Blog Feed

Posted in Netgalley

None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I always look forward to a new novel by Lisa Jewell, because I know I’m going to be engrossed in it for the weekend, oblivious to everything else that’s going on around me. This new novel was so addictive I’m not sure I looked up and luckily my other half knows when to disappear into his workshop and to deliver a hot brew on the hour. I have no idea how this writer manages to be so prolific, but thank goodness she does! She always manages to find a new angle to the thriller and this novel has a really interesting premise based around the phenomenon of podcasts. One of our protagonists, Alix, has been running a successful weekly podcast based around women’s lives and interviewed women who would inspire her listeners. However, it was time for some new ideas and so far Alix hasn’t had one. Then she meets Josie Fair. Josie is celebrating her forty-fifth birthday with her husband in a restaurant that’s a little more upmarket than they would usually book. She notices a group at a large table celebrating the birthday of a rather glamorous woman. Later in the night, the women bump into each other in the lady’s loo. Josie mentions to Alix that they share a birthday and is surprised to discover they are both 45 years old. They make a joke about being birthday twins then go back to their tables where the huge contrast between them becomes clear. Alix’s table is filled with friends, flowers and balloons whereas Josie is having a quite dinner, just her and her husband Walter. A few days later they accidentally meet again outside Alix’s children’s school. This time they chat about Alix’s work and Josie admits she’s been listening to some of Alix’s podcast since they met. Alix has made a successful series interviewing inspiring women, but admits she’s now looking for a change of direction. Josie volunteers herself as a subject, admitting that she’s about to go through some major life changes and seemingly convinced that Alix’s listeners will want to hear her story. They swap contact details and each comes away feeling positive, but Josie wasn’t exaggerating. Big changes are on the way, just not in the positive, life-affirming way Alix is used to. After interviewing Josie once Alix knows her story will appeal to listeners, because despite being very unsettled by her subject, she can’t help wanting to dig further.

The format really does work, with the interviews providing so much information to unravel and tantalise the reader. In-between we see the effect Josie’s revelations have on her own family life and on Josie’s as well. Each interview works very like a counselling session, but perhaps most like the early sessions when the client is telling you their story so far and what brings them to therapy. Alix is a fantastic listener and allows Josie to tell her story in her own way and at her pace, only asking questions to clarify or encourage her interviewee to expand on a point. I detected a subtle shift as the interviews progressed, but it’s almost imperceptible. While at first Alix is in control of the project, Josie starts to take charge both of the content and how often they meet and work together. This could simply be a woman finding her confidence or having an emotional need to offload her story quickly, while she has the courage. Josie weaves a tale of grooming and domestic abuse that’s not easy to listen to. Her husband Walter is much older and very set in his ways, they started their relationship when Josie was a teenager and Walter was in his thirties. There are little clues to the control he has over his wife, such as wearing double denim to please him and not having a job, even though their daughters are beyond school age. At this point I feared for Josie, but also for her daughters: why has one left home at 16 and why does the other one seem locked in her bedroom with a diet that consists of nothing but baby food? One tiny act of Josie’s made me go cold. Each time she visits, she starts to take small items from Alix’s home, starting with a coffee pod that she hides in her underwear drawer.

As Josie becomes more involved in Alix’s life, Alix’s Instagram lifestyle seems to erode.

“She thinks of Alix’s home: from the front, a neat, terraced house with a bay window, no different to any other London Victorian terraced house, but inside a different story. A magazine house, ink-blue walls and golden lights and a kitchen that appeared weirdly to be bigger than the whole house with stone-grey cabinets and creamy marble counters and a tap that exuded boiling water at the touch of a button. A wall at one end reserved purely for the children’s art!”

