Author: thelotusreaders

Hello, I am Hayley and I run Lotus Writing Therapy and The Lotus Readers blog. I am a counsellor, workshop facilitator and avid reader.
Posted in Random Things Tours

The Cut-Up by Louise Welsh 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

It’s hard to be good when living is expensive. And times are tough on the streets these days. Luckily for Rilke at Bowery Auctions the demand for no-questions-asked cash is at an all-time high, and business is booming. 

When Rilke hears his old acquaintance Les is fresh out of prison, his inclination is to stay well out of his way. Letting sleeping dogs lie is one thing – but when one of Bowery’s customers winds up dead on their tarmac, Rilke needs a bit of help from his friends to tidy things up. If only his friends didn’t have such a habit of making things worse.

This is such a brief synopsis for a novel that’s full of character, atmosphere and set in one of the best cities I’ve ever spent time in. The novel is book-ended with someone coming out of prison and this is the world that valuer and auctioneer Rilke operates in. This is a world of second hand goods, murky dealers and eccentric characters who love collecting. Bowery Auctions is run by Rose Bowery and Rilke is part of the furniture. When one of their regulars, the creepy and questionable Manderson, is killed on the premises it’s only 24 hours till their next auction. In fact Manderson has been stabbed in the eye with one of the antique hat pins they had out for the viewing afternoon. An Edwardian amethyst pin would have had to make its way through a huge hat and into a woman’s long, piled up hair, to keep it secure. Now it’s made its way through Manderson’s eye into his brain and it’s going to take a lot of strength to remove it. Knowing the police will be involved and that Bowery’s will be implicated, perhaps it would be better if it wasn’t obvious that he’s been killed with one of their auction lots. Things get worse when a gangster turns up at Bowery Auctions with Rilke’s mate Les in tow. Ray has a way with a razor and he focuses Rilke with a swipe to Les’s face, he must now investigate who killed Manderson in just ten days or Les will pay the consequences. His investigations will take him to an old school where many ex-pupils have reported sexual abuse, to a brothel named after a questionable film and a girl called Chloe who may or may not be controlled by her boyfriend, Dickie Bird. Will he find the answers that will save Les? More to the point, are the answers to be found outside Glasgow or a lot closer to home?

The plot takes a few winding roads but we never forget that Rilke has a time scale for this investigation and he knows that a man like Ray isn’t joking. His best friend Les’s life is in his hands and the pressure and danger builds as we go along. I enjoyed the characters in this novel and I did grow to love them. I have to say thank you to the author here because one of my best friends was an antique dealer so I spent a lot of time visiting auctions and antique fairs with him. He also had an alcoholic cleaner and an ex-prisoner doing his garden. He died eight years ago and I’ve missed that part of my world. It is a world where any eccentric, misfit or miscreant can find a home and for the duration of the novel I was back there with Nigel, in his customary smoking jacket adorned with vintage brooches. So I wasn’t surprised to find characters like Manderson, Les and Rilke rubbing shoulders. Rilke’s vintage style was perfect and he struck me as a decent man who can’t get out of the circle he frequents. He’s also a deeply loyal man, especially to his newly released friend Les. I have to admit to falling in love with Les. I knew I’d love him as soon as he emerged from the Arlington Baths after a stretch in prison wearing ‘ a black kilt, tartan Doc Martens and a t-shirt bearing the slogan Get Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries.’ He’s an absolute imp, a mischief and so impulsive that he makes very bad choices. The author brings humour in with this character so when he’s in genuine danger from gangster Ray it hits even harder. It’s no surprise when Rilke immediately takes on Ray’s ultimatum in order to save him, but Rilke’s also thinking about getting the police out of Bowery Auctions and away from where Manderson was killed. The female crew aren’t remotely bothered that he’s met a sticky end, in fact one of the younger girls describes him as ‘handsy’ – an old man who wears trainers because he doesn’t want to be heard creeping up on them. So far, apart from Ray, nobody seems to missing him. 

The city of Glasgow is the main character in the book and I loved seeing the underbelly of a place I’ve only visited as a tourist over several years. The author builds the history of the city beautifully, until we get a sense of it as a multi-layered place, where we only see the tip of the iceberg when it comes to it’s residents: 

“The earliest sections of Glasgow’s West End, built on the site of old mines and quarries, for city merchants who had grown rich on the products of Caribbean plantations and compensation for freeing enslaved people who received no reward”. 

It’s a city that doesn’t hide it’s darker corners and it is sobering to think that the beautiful Georgian buildings in the best parts of the city could only be so grand due to these inflated profits and the subjugation of African people. There are dark and forbidding areas, pubs where you watch your step and streets where the old mines underneath threaten to drag buildings back into the depths. However, the creepiest setting has to be found on an investigative trip outside Glasgow to the site of an isolated school. Rilke makes the journey with a journalist who has been investigating the history of the school and ex-pupils claims of sexual abuse. It’s abandoned, but with evidence left behind of its original purpose. It reminded me of those videos found online of urban explorers in abandoned hospitals. It’s clearly been a hell for these pupils at the mercy of sadistic staff, but what Rilke needs to know is whether it’s linked to what happened to Manderson. Here the author brings in modern concerns around women using Only Fans and other internet sex work to make ends meet. Can it ever be a feminist thing? There are also issues around coercive control and manipulation, but as Rilke learns it’s easy to get the wrong end of the stick. There’s a familiar jaded feeling around these issues and a knowledge that no matter what’s brought to light, some people will always get away with it. 

The author absolutely captures the grubbiness of a sale room’s viewing day. Sale rooms are invariably freezing cold, filled with weird and wonderful items and often very dusty. I often came away from rifling through boxes with absolutely black hands. On sale day I’d wear thermals, a solid overcoat and gloves. There are people of every class too, from those who look like they’re homeless to fur coated women. I definitely felt that mix in the book and the little mentions of particular artists and makers made it authentic. Both Rilke and his boss Rose Bowery notice people’s interiors, often bringing humour into very dangerous situations. I loved Rose’s opinion of a particular setting and it’s purpose: 

‘Rose looked […] then realisation dawned. The low lighting, the plush carpet, satin upholstery and Japanese prints. “Ah, I thought you just had ghastly taste”. 

It’s also Rose who comments that everyone at Bowery’s is so familiar with employee Ina’s womb it should have its own Facebook page. Each character’s language is peppered with Scottish turns of phrase, such as ‘he was a sleekit wee liar as a laddie’. This just adds to all the other layers to convince me I was in a real world. I felt that if I took another trip to Glasgow I’d be able to walk in to Bowery auctions and see Rilke in his Crombie. Now, I can’t wait to read the others in the series.

Meet the Author

Louise Welsh is an award-winning author of ten novels. The Cutting Room, her debut novel, won the Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award and the Saltire First Book of The Year Award. In 2018, she was named the Most Inspiring Saltire First Book Award winner by public vote. She is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. In 2022 she published The Second Cut, which was shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland McIlvanney Prize for Crime Book of the Year and named by The Times as their Crime Book of the Year.

Posted in Ten on Tuesday

Ten on Tuesday: Ten From My Personal TBR

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Every bookblogger works differently and most are probably a lot more organised than I am. I have books I’m looking forward to for a given year, from series or authors I follow religiously or books I’ve seen as debuts from publishers. Inevitably though there will always be others that creep in along the way, such as the blog tour you agree to as a favour, or a group read along or something that a publisher or PR offers you and sounds intriguing. Aside from all of these there are those books that just turn up, sent by publishers and authors in the hope I can fit them in. Any book that comes in goes on my TBR list in my reading journal and I tick them off as I go. The same goes for NetGalley reads, which often have to take a back seat for a while and then I have a quick blitz to get my reading percentage up a bit. Then there are the books I buy and sadly they often take last place. These books occupy a book shelf in the corner of the sitting room, totally separate from books I’ve been sent to review. This pile just doesn’t get priority, especially when there’s a really busy month. They languish on the shelf – and three piles on the floor if I’m being honest – and get read while I’m on holiday or taking a break from the blog. I often still review them, but usually they’re so behind they end up featuring on my Throwback Thursdays. Today I thought I’d share a flavour of what’s on my ‘bought books’ TBR. They come from many sources, independent bookshops, second hand bookshops, Bookshop.org and Amazon or even Vinted these days. I hope you enjoy a delve into my bookshelf.

Getting Away by Kate Sawyer

Margaret Smith is at the beach.

It is a summer day unlike any other Margaret has ever known.

The Smith family have left the town where they live and work and go to school and come to a place where the sky is blue, the sand is white, and the sound of the sea surrounds them. An ordinary family discovering the joy of getting away for the first time.

Over the course of the coming decades, they will be transformed through their holiday experiences, each new destination a backdrop as the family grows and changes, love stories begin and end — and secrets are revealed. The author takes us through eight years of holidays from British beaches, to Spanish getaways and a trip to New York, but this more than a postcard. It charts the highs and lows of a family and there’s nothing like complex family dynamics for me. I love Kate’s writing so I must make time for this one.

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

This novel gets such a great write up online and the synopsis is incredible.

Everyone in the village said nothing good would come of Gabriel’s return. And as Beth looks at the man she loves on trial for murder, she can’t help thinking they were right. 

Beth was seventeen when she first met Gabriel. Over that heady, intense summer, he made her think and feel and see differently. She thought it was the start of her great love story. When Gabriel left to become the person his mother expected him to be, she was broken. 

It was Frank who picked up the pieces and together they built a home very different from the one she’d imagined with Gabriel. Watching her husband and son, she remembered feeling so sure that, after everything, this was the life she was supposed to be leading. 

But when Gabriel comes back, all Beth’s certainty about who she is and what she wants crumbles. Even after ten years, their connection is instant. She knows it’s wrong and she knows people could get hurt. But how can she resist a second chance at first love? 

