Month: Mar 2024

Posted in Netgalley, Publisher Proof

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn’t there,

He wasn’t there again today, oh how I wish he’d go away.

Antagonish by Hugo Mearns

My grandad taught me the first few lines of the poem above. I think it appealed to his sense of humour. I thought it was a riddle and I used to ask ‘but is he there or not?’ This is the very question this whole book revolves around from the first line – ‘there is someone in the house’. Our unnamed narrator wakes in the night as a strange noise breaks through her sleep. I was told by a book reviewer I respect enormously that this was brilliant and she was absolutely right. Although I drove my husband crazy by waking him up to ask if he remembered locking the door. He hadn’t always and I knew I wouldn’t sleep until one of us had crept downstairs and checked. Preferably not me. This is the situation all of us dread, waking to that unexpected noise in the night and finding there is an intruder. Our narrator is at her secluded home with her two small children in a blizzard. The sound she hears is a familiar one, a tread on the stairs to her room, but it’s unusually heavy and slow. She has a split second to make the decision – does she hide, try to run or stay and fight. Will all three of them get out alive and if they do will anyone believe her?

The first thing that hit me about this book was the unique voice this mother has. We see everything through her eyes and experience everything her body goes through – mainly fear. There’s the heart-stopping tension of that first night, the immediate threat rendering everything else unimportant. Yet there are other fears lurking underneath – will the police believe her, will it stir up questions about her husband’s absence, what will her father-in-law make of what has happened? She is waiting for people to doubt her and the reader doubts her too. Always on the lookout for unreliable narrators, I did wonder whether I should trust what she was experiencing. It’s just so incredibly odd. This tall intruder seems to have two voices: a raspy harsh voice when he’s angry then more of a soft, weedling voice. A voice you might use for children as he asks them to ‘come out little pigs, little pigs are more delicious’. As he does this right next door to their hiding place, it’s even more terrifying. Her little girl whispers to her mum that it’s the ‘Corner Man’ from her nightmares, he sits in the corner of her bedroom at night and whispers to her. My heart was in my throat at this point! Was he real or something supernatural? Could he possibly be real if this is true? I wondered if this overwrought mother is imagining this person, but that opens up a more frightening prospect – is she hallucinating and terrorising her own children with her delusions? The author plays with the reader beautifully. Just as I was starting to think the narrator is completely crazy, she addressed my concerns.

‘How nice it would be to be crazy instead of correct. For t all to be a psychotic break. To have her husband come down those stairs. She’d pop out of the hidden place relieved – rated – to meet his look of confusion’.

This is a woman who is used to being misunderstood and there’s no shortage of men around, happy to convince her that she’s strange, hysterical and marked as different in some way. There’s an awful moment, recalled while hiding, when her husband told his father he was not going to continue studying law. She hears his father’s fury down the phone:

‘You never behaved this way before you met that girl. Christ. She’s disfigured’.

Our narrator has vitiligo – a long term skin condition where areas of skin lose melanin and become paler, creating a patchy complexion. People stare and perhaps mistrust her, worried they may catch a skin disease or worse. Added to this, she’s a newish mum full of hormones, perhaps she’s a bit anxious and over-protective. She’s recently bereaved, having nursed her terminally ill mother-in-law. Maybe she’s not in the best frame of mind. All of this and the fact that she’s a woman, mean the police will be unsure or just plain rude about her. They keep explaining there’s no evidence: no footsteps in the snow; nothing of any value is stolen – in fact the items she does mention are probably lose or mislaid by the children. They don’t sound like the type of things someone would steal. They’ll turn up.

While hiding from one monster, we learn that she’s battling another in the shape of her father-in-law. Honestly, I have never wanted to climb into a book and punch someone more. He is a bully, but everyone else placates him. He is ashamed of his son, even more ashamed of his disfigured daughter-in-law. He hates the noise of his newborn grandson and his wife apologises! Even while his wife is dying, he sits with his feet up watching television and creates holy hell if he’s disturbed. His daughter-in-law does all the work and is rarely appreciated or thanked. He wants his grandson to man up and stop being a wuss. Worst of all he’s aggressive, violent even. Having him in charge of her children is the worst outcome of all. This mother is also fiercely protective. A passing incident where a stranger commented on her daughter and pulled the drooping strap of her sundress back onto her shoulder, really bothers the mother. You can feel her hackles rising in much the same way she reacts when her father-in-law criticises her son. She has very keen instincts and it’s fascinating to see how those instincts can be eroded, mainly by men who still consider women a hair’s breadth away from hysteria and the asylum. It shows that we’re not just gaslighted by individuals, it can be institutional, perpetuated by organisations like the police force or as I’ve found in my own life, the medical profession.

The whole setting is brilliantly eerie. A secluded mansion house with woods behind and five acres of open pasture between them and the next house. The house was built in 1722 with two staircases, higgledy-piggledy rooms and even it’s very own graveyard. She loves the house, even though it’s totally impractical and a nightmare to heat. She’s got to know each creak and bang, it’s night noises, but never imagined when she viewed the house that she’d be fleeing into the secret space next to the chimney, where the builders walled in the labyrinthine brick work. They never imagined being walled in. It’s a place where ghostly presences and hidden secrets would be easy to believe. Yet it’s not all scary. There are some wonderfully tender moments between the mother and her children and we can feel how torn she is when she has to be sharp with them, to keep them quiet and safe. I had no idea where this story might go and the author was one step ahead of me all the way. I might have finished this incredible thriller, but I’m still carefully locking the doors at night and when the cat decided she’d rattle our door to upstairs at 3am my heart did beat a little faster. I can’t believe how assured and psychologically complex it was for a debut! If you only buy one thriller this year, make it this one.

Out now from Viking

Meet the Author

Tracy Sierra was born and raised in the Colorado mountains. She currently lives in New England in an antique colonial-era home complete with its own secret room. When not writing, she works as an attorney and spends time with her husband, two children, and flock of chickens. Nightwatching is her debut novel.

Posted in Netgalley, Personal Purchase

The Star and the Strange Moon by Constance Sayers.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Constance Sayer’s latest book has a lot of her literary trademarks: time slip narratives; a mystery to solve; magic realism and romance. She places her story in the world of Hollywood and film-making, with two main characters – the actress Gemma Turner and young film-maker Chris Kent. In 1968 Gemma is staying in London with her rock star lover Charlie Hicks when she is offered an unexpected film opportunity. Until now Gemma has been making a series of surfing films based in California, but she’s been longing to make something that has more critical acclaim. French director Thierry Valden is part of the nouvelle vague or new wave movement and has offered her the lead role in his next film L’Etrange Lune a vampire film set in 19th Century France. He seems open to changes and often works with improvisation so her long held skills as a writer might be needed too. However, when she gets to Thierry’s chateau the mood seems to have changed. She is greeted by Manon Valden, who warns Gemma off her husband immediately which isn’t very welcoming. Thierry doesn’t seem like the man she met before and when she reads the up to date script it still has the same stilted dialogue, despite the potential changes she had sent him. When she finally speaks to Thierry alone, he makes it clear that something has changed. He had envisioned more of a collaboration both on the script and possibly in the bedroom, but L’Etrange Lune will be his final film and he can’t afford to take risks. Gemma will have other opportunities for scriptwriting but he won’t. The next day as they’re filming in the nearby town of Amboise, Gemma has a scene where she runs down a darkened and cobbled alleyway, seconds after calling action the camera has suddenly lost her. Has she fallen on the cobbles? Are the dark shadows concealing her? Maybe she’s walked off in a huff. Yet it seems Gemma is genuinely gone and as they look back over the scene on film, frame by frame, she’s simply disappeared in front of their eyes.

Christopher Kent has had a strange fascination with the actress Gemma Turner since he was a child. Now at film school in 2007, his attachment to the actress stands out because she was never one of the greats – students aren’t usually hung up on obscure actresses from a handful of surf films. He remembers the day he first saw her, in a hotel where vintage black and white photos of actors were hung next to every door. In a very chaotic and traumatic childhood, this was one of those moments where he and his mum were without a roof over their heads. Chris could sense his mum was edgy and on the verge of a mood change, but as they approached their room and she saw the photo by the door she flew into a rage. She pulled the picture of Gemma Turner off the wall and smashed it, shouting personal insults and expletives. What was her link to the actress? Knowing Chris’s fascination with Gemma, his girlfriend and fellow student Ivy comes to him with a strange proposition. Every ten years Gemma’s final film, L’Etrange Lune, is shown to a select group of 65 guests at a randomly chosen cinema. Ivy’s father is one of the 65, but for this viewing he has offered Ivy his two place. They must wear a mask and cloak, but most importantly of all they must never approach or try to identify other members, nor can they talk about what they’ve seen. Chris doesn’t know what to make of the film. It seems to be a rather formulaic vampire movie, but there’s something odd about Gemma’s performance, almost haunting in fact. While in some places it’s fairly average, in other scenes there’s an incredible intensity to her acting. It’s almost as if she’s genuinely terrified.

I found the book a little slow at first, but once we reached Gemma’s disappearance I was hooked by this strange story. As we reach Gemma’s timeline in France and Chris starts investigating her disappearance several decades later, the pace of both timelines really picks up. There are suddenly enough strange and impossible happenings for the reader to start wondering what’s coming next. To be honest it felt like anything might happen! I loved the sense of evil created by the film – the strange melancholy that falls over those who see it, something that worsens if you keep going back every ten years. The rumours that the film changes in that decade are intriguing and suggest someone is still behind the lens. Could one of the 65 be playing tricks on the rest? Perhaps not letting on they have extra scenes that Thierry discarded, or that they have found an actress who is the double of Gemma Turner. Is something magical at work here? Despite all the warnings, I did understand Chris’s need to investigate, even when those he interviews start to feel the consequences of talking. This is such a clever concept and the author creates a real sense of mystery with wonderful period detail, especially in the 19th Century when there’s much discussion on the restriction and discomfort of women’s fashion especially in the summer. I also enjoyed 1960’s London where Gemma’s lover Charlie is part of a Fleetwood Mac-esque band where partners are swapped as readily as song lyrics. There’s even a very unexpected romance woven within this magical and unexpected series of times and worlds. What I wanted to see more than anything was for Chris to overcome the trauma of his childhood and fulfil his potential, wherever and whenever that might be.

Out in paperback from Piatkus 28th March 2024

Meet the Author

Constance Sayers is the author of A Witch in Time, The Ladies of the Secret Circus, and The Star and the Strange Moon from Hachette Book Group.

A finalist for Alternating Current’s Luminaire Award for Best Prose, her short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

She received her master of arts in English from George Mason University and graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts in writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She attended The Bread Loaf Writers Conference where she studied with Charles Baxter and Lauren Groff. A media executive, she’s twice been named one of the “Top 100 Media People in America” by Folio and included in their list of “Top Women in Media.”

She splits her time between Alexandria, Virginia and West Palm Beach, Florida.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Prima Facie by Suzie Miller

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was only a few pages into this thriller, when I wished I’d seen Suzie Miller’s stage play of the same name running in the West End with an award-winning performance by Jodie Comer. I could see that Comer was the perfect choice for Tessa because I imagine she would understand this character perfectly. Tessa has brought herself from the council estates of Liverpool, via similar areas in Luton, through Cambridge University to one of the best barrister’s chambers in London. Tessa is a defence barrister, one of the best in the competitive area of criminal law. She thinks like a lawyer, her job isn’t about the truth. It isn’t about whether her client is innocent or guilty, in fact she doesn’t want to know. It’s about following the intricacies of the law. It’s about looking for the holes in the prosecution’s case and exploiting them, bringing them to the attention of the jury and creating doubt. All she has to do is create enough reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury that the law directs them to an acquittal. It’s almost a game. A very high stakes game for the defendant, but Tessa gets paid either way. For her it’s the enjoyment of winning and seeing the the system she believes in, applied correctly. However, when Tessa goes on a date with a fellow barrister from her chambers, something goes wrong. Then she realises that the law might not be in her favour after all. Perhaps justice is more equal for some than others.

I was immediately enthralled by Tessa’s narrative voice. She’s smart, a quick study of other people and how they present themselves to the world. She is a brilliant, intelligent and careful lawyer. The author presents law like a religion. Tessa believes in the British justice system, that although there are anomalies, by and large justice does get served. After making a huge jump from her estate and family to Cambridge, she’s become a quick study of class and tribes. As she arrives at her first university lecture she spies a group of staff in suits hanging around the entrance and wonders if she’s been found out – ‘maybe I fluked it and one of those suited people are going to barge in with a list and call out my name. Tessa Ensler? I’m sorry there’s been a terrible mistake’. The boy sat on her right has clearly come from public school. He has that assured way of being that comes from knowing he belongs here and that he will be among those who change the country. The dean tells them that 1 in 3 of them will fail. As she looks to her other side she sees a girl trying to look dishevelled but with clothes deliberately made that way, rather than being worn out. With her layers of necklaces and raggedy clothes she’s showing that she has the confidence to look bedraggled, whereas as Tessa looks down at her own new jumper and knows she doesn’t belong. They know she doesn’t belong. What if she is the 1 in 3?

Yet she adapts and educates herself in how to blend in and even as a fully-fledged barrister years later, she is still well-versed in the unwritten codes of both the court room and the women barrister’s robing room. She refers to her fellow barristers as thoroughbreds. It isn’t enough for her to be a barrister, she has to know how to look and seem like a barrister. She knows the uniform – grey or blue understated suit, low comfortable heels for standing in court, hair that can withstand the wig, not too much make-up. It’s acceptable to show individuality with some quirky earrings, unusual glasses or chunky heel ankle boots. These little details are the way women have learned to own their own space, to show they are serious about the law, but do it differently to the men. Some things are sacrosanct such as the right shoes – the same designer brand, low key and stylish, but very expensive for a shoe that’s so boring. Yet within her first year as a barrister Tess has the same brand on her feet. Her rebellion comes in tiny acts like wearing a collarless shirt, coloured tights or eye-catching earrings. Individual, but not so out there it would frighten the horses. She also doesn’t have a wig tin, choosing instead to keep her wig in a Tupperware box borrowed from her mum. This is deliberate, it reminds her of where she’s from and how to remain grounded. She resists anyone’s offer to buy a wig tin for her, especially when they refer to her choice as ‘slumming it’. She’s mainly played by the rules and thinks she’s become one of them.

I will mention that there are graphic depictions of sexual assault that are a hard read, but they are necessary. They show the ambiguity that can be brought into the legal arguments. Anyone who reads the account has no doubt what happened between Tessa and her colleague. Yet already I could see the ‘holes’ in her story, the things she does ‘wrong’ and how the difference she thought was invisible, being brought up to weaken her account. She can probably imagine the way a defence barrister will cross-examine her and which parts of her story he will exploit to create doubt in the jury’s mind. I found it so painful when she overhears other female barristers discussing the accused, Julian. Julian was always hoping to be a barrister, his father was before him and is now a judge. He is immediately accepted into this world without once having to work out how to be. As the women discuss going to his dinner party and how terrible this false accusation is for him it’s clear he’s one of them, they probably went to the same school and, like her pupil Phoebe, knew which shoes to buy before they even got here. One female barrister asks her outright why she would accuse Julian, when everyone knew she was into him. She must know it’s hurting her own reputation and her career, she’s alienating the ‘very people who will decide whether she gets silk’. In that moment Tessa wonders why it isn’t hurting Julian’s reputation? There are solicitors who will never instruct her again, people who will not share chambers with her and she will likely never progress with her career again. But he will. It brings home everything about her difference from that clique – the small world of London chambers – her disadvantages as a woman, as someone from the wrong school and the wrong type of estate.

I was fascinated with whether or not Tessa would realise that the law isn’t the same for everyone and that her belief in the system she has worked for is left crumbling at her feet? Added to everything else Tessa feels foolish for every time she has said that the law dispenses justice more or less, for everyone. Now she knows it doesn’t. Even before she’s in the court room she knows that it was her difference that made her a victim in the first place. This wouldn’t have happened to Alice or Phoebe because they are protected by their class:

‘I really had thought that I was now untouchable. That if I just did my job, didn’t stand out, won my cases, I’d be like everyone else in chambers. But I am not. I am disposable, I am rapeable. Just like when I was a kid on the estate. Nothing has changed, other than the class of man that can rape me.’

In being exposed to the way the world works for the right type of people, she has naively assumed that it now works that way for her too. We are so intimate with Tessa, her inner world is huge – full of contradictions and fierce intelligence with a veneer of upper middle-class lifestyle overlying strong working class roots. I was totally engrossed in her and recognised something of myself in that working class background rubbing roughly alongside years of middle class education and lifestyle. I’m conscious of a difference in the way I view the world from the rest of my family, but I’ve always wanted to keep them close. I know that if anything terrible happened they would be there for me, just as I hoped Tessa’s mum would be there for her. I’m aware of the difference in my accent honed by seven years of grammar school, a change that turned me into a vocal chameleon, picking up a trace of wherever I go, wanting to fit in. Tessa notices this with other barristers who have accents, there’s always a court voice that’s clear, concise and authoritative. There are so many points in the story where the author captures a current change in how the world has changed, particularly for women. Tessa recalls a sexual encounter in her teens which was only borderline consensual, but back then was chalked up to experience. I remember these days well: a push up against the wall followed by an unwanted kiss so hard it bruised my lip; a grab of the hips from a man as I reached over to answer a phone in a busy office; a teenage boy who thought that because my friend was snogging with his mate, I was up for it too. These seemed like minor incidents, but wouldn’t be accepted by young women today.

Tessa’s story brought up all those issues of consent that I find so interesting – does consenting to one sexual act mean you’ve consented for everything else? If we consent to sex once, does that mean we’ve consented for that whole night? Does it cover the next morning too? My husband was horrified that in law there was no such thing as marital rape until 1991. Consent was given by the woman through her marriage vows. Alarmingly there are still people who think as long as there is no violence, forced or coerced sexual intercourse within marriage does not constitute rape. The court scenes are electric, written with such tension and power. Watching the balance of that power shifting between defendants and prosecution witnesses and the barristers in their robes, posing the questions with scepticism, repeating them till you trip up and then diving in for the attack. I found myself dreading what would happen to Tessa if she didn’t get justice. Would she cope emotionally? Also, what would it mean for her professionally? Would she be trusted again? I would say ‘reading this….’ in my reviews normally, but I felt more like I was ‘experiencing this’ by Tessa’s side and sometimes in her head. She was as close as my own thoughts at times. I wondered whether it’s possible for someone to be as educated, honed and prepared for such an establishment career as the law, without becoming someone altogether different. Is there a way to separate the professional from the personal, to take on some of the female barrister’s characteristics and traditions but keep a little bit more of who you are? To take a bigger Tupperware box from home and seal even more of that professional persona inside along with the traditional wig. Her struggle between being the Tess she became at Cambridge and her chambers and the Tess who lived for a weekend house party with her friends from the estate is the struggle of every university graduate whose family earned a living in a manual job. A family who encouraged her to push herself, to reach grammar school, then be the first to go to university didn’t realise that with each step they’d lose her a little bit. A gap opens up, created by education, money, culture and lifestyle. I was strongly reminded of Tony Harrison’s poem ‘V’ that beautifully captures this dichotomy within a person, a Northerner that’s settled and makes both their name and their living in the south. Yet one line stood amongst all that anger and dislocation: ‘the ones we choose to love become our anchor’. He meant new friends but I hoped in Tessa’s case she would learn that she can be part of her family, while still being successful. To recognise them as her strength and support, rather than something you drift away from. This book is right up there, with the best I’ve read this year. Don’t miss it.

Published on 14th March by Hutchinson Heinemann. With thanks to the Squad Pod for having me in this month’s book club choice

Meet the Author

Suzie Miller is an international playwright, librettist and screenwriter. She has a background in law, and has won numerous awards, including the Australian Writers’ Guild, Kit Denton Fellowship for Writing with Courage and an Olivier Award. She lives in London and Sydney and is developing major theatre, film and television projects across the UK, USA and Australia.

Posted in Netgalley

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Charlotte and Alec Salter have four teenage children and live in the small village in East Anglia. We meet them on Alec’s 50th birthday where a big evening party is planned for most of the village as well as family. Yet at the beginning of the party there are no Salters present. Charlotte went for a walk and hasn’t returned. Alec did same, but they didn’t go together or in the same direction. Fourteen year old Etty is worried. The last of the Salters and yet to leave home she is starting to panic. She loves her mum, but if she is gone, for whatever reason, that means she has to spend two years at least in the company of her father. Just the two of them. Alone.

In the days that follow as the police investigate, there are rumours that Charlotte and family friend Duncan Ackerley were having an affair. Of course it was more widely known that Alec was seeing villager Mary Thorne, in fact his own daughter heard him on the phone to her from the other line the night of the party. When the Ackerleys invite the Salters for Christmas Day, only Lottie turns up at first, her brothers are late and Paul is probably giving it a swerve altogether. Yet Etty thinks it would be worse to sit at home, staring, worrying and jumping at every sound. As dinner time approaches, the Ackerley’s start to wonder where Duncan has got to. He’s been out for a walk, possibly down to the boat as there is a super high tide and he needs to move it. It’s Etty and Giles that start to look for him and he does try to shield her eyes as they come closer and see that Duncan is slumped in the water, dead. We move between the party night and the Christmas days that follow and twenty years later when all the Salters are once again in residence at the family home.

Everything about the house is dated and dilapidated, including their father Alec who is succumbing to dementia. Etty, ever the lawyer, is organising his move into a nursing home and the clearance of their parents possessions. For this job she has found a bright and organised woman called Bridget. She gathers the siblings and tells them that the easiest way is for them to put specific coloured post-its on their must have items, then she takes away the rest for sorting, selling and recycling. It’s emotional, especially since there are now only three of them. Their brother Paul never coped with life and the loss of their mother and sadly committed suicide on the anniversary of her disappearance. Meanwhile, now a TV personality, Morgan Ackerley is home to record a podcast on that Christmas, speculating on what happened to Charlotte and his father. This is going to stir up the village and make life difficult for both families. When a sudden event leads to yet another death, the police are called and a new detective looks at the old files as well as this new case. Are they linked in some way? Despite her boss seeming to warn against digging up what’s been long buried, this detective is determined to find out what happened to Charlotte Salter.

Seeing how much these families have changed over time is so interesting and I found myself wondering how different the Salters and Ackerleys might have been if this crime hadn’t happened. Etty melted my heart a little bit because she’s clearly so close to her mum and on the night of the party she’s the one who’s trying to raise the alarm because she knows something isn’t right. The boys are largely off doing their own thing and seem almost inured to the state of their parent’s marriage. The consensus is they’ve probably had a row, but Etty knows that despite a row, or their dad being on the phone to Mary Thorne at 2am the night before, there is no way that her mum wouldn’t turn up to his birthday party. She has always kept up appearances in that way. She even looks at her father and wonders whether he could have killed her. Her relationship with each parent couldn’t be more different, there’s a distance between Etty and her father both in the past and the present. In fact he doesn’t seem that invested in any of his children. Yet Etty can still imagine the smell of her mum’s perfume and what she would be wearing and I could imagine Charlotte hugging her daughter, her perfume just one of the many scents that signify home. With only the boys and her distant father left who will she go to for hugs? I could feel her panic as realises that after Christmas, the boys will go back to jobs and university and she will be left alone with their father for two years. I could also see the shadow of this huge loss in the adult Etty: an awkwardness about whether the family kiss to greet each other or not; keeping a lawyer’s professional manner at all times; doing all the organising and keeping busy so she can remain detached. She doesn’t cry, even when finding memories of their childhood. She holds herself stiffly, almost brittle and I wondered how much it would take for her to break.

There are many ghosts here. It’s not just Etty who was changed. They all feel the loss of their brother Paul deeply and he’s the empty chair at the table, even now. They tiptoe around each other, trying not to open old wounds but when a fire is started at Bridget’s home a new murder investigation is opened. Either the arsonist didn’t realise Bridget was at home, or didn’t care. Was their aim to kill the house clearer or was it to hide evidence that she’d unwittingly taken into her home alongside the Salter’s belongings? I found this mystery so intriguing that I couldn’t stop reading and I loved the psychological aspects of how these unsolved crimes had affected the families and the village as a whole. There were a couple of crucial points past and present where everyone I suspected seemed to be going for a walk alone – without even having a dog as an excuse! I was suspecting that Lottie’s husband wasn’t as advanced in dementia as she seemed, but couldn’t be sure. The reveals were satisfying, but it was the methods of concealment that really blew me away and I loved how thorough the investigating detective was. She wanted to be sure, whether or not it disturbed or upset some people and I loved that about her. Mainly I thought about how the author successfully showed the long term effects of a crime like this, even years on from the actual incident. These children were all changed forever and the villagers have lived under a fog of suspicion for years. Etty particularly left me thinking of all the events I’ve been able to enjoy with my mum over the last 50 years, that she and Charlotte had missed out on. Finding a balance between the real emotions that surround a crime and creating a page-turning mystery is difficult, but here I think the authors have really pulled it off.

Out 29th Feb in Hardback from Simon and Schuster

Meet the Author

Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together

Posted in Netgalley

The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne by Freya North

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Eadie lives an unusual life in her garden city home, situated next to a cemetery. Far from being macabre and frightening, the dead are often this lonely little girl’s best friends. They provide her with somewhere to go and talk, without censorship or interruption. Her Mum and Dad work jobs outside the home, one in the day and one at night, but the rest of their time is spent at their desks in the family living room each completely engrossed in their writing work. She is an outsider at school, without friends and a target for kids like Patrick Semple. Patrick is relentless in his bullying of Eadie and it takes her a long time to find her little tribe. Her friend Josh lives with his grandfather who has a convenience shop, he’s also a concentration camp survivor. She also makes friends with Celeste, who’s lived in France and her mother, Sandrine, is an alcoholic. These are her first friends her own age, as up until now she’s mainly hung out with Michael, an elderly man who tidies the cemetery and Ross who plays the bagpipes at funerals. Eadie is feeling so settled with her life, but these three young friends are on the cusp of a huge change. All three will be going to different universities and while Eadie likes to think nothing will change, distance does have an effect on relationships and the whirlwind of Fresher’s Week will immerse them in their new lives. Will they still have time for each other? More importantly, will Eadie be able to leave the difficulties of her childhood behind her and make a life in Manchester?

Freya North beautifully inhabits the world of a young child and the fears and preoccupations that are their daily lives. It immediately swept me back to my own childhood and moments when I was afraid or felt like I didn’t belong. In my first year of primary school at age 5 we lived so rurally I had to get on a public service bus and remember when to get off and how much to pay the driver. It left me anxious about public transport ever since. I was also bullied, being poor but having a place at the local grammar school wasn’t easy and I never had the right clothes. My family also went to an evangelical church which made me different and restricted my social life. I really identified with Eadie, for feeling that her background was less than perfect. I felt Eadie’s pain. As children, if people tell us we’re odd or wrong in some way we internalise that feeling and assume they’re right. Eadie’s parents are not neglectful, but they are a very definite twosome, seemingly unaware that their only daughter is achingly lonely and suffering from immensely low self-esteem. As adults we can step back and see that her bully is probably suffering too, but children don’t realise this. As the group of friends grow towards leaving school, the changes are not easy for Eadie to cope with. What will happen to their trio as they all go their separate ways? While Josh and Celeste are excited about what’s coming, Eadie is anxious. What will Manchester hold? Will she be accepted?

I love the North West of England, my family are originally from Liverpool but my best friend is a Mancunian and we’ve spent an enormous amount of time there over the years, mainly seeing gigs from Manchester bands like Elbow. However, I grew up in the late 1980s and early 1990s and I was an indie kid. I started with The Smiths and Morrissey through to the Madchester scene and although I was too young for the halcyon days of the Hacienda I did love New Order with a passion and Bizarre Love Triangle is one of my favourite ever tracks. I felt immediately transported back to the reign of Tony Wilson, when New Order would be in residence and the club was heaving. North captures perfectly the heady days of the summer of love – the advent of Acid House and Ecstasy. Here, having made friends, Eadie finds her place of worship. She loves ‘the Hac’. She can be found on the dance floor in just a sports bra and shorts combo, able to dance all night with a raging thirst from E and a feeling of well-being to the whole world. This is before and the terrible deaths that occurred. Eadie and her friends rent a house on Hathersage Road, across the road from the amazing Baths with its art nouveau interiors. This is her home now. In fact she becomes so comfortable in her life here that she stops going home, she stops writing to friends and lives completely in the moment. It’s when things start to change that Eadie begins to struggle. Housemates have plans for their second year, placements abroad, moving back into halls and Eadie starts to fall apart. An unexpected face from the past comes back to haunt her too. After a warning from the barman at the local pub where she works, that the Hacienda is being run by drug gangs and that means violence. This leads to an unexpected blast from the past and is the catalyst for a breakdown. Eadie finds herself unable to complete work and even starts to question whether to stay at university. With her housemates making different plans for next year, Eadie can feel the foundations of her life shaking.

Freya North captures perfectly how secrets and traumatic experiences can follow us through life. If left unaddressed, our life is like a wall with a fault in it’s foundations. It can only be fixed by removing the upper layers until you reach and remedy the original fault. Eadie has covered her trauma over with many different layers: her friendships with the residents of the cemetery; alcohol and E; the Hacienda and acid house. I felt something with Eadie’s story, because of my own recent experiences with old friends. We can experience so much difficulty and pain in life that we feel far removed from those friends we’ve had in the past, but often they’re still there, just waiting for a sign that they can help or support us. I loved Eadie’s relationship with Kip, which isn’t perfect but the love is all the more real for those imperfections. His love is shown in actions rather than words and is stretched to it’s limits at times. Eadie is one of those people who takes a long time to work out who she is and what she wants to do in life, that is until she takes care of her unfinished business and then she flies.

Out now from Mountain Leopard Press

Meet the Author

I’m the author of 15 bestselling novels and am so excited to bring you my 16th novel: THE UNFINISHED BUSINESS OF EADIE BROWNE. I know you can read the blurb here – but I wanted to tell you how important and personal this book is to me… Much of it was drawn from my own memories of leaving home for Manchester Uni in the late 80s and remembering what that FELT like. Also, I live outside Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire – and I became interested in the visionary ethos of the Garden City movement. Because lockdown cancelled all the lovely centenary celebrations planned for Welwyn Garden City, this novel also serves as my tribute to the town and its Founder. I hope you’ll enjoy the novel – unlike Little Wing, my previous novel which flew out of me in 4 months flat, I really toiled over Eadie Browne; writing and rewriting and REWRITING until I was confident I’d written my best book yet… this much I owe to you, my lovely readers.

2021 marked the 25th anniversary of the publication of my first novel Sally! My 15th novel Little Wing was written during the first lockdown. Set partly in the Outer Hebrides and interweaving the secrets and lies of two families over two time frames – it was a joy to research and write and certainly kept me sane during the Pandemic. I’ve always been focussed on a sense of place being a key feature of my writing – settings being a leading character, not merely a backdrop. Previous locations have included North Norfolk, British Columbia, Derbyshire, Vermont, France, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall… I’m an avid reader too – and the novels of Barbara Trapido, Jane Gardam, Rose Tremain and Mary Wesley inspired me to write. I hope you enjoy my books – please keep in touch via my website, Facebook, Twitter and Insta! Happy Reading! Sign up for my newsletter (via my website)

Posted in Netgalley

Expiration Dates by Rebecca Searle

Posted on by thelotusreaders

It’s been a while since a romantic novel has made me shed tears but I reached just over half way through Rebecca Searle’s new novel and I felt a lump forming in my throat. My reaction was possibly more emotional than the average, because I felt seen. Rebecca has this habit of taking what seems like a simple romance and adding an element that immediately elevates it to something more. Daphne lives in L.A. and works as an assistant to a film maker, outside of work she is a busy bee flitting between visiting her parents, spending time with her dog Murphy and roaming flea markets for quirky household items. However, her favourite weekend mornings are those she spend with her ex-boyfriend Hugo: he wakes her early, they get to an early farmer’s market for the best choices such as the sunflowers that are always gone by ten am. Her career hasn’t changed much over time and she has chosen to stay in the area to be close to her family. Daphne is single, at a point in life where people she knows are staying together, having babies and getting married. Daphne tends to have short term relationships, but she is starting to wonder about all these things. Are they something she’ll ever find? Her friends can’t understand it, she’s a great girl, and have started to offer to their friends and work colleagues as potential dates. What they don’t know is that Daphne keeps a box under her bed and in it are post-it notes, drinks coasters and theatre tickets all which have the name of a boyfriend and a length of time, an expiration date. From one night to several months these cards enter her life around the same time as a new man and Daphne knows the finite amount of time they have together. This bit of magic from the universe is amazing in some ways, but in other ways she’s starting to think they hold her back. Are they starting to become a self fulfilling prophecy? Then her friend Kendra sets her up with Jake and Daphne waits for her expiration date to arrive. This time though, it’s just a name; no date. Does this mean Jake is the one?

Aside from the magical expiration dates, I was beginning to wonder whether this was a straightforward romance. Much as I was enjoying Daphne’s life, I was missing that extra element that grabs me and makes me feel something. I shouldn’t have doubted the author, because when it did arrive the impact was huge. Having had a similar experience at the same age as Daphne made her story even more compelling because I ‘got’ it and completely understood her emotions and reasoning. There are momentous experiences in life that divide it into a very clear before and after and you can never return to who you once were. Yet on the outside, the change isn’t visible. There is always something there to be revealed, something that can be ‘outed’ and only you can choose when and if you reveal it. Jake’s open ended expiration date is ambiguous, but what it does is leave Daphne to make choices in a way she never has before. Previously, short expiration dates have meant she doesn’t have to make a choice. If it’s one night, the chance to know another person is limited. If it’s three months Daphne doesn’t have to invest too much emotionally. It’s both freeing and restricting at the same time. Daphne doesn’t have to change or make too much effort, because whatever she does or doesn’t do it changes nothing. However, her emotions are restricted. If she didn’t see the expiration date, might she have invested more, took a risk or perhaps even fallen in love?

That’s why being with Jake is so different, it’s the only open ended relationship she’s ever had. Don’t get me wrong, Jake couldn’t be more perfect. He’s attractive and intelligent. More importantly he’s kind and considerate. At first, Daphne isn’t sure but for once they have all the time in the world for her to explore and see where the relationship and her feelings go. Jake has emotional depth and a willingness to put those emotions on the line. Jake was married once and his wife died. Daphne marvels at his ability to be vulnerable when he has lost so much. It also worries her, because she holds a secret that has the ability to shatter this fragile and tentative relationship they’ve built. She has a perfect man who wants to live together, to marry and build a future. Everyone says he’s perfect, but is he perfect for Daphne? I couldn’t help but keep thinking back to Hugo, who seems like the one who got away. He knows everything about Daphne, the secret and the expiration dates, but he’s still here. Their official romantic relationship may have come to an end at their proscribed three month deadline, but he’s still here and to me he felt like the person who is closest to Daphne. If they’d had the chance of an open ended relationship, might they have been perfect for each other? There were things I didn’t like about Hugo, but to me he felt more vibrant and alive than Jake. I felt like Daphne glows when she’s with Hugo, whereas with Jake she is the epitome of the phrase ‘settled down’. For Daphne, falling in love has never been simple and I really related to that. I think a lot of other readers will too.

Out on 14th March from Quercus

Meet the Author

Rebecca Serle is the New York Times bestselling author of Expiration Dates, One Italian Summer, In Five Years, The Dinner List, and the young adult novels The Edge of Falling and When You Were Mine. Serle also developed the hit TV adaptation Famous in Love, based on her YA series of the same name. She is a graduate of USC and The New School and lives in Los Angeles with her husband.

Posted in Netgalley

The Lifeline by Tom Ellen

Posted on by thelotusreaders

If I learned one life lesson from Tom Ellen’s lovely romance novel, it’s that I’m not the only one who has a weird celebrity crush on Richard Ayoade. What a relief! Usually I get quizzical looks and awkward questions when I admit this, so I felt vindicated. I often say I don’t like romances, but I really did enjoy this story about Annie and Will. They met one day in Paris when Will’s band The Defectors were the next up and coming Indie band. Annie is sent out to interview them before a gig and hits it off with cute frontman Will Axford, who I was imagining as my Indie crush Damon Albarn. Annie finds his floppy hair, dimples and the gap between his front teeth very sexy. He seems to be clicking with her, but she’s still surprised when he catches up with her after the interview and suggests they spend the day together. Later as they watch the sunset from the Pont Alexandre III bridge, he asks if they can meet after his gig on the same spot. So, Annie is standing there at 11pm waiting for Will to arrive but when he still isn’t there at 11.30pm she gives herself a good talking to, fancy falling for the patter of a rock star. He’s probably with another girl already or tries this on every girl he meets. How stupid to think he would genuinely like her! As she pays for an extortionate last minute hotel room on her credit card, she’s already mentally writing up her interview full of anger and disappointment.

Fast forward five years and Annie works for an internet magazine, one of those that suck us into a blur of 1980’s celebrities and what they look like now or the best ever one hit wonders. It’s not what she wanted to do when she started out, with a pile of short stories and novel proposals, but it pays the bills and she loves her colleague Lexi. So, when she’s asked by her boss to write a new “Where Are They Now?’ series to go with some very lucrative advertising revenue, she jumps at the chance to do something more interesting. Then her boss asks her to track down The Defectors. Behind the scenes Annie is having a hard time. Her father died just over a year ago and her different approach to his cancer diagnosis has left her estranged from her mother and sister. Her live-in boyfriend Dom isn’t her dream man, they’re just muddling along while friends are making huge life changes like marriage and baby. The thought of losing Dom or her job scares her, but maybe a big change is exactly what she needs? As she tries to track down The Defectors she sees one of them has shared a phone number on a black background, which stands out in the usual technicolour of Instagram. It’s for a lifeline called Green Shoots, a listening ear for those who are bereaved, anxious and lonely. Annie needs someone to listen to everything that goes round in her mind, so decides to call using her middle name Pia. When Jack answers she finally feels she can open up.

Jack volunteers at the lifeline as often as he can but he doesn’t use his real name. Of course he has regulars and I fell in love with these callers, perhaps because they reminded me so much of my own work in mental health. Work I’m not well enough to do at the moment. I understood that fondness for certain callers, because it’s hard to avoid clicking with people, however we meet them. There’s Eric who calls and often makes hilarious commentary on whatever he’s watching. Some of these programmes, despite his advanced years, are things like Love Island and Made in Chelsea. I fell in love with him straight away and those times when he called feeling low I was heartbroken. Then there’s the breathing lady, who calls just to have someone to breathe with, until she feels calmer. Jack and Pia hit it off on the phone straight away, there’s energy between them. So when she says she’ll call back, he finds himself looking forward to her call. I really felt for Jack because working with people and their deepest emotions can forge strong connections, it’s hard to be detached from some callers. I loved that his friend and colleague Tanvi felt the same way too. He had been avoiding the get togethers and catch ups with other volunteers, mainly because he’s struggling with making friends and being social. Years before, there was a friend that Jack wished he could have been there for and he finds the guilt is crippling.

I felt for Annie too, especially her journey through grief and the struggle to cope when her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The author presents beautifully how even the closest people can grieve in their very different ways. There’s a need to give each other space and respect what they need to do in order to cope. It’s so hard when someone is terminally ill and perhaps their wishes don’t align with our own. It’s hard to let go of someone we love, even when we know they’re ready. I thought the author paced the story perfectly and the misunderstandings on the road to romance were believable, rather than formulaic ones that sometimes make me groan in romance novels. I really liked and understood these characters, so I was truly into their story and didn’t notice the romance tropes as much. Equally, I loved the revelations along the way, because as Annie found more dead ends in her search for Will Axford and his band, I began to wonder whatever did happen to him? This was a thoughtful, bittersweet novel about love and the people we lose along the way, and I read every word hoping our two main characters would find each other.

Out now from HQ

Meet the Author

Tom is an author and journalist from London, England. He is the co-writer of three critically acclaimed Young Adult novels: LOBSTERS (which was shortlisted for The Bookseller’s inaugural YA Book Prize), NEVER EVERS and FRESHERS. His solo adult debut novel is the romantic comedy ALL ABOUT US (HQ/HarperCollins, published October 2020). His books have been widely translated and are published in 20 countries. He is a regular contributor to Viz magazine, and has also written for Cosmopolitan, Empire, Evening Standard Magazine, The Daily Mash, Glamour, NME, ESPN, ShortList, Time Out London, Vice, Stylist and many more.

Posted in Random Things Tours

The Collapsing Wave by Doug Johnstone

Posted on by thelotusreaders

When I first met the incredible being Sandy in The Space Between Us I had no idea that there would be a sequel, never mind a trilogy. I grew up at the time when home VCRs were becoming affordable and we rented the Star Wars films so many times that I’m sure if we added up the hire fees we probably bought them. Doug Johnstone’s second novel has something in common with the original trilogy in that this second outing is much like The Empire Strikes Back, it’s darker in tone and it looks like our heroes may be beaten. Heather, Ava and Lennox come up against the worst traits of human nature; fear, hate and paranoid self-preservation seem to be winning and it’s the military’s role to carry this ideology through.We start several months after the last book ended as Sandy was reunited with the rest of his species at Ullapool and disappeared into the sea loch. Our three heroes seemed set for different fates as the research scientists and police who’d been tracking their journey finally caught up with them. Ava is confronted by and wreaks revenge on her abusive husband who pushed her to the edge of suicide and now tries to take her baby Chloe away. At the beginning of this novel we find her in Edinburgh for the court case, watched by her sister who is now Chloe’s guardian. As she’s given a suspended sentence Ava’s elation turns to terror as she’s swept up outside the court room by military officers with guns. Lennox and Heather have been in a makeshift compound that’s now become the biggest American military base on British soil, named New Broom it sits at one end of Ullapool’s sea loch in the middle of nowhere, like Guantanamo Bay rebuilt in a beautiful Highland setting. Heather and Lennox are detained, seemingly with no legal basis, as MI7 Agent Oscar and the American military attempt to capture partial enceladons and understand the way they work. Oscar at least has an academic interest, whereas the military seem more fixated on how to exploit their alien powers to overpower and control the Earth. Nothing could be further from the alien’s minds, they are simply looking for somewhere to live now that their oceanic home has become colonised by another species. They are refugees.

I think the political climate and local circumstances had me reading the book on two levels: as a great science fiction story, but also as an allegory. For those who don’t know my closest city is Lincoln and we’re currently experiencing community divisions. The government’s decision to requisition the recently closed RAF base of Scampton, home of the Dam-Busters, and turn it into a centre for asylum seekers has met with uproar. It’s terrifying to hear the opinions of people who drink in the same pub, deliver the mail or wash the windows, in case it’s far removed from your own. There were sensible arguments against the plan: there was already a plan to turn the base into a museum and heritage centre, for which local people had fundraised hard; the government are not using the actual existing barrack blocks to house the men, but putting portacabins on the runway instead; it’s so far away from any services in the city. Yet, instead of being able to protest these points at a local level, a far right extremist group from Yorkshire has hijacked the cause and set up a protest camp at the base’s main gate with racist signage and ideology. They are protesting against any asylum seekers: ‘coming in illegally for the benefits; to commit crime; to be terrorists; to groom children; to take social housing’. They don’t even understand that in order to claim asylum someone must first arrive in their chosen country. Maybe because this is now part of my everyday life, the parallels between the enceladons and asylum seekers/ refugees were undeniable. Both have been forced from their own country for whatever reason and the majority seek to live somewhere peacefully and in harmony with the existing population, not realising that to some people, their very arrival itself is a threat.

New Broom’s research staff are carrying out experiments that wouldn’t have been out of place in concentration camps. They are building Faraday Cages to capture partial enceladons and prevent them communing with others through telepathy. This silence is enough to depress and eventually kill them, because they can’t live separately only as part of the whole. Lennox and Heather miss the sense of communion they get from their telepathic communication with Sandy. They can commune with each other though and do so whenever they can. Heavily guarded wherever they go, they have no idea that Ava and Chloe are on their way, or that a camp of ‘Outwithers’ has built up on the edge of the loch filled with travellers, believers, anti-government protestors and anyone who despises the idea of such a huge military base on Scottish soil or the capture and torture of enceladons. There’s only one American soldier who shows a trace of empathy, the others are simply unquestioning drones taught to believe they are acting in the interests of National Security and the defence of the Western way of life. The two main men in charge are clearly in the grip of obsession, whether it’s a selfish intellectual curiosity or the terrifying birth of a megalomaniac. While I felt Oscar could perhaps be redeemed, General Carson is itching to exert authority over both security and experimentation. The only character who has their freedom is Sandy, but how can they be truly free with their family being captured bit by bit and their peace threatened by a man determined to destroy them all. Make no mistake, this is not the soft humorous story we might have expected from the first novel. In parts it was hard to read and made me feel physically sick, especially when Ava is finally reunited with her friends at New Broom. As Carson separates Ava from her daughter and proceeds to torture Chloe I felt so angry I was tearful. It is horrific and has the reader rooting for the overthrow of the Americans, by whatever means necessary.

It’s the feelings that Doug Johnstone’s writing conjures in the reader, that make this such an immersive read. The moments of love, friendship and sacrifice between these characters are beautiful and are but a small part of the collaborative existence the enceladons share. The moments where Sandy takes a human into the ‘whole’ are euphoric and more than a little trippy! The way the enceladons harness and work with nature to fight back against the military base has a similar feeling. The way Heather decides to stop resisting the cancer invading her body and just enjoy the life she has left living within the collective. All of these are pointing to the same life philosophy. We must work with something, not against it. The enceladons want to exist alongside humans, to become friends and communicate with them. After years of Thatcherism and the message that autonomy is the route to success and freedom, working together actually is an alien concept. It isn’t just the communication between the three friends that proves to be powerful. It’s the mother – daughter bond between Ava and Chloe. It’s the ‘Outwithers’ who have come together to create their protest camp and two women; Jodie, a lifelong activist for connection and Vonnie, whose love connection with Lennox creates it’s own power. Communication with the Outwithers is what changes Oscar, although whether this actually redeems his character overall I don’t know. These are the people who understand that connection with the colony can strengthen society as a whole, rather than destroy it. There are also those who choose not to see, whether that’s by building a fence and only caring about what’s in your own backyard, or by choosing to believe the government and mainstream media narrative, which only exists to manipulate. It reinforced my belief that language is so incredibly important. If we choose the word integration instead of infiltration, opportunity rather than threat, to embrace something changing for the better rather than hankering after a nostalgic past that mustn’t be destroyed, if it ever existed. If we realise that connection is more important than individual attainment we learn to grow, adapt and embrace new things. It’s amazing that E.M. Forster’s quote ‘only connect’, although now it’s over a 100 years old, still has such huge resonance.

Published on 14th March by Orenda Books.

Meet the Author

Doug Johnstone is the author of twelve novels, most recently The Great Silence, the third in the Skelfs series, which has been optioned for TV. In 2021,The Big Chill, the second in the series, was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. In 2020, A Dark Matter, the first in the series, was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and the Capital Crime Amazon Publishing Independent Voice Book of the Year award. Black Hearts (Book four), will be published in 2022. Several of his books have been best sellers and award winners, and his work has been praised by the likes of Val McDermid, Irvine Welsh and Ian Rankin. He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions, and has been an arts journalist for twenty years. Doug is a songwriter and musician with five albums and three EPs released, and he plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of crime writers. He’s also player-manager of the Scotland Writers Football Club. He lives in Edinburgh.

Posted in Netgalley

The Women by Kristin Hannah

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was completely engrossed by this incredible piece of historical fiction, covering a period of history and viewpoint I’d never read about before. All the Vietnam stories I’ve encountered have fallen into two categories and were made for the big screen; combat movies like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, or the more domestic based aftermath of war at it’s best in the excellent Coming Home with Jane Fonda and Jon Voigt. I’d never considered that there would be women in Vietnam, which seems crazy since I’d avidly watched MASH when it was rerun in the 1980’s. The series set in a field hospital showed women in the operating theatres, as members of the US Army Medical Corps. Yet, I’ve never encountered anything that showed them in Vietnam, so I was fascinated by Frankie’s story; her personal experiences as well as the politics and societal changes around her tours of duty. What struck me most was how this war ripped the generation gap wide open. Most people my age will remember the Paul Hardcastle single ‘19’ and for me the most stark line in it was ‘none of them received a hero’s welcome’. It struck me how different the government and public response was to these veterans, the majority of whom were no less brave or noble than the WW2 veterans their fathers had been. The author deals with all these themes in a story about the women that served in Vietnam, the women that America forgot.

Frances McGrath is your typical All American teenage girl, living with her family on Coronado Beach. She has memories of growing up on that beach, swimming and surfing with her brother Finley. She is from a good family and expectations are that she will have the ‘right’ marriage and become a mother. However, things change when Finley makes a huge decision. He’s enlisted for Vietnam. It’s no surprise that he might go into military service at some point. Frankie’s dad has a wall in his office called the ‘Hero’s Wall’ where every family member’s military service is celebrated with cuttings, photos and medals. All the men, anyway. Yet not many of their friends and family members have sons who’ve voluntarily enlisted for Vietnam. There are ways of avoiding the draft, depending on who you know. Yet Finley enlists of his own accord, possibly believing the American government’s assertions that they must fight communism in Vietnam, lest it become even more widespread. Within weeks there’s a knock at the door; Finley has been killed in action. In a whirlwind of grief Frankie starts looking into her options. She wants to honour her brother and become a hero worthy of her father’s wall. Both the Air Force and Navy need a nurse to complete a long period of training before they’re posted to work in the field. However, if she enlists in the US Army, they’ll post her out to Vietnam after basic nursing training. Much to her parent’s shock Frankie is soon on her way to Vietnam.

The author creates such an incredible sense of place, I was in Vietnam with Frankie. The all pervading humidity and dampness of everything actually made me feel grubby. There’s a red dust blowing everywhere, that sticks to the constant sheen of sweat on Frankie’s skin and gets into every wrinkle. Frankie’s kitbag and everything she owns takes on the smell of mildew and she never feels dry. At first the bursts of gunfire and explosions in the jungle are surprising and Frankie is anxious, but soon they just become the everyday backdrop to her work. The ‘whump- whump’ of the helicopters arriving with MASCALS (mass casualties) control when she eats, sleeps and relaxes. The first experience of a MASCAL is shocking and Frankie does freeze, but the surgeon she’s working with talks her through it, let’s her know that he trusts her and she can do it. Gradually it becomes easier, although their injuries and the emotions of triaging these men can stay with her. If someone is beyond saving they are left to die, while they operate those they can save. It isn’t just the soldiers though, the unit treats Vietnamese soldiers and locals caught in the crossfire. The use of napalm and the injuries it caused really has stayed with me, the jelly like substance sticking to the casualty’s skin and keeps burning. Frankie is soon a first class combat nurse, that’s not to say these experiences become easy, they just become the norm. When we tuck trauma away in a box without processing it, it sits until we’re ready to open the lid or until a new experience forces that lid open. Usually when we least expect it. Her new relationships keep her going, especially those with her friends and fellow nurses Ethel and Barb. They are the glue that hold each other together and while men may come and go, the bond these women build is lifelong and loyal. That’s not to say there aren’t men. Frankie falls in love with Jamie, the surgeon she works with and the war only intensifies those feelings. There’s also the constant fear of losing them. Later on, a face from the past reignites feelings of first love but brings with it so many complications.

Frankie’s return and adjustment to everyday life on her return from war becomes yet another battle. Now she’s completely safe it’s as if all the feelings she had in Vietnam are bubbling to the service, manifesting in physical and mental symptoms. Her parents are relieved she’s home in one piece, but they don’t seem proud of what she achieved and her accolades don’t make the hero’s wall. She doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. Here Barb and Ethel are worth their weight in gold, taking Frankie in when she needs to get out of California and spending time talking through their experiences. No one else will ever get her like these women. Their lives do move forward though and Frankie just seems stuck. I thought this part of the story was beautifully done and represents so much research and care on the author’s part. She is very aware that although Frankie isn’t real, women did live through these experiences and had to find ways to reconcile their memories of war and their hurtful return to an ungrateful homeland they’d put their lives on the line for. It was as if the world had shifted on it’s axis while they were in the jungle. I was longing for Frankie to have a happy ending, because I thought she deserved it and I thought she still had so much to offer. I learned so much about a conflict I’d only experienced through film and usually from a male perspective. I was completely immersed in Frankie’s world and didn’t want to let it go.

Out now from MacMillan

Meet the Author

Kristin Hannah is the award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels. Her newest novel, The Women, about the nurses who served in the Vietnam war, will be released on February 6, 2024.

The Four Winds was published in February of 2021 and immediately hit #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Indie bookstore’s bestseller lists. Additionally, it was selected as a book club pick by the both Today Show and The Book Of the Month club, which named it the best book of 2021.

In 2018, The Great Alone became an instant New York Times #1 bestseller and was named the Best Historical Novel of the Year by Goodreads.

In 2015, The Nightingale became an international blockbuster and was Goodreads Best Historical fiction novel for 2015 and won the coveted People’s Choice award for best fiction in the same year. It was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, iTunes, Buzzfeed, the Wall Street Journal, Paste, and The Week.

The Nightingale is currently in pre-production at Tri Star. Firefly Lane, her beloved novel about two best friends, was the #1 Netflix series around the world, in the week it came out. The popular tv show stars Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke.

A former attorney, Kristin lives in the Pacific Northwest.

http://www.kristinhannah.com

Posted in Monthly Wrap Up

Best Reads February 2024

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Hey there everyone and hope you’ve had a good February. This month has been an eclectic month where I’ve done very few blog tours but instead did a lot of reading by choice. I decided to pick and choose from my proof trolley and my NetGalley ARCs. What usually happens is these get neglected because I focus on so much on the most important deadlines. Then my NetGalley reviews are useless because they’re always after the fact and my percentage is appalling. I’ve actually read more books this month and I’ve enjoyed my reading more. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy a blog tour, particularly my friend Anne Cater’s tours because she’s lovely and gets great books. In fact my one blog tour choice is one of her Orenda Books titles and it’s brilliant. I thought January was good but February’s books have been even better. Some of these I have reviewed this month, others are due in a couple of months so I’m only going to give you a quick review of each. I loved every single one of these and hope you will too.

This book has been chosen by the BBC programme Between the Covers and I’m not surprised. I love Doug Johnstone, I think he’s a brilliant crime writer but this series is something completely different. This is the second in a series featuring a telepathic extraterrestrial octopus creature called Sandy and his journey with three human friends, Lennox, Heather and Ava. We left them as they reached Ullapool and reunited Sandy with his Enceladon friends. Yet, lurking on the horizon were M17 agents, Ava’s abusive husband and other authorities who want to capture the friends, but also take Sandy and study him. This novel deals with the aftermath, where Ava faces a trial for the murder of her husband and Lennox and Heather are incarcerated in a newly built American military base. The Americans, accompanied by M17 agent Oliver, are capturing partial Enceladons to study them and work out how they communicate with each other. This is a hard read in places as it puts our friends and the lovely Sandy in danger, but it’s also uplifting, life affirming and gives us some faith in humour nature. If you haven’t read part one order them both, you won’t be disappointed.

