Silky Oak Press will soon publish my new novel, Or Forever Be Damned, on Amazon 5 August 2014 (Ebook) and September (paperback).
Mona — a poor but respectable Protestant teenaged factory girl, is tormented by sibling rivalry over her favoured artistic younger brother, Ambrose. Untrained and against parental orders, stagestruck Mona resolves to outshine Ambrose, furtively pursuing a theatrical career. Into her journey, Mona unearths her younger bête noire, Kat — a Catholic rough-diamond child-veteran entertainer who, conversely, yearns to escape theatre life.
So begins their lifelong enmity.
Or Forever Be Damned is an historical saga spanning eight decades, following the lives and families of two very different women who escape the slums of northern England’s ‘Cottonopolis’, Salford in the 1930′s Slump — a simmering irrational enmity that lives on in modern day Australia.
Not usually a crime reader, I was drawn to Triple Threat's theatrical setting and period, having been there, in West End theatre life, in 1983. In fact, on one particular show mentioned in Triple Threat!
I (or my imagination) 'recognized' numerous scenes, addresses and venues alluded to, interior and exterior. Quickly lured into the plot by these elements, I was further entranced as the authentic backstage banter and protocols confirmed this was written by a kindred spirit of sorts, someone who had, like myself, been there and walked uniquely special, at times torturously challenging, professional path. It spoke to me directly. The characters, similarly, all rang eerily true for me!
I appreciated protagonist Jon's 'journey' in the parallel literal and metaphorical senses. His inevitable young existentialist contemplations on a future in a magical yet uncertain industry, and his beautiful scenic geographical route taken after rapidly exiting his professional world in flurry of bafflement, resonated nostalgically for this native northern English expatriate.
It was like that trip 'back home' I've never actually taken since relocating to the southern hemisphere decades ago. The wondrous British countryside, its history, the regional dialects and welcoming faces (the bad eggs you encounter along the road notwithstanding) all contributed to a great ride for this reader.
After guessing throughout 'whodunit', it turned out I was close to spot on, which is reassuring should I venture further into this genre. It was neither too easy nor too impenetrable to fathom. Julian Wild's raw narrative stylistics are fresh and unpretentious, making for an ideal bedtime read. Throughout, I heard perhaps unintentional 1980s echoes of the great J.B. Priestly's pre-WWI 'Lost Empires' which I similarly liked for all the same reasons.
Triple Threat was a welcome and refreshing change and I look fondly forward to its sequels.
An essential element of any historical biographer's task is to put colour into the cheeks of their subject, which Professor Guy effects with aplomb in this meticulously penned tome. This queen, who has has for centuries polarised comment...
I relished this double biography of my favourite two historical figures, vastly superior to others I've read.
Ankha Muhlstein's exquisite voice took a couple of short chapters to shape my mind around, but that initial perseverance was m...
I was drawn to this by the rumble of picky user reviews it generated. Having also read positive reviews (Denny's professional critics were fairer) I was intrigued as to what had elicited such a split response. What I found was a well wri...
Always enjoying Alison Weir's work, on any subject, I've made good use her narrative by introducing myself to other less popularly read historical figures I'd never have touched anyone else's writing on. Some biographers are blessed with...
Like all Weir biographies this delivered and more, for me.
The historically sneered at 'loose' sister of Anne Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII's favourite Gentleman of the Privy chamber, was paradoxically the daughter of an Earl-envoy and Cou...
Some armchair critics have overlooked the immense task Tracy Borman undertook and successfully completed in writing and getting this published. In a literary avalanche of popular Tudor history dominated by old masters and current favouri...
So many greats have come along since the emergence of Alison Plowden, who hardly pioneered but was undoubtedly among the key players instrumental in reshaping this genre into its popular modern form.
This first book in what became colle...
Arbella is an excellent reading adjunct to mainstream Tudor-Stuart characters, especially after exhausting other material and craving more of the genre.
For anyone fascinated by such royal genealogies, Arbella's lineage is a feast to be...
Chris Skidmore makes courageous choices addressing topics challenging due to limited popular appeal (his later book, Death And The Virgin, I thoroughly enjoyed). Edward VI's reign we see more through the prism of important religious deve...
