Another Man in the Street, by Caryl Phillips

The life of a West Indian migrant is explored in this all-too-human novel.

It’s the 1960s, London. West Indian man Victor Johnson is sailing on a boat from St Kitts, a Caribbean island. He’s leaving behind a girlfriend, Lorna, in the hope of making something of himself in England. When he arrives he finds work in a pub. The owner, who can’t be bothered inquiring into his real name, calls Victor “Lucky”. At the pub he meets all sorts of characters, most notably Peter Feldman, an unscrupulous landlord. Peter has an interesting backstory too, a German-Jewish war refugee, he has lost his home and parents. Victor starts work with Peter as a rent collector, chosen for the job because his boss thinks he will have a better chance of extracting money from fellow West Indian migrants who tenant his substandard properties. While working for Peter he takes up with Ruth, a white working class girl who had to give up her daughter for adoption. The two set up a home together of sorts, but the relationship is plagued with challenges and insecurities. Despite all of Victor’s difficulties, he does experience a degree of success as a journalist, writing up articles on the West Indian migrant experience.

Caryl Phillips is an award winning Kittian-British writer who has published plays, essay collections and novels since the early 1980s. Another Man in the Street, his latest novel, addresses issues of class and race in England from the 1960s up to today. The novel is written from many perspectives and intimately fleshes out the experiences of working class and coloured people, the prejudices they face, and how this shapes not only their destiny, but how they see themselves. Victor is presented as a deeply flawed man, as are the other characters, including his girlfriend Ruth and former boss Peter. All three have a great degree of self-awareness about their limitations, which makes their portraits all the more painful and filled with pathos. Ruth constantly tries to re-imagine her life, torturing herself with what-ifs, while her daughter treats her like a moral outcast. In a harrowing chapter Peter ends up as a doorman in a New York apartment building, routinely humiliated by the entitled residents. And finally, Victor is haunted by regrettable scenes from his life.

Difficult subject matter sensitively handled in a tightly written narrative about broken people. For readers of Elizabeth Strout and Claire Keegan.

Another Man in the Street, by Caryl Phillips. Published by Bloomsbury. $22.99

The Perfect Passion Company, by Alexander McCall Smith

A matchmaking agency presents a moral quandary for its new owner 

Thirty-year-old Katie has been offered The Perfect Passion Company, an old school introductions business. Her cousin Ness, who started the business and grew it into a respectable concern, has decided to take a gap year in Canada. She may return, she may not. With some trepidation, Katie takes on the business and its bulging files of lonely hearts. 

The matchmaking agency’s next door office on Little Mouse Street is occupied by a man four years Katie’s junior, William Kidd. Before leaving for Canada, Ness introduces William to Katie. It will be helpful, she decides, if the two get to know each other as Katie learns the ropes. William, it turns out, is the perfect gentleman - handsome, intelligent and courteous. There are no drawbacks, although he runs a curious business as a designer of woolen jumpers. He knits the designs up himself, which does lead to some assumptions about his sexuality, but the reader is assured that such reductive masculine stereotypes need not apply here. In fact, William has a fiance, Alice, back in his home city of Melbourne, Australia.

As Katie works through her first few matchmaking cases, William helps out in an advisory role, and the two strike up quite a friendship. Alice, the fiance back in Melbourne, often looms ominously in the background as Katie and William become closer. Is William and Alice’s  relationship really on firm ground, or are there cracks starting to show?  As Katie feels herself falling in love with William, she must do her best to keep her emotions in check.

The Perfect Passion Company started out as two e-book novellas, and now finds itself expanded into a four hundred page novel. All of the usual themes of Alexander McCall Smith’s fiction are present: sticky emotional entanglements, moral dilemmas, questions of how to live ethically. There is a good deal of stoicism in the pages of McCall Smith’s novels. Characters often must practice self-restraint and make decisions that prioritise the welfare of others. When Katie realises that her feelings for William could not only endanger herself, but cause cascading grief and heartbreak, she displays admirable self-control. Reading Alexander McCall Smith’s fiction, it’s always easy to empathise with his characters, to walk in their shoes and wonder, “What would I do?” 

In the end, all moral quandaries are resolved, and the good are rewarded for their exemplary behaviour and steadfastness. The not-so-good, if not punished, are certainly found out. The Perfect Passion Club is an entirely satisfying fiction about real lives and real world problems, with a cast of likable characters muddling through life as best they can.

