An Indiscreet Journey | Katherine Mansfield #ShortStory

An Indiscreet Journey was a short story written in 1915 by Katherine Mansfield but published posthumously in the 1924 collection, Something Childish and other stories by her husband John Middleton Murry. Initially it reads like a fairly straight forward story about a woman on a train journey to visit her aunt and uncle in the middle of the French war zone during WWI. Except she's not really visiting her aunt and uncle, she's meeting up her with her lover, a soldier. A very brief internet research also reveals this short story is based on the actual visit of Mansfield to her lover Carco in February 1915.

John Middleton Murry introduced Mansfield and Carco back in 1913. Murry and Mansfield were not married at until 1918, but their on again/off again bohemian relationship had begun in 1911. The affair between Carco and Mansfield seems to have run over the winter of 1914/1915.

With this story, we can see Mansfield exploring the idea of documenting the war as a social historian, as someone who is living through the thing she is describing. She shows us wounded soldiers, checkpoints and a mother reading a letter from her soldier son. She talks about gassing, firing lines, travel documents and curfews.

Mansfield leaves a lot unsaid here. The clandestine nature of the visit is alluded to but not directly approached. Most of the story is about the journey, not the actual purpose of the visit. The danger and tension of the war acts as a cover for the danger and tension of a secret assignation with a lover.

It turns out that the letter in the story, from the aunt, Julie Boiffard, inviting her to visit, is based on the real letter from Carco to Mansfield, that is now held in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand. The fake nature of this letter explains, why the niece in the story keeps forgetting the surname of her aunt and uncle. 'Again I read the unfamiliar letter in the familiar handwriting.'

One of the curiosities that caught my eye was the 'ordinary little woman' sitting in the same carriage as as our narrator. 'She wore a black velvet toque, with an incredibly surprised looking seagull camped on the very top of it. Its round eyes, fixed on me so enquiringly, were almost too much to bear. I had a dreadful impulse to shoo it away.' 

I imagined something like this in my mind's eye:

However, it more likely resembled the image below. 

Birds and feathers were a feature on hats at this time, with many cartoons sending up this particular fashion by suggesting the addition of kittens and puppies. Mansfield seems to be tapping into this humorous vein to make fun of her own distress or guilt at her secret rendezvous, imagining that all eyes were on her and that everyone knew what she was up to.

Francis Carco depicted Mansfield as a magpie, a purloiner of gems from the lives and characters of those around her, who was incapable of putting a word on paper without having personally witnessed or experienced the sentiments it expressed. For all the distortion of his caricature, there is an element of truth in his notion that she was a writer who fed off her surroundings to an exceptional extent.1 If she didn't 'prey' off life, as Carco put it, she was certainly deeply 'rooted' in it.

Parkin-Gounelas Ruth. (1991) Katherine Mansfield: Far, Far Nearer. In: Fictions of the Female Self

I'm not particular surprised that Carco was dismissive of Mansfield's writing style. The two stories that feature him in some way are not very flattering. In fact Je ne parle pas Francois (1918) shows us a very unattractive, unlikable man indeed.

In An Indiscreet Journey we see a man who seems to get off on the secretive details of the tryst - the dash in a cab, through the streets where 'policemen are as thick as violets' to the door of the aunt and uncle, before being quickly bundled inside and shut up in the white room. He drops the suitcase and paper, she tosses her passport in the air and he catches it. End scene. 

Their time spent in the unnamed town is filled with visits to the local cafe for lunch and dinner every day, where they have a special table, that she has decorated with a little vase of violets. The final scene is the woman sitting at the table on her, imagining the passing years, watching the passing parade on the other tables...until her lover and his friend arrive. At the end we see the two men, quite drunk, discussing the merits and differences between the English whiskey and the French mirabelle as they eat their way through a little charcuterie platter.

Mansfield wrote to Virginia Woolf in 1919, "What the writer does is not so much to solve the question but to put the question. There must be the question put. That seems to me a very nice dividing line between the true & the false writer".

So what is the question being asked here?

Is it, once again, the difference between the English and the French.

Who do you trust?

Escape and freedom versus fear and guilt?

The joy of these stories is that we will never really know.

The delight is in the interpretation for each and every reader.

Part of the joy for me, is the researching, as I dig deeper into Mansfield's short life. Getting to know this fascinating woman has certainly been a highlight of my 2020 reading life so far.

Facts:

• From 20 – 22 February 2015, the town of Gray, near Dijon in France, hosted a weekend of celebrations, to commemorate the centenary of the visit by Katherine Mansfield to Gray in order to see Francis Carco.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)
• Je ne Parle pas Français (1918)
• An Indiscreet Journey (1915)

#ParisinJuly

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted by Robert Hillman

Text Publishing:

Tom Hope doesn’t think he’s much of a farmer, but he’s doing his best. He can’t have been much of a husband to Trudy, either, judging by her sudden departure. It’s only when she returns, pregnant to someone else, that he discovers his surprising talent as a father. So when Trudy finds Jesus and takes little Peter away with her to join the holy rollers, Tom’s heart breaks all over again. 

Enter Hannah Babel, quixotic smalltown bookseller: the second Jew—and the most vivid person—Tom has ever met. He dares to believe they could make each other happy. 

But it is 1968: twenty-four years since Hannah and her own little boy arrived at Auschwitz. Tom Hope is taking on a batttle with heartbreak he can barely even begin to imagine.

This is not really a book about a bookshop.

But the lost and brokenhearted are everywhere.

If you're looking for another 84 Charing Cross Road or The Little Paris Bookshop or The Storied Life of A J Fikry, then this is not it. However if you enjoy gentle historical fiction full of love, tenderness and beautiful scenes of Victorian country life, you've found a winner.

Hillman has previously written the biographies of three Holocaust survivors - all women - so he is pretty well placed to write a sympathetic and accurate story about another such woman. It's not the first time that a bookshop setting has been used to represent culture and civilisation as a counterpoint against a time, person or place that is the complete opposite. But it is a useful, hopeful way of showing us how the better side of human nature triumphs over the worst.

In the Reading Guide for the Canadian edition of his book, Hillman said,

...victory. In the life of all Jews who outlived those who wished to murder them and found the courage to embrace life again, a victory is recorded. For me, every lovingly maintained bookshop is also a victory over all that is dowdy and dumb in the world.

