The Housemaid's Daughter by Barbara Mutch

Mama named me Ada after Madam’s younger sister across the sea in a place called Ireland.

I think that being born in Cradock House has made me grateful all my life.  It makes me feel I am part of it in a way that my mother Miriam never was.  The narrow stairs and the brass doorknobs know my hands and feet, the bony thorn tree and the apricot bush hold me inside them, carrying me in their sap from year to year.  And I own a bit of them in return.  So when Cradock House was taken away from me, I could not understand my life after that.

Goodreads Summary

1935: Isolated and estranged on the arid plains of South Africa, Irish Cathleen Harrington finds solace in her diary and the friendship of her housemaid's daughter, Ada.
Under Cathleen's teachings, Ada grows into a talented young woman, an accomplished pianist and an avid reader. But when she finds she is expecting a mixed-race child, she flees the home she loves. Forced to carve a life for herself, Ada swears she will never return. But Cathleen risks everything to search for Ada and teaches her the most important lesson yet - that beyond the cruelty of their divided country, there can still be love, hope and redemption.

*             *            *

Around once a year, I read a book like this one and just know it will stick with me for life.  

Irish born Cathleen Harrington now lives in South Africa with her distracted husband and two children.  Served by their faithful housemaid Miriam and her young daughter Ada, Cathleen is learning to adjust to her new life.  

The novel is written from Ada’s point of view but through her interactions with Ada and surprisingly few snippets of Mrs Harrington’s diary, the reader grasps the character of this truly selfless lady that will be so influential on Ada’s life.  Following Ada’s journey from childhood to adult and mother we experience her first tragic love for Cathleen’s son Phil, her pleasure in playing the piano, her rejection by both whites and blacks when she conceives a child which fits with neither.  We experience the tumultuous emotions; fear, love, rejoicing for Ada’s exotic and wilful daughter Dawn.  It’s a story of dancing and music, hope and love, revolution and courage.

The cover compares the novel to The Help, but I think this just doesn’t do the book justice.  Yes they both feature black housemaids serving white families, but where The Help portrays a group of maids united in vengeance against a common (white) enemy, The Housemaid’s Daughter is the story of the most forbidden of friendships, flowering despite the harshest conditions.  The love and respect between Mrs Harrington and Ada conquers all barriers except death.      

One thing just didn’t ring true for me; Ada welcoming her ‘Master’ to her bed with seemingly open arms.  As a young girl with no sexual experience, surely the first emotion would be fear, especially considering he has never shown any particular warmth towards her.  The ongoing belief throughout the rest of the book that this circumstance was ‘her duty’ to him in his misery and loneliness still lacks something for me.  Possibly I have misjudged the attitude of servants at this time to their white families.

The interesting thing about this novel is just how visibly you can see the author growing with her main character.  It’s like she’s learning to love Ada along with us. At first it’s hesitant, perhaps overly detailed too soon, but as a big fan of South Africa flaws and all, I just love the detail that went into this novel, from the delicate pink roses in the Harrington’s gardens, to the dirty angry Groot Vis river, to the sound of rain on Ada’s corrugated iron roof and the feel of it between her toes.    

If you’re like me and love historical novels with a personal touch, you’ll adore this captivating debut.

On The Day I Died by Candace Fleming

It was after midnight and Mike Kowlaski was driving fast – too fast – down County Line Road. He glanced at the dashboard clock and groaned.

He was late.  Again.

His phone rang. It didn’t take ESP to know it was his mother. “She probably wants to get a jump start on her griping,” Mike muttered to himself. Earlier that evening, she’d told him to be in by midnight “or else.”

Mike didn’t even want to think about what “or else” meant.

Ignoring the call, he mashed down the accelerator. Maybe if he was only a little late...

That was when the girl appeared in his headlights.

Goodreads Summary

Set in White Cemetery, an actual graveyard outside Chicago, each story takes place during a different time period from the 1860's to the present, and ends with the narrator's death. Some teens die heroically, others ironically, but all due to supernatural causes. Readers will meet walking corpses and witness demonic posession, all against the backdrop of Chicago's rich history—the Great Depression, the World's Fair, Al Capone and his fellow gangsters.

