Love Reading review: "The Spring of Kasper Meier" by Ben Fergusson

Kasper Meier, a middle aged German war veteran living off his wits and black market connections in 1946 post war Berlin, is blackmailed by the young, vibrant and attractive Eva Hirsch into searching for a British airman. Kasper, afraid of the consequences if he refuses, has to accept her demands and his efforts place him and all he holds dear in danger. Meanwhile, allied servicemen are turning up dead all over the city.

This is an accomplished, well paced and exciting story by a debut novelist that I look forward to reading more from. The setting is an interesting and absorbing one, and I hugely enjoyed the way the author brought the unrelenting hardship, horror and misery of life for the individual characters and the city itself vividly to life.

Kasper and Eva are a wonderful couple of characters; their relationship as the story unfolds keeps you eager to turn the pages. And you are rooting for them both throughout the story. The author has created one of the most menacing and frightening pairs of villains I have read of in quite some time – look out for the twins!

When my review copy arrived, I searched for Ben Fergusson online and paid a visit to his website to learn more about him. I was rewarded with a free ebook featuring Kasper and set before the events in this novel; that is also well worth a read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It has an interesting and pacy plot and is thought provoking, the dialogue felt genuine and the characters were ones that you really rooted for or were appalled by. It was also fascinating to read a story set in this period of recent history from a German characters point of view.

The-Mustachioed-Reader

My Rating: 4.5* out of 5.0*

PUBLICATION DATE: July 2014 (anticipated)

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Love Reading review: "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves" by Karen Joy Fowler

I don’t quite know what to make of this book.

I was intrigued by the plot outline and the questions posed – why did Rosemary, an over talkative child, suddenly stop talking? What happened to her sister Fern? Where did she go? Why didn’t she return to the family home? And what happened to their older brother, Lowell?

The tale is mostly told in an easy, familiar style that initially pulled me in. Rosemary’s voice is interesting and the conversational tone of the narrative is engaging. I quite enjoyed the way in which the story was told in a non-linear way, switching between different timeframes so that we uncover the whole story in a manner that keeps us guessing as to how things will pan out.

The main characters were reasonably well drawn without being exceptionally memorable. My favourite ones being Ezra, the building supervisor, and Madame Defarge. The dialogue was quite well written and suited the characters and the cultural references were well observed. Additionally, I found some moments to be very witty.

However, you guessed there was a “however” coming didn’t you?, after the initial revelation about Fern, I found there was insufficient to keep me really hooked. I felt that some parts of the story where akin to being lectured to and some of the themes were not especially interesting to me. I wanted this book to entertain and engage me but, sadly, I found it a little bit of a chore to get through.

The ending was a little disappointing given the mystique in the build up and left me feeling a little “short changed” after I had put in the effort to complete the journey.

The-Mustachioed-Reader

My Rating: 2.0* out of 5.0*

PUBLICATION DATE: July 2014 (anticipated)

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