The titular bookshop is more of an idea than the actual setting of the story, though.

The main backdrop of the story is Tom's farm in country Victoria. The bookshop may be a place of courage and ideas, but Tom's place is all about the heart and soul. It's a place to heal, to belong and to feel safe. All the main characters in the story are lost and damaged, one way or another. There are varying degrees of tragedy and trauma explored. Whether it's at the hands of a Christian fundamentalist cult, a deranged gunman, a thoughtless wife and mother, a revolutionary mob or Adolf Hitler. However, Hillman also said that,

it would be grotesque to suggest that the suffering of Hannah at the hands of the SS could be compared to Tom’s sorrow when Peter is taken away. People can recover from a broken heart, but the particular circumstances of Hannah’s heartbreak—no. The issue is not “recovery” but whether a commitment to life might allow a person to bear a terrible burden and still see the poetry in the world.

It is that commitment to life, that this gives this gentle story a little something special. It's easy to say that good will triumph over evil, that education will win out over ignorance and that kindness will oust brutality, but how? It doesn't just happen. You have to decide to make it happen. A life well-lived is the best victory of all.

Facts:

• Longlisted for the Australian Book Industry Award, Small Publishers' Book of the Year, 2019

The Wonder Child by Ethel Turner

The Wonder Child is a gentle juvenile story about a family forced to be separated for years due to the gifted talents of one of the children. Challis plays the piano like a dream and goes off to Europe with her mother to make the family fortune.

The other four children stay at home with their hapless, but lovable father. Mr Cameron is a dreamer. He struggles to make his way in life, preferring to write verses, compose melodies and paint pictures. He doesn't seem to have the necessary skills to hold down a job and he relies on his more practical, responsible wife to manage their finances. Mrs Cameron obviously loves her creative husband, but also has to live with his flaws on a daily basis. After five children, and constantly being forced to ask family and friends for help, a job is arranged for Cameron in western NSW as a Crown Land Agent.

Wilgandra is a fictional town, but it sounds just like most of the small country towns I've known. Turner tells us it is -

three hundred and seventy-three miles back, back, away in the heart of the country - the farthest town to which the Government sent its Land Agent....

The climate was intolerable in the summer, there was little or no society, the only house they could have was not over comfortable.

It doesn't sound particularly promising or inspiring.

After their mother goes off to Europe with Challis, Hermie, Bartie, Roly & Floss are cared for by a very competent female 'lady-help' and their State girl Lizzie, carefully selected by Mrs Cameron before she left. However this arrangement only lasts six months, until the very competent young woman is snapped up by a local romeo to be his wife.

Hermie and Lizzie attempt to run the household, until even Mr Cameron is forced to acknowledge that this isn't working properly. Along comes the gentle, ineffectual Miss Browne. She's a spinster who has been unable to hold down any other job and whose ways are even more hapless than Mr Cameron.

A gradual decline sets in. Compounded by Mr Cameron losing his job as a Land Agent.

The family is forced to move out of the home the state provided, to take up possession of a lean, mean selection out of town.

Their father's selection stretched before them, eighty acres of miserable land, lying grey and dreary under the canopy of a five o'clock coppery sky, summer and drought time.

Five years drag on...five years of disguising their misfortunes from Mrs Cameron and Challis, until the day the letter arrives confirming the date they are due home from Europe. A Europe of adoration, comfort, new clothes and fine lodgings.

I don't normally provide a summary of the story in my posts, but this is one of Turner's lesser known works and I felt it deserved a fuller treatment.

Although this could be classified as a children's book, the themes are wide ranging and topical (for 1901). Turner discusses her views on religion and atheism via Mrs Cameron beliefs -

She said she did not try to explain or understand God, only to believe in him. She is quite right. It is the hard names, the popular orthodoxies, the iron creeds, that take the souls and heart and warmth out of religion. When you were little, she did nothing but show you God as your Father, and Christ as your Saviour, to be tenderly loved and obeyed, and gone to for refuge and comfort.... 

She wanted the love of God to be a living thing to you all - a glad, warm, spontaneous thing, like the love you bore us, only deeper. She would have no lines and rules and analyses of it while you were small. It was not a thing she actually spoke about very often....Not to understand, only to believe.

She includes some lovely descriptions of the bush -

Wattle in bloom made a glory of the uncleared spaces, the young gums were very green, the older ones wore masses of soft white upon their soberness.

Farther away there browsed brown sheep, but this was the season for lambs, a dozen little soft snowballs of things had come close to the cottage and gambolled with the children.  

They drove up the road that wound out of civilised Wilgandra away to parts where the bush took on its wild character again, and rolled either side of them in unbroken severity and loneliness for miles.

The air was fragrant with the bush scents that rise after rain. A cool, quiet breeze swayed the boughs pf the ocean-waste of tress, here and there it lifted the long string of warm-coloured bark - autumn's royal rags - that hung from the silvered trunks.

And the Boer War experience is covered off via the neighbouring squatter, Morty. Mortimer Stevenson is the youngest son of a strict father who runs off to war to avoid a romantic disappointment. Turner doesn't glorify the war (too much). She describes the Macquarie St parade as -

And now the crowd took the reins off itself, and gave head to its madness. It hurrahed itself hoarse; it waved its arms, and its handkerchiefs, and its hat,and its head; it flung flowers, and flags and coloured paper; it hung recklessly from roofs, and walls, doors, chimneys, fences, lamp-posts, balconies, verandah-posts.

We also see young Roly embrace the war talk. He renames the selection Transvall Vale, sets up camp in the yard and spends his days fighting imaginary enemies. But it is Morty's time in South Africa that hints at a more realistic and perhaps personal, view of war -

his first battle, with its horrid nightmare of flashing lights and thundering gins, its pools of blood, its contorted human faces, its agonised horses writhing in the dust.

She also shows us the other side with a quick glimpse into the life of a South African family who provide Morty with a place to sleep after he helps them bury their son/brother. -

it is the same everywhere; our lovers, our husbands, our sons - all gone from us! Some will come back, of course, but crushed and mutilated.... 

you must know why we are fighting....but our men don't know. They have been told they will lose their liberty and homes if they don't fight....your men, of course they come because they are sent, and they fight their best because they are brave and obey orders.... 

We are no different from you. We pay a few great men to do the thinking for us, and if they say it's got to be fighting, then, whatever it seems to us individually, collectively we just shoot.

