BOOK REVIEWS: A writer's view of other writers

 Mrs Hudson and Sherlock Holmes by Liz Hedgecock

A few months ago, when I couldn’t find anything I fancied reading, I stumbled upon Liz Hedgecock’s cozy comic fantasy series about a magic bookshop  and found it mildly diverting. The books were easy to read quickly, undemanding, gently entertaining, fairly forgettable. However, while looking them up on my Kindle, I noticed she had written a series of detective novels which used the conceit that Mrs Hudson was much more than Sherlock Holmes’s middle-aged housekeeper. I remembered reading some books like this several years ago, novels which I had found gripping and entertaining at the time, and I thought it was odd that Liz Hedgecock might have written them as my knowledge of her writing was based on the magic bookshop series.

            In fact, it turned out that she hadn’t. The books I was thinking of were by Martin Davies. However, Hedgecock’s trilogy about Mrs Hudson also proved to be superior to the magic bookshop series, being much longer, much less lightweight and in my opinion better written.

            In this fictional world, Mrs Hudson is young, attractive and married to a police officer. However, in book one, her husband vanishes and she is forced to take in lodgers to make ends meet. This leads to her meeting Sherlock and Dr Watson, both young men here, and becoming Sherlock’s assistant initially, then later his colleague and eventually his wife! This is all good fun, and is wrapped around a fairly interesting series of mysteries to be solved. The plots are as silly as in the original Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, but we view them through female eyes which is quite enlightening.

            It was entertaining to see the Holmesian world from a female viewpoint – clothes and make-up, fashion, life in domestic service, the rules of mourning, the strict protocols about visiting and other social interactions, and the restrictions put upon women at the time, are all fascinating and offer a new way of interpreting the stories. Sherlock himself is not undermined by Mrs Hudson’s detecting success, but our view of her as a slightly prim landlady, bemused by Sherlock’s shenanigans, is thoroughly dismantled.

            I enjoyed these novels very much, though they are definitely light reading. They have enough substance to keep the reader interested, and provide excellent reading material for winter afternoons , but they aren’t works of high-brow literature. Hedgecock has written another Holmes series, plus several other cozy detective series involving women detectives, with both modern and historical settings. I would give most of her novels that I've read three stars, but this particular series deserves four.

 

**** Recommended

If you liked these books, other series which take a sideways look at the iconic Sherlock Holmes stories include:

Sherlock & Jack series by Liz Hedgecock

Holmes and Hudson mysteries by Martin Davies

Mrs Hudson of Baker Street series by Barry S Brown

Mrs Hudson and  Mary Watson Investigations by Michelle Birkby

The Gower Street Detective series by M.R.C.Kasazian (about Sidney Grice,  a detective similar to Holmes)

The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry (more of a literary novel than the others on this list}

 

Other novels by Liz Hedgecock:

Booker and Fitch cozy detective series

Maisie Frobisher cozy detective series

Pippa Parker Mysteries series

The Librarian of Crooked Lane ]Book 1 in The Glass Library series]  by C.J. Archer

This is the first in a series called The Glass Library series. The second book is released today, I believe. These stories are very similar in style to the Liz Hedgecock novels. Set just after the First World War, in a world which is very like our own but in which magic exists, they are the adventures of Sylvia, a young woman who is struggling to survive after the deaths of her brother in the war and her mother of illness. She has never known her father.

        While attempting to investigate her brother's claims in his diary that he might be a silver magician, Sylvia becomes embroiled in an art crime mystery, which leads to her getting to know a handsome and charismatic young man, from a wealthy, eccentric and prestigious family, who happens to be a detective. The basic plot is enjoyable but uninspiring, but the characters are quite endearing and there are some imaginative touches here and there. Archer leaves enough threads hanging loose to suggest that the second book will build on them. 

        I would describe this as a cross between a cosy period detective story, a romance and a magical fantasy, a pleasant book to wile away time while drinking tea or before dropping off to sleep in bed.

*** pleasant, undemanding 

Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire [first in The Wayward Children series]

This is another YA fantasy series, but the writing and the imagination on display here is far superior to the run-of-the-mill stuff you often find in such a category. McGuire can really write. Her prose is lucid, engaging, sometimes shocking, often unexpectedly comic, and her stories are fast-paced but still gripping. You could read this book in a long afternoon, and it would not be a waste of an afternoon.

        Imagine a world where lost children haven't necessarily been abducted by psychopaths and kept prisoner in someone's secret room, or become drug-addled prostitutes on the streets of some faceless city. In this world, children who don't quite fit into their families, who are not quite what their parents wanted or who come from dysfunctional families, sometimes find doors into other worlds. These other worlds are many and varied. They can be plotted on a sort of map where the compass points, rather like in Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Librarian series, are Nonsense and Logic, Wicked and Virtue. Children seem to find the place where they feel most at home in these alternate worlds, but sometimes they are thrown out for breaking a rule or they leave or are forced to leave for some other reason. When that happens, they find it very hard indeed to resume their former lives. The worlds in which they have lived change them in fundamental ways. 

