~ A Book Review: Changeling, Delia Sherman ~

I have finished reading my eighth novel for 2024, Changeling, by Delia Sherman. This is a book I put into my basket purely because of the cover. Sometimes, you feel compelled to buy for that reason alone – no need to read the first page or check the blurb on the back. Physically it was a nice-sized book – neither too big nor too small. Won over by the supernatural hullabaloo on the front and the hardcover, it had the triple whammy of a knockout title. Changeling.
According to the definition in my Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, A changeling is a peevish sick child. The notion used to be that the fairies took a healthy child and left in its place one of their starveling elves, which never thrived. The word means ‘little changed person’

I have always found the concept of changelings or fairy children strangely intriguing and sinister. Therefore the idea of telling the story of a human child who was switched out and following her life in the fairy realm seemed a cool premise for a middle fiction story.
Changeling is the story of Neef. She is a young girl who is the human child changed over for the fairy child. While the changeling is growing up in her place, Neef is being raised by her fairy godmother, a white rat called Astris.

Life in the New York Between has been sweet, despite the fact the fairy realm boasts some scary creatures and the Wild Hunt terrorizes the fairies in Central Park. All the magical folk in the between depend on the protection of The Green Lady, the Genius of the Central Park. Neef spends her days studying Folk Lore and going to the Between’s Metropolitan Museum. Yet, it’s not enough for Neef. She constantly wants more, nothing is ever good enough. Her life is boring she craves adventure and wastes time wishing more would happen.
We readers brace ourselves for the boot to fall. We know the story tropes of the unsatisfied protagonist, and that of ‘curiosity killed the cat’, and we know Neef is asking for it. Before long she ends up breaking Fairy law. Yup. Knew it. Now on the wrong side of the Green Lady, Neef is to be banished from the park to be hunted down like an animal by the Hunt. Neef and her friends strike a deal with the Green Lady. If Neef can obtain three impossible objects, she will be allowed to return home. She meets the changeling, the fairy child being raised in her biological family’s home, and the pair learn how to work together to achieve the goal.

Changeling is another excellent example of tight world-building. Sherman thinks of everything from the mythology of this world to cleverly mixing in the traditions of fables (such as brownies and selkies), and fictional characters (such as Shakespearean fairies). I liked her sense of play. Sherman is like a kid in a sandbox using a bit of everything, throwing in bits of classic fairy tales and tweaking them to fit modern life like Jack and the Beanstalk became Jack and the Extension Ladder. She explores the idea that the immigrants flooding into New York brought their stories and therefore ‘Little Folk’ with them. It made me laugh when she made the tough mercenaries lording it over places like Broadway and Wall Street the fairies, turning our expectations on their heads. It’s fresh and lively. Good stuff for kids.
One special mention must go to the subtle way Sherman brings the vagaries of Autism into the story without making it overt. The character differences are presented to us as perplexing, frustrating, and unique traits of Changeling, however, because we see them through Neef’s innocent eyes, we don’t judge this character. In the end, it’s a nice touch that Changeling’s attributes make her useful and complement those of the levelheaded Neef in every challenge. They could not get through the quest without each other.

Delia Sherman was born in 1951 in Tokyo, Japan. She is an author of Science Fiction & Fantasy, Young Adult, and Short Stories, winning the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for her novel The Porcelain Dove. She earned a PhD in Renaissance studies at Brown University and has also written the novels Through a Brazen Mirror and Changeling. She co-founded the Interstitial Arts Foundation, dedicated to promoting border-crossing art genres. She lives in New York City with her wife, Ellen Kushner.
My rating is three stars

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Yvette Carol
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Your precious babe is hence convey’d,
And in its place a changeling laid. ~ JOHN GAY: Fables (1727)

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~ A Book Review: Sanctuary, Kate de Goldi ~

I have finished reading my seventh novel for 2024, Sanctuary, by Kate de Goldi. Whenever I am browsing through secondhand bookshops, which is quite often, there are certain authors I will always buy. I returned to my favourite haunt The Hard to Find Bookstore and chanced upon this slim volume by my favourite Kiwi author. Sanctuary is Kate’s first full-length novel. I thought, what a find! With no idea what the book was about I started reading it, most curious to see what would transpire.

Straight away I loved the South Island setting. Sanctuary is firmly within the heart of Kate’s fictional empire – Christchurch – her homeland, the land she knows best and writes about often. I remember her telling us once in class, “Sometimes I try to set my stories elsewhere but even when I do it’s still the scenery and terrain of Christchurch” (where she grew up).
There is the immediate introduction of the endearing awkward and hurting character I am coming to recognize from Kate’s other books. In this case, it is Catriona Stuart a young woman who has been through something terrible and is trying to recover. The fresh take is that it’s about what happened while at the same time, the story is being told by Catriona herself to her therapist, Miriam. The tragedy at the heart of the book has already unfolded and brought this girl to arrest by the police and through her talking to a trained therapist about it, the picture of the tragedy slowly and painfully unfolds.

