Month: Feb 2023

Posted in Netgalley

Picture You Dead by Peter James

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace finds himself plunged into an unfamiliar and rarefied world of fine art. Outwardly it appears respectable, gentlemanly, above reproach. But beneath the veneer, he rapidly finds that greed, deception and violence walk hand-in-hand.

It was lovely to be back in the world of Roy Grace, a character I was introduced to by a lovely new neighbour nearly ten years ago. When she moved in across the road from me with her English teacher daughter, they both had an extensive library. So, she asked me over for a cup of tea and to look through their boxes of duplicate books. She’d noticed I had a substantial library of my own when she popped round to introduce herself. This unexpected rummage through their cast offs brought both Elly Griffiths and Roy Grace to my notice. Luckily for me, both mum and daughter had a full set of Grace novels so I was able to spend a few weeks slowly working my way through his entire story. I managed to get access to Peter James’s latest through Netgalley a couple of months ago, but have been a little late in writing up my review.

This time Grace’s case takes him into the world of art collecting and finds that when a collector wants a particular painting, they might pursue it using any means at their disposal, even murder. Everything is set in motion by a couple called Harry and Freya Kipling, an ordinary couple who work as a builder and a teacher. On their weekends they like nothing more than browsing car boot sales for bric a brac and on one particular day Harry brings home a hideous painting of an old hag. He explains to Freya that he bought it for the ornate frame, hoping they could use it for a different painting. He leaves it in the conservatory, but on a sunny day the heat coming through the glass starts to burn the painting. That’s when the couple notice there’s something completely different underneath and after asking an expert Harry cleans the picture with acetone. Underneath is a fêtes galantes style painting of a couple in a garden that looks like others by Fragonard. Of course Harry doesn’t imagine for a minute that it’s worth anything, but for fun they attend a local filming of the Antiques Roadshow. As they queue up in front of the painting expert, they’re shocked to be taken aside and told the he would like to do some quick research on the their picture before filming. He then drops a bombshell, that this painting could be a missing Fragonard; the Spring painting in a series on the seasons. Alone it’s worth upwards of a million pounds, but with the others in the series it’s worth much more. The Kipling’s treat the painting almost like a ticking time bomb, something that worsens when their episode of the roadshow is televised. Now everyone knows they own this painting, including people who want it and will stop at nothing to obtain it.

This is an incredibly tough time for CSI Grace and his wife Cleo, he has only just lost his son Leo in a tragic accident and they are preparing for his funeral. Leo had only lived with Roy and Cleo for a few months, after his mother Sandy’s death in Munich. Sandy was Roy’s first wife who went missing early on in his career, causing so many problems and putting Roy in a position as suspect in her disappearance. He hadn’t even known Sandy was still alive, let alone he had a son, so it’s been a rollercoaster of combined grief and joy. To find out he had a son was shocking and to lose him so soon afterwards has been terrible, plus Cleo is close to giving birth to their second child together. His DI Glen Branson is at loggerheads with his fiancé over her job as a journalist, specialising in crime. Her ambition can mean criticising the force, something Glen is very sensitive about. With all this at home, at work Roy and Glen are looking at a cold case, the murder of an antiques and art dealer on his return home one evening. He was killed in his car on his own drive, as he waited for his electric gates to open, by someone who knew his movements very well. When the Kiplings have their house broken into, with nothing taken, it seems certain to be linked to their appearance on the Antiques Roadshow. Then when another body turns up, this time outside the home of renowned art forger Dave Hegarty, the coincidences start to pile up. As Roy’s team work their way through the collectors of Fragonard, will he find one who’s willing to kill to complete their collection?

This is a very different world to the one Roy’s team usually inhabit, but as always where huge amounts of money are involved, people are ruthless. The author is an absolute master at giving us moments of personal joy and anguish, alongside extreme tension and fear. One section of the book has a home invasion that’s absolutely heart-stopping! Then next we’re at Leo’s funeral, an incredibly personal moment where we’re taken into Roy’s anger over Sandy’s disappearance and guilt about his relationship with his son. Alongside this is the anticipation about the birth of his second child with Cleo, due in the next few weeks. The case is fascinating and I fell completely into this world of art collecting, from those who can afford the real thing to the world of forgeries where being as good as Dave Hegarty can bring plaudits and plenty of cash too. I felt so bad for the Kiplings, who had simply bought a painting at a boot sale and didn’t deserve any of the horror and stress that followed. It was good to be back with the team again; Tanya showing her usual organisation and Norman’s terrible jokes from the 1980’s really bringing the reader back into their world. Then of course there’s Brighton, with the usual mix of the seedy and strange that comes with Roy’s job and how it contrasts with the quieter rural life he’s chosen for his family. I only hope from here on there’s less personal turbulence for a character I’ve come to enjoy so much.

Meet The Author

Peter James is a UK No.1 bestselling author, best known for his Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, now a hit ITV drama starring John Simm as the troubled Brighton copper. Much loved by crime and thriller fans for his fast-paced page-turners full of unexpected plot twists, sinister characters, and accurate portrayal of modern day policing, he has won over 40 awards for his work including the WHSmith Best Crime Author of All Time Award and Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger.

To date, Peter has written an impressive total of 19 Sunday Times No. 1s, sold over 21 million copies worldwide and been translated into 38 languages. His books are also often adapted for the stage – the most recent being Looking Good Dead.

Visit Peter James http://www.peterjames.com

Follow Peter on Instagram > @peterjamesuk

Follow Peter on Twitter > @peterjamesuk

Follow Peter on Facebook > http://www.facebook.com/peterjames.roygrace

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Vintage Shop of Second Chances by Libby Page

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Libby Page was one of those authors that completely passed me by until I started book blogging and this is the first of her novels that I’ve reviewed. I don’t know why I hadn’t picked up one of her books before, because reading this gave me the same feel as an Adriana Trigiani or Marian Keyes novel. There were strong female characters, female friendships, achieving ambitions and fulfilling long held dreams. There are deep emotional aspects bringing flavour and depth to her story, but also enough icing and sprinkles to lift the spirits. Here the sprinkles were one of my favourite things, vintage clothing. Our heroine is Lou, who moved to a small market town to care for her mother who was terminally ill. Since her death Lou has been working hard, selling the family home and buying a shop with flat above in the town centre. With builder Pete upstairs creating her living space, Lou has opened the shop and is looking at ways to save money and boost business. Pete puts her in touch with Maggie, another lady who has gone through a big change. Maggie’s a grandmother and often provides care for her grandchildren in the house that was the family home. However, her husband has recently left Maggie for a younger woman and she is rattling round in the big house. So, when Pete suggests that she rents a room to Lou until her flat is ready it turns out to be a lifeline for both of them. Finally, we have Donna, who works at her family’s hotel in the US. In a daily uniform of jeans and hotel sweatshirt, Donna follows a routine where she does the paperwork and the books and checks in on her elderly parents, but she too has a shock in store. When her mother suffers a sudden mini-stroke, her conscience causes her to disclose a family secret – they are not Donna’s birth parents, her mother was a woman from a small market town in England.

