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Posted in Netgalley

Goodbye Birdie Greenwing by Ericka Waller

Posted on by thelotusreaders



Birdie Greenwing has been at a loose end ever since her beloved twin sister and husband passed away. Too proud and stubborn to admit she is lonely, Birdie’s world has shrunk. But then some new neighbours move in to the house next door. 

Jane has come to Brighton for a fresh start, away from her ferociously protective mother Min. While Jane finds it hard to stand up for herself, her daughter Frankie has no problem telling people what she does and doesn’t want. Ada Kowalski has come to England to follow her dreams, but her new life is harder than she expected.

When a series of incidents brings their lives crashing together, the three find that there is always more to a person than meets the eye …

Goodbye Birdie Greenwing celebrates relationships in all their quirky, complicated uniqueness. It is a story about the choices we make and how we justify them. About finding out who we are, not who other people think we should be.

I read Ericka’s novel in a day because I simply loved being in the presence of these lovable and contrasting characters. As I met each one I could see the impact they could have on each other’s lives. As the author takes us inside their everyday lives, their inner worlds and their pasts she looks at family dynamics, sisters, mothers and daughters, but also the whole question of being a woman in the 20th and 21st Century. In fact there was a point when I was reminded of America Ferrara’s speech in the film Barbie. It addresses the choices we make, the expectations placed on us within our families, by other women and by society at large. She takes us into that contrast of who we are, how we compare that to our internal and learned ideas of what the word ‘woman’ means. Birdie, our central character, is a elderly woman living alone in Brighton with her little dog Audrey. She lost her sister Rose and husband Arthur several years ago. She is stunned when tests at hospital confirm she has cancer, but before the doctor can give her more information and make a plan Birdie has walked out. Her oncologist Ada recognises that determined walk and the lift of Birdie’s chin. She realises that Birdie is going to face this alone and she worries that she will struggle without the help that can be offered. In fact Ada realises that Birdie lives on her street, so takes to walking past and checking for telltale signs that Birdie is struggling. Ada is also lonely after relocating to Britain from Poland. Used to life on an isolated farm and a very different society, Brighton can be a lot to take on. Despite friendly overtures from her secretary Denise and Connie in the WRVS cafe Ada is solitary, except for the time she spends helping Aleksey and Lech in the Polski Sklep. When a new intern starts on her team Ada’s teamwork skills will be tested, not to mention her social skills. Finally, there’s Jane and her daughter Frankie who have recently moved in next to Birdie from Bristol. Jane is struggling with the guilt of moving away from her mother Min, although her sister Suki is out in Asia just living her life as she chooses. They used to be so close, but now all she gets are emojis. Her daughter Frankie’s bluntness and practical nature might seem like a hindrance when forming new connections, it certainly gets Jane called into school enough, but could her lack of inhibitions and tact actually help them make friends?

There are two mysteries in the novel and I enjoyed watching them slowly unravel. There’s the mystery of what has happened to Birdie’s husband and sister, Arthur and Rose. At first I wondered if they’d run away together but Birdie’s guilt seems to have lasted for decades. The other mystery is what has broken the relationship between Jane and her sister Suki? Suki is distant and even when she rings to speak to Min, she’s very quick to end the call if Jane is present. Jane tries hard, sending her sister funny videos, memories of their childhood and information about Min but only gets emojis or a thumbs up in return. Each of the women have a sister and their relationships with them are fascinating. Birdie always felt responsible for Rose as she had rheumatoid arthritis. When she met Arthur and fell in love she hadn’t imagine she might have to make a choice, so when Arthur asks her to marry him she hesitates. What about Rose? Luckily Arthur had realised that the two sisters were a package deal. Birdie felt guilty that Rose wouldn’t have the same choices in life and whether there was something she did wrong, before they were born, that led to her sister’s disability. Birdie worried that she’d somehow pushed herself forward in the womb and take more than her share. Now Rose was ill as a result. Jane and Suki’s rift seems to date back to when the sisters went travelling together. Jane returned from Thailand with Frankie and moved back in with Min, but Suki stayed. They are very different women, with contrasting life choices but that shouldn’t stop them being sisters. Ada has a sister called Ania, but she has chosen a very different life. While Ada is saving lives in a different country, Ania lives close to their parents and is married with children.

I’ve never had a sister, but it seems as if they provide an instant comparison; they are the mirror in which your own life is reflected. Ada feels like the ‘bad’ sister, the one who followed her own dreams rather than staying to work the family farm. This choice has cut her off from the family in a way. She knows they sacrificed a lot for her education, so she sends part of her salary home every month and when she visits takes them gifts. She wants to show them that their sacrifice was worth it and she is doing well. However, this changes her standing in the family and while there’s no red carpet for Ania, when Ada comes home she is treated like a guest, placed in the best room and given the special soap saved for visitors. She feels like a stranger in her childhood home. She would be happy to throw on jeans and help with the animals but they won’t let her. It’s hard for her to accept these two sides of herself; the Ada who would happily muck out the cows and the Ada who wears a suit and saves lives. She thinks that her parents value Ania more because she made the ‘right’ choices and is still part of the community. Whereas Ada’s life is outside their experience and difficult to understand, her ambitions are perhaps unnatural as opposed to motherhood. Similarly, Jane had wanted to have children, a revelation that took her by surprise, whereas Suki knew she didn’t want motherhood. Could there misunderstanding be explained by this difference? Could Suki feel guilty or even selfish for not having children and making life choices based on what she wants? However, just because you’re childless, it doesn’t mean you can’t ‘mother’ people. There’s also a generational difference in the way they mother, with Min’s tactless and sometimes hurtful words seeming like they belong in another century. There’s a way in which Min and Frankie are very similar in character, but now everything has to have a label. Jane wonders why Frankie has to be pigeon-holed and defined in some way. Why is it always Frankie that’s in the wrong? She has a much softer way of mothering that ironically Frankie often sees as fussing and she much prefers the more practical attitude of grandmother Min.

Where Waller really moved me, was where these quirks of character benefitted someone else. Where even those aspects that you’d struggle to call positive found their place in the world. Frankie has no inhibitions and Jane is called into school when she gives a classmate a frank assessment of her braces, including the trapped cabbage. She doesn’t understand why the things she says are wrong when they’re true. When Birdie has a short stay in hospital and has the realisation that she might be in her final days it’s not medical professionals Jane or Ada that she needs. At first it’s Frankie who goes in and decides to help, making Birdie comfortable and making her some lunch. The two rub along nicely together, probably because there’s no fuss with Frankie and I understood that need for someone who isn’t flowery, overly chatty or phased by her illness. Similarly Min is the perfect carer for Birdie, she suggests that being of the same generation might make Birdie feel more comfortable and even Ada has to agree that their dynamic works. Min and Frankie’s help reminded me of how Ada’s parents would help their neighbours out. On her visit to family in Poland, Ada noticed how her mother’s farmhouse provided a quiet place for people to get away, like the neighbour who comes in on Saturday mornings to read his paper. This communal way of living is echoed by Aleksey and Lech who happily feed Ada; their fondness is shown in a practical way. Ada’s secretary Denise is stunned when, after years of finding her a bit of a cold fish, Ada offers her a home after the split from her husband. It shows we should accept people as they are, because we all show emotion and affection in different ways.

I felt like this was another book about connection, both with others and with ourselves. It’s a subject I find fascinating and I’m picking it up a lot lately in fiction. I wonder whether this is an unconscious response to the isolation of the pandemic. The author is brilliant at depicting those little inhibitions and we hear them in each woman’s narration. Jane hovers on the edge of a ‘huddle’ at work because she doesn’t know if she’ll be welcome or not. Ada doesn’t knock on Birdie’s door for professional reasons but also because she doesn’t want to impose. They all have to learn how to connect with who they are. Jane needs to learn to assert herself more, to accept her life choices and explore why she’s spent years of her life as a single woman. Suki’s guilt over the choices that were right for her stop her having a relationship with Jane and Frankie, but it was the right choice. As Ada compares herself with Ania she needs to see that it was right for Ania to stay near family and become a mum, but that moving away and using her skills to help others was the right choice for her. Even Birdie, who is the central character around which these interesting women revolve but she too has a lot of acceptance to do. She must accept this new vulnerability and need for help from others, as well as accepting she deserves it. Mostly she needs to forgive herself, for something that wasn’t even her fault. She has punished herself for years and it is the lovely Connie (whose collection of innuendo laden mugs rivals my own) in the hospital’s WRVS café who helps her see that while she still has time this is her time. While we still have life, we must live it. Whether we have months, days or hours left, we must live them.