As I said, for a juvenile story, Turner has managed to include lots of meaty topics. Including a very brief view on Indigenous life in a colonial outpost -

Two or three aboriginal women were coming back from a journey to the house, cloths full of stores and broken food slung over their shoulder. Stevenson forty years ago had had to break up a big camp of them on the land he had just taken up, and drive them farther west. Ever since he had not felt justified in refusing food to any of their colour.

Let's not forget young Hermie either, as the book is ultimately her coming of age story -

I can't tell you how silly  and small I have been - thinking men ought to be just like men in books, and never looking at what they really are.

Just like, Turner's more famous story, Seven Little Australians, The Wonder Child embraces it's sense of time and place. Her characters are unapologetically Australian in sound and attitude. Their lives always teetering on the brink of hardship and poverty, with large family life being shown as chaotic. We see young children shoulder responsibility and adult cares at a far earlier age than we expect now and where most people lived their daily lives far removed from government interference or regard. Individuals and families fell through the cracks all the time. Life was hard work, money and resources were scarce and getting by was the best most people could expect from life.

According the Brenda Niall's biography of Turner on the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

Her writing showed a continuing tension between her enjoyment of popular and commercial success and her wish to break free from the restrictions of juvenile fiction. Ethel's publishers always insisted that her work should remain within the range of the sheltered young reader.

I sensed this tension throughout the book. The meatier, adult subjects were dressed up in neat moral bows suitable for the edification of younger readers. Yet, I thoroughly enjoyed this glimpse into a world gone by and I'm grateful that Turner has another 40 or so such stories for me to enjoy at my leisure.

Facts:

• Published in 1901 but set in the time just prior to the Boer War (1899-1902).
• My CC spin #21 book.
• My flashback review of Seven Little Australians.
• My review of The Story of a Baby.
• My review of In the Mist of the Mountains.

The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay

The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay was a tremendous read. Fascinating, absorbing and eye-opening.

I say eye-opening, because even though I've read a lot of Indian literature over the years, I don't believe I've read many that cover the conflict in Kashmir. Vijay doesn't answer all the questions or provide all the answers, she doesn't even fill in all the blanks, yet somehow this seems like a much truer, more accurate rendering of this constantly shifting, long-ranging, complex conflict. How these things started, who is right or wrong, who did what to who, all get lost in the murky details of history.

The job of historical fiction is to create dialogue between the basic facts (dates, places, names) and interpretation and to give them both meaning and a human face. Historical fiction adds possibility - in the details, the moods, the conversations, the interactions, the daily routines - all that ordinary stuff of our regular lives that usually gets lost in the columns of historical facts.

Vijay has given us one such story, one such possibility, set in and around a small town in Kashmir.

Shalini is from Bangalore but when her mother dies suddenly, the grief she is left with feels like too heavy a burden. So she takes off to Kishtwar, in Kashmir, in an attempt to find the charming travelling salesman that used to visit their home regularly when she was a child.

Bashir Ahmed not only charmed Shalini, but also her mother. A long distance, long-term flirtation existed between them. Ahmed's back story is filled in gradually via snippets of memory and conversation as the southern Indian view of the the conflict in the north is challenged by their friendship with him.

During her time in Kashmir as a grieving adult, Shalini is confronted by a whole region in the grip of grieving. Although the backdrop is war and political unrest, the story is deeply personal.

Shalini is not the most likeable character I've ever read. She's rather spoilt, selfish and naive. However, the journey she goes on, both physical and emotional is compelling stuff, and I for one, could barely put this book down.

Epigraph Philosophy:

Something else is yet to happen, only where and what? 
Someone will head towards them, only when and who,
in how many shapes and with what intentions?
Given a choice,
maybe he will choose not to be the enemy and
leave them with some kind of life.

A poem by Wislawa Szymborska, "Some People"

I unearthed the entire poem and found two rather different translations that I discussed in this previous post. Given it was very easy to find both translations, I'm curious why Vijay (or her editors) chose the less satisfying (to me) and less grittier version of the poem?

Either way, it highlights the elusive, changing nature of conflict and historical truth.

Facts:

• Longlisted JCB Prize for Literature 2019
• Madhuri Vijay was born and raised in Bengaluru.
• She now lives in Hawaii where she is a teacher.

Jokes For the Gunmen by Mazen Maarouf

I wanted to like this collection of short stories more than I did. The cover of Jokes For the Gunmen was eye-catching; the topic interesting, important even. The writing and translation were fine too, but surreal and absurd doesn't always work for me. And in this case, I was left scratching my head too often to claim this book as a successful reading experience.

All the stories cover the common themes of loss and the effects of war, especially on children. Often the only response to such horrific events is to laugh darkly, which is what Maarouf has done in every story. His gallows humour twists and turns between being absurd, bizarre and just plain weird.

His cities are unnamed but obviously situated in a middle eastern war zone. This allows the reader to place the action wherever they imagine. Personally, I pictured Aleppo in Syria, as this was the place that featured most on the news as I was reading through the various short stories.

My favourite story was the first one, the titular story of the collection. It was also probably the longest. It's a perfect example of Maarouf's writing style with cruel twists, bizarre thinking and odd survival techniques.

Favourite Quote:

Your story has to be convincing, enjoyable and very short, and it has to make people laugh. Not like this story, for example.

Favourite or Forget:

• Some of the scenes and situations are unforgettable, but not a favourite in the end.

Fess Up:

• I didn't read the last four stories. 

Facts:

• Mazen Maarouf born in Beirut 1978.
• Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019.
• Translated by Jonathan Wright.
• Also reviewed by Meredith @Dolce Belleza.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I'm not sure why it has taken me so long to get my thoughts together about The Song of Achilles, but sitting down to write about my response to this amazing story is probably a story in itself!

It was during my early high school days that my love of history developed. My first history class took me into the fascinating world of Tollund Man - the mummified bog body found in 1950. I was amazed at what scientists and historians were able to deduce from these remains about the world and times he lived in. There was even a Seamus Heaney poem - my first (very young) adult experience of seeing how we have always made up stories and songs to help us interpret and reinterpret our history and give meaning to our present day experiences.

Some purists and classicists may disapprove of this mode of story telling, but retelling old stories with modern sensibilities helps to keep the old stories alive. Old ideas such as hubris can be brought to life for contemporary audiences to ponder about how it might present itself now.

