Imagine Beatrix Potter meets Agatha Christie and you have Shady Hollow. A bunch of animals live together in a small town where differences in size and diet don’t seem to be a problem as they mix together in coffee bars and restaurants. Fortunately, they all seem to have taken up vegetarianism so they don’t eat each other, but when a toad is found stabbed in the lake near his house it’s obvious that someone in Shady Hollow is prepared to kill for reasons other than getting their next meal. And when the beaver who owns the local sawmill is also murdered, it seems there may be a serial killer on the loose.
Will ace reporter Vera Vixen be able to track down the murderer? Or will she be the next victim?
I got a copy of this book through NetGalley and I did enjoy it. It’s the lightest of light reads and maybe what we all need nowadays, but it’s difficult to review. I’ve really said all there is to say about it. It’s nicely written in plain prose, but it’s hardly going to offer a wealth of characterisation: everyone is defined by their species characteristics (real or imagined). So the racoon is a bandit, the fox is cunning and the local police force are bears: strong and patient if sometimes a little plodding.
If you like this sort of thing, you’ll like it and if you don’t, you won’t. Shady Hollow is the first in a series. It worked well for me but three (so far) might be a bit much: one dip into a childhood world of talking animals is fun, but three suggests problems adapting to adult life. It’s nice to see odd books like this get support from their publishers but there are definitely worthier tomes out there being ignored.
Every year I say that I am cutting back on book reviews and in 2021 I have managed to make a start in that direction. There were only 18 book reviews on my block last year (including one that just snuck into the beginning of 2022). A lot of people reported that, contrary to expectations, they read less during lockdown than they would usually and I think I have been no exception to this. Still, 16 book reviews is more than one a month, so it may be helpful to do my annual summary that provides convenient links for anyone who might be interested in reading my take on any of the year’s choices. (Click on titles to go to my original review.)
Historical
In 2021 only nine of my reviews were historical novels. These ranged from two very different approaches to the 17th century right up to World War II, which is particularly popular with historical fiction writers at present. Here they are in roughly chronological order.
Elizabethan spies. Mary Queen of Scots. Gripping stuff in stunningly well-written novel by someone who certainly knew their Elizabethan history. Brilliant characters, (largely) convincing plot, loads of lovely period detail. A model of how to do it.
The second story here set against a Civil War background. Two strong female characters, a suitably chilling villain and a story that positively romps along, helped by fluid prose that’s a pleasure to read. A lot of fun.
Definitely one of the best books I read last year, Deborah Swift’s story of a surprisingly sympathetic mass-poisoner in 17th century Naples blends fact and fiction in the seamless way she has made her own.
Humphrey’s hero is fighting in the American War of Independence, but the book is very like the Burke series in its mix of espionage and carefully observed accounts of some key battles. If you like James Burke, you’ll love this.
Now we are fully into James Burke territory with a plot to kill Napoleon in 1801. I enjoyed seeing how another author covered territory not that different to the latest Burke adventure. (Burke and the Pimpernel Affair is set in 1809.) It’s an exciting story with a convincing historical background.
It’s 1864 and the hero of Vanner’s Dawlish Chronicles is a young midshipman when he finds himself caught up in a plot to provide unofficial military aid to the Danes who are at war with the Austrians and Prussians over the Schleswig-Holstein question. As ever, Vanner is fascinated by the technological advances of his chosen period and the effect that these are having on the conduct of war. He is unsparing with the details of the early days of modern warfare. It’s not an easy read, though Vanner writes well. It’s the subject matter, not the prose, that wears you down. There is an awful lot in this book and most of it depressing. It’s true, though, that war really is hell and books that are honest about this are a valuable antidote to a lot of the romanticised versions of war that you read in so many novels. It’s a must-read for fans of naval history in the early years of steam.
Up to the First World War now and another of Alan Bardos’ excellently researched books. This is the sequel to The Assassins. We’re back with his anti-hero, Johnny Swift, with a brilliant summary of why the Allies were attempting a landing at Gallipoli and why it was doomed.
