A Good Life, A Flawed Novel

 A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson Reviewed by Don MacLean June 2016 Kate Atkinson likes to write about ordinary individuals swept up in extraordinary circumstances. In two separate but companion novels, Life After Life and A God In Ruins, Atkinson tells the stories of Isabel Todd and Teddy Todd,

Heroes betrayed —The Merchant Seamen story

 By Cliff Chadderton It is mid-January of 1940 in "an East Canadian port." Canada is at war. The recruiting offices are open. You see a poster of a soldier in a tin hat. You recall the slaughter of the trenches in Flanders in World War I and mutter: "No thanks."