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The Half Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker

Since the death of Ragnvald Eysteinsson’s father in battle, he has worked hard to protect his sister Svanhild and planned to inherit his family’s land when he comes of age. But when the captain of his ship tries to kill him on the way home from a raiding excursion, he must confront his stepfather’s betrayal, and find a way to protect his birthright. It is no easy feat in Viking-Age Norway, where a hundred petty rulers kill over parcels of land, and a prophesied high king is rising.

But where Ragnvald is expected to bleed, and even die, for his honour, Svanhild is simply expected to marry well. It’s not a fate she relishes, and when the chance to leave her stepfather’s cruelty comes at the hand of her brother’s arch-rival, Svanhild is forced to make the ultimate choice: family or freedom.

Drawing from the Icelandic Sagas, The Half-Drowned King takes inspiration from the true story of Ragnvald of Maer – the right hand man of King Harald Fairhair – and his sister, Svanhild, as she tries to find freedom in a society where the higher her brother rises, the greater her worth as a political pawn.

Hartsuyker’s The Half-Drowned King is the first novel in a viking trilogy set in long-ago Norway. It is a heavily fictionalised retelling of the Saga of Harald Fairhair, which was written in the 13th century. This swashbuckling debut is about family, friendship and love. It’s also about revenge and punishment.

Similar to Game of Thrones, The Half-Drowned King is full of murder, mayhem, betrayal and terrible life choices. The trilogy is about the rise of Harald, who eventually became the first King of Norway in the 9th century.

The novel switches back and forth between Ragnvald’s POV and his sister Svanhild’s POV. Ragnvald is twenty years old and incredibly bold and determined. He is betrayed in the opening chapters of the book — a plot orchestrated by his stepfather — and then over the course of the novel he swears allegiance to both King Hakon and then King Harald. He wants to win enough land and enough power to seek revenge on his stepfather.

“Ragnvald was not sure later what warned him; perhaps the quiet that lay over the farm felt deeper than that of sleep. He already had his hand on the hilt of his sword when he heard a woman’s low moan, a despairing sound.”

Svanhild is resourceful and independent, and has higher hopes for herself than just being someone’s wife. She escapes an arranged marriage but then cunningly aligns herself to her brother’s betrayer, Solvi. She then marries him.

“The days passed slowly at Hrolf’s farm. Whenever Svanhild could, she asked for work outdoors with the sheep and goats. Hrolf had few cows, for they could not survive well on such sparse grass. She stayed outside all day long, her hands growing brown in the sun, only coming inside and exposing herself to the barbs and sniping of Hilda’s sisters when she had to.”

Hartsuyker doesn’t shy away from depicting the torture and violence of that time period — rape, mutilation and slaughter. The battles and the raids stretch on for pages and the author does a great job of depicting those in enough detail so that the reader is interested, but not too much description where the reader is bored and needs to skim the chapter.

Ragnvald matures a lot over the course of the novel, learning that just because the land is his birthright doesn’t mean he’s earned it. He learns a lot about leadership and honour from those around him — he takes charge and makes smarter decisions. Additionally, Svanhild learns to trust her instincts and stick to her own decisions. She wants a say in her fate. She really comes into her own over the course of the novel, speaking freely to those that she disagrees with and escaping when she senses ill will against her.

The one downside to this novel is that there are way too many characters. I understand that this is supposed to be a retelling but there are so many people in this story and they all have obscure names that seem too similar. I often found myself confused and I had no idea who anyone was and I had to flick to the glossary at the back of the book to familiarise myself.

I recommend this to fans of Game of Thrones. It’s violent, bloody and murderous, but it’s also addictive and wildly enjoyable. I’m looking forward to the sequel.

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

The Half Drowned King
Linnea Hartsuyker
August 2017
Hachette Book Publishers

The Burning Girl by Claire Messud

Julia Robinson and Cassie Burnes have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the quiet town of Royston, Massachusetts.

But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge: while Julia comes from a stable, happy, middle-class family, Cassie never knew her father, who died when she was an infant, and has an increasingly tempestuous relationship with her single mother, Bev. When Bev becomes involved with the mysterious Anders Shute, Cassie feels cruelly abandoned.

