Spanning three hundred years of art history, The Vanitas & Other Tales of Art and Obsession tells the stories of those with an insatiable hunger for creation – those who may sacrifice friendships, careers, romance, and even their own happiness in pursuit of a vision.
Weaving art styles such as Cubism, Surrealism, and the Baroque into his prose, Jake Kendall has crafted a vivid and inventive collection. Each story is complemented by a black and white illustration, drawing out the visually evocative nature of the writing and offering readers a unique artistic delight.
Review
I was a bit nervous to read this book as, although I appreciate art and have a “recognition on sight” for many artists’ works, I worried this would not be enough to just enjoy the stories, that I might have to break off to do further reading. I was wrong. A couple of times, I even recognised the artist/painting before it was fully revealed.
This wonderful collection comprises seven short stories and a longer short story, The Vanitas. The author has managed to depict separate, individual voices in each one. They are all different points of view and each feels complete in itself.
The eight stories, whilst all centred around artists, their art and obsession, illustrate clearly and brutally, the consequences of the artists’ single mindedness on those around them, be they loved ones, friends, acquaintances or strangers brought into their sphere.
In one story, a whole city is caught up at varying levels. In another, the truth and horror of the event the artist has chosen to depict gets lost as he glorifies what happened, much to the horror of the two survivors he seeks to include.
It is difficult to write about the individual stories without giving them away so will keep it general. It is also difficult to write about the book as a whole, but better than giving spoilers.
One of the stories is about nature’s gift of the sunrise and the description is echoed gloriously in the colours of the book cover.
There are different themes across the stories – despair, abandonment, hope, pride, greed, poverty, vanity, love (including the unrequited sort), power and powerlessness. For me, one of the overarching themes of the book as a whole is to take in what is around you and not take what you have for granted if / when you decide you need to search for something more, unless of course what you have is not actually yours.
This quote from Earthly Delights struck a chord with me: Free will had been bestowed upon beings too flawed to choose restraint, and it had made them most unworthy stewards. Whilst in the context of the story it is referring to humans and our planet, more specifically I also related it to the obsession of those artists in blinkered pursuit of their vision, to the detriment of those who love them.
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection and will be looking out for more of Jake Kendall’s work in the future.
Thanks to @NeemTreePress and @The_WriteReads for the proof copy in order to write this review.
Meet Zélie Dutta. She has beaten her own father five times at chess (the last time he cheated). She has crushed the head of a poisonous cobra with her naked heel AND she can lick her elbow.
There’s nothing that she can’t handle… or at least that’s what she thinks. But when her father goes missing and a sinister secret society seems to be to blame, she’s forced to look for help in the most unlikely of places…
Swept up in a slew of crimes that stretch from the jungles of Calcutta to the sewers of Paris, Zélie and her new friend Jules begin a desperate hunt for the magical Snakestone at the heart of the conspiracy. Can they solve the ancient riddles and mysteries concealed in the miles of murky tunnels that twist beneath the ancient city above?
Review
It has a book map (said in the same voice as “It has pockets.”).
I thoroughly enjoyed joining Zélie and Jules on their adventures and derring do. Although Jules is more reluctant than Zélie to place himself in danger, he is a good friend and wants to help. He tries to warn her that not everyone should be taken at their word but she ignores his pleas, which puts her in mortal danger more than once. I particularly enjoyed the internal, motivational speeches Zélie gives herself when in need of a bit of extra bravery.
Set in the underbelly of Paris near the end of the 19th century and based on a colonial tale of a healing stone (with severe small print warnings), the story involves family separation and loss, subterfuge, circus acts, a secret society up to no good and a cast of diverse and often dastardly characters.
The main themes are friendship, trust, making the right choice, greed and power.
Thank you to the author for pointing out the absolute truth about pockets (severe lack of) in women’s clothes and the huge issue of back and front fastenings on clothing…how many items of men’s clothing need contortionist skills to fasten them? Exactly!
Thanks to NetGalley and Nosy Crow for the eARC in exchange for this review. The book will be published on March 14th 2024.