        Schools exist to help such children. Some help those who wish to forget their weird experiences and fit back in to the 'normal' human world. Others, such as Eleanor West's Home For Wayward Children, aim to help those tragic souls who desperately wish to return to the worlds from which they have been exiled. The school is a refuge, an escape from parents who can't believe their children's tales or understand the true nature of their disappearances or their intense desire to disappear again. In this sense, it is rather like Miss Peregrine's School For Peculiar Children. However, I would say it is better.

        This first novel considered Nancy, a Persephone-like figure who has been in The Halls Of The Dead living off pomegranates and trying to be as still as a statue. McGuire cuts out all the extraneous stuff and gets right in there - and she doesn't make allowances for the tender sensibilities of her YA readers, which is all to the good. This story is often shockingly gothic, macabre in fact, and reminds me a little of the recent Addams Family spin-off about the daughter of the family. It is also funny and light-hearted at times, poignant and sad at others, capturing the emotions of sensitive teens very accurately, though without wasting time going too deeply into their psyches. What child doesn't feel at some time like an outsider in their own family, like someone who belongs somewhere else, somewhere where everyone understands them and they fit in, even if that place is as bizarre as Alice's Wonderland? 

        I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and that was down to the brilliant writing. The series has won two Hugo Awards, an Alex Award, a Locus Award, and a Nebula Award. and been nominated for both the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Award, and it appeared on the 2016 Tiptree Honor List, so I'm not alone in my admiration.

***** Highly recommended

  J A N U A R Y   2 0 2 3

SHOWCASE: Write Club poets

I want to show-case a few poems by members of Write-Club, the Open Universities’ creative writing group. The poets below all worked with me on a long collaborative poem which we never finished, but which was very stimulating and interesting to write. I thought I’d give them each space here for a single poem of their own choosing (they are in alphabetical order of poet’s surname):

 

A Sportsman

Suzanne Louise Burn 

 

Your handshake is cool and light

no hint of the power you wield

in the ring, where your hands

are weapons intent on destruction.

Nobody messes with the big guy

from Hammersmith, all six foot four

yet here on ward ten, in Great Ormond street,

you bring hope while I watch my baby

fight the ravages of chemo, such a tiny body.

You take the time to show you care

moving so quietly from bed to bed

including everyone, a true gentleman.

Superheroes come in many guises, never 

thought I'd meet one in my darkest hours,

yet here you are, and not for publicity

arriving unannounced, dispensing calm.

All it takes is a few kind words to lighten

the loads so many of us bear.

Know what I mean, Frank.             

 [Inspiration for this piece has come from memories of meeting Frank Bruno in Great Ormond Street Hospital in December 1990, when my eldest son Matthew was undergoing treatment for a kidney tumour at the age of 13 months. The poem was written in 2022]

 

We don’t do hugging

Sharon Henderson

 

We don’t do hugging, our family don’t.

We don’t do kissing, neither.

We do marmite sarnies,

Even though we hate the smell.

We do jams, chutneys,

And homemade cakes as well.

We do travelling for miles at three am.

Just to be told to go back again.

We do handwritten letters

And weird little gifts.

Send silly messages,

To give people lifts.

We do trawling the shops,

For that one little thing,

Some chocolate or biscuit,

That will make their heart sing.

We do phone calls at midnight,

To listen to tears.

We do standing beside you,

Through all of your fears.

But we don’t do hugging, our family don’t,

And we don’t do kissing, neither.

 

 

Coffee Corner

Karen Honnor

 

There’s a man sat in the corner,

looks like David Baddiel,

The caffeine’s slowly kicking in so

I’m not sure if he’s real.

 

I found myself staring

and averted my gaze,

For staring at a stranger’s wrong

in oh so many ways.

 

I came here for a coffee.

and try and write some more,

but I keep looking up to see.

If David’s making for the door.

 

He seems to have his head down

and is scrolling on his phone,

Should I say ‘hello’ to him?

He probably wants to be alone.

 

I sip a little latte

and wonder why he’s here

I’m sure he doesn’t live close by,

I glance – he’s coming near.

 

Now, it’s me that’s got my head down,

I don’t even know why.

I doubt he will have noticed.

I’ve been trying to catch his eye.

 

Is he working on his next book?

Taking time out from his day,

Stopped for coffee in a corner

before going on his way?

I’d ask him for an autograph.

but I’m not sure how he’d feel,

 

Hang on,

 

Wait a minute,

 

No …

 

That’s not David Baddiel.

Copyright © 2022 Karen Honnor

[The poem is taken from Just Take Five]  

Winter Needles

Tracy Hutchinson

 

A life well spent, a day gone by,

another twinkle in her eye.

Her needles clack-clack with white yarn,

growing a sleeve for a newborn arm.

 

The mother, too young, her grandaughter’s child,

like all youth today, was wayward and wild,

poisoned the foetus with alcohol and smoke,

probably wouldn’t appreciate the matinee coat.

 

But life had showed her a better way

to fill her heart each passing day.

So, her needles continued to clack-clack in the night,

to finish the jacket of winter white.