Meet the Author

Ericka Waller is 38 and lives in Brighton with three daughters, too many pets and a husband.

She is an award winning blogger and columnist.

When not writing she can be found walking her dogs, reading in the bath or buying stuff off eBay.

Posted in Monthly Wrap Up

Best Reads March 2024

Posted on by thelotusreaders

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore.

I was so glad to be invited to the paperback blog tour of this fantastic book, it’s been on the pile to read for a long while but other priorities kept popping up. I won’t ruin my full review because it’s out in a few days but I absolutely loved it. The Garnett girls of the title are Rachel, Imi and Sasha, all of them very close to each other and their mother Margo. All were living in London until Margo suggested that Rachel and her husband Gabriel move into the family home of Sandycove. The house is too big for one person and Margo is moving to a bungalow further into the village. Sandycove was their holiday home as children until their father Richard left and Margo moved the girls to the coast. In some ways Rachel enjoys living in the house but she still spends some time in London for work, leaving Gabriel and the girls behind. Margo is often in residence too, planning family events and cooking with Gabriel. There are times when she doesn’t feel that the house is theirs. Imi is in Venice, expecting a proposal from her perfect boyfriend William. She knows he’s going to propose because Margo and Rachel have called her every night for ‘news’. They think William is perfect for her, but is he? When Imi’s head is turned by a beautiful actress starring in her new play, it shakes the safe foundations of her life. Sasha is the rebellious daughter, her short pixie cut is a direct reaction to people in the village always telling her how much she looks like Margo. She’s married to Phil, who isn’t fond of the Garnett family and sits on the edge of family gatherings looking glum. The issues all of the girls are struggling with lie in a past they only vaguely remember. They struggle to live up to Margo and Richard’s wild and passionate romance, but was it really as wonderful as it sounds?

Night Watching by Tracy Sierra

I feel so lucky that two of the best thrillers so far this year have fallen into one reading month. This really is the most incredible, spine tingling and nerve-shredding story of a mother who is woken in the night by a heavy tread on the stairs. There’s someone in the house. Their home is isolated and she has two small children to protect. She remembers the strange hidden space next to the main chimney and quietly makes her way, gathering the children and begging them to be quiet. They make it into the crawl space, now all she has to do is keep the children quiet. As the footsteps move ever closer the tension mounts until the man is sitting in the adjoining office, talking to the children and asking them to come out of their hiding place. Thankfully he has no idea where it is. As he walks away to search other parts of the house, her little girl says she knows his voice. This is the man in the corner, the man from her nightmares who sits in her bedroom and whispers to her. My heart was in my mouth at this point. I didn’t know whether they were in a dream, whether this young mother was in the grip of madness, or if this was an intruder who’s been there before. This is a story that will keep you awake at night and is utterly brilliant.

House of Shades by Lianne Dillsworth

I awaited this novel with trepidation, having loved her first novel I really wanted this to be equally fascinating. Our heroine is Hester, a doctoress who has inherited the skills and potions of her mother and now earns a living treating the prostitutes of the King’s Cross area of London. Then she receives a job offer that could change her life and those of her husband Jos and sister Willa. Factory and plantation owner, Gervaise Cherville, offers her ten pounds to move into his mansion in Fitzrovia and treat his unknown ailments. This is life- changing money, especially for a black woman in the 19th Century. As Hester moves into Tall Trees she makes two discoveries: her sister Willa is enjoying a flirtation with Cherville’s son Rowland; Gervaise Cherville is a slave owner, not only on his plantation but here in his home. Cherville makes a request of Hester, if she can help him trace two slaves who lived at Tall Trees he will increase her payment to twenty pounds. This sum of money could take her family away from London altogether and take Willa out of the clutches of Rowland Cherville. The author portrays Hester beautifully as a woman who falls in between society’s rigid class structure. A black woman living in a Fitzrovian household, in the same accommodation as the housekeeper. She’s torn between helping her family and potentially harming another black woman, one who has fled the Cherville mansion with all the trauma of being a slave. Taking in class, race, ‘passing’ and the misogyny of men this is a deeply affecting story. My full review will be this month.

Prima Facie by Suzie Miller

This novel is an absolute tour de force and a damning indictment of the legal system when it comes to sexual offences. Tessa has come a long way to be a barrister in one of London’s best chambers. Born in Liverpool and raised on a Luton council estate she set her sights on Cambridge and achieved her goal. Tessa doesn’t have many beliefs but she does believe in the law, as a tool that isn’t perfect, but more or less delivers justice. As a barrister she doesn’t need to know whether the client is innocent or guilty, she just needs to find the holes in the prosecution’s story, something she can exploit to create reasonable doubt. She also believes that her experience and education have made her the equal of any rich, privately educated, and well-connected colleague. However, when a date with a fellow barrister goes wrong Tessa finds herself on the other side of the bench, she is now a witness and now someone will pick apart her story looking for the gaps and the holes, the fuzzy bits she isn’t quite sure of yet. Tessa is a character that pulls you into her world from the first page. Miller pulls apart the legal system like I’ve never seen before and watching Tessa lose faith in something she’s always believed in is really hard. In parts this is a hard read with trigger warnings for sexual assault, but it’s necessary. I had a visceral reaction to it. It made me think about whether the law truly is an equaliser or does justice depend on how deep your pockets are, who you went to school with, the colour of your skin, your gender. It also made me think about incidents in the past that newer generations of women simply would not tolerate and with good reason. I wish I has seen the play of the same name starring Jodie Comer who I can see was perfect for Tessa. I’m so grateful to my Squad Pod for choosing this as one of our March reads. This is a book I will think about long after popping it back on the shelf.

Here are some other reads from March.

Posted in Random Things Tours

Meet Me When My Heart Stops by Becky Hunter

Posted on by thelotusreaders

What if your soulmate could only ever be the love of your afterlife?

The first time Emery’s heart stops, she is only five years old…

Emery is born with a heart condition that means her heart could quite literally stop at any moment. The people around her know what to do – if they act quickly enough there will be no lasting damage, and Emery’s heart can be restarted. But when this happens, she is briefly technically dead.

Each time Emery’s heart stops, she meets Nick. His purpose is to help people adjust to the fact that they are dead, to help them say goodbye, before they move on entirely. He does not usually meet people more than once – but with Emery, he is able to make a connection, and he finds himself drawn to her.

As Emery’s life progresses, and she goes through ups and downs, she finds that a part of her is longing for those moments when her heart will stop – so that she can see Nick again.

This is the story of two fated lovers who long for each other, but are destined never to share more than a few fleeting moments – because if they were to be together, it would mean the end of Emery’s life.

I recently got married. Kev is my best friend and I can’t imagine daily life without him. Seventeen years ago I could never have imagined this scenario. Seventeen years ago my soul mate was taken away from me. Jerz and I had been together for seven years and I lost him by slow degrees over that time, as he slowly succumbed to breathing complications due to multiple sclerosis. One of the things I found so difficult about his death was just how final it was. I’ve often heard bereaved people say that they can feel their loved one’s presence, that they communicate with them or that they feel visited by them in some way. I felt nothing. I couldn’t believe that we could be so close in life, then have nothing. Somehow I thought our love could transcend death. I still love him of course, but nothing comes back. I wondered if our connection wasn’t as close as I imagined, or were those other people just kidding themselves? Unable to face the reality of death had they imagined the robin visiting their garden was a loved one? I had one night where I was so close to joining him. I couldn’t imagine carrying on. But somehow we do and I felt I would be letting him down if I didn’t fully live my life. Kev and I talk about him often and he knows that if he goes first he must find Jez and share stories of what it’s like to be married to me. So, in a way I felt I had some investment in this story. I have my very own Nick in the afterlife, but I’ve met mine before. I wasn’t sure about a love with someone completely new in the hereafter. I wasn’t even sure what Nick was – Death, the Devil, an angel? However, I was fascinated with Emery’s real life.