*     *     *

My younger sister and I were pretty fascinated with the macabre growing up. All I could think about was how much we would have loved this collection of short stories by Candace Fleming back then. Sadly, as an older reader, the stories didn’t really creep me out, but, I can certainly remember a time when they genuinely would have had me sleep with the light on after putting down my book for the night. And this ultimately, is the age group the book is aimed at; teen readers who like a good scary story.

Mike is on his way home when he has a ghostly encounter with a long dead girl. The night twists and turns until he finds himself at the graveside of the girl. There he meets a variety of child ghosts, all wanting to share their stories, and so the novel is split into these stories but held together with Mike’s storyline.

I think what I enjoyed most was the varying age of those in the graveyard; it meant that each story was set in a different time period of Chicago history and so the events and manner in which each ghost tells their story is reflective of that. We visit the famous Chicago World Fair with Evelyn and her twin sister, experience a deadly act of revenge for the gangster-accented Johnnie, and of course, there’s a visit to an abandoned insane asylum. Believe it or not, there’s even a clever story involving an old flame of Al Capone’s.

The stories are each unique and believable with the exception of one which borrows, as if to cover all bases, heavily from the sci-fi genre. But actually, ultimately this story just didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the collection. Whereas the others touch on real history which adds to their credibility, this one story just wasn’t believable in the way the others were. And I tend to think if a scary story can seem believable, it adds that extra element of fear!

My favourite tale was Edgar’s; a boy born with a strange ability which he cannot control and is shunned for it, inevitably leading to tragedy. The terror in this is subtle, not the outright “things that go bump in the night” horror, but the fear of oneself.

It’s a small book at just over 200 pages, but I found it and the stories within it the perfect length. Short and scary; perfect for camp-fire re-telling, or reading to younger siblings.

Breathe by Sarah Crossan

I squeeze Abel’s hand and he looks at me. ‘Now?’ he asks. He puts his other hand into his pocket.

‘No, no. Not yet,’ I whisper. Several cameras are trained right at us and there’s a steward only metres away. I pull Abel close and nuzzle his neck. We aren’t a couple but posing as one makes us less conspicuous.

When oxygen levels plunge in a treeless world, a state lottery decides which lucky few will live inside the Pod. Everyone else will slowly suffocate. Years after the Switch, life inside the Pod has moved on. A poor Auxiliary class cannot afford the oxygen tax which supplies extra air for running, dancing and sports. The rich Premiums, by contrast, are healthy and strong. Anyone who opposes the regime is labelled a terrorist and ejected from the Pod to die. Sixteen-year-old Alina is part of the secret resistance, but when a mission goes wrong she is forced to escape from the Pod. With only two days of oxygen in her tank, she too faces the terrifying prospect of death by suffocation. Her only hope is to find the mythical Grove, a small enclave of trees protected by a hardcore band of rebels. Does it even exist, and if so, what or who are they protecting the trees from? 

*          *        *

A few weeks before reading Breathe, someone on Twitter tweeted a joke image of ‘iOxygen,’ a joke that one day Apple would own oxygen as well as most of the gadget market. I had a giggle then didn’t think anything more of it.

But then I started reading Breathe and suddenly the idea became all too real. This dystopian novel takes place in the not too distant future, where climate change mixed with human attempts to defeat it has actually resulted in the death of all trees and plants. The bottom line? No air to breathe at all in the natural atmosphere.

Some of the descriptions of what happened in the initial aftermath of the air running out are chilling – a lottery was run and a select few chosen to live in the Pod, a city within a giant glass bubble run by Breathe, the company that has managed to manufacture oxygen. But for the unlucky majority, they were left to die, slowly suffocating.

The book is set many years after this and revolves around the teenage descendants of those living under Breathe. Yet life is not easy. Divisions in social class have only gotten worse, with those able to afford ample oxygen able to run and breathe as deeply as they like. Whilst those that can’t afford it are subject to restrictions on walking speed let alone running. Heck even having sex is considered an activity too oxygen intensive for most!

But as there always is in these novels, a resistance is rising. Out in the wasteland of the old world people are learning to survive on the low oxygen levels, and they are sharing the skill with others.

There were parts that impressed me about Breathe but then there were some really odd things that just ruined the believability of the whole situation.

