I’m a little late and probably too old for the sudden popularity of Korean culture. I’m aware of BTS and Squid Game, but have never listened to or watched either of them. Despite that, I’m aware from my step-daughters, nieces and nephews that Korean music and film-making are innovative and unique, two words I’d apply to these novels. I loved the premise, that there is a department store that supplies people with dreams. Our heroine Penny gets a job at the Dallergut Dream Department Store, somewhere she’s dreamed of working. There’s something hypnotic about the world this author has created, because it’s fantastical and unlike anything I’ve read since childhood. As Penny finds her feet we start to see the way the store works: the communication between the menagerie of unusual creatures who run each department and the actual dream makers who craft their dreams to the individual. These are the upper echelon of the organisation, craftsmen who have to weave a narrative that answers life’s questions, builds hope of love in the air and solves problems. When the dreamer comes in they are served by one of the staff in the store. As soon as I realised this, my mind drifted to the hope they were wearing pyjamas. Some don’t and have to be given something to put on, which maybe explains the strange clothes I’m often wearing I’m my dreams. After a spell of flying dreams I always wear pyjamas!
I really loved the quirkiness of how the store and the system worked. Each sleeper then discusses their needs or can be given hints by those who work in the store – sort of like an Apple Genius, but with dreams. We’re also shown how their dreams pan out with in the real world and whether they help the dreamer make a decision or help them unravel a sticky situation. The dreamer does have to pay for their nighttime adventure and they pay with emotions, which are then recycled by the dream-makers into even more detailed and elaborate dreamscapes. I’m such a sucker for whimsical stories and characters that are complex and quirky. The author delivers on both fronts here.
Return to Dallergut Dream Department Store
If you wish to delve deeper into the Dallergut Dream Department Store this is the second instalment. It takes the reader back to Penny and her colleagues drafting dreams. Penny has finished her first year at the store which means she is now officially part of the dreams industry. She can now go behind the scenes to the Company District, on a special express train of course, where the raw materials for dreams are stored. She’s hoping to have some of her questions answered by this peek behind the scenes. She wants to understand more about customers, especially those that buy a dream but don’t return to the store. It would be great if she could find a way to improve repeat custom. As always though, when we delve deeper behind the scenes of any industry, we see it’s darker side. There is a complaints process for customers and they end up at the Civil Complaints Centre where Penny starts to find answers about those non-returning customers. Their concerns were very relatable and it was interesting to see how customers with disabilities were being accommodated. They are striving to be inclusive and I loved that, having had many discussion with friends who have disabilities about whether they have a disability in their dreams (sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t). Alongside the emotional and slightly darker elements was the usual whimsical and quirky world of the first book, alongside the tiniest hint of romance. Ultimately, this is a warm-hearted fantasy that’s like a hug in a book.
I always jump at the chance to read a new Nicci French book. Also they’re so prolific that it’s easy to find earlier novels in charity shops. This novel is set in a Victorian house split into flats and it’s newest residents are Nancy and her boyfriend Felix. Nancy is recovering after a psychiatric episode and a stay in hospital. Thankfully her voices have subsided but she’s fragile and moving to a new part of London has been destabilising. After venturing out for a walk she starts to experience voices again and in her confusion she rushes back to the flat. At the front door she bumps into a young woman wearing very striking green boots with yellow laces. The woman speaks to Nancy but it doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t help that she’s trying to distinguish between which voices are real. All she knows is that the woman was distressed and possibly needed help. Only 24 hours later the young woman is found hanging in the basement flat. Her name was Kira Mullan. Everyone seems sad that Kira committed suicide but for Nancy, something feels off. She isn’t sure that Kira did kill herself. How can she convince the others that she’s telling the truth when nobody trusts her?
This novel was absolutely gripping with brilliantly written main characters and a haunting central victim in Kira. I loved the idea of following the story through Nancy who has been struggling with her mental health and a clever, perceptive detective in Maud. The authors have cleverly placed Nancy on shifting sands – not only has she had a period of psychosis but she’s moved house and into an entirely strange area of London. She’s also lost her livelihood as a chef and could be living in a building with a murderer. She’s also without a touchstone in her life. I know exactly who to go to and ask whether I’m the asshole? I have friends who will tell the truth about whether I’m over-reacting or if something is genuinely wrong. This was invaluable when I found myself in an emotionally abusive relationship. I’d hoped that Nancy’s boyfriend Felix would be that person but I’d noticed a few red flags. He’s very attentive and seems to want her wrapped up in cotton wool, but Nancy is doing all the right things. On the day after she’s heard voices she asks to see the psychiatrist who changes the dosage of her medication and goes for counselling. She’s resting and doing her breathing exercises. In fact there’s very little else she can do. The authors leave us constantly wondering about her; is she paranoid or are the other residents out to get her?
Felix claims he only wants people to look out for her but Nancy feels like her space and autonomy are being encroached on. Felix tells the other residents everything about her history, including the psychosis, even the doctor who lives across the hall. He even gives next door neighbour Michelle their door key so she can let herself in, much to Nancy’s shock. His actions have actually left Nancy more vulnerable, leaving her open to abuse from others that they can deny. Who’s going to believe the mad girl? Nancy doesn’t think she’s paranoid but can see that her actions might seems excessive: she goes through Kira’s bin; steals a used condom from the flat and goes to look at the apartment with an estate agent; she also tells the police and Kira’s mother that she doesn’t think it was suicide. Just as she thinks she’s getting close to answers she is sectioned again after Michelle informs Felix that she threatened her. The authors show us how vulnerable mentally unwell women are in the care system and NHS, even though they’re designed to protect them. Not only is her liberty taken away and she’s prey to unscrupulous carers and nurses. In this upside down world, the more she protests her sanity the worse things become. She loses whole days to medication and is told by one male nurse that her life would be easier if she was ‘nice’ to him. So Nancy bites him. She has only one choice here. Be obedient, ignore the barbs and smile sweetly through visits she doesn’t want. It’s the only way she’ll be free.
I loved the relationship between the detective Maud and Nancy. Maud is so perceptive and their experiences do mirror each other in a way. Maud knows that as a woman in the MET she is in the minority and she’s fully aware of the type of man that can be hiding behind a uniform or a title. In their respective institutions Nancy and Maud are trapped within a system they can’t change. Maud knows that if she becomes emotional or passionate about a particular case she will be seen as an irrational or hormonal woman. If she’s assertive and asks for what’s rightfully hers she’ll be called a bitch. In order to get the cases she wants and stand up for women like Kira and Nancy she has to play the game. It seemed to me that Maud saw the red flags with certain people whether in the flats or the house next door. She never holds Nancy’s illness against her and accepts that although she’s been struggling, she still might have something useful for solving the case. She also has a network of women within the system who will do her favours, such as looking over autopsy results and giving a second opinion. I loved the way she handles herself and her confidence in very dangerous circumstances. This was a gripping and psychologically brilliant read. I’d didn’t work out all of what had happened in Kira’s final days but the end was satisfying and I reached it very quickly because this is quite the page turner.
Out in hardback from Simon & Schuster on Jan 16th 2025
Meet the Author
Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together.