The Perfect Passion Company, by Alexander McCall Smith. Published by Polygon. $39.99

MAY 2026

A Room Above a Shop, by Anthony Shapland

Two men embark on a precarious love affair in late 1980s Wales.

The late 1980s, a small village in Wales. B (main characters are identified by first initial) is a somewhat aimless young man setting out in life. M is eleven years older and owns the local ironmongery business, which he inherited from his parents. They meet at a local pub during a boozy Christmas event and M invites B out on something between a date and an expedition. They visit a scenic hill and share a sandwich and a thermos of tea. They are awkward around each other, yet there is a connection. “Few words. More gestures than chat.” The two men begin a secret relationship, B taking on a job at M’s hardware store and moving into the spare room above the shop. It’s a time of political strife. The AIDS crisis has exploded and homophobia is rampant, especially in a small town. The men exist simultaneously in two different worlds, one of intimacy and togetherness above the shop, but publicly playing socially acceptable roles. 

A Room Above a Shop is sparsely written, mirroring the fractured, hidden lives of its characters. Anthony Shapland describes a fragile intimacy, eked out in the shadows. The atmosphere is one of fear and vigilance, ensuring the right gestures are made and that secrets are not unwittingly betrayed. It’s a reminder of how societal rules and moral codes can hollow out life and soul, and yet love can still find a way . Readers of Claire Keegan will enjoy this brittle, haunting novel about forbidden love. 

A Room Above a Shop, by Anthony Shapland. Published by Granta. $29.99

NOV25

Lady Living Alone, by Norah Lofts

A woman too frightened to be alone comes to regret the company she keeps.

Norah Lofts (1904-1983) was a British writer who specialised in historical fiction, but wrote occasional nail biting thrillers under the pseudonym Peter Curtis. Lady Living Alone was first published in 1945 and here gets a new printing from the British Library Women Writers series. 

Penelope Shadow is temperamentally fragile, almost timid. She’s not cut out for the practicalities of life and is a bit of a dreamer. One area of her life where she’s fully competent, however, is as a novelist. After a few false starts, she begins churning out best selling fiction. The money is soon coming in. But there is one problem. A single woman, she is forced to move out of her half-sister’s house and find her own accommodation. She has the money to buy a handsome house of her own, but is terrified of being alone in it. It’s her achilles heel. To try and assuage her fears, she hires staff, women to look after the housework, but they tend to leave. 

Then Penelope meets the young Irishman, Terence Munce. He is working as a menial at a rooming house she stays at. In a rash moment she asks him to come and work for her. Everything turns out smoothly. Penelope is back to hammering away at her typewriter, while the ever attentive Terry takes care of everything. Things take an unexpected turn when Terry professes to love Penelope and the two get married. All is well in this new if surprising arrangement, until Terry starts draining Penelope’s purse of funds at a great rate of knots. Ever forgiving, she makes allowances for Terry, until secrets emerge about her husband’s life and Penelope feels her life is imperilled.

Lady Living Alone is a solidly written domestic drama about a vulnerable and too eager-to-please woman and her young, seemingly perfect but scheming husband. The tension is wonderfully sustained right up to the last page and the novel gives vivid glimpses of life in 1930s Britain (the book is set in the previous decade to which it was published). The steadily darkening plot will remind readers of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca and Elizabeth Von Arnim’s Vera, two novels about duplicitious, villainous husbands. 

A sturdy, page-turning thriller with valuable insights into British society in the 1930s.

Lady Living Alone, by Norah Lofts. Published by British Library Publishing. $22.99

OCT 2025

The Usual Desire to Kill, by Camilla Barnes

Two daughters must deal with their eccentric, aging parents.

Dutiful daughter Miranda has her patience stretched trying to keep an eye on her aging, rather eccentric parents. They moved to rural France years ago and now live on a run down mini farm. The house is in a terrible state and they live on dodgy food from the freezer. Her sister Charlotte, with whom Miranda has a rocky relationship, endeavours to help out. Even so, Miranda confesses to the “usual desire to kill” both her mother and father. 

The Usual Desire to Kill is Camilla Barnes’s debut novel (she is the niece of famed British writer Julian Barnes.) What she presents here is a totally original take on dealing with elderly parents (the novel mostly circles around the mother’s pending hip replacement operation.) Barnes opts for an innovative structure, with the novel written in the first person, interspersed with email correspondence and an earlier exchange of letters between the mother and her mystery friend, Kitty. The great joy of the book is Barnes’s pitch perfect dialogue between the idiosyncratic parents, which many a reader will recognise. A life affirming novel written with warmth and love, despite the protagonist’s parricidal fantasies.