A love story with the pulse of a thriller, Broken Country is a heart-pounding novel of impossible choices and devastating consequences.

Wow! That’s quite a summary. I am told by other bloggers I will be ‘broken’ or ‘ruined‘ by the end of this and yet I still want to read it.

The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow

A lady-knight whose legend built a nation meets a retiring historian in awe of her fame. He’s sent back through time to make sure she plays her part . . . even if it breaks his heart.

Sir Una Everlasting was Dominion’s greatest hero: the orphaned girl who became a knight, who died for queen and country. Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children’s books and recruiting posters – but her life as it truly happened has been forgotten.

Centuries later, Owen Mallory – failed soldier, struggling scholar – falls in love with the tale of Una Everlasting. Her story takes him to war, to the archives, and then into the past itself. Una and Owen are tangled together in time, bound to retell the same story over and over again, no matter what it costs. But that story always ends the same way.

If they want to rewrite Una’s legend, and finally tell a different story, they’ll have to rewrite history itself – and change their lives in the process . . . So, this sounds a bit of an odd one for me. I’m always saying I don’t read a lot of fantasy and I don’t, but I love Alix Harrow’s writing, ever since her first novel Ten Thousand Doors of January. This would take me into the realms of romantasy for the first time (thanks Zoe for explaining it to me) but I’m here for it.

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches’: that was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva – stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.

In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.

Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.

I LOVE a witch story. I blame Practical Magic. So I’m dying to read the author’s take on witching, especially if it has the same horror vibes as her other novels.

All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert

In 2000, Elizabeth Gilbert met Rayya. They became friends, then best friends, then inseparable. When tragedy entered their lives, the truth was finally laid bare: the two were in love. They were also a pair of addicts, on a collision course toward catastrophe.

What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? What if the dear friend who taught you so much about your self-destructive tendencies became the unstable partner with whom you disastrously reenacted every one of them? And what if your most devastating heartbreak opened a pathway to your greatest awakening?

All the Way to the River is a landmark memoir that will resonate with anyone who has ever been captive to love – or to any other passion, substance or craving – and who yearns, at long last, for liberation.

I hear a lot of criticism of Elizabeth Gilbert but most of it tends to revolve around concerns that she’s mining her life for her writing. That’s what memoir is. I love complicated people and I don’t need to like a writer to enjoy their memoirs, especially if they have a lot of insight and clarity about their own struggles. I’m looking forward to seeing where Liz is now, after Eat, Pray, Love’s rather hopeful ending I know a lot has changed.

Our Beautiful Mess by Adele Parks

Connie can’t wait to have her daughters back home for the holidays. Fran is bringing a new boyfriend to stay, and the empty nest will once again be full of friends, family and young love.

Yet from the moment she sees Zac, Connie knows trouble is coming. Zac reminds her of the worst mistake she has ever made: a man whose charm and good looks nearly destroyed her marriage. She doesn’t want him in Fran’s world, but then Fran announces she’s pregnant.

Connie is terrified that her past is going to threaten her family’s future, but there’s a greater menace looming. She’s not the only one who has something to hide. Someone in the house has another devastating secret. A deception which will put everyone Connie loves in shocking danger, and one of them will pay the ultimate price.

I place Adele Parks in the same category as Louise Candlish and Lisa Jewell, in that I absolutely devour their books. Usually I can read them so quickly that they’re easy to fit between my other reads so I don’t know how this ended up in the unread pile. Now hopefully I’ll have time to read it.

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

1957, the suburbs of south east London. Jean Swinney is a journalist on a local paper, trapped in a life of duty and disappointment from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. As the investigation turns her quiet life inside out, Jean is suddenly given an unexpected chance at friendship, love and – possibly – happiness.

I was first recommended this book about three years ago and I see it constantly on bloggers favourite lists so I’m determined to get it read this year. It sounds so unusual and hopeful and at the moment that’s just what I’m looking for.

The Woman in Suite 11 by Ruth Ware

The stunning mountain views. The beautiful shore of Lake Geneva. The terrified woman held in the suite belonging to the hotel’s millionaire owner.

Lo Blacklock’s all-expenses paid trip to a luxury Swiss chateau should have been the ideal return to work. But as her past catches up with her, the millionaire’s mistress demanding that Lo help her escape, and a body turning up in the room next door, forces Lo to ask how far would she go to help someone she’s not even sure she can trust… 

Having read Ruth Ware’s Woman in Cabin 10 I picked this up in a second hand bookshop in Scotland. I love the strange anonymity of hotels and the muffled quiet you get in luxury hotels. They can also be a little creepy. Again, I should be able to devour this so why haven’t I picked it up yet? Sometimes I frustrate myself!

Everything about Adeline Copplefield is a lie . . .

To the world Mrs Copplefield is the epitome of Victorian propriety: an exemplary society lady who writes a weekly column advising young ladies on how to be better wives.

Only Adeline has never been a good wife or mother; she has no claim to the Copplefield name, nor is she an English lady . . .

Now a black woman, born in Africa, who dared to pretend to be something she was not, is on trial in the English courts with all of London society baying for her blood. And she is ready to tell her story . . .

I loved Lola’s book The Attic Child so this was a ‘must-buy’ for me, I love books that write people back into their history. This has that intrigue of a secret writer who is very different to the character they’re portraying. I love the idea of subverting The Angel in the House stereotype so this one is definitely going next to the bed.

The Unrecovered by Richard Strachan

This book came out exactly one year ago this week and it has languished in the pile ever since. The money I could save!

At a Scottish manor house requisitioned as a temporary hospital during the First World War, Esther works as a volunteer nurse while dreaming of becoming a poet. With her husband and beloved father both dead, she knows that if the war ever ends she must build a very different life for herself. 

Meanwhile, on the coast beyond her new home lies Gallondean Castle, a gloomy near-ruin that has been unhappily inherited by Jacob. Jacob is already haunted by his own demons but as he uncovers details of the castle’s past, the shadows only seem to be growing darker around him. 

However it is Daniel, one of the soldiers who appears to have received only a minor, yet mysterious, injury, whose life will come to connect with both Esther and Jacob in horrifying and unexpected ways…

This was nominated for a Bloody Scotland prize and I do tend towards Scottish settings for both crime and gothic fiction. I have a feeling I’m going to love it.

So that’s ten from my personal TBR and I need to incorporate them into my reading list so they’re not languishing for another year! I’ll let you know how I get on.

Posted in Ten on Tuesday

Ten Books Inspired by Jane Eyre 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Like many English Literature students, Jane Eyre remains one of my favourite books and it has inspired writers ever since its publication in 1847. I first read it at ten years old and for me it was a romantic ghost story, read alongside the 1980s BBC series. As one of my first reads at university I could see how the novel contained aspects of everything I needed to learn on my 19th Century module: class, colonialism, morality, gender, work, women and much more. It also defies genre, with the potential to be classified as a mystery, romance, gothic fiction, Bildungsroman and historical fiction. I think this is what helps the novel endure. Its flexibility allows it to appeal to different generations for very different reasons. Each of this authors were inspired to use those multiple themes to shape a novel around Charlotte Brontẽ’s work.

My reading of the novel has definitely changed over the years. University opened up the novel for me as much more than the ghost story I’d enjoyed as a child. It brought colonialism into my mind for the first time, feminism and autonomy. It made me think more about the role of governess as a liminal figure in the household – she is an employee but doesn’t sleep or eat where the domestic staff do, she is unmarried and independent, earning her own money and making her own choices about it. I think it’s easy for a reader to identify with Jane, whether it’s the bullied and child trying to read behind the curtain or terrified by the Red Room. The girl scapegoated at school as ‘too passionate’ and a little bit defiant too. The young woman falling in love with an older man who isn’t what he seems, making decisions about whether to be in the role of mistress. All of these aspects are ripe for fictional updates and retellings. Bringing the book bang up to date there are aspects of manipulation and coercive control in Rochester’s use of Blanche Ingram and dressing up as a fortune teller to influence Jane’s thoughts. We can look at femininity through Bertha Mason, the madwoman in the attic and the comparison of Jane as everything she supposedly isn’t – modest, compliant, emotionally stable and moral. This is especially important in light of public figures like the Tate brothers who want to control how women behave and denigrate those who don’t fit their ideal. The nanny or governess has become a staple of modern thrillers because of their intimacy with the family they work for, often living in close quarters and becoming close emotionally. That is the book’s enduring appeal, that we can always look at it through the lens of today and find something new. One of my specific interests in the novel is mental health and who is in control of what constitutes instability. I’m also interested in the disability aspect of the novel and what it is about Rochester’s disabilities towards the end of the novel that brings some equality between him and Jane. Here I’ve gathered just a few of the novels that are inspired by the novel in very different ways.

Born into the oppressive, colonialist society of 1930s Jamaica, white Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent beauty and sensuality. After their marriage, however, disturbing rumours begin to circulate which poison her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is inexorably driven towards madness, and her husband into the arms of another novel’s heroine. Rhys shows us why Antoinette isn’t just the antithesis of the quiet and composed Jane Eyre. Her work evokes thoughts around female sexuality and whether sexual enjoyment or the woman’s initiation of sexual activity is what Rochester rejects in his wife. Is it really the history of madness in her family or is it the ‘Creole’ aspect of Antoinette’s heritage? Is she insane or furious about his rejection, withdrawal from and later imprisonment of her that aroused violent tendencies? This is a classic study of betrayal, a seminal work of postcolonial literature and is Jean Rhys’s brief, but beautiful masterpiece.

