A girl's guide to kissing frogs (by Victoria Clayton)

(Amazon UK link)

Although I have read and very much enjoyed most of Victoria Clayton’s novels in the past couple of years, I hadn’t realised at first that ‘A girl’s guide to kissing frogs’ was another novel. Her books are no longer in print, but I was able to find this reasonably inexpensively in the Amazon Marketplace, although it’s stayed on my to-be- read shelf for some time. I picked it up a few days, ago, thinking it would last me a while - it’s almost 600 pages - but once I’d got into the story, I could barely put it down.

Marigold is the main protagonist, and the story is told from her perspective, in the first person. She’s a ballet dancer - the principal dancer in a small company. She’s very talented, and also ambitious; so much so that she’s having a loveless affair with the director of the company. This is shown rather casually in the first few pages, and feels quite sordid; had I not been sure the book would improve, I might have given up at that point.

However we also learn in the first paragraph that Marigold has broken her foot, almost leading to the end of her career. We’re told this at the start, and then watch her, after falling awkwardly, dancing a demanding role in front of an important audience, in increasing agony as she does. The picture is clearly painted of someone whose entire life is ballet - she will suffer anything for her art. But then she faints, and ends up in hospital.

Most of the book then takes place in her home town of Northumberland. Her parents have a difficult marriage; her father is a doctor, but also a womaniser, and her mother, whom Marigold adores, gets very depressed and sometimes drinks too much. We also meet Evelyn, an upper-crust friend who has always been fond of Marigold; her two adult children, Rafe and Isabel, are also at home. Marigold always had something of a crush on Rafe, although he was older and mostly ignored her. But now she’s an adult, and quite attractive, and he seems to be taking notice of her…

It’s a complex plot, with quite a large cast. However Victoria Clayton is talented at creating memorable characters. Some of them - such as Marigold’s mother - are rather caricatured but it doesn’t matter; the most significant members of the cast are mostly believable, and, on the whole, likeable. Even Marigold, driven to immoral extremes and deceit by ambition and talent, is a nice person on the inside. Rafe is almost too nice.

As with other books by this author, a main character from a previous book makes a cameo appearance in this one. In this case, it’s Bobbie, who starred in Moonshine. It was nice to see her, settled and happy, but it would be fine to read this book without having read any of the author’s others.

There are plenty of surprises in the book, some of which I could see coming, while others were totally unexpected. There are several storylines too; subplots involve a teenage mother, a Traveller craftsman, insights into the world of ballet, class snobbery, and several other themes, some of them a tad shocking although so well written that they worked remarkably well.

I appreciated several literary, musical and ballet references in this book, and found some parts of it quite moving. There’s some humour too, and I almost laughed aloud at the final line in the book, which occurs after a somewhat abrupt, somewhat predictable and yet altogether satisfactory conclusion.

Clayton’s books are touted as social comedy, but there are sufficient serious issues covered or touched upon in this novel that I would rate it much more highly than that. Definitely recommended, if you like light women’s fiction with some depth.

'A Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs' is no longer in print, but is available inexpensively in Kindle form.

Review copyright 2018 Sue's Book Reviews

Moonshine (by Victoria Clayton)

(Amazon UK link)

I have thoroughly enjoyed the novels I have read so far by Victoria Clayton, after the recommendation of an online friend who shares a lot of my reading tastes. Most of them are out of print, but I’ve managed to obtain them from Amazon Marketplace, or the AwesomeBooks site. 

I’ve had ‘Moonshine’ on my to-read shelf for a while. At almost 700 pages it’s a long book, so I knew it wouldn't be a quick read. And, indeed, it took me nearly two weeks to finish it, mostly just reading before falling asleep at night.