That's what Madeline Miller does so well here.

Using the well-known, very masculine, very war-like story of The Iliad and turning it into a romance between Achilles and Patroclus gives this old story a new lease of life. This is still a world of men and war, but Miller gives a us a chance to see this world through the eyes of Achilles goddess mother, Thetis and through the ideas of a captured Trojan girl, Briseis.

The first half of the story that fills in the childhood back story of both young men is the most interesting part to my mind. It shows the human side of Achilles before he gets caught up in his prophecy and god-like fate. I also found their first love scene to be one of the most tender, beautiful moments I've ever read.

Once we moved into the world of The Iliad proper, I felt less involved until Briseis turned up. Seeing the camp though a female lens while being reminded of how the lives of women and children were affected by this long siege was a nice touch.

I also enjoyed the scenes between Patroclus and Achilles that showed their relationship at work - how they influenced each other, how they debated, argued and compromised, how they knew each other so well that they knew what to say and how to say it to appease or enrage each other.

It is these contemporary humanising additions that allow a modern reader to reach into the old story again to find deeper meaning. Reading between the lines and filling in the gaps is the realm of all artists. Reinterpretation is a continual process, dependant on the era and experience of those doing the reinterpretation.

Homer's Iliad was just one (and possibly the first) interpretation of the events that happened on the plains of Troy to explain to those left at home and those who came after, what happened. We all seek meaning and purpose in our lives. We want to make sense of big world events. Our search for understanding, knowledge and insight is perennial.

Revisionism is a natural, organic process that occurs during, and for, every generation. The Song of Achilles is a stellar example of how that can work.

Favourite Passage:

But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another....We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory.

Favourite Character: Briseis - she is brave, loyal and inclusive.

Favourite or Forget: Favourite, but not likely to be a reread. Highly recommended to lovers of historical fiction, Ancient Greek retellings, or for those looking for LGBTQI themes.

Facts: Winner of the Orange Prize 2012

Poem: The Song of Achilles

The Skylarks' War by Hilary McKay

A couple of weeks ago I listed The Skylarks' War by Hilary McKay on my post about books read but not reviewed in an attempt to remove the backlog of reviews bogging me down. But I always knew that I would have to return to this book. And thanks to Lenny's Book of Everything by Karen Foxlee winning the Indie Book Award for Children's Fiction yesterday and rereading my gushing review, that time is now.

So let me tell you about my journey with The Skylarks' War.

My rep gave me a lovely looking ARC at the end of last year. He knows of my love for historical fiction, but in the lead up to Christmas it got put on top of the pile by my bed...and forgotten. I confess the blurb, that reveals that this is yet another WWI story, turned me off a little. We've been inundated with war stories the last five years and I wondered how on earth something new and fresh could be said about this time.

So it languished.

In January, I then noted that it had not only been shortlisted for The Costa Children's Award, but had also won its category award. However, it took a hot, hot summer weekend in mid-Feb when I was feeling blah about everything, including all the books I had half-read on my bedside table, that I flicked through my kids TBR pile.

Over the years I have discovered some real gems on the Costa Book Award list, books I may not have turned to otherwise (Pure by Andrew Miller, the author Marcus Sedgwick and Andrea Wulf's, The Invention of Nature to name a few). So even though this was another war story, I decided it would be light enough to fit my weekend mood.

The first page changed everything though.

More than one hundred years ago, in the time of gas lamps and candlelight, when shops had wooden counters and the streets were full of horses, a baby girl was born. Nobody was pleased about this except the baby's mother. The baby's father did not like children, not even his own, and Peter, the baby's brother, was only three years old and did not understand the need for any extra people in his world....

Clarry was three days old when her mother died. Many things were said about this great calamity, and some of them were regretted later, when people had calmed down and there were fewer tears and more worried frowns in the narrow stone house where the baby had so inconsiderately arrived and her mother had so inconveniently departed. 

I quickly realised why this book had won The Costa and was amazed it hadn't won more - yet.

Clarry, Peter and their older cousin Rupert are characters to take into your heart forever. Told through the innocent childhood eyes of Clarry, McKay is able to tackle some heavy issues. Family dysfunction, bullying, sexism and feminist issues, homosexuality and the hardships of war are all in this book. McKay hints at stuff, leads us up to a point, but she never tells us or explains. She leaves us to work it out and make the connections ourselves, as all the best stories do.

The Skylarks' War will make you laugh and cry. I found myself hugging it to my chest several times and wondering how many people I could make read this book asap.

Part of the success of this story is Clarry's voice. She is believable and feels real.

McKay's writing is the other big plus. She does not condescend or talk down to her child audience. She writes intelligently and like all the very best children's writing (think Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, The Hobbit, The Silver Sword, Lenny's Book of Everything) it is a book that can be read by children and adults alike with an equal amount of pleasure and enjoyment.

The Costa judges described this “as perfect a novel as you could ever want to read." I think they may have understated just how extraordinary and wonderful this story really is.

McKay includes a bibliography in the back of the book and one of the books that informed the authenticity of this story was Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth. Enough said really.

The bittersweet heartbreak is there, but so too is the hope.

The Skylarks' War is a keeper. You should read it now.
You can thank me later.

Maisie Dobbs #13 In This Grave Hour

In This Grave Hour is the thirteenth Maisie Dobb's book, and as the title suggests, WWII has just been declared. As with any long running series, some books are better than others. In the early stages of this one, I thought we had one of the lesser Maisie's on our hands. It felt a little clunky, like it was trying too hard to find the Maisie magic of old.

But as we went along, the pace picked up and Winspear found her groove. The regular, much-loved cast of characters add the heart and soul to this story and they all got a chance to shine in this story, especially Maisie's dad, who I just adore.

The crime centred around the revenge-styled murders of Belgium refugees from WWI, but the emotional heart of the story involved the children evacuated from London during the early days of the wars announcement. Maisie also got to revisit an old flame in the guise of Richard Stratton, recalled to London to help with the war effort.

After feeling so fearful for Priscilla's young adults sons in the previous book, In This Grave Hour brings the sense of tension back a few notches. This reflected the anti-climax that occurred in England after the initial announcement when nothing actually happened, leading the early stages of WWII to be called the phoney war or the bore war.

