The Mess We're In - Annie MacManus

 

Brand new book from Annie MacManus THE MESS WE'RE IN from Wildfire books

Renowned DJ Annie Mac returns with her second book, set in the early 2000s it follows a young Irish girl named Orla who moves from Cheltenham to London to follow her dream of becoming involved within the music scene. This goes hand in hand whilst living with an up and coming indie band called Shiva in the digs of Kilburn.

Orla wants to make music, but juggling a temp job in new PR company RedStar and a pub job whilst partying every night is not helping. Meanwhile, in Ireland her parents marriage is falling apart and she is not speaking to her Da.

As Shiva strife to breakthrough, the hedonism gets bigger and relationships within the house are strained.

A story about a young woman making sense of living in a strange land but finding yourself through the rhythm of life. Annie Mac delivers in a big way with this nostalgic look at the boom in music and how being in the music business remains one of the coolest aspirations for many people

THE MESS WE'RE IN is out now from Wildfire Books.

My thanks to Headline for the review opportunity.

Shiver - Allie Reynolds

 

Debut novel by Allie Reynolds out from Headline on January 21st

Allie Reynolds was a former professional snowboarder, her love for the pistes and the sport is perfect for the old adage of write what you know.

She tells the tale of Milla, who reunites with old friends in the Alps and from there we have a dual-narrative occuring as we go back to an incident that involved the disappearance of the mysterious Saskia. Ten years have passed since this event, and her brother Curtis has asked them all to return - some reluctantly and some have altered drastically since then.

Reynolds writes with a confidence and also does well to convey the changing of people's psyche and how influential people can become on your lives no matter how briefly there time in your life.

Milla is a hardworking individual eager to excel at snowboarding, but she does not have the natural talent of Saskia and her European rivals - she cannot make certain tricks and this frustrates her. Saskia is the Queen Bee of the group, loved by men but hated by women and this duality of the two main females is honed well by the debut author.

When I encountered this novel on my NetGalley TBR pile, I had just finished The Chalet by Catherine Cooper, and unfortunately that Christie style murder-mystery was more successful of dealing with character aspirations and arc effectively; while Shiver sadly faded by the end of the book. 

However, it should still be recommended for those in need of a good murder-mystery set on the luxurious Alps and the glamorous lifestyle that comes with it. For a debut it also smacks of rich potential for this young author. 

Shiver is out from Headline on 21st January on all formats.

In Our Mad and Furious City

Guy Gunaratne's debut novel is out from Headline on Thursday 19th April

In Our Mad and Furious City tells the tale of 48 hours in the life of a council estate, Stones Estate, through the eyes of different young people who inhabit the estate from different cultural and religious backgrounds - Selvon, Ardan and Yusuf.

Each young man has a story to tell, and they all have aspirations to better themselves be it through sporting or musical endeavours; the young men are successors of the British Angry Young man of the 1960s - those created by the society around them and taking the influence of that society to craft a new image or mindset.

Gunaratne has crafted a brave, socially aware and prescient novel; one that is rich in the history of London - and to a greater extent British - immigration, a place that is full of diversity but unwilling to embrace these social changes as it threatens the norm.

It is aware of where it comes from, being written by a member of an ethnic group; it is brave in the sense that during his debut he has decided to write from many different voices. Apart from the three young men we encounter mostly; he also writes in the voice of females and elders.

This spell-binding novel is dripping with the location in which it is set, unafraid to show the world as it is now, a world that is fearful, paranoid and angry.

It will be a book that will be made into a mini-series no doubt, yet it should be read by any and all as it is a novel of such supreme confidence and certainty unlike any debut novel you would have encountered in recent times.

IN OUR MAD AND FURIOUS CITY is released by Headline on Thursday 19th April

The Coffin Path

Katherine Clements novel The Coffin Path is released in Hardback/eBook from Headline on 8th February

FFO of The Woman in Black, The Innocents, Lady Macbeth

When you read books to review them for hits on your blog, you come across several different types of tomes.  You have those you feel you can connect with due to a resemblance to your favourite authors (Lee Child) or a genre such as thriller and crime. You get sucked into reading books of the same ilk one after another - I am forever indebted for the opportunity to review Streets of Darkness, Ragdoll, Sirens in quick succession. Those novels showed me that the genre of crime and urban noir is now on an equal footing with the tremendous success of Scandanavian Noir.

You also cross paths with books you take a risk on, those you are not familiar with and do not normally seek yourselves from shelves.  The Coffin Path is one of those books; it wears its influences on its cover - dark, mysterious, gothic - a novel stripped from the drafts of the Bronte sisters where the combination of God-fearing individuals compete against a foreboding landscape full of mist and fear, along with prophetic fallacies galore.

Mercy Booth is our heroine, the daughter of the owner of Scarcross Hall the house on the old titular pathway where the word is something evil lives.  The Hall is her home and where she wants to reside, yet small things start to go awry especially the three ancient coins missing from her elderly father's study. Then the stranger appears.

This stranger Ellis Ferreby, is cut from the same cloth as Mr. Rochester - that brooding embodiment of masculinity who wanders the moors searching solace and purpose - yet a man who knows what is right and wrong, can he provide purpose to Ms. Booth also.

Author Katherine Clements

As well as a ghost story that keeps you on your toes, it is also a cleverly conceived story of female empowerment of a woman learning about herself in a cold world:

'...in my younger years I would have named Father my closest friend, but there's no one in this world knows the whole of me. I've shared my pains with God alone. I've whispered to the wind, let the rain take my tears, dried my eyes on the fleeces of my flock and never let anyone see how I've felt the lack of a true friend.  I have not dwelled upon my loneliness. I never allowed it: I made my choice and must live by it.  But the trials of these last months have stirred a craving I thought long dead.'

This is an amazing evocation of love blossoming inside a young woman she thought dormant, and it has stuck with me.  The use of landscape to evoke a distant characteristic trait makes her a suitable companion for the man who walks the moors alone happily.

Clements has done wonders to create a distinctive tone and atmosphere of novel that has something for everyone, and whilst this reader found it tough at first, if you stick with it like this reader, you can gain something surprising from it.

The Coffin Path is released from Headline on Thursday 8th February.