2:32 p.m. Wealthy, privileged Ilaria Cavendish checks into a luxury London hotel and orders a bottle of champagne. Within the hour, her lover discovers her submerged in a bath of scalding water, dead.At first glance it looks like an accident. No one went in with her. No one came out. But all the signs point to murder.
For DS Maeve Kerrigan, the case is a welcome distraction. But when shock news hits close to home, affecting her partner, DI Josh Derwent, she faces the toughest challenge of her career. And if she fails her world will never be the same again…
There’s an extra secretive element to this twelfth book in the DS Maeve Kerrigan series. In her afterword Jane begs readers not to reveal aspects of the novel for those who have yet to read it, in fact for those people who have only just discovered this addictive mix of murder investigation and ‘will they – won’t they’ love story. So I’m trying my best to keep it to myself while telling you all what a great read this. The murder at hand is a tricky one and will probably remain in my brain forever after reading that when the victim’s lover tries to pull her from the bath her scalp comes away. She has, rather disturbingly, been boiled like a lobster. However it isn’t the water or the heat that has killed her, Illaria has been strangled with a cord then dragged into the bath. The fact that she was meeting her lover and had the room booked for exactly the same time every Wednesday is an interesting little detail. Sometimes they only use it for a few hours but it is always booked, exactly the same. These are the actions of someone wealthy and it’s no surprise to find she has a rich husband. Angus is incredibly frank when interviewed; he loved his wife and wanted her to be happy and she wanted Sam. They had met at a glitzy dinner and Angus reveals that when he saw them talking together he knew, it was a coup de foudre, when love hits instantly like a bolt of lightning. Ilaria had a great life, filled with travel, events and a little interior design business with her friend that Angus funds too. They seem to be going nowhere when Maeve has a sudden lightbulb moment leading to a discovery.
Aside from this case and arguably being the most compelling part of the novel is the drama surrounding DI Josh Derwent. Josh has been living with psychotherapist girlfriend Melissa and her son Thomas for a while now, much to Maeve’s sorrow. Melissa is due to pick Thomas up from school, when she gets a phone call from a distressed patient. Knowing she has to see them and needing someone to collect and keep Thomas for a few hours, Josh calls Maeve’s parents. They’ve been like grandparents to the little boy who hasn’t been well of late. Hours later when they return Thomas, Maeve’s father runs into a panicked young girl on the driveway, screaming that Melissa has been hurt. Melissa is at the bottom of the stairs, motionless and covered in bruises as if she’s been beaten badly. As she’s rushed to hospital and the police arrive, so does Josh and quickly finds himself arrested for the attack. When Maeve arrives Josh tells her to stay out of it, walk away and don’t get involved. However, readers of the series know that this is something Maeve simply can’t do. Despite Derwent’s disapproval she has to find a way of clearing his name, because she knows he isn’t capable of this.
I have to be honest and admit I was so caught up in the Melissa/Derwent storyline that there were points when I forgot about the other case. It was more psychologically complex and of course had the added weight of caring about these characters over eleven previous books. I couldn’t believe the suspicions I had about it and I was desperately hoping Maeve would come to the same conclusion, if she didn’t get herself suspended for meddling first. When the book went back to Ilaria’s murder I found myself going ‘oh yes, where were we’. Having said that it’s a cracking case in it’s own right with a seemingly impossible premise. With the only people seen on CCTV of the corridor being a chambermaid and the man who delivered the room service champagne, but he wasn’t in there long enough to murder anyone. When he’s found dead on a building site, it looks very much like someone is covering their tracks. On the face of it Ilaria’s life seemed perfect, so why was she sneaking around? Was it really love or was something else going on?
I whipped through the final chapters in an afternoon to find out and to see what would happen with Melissa, who I was beginning to hate! I loved the little vignettes of normal life in between, especially with the men in the book. Derwent’s eldest son Luke and Thomas have a lovely growing relationship and with Maeve’s nurturing and loving parents he had a great stand-in gran and grandad. It was interesting to see how Melissa’s ex-husband and Derwent were with each other too. Through Luke, Maeve was introduced to a decent man called Owen and their dates were going well. It was nice to see her being treated with kindness and consistency. This was an addictive read from an author who knows exactly when to leave the reader hanging and when to deliver heart-stopping action sequences – the suspicious man at the front desk of the police station had my pulse racing. I’m interested in where she takes DS Kerrigan next and I’ll definitely be queueing up for my copy.
From Hemlock Press 24th April 2025
Meet the Author
Jane Casey is a bestselling crime writer who was born and brought up in Dublin. A former editor, she has written twelve crime novels for adults (including ten in the Maeve Kerrigan series) and three for teenagers (the Jess Tennant series). Her books have been international bestsellers, critically acclaimed for their realism and accuracy. The Maeve Kerrigan series has been nominated for many awards: in 2015 Jane won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for The Stranger You Know and Irish Crime Novel of the Year for After the Fire. In 2019, Cruel Acts was chosen as Irish Crime Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. It was a Sunday Times bestseller. Stand-alone novel The Killing Kind was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick in 2021, and is currently being filmed for television. Jane lives in southwest London with her husband, who is a criminal barrister, and their two children.
Spring is here!! Finally. Today is warm -ish, but sunny with daffodils and jasmine brightening up the garden. My other half is cutting the lawn and washing is going on the line for the first day this year. I’ve had a lot of chances to read this month as I still can’t move far, so I’ve taken on some new and some older reads too. My favourites of the new books I’ve read this month are a balanced mix of historical fiction and crime novels. Our historical offerings take us to the South of France and the home of Henri Matisse, to Paris on a train that might be lucky to arrive and a Scottish island that’s closer to Norway. The crime novels are set in two of my favourite places, Snowdonia and Northumberland, while the final one is a Scandinavian setting, written by two talented authors it’s an unforgettable novel.
Hope you’re all enjoying this beautiful weekend.
When in Northumberland I visit a couple of bookshops, Barter Books in Alnwick for second hand finds and Cogito Books in Hexham for their non-fiction and new releases. Last time I had some book vouchers so I went to Hexham and was recommended Mari Hannah’s Stone and Oliver series. I bought the first one then found more of the series in charity shops, but hadn’t got round to reading them yet. So when a publisher offered this I wondered whether I should, but I can’t resist and now Im setting aside time to read the rest of this series.
Frankie Oliver and David Stone have been working together in the same MIT for the a few years, but this book starts in a much darker place when another detective was called to a body found on some waste ground. Horrified, he drops to the floor unable to contain his devastation. The body on the ground is his daughter. It’s such a powerful and emotive opening, leaving us in no doubt that this is a defining event for the loved ones of this girl. An absence that the Oliver family feel every day. It’s arguable that this case is the very reason that Frankie Oliver became a detective. She and David Stone are an incredible team at work and have the potential to take their relationship further. It’s clear there’s been some ‘will they won’t they’ over the course of the previous novels. Now Frankie is taking a break from the team in Newcastle, a promotion to DI means she must fill a post back in uniform based out of the most northerly police station in the county, Berwick-Upon-Tweed. Frankie accepts and the team organise a leaving ‘do’. It’s there that Dave overhears an argument that immediately propels him back to the murder of Joanna, Frankie’s sister. What’s said between the two men outside the venue sparks an idea in Dave’s mind. He has had an idea of how to investigate the cold case, but knows that he doesn’t want to bring more pain to the family. Hopefully Frankie’s secondment to Berwick means they won’t have to.