The idea of oxygen as a commodity rather than what we know as perhaps the only truly free resource available to us is an excellent concept and the link to climate change as a way in which this resource was lost and monopolised is ingenious and compelling. But then there is the resistance, lead by basically a tree-hugging hippy who not only takes advice from a nine year old but suddenly just lets everything she has built up crumble to pieces, leaving the responsibility to the teenage main characters. Crossan starts out portraying her as a strong, no-nonsense woman, but ultimately she becomes distinctly unlikeable and pathetic. It just doesn’t make sense. I also felt that whilst the first two thirds of the novel had a nice pace to them and I was really very much enjoying the novel, the end was too rushed and chaotic.

The main characters are however engaging although perhaps slightly clichéd. There’s Bea, the quiet, clever one, struggling in a poor, oxygen-starved family, Quinn the womanising cocky one from the rich family and Alina who slams into their world and turns their lives onto the path of the resistance.

There is also a host of supporting characters with some very nice moments; I would particularly like to see more from Alina’s cousin Silas.

All in all a great twist on a dystopian novel with a worryingly plausible context.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

Goodreads Summary

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

******

I’ve found Maggie Steifvater’s novels a bit hit and miss. It’s a personal thing; I loved the Wolves of Mercy Falls books but have yet to properly get into Lament, despite a couple of attempts. So although I was looking forward to trying The Raven Boys, it was with a little trepidation.

Fortunately The Raven Boys grabbed me from the off and is one of my top books of this year. The characters are well-crafted and appealing in their flaws and the storyline is imaginative and utterly unpredictable.

I’m not a fan of insta-romance in young adult novels and I was a little afraid from the synopsis that this book was going to centre around such a thing. We’re told from the first page that main character Blue has been told for as long as she can remember that she will cause her true love to die, and this kind of gave me some pre-conceptions the book was going to be about an instant attraction and then the angst of not being able to fulfil that love. Having finished The Raven Boys, I think their might be some scope for that in future books, but this novel at least is not what I’d call a romance in the traditional sense. Rather it is a novel about friendship and the love it can inspire, obsession, pride and ambition.

The Raven Boys has more than its fair share of tortured souls, but the way the author has her characters interact with each other is beautiful. Confident, wealthy Gansey; reluctant leader of the pack takes care of his brood with the protectiveness of a father. Kind-hearted Adam is so desperate to prove himself to himself, he sees accepting aid, even when he most needs it as a weakness. Then there is Ronan, in so much pain from the death of his father, he seems intent on self destruction. And finally dear Noah... I can’t say much about Noah for fear of spoilers, but oh how I wanted to give him a big hug.

The novel is not all angst and sorrow however, far from it. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments; Maggie and her Raven Boys never seem to take themselves too seriously.

For me the most surprising aspect of the book was the intertwining of ancient Welsh history, the spiritual world and divination. I like historical novels and these themes added extra for me which I wasn’t expecting at all. I really just can’t wait for the next book; and that doesn’t happen very often!

Finally a note on heroine Blue. For me this novel, as the name suggests, is all about the boys. However just as the quartet find themselves completed by Blue, I found she does complete the book. It’s subtle but by the end, you can’t imagine the book without her. Like so many of the more introverted amongst us, though perhaps not immediately as appealing as those that ‘shout the loudest’, she’s spunky and smart, at times shy but capable of standing her ground. I look forward to her character developing even more in the books to come.

GRYMM by Keith Austin

Something stirred in the gravelly yard beneath their window A soft slippery nuzzle, the sort of sounds you'd expect a pig to make with its snout in a trough.

Amazon Summary

The small mining town of Grymm perched on the very edge of the Great Desert is the kind of town you leave - but when Dad gets a three-month contract in the mine there, Mina and Jacob, unwilling stepbrother and sister, are reluctantly arriving From a grotesque letting agent who seems to want to eat their baby brother, a cafe owner whose milkshakes contain actual maggots and the horribly creepy butcher, baker and candlestick-maker, Mina and Jacob soon realize that nothing in Grymm is what is appears to be And then things get seriously weird when their baby brother disappears - and no one seems to even notice! In Grymm, your worst nightmares really do come true

*

I was really excited to read GRYMM. When I read the description, two of my favourite things jumped to mind; Labyrinth and Tim Burton. In a strange past-its-prime town in the middle of nowhere, a new family are moving in, including step-siblings Mina and Jacob. Within a day, their baby brother has disappeared and no one else seems to remember him ever existing. What follows is an investigation into his disappearance which has the children meeting some characters which are all relatively, creepy, weird and down right disgusting. There’s the blood-thirsty butcher with a bad case of OCD, the baker tempting children with his tasty treats, and the kooky milkshake shop owner who’s re-inventing tequila through milk by adding a maggot or two to the bottom. Grymm is the kind of place that will incite fascination with the sickening and morbid which so often appeals to children and young adults. The setting and characters makes this the perfect book for horror-loving boys and girls alike.

