After the Fall - Charity Norman

One year ago, the McNamara family left their home in England to start a new life in New Zealand. It seemed the perfect opportunity for a fresh start, but one year later, all is not well. Five-year-old Finn lies comatose after falling from a balcony, and his mother is unforthcoming about what really happened to him. After The Fall switches between the past and the present to tell the story of what led up to the accident.

There are five members of the McNamara family: husband Kit, an artist who struggles from time to time with depression and drink; wife Martha, apparently running from secrets in her own past; Martha's daughter Sacha, aged sixteen, reluctant to leave her school, friends and life in England to move to the other side of the world, and five-year-old twins Finn and Charlie, for whom the entire experience is nothing but an adventure. The descriptions of the family uprooting themselves to start a new life caused an ache of longing inside me, aided by the beautiful descriptions of the New Zealand landscape and culture, the Maori folklore whose presence in the novel colours events with an eerie, unearthly atmosphere. But no matter how beautiful the McNamaras' new home is, no matter how far away from their old life, they can't run away from the darkness lurking beneath the surface of the family, because they brought it with them.

I was slow to really connect with this novel, despite sharing the desire to start life all over again in New Zealand or Australia, because of this darkness. Though superficially Martha and Kit appeared fairly likable, there was a menace in the writing, in the contrast between the flashback scenes and the present day in which the little boy was in hospital. The question was: how did they come to this? Hints throughout the book kept me distanced from Martha and Kit, feeling a reluctant certainty of the way that the plot would develop. Kit would lapse into alcoholism, become violent, and Martha would have an affair with the handsome shepherd who lived nearby, culminating in a horrible confrontation on the balcony which would leave me without sympathy for either and injuring an innocent child. I pretty much have a zero-tolerance policy regarding adultery in fiction. I was side-eyeing Martha all the way through the novel, preparing myself to dislike her intensely, while, against all hope, willing the author to surprise me.

So when the dark secrecy was uncovered, and it had nothing to do with the above predictions, it was all the more powerful for being unforeseen. The revelation was heartbreaking and shocking, coming from a character who I had allowed myself to feel sympathy for. Congratulations to Ms Norman for the genuine twist, and for getting past the emotional defenses I had put up between myself and the main couple.

After The Fall turned out to be a powerful exploration of families and secrets, and the futility of running from the past, at times difficult and upsetting, but ultimately hopeful.

The Poison Tree, Erin Kelly

Karen Clarke was always a good girl, a top-class languages student who lived a sensible, dull life, with a sensible, dull boyfriend and sensible, dull housemates. Then, after finding herself single again, she met Biba, the strange, alluring would-be actress who invited Karen into her life. For one summer, Karen seems to live the dream, sharing a big, old house in Highgate with Biba and her brother, with streams of interesting people, drugs and endless parties. But summer must come to an end, and one fateful evening all of their lives are changed forever...

The Poison Tree is a story told in two timelines: the main plot which set during the summer of 1997, a time that begin with hope in Britain with a new government, and ended with the nation mourning the "People's Princess," Diana. The second strand takes place ten years later, but the repercussions of the tragic night have not stopped. It is not much of a spoiler to say that Biba's brother - and Karen's partner - Rex has just been released from prison for a double murder - we are told this early on. The mystery is in what we are not told: why was her really there and what led him to that point? Why would Karen stay with a notorious killer? What is Karen's own guilty secret, and to what lengths will she go to keep it?

For most of the book I found Karen, the narrator, to be quite a dull character, with one unique trait - her language skills - and little personality. Her reaction to being dumped is emotionless - soulless? When she falls in with Biba and Rex, she seems easily moulded to become like them, to fit in and become part of their family until she's not sure who she was before, or who she would be without them. The sibling relationship between Rex and Biba is the most interesting dynamic in the story, the tale of a brother and sister who have nothing left but each other, and Rex in particular is driven by his obsession with protecting and holding onto his unpredictable, damaged sister.

