Bookcase: Featuring reviews of Assembly by Natasha Brown and Widowland by CJ Carey - The Coventry Observer

Bookcase: Featuring reviews of Assembly by Natasha Brown and Widowland by CJ Carey

Coventry Editorial 21st Jun, 2021   0

THIS week’s bookcase includes reviews of Assembly by Natasha Brown and Widowland by CJ Carey.

Searching for your next summer read? Look no further…

Fiction

1. Assembly by Natasha Brown is published in hardback by Hamish Hamilton, priced £12.99 (ebook £7.99). Available now




Assembly by Natasha Brown. Picture: Hamish Hamilton/PA.

Natasha Brown’s debut is a hauntingly accurate novel about the stories we construct for ourselves and others.

It’s narrated by a black British woman who is preparing to attend a grand garden party hosted by her boyfriend’s family at their English countryside estate.


With her perfectly laid out path ahead of her, she tries to change the narrative – even if it comes at the cost of her life.

The novel’s daring structure and distilled prose perfectly captures how colonialist structures have been woven into British society – through race and class, safety and freedom, winners and losers. A completely captivating read you won’t be able to put down.

9/10

(Review by Georgina Grouse)

2. Widowland by CJ Carey is published in hardback by Quercus, priced £14.99 (ebook £8.49). Available now

A 1950s dystopia with an Orwellian echo, Widowland is a historical fiction thriller where the Nazis were never defeated and Britain is in the grip of a Grand Alliance, ruled by Germany.

Widowland by CJ Carey. Picture: Quercus/PA.

Despite the title, the novel actually focuses on Rose, an upper-caste woman or Geli, who lives a privileged life in the regime – the widows of widowland are marginalised as much in the novel as in the totalitarian society.

This does seem a missed opportunity given their interesting backstories, complex group dynamics and ultimate significance within the plot.

A slow burn with a rush of culminating action, Carey’s intricately detailed portrait of the convincingly cruel reimagined history takes centre stage over the storyline, championing a clear feminist statement.

8/10

(Review by Rebecca Wilcock)

3. Still Life by Sarah Winman is published in hardback by Fourth Estate, priced £16.99 (ebook £9.99). Available now

This is quite a saga, and a very meandering one. A soldier (Ulysses) meets an art historian (Evelyn) in Italy during the last throes of World War II, and then their lives diverge completely. Ulysses returns to the pub and the bawdy gaggle of mates he left behind, while Evelyn lectures on the art that means so much to her.

Still Life by Sarah Winman. Picture: Fourth Estate/PA.

From there, Sarah Winman, author of the brilliant Tin Man, presents a winding history of the two, looking at the impact of fate, chance and a good gamble (along with the wisdom of a parrot).

Sections are hammy, and a real connection or sense of empathy is patchy with certain characters, especially the ones the rest of the cast revolve around (Peg, Cress).

It makes grasping their relationships a little elusive.

Others are wonderfully drawn (the kid, Evelyn, Ulysses), as is the architecture of Florence.

However, while it’s touching, witty and very evocative of a post-war world, Still Life ultimately feels like it’s giddily trying to do too much.

7/10

(Review by Ella Walker)

Non-fiction

4. An Extra Pair Of Hands by Kate Mosse is published by Wellcome Collection, priced £12.99 (ebook £9.39). Available now

The bestselling novelist, famed for her epic historical and Gothic adventure sagas including the Languedoc trilogy, makes a rare detour into her own life.

An Extra Pair Of Hands by Kate Mosse. Picture: Wellcome Collection/PA.

This is a heartfelt, funny and at times heartbreaking recollection of Kate Mosse’s experiences caring for her aged parents and mother-in-law, all under the same roof over more than a decade.

It bangs the drum for unpaid carers and the dilemmas, joys and pain they face looking after loved ones. Mosse writes movingly about the slow deterioration of her father with Parkinson’s disease, the sudden death of her mother and how she processed her grief, as well as the joy of living with her sprightly mother-in-law, 90-year-old Granny Rosie, who’s still going strong.

She includes facts and figures about unpaid carers – the estimated 8.8million of them in the UK – but it is her recollections of the loving, caring environment of a house of three generations that creates the real empathy.

Anyone who has ever cared for an older relative, in whatever capacity, will relate to it. Keep the tissues handy.

10/10

(Review by Hannah Stephenson)

BOOK CHARTS

HARDBACK

1. Mrs England by Stacey Halls

2. Sorrow And Bliss by Meg Mason

3. The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

4. The Missing Sister by Lucinda Riley

5. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

6. Falling by T.J. Newman

7. The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

8. Klara And The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

9. Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

10. The President’s Daughter by Bill Clinton & James Patterson

HARDBACK (NON-FICTION)

1. Joe’s Family Food by Joe Wicks

2. Tornado by John Nichol

3. Seven Ways To Change The World by Gordon Brown

4. Omelette by Jessie Ware

5. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox And The Horse by Charlie Mackesy

6. The Power Of Geography by Tim Marshall

7. Hold Still: A Portrait Of Our Nation In 2020 by Patron Of The National Portrait Gallery

8. Operation Pedestal by Max Hastings

9. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty by Florence Given

10. Ancestors by Alice Roberts

(Compiled by Waterstones)

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