When someone is diagnosed with a condition that’s life limiting or ending, it doesn’t just affect the individual. The whole of that person’s family and friends have to get used to the diagnosis and what it means for them. For my late husband and me ( I also have MS) it meant a closeness with our family that possibly wouldn’t have happened without those periods of illness and uncertainty. I think it makes us appreciate each other more and make the most of being together. Yet for Emery’s parents it’s even worse. My parents felt guilty that I’d been diagnosed, relieved, scared and incredibly sad all at once, but whatever happened we knew that I’d still be around. Emery’s family have to accept that they might lose their daughter, but have no idea when it’s going to happen: it could be when she’s 6 years old on her way to school, it could be when they’ve just had a teenage row, it could be when she’s at university and no one’s there to help, it could be on her wedding day. It’s hard to live with such uncertainty. It’s hard to just carry on and live a normal life, but it’s also hard to continually treat someone as if you might lose them, every single day of your life. Sadly Emery’s parents react in different ways. While her mother is scared and grieving, she believes in carrying on as normally as possible. Whereas her father becomes anxious and hyper-vigilant. He wants to know where Emery is at all times, which risks he can eliminate, for everyone around Emery to know about her heart condition and that she only hangs out with those who know and can do CPR. This isn’t so much of an issue at a primary school age, but as Emery becomes a teenager she wants to spend time with new friends, go on school trips and maybe meet with boys. All of this is completely normal for her friends, but Emery has to ask and then listen to her parents tearing each other apart downstairs. For her dad there are no negotiations and no compromises. Until, in the end, it just becomes too much to cope with and her mum leaves. Emery lives with the guilt of feeling that it was her condition that caused her parents to split up.

I wondered throughout how much of Nick was real and how much was a subconscious invention. Something her mind created so that in those first moments after death Emery doesn’t feel alone. It’s also easier to be in love with someone who isn’t in your everyday world, especially when you have a hidden illness. As Emery learns, dating in the real world is much more complicated. When do you ‘come out’ to that new person about your invisible illness? What if you collapse on a date? Then as time goes on the bigger questions start to come up. How can you move in or marry someone and give them this terrible burden to carry? How can you live a normal life together when at any time they could lose you? Look what her illness did to her parent’s marriage? How do you tell someone that if they pick you, they’ll have to sacrifice having their own children? Isn’t it too big an ask? Nick knows everything, in fact when she’s with him she’s already dead so that removes the risk. It is the easiest relationship she has. I could see how it would be easier to be in love with him than someone in real life. Emery’s trusted friends are Bonnie and Colin who live nearby, they know everything and are trained for the worst eventuality. It’s clear that Colin has feelings for Emery, but he’s the boy next door. He’s probably the only boy that her dad would feel she was safe with and that’s a real turn off! As Emery gets more rebellious and starts to test her limits she doesn’t always understand that she’s more than just one individual – she’s the sum of the people who love and care for her too. The consequences of her risky actions are not just hers; there are consequences for her parents, her sister Amber and her niece, her friends Bonnie and Colin, who clearly has feelings for her. If she made the decision to be with Nick, it would mean all these people losing her.

I was truly fascinated by how the author portrayed Emery’s journey. It was full of emotion and beautifully written. I can testify that it really isn’t easy coping with a life-limiting condition. I was 21 when I was diagnosed and could reason things out, but I still struggled with my self-image and how other people saw me differently. I’d had my wild teenage years not knowing, but Emery has to go through all of that never knowing if this is her last day. It polarises life by making some things feel completely futile and others soul- searchingly important. There’s not much room for the everyday when every day might be your last. I’m not sure if it was the author’s intention, but I didn’t fall in love with Nick and Emery’s love story. I fell in love with Emery herself, this beautiful, bright and vibrant girl who dies for the first time age 5. I understood her and more to the point, I felt like the author truly understood Emery’s experience. I felt seen. I was also rooting for Colin. I wanted Emery to choose real life, the ups and downs and every day with all it’s messiness and complicated feelings. To share life with someone instead of the afterlife.

Published by Corvus 21st April 2024

Becky grew up in Berkshire, UK, and has loved reading since before she can remember. After studying social sciences at Cambridge university, this love of reading led her to a career in publishing, where she worked as a book publicist in London for several years before taking a career break and moving to Mozambique to volunteer with horses. It was here that she decided to give writing a proper go, though it was still a few years, a few more destinations, and a couple more jobs before she had the idea that would become ONE MOMENT, her debut novel.

She currently splits her time between London, Bristol and Falmouth, and works as a freelance book publicist and editor, alongside her own writing.

Find Becky on Twitter (@Bookish_Becky) or Instagram (beckyhunterbooks) – she’d love to hear from you!

Posted in Netgalley, Publisher Proof

Profile K by Helen Fields 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’m going to say up front that I’m a massive Helen Fields fan, with The Last Girl to Die being a particular favourite of mine. Her last novel introduced us to the unusual and complex psychologist and profiler Dr. Connie Woolwine at The Institution. Connie makes a cameo here, but the undoubted heroine of this tale is Midnight Jones. Midnight lives with her twin sister Dawn ( see what the parents did there) and is her main carer, since their parents chose to go travelling when Midnight finished university. Dawn was affected by lack of oxygen at birth leading to Cerebral Palsy. It’s effects are very individual to the patient, but it can cause both physical and intellectual disabilities. Dawn is profoundly affected, needing care 24/7 and that’s why Midnight is desperate to keep her job at Necto. She needs their higher than average pay packet to cover the costs of care. The company like to present themselves as an ethical firm, starting with their space age offices, filled with plants and trees that help create a better work environment. They have their fingers in many pies, but Midnight is a profiler and every day works through thousands of applications for universities, the military and other organisations, passing some applicants through to be interviewed and rejecting others based on assessment data alone.

Necto’s testing systems are so sophisticated, there’s nothing about the applicant they don’t know. In assessments, virtual reality head sets show images and the applicants every response is recorded from intelligence to levels of empathy. Then, dependent on the parameters for the particular institution they’re applying to, they are accepted or not. However, on this particular day Midnight finds a candidate who isn’t run of the mill, in fact he’s a one-off. In training, a candidate like this is jokingly dubbed a ‘Profile K’- for killer – Midnight finds a man who has recorded as showing zero empathy. When she watches the footage he was shown through her own headset, she is sickened by what she sees. This is way beyond the normal films shown to illicit empathy, it’s as if the machine couldn’t get a reading so has chosen more and more disturbing and violent images that should provoke empathy and disgust. Yet none comes. Unable to compute the response and also where such extreme footage could have come from, Midnight decides to take this further but her supervisor Richard Baxter isn’t interested. So she goes over his head, telling his boss that she’s found a Profile K. Surely they have a duty to report him, what if he’s dangerous? What if he kills? 

