Saving Lucia - Anna Vaught

How would it be if four lunatics went on a tremendous adventure, reshaping their pasts and futures as they went, including killing Mussolini? What if one of those people were a fascinating, forgotten aristocratic assassin and the others a fellow life co-patient, James Joyce's daughter Lucia, another the first psychoanalysis patient, known to history simply as 'Anna O,' and finally 19th Century Paris's Queen of the Hysterics, Blanche Wittmann? That would be extraordinary, wouldn't it? How would it all be possible? Because, as the assassin Lady Violet Gibson would tell you, those who are confined have the very best imaginations.

What did I think?

Bluemoose Books have decided to mark 2020 by only publishing novels written by women and Saving Lucia by Anna Vaught is the first of these.  What is so special about Saving Lucia is that the characters are based on real women from history, or rather forgotten from history until Anna Vaught became inspired by them.

I don't think I have ever read a book that has made me google so many things.  I have become fascinated by Lady Violet Gibson, an Irish women who made an assassination attempt on Benito Mussolini in Rome in 1926.  Instead of going to prison in Italy, she was incarcerated in a lunatic asylum in England along with Lucia Joyce, the daughter of Irish writer James Joyce.

Violet tells her story to Lucia and you feel like you're actually inside Violet's mind so it's quite hard to follow at times.  With thoughts jumping from one thing to another, as they often do in our brains, the writing has an almost dreamlike quality.  Anna Vaught's expressive and ethereal writing style gives her novel the feel of a literary classic.  I felt like I should be making notes in the margins and I was surprised when this was actually mentioned towards the end of the book.

Saving Lucia certainly gives the reader a few things to think about, namely how easily problematic women were carted off to lunatic asylums in the past when there was probably nothing wrong with their mental health.  I dread to even consider some of the 'treatments' they underwent and I feel quite angry on their behalf.  

Based on real women and real events, Saving Lucia is an exemplary novel and one that has continued to fascinate me long after I turned the final page.  It has the feel of a modern literary classic and should be carefully absorbed over time rather than devoured in one sitting.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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BLOG TOUR: Through the Wall - Caroline Corcoran

Lexie’s got the perfect life. And someone else wants it…

Lexie loves her home. She feels safe and secure in it – and loved, thanks to her boyfriend Tom.

But recently, something’s not been quite right. A book out of place. A wardrobe door left open. A set of keys going missing…

Tom thinks Lexie’s going mad – but then, he’s away more often than he’s at home nowadays, so he wouldn’t understand.

Because Lexie isn’t losing it. She knows there’s someone out there watching her. And, deep down, she knows there’s nothing she can do to make them stop…

A compelling, heart-racing thriller that will have you looking over your shoulder long after you turn the last page. The perfect read for fans of Louise Candlish and Adele Parks.

What did I think?

What a clever book Caroline Corcoran has written for her debut, it's a book I can't stop thinking about and quoting a particular part of it.  It really got under my skin and scared the hell out of me, to the point where I was simultaneously scared to read about certain events unfolding but also couldn't read fast enough to find out what happened.  All because of a character called Harriet, who gives her neighbours, Lexie and Tom, the impression she has the perfect life but she is actually stark raving bonkers.

Everyone who reads this book will hate Harriet; she's not just crazy, she's dangerously unhinged.  We know she has done something bad in her past after her break up with her boyfriend, Luke, but when she catches a glimpse of her neighbour, Tom, and thinks he is the spitting image of Luke she sets her sights on Lexie's boyfriend.  Just how far she is willing to go to get him shows how dangerous she really is.

It's really interesting that Harriet envies Lexie and Lexie envies Harriet, despite them having never met.  From glimpses they see and snippets they hear, they have scrambled together a frankenstein jigsaw of each other and come to the conclusion that the other has the perfect life.  It couldn't be further from the truth with Lexie struggling with infertility and Harriet being a total fruit and nut.  Having spent a little time in an apartment in London, Caroline Corcoran has really shown an element of the North South divide that I had completely forgotten about; in the North, your neighbours would have you in for a cuppa before you'd unpacked, but in the South you don't have a clue what your neighbours even look like.

