Girl A

Finished April 30

Girl A by Abigail Dean

This was a novel that I couldn't stop reading. Girl A, real name Alexandra or Lex, is at a women's prison in England as the book opens, called there to meet with prison authorities. Her birth mother was incarcerated there and has named Lex, her oldest daughter as the executor of her will. Lex must decide whether she wants to take on this burden.

Lex now lives in New York City and travels all over the world for her job in corporate acquisitions. She loves the work and is good at it. She hasn't seen her siblings in years. One isn't even aware of his birth family. 

The book gradually reveals what happened to this family and the children who were traumatized by their experience. There were four boys and three girls in the family. They lived in a small town in a house remote from others. The abuse started with control and slowly, so slowly escalated to some of them being chained in their rooms. Girl A was the one who escaped, the one who brought help that freed the others. She was the one that led to them all starting with other families. 

Now she must talk to them all to get them to agree on what happens to what their mother left behind. The house they were held captive in, and a small amount of money. 

Lex and Edie have an idea to repurpose the house to give it a new and better meaning. But can she convince the others? 

This is a book that reveals its story gradually, with chapters for each child that Lex meets with, labelled with their assigned letter and their real name. There are some missing and we find out why. Each one has a story, some worse than others. This is a story of love gone wrong, of psychological and physical abuse, and of recovery. Lex got lucky with the couple that took her in, and with the psychologist, Doctor Kay, who was assigned to her. She doesn't like to look back, but she must now. 

Her oldest brother is getting married soon too, and that event also lurks on the horizon. Will she go? How will she react to that. 

This is a story masterfully told. So well done.

Smoke and Mirrors

Finished April 12

Smoke and Mirrors by Elly Griffiths

This is the second book in the series featuring magician Max Mephisto and police detective Edgar Stephens. This book is set in 1951 in Brighton. It is in November that the book begins, and Max is in a pantomime at the local theatre. Two tween-age children go missing from a local neighbourhood, and Edgar is involved in the search. But soon a winter storm moves in and the snow makes the search more difficult. When the bodies of the children are discovered a few days later, they are found under the snow with pieces of candy leading to them like a trail. 

It makes Edgar and his team Emma and Bob think of Hansel and Gretel, and when it turns out that the two were putting on a play using younger children as actors that is reminiscent of the fairy tale, they start looking at the adults who were mentors to them.

There are also echoes from a decades earlier child murder at a pantomime, and some of the people in the Brighton area may be connected to that earlier event. 

Max's newly discovered daughter Ruby is in a production nearby, and she appears here in a peripheral way, and we see the beginning of her relationship with Edgar.

Edgar takes his job very seriously and works on the case tirelessly, foregoing sleep and sustenance, so you get a real sense of his empathy and commitment. 

I had just read book number three in this series, so it was nice seeing more of the background of the characters here. Emma is interesting as she has taken an unusual job for a woman of her background, and she doesn't advertise her class when at work. Her parents don't necessarily approve of her career choice, but they do support her choices. 

The whole aspect of fairy tales and their history is interesting as well, and I really enjoyed this aspect of the work, seeing how surprised some of the adults were at what they learned, and what creativity the children had. 

Once Upon a River

Finished February 5

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

This is a lovely story with some elements of fantasy. It takes place along a river that is both the Thames River in England and not. There are several characters and several storylines that come together.

As the story begins it is Midwinter and in the village of Radcot was an inn called The Swan. Every inn has its specialty and this one was known for its storytelling. The landlady of the inn was Margot Ockwell and the inn had been run by the women of her family for generations. Her married name was Margot Bliss, but the inn always used the old name to keep the tradition. Margot was married to a man who was a storyteller, and who had come to the inn one night from further up the river. His name was Joe. They had numerous daughters, all married and left home and a son Jonathan, who was still not grown and would always live at the inn, being a bit slow and delicate.

On this midwinter night, a figure with a monstrous looking face stumbled in carrying what appeared to be a large doll. They came around him as he dropped and realized that his face was injured and they sent someone for Rita Sunday, the midwife and healer that lived nearby. It was only after some time that they realized the thing they thought was a doll was a young girl, and that she seemed to be dead. 

