Emma Green’s clever debut is a suspense novel with an environmental slant
BOOK OF THE WEEK
The Many Selves Of Katherine North by Emma Green is published in hardback by Bloomsbury Circus. DEBUT novelist Emma Green’s foray into literary science fiction focuses on Katherine “Kit” North, a 19-year-old who projects her consciousness into animals for research purposes.
While living as an urban fox, she suffers an ‘incident’ that threatens her job, then her life, as she discovers that the company she has served for seven years is not as it seems.
Green flips between past and present, human and creature to tell Kit’s coming-of-age story, racking up suspense with a deftly handled environmental slant, while trying to describe radically different ways of experiencing the world.
It is reminiscent of the Matrix and K. A. Applegate’s Animorphs series, and, for the first few chapters, does read like a Young Adult novel with the odd curse word thrown in.
However, Green’s psychological approach to the empathy and disconnect constantly shedding identities causes in its human protagonist lifts The Many Selves into an engaging take on established tropes.
9/10 (Review by Natalie Bowen)
FICTION
The Fireman by Joe Hill is published in hardback by Gollancz. STEPHEN KING’S son Joe Hill is currently enjoying his own successful run of novels, including Horns, which was made into a film starring Daniel Radcliffe. His fourth, The Fireman, is a welcome change to the ‘end of humanity’ genre.
A mysterious, fatal virus is spreading though the world; named Dragonscale, it takes over the person until one day they spontaneously combust.
The story centres on school nurse Harper Grayson, who finds out she is pregnant, but also suffering from this virus. Her plan is simple – she must learn to control the fire and survive long enough to give birth, and avoid her husband who blames her for ‘sentencing him to death’ and is out for revenge.
In order for her to stand a chance of survival, she must learn from a stranger, The Fireman, who has harnessed the illness.
The plot is in no way a slow-burner – Hill creates a fast-paced thriller, with twists in every chapter. Fox have already acquired the rights to the film, so watch while Hill’s book sets the world alight. 8/10 (Review by Phil Robinson)
Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler is published in hardback by Hogarth Shakespeare. THIS modern retelling by Pulitzer prizewinner Anne Tyler of Taming Of The Shrew is the latest in Hogarth’s series of novels bringing Shakespeare up-to-date.
Kate Battista is put upon by her scientist father and her younger sister Bunny. Having had her plans derailed by the loss of her mother, Kate is stalled as the housekeeper to the family. And she’s in trouble at work in a school for her forthright opinions. Then her father comes home with a problem – his genius assistant Pyotr is about to be deported.
For Dr Battista the solution is obvious – his on-the-shelf daughter should marry Pyotr. Kate feels hurt and manipulated.
The interplay of father and daughter is at the heart of the novel, even more than that of Kate and the blunt Pyotr. There are elements of farce as well as the banter between characters – and you can easily read this without knowing the original play.
It’s not a faithful adaptation – and in the age of feminism, some aspects of the “taming” can sit unhappily, but Tyler’s characterisation helps make it believable.
7/10 (Review by Bridie Pritchard)
Crisis by Frank Gardner is published in hardback by Bantam Press. AFTER sharing his extraordinary experiences in his bestselling memoir Blood And Sand, BBC Security Correspondent Frank Gardner has now penned his debut novel.
In the first of a new series of modern spy novels, we are introduced to protagonist, and all-round action hero, Luke Carlton, a former commando currently contracted to MI6. His first outing from headquarters at Vauxhall sends him into the middle of the druglands of the Colombian jungle to uncover who was behind the torture and murder of British Secret Intelligence officer Jeremy Benton.
However, what he originally thought of as an information gathering mission soon gets more complicated when he is double crossed by someone he trusted and is kidnapped by a ruthless drug cartel.
Gardner has created a pace similar to that of James Patterson, each chapter builds to a breathless crescendo of action as it is discovered that a large, dangerous and unique weapon is heading straight for London.
7/10 (Review by Rachel Howdle)
NON-FICTION
Portland Place: Secret Diary Of A BBC Secretary by Sarah Shaw is published in hardback by Constable.
READING this entertaining story of a highly unusual affair between two BBC employees in 1971 will unlock bitter-sweet memories for anyone who lived and worked in “Swinging London”.
Sarah Shaw, the securely middle-class diarist, was 19 at the time. The object of her reciprocated affections was 62-year-old Frank, a married, working-class, Irish lift attendant.
Sarah Shaw, now a retired librarian, says she based the book on a diary she kept from those days. Anyone who wonders whether it could possibly be entirely factual will certainly find it hard to fault the period detail, which is a constant delight. We are right back in a badly-heated world of typewriters and carbon paper and perennial cigarette smoke. There are no mobile phones or computers and the still-prissy BBC is a place where a woman staff member can get into trouble for wearing trousers to work.
There would undoubtedly have been a minor explosion if the hierarchy had discovered what Sarah and Frank were getting up to on the premises. 6/10 (Review by Anthony Looch)