Diamond Jack by Anna Rainbow

When I was asked to take part in the blog tour for this book I thought that I would check on what other books were out there, which featured highwaymen rather than outlaws or pirates.  I did this because the only title that had sprung to mind was “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes, illustrated by the incredible Charles Keeping.  What I discovered is that there really aren’t that many titles featuring this type of outlaw; so in order to remind myself of the titles I have put them on a Pinterest page  https://www.pinterest.co.uk/booklib61/highwaymen-in-childrens-books/ .  However I would be delighted to hear about more fiction titles that feature highwaymen and will endeavour to add to my list whenever I hear of a title.

Anna Rainbow has written a fantastic story, set in an alternative world where magic has only recently been banned.  There is a feeling that the story reflects some of the atmosphere from the alternative history stories of Joan Aiken, as well as others where the chronology and royal line has been tweaked.  The story centres around eleven year old Bramble Browning and her friend Ernest  (a fanatical fan of highwaymen and the iconic ‘Diamond Jack’ most of all).  Life takes a strange turn when her older sister goes off to visit their aunt overnight and their grandfather (who looks after them) is kidnapped from his shop, by three evil highwaymen.   Bram suddenly get an overwhelming desire to go and look in an old shed in the garden, but has no idea why?  What she discovers, hidden away is a face mask, which when she tries it on makes her appear to be an adult, specifically the notorious highwayman ‘Diamond Jack’.  The question is whether Bramble can use the mask to save her grandfather, as well as foil a plot to kill the queen and put the queen regent on the throne?  Our heroine is joined by a group of friends who are determined to help those in need and to prove that  ‘Diamond Jack’  only steals in order to help those who are poor and in need of help.

I absolutely love this story, the only down side being that I keep getting an ear-worm of “Stand and Deliver” by Adam Ant every time I look at the brilliant cover, illustrated by Isabelle Follath.  This is very much a story about family and friendship and in particular we have the way that Bramble’s sister Lena tries to protect her, even though she had done similar things when she was Bramble’s age.   The use of the magical masks (there are three in total) can perhaps be seen as reflecting the way that most people hide behind a public face, which can be very different from what they are like inside.   Bramble’s best friend Ernest is one of those wonderful characters that you take to your heart.  He is loyal, kind and loves celebrating the fact that he enjoys making clothes, as well as being a great believer in the good that his favourite highwayman does.  What a totally amazing and fast paced story this is;  you really need to hang on tight as you ride ‘hell for leather’ through the adventure of a lifetime.  The stars are definitely out and shining for this book and I highly recommend it.  What a great television series this would make.

 

About Anna Rainbow

Anna grew up and still lives in North East England and works as a Clinical Psychologist with people with disabilities. Anna loves music and has always been in various choirs, singing quartets, bands, and orchestras.

Winner takes Gold by Eloise Smith

For most of us, the world of elite sports is something that we hear about in the news.  It is also a world where we watch in awe, particularly when major events such as World or Olympic championships occur.  With the Olympics taking place in Paris this summer millions of people around the world will be watching the events and some of the most popular will be the gymnastics.  The author of this book, Eloise Smith is a former world class fencer and she wrote about this world in her first book “Sister to a Star”.  Her new book has a slight change in direction, as she enters the world of young gymnasts.

The central character of this story is a young 12 year old called Pearl,  who is fanatical about her gymnastics and is determined to follow her late mother’s dream and make it to the Great Britain team.  When she and her best friend Ryan are chosen to attend an elite training centre called  ‘Leaping Spires’, they are thrilled and understand that it will require all of their grit an determination to succeed.  However, what neither of them expects, is discovering that there are dangers to be faced and not just from their exercises.  The centre seems to be suffering from more than the average number of injuries, so that Pearl begins to suspect that some form of sabotage is at play.  The problem is, who can she trust  and who is carrying out the sabotage?

