Laura Besley's Blog

About the Book 

Title: On the Edge

Author: Jane Jesmond

Publisher: Verve Books (October, 2021)

Summary (taken from the back cover): Jen Shaw has climbed all her life: daring ascents of sheer rock faces, crumbling buildings, cranes - the riskier the better. Both her work and personal life revolved around climbing, and the adrenaline high it gave her. Until she went too far and hurt the people she cares about. So she's given it all up now. Honestly, she has. And she's checked herself into a rehab centre to prove it.

Yet, when Jen awakens to find herself drugged and dangling off the local lighthouse during a wild storm less than twenty-four hours after a 'family emergency' takes her home to Cornwall, she needs all her skill to battle her way to safety.

Has Jen fallen back into her old risky ways, or is there a more sinister explanation hidden in her hometown? Only when she has navigated her fragmented memories and faced her troubled past will she be able to piece together what happened - and trust herself to fix it.

What I Think

I love the sea which made On The Edge, the debut novel by Jane Jesmond (published by Verve Books), a great read for me. Set in Cornwall, there are lots of beautiful descriptions of the sea and the cliffs, and nature at large, reminding me of another book I read and loved earlier in the year set in Cornwall: The Lip by Charlie Carroll. 

The main character in On the Edge is Jen Shaw. She's a lover of climbing and risk-taking, the bigger the better, but then a tragedy stops her in her tracks and sends her off the rails. Not far into the book Jen is drugged and left hanging on the side of an old lighthouse. There's an element of the 'whodunnit' in this narrative as she tries to work out who it could have been which keeps the reader guessing, and turning the pages, right to the very end. 

Family and childhood friends also play a strong part in this novel. Jen travels back to where she grew up to help out her brother and mother with the renovation of their sprawling childhood estate, Tregonna. There are interesting insights into how relationships change as we move from children to teenagers to adults as well as how moving away and coming back can also alter the dynamics. Not to mention the influence of partners, new and old. 

Lurking beneath the surface story, sometimes literally, is a much darker story, which, I feel really tied the different threads of the novel together nicely. 

This is an accomplished debut novel full of intrigue set against the backdrop of the beautiful Cornish coast. 

About the Author

On the Edge is Jane Jesmond's debut novel and the first in a series featuring dynamic, daredevil protagonist Jen Shaw. Although she was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, raised in Liverpool, and considers herself northern through and through, Jane's family comes from Cornwall. Her lifelong love of the Cornish landscape and culture inspired the setting of On The Edge. Jane has spent the last thirty years living and working in France. She began writing steadily six or seven years ago and writes every morning in between staring out at the sea and making cups of tea.

About the Book 

Title: The Affair

Author: Hilary Boyd

Publisher: Penguin Books (August, 2021)

Summary (taken from the back cover): On the glamorous shores of Lake Como, Connie meets Jared.

She's married. He's young. But that doesn't stop the heat rising between them.

And so begins a long, hot, intoxicating summer where Connie succumbs to temptation - breaking her marriage vows.

At the end of summer, Connie returns to her husband, ready to put the affair behind her.

But Jared has other ideas . . .

What I Think

The Affair is the first book by Hilary Boyd I've read, but as an international bestselling author, I had, of course, heard of her books, especially her debut, Thursdays in the Park. Boyd is, I believe, known for writing old(er) people well. The Affair certainly fits that mould.  

Elements of the story - and I mean this in a positive way - reminded me of the television series, The Split, starring Nicola Walker, in which we, as viewers and readers, are forced to look at relationships and question: what makes them work, what can we live with, and what can we live without? 

Connie, the main character in The Affair, finds herself in a new phase in her long marriage: her husband has recently retired and this creates a different dynamic, a reminder that relationships are often not static, but shift and change in relation to intrinsic and extrinsic influences. Also, that no matter how many good years you have behind you, they can't always sustain you through tough ones. What initially seems like a little light relief for Connie from her problems at home, weighs more and more heavily on her shoulders until she buckles under the strain.  

