women’s role in society

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#FridayFreebie : Finding Eadie – Caroline Beecham

Finding Eadie

Caroline Beecham

Allen & Unwin Australia

ISBN: 9781760529642

 

Description:

London 1943: War and dwindling resources are taking their toll on the staff of Partridge Press. The pressure is on to create new books to distract readers from the grim realities of the war, but Partridge’s rising star, Alice Cotton, leaves abruptly and cannot be found.

Alice’s secret absence is to birth her child, and although her baby’s father remains unnamed, Alice’s mother promises to help her raise her tiny granddaughter, Eadie. Instead, she takes a shocking action.

Theo Bloom is employed by the American office of Partridge. When he is tasked with helping the British publisher overcome their challenges, Theo has his own trials to face before he can return to New York to marry his fiancee.

Inspired by real events during the Second World War, Finding Eadie is a story about the triumph of three friendships bound by hope, love, secrets and the belief that books have the power to change lives.

PRAISE FOR ELEANOR’S SECRET
‘Fans of Natasha Lester and Kate Morton will very much enjoy this new release and the dual time zones mean the book will appeal to a broader audience.’ Debbishdotcom

PRAISE FOR MAGGIE’S KITCHEN
‘Extremely engaging . . . reads like the work of a veteran storyteller.’

 

 

Thanks to the generous people at Allen & Unwin Australia I have 3 copies of Finding Eadie to giveaway to residents of Australia. It’s easy to enter – simply answer this question in the comments before 10/7/020: name the publishing company Alice worded for.  Winners will be randomly selected from all entries.  Good luck and thanks for entering.

 

 

**check your emails – winners have been notified.**

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Review: The Gilded Cage – Camilla Läckberg

The Gilded Cage

Camilla Läckberg

Harper Collins Publishers

ISBN: 9780008283735

 

Description:

All that glitters…

 

People would kill to have Faye von Essen’s life. She lives in an ultra-swanky apartment in the most exclusive area of Stockholm, she has a gorgeous husband who gives her everything she’s ever wanted, and she has an adorable daughter who lights up her world. Faye’s life is perfect.

 

So how is it, then, that she now finds herself in a police station?

 

The truth is that Faye’s life is far from what it seems. The truth is that Faye isn’t even her real name. And now she’s been caught out. There’s no way she’s going to go down without a fight. The only question is – who will escape with their life?

 

 

My View:

I found it took me a little while to get “into” this novel. I think the translation was part of that reason – the style a little formal, a little clunky in places.

 

This is a narrative that illuminates the issues many women still face in life today – as being seen a possession, as having a “use by date”, of being “invisible” in the workplace, of not being given credit for ideas/work done. For highlighting and discussing those issues I applaud this read.

 

It is also a very cleverly constructed story of survival and revenge. At times you will find yourself silently applauding the protagonist, its that kind of read. The downfall for me however was that I generally did not like the main characters. I did not like their seeming obsessions with meaningless sex – although I thought just occurred to me – was this the authors deliberate intention – to demonstrate how a set of behaviours – sexual conquests – is mostly accepted in male characters but frowned on in women’s behaviour?  Interesting…clever.

 

An interesting read.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Review: Please See Us – Caitlin Mullen

Please See Us

Caitlin Mullen

Gallery Books

Simon and Schuster Australia

ISBN: 9781982152581

RRP $29.99

 

Description:

 In this sophisticated, suspenseful debut reminiscent of Laura Lippman and Chloe Benjamin, two young women become unlikely friends during one fateful summer in Atlantic City as mysterious disappearances hit dangerously close to home.

 

Summer has come to Atlantic City but the boardwalk is empty of tourists, the casino lights have dimmed, and two Jane Does are laid out in the marshland behind the Sunset Motel, just west of town. Only one person even knows they’re there.

 

Meanwhile, Clara, a young boardwalk psychic, struggles to attract clients for the tarot readings that pay her rent. When she begins to experience very real and disturbing visions, she suspects they could be related to the recent cases of women gone missing in town. When Clara meets Lily, an ex-Soho art gallery girl who is working at a desolate casino spa and reeling from a personal tragedy, she thinks Lily may be able to help her. But Lily has her own demons to face. If they can put the pieces together in time, they may save another lost girl—so long as their efforts don’t attract perilous attention first. Can they break the ill-fated cycle, or will they join the other victims?

 

Evocative, eerie, and compelling, Please See Us is a fast-paced psychological thriller that explores the intersection of womanhood, power, and violence.