This is a fantastic story that looks at a world which most of us know very little about.  However we have seen instances over the last few years where trainers and coaches have been accused of bullying, harassing and even worse.  The author has really brought the whole sport alive for us and I am sure that any young gymnast will be absolutely enthralled by the plot, characters and the information about the various types of equipment and the moves associated with them.  However, there are several really important themes that are brought into focus in this story.  The first is the sense of loss that Pearl feel at the death of her mother, who was also her trainer;  this leads to her total fixation on succeeding, but in doing so , she misses the fact that others are also suffering from this loss.  Perhaps the most chilling element of the story is the way that the trainers expect the gymnasts to push themselves beyond what is healthy or wise and to put their sport before family, friends and normal life.  We have to remember that Pearl is just a 12 year old girl who has suffered a great loss and is clinging on to the one certainty in her life.  However, she is confused by what she sees and hears and even begins to mistrust her greatest friends, so I raced through the book with my fingers crossed that all would be well.

What a real cliff-hanger of a story which really moves along at a tremendous pace.  This is helped by the fact that the chapters are very short and you think “one more chapter”  before going to bed.  The characters are fantastic and the reader becomes truly involved in what is going on.  The fact that we are now in an Olympic year will only add to the enthusiasm for this story and I consider it as one of my 5 star choices for this year.

 

The Author

(from her website

Me, a little over-excited.

In my former lives I’ve been an Olympian, triple Commonwealth fencing gold medallist, Oxford English graduate and award-winning executive creative director in advertising. Now I’m a children’s author, following my wildest dream of all . . .

My first book draws on my experiences in fencing and film sets: Sister To A Star is a thrilling mystery about warring twins in a swash-buckling Hollywood movie. My second book uses my understanding of high-level sport: Winner Takes Gold is a gripping adventure about sabotage on an elite gymnastics camp.

In my spare time I relax by skiing, climbing, running and yoga. All while raising two boys who bring me more joy than all my dreams put together.

Once Chance Dance by Efua Traore

In the last few years we have begun to see a growth in the number of diverse books of all kinds being published, but this is still a very small part of the scene in this country.  Books written by people of colour are beginning to be published, but we still have a long way to go.  It seems appropriate that as I am writing this post, the Diverse Book Awards longlists are being announced.  I have to say that I can imagine this book being part of the longlist next year and I hope that it achieves this.

The author, Efua Traore has been at the forefront of the movement to show us the way that people live in Africa (in this case it is Nigeria), but through the authentic voice of children who live in the villages and cities.  I have been a fan ever since I read her first book, “Children of the Quicksands” and she continues to delight with her characters and her descriptive settings.

This is the story of Jomi, who has been living with his aunt and uncle, after his mother left for Lagos, in order to get a job and then come back for Jomi.  However, after three years she has not returned and he thinks that she has forgotten him.  When circumstances show him some letters from his mother, after developers start digging up the land around his village, he knows this is not the case and decides that he has to try and find her in Lagos.  The problem is that Lagos is the most populated city in Africa (Wikipedia) and how do you find someone in a city of over 26 million when you don’t have an address to go on?  Luckily Jomi is helped by a group of young street children, led by the feisty Tanks and looked after by ‘Aunty Bisi’, a nurse who is providing shelter and food for the young ones.  But the issue is still ‘how to find his mother?’ Then Jomi has a brainwave, his mother avidly watches a dance programme on TV, so if he and the others can get on the show, she will see him and know where he is.  Will Jomi succeed and can there actually be a happy ending for him and his new friends?

The author has created a stunning and  heartbreaking story that resonates in so many ways.  The themes of homelessness and modern slavery are shocking and we know they are happening across the world.  If you then add in the destruction of farmland and forests it makes for a situation that seems almost unbearable.  What makes this into an ultimately positive and hopeful story is the attitude of the central characters.  Despite all of the tribulations that they suffer, they still manage to retain a sense of optimism and a determination to make their lives better.  I really cannot recommend this enough, it is amazing and deserves all the accolades that I am sure it is going to receive in the future.

The Author

Efua Traoré is a Nigerian-German author who grew up in a small town in Nigeria. For as long as she can remember, her head was filled with little stories, but it was not until much later that she began to write them down.

Apart from Nigeria, she has also lived in France and Germany and she writes in English and in German. If she had her way, she would travel much more and write every single day.

Efua won the 2018 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa with her short story ‘True Happiness’ and she is a literature grant holder of the Munich Literaturreferat. Children of the Quicksands is her debut novel which won the Times / Chicken House Prize in 2019.

She lives in Munich with her husband and three daughters.

