The Tuscan Contessa by Dinah Jefferies

                                              

Ebook:  368 pages      

Genre: Historical Fiction                                           

Publisher:  Penguin 2020

Source: My Kindle

First Sentences: In the small piazza overlooked by shuttered windows, balconies and terracotta roofs, the heat hangs heavily, the air smells of smoke and the inhabitants are either asleep or hiding.

Review Quote: 'A stunning story of love and loyalty in wartime' Rachel Hore 

Setting: Tuscany, Italy

My Opinion: Dinah Jefferies is a favourite author of mine because she transports me to beautiful locations that come alive with her vivid descriptions. I have been a fan since her debut novel The Separation was published in 2014.

‘The Tuscan Contessa’ is set in my beloved Italy during the latter years of WWII. The descriptive narrative transports one to the hill top villages between Rome and Florence during the horrendous period of the country’s occupation by the Germans.  With the storyline weaving together historical fact and fiction the reader learns how the two main female characters Sofia de Corsi and Maxine are involved with the allied resistance movement. Suffering so much sacrifice and sadness these women are so brave and under extreme pressure, during this ugly period of Italys history.

Once again Dinah Jefferies has written a novel I throughly enjoyed and can recommend to anyone that enjoys WWII fiction.

Links to Previous Reviews:  The Separation.  The Missing Sister. The Sapphire Widow.

Daughters of War #1

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

In 1940s Tuscany, Contessa Sofia de' Corsi's peaceful home in a medieval villa among the olive groves has been upturned by the arrival of German soldiers. She is desperate to help her friends in the village fight back in any way she can, all while keeping her efforts secret from her husband Lorenzo, who fears for their safety. When Maxine, a no-nonsense Italian-American, arrives in Tuscany to help the resistance, the two women forge an uneasy alliance. Before long they find themselves entangled in a dangerous game with the Nazis, each trying to save the ones they love...

Author Profile:                

                                                  

                                                        Courtesy of Twitter Profile

Biography in her own words from her website

I was born in Malaysia but moved to the UK at the age of nine, going on to study fashion design, work in Tuscany as an au pair for an Italian countess, and live with a rock band in a commune in Suffolk.

A family tragedy changed everything, and I draw on the experience of loss in my writing, infusing love, loss, and danger with the seductive escapism of my locations. The sense of place, of history and of human nature is a heady mix in the novels.

Published in 29 languages in over 30 countries, I am currently writing an epic series for my new publisher Harper Collins (my 8th, 9th, and 10th novels) starting with Daughters of War set in 1944 in France (Sept  2021). I’ve always loved Italy but spent some years living in a tiny 16th Century village in Northern Andalusia, Spain. Now I’m delighted to have settled close to my family in the South West of England along with my husband and two enormous and very lovely Maine Coon cats.

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Goodreads Author Profile  Twitter Profile  Dinah Jefferies - Official Website

Amazon Author Page

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

 

                                      

Paperback:  291 pages      

Genre: Literary Fiction                                           

Publisher: Picador 2020

Source: Tywyn Public Library

First Sentences: Still hours of dark to go when I left the house the morning. I cycled through reeking Dublin streets that were slick with rain.

Favourite Quote: “The human race settles on terms with every plague in the end, the doctor told her. Or a stalemate, at the least. We somehow muddle along, sharing the earth with each new form of life.” 

Review Quote: The Pull of the Stars has a fever dream-like quality . . . about as moving and absorbing as it gets ― Evening Standard

Literary Awards: Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee (2020), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2020), The Miramichi Reader's The Very Best Book Awards Nominee for Best Novel (longlist) (2021), RUSA CODES Reading List Nominee for Historical Fiction (2021)

Main Characters: Julia Power, Bridie Sweeney, Kathleen Lynn,

Setting: Dublin 1918

My Opinion: Emma Donoghue writes stories that although likely to upset me keep me riveted to the page. This time ‘The Pull of the Stars’ is a thought provoking read set in a Pandemic World. Not the most recent one, Covid 19, but one over one hundred years ago during WWI, ‘The Great Flu’. The similarities  are obvious but coincidental as the author completed writing this in 2018, before any of us realised what was heading our way.

