The Fake-up

By Justin Myers

Flo is a shop girl by day and wannabe singer by night and dream boyf Dylan works gruesome London as a night-time tour guide while nursing his non-starter acting career. They make the perfect couple: they’ve got cute games, a sweet backstory, and enough chemistry to launch a moon mission. Think early J-Lo and Ben Affleck. So how will Justin Myers keep us glued to his pages for the other 350 pages? Cue secrets, lies and subterfuge, oh and a ride-or-die gay roomie.

Poor Dylan feels like a sore Northern thumb around Flo’s posh set and she is super jealous of Dylan’s career-boosting ex. Flo’s music partner is holding her back, and, well, the foam ball and chain Dylan wears on his ‘immersive theatre experience’ is dragging his acting hopes down the gutter. Then, the inevitable heart wrenching break-up rears its ugly head.

But, as a wise person once said, ‘Life is what happens while you’re busy doing something else’ and Flo and Dylan each find artistic gold buried in the rubble of their busted love. The will-they-won’t-they-do-they-don’t-they relationship tension lasts for most of the final 15 chapters and keeps the reader in that heightened sense of tension that only a hydroponic skunk grower can master.

There’s lots to adore about this book. I felt a tug on my heartstrings for the gay couple in the book who are a sweet counterpart to the mess that Flo and Dylan make. There’s plenty of humour to keep the book readable and no character gets the wooden treatment, they’re all brimming with life. And there’s a takeaway for book groups to question: ‘What are you faking?’ and are you on ‘Team Floria’ or ‘Team Dylan’? Pour the Chablis folks, it’s going to be a bumpy discussion.

This book is for the ‘Normal People’ generation. It’s even got its own heartthrob jewellery! Imagine Helen Fielding and Nick Hornby had a child who grew up to write a 21^st century romcom that embraces gay romance as well as the straight variety. This is Justin Myer’s third novel (shall we call it a hat trick?) and true to form it is another heatseeker. The writing is effortlessly fresh, funny and the storytelling unfolds like warm ganache.  

Thank you to Little, Brown Company for the eARC and the fun distraction from the back-to-school blues.

A Marvellous Light

By Freya Marske

In this Stranger Things meets Dr Norrell and Mr Strange mashup, uptight Edwin Courcey runs the Office of Special Domestic Affairs and Complaints, a Black Ops office reporting directly to Prime Minister HH Asquith. When his assistant goes missing, the bouncy boxing baronet (reluctant) Sir Robert (Robin) Blyth. Neither is comfortable with the arrangement but both are soon tied to a single goal: to release Blyth from a crippling curse (and find him a new job).

Aided by the immensely capable typist and right-hand woman Miss Morrissey, and impeded by Courcey’s magical malicious family, the two cross city and countryside to try to free Robin from the curse and solve the mystery of the missing assistant. They do this amid a wonderfully wrought Edwardian world. Freya Marske wields her pen like a wand in building the lush Edwardian world. It is as rich, dense and juicy as Christmas cake. What a treat.

The magic weaves itself delicately around the romance between Courcey and Blyth that develops in stops and starts as they suss out whether the other shares the same feelings. Their relationship blossoms like a rose. It is erotic and tender, sassy and funny, heart-breaking and life-affirming. Imagine being able to put all that into a tense and thrilling fantasy, but the wizardry of Miss Marske truly knows no bounds.

The main characters are vividly depicted, and the secondary characters bound off the page. The adventure hangs off the mystery of finding what happened to Reggie Gatling (the missing assistant), what he has left behind, and the solution of Robin’s affliction. Much to my delight, a group of crones (such an underused magic power team) holds the key to Courcey’s dilemma. There is a promise of a sequel and I cannot wait to see how the crones and the indubitable Miss Morrissey step up to assist. Fans of LGBTQ+ fiction will revel in it, but it is a universal tale of love, courage and (best of all) magic.

My immense gratitude to Freya Marske for a fresh and exciting read and to NetGalley UK and Tom Doherty Associates for the opportunity to be thrilled by this eARC.

 

She who became the sun

by Shelley Parker-Chan

Practice like your head’s on fire is the advice a young Buddhist monk lives by in Shelley Parker-Chan’s action-filled novel of the fall of China’s Yuan dynasty. In the beginning, a withered fortune teller foretells nothingness for a poor, starving nameless child visiting with its father and brother. The brother is surely on the path of greatness, he the 8^th son with a lucky name, but life steps in and pushes them all into the arms of divergent fates borne of their own choices, good and bad. This lowly girl assumes her fortunate brother’s name and therein lies the problem – she will always be fated to live a lie. Or will she?

She who became the sun is a gripping retelling of the rise of the Ming Dynasty in medieval China with fictional elements creating a rich tapestry of what if. The author has woven in some daring gender play that really lifts the oft-told story and will engage even the most battle-weary historical fiction avoider. There is a tantalising sprinkling of magic, just enough to be believable, that enhances the story of a little monk’s rise to power.

Do you read two books at the same time? I also had Joe Abercrombie’s A little hatred on the go and the similarities were striking: intrigue, politics, strategy, feminine power, male privilege, and that hint of magic. Although I appreciate both titles, Shelley Parker-Chan’s take on the swashbuckling historical saga was so fresh that it gripped me from the start. The LGBT+ elements of the novel are written with tender authenticity and serve to attract the reader further into the characterisations. The characters are magnetic. As interesting as Chinese history is, Shelley Parker-Chan has wrought an attractive cast, warts and all, and it is this that stokes the reader’s fire.