Photo credit belongs to Boubacar Traoré.   Thanks to the Chicken House website

About me

 

 

The House Trap by Emma Read and Coralie Muce

I suspect that we all have experience of houses that are run-down, creepy and have stories told about them.  I still remember as a child a house, on my walk home from town, that we had been told was inhabited by a witch!  Needless to say we always walked on the opposite side of the road, even though we never saw this person.

In this wonderful story we have the same concept.  The children are the central characters and they comprise of two families, Claude and his young sister Amity and his best friend Deliah, but we also have new friend Sam, who manages to create friction in the group.  At a family gathering before Claude and his family move away, the children are sent out to play and Amity runs off into the local Badwell wood; this is a place of rumour and tragedy, with tales of disappearing children, which explains why it is out of bounds.  When the others follow, they find the dilapidated remains of a house, which had been empty since the 1930s.  The front door is wide open, so they go in, hoping to find Amity and then the door closes behind them.  This is when everything starts to go wrong as they can’t get the door open and the house almost seems to be playing tricks on them.  Now, the three children have to try and find Amity and then get themselves out of the house.  What follows is almost like an Escape Room challenge as the children find clues, many of which revolve around the original disappearance of the last owner’s daughter in 1930.  Will the young people escape and what mysterious forces are working against them?  Importantly do you believe in ghosts and spirits?

Well, whilst this is a story for middle grade readers it is still aiming at sending a shiver down the spine, and it achieves this brilliantly.  We start off with the frictions between the young people and this is so central that it almost lulls us into a sense of false security.  However, the author very slowly builds up the tension and gradually introduces more and more elements that make you desperate to get out of the building.  This really is a wonderfully sinister tale of the supernatural and it is going to be a brilliant introduction to this genre for the primary reader.  Linked to this we have the more recognizable issues between siblings and friends as they inevitably grow and change over time.   The old saying “two’s company, three’s a crowd” definitely seems to be the case at the beginning of the story, but as things develop, the young people learn that they have to work together if they actually want to achieve their aims.  I love the way that the children learn from their adventures and that they are not two dimensional characters, making us feel more invested in their stories.  Thank you Emma for a truly spine-chilling story.

About Emma

Once upon a time (in school), Emma was told she had to choose between being a scientist and a creative but deep down she knew she could be both.

Her favourite things in the world are: badges, Death On the Nile (1978), hats, foxes, deserts, desserts and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. She’s not sure which holiday is best – Halloween or Christmas (she loves all things spooky, but also presents and singing Christmas carols.) Her one regret in life is never having trained to be an astronaut.

​https://www.emmareadauthor.com/ 

 

 

The Sundae Delivery Service by Holly Rivers

I was asked to take part in this blog tour just before I went on holiday, so the story stayed at home waiting for my return.  Oh, how I wished that I had taken it with me (the explanation will follow shortly.)  I had the great pleasure of reviewing Holly’s previous book about “The Boy in the Post” and so it was delightful that I would be able to enjoy the new adventure featuring the three Shalloo siblings, Orinthia, Seafra and Taber.

In this book they are back in their village of Little Penhallow and are excited because an Ice Cream parlour, called the Two Scoops Creamery, is opening up and offering FREE cones to the first one hundred customers.  Well, I would have done exactly what the children did, although I don’t think I could run as fast as they can.  The problem is that everyone else wants the free treats; luckily the children meet up with Dotty, the daughter of the two owners and they manage to wangle their ices.  This is the start of a great friendship, especially between Dotty and Orinthia.  When  Pem and Pandora, Dotty’s mothers, announce that they are about to take part in an international Ice Cream competition called the “Golden Udder Award” and it is in Norway, things start to get exciting.  Together with Dotty and Orinthia (plus two cows called Fosse and Falaise)  the team head to Bergen on board their favourite ship the Mollusca, complete with their friend Mog.

This sounds like a really warm and cuddly story, but no, someone is out to destroy their chances of winning the competition and they find numerous problems are put in their way; culminating in the theft of the two cattle, without whom they would not have the right kind of milk for their Jam Roly-Poly Ice Cream.  Yet again Orinthia is called upon to use all her ingenuity to find out who is the enemy and then to make sure that the Two Scoops Creamery are able to take part in the competition.  Yet again we have a wonderful mix of adventure, intrigue and humour, with our heroes managing to lurch from one crisis to another, but always winning out in the end.  There are really strong theme around the concept of family and although our heroes have a very positive experience, we also get to see what happens when the wider family employs a moral blackmail in order to achieve their aims.