It was like driving past a serious car accident when you slow down and don’t want to stare but you do anyway and can’t tear your eyes away. That’s how I felt about this story. I couldn’t stop reading and needed to know what was next. Short. Punching above its weight. For a first novel, I thought it must have impressed readers – and impress it did – by winning the NZ Post Book Awards in 1997. It was clever to bring in the conversations between Catriona and Miriam during their counselling sessions. It gave the book a winning flavour of sober contemplation and deep thought, highlighting the intrinsic value of deep conversation with another human being. The characters were alive in my mind’s eye, especially the old couple running the Sanctuary, the Salters, with all their quaint interactions over time-honored traditions of feeding folks, making tea, and the sort of minutiae I would expect from Kate laid on, bringing the scenes vividly to life.
I read with interest every day until it was finished. A great read, with extra brownie points given for the inexorable build-up to a truly startling, earth-shattering climax. It’s one of the books you talk to fellow book lovers about. I wanted to pick it apart to see how she had done it!

There are many times I’ve had the pleasure to see Kate de Goldi speak at public events. As the keynote speaker for the Spinning Gold Children’s Literature Conference in 2009, Kate referred to the directive by Thoreau, ‘Know your bone’. She said, “Circle your preoccupations and recurring motifs, bury your bone, dig it up, sniff it. The great writers always have their story, their palette, driven by something they find interesting that they can’t explain. The best stories arise out of the writer’s need to explore their drive. Your fascination, your idiosyncratic fascination, is why you were made and set here.” Kate has her signature palette, familiar scenery, and crazy characters – she knows her bone! – yet in every story, she still has the power to surprise me. A great find, indeed.
Kate De Goldi is a writer, reviewer, and tutor who grew up in Christchurch and now lives in Wellington. Her first book, Like You, Really was published under the nom de plume Kate Flannery. She has won the American Express and Katherine Mansfield Awards for her short stories and numerous literary awards for her other novels. In 2001, Kate was made an Arts Foundation Laureate.
My rating is four stars

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Yvette Carol
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If it hasn’t been written yet, it’s up to you to write it. ~ Kate de Goldi

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~ A Book Review: Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell ~

I have finished reading my sixth novel for 2024, Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell. A riveting read, this novel my eldest sister handed me for Christmas with the words, “This is my favourite ever book.” I had never heard of the author before, though I noticed it had won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, in 2020. I didn’t put it at the bottom of the to-be-read pile of books – oh, no – I started reading Hamnet immediately. From the first page, I was drawn back into the past – into the murky days of medieval England – to the days of Shakespeare (I love it when an author can take us there and make it feel authentic). What a neat idea to have the story concern this intriguing historical character without focusing the spotlight on him. Shakespeare is referred to as “the father” or “the Latin tutor,” he appears mostly as the frustrating love interest or the absent parent.

The story starts from eleven-year-old Hamnet’s point of view. I truly felt gripped by the intense stomach-churning desperation of this poor little boy searching the dark wooden houses for his mother, Agnes – or any other adult – who could come to the aid of his twin sister, Judith, lying abed, feverishly ill, and near death.
The unthinkable happens. A child dies. Although I wouldn’t normally mention a spoiler of this magnitude, in this case, it is part of the historical record and it’s also mentioned in the promotional material therefore permissible.
The book jumps from Hamnet to the head of Agnes (his mother). There is a local story about her mother not being human – so Agnes and her twin brother, Bartholomew, are regarded with uncertainty by their local community. Agnes has become the village herbalist. She grows/gathers herbs, keeps bees, and flies her hawk, and can’t seem to fit in with what society and her family expect of her. As fate would have it, she falls in love with the intelligent, restless, foppish “Latin tutor,” which upsets the families on both sides. Bad juju ensues.

I lapped up this fictional account of a little-known part of Shakespeare’s life, which explains so much about him. It is a believable retelling as if we were seated around the fireside, listening to Agnes tell us the tale of her unsupported love affair with the young tortured artist, William. The Latin Tutor is suffering under the thumb of his authoritarian father. He is a frustrated artist trying to follow his father’s footsteps into a career and life he doesn’t want.
In short, it’s heavy. The characters are tortured, to begin with, which is why our insides fill with dread, primed for worse to come. And come it does. In the saddest way possible for young parents.
The story deals in a visceral, heartrending way with loss – a family tragedy – then goes back in time to the beginning to where it all began, where it all went wrong. It’s an evocative, involving tale. We’re so curious and keen to see more of Shakespeare from this unusual point of view, that of his wife, that we can’t stop reading.