Meanwhile Frankie’s first job is an RTC on the A1 and in the total chaos she finds a little boy handcuffed in the back of a van. The driver and passenger are dead and the van is a write off so Frankie can’t believe this little boy has survived. As she rescues him, an onlooker tells her that a man escaped out of the back doors straight after the crash. This opens up a trafficking case that might take her straight back out of uniform again. The boy, Amir, takes to Frankie. Possibly the first person in a long time who has made him feel safe. As for the relationship between Frankie and Dave, I was very much invested despite not knowing everything that’s gone before. The setting is beautifully captured in it’s contradictions: the modernity and buzz of Newcastle with the contrast of the wild countryside and beautifully rugged coastline. This really is a nail-biting story, written in very short chapters that are easy to devour very quickly. So many have a brilliant cliff-hanger ending too. I can’t wait to read more.
The blurb on the back of this novel promises an electrifying blockbuster that will be the start of a ‘nerve shattering’ new series. So there’s a lot to live up to, but Son definitely delivers. To use a rather inelegant phrase, this novel is a therapist’s wet dream of a novel – hidden characters, unexplained black outs, grief, trauma and an investigator who is dubbed The Human Lie Detector. I was definitely in my element here. Kari Voss is the centre of this tangled web, a psychologist who specialises in memory and body language and acts as a consultant to Oslo’s police force. When two girls are brutally killed in a summer house in the village of Son, it’s a crime that’s closer to home than she would want. The girls, Eva and Hedda, were best friends with Kari’s son Vetle when they were younger. In fact it was while on a holiday seven years ago that Vetle disappeared in nearby woods and was never found. The girls are now teenagers and were planning a Halloween party for their friends, but were found tied to dining chairs with their throats cut. They were found by a third friend, Samuel Gregson, when he turned up to start the festivites and it is also an old friend of Vetle’s that police chief Ramona Norum arrests and starts to question. When Kari is asked to consult she knows this will be difficult, not only is she friends with the girl’s families, their lives are inextricably linked to her missing son. How will she negotiate all the emotions this case will unleash and find the girl’s killer?
No one is what they appear here. As Kari starts to ask questions about Eva and Hedda, it turns out that they aren’t always the polite children or young teenagers they appear to be. The authors are very clever about the amount of introspection they use, creating a hidden layer to the crimes and a breathing space between the character driven chapters and the ones filled with nail-bitingly intense action. There’s even subterfuge in the title, Son is a place slightly north of Oslo, steeped in Nordic history and full of that unsettling atmosphere that I find Nordic Noir is so good at. Yet it’s also a person, so missed by those who love him and inextricably linked to this landscape, that has potentially become his final resting place. I was compelled to read this to the end, taking it everywhere with me on holiday so I could grab a chapter in a coffee shop or even in the car. This is an engrossing and addictive start to a promised new series and I’m already craving the next instalment.
This is the story of three women – one an orphan and refugee who finds a place in the studio of a famous French artist, the other a wife and mother who has stood by her husband for nearly forty years. The third is his daughter, caught in the crossfire between her mother and a father she adores. Amelie is first drawn to Henri Matisse as a way of escaping the conventional life expected of her. A free spirit, she sees in this budding young artist a glorious future for them both. Lydia Delectorskaya is a young Russian emigree, who fled her homeland following the death of her mother. After a fractured childhood, she is trying to make a place for herself on France’s golden Riviera, amid the artists, film stars and dazzling elite. Eventually she finds employment with the Matisse family. From this point on, their lives are set on a collision course. Marguerite is Matisse’s eldest daughter. When the life of her family implodes, she must find her own way to make her mark and to navigate divided loyalties.
Based on a true story, Madame Matisse is a stunning novel about drama and betrayal; emotion and sex; glamour and tragedy, all set in the hotbed of the 1930s art movement in France. In art, as in life, this a time when the rules were made to be broken. I loved reading about these fascinating women, all of which step outside the traditional role of most women of the time. Sophie beautifully situates Matisse within his peer group, especially his great rival Picasso. Then situates each woman perfectly within their history, the most in depth being Lydia’s Russian background and Marguerite’s incredible bravery in WW2. I thoroughly enjoyed looking up the paintings mentioned and seeing Matisse’s representation of the three women who were closest to him and I found myself reading articles about him and Picasso. It left me with a sense of anger and empathy for how much women sacrifice so that men can excel at what they do, realising their ambitions while their wive’s ambitions are forgotten or buried under a suffocating mental load – still the thing women in my group talk about most. These women never take the limelight away from Matisse, even while stripped bare for people to view. The focus is always on the painter, their brush strokes, choice of colour and artistic decisions. I love that in this novel they are more than body parts, they’re shown as the vital, brave, complex and generous women they clearly were.
Set in 1895 when a train did crash onto the platform at Montparnasse, Donoghue places us very definitely in the fin de siecle, with every little detail. It isn’t just her description of the train, which I could picture very clearly, it’s the character’s clothing and their attitudes. There’s certainly evidence of a shift in the Victorian ideals that held firm throughout the 19th Century. In one journey we can see women being more outspoken, having a definite sense of purpose, and a need to determine their own destiny. Women are travelling alone or for work, in the case of Alice she is travelling with her boss as the secretary for his photographic business. She takes the opportunity to talk to him about moving pictures, she has researched the subject and thinks it could be a new market for the firm. Marcelle is researching in the field of science and huge fan of Marie Curie who is so work focused that she went to get married in an everyday blue dress and returned to the lab.I was absolutely fascinated with Mado. She stands out more than she realises, with her androgynous clothing and short hair, not to mention the lunch bucket she’s clutching as if her life depends on it. She’s a feminist, an anarchist and seems to have an interest in reading other people. Her own internal struggle is so vivid that I could feel the tension in her body as I read. She seems contemptuous of many of her fellow passengers, particularly the men, knowing that the Victorian feminine ideal is simply a role women are forced to play. To step outside of the norm is brave and a deliberate outward show of her inner strength and determination to change women’s place in the world. How far might she go to show her resolve?
Gradually I was compelled to keep reading because the tension was rising with every new passenger and because as the reader I was omniscient: Donoghue gives her reader the full story and we know the potential fate of every character on this train. Brilliant as always!
1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. Unaware of the stranger’s intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile, on the mainland, John’s wife, Mary, anxiously awaits news of his mission. Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Carys Davies’s intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us.