I started off by disliking the main characters in the book when they showed no consideration for those around them, disturbing their neighbour, his children and pregnant wife by their late-night revelry. As a student in university accomodation I was made ill through lack of sleep because of people in the opposite flat, and my personal experiences made me hostile to these characters. But as the book progressed I found myself softening towards them, feeling sympathy towards the outwardly carefree and inwardly desperate Rex and Biba. Actual liking for the characters fluctuated; I was drawn to Biba by her charm but repelled by her selfishness, while Rex grew on me. Despite seeing the story through Karen's eyes, I could never quite like her; sensing a darkness beneath her seemingly ordinary character that didn't seem to be part of their shared history.

The Poison Tree is, like the poem it was named after, a dark, menacing read. It is almost gothic, with the crucial big, old house more of a character than a setting, with skewed residents who were too quirky, too passionate and intense. There is a thread of suspense throughout the story which kept me turning the pages and left more of a lasting impression than I first expecting, creepy and disturbing with its untold secrets and a shocking ending which left me to work out for myself why Erin Kelly had chosen this poem for its title. Kelly's next novel is set to be named after another William Blake poem, "The Sick Rose," which gives me reason to expect an equally dark read

The Poison Tree is one of the selected books for Richard and Judy's Summer Reads 2011.

Rachel's Holiday, Marian Keyes

"They tried to make me go to rehab; I said no, no, no." Amy Winehouse

Rachel's Holiday comes as a result of a mistake. Sure, Rachel Walsh takes drugs socially, but everyone does it in her circle of sophisticated friends in New York, it doesn't mean she's an addict. And yes, she understands that it looks like she attempted suicide when she had to be taken into hospital to get her stomach pumped, but really she was just buzzing and couldn't get to sleep so she just kept on taking sleeping pills to help, but not before jotting down a few ideas for poems which, okay, if you look at the notes out of context could possibly be construed as a "goodbye, cruel world" sort of message if you squint enough, but really, it's all just a huge misunderstanding and she's sure that it can all be sorted out.

But her parents send her goody-too-shoes sister Margaret over to bring her home to Ireland and check her into the Cloisters, a rehabilitation centre. Oh, well, Rachel needed a holiday anyway. She could do with a bit of aromatherapy and saunas and general pampering while everyone else got their heads sorted out. But when she gets to the Cloisters, it's not the swanky health spa she expected. Not only does she have to share a room - if you can call it that and not a broom cupboard - with an over-talkative older lady, but there are no saunas, no swimming pools, Rachel is expected to help with the housework and spend her days in group therapy having her childhood poked and picked at by an aggressive nun named Josephine. And no drugs at all. Not even for the people like Rachel who don't have any actual problems with them.

I was given Rachel's Holiday at a World Book Night, by a young lady who had "expected it to be a bit chicky, but it wasn't." It is an easy read, written in short chapters and compelling enough to ensure that I zipped through the 600+ pages in a day and a night, but it is not fluff. I realise that my understanding of "chick lit" is still a rather derogatory one of shoes, sex and shopping, no doubt influenced by Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series. Marian Keyes' Rachel's Holiday is easy to read, women's fiction but it is not fluff. There is a good mix of humour and pathos as we get to understand Rachel and the other people in the Cloisters, all going through very different situations and yet facing the same personal problems and daily temptations.

You can tell from the start that Rachel is an unreliable narrator - she doth protest too much. At first she downplays her actions, failing to mention the full extent of her drugs habit and the means she must go to in order to keep it up. We begin to learn the truth through other people's reactions, for example, Rachel describes herself as a big girl, but when she arrives back in Ireland, people remark how skinny she is - a comment that goes over Rachel's head but not the reader's. Despite her deep denial, constant shirking of all responsibility for herself or others and self-absorption, I really liked Rachel. Whether I would have liked her if the story had been told through another person's eyes, or by a third person narrator, is another matter. I suspect not. But as it was, I felt for her when it finally hits home to her how far she's fallen. As she makes the effort to get her life back on track, not always succeeding but trying again, I really feel for her and want her to succeed and make a good life for herself. An enjoyable, lightish read with plenty of substance and a decided lack of shoe shopping.