The horrors of childbirth, mother and baby homes, the plight of orphans and a pandemic set in war torn Dublin in 1918. The story takes place over just three days as Nurse Power and her colleagues work, with everything against them. The setting is mainly in a small isolation ward, in the Maternity Unit of a Dublin Hospital, where expectant mothers are battling the flu. The author explains in notes at the end of the novel that although the novel is fiction it is ‘fiction pinned together with facts’ The protagonists are all fictional with the exception of Dr Kathleen Lynn, an actual activist within Sinn Fein.

In conclusion this is a very compelling and descriptive read, at times rather sickening, maybe too much so for some. You have been warned, otherwise highly recommended.

Links to Previous Reviews:  Room   The Wonder

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

Dublin, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the great flu. A small world of work, risk, death and unlooked-for love, by the bestselling author of The Wonder and Room. 

In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. 

In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, caregivers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work. 

In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.

Author Profile:

                                           
                                                              © Una Roulston 2021. 

Born in Dublin, Ireland, in October 1969, she is the youngest of eight children of Frances and Denis Donoghue (the literary critic). She attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin, apart from one eye-opening year in New York at the age of ten. In 1990 she earned a first-class honours BA in English and French from University College Dublin (unfortunately, without learning to actually speak French). She moved to England, and in 1997 received her PhD (on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction) from the University of Cambridge. From the age of 23, she has earned her living as a writer. After years of commuting between England, Ireland, and Canada, in 1998 she settled in London, Ontario, where she lives with Chris Roulston and their son Finn and daughter Una.


Photograph, Trailer and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.

Emma Donoghue - Official Website   Twitter Profile.   Facebook Profile

The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

 

                                         

Paperback:  465 pages      

Genre: Psychological Thriller                                             

Publisher: Century, Penguin, Random House 2021

Source: Tywyn Public Library

First Sentences: The baby is starting to grumble. Kim sits still in her chairing holds her breath. It's taken her all night to get him to sleep.

Favourite Quote:“It’s clearly not a topic he wants to give any oxygen to.” 

Review Quote: 'Gripping and satisfying, this had me in tears at the end.'  Guardian

Literary Awards:

Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Mystery & Thriller (2021)

Main Characters: Tallulah Murray, Sophie Beck and Scarlett Jacques

Setting:  England

My Opinion: Yesterday was a curl up on the sofa kind of day for me and I needed to have a good book to lose myself in. ‘The Night She Disappeared’ was a good choice, with a few breaks for food and fresh air I devoured this in a day.  Lisa Jewell is an author whose work I first read in 2005, then again in 2014 and now four titles since 2019. I think I can now say I am a regular reader and fan of her writing. Took me long enough but now I am thoroughly enjoying her psychological thrillers.

Imagine someone you love walks out of the door one evening and just vanishes, a heart wrenching scenario. Tallulah, one of the three main female protagonists is the young woman that has disappeared along with her boyfriend, also father to her child. She has been missing for over a year when Sophie a mystery writer and newcomer to the area becomes fascinated with the story of the young couples disappearance. As new information surfaces Sophie gets drawn into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the case.

So much more than a missing persons mystery as within the storyline the author has woven the subject of coercive control by both men and women. An emotive subject which added to the tension of this gripping read. If you enjoy a well written psychological thriller with plenty of atmosphere, unpleasant characters and creepy scenarios, then this is definitely, one for you.  

Links to Previous Reviews:  Then She Was Gone  Watching You  The House We Grew Up In. The Family Upstairs

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

2017: 19 year old Tallulah is going out on a date, leaving her baby with her mother, Kim.

Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits.

The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah's friends who tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a party at a house in the nearby woods called Dark Place.

She never returns.

2019: Sophie is walking in the woods near the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started work as a head-teacher when she sees a note fixed to a tree.

