Month: Jan 2021

Posted in Personal Purchase

Books I’m Looking Forward To In 2021 Part 2

Posted on by thelotusreaders

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslion Charles. John Murray Press 9th Feb 2021.

IN THE DARKNESS OF WAR, THE LIGHT OF BOOKS

I’ve had a particular interest in WW2 fiction more recently, because it’s a subject I’m using for my MA portfolio in Writing and Well-being. PARIS, 1939
Odile Souchet is obsessed with books, and her new job at the American Library in Paris – with its thriving community of students, writers and book lovers – is a dream come true. When war is declared, the Library is determined to remain open. But then the Nazis invade Paris, and everything changes. In Occupied Paris, choices as black and white as the words on a page become a murky shade of grey – choices that will put many on the wrong side of history, and the consequences of which will echo for decades to come.

MONTANA, 1983
Lily is a lonely teenage desperate to escape small-town Montana. She grows close to her neighbour Odile, discovering they share the same love of language, the same longings. But as Lily uncovers more about Odile’s mysterious past, she discovers a dark secret, closely guarded and long hidden. Based on the true Second World War story of the heroic librarians at the American Library in Paris, this is an unforgettable novel of romance, friendship, family, and of heroism found in the quietest of places. I have my pre-order in already! Watch out for my review in February.

Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson. Pan Macmillan. 18th February 2021.

Murder awaits in the illuminated night of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens …

I love reading about the seedy underbelly of society, or different groups in society that aren’t usually represented in historical fiction. I love the work of Sarah Waters and one of my favourite books ever is Michael Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White, where we follow the prostitute Sugar into an underclass of women trying to survive in a man’s world. These books change our one dimensional perceptions of a particular society or historical period. From an award-winning new star of historical fiction, Daughters of Night reveals the dangerous underbelly of Georgian London – giving a voice to the female victims history so often forgets, and the women who remembered them. Set in London, 1782. Caro Corsham finds a woman mortally wounded in the bowers of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. When the constables discover that the deceased woman was a high-society lady of the night, they stop searching for her killer – and it’s up to Caro to seek justice. But the hidden corners of Georgian society are filled with artifice, deception and secrets, and finding the killer will be harder, and more treacherous, than she can know … I’ve been lucky enough to have an ARC of this one and you won’t be disappointed.

Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner. Bloomsbury Publishing. 15th April 2021.

This novel is coming in early spring and I’m so looking forward to getting lost in the psyche of these two characters, Rachel and Helen. It fascinates me to see how the author has constructed these difficult selves and how they interact with each other. The overuse of the word ‘perfect’ in the blurb tells me that all in Helen’s world is maybe not as good as it appears.

Helen has it all… Daniel is the perfect husband. Rory is the perfect brother. Serena is the perfect sister-in-law. And Rachel? Rachel is the perfect nightmare. When Helen, finally pregnant after years of tragedy, attends her first antenatal class, she is expecting her loving architect husband to arrive soon after, along with her confident, charming brother Rory and his pregnant wife, the effortlessly beautiful Serena. What she is not expecting is Rachel. Extroverted, brash, unsettling single mother-to-be Rachel, who just wants to be Helen’s friend. Who just wants to get know Helen and her friends and her family. Who just wants to know everything about them. Every little secret… I can tell already that this is the book I won’t be able to put me down.

The Silk House by Katye Nunn. Orion. 21st January 2021.

This is a book I’m going to find myself completely immersed in. It has that combination of an old house filled with a weight of secrets, and a present day resident feeling the weight of that past, sucked into the mystery. An enchanting mystery kept hidden for hundreds of years…

1700s Rowan Caswell leaves her village to work at the home of an English silk merchant. Very soon, she finds herself thrust into a dangerous world, where her talent for herbs and healing starts to attract unwanted attention. Mary-LouiseStephenson dreams of becoming a silk designer, a path that has remained largely forbidden to women. A length of fabric she weaves with a pattern of deadly flowers will have shocking consequences for all who dwell at the Silk House. In the Present Day, Thea Rust arrives at an exclusive boarding school in the British countryside to look after the first intake of girls in its history. She is to stay with them in the Silk House, a converted silk factory from the 18th century, where the shadows hide secrets waiting to be discovered… I can’t wait to discover them with her.