I’ve read three great thrillers this weekend in quick succession but this was by far the most inventive, with a hint of dystopia and a touch of social justice that was right up my street. I empathised with Midnight’s situation, determined not to let down her sister Dawn but struggling to pay for just enough care that Midnight can go to work. There is no room for a social life or romance. Their heads are just above water, but there’s no flexibility or empathy for her care role within her company, despite it’s apparent ethics. She takes a big risk taking her findings higher than Richard Baxter, because if she loses her job how will she afford the care Dawn needs? Yet she can’t ignore what she knows. Especially when the worst happens. A young woman is killed very close to where she and Dawn live and although Midnight doesn’t know this at first, the torture methods used are very close to a scene from the film shown during the Profile K’s application process. The victim was subjected to the death of a thousand cuts, which would have been both a painful and long drawn out way to die. Midnight is horrified to find that her boss would rather keep her discovery under wraps and she’s reminded of her non-disclosure agreement. What reason could they have that’s better than saving the lives of future victims? Midnight has read about the psychologist and profiler Dr Connie Woolwine and has a theory to run past someone with her expertise. Not expecting a response, she sends a message and is pleasantly surprised when the unusual doctor calls her late at night to talk it through. Midnight is scared of the consequences, but sure of her theory – could Necto have known about the Profile K? What if they showed the violent material on purpose to trigger a response? To turn someone with killer potential into a killer for real. 

I absolutely loved this belting thriller, because it was complex and intelligent but also full of human feeling. I guess this might sound strange when there’s quite graphic violence involved in some scenes, but they’re balanced by the pure depth of feeling Midnight has for her sister and later on for the elderly lady they begin a friendship with. I loved how authentic Midnight’s caring situation was, with a very clear struggle between wanting to provide the best help for someone she loves but feeling the fear of that sole responsibility. The anger she feels towards her parents is very real, because although she understands their need to follow their dreams, their freedom has curtailed her own. She can’t make any life decision without factoring Dawn in. How could she have a romantic relationship? What if she falls ill herself? Having been a carer I know how lonely and exhausting it can be. We can see the pull between home and work life, in that they both hinder and are dependent on each other. Parts of the book are genuinely terrifying. There is a scene that’s going to stay with me, like that episode of Luther where a woman gets undressed and climbs into bed followed by a ceiling shot where a man slowly slides out from underneath as if he’s been working under a car. It’s that combination of vulnerability and evil. We’ve all done that walk home where we get inside and lock the door, then take a deep breath and know we’re safe. To be attacked in that moment is heart-stoppingly scary! In the end, everything had to stop for those final chapters as I raced through to find out what happens. I was glued to these scenes, made all the more terrifying because the victim doesn’t have a clue how much danger she’s in. It’s one of those finales where I put the book down and realised every muscle in my body was tense! I needed some yoga stretches and a few episodes of Friday Night Dinner before bed to unwind. This is an absolute cracker of a read and I highly recommend it.

Published by Avon 25th April 2024

Meet the Author

A Sunday Times and million copy best-selling author, Helen is a former criminal and family law barrister. Every book in the Callanach series has claimed an Amazon #1 bestseller flag. ‘Perfect Kill’ was longlisted for the Crime Writers Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger in 2020, and others have been longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize, Scottish crime novel of the year. Helen also writes as HS Chandler, and has released legal thriller ‘Degrees of Guilt’. In 2020 Perfect Remains was shortlisted for the Bronze Bat, Dutch debut crime novel of the year. In 2022, Helen was nominated for Best Crime Novel and Best Author in the Netherlands. Now translated into more than 20 languages, and also selling in the USA, Canada & Australasia, Helen’s books have won global recognition. She has written standalone novels, The Institution, The Last Girl To Die, These Lost & Broken Things and The Shadow Man. She regularly commutes between West Sussex, USA and Scotland. Helen can be found on X @Helen_Fields.

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Just Between Us by Adele Parks

Posted on by thelotusreaders

For some reason, I wasn’t fully engaged with Adele Parks’s last novel Both of You and I wasn’t expecting a sequel. I didn’t really like any of the characters involved. Kylie has two pseudonyms and two lives: half the time she’s Leigh, wife to Mark and stepmum to Oli and Seb; the rest of the time she’s Kai, wife to Dutch banker Daan Jaanssen and lives in an upmarket apartment with luxury clothes, cosmetics and holidays. The two seem to balance Kylie’s complicated needs, she’s equally at home having dinner in a Michelin starred restaurant as she is eating sand filled butties on a cold beach with the kids. Kylie’s other important relationship is Fiona, her friend of many years who has become part of the family and unofficial aunty to the boys. There isn’t a single person in Kylie’s world who knows about her double life, until one day she disappears. Now the whole world knows about Kylie’s bigamous marriages and the husbands and children are dragged into a police operation and a media frenzy. This sequel picks up after the first, when we’ve just found out who has been keeping Kylie prisoner. Just when we think it’s all over, we’re only halfway there.

I won’t ruin any of the twists and turns of either book, because this is one of those you need to start without any idea what’s going on. We have the original characters including the rather wise and interesting DCI and we have small chapters from every point of you. However, there are some newbies too and it was here where the book really took off for me. I was so eager to know what the hell was going on and where these people fit into the original story. We are in the depths of lockdown and Kenneth has been shielding alongside his grown-up daughter Stacie. Stacie is in the early stages of recovery from cancer treatment and she has fought hard to keep living. She deliberately doesn’t look at herself but knows she looks a little beaten up with her shorn hair and the scarring. Sadly, she has the added complication of amnesia after falling so dangerously ill so she doesn’t even remember treatment or anything before that. Thankfully she has Kenneth to fill in the blanks and he seems like such a caring and loving dad, luckily he’s also a retired GP so he’s perfectly placed to reassure Stacie and support her recovery. They have a quiet routine of daily dog walks, cooking and board games. They’re in the town of Lyme Regis and Stacie does feel like she knows the place and her dad has told her about her engagement to local lad Giles. She called the wedding off two weeks before the date and moved to Paris. Then something odd happens. Stacie is on the beach when she feels a sensation of being watched. Up on the promenade there is a woman staring at her with a fierce intent. She wonders if this is someone who knew her from before. So, she makes her way over, keeping a safe social distance and introduces herself, explaining that she might look a little different, because she’s had cancer. No, the woman says, you’re not Stacie. This is a moment where the hairs go up on the back of the neck, but we don’t know who the woman is or how well she knows Stacie and Kenneth. What possible reason could she have to confuse a woman who’s had cancer treatment and lost her memory?

I enjoyed having more input from the husbands and Kylie’s two stepsons this time around. The boys are incredibly loyal to her, despite being hurt by finding out about her second husband and let’s not forget, all of them are grieving. Daan Jaanssen also shows an incredible amount of loyalty and concern, especially considering he’s being charged with Kylie’s kidnap and murder. Does this mean he didn’t do it or is he putting up a smokescreen in the hope of walking free? Mark is angry and bitter, perhaps because he’s was her husband first. He is on the verge of making mistakes because of that anger. Seb and Ollie show maturity and enormous love beyond their years and put their own Dad to shame. The short, sharp chapters keep the momentum going and definitely have that ‘one more chapter’ addictive quality. Be prepared to set aside a day to finish it when you can’t put it down. This is definitely one of those sequels where you need to read the first novel, there’s a little bit of exposition about Kylie’s ordeal but not too much. The main question is what happened to her afterwards? Is she dead as the police think? This is a great thriller from Adele Parks and it made me feel back on track with loving her writing.

Meet the Author

Adele Parks MBE is the author of twenty-three bestselling novels including the recent Sunday Times hit Just Between Us and the audible Number One sensation One Last Secret. Over 5 million English editions of her work have been sold and she is translated into 31 different languages.

Her number one bestsellers Lies Lies Lies and Just My Luck were both shortlisted for the British Book Awards and have been optioned for development for film & TV.

41,000+ 5 star reviews have kindly been written by her fans on Amazon 🙂

She is an ambassador of the National Literacy Trust and the Reading Agency: two charities that promote literacy in the UK.

Adele was born in North Yorkshire and has lived in Botswana, Italy and London and is now settled in Guildford, Surrey.

In 2022 she was awarded an MBE by King Charles III for services to literature.

Connect with Adele Parks on Twitter @adeleparks, Instagram @adele_parks and Facebook @OfficialAdeleParks or visit her website for more information.

Posted in Netgalley, Publisher Proof

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn’t there,

He wasn’t there again today, oh how I wish he’d go away.