Jean Rhys (1894-1979) was born in Dominica. Coming to England aged 16, she drifted into various jobs before moving to Paris, where she began writing and was ‘discovered’ by Ford Madox Ford. Her novels, often portraying women as underdogs out to exploit their sexualities, were ahead of their time and only modestly successful. From 1939 (when Good Morning, Midnight was written) onwards she lived reclusively, and was largely forgotten when she made a sensational comeback with her account of Jane Eyre’s Bertha Rochester, Wide Sargasso Sea, in 1966.

He did not belong to me at all, he belonged to Rebecca. . .

Everyone knows that Maxim de Winter was obsessed with his glamorous wife – and devastated by her tragic death. So when he proposes to a shy, anxious young woman after a whirlwind meeting in the South of France, no one is more surprised than the new bride herself. But when they reach Manderley, his beautiful, isolated Cornish mansion, the second Mrs de Winter begins to realise that every inch of her new home – and everyone in it – still belongs to Rebecca.

Daphne du Maurier’s thriller has Jane Eyre in it’s DNA, especially when it comes to it’s heroines: the dark and delicious vamp Rebecca who we never see and the quiet, awkward and compliant second wife who is never named. Here though, instead of a housekeeper, we get the gothic masterpiece that is Mrs Danvers, once Rebecca’s maid and now the housekeeper of Maxim de Winter’s stately home on the Cornish coast, Manderley. Maxim has chosen this new, much younger and adoring wife without any thought as to whether she has the knowledge or the qualities to run a great house. She doesn’t even have the confidence to ‘leave it all to Danny‘ as he tells her. He has the detachment of the upper classes who are so privileged they don’t care if they’re rude, ignorant or leave the staff to pick up after them. His new wife however can’t give orders and ends up trying to fit into the routine of her predecessor only to be reminded of her at every turn. Here, the madwoman is in the attic of the mind, ever present and even more intimidating in the imagination. There is also the creepy Mrs Danvers, slowly pressuring the new bride, showing her deficiencies as a mistress to Manderley and hinting at the sexual chemistry between Rebecca and Maxim. This is an incredible update of the classic, bringing in psychological aspects from the age of Freud and an addictive suspense that culminates in that bright glow of fire in the Cornish dawn.

It is 1957. As Daphne du Maurier wanders alone through her remote mansion on the Cornish coast, she is haunted by thoughts of her failing marriage and the legendary heroine of her most famous novel, Rebecca, who now seems close at hand.Seeking distraction, she becomes fascinated by Branwell, the reprobate brother of the Brontë sisters, and begins a correspondence with the enigmatic scholar Alex Symington in which truth and fiction combine.

Meanwhile, in present day London, a lonely young woman struggles with her thesis on du Maurier and the Brontës and finds herself retreating from her distant husband into a fifty-year-old literary mystery. This is a subtle update of the themes of Jane Eyre in a time when a second wife isn’t an unusual and dealing with issues like blended families and the presence of ex-wives is an everyday occurrence. However, we have the clear Jane Eyre figure still in our PhD student, quiet and unassuming but psychologically dependent on her husband who still holds a fascination for the more colourful and bohemian poetess who was his first wife. It also delves beautifully into the psychology of Daphne Du Maurier, who sealed her journals for fifty years after her death. We now know she suffered mental abuse from her father, an actor whose fascination with younger actresses derailed his marriage and perhaps provides the blueprint for the older romantic figure of Max de Winter, an updated version of Edward Rochester. There is an incredible amount of research in this book that even goes back to the Brontë’s and the psychological genesis of their writing. The more you know about them and Daphne du Maurier, the more you will enjoy this one.

1852. When Margaret Lennox, a young widow, is offered a position as governess at Hartwood Hall, she quickly accepts, hoping this isolated country house will allow her to leave the past behind. But she soon feels there’s something odd about Hartwood: strange figures in the dark, tensions between servants and a wing of the house no one uses.

Why do the locals eye her employer, widowed Mrs Evesham, with suspicion? What is hidden in the abandoned East Wing? Who are the strangers coming and going under darkness? Hartwood Hall conceals mysteries, perhaps even danger. Margaret is certain that everyone here has something to hide, and as her own past threatens to catch up with her, she must learn to trust her instincts before it’s too late?

This is a brilliant example of the ‘gothic governess’ novel as I like to call them and brings an elements of modern preoccupations like gender and sexuality to the 19th Century novel. It begins with a du Maurier style opening of a winding drive and a forbidding house that local people like to avoid. When her charge is ill, Margaret is disturbed that locals won’t come near the hall and is more puzzled by the sudden presence of Miss Davis, a nurse who turns up at the house after hearing a child was unwell at the hall. After experiencing lights in a forbidden part of the house and seeing the unease Mrs Evesham has about people knowing their business, Margaret knows there’s a mystery here but is unsure exactly what it is. Because it’s a mystery I can’t say more, but I loved how this story unfolds and what it means for the women involved.

1867. On a dark and chilling night Eliza Caine arrives in Norfolk to take up her position as governess at Gaudlin Hall. As she makes her way across the station platform, a pair of invisible hands push her from behind into the path of an approaching train. She is only saved by the vigilance of a passing doctor.

It is the start of a journey into a world of abandoned children, unexplained occurrences and terrifying experiences which Eliza will have to overcome if she is to survive the secrets that lie within Gaudlin’s walls. This is such a gothic novel that it could almost be a parody but what saves it is Eliza herself, arguably a rather more modern governess than we would expect in 1867. curiosity, her determination and her rational analysis of her situation. Eliza is no hysterical heroine of a sensitive disposition, and her self-awareness is not just important to her handling of the mystery that surrounds Gaudlin, but also entertaining. Her independence, dry wit and forward-thinking views on certain social issues, if not necessarily likely for a woman living in the 1860s, elevate her above the average Victorian Gothic female protagonist, and her innate kindness is also an endearing counterpoint to her impressive courage. The children are also much more than the standard creepy kids of many a horror story, and the different ways in which they each deal with the challenges of their situation are fascinating and credible.

 

In a modern and twisty retelling of Jane Eyre, a young woman must question everything she thinks she knows about love, loyalty, and murder.

Jane has lost everything: job, mother, relationship, even her home. A friend calls to offer an unusual deal―a cottage above the crashing surf of Big Sur on the estate of his employer, Evan Rochester. In return, Jane will tutor his teenage daughter. She accepts.

But nothing is quite as it seems at the Rochester estate. Though he’s been accused of murdering his glamorous and troubled wife, Evan Rochester insists she drowned herself. Jane is skeptical, but she still finds herself falling for the brilliant and secretive entrepreneur and growing close to his daughter.

And yet her deepening feelings for Evan can’t disguise dark suspicions aroused when a ghostly presence repeatedly appears in the night’s mist and fog. Jane embarks on an intense search for answers and uncovers evidence that soon puts Evan’s innocence into question. She’s determined to discover what really happened that fateful night, but what will the truth cost her?

 

Meet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, fear or boyfriend.

There is another 1985, where London’s criminal gangs have moved into the lucrative literary market, and Thursday Next is on the trail of the new crime wave’s MR Big. Acheron Hades has been kidnapping certain characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom. Jane Eyre is gone. Missing.

Thursday sets out to find a way into the book to repair the damage. But solving crimes against literature isn’t easy when you also have to find time to halt the Crimean War, persuade the man you love to marry you, and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Perhaps today just isn’t going to be Thursday’s day. Join her on a truly breathtaking adventure, and find out for yourself. Fiction will never be the same again. This is such an inventive novel, part sci-fi and part detective novel with all the post-modern intertextuality you could want. Thursday is such an appealing heroine, with a detective’s flair and a keen nose for the bad guy – possibly due to her criminal father. We slip into various different worlds before finding ourselves back on that flaming roof at Thornfield Hall. Whimsical and utterly brilliant.

Uncover the secrets of Edward Fairfax Rochester, the beloved, enigmatic hero of Jane Eyre, as he tells his story for the first time in Mr Rochester, Sarah Shoemaker’s gorgeous retelling of one of the most romantic stories in literature.

On his eighth birthday, Edward is banished from his beloved Thornfield Hall to learn his place in life. His journey eventually takes him to Jamaica where, as a young man, he becomes entangled with an enticing heiress and makes a choice that will haunt him. It is only when he finally returns home and encounters one stubborn, plain, young governess, that Edward can see any chance of redemption – and love. Rich and vibrant, Edward’s evolution from tender-hearted child to Charlotte Bronte’s passionately tormented hero will completely, deliciously, and forever change how we read and remember Jane Eyre. Sarah Shoemaker takes us back to a world before Jane Eyre, using a 19th Century style in keeping with its source material. Most of the book is Edward Rochester’s early life, giving us a background that makes sense of the moody and changeable man we see in the original novel. His background is dogged by loss, including the death of his mother at an early age. We see with each loss how isolated he feels so that when he is betrayed by family into a marriage with the unknown Bertha Mason she becomes all he has, but everything he didn’t want. When Jane finally appears the stage is set for events at Thornfield but through his eyes. The tragedy is that the angel he sees before him is out of reach. Given access to his inner voice we can see how much he agonises over his feelings and whether to act, making sense of his odd hot and cold behaviour towards her. This book shines a new light on this story and is a definite must read for lovers of Jane Eyre.

What the heart desires, the house destroys…

Andromeda is a debtera – an exorcist hired to cleanse households of the Evil Eye. She would be hired, that is, if her mentor hadn’t thrown her out before she could earn her license. Now her only hope is to find a Patron – a rich, well-connected individual who will vouch for her abilities.

When a handsome heir named Magnus reaches out to hire her, she takes the job without question. Never mind that he’s rude and eccentric, that the contract comes with outlandish rules, and that the many previous debteras had quit before her. If Andromeda wants to earn a living, she has no choice. But this is a job like no other, and Magnus is hiding far more than she has been trained for. Death is the likely outcome if she stays, the reason every debtera before her quit. But leaving Magnus to live out his curse isn’t an option because, heaven help her, she’s fallen for him.

