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Posted in Netgalley

The Princess by Wendy Holden 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

It was all she ever wanted. Until her dreams came true…

The moving new novel about the young Diana.

Diana believes in love. Growing up amid the fallout of her parents’ bitter divorce, she takes refuge in romantic novels. She dreams of being rescued by a handsome prince.

Prince Charles loves his freedom. He’s in no rush to wed, but his family have other ideas. Charles must marry for the future of the Crown.

The right girl needs to be found, and fast. She must be young, aristocratic and free of past liaisons.

The teenage Diana Spencer is just about the only candidate. Her desperation to be loved dovetails with royal desperation for a bride.

But the route to the altar is full of hidden obstacles and people with their own agendas.

When she steps from the golden carriage on her wedding day, has Diana’s romantic dream come true?

Or is it already over?

Princess Diana hit the headlines when I was nine years old, perfect timing for me to buy into the fairytale and fall in love with her. I had my hair cut into Diana’s short style and I had one of her jumpers, well an Asda version, covered in sheep with one little black sheep in the bottom corner. When we look back at her life in retrospect, it could be that she was trying to tell us something. This book focuses on Diana’s earlier years, from her schooldays until that fairytale of a wedding which seemed to cement her into the consciousness of everyone, across the world. It was interesting to read more about her single life before dating Charles, a period that struck me as interesting when it was dramatised in The Crown. She had a busy, fun lifestyle sharing a flat with three friends and working in a nursery. Then as soon as the engagement was announced she was taken into apartments at Buckingham Palace, totally closed off from outside, but also from other members of the royal family. It was quiet, almost like a church, with no one reachable by phone and Charles on a tour abroad. His only thought in terms of company was to introduce her to Camilla Parker Bowles. 

The book did well when describing the dysfunctional way the Royals live. It’s an almost surreal existence with very specific rules to live by. When I read how much time each member spends alone I started to understand why they all have dogs. They don’t eat together daily, non-royals don’t come to the palace unless invited and each royal has their own quirks. For a 18-19 year old wandering round empty rooms and not being able to talk to friends must have been totally isolating. It was for her security of course, but it also meant she could be trained to fit the role she would play. She must have been so lonely. I’ve clearly read a lot of the same books as the author, because I knew about King Charles’s very odd boiled egg habits and the Queen Mother’s exploits in her home at Clarence House, but there were some things that were new to me. 

It was clear that Diana was a young girl full of life and romantic ideas about men and marriage. Wendy Holden tells the story through the eyes of Diana, her best friend at boarding school Sandy and Stephen Barry who was the Prince of Wales’s valet. The girls read paperback romances, the type of story written by Diana’s relative Barbara Cartland. When the girls imagine love at the age of 13, they imagine it being: ‘like a particularly delicious bath, deep and warm, with lots of bubbles.’ It conjures up a sense of comfort and pampering that I do actually feel sometimes with my other half, but a man who doesn’t know what love means isn’t equipped to love like that. The only people who pampered him were his servants, how can you provide what you’ve never had? I think Holden has captured the essence of a girl in adolescence, dreaming what her life might be. She’s a lively, bubbly girl who loves music and the company of others. She has a shy charm that’s so endearing, but her parents divorce has left a mark and I wondered whether it instilled in her a determination to get it right, which left me feeling a little sad for her.  

The second section of the novel definitely has a a melancholy feel, that shows us how well the author has brought the fun, young Diana to life. This is such a contrast. It also makes us realise how young she was to get married anyway, never mind becoming a future Queen of England. It is only six years since that journey with Sandy to boarding school. So, when she becomes engaged to the then Prince of Wales she was probably still expecting the comfort and care of a warm bath. She must have been disappointed at this moment. I always feel that Diana married the people on that day, rather than Charles. When she has some late doubts her sister Sarah warns her that her face is already on the tea towels. It’s too late. The pressure must have been immense. She has spent months hounded by the press and the famous moment where photographers captured her with a see through skirt is just one incidence of naivety on her part. She’s been getting thinner and her wedding dress needed taking in constantly. This isn’t the fairy tale love she’s dreamed about, more the matchmaking of two grandmothers living in the past and desperately trying to break off Charles’s adulterous relationship with Camilla.

I think the author attempted something very difficult here, to create a unique view of a story that’s a modern parable. Everyone knows a version of what happened. So, to create something that captures the voice of the most well known woman in the world, while bringing something new to her story, is near impossible. I think she partly succeeds. I didn’t learn anything new, but I did feel that I was listening to Diana in this story. It doesn’t have that compelling quality, because we already know about the divorce in 1996 and her death only a year later. I felt there was a bit of fire in this girl, despite her naivety. The rude awakening that she was simply a brood mare fuelled a fightback – the Andrew Morton book, the interview with Bashir and that last poignant summer are her pushing back against a system she felt used and abandoned by. A desperate need to be heard. I thought it was interesting to know she spent time with Princess Margaret, another young, royal woman who learned early on that her happiness came very low on the list of priorities. The royals never tried to be her family, missing that warmth and heart Diana was known for. I think this warmth, plus her fight and desire to buck the system is perhaps inherited by her son Harry. This was a well-researched book that really captured the spirit and personality of the most famous woman in the world. 

Out Now from Mountain Leopard Press

Posted in Netgalley

Clear by Carys Davies 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. Unaware of the stranger’s intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile, on the mainland, John’s wife, Mary, anxiously awaits news of his mission.

Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Carys Davies’s intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us.

Clear is so beautifully set within some very significant events. In the 19th Century evangelical worshippers moved away from the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland. Also, there was a second wave of Scottish landowners driving their tenants from the land, choosing to make a better profit grazing sheep, know as the Highland Clearances. Our characters are deeply involved with these events. John Ferguson has been a minister in the Church of Scotland, but his conscience draws him away towards the Free Church. This leaves him without an income since the new church isn’t yet established. John’s wife Mary may be the answer, because her brother-in-law asks a landowner if he could offer John a job. The job has one purpose, travelling to a remote island in the North Sea close to Norway. There he has to evict the landowner’s last remaining tenant, a man named Ivar who is barely scratching a living with a handful of livestock. However, Ivar doesn’t speak English, but an old dialect that’s a mix of Norwegian and Gaelic. John has just one month till the boat returns to take both of them back to Shetland. How will he convince Ivar to leave? 

