The ballroom, by Anna Hope

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Anna Hope

I received this book from Netgalley

In 1911, a young woman called Ella is confined in a mental asylum against her will. In her first moments there she tries to escape and catches the attention of John, another inmate who is working in the fields around the institution. But Ella’s attempt to flee doesn’t succeed and soon she finds herself getting used to the routines and the people of the asylum.

Charles, one of the doctors of the institution, is a frustrated musician who, in an attempt to bring his job and his calling together, is studying the effect that music has on the mentally ill people under his care, gathering the women in a music room during some hours of the day, and assembling a dance for the men and the women together every Friday evening in a magnificent ballroom inside the building – the only moment men and women are allowed to interact with each other. Charles’ revolutionary method seems to go very well, supplying the doctor with enough evidence to support that mental illness can be cured – the doctor wants to present his conclusions against the Eugenics movement, whose supporters think of castrating men with these mental conditions as the solution to the spreading of illness and poverty.

The asylum where the book is set really existed.
Source.

As the previous novel of Anna Hope, I was hooked on the atmosphere of the book. Ella’s point of view is of a weak woman, scared of this new place where people are “crazy”, but secretly brave enough to try to find her way out. John’s chapters are more masculine and apathetic; he is always working outside in the fields whereas the women are always doing chores inside the building. But from his first meeting with Ella, the seed of freedom begins to grow, so he tries to bring little treasures from the outside world for Ella, taking risks to write and send her letters, and feeling like his old self again. On the other hand, Charles’ chapters talk about the way other people see the institution and how dangerous was to be considered “different” in that time, taking into account the healing methods in mental asylums.

This is probably the best novel I have read this year; from the story of impossible love between these two characters whose destiny are in others’ hands, to how easily one might confuse madness and sanity and who has the right to decide if you must be freed or locked in; I felt the author has created a wonderful story on the basis of mental health.

The ballroom
Anna Hope
Published by Random House
320 pages

And after the fire, by Lauren Belfer

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Lauren Belfer

I received this book from the publisher for review.

“And after the fire” tells the story of a lost cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, stolen from a house in Germany after World War II and now in the hands of a young woman, Susanna, who, in order to find if the manuscript has any value, asks music scholar Dan Erhardt for help. Not only does Dan confirm that the manuscript has Bach’s own handwriting on it, which could lead to an astonishing breakthrough, but he also notices the extremely controversial verses accompanying the music – anti-Semitic verses written in German to perform in church services, no less.

Alternating chapters, the story of such manuscript is revealed from the moment Bach’s eldest son gives it to his most talented music student, a Jew young woman called Sara Itzig, in the belief that she will comprehend its value and keep it from anti-Semitic Christian hands, who are gaining power in Prussia in the late eighteenth century. This – the decay of the Jewish prominence in the European elite – is the main topic of this half of the book, in which Sara’s family endure, devoting themselves to music.

The historical part of the story, based on real characters of the past, was as interesting as the main plot set in the present, where Susanna and Dan try to discover the whereabouts of a cantata that has been hidden for so many years, and the implications of revealing its existence to the public – music and verses written by the master which claim the convenience of burning the Jews don’t seem very appropriate, right? Besides, these contemporary characters are interesting by themselves; their backgrounds make the reader feel sympathy for them.

There are minor parts of the book I didn’t found that good, like the kind-of love triangle that includes Susanna, Dan and a friend of his, unnecessary in this story, but there is one scene that I particularly disliked and I need to tell you: Susanna and Dan travel to Germany and, at the hotel, people stare at her in disgust because she is a Jew and they end up making a scene there. In 2010! I’m not talking about the fact that they are in a hotel and the other guests might not even be Germans, but I find it utterly implausible the author’s affirmation that Germans nowadays are anti-Semitic and are keen to show this in public, not to mention the fact that I don’t really think people can tell someone is a Jew just by their appearance. That said, I have never been in Germany myself.

