JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Leaving Lucy Pear by Anna Solomon

Leaving Lucy Pear is a fictional novel set in 1920s New England that follows the entangled lives of two women who are both mothers to the same girl.

In 1917, a sexual mistake leaves the young and unwed Beatrice Haven pregnant at eighteen. Her parents send her away to live with her Aunt and Uncle during the pregnancy, with the plan that the baby will be sent straight to an orphanage after being born. However, after having the baby, Beatrice sneaks out of her uncle’s house and leaves her newborn baby at the foot of a pear orchard, with the hope that the family who steal their pears will discover the baby and claim it as their own. Bea’s plan succeeds, and she watches as another woman claims the infant as her own. This is Bea’s way of leaving her shameful secret behind and making a fresh start.

But ten years later, both of the women’s lives intersect again. Beatrice, who previously had a bright life ahead of her, is now a fragile, broken woman who hides from her disappointments and refuses to face them. She hires Emma Murphy – the woman who found baby Lucy Pear under that orchard – to be a nurse to Bea’s uncle Ira.

Meanwhile, Lucy has grown up into a confident, capable and headstrong young girl, who is desperate to flee to Canada. She is dressing as a boy to get work so that she can save money, but she often thinks about her real parents – she worked out long ago that her lack of resemblance to her siblings meant she was adopted.

Leaving Lucy Pear emanates the feel of a Victorian novel. In the present, we’re thrust into a time where Prohibition is in full swing, and post-WWI America is in the midst of rampant xenophobia and all of the characters can’t help but question their future and where they’re headed. Anna Solomon alternates chapters so that they focus on different characters, and although this does not seem entirely unnecessary, each character’s suffering and uncertainty is thrust into the limelight. Their hopes and dreams remain unfulfilled, and this stays with the reader long after they’ve finished the book.

Anna has a way of drawing you in, so that you love all of these characters despite their many flaws. You root for them and you cheer for them, but at the same time that sinking feeling in your stomach keeps growing where you know that their lives could be heading in a dramatic turn. Emma has more children than she can afford and a drunk, volatile husband Roland who is physically abusing Lucy. And Anna allows us to revisit Bea’s life after she gave up Lucy – her fragile psychology, her breakdown and institutionalisation, her withdrawal, her failed marriage to a homosexual man Albert, and her gradual depression and sadness.

Anna has done a wonderful job of weaving together a group of characters who are all dealing with the consequences of their actions. None of them are perfect, and yet they all seem to be aware of it. This book is set against one of America’s most tempestuous decades and the novel masterfully dives into class, freedom and the importance and meaning of family.

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

The Hating Game
Sally Thorne
August 2016
Published by Hachette Australia

Thank you to Hachette for providing me with a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is one my favourite reads of 2016. It’s a witty, hilarious, entertaining, sexy and enjoyable adult romance novel set in a publishing house (although very little publishing actually happens). The main characters, Lucy and Joshua, hate each other. They’re constantly competing against each other and making fun of the other and finding ways to frustrate and compete against the other. And then it’s announced that a senior position is opening up in the company, and Joshua and Lucinda are both applying for it.

Lucy is a great protagonist. She’s charming and polite and respectful, but she’s also quick-witted and bold. And Joshua is the complete opposite. He’s coldly efficient, physically intimidating and a really awful person. Lucy and Joshua are both trapped in an office together every day and they’ve become entrenched in an addictive, ridiculous never-ending game of one-upmanship. There’s the Staring Game. The Mirror Game. The HR Game. And when this opportunity for a promotion comes up, and so begins The Hating Game.

Lucy and Joshua have come to an agreement. If Lucy wins the promotion, she’ll be Joshua’s boss. If she loses, she’ll resign.

Their story takes a sharp twist when Lucy starts to see Josh as something different. He’s all of a sudden complimenting her and watching her, and kissing her. And Lucy is starting to wonder if she’s got Joshua all wrong. Maybe they’re not meant to hate each other?