The story is focused on the relationship these two men have to develop with each other and it starts in a way neither expect. The bailie’s house is empty as he’s already left the island so John plans to make it his base, but needs to find somewhere locally that he can wash. He finds a spring and decides to bathe, but he slips and falls down a cliff. Ivar finds the unconscious man and takes him to his own hut. As John slowly regains consciousness and begins his recovery, the two man have to work out a way of speaking to each other and eventually John has to explain what he’s there for. As we watch their relationship grow and how they work on communication, Mary has grown worried about John. She thinks he may have taken on the task without enough preparation and she decides to travel out there and join him. The narrative felt like being a fly on the wall to to these events. Once the three are together I had the strange feeling that this was really happening and I was simply watching history, bearing witness to the emotions flowing between them. 

This is such a gentle story that contains so much. Instead of pushing an agenda or viewpoint, the author just lets it play out naturally. Nature is so much more than just a setting, it’s life itself. The island is mercurial, with it’s changeable weather creating the mood. Ivar lives entirely off this land, his life a routine of hard work and at home he spins wool or knits. Even the regular agent who collects rent for the landowner is paid in wool, feathers or wrack. Ivar is part of this island, a bear of a man with only his animals for company. There’s a purity to his life that’s almost spiritual, an interesting contrast to John’s organised religion. There’s so much going on under the surface of the story, told in the tiny details of everyday life: their gestures, the intimacies they share and how those connections change as a language is formed between them. It’s interesting to see the established dynamic of John and Ivar affecting how Mary settles into the cottage. The men’s connection brings the three of them into a unit, so that they don’t feel like a married couple and a lone man any more. Each of them forms a strong connection with each other and the landscape. I found reading this an almost meditative experience, because it’s so slow and calm. The ending came suddenly and was a shock. 

Published by Granta 7th March 2025

Meet the Author

Carys Davies’s debut novel West (2018) was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, runner up for the Society of Authors’ McKitterick Prize, and winner of the Wales Book of the Year for Fiction. Her second novel The Mission House was first published in the UK in 2020 where it was The Sunday Times 2020 Novel of the Year.

She is also the author of two collections of short stories, Some New Ambush and The Redemption of Galen Pike, which won the 2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the 2015 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She is the recipient of the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Prize, the Society of Authors’ Olive Cook Short Story Award, a Northern Writers’ Award, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, and is a member of the Folio Academy. Her fiction has been translated into nine languages.

Born in Wales, she grew up there and in the Midlands, lived and worked for twelve years in New York and Chicago, and now lives in Edinburgh.

Posted in Netgalley

The Crash by Kate Furnivall 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Paris 1933. Four people’s lives are dramatically torn apart by a single terrifying event. Two days before Christmas the express train to Strasbourg crashes into a local train in the winter darkness outside Paris. On board is Gilles Malroux, a man with a shady past and a strong reason to avoid the police. In the mayhem of the crash he is badly injured but to avoid capture by the police he swaps identity papers with one of the other victims of the impact. Gilles tries to flee in the dark but finds himself taken to the house of a woman he doesn’t know but who calls him Davide. She nurses him. But is the bitter medicine in the spoon she puts to his lips healing him or harming him?

Camille Malroux is Gilles’ sister. She works for the French Civil Service and is trying to climb the ladder of respectability after a childhood in poverty. When she is informed by police that her brother is seriously injured in hospital, she rushes to his bedside, only to discover it is not Gilles. It is a heavily bandaged stranger. He is unconscious and has her brother’s identity papers in his locker. Only by digging to discover the true identity of the bandaged man in the hospital bed can she hope to trace Gilles. But Gilles is sinking into further danger. He is drugged. A priest and a doctor hover over him, as if waiting for him to die, and constantly the woman who calls him Davide is at his side. What is it she wants from him?

This was an interesting read that poses the question – if you had the opportunity to disappear, would you? It made me think of the reports of people who potentially disappeared on 9/11, starting a new life somewhere while their loved ones assumed they’ve been lost as the World Trade Centre collapsed. Take that idea back to 1933 and Gilles Malraux does exactly that, swapping identity papers with another passenger to avoid being picked up by the police. His decision leaves him vulnerable though, not just because of where he ends up, but because now his family have no way of tracing him. His sister Camille is horrified to hear the news about her brother’s accident, but is frantic when she gets to the hospital and finds the man with her brother’s papers isn’t Gilles. How will she find him? Camille is an incredibly resourceful woman, deciding to undertake the investigation herself and starting with the identity of the bandaged man. This is slow, painstaking stuff, but she comes across a conspiracy to steal Egyptian treasures. She knows she’s in great danger but keeps going to find Gilles, I was impressed with her courage and tenacity. She’d be an incredible field agent, using all her skills to root out the truth. Slowly, tension starts to build as she gets nearer to her brother, but could she be too late, especially if the woman looking after him might not have his best interests at heart. 

I thought the themes of trauma and identity were really well explored, with the train crash central to them both. The backdrop of Christmas really heightened to trauma of the accident. This crash is a once in a lifetime event that divides lives into a definite before and after. Events like this make people evaluate their lives. It can reconfirm that you’re in the right place or just as easily blow your life apart. It also shows us our limits and boundaries. Gilles is willing to take risks and morally questionable choices to survive. Camille faces a tougher choice, she has built up a reputation as a responsible member of the civil service after a childhood that was difficult and affected by poverty. What if she is faced with potentially compromising choices in her search? How much of her respectability is she willing to risk to find Gilles? I found myself rooting for Camille and completely drawn into the story from the outset. It had suspense, incredible historic detail and on the basis of this novel I’m definitely going back to read more of Kate’s work in the future.

Out Now from Hodder & Stoughton

Meet the Author

Kate Furnivall didn’t set out to be a writer. It sort of grabbed her by the throat when she discovered the story of her grandmother – a White Russian refugee who fled from the Bolsheviks down into China. That extraordinary tale inspired her first book, THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE. From then on, she was hooked.

Kate is the author of ten novels, including THE SURVIVORS, THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE, THE LIBERATION and THE BETRAYAL. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages and have been on the Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller lists.

Posted in Sunday Spotlight

Sunday Spotlight: Uplifting and Comforting Fiction. A.J. Pearce and Matson Taylor.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

As many readers know, I’m very partial to historical fiction, especially if it’s telling me a story I didn’t know or following characters who are largely erased from our impressions of the time period: Sarah Waters brings us lesbian characters in the Victorian period; Patrick Gale narrates the journey of an Edwardian husband and father who is gay in A Place Called Winter; Michael Faber brings to life a Victorian prostitute with a skin disease in The Crimson Petal and the White. I’ve enjoyed some incredible stories of the world wars and Holocaust, slavery, and migration. These are some of the most harrowing historical events to choose and it’s no wonder they win awards. They totally engage the emotions and carry you along with them. However, sometimes you want to scratch your historic fiction itch, but want something fun, to feel uplifted. So where do you go? Here are a few ideas you might enjoy.

