The Arrangement, by Kiersten Modglin

Showing all posts tagged: TBR list

The Arrangement, by Kiersten Modglin

14 October 2021

Ainsley and Peter have been married for years. As far as the outside world is concerned they are happy and successful as a couple. Needless to say, behind closed doors though, it’s a different matter. In a bid to breathe life into their relationship, the couple decide to see other people. They call it the arrangement, which is also the title of American author Kiersten Modglin’s latest novel (published by Amazon Digital Services, January 2021).

But the arrangement comes with stipulations. Both partners must date a different person every week, and two, they are not to discuss with each other what happens while they’re seeing said other person. So far, so good. After all, it’s not as if they’re the only married couple with such an arrangement, no matter how formal. But Ainsley and Peter run into a problem when it comes to confiding in someone else about the other person.

Neither can tell their friends, because they all believe Ainsley and Peter are the perfect couple. So they take to talking to each other, and that’s when cracks start appearing in their plan. Before long they find themselves spiralling into despair, anger, and retribution, and soon the question is being asked, will they even survive, let alone their marriage?

The Ex Talk, by Rachel Lynn Solomon

13 October 2021

How far would you go to save the organisation that has employed you for ten years, a place so beloved, you couldn’t imagine working anywhere else? For Shay, a producer at a radio station in the American city of Seattle, the question seemed like a no-brainer until she was told she must co-host a new show with a colleague, Dominic, whom she detests.

As if that’s not bad enough, she and Dominic need to pose as exes, dispensing relationship advice to their listeners. This is the premise of The Ex Talk (published by Penguin Random House, January 2021), by Netherlands based American author Rachel Lynn Solomon. To the surprise of everyone, especially Shay and Dominic, the show becomes a hit, but as their success grows, the two hosts become ever more uncomfortable with the lie they are forced to live.

The Ex Talk has divided reviewers on Goodreads. Some people feel the story is a tad predictable – would a rom-com be a rom-com if it wasn’t? – while others are, if I may, enamoured by it. I’m yet to partake, so I can’t tell you what I think, but it was the plot outline that caught my eye: would devising story scenarios be the most enjoyable part of writing fiction?

Happy as Larry, by Kaethe Cherney

12 October 2021

Happy as Larry, or Happy as Larry: A New York Story of Cults, Crushes and Quaaludes, to use its full title, is the debut self-published novel of London based American author and film producer Kaethe Cherney. Quaaludes, in case you’re wondering, was the brand name of a sedative–hypnotic medication intended to treat insomnia, though it was commonly used as a recreational drug in the 1970s and 1980s.

Set in the New York of the nineteen-seventies, the story follows, Saskia, a teenager who finds herself grief stricken following the sudden death of her father, and the subsequent disintegration of her family. Saskia also has to contend with a move from their comfortable home in Gramercy Park, to a not so desirable part of town, and adjust to the new high-school she’s forced to attend.

While Saskia is drawn into a world of partying and drugs, her mother turns to alcohol and takes up with a younger man. Meanwhile while her older sister and brother are lured in a cult, and cut-off contact with the family. Happy as Larry has been praised by reviewers for its keen depictions of a New York that no longer exists, making for a poignant reverie for the nostalgic, or a gritty illustration for those who weren’t there.

Wild Place, by Christian White

11 October 2021

Wild Place (published by Affirm Press, 26 October 2021), the third thriller novel of Melbourne based Australian writer Christian White, has I see from the socials, made it into the hands of a few fortunate advance readers. After reading both The Nowhere Child, and The Wife and the Widow, I can only say I’m eagerly anticipating getting hold of this title.

Set in suburban Melbourne during the late nineteen-eighties, with the world in the grips of satanic panic, Wild Place tells the story a school teacher, Tom Witter, who thinks he can help police investigating the disappearance of a local teenager. Unfortunately for Tom though, detectives are not interested in his assistance.

The missing teenager was last seen in an area known as the wild place, a forest area bordering Tom’s property, which also adds to his curiosity, and indeed concern, about the case. In the past the forest reserve had been popular with locals, but in recent years had developed a far less welcoming, and darker, reputation.

Keen to protect his own children, Tom teams up with the local neighbourhood watch group, and begins his own investigation into what happened. Needless to say, as with all stories set in White’s realms, nothing is as it seems, and doubtless readers can expect to be shepherded some way down a particular path before being stunned by one of White’s trademark twists. I cannot wait.

In Moonland, by Miles Allinson

8 October 2021

Afterlives, by Abdulrazak Gurnah, book cover

The birth of a child seems a strange time to start delving into the past, but that’s what happens in the second novel of Melbourne based Australian novelist Miles Allinson, In Moonland (published by Scribe Publications, August 2021). Rather than think about his new born daughter Sylvie, Joe is intent on finding out more about his father, Vincent, who died when Joe was seventeen.

Vincent was a temperamental man, kind one minute, aggressive the next, who once spent time at a spiritual retreat in India. After catching up with Vincent’s surviving friends, Joe discovers something happened in India which had a profound impact on Vincent. Despite what Joe learns though, many questions about his father’s life remain unanswered.

At the time of his death, it was suggested Vincent was trying to stage a car accident so he could make an insurance claim, but Joe discovers that may not have been the case after all. In later years, Sylvie narrates the story, as she travels to meet her estranged father Joe, in a country since ravaged by climate change, and governed by an authoritarian leader.