It takes a while for this novel to get going. The main protagonist is a young woman called Bobbie. We meet her as she’s feeling somewhat unwell in a ferry crossing the Bristol Channel. She meets a charming young man called Kit who is also travelling to Ireland. He’s a book editor, and planning to visit several of his authors. He and Bobbie get chatting, and over the course of the next few days Bobbie tells him her recent story…

Bobbie has been having an affair with a somewhat eminent politician, we quickly discover. She knew all along that it was risky, but everything blew up when the papers got hold of the story. Her lover is married, and she doesn’t want him to have to give up his career. So she’s answered an advertisement for a housekeeper in a castle in a remote part of Ireland.

It takes about 160 pages of the book to explore the details of Bobbie’s affair, and while it certainly establishes her character, and (to some extent) that of Kit, I couldn’t see at first how it added to the story, which only really gets going once she arrives at her destination. The castle turns out to be in a terrible state, with kitchens in chaos and family relationships stressed. Bobbie is a born organiser who likes to put things right, so after a rather unpleasant beginning, she decides to stay…

The rest of the book is about her developing relationships with each of the diverse family members and friends who live in the castle. She turns their lives upside down, bringing sanity, good food and some great ideas. She becomes very friendly with Constance, sister of the castle owner, and the person mostly responsible for bringing up his children. I particularly liked the two younger children, Flavia - who is sensitive and soft-hearted, and spends all her time reading - and Flurry, who is on the autistic spectrum, and loves building railways.

It was an ideal book for bedtime reading, as I could dip into a chapter or two then put it aside without regret. Nothing was overly gripping, but it was mostly easy to remember who was whom, and I was interested in the way the different subplots developed. There are several romantic attachments which occur through the book; I realised that Bobbie would end up with somebody, but until about half-way through the book I was looking at the wrong person.

There’s quite a bit of social history and context; the Irish ‘troubles’ are not just mentioned in passing, but play quite a significant part in the storyline, interwoven amongst the growing friendships. One particular event places the novel firmly at the end of the 1970s. The author explores several points of view, portraying scared young men in the guise of protesters and soldiers. It wasn’t until quite late in the book that I started to see how everything fit together, and the significance of the early part of the story.

Many themes are lightly touched upon, such as the significance of the Catholic church in children’s upbringing, the difficulties of some marriages and the stresses that can occur between parents and children. I found myself often moved, and regularly appreciating the literary references and the brisk conversations. Whereas the previous book, 'Clouds among the stars', was almost sordid at times, this one was, I felt, much less so.

All in all, I liked 'Moonshine' very much. Recommended if you enjoy women’s fiction with a bit more punch - and length! - than many. Brief reference is made to one or two of Clayton’s characters from an earlier book, but it would not matter at all if you had not read it.

This book is still in print, unlike some of the author's other books, and also available in Kindle form. It can often be found second-hand, too (as I did).

Review copyright 2018 Sue's Book Reviews

Clouds among the stars (by Victoria Clayton)

(Amazon UK link)

I have very much liked all the novels I have read by Victoria Clayton, an author recommended to me by a friend with similar tastes in books. So I have gradually acquired more of them, all second-hand so far as they are mostly out of print. Recently I decided to read the next one - in order of writing - and finished it yesterday.

‘Clouds among the stars’ is narrated by Harriet, aged 22, the middle child in a large and bohemian family. The youngest, Cordelia, is twelve. The first sentence of the novel hooked me instantly: ‘The day my father was arrested for murder began promisingly’. There are then a few pages describing Harriet’s family; she is considered the plain one daughter amongst beauties, the one without dramatic talent in a family of actors. But she considers herself happy, and probably in love. Her boyfriend, known as Dodge, is an anarchist who drags her into all kinds of political demonstrations and is evidently not to be trusted…

This is billed as a social comedy, but unfortunately, the early chapters of the book are rather sordid. Harriet takes part in a demonstration that turns unpleasantly violent, and then learns that her father has been accused of a crime. It appears that he is the only person who could possibly have committed it, and the scene is described in a little too much detail. Meanwhile one of her sisters suffers extreme humiliation and abuse, and there seems to be very casual use of recreational drugs. The first sentence of the novel, I thought, was a self-fulfilling prophecy as it too was very promising… and went downhill from there.