For years and years, when I’m asked the question which book has hit me hardest emotionally I’ve always had to say One Day by David Nicholls. It’s the last book that made me cry spontaneously for one of the characters. I still remember the exact line. Now I’ll be able to say Leaving was the last book that absolutely tore my heart out. Sarah sees Warren, who she dated for a while in their college years. She had ended it, unsure whether they were a good fit. Yet they never stopped thinking about each other. Sarah is divorced now and lives alone in her country home with her dog Bella for company. She has a daughter who’s married and lives a distance away with her husband and two children. Sarah works at a gallery, currently putting together an exhibition about the Bloomsbury Group. Warren lives just outside Boston and has his own architectural practice in the city. He’s married to Janet, exactly the sort of wife he has needed: attractive, a good hostess and great mum to their daughter Kattie who is an older teenager. However, his wife is also a snob, very aware of who should be in their social circle and how things should be done. They don’t talk about current affairs together, listen to an opera or read the same books. Perhaps their marriage has always been like this, but it feels empty since he saw Sarah again. Can he spend the rest of his life in this marriage as he promised or can he be with Sarah? If he leaves what price will he have to pay?
This novel is so clever in the way it engages with your morals and emotions. I was so caught up with the romance of Sarah and Warren, so much sweeter because it is second time around. I felt their urgency. It’s unthinkable thar they shouldn’t grab, what feels like, a last chance of happiness. I felt so much for Sarah, who is an intelligent and self-sufficient woman post divorce. She has such a solitary life, seemingly with a handful of friends. Her life is made up of her job, her home with poodle Bella and occasional visits with her daughter and son-in-law. I loved the tender moments she has with her dog, something I understand completely and just as important as anyone else when considering big life decisions. It feels like she’s where she belongs on the edge of the reservoir walking with her canine companion, so in tune together. She does feel a little remote from her daughter, wanting to be like other grandmothers who look after their grandchildren regularly and have one multi-generational family. Sarah doesn’t quite feel invited into her daughter’s life. I didn’t feel any dislike for her or begrudge her happiness with Warren, even though it comes at the cost of his wife’s happiness. They felt easy and uncomplicated together. Sarah thinks of his wife but doesn’t feel like the other woman because he was hers first. Their relationship is a continuation of something started long ago, or is this simply their justification for something outside their normal moral code. The author beautifully captures those heady romantic moments of a new relationship with simple moments, the joy of receiving flowers or the secret smile that comes from a loving text in the middle of a working day. Sarah doesn’t lie to her own children, she tells them she’s seeing someone from her past. That he’s married. They are happy for her.
Warren’s life is more complicated. The author takes us between his and Sarah’s inner thoughts seamlessly. They are two halves of a whole. By comparison his married life feels mundane and rather one note, but it’s unfair to compare a new love or even a recaptured love with thirty years of married life. A few deft touches show us a marriage that’s become routine, Janet’s red house dress being just one. The reappearance of a frozen chicken pot pie is a beautifully used example. It appears early on, only to be replaced with a beautifully cooked beef bourguignon as Janet tries to win her husband back. It promises so much, this is how it will be from now on. Only to revert to chicken pot pie again, but it isn’t just a pie, it signifies a marriage that’s fallen back into a well worn groove. It screams ‘is this it?’ Janet has done nothing wrong, they haven’t had a bad marriage and when Warren feels the weight of those years there’s a fondness, a gratitude for all those shared moments that make up a marriage. He is both grateful for them and buried beneath them. Does he deserve to climb out from underneath them? Or is it an unforgivable betrayal of everything they’ve shared as a couple and a family?
I loved some of the subplots to the main love story. I found Sarah’s work fascinating. I remember talking to someone ar the V & A about one of their fashion exhibits and the process of creating something with such impact. I hadn’t known a job existed where you could sit and discuss a artist’s work, then choose the pieces you want to tell a story. I thought the quandary over whether to go with a well- known scholar on the Bloomsbury group versus a newer academic voice echoed the love story so completely. The best known scholar may promise something new but will likely deliver something competent but safe. The newer voice might offer something dynamic and new but they aren’t a very big name yet, is newer always better? Sarah’s daughter’s third pregnancy isn’t easy and terrible news brings Sarah deeper into their lives and closer to her grandchildren. I also loved how Kattie’s wedding placed stress on her whole family, especially where Janet wants the big, formal society wedding and her daughter starts to feel overwhelmed. The wedding planner tells them that a wedding is basically a microcosm of society, the one of which their family is a part. People aren’t perfect, so weddings never are either. Neither is marriage.
Everything about this novel rings true, from the details that set each scene to the love story that binds everything together. It’s exquisitely written, drawing you in so very slowly, then unravelling quickly to it’s emotional conclusion. There’s a point in the book where I have never wanted to slap a character more! Even though their actions are understandable and possibly morally justified, I was still absolutely furious and had to share the story with my husband whose immediate response was exactly the same. Once an affair starts to turn into something more, so many decisions have to be made and the sacrifices those choices will create become stark and very real. Sarah has imagined living with Warren, but she’s always thought of them at her home. This is where she rebuilt herself after her divorce. It’s a place she loves and doesn’t think she can give up. Arguably, Warren’s choices are even more difficult. He knows if he does this, his relationship and happiness with Sarah will come at the cost of someone else’s feelings. On the scales does one happiness outweigh another? Or are some costs simply too great? I simply loved this book and although it’s only January but I have no doubt this will be in my best books list come the end of the year. I would happily read everything else the author’s ever written.
Published by Magpie Feb 2024
Meet the Author
Roxana Robinson is the author of eleven books: seven novels, three story collections, and the biography of Georgia O’Keeffe. Four of these were New York Times Notable Books.
Robinson was born in Kentucky, but grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She attended Bennington College and graduated from the University of Michigan. She worked in the art world, specializing in the field of American painting, before she began writing full-time. Her novel, Cost, was a finalist for the NEBA, was named one of the five best fiction books of the year by the Washington Post and received the Fiction Award from the Maine Publishers and Writers Association.Her novel, Sparta, was named one of the ten best books of the year by the BBC, and won the James Webb Award for Distinguished Fiction from the USMC Heritage Foundation, and the Fiction Award from the Maine Publishers and Writers Association. Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Tin House, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. Her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bookforum, Harper’s, and elsewhere. She was twice a finalist for the NBCC Balakian Award for Criticism and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She teaches at Hunter College, has twice served on the board of PEN, and was President of the Authors Guild, where she continues to serve as a member of the Council. She lives in New York and Connecticut, and spends as much time as she can in Maine.
If you’re anything like me you probably spent the last days of December looking at lists of books you should be reading in 2025. I’ve even made my own list of the ones I’m most looking forward to. It’s also the time of year where we choose how we’re going to track our reading and whether we’re going set ourselves a challenge. There’s the Goodreads annual challenge where you try to read even more books to meet your target, there’s Storygraph which I don’t know anything about. I do Goodreads mainly because there’s a record of what I’ve read so I can do my end of year posts. There are other ways to challenge ourselves, such as choosing to read more classics or the Agatha Christie challenge where you read through her works during the year. As those of you will know I’m struggling with my health at the moment so I decided to take a hiatus from blog tours and Squad POD activities to read by mood for a while and be free from obligations. I’m really enjoying it, even if I am missing the camaraderie of the squad at times, that excitement of all reading a book together and talking about it is hard to beat.
Some non-fiction favourites of mine.
I’m not big on New Years Resolutions, it’s the wrong time of year and too much pressure. So my only change for this year is to act on something I noticed from struggling so much this year. When I’m in a reading slump I noticed that I managed to get going again by reading non-fiction. It seemed to be a mix of memoir, humour, crime, history and fashion. Over the past couple of years I’ve been reading books by celebrities, often comedians and actors: Phillipa Perry, Lou Sanders, David Mitchell, Rupert Everett and Miriam Margoyles to name a few. I’ve read some brilliant memoirs on illness and death such as Patient by Ben Watt, Lucky Man by Michael J. Fox and Christopher Reeve’s memoirs. I loved reading memoirs by comedians Lou Sanders and Fern Brady who both detailed difficulties they faced being late diagnosed with autism and ADHD. I also found myself drawn to books of letters or diaries and I’ve loved reading Virginia Woolf’s diaries but also Kenneth William’s diaries which happen to be hilarious and sad at the same time. I have a thing about the Mitford sisters and dip in and out of their letters to each other regularly. So this year I’m going to read a non-fiction book every month. Ive found twelve non-fiction books I haven’t read yet and I’m going to pick one every month to read and review. I’m excited to get started on them. I wish you all a Happy New Year and I hope you enjoy all the challenges you’ve set yourself this year.
Here’s the info on my choices:
Mind-Whispering by Tara Bennett-Goleman from Ebury
Always Take Notes: Advice From The Worlds Greatest Writers. Simon Akam and Rachel Lloyd. Ithaca Press from Bonnier Publishing
What about Men? By Caitlin Moran. From Ebury. Penguin Publishing
Unwell Women by Elinor Cleghorn. Wiedenfeld & Nicolson.
Tove Jansson Work and Love by Tuula Karjalainen. Penguin Books.
The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective by Sara Lodge. From Yale University Press.
MILF by Paloma Faith from Ebury Publishing/ Penguin Random House
The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place. By Kate Summerscale. From Bloomsbury.
Want. Written by Anonymou. Edited by Gillian Anderson. Simon & Schuster UK.
The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes by Kate Strasden. Chatto & Windus.
The Untamed Thread by Fleur Woods. By Koa Press.
Jane Austen’s Wardrobe by Hilary Davidson. From Yale University Press.
In the free reading time I have towards the end of the year I’ve chosen to read the back catalogue of a few authors and S.J.Holliday happened to be someone I was really interested in. I love most of Orenda Books’s authors and I first came into contact with them through S.J. Holiday’s book Violet, which was one of my first ever blog tours. I loved the psychological aspects of the book and the way the author saw women as they really are – the heroes of their own stories, making autonomous decisions with the potential to be just as violent and chaotic as a male character. I’ve had The Lingering on the shelf for a while, but something made me take it down last week to read while soaking in the bath. Ali and her husband have made a huge decision. They’ve sold up almost everything they own and joined a commune of people living in what was an old psychiatric unit. At first they’re unsure of the group and their surroundings, but as her husband starts to settle in, his wife Ali seems less able to. Is it the strange house, with it’s abandoned wing full of old psychiatric equipment? Is it the sceptical locals? Or do Ali and husband Jack have dark secrets of their own?
The setting of this story is so gothic and atmospheric, with a dark history that slowly reveals itself both through local’s stories and the things left behind – physical and paranormal. Angela, the other narrator in our story, is the keeper of these stories and an amateur investigator of the paranormal. She has the house wired with sound equipment and cameras, particularly those areas where her sixth sense starts tingling. One of those areas is the bathroom adjoining Ali and Jack’s new bedroom, but also in the attic room above. I was slightly alarmed by the way she was watching the new couple, in a detached way almost like they were animals in an experiment. She seems like a new age, tree hugging, ethereal type of woman who has really bought into the ethos of the community. Ali notices her reverence in the rituals they share as a group and in the meditation sessions. Her name outlines her role within the group, she is the angelic and slightly naïve little sister to the others. Yet there is another side to her, the side that enjoys the stories told by locals like Mary in the shop about the house’s witches and the later rumours surrounding the asylum. She seems to enjoy the intrigue and proves to be quite the detective when it comes to Ali and Jack, showing a sneakier and unpleasant part to her character. The house itself is a labyrinth, with secret rooms and endless corridors. That strange juxtaposition of the natural and the man made felt wrong. All the hospital equipment and furniture just sitting there as if still being used, whilst the outside elements and nature are starting to encroach inside left me feeling uneasy. I felt as if any moment Ali or Angela might look in the mirror and see a busy ward behind them, like a glimpse through time.
In my closest city of Lincoln there is an old Victorian asylum on the outskirts, now slowly being developed into residential spaces. For years it remained deserted and derelict, with a strange aura around it. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a 19th Century nurse at one of the broken windows, because it was untouched all that energy still seemed present. Local explorers did search around inside and take pictures of the iron bedsteads and old medical equipment just lying around as if someone had only just left the room. The mould, piles of rotted leaves, cobwebs and dirt added to the sense of abandonment. You certainly wouldn’t have found me in the there at night! This was exactly what was running through my mind as I was reading and it set me on edge. This house felt as if some parts were inhabited by the living and others by the dead. I won’t spoil the scary moments for other readers, but Ali’s first experience as she climbs into the bath after their long journey would have sent me running back up the drive. It has double impact because not only is it inexplicable, it’s an echo back to events that really happened in the house’s past, events that are haunting even without their ghostly context.
I didn’t trust anyone after a few chapters, despite at first happily reading Ali’s experience and trusting her account. As a reader I’m used to fictional communities like this being sinister under their surface mantras of love and light. Yet Angela makes discoveries that put the couple’s story in doubt and I began to wonder about Jack. What had forced these people to leave behind two respected professions and could it have something to do with a box of hidden news cuttings? One of the most tense sections of the book had nothing to do with the paranormal and involved some of the villagers. Late night Ali notices a 4X4 vehicle coming up the drive with a large lantern on the roof and several men inside, most of them holding a gun. As she goes outside to confront them they explain that they’re merely ‘lamping’ nearby and have an agreement to flash their late at the community leader’s bedroom window so he knows they’re nearby. Much as it seems ridiculous to flash a light in someone’s window so you don’t disturb them, their excuse is a plausible one and it’s something I often see in the fields surrounding us. Yet there is an undercurrent in their conversation with Ali and when explaining what happened she does reference Straw Dogs, a violent 1970’s film where an academic and his wife move to the country and are terrorised by the villagers. However, her reaction is excessive and made me wonder what had happened in the past to trigger her that way. The author flips us between Angela and Ali, building the tension towards some sort of confrontation. Will Ali find out that Angela has been watching them and explode or will Angela’s snooping reveal something dreadful about the new recruits? I loved the hauntings, especially the emotive little child’s wet footprints that dot around the place. Do these apparitions have a malign purpose or are they simply trapped in a place where traumatic events play over and over like a continuous cinema reel? This is a brilliantly tense and spooky read that seems perfect for autumnal evenings, but might put you off baths for a little while.
Out now from Orenda Books
Meet the Author
Susi (S.J.I.) Holliday is the bestselling Scottish author of 11 novels, a novella and many short stories. By day she works in pharmaceuticals. She lives in London (except when she’s in Edinburgh) and she loves to travel the world.
I love reading debuts because you’re never sure what you’re going to find and this tale of two adult siblings who lose their parents suddenly has all the family dynamics and trauma that I love to untangle in a novel. Jamie and Caz are used to their parents being top of the social scale in their area, a small village close to a market town in Yorkshire. Their family home is a hall in the centre of the village, where Jamie still lives alongside his parents having not found his career path yet. Caz has left home, but has a chequered history of teen pregnancy and alcoholism. She married husband Steve after he came to work on the hall’s electrics when her first little girl was only a baby and she had been sober for several months. Now they live in a cottage a short drive away from her childhood home and recently she’s had another baby. The catalyst to their problems is the loss of their parents. One Sunday both siblings are there for lunch when Jamie and his father clash over what he sees as his son’s fecklessness when it comes to making a life for himself. Jamie has secured a job with the local estate agents but desperately needs to sell a house this month. The best thing in his life is his recent relationship with local vet Zoe. What Jamie loves is his piano, but he doesn’t think he has the skill of a concert pianist. This Sunday he decides not to take his father’s criticism and storms out in a huff. That night the hall goes up in flames, so fast that no one could escape and the hall is burned to the ground.
For both siblings the village now looks like a set of teeth with one missing. The huge gap left in the centre is soon boarded so no one can see the wreckage, but it doesn’t allay the shock. Caz is immediately emotional, dazed even and takes refuge with Ruth, their housekeeper who lived next to the hall. Jamie seems frozen. The only thing he wants to save is his piano but it is damaged, maybe beyond repair. Insurance will take care of it and will hopefully rebuild the hall, but do they want that? They have no idea about their parent’s wishes, for the meantime Jamie has to buy some clothes and moves in with Zoe. It’s very early in their relationship but Jamie thinks they’ll get along fine. As he moves through life like an automaton, Caz starts to slide downhill. Gin was her usual tipple, but avoiding that she thinks an occasional glass of wine won’t hurt. One glass soon becomes a bottle and as she starts to hide her stash from Steve we can see that this could be a serious relapse. So can Jamie, but he’s having his own problems. The turmoil in his life is too heavy for the early stages of a relationship. Zoe had no relationship with his parents and although she can listen, she still has her own routine of riding and looking after her horse, whereas at the moment Jamie is sleepwalking through work and every time they are intimate, visions of the hall burning down come into his mind and ruin the moment. He’s not sure if he’s dealing with his grief at all. When Zoe decides they need some space from each other, he moves out to Caz and Steve’s house. Now he’s noticing that his sister isn’t coping either and his nieces are suffering. How can the siblings best help each other to cope?
I loved how the author shows grief hitting people in different ways. In some ways Jamie has never had to grow up. Living under his parent’s roof has enabled to try jobs and leave them with minimum consequences, while away hours in the village pub and not think beyond tomorrow. Caz has also depended on her parents, dropping out of university pregnant and with an alcohol problem. She moved home and had her baby there, until Steve actually walked through the door for a contracting job and they fell in love. For both of them, there’s now no safety net and the place filled with all those memories has gone too. Jamie also fears the loss of his piano, which has been lifted from the wreckage and been sent to a specialist repairer by the insurers. Music was the way that Jamie processed his emotions and without it he seems strangely neutral all the time, occasionally tapping out melodies using his fingers on whatever surface he find. Caz is more erratic, grabbing convenience foods instead of her usual home cooked meals and forgetting the girls activities or even to wash their uniforms. When the drinking starts Steve stays away from it, leaving Jamie with a full time job and two small children to feed and get out of the door in the open. He knows teachers have noticed the girls are a bit unkempt, but he doesn’t want to drop his sister in it. He just keeps smiling and nodding that everything’s okay. There’s only one person that won’t have the wool pulled over their eyes and that’s their parent’s housekeeper Ruth. Caz fears not letting the emotions out. Jamie thinks if he gives in and feels his emotions he might fall apart completely.
Through Jamie the author shows how grief can change our outlook on life completely. He becomes sentimental about an old couple looking for a house. He has a beautiful Georgian house on the books and he’s shown it to a rude and superior client with an enormous dog who didn’t seem interested. Then he has an adorable old couple who want to downsize and be closer to amenities, but he needs a studio to work in and it is in town. When he shows it to them he knows it should be theirs and when they offer he is ecstatic and shakes hands. Then the first woman comes back and offers 10k over the asking price, but Jamie says it’s already sold and turns her offer down, much to the fury of his manager. Jamie feels different, where once he might have taken the high offer now he can’t. Does he see his own parents in the old couple? Or is it that loss has given him a conscience? I really identified with this because after being seriously ill I returned to my work as an advertising rep only to struggle with selling newspaper space. It felt so trivial in the scheme of things I simply didn’t have the killer instinct. This was when I was sacked but went on to train as a counsellor and worked with the Mental Health Team in my area. It felt like I’d helped someone every day I went to work and it felt more in tune with my changing values.
I really felt for Jamie and wanted him to get his piano back and be able to express himself more. I was also so happy at his care for his nieces and his loyalty to his sister. Underneath the immaturity Zoe was concerned about, he’s a kind, perceptive and caring man. I was hoping they would find a way back to each other. Similarly I wanted Steve to reconnect with his wife and family and realise that while keeping a roof over their head was important, so was spending time together as a family. The author’s setting is perfect and having lived in villages all my life, I knew they come with beautiful countryside around them, but also residents who want to know all of your business. As my parents get older I do wonder what it might be like when they’re gone and I’m now the oldest member of the family. They’re my anchor, but so is my brother and I know our relationship will probably be stronger. I think the author makes it clear how seismic a shock it is when someone close to us dies. I loved the play on musical terms because the storyline has a tempo and Jamie is our conductor, desperately trying to keep the orchestra together towards the crescendo and beyond. This is a thoughtful and real story that had a lot of heart in it.
Out now from Flying Dog Press
Meet the Author
Joanna Howat trained as a journalist and worked as a news producer for BBC Radio 5 Live. She now lives in her native North Yorkshire with her family and two spaniels, and is a keen classical pianist. Crescendo is her first published novel.
When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious…
This addictive thriller was set in the Blue Ridge Mountains and gave off distinct Saltburn vibes with it’s resident family and the outsiders who’ve come to stay. Camden was adopted by the infamous Ruby McTavish, Carolina’s richest woman and childhood victim of a kidnapping plot. Camden has been estranged from his adoptive mother for years, walking away from the family money and living an ordinary life with wife Jules. When he receives a visit from his cousin he can’t ignore his family any longer. Ruby has left Ashby House, the family home, to Camden despite the fact he doesn’t live there or speak to any of the family that do. His first instinct, on being asked to return to his childhood home is to refuse, but Jules persuades him that they should take the trip. Ashby House is famous because Ruby McTavish was kidnapped from the grounds when she was a small child, but then returned. Ruby was famous locally: for the kidnapping, for the wealth she inherits from her father Alexander McTavish who was a lumber magnate and for the amount of times she was married. Can Camden make peace with his eccentric step-family members who rely on Ashby House for a roof over their heads? Or will he sign away his inheritance and turn his back on them forever?
Ashby House is as eccentric and jumbled up as the family that remains and is set in a beautiful spot with the Blue Ridge Mountains providing it’s backdrop.
‘Built in 1904 by lumber magnate Alexander McTavish, the house is as eccentric as the family who owns it. Part Victorian, part Palladian, it features smooth gray stone and peaked roofs, marble patios and leaded windows. It should not work and yet, miraculously—almost mystically—it does. Guests of the home have commented that there’s something about Ashby House that makes you feel as if the rest of the world does not exist. As if you could stay safely tucked behind its walls forever and want for nothing else.’
Jules is charmed by the house, particularly the view from the porch up to the mountains. Up till now she has been satisfied with their life and their cosy little flat. She was used to being anonymous. Now she can’t shop in town without special treatment, everyone seems to know that she’s Camden McTavish’s wife. Even if some family members thought Cam shouldn’t inherit, not being a blood McTavish, the town seemed to accept him. As the remaining family members at Ashby start to manipulate and jostle for position, I wondered whether Jules was growing rather fond of the life that her husband had vowed to leave behind. Though it was becoming clear that being part of this particular family is a bit of a poisoned chalice. It felt all the time that a game was being played out but I had no idea who had devised it. I loved Ruby’s letters, beautifully placed between the main narrative, explaining her motivations and serving up some brutal honesty about her husbands. Strangely, although her behaviour is reprehensible, it’s hard not to like Ruby. She’s audacious, daring and has a dark humour I really enjoy. However, she’s also self-centred and devious. In fact most members of the family could be described this way. Ashby House is a viper’s nest of ego, deception, manipulation and avarice. I worried that Cam and Jules would submit to it’s deathly grip. Could that incredible porch view and the ease of a life with money win them over?