Moving on to World War II we have Deborah Swift’s book about the ‘Shetland Bus’ ferrying resistance fighters between German-occupied Norway and the Shetland Islands. It’s a little-known part of the war and will appeal to people who enjoy war stories.
How come I’ve a tenth title here when I said that only nine of my reviews were historical novels? The answer is that Lucky Jackis not a novel but “a sort of a memoir”. It’s an account of the life of a West London cobbler, put together from family records and Jack’s own writings by his grand-daughter, Sue Bavey. Jack was born in 1894 and died in 2000 and he fives an ‘Everyman’ perspective on the whole of the 20th century. This is a wonderful book, which I recommend wholeheartedly.
I don’t often write negative reviews: life’s too short. But I’ve enjoyed books by Ragnar Jonasson before and the publisher sent me a copy of this to review, so I felt I had to. Long story short: don’t read it. (Definitely not the book and probably not the review either.)
Jane Austen for the 21st century. Highlights include the middle class house party from hell (probably my favourite bit of the book and a reminder that thanks to covid we’ve all been excused some ghastly evenings) and the detailed descriptions of décor. Each of the main characters lives in a very different kind of house. All of them are dripping with money but all are in a diverse style. Just reading about their furnishings immediately places the characters. “Oh yes,” says my beloved of one of them, “That’s the house I’d live in if I had the money.” She’s right of course: it belongs to the most sympathetic character in the book.
Traditional cosy crime story, enlivened by having one character who is a ghost (but who doesn’t help solve the murder, thank goodness). Undemanding well-written fun.
A friend who had read my urban fantasy, Something Wicked, said that it reminded him of Rivers of London so I had a look at it on Amazon and it’s rather wonderful. And, yes, there are definite similarities to Something Wicked. Perhaps Aaronovitch’s familiarity with the supernatural (the story does suggest quite a lot of research) means that he read Something Wicked and then moved back through time to write Rivers of London.
Like Something Wicked the story starts with the discovery of a body that has been the victim of an unusual murder. In this case it has been decapitated. There follows a lot of detail of police procedure but the appearance, fairly early on, of a ghost as a witness to the crime suggests that things are going to get very weird very quickly. While my detective finds himself working alongside Chief Inspector Pole, a vampire from the mysterious Section S, our hero here, Chief Inspector Nightingale, is a wizard working for Economic and Specialist Crime. Pole and Nightingale share a preference for working alone from their homes and both seem to take an unhealthy interest in mortuaries, but while Pole’s brief sticks to the vampiric, Nightingale covers all the ghosties and ghoulies London has to offer. It makes for a complex plot but it makes sense as you read along. It’s helped by a wonderful sense of place, with lots of details of London geography that pin it firmly to reality. Above all it is funny – often laugh-out-loud funny. It’s a wonderful mix of horror and humour and glorious British eccentricity at its best. I do recommend it.
I was given a copy of this book from NetGalley. It appealed because I have been reading a few stories set around the British Civil War lately and another book in this period looked fun. The blurb mentioned a supernatural element, but I thought that might be interesting too.
I struggled with the opening. The story starts in 1703 but we are plunged straight into an account of events in 1628 which are obviously in some way supposed to relate to the rest of the book. It’s an account of a shipwreck and there are suggestions of something unnatural about it, but then we moved to the second chapter set in 1643 where a young man is returning home after a battle. Although we are soon to meet allegations of witchcraft, there is nothing as dramatic or spectacularly supernatural as the shipwreck.
We get to the shipwreck later – much, much later – but its insertion at the beginning just confused me. It seems part of a trend – presumably in response to suggestions that modern audiences have short attention spans and must have their interest piqued immediately – to putting a dramatic start to books, whether or not the story actually starts dramatically. It’s annoying. It’s particularly unfortunate as once we get to the young man returning home we find ourselves in a nicely observed account of the times. When he is faced with allegations that a servant girl is a witch, he is sceptical. In fact, much of the interest (and tension) of this part of the story comes from his trying to decide if the girl is guilty or if there is a natural explanation for the events surrounding her – a tension that is, if anything, rather undermined by the opening chapter.