This is an unexpectedly romantic debut from Lauren Blackwood that has been both an Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon book club choice. It has beautiful imagery and its Ethiopian setting gave me background on a country mainly known for famine (especially for this child of the 1980s). The mythology is fascinating and brings an even spookier aspect to the story. This is a very loose retelling of Jane Eyre, with the emphasis on the gothic elements and reminding us what a Beauty and the Beast story this is. The romance develops a little too quickly for me, but there’s a great banter between the central characters that feels true to the original pair. It also sticks quite firmly to the premise that he is the one being rescued. An interesting addition for the Jane Eyre fan, but not a faithful retelling.

A collection of short stories celebrating Charlotte Brontë, published in the year of her bicentenary and stemming from the now immortal words from her great work Jane Eyre.

The twenty-one stories in Reader, I Married Him – one of the most celebrated lines in fiction – are inspired by Jane Eyre and shaped by its perennially fascinating themes of love, compromise and self-determination. A bohemian wedding party takes an unexpected turn for the bride and her daughter; a family trip to a Texan waterpark prompts a life-changing decision; Grace Poole defends Bertha Mason and calls the general opinion of Jane Eyre into question. Mr Rochester reveals a long-kept secret in “Reader, She Married Me”, and “The Mirror” boldly imagines Jane’s married life after the novel ends. A new mother encounters an old lover after her daily swim and inexplicably lies to him, and a fitness instructor teaches teenage boys how to handle a pit bull terrier by telling them Jane Eyre’s story.

Edited by the fantastic Tracy Chevalier, this collection brings together some of the finest and most creative voices in fiction today, to celebrate and salute the strength and lasting relevance of Charlotte Brontë’s game-changing novel and its beloved narrator.

Posted in Netgalley

The House of Fallen Sisters by Louise Hare

Posted on by thelotusreaders

A fantastic new novel from a writer who is now on my list of ‘must buy’ authors. She sets her novel in 18th Century Covent Garden, where bawdy houses are far from uncommon and while Mrs Macauley’s house isn’t a high class establishment, her girls are clean and she looks after them well. Our main character Sukey Maynard is a young black woman who has run from Mrs Macauley and finds a young man almost beaten to death in the street. He is also black and she fears he’s a runaway slave. So she finds a local doctor who is known to treat people in poverty and leaves him there, with Dr. Sharp promising to let her know how he gets on. Sadly, her altruistic act means Mrs Macauley’s security man Jakes catches up with her; in saving Jonathon’s life she has forfeited her own. As she’s dragged back to the house and a punishment in ‘the coffin’, it sets up a claustrophobic and scary atmosphere where the rules have to be obeyed. However, life at Mrs Macauley’s is more complicated than that. Sukey is anxious, having just had her first bleed. This means she is ready for work and has years of ‘debt’ owed for her keep so far. She and her equally young friend, Emmy are like family, having grown up together after the death of Sukey’s mother who was Mrs Macauley’s friend. They were prostitutes together in their younger years, along with a third woman Madame Vernier who is recently back on the London scene after years in France. After visiting Mrs Macauley, Madame Vernier learns that Sukey may be ready to work and that an auction will be held for her virginity. She promises to help, hopefully finding someone for the auction who has the means to ‘keep’ Sukey if he’s pleased with her. But why does Madame Vernier want to help? Is it in remembrance of her friend or does she have a different scheme in mind? 

The plot is fascinating with disappearing prostitutes, competing houses and Sukey desperately trying to work out who has fled of their own accord and who might have been taken by the feared ‘Piper’. When Madame Vernier secures Sukey a regular client she feels her worries are solved, but as Mrs Macauley starts to apply pressure for more than a week to week retainer will he come through for her? She dreads being thrown downstairs into the parlour for the nightly competition with the other girls for whichever drunk falls through the door. When the most vocal and experienced resident Camille goes missing from one of Madame Vernier’s parties, Sukey is determined to find out what happened to her. Weirdly she’s also sure she saw another girl missing from their neighbourhood, but working the party under a different name. There’s a mystery here and Sukey is unsure who to trust. This mystery brings an element of suspense to the story and means Sukey must grow up fast if she’s to solve it. She’s a naive girl, only just a young teenager really. She’s been protected until now by Mrs Macauley and considers Emmy her sister, so it’s a huge jolt to suddenly be deemed a woman and expected to entertain men with no experience whatsoever. Even worse must be seeing the ledger with every moment of her childhood laid out in pounds and shillings – an amount she now has to pay back. It’s no surprise that Sukey’s hopes for a ‘keeper’ are paramount and when she thinks she’s safe it leaves the other girls thinking she feels superior. 

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know this house of working women and regular readers know my love for writing marginalised people back into history. Here it was great to read about women who are not the middle or upper class characters we often encountered in historical fiction. This is the turning upside down of 19th Century fiction norms, where we might expect the book’s focus to be one of rescuing our heroine. Yes, these women are in a tough situation and it may not be the way they’ve chosen to earn a living, but there are benefits compared to service or marriage. They are cooked for, sleep till late in the morning and they don’t have the drudgery of housework. They are also free from spending their lives obeying the man of the house. They earn more for less hours of work than a domestic servant. Their hours of leisure are their own, within reason and we see Sukey become more emancipated as she meets others who are black and live in her neighbourhood. I particularly loved the bookshop owner and his son who write the famous guide to London’s prostitutes and a profitable line in erotic literature. This is a great novel where no one is quite what you think they are and our intrepid heroine has a lot to learn, very fast. I learned a huge amount about the ethnicity of London in the 18th Century and I have to say I loved how the mystery unravelled. Sukey’s choices towards the end show a huge amount of growth and a deep longing for independence. I must also mention the title, bringing to mind a very different type of house and a sisterhood of nuns. This is another fantastic novel from Louise Hare with a complex and fascinating heroine. 

Out on 12th February from HQ

Meet the Author

Louise Hare is a London-based writer and has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. Originally from Warrington, the capital is the inspiration for much of her work, including This Lovely City, which began life after a trip into the deep level shelter below Clapham Common. This Lovely City was featured on the inaugural BBC TWO TV book club show, Between the Covers, and has received multiple accolades, securing Louise’s place as an author to watch. This is her fourth novel.

Posted in Monthly Wrap Up

January 2026’s Favourite Reads

Posted on by thelotusreaders

We finally got here! The end of the twelve week month that is January and yes, I do still have mince pies in the freezer. I also had lots of books to read for January but gave myself a chance to read a few of those books that have sat on my shelves for a while and I’ll be reviewing those on my Throwback Thursdays. This month has taken me from a London hotel to Western Australia, via NYC, Nova Scotia and the South of France. What they do have in common are complex female characters with many secrets to uncover…

This book about a band taking a new direction was an unexpected pleasure and I read it with my Squad Pod pals. The Future Saints are Ripper on guitar, Kenny on drums and the explosive Hannah on guitar and vocals. Manifold Records manager Theo is sent to troubleshoot the band who’ve been struggling since the death of their old manager and Hannah’s sister Ginny. He has a remit, to get the band on track to produce at least one album and then let them go. However, when Theo walks into a bar to see them for the first time, he’s transfixed by Hannah and the new material she’s written. It’s emotional, dark and really connects with the audience. So when Hannah falls off stage mid-song and goes viral on TikTok it’s the perfect springboard for their new album. Theo is excited about this band, but just when he should be taking advantage of their viral moment he feels an instinct to protect Hannah who seems to be falling apart. You will root for this band because they’re such likeable characters and I felt their loss so strongly. There are funny moments but also a really deep psychological undertone to this novel that gives it heft. There’s also the growing chemistry between Hannah and Theo, at exactly the wrong time. This was a deeply emotional book, with the realities of the music business and the psychology of loss. A really entertaining read.

Cora is a ‘maroon’ one of a group of settled slaves from Jamaica who have signed an agreement with the English government to secure their freedom in Nova Scotia. She lives in her ‘found’ family – Leah who has been like a mother to Cora and her sister, Benjamin her niece and Silas. Cora has often felt watched when walking in the forest and comes across Agnes, a lone girl with a huge dog. Immediately they have a connection and slowly she trusts Cora enough to show her where she lives her bare and solitary existence. As the pair grow closer, Agnes shares their beautiful surroundings with Cora, showing her sights she never imagined. Can these two women build a life together with the obstacles of their sexuality, the complexities of freedom and the sheer struggle of surviving in the harsh winters of Canada? As Cora will find out, it’s easy to take one wrong step and lose your life in the wilderness. Also, one person can hide and escape more easily than two. There are secrets on both sides that will force both women to face their pasts and the truth of where they come from. This is beautifully pitched, with enough emotion, tension and a beautiful atmosphere to keep you reading. I found this moving, imaginative and historically interesting. My full review is coming in Feb with Random Things Tours.

This was a book I was catching up on over the New Year as I tried desperately to get my NetGalley backlog sorted. Of course I failed. However, I’m glad I finally had time to read this thriller from Katie Bishop whose debut novel ‘The Girls of Summer’ I enjoyed enormously. Our main character is Josie, recently released from prison and returning to her home town on the Côte d’Azure. She’s destined to stay with her brother and his girlfriend at the diving shop where they grew up. Years before Josie was jailed on the evidence of Nina Drayton, the youngest daughter of a local ‘summer’ family with a huge house on the cliffs overlooking the beach. Nina apparently told her mother that she’d seen Josie kill her older sister Tamara in the swimming pool. Coincidentally, the grown up Nina is at the family house with her husband and children trying to decide what to do with the place since her mother’s death. Haunted by that summer she has since become a psychotherapist, in the hopes of understanding her own memory. Did she see what she apparently disclosed to her mother and Blake, because she has no memory of it? As Josie tries to start anew she’s thrown of course by a True Crime channel on TikTok deciding to serialise Tamara’s death and blow it up all over again. How can she make a new start if everyone knows who she is? This is brilliantly told in two timelines and with both Nina, Josie and her friend Hannah as narrators. The tension grows as that summer is revealed slowly and the popularity as well as the sensationalism of the True Crime genre is questioned.