The style of this follows a pattern across all Elizabeth Norton biographies I've read: skilfully researched, not too drily academic, and effectively enough written we that feel almost present in certain episodes.
This never crowned quee...
I enjoyed this unique take on Henry VIII's male heir bearing wife.
The claim that this is the only Jane Seymour book is outdated, with 2 novels and 3 biographies listed on this site alone, the most notable being David Loades' 2009 Jane ...
I enjoyed reading about this queen who, like Henry VIII's other five wives, became somewhat misrepresented over subsequent centuries.
While Katherine has come down to us as Henry's 'mature' last queen, this fact has been overemphasised ...
Having read dozens of Tudor biographies over decades, I confidently reject those negative assertions made about this.
Joanna Denny has brought dynamism to this erstwhile two dimensionally portrayed girl, who earlier biographers (with no...
Being one of the more recent Henry VIII biographies, and being specifically about Henry's youth, this was a popular choice when widespread interest became fuelled by 'that' TV series with Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I checked it for comparison...
Having consumed histories too numerous to list of this, my favourite figure of my favourite period, David Starkey's was among the last I happened across before rereading everything for second and third times. In keeping with this author'...
Whatever Lady Antonia Fraser wrote about - I'm sure I could read her shopping lists and be entertained - would be worth reading. The lady is perhaps my favourite mistress of this genre. Not simply erudite, eloquent and formidably well ed...
Excellent biography of a monarch often written off as 'too dull' by fans of the more popular icons, such as Tudors, etc.
In fact, as we see in this well documented account, Queen Anne had her idiosyncrasies, increasingly apparent throug...
Interesting account of the end of the Stuarts in England. Until the last century there remained vehement opponents of the switch to Hanoverian rule.
James II's daughters, Mary and Anne, were Anne Hyde's daughters. They resented their st...
Having read biographies on each of these women, I was drawn to this on the central city library shelf from curiosity (after seemingly exhausting the selection there of this, my main reading genre).
This is quality writing that assists ...
'Sumptuous group portrait' this is indeed.
Historical royal biography is an addictive genre which leaves its readers ever on the lookout for something to top their favourites. This is a difficult call on authors. There are only limited ...
Leanda de Lisle undertook a bold and lofty endeavour penning this. She triumphs gloriously.
Tudor readers knew about the usurping 'nine days queen' Jane Grey who, after her fleeting, reluctant reign, was beheaded under the rightful Quee...
One of the most readable 'Bertie' biographies I've found.
Although the title suggests this may focus largely on his love life, this tasteful biography is something far from that. Even so, while he admired and deeply respected his public...
Restoration monarch Charles II I had long procrastinated reading on, until this splendid book appeared before me. At once admiring this elegant product, its cover art and back page snippets, I was compelled to take it home.
This great ...
While Antonia Fraser is perhaps my all time favourite biographer, certain of her subjects have not interested me greatly. This, in my opinion, is one of her best for its sheer literary quality.
I could happily soak up Lady Fraser's eloq...
This substantial work was a good idea. With so many biographies and histories on these people and this period, it must have been a tough call finding an original take.
Studying the women of the Wars of the Roses is no original concept. ...
Having consumed many Elizabeth I biographies and related histories I turned to this after exhausting many fine library shelves.
I was not disappointed.
Here is an episode hitherto marred by a conspicuous absence of sufficient hard fact...
Published six years after her death, when she was still highly acclaimed for her award winning 'Wide Sargasso Sea' (1969), this collection focuses, as its title states, on the same part of the world, her Caribbean homeland.
Some of th...
A must for all Jean Rhys aficionados. This was her first ever published writing, which came about by chance and desperation. Those who read her posthumously published unfinished autobiography 'Smile Please' will know that the story behin...
As irresistible as its subject, this fine biography kept me grinning for weeks, occasionally gasping and, now and then, just a tad teary.
Much has been written about Judy Garland, some of it even true. This, however, is well documented ...
I enjoyed reading about this skilful, acutely intelligent performer who haunts my foggy formative years' subconscious. I still visualise her swagger, hear her distinct drawl in scratchy, early '30s movies that TV showed late at night, li...
