Black Swan | 2020 (25 June) | 368p | Bought copy | Buy the book
It is 1957 and Iris Bailey, a talented amateur artist, is so bored of her life in Hemel Hempstead, living with her parents, working in the typing pool (where the male bosses grade the new girls’ looks out of ten) and being courted by dependable, reasonable Peter. Escape comes from an unlikely source. An old contact, Nell, a wealthy American socialite, asks Iris to come to Havana with her to draw at the wedding of her father, a famous Hollywood director.
It all seems too good to be true and, when Iris arrives in humid, overheated Cuba, she is overwhelmed – by the glamorous people at the wedding, their passions and secrets, the sights and sounds of this beautiful, vibrant, exotic place. It is indeed a playground for the very wealthy, and the poor are kept poor, but now there are the rumblings of rebellion from the hills. It’s a heady mix and Iris is intoxicated. But, as she sits and draws these charismatic, unusual people, she discovers that more than one of them has something to hide. And then they start to look at her with suspicion. That’s when she begins to feel afraid.
Islands of Secrets has broken new ground for me – it was my first audiobook! I’ve resisted the pull of audiobooks for some years but, in these days when it’s a little harder to get hold of new treebooks in shops and I seem to spend far too much time doing jigsaw puzzles, which, I have now discovered, are even more enjoyable if done while listening to a good book, the timing seems right. I picked my first audiobook well. I adore Rachel Rhys’ writing – it’s lyrical and beautiful – and the narrator Sara Alexander does it justice. Initially, as a novice, I found it a little difficult to keep track of who was who but I soon got used to it and I was thoroughly immersed in this atmospheric and engrossing tale.
As with all Rachel Rhys novels, the historical setting is gorgeously evoked, fully capturing what Havana must have been like for the very rich in the months leading up to the revolution. The reader can completely understand why Iris is so captivated by it and is so reluctant to return to her dull life in England (I did feel a little sorry for Hemel Hempstead – it faces an uphill struggle to compete with Havana). But even more beguiling than Havana is the wedding party that Iris is tasked with drawing. She is an outsider, almost paid help, but, although the novel is told from Iris’s perspective, we soon feel as the party does – that Iris is someone who draws out secrets, who can be confided in. She listens and finds herself caught up in their complicated, tangled relationships, and in their lives, especially in those of Nell and of the bride.
Island of Secrets is deliciously mysterious but it isn’t a mystery thriller. It’s a gorgeous literary novel of people and places, all beautifully created and evoked, transporting us across the ocean to the steamy, vibrant island of Cuba, which feels so alive and alters those who are fortunate to make it their playground. But, as this novel makes clear, there is a cost to pay. Island of Secrets is a wonderful novel, whether you read it or listen to it, and I heartily recommend it as I do anything that this fine author writes.
Other reviews
A Dangerous Crossing
Fatal Inheritance
The future of Dannie Cohan looks set and it looks good. A successful lawyer in New York City her career is really taking off and she can’t get enough of it. She’s also just got engaged to David, a man who understands exactly what her job means to her. They’re a fit. Then one morning Dannie wakes up in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger and with a different man in the bed. The date on the TV news tells her that it’s five years in the future. Everything has changed. And the strange thing is that this feels right, too. Shortly afterwards, Dannie wakes again and she’s back home and all is as it was. But Dannie has changed. She can’t get this vision out of her mind but, as the years pass, she does her best to do just that, until four and a half years later when she meets the man of her dream.
In the summer of 2013, 12-year-old Edward Adler becomes one of the most famous children in the world and for the most terrible of reasons. He was the only person to survive a catastrophic plane crash that killed every one of the other 190 passengers and crew on board. Edward’s parents and his beloved older brother Jordan were among them and now Edward must rebuild himself, piece by broken piece, in the effort to come to terms with a future denied his brother and everybody else on the plane. Edward is taken in by his aunt and uncle but it’s with his new next door neighbour Shay that Edward finds some comfort and it’s with Shay that Edward works to make sense of his survival and his fame. Edward is himself a source of comfort to the relatives and friends of those lost and they write to him, many asking Edward to live the lives that their loved ones can’t and, as Edward grows to adulthood, he must learn what it means to live, not just to survive.
In 1884, English medical doctor William Abbey was in Natal in South Africa and stood by while a young boy was beaten and burnt to death by a mob in front of his eyes. He stood by and did nothing. His mother, who held her murdered child Langa in her arms as he died, looked into Abbey’s eyes and cursed him. Forever now, William Abbey will be pursued by the shadow of Langa. Wherever he flees, Langa will always follow him and will find him. Every time he catches Abbey, a person dearly loved by the doctor will die. The first person who dies is Abbey’s dear sister. Abbey must now frantically keep one step ahead of his relentless, terrible shadow to keep alive everyone he loves, while never daring to love again. He embarks on an endless journey that takes him across Africa and back to Europe and beyond, even to India, culminating in the trenches of France in 1917, where the novel begins. It’s as he travels that Abbey discovers another side to the curse. He can see the secrets in the heart of people around him and when Langa gets very close he is unable from shouting them out. It’s terrifying.
Having recently read and adored 
Jackson Brodie, once a police detective and now a private investigator, has moved to a seaside village in north Yorkshire where he shares responsibility for his son and dog with his ex-partner. It’s an arrangement that works, for now. Jackson is currently at work trying to prove the infidelity of a client’s husband but everything begins to shift when Jackson comes across a desperate man on the edge of a crumbling cliff.
Toby Hennessy considers himself a lucky man. He’s handsome, charming and nothing bad ever seems to happen to him. He has the talent of being able to talk himself out of blame and punishment. Then one night this all changed. After an evening out in the pub with his two oldest friends, Toby returned home to sleep it off but he is woken up by two burglars. Toby’s very badly hurt with a head injury that leaves him with brain damage. His confidence is lost, his vision of the world around him shattered and his easy ability to communicate the way he did before is gone for good. He takes refuge in his family’s ancestral home, the Ivy House, and there Toby and his girlfriend can take care of Toby’s uncle Hugh, a man nearing the end of his life. In a way it’s almost like the old days with Toby’s cousins Susanna and Leon popping in with parents and children in tow for Sunday lunches and chatter. But when a skull is found in the old wych elm in the house’s gorgeous garden, nothing will ever be the same again.
It is the longest night of the year and the men of Radcot, Oxfordshire, gather in The Swan, an ancient inn on the banks of the Thames, keeping to its winter room for warmth. There are no women among the regulars although each knows that the landlady, Margot, rules queen of this inn. The appeal of The Swan is that it is a place for telling stories. The landlord, Joe, a man who ails from damp in his lungs, is a master of storytelling and people gather to hear him and to tell their own. On this midwinter’s night they will each gain a new story, better than any. An injured stranger bursts through the door and collapses. In his arms is the body of a young girl, four-years-old at most. Rita Sunday, the local healer, is fetched but it is clear to everyone that the child is dead. But then, hours later, she wakes up.
Silvie’s father Bill is obsessed by the lives of our Iron Age ancestors. He is a bus driver, not an academic, but he believes himself in tune with the prehistoric past and considers himself an expert in that kind of subsistence living. And so when he has the chance to re-enact the past in a reconstructed Iron Age settlement in a remote part of Northumberland, he leaps at the chance. He is determined that his wife and daughter will immerse themselves every bit as much. There will be a professor and his small group of students with them, but Bill will not permit them to distract him from his obsession, although he may be able to share with the professor some of his firsthand knowledge of survival.
For winter nights - A bookish blog 