Her husband Nathan has always had issues with alcohol, but they really come to the fore. He’s always had a line he doesn’t cross, but now he starts to stretch to one more drink, staying out later with work colleagues, going out for a normal lad’s night then not coming home. Alix knows that once it reaches a certain time, it’s likely he will be on a bender, only coming home when he’s run out of funds or sobered up. Where is he when he doesn’t come home? Alix starts to doubt Nathan’s fidelity and finds herself searching for evidence. As the stress at home cranks up a notch, Alix notices that Josie is pushing the boundaries of their agreement. She turns up where Alix doesn’t expect her, stays longer than their agreed session and Alix can’t tell if she’s becoming subsumed by Josie’s world, or if Josie is starting to take over hers. There’s a claustrophobic feeling and a sense of menace starts to creep in, as Josie controls her story and will only let it unfold in the way she has planned. I sensed something was very wrong and wanted Alix to back off the story, even though it could make her name in the world of podcasts. Alix seems transfixed by Josie’s story, her life is like a car crash you can’t look away from and although part of Alix has the journalistic interest in a great story, another part is fascinated by the horror of what Josie is telling her. In much the same way as the reader is fascinated too, I genuinely couldn’t put the book down until I’d worked out what was going on. Were Josie’s revelations putting herself and Alix in danger from Walter? Will telling her story change Josie, acting as the catalyst to leave the situation and get help for her daughter? I kept wondering about the other daughter, the one who left home. I couldn’t help but think she might be the key to the truth about Josie and Walter’s marriage.

I thought the structure, using the podcast for Josie to tell her story, was really clever considering how popular true crime podcasts are these days. I thought the idea for Alix’s podcast, interviewing inspirational women was very like the Megan podcast in tone showing how up to the minute Lisa Jewell has been in the creative way she frames her story. As coercive control is now so well known, as compared to four or five years ago. Everyone understands what it means and terms like ‘gaslighting’ have become the norm, showing up in soap storylines and all over social media. I think what Lisa has tapped into here is the overuse of these terms, so much so that they’ve become diminished. It seems that daily someone is claiming their ex was a narcissist but these are huge psychological labels that shouldn’t be used lightly – in the same way people say ‘I’m a bit OCD’ the real understanding of the disorder has become lost. It isn’t all about arranging your kitchen shelves so the labels show at the front. We are all educated into believing the victim of abuse, but in a society where these terms are so misused, should we reserve a little bit of judgment? If I was Alix I might have been inclined to walk away from the story – especially as she starts to have questions and doubts – to concentrate on my own problems. Josie’s story and it’s fallout are almost too messy and she seems very adept at knowing when Alix is doubting her, on one occasion turning up on the doorstep having apparently confronted Walter, and definitely outstaying her welcome. Lisa Jewell really is a master at these dark, almost nightmarish, stories about women’s lives while weaving so many twists and turns the reader can’t stop guessing until they’ve reached the final page. While I’ve enjoyed her recent novels I was absolutely gripped by this one and think she’s outdone herself. The setting and situation are so believable, the characters are incredibly well drawn, full of enough flaws and contradictions that you’ll be questioning everything they tell you.

Published by Random House 20th July 2023

Thank you to the publisher for allowing early access to the novel in exchange for an honest review.

Meet the Author


LISA JEWELL was born in London in 1968.

Her first novel, Ralph’s Party, was the best- selling debut novel of 1999. Since then she has written another nineteen novels, most recently a number of dark psychological thrillers, including The Girls, Then She Was Gone and The Family Upstairs and The Night She Disappeared, all of which were Richard & Judy Book Club picks.

Lisa is a New York Times and Sunday Times number one bestselling author who has been published worldwide in over twenty-five languages. She lives in north London with her husband, two teenage daughters and the best dog in the world.

Posted in Random Things Tours

One by Eve Smith.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

A catastrophic climate emergency has spawned a one-child policy in the UK, ruthlessly enforced by a totalitarian regime. Compulsory abortion of ‘excess’ pregnancies and mandatory contraceptive implants are now the norm, and families must adhere to strict consumption quotas as the world descends into chaos.

Kai is a 25-year-old ‘baby reaper’, working for the Ministry of Population and Family Planning. If any of her assigned families attempts to exceed their child quota, she ensures they pay the price.

Until, one morning, she discovers that an illegal sibling on her Ministry hit- list is hers. And to protect her parents from severe penalties, she must secretly investigate before anyone else finds out.

Kai’s hunt for her forbidden sister unearths much more than a dark family secret. As she stumbles across a series of heinous crimes perpetrated by the people she trusted most, she makes a devastating discovery that could bring down the government … and tear her family apart.

I LOVE the way Eve Smith doesn’t baby her readers. If there are hover cars that’s what she gives us. A two word description. No long flowery explanations of how they came to be, she just tells us what IS. She expects our own imaginations to keep up. The immediacy of her writing brings us slap bang in the middle of this alien world and it’s exhilarating.

