The Age of Innocence, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry august and Mr Lynch's Holiday

It is probably unfair of me to give this novel only two stars as it just isn't my kind of book. I was at about a third way through when I almost gave up. A romantic drama written in 1921, and set amongst the upper classes of 1870's New York, The Age of Innocence by Edith Waharton was just not very interesting. But there was something that made me wonder what happened next that kept me reading. The answer was not very much. And when the main character Newland Archer finally gets married around halfway, that was enough. I skipped through the remaining pages and it seemed little changes. I did read the ending which had some power the rest of the book lacked. I can't wait to read something more modern.

There might be fifteen lives for Harry August in this intense time travelling thriller, but the author Claire North mixes them up with great skill. When Harry dies he is born again in 1919 to the same mother in the same place, but his new lives are never the same length and never take the same path. Instead of a totally linear story through these lives, we are treated to reflections of earlier lives as we work through those that come later. These are highly satisfying sections of modern prose which gives the book a great literary force. This is certainly one of the best constructed books I have ever read. On page 93, out of the blue, Harry waits for someone in Trafalgar Square in 1940 but we don't know who. Then we remember which life we are in and who he is waiting for. Brilliant. The fantasy element is only a device for intelligent musings on such matters as science, the creation of the universe, family and death. So the author gives us plenty to think about. When the last chapters turn more to their thriller instincts, my inclination to reduce my rating to four stars is muted by a passage where Harry is faced with someone from many lives ago, and the page on his reaction is of the highest quality, ending with "I know now there is something dead inside me though I cannot remember exactly when it died". I actually shed a tear.

Mr Lynch's Holiday by Catherine O'Flynn is a short charming story from the terrific writer of "What Was Lost" and "The News Where You Are", both of which I enjoyed. Sometimes the back story of the two main characters (father and son) is far superior to the present day when retired widower Dermot visits his newly single son Eamonn in a brand new Spanish residential complex gone bust. Here the story is not that interesting, some of the characters there are never flushed out and I had a hard job knowing who was who. Maybe that's just how Dermot felt? However the alternating memories of the two men are wonderfully described, and that's what makes this book such a pleasant read.