The Impossible Story of Hannah Kemp by Leonie Agnew. Pub. Walker books, 2023

I liked Hannah Kemp the character. She is imaginative, caring, literate, has a good sense of humour but she is troubled and she is not letting the real Hannah out. The best thing about this novel is that Leonie Agnew gets inside the head of this troubled girl to analyse the problems she has, but she does it in a very unusual way.

Hannah has got her herself into trouble due to relationship troubles with her friends at school and she does something that gives her notoriety through a loss of temper. This is not the source of her troubles however these lie in the fact that she is adopted and like all teenagers she is clashing with her parents particularly her mother.

The fact that she is adopted is very obvious to all as her father is Asian and she looks nothing like her adopted mother, so everybody knows. Her adopted parents are very good, they have told her the history of her mother how she was taken from her mother for abandoning Hannah in a hot airless car. But they haven’t told her everything.

Hannah is to find out about her mother and her past in a surreal way. A mobile library comes to town with a strong woman librarian who has a book that seems to tell the story of Hannah’s past and present life. Hannah discovers this, takes the book, reads about her life, and mysteriously two characters fall out of the book and one of them is her mother Jasmine or a replica of her.

Hannah and her replica mother react and get a lot of shit out of the way which leads to a dramatic but satisfying ending. Another character falls out of the book but you will have to read it to find out who.

Well written with imaginative descriptions and some sharp discussions between Hannah and her parents and friends. lots of girl talk and boys It’s Mean Girls meets Frankenstein. There is also a baby duckling who makes quite an impact.

I dare you to read it. I enjoyed it although some may find it far fetched. The title has the word Impossible in it and that says a lot.

The Candle Trees by Anthony Holcroft. Pub. Quentin Wilson Pubs. 2022

13 year old Julian meets his great grandma, who is well into her 90’s, when she comes to stay for her last days and takes over Julian’s bedroom. He is miffed of course but soon changes his mind when he finds a journal that Julia had written when she was 15 years old and lost in the forests and jungle on the Argentine/Paraquay border.

Enthralled by a story told to her by her uncle while staying at his house, Villa Rosa, in Gaucho country in Northern Argentina, in which he describes a magical Candle tree which has magical healing properties. Julia knows that north of the matto grosso where she is staying there is a forest and she persuades her maid servant to ride to the edge of the forest where she hopes to find the candle trees.

Of course she gets lost, finds an Indian girl Taina to assist her find her way back but gets deeper into the forest where she meets a brute of a man called Andreas and together they cross rivers, meet a jaguar, face starvation but will they find the candle trees. Read it and find out.

Old fashioned writing and story telling at it’s best. You don’t get novels written like this any more and it is a delight. I had the fortune to travel through Northern Argentina, into Parquay and along the Rio Parana in the early 1970’s so this story was totally enthralling to me and it will be for you as well.

One of the best NZ novels this year.

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Double Helix by Eileen Merriman pub. Black Swan, Imprint Penguin Random House, 2021.

A medical drama out of the top draw for young adults and adults. As is the case of all Eileen Merriman’s novels medical ethics and practice are at the heart of it all which makes the novels such powerful reading.

This novel is about Emily and Jake who have known each other for most of their lives and are fated to be together but for how long? Emily’s father is a doctor and has always pressured her to be a doctor but Emily has doubts. “what if I make a mistake and kill someone?”

Jake is drawn to medicine and wants to be a doctor and regards surgery as survival of the fittest but he has a timebomb within. His mother had Huntingdon’s disease and died when Jake was a teenager. Jake figures he has the gene that will affect his life like that of his mother. One of the messages of this novel is “If you want to spend your whole life worrying about what might happen then you’re missing out”.

The plot moves from Northland to Dunedin to Melbourne as Jake and Emily follow their careers and their relationship. The timebomb within Jake and a dark secret between Jake and Emily underline their lives. Is the double helix of DNA going to dominate their lives together or are other forces going to predominate? Read it and find out.

The medical talk is a highlight of the novel – there is a profile of Huntingdon’s disease- the third most common cause of death from HD is suicide. The gene is passed through to offspring but may not be and how do you know or act if a test is inconclusive? If you know you are going to get it should you leave an Advance directive of what you want to happen when the disease takes hold? What are the family to do if they have to decide or are asked to assist with the death a sufferer?

There are other characters who are worthwhile following – Kylie a flamboyant girl with flaming red hair, Jim, who is Emily’s father and disapproves of Jake and Emily’s relationship and other student and medical associates who party, get drunk, inter-relate plus a gay couple who have a surrogate baby.

The plot has several different time spans from 2003 to 2019 from childhood to university to adulthood and in each relationships advance and change or are fostered. I didn’t know doctors drunk so much. Each chapter is headed by the title of a popular song and there are three parts to the novel in three locations dealing with the drama of the lives of Jake and Emily and all who know them.

Compelling reading from a novelist at the top of her game.