This wonderfully enjoyable series from A.J.Pearce starts during London’s blitz and is filled with warmth, wit and heartbreak. The first is Dear Mrs Bird, a wartime story about the power of friendship, the kindness of strangers and the courage of ordinary people.

London, 1941. Amid the falling bombs Emmeline Lake dreams of becoming a fearless Lady War Correspondent. Unfortunately, Emmy instead finds herself employed as a typist for the terrifying Henrietta Bird, the renowned agony aunt at Woman’s Friend magazine. Mrs Bird refuses to read, let alone answer, letters containing any form of ‘Unpleasantness’, and definitely not letters from the women the war has left lovelorn, grief-stricken or conflicted. But the thought of these desperate women waiting for an answer becomes impossible for Emmy to ignore. She decides she simply must help and secretly starts to write back – after all, what harm could that possibly do?

Her story is then continued over two more novels, based at the same magazine. Emmeline always has an obstacle to overcome, but she’s plucky and optimistic despite everything that’s happening around her. This doesn’t mean that the war is ignored. Emmeline is always caught between the magazine’s aesthetic and what’s happening in the real world. Some of the magazine owner’s want to keep the pre-war feel of a magazine for upper class ladies. Emmeline knows the world has changed, women’s lives are very different and there’s so much more to write about than hunt balls and the latest fashions. So with Emmeline taking letters from their readers we see more of the real picture for women; parenting alone or sending your child to the countryside as an evacuee; trying to juggle war work and child care; bereavement and loss. These are big issues, so they are discussed and experienced by the women Emmeline knows. Yet the author still manages to make them cheery and the uplifting feeling we get is from real women supporting each other and pushing for social change.

In July 2025, a fourth in the series will be published by Picador. It’s July 1944 and Emmy Lake’s career is soaring: Woman’s Friend magazine is a huge success, and she is finally realizing her dream of becoming a female war correspondent. On the personal front, Emmy’s husband Charles has been posted closer to home, and they and their friends Bunty and Harold have escaped to the countryside for a few precious summer days. They all know how lucky they are. But after nearly five years of war, the nation is struggling. The “Yours Cheerfully” advice column receives more letters than ever, and even though it looks like the war might finally be over by Christmas, the situation is far from resolved. For Emmy and her team, it’s all about pulling together and pushing on. But then disaster strikes. Soon Emmy finds herself facing her greatest battle yet. Now she needs her friends more than ever . . .

Endearing, engaging, and full of heart, Dear Miss Lake is a testament to the power of friendship in the hardest of times.

I must admit to being astonished that the 1960’s/70’s are now classed as historical fiction, but here we are. I have to be reminded that it’s 60 years ago and as someone who’s now over 50 this was my childhood. Anyway I fell absolutely in love with these wonderful books about Evie Epworth and I know I’ll be re-reading them when I need a boost. Evie is an absolute delight and we first meet her in the summer after her exams and her plans are no more structured than helping her dad deliver their cow’s milk and reading. This is rural Yorkshire in 1962 and life so far has been filled with schoolwork, Girl Guides, milking, lacrosse, village fetes and baking with her elderly neighbour. She did also lose her mother and misses her every day. She wants to be left to her dreams of becoming like her idols – Charlotte Brontë, Shirley MacLaine and the Queen – and to live a glamorous life in London, or Leeds would do. She wasn’t banking on her Dad’s girlfriend Christine. A money-grabbing, manipulative and tasteless schemer who starts to move in and make changes. She wants to upgrade the farmhouse kitchen to Formica and put Evie to work in the village salon, surrounded by shampoos, sets and blue rinses. How can Evie rescue her future from Christine’s over-perfumed clutches? Luckily people come into her life who might be able to help and with a dollop of Yorkshire magic she might succeed.

In the second novel. All About Evie, takes us forward to 1972. Evie is settled in London working for the BBC. She has everything she’s ever dreamed of (a career, a leatherette briefcase, an Ossie Clark poncho) but, following an unfortunate incident involving Princess Anne and a Hornsea Pottery mug, she finds herself having to rethink her life and piece together work, love, grief and multiple pairs of cork-soled platform sandals. This is a brilliant follow up where Evie has to sail the choppy waters of her twenties, following her dreams and finding they’re not as easy as they seemed. She’s soon trying different occupations, all in her inimitable Evie way, with a wonderful side order of romance and a trip back to Yorkshire of course. These novels are so tender and genuinely moving, but are also witty, inventive and incredibly funny. I don’t know how Matson inhabits the soul of this teenage girl, but he does it beautifully. She’s brimming with life force and sound Northern reason. I think you’ll absolutely love her.

Celebrating the publication of Evie Epworth with Cow Cakes.

Other Uplifting Historical Fiction

I loved this story set in New York, 1979. It is Thanksgiving and Evelina has her close family and beloved friends gathered around, her heart weighted with gratitude for what she has and regret for what she has given up. She has lived in America for over thirty years, but she is still Italian in her soul. 
 
Northern Italy, 1934. Evelina leads a sheltered life with her parents and siblings in a villa of fading grandeur. When her elder sister Benedetta marries a banker, to suit her father’s wishes rather than her own, Evelina swears that she will never marry out of duty. She knows nothing of romantic love, but when she meets Ezra, son of the local dressmaker, her heart recognises it like an old friend. 
 
Evelina wants these carefree days to last forever. She wants to bask in sunshine, beauty and love and pay no heed to the grey clouds gathering on the horizon. But nothing lasts forever.  The shadows of war are darkening over Europe and precious lives are under threat. This is a beautifully moving story, but it feels like a hug in book form. I could literally disappear into it and escape into Evelina’s life that tells you all you need to know about love.

It is England, 1932, and the country is in the grip of the Great Depression. To lift the spirits of the nation, Stella Douglas is tasked with writing a history of food in England. It’s to be quintessentially English and will remind English housewives of the old ways, and English men of the glory of their country. The only problem is –much of English food is really from, well, elsewhere . . .

Good taste is in the eye of the beholder…

So, Stella sets about unearthing recipes from all corners of the country, in the hope of finding a hidden culinary gem. But what she discovers is rissoles, gravy, stewed prunes and lots of oatcakes. Longing for something more thrilling, she heads off to speak to the nation’s housewives. But when her car breaks down and the dashing and charismatic Freddie springs to her rescue, she is led in a very different direction. Full of wit and vim, Good Taste is a story of discovery, of English nostalgia, change and challenge, and one woman’s desire to make her own way as a modern woman. This was a lovely nostalgic read and I’m so looking forward to new novel The Best of Intentions coming in summer this year.

