February meeting - Dangerous Crossing

The February meeting of Low Fell Book Club took place on Thursday 1^st February in the cosy library room of The Victoria. Ten members and a new addition assembled to discuss Dangerous Crossing by Rachel Rhys.

Before the discussion of the book got into full flow a couple of administrative issues were agreed. Sue has kept the entire lists of all the books we have put forward each month, and it was agreed we would revisit some of the ones that did not get the green light. I apologise for forgetting how we decided to do this, can someone remind me?

Joan also suggested that we use The Vic as our regular venue and most of the group felt this was a good idea. Again I did not get notes of the more extensive discussion on this as I was trying to keep up with comments about the book we had all just read.

I say ALL but during the meeting Joanne was valiantly trying to get to the end of the book to allow us to have a full discussion without any spoilers. Well done Joanne. 

Young , naïve Lily Shepherd (oh dear I keep wanting to write Lily Savage…..) boards The Orontes ocean liner in search of a new exciting life, but nothing can prepare her for what unfolds on the five week journey to Australia . At first we are treated to a cocktail of fun, glamour, exotic new places and people as Lily embraces her trip of a lifetime. However, against the looming backdrop of World War 2 the excitement takes a turbulent turn, exposing secrets, scandals, prejudice, violence and murder.

Most of the group who met on the night seemed to have more or less enjoyed the book but most had some critical issues. Jeanette had read it very quickly and on reading the authors note at the back, felt she would have preferred to have read the original journal by Joan Holles , which had inspired the story.

There was a lot of agreement that the author seemed to struggle when describing the emotions of her cast of characters. Also, most of us did feel that they could have come straight out of central casting for an Agatha Christie film or TV adaption. Eliza and Max Campbell - the charismatic aristocrats who enjoy the good life and playing games with others.

Edward Fletcher- young handsome with curly hair, travelling with his sister to try and restore his ill health . Not forgetting everyone’ s favourite bad guy George Price- the red-faced, blustering bigot. The characters as such came over at times as one dimensional. Our new member Abbie was particularly unconvinced by Lilly, commenting she was "spineless and not particularly likable".

Joan, was also driven demented by a quirk in many of the scenes where people constantly came up behind the main character and divulge  some dramatic addition to the plot. This does seem to happen a lot and made us all chuckle..

However, most of us felt the book was easy to read and Debbi and Sheila both commented that they were sad when it came to an end. Sheila also said she would love to have found out more about them in their new lives in Australia. We do get a little bit of that at the end with the excerpt from a profile of the successful author Lillian Dent. This summing up device (again very reminiscent of Agatha Christie)had conflicting views from the group , some like all the loose  ends  tidied up others saw it as a cop out.

Almost all agreed that Rhys has managed to capture a particular time and place extremely well. The themes of race, class and sexual identity were portrayed very accurately and with skill. I think we all thought she described the stop off places on the voyage beautifully too, so much so that Pauline found herself dreaming about these far,  flung ,exotic  destinations.

We gave the book a score of 4 out 5.

I think next month’s selection is Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.

It transpired that we don’t know how we chose this one as nobody admits to voting for it! Was it the unseen on-line votes? It's looking like we have our very own mystery to solve…….. great stuff.

Next Meeting Thursday March 1st at The Aletaster.