loociejj death, grief, historical

Hell & High Water – Tanya Landman

hell-and-high-water

So, those of you with your reading hats on will remember that Tanya Landman won the Carnegie Medal in 2015 for her amazing book Buffalo Soldier (see review) the tale of young black slave who is emancipated and then joins the American army pretending to be a boy. It’s a powerful book about America’s racial problems. The emancipation of slaves by Abraham Lincoln caused a whole load of different problems for the American people in the 1860s. This book is set in England in the 1750s and follows the story of Caleb; a mixed race boy who lives with his father, Joseph Chappell, who is  a Punch and Judy showman.

Joseph has just finished a show in the small town of Torchester and Caleb is going round collecting any donations. A small boy runs in to Joseph and winds him; a silk purse falls at his feet. After that all hell breaks lose. Joseph is arrested and taken to jail. He is spared a death sentence but it is commuted to seven years hard labour in the colonies (America). Joseph and his sister are the children of an Earl who lost his fortune when a ship that he had financed sunk and all the goods were lost. Joseph tells Caleb that he has an aunt Anne who lives at the end of the river; he must follow the river and make for a large house called Norton Manor where she is a maid to Sir Robert Fairbrother, she will, he says, help Caleb until he returns.

Caleb takes the Punch and Judy theatre and heads along the river to find her. When he eventually arrives he is told that she no longer lives there. she has married a fisherman and has moved to a nearby village. He goes in search of her and find her in a tiny cottage at the end of a row of houses. She has a small baby called Dorcas and a step daughter called Letty. Her husband is away at sea and, to make ends meet, they take in sewing from the local crews coming back from long journeys. Letty is not too pleased to see him and Anne is just surprised. The village in general are gob smacked to find a young black man in their midst  but seem to take it in their stride. Latent racism is the order of the day here. Questions such as ‘does it rub off’ are common but Caleb is used to that. He cannot  find work but is a talented sewer and, while Letty goes out to get the work, Anne and Caleb fall in to a routine of sewing and mending. All seems to be ok.

One morning Letty is ill and Caleb is required to go to the beach to see if any driftwood has washed up for them to burn. He doesn’t find any wood but discovers a body instead. The body is a man and he has a distinctive ring on his finger which Caleb recognises. After this things seem to get more and more mysterious. Caleb and Letty turn detective to try and solve the mystery and eventually put them all at risk. Not only are they poor but Caleb is also black, a distinct disadvantage in the 1750s.

I enjoyed this book, I really did. But, and you knew this was coming, I have a couple of issues with it. Firstly, the colour of Caleb’s skin was a little pointless. He wasn’t unusually harassed or picked on, he was a free man and could work and do what he wanted. I wasn’t really sure why he was written as a black man. if he had been used or it had some significance to the story then fair enough, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. That’s not me being racist, it just didn’t sit very comfortably with me. Secondly, there is a romance brewing but it never really gets going. The relationship between Letty and Caleb is nice but not really fleshed out. The book is based on a real life case where a nobleman was paid by the government to transport slaves to the colonies but instead left them on a small island of the coast of Devon and used them as slaves, I remember watching a programme about it. An interesting historical novel that will keep you guessing but, there are too many coincidences to make it really good. Landman writes well though and her ability to set the scene and make you feel as if you are really there is spot on.

you will enjoy if you like historical mysteries, or just enjoy a good yarn!

loociejj grief, love, romance

The Geography of Me and You – Jennifer E. Smith

geography-of-me-and-you

Morning all. I read this book a few months ago so bear with… I just saw it on my desk and realised that I had in fact read it, loved it and forgot to review it; so here we go.

The Geography of Me and You is the tale of two teenagers, Lucy and Owen. She lives in a swanky apartment in New York, so does he. She lives in a posh flat and he lives in the caretakers apartment. Her parents are mega rich and have left her home alone (She is 16 btw) and moved to Paris where her dad is working. He lives with his dad after having recently lost his mum. His dad is not coping very well but has been offered the caretaking job by a friend and enrolled Owen in a local school, even though he doesn’t need to go to school because he has enough credits to go to college already (I don’t really understand the American High School system but that sounds like he is pretty clever).