 

A bridge across the years and miles.

A sunny moment filled with smiles,

as the tiny bundle placed in her arms

looked up with baby beguiling charm.

Another child for the family tree,

and the grandmother thought ‘they all look like me.’

 

[First published in Generations 2019 Write Club OU]

Beside Me
Jane Langan

 

And over pale skies,
clouds like grey collared doves

undulate and surge in breezes,

beyond our whispered touch.

I watch silhouetted birds
move with grace and freedom,

transported by thermals,

rising and falling,

rising and falling.
I think of you,
I think of you...

Beside me when

thunder came.
Beside me when
we wept, over the lost.

We had so much to give,

instead, our insides, turned out.

Beside me when,

joy filled us up,

like chips at the seaside,

whipped in salty air.
Waves of laughter,

heard through the pull of the tide,

rising and falling,

rising and falling.

As we watched pure

happiness seep from every pore,

of those things we made,

unearthly, almost, in their beauty,

luminous in evening light.

You were there, beside me.

[First published in Blood Kisses, 2021]

 

 

Hate vs Love

Lily Lawson

Hate leaks from lips,

its powerful punch poisoning all within its wake,

wasting weighty words on trivial pursuits.

 

Love flows from the heart,

its calming lotion pouring in caressing streams,

healing wounds, seeping into souls.

 

Hate’s afflicted admirers

keen to ingratiate themselves

bow and scrape at its feet.

When they hear the battle cry, they charge.

 

Love listens long.

Its gentle voice persuading, reaching out,

accepting all in its embrace.

 

 

Copyright © 2022

        

[Taken from Rainbow's Red Book of Poetry by Lily Lawson https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B3F7N6SP/ref= ]

 

Author biographies:

 

Suzanne Burn

Suzanne Louise Burn (she/her) graduated from The Open University in 2018 with a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. She is currently halfway through studying for a Master's Degree in Creative Writing (also with The Open University) and focussing on fiction writing. She enjoys reading and writing poetry and is hoping to do more of this from Autumn 2023 onwards, once her Master's studies are complete.

She has had poetry, flash fiction, and life writing published in Makarelle magazine, together with six Open University Write Club anthologies for charities: Generations, Footprints and Echoes, The Gift, 2020 Still Together, 2021 Still Together, and Where's the Manual? And Other Thoughts on Parenthood.  She draws inspiration from nature, realism, and human relationships for her poetry and fiction.

 

Sharon Henderson

[Sharon doesn’t actually look like a teddy bear, but the only recent picture she has of herself is so blurred and dark that she is unrecognisable, so she has sent a picture of Denys instead]

Sharon is a teacher in a large secondary school just outside of London. She loves to teach and also tutors students with additional needs. She has two grown up children and a pet rat named Pandora. Her hobbies include what has been described as a maniacal amount of walking and baking cakes. These are then given to anyone who will take them as she has a gluten and dairy free diet. She also loves to study and has just completed an MA with the Open University.

 

Karen Honnor

Karen Honnor has always had a passion to write. Mostly, fitting poetry and script writing in around her day job in the past, now she has closed her classroom door and she has the freedom to focus on her writing, in whatever form it takes. Writing is a powerful way to make connections with others and to start a conversation.

She finds inspiration from my everyday and write with honesty and a touch of humour about the subjects that effect us all, building her self-confidence as she goes. Her books and blog continue to strike a chord with readers and she is learning and growing as she writes my way through midlife.

You can check out Karen's blog https://www.karenhonnor.com/

and follow her on Twitter here.

 

Tracy Hutchinson

Tracy Hutchinson writes alongside caring for her family. She gained a first-class degree in English language and literature in 2017, and followed it with an MA in creative writing which she was awarded in 2019. Tracy compiled and edited two anthologies during the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 Together and 2021 Still Together, to raise funds for the NHS Charities Together Urgent Covid-19 Appeal. The two anthologies had over fifty contributors and raised more than £1200 for the charity. Currently, Tracy is working on her first novel, which she is hoping to release later this year.

 

Jane Langan

Jane has been published in the anthologies, Footprints and Echoes, Dipping your Toes, the Makarelle Anthology ONE and her poetry anthology Blood Kisses. She has had a special mention from The Welsh Poetry Competition and was longlisted in the Mairtin Crawford Awards. Jane has an MA in creative writing.

http://www.howilikemycoffee.co.uk/

 

[Photo accompanying poem and photo of herself above were both taken by Jane herself]

 

 

 

Lily Lawson

 

Lily is a poet and fiction writer living in the UK. She has had poetry, short stories and creative non-fiction published in anthologies and online, in addition to her poetry books My Fathers Daughter, A Taste of What’s to Come and Rainbow’s Red Book of Poetry. She has recently published her first picture poetry book Santa’s Early Christmas. You can find out more about Lily and read more of her work on her blog. Life with Lily. Subscribers are the first to hear all her writing news. She can often be found sharing her randomness on Twitter.

 

[Photos either free-to-use from internet, or by Louise Wilford or Jane Langan or provided by poet]