The thing that links these disparate women is a vintage dress. 1950’s in style and a stunning buttercup yellow this dress has a full circle skirt just made for dancing. Embroidered with meadow flowers, the dress hangs above the counter in Lou’s vintage shop and is the only item that isn’t for sale. It’s flanked by a picture of her mother Dorothy, the owner of the beautiful dress. I love vintage clothes and this dress, plus the descriptions of her shop really did draw me in. I love colour and just reading Lou’s outfits and her transformation of Maggie’s wardrobe made me smile and inspired me to be more colourful again. The warm feeling I got from Maggie and her beautiful home helped as well and within a couple of chapters I had completely relaxed into their world. Each woman had her own chapters throughout so we could see things through their viewpoint. While I felt an immediate kinship with Lou and Maggie, Donna seemed less accessible. She was very intent on routine and was considered abrupt or even rude by some people. I wondered if she was neuro divergent and suffering from anxiety, so her routines and uniform might have come from an inability to change or decide when under pressure. All these women face change and have to start life anew. In between their narratives are very short chapters from the past, where a young woman is making a yellow embroidered dress for a secret assignation with a man she’s fallen in love with.

I really enjoyed the journey to understanding the owner of the stunning dress and how it ended up at Lou’s shop. There is a revelation for all concerned when Donna gets on a plane and travels to England and to Lou’s shop. A series of letters between sisters add an extra clue to the mystery. Aside from this main story there are other subplots that also caught my imagination. I loved Maggie and her journey of rediscovery is a joyous one. When Lou arrives it’s clear Maggie is trained by years of looking after someone else: her husband, her children, guests. She’s not putting any love into herself and this shows in her completely black wardrobe. A little bit of input from Lou and she’s wearing orange with combinations of colours she didn’t expect. This small change and their growing friendship means that Maggie is busy for the first time in a long time. Her children can’t rely on her for free child care because she’s not home and this is just the start of Maggie accepting her divorce and creating a new life for who she is now. That’s partly a case of reconciling with her past and a summer in 1960’s London where she was the sort of girl who wore yellow Mary Quant boots and fell in love with an artist. There is romance here, but it’s not the only story. This story is about women supporting and inspiring each other and being our best selves. I liked that there was a lot of emphasis on self- care, from the colourful vintage clothes to taking control and finding our passion in life, instead of being the care givers we’re often expected to be. I came away from this story glad that society’s moral standards have changed and that for many women their lives are no longer ruined by shame or fear of what the neighbours might think. I felt like I’d been given a warm hug and I came away from the story smiling and inspired to wear some of my more colourful clothing.

Published on 16th Feb 2023 by Orion.

Libby Page graduated from The London College of Fashion with a BA in fashion journalism before going on to work as a journalist at The Guardian. After writing, her second passion is outdoor swimming. Libby lives in London, where she enjoys finding new swimming spots and pockets of community within the city. The Lido is her first novel. Follow her on Twitter @LibbyPageWrites and Instagram @TheSwimmingSisters

Posted in Personal Purchase

The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths

Posted on by thelotusreaders

It’s always a treat to be back in Norfolk with Dr. Ruth Galloway, in fact it feels like I’m visiting an old friend. One of those friends you maybe only see once a year, but you just pick up where you left off like you’ve never been apart. This time we’re in the very North of Norfolk, branching into Cambridgeshire and even my home city of Lincoln too. The last book was set in the middle of the pandemic and in The Last Remains we’re still dealing with the aftermath. There’s a sense of dislocation from regular life, but weirdly there’s restlessness and a lsense of urgency too. An urge to start getting things done. It’s no surprise that several characters have big changes on the horizon. Ruth’s university are thinking of scrapping the archaeology department. Nelson remains single, but is still living in the marital home he shared with wife Michelle. Cathbad is still struggling with the ongoing symptoms of long COVID, much to his partner Judy’s concern. The group of friends are once again drawn together by a body. This one is walled up in an old cafe that’s being renovated. Ruth thinks the skeleton is female and has been placed there deliberately. She’s not ancient either, with Ruth ruling that the bones are not historic and likely to have only been there twenty years. What follows is a delve into the more recent past and a group of archaeology students spellbound by the knowledge of their tutor Leo Ballard. Could this go back to an evening of students and their tutor camping in the forest and talking about Norfolk mythology? At least there is one person to ask who’s very close to home and he’s always around where strange Norfolk legends are concerned.

The case is a complex one, with the themes of twinning and disguises. There are also interesting contemporary issues, especially for anyone like me who went to university for the first time in the 1990s. If we apply today’s standards of conduct to the relationships between students and tutors in the past, it’s clear the lines are more blurred. Leo Ballard was happy to have his students at his home and have camping trips with them too. The students would also congregate at the cafe where the body is found – The Green Man. The cafe was run by a man called Peter Webster who had two daughters- Gaia and Freya – who also studied archaeology. However, the walled up skeleton is a student from Lincoln called Emily who was on the receiving end of a blow to the head. Emily was a student at Cambridge University and went missing after the camping trip to Grimes Graves, a prehistoric flint mine. It was thought she had been travelling on the train to Lincoln to visit her parents, but was seen to get off at Ely and simply vanished. I was creeped out by Leo Ballard immediately and I didn’t like his manner when talking about young girls. He seemed to take advantage of his position to lure young students into relationships with him. Freya Webster points out that he never visited the cafe himself, but he felt present because of how much his students talked about him. His following of students felt like a cult, impressed by his knowledge and taken in by his stories. In fact he wasn’t above a bit of theatre, since all students remember seeing a strange figure with horns emerging from the woods when they were camping. Was this a group hallucination or did someone in the group want to genuinely scare the students?

Cathbad, everyone’s favourite druid, is not his usual self. He is still experiencing breathing problems when exerting himself, he sleeps more than he used to and has difficulties remembering things. It seems that even he is questioning his longevity and is acting out of character, such as taking the whole family to mass at Easter. So, when he goes missing, his partner Judy is distraught. I think she fears he’s gone walkabout, a spiritual walk taken when the individual knows they’re going to die. It’s a change that Ruth is struggling to deal with, especially since Cathbad has always seemed invincible. She’s facing enough changes of her own with the department of archaeology under threat of closure and she questions what more she could have done, but she’s written books and even had a television series. She’s probably the nose high profile archaeology tutor she can think of. She doesn’t like changes that threaten her and Kate’s settled existence on the salt marshes, next door to the sister she has only recently found. Kate is now at secondary school and is used to the changes of the last year. She is not surprised at the occasional presence of Nelson in the early morning and he also arrives most Saturday evenings bearing pizza. Ruth has a lot of respect for Nelson’s wife Michelle, who had the guts to break the endless deadlock of their three sided relationship. She has moved to Blackpool with Nelson’s youngest, George. Now that Nelson is free though, she isn’t sure what it means or what she wants. She senses Nelson moving ever closer to the big discussion of their future, but finds herself avoiding it. She can’t imagine ever being anywhere but here with Kate and Flint, looking out to sea from her little cottage. However, what if Michelle returned?