Antagonish by Hugo Mearns

My grandad taught me the first few lines of the poem above. I think it appealed to his sense of humour. I thought it was a riddle and I used to ask ‘but is he there or not?’ This is the very question this whole book revolves around from the first line – ‘there is someone in the house’. Our unnamed narrator wakes in the night as a strange noise breaks through her sleep. I was told by a book reviewer I respect enormously that this was brilliant and she was absolutely right. Although I drove my husband crazy by waking him up to ask if he remembered locking the door. He hadn’t always and I knew I wouldn’t sleep until one of us had crept downstairs and checked. Preferably not me. This is the situation all of us dread, waking to that unexpected noise in the night and finding there is an intruder. Our narrator is at her secluded home with her two small children in a blizzard. The sound she hears is a familiar one, a tread on the stairs to her room, but it’s unusually heavy and slow. She has a split second to make the decision – does she hide, try to run or stay and fight. Will all three of them get out alive and if they do will anyone believe her?

The first thing that hit me about this book was the unique voice this mother has. We see everything through her eyes and experience everything her body goes through – mainly fear. There’s the heart-stopping tension of that first night, the immediate threat rendering everything else unimportant. Yet there are other fears lurking underneath – will the police believe her, will it stir up questions about her husband’s absence, what will her father-in-law make of what has happened? She is waiting for people to doubt her and the reader doubts her too. Always on the lookout for unreliable narrators, I did wonder whether I should trust what she was experiencing. It’s just so incredibly odd. This tall intruder seems to have two voices: a raspy harsh voice when he’s angry then more of a soft, weedling voice. A voice you might use for children as he asks them to ‘come out little pigs, little pigs are more delicious’. As he does this right next door to their hiding place, it’s even more terrifying. Her little girl whispers to her mum that it’s the ‘Corner Man’ from her nightmares, he sits in the corner of her bedroom at night and whispers to her. My heart was in my throat at this point! Was he real or something supernatural? Could he possibly be real if this is true? I wondered if this overwrought mother is imagining this person, but that opens up a more frightening prospect – is she hallucinating and terrorising her own children with her delusions? The author plays with the reader beautifully. Just as I was starting to think the narrator is completely crazy, she addressed my concerns.

‘How nice it would be to be crazy instead of correct. For t all to be a psychotic break. To have her husband come down those stairs. She’d pop out of the hidden place relieved – rated – to meet his look of confusion’.

This is a woman who is used to being misunderstood and there’s no shortage of men around, happy to convince her that she’s strange, hysterical and marked as different in some way. There’s an awful moment, recalled while hiding, when her husband told his father he was not going to continue studying law. She hears his father’s fury down the phone:

‘You never behaved this way before you met that girl. Christ. She’s disfigured’.

Our narrator has vitiligo – a long term skin condition where areas of skin lose melanin and become paler, creating a patchy complexion. People stare and perhaps mistrust her, worried they may catch a skin disease or worse. Added to this, she’s a newish mum full of hormones, perhaps she’s a bit anxious and over-protective. She’s recently bereaved, having nursed her terminally ill mother-in-law. Maybe she’s not in the best frame of mind. All of this and the fact that she’s a woman, mean the police will be unsure or just plain rude about her. They keep explaining there’s no evidence: no footsteps in the snow; nothing of any value is stolen – in fact the items she does mention are probably lose or mislaid by the children. They don’t sound like the type of things someone would steal. They’ll turn up.

While hiding from one monster, we learn that she’s battling another in the shape of her father-in-law. Honestly, I have never wanted to climb into a book and punch someone more. He is a bully, but everyone else placates him. He is ashamed of his son, even more ashamed of his disfigured daughter-in-law. He hates the noise of his newborn grandson and his wife apologises! Even while his wife is dying, he sits with his feet up watching television and creates holy hell if he’s disturbed. His daughter-in-law does all the work and is rarely appreciated or thanked. He wants his grandson to man up and stop being a wuss. Worst of all he’s aggressive, violent even. Having him in charge of her children is the worst outcome of all. This mother is also fiercely protective. A passing incident where a stranger commented on her daughter and pulled the drooping strap of her sundress back onto her shoulder, really bothers the mother. You can feel her hackles rising in much the same way she reacts when her father-in-law criticises her son. She has very keen instincts and it’s fascinating to see how those instincts can be eroded, mainly by men who still consider women a hair’s breadth away from hysteria and the asylum. It shows that we’re not just gaslighted by individuals, it can be institutional, perpetuated by organisations like the police force or as I’ve found in my own life, the medical profession.

The whole setting is brilliantly eerie. A secluded mansion house with woods behind and five acres of open pasture between them and the next house. The house was built in 1722 with two staircases, higgledy-piggledy rooms and even it’s very own graveyard. She loves the house, even though it’s totally impractical and a nightmare to heat. She’s got to know each creak and bang, it’s night noises, but never imagined when she viewed the house that she’d be fleeing into the secret space next to the chimney, where the builders walled in the labyrinthine brick work. They never imagined being walled in. It’s a place where ghostly presences and hidden secrets would be easy to believe. Yet it’s not all scary. There are some wonderfully tender moments between the mother and her children and we can feel how torn she is when she has to be sharp with them, to keep them quiet and safe. I had no idea where this story might go and the author was one step ahead of me all the way. I might have finished this incredible thriller, but I’m still carefully locking the doors at night and when the cat decided she’d rattle our door to upstairs at 3am my heart did beat a little faster. I can’t believe how assured and psychologically complex it was for a debut! If you only buy one thriller this year, make it this one.

Out now from Viking

Meet the Author

Tracy Sierra was born and raised in the Colorado mountains. She currently lives in New England in an antique colonial-era home complete with its own secret room. When not writing, she works as an attorney and spends time with her husband, two children, and flock of chickens. Nightwatching is her debut novel.

Posted in Netgalley, Personal Purchase

The Star and the Strange Moon by Constance Sayers.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Constance Sayer’s latest book has a lot of her literary trademarks: time slip narratives; a mystery to solve; magic realism and romance. She places her story in the world of Hollywood and film-making, with two main characters – the actress Gemma Turner and young film-maker Chris Kent. In 1968 Gemma is staying in London with her rock star lover Charlie Hicks when she is offered an unexpected film opportunity. Until now Gemma has been making a series of surfing films based in California, but she’s been longing to make something that has more critical acclaim. French director Thierry Valden is part of the nouvelle vague or new wave movement and has offered her the lead role in his next film L’Etrange Lune a vampire film set in 19th Century France. He seems open to changes and often works with improvisation so her long held skills as a writer might be needed too. However, when she gets to Thierry’s chateau the mood seems to have changed. She is greeted by Manon Valden, who warns Gemma off her husband immediately which isn’t very welcoming. Thierry doesn’t seem like the man she met before and when she reads the up to date script it still has the same stilted dialogue, despite the potential changes she had sent him. When she finally speaks to Thierry alone, he makes it clear that something has changed. He had envisioned more of a collaboration both on the script and possibly in the bedroom, but L’Etrange Lune will be his final film and he can’t afford to take risks. Gemma will have other opportunities for scriptwriting but he won’t. The next day as they’re filming in the nearby town of Amboise, Gemma has a scene where she runs down a darkened and cobbled alleyway, seconds after calling action the camera has suddenly lost her. Has she fallen on the cobbles? Are the dark shadows concealing her? Maybe she’s walked off in a huff. Yet it seems Gemma is genuinely gone and as they look back over the scene on film, frame by frame, she’s simply disappeared in front of their eyes.