Our narrator Kai is a perfect ministry operative. She’s brainwashed from birth into accepting the world as the ministry present it. The political party One came to power with an unusual mix of ecological and anti-immigration policies. We might expect that ecological parties are more left-wing and we expect our totalitarianism to come in a right wing package. The lack of resources has left the country without options (although other countries have less draconian regimes) and any political movement can become a totalitarian one. Due to the climate emergency there are now places it is impossible to live so immigration is rising. The government used predictions of climate disaster to ease the population in to accepting extreme policies to reduce consumption and the population. Each family has a consumption quota to cover things like food, travel and water usage. I loved little touches like Kai’s grandparents always being the ones to overuse their quota, still used to the old days. The one child policy is the most extreme and the administration and enforcement of the policy is down to officers like Kai. The reality of her job is devastating. Women’s fertility is controlled by the Destine implant, a contraceptive with a chip that means it can be switched off when a woman wants to start a family, it is then switched back on after her only pregnancy. All women of child-bearing age have their HCA levels monitored by the government and as soon as any change is detected Kai’s department would know. In the case of a second child they must schedule a termination, but if they don’t that’s where Kai’s job begins. She must visit the woman and ensure that a second appointment is kept. Termination even applies in cases of twins. Prison awaits anyone who conceals a second pregnancy.

The reality of their policies as they affect real people is hard to read and Kai seems as obedient and capable of free thought as her robotic pet dog. I have found the author terrifyingly prescient in the past and I hope that’s not the case here. This isn’t necessarily our future but it could be. Every terrible policy here has it’s roots in our current world and that’s what’s so scary. The effects of climate change can seem a long way away so it was very disconcerting to find out that in this world Horncastle was on the coast! My stepdaughter’s other home is there and it’s only a half hour journey up the road from me. My home county is essentially a wetland. Despite this, I loved the inventiveness of the resistance movement Free, from their houses on rafts and living walls to the ability to morph their features. Again the author gives us just enough information to see it, because everything we see comes through Kai and to Kai this is normal. She has no memories of a world we would recognise, because she hasn’t lived in it. A bit like the way my stepdaughters gasp when I tell them there was no internet when I went to university and I had to do all my dissertation research from books. The immigration policies are an obvious extension of comments like ‘we can’t take any more people we’re all full up’. There’s an immigration centre coming three miles from us on an old RAF base and although we object to the plan on humane grounds – the government plan to keep people on the runway in storage containers – we were shocked to find how racist a lot of the opposition was. On our return from holiday recently we found a large St George’s Cross with crusader had been placed at the gates and we’ve vowed to go back in the dead of night and take it down. I often wonder if our government’s alarmist immigration rhetoric is simply a precursor to warring over the world’s remaining resources. Kai’s world played on some of my worst nightmares.

Despite Kai’s blinkered perspective, I did find myself respecting her as the story developed. She fears the ministry and her rather formidable boss Minister Gauteng. Yet, Kai doesn’t report the sibling she has found at first, showing a loyalty to her parents above that she gives her workplace. She undertakes her own investigation and puts herself in some very risky situations. She faces up to her own parents and the choices they made and is willing to sacrifice herself for a family member. This shows incredible bravery and her fortitude in the face of the new version of the world her sister Senka is describing to her is incredible. As she learns she shows remorse for the women she’s forced into terminations. One member of Free tells Kai that opening your eyes to a new reality of the world is like going cold turkey. She copes with this admirably. The reality of Senka’s life is also horrific. Tales of reallocation, trafficking, abuse in the care system all have their root in the here and now. It’s an age old story of vulnerable children being failed and preyed upon. There was one scene that genuinely brought a lump to my throat, a future version of some of the horrors of the old Magdalene Laundries. If we don’t know the past, we can’t stop ourselves from repeating patterns. We like to think that we wouldn’t follow a government like this, but terrible times make people do terrible things.

Whether it’s a termination, finding out your husband has a baby with another woman so you can’t have one, or having to give your baby to be reallocated it is the women who most bear the grief of this life. As Kai works to uncover a further atrocity committed by her employers, we realise it’s a grief that will be repeated down the generations. As we hurtled towards an ending, full of action, I wanted One to be ousted and held to account. I think some of my anger at the regime was rooted in my real-life anger at where we are in the world. As the author says in her afterword the control of women’s bodies is becoming an issue again. As regimes become more controlling it is always women who are targeted – just like the recent clampdown on a woman’s right to choose in some states of the USA. There are states where certain books are banned, immigration is being reduced and I genuinely wondered how far are we from this future? This is an incredibly intelligent dystopian thriller. It’s a fantastic read and although it scared me I wouldn’t have put it down. Now I need to go put my house on the market and look for something further inland, on a big hill.