Clear is so beautifully set within some very significant events. In the 19th Century evangelical worshippers moved away from the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland. Also, there was a second wave of Scottish landowners driving their tenants from the land, choosing to make a better profit grazing sheep. This was just one part the Highland Clearances. Our characters are deeply involved with these events. This is such a gentle story that contains so much. Instead of pushing an agenda or viewpoint, the author just lets it play out naturally. Ivar is part of this island, a bear of a man with only his animals for company. There’s a purity to his life that’s almost spiritual, an interesting contrast to John’s organised religion. There’s so much under the surface of the story, told in the tiny details of everyday life: their gestures, the intimacies they share and how those connections change as a language is formed between them. It’s interesting to see the established dynamic of John and Ivar affecting how Mary settles into the cottage. The men’s connection brings the three of them into a unit, so that they don’t feel like a married couple and a lone man any more. Each of them forms a strong connection with each other and the landscape. I found reading this an almost meditative experience, because it’s so slow and calm, until the sudden end.
Living and working in Snowdonia was always retired detective Frank Marshal’s dream. Until a phone call asking for his help turns it into his worst nightmare. Retired detective Frank Marshal lives in a remote part of Snowdonia with his wife Rachel who is suffering from dementia. Working as a park ranger, Frank gets a phone call from close friend Annie, a retired judge. Her sister Meg has gone missing from a local caravan park and she needs his help to find her.
As Frank and Annie start to unravel the dark secrets of Meg’s life, it seems at first that her disappearance might be linked to her nephew and a drug deal gone wrong. In a shocking twist, their investigation leads them to a series of murders in North Wales from the 1990s and a possible miscarriage of justice. Can Frank and Annie uncover the sinister truth so they find her sister in time to save her? Or will a brutal serial killer add Meg to his list of victims?
I’m always complaining about thrillers and crime novels that rely on their twists and turns without any depth to the characters or the story. I couldn’t complain at all here. There are twists, including one I only started to suspect few pages before it was revealed. This book was full of emotion: Frank and his wife sitting in bed and looking at old photos was so poignant since both know her dementia is progressing and she is slowly forgetting it all; the beautiful relationship between Frank and his grandson; Annie’s grief over her sister’s disappearance and her nephew’s accident. All felt like fully realised people, even those only in the novel a short time. I could see Frank locking horns with police chief Dewi in the future or the scouse drug dealers. I loved the setting too, the author has managed to capture it’s beauty and it’s bleakness. This was a cracking mystery that crept up on you slowly then didn’t let you put it down. I’m looking forward to many more adventures with Frank Marshal.
So that’s all for March, but next month’s reading is busy as always. Here are a few books still lurking on my TBR for April. It’s going to be a great month.
I was totally new to Veronica Henry when I was invited onto a blog tour a couple of years ago. I was desperately in need of an uplifting read after a lot of dystopian and crime fiction. I read TheImpulse Purchase and found a series of warm, charming and uplifting reads that are so light but full of strong and capable women trying to change their lives. The settings are gorgeous, romantic and so well described it’s like having a little holiday.
I spent an escapist couple of days reading about this interesting family of women all at a crossroads in life. Julia, great-grandmother and owner of the beautiful Wisteria House in the village of Rushbrook, has died and left behind four generations of women. There’s grandmother Cherry who was a model in the 1960’s; mother Maggie, the redoubtable owner of a food PR company; daughter Rose who is a new mum and volunteers at the local homeless charity; and Gertie, three years old and the apple of everyone’s eye. Aside from great-grandmother Julia’s death and Gertie’s birth, this is a family facing a lot of change. Maggie is still mourning the death of the love of her life, husband Frank. Maggie also faces change at work, as her apprentice has absconded taking some of the business with her. Rose has struggled with grief, but her job is giving her more confidence. Cherry organises a party to celebrate her husband’s retirement, Mike is an artist and photographer, retiring from teaching and looking forward to spending more time travelling with Cherry. They just need to finish the sale of Wisteria House, but Cherry sees something at the party that changes her mind and sets in place a new plan for all the women of the family. The Swan is Rushbrook’s public house and has been a family haunt for as long as they can remember. If Cherry does the unthinkable and use her inheritance to buy The Swan, could the women come together and turn it into something really special. This is uplifting and inspiring, as well as incredibly cozy.
Years ago, Juliet left a little piece of her heart in Paris – and now, separated from her husband and with her children flying the nest, it’s time to get it back! So she puts on her best red lipstick, books a cosy attic apartment near Notre-Dame and takes the next train out of London. Arriving at the Gare du Nord, the memories come flooding back: bustling street cafés, cheap wine in candlelit bars and a handsome boy with glittering eyes. But Juliet has also been keeping a secret for over two decades – and she begins to realise it’s impossible to move forwards without first looking back.
Something tells her that the next thirty days might just change everything…
Juliet is now a middle-aged, ghost-writer who’s at a huge crossroads in life. She and her husband have taken the very brave decision to separate as their last child leaves home for university. Most of their friends think they’re crazy, because the couple still get along, they’re probably the best of friends in fact. However, they feel they’ve drifted into two different paths. As her husband has embraced all things cycling – including the Lycra and the diet – Juliet isn’t enamoured and would rather curl up with a good book or go to the theatre. As the time to sell their large family home has come around, they can’t see the point of trying to meld their differing lifestyles into another joint home. So each will take half of the house sale and do their own thing and Juliet would like to take a trip into her past. Years ago, when she was still a teenager, Juliet went to work as an au pair in Paris, but returned in shame and sadness only a few month later. She has rented an apartment for a month to reacquaint herself with the city and spend some time writing her own story. However, revisiting the past is never easy and Juliet finds there are experiences she still needs to process and come to terms with.
I found reading this book a little lie watching Sex and the City or perhaps more aptly, Emily in Paris which I binge-watched over the Christmas period. Everything about Juliet’s time in Paris is simply gorgeous from the description of the patisseries near her apartment, to the clothes worn by her friend ….. and the work Juliet starts on her book project. It’s romantic and simply gorgeous.
There are a couple of her novels that I’ve gathered up from charity shops and are on the the throwback pile. In A Night on the Orient Express one group of passengers are settling in to their seats and taking their first sips of champagne, the journey from London to Venice is more than the trip of a lifetime. From a mysterious errand; a promise made to a dying friend; an unexpected proposal; a secret reaching back a lifetime…there are so many reasons to be there… As the train sweeps on, revelations, confessions and assignations unfold against the most romantic and infamous setting in the world.
One night to fall in love. One summer to change everything…
Over the last few months, Connie’s whole world has fallen apart. Her husband’s run off with an older woman, the magazine she works for has gone bust and she’s having to sell the family home. So when her beloved godmother, Lismay, begs her to help run the beautiful Château Villette, it couldn’t come at a better time…
No one knows the château quite like Connie. She spent a blissful summer there in her twenties, learning to cook delicious French food for the guests, ironing the lavender-scented sheets – and trying to resist the very handsome neighbour, Remy.
As soon as she arrives, it’s clear that the château is close to crumbling and Connie knows she’s going to have her work cut out. Could it be the fresh start she didn’t even know she needed – and will she find a way to save the château, before it’s too late?
Coming June 2025 from Orion
Meet the Author
I’m Veronica – otherwise known as Ronnie – and I’m delighted you’ve found your way here!