I just had to read this. It helped to keep in mind that, as a writing by Dietrich's daughter, it was not primarily aimed at objectivity, but was instead always going to be a subjective account, of the woman seen through the daughter's ey...
Another great job by Alexander Walker, this story covers the life an intriguing, beautiful and talented woman.
Not the easiest of subjects for anyone to document, Ms Hepburn had something almost indescribable - I disagree that she broke...
As can be seen from other reviews, this book triggered disappointment is some. If you want a movieography click on Wikipedia or the Internet Movie Database. There isn't much to see, Leigh didn't make a long list of films comparable to ot...
Having picked up, opened, then flung aside many a sensationalised book on this woman, I was relieved to come across this very readable one.
Elizabeth was loved by not just her public but within the entertainment industry too. She earned...
I've read five Crawford biographies and usually find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across them all. This one I like, a little more than the others. It would be near the top of my...
This hysterical read had me giggling like a schoolgirl, quite some years ago. Laugh? I nearly bought a round.
I happened across the paperback as I sifted through pre-loved fashion in my local op shop one melancholy morning and was insti...
Anyone who even only saw 'Gypsy' would have been taken by this seemingly fresh, stunning talent.
But this child veteran screen legend already had long since cemented her place in the Hollywood history with great films like 'Miracle on 3...
It was when I heard an old industry anecdote that I became as interested in the woman as that voice I'd played over and over since I was a mere slip of thing lip synching into a hairbrush in my bedroom mirror:
SCENE
Ethel Merman's dress...
How anyone could not be blown away by this magnificent work has to say more about the reader than the book.
Alison Weir has surpassed herself in penning this tome, the first in my opinion to rival Antonia Fraser's 1969 'Mary, Queen of S...
While by no means my favourite book of this period, this has come to be benchmark literature of its kind, almost the definitive account if not the most historically erudite.
Lytton Strachey was a fine wordsmith of his day and this impo...
Truly the icing on the cake for those hooked on Tudor history.
This lurking figure has always been portrayed as a somewhat sinister presence on Elizabeth's court, but one who saved her rocky reign from doom and disaster on many an occas...
I relished this important biography of a fascinating woman. Among other things, Bess was maternal grandmother to the girl considered possible successor to Elizabeth I, Lady Arbella Stuart. This in itself strengthened Bess's intricately w...
I have read widely for several decades, tomes old and new, on the Tudor royals and courtiers. Here was a girl forever pushed to the back of my reading cue. I, like many, knew Lady Jane Grey as 'that' girl who only reigned for nine days. ...
As a big reader of Alison Weir I had reservations about her cramming in so many characters here compared to her other biographies which I love for their fleshing out and grand generosity of detail. Having read more than one full length b...
This high impact read had me glued from start to finish (and yes, I had seen the movie first and indeed, the book is a far greater piece of storytelling).
This was a breakthrough account, in its time, of a rapid, spontaneous descent in...
I gained kilos reading this book! (Is that what they call a spoiler alert?)
Like most books whose screen adaptions I saw first, this was slightly different, but we have to remember always that the book came first (meaning it's often ult...
I leapt at his book when I spotted it. I get occasionally quite weary, reading about my usual arch historical royals, depressive authors and other public-eye tragediennes, that I often vacillate like this, reaching for contrast, relief a...
Alison Weir is a supreme historian and writer on the royalty and their courtiers of this era. I have read many of her books and always lose myself for weeks in them.
This gives us a closer look at Anne Boleyn's plight, a peep in through...
After some years of intermittently reading and rereading every last word of Jean Rhys' published fiction I, like many, was without any doubt that it was all pieces of her own life. That was irrelevant to me, yet so relevant too.
It felt...
I love most of Alison Weir's work and this is no exception.
The research is astonishing. The clothes, décor and meals of England's infamous catalyst-king of the reformation, his court and his six wives are wondrously detailed.
The jour...
A great biography of a great royal consort, England's beloved Queen Cate.
A diplomatic, dynastic choice, this daughter of Spain was sailed across and married to Henry VIII's older brother, Arthur, by his father Henry VII. Poor Arthur di...
This history of legendary royal cousins, Elizabeth I and Mary of Scots, is enthralling.
