Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
When two of them grow wings, they are exploited by a ruthless surgeon, Edward Meake, who believes he is serving science and God’s purpose. Haven is a beautiful, bold blaze of a book about three men in seventh-century Ireland surviving on an island as they build a monastery. This is Liz Hyder’s first adult novel, and the style is more like that of a YA novel - short sections, quite a lot of telling not showing, just slightly overstated generally.
Set primarily in 19th century London but with the addition of Shropshire and (very briefly) my home county of Essex, it uses the time to weave a new perspective around how much we allowed greed ridden men to rule over talented women. There are no shortage of books devoted to sneaker culture and history, but this volume is something else entirely.Although healing from pain and trauma is serious work, that doesn’t mean there aren’t smiles to be had as you make your way through this book. I’d love someone to gift me Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse by Patrick Hamilton, the inimitably noir British novelist and playwright who bequeathed us the verb “to gaslight”. A young surgeon in 1840s London stumbles across the find of a lifetime – a drowned woman who has wings growing from her back. Bad Relations by Cressida Connolly (Viking) is her best novel yet; a haunting story of a family blighted by bereavement, stretching from the Crimean war to the present. When they were first introduced in quick succession with very different personalities and backgrounds my concern that I would find the constant change of character confusing became irrelevant as it didn’t take long to become totally invested in each of their stories.
It’s a beautiful and humorous portrait of five siblings and the complexities of family relationships.PS: this was an audioarc, thanks Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for gifting me with this amazing read! I also can’t give myself an out, claiming something is too difficult, when I have witnessed someone I now have such admiration for working through unimaginable pain and trauma to find freedom. It takes a class act to find comedy, thrills and pathos in a police procedural about lynching and castration.
Of the plot, the basic premise alone hooked me, and I won’t add to it… a young woman is running through Shropshire woodlands. Originally from London, she now lives in South Shropshire in a small medieval market town surrounded by hills, books and plants. The next time you hear yourself using the language of minimization, delusion, or denial, try replacing the words with: ‘It hurts.It is relatable, brutally true to present life and beautifully presented with a language that sings. To celebrate the gift of life is to find the gift in everything that happens, even the parts that are difficult, that we’re not sure we can survive.
If you enjoyed Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield (another of my favourites in recent years) then I would think that The Gifts would greatly appeal. This is one of those books where it would have been much easier to have highlighted the passages that didn’t speak directly to me.As a psychologist; as a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother; as an observer of my own and others’ behavior; and as an Auschwitz survivor, I am here to tell you that the worst prison is not the one the Nazis put me in. Masters takes us from the early days of the cassette in the ’60s to the “home taping is killing music” scare of the ’80s, all the way through to the decline and resurgence of tapes.
Great Deal 
New Comment