The Lotus Readers

Liar Liar by Luca Veste

Posted on 29th Jun 2026 by thelotusreaders

Even good people do bad things…

Once hailed as Liverpool’s finest detective, Mark Fletcher brought a serial killer to justice and earned the city’s admiration. But when he’s accused of working with Liverpool’s most notorious crime family, his legacy is shattered – and so is his life.

Now disgraced and spiralling, Fletcher wakes up in a hotel room with no memory of the last 24 hours… and a dead body beside him.

The evidence says he did it. His instincts say otherwise.

Hunted by the force he once served, Fletcher must uncover the truth – not just to clear his name, but to survive. Because someone wants him silenced, and they’ll stop at nothing to finish what they started…

Wow! What an opener to a new series from Luca Veste, set in his hometown of Liverpool which just happens to be my mum’s hometown too. I’ve spent time in Liverpool since I was a little girl, visiting family in Rainhill, going to mass at the the cathedral and visiting art exhibitions as a teenager when the Tate opened up on the Albert Dock. It was the first trip my husband and I took with his daughters visiting the museums and going vintage shopping on Bold Street. They loved it so much that my eldest stepdaughter and her boyfriend have been living there for the last three years for university and are making the city their home. Mostly I love the people and their attitude on life, their resilience, their determination to fight injustice and the way they stick together. It’s a great city with so much diversity, both in its residents and its buildings something the author really captures in this novel. He uses different areas of the city for different moods, showing that there’s a reason Liverpool is often used as a film set for shows like Peaky Blinders, This City Is Ours and The Responder, capturing the grandeur of the Georgian quarter, the more run down areas and where industrial buildings from it’s heyday as a port city have been revamped for new projects. It’s no surprise it’s often used in feature films to represent New York, because Liverpool’s energy made NYC feel strangely familiar when I first visited. It also has a darker, criminal underbelly that the author delves into here.

The incredible cover for the book features the iconic Liver Birds, one looking towards the city and the other looking out over the Mersey. They bring a gothic feel to the cover and this is definitely a very dark tale, highlighting the criminal underworld that visitors don’t get to see. While the Liver Birds and grand riverfront buildings have grandeur they never lose their sense of humour, the Cunard Building’s distinctive brickwork mean its known as the Streaky Bacon building, the grand grey stone buildings in the administrative district have pride coloured pigeons on the eaves reminding us it’s also the gay quarter and there are also Superlambananas – yes they are exactly what they sound like. Even the huge Queen Victoria statue at the end of Castle Street has its own name – Victoria’s Knob – because her sceptre looks very phallic from a certain angle. It’s Castle Street where the book opens as suspended police detective, Mark Fletcher, wakes up in a hotel room bed with a dead man. From that point we follow Mark’s every decision as he tries to save his career, but also his life. He has two choices: to call it in and hope he has enough goodwill left that his colleagues will listen or to leave the hotel and try to investigate. Who wants him implicated in a murder? Do they want to give him a taste of his own medicine and see him jailed or are they playing a game that ends with his death? In between the action packed present day, we’re taken back to nine months ago when Mark was riding high, the detective responsible for catching the Butcher of Bootle. What could possibly have happened to start the fall from grace he’s had in such a short time? The answer to that question lies with one woman, Sofia Bonnuci and her gangster family. The minute he tried to help by hiding Sofia from her violent boyfriend everything changed. Today, from the moment Mark wakes up, the plot is action packed as he jumps out of windows and into the Mersey, dodges suspects and bullets at breathless speed. We tear across Liverpool from the very grand Castle Street to the docks, Rainhill and into the Wirral. I loved the dialogue too, full of Scouse humour with references to ‘the bizzies’ and Brookside as Mark’s old colleagues Kirkham and Abs investigate a body found buried in someone’s back garden in Kirby- their boss asking whether anyone called Sinbad lived there. They find out that the landlord of the houses is an agent who works for the Bonucci family. Could these events be linked in some way or is it just a coincidence?

Mark really does grab you as a central character and I was on his side immediately. We’re privy to all his thoughts and deductions, as well as his changing emotions as the day progresses. This is a deliberate choice by the author who wants us to bond with the central character in this new series. I trusted him too because he feels like a good man who’s made some poor choices, possibly due to being one of life’s ‘rescuers’. He can’t resist helping, even if it has meant stretching the rules a little. Stepping outside the rules only works when nothing goes wrong, but when it does the situation runs away from him and here he is living alone, drinking a little too much and potentially losing the job he loves. It’s a case of poor judgement, something that plays into his decisions now, involving other people in what could be a doomed situation. His colleagues Kirkham and Abs will soon start investigating the body in the hotel. Would they even believe Mark if he did contact them? The discussions between them show the impact of Mark’s previous actions on his team, with Abs pointing out that they were close and now nobody even talks about him. It’s hard to know what to think, especially when they see CCTV from the hotel. Did Mark made one mistake that went drastically wrong or has he been completely rogue all along? We are let into their world of the Bonucci family too, where legitimate business interests across the city seem to be a cover for more illegal activities. This family are like a liquid that’s seeped into every area of Liverpool and the author cleverly sets them up for future novels with a potential interest in a new Italian restaurant that sounds very like a favourite of mine in Bold Street. A power struggle seems to be emerging, with Salvatore Bonucci now becoming older, his seconds in command Gino and Frankie, are jostling for position and both have very different approaches to business.

The tension is absolutely nail-biting as Mark ends up cornered but escapes again and again. However, constantly looking over your shoulder is wearing and Mark is getting colder, dirtier and more tired all the time. There’s also his mental state, as his conscience is battered again and again will he simply run out of self-belief? Every time he escapes, his choices narrow. A show down is coming, but will it be with his old colleagues or will the Bonucci family find him first? The ending of this book, when it comes, was so unexpected my jaw dropped. The forbidding setting of Toxteth Reservoir is a brilliant choice, with derelict buildings full of dark, damp labyrinth of endless corridors and hiding places. It brings us full circle back to the gothic Liver Birds:

‘Their wings weren’t spread in triumph, but half open as if caught in the moment before deciding whether to strike”.

They’re a metaphor for the whole book, constantly on edge and potentially dangerous, leaving the reader trailing behind unsure what’s going to happen next. It’s clear Luca Veste values his readers by giving his previous Liverpool Detectives a cameo, with Murphy as Kirkham and Abs’s boss and Rossi helping her parents set up their (very familiar) new restaurant. He’s setting them firmly into the future of this series, something fans will love. This has definitely whet my appetite for more from this team, thanks to the author’s love for his city and his ability to surprise the hell out of his readers.

Out now from Harper Collins

Meet the Author

Luca Veste is a writer of Italian and Liverpudlian heritage, married with two young daughters, and one of nine children. He studied psychology and criminology at university in Liverpool. He is the author of the Murphy and Rossi series, which includes DEAD GONE, THE DYING PLACE, BLOODSTREAM, and THEN SHE WAS GONE.

Part psychological thriller, part police procedural, his books follow the detective pairing of DI David Murphy and DS Laura Rossi. The novels are set in Liverpool, bringing the city to life in a dark and terrifying manner…with just a splash of Scouse humour. Liar Liar is the first in a new crime series set in Liverpool.

Writing and Writers

Who Inspires You? My Writing Heroes.