Life was tough and taut in those days. Everyday medieval life is rendered credibly. The tragedy unfolds and there is the unbelievable pathos of the heartbreak driving his loving parents apart; sending Shakespeare running away to London where he finds the stage and starts writing his plays, while forgotten in the background, still keeping his home, family, and community together is his neglected wife, Agnes, despite nearly losing her mind with grief.

Hamnet is a sensitive, immersive story about pain – the relentless nightmare for parents who lose a child – and what happens when that child is the progeny of William Shakespeare. Granted such a kick-ass premise, it has to be delivered perfectly to work and it is and does. Sometimes, there is an almost dreamlike quality to O’Farrell’s storytelling, and you feel transported. Even though the material is sombre, it is the human experience written in a way that makes it feel revelatory.
It’s an emotional rollercoaster that I did not want to get off so exquisitely were the characters and scenes drawn by the indomitable Maggie O’Farrell. However, I imagine it would not have been an easy book to write. It’s an excellent sign when I finish a novel and immediately buy the next title I see written by the same author – I have The Vanishing Act of Annie Lennox lined up to read soon!

Maggie O’Farrell, born in 1972, is an Irish novelist who hit the ground running, winning the Betty Trask Award with her first novel, After You’d Gone. Then, her novel, The Hand That First Held Mine won the 2010 Costa Novel Award. She has been shortlisted twice more for the Costa Novel Award for Instructions for A Heatwave in 2014, and This Must Be The Place in 2017. Her novel Hamnet earned her the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020 and the Fiction Prize at the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Awards. No two ways about it, this girl can write!
My rating is four stars

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Yvette Carol
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A portrait of unspeakable grief wreathed in great beauty. ~ New York Times

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~ A Book Review: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith ~

I have finished reading my fifth novel for 2024, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith. What a book! The first time I read it, I was 12 years old. Many aspects went over my head then, but I remember bonding with the main character, Francie, because we were alike in many ways. It was one of those novels that stays with you after you read it for the rest of your life. When I saw a secondhand copy in a charity shop recently I grabbed it. Curious, I started reading, wondering if it would enchant me again as it had as a child. I was not disappointed.

The debut novel by Betty Smith tells the life story of Francis Nolan, born in Brooklyn in 1901, to desperately poor parents, Kate and Johnnie. Francie and her little brother, Neely, suffer heartbreaking hardship yet it is lovingly rendered through Francie’s innocent eyes. She tells each part of her life through the child’s lens nonjudgmentally, depicting their family’s struggles, the unpredictability of life with her handsome, charismatic, drunken father, and the earnest striving of her harried, hard-working mother who wears gloves to hide her ruined hands. Kate can find five different ways of rehashing stale bread to make five different meals. But some nights when there is no food, Francie tells how they play a game that they are on an expedition to the North Pole, stranded without supplies, keeping a record, “Expected rescue did not come” and so on. By using their imaginations they learn to survive without food.
Fierce, determined Kate, wants her kids to have an education. She makes the rule they must read a page of the Bible and a page of Shakespeare each night before they go to bed, and she arranges to do extra work as a janitor for piano lessons from two old women living downstairs. She and the kids save a few coins each week in a tin can bank nailed to the floor in the closet, in the hope that one day they might buy a plot of land – the dream of all immigrants. Their spirit is indefatigable.

The book moves through decades as Francie and Neely grow up, describing oftentimes incredible minutiae of life in Brooklyn in the early 1900s. As a child – and still today – I find that sort of historical info fascinating. This book is a real vehicle to another era, a literary time machine. Smith does an impeccable job with her historical detail.
Francie starts work at a factory to earn much-needed money to help out at home, and Kate works harder than ever to feed and house them. The story is about the evolution of a family from the point of view of the daughter. It follows the family fortunes and nearly all the scenes involve scenes we can all relate to, the competitive goodnatured sibling fighting between Francie and Neely, the sisterly chats between Katie and her sisters Sissy and Evy, and then as Francie grows older, the female talks about life with her mother and aunts. It’s about the bitter, remorseless, soul-destroying realities of life and simultaneously how to face obstacles and overcome them with the right attitude, and an imaginative positive approach. A sometimes startling, heartwarming, sometimes uplifting, haunting family saga. I loved it and still do. You know a book is great when you fill it with post-it flags while you are reading it.

Betty Smith was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 15, 1896, to German immigrant parents. She grew up poor in Williamsburg, the same era as the main character of her first novel, and she used her life as material. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was published in 1943 to great acclaim and has become an American Classic. It proved so popular upon release that it went into a second printing before the official publication date. Throughout her life, Smith worked as a dramatist. During her career, she earned many awards including the Rockefeller Fellowship and the Dramatists Guild Fellowship for her work in drama. Her other novels include Tomorrow Will Be Better (1947), Maggie-Now (1958), and Joy in the Morning (1963).
My rating is four and a half stars

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Yvette Carol
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The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. Oh, the last time how you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn’t held it tighter when you had it every day. ~ Francie ~ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
“I can’t explain the emotional reaction that took place in this dead heart of mine… A surge of confidence has swept through me, and I feel that maybe a fellow has a fighting chance in this world after all.” ~ One Marine wrote to Smith, after the release of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as an Armed Services Edition, in paperback.

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~ A Book Review: Starcross, Philip Reeve ~

I have finished reading my fourth novel for 2024, Starcross, by Philip Reeve. Starcross, or The Coming of the Moobs! or Our Adventures in the Fourth Dimension! is a middle grade novel released by Reeve in October 2007. When I picked it up in a secondhand bookstore, I did not realize it was book number two of the Larklight trilogy. If I had realized it sat squarely between Larklight and Mothstorm, I might not have bought Starcross, but I’m glad I didn’t find out. I might have missed out on a fun read.
I was immediately drawn by the size, the sturdy hardback cover, the fonts – the whole steampunk look – the heft and weight of the sturdy little doorstopper. The binding and presentation of this series is to die for. I thought if only I could put my books together this well. The hardcover feels velvety. The inside covers are Victorian newspaper advertisements. It’s all in the details. Chapters start with individual posters, and the chapters are filled with glorious illustrations or “illuminations” by the talented David Wyatt. The book is so well-groomed, a thing of beauty.

Despite the awesome size of the hardback, Starcross is a relatively short read. I inhaled it in three breathless sittings. From the opening page, I warmed to the content because of the humour. The subtitle on the front page tells us that Starcross is ‘A Stirring Tale of British Vim upon the Seas of Space and Time!’ I thought, okay, let’s go! I’ve always had a fondness for tongue-in-cheek children’s writing when done in a certain way, as in the books by Anthony Horowitz, or when it is used subtly and mischievously in the way of the Moomin books by Tove Jansson. I seldom achieve that sort of gentle humour in my stories – because it’s hard to write. It is something I aspire to use confidently one day when I’m a grownup. But in Starcross, Reeve does it beautifully. We had only read his Mortal Engines quartet previously, and I didn’t know he was capable of producing lighthearted younger fiction like this. It’s a joy. What a revelation. He should do more of these.
The Larklight series is a bit of a tricky genre to get your head around at first – combining the 1850s-era British Empire with space travel to the planets – it took me a moment to get in stride with reading steam-punk. Or at least, Reeve’s version of it. But, it was well worth the effort because it’s a new world in there.

In Starcross, the second book in the series, Arthur (Art) Mumby, and his sister Myrtle are invited to the Starcross hotel on an asteroid. While staying at Starcross, the beach appears and disappears overnight. Art, Emily, and Arthur’s mother suspect the hotel was constructed on top of a piece of Mars, which moves back and forth through a hole in the fabric of time. Jack Havock, turned British secret agent, appears on the scene as an Indian prince. Then, they meet the ruthless French Delphine, a secret agent searching for her grandfather’s shipwreck, with manic aspirations to style an American republic.
Then, people start disappearing. Strange dark beings haunt the grounds of the hotel. Art and the others are attacked by the Moobs, an alien race able to shapeshift into inanimate objects. Disguised as black top hats, the Moobs are busy taking control. It sometimes gets scary amid asteroid-strewn seas, until they get help from one of the Moobs!
Starcross is a cracking good read and funny. Any kid would love it.

As a fantasy writer, I understand the difficulties of world-building. The world created in Larklight is undeniable. To all you writers out there, the Larklight series is world-building 101, a master class. Reeve renders the solar system in a whole new light, giving each planet new fantastical histories, detailing the lives of the alien races. I was stunned and amazed, to be honest.
Born in Brighton, Philip Reeve is a popular British kids’ author. His Mortal Engines quartet has made him a household name. He’s also well known for illustrating the Horrible Histories, Murderous Maths, and Dead Famous series. Reeve started working in a bookstore, then began illustrating, and has since provided cartoons for around forty children’s books. He published Larklight in 2006 and Starcross came out in 2007.
My rating is three stars

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Yvette Carol
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The Grand Hotel at Starcross sleeps peacefully tonight beneath a sky dusty with stars. ~ opening line of Starcross, Philip Reeve

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~ A Book Review: The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon ~