There’s plenty of tension here, in the case and in the relationships. The sequence with Ruth and Kate at Grimes Graves made me feel claustrophobic! Ruth has interest from David, another department member, and his declaration of love has surprised her, despite friend Shona saying it was obvious. David is going to work at Uppsala University in Sweden and would like Ruth to go with him, where a new post is waiting for her. If she stays at UNN there’s an assistant dean’s position possible. I felt like Ruth was waiting for a big gesture from Nelson. She doesn’t want him by default, just because Michelle has gone. When Michelle returns and is at their marital home, Ruth disengages. Nelson needs to choose and he needs to do it independently. Will he do this or will it just be easier to slip back into his marriage? Does Michelle even want that? I like that Ruth loves her independence and values her life without a man very highly. He has to prove what he will add to her life, because it’s really great as it is. I was on the edge of my seat wondering what she would choose. I was also worried for Cathbad, but loved the way these friends come together as a community. Judy and Ruth support each other and their children get along really well too, so they come together to wait for Cathbad’s return, trying not to think about the alternative. I will say that there’s a wedding a the end, but I’m not telling you which characters tie the knot. It’s going to be fascinating to see Ruth, perhaps in a new location and different job going forward. However, I think there will always be part of her and Flint’s spirit wandering the marshland.

Out now from Quercus

Meet The Author

Elly is the author of two crime series, the Dr Ruth Galloway books and the Brighton Mysteries. Last year she also published a stand-alone, The Stranger Diaries, and a children’s book, A Girl Called Justice. She has also previously written books under my real name, Domenica de Rosa (I know it sounds made up). The Ruth books are set in Norfolk, somewhere Elly went for holidays in her childhood, but it was a chance remark of my husband’s that gave me her idea for the first in the series, The Crossing Places. They were crossing Titchwell Marsh in North Norfolk when her husband, who’s an archaeologist, mentioned that prehistoric people thought that marshland was sacred ground. Because it’s neither land nor sea, but something in-between, they saw it as a bridge to the afterlife; neither land nor sea, neither life nor death. In that moment, she said, she saw Dr Ruth Galloway walking towards her out of the mist… Elly lives near Brighton with Andy. They have two grown-up children and a cat called Gus who accompanies her as she writes in the garden shed.

Posted in Netgalley, Publisher Proof

The Watchers by A.M.Shine Update!

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I have some exciting news about this fabulously creepy debut novel by Irish author A.M. Shine. Yesterday it was reported that Ishana Knight Shyamalan, daughter of famous director and king of the plot twist M. Knight Shyamalan, will make her directorial debut with a film adaptation of The Watchers. Working with New Line Cinema and with her father as producer, it will be interesting to see if Ishana has her own directorial style or whether her father’s love of twists has influenced her. The script is also written by Ishana and sounds very promising, with the chief creative officer of New Line saying:

“Equal parts visual, immersive, and terrifying, the script grips you from the first page and never lets go.”

Screen Rant report that there’s no casting news as yet, but filming will begin later this year with a potential release date of June 2024. I have to tell you, I’m really excited about this and hope it has the style of an old fashioned horror film, keeping in mind that it’s what we don’t see that scares us most. I loved the surprise elements of her father’s films, such as The Village where a remote community is restricted by the terrible creatures who police their borders. I remember being blown away by the ending of The Watchers so I’m not sure it needs anything more than that to leave cinema goers satisfied. As for the eventual casting I would love to see Tilda Swinton as Madeleine, because I’m not sure anyone else has that unearthly look and authoritative demeanour. Below I’m sharing my review of the book from Nov 2021. Do read the book before seeing the film. You won’t regret it.

Ishana Knight Shyamalan

Wow! I’ve just finished this novel and what an ending. I feel slightly shell-shocked and a bit disturbed by this incredible horror novel that’s very hard to describe, and difficult to tell you about without spoilers. I’m going to try, so bear with me. I’ve been a fan of classic ghost stories for most of my reading life. I blame the more Gothic aspects of the Brontë’s for this obsession; the tall, ghoul who rends Jane Eyre’s bridal veil in two and the pale, ghostly, child’s hand that reaches though the glass and grabs Lockwood’s shaking hand in Wuthering Heights. From that grew a love of the gothic and monstrous, honed at university and now stated by wonderful ghost stories like these. I don’t call it horror, though I suppose it is, because I don’t like blood and gore. I love the creeping sense of dread, the strange apparition that appears behind you in the mirror, the fleeting glimpse of something not human or the sound of a child laughing or singing in a house where there are none. It even extends to my own writing, because when I wrote a story about hag stones for my uni writing workshop, my tutor messaged me to say she’d found it deeply unsettling.

We see most of the events in this novel through Mina, a young woman living in urban Ireland, who lives alone and has lost her mother. Now without family – except one sister who appears to phone once a month or so, just to feel disappointed – she is largely a loner. Her loves are sketching, red wines and her friend Peter who is a buyer and seller of various things and often pays Mina cash to travel and deliver his client’s purchases. On this occasions she’s to take a golden parrot to a remote part of Galway, but the day trip becomes something she lives to regret. Having broken down on the edge of a forest, Mina realises that the likelihood of anyone passing by and helping are probably minimal. So, with the parrot in tow, she sets off walking in the hope of finding a remote farmhouse with a phone that works. Her phone has died in the same second she pulled up in the car. Once in the forest Mina realises her mistake, it seems bigger than from outside and she’s concerned that the light might start to fade before she can get to the other side. She feels unnerved, although she can’t say why, then she hears a scream that isn’t human, but isn’t like any animal she’s ever heard either. As the shadows gather she is beginning to panic, when suddenly she sees a woman beckoning her and urging her to hurry. She’s standing by a concrete bunker and although that seems odd, Mina decides it’s better than staying out here to be found by whatever made that terrible noise. As they hurry inside and the door slams behind them, the screams grow in intensity and volume, almost as if they were right on her heels. As her eyes adjust to the light she finds herself in a room with a bright overhead light. One wall is made entirely of glass, but Mina can’t see beyond it and into the forest because it is now pitch dark. Yet she has the creeping sensation of being watched through the glass, almost like she is the parrot in a glass cage. A younger man and woman are huddled together in one space, so there are now four people in this room, captive and watched by many eyes. Their keepers are the Watchers, dreadful creatures that live in burrows by day, but come out at night to hunt and to watch these captive humans. If caught out after dark, the door will be locked, and you will be the Watcher’s unlucky prey. Who are these creatures and why do they keep watching?