The Usual Desire to Kill, by Camilla Barnes. Published by Scribner. $35

July 2025

Murder on the Marlow Belle, by Robert Thorogood

Septuagenarian sleuth Judith Potts and her two middle-aged sidekicks Suzie Harris and Becks Starling find themselves drawn into another Marlow murder mystery in the fourth installment of this much loved cozy crime series.

There is trouble brewing at the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society (MADS). Oliver Berestford, a divisive figure among the players, has organised a boat trip on the Marlow Belle, a snazzy vintage cruiser with cabins below. Only a select few have been chosen to attend the trip: Verity, Oliver’s wife, Lizzie, a former MADS member but now famous actress, Toby, a protege and Duncan, an old friend. When half way through the trip Oliver goes missing, it’s a complete mystery as to what has happened. His body is later found washed up with two bullet holes. What on earth could have happened to him? More to the point, who was out to get him?

The fourth book in The Marlow Murder Club series is great page-turning fun. Robert Thorogood’s ability to write a compelling whodunnit, shot through with wit, humour and heart, shows no sign of flagging. The twists and turns in the story, coupled with the wonderful characters - the pushy Judith, the blunt and outspoken dog walker Suzie and the prim and proper vicar’s wife Becks - make for a brilliant entertainment. The final set piece - with the ultimate crime reveal happening in the middle of a production of The Importance of Being Earnest - is clever and just a bit mad. Admittedly some aspects of the story stretch credulity, yet the overall journey is so enjoyable that these minor quibbles can be overlooked.

An irresistible romp with an endearing cast of characters.

Murder on the Marlow Belle, by Robert Thorogood. Published by HQ Fiction. $32.99

June 2025

A Curtain Twitcher's Book of Murder, by Gay Marris

Gay Marris gives murder the comedy-horror treatment in this entertaining debut.

​It’s 1960s, Swinging London. Atbara Avenue is a cosy yet nosy street, one where everyone knows everyone else’s business, built towards the end of Queen Victoria’s reign. At one end there is a corner shop and at the other a church, St Francis in the Fields. The street has become somewhat gaudy in its aspect, as contemporary decorative fashions, with all their ephemeral novelties, have taken prominence. Despite its surface calm, Atbara Avenue is soon shocked by the apparent suicide death of Pauline Dollimore, unhappy daughter of faded  songbird Muriel Dollimore, with whom she lived. As the story progresses, we are introduced to more unusual characters - a set of rival twins, a local beauty who goes missing, a weird girl who collects animals - many of whom meet untimely deaths. Weaving in and out of this bizarre cast is the stiff-upper-lip vicar’s wife Deidre O’Reilly, and her eternally bemused husband, Desmond. They remain cheerful and untouched by the subterranean oozings and slitherings of Atbara Avenue, carrying on their trivial, self-satisfied life while the worst of human depravity unfolds around them.

A Curtain Twitcher’s Book of Murder is English author Gay Marris’s debut novel. (Interestingly Marris is a retired scientist with an interest in insect ecology and parasites.) The book doesn’t work so much as a novel, rather it’s more a collection of bizarre tales, with well drawn characters and compelling plot lines. The only continuing thread is  the indomitable vicar and his wife, steady in their unflappable foolishness.

Gay Marris’s crime debut is a total original, almost a Gothic comedy-horror. The best analogy is perhaps the novels of American Shirley Jackson, noted for their macabre yet comic tone. A delicious treat for those with a wicked sense of humour.

A Curtain Twitcher's Book of Murder, by Gay Marris. Published by Bedford Square Fiction. $32.99

April 25

Wolf Solent, by John Cowper Powys

John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) is one of those English novelists whose name I've often come across, but never known much about. Penguin Modern Classics has now reprinted Wolf Solent, his first major literary success, published in 1929 when the author was in his late fifties. It's a huge 700 page tome and I felt I was in the mood for a substantial English novel that plunged life's depths. I must confess, for the first 100 pages I struggled with the language. Powys uses a ridiculous amount of exclamation marks, which I found discombobulating. In fact, I was ready to give up, but when one morning I found myself with nothing else to read, decided to read a bit more and try to put the exclamation marks out of my mind. (I also flicked through the introduction by A. N. Wilson who mentioned that Powys' style was an aquired taste.)

