Rachel Churcher

I've enjoyed all of Rachel's writing and she's a very talented author, some of the scenes are absolutely wonderful. But, I'm very much not the target audience for this book, and much of the plot and characters' responses are of little relevance or engagement with me. The setting is a UK university life, which is a scene I'm actively involved in, and while I recognize it as described, it's much more how uni life used to be - uni life has now changed in many many respects.

The central character is Mel - daughter of an unconventional family living in the London outskirts. Mel's life is forever changed when as a young girl she witnesses the world's first public exposure of the winged beings called 'Angels'. In truth, ordinary humans with no more than a rare genetic condition and granted no powers, not even able to fly at best they can manage a slight glide, but visually very different. Kane's image revealed as a massive advertising campaign in central London changed how ordinary people viewed them from ever on-wards. And then a few years later Mel's mother's portrait of Kane was shown at the National Gallery, and on the opening night Mel got to meet her idol, and seconds later cradle his dying body as a fundamentalist drove a car into the crowd. The image captured by the national press made her famous, but only as an icon of the struggle for acceptance. The story opens a few more years later as Mel start a university art degree. She's changed her appearance and her secret is known only to her closed friends who have followed her to the same university. Admirably, she wants to live her life on her own merits. It's not a university story as such, there's no classes, interactions with staff, or drama over essays, instead it's mostly just the friends hanging out and the people they meet. Of those the most significant is Jez, part of the media studies crowd, he never quite seems to fit in being a little aloof and self-confident wanting to be the best journalist he can be. None of Mel's other friends like him, but she finds him attractive especially when she's the focus of his attentions.

As a story, if you like melodramatic teenagers being narcissistic and self-centered as they so often are (at least we're spared emo-teen), then it's a fun read with a couple of surprising twists and a some great scenes - Rachel is great a capturing the intensity both high and low of life as a young student. But from my perspective, as a novel, I was less convinced. One niggle all the way through is that Mel has a sensitivity to Angels that is never explained. However my main concern is that although all the friends call Jez creepy, manipulative, etc, we don't see any of that behavior from him, and it comes across as them simply disliking someone who is different from them. He of course has his own secrets and motivations, and while the friends are happy to safeguard Mels' they seem much less concerned about other peoples. And that tone pervades all their actions - we're happy and inclusive (and it is a diverse cast of characters) for anyone who is part of our group, but only on our terms. Whereas tolerance should be broader than that. I think the central message was supposed to be that you don't owe anyone else to be anything other than you are, but what was missing is that this a two-way street, they won't and shouldn't change for you either.

For me I preferred her Battle-Ground series where the messaging is clearer, the characters a little more mature and although the setting is less realistic it is simultaneously more believable within the books' setting.

CoI - I was part of the proof-reading team and a personal friend of the author.… (mais)

These stories wrap up a lot of the loose ends left by the main characters of Churcher’s Battle Ground series. She covers how some of the characters got where they were in the main novels and a little bit of where they’re off to next.

First off: If you have any connection at all to Battle Ground’s characters, some of these stories will tug your heart strings. I’m trying not to give spoilers here, but each story lists the other stories it has spoilers for. Don’t read it until you’ve read the rest of the series (at least books 1-5; #6 is a story that was supposed to be here but turned into a very good novel by accident.)

One of the big questions in the later books is why Dan is so intent on getting back to Margie. He’s willing to jump through any hoop Bex suggests and some that she doesn’t in order to rescue Margie. Very late, we learn that they’re in love, but the connection is never discussed. This makes sense because the main narrators, Bex and Ketty, weren’t there. So the titular story in this collection makes Margie’s connection to Dan explicit. As soon as I started reading it (and note: I’ve been a beta reader for this entire series), I said to my self, Oooh, that’s what was going on. And only because I knew the end of the whole story was I not bawling at the end.