Hilary Boyd is one of those authors who makes writing a book look easy: her characters are fully formed, her dialogue is authentic, her descriptions of far flung places are divine and the narrative runs along at just the right pace. There is no doubt that achieving this is far from easy; that it does, in fact, take a tremendous amount of talent. Recommend The Affair if you're looking for a pacy read that deftly delves into the deeper, sometimes darker, side of relationships.  

Many thanks to Sarah Harwood and Michael J. Books for my proof copy. 

About the Author

HILARY BOYD was a nurse, a marriage counsellor, and ran a small cancer charity before becoming an author. She has written eight books, including Thursdays in the Park, her debut novel which sold over half a million copies and was an international bestseller. The film rights have been acquired by Charles Dance, who will be directing and starring. 

You can follow Hilary on Twitter: @HilaryBoyd

About the Book 

Title: Foregone

Author: Russell Banks

Publisher: No Exit Press (June, 2021)

Summary (taken from the back cover): At the center of Foregone is famed Canadian American leftist documentary filmmaker Leonard Fife, one of sixty thousand draft evaders and deserters who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam. Fife, now in his late seventies, is dying of cancer in Montreal and has agreed to a final interview in which he is determined to bare all his secrets at last, to demythologize his mythologized life. The interview is filmed by his acolyte and ex-star student, Malcolm MacLeod, in the presence of Fife's wife and alongside Malcolm's producer, cinematographer, and sound technician, all of whom have long admired Fife but who must now absorb the meaning of his astonishing, dark confession.

Imaginatively structured around Fife's secret memories and alternating between the experiences of the characters who are filming his confession, the novel challenges our assumptions and understanding about a significant lost chapter in American history and the nature of memory itself. Russell Banks gives us a daring and resonant work about the scope of one man's mysterious life, revealed through the fragments of his recovered past.

The book launch for FOREGONE is happening tonight, Monday 22nd June @7.30pm. It's free to attend and here's the link to sign up! 

What I Think

In Foregone Leonard Fife drifts between two close third person present tense narratives to tell the story of his life and the secrets held within it. By using this technique, and omitting speech marks, Banks has effectively blurred the lines between past and present, speech and thought, creating a world that teeters, purposefully, on the brink of confusion.

'Only liars know what they have said.'

Truth, or the aversion of truth, is at the heart of this story. Fife chooses to be filmed, because 'in private he can't keep himself from lying to [his wife, Emma] and what he says in private is 'both true and false and neither.' Through Fife, Banks has created a deep and interesting exploration of who we are, how much of ourselves we reveal to others and the roles we play, willingly or not, conscious or not, with the different people in our lives and ultimately, the need to be known, and loved, for who we truly are. 

'Once you cross the border, you're starting your life over. There's no turning back.'

In some ways, the border between America and Canada, which plays a pivotal role in who Leonard Fife becomes, is the least important. There are many other borders crossed in 'Foregone', which precede this one and are equally momentous in how they shape his life and character.  

'There's no such thing as the end of childhood.'

Fife's focus during his interview narrative with Malcolm is centred around his experiences as a young man, from his late teens up to his late twenties. As readers, we only gain snippets of his childhood, but, as is the case in reality, we can feel how much it has shaped Fife and continues to permeate his life, his decisions, his feelings and his essence of what it means to be a person capable of giving and receiving love. 

Foregone is a fascinating and in-depth read of a character's ability to construct and deconstruct his life along with his need to be accepted, known and loved for who he truly is. 

About the Author

RUSSELL BANKS has published ten novels, six short story collections, and four poetry collections. His novels Cloudsplitter and Continental Drift were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Two of Banks's novels have been adapted for feature-length films, The Sweet Hereafter (winner of the Grand Prix and International Critics Prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival) and Affliction (which earned a 'Best Supporting Actor' Oscar for James Coburn). Banks has won numerous awards for his work, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, O. Henry and Best American Short Story Award, and the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 

One of America's most prestigious fiction writers, Russell Banks was president of the International Parliament of Writers and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and letters. 