So I read on and found myself immersed in Powys' rich and strange prose. The story follows thirty-five year old Wolf Solent who returns to his home town of Ramsgard in Dorset after losing his London job as a teacher. Back in Ramsgard, he is drawn to two women, the earthy Gerda (she is a mesmerising bird whistler) and the more cerebal Christie, daughter of an immoral bookseller. The novel is fully thronged with a cast of weird and wonderful characters, among which are a local vicar, Wolf's pushy mother, a gravestone cutter, a local squire and a poet, to name but a few. 

Wolf Solent is the kind of novel in which you go along for the ride, and don't ask too many questions. Often I found the words beautiful and compelling, but scratched my head as to what they meant. The descriptions are dizzying and breathtaking, with passages detailing Wolf's stream of consciousness. His nature descriptions are a joy, a spirited toast to being alive.

John Cowper Powys won't be for everyone, as A.N. Wilson mentions in the introduction, but he is certainly a completely original, utterly uncompromising writer - someone to fit between D.H. Lawrence and Thomas Hardy. I'm glad I read it and would be tempted to try his other work.

 

Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier's 1938 Gothic novel Rebecca has long been on my list of classic novels to read, and finally I got around to it. It's quite a chunky, dense read at 428 pages. Du Maurier does tend to overwrite a bit. The subject matter is suffocating, and so can be the detail. But not in a bad way. It's an enjoyable, absorbing read, but it's almost like Lady MacBeth is holding the pen.

The story concerns an unnamed narrator, a young woman who has lost both parents. Due to her poor circumstances, she's taken on a job as a professional companion to a Mrs Van Hopper, a crass, vain American woman who is almost comic in her vulgarity. She chases after Maxim de Winter, a well known widower due to his wife's unfortunate and somewhat spectacular demise, while holidaying in Monte Carlo. Maxim takes a shine to the young narrator and before you know it, she's thrown in the towel with Mrs Van Hopper and agreed to marry Maxim de Winter. They briskly leave "Monte" and return to Maxim's lush estate Manderley on the Cornish coast. The mansion is quite imposing, especially some of the staff who upkeep the estate, notably the chilling Mrs Danvers. Danvers likes to keep the oppressive spirit of the first Mrs de Winter, Rebecca, alive. 

There are twists and turns to come. More and more is revealed about Rebecca's personality and the circumstances in which she died. Right up to the last page the reader is kept in full suspense as the stakes get higher and higher, until the final climax.

I thoroughly enjoyed Rebecca. It's a real page turner and no wonder it still sells well today. My only caveat was the ending. Such a let down for me. The novel seemed to build psychologically, and I felt a lot more would be explained. For example, why does the narrator stay so devoted to Maxim, even when she learns the truth of his past? As I came to the last ten pages and I thought my questions wouldn't be answered I grew quite anxious that it would end unresolved - for me anyway. It really didn't seem realistic that the narrator stays with Maxim and lives, if not happily ever after, pretty close to it.

That aside, a brilliant book. I'm now half way through Hitchcock's film version. 

The Complete Stories of A.A. Milne, by A.A. Milne

A bumper book of witty and entertaining stories for adults from the famous children’s author.

A.A. Milne (1882 - 1956) is best known for his children’s books Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. The success of these books and poetry collections such as Now We Are Six greatly overshadowed his other literary work. He was a writer who worked in many genres: adult fiction, non-fiction, journalism, memoir, poetry, plays and screenplays. Farrago books has issued a first complete collection of A.A. Milne’s short stories, with the inclusion of a few that have never been published before. The stories cover the period from 1918-1958, with most written between 1948-1950.

The stories cover a wide variety of styles, with a constant theme being Milne’s playful, vivacious sense of humour. They are frothy and fun, often very inventive, much in line with other contemporaries such as P.G. Wodehouse and Nancy Mitford. While there is a lightness of touch, and an almost frivolous attitude, Milne’s shorter fiction is brilliantly organised, with many pleasingly unexpected twists and turns. For the most part, the stories deal with middle class relationships, men and women, desire and domesticity, in post war Britain. A favorite story details the comic drama caused when a difficult friend asks for a book that he has lent to a couple be returned. The couple don’t know what they’ve done with the book, and while they continue to get passive-aggressive letters from the disgruntled friend, they bide their time until they can buy a new copy and pass it off as the original. Another story, highlighting Milne’s playfulness, is set in the Biblical time of Noah and spoofs his family organising an ark to save themselves, while musing what they should tell the neighbors. Milne also had a great fondness for detective fiction, and several murder mysteries are included in this collection. 