This is a twenty year old novel from Adriana Trigiani based around Lucia Sartori, the beautiful twenty-five-year-old daughter of a fine Italian immigrant family in Greenwich Village, New York. Set in 1950, Lucia becomes an apprentice for a made-to-wear clothing designer at a chic department store on Fifth Avenue. Though she is sought after as a potential wife by the best Italian families, Lucia stays her course and works hard, determined to have a career. She juggles the roles of dutiful daughter and ambitious working girl perfectly. When a handsome stranger comes to the story and catches her eye, it is love at first sight for both of them. In order to win Lucia’s hand, he must first win over her traditional family and make the proper offer of marriage. Their love affair takes an unexpected turn as secrets are revealed, Lucia’s family honour is tested, and her own reputation becomes the centre of a sizzling scandal. Set in a time of possibility and change for women in America, in a city that celebrates its energy with style and elegance, LUCIA, LUCIA is the story of a girl who risks everything for the belief that a woman could – and should – be able to have it all. There’s definitely a melancholic feeling here, falling into nostalgia over choices that she could have made and we see the result of those choices in her older years. However, I find it life-affirming and comforting.

Posted in Netgalley

Garden of her Heart by Zoe Richards

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was immediately attracted to this book because of it’s themes of trauma and recovery, something I have personal and professional experience with. This is an ultimately uplifting story of healing that was the perfect antidote to the current news cycle and being pretty much housebound due to illness. The story is set on a well-being retreat and follows one loner, two secrets and three weeks at Pinewoods Retreat. When Holly Bush (yes, that’s her name ) is made redundant with gardening leave, after suffering a brutal attack. She decides to visit a retreat not far from home, finding friendship and a garden in need of love. She ends up doing literal gardening leave and journals her way through the holiday, working on both her mental and physical scars as well as discovering an inner strength and resilience.

I’d been looking forward to reading this, but the TBR and my health got in the way. Although, perhaps this was the perfect time to read it. Zoe is open about her own journey with mental health and it’s something that will resonate with a lot of people. I bonded with Holly very quickly and was rooting for immediately. I thought all of the characters were very real and the owners of the retreat, Dee and Lorraine, were incredibly authentic and seemed to truly care about their residents. They reminded me of people I’ve worked with and thank goodness for people like this! The other residents were an interesting mix and I loved watching Holly’s relationship with Bex, Ruth and San grow into friendship and mutual support. They all felt honest and real. Hunter, the odd-job guy, was a bit of a fox and almost made me want to pick up a trowel and get planting. I loved the journaling aspects of the retreat, because it’s something I’ve taught for some time in mental health settings and for people with acquired disabilities. It makes such a difference to people’s wellbeing and their acceptance of a huge life change. I loved facilitating these sessions and being unable to work at the moment it was lovely to be back in that atmosphere.

The story is moving and there are sad parts, these are people who are healing and they need to process their trauma in order to move on. There are characters who don’t behave very well, but they’re on their own healing journey and it really isn’t easy. I found it moving as people let go of all the fear, anger and frustration they were feeling. There’s something so beautiful about seeing someone blossom this way and the garden was obviously a great metaphor for that. It’s why I chose the lotus flower as my logo for counselling because of the quote about it growing from a muddy pod; beautiful and strong. There was just so much hope for the future, not to mention the enduring friendships that are made. I think Zoe captured the sense of peace that comes from being your authentic self. While there is a hint of romance, I loved the way it was kept in the background, with the friendship and trust between Holly and the new allies being the most important part. This is a great debut, creating a place of healing that readers could easily be inspired by. It’s not just a enjoyable story, I think a lot of people will identify with it and perhaps start their own recovery journey. It’s a book that will stay in my uplifting reads for those grey days when I need comfort from what I’m reading. 

Out now from UCLan Publishing

Meet the Author

Zoë Richards was inspired to write Garden of Her Heart by being a suicide survivor from which she learned the healing that worked best for her, which is not the same for everyone. Dog walks around the Formby pinewoods, not far from her home, gave her the location, in an area known locally as The Lost Resort, a town that never came into existence, close to the sea. In the woods there is a sole Victorian house, standing alone on a cinder track, and this is the inspiration for the location of Pinewoods Retreat. She lives in Southport, near Liverpool, has been married to Rob for 34 years, and they have a grown-up daughter and a cockapoo who will never grow up. She worked for the NHS as an improvement programme manager, reforming how children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities are supported in healthcare. Writing gives her an escape from the intensity of work and from caring for her elderly mother.

Zoë is an author and host of the podcast, Write, Damn It!. She has written for national magazines for many years. She is represented by Clare Coombes of The Liverpool Literary Agency and her debut novel, Garden of Her Heart, a novel about recovery, community and purpose, was published by UCLan Publishing in June 2024. Her second novel, Tell It To The Bees is a standalone sequel, and is out in August 2025.

With over 30 years of experience of working on mindset, and a teacher of coaching for over 25 years, Zoë hosts the Write, Damn It! podcast, where she has weekly conversations with authors, and offers doses of support to writers. She also coaches writers to overcome their demons and blocks, and helps them get the writing done. Much of what she uses on mindset comes from lived experience, as she is a suicide survivor who learned how to get through the darkest times using mindset and wellbeing support. 

Zoë lives on the Merseyside coast with her husband and MillyMoo the cockapoo. She has an adult daughter and a granddaughter – and best not forget Peanut the grandpup too.

Posted in Throwback Thursday

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

When I first read The Giver of Stars I felt it was a totally different type of Jojo Moyes novel. Using the historical setting of the Great Depression, she takes us to a town in rural Kentucky., where most people work in the Van Cleeve family’s mines and levels of rural poverty are high. In Kentucky, African-Americans are still subject to segregation and middle class women are expected to stay home and know their place. Women in poorer families are working hard while trying their best to feed and look after ever-growing families. Into this setting comes Alice, the English bride of the heir to the mining fortune, Bennet Van Cleeve. Bennet is handsome and considerate, and their marriage seems to start well but once they reach the family home things change. Bennet has lived with his father, following the death of his mother and the house is still being run to her exacting standards. Alice finds she has little to do, with a house is full of her late mother-in-laws ornaments and china dolls, especially since Mr Van Cleeve doesn’t like anything to be out of it’s normal place. More worrying is the change in Bennet now they are home. Despite showing some desire at the beginning, the proximity to his father is affecting their sex life. Several months down the line their marriage is still unconsummated and Mr Van Cleeve keeps hinting about grandchildren, adding to the pressure.

