THE RAVE by Nicky Black @AuthorBlackNE

4 out of 5 stars

On Amazon UK
On Amazon.com
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: I read this review on Bloomin' Brilliant Books book blog.

Genre: Crime, 1980s, Rave Culture, North East England 

A fast moving crime drama sent around a grimy council estate in Newcastle, The Rave is very much of its place and time, in the decade before the internet and mobile phones when the world was a different place.  Or maybe not so much; kids still lied to their parents about what they were doing, did drugs, and girls still broke their mothers' hearts by falling in love with layabouts.  I smiled at Denise Morris's attitude towards her son-in-law Tommy Collins, just after she'd bought her granddaughter some new clothes: 'Denise knew it would rile Tommy, make him feel inadequate.  But he was inadequate, and someone needed to make that clear.'

The novel is written in alternating POVs.  The first is that of twenty-one-year-old husband and father Tommy, who fancies himself as having the vision that can get him out of dreary Valley Park estate way of life; not for him a life on the dole or a depressing, minimum wage job.  He's not unlikeable, and I found myself hoping that he would 'make it'.  The second is DI Peach, who has many crosses to bear (no spoilers here), and is gunning for Tommy and his gang.  Lurking in the shadows is Paul Smart, local crime kingpin and the brother of Tommy's mam-in-law Denise.  The story takes place over eight days, as Tommy looks for a way of making his dreams of hosting the ultimate rave a reality.

This book drew me in quickly, and very soon I couldn't put it down, even taking it with me when I was cooking dinner.  All the characters, even the minor ones, are beautifully drawn, and the dialogue and attitudes of the rougher side of Geordieland are totally convincing.  I also enjoyed the visiting Mancunian cop, Murphy, who was revoltingly sure of himself and quick with the witticisms.  I did find Valley Park and its inhabitants depressing in the extreme, but there is joy to be found, and this is an absolute must-read for anyone who was involved in this scene in the late 80s - particularly if you're from the Toon!

BREAKING BONES by Robert White @robwhite247

3 out of 5 stars

On Amazon UK
On Amazon.com
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: It was submitted to Rosie Amber's Book Review Team , of which I am a member.

Genre: Crime Thriller/Gangster.


Blurb extract: 
Inseparable since childhood and feared by their community, Tony, Eddie and Frankie are beyond the reach of justice.  The brutal gang, The Three Dogs, are a law unto themselves. 

Detective Jim Hacker has watched The Dogs grow from thuggish youths to psychotic criminals. He seems to be the only one who wants to see their empire fall.  

Meanwhile Jamie Strange, a young Royal Marine, finds himself embroiled in the lives of The Three Dogs when his girlfriend, Laurie Holland, cuts off their engagement… to be with the most dangerous of The Dogs: Frankie Verdi. 

Jamie vows to save Laurie, before Frankie damns them both.

Robert White is a talented writer, and what I liked most about this book is its authenticity.  It is always clear when a writer truly knows the world and characters he has created; this is no chronicle of inner city crime attempted by a middle class scribe from the suburbs relying on research to produce a lucrative piece of gangster-lit.  The plot is interesting and the novel well structured; White understands the building of suspense and how to keep the reader turning the pages; the pace is perfect, the dialogue realistic, and the characters are all three-dimensional.  I was impressed that he can write convincing women, too.

So why only three stars?  Sadly, Mr White has been let down by his publisher.  The book does not appear to have been either edited or proofread with any kind of professionalism, experience, knowledge or care.  There are numerous punctuation errors on every single page (missing vocative commas is the most common error) as well as typos, spelling mistakes ('hand-full' instead of 'handful', for instance), and missed words.  Sometimes, the lack of punctuation actually changes the meaning of a sentence: 

"He was just asking Eddie," chipped in Tony.  

...which reads as though a third person was just asking Eddie something; in fact, Tony is telling Eddie that the person was 'just asking'.  Thus, the correct version:

"He was just asking, Eddie," chipped in Tony.  

As far as the editing is concerned, there are many instances of exposition, newspaper style reporting in the middle of a third person point of view, and unnecessary or perhaps slightly amateur sentences.  For instance: 'Frankie was the epitome of the Italian gangster caricature.  He hunched his narrow shoulders, tucked in his elbows, palms up.  "Like, y'know...Blondie...Boomtown.".  

Many editors may have removed the first sentence; it smacks of 'telling not showing' and is superfluous, as Robert White has depicted Frankie's gesture perfectly, without it.  Never mind the lack of spaces before and after the ellipses; they probably should have been commas or full stops, anyway.

In short, the lack of work on this novel turned the reading of it into something of a chore, rather than the enjoyable experience it should (and would) have been, otherwise.  A shame, indeed.

