Her frustration occasionally comes out in little acts of vandalism, such as the tearing to pieces of a flower.

The girls’ grandfather and grandmother are beautifully drawn characters. Although they find themselves in the unexpected position of looking after the two girls with their established domestic routine disrupted, their love and care for Kezia and Rosie is quite wonderful to witness. And, as we learn, they too have experienced sadness in their lives.

Whilst many scenes in the book are touching and funny, there’s a persistent sense of unease. Something not quite right has occurred in the family but for a long time we don’t know what. Kezia feels she has been thrust into an adult world she can’t understand. ‘The summer has been a mosaic of hints and overheard remarks. They gather around Kezia like stepping stones.’  However, whatever happens, Kezia and Rosie can rest assured they have the love and support of their grandparents. ‘For now, it’s enough to slip underneath Grandma’s arm and wedge into the warm space of her armpit, and elbow Rosie gently to tell her she loves her. And for Grandad to giggle to himself and head over to the allotment to fetch raspberries for tea.’

I really liked how the time period of the 1980s was evoked. Anyone old enough to remember that period will recognise the references to shopping in Fine Fare, or watching television programmes together such as The Generation Game, The Dukes of Hazzard or (Kezia and Rosie’s grandmother’s favourite) Wogan. Those of a certain age will experience a real sense of nostalgia and perhaps give a wry smile at the girls’ excitement at watching the wedding of Prince Andrew and Fergie.

I really enjoyed Kezia and Rosie. It’s a delightful, beautifully written book. My thanks to the author for my digital review copy.

In three words: Tender, insightful, heartwarming

Try something similar: Only May by Carol Lovekin

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Rebecca BurnsAbout the Author

Rebecca Burns is an award-winning writer of short stories. Her story collections, Catching the Barramundi (2012) and The Settling Earth (2014) were both longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Award. Her debut novel, The Bishop’s Girl, was published by Odyssey Books in September 2016, followed by a third short story collection, Artefacts and Other Stories (2017). Beyond the Bay, a sequel to The Settling Earth, was published in 2018. Her first novella, Quilaq, was published by Next Chapter in 2020. (Photo: Author website)

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