The author of Winnie-the-Pooh will no doubt never shake off his reputation as a children’s author. Intrepid readers who can look past the famous bear will find much to delight and amuse in this little known collection. 

The Complete Stories of A.A. Milne, by A.A. Milne. Published by Farrago. $26.99

DEC 24

The Party, by Tessa Hadley

Two sisters negotiate men, relationships, sex and family in this compelling novella by Tessa Hadley.

It’s post-war Britain. The urban landscape is dreary and battered. Two sisters, dressed up despite the economic privations all around them, are on their way to a pub to meet friends and enjoy a rowdy night. Evelyn, the younger sister, is studying French. She’s unsure of herself, and looks up to her outre older sister, Moira, who is a fashion student. Both women flirt with the young men, sizing them up as potential love interests, only to find many of them wanting, and the decent guys unattractive anyway.

The sisters still live with their parents, and younger brother Ned, in a bleak working class house. Theirs is not a happy family. Ned makes explosives as a hobby, and their father is carrying on an affair. It’s a constant battle to keep fights and simmering animosities at bay. 

One night soon after the party at the pub, Moira takes her sister to a house in another part of London. It’s a big, once grand house, now fallen into disrepair. They meet a group of Moira’s friends and start drinking. An atmosphere of boredom and futility predominates.The men at the house are not great catches, some decidedly sickly, and lurking at the bottom of this barrel is Sinden, a creepy young man with designs on both the sisters. 

The Party is a stark portrait of young women’s lives in what feels like 1950s Britain (there are references in the novella  to the Malayan Emergency, a guerilla war fought between 1948-1960). Evelyn and Moira are just starting their adulthood, studying with a clear hope of improving their lives (they dress with exuberant confidence in tight clothing), yet are surrounded by a culture not yet ready to offer women emancipation from subservient roles. With their mother as an example, the reader feels that Evelyn and Moira are destined to get dudded by life, ending up as downtrodden wives. Yet there is a glimmer of hope for them at the end, as bad sexual experiences unite both women in a more clear eyed view of the world. 

Grim, gritty and realistic, readers of Claire Keegan will enjoy this accomplished novella.

​The Party, by  Tessa Hadley. Published by Jonathan Cape. $29.99

NOV 24

The Way Out of Berkeley Square, by Rosemary Tonks

A whip-smart young woman spars with a self-satisfied married man

​Thirty-year-old Arabella has three complicated male relationships in her life. She lives with her widowed father, an impossibly accomplished man whom Arabella feels she has devoted her life to, perhaps at her own expense. Then there is her brother Michael, who is on some sort of spiritual / poetic quest in Pakistan. His letters are full of complex introspection, intellectual jousting and spare-no-details descriptions of a debilitating illness he has contracted. And finally,  Charles Hamblin, the happily married man that Arabella, against her better instincts, decides to date. The two circle each other, making judgements and assessments, until an uneasy settlement is arrived at. 

Rosemary Tonks (1928-2014) was an English poet and novelist, active mostly in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She then became a fundamentalist Christian and disappeared into obscurity, treating her own literary output with disdain. She sought out copies of her novels from public libraries in order to destroy them, and in 1981 burnt an unpublished manuscript. 

The Way Out of Berkeley Square reads like an autobiographical novel, written in a playful, almost artificial voice. Tonks sees fiction writing as a bit of a game, and she likes to toy with the reader, but in a fun, if puzzling, way. Her interactions with the three main male characters - father, brother and potential lover - show her in a somewhat submissive, supporting role - but intellectually it's clear she’s a dominating force. (There’s an argument to be made that the text is latently feminist, with its idiosyncratic portraits of father, brother and lover.) Her surreal and offbeat descriptions, which richly inform every word of the novel, create a delightfully absorbing, unique world.  Here is a taste from an overflowing banquet:

“There are opium dens in North Africa where a big carpet, impregnated with some narcotic, is very slowly shaken over the heads of those who seek oblivion.”

Rosemary Tonks is a true original, and every word she writes makes you sit up in your chair and pay attention. The only writer that comes close to her in style and originality is the poet Stevie Smith, who wrote a series of autobiographical novels written in similar brassy style. There is also a touch perhaps of Sylvia Plath, another poet. 

It’s wonderful news that Vintage has now published four of Rosemary Tonks’ six novels. Don’t miss this little gem.  