I nearly gave up after about 150 pages, but decided to keep going. I was mildly curious about the outcome of the murder enquiry, although by that stage most of the plot is revolving around the family dealing with a financial crisis. The bizarre mother goes to have elective plastic surgery rather than play any part in the chaotic household; quite a relief to me as a reader, since she spends her time quoting Shakespeare rather than answering questions or doing anything to relate to her children.

I’m glad I decided to persevere, because the novel improves shortly afterwards. Harriet and Cordelia are invited to stay at a stately home, by their childhood friend Rupert and his flamboyantly gay friend Archie. It’s not their house, but that of an elderly peer and his welcoming but downtrodden wife. Harriet, by this stage, is working on a series of articles about haunted houses, and looks forward to investigating their destination, as it boasts several ghosts.

There were still parts of the novel I found disturbingly unpleasant, particularly the elderly Lord Pye’s predilection for teenage and pre-teen girls, and the way he seems to despise - or ignore - his wife and children. But there are plenty of light-hearted moments too. Harriet as narrator shows herself as having a great deal of common sense combined with an overactive imagination, and terrible self-esteem. But she’s a likeable person; I particularly admired her commitment to giving her young sister as pleasant a Christmas as possible.

The writing is good, as with all this author’s novels, and the pace exactly right to hold my attention. The conversation is mostly believable, and the humour is understated. The ending includes parts that are predictable and parts that are not, and if a tad abrupt, it works well. Overall I didn’t like this book as much as the earlier ones by this author, but I still look forward to reading more of her works.

Review copyright 2017 Sue's Book Reviews

Running wild (by Victoria Clayton)

(Amazon UK link)

I have thoroughly enjoyed all the books I’ve read so far by Victoria Clayton. She was recommended to me by a friend who shares many of my tastes in books, and I’m always pleased to discover a new author. Most of the books are out of print, but readily available second-hand. So I bought this one from the AwesomeBooks site back in December, and have been reading it for the past ten days or so.

‘Running Wild’ is narrated by a young woman called Freddie - short for Elfrida - who has decided to abandon her fiancé Alex just a few days before their elaborate and expensive wedding. The book opens with a note from Freddie’s close friend Viola (who was the main protagonist of the author’s previous book ‘Dance with me’). Viola wants to know what has happened, and offers Freddie the use of her late godmother’s cottage in Dorset.

Freddie needs somewhere to get away from her family and friends, so she heads for Dorset and settles into a very dilapidated cottage, although it has some charm as she gradually discovers. She only plans to stay a night or two, but events and local acquaintances conspire and she begins to feel more at home…

It’s a character-based story, and Victoria Clayton has quite a gift of characterisation. Freddie is clearly run-down health-wise and exhausted; we quickly learn that she doesn’t get along with her stepmother Fay. Yet Fay was apparently organising a high society wedding, even though Freddie started having doubts some weeks earlier. Eventually her only option was to escape, though we don’t learn until much later in the book what triggered her decision.

There are some delightful, albeit caricatured people in the village where she finds herself. There’s a crusty old miller who’s bringing up his grandson alone; a teacher who is extremely keen on pagan rituals; a hen-pecked and harassed vicar who seems to be losing his faith. There are young men who take a shine to Freddie, including a stereotyped German, and there’s also a young and neglected family whom Freddie starts to take care of. However there are some delightful dogs and cats, and I thought that the children were well drawn.

There are some quite moving sections of the book, and incidents showing why some terrible cases of neglect are not reported to the authorities. There are some coincidences, and some changes of heart that seem a little too good to be true. It’s perhaps a tad slow in places, too, and the ending - with one twist - all rather predictable. I wish there wasn't quite so much bad language, nor the propensity for people to leap into bed with each other... but those seem to be required for most novels written this century.

On the whole, though, the writing is very good. This was first published in the year 2000, but set a few decades earlier. so mobile phones and email were unknown. Perhaps conditions were a bit too spartan for realism, yet I felt that there was a believable picture of village life in that period. The sensory detail is just right for my tastes.