In This Grave Hour was not Maisie's best work, but she's such a lovely, comfort read for me, that I will forgive many sins, just to disappear into her world for a while. Her happy mix of empathy and rational thought is a combination that I find endearing and admirable. Spending time with such kind hearted, well-meaning people will always feel like a good thing to do.

Maisie Dobbs #1
Maisie Dobbs #2 Birds of a Feather
Maisie Dobbs #3 Pardonable Lies
Maisie Dobbs #4 Messenger of Truth
Maisie Dobbs #5 An Incomplete Revenge
Maisie Dobbs #6 Among the Mad
Maisie Dobbs #7 The Mapping of Love and Death
Maisie Dobbs #8 A Lesson in Secrets
Maisie Dobbs #9 Elegy for Eddie
Maisie Dobbs #10 Leaving Everything Most Loved
Maisie Dobbs #11 A Dangerous Place
Maisie Dobbs #12 Journey to Munich
Maisie Dobbs #13 In This Grave Hour
Maisie Dobbs #14 To Die But Once

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller

Historical fiction is my favourite of all genres. It's probably also why I love classic books so much. Even if they were contemporary stories when written a hundred years ago, they are now historical fiction to me.

I'm not sure why I love being immersed in a time so far removed from our own, except I do love learning about times and places and peoples I would otherwise know little about. I love the imaginative journey, based on factual information, that my favourite historical fiction writers take me on. I also love the sense of continuity I get by seeing that even though our worlds may look and sound different, that people still go through the same emotional journeys regardless of the the historical era.

It comforts me to know that I'm not the first person to feel sad, scared, excited, hopeless, fearful, depressed, out of my depth, deliriously happy or just plain flat. Reading how other people, in other times, have survived and learnt to navigate a graceful way (or not) through their emotional stories, helps me to find ways to do the same in our more modern world.

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller is a Napoleonic era story all about people running from their pasts; that thing so many of us have tried to do as some point. The hope that moving away or moving on or changing one's surroundings will help us find a better version of ourselves or escape an older unpalatable truth.

However, as we all learn eventually, you cannot run from your past or who your really are, it will always come back to haunt you, one way or the other, until you face it square on, accept it, deal with it, learn from it and incorporate this into a newer, evolved you.

It seems that everyone in Now We Shall Be Entirely Free has a secret and something to hide. Shadowy figures dictate/guide the behaviour of our lone gunman as well as the family of siblings that we later find on an island off the coast of Scotland. Our protagonist is riddled with guilt and doubt and we're not quite sure, as the reader, where the truth lies.

The ending doesn't necessarily clear anything or everything up either. We learn about the truth of the matter that drives the story, but many things are left unresolved. Who was the unknown General that directed Calley to track down and kill Lacroix? And to what purpose? What was his motive? Was it a way for Miller to show us that Calley was not, and never would, be a free agent or free from his past. Was he making a comment on the importance of childhood in nurturing emotionally healthy adults?

We also explore the impact of war on not only the ones doing the soldiering but on innocent civilians as well. The civilians of little Spanish villages and those in England left to live with their returned traumatised soldiers. No-one leaves a war zone unscarred. Except perhaps those shadowy power-hungry figures behind the scenes pulling the strings. 

This story felt more straightforward than Miller's previous books, but there were still plenty of Miller's trademark twist and turns and unexpected insights. Miller writes a tense cat and mouse chase mixed with some romantic ideals and psychological insights. I enjoy the suspense, the little insights into human behaviour, the quiet moments between people that feel very authentic, but I do wish he would give us a little more resolution. But perhaps that's life. Nothing is ever resolved to our satisfaction. We all have memories we'd rather forget, yet finding a way to live with them can finally bring us a sense of peace. There's always things left unsaid, undone, but we continue on, searching for peace and freedom and a sense of belonging in this crazy, chaotic world we find ourselves living in.

However, if anyone would like to discuss the ending with me in the comments below, please do! One day I think it meant one thing; the next day another. I'd love to hear what you think.

And if you haven't read any Andrew Miller before, and you love great storytelling with an historical fiction setting, then this is your guy.

Northbridge Rectory by Angela Thirkell

Northbridge Rectory was my very first Thirkell. But it certainly won't be my last.
Lucky me! I still have 28 books in Thirkell's Barsetshire series ahead of me to enjoy at my leisure. I've added her to my Author Challenge list so I can keep track of my progress. In fact, I enjoyed my time at Northbridge Rectory so much I have spent the bulk of today trawling the blogosphere for other devotees so we can rave and gush together!

I think I first spotted Angela Thirkell on Heaven Ali's blog many years ago. I fell in love with the new Virago covers, so much so that when I spotted Northbridge Rectory on the shelves of a lovely little Indie bookshop, I knew I had to have it.

Last week, as the winter days drew in, I was in need of something gentle and comforting. I suspected that Thirkell would fulfil this need nicely. From the start I found her to be just like a warm English Breakfast tea served in a floral bone china cup - delicate yet robust, obvious and subtle in the same mouthful with the bitterness covered up by a generous spoonful of sweetness.

Written in 1941, we see Thirkell and her characters making do and muddling through the war years the best they can, in what we now know to be the middle of the WWII. However, neither Thirkell or her characters knew this. They had no idea how much longer they would have to soldier on or how much more making do they would have to do. This sense of uncertainty, stoicism and nostalgia for the pre-war days imbues everything that happened in Northbridge Rectory. From the constant discussions around food supplies (or the lack thereof) to the billeting of soldiers and evacuees from London and the hilarious saga around the 'roof-spotters' watching for paratroopers atop the local church.

The descriptions of war-time England were certainly one of the stand-out features of Northbridge Rectory. Thirkell related, almost by accident, the hardships and dreariness, the speculation and gossip, the stiff upper lip and social decorum at all costs that was so typical of so many of the English at this time. The fact that Thirkell was writing her war story as it happened makes it all the more poignant to the modern reader as well as being a remarkable snapshot in time now long gone. I'd be curious to know if Thirkell realised that her books might become a kind of historical record of England pre, during and post WWII? Yes, there is a lot of author fantasy and wish-fulfilment at work here, but a certain kind of truth and bitter reality shines through the sweetness as well.