BITTERSWEET FLIGHT by Anne Harvey

3.5 out of 5 stars

1950s family drama

On Amazon UK HERE
On Amazon.com HERE
On Goodreads HERE

Reviewed by me as a member of Rosie Amber's Review Team

This is the sequel to A Suitable Young Man, and the two thread together well; it could possibly be read as a standalone.  It starts in 1956, when Sally Simcox has run away from her home in Horwich, Lancs to Blackpool, because she is pregnant.   The father is Nick, with whom she had a one night stand after having liked him for a long time; he offered to marry her out of duty, but Sally knew he loved another, so pretended she'd had a miscarriage to let him off the hook.

Once in Blackpool she meets Phil, who is in the RAF, and he helps her find a job and somewhere to live; there is an immediate attraction between them.  Alas, Phil is unaware that Sally has a connection to his family—and he already has a girlfriend, Pam, who is in love with him and hopes they will marry.

It being the late 1950s, Sally has to go into a mother and baby home.  I thought this bit was very interesting, mostly because it shows the difference in attitudes between then and now.  When I was in my teens, having a baby out of wedlock was still seen as a fairly shameful thing, but this is the generation before, when to be an unmarried mother could ruin a girl's life.

Running through alongside the main story is that of Joyce, Phil's young sister, which is connected to Sally's situation.

The book is very readable, certainly enough to keep me turning the pages because I wanted to know what happened, although I found it information heavy in parts; at times the dialogue was a little unrealistic.  Near the end there is a revelation of sexual deviance which examined the darker side of working class life in those days, and an explicit sex scene, the latter of which I found incompatible with the otherwise 'clean read' tone of the book; it kind of jumped out and made me go 'woah, what happened there?'  Aside from this, though, I would say that the many readers of nostalgia/family dramas will enjoy this book, as it's a basically good story, and well plotted.  Sally is real and likeable, and Phil's dilemma very believable (though I thought Pam's character and reactions could have been developed more).   There is plenty of day to day detail about life during the 1950s, too, that will appeal to this market.

A Suitable Young Man by Anne Harvey reviewed HERE

 

THE LAST KINGDOM (Book 1) by Bernard Cornwell

5 GOLD Stars

Saxon/Viking adventure

On Amazon UK HERE

  

Okay, I'll admit it, I only started reading this after seeing the TV series recently.  I haven't read any Bernard Cornwell before, just watched the Sharpe series because it starred Sean Bean... and what a treat I have in store for me!  I love discovering a new writer, especially when they've written a stack of books.

(If you haven't seen the TV series, it's about the Danes' invasion of England in the 9th century.  The main character is a young ealdorman (earl) of Northumbria who is kidnapped by the Danes, and struggles with his identity as he lives amongst both peoples.)

If you're as unfamiliar with the author's work as I am, you'll want to know if it's as good as the TV, right?  YES, yes, it is, it's even better.  I love the way Cornwell writes; it's so 'easy-readable', and flows along ~~~~ :)  I adore Uhtred already, and reading this made me long to live in the Dark Ages even more than I always have done (I feel it is one of my spiritual homes).  Most of all, of course, it made me want to be a fearsome warrior.  Not a warring West Saxon (although I did like Leofric), but a brave man of the shield wall, of Ragnar's tribe!

The Last Kingdom is educational about the times, with some processes described in intricate detail.  If the book was written by an unknown author and the 'rules of writing' crew got their hands on it, they'd say these were 'information dumps', or something, or that the writer was being self-indulgent and eager to stick all his research into the book rather than weaving it into the story unobtrusively, but who cares; it was fascinating, because if you're a truly talented writer you can pull anything off, and anyone who wants to know more about life in these times could learn as much from this as any history book about the people of the Dark Ages.

If you've seen the TV series recently you'll remember the bit near the end when the Danish ships are burnt; in the book it's riveting, I read it about three times.  I've just downloaded the second book and think I may just have to have a little look now...

PUBLIC BATTLES, PRIVATE WARS by Laura Wilkinson

4.5 out of 5 stars

1980s Miners Strike Drama

On Amazon UK HERE
On Amazon.com HERE

Well, what a nice surprise this was!  It was in the reviewing list for Rosie Amber's Review Team, of which I am a part, and I failed to pick up on it, but then I read THIS review of it by another team member (sorry, can't find it on the blog so have taken it from Amazon!), and decided to buy it anyway.  Guess what?  Book blogs work!!  Read them!!  :)

This is so good, I read it in one day (yep, couldn't put it down!).  It's written in the first person narrative of Mandy Walker, a miner's wife during the strike of 1983-5, in a Yorkshire village.  Running through the real life/public events are the private wars of the title; the strain on family life that these events caused, coupled with love wrangles, painful memories and marital disharmony.