The Way Out of Berkeley Square, by Rosemary Tonks. Published by Vintage. $22.99

SEP 24

The Lark, by E. Nesbit

Some delightful whimsy for adults from much loved children's author Edith Nesbit

Jane and her cousin Lucilla have received bad news. Their guardian has blown their inheritance and they must now be pulled from school. All that is left to the girls - they are actually young adults - is 500 pounds and a small cottage. It's up to them to show pluck and resolve and thus make something of themselves. Jane and Lucilla are thrilled at the news. They disliked school anyway. Rather than fret over financial catastrophe they imagine the start of a great adventure. 

The First World War has just ended, and there are many people down on their luck. One of them is a Mr. Dix, a war veteran, whom the girls stumble across in a gallery. They take him on as a gardener. When the girls move into a bigger house - again, a good piece of luck - they start a market garden business, selling mostly flowers. Soon they are taking on lodgers, many with dodgy reputations. No matter, even when the girls lose money, it's all really just a lark, nothing to get too worried about. 

The novel ends with marriage and much good cheer all round.

The Lark was Edith Nesbit's final novel for adults, published in 1922. It's a difficult book to pigeonhole. It's neither really adult nor children's fiction, but more of a frolic, aimed at readers with a taste for the absurd and surreal, much like  Lewis Carroll or Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm.  Nesbit's exuberant, life affirming prose also reminds of Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream.

A magic holiday read that is a tonic and a delight.

The Lark, by E. Nesbit. Published by Penguin. $29.99

OCT23

From a Far and Lovely Country, by Alexander McCall Smith

Mma Precious Ramotswe is called upon to investigate two cases, one slightly comic, the other more of the heart.

Two cases come to the attention of Precious Ramotswe, founder of the No 1. Ladies Detective Agency, and her redoubtable assistant, Grace Makutsi. The first case involves the goings on at a certain Cool Singles Evening Club. It seems that single women are being duped by married men. Mma Ramotswe sends in her husband's assistant mechanic, Charlie, to go undercover and investigate. Although he is quite the amateur, he finds out a considerable amount, but when he follows through with some poorly thought through advice from Grace Makutsi, it leads to an unintended and very undesirable outcome.

The second investigation is more serious in nature and involves an American woman. She appears at the agency wanting help finding the relatives of a man who, although not a blood relative, was someone she considered her grandfather. There is a bitter-sweet ending to this story, as the woman doesn't find exactly what she was looking for, but experiences a larger truth that brings her much joy.

From a Far and Lovely Country is an utterly enjoyable new installment in the No 1. Ladies Detective series. It can be read as a stand alone novel. Alexander McCall Smith deftly explains his characters' quirks and foibles, and how their dynamics interweave, especially Mma Makutsi's somewhat comic backstory as a top student at her secretarial school. The gentle pace and rich cadences of McCall Smith's prose are a joy to read. On the serious side the novel deals with the more subtle moral problems that we encounter in day to day life, guiding its characters tactfully through the labyrinthine difficulties that are part and parcel of all interpersonal relationships.

An aesthetic, emotional and intellectual pleasure.

From a Far and Lovely Country, by Alexander McCall Smith. Published by Abacus. $32.99

OCT23

The Enchanted April, by Elizabeth von Arnim

Two unhappy wives lease an exotic Italian castle for the month of April, with happy results.

Mrs Lotty Wilkins is stuck in a rut, dissatisfied with her marriage to Mellersh, a narrow minded solicitor only interested in money. When she runs into Rose Arbuthnot at her ladies' club, she notices she is reading an advertisement for a place to be let, an exotic castle in rural Italy. The furnished castle is on offer for the month of April, its owner the Englishman Thomas Briggs. The two ladies, who are shy of each other, boldly decide to lease the castle and leave their husbands behind (the devout Mrs Arbuthnot is married to Frederick, who to her displeasure writes racey biographies for quick bucks.) They both feel they need a break from their emotionally exhausting work as devoted wives.

To minimise expenses, the women decide to advertise for two more ladies to join their group. Lady Caroline, a twenty-eight year old heiress with zero interest in men, or anything in particular, signs on for the April holiday. And lastly there is Mrs Fisher, an older, imperious woman, whose claim to fame is a long list of important literary connections.