I have finished reading my third novel for 2024, The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. This was one of those books that I picked up in a secondhand bookstore purely for the title. It immediately set the question in my mind – what is the shadow of the wind? What does it mean? I started reading it not knowing what to expect as I hadn’t read the blurb or first page. The expectation was that it was going to be mystical or fantasy in some fashion, but it was not. Murder mystery, thriller, historical drama, what other words can I throw at it? A multi-point of view, suspenseful, intellectual workout. I had my work cut out for me staying on top of the many story threads, the extensive cast of names, and how everyone was connected. The story is of a young boy obsessively pursuing the backstory of the author of a rare book entrusted to his care, The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax. Yes, confusing isn’t it. The shadowy murky figure of Carax haunted the entire novel, weaving in and out of the narrative as witnessed by all the players in the tragic story. It’s one of those books that makes you shake your head, saying, how did the author get his head around this storyline? It is almost too complex – spanning generations and families – we see one central drama from every side. At first, I was perplexed, however, the writing was excellent – I kept extending Zafon the benefit of the doubt and kept reading. The many threads began to weave a tapestry before my eyes. So intricate and complicated was it that by the end of the book, I was beginning to suspect Julian Carax was a real person, and it had to be based on a real story. But it wasn’t. It was just the author, Zafon, conjuring a great story out of the ether and then turning it inside out to make up a cool mystery. Huzzah!

The critics stood divided about The Shadow of the Wind when Zafon published La Sombra del Viento in 2001. The novel went on to win numerous international awards. But the funny thing for me was the timing of reading it. I had just come home from a Fabulatores meeting. The lovely ladies in my writing group had pointed out a few areas of dreaded ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’ in my chapter. Then, later on at home, when I chose a book to read over supper, I began reading The Shadow of the Wind, and I realized the book is 90% tell and 10% show. Therefore, I assume it must be a modern writing convention, the rule of “show don’t tell”. In years gone past, authors fluidly moved back and forth between using both for their fiction. I like old-fashioned storytelling like this. You feel as if you are transported somewhere else and it is a lovely feeling.
I think Carlos Ruiz Zafón does this sort of storytelling so well. He was a Spanish novelist who was born in Barcelona on September 25, 1964. He died June 19, 2020 in Los Ángeles. He had lived in the United States since 1994, working as a scriptwriter and novelist. His books have been published in more than 40 countries and have been translated into more than 30 languages.

The Shadow of the Wind is the first book in The Cemetery of Forgotten Books quartet, although it is perfect as a stand-alone novel. The story is set in Barcelona, in 1945. The main character Daniel Sempere wakes on his eleventh birthday. He cannot remember his mother’s face anymore. To raise his spirits, Daniel’s father takes him to the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, to choose a book he must look after. Daniel chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax, and the mystery around Julian and his book begins. A slow unraveling then begins about Julian’s life and whereabouts in Barcelona and stretches from post-civil war era Spain through the 40s and 50s to the sixties. A multi-tier, many-faceted story within a coming-of-age story, told in an old-fashioned entertaining way as if a grandparent were telling a family legend to a grandchild. Charming.
My rating is three stars

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Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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“Once, in my father’s bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later — no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget — we will return.” ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

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~ A Book Review: The Golden Day, Ursula Dubosarsky ~

I have finished reading my second novel for 2024, The Golden Day, by Ursula Dubosarsky. This book also came as a recommendation from author and teacher, Kate de Goldi. We did a writing workshop with Kate called Middle Fiction on 28 August 2022. She opened the session with a reading, something she is wont to do, (Kate is a superb reader), and she chose the first pages of The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky. It is 1967, and a Sydney classroom of little girls is held in thrall by their teacher, the young Miss Renshaw, who shares from the newspaper stories of death. “The year began with the hanging of one man, and ended with the drowning of another.” The book’s thrall ensnared me, too. So, I was thrilled to find a copy in a secondhand bookstore over Christmas.

One time, when asked what makes a good story, Kate de Goldi answered, “Layered, textured (stories) that hold the reader – I’d say study Ursula Dubosarsky, and you’ll find out all you need to know.” And that was not the first time Kate had recommended her, either. She has done so in every course I’ve done with her.
What did I think of The Golden Day? Put it this way, what this novel might lack in size, it gains in gravitas. It punches well above its weight. The story matter itself is dense. The Golden Day is set at a junior girls’ school in Australia with the backdrop of the Vietnam War. The story begins with Miss Renshaw taking her eleven pupils to the park. The completely awkward and inappropriate flirtation between Miss Renshaw and Morgan, the poet and conscientious objector who tends the grounds of the Ena Thompson Memorial Gardens, plays out before the innocent girls and is processed through their guileless gaze. It’s a relatively simple story told in a complex way.