So I’ll pretend I haven’t read such a scene because, overall, this was a good book; I enjoyed reading about real musicians of the past, as well as wondering if we’ll ever find out about the mysteries that have been kept secret.

And after the fire
Lauren Belfer
Published by Harper
464 pages

Wake, by Anna Hope

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Anna Hope

This is a beautifully written story set just after World War, I in which the protagonists, three women, endure in a world that has change everyone forever.

Ada was once a mother, but her son died in the war and she wakes up everyday just to chase his ghost; she didn’t received that second letter the others seemed to get from the army, and she thinks it means her Michael is still alive. Evelyn lost her boyfriend in the war, and she now works in an office processing the government pensions for the injured, not letting herself get over her loss. Besides, her brother Ed, which whom she was very close in the past, has changed and seems like another man after the war; just the same as Hettie’s brother, who lives in his own mind since he came from France, and now she acts like the head of a broken family, working as a dancing instructor in a famous club in London and giving half of the money she earns to an ungrateful mother.

These are three women very different from each other with only one thing in common: their unhappiness. Britain won the war, yes, but that didn’t prepare them for all the broken families, the amputees begging in the streets or the general sentiment of failure that was the opposite of what a victory was expected to bring them. The three storylines run from the previous days of the Unknown Warrior parade in November 1920 to the event itself; they are not properly intertwined, they just have some characters who appear throughout the story of the three protagonists and let the reader understand the horrors the men now have to live with.

I really enjoyed this book, this unspoken reality of the months after the war, of those women longing for their men to come back, only to find that the closeness they once shared was forever lost in the battlefields.

Wake, by Anna Hope
305 pages
Published by Random House.

The unicorn road, by Martin Davies

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Martin Davies

One day, when I was studying English and beginning to read my first “real” books (meaning not those short ones for students that are in fact summaries of other novels), the book fair for second hand books arrived in town, and there was a stand with a tiny line of English books which made my day… until I took a closer look at them – the majority of the books were crime novels (not my genre), the rest were the Sookie Stackhouse series (I had already read them in Spanish), and then, I found this one. I was not sure if this was a fantasy book or what, but it was in ENGLISH, and I was there to purchase, people! No eventuality could have got me out of my way!

So I travelled back to the 13th century and I started this journey with a party of men who are asked by the king Manfred of Sicily to find a legendary beast. Antioch, an old scholar with a bestiary as a guide, has to travel to the Far East and bring back an animal marvelous enough to please the Pope. The scholar is not alone, though, since he will be protected by a small army whose leader, count Decious, was one of the greatest soldiers of that time. A little boy, apprentice of the scholar, travels with them, and in Asia they would also require the skill of a man called Venn, a translator who has learned all the languages of every spot in this vast and wild world. Years later, the boy’s father travels through Europe in order to find what happened to his son – the posse never came back and no one seems to know their fate.

In addition to this story, there is also a young woman who traveled to the Emperor’s court in order to marry a soldier she met in her little village, with whom she fell in love. And the path she walked would be the same as the party’s, both looking for different outcomes.

I have to words to explain how much I enjoyed this novel. There are several characters and every one of them has their importance within the whole story, but perhaps in the end the reader becomes really fond of Venn, the translator, and Ming Yueh, this poor girl who voluntarily travels away from her people in order to pursue a better future for herself, which turned out different from her expectations.

The narration is lovely too; the descriptions of the scenery, the great city and the harbors, and also the different points of view of every character; the way the different groups of men see each other makes you become part of the story. There is also a special issue I particularly loved: Ming Yueh and the other women of the East know a secret language with which she leaves messages to people along her way, and it’s this language what will bring Venn to her. Isn’t it beautiful, the power of words linking people?

And finally I liked the structure of the novel, addressing the desperate search of the boy’s father in every other chapter and, next, the actual events of the men who went to find a unicorn.

The unicorn road will break your heart, but it’s worth it.

The Unicorn road
Martin Davies
Published by Hodder & Stoughton
330 pages
Book on Goodreads

PS: I want to thank Joy for the helping me with the review.