The writer explores attitudes to witchcraft and how people respond to the idea that a woman might be a witch. We also see how the process can be abused by those who see possibilities for personal advantage from a witch’s fate.
Our hero is young and naïve but has to grow up fast as he navigates these difficult waters. He is helped by John Milton. It’s interesting to bring such a well-known historical figure into the story, but I felt he was rather wasted. It could have been an unknown John Smith and nothing much would have changed.
There are twists and turns to keep your interest and the whole thing is really well written. I found myself caught up in the story right to the end, but quite what happened at the end and what it all meant in the wider scheme of things was less than totally clear. Overall, I’d say that this is an entertaining read but it never lives quite up to its promise. If you’re interested in supernatural tales and life in the 17th century, it’s definitely worth a look.
I recently read a blog post from Kate Vane (@k8vane) about how, if you review books, worrying about star ratings messes with the way that you enjoy your reading.
I couldn’t agree more. Just knowing that you are going to have to write a review changes your whole approach to your reading, and not necessarily in a good way. And star ratings are the tool of the devil.
Why I review on my blog
I’ve already blogged about how I was planning to cut back on reviewing. Since I wrote that (just six weeks ago as I write this) I’ve done a couple of book reviews. They take time to write and are in addition to my regular blogs. So why on earth do I do it? In these two cases (and there are more on the way) I was asked to: not necessarily by the author. I get asked to review by authors, publishers and journals and I get books from NetGalley who expect a review in exchange for a regular supply of quality free books. And I like having my books reviewed, so it seems only fair to review books by other writers. Even so, I do often have my doubts. Then I get thanks from a reader who has enjoyed my review or from an author who is grateful for something I have said and then I seem to keep going.
So I write my review. My reviews are quite long and will probably mention things I felt didn’t quite work as well as the things that did. Some authors are less than thrilled at this approach, but the blog post is supposed to be a ‘proper’ review for critical readers. An edited (usually totally positive) version will make its way to Amazon in time. Which is where we meet the evil star system.
Star ratings
By the time it gets to Amazon, my 800 word nuanced blog post has already been reduced to 600 words or less explaining why it’s a good book. (If it isn’t a good book, I’ll generally try not to review it, though I’m happy to make an exception for people like Jacob Rees-Mogg.) But then my 600 words have to be reduced to one of five star ratings. It’s mad.
(The obvious answer is not to post on Amazon, but writers need those Amazon reviews to make sales, so in the end I’m going to post.)
What does it all mean?
Kate (Remember her? She wrote the blog that started this off) is one of those people who avoids 5* ratings.
I only give it 5* if it’s exceptional
A lot of my friends are like that, which is annoying if they are reviewing my books, because analysis of Amazon ratings shows that most people give 5* or (much less often) 1* ratings. Basically, they rate books as ‘Great’ (5*) or ‘Rubbish’ (1*). The middle rankings are less likely to feature.
EDIT There has been a lot of discussion on this on my Twitter feed so I’m adding this useful summary graph from rendors.com (as posted by them on Quora)
But whether you tend to 4* or 5*, there really aren’t that many options for reviewers like me and Kate. Both of us avoid ratings under 3. She avoids 5 and I avoid 3 (we’ll see why in a moment), so basically both of us end up usually choosing between 3* and 4* (Kate) or 4* and 5* (me). Basically, for most books, my 800 word review has come down to a binary choice.
Interpreting the ratings
Kate gives an explanation of her ratings. 3* is ‘good but flawed’, 4* means she enjoyed it and 5*, as we’ve seen, is ‘exceptional’.