Then comes the pivotal scene, when ensconced back into the classroom – brilliantly set at the top of the school, up four flights of stairs – Miss Renshaw speaks to the girls about their excursion to see Morgan. After a pink-cheeked reference to the event, the until-then-innocent, beloved, untouchable teacher takes a step over to the dark side when she asks her students to keep their meeting with Morgan their little secret. It was just between herself and the girls, no one else needed to know.
A tragedy begins to unfold before our eyes. The teacher and students set out again for the Ena Thompson Memorial Gardens. They meet Morgan, who has offered to guide them to the caves of Aboriginal cave drawings at the beach. Eleven girls enter the cave with Morgan and Miss Renshaw, but only eleven girls and Morgan return. What happened to their teacher? We do not see the actual events. We bear witness to the events as they are seen through the child’s lens, full of myopic misinterpretation and lack of experience.
What follows is Dubosarsky’s masterful spinning out of this thread of the girls’ angst and emotional suffering following this horrific event. The teachers, the parents, the police, and all the adults surrounding this class question the girls again and again. What happened that day in the caves? What happened to Miss Renshaw? But the children keep the pact they made with their teacher; they don’t tell the adults a single thing about their secret with Miss Renshaw. It is acute, intense storytelling. From the word choices to the exquisitely compact descriptions, and the students’ matching ginghams and straw hats, every item is placed ‘just so’ to gain maximum impact. It’s stellar penmanship and a rewarding, if sometimes frustrating, read.

Ursula Dubosarsky has won multiple awards for her children’s and young adults’ books. In her author’s note, she says the seed for ‘The Golden Day’ was planted by a Charles Blackman painting called ‘Floating Schoolgirl.’ But it was also ‘inspired by real-life stories: Lennie Lawson, the painter and killer who murdered a Moss Vale schoolgirl in 1962; Juanita Nielsen who went missing from Kings Cross in 1975; and the murder of Samantha Knight in 1986.’
These dark underpinnings of the novel weave through the text and seep off it like disease-bearing vapours. I’m not sure I’d say I enjoyed reading it. Nevertheless, I inhaled The Golden Day practically in one sitting because it felt like taking a writing lesson from someone who excels at the craft. I was like, teach me, Yoda. 🙂
An affecting short read.
My rating is four stars

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Yvette Carol
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“The little girls watch, wonder, respond, change, and grow — and then their childhood is gone, forever. This element of the story, I suppose, is at least partly autobiographical. But, as I say — all of our teachers come home safe and sound in the end.” ~ Ursula Dubosarsky

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~ A Book Review: Sydney Bridge Upside Down, David Ballantyne ~

In 2020, I challenged myself to get back into reading. That year, I went from reading maybe one book a year to completing twelve novels. In 2021, I read eighteen. So far, that has been my peak. The following year, I fell back to thirteen. And in 2023, I managed to finish seventeen. I nearly reached my goal of beating the 2021 total! I may never reach the dizzy heights of my eldest sister, Gi, who reads one book per week, but if I can read more than 18 in 2024, I will be happy.

I have already finished reading my first novel for 2024, Sydney Bridge Upside Down, by David Ballantyne. What a doozy! Holy moly, I shook in my boots thinking about attempting to review this book. Let me backtrack first. My writing group, the Fabulatores, and I attended the local Writers Festival in May last year. One of the lectures was ‘The Books That Made Me,’ in which five authors detailed the novels that had shaped them as writers. Kate de Goldi (my hero!) said, “My real awakening was at Uni when I discovered New Zealand literature. Sydney Bridge Upside Down is kind of unsung. It’s a foundational text of Pakeha (white) New Zealand. Ballantyne was looking at the deprivation of colonization. His idea was the killing of adults is at the heart of our culture.” Wowzas! I thought that was quite the recommendation. But the fact Kate said she read this book every five years stayed in my mind. When I took the Fabulatores to explore the secondhand bookstore last year, The Hard to Find, what did I see on the shelf but this same book? So I bought it then, and in December, I started reading.
Harry Baird is our unreliable/unpredictable narrator/protagonist. The story is set in a fictional country town in New Zealand, Calliope Bay, where Harry, his brother Cal, and their mates get up to mischief during the school holidays while Dad’s at work and Mum is supposedly recuperating in the city. The whole tone changes with the arrival of Cousin Caroline. A beautiful girl, she immediately joins the boys in their “running game” (tearing about the house naked). Harry slowly becomes obsessed with her. His ongoing narration degenerates into fierce jealousy whenever other males pay her too much attention. Meanwhile, the ever-present onlooker, old Sam Phelps is always somewhere nearby with his decrepit nag, Sydney Bridge Upside Down, watching them.

