JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

The Patron Saint of Second Chances by Christine Simon

Local vacuum cleaner repairman and self-appointed mayor Nino Speranza is in trouble. Without the thousands of euros in taxes that he could never bring himself to collect from his neighbours, the water board will cut the town off. All 212 inhabitants will be forced to leave.

His usually reliable Compendium of Saints yields no answers to his prayers. So, in a desperate bid to save his hometown, he starts a rumour that major movie star Dante Rinaldi is filming his next movie in the village.

Soon, all the locals want to be involved: Speranza’s assistant has written a screenplay and the local butcher will invest – each of his fifteen enormous sons is given a role. It seems the only way to save the town is to actually make the movie.

And Nino Speranza starts to think he might have created the second chance they all needed . . . until word of the production reaches Dante Rinaldi himself.

Christine Simon’s debut novel The Patron Saint of Second Chances is a charming, fleeting, over-the-top tale of a struggling Italian town and their mayor’s ridiculous efforts to secure $70,000 euros to keep it from closing down.

The premise is clever and inviting — Signor Speranza, mayor and local vacuum cleaner repairman, starts a rumour that famous actor Dante Rinaldi will film his next project in their small town of Prometto. Signor plans to secure funding from enough vendors to cover off the town’s debt, but, as expected, things do not go according to plan. And soon, this rumour catches the attention of Dante and his unimpressed agent.

“This, Signor Speranza thought, was his best shot at avoiding mortal sin. If he were just to let slip, casually, that it would really be something if some famous person — Brad Pitt, for example — were thinking of buying a house in Prometto, then he wouldn’t actually be lying, would he?”

Strengths lie in the small Italian setting — there’s a strong sense of place in the novel, which upon reading Christine’s authors note, feels even more real. There’s a claustrophobic element to these kinds of settings, where everyone knows everyone and secrets do not stay hidden for long. There’s genuine concern for the younger generations, who don’t seem to understand the charm of the town as much as their parents and grandparents, and so they’re fleeing Prometto in droves.

Christine’s voice and style of writing makes the book incredibly accessible. Her writing feels almost stream of consciousness, with ample internal monologue and dialogue to give depth to the main characters. There’s a conversational tone to the novel, rendering it an appealing read for sporadic readers or reluctant readers.

“Signor Speranza regarded the pig’s carcass hanging in the window of the shop, and his spirits quailed. Don Rocco was right, of course. Maybe this was crazy. If it all blew up in his face, as Betta had said, he wondered which would be worse, being carted to jail, or having Signor Maestro after him.”

Overall, the novel is quite over-the-top and sensationalist, and rather unbelievable at times. Some elements of the plot I did find rather silly, but I know there’ll be readers who’ll find it charming and fun. I can’t say I ever laughed out aloud during this read, but I did find it an uplifting read, which is a nice discovery amidst the gloom of the world right now.

One small gripe, but there are so many characters in this novel it was really hard to keep track. There is, in particular, a lot of characters with names starting with S, and I got them confused on a regular basis.

“Fate. Chance. The Hand of God. Signor Speranza believed in the last of these, although over the next few days he did not recognise it when he saw it.”

Light-hearted, uplifting and written for the optimistic reader. Recommended for fans of comedy and familial sagas that are just that little bit over-the-top and too extreme to be believable, but are still well loved. Readership skews female, 35+

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

The Patron Saint of Second Chances
Christine Simon
April 2022
Hachette Book Publishers Australia

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Secrets. Betrayal. Seduction. Welcome to the Alexandrian Society.

When the world’s best magicians are offered an extraordinary opportunity, saying yes is easy. Each could join the secretive Alexandrian Society, whose custodians guard lost knowledge from ancient civilizations. Their members enjoy a lifetime of power and prestige. Yet each decade, only six practitioners are invited – to fill five places.

Contenders Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona are inseparable enemies, cosmologists who can control matter with their minds. Parisa Kamali is a telepath, who sees the mind’s deepest secrets. Reina Mori is a naturalist who can perceive and understand the flow of life itself. And Callum Nova is an empath, who can manipulate the desires of others. Finally there’s Tristan Caine, whose powers mystify even himself.

Following recruitment by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they travel to the Society’s London headquarters. Here, each must study and innovate within esoteric subject areas. And if they can prove themselves, over the course of a year, they’ll survive. Most of them.

