Book Review: Soldiers' Daughters by Fiona Fields

MY SYNOPSIS

Imagine This: You are training to be an officer in the army. It sucks. The training is hard, but of course you are doing this to please your dad. Maybe one day, he’d acknowledge your efforts and give back the love he’d starved you off since you were a child.

But anyway, you’ve gotten yourself into the army. A woman. A woman officer in a station where there are only a handful of women. You wished these men you are lording over would respect you, would not be darting weird glances your way across the room or scowling at you——as one dark, sexy, mysterious guy is always doing.

Besides getting your men to respect you, you are looking out for your friend. Your friend who’s always been trouble since boarding school all through the army. Your friend who’s after a married army officer she’s obsessed with. Your friend who’s after this man’s wife to get her away from him.

Certainly no more drama could unfold in the army? But there’s also the fear of being attacked by terrorists, the fear of being attacked by animals, and the fear of losing your heart to someone who hates you so.

Samantha Lewis’ complicated and dangerous life in the army summarised for your delight.

MY REVIEW

 I liked this book. A lot.

First of all, I think I’d keep admiring all the storylines of Fiona Field in her Army series. Because who really knows that much drama goes on in the army? Especially where the wives (or daughters) are concerned. I mean, you know people shoot, you know about guns and bullets and missing limbs. But they kinda don’t show on TV the stuff you get in this book. Because the author has spent time in the army herself, you find yourself wondering if this is fiction or not. Brilliant storyline.── ★

The main characters! Samantha Lewis and Michelle Flowers. I mean, why wouldn’t Samantha be my favourite because her life is more exciting battling dangerous animals, terrorists in the bushes of Kenya, and the teeny-weenie fact that she’s less annoying. I couldn’t stand Michelle! I mean, pursuing someone else’s husband and being totally delusional? But of course, you cannot deny that Fiona Field makes excellent characterization if she makes you actually hate a character you are supposed to hate. A star.── ★★

Other characters were thrilling to read about. There’s Jenna, whose story I was very much interested in after the cheating stunt she pulled in the first instalment of this series. There’s also Maddy Fanshaw, the Army wife battling with raising two kids under two. There’s also Seb, the sex-starved soldier who cannot keep his cock in his khaki. There’s Blake, the dark, scowling, mysterious soldier under Sam. Oh, there’s my super girly fave Immi, who brings some real female energy into this book. There’s Jack Raven, the hunky BBC reporter. Brilliant characters.── ★★★

If you’ve stayed glued to Fiona Field’s army series, you would know there’s a lot of Army drama in the first half, then the second there’s some non-stopping Army action. 

Great suspense! And the chuckling moments were a lot.── ★★★★★

My only not so nice critique about this book was its beginning. The first thirty-pages (I noted) when the girls were training in Army school. It felt too YA for me. But after that school part was all over, you get to see Fiona Field in her usual delightfully entertaining element.

So my rating is 4.5(/5) stars.

The sequel to Fiona Field’s fabulous Soldiers’ Wives, Soldiers’ Daughters is available on amazon.

I recommend it to anyone who has a relation in the army or not. Anyone who wants something action-and -drama-packed this summer should read this. Anyone who wants a life into what it feels like to be a Soldiers’ Daughter should get this too. And if you just want to put something entertaining on your reading list, well, this a great choice.

My work not done here. Off to post my review on Goodreads.

Book Review: A Fifty-Year Silence by Miranda Richmond

A young woman moves across an ocean to uncover the truth about her grandparents' mysterious estrangement and pieces together the extraordinary story of their wartime experiences

In 1948, after surviving World War II by escaping Nazi-occupied France for refugee camps in Switzerland, the author's grandparents, Anna and Armand, bought an old stone house in a remote, picturesque village in the South of France. Five years later, Anna packed her bags and walked out on Armand, taking the typewriter and their children. Aside from one brief encounter, the two never saw or spoke to each other again, never remarried, and never revealed what had divided them forever.

A Fifty-Year Silence is the deeply involving account of Miranda Richmond Mouillot's journey to find out what happened between her grandmother, a physician, and her grandfather, an interpreter at the Nuremberg Trials, who refused to utter his wife's name aloud after she left him.  To discover the roots of their embittered and entrenched silence, Miranda abandons her plans for the future and moves to their stone house, now a crumbling ruin; immerses herself in letters, archival materials, and secondary sources; and teases stories out of her reticent, and declining, grandparents.  As she reconstructs how Anna and Armand braved overwhelming odds and how the knowledge her grandfather acquired at Nuremberg destroyed their relationship, Miranda wrestles with the legacy of trauma, the burden of history, and the complexities of memory.  She also finds herself learning how not only to survive but to thrive – making a home in the village and falling in love.

With warmth, humor, and rich, evocative details that bring her grandparents' outsize characters and their daily struggles vividly to life, A Fifty-Year Silence is a heartbreaking, uplifting love story spanning two continents and three generations. 