I love to take my readers somewhere they might like to be, whether a gorgeous house in the countryside or a seaside clifftop; a trip to Paris or on board the Orient Express. There, my characters go through the trials and tribulations of everyday life, embroiled in situations and dilemmas we can all relate to. And of course at the heart of my writing is love. All kinds of love, not just romantic: the love of friends and family, or a place, or a passion (food, wine and books, in my case . . .)
I also live by the sea and head to the beach every day with my dog Zelda. I love discovering new restaurants, and do a bit of sea swimming to offset the calories. I love a bit of upcycling too – never happier than when painting a set of bookshelves with a tin of Farrow and Ball.
My biggest writing influences are HE Bates, Nancy Mitford, Jilly Cooper and any book that has a big rambling house and an eccentric family.
You can find out more about me and my books by following me on Instagram and Facebook @veronicahenryauthor or on twitter @veronica_henry
Living and working in Snowdonia was always retired detective Frank Marshal’s dream. Until a phone call asking for his help turns it into his worst nightmare.
Retired detective Frank Marshal lives in a remote part of Snowdonia with his wife Rachel who is suffering from dementia. Working as a park ranger, Frank gets a phone call from close friend Annie, a retired judge. Her sister Meg has gone missing from a local caravan park and she needs his help to find her.
As Frank and Annie start to unravel the dark secrets of Meg’s life, it seems at first that her disappearance might be linked to her nephew and a drug deal gone wrong. In a shocking twist, their investigation leads them to a series of murders in North Wales from the 1990s and a possible miscarriage of justice.
Can Frank and Annie uncover the sinister truth so they find her sister in time to save her? Or will a brutal serial killer add Meg to his list of victims?
I love Snowdonia and have visited at least once a year since I was a child, even now staying in or close to the farmhouse we’ve booked since I was 12 years old. I also enjoy crime fiction so I can’t believe I haven’t come across Simon McCleave before. This is the start of a new series so I have the joy of going straight to the beginning of his other novels and devouring them. Frank Marshal is an interesting man, the ex-detective and mountain ranger lives in Snowdonia with wife Rachel who has dementia. For most of the novel their daughter Caitlin lives in the annexe with her son after fleeing an abusive relationship. It was quite a slow start to the novel but I could see what the writer was doing, setting the scene of the awe-inspiring landscape and also sowing seeds for future novels. I could see family issues and heartbreaking choices ahead for Frank, as well as some future rivals in the force and the criminal world. Annie was an interesting character too, an ex-judge and described as a close friend of Frank’s, he definitely shows his commitment and loyalty to that friendship as he puts himself in danger to find her sister Meghan. In a lot of ways Frank reminded me of my own father who has spent his life climbing all over Welsh mountains as a youth worker and climbing instructor. Frank’s desire to protect his family, as well as forgetting his age in the process was very familiar to me. Thank goodness my dad doesn’t have his guns anymore, but he’s not afraid to put his bare knuckle fighting and boxing skills to use when necessary. He’s a real worry. So I could imagine being Frank’s daughter and I recognised his determination when he realises half way through a fight that he’s feeling almost all of his 71 years.
The story really picks up speed after the first few chapters and as it became more addictive, I admit I stayed up until 1am this morning to finish. I had a hunch and I had to see how it played out. Frank and Annie’s investigation starts as Meghan goes missing and her son Callum turns up in hospital with amnesia. Annie doesn’t want to think that her nephew has anything to do with this, but at first they make a couple of discoveries that seem to point in his direction. However there are other potential avenues. The murky world of a 1990s serial killer, convicted when Frank was still on the force and a drug boss who dresses like a Boden model but is a Scouse gangster underneath. Frank’s police connections get them places most people couldn’t, including visiting a serial killer. They have a couple of nasty skirmishes too and I had to keep reminding myself that this was a couple of OAPs! Annie is equally ballsy and has some connections of her own, including a youth offender who now works in IT so he can care for his elderly mum. I’m fascinated with cold cases, in terms of the science we now use to convict offenders decades later, but also because of the things that are missed and dismissed. There’s a detail that’s so important to finding the truth that was completely dismissed by officers due to the witness being a sex worker. I watched a documentary about the Yorkshire Ripper where the police’s attitude to first killings was almost a shrug of the shoulders because they were sex workers. Yet when he killed a young woman on her way home after a night out both police and press said it was his first ‘innocent’ victim which made my blood boil. Frank and Annie find the witness, who has two very pertinent clues ignored for thirty years that could be the key to the case.
I’m always complaining about thrillers and crime novels that rely on their twists and turns without any depth to the characters or the story. I couldn’t complain at all here. There are twists, including one I only started to suspect few pages before it was revealed. However, the book was also full of emotion: Frank and his wife sitting in bed and looking at old photos was so poignant since both know she is slowly forgetting it all; the beautiful relationship between Frank and his grandson; Annie’s grief over her sister’s disappearance and her nephew’s accident. All felt like fully realised people, even those only in the novel a short time. I could see Frank locking horns with police chief Dewi in the future. I felt totally creeped out by Meghan’s rather unsettling neighbour at the caravan park. I was even interested in the scouse drug dealers and could imagine them finding their way into future storylines. I loved the setting too, the author has managed to capture it’s beauty and it’s bleakness, plus I look forward to visiting the Barmouth chippy when I go there later this year. This was a cracking mystery that crept up on you slowly then didn’t let you put it down. I’m looking forward to many more adventures with Frank Marshal.
Out now from Stanford Publishing
Meet the Author
Simon McCleave is a multi million-selling crime novelist who lives in North Wales with his wife and two children.
Before he was an author, Simon worked as a script editor at the BBC and a producer at Channel 4 before working as a story analyst in Los Angeles. He then became a script writer, writing on series such as Silent Witness, The Bill, EastEnders and many more. His Channel 4 film Out of the Game was critically acclaimed and described as ‘an unflinching portrayal of male friendship’ by Time Out.
His first book, ‘The Snowdonia Killings’, was released in January 2020 and soon became an Amazon Bestseller, reaching No 1 in the UK Chart and selling over 400,000 copies. His twenty subsequent novels in the DI Ruth Hunter Snowdonia Series have all been Amazon bestsellers, with most of them hitting the top of the digital charts. He has sold over 3 million books to date.
‘The Dark Tide’, Simon’s first book in an Anglesey based crime series for publishing giant Harper Collins (Avon), was a major hit in 2022, becoming the highest selling Waterstone’s Welsh Book of the Month ever.
This year, Simon is releasing the first in a new series of books, ‘Marshal of Snowdonia’ with several more planned for 2025.
Simon has also written a one-off psychological thriller, Last Night at Villa Lucia, for Storm Publishing, which was a major hit, The Times describing it as ‘…well above the usual seasonal villa thriller…’ with its ‘…empathetic portrayal of lives spent in the shadow of coercion and abuse.’
The Snowdonia based DI Ruth Hunter books are now set to be filmed as a major new television series, with shooting to begin in North Wales in 2025.