About the Book 

Title: An Act of Love 

Author: Carol Drinkwater

Publisher: Penguin (2021)

Summary (taken from the back cover): France, 1943.

Forced to flee war ravaged Poland, Sara and her parents are offered refuge in a beautiful but dilapidated house in the French Alps. It seems the perfect hideaway, despite haunting traces of the previous occupants who left in haste.

But shadows soon fall over Sara's blissful summer, and her blossoming romance with local villager Alain. As the Nazis close in, the family is forced to make a harrowing choice that could drive them apart forever, while Sara's own bid for freedom risks several lives . . . 

Will her family make it through the summer together? 

And can she hold onto the love she has found with Alain?

By turns poignant and atmospheric, this is the compelling new novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Carol Drinkwater about the power of first love and courage in our darkest hours.

What I Think

Why do we read? Why do you read? The reason I read is because I want to be swept up in the lives of characters I've grown to love and root for; I want to be taken to a place that I may never be able to see with my own eyes, but through the eyes of the characters, feel I've been to; and I want to learn something that I didn't even know I wanted to learn. This is why, for me, An Act of Love was the perfect book.  

Sara is a wonderful character and along with the fear that she lived with on a day-to-day basis, she was also 'just' a teenage girl learning about herself and her place in the world. It would be easy to make her perfect, but what I think Drinkwater has done perfectly, is make Sara flawed. There were times I was frustrated with her and the things she did or didn't do, said or didn't say, felt or didn't feel, but then I remembered that these are the best characters; the ones who don't act the way they should, but act the only way they can. 

An Act of Love is set in La Ville-Vésubie, a small village high in the French Alps. Not only is place extremely important in this novel due to its historical background, but it plays an important role in the development of Sara's character. As she learns more about her surroundings - the plants and trees, animals and waterholes - we feel her embedding in her makeshift home.   

Through Drinkwater's adept storytelling of Sara, I have learned about the unique history of the Alpes-Maritimes department in WWII. Years ago I read Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay about the rounding up of Jews in Paris in 1942. That is a story that has always stayed with me and I know An Act of Love will be joining it. 

Beautiful, eye-opening and compelling, An Act of Love is a book not to be missed. 

About the Author

Anglo-Irish actress Carol Drinkwater is perhaps still most familiar to audiences for her award-winning portrayal of Helen Herriot in the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small. A popular and acclaimed author and film-maker as well, Carol has published nineteen books for both the adult and young adult markets. She is currently at work on her twentieth title.

When she purchased a rundown property overlooking the Bay of Cannes in France, she discovered on the grounds sixty-eight, 400-year-old olive trees. Once the land was reclaimed and the olives pressed, Carol along with her French husband, Michel, became the producers of top-quality olive oil. Her series of memoirs, love stories, recounting her experiences on her farm (The Olive Farm, The Olive Season, The Olive Harvest and Return to the Olive Farm) have become international bestsellers. Carol's fascination with the olive tree extended to a seventeenth-month, solo Mediterranean journey in search of the tree's mythical secrets. The resulting travel books, The Olive Route and The Olive Tree, have inspired a five-part documentary films series entitled The Olive Route.

Carol has also been invited to work with UNESCO to help fund an Olive Heritage Trail around the Mediterranean with the dual goals of creating peace in the region and honouring the ancient heritage of the olive tree.

 About the Book

Title: Until Next weekend

Author: Rachel Marks

Publisher: Penguin Random House (2021)

Summary (taken from the back cover): NOAH AND KATE WERE MEANT TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER.

Married with two gorgeous sons, it looked like they'd got their happy ever after.

But marriage isn't easy. And one day, Kate left, taking their two boys with her.