AVAILABLE 31 AUGUST

The Silence of Snow by Eileen Merriman. Pub. Black Swan, 2020.

Two things hit me very quickly when I started to read this adult medical drama. Firstly how terribly difficult it must be to maintain a long distance romantic relationship. Secondly how frightening it is to expect young doctors to do 15 hour shifts when they are dealing with life and death situations in a hospital.

There are two main characters and things are going to get hot between them.

Jodi is in her late twenties, she is attractive but unsure of herself because she comes from a family of doctors and wonders is she doing the right thing for herself and everybody else. She is in a relationship with Fraser who lives in Dunedin while she works further north. It is nearing Xmas and because of work schedules and the demand from the hospital Jodi is unable to go to Dunedin to be with Fraser. He has visited her but their relationship is around bickering-why can’t you come down? you are always tired. That sort of thing.

Rory is slightly older, from Scotland with a smooth Scottish accent and a quick wit. The female doctors and nurses are smitten by him but he has a problem and a past. He is an anaesthetist and early in the novel assists Jodi in a desperate medical event. Rory deals with the pressures of work by self prescribing uppers and downers for however he feels. He is becoming addicted.

Rory is free and easy, drinks a lot and is slightly promiscuous because the women are available.

The first encounter between Jodi and Rory is sensual. Both feel the chemistry and it is a matter of time before they do the wild thing. Jodi has a relationship, Rory has a past and a problem. How can everything be resolved. Read it and find out.

Very well written in short chapters that have breaks for you to stop and reflect or get the tranquilisers out. The romance is hot and the medical events often disturbing. When Jodi and Rory have their first kiss, Jodi feels she is letting the wolf in and Rory feels his universe has been disturbed. One of the best devices Eileen makes is to provide the thoughts of the character in any situation written in italics. many of them will mirror your own thoughts.

I loved this novel, you will too. So what is the title all about? Well you don’t hear snow fall, until you are in the middle of a drift. Compelling reading.

Time To Remember by Janna Ruth. Self published 2020. www.janna-ruth.com

“Trauma can have lasting effects on your mental and physical health” This novel written in late 2020 started out to show the effects of earthquake trauma on children at the tenth anniversary of the first quake that hit Canterbury in the early morning of September 4th 2010.

Janna Ruth is a best selling German author who was in Christchurch through all the Earthquakes but the traumatic events that are the Covid 19 pandemic needed to be included in the story as well. She does this successfully in a very compelling novel to read.

Josh and Nathalie are her two main characters and both were 10 years old when the first earthquake hit but it was the February earthquakes that affected them the most.

Josh and Nathalie both attend the University of Canterbury and both are involved in writing articles and publishing the Student newspaper Canta. At the start of the novel they dislike each other intensely and both are involved in relationships within their social circle. Nathalie suggests a special piece on the tenth anniversary of the quakes in which students are asked to write stories of their experiences and Josh is particularly vitriolic at her suggestion. Why? Read it and find out.

Trauma of the earthquakes is at the heart of Josh’s problems as it is with the behaviour of many of the characters in this novel. In many ways it is a love story which explores the fine line between love and hate.

The lockdown because of Covid helps consolidate opinions and situations. Very much an exploration of student relationships which add much of the drama to the novel. I can tell you no more except to say I lived in Christchurch through the earthquakes and attended University of Canterbury.

This novel was real enough to me. One character says this “We lost my mum. One of those white chairs on the lawn was hers”. Of course the words “EQC stinks” will ring true for many people.

A novel to remember.

Breathless by Jennifer Niven. Pub. Penguin Books, 2020.

I lingered over this romance novel and was sorry when I finished it. I can’t possibly replicate the passion and feeling of this novel in a review except to say “first love will leave you breathless”.

Claudine , (Claude) Henry is as happy as she can be. She lives in small town Ohio, her parents are creative, she is 18 years old and still a virgin and looks forward to when her virginity has gone. She has a fantasy about the boy she wants to take her virginity but he is aloof and unaware of her feelings.

Everything she feels is shared with her best friend Saz. The phone, text and skype to each other all the time. Their discussions on virginity are at times hilarious. Saz is lesbian but this has nothing to do with their relationship. The two plan to do a road trip in summer before both go to college in separate states but they vow that their relationship will be forever.

Then the Sh*t hits the fan. Claude’s father tells her that he is breaking up with her mother and there is nobody else. Is this true? Lauren the mother takes Claude away under protest to a family home on an island off the coast of Georgia with a history that is intriguing.

On the island Claude meets Jeremiah a boy with a lot of charm but a disturbing past. They fall in love over the next 32 days. He is so beautiful it hurts her heart. She can walk the beaches of the island and it is a rare person you can be silent with. Will he take her virginity? Jeremiah warns her not to fall in love with him and she gives him the same warning but will both be able to do this? read it and find out.