Kate and Vic have been married for a few years, after meeting when she was studying in Rome. After a normal morning rush at home Kate travels into London, on the pretext of doing an interview. However, she has a different destination in mind. This is an appointment she’s been keeping for several years like clockwork. Now she’s caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. She should be travelling home later this afternoon – picking up the kids from school and collecting the rabbit from the vets. Instead she’s trapped in room 706, in a luxury hotel that’s under siege by a terrorist group. How can she explain why she’s here? Even if her body is discovered in the aftermath everyone will wonder, what exactly is she doing here? She has always been very careful, leaving no trace. Now she wonders whether her husband Vic will understand why? As she tries to summon the words that convey just how much Vic and her children mean to her, Kate reflects on all the choices that brought her here. The author carefully lets the tension mount so slowly that while reminiscing over Kate’s life we almost forget where she is in the here and now. She’s a prisoner in this room and she has to be silent, so they can’t put the television on and they can’t flush a toilet. When the lights and electricity go they’re almost totally cut off from the outside world. It’s a quiet that is sometimes broken by heavy footsteps or other hotel guests meeting their fate. You’ll almost hold your breath at times. The forced intimacy means she asks questions of her lover that she’s never asked before. She knows nothing about his life, only that he’s married and has been sleeping with Kate in this way for several years. We know the terrorists are stalking the corridors, one floor at a time, but we don’t know whether they have a master key or a bomb. I realised that despite her family unit, Kate is lonely. What she wants is for someone to see and appreciate her as Kate the woman, not the mum, wife or journalist. You will be compelled to read this as I did, long into the night. It has the pitch perfect pacing and tension of a thriller, but so many psychological layers. Women will identify with Kate, at least some part of her. She very simply wants to be seen, desired and receive pleasure. As the terrorists come close enough to hear in the room next door, we know Room 706 will be next. Kate has had an opportunity to assess and understand her life, to possibly make changes and live more. You’ll have to read to the end to find out whether she gets that chance. 

My final choice this month is an older read, a big chunky novel that’s been on my shelf for a long time! I’ve always picked up Kate Morton’s novels and I don’t really know why this one has sat on my shelves for so long. I made it one of the novels to catch up on in December, when I take a break from blog tours and read what I feel like. It’s a chunky novel and it took some time to get to grips with everyone and their timelines but there’s no mistaking the power of the central image as new mum Izzy and her children are found on their picnic blanket by the creek. The man who makes the discovery assumes they’re asleep, until he sees a line of ants crawling over Matilda’s wrist. It’s such a striking image that it inspires the title of journalist Daniel Miller’s book ‘As If They Were Asleep’. The only person missing is baby Thea and it’s assumed she’s been carried away by wild dogs. The conclusion is that Izzy has poisoned herself and her children, unable to leave them behind. Back at their home, Halcyon, Izzy’s heavily pregnant sister-in-law Nora is waiting for her brother’s family to return. Possibly due to the shock and in a powerful storm, Nora gives birth to her own daughter Polly. Once she leaves for her own home, no one will ever return to Halcyon. Nora’s brother stays in the USA seemingly unable to face what happened to the woman he loved and the children whose voices once filled the house he fell in love with as soon as he saw it. Now, with Nora seriously ill in hospital, her granddaughter Jessie will be drawn into the cold case through Nora’s rambling words and Daniel’s book. What follows is a not just a complex murder case but a tale of mothers and daughters and how intergenerational trauma has an impact, even when it’s a closely guarded secret. Morton keeps the twists and turns coming right up to the end of the novel, some expected and others a complete surprise. She never leaves even the tiniest loose end and that isn’t easy when we see just how far the ripples of this tragedy spread in the community. In the midst of that Christmas and all that comes after, Izzy really has an impact with her beauty and vitality. It is unthinkable that only hours later all that sparkle is simply snuffed out. If you love Kate Morton, this has all the aspects that make her novels so popular – the family saga, the big house and the secrets kept behind closed doors. However, this had the added element of an unsolved crime giving it an addictive quality. Added to that is the length of the book, allowing the story and characters to fully develop, showing fascinating and complex psychological dynamics between each mother and daughter. I can’t believe it took me so long to finally read it.  

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Blank Canvas by Grace Murray 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Introducing an outstanding new voice in literary fiction: a sensual, sharp, and utterly compelling campus novel about grief, reinvention, and the ripple effects of telling lies

If I ever woke up with an ungodly dread ― that I could change it all now, turn around, and confess ― I ignored it. I had never been good, and there was no point in trying now.

On a small liberal arts campus in upstate New York, Charlotte begins her final year with a lie. Her father died over the summer, she says. Heart attack. Very sudden.

Charlotte had never been close with her classmates but as she repeats her tale, their expressions soften into kindness. And so she learns there are things worth lying for: attention, affection, and, as she embarks on a relationship with fellow student Katarina, even love. All she needs to do is keep control of the threads that hold her lie – and her life – together.

But six thousand miles away, alone in the grey two-up-two-down Staffordshire terrace she grew up in, her father is very much alive, watching television and drinking beer. Charlotte has always kept difficult truths at arm’s length, but his resolve to visit his distant daughter might just be the one thing she can’t control?

I found myself unsure who to like in this novel about a student on a liberal arts campus, but I became drawn in by the tangle of lies and complicated emotions around Charlotte and her relationship with Katarina. When Charlotte first sees Katarina on campus she’s not impressed and describes some aspects of her as ugly, but I thought she became fascinated by Katarina’s confidence. This stands out in the work she’s producing and her very clear sense of who she is, she also seems to make friends easily, whereas Charlotte is something of a loner. When they first meet Katarina has a lot of opinions, likening the TV show ‘Married at First Sight’ to our ancestors enjoyment of public executions. She sees no distinction between high and low forms of art. Katarina is an artist who has no trouble in taking her work seriously, whereas Charlotte is full of doubts and struggles to meet the workload. Charlotte doesn’t really know who she is: in the car she checks whether Katarina likes a song before confirming that she likes it too; she starts to dress like Katarina and notices her wardrobe has become ‘theirs’. It’s also clear that she feels different and dislocated from a sense of family, as she notices Katarina’s lock screen on her phone where she and her mother are hugging and smiling for the camera she thinks they look like ‘catalogue people, entirely unreal’. When Katarina and her friends ask about her own family she tells them family life was turbulent, she was uprooted from schools and moved around a lot. She also tells them her father died over the summer. Of course this brings sympathy and less questions, but Tamsyn mentions her misgivings to Katarina: 

“If my dad were gone […] I’d feel insane. Totally scooped out. I wouldn’t be able to chill or smile, or fuck or anything.” 

Charlotte tells Katarina that Tamsyn can’t cope with someone’s grief response being different to her own. Even though Charlotte seems attached to Katarina, she says things that suggest she’s just playing out the role of girlfriend rather than actually being present. There are things she doesn’t like about Katarina, in fact she finds some behaviours disgusting, but pushes the thoughts to the back of her mind. As she analyses how she feels she does mention that she loves her – “in a way. The only way I could”. What she has learned is that her story of her father’s sudden heart attack makes people soften towards her and treat her nicely. Although that comes with its own problems, when the following summer Katarina finds them a working stay in Italy. As they’re fed by Guilia and do the work on her smallholding she finds a sense of peace and even contentment, but she doesn’t know how to process or enjoy these positive emotions.

“There was something bottomless about being content. I knew other emotions well, sought them out. I knew how to be in them, occupy them and how to cover them up, so they looked like something else, all wrapped and packaged.” 

Her need to be so tightly controlled is being tested and there may be something else she can’t control. The father she has buried and mourned in her head has been concerned about the growing distance between him and his daughter. He could simply book an AirBnB and fly out to see her, meet her friends and have a catch up. I felt Charlotte’s tension as she tries to control her every response and remember the lies she has told before and be consistent. I was waiting for everything to collapse and found myself concerned about what that might do to her mental health. I also felt for her father, who comes across as a loving and kind man. I found myself wondering whether her lie was rooted in repressed feelings around her dad. What was she angry about and what had happened in her childhood to leave her with no sense of who she is or what she is worth? During the last third of the book we find the answers to these questions, bringing that hopefulness to the book that began to creep in during their time in Italy. Not only does Charlotte have to deal with the consequences of her lies, she must face the reasons she started to tell them in the first place. This was where I started to feel some emotion for her and I think other readers will too. When I used to work with clients, I would use the brick wall analogy. If the wall is unstable, the builder must take it back brick by brick to where the problem begins and fix it before rebuilding. That’s what Charlotte must now do and I had hopes that she would reconcile with her father, find some inspiration for her final art piece and most of all find her sense of self. 

I was impressed by the author’s depiction of Charlotte’s fragile mental state and sense of self. The novel asks all sorts of questions about what makes us who we are – is it the things we like, the people who love us, our achievements or is there a solid, innate character that determines all these things? Is our sense of who we are fixed and unchanging or is it more fluid? The background of university and Charlotte’s choice of a creative subject is interesting because we create and generate ideas that show aspects of our self and the times we live in. One of the tutors explains this by showing his students a female face that can be seen reproduced in many different ways through centuries and art movements, but it is eventually revealed to be variations on the Madonna. He tells his students that every image is the ghost of all the words and pictures that come before it and that is also true of us. The self we are today is the result of every thing, person or experience we’ve ever known, good or bad. It is only by stripping back and rebuilding, accepting all the parts of our self – even the parts or experiences we don’t like and have caused us pain – that we can be content. In that journey, Charlotte might finally be able to create something she can own and be proud of. 