These days, Noah is a weekend dad - and it breaks his heart. He misses the chaotic mealtimes, the bedtime stories, the early mornings and the late homework.

Suddenly, he decides enough is enough - he has to win his family back. Starting with Kate.

The only problem?

IN SIX WEEKS' TIME, KATE IS GETTING MARRIED TO SOMEONE ELSE . . .

What I Think

I absolutely loved Rachel Marks' debut novel, Saturdays at Noon (Penguin, 2020), and with that comes an additional pressure on "the second novel", in this case Until Next Weekend, published 29th April 2021 by Penguin. I was very excited to receive a proof copy from the publishers and be allocated a stop on the blog tour, but I was also worried that it wouldn't be as good. Let me assure you: no one needs to be worried. 

Noah thought he was going to get his happily ever after with Kate when they married young and had two lovely boys, but things didn't pan as planned and now Noah lives alone in a messy flat, only seeing his boys every other weekend. He dislikes his job as a Reception teacher and regularly drowns his sorrows in the local pub.  

Marks' warm and witty writing style is like sitting down with your best friend for a cup of tea and a big piece of cake. But don't be fooled. As with all good friends, sometimes bad news needs to be imparted over strong cups of tea (with an extra sugar for the shock). Clues to the deeper issues underlying the break-up of Noah and Kate's marriage are carefully woven in to the story unfolding in the present. By the time the full extent of what has happened is revealed, we feel like we're grieving for friends, not characters.  

I thoroughly enjoyed Until Next Weekend and it's every bit as heartwarming, heart wrenching and hopeful as her debut. 

About the Author 

Rachel Marks studied English at Exeter University before becoming a primary school teacher. Despite always loving to write, it wasn't until she gained a place on the 2016 Curtis Brown Creative online novel writing course that she started to believe it could be anything more than a much-loved hobby. Her inspiration for her first book, Saturdays at Noon, came from the challenges she faced with her eldest son, testing and fascinating in equal measure, and the research she did to try to understand him better. Until Next Weekend is her second novel. 

You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram

About the Book

Title: The Naming of Bones

Author: Jan Kaneen

Publication: Retreat West Books, 2021

Summary (taken from the back cover): Every object has a story to tell.

Set against the backdrop of the Norfolk coast, The Naming of Bones waves a patchwork tale of redemption and recovery. Real-life memories intertwine with dreams and folklore in this deeply moving story of of loss and unresolved grief, where tiny moments carry as much weight as the ever-present, ever-changing North Sea.

As passionate as it is personal, this story unearths the relics of the author's life to reveal the transformative power of love, understanding and forgiveness.

What I Think

The Naming of Bones, a memoir-in-flash, is like a love letter: to writing, to the sea, to her family, to herself.

Kaneen explores writing as catharsis within her memoir. “I start writing while the dreamy-feeling is still strong and the pictures sharp and vivid in my mind’s eye, trying not to think, letting my thoughts leak out, unfiltered onto the page. The flow of words is glacial at first, a forced trickle, then it pours, faster again and it’s soaking into the paper in wave after wave after wave.”

In ‘Bagsy-Blobsy, No-Back-Answers’ four children, forging a new family, are on an outing. One small event, the mere climbing of a stile, highlights their individual roles and their roles as a family unit. The “exchange [of] watery smiles strengthen[s] the sharing of them, and that’s that, our stepfamily roles [are] set forever.”

Before this family there was another family, the memories of that family buried so deep within, it takes a trauma to crack open the door and let the memories trickle out. There is a trip to the seaside, with a picnic of sandwiches and marzipan fruit; there is a cake, or an iced bun, with candles; there is something, like shifting sand, packed away that needs to be unraveled.

Through an extended stay by the sea, writing about her dreams and nightmares, Kaneen is slowly able to unearth the treasures hidden in her memory. This is an extremely moving and tender memoir about loss, but mostly about love and its healing powers.

