The Legacy - Kirsten Tranter

Don't you hate it when you read a fantastic book and it is the author's only or first novel?? All you want to do is go straight out and pick up another book by the same author to keep the magic going but you just can't!! It drives my reading mind mad! This is the exact feeling I had after finishing The Legacy.

I picked this book up a couple of weeks ago based on the wonderful cover which caught my attention and a combination of the description of the book and the praise on the book from another author I have enjoyed reading, Debra Adelaide. I was then pleased to see some really positive reviews about the book in our local media. But even with all of this I was not prepared for how much I would love this book and the writing displayed by Tranter.

The description of the book focuses on the character of Ingrid, a beautiful young Australian woman who moves to New York after marrying her art collector/businessman American husband, Gil Grey. From this description I was expecting Ingrid to be the real focus of the book - and she is in many ways - but the main character focus for me was Ingrid's friend, and the narrator of the book, Julia. Julia and Ingrid are introduced through Ingrid's cousin and Julia's friend, Ralph and the three become close friends during their university studies in Sydney.

The main action in the book takes place after September 11, 2001 when Ingrid is believed killed in the World Trade Tower attacks and Julia travels to New York a year after this event to discover more about the life Ingrid was leading once she had moved from Australia to marry and become a step mother to a child prodigy artist.

I found the writing and character development in this book brilliant. Tranter seems to move the plot and the characters without you really being aware of it as a reader - you just suddenly realise what has happened and the transition has been so smooth you were oblivious in a way. To me this is a sign of a great writer - I become so immersed in the world of the story I don't notice what the writer is trying to do - the action is seamless. The worlds of Sydney, New York and Paris were also beautifully written and described - the cities were clearly characters themselves and contributed so much to the way the human characters developed.

The characters felt solid and believable - they were rounded and full of flaws which always makes for a great story. The story itself could be read on so many different levels I think - for me it was a mystery, a love story, a narrative on the role that art, friendship and family play in our lives and a story of grief and loss but also hope.

I absolutely loved the experience of reading this book - I just hope Tranter is already writing her second!

Envy - Anna Godbersen

Envy is the third book in The Luxe series by Anna Godbersen and after devouring the first two books fairly quickly it was inevitable that I was going to move on to this one too.

Envy continues the story of the wealthy socialite families the Hollands, Schoonmakers, Hayes etc... etc... The girls are still seeking that ultimate love affair - and ultimate prize that goes along with that affair - a rich, influential, and hopefully attractive, husband. Some win the prize and others - well, they don't do so well.

The author has moved much of this book from the familiar setting of New York to Florida as the group goes on holiday. I'm not sure this change of scenery did that much for me - I couldn't really see the purpose in it apart from change for changes sake (and to show the fact that these people have so much money they can do what they like when they like) and I would have preferred the comfortable, well established New York setting to continue.

But having said that, I'm well and truly hooked into this gossipy story now and I will be joining in to read the fourth book in the series when it arrives.

Brooklyn - Colm Toibin

Brooklyn is the latest book from Irish author Colm Toibin - and the first book of his that I have read.

Brooklyn is the story of a young Irish woman, Eilis Lacey, who migrates from her small Irish town to Brooklyn in the 1950's in search of employment and opportunity. This decision is in some ways forced upon Eilis by her older sister, Rose and her mother who clearly want her to achieve but are desperate for her to stay at home with them at the same time. There are hints and glimpses into the life of Eilis's family - her 3 older brothers have all moved to England for work and her father died in the not too distant past - but despite these glimpses we don't really learn all that much about the extended family.

When Eilis arrives in Brooklyn she is struck by culture shock and homesickness and the narrative of this section of the book is all about her attempts to fit in and make a life for herself in America.

This book is so simple in many ways - the story of a girl who moves away, she goes to work, goes home to the boarding house she resides in with other young women, she goes to night classes and she goes to the parish dance on a Friday night. All things that I imagine would have been quite common place for young, single women living in Brooklyn in the 1950's. When I write this description here I think how boring it all sounds - but I did not find this book boring at all. Eilis has to make many choices over the course of the novel and it is these decisions and the ultimate choices that connect the reader to Eilis and her story - I wanted to know what she was going to do - and I also thought about the roads not taken - how the story could have been so different. The writing flowed beautifully - I really felt as though I was sitting down with a good friend listening to the story of their life. I will definitely be looking out for more of Toibin's work.

Rumours - Anna Godbersen

I couldn't help myself - as soon as I finished The Luxe by Anna Godbersen I had to go out and get the sequel - Rumours. Another gorgeously tantalising cover - and it promised to answer some of the questions left hanging over at the end of The Luxe - how could I resist really?

This author has me so hooked that even when Rumours started off a little disappointingly I still kept reading on - and I was glad that I did. Rumours doesn't quite have the pizazz that The Luxe delivered - the premise and the characters weren't as new and interesting anymore - but I was still enjoying the ride.