They laid her carefully in the other room and Rita arrived and did her work on the man, checking him for other injuries and mending him as best she could. There were certain signs on his body that she announced indicated that he was a photographer. A card in his pocket confirmed this. Rita then went to look at the child and while she agreed that the child was dead, something kept her by her side, and then suddenly, the child was no longer dead. At this seeming miracle, she took the child in to the main room of the inn to warm. Shortly thereafter the inn closed for the night and Rita stayed to look after the two patients. 

As word spread of this event through those that had been there, Rita continued to puzzle over the situation, something she would do for many months going forward. 

There were two families that heard of the child that had been found. The Vaughans, who lived in a nearby manor house and were wealthy had their two year old daughter kidnapped two years before, and she would now be about the same age as this child. Mrs. Vaughan has been heartbroken, aching for her child and not engaging with anyone as she had before. As soon as she hears, she rushes to the inn and claims the child upon sight. 

The Armstrongs are a large farming family with an interesting history. Mr Armstrong is a black man who was supported in starting his life as an adult by his own white father. Mrs. Armstrong is a woman with a unique talent for seeing people as they truly are. Their oldest son has been a trial and they recently learned that he was a father and it would seem that this child could be his daughter. 

Another woman Lily also swears that she knows the child, as her younger sister Anne. But the woman has issues and doesn't seem to understand the impossibility of her claim, and she appears to have no desire to take the child herself. 

As the recovered photographer, Henry Daunt, and Rita join forces to look into the matter further and the story continues with interesting sidenotes over the next several months.

As this story developed, and we could see into the feelings of many of the characters, I began to care about their individual lives and stories, wanting things to work out for each one. It was all related to the storytelling in some ways too, as this story is itself. It felt like the kind of tale you'd hear around the fire in past days.

I liked the way that things converged and appreciated the epilogue that took us into the future a ways to see what happened in the near term to the various people. 

A great read.

Miss Benson's Beetle

Finished January 10

Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce

I've loved all Rachel Joyce's books that I've read, and this is no exception. The story is set in 1950, with two main characters. The titular Miss Benson, Margery, is in her late 40s, single, and teaching domestic science at a girl's school. This is not how she envisioned her life. She hasn't been happy for years, and for her the last straw happens when she finds her students passing around a caricature of her and laughing. She breaks, first leaving the classroom and then taking random items as she leaves the school, never to return. As she thinks back on her life, she reflects on a book her father showed her when she was a child with a picture of a rumoured beetle in a far away land. That picture led to a lifelong fascination with beetles, and she is now drawn back to that moment of captivation and happiness and decides to go look for that beetle. 

There is much preparation to be done before going on such an expedition, and Miss Benson orders supplies, sells some of her belongings and advertises for a paid assistant. The first applicant she interviews is a war vet who had been a Japanese POW. He is twitchy and a mansplaining type, and Miss Benson knows that he is not what she wants. One woman looks promising, but her rigid organization gets her ferreting out Miss Benson's secret and bailing out with little time to substitute, so she ends up reaching out to her final applicant, Enid Pretty. Enid is a force to be reckoned with, able to make almost any situation turn in her favour, and yet completely unsuitable for what Miss Benson was looking for. 

Given their times, the journey to their destination, the northern reaches of New Caledonia, is long and sometimes with delays. As they travel by ship, flying boat, motor vehicle, and their own feet, they get to know one another extremely well, and gradually open up to each other about their pasts and what led them to their present. 

Miss Benson is a lonely woman, with an unhappy childhood, a disappointing coming-of -age experience, and a a lost dream. She is a rule follower, a person who does what is expected of her, until she realizes that she must stand up for herself and her dreams.

Enid Pretty is a charmer, a woman who has compromised for a comfortable life, and who has seen that fall apart. She, too, has a dream that she hasn't been able to bring to fruition, although she has faced most obstacles with a determination that overcomes them. 

I liked seeing this friendship develop and each woman come into her own and the encouragement and support they had for each other. I read this book quickly, almost unable to put it down as I needed to know what happened to theses two extraordinary women. 

The book ends with an interesting interview, an explanation of the inspiration for the book, and some discussion questions. Great choice for a book club.