Tag Archives: #netgalley

You, Me And The Movies by Fiona Collins

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Sweet, frothy and heartbreaking all at the same time, You, Me And The Movies shows us the romance between film studies lecturer Mac Bartley-Thomas and student Arden as it unfolded decades earlier, showing us how it shaped their lives for years afterwards.  It’s unusual because while you’re busy following their romance, shown in flashback, at the same time you’re also rooting for a very different love story. 

It’s hard to say much more about the plot without giving it all away, but part of its charm was the way the story used famous films to bring Arden and Mac’s relationship vividly to life.  Bags of nostalgia, too, for what was, in a way, a more innocent, hopeful time.  I want to be clear, though, this isn’t only a romance, although there’d be nothing wrong with it if it were, this is a book which is as much about finding yourself and the value of friendship as it is about a love story. And, it was refreshing to read something which avoided the usual boy meets girl tropes.

Beautifully written, really vivid characters and setting. Oh, and don’t worry, you don’t need to have watched all the films in question in order to enjoy the book.  It kept me going through several train rides, drove me to fish about in my handbag for a tissue at one point, and has made me want to watch Pretty Woman all over again.

The Long Call, by Ann Cleeves

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Creating a character on which to build a potential series of books is no mean feat, and Ann Cleeves has form – once with Vera Stanhope and again with Shetland’s Jimmy Perez. But both of those series are as much about the landscape and location as they are their lead character, so I was interested to see how she would approach her new series and detective, featuring Detective Inspector Matthew Venn, set in North Devon. It’s an area that I have visited on a couple of occasions but don’t know well, and I was able to see it through her eyes, ‘the special light you only find close to the sea’.

One of the things I particularly liked about this first book in the series was the leading role given to people with learning disabilities (and their families), giving a wonderful window into a world that few of us understand.  As someone whose brother faces similar challenges, to have portrayals that go beyond the cliché of learning disability was wonderful. It made such a refreshing change to have proper, complex motives and choices attributed to people who are so often lumped together as ‘different’ and unable to rationalise the decisions they’ve made.

The story itself was absorbing, and it’s easy to see how the series could unfold. It was one of those books you read more slowly at the end than at the beginning, because although you really want to know what happens, you also don’t want it to end.  Can’t wait for the next one.

The Perfect Wife, by JP Delaney

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Can I just say, this book was not at all what I was expecting from the blurb, and it was all the better for it. A truly original premise, it tells the story of Abbie Cullen, wife to tech entrepreneur Tim, who wakes up after an accident to discover she’s an artificial intelligence, constructed from the memories of the ‘real’ Abbie years after her actual death.  So far, so clever, but this is much more than a smart idea. Abbie feels real to the reader, right from the opening sentence – “You’re having that dream again,” and you are immediately plunged into her reality.

At first, you believe the story’s about a man, desperate with grief, who creates an AI replacement for the wife he couldn’t bear to lose, with all the societal challenges this brings, but pretty quickly things take a darker turn. This really was the definition of a page turner for me, the pace and pressure ratcheting up the further into the book you get. This could so easily have become gimmicky and too much about the technology, but it’s the emotional connections and experiences which really drive the plot.

Make sure you put a good layer of suncream on before you open this book, because if you’re not careful you’ll get sunburned lying on your lounger, so distracted by what you’re reading that you forget to turn over.

The American Agent, by Jacqueline Winspear

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This is the latest in the Maisie Dobbs series, which follows the eponymous heroine through some pretty pivotal decades – pre WW1 and now into WW2, a time of enormous upheaval and social change. She’s an interesting character because she defies a lot of the conventions of the time, but is more nuanced than simply being a woman who takes on the role that a man might play in an investigation.  The thing about the Maisie Dobbs books is that they could so easily tip into lazy stereotyping and for me, manage to avoid that through vivid depiction of Maisie’s interior life. They are always meticulously researched and thick with period detail, worn lightly throughout.

In The American Agent, Maisie’s briefed to look into the death of a young American journalist, at the height of the Blitz. It takes in the work of the pioneering burns unit led by Sir Archibald McIndoe, the Spanish Civil War, female friendship and what it really means to be a mother, along with a hint of romance and a thoroughly satisfying ending.  This for me is the ideal Sunday afternoon book, to be read lying on the sofa to the accompaniment of rain sliding down the windowpanes. It absorbs your attention without being overwhelming, and at the end, you’re left with a sense that everything in the world has assumed its right place.

Swallowtail Summer, By Erica James

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This is the perfect book to read while lazing on a sun lounger or sitting quietly in a shady garden with a long, cold drink. It’s the story of a group of friends and their adult children who spend their summers at Liston End, a huge house set right on the water’s edge in the Norfolk Broads. Pretty early on, we learn that Alastair, the owner of the house, back from a lengthy sojourn abroad after the death of his wife, is about to unveil a decision that will affect the entire group. I won’t spoil the story by telling you what it is, suffice to say the course of action he decides to pursue results in all sorts of secrets coming to light.

There were a number of aspects of this story that I particularly liked. First of all, it portrayed complex, interlinked, multi-generational relationships in a way that was very true to life. It made a pleasant change to be following the love-lives of people in their sixties, whilst at the same time seeing similar threads being pulled through the lives and relationships of their children. This makes it all sound very worthy, and probably a bit dull, but it really wasn’t like that at all!

I felt as though I could see Liston End, the descriptions of life by the river and of the house itself brought the place vividly to life. And I loved the characters too, there were lots of sub-plots involving each of them which kept me riveted, wanting to know what happened next to each of them. I read this book over several sittings, swept along with the story and the people and felt extremely satisfied by the ending – something that isn’t always the case with a summer read, if you know what I mean.

If you’re looking for an absorbing, gentle read, with lots of twists and turns, sprinkled with a bit of escapism, then this is definitely one for you.