Needless to say I am going to keep reading this series - the books aren't going to win any Pulitzer prizes but they sure are entertaining me so that's all I can ask for. I would call it a guilty pleasure but the fact is, I don't feel at all guilty - I'm loving it!

Lucia, Lucia - Adriana Trigiani

I am on a bit of a roll with this author! After reading and loving her latest book, Very Valentine, I went out searching for her earlier books. Don't you just love it when you discover a new great author and they have plenty of books waiting for you to pick up??

I went straight for a book from her collection that is again set in Italy and New York (how could I resist?), is again set in an area of the fashion world (a New York department store) and is set in the time of the 1950's - a favourite era of mine for fiction and movies.

Lucia, Lucia is the story of Italian American girl Lucia Sartori - the youngest child and only girl in a big family. Lucia is rare for her day and age in that she has a career as a seamstress in a New York department store and she is keen to hold on to this no matter what - marriage is not such a high priority for her, until she meets the charming John Talbot. Things start to go a little topsy turvy from here.

Trigiani's writing is not perfect - there are some forced metaphors in places and the plot devices can feel a little controlled at times - but I really didn't care. I was hooked into Lucia's story and I wanted to see where things went in her life. I have also loved the endings in both of her books that I have read so far - a little bit of romance and completion but the endings have felt "real" and possible in a non -Hollywood, happily ever after way.

I will try and move on from Trigiani books now but have loved reading these two!

Very Valentine - Adriana Trigiani

I have not read any of Adriana Trigiani's books before but I couldn't resist two things about this book:

1. It's cover (the one in the picture above - different to the US copy I think)

2. It's locations (New York and Italy)

I was thinking even if the book wasn't so great I would enjoy being transported to these places. Turns out that Very Valentine was a great book!

Valentine Roncalli is an Italian American woman in her mid-30's living in and working in Greenwich Village. Valentine lives and works with her grandmother in the family shoe company - Angelini Shoes - making wedding shoes for the women of New York since 1903. Valentine loves her work and has dreams of taking the business further - but the company is in financial trouble and may have to close its doors before Valentine gets her chance to move things forward.

There are of course the family and relationships sub plots as well but the real focus of this book for me was Valentine - and the choices she has made, and will make, in regards to her life and her future.

It was so refreshing to read a "chick lit" book that did not focus on the main female character in pursuit, or in the midst of, being a wife and/or mother at the expense of everything else in her life. Not that there is anything wrong with these pursuits - they are just not usually characters that I can connect to or care about as much. Valentine was a strong, independent woman - sure, she made some mistakes (don't we all?!) but I loved reading about her and her story. Apparently there is a sequel in the wind - can't wait to read it!

One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell

I have not read any of Candace Bushnell's books before although I am a huge fan of the TV Show, Sex and the City which was orginally based on one of her books. New York is also a place I would love to visit one day so I thought One Fifth Avenue would be a book I would most likely enjoy - and I did!

There are plenty of characters to keep you occupied and interested and each character is written distinctly and with a certain style and presence so I was always clear about what was happening to who and when which is something I sometimes struggle with when there are a lot of characters in a book.

A description of the book from Amazon:

From one of the most consistently astute and engaging social commentators of our day comes another look at the tough and tender women of New York City--this time, through the lens of where they live.
One Fifth Avenue, the Art Deco beauty towering over one of Manhattan's oldest and most historically hip neighborhoods, is a one-of-a-kind address, the sort of building you have to earn your way into--one way or another. For the women in Candace Bushnell's new novel, One Fifth Avenue, this edifice is essential to the lives they've carefully established--or hope to establish. From the hedge fund king's wife to the aging gossip columnist to the free-spirited actress (a recent refugee from L.A.), each person's game plan for a rich life comes together under the soaring roof of this landmark building.
Acutely observed and mercilessly witty, One Fifth Avenue is a modern-day story of old and new money, that same combustible mix that Edith Wharton mastered in her novels about New York's Gilded Age and F. Scott Fitzgerald illuminated in his Jazz Age tales. Many decades later, Bushnell's New Yorkers suffer the same passions as those fictional Manhattanites from eras past: They thirst for power, for social prominence, and for marriages that are successful--at least to the public eye. But Bushnell is an original, and One Fifth Avenue is so fresh that it reads as if sexual politics, real estate theft, and fortunes lost in a day have never happened before.
From Sex and the City through four successive novels, Bushnell has revealed a gift for tapping into the zeitgeist of any New York minute and, as one critic put it, staying uncannily "just the slightest bit ahead of the curve." And with each book, she has deepened her range, but with a light touch that makes her complex literary accomplishments look easy. Her stories progress so nimbly and ring so true that it can seem as if anyone might write them--when, in fact, no one writes novels quite like Candace Bushnell. Fortunately for us, with One Fifth Avenue, she has done it again.

The book was witty and sharply written - there were characters to hate, characters to feel sorry for and characters to relate to. Can't say that I particularly loved any of them but I loved the pacing of the story and the wrtiting. The ending was a little neat and disapointing but I can forgive that when the rest of the read was so enjoyable.