When a town meeting is called to discuss President Roosevelt’s initiative to get the rural poor reading, Alice senses an outlet for her energy. Margery O’Hare will head up the initiative, a wonderfully outspoken and self-sufficient women who doesn’t listen to the opinion of anyone else, particularly men. She opens a door for Alice, out of the claustrophobic Van Cleeve household and into the wild forests of Kentucky. Alice learns to ride a mule, and along with Margery and two other local women she sets out as a librarian for the Packhorse Library. At first, rural locals are suspicious of an Englishwoman coming to the door offering them books, but soon Alice finds a way in and starts to be trusted. She also finds she likes the open air, the smells of the forest and singing of the birds. There is also the freedom to be in more casual dress and the camaraderie she is building up with her fellow librarians. She is close to Margery and when she confides about her marriage, Margery loans her a book she has been sneaking out with the novels and recipes. It is an instruction book on married love and Margery has been loaning it to poor women on her rounds who are inundated with children and need educating about sex. Alice takes the book home and a series of events are set in motion that will change not only the Van Cleeve household, but the whole town.

Mr Van Cleeve is determined to deal with Margery O’Hare once and for all, as he vows to destroy the Packhorse Library altogether. Margery is sure that a devastating flood had more behind it than high rainfall and suspects the mines. She has left herself vulnerable though, with what Van Cleeve sees as transgressive behaviour: she is exposed as having a relationship out of wedlock, she has hired an African-American woman who used to run the coloured library and she is encouraging townswomen to take control of their own lives. She seems impervious to other people’s disapproval so what lengths will he have to go to in order to stop her?

This was a beautifully written book and was on holiday when reading. I encouraged my other half to go fishing so I could stay in the holiday cottage to read it. It is so well researched, with real and authentic characters I fell in love with. Moyes manages to capture the tensions and societal changes of the Depression, depicting rural poverty, domestic abuse, and the rise of feminine power. We can see new attitudes towards race and feminism particularly where marriage and sex are concerned. Progressive attitudes come up against old money and old values in a tragic way. It was interesting to re-read it with the backdrop of Trump’s America where such traditional values are being forced on women in many states. I found myself desperate for the progressive characters and attitudes to prevail and it was this that built the tension and kept me reading till 2am! This was real, romantic and simply great storytelling. It’s an absolute must read and one of her best novels to date.

Posted in Netgalley

The Paris Express by Emma Donaghue

Posted on by thelotusreaders

When I first started reading The Paris Express, I had a strange feeling of deja vu. It wasn’t that I thought I’d read the book before. In fact I was a bit disoriented at first, wading through a lot of characters I didn’t know and who didn’t all fit together was a lot to take in. It was more that I had a sense of when I was. The books that immediately came to mind were Dubliners by James Joyce and Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Both books have passages on public transport, but it was the drifting quality of the writing and the ‘democratisation’ of people being pushed together in a small space. They are forced to exist together for the time of that journey and even though this Paris train has First, Second and even Third Class, there is such a mix of generations, classes and genders that there’s potential for desire, tension, friction and misunderstandings. However different they may seem, the fate of one of them, is the fate of all. 

What Woolf achieved beautifully in Mrs Dalloway, is that experience of being in the same place and looking at the same thing, but seeing it completely differently. The much loved Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, works on the basis that two people can witness exactly the same event but view it differently. They experience the event through a filter of their own past, their general well-being and mood that day, even whether they’re in a rush or feeling hungry. Woolf shows us that a car backfiring in the street is just a car backfiring to some, they hear it, recognise it and file it away to be forgotten. Whereas, Mrs Dalloway who is slightly anxious and focused on getting things done for her dinner that evening, actually flinches against the noise and immediately her brain starts questioning what it might have been? She will remember it and possibly even comment later that she jumped out of her skin. Septimus Smith hears a bang and is immediately back in the trenches, surrounded by death and destruction. It might even send him over the edge. I felt like Emma Donoghue really achieved that feel here. We can hear the conversation in each carriage and even go into the minds of some of the train’s passengers, but each one is reacting differently to everything that’s going on. Gradually I was compelled to keep reading because the tension was rising with every new passenger and because the reader is omniscient. Donoghue gives her reader the full story and we know the potential fate of every one of them.

Set in 1895 on a train journey to Montparnasse, Donoghue places us within the fin de siecle, with every little detail. It isn’t just her description of the train, it’s the character’s clothing and their attitudes. One passenger muses on the very idea of the fin de siecle, debating whether the closing of a century does cause a decadence of behaviour and fear of the coming century. There’s certainly evidence of a shift in attitudes to the Victorian ideals that have held firm throughout the 19th Century. In one journey we can see women being more outspoken, having a definite sense of purpose, and a need to determine their own destiny. Women are travelling alone or for work, in the case of Alice she is travelling with her boss as the secretary for his photographic business, but she is enterprising. She takes the opportunity to talk to him about moving pictures, looking for permission to make a short film. She has researched the subject and thinks it could be a new market for the firm. Marcelle is researching in the field of science and huge fan of Marie Curie who is so work focused that she went to get married in an everyday blue dress and spent their gifted money on two bicycles so they could ride to the lab every day. Marcelle knows it isn’t just her gender that may hold her back, it’s her race: ‘a pair of twits in her anatomy class once asked her to settle a bet as to whether she was a quadroon or an octoroon.’

Blonska has a variety of skills, but she’s also incredibly perceptive and quickly reads the other passengers in her carriage. I was absolutely fascinated with Mado. She stands out more than she realises, with her androgynous clothing and short hair, not to mention the lunch bucket she’s clutching as if her life depends on it. She’s a feminist, an anarchist and like Blonska seems to have an interest in reading other people. Her own internal struggle is so vivid that I could feel the tension in her body as I read. She seems contemptuous of many of her fellow passengers, particularly the men, knowing that the Victorian feminine ideal is simply a role women are forced to play. To step outside of the norm is brave and a deliberate outward show of her inner strength and determination to change women’s place in the world. 

‘That’s the price of wearing a tailored jacket with short, oiled-down hair. Even back in Paris, where quite a few young women go about à l’androgyne, sneers and jeers have come Mado’s way ever since she scraped together the cash to buy this outfit at a flea market last year. Her hair she cuts herself with the razor that was one of the few possessions her father had when he died. She’ll take sneers and jeers over lustful leers any day. Bad enough to have been born female, but she refuses to dress the part.’