Meet the Author

Eve Smith writes speculative thrillers, mainly about the things that scare her (and me). Longlisted for the Not the Booker Prize and described by Waterstones as ‘an exciting new voice in crime fiction’, Eve’s debut novel, The Waiting Rooms, set in the aftermath of an antibiotic resistance crisis, was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize First Novel Award and was a Book of the Month in the Guardian, who compared her writing to Michael Crichton’s. It was followed by Off-Target, about a world where genetic engineering of children is routine. Eve’s previous job at an environmental charity took her to research projects across Asia, Africa and the Americas, and she has an ongoing passion for wild creatures, wild science and far-flung places. She lives in Oxfordshire with her family.

Posted in Personal Purchase

Good Girls Die Last by Natali Simmonds

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Wow! This is a searingly raw story, simmering with righteous anger and injustice. Set on a boiling hot summer’s day, you can almost smell the tarmac and diesel fumes. You can hear the traffic noise and feel the agitation and impatience of people trying to get to work without exchanging a word with anyone else. It’s too hot to breathe let alone exchange a friendly word. I had the unnerving experience of reading our heroine’s thoughts and hearing my own words. During the day from hell that Em was experiencing, it felt like some of my own thoughts and frustrations were running round her head. They just need awakening. I have to be honest and say that my age is more in line with another heroine from earlier this year – Amazing Grace Adams – who had her own walk of rage, fuelled by love. However, Em’s voice is a millennial war cry that becomes a national phenomenon in the space of a day. As she leaves her landlord’s bed that morning she expects to look smart for work, especially since she has a HR meeting and expects to be offered a permanent role after completing three months maternity cover with great results. Finally she’s catching an evening flight back home to Spain for her little sister wedding. Her actual day is a complete clusterfuck!

It was her very first thoughts and actions as she woke in the morning that started to build that inner fury in me. First of all her name isn’t Em, or Emily and not even Emma. It’s Emygdia. Everyone shortens it for her. To something that’s more manageable for them. This is an indication of what’s to come and references all those things about women that people find ‘too much.’ Em gets up quietly, so as not to disturb her landlord Matt – son of a Tory MP and an absolute dick. She wouldn’t want to wake him up. She gathers her clothes quietly and scurries away as if she has done something wrong. It’s Matt who’s in the position of power. It’s Matt who has a long-term girlfriend. It’s Matt who started this little fling. Yet it’s Em who has to leave the flat to accommodate his weekend with the saintly Rebecca. It’s Em who shouldn’t be so sexy and irresistible. It’s Em who buys into this bullshit and scurries quietly to her own room as if nothing has happened. As if she doesn’t exist. It made me wonder, what is it she’s so scared of? In fact, what are women so afraid of?

‘you warm-blooded Mediterranean types’, he says ‘all that passion eh? You can’t control yourselves.’ Ah yes the Spanish thing. He talks about that a lot. My long thick hair, the way I use my hands when I talk, my olive skin, how red my lips are, how dark my eyes are, how round my breasts are. What do English girls look like in bed then? Maybe they just lie there silent, pale and still. I doubt it. Maybe that’s just Rebecca.’

This sets up a central idea in the book and it’s title. It’s classic Madonna-Whore complex, the misogynistic idea that there are women you sleep with and women you marry. ‘Emmy’ as Matt calls her, is definitely the former. Like obliging little opposites of a dichotomy Rebecca and Em have never met, but Em has Facebook stalked her. Rebecca, who hates being called Becca, isn’t a large breasted, wild haired, sexy inconvenience. She’s a pale, pretty girl who wears her hair in plaits at the weekend and has a rabbit called Sniffles. She dislikes spicy food and even her favourite colour is mild – who likes mint? She wears loose sundresses and flat sandals. Her figure can’t be seen. She even has freckles. Could anyone be less threatening? This is the type of woman men like Matt idealise, they are the wives and mothers, not to be sullied or degraded in any way. This type of thinking also applies to serial killers. As the character of Rose explains, while men are killing women who deserve it they’re notorious, they’re given sexy nicknames and people make documentaries about them. It’s ok to kill the ‘Ems’ of this world: immigrant girls, homeless girls, nagging wives, pushy girlfriends, women who sell themselves, who wear slutty clothes, who walk home late at night. It’s only when they kill the ‘Rebecca’ types that people sit up and take notice. Girls who are nice, who don’t take risks, who don’t deserve it, who are innocent little angels. This attitude is prevalent in real life, I remember it from both the police and the media during the Yorkshire Ripper investigation. It starts small. Men shout ‘cheer up’ or ‘give us a smile’ as if we owe them a nice expression! As if we owe them pretty. Then there’s the man who wants to buy you a drink, to put their arm round you or touch your waist. It’s a continuum that, at it’s most extreme, encompasses those who use, abuse and even kill. Em has encountered all of these types before – the sexual harassment that costs her a job, the violent father, the user landlord and those she meets throughout the day right up to the London Strangler.