About the Author

Jan Kaneen holds an MA in Creative Writing from the Open University. She writes often dark, surreal and strange short stories and flash fictions merging lived experience with fiction, and has been published in many on-line and in-print magazines and journals most recently in The Fish Anthology 2020, The Dinesh Allirajah Anthology 2020, AI, The Bacopa Review 2020 and The Molotov Cocktail Winners Anthology 2020. Her stories have won prizes in places like Flash 500, InkTears, Molotov Cocktail, Scribble Magazine, Horror Scribes, Retreat West and Ellipsis Litzine and in 2020 she won the Segora Short Story Competition. Her debut memoir-in-flash The Naming of Bones is forthcoming from Retreat West Books in Spring 2021

About the Book

Title: Backstories

Author: Simon van der Velde

Publication: Smoke and Mirror Press, 2021

Summary (taken from the back cover): Dreamers, singers, heroes and killers, they can dazzle with their beauty or their talent or their unmitigated evil, yet inside themselves, they are as frail and desperate as the rest of us. But can you see them? Can you unravel the truth?

This book is dedicated to the victims of violent crime, the struggle against discrimination in all its forms and making the world a better place for our children. That is why 30% of all profits will be shared between Stop Hate UK, The North East Autism Society and Friends of the Earth.

What I Think

I love the premise of this collection: each story depicts a famous person, or a person who at least is well-known in history, and explores a moment in their lives that may have been pivotal, or have led to them becoming the (famous) person that they became. Not only are the stories well-written and compelling, it's like playing detective; picking up on the clues Van der Velde leaves scattered throughout. 

The first story, 'The Guitar', is about one of my favourite musicians of all time, so I was immediately emotionally invested in this collection. "No doubt about it," Van der Velde writes, "he was a bright kid, talented even. [...] But he was a Jew, and he was short. I mean like really short." At this point I was 90% convinced who it was, but as the story unfolded and we learned "what it was to feel small and weary", there was no further doubt. I won't give anything away, of course, but do you know who this is? 

Another of my favourites is 'Preserved in Amber'. Again, this is for completely personal reasons. My maternal grandparents are Dutch, in fact my grandmother's surname was also Van der Velde, and knowing the history of this family, I knew who this story was about  within the first two paragraphs. I'd like, however, to draw attention to the opening line of the story, which I think carries the reader so well into the time and place in such precise detail. "Brown paper package clutched beneath his coat, the middle-aged man creeps up the staircase, his well-made, worn-out shoes landing with exaggerated care on each bowed stone step." 

Van der Velde is a master at 'voice', each story distinct and unique. 'Jive Talkin' opens with "I'm wheelin my bike along the sidewalk, watchin all the white faces, watchin me. This pinched kinda woman gives me a glare and then her man bumps me onto the road. I shrug like it don't bother me none, but I can't help thinkin Daddy was right. Only a damn fool goes up west of Walnut Street." This strong voice carries throughout the story, as do the others. 

Backstories is a wonderful and unique collection of short stories that I thoroughly enjoyed and would highly recommend. 

About the Author

Simon Van der Velde has worked variously as a barman, laborer, teacher, caterer and lawyer, as well as traveling throughout Europe and South America collecting characters for his award-winning stories. Since completing a creative writing M.A. (with distinction) in 2010, Simon’s work has won and been shortlisted for numerous awards including; The Yeovil Literary Prize, (twice), The Wasafiri New Writing Prize, The Luke Bitmead Bursary, The Frome Prize, and The Harry Bowling Prize – establishing him as one of the UK’s foremost short-story writers.

Simon now lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, with his wife, labradoodle and two tyrannical children.

About the Book

Title: This Poem Here

Author: Rob Walton

Publication: Arachne Press, 2021

Summary (taken from the back cover): When Rob Walton went into lockdown, he didnt know that he would also go into mourning. Here he writes about the life and death of his dad, and how sadness seeped into various aspects of his life. He also manages cheap laughs, digs at the government, celebrations, unashamed sentimentality and suddenly disarming moments of tenderness.

