Review: Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

I've never read any books by Alice Feeney before but the gorgeous cover caught my eye, as well as the mention that the story has a deliberate nod towards a certain Agatha Christie classic!

After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for her Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. When the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.

The family arrives, each of them harbouring secrets. Then, at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows. Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one-by-one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide goes out at dawn and all is revealed.

I loved the deliciously spooky setting: a gothic house, perched on a rocky outcrop during a thunderstorm. The character of Nana, with her twisted fairy tale rhymes and collection of clocks, was fabulous. The little pictures of the waves growing larger at the beginning of each chapter, as the tension racked up, were a great finishing touch and the cover is utterly gorgeous. The story is beautifully written and terrifically clever in the way everything is wrapped up at the end. The only thing that stopped it being a five-star read for me was that the final twist is a trope I hate (sorry!), and it reminded me of another classic story that I won't mention because of spoilers! If you don't spot that reference in advance, you will be stunned.

Daisy Darker would appeal to anyone who loves 'locked room' style mysteries, dysfunctional families, gothic settings, and authors such as Agatha Christie, Lucy Foley and Riley Sager.

Thank you to Alice Feeney and Pan MacMillan for my copy of this book, which I requested via NetGalley and reviewed voluntarily.

Review: The Book of Magic (Practical Magic #4) by Alice Hoffman

I first fell in love with Alice Hoffman's stories after watching the 90s film Practical Magic - which, ironically, is nothing like the book!

Since writing Practical Magic, over twenty-five years ago, Alice Hoffman has written two prequels and now this sequel. You could probably read The Book of Magic without reading the other three, or only after watching the film, but you'd be missing out on a wonderful series.

Thanks to falling in love with the wrong man, Maria Owens ends up on a scaffold accused of witchcraft and curses any man who falls in love with an Owens woman ('broken, body and soul'). Four hundred years later and her family are still feeling the tragic effects of this curse. After witnessing her mother's suffering, teenager Kylie Owens has no intention of risking the life of the boy she has fallen in love with and is determined to do anything to break the curse, once and for all. Even if that means abandoning her family and heading back to England (where it all began), and risking her own life by using a dark magic book that was once owned by Maria's daughter...

I loved this story! Although it starts with several shocks - have a box of tissues handy! - it is a wonderful finale to the series. The different branches of the family are finally reunited and they travel to England to walk in the footsteps of their ancestor, Maria. They make friends with other witches, see ghosts, and work together to try to break the curse. It is a lovely, heart-warming story; a kind of family saga but with witches! I adored the references to the previous books, the reappearance of the aunts, and the rules of magic: no walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, and absolutely no books about magic... Utterly fabulous!

Thank you to Alice Hoffman and Simon & Schuster for my copy of this book, which I requested via NetGalley and reviewed voluntarily.

Related Post:

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

Review: The Dressmaker of Paris by Georgia Kaufmann

I was attracted to this book by the absolutely gorgeous cover (a pair of scissors representing the Eiffel Tower). I also love historical novels.

Rosa Kusstatscher has built a global fashion empire upon her ability to find the perfect outfit for any occasion. But tonight, as she prepares for the most important meeting of her life, her usual certainty eludes her. As she struggles to select her dress and choose the right shade of lipstick, Rosa begins to tell her incredible story. The story of a poor country girl from a village high in the mountains of Italy. Of Nazi occupation and fleeing in the night. Of hope and heartbreak in Switzerland; glamour and love in Paris. Of ambition and devastation in Rio de Janeiro; success and self-discovery in New York. A life spent running - but she will run no longer.

The Dressmaker of Paris wasn't quite what I was expecting! I had thought it would be more a glamorous read, like one of those old 80s novels by Judith Krantz or Barbara Taylor Bradford. Instead it is grittier, even a bit dark in places, more like a family saga - so not really for me. The format is a story within a story, meaning we never get right into Rosa's head but witness her life at a distance. However, it is well-written and well-researched, and perfect for anyone who loves 20th century historical fiction, covering the 1930s to the 1990s. A solid four-star read.

Thank you to Georgia Kaufmann and Hodder & Stoughton for my copy of this book, which I requested from NetGalley and reviewed voluntarily.

Review: The Faithful by Juliet West

I loved the cover of this book and the plot intrigued me. I don't read many books set in the 1930s and it's a period that I don't know much about. I had heard of Oswald Mosley and the blackshirts, and I thought it an interesting choice of background for a novel, so I couldn't wait to read the book.

The story starts in West Sussex in 1935. Sixteen year old Hazel has been mainly left on her own for the summer with just the family housekeeper for company. Lots of opportunity for mischief! Her father has gone to live and work in Paris with his mistress, and her mother keeps flitting off to London with her married lover. Hazel's family are well-to-do and they live in a big house with only an old flint wall dividing their garden from the beach. When Hazel sees a group of people in uniform set up camp on the beach she is fascinated. These are Oswald Mosley's 'blackshirts', the British Union of Fascists, and when Hazel sees them parade through the town she thinks they are very glamorous.

Tom, a young working class lad from Lewisham, feels differently. He is at the camp with his parents, who are attracted to Oswald Mosley's party because of the apparent anti-war stance, but he is already starting to question the blackshirts' politics. And then he meets Hazel.

The Faithful is a coming-of-age story, about two young people who make choices and then have to live with the consequences of their actions. Because the characters were so engaging I found their story completely gripping. It is very well written and I loved all the descriptions of Sussex at the height of summer and the period detail about the 1930s - although I did find myself wincing every time Hazel lit up yet another cigarette! From my 21st century viewpoint, I also found it hard to understand why Hazel continued her association with the blackshirts after she realised exactly what they stood for. But I could appreciate she had a good reason, which I won't go into because of spoilers.

The story is divided into three parts. Part one ends just before a pivotal event, and part two continues a year after that event. It was not hard to guess what that event was, and I would have preferred to have read about it as it happened, rather than have it hinted at later in the story.

Beside Hazel and Tom, the other viewpoints are Hazel's rather selfish mother Francine, bitterly seeing her youth slipping away from her and, by contrast, Tom's mother Bea, who would do anything to protect her son. They are both flawed characters, which I always find interesting and, like their offspring, they both made choices that would affect the rest of their lives. I did feel that Francine's story could have been developed a bit more, and there were a few other issues/questions I'd have liked to have seen resolved at the end.

But I did really enjoy reading The Faithful and would certainly recommend it to anyone who loves reading historical fiction. It would probably appeal to fans of family sagas too. I'm planning on lending my copy to my mother, who loves this kind of thing - but she had better let me have it back!


Thank you to Mantle/Pan Macmillan for providing me with an advance review copy of this book in return for an honest review.