 

My View:

 “I shuffled the deck and the cards stuck together in the humidity…

 The card I drew was the Moon. The card for women. The card meant mystery, confusion, even insanity. But it could also mean knowing, intuition, or a sign that you needed to face what scared you the most…I also needed to believe that magic and meaning sometimes reached into our world. Or else there was just my life – the high school diploma I would never get, the shop, the mangy feral cats, the mother who never wrote anymore, Des coming home from a shift at the club with her pupils huge and glassy, rubbing at her nose.” (p35)

 

This is such a powerful bittersweet read that in its guise of a powerful, suspenseful, murder mystery sheds light on the insidious power of  addiction, of the role of women in society – the  judgement and expectations of “good” women and the “the other kind”,  the business of selling women’s’ bodies…using women bodies for self-gratification, a throw away commodity;

“There’s this flier someone was passing around at the club. One of the other girls gave it to me. A business opportunity.”

   “Okay…”

“Well, it’s this service, right? Where rich men are looking for to…take care of young, attractive women.”

“What do you mean, take care of?”

“Pay you to let them take them out on dates. Buy you nice things, take you out to good dinners”.

“They pay you to let them buy you stuff? Come on Des, that’s not all they’re paying for.” I had lived here my whole life; I’d seen how this kind of thing worked. Young women, in short dresses, getting into the back seats of strangers’ cars, disappearing into the night. In this town of people who wanted to win and drink and take? No way an opportunity for generosity was what they were paying for.” (p30,31)

 

This is such a powerful read and an outstanding murder/mystery.  Aside from the potent discussion about women’s role in society, the male gaze, addiction, women in poverty, mental health and post -natal depression, this is an intoxicating narrative that gives voice to the victims, to the dead. I loved how we got to know the victims before the path they trod led to their death.  The victims were seen for the potential they briefly held, for the innocents they once were, for the daughters, mothers, school kids, friends, family they had been before they became victims.

 

And this is Caitlin Mullen’s debut novel!!! What an exhilarating read. I cannot wait to read more from this author. I predict awards, lots of awards.

 

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Review: Manhattan Beach – Jennifer Egan

Manhattan Beach

Jennifer Egan

Hachette Australia

Little Brown Book Group

ISBN: 9781472150882

 

Description:

Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She is mesmerized by the sea beyond the house and by some charged mystery between the two men.

 

‎Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that once belonged to men, now soldiers abroad. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. One evening at a nightclub, she meets Dexter Styles again, and begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, the reasons he might have vanished.

 

With the atmosphere of a noir thriller, Egan’s first historical novel follows Anna and Styles into a world populated by gangsters, sailors, divers, bankers, and union men. Manhattan Beach is a deft, dazzling, propulsive exploration of a transformative moment in the lives and identities of women and men, of America and the world.

 

 

My View:

This is the way I like to learn history – wrapped inside an artfully written work of fiction. Gangsters, bootlegging, corruption, bribery, war, women’s rights in America…so much to learn about in this what could be called a historical/ coming of age piece of fiction.

 

 

 

 

 

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Post Script: Chamber Music – Doris Grumbach

Reflective, with a quiet voice.

Chamber Music

Chamber Music

A Novel

Doris Grumbach

Open Road Integrated Media

Open Road Media

ISBN: 9781497676701

 

 

Description:

In her later years, a woman reflects on her marriage, her stifled passions, and her life.

 

At age ninety, Caroline Maclaren, widow of the prominent composer Robert Maclaren, finally decides to tell her own story. “Perhaps the time was not right to do it before,” she remarks. But now she takes pen to paper, reliving her sheltered girlhood, her chilly marriage to a brilliant man, and—perhaps above all—the melancholy solitude in which she has lived nearly all her life. It was only when her husband fell ill that Caroline found fulfilling companionship with Anna, Robert’s caretaker.

 

This masterful tale of loneliness and of passion late in life is widely considered to be Grumbach’s finest work. Bittersweet, touching, and profoundly resonant, Chamber Music is captivating.

 

 

My View:

This narrative is very touching, reflective and paints a sad picture of life, a limited life, for women in the early 1900’s. Choices are narrow, navigated by social status, wealth and the husband’s career… and it was not the “done thing” to share, to discuss feelings and personal insights, discretion was imperative – discretion which really equalled suffer in silence. “Secrets were surely no better kept than they are now, but they lived quietly, under the breath. They never appeared in public print or were reported by professional gossips on the airwaves…this we called decorum and we lived securely under its warm protection.”

 

However this is not a negative story – it is one told quietly as if in deep reflection, of a life mostly spent selflessly bent to the will of others but a story that does ultimately rejoice in a union of likeminded souls.

 

Along the way Grumbach make some very pertinent points regarding the writing of autobiographies (though this isn’t one). She talks about timing, about aging. “Old age is a freeing agent. No one should write of her life until the witnesses and acquaintances, family and lovers, are dead…So what one tells is unavailable to verification or correction.” I agree, after all aren’t we the interpreters of our own life? I think so. We don’t need to be challenged on our personal perspectives, they belong to the individual.