Meet the Author

Grace Murray was born in 2003 and grew up in Norwich. She has recently graduated from Edinburgh University, where she read English Literature and found time to write between her studies and two part-time jobs. Her short fiction has been published in The London Magazine.


In writing Blank Canvas, Grace set out to explore themes of Catholic guilt and queer identity, clashing moral codes and lies, and the opportunity for reinvention presented by moving between countries and settings. Blank Canvas was written over the course of a year as part of WriteNow, Penguin Random House’s flagship mentorship scheme for emerging talent. Grace Murray won one of nine places on the scheme on the exceptional strength of her writing, selected from a pool of over 1,300 applicants.

Posted in Squad Pod

The Future Saints by Ashley Winstead 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

A band on the brink. A love worth playing for.

When record executive Theo meets the Future Saints, they’re bombing at a dive bar in their hometown. Since the tragic death of their manager, the band has been in a downward spiral and Theo has been dispatched to coax a new – and successful – album out of them, or else let them go.

Theo is struck right away by Hannah, the group’s impetuous lead singer, who has gone off script in debuting a new song-and, in fact, a whole new sound. Theo’s supposed to get the band back on track, but when their new music garners an even wider fan base than before, the plans begin to change-new tour, new record, new start.

But Hannah’s descent into grief has larger consequences for the group, and she’s not willing to let go yet. not for fame or love.

I wasn’t sure at first that I’d get into this novel about a rock band, but it soon grabbed hold of me and I was rooting for all of them and their new manager Theo. The book managed to be both sad and angry, but also romantic and full of hope. The Future Saints are reeling from the death of their manager Ginny who was the lead singer Hannah’s sister. The rest of the band are simply following Hannah’s lead at the moment and she’s gone off their usual track with a new sound that’s darker and more rock. Theo is known as ‘the fixer’ at Manifold Records, he is sent in when a band is struggling or going off the rails. He has one instruction from the CEO, bring in a Future Saints album, then let them go. However, fate intervenes at their first gig when Hannah debuts a deeply emotional new song and falls into the audience while being filmed. The clip goes viral and everyone is talking about the Future Saints new sound and their singer who appears to be having a meltdown. The telephone starts to ring with bookings for gigs and television, but are Hannah and the band in the best frame of mind for interviews and this kind of exposure? Theo has a difficult line to tread, between the instructions from Manifold and this whole new world opening up for a band he’s starting to care about. Perhaps he cares a little too much. 

It took me a while to connect with Hannah, she’s angry, defensive and you never quite know what she’s going to do next. Somehow the author conveys just how magnetic a presence she is on stage and the depths of emotion she has the ability to communicate. She constantly talks to Ginny, something I assumed was only happening internally but Hannah is very clear. Ginny is the only person she allows close to her, even more so since she became ‘the girl who haunts me, my own personal ghost.’ I could see she was so wrapped up in her grief, that she’s forgotten others are grieving too. Her bandmates and her parents have also lost Ginny, but Hannah can only cope with her own pain. Her bandmates are going along with the new sound and direction, especially as the album starts to take shape, and they’re committed to Hannah too but as she increasingly melts down she seems to have forgotten that her actions affect all three of them. They now affect Theo too, but where he might have come down hard on a musician in the past, when Hannah plays up he increasingly feels an urge to hug and protect her. She’s so unbelievably raw but even with therapy she struggles to articulate what she’s really feeling and why. She also hasn’t stopped to think whether her version of Ginny is accurate, or simply the Ginny she wants to see. Anyone who has lost someone will identify with Hannah’s loss and perhaps the catharsis of using her creativity to express those difficult emotions. After my husband’s death I wrote a book about my experience and it did help me process some of the trauma as well as the loss. Hannah wants to communicate what an incredible person Ginny was and everything she meant to her. This is understandable as sometimes I felt like screaming because of all the turmoil inside, especially in places where everyone else doesn’t know what happened and is just going about their everyday life. 

However, Hannah isn’t reserving this raw anger for the stage, her drinking is reaching worrying levels and she’s taking on stunts like shaving her own head at a party, egged on by Manifold Records’ CEO Roger. Through him we see the exploitative side of the music industry, because instead of looking after Hannah outside of working in the studio, he’s taking on bigger and bigger gigs and bookings from Jimmy Kimmell and SNL. He also makes sure she’s seen with the right people at parties – usually other Manifold signings he wants to promote – and encourages her destructive side. After all, a lead singer in meltdown is always going to be news, especially when they’re a woman. We learned this from Britney. Hannah isn’t strong enough to withstand this sort of pressure and Roger knows that. I didn’t trust him with the band or in his promise that he’ll make Theo director of management if the Saints deliver their album. We get a glimpse of the luxury that’s available when you’re a star in the ascendancy, but posh hotel rooms, infinity pools and champagne on private jets isn’t the way this band need looking after. Theo knows this and while I often find romantic prospects in novels rather boring, Theo is interesting and has his own conflicts that cause him to be a ‘rescuer’ of people. He longs to do well in his job, then perhaps when he meets his absent father he might be proud of him. There’s a conflict here though. He really starts to love the members of this band and desperately wants success for them, but he also wants them to be well and happy – something they’re a long way from when he finds them. If Roger comes good on his promise, could Theo walk away from the Saints and become the ‘Suit’ they tease him about? Also, realising the person you have feelings for needs help is hard, especially when you suspect the help they need will take them away from you. Can Theo prove his worth and wait?

We hear more from the rest of the band through articles and transcripts of interviews, but that doesn’t mean that Ripper and Kenny are one dimensional. Ripper is proudly one of the few South Asian guitarists on the scene and his move to lead guitar on some of their new tracks has really blown the audience away. He is interested in his Hindu roots and the philosophy around the religion, something that he also has to reconcile with coming out as bisexual. Kenny is the happy little heartbeat of the group, an incredibly skilled drummer who keeps the others on track. He is also surprising, he could have been a stereotypical flower child but he isn’t, having an interest in the philosophy of Heidegger and how it relates to music. I used Heidegger for my unfinished PHD on disability representation, because he was part of the phenomenological branch of thinking that values lived experience and being in the moment. It adds a dimension that I hadn’t expected when in one interview Kenny sums up exactly why human life is of such value and it’s because of time, our existence is finite and therefore becomes more precious. I was fascinated with the author’s depiction of therapy and the self insight Hannah has that allows her to engage with it fully and with commitment. The author pitched the novel well, flowing from the depths of grief to the terrible tension of Hannah’s eventual breakdown and Theo desperately trying to save her. What stops Hannah’s grief from being unbearable are the humorous moments of party antics, the band playing her old school and the stories of Ginny – one involving a tapir! I loved learning about Ginny through these people who loved her and had every hope that through their music the Saints would immortalise her. These moments lift the book and I did hope that the band would succeed, that Hannah would recover and laugh again, that Theo would find his path in life and perhaps that love might eventually find a way. As Kenny tells his interviewer, music is the perfect medium to express the experience of living because like life, a song is a finite thing. It’s why when the music builds and reaches a crescendo we feel euphoric and emotional, because we know it signals we’re nearing the end. 

“Her art is alive, searing, moving, brutal, honest. She represents us as we are in this moment; beleaguered by pain and exhaustion, unsure if we can save ourselves, but incapable of not trying, of not making art and meaning.” 

From a review of Hannah and the Future Saints’ performance that goes viral. 

Meet the Author

Ashley Winstead is an academic turned bestselling novelist with a Ph.D. in contemporary American literature. She lives in Houston with her husband, three cats, and beloved wine fridge.

Posted in Ten on Tuesday

Ten on Tuesday: Books About Fathers 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

 

Just Ignore Him by Alan Davies

The story of a life built on sand. In the rain.

In this compelling memoir, comedian and actor Alan Davies recalls his boyhood with vivid insight and devastating humour. Shifting between his 1970s upbringing and his life today, Davies moves poignantly from innocence to experience to the clarity of hindsight, always with a keen sense of the absurd.

From sibling dynamics, to his voiceless, misunderstood progression through school, sexuality and humiliating ‘accidents’, Davies inhabits his younger mind with spectacular accuracy, sharply evoking an era when Green Shield Stamps, Bob-a-Job week and Whizzer & Chips loomed large, a bus fare was 2p – and children had little power in the face of adult motivation. Here, there are often exquisitely tender recollections of the mother he lost at six years old, of a bereaved family struggling to find its way, and the kicks and confusion of adolescence. It also bravely relates the years after his mother’s death where he was subjected to sexual abuse by his father.

Through even the joyous and innocent memories, the pain of Davies’s lifelong grief and profound betrayal is unfiltered, searing and beautifully articulated. Just Ignore Him is not only an autobiography, it is a testament to a survivor’s resilience and courage. I’ve always loved Alan and loved his anecdotes on QI and his As Yet Untitled series. He brings the same humorous and loveable narrative voice to this fantastic memoir.

 

Remember Me by Charity Norman

They never found Leah Parata. Not a boot, not a backpack, not a turquoise beanie. After she left me that day, she vanished off the face of the earth.

A close-knit community is ripped apart by disturbing revelations that cast new light on a young woman’s disappearance twenty-five years ago.

After years of living overseas, Emily returns to New Zealand to care for her father who has dementia. As his memory fades and his guard slips, she begins to understand him for the first time – and to glimpse shattering truths about his past. I loved this wonderful story from Charity Norman, who mines the secrets and complicated emotions of family life perfectly. As Emily’s father deteriorates she learns more about his past and begins to see him as more than her father but as a man in his own right. A man who has secrets.