Upon arrival, all goes to plan. Lotty and Rose find themselves transformed, just as they'd wished, by the beauty of the castle, with its fragrant gardens and sensuously warm weather. The disinterested Lady Caroline mostly keeps to herself, observing the company from afar and making ironic observations. Mrs Fisher remains a hard nut to crack, reserved and difficult, until nearing the end of her stay when events cause her to drop her stony exterior.

British writer Elizabeth von Arnim (she was born in Sydney, Australia, moving to England aged three) wrote The Enchanted April (1922) while staying at Castello Brown, a medieval castle located in northern Italy. The book is rich with atmospheric descriptions, of flowers in bloom and delicious, balmy warm weather. Indeed, the castle works like a spell – on the women and reader alike. One longs to stay at the castle, to be also transformed, and feels envious of von Arnim's characters. 

Despite the text's light, hazy, hallucinatory quality, The Enchanted April is essentially a comedy. It pokes gentle fun at the unfulfilled women, Rose and Lotty, who are divorced from reality, but also gives them a sort of feminist triumph as they manage to subordinate their husbands to their wishes. The impenetrable Lady Caroline and Mrs Fisher, who seem determined to remain unaffected by their surroundings, eventually succumb to the castle's magic too. If there's a writer that comes close to being Jane Austen “light” it's von Arnim. She creates a hypnotically feminine place in the castle and traps everyone within it, passing gentle commentary on her characters with a light, yet sly humour. And like all Jane Austen novels, it ends with happy romantic couplings.
​
A strange yet satisfying mix of comedy and escapism.

The Enchanted April, by Elizabeth von Arnim. Published by Penguin. $22.99

JUNE23

The Secret Adversary, by Agatha Christie

Tommy and Tuppence (Prudence) are old chums, having been friends since childhood. In the years after the First World War, both are at a loose end. Tommy fought and was wounded during the war, while Tuppence served with the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD). Both characters are relentlessly ebullient and cheery; you'd never know they'd served in such a devastating war. In need of money, they vaguely  decide to set up a detective agency. Unwittingly, Tuppence lands both of them plonk in the middle of a mystery concerning a certain Jane Finn, who is carrying a secret document to the American embassy in London.

There are many scrapes and near death experiences as Tommy and Tuppence, with the help of American Julius. P Hersheimmer, try to track down the elusive Mr Brown, head of a Bolshevist conspiracy to bring down the British government. 

The Secret Adversary depends on so many beguiling twists and turns in its plot, so many character exits and entrances, that this reader found it dizzying to keep up with. Or truth be told, the characters were so one dimensional that I started to lose interest in what they were doing. Interestingly, Agatha Christie was a big fan of P. G. Wodehouse, and there are similarities between both writers, especially in this early Christie incarnation (The Secret Adversary was her second novel.) It's all about British derring-do and saying phooey to danger. 

All up this is a good romp, with all the characters displaying the emotional maturity of 13-year-olds. In fact, the book is really a children's adventure. A puzzle to be worked out. An afternoon's entertainment. 

I write all of this as an Agatha Christie fan. A fun cartoon, but not one of Christie's better books.

The Lark, by Edith Nesbit

Some delightful whimsy from much loved children's author Edith Nesbit

Jane and her cousin Lucilla have received bad news. Their guardian has blown their inheritance and they must now be pulled from school. All that is left to the girls - they are actually young adults - is 500 pounds and a small cottage. It's up to them to show pluck and resolve and thus make something of themselves. Jane and Lucilla are thrilled at the news. They disliked school anyway. Rather than see financial catastrophe they imagine the start of a great adventure. 

The First World War has just ended, and there are many people down on their luck. One of them is a Mr Dix, a war veteran, whom the girls stumble across in a gallery. They take him on as a gardener. When the girls move into a bigger house - again, a good piece of luck - they start a market garden business, selling mostly flowers. Soon they are taking on lodgers, many with dodgy reputations. No matter, even when the girls lose money, it's all really just a lark, nothing to get too worried about. 

The novel ends with marriage and much good cheer all round.

The Lark was Edith Nesbit's final novel for adults, published in 1922. It's a difficult book to pigeonhole. It's neither really adult nor children's fiction, but more of a frolic, aimed at readers with a taste for frothy escapist fantasy. Frothy is perhaps not the right word - maybe absurdist or surreal is better, in a similar vein to Lewis Carroll or Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm. Nesbit's exuberant, life affirming prose also reminds of Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream.

A magic holiday read that is a tonic and a delight.

The Lark, by Edith Nesbit. ISBN: 9780241983485. Published by Penguin

At Mrs Lippincote's, by Elizabeth Taylor

A complex portrait of an unsatisfied housewife. 