I loved how the author wrote about the body and how ‘other’ women’s natural bodily functions seem to be. There’s a disgust conveyed by men that women buy into and internalise. The shame of being caught out by a period in a public place must be a lot of women’s worst nightmare. When I read it I physically cringed on Em’s behalf. It was interesting that this was the point she meets Rose, who simply accepts this woman she’s just seen cleaning herself up and having to pee outdoors. It doesn’t make her look away or form a value judgement. This isn’t the only bodily function that Em is trying to avoid – sweat, sore armpits where her blouse was too tight, foot blisters – they’re all unladylike and shouldn’t be seen. I go loopy when I see Naked Attraction where women’s vulvas are often praised as ‘all neat and tucked in’ and ‘hygienic’ for having no pubic hair. Apparently we should also have a thigh gap and be in proportion. Sometimes they seem keen to erase so much of us, it’s a wonder we don’t just disappear. Rose is the furious feminist voice in the novel and she’s almost like a mentor to Em, listening and giving frank advice where needed plus the odd political rant here and there. She is her own woman and lives life on her terms. Could Em ever be like that? Could she acknowledge with her friends and her religious family that the love of her life is Nikki, a woman? Could she live a happier life focused on what she loves? Em seems to realise that her destiny is to be an example. Only she can discover which direction to go and the best way to achieve it.

Out now from Headline and currently 99p on Kindle

Meet The Author

Natali Simmonds began her career in glossy magazines, then went on to manage marketing campaigns for big brands. She’s now a creative brand consultant, freelance writer, and fiction author, writing gritty and unflinching stories full of complex women and page-turning suspense (and sometimes a little magic).

Simmonds’ dark, feminist thriller debut, Good Girls Die Last, has been optioned for a television series by STV. As N J Simmonds, Natali penned the fantasy trilogy The Path Keeper and Son of Secrets, and in 2022 was shortlisted for the RNA Fantasy Award for the last book in the series, Children of Shadows. She’s one half of paranormal romance author duo, Caedis Knight, and has also written for manga. 

When she’s not writing or consulting, she’s a columnist for Kings College London’s ‘Inspire The Mind’ magazine, and lectures for Raindance Film School. Originally from London, Natali now divides her time between Spain, the UK, and the Netherlands where she can be found drawing, reading in her hammock, or complaining about cycling in the rain.

Posted in Random Things Tours

You Can’t See Me by Eva Björg Ægisdottir

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Translation by Victoria Cribb.

Evil creatures here abound. We must speak in voices low. All night long I’ve heard the sound. Of breath upon the window.

Sixteenth-century verse by Þórður Magnússon á Strjúgi

The wealthy, powerful Snæberg clan has gathered for a family reunion at a futuristic hotel set amongst the dark lava flows of Iceland’s remote Snæfellsnes peninsula.

Petra Snæberg, a successful interior designer, is anxious about the event, and her troubled teenage daughter, Lea, whose social- media presence has attracted the wrong kind of followers. Ageing carpenter Tryggvi is an outsider, only tolerated because he’s the boyfriend of Petra’s aunt, but he’s struggling to avoid alcohol because he knows what happens when he drinks … Humble hotel employee, Irma, is excited to meet this rich and famous family and observe them at close quarters … perhaps too close…
As the weather deteriorates and the alcohol flows, one of the guests disappears, and it becomes clear that there is a prowler lurking in the dark.
But is the real danger inside … within the family itself?