Olivie Blake’s fantasy novel The Atlas Six is the first in a planned series, centring around the elusive but esteemed Alexandrian Society, inheritors of lost knowledge. When six of the most promising young magicians are recruited to join their ranks, they’re told only five will be accepted into the society. And it’s not guaranteed that all of them will make it out alive…

The setting is deliberately claustrophobic — we are confined inside the walls of the society for most of the novel, and so we experience as the characters’ world grows smaller and smaller. For twelve months, they can only confide in each other, largely inside the same walls that surround them. Characters who normally wouldn’t have anything to do with each other suddenly seem to form unacknowledged alliances as they work together in this strange new environment.

“That sneaky little monstress. This was Nico’s punishment, then. Forced communication with people who mattered to him — which she knew he loathed — all for implying that her boyfriend was precisely what he was.”

The characters’ magic did feel creative and interesting, and certainly like their abilities were outside the realm of usual fantasy tropes. Early chapters of the book very much function as an introduction to each of the six characters, as we move through their perspectives and come to understand who they are and what their magic encompasses.

Action scenes appear intermittently throughout the book, breaking up the slower chapters where it’s mainly conversation and world-building. Admittedly, the world-building did feel quite complex, certainly at the end of the book as the climax unfolded. But with morally ambiguous and multi-layered characters, tension in this dark academia novel run high and stakes are maintained throughout the novel.

“So this, too, came with strings. That was obvious. Reina had never liked this sort of persuasion, but there was a logical piece of her that understood people would never stop asking. She was a well of power, a vault with heavy doors, and people would either find ways to break in or she would have to simply open them on occasion. Only for a worthy purchaser.”

For a lot of the book, the chapters consist of dialogue between the young magicians — bickering, fighting, or flirting. There’s a lot of scene-setting and exposition, and characters hooking up with each other. It all felt a little inconsequential for a while there. Even if you like the characters, after a while, you’re desperate for something more to happen! I definitely think this novel could’ve benefited from more plot.

The ending did feel satisfying, as Olivie tied together the mystery and revealed what was really at stake here — what the society is attempting to achieve and what the true purpose of these six magicians has been. In saying that, I do look forward to subsequent novels when the true nature of this society is more deeply explained — quite a few moments in the book went over my head, and explanations around magic and physics and certain characters’ true intentions were a little lost on me.

Moments of humour pepper the novel, keeping conversation light and enjoyable whilst maintaining tension and stakes and this impending build-up of dread. You know something is about to happen, you know the bubble is about to burst, you’re just not quite sure what or how.

“Lust was a colour, but fear was a sensation. Clammy hands or a cold sweat were obvious markers, but more often it was some sort of multisensory incongruity. Like seeing sun and smelling smoke, or feeling silk and tasting bile. Sounds that rose out of unseeing darkness. This was like that, only stranger.”

Recommended for YA fantasy readers. Punchy and imaginative, the readership for The Atlas Six skews female, 16+

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

The Atlas Six
Olivie Blake
March 2022
Pan Macmillan Publishers

Wild Dogs by Michael Trant

In the drought-ridden rangelands of Western Australia, Gabe Ahern makes his living trapping wild dogs for local station owners.

Still coming to terms with his wife’s death – and the part he played in it – the old bushman leads a solitary life. Until one morning, when he rescues a young Afghan man, Amin, from certain execution.

Now, with a gang of people smugglers on his tail and the lives of Amin’s family on the line, Gabe is drawn into a ruthless game of cat and mouse. His main opponent is Chase Fowler, a kangaroo hunter with bush skills as wily and sharp as his own.

As the old dogger and roo-shooter go head to head, Gabe will need all his cunning to come out of this alive…

Michael Trant’s Australian outback thriller Wild Dogs centres around an unlikely alliance between a hard-headed dog trapper and an Afghan refugee deep in the drought-ridden rangelands of Western Australia.

Gabe is the kind of man who functions alone. He minds his own business, and doesn’t work to interfere with others. He’s also still processing the death of his wife and his role in the tragedy. When he ventures out one day to lay and check traps for wild animals, he stumbles upon a planned execution of two Afghan refugees. He intervenes, and suddenly finds himself drawn into a dangerous people-smuggling operation secretly operating in Western Australia.

“Gabe watched as the insects crawled in and out of nostrils and open mouths, and felt ill. He was no stranger to death. If it wasn’t trapped or gunned-down dogs, it was the carcasses of emaciated livestock who’d succumbed to the dry, or a kangaroo he’d shot to make baits or for his dinner.”