Posted on 24th Jun 202629th Jun 2026 by thelotusreaders

My blog is a little different today because it is inspired by Monday’s WordPress prompt – who inspires you? Like many bloggers and readers I am an aspiring writer. Ever since I was a little girl I’ve wanted to be able to walk into a library and see my book on the shelf. I used to make little books, sewn into colourful covers, my writing is definitely better than my drawing. One particular book about a family of chickens is in a box in the attic, but remains infamous in my family because when my mum read it she was anxious the school would think this was my home life. Mr and Mrs Cockadoodledo were very volatile and he was fond of telling his wife she was a nag and stomping off to the pub while she watched Coronation Street. So far, the closest I’ve come to writing a book as an adult was writing the story of me and my late husband, killed by complications with primary progressive MS. I managed to finish it and then format it (goodness knows how) to go on Kindle around 15 years ago. I think it probably sold half a dozen copies. Everyone was very kind about it, but let’s be honest it’s hard to be critical to a recent widow. When it came to reformatting it I was finishing my counselling training so I let it go. So that’s where I am. I do have a work in progress, but it’s all fragments at the moment. I struggle with flow, a very negative inner voice and my health limitations. So today I thought I’d share people whose writing I really admired recently and how they’ve inspired me to keep writing.

Rachel Canwell – Canwell’s debut novel Paper Sisters was brilliant and made me realise that any setting is fascinating if the writer makes it so. Set in my home county of Lincolnshire, in an area that suffers many jokes about Fen Folk and endless fields filled with mist and cabbage, Rachel still managed to draw me in. In fact she took the isolation of the area and made her characters grow from that, with their house, sited across the river from Sutton Bridge and accessed via a swing bridge. The abandoned hospital next door is primed, ready for patients that will never come creating an eerie and abandoned feeling. She uses the peculiar Lincolnshire mist to great effect in her opening scene as the family are woken by a rumbling noise coming from the small port area being built across the river. As they emerge into the darkness, the mist rises above the river and obscures their view but they can hear crashes and objects falling into the water. The mist also obscures the rescue of workers, leading to the terrible drowning of one of the brothers. I recognised that mist from years of living next to the River Trent, and eerie nights back in the 1990s driving home in my little Mini from working late at a local pub. Because the area is so flat, the mist seems to hang in mid air, with everything below and above still visible and it was exactly the height of my windscreen. I had to drive very slowly which at a late hour in the middle of nowhere was very creepy indeed. For Rachel’s characters WW1 comes and the fact that it’s reach extends to such an insignificant place somehow magnifies its impact – you imagine areas where people were carrying on as normal but this reminds us everyone was touched by it, rather like our recent experiences through COVID. Her female characters are two sisters Eleanor and Lily and Eleanor’s childhood friend Clara who is married to their brother Frank. Lily has rarely left the house since her brother died on the night of the port collapse, but for an apparent invalid she has a lot of control over Eleanor. She’s determined that her sister will never leave her. Eleanor wants to leave, she has fallen in love with the new blacksmith. Her day to day maintenance of Lily and the abandoned hospital her father created to treat the port workers is draining. The tension between the sisters builds and then there’s Clara and Frank. Clara wants to help her sister-in-law escape Lily’s control and Frank, an unreasonable and violent man at the best of times, returns from war struggling with a brain injury and PTSD. These two women only have each other and the strength of their loyalty is incredible. My main take away from a writing perspective is to remember that I have a unique voice. No one else has had my experiences or my way of dealing with them. Yes, they seem mundane to me because they’re mine, but to a reader they are completely new.

Nydia Hetherington – last year I was blown away by Nydia’s novel Sycorax a book I was drawn to thanks to chatting with Nydia on social media after reading her debut novel but also because it features Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The Tempest is my favourite play of Shakespeare’s especially since studying it at university and becoming obsessed with Caliban, the play’s ‘monster’. It crossed over beautifully with my Post-Colonial Lit module because there we’d looked at Jonathon Miller’s 1970 production at the Mermaid Theatre. This production leaned heavily on post-colonial themes with two West Indian actors, Norman Beaton as Ariel and Rudolph Walker as Caliban. It depicted Ariel as a house slave who was plotting to take over the island when the colonialists left, by contrast Caliban was a field slave in a much lowlier position. With my specialism in disability literature, Caliban’s description as a ‘savage and deformed slave’ jumped out to me. In disability theory a deformity is used as a ‘narrative prosthesis’, Caliban’s deformity is a crutch, used to show his moral and intellectual inferiority and justifying his enslavement by Prospero. We have to think about the time Shakespeare is writing in and the treatment of people with disabilities, where they were used for entertainment and spectacle or hidden away because they deviate from the white European and abled-bodied ideal. I can’t believe that in this research I didn’t touch on Sycorax. Prospero often speaks of her as a sorcerer he banished from the island and his descriptions of her appearance as monstrous and a hag are there to justify his treatment of her and negates her own power. I was interested in how Nydia used her own experience of rheumatoid arthritis to flesh out this character and give her the story that Prospero denies her in the play. She weaves her own illness into the life of this young girl suffering bouts of extreme joint pain and malaise, gradually becoming bent over as she ages and having to use a stick to walk with. She also has a hand disfigured by fire, but she also has a beauty that men are drawn to and powers they’d like to possess. The juxtaposition of great supernatural power but physical weakness is a powerful one and it creates a fascinating woman who can’t be ignored, as much as she would sometimes like to be. She takes periods of solitude, living very simply and using periods of recuperation to commune with nature and deepen her connection to the earth. She gains wisdom and resilience from battling against the elements in order to survive. I have a chronic illness too and experienced long periods of solitude, particularly during the pandemic. Currently, there is a harmful rhetoric around long term illness and disability that ‘others’ disabled people and blames them for societal problems and I did feel a kinship with this character facing both ableism and the misogyny of men like Prospero. Nydia’s book reminded me that personal experience is a great place to start and that woven with research and imagination it can create something magical and meaningful.

Louise Beech/ Swanson – Louise is a writer who is local to me and I’ve admired her novels for many years now. The first book of hers I absolutely loved was This Is How We Are Human where she writes about a woman caring for her adult son who has autism and other learning difficulties. She is used to providing everything he needs according to a strict daily routine, but one day he comes up with something that stumps her. He wants to experience sex. She’s unsure how to approach this, realising that the world of dating might be too stressful and involves a second person’s feelings and challenges. In the end she takes an unusual decision and hires an escort for her son – it’s interesting to add here that sex is a recognised human need when it comes to assessing a disabled person’s care in some areas of Europe and escort services can be used as part of a care package. I find we’re a lot more squeamish here about sex and disability, although very curious too judging by the amount of people who questioned me when I married a man with physical disabilities. I admired Louise’s bravery in choosing what many see as a taboo subject and managing it with dignity and with a surprising outcome that shows we all make assumptions about people with disabilities. She reminded me that it’s good to write about subjects many people never experience or might be shocked by. Then I read her novel End of Story, a dystopian thriller where fiction novels are banned and writer Fern is suddenly unable to tell stories. She’s followed by grey men in suits who want to be sure she isn’t writing, but joins a resistance movement of women who tell banned bedtime stories to children over the phone. The strangeness of this world is incredibly chilling and she draws us in completely, but something kept nagging at the back of my mind. Something else was going on here. I won’t ruin what this book is about but the twist is incredible and I will admit I cried. This book taught me that we can write about the depths of any human experience, by presenting it in a different place, time or genre and somehow give it even more power.