I was absolutely entranced by this incredibly disturbing tale and loved the way the author created this unbelievable world inside the everyday. In the opening section Mina’s world is relatively normal, she goes about her day like any one of us. She has an irritatingly perfect sister, she gets lonely, she sometimes drinks too much wine. We can identify with these imperfections and relate to her. So when this ordinary woman, finds herself caught up in the extraordinary, we believe it because we already believe in her. These woods are like countless others, we’ve probably walked into similar situations ourselves and got lost. Yet, the author carefully leave tiny details, that are probably pricking up our ears and instinctively alerting us that something is wrong. The remoteness of the place, the way her phone suddenly stops working, the single strange cry she hears as if something is on lookout, alerting others to her presence. All of these are universal literary signifiers for ‘something’s not right here’. The author never describes the Watchers visually, again there are signs they leave behind and other sensory clues: the burrows in the ground, claw marks around the window, the revolting smell, their cries. Just as Mina is standing in the light, unable to see them lurking in the dark, so are we. Even when you think we’re going to ‘see’ them, we never fully do. The clues set our imagination on overdrive, we build the monsters in our heads which makes them so much scarier as they feed into our personal fears and phobias.

The characters and their dynamics are fascinating too. With the younger man and woman quite subservient to their ‘leader’ Madeleine, the lady who beckons Mina in out of the dark, there’s an almost parent and child dynamic already established. The room, entitled the ‘coop’, gives us the impression of hens let out to feed and water, but locked in at night for fear of predators. However, with that image of protection comes a question; hens are kept safe by farmers or owners who want them to produce eggs, so what are our four inhabitants meant to produce and who owns the coop? In helping Mina though, Madeleine hasn’t found another subservient child to lead. Mina is more independent and intelligent than that. She’s also a watcher herself, used to being alone and observing others, she sketches people secretly when in public places. The coop is no exception, she gets the urge to capture different expressions and moods in her fellow prisoners, particularly drawn to the planes and contours of Madeleine’s face. Mina doesn’t want to contest Madeleine’s authority, but she will contribute ideas and challenge those she thinks are wrong. I wondered if this would upset the existing dynamic, start a power struggle inside, and raise the tension even further. I was fascinated by how these others had ended up here and what would happen when they start to run out of food or something else that pushes them outdoors. Is there any way of escaping? This author has created a brilliantly layered horror, with an ending that was truly unexpected and even more terrifying. I have just explained the story to my next door neighbour and she’s already closed the curtains tonight! This was incredible and even better is the fact that it’s my first A.M. Shine novel so I have others to enjoy in the Christmas break. This novel is claustrophobic, unnerving and truly hard to put down.

Published by Head of Zeus – Aries. 14th October 2021

Meet The Author

A.M. Shine is an author of literary horror from the west of Ireland. He completed an MA in history before turning to writing, influenced by Gothic tales such as those by Edgar Allen Poe. His novels are grounded in their landscape, steeped in Irish folklore and language, and always influenced by history, horror and superstition.

Posted in Netgalley

The Lodger by Helen Scarlett

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’d throughly enjoyed Helen’s last book The Deception of Harriet Fleet, so I was looking forward to this release. The Lodger is an interesting historical fiction novel set in the period post WW1 and the Spanish Flu epidemic.. It’s a period I’m particularly interested in and I was drawn to the premise and how it brought the changes of that time into the plot of the story. This was a time of personal and national mourning, with the war appearing like a scar cut right across the public’s consciousness that hasn’t yet had time to heal. Our heroine, Grace, has a family torn apart by grief. She lost her brother Edward at the front and her parents grieved very differently, with her father keeping quite stoic and her mother struggling to cope. Eventually it was decided that for her own good, Grace’s mother would go and rest in an institution where she could be cared for properly. Grace also lost her fiancé Robert at the Somme, a loss she’s struggling to come to terms with as she keeps seeing him on the street, in crowds and on buses. Yet she can never find him. In order to make ends meet and to further an ambition Grace has taken a job at a nursing newspaper and wants to become a journalist, something that would have been unthinkable a few years before. Similarly, to make ends meet in their London home, they have taken in a lodger. Many well-to-do families were forced to do this at the time and Grace has struck up quite a friendship with Elizabeth, a church going woman who was proving to be a great friend. So when Elizabeth is found dead in the river and the police quickly rule it a suicide, Grace is shocked but determined to leave no stone unturned in finding out about the death of her friend.

The historical background was woven into the story so well: a general sense of everyone mourning someone, the fact that women’s positions in society were changing and the difficulties for those returning from the horrors they’ve seen. It was great that this was sometimes incidental background, such as someone Grace goes to speak to having a bad morning, because it’s the anniversary of his son’s death. It gave a real sense that this was an all pervasive grief and hung over the whole country. We would see it in more depth in certain characters. Her friend Edward still has an air of the last century in the way he deals with what he’s seen. He’s very protective of Grace and doesn’t want to tell her things that might distress her, and you get the sense he will take his experiences to the grave. Whereas his friend Tom is willing to be more vulnerable and has clearly suffered mentally since he returned with PTSD. He’s more willing to share with Grace and be honest about what the war has cost him. A character that really shows a change in women’s behaviour is Lady Bunty Jaggers, a friend of Grace’s mother. Grace asks for help in reaching a society lady whose husband knew Elizabeth, so goes to meet Bunty in her London home. She is a very colourful character and has an interesting way of looking at her marriage and what it gives her. She could leave her husband, but at the moment she has the best of both worlds. She’s cushioned by his money and title, but he remains resolutely in the country and she stays in their London townhouse living entirely separate lives. She’s also very forthright about Grace’s mother, suggesting that all the care home does is medicate her to the point of being unconscious. She thinks Grace should take her away from there and simply let her cope with the grief unmedicated, after all grief is normal.

Grace uncovers a terrible story of Elizabeth’s past life, including sexual impropriety, blackmail and possibly murder. None of which seems to fit with the Elizabeth she knew. She will need to interview many people, some of the them wealthy and very dangerous, to get to the truth. Was Elizabeth a changed woman because of all the wrongs she’d committed before or is there more to this story than meets the eye. Grace will need all of her investigative skills to uncover what really happened and she needs to keep an eye out for whoever is watching her and potentially wants to stop her. There were parts of the book that were a little slow and it could have benefited from a chapter or two from Elizabeth’s point of view in a separate timeline. However, I did enjoy that this news about female friendship and going the extra mile for someone who has been good to you, no matter what others say. Grace’s loyalty and determination are evident here. She also shows loyalty to her mother and a willingness to defy her father when she thinks he’s wrong. I really enjoyed how their mother daughter relationship developed.over the book. Finally there’s a little bit of romance too and a choice to be made between a man who is loyal, kind and would keep her safe or a different man who is more progressive, open and would see her as a partner, not a dependent. I liked that this choice was left till late in the book, because it would signify how Grace saw her future and whether or not she was in charge of it.

Out now from Quercus.

Meet the Author

‘The Deception of Harriet Fleet’ is my first novel and is set in the north east of England. I’ve always loved the big, classic novels from the nineteenth century, with lots of governesses and intrigue, and I sometimes wonder whether I was born in the wrong era! Although the Victorian period was a time of huge changes, the inhabitants of Teesbank Hall are trapped in the past by the destructive secrets they hold. Teesbank Hall itself is fictional but most of the other settings in the novel are real and close to where I live with my husband and two daughters. I teach A Level English and write whenever I can grab a spare moment. (Taken from Helen’s Amazon Author Page).