At Mrs Lippincote's was English writer Elizabeth Taylor's first novel, published in 1945. It centres around the world of Julia Davenant, wife of Roddy, who is an officer in the Royal Air Force. He has been stationed at the house of Mrs Lippincote, who has recently lost her husband and is living elsewhere. It's all a part of the war effort, moving houses and being closer to military locations. The couple have one rather precocious child, Oliver, who is addicted to reading the Brontes, among other fine authors. Roddy's cousin, Eleanor, also lives with them. Somewhat of a misfit, she tries hanging out with a group of socialists.

The novel has little if any plot, and is really a series of episodes, skillfully weaved together by Taylor. Thematically, you could say the story is a feminist portrait of a wife boxed into a role she finds dull and empty, trying to break out and assert her own personality. The best thing about At Mrs Lippincote's is how well rounded a character Julia is - the fed up, bored wife who wants people to realise she's someone with needs and desires - rather than a empty-headed officer's wife. Taylor's portrait of Julia really transcends time, and you can imagine the same woman living today.

I found this a really enjoyable novel. The only other Elizabeth Taylor novel I've read is Angel - a novel I really loved. I wouldn't put At Mrs Lippincote's up there with Angel, but it's definitely worth a look into, as it gives a realistic picture of life in 1940s England. 

At Mrs Lippincote's, by Elizabeth Taylor. Published by Virago. ISBN: 9781844083091

August Blue, by Deborah Levy

A famous pianist travels Europe and finds herself drawn to memories of her troubled and confused childhood.

Elsa M. Anderson is a gifted classical pianist, trained by her mentor / father figure Arthur Goldstein. An orphan, she never knew her parents, and was taken into foster care. At the age of six she was discovered by Goldstein, who adopted the girl. The two have an unusual relationship – musically close, but emotionally ambivalent. Elsa can't quite figure out if Arthur is really a father to her. When he becomes ill, she has feelings of guilt for neglecting him.

When in an Athens flea market, Elsa is drawn to a woman buying two mechanical horses. Pull the tail up and it sets the horse in motion, pull down and it stops. Elsa becomes obsessed with the woman, and when the stranger drops her hat – a stylish fedora – she picks it up and starts wearing it.

As Elsa travels across Europe – England, France, Sardinia, Greece – and meets up with friends and lovers, the mysterious woman keeps appearing. More than that, the woman has entered Elsa's head, conducting short, clipped conversations with her, questions really, about her identity, her essence as a human being. While Elsa entertains this alien consciousness, memories and surreal images from her childhood keep coming back. She especially recalls an image of two horses dragging a piano to her across a paddock, the piano representing her mother.

Strange images, evocative descriptions and uncanny happenings fill this engagingly surreal novel. Levy is a master storyteller, seducing the reader with her simple, sometimes droll language. There's humour to balance out the book's essential mystery, its brooding questions about identity and our place in the world.

Deborah Levy is also a poet and playwright, and these linguistic qualities come out in the text. She has the ability to create a special language all of her own, to command the reader's attention and trust in her unique style of storytelling.
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A wonderfully absorbing, dream-like book that will leave you stunned yet satisfied.

August Blue, by Deborah Levy. Published by Hamish Hamilton. $35

APRIL23

The Enigma of Garlic, by Alexander McCall Smith

A cast of troubled souls throng the pages of Alexander McCall Smith's The Enigma of Garlic, the latest in the 44 Scotland Street series. 

Big Lou and Fat Bob are about to be married, but the bride has much on her mind. Her coffee bar business keeps her busier than she'd like and rumours are that Fat Bob is seeing another woman. Could it be true? Bruce Anderson has been struck by lighting, apparently resulting in a personality change – for the better. Gone is his vanity and replacing it a sense of purpose. He flirts with  joining a monastery. And finally, Stuart Pollock is trying to assert himself when his pushy, estranged wife, Irene, makes an unwelcome return. Stuart's mother tries to dispatch Irene, but events take an unexpected turn.

Most of the novel's plot turns on the resolving of several moral quandaries. Comic relief is offered in the guise of Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, an intrepid nun who has received training from the Vatican's secret service. She successfully trails Fat Bob to find out what his secret is.

A sympathetic, realistic portrait of everyday lives engaged in life's central struggles.

The Enigma of Garlic, by Alexander McCall Smith. Published by Polygon. $34.99

MAR23