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The Other Mrs Walker by Mary Paulson-Ellis was my Christmas read. It’s the perfect curl up in front of the fire while it’s cold outside novel with its mix of detective-esque plotline, Edinburgh scenery and what can only be described as Call the Midwife vibes. 

After Mrs Walker dies alone in a cold Edinburgh flat on a snowy Christmas night, a glass of whiskey dropped from her hand and the remanence of a clementine on her side board, Margaret Penny gets the job of finding out who she was through the Office for Lost People. Margaret has returned home a lost herself, middle-aged without a career, a relationship or a life she can call her own. But what Margaret Penny doesn’t realise, is just how entangled her own life will become in the death of this dead old lady.

However, The Other Mrs Walker not quite so simple as just being a mystery. The plot jumps back and forth between 2011 and the 1940s-60s, and between Margaret and a group of three sisters Clementine, Ruby and Barbara. That kind of split-plot is something I would have normally avoided in the past, but here it works well. The jumps are well defined, and you always have a clear sense of where you are and which character you’re with, and all of the strands of the plot feed into each other and inform the narrative. 

Female characters – mothers, daughters, and sisters – dominate the pages. Their relationships are fraught and complex, but never over-complicated. They’ve each got their strengths and flaws, but they’re all a little too mysterious to be fully “rounded”. It is a novel of real women though, to the extent that I would have been surprised had it not been written by a woman.

I’ve read a lot of crime thrillers and detective novels in my time and I’m not sure this will go down as one of the greatest I’ve read. The reader sometimes knows too much, and the resolutions don’t always feel quite satisfying enough. But, it is “a detective story with no detective” and in that category, it’s pretty strong.

If you’re looking for a cozy page-turner to ease you into the new year, then The Other Mrs Walker should definitely be on your considerations list.

For this month’s alternative cover I chose to highlight one of the recurring symbols in the book – the clementine. I had a lot of fun playing with textures and a slightly rougher illustration style than I normally use.

 

SOME QUESTIONS TO PONDER AS YOU READ

  • Symbols repeat themselves quite frequently throughout the novel, what do you think the effect of this is? How well do you think this is done?
  • There’s a lot of reference to family heirlooms (prized or not) do you have anything you would want to pass on to a loved one?
  • The action of The Other Mrs Walker is driven by a set of female characters, how do you think the story would play out differently if it were about fathers, sons and brothers?
  • What social commentary can you draw from how the mentally ill and the dead are treated in the story?

 IF YOU WANT SOME FURTHER READING TRY…

IF YOU WANT MORE BOOKS LIKE THIS HAVE A LOOK AT…

  • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet
  • Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone
  • Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue

 

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I’m back and I’m, hopefully, going to be better than ever!

Based on your feedback last year (thank you to all of the wonderful people who filled in my survey) and some thinking I’ve been doing things are going to be changing a little bit around here.

I’m still going to be producing the content I want to make and I’m still going to be posting at the same times. But I’m going to be prioritizing quality over quantity which might mean that some weeks I’m only going to post twice.

I’m also going to be doing a few more regular features including a monthly “how to” design based post, monthly roundups of some of my favourite people/reads/links and a few more researched long-form pieces a bit like my design stories series last year. I also want to share a few more reviews, but we’ll see how that goes.

I’m also going to be way better at replying to comments – I got super overwhelmed at the end of 2017 and pretty much stopped, which doesn’t help foster the kind of community I want.

Personally, I’m implementing a few changes as well. I know that new year’s resolutions aren’t for everyone. A new year doesn’t have to mean a new you. But I’m the kind of person who likes to have a marker to review against, and a new year is as good an arbitrary marker as any other. So, I’ve set myself a few habit based challenges.

Just like last year, inspired by a friend from uni (the inimitable Tucker Cholvin), this year I decided to put together another poster of my new year’s resolutions to hang above my desk to remind me to stay on track because I really think it helped me stay on task. 

I’ve gone for 5 habits again this year, because it felt like a doable stretch last year and I succeeded (with a minor blip) on 4 out of the 5, which isn’t too bad. This year I’m going to:

  1. Read 25 books. This is 5 more than last year’s goal. I know for a lot of people, this might not seem like a lot, but my time to sit down and read full books for fun rather than articles is always very tight
  2. Take a photo/video of some kind every day. This is building on how much I enjoyed doing my one line a day journal last year (and am continuing).
  3. Learn 10 new skills. I really want to push myself to go to more classes and to try my hand and making a few new things – I’m kicking this one off with a screen printing workshop next month which I am super excited for!
  4. Do 120 hours of exercise. Last year I ran the equivalent distance from London to Edinburgh, this year I want to keep up that momentum but also start to try a few new things rather than just running, so I’ve gone from distance to time.
  5. Implement a better sleep schedule. Last year the resolution I failed (really hard) at was getting up without hitting snooze. One of the big issues was that I didn’t address the fact that I hit snooze because I’m tired, so this year it’s all about having a better, more regular sleep schedule.

Did you set any new resolutions or goals for the year? How are they going? If you’re struggling it’s not too late to put up something visual as a reminder (I really like the fill in as you go aspect of these posters) – they actually work!