Trant captures the remote, vast landscape with ease — the small town vibe, and the close-knot relationships that come with living in such an area. Additionally, the premise of the novel feels fresh in this genre. I’ve never come across a novel where the protagonist is tasked with hunting wild dogs, let alone being set in Australian bushland. It also felt different because most regional or rural Aussie novels centre around a mysterious murder, with an investigator as the protagonist, but Wild Dogs centres around the attempted murder of a refugee and the highly skilled local hunter working to keep him alive…

Whilst the circumstances surrounding Gabe and Amin’s paths crossing seemed a little easy, Trant brings a lot of grit, action and speed to his novel — Wild Dogs would work well for reluctant male adult readers, perhaps those looking for a holiday read and need something engaging.

“By the time they reached the abandoned well, the sun was almost below the horizon, casting an orange hue across the sky that faded to deep purple as the first of the many starts materialised.”

Admittedly, there were a few elements to the novel that felt a little too signposted and therefore predictable. The crooked cop for one, and the nurse accidentally being drawn into the story because she wasn’t quite switched on enough to realise there was danger surrounding her. The final few chapters, which is where most of the action happens, did provide a lot of tense interactions with characters and increased suspense, although with such a large cast of characters drawn into the fight, it felt a little convoluted at times. I wonder if Trant could’ve stripped back the number of characters present in those final, chaotic scenes.

This certainly felt like a personal response because I can’t find any other reviews that mention this, but I did wonder if Trant leant a little too heavily into Gabe’s ignorance around race and class. Gabe didn’t need to be so ‘tough’ or unaware of Amin’s cultural history to still be an effective protagonist. At times, Gabe’s dialogue, which may indeed match what men do really say, translated on the page a little forced and awkward.

“Amin paled at this suggestion. Gabe could see him wrestling with his thoughts, and the look of resigned guilt on his face told him that the man was blaming himself.”

High stakes, pacy, and dripping with tension, Wild Dogs is recommended for male readers, and is the perfect gift for father’s day or a father’s birthday. Readership skews 35+

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

Wild Dogs
Michael Trant
February 2022
Penguin Random House Book Publishers

The Freedom of Birds by Stephanie Parkyn

Remi Victoire is the golden child among all the theatre orphans; he dreams of a life on a Paris stage. But when this future is stolen from him, Remi and his faithful friend Pascal turn their backs on Paris forever.

With Saskia, a runaway orphan girl, Remi and Pascal form a performing troupe, travelling through the fairytale lands that are home to the Brothers Grimm, before finding a safe haven in Venice.

As Napoleon’s vast Empire crumbles, the French storytellers discover that Paris itself is now at risk of invasion and they fear for the loved ones they have left behind.

From picturesque villages to Italian theatres and on to the battlefields outside of Paris, this is a beautifully told story about the bonds of love and friendship, the importance of stories, and finding a place to belong.

Set in Europe in the early 1800s, Stephanie Parkyn’s The Freedom of Birds is historical fiction centring around a trio of orphan children who band together to form a performing troupe. From France to Italy, and the battlefields in between, Saskia, Remi and Pascal must learn to survive on their own.

The Freedom of Birds brings disadvantaged and marginalised characters to the forefront. There’s an element of fairytales and folklore running as an undercurrent to the novel, which makes it feel oddly comforting and reassuring at a time like this.

I’ve since realised there is some connection between this book and Stephanie’s previous two works — luckily, you don’t need to read her first two books to follow this one, although I’m sure it’d help provide additional context to the historical setting.

“Did they wonder, the townsfolk, how Father had come to possess her? Had they questioned her sudden arrival to that desolate church? No doubt he had spun a convincing story. Perhaps he told them he had rescued her from wickedness and vice and delivered her into the lap of God.”

Strengths lie in the research and political turmoil captured in the book. Whilst a lot of the events happening in that time period — particularly those related to war — went straight over my head and waned my interest, I appreciate how much work has gone into writing this book and I acknowledge there’ll be a loyal readership who will find themselves in love with the time period and the setting of the book.

From the battlefields to the tension, to the hatred for their unjust treatment, The Freedom of Birds transports you to another time and allows you to feel completely enveloped in the early 1800s. Each of the core characters are unique in their journey and their role within the story — each are fighting battles both in their minds and their environments. Their journeys in the book reflect their pursuit for the truth, and for the family they’ve never known.