What I liked about this book: it's very well written, flows beautifully (probably goes without saying, as I read it in a day!).  The story is so realistic; I am the same age as the fictional Mandy (I was 24 in 1983, too), but my life was so different ~ middle class, in the south, with a husband and a small business rather than four kids.  The conflict was something we saw on television, something for which we put money in buckets, then went on with our lives.  This brought it all home to me ~ BUT (and it's a big 'but') it wasn't done so in a painfully laboured fashion.  It's written in such a way that I was aware of the north~south divide, the fact that they were a Yorkshire community, without everyone giving it 'ee-by-gum, he's worked down t'pit all his life, I'll take home a bottle of stout for the Mrs' every five minutes, like you see in some books that wish to be representative of a place and time, and neither did it cash in on the 1980s aspect with loads of references to the music and everyone wearing white high heels and padded shoulders (not that they would have done in a mining community anyway, perhaps).  The characters were great; Mandy was very believable and likeable, and others I thought particularly good were the dragon-like matriarch of the community, Ethel Braithwaite, and Dan, the soldier who'd returned from the Falklands, something of an enigma.  

I also liked the way the changing attitudes of the time were illustrated, especially when Mandy went down to London as part of her work with the wives' action group, and met people from areas of life she would not normally have done, had it not been for the strike.

I was a little disappointed that there was less drama than I'd have liked in the last twenty per cent, but that's only personal taste; the way in which it turned out was certainly realistic.  I'd have liked to see the 'main baddie' get more of a comeuppance (I hated this character from the start, but won't even give away the sex as I don't want to reveal the plot), but this isn't 'Dallas' and the person was so well drawn, too; it's good to have someone to hate in an emotional drama such as this!  Aside from the fact that I felt let down by one particular revelation and its outcome ~ oh, okay, and that it didn't end up quite as I wanted it to! ~ I'd have given it 5*, but it's a definite 4.5.

I'd totally recommend this book, it's a cracker.  I look forward to reading more by this author ~ and I mean that, it's not just a nice way of rounding off the review!

PAST ENCOUNTERS by Deborah Swift

5 GOLD Stars

WW2 drama

On Amazon UK HERE

Wow!  What an amazing book ~ I read it over a period of 24 hours, ignoring everything else.... maybe that's all you need to know!

The book starts in 1955, with Rhoda and Peter's marriage cold and stagnant.  Rhoda discovers that Peter has been paying visits to an old friend she has never heard of, in all the ten years they've been married.

The story travels back to Peter's fortunes in World War II as a prisoner of the Germans; much of the book is about his experiences and these were the bits I found the most absorbing, so much that I've just been looking up some of the titles of suggested further reading at the end of the book.  I think these parts of this story will stay with me for a long time.  

Rhoda's own story was pretty heartbreaking, too, but I can't say too much because I don't want to give the plot away!  Suffice to say that Carnforth in Cumbria, where she lived, was the real location for parts of the film Brief Encounter, and Ms Swift has brought the filming of it to life in fiction.  It's obviously very well researched and is fascinating to read for that alone.


A link to my review of A Divided Inheritance is HERE ; it contains links to my reviews of The Gilded Lily and Shadow on the Highway. 

LIVING IN THE SHADOWS by Judith Barrow

4 out of 5 stars

1960s family drama, 3rd part of a trilogy

On Amazon UK HERE
On Amazon.com HERE

I was looking forward to reading the third part of Judith Barrow's warts-and-all saga about the working class Howarth/Booth/Schorrman family living in Wales and northern England.  The first part took place in WW2, the second in 1950, and Living in the Shadows takes us into the next generation, in the late 1960s.

These books are very much an every day story of ordinary people, a bit like listening to The Archers or watching Emmerdale Farm before it lost its 'Farm'; I'm sure someone makes someone else a cup of tea every ten pages!  They will hold a great nostalgic appeal for those who have lived through these times in similar circumstances, which explains their popularity.  But they're more than just a real life drama; Judith Barrow has a clever and subtle way of showing the attitudes of the time amongst Mr and Mrs Average, rather than giving them a gloss, like a nostalgia programme on TV; this, for me, is their greatest strength.

So, the 1960s... it wasn't all free love, Union Jack minis and Twiggy; the atmosphere of the war years of the 1940s and the struggle back in the 1950s prevailed.  The extended family in this book come face to the face with scenarios of the type that were brushed under the carpet fifty years ago, ie, homosexuality and domestic violence.   The storyline I found the most interesting was that of eighteen year old Victoria, who experienced the sinister side of the hippie movement; it shows how young people, eager to take on new trends, can be manipulated and taken advantage of.  Oddly enough, I had only recently watched a few TV programmes about Charles Manson and his strange commune of brainwashed young women; Victoria's tale rang all too true.

As for the older members of the family, the loss of one of them near the end made me feel very sad, even bringing a tear or two to my eye; this bit was very well written indeed.  I suspect this is not the last we shall see of this family!