You might also enjoy Helen’s first novel. A dark tale that’s brimming with suspense, an atmospheric Victorian chiller set in brooding County Durham for fans of Stacey Halls and Laura Purcell

1871. An age of discovery and progress. But for the Wainwright family, residents of the gloomy Teesbank Hall in County Durham the secrets of the past continue to overshadow their lives.

Harriet would not have taken the job of governess in such a remote place unless she wanted to hide from something or someone. Her charge is Eleanor, the daughter of the house, a fiercely bright eighteen-year-old, tortured by demons and feared by relations and staff alike. But it soon becomes apparent that Harriet is not there to teach Eleanor, but rather to monitor her erratic and dangerous behaviour – to spy on her.

Worn down by Eleanor’s unpredictable hostility, Harriet soon finds herself embroiled in Eleanor’s obsession – the Wainwright’s dark, tragic history. As family secrets are unearthed, Harriet’s own begin to haunt her and she becomes convinced that ghosts from the past are determined to reveal her shameful story.

For Harriet, like Eleanor, is plagued by deception and untruths.

Posted in Romance Rocks, Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday! In Five Years by Rebecca Searle for Romance Rocks.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This book surprised me, delighted me and broke my heart. It was not at all what I expected, but was all the more special for that. Cleverly, Serle wrong foots the reader into thinking this is a straight forward romance, but it really isn’t. It’s about love and just as our heroine Dannie is some times unsure what love looks like, so is the reader. We are used to certain conventions and have expectations about how a love story will unfold. It teaches us that sometimes we don’t notice or fully appreciate what we already have.

Dannie is a corporate lawyer, living in Manhattan and dating the eminently eligible David. David and Dannie live together after dating for two years. They have done everything according to an unspoken, but very correct timetable; everything about their relationship is planned and just right. In fact their relationship is so predictable that when David suggests dinner at the Rainbow Room, Dannie knows he’s going to propose. She says yes when he presents the perfect engagement ring, but they don’t plan their wedding. They continue to drift along as they are, until Dannie has the dream. This vivid dream shows a loft apartment in Dumbo with interior design details such as an art print of an optician’s chart with a witty slogan. It’s nowhere Dannie can imagine living. It’s trendy and edgy. She and David live in Gramercy Park. A perfect location for their work and fitting for where they are in life. Yet, the Dumbo apartment feels comfortable. Then a man appears. She’s never met him before but yet there is a connection, something she can’t define. As he moves closer she feels actual electricity. She has never felt this before. Like some huge force compels them to be together. When she wakes, Dannie feels strange, like she’s questioning everything around her.

Dannie has planned to see her friend Bella. They have been friends since boarding school and are still incredibly close. Bella takes more risks than Dannie and in some ways Dannie sees her as someone who doesn’t finish things, perhaps a bit of a flake. Bella loves art, she lives to travel and has a more bohemian outlook on life. Dannie has a more settled and perhaps, conventional life where work is the priority and her stable relationship with David simply ticks along. Up until now Bella hasn’t had a stable relationship in her life, but she has brought someone important to meet Dannie. When he walks in, Dannie is shocked to see the man from her dream. She panics and decides to do everything she can to stop her dream from coming true. But life can take strange turns and a series of events unfold that she never imagined. They make her rethink everything about how to live life and how to love.

I became so involved with Dannie and Bella’s story that it was hard to put the book down towards the end. The story crept up on me from something very light to an emotional tale about the strength of female friendship. These girls are life partners. Their presence sustains each other in ways that romantic relationships sometimes don’t. Bella’s mother lets slip that she purposely placed her daughter in the same school as Dannie, because she saw them together and could not part them. The very structure of the book teaches the reader something. We learn, at the same time as Dannie, that the happy ending is not always about a man, because love comes in many forms. Also, that loss and love are the same thing. When we grieve it just proves how much we loved. I found myself becoming very emotional towards the end of the book and that rarely happens. I found the writing so truthful and similar to my own experience of grief that I had a lump in my throat. I loved the ending and the fact it wasn’t predictable elevated the book above the ordinary. I will be hugging my friends a little closer and appreciating all the people in my life who love me.

Meet the Author

Rebecca Serle is an author and television writer who lives in New York and Los Angeles. Serle developed the hit TV adaptation of her YA series Famous in Love, and is also the author of The Dinner List, and YA novels The Edge of Falling and When You Were Mine. She received her MFA from the New School in NYC. Find out more at RebeccaSerle.com.

Her latest novel One Italian Summer came out in paperback last year and was a wonderful look at love, mothers and daughters, and the things we learn about ourselves through travelling.

Posted in Random Things Tours

Bedtime Story by Chloe Hooper

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Whenever I’ve been faced with difficulties in life, my instinct is to reach for a book that helps. It might be a self-help or nonfiction manual, it might be a novel that closely echoes my own experience, or it could be a memoir that tells a similar story from a totally different perspective. I’ve been helped by so many books over the years: Havi Carel’s Illness helped me cope with my invisible disability, several books about coercive control and psychological abuse helped me through a terrible break-up and books like Small Dogs Can Save Your Life and The Year of Magical Thinking helped me negotiate my first year of being a widow. Books have helped me understand the world in so many different ways, so I was fascinated with the concept of Chloe Hooper’s beautiful book Bedtime Story. In the same way I’d always reached for literature, Chloe Hooper had turned to children’s stories to hopefully find a way through a terrible situation.

Let me tell you a story…

When Chloe Hooper’s partner was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive illness, she had to find a way to tell their two young sons. By instinct, she turned to their bookshelves. Could the news be broken as a bedtime tale? Is there a perfect book to prepare children for loss? Hooper embarks on a quest to find what practical lessons children’s literature—with its innocent orphans and evil adults, magic, monsters and anthropomorphic animals—can teach about grief and resilience in real life.

From the Brothers Grimm to Frances Hodgson Burnett and Tolkien and Dahl—all of whom suffered childhood bereavements—she follows the breadcrumbs of the world’s favourite authors, searching for the deep wisdom in their books and lives. Both memoir and manual, Bedtime Story is stunningly illustrated by the New York Times award-winning Anna Walker. In an age of worldwide uncertainty, here is a profound and moving exploration of the dark and light of storytelling.

I was first drawn by the look of this book and felt really lucky to receive such a beautiful proof copy. However, it wasn’t long before it was the beauty of the words that seduced me. Hooper manages to convey so much in her choice of words. She talks about childhood bedtimes and how ‘you lie in the fresh anarchy of the dark’ once reading is over and it’s time for the lights to go out. I loved the use of the word ‘anarchy’ because that’s exactly how it feels when the light goes off and the ordinary shapes of furniture and well worn toys become something completely different. The darkness allows them to metamorphose into whatever horror they like. It reminded me of childhood trips to the toilet in the middle of the night, when flushing the toilet and turning off the bathroom light would leave me momentarily without sight or hearing. I would run down the hallway on my tiptoes and leap from the threshold of my bedroom onto the bed, just in case whatever lurked under there grabbed hold of my ankle.