Disturbed, angry and desperate for answers, she sets out on a journey that will put her own life in danger, and shatter her oldest friendship.

At its core, The Burning Girl is a story about childhood friendship and community. But, additionally, it’s also an exploration into the complexities of childhood friendship and how often they alternate between fragile and strong. Like with any friendship, each person sees it only through their own eyes, so things can go amiss and misunderstandings can unfold and they can be a catalyst for a fractured friendship.

“You get to middle school, and you think about these things. The world opens up; history stretches behind you, and the future stretches before you, and you’re suddenly aware of the wild, unknowable interior lives of everyone around you, the realisation that each and every person lives in an unspoken world as full and strange as your own, and that you can’t ever hope entirely to know anything, not even yourself.”

The Burning Girl is written in first person from the point of view of Julia, so we never really know as much about Cassie as we’d like to. We only know what Julia knows, either from her first hand experience or from stories that other people have told Julia. The two girls grow apart as the years pass, but they do remain friends. They share jokes with each other and they reminisce on summers they spent together, and adventures that they had. It’s hard for Julia to see Cassie deteriorate, because she wants to help her. But at the same time, Cassie holds back from her and so it becomes hard for Julia to know what to do.

“Cassie’s father was as much a myth as the drowned boy. Not in the sense that he might not be real, but in the sense that she’d never actually known him. Or rather, that she couldn’t remember him.”

I found Julia to be a passive character. She was always commenting on everyone else in the narrative, and we never really got a sense of who she was. I finished the novel feeling like Julia wasn’t even a character, and instead, she was just this omniscient narrator presenting us with a story about other people.

Julia befriends a classmate called Peter. She always liked Peter, but he did date Cassie for a time and so Cassie at times feels like she can trust him and tell him things she hasn’t told anyone else. Julia likes to keep tabs on Cassie and so through Peter, Julia is able to fill in any gaps she has. Over time, Julia and Peter bond over their mutual concern for Cassie and their determination to help her.

“After that, we’d speak often on the phone, maybe even a few times a week, a strange friendship, rarely face-to-face in the beginning. There wasn’t, in our middle school lives, another way for us to spend time together.”

Cassie’s life really begins to deteriorate after her mother Bev starts dating a new man. Cassie never feels comfortable around him and after he moves into their family home, he starts restricting Cassie’s access to social media and technology and he starts to police what she wears and who she talks to. It’s suffocating for Cassie.

“Here’s what I believe,” she said. “I believe he was looking for us — for me. I believe he found out about the youth group because of our photo album online. And then he figured out about the Bible study, and Mom, and then he came there. He doesn’t even live in Royston, for fuck’s sake. He lives in Haverhill, and he works in Haverhill.”

The only thing Cassie can cling to in order to feel in control of her life is the memory of her father. But, she soon realises that her perception of things has been incorrect.

Friendships that we form when we’re young can have a monumental affect on our childhood and adolescence. Female friendships in particular can influence — positively or negatively — who you become as you get older. Those friendships can be supportive, but they can also be tumultuous, exhausting, and challenging. I think female readers will be able to relate to Julia and Cassie a lot more than male readers.

“Sometimes I felt that growing up and being a girl was about learning to be afraid. Not paranoid, exactly, but always alert and aware, like checking out the exits in the movie theatre or the fire escape in the hotel.”

The Burning Girl explores the complexities of female friendship — they may falter or they may fracture, but there are all these different layers to childhood friendships that don’t quite match a friendship formed later in a person’s life. I recommend this book to literary fiction lovers. It’s a character-driven story, not necessarily plot-driven. Read this for the masterful writing and the careful, slow-build illustration of Julia and Cassie.

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

The Burning Girl
Claire Messud
September 2017
Hachette Book Publishers

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club

In 1978 the Northern Territory has begun to self-govern. Cyclone Tracy is a recent memory and telephones not yet a fixture on the cattle stations dominating the rugged outback. Life is hard and people are isolated. But they find ways to connect.

Sybil is the matriarch of Fairvale Station, run by her husband, Joe. Their eldest son, Lachlan, was Joe’s designated successor but he has left the Territory – for good. It is up to their second son, Ben, to take his brother’s place. But that doesn’t stop Sybil grieving the absence of her child.