Finally there’s her memoir Eighteen Seconds that I devoured and loved for its brutal honesty, bravery and dark sense of humour – something I definitely recognised from my own family. One morning Louise received an awful phone call. Her mother had jumped from the Humber Bridge and despite falling onto a path underneath the bridge, rather than the river, she was alive but very badly injured. Through the lens of this experience Louise tells the story of her childhood and what it is like to be the eldest child of a mother who struggles with her mental health and copes with alcohol. Louise balances this book beautifully. She remembers the experiences she faced as the eldest child of a single mother who couldn’t care for her children and often met men who placed them in genuine danger. Louise was a mum to her younger siblings when she still needed a mother herself. Then there’s the present problem of her mum’s long recovery from her suicide attempt and the difficult balance of being there, but not being dragged back into parenting your own parent. Then there’s the incredible humour the family share in their WhatsApp messages were made me laugh out loud and reminded me of times when my family were sat around my husband’s bed just before he died – at one point watching a crucial Liverpool match. Gallows humour helps and it was inspiring to see personal experiences written in that way. It’s a truth many people don’t realise, that when someone is terminally ill or very badly injured, eventually life carries on. We have to live through the period of loss and still get up every day. It made me think back to the wake we had after my husband’s funeral where everyone had a drink and blew off steam after months of pain and stress. I found my mum down in the garden after midnight throwing smoked salmon from the buffet into the garden pond in order to ‘free the fish’. It was a terrible day but my abiding memory will always be my mum trying to revive a plate of smoked salmon. Louise reinforced the belief in my original memoir, reminding me that my experiences have worth and to tell them exactly as they were, despite fear of judgement and with nothing held back.

Squad Pod Collective

The Sisters of Hope Square by Faith Hogan

Posted on 21st Jun 2026 by thelotusreaders

All Blythe Carney ever wanted was to become a hotelier and run her family’s business, the Hope Square Hotel. But fate, and her grandfather, intervened and it fell into her younger sister Rae’s lap, taking her dreams with it. Now Blythe owns Still Water House, the most exclusive guest house on Pin Hill Island, but she can’t help but feel she’s still not living the life she was meant to.

Rae Johnson had no interest in taking over the hotel, her dreams lay elsewhere, but when she ended up with the family business her sister had set her heart on, her sense of duty to continue their family legacy with her husband was too strong to ignore.

Now, fifteen years later, newly widowed Rae is struggling to keep the hotel afloat and she knows that selling it could be the final straw in her already fragile relationship with her sister.

What do you do when your sister lives the life that you’d set your heart on? And when the perfect storm is brewing, surely, it’s time to put aside the jealousy and disappointment that can tear a family apart, and fight for the future you have always dreamed of?

I love the joy and care in Faith Hogan’s writing and this has been a brilliant book to sit back and enjoy while we’ve been having a few weeks of very warm weather. Her characters always have so many layers and usually plenty of secrets and these women are no exception. I also feel like she cares about them and wants us to understand their journey. The author takes us back and forth in time to give us the story of the Hope Square sisters, Blythe and Rae. In the present Blythe runs a very successful guest house on Pin Hill Island, at Still Water House, the home she shares with husband Kip and daughter Siggy. By contrast her sister Rae lives alone in what was the family business and the only hotel on the island, the Hope Square Hotel. The sisters couldn’t be more different. Blythe has the drive and ambition of a great business woman whose only dream was to gain her degree and take over at the helm of the family business after her grandfather. Blythe runs a tight ship, even at home, and while she and Kip are an excellent team on the business side, of late there’s been some tension between them. Their main point of contention is Blythe’s treatment of their daughter Siggy who is a teenager ready to start planning the next stage of her life, perhaps going away to university? Blythe has closed her mind to this idea, she rarely lets Siggy hang out with other kids on the island and refuses any activity she believes is unsafe. Kip is becoming frustrated, not only does he feel taken for granted, he wants his daughter to be allowed to grow up. However, there is no reasoning with Blythe. Siggy often escapes to work at Hope Square with her Aunt Rae. Rae feels fragile, not surprising since she’s a recent widow, but there’s something more that seems to be keeping her paralysed, unable to make plans and move forward. She and Marcus didn’t have children so she values her precious time with Siggy, but her relationship with Blythe has never fully recovered since Rae and Marcus took over the hotel. How did this sequence of events happen?

The author takes us back and forth in time with both sisters so we can see events and decisions that led us here, but she also uses it to let us in on secrets the sisters have kept from each other. We as readers have the full picture, so behaviour that seems unreasonable or excessive to other characters has some context for us. It’s very frustrating to see characters misunderstanding each other completely. One such instance is Blythe’s behaviour when a new resident comes to Pin Hill Island. Val and her grandson Danial are refugees, he’s eager to find work and she’s keen to join groups and make friends. Blythe’s behaviour around Val seems utterly irrational, but there must be a reason probably buried deep in the past. I found Blythe a challenge I must admit but I couldn’t quite believe she was just a hateful person. The major question that keeps popping up is why would the girl’s grandfather make the inexplicable decision to pass the hotel to Rae and her boyfriend Marcus? The answers will come, but needless to say there were some men in this book who needed a bit of reeducation. Meanwhile as Danial volunteers at the hotel for Rae to get some work experience, he and Siggy spend some time together. Could there be romance on the cards? If there is, Blythe will be definitely have something to say about it and I worried it would have implications for her relationship with her daughter.

All these misunderstandings and secrets are set against a picturesque backdrop on this isolated island. The incredible scenery is clearly what draws people to visit, but is there still enough to sustain two hotels? Blythe is determined to get in a tourist guide and in one of the best comic moments she has a guest from hell, who she suspects is an inspector. I have to admit I imagined Maggie Smith playing this role at her most imperious. The vision of Blythe having to tolerate smoking, moving furniture and waiting on this woman hand and foot made me laugh. Her eventual response to 48 hours of this treatment was priceless. There’s a lot of trauma to unpack here. There’s so much loss for both these women, even after they lost their parents. There are themes of bereavement, motherhood, domestic abuse and being a victim of crime as well as the central family feud. As always the author gives these subjects the depth they deserve and they do have impact especially when it’s a revelation from the past that gives us more insight into the characters. What I like is that she always keeps us hopeful, that there’s a chance for healing and light in what seems a dark world at the moment. As the tension and miscommunication builds I just wanted the two sisters to talk openly and honestly, but it reaches a dramatic conclusion I didn’t expect. This is a great summer read and something of an escape from reality, full of intrigue and family drama but with bucketloads of warmth and hope.

Out now from Aria Books

Meet the Author

Faith Hogan is an award-winning, million copy best seller. She is a USA Today, Irish Times Top Ten and an Amazon UK Number 1 Best Selling writer of contemporary fiction novels. Her stories have charmed readers around the world – she’s sold internationally and translated widely. She writes grown up women’s fiction which is unashamedly uplifting, feel-good and inspiring.

The Bookshop Ladies was shortlisted for an An Post Book Award in 2024.