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And this is it, my last post of the year.

It’s been an incredible year, and I just want to take a moment to say thank you for the role you (yes you reading this) have played in it. Thank you for reading or commenting on anything I’ve made. It’s still weird for me to think that the things that I put out into the world get picked up by other people and resonate with them. Thank you for making this more than just a glorified online diary, for letting me make something just a little bit bigger.

Thank you so much for all of your support on my portfolio and shop. Whether you bought something, got in touch, or even just visited, it honestly means so much. This felt like a bit of a step up for me, and you all gave me the confidence to take that step with purpose.

Thank you to anyone who has dropped me a line to say hi! Hi back! I feel like I’ve made some really lovely internet pals this year, and I can’t wait to make more and for those relationships to grow. Also, I’m sorry that I’m sometimes really bad at responding, I promise it isn’t personal!  

And finally, thank you for all of the opportunities you have given me. So many of the things I’ve done and conversations I’ve had this year have been down to you giving me a platform. It’

I’m going to be taking around 3 or 4 weeks off blogging (and sporadically off social media) so that I can enjoy the holidays with my family and recharge ready for 2018. It’s been a big busy year and now it’s time for me to hit pause. But know that I will be coming back, hopefully, even better next year, especially now I’ve had the chance to really take your feedback on board.

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Now that Christmas Christmas is almost upon us I thought I’d share a bit more of a personal post and share some of my favourite festive traditions.

 

CHRISTMAS EVE BUFFET

Christmas is 80% about the food for me (as you will be able to see on this list). On Christmas eve we always have a buffet which is a table full of all of the food that my mum has been “saving for Christmas”.

 

CHRISTMAS CAKE

The other big foodie even of Christmas eve is that we get to cut into the Christmas cake. It’s just a traditional fruit cake, but oh my is it tasty. Nothing says Christmas quite like it. When I was at home, my mum and I would bake it in September, at the start of the school year and let it develop (and soak up more and more brandy) in the run up to Christmas. Although I haven’t been there for the baking the last couple of years, I do still receive regular updates on how boozy it’s getting.

 

FESTIVE BATH

This is only a recent tradition, but because I don’t have a bath where I live now (or since I went to uni) I like to have a big festive bath and really take the time to soak and relax.

 

BREAKFAST BAGELS

As I said, there’s a lot of food involved in our Christmas traditions. Christmas breakfast means bagels (with Salmon and cream cheese normally) in my house as well as lots and lots of tea.

 

CHRISTMAS TV

The main activity in my family Christmas is watching TV. I basically become a vegetable over the holidays. We’ll watch pretty much anything from big blockbusters, to whatever the BBC has to offer, to Say Yes to the Dress and E! News we’re really not picky. Plus, if my dad gets a chance at the remote you can bet there will be some football on too.

 

PUZZLE TIME

The other thing we (well just my mum and I) do over the holidays is a jigsaw puzzle. I love puzzling. It’s so easy to get completely absorbed in finding the pieces, and it gets us away from the TV.

 

CHRISTMAS DINNER

Last but not least, you guessed it, it’s more food! Christmas dinner is probably my favourite part of Christmas. We have ours around 4pm so somewhere between lunch and dinner. It’s essentially just my mum’s roast dinner, but with some special festive touches. We’re talking crackers, Brussel sprouts, extra roast potatoes, and Yorkshire puddings.

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Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is undoubtedly one of the most well known Christmas stories of all time. It has been made and remade into countless movies and TV series, and its format used even more. It’s a classic and it’s my pick for this month’s book club because I was feeling festive and decided to reread it.

You probably already know the story of A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is a cold-miser who doesn’t believe in the spirit of Christmas until he is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, so why read it?

First off, the book is almost always better than the movie, fact. There’s so much more depth in the novella than any of the movies. There’s a reason it’s timeless.

Second, it’s the perfect way to get into the Christmas spirit, the true Christmas spirit, within a couple of hours. A Christmas Carol is only about 100 pages long. Dickens really has a gift for painting a scene. He can go from darkness to light, outrage to compassion, gloom to humour without ever breaking the scene.

SOME QUESTIONS TO PONDER AS YOU READ

  • How do you think the structure of the ghost of past, present and future would have read the first time?
  • How does reading the book compare to any other versions of the story you know?
  • Does the story still hold up so many years later?
  • Did Scrooge’s tale make you think about Christmas any differently? Does Dickens’ didactic moral still apply?

 IF YOU WANT SOME FURTHER READING TRY…

  • Watch any or all of the versions of A Christmas Carol made for the screen including but not limited to: the 2009 version, Scrooge from 1951, a Muppet Christmas Carol, and the animated Christmas Carol: The Movie from 2001. There’s even a retelling this year called The Man Who Invented Christmas, which imagines how Dickens wrote the story
  • Or, watch the Grinch which is pretty much Dr Seuss’s version of a similar tale
  • Read this review from The Guardian – when do I not include a Guardian review?

 IF YOU WANT MORE BOOKS LIKE THIS HAVE A LOOK AT…