I thoroughly enjoyed the gentle English humour and charming nostalgia that this book evoked. The lovely relationship between the Rector and his wife, Mrs Villars, shone with gentle understanding and tenderness. The kindhearted noisy nieces (one named and one unnamed throughout the entire novel) with their love interests and common vocabulary made me smile at every encounter. The dear old ladies in Glycerine Cottage with their terrible French and chere amie's living a quiet life of love with nobody blinking an eye. Mr Holden and his weird devotion to Mrs Villars health, the co-dependent relationship between the studious Mr Downing and tough-as-cookies Miss Pemberton, Ex-navy man Father Fewling happily manning the air raid shelter and keeping everything in tip top shape. Kitchen maid Edie carrying on behind the scenes with Corporal Jackson in constant fear of Mrs Chapman finding out. I really loved them all by the end, even the truly ghastly Mrs Spender with her 'believe it or not's, 'I'm funny that way' and 'if you know what I mean's. Mrs Spender is one of those gloriously awful characters that you love to hate, rather like Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice or Miss Bates in Emma (or even Emma in Emma!)

Hermione Lee in her essay ‘Good Show: The Life and Works of Angela Thirkell’ in Body Parts: Essays on Life Writing, says ‘these light, witty, easygoing books turn out to be horrifying studies in English repression’. For me, that was the lovely surprise. That these lovely, light, fluffy looking books in fact hid an underbelly of dark social observation and clever characterisations.

I also enjoyed all the literary references, word play and class consciousness that Thirkell oozed onto every page - although after reading through the 'relusions' for Northbridge Rectory at the Angela Thirkell Society I quickly realised that I had only got about half of Thirkell's literary and cultural allusions.

During my search of the blogosphere, I discovered that Claire @The Captive Reader classified NR as one of her least favourite Thirkell's, which has now bumped up my expectations for the other 28 books to ridiculous heights!

Hayley @Desperate Reader  described NR as a book where 'not very much happens, but it doesn't happen in a very enjoyable way.' She also mentioned the rewards and pleasures of rereading Thirkell - I can't wait!

However Booker Talk was not so much a fan. She found that High Rising was 'as substantial as eating an enormous meringue; it looks impressive but once you get your teeth into it, it dissolves into a sugary tasting nothingness.'
Given that High Rising was Thirkell's first book, written in 1933, to escape a disastrous marriage and socially backward Australia, perhaps we shouldn't expect too much at the start. There was a sugary sweetness to Northbridge Rectory too, but I unearthed so much Jane Austen-like satire and social commentary lurking under the surface, that I found myself becoming more and more thrilled with each chapter.

I feel that this book response has gotten clunkier as I've gone along, when all I really wanted to say was how much a adored this deceptively simple war story. It won't be for everyone, but it suited me just fine!

Book 7 of #20booksofsummer (winter)
Sydney 17℃ but felt like 12℃ (brrrr)
Northern Ireland 24℃ (how lovely!)

The Battle of Waterloo the Victor Hugo Way

I can't believe that readers past and present have complained about the (lengthy) Waterloo scenes in Les Miserables!

Actually, yes I can.

Battle scenes are not for everyone. Jumping back in time and breaking the narrative flow also annoys many readers. The sudden appearance of the writer in the story can also disconcert. But this is Victor Hugo and after 3 months in his company, I've already learnt that everything has a purpose.

I first became interested in the French Revolution when I read A Tale of Two Cities in my late teens. Since then I've read loads of fiction and non-fiction about this era - from Jeannette Winterson's The Passion to some of Max Gallo's fictionalised biographies (I can't believe I jettisoned these books during one of my moves after only reading two of them! What was I thinking?)

Because I stopped reading these books before Napoleon had reached Waterloo, my memory of what happened is pretty much left to the lyrics of ABBA's song of the same name!

It's hard to know if  Napoleon was a genius or a tyrant, a gifted leader or mad. It often depended on which side of the battle lines you were on as to how you perceived him and his actions.

However there is no denying that he changed the face of Europe and the very heart of France. He will now always be one of the big names of history; one of those larger-than-life personalities whose self-belief, courage to embrace change and sense of destiny combined to radically alter the course of history. Napoleon also became another prime example of the dangers of hubris for historians, philosophers and storytellers alike. Certainly Hugo could not resist.

Hugo visited the area in 1861 so that he could write these Waterloo chapters for Les Mis. His fictional account of the battle has long been considered inaccurate, and it certainly reads as a patriotic piece full of the usual propaganda of war and nationalism. However he,

stirred French passions with his emotive prose and there is no doubt that he considered Napoleon’s downfall as a national tragedy. He also lamented the manner in which the famous soldier was defeated and thought that he had been brought down by lesser men who owed more to chance than skill, writing scathingly: ‘It is not the victory of Europe over France, it is the complete, absolute, shattering, incontestable, final, supreme triumph of mediocrity over genius.’

La Guard Recule

In honour of his literary efforts, a subscription was raised in 1911 to build a monument near the Hotel des Colonnes in Mont St Jean where he stayed in 1861. Two world wars and lack of funds stalled the progress of the monument, until 1956. It is still not finished - a French cockerel statue is meant to adorn the top of the column.

Artists have also been drawn to recreating significant moments from this battle ever since.

V2 B1 C2 - Hougomont

Hougomont. It was a fateful place, the beginning of disaster, the first obstacle encountered at Waterloo by the great tree-feller of Europe whose name was Napoleon, the first knot to resist his axe.

Defence of the Chateau de Hougoumont by the flank Company, Coldstream Guards, 1815 - Denis Dighton

V2 B1 C3 - 18 June 1815

Had it not rained in the night of 17-18 June 1815, the future of Europe would have been different. A few drops of water, more or less, were what decided Napoleon's fate.

Image source

V2 B1 C5 - The Fog of War

After the fall of La-Haie-Sainte the battle hung in the balance. This middle phase, from midday until four o'clock, is indistinctly visible, shrouded in the fog of war. We have a glimpse of huge turmoil, a kaleidoscopic picture of outmoded military trappings, busbies, sabre-belts, crossed shoulder-straps, ammunition pouches, hussars' dolmans, wrinkled riding boots, heavy fringed shakos, the black tunics of Brunswick mingled with the scarlet of England.

Windmill at Quatre Bras during the Battle of Waterloo - Carle Vernet (c.1815-36)

Once again, I found myself fascinated by the translation choices throughout the 19 Waterloo chapters.