The Sisters of Hope Square is her brand new summer read coming June 2026. It is a gripping and poignant story of two sisters divided by jealousy and disappointment who must put their differences aside to save the inheritance that drove a wedge between them decades earlier.

She writes twisty contemporary crime fiction as Geraldine Hogan.

She lives in the west of Ireland with her family and their Labrador named Penny. She’s a writer, reader, enthusiastic dog walker and reluctant jogger – except of course when it is raining!

Instagram @faithhoganauthor

Personal Purchase

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

Posted on 18th Jun 202616th Jun 2026 by thelotusreaders

Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one.
Ever since her beloved mother failed to come home last Christmas Eve, she’s been one of the ‘unadoptable’ girls at the town’s orphanage, where she fights each day to keep her wits sharp and her spirit unbowed.

When she meets Birdie, a young woman who has come to Oxford determined to remind her socialite sister of the impoverished family she left behind, for the first time in a long while it seems someone else might care about Meg’s future. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie begins to suspect her sister’s charmed life may be founded on a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman haunted by loss who has been pushed to the brink with nothing left to lose. Drawn together by circumstance, they find unexpected kinship among a disreputable, determined band of women.

But in a town steeped in hypocrisy, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences …

In our prologue we find Birdie in the pharmacy of a small town in the southern states of America buying ‘Merry Widows’ condoms by the dozens. I then became so engrossed in the story of this fascinating woman and the relationship she makes with a girl called Meg at the orphanage that I forgot all about the question that came to mind; why she would be buying so many? Thankfully all questions are answered in this incredible book that’s moving, infuriating, saddening and hilarious all at once. The plot takes us on a journey as Birdie travels to visit her newly married sister Frances who is living with her in-laws at their house Idlewilde. Frances is at great pains to point out her new family, the Tartts, are well to do and Birdie must try not to show her up. In truth, Birdie can only ever be her glorious self and Mrs Tartt is too much of a Southern lady to show anything but politeness to a guest. Frances’s husband, Rory Tartt, is a good looking man, but to Birdie he seems to have something on his mind. He’s eager to leave in the morning and eager to be in his office in the evenings, even retiring to his own bedroom at the end of the day and not his wife’s. Frances confides in Birdie that there’s been very little in the bedroom department and Birdie starts to worry. One thing she knows is money and if she didn’t know better she’d be concerned about Rory’s business and where he’s going. When asked to book-keep for the local orphanage Frances again gives her a note of warning. The president of the orphanage board, Mrs Garnett, is very influential and is hoping to be the governor of the Anti-Vice Committee. Birdie is unimpressed with this paragon of virtue and lets Frances do the sucking up, instead she puts her energy into the disgusting room she’s working in alongside one of the orphans, Meg. As far as Birdie can see, Meg is in this room by herself every day away from the other girls. She has nothing to read. The walls are mouldy and she’s not allowed to open the window. She’d think it was a punishment, but Meg doesn’t appear to have done anything wrong. With an attentive adult to clean and paint the room, let the air in and ask her interesting questions Meg starts to blossom, much to Mrs Garnett’s consternation. Birdie can find solutions to most problems and is enjoying her time with Meg, but the Tartt’s troubles loom and Birdie will have to come up with a creative way to help. When she meets Charlie, a woman broken down by the system and longing to get her child back, they make a formidable team.

I absolutely loved Birdie, the sensible person between an anxious mother who thinks the price of canned peaches will put the family over the edge and a sister who is willing to spend every penny they have if it makes her pretty. She is pragmatic, knowing she’s not a beauty she decided she would have to look after herself and got a job bookkeeping at the local store. Frances didn’t even invite her family to her wedding, scared of being found out as poor. Birdie doesn’t believe in trying to be what you’re not and she’s utterly herself which I loved. She’s sensible but also has a loathing of injustice. She has her own moral compass that is based on the Bible, common sense and kindness. She doesn’t believe in people that set themselves up as good in a performative way, just be good because it’s the right thing to do. Meg was fascinating and her story is so deeply sad. She believes her mother left her one Christmas Eve and never came back, so she had to survive on what was in the house until the local doctor found her. She’s absolutely starving for books and learning, even sneaking a Life magazine she finds in the cupboard and gorging on it like a cream cake. She has to some extent accepted her treatment at the orphanage, never expecting to be chosen as one of the eldest there. I found myself hoping Birdie might adopt her, they certainly have an instant affinity. I loved Meg’s sense of humour too, especially when she relates an adoption letter received that states:

“We need us an older girl, on account of I was chopping cotton and it was hot out and the blade swung out my hand and sliced my wife’s arm clean off so we had a proper funeral for it but she cannot lift a pot now.”

As Meg observes, they had a funeral for an arm? That’s quite a letter. It has people, action and weather, with a bit of gore for interest. She’s a girl with so much to say and no outlet at all. It’s a whole lot different than life with her mum who was a feminist and clearly loves her daughter. She celebrated when Meg was placed in the ‘exceptional learners’ and tells her to remember that most men are placed in the slow learners category. Where could this woman have gone?

The themes in this are very much like The Help, injustice, inequality, the strength of women and what we’ll do to survive. In addition there’s the rise of the eugenics movement in America, something I researched at university and when preparing for my PhD. Eugenics supposes there is a master race, that white able-bodied heterosexuals with European origins are superior. This is such an important topic when we see what’s going on in the US today and when The Sanctuary exists in London – a destination that stays out of the press, but launched the Restore party, houses a eugenics magazine and race scientists. People forget that Germany didn’t start this lean towards wanting a superior race. Birdie finds out that Mrs Garnett’s policies for the Anti-Vice group include eugenic thinking such as imbeciles will give birth to more imbeciles, some ethnic groups should be prevented from having more children and that others should be forced onto contraception from a very young age, especially girls from poor, black families. It’s an evil that’s never really gone away, especially in America where some of these measures were still happening in the 1970s. These policies made it easy to get inconvenient people out of the way, just like Meg’s mum whose story brought me to tears. Birdie starts to realise that doing something considered immoral by society might be the best way to survive and she has to weigh it up in her own mind.

There was just so much I want to say about this book and I’ve had to stop myself rambling! Kathryn Stockett has done it again. I can see this on the big screen and it will be brilliant. It also has the added bonus of chatter about merkins at the breakfast table, which made me laugh out loud. I fell in love with Meg and Birdie, but also the women who form a team to get Birdie’s in-laws out of the mess they’re in. This book has so much to say about female strength, friendship and adaptability in terrible circumstances. Every character is so well drawn I could see them. I know a lot about eugenics and its history in the US and this is an important book right now, going against where Christian Nationalist policy is taking the country. It shows the damage that can be done when someone lives the rigid rules of manmade religion rather than the actual message of love given in the Bible. Often those who want the appearance of goodness most, will do anything to keep it. Birdie finds that friendship and loyalty can be found in the most unusual circumstances and with people you never expected. There’s tragedy and brutality but also lightness, humour and so much love. Utterly brilliant!

Out now from Penguin Books

Meet the Author

Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City, where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years. The Calamity Club is her second novel.

Squad Pod Collective

Smallie by Eden McKenzie-Goddard

Posted on 17th Jun 2026 by thelotusreaders

Smallie adj. |smal·lie|
Definition: Caribbean (informal). Describing or relating a person from a small island; a small islander.