It was all she ever wanted. Until her dreams came true…
The moving new novel about the young Diana.
Diana believes in love. Growing up amid the fallout of her parents’ bitter divorce, she takes refuge in romantic novels. She dreams of being rescued by a handsome prince.
Prince Charles loves his freedom. He’s in no rush to wed, but his family have other ideas. Charles must marry for the future of the Crown.
The right girl needs to be found, and fast. She must be young, aristocratic and free of past liaisons.
The teenage Diana Spencer is just about the only candidate. Her desperation to be loved dovetails with royal desperation for a bride.
But the route to the altar is full of hidden obstacles and people with their own agendas.
When she steps from the golden carriage on her wedding day, has Diana’s romantic dream come true?
Or is it already over?
Princess Diana hit the headlines when I was nine years old, perfect timing for me to buy into the fairytale and fall in love with her. I had my hair cut into Diana’s short style and I had one of her jumpers, well an Asda version, covered in sheep with one little black sheep in the bottom corner. When we look back at her life in retrospect, it could be that she was trying to tell us something. This book focuses on Diana’s earlier years, from her schooldays until that fairytale of a wedding which seemed to cement her into the consciousness of everyone, across the world. It was interesting to read more about her single life before dating Charles, a period that struck me as interesting when it was dramatised in The Crown. She had a busy, fun lifestyle sharing a flat with three friends and working in a nursery. Then as soon as the engagement was announced she was taken into apartments at Buckingham Palace, totally closed off from outside, but also from other members of the royal family. It was quiet, almost like a church, with no one reachable by phone and Charles on a tour abroad. His only thought in terms of company was to introduce her to Camilla Parker Bowles.
The book did well when describing the dysfunctional way the Royals live. It’s an almost surreal existence with very specific rules to live by. When I read how much time each member spends alone I started to understand why they all have dogs. They don’t eat together daily, non-royals don’t come to the palace unless invited and each royal has their own quirks. For a 18-19 year old wandering round empty rooms and not being able to talk to friends must have been totally isolating. It was for her security of course, but it also meant she could be trained to fit the role she would play. She must have been so lonely. I’ve clearly read a lot of the same books as the author, because I knew about King Charles’s very odd boiled egg habits and the Queen Mother’s exploits in her home at Clarence House, but there were some things that were new to me.
It was clear that Diana was a young girl full of life and romantic ideas about men and marriage. Wendy Holden tells the story through the eyes of Diana, her best friend at boarding school Sandy and Stephen Barry who was the Prince of Wales’s valet. The girls read paperback romances, the type of story written by Diana’s relative Barbara Cartland. When the girls imagine love at the age of 13, they imagine it being: ‘like a particularly delicious bath, deep and warm, with lots of bubbles.’ It conjures up a sense of comfort and pampering that I do actually feel sometimes with my other half, but a man who doesn’t know what love means isn’t equipped to love like that. The only people who pampered him were his servants, how can you provide what you’ve never had? I think Holden has captured the essence of a girl in adolescence, dreaming what her life might be. She’s a lively, bubbly girl who loves music and the company of others. She has a shy charm that’s so endearing, but her parents divorce has left a mark and I wondered whether it instilled in her a determination to get it right, which left me feeling a little sad for her.
The second section of the novel definitely has a a melancholy feel, that shows us how well the author has brought the fun, young Diana to life. This is such a contrast. It also makes us realise how young she was to get married anyway, never mind becoming a future Queen of England. It is only six years since that journey with Sandy to boarding school. So, when she becomes engaged to the then Prince of Wales she was probably still expecting the comfort and care of a warm bath. She must have been disappointed at this moment. I always feel that Diana married the people on that day, rather than Charles. When she has some late doubts her sister Sarah warns her that her face is already on the tea towels. It’s too late. The pressure must have been immense. She has spent months hounded by the press and the famous moment where photographers captured her with a see through skirt is just one incidence of naivety on her part. She’s been getting thinner and her wedding dress needed taking in constantly. This isn’t the fairy tale love she’s dreamed about, more the matchmaking of two grandmothers living in the past and desperately trying to break off Charles’s adulterous relationship with Camilla.
I think the author attempted something very difficult here, to create a unique view of a story that’s a modern parable. Everyone knows a version of what happened. So, to create something that captures the voice of the most well known woman in the world, while bringing something new to her story, is near impossible. I think she partly succeeds. I didn’t learn anything new, but I did feel that I was listening to Diana in this story. It doesn’t have that compelling quality, because we already know about the divorce in 1996 and her death only a year later. I felt there was a bit of fire in this girl, despite her naivety. The rude awakening that she was simply a brood mare fuelled a fightback – the Andrew Morton book, the interview with Bashir and that last poignant summer are her pushing back against a system she felt used and abandoned by. A desperate need to be heard. I thought it was interesting to know she spent time with Princess Margaret, another young, royal woman who learned early on that her happiness came very low on the list of priorities. The royals never tried to be her family, missing that warmth and heart Diana was known for. I think this warmth, plus her fight and desire to buck the system is perhaps inherited by her son Harry. This was a well-researched book that really captured the spirit and personality of the most famous woman in the world.
1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. Unaware of the stranger’s intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile, on the mainland, John’s wife, Mary, anxiously awaits news of his mission.
Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Carys Davies’s intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us.
Clear is so beautifully set within some very significant events. In the 19th Century evangelical worshippers moved away from the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland. Also, there was a second wave of Scottish landowners driving their tenants from the land, choosing to make a better profit grazing sheep, know as the Highland Clearances. Our characters are deeply involved with these events. John Ferguson has been a minister in the Church of Scotland, but his conscience draws him away towards the Free Church. This leaves him without an income since the new church isn’t yet established. John’s wife Mary may be the answer, because her brother-in-law asks a landowner if he could offer John a job. The job has one purpose, travelling to a remote island in the North Sea close to Norway. There he has to evict the landowner’s last remaining tenant, a man named Ivar who is barely scratching a living with a handful of livestock. However, Ivar doesn’t speak English, but an old dialect that’s a mix of Norwegian and Gaelic. John has just one month till the boat returns to take both of them back to Shetland. How will he convince Ivar to leave?
The story is focused on the relationship these two men have to develop with each other and it starts in a way neither expect. The bailie’s house is empty as he’s already left the island so John plans to make it his base, but needs to find somewhere locally that he can wash. He finds a spring and decides to bathe, but he slips and falls down a cliff. Ivar finds the unconscious man and takes him to his own hut. As John slowly regains consciousness and begins his recovery, the two man have to work out a way of speaking to each other and eventually John has to explain what he’s there for. As we watch their relationship grow and how they work on communication, Mary has grown worried about John. She thinks he may have taken on the task without enough preparation and she decides to travel out there and join him. The narrative felt like being a fly on the wall to to these events. Once the three are together I had the strange feeling that this was really happening and I was simply watching history, bearing witness to the emotions flowing between them.