The Summer Job by Lizzy Dent. Viking. 15th April 2021

Have you ever imagined running away from your life?

Well Birdy Finch didn’t just imagine it. She did it. Which might’ve been an error. And the life she’s run into? Her best friend, Heather’s. The only problem is, she hasn’t told Heather. Actually there are a few other problems… Can Birdy carry off a summer at a luxury Scottish hotel pretending to be her best friend (who incidentally is a world-class wine expert)? And can she stop herself from falling for the first man she’s ever actually liked (but who thinks she’s someone else)?

WANT TO ESCAPE REAL LIFE FOR A WHILE? RUN AWAY WITH BIRDY FINCH, A MESSY HEROINE WITH A HEART OF GOLD. THE SUMMER JOB IS THE HOTTEST DEBUT TO LOSE YOURSELF IN THIS YEAR.

‘Fresh, funny and oh so relatable – the perfect tonic’ — ABBIE GREAVES

‘Fun with a capital F . . . If you’ve ever felt you’re getting left behind in life, or don’t have everything worked out quite yet, this is the book for you’ — SOPHIE COUSENS

‘I fell for Birdy on the very first page and inhaled the rest of her story . . . A brilliantly original plot paired with fabulously funny writing – a pure joy to read!’ — HELLY ACTON

I’ve been lucky enough to receive a proof of this, with my very own lobster bookmark! When I watched a documentary on Helen Fielding and the phenomenon of Bridget Jones’s Diary I was thinking about how ready we are for a new heroine to fall in love with. This is going to be an indulgent weekend read for me, and I’m sure I will fall in love with Birdy too.

The World at my Feet by Catherine Isaac. Simon and Schuster U.K. Publication Date TBC

The dazzling new novel from Richard & Judy book club author Catherine Isaac, The World at my Feet is a story about the transforming power of love, as one woman journeys to uncover the past and reshape her future.

1990. Harriet is a journalist. Her job takes her to dangerous places, where she asks questions and tries to make a difference. But when she is sent to Romania, to the state orphanages the world is only just learning about, she is forced to rethink her most important rule. 2018. Ellie is a gardener. Her garden is her sanctuary, her pride and joy. But, though she spends long days outdoors, she hasn’t set foot beyond her gate for far too long. Now someone enters her life who could finally be the reason she needs to overcome her fears. From post-revolution Romania to the idyllic English countryside, The World at My Feet is the story of two women, two worlds, and a journey of self-discovery that spans a lifetime. I wanted to read this because I was a teenager when the news of the Romanian orphanages first came to light. I was deeply affected by the pictures of babies and toddlers, in rows of cots, rocking to comfort themselves. It was the silence that scared me most, the fact that they knew it was pointless to cry because no one would come. It was my first sense of wanting to do something, to get involved in some way and help. I am looking forward to reading about someone who was there on the ground and did just that.

The Last One At The Party by Bethany Clift. Hodder and Stoughton. 4th Feb 2021

THE END OF EVERYTHING WAS HER BEGINNING

It’s December 2023 and the world as we know it has ended. I’m not sure how I feel about reading this book at this height of this second wave, but I know that I’m intrigued by the premise. The human race has been wiped out by a virus called 6DM (‘Six Days Maximum’ – the longest you’ve got before your body destroys itself). But somehow, in London, one woman is still alive. A woman who has spent her whole life compromising what she wants, hiding how she feels and desperately trying to fit in. A woman who is entirely unprepared to face a future on her own. Now, with only an abandoned golden retriever for company, she must travel through burning cities, avoiding rotting corpses and ravenous rats on a final journey to discover if she really is the last surviving person on earth. And with no one else to live for, who will she become now that she’s completely alone? I’m prepared for a few nightmares when I delve into this next week.