Christopher Kent has had a strange fascination with the actress Gemma Turner since he was a child. Now at film school in 2007, his attachment to the actress stands out because she was never one of the greats – students aren’t usually hung up on obscure actresses from a handful of surf films. He remembers the day he first saw her, in a hotel where vintage black and white photos of actors were hung next to every door. In a very chaotic and traumatic childhood, this was one of those moments where he and his mum were without a roof over their heads. Chris could sense his mum was edgy and on the verge of a mood change, but as they approached their room and she saw the photo by the door she flew into a rage. She pulled the picture of Gemma Turner off the wall and smashed it, shouting personal insults and expletives. What was her link to the actress? Knowing Chris’s fascination with Gemma, his girlfriend and fellow student Ivy comes to him with a strange proposition. Every ten years Gemma’s final film, L’Etrange Lune, is shown to a select group of 65 guests at a randomly chosen cinema. Ivy’s father is one of the 65, but for this viewing he has offered Ivy his two place. They must wear a mask and cloak, but most importantly of all they must never approach or try to identify other members, nor can they talk about what they’ve seen. Chris doesn’t know what to make of the film. It seems to be a rather formulaic vampire movie, but there’s something odd about Gemma’s performance, almost haunting in fact. While in some places it’s fairly average, in other scenes there’s an incredible intensity to her acting. It’s almost as if she’s genuinely terrified.

I found the book a little slow at first, but once we reached Gemma’s disappearance I was hooked by this strange story. As we reach Gemma’s timeline in France and Chris starts investigating her disappearance several decades later, the pace of both timelines really picks up. There are suddenly enough strange and impossible happenings for the reader to start wondering what’s coming next. To be honest it felt like anything might happen! I loved the sense of evil created by the film – the strange melancholy that falls over those who see it, something that worsens if you keep going back every ten years. The rumours that the film changes in that decade are intriguing and suggest someone is still behind the lens. Could one of the 65 be playing tricks on the rest? Perhaps not letting on they have extra scenes that Thierry discarded, or that they have found an actress who is the double of Gemma Turner. Is something magical at work here? Despite all the warnings, I did understand Chris’s need to investigate, even when those he interviews start to feel the consequences of talking. This is such a clever concept and the author creates a real sense of mystery with wonderful period detail, especially in the 19th Century when there’s much discussion on the restriction and discomfort of women’s fashion especially in the summer. I also enjoyed 1960’s London where Gemma’s lover Charlie is part of a Fleetwood Mac-esque band where partners are swapped as readily as song lyrics. There’s even a very unexpected romance woven within this magical and unexpected series of times and worlds. What I wanted to see more than anything was for Chris to overcome the trauma of his childhood and fulfil his potential, wherever and whenever that might be.

Out in paperback from Piatkus 28th March 2024

Meet the Author

Constance Sayers is the author of A Witch in Time, The Ladies of the Secret Circus, and The Star and the Strange Moon from Hachette Book Group.

A finalist for Alternating Current’s Luminaire Award for Best Prose, her short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

She received her master of arts in English from George Mason University and graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts in writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She attended The Bread Loaf Writers Conference where she studied with Charles Baxter and Lauren Groff. A media executive, she’s twice been named one of the “Top 100 Media People in America” by Folio and included in their list of “Top Women in Media.”

She splits her time between Alexandria, Virginia and West Palm Beach, Florida.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Prima Facie by Suzie Miller

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was only a few pages into this thriller, when I wished I’d seen Suzie Miller’s stage play of the same name running in the West End with an award-winning performance by Jodie Comer. I could see that Comer was the perfect choice for Tessa because I imagine she would understand this character perfectly. Tessa has brought herself from the council estates of Liverpool, via similar areas in Luton, through Cambridge University to one of the best barrister’s chambers in London. Tessa is a defence barrister, one of the best in the competitive area of criminal law. She thinks like a lawyer, her job isn’t about the truth. It isn’t about whether her client is innocent or guilty, in fact she doesn’t want to know. It’s about following the intricacies of the law. It’s about looking for the holes in the prosecution’s case and exploiting them, bringing them to the attention of the jury and creating doubt. All she has to do is create enough reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury that the law directs them to an acquittal. It’s almost a game. A very high stakes game for the defendant, but Tessa gets paid either way. For her it’s the enjoyment of winning and seeing the the system she believes in, applied correctly. However, when Tessa goes on a date with a fellow barrister from her chambers, something goes wrong. Then she realises that the law might not be in her favour after all. Perhaps justice is more equal for some than others.

I was immediately enthralled by Tessa’s narrative voice. She’s smart, a quick study of other people and how they present themselves to the world. She is a brilliant, intelligent and careful lawyer. The author presents law like a religion. Tessa believes in the British justice system, that although there are anomalies, by and large justice does get served. After making a huge jump from her estate and family to Cambridge, she’s become a quick study of class and tribes. As she arrives at her first university lecture she spies a group of staff in suits hanging around the entrance and wonders if she’s been found out – ‘maybe I fluked it and one of those suited people are going to barge in with a list and call out my name. Tessa Ensler? I’m sorry there’s been a terrible mistake’. The boy sat on her right has clearly come from public school. He has that assured way of being that comes from knowing he belongs here and that he will be among those who change the country. The dean tells them that 1 in 3 of them will fail. As she looks to her other side she sees a girl trying to look dishevelled but with clothes deliberately made that way, rather than being worn out. With her layers of necklaces and raggedy clothes she’s showing that she has the confidence to look bedraggled, whereas as Tessa looks down at her own new jumper and knows she doesn’t belong. They know she doesn’t belong. What if she is the 1 in 3?

Yet she adapts and educates herself in how to blend in and even as a fully-fledged barrister years later, she is still well-versed in the unwritten codes of both the court room and the women barrister’s robing room. She refers to her fellow barristers as thoroughbreds. It isn’t enough for her to be a barrister, she has to know how to look and seem like a barrister. She knows the uniform – grey or blue understated suit, low comfortable heels for standing in court, hair that can withstand the wig, not too much make-up. It’s acceptable to show individuality with some quirky earrings, unusual glasses or chunky heel ankle boots. These little details are the way women have learned to own their own space, to show they are serious about the law, but do it differently to the men. Some things are sacrosanct such as the right shoes – the same designer brand, low key and stylish, but very expensive for a shoe that’s so boring. Yet within her first year as a barrister Tess has the same brand on her feet. Her rebellion comes in tiny acts like wearing a collarless shirt, coloured tights or eye-catching earrings. Individual, but not so out there it would frighten the horses. She also doesn’t have a wig tin, choosing instead to keep her wig in a Tupperware box borrowed from her mum. This is deliberate, it reminds her of where she’s from and how to remain grounded. She resists anyone’s offer to buy a wig tin for her, especially when they refer to her choice as ‘slumming it’. She’s mainly played by the rules and thinks she’s become one of them.

I will mention that there are graphic depictions of sexual assault that are a hard read, but they are necessary. They show the ambiguity that can be brought into the legal arguments. Anyone who reads the account has no doubt what happened between Tessa and her colleague. Yet already I could see the ‘holes’ in her story, the things she does ‘wrong’ and how the difference she thought was invisible, being brought up to weaken her account. She can probably imagine the way a defence barrister will cross-examine her and which parts of her story he will exploit to create doubt in the jury’s mind. I found it so painful when she overhears other female barristers discussing the accused, Julian. Julian was always hoping to be a barrister, his father was before him and is now a judge. He is immediately accepted into this world without once having to work out how to be. As the women discuss going to his dinner party and how terrible this false accusation is for him it’s clear he’s one of them, they probably went to the same school and, like her pupil Phoebe, knew which shoes to buy before they even got here. One female barrister asks her outright why she would accuse Julian, when everyone knew she was into him. She must know it’s hurting her own reputation and her career, she’s alienating the ‘very people who will decide whether she gets silk’. In that moment Tessa wonders why it isn’t hurting Julian’s reputation? There are solicitors who will never instruct her again, people who will not share chambers with her and she will likely never progress with her career again. But he will. It brings home everything about her difference from that clique – the small world of London chambers – her disadvantages as a woman, as someone from the wrong school and the wrong type of estate.

