Shark Heart By Emily Habeck – A Review

Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books

Publication Date: 3rd August 2023

This book centres around a husband and wife, Lewis and Wren and Lewis is turning into a great white shark…….yes you read that correctly!

Allow me to explain, Shark Heart by Emily Habeck tells the story of Wren and Lewis, a young couple enjoying a very happy marriage and life. Wren is very successful in the world of finance and Lewis is teaching drama at a high school. Both enjoy their vocations and revel in their differences, Wren being the pragmatic, practical organised and grounded one, Lewis being the artistic, creative and freer living one.

Lewis starts to experience some odd symptoms, his nose cartilage starts to dissolve and he can push his nose flat against his face, he has extreme thirst he cannot quench and odd rough skin on his feet and lower back. He has some tests and is told he has carcharodon carcharias which is an animal mutation turning him into a great white shark, which is apparently one of the rarest mutations.

As Lewis’s symptoms intensify and he’s told he has a year at best before he’s a full shark in need of release into the ocean, Wren and Lewis try to come to terms with letting go. Wren has to watch her husband disappear piece by piece and Lewis has to confront wanting to stay with Wren but fighting the urge for the ocean where he can breathe freely.

In the second half of the book we meet Wren’s mother Angela as a young girl in the run up to falling pregnant with Wren and the early days of Wren’s childhood. Angela suffers domestic abuse in her pregnancy at the hands of Wren’s father and has to struggle through as mostly a single parent with help from her friends Julia and Julia’s brother George.

What I loved about this book (and I did absolutely LOVE it) was the links between illnesses that we know (I’m thinking cancer and altzheimers) and the way family members have to watch their loved ones change and slip away from them. I don’t know if the author was aiming for this but this is what I felt when reading it. It really broke my heart in places and gave me real pause to think about losing people we love and having to reconcile who they are and what their bodies and minds are turning into with the person they once were.

I didn’t know where the second part of the book was going at first and was surprised to find we were now following Wren’s mother. It was a very interesting thread which allowed me to better understand Wren and the person she turned out to be.

The final section of the book sees us back with Lewis and Wren but separately navigating their new lives. The last few chapters are beautiful and poignant and come together to form a really satisfying, heartwarming and hopeful ending.

One of the other elements of the book that I really enjoyed was the way Emily Habeck played with form. Some sections are prose like, interspersed with scripts portraying some chapters as scenes in a play detailing dialogue and stage instructions, alluding to Lewis’s acting life. There are also lists and a brilliant use of repetition. The chapters are short and snappy, some being just a couple of sentences on a page. Short chapters are a particular favourite of mine as I find them propulsive and they allow me read a book quickly without getting too bogged down in long and lyrical chapters which sometimes lose my interest.

I read this book over a two day period and would have loved in an ideal world to sit down and devour it in 24 hours but unfortunately work and family get in the way! (Joking….probably).

Shark Heart is a beautiful and unique love story, all forms of love being included be that familial or romantic. It’s a book to make you stop and think about the people you love and what you would do without them. It deals with loss, motherhood, love, grief, dreams and hopes and I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Ella Patel and Jo Fletcher books for my beautiful copy (that cover is stunning!).

See you all soon.

Amanda – Bookishchat

Lioness By Emily Perkins – A Review

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Publication Date: 6th July 2023

Set in New Zealand, Lioness by Emily Perkins published by Bloomsbury tells the story of our protagonist Therese Thorne, a fifty-something woman who came from a normal background and married into a wealthy empire building family when she married property developer Trevor Thorne. Therese, with Trevor’s backing and investment built her own homeware brand that is now super successful and well known and now Therese wants to expand into Sydney. Trevor is having one final construction and development hurrah and is building a hotel, the plan being he will see it through and then move with Terese to Sydney to start to wind down, being now in his seventies.

However, a scandal involving the permissions for the building and how quickly they were passed is thrown into the public eye and work on the hotel abruptly stops whilst Trevor and his councillor contact are investigated.

Terese at first is a little shocked and unnerved but Trevor reassured her that it’s all a storm in a teacup and will blow over soon enough, adamant that he’s done nothing wrong. He then has to prove the same to his adult children.

Terese is a very held together, poised and professional woman. She panders to Trevor and his children and their families, making sure their holiday home is welcoming for them all and that they are all happy and cared for. She is impossibly polite and agreeable and is very good at putting on a united front at all their social gatherings and parties.

Therese starts to form a friendship with their downstairs neighbour Claire, a woman who says what she thinks and doesn’t care if it’s brutally honest. Claire tells Therese that her and her husband have effectively swapped roles, he deals with the cooking, cleaning and all the emotional support of their daughter whilst Claire deals with the maintenance around the house and the jobs which have traditionally been considered a male role. This fascinates Therese and she becomes increasingly obsessed with Claire and the way she lives her life. One night Therese finds herself in Claire’s apartment and they end up ‘in the zone’….

The story of Trevor’s past business dealings start to unfold and Therese starts to transform her behaviour and untether herself from her polite and agreeable moorings under Claire’s influence.

I read this book in one sunny weekend and was utterly hooked in. I was so invested in this family’s life and fascinated by Therese’s slow but sure transformation. It deals with themes of family ties and what you would do for your family. It also deals with the power of female friendships and their transformative nature.

I loved it!

Thank you to Beth Farrell and Bloomsbury for my review copy.

See you all soon.

Amanda – Bookishchat x

Ordinary Human Failings By Megan Nolan – A Review

Publisher: Jonathan Cape

Publication Date: 13th July 2023

Set on a 1990’s London housing estate Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan opens up at a point when the 3 year old daughter of a well loved family goes missing and is found dead with marks around her neck. The 10 year old daughter of an Irish immigrant family on the estate known as the Greens was the last to be seen with her.

The Greens are made up of John, his alcoholic son from his first marriage Richie, his aloof and closed off daughter Carmel and her 10 year old daughter Lucy. The family lost Rose, wife of John and mother of Carmel a couple of years prior. The family left Waterford in Ireland for London when young Carmel found herself pregnant and unable to have an abortion. Rose brought her family to London hoping for a fresh start but found that you can’t outrun your problems.

After the death of Mia the young child on the estate, journalist Tom Hargreaves spies a story that could give him some notoriety. He is aware that The Greens are reviled on the estate, seen as bad apples and judged. He wants to know what their dark secret is, because he is utterly convinced they must have one and makes it his mission to break them down to discover it. He inveigles himself into their lives whilst the police investigation is underway by getting the newspaper to pay for a hotel to put them up in, away from the growing ill-feeling on the estate. This then gives him unfettered access to the family and allows him to approach each person individually and play on their weaknesses (in this case mainly alcohol).

But as we spend time with each person we see that yes they each have their failings but as titled in the book they are ordinary human failings. They each have negative events that have shaped them and made them the people they are. They are a fractured family who have closed themselves off from each other very much to their detriment. But can Tom find the story he was hoping for?..

I absolutely flew through this in one day! I really enjoyed Megan Nolan’s debut, Acts Of Desperation but this book is completely different. I was not only heavily invested in the crime that had taken place and on which the novel hangs but also the individual flawed characters and their backstories.

On the surface you think you know who these people are. You can maybe see why they are judged so harshly by their neighbours on the estate but through Toms probing and the chipping away at their insecurities, barriers come down and you see the real people with real life problems underneath.

This is a book about a fractured family who by circumstance are forced to look at not only themselves but each other under a microscope and deal with what they find.

I loved the writing style, I loved the multiple POV third person perspectives and I thought the ending was beautiful.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be thinking about it for a long time to come.

Thank you to Sophie Painter and Jonathan Cape for my proof copy.

See you all soon.

Amanda x @bookishchat

The Nursery By Szilvia Molnar

Publisher: One World Publications

Publication Date: 4th May 2023

I’m like a broken record with this but any book about a struggling new mother is like catnip to me. The Nursery tells the story of an unnamed narrator, a translator living in New York with her husband and the baby daughter she has just given birth to at the start of the novel. The baby is referred to as Button throughout the novel.

The narrator knows that she’s not the first woman to give birth but she can’t quite believe that this is what women do. She knew who she was as a successful translator and wife but now that she is a mother she feels like she is losing herself.

In the claustrophobic confines of her apartment she spends those first raw and brutal days post-birth just simply trying to survive. Losing track of time and the passing of days and nights in the exhausting sleepless landscape of new motherhood. Her body no longer feels like her own and she battles with dark thoughts about hurting her tiny fragile daughter. Her husband for his part seems largely unaffected by the arrival of the child and continues to work and sleep. He does worry that the narrator hasn’t left the apartment and gently tries to float the idea now and again.

The only punctuation in her day is the visit she gets from her elderly ailing upstairs neighbour Peter who initially comes down to complain about the noise the baby is making. Peter has lost his wife and like our narrator is pretty much trapped in the apartment block by his bad health. The narrators husband finds the visits odd but she seems to use them to navigate time and her own thoughts.

What I loved about this book was the unflinching descriptions of post-birth pain and the changes in a woman’s body. The narrator reminisces back to her pre-pregnancy days and her time being pregnant. Times when she had more of a hold on her body, mind and identity. After giving birth there are stitches and pain and milk and unusual smells and blood and exhaustion and everything she is entirely unprepared for.

The almost dream like quality of the narrative as the book progresses mirrors the sleepless struggle of the narrator as she slowly loses her grip on time and place.

I am always very much here for a book that deals with the early days of motherhood so accurately and honestly. I really enjoyed this one.

Thank you to One World Publications for my review copy.

See you all soon.

Amanda @bookishchat

Chrysalis By Anna Metcalfe – A Review

Publisher: Granta

Publication Date: 4th May 2023

Once you’ve known her, it’s hard to go back to a time before’

The premise of Chrysalis by Anna Metcalfe really interested me, a story about a woman told from the perspective of three people in her life who each are fascinated observers.

Firstly Elliott, a man in the woman’s gym who sees a bold and forthright woman come in one day and turn his head. He watches her physical transformation from a step removed but with ever increasing fascination. When they eventually do connect she utterly transfixes him.

The narrative then switches to the woman’s mother Bella, she tells us about the woman’s childhood. How she brought her up as a single mother in a quite isolated environment and found it hard to connect with her. Her daughter had issues with physical tremors that no doctor seemed to be able to get to the bottom of and only really abated when the girls much loved school teacher gave her a meditation cassette. We also get to hear about their quite fractured relationship as the girl grows into a woman and the mother tries to find ways to connect with her daughter.

Lastly we hear from the woman’s colleague. A woman who rescued her and took her in when she was having a hard time. The colleague, Susie, finds herself desperately hoping that the woman won’t ever leave.

In fact all three people wish she wouldn’t leave their lives. Unfortunately that is exactly what she does. Following a traumatic relationship the woman relies heavily on transforming herself, not only becoming physically stronger but mentally stronger too by using meditation and opting for an isolated life. She uses these methods to connect with an ever growing social media following, advocating cutting people out of your life, severing familial ties and living a still and quiet existence.

The three people around her have to watch from afar and only be tuned into her life through her social media channels.

This woman was so fascinating to me. I didnt know whether I understood her or even liked her but I enjoyed the challenge of trying to figure her out. Anna Metcalfe’s writing is fresh and contemporary, including aspects of modern life we’re all becoming familiar with. The effects of viewing other peoples lives through social media and becoming influenced by other peoples actions and values.

I loved viewing this fascinating woman through the eyes of those around her. Three people who orbit her and are in awe, wanting to get closer whilst she moves further away. A woman who wants to focus on herself and improving her life at the expense of distancing those invested people around her.

I loved it.

Thank you George Stamp and Granta for my review copy.

See you all soon.

Amanda @bookishchat. Xx

Prize Women By Caroline Lea – A Review

Publisher: Michael Joseph

Publication Date: 27th April 2023

If there’s a new Caroline Lea book out you best believe I’m going to get myself a proof by hook or by crook (or by the lovely Caroline arranging for one to be sent! Thanks Caroline!).

Prize Women is set in 1930’s Toronto, Canada and opens with the crazy details of childless millionaire Charles Millar’s last will and testament. Charles is somewhat of a joker and stipulates in his will that he wants to offer a huge sum of money to the woman who has the most babies spanning the ten year period from 1926 to 1936. This is known thereafter as The Great Stork Derby.

Two women who find themselves in the running for the money are Lily and Mae. These women are both very different yet find themselves unlikely friends. Lily is an Italian immigrant who escapes her violent, drunk husband Tony when an earthquake hits Chatsworth. Lily is forced to flee with her young son Matteo in tow, leaving Tony behind for dead. Lily ends up in Toronto and is taken on as Mae’s nanny of sorts. Mae is married to an affluent man and has five children she can barely cope with looking after. She is downtrodden and anxious and despite loving her children can’t bear the thought of always being pregnant.

At the time contraception was not readily available and women basically had to deal with the posibility of getting pregnant and just deal with it. Lily rescues Mae from her life of struggling with the children and they form a very close bond.

We then follow the women through the years, with their various pregnancies and births. Both women not having an easy ride. But when they both come up against tragedy and extremely tough issues at a time that Wall Street has crashed and the Great Depression has hit, both find themselves entering into The Great Stork Derby. But just how much will their strong and seemingly unshakable bond be tested by their desperate circumstances….

What I love about Caroline is that she writes women at certain points in history with such perception and empathy. In all her novels she perfectly depicts how women are treated and the various struggles they face in their lives. I always find I learn so much reading Caroline’s fiction and can become so immersed in her storytelling. Her novels are thoroughly researched and are written so beautifully that you just get swept away.

Prize women talks about a time when women didn’t have agency over their own bodies. A time when contraception just wasn’t considered regardless of women’s wants and needs. It also deals beautifully with a topic that is close to my heart, the struggles of motherhood. There are so many layers and subjects covered in this book, not least poverty, prejudice, violence, baby loss, marriage and friendship. It would make such a great Bookclub read with its potential to spark some interesting conversations.

I am always thrilled to get to the end of a book and find out that it was based on real events which Prize Women is. Charles Millar did indeed offer up his fortune to the woman who bore the most children…..now you’ll have to get on Wikipedia and find out what actually happened!

Another stunning and triumphant book from Caroline. Loved it! 5 easy stars!

Thank you to Michael Joseph for my proof copy.

See you all soon.

Amanda xx Bookishchat

To Battersea Park By Philip Hensher – A Review

Publisher: 4th Estate

Publication date: 30th March 2023

Split into four parts and set at the point that the uk was in the height of covid lockdown rules To Battersea Park by Philip Hensher opens with one man, a published author, observing the streets and world around him in very different ways than before lockdown occurred.

Living with his partner they both treat the endless days of nothing as a chance to experience the comfort of the day panning out with small punctuations of previously meaningless tasks that now delineate the day, making the morning coffee, baking the morning bread, reading a novel between breakfast and lunch, observing the neighbours and their behaviour, and going for their allotted 1 hour exercise outside of the house. However the author seems to have lost his inspiration and impetus to write.

All the free time means the men can observe their neighbours in close quarters where before they would have been busy with their own lives. They chat with Gio and Stuart nextdoor, observe their illegal family gatherings. They watch a man across the street they dub The Stalinist who pastes pictures of past labour prime ministers in his window and then of course theres the jogger..

The writer muses on how different the streets are, quiet and subdued, punctuated only with other neighbours taking their daily walks or joggers running past, too close for comfort for the writer. He has time to notice the types of trees in their area, previously unnoticed trees and the imported Pomelo trees of a neighbouring woman.

In part two the neighbourhood opens out to the reader and where previously we were inside the writers head we now split off to meet various other characters that are linked to the writer in some way or another. We meet his parents, his mother with dementia and his father her carer. We meet a woman known as The Builders Wife, a woman who is being pushed closer to the edge by working from home, zoom meetings, looking after her adult stepchildren and the fact that her husband The Builder is currently furloughed and hanging around the house all the time.

In part three we’ve moved forward in time to a point where lockdown has developed into something we’ve not seen before. Shops are closed, supermarkets looted, electricity has failed, water is in scant supply, the postal service has ceased to exist, social media and government updates are a thing of the past. Against a backdrop of sinister violence two men take a walk……

The book ends with the writer contracting the virus along with his partner and we meet again the jogger and his family….

It’s not for everyone to read books surrounding the pandemic. I didn’t think it would be for me entirely but it prompted me to remember certain points of that time. I gelled with certain parts more than others but overall I enjoyed Hensher’s writing style. I really liked the end section which is something of a fever dream with a touch of the dystopian. I have read that parts of this book are auto-fiction which gives it more depth overall for me. If pandemic retrospectives are not your bag then steer clear, otherwise give it a whirl!

Thank you to 4th Estate for my review copy

See you all soon.

Amanda – Bookishchat x

Other Women by Emma Flint – A Review

Publisher: Picador

Publication Date: 23rd February 2023

Emma Flint’s debut novel Little Deaths is one of my favourite books of all time and has pride of place on my Forever Shelf. When I heard that Emma had a new novel out I had very high hopes. Let me tell you that I was not disappointed.

Other Women is set in London in the years after WW1. A time when many men returned from the war disfigured, disabled or mentally scarred. Many did not return at all leaving behind grieving mothers, widows and sisters.

Bea is 37, recently moved to London from the north and is working as a bookkeeper and typist for a stationary company. She lives in a women’s club in Bloomsbury with other single, independent women. But Bea is feeling overlooked. Her parents are dead, her brother too and she only really has her sister Jane who she sees rarely. She is not a widow or a grieving mother, so who is she? She is no longer young enough in society’s eyes to be considered pretty and vibrant like the bright young things she sees around her, so she is struggling to find her place.

When Tom Ryan is hired as a salesman for the company she works at, he eschews the young flirty office girls attentions in favour of the more mature Bea. Bea is entranced by him and he brings colour to her life. The only issue is he’s married.

We then meet Katie, wife of Tom and mother of his child, Judith. Katie met and married Tom very young and they have settled into a stable marriage that is perhaps a little dull. Katie is aware that Tom has his ladies on the side but turns a blind eye as he always comes back to her and their daughter.

When an act of violence in a coastal cottage means the two women’s lives converge, there is trauma and pain that could never have been predicted.

Emma Flint is an incredible writer who for me perfectly depicts female characters who you will never forget. They are flawed and damaged with a vulnerability but also an innate strength and stoicism. She also writes crime in a domestic setting perfectly too and in Other Women writes courtroom scenes that focus not only on the facts but how the central character is feeling. The emotion, the trauma, the horror of it all. It also highlights the shocking iniquities in the way men were portrayed in the press at the time versus women and how courtroom news was reported on.

Emma writes sentences that are so expertly crafted that I found myself feverishly underlining and going back to re-read them. Descriptive and evocative, sublime!

The backdrop of post-war London and society at the time was expertly researched and conveyed and I really felt swept up in the times.

The story was based on a true event and the afterword by the author was fascinating!

This is a book I won’t be forgetting in a hurry.

Thank you to Picador for my proof copy.

See you all soon.

Amanda – Bookishchat x

Weyward By Emilia Hart – A Review

Publisher: The Borough Press

Publication Date: 2nd February 2023

Well I do love a multiple timeline narrative in a book don’t I? So I had high hopes for Weyward by Emilia Hart.

Weyward tells the interconnecting stories of three women all living in different centuries. The book opens in 2019 with Kate Ayers fleeing from her physically and mentally abusive relationship with Simon, to Weyward cottage, a ramshackle abode with its wild gardens left to her by her great aunt in her will. Kate is looking for refuge and a place to gather herself but finds that her recently acquired property brings with it some questions she must figure out the answers to.

In the 1600’s Altha Weyward finds herself on trial for the murder of a local farmer. Altha and her mother were local healers often feared and revered for their potential links with witchcraft. After Altha’s mother dies she makes a promise to keep her gifts hidden but can she manage to keep her promise….

In 1947 we meet Violet, a teenage girl living with her father and brother Graham their mother having died supposedly in childbirth with Graham. Violet is a wilful girl who has a curious mind and a very strong connection with nature, insects and animals. But her curiosity is often curtailed by her father particularly when this inquisitiveness extends to asking questions about her dead mother, a woman she only has a necklace to remember her by.

This is an expertly crafted story about how the three women are intrinsically connected through the centuries. Each of them fighting their own battles against the patriarchy in their own way. These women are ‘other’ whether they realise it or not, Altha is fully aware she is different from the rest of the people in the village, young Violet feels different but is quashed by her overbearing father and Kate has powers she hasn’t yet tapped into. But with the help of Weyward cottage and the centuries old secrets buried there she can find a way to tap into her strength for herself and the women who have gone before her under the Weyward name.

This is a multilayered tale which is visceral and compelling. With short punchy chapters you flit between the narratives of the three very memorable women. I say memorable because sometimes in books with multiple timeline narratives you as a reader can feel more invested in one characters timeline than the others. This is very much not the case with Weyward.

It has elements of magical realism that really build towards the end which I found myself getting so caught up in! I loved it.

I am extremely excited to see what Emilia brings us next!

Thank you to The Borough Press for my review copy.

See you all soon.

Amanda x Bookishchat

The Family String By Denise Picton – A Review

Publisher: Ultimo Press

Publication Date: 10th November 2022

This is my first book from Ultimo Press who publish Australian fiction. It certainly won’t be my last!

Set in 1960’s Adelaide we focus on one Christaldelphian family through the eyes of 12 year old Dorcas. Dorcas is the second eldest child but the oldest living at home. Her older brother David has been sent away to do the lords work after an incident the family don’t talk about.

Dorcas, together with her two younger siblings Ruthy and Caleb like to chart their mother’s moods daily. Quite often they have a long run of ‘cross’ with the occasional run of ‘head’ to denote their mother taking to bed with one of her headaches. Occasionally she’ll have a ‘Jesus’ day where she gently hums hymns to herself as she goes about her day. Caleb also likes to chart the positions of the family ‘favourites’ in relation to their mother. This is done with coloured beads on a string, hence ‘the family string’. Unfortunately Dorcas’s bead is last on the string, furthest away from her mothers bead. This doesn’t change. Dorcas and everyone else in the family know that she is the least favourite child.

Their religion means the family can’t be ‘worldly’. They must concentrate their efforts on education and religion and nothing much else beyond that. However Caleb is desperate to play football and Ruthy is a budding writer and Dorcas has dreams of becoming a vet.

Dorcas tries her best to be the daughter she thinks her mother wants but it doesn’t quite work out that way. The family experience a tragedy which threatens to tear them apart for good but can Dorcas make her way back into the family unit…

If you’ve followed me for a while you’ll know I sometimes struggle with child narrators and quite often say that a child character has to have a bit of something special about them to keep my attention. Well let me tell you that Dorcas is something special. She is tenacious and determined but things don’t always quite work out the way she wants them to. I found myself constantly rooting for her! There are dark events that happen to Dorcas and around Dorcas and she observes these things through such naive eyes that I wanted to just give her a huge hug! She’s funny and sharp and a little bit wilful and ‘naughty’ which I loved. She has heart and spirit and is such a memorable indomitable character. I loved her!

I was also fascinated by the character of Dorcas’ mother. We are viewing her life a step removed through the naive and immature eyes of a child but as adult readers we are all too aware that this woman is clearly suffering from depression and has her own demons to battle. Dorcas and her siblings know that something isn’t right with their mother but they’re far too young to figure out what. I found this heartbreaking and as much as their mother isn’t always likeable I felt I could understand her actions somewhat.

Denise Picton’s writing is relatable and humorous but she also weaves in these threads of emotion that wind themselves around your heart and take root. This is a story of family ties, depression, love, faith and determination.

Dorcas is an unforgettable character who will stay with me for a long time to come.

A brilliant debut!

Thank you Laura Creyke and Ultimo Press for my review copy.

See you all soon.

Amanda x