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The Vanished Girl by Kathleen McGurl

Mar3

Layers

The Vanished Girl by Kathleen McGurl is a powerful and heartbreaking dual timeline novel that gripped me from the start.

The action is set in the summer of 1976 and in 2024. For those of us of a certain age, we remember the summer of ’76 as being glorious – long, hot days. For the characters they were, eight, twelve, and nearly fourteen-years-old. Theirs was a summer of freedom. “We were giddy with freedom and endless possibilities. Friends, a picnic, our bikes… We could go anywhere.” The reader ‘feels’ the freedom and remembers their own childhood in the summer of ’76. Days of adventures with friends, no phones to distract. The summer stretched out endlessly, creating bonds and happy memories until – the girl vanished.

Nearly fifty years later, the friends are re-united. “Inside, I’m still that kid.” Old bonds re-attach as the years fall away. Feelings of guilt return as everyone wonders if they could have done more.

The intervening years have seen a life being plied with guilt upon guilt. A life spiralled downwards. Returning to her childhood village, a character hopes she will heal.

Re-connection with childhood friends creates the original strong bonds.

The modern reader is horrified at the attitudes to those with mental health issues in 1976. They are shunned at best, persecuted at worst – by the adults, who hunt in packs. It is shameful. Only the children see the kind, gentle heart that beats beneath the skin of a nineteen-year-old man.

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The Strawberry House by Rachel Burton

Mar3

Of Love & Life, Friends & Family

The Strawberry House by Rachel Burton is a powerful historical novel set over two time periods. It has its’ roots in facts as we hear about William Morris and the pre-Raphaelite artists. The action is set in 1938 and 1952. These alternate.

The summer of 1938 is a defining and devastating summer. Lives would be altered forever. No one would ever be the same again as a tragic accident affects all those involved.

It began as a summer of promise but ended as a summer of tragedy.

It was a summer where new friendships were forged. Lives took new trajectories as characters made decisions about their futures.

Between the two time periods was World War II. Here lives were changed again – sometimes forever lost.

1938 saw women’s lives on the edge of change. Old fashioned paternalistic attitudes had squashed women but with the war, came freedom. A female character believes “If women can crack enemy code…we can do anything we… want.”

In contrast we hear the thoughts of a male character after the war: “Go home… Marry a nice man, have some children, be happy.” “Because that was all women were good for again now that the war was over.” A male dominated society wanted to put women back in a clearly labelled box: ‘family.’

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Most Wanted by Andi Osho

Mar2

Spiraling

Most Wanted by Andi Osho is a powerful contemporary novel that gripped me from the start.

As the novel opens we ‘hear’ the voice of the perpetrator of the crimes. We know they have been caught – but who are they? And what are their crimes?

The setting is an urban one, in several boroughs in London. We ‘see’ the troubled youths just hanging about. We drop in on community-minded neighbours. And we witness the side effects of gentrification on neighbourhoods – in particular pushing up housing prices. Demand is outstripping supply. Houses are being snapped up. Prices are rocketing. All this is pushing local people out of area. How will it ever stop?

A young couple who has been renting, and are desperate to get on the property ladder. They are the focus of the novel. The reader can empathise with their plight and their frustration in losing property after property. Add to that, a fluid job situation creating tension, and you have the perfect storm.

The reader watches the couple becoming ever more desperate. Their actions catch the eye of local criminals. Without knowing quite how they got there, lives start spiraling downwards, and there seems to be no way out.

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The Child We Lost by Sheila Norton

Feb24

The Love That Binds

The Child We Lost by Sheila Norton is a beautiful contemporary novel about love and loss, and learning to live again.

The novel is seen through the eyes of a mother, and a grandmother. The chapters alternate between the two and are in the first person. This enables the reader to intimately know the characters.

Having lost her twin (before the novel opened), five-year-old Ruby believes he is alive again as she spots a boy looking just like Josh, walking past her school every Friday. She is convinced he is alive again. We witness the trauma this creates for her extended family as they try to help her deal with her loss.

Understanding of death comes following the death of a pet. Ruby is then surprisingly accepting of death once it is explained to her.

Ruby’s mother seeks the truth as to what Ruby saw. What she uncovers comes as a shock to all.

We see the importance of having a faith. “I sometimes wish I had her faith. It must make things so much more bearable to know that there’s a God looking after us.” Loss without faith, is very bleak indeed. Having spoken to a vicar about loss, Ruby’s mother is told: “I’ll pray for you.”…”Even though I don’t believe?”… “That doesn’t matter because I do.” Prayer is comforting for all, just knowing that someone cares.

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