September, by Rosamunde Pilcher

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Rosamunde Pilcher

I wish I could live in one of Pilcher’s books…

It’s late 1980s and, after many years from the last party, a wealthy family is organizing one to celebrate their daughter’s eighteenth birthday, and it will take place in September. The mood of the Strathcroy inhabitants, in Scotland, instantly lightens up, because they long for the old days and the party is the perfect excuse to bring up old memories… and old people too!

The party is the premise Pilcher uses to introduce a number of characters whose life is beginning to fall apart, as the old Scottish traditions do. There is a little boy, Henry, whose father wants him to go to a boarding school; the mother of this boy, who can’t stand the idea of the separation; an old woman, Edie, who has to take care of a cousin with a mental illness; a young girl who is living her first romance, or Pandora, a woman who left the village when she was a teenager and has never come back…

My copy of the book.

All the characters have to fight over their own wellbeing, that kind of happiness that sometimes is so elusive. The narration addresses one character in every chapter, letting the reader take part of their lives, their struggles; there are no bad or good people here, just the pursuit of their place in the world. And no less important is the setting, in a village of the Highlands, a magical place where all those character come together to form a special unit which wouldn’t be the same without the bonds between them, together to face the twilight of the way of life they had known.

September is another little gem of Rosamunde Pilcher, an invitation to a party in Scotland you shouldn’t decline. I will be waiting for you there, in the Highlands. In September 😉

Duet for three hands, by Tess Thompson

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Tess Thompson

It’s late 1920s when Nathaniel, a virtuoso pianist with limited social skills, is delighting his audience, not knowing that some hours later his life would change drastically: in the after-party he would meet his future wife, Frances Bellmont, and his career as one of the best piano concertists would fade away.

The other part of the story is set at the Bellmonts’. Whitmore Bellmont, Frances’ little brother, is a talented boy on the art of drawing who is in love with the maid’s daughter, Jesselle, a black young girl who has been taught by Mrs. Clare Bellmont all the school subjects she couldn’t have learned otherwise because of the color of her skin. The relationship between Whitmore and Jesselle must be kept secret, as well as the lessons Mrs. Bellmont schedule every day for Jesselle, because the society of their time would raise Cain if they knew.

Finally, there is a young widow called Lydia, who eventually would know the rest of the characters, when she decides to leave the farm she has always lived in, in order to master the piano.

Tess Thompson, one of my favourite romance authors, has surprised us, her fans, by writing a historical fiction novel this time based on the life of her great-grandmother, which has been a pleasure to read.

From several points of view, the story shows a portrait of that time, regarding human rights, education, arts, and the beginning of the movie industry, with a wealthy southern family in the center. Every one of the characters has a unique voice and, even when each one has their own conflicts to solve, all of them converge throughout the narration, interconnected in the overall story.

However, my favourite has been Nathaniel; I felt really sorry for him when he had to stop playing music and give up his fascinating career as a concertist only to be stuck in a marriage where love was absent. I also enjoyed Jesselle’s story; a girl divided between two worlds, fighting for growing up and make her dreams come true, with her only two weapons against the world: her love for Whitmore and her will to learn.

With the issues it addresses and the charming characters the novel has, I think most readers will be captivated by Duet for three hands as much as I was.

Duet for Three Hands, by Tess Thopmson
Published by Booktrope, 384 pages

Book on Amazon.com
Book on Goodreads
Tess Thompson’s web

Getting the picture, by Sarah Salway

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Sarah Salway

I received this book thanks to Dean Street Press
in exchange for a review on my blog.

I had never heard of Sarah Salway before, but when I got contacted by Dean Street Press I saw that she is a poet and I’ve always thought that poets have something special in their narrative works, so I picked up Getting the picture to see if I was right – and I was!

Getting the picture is an epistolary story told through the letters, emails and voicemails of several characters. The main character is Martin, a man in his eighties who once had an affair with a married woman called Mo, and she finally chose her husband over him. He has never forgotten her and his never-sent letters to her is what we are reading, even though she passed away a few years ago.

