Title: Snow White Must Die
Author: Nele Neuhaus
Publication: Pan (4 July 2013)
Summary: In a trial based on circumstantial evidence 20-year-old Tobias Sartorius was convicted and imprisoned for the murder of his childhood friend Laura and his beautiful girlfriend Stefanie – otherwise known as Snow White. After serving his sentence, Tobias returns home. When the Sartorius family is subjected to a number of attacks, Detective Inspector Pia Kirchhoff and DS Oliver von Bodenstein are tasked with monitoring the tense atmosphere in the tight-knit community. As the village inhabitants close ranks it becomes apparent the disappearance of Snow White and her friend was far more complex than imagined. Then history starts to repeat itself in a disastrous manner when another pretty girl goes missing. The police are thrown into a race against time. Can they solve the mystery before it’s too late?
What I Think
I nearly gave up on this book because quite frankly the writing is a little dire in places. At times sentences were unclear, cliches have been used, there's a dramatic over-use of adverbs and the dialogue was occasionally implausible. I appreciate that some of this may be due to translation errors, but I still would not expect this is in a published novel.
However, despite all this, I plowed on and I'm pleased I did. The story is excellent with an unpredictable plot and there is a vast array of fleshed-out characters (one or two unnecessary). It was a good thriller and I enjoyed reading a book set in Germany, but I would only recommend it to people who are willing to be a little lenient and read over its imperfections.
About the Author
Cornelia Neuhaus (born 20 June 1967 in Münster) is a German writer. She is best known for her crime thrillers.
About the Book
Title: Are We All Having a Lovely Time?
Author: Neil Saunders
Publication: I Get Knocked Down But I Get Up Again Publishing; 1st edition (10 Nov 2013)
Summary: Ben Cashew really thinks he's something special! Being the cruise director of the Ocean Explorer gives him ample opportunity to show himself off as the natural performer he is. Since childhood he dreamed of being a professional entertainer, so considers that he has done very well for himself. But when a drunken séance causes the boy he bullied at school, and committed suicide 20 years before, to come back to Earth, he is confronted by his bitter victim as to whether or not he really is a success. He is forced to re-evaluate his life and perhaps both bully and victim, through each other, can even find redemption.
What I Think
I have previously read and reviewed Neil Saunders' first publication, Al Qaeda Broke my Suitcase and other short stories, a collection which I enjoyed immensely. I was therefore looking forward to reading his first novel, Are We All Having a Lovely Time?. Both publications have a great cover, which I think immediately appeals to the reader.
Set on a cruise ship with a small cast of characters Are We All Having a Lovely Time? has strong political themes, both British and international, a similarity that can be drawn with Saunders' first publication. The characters discuss Montenegro, former Yugoslavia and Serbia; the European Union; "the first cruise holidays available to ordinary people were provided by Hitler".
Another strong theme is education, and everything that falls under that from being good at sports to bullying to the state of the education system and how funding is raised for schools. Ben Cashew, the main character in the book, bullied Rhys at school which led to Rhys' suicide. Until the drunken séance he hasn't given Rhys a second thought. But by reconnecting, both characters stand to change and maybe gain something.
Saunders' second publication doesn't disappoint. The writing flows well and the characters are believable. As an author Saunders has a strong voice and writes convincingly on subjects he is clearly passionate about. Are We All Having a Lovely Time? is a good read.
About the Author
When Neil Saunders arrived at primary school he could already read, his mother having taught him from a cartoon strip in the Daily Mirror. School was dangerously easy, and he achieved with little effort, making him rather lazy. He didn't enjoy school and was obsessed, not with reading, but with pop music.
Having spent years in factories and finally managing to get a permanent position as an admin officer in an office, he took a short story writing course. He discovered that he could write. And that is how he came to write Al Qaeda Broke My Suitcase and other stories.
Are We All Having A Lovely Time? is his first novel.