'DIG HERE' . . .

A cold case, an abandoned mansion, family trauma and dark secrets lie at the heart of Lisa Jewell's remarkable new novel.

Author Profile:

Lisa Jewell is an internationally bestselling author of successful  novels, including, Then She Was Gone, I Found You, The Girls in the Garden, and The House We Grew Up In. Her debut novel in 1998 Ralph’s Party, was an instant bestseller. In total, her novels have sold over 2 million copies across the English speaking world. Her work has also been translated into sixteen languages. Lisa lives in London with her husband and their two daughters.

For more biographical information check out her Goodreads Profile


Photograph, Trailer and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.

Amazon Author Page    Lisa Jewell - Official Facebook Page     Wikipedia - Lisa Jewell

Twitter Profile    Goodreads Author Profile

Mum and Dad by Joanna Trollope

 

                                      

Hardback: 325 pages

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Publisher: Macmillan 2020

Source:  Tywyn Library

First Sentence: This was Monica's favourite time of day, these early mornings - dawns, really, and surprisingly dark, even in southern Spain - when nobody expect the village cockerels appeared to be up.

Setting: Spain and England

Review Quote: Trollope writes about family relationships with intelligence and clear-eyed sympathy ― The Times

My Opinion:  I am a long time fan of Joanna Trollope as I have been reading her novels since her first 'The Choir' was published in 1989 and have always found her novels to be light and entertaining.  'Aga Sagas' used to be the popular term for her style of writing, although it is not heard much nowadays, it does still seem to describe her writing about contemporary relationships.

It is a family crisis that draws the characters together in ‘Mum and Dad’. Although the episode forms the backbone of the novel it is actually the relationships between the protagonists that drives the story. Complex family relationships and challenges face a family in a quandary as they all struggle to settle their differences.

The author is the original ‘Queen ‘ of exploring the complications of family relationships in her novels, of which ‘Mum and Dad ‘ is the twenty-second.  A very prolific writer who is well worth reading for a good story that is well told.

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads: 

"What a mess, she thought now . . . what a bloody, unholy mess the whole family has got itself into." 

It’s been 25 years since Gus and Monica left England to start a new life in Spain, building a vineyard and wine business from the ground up. However, when Gus suffers a stroke and their idyllic Mediterranean life is thrown into upheaval, it’s left to their three grown-up children in London to step in . . . Sebastian is busy running his company with his wife, Anna, who’s never quite seen eye-to-eye with her mother-in-law. Katie, a successful solicitor in the city, is distracted by the problems with her long-term partner, Nic, and the secretive lives of their three daughters. And Jake, ever the easy-going optimist, is determined to convince his new wife, Bella, that moving to Spain with their 18-month-old would be a good idea. As the children descend on the vineyard, it becomes clear that each has their own idea of how best to handle their mum and dad, as well as the family business. But as long-simmering resentments rise to the surface and tensions reach breaking point, can the family ties prove strong enough to keep them together?

Author Profile:         

                                                                                           

                                                     Courtesy of Amazon Profile

Joanna Trollope was born on 9 December 1943 in her grandfather's rectory in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, England, daughter of Rosemary Hodson and Arthur George Cecil Trollope. She is the eldest of three siblings. She is a fifth-generation niece of the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope and is a cousin of the writer and broadcaster James Trollope. She was educated at Reigate County School for Girls followed by St Hugh's College, Oxford. On 14 May 1966, she married the banker David Roger William Potter, they had two daughters, Antonia and Louise. In 1983 they divorced, two years later, she married the television dramatist Ian Curteis, they divorced in 2001.

From 1965 to 1967, she worked at the Foreign Office. From 1967 to 1979, she was employed in a number of teaching posts before she became a writer full-time in 1980. In 1996 she was awarded the OBE for services to literature.She now lives alone in London.

A comprehensive biography can be read on her Official Author Website

Photographs, Trailer and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Facebook Profile.  Official Author Website   Wikipedia Profile

Amazon Author Page   Goodreads Author Page