Domino is an eleven-year-old girl with a strange affliction: if she goes anywhere near magic, it will kill her.
All her life she’s been trapped in a floating laboratory, safe from magic but not from the cruel children and the crueler Science Barons who live there. Domino believes the Barons are trying to invent a cure for her magic allergy, but when a mysterious wizard arrives and unleashes total chaos, she discovers that everything she’s been told is a lie.
Domino escapes to the wondrous city of Abzalaymon, its streets filled with marvels she’s never seen, from automobiles to televisions to hulking thunder lizards. But the Science Barons are on her trail, and Domino must brave a hidden realm of magic if she is to defeat their sinister plot, and uncover a secret that might just save the world: the Secret of the Moonshard.
Review
Struan Murray has done it again. A superbly crafted story in a fantastically created world. The Scientarium floats above the city, tormenting Domino, who dreams of visiting it one day, who has known nothing else but the bullying / prankster revenge and testing cycles her life consists of, thanks to the Science Barons who raise her there “to protect her from magic”. Does she really need protecting?
Once again, following the highly original and exciting Orphans of the Tide trilogy, the author has delivered with a variety of well defined characters, twists and turns, magic and mayhem, chases that have you on the edge your seat and even some dinosaurs.
Creating characters with depth and believability is a special skill and Murray has this down to a fine art. The ones that I’m particularly drawn to are those who bring indecision to my mind…which side will these characters fall on when push comes to shove? Abzalaymon, the spirit, is a deliciously contrasting character, which puts you, as the reader, on edge. Will they help Domino, Calvin and Raphael…or eat them?
A book map is always a bonus.
Thanks to NetGalley and Puffin for the eARC in exchange for this review. The book will be published on March 7th 2024
A diverse resistance force fights to topple an empire in this vibrant fantasy about freedom, identity and decolonization.
By sinking a fleet of Imperial Warships, the Pirate Supreme and their resistance fighters have struck a massive blow against the Emperor. Now allies from across the empire are readying themselves, hoping against hope to bring about the end of the conquerors’ rule and the rebirth of the Sea. But trust and truth are hard to come by in this complex world of mermaids, spies, warriors, and aristocrats. Who will Genevieve – lavishly dressed but washed up, half dead, on the Wariuta island shore – turn out to be? Is warrior Koa’s kindness towards her admirable, or is his sister Kaia’s sharp suspicion wiser? And back in the capital, will pirate-spy Alfie really betray the Imperials who have shown him affection, especially when a duplicitous senator reveals xe would like nothing better?
Meanwhile, the Sea is losing more and more of herself as her daughters continue to be brutally hunted, and the Empire continues to expand through profits made from their blood. The threads of time, a web of schemes, shifting loyalties, and blossoming identities converge in this story of unlikely young allies trying to forge a new and better world.
Review
I only realise after reading this that it is the second book set in this world, however I was able to read it without having read the first. Not giving anything away by saying I will be reading the first one, The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea.
The author’s world building is excellent, as are the characters she has created and developed. They are well formed and deep. I think the use of chapters giving us multi viewpoints throughout helps us to bond with them. I particularly loved that the sea had her own chapters, which provided a link between a lot of the others.
The big themes of identity (individual and group), freedom, decolonisation, war and resistance are covered well and the friction between wanting freedom but having to inflict violence to achieve it is palpable, especially in Koa, one of the suppressed nation’s warriors.
If you enjoyed series like Utterly Dark by Philip Reeve or Orphans of the Tide by Struan Murray you will enjoy this. Note that this is definitely Young Adult, not for KS2 like those mentioned.
Thank to NetGalley and Walker for the eARC in exchange for this review. It will be published on 1st February 2024.
Queen Clytemnestra’s world shatters when Agamemnon, a rival to the throne of Mycenae, storms her palace, destroys her family and claims not only the throne but Clytemnestra herself.
Tormented by her loss, she vows to do all she can to protect the children born from her unhappy marriage to Agamemnon. But when her husband casts his ruthless gaze towards the wealthy citadel of Troy, his ambitions threaten, once more, to destroy the family Clytemnestra loves.