Tall Bones by Anna Bailey. Random House U.K. 1st April 2021.

I know that when I start this book, it’s going to be one of those I can’t put down! When I’m like that I tell my other half to clear the weekend. I’ve been known to be still awake at 3am because I can’t stop. The blurb is so enticing. When seventeen-year-old Emma leaves her best friend Abi at a party in the woods, she believes, like most girls her age, that their lives are just beginning. Many things will happen that night, but Emma will never see her friend again. Abi’s disappearance cracks open the façade of the small town of Whistling Ridge, its intimate history of long-held grudges and resentment. Even within Abi’s family, there are questions to be asked – of Noah, the older brother whom Abi betrayed, of Jude, the shining younger sibling who hides his battle scars, of Dolly, her mother and Samuel, her father – both in thrall to the fire and brimstone preacher who holds the entire town in his grasp. Then there is Rat, the outsider, whose presence in the town both unsettles and excites those around him. Anything could happen in Whistling Ridge, this tinder box of small-town rage, and all it will take is just one spark – the truth of what really happened that night out at the Tall Bones….

The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell. Raven Books. 21st Jan 2021

Wicked deeds require the cover of darkness…

Victorian Gothic novels are like cat nip to me and Laura Purcell has become one of my go-to authors. That means she’s one of the privileged few writers whose books I will buy without reading a single review, Silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. Still recovering from a serious illness herself, making enough money to support her elderly mother and her orphaned nephew Cedric has never been easy, but then one of her clients is murdered shortly after sitting for Agnes, and then another, and another… Desperately seeking an answer, Agnes approaches Pearl, a child spirit medium lodging in Bath with her older half-sister and her ailing father, hoping that if Pearl can make contact with those who died, they might reveal who killed them. But Agnes and Pearl quickly discover that instead they may have opened the door to something that they can never put back…

What secrets lie hidden in the darkness? I can’t wait to find out.

Posted in Personal Purchase

Books I’m Looking Forward To In 2021 Part 1

Posted on by thelotusreaders

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex. Pan Macmillan. 4th March 2021

They say we’ll never know what happened to those men. They say the sea keeps its secrets . . .

Cornwall, 1972. Three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside. The clocks have stopped. The Principal Keeper’s weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week. What happened to those three men, out on the tower? The heavy sea whispers their names. The tide shifts beneath the swell, drowning ghosts. Can their secrets ever be recovered from the waves? Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on. Helen, Jenny and Michelle should have been united by the tragedy, but instead it drove them apart. And then a writer approaches them. He wants to give them a chance to tell their side of the story. But only in confronting their darkest fears can the truth begin to surface. Inspired by real events, The Lamplighters is an intoxicating and suspenseful mystery, an unforgettable story of love and grief that explores the way our fears blur the line between the real and the imagined.

See my full review of The Lamplighters here:

https://lotuswritingtherapy.com/2021/01/03/the-lamplighters-by-emma-stonex/

Madam by Phoebe Wynne. Quercus. 18th Feb 2021.

For 150 years, Caldonbrae Hall has loomed high above the Scottish cliffs as a beacon of excellence in the ancestral castle of Lord William Hope. A boarding school for girls, it promises that its pupils will emerge ‘resilient and ready to serve society’.
Into its illustrious midst steps Rose Christie, a 26-year-old Classics teacher and new head of department. Rose is overwhelmed by the institution: its arcane traditions, unrivalled prestige, and terrifyingly cool, vindictive students. Her classroom becomes her haven, where the stories of fearless women from ancient Greek and Roman history ignite the curiosity of the girls she teaches and, unknowingly, the suspicions of the powers that be.
But as Rose uncovers the darkness that beats at the very heart of Caldonbrae, the lines between myth and reality grow ever more blurred. It will be up to Rose – and the fierce young women she has come to love – to find a way to escape the fate the school has in store for them, before it is too late.