I LOVED the first two books in the Forbidden Iceland series, featuring detective Elma, recently returned to her home town of Akranes after several years working in Reykjavik. This story is a prequel and we meet her eventual partner Sæver as he looks into some very strange events surrounding a family reunion. This is not your average family though and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be at a party less! My sympathies were largely with hotel employee Irma who views the Snæberg family as if they are a totally different species. In a way they are, set apart by their successes and their wealth from the everyday hotel employee. So wealthy in fact that they’ve hired this entire luxury hotel for the weekend, with a full itinerary of activities and boozy dinners at night. It isn’t long before tensions and differences come to light: judgements and opinions on each other’s partners; family members who’ve lost touch and resent each other; teenagers who’d rather be elsewhere; parents who can’t connect with their children. All cooped up together for a whole weekend. As the author moved our point of view from one character to another we realise this family has so many secrets.

The setting is isolated and bleak. No amount of candlelight could ever convince me that concrete looks anything but brutally uncomfortable. However, thanks particularly to interior designer Petra Snæberg who can’t stop snapping for her Insta followers, the hotel’s phone is ringing and bookings are going through the roof. Set on a remote peninsula there is nowhere to go, except the equally bleak outdoors and with a set itinerary in place there’s no escape from each other. The atmosphere the author creates is incredible and had me veering from suspicious to unsettled to really creeped out. The uncovered windows leave guests feeling exposed, realising that if a light goes on they are lit up like a theatre stage. Not helped by the fact that an app controls heating and lighting, so easy to plunge another guest into darkness or into light by accident or just when they least expect it. We realise that certain people are watching others, but we’re not exactly sure why, whose stare is benign and whose stare means danger is lurking? Some narrators send icy cold shivers down the spine. Petra’s daughter Lea receives a message from an unknown number:

The video is dark, taken outside at night. Instinctively I bring the phone closer to my face, to see better. I turn up the volume. The sound crackles with the wind, then I hear a crunching of gravel. Footsteps. Someone is walking outside, along a gravel path. The video ends with the sound of a throat being cleared and a cough. I turn to the window, feeling the sweat break out all over my body. Isn’t there a gravel path leading to the hotel? Again I hear a rustling sound outside the door, then more knocking. Two taps, like before. Tap, tap.

Some of the scariest moments happen to Petra too. There’s a tension between her and her cousin Stefania who grew apart years ago when they were teenagers. An awkward drink with the two women and Stefania’s brother Viktor starts to open up old wounds. Petra is haunted by a misunderstanding that had tragic consequences, but does she even know the full story? Why does she find her hotel room door open when she’s been inside, showering and sleeping? Then there’s the creepy notes under the door. It’s enough to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

Then there’s Irma, who seems intrigued by this glamorous family who are so ‘together’. They’re Insta-perfect and seem so far outside her experience. She mocks Petra’s overuse of the word ‘sanctuary’ which is what your home is supposed to be, a place that reflects who you are. When Irma thinks of her flat it’s merely a box and her shelves are merely a place to keep stuff. It’s boring, functional and sparse – does that reflect who she is?

Mum always said I had an overactive imagination. As a child I lived in a world that no one else could see. One that was much brighter and better than the real one, like a fairy tale or story, because as I turned the pages of books I became the characters. […] But the older I got, the more difficult it became. I started comparing myself to other people. I realised that the flat Mum and I lived in probably wasn’t that tasteful, and the life we lived wasn’t actually that exciting. Perhaps it wasn’t so desirable after all to be constantly moving from place to place, constantly changing schools and spending most of my evenings alone at home.“

She imagines living like the family do, envious of the freedom to walk around the supermarket and pick up whatever they want, with no fear of their bank card being rejected. Irma’s not completely taken in by appearances though, while she scrolls she reminds herself of the gap between the selves we are on social media and the reality. She looks forward to people watching, spotting where the cracks are. Those tiny resentments. The things they keep from each other. After all, no family is perfect.

However it’s Lea who I’m most scared for because she’s just so vulnerable. Lea is a confused teenager and she is never without her phone. A lack of friends and support at home has left her so open to exploitation. She has a friend called Birger who might be staying nearby, maybe they might finally meet? Lea seems to get validation from his messages on her photos. In fact it’s that very validation and a need to be seen that convince her to do something dangerous. She realises how exposed she is too late and the signs that she’s struggling are being missed, until she walks out into the sea in all her clothes. All the ‘what ifs’ begin to race through her mind, but not once does she wonder whether Birger might not be who he claims to be. Then there’s Gulli, an older man who’s very appreciative of her posts and so easy to talk to, but the unease sets in when he too turns out to be nearby. There’s the old man she saw wandering the corridors, even though her family are the only guests. Is it her aunt Oddny’s unusual boyfriend Tryggvi, an outsider thanks to his job as a joiner and his unique dress sense? Could he be watching? Lea begins With her mum embroiled in secrets and lies of her own, will anybody notice that Lea is standing on a knife edge. Lea is being watched of course, but is that enemy looking in through the windows or are they closer? Inside the building?