Throughout the novel there were complex relationships and interesting vignettes, sometimes no more than a line that made me rethink the people I’d been journeying with. There’s a grandad who hops off the train at the last stop to have a furtive and erotic moment with a stranger. As we spend time with the train crew, I learned a lot about their working conditions – having to relieve themselves by hanging over the side of the engine. They struggle amongst the chaos to read tickets and make sure people are in the right carriage, some actually choosing to downgrade their journey for some peace and anonymity. I was faced with my own assumptions near the journey’s end as I learned something about two of them that turned their relation to each other upside down. Of course they’re not the only ones who are pretending to be something they’re not. The author takes us far beyond the beautiful period costumes and shows the reality of train travel – ladies having to relieve themselves in a handy receptacle while the men look away, the inconvenience of a heavy period on a long journey, the strange contents of some traveller’s picnic bags as duck legs and creamed leeks made an appearance! The birth scene brings home the indignities of bringing life into the world, especially in a small train carriage. It is Blonska and Mado who have to help the poor woman, who is desperately trying to convince her baby that now is not the time. Mado has experience with midwifery too: 

“Nothing ever came of all that labour—no more little Pelletiers, nothing but stains on the floorboards. Ever weeping,Madame Pelletier blamed the devil. But Papa taught Mado that her mother’s losses and his own paralysis— such broken health among the hungry and worn out—could be no accident. Employers, politicians, and capitalists were to blame for the sufferings of the working classes.“

This was one of those novels that becomes much more than you expect at the beginning, although I should have known that since Donoghue has never let me down yet. I loved how she ended the novel and the journey because it was such a surprise, along with the afterword. I don’t read the blurb or reviews of a novel I’m about to read and come to it completely fresh, so I didn’t expect it and appreciated it all the more. Donoghue’s ability to see the unexpected, the downtrodden, the extraordinary and the silenced voices, of both a story and it’s place in time, is at it’s peak here. These anonymous and ordinary train carriages are made fascinating and unique by the character’s inside and their intentions. Through them she drives the story along faster and faster, until you simply have to go with it and read through to the end. 

Meet the Author

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is a writer of contemporary and historical fiction whose novels include the international bestseller “Room” (her screen adaptation was nominated for four Oscars), “Frog Music”, “Slammerkin,” “The Sealed Letter,” “Landing,” “Life Mask,” “Hood,” and “Stirfry.” Her story collections are “Astray”, “The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits,” “Kissing the Witch,” and “Touchy Subjects.” She also writes literary history, and plays for stage and radio. She lives in London, Ontario, with her partner and their two children.

The Paris Express is out this week from Picador

Posted in Sunday Spotlight

Sunday Spotlight: Uplifting and Comforting Reads From Adriana Trigiani.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

You know the world has really gone to hell when you click on a streaming service and they highlight a section as uplifting and good for your mental health. What with WW3 seemingly round every corner, every news programme hijacked by the antics of Trump and his attack dog JD Vance, Elon Musk waving a child or a chainsaw over his head and for me personally, the threat of losing my disability benefits. I’m also averaging at least one medical appointment every week as each test throws up something we never expected! Life is a wee bit stressful for all of us at the moment and I wondered whether it might be nice to spotlight some of my favourite authors who write uplifting and joyful fiction. I’m going to spotlight a few different authors on Sundays, suggesting some older novels and some that are worth keeping an eye out for through the rest of 2025. I will point out where there are tough themes in a novel, but even where there’s a lot to overcome in these novels the ending is always ultimately uplifting and inspiring.

I think it was my mum who first gave me one of Adriana Trigiani’s books to read and I think she got it from Oprah. My first taste of her work was one of her Valentina books, a series of books following an American Italian young woman as she starts to make her way in the world. Her family have been makers of custom wedding shoes since 1903. The Angelini Shoe Company trades from Greenwich Village, NYC and is one of the area’s last family run businesses. Now it’s in trouble and Valentina, working as apprentice to her grandmother Theodora, wants to bring their years of craftsman’s experience into the twenty-first century market. Valentine is juggling a lot of different commitments: her romance with chef Roman Falconi, her duty to her family and entering a design competition for a very prestigious competition for a department store. When she accompanies her grandmother to Italy they hope to find inspiration, she spends time in Tuscany and Capri. She’s overjoyed to find her artistic style but the trip changing her life in ways she never expected.

In the second book of the trilogy, Valentina’s plans have go awry. We start with a celebration as her grandmother marries the love of her life in Tuscany, but Valentina’s own romance is not going so well. It’s a second blow when her grandmother announces thar her brother Alfred is becoming her partner in the family business, not Valentine. She decides to devote herself to work and takes a trip to Buenos Aires for new connections and ideas. Emotionally though she’s caught between two loves, one who’s always nurtured her and another that promises to sustain her future. In the final book Valentine is living out her choices and continuing to modernise the firm. As she prepares to marry the man she has chosen, she is faced with painful choices and a fight for what she wants from life. Can the Angelina Shoe Company make it’s mark and will Valentine be able to savour the wonderful things she deserves. These books really are sumptuous, full of gorgeous fashion details and since I love shoes I really appreciate Valentine’s designs. We get the bustle and modernity of Manhattan, contrasted with her trips to Italy and Argentina to small artisan shoemakers. We get to be an armchair holiday maker too as we drink in the wonderful sights and food that she enjoys too. Of course there are challenges in Valentine’s life, some of the hardest life can throw at her, but ultimately we know she will triumph and get her happy ending.

Big Stone Gap is a sleepy village where kids get married and start families at eighteen, and stay for ever. So thirty-five-year old Ave Maria Mulligan is something of an oddity. A self-proclaimed spinster, as the local pharmacist she’s been keeping the townsfolk’s secrets for years. But Ave Maria is about to discover a scandal in her own family’s past that will blow the lid right off her quiet, uneventful life. Soon she’s juggling two unexpected marriage proposals and conducting a no-holds-barred family feud. The thought of spending the rest of her life in Big Stone Gap is suddenly overwhelming . .

In our second instalment, eight years have passed since town pharmacist and self-proclaimed spinster Ave Maria Mulligan married the man of her choice. Now they have a beautiful daughter, but for some reason her husband seems distant. In their comfortable stone house in the mountains there’s an empty room where their son slept. Ave and Jack haven’t found a way past their sadness and are struggling to share their feelings. In the town change is coming and is causing concern among the residents. With this backdrop, Ave must make decisions for her family and try to find a way back to her husband.

In the third part of the trilogy, Ave Maria feels time is slipping through her fingers as she watches her daughter growing up. It seems like a period of change for her friends too and her husband is desperate to reinvent himself in ways nobody could have predicted. Are they experiencing a mid-life crisis? Ave is about to have her foundations rocked and face the true test of love: letting go. I love this series because it’s so cozy and has that small town heart-warming feel. I found myself so invested in her family and seeing how they grow over time is a joy. I believe there is now a fourth novel in the series and I’m really looking forward to reading it.