This is such a gentle story that contains so much. Instead of pushing an agenda or viewpoint, the author just lets it play out naturally. Nature is so much more than just a setting, it’s life itself. The island is mercurial, with it’s changeable weather creating the mood. Ivar lives entirely off this land, his life a routine of hard work and at home he spins wool or knits. Even the regular agent who collects rent for the landowner is paid in wool, feathers or wrack. Ivar is part of this island, a bear of a man with only his animals for company. There’s a purity to his life that’s almost spiritual, an interesting contrast to John’s organised religion. There’s so much going on under the surface of the story, told in the tiny details of everyday life: their gestures, the intimacies they share and how those connections change as a language is formed between them. It’s interesting to see the established dynamic of John and Ivar affecting how Mary settles into the cottage. The men’s connection brings the three of them into a unit, so that they don’t feel like a married couple and a lone man any more. Each of them forms a strong connection with each other and the landscape. I found reading this an almost meditative experience, because it’s so slow and calm. The ending came suddenly and was a shock.
Published by Granta 7th March 2025
Meet the Author
Carys Davies’s debut novel West (2018) was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, runner up for the Society of Authors’ McKitterick Prize, and winner of the Wales Book of the Year for Fiction. Her second novel The Mission House was first published in the UK in 2020 where it was The Sunday Times 2020 Novel of the Year.
She is also the author of two collections of short stories, Some New Ambush and The Redemption of Galen Pike, which won the 2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the 2015 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She is the recipient of the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Prize, the Society of Authors’ Olive Cook Short Story Award, a Northern Writers’ Award, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, and is a member of the Folio Academy. Her fiction has been translated into nine languages.
Born in Wales, she grew up there and in the Midlands, lived and worked for twelve years in New York and Chicago, and now lives in Edinburgh.
Paris 1933. Four people’s lives are dramatically torn apart by a single terrifying event. Two days before Christmas the express train to Strasbourg crashes into a local train in the winter darkness outside Paris. On board is Gilles Malroux, a man with a shady past and a strong reason to avoid the police. In the mayhem of the crash he is badly injured but to avoid capture by the police he swaps identity papers with one of the other victims of the impact. Gilles tries to flee in the dark but finds himself taken to the house of a woman he doesn’t know but who calls him Davide. She nurses him. But is the bitter medicine in the spoon she puts to his lips healing him or harming him?
Camille Malroux is Gilles’ sister. She works for the French Civil Service and is trying to climb the ladder of respectability after a childhood in poverty. When she is informed by police that her brother is seriously injured in hospital, she rushes to his bedside, only to discover it is not Gilles. It is a heavily bandaged stranger. He is unconscious and has her brother’s identity papers in his locker. Only by digging to discover the true identity of the bandaged man in the hospital bed can she hope to trace Gilles. But Gilles is sinking into further danger. He is drugged. A priest and a doctor hover over him, as if waiting for him to die, and constantly the woman who calls him Davide is at his side. What is it she wants from him?
This was an interesting read that poses the question – if you had the opportunity to disappear, would you? It made me think of the reports of people who potentially disappeared on 9/11, starting a new life somewhere while their loved ones assumed they’ve been lost as the World Trade Centre collapsed. Take that idea back to 1933 and Gilles Malraux does exactly that, swapping identity papers with another passenger to avoid being picked up by the police. His decision leaves him vulnerable though, not just because of where he ends up, but because now his family have no way of tracing him. His sister Camille is horrified to hear the news about her brother’s accident, but is frantic when she gets to the hospital and finds the man with her brother’s papers isn’t Gilles. How will she find him? Camille is an incredibly resourceful woman, deciding to undertake the investigation herself and starting with the identity of the bandaged man. This is slow, painstaking stuff, but she comes across a conspiracy to steal Egyptian treasures. She knows she’s in great danger but keeps going to find Gilles, I was impressed with her courage and tenacity. She’d be an incredible field agent, using all her skills to root out the truth. Slowly, tension starts to build as she gets nearer to her brother, but could she be too late, especially if the woman looking after him might not have his best interests at heart.
I thought the themes of trauma and identity were really well explored, with the train crash central to them both. The backdrop of Christmas really heightened to trauma of the accident. This crash is a once in a lifetime event that divides lives into a definite before and after. Events like this make people evaluate their lives. It can reconfirm that you’re in the right place or just as easily blow your life apart. It also shows us our limits and boundaries. Gilles is willing to take risks and morally questionable choices to survive. Camille faces a tougher choice, she has built up a reputation as a responsible member of the civil service after a childhood that was difficult and affected by poverty. What if she is faced with potentially compromising choices in her search? How much of her respectability is she willing to risk to find Gilles? I found myself rooting for Camille and completely drawn into the story from the outset. It had suspense, incredible historic detail and on the basis of this novel I’m definitely going back to read more of Kate’s work in the future.
Out Now from Hodder & Stoughton
Meet the Author
Kate Furnivall didn’t set out to be a writer. It sort of grabbed her by the throat when she discovered the story of her grandmother – a White Russian refugee who fled from the Bolsheviks down into China. That extraordinary tale inspired her first book, THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE. From then on, she was hooked.
Kate is the author of ten novels, including THE SURVIVORS, THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE, THE LIBERATION and THE BETRAYAL. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages and have been on the Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller lists.
As many readers know, I’m very partial to historical fiction, especially if it’s telling me a story I didn’t know or following characters who are largely erased from our impressions of the time period: Sarah Waters brings us lesbian characters in the Victorian period; Patrick Gale narrates the journey of an Edwardian husband and father who is gay in A Place Called Winter; Michael Faber brings to life a Victorian prostitute with a skin disease in The Crimson Petal and the White. I’ve enjoyed some incredible stories of the world wars and Holocaust, slavery, and migration. These are some of the most harrowing historical events to choose and it’s no wonder they win awards. They totally engage the emotions and carry you along with them. However, sometimes you want to scratch your historic fiction itch, but want something fun, to feel uplifted. So where do you go? Here are a few ideas you might enjoy.
This wonderfully enjoyable series from A.J.Pearce starts during London’s blitz and is filled with warmth, wit and heartbreak. The first is Dear Mrs Bird, a wartime story about the power of friendship, the kindness of strangers and the courage of ordinary people.
London, 1941. Amid the falling bombs Emmeline Lake dreams of becoming a fearless Lady War Correspondent. Unfortunately, Emmy instead finds herself employed as a typist for the terrifying Henrietta Bird, the renowned agony aunt at Woman’s Friend magazine. Mrs Bird refuses to read, let alone answer, letters containing any form of ‘Unpleasantness’, and definitely not letters from the women the war has left lovelorn, grief-stricken or conflicted. But the thought of these desperate women waiting for an answer becomes impossible for Emmy to ignore. She decides she simply must help and secretly starts to write back – after all, what harm could that possibly do?