The way the tumultuous relationship between Mina and Jacob develops through the story is lovely and, at times, I really just wanted to give Jacob a big hug. Fighting between siblings is normal, but Mina and Jacob drew the short straw and are also step-siblings, so carrying a lot of baggage over new step mothers/fathers – not to mention a new baby brother. But the shared experience of beating Grymm and its bizarre occupants draws them closer together and gives them a new found respect for one another.

Aside from the Burtonesque characters and Labyrinth theme (the GRYMM version of the ‘Goblin King’ is far from a seductive Bowie however!), there are some fabulous fun references to Lord of the Rings and I found the character of Cleaver Flay distinctly inspired by Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast.

The downside is that I found the novel just too long and in parts, very repetitive and unnecessary. The plot settles into a formulaic pattern – kids go out, meet a weirdo, something creepy happens, kids narrowly escape. This happens so many times, I found myself skim-reading... something I usually only do reading a boring document at work... not good. I get that the author wants to establish how the people within the town are being influenced by the evil ‘Goblin King’ in the mine, but ultimately, most of them add very little to the climax of the novel. Having said that, I did find the characters imaginative and the evil Anhangar with his cockroachy movements is a villain worthy of most young people’s nightmares.

Overall I’m undecided on this book. I really loved the cover and the corresponding drawings at the start of each chapter and the story is quirky and devilish. Random House have really got a winner here in appealing to those that love quirky horror. I liked the twist at the end relating to baby brother Bryan as one I just didn’t see coming. But for me, the tale dragged on too long and I think in the end, I rushed through what was actually a pretty good ending just to get the book over and done with.

Jepp, Who Defied The Stars by Katherine Marsh

Goodreads Summary

Is it written in the stars from the moment we are born?

Or is it a bendable thing that we can shape with our own hands?

Jepp of Astraveld needs to know.

He left his countryside home on the empty promise of a stranger, only to become a captive in a strange and luxurious prison: Coudenberg Palace, the royal court of the Spanish Infanta. Nobody warned Jepp that as a court dwarf, daily injustices would become his seemingly unshakeable fate. If the humiliations were his alone, perhaps he could endure them, but it breaks Jepp’s heart to see his friend Lia suffer.

After Jepp and Lia perform a daring escape from the palace, Jepp is imprisoned again, alone in a cage. Now, spirited across Europe by a kidnapper in a horse-drawn carriage, Jepp is unsure where his unfortunate stars may lead him.

Before Jepp can become the master of his own destiny, he will need to prove himself to a brilliant and eccentric new master—a man devoted to uncovering the secrets of the stars—earn the love of a girl brave and true, and unearth the long-buried secrets of his parentage. And he will find that beneath the breathtaking cruelty of the world is something else: the persistence of human kindness.

*

In early July, Vivienne offered me a range of new books coming from Hot Key Books from which to choose one to review. I looked up the synopsis of each and was immediately struck by just how unique Jepp, Who Defied the Stars promised to be. A novel where the main protagonist is a court dwarf in the late 1500’s? Whoa! Sign me up!

Jepp’s tale is one of prejudice, fate and mastering destiny and most importantly of all; love. The story is woven with superb detail, from the Infanta’s palace and the fabulous clothes and furnishings, to the Danish castle of the eccentric astronomer Tycho Brahe. Although I’m definitely a fan of the lavishness of court, to an extent I have read about this before, so for me the second part of the novel with its automatons, beer-drinking moose and a master who’s prosthetic nose keeps falling off really had me giggling.

Jepp’s perspective is different to most. Being a dwarf, not only does navigating normal furniture prove a difficulty, but the way in which people interact with him is at best curious interest and at worst total debasement – not only does he experience playing room mate to aforementioned drunk moose, at one point he is even ferried about in a cage! His time at court also proves that even the most decadent palace can be a prison. But from Jepp we learn no matter how different in stature, we all want similar things from life; to better ourselves, to love and be loved in return.