Martin is living in a nursing home because Mo’s widower, George, is also there, and he wanted to get to know the man she preferred to spend her life with. George, meanwhile, writes notes to the house manager of the nursery in order to let her know all the complaints he has towards the staff and the other residents, as well as voicemails to his youngest daughter, who lives in France. On the other hand, we have George’s oldest daughter, Nell, who is the one who tries to bring the family together, being all of them so adamant of the needs of the others. They still don’t know, but it’s Martin the one who will change their family life.

The author lets us get the picture step by step through the unique voice of all these characters, all of them with a background the reader doesn’t expect. We know that Martin’s curiosity, to the point of living under the same roof as Mo’s husband and getting in touch with her family, isn’t right but, at the same time, we also think that he deserves the explanation she never gave him. The fact that Mo, the character the story goes around to, isn’t there to say something makes you wonder how she would feel.

To me, this has been a delightful story whose turn of events was surprising; with human characters you end up worrying about; and with an original narration, through letters, that I always find enjoyable because they let you know the characters in more depth.

Getting the picture
Sarah Salway
240 pages
ISBN: 9781910570104 (ebook)/9781910570432 (print)

Me before you, by Jojo Moyes

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Jojo Moyes

Please, readers, don’t judge this book by its cover. I did think this was an easy chick-lit read full of funny situations, probably about a girl trying to get the man of her dreams, but I was totally wrong – behind the frivolous cover you see there is a deeply sensitive story, and one of the best I have read this year.

Will Traynor is a successful and wealthy business man, whose hobbies are mainly extreme sports, who has an accident that leaves him a quadriplegic. At the third page of the book.

After this shocking start, we meet Louisa Clark, a girl who has just lost her job as a waitress and the only one she is able to get – considering she has no higher education – in the little village where she lives is taking care of a quadriplegic man: our Will. They don’t get on well with each other at the beginning because Will has become grumpy and bad tempered, but Louisa is capable of looking through all that resentment and try to make he see that there are still things that can bring joy to his life.

This is my sister, performing acrobatics with the book (hanging from aerial silk), in memorial of Will’s love for risky sports 🙂

The story is about Louisa’s efforts to come up with plans for Will – plans that are not always welcome by him, but thanks to her perseverance the readers find themselves committed to Louisa’s cause, praying for that idea to turn out well or feeling sorry when she doesn’t succeed, having she worked so hard.

The cast of secondary characters is also remarkable, and they bring touches of amusement and sorrow to some parts of the story. For example, there is Louisa’s boyfriend and his obsession with triathlons – taking into account that Louisa is not very good at sports, they make a funny couple; or Louisa’s father, who has also lost his job and now their only income is her daughter’s job, so they behave like she is the head of the family, a role she doesn’t want. All these characters make the story more enjoyable, adding what we can called mundane issues (compared to Will’s disability, I mean) to the story.

I would really like you to give Me before you a chance and help Louisa to show Will that his live isn’t over yet; that he can still love, learn and have fun regardless of his condition.

P.S. I lent it to my grandmother and she loved it as well.

P.S2. Now I’m looking forward to reading more books by this author.

P.S3. There will be a film based on this book, with Emilia Clarke playing Louisa!

Me before you
Jojo Moyes
Viking, 369 pages
Penguin Books, 400 pages

The buttefly and the violin, by Kristy Cambron

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Kristy Cambron

Had I known this book was labeled as “Christian fiction” I think I wouldn’t have requested it, and it was my entire fault since the synopsis mentions God at least three times, but I didn’t realize until it was too late. At least now I can say that I have tried Christian books, right?

The butterfly and the violin contents two stories in two different times. During the Second World War, in Vienna, Adele Von Bron, a promising violinist, falls in love with a member of the Vienna Philharmonic, for which they both play. Vladimir is a nice man, but Adele’s parents are looking for an upper class husband for their child, and Vladimir doesn’t belong to that specific group. They live their love in secret and not only that, but even though Adele’s father is a Nazi officer, she helps Vladimir to get some Jews out of Vienna… until she is uncovered.