Overall I liked this book very much.

Review copyright 2017 Sue's Book Reviews

Dance with me (by Victoria Clayton)

(Amazon UK link)

I had not heard of Victoria Clayton until a friend recommended her books to me, knowing my tastes in general. None of her books seem to be in print now, but I put some on my wishlist and received a couple of them which I read earlier in the year, and very much enjoyed. So I decided to order a few more myself, from the Amazon Marketplace, and have just finished reading her third novel.

‘Dance with Me’ is narrated by a young woman called Viola Otway. She feels herself to be undereducated after quite a privileged upbringing, but wants to earn her own living. She’s taken a job with a charitable group in London that renovates old houses, and lives in shared accommodation with some rather caricatured but interesting people. The novel is set in the 1960s, although that’s not immediately obvious.

Viola has been romantically involved with her boss Pierce, but as the story opens he’s instructed her to travel with his colleague Giles to a stately home called Inksip Plark, in Nottinghamshire. She and Giles don’t really get along; he considers her rather flighty and prone to accidents; she finds him a bit too serious. Things don’t improve when they break down on their way to Inksip, and arrive to discover that the family are eccentric, and the food appalling, due to a series of terrible cooks.

It’s really a character-based novel, with a large cast of intriguing people, mostly rather exaggerated, and not all memorable; I sometimes forgot who the minor characters were, although it didn’t matter too much, and the main ones were easy enough to distinguish. There’s some mild humour in the interactions, and in Viola’s accident prone nature, but there are also some serious issues that are touched upon: unexpected pregnancies, class consciousness, post-natal depression, unrequited love, and more. There’s even a survivor from Auschwitz.

It’s light reading on the whole, despite these darker themes. Victoria Clayton has a very readable style, peppered with literary (and, in this book, artistic) allusions, and while I didn’t quite believe in several of the characters, I found myself liking Viola very much. She’s willing to learn, and she has a warm heart.

The 1960s are remembered for their permissiveness; I was too young to be aware of that kind of thing at the time, but it’s certainly reflected in this book, where discussion of intimacies and affairs seems commonplace, both amongst the younger people and several of the older ones. I found parts of that a bit sordid, even shocking in places; some of the pairings seemed unnecessary to the story-line. While I enjoyed the book, there were elements that made it start to feel like a soap rather than a novel.

More than one reference is made, in this novel, to characters who appeared in ‘Past Mischief’, the author’s second book. Viola knows some of them, and while it’s not necessary to have read the previous book, it helps to understand some of the comments in context.

The ending, as with the author’s earlier books, is a bit abrupt, albeit not unexpected, and entirely satisfying.

Review copyright 2016 Sue's Book Reviews

Past mischief (by Victoria Clayton)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s a while now since an email friend suggested that I might like the novels by Victoria Clayton. I was told that it’s best to read them in the published order, as characters from earlier novels sometimes appear in later ones in ways that would become spoilers if read in the wrong order. I read and very much enjoyed ‘Out of love’ a few months ago so decided to acquire a few more. Unfortunately they’re out of print now, but on a recent trip to the UK I used the Amazon Marketplace to buy a couple more at a very low price.

I’ve just finished reading ‘Past mischief’, which is told from the point of view of a woman called Miranda whose husband Jack has just died in what appears to be a tragic accident. However it quickly transpires that Jack was something of a philanderer, and while Miranda is very shocked, she had fallen out of love with him some time previously.

Her task now is to help their three teenage children come to terms with what has happened, and also to find a way of continuing to live in their rather expensive manor house…

Miranda has a wide circle of acquaintances including the devoted Ivor, her old nanny Rose, and a couple of close friends in the village. Some of these are decidedly caricatured, but it doesn’t matter; that makes them easier to remember. The suggestion is made to take paying guests, and although a little nervous, Miranda loves having visitors and is an excellent cook.

