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My only disappointment was with how much was left unexplained at the end. In the finale, one character was not where he was supposed to be, but we never find out why. Another was essentially captured but somehow still got away. Okay, but how? I read the Advanced Reader (unfinished) version of the book, so maybe the final version fills in these blanks. a book to get lost headlong in. Tom Benn manages to be heart-felt and attentive and generous, without ever resorting to being sentimental..Wonderfully written, deft and pungent and sensuous. It is honest and truthful, but also a great feat of fiction -- STIG ABELL Victoria Asher is coming to terms with the loss of her parents in a plane crash. The only family she has left is her brother, Gil. Much of the story involved suspenseful activities, like people trying to kill or capture Vic. Despite not being a trained spy, Vic made use of the skills she did have to survive and even saved others. Once she got to Italy, I had a hard time putting the book down because I wanted to know what happened next (and the book had been enjoyable before that).
From Mary Gaitskill’s courageously nuanced personal essay, The Trouble with Following the Rules: “The truth may hurt, but in art, anyway, it also helps, sometimes profoundly.” A book to make me laugh? I don't even know where to start with this book. First, Netgalley cataloged this as a YA book. It is so not a YA book. Victoria is twenty and a boring twenty at that. But she is not alone in her dullness. All of the spies and crime boss just feel kind of flat. In no way did this novel about international intrigue actually intrigue me. The whole book feels clunky like it doesn't quite fit together correctly. Several times while I was reading I thought that it felt like it needed a good editing which is why I wasn't surprised when I discovered that "Oxblood" started it's life as self-publish. It's a familiar story that has been told many times and has been told better many times.It was a close call, because we were having to decide between four wonderful and wildly different books – but in the end, to me, it was Tom Benn who was doing the boldest and richest thing, using an unflinching sympathy and a fascinatingly mutated version of the crime writer’s tool-kit to carry the reader into the intimate depths of a household of violence. It’s a disconcerting book, with its insistence that a family’s heart of darkness is still despite it all a heart, and I wouldn’t call it reassuring, yet it shows us that there are few places literature can’t take us, if the writer is brave enough, and gifted enough.‘
Over the course of a few days, the Dodds women must each confront the true legacy of the men who have defined their lives; and seize the opportunity to break the cycle for good. There was no sex (though there was temptation and a number of passionate kisses). There was a fair amount of bad language of wide variety. Overall, I'd recommend this novel.
“Oxblood is the Manchester I never knew but could still hear in echo”
If I read a better novel than Oxblood in 2022, it'll be a blinding year for fiction. Tom Benn, please take a bow. Everybody else, please take note' -- JOSEPH KNOX
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