I completely understood the author’s need to move into researching children’s stories at a time of such great loss. When I lost my husband I was writing about my experience, but found myself veering off towards the Victorian form of mourning with all it’s rules and regulations. Reading about Queen Victoria’s loss of Prince Albert in a non-fiction format felt safer than reading a novel. It was all facts and couldn’t suddenly ambush me with emotion. The author was obviously looking for answers, but I wondered if she too was looking for reassurance in the dark. Trying to find a correct or right way to do something that is unimaginable. There is something strangely comforting about reading that someone else has faced this. In fact if you think about it this wre ads a mot ptyuuere are a lot of orphans and lost children in literature. Anne of Green Gables, Pip in Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights – it was a more common experience to loo your parents in the 19th Century. In fact many of the authors themselves suffered childhood bereavements so perhaps their storytelling was a way of writing out that experience from the safety of adulthood, trying out what might have happened to them in that situation, or perhaps exploring their greatest fears at the time. So maybe from these stories there are clues to the better ways of helping a child through the experience, a way in which ‘the right words are an incantation, a spell of hope for the future’.

When working as a writing therapist with people who’ve had life-changing diagnoses, one of the first exercises I do with people is to imagine their illness is a monster. They must of course think about how it looks, but also how it smells and the texture of it’s skin or fur. How does it move across the room and if it came in now what would it do? Would it sit, talk to the group or slink off to a corner and stay aloof or separate? How does it behave with them? What is it’s personality and it’s drive? This is a fascinating exercise and brings so many different responses to the surface to talk about within the group. Of course this is only how we perceive it to be. Our illness and our symptoms, don’t care about us. We are irrelevant to them. It’s what their presence does to us that’s important, how we respond to it – anxiety, fear, dread, anger. Hooper writes about monsters within narratives in interesting ways. On one hand they are amoral, unstoppable and all powerful. As Hooper writes, her husband’s cancer cells are completely indifferent to him and what kind of person he is. Similarly, the Basilisk doesn’t care that it’s Harry Potter he’s trying to eat, because in the monster’s world Harry isn’t the poor, orphaned, centre of the universe, he’s just a meal. On the other hand, the monster can be fashioned from what lurks within ourselves such as the tree monster in Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls. This monster is seemingly fashioned from Conor’s mother’s illness, but actually he isn’t there for her. He’s there for Conor. While adults feed him platitudes and half-truths, the monster is straight with him and confronts him with a terrible truth, so awful that Conor can’t bear to face it. He’s finally able to tell the monster of his terrible feelings, that he’s so tired of his mother’s illness that he wants her ordeal to end. He is ashamed of feeling this, but in saying it he becomes free. It shows the desperate need for an outlet, away from the parents, where the child can express everything they feel, even the negative and shameful narratives they tell themselves.

If all this sounds powerful, thit is. What I love about this book and the reason I want to use it with clients, is that it doesn’t sugar coat anything. It’s not syrupy sweet, but tells iiīiiooooôoothe truth about trying to live while potentially dying. Anticipating the death of someone you love is like a slow torture and Hooper doesn’t compromise. This is about that daily struggle to be a family and continue to make sense of a world that has suddenly become scary, hostile and uncertain. The love she has for her children won’t let her lie to them, but somehow they find solace in the stories and imaginary worlds she studies. There’s a way in which it teaches them how to accept that our time here and our time together is finite. Or, to quote from The Fault in our Stars, some infinities are bigger then others. I found Hooper’s narrative utterly unique and incredibly beautiful, full of strength, a resilience within the grief. She tells us that as soon as we describe something that’s happened to us in words, we’ve placed it a step or two further away, in order to examine it and understand it better. That’s what’s happening throughout the book and we go along that personal journey with her and her family. It’s such a privilege. However, it’s also a book that treasures literature and shows us how important stories are to our culture. When we bring our children up with stories, we’re sharing something imaginative and magical but we’re also equipping them for everything life can throw at them, because without stories we have no way to make meaning of our existence and experiences.

Out now from Scribner.

Meet the Author.

Chloe Hooper’s most recent book is the bestselling The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire. The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island won the Victorian, New South Wales, West Australian and Queensland Premiers’ Literary Awards, as well as the John Button Prize for Political Writing, and a Ned Kelly Award for crime writing. She is also the author of two acclaimed novels, A Child’s Book of True Crime and The Engagement. She lives in Melbourne with her partner and her two sons.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/13/bedtime-story-by-chloe-hooper-review-an-extraordinary-treasure-of-hope-and-grief

Posted in Romance Rocks!

Valentine’s Reads – Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Novels.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This month I’m supporting my fellow Squad Podders by highlighting writers of romance, whether that is their specific genre or just a part of their books mingled with fantasy, humour or mystery. If you want completely escapist romance with a side order of sexy, rich, characters cavorting around the English countryside then Jilly Cooper is your author. My first introduction to Jilly Cooper was finding her earlier 1970’s books on mum’s bookshelves. These weren’t the romances, but the humorous and witty digs at society found in her books on class and feminism. I remember very clearly my mum reading to me from one of them and as a working class family we found the middle classes utterly tragic so she would read descriptions of the Teale family. I’ll never forget Jen Teale who was so demure she wore six pairs of knickers. When mum was a bit low we would get a book down and I would read or act out the funnier bits and we’d all fall about laughing. It wasn’t until I was in sixth form that I encountered her handsome hero, Rupert Campbell-Black. One girl had brought Rivals into the common room and was reading out the filthy bits – ‘tit fault’ could be heard ringing round the tennis courts for weeks that summer term. I bought a copy of Riders and realised her work had so much story, as well as those famous rude bits. What I loved about Riders was the description of Penscombe and it’s jumble of treasures, dogs, books and grounds full of beautiful horses. Then as the rivalry became apparent between Rupert the school bully and his victim, the gypsy Jake Lovell I was completely caught up in the story. Her characters were well fleshed out and Rupert’s disastrous marriage to the American hunt saboteur Helen, was a fascinating clash of cultures, class and personality. I was soon utterly gripped by the world of showjumping, the bed hopping and the relationships sacrificed to ambition.

I think characters are a strength of Cooper’s even though some are almost caricatures and her rendering of Northern accents is hilariously wide of the mark. Each book tends to have a virtuous or kind woman – Taggie O’Hara, Kitty Rannaldini, Daisy or Lucy – who are perhaps not conventionally attractive, slightly shy and a bit downtrodden. It gives us someone to root for. On the other hand there are absolute horrors as well like narcissistic opera diva Hermione Harefield, the wicked but talented Roberto Rannaldini, or the chaotic and faithless Janey Lloyd-Foxe. It doesn’t matter that they’re not realistic, this is a romp through the upper classes – a part of society that Jilly Cooper knows more about than me. There’s always a lusty man to fall in love with too, someone tortured and secretive like the director Tristan de Montigny in Score, a bumbling innocent with looks to die for like Lysander Hawksley in The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, or the gorgeous Luke Alderton in Polo, who loves the spoiled young polo player Perdita even when she chooses his brother Red. From showjumping, to television, to gigolos, polo players, orchestras, film making and horse racing Jilly takes us through each world with great knowledge and detail, often making the animals just as strong in character as the humans. I’m particularly fond of the labradors Mavis and Badger, and Taggie’s faithful little mongrel Gertrude.

Then there are the romances! There are several in every book and of course the over-arching love story of all – Rupert and Taggie. In Riders I felt so sad for Fenella whose hero worship of Billy Lloyd-Foxe becomes an unrequited crush, then a doomed love affair. In Polo I was rooting for Daisy, the mother of our heroine, who had been so focused on looking after others that she couldn’t believe the dashing polo player Ricky France-Lynch would be interested in her. I followed the fortunes of Rupert and Helen’s daughter Tabitha very closely. She’s impulsive and makes a passionate, but very difficult marriage to Isa Lovell, the eldest son of Rupert’s enemy Jake Lovell. Any chance she had of a more stable and loving relationship, through the novel Score particularly, had me keeping my fingers crossed. Of course it’s Rivals where the best and most beguiling love story begins and to see the bed-hopping Rupert Campbell-Black falling head over heels for the shy, dyslexic and unconventionally beautiful Taggie was deeply enjoyable. I was a similar age to Taggie when reading Rivals and still very romantic. Now I look at their relationship a little differently, but every few years I re-read a couple of the novels and I still feel a little starry eyed about them. They pop up in all the novels after Rivals and their relationship is probably the most successful in Cooper’s fictional Gloucestershire.

Cooper gives the reader a glimpse into a glamorous and wealthy world most of us would never know about. The hotels are 5 star, the fashion is designer, and the travel is first class. This is a world of elite sport and the game of kings – yes the Prince of Wales does pop up in Polo. There’s the world of classical music following the Rutshire orchestra in both Appassionata and Score, where the countryside becomes a backdrop for a twentieth century update to Don Giovanni. Pandora takes us into the art world and her latest Jump and Mount we’re back with horses, but in a horse-racing capacity rather than show jumping. Her only mis-steps for me are when she steps outside of this privileged world and tries to write about the working classes or a Northern character. Her book Wicked focuses on a struggling state school being mentored by the local public school where some of our usual suspects pop up, such as Rupert and Taggie Campbell Black’s children. I found her working class and city dwelling characters stereotypical and I inwardly cringed to such an extent I didn’t keep the book. Watch out for the accent of George Hungerford in Score for an example of how Northerners speak too. These are small quibbles though in a series of novels full of humour, bedroom romps, glamour, money and total escapism. The countryside is stunning and characters live in the most picturesque surroundings you’ll feel you’ve been on a holiday. Mainly though you’ll keep coming back for the love stories: hoping that the plump, bespectacled Kitty Rannaldini will escape the clutches of her evil husband with the handsome Lysander Hawksley; whether dog loving, shy, make-up artist Lucy will ever be noticed by the glamorous and mercurial Tristan de Montigny. Cooper uses all of the romantic conventions to her advantage. There are always obstacles to the couple’s love, distractions and conventions that can’t be crossed. There might be an age barrier, a man whose a confirmed bachelor, families that are locked into a bitter feud or a difficult marriage to negotiate. There are so many of these obstacles, that you’ll wait with your heart in your mouth as Taggie drives to collect Rupert Campbell-Black from his trip aboard, hoping desperately that he’ll overlook them and let her fall into his arms.

Meet the Author


Jilly Cooper is a journalist, author and media superstar. The author of many number one bestselling novels, she lives in Gloucestershire.

She has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Universities of Gloucestershire and Anglia Ruskin, and won the inaugural Comedy Women in Print lifetime achievement award in 2019. She was appointed CBE in 2018 for services to literature and charity.

Posted in Netgalley

The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sarah Gran.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This was one of the most unusual books I’ve ever read, with a mix of history, mystery, philosophy, magic and erotica that was most unexpected. Lily Albrecht is a writer turned book dealer who lives in a farmhouse in upstate New York. Several years ago she met husband Abel, the love of her life. Abe was a brilliant man, a writer and professor who inspired others and drew friends and colleagues to their home as guests. Then he started to forget things and after spending a fortune on neurologists, tests and treatments she’d come to accept that Abe was not getting better. It was like a form of dementia. He was now using a wheelchair and was completely mute, and Lily was left grieving for him while he was still alive. With full time nursing care from Awe, Lily is able to travel into NYC to run a stand at a book fair. It’s there she runs into Lucas, a librarian and book dealer friend, and it’s through him that Lily first hears of the book.

They are approached by a third party who knows someone willing to pay upwards of half a million dollars for the book. Some of the most wealthy book collectors in the world tend to covet books about magic or sex. Dissatisfied with the paltry millions they have, they want to look at ancient ways to manipulate and accumulate power. This book has both, something Lily jokingly refers to as ‘sex magic’, but as she listens to how the book works she does feel a stirring. Sex is something she and Abe had to lay aside a long time ago. She’s used to early nights, flannel pyjamas and a bed to herself. She wouldn’t consider herself sexy, but as she sits with Lucas and they talk about the steps to the magic of the book. It contains a symbol, something that’s not quite a circle and not quite a triangle. The first step requires the sweat from a woman’s neck and from there each step requires a bodily fluid elicited during sex. The final step is to anoint the book with the most precious substance – a substance that a woman produces at her most aroused. Once all the steps are complete, the pair will receive the thing they most wish for which is usually money and power beyond their wildest dreams.

Finding this book takes them on an erotic odyssey from New York to LA, the humidity of New Orleans, then on to Munich and Paris. Lily and Lucas will find the book, convince the collector to sell it to their buyer and hopefully make a lot of money. They will also embark on a sexual relationship with no boundaries and no restrictions and neither tells the other what they’re hoping for from the book. Of course the money will be incredible, it would help Abe enormously, but Lily wants something more. She wants Abe back. More than that, she wants Abe to return to himself with all the vitality, intelligence and allure he’s always had. She wants them to spend evenings talking about books and watch him hosting friends at their home. She wants Able to have his life back. In the meantime she’s going to enjoy her first vacation for a long time, staying in five star hotels and experimenting with Lucas while they try to find the elusive book.

This is an incredible, escapist, fantasy and travelogue, that could have been quite shallow and empty without the skill of the author. She has put so much genuine emotion and compassion into the story, along with the gritty realism of living with a loved one who is leaving you piece by piece. Lily’s memories of Abe and their relationship are heartbreaking when you realise he is now a motionless, mute, man unable to do anything but watch TV. Lily emphasises the loss of this man’s intelligence. He looms large in her memory and there’s a little bit of hero worship with the love she has for him. She describes the loss of his voice, their friends slowly disappearing, the loneliness of separating their sleeping arrangements and the torture of Abe being there, but not. It’s heartbreaking and I’ve been through exactly this experience as I slowly lost my husband fifteen years ago. Perhaps this is why I empathised with Lily so strongly and I understood why she was taken in by this adventure and by being desired for the first time in a long time. It’s like watching a flower bloom as she slowly awakens again, but even though I could understand her need I worried that somehow the book was exploiting her vulnerability. I didn’t get to know Lucas as well as Lily, so his motivations were slightly unclear. He mentioned being used to a five star lifestyle, but his money running low. This felt greedy or shallow when compared to Lily’s motivation. I worried that most people wanting to acquire the book were greedy and materialistic and there would be some sort of come-uppance, but I didn’t know if Lily deserved that. Each time they performed a step, the magic felt dark and it seemed to have an addictive quality. A new avenue would open up as if the book was drawing them closer and making their path easier. It wanted to be found, but why?