Her story is then continued over two more novels, based at the same magazine. Emmeline always has an obstacle to overcome, but she’s plucky and optimistic despite everything that’s happening around her. This doesn’t mean that the war is ignored. Emmeline is always caught between the magazine’s aesthetic and what’s happening in the real world. Some of the magazine owner’s want to keep the pre-war feel of a magazine for upper class ladies. Emmeline knows the world has changed, women’s lives are very different and there’s so much more to write about than hunt balls and the latest fashions. So with Emmeline taking letters from their readers we see more of the real picture for women; parenting alone or sending your child to the countryside as an evacuee; trying to juggle war work and child care; bereavement and loss. These are big issues, so they are discussed and experienced by the women Emmeline knows. Yet the author still manages to make them cheery and the uplifting feeling we get is from real women supporting each other and pushing for social change.
In July 2025, a fourth in the series will be published by Picador. It’s July 1944 and Emmy Lake’s career is soaring: Woman’s Friend magazine is a huge success, and she is finally realizing her dream of becoming a female war correspondent. On the personal front, Emmy’s husband Charles has been posted closer to home, and they and their friends Bunty and Harold have escaped to the countryside for a few precious summer days. They all know how lucky they are. But after nearly five years of war, the nation is struggling. The “Yours Cheerfully” advice column receives more letters than ever, and even though it looks like the war might finally be over by Christmas, the situation is far from resolved. For Emmy and her team, it’s all about pulling together and pushing on. But then disaster strikes. Soon Emmy finds herself facing her greatest battle yet. Now she needs her friends more than ever . . .
Endearing, engaging, and full of heart, Dear Miss Lake is a testament to the power of friendship in the hardest of times.
I must admit to being astonished that the 1960’s/70’s are now classed as historical fiction, but here we are. I have to be reminded that it’s 60 years ago and as someone who’s now over 50 this was my childhood. Anyway I fell absolutely in love with these wonderful books about Evie Epworth and I know I’ll be re-reading them when I need a boost. Evie is an absolute delight and we first meet her in the summer after her exams and her plans are no more structured than helping her dad deliver their cow’s milk and reading. This is rural Yorkshire in 1962 and life so far has been filled with schoolwork, Girl Guides, milking, lacrosse, village fetes and baking with her elderly neighbour. She did also lose her mother and misses her every day. She wants to be left to her dreams of becoming like her idols – Charlotte Brontë, Shirley MacLaine and the Queen – and to live a glamorous life in London, or Leeds would do. She wasn’t banking on her Dad’s girlfriend Christine. A money-grabbing, manipulative and tasteless schemer who starts to move in and make changes. She wants to upgrade the farmhouse kitchen to Formica and put Evie to work in the village salon, surrounded by shampoos, sets and blue rinses. How can Evie rescue her future from Christine’s over-perfumed clutches? Luckily people come into her life who might be able to help and with a dollop of Yorkshire magic she might succeed.
In the second novel. All About Evie, takes us forward to 1972. Evie is settled in London working for the BBC. She has everything she’s ever dreamed of (a career, a leatherette briefcase, an Ossie Clark poncho) but, following an unfortunate incident involving Princess Anne and a Hornsea Pottery mug, she finds herself having to rethink her life and piece together work, love, grief and multiple pairs of cork-soled platform sandals. This is a brilliant follow up where Evie has to sail the choppy waters of her twenties, following her dreams and finding they’re not as easy as they seemed. She’s soon trying different occupations, all in her inimitable Evie way, with a wonderful side order of romance and a trip back to Yorkshire of course. These novels are so tender and genuinely moving, but are also witty, inventive and incredibly funny. I don’t know how Matson inhabits the soul of this teenage girl, but he does it beautifully. She’s brimming with life force and sound Northern reason. I think you’ll absolutely love her.
Celebrating the publication of Evie Epworth with Cow Cakes.
Other Uplifting Historical Fiction
I loved this story set in New York, 1979. It is Thanksgiving and Evelina has her close family and beloved friends gathered around, her heart weighted with gratitude for what she has and regret for what she has given up. She has lived in America for over thirty years, but she is still Italian in her soul.
Northern Italy, 1934. Evelina leads a sheltered life with her parents and siblings in a villa of fading grandeur. When her elder sister Benedetta marries a banker, to suit her father’s wishes rather than her own, Evelina swears that she will never marry out of duty. She knows nothing of romantic love, but when she meets Ezra, son of the local dressmaker, her heart recognises it like an old friend.
Evelina wants these carefree days to last forever. She wants to bask in sunshine, beauty and love and pay no heed to the grey clouds gathering on the horizon. But nothing lasts forever. The shadows of war are darkening over Europe and precious lives are under threat. This is a beautifully moving story, but it feels like a hug in book form. I could literally disappear into it and escape into Evelina’s life that tells you all you need to know about love.
It is England, 1932, and the country is in the grip of the Great Depression. To lift the spirits of the nation, Stella Douglas is tasked with writing a history of food in England. It’s to be quintessentially English and will remind English housewives of the old ways, and English men of the glory of their country. The only problem is –much of English food is really from, well, elsewhere . . .
Good taste is in the eye of the beholder…
So, Stella sets about unearthing recipes from all corners of the country, in the hope of finding a hidden culinary gem. But what she discovers is rissoles, gravy, stewed prunes and lots of oatcakes. Longing for something more thrilling, she heads off to speak to the nation’s housewives. But when her car breaks down and the dashing and charismatic Freddie springs to her rescue, she is led in a very different direction. Full of wit and vim, Good Taste is a story of discovery, of English nostalgia, change and challenge, and one woman’s desire to make her own way as a modern woman. This was a lovely nostalgic read and I’m so looking forward to new novel The Best of Intentions coming in summer this year.
This is a twenty year old novel from Adriana Trigiani based around Lucia Sartori, the beautiful twenty-five-year-old daughter of a fine Italian immigrant family in Greenwich Village, New York. Set in 1950, Lucia becomes an apprentice for a made-to-wear clothing designer at a chic department store on Fifth Avenue. Though she is sought after as a potential wife by the best Italian families, Lucia stays her course and works hard, determined to have a career. She juggles the roles of dutiful daughter and ambitious working girl perfectly. When a handsome stranger comes to the story and catches her eye, it is love at first sight for both of them. In order to win Lucia’s hand, he must first win over her traditional family and make the proper offer of marriage. Their love affair takes an unexpected turn as secrets are revealed, Lucia’s family honour is tested, and her own reputation becomes the centre of a sizzling scandal. Set in a time of possibility and change for women in America, in a city that celebrates its energy with style and elegance, LUCIA, LUCIA is the story of a girl who risks everything for the belief that a woman could – and should – be able to have it all. There’s definitely a melancholic feeling here, falling into nostalgia over choices that she could have made and we see the result of those choices in her older years. However, I find it life-affirming and comforting.
I was immediately attracted to this book because of it’s themes of trauma and recovery, something I have personal and professional experience with. This is an ultimately uplifting story of healing that was the perfect antidote to the current news cycle and being pretty much housebound due to illness. The story is set on a well-being retreat and follows one loner, two secrets and three weeks at Pinewoods Retreat. When Holly Bush (yes, that’s her name ) is made redundant with gardening leave, after suffering a brutal attack. She decides to visit a retreat not far from home, finding friendship and a garden in need of love. She ends up doing literal gardening leave and journals her way through the holiday, working on both her mental and physical scars as well as discovering an inner strength and resilience.