I’ve always been nervous to explain the ratings I give, but here they are:
5* — I recommend this book to anyone reading my review
4* — I think this book is a good read for anyone who likes this genre (“It’s the sort of thing you’ll like if you like that sort of thing.”)
3* — It’s OK
2* — It’s not OK
1* — This book is a disaster.
The horror of the 3* rating
I have a friend who wrote a review of a book of mine, praising it to the skies and then giving it a 3* rating. When I pointed out that she had given it a negative review, she said that of course she hadn’t.
The thing is that if you are rating on Amazon, you are using the Amazon rating system and Amazon considers 3* a “critical” review. People are continually arguing with me about this, but Amazon are totally upfront about it. Click on ‘See all reviews’ for a book and this pops up:
Also remember that (as I said above) the commonest rating on Amazon is 5*. Most books will average somewhere around 4*. Giving them a 3* review will generally pull their rating down and, by and large, I don’t want to pull authors down. So I avoid 3* reviews. You may well feel differently, but just be aware what you are doing. A 3* review is not neutral.
Being nice – or not
This is the nub of the why I personally find the horror of the star rating hanging over me while I read.
I’m happy to say that I think a character is under-developed or that there are some unlikely coincidences holding a plot together. I know that I upset some writers by being critical, but I’m writing a review on my blog for people who are interested in writing. I doubt they will reject a book that I review (remember I generally only review books I like) because I said that I thought there was an unrealistic portrayal of women in the 19th century. It’s pretty well a given nowadays that 19th century women will be portrayed unrealistically: it’s only because I write about the 19th century myself that I either notice or care. But when the review gets onto Amazon people will reject a book because it has a 3* average rating. So what if I think that the portrayal of women as feisty lawyers is just too much to allow a 4* review? (I refused to review a book recently that centred on a woman planning a legal career before the law was changed to allow women lawyers in Britain.) If the book, apart from this one detail that hasn’t worried the publisher and won’t worry most readers, is quite a good read, do I post 3* or 4*? It’s clearly not really worth 4*, but most people aren’t going to be worried by its historical howler, so is it really just ’OK’ and getting the dreaded 3* rating? Or do I say it’s three and a bit and nudge up to four?
In the case of the book I mentioned, my decision was that, as it was likely 3* and I care about basic history, I would not read or review it at all. But there are other cases which are more marginal and there my rule of thumb is ‘always nudge up’. If the author is well-known with a big publisher behind them, then my rating doesn’t matter and I can unleash my inner critical Rottweiler, but self-published authors and writers at small presses rely on those Amazon ratings for their survival. Yes, if they are seriously bad books I will not rate them. If they deserve to be driven out of the writing community I will give them 2* or even 1*. But how many writers are so truly terrible that it is for me (or almost anyone else) to say that they just shouldn’t be writing? Because, as it gets harder and harder to get books seen in a crowded marketplace, a poor star rating can destroy any chance of serious sales. (And, in this context, ‘serious sales’ can mean hitting three figures.)
When I write a review, I can speak as I find. I have annoyed friends by being less than gushing about their work. But they have (mostly) forgiven me. But when I have to produce that wretched, meaningless, frankly obscene, Amazon star rating, I know that I can do real harm. Knowing that can suck some of the pleasure out of the book.
Something different this Tuesday: instead of a book review, I’m doing a short review of a play I went to see last week.
‘Autoreverse’ is a one woman play looking at how we make sense of the world and our memories. Told by an Argentinian whose family fled to Chile during the Dirty War and who now lives in London, her personal story takes in questions of disruption and loss, migration and belonging.
The staging uses recorded speech, song, video, projected text subtitling foreign language recordings, a tiny bit of dance and even a snatch of live music. It’s imaginative and makes what could be a self-indulgent monologue into something that demands (and gets) our attention. Sometimes funny, sometimes heart-breakingly sad, it’s an evening that sticks in the mind.
It’s on until the end of next week at Battersea Arts Centre, a lovely building close to Clapham Junction station. ‘Autoreverse’ gives you a good excuse to visit.