See my full review of Madam here:

https://lotuswritingtherapy.com/2020/12/19/madam-by-phoebe-wynne/

The Split by Laura Kaye. Quercus. 18th March 2021.

Brutally dumped by her girlfriend, Ally is homeless, friendless and jobless… but at least she has Malcolm. Wounded and betrayed, Ally has made off with the one thing she thinks might soothe the pain: Emily’s cat. 

After a long train journey she arrives home to her dad in Sheffield, ready to fold herself up in her duvet and remain on the sofa for the foreseeable. Her dad has other ideas. A phone call later, and Ally is reunited with her first ever beard and friend of old, Jeremy. He too is broken-hearted and living at home again. In an inspired effort to hold each other up, the pair decide to sign up for the local half marathon in a bid to impress their exes with their commitment and athleticism. Given neither of them can run, they enlist the support of athletic, not to mention beautiful, Jo. But will she have them running for the hills… or will their ridiculous plan pay off…? I’ve seen this described as ‘humour, kindness, cake and a cat’ – sounds like the perfect day to me. My full review will be out soon.

Everything Happens For A Reason by Katie Allen. Orenda Books. 10th June 2021.

Mum-to-be Rachel did everything right, but it all went wrong. Her son, Luke, was stillborn and she finds herself on maternity leave without a baby, trying to make sense of her loss. When a misguided well-wisher tells her that ‘everything happens for a reason’, she becomes obsessed with finding that reason, driven by grief and convinced that she is somehow to blame. She remembers that on the day she discovered her pregnancy, she’d stopped a man from jumping in front of a train, and she s now certain that saving his life cost her the life of her son. Desperate to find him, she enlists an unlikely ally in Lola, an Underground worker, and Lola’s seven-year-old daughter, Josephine, and eventually tracks him down, with completely unexpected results… Both a heart-wrenchingly poignant portrait of grief and a gloriously uplifting and disarmingly funny story of a young woman’s determination, Everything Happens for a Reasonis a bittersweet, life- affirming read and, quite simply, unforgettable.

While Paris Slept by Ruth Druart. Headline. 4th March 2021.

On a platform in occupied Paris, a mother whispers goodbye.
It is the end.
But also the beginning.

Paris 1944
A young woman’s future is torn away in a heartbeat. Herded on to a train bound for Auschwitz, in an act of desperation she entrusts her most precious possession to a stranger. All she has left now is hope.

Santa Cruz 1953
Jean-Luc thought he had left it all behind. The scar on his face a small price to pay for surviving the horrors of Nazi Occupation. Now, he has a new life in California, a family. He never expected the past to come knocking on his door. On a darkened platform, two destinies become entangled. Their choice will change the future in ways neither could have imagined.

Unwell Women by Elinor Cleghorn. Weidenfeld and Nicholson. 10th June 2021.

See my very personal preview of this exciting book here:

https://lotuswritingtherapy.com/2020/12/31/most-anticipated-2021-unwell-women-by-elinor-cleghorn/

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward. Serpent’s Tail/Viper. 18th March 2021.

I have been excited about this book for months now and was so excited to receive an ARC on NetGalley! It’s now at the top of my TBR pile and I’m looking forward to getting started this week. Why so excited? When I read that Stephen King had said ‘I haven’t read anything this exciting since Gone Girl’ I started to take notice. Another favourite author of mine, Joanne Harris, agreed that ‘Books like this don’t come around too often’ . This is the story of a murderer. A stolen child. Revenge. This is the story of Ted, who lives with his daughter Lauren and his cat Olivia in an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street. All these things are true. And yet some of them are lies. You think you know what’s inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you’ve read this story before. In the dark forest at the end of Needless Street, something lies buried. But it’s not what you think… Based on the reviews I’ve read, I would pre- order now ( I’ve already got my hardback on order because this is one of those ARC’s I need a real copy of). Review coming soon.