More recently the author has moved to historical fiction and mid-century Italy, as well as a fascinating look at the golden age of Hollywood and a real-life scandal about Clark Gable. I’m so looking to her new novel out in July this year and perfect for summer holidays. Recently divorced, Jess Capodimonte Baratta helps her Uncle Louie with his marble business from her parents’ basement in Lake Como, New Jersey. An unexpected loss within the family unearths a long-buried secret and Jess questions where her loyalties lie. Deciding a change of scene is needed, she escapes to Italy – her ancestral home. We will be swept away to the majestic marble-capped mountains of Tuscany to the glittering streets of Milan and the enchanting shores of Lake Como, which despite a shared name could not be more different from her hometown, Jess soon feels a sense of belonging. And when she meets dreamy Angelo Strazza, a passionate artist, she know that this is where she is meant to be. But as further revelations about her family history come to light, it’s clear that Italy cannot be Jess’ hiding place forever. This sounds like the perfect comfort read to me.

Recently divorced, Jess Capodimonte Baratta helps her Uncle Louie with his marble business from her parents’ basement in Lake Como, New Jersey. But when an unexpected loss within the family unearths long-buried secrets, Jess questions where her loyalties lie. Deciding a change of scene is needed, she escapes to Italy – her ancestral home.

From the shadows of the majestic marble-capped mountains of Tuscany to the glittering streets of Milan and the enchanting shores of Lake Como, which despite a shared name could not be more different from her hometown, Jess soon feels a sense of belonging. And when she meets dreamy Angelo Strazza, a passionate artist, she know that this is where she is meant to be.

But as further revelations about her family history come to light, it’s clear that Italy cannot be Jess’ hiding place forever.

Will the dark truths of her ancestral past send her back home?

Or help her finally live life on her own terms?

Coming July 2025 from Penguin Books

Posted in Random Things Tours

Madame Matisse by Sophie Haydock 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This is the story of three women – one an orphan and refugee who finds a place in the studio of a famous French artist, the other a wife and mother who has stood by her husband for nearly forty years. The third is his daughter, caught in the crossfire between her mother and a father she adores.

Amelie is first drawn to Henri Matisse as a way of escaping the conventional life expected of her. A free spirit, she sees in this budding young artist a glorious future for them both. Ambitious and driven, she gives everything for her husband’s art, ploughing her own desires, her time, her money into sustaining them both, even through years of struggle and disappointment.

Lydia Delectorskaya is a young Russian emigree, who fled her homeland following the death of her mother. After a fractured childhood, she is trying to make a place for herself on France’s golden Riviera, amid the artists, film stars and dazzling elite. Eventually she finds employment with the Matisse family. From this point on, their lives are set on a collision course….

Marguerite is Matisse’s eldest daughter. When the life of her family implodes, she must find her own way to make her mark and to navigate divided loyalties.

Based on a true story, Madame Matisse is a stunning novel about drama and betrayal; emotion and sex; glamour and tragedy, all set in the hotbed of the 1930s art movement in France. In art, as in life, this a time when the rules were made to be broken…

Almost eleven years ago my lovely arty friend Mandy wanted to visit the Matisse exhibit at Tate Britain. I really hope I didn’t ruin it for her. I probably did. I confess I’m not a lover of modernist art. We went to the Guggenheim in New York and I proclaimed it disappointing. We had to go across to the MET and see their collection of Impressionists to cheer me up. My loves are the Pre-Raphaelites and the Art Nouveau/ Arts and Crafts period so we’re a long way away from each other in preference. Art is her subject so I’m happy to own that she certainly knows a lot more than me. I was interested to read in her afterword that the author has always had an interest in Matisse, with a black and white postcard of him on her notice board for several years. I have one of Gustav Klimt wearing an artist’s smock and clutching a cat, with a look of devilment on his face. It makes me smile whenever I see it so I understand how a particular artist can inspire your imagination. Sophie’s first novel, The Flames, was about a protégé of Klimt. It was narrated by the women in the life of Egon Schiele, the subjects of four of his paintings. Here she takes a similar look at the women who surrounded Henri Matisse, showing how they advised, supported and sustained him in his endeavours, but remained completely in the background to his talent. 

The story starts with Amélie, an incredibly brave young woman who takes a chance on marrying an artist rather than a more conventionally acceptable partner. She sees something in Matisse’s paintings, recognising the way his work could be at the forefront of modernism. Previously his colourful style has been rejected for exhibition in Paris, but Amélie knows that innovative artists often take a while to break through. In fact it is a painting of Amélie that is the catalyst for Henri’s career to take off. Woman in a Hat is exhibited in Paris and bought by siblings Gertrude and Leo Stein, a bohemian pair central to the art world throughout the early 20th Century. This is where Amélie makes the bravest and most important decision of her husband’s career. The Stein’s offered only two thirds of the asking price. Eager to make a sale to the influential pair, Henri is willing to give the discount but Amélie advises him to wait and hold out for the asking price. He takes her counsel and they go and meet the Steins, convincing them that Henri is central to the next great artistic movement. The Steins pay the full price. The couple are a great team with Amélie making all the household and business decisions, freeing Henri to paint and become a famous member of the Fauvist Movement. She also brings Henri’s daughter Marguerite into their growing family, when her own mother is struggling to care for her. Yet, not everything about their relationship runs smoothly. Once they are able to afford a family home with a garden and studio for Henri, Amélie’s help is no longer needed. Henri takes on a series of young assistants and Amélie has the more traditional wife’s role which doesn’t suit her. It’s fascinating to read about the changes, once their joint struggle is over they cease to become a team and the problems begin. 

Woman in a Hat

Another section of the novel is devoted to Marguerite, Henri’s illegitimate daughter. Once Amélie has brought her to live within their family, Marguerite seems to blossom under the care of her stepmother. She also makes herself useful to her father, tidying his studio and anticipating his needs. It is interesting to hear about Amélie and Henri’s relationship from her perspective and her anxieties that the family she’s been brought into, stays together. She shares a lot of Amélie’s suspicions about some of the assistants who breeze in and out of their lives. She’s also a strong advocate for her stepmother, even into her parent’s old age. Yet there were times when I felt she was taken advantage of by Amélie and her father. There’s a sense in which, despite seeming kind, loyal and trustworthy, Matisse does use the women around him. The household was entirely groomed to anticipate his needs and the women are sacrifices for his artistic genius. 

Most interesting to me was Lydia Delektorskaya, born in Tomsk, Russia, in the tumultuous period after the revolution. After the murders of the Royal family, Lydia has just lost her mother when her father decides she must leave the country. He gives her a gun with three bullets left in their chambers and sends her to China on the Trans-Siberian Express with her Aunt Berthe. After building a life there Lydia must make a choice between the Sorbonne in Paris or to marry her lifelong friend and stay. Lydia takes neither choice and instead aims for the South of France, a place that couldn’t be more different to the place she was born. She spends time working in a bar but when she sees a job with the Matisse family she decides to apply. The job is to look after Henri’s wife Amélie who has a chronic illness and is confined to their apartment. Lydia has experience of working with her mum and her aunt and felt fulfilled by her caring role. Once she starts work though, some of her duties are to assist Henri in his studio, eventually sitting for portraits and sketches. Amélie eyes their relationship with suspicion despite there being no evidence of impropriety. This is more than an affair, it’s a meeting of souls and when ultimatums are made they have terrible consequences. 