With her oldest friend, Rita, now living in Alice Springs and working for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and Ben’s English wife, Kate, finding it difficult to adjust to life at Fairvale, Sybil comes up with a way to give them all companionship and purpose: they all love to read, and she forms a book club.

Mother-of-three Sallyanne is invited to join them. Sallyanne dreams of a life far removed from the dusty town of Katherine where she lives with her difficult husband, Mick.

Completing the group is Della, who left Texas for Australia looking for adventure and work on the land.

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club is a debut novel by Australian author Sophie Green, exploring the power of friendship within chaotic environments. These five women bond over their love of reading, and they help each other when they’re in need.

Set in the late 20th century in the Northern Territory of Australia, Fairvale Station has been in the Baxter family for generations. Sybil and Joe raised their eldest son Lachie to inherit the station, but he’s not interested in running the property and runs away. Most of Sybil’s character arc is her learning to accept that if her son is willing to leave, she has to let him go. For most of the novel, she’s tormented over her strained relationship with her son and is determined to fix things.

“So many times Sybil had replayed her last conversation with her eldest son; she would lie awake as Joe slept, straight as a board, beside her, letting it loop around. She didn’t know if she was hoping it would be different the next time it played or if she wanted to cling onto the sound of Lachie’s voice, trying to hear any skerrick of love in it.”

Ben returns home to Fairvale with his British wife Kate, and the two begin adjusting to life in Fairvale. Kate is desperate to get pregnant but she starts to despair when, after months, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen for them. Over the course of the novel, Kate must learn not to dwell on things she can’t control.

“Kate’s parents were thinking of selling their home and moving to Bath, which they’d always loved. This was the house that Kate had grown up in; the only other house she’d known apart from Fairvale…She supposed she should feel upset; show some sign that part of her missed England so much that the news of the impending loss of her family home would upset her. There was no such sign.”

This is written in third person, although the chapters switch POV frequently. This allows the reader to really understand each character’s concerns, fears, doubts and triumphs. We grow to love each character for their individual story. There is a strong sense of realism in the novel.

Sybil’s book club allows the women to form a close bond — a strong friendship. They all become concerned for each other’s struggles and they are there for each other. Their lives are enriched because of their love and support for each other.

There’s a definite sense of isolation throughout the book, particularly during the wet seasons when it’s too dangerous to venture far and so the women at Fairvale and in Katherine are almost confined to their homes. Green has done a wonderful job of writing the isolated, contained environments in the book — there’s a real sense of place. In most scenes, there are a large number of characters present and Green has once again expertly manoeuvred these scenes to allow the reader to easily understand what’s going on with each of the characters present.

What I loved most about this book was how authentic these characters felt; there was real depth to their characterisation and they all felt like different people to me. When you have such a large cast of characters and they are all women, it would be really important to make sure their voices are all unique, particularly considering each chapter switches POV. I think Green did a marvellous job of bringing all these women to life, crafting them all perfectly and allowing the reader to really understand them and relate to all of them.

“The day was almost too hot to be believed as Della sat with Kate on the verandah of Fairvale’s big house. They were well covered by the awning but the heat seemed to swirl up from the ground, wrapping itself around them and staying trapped.”

Despite this novel being set in the 1970s, there are definitely elements of the storyline that feel relevant in today’s society. Kate is struggling to fall pregnant, Sallyanne’s husband is constantly drunk and borderline abusive, and Sybil’s son has run off to pursue alternate careers. At times, I had to remind myself that this wasn’t set in the present!

If I had to point out something I didn’t like, it’d be the pacing and the development of Sallyanne’s story — it was a slow burner throughout the whole novel but then it seemed to solve itself at a rather fast pace in the end.

At first, Sallyanne is scared of her drunken husband and she doesn’t have the courage to confront him because she is concerned her for own safety and for the safety of her children. This is incredibly realistic. However, her husband then chooses to leave her and he’s gone for most of the novel. At the end, he returns briefly and their situation wraps up positively (for Sallyanne) within one chapter. Whilst I felt pleased for Sallyanne, I couldn’t help but feel this storyline was only touched on lightly but should’ve been explored further.