It's impossible, after reading quality material such as this, to side with one queen or the other. Each was at fault and justified in her treatment ...
Alison Plowden is a queen of this genre. Her writing is addictive.
Her research is meticulous, her detail mindboggling, her immortalised subject re-humanised.
Elizabeth's life was fascinating regardless whose account you read - and I'v...
A terrific biography of a much maligned and grossly misunderstood historical figure, a scapegoat for generations of vicious religious and political propagandists.
Though she burned and persecuted 'heretics', so did most European monarch...
This is a great read and will, I suspect, be more confronting to agnostics than to worshippers, it's thoroughness and well argued points really putting the reader on the spot and making them think, rationally.
Most true religious believ...
Riveting 1954 memoir of 1920s & '30s star of stage, screen and radio, Lillian Roth.
Her horrific journey through alcoholism, making for confronting reading at times, was an unprecedented international sensation. Courageously penned, thi...
I was bought this as a birthday gift by someone who knew my fanaticism for Jean Rhys.
A glimpse into the personal comments of my all time favourite writer, this had me mesmerised from start to finish.
Breathtaking material, like all Je...
Goes without saying that any Jean Rhys fan would be mindless to let a biography of her go unread. Carole Angier does a fine job (I read the disappointingly thin earlier version and the thick-as-a-brick one that followed in its wake).
It...
No Jean Rhys fan would want to let this priceless opportunity pass.
Included is her fateful, first ever published collection 'Stories from the Left Bank', a glimpse of the legend in the making, as a young aspiring novice writer - even t...
I've read five Bette Davis biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I...
I've read five Bette Davis biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I...
I've read five Bette Davis biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I...
I've read five Bette Davis biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I...
I've read five Bette Davis biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I...
I've read five Crawford biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I we...
I've read five Crawford biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I we...
I've read five Crawford biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I we...
I've read five Crawford biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I we...
Ellen June Hovick a.k.a. Rose Louise Hovick, alias Gypsy Rose Lee became a legend in her own lifetime and remains one.
The big sister of Hollywood actress June Havoc, the pair began in Vaudeville as toddlers, Baby June the cute headline...
Jean Rhys is by far my favourite writer ever and this selection of her work shines as only her words can.
As with most of Rhys' work, a common thread is the theme of the displaced woman, the foreigner, the outsider, the stranger to this...
Needing my regular break from the somewhat dour world of historical biography and classic English & European epics, I picked up this book expecting little but light comedic relief from my sometimes all too candlelit, gothic, shadowy real...
My favourite biography about my favourite historical figure - and trust me, I've read every one published about her.
Alison Weir's intricate detail and immaculate quality closely rivals the great Antonia Fraser who, before Weir in an ea...
Antonia Fraser's rare combination of formidable historical knowledge and exquisite penmanship makes this book a supreme standalone piece.
None of Fraser's other historical biographies come close, in my opinion, to this now definitive wo...
Many I've read and spoken to preferred this earlier Philippa Gregory book over her later one, The White Queen.
Of course, this subject holds more popular appeal, but to me that does not equal a better book.
By far the greater challenge...
I had to read this, having run out of decent historical fiction for my favourite periods - the Wars of the Roses itself not being one of my favourites, but the more I read on the era the more interested I become, as I learn more.
I felt...
One of the most gorgeous rides I've ever taken.
The people. The places. The times.
Incredible is all I can say as adequate wording escapes me.
I felt as if I was there, in the story somewhere, a bystander, a participant.
A Tardis r...
It gets no better than this.
A breathtaking reminder of the often limitless extremes of human cruelty and generosity, as true for today's world as it was for Hugo's in this masterpiece. Thus enabling the reader to believe, implicitly, t...
This was the first book I read as a young adult.
I glanced casually through the pages on a two month coach trip around a desert. Then I reread it more closely, then again intensely, and a breakthrough occurred for me. I was an inexperie...
I think everyone can relate to the absurdity of life that Camus is such a genius at conveying.
For this reader, it's not so much the particular tale that he's telling, the places, the people, it's the subtext to it all, the message beh...