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin. Doubleday/ Random House UK. 18th Feb 2021.

Everything I’ve read about this novel tells me it’s made for me. I’ve had a pending request for it on NetGalley for a while, but not long to wait until I can pop to the local bookshop for it. We all need something to keep our hopes alive, especially at the moment and this book seems to uplift people. It’s about an extraordinary friendship. A lifetime of stories. Their last one begins here. Life is short – no one knows that better than seventeen year-old Lenni Petterssen. On the Terminal Ward, the nurses are offering their condolences already, but Lenni still has plenty of living to do. When she meets 83-year-old Margot Macrae, a fellow patient offering new friendship and enviable artistic skills, Lenni’s life begins to soar in ways she’d never imagined. As their bond deepens, a world of stories opens up: of wartime love and loss, of misunderstanding and reconciliation, of courage, kindness and joy. Stories that have led Lenni and Margot to the end of their days.

The One Hundred Years is a celebration of life, hope and kindness. The perfect read to shine a light on dark days.

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley. Bloomsbury. 27th May 2021.

Such are the problems of a book bloggers world – I’ve had this proof for a couple of months but have such a pile of proofs I need to wait till we’re a bit closer to publication. It’s calling to me though, because I became a die-hard fan of Natasha Pulley’s writing in 2016 when I fell in love with a clockwork octopus and a lonely Japanese watchmaker. This promises to be another imaginative mash-up of history and fantasy.

Come home, if you remember.

The postcard has been held at the sorting office for ninety-one years, waiting to be delivered to Joe Tournier. On the front is a lighthouse – Eilean Mor, in the Outer Hebrides. Joe has never left England, never even left London. He is a British slave, one of thousands throughout the French Empire. He has a job, a wife, a baby daughter. But he also has flashes of a life he cannot remember and of a world that never existed – a world where English is spoken in England, and not French. And now he has a postcard of a lighthouse built just six months ago, that was first written nearly one hundred years ago, by a stranger who seems to know him very well. Joe’s journey to unravel the truth will take him from French-occupied London to a remote Scottish island, and back through time itself as he battles for his life – and for a very different future.

These are just a few of the releases I’m looking forward to in the first part of this year. Look out for part 2 later in the week, but be prepared for your wish list to grow even longer. Happy Reading!

Posted in Netgalley

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Published: 4th March 2021 Pan Macmillan (Picador)

I loved this book so much that I went to bed early two nights running so I could finish it uninterrupted. I was so drawn in by the isolation of this lighthouse, that it was just standing directly in the sea and no one could come on or off until the relief boat came. Inspired by true events, the story is set in two time frames. In one we learn that a writer is researching a book on a famous disappearance of three lighthouse keepers. In 1972, miles off the coast of Cornwall a relief boat arrives at the Maiden, to find the door locked from the inside, the clocks stopped and no sign of the Principle Keeper or his two assistants. He contacts the women left behind by these men: Helen, wife of the Principle Keeper, Arthur; Jenny, wife of Bill his deputy; Michelle, girlfriend of the new recruit Vince. They have all received money from Trident, the company who employ the keepers, but with that came a directive, not to talk about the events surrounding the mystery. At the time, Vince came under the most suspicion. New to the area and with a criminal past, he seems the likely candidate to have harmed the others. Yet, why would Arthur write of a huge storm in the log, when seas had been calm all week? What became of the small boat rumoured to have sailed near the Maiden? There were also whispers about a mechanic sent to carry out repairs at the Principle Keeper’s request. It’s hard, years later, to distinguish between rumour and truth. Will any of the women speak to the writer and will they finally solve the mystery of what happened to the men?