As I read on (often frowning), Harry is rendered more and more unlikeable. He’s constantly “bopping” Cal and the other kids, pushing them around. While constantly behaving badly, Harry always excuses himself to the point I spent the first half of the book actively hating him. Normally, I avoid unreliable narrators, especially dark ones. But I couldn’t stop reading. I was annoyed with Harry so much he drove me crazy. I felt as if Ballantyne was playing with me, making me feel this and then the opposite, never letting me off the hook. I half resented yet admired the author for being so clever.

Then, the characters start dying. Who killed them? In his honest first-person monologue, Harry becomes unhinged, fleeing from shadows and his persecuting thoughts. He mentions that he has nightmares and that Cal tells him he wakes up screaming every night. Why? His building terror and sense of persecution even turn his attention away from Caroline. He barely notices when she falls in love and starts courting a local guy. Harry is falling apart. Why? By this stage in the narrative, I felt sorry for him. The story ends abruptly with all the story’s threads “up in the air.” Ballantyne felt no need to provide the answers – reminding me of the author Pip Williams (at the same festival), saying, “What I don’t aim to do is answer questions, but pose them.”

Sydney Bridge Upside Down was published in 1968 and was the last novel (of twelve) released by Ballantyne. He was a humble Maori author and newspaperman, born in 1924, who became chief lead writer for the Auckland Star. These days, Sydney Bridge Upside Down is considered a classic New Zealand Young Adult literature masterpiece. The novel has been described variously as “gothic anti-romance,” “a ruined pastoral thriller,” and “slaughterhouse fiction.” It’s all those things and more – it’s also a disturbing noir mystery, stream-of-consciousness monologue, and unutterably confronting. I found it a chilling read. Creepy, repulsive, and strange. Whew. I’m glad I’ve finished reading this story. But when I wonder, will it let me go?
My rating is three and a half stars

Talk to you later.
Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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“Misunderstandings are fruitful and interesting.” ~ Kate de Goldi

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~ A Book Review: The Secret of the Night Train, Sylvia Bishop ~

I have finished reading my seventeenth novel for 2023, The Secret of the Night Train, by Sylvia Bishop. Yes, I bought the book because of the title. Whenever I browse through a secondhand bookshop, I spend most of my time in the children’s section. We children writers know it’s all about the title, and we jive and jamb trying to find the best, hookiest, have-to-read-it titles for our books. Sylvia Bishop won the prize for best title (surely) for 2018. I couldn’t not buy it.
Happily, the book lived up to its exciting title. The story starts in December, during the school holiday. Our French protagonist, the young Maximilienne, or Max for short, is taking a train from her home in Paris to visit her Great Aunt Elodie accompanied by a “humming nun.” A promising start, you might say.

At this point the narrator says we must go back to the beginning when Aunt Elodie called. At the start, it is established that Max has an overly boring life, where her family is happy doing the same thing every day. But Max longs for more. The little slice of sky wasn’t bothered. A bird wheeled overhead and then went off somewhere else without her. Max has learned to occupy her “big brain” by taking notes on the daily movements of her family in detail, in the attic alone upstairs. She fills notebooks with her observations. Nevertheless, poor Max seems doomed to die of boredom when out of the blue, Great Aunt Elodie rings and asks if one of the children will visit her during the holiday break. Max is the only one who volunteers.
She leaves Paris for Istanbul by train accompanied by the endearingly eccentric Sister Marguerite, who travels with her knitting and a small houseplant. What starts as a pretty cool trip already – Paris to Istanbul – gets even cooler when it turns into a mystery. The train is delayed because of a jewel theft. When the police search the train, their methods are so inept, Max wonders if she could not do a better job of finding the thief. She whips out her trusty notebook and starts taking notes (naturally) on the various fascinating characters on the train. As they travel from Paris to Munich to Budapest to Bucharest to Istanbul, through the exotic sights and sounds of each place, Max investigates the other passengers and gets drawn deeper into the mystery. She takes hair-raising risks, which had me chewing my fingernails to the nub, as she adds to her notes and clues. Of course, the other passengers all seemed guilty, and I thought I’d figured out the thief a few times only to be proven wrong. I liked that! Yes, please, surprise us.

What’s not to love? A well-plotted mystery that keeps us guessing, a feisty young heroine who uses her head – her skills of observation (and outright snooping!) – to solve the case. The twists were great, and the red-herrings hooked me in the wrong direction as they’re supposed to do. Excellent. Well done, Sylvia Bishop.
As a fellow writer for the middle fiction market, I appreciated the leaps of faith the author took with her tongue-in-cheek description. It’s like an inside joke between the reader and the author. Max skidded-slid-stumbled home from school to find her mother on the phone. She was saying, “Mm-hmm, of course,” with her voice, and YOU ARE AN UNBEARABLE STRAIN ON MY SAINTLY PATIENCE with her eyes.
I thought the writing style was brave and unique. So I read on.