In 1961, nineteen-year-old Lucinda Brown travels to England in search of her son’s father, Clarence Braithwaite, who left Barbados to join the British army. But aboard the ship to Southampton she meets a man named Raldo who offers her a glimpse of a new life, a freer life. Bound by the memory of her son waiting at home, she chooses Clarence – realizing too late that war has made a stranger out of him.

Nearly fifty years later, Lucinda receives a letter from the Home Office that threatens to tear her world apart. Her children rally together to prove her legal arrival, and to do so they must track down an elusive man from her past, a man she wanted to love but instead lost, a man who now holds the key to her family’s future. Raldo . . . An exhilarating and expansive tale of a family thrown into collision with the Windrush scandal, Smallie shows just how easily the past can spill into our lives, even when – especially when – we think we’ve closed the door on it.

The author splits their timeline so in 2017 we see Lucinda’s children trying to make sense of the letter from the Home Office that states she has no leave to remain in the UK. Then we go back several decades to her early life in Barbados and her trip to the UK. This worked so well because we get to see the huge generation gap in her children’s incredulous response to the letter and Lucinda’s more mured response. They have lived in the UK all their lives and with their education and important jobs they’ve experienced racism but not in the same way their mother has. They don’t know that the system can fail. This is their first real sense of utter powerlessness. Whereas Lucinda has spent most of her life like a leaf in the wind. Her strict religious father would keep her at home with a life that revolved around church, chores and schoolwork. In fact it’s only her friend Sheila that manages to lure her out to a club, where she meets Clarence, a liaison that results in a hidden pregnancy and her son Reggie. Yet still her father calls the shots and when Clarence decides to emigrate to the UK she is only allowed to follow on the proviso that they marry, only then will her father release Reggie to join them. Then, on the voyage across she meets Raldo and their chemistry is immediate, he offers her a way out. When they reach the UK she can leave with him and his friend, avoiding Clarence. Will she make the decision to put herself or Reggie first? I couldn’t stop reading because in the 2017 timeline I was desperate to know whether her children would manage to find enough evidence for their mother to stay, but also I wanted to know who was the father of her children born in the UK? It’s cleverly plotted to keep you guessing, even when their father is present.

I loved the moments of freedom that Lucinda has with Sheila, nights of jazz, dancing, laughing where she comes alive. Either in clubs or at house parties they forget the one room they share, the lack of money, the family they clean for and the way British people treat them. Sheila is older and wiser. She explains to Lucinda why their employer’s treat them differently. Both girls work for a cleaning company run by a friend and Sheila points out how differently she is treated compared to Lucinda. They speak harshly to Sheila and expect her to steal, whereas Lucinda is treated more politely. She explains what ‘passing’ means, the family treat Lucinda better because of her paler skin. She could pass as a white girl. Even so, neither of them can have bank accounts and decide to use the ‘pardner’ system. Every week they all put their wages into a pot that’s kept by the most trustworthy friend, then once a month they take it in turns to have the lump sum. It’s the only way individuals could buy a house and set down roots here. Strong communities were built from these bonds of trust. The group decide that Lucinda should look after the money, but her trustworthiness is dependent on whether Clarence decides to beat her or not, till she hands it over. She is being brought down by this relationship, but she still clings to the idea of Reggie making his way here to be a family. Yet every so often she sees Raldo, conducting buses or at the same party and that spark is still there. He brings her alive.

It seems inconceivable that someone who has lived in this country for most of their lives could be detained and placed in an immigration facility. Lucinda is placed in Yarl’s Wood and her children are falling apart. She is the foundation that supports them all. While they struggle to come to terms with the situation, Lucinda quietly gets on with it. The Home Office need proof that she arrived on a certain date, with her boarding pass or similar, but then also prove that she didn’t leave for a period of time. They are applying 21st Century rules to a time when paper tickets were damaged or thrown out, where jobs were cash in hand and there was no paper trial. As they desperately look around for people who could corroborate her account, they unearth more of their mother’s story. There’s betrayal, anger and bitterness that’s lasted over fifty years. Will they find this man called Raldo who looked after her boarding pass? As the date for the hearing looms closer, Lucinda starts to wonder whether it’s time to make decisions that suit her, not everyone else leading to an ending I didn’t expect, but that was total perfection. I felt so much reading this book – everything from anger to joy and so much inbetween. Lucinda is a brilliant central character, so used to being pushed around she almost disappears in the cacophony of her children. We know theres so much depth and experience in this woman and I was willing her on to finally make a choice for herself. Beautifully written, this is an emotional account of one woman’s life caught up in the Windrush scandal and it kept me spellbound to the end.

Out Now From Penguin

Meet the Author

Eden McKenzie-Goddard is a UK-based writer and podcaster, with Barbadian-Jamaican roots. His work sheds light on the lives of the forgotten and bringing their stories to the forefront.

In 2018, Eden co-founded the top 30 music and culture podcast Don’t Alert The Stans – commended by Apple Podcasts, Complex, Beats By Dre and more.

With almost a decade working in publishing and a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from University of Westminster, McKenzie-Goddard is a student of literary minds Silvia Plath, Hanya Yanagihara and James Baldwin.

Uncategorized

Little Green

Posted on 6th Jun 2026 by thelotusreaders

If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?

I had to think about this recently when reading Florence Knapp’s novel The Names, where a little boy’s life changes depending on what he’s named on the day. It reminded me that my mum did want to call me something else. Something that’s been a great comic story in our family. I was my mum’s first baby, so although she’d told staff she thought I was close to being born they didn’t agree and sent my dad home. It was the 1970s and things were very different. When my mum was proven right only an hour later they couldn’t get him back. My mum and dad lived in a caravan in the yard at the farm where he worked. So there wasn’t even a landline to call. So I was born just after midnight and it was just me and mum. First thing in the morning my Uncle went to the maternity home and was told that only the father could visit at the moment and he told them he was so they let him in. A while later my grandad turned up and did the same thing. By the time my dad managed to get a bus to the hospital my mum must have been the talk of the maternity ward.

My mum’s a huge Joni Mitchell fan and loved the song Little Green. She really wanted to call me that and as a teenager I was fairly scornful of this idea. I could imagine being called all sorts of awful nicknames. My mum was definitely a hippy but my dad was a very practical man, having been the army and farming so he wasn’t sold on this idea. They agreed on Hayley which means ‘from a nearby meadow’ and I never really thought about it again until reading the book. I decided to listen to the song on Spotify and it was just so beautiful. Written for a child she had when she was very young. She felt she was too young to be a mum and gave her up for adoption. The song is so full of the hopes a mother would have for their daughter:

“Just a little Green

Like thе color when the spring is born

There’ll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow

Just a little Green

Like the nights when the Northern lights perform

There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes

And sometimes there’ll be sorrow.”

Wordpress Prompts

Favourite Childhood Books

Posted on 4th Jun 2026 by thelotusreaders

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

This was a serendipitous prompt because I have been putting a post together for my Ten on Tuesday series about this subject. I’ve gone with books from primary school age first and this gives you a preview of what I’ll be writing about for the next few days. Many of my favourites were series and I think that’s because they came from a library. On Saturdays my dad played football and I would be dropped off in Scunthorpe with mum to shop and visit the library, a strange modern building with a glass pyramid lobby, not a great choice for a square overrun with pigeons. Mum always left me to make my own choices while she went upstairs to choose hers – on one occasion it was a Barbara Woodhouse training manual for dogs that our spaniel proceeded to rip into pieces, very pleased with himself. I’d have loved to hear that conversation with the librarian. I would choose my books, get them stamped (oh how I wanted a stamp) and then sit on a bean bag and start to read. We would travel across town to my grandma’s house on the bus and once I’d talked everyone to death I went through to the telly room and sat with grandad, who would be boiling himself next to the gas fire and watching either football or old black and white films. I would lie on the couch and read my books quietly until he wanted to check the pools. We used to watch the football results come in, my grandad swearing under his breath and me copying all the unusual club names like Leyton Orient or Heart of Midlothian. I used to take out five books every other Saturday and I would often finish a series, then start all over again with book one.

I think my favourite has to be Tove Jansson’s Moomin series and it is still something of an obsession. I collect Moomin crockery, particularly mugs and cake plates, but I also have Moomin jewellery, clothing and art around the house. I loved Moomin house and its magical Finnish surroundings. Moomintroll would always bring waifs and strays home, his parents always having enough to go round whether it was food, company or shelter that was needed. They also had buckets full of compassion and understanding for people. Little My was terribly bossy and bitey but there was room for her and her mother Mymble. Then there’s the Hemulen, a very learned gentleman who has a love of botany and can often be found shuffling around the gardens and beyond with his magnifying glass and notebook. For some reason he was always wearing a dress but nobody commented. The Snork Maiden is also a Moomin, but isn’t family. She comes and goes, mainly to see Moomintroll who she’s in love with, but she’s always worrying that she is too plump to be loved in return. Finally there’s Snufkin, Moonintroll’s best friend, who is a bit of a loner and loves to wander off and travel in the summer months. He shares a love of fishing with Moomintroll and although he doesn’t always understand Snufkin’s need to be alone he does respect it. All of these unusual people live under one roof and there’s always room. Moominmama and papa are wonderfully kind and never judgemental about their guests, they keep everyone fed and include them in their stories about various adventures. People talk about the personality types seen in Winnie the Pooh but the Moomins are it for me, I can easily fit anyone I know into one of these characters – my brother is a most definite Snufkin. They remain relevant today, particularly the Snork Maiden’s self-image and the Hemulen’s cross dressing. I only realised when I was older that I was lucky enough to have parents very like Moomintroll’s. I had a friend with a Mohican and very baggy Joe Blogg’s jeans who would stroll to my house with flowers he’d stolen from someone’s yard, or the graveyard, and announce to my mum that he’d come for tea and she always fed him. My brother and I constantly brought strays home, animals and people, and my parents were always there with food, a listening ear or some advice. I was living with Moominmamma and Pappa all along.

Reading the books over and over, certainly informed my own ways of dealing with people and might have a lot to do with my choice of career. In mental health, reserving judgment and accepting people as they are is vital in therapy. Now when I look at the books or buy something for my collection I get that feeling of nostalgia for my childhood and my family, whose way of being in the world meant we did live in Moomin House, it was just a bungalow in Lincolnshire rather than a blue tower next to a lake.

Look out for my childhood book blog in the next fortnight, or you can sign up and have every post sent to your inbox.

Wordpress Prompts

Book With An Impact

Posted on 3rd Jun 2026 by thelotusreaders

List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?

Wow it’s so hard to come up with only three but I’ll give it a try. The biggest impact books can have is an emotional one and since I love books that are complex psychologically with deep, realistic characters that’s why I’m struggling to restrict myself. So I’ll do three of the most recent ones.

Ciara has recognised she needs to leave her husband due to his coercive control. Here in Ireland, she has no real support. Her family is Irish but live in London and despite her yearning to see her mum and sister the law states that she can’t take the children out of Ireland without the written permission of their father. Her only option is the housing office, present as homeless and hopefully get some emergency accommodation. As she meets other women in the same situation, she founds out that emergency and temporary have a very different meaning to the housing department. They offer her a temporary hotel room, but some women on the floor have lived there for a year so it’s going to be a long slog. This small double room with one bed and no view is the first place they’ve felt even remotely safe, even if they do have to go down a separate staircase so they don’t bump into tourists. Will Ciara have the strength to stay away and build a new life for herself?

This book blew me away last year. I was so engrossed in Ciara’s story that when I was at 50% of the way through I decided to sit for an afternoon and finish. No distractions like music or telly, just total silence and when I finished I sat in that silence and I could feel, bodily, every step of her emotional journey. My chest was tight, my breaths were shallow and I was holding myself so tightly I was sore. When I put it down I had to sit in silence for a while and just digest it all. It’s the story of a woman trying to leave a relationship that is tying her down and eating her alive. Everything she was before – bright, intelligent and full of life – has been worn away. Enduring her husband’s treatment, as well as having two children in four years, mean Ciara has had enough. She can see his behaviour as a pattern and despite being absolutely terrified she needs to find the strength to go.

I was in a relationship like Ciara’s for four years, vulnerable from the death of my husband, I reached for what felt like safety, but was really control. I weathered the silences, withdrawals, rages, punishments and rare moments of calm that I didn’t realise was a cycle of abuse. The gradual withdrawal of friends and family, the breakages of things most precious to me, the arguments with his family I couldn’t understand, all started to wear me down. He told me I was overweight, undesirable when I was ill, nagging, controlling, not a team player. If I tried to be more desirable he rejected me because I was making a show of myself. I tried to get involved with his business, but had to be careful not to outshine him. He liked me to organise parties and BBQs but then raged that I’d taken the limelight. He even used my disability against me, saying he wasn’t attracted to me when my MS relapsed and questioning my symptoms, my need to use a blue badge. I’d never experienced a relationship so unsettling, swooping from happiness to despair in the space of a few hours. He kept telling me this is what a long term relationship was like, luckily I knew different. Then he did something that, if I accepted it, would have separated me from my family and left me utterly alone and exactly where he wanted me. Thankfully I had enough strength and family support to leave. I’m telling you this so you can understand how this book had such an emotional effect on me. When you’ve gone through an experience of abuse and coercive control it’s so hard to explain because like my disability it can’t be seen. The unexplained injuries and bruises of physical abuse are their own testament, but how do you describe being terrified of someone who doesn’t physically leave any sign of their abuse? When someone articulates your experience in this way, you feel seen and accepted. Ciara’s experience did that for me and I can’t thank Roisin O’Donnell enough for that.

In 1987 Cora is going to register the birth of her baby boy. His name has been settled on for some time. Cora’s husband has chosen his own name for his son, Gordon. But it wouldn’t be Cora’s choice. Cora’s choice would be something that doesn’t tie him so obviously to his father. She thinks Julian would suit him. Little sister Maia looks in the pram at her brother and decides he looks like a he should be called Bear. All of these options swirl around in Cora’s head. In this moment, Cora has the power to make a choice and it’s done. It can’t be changed. What would happen if she went with Julian or even Bear? In the short term Gordon would be furious. How bad would it be this time? Long term, would it change her baby’s character or path in life? That’s exactly what Florence Knapp does. The book splits into three narratives and we discover what happens to this whole family, depending on Cora’s baby boy’s name. We then move on seven years and meet Bear, a name that proves to be a catalyst for change. Or we meet Cora’s choice, Julian – the choice she hoped would break him free from domineering generations of Gordons. Although, what if he is called Gordon? Brought up by a cruel father to continue in the same mould perhaps? Or he might just break free from the shackles of his name. Each life is sparked by this one decision and it isn’t just Cora’s son’s story. This is the life of the whole family with all its ups and downs. It’s about how trauma shapes lives and whether love brings healing and hope to every version of who we are.