From one of Greek mythology’s most reviled characters—a woman who challenged the absolute power of men—comes this fiery tale of power, family rivalry and a mother’s burning love.
Review
Going into this, the only retelling of the Greek myths I had read recently was Jessie Burton’s Medusa (which I reviewed here) so was unsure how I would find it. From my memory of Greek myths read as a child, I knew of Clytemnestra as Agamemnon’s wife and murderer, so was expecting that to be the story. However…
Susan C. Wilson takes us right back to just before Clytemnestra even meets Agamemnon, before he claims her as his wife and Queen, having been on a murderous rampage against her family to reclaim the throne he says is rightfully his. This enables us, through Clytemnestra’s eyes, to discover what brought her to the point of murdering her husband.
Clytemnestra, bizarrely for this era, decides not to seek vengeance for her murdered family, but to be his wife and put up with his vile attitudes, behaviour, ego, and general misogyny.
This part of her story is told by Clytemnestra herself, and the main focus is on her and the children, her love for them and her aim to protect them from their father. Only time would tell if this was the right thing to do or whether they would suffer because of her choices.
The children grew up with differing relationships with both Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, the latter’s mysogyny meaning Orestes (son) was favoured heavily from birth, the older girls, Iphigenia and Electra, being dismissed offhand. Despite Clytemnestra’s best efforts, Electra, a daddy’s girl, suffered the most from his dismissive attitude. Orestes and Electra shock their mother when they take their father’s side on a heartbreaking event later in the story.
All the way through this story, my thoughts were on how much danger women were in at all times, in those days. Just to survive, never mind thrive.
“She might be a poor farm wife and I a queen, but our similarities weren’t lost on me. We were pieces on a gaming board to be claimed, manoeuvred, and discarded by men. Rich or poor, famous or obscure, men made the rules that ordered our lives, and they broke them. She and I were women.
Clytemnestra puts her children first, above herself, and tries to instill “appropriate” female behaviour and attitudes inher daughters, mainly to protect them from their father’s wrath. Electra is having none of it, cannot understand why she cannot dress like her brother, go hunting and be trained in fighting skills as he is. Clytemnestra is blamed by Agamemnon for not bringing her up properly, Electra seeing her as a failure for not standing up to him over her upbringing.
Another theme I kept thinking about is that history is written by the winners. Throughout this book, different versions of the same events are told by people from different sides, or with a different viewpoint, having been involved in some way. Agamemnon’s victory over Clytemnestra’s family was joyous for him, heartbreaking for her. The same event, different viewpoints…both the truth… to the teller.
Agamemnon tells many stories in which he is the righteous winner (obviously) but pretty soon, Clytemnestra learns to mistrust everything he says and also wonder about the things he doesn’t say. It also means she mistrusts what anyone tells her, seeking verification from others.
There are so many familial links in the Greek timeline, so much to keep track of and I was glad of the family tree at the start as I needed to refer to it a fair bit. Even so, the power grabs made by all sides at different times resulted in many incestuous relationships, one of them being the last straw for Clytemnestra, making her decide the time had come to end Agamemnon.
Despite knowing more about what comes next, I will still be intrigued to read the next book in this series, as it is so well written.
Thanks to Neem Tree Press and @The_WriteReads for the ARC in order to take part in this blog tour.
In a country beset by civil war, New London defends itself behind a giant wall. Inside the city, children are forced to work from am early age, except for the lucky few who train to be leaders in the re-purposed Palace of Westminster. 12-year-old orphaned Pax is brilliant at recycling old tech. He enjoys working on the verti-farms and just wants a bit of peace and quiet. But when that is taken away from him, his only hope is to pass a near impossible exam and join the other students in Scholastic Parliament. There he’ll make new friends and new enemies. He’ll get tested like never before. And he’ll discover that not everything is quite what it seems under the mayor’s harsh leadership.
Review
David Barker has created a dystopian future of walled cities where the young, poor live, either working or, for a select few who pass an exam, being educated to be future leaders. Outside those walls are the Countryside Alliance, where all the rich, older residents live. The two groups are at war and will stop at nothing to win.