PURCHASE| GOODREADS

 MY REVIEW

Guys, this is my first stab at non-fiction. And I am so, so surprised I ‘loved, loved’ it that much, I’d be urging you all to go buy it. I mean, I would have been urging you all to go buy it already (as if you had a choice!), but I didn’t think I’d love it that much. So my review:

First of all, I loved the whole reason that motivated this story. Love, War and a place to call home during times where displacement to avoid death was as much as an in-thing as property-scouting in LA (in case you end up becoming a reality TV star). A granddaughter investigating the reason her grandparents split up for fifty years and never spoke to each other! Never spoke of their love with each other, never spoke of the reasons of their separation. A well-lettered couple who always put down records of their lives in a journal during the times of the Holocaust, but then, there’s a huge gap about how they met, how they fell in love, why the woman packed up all her possessions including the children and just left. I figure stuff like this are what non-fiction books are made of. Very intriguing and brow-knitting material. A star to the storyline.── ★

I loved the whole presentation of this work. A story in which the end is already known to the reader (though not your cheesy romantic comedy!), a start that’s very hard to decipher, and an even more confusing, puzzling middle. The whole ending is they split up without seeing or speaking to each other for fifty years. But, was it a happy marriage or one filled with terrible memories? Did they marry out of love or forced together by circumstances of the war (a ‘you only live once’ moment)? Where did their love story all start from? And where did it all end at? Most importantly, what did the middle of this love story entail? Miranda Richmond presents a story that has huge gaps from start to finish. Her duty to connect the dots rifling through old journals of her grandparents, asking her reticent grandparents questions about this separation, looking through old Holocaust records to put their stories together when the parties involved were not being cooperative enough. More discovery leads nowhere or anywhere, a research so involving our researcher finds herself being accused by friends and family of having her purpose in life mistaken. ── ★★

There’s enough suspense to keep you glued to this book. With a grandmother whose evasiveness would sometimes get you clenching your teeth in annoyance or happy to be learning a lot about these moments that shook the world, a grandfather who flies into rage anytime word of his ex-wife is mentioned, and their (love) story which holds much prominence in history, how could you not be glued to your seat? I read it all in two days, twitching nervously in my seat for hours on end.── ★★★

The two main characters: the grandparents, were lovely. They had so much personality it was such an amazing experience reading about the adventures(?) of two well-lettered jews during such dark times in history. You would love Anna, the grandmother, who was carefree in her days before the war, whose views on things such as life, wisdom, are enlightening as well as inspiring, whose evasiveness gives her actions a whole mysterious nature. You would also adore, Armand, who is so much uptight and particular about how things should be done (it’s not a wonder his wife left him), who is so reserved and a total snub to anyone who has high-spirits as his ex-wife, who naturally pushes anyone aside as a weird way of loving them. Their jobs in medicine and linguistics in a time of war is also informative. A star to the main objects of Miranda’s research.── ★★★★

Other characters also make this book a masterpiece. Miranda, herself, whose quest to find out what truly happened with her grandparents which no one in her family had ever bothered themselves with, whose undying curiosity gives this book the depth it has, whose selflessness at the expense of her living is put to much questioning by family and friends. Julien, the man who gave our lead character all her restless soul really needed: a home of her own (with a family that has suffered much displacement). Erna, a grandaunt who played an important part in her grandparent’s (love) story.  A star to these characters.── ★★★★★

My rating is obviously a five out of five stars (5/5 stars).

Miranda Richmond’s A Fifty-Year Silence is one of those moving, inspiring, informative books you must purchase about one girl’s quest to find answers everyone is, um, silent about.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves a good, old, love story set in a treacherous historical background (as the holocaust). Anyone who has had enough of Hitler literature and would want to learn about the ordinary lives of Jewish families and the effect the war had on them. Also any of you, like me, who love sinking into DW TV’s holocaust-styled documentaries, would revere this title so much.

Look out for my interview with Miranda Richmond for a more insightful look into this title.

My work not done here. Off to post my review on Goodreads.

Submissions for Fiery Fabulous Summer Reading List' open

FIERY, FABULOUS SUMMER READING LIST.

From May 9th, I am beginning my Fiery Fabulous Summer Reading List where I put up and review, host special Summery features and giveaways for loads of sunny books for readers to enjoy these hot days ahead.

Whether funny, intriguing, suspenseful, or just fabulously beachy, book agents, publicists, publishing houses, authors and other workaholics can email me about SUMMER 2015 titles they would like me to include in this feature.

Last year, the following Summery Books won my heart:

And so much more!

Happy approaching summer with lots of natural tan and so much weight-gain in all the right places. Remember, look healthy, feel good, read a book!

Ground-Breaking Titles of 2014: Books That Changed The Face of Chick-lit

I had been meaning to post this way back when I had too much time on my hands but never got around to. So as I have taken a mini-blogging break, I would leave you with my list of:

GROUND-BREAKING Books of 2014: BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE FACE OF CHICK-LIT.

(Not listed in any order)

The List by Joanna Bolouri.

Following the adventures of one shy girl with a naughty list, this book has a plot that sets it apart from all other chick-lit titles you’ve ever read. Told in the form of a diary, this book has lots to keep you engaged and SO MUCH MORE TO KEEP YOU GASPING FOR SHOCK! Not to mention it’s funny as hell, and of course sexy as Helen Mirren.  PURCHASE| READ REVIEW

An Open Marriage by Tess Stimson.

I love Tess Stimson because she’s not afraid to use the letters on her keyboard to talk about issues a lot of society frowns upon (except for the old who are now embracing a YOLO approach to life). Focusing on the much hush-hushed swinging life of older marriages, Tess Stimson pens an emotionally steamy novel stacked with lots of lessons to learn from in our rapidly-changing society blurring the lines between adultery and fidelity as well as morality and immorality.  PURCHASE| READ REVIEW

Christmas In The Snow by Karen Swan.

This book puts down the notion that Chick-lit cannot be fast-paced and very intriguing without guns and women sleuths. Karen Swan speaks on issues of feminism and women in high-ranking positions where male-domination is the opposite of what’s said in a Beyoncé track. Now, a book about ‘dark family secrets’ with dark, twisted family secrets! Absolutely ground-breaking! .  PURCHASE| READ REVIEW

A Husband’s  Confession by Zoe Miller.

This is not your ordinary infidelity book! I never thought the main issue behind a book about infidelity could be something besides the ‘Oh, well, he cheated’ fact. Laced with family rivalry, intrigue, suspense and lots of ‘when the fuck is he going to cheat?’ moments, this book is told in present day and past day narratives that gives it a hallmark character! .  PURCHASE| READ REVIEW

Courting Trouble by Kathy Lette.

Listed as the funniest book of 2014, Kathy Lette’s latest release isn’t all about one big book with so much chemistry between the protagonists and too much to laugh at. Putting across issues such as battling rape and its repercussions for feminists and rape-haters all-alike, Kathy Lette tells a remarkable story laden with suspense and so many issues of sexism swept under the carpet. .  PURCHASE| READ REVIEW

So there you have it. And you can vouch that as it appears on this blog, these books have NEVER, EVER, EVER BEEN DONE in chick-lit/women’s fiction. These titles demonstrate chick-lit is not all about ‘That Pink Book’! And by these titles, CHICK-LIT WOULD NEVER, EVER, EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN!

Mini Blogging Break.

Hello Everyone,

As you’ve noticed, for some time now I haven’t been regular with my reviews.

No, this is not a short of books on my part (fortunately), it’s that I have been trying hard to balance education with blogging and the result: One book review per week. Sad, I know.

One book per week has now evolved to no-book per week thanks to the motherfucker called examination. (No need to excuse my French because it isn’t French at all!). As much as I hate examinations and everything about formal education (you would find out here——although if I were you, a consistent reader of my blog, I wouldn’t click the link because I would be aware of the misleading nature of the owner of this blog and his love for very NFSW material), I have to put away fiction to read more painful Thomas Hardy. (Fiction should be entertaining, thank you).

Long story short, it’s recess from blogging till May 9th.

Summer Reading awaits! Christ, I am announcing my desire for a very sunny shelf this 

May(!) so feel free book agents, publicists, authors, and other workaholics to email me about Summer 2015 titles!

Thank you for understanding.
Kobby.

Book Review: How Do You Know by Meredith Schorr.

What if you were approaching the end of your thirties and all of the life milestones you took for granted in your youth suddenly seemed out of reach?

On the eve of her thirty-ninth birthday, Maggie Piper doesn't look, act, or feel much different than she did at twenty-nine, but with her fortieth birthday speeding towards her like a freight train, she wonders if she should. The fear of a slowing metabolism, wrinkling of her skin, and the ticking of her biological clock leaves Maggie torn between a desire to settle down like most of her similarly-aged peers and concern that all is not perfect in her existing relationship. When a spontaneous request for a temporary "break" from her live-in boyfriend results in a "break-up," Maggie finds herself single once again and only twelve months from the big 4.0. In the profound yet bumpy year that follows, Maggie will learn, sometimes painfully, that life doesn't always happen on a schedule, there are no deadlines in love, and age really is just a number.

MY REVIEW

If you’ve read previous titles of Meredith Schorr, and you loved them, there would be no need to read the blurb of her every new book before jumping into it. I didn’t consider the blurb.

The storyline is everyday mainstream women’s fiction. Girl approaching her forties, Girl not considering marriage with a man she has no spark with, Girl wondering if there’s more to love than good company.

Just like every tale set in New York, there’s a mix of friends in the city who go on and on about relationships, ageing, babies in later years. An insightful title for anyone approaching their forties with style or with dread (much like our main character).

The main character, is lovely. Very relatable to all women hitting their forties. Other characters you would also enjoy are, an Aunt with conventional values about marriage who loves to put pressure on our main character, an understanding mother who’s surprisingly calm that her daughter might be breaking up with her best man yet, Phillip—an ageing hottie boss in our lead’s workplace, Ben—a laidback guy our lead encounters.

Having read all three of Meredith Schorr titles, I really, really had hopes for this one. I did like it. But it was just a normal read, nothing I would gush heavily about. I felt I needed more. I wished it wasn’t too conventional women’s fiction.

My rating: Three /five stars (3/5 stars)

How Do You Know is available on amazon

My work not done here. Off to post my review on Goodreads.