The first chapters of the book are a little slow and I was unsure about where it was going at first. After that we get Ruby’s letters, but also the family history that Cam wants no part of, as well as a build up in the tension between the family members. This starts to grab you and the pace picks up all the way to the end. I started to wonder where revelations might come from next! While everyone was under one roof it started to feel like an old-fashioned detective novel/film with an ensemble cast and a plot straight from a Knives Out or Agatha Christie film. This unusual mansion is something of a labyrinth, with each family member quietly plotting and conspiring in their own corner of the building. The slightly overgrown grounds, mountains and sheer cliffs gave plenty of opportunities for ‘accidents’. The author was brilliant at a quick reveal, then immediately hitting you with another suspicion or question. I loved the long running theme of nature or nurture. Is deception in the McTavish blood or is it simply learned by watching generations of machinations nesting in Ashby House?
Out now from Headline
Meet the Author
Rachel Hawkins (www.rachel-hawkins.com) was a high school English teacher before becoming a full-time writer. She lives with her family in Alabama, and is currently at work on the third book in the Hex Hall series. To the best of her knowledge, Rachel is not a witch, though some of her former students may disagree….
I came late to Janice Hallett with her novel The Alperton Angels so it’s taken a hiatus from blog tours to finally catch up with her debut novel The Appeal. If you’ve been wondering whether it lives up to the hype? It definitely does. We’re taken to the world of the Fairway Player, an am dram group in an affluent village. It’s time for the players to put on a production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and the usual suspects are readying themselves for auditions. Two events will affect the run: founder members Martin and Helen Hayward find out their granddaughter Poppy has a brain tumour and a new couple move into the village. Sam and Kel Greenwood are nurses and have completed years of aid work in Africa. As fundraising begins for Poppy to have experimental treatment in the USA everyone in the friendship group commits themselves to helping. All except one villager, who is suspicious and starts to make enquiries about the Hayward family. Someone within the players loses their life and another is already in prison on remand. QC Roderick Turner assigns law students Charlotte and Femi to the case. As they review the evidence they start to wonder if the right person is in prison and if even darker secrets lurk beneath?
The first thing that’s different about this book is the structure. We’re told the story through the WhatsApp messages of Femi and Charlotte as they review the evidence in the form of texts, emails, letters and other documents. At first it’s a bit disorienting because there are so many characters and it’s hard to remember how they’re all related. Luckily there’s a good glossary of characters and they do simply ‘click’ after a while. It’s a bit like dropping into a conversation half way through but Femi and Charlotte act as a pit stop where the case so far is reviewed and the relationships clarified. There are two main strands to the story and they concern the alpha family, the rich and established Haywards and new recruits the Greenwoods. The Haywards own The Grange, a venue for events and health treatments and their family home. Sam and Kel are the latest Fairway recruits, championed by Isabel Beck who they know from work and is a rather lowly member of the group. They are an unknown quantity and could easily upset the dynamic, especially since they’ve been used to a very different and dangerous environment.
Isabel felt to me like the character who holds everything together. Not only does she link old and new residents, she is the most prolific email and text writer. While her output suggests she is a very popular resident who’s at the centre of everything that happens in the village, there doesn’t seem to be much correspondence the other way. In fact other residents ignore Isabel, bitch about her behind her back or are directly snappish and rude. She’s fascinating because the relationships you’d expect her to have from her constant communication don’t seem to exist. She pays court to Sam Greenwood who works alongside her on the geriatric ward, but there’s no real evidence that they’re friends. She feels like a child in the playground that no one wants to play with. She’s on the periphery of groups, desperately laughing at their jokes and joining their events, but is never the focus of their interest. She doesn’t seem to have a solid sense of who she is, bending to the whims of whoever she’s with desperately wanting to be liked. It’s painful to read about her planning to do things with people who have no intention of doing them – she mentions her and Sam going out to Africa but theres no correspondence to show this was ever a shared plan. She reads like a borderline personality and while I felt sorry for her she also made my skin crawl a little. She’s desperate for any sort of attention and people who are desperate do desperate things. I was also a little suspicious of Poppy’s oncologist, especially when a potential donor turns up who’s happy to give 100k to the appeal but wants assurances, such as the actual supplier of the drugs? Also he doesn’t understand why he’s paying the doctor in the UK when the treatment is in the US. The doctor’s replies are vague and I wondered who was trying to benefit – the doctor, the Haywards?
Just as we settle into the community the author throws in a new variable, such as Kel and Sam’s friend who’s arrived on a break from his own work in Africa. He creates a disturbance at the yoga fundraiser giving Poppy an African doll that he claims has curative properties. He seems drunk and is possibly a drug user too. Could he have committed the murder? We really don’t know who the murderer is, even if we can work out a few of the reasons why. The most fascinating part to me is the psychological make-up of the characters and the dynamics between them. Aside from Isabel’s potential personality disorder, there’s the Greenwood’s PTSD from their aid work and the sad fact that the Haywards lost a child years before. The dynamics are clever with Alpha family The Haywards at the centre of the community, backed up by those who police the community and make their ideas happen. A new couple changes and disrupts the group dynamics where existing people know their place and dutifully follow the group rules. Then there’s those who think they’re in the community, but aren’t. Once you’ve started this novel you won’t be able to put it down. Im laid up in bed or the couch at the moment, so I read this straight through and loved every minute.
Out Now from Viper Books
Meet the Author
Janice Hallett is the author of five best-selling novels. Her debut, The Appeal, was awarded the CWA Debut Dagger of 2021 and was a Sunday Times’ Bestseller, Waterstones’ Thriller of the Month and Sunday Times’ Crime Book of the Month. Her second novel The Twyford Code was named Crime & Thriller Book of the Year in the British Book Awards 2023. It was also a Sunday Times’ Bestseller and a Financial Times book of the year. The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels was an instant Times and Sunday Times bestseller on its launch in January 2023 and a Richard & Judy Book Club pick.
The Christmas Appeal, a fast, fun and festive novella, was launched in October 2023. It was a Times and Sunday Times bestseller.
Her latest novel The Examiner, was an instant Times and Sunday Times bestseller on its launch and is out now.
Her first novel for children aged 8-12 is A Box Full of Murders, out in June 2025.
Janice is a former magazine editor, award-winning journalist, and government communications writer. As a playwright and screenwriter, she penned the feminist Shakespearean stage comedy NetherBard and co-wrote the feature film Retreat.
This was my read for over Christmas week and having started a couple of novels only to put them down again, I was beginning to think I’d lost my reading mojo. I was crying out for something that would draw me in quickly so I went for a tried and tested genre. A genre that maybe has a title, but I don’t know it. A preference I blame on reading Jane Eyre as a very imaginative ten year old. The formula is: huge rambling country house; time period from Victorian – 1930’s; young unsure girl/woman; aristocratic families with huge secrets. This fantastic novel from Emily Critchley fit the bill perfectly and was the only thing that drew me away from watching Black Doves all in one go! Our heroine is Gillian Larking, a rather invisible girl at boarding school who does her best to fit in but has no real friends. Gillian has lost her mother and with her dad working in Egypt feels very much alone. However, when she gets a new roommate that feeling starts to change. Violet is a bright, lively girl whose first goal is to break school rules and sneak up onto the school roof to check out the view. Despite her mischievous and seemingly confident nature, Violet is anxious and has a series of rituals to perform that help her cope:
“She had to do certain things at certain times, like twirl around on the spot before she flushed the lavatory or touch a door handle twice before she opened a door. I often caught her whispering certain words to herself three times or counting to fifty on her fingers. When I asked her why she had to do these things, she struggled to tell me. For protection, was all she would say, or so that nothing bad will happen.”
She is also prone to emotional outbursts when things become overwhelming. Gillian is seemingly more aware that as young ladies of the middle and upper classes they must manage their emotions. She herself has had moments of despair and loneliness but has kept her tears for under the covers late at night. She also aware that girls in packs tend to sniff out weakness or odd behaviour and worries whether Violet’s rituals or ‘undoings’ as she calls them, could affect both their positions at school. Yet the other girls don’t seem to bother Violet and Gillian wonders whether that’s because she’s from a wealthy family. As Christmas approaches Gillian is delighted to receive an invitation from Violet to spend the holidays with her family at Thornleigh Hall. There she is dazzled by their slightly shabby country home, being waited on by the servants and Violet’s rather beautiful older sisters. Emmeline, the oldest and definitely in charge, wafts around in old Edwardian gowns whereas Laura is a rather more modern and fragile beauty. Both girls accept Gillian as one of their own, but their new friendship is tested by an incident on Boxing Day that will reverberate through the years.
I have a soft spot for books set between the two World Wars and this had a lot of the themes pertinent to aristocratic families of the time. Thornleigh Hall is badly in need of repair but has a faded grandeur that is still impressive to Gillian. They’re a family living a way of life that ended twenty years before. They clearly don’t have the funds to maintain their estate, but Gillian notices the lavish breakfasts laid out every morning under silver dishes. Emmeline, the eldest sister, is the family’s great hope. She must find a suitor with money and secure the family’s fortunes with a sensible marriage. She has a candidate in mind, much older than her but definitely of the right class and enough money to save the hall for another generation. Gillian is enthralled by the sister’s unique style and confidence and realises that to some extent her friend Violet is the odd one out. Her nervous rituals, like her need to read Peter Pan over and over, suggest a deep insecurity in her character and even a fear of growing up. She warns Gillian that her sisters are not all they seem to be, but Gillian feels accepted for the first time in her life. There was an element of L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between in her relationship with the sisters because she is naive and doesn’t realise when she’s being manipulated. On that fateful Boxing Day, Emmeline takes charge as always, instructing Gillian and Laura to lie or even pass blame onto a man who lives in the lodge house. Gillian feels obliged to go along with the plan because they’ve been kind to her. Again there are shades of another book here, Ian McEwan’s Atonement, where naivety and misunderstanding could lead to a terrible end for an innocent man of a lower social status. The full implications of these lies are utterly life changing for Violet, but almost no one escapes unscathed.
The novel is structured into four parts, taking us to different points in the life of Gillian and her relationship to the events of that Christmas in 1938. I’ve already mentioned L.P.Hartley’s The Go-Between and the first section has echoes of it’s opening page, from the naivety and social position of Gillian to the sense of delving into a past that’s long dead with it’s own social codes; “the past is a foreign country – they do things differently there’. We start the novel in 1999 when Gillian visits Thornleigh Hall, now under the guardianship of the National Trust. Over a slice of lemon and poppy seed cake, she ponders life from her time as a guest here to the recent death of her husband and the diary from 1938 that she’s come across while clearing out cupboards. This 1999 visit to Thornleigh is like travelling into the past as she strolls the rooms now on show and sees Lord and Lady Claybourne in the dining room complaining about their eggs and Laura in her stockinged feet reading a book on the library sofa. There is so much about this first chapter that draws us in: the suggested tragic circumstances of some members of the family; the emotional state of Gillian as a young girl who has lost her mother and is desperate for a role model; there’s also the hint of darker secrets lurking underneath the surface of this beautiful stately home. In the other three parts we’re taken to the aftermath of that fateful day in 1938 and then to London in 1942 where Gillian bumps into Laura’s husband Charlie.
Finally part four brings us to the 1990s when Gillian and the Claybourne sisters are old women, taking us full circle to the beginning of the book. In each part there shocking revelations that leave Gillian in no doubt that the secrets from all those years ago are still having their effect. She has received a letter from Henry Cadwallander who has written to Gillian at his Aunt Violet’s request. Will she meet Violet and let her know that with the wisdom of experience she now understands her warning about the older sisters? I wondered if there would be closure or whether Gillian is always fated to be a horrified observer of the Claybourne’s family dynamics? This was an enthralling and fascinating look at a tumultuous time in history and it’s effects on one aristocratic family, observed through the eyes of a naive visitor. The author has created an incredible atmosphere that drew me in so strongly I felt like I was there. This is an amazing debut from Emily Critchley and I look forward to reading more of her work.
Out now from Zaffre Books
Meet the Author
Emily Critchley has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. She currently lives in Hertfordshire in the UK.
It never ceases to amaze me that I can be sat here in the days between Christmas and New Year telling you about books I want to read next summer. Despite doing this for a fourth year I can’t believe that I get to read next year’s books or that publishers would be willing to send me them but here we are! The novelty never wears off and I’m grateful for every book I receive. So some of these are read and others are just beautiful covers and a synopsis, either way here are a few books I’ll be looking out for and you might like to as well.
In the small town of Gold Springs, Calliope Petridi and her two sisters carefully guard the secret of their magic and the price they must pay to practise it: memories. Luckily, all Calliope wants to do is forget: the mother who left without a trace, the sisters from whom she feels increasingly distant, and most of all, the way the love of her life shattered her heart two years ago.
But when an ancient evil awakens, the fragile thread that holds the sisters together breaks. As their magic slowly begins to fade, Calliope accidentally binds herself to the handsome leader of a rival coven infamous for their ruthless pursuit of power. Battling the sizzling chemistry with a man she can’t trust, Calliope must confront painful memories of her past, dark family secrets, and ancient magic in order to protect the town and all she loves.
But will she have anything left of herself?
Out 27th Feb from Aria.
It is 1895. A high-speed steam train is the emblem of progress. Industry and invention are creating ever greater wealth and poverty. One autumn day an anarchist boards the Granville to Paris Express.
The train carries others from all over the globe: the railway workers who have built a life together away from their wives, a little boy travelling alone for the first time, an artist far from home, a wealthy statesman and his invalid wife, and a young woman with a secret hidden under her dress.
The Paris Express is a thrilling ride and a literary masterpiece that captures the politics, fear, and chaos of the end of the 19th century.
Out Thursday 20th March from Picador
When Nina was just five years old, her family’s whole world was torn apart when her seventeen-year-old sister Tamara was found dead in the pool of their Cote d’Azur property. Nina’s evidence led to the conviction of their housekeeper’s daughter and occasional babysitter seventeen-year-old Josie for Tamara’s murder. But when new evidence emerges to suggest that Josie was innocent, Nina is forced to question the accuracy of her memories, her role in one of the most notorious cases of the past twenty years, and what actually happened to her sister on that hot summer day.
Out Thursday 14 th August by Bantam
It is the 60s and, just out of school, Edith finds herself travelling to rural Italy. She has been sent by her mother with strict instructions: to see her sister, ballet dancer Lydia, through the final weeks of her pregnancy, help at the birth and then make a phone call which will seal this baby’s fate, and his mother’s.
Decades later, happily divorced and newly energized, Edith is living a life of contentment and comfort in Ireland. When her best friend Maebh receives a call from an American man claiming to be her brother, Maebh must decide if she will meet him, and she asks Edith for help.