I’d been looking forward to reading this, but the TBR and my health got in the way. Although, perhaps this was the perfect time to read it. Zoe is open about her own journey with mental health and it’s something that will resonate with a lot of people. I bonded with Holly very quickly and was rooting for immediately. I thought all of the characters were very real and the owners of the retreat, Dee and Lorraine, were incredibly authentic and seemed to truly care about their residents. They reminded me of people I’ve worked with and thank goodness for people like this! The other residents were an interesting mix and I loved watching Holly’s relationship with Bex, Ruth and San grow into friendship and mutual support. They all felt honest and real. Hunter, the odd-job guy, was a bit of a fox and almost made me want to pick up a trowel and get planting. I loved the journaling aspects of the retreat, because it’s something I’ve taught for some time in mental health settings and for people with acquired disabilities. It makes such a difference to people’s wellbeing and their acceptance of a huge life change. I loved facilitating these sessions and being unable to work at the moment it was lovely to be back in that atmosphere.
The story is moving and there are sad parts, these are people who are healing and they need to process their trauma in order to move on. There are characters who don’t behave very well, but they’re on their own healing journey and it really isn’t easy. I found it moving as people let go of all the fear, anger and frustration they were feeling. There’s something so beautiful about seeing someone blossom this way and the garden was obviously a great metaphor for that. It’s why I chose the lotus flower as my logo for counselling because of the quote about it growing from a muddy pod; beautiful and strong. There was just so much hope for the future, not to mention the enduring friendships that are made. I think Zoe captured the sense of peace that comes from being your authentic self. While there is a hint of romance, I loved the way it was kept in the background, with the friendship and trust between Holly and the new allies being the most important part. This is a great debut, creating a place of healing that readers could easily be inspired by. It’s not just a enjoyable story, I think a lot of people will identify with it and perhaps start their own recovery journey. It’s a book that will stay in my uplifting reads for those grey days when I need comfort from what I’m reading.
Out now from UCLan Publishing
Meet the Author
Zoë Richards was inspired to write Garden of Her Heart by being a suicide survivor from which she learned the healing that worked best for her, which is not the same for everyone. Dog walks around the Formby pinewoods, not far from her home, gave her the location, in an area known locally as The Lost Resort, a town that never came into existence, close to the sea. In the woods there is a sole Victorian house, standing alone on a cinder track, and this is the inspiration for the location of Pinewoods Retreat. She lives in Southport, near Liverpool, has been married to Rob for 34 years, and they have a grown-up daughter and a cockapoo who will never grow up. She worked for the NHS as an improvement programme manager, reforming how children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities are supported in healthcare. Writing gives her an escape from the intensity of work and from caring for her elderly mother.
Zoë is an author and host of the podcast, Write, Damn It!. She has written for national magazines for many years. She is represented by Clare Coombes of The Liverpool Literary Agency and her debut novel, Garden of Her Heart, a novel about recovery, community and purpose, was published by UCLan Publishing in June 2024. Her second novel, Tell It To The Bees is a standalone sequel, and is out in August 2025.
With over 30 years of experience of working on mindset, and a teacher of coaching for over 25 years, Zoë hosts the Write, Damn It! podcast, where she has weekly conversations with authors, and offers doses of support to writers. She also coaches writers to overcome their demons and blocks, and helps them get the writing done. Much of what she uses on mindset comes from lived experience, as she is a suicide survivor who learned how to get through the darkest times using mindset and wellbeing support.
Zoë lives on the Merseyside coast with her husband and MillyMoo the cockapoo. She has an adult daughter and a granddaughter – and best not forget Peanut the grandpup too.
When I first read The Giver of Stars I felt it was a totally different type of Jojo Moyes novel. Using the historical setting of the Great Depression, she takes us to a town in rural Kentucky., where most people work in the Van Cleeve family’s mines and levels of rural poverty are high. In Kentucky, African-Americans are still subject to segregation and middle class women are expected to stay home and know their place. Women in poorer families are working hard while trying their best to feed and look after ever-growing families. Into this setting comes Alice, the English bride of the heir to the mining fortune, Bennet Van Cleeve. Bennet is handsome and considerate, and their marriage seems to start well but once they reach the family home things change. Bennet has lived with his father, following the death of his mother and the house is still being run to her exacting standards. Alice finds she has little to do, with a house is full of her late mother-in-laws ornaments and china dolls, especially since Mr Van Cleeve doesn’t like anything to be out of it’s normal place. More worrying is the change in Bennet now they are home. Despite showing some desire at the beginning, the proximity to his father is affecting their sex life. Several months down the line their marriage is still unconsummated and Mr Van Cleeve keeps hinting about grandchildren, adding to the pressure.
When a town meeting is called to discuss President Roosevelt’s initiative to get the rural poor reading, Alice senses an outlet for her energy. Margery O’Hare will head up the initiative, a wonderfully outspoken and self-sufficient women who doesn’t listen to the opinion of anyone else, particularly men. She opens a door for Alice, out of the claustrophobic Van Cleeve household and into the wild forests of Kentucky. Alice learns to ride a mule, and along with Margery and two other local women she sets out as a librarian for the Packhorse Library. At first, rural locals are suspicious of an Englishwoman coming to the door offering them books, but soon Alice finds a way in and starts to be trusted. She also finds she likes the open air, the smells of the forest and singing of the birds. There is also the freedom to be in more casual dress and the camaraderie she is building up with her fellow librarians. She is close to Margery and when she confides about her marriage, Margery loans her a book she has been sneaking out with the novels and recipes. It is an instruction book on married love and Margery has been loaning it to poor women on her rounds who are inundated with children and need educating about sex. Alice takes the book home and a series of events are set in motion that will change not only the Van Cleeve household, but the whole town.
Mr Van Cleeve is determined to deal with Margery O’Hare once and for all, as he vows to destroy the Packhorse Library altogether. Margery is sure that a devastating flood had more behind it than high rainfall and suspects the mines. She has left herself vulnerable though, with what Van Cleeve sees as transgressive behaviour: she is exposed as having a relationship out of wedlock, she has hired an African-American woman who used to run the coloured library and she is encouraging townswomen to take control of their own lives. She seems impervious to other people’s disapproval so what lengths will he have to go to in order to stop her?
This was a beautifully written book and was on holiday when reading. I encouraged my other half to go fishing so I could stay in the holiday cottage to read it. It is so well researched, with real and authentic characters I fell in love with. Moyes manages to capture the tensions and societal changes of the Depression, depicting rural poverty, domestic abuse, and the rise of feminine power. We can see new attitudes towards race and feminism particularly where marriage and sex are concerned. Progressive attitudes come up against old money and old values in a tragic way. It was interesting to re-read it with the backdrop of Trump’s America where such traditional values are being forced on women in many states. I found myself desperate for the progressive characters and attitudes to prevail and it was this that built the tension and kept me reading till 2am! This was real, romantic and simply great storytelling. It’s an absolute must read and one of her best novels to date.
The Lotus Readers 