I highly recommend this novel. It’s not just for fans of historical fiction, or perhaps even romance. There are so many layers to this novel that I think all readers will enjoy — it is a testament to family and friendship amongst isolated Australian outback communities.

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

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club
Sophie Green
August 2017
Hachette Book Publishers

Leaving Ocean Road by Esther Campion

Twenty years ago, Ellen left her beloved Ireland to make a new life in Australia. Now struggling to cope with the death of her much loved husband, Nick, Ellen finds her world turned upside down when an unexpected visitor lands on her doorstep.

The arrival of Gerry Clancy, her first love from Ireland, may just be the catalyst that pulls Ellen out of her pit of grief, but it will also trigger a whole new set of complications for her and those she holds dear.

Leaving Ocean Road is a warm, funny, delightful romance novel for fans of Maeve Binchy, Cathy Kelly and Monica Mcinnerney — the story takes us across Australia, Greece and Ireland and explores a long lost love and the chance of reconnection.

Ellen Constantinopolous has been living in South Australia for twenty years, and she’s happy. Her family — her Greek husband Nick and her daughter Louise — live on a farm in a rural town in South Australia. But then Nick dies suddenly when his car veers off the road and hits a tree, and Ellen is in mourning. Louise heads off to university but calls her mother every night to check up on her. Ellen is struggling to move on with her life after her husband has died. She is still weighed down with depression and grief — she struggles to pay bills or check the mail or even get up in the morning.

But when Ellen receives a letter from Gerry Clancy, her first love back in Ireland, she is able to pull herself out of her grief. He still lives in Ireland, but is now in Adelaide visiting his son. He wants to see her. The two reconnect and with Ellen’s best friend Tracey pushing her to try to make things work, Ellen starts to resume her life and she feels like she is able to move on.

“Once inside the house, Ellen went upstairs to make the bed she’d been in too much of a rush to make that morning. It was the little things that would keep her sane, she realised. The small routines she’d let go in the height of her grief. Only suddenly and in a fit of shame at the thought of Gerry Clancy seeing the state of the place had she been spurred into action. Maybe the timing of his visit hadn’t been so bad.”

There’s a hurdle in their love story when a deep and buried secret comes out, and Gerry and Ellen must face their relationship and their future. Tension builds between Ellen and Louise, because she is still grieving the death of her father and she doesn’t feel ready to forget him. The family is fragile, and Ellen must work to save it.

“Last night both she and Jennifer had been so shocked they’d hardly said a word on the drive to Felicity’s. The crew were there when they arrived and the punch was flowing. Louise didn’t care how bad it tasted as long as it helped her forget about what happened at the Popes’.”

Ellen is a wonderful protagonist. She’s strong and determined, and also incredibly relatable and likeable. She is an anchor for the book, the entire plot revolving around her. The relationships between Ellen and Gerry and Ellen and Louise are well-developed and plausibly placed. Additionally, Tracey is a hilarious side character and I loved any scene she was in. She provided comic relief and helped break up an otherwise sombre and melancholic scene.

Leaving Ocean Road is about learning to let go of the past and embrace the possibility of a new future. There are romantic plots for both Ellen and Louise, and together they find hope and purpose amidst their grief and mourning. Esther has done a great job of capturing this and illustrating it effectively and realistically.

This book may be a romance novel, but it’s also about family and friendships and the importance of letting go of the past and embracing the future. It’s sweet, but not over the top. I recommend this to fans of romance novels.

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

Leaving Ocean Road
Esther Campion
August 2017
Hachette Book Publishers

The Reason You’re Alive by Matthew Quick

After sixty-eight-year-old David Granger crashes his BMW, medical tests reveal a brain tumor that he readily attributes to his wartime Agent Orange exposure. He wakes up from surgery repeating a name no one in his civilian life has ever heard—that of a Native American soldier whom he was once ordered to discipline. David decides to return something precious he long ago stole from the man he now calls Clayton Fire Bear. It might be the only way to find closure in a world increasingly at odds with the one he served to protect. It might also help him finally recover from his wife’s untimely demise.