Ripeness by Sarah Moss is an extraordinary novel about familial love and the communities we create, about migration and new beginnings, and about what it is to have somewhere to belong
Out Thursday 22nd May from Picador
Constance Macken, in her ninth decade, is looking back on a life filled with laughter and loss, tragedy and triumph, but knows it is time to right the wrongs from her past that have always haunted her.
Heather Banks arrives on the island to bury her mother. Already adrift with her business sold and her divorce finalised, time on the island may be the perfect opportunity to change the course of her future. Ros Stokes has managed to slip into the perfect job, the perfect cottage and friends that feel like family. However, when the stitches of her life begin to unravel, she must find a way to hold onto the things that have become most dear to her and let go of what holds her back.
In a faded art deco house by the sea these women must come together to save the house they love and each other, because they might have run from their troubles but only time will tell if they can overcome their past.
Out on Thursday 5th Jan from Aria Fiction
She thinks it was murder. But if she can’t trust herself, can anyone else?
Nancy North and her boyfriend Felix are making the move across London to Harlesden. A new flat, a new area, a new start. Because while Nancy is fine now, she wasn’t fine before. But settling into the new flat and meeting the new neighbours isn’t helped by Felix’s hovering concern. She is all right. She is sticking to her breathing exercises and doctor-prescribed help.
So, when their new neighbour Kira Mullan is found dead by suicide, Felix is understandably worried about Nancy’s frame of mind. But Nancy saw Kira the day before she died and she didn’t strike her as someone who was suicidal – she was upset and angry, yes, but was she upset and angry enough to take her own life?
Nancy is the only one convinced that there’s more to Kira’s death than has been discovered. But all the police and the neighbours see is a vulnerable woman who isn’t sure of what she saw, and might even be imagining things . . .
Is Nancy imagining things, or are there more questions that should be asked about the last days of Kira Mullan?
Thursday 16th Jan from Simon & Schuster
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…
Out Thursday 6th March by Doubleday
It’s time we name our kingdom!’ he shouted over the wind. ‘I say we call this place Happy Land. If this ain’t the land of happy people, then where is it? Why not create our heaven right here on earth?’
Nikki Berry hasn’t seen her grandmother Rita in years. When she calls out of the blue asking Nikki to visit her urgently in the hills of North Carolina, Nikki hesitates only for a moment. Her mother and grandmother have long been estranged, and after years of silence in her family, Nikki is determined to learn the truth while she still can.
But instead of answers about the recent past, Mother Rita tells Nikki the incredible story of a kingdom on this very mountain, and of her great-great-great grandmother, Luella, who became its queen. It sounds like the makings of a fairy tale – royalty among a community of freed people. But the more Nikki learns about the Kingdom of the Happy Land and the lives of those who dwelled in the ruins she discovers in the woods, the more she realizes how much of her identity and her family’s secrets are contained in these hills. Because this land is their legacy, and it will be up to her to protect it before – like so much else – it is stolen away.
Inspired by true events, Happy Land is a transporting multi-generational novel about the stories that shape us and the dazzling courage it takes to dream.
Out on 10th April 2025 from Phoenix
Born of the sun and moon, shaped by fire and malady, comes a young woman whose story has never been told . . .
They call her Sycorax. Seer. Sage. Sorceress.
Outcast by society and all alone in the world, Sycorax must find a way to understand her true nature. But as her powers begin to grow, so too do the suspicions of the local townspeople. For knowledge can be dangerous, and a woman’s knowledge is the most dangerous of all . . . With a great storm brewing on the horizon, Sycorax finds herself in increasing peril – but will her powers save her, or will they spell the end for them all?
A beautifully written and deeply moving imagining of what came before Shakespeare’s The Tempest from the author of A Girl Made of Air.
Out on 27th February from Quercus
In a city built on secrets, who would kill to keep theirs hidden?
The year is 1759, and London is shrouded in a cloak of fear. With the lawmen at the mercy of robbers and highwaymen, it’s a perilous time to work the already dangerous streets of Soho. Lizzie Hardwicke is somewhat protected from the fray at Mrs Farley’s Bawdy House, a reputable brothel. But then a wealthy customer is found brutally murdered… and Lizzie was the last person to see him alive.
The magistrate’s assistant, William Davenport, has no hard evidence against Lizzie, but his presence and questions make life increasingly difficult. Desperate to be rid of him and prove her innocence, Lizzie turns amateur detective, determined to find the true killer, whatever the cost. Yet as the body count rises, Lizzie realises that, just like her, everyone has a secret they will do almost anything to keep buried…
Out on 6th March from Verve
Lexi is looking for no-strings-attached fun with a stranger. She deserves one night for herself, doesn’t she? Zeke is looking for love. But for one night with a woman like Lexi, he’ll break his rules.
Sparks fly at the pub – one passionate kiss leads to another, and they soon end up stumbling home to the marina together. But the next morning, they’re unable to part ways as planned.
The houseboat they stayed on last night has been swept out to sea. How long can Zeke and Lexi survive on a drifting houseboat? Will search and rescue find them? And who will they have become if they both make it back to dry land?
Out on 6th March from Quercus
In the summer of 1980, astrophysics professor Joan Goodwin begins training to be an astronaut at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilots Hank Redmond and John Griffin; mission specialist Lydia Danes; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer. As the new astronauts prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined and begins to question everything she believes about her place in the observable universe.
Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.
Out on 3rd June 2025 from Hutchinson Heinnemann
The Brookes are gathering in their eighteenth-century ancestral home – twenty bedrooms of carved Sussex sandstone – to bury Philip, the head of the family – the blinding sun around which they have all orbited for as long as they can remember.
Frannie, inheritor of a thousand acres of English countryside, has dreams of rewilding and returning the estate to nature: a last line of defence against the coming climate catastrophe. Milo envisages a treetop haven for the super-rich where under the influence of psychedelic drugs a new ruling class will be reborn. Each believes their father has given them his blessing and are set on a collision course with the other.
Isa has long suspected that her father thought only of himself, and only hopes to seek out her childhood love, who still lives on the estate, to discover whether it is her feelings for him thatm are creating the fault lines in her marriage.
And then there is Clara, who arrives in their midst from America, shrouded in secrets and bearing a truth that will fracture all the dreams on which they’ve built their lives.
Out 1st May 2025 from Fig Tree
Alex, Nancy and Eva Fisher. Three grown-up sisters; each wonderful and imperfect in their own individual ways. And loved equally by their parents, Vivienne and Patrick.
Or so they thought.
When a near-disaster strikes during a family party, Patrick inadvertently lets slip that he has a favourite daughter. And while they try to gloss over it, this almost-accident begins the unravelling of everything the sisters thought they knew. As their past is re-examined, secrets and lies are uncovered, and, slowly, the close-knit Fisher clan starts to implode in a way they could never have dreamed possible.
Set over a single week’s holiday, The Favourite is a witty, tender, sharply observed portrait of the highs and lows that shape a family over the decades. A story about rivalries and regret and blame, about memory and identity, and above all, about love – at its messiest and most joyous.
Out on 12th June 2025 from Michael Joseph.
1963: At the stark and isolated modernist mansion of controversial political philosopher Richard Acklehurst, the glittering annual New Year party has not gone quite as planned. Considered a genius by some, and something far darker by others, by the end of the evening Acklehurst will be dead in mysterious circumstances that are never fully explained. And although the popularity of his work waxes and wanes over the coming years, a core of acolytes remains true to his vision.