This felt like an intriguing mix of mystery and love story, with a hint of the supernatural. There was a real difference between the sections on land and those at sea. As we meet the women, there is a grounded reality about their stories and their lives. Whereas the sections out in the sea are surprising, although there’s routine in the keeping of a lighthouse, it still feels like an escape, cut off from the real world. As they look out surrounded by waves they could be in any time and the struggles of the world can’t reach them. The sea narrative has a disjointed feel at times, they shift and turn, we’re sometimes unsure what is reality and what is fantasy. The women’s recollections feel more based in fact, they’re relating their own history whereas the keepers seem firmly in their present- only reacting and dealing with what is in front of them. This shows the huge disparity in how these couples were living their lives back in 1972. I could really imagine that jolt of having the person you spend your life with leave for several weeks, then just as you’re used to their absence they return again. It made me think of military marriages that often flounder because of this. Just as the home has a routine, it’s disrupted by someone returning again, changing the dynamic and wanted to do things differently. I felt particularly for Jenny, who has children to cope with in this remote area with little support and I could see how resentment might build.

These have not been easy relationships and living with the uncertainty of what happened to their men has affected them differently. Helen has experienced so much loss, losing Arthur after losing her only child who drowned when he was a toddler. The sea has claimed everything she loved and while she is matter of fact in stating the men must be dead, her certainty is brittle and she hasn’t fully let go of the events at Maiden. Helen feels that even when Arthur was home, he wasn’t fully present. Something of him always stays out on the sea – in fact perhaps, it’s the only place he truly makes sense. The Maiden is always there, towering between them like a mistress. Arthur does love to be out there, but for reasons Helen hasn’t realised. There is a sense that this couple have stopped talking and just below the surface there are secrets, some that perhaps explain Jenny’s animosity toward her. Jenny can’t seem to accept that her husband Bill has gone and welcomes someone trying to find out the truth. There is a hatred of Helen that runs deep, but it takes some time to find out whether she has reason to resent her so much. Michelle has moved on and is now married with children. She is very pragmatic about her life choices, she knows she doesn’t love her husband as she loved Vince but it can work and they have a family. Although there were so many rumours, Michelle is adamant in her defence of her first love. Yes, he had committed a crime and had often mixed with the wrong people. She could believe the rumour of the mechanic, despite Trident claiming they didn’t send anyone. Perhaps this was Vince’s past catching up with him, dressed in a mechanic’s overalls?

I loved the descriptions of the sea, and how it was a character in its own right. Sometimes calm, deceptively so, until a sudden swell could catch you by surprise. There are storms where waves batter the tower almost all the way up to the light itself. The sea is capricious, relentless and must be respected. The little touches of the supernatural add to the puzzle and intrigue the reader. Arthur’s sighting of something glinting silver in the sea or the little sail boat that passes by. Bill’s strange story of seeing the same man twice as he’s driving along and has to stop for him to cross – somehow he knows this isn’t a lookalike, it is exactly the same man. Is there a link between this strange story and the mechanic who turns up and seems to know all about them? This is where I started to wonder what was real? I wasn’t sure whether one of the keepers was having a mental health crisis and we were privy to his inner thoughts and delusions. Bill also has a strange attachment to Helen and I wasn’t sure whether his affections were returned or whether he was obsessed. Just enough little creaks, bangs and noises about the place are also making Vince jumpy. Could the isolation have proved too much for him?

The author weaves an unsettling tale and I wasn’t sure we would ever know what really happened. I was surprised, but incredibly satisfied by the ending. I thought the depiction of complicated grief in all the women felt real and honest. The glimmer of hope for their future was very welcome. I was left though, with an eerie feeling and a sense that the lighthouse might still be holding some secrets. That perhaps if you sailed nearby on a clear day you might see a father and his small boy looking out to sea, together forever in this one place outside of time.

Meet The Author


Emma Stonex is a novelist who has written several books under a pseudonym. THE LAMPLIGHTERS is her debut under her own name and has been translated into more than twenty languages. Before becoming a writer, she worked as an editor at a major publishing house. She lives in the Southwest with her family.