Another thing that impressed me: was Bishop’s way of expressing the human experience in the ordinary everyday conflict of emotions we experience when young. For instance, Max had been earnestly praying to be allowed to go on the train trip, and once permission was given she had been looking forward to leaving as soon as possible. Then. Suddenly, she was afraid to leave. It was a feeling without words or shape, but it covered her all over, like being soaked in cold water. So good. I thought Bishop did an excellent job of keeping us connected with the heroine, in a real way. Therefore, we see ourselves.
Sylvia Bishop was born in England and spent her childhood reading and writing stories. At university, Bishop studied politics and worked in social science research. She also found improvised comedy at university, a love which continues today, as one half of the improvised comedy duo the Peablossom Cabaret. Bishop’s first book, Erica’s Elephant, was published by Scholastic in 2016, The Bookshop Girl was published in April 2017. A year later, Sylvia released her third novel, The Secret of the Night Train.
My rating two and a half stars

Talk to you later.
Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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“The rich sunset makes the most sterile landscape enchanting.” – Eliza Cook

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~ A Book Review: White Mughals, William Dalrymple ~

I have finished reading my sixteenth novel for 2023, White Mughals, by William Dalrymple. With certain authors, I will snatch up their titles whenever I see them in secondhand bookstores and markets as if someone were about to take them from me. William Dalrymple is one such author. I read From the Holy Mountain, A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium and was transfixed, then saw him interviewed live at a local literary festival, which confirmed my status as a firm fan. The historian has a sumptuously genius way with words.

White Mughals is a rambling biography of East India Company official James Achilles Kirkpatrick, who was the British Resident at the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad. It’s a detailed account of the British presence in India from about 1798-1806. Supposedly, the story is a “romance” between James Achilles Kirkpatrick and Kahir un-Nissa, in which Dalrymple is keen to prove that the English of the eighteenth century wholly embraced Indian culture in every way. White Mughals is a book about the court intrigues and politics during the time of Kirkpatrick and other notables at that time and the mostly nefarious role played by the East India Company.
Romantics, be warned; the “romance” is not a romance. From those accounts still available, it seems the marriage between the pair was arranged by family members of the girl, Khair un-Nissa. But as none of her letters or writings survive, we’ll never know her side of the story. The fact that Kirkpatrick was 35 and Khair was 13 when they met gave their “romance” the “ick” factor for me. The novel renders a complicated account of the ultimately tragic relationship between the ill-fated pair, nevertheless, it plays a minor part in a much larger story. Dalrymple concentrates on that part of the world in that era, notably the rise and then sad fall of relations between the English representatives working for the East India Company and the Indian people. From the 18th century onward, high-ranking East India Company officials, most notably Lord Wellesley, the Governor General from 1798-1803, led the charge to wring as much wealth out of India as they could. Their greed knew no bounds.

I admire the way Dalrymple adroitly brings historical periods to life. In White Mughals, he did a thorough job of “taking me there.” He has a sincere talent for description evoking scenes of lavish splendour. “Some 3,000 elephants, as well as some 50,000 horses and load-bearing camels, with stalls selling fresh and dried fruit, clothes and fine woolen pashmina shawls: as far as the eye can see, immense crowds appear, of buyers and sellers, riders and dancers, glorious tents and mountainous elephants, and with tall buildings erected continuously on either side from the Musi River to the foot of Koh-e Sharif…”
But what I did not admire in this book is the author’s propensity for footnotes. White Mughals is dense with reference material, weighed down by its own importance. On some pages, the footnotes equalled or dwarfed the content. Partway through the reading of this epic, I grew twitchy. I would turn each page, and my eyes would flick to the bottom of the page, checking to see how many notes I’d need to read. They numbered close to a thousand! Also, Dalrymple could not tell the story in a straight line, going down every side street, telling us asides about cultural festivals and any other historical characters or facts slightly related. I felt like a student of history sitting to read each day. It would seem Dalrymple wanted to use all the information he spent six years of his life in England and his beloved India researching – I get it – but a little less referencing might have made it easier to read.

William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple was born in Scotland on 20 March 1965). He is a historian, art historian, broadcaster, photographer, and critic. Awarded as Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2023, Dalrymple is married with three children. He is one of the co-founders and co-directors of the world’s most well-attended writers’ festival, the annual Jaipur Literature Festival.
In conclusion, White Mughals is a tad stodgy, well-researched tragedy, an earnest account of perhaps a little-known corner of history. It was intriguing for the latter reason, but a book I could not stomach reading again. Would it put me off reading Dalrymple? No. That said, it will make me less grabby with his books in future. I think that’s probably a good thing.
My rating: Two stars (for all the footnotes)

Talk to you later.
Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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“The rich sunset makes the most sterile landscape enchanting.” – Eliza Cook

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