JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Who Did You Tell? by Lesley Kara

You thought your darkest secret was safe.
You were wrong.

It’s been 192 days, seven hours and fifteen minutes since her last drink. Now Astrid is trying to turn her life around.

Having reluctantly moved back in with her mother, in a quiet seaside town away from the temptations and painful memories of her life before, Astrid is focusing on her recovery. She’s going to meetings. Confessing her misdeeds. Making amends to those she’s wronged.

But someone knows exactly what Astrid is running from. And they won’t stop until she learns that some mistakes can’t be corrected.

Some mistakes, you have to pay for . . .

Lesley Kara’s Who Did You Tell? is a gripping psychological thriller about recovering addict Astrid and her attempt to escape past mistakes by returning home to live with her mother. Someone who knows her biggest secret has followed her to the small, seaside town of Flinstead, and intends to make her pay for what she did.

There are two POVs throughout the novel. The main storyline is written in first person by thirty-two-year-old Astrid, who is doing her best to recover from her alcoholism and mend her broken relationship with her mother. After fleeing London, she starts attending AA meetings in Flinstead where she meets Rosie and Helen, two older women who are also recovering alcoholics. She forms a close friendship with Helen, and the two bond of their broken relationships.

The other storyline is an anonymous character whose POV appears sporadically in the novel. That person is tailing Astrid, incredibly angry at her for what she did when she was an addict. That person wants revenge.

“She won’t hear me go out, but still, I can’t take any chances. If she knows I’ve gone, she’ll be on the lookout when I come back. She won’t have me in the house if I’ve been drinking — she’s made that patently clear — and I’ve nowhere else to go. Not any more. No more sofas to crash out on. No more favours to call in.”

Astrid is remorseful and full of regrets, but she’s also hopeful that she can recover from her addiction and steer her life back on the right path. She’s sheepish and lacking in self confidence, and the reader can sense how worried she is about falling off the wagon. A lot of the tension in the novel comes from the possibility of Astrid drinking again, and how that will affect her relationship with her mother.

Over time, Lesley drip feeds us information about Astrid’s past and how she came to be living with her mother in Flinstead. It’s clear that Astrid had alienated everyone in her life and her mother is the last remaining contact she has. Astrid’s past was full of pain and hurt, and she destroyed a lot of relationships and friendships along the way.

“It’s time-consuming, intricate work, but if it was good enough for the Old Masters, then it’s good enough for me, and Richard has already said that I must take as long as I need. He’s not after a rushed job, and neither am I. This house is a labour of love for him. He cares about aesthetics.”

Who Did You Tell? explores themes of guilt and remorse, but also forgiveness, trust and redemption. Astrid wants to get her life back on track, and in Flinstead she starts to build a support network full of people who want her to succeed.

Once Astrid learns to trust others, she can let go of the walls around her and let those people in. She starts to tell the truth, admit her wrongs, and move forward with the right people by her side.

“I wish I hadn’t started this now. It’s all coming out. The wreckage of my life, spilling out in a great ugly heap. I know if I’m going to do this Twelve Step thing properly, then at some point I’m going to have to confess all this anyway, and the rest of it.”

Admittedly, I did find the novel a little predictable. I guessed pretty quickly who the anonymous character was, and I think too many hints were given to the reader. Additionally, at times I found Astrid quite unlikeable — a little too weak and timid?

Suspenseful and fast-paced, Who Did You Tell? will have you desperate to complete. Recommended for fans of crime, thriller and psychological dramas.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Who Did You Tell?
Lesley Kara
January 2020
Penguin Random House Publishers

Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain

North Carolina, 2018: Morgan Christopher’s life has been derailed. Taking the fall for a crime she did not commit, she finds herself serving a three-year stint in the North Carolina Women’s Correctional Center. Her dream of a career in art is put on hold – until a mysterious visitor makes her an offer that will see her released immediately. Her assignment: restore an old post office mural in a sleepy southern town. Morgan knows nothing about art restoration, but desperate to leave prison, she accepts. What she finds under the layers of grime is a painting that tells the story of madness, violence, and a conspiracy of small town secrets.

North Carolina, 1940: Anna Dale, an artist from New Jersey, wins a national contest to paint a mural for the post office in Edenton, North Carolina. Alone in the world and desperate for work, she accepts. But what she doesn’t expect is to find herself immersed in a town where prejudices run deep, where people are hiding secrets behind closed doors, and where the price of being different might just end in murder.

What happened to Anna Dale? Are the clues hidden in the decrepit mural? Can Morgan overcome her own demons to discover what exists beneath the layers of lies?

Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain tracks two white artists living in a small town in North Carolina, 78 years apart. The storyline pivots around a mural that was commissioned for the small town, but was mysteriously never installed.

In 1940, 22-year-old artist Anna Dale wins an art contest and is chosen to paint a mural for the Edenton post office. She travels from New Jersey and lives in the town while completing the work.

In 2018, 22-year-old artist Morgan Christopher is serving time in prison for a DUI that resulted in a car accident. She’s offered parole if she moves to Edenton to restore the mural that Anna Dale abandoned decades earlier. A mysterious African American artist called Jesse Jameson Williams —who Morgan has never met and has no connection to — recently died and outlined strictly in his will that Morgan be the artist to restore the work.

“Anna arrived in Edenton for her planned three-day visit late on the afternoon of December 4. She could have taken the overnight train, but at the last minute she decided to drive. The ’32 navy blue Ford V8 still held her mother’s scent — the spicy patchouli fragrance of the Tabu perfume she’d loved — and Anna needed that comfort as she set out on this new, very adult venture.”

Strong themes present in the book are addiction and illness — Morgan is estranged from her parents, who are dysfunctional, judgemental alcoholics, and Anna’s mother just recently committed suicide after years of manic illnesses.

Racism is thinly explored in the book as well. Jesse Jameson Williams meets Anna Dale when he’s a teenager, and begins helping her paint the mural. Soon, people in Edenton assume the two are engaged in a relationship, which would’ve been illegal at that time. Someone paints racial slurs on the wall of Anna’s workshop space, and people threaten to harm Anna because of her connection to Jesse. Admittedly, the racism seems a little too light for what it would’ve actually been like at that time.

The artistry is incredibly evocative in the book. Both Anna and Morgan are talented and enthusiastic about their work and it’s evident how much artistic research has gone into the writing of this book. Everything about the mural, the town and its inhabitants is richly detailed and captured clearly.

“They talked about the people they knew who might be willing to model for the mural. Muss Myrtle thought the mayor’s wife was a good choice, but the idea made Anna cringe as she remembered Pauline’s comments about Mayor Sykes’ treatment of his wife. She felt as if she knew far more than she should about the poor woman and her life.”

The book is enjoyable and will have readers turning the pages, but it’s not flawless. The turning point in Anna Dale’s story (and what results from it) is predictable and expected, as is Morgan’s discovered connection to Jesse and Anna in the final chapter of the book.

Additionally, Jesse’s will stipulated that his daughter Lisa wouldn’t inherit her childhood home if Morgan missed her mural restoration deadline. This stipulation…doesn’t fit the rest of Jesse’s characterisation and is never really explained in the book. It felt like a lazy plot point.

An engaging read recommended for fans of women’s fiction and historical fiction.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Big Lies In A Small Town
Diane Chamberlain
January 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

Allegra in Three Parts by Suzanne Daniel

Eleven-year-old Allegra shuttles between her grandmothers who live next door to one another but couldn’t be more different. Matilde works all hours and instils discipline, duty and restraint. She insists that Allegra focus on her studies to become a doctor.

Meanwhile free-spirited Joy is full of colour, possibility and emotion, storing all her tears in little glass bottles. She is riding the second wave of the women’s movement in the company of her penny tortoise, Simone de Beauvoir, encouraging Ally to explore broad horizons and live her ‘true essence’.

And then there’s Rick who lives in a flat out the back and finds distraction in gambling and solace in surfing. He’s trying to be a good father to Al Pal, while grieving the woman who links them all but whose absence tears them apart.

Allegra is left to orbit these three worlds wishing they loved her a little less and liked each other a lot more. Until one day the unspoken tragedy that’s created this division explodes within the person they all cherish most.

Allegra in Three Parts by Suzanne Daniel is a debut coming-of-age story recommended for adult readers, exploring identity and adolescence and the rise of feminism and activism in the 1970s.

Allegra’s mother died when she was very young, so Allegra has been raised by her two grandmothers Matilde and Joy, and her father Rick. Allegra lives with Matilde but Joy lives next door and she and Allegra are very close. The two grandmothers, who were once close, no longer speak to each other because of some past disagreement that has been kept hidden from Allegra.

Predominantly character-driven, Allegra in Three Parts is equal parts entertaining as it is enriching. Suzanne has captured the era vividly, evoking nostalgic responses in readers. It was life before social media and smart phones, where many young children didn’t have televisions and their school teachers were nuns.

“I can split myself in two… something I have to do because of Joy and Matilde. They are my grandmothers and I love them both and they totally love me but they can’t stand each other.”