The suspense builds beautifully and reaches fever pitch on the last night. Tryggvi falls drastically off the wagon on an important anniversary. Petra has made a bloodstained find in one of the bedrooms. Victor’s much younger, pregnant girlfriend has left the hotel in the night despite being unable to drive. Lea is also drinking heavily, scared about who is stalking her. While Petra has a long overdue conversation about the past, but can she trust her version of events? As a storm begins to roll in, cutting the hotel off from civilisation, horrifying truths bubble to the surface. Someone who has been waiting a long time for their moment makes their move in this complicated chess game. We don’t always see those who hide in plain sight and those we think we know could be monsters in disguise. I love this author’s ability to get inside the heads of her characters and pull the reader along with her. Here she builds a labyrinth of clues, red herrings and suspicious characters that I found absolutely impossible to resist. That’s why I was awake at 3am, with my attention split between the page in front of me and my ears attuned to even the slightest creak downstairs. After all you never know who might be watching.

Published by Orenda Books Thursday July 6th.

Meet the Author

Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir studied for an MSc in globalisation in Norway before no one can be trusted, as the dark secrets
returning to Iceland to write her first novel. Combining writing with work as a stewardess and caring for her children, Eva finished her debut thriller The SCnreæakboenrgthfeaSmtaiilrys,awrheicuhnwcaosvpeurbelidsh…edaind the 2018. It became a bestseller in Iceland, going on to win the Blackbird Award. Published in English by Orenda Books in 2020, it became a digital number-one betseller in three countries, was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Awards in two categories and won the CWA John Creasey Dagger in 2021. Girls Who Lie, the second book in the Forbidden Iceland series was shortlisted for the Petrona Award and the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger, and Night Shadows followed suit. With over 200,000 copies sold in English alone, Eva has become one of Iceland’s – and crime- fiction’s – most highly regarded authors. She lives in Reyjavik with her husband and three children.

Thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours and Orenda Books for having me on the blog tour, to see more reviews and giveaways follow the rest of the tour.

Posted in Random Things Tours

Our American Friend by Anna Pitoniak

Posted on by thelotusreaders

A mysterious First Lady. The intrepid journalist writing her biography. And the secret that could destroy them both. Tired of covering the grating dysfunction of Washington and the increasingly outrageous antics of President Henry Caine, White House correspondent Sofie Morse quits her job and plans to leave politics behind. But when she gets a call from the office of First Lady Lara Caine, inviting her to come in for a private meeting with Lara, Sofie’s curiosity is piqued. Sofie, like the rest of the world, knows little about Lara – only that she was born in Soviet Russia, raised in Paris, and worked as a model before moving to America and marrying the notoriously brash future president. When Lara asks Sofie to write her official biography, and to finally fill in the gaps of her history, Sofie’s curiosity gets the better of her. She begins to spend more and more time in the White House, slowly developing a bond with Lara. As Lara’s story unfolds, Sofie can’t help but wonder why Lara is rehashing such sensitive information.Why tell Sofie? And why now? Suddenly, Sofie is in the middle of a game of cat and mouse that could have explosive ramifications.

I read a very odd tagline to a review for this book that likened it to Emily in Paris and the TV series Scandal – the comparison to either is inaccurate, because while this has the addictive quality of a thriller it goes much deeper and is clearly well-researched. The blurb immediately took me to Donald Trump and his rather enigmatic First Lady, Melania. A very different First Lady from her predecessor Michelle Obama, she certainly didn’t fit the usual mould and curiosity about their relationship and her past is certainly perfect material for a good thriller. I’m not the first to wonder whether they met at the notorious parties in NYC where very young models were supplied to meet wealthy and powerful men. The potted biography of our character Lara Caine certainly seemed to echo Melania’s journey towards becoming the President’s wife, so this hooked me straight away.