Harriet sets off on a campaign to get inside Lexie's head and part of this involves online bullying.  It's good to remind us now and again that anyone can be absolutely anyone online and I found this scarily realistic.  Harriet takes her online bullying to another level though; not simply content with posting nasty comments on Lexie's appearance on social media she thrives on listening to the effects of these attacks through the wall.  That's not even close to the worst thing that Harriet does, but you'll just have to read the book to find out what else she gets up to.

I think Lexie's infertility issue was handled superbly and really helped the reader get inside the head of someone going through this.  Lexie's life revolved around having a baby, and Tom's life to a degree, but it was Lexie who had it on her mind every waking minute.  Their life became all about calendars, alarms and appointments and they lost so much time just being a couple so it's no wonder that suspicions started to appear when they were under so much emotional strain.

I mentioned earlier about a particular part I keep quoting and it's about how we perceive ourselves and other people.  Caroline Corcoran hit the nail on the head when she said we put a rose coloured tint on others but apply a horror filter to ourselves.  We humans do love a good bit of self-flagellation and I've always said that nobody can be as hard on me as I am on myself.

A brilliant, clever debut and a definite page turner, I really enjoyed Through the Wall; I think it's clever, scarily realistic and creepy as hell (not in a ghostly way, but in the way that you never know what mad hatter Harriet will do next).  Beware though, it'll definitely have you looking at your neighbours in a new light and wondering what madness lurks inside them.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon



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Undercurrent - J.A. Baker

Phoebe and her disabled husband, Martyn, move into a new house in a village on the edge of County Durham. They plan to lead a quiet existence, a set up that suits them both.

Then Anna, who lives over the road and is bored of spending her days alone, seeks friendship with Phoebe and events take a dark turn.

Phoebe has secrets and is haunted by her past and Anna’s arrival in her life may prove to be the catalyst for her undoing.

What is Phoebe hiding and why are she and her husband so reclusive?

When Anna gets caught in a storm and is rescued by Phoebe the truth becomes apparent and Anna is thrown into danger.

Is there a difference between madness and evil?

Some friendships can be murder.

What did I think?

Crikey!  What a scorching debut from J.A. Baker.  I saw lots of excitement on social media about Undercurrent on its release, so I didn't think twice about buying a copy for myself, although it is the curse of the blogger that books you buy tend to sit on your TBR pile a lot longer than they should.  So I finally got round to picking up Undercurrent and couldn't put it down!  I positively whizzed through it and loved every minute of it.

The prologue is one of those where you are shown a glimpse of the ending so you race through the rest of the book to find out what events led here.  A woman is found stumbling beaten and bloody through the streets of York with no idea how she got there.  Who is she and what happened to her?  The story then starts with Phoebe and her disabled husband, Martyn, moving into their new home in a small village in County Durham.  Their new home sounds perfect, apart from the public right of way running alongside the river and right through their garden.  With Martyn's volatile moods (due to his medication) and strangers crossing their path, I had the terrible feeling that anything could happen.

With it being a small village, one of the neighbours, Anna, tries to befriend Phoebe but doesn't get the welcome she expected.  Phoebe seems very on edge and unfriendly but what Anna doesn't know is that she bears a striking resemblance to Phoebe's sister, Suzie, who drowned when she was a child.  Despite the shaky start, Anna and Phoebe strike up a tentative friendship but then Anna goes missing...and she's not the first local woman to go missing whilst walking along the banks of the river.  Has the river claimed yet another victim?

For quite a short book at 262 pages, Undercurrent sure packs a big punch with plenty of surprises in store.  It's packed with tension and intrigue from start to finish as the icy tendrils of the river reach out to claim its victims.  Looking back on it now, I really felt as if I could see inside the minds of some of the characters and it was a bit like going down the rabbit hole - we're all mad here!  When madness meets obsession, the result can be deadly.

Don't wait as long as I did to read Undercurrent; if you have it in your TBR, bump it up the queue and if you don't have it in your queue, make sure you buy a copy - you really won't regret it.  I can't wait for J.A. Baker's second novel, Her Dark Retreat, and I know for sure that it won't be hanging around in my TBR too long!

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon