Month: Jun 2024

Posted in Book Haunts

My Favourite Independent Bookshops

Posted on by thelotusreaders
A quiet corner at The Rabbit Hole, Brigg.

Like any good bookworm I have favourite bookshops wherever I go and with this being Independent Bookshop Week I thought I’d share some of them with you. Every single one of these bookshops is worth a visit for many different reasons and that’s the beauty of an independent bookshop. They have their own focus and place in the community, many specialise in the books they stock or have specific local interest sections. Some are a real hub and information point in their community, while others offer a great cafe alongside the books so you can lunch or have that vital piece of cake to keep your energy up while browsing. Others are beautiful little havens of peace and quiet, great for recharging and getting that library feel. Most have a smaller staff than the bigger chains so they really know their stock and are full of recommendations to add to your TBR. Some are just utterly beautiful and whimsical in their design. I’ve been a bookworm since I could read which adds up to almost 50 years of visiting bookshops and some of these I have been using for most of that time, so they’re very dear to me and yes, I do book holidays around my visits to my favourites.

Second Hand Books – Barter Books, Alnwick

I don’t think Barter Books can be beaten when it comes to second hand and collectible books. Run from the old station house at Alnwick in Northumberland you can easily spend a day in here and with an on-site cafe, that’s usually got a queue ten deep by 10am, you can take a pit-stop too. Every time we go to Northumberland, I take a bag of books I’d like to sell and on the day we leave our accommodation we go here for the day. I leave my books with the appraisers, go get a cooked breakfast and then come back to see what I’ve got to spend. Right at the back are the first editions and signed copies, then moving forward is an A-Z of fiction hardbacks followed by every subject you can think of and quite a lot you probably never imagined anyone writing about! There’s a good children’s section, crime and mystery novels where the tills are and this part has a huge mural of different authors and a little train track running above the book shelves – part can be chaotic so I keep it brief in here. Then in the entrance there’s a beautiful old fireplace, kept well stocked in winter to keep readers warm, with old armchairs where you can sit and enjoy a few pages of your latest acquisition. I meet the friendliest and most interesting people sitting here. The shelves in this front section are stuffed to the brim with fiction paperbacks and romances. This is absolutely my firm favourite when it comes to bookshops and I always look forward to my next visit.

https://www.barterbooks.co.uk/

Why is it great?

Great disabled access/parking

Very well stocked.

Well organised and laid out

Great opening hours and really good food.

Most Beautiful Bookshop – Scarthin Books Cromford.

While there are a few candidates for this I’m not sure they could beat this little gem in the Peak District. I used to come to Matlock Bath from being primary school age, when we would stay with my Uncle Ron and Aunty Linda who had a static caravan in walking distance of this shop. It was Mum who used to take me back then and I’ve carried on going ever since. I think it’s become more beautiful over the years. The shop is like the Tardis, with it’s endless rooms and corridors on three levels and even manages to hide a little cafe away inside. Each area of the shop is decorated differently with the music room wallpapered in old music scores and the art room filled with examples of the featured artists work. Throughout the shop there are big armchairs to sit down and look through your potential purchases. Each subject has it’s own area, with fiction just inside the entrance – when I can get upstairs ( my MS doesn’t always allow this) I start in the art room and work my way down. They also have a lovely collection of stationery and notebooks, another personal vice of mine. Situated next to the river Derwent, the views from the upper windows are beautiful. One of the best comments about this bookshop on the website is: ‘Every time I come, I’m going to spend NO MONEY – but I always do!’ Who tries to go to a bookshop without spending?? I always spend more than I want to, but I’m always happy with my diverse and quirky finds.

Why is it great?

Clever layout with subjects in different rooms

Beautiful decor and comfy reading chairs

Extensive art and music sections

Knowledgeable Staff – Cogito Books, Hexham.

Cogito Books in Hexham is a little gem. Tucked away from the main drag this bookshop is very well stocked and has great sections towards the front for gift books and children’s books – I’ve bought a lot of art and fashion books here. Plus they have all the trimmings, wrapping paper, gift boxes and cards. Then at the back it opens out into this huge room full of fiction and other subjects. It has a big chesterfield sofa for lounging, or for sitting and working out how much you’ve spent. They really know their stuff here, up to date with all the latest releases but really also good with recommendations based on your chosen purchases. I always spend more than I intend to and end up hanging around afterwards just chatting books. They’re also remarkably knowledgeable about Moomins which is always the way into my heart.

What makes it great?

Has a lovely quiet and restful feel

Has a great gift book section plus gift wrap and cards

Colourful and vibrant

Knowledgeable staff

Small but Beautiful – Atkinson-Pryce, Biggar, Scotland.

When we were on holiday in Scotland last year this perfect little bookshop was only ten minutes up the road and ideal for a bit of last day browsing. While it’s not the biggest shop I did find a lot of beautiful Virago classics here as well as the usual latest releases. It’s so pretty inside as you can see and really pushes Scottish authors and local interest books too. I could see it held lots of bookish events too for the locals. I whiled away a couple of hours here, browsing but also chatting to the lovely friendly owners. I will make sure this is my go to shop when I’m around this part of Scotland again.

What makes it great?

Really beautiful visual displays

Good emphasis on Scottish authors and beautiful copies of classicS

Lovely friendly owners.

Events, Books and Cake- Linghams, Heswall.

I found this bookshop entirely by accident. My mum comes from the outskirts of Liverpool so we’ve visited the city since I was a small child. When I met my husband we took my stepdaughters there too and it’s a special place for the family. A couple of years ago I was looking for a particular special edition online and found they had one in stock here. I ordered it, but had accidentally marked it as a pick up rather than for posting. I spoke to the owner on the phone and thought since we would be in Liverpool the following week we’d drive over to the Wirral and collect it. I was surprised to arrive and find it was closed for filming and there was a very panicked looking director who said he knew nothing about books. Imagine my surprise months later when I was watching a new comedy on the iPlayer and saw a whole scene playing out in this very bookshop! I love this shop so much that when we go to visit my stepdaughter at university we now stay in the village. The cafe in the shop is amazing, particularly for breakfast and traybakes. Who doesn’t like a slice of cake while they’re deciding on final purchases? The layout of the shop is really well done and there’s a great children’s section with a little train and games to play. They run a brilliant list of events with visiting authors, book groups and community events too. I also recommend perusing the charity shops nearby, because I’ve found some great nearly new books and even a couple of signed editions inside.

What’s great about it?

Colourful and easily accessed layout

Great children’s section

Excellent coffee shop on site

Interesting program of events.

My Local Bookshop

This beautiful building houses my closest independent bookshop, set in the old part of Lincoln called the Bailgate area just round the corner from the castle and cathedral. This is a tiny bookshop so can’t hold a huge amount of stock, but it always has something interesting to offer. It was from a recommendation here that I found The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern which is one of my all time favourite reads. I love the quirkiness of building and the history of this part of Lincoln so this is a great pit-stop when you’re visiting the tourist attractions. Nothing is too much trouble for the staff here and they do run a great series of author events using our local museum The Collection.

What’s great about it?

It’s my local, only 15 minutes drive away.

The historic building and area of Lincoln

Great author events and ordering service (particularly during COVID)

A Community Bookshop – News from Nowhere, Liverpool.

Situated on the very ‘studenty’ area of the city between cafes and vintage shops on Bold Street. I visit every time we’re in the city because it has a great fiction section, but also has great sections on counselling and psychology that I found really useful when I was a student. This is a left leaning bookshop with specialist sections on politics, feminism and LGBTQ+ interest. The huge noticeboard as you go in has community events, political events and local support services info for homelessness, mental health and people struggling financially. There’s an excellent section at the back with t-shirts and mugs, badges and books that are political satire and anti-Tory. There’s also an interesting second-hand section for both fiction and text books. When I go there I always feel like I’m going to learn something and read outside my comfort zone.

What makes it great?

It’s political stance and the way it supports minority and own voice authors.

The support it gives to students and it’s local community.

The sections that focus on politics, psychology and social policy.

It takes me out of my reading comfort zone

Children’s Bookshops

The Rabbit Hole is my other local independent, situated in the small market town of Brigg, North Lincolnshire. I was put onto the shop by my lovely friend Anne Cater and now I use it regularly, especially in the run up to Christmas. As you walk in the whole section is for children’s books and it’s beautifully laid out with books at toddler level, a doll’s house and a giant tiger. It’s a comfortable place for kids to browse and play where you’re not worried about them getting in the way. Up a few steps is the start of adult fiction and this ranges over a few different areas. My husband always finds something to read in the area upstairs for non-fiction, usually something around aviation, the RAF or the county’s contribution to WW2. I love that I can come here and find bookish gifts for most members of my family. They do have special editions and visiting authors, with A.J. West coming up in July. This is a lovely shop, with friendly and knowledgeable staff, and I love to support it whenever I can.

What makes it great?

The large browsing and playing area for kids.

Staff who know their stuff.

Varied subjects and genres covered.

Wonderland Bookshop, Retford.

This is another little market town bookshop situated in Retford, Nottinghamshire. This is a bookshop solely for children’s and YA books. It has a good range from picture books, to paperbacks and collector’s editions of children’s classics like Alice in Wonderland – it also had a good range of books inspired by Alice. I was blown away by the decor in this shop and the attentions to detail. The decor is perfectly Wonderland with an upside down Mad Hatter’s tea Party on the ceiling, a backwards clock above the fireplace as well as top hats, playing cards and teapots everywhere. It would be a magical bookshop visit for a small child. I also loved that they have a gift registry for children’s parties. I would have loved all my birthday presents to be books!

What’s great about it?

Specialist children’s bookshop

Amazing Alice in Wonderland decor

Where next?

So where am I planning a visit to next? I happen to love the city of York and I’m really desperate to visit the new Criminally Good Bookshop as crime is one of my favourite genres. We’re also planning a holiday around Hay-on-Wye which I’ve visited in the past but not for a number of years now. Another bucket list visit is Wigtown in Scotland, a place I fell in love with when I read Three Things You Need to Know About Rockets by Jessica Fox, which details her visit to the village when she was on a career break. She’d always wanted to work in a bookshop and flew from the USA to help out during the book festival. Since then I’ve read both of Shaun Bythell’s memoirs about the bookshop too. I’m very lucky to have a husband who is happy planning his holidays around bookshops. Why not tell me about a book shop you love in your area?

Posted in Netgalley

The Intruders by Louise Jensen

Posted on by thelotusreaders

One night, at Newington House, the Madley family are disturbed by intruders. It’s the mother who first realises someone is outside and calls the police, but it’s a remote location and it will take them some time to arrive. Once the intruders are in the house they accost the mother downstairs and she sees them for the first time, in sheep masks and carrying knives. She tells them to take anything they want, jewellery and antiques, but they haven’t come for that. Now she’s sure she’s going to die. That night the only survivor in the family was the baby, placed in the priest’s hole by their sister waiting quietly for someone to find them. Written in blood on the wall is ‘tell me where it is’. Several years later, Cass is staying with her boyfriend James for the weekend when he suggests they go out for a drive. She’s surprised when he takes her to a hidden manor house on the edge of a village and tells her they’ve come to view it. An agent comes to meet them and shows them around and it’s weirdly still full of contents. The agent explains that it’s owned by a company who hope to turn it into a retreat, and while this is in the planning stage they need someone to caretake the house. They must live in it, as well as looking after and creating an inventory of it’s many contents. James wasn’t going to tell Cass straight away about the house’s sad history, but the agent does and at first Cass isn’t sure she could live somewhere such a violent act occurred. However, they certainly couldn’t afford anything like this normally. James assures her it will be fine and they agree to take on the contract, an easy thing to do in broad daylight on a lovely day, but Cass will be here alone while James is at work. Can a house hold trauma within it’s bricks and mortar or is Cass just being fanciful?

It doesn’t help that Cass’s father is very protective and isn’t sure about James or Newington House. James and Cass met in a club when she was standing in the shadows watching her friend enjoy her hen night and she is surprised when the attractive man she has just met, stands beside her and holds her hand. Yet it feels completely natural, like they’ve held hands before. Since then, her distance from James has been an issue as they can only see each other at weekends and Cass’s father worries about her travelling so far and being away from his watchful eye. It felt Iike there was something we didn’t know about her because her father’s concern seems out of all proportion. We start to learn that Cass has had issues with her mental health and there’s an allusion to her worrying that someone might be watching or stalking her. This really muddies the waters when it comes to knowing what is real and what is imagination as the couple move into Newington House. Cass is the one who has some strange experiences, perhaps because she’s home more than James or maybe because she’s susceptible to suggestion. Or is something more sinister going on and the house is singling her out? The house itself doesn’t feel creepy at first, but there’s always a sense that something more is going on than meets the eye, as if it’s traumatic past is still playing out within it’s walls. Like a faulty video recording that’s imprinted forever, leaving glimpses and feelings behind.

The previous family’s belonging don’t help, with Cass finding a long dark hair in the silver hairbrushes on her dressing table and the name Rose scribbled on a piece of paper that’s been left in the family suggestion box. The clock in the hall seems to keep stopping at 8.30pm, despite them winding it daily. It’s as if the house has PTSD and keeps experiencing flashbacks. The crime itself is terrifying, the strange addition of sheep’s masks feel so odd and out of place. In between Cass’s narrative we delve into the past with a young girl called Rose who is back at the village after a stint at private school. She doesn’t know many people of her own age in the village and while looking after the baby is fun, she doesn’t want to be a nanny all summer. She takes a walk into the village and meets two boys on the playing field, one of whom is really good looking. I found these sections so bittersweet, because she is a teenager with everything going for her, but we can sense how unsure she is about herself. She hasn’t had many interactions with boys and her innocence leaves her open to exploitation. She desperately wants to be liked, wants her feel that first kiss and know someone desires her. She’s sure to bow to peer pressure all too easily. I thought this character was written beautifully, really conjuring up those awkward teenage feelings. We know the name Rose has a resonance in the house, Cass can sometimes feel a sudden draft and the name comes to mind. Could Rose be the murdered girl at the manor and what is she trying to tell it’s new resident?

I was worried for Cass that perhaps an inexplicable evil lurks at the house, rather like the Overlook Hotel in The Shining where a terrible trauma seems to have infected the very walls of the building compelling residents to repeat history again and again. As the past and present narratives come together there is so much tension. We know the facts of what happened that fateful night but we don’t know the ‘who’ or the ‘why’ because it seems to have come from nowhere. I’m always desperate to know the reasons behind something, more than the whodunnit at times. This is where I felt a little bit lost, because I wanted to know if any of characters was the surviving child but the further we delved into the past the more characters seemed to be involved. My pet theory on why Cass was so vulnerable before meeting James was totally wrong! As we flipped back and forth in time I did have to go back and do some re-reading because I was genuinely confused. There were revelations I didn’t expect at all, adding more aspects to the case and the house than my brain could handle. It was like opening a set of Russian dolls to find that none of them matched the outside. However, the reveal of who was behind the masks was excellent and added an extra layer of danger to the ending. I think the moral of the story is that when you’re offered money to look after a mansion where murders have occurred, think twice. The old adage of ‘if something seems to good to be true it probably is’ really does apply here. I felt the best thing about the book was that sense of foreboding in the place where trauma has occurred, as if the violent acts of that night were imprinted on time like a photograph.

Out now from HQ

Meet the Author

Louise Jensen has sold over a million English language copies of her International No. 1 psychological thrillers ‘The Sister’, ‘The Gift’, ‘The Surrogate’, ‘The Date’, ‘The Family’, ‘The Stolen Sisters’, ‘All For You’ and ‘The Fall’. Her novels have also been translated into twenty-five languages, as well as featuring on the USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestseller’s List. Her next thriller publishes in Spring 2024.

Louise has been nominated for multiple awards including Goodreads Debut Author Of The Year, The Guardians ‘Not The Booker Prize’, best polish thriller of 2018 and she has also been listed for two CWA Dagger awards. All of Louise’s thrillers are currently under option for TV & film. She has also written short stories for various publications including ‘My Weekly’, ‘Hello’, ‘Best’ and ‘The Sun’, as well as having stories featured in multiple anthologies.

Louise also has a penchant for exploring the intricacies of relationships through writing heart-breaking and uplifting stories under the pen name Amelia Henley. ‘The Life We Almost Had’ and ‘The Art of Loving You’ were international best sellers. ‘From Now On’ is her latest Amelia Henley release.

Louise lives with her husband, children, madcap dog and a rather naughty cat in Northamptonshire. She loves to hear from readers and writers.

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Burial Plot by Elizabeth MacNeal

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was so lucky to be offered a proof for this book after waxing lyrical about the author’s work on social media and I loved it so much that I’ve already splurged on the Goldsborough Books special edition with the most gorgeous spredges, for my collector’s cabinet. This novel pulls together so many things I love in one incredible story: the Victorians; a touch of the macabre; a spooky and unique house; a heroine who has her consciousness raised and a simmering tension that builds to a heart hammering conclusion. Bonnie is our heroine, a young woman who resides in St Giles and earns a living running a scam with her lover Crawford and their friend Rex. Crawford is handsome and a bit of a dandy as far as their limited means allow. The trio hang around public houses looking for their latest mark, a man that Bonnie can lure to a quiet alley with the promise of sex, only for Crawford and Rex to appear just in time to rough him up and steal anything they can sell on. However, one night as Bonnie lures a red-headed man to their usual place, Crawford and Rex don’t appear. Pressed up against the wall while the man tries to haul up her skirt, she realises they’re not coming and has to fight him off herself. As the mark falls and hits his head, the men suddenly appear but far too late. Bonnie knew that as soon as head hit brick, he was dead. Crawford tells her to leave and lie low, he and Rex will tidy this away. In the aftermath, Crawford shows her an advert for a lady’s maid at Endellion – a labyrinthine Gothic house on the outskirts of London. Maybe she could apply for this job and stay out of sight for a while? Bonnie goes to meet the owner, a Mr Montcrieffe. He’s a widower with a teenage daughter who desperately misses her mother and spends rather more time alone with her scrapbook than is healthy. To her surprise, Bonnie gets the job and looks forward to working with Cissie. Yet there is so much more to these unrelated events than she knows and so much about Crawford that’s been hidden by her love for him. Now events are set in motion, Bonnie is caught in a spider web of lies, betrayals and the very darkest of intentions.

I’ve already read one book this month that deals with this part of London and a burial ground known as Cross Bones where the prostitutes of the Southwark district were buried. Known as the Winchester Geese, due to being licensed by the Bishop of the parish, upon their deaths they were still banned from a burial in consecrated ground. The burial ground then became a place for the poor of the surrounding area to be buried, but in an area overrun with diseases like typhus and cholera it was soon over subscribed. Half decayed bodies were disinterred to make way for the new, with grave diggers losing their respect for the dead and using their bones as skittles and their skulls as balls! When Bonnie sees Mr Montcrieffe’s sketches of a mausoleum for his late wife, she encourages him to build it on an empty patch of land on the edge of the gardens of Endellion. She knows that the rich would pay to take their eternal rest in such beautiful surroundings and away from the miasma of death and sewage in the city. Between them they sketch out a cemetery, with Bonnie creating a planting scheme for the project. She’s inspired by the old greenhouse where she’s been spending her few hours of leisure potting up abandoned orchids and other cuttings. Bonnie also makes a difference with Cissie, who seems happier to have a mother figure in the house and spends more time outdoors. Her scrapbook of imaginary love letters sent from Lord Duggan are left aside for a time. Bonnie even enjoys her time spent with the kitchen maid Annette, building a female friendship that’s been missing from her life. Then there is news from Mr Montcrieffe that he’s received a letter from a man who worked on the cemetery at Highgate recently. He claims to know all the administrative loopholes and potential investors to benefit their endeavours at Endellion and he’s invited to stay. As soon as Bonnie enters the office she knows who their new guest is and the smell of peppermint and aftershave she knows so well fills the room. Crawford is keen to establish himself in the house, like a cancer at it’s centre. Although he claims to wish for Bonnie back in his life, she knows that isn’t the only reason. He wants Endellion and he doesn’t care about the chaos and pain he might cause to achieve his aim.

Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill

The setting is beautifully drawn by the author and modelled on Strawberry Hill, Horace Walpole’s gloriously gothic mansion near Twickenham. It’s a very fitting choice for this story, considering that Horace Walpole was the writer of the very first Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto. With it’s crenellated roof and romanticised interiors Endellion was extended and decorated to the taste of Mr Montcrieffe’s first wife Josephine who drowned in the garden pond. The house is labyrinthine in design with plenty of places to hide out, in fact Bonnie spends a lot of time looking for Crawford and wandering through these rooms following the scent of cigarette smoke or his distinctive aftershave but never quite seeing him. The redecoration of the Montcrieffe’s marital bedroom is done by Cissie but very in her mother’s style with it’s overblown and romantic pink. Only to be expected from a girl who writes imaginary love letters to herself in an ornately decorated scrap book. Bonnie prefers working in the earth, transforming the greenhouse and the cemetery with her more natural planting schemes when compared with Josephine’s fondness for cultivating pineapples. The gardener shows Bonnie the exotic plants grown before, including a Venus fly trap, which he opens up to reveal a partially digested beetle. There’s no more fitting metaphor for the situation Bonnie finds herself in, or for the house itself and it’s ability to draw someone like Crawford in and inspire envy.

Crawford is a classic abuser. He sought out Bonnie, as a girl with no prospects, money or family and using his romantic wiles has love bombed her into depending on him for everything. The death of the man in the alley has allowed him to hold something over her, using her fear of the hangman’s noose and of losing him to manipulate her. The pace of the novel changes when he joins her at Endellion; the fear and excitement of snatching moments together and his desire for her are like a drug. He tells a story of his early years, living in poverty on a barge just down the river from this house and an injustice linked to his parentage. This invokes pity in Bonnie and he hopes it gives him a sentimental Robin Hood feel – he wants to take things that aren’t his legally, but argues that morally he has every right to them. The risky behaviour builds and when Bonnie won’t go along with what he wants he suggests she doesn’t love him, that she’s falling in love with Mr Montcrieffe and when neither of those work he threatens, becoming more menacing than Bonnie has ever seen. He takes the household apart bit by bit, removing those who might oppose him, charming those who are taken in by his looks until his dirty boots are carelessly marking the floors and the furniture as if he owns them.

When he proposes a scheme to Bonnie that will make their situation more permanent and tells her his history with the house she believes that this is the reason he came here and feels obliged to help. However, he reckons on the Bonnie he knows from St Giles not expecting that her time at Endellion might have changed her. I loved Bonnie’s development through the book and Crawford has definitely underestimated her. She has developed self-worth from having the raised status of a steady job, earning honest money and using her skills on the cemetery project with Mr Montcrieffe. His belief in her abilities is touching and improves her self-esteem. She starts to feel a loyalty to him and to Cissie who has brought out strong maternal feelings in Bonnie and mothers always protect their cubs. Yes she feels trapped by Crawford but she’s unhappy with his plans, she wants to remove deceit from her life at Endellion and the constant feeling of being on edge is killing her. I started to wonder whether Crawford didn’t have the same hold over her he once did, she’s questioning his plan and his motives and decides to do some digging of her own. The revelations keep coming in the latter half of the book, some expected and others a complete shock to Bonnie and to us. I felt a physical sensation of holding my breath in parts and I devoured the final three sections in one afternoon, desperate to find out what happened. The scales fall from our eyes at the same time as Bonnie as bit by bit the revelations about Lord Duggan and the scrapbook, Crawford’s nocturnal adventures and even the red- headed man in the alley make us see everything in a new light. Bonnie will have to be super-resourceful to survive and create a better life for herself. I was desperate for her to succeed! This novel is a brilliant thriller with an atmospheric and beautiful backdrop. We also have a resourceful heroine with more strength and intelligence than she realises. This is definitely in my top five books of the year so far and an absolute must read for those who love Gothic and historical fiction.

Out now from Picador

Meet the Author


Elizabeth Macneal is the author of two Sunday Times-bestselling novels: The Doll Factory, which won the 2018 Caledonia Novel Award and has been adapted into a major TV series on Paramount+, and Circus of Wonders. Her work has been translated into twenty-nine languages. Born in Scotland, Elizabeth is also a potter and lives in Twickenham with her family. She can be found on instagram @elizabethmacneal.

Posted in Random Things Tours

Boys Who Hurt by Eva Björg, Ægisdottir

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Translated by Victoria Cribb

We’re back with Detective Elma in the fifth of the author’s Forbidden Iceland series and she is just returning to work from maternity leave when a body is found in a holiday cottage by a lakeside. The victim’s name is Thorgeir, he has grown up in Akranes and in a coincidence typical to small towns, his mother is Elma’s neighbour. The holiday cottage belongs to the family and the evidence suggests Thorgeir was not alone – there were two wine glasses and a lacy thong is found under the bed. He is found in the bed, with stab wounds and the line of a well known hymn written on the wall behind the bed, in blood. With Saever on paternity leave with their daughter Adda, Elma works alongside her boss Hörour to solve the murder. Several leads come to light. Thorgeir was working with his friend Matthías on an exercise and well-being app and had secured a large sum of money as an investment, but from an unexpected source. The hymn is well known, often sung at a popular Christian camp for teenagers and refers to the washing away of sin – had Thorgeir needed such forgiveness? Matthías and his wife Hafdis mentioned a young woman that Thorgeir had been seeing recently, but there is no sign of Andrea anywhere. The friends had often attended camps together as teenagers, but on one such occasion a young man had died out on the lake in the night, in similar circumstances to Thorgeir’s father’s death a few years before. It’s soon clear that many secrets are hidden in Akranes, some of them within Elma’s own home.

I love Elma’s character and what a refreshing change to read about a working woman whose partner is providing the childcare. There’s also none of the usual guilt or tension around her return to work, even as the case becomes more intense and late nights become the norm. She seems to have taken motherhood in her stride and she and Saever seem settled and happy. It’s sad that in the 21st Century this should stand out so much. Usually I read female characters caught between home and work, struggling from lack of sleep and feeling guilty. It’s great to see a woman who is a new mum, as well as a competent detective. The mothers in this novel and their relationships with their children were incredibly complex and psychologically fascinating. I was intrigued by Thorgeir’s elderly mother Kristjana, who happens to live next to Elma and Saever. She’s known as a drinker and is familiar to most people as the owner of a dry cleaners in town. She and Thorgeir didn’t seem close, but she had helped him financially. Was this out of love or guilt? There was something fishy about the business’s finances too, a thread that Höreur picked up and investigated. Kristjana’s home isn’t lavish and she doesn’t look like someone with the sort of money the accounts suggest. Saever finds her behaviour bizarre, even to the point of having to intervene one afternoon when he notices she’s dancing naked with the curtains open. She’s had tablets and alcohol, possibly due to grief and hinting at a troubled inner life but when questioned there’s a wall she puts up that’s metres and years thick. Hafdis is also a fascinating character, she asks for a divorce at the beginning of the book but where has she found the money to move on so quickly. Her relationship with Matthías is already over in her eyes, but I was shocked by her coldness towards her daughter Olof. The family have been having therapy, because Olof has been self-harming but Hafdis doesn’t even seem to have factored her daughter into her plans. Olof confides in her father about her mother, not that she gives her a hard time but that she looks at her daughter as if she’s nothing. What else might such a ruthless woman be capable of?

Saever is at home, but when he’s unpacking he comes across a box that doesn’t belong to them. In fact it belongs to previous residents, full of school exercise books and a holiday journal from the very year that the boy was killed on the lake. It belongs to Mani, one of the group staying in the same cabin as the dead boy, alongside Heioar, Hafdis, Thorgeir and Matthías. This draws him into the investigation and Elma isn’t surprised to find him at the station researching, while bouncing Adda on his knee. I loved the little Icelandic details on child care, such as wrapping the baby up warmly then popping them in the open air for a sleep. I didn’t expect to enjoy Elma working without Saever, but I really enjoyed Höreur being a part of the investigation and found myself amused by his grumpiness. His hip injury brings out a resistant and stoic side to his character, the pain making him increasingly snappish. The case has so many twists and turns that it’s hard to put down and little clues that seem to snag in your brain. I spent most of the book wondering about a second large bloodstain in Thorgeir’s family cottage, strategically covered with a rug. I was sure it was important and every time we got closer to the truth I kept thinking ‘but what about the bloodstain?’

Elma is perfect for the more complex investigative work because she occupies a liminal space in town, she’s both known and not known. Having been born in Akranes and having family that goes back generations in the town, there’s an element of belonging that gets her in the door. However, she’s spent her career so far in Reykjavik meaning she isn’t so involved that she can’t ask difficult questions. She doesn’t have the deference to the elders of the town that others might so she’s bold and doesn’t mind stirring things up a little. She definitely riles the old police chief Otto, so much so that he lets his true nature show. He is so angry that he verbally attacks Elma where it really hurts referring to her previous partner’s suicide and implying she should look closer to home for people who are keeping secrets. It sometimes feels like every home in Akranes holds an ocean of pain and unresolved trauma. There’s so much going on just under the surface, an intergenerational trauma that seems to come partly from religion and partly from rigid expectations. Elma is horrified when Heioar’s parents seem like good people, they adopted him and it seems to have been a good fit, but behind this surface is a very different family life and a total rejection of anything or anyone that doesn’t fit their ideals. I wondered how these women like Kristjana and Heioar’s mother were able to look the other way when their men are treating their children badly. Whether through religious conviction or control the fathers have ruled their homes quite literally with a rod of iron. One of the most complex relationships is between Thorgeir and his new girlfriend. I was fascinated with her narratives showing how attraction and repulsion can co-exist between two damaged people. Also, one terrible deed doesn’t define a person. This was a brilliant thriller, exposing a dark underside to Akranes and keeping me guessing to the very end.

Out from Orenda Books on June 20th 2024

Meet the Author

Eva is an Icelandic author of the bestselling Forbidden Iceland series and her books have been published all over the world. Her first book, The Creak on the Stairs, won the Crime Writers Association New Blood dagger, the Blackbird Award and was shortlisted for the Amazon Publishing Awards and the CrimeFest Specsavers Debut Awards.

In the series she writes about my hometown Akranes, a small town just forty minutes outside of Reykjavík with population of around 8000 people. She writes about dysfunctional families and relationships. She has a degree in Sociology and Criminology and is very much interested in human behaviour, which is perhaps evident in the books.

Eva grew up in Akranes and fell in love with reading at the age of 5. She moved to Norway in her twenties to study her Masters Degree and lived there for two years. When she moved back to Iceland she began writing her first novel, as she had always wanted to write a book. She has been a full time writer ever since it was published!

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Cross Bones (The Accidental Medium 3) by Tracy Whitwell

Posted on by thelotusreaders

There’s a queue at her door, and not all of them are living …

If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Tracy Whitwell’s character Tanz yet, you’ve been missing out. This bold, sweary Geordie actress and accidental medium is a delight and this is her third adventure in the series. Tanz is being torn in two directions as she reluctantly agrees to do a fringe play in London, but is also suddenly ‘activated’ as her spirit guide Frank explains. She is sent a new guide who she calls ‘Soft Voiced Lass’ and her flat is suddenly teeming with visions and apparitions, including a nurse who is on duty and walks through the wall into Tanz’s bedroom, which is quite a feat when you don’t have any legs! Luckily she has friend and fellow medium Sheila to rely on, but there’s a lot of sleeping with the light on too. As the play she’s been cast in becomes more dramatic off stage than on, Tanz has time on her hands and is guided down to Southwark and a cemetery known as Cross Bones. This is the burial place of the Winchester Geese, so called because they were prostitutes licensed by the Bishop of Winchester. After their deaths it was decided they could not be buried in consecrated ground and so this small burial ground became theirs and many of the poor in the same parish. Tanz is greeted by a horrific vision of the ground in the Victorian period, when overcrowded tenements spread diseases like wildfire and deaths from cholera, typhus and consumption were the daily norm. What Tanz sees isn’t an ordinary graveyard though. The smell hits her first; death, smoke and sewage creates a miasma that seems to cling to your clothes. In the yard Tanz can see a grave digger with a woman screaming at him, when she looks down she can see some fingers and a skull where he has been digging a body up to make room for more. She is overwhelmed and doesn’t really know what her purpose is here, just that it isn’t going to be easy.

The gates at Crossbones Graveyard

I love Tanz because she’s one of the most real people I’ve ever met in a book, despite the spooky stuff that surrounds her. She’s very down to earth, independent and has a few vices. She’s also very compassionate with the living people she helps and the dead ones too even if they do scare her. She has a couple of solid friends, especially Sheila, but sometimes she gets lonely, especially as she gets older and sees friends pairing off and making new lives together. She’s in the same flat, still scraping by with no big break in sight. The play she’s rehearsing is comical and the small company has such vivid characters they leap off the page. Gerald is a particularly fun addition to her circle – an elderly actor with the old school manners of a man who was inspired to act by Olivier and Gielgud. Everyone except the playwright knows the play is rubbish and the sexual politics in the company are impossible to work with. At home different visions pop up, from an Irish family who look like they’re starving, to a woman at a sewing machine and very strangely, a ghost that lurks in the hallway with a blackened face. She knows all of this must make sense to someone and keeps visiting Southwark and doing her research into the area. The history behind the story is fascinating and had me searching and reading for information afterwards. Eventually the graveyard was used for all the poor in the area and with an influx of families from Ireland, escaping the dreadful famine ( to quote Sinead O’ Connor ‘there never really was one’) overcrowding was common. The place inside that should have been somewhere to view the dead, especially for Catholic families who prefer to have an open coffin, became a charnel house. There were rotting bodies everywhere from those they had no room to bury and those who’d been dug up to make room for more. It’s a vision of hell, made worse when the traumatised gravediggers, dulled by compassion fatigue and possible PTSD, started playing skittles with human skulls. No wonder the woman in Tanz’s vision is screaming.

No 2 in The Accidental Medium Series

Tanz thinks her visions relate to a single Irish family, the family she sees in a tenement room starving and looking completely shell-shocked by their circumstances and their losses. When Tanz sees a soldier called Robert, shot in the head and looking for his wife she starts to piece things together. Could this be several generations of the same family and could any of them still be alive? Between the spooky action there’s a huge injection of dark humour that I really appreciated. I love Tanz’s slightly prophetic phone calls from her ‘mam’ who strangely seems to always know when her daughter’s up to something while scolding Tanz for meddling in spooky situations. Thank God she doesn’t find out about the black faced woman, the homeless man and the knife! There’s also a side order of romance in this novel, with a younger police officer stirring up rather unexpected feelings for Tanz. Usually she wouldn’t consider a younger man, especially one of the good guys, but maybe now is the time for changing habits. It’s nice to see Tanz meet someone who likes and respects her for a change. Maybe Tanz has developed some boundaries and boosted her self-worth enough to accept that someone like this could like her. She’s also stopped the habit of always keeping her eye on the exit in her romantic affairs. She’s taking her gift seriously and maybe has to accept that it’s this type of work that she finds most fulfilling. Although, she also makes a radical move in her acting career too. It’s lovely to see Tanz in such a strong position in life, she’s ready to take on the world and I can’t wait for her next adventures.

Out on 17th July from MacMillan

The first novel in the series.

Meet the Author

Tracy Whitwell was born, brought up and educated in the north-east of England. She wrote plays and short stories

from an early age, then moved to London where she became a busy actress on stage and screen. After having her son, she wound down the acting to concentrate on writing full time. Many projects followed until she finally found the courage to write the first in her Accidental Medium series, a work of fiction based on a whole heap of crazy truth​. Apart from the series, Tracy has written novels in several other genres and also writes mini self-help books as the Sweary Witch.

Tracy is nothing like her lead character Tanz in The Accidental Medium. (This is a lie.)

If you’d like to know more about Crossbones Graveyard this is a great site to start with:

History

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The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I started this book in bed at night, which turned out to be a big mistake because I didn’t want to go to sleep once I’d started. There was a lot of yawning the next day. We’re introduced to the village of Tome (pronounced ‘tomb’ by the locals just to add a sense of foreboding) and the new wellness retreat created there by Francesca Woodland who inherited The Manor and it’s land from her grandfather. Her husband Owen is the architect on the project and has created woodland ‘hutches’ for guests, featuring outdoor showers and luxurious linens. The Manor itself is the central hub where there are classes in meditation and yoga, with a spa that has reiki alongside all the usual treatments. The opening weekend looms and while there’s a hint of anxiety around the late building of the tree houses, Fran is sure she has everything under control. On the final night of the stay she has planned a mini-festival with live music, a meal out in the woods and strange wooden sculptures. Every guest must wear a crown fashioned from twigs creating the look and feel of a pagan celebration. While the music is at it’s loudest she has given Owen the go ahead to start digging the foundations for the tree houses, in the hope the music drowns out the noise. However, that’s not the only problem on the horizon. In order to build the houses, they must take down some of the ancient trees and when Owen arrives the workmen are confused by the new symbols on their bark. They look like seagulls in flight. By the morning there’s a burned effigy and a body on the beach, a wrecked Aston Martin with blood inside and the manor hiss been rased to the ground by a ferocious fire. There’s also an elderly fisherman rambling on about seeing giant birds. It looks like the midnight feast was a rather Bacchanalian event, with discarded drink bottles, feathers and clothes littering the ground, but something went badly awry. Everyone in Tome knows the local saying- ‘Don’t disturb the birds’. Could Francesca’s dream be over when it had only just begun?

The book starts with the aftermath of the festivities, but there are two more timelines: fifteen-twenty years ago when Francesca was a teenager living at the manor with her grandparents and twin brothers and the beginning of the weekend leading up to the feast twenty-four hours later. This multi-layered effect is multiplied with several narrators – Bella who is befriended by a young Francesca and later becomes a mystery guest at The Manor’s opening weekend; Owen who is Francesca’s husband but also hides a secret past; a young man called Eddie who is the retreat’s kitchen help and Francesca, the founder. It seemed like a lot of perspectives and timelines at first but the author is very skilled at creating distinctive characters so I soon got to know them and I didn’t feel lost. Francesca radiates a sense of calm and purity. However, like many people who put up a facade like this, it’s only so long before they blow and I was waiting for that moment. Bella is very secretive, realising she isn’t The Manor’s target demographic she’s worried she might stand out. Owen is very successful architect, wealthy and absolutely in love with Francesca, but seems to know a lot about local folklore and knows his way to a secret beach. Eddie, who I was rather fond of, lives in the shadow of his older brother who went missing years ago after becoming an addict. He lives at home with his parents on the family farm and feels his father’s despair that the son who loved working the farm is gone. Eddie wants something different, but given his parent’s disapproval of the retreat, he hides his job there while hoping to work up the organisation. Finally there’s the DI on the case, who is trying to piece together the night before and recovering a body from the beach, while the only witness to the death is the elderly man who still blaming giant birds.

There’s a sinister ‘them and us’ feel to this novel, a distinction that’s in one way about class and in another way about belonging. Locals are different from tourists and even though Francesca is local because she comes from the big house she can’t be one of them. Bella’s mother scolds her for spending her summer up at the manor and wishes she would make more friends from the village. Those at the big house don’t understand the village ways. When Bella bumps into a good-looking surfer down on the secret beach there’s an instant attraction, but when she takes him to the manor Francesca and her brothers tease him as if he’s a yokel. Bella starts to wonder where she fits in at all. There are those who have transcended where they came from, but the transformation was painful and has left it’s scars. I could sense a lot of references, such as The Wicker Man and Midsommer where a seemingly pastoral and innocent celebration slowly builds towards violence. The note left for Francesca, the marked trees and the chicken nailed to her door could have been someone disgruntled with the retreat, but it felt more personal. Francesca struck me as a powder keg. When younger, she appears to have very little empathy, especially for those she views as beneath her. Her brothers have a similar outlook, convinced they can do whatever they like to the locals and it will be swept up by the family as if it never happened. Francesca was like a cat playing with a mouse and the pleasure she got from hurting others gave the impression of a psychopath in the making. Then at the opening weekend, the local kids make their protest felt by pelting the pool with stones and building fires on the section of the beach reserved for guests only. They have bigger plans too, but they’re saving them all for the night of the Midnight Feast. They want to make clear that Tome’s forest and it’s beaches are for the villagers and not to be fenced off for the use of rich visitors.

Bella wants her revenge to be more permanent than a simple one-off disturbance and she’s determined. With bleached, short hair she’s not easily recognisable as the girl she was and manages to be under the radar. When she first sees Eddie she’s taken aback, he looks so much like someone she used to know. Is she seeing ghosts everywhere? She is psychologically haunted by what happened all those years ago at another midnight feast and she’s appalled by Francesca’s decision to name the event after their final night as friends. Bella wants to make sure that the perfect, pious Sunday supplement Francesca is shown up for who she really is. By this time I was desperate for her to get her comeuppance to as we slowly see the consequences of that night long ago spreading into several local families. Each one has their own grudge: a father who’s been drinking ever since; a baby growing up without it’s mum; a young man with an addiction so strong he’s willing to lie and steal. Yet Francesca and her twin brothers are still rich, successful and as insufferable as ever. So it isn’t just our narrators who have reason to hate The Manor and some of them exact their revenge in amusing ways, while others want to end the retreat and Francesca for good. I loved the folk ritual element, reminiscent of Thomas Tryon’s Harvest Home mixed with a dose of Hitchcock’s killer birds. They are the size of a human, covered in black feathers and under their cloak is the huge beak. The villagers take them seriously, even the contractors who turn up to remove the trees don’t want to mess with those marked by the birds, they’d rather give the money back. Are the birds a simple folk tale that keeps Tome safe or are they real? As we countdown to what happened on the big night, two parties twenty years apart reveal their secrets and the birds will have their final say. The ending is terrifyingly final for some, while others will wake up hungover and wondering what exactly they witnessed. As for me, I devoured this book overnight and the final page reveal really made me smile.

Out now from Harper Collins

Meet the Author

Lucy is the No.1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party, The Guest List and most recently The Midnight Feast. It’s set at a luxury new countryside resort built on old secrets beside an ancient wood. The opening weekend takes place during a heatwave (and with a big summer solstice celebration) and temperatures and tensions are rising, the local community is incensed by the influx of wealthy newcomers and some unexpected guests have come to stay. Then a body is found… 

Lucy always knew wanted to work with books somehow, so studied English at university before working in a bookshop, a literary agency and then as a fiction editor at a big publishing house, during which time she realised that every book starts off as a messy first draft full of plot holes and mistakes. She thought she’d have a go at writing herself — the result of which was her first historical fiction novel, The Book of Lost and Found. She wrote two more historicals, The Invitation and Last Letter to Istanbul, before turning to the dark side and writing her first crime thriller, The Hunting Party: her first Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and Waterstones Book of the Month, set over New Year’s Eve at a remote, snowy spot in the Scottish Highlands. 

Next came The Guest List, a murder mystery set at a wedding on an island off the coast of Ireland, which was a Reese’s Book Club pick, a Goodreads Choice Awards winner, a Waterstones Book of the Month, and has sold over three million copies. Then came The Paris Apartment, which is a number one New York Times bestseller and Sunday Times bestseller. Her books have been translated into over 40 languages and all three murder mysteries are currently being adapted for TV and film. 

She’s also written a short story for the brand new Marple collection, a brand new series of short stories featuring Agatha Christie’s legendary detective Jane Marple, alongside writers such as Val McDermid, Kate Mosse, Alyssa Cole, Ruth Ware and Leigh Bardugo, out September 2022 to coincide with Christie’s birthday! 

If you enjoy her books or want to say hi, she’d love to hear from you: She’s @lucyfoleytweets on Twitter and @lucyfoleyauthor on Instagram, or you can check out her Facebook author page @lucyfoleyauthor

Posted in Netgalley

The End of Summer by Charlotte Philby

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Judy left England as a teenager and is lived with her aunt In New York City. Looking for ways to survive she starts scamming and stealing. Judy’s mother drummed it into her that it was wise for a woman to have her own money and never rely solely on a man. This lesson was well learned, but without any real qualifications or means of making money Judy has to be more creative. She’s a grifter, stealing here and scamming there. So when she sees a story in a newspaper about a rich resident of Cape Cod becoming a widower, she decides on her next mark. Judy finds her way to a vineyard in the same area, taking a job there and making herself known until the inevitable happens and she meets Rory. She plays it clever, doesn’t ask for anything and is never pushy or monopolises his time. She’s playing the long game because she wants him to fall for her, hook line and sinker. What she didn’t bank on was falling in love with him. When they marry she has access to some of the wealthiest people in the area so she’s easily sneaking the odd item from their home and from other society people to sell on through a fence. Every summer they spend in their chateau in France and one summer Rory’s asked to hold the local Wine Appreciation Society ball. Judy is left with a dilemma. Her fence in London is blackmailing her, asking her to provide details of the ball including exits and entrances of the chateau and a guest list of who’s attending. She doesn’t want to help, but when he threatens to tell husband Rory about her past she has no choice. As the burglary takes place, Judy is locked in a toilet cubicle listening to the melee. She’s devastated to hear shots and when she runs to look for Rory she finds herself in the aftermath with a man bleeding out on the floor who turns out to be one of the robbers. When he dies she laments that a young man has died because of her and she can’t shake it off. Years later, it’s in her French home that Judy receives the phone call, the one she’s dreaded and expected all at the same time. The police are looking into a murder, but is the victim the man in France?

When Judy’s daughter Francesca gets a visit from the police and journalists it’s like a bolt from the blue. She’s a lawyer, in London and is aghast when police inform her that her mother seems to have fled the country and is wanted for murder. Francesca is left bewildered and unsure what to do. Yet she knows she must protect her mother, after all her mother has always protected her. This is a smart thriller, that doesn’t fall into cliché territory. The two women’s narratives are layered over each other, with some in the present and others set in the past, taking us from the 1960s in Cape Cod, the 1980s in the South of France and the 2000s in Kensington, London. The author is very adept at giving out just enough information, drip feeding little clues here and there that keep you reading and keep you guessing. Then, suddenly, she wrong foots you with a different direction. I found Judy so fascinating that Francesca suffered a bit in comparison. Not only is Judy beautiful, she’s a smart cookie. She can think on her feet and gets out of the tightest spots, her adrenaline running so high that my heart raced on occasions. She’s the female equivalent of the ruggedly handsome rogue, with a habit of stealing from the rich like a modern day Robin Hood. I love that the author gives her this free-spirited autonomy. She wears a mask at times, but after several years with Rory has relaxed a bit, only for a person from the past to find her. There is only one woman who suspects Judy might not be all she seems and she won’t let go of her suspicions, even taking them to the grave. I loved the allusions to Lady Audley’s Secret a Victorian ‘sensation’ novel based around the fact that Lady Audley is living a lie and may be found out. It’s a book I read at university and I was so shocked by how easy to read it was. It wasn’t slow and ponderous like other Victorian novels, it had pace and excitement just like a contemporary thriller. This is in that same tradition, but Judy has more freedom and status in today’s society. There’s less to lose, thanks to never relying solely on a man, but I was pretty sure that Judy would try her hardest to find a way out anyway. Is it wrong that the thought of her getting away with it made me smile?

Out on 20th June from The Borough Press

Meet the Author

Charlotte worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for years before moving into magazines, and then turning her hand to fiction after having her third baby. As a journalist, her work varied from undercover investigations to celebrity interviews – but what really interests her is seemingly ordinary people who do extraordinary things. This is definitely the springboard for the ideas in her novels, which she hopes are as pacey and entertaining as they are transportive. She’s inspired by favourite books including Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty, Restless by William Boyd, Alys, Always by Harriet Lane, The Secret History by Donna Tartt and The Constant Gardener by John Le Carre, but she’s also inspired by (and unashamedly addicted to) compelling TV drama, with favourite series including The Night Manager, True Detective, and The Honourable Woman. After spending time exploring the legacy of her grandfather, the double agent Kim Philby, she became interested in spy fiction and decided to write the books she longed to read: female-led stories that are twisty, stylish and multi-layered, tying together global espionage with haunting domestic noir.

Posted in Netgalley

Sandwich by Catherine Newman

Posted on by thelotusreaders

One week in Cape Cod. The perfect family holiday. What could possibly go wrong…?

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their rustic beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, its quirky furniture and mismatched pots and pans greeted like old friends.

Now, sandwiched between her children who are adult enough to be fun but still young enough to need her, and her parents who are alive and healthy, Rocky wants to preserve this golden moment forever. This one precious week when everything is in balance; everything is in flux.

But every family has its secrets and hers is no exception.

With her body in open revolt and surprises invading her peaceful haven, the perfectly balanced seesaw of Rocky’s life is tipping towards change…

Rocky and her husband Nick have reached that middle point in life where adults seem to be at their most stretched. They’re coping with children who have left home or are living at university as well as increasingly elderly parents who need more help than they have before. This is the sandwich of the title. The emotions are conflicting, from the parental support a fledgling teenager still needs to the worry about their independence, as well as the feelings of loss that that come from empty nest syndrome. As for parents, it’s like a whole new stage in the relationship defined in the novel as ‘anticipatory grief’ because as they become increasingly frail there’s a constant reminder that the clock is ticking. This reminder of their mortality brings up feelings of loss and a sense of our own life being at their point where more is behind us than in front of us. I’m saying ‘we’ because I fall bang in the middle of this category. I have parents who have endless medical appointments, particularly Dad who seems to have surgery on a yearly basis like some sort of annuity. However, I also have one stepdaughter away at university, really stretching her wings as she ends her second year and moves in with her boyfriend. We’re only a quick call away though and we’ve gained a third child in the boyfriend. We miss her more than I can express. Then we have my other stepdaughter, one of the generation whose education has been massively affected by COVID. She has so many plans with friends that we now see her less so the loss is twofold. Then there’s the menopause, from sweating to vaginal atrophy it’s a veritable shitshow of symptoms that we’re just supposed to manage alongside everything else. To say I felt a kinship with our narrator Rocky, is an understatement. Again Catherine Newman has managed to put something on the page that’s raw, emotional and relatable. So much so that there were points in the book where I burst into tears.

Rocky is a great narrator in that I was immediately comfortable with her and believed in her world. This book was such an easy read and flowed so beautifully that I finished it in a day. A family trip to the Cape Cod holiday home they’ve rented since the children were small throws a family that’s scattered to the four winds, under one roof. Eldest child Tim is there with girlfriend Maya and student Willa has travelled from her college and meets them there. Later in the week grandma and grandad will join them for two days and of course there’s the ancient cat. They are rather piled in on tap of one another but they couldn’t come here to a different, bigger rental because so many of their memories have been made in this house. During the course of the week Rocky will learn and divulge some secrets, all of them filtered through her anxiety and what husband Nick calls a hint of narcissism. This family were so like my own that I deeply appreciated my upbringing, even though some of it wasn’t easy – we never had money, found a secret sibling then happily lost them again, mum and dad had their turbulent years. Yet I always felt loved and that’s what there’s a surfeit of in this family, everyone loves everyone else even when they disagree. Rocky is a passionate and emotionally intelligent mother, the sort of mum you might go to with a secret. She also happy to be schooled where she gets it wrong, especially where daughter Willa is concerned. She might use the wrong pronouns and need to check her privilege occasionally but largely she’s the sort of mum you want. She feels things almost too deeply and I understood that in her. She wants to breathe in her children when they’re little. She reminds me a little of something my mum and Mother, my great-grandmother, used to say when my brother and me were little: ‘ I could eat you on a butty without salt’.

I think Catherine Newman is brilliant when it comes to trauma and intergenerational family dynamics. There was a moment, as Rocky was reminiscing about a time when she miscarried that made me feel like she’d read my mind. I had recurrent miscarriages in my twenties and I’d never been desperate for children till I lost the first one. No one explained that grief can manifest in strange ways, in fact after my operation (which I’d had to consent to on a termination form) I was told when it would be physically possible to try again, but never that it might be a good idea to grieve first. To take time. As far as emotions went I was given a leaflet of phone numbers of women who’d had miscarriages – with the warning that in a lot of cases I might hear children in the background. I couldn’t bear to hear that so I didn’t call. What I do remember from that time was buying pregnancy tests in bulk and checking frequently whether I might be pregnant again, even if I’d already checked yesterday and knew I wasn’t. The author writes about Rocky staring at pregnancy tests, imagining she can see the second line in the window and trying again for the answer she really wants. I truly felt her pain in those moments and my own. I felt slightly less mad. To realise this was an understandable response to grief was so comforting. Every emotion I felt in those terrible couple of years was due to grief. I felt a failure, defective and terribly separate from people as if I was looking at life through a glass screen. Now thirty years later I’d like to thank Catherine for the way she handled this difficult story line because I finally felt less alone. I really admired the way she wrote about post-natal depression too. When my mum had my younger brother I was only four years old, but for years afterwards she had a morbid obsession that he was going to die. Every time something happened in his life she worried that this would be it. Now he would be taken away from her. I have to say that sometimes this felt very dismissive of me. Her explanation when I asked if she’d ever thought the same about me was that I could look after myself, despite me spending a long time in hospitals. This aspect of PND is something I’d never considered before and helped me to understand where she was coming from a little better.

I thought the author beautifully described how women are more aware of their bodies because we’re trained to be. In a medical world that’s often dismissive of things like period pain ( or anything that falls into the category of gynaecology and obstetrics) as a natural process, the author shows how these things truly feel physically and mentally. We have to ‘know’ as soon as we’ve got our period because the shame of being seen to bleed is fierce, especially as period shaming seems to be rife in secondary schools. Our minds and bodies are connected so we know if something is a normal pain or a pain that has a different feeling or intensity. As Rocky loses the idea of the baby she’s carrying, she’s also physically losing the baby. These moments are raw because the emotions are. There’s a desperation in physically losing a baby. The mind does gymnastics trying to find a way to keep them inside you where it’s safe. As Rocky reminisces about this time, the unresolved emotions are clear and perhaps stirred up by menopause symptoms and having her babies under one roof. I enjoyed Rocky and Nick’s marriage too. It’s not perfect and they haven’t really connected for a while, physically or mentally. When he stumbles on a long held secret it throws their dislocation into the spotlight and gives them the opportunity to talk. He still loves her, despite the fact she’s a bit of a narcissist. She recognises that throughout the holiday Nick has been cooking, organising, driving everyone and just quietly looking after everyone. They’ve been in their mum and dad roles for so long they’ve forgotten how to be Rocky and Nick. It’s something of a relief for Rocky to know that Nick still desires her, despite the expanding waistline and loss of libido. Also, as Nick points out, it’s hard to get close to someone when there’s a huge secret between them.

I connected with this novel so deeply and I raced through it in a day. I simply sat and read without music or any other distractions, that’s how engrossed I was in this family’s story. Each generation had it’s own issues to deal with. The grandparents are facing health issues and their eventual loss of each other, brought into sharp focus when grandma faints at the beach. Ricky’s son and his girlfriend are facing some huge life choices. Even great-grandparents cause a drama when Rocky’s dad lets slip that they were in a concentration camp, something Rocky’s never known. Rocky and Nick are the meat in this emotional sandwich. Catherine Newman has once again written a novel about family that is truthful, funny and life-affirming. I can easily see this being on my end of year list.

Published on 6th June by Doubleday

Meet the Author

Catherine Newman is the author of the kids’ how-to books How to Be a Person and What Can I Say?, the memoirs Catastrophic Happiness and Waiting for Birdy, the middle-grade novel One Mixed-Up Night, and the grown-up novels We All Want Impossible Things (Harper 2022) and Sandwich (Harper 2024). She edits the non-profit kids’ cooking magazine ChopChop and is a regular contributor to the New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, Cup of Jo, and many other publications. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with her family.

Posted in Squad Pod

The King’s Witches by Kate Foster

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Having only just read her debut The Maiden, I was very keen to get started on this second novel from Kate Foster. This novel is based during the reign of Elizabeth I and James VI of Scotland (James I of England). I knew of James VI’s obsession with witches after studying the Malleus Malificarum at university while writing about disability representation in fiction. I looked at witches while discussing how disfigurement and disability in novels is used as a symbol for evil. The Malleus Maleficarum was the bible for witch finders, describing all the behaviour and characteristics of possible witches and signs to look out for. The book features in this novel as a guide for James VI, who had been alarmed by news of witch hunts in Germany. His proposed bride, Princess Anna of Denmark, set sale for Scotland in 1590 and was driven back by catastrophic storms. The storms were blamed on witches in Denmark and when James travelled to meet her in Norway he heard allegations of witchcraft first hand. Around the same time, in North Berwick, a housemaid called Geillis Duncan was accused of sorcery and when tortured she implicated several other witches, allegedly conspiring with the Earl of Bothwell to take the throne from the King. Kate Foster has taken this history and weaves a story from three women’s points of view, giving a feminist slant on the witch trials that killed thousands over the next two centuries, the majority of them women over forty.

There are three narratives in the book, each one from women who hold different positions in society. Princess Anna of Denmark was a young girl of fourteen when he was betrothed to James VI and attempted to reach Scotland. This has been updated to seventeen in the novel, but at either age there’s an enormous pressure on her shoulders. She has been sent on the basis of a Scottish hand-fasting, if she should please James within the next year he will marry her. If not, she will be ruined for any other marriage and her future looks set to be a life within an abbey. Adding to the pressure, there is a witch burning just before they leave and Anna is compelled to watch, because burnings are a warning to all women. Anna is sickened by what she sees and can’t forget it, convinced as they set sail that the witch is stood on the harbour cursing the voyage and her union with the Scottish king. As it is the sailing does feel cursed because the weather is terrible, sea-sickness is rife and when Anna meets her Scottish tutor Henry every thought of the king is driven from her mind. Anna’s companion and lady-in-waiting is Kristen Sorenson, a pious woman who once lived in Scotland. She is charged with keeping Anna focused on her duty, but she also has her own personal reasons for wanting the royal marriage to be a success. Jura is a housemaid working in the house of the local bailie in North Berwick. Her mother was a cunning woman, treating local women’s ailments with natural ingredients and she passed her knowledge on to Jura. She heals the daughter of the house from a rash and redness on her face using an oatmeal poultice and soon other women in their circle are asking for cures of their own. However, she and the daughter clash over a dalliance with a local farmer’s son and when Baillie Kincaid starts to force his attentions on Jura she decides to flee to Edinburgh. All three women are now caught up in the witchcraft rumours and may have to come together in order to save themselves.

Within a few chapters of the book I felt taken right back to the 16th Century. The witch burning scene in Denmark is see through Anna’s eyes and it is sickening and barbaric to imagine people killed in this way. Before she sees Doritte Olsen burned Anna mentions that even though she is to be betrothed, she doesn’t feel like a woman yet. She doesn’t fully know who she is. She can’t eat and can’t sleep, smelling the smoke on her own hair and knowing that on the beach, Doritte Olsen is still burning down to ash. She starts to see that women have no power in this world and the burning is a lesson – this is what happens if women step outside their role. It left me knowing I was in a different world, where women’s roles are wholly defined by men. Jura senses freedom as she flees to the capital city. Her descriptions of Edinburgh are so vivid as she marvels at houses with four storeys that put the whole street in shadow. She is dazzled by Canongate with it’s gleaming shop fronts, tennis courts and cork-fighting pits. She marvels that her mother never told her such variety existed in one place. The use of Scottish dialect in Jura’s narrative really helps ground the reader in that place and her use of bawdy language made me smile and feel warm towards her.

Here and there, Kate uses letters between the chapters and they had the effect of reminding me that a true story lies behind this novel. After their first night together, she strategically places a letter to the king from his friend Douglas Murray, a fictional character who stands in for a series of lovers the king is known to have had. In a letter that is mainly keeping the king up to date with news from court, he signs off with a curious line:

‘Mostly I await your return […] so that we might embrace each other once more in the manner to which we have become so dearly accustomed’.

The consensus among 21st Century historians is that the king was homosexual or bisexual, but in the context of this story it makes us realise that Anna’s task is a difficult one. She truly will be a wife in duty only and she knows this as she tells Kristen it feels unnatural to be intimate with someone she doesn’t care for in the right way. Her role is to stay quiet and bear children, turning a blind eye to the king’s extra curricular activities. Anna’s description of their intimate relations made me feel sick for her, she senses there is no ‘longing’ in him and I realised that should she become Queen this is her life. She won’t be able to have lovers and her only romance in life would be the way she feels for her tutor Henry. In fact James seems more aroused when torturing potential witches. How I wanted her to run away.

The only women in the novel with a small amount of freedom are those able to earn their own money like Jura and her Aunt Mary who is a healer and cunning woman in Edinburgh. Mary lives alone on what she earns, not in any sort of luxury but at least she has autonomy. The ability to consult a cunning woman is vital for women who might want to stop a pregnancy, boost their fertility or need a charm for love or protection. In this way these autonomous women empower the women around them and accusations of witchcraft subdue not just the woman accused, but every woman in that area. When Jura heals Hazel Kincaid’s facial rash and gets the chance to meet with other local women who gather at the house, she glimpses the chance of a better life:

‘I like healing far better than I like polishing and sweeping and mibbie, one day, soothing grumbling guts and easing flaking skin will help me out of horrible Master Kincaid’s house and away from his prick, and able to rent a dwelling of my own.’

The hypocrisy of the men in the book is infuriating at times. The renowned witch finder Dr Hemmingsen from Copenhagen assures the king that he has a unique way to identify witches, using a bodkin to prick them and find the devil’s mark on their body – the only spot where it won’t hurt. In the same package he has sent the king a golden amulet for protection, carved by a man who knows how to ward off evil. It seems signs and charms are only witchcraft when a man says they are. In fact Anna has never heard so much about the practises of witches as she does from the king, regaling her with tales of baby-killing and orgies with man, woman and beast. Kristen tells Anna that James is becoming a danger to ordinary women and his fervour is a kind of madness, or a licence to abuse and degrade women. Anna has a realisation; a woman’s body is never truly her own, no matter what their position in society. Whether you’re a housemaid whose master decides you’re his property, a witch who can be stripped and examined by men who call themselves god-fearing, or a princess whose family hand-fasted her to James Stuart and didn’t ask her if it was what she wanted. Women must work together if they want to survive. These women are strong, but are they intelligent enough to try and outsmart a king? Kate is brilliant with twists and turns, so I wasn’t surprised to find a few revelations towards the end. I was driven to finish to know what happened to all three women and whether any of them would achieve the freedom they craved. This was a compelling and atmospheric read and cements Kate Foster’s position as a writer of historical fiction at it’s best.

Published on 6th June by Mantle Books

Meet the Author

Kate Foster has been a national newspaper journalist for over twenty years. Growing up in Edinburgh, she became fascinated by its history and often uses it as inspiration for her stories. The Maiden won the Bloody Scotland Pitch Perfect 2020 prize for new writers and is long-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She lives in Edinburgh with her two children.

Posted in Netgalley

The Cuckoo by Camilla Lackberg

Posted on by thelotusreaders

A community torn apart

As a heavy mist rolls into the Swedish coastal town of Fjällbacka, shocking violence shakes the small community to its core. Rolf Stenklo, a famous photographer, is found murdered in his gallery. Two days later, a brutal tragedy on a private island leaves the prestigious Bauer family devastated.

A town full of secrets

With his boss acting strangely, Detective Patrik Hedström is left to lead the investigation. Tensions rise threatening cracks in the team of officers at Tanumshede police station and pressure mounts as the press demand answers.

A reckoning in blood

In pursuit of inspiration for her next true-crime book, Patrik’s wife Erica Falck leaves behind their three children and travels to Stockholm to research the unsolved decades-old murder of a figure from Rolf’s past. As Erica searches for the truth, she realizes that her mystery is connected to Patrik’s case. These threads from the past are woven into the present and old sins leave behind long shadows.

This was my first Camilla Lackberg novel and I thoroughly enjoyed my introduction into the world of Detective Patrik Hedström and his wife Erica. At first it didn’t grab me. I couldn’t remember all of the characters and how they all related to each other at the party. Henning and Elizabeth Bauer are celebrating their wedding anniversary with family and friends, but sprinkled amongst the celebrations the author places little hints of menace or disquiet. As Henning’s son Rikard stands to make a speech we realise all is not well in their relationship. Even worse the couple’s oldest friend Rolf has declined to come, but is over in the gallery organising the photos for his exhibition with an ominous final pair entitled ‘innocence’ and ‘guilt’. Old secrets are stirring and when Rolf is found dead, killed by a nail gun, Patrik has to look at who had something against him. His wife Vivian is shocked and devastated, especially since she was partying the night away. Could there be a link to his exhibition? Or was there something to uncover at Blanche, the club that the friends owned together? Then the next day, when a terrible discovery is made on the Bauer’s private island the pressure mounts on Patrik to find out who could have committed such a sickening crime. Meanwhile his wife Erica has a link to the crime through Louise, Henning’s daughter-in- law. Erica finds herself drawn to a certain aspect of the crimes, through Rolf’s photographs which appear to have featured women in the transgender community. It seems that many years ago the group were linked to another terrible murder.

The author has placed Lola’s narrative in sections throughout the main story. At first I was completely confused as I read about a little girl called P’tite and her daddy Lola. I honestly did look twice to see if it was a mistake, Lola is a woman but her daughter calls her daddy. P’tite isn’t confused or concerned as people might expect, she’s simply accepting of the fact that her daddy is a transgender woman. Lola works in a club at night and there she met Rolf, with whom she built up a friendship. Nights out often ended up at Lola’s flat, with P’tite asleep in bed and the group playing music in the kitchen. Through her narration we know that Lola’s little girl is her absolute world. The only other thing that’s precious to her are her notebooks, that she carries with her and is always writing in any spare moments she gets. I was really interested in Lola’s story, much like Erica, I sensed there was a lot more to her story that would reveal itself. However, we do know that Lola was killed in a fire along with her daughter who was found locked in a trunk. Erica starts to do some research, knowing that she must be careful to stay away from Patrick’s investigation but determined to find out why Lola met such a terrible death. As she starts to ask questions, strange anomalies come to light. The post-mortem shows that Lola had no smoke in her lungs, meaning something or someone killed her before the fire started. Sadly, the child found in the trunk did die of smoke inhalation. However, Erica does uncover something that changes absolutely everything, from the historic crime to Patrik’s investigation. Even worse it might place her in terrible danger.

I thought the author was brilliant in the way she slowly pulled apart this previously solid group of friends and family. There were professional jealousies with Henning about to be announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. His sons Peter and Rikard couldn’t be less alike. We hear Rikard discussing with his partner that they’ll be able to get money out of Elizabeth still, despite his father cutting him off. His contempt for his parents is uncomfortable to listen to and it would be easy to imagine him committing the crimes. Peter is more traditional and stands on his own two feet. It hasn’t been easy to be a committed father since the death of his first wife Cecily. Thankfully Louise came along and carefully supported him and the boys. In fact she made herself so indispensable they are now married. The team come across rumours of one of their group, Ole, touching young women inappropriately at Blanche and pay offs having to be made. All the group are well known in their field and one of them sits on the Nobel committee, so one sniff of scandal could completely change their status. With the Bauers wealthy enough for a home on a private island it isn’t just saving their status as artists and writers, it’s preserving their wealth too.

There are very difficult subjects in the novel, dealt with sensitively and with depth. Lola’s experience of transphobia is awful. Her family only see her as Lars and won’t accept Lola at all. In fact her sister visits and makes her position clear, but making the threat that she could let child services know that P’tite lives in such an unconventional situation. This is a rather self-serving threat as she wants the little girl for herself. While Lola is accepted in her group of friends, not everyone feels the same way and the incident with a group of teenage boys outside the club is sickening and terrifying. I wasn’t sure whether she’d been killed in a similar situation or whether her killer was someone closer to home. I felt that Lola had more talent, generosity and integrity than all of her friends put together. Her sections of the book drew me in more than anything else, so I kept reading because I had to find out what happened to her. In this way I felt a kinship with Erica, who’s also compelled to follow Lola’s trail. Probably because I’m an aspiring writer, I was fascinated by her process even though I was scared for her as she started to unravel events. For light relief I loved the sections where Erika’s in-laws decide to redecorate her house while she’s away researching and Patrik is caught up in the investigation. I was inwardly cringing at the archway and the salmon pink kitchen. This is an engaging novel that compels you to keep reading, with a maze of connections and some delicious twists towards the end.

Out on 23rd May from Hemlock Press

Meet the Author

Born in 1974, Camilla Läckberg graduated from Gothenburg University of Economics, before moving to Stockholm where she worked for a few years as an economist. However, a course in creative writing triggered a drastic change of career. Her ten novels all became Swedish No. 1 bestsellers. She lives with her family in Stockholm.