Are some secrets best left buried?

H Is For Hawk by Helen MacDonald 

The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life. 

An instant international bestseller and prize-winning sensation, Helen Macdonald’s story of adopting and raising a goshawk has soared into the hearts of millions of readers. This book has just been made into a film with Clare Foy doing the honours as Helen, so it’s a great time to catch this if you haven’t already read it. Fierce and feral, her goshawk Mabel’s temperament mirrors Helen’s own state of grief after her father’s death, and together raptor and human discover the pain and beauty of being alive.

H Is for Hawk is a genre-defying masterpiece on grief, memory, taming and untaming, and how it might be possible to reconcile death with life and love.

 

Us by David Nicholls

Douglas and Connie – scientist and artist, husband and wife – live a quiet and quietly unremarkable life in the suburbs of London. Until, suddenly, after more than twenty years of marriage, Connie decides she wants a divorce.

Heartbroken but determined, Douglas comes up with the perfect plan: he is going to win back the love of his wife and the respect of Albie, their teenage son, by organising the holiday of a lifetime.

The hotels are booked, the tickets bought, the itinerary planned and printed.

What could possibly go wrong?

This is one of those quietly devastating books that Nicholls excels at and we can slowly see all the reasons Connie and Douglas aren’t suited to one another. They have the type of differences we overlook in the early stages of love and through the years of having a child. Now as their son is in his last summer before university it will be just the two of them. Doug imagines them growing together across their holiday and has his itinerary neatly planned, but will Connie and Albie fit in with his plans? As always while Doug is trying to control life it is busy changing and happening all around him. I loved this story and felt deeply for Doug, whilst also understanding Albie’s anger and Connie’s need to leave.

 

Big Fish by George Wallace

Do you ever really know your father? 

Like many sons, William Bloom never really knew his father. Edward told him stories too incredible to believe about his exploits as a younger man, but any attempt to find out serious truths have been met with laughter and brush-offs. And that never mattered. But now Edward is dying, suddenly it matters a great deal. 

So William sets out to tell his father’s story, as he imagines it. He tames a giant, is dragged by an enormous fish through a lake and escapes a purgatory of lost dreams. Through legends and myths, William makes Edward into a true Big Fish. I thoroughly enjoyed this as it appealed to my love of complex relationships while also dipping into my interest in monstrous creatures, circus folk and magic realism. It felt like that way we gather round a loved one who is dying and share funny stories about their life, but in fantastical proportions! Having gone through the loss of someone close to me I can understand why we make them larger than life and how important these stories become as the years pass.

The Storied Life of AJ Fickry by Gabrielle Zevin

A.J. Fikry, the grumpy owner of Island Books, is going through a hard time: his bookshop is failing, he has lost his beloved wife, and his prized possession – a rare first edition book has been stolen. Over time, he has given up on people, and even the books in his store, instead of offering solace, are yet another reminder of a world that is changing too rapidly.

But one day A.J. finds two-year-old Maya sitting on the bookshop floor, with a note attached to her asking the owner to look after her. His life – and Maya’s – is changed forever. A.J is that curmudgeonly middle aged man who can be rude and condescending to everyone he meets, but you always suspect there’s a softer side. Maya is the catalyst for that mellowing of his character. Now he has to consider someone other than himself and he dotes on her, with a focus on making sure his little bookworm is kept busy. Maya is just so loveable and as we follow her through life it’s hard to imagine her as anything but a Fikry. I thoroughly enjoyed their father and daughter relationship but also the whole community around Island Books. We get the running of a bookshop with odd customers, book events that fail miserably and the visiting authors. It’s a simply but enchanting story that any book lover will enjoy.

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

After years spent living on the run, Samuel Hawley moves with his teenage daughter Loo to Olympus, Massachusetts. There, in his late wife’s hometown, Hawley finds work as a fisherman, while Loo struggles to fit in at school and grows curious about her mother’s mysterious death. Haunting them both are the twelve scars Hawley carries on his body, from twelve bullets in his criminal past – a past that eventually spills over into his daughter’s present, until together they must face a reckoning yet to come. Both a coming of age novel and a literary thriller, this explores what it means to be a hero, and the price we pay to protect the people we love most. There’s something really profound about this novel even though it is a simple story. It starts with Samuel teaching his daughter Loo how to shoot with his collection of firearms. They are poor and spend all their time moving from place to place until their return to Olympus where Loo’s maternal grandmother is from. Every time they they’ve moved Samuel sets up a little shrine to Loo’s mother Lily and she hopes to find out more about her. We see the two of them coping with a decision to stay in one place and how Loo starts to form her first relationships. In between we see flashbacks to Lily and Sam’s criminal past. I loved how rich in detail it is and the complex psychology of the characters too.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewicka 

Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcée. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside. Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must aside a lifetime of feuding to save their émigré engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth.

The sisters’ campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of Europe’s darkest history and sends them back to roots they’d much rather forget. Part of my reason for loving this book is how much Vera and Nadezhda’s father reminds me of my late father-in-law Aleksander who had an incredible past. He also had an engineer’s practical mindset and a hilariously tactless turn of phrase that never failed to send me into fits of the giggles – one of my favourites was offering a lady his dining chair at Easter Sunday lunch because she was on a kitchen stool and had ‘a much bigger bottom’ than him. This book is touching, covering all the frustrations of dealing with an elderly relative who will not be helped. It is also laugh out loud funny, with some of the best dialogue I’ve read.

 

A Heart that Works by Rob Delaney

I came to know Rob Delaney through the brilliant Catastrophe and I was devastated for him when he lost his son Henry. I also deeply admired the way he talked about the loss, so openly and honestly. In his memoir of loss, he grapples with the fragile miracle of life, the mysteries of death, and the question of purpose for those left behind.

Rob’s beautiful, bright, gloriously alive son Henry died. He was one when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. An experience beyond comprehension, but an experience Rob must share. Despite Henry’s death, Rob still loves people. For that reason, he wants them to understand and I found his approach inspiring. He never reached for cliches or minimised the enormity of his family’s grief, however uncomfortable that truth might be for other people. If he felt like shit about it he said so, but he also acknowledged that with other children at home life had to go on day to day. The world does not stop. His book is just as intimate, unflinching and fiercely funny – exploring his family’s experience from the harrowing illness to the vivid, bodily impact of grief and the blind, furious rage that follows, through to the forceful, unstoppable love that remains. Utterly brilliant and strangely hopeful.

 

The Good Father by Noah Hawley

Dr Paul Allen is a well-respected man. He lives a happy, comfortable life with his second wife and their family. Until the night when a knock at the door blows his world apart: a hugely popular presidential candidate has been shot, and they say the young man who pulled the trigger is Paul’s son. Daniel, is the only child from his first, failed marriage. He was always a good kid and Paul is convinced this quiet boy is not capable of murder. Overwhelmed by a vortex of feelings, Paul embarks on a mission to understand what happened and why. Following the trail of his son’s journey across America, he is forced to re-examine his life as a husband and a parent, and every decision he ever made.

What follows is a powerfully emotional and suspense-filled quest that keeps you guessing to the very end. This was a great read for my book club several years ago and brought out some very interesting viewpoints and widely different perspectives on parenting. Many of us were scathing of a father who chooses to take promotion on the other side of the US from his young son, who had to be placed on a plane alone to travel from west to east coast to visit his father. Others felt it was important for a parent to prioritise their career. It was interesting to read a book with this storyline from the perspective of a father rather than a mother and all of us enjoyed it immensely.

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Homecoming by Kate Morton 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Adelaide Hills, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, in the grounds of a grand country house, a local man makes a terrible discovery. Police are called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most mystifying murder investigations in the history of Australia.

London, 2018. Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, a phone call summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother, Nora, has suffered a fall and is seriously ill in hospital.

Seeking comfort in her past, Jess discovers a true crime book at Nora’s house chronicling a long-buried police case: the Turner Family Tragedy of 1959. And within its pages she finds a shocking personal connection to this notorious event – a crime that has never truly been solved . . .

I’ve always picked up Kate Morton’s novels and I don’t really know why this one has sat on my shelves for so long. I made it one of the novels to catch up on in December, when I take a break from blog tours and read what I feel like. It’s a chunky novel and it took some time to get to grips with everyone and their timelines but there’s no mistaking the power of the central image as new mum Izzy and her children are found on their picnic blanket by the creek. The man who makes the discovery assumes they’re asleep, until he sees a line of ants crawling over Matilda’s wrist. It’s such a striking image that it inspires the title of journalist Daniel Miller’s book ‘As If They Were Asleep’. The only person missing is baby Thea and it’s assumed she’s been carried away by wild dogs. The conclusion is that Izzy has poisoned herself and her children, in the grip of post-natal depression and unable to leave them behind. Back at their home, Halcyon, Izzy’s heavily pregnant sister-in-law Nora is waiting for her brother’s family to return. Possibly due to the shock and in a powerful storm, Nora gives birth to her own daughter Polly. Once she leaves for her own home, no one will ever return to Halcyon. Nora’s brother stays in the USA seemingly unable to face what happened to the woman he loved and the children whose voices once filled the house he fell in love with as soon as he saw it. Now, with Nora seriously ill in hospital, her granddaughter Jessie will be drawn into the cold case through Nora’s rambling words and Daniel’s book. What follows is a not just a complex murder case but a tale of mothers and daughters and how intergenerational trauma has an impact, even when it’s a closely guarded secret. 