V2 B1 C9 - The Unexpected

I begin with Denny's translation as I found it to be the most powerful & poignant translation. What do you think?

What followed was appalling. This ravine, some fifteen feet deep between sheer banks, appeared suddenly at the feet of the leading horses, which reared and attempted to pull up but were thrust forward by those coming behind, so that the horse and rider fell and slid helplessly down, to be followed by others. The column had become a projectile, and the explosive force generated for the destruction of the enemy was now its own destroyer. That hideous gulf could only be crossed when it was filled. Horses and men poured into it, pounding each other into a solid mass of flesh, and when the level of the dead and the living had risen high enough the rest of the column passed over. In this fashion a third of Dubois's brigade was lost.

Donougher

This was a moment of horror. There, directly under the horses' hoofs, twelve feet deep between the double embankment, yawned the unexpected ravine. The second line drove the first into it, and the third drove the second. The horses reared then lunged backwards, landed on their rumps, slid with all four legs in the air, unseating and flettening their riders; unable to reverse, the whole column solely a projectile, the impetus gathered to trample the English now trampling the French. The inexorable ravine could only capitulate when filled. Riders and horses rolled pell-mell into the pit, crushing each other, together forming but one flesh, and when this trench was filled with living men they were trodden underfoot and the rest were able to pass. Almost a third of Dubois's brigade fell into that abyss.

Rose

The moment was horrifying. There was the ravine, unexpected, yawning right at the horses' hooves, two fathoms deep between its twin banks. The second row pushed the first in and the third pushed the second; the horses reared, threw themselves backwards, fell on their rumps, slid with their four feet in the air, knocking off and crushing their riders, no way of turning back. The entire column was now no more than a projectile, the force gathered to crush the English crushed the French, the inexorable ravine could surrender until it was filled, riders and horses rolled into it pell-mell, grinding each other, forming one flesh in this gulf, and when the pit was full of men still alive, they marched over them and the remainder followed suit. Almost a third of Dubois's brigade toppled into this abyss.

Fall at Ohain Road - image source

The Ravine of Waterloo (1895) by Ulpiano Checa 

What a ghastly way to die!

V2 B1 C13 - Catastrophe

The shadow of a momentous justice lay over Waterloo. It was the day of destiny, when a force greater than mankind prevailed....On that day the course of mankind was altered. Waterloo was the hinge of the nineteenth century. A great man had to disappear in order that a great century might be born.

Day of Destiny - David Cartwright 

V2 B1 C14 - The Last Square

By nine o'clock that evening only one square, at the foot of the plateau of the Mont St Jean, the slope scored by the hooves of the cuirassiers, was holding out against the concentrated artillery-fire of the victorious enemy.

The Battle of Waterloo, 16–19 June 1815, the Defeat of Kellerman's Cuirassiers - Thomas Sidney Cooper

Hugo finishes the battle scenes of Waterloo late in the evening of the 18th June with V2 B1 C19 - The Battlefield at Night. He tells us that

Every army has its camp-followers and it is these that we must look, to the bat-like creatures, half-ruffian, half-servant, engendered by the twilight of war, wearers of uniform who do no fighting, malingerers, venomous cripples, sutlers riding in small carts, sometimes with their women, who steal what later they sell, beggars offering their services as guides, rogues and vagabonds of all kinds.

Corpses Interred at Hougoumont 1816 - James Rouse

As I read this section I remembered Jeannette Winterson's The Passion which featured precisely these battlefield hanger-on-er's. It came as no surprise to see which one of our previous, less savoury characters was here, after the battle, picking pockets, with self-preservation and self-serving traits already on display.

And a new name - Pontmercy.

The battlefield of Waterloo was quickly turned into an historic monument. Just as quickly, different versions, opinions and interpretations were put about. All battles are messy, ugly, brutal places full of confusion and chaos. The loss of life is horrendous. The carnage and trauma is glorified so that all that loss and misery is not for nothing. Whether its the weather, fate, god, destiny or luck, reasons are looked for, as those left behind to deal with the clean up and their grief, try to find meaning and a sense of purpose.

The Lion Mound (Butte du Lion) was created from the ruins of the battlefield near Braine-l'Alleud, Belgium. Nearby is a rotunda that contains a massive panoramic painting of the battle by Louis Dumoulin. It consists of 14 panels. Two of the episodes are shown below.

Finally Facing My Waterloo

Birthday Check In

Week 2 Catch Up

Translations

Week 1 First Impressions

#lesmisreadalong

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree has been attracting my attention for several months now, however it took its recent longlisting for this year's Stella Prize to finally make me pick it up. I'm nothing but a Stella groupie!

The cover alone might have been enticement enough (a collage of three of Azar's art works), but the promise of a mystical, magical tour through the horrors of revolutionary Iran, 'using the lyrical magic realism style of classical Persian storytelling', was the final prompt I needed to make this my first book to read from this year's prize.

Magical realism can be a problem for many readers I know. I'm happy to embrace some forms of magic realism more than others. I especially like those that draw fairy tales, fables and myths into our modern real-world setting. (FYI: I'm not so keen on the type of magic realism that brings in a lot of deliberately disorientating layers and details. I like my magical realism to still make sense somehow!)

Azar's use of magic realism did that and more. It's quite a skill to weave a story that allows your somewhat sceptical reader to accept the existence of ghosts, jinns and mermaids. But Azar did it for me - I was with her from the start, on that level at least.

However, it did take me a while to get going. It may have been a translation thing or it may have been a slightly different approach to sentence structure. Many of the books I gravitate towards lately are ones with concise, short sentences. So maybe it was simply my lack of practice in reading longer, flowing, complex sentences. Whatever it was, I found the start of The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree choppy and erratic.

It wasn't until the special circumstances of our narrator were revealed at the beginning of chapter 5 that I was hooked. Suddenly the 'playful, poetic and deeply melancholy' Alice Pung quote on the back cover came to life.

I dropped into a dreamy, almost trance-like state every time I picked up the book. Jinns and groves of trees haunted my own dreams as fleeting childhood memories of news items about the 1979 Revolution were triggered by events in the story. It was angry, it was heart-rending, it was glorious, mesmerising and confronting.