Marguerite Asleep

I loved reading about these fascinating women, all of which step outside the traditional role of most women of the time. Sophie beautifully situates Matisse within his peer group, especially his great rival Picasso. She situates each woman perfectly within their history, the most in depth being Lydia’s Russian background and Marguerite’s incredible bravery in WW2. Both are fascinating to read and show us the extreme cruelty and playbook of totalitarian regimes. She also shows us how incredibly brave and resourceful each woman is, more involved in the world and bigger risk takers than Matisse. Lydia’s realisation of what her father truly sacrificed to stay in Russia happens when she is older. First they came for the royal family and aristocracy, then those with intelligence and  the ability to challenge them, just as the Nazis did in Poland. This perhaps has more resonance thanks to current world events. I thoroughly enjoyed looking up the paintings mentioned and seeing Matisse’s representation of the three women who were closest to him and I found myself reading articles about him and Picasso. It left me with a sense of anger and empathy for how much women sacrifice so that men can excel at what they do, realising their ambitions while their wive’s ambitions are forgotten or buried under a suffocating mental load – still the thing women in my group talk about most. These women never take the limelight away from Matisse, even while stripped bare for people to view. The focus is always on the painter, their brush strokes, choice of colour and artistic decisions. I love that in this novel they are more than body parts, they’re shown as the vital, brave, complex and generous women they clearly were.  

Lydia Delectorskaya

Meet the Author


Sophie Haydock is an author, editor and journalist (Sunday Times, Financial Times, Guardian), based in Folkestone, Kent, where she is curator of Folkestone Book Festival. Her debut, The Flames – about the women who posed for the scandalous artist Egon Schiele in Vienna a century ago – was named by the Times as one of the Best Historical Fiction Books of 2022. It was longlisted for the HWA Debut Crown Award, and the Italian translation, Le Fiamme, won the Premio Letterario Edoardo Kihlgren for debut novels. She worked for the Sunday Times Short Story Award and is associate director of the Word Factory. Her Instagram @egonschieleswomen has 110,000 followers. Visit: sophie-haydock.com

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday! City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

When one of my favourite authors writes a new book I always experience a confusing mix of emotions. Excitement and anticipation mix with fear; will I love it as much as I love their last book? I don’t want to be disappointed. Since there’s a new Liz Gilbert out this year I thought I’d share my review of her last novel, City of Girls. Like a lot of readers my first encounter with Gilbert’s writing was Eat, Pray, Love; a book that was nothing short of a cultural phenomenon, not to mention the following hit film. For me, it was her novel The Signature of All Things that caught the imagination. The combination of a sparky and intelligent heroine, the feminist theme and the historical detail came together in a beautifully woven story. So as the publication date approached for this new novel I desperately wanted it to live up to her first.

I shouldn’t have worried. City of Girls is a joyous, exhilarating riot of a book. Our narrator, Vivian, plunges us into 1940s Manhattan where she is sent by her parents after expulsion from Vassar. There she is placed in the care of her Aunt Peg who runs the, slightly ramshackle, Lily Theatre. I was suddenly immersed in the bohemian world of theatre people where Vivian soon finds her niche. At Vassar she made friends by creating outfits for the other girls on her trusty sewing machine. So, in her new rooms above the theatre she is soon surrounded by showgirls wanting costumes. I have an interest in fashion and sewing, so I really enjoyed the descriptions of Vivian’s creations, made on a shoestring with a lot of help from Lowtsky’s vintage clothing store downtown. Yet not everything is as it seems on the surface. Is her friendship with showgirl Celia as mutual as it appears? What influence does the matronly and doom laden Olive have over Aunt Peg? Where is Uncle Billy, whose rooms Vivian has been using since her arrival?

 Some of these questions are answered during the production of the brand new play City of Girls. Aunt Peg’s friend Edna Parker Watson comes to stay after losing her London home during the Blitz. Edna is a talented theatre actress who is petite, beautiful and impeccably dressed. She arrives at the Lily with her huge wardrobe and her very famous and much younger husband, Arthur. Every member of the theatre company does their very best to get this musical off the ground and make it a success. Vivian works hard on her costume designs, but also finds herself becoming an unofficial PA and friend to Edna. Determined to put on the best show they can to turn the Lily Theatre’s fortunes around, Aunt Peg agrees to audition for new actors. When Vivian meets Anthony, the new leading man, she falls in love for the very first time. But alongside the awakening of first love, Vivian will also have her eyes opened to how cruel showbiz and the wider world can be. Several revelations teach her that not everyone can be trusted, the most unexpected people can come to your aid, and Vivian realises she has been walking around with her eyes closed. As the Second World War moves ever closer to their shores Vivian is left with a reckoning of her own. Does she want the respectable, quiet life her family expects or does she want to make her own way in a city and a career that is anything but quiet?  

You will fall in love with Vivian as she takes you into her past and candidly shares her exploits in 1940s NYC. She takes you from theatre, to nightclub to a dingy apartment in Hell’s Kitchen where she conducts her first love affair. She holds nothing back and I felt her delight at encountering the bohemian characters of the theatre, her passion and ingenuity for costume work and her discovery of a city laid out before her like a playground. She allows us to experience her growing up with every triumph and mistake she makes along the way. Such an engaging central character is well matched with other beautifully drawn female characters from the dowdy killjoy Olive who has surprising depths, the enigmatic Edna Parker Watson, the brisk and sometimes foolhardy Aunt Peg to the glamorous showgirl Celia who leads our narrator into a world of nightclubs, make-up and disposable men. The women in this novel are strong, surprising and all teach Vivian something about the kind of woman she wants to be. The novel emphasises the importance of strong female role models or mentors in both our personal and working life. I found myself torn between bingeing on this book or savouring it slowly: I wanted to know what happened next but I didn’t want my adventures with Vivian to come to an end. 

Meet the Author


Elizabeth Gilbert is an award-winning writer of both fiction and non-fiction. Her short story collection Pilgrims was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award, and her novel Stern Men was a New York Times notable book. In 2002, she published The Last American Man, which was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award. She is best known for her 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love, which was published in over thirty languages and sold more than seven million copies worldwide. The film, released in 2010, stars Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem. Committed: A Sceptic Makes Peace with Marriage, a follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love, was published in 2010. Elizabeth Gilbert lives in New Jersey, USA.