The pace towards the end really picks up and I was racing through the action with my jaw dropped open. However, it was the chapter after Paris that really hit me emotionally. It emphasised how much we look at the people we’ve lost with rose tinted spectacles. No matter how much we feel nostalgic for a certain place and time in our lives, it can’t be replicated. It reminded me of the saying ‘you can’t wade into the same river twice; because you have changed and so has the river’. I’ve read erotica where it’s all sexual acts with barely any story in between. This was an incredible story that I could have read happily without the sex, but to make the sexual acts an integral part of the story and the search was clever. The author has achieved an intelligent and fantastical book, that succeeds in being both erotic and a fascinating mystery.

Published 30th August 2022 by Faber and Faber

Meet The Author

Sara Gran is the author of The Book of The Most Precious Substance. Previous work includes Saturn’s Return to New York, Come Closer, Dope, Marigold, and the Claire DeWitt series. She is the founder of small press Dreamland Books and writes for television and film.

Posted in Romance Rocks, Throwback Thursday

Romance Rocks: The Man Who Didn’t Call by Rosie Walsh

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I read this in two long bursts – one of which started at 3am. It’s a book I couldn’t put down because all I wanted was these two people back together. The harsh realities of grief and lifelong family rifts are well drawn by the author and completely believable. All of these people are trying to move forward despite their lives missing a beat one day on a country road, where a split second decision has lifelong consequences. This book explores grief, loss, loyalty, loneliness and the eventual incredible ability the human heart has to heal.

Sarah has a 7 day whirlwind romance with Eddie. They meet by chance on a country road while Sarah is visiting her parents. She thinks Eddie just might be the one. But, Eddie goes away on holiday and she never hears from him again. Is Eddie a heartless playboy who never intended to call? Did Sarah do something wrong? Or has something terrible happened to him? Instead of listening to friends and writing this off as a one night stand, Sarah begins to obsess and is determined to find the answer. Every clue she has comes to a dead end and she is in danger of completely losing her dignity. As her time back home in the UK starts to run out, Sarah looks for clues to track Eddie down. What she hears is confusing her further. His friend doesn’t give the simple answer, that Eddie has moved on, but gives her a warning; if she knows what’s best for her, she needs to stop looking for Eddie. 

Walsh has successfully intertwined a love story with a mystery. I veered between wondering if Sarah was becoming irrational and willing her to succeed. Interspersed with the narrative are beautiful letters of love and loss addressed to the writer’s sister, affectionately nicknamed ‘Hedgehog’. The letter writer’s sister died when they were young, but we don’t know what happened or who the letter writer is. If Sarah is the author of the letters does this loss have something to do with the warning she’s been given? Is her sister the key – not just to Eddie’s disappearance, but to why Eddie was on that particular stretch of road on that day? 

I quickly became invested in Sarah and Eddie’s story. I think we’ve all been subjected to the watched phone that never rings and how crazy it can make us. It could have made me dislike Eddie early on, but for some reason I never did. I’m definitely a hopeless romantic so I seemed to accept Sarah’s hope that this could still work out. The other characters in the novel are also well-written and compelling. I’m a therapist so I was particularly interested in Eddie’s mother and her mental ill health. I think her symptoms and the way she manipulated Eddie showed a streak of narcissism. She finds it impossible to see this situation from his point of view, only how it might  her. Anything that threatens their dynamic as carer and patient is a huge threat to her and she responds with emotional blackmail and hostility. Eddie is as much a prisoner of her mental ill health as she is. I also had empathy for Sarah’s friend Jenny who is struggling to conceive and undergoes IVF treatment to the point of financial ruin. Her character probably leapt out at me because I’m also not able to have children, and know how difficult it can be to come to terms with. Her stoicism and determination to support her friend in the face of her own loss is very moving. 

I stayed up until 2am to finish the book, because I had everything crossed that the mystery would be explained and these two people could move forward together. To different degrees, all the novels characters are imprisoned by the past and losses they can’t accept. My husband died when he was 42 and I was 35. It’s like a chasm opened up and I had to choose between staying on one side forever, with the past and my feelings of loss and fear. Or I could choose to jump over that chasm into a new future. I never forget what happened or the love I have for Jerzy, but twelve years later I have a wonderful partner and two beautiful stepdaughters. Thankfully, I had the bravery to move forward knowing I can’t lose my memories of the past, but I still have a future full of possibilities I never imagined. That’s what the characters in the novel are trying to do. Grief is different for everyone and there are always tensions between those who are trying to heal and those who can’t imagine healing because it feels like a betrayal. Rosie Walsh draws these different threads together beautifully, creating a bittersweet novel that captures the incredible ability the human heart has to heal.

Meet the Author


Rosie Walsh is the internationally bestselling author of two novels, the global smash hit THE MAN WHO DIDN’T CALL, and – new for 2022 – THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, a heart-wrenching, keep-you-up-all-night emotional thriller, which was an instant New York Times bestseller and stayed in the German top ten for several weeks. 

Rosie Walsh lives on a medieval farm in Devon, UK, with her partner and two young children, after years living and travelling all over the world as a documentary producer and writer. 

The Man Who Didn’t Call (UK) / Ghosted (US) was her first book under her own name, and was published around the world in 2018, going on to be a multimillion bestseller. 

Prior to writing under her own name she wrote four romantic comedies under the pseudonym Lucy Robinson. When she isn’t parenting or writing, Rosie can be found walking on Dartmoor, growing vegetables and throwing raves for adults and children in leaking barns. 

Author photos © Anna Pumer Photography / Verity Rivers

Rosie’s new novel The Love of my Life is another heartbreaking romance, mixed with an addictive mystery you’ll be begging for one more chapter.

I have held you every night for ten years and I didn’t even know your name. We have a child together. A dog, a house.
Who are you?

Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she’d do anything for them. But almost everything she’s told them about herself is a lie. And she might just have got away with it, if it weren’t for her husband’s job. Leo is an obituary writer and Emma is a well-known marine biologist, so, when she suffers a serious illness, Leo copes by doing what he knows best – reading and writing about her life. But as he starts to unravel her past, he discovers the woman he loves doesn’t really exist. Even her name is fictitious.

When the very darkest moments of Emma’s past life finally emerge, she must somehow prove to Leo that she really is the woman he always thought she was . . . But first, she must tell him about the love of her other life.

Available now in hardback and on Kindle, but due out in paperback in July 2023.