I am sure that most of my readers think I spend my days steeped in mystery and gore and, yes, I do read an enormous amount of crime fiction. I love it and have done every since I discovered Agatha Christie when I was twelve years old. But I do read other things as well and to prove it I am writing today about Erica James.
Now let me tell you how I started reading her books. Look away now Erica if you read this, I did not buy them new. I found them in a charity shop. Yes I did and I paid about 50p for them. Came home and read them and then, of course, did my usual and went on a binge read. I borrowed some from the library, but I did buy quite a few, paperbacks and/or for my Kindle. By the time I had reached the end of the list and was panting for more, a new one came out. Reader, I purchased it. Hardback. And I have done so ever since.
Swallowtail Summer was pre-ordered by me and I forgot when it was due to arrive to totally delighted when a knock on the door and my lovely postman, who wears a path up to my door delivering, parcels and books, greeted me with "Here's another"
So I sat down and started to read and did not stop until I had finished it about four hours later. I Loved It.
Alastair Lucas is returning to his home Linston End. He has been away recovering from the shock of losing his wife in a drowning accident. He has a close circle of friends who have all lived nearby and holidayed together for many years. He has met somebody else and has come back to tell everyone that he is putting the house up for sale. Alastair is nervous about breaking the news as he knows how upset everyone will be.
"I've decided to sell Linston End. Valentina and I are going to buy somewhere else and build a new life together. His words threw them all into a stunned silence. "But you can't, It's your home. It's part of you. Part of all of us. You can't sell it"
As I read further I began to feel that all the characters had invested far too much in the house and were looking at it from a selfish point of view. But then as the stories of each protagonist unfold the reader begins to understand how much it means to each of them individually. Alastair has two close friends and one of them, Simon, reacts with anger and a wave of jealousy towards the woman who is the cause of all of this upheaval.
OK here I stop. Here I leave you to buy the book and read it and see what happens. In some way, Swallowtail Summer is akin to a murder mystery. A close knit group of people who all have links with a central character, all full of resentment and insecurity. It is like a house party where a body is likely to turn up in the Library with a dagger through the heart such is the seething cauldron of feeling throughout this book.
And Valentina? Charming, glamorous and manipulative. I disliked her intensely and if she had ended up a corpse I would not have minded in the slightest...
Just remember my comment re the death of Alastair's wife Orla. Was it a happy marriage? Was it an accident? Or something else.....
Erica James writes so beautifully and makes you want to go on and on reading until the end. I only left this book to make the odd cup of tea and could not wait find out what happened to everyone. This is the kind of book, and I am sorry because I am going to say what I have said before, that will be read and enjoyed and sell and will never appear on a Posh Book Awards List. It is the kind of book that will be glanced at in a bookshop and "Oh a woman's book" (I actually took somebody to task in Waterstone's in Colchester when a comment like this was made) and it makes me Very Cross.
Writers like Erica and others I have read and enjoyed, have an unerring eye for characters, for feelings, for how each individual would react and behave in a certain situation. This makes them real. Sometimes when I have been reading modern fiction I find it difficult to sympathise or engage with the people I come across in the pages - there is a lack of warmth and empathy about them that I find difficult to take. Yes, and I know this is a sweeping statement but I am rather fond of them and after 60+ years of reading I know what I enjoy and now avoid what I do not.
I enjoy Erica James immensely. This is her best yet.
Go buy.