Pax is a seedling, created as a worker, so has no parents. Alderman, the AI overseer, spots his intelligence and potential, especially in engineering and encourages him to apply for the school exam. Pax has no family to ground him or build up his self belief which means he constantly questions his own abilities.
How will he get on when a powerful someone does not want him to pass? If he does pass, will he make friends and fulfil his dream of becoming an engineer who fixes things to make life easier for others?
There are themes of friendship, bullying, war, dictatorship and doing the right thing.
I really enjoyed this book. There are a few red herrings, a couple of which I fell for, unusually for me, and there was the right amount of tension building. I liked the way Pax went about problem solving, using his skills in building robotic creatures from tech scraps to help him and his friends.
This is David Barker’s first MG book, although he has written for adults previously, and I look forward to his next one.
Thank you to @TinyTreeBooks and @The_WriteReads for the ARC.
Having read and enjoyed Stuart’s MG novel, Ghosts of Mars, earlier this year, I was intrigued to read his latest YA dystopian novel.
Blurb
IN A NAMELESS WORLD, ONE HERO RISES BY DISCOVERING THEIR IDENTITY.
In a dystopian world dominated by genetic perfection and numbered gene pools, sixteen-year-old E820907, known as Seven, yearns for an identity beyond his assigned number.
To escape a life as a Nameless Exile, and become a citizen of the Realm, he must pass a loyalty test to prove his allegiance to the totalitarian Autokratōr.
With the world’s fate hanging in the balance, Seven’s journey sparks rebellion, hope, and the reclamation of individuality.
But as the truth unfolds, Seven faces a difficult choice between revenge and love.
Review
Stuart White has created a disconcertingly possible future world, where a dictator demands obedience and service. Children are trained and placed in the area of their strength (military, science, environment) to further the realm. Those who do not meet the standard are discarded from the walled city and left to their own devices and at the mercy of the other Nameless groups out there, some of which have turned brutally cruel, without an identity.
This obviously leads to rebellion, spies, treason and war.
Seven sits the tests … but will he ever find out who he is, who his parents are, why his foster mum protects him and refuses to answer his questions? Full of self doubt, fear and infinite questions that he frustratingly rarely gets full answers to, his journey takes him to places he never imagined, meeting people he didn’t even know existed, making him decide where his loyalties lie, despite knowing very little about the sides he is choosing between.
He also struggles with his purpose. Is it to protect his friends or lead a group who resent him? Will his impetuous decision making put him and others in even more danger? Will his training help or hinder him?
I recommend reading to find out the answers to all these questions. The author leaves us with some of the story resolved but waiting in expectation for Book 2 to take Seven’s journey on further. As a reader, this made me sympathise with Seven, not getting all the answers to my questions straight away! I look forward to accompanying him on his next chapter.
Trigger warning: this book is not for the faint hearted, it is bloody and involves torture.
Thanks to @StuartWhiteWM and @The_WriteReads for the eARC.
In a strange little village called Witchetty Hollow, eleven-year-old Florizel is the first to run into the curious visitors who’ve come to open a brand new Daydream Delicatessen and sack-baby factory.
At first, it seems the daydream confection and cheap sack children are the best things that could have happened to the poor folk of the Hollow – after all, who has the money to rent their child from Storkhouse Services these days? But after a few weeks, Florizel starts to notice something odd happening to the adults of the town. First, they seem dreamy, then they lose all interest in their jobs and families. Soon they’re trading all their worldly goods in the newly-opened Pawnshop for money to buy daydreams. With no money for rent payments, the children of Witchetty Hollow are being reclaimed by Storkhouse Services at an alarming rate. Florizel needs to act.
Review
This is a dark, sinister story that made my skin crawl at times but it is ultimately filled with hope.
Victoria Williamson has cleverly created a deeply creepy, Grimmesque fairy tale world, covering themes of greed, addiction and capitalism alongside those of friendship and community suitable for young readers (9+) that will have them fearful for Florizel and Burble but also page turning hopefully to find out what happens next.
