The Wartime Book Club

During World War Two Germany invaded the Channel Islands including Jersey which is where Kate Thompson has set her historical fiction novel, The Wartime Book Club. Grace is determined to keep the library on the island open as reading books is one of the few avenues of escape for the residents of the island. Many people visit the library to read and or borrow books and Grace also regularly cycles to parts of the island delivering books to those who cannot easily visit the library themselves. Then the suggestion is made that Grace should establish a book club in the library. 

Grace's friend, Bea, works at the post office where she sorts the mail and makes deliveries each day. Through her job she becomes aware that the mail service is being used by some inhabitants of the island to report the possible misdemeanors of neighbours to the Germans. This is just one way some islanders place the lives of their neighbours in danger.

As the war drags on, life becomes more difficult for the locals living on an island where there are severe food shortages and their every move is watched by an enemy who becomes increasingly dangerous with the realisation that defeat is around the corner. 

The Wartime Book Club is one of several novels written about life on the Channel Islands during the Second World War. Other books include The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, Dancing with the Enemy by Diane Armstrong and The Girl from the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat. At the end of the novel Kate Thomson includes information about the sources used when writing the book plus events and people who inspired the creation of The Wartime Book Club.

Sound Mind Dead Body

Dave Warner is one of Australia's many well known writers of crime fiction. So far his novels have been set in Australia but in Sound Mind Dead Body, Dave Warner has altered course and set this Agatha Christie style mystery in an English country house in Devon.

During the First World War, Australian pilot, Fred Willets, rescued another pilot whose plane was shot down. The pilot did not survive but his father, Richard de Reve, was forever grateful to Fred for the attempt to save his son's life. Fred returned to Western Australia where he worked as a detective in the outback. Then in 1929 Fred was summoned to England for the reading of the will of Richard de Reve which included a bequest for him.

The de Reve family can be described as complicated. Fortunately a staff member has kept a copy of the family tree in her diary and the family tree plus plans of the house appear at the front of the book. Gradually we are introduced to the people invited to the family home for the reading of the will. As you would expect in an Agatha Christie style novel, it is not long before a series of crimes including a robbery and the discovery of two dead bodies occur.

The events occur at the weekend as a storm approaches so Fred is charged with the initial investigations. Assisting him is the local pharmacist, Prudence Meadows. It is obvious that the crimes were committed by someone in the house, but who and why?

Sound Mind Dead Body is an enjoyable cosy crime inviting the author to solve the mysteries. 

The Marriage Trap

During the 1960s there were many changes in attitudes to sexual relationships and the use of contraceptives.  The Marriage Trap by Victoria Purman is a novel exploring the relationship between Olive Langley and her daughters Cathy aged 20 in 1960 and Evelyn aged 10 as they encounter new attitudes and opportunities during the decade.

Olive, a member of the Catholic Church, had difficulty in accepting that attitudes were changing and her mother-in-law was never going to accept any attitudes that were different from her strict Methodist beliefs. So when Cathy, who was studying to be a teacher, became pregnant outside of marriage it was immediately decided by older family members that she should leave home until the baby was born and adopted by another family. However, Cathy and her partner Andy stood their ground and insisted that they would marry and keep their child, although it meant that Cathy would not be able to finish her studies and become a teacher if she was a mother.

The Marriage Trap in many ways provides a social history of the period as Cathy adapts to her new life as a mother. She gradually builds a new network of friends and learns of a method of contraception becoming available to help women control their fertility. However it is some years before the Pill becomes readily available and there are still doctors who will not prescribe it.

The story is told showing the lives of Olive and Cathy as well as Evelyn who observes what is happening around her and when she turns 20 knows how she wants to control her life.

The Hobart Hotel

The second book that I have read set in a hotel this week - this time the hotel is the Wrest Point Riviera Hotel (Riviera Hotel) in Hobart opened in 1939. The Hobart Hotel by Mary-Lou Stephens consists of the stories of two women, one story beginning in 1939 and the second beginning in 1973 with the opening of Wrest Point Casino.

When Sabine Winters attended the grand opening of the hotel in  December 1939 she did not anticipate the events that would lead her to Uruguay where she would be risking her life investigating Nazi sympathisers.

When the casino opens in Hobart, Jenny Davies has the opportunity to become a Ladybird, one of the casino staff. This results in her leaving home and making friends in a very different environment from the one she grew up in.

In her new novel Mary-Lou Stephens provides us with the events that dramatically changed the lives of these two women, along with their back stories, until the stories become intertwined by the end of the book. The hotel maintains an important role throughout the book.

Wrest Point Riviera - Pauline Connolly.com 

The Chateau Marmont

After the death of her parents, Aria Jones is sent to live with her aunt, the actress Devine Rey, at the Chateau Marmont. In this alien environment, Aria meets two young actresses, Flitter and Calliope, who befriend her and the three girls refer to each other as sisters. She also meets the musician Theo Winchester and his daughter, Adele. Aria becomes Adele's governess.

But Aria soon realises that all is not well at the hotel and that the life of a young actress is full of additional challenges, especially when auditioning for parts in films directed by certain directors. She also begins to fear that the hotel is haunted by a ghost who wanders the corridors at night. It is not long before Aria realises that she might be a target of the ghost. Aria cannot afford to leave the hotel until she turns 21 so she must make the best of her life there until she can escape and really live the life she wants to live.  Eventually the opportunity arises and Aria escapes the hotel to discover herself in Europe.

The Chateau on Sunset by Natasha Lester is largely a book about relationships and finding the true path but it is also about dealing with grief, learning to trust and living your own life. A major theme is the fight for the abolition of sexual power exerted over female actors by some men in the film industry.

The Chateau Marmont is a work of fiction set in a large hotel with the same name situated on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California, since 1929. The hotel has become known as the home of the rich and famous. 

Chateau Marmont - Wikipedia   

The Oasis

In The Oasis by Ann Buist and Graeme Simsion, trainee psychiatrist, Hannah Wright, is working at the outpatient clinic of The Menzies Hospital. While there, she meets many patients with a variety of issues and conditions, including some she had treated at the hospital when doing medical rounds there.

Much of the book also concentrates on issues faced by the staff professionally in their work with patients as well as understanding their own mental health. Hannah is dealing with events that occurred during her childhood when her parents fostered children over many years. The reader also learns of the extensive training undertaken by trainee psychiatrists in order to be fully qualified.

This is the second book in the Menzies Metal Health series - three books so far. The books provide a human and sometimes slightly humorous account of life working in the mental health field.

The Shock of the Light

Tessa and Theo are twins and thus have always experienced a close relationship. They live in Cambridge, England, but as their mother is French the twins, especially Tessa, have learned to speak French and have visited that country. Their father is a professor at the university. When the twins complete their secondary education the plan is that they should both study at Cambridge. Although the university accepts female students they are not entitled to graduate with a degree so Tessa decides to go to France and study for a degree at the Sorbonne. This is the first time that their lives take separate paths.

While in Paris Tessa becomes friends with an artist named Luc. Then something happens to break that friendship which Luc does not understand. Tessa returns home. When war breaks out Theo enlists in the RAF. Tessa has a secretarial job but is then told to go for an interview allowing her to help in the war effort. Her family is not to be told what she is doing.

After training Tessa ends up working for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and is parachuted into France to assist members of the Resistance and to report  secret messages back to London. It soon become obvious that someone is attempting to sabotage the mission.

The first part of The Shock of the Light by Lori Inglis Hall is Tessa's story. Part two is told from Theo's perspective. Part three is set in London in 2003 where a PhD student, Edie is writing a thesis on the SOE and she makes contact with Theo to find out what happened to Tessa. Edie also wants to know why Tessa's story was never made public.

This novel provides a study of the women who worked in the SOE but also examines the effect of war on members of families, especially when a family member disappears without a trace. This book provides a compassionate study of the effects of war on families, especially when they are attempting, without success, to discover what happened to their loved ones.