Some lovely descriptions of the island and the feelings Jeremiah and Claude have for each other. I enjoyed the book and so will you. As good a romance as you are going to get.

Swimming Lessons. Poems by Lili Reinhart, illus. by Curt Montgomery. Pub. HarperCollins, 2020.

I awoke in the night and couldn’t sleep so I picked this excellent anthology to read until sleep took me. It never did. The poems entranced me so much that I had to finish and they will do the same to you.

The poems are short and long, some a few lines others three or four pages. Many are a series of couplets, sometimes three lines then a single line. None of them rhyme in the traditional way poetry does. The poetry comes from the beautiful flow of language.

The themes are love from the beginnings of young love with it’s newness and it’s doubts. The reader will know all the feelings described and the heartbreak when things go wrong.

The poems have no titles, they are separated by a blank red page and they make compulsive reading. Everyone wants love to last forever and in one poem these words describe that:- Forever has an expiry date. There is no always. No forever. Just now.

How true.

Other prophetic subjects are covered such as reincarnation. Maybe you believe in reincarnation but even if that happens, you come back as an entirely different being in an entirely different life.

The poems are superbly illustrated in red and black ink outlines that say so much and enhance the written poetry.

For high school and young adult readers plus adults. The most moving book of poems I have ever read.

Deadhead by Glenn Wood illus. Scott Pearson. Pub. OneTree House, 2020.

This novel for reluctant readers, particularly boys, starts at a rate of knots and never lets the reader go until the end. It has action, it is violent, it is over the top witty, it is very clever and it has a satisfying ending.

You can’t get better than that.

Spenser and his friend Regan are 13 years old. Spenser is very smart and Regan likes to be around him not that he notices her very much in the way she notices him.

Spenser is being bullied by a rich kid, Carl, who forms a gang based on the Yakuza. Spenser provides him with a samurai sword but it still does not stop the bullying. Spenser has a plan to resurrect a copper who was recently killed in a gang confrontation, turn him into a robot with some clever engineering and protect himself from Carl and his pretend Yakuza gang.

Regan and Spenser dig the decomposing body up and create a moveable zombie like character dressed in his ex cop uniform. It solves the problem for a while but then something weird happens but you will have to read the novel to find out what it is.

Needless to say they have created a crazy zombie cop with a heart. The real Yakuza come into it as does a criminal gang.

Superb creative and imaginative novel that will make you laugh all the way through. Told in short chapters with graphic novel illustrations at the end of each chapter that summarise the important action.

One of the best novels of the year.

Loveless by Alice Oseman.

Loveless by Alice Oseman. Pub. HarperCollins, 2020.

This 430 page novel for high school students and young adults is about sexuality and romance. How do we know who we are attracted too? What is the spark that turns attraction into love? How important is sex and romance in peoples lives? Does everybody have erotic dreams? What happens if you don’t feel attracted to anybody? What if you don’t feel attracted to boys, girls,  both or neither?

Georgia is 18 years old and has just finished High school. She has never kissed anyone and is still a virgin. She doesn’t know if she is gay or straight because she feels revulsion at any sexual contact at all and she is worried that she will never have a partner and love a normal life.

She has two friends – Pip who is an attractive Latino girl who knows she is a lesbian and makes no bones about it, and Jason a shy boy who is attracted to Georgia but she doesn’t know it. All three are off to Durham University and all three are into acting and drama especially Shakespeare. Georgia hopes that the questions about her sexuality will be answered at university.

While at University she is paired with a girl named Rooney in a flat. Rooney is totally out there. She goes clubbing, mixes well, has sex because she likes it and is everything that Georgia wants to be. All four characters form a Shakespeare club and plan to put on scenes from Shakespeare’s plays that are key scenes. But the sexuality question gets well and truly in the way. Read it and find out how.

I read this book in small chunks but it was compelling reading and I was sorry when it was finished. It is really addressing  asexuality or aromanticism. Some scenes are hilarious some down right embarrassing but always right on the nail. Everybody is interested in the subjects discussed here and to do so with a good story is brilliant.

The Shakespeare scenes are superb. My YA book of the year.

Madame Badobedah by Sophie Dahl.

Madame Badobedah by Sophie Dahl. Pub. Walker Books, 2019.

If I was an old woman I would like to be like Madame Badobedah. Mysterious, well kept, says “darlink” and keeps to herself.

She arrives at the Mermaid Hotel with two dogs, two cats, a tortoise and 23 bags and moves into room 32. Mabel is a resident of Mermaid Hotel and she keeps an eye on things and she decides Madame Badobedah is suspicious.

Mabel is a young girl with imagination and she treats every room in the Mermaid Hotel as a brother or a sister.  She imagines fantastical exploits with Madame and they become good friends. Read it and see what happens.

Great illustrations portray Madame , the Mermaid Hotel and an English seaside resort . Sophie Dahl’s text  tells a whimsical story with intrigue and mystery.

For primary and intermediate readers but adults will love this as well.