I was fascinated with whether or not Tessa would realise that the law isn’t the same for everyone and that her belief in the system she has worked for is left crumbling at her feet? Added to everything else Tessa feels foolish for every time she has said that the law dispenses justice more or less, for everyone. Now she knows it doesn’t. Even before she’s in the court room she knows that it was her difference that made her a victim in the first place. This wouldn’t have happened to Alice or Phoebe because they are protected by their class:

‘I really had thought that I was now untouchable. That if I just did my job, didn’t stand out, won my cases, I’d be like everyone else in chambers. But I am not. I am disposable, I am rapeable. Just like when I was a kid on the estate. Nothing has changed, other than the class of man that can rape me.’

In being exposed to the way the world works for the right type of people, she has naively assumed that it now works that way for her too. We are so intimate with Tessa, her inner world is huge – full of contradictions and fierce intelligence with a veneer of upper middle-class lifestyle overlying strong working class roots. I was totally engrossed in her and recognised something of myself in that working class background rubbing roughly alongside years of middle class education and lifestyle. I’m conscious of a difference in the way I view the world from the rest of my family, but I’ve always wanted to keep them close. I know that if anything terrible happened they would be there for me, just as I hoped Tessa’s mum would be there for her. I’m aware of the difference in my accent honed by seven years of grammar school, a change that turned me into a vocal chameleon, picking up a trace of wherever I go, wanting to fit in. Tessa notices this with other barristers who have accents, there’s always a court voice that’s clear, concise and authoritative. There are so many points in the story where the author captures a current change in how the world has changed, particularly for women. Tessa recalls a sexual encounter in her teens which was only borderline consensual, but back then was chalked up to experience. I remember these days well: a push up against the wall followed by an unwanted kiss so hard it bruised my lip; a grab of the hips from a man as I reached over to answer a phone in a busy office; a teenage boy who thought that because my friend was snogging with his mate, I was up for it too. These seemed like minor incidents, but wouldn’t be accepted by young women today.

Tessa’s story brought up all those issues of consent that I find so interesting – does consenting to one sexual act mean you’ve consented for everything else? If we consent to sex once, does that mean we’ve consented for that whole night? Does it cover the next morning too? My husband was horrified that in law there was no such thing as marital rape until 1991. Consent was given by the woman through her marriage vows. Alarmingly there are still people who think as long as there is no violence, forced or coerced sexual intercourse within marriage does not constitute rape. The court scenes are electric, written with such tension and power. Watching the balance of that power shifting between defendants and prosecution witnesses and the barristers in their robes, posing the questions with scepticism, repeating them till you trip up and then diving in for the attack. I found myself dreading what would happen to Tessa if she didn’t get justice. Would she cope emotionally? Also, what would it mean for her professionally? Would she be trusted again? I would say ‘reading this….’ in my reviews normally, but I felt more like I was ‘experiencing this’ by Tessa’s side and sometimes in her head. She was as close as my own thoughts at times. I wondered whether it’s possible for someone to be as educated, honed and prepared for such an establishment career as the law, without becoming someone altogether different. Is there a way to separate the professional from the personal, to take on some of the female barrister’s characteristics and traditions but keep a little bit more of who you are? To take a bigger Tupperware box from home and seal even more of that professional persona inside along with the traditional wig. Her struggle between being the Tess she became at Cambridge and her chambers and the Tess who lived for a weekend house party with her friends from the estate is the struggle of every university graduate whose family earned a living in a manual job. A family who encouraged her to push herself, to reach grammar school, then be the first to go to university didn’t realise that with each step they’d lose her a little bit. A gap opens up, created by education, money, culture and lifestyle. I was strongly reminded of Tony Harrison’s poem ‘V’ that beautifully captures this dichotomy within a person, a Northerner that’s settled and makes both their name and their living in the south. Yet one line stood amongst all that anger and dislocation: ‘the ones we choose to love become our anchor’. He meant new friends but I hoped in Tessa’s case she would learn that she can be part of her family, while still being successful. To recognise them as her strength and support, rather than something you drift away from. This book is right up there, with the best I’ve read this year. Don’t miss it.

Published on 14th March by Hutchinson Heinemann. With thanks to the Squad Pod for having me in this month’s book club choice

Meet the Author

Suzie Miller is an international playwright, librettist and screenwriter. She has a background in law, and has won numerous awards, including the Australian Writers’ Guild, Kit Denton Fellowship for Writing with Courage and an Olivier Award. She lives in London and Sydney and is developing major theatre, film and television projects across the UK, USA and Australia.

Posted in Netgalley

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Charlotte and Alec Salter have four teenage children and live in the small village in East Anglia. We meet them on Alec’s 50th birthday where a big evening party is planned for most of the village as well as family. Yet at the beginning of the party there are no Salters present. Charlotte went for a walk and hasn’t returned. Alec did same, but they didn’t go together or in the same direction. Fourteen year old Etty is worried. The last of the Salters and yet to leave home she is starting to panic. She loves her mum, but if she is gone, for whatever reason, that means she has to spend two years at least in the company of her father. Just the two of them. Alone.

In the days that follow as the police investigate, there are rumours that Charlotte and family friend Duncan Ackerley were having an affair. Of course it was more widely known that Alec was seeing villager Mary Thorne, in fact his own daughter heard him on the phone to her from the other line the night of the party. When the Ackerleys invite the Salters for Christmas Day, only Lottie turns up at first, her brothers are late and Paul is probably giving it a swerve altogether. Yet Etty thinks it would be worse to sit at home, staring, worrying and jumping at every sound. As dinner time approaches, the Ackerley’s start to wonder where Duncan has got to. He’s been out for a walk, possibly down to the boat as there is a super high tide and he needs to move it. It’s Etty and Giles that start to look for him and he does try to shield her eyes as they come closer and see that Duncan is slumped in the water, dead. We move between the party night and the Christmas days that follow and twenty years later when all the Salters are once again in residence at the family home.

Everything about the house is dated and dilapidated, including their father Alec who is succumbing to dementia. Etty, ever the lawyer, is organising his move into a nursing home and the clearance of their parents possessions. For this job she has found a bright and organised woman called Bridget. She gathers the siblings and tells them that the easiest way is for them to put specific coloured post-its on their must have items, then she takes away the rest for sorting, selling and recycling. It’s emotional, especially since there are now only three of them. Their brother Paul never coped with life and the loss of their mother and sadly committed suicide on the anniversary of her disappearance. Meanwhile, now a TV personality, Morgan Ackerley is home to record a podcast on that Christmas, speculating on what happened to Charlotte and his father. This is going to stir up the village and make life difficult for both families. When a sudden event leads to yet another death, the police are called and a new detective looks at the old files as well as this new case. Are they linked in some way? Despite her boss seeming to warn against digging up what’s been long buried, this detective is determined to find out what happened to Charlotte Salter.

Seeing how much these families have changed over time is so interesting and I found myself wondering how different the Salters and Ackerleys might have been if this crime hadn’t happened. Etty melted my heart a little bit because she’s clearly so close to her mum and on the night of the party she’s the one who’s trying to raise the alarm because she knows something isn’t right. The boys are largely off doing their own thing and seem almost inured to the state of their parent’s marriage. The consensus is they’ve probably had a row, but Etty knows that despite a row, or their dad being on the phone to Mary Thorne at 2am the night before, there is no way that her mum wouldn’t turn up to his birthday party. She has always kept up appearances in that way. She even looks at her father and wonders whether he could have killed her. Her relationship with each parent couldn’t be more different, there’s a distance between Etty and her father both in the past and the present. In fact he doesn’t seem that invested in any of his children. Yet Etty can still imagine the smell of her mum’s perfume and what she would be wearing and I could imagine Charlotte hugging her daughter, her perfume just one of the many scents that signify home. With only the boys and her distant father left who will she go to for hugs? I could feel her panic as realises that after Christmas, the boys will go back to jobs and university and she will be left alone with their father for two years. I could also see the shadow of this huge loss in the adult Etty: an awkwardness about whether the family kiss to greet each other or not; keeping a lawyer’s professional manner at all times; doing all the organising and keeping busy so she can remain detached. She doesn’t cry, even when finding memories of their childhood. She holds herself stiffly, almost brittle and I wondered how much it would take for her to break.

There are many ghosts here. It’s not just Etty who was changed. They all feel the loss of their brother Paul deeply and he’s the empty chair at the table, even now. They tiptoe around each other, trying not to open old wounds but when a fire is started at Bridget’s home a new murder investigation is opened. Either the arsonist didn’t realise Bridget was at home, or didn’t care. Was their aim to kill the house clearer or was it to hide evidence that she’d unwittingly taken into her home alongside the Salter’s belongings? I found this mystery so intriguing that I couldn’t stop reading and I loved the psychological aspects of how these unsolved crimes had affected the families and the village as a whole. There were a couple of crucial points past and present where everyone I suspected seemed to be going for a walk alone – without even having a dog as an excuse! I was suspecting that Lottie’s husband wasn’t as advanced in dementia as she seemed, but couldn’t be sure. The reveals were satisfying, but it was the methods of concealment that really blew me away and I loved how thorough the investigating detective was. She wanted to be sure, whether or not it disturbed or upset some people and I loved that about her. Mainly I thought about how the author successfully showed the long term effects of a crime like this, even years on from the actual incident. These children were all changed forever and the villagers have lived under a fog of suspicion for years. Etty particularly left me thinking of all the events I’ve been able to enjoy with my mum over the last 50 years, that she and Charlotte had missed out on. Finding a balance between the real emotions that surround a crime and creating a page-turning mystery is difficult, but here I think the authors have really pulled it off.

Out 29th Feb in Hardback from Simon and Schuster

Meet the Author

Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together

Posted in Netgalley

The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne by Freya North

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Eadie lives an unusual life in her garden city home, situated next to a cemetery. Far from being macabre and frightening, the dead are often this lonely little girl’s best friends. They provide her with somewhere to go and talk, without censorship or interruption. Her Mum and Dad work jobs outside the home, one in the day and one at night, but the rest of their time is spent at their desks in the family living room each completely engrossed in their writing work. She is an outsider at school, without friends and a target for kids like Patrick Semple. Patrick is relentless in his bullying of Eadie and it takes her a long time to find her little tribe. Her friend Josh lives with his grandfather who has a convenience shop, he’s also a concentration camp survivor. She also makes friends with Celeste, who’s lived in France and her mother, Sandrine, is an alcoholic. These are her first friends her own age, as up until now she’s mainly hung out with Michael, an elderly man who tidies the cemetery and Ross who plays the bagpipes at funerals. Eadie is feeling so settled with her life, but these three young friends are on the cusp of a huge change. All three will be going to different universities and while Eadie likes to think nothing will change, distance does have an effect on relationships and the whirlwind of Fresher’s Week will immerse them in their new lives. Will they still have time for each other? More importantly, will Eadie be able to leave the difficulties of her childhood behind her and make a life in Manchester?

Freya North beautifully inhabits the world of a young child and the fears and preoccupations that are their daily lives. It immediately swept me back to my own childhood and moments when I was afraid or felt like I didn’t belong. In my first year of primary school at age 5 we lived so rurally I had to get on a public service bus and remember when to get off and how much to pay the driver. It left me anxious about public transport ever since. I was also bullied, being poor but having a place at the local grammar school wasn’t easy and I never had the right clothes. My family also went to an evangelical church which made me different and restricted my social life. I really identified with Eadie, for feeling that her background was less than perfect. I felt Eadie’s pain. As children, if people tell us we’re odd or wrong in some way we internalise that feeling and assume they’re right. Eadie’s parents are not neglectful, but they are a very definite twosome, seemingly unaware that their only daughter is achingly lonely and suffering from immensely low self-esteem. As adults we can step back and see that her bully is probably suffering too, but children don’t realise this. As the group of friends grow towards leaving school, the changes are not easy for Eadie to cope with. What will happen to their trio as they all go their separate ways? While Josh and Celeste are excited about what’s coming, Eadie is anxious. What will Manchester hold? Will she be accepted?

I love the North West of England, my family are originally from Liverpool but my best friend is a Mancunian and we’ve spent an enormous amount of time there over the years, mainly seeing gigs from Manchester bands like Elbow. However, I grew up in the late 1980s and early 1990s and I was an indie kid. I started with The Smiths and Morrissey through to the Madchester scene and although I was too young for the halcyon days of the Hacienda I did love New Order with a passion and Bizarre Love Triangle is one of my favourite ever tracks. I felt immediately transported back to the reign of Tony Wilson, when New Order would be in residence and the club was heaving. North captures perfectly the heady days of the summer of love – the advent of Acid House and Ecstasy. Here, having made friends, Eadie finds her place of worship. She loves ‘the Hac’. She can be found on the dance floor in just a sports bra and shorts combo, able to dance all night with a raging thirst from E and a feeling of well-being to the whole world. This is before and the terrible deaths that occurred. Eadie and her friends rent a house on Hathersage Road, across the road from the amazing Baths with its art nouveau interiors. This is her home now. In fact she becomes so comfortable in her life here that she stops going home, she stops writing to friends and lives completely in the moment. It’s when things start to change that Eadie begins to struggle. Housemates have plans for their second year, placements abroad, moving back into halls and Eadie starts to fall apart. An unexpected face from the past comes back to haunt her too. After a warning from the barman at the local pub where she works, that the Hacienda is being run by drug gangs and that means violence. This leads to an unexpected blast from the past and is the catalyst for a breakdown. Eadie finds herself unable to complete work and even starts to question whether to stay at university. With her housemates making different plans for next year, Eadie can feel the foundations of her life shaking.

Freya North captures perfectly how secrets and traumatic experiences can follow us through life. If left unaddressed, our life is like a wall with a fault in it’s foundations. It can only be fixed by removing the upper layers until you reach and remedy the original fault. Eadie has covered her trauma over with many different layers: her friendships with the residents of the cemetery; alcohol and E; the Hacienda and acid house. I felt something with Eadie’s story, because of my own recent experiences with old friends. We can experience so much difficulty and pain in life that we feel far removed from those friends we’ve had in the past, but often they’re still there, just waiting for a sign that they can help or support us. I loved Eadie’s relationship with Kip, which isn’t perfect but the love is all the more real for those imperfections. His love is shown in actions rather than words and is stretched to it’s limits at times. Eadie is one of those people who takes a long time to work out who she is and what she wants to do in life, that is until she takes care of her unfinished business and then she flies.

Out now from Mountain Leopard Press

Meet the Author

I’m the author of 15 bestselling novels and am so excited to bring you my 16th novel: THE UNFINISHED BUSINESS OF EADIE BROWNE. I know you can read the blurb here – but I wanted to tell you how important and personal this book is to me… Much of it was drawn from my own memories of leaving home for Manchester Uni in the late 80s and remembering what that FELT like. Also, I live outside Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire – and I became interested in the visionary ethos of the Garden City movement. Because lockdown cancelled all the lovely centenary celebrations planned for Welwyn Garden City, this novel also serves as my tribute to the town and its Founder. I hope you’ll enjoy the novel – unlike Little Wing, my previous novel which flew out of me in 4 months flat, I really toiled over Eadie Browne; writing and rewriting and REWRITING until I was confident I’d written my best book yet… this much I owe to you, my lovely readers.

2021 marked the 25th anniversary of the publication of my first novel Sally! My 15th novel Little Wing was written during the first lockdown. Set partly in the Outer Hebrides and interweaving the secrets and lies of two families over two time frames – it was a joy to research and write and certainly kept me sane during the Pandemic. I’ve always been focussed on a sense of place being a key feature of my writing – settings being a leading character, not merely a backdrop. Previous locations have included North Norfolk, British Columbia, Derbyshire, Vermont, France, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall… I’m an avid reader too – and the novels of Barbara Trapido, Jane Gardam, Rose Tremain and Mary Wesley inspired me to write. I hope you enjoy my books – please keep in touch via my website, Facebook, Twitter and Insta! Happy Reading! Sign up for my newsletter (via my website)