We’re given various viewpoints through the book and outside sources such as letters, documents and excerpts from Daniel’s book. We travel back to 1959 and Nora’s time at Halcyon and the accounts of various Turners, to Polly’s years growing up with mother Nora at their home near Sydney and Jess brings everything together in the present day. We dip in and out of these timelines and viewpoints and they are layered perfectly by Morton where they will make the most impact. Through this careful placement we build up a picture of characters and their motivations, only to have that impression change when we see a different viewpoint or Jess makes a discovery. My view of some characters changed radically, especially towards the end of the book when we hear more from Polly who has been an absent mother for most of Jess’s life. Nora and Jess have a solid relationship, perhaps closer than most grandchildren have with their grandmother since Jess grew up in Nora’s house until she left for England. She is distraught to arrive and realise her grandmother is more unwell than she imagined. For Jess, Nora has been the perfect example of a formidable woman. She gets things done and Jess has inherited her organisational talents and business-like manner. She feels she has little in common with Polly who is seen by both women as rather unreliable or flaky, a pregnant teenager who left the job of mothering Jess to Nora. I really liked the Nora I saw through Jess’s eyes and I was intrigued to know whether that would track back to 1959 and the young Nora who is pregnant with Polly and staying with Izzy and the children for Christmas. 

I loved how Morton used the landscape, particularly regarding Halcyon – a veritable house of dreams. Michael fell in love with it straight away but it’s interesting how it echoes with his choice of wife and how it sits within the wider Aussie landscape. Described as a Georgian manor complete with its own English country garden strangely situated within the heat of southern Australia. It has a backdrop of boiling heat, ghostly silver gum trees on the horizon and its lush green garden stands out against the parched landscape. There’s something unnatural about it, as if a tornado had picked it up in England and dropped it on the other side of the world. This same description applies to Izzy, her pale and freckled beauty out of place in the brutal heat of that last summer. Michael Turner knew this was the right home for his family because it is the embodiment of his wife. Without tending and daily care, the garden and house would be taken over, becoming yellowed and dry and home to native plats and animals. Does Izzy also need such gentle tending? It is Nora who supplies the most compelling piece of evidence that she was struggling and feeling unable to cope. Jess needs to read the book about the case and have a search round the house before her grandmother comes home. It is only by chance that she gets to read Izzy’s thoughts first hand. Then when Polly arrives there’s a real chance for them to connect and discuss their family history openly and this is where the novel became really gripping. Up to this point we’ve only seen Nora through Jess’s eyes but now we see her through Polly’s eyes and there are so many more layers to this elderly lady, now unconscious in her hospital bed. I started to see her controlling side and her ability to manipulate with her money and status. I began to see Polly in a different light too and felt a huge amount of empathy for her situation and the things she lost. 

It was only towards the end of the book when I realised that there aren’t many men in this family. In fact the only person who has no voice in the novel is Michael Turner. Why did he buy Halcyon, the dream family home and then live in a separate country from them? Polly doesn’t have a man in her life and nor does Jess. Morton keeps the twists and turns coming right up to the end of the novel, some expected and others a complete surprise. She never leaves even the tiniest loose end and that isn’t easy when we see just how far the ripples of this tragedy spread in the community. In the midst of that Christmas and all that comes after, Izzy really has an impact with her beauty and vitality. It is unthinkable that only hours later all that sparkle is simply snuffed out. If you love Kate Morton, this has all the aspects that make her novels so popular – the family saga, the big house and the secrets kept behind closed doors. However, this had the added element of an unsolved crime giving it an addictive quality. Added to that is the length of the book, allowing the story and characters to fully develop, showing fascinating and complex psychological dynamics between each mother and daughter. I can’t believe it took me so long to finally read it.  

Meet the Author

KATE MORTON is an award-winning, Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author. Her novels – The House at Riverton, The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours, The Secret Keeper, The Lake House, The Clockmaker’s Daughter and Homecoming – are published in over 45 countries, in 38 languages, and have all been number one bestsellers around the world.

Kate Morton grew up in the mountains of southeast Queensland and now lives with her family in London and Australia. She has degrees in dramatic art and English literature, and harboured dreams of joining the Royal Shakespeare Company until she realised that it was words she loved more than performing. Kate still feels a pang of longing each time she goes to the theatre and the house lights dim.

“I fell deeply in love with books as a child and believe that reading is freedom; that to read is to live a thousand lives in one; that fiction is a magical conversation between two people – you and me – in which our minds meet across time and space. I love books that conjure a world around me, bringing their characters and settings to life, so that the real world disappears and all that matters, from beginning to end, is turning one more page.”

http://www.katemorton.com

http://www.facebook.com/KateMortonAuthor

Keep up-to-date on Kate Morton’s books and events by joining her mailing list: http://www.katemorton.com/mailing-list

Posted in Netgalley

Let the Bad Times Roll by Alice Slater

Posted on by thelotusreaders

THEN

Alone in New Orleans, Selina is struggling to fit in until a charismatic stranger invites her for a drink. It feels like fate, but who is Daniel, and what does he want from her? Just as the humidity and the hangovers start to take their toll, Daniel vanishes

NOW

Daniel is missing. No one has seen or heard from him in weeks. Beside herself with worry, his sister Caroline hosts an intimate gathering in her London home so those closest to Daniel can come together and compare notes. But what should have been five courses of a Cajun-style feast has now become an interrogation. Those left behind must piece together their shared understanding of the man they thought they knew.

And all isn’t quite as it seems: Caroline has invited a stranger to the table, an accomplished psychic who claims to have met Daniel four thousand miles away in New Orleans. As evening turns to night, the dark truth of what really happened begins to emerge…

As a lifelong fan of Harry Connick Junior I have always fancied a trip to New Orleans. I certainly don’t want this trip to New Orleans, although the author presents a city that’s full of life and her descriptions of the food, cocktails and atmosphere really set the scene for me. It feels like a place where you could have a very good time or a very bad time with nothing in between. I felt something was ‘off’ very quickly, both at Caroline’s house and during their dinner guest Selina’s story of her trip to New Orleans. As Daniel’s friends gathered at his sister’s London home it took me a while to get to know everyone, but something about the gathering and their relationships seemed strange. If my brother had gone missing somewhere in the world, I’m not sure I’d have gone out of my way to cook a dish from that place. It felt a little suffocating and even in their reminiscences Caroline seemed unusually attached to her brother. We know their parents are dead and they only have each other, but they went to university together, live together and Caroline was trying hard to control her brother’s share of their inheritance. I was starting to think that if I were Daniel, I might have disappeared. As the novel begins she is getting ready for her brother’s return like Mrs Dalloway, picking up flowers and shopping for a special dinner almost as if she’s preparing for a lover. Then there’s Richard, friend to them both and their housemate at university. His attachment to Caroline does go further than friendship, but it feels one sided with one flashback that may be the most awkward sex scene I’ve ever read. 

As psychic Selina starts to relate her story of meeting Daniel in New Orleans the discomfort continues. I liked Selina and related to her feelings of empathy for Daniel, but she has no boundaries. She’s booked an ordinary New Orleans tourist experience, but once Daniel is involved he seems determined to show her his version of the city and she goes willingly. He had me on edge immediately because he felt like a swan, seemingly chilled and witty on the surface, but clearly pedalling like mad underneath to keep up a front. I suspected early on that he was struggling, emotionally and financially, latching onto people who would be susceptible to his charm. With his white shirt and long hair (I might have imagined the leather trousers) his appearance made me think of Michael Hutchence – very dynamic and magnetic but perhaps hasn’t washed for a few days! I kept veering between thinking he was genuine then suspecting that he’d noticed Selina’s alternative look and her habit of consulting her tarot cards in public places. Did he see her as gullible and potentially his next mark? He matches the city perfectly. Underneath the usual tourist hotspots there’s a decadence in the food, the bars and even the people. Some of the food and drink scenes made me queasy. It sounds delicious in theory but never tastes quite right, it’s too rich and full of seafood. There’s a particular shot that’s like oysters, it feels like drinking ‘phlegm’ something I’m almost phobic about. Daniel suggests trips to a death museum and out to the Bayou trail where morbid death stories are the norm. He’s like an energy vampire, feeding off making someone else unsettled and slowly Selina becomes more unsure of herself, her judgement and even her psychic abilities. We shouldn’t be surprised, after all this city is the home of voodoo priestesses, ghosts and vampire stories. Death seems to be everywhere and the city starts to feel as claustrophobic as Caroline’s flat. 

Of course this is Selina’s version of events and it’s a brave thing to do, going into Daniel’s home and meeting his closest friends and family. Especially when the story you have to tell either puts their loved one in a bad light or confirms they’re in danger. However, as we learn more about his friends between Selina’s story, I couldn’t understand what kept them together as a group. There’s a history of Daniel taking from people, whether it’s knowledge, sex, or money and he never seems to be held accountable. Caroline is always there to mop things up, like an overprotective mother. There are so many unspoken feelings here, Selina loves Max but suspects he loves Daniel. Richard still loves Caroline. They clearly care about Daniel, but their memories throw up so many questions about him. I didn’t really like any of them. There are so many twists and turns in their reminiscences as well as in Selina’s tale. They take us as far back as their shared university years and through many unexpected places and events before we reach the end. Everyone has a reason to dislike Daniel. He is a strange combination of both scared and reckless. It’s as if Caroline has been holding on so tight because she knows that out of her sight he will self destruct, taking more risks and falling further than ever. Is her tendency to control coming from a place of fear? It’s almost as if Daniel can only throw himself into life fully if he knows it has a finite end. I won’t tell you anymore, but it doesn’t end the way you expect. This is very clever writing and I really didn’t know how I felt at the end. I disliked pretty much every character, but still couldn’t put this book down. Everyone is hiding something and the journey to find out their secrets is unnerving, confusing and very disturbing indeed. 

Meet the Author


Alice Slater is a writer, podcaster and ex-bookseller from London. She studied creative writing at MMU and UEA. She lives in London with her husband and a lot of books. Death of a Bookseller is her first novel.