Allegra in Three Parts is an uplifting, moving novel full of heart and hope. It’s also playful and fun. 11-year-old Allegra’s innocence and curiosity is captured with tenderness and heart. She’s a fantastic protagonist, enticing the reader and keeping them interested until the final page.

I felt that the pacing was quite slow for what was a very minimal plot, but Allegra carries the story with her intrigue and her wonder for the world.

Set in Sydney, domestic violence is rife in Allegra’s neighbourhood. Her best friend Patricia has a violent father, and they’re not the only family looking to escape violence. Allegra in Three Parts features a large cast of strong, independent women who want to be in control of their decisions and their futures. As a result, many people in the neighbourhood — Allegra’s family included — come together to help victims of domestic violence.

“There on a hanger is a pale blue dress. It is the exact same colour — Oriental Blue — that I have loved ever since I first saw Kimberley’s complete set of seventy-two Derwent watercolour pencils when she displayed them, one by one, for show-and-tell in Second Class. It has a cream ruffle on each side of the bodice from the neck to the waist and cream piping around the cuffs.”

Capturing the voice of a tween is no easy feat, particularly when writing a book intended for adults. Sometimes, reading books from the voice of a young child can tire the reader (or perhaps annoy them, depending on the personality of the child), but Allegra is a fascinating character that all readers will enjoy meeting. She’s smart and confident, courageous and incredibly loving.

A few times in the novel I felt the girls in the story — particularly Allegra and Patricia — were a little too wise for their age, recognised in fleeting moments of dialogue between the children and the adults. Other than that, I found the characters incredibly authentic to the era, their ages and their experiences in life.

Recommended for readers of literary fiction, women’s fiction and historical fiction.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Allegra in Three Parts
Suzanne Daniel
June 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Talking Cure by Professor Gillian Straker and Dr Jacqui Winship

The essence of successful therapy is the relationship between the therapist and the patient, a dance of growing trust and understanding. It is an intimate, messy, often surprising and sometimes confusing business -but when it works, it’s life-changing.

In The Talking Cure, psychotherapists Gill Straker and Jacqui Winship bring us nine inspiring stories of transformation.

They introduce us to their clients, fictional amalgams of real-life cases, and reveal how the art of talking and listening helps us to understand deep-seated issues that profoundly influence who we are in the world and how we see ourselves in relation to others. We come to understand that the transformative power of the therapeutic relationship can be replicated in our everyday lives by the simple practice of paying attention and being present with those we love.

Whether you have experienced therapy (or are tempted to try it), or you are just intrigued by the possibilities of a little-understood but transformative process, this wise and compassionate book will deepen your sense of what it is to be open to connection – and your appreciation that to be human is to be a little bit mad.

The Talking Cure by Professor Gillian Straker and Dr Jacqui Winship brings together eight common struggles brought to therapists.

In each chapter, we meet a different patient with a very different issue that they’re struggling with, and Gillian and Jacqui track their progress and break down their struggles for the reader. Whilst each story in this book is fictional — for confidentiality reasons — the patients are an amalgamation of real patients that exist in the world.

Each hidden struggle in the book is something that is commonly experienced by people within — and outside — of a therapist’s office, including difficult children, closed-off boyfriends, spouses shaken by an unexpected affair, people-pleasers, and more.

It’s quite surprising to recognise yourself in some of these patients. You find yourself genuinely fascinated to see some of your own behaviour in these fictional people, and you can’t help but glimpse the checklist at the end of each chapter to see how much of that ‘category’ you might fit into.

“Meredith had spent so much time thinking about Jade, and imagining her needs and wishes, that her capacity to observe and see her daughter’s actual needs and wishes was impaired. Jade had become a creation of Meredith’s own making.”

Insightful and interesting, The Talking Cure will entice many adult readers interested in learning more about psychology of humans. Don’t try to diagnose yourself with this book though. As I’ve mentioned, the stories in each of the chapters are fictitious and the checklists are merely there as a guide, so take this experience with a grain of salt.

“As I sat in the room with Charlene I experienced her loneliness. Yet even as she was sharing her distress, I felt strangely unmoved. I didn’t feel invited into her world. I felt spoken at rather than spoken to; it seemed to me that I was being asked to bear witness to a story Charlene was telling, but I was prohibited from participating in a dialogue with her.”

Admittedly, The Talking Cure feels a little formulaic after a while. You meet the patient, the psychiatrist reflects on what the ‘struggle’ is and what its effect is, the psychiatrist asks about their childhood and determines that their relationship with their parents and/or siblings explains how they are now, the psychiatrist asks questions to make the patient realise this on their own, and then there’s a checklist for readers to follow. It’s obviously part of the process, but to be completely honest, I was a bit bored by the 5th or 6th chapter.