Maya Angelou's engaging tale of her early and midlife had me riveted. Here is one master storyteller, a formidable intellect with a heart of pure, solid gold.
In parts so intimately told it was like sitting in her parlour, listening to ...
There's a touch of the Scarlett O'Hara in the best of us. She's self-centred, at times petulant, but ultimately practical and ever true to her own heart - this is what makes her a great literary heroine and not simply a spoilt southern p...
The World According to Garp kept me up way too late into the night, for all the best reasons.
This uplifting, amusing, at times poignant tale had me hooked from the outset.
John Irving's characters are depicted with a quirky realism th...
One of my all time favourite reads, this is far from your typical memoir format (whatever that is), but instead reads more like a great classic novel. Despite being written first person, not once was I distracted into thinking of the aut...
This is for me the definitive period saga. The reader is able to follow the intertwined characters' lives for many years and several generations.
Not by any means quick, easy or lazy reading, it demands you pay attention or lose all mea...
The first time I read this was under force, at school, and I loathed it.
When I more recently came across it and, for some reason, reread it, I loved it in its entirety. We come to appreciate things, as adults, that we despised as kids....
Without a doubt my favourite Dickens novel.
These characters seem to be deeper and more dynamic than the more widely satirical ones of his other works.
A masterful piece of storytelling with haunting eccentrics like the frail and embit...
Poor naïve young Billy's a bit of a lad but a good, honest one, learning keenly and clumsily about the opposite sex and forever daydreaming of his own personal fantasy world not so that unlike his real one, neither place being all that f...
This good old nostalgic winter's night read had me gripped from start to finish.
John Braine's gritty characters are astonishingly true, their strengths believable, their defects authentic, their dialogue the real McCoy.
Our hero darin...
I relished this James M Cain modern classic from which several great screen adaptations have come.
Mildred, Mildred, Mildred, whatta gal! I was frequently urged to both kiss her and slap her into sense.
So sucked in was I that I reread...
This was one of the first books I read, after some years of continual reading hit-and-miss disappointment, that struck a chord with me and finally set me onto a long and fulfilling literary road.
Arnold Bennett's wondrous story is a lon...
I loved this novel so much I read it three times. It's classy, intriguing and sad to put down when it's over.
A smoke-swirling, shadowy look into a gorgeous, nomadic lifestyle from a past era. The multi award nominated TV miniseries ada...
This was Jean Rhys's original breakthrough novel, her first piece (other than her Left Bank short story collection completed under the tutelage of her ex-lover Ford Maddox Ford).
Having read every word she ever had published, I can see ...
let me first state that this faultless literary masterpiece was unarguably deserving of every last ounce of global acclaim that it won - so special that no film adaptation has yet come anywhere near to the book.
This is the perfect nove...
This is the delectable Jean Rhys at her very best. She has our central character deliciously sussed out. We know her shortcomings and want to help her out - it's a tough life out there for Julia Martin. Hell, it's a goddam jungle.
I l...
Rhys's Kafkaesque tragi-farce is an all powerful and evocative trip into not only a Paris of decades past, but the internal world of a tortured woman heading for disaster.
This is the maturing Jean Rhys at her cynical best, the last bo...
Mesmerising pros from one of the finest and most underestimated writers of the English language.
At times almost poetic, Rhys's rhythmic, verse-like narrative is intentionally reduced in this work to as many simple, monosyllabic words ...
Hilary Mantel surpasses herself with this new and unique take on history's immortalised 'man for all seasons'.
Not only has she successfully broken the mold of this erstwhile impossibly pious character, she has almost found her own uniq...
This olfactory take on a time and place blew my mind - and that is aside from the story itself.
How Patrick Süskind achieved this breathtaking literary masterpiece, and how long it must have taken, is unimaginable. He is most certainly ...
Astonishing concept from a great author. This psychologically voyeuristic journey slowly unveils the twisted friendship between two intriguing protagonists/antagonists (one is often uncertain which is which).
Parts of this painstakingly...
One of my favourite works of contemporary fiction, this falls into the historical family saga category, amongst others. Ian McEwan's masterful pros have the reader glued from start to finish. The stylistic element is the novel's stronges...
![What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal]](https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386922976m/13258.jpg)
