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Brand New Friend is the third of Kate Vane's novels that I have read and I love that all three have explored very different subjects and situations. Vane is a wonderfully versatile author! In Brand New Friend we are taken back to 1980s Leeds as seen through the eyes of then-university student Paolo. Prior to university, Paolo had just been Paul, but with his change of scene came a change of identity which he maintains to the present day. This novel begins with Paolo discovering that he wasn't the only one of his group to have lied about their identity: Mark the fervent animal rights activist was actually Mark the undercover policeman. I found Paolo's reaction to the news interesting as he begins to investigate the truth about Mark. Yet were the two men's subterfuges really as different as Paolo would like to believe?

I liked the 1980s storyline in which we get to know the random strangers who became Paolo's close friends through his university years.They are a diverse bunch and I could recognise much of their trying-too-hard personas from my sixth form years. Activism, alcohol and poor diet choices brought back lots of memories of student life so the historical chapters were fun to read. I wasn't so convinced by the present-day storyline which, for me, unfortunately didn't feel as fully realised and I thought it would have benefited from more tension. The political ideas are nicely presented without becoming at all preachy and the conclusion is satisfying.

When I first marked Sleeping Through War as finished on my Goodreads I rated it as four stars because I had enjoyed the read and appreciated Carreira's approach to portraying this monumental moment in history. That was a couple of days ago though and the more I have been mulling the book over for this review, the better I think it is! Consequently I've upped that star rating to a five.

Sleeping Through War has four narrative threads which are connected by their time period and subject matter, but don't actually link up. I did spend quite a bit of time wondering how the women would end up together, but that isn't how this novel works so don't distract yourself in the same way! Amalia is a single mother struggling to support herself and her young son in Lisbon; Rose is a West Indian care home nurse in London; Mrs Johnson is an American wife and mother whose son is fighting in Vietnam. These three fictional but completely real characters take turns to speak directly to the reader about their day-to-day lives and their chapters are interspersed with news reports of the violence which seemed to sweep the globe that year. I don't quite know how to explain, but it felt to me as though the news reports provided a male counterpoint to the womens stories and, although I know the reported events did happen, Amalia, Rose and Mrs Johnson's words seemed more believable. How so much aggression could have exploded within such a short space of time is incredible, yet for these women - and millions like them - the small details of their days are just as life-changing, in fact more so to these individuals, but not in such a way as to make headlines.

A novel in the sense that some scenes have been fleshed out with imagined detail and dialogue, No Live Files Remain reads as a nonfiction memoir or history book through which Hungarian writer András Forgách works out his shock from discovering his mother's double life. Her meetings with her handlers are interspersed with the actual reports written by 'Mrs Papai' (Bruria), Forgách's father (also an informant and spy), and higher members of the Kadar regime. I found this switching of viewpoints quite difficult to follow at first although the use of clearly different fonts helps a lot. The writing, however, gives an atmospheric impression of Budapest at the time and of the paranoia within the family and Hungary itself. The Forgáchs are Jews, Hebrew-speaking Bruria having been born and raised in Palestine, so the regime is keen for insights in Israel and Zionism. Political and ideological clashes swirl all through this book in a way that is particularly evocative of the era.

I was a little bemused by a poetry interlude in the middle of No Live Files Remain. Following this, András Forgách speaks directly of his memories of childhood incidents that he now sees in a different light and how he feels about the way his mother was treated during her decade of informing. In its presentation, this is certainly an unusual book and it didn't all completely work for me. I did enjoy being transported back to 1970s and 1980s Budapest, especially having visited the city just last autumn, and learning about Jewish families split between Hungary, Palestine and Israel. Bruria's bemoaning her being stranded between two homelands, neither of which really feel like home, is particularly poignant and the discussions of Israel's annexation of Palestinian land was interesting considering that this is still ongoing over three decades later.

I didn't realise until I came to write up this review that Identify Unknown is self-published. I love the cover art which is what first attracted me to the novel, and the whole publication is very professional. What let this book down for me though is, unfortunately, Wojciak's writing style. One the one hand, this is a thriller so I expected lots of action which we do get, however I also wanted at least a little description and this is almost completely absent. For example, I have no idea what most of the locations looked like. I also struggled to understand much of the main characters motivation. Identity Unknown is written from three points of view, with two of these - Krystian and Lena - taking it in turns to speak directly to us for the majority of the story. Lena is a spoilt, bratty rich teenager who frequently irritated me with her entitled attitude and complete lack of empathy. Krystian is harder to pin down. He finds himself drawn to a criminal life but, even despite his own experience, seems not to have any understanding of the consequences of his actions. In a lot of ways, I found both as exasperating as each other!

The narrative keeps up a good pace throughout so I easily read the whole book in an afternoon. This isn't an especially pleasant read, but it did keep my attention. There are lots of violent scenes including rapes and child abuse, most of which aren't graphically described but the callousness of most of the characters does make such episodes difficult to stomach. I didn't like the flippant way violence, particularly sexual violence, was often dismissed and grossly sexist remarks don't seem to warrant notice. If I had been reading a fifty-year-old novel, I could have perhaps have understood such attitudes, but instead I felt quite angry. For example, at one point a young girl has been repeatedly sexually assaulted. We learn that she will be put into foster care, at which point Kristian sees fit to tell us that she will get therapy so everything will be okay and that's that. Subject changed!

I think people who like pacy action stories and aren't prone to asking 'how' or 'why' as they read will probably enjoy Identity Unknown. Despite the violence, it is very readable - up until the point where the two stories intersect anyway (After that it does get less believable). I wanted more details though, especially regarding why Krystian and Lena behaved as they did. There's a lot of telling in this book, but not much in the way of showing or explaining so I'd advise potential readers to go along for the ride, and read fast enough that you don't find yourself questioning the whys!

Appointment With Yesterday was written by Greek-born lawyer and author Christopher Stratakis who himself emigrated to America and this novel draws heavily on the author's own life for its essential narrative. I found this realism to be a double-edged sword - good in that the events depicted have a strong sense of authenticity about them, but I was disappointed by the book's structure which sees too many happenings crammed in one after another so, for me, the American chapters especially felt more like diary notes than a fully realised novel.

I did enjoy reading about Yanni's childhood in Greece. Island life is nicely evoked in its frugal simplicity and I thought Stratakis captured the characters of Yanni and his grandmother well. The horrors of the wartime years were difficult to read about and obviously harrowing to the villagers and islanders themselves. I hadn't previously known much about Greece during World War Two so was interested to learn.

Overall though I struggled to empathise with Yanni and, once in America, with his mother's actions because I didn't feel I had enough to go on in order to understand why they behaved as they did. As an autobiographical piece, Appointment With Yesterday is interesting, but I think it needs to more deeply explore its themes of immigration and personal isolation to be satisfying as historical fiction.