The novel then revolves around the various people concerned. It’s character-based rather than having any particular plot, other than seeing how Miranda and her children move on with their lives. There are inevitably some romances, mostly quite low-key, and a few shocks along the way; towards the end a couple of revelations felt a tad unlikely; I’m not over-enamoured with coincidences. However, they were explained in a way that made sense, and I don’t have a problem with loose ends of a novel being tied up neatly.

The writing is good, peppered with quotations from Shakespeare, and Miranda’s gradual self-awareness and discoveries about herself are quite thought-provoking. I liked her friends Patience and Lissy, and really didn’t like her friend Maeve at all; however, it’s a mark of a good novel that people got under my skin in this way. I very much liked Miranda’s three very different teenage children.

I didn’t find this as enjoyable as ‘Out of Love’. Parts of it seem a little over-sordid, even though most events take place off-stage. There were some scenes that didn’t really add anything to the plot - such as the rather appalling honeymoon couple who were Miranda’s first guests - and there was a sense of the novel being a sequence of events, rather than a story. There’s an unexpected subplot involving the teenage Elizabeth, for instance, which helps Miranda see her priorities, yet it’s almost forgotten in subsequent chapters.

But still, it made a good read and I expect some of the characters will remain in my mind for some time to come. Fairly widely available second-hand.

Review copyright 2016 Sue's Book Reviews

Out of love (by Victoria Clayton)

(Amazon UK link)

An online friend recommended this author, and in particular this book. So I put it on my wishlist and it was there for least a year, by which time I had almost forgotten about it. I had not previously heard of Victoria Clayton and know nothing about her. The novel 'Out of love' is out of print, and was only available from the Marketplace. So I was delighted to be given a good quality second-hand edition for my recent birthday.

The story is about thirty-something Diana, known to most of her friends as Daisy. She’s an academic who lives a fairly solitary life by choice, with a few romantic excursions that are far from satisfactory. We first meet her at an Oxford University reunion, thus establishing her credentials instantly, talking to her friend Min. They have not seen each other for fifteen years, despite being best friends through their school years.We quickly learn that this was due to a very unfortunate misunderstanding where Diana, without intending to, betrayed her friend.

Diana, it seems, has looks and elegance, while Min is casual and bohemian. Their meeting is followed by Diana promising to visit her friend, who is married with two school-age children. There’s a flashback sequence where we learn how they became friends, and what led to their parting, and then the story moves forward as Diana goes to stay for a long weekend with her friend.

The first hours are not auspicious: the phone lines are down so she has to make her own way there, and Min’s husband seems to take her in dislike almost from the start. The house is cold, the younger child unattractive, the bedroom uncomfortable, the dog smelly, the food unappetising… Diana tries to think of ways in which she could make her visit shorter.

Then an accident strikes and she ends up staying for considerably longer….

This is unashamedly a character-based book, and the people are very well drawn. The writing is excellent - in places it reminded me of Susan Howatch, one of my favourite authors. The pace is perfect for my tastes; it was an ideal book to read for ten or fifteen minutes at bedtime, and despite a relatively large cast, I usually remembered who was whom. As I got further into the book, I read more and more, during the daytime as well as at night as almost everyone started to get under my skin.

The book is nearly twenty years old, thus free of modern trappings such as mobile phones and wifi. On the other hand, the adults all seem to smoke. There’s a lot of drinking and more bad language than I’m comfortable with, and yet I absolutely loved it. The various subplots are cleverly crafted, the relationships nicely developed, and while everything feels believable, nothing is predictable. I didn’t know where the main romantic thread was going, and was pleasantly surprised at the outcome, and the gentle and entirely satisfactory ending.

It’s going to appeal a lot more to women than to men, and mostly to those who like character-based stories without fast action or suspense. But I have no hesitation in recommending it highly to anyone who likes women’s fiction, and have immediately put two more of the author’s books on my wishlist.

No longer in print in paperback, but fairly widely available second-hand; the book is also published in Kindle form on both sides of the Atlantic.

Review copyright 2016 Sue's Book Reviews