There is a wide range of characters, from mostly good to downright wicked, in particular the child repossessing “nurses” who are just as ominous and scary as the infamous child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Illustrations by James Brown
The dark and light of the story is reflected in the descriptions. The Dream Delicatessen and Pawnshop evoke scenes bursting with colour and sparkle, in stark contrast to the rest of the town, which is shrouded in gloom and despair. James Brown’s black and white illustrations capture the drama and atmosphere perfectly.
In Scotland, dressing up at Hallowe’en and visiting other houses is called guising. The fear inducing Gobbelino guisers, in their cloaks and masks, made me reminisce about a childhood Hallowe’en where someone (a friend of my parents) came guising to our house in a huge coat and mask and, to this day, I still do not know who it was. This story is as creepy as I felt that night.
Thank you to Tiny Tree Books and The Write Reads for a free digital copy of the book for review purposes.
In the harsh winter of December 1889, the sailing vessel Irex leaves Scotland, bound for Rio de Janeiro. She carries three thousand tons of pig iron and just three passengers for what should be a routine voyage. But Captain Will Hutton soon discovers that one of his passengers hides a horrifying secret that threatens the lives of everyone on board. As the Irex battles relentless storms, Hutton fights battles of his own as he becomes mired in the intrigues of his passengers.
When the Irex is wrecked off the Isle of Wight six weeks later, it falls to the county coroner, Frederick Blake, to unravel the events that overtook the doomed ship. He quickly runs into opposition – powerful forces within the British Establishment are working to spike his inquest. Locked in a conflict with the sinister agents sent to obstruct the investigation, he begins to discover that nothing aboard the Irex is what it first seemed, while the evil that stalked the ship now threatens anyone who seeks to expose it…
Irex is an atmospheric mystery, set in a rich Victorian world, packed with intrigue, twists and unforgettable characters — the gripping first novel by Carl Rackman.
Review
The story is told via alternating chapters…the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Irex and the inquest into the wreck. The format works well and as the story unfolds, you realise how unreliable individual viewpoints are and that every angle needs to be brought together to get to the truth. However, with some passengers not surviving the voyage, others missing and those who give testimony unclear about some aspects of what actually happened, this proves difficult for the coroner.
Rackman succeeds in immersing us in the world of Victorian sea faring. His descriptions of the ship are precise, enabling the reader to envision being aboard. The claustrophobic sense being on a ship gives you is strong. The chapters on the storm and wreck are vivid, detailed and build the tension superbly, as does his handling of the ever increasing suspense and danger the coroner and his colleagues find themselves in.
The author develops rounded, believable characters. They are human, make mistakes and are often either second guessing themselves or in conflict with themselves about what to do next.
Rennie, the Glasgow journalist, is, to me, a Victorian version of Brookmyre’s Jack Parlabane.
A thoroughly enjoyable read.
Thanks to #TheWriteReads for a digital copy of this to review for this #BlogTour .
This is not going to be a normal review post. I am joining Ben Harris (@one_to_read) and others on Twitter this month to celebrate the work of Jan Mark. I will add to the blog (not promising it will be daily) on my readings over the month. They are more notes than a narrative. I apologise in advance if they seem disjointed, I am finding new links as I read and type these. I may return to previous days and add/edit as I read further.
Having mostly read short stories in previous #janMARKuary Januarys, I am starting with a novel this time, Useful Idiots. I will read a chapter a day for 13 days then chose something else.
1st January
I want to focus on Jan’s vocabulary choices and the descriptive images she creates and enhances with the use of one or two extremely well appointed words.
glistened oilily – even saying the word oilily out loud adds texture to the description.
the scything wind – no added comments needed here, we all know what this feels like.
“the auditorium…was raked, with long curving rows of seats” – typing this made me think Jan is linking human made structures with the land and fits in with other imagery and word choices in the text so far.
plastered maquillage (I had to look that up) – there is a passage later in the chapter that builds on this, that shows how caked on the stage make up was.
obdurately blank – Jan uses this phrase to describe a screen wall in a theatre, conjuring audience impatience for the show to start.
city canyons – appears in the middle of a description of a landscape ravaged by a hurricane. I immediately imagined a sweeping view from a drone flying over/down the streets of a very build up urban landscape.