About the Book
Title: Keep Your Life, Family and Career Intact While Living Abroad
Author: Cathy Tsang-Feign
Publication: Pomelo Publishers; 3 edition (19 Sep 2013)
Summary: The challenges of living in a foreign country don't begin and end with culture shock. If you're planning a move abroad, you need to prepare yourself for the unique pressures, anxieties and personal and family problems common to all expatriates, which are often difficult to anticipate and a challenge to overcome.
This expanded new edition contains new information on expatriate relationships and marriage, third culture kids, and a thorough guide to finding help abroad. (amazon)
What I Think
The first paragraph of Dr. Cathy Tsang-Feign's Keep Your Life, Family and Career Intact While Living Abroad (third edition, revised and expanded) is as concise, true and informative as the rest of her book:
"There is a lot of romance associated with living abroad. It is often seen as a life of glamour, of white suits and high tea on palm-shaded verandas, chauffeurs and servants and dinners with diplomats, with no problems in store other than a touch of culture shock." (Foreword)
Culture Shock, Dr. Tsang-Feign says is "better defined as acculturation, [...] a process which can last from six months to more than a year." The process is broken up into four easy-to-understand steps:
- Elation - "When first in a foreign country, one finds it quite stimulating that most things are so unlike back home."
- Resistance - "Frequent comparisons between home and the host country make everything back home seem so much better."
- Transformation - "Individuals feel more familiar with the environment and begin to see the good side of the host country."
- Integration - "Cultural barriers are bridged."
Having lived abroad for many years, both as a child and as an adult, I found this theory to be completely accurate. In my experience I have found some countries easier to settle into than others, but the overall process is the same, just slower or faster.
This book is extremely insightful; it explains theories, shows real life examples and offers helpful advice and tips. I certainly wish I'd read it twenty years ago! However, I know that I can dip back in it as and when I need to. The book covers and broad range of topics, such as: 'Problems of Moving', 'Third Culture Kids', 'Stress at Work and Home' and 'All Alone and Far From Home'. I cannot recommend this book more for people living, or thinking about, living abroad.
About the Author
Dr. Cathy Tsang-Feign is a leading expert in the field of expatriate and cross-cultural psychology, based on decades of experience working with international executives and diplomats and their families in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
She holds Master's Degrees in Counseling and Family Therapy and a PhD in Psychology. She has practised professionally in Los Angeles and Atlanta, as well as London's Harley Street, and currently runs a private practice in Hong Kong. She travels extensively to provide training and assessments for international corporations and government organizations.
She is a former columnist on family psychology for the South China Morning Post and American in Britain.
She is married with two children and is an avid gardener and beekeeper in her spare time.
For more information, visit her website: www.cathyfeign.com
About the Book
Title: Sweet Tooth
Author: Ian McEwan
Publication: Jonathan Cape, London, 2012
Summary: The year is 1972. The Cold War is far from over. Britain is being torn apart by industrial unrest and terrorism. Serena Frome, in her final year at Cambridge, is being groomed for MI5. Serena is sent on a secret mission - Operation Sweet Tooth - which brings her into the world of Tom Haley, a promising young writer. First she loves his stories, then she begins to love the man. Can she maintain the fiction of her undercover life? And who is inventing whom? To answer these questions, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage - trust no one.
What I Think
The best thing about Ian McEwan's spy novel, Sweet Tooth, is the ending. The last line (I won't give the game away!) changes the whole feel, perspective and shape of the book. This is clever as there are virtually no clues along the way, yet it doesn't feel contrived, nor do you feel tricked. Hats off to McEwan for a little bit of genius.
Having said all that I don't think this is his best book. I haven't read everything by McEwan, not by a long stretch, but I've read enough to know that some of his books I love (Atonement, Chesil Beach) and some I don't (Enduring Love).
In the first paragraph he tells us the entire story.
My name is Serena Frome (rhymes with plume) and almost forty years ago I was sent on a secret mission for the British security service. I didn't return safely. Within eighteen months of joining I was sacked, having disgraced myself and ruined my lover, though he certainly had a hand in his own undoing.