One of our family narratives is that mum wanted to call me Little Green after the Joni Mitchell song. Mum is definitely a hippy and Dad is definitely not. My whole life I’ve said ‘thank goodness for Dad’, as I ended up with Hayley Marsha Ann which felt unusual enough. However, when I read the lyrics of the Joni Mitchell song, it was just so beautiful. Written for a child she had when she was very young. She felt she was too young to be a mum and gave her up for adoption. The song is so full of the hopes a mother would have for their daughter:

“Just a little Green

Like thе color when the spring is born

There’ll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow

Just a little Green

Like the nights when the Northern lights perform

There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes

And sometimes there’ll be sorrow.”

The book made me wonder whether I’d be a different person now had I been Little Green. Would I have been more confident? Perhaps I’d have been more comfortable in my creativity. Might I have written my book by now? How could I have failed with a name imbued with such hope? Each of the book’s three arcs has its share of joy and heartache as Cora’s potential children cope with the aftermath of that day in 1987. For Gordon the legacy of his father is perhaps the most damaging as Cora feared. Growing up in his father’s presence means he could pass on the misogyny passed down through all the Gordons in his ancestry. It damages his relationship with his mother as he can be used as a tool for his father to oppress Cora further or to spy on her behaviour. It will also affect his own relationships with women, both his sister and potential partners – his teenage crush on Lily becomes something that’s very hard to read, but it’s right to include it. The author depicts inter-generational trauma and how it can damage the next generation in different ways. Abusers can’t always break patterns and sometimes I was compelled to read on in sheer hope. Each narrative has its moments of emotion where you have to look up from the book and breathe for a moment. Just to take it in. However, one narrative broke me. I was reading quietly in the same room as my husband and I actually responded out loud. He had to give me a cuddle because I did have tears coming and I’m astonished by the writer’s ability to absorb to that degree. To make words into a flesh and blood person I can shed tears over and another who has the potential to become a monster.

At an isolated research station in Antarctica, biologist Laurel Salter washes dishes for a living ten hours a day, six days a week. She tells no one why she left her career, or why her marriage ended.

But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can’t outrun her past. When a strange light appears across the ice and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo, her former husband, Eli, won’t be far behind.

Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole, and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them – to turn back the clock and live their story a second time?

And this time, live it differently.

Once read, never forgotten, Under Story is a genre-defying exploration of the promise of this life, what might lie beyond it, and how far we would go for more time with the people we love.

I can’t reveal too much about this one as it’s not published yet but I am constantly praising it because it’s the most extraordinary book I’ve read in years. I was quite simply blown away by this complex and beautiful story of science, loss and second chances. Our heroine Laurel is a scientist, studying fungus and how it grows but for some reason that isn’t clear at first, she’s on a research station in the Antarctic, away from her former husband Eli and without any fungus in sight. When she develops a fascination in the Arc that appears she thinks about its significance. When she becomes aware there is a matching basin underneath the water, her imagination is fired. Could this possibly be a portal? A gateway to a different world? She knows Eli won’t be far behind because she remembers his theory of the ‘duoverse’, the idea that at the moment of the big bang time and space was formed in two directions: our universe, the planets and the development of the world we know and in the other direction it’s complete opposite. I am not a scientist, in fact I barely have GCSE Biology, so I wasn’t aware of any background to this idea so could drift with it and enjoy two incredible minds exploring ideas.

Our characters are fascinating, Eli and Laurel are a couple who were made for each other but their relationship is real and particularly devastating events crash into their lives but I never doubted their love for each other. It’s fascinating to watch their characters face the concept of the duoverse, not just whether it is a portal, but if it is what will their relationship look like there and will going backwards fix whatever tore them apart. I felt both were analytical and might even appear cold at times, but in the moments of heightened emotion we really see who these characters are and the deep wells of love they hold. Every world the author presents to us feels absolutely real even though it’s impossible. I was on tenterhooks wondering about the duoverse under the ice and if Lauren is right whether they’ll ever be able to return? I found myself wondering how this world would look as time scrolled backwards. I was genuinely scared for them but also full of admiration for their bravery. The mirroring is so cleverly done, showing how life always comes full circle and we’re often helpless at the end and the beginning, if we’re lucky enough to lead a full life. It might seem like science has sent them on this potential journey, but it isn’t. The totally unscientific emotion of love is what pushes them on, but also guilt, hope and desperation. Loss is a huge theme in the novel, something that always hits me in the heart due to my own losses: losing my late husband and three pregnancies I was deeply moved by how the author dealt with loss across the novel and how the scientific concept of a duoverse changes this experience. This novel was moving, profound, invigorating, deeply intelligent and so full of life. I kept thinking about the symbols of the cover, the circle and the tree, the same under the ground as they are over it. As Laurel observes:

“A line implies before and after; a circle says And then, and then…”

Uncategorized

Being Alone

Posted on 2nd Jun 2026 by thelotusreaders

What fears have you overcome and how?

I didn’t realise I had this fear until around twenty years ago. I was 36 and my husband had died from complications with his multiple sclerosis. It had become so severe he couldn’t swallow or breathe properly. I had this realisation that I’d never been alone. From being around 16, I’d always had a boyfriend or partner. It was a fleeting thought I wrote in my journal and then forgot about. We’d had a busy house, what with carers and nurses and family popping in all the time. I struggled with the time that stretched out in front of me, used to a demanding caring role that included clearing lungs, tube feeding and constant turning to avoid pressure sores, there were now no demands taking up my day. I was at a friend’s house and she asked me if I’d stay for tea and I automatically said no, forgetting that I had nothing to come home for. No matter who I was with or where I went, the crushing silence when I reached home was unbearable. It was as if the air in the room was heavy and empty at the same time. His wheelchair, parked in the corner of the garage was unbearable to go past. I was relieved to be able to sleep all night but then started having nightmares. Waking suddenly, covered with sweat thinking I’d forgotten to get up and suction his lungs. Thinking he’d stopped breathing, then remembering that he had. I had dreams where I couldn’t find him and I was wandering in this dystopian nightmare of bombed out houses and twisted metal. I was turning over wreckage thinking I’d find him underneath but he simply wasn’t there. I could still hear him trying to clear his throat. I kept falling asleep in the day, then waking up unable to move but hearing noises that made me think someone was in the house. My brain bringing up intruders just so I felt less alone. A year later I met someone. It was someone I’d known a long time and trusted. I was magical thinking. That the universe had given me this person so I had something to be happy about. I was owed a happy ending, right? I thought it was the least the universe could do. So I made it perfect. I fashioned my own happy ending. Only to be left four years later feeling like I’d been in love with a ghost. The man I imagined myself in love with didn’t exist. Instead this controlling, insecure and abusive monster was living in my house and I couldn’t work out what had happened. Why had he changed? Like all abusers he started off charming, but if I was honest with myself I should have walked away at the six month mark, when the first red flag appeared, but I didn’t because I wanted us to be happy. Now I would have to learn how to be alone again. This time though I leaned into it. I relaxed into the sadness and anger, allowed myself to feel it. Now I know I can survive anything.