PATTERN OF SHADOWS by Judith Barrow reviewed HERE

CHANGING PATTERNS by Judith Barrow reviewed HERE

 

THE PRODIGAL by Nicky Black

5 out of 5 stars

Gritty crime drama

On Amazon UK HERE
On Amazon.com HERE

About half way through this book I discovered that Nicky Black is actually a combination of two friends called Nicky and Julie ~ Julie originally wrote this as a screenplay for Granada TV, though it was never shown, and then she passed it to Nicky to turn it into a novel.  Shame it never became a TV series, it would have been terrific!

Nicky might have been given a readymade, extremely good plot to work with, but the writing of this novel is surely down to her own skill - in the wrong hands it could have been flat, clichéd, the characters ghastly stereotypes, the action tired, etc etc.  The Prodigal is none of those things - it's excellent, I enjoyed every page and didn't skip read once!

London cop Lee Jamieson returns home to Newcastle, and becomes mixed up with Nicola Kelly, wife of local hoodlum Micky.  The story is told through the eyes of Lee and Nicola.  Lee also gets to know Louise, his teenage daughter who is the result of his own teenage relationship with her mother, Debbie.  Valley Park, the council estate around which the novel centres, is fictional, but I am sure it's a well drawn representation of those that exist.

Lee escaped life within the underclass of society after his own family tragedies; there is one particularly emotive passage when he looks into the eyes of Nicola's troubled young brother, Mark, and sees what he might have become had he stayed there.

One of the reasons this novel was of interest to me is that I moved up to live in this area (nowhere like Valley Park, thank goodness!) about six years ago, so I recognised not only the landmarks but also the language; I've always been amused by the sound of teenage girls referring to each other as 'man'!  I liked the way the story outlined the differences between the north and south of England that really do exist, and the futility of the regeneration projects in poor areas - as Nicola so rightly points out, it's not the houses or estates that are the problem, but the people who live in them.

The plot's great - I love a bit of gangster conspiracy, and it all fits together nicely, with the twists not being too obvious and nothing unfeasible taking place.  Any negatives?  Only one - throughout the book there is a fair amount of 'head-hopping', ie, the point of view changing suddenly; I'd think, hang on, I thought I was reading through Lee's eyes, but suddenly I'm seeing it through those of Debbie.  This isn't too obtrusive, though, and it probably wouldn't bother most people.

The Prodigal is realistic without being over the top, perfectly paced and held my interest throughout - loved it!

CHANGING PATTERNS by Judith Barrow

4.5 out of 5 stars

1950s family drama

On Amazon UK HERE
On Amazon.com HERE

Now, this is what I love to see ~ a sequel that is better than the first!  Ideally, writers should improve on their craft all the time, even if they do so without realising; I've read a few books from series this year and been pleased to find this the case, every time, and particularly so with this novel.

Pattern of Shadows followed the fortunes of the Howarth family in working class northern England during WWII; Changing Patterns takes the story into 1950.  I read this book over a period of about 48 hours and thought about it when I wasn't reading it.  What made it good?  It's easy to read, a bit like watching a soap opera; yes, it's an everyday story of simple folk.  Its main USP, though, is the realism, which made me feel two different things.  Firstly, a comfortable nostalgia; I was not born until 1959, but know that people of my parents' generation see those post war years as something of a golden age.  You know, when people had proper family values and were so grateful just to live in a time of peace that they were more appreciative of seemingly trivial pleasures.  The other side, though, is somewhat darker: the prejudices, particularly amongst the ill educated, and the sense of being in a social straitjacket.  This book portrays both sides so well.  

In the first book I did not warm to the main character, Mary Howarth, but I came to like her much more in this one, along with ex POW, Peter, and Mary's sister, Ellen.  Oh, and the horrors of living with the battleaxe mothers in law!  The book is sometimes very graphic in its realism and made me extremely glad the stork didn't drop me in Ellen's situation; Mrs Booth was quite revolting.  And then there is the gross and despicable George Shuttleworth...
I'd say that if this sort of family drama is your favourite thing to read, you will love this book; it's very well written and is a fine example of the genre.  I shall definitely be reading part 3 when available; it's about the next generation and is set in the 1960s.  I so look forward to Ms Barrow's take on an era I really do remember.

A note to the proofreader: at 66% Ms Barrow has used the word 'scran', which is northern slang word for food.  "Good scran that, our kid,".  Alas, the proofreader/editor has changed it to 'scram'!  This made me laugh, as I am a southerner who has moved to the north east in recent years, and before that I hadn't heard of the word, either.  There - you learn something new every day, indeed!


PATTERN OF SHADOWS by Judith Barrow reviewed HERE

LIVING IN THE SHADOWS by Judith Barrow reviewed HERE