Azar has given us a classic story of good and evil. Her words are fluid as is her approach to time and truth. Belonging, love and loss are the major themes while the search for solace is the main concern for her characters. Given the horrific events that occurred during the Iranian Revolution, it is easy to understand why and how an author would choose to wrap these unreal events up in mythology. When the real world you live in suddenly gets turned on it's head, sometimes the only response is imagination and the only hope is magic.

I, for one, hope with all my heart, that this story gets shortlisted for the Stella - it deserves to get as much attention as possible.

Translated from Farsi by Adrien Kijek#AustWomenWriters
#Stella2018

Mademoiselle Fifi by Guy de Maupassant

Given the amount of media time being given to the inappropriate, sexual, bullying behaviour of some men towards women in work, social and online areas lately, the story of Mademoiselle Fifi reminds us that the problem is in fact, an age-old one that moved across cultural divides with ease.

Elisabeth Rousset (Simone Simon) and “Fifi” (Kurt Kreuger)
in Robert Wise’s Mademoiselle Fifi (1944)

Mademoiselle Fifi (1882) is a short story by French writer Guy de Maupassant. It's set in the winter of 1870 in Normandy during the Franco-Prussian War. The Prussian officers have taken up residence in a chateau and are slowly defacing and despoiling each room. The Major appears to be a cultured, moderate man, but his Captain is an unpleasant, lecherous, arrogant man. His outward handsomeness disguises the heart of a bully. His effeminate manners cause his comrades to nickname him 'Mademoiselle Fifi'.

He decides that life in the chateau is boring and plans a party to liven things up. He arranges for a group of women (prostitutes) to be procured from the nearby village.

The dinner quickly goes from bad to worse, although not exactly as Mademoiselle Fifi had planned.

De Maupassant regularly explored themes of class and the pointlessness of the war. In this case he used fairly stereotypical characters (both Prussian and French) to contrast the German way against the French way. You can probably guess which character type came off the worse!

The violence of war is clearly shown to not just exist on the battle field. The resistance of the locals and their defence of honour are seen as positive traits, yet still, the unhappy result is that violence always meets with more violence.

I've been enjoying my leisurely read of de Maupassant's stories. By reading one and at time and allowing each one to sit for a while, it has given me time to reflect and keep each one separate. In the past I've read short story collections all at once which has had the unfortunate effect of blurring the individual stories together into one big mass, leaving me with nothing more than a general impression of 'yes, I liked this authors writing' or 'no, I didn't'.

My responses to the first three stories, Boule de Suif (or Dumpling or Ball of Fat), Deux Amis (Two Friends) and La Maison Tellier (Madame Tellier's Establishment) in The Best Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant can be found here.

Maybe by Morris Gleitzman

Morris Gleitzman's Holocaust series for younger readers has already attracted much praise and many accolades. His stories carefully balance the reality of what actually happened with modern day sensibilities. Sad, bad things happen to his characters, but he doesn't describe them in gory detail. There is bleakness and injustice and cruelty, but there is also hope, love and mercy. And we all know that Felix survives the war, thanks to book number 3, Now.

Once is 10 yr old Felix's story about trying to find his parents. He is befriended by the spunky, Zelda and sheltered by a dentist called Barney, who is modelled on the real life Polish Jewish doctor who took in and cared for war orphans. Felix uses stories to make sense of the crazy things going on around him and to protect the traumatised Zelda. But, ultimately, Once is the story of lost innocence as Felix finally realises and accepts what is really happening.

Then is the heart-breaker.
The reality of the war and the horror of the Holocaust are really brought to bear in book 2. Gleitzman doesn't shy away from tough details or sadness, but then, how could you write a meaningful story about the Holocaust without them? The magic ingredient in all these books is hope. Felix is always optimistic and despite what awful things might happen, he always finds his way back to a position of hope.

I read the first three books of this series in a huge binge session one rainy, cold weekend. After wiping away my tears at the end of Then, I picked up Now straight away, desperate to find out what happened next. I cannot begin to tell you the huge relief I felt, as I realised that Felix not only survived the war and all the terrible things that happened to him, but fathered at least one child!

Now jumps forward 70 years and we meet an 80 yr old Felix living in Melbourne. He is spending time with his granddaughter, Zelda. But bushfires threaten to disturb the peaceful life that Felix has made for himself as a doctor in Australia. Now is a story about closure, memory and forgiveness.

And Felix's story could have finished there. That was the plan.

But Felix had other ideas.

After takes us back to the war. Felix is now 12 yrs old and has been hiding out in Gabriek's barn for 2 years. When things go bad, he finds himself in the forest with the partisans learning to fight. They also teach Felix some basic doctoring techniques and he quickly realises that he has a knack for it - more so than for fighting and killing. This is a story about the choices we make.

Soon is the tragic tale of what happens when the war finally ends. The horror, the cruelty and the hunger do not disappear just because the war is over. New threats and new fears throw out any ideas that Felix may have had that he only needed the war to end to feel safe and secure again. Instead his post-war life is filled with worry and despair. How can he stay hopeful when everything seems absolutely hopeless? Soon is a story about dreams and imagination.

Maybe is the refugee story that I thought Felix would want to tell us about. He is now 14 yrs of age and in the process of emigrating to Australia. This is his chance to live a in safe, modern world, where he can put his past behind him. But not all Australians welcome the idea of accepting an influx of war orphans and sadly, orphanages can be good - or bad - in any country.

Felix has had to grow up fast and the only thing that bugged me about this book was his voice. At times I wondered if Gleitzman was going to suddenly tell us that Felix was on the autism spectrum. The naive, childish voice didn't match Felix's life experience at all. It jarred. It was like he'd been allowed to grow up physically and intellectually, but not emotionally. The trauma of war, can do that to a person for sure, and maybe that's what Gleitzman was trying to get at. But it felt like a flaw in the story that Felix did not sound like a 14 yr old.

The simple storytelling style of 10 yr old Felix has not been allowed to mature and evolve into a teen story. Yet....

This reader, for one, is always hopeful and optimistic.

Gleitzman's webpage is a treasure trove of information about his books - for dedicated readers, teachers and parents. He also has lists of books that inspired or helped him with his research for this series.

Gleitzman's list of books about bushfires
Gleitzman's list of books about the Holocaust
Book 7 Always (to be published)
Book 6 Maybe
Book 5 Soon
Book 4 After
Book 3, 2 & 1 Now, Then & Once