Friday Five: Books Read in April

1. City of Vengeance by D. V. Bishop (Macmillan) - This is the first in a planned series featuring Cesare Aldo and the city of Florence, and I would be happy to read more about both. This is the time of the Medicis, when Alessandro, Duke of Florence, murdered by his cousin, Lorenzino de’ Medici, was succeeded by Cosimo de’ Medici. There are murders, family feuds, personal grievances, religious disputes and secrets around every corner.With multiple plots, subplots, and frequent switches between character and locations, the story is almost deliciously Shakespearean. Cesare Aldo is our unlikely hero, a former soldier, with a war-injured knee, now a member of the Otto di Guardia (the eight), the city’s most feared criminal court. While ruthless when required, he has a (poorly kept) secret of his own. He is homosexual, a ‘crime’ punishable by death. Ambushes, chase sequences and vivid descriptions of the Renaissance city keep the pages turning rapidly, while digressions about the nature of power and control give the novel a contemporary aspect.
2. Madame Burova by Ruth Hogan (Two Roads) - Nice cover; shame about the cloying middle-class morality and condescending judgement. Madame Burova is a tarot reader who takes over from her mother Shunty Mae to run their sea front booth in Brighton and also works at the local holiday park, meeting lots of 'interesting characters'. Meanwhile, Billie, a young woman in London whose entire individuality seems to rely on the fact that she wears a jaunty bowler hat, finds out that she is adopted and travels to Brighton to uncover the truth of her origin story. The author makes her point so often that the characters have no personality of their own, and there are pages of exposition and creaky prose littered with unnecessary adjectives. The period setting of 1973 to which we frequently flash back is practicably indistinguishable from the contemporary sections; what world does this author live in? We are firmly in the 'what could ever make a woman give up her precious baby' territory and authorial attitudes I thought had been left behind last century. 
3. Witches: What Women Do Together by Sam George-Allen (Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group) - I listened to this one as it is read by the author and they kept me company on car rides and bus trips. The premise is the fear that patriarchy has of women, especially when they get together, leads to their need to silence, censure, denigrate and ridicule us. From sport to music, to communication and activism, women's activities are seen as lesser by society. The greatest success of the patriarchy is pitting women against each other - women are easier to control (and sell things to) and compress into one of the very few ways to 'acceptably' be a woman if they are isolated. Conversely, they are often forced into the 'community and caring' roles, which are naturally underappreciated and underpaid, because they are 'women's work'. The allure of a network of connected women is what lies behind the pull of Wonder Woman and the fear of The Handmaid's Tale. This is admittedly a western-centric view of society - because that is the one in which the author and I live - which celebrates the power and pleasure of being among women. 
4. Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Penguin Random House Australia) - The world setting of this novel makes a mark right from the start. A man and his three children live on a remote island halfway between Australia and Antarctica (it's called Shearwater and clearly based on Macquarie), which is rich in marine wildlife and home to the world's largest seed bank. A woman is washed ashore while looking for her husband who was working there and left increasingly mysterious messages. As the family nurse her back to health, she realises that the island hides secrets and as the sea levels rise, all the inhabitants are threatened. Part mystery; part eco-drama; part psychological treatise on isolation, preservation and growth, this book is patchy in places but memorable as a whole.

Friday Five: Cross-Stitch on a Theme

Sometimes everything gets 'a bit much' and, in these times, I have found that working designs from Really Cross Stitch: For when You Just Want To Stab Something a Lot helps. Of course, I am not advocating violence, but I am hoping for progress, and there is a theme in my latest five patterns about who or what I would like to change. As previously, all the words are from Rayna Fahey, and all the complete lack of ironing is my own.

"Politicians and toddlers have a lot in common. They are both prone to tantrums and act unreasonably, especially when they don't get their own way. Every now and then - just like a toddler - you have to give them a good talking-to!"

"Contending for the misogynist comment of the millennium, a presidential candidate's suggestion that he was at liberty to grab female genitalia due to his privilege was dismissed as 'locker room talk'. Whilst this overheard vulgarity wasn't enough to kill an election campaign, it certainly put feminists on a war footing well before Trump took office.

This pattern attests to the fact that kitty has claws. The only pricks we will tolerate come from our cross stitch needle."

"Now it's really not nice to attack someone you don't like politically based on their appearance. But this time the temptation was too strong.

"For someone who is world-record-breakingly quick to insult someone, Trump's skin does appear to be diaphanously thin when it comes to people discussing the size of his hands. But in the scale of things, this is the guy that reinstated the Global Gag Rule and wants to ban the world's 1.6 billion Muslim people from America. So there's plenty of actual policy to organise around while you're doing this cross stitch."

"Cunts are deep, warm, and delightful; indeed the place from which the majority of us astoundingly enter this fragile world. Yet no single word creates as much division and carries as much power as this little number.

"One thing activists are super-good at is dissecting the meaning of language, until letters break down into pixels. Give us another decade and everyone will know that vagina is 16th century slang for a place to keep your sword. Ouch."

"Language can be used to persuade, amuse, insult, and mobilise action. Few formats can accomplish these goals as ably or succinctly as the protest sign.

"Of course, sometimes the words just won't come. Or there are too many of them to fit on one sign. Or you're just so tired of being angry and upset that you just want to go UGH; which is fine. 'Just, Ugh' conveys all the despair, rage and hopelessness in just seven easy letters, and of course, can be used for virtually any occasion as it works for anything. Plus, it's nice and easy to stitch."