Ten on Tuesday

#TenOnTuesday: Ten Book With A Playlist

Posted on 2nd Jun 202630th May 2026 by thelotusreaders

I listen to music all the time at home. I’m old enough to have a vinyl collection, cd collection and Spotify premium. Every so often we say that we must get rid of our cds and dvds (never the vinyl, especially since my other half has reconditioned his father’s old Bang and Olufson stereo from the 1980s). Then we look doubtful and say ‘what if the internet fails’, because I’m sure that at the end of civilisation the first thing we’ll reach for are his Duran Duran LPs and my 1990s collection. We all know how much music taps into our emotions and I know I’ve spent hours constructing playlists for specific celebrations or to document a particular year. So when a book comes with or inspires a playlist it does add to my emotional connection with the book. One of the most effective things about the adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander book series is the atmospheric music and often that’s where we end up with these lists, others come from fans of the book who have looked for every piece of music mentioned in their favourite novel – something that particularly connects to romance novels it seems. Some authors actually make their soundtrack first, or make a playlist for each character as a way of familiarising themselves and feeling that character. Other books are set in the world of music so have official playlists or actual tracks written for featured band or artist in the narrative. Here I’ve added a mix of different playlist types and hopefully there’s one or two you’ll enjoy.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned – from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren – an enigmatic artist and single mother- who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town – and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at an unexpected and devastating cost…

This playlist is made by the author so should evoke some feelings and memories around the characters and mood of the novel.

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor is the new girl in town, and she’s never felt more alone. All mismatched clothes, mad red hair and chaotic home life, she couldn’t stick out more if she tried.

Then she takes the seat on the bus next to Park. Quiet, careful and – in Eleanor’s eyes – impossibly cool, Park’s worked out that flying under the radar is the best way to get by.

Slowly, steadily, through late-night conversations and an ever-growing stack of mix tapes, Eleanor and Park fall in love. They fall in love the way you do the first time, when you’re 16, and you have nothing and everything to lose.

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, Eleanor & Park is funny, sad, shocking and true – an exquisite nostalgia trip for anyone who has never forgotten their first love.

Again this is the author’s own playlist so should fit with these teenage loves.

Astrid Sees All by Natalie Standiford

New York, 1984: Twenty-two-year-old Phoebe Hayes is a young woman in search of excitement and adventure. But the recent death of her father has so devastated her that her mother wants her to remain home in Baltimore to recover. Phoebe wants to return to New York, not only to chase the glamorous life she so desperately craves but also to confront Ivan, the older man who wronged her. With her best friend Carmen, she escapes to the East Village, disappearing into an underworld haunted by artists, It Girls, and lost souls trying to party their pain away. Carmen juggles her junkie-poet boyfriend and a sexy painter while, as Astrid the Star Girl, Phoebe tells fortunes in a nightclub and plots her revenge on Ivan. When the intoxicating brew of sex, drugs, and self-destruction leads Phoebe to betray her friend, Carmen disappears, and Phoebe begins an unstoppable descent into darkness. “A new wave coming-of-age story, Astrid Sees All is a blast from the past” (Stewart O’Nan, author of The Speed Queen) about female friendship, sex, romance, and what it’s like to be a young woman searching for an identity.

This is a great 1980s soundtrack that has been curated by the author.

High Fidelity by Nick Hornsby

This one is a classic in the books about music category.

Do you know your desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable break-ups? Rob does.

But Laura isn’t on it – even though she’s just become his latest ex.

Finding he can’t get over Laura, record-store owner Rob decides to revisit his relationship top hits to figure out what went wrong. But soon, he’s asking himself some big questions: about relationships, about life and about his own self-destructive tendencies. This is such a quick and engrossing read, funny and incredibly moving with a great film adaptation too.

This is a playlist made up from Rob’s playlist so you can get into his character while listening.

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Everybody knows Daisy Jones and the Six.

Their sound defined an era. Their albums were on every turntable. They sold out arenas from coast to coast.

Then, on 12 July 1979, Daisy Jones walked barefoot onto the stage at Chicago Stadium. And it all came crashing down. Everyone was there.

Everyone remembers it differently.

Nobody knew why they split. Until now . . .

This was such a smash hit, both the book and the tv series. This is original music created for the band and other tracks from that era gathered together by a clever fan. I listen to this one a lot.

The Flat Share by Beth O’ Leary

Tiffy and Leon share a flat
Tiffy and Leon share a bed
Tiffy and Leon have never met…

Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time.

But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window…

This playlist is a collection of music used in the tv series based on the book, it gives a great backdrop to these characters and really fits with the book.

The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton

A queen of punk before her time. A duo on the brink of stardom. A night that will define their story for ever.

Opal is a fiercely independent young woman pushing against the grain in her style and attitude, a Black punk artist before her time. Despite her unconventional looks, Opal believes she can be a star. So when the aspiring British singer/songwriter Neville Charles discovers her one night, she takes him up on his offer to make rock music together.

In early seventies New York City, just as she’s finding her niche as part of a flamboyant and funky creative scene, a rival band signed to her label brandishes a Confederate flag at a promotional concert. Opal’s bold protest and the violence that ensues set off a chain of events that will not only change the lives of those she loves, but also be a deadly reminder that repercussions are always harsher for women, especially Black women, who dare to speak their truth.

Decades later, as Opal considers a 2016 reunion with Nev,music journalist S. Sunny Shelton seizes the chance to curate an oral history about her idols. Sunny thought she knew most of the stories leading up to the cult duo’s most politicized chapter, but as her interviews dig deeper, a nasty new allegation from an unexpected source threatens everything.

This is a great read. This is a soundtrack gathered from the era and the artists who would have been contemporaries of the characters, it really does take you back.

The Future Saints by Ashley Winstead

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.

This is a book I wasn’t sure I would like but I loved it. This is a playlist curated by the author and really puts you in the mood.

Mix Tape by Jane Sanderson

You never forget the one that got away….

Daniel was the first boy to make Alison a mix tape.

But that was years ago and Ali hasn’t thought about him in a very long time. Even if she had, she might not have called him ‘the one that got away’; after all, she’d been the one to run.

Then Dan’s name pops up on her phone, with a link to a song from their shared past.

For two blissful minutes, Alison is no longer an adult in Adelaide with temperamental daughters; she is sixteen in Sheffield, dancing in her skin-tight jeans. She cannot help but respond in kind.

And so begins a new mix tape. Ali and Dan exchange songs – some new, some old – across oceans and time zones, across a lifetime of different experiences.

Until one of them breaks the rules and sends a message that will change everything…

I love this book, it takes me back to my teens and my very own Daniel who was a musician and used to spend hours snuggled up with me just listening to vinyl all night. The music is specific to the book and the BBC series wasn’t a bad adaptation either.

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular and well-liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation – awkward but electrifying – something life-changing begins.

Normal People is a story of mutual fascination, friendship and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find they can’t.

I adore these characters. This playlist is made up of music that soundtracked the BBC series and fits the book beautifully.