“lattermath of the hurricane” feels like it should jar, but it doesn’t. The dictionary definition refers to the second mowing of a crop. Jan has used it to detail something buried in the sand, “scarcely proud”, that would be further exposed once a second tide had ebbed and flowed. Here is the full paragraph is all its glory.
Archaeology is key to this story and Jan’s phrasing and word play is wonderful. She describes the work of the archeologists as cutting “into their past through a layer cake of centuries”.
Buildings are falling or being dismantled (reasons not yet known) and new builds will be erected, pinning down the past”.
2nd January
The second chapter gives us more details about cultural tensions, the uncovered skull being discovered close to or on the unmarked border between territories. I will look at this as we go further into the story and get more detail.
However, I want to look at the tension between two characters today: Merrick Korda, a graduate trainee, and his archaeologist boss Remy Turcat. So far, we see this from Merrick’s point of view, but it tells us a lot about Turcat’s character. It is unclear if the tension is purely a power one based on position in the organisation or if there are other things at play.
Is Merrick one of the useful idiots of the title? This is not clear yet. But Turcat definitely treats him like an inferior being. Jan describes this all too familiar treatment well, also reflecting the wider cultural tensions, not just that between the two individuals.
“Turcat had neither welcomed him nor turned him away: he was expected.”
“He regarded Korda as little as his own shadow: it was always there beneath him; he did not expect it to speak.”
“…validating Merrick’s suggestion by appropriating it.”
“Turcat looked across at Merrick and had to acknowledge him.”
“He was used to being invisible but not so invisible that he was forgotten.”
There is a definite sense of othering going on from a position of privilege.
3rd January
As the skeleton discovered on the beach is unveiled, slowly, layer by layer from the peat surrounding it, so Jan cleverly reveals the layers of cultural mistrust, misappropriation and history behind the conflict between the indigenous, “archaic” Inglish and the others (so far no name has been attached to them).
Despite Turcat’s dismissive attitude towards Merrick, when it is revealed that he is descended from the Inglish, although he has neither lived in their territories nor followed their lifestyles, Turcat is surprised. This leads me to believe his othering and unbotheredness of Merrick has, up to this point been down to position and privilege. Their boss, on the other hand is downright racist and does not hide it, once Merrick’s ancestry has been voiced aloud.
The way Jan has written the two narratives as one, unpeeling layers to get us to the truth of the matter, is highly skilled and a testament to her skills as a writer.
4th January
Merrick is told to get lost for a couple of days by his boss. He gets on the wrong train and ends up being manipulated into visiting the fen land of the Inglish by someone he has only met once, by chance. The manipulation is subtle and well executed considering it was a chance encounter.
10th January
I finished quicker than anticipated as I was so drawn into the story I could not limit to one chapter a day.
Even though written in 2004, a lot of what Jan has written in here is relevant today: unions, riots, suppression of indigenous people.
The useful idiots of the title are the general population, manipulated into certain behaviours by the media and rich business people with agendas of their own to achieve their goals. Merrick is also a useful idiot, both to Turcat and to the Aboriginals, even more so with the decision he makes without their knowledge.
I had to check the definition of Aboriginal, as Jan chose it to define the indigenous people of Europe, not something I was familiar with.
My understanding/knowledge of the words is in reference to the indigenous people of Australia. The other definition is not place specific: The aboriginal people or animals of a place are ones that have been there from the earliest known times or that were there before people or animals from other countries arrived.
Manipulation is a strong theme running through this story. Manipulation of university departments and staff, protestors, the general public, the indigenous population individuals and in Merrick’s case, his own body. The reasons for, and outcomes of, the manipulation are different in each case and the outcomes not all what was anticipated.
Although described as a YA novel, this presents more as an adult read. I cannot quite put my finger on why. It is definitely not an MG. All the characters are adults. There is no reason it could not be a YA, the themes and content are appropriate and suitable for YA discussion and interpretation.
Beth's Bookcase 