1999: Richard Acklehurst’s remains are defiled in the country graveyard where they have lain undisturbed for over thirty years, forcing his daughters – Aisling and Stella, teenagers at the time of his death – to return to their childhood home where they must finally confront the complex and dark dynamic at the heart of their family.
Moving from the West of Ireland to Dublin, London, Florence and back, The Glass House is a captivating and compelling tale of two sisters and their secrets, of love, regret and vengeance.
Out on 6th Feb from Corvus.
IN PLACES OF DARKNESS, WOMEN WILL RISE . . .
Iceland, 1910. In the middle of a severe storm two sisters – Freyja and Gudrun – rescue a mysterious, charismatic man from a shipwreck near their remote farm.
Sixty-five years later, a young woman – Sigga – is spending time with her grandmother when they learn a body has been discovered on a mountainside near Reykjavik, perfectly preserved in ice.
Moving between the turn of the 20th century and the 1970s as a dark mystery is unravelled, The Swell is a spellbinding, beautifully atmospheric read, rich in Icelandic myth.
Out on 27th February from Manila Press
Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until ― betrayed and brokenhearted ― she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America – but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.
In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.
Out on 4th March from Fourth Estate
When fiction is fatal…
Living in exile in Venice, the disgraced Lord Byron revels in the freedoms of the city. But when he is associated with the deaths of local women, found with wounds to their throats, and then a novel called The Vampyre is published under his name, rumours begin to spread that Byron may be the murderer…
As events escalate and tensions rise – and his own life is endangered, as well as those he holds most dear – Byron is forced to play detective, to discover who is really behind these heinous crimes. Meanwhile, the scandals of his own infamous past come back to haunt him…
Rich in gothic atmosphere and drawing on real events and characters from Byron’s life, Dangerous is a riveting, dazzling historical thriller, as decadent, dark and seductive as the poet himself…
Out on 24th April 2025 from Orenda Books
Welcome to the Kennedy household:
Lila wrote a bestseller about keeping your marriage alive, before discovering her ex was playing happy families with another woman. A woman she sees everyday at school pick-up. Bill, her stepdad, moved in after Lila’s mum died. He’s kind, old-fashioned and driving her absolutely nuts. Celie, Lila’s eldest, hates school. Hates it so much she’s stopped going. Her mother’s fine with that – because she doesn’t know yet. Violet is nine and sings age-inappropriate rap songs, laughs at fart jokes and Lila dearly hopes she’ll never, ever change. And Truant the dog, who has just bitten the American actor who’s suddenly landed on the Kennedys’ doorstep.
This is Gene – Lila’s estranged father, and no one’s idea of a role model. He walked out on Lila and her mum years ago – and wherever he goes domestic discord follows. Because Gene’s presence changes things in unexpected ways. Soon the girls discover a kindred spirit in a man always chasing life’s joy. Bill even loosens up. And Lila finds herself, astonishingly, dating. Something is happening to the Kennedy household – but what is it? And will it break, or save, their family?
Out 11th Feb 2025 from Michael Joseph
Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old, they’re frozen – or so their inside joke goes. Most people don’t know that they travel back in time to complete their research.
The latest assignment sees Ali venture back farther than they have dared before: to 1850s London in order to clear the name of Cain Templeton, the eccentric great-grandfather of MP Isaac Templeton. Rumour has it that Cain was part of a sinister group called The Collectors; to become a member, you had to kill a woman…
Fearing for her safety in the middle of a freezing Victorian winter, Ali finds herself stuck in time, unable to make her way back to her life, her beloved colleagues, and her son, Finn, who suddenly finds himself in legal trouble in the present day.
Could the two cases be connected?
Out Feb 13th 2025 from Quercus
They knew they were changing history. They didn’t know they would change each other.
Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms on Corridor Eight. They have come here from all walks of life, and they are thrown into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship.
Dora was never meant to go to university, but, after losing both her brother and her fiancé on the battlefield, has arrived in their place. Beatrice, politically-minded daughter of a famous suffragette, sees Oxford as a chance to make her own way – and her own friends – for the first time. Socialite Otto fills her room with extravagant luxuries but fears they won’t be enough to distract her from her memories of the war years. And quiet, clever, Marianne, the daughter of a village vicar, arrives bearing a secret she must hide from everyone – even The Eights – if she is to succeed.
But Oxford’s dreaming spires cast a dark shadow: in 1920, misogyny is still rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War are still very real indeed. And as the group navigate this tumultuous moment in time, their friendship will become more important than ever.
Out April 2025 from Fig Tree Publishing
1910. With the disappearance of her mother and the sudden death of her father, Lena instantly loses any security she has within the circus she has known all her life. She is advised to sell the carousel her father cared for like a child and look for a husband, or a job in a factory.
Until flame-haired Violet, known to all in the fairgrounds as ‘the greatest trapeze artist that ever lived’, suggests they go it alone with their own, all-female act. With her outspoken ways and her refusal to marry, Violet is as much an outcast as Lena. What do they have to lose? Recruiting new performers including bareback horse-rider Rosie, on the run from her abusive father, and Carmen whose rainbow ribbons hide the darkness in her past, the four women form an unbreakable bond.
Thrust into a harsh and dangerous world that treats them with suspicion, disdain and even violence, they must forge their own path in search of freedom, security, and love.
Deeply rooted in the Edwardian era, THE SHOW WOMAN is brilliantly realised and expertly interlaces strong female characters, deeply-woven family secrets and heartfelt love stories.
Out on 21st May 2025 from Hodder & Stoughton
Molly the maid is no stranger to secrets…
She sees everything behind closed doors at the Regency Grand hotel: wiping away the dust and grime of guests passing through.
But one secret lies much closer to home. An old trinket – a faux Fabergé egg – is revealed to be a precious antique during an appraisal at the hotel, making Molly a rags-to-riches sensation. But no sooner has the egg shown its value than it’s stolen: vanishing without a trace.
Determined to crack the case of the missing Fabergé, Molly begins dusting for clues – uncovering a mystery that stretches deep into the past.
For in the pages of a long-forgotten diary, written by her late gran, lie the secrets that could unlock all others – and only Molly holds the key…
Out on 25th May 2025 from Harper Collins
Come children, come children from far and near. Come choose your steed, you galloping knights, to enjoy the fun of the carousel . . .
Paris, 1900
Celebrated carousel-maker Gilbert works night and day to finish his masterpiece in time for the city’s Exposition Universelle. But Gilbert is struggling in the wake of his wife and son’s tragic deaths, and as he finalises his creation, a dangerous idea forms in his mind . . .
Chicago, 1920
Maisie Marlowe has come to America in the search of a new life. When she unearths a beautiful, neglected old carousel, she seizes the opportunity to carve a thrilling new destiny for herself. But Maisie doesn’t know that beneath its glittering facade, the carousel is hiding a dark secret. Twenty years ago, it was linked to a number of people inexplicably vanishing into thin air – and now history has begun to repeat itself . . .
Out April 25th 2025 from Michael Joseph
A stunning new novel exploring the lives and secrets of a group of residents of an island in the Thames
Walnut Tree Island is home to artists, dreamers, lovers and heartbreakers. Life is different here: slow, languorous and always communal, with every evening offering a new opportunity to gather at a neighbour’s houseboat over a glass of wine.
But when a former resident reappears after nearly two decades away, the islanders are thrown into a frenzy as they wonder what plans their new landlord has in store for them.
And for Jo, an artist who long ago lost her muse, his return reopens the wounds of a love she thought was gone forever…
Out July 2025 from HQ
Here are a few more great titles to look out for …
The Lotus Readers 