What I Think

'This Poem Here' contains poems written during the turbulence of lockdown and Covid-19. According to the author, most of the poems were written in real time as a reaction to something seen or heard, something else to push us to our limits, and many of them appeared in real time on the author's social media accounts. 

In 'Prime Minister's Questions' Walton asks: "Are there any other countries you'd like to break?/If you grow it out a bit, would you like me to cut it into a bob?" striking a balance between two absurds: the absurdity of the current dire situation and the person behind clearly not making the current dire situation any better. In fact, making it worse. 

Another real time poem is 'Hey Due, Don't Diss Don's Disinfectant Facts', which opens with "A dose of Dettol/will hopefully settle/all your ailments." and continues to amuse with all the products we could try, apart from "Zoflora and Jeyes Fluid [which] are buggers to rhyme", to help prevent us from getting Covid-19. 

I'm not one for favourites, really I'm not, but if I had to choose, like put a gun to my head choose, it would be the title poem which is about Walton's dad who sadly passed away. "That would be a poem./That would be this poem here./That he'd never read./That he'd never hear." It had me in tears the first time I read and each time since. 

This is a wonderful pamphlet of poetry that will break you and put you back together again, allowing us to hope that some time soon, "Eve will be in Dubrobnik." 

About the Author

Rob Walton is from Scunthorpe, and now lives in Whitley Bay. His poems, flash fictions and short stories for adults and children have appeared in various anthologies and magazines. This is his first collection. His publishers include the Emma Press, Bloomsbury, Frances Lincoln, Harper Collins, Butcher's Dog, Smith/Doorstop, Dunlin Press, Dostoyevsky Wannabe. He has also written scripts, a pathway and columns for Scunthorpe United's matchday magazine. He sometimes tweets @anicelad. Arachne Press were first introduced to Rob through his short stories which have appeared in many of our anthologies, most recently Time & Tide. He first offered us poems for An Outbreak of Peace and we've been hankering after more ever since.

About the Book

Title: The Lip

Author: Charlie Carroll

Publication: Two Roads Books (18th March, 2021)

Summary (taken from the back cover): 

Away from the hotels and holiday lets, there is an unseen side of Cornwall, where the shifting uncertainties of the future breed resentment and mistrust.

Melody Janie is hidden. She lives alone in a caravan in Bones Break: a small cliff-top on Cornwall's north coast. She spends her time roaming her territory, spying on passing tourists and ramblers, and remembering. She sees everything and yet remains unseen.

However, when a stranger enters her life, she is forced to confront not only him but the terrible tragedies of her past.

The Lip is a novel about childhood, isolation and mental health, told in the unique and unforgettable voice of Melody Janie.


What I Think
Don’t judge a book by its cover, they say, but the moment I saw ‘The Lip’ by Charlie Carroll, I fell in love with its breathtaking beauty and knew I wanted to read it.
“I have often wondered what she thought of in those last moments. I like to believe that if she thought of anything, it was of my land, of the overwhelming beauty of it from the lip. And then I hope she thought of nothing at all. Because there is peace in that.” (p.1)
This is the story of Melody Janie who, due to recently tragedies, lives alone in the safe haven of her little caravan on a remote stretch of her beloved Cornish coast, Bones Break. Resentful of the tourists who invade “her land”, she is not only unwelcoming, but actively tries to discourage them from staying and/or returning. When a stranger moves into a nearby empty cottage she is forced to confront what lies beneath the surface of her precariously constructed life as well as trying to unearth the stranger’s secrets too.
Most of the chapters in ‘The Lip’ are short, a few pages at most, a lot of the sentences too, which has the dual effect of adding to Melody Janie’s erratic way of living as well as providing a stark contrast with the sea, the sky, the cliffs, which are, themselves, almost endless; Nature, in effect, being as much a character in the story as Melody Janie.
The opening chapters of ‘The Lip’ are deceptive, the seemingly simple life of Melody Janie and the love of her land are merely the beginning of this beautiful, but heart wrenching story. Layered like Russian dolls, Carroll deftly prises open the secrets of Melody Janie’s life as the narrative progresses, taking the reader on a journey down to unexpected depths.
The stranger Melody Janie encounters and befriends, almost against her will, lends pace to the narrative of this otherwise quiet and gentle book. As readers, we are swept up in Melody Janie’s obsessive quest to unearth his true identity.
Don’t judge a book by its cover, they say, but this cover did the book justice. ‘The Lip’ by Charlie Carroll is beautiful and breathtaking, harsh and heartbreaking, but more than anything it is a story about friendship and love, for each other and ourselves, and hope. In those things, I want to believe there is peace for Melody Janie.
About the Author
Charlie Carroll is the author of three non-fiction books: The Friendship Highway (2014), No Fixed Abode (2013) and On the Edge (2010). He has twice won the K Blundell Trust Award for 'writers under 40 who aim to raise social awareness with their writing', wrote the voice-over for the TV series Transamazonica (2017), and is one of the Kindness of Strangers storytellers.
His debut novel, The Lip, is out in 2021.
Follow Charlie on Twitter @CharlieCarroll1 or visit his website www.charliecarroll.co.uk.

 About the Book

Title: Nick

Author: Michael Farris Smith

Publication: No Exit Press (25th February, 2021)

Summary (taken from the back cover): Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby's world, he was at the centre of a very different story - one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I. 

Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed first-hand, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. Instead, he embarks on a transcontinental redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans, rife with its own flavour of debauchery and violence. 

What I Think

Without a doubt, because of my love of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I wanted to read Nick (an imagining of the narrator's life before he moved to the world of Tom & Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby in Long Island), but because of that same love, I was wary; would I be able to enjoy it? Would I hate it? Would it ruin The Great Gatsby for me? Please read on for my full review, but in a nutshell: I loved it. 

"A heavy morning fog draped across Paris and there was the corner café. The wicker chairs and the flowers on each table and the small man with the small eyes who sang while he worked. The chairs next to the window where Nick sat each morning and drank espresso and watched the hours of his leave tick away and on the days when the sun filtered through the trees and fell upon the cathedral across the street it seemed to him that there could be no killing." 

From the opening lines above to the closing sentence, Michael Farris Smith's prose is simple, but elegant. Over and over again, as we are taken from the streets of Paris to the depths of World War I trenches to brothels in New Orleans, he is able to create dense vivid images.  

Nick reads as a contemporary novel, yet is very firmly historical fiction, starting around 100 years ago at the end of World War I. Novelists, I feel, have a great responsibility in depicting, as accurately as possible, events of the past in order to be true to those involved and for us, as readers, to learn. While reading I felt completely immersed in Nick's world, not only in the physical events and places, but also in how he, and those around him, felt restricted and limited by their circumstances.

I found Nick to be a highly relatable character, born into a life-mapped-out that he was never sure he wanted. It is not until he has travelled to the other side of the world that he realises there is an "eternal loneliness that resides in us all" which allows him to feel "that he wasn't alone."   

Once in a blue moon there is a sequel or prequel that does the original justice. Nick by Michael Farris Smith is definitely one of those. A real gem to be read and treasured.   

About the Author

Michael Farris Smith is the author of Nick, Blackwood, The Figher, Desperation Road, Rivers, and The Hands of Strangers. His novels have appeared on Best of the Year lists with Esquire, NPR, Southern Living, Book Riot, and numerous others, and have been named Indie Next List, Barnes & Noble Discover, and Amazon Best of the Month selections. He has been a finalist for the Southern Book Prize, the Gold Dagger Award in the UK, and the Grand Prix des Lectrices in France. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife and daughters.