Jackson’s Dreams is another tearjerker, but he’s one of the characters we know least well, and only from Ketty’s point of view. Getting some of Ketty from his POV is something of a treat, but knowing Jackson’s fate, it’s a harsh read.

Other stories in this volume investigate the connections between the characters. Maz and Charlie, Ketty and Ryan, and the entire group of other main characters, from Charlie’s perspective.

The additional treat in this volume is the bonus material. Blogs, a playlist, map, and diagram of the whole story. Each of these provides further insight into both the creative process and the political background of the series.

Note: My review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher.… (mais)

The Final Stories. Only read this after you've read the first Five books, and hopefully book 6 too. These are the Special Features on the DVD - the bits that should have made the main books but didn't - the characters who've supported Bex and Keatty on their journeys have lives and words of their own.

Margie and Dan, Charlie and Maz, Jackson. Rachel has allowed herself more expression in these, more feelings and more depth, and different forms of expression too, suitable for the varied themes - falling in love when your country is at war. The peace of Home. What it takes and means to be a friend. They're all great, but Charlie's conclusion is perhaps the perfect ending to the series, uplifting and hopeful despite the traumas of the past.

There's also a collection of thoughts from the author: About writing and plotting the levels of details to consider and the problems of responses from fans (and I have been enjoying beta reading the whole series so some of them are mine) and we've attended the same festivals so I know the bands she's listened to as she wrote them - check them out they're all highly entertaining.

Politics is always a tricky dimension to introduce to a novel, with the risk of alienating some or many of your customers. Rachel includes a discussion of the factors around living in the UK in the current climate that have inspired her to write far more words than she originally intended. Sadly the current government seem to using her books as a guideline rather than the warning that was intended!

I don't know that I always want to read such editorialising from an author, some days I want nothing more than to sit down with a good book, and the short stories fulfil those requirements, but if you are interested there's plenty here to think about, and I know Rachel would love to hear your thoughts on her blog/social contacts.… (mais)

All the drama in the first five books have been about the conflict in ideas and focus of two women, Bex and Ketty, Although he didn't even appear until book 3 there was another person involved, and this is Conrad's story. He has little direct impact on Bex's life other than being an orchestrator (although never planner) of events, but Conrad and Ketty shared many sparks, and he is part of the reasons she's made the choices she did.

In some ways it's a difficult addendum to the series, a filling in the gaps and motivations of other characters, and Conrad, unlike Ketty doesn't have a redeeming side to his nature. He's manipulative and only out for his own ends, which makes him a difficult protagonist to engage with. However Rachel manages to introduce many new facets of plot that mesh with what we know from the earlier books and this action combined with the expectation we have of events to come works well in maintaining the reader's interest.

It all starts out so glowingly for Conrad, he's got a cushy billet serving an up-and coming brigadier in the army, he's privy to secrets no-one else knows, including the details of the Terrorism Committee and he has his pick of young Home Forces girls eager to make a good impression and un-willing to say no to someone of his rank. A bit of friendly banter around the office a nod and wink. Life couldn't be better. In addition to fulfilling his next target for the Committee, Lee asks him to 'get close to' Ketty, because their boss has put her boss on the committee too and Lee is uneasy. Should be easy pickings, Ketty's fresh from the cadets, injured and managed to lose some of her recruits, putty in his hands. Conrad finds out just how different Ketty is.

If at the end of book 5 you'd have asked me which characters I'd want to hear more about, I don't think Conrad would have made the list. And if he did, this isn't the story I'd have wanted, I want to know how he came to be there, why he though the choices of the Committee were ok. But it's still compelling reading. Conrad isn't nice, and he doesn't make nice choices, or even bad choices for nice reasons. He certainly doesn't realise the consequences of those choices, or how they'd affect other people. But the interactions of those people around him and how they reclaim their own agency make it a story worth reading.

Definitely only read after the rest of the series - and if the dark ending leaves you wishing you hadn't, I've been beta reading the ARCs and can say that the final collection of short stories due out this summer is much more uplifting.… (mais)