So, Lucy is home alone in New York. She has two brothers but they have gone away to college. One day she is going back up to her apartment and finds herself in a lift with a boy that she has recently seen around. The lift suddenly comes to a stop and they are stuck in it, they start to talk and find out a little about each other. When they are rescued they realise that there has been some sort of power cut and that New York is in darkness; what better thing to do then go and explore, ending up on the roof of their building watching the stars. After this perfect night together they are torn apart by circumstance.

Lucy’s dad gets a job in Edinburgh and they ask her to come and join them. She starts a local school and meets a dishy lacrosse player called Liam. He really likes her but her heart isn’t in it. Owen’s dad loses his job at the apartment and they decide to go travelling around America (evidently Owen doesn’t need to go to school after all – it’s those credits you see?) and they end up filling the car and going for it. He manages to keep in contact with Lucy through postcards and letters, even if very occasionally and therefore stays in her thoughts.

Time goes by, Owen and his dad finally end up in their old house with all the memories of his mum to think about and Lucy is trying to build her life in Scotland. Owen realises that if he doesn’t see her again he will never get over her so they agree to meet in New York to see if they feel the same about each other. this is the only unbelievable bit as they are still only about 17.

This book is lovely. It’s romantic and full of beautiful gestures that remind you why you fall in love in the first place. Its got all the romantic bits, long walks in the park, watching the stars on the roof top, romantic postcards from mysterious destinations… it also gives a really nice impression of New York. The two teenagers obviously like living there, Lucy describes it as her town and their exploration makes you want to go and explore it too. My impression of a big impersonal town is blown away by the affection they have for it.

My only issue with it is that they are still so young and yet seem to have so much freedom. They also are a little too grown up for liking. All in all though, if you suspend disbelief a bit then it is a really nice read. I haven’t read any of her other books so maybe that would be a good place to start for further reading.

 

loociejj death, fantasy fiction, grief, magic

Tamzin Clarke v Jack the Ripper – Lauren Stock

tamzin-clarke

This a pre release copy from Netgalley, but was published in January 2016.

All I am going to say about this book, and I will be brief, is please do not read this book! It is terrible! I am going to explain to you why I picked it to read though….

The premise of the book is this: Tamzin Clarke lives in New York with her mum and dad. Her dad runs an antique store and her mum is a policewoman. she has a boyfriend (pick generic American boys name, I can’t remember it) who is in a band and plays loads of instruments, and runs some dance group thing with a girl called Macy (who is horrible). oh, and there’s a ghost called Daniel who she instantly falls in love with even though she’s had a boyfriend for ever….

At the beginning of the book someone called Vicki is working as an undercover cop in the red light district. she is attacked by a man with an English accent who kills her. Vicki, it turns out, is the adopted (sort of) sister of Tamzin.

It all goes downhill from there. The writing is atrocious, and I mean really bad; fifty shades of grey bad! The characters are stilted and one dimensional, the main character is so annoying, all the other characters are generic ‘nice boyfriend’, ‘horrible friend’ and ‘cute kid’. The end bit (yes I did make it that far but I skipped a lot!) is the most unbelievable bit of the whole book. It also ties in the main character (who thinks he is Jack the Ripper and makes pies from peoples organs!) to Roanoke, the first settlers in America who disappeared; You see? It could have been so much better!

What is so annoying is that the story line could have been good if the book was edited better and the characters more fleshed out. It may be that the version I read was written before the final edit and that’s why it was quite disjointed, but that could just be me being generous. It does give me hope that I can get a book published though if this is a benchmark!

SO BAD words cannot express it! And, on Goodreads the majority of people give it five stars!! unbelievable!!

 

loociejj fantasy fiction, grief, mythical creatures

The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett – Chelsea Sedoti

lizzie-lovett

This a also a pre release copy from Netgalley. This book is due to be released on the 30th January 2017.

The main pretext of this book is almost identical to the 1980s film Stand by Me starring Will Wheaton and River Phoenix. If you put the two stories together it would be pretty difficult to tell them apart. The more I read the more it made me think about this film and how much I loved it. Anyway…

Lizzie Lovett is the stereotypical cheerleader at High School (we’re in America – Griffin Mills to be exact). Everyone loves her or wants to be her. Hawthorn Creely was one of those girls and her brother Rush – typical high school jock – dated her. Hawthorn has a surreal meeting with her and thinks they are friends but instead of sharing her feelings with her she is humiliated by her instead. Five years after her humiliation Lizzie has left school and Hawthorn is a loner with no friends, except the musical Emily. She sits behind the gym to eat her lunch and is periodically humiliated by most of the other students, including a very nasty character called Mychelle (yes its really spelt that way!) One morning Rush comes down to breakfast and announces that Lizzie has gone missing while camping in the woods with her older boyfriend, Lorenzo. He seems pretty upset about it and Hawthorn is ascerbic. After all, he hasn’t seen her for years. But the more the story unfolds, the more Hawthorn is fascinated by it. As the days go by she tries to find out more. She goes to the café where Lizzie was working and manages to get herself a job there. She meets Lizzie’s boyfriend and offers him a theory as to what she thinks happened to Lizzie in the woods. I’m not going to spoil it for you but lets just say, it involves werewolves. Pretty soon she has taken over Lizzie’s life. This doesn’t help with the bullying at school.

There is also the situation with the hippies in the garden. Hawthorn’s mum is a hippy and a vegan. Her group of friends arrive and camp out in the garden, led by the enigmatic Sundog. They are all a bit crazy but, as Hawthorn slowly falls apart they are a great support to her, helping her figure out what is going on in her head. If you have seen Stand by Me then you will know what happens at the end. It has an inevitable conclusion and, like Occum’s Razor, the most obvious theory is also what happens. There is also a whole host of supporting character’s but Connor is my favourite; the silent constant.

At the beginning I didn’t really like Hawthorn. I could see why all the other kids thought she was weird. She is horrible to everyone, including her best friend, and thinks that the world owes her something because she has a rough time at school. Get over it, I thought. She grew on me though. I think that she needs professional help but….. The saddest thing is that, in so many of these books it shows how much your school days define you. Like in Tommy Wallach’s We All Looked Up each character had their role to play in school life. I didn’t go to school in America but I can imagine that this is what its like. Luckily for us in Blighty  there is less of this pigeon holing and we can be a bit more free with our characters. Plus, and I will tell you this for free, every time you start somewhere new you can reinvent yourself. You don’t have to be the person you were at school, the only people who will suffer from this are the popular ones, and this may be the key as to why Lizzie disappears. Perhaps she could never attain the popularity and adoration that she had when she was at school and everything after was just a dull imitation of life. I also didn’t like Enzo, he is a real messed up creep.

it’s an interesting interpretation of small town America and some of the characters were really well done. Rush isn’t in the book too much but he is the kind of older brother that we should all have. If you see it on the shelf, try it.

Further watching: The classic Stand By Me.

Further Reading: We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach, All the Bright Places – Jennifer Niven

loociejj death, grief, love, romance

The Radius of Us – Marie Marquardt

the-radius-of-us

This is a pre release review from Netgalley. This book is due to be released in January 2017.

At a time when the Americans are deciding who is going to be their next President, and of the two main candidates one wants to build a wall to keep all of South America from entering the USA illegally, this is a very pertinent book.

Gretchen lives in Arizona. She is at high school and has a boyfriend called Adam. She has a job and a car and parents who love her. She has an extended family and babysits for her little cousins. Gretchen’s life comes crashing down when she is attacked when walking back to her car late one night. She did all the sensible things; parked on a well lit street surrounded by other cars, she carried her keys in her fist to ward off attackers  – yet she still get attacked by a boy in a hoodie.

Phoenix is a boy from El Salvador. He has escaped a ruthless gang culture with his little brother Ari. Ari is below the age where he has to claim asylum; Phoenix is not. As soon as they cross the border they gave themselves up and were separated. they have not seen each other since and Ari has not spoken a word. He is in a children’s detention centre in Texas. Phoenix was taken to a detention centre for adults and then put in the care of two women – Sally and Amanda – who are trying to help him seek asylum in the USA. The problem is that Phoenix has done some things in the past which mean that this may not be possible. He is still carrying a scar that will have a profound effect on his fledgling relationship with a girl he’s not supposed to love.

The book is narrated from both their points of view and is superb. As they slowly seek redemption in each other and Gretchen pulls away from Adam and towards a new, different life, they both see that their world has changed but that it is not necessarily a bad thing. Phoenix cannot get away from his past but Gretchen helps him to see that there is good people that can be a part of his future, if he allows them to be. He just needs to let go of his memories. Gretchen needs to see that although she has witnessed something horrendous time can heal, and we need to see that judging a situation can be fatal.

The writing in this book is beautiful. When Gretchen is describing Phoenix she says ‘And your color: it’s light, but rich and deep, and it makes me want to climb inside you to see what substance God filled you with, to give you that sheen. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. You’re like nothing I’ve ever seen…‘ see what I mean?

This is a time when asylum seekers are constantly on the news and we are all thinking about the impact it has on our lives;  this book shows us the other side of those news stories. Each person that makes that journey across the sea, on top of a train or in the back of a lorry has a different story to tell. These boys were in the wrong place at the wrong time, they were trapped in a hell that they didn’t make. Gretchen is also in the wrong place at the wrong time and the way in which she copes with that will break your heart.

When this book is released, go and buy it. Read it in one sitting; devour it. It deserves your full attention. it’s not just the story that will touch you, and it will, it’s the writing, the flow, the way the author makes you feel about the characters she is presenting to you. You won’t regret it, but you may be sad when you finish it!

loociejj dystopian fiction, love, romance

The 100: Day 21 – Kass Morgan

the-100-day-21

# CONTAINS SPOILERS: READ THE 100 FIRST #

So, this is the second one in the series. I also found out that the book and the TV series are not necessarily linked; the directors of the series hadn’t even read the second book so apparently the TV series is only loosely based on the books, just the character names are the same. Bit weird. But anyway, the second book carries on where the first one left off. Glass is still not back together with Luke, Wells and Clarke are not together and Bellamy has a thing for Clarke and she might just feel the same. Oh, and annoying Octavia is still missing, possibly taken by the Earthborns. And I think at the end of the last book they captured a girl from Earth called Sasha.

So, you’re all up to date. Bellamy is going a bit crazy looking for Octavia and wants to torture Sasha for information. Graham just wants to chop her head off and put it on a spike. But, as Wells gets to know her he starts to develop some feelings for her, plus he feels a bit guilty about keeping her captive.

This is a good middle book as it ties up loose ends from the first one and sets everything up nicely for the conclusion. I liked the way that the Earthborns were arranged. It seemed more plausible that some people had survived and were living in relative peace but, that one group would take exception to this and break off on their own. In any society this would happen. Wells is trying to be the leader and again, I think any society needs a natural leader to follow and he is the obvious choice. I like his character for some reason,  but the others don’t seem to grab me. You’d think that if they were narrating large chunks of the book in the second book in you would know them a little better. Unfortunately I didn’t really feel that happened. Bellamy is obviously concerned for his sister but he still has time to get with Clarke and traipse around being angry. He is a pretty angry young man!

The scenes on the ship also lack a bit of excitement. Glass and Luke do make it but there is some stuff that happens along the way, including the fact that Phoenix is annexed with all the oxygen and cuts off the other two ships. It is survival of the fittest up there and eventually there is a mad scamble for the drop ships and Earth.

I am enjoying the series but it feels a little commercial to me. A bit like a TV company has asked an author to write an exciting TV series. I will definitely read the third one but I feel that I have other series to explore first.

loociejj death, dystopian fiction, fantasy fiction, grief, love, post apocalype

The 100 – Kass Morgan

the 100

I think I may have come a bit late to this book as it is a huge E4 hit with cult viewers and lots of good looking teen Americans… yes I Googled them all! I’m not being funny or nuffin’ but, if you grew up on a ship in space would you look that good?!

Anyway, back to the book. The book has four main narrators: Clarke – who is the daughter of two scientists who were investigating whether it would safe to return to earth (more on this later) Wells – who is the son of the Chancellor and a bit of a posh  boy, Bellamy  – his sister is in the dropship (more on this later..) and Glass who has escaped the dropship to look for, and apologise to her boyfriend. The space ship that they all grow up on is split in to three areas; Waldon – where Luke (Glass’s boyfriend) lives; Arcadia and Phoenix where all the elite people live. Wells, Clarke, Glass and Bellamy are from there. Wells, Clarke and Glass have all been imprisoned for various offences and are due to be retried on their 18th birthdays. The ship has been floating in space for 300 years after a massive nuclear war has made earth uninhabitable.

The government decides that instead of giving the teens a retrial they will send them back down to Earth to see if the atmosphere has changed and it is safe for them all to live on again. The oxygen and resources on the ship are at dangerously low levels and they need to look at other options (like maybe killing them all, but hey they’re only convicts right?) so they send 100 kids on the dropship down to earth to let them explore/ die. Bellamy’s sister is on the ship and he breaks on to it by holding Wells’ father hostage – in the ensuing struggle Glass manages to escape and remain on the ship where she gets pardoned (think her mum might be some kind of high class prostitute but it wasn’t too clear!)

This is clever as Glass is still on the mothership and we can get regular updates about what is going on up there. Meanwhile Wells and Clarke have had a relationship that ended in catastrophe and she now hates him. He still loves her and has broken the law so that he can also get banished to Earth. Even though this is super romantic she still hates his guts and strikes up a friendship with Bellamy.

This book is kind of Lord of the Flies in space. On Earth it’s survival of the fittest and Graham, the typical bully, starts to assert his authority and gather a gang of thugs around him. Octavia, Bellamy’s sister is also one to watch. At the end of the book they also discover that they may not be alone and that Earth may not be as uninhabited as they thought.

It’s an interesting concept but the best bit about the book is the interplay between the main characters and how/ if they will survive. Wells is a bit too bossy and Clarke is a little too sanctimonious but I have just started the second book in the series so I must be enjoying it right!?

Further Reading: Lord the Flies by William Golding and 1984 by George Orwell. Any dystopian novel because the themes are pretty much the same.

Maybe also try The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall or The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood- bit feminist these ones and they both explore the theme of the state controlling the birth rate post apocalypse. Also, Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel which is also post apocalyptic (and brilliant!)

loociejj death, grief

Moth Girls – Anne Cassidy

moth girls

This book is on the Hounslow Teen Read long list for 2017.

I’m going to start by telling you all a little story. I met Anne Cassidy once; she came to an author talk at my school not long after I started working there and had not yet realised the wealth of books involved in YA fiction. This was about seven years ago and she was a very nice lady. She told me that she used to be an English teacher back in the day and wrote a series of books about teens who get killed in mysterious ways. She liked to imagine some of the horrible kids she taught as the ones who had a bad end….

She writes crime thrillers for teens I guess. If any of you have read the amazing Looking for JJ which is based on the real life events of a teenager called Mary Bell, who murdered her neighbours kids and then goes to prison, or Finding JJ about her release and life after then you will know that she writes really well, with some good twists and exciting characters. Sadly, i’m going to have to say that maybe this book has lost that a bit.

The book starts with Mandy, who is now 17. She is watching a notorious house getting demolished. Five years before, her two friends Petra and Tina go in to the house for a dare and completely disappear. Mandy hadn’t wanted to go, a decision that saved her life. The next day a man’s body found in the house, he has been murdered but the two girls are never seen again. Mandy blames herself for not telling the truth sooner and has been plagued with guilt ever since.

Mandy and Tina had been best friends for years but when Petra arrives on the scene she soon drives a wedge between them. Mandy is a little bit of a goody goody and Tina is drawn to the slightly more exciting Petra. As we explore the backgrounds of all the girls it is easy to see why. Petra’s dad is the local criminal and gets himself involved in some dodgy dealings, including going in to the house to deliver things to the old man who eventually winds up dead.  Mandy is now in the sixth form and because of these events doesn’t really have any friends until she meets a boy who tries to find a way in.

The book is written from three POVs; Mandy, Petra and Tina but, as we get nearer to discovering the truth about what happened that night it switches to the two that survive. So it doesn’t take much to figure out which one doesn’t make it. The writing style is also a bit over simplistic and clunky. For example, how many teenage girls do you know called Petra? Also, she tries to tie in some modern themes, Petra’s dad is going out with a Polish woman who is really lovely but he is horrible to her; this eventually has some bearing on the ending but it didn’t sit comfortably with me. I liked the premise of the book but the execution didn’t really do it for me. Lovely lady though…

Further Reading : Looking  for JJ and  The Murder Notebooks series also by Anne Cassidy. For a more challenging read go for Slade House by David Mitchell.

loociejj grief, love

How Not to Disappear – Clare Furniss

how not to disappear

This book is on the Hounslow Teen Read long list for 2017.

Hattie Lockwood is 17 and has just discovered that she is pregnant with her best friends baby. Her best friend Reuben is a bit of a rich kid screw up and after a drunken night together which meant more to her then it did to him, he has buggered off to France to spend some time with his dad. Hattie lives with her mum, her stepdad Carl and her twin brother and sister Alice and Ollie. I have to say that Alice is by far the best character in this book and her emails to Hattie are hilarious!

Anyway, Hattie is off school for the summer and feels abandoned. Not just by Reuben but by her other best friend Kat who has gone off with her slightly crazy girlfriend Zoe to Edinburgh. She works in a place called the Happy Diner (Which sounds anything but…) and is babysitting Alice and Ollie while her mum and Carl go to work and try and plan their wedding. Hattie’s dad, Dominic was a war correspondent and was killed in a roadside bomb attack when she was young. She doesn’t really remember too much about him but remembers that he was away a lot. Hattie is in denial about the pregnancy and is trying to work out what to do when she receives a phone call from an old lady called Peggy about her great aunt Gloria, who Hattie has no knowledge of. Peggy explains that Gloria is her father’s aunt and that she isn’t very well and would probably appreciate a visit from someone in the family; Hattie is a bit bored and lonely and so goes along to meet her. When she pitches up she discovers an old lady living in isolated squalor who drinks a heck of a lot of gin and loves a violet cream (whatever that is – a chocolate maybe?) The first meeting doesn’t go well but eventually they work it all out and decide to go on a road trip so that Gloria can see some old places before she forgets them. Gloria has the first signs of dementia and is terrified that she will lose her memories before she has a chance to share them – if she tells them to someone then they will still exist.

Hattie, trying to delay the inevitable decides to take Gloria on this last hurrah, Thelma and Louise style, and they both discover a lot of things on the way. I really liked the flashbacks in this book – I read another review that said it was difficult to distinguish who the narrator was but I disagree. Gloria starts off by describing the current scene before trawling back though her memories, which I thought was a nice touch The way in which the author deals with dementia and how terrifying it must be is really poignant. Gloria is a fiercely independent lady and has no one (apart from her neighbours) to support her. The idea that we live on in other peoples memories of us is just a lovely thought. I cannot imagine how I would deal with it if it happened to me but I liked the idea of doing crazy things before I forget what its all about. I loved the character of Gloria, she was such a strong, inspirational woman who has lived through some terrible times; as she says ‘who are we without our memories?’ and, good and bad, they make us the person we are. To lose that identity must be awful.

This book is beautifully written, explores the relationship between the young and old and reminds us that every old person was a young person once; a young person full of life and love and excited about their future. It’s how we deal with that future that makes up our character and I loved the way that the author connected the two women together, not just by family  but by experience.

I haven’t read any other novels by Clare Furniss but will give Year of the Rat a go; I hope this book makes the shortlist because it is brilliant.

loociejj art, War

The French Impressionist – Rebecca Bischoff

the french impressionist

The release date for this book is 6th December 2016 and I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of it through Netgalley (get me eh?) I will be reading and reviewing some more advanced copies so look out for recommendations.

Rosemary is a 15 year old American girl who has some issues. The biggest of which is that she suffers from a form of anxiety which means that she is physically unable to speak in the presence of strangers, it’s like a crippling social phobia that means she can’t work her mouth properly. She lives with her mum (the term helicopter parent was invented for this woman), and her mum’s boyfriend Zander. She has a best friend called Jada who is also physically disabled and her life is controlled to the nth degree by her mum. Somehow (and this is never fully explained) Rosemary has managed to convince her mum that she is on an art retreat in Arizona where she is learning to paint like her favourite artists (The Impressionists). She is in fact in Nice, France where she has pitched up at the home of Sylvie and Emile. They run a shop and live above it where they paint and run a painters exchange type programme. Rosemary, so they think, is there because she loves painting and wants to improve.

But the thing is, Rosemary doesn’t like painting or The Impressionists, in fact she cannot paint at all. She faked the paintings that she sent Sylvie because she wants to be adopted by them and stay in France forever, basically to escape her crazy mum who locks her in her room. She has found Sylvie and Emile on the internet through Sylvie’s blog and has decided that they are the ones. She also thinks that they have lost their son, Ansel in a road accident in Paris and so will want to share the love with another child ie. her.

The other part of the story is that there is a secret apartment walled up next to Sylvie and Emile’s that has been locked up since the war. Rosemary finds a secret door to it in her bedroom and explores. She runs into her horrible neighbours (The Thackerays – they’re English so obviously they are the baddies) and thinks that they are trying to steal whatever is inside the apartment. She also meets another American family with a boy of her age called Gavin who she develops some weird relationship with. Even though she can’t speak….

You may be able to tell from my tone that I wasn’t too keen on this book! It started off ok but a little unbelievable and then got a bit worse. To be fair I did read it all the way to the end and did quite enjoy the sheer silliness of it but don’t think that that means that I thought it was a great book. Firstly, if this girl has this thing then how on earth did she manage to negotiate a trip all the way from America to Nice? Zander books the thing but he thinks she is just going to Paris so, she basically lies to everyone in the book. Sylvie and Emile are lovely but a little bit too trusting and how do they understand each other if Rosemary can’t even order a sandwich in French? She has done some lessons but is no way fluent. I just found Rosemary thoroughly unpleasant. and manipulative and, even though I guess I was supposed to feel sorry for her because of her disability and her horrible home life, I just couldn’t.  There is no way her mum would let her organise a trip to Arizona without researching it all so how does she get away with it all? I wanted the author to develop the story about the locked up apartment but that was almost an aside. A whole book about that would be good.

It does give you a really nice impression of the French though, and the descriptions of Nice and the French way of life is good. Having spent a lot of time in France I thought it was pretty accurate. The book just had too many lose ends and plot holes for me to really enjoy it. You might though, especially if you like art….. or cats.