The author sets her characters within the current political climate, the era of fake news, conspiracy and what seems like a complete lack of accountability. I’m not alone in wondering who to believe any more and constantly searching for the truth beneath the headlines. The author certainly conjures up this complicated present and what it’s like to be a journalist within this maze of misinformation, but she also weaves in the fascinating Cold War era, a time absolutely ripe with complicated plots and conspiracies. It’s a clever combination, because when we think back to America and the Cold War we think of the containment of Russia, the Berlin Wall, the arms and space race between the US and USSR, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. At this time even a hint of collaboration between East and West rising to the surface, was investigated robustly and punishments were harsh. McCarthyism was the epitome of the type of paranoia on display as actors and other people working in Hollywood were interrogated and their movements restricted if any socialist or communist sympathies were found. In this country the Profumo affair brought to light a sexual scandal where our Secretary of State for war was having an extra-marital affair with 19 year old model Christine Keeler, who was also sleeping with a Russian naval attaché. Again the root of the problem was secret parties held by osteopath Stephen Ward, where he introduced young models that he knew to powerful men in politics and possibly in the Royal Family too, as portrayed in the series The Crown. This book contrasts these two moments in history as we travel back and forth in time to uncover Lara’s story. It seems that where there were once barriers, there are now complex financial and political relationships between old enemies. Russian financing seems to be behind many Western political campaigns including our own Brexit referendum. Is this simply business or have our old enemies found a more creative way to destabilise the West? I find these complicated collaborations fascinating, so this was fertile ground for a very enjoyable novel as we moved through Paris, Moscow, Washington and New York.

Anna Pitoniak uses the character and background of Lara to explore these contrasting time periods in politics. She could have been a cipher, but she’s more than that and is definitely intriguing from the start. Why would the First Lady approach a journalist who is retiring from politics and whose own political leanings are at odds with the President? Why is she choosing to share her life now, especially when there are so many secrets and who is her reader? Is she perhaps getting ahead of a narrative she knows will come out anyway, creating a chance to influence the story and perhaps gain sympathy from the reader. Sofie has to wonder whether she’s been chosen because the First Lady has had a change in outlook or because her choice of a liberal journalist will influence readers into thinking the book is a fair account, more balanced than if she’d chosen a right wing author. All of these questions were running through my head while reading, as if there aren’t enough on the page. I was full of suspicion, but Lara seems open and welcoming, giving Sofie access to her life. Slowly a relationship builds between these two very different women, potentially a friendship. There is trust but does it really work both ways? Lara gives Sofie previously hidden stories from her childhood and adolescence with access to close family members as a back up. Yet I understand Sofie’s confusion, as she starts to like this woman but remains opposed to everything about Lara’s husband – his politics, morality and the way he’s conducted himself in office. So when Lara discloses a huge secret, something serious enough to upset not just her family but global politics too, she may as well have handed Sofie a ticking time bomb. It’s a journalist’s dream to have such a scoop, but there’s a certain amount of trepidation too. This is a slow burn of a novel, but it is engaging and once you’re hooked you’ll want to see what happens. There are some twist and turns to keep the reader entertained, but the author always keeps it intelligent and historically factual underneath, especially in the Cold War sections. While I didn’t form an attachment to either character I did enjoy the story, showing how the things most important to us like love and family become threatened when pulled into the world of espionage. There are also themes of complicity and the lack of integrity rife in modern-day politics, so current as we go through scandals such as Partygate and see the daily revelations from the COVID Enquiry. I also enjoyed reading a political thriller with two women as the focus, something often lacking in this genre. This is my first novel by this author and I look forward to reading others.

Released by No Exit Press in the UK on 29 June 2023.

Meet the Author

Anna Pitoniak is the author of The Futures, Necessary People, Our American Friend, and the forthcoming The Helsinki Affair. She graduated from Yale, where she majored in English and was an editor at the Yale Daily News. She worked for many years in book publishing, most recently as a Senior Editor at Random House. Anna grew up in Whistler, British Columbia, and now lives in East Hampton and New York City.

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Apple and the Tree by Clemmie Bennett

Posted on by thelotusreaders

For her debut novel Clemmie Bennet has chosen to write something so complex I have to take my hat off to her. Ella has recently lost her beloved grandmother, Lolly. They used to spend a lot of time together, exploring stately homes and royal residences, particularly those from the Tudor period. Lolly left her granddaughter a beautiful gold and sapphire ring, one that’s very precious to Ella as she remembers her grandmother wearing it every day on a chain around her neck. However, it’s when Ella puts the ring on her finger that something very strange happens. Ella feels dizzy and passes out, waking up in a field next to what looks like Eltham Palace. As a man walks towards her, Ella thinks she’s fainted in the middle of an historical reenactment. He’s dressed in the rich robