Tag: English author

Lissa Evans’—Crooked heart *****

You might think this is yet another novel set in England during World War 11 and read no further. But don’t be fooled. This is a tale like no other I’ve read before, full of humour with an odd and dubious list of characters.

Ten-year-old Noel lives with his aging godmother until she dies, when he’s sent as an evacuee outside of London. There he’s paired with Vee, a single mother who is struggling to keep a roof over her head for herself, her helpless mother, and useless son, Donald. Nineteen-year-old Donald has a heart condition and can’t join up, but soon discovers an illegal way to make large sums of cash that he doesn’t share with his mother. Vee keeps failing at schemes to make money until she realizes that Noel isn’t the empty headed child she though he was. This well written novel is full of tongue-in-cheek laughs.

Naomi Alderman’s — The power *****

Roxy, the powerful, Margo, the politician, Tunde, the journalist and Allie, Mother Eve are the key characters who witness and are part of a new era exploding all over the world. Young girls develop a power that sends men rioting because they can’t accept they are now the weaker sex.

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Rachel Joyce’s — Miss Benson’s beetle *****

Frumpy Margery Benson is a middle-aged English spinster who works as a home science teacher. Her three older brothers are killed in WW11. Her parents die. And her remaining two aunts die. Her life is lonely and boring, until she discovers a note with a comical caricature of herself being passed around her sniggering classroom. She storms out of the school stealing the head mistress’s boots, and is determined to leave England still suffering from rationing after the war. Margery decides to chase the dream she abandoned after her father’s suicide, and discover the golden beetle of New Caledonia .

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Sadie Jones’s — The outcast *****

In 1950s England, Lewis’s mother drinks a bottle of wine, and drowns while out on a picnic with her son. Because of his failure to save his mother, Lewis’s response to his guilt becomes unruly and he lands in jail. On his release, he discovers the past is ever present within both his remaining family and his village community that no longer trust him.