Image is from the official website, thank you to them for a superb photo.

What is so great is that we get to learn about Bergen and in particular its famous Funicular called the Floibanen, although I am still not sure how the enemy was able to undertake one of their activities.  You will have to read the book in order to find out!

At the beginning of this article I said I wished that I had taken this on holiday with me, and that is because I have been on a cruise to Norway, starting at Bergen.  The story brought back so many lovely memories, especially of the Funicular and the amazing views that you get from the top, but it also reminded me of the arrival into Bergen and the astounding scenery surrounding it.  Thank you Holly for creating such a wonderful story and for giving us an insight into the beauty of another country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Author: Holly Rivers

Holly grew up in a real-life children’s book, playing the part of Drusilla in ITV’s The Worst Witch alongside Felicity Jones. She spent her childhood in Wales, wishing that she was Pippi Longstocking, and after graduating spent time working as an actor, broadcaster and cheese-seller, until one day she had the idea to pen a story about a tenacious young inventor named Demelza. Holly’s days are now spent penning new stories as well as leading drama, craft and bushcraft classes for children. She lives in Brighton with her girlfriend and still wishes that she was Pippi Longstocking.

 

My family and other Romans by Marie Basting and Flavia Sorrentino

What a fantastic mix of fantasy, mythology and fun.  I must admit that I had not really taken on board the term LARP (Live Action Role Play) until I read this book.  That is not to say that I was unaware of the concept, it is just that when I was involved in English Civil War re-enactment in the 1970s, such terms had not been invented.  I am sure that many people have been to this type of events, from medieval jousting to World War 2, but this specifically relates to seeing the Ermine Street Guard  and other groups, who research and perform re-enactments of  Romano-British  army events.  I had heard of Housesteads and the excavations that have been going on there, but I was surprised that the well known fort of Vindalanda is only a couple of miles away, so these are now on my “to visit” list.

This is the story of Silvia Fortuna Juno De Luca, or Livi to her friends.  She lives up near Hadrian’s Wall with her father, who is a fanatical role player; anything from Lord of the Rings to his favourite, the Romans.  Everyone is just getting ready for a major re-enactment at Housesteads Fort when some strange things start happening.  Worst of all her father suddenly disappears without a word.  What follows is like something out of a really bad dream; she can’t really be taken to ancient Romana can she?  Not only that but she finds that her ‘missing’ mother is actually the Roman Goddess Bellona; something that I would not want to admit to, having had a look online for a description, but it seems that her uncle Vulcan is behind her father’s disappearance.  When Livi is persuaded that the only way to save her father is to retrieve a golden arrow from Vulcan, she takes up the challenge.  Needless to say things are not quite as she believed and ‘someone’ may have been telling her some lies!  However, you can’t keep a good role player down and with the help of her friends and a lot of ingenuity she might find a way to save her father and halt the army that Bellona is trying to conquer Britannia (Britain) with.

Marie Basting  has given us a fabulously funny but historically correct look at the goings on in the area of Hadrian’s Wall.  What a brilliant idea to have Bellona producing offspring who are linked to Roman mythology; so there are Romulus and Remus, who are are descendants of Medusa and have serpentine hair (snakes alive!); Poly is a cyclops, Tiber is a centaur, Scylla is a sea creature and then finally there is Felix, he seems very ordinary, but manages to spring a surprise towards the end of the story.  All of the characters have very individual quirks and personalities and I particularly love Tiber, who is a surfer dude and Vulcan, who turns out to be something of a hippy.

Above all this is really a story about the real meaning of friendship, community and family.  It is a fantastical mix of mythology, dressing up and building strong relationships.  I do hope we can have a few more adventures with Livi and her family.  this is a truly delightful 5 star story.

 

The Author

When Marie Basting was fifteen, she was told by a careers advisor that girls like her don’t become writers. For a long time, she believed this. But then something magical happened and Marie finally came to realise that girls like her can do anything they want.

Marie lives in Manchester with her husband, son and a giant, hairy woo-dog called Polly. When she’s not writing or annoying her family, you’ll find her supporting other girls and boys to follow their writing dreams.  Princess BMX is her debut novel.

 

 

 

 

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/housesteads-roman-fort-hadrians-wall/

Call of the Titanic by Lindsay Galvin and Gordy Wright

I think it is fair to say that Lindsay Galvin is fast gaining a strong reputation for her historical writing; in which she sheds new light on people and events from the past.  Her book “Darwin’s Dragons” was particularly memorable and emotional, so I must admit to having high expectations of this new work.

Most people probably think that they know the story of the Titanic, whether it is from the film of the same name, or from one of the many documentary programmes that have been televised over the years.  Over the years I have been lucky enough to visit exhibitions about the ship, but of course the new Museum in Belfast really brings home the size and quality of the vessel.  All of this gives us a very objective view of the ship and the catastrophe, but what Lindsay Galvin does is bring us to the heart and soul of the story.

The story is told from two differing viewpoints and also following different time lines.  On one hand, we have a fictionalised account of the testimony of Sid Daniels, a 14 year old steward (although 18 years old in real life), who was the last member of the crew to be saved by the Carpathia. His part of the story is shown as if written as testimony on a manual typewriter  and it is fascinating to have this real sense that we are reading the original words.  What strikes me as surprising is the dates given to the government enquiry, it is only two weeks after the actual tragedy and I can’t imagine that would happen in our modern age.  What also surprised me was the living conditions for the third class passengers that Sid was looking after.  There is a perception that conditions for those lower down the ship were really atrocious, but what comes across here is that they were probably better off than they would have been back in their original homelands.

The other half of the story follows the ‘adventures of young Clara Scott (aged 12 years) who is accidentally locked in a trunk at the family farm and ends up on the Carpathia, where her cousin is the wireless operator Harold Cottam.  When she finally escapes from the trunk, she is in the ship’s hold and has a gigantic Newfoundland dog keeping her company.  What follows makes for an exciting adventure in its own right, but it is the sequence of events  which make this such a chilling and yet unstoppable read.  However the two stories eventually converge and the heroism shown that night becomes all too clear.

The author has made Clara the absolute centre of the story, with Sid and Rigel (the dog) coming in as a  close joint second.  At the beginning I was not sure what I felt about this young girl, as she is very strong minded and not prone to listening to others.  However, this is shown to be  beneficial, with her feisty and determined attitude overcoming the often bigoted attitudes of some of the crew and passengers.  Lindsay Galvin has managed to paint a vivid and chilling scenario for one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.  It is one of those books that you just can’t stop reading, so start reading it early in the day!  As readers, we get a real sense of the research that has gone into the book and I found myself going off to check some details when I was reading.  Perhaps the most poignant aspect of this story is the way that the author is able to convey the reality of the ordinary people who were caught up in the events.  When major catastrophes take place we often forget about the ordinary people whose lives are devastated by what happens, but in this story the author has managed to bring these often unknown characters into the light.

This is one of those books where I feel that I am running out of superlatives, so it is probably best that I just finish by saying that everyone should read this book and it should find a home in every school and library.  This definitely gets 5 stars and probably deserves more.

 

The author Lindsay Galvin

“Lindsay was lucky enough to be raised in a house of stories, music, and love of the sea. She left part of her heart underwater after living and working in Thailand where she spent hundreds of blissful hours scuba diving. Forced now to surface for breath, she lives in sight of the chillier Sussex sea with her husband and two sons. When she is not writing, she can be found reading, running or practicing yoga. She has a degree in English Language and Literature, is fascinated by psychology and the natural world, and teaches Science. Lindsay hadn’t written creatively since childhood until the idea for her debut novel The Secret Deep splashed into her mind, and she now she’s hooked.”

Thank you to the Chicken House website for this biographical information.

Son of the Sea by Richard Pickard

It is always exciting to read a second book by an author, especially if you have really enjoyed their first book.  I was lucky enough to be part of the blog tour for Richard’s first book in August 2021 and he wrote a short entry for me, all about his influences and where he writes.  He spoke about the outline that he was writing for his second book, so it is fantastic to see all of his hard work come to fruition.  You can see this first blog entry  by searching”Peculiar tale of the Tentacle Boy

The hero in this story is called Caspar and he has a dream that he can swim the channel before his 12th birthday.  The only problem is that he is now more than 11 years old and his parents ban him from going anywhere near the water.  Despite this he finds ways of swimming, whether it is in the local ponds or even the water feature at the shopping centre.  However things are about to change dramatically; following a freak accident at the local supermarket both of Caspar’s parents end up in hospital (they were run over by a giant wheel of cheese!) and Caspar is sent to the seaside town of Corallium, where his unknown grandmother lives.  This is not the last of the surprises that he comes across in the next few days.  Corallium is the home of his absolute hero, Beryl the Bazooka and he not only meets her, but finds out that she was his grandma’s wife, until they fell out.  Then Caspar discovers that sea swimming is very different from being in a small pond and after he nearly drowns, Beryl volunteers to train him.  The record that Caspar is trying to break has stood for 60 years and every person under the age of 12 who has attempted the crossing, has been struck down by a ‘curse’; so will our hero overcome all the obstacles in his way?  With the help of his new friend Wynn, he is determined to follow his destiny.

Underpinning this whole story is the enormous secret that Caspar has been hiding for all of his life, as his parents are scared he will be treated as a freak; both of his feet are webbed, with skin between each of his toes.  The question is whether this has anything to do with the ancient legend that Corallium was once a city under the sea.  This is a story about keeping secrets and the impact that it can have on relationships and also how we feel about ourselves. This very much applies to the relationship between his grandmother Ida and Beryl, but it also is central to the way Caspar, his parents and grandma also interact.  We have a multilayered story where the events of the past still impact on the lives of people today and it is so sad to see that some characters are trying to hang on to past glories, rather than trying to support a new generation in their attempts.  The author has managed to combine both humour (in the guise of Wynn’s archaeologist father) and pathos, particularly when we see the anguish of those who have failed to achieve their dreams because of the so-called ‘curse’.  However, the ending is particularly uplifting and I gave a quiet cheer as people finally admitted to things they had kept hidden and then discovered that they were not alone, in fact they were part of a community that had been hiding in plain sight.  I have read this book twice and it is one of those enchanting stories that you know you will go back to in the future.  Congratulations to Richard on this lovely book.

 

https://www.richard-pickard.com/bio  to find out more about the author and his work.

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Chicken House; 1st edition (11 May 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1913696726
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 9 – 12 years

Once upon a Fever by Angharad Walker

A favourite theme found in literature is that of an alternative world and in this country it very often centres around a world with a vastly different version of London.  If you like this type of fantasy, then you are really going to love this book.

This story centres around two sisters Payton and Ani Darke, who have moved to Lundain with their father, who works as a Methic (Doctor) at King Jude’s Hospital and their mother, who is a patient in the hospital.  They live in a world that is very different from our own because the country has been devastated by a mysterious fever that seems to affect people and their emotions; this has led to a view that all emotion should be suppressed.  There has also been a change in the way the country is governed and the power now lies with two large groups, the Bankers and the Methics, everyone else is subservient to them.

The two sisters discover that their lives are beginning to diverge and whilst Payton looks to science in the hope of finding a cure for her mother, Ani discovers that there might older and more natural ways to help those who are suffering.  As they both explore new paths they discover that  there are some good people in the world, but also that you can’t always trust those who you have looked up to in the past.  They learn the lesson that power can corrupt and that even those closest to us cannot always be trusted.

This is an absolutely brilliant teen novel from the author of “The Ash House“.  It is full of darkness and a lingering sense of evil that permeates the world in which the girls live.  The emphasis is very much on trying to remove emotions from those that have been struck down by the fever, because the illness is creating a wide range of disturbing symptoms in the patients.  It feels like a comment on the world that we live in and the way that mental health has been dealt with in the past; in fact the hospitals bear a close resemblance to the images we have of Victorian hospitals, with their dark spaces and rigid rules.  However, there is a glimmer of hope in the middle of this dystopian world, as Ani discovers when she is taken to Hyde gardens and meets the two remaining members of the ‘Wilders’ Guild.  These are people who are close to nature and understand that we need this link to the natural world and that it can bring a sense of peace, or at least tranquility to the troubled mind.

The author has created a truly frightening world, where disease has changed the way we all behave and has allowed small elites to take control of life.  There are definitely shadows of events that have, or could occur if we cannot deal with the pandemics that arise; we have all seen the rise in authoritarianism and the consequences if this is allowed to continue and take permanent control.  One of the really worrying elements of this are the quasi-scientific methods used by the Methics and the feeling that no one is trying to make any advances, despite the girls’ father supposedly researching a cure for their mother.

I have loved this book and the two main characters, who are each struggling to make sense of the world that they live in.  Many of the people they meet are also fighting against the dangers that they face and they find that together they are able to put up a stronger resistance to the powers that be.  Definitely a 5 stars from me, for this one.

About Angharad Walker

“Angharad Walker grew up on military bases in the UK, Germany and Cyprus, where stories were often being told about far-flung places, past conflicts, and friends and family.

She studied English Literature & Creative Writing at the University of Warwick and the University of California Irvine. Her fiction has been published in Structo and A Million Ways, and her poetry has made it into Agenda broadsheets and Ink Sweat & Tears.

She lives in South London. When she’s not writing, she works as a communications consultant for charities and not-for-profits.”   Chicken House website.

Nisha’s War by Dan Smith

For someone who watched the full series of ‘Tenko’ as a young person, this subject matter brings back many memories.  For those who are far too young to have watched the original programmes, Tenko is the story of the fall of Singapore and the imprisonment of women and children by the Japanese; the name tenko means “roll-call” in Japanese.  It caused quite a stir at the time, because of its portrayal of the prison camps, the  social class system and the racism towards non-European prisoners.  The war in the far-east has received far less attention than the war in Europe, or even the final assault on the main Japanese islands.  This conflict in Malaya and Burma has been considered “the forgotten war” and yet the suffering is almost beyond comprehension; both for the European middle classes and especially for the general population of these countries.  This is a period that deserves to be remembered and the people appreciated for what they suffered.

The story begins in 1942 when Nisha and her mother arrive at grandmother’s island home in the north east of England; they are fleeing their horrific experiences during the fall of Singapore to the Japanese.  Nisha’s mother suffers an attack of malaria and her life hangs in the balance.  Nisha is desperately worried about her mother, but also about her missing father, when she meets a mysterious boy in the garden.  No one else seems to know the boy and we gradually realize that he is a ghost, who is linked to the old tree that he sits under. He offers to help her mother and father, if Nisha will find three ‘truths’ in the house.   How she tries to do this (without knowing what they are) and how she solves some long-standing mysteries makes for an exciting and yet heart-rending story.

This is an absolutely stand out story with wonderful characters and a magical and yet truly believable story.  Nisha is such a strong yet vulnerable character, who has been through many traumas.  She has a mixed heritage family, with an English father and an Indian mother, and  although her father’s job has shielded her from racial discrimination, she finds that in England many of the people are far more wary and even hostile. The story is told with two separate ‘voices’, both of them showing the different aspects of Nisha’s life.   We have the contrast between the main narrative, set in an England still beset by German raids, rationing and a sense of exhaustion with the war;  then we have  the journal that Nisha keeps (of what happened in Singapore), which really highlights the trauma that she has suffered and her very close escape from death by drowning.  There are many twists and turns along the way and we see how she is haunted by her experiences, but gradually she is able to find her place in her new community and build a relationship with her very formidable grandmother.

This is proving to be one of my highlights of the year, so far.  It is a story that lingers in the mind and makes you appreciate the challenges that previous generations faced, and that people in many countries are still facing.  I hope that this will help young people understand the past and hopefully want to find out more about less well known conflicts.  This story has ‘award nomination’ written all over it and I am sure it will appear in some lists over the coming year or so.

The Author

I first came across Dan’s work when I was asked to review a book of his called “Big Game”, which was a great read.  It is safe to say that the author has gone from strength to strength.

“Growing up, Dan Smith led three lives. In one he survived the day-to-day humdrum of boarding school, while in another he travelled the world, finding adventure in the padi fields of Asia and the jungles of Brazil. But the third life he lived in a world of his own, making up stories . . . Which is where some people say he still lives most of the time.

Dan writes for both children and adults”