This is a risk; a risk that the reader will switch off, or lose interest altogether. Or, hopefully, have the counter effect that you really want to know how it all unfolds. This was how I viewed it, although I have to say that Sweet Tooth was similar to Waiting for Sunrise (a book by William Boyd that I read recently) in the sense that the first half was mediocre and only the second half thrilling. Both Boyd and McEwan are great, highly-skilled authors and in both cases it was worth persevering, but I don't think that makes for a great book. Only a good one.
About the Author
Ian McEwan is the author of two collections of stories and twelve previous novels, including Enduring Love, Amsterdam, for which he won the Booker Prize in 1998, Atonement and, most recently, Solar.
About the Book
Title: Dot Dash
Author: Jonathan Pinnock
Publication: Salt (November 2012)
Summary: A delightful collection of micro and flash fiction.
What I Think
Ranging from remote tribes in South America who measure success and happiness in yellow rubber ducks (A Plague of Yellow Plastic Ducks) to boiling frogs (Frogs) to the every day, Dot Dash has something for everyone. Bordering on the weird, and always ever so slightly abnormal, Pinnock makes you think whilst reading his stories, and for quite some time after as well.
One of my favourites was The Last Words of Emanuel Prettyjohn, the story about a mute boy. There are a lot of different characters in it, all with distinct voices: "He were a funny wee babby, that one." (Alison Fish, midwife), "Oh, I remember him all right. Bloody nuisance." (Harry Philpott, schoolteacher), "We all thought he was a bit of a freak, to be honest." (Jack Wilson, classmate). It was also very funny in parts and made me laugh out loud.
Another favourite was Proper Job, a micro fiction piece about shoes which made me chuckle (and sing a bad rendition of the Spandau Ballet song in my head on the way home from work).
Proper Job
"Get a proper job," said old man Blahnick. "Shoes will never make you rich." But young Manolo knew better. "Gold!" he thought. "Always believe in your sole."
Highly recommended for anyone who likes to read short, shorter and the very shortest of stories, preferably with a tendency towards the slightly peculiar.
About the Author
Jonathan Pinnock was born in Bedford, England. After reading Mathematics at Clare College, Cambridge, he drifted into the world of software and has remained there ever since. He has written one book on software development and co-authored a further dozen, most of which are now almost entirely obsolete.
In the last few years he has turned to writing fiction and poetry and has won a number of prizes and has had work read on BBC Radio 4. His novel Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens was released last year to mostly universal acclaim. Dot Dash is his first collection of short stories.
He is married with two slightly grown-up children and a 1961 Ami Continental jukebox.
About the Book
Title: Alone in Berlin - UK/Every Man Dies Alone - US (Jeder stirbt für sich allein - Original title)
Author: Hans Fallada
Publication: 1947
Summary: Set in WWII this is a story of an ordinary couple who choose to do something extraordinary.
What I Think
Based on a true story Hans Fallada writes the story of Otto and Anna Quangel, a quiet and ordinary couple who are living in Germany during WWII. He is a foreman, she is a housewife and when they lose their only son to a Russian bullet they decide to fight back: by distributing anti-Nazi, anti-Hitler messages carefully written on the back of postcards.
Using an omnipresent narrator we follow the lives not only of Otto and Anna, but also the other residents in their apartment block, various police officers and SS inspectors who are trying to catch the "Hobgoblin" (their code name for the writer of the mysterious postcards) and other people who are in some way related to the narrative. I felt this left me less attached to the main character(s). I also felt that some of the characters were unnecessary and this led to a slightly sluggish start to the novel.
By no means a light read, in subject matter or in length, it was, however, extremely interesting. Having read a fair few books (based on true stories or fictional) and having lived in Germany, the novel was peppered with countless little details that made it seem very real.
Recommended to anyone interested in the period and/or Germany.