The language feels choppy, as if translated, but it rolls the tale out cinematic-style building a world that lives in the mind’s eye. I happily read the book in two sittings. I rooted for the Zhu Chongba (MC) to win through but the baddies (Ouyang the eunuch general on a mission, Little Guo the miserable misogynistic man-boy to name a few) shone just as bright. I felt I was in YA territory because of the unique POV of the story and its characters. I adore YA, by the way, and that’s high praise indeed. For those sexually squeamish readers, there is a 3-screen sex scene which is tender yet graphic.

I’m going to recommend this book to absolutely everyone I meet, especially if they liked the aforementioned Age of Madness (Joe Abercrombie) or mythic retellings like those of Madeline Miller (Circe or Song of Achilles). Even if you don’t like historical fiction or fantasy fiction or romance or adventure, you’re going to love Shelley Parker-Chan’s literary baby. The author’s notes attest to the epic nature of writing this one volume, but I will be praying for a quick sequel in The Radiant Emperor duology, and then reading it like my head’s on fire.

Thanks as ever to NetGalley UK for the eARC and to PanMacmillan.

All our hidden gifts

by Caroline O’Donoghue

I waited ages for this book appear. It was Spring 2020 when a Bookseller announcement heralded Caroline O’Dohoghue’s Stranger Things meets Sabrina story and I knew I had to read it (I even pre-pitched it to my reading groups). To my delight when Autumn 2020 rolled around I got the ping from NetGalley. All my Christmases had come at once. The book is divine. And, in a life-imitates-art moment where I had surely drawn the Tower card: my entire review of this title had left my cache of docs. So, summoning the Page of Wands (and warding off the Housekeeper), I offer the following review.

Irish teen Maeve Chambers is fighting to answer the question many of us, not just adolescents, struggle with: Who are you? She doesn’t quite fit into her high achieving family. She even looks different: ‘straight off the Armada’ says her mum. In her quest for popularity, she has even alienated her best friend. On her latest detention at school, consigned to clean a grubby cellar cupboard, Maeve happens upon the thing that will both save and haunt her – an old Tarot deck. Soon, she discovers a flair for readings and queues of girls wait to hear her read their fortune. But the dark forces are there too, waiting, and they present Maeve with both nightmare and dreamboat in the shape of the mysterious disappearance of her ex-best friend Lily and the emergence of Lily’s boyfriend-material Roe. And dark forces have invaded her Irish town too, in the guise of a far-right Christian cult that is baying for blood from the LGBTQ+ community.

The story moves along at a clip: its comfortingly familiar YA paranormal plotline lends a speedy vehicle for a well-wrought story. In fact, while I was trying to recall the plot of All our hidden gifts (see intro for personal disaster anecdote) it unrolled itself in full cinematic glory. The Chokey, the second-hand clothes shop, Lily’s decline, Roe’s gender-fluid victory and the haunting Housekeeper all showed their hand. I adore a mystery, so one of my favourite parts was the activity that unfolds as Maeve, Fiona and Roe try to solve the mystery of Lily’s disappearance. It was good to see a wide range of LGBT+ issues and characters interwoven into the story arc creating a true YA slice-of-life adventure.

I’m beginning to come to terms with the anti-hero. Maeve Chambers is definitely that. Since reading Tracy Darnton’s The truth about lies, I have found that stamina with negative main characters pays off. Who doesn’t have a bad day, year, adolescence anyway? Maeve is all that but she has also seized the opportunity to redeem herself and do the right thing. Caroline O’Donoghue handles the awkwardness of teens in all their straight, queer, lost and found incarnations with the deft hand of a skilled world builder. So hats off to her for creating a book I could not put down.

All our hidden gifts is truly unique. It has a supernatural bouquet immersed in a heady elixir of thriller meets teen angst. If you like Maggie Stiefvater’s spooky Raven Cycle, Kat Ellis’s creepy Harrow Lake, Karen McManus’s One of us is lying and the deviousness of Chelsea Pitcher’s This lie will kill you then you will love All our hidden secrets.

Thanks to NetGalley for the pre-pub review copy. c:

A day of Pride

by Roy Youldous-Raiss, , Illustrations by Yossi Madar, with Alex Maghen (Translator), Yanir Dekel (Translator)

It’s an exciting day, the Pride parade is on and everyone is going! The bright and bumptious display is carefully watched by the colourful Rainbow fairy, but there’s an unwelcome visitor close at hand. It seems the wicked Witch of Shame is out to ruin Pride and even has her sights set on the Rainbow fairy!

This book is full of colourful fun illustrations that have enough going on in them to add layers to your storytelling. Young children ages 2-5 will love the intricacies of the drawings and the smiling happy faces. The intrigue brought by the Witch of Shame will keep their interest piqued and the discussions flowing. Older children 5-7 will enjoy revisiting the story and it would be a good addition to a school library as a self-esteem resource, especially for those interested in LGBT issues

A day of Pride will be welcomed by diverse families everywhere. It’s charming and energetic and the addition of finding the author’s family shows how friendly a story it really is. The story itself is a simple one and highlights the need for children to feel ‘comfortable with who they really are’. With Pride parades so bold and widespread in cities and towns around the world A day of Pride is bound to interest questioning children and open discussions about tolerance and acceptance.

I adored the Rainbow fairy and so pleased that her grace and vibrancy shone through even the darkest challenge! I felt the tensions caused by the Witch of Shame (maybe there would be a more poetic translation, but it does the trick). The only issue I had was with the often clunky rhyme scheme, but a good storyteller will work this out. I can see a place for this book in Early Years shelves with lots of follow-up craft activities to complement library sessions.