The Animals in That Country, by Laura Jean McKay

7 October 2021

A flu of pandemic proportions is sweeping the country, and there seems to be little humanity can do to quell it, try as we might. That’s the somewhat familiar premise of The Animals in That Country (published by Scribe Publications, March 2020), the debut novel of New Zealand based Australian writer Laura Jean McKay.

But this disease had an odd symptom: those who become infected are possessed of the ability to understand the languages of animals. While having a conversation with their pets is probably something many people would cherish, that’s not quite the way this flu works. The infected become privy to the thoughts of every last creature. And for some people the result is an unbearable form of information overload. They die a slow death by madness, from an avalanche of once mute voices.

For straight-talking grandmother Jean, who works in a remote Australian wildlife park, the illness is a blessing in disguise. With the exception of Kimberly, her granddaughter, she much prefers the company of animals anyway. But when Lee, her son, leaves with Kimberly, in a bid to escape the outbreak, Jean, accompanied by a dingo named Sue, sees little choice but to go in search of them.

The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig

6 October 2021

If we live in an infinite universe, or an infinite collection of universes, then all things are possible. There may be alternate versions of you and me, somewhere out there, living lives completely different to the ones we recognise as our present reality. Relative to this universe, that is.

The Midnight Library (published by Allen & Unwin, September 2020), the seventh novel of British author Matt Haig concerns itself with similar themes. In the absence, perhaps, of a multiverse, there is the Midnight Library. It is a place located on the edge of our universe, containing an infinite number of books.

One book is an account of the life you currently lead. Then there is another title, where you can read how your life might be, had you made different choices. It is to this far-flung story repository that Nora, a troubled young woman comes to, after she attempts to end her life. Nora has the chance to read the many stories her life could have been, had she decided to do something else.

Through these books, Nora goes on a tour of her mistakes and regrets, and sees where she went wrong. We all know the drill. Should I have taken the other job? Married someone else instead? It’s a charming, enviable, premise. To be able to undo all those bad decisions, and do the “right” thing. If only it were that simple. But if such a notion does appeal to you, maybe The Midnight Library will too.

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Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi

5 October 2021

Homegoing (published by Penguin Books Australia, June 2017), by Brooklyn, New York based Ghanaian-American writer Yaa Gyasi, is a story spanning seven generations and two continents. In the eighteenth century Effia marries an Englishman, and they move into his Cape Coast mansion in Ghana.

Unbeknownst to Effia, her half-sister Esi, who was born in another village in Ghana, is being held captive in the cells below the house, waiting to be sold into slavery. Esi is later sent to a plantation in America. As time moves forward, the stories of both branches of the family are explored through the descendants of Effia and Esi.

Effia’s side of the family contends with long-running wars in Ghana, while Esi’s children and descendants manage to escape slavery, eventually making their way into the jazz clubs of twentieth century Harlem. The violence, hardships, and racism that both sides of the family confront are narrated by Effia and Esi, and six descendants of each.

Despite spanning several centuries, and being seen through the eyes of fourteen different people, Homegoing weighs in at a none too hefty three hundred and twenty pages. It is a brilliance that has seen the book nominated for a slew of literary awards, including the American Book Award, and the International Dublin Literary Award.

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fiction, TBR list, writing, Yaa Gyasi

Ghosts, by Dolly Alderton

1 October 2021

When I first heard the term ghosting, almost ten years ago, it referred to leaving social gatherings without saying goodbye to anyone present, even the host. A person might mutter they were going outside to make a “quick phone call” as a pretext for leaving the room, and bang, they were gone. While ghosting’s context is wider today, it is most commonly applied to situations where someone abruptly ends an intimate relationship, without warning or explanation.

It is a phenomenon that strikes thirty-something Nina, a successful food writer, with everything going for her, in Ghosts (published by Penguin Books Australia, July 2021), the second book by London based journalist and author Dolly Alderton. While her friends are marrying and settling down with families, single Nina feels left behind until she meets Max, the man who seemingly has it all, and wants – so he says – to make a life with her.

But minutes after declaring their love for each other, Max vanishes without a trace. He doesn’t offer a goodbye, nor any reason for breaking off the relationship. But when Nina goes looking for support from her friends and family, no-one’s there. Her friends are distracted by their children, her mother is busy making a new life for herself, while her father is tragically slipping into the mist of dementia.

The Midnight Watch, by David Dyer

30 September 2021

The tragic 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic has intrigued and fascinated me for as long as I can remember. At age ten or eleven I found a battered copy of the late Clive Cussler’s 1976 novel Raise the Titanic!, in a box of books left out on the street, and then a short time later saw the 1953 film of the vessel’s sinking, although all I recall of that now is its haunting ending.

While it’s been sometime since I watched or read anything Titanic related, The Midnight Watch (published by Penguin Books Australia, February 2017), by Sydney based Australian former ship’s officer, and lawyer, turned teacher and writer David Dyer, recently caught my eye. The story is a fictionalised recounting of events on board the SS Californian, one of the ships in the vicinity of the ill-fated Titanic as it was sinking.

While the captain and senior officers of the Californian were aware the Titanic was in distress – it fired numerous distress flares into the night – they chose to keep their distance, even though they were close enough to see the stricken vessel. Why the Californian stayed put is a question The Midnight Watch attempts to resolve, and it is difficult not to wonder how many lives might have been saved had it rendered assistance.

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