About the Author
Hans Fallada (21 July 1893 – 5 February 1947), real name Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen, was a German writer. Fallada's pseudonym derives from a combination of characters found in the Grimm's Fairy Tales: the protagonist of Hans in Luck and a horse named Falada in The Goose Girl. Other novels are Little Man, What Now? (1932).
About the Book
Title: Going Home
Author: Penni Mannas-Diefendorf
Publication: Truthredux Limited; 1 edition (30 Jan 2013)/Amazon Kindle
Summary: (Amazon) What if you could live the life you’ve always dreamed of? Many of us will never come to grips with who we really are in our lifetime. We are hemmed in and conflicted by a myriad of differing opinions and standards about who we should be, what we should achieve, and how we should be living. Do we ever stop and think about what we actually want, what would bring us our greatest joy so we can live for and as our true selves? Going Home starts the journey from that inauthentic life we are living now to our true selves and that best of all places: our heart of hearts, our soul, our eternal light — our core of steel.
What I Think
"For everything in your life, keep asking why." I feel this sums up Penni Mannas-Diefendorf's thought-provoking debut, Going Home. It is a book about how to get the best out of your life and you are the only one who is able to do that. How are you going to do it? She'll help you with that too.
According to her theory there are five rings of consciousness. From outer to inner they are: material, mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual. "Each ring encompasses the one inside it, and we cannot expand our consciousness to the next level until we are very clear about what we want." You must learn about yourself, study yourself, study your needs, wants, dreams and fears to be able to truly live a life fulfilled.
For each ring there is a STOP page; you have to stop reading, pick up pen and paper, and make a list, based on the information asked, for your past, present and future. These exhaustive lists will help you build a better picture of yourself, which will in turn allow you to grow and develop. There is a lot of the author in this book and I feel that adds to its strength as you have no doubt that she practises what she preaches. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to find their direction in life, or merely get themselves back on track.
About the Author
Penni Mannas Diefendorf is a skeptical dreamer who likes to believe in magic and the impossible but wants proof. She has done a great many things in this lifetime, but the things she likes best are fixing things, teaching, and learning. Close seconds are singing, dancing, and dreaming, all of which are otherwise known as meditation. She currently resides in Hong Kong, which is an über splendid place to be, with her husband, who is an über splendid fellow.
Get in touch:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TruthreduxNow
Twitter: www.twitter.com/pmannasd
Website: Truthredux Community
About the Book
Title: Amy & Zach
Author: Sarah Louise Smith
Publication: Crooked Cat Publishing Ltd. (3 Jan 2013)/Amazon Kindle
Summary: Flying home to the UK from the US for her sister Libby’s wedding, Amy has some major issues with her homecoming. She is furious with Zach, who should have been travelling with her, but after he dropped a bombshell the day before she left, she hid his passport and flew alone. Now, can she act normal when she meets Libby’s fiance Tim? After he finds his passport, Zach heads for the UK to surprise Amy. He wants to apologise to her and finally meet her family. He has kept his secret for way too long and knows he has a lot of explaining to do.
What I Think
This is a very sweet story about how two people get together. One of the things I liked best about this book is that it is about a relationship. My biggest annoyance with many chick lit books (and rom coms alike) is that they end when the couple finally get together after months, or sometimes years of struggle, and we as readers (and viewers) have to assume that they just live happily ever after.
Amy moves to the US to 'start over' as life back home is not working out as planned. It may have been intentional, to set up the contrast with her life in the UK, but I think everything was slightly too easy for Amy in America; she found a loving boyfriend within weeks; she connected with her new family and they all welcomed her with open arms; she loved her job and one of her colleagues became her new best friend. Being an expat myself, I know that even if life is great, it's not always easy living abroad.
That said, this was a fun and pacy read. I was drawn in immediately when within the first chapter it was apparent that not all was well in the world of Amy & Zach.
About the Author
Sarah Louise Smith lives in Milton Keynes with her husband, two cute cats and a loopy golden retriever. She also has a twelve year old step-daughter and a large extended family. She has been working in marketing communications for several years and has a passion for reading, her favourite genre being "chick-lit".
Sarah has been writing stories ever since she can remember. A few years ago her husband bought her a laptop out of the blue, telling her she could accept it only on the condition that she used it to write a novel, something she'd been saying she wanted to do since she left high school. In 2012, she completed her first novel, Amy & Zach.
You can find out more by visiting her website.
Amy & Zach is available at Crooked Cat Publishing/Amazon UK/Amazon US.
About the Book
Title: Thursdays in the Park
Author: Hilary Boyd
Publication: Quercus, 30 August 2012
Summary: The brightest day of Jeanie's week week is Thursday, the day she takes her granddaughter to the park. There, one day, she meets Ray: kind, easy to talk to, and gorgeous - he is everything her husband of thirty years, George, isn't. But does she have the courage, while facing opposition from all sides, to turn her life upside down for another shot at love?
What I Think
This book is chick lit for grown-ups, and by that I don't mean more sophisticated chick-lit, but that the characters in this book are older than your average chick lit characters. The main character, Jeanie, is in her sixties with a grown-up daughter and a two year old granddaughter and her love interest, Ray, is the same age. I found this really refreshing as the characters weren't dealing with their first relationship, but were questioning relationships that they'd been in for decades.
A best-seller on amazon, this is an easy read and if you'd like something a little romantic for these dark winter's nights, go ahead and dive in. However, if you're looking for something a little more challenging, this is not the book for you.
About the Author
Hilary Boyd trained as a nurse and a marriage guidance counsellor before becoming a health journalist. She has published six non-fiction books on health-related subjects such as step-parenting, depression and pregnancy. Thursdays In The Park is her first novel and she has also published Tangled Lives (both Quercus) this year. She is married to film director Don Boyd, has three daughters and lives in London.
About the Book
Title: Jaidee - Out of the Ashes (A Lyons Investigation Mystery)
Author: Clint Morey
Publication: March 22, 2012
Summary: Josh Lyon is a private investigator, running his own firm with secretary Ruth and a tech guy, Caleb. During a routine job Josh rescues a young prostitute and when he finds out that her life is in danger, he takes her from the 'safe' house and hides her. This gets him, the members of his team as well as his best best friend, Lydia, who works for the police, into all sorts of trouble.
What I Think
Jaidee - Out of the Ashes is a fast-moving book with a well thought-out plot. Something happens in every chapter to keep driving the plot forward and the reader hooked. There are incidents that happen within the narrative that I didn't foresee and with other twists and turns, it's not at all predictable.
In detective novels it's very easy to see things as black and white and the characters within the stories too. Morey has chosen to use 'third person omniscient' (telling the story from different points of view) which allows areas of grey that strengthen both the narrative and the characters.
About the Author
Clint Morey was born and raised in L.A. and now he and his wife live in Montana, where they raised their family. For most of his career he was a classroom teacher and has been a full-time writer for the last eight years. He writes screenplays, novels, short stories, and the occasional non-fiction book. He can even be found telling stories to groups willing to listen to him talk.
About the Book: The Expats (Crown, 6 March 2012)
Ex-CIA agent Kate moves to Luxembourg with her husband who is starting a new job. Life as a housewife and stay-at-home mother of two is not all it's cracked up to be and her husband is definitely keeping something from her.
What I Think
This book has everything you want from a thriller: easy to read, pacy and unpredictable. Pavone makes good use of non-chronological order to keep the reader hooked. The big action is happening 'today', but each chapter has only a snippet of today's events and then it jumps back to a previous time. This builds suspense as you want to keep reading to find out what's happening.
Each of the four main characters has a deep secret. As Kate is trying to unravel the details of her husband's seemingly unethical world, she desperately tries to keep a lid on her own dark past.
About the Author
Chris Pavone (born 1968) grew up in Brooklyn, graduated from Cornell, and was an editor at book-publishing houses in New York for fifteen years. In 2008, he moved with his wife and boys to Luxembourg for two years, before they returned to New York.