As David confronts his past to salvage his present, a poignant portrait emerges: that of an opinionated and goodhearted American patriot fighting like hell to stay true to his red, white, and blue heart, even as the country he loves rapidly changes in ways he doesn’t always like or understand. Hanging in the balance are Granger’s distant art-dealing son, Hank; his adoring seven-year-old granddaughter, Ella; and his best friend, Sue, a Vietnamese-American who respects David’s fearless sincerity.

The Reason You’re Alive, written by the author of The Silver Linings Playbook, is an exploration of protagonist David Granger’s past and present. The novel examines how our past doesn’t define us, but the secrets we carry from those years can define us. They can irreversibly change us.

David is a bigoted veteran who fought in the Vietnam war and is still struggling to deal with the unspeakable things he saw and did during that war. He hasn’t yet come to terms with the traumatic experiences he had during Vietnam. David is honourable and loyal, but he’s also incredibly bitter and wounded and at times, angry. He’s racist, xenophobic, homophobic and he’s brazen and blunt.

“I glanced down at his brand-new boots, and they looked about my size. Mine were waterlogged and had a few holes. Fucking rice paddies. Jungle rot. The meat of my feet was literally falling off the bone.
“His boots are mine,” I said to the rest of the men.
“Why are you claiming my boots?” the FNG asked in the voice of a little girl whose beloved cat is about be put in a sack and drowned in the river.
No one answered him.
Everyone claimed different pieces of his gear as he spun around, looking for eye contact and begging any of us to speak with him. We knew acknowledging him in any way whatsoever was suicide, so we pretended he wasn’t even there.
An hour later, a sniper shot him through his left eye. We returned fire, and no one else was wounded.

David was complicit in the violence and evil in Vietnam, and now, decades later he wants to atone for what he did. It will not only help him ‘move on’ from this time in his life, but it’ll also help him reconnect with his art dealer son, Hank. David’s family relationships are dysfunctional. David’s wife Jessica died when Hank was young, committing suicide by setting herself and her art studio on fire. She was deeply depressed and unable to cope — David first met her after she’d been raped and impregnated when she was very young. He took her in and married her, saving her life. But Jessica couldn’t be saved.

During the Vietnam war, David stole a knife from Clayton Fire Bear, a Native American who liked to scalp others during the war. He would collect those scalps, and David was responsible for ‘discipling’ Clayton. David disciplined him heavily one day and then stole his knife. Clayton swore he’d find and murder David one day, shortly before disappearing into the wilderness. David still feels haunted by that.

“Less than a year after I met him — and only a few weeks after we buried his wife — my Vietnam War buddy was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, which did not surprise me at all, because like I said before, he had bought the bullet. He got his wish and died shortly after getting that death sentence. The Grim Reaper is an efficient motherfucker. Give him an inch to work with, and it’s lights out.”

Whilst David is an unlikeable characters, he’s not wholly unlikeable. The most redeeming quality about David is his love for his wife, which hasn’t wavered in the years since she died. He also dotes on his 7-year-old granddaughter Ella, and helps Hank look after her when his wife Femke leaves them for another man. His interactions with his granddaughter and his loyalty to his wife all these years after her suicide humanise him, and they allow the reader to — at times — sympathise for him.

“My spin class instructor is named Timmy. He’s off-the-charts gay, definitely the woman in his gay homo relationship, and so I call him Gay Timmy. But before you go stereotyping against him, believe me when I say he has the body of a Navy SEAL. You would not want to fight this gay motherfucker, trust me. You might think I hate the gays because I was in the army and am a registered Republican, but you’d be dead fucking wrong. I respect those people.”

The Reason You’re Alive is a quick read, and at times, a surprising read. It explores racism, PTSD, depression, adultery and many other themes. David is certainly an anti-hero, but this novel is surprisingly tender and poignant at times. There’s a lot of swearing and horrible language, and a lot of racist and homophobic remarks. But this novel examines the complex after effects of the Vietnam war and how the war affected the soldiers that fought and survived. It’s complex and dynamic, and this dark tale has many layers for the reader to unpack.

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

The Reason You’re Alive
Matthew Quick
August 2017
Pan Macmillan Publishers

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