Book Reviews

Fiction

How to Stop Time
by Matt Haig,
pub Canongate ￡12.99
Tom Hazard may look like an ordinary 41 year old History teacher, but he has a dangerous secret. Owing to a rare genetic condition, he is old. Over 400 years old. From Shakespeare’s Globe theatre, to sailing the South Seas with Captain Cook and sipping cocktails with F Scott Fitzgerald, he has lived a long but lonely and rootless existence. With the help of millennium-year-old Heinrich from the Albatross society, Tom and the other ‘Albas’ change their identity every few years to avoid attracting suspicion from the regular human ‘Mayflies’. In return for this financial and logistical support they must abide by the society’s doctrine; not to lay down roots, and not to love.
As Tom struggles to escape the many pasts which constantly threatens to engulf his fragile grip on the present, he begins to question the rules he has lived by for so long...
Wow! Matt Haig has done it again! Since his last novel for adults, ‘The Humans’, Matt Haig has written a top-ten non-fiction bestseller (‘Reasons to Stay Alive’), a YA sci-fi novel (‘Echo Boy’) and two best-selling children’s books....but he has not lost his touch for poignant thoughtful commentary and sophisticated plotting!
‘How to Stop Time’ is an absolutely spell-binding, century-hopping novel, full of wise insight into the human condition and brimful with compassion and warmth. Absorbing, compelling, and moving, a perfect page-turner which I gulped down in just a few days and immediately wanted to read again!

Holding
by Graham Norton
pub Hodder £7.99
You might sigh at the thought of another celeb turning their hand to writing, but this debut novel is good fun, as might be expected, and also deftly written. Set in the small town of Duneen in County Cork, with a well plotted story and a cast of sharply drawn characters, it draws us into small town life with its touches of both humour and melancholy. We follow the fortunes of an inhibited and somewhat portly local policeman PJ Riordan as the town is disturbed by the discovery of a possible murder.  Not primarily a thriller, more a gentle examination of small town life, witty but not ascerbic, there are some good plot twists and a satisfactory resolution. Worth a read, particularly on holiday.

The Lost Girl
by Carol Drinkwater
pub Penguin £12.99
Another name familiar to many of us. Last year we were very fortunate to host this charming former actress and author of a series of books about her olive farm in France when she too was launching a debut novel, The Forgotten Summer, an atmospheric family drama set on a Provence vineyard estate. Now we have her keenly awaited second novel, one that she was very excited about when we met her. Set in present day France where a mother drawn to Paris to search for her missing daughter finds herself caught up in a terrorist attack which devastates Paris, this intriguing story draws on the experience of France both now and in the immediate post war era. A page-turning summer read.

Children’s Books

Letters From The Lighthouse
by Emma Carroll
pub Faber £6.99
Another gripping and absorbing children’s novel by an author who is a byword now for excellently written children’s historical fiction. Set this time mainly in Devon during the Second World War, we follow the fortunes of Olive and Cliff, evacuated to Devon after surviving a horrendous bombing raid in London. But a mystery follows Olive as she tries to work out what has happened to her sister Sukie who disappeared during the raid. How does the taciturn lighthouse keeper fit into this puzzle and what was the strange coded note that Olive found in her sister’s pocket?

What the Ladybird Heard on Holiday
by Julia Donaldson. Illustrated by Lydia Monk
pub Macmillan Children’s Books £11.99
Just right for the summer – the valiant little ladybird goes on holiday and saves the day again in a new adventure by the magical Julia Donaldson, whose store of clever stories is seemingly endless. In this picture book once again illustrated by Lydia Monks in her distinctive vibrant style, the third in the series about the quietly resourceful ladybird, we follow our insect heroine to London where the Crown Jewels are under threat from those dastardly rehabilitated villains Lanky Len and Hefty Hugh. Lots of zoo animals to meet this time, plus a cameo from the Queen - and the corgis of course! An absolute joy to read.