Additionally, I found Gillian and Jacqui to be incredibly cold in their exchange with the patients (or at least their documented exchange), and truthfully, I never felt that I warmed to either of them throughout the book. There’s something removed about reading these stories, where you never really feel like you’re ‘there’. You feel like a fly on the wall, and sometimes it’s not that interesting.

I’d recommend this book to adult readers who are genuinely interested in the psychology of the human experience, but if you need a little guidance or help with your life, I don’t think this is the first book you should pick up in your journey.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Talking Cure: Normal people, their hidden struggles and the life-changing power of therapy
Professor Gillian Straker and Dr Jacqui Winship
June 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh

Welcome to Golden Cove, a remote town on the edge of the world where even the blinding brightness of the sun can’t mask the darkness that lies deep within a killer…

On the rugged West Coast of New Zealand, Golden Cove is more than just a town where people live. The adults are more than neighbours; the children, more than schoolmates.
That is until one fateful summer – and several vanished bodies – shatters the trust holding Golden Cove together. All that’s left are whispers behind closed doors, broken friendships, and a silent agreement not to look back. But they can’t run from the past forever.

Eight years later, a beautiful young woman disappears without a trace, and the residents of Golden Cove wonder if their home shelters something far more dangerous than an unforgiving landscape.

It’s not long before the dark past collides with the haunting present and deadly secrets come to light.

A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh is a small town crime thriller novel, following the disappearance of local teenager Miriama Hinewai Tutaia in Golden Cove New Zealand, and its potential connection to the disappearance of three backpackers eight years earlier.

The main characters are police officer Will Gallagher, in charge of trying to find Miriama, and Anahera Spencer-Ashby, a young woman who grew up in Golden Cove and has recently returned after living in London for many years as a highly successful pianist and performer.

Will and Anahera are both complex and conflicted characters — Will was exiled to Golden Cove after a previous case went in an unexpected direction, and Anahera runs home to Golden Cove after her husband dies and his pregnant mistress turns up on her doorstep.

“But there were other possibilities and he’d be a bad cop if he ignored them. No one had ever called him that, not even when his mistakes had led to two deaths. Will’s police work had been stellar; it was his understanding of human nature that had let him down.”

Will and Anahera are both incredibly interesting and thoroughly developed characters. Both of them share wounded histories and are psychologically damaged from past events in their lives. Whilst they don’t know each other prior to Anahera returning to Golden Cove, the two bond over their circumstances and find comfort in each other’s company.

There is definitely this sense of isolation that comes with being in Golden Cove, like you’re all alone and nothing you do will penetrate the outside world. Anahera was able to leave because she’s musically gifted, but most people stay (as Anahera learns when she returns home). Many juicy secrets are harboured in Golden Cove. As a result, tension and suspense are heightened and the setting itself feels like another character.

“Another fifty meters and the sand disappeared under a flow of water that turned into a whirlpool surrounded by rocks as black as obsidian and as jagged as broken glass. Everyone knew to keep their distance from the spot — there was simply no hope for anyone who fell into that water.”

The pacing is slow but consistent, successfully building suspense and intrigue. There is more than one mystery plaguing this small town and everyone is a suspect. Will can determine multiple motives for wanting young, beautiful local Miriama missing — she held many secrets, and was fancied by just as many admirers.

Setting and environment are big strengths in this novel, and Nalini has captured the small, isolated town of Golden Cove incredibly well. The ‘small town’ vibe is rich with secrets and hidden pasts, and it will draw every reader in and keep them enticed until the final pages.

There’s a small romantic storyline that develops in the book, which is both welcome and expected with this genre. However, it’s not a dominant part of the book and if it were removed, the events in the novel would mostly remain unchanged.

“Two hours later, he’d gone through every single one of the names and ID photos and come up with nothing. If Fidel Cox had returned to the area, he’d done so in a way that wouldn’t be noticed.”

Admittedly, I wasn’t a fan of the ending. There were two major revelations at the climax of the book — one made sense and the other did not. The truth behind Miriama’s disappearance was not consistent with the characterisation set up prior and it seemed like a cheap ploy to surprise the reader. To be honest I felt a bit cheated at the end.

Enthralling, inviting and entertaining. Recommended for fans of crime, thrillers, and mystery novels.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

A Madness of Sunshine
Nalini Singh
December 2019
Hachette Publishers

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