Out March 14th 2024 from Orenda Books

This novel is one of my most anticipated for the year and my full review will be on the blog this week. Eadie is an unusual little girl and she doesn’t have many friends. Not the live kind anyway. Her house is next to the cemetery and Eadie sits and talks to the inhabitants. There is also an elderly gentleman who tidies the cemetery and talks to the lonely little girl. At school she is bullied by Patrick Semple, but life starts to look up when she makes friends. Celeste and Josh are also bullied by Semple, although as Josh points out he seems to save his cruellest jibes for Eadie. These three kids form a close bond, then go their separate ways for university with Eadie ending up in Manchester just before the ‘Summer of Love’. Eadie and her housemates become devotees of dance music and the Hacienda. She’s happy, especially on those nights when they try Ecstasy. They haven’t realised that the club is being pulled apart by rival drug gangs. Life changes when there’s an unexpected meeting, a link to the past and events she still finds difficult to deal with. I fell in love with this character and the depiction of unprocessed trauma that follows her through life, until she can find a way to let it go. It’s about love, our formative experiences and how hard it can be moving forward when we’re dragging too much baggage.

Out now from Mountain Leopard Press

This book covers a subject that I’ve never read about before and I’ll give you a quick glimpse, because my review is coming later. The author takes the usual machismo in stories of the Vietnam war and shows us that women also served as part of the Army’s Medical Corps. When society girl Frankie is told that her brother has died in Vietnam only months after enlisting she wants to find a way to honour him. As the family gather at their home on Coronado Beach, Frankie is studying the wall in her father’s office dedicated to the McGrath men celebrated for their bravery and service. Finley’s friend Rye tells her that men aren’t the only ones who can be courageous. She’s been thinking the same thing and Rye’s words light a fire under her. The Air Force and Navy would need her to train for several years as a nurse before she could serve in combat zones. However, the Army will deploy her with just her basic nursing training, so Frankie signs up and within months she’s flown out to a field hospital in Vietnam. The author’s historical detail and sense of place is incredible. I felt like I was in the jungle with Frankie, covered with sweat and red dust and highly tuned to the distant ‘whump whump’ of approaching helicopters with casualties. I loved the combination of strong female friendships, loss, romance and the struggles of serving and returning from this particular conflict.

Out now from MacMillan Publishing

Another great thriller this month was the latest from B.A.Paris, a great domestic noir about two couples who have been friends for years. On holiday twenty years ago, Iris and Gabriel met a French couple called Laure and Pierre who were on their honeymoon. Their friendship and their marriages have lasted and the couples always meet at least once a year, either in Paris or the English countryside where Iris and Gabriel have settled with daughter Beth. The couple are surprised when Laure turns up alone and unannounced asking to stay for a few days. Pierre has just found out that he has a daughter from a brief liaison during their marriage. Laure is giving him space to think about this revelation, but she’s also very angry and suspects his best friend Clare who has a six year old daughter. Gabriel is on leave from work after a traumatic incident and he tries to get in touch with Pierre to support him, but gets no reply. In the meantime, Laure starts to settle in but her need for a listening ear seems endless, she is borrowing Iris’s favourite clothes and even rearranges their kitchen. When Pierre doesn’t show up for a meeting at their apartment in Paris, Laure comes straight back and Iris starts to wonder how long she’s going to stay. This is a great thriller which takes the discomfort of a guest overstaying their welcome and magnifies it, leading to adultery, betrayal and even murder. There are twists to this tale and you will not expect the outcome. Prepare to be reading this in one go!

Out now from Hodder and Stoughton.

It’s Christmas and Charlotte Salter doesn’t turn up for her husband’s fiftieth birthday party leaving daughter Etty immediately alarmed. She’s sure that her mum wouldn’t choose to stay away from the event, even if her parents don’t always get along. Etty’s three brothers are less worried, thinking their parents may have had a row or she’s just gone for a walk. When Lottie still doesn’t appear the following morning, Etty insists on calling the police. It’s Christmas and the Salter family are paralysed, unable to do anything except search for their mother. Village rumours are linking Lottie with Duncan Ackerley, so when the Ackerley’s invite them for Christmas dinner only Etty turns up on time. In a strange twist, Duncan has gone for a walk and not returned for dinner. Etty sets off with one of the boys to look for him and he’s found dead, presumed drowned, next to his boat. The police find his glasses on a bridge further upstream and conclude that Duncan Ackerley killed Lottie and then committed suicide. Case closed. Twenty years later and the Salter siblings are clearing their childhood home before their father moves into nursing care. His dementia is worsening and it’s no longer safe for him to be at home. Meanwhile, Morgan Ackerley and his brother are back home recording a podcast about the death of their father and Lottie, who has never been found. What might be uncovered by this generation’s exploration into the past? This is an intelligent thriller, exploring the dynamics of families and traumatic events in childhood. I found it really hard to put down.

Out now from Simon and Schuster.

This was my first Tina Baker thriller and I loved it. Set on the island of Tresco off the Cornish coast, the author explores the tensions of this very unique place. Tresco’s community is always split because of it’s reliance on tourism and only wealthy families can afford to stay on the island, usually block booking a ‘cottage’ for several weeks at the same time each year. Residents are always seen as staff, either working directly in one of the cottages or in the shops and pubs on the island. The ‘family’ who own Tresco usually remain on their estate and have a staff of estate workers, gardeners and servants in the house. These groups usually don’t mix but rich playboy Kit and barmaid Hannah are about to break the rules. Hannah is seen by others on the island as a bit slutty, a home- wrecker and even a witch. When she and Kit spend the night together no one bats an eyelid, but when their flirtation blossoms into love problems start to arise. Kit’s widowed mother is unimpressed and constantly tries to dangle the right kind of girl in front of him. Wronged wives start to mutter about her behaviour, especially Christie, whose husband was Hannah’s last conquest. Alison just wishes Hannah would keep her jeans buttoned up and stop causing punch ups in the pub. When Hannah disappears in a storm, Kit is heartbroken and stays on the island. Hannah could have met with an accident, but so many islanders have a motive that she might have been murdered. This is a deliciously wicked romp through the lives of Tresco’s inhabitants, full of wit as well as some thrilling revelations.

Out now from Viper

I love Helen Fields and this is a fascinating thriller coming in April, so I will just whet your appetite here. Midnight Jones works as an analyst, processing application forms for universities, the military and other institutions. She’s trained to psychologically profile, but she’s paid very well to check forms against the required criteria and accept or decline on the data provided. The applicant is assessed using a virtual reality headset showing images to illicit the required response, but on this day Midnight finds an anomaly. The applicant has no score for empathy. When she views the assessment footage, Midnight is shaken to her core. Some of the images are so graphically violent she feels sick, surely they aren’t on the system? The applicant has zero empathy. She has found a Profile K – K for killer. However, when Midnight tries to report it she meets with resistance. How far can she push this, knowing that her sister depends on her salary? Midnight has a twin sister called Dawn, who suffered a lack of oxygen during birth and is now affected mentally and physically by cerebral palsy. She needs round the clock care and if Midnight loses her job they’re going to struggle, especially since there are no friends and family to help. The stakes get higher when a woman is brutally murdered, in a way that was shown on the terrible recording. Who can Midnight turn to? This was complex and intelligent with a dystopian vibe and a cameo from Dr Connie Woolwine.

Out 25th April from Avon

I had been granted access to Rebecca Serle’s upcoming novel on NetGalley and I had to read it right away! I usually get bored with rom-coms, but I do enjoy those with a historical background or those that try to do something completely different and I think this author is especially inventive. Her novel In Five Years blew me away with it’s twist in the story and I’m always keen to see what she’s done next. Here we are introduced to Daphne, a young single woman living and working in L.A. Dating is never a mystery for Daphne because as soon as she meets a man she finds a little slip of paper with an expiration date on it – 6 months, a weekend, one night – she knows how long each liaison will last. Until she meets Jake, who has everything she could want in a man. He’s considerate, doesn’t play games and is happy to talk about his feelings. Daphne waits for her slip of paper, but when it comes it only says his name. No expiration date. Does this mean Daphne has found her happy ever after? Their relationship is quiet, loving and has only one snag. Daphne has another secret, one that will break Jake’s heart if she tells him. I loved this story and felt a real connection to the conundrum Daphne finds herself in. This was heartbreakingly romantic and full of surprises.

Out 19th March 2024 from Quercus

That’s all for February, keep a look out for the full reviews coming your way and here’s to a new reading month and hopefully a touch of spring. Here is my TBR for March.