The first person perspective method of storytelling in this novel reminded me of The Farseer Trilogy by one of my favourite author’s; Robin Hobb. Though this isn’t a fantasy novel in the typical sense, Jepp’s thoughts and feelings about how the situations he finds himself in are honest and realistic; his decisions always based on what is morally right, no matter if he would be well entitled to a bit of vengeance. Though a novel aimed at children/young adults, I found Jepp, Who Defied the Stars surprisingly mature in the way in which the characters and story is presented. It is doesn’t patronise the younger reader and makes no qualms about presenting the cruelty human-kind is capable of.

Aside from our hero, other characters to make an impression include Matheus the kind-hearted kidnapper, Lia; Jepp’s first love, lady dwarf and delicate musician and the astronomer Tycho who breaks boundaries not only in science but in convention by marrying the woman he loved. The only flaw I found was that despite the title of the novel, I felt a bit like Jepp, in money matters at least, was in fact reliant on his fate. I would have liked to see him come up with a genius business idea or something to make his own fortune.

I am a big fan of historical fiction, but this particular era I didn’t know too much about. I seriously didn’t realise just how linked the novel was to the history of the time – many of the characters, settings and situations were real and it’s really worth reading the author’s notes at the end to really appreciate the genius of how this novel is put together.

If you are looking for a brilliant little novel with a unique storyline and varied mix of lovable and despicable characters, you couldn’t make a better choice.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken

Goodreads Summary

Wicked wolves and a grim governess threaten Bonnie and her cousin Sylvia when Bonnie's parents leave Willoughby Chase for a sea voyage. Left in the care of the cruel Miss Slighcarp, the girls can hardly believe what is happening to their once happy home. The servants are dismissed, the furniture is sold, and Bonnie and Sylvia are sent to a prison-like orphan school. It seems as if the endless hours of drudgery will never cease.

With the help of Simon the goose boy and his flock, they escape. But how will they ever get Willoughby Chase free from the clutches of the evil Miss Slighcarp?

*

 

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is set in an 18th century England different to our own, where wolves frequent the countryside, adding an immediate hint of danger and excitement to an already action-packed novel. The main story of the book revolves around Bonnie, the wealthy daughter of a Lord and the grand old house of Willoughby Chase which comes under threat from an ambitious and greedy relative. Despite her genteel upbringing, Bonnie is a heroine to win over any young reader; plucky and with a strong sense of moral fibre, she stands up to the wicked governess introduced to her home, protecting family and servants alike. To temper this fire-cracker, we have Sylvia, Bonnie’s kind-hearted and gentle cousin, and for young male readers, we have Simon, the boy who lives by himself raising geese, protecting our heroines from wolves and rescuing them from evil old women.

The governess Miss Slighcarp is the perfect villain and has us hooked from the start as she physically lashes out at a servant, much to Bonnie’s outrage. Our revulsion increases as she takes to wearing Bonnie’s sick mother’s beautiful gowns and sacking all of Willoughby Chase’s loyal and hardworking servants. All this before she really gets going personally on poor Bonnie and Sylvia! Miss Slighcarp and her evil sidekicks are so horrible, you actually, somewhat guiltily, start enjoying them; what vile thing will they come up with next?!

First published in 1962, the book is obviously somewhat dated in language and sentence structure; there is much happy crying and talk of petticoats and doll’s houses. But the storyline is so classic it will survive the ages – Children versus evil governess fight to preserve home and family –always a winner! The characters are also so out of the ordinary for their time that their personalities and actions will resonate with today’s children, Bonnie’s father for instance, has allowed her to break the social norms of embroidery and piano-playing and instead she is a whiz with a fowling piece (gun!).

The new edition by Vintage is highly engaging for young readers. The cover I think is edgy but neutral enough to appeal to both a male and female young audience and the ‘What Character Are You?’ quiz at the back takes me back to the days of similar quizzes in magazines which I know when I was younger I absolutely loved. The other facts and extras are absorbing and a really nice addition. I also really liked the little bookplate on the first page.

Even as an adult, I had trouble putting this fun and engaging novel down - The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is as fast-paced as the wolves within it. I wondered why the character Simon felt so familiar and realised I read the follow-up novel Black Heart’s in Battersea as a kid and adored it, so if you enjoy The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, as I’m sure you will, don’t forget to look this one up too!