My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
The Narrowboat Summer (AKLA Three Women and a Boat) by Anne Youngson B
As I mentioned in the lede, this was proposed as a summer's read, and it is. I believe that Jen mentioned that not a lot goes on, that it is a fictional account of life on the cannels of Britain with a lot of little events and quiet drama. I enjoyed reading it.
The premise is that Sally has just left her husband of some 25 years. She doesn't know what she wants to do, but she does know she doesn't want to go on living with Duncan, a nice guy, but she wants something different. Then we have Eve, a senior engineer who was just elected the scapegoat of the less than expected performance of the engineering company she had worked for, and which had been purchased by an American firm and has been let go. Both of them are walking down the tow path when they encounter a longboat from which a mournful sound is coming from. They stop to discover what's the matter. It proves to be a dog, that escapes when they try to help it, and before they decided what to do, the owner, Anastasia, and gruff elderly lady shows up. She tells them the dog will come back, and invites them aboard for a cup of tea. It turns out she has to get her boat to Chester by August, but she has to have some serious medical treatment, and can't get away. She proposes that the Sally and Eve take her boat up to Chester for her. Both Sally and Eve have left, or been pushed out of their old lives, so they decide to give it a go, with Anastasia staying in Eve's flat while she has treatment. All, slightly implausible, but if you run with it, you will be treated to a leisurely trip north through the network of cannels, meeting all sorts of people along the way, as Sally and Eve attempt to sort out what they want to do with their life, once the deliver the long boat to a boatbuilder in Chester.
Give the age of the characters, it would fall into the "cozy" category of books, but from what I've read in that general category, I think the writing is a step above the run of the mill cozy whatever, more thoughtful than most.
Interestingly enough, I suspect there is a little autobiographical input in this story as well. Youngson, with an English degree, when to work with the motor company, Rover, as a junior copywriter, but seeing that all the excitement was in the engineering department, so she not only worked her way into the engineering department, but up through the engineering ranks to become a managing director of a major line of vehicles as an engineer. Like Eve in the story she worked in a mostly male environment, like Eve she played an active role in ongoing projects, including working with Honda. And like Eve, Ford acquired Rover when she was 56, though unlike Eve, she was offered early retirement, which she took it. She, however, had been writing for herself all along. And so, after a few years, she went back to university, in part to broaden her circle of friends, earning a MA and then a Ph.D. in creative writing from Oxford University. After co-writing some books on the auto industry, published her first novel at the age of 70, And has has published two more since then.
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