Sally Thorne has done a fabulous job of creating two characters who are completely unique. I found myself laughing out aloud at numerous parts of the novel. And there are no cliché moments or plot points in the novel. One chapter, Lucy is on a date with some guy from the design team, and the next, she’s vomiting from food poisoning at a company paintball tournament. I loved this book and I read it in one sitting.

The Hating Game takes a cliché story arc and turns it into an original tale. The whole ‘boy and girl hate each other but secretly they don’t and they end up falling in love’ has been done many times, and very rarely has it been done well. And then Sally Thorne came along and wrote a book so fantastic that my doubts were gone and I went along for the (hilarious) ride.

This is one of the best romance books I’ve read in a long time. The two main characters were both flawed in their own way, but they blended well together and I found myself cheering for them both. I fell in love with both of the characters and their scenes together were the highlight of the book. Lucy’s strawberry farm childhood and Joshua’s business shirt schedule were just two of the quirks about these characters that were unique and therefore refreshing. I felt like I was reading about two characters so different to characters from any other book I’d ever read.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. If you’re looking for something easy to read, then pick this up. If you’re looking for a romance novel, pick this up. In all honesty, if you’re looking for any book to read, you should buy this. It’s wonderful and hilarious and I’ll definitely be re-reading it again soon.

The Angel’s Share by J.R Ward

The Angel’s Share is the second novel in the Bourbon Kings saga about a wealthy family living in Charlemont, Kentucky. The Bradford family are struggling to maintain a facade of privilege and prosperity while secret and indiscretions threaten its very foundation.

Firstly, I had no idea that this book was the second in a series. Perhaps I mis-read the blurb. BUT, in saying that, I had no problem reading this book and following the storyline, so don’t feel discouraged when you see that this is a ‘sequel’. At the beginning of the book, there is a list of all the characters with descriptions and a paragraph explaining what has happened up until this point. I did have to flick back to that page a couple of times, but after about 100 pages I was well aware of who was who and I could follow the story easily.

The Bradford family are the centre of high society. They’re like Mr Darcy, Mr Bingley, The Van Der Woodsens and the Waldorfs all rolled into one. There are many secrets, multiple love affairs, and it’s a gorgeous, juicy, brilliant novel. The family are wealthy because of their exclusive brand of bourbon, but the head of their family and the head of the company has committed suicide and it’s starting to look more and more like murder.

This is a showcase of characters who are all sacrificing things to keep their family above water. And not just that, to keep appearances. They want people to think that their family is still stable and managing, despite the fact that Lane is desperately trying to pick up the pieces of the company and solve its financial problems. Gin’s teenage daughter is home from boarding school and has more attitude than ever, and her father is also staying at the mansion but has no idea that he is the father. Gin marries a wealthy man not because she loves him or wants to be with him, but because he’s wealthy and powerful and she needs the stability. Even though he’s horrible, and even though he abuses her. She’s brazen, courageous, sarcastic, and I can’t wait to see what happens with her character in the next novel.

No one is above suspicion over the death of William Baldwin, especially his children. Edward is physically impaired because his father arranged for his kidnap and torture in the previous book, and every one knows the bad blood between them. Could Edward have killed William?

J.R Ward is a wonderful writer. Although this novel feels slow at times, she builds suspense well and she juggles all of the characters with ease. J.R drops subtle hints along the way and she also leaves a lot of questions unanswered so that you’re forced to pick up the next novel of the series and keep reading.

I really loved this book and I highly recommend it, although perhaps pick up the first in the seriesm, The Bourbon Kings, before delving into this one. Even though you don’t need to read The Bourbon Kings in order to understand The Angel’s Share, I’m sure it would help.

Thanks to Hachette for sending me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa

This is one of my favourite books that I’ve read this year. Have I mentioned how much I love reading historical fiction?

The Blue Between Sky and Water is about four generations of powerful Palestinian women in Gaza. The women are strong, resilient, passionate, and they put their family first and they aren’t afraid to make sacrifices to protect their own.