“The smell of hay, manure, piss — I woke with it filling my nose and mouth, face down and chewing on the stable scrapings. I rolled over slowly, not wanting to move my head, feeling the hammers strike anvils behind my eyes. I prised an eyelid open.”

There were a couple of things that I didn’t love about the book, and the main one was the perspective shift. We move between Saskia, Remi and Pascal, but two of these voices are in third person and one is in first person. I found this incredibly jolting and sometimes I got confused about which perspective we were now in. I wonder why the author wrote it like this, instead of writing all three of them in third person and perhaps including a header at the beginning of each chapter with their name, so we immediately knew who we were following.

And secondly, I struggled with the pacing of the novel. It’s very slow. Too slow. Events didn’t seem to hold the magnitude they needed for historical fiction. So, whilst plotting was present and things did happen, they never seemed to be building towards enough of a climax to keep a reader hooked.

“Hunger gripped Pascal’s stomach like a dog that would not relinquish a stick. It gnawed at him. He felt each bite like a sudden cramp. Hunger hurt. He was tired of the ache.”

Recommended for historical fiction readers. Readership skews female, 35+

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

The Freedom of Birds
Stephanie Parkyn
December 2021
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

Young baronet Robin Blyth thought he was taking up a minor governmental post. However, he’s actually been appointed parliamentary liaison to a secret magical society. If it weren’t for this administrative error, he’d never have discovered the incredible magic underlying his world.

Cursed by mysterious attackers and plagued by visions, Robin becomes determined to drag answers from his missing predecessor – but he’ll need the help of Edwin Courcey, his hostile magical-society counterpart. Unwillingly thrown together, Robin and Edwin will discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles.

Freya Marske’s debut novel A Marvellous Light is both fantasy and queer romance, set in early 1900s Edwardian England. The confident — but slightly clueless — Robin Blyth finds himself thrust into the hidden world of magic and the victim of a curse he can’t control.

Readers will enjoy the premise of the novel, the integration of magical realism throughout the story, and the leading characters Robin and Edwin. Both these men are grappling with the situation before them — Robin, determined but ultimately in over his head, and Edwin, unfortunately plagued with meagre magic and constantly tormented by his siblings.

Notably, this is the first book in a planned series, and Freya does leave much to be answered. There is enough world-building in this as the first book, but still much to be explored in sequels.

“Robin’s second impression was that Lord Hawthorn had also been visited by disruptive thieves during the night, because the room into which they were led was a morass of belongings strewn over every surface.”

Family dynamics is a strong element in this story — how Robin and Edwin both interact with family amidst society. I can’t quite explain it, but this book feels suited to seasoned readers — those who know exactly what they’re looking for in a novel. Those who love genre fiction and romance, and unsuspecting characters thrust into an alternate world that they’re ill-prepared for. Personally, I found the opening of the novel quite slow and impenetrable, but admittedly it got better as it went on.

When Robin is attacked by thugs and finds himself cursed, he must work together with Edwin to end the curse and find the object these thugs are so desperate to uncover. Stylistically, Freya writes in third person but moves back and forth between Robin and Edwin’s POV. Freya’s writing is sharp and succinct — her description allows for emotional and depth, without being fluffy or over-the-top.

“Edwin settled himself back against the leather of the seat. It was real. The rattle of the window in its frame was real. Robert Blyth was not exactly imaginary — no, he was too solid, too broad-shouldered, his voice too loud and too warm: the voice of someone who’d never had cause to make himself smaller.”

Admittedly, I felt that the blend of magical realism and romance was not seamlessly executed. Moments of romantic tension seemed so far removed from the plot lines that the core mystery of the novel seemed forgotten. There’s a sequence of sex scenes in the middle of the novel that didn’t feel easily embedded — the rest of the novel centres entirely around the mystery element that I felt quite surprised to find sex scenes in the novel at all. Whilst they were sensual, and I’m sure they’ll be appreciated by some readers, I’m not sure they fit easily into this book where they are.

“Excitement crawled over Robin’s scalp. He didn’t think Courcey actually meant him any harm; the man was far too prickly. If he’d been trying for charm Robin might have been worried.”

Recommended for readers of fantasy romance, and perhaps magical realism. I wouldn’t recommend this book to reluctant readers. Readership skews female, 25+

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

A Marvellous Light
Freya Marske
November 2021
Pan Macmillan Publishers