Today, Sera James looks for the original painting of a girl in Auschwitz playing the violin; she has been obsessed with that painting since she first saw it long years ago, and now she discovers that it may belong to a man who has just died, so she decides to go and talk with his heirs. She meets Will Hanover, a handsome man who actually doesn’t have the painting but also has his own reasons to get it, so they investigate together.

Both stories are linked through that painting.

The part set in the past is the one I liked most. Adele is a sensible young girl who just wants to help other people, and her love story with Vladimir is really beautiful. In Auschwitz she is forced to play the violin with other girls while the Nazis bring people to the camp and do their first selection, taking the people who can’t work to the gas chambers; but even in that situation she can consider herself luckier than the other prisoners. The “Christian” issue here is that she plays for God, which I found perfectly natural, taking into account that the poor girl needs to blow her mind somehow in a situation like that.

Sera’s part is like a romance novel, but it wasn’t very good, in my opinion. To summarize, she is devastated because her husband-to-be cancelled their wedding so she hasn’t dated other men for years, but she falls in love with Will Hanover who, by the way, is rich, and she is not sure about opening her heart and all that. He, meanwhile, confesses his deepest secret ever – which might be considered SPOILERS, you are warned – taking the plot to a momentous scene when he puts a bible on Sera’s table and says his dream was to be a minister since he was young, but his family didn’t let him because his fate was to be the head of the family business – business of millions of dollars, I mean, what a terrible fate! – and her heart instantly pounds harder full of love for him, while I was laughing out loud. I’m sorry, but that was too much Christianity for me.

So, did I like the book? Fifty-fifty. I loved Adele’s part, and it talks about a subject I didn’t know anything about: the art created in Auschwitz by the prisoners, which I found fascinating. But the plot set in the present is boring, trying to fit God everywhere, except for the end, when they discover the painting and the story behind it.

The buttefly and the violin

Kristy Cambron

Published by Thomas Nelson

329 pages.

The postman, by Antonio Skármeta

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Antonio Skármeta

Do you know what happens when you fall in love? It’s simple: you become a poet! You feel the rhymes running through your veins because love makes you see the beauty everywhere!

The postman is the story of a young boy, Mario, who gets a job as a postman, in charge of taking Pablo Neruda’s mail, so there he goes every day to the poet’s house. At first Neruda doesn’t pay much attention to the boy, but little by little they become friends. When Mario falls in love with Beatriz, the innkeeper’s daughter, he asks Neruda for help because he wants to write the most beautiful poems to Beatriz.

Beatriz’s mother doesn’t want to know anything about Mario courting her daughter, but the girl is absolutely in love with him. “What in the name of God does he tell you, Beatriz?” her mother asks, and the girl replies, “Metaphors!” 😀

The story is set in Chile at the beginning of the 1970s, when Salvador Allende became president of the republic; a time I don’t know much about, I confess. This political background is important to the story because Neruda is sent abroad as an ambassador, but his friends in Chile are always in touch with him. After all, they are together thanks to Neruda’s poetry.

This is a short story with a little bit of every emotion: the reader finds love between Mario and Beatriz, humor when Beatriz’s mother gets to know Mario’s intention of marrying her daughter; friendship when Neruda finally agrees to help Mario, and sadness due to the political events explained in the book.

I think this is the first book I have read in which a real author – Pablo Neruda – is one of the main characters in the story, and I liked how at first he was distant and serious but then he makes friends with our illiterate characters of the village.

Even though I enjoyed the book, there were also some parts I really didn’t connect with, and that’s a common feeling I have with some Latin American authors because when they talk about love, I find that the language and the scenes between the characters are too excessive for my taste, but it is a personal opinion.

Do you read poetry? Does it talk to your heart?

The postman

Antonio Skármeta

W. W. Norton & Company, 2008

112 pages