A Palestinian family is violently pushed from their ancient farming village of Beit Daras and they try to reconstitute themselves in a refugee camp in Gaza. The men there, those who have escaped prison or the battlefields, worry over making ends meet, they tend their tattered pride, and they join the resistance. The women are left to be breadwinners and protectors. Nazmiyeh is the matriarch and very much the main character in the novel. She is the center of a household of sisters, daughters, granddaughters, whose lives threaten to spin out of control with every personal crisis, military attack, or political landmine.

Her brother’s granddaughter Nur is stuck in America; her own daughter’s son, traumatized in an Israeli assault, slips into another kind of exile; her daughter has cancer and no access to medicine. Their neighbour, the Beekeeper’s wife, will extract the marijuana resin to shrink her tumor, but it is also Nazmiyeh’s large heart and zest for life that heals, that will even call Nur back from the broken promise of America and set her on a new path. All Nazmiyeh’s loved ones will return to her, and ultimately journey further, to that place between the sky and water where all is as it once was, and where all will meet again.

The Blue Between Sky and Water is a fantastic, divine novel about survival, showcasing powerful women who manage to enlarge and enliven the everyday. When I say ‘powerful women’, I don’t mean in status. They are not wealthy or important, but they are struggling. They have tragedy in their lives and they are coping. But the women rise above all that to tackle their problems and their issues and they come together to live their lives and take things one step at a time. They are bold and confident and they stand up for themselves. They are the stars of this novel and they are inspiring to the reader.

This is a timeless novel, with lyrical prose and insight into the historical woes and turmoil in Gaza. The novel jumps between generations and families and characters, but all of the sections come together to deliver a satisfying conclusion that resembles the importance of family and the importance of being there for one another.

I loved the characters in this novel, but I also loved the magic realism that the author wove into the story. We received short bits of it every so often and it was refreshing and uplifting and it helped propel the story forward. This book illustrated a culture that I know very little about, and it presented it in a sensitive and honest setting. A true setting, with events that have really happened in the world and are hard to imagine.

Above all else, this book shows us characters who have lost everything, who are suffering and have nothing, but are able to rebuild and begin again, find love and cherish everything that they’ve gained. It’s a beautiful book and I can’t recommend it enough.

Precious Things by Kelly Doust

Precious Things is one of my favourite adult fiction books of the year. It’s a slow-burner, but it’s beautifully written with wonderful characters and hidden historical gems.

Kelly Doust has done a marvellous job of writing an adult fiction book that resembles historical fiction as well as contemporary fiction. Precious Things follows many characters throughout the past few centuries, however the main character is Maggie, an auctioneer in modern-day London. She comes across a crumpled, neglected collar in a box of old junk, and sets out on an unexpected mission to discover more about its secret and elusive past.

Whilst this happens, Kelly has interwoven chapters in the book about who owned the collar in the past. In Normandy, France in 1891, a young woman sews the beaded collar to her wedding dress the night before her marriage to someone she barely knows. And then in Shanghai in 1926, we come across a dancing sensation Zephyr who finds that same collar discarded on a ballroom floor. There are many other characters that are explored in this novel, all who have come across this collar at some point in their lives, holding special meaning for them and the reader. The collar has passed through the hands of many talented young people, but not for long.

It’s hard not to fall in love with these characters. They’re kind-hearted, devoted, passionate, and struggling. The collar seems to come into their lives when they most need some kind of good luck charm. And as quickly as it enters their lives, it departs, finding itself a new owner and a new life to latch onto.

Kelly juggles all of the storylines extremely well. Not once did I feel confused, and I read this book in two sittings. It’s not a complicated storyline, but it is full of emotional turmoil and heartbreak. It forces the reader to become active when engaging with this book, and not passive. It’s impossible to not relate to these characters or feel anything for them. They all have flaws and faults, but they’re all driven and deserving of an easy life. And tragedy seems to befall quite a few of them.

This novel explores desire, marriage, relationships, friendships and family, and illustrates that the thing or things we most cherish or desire can be gone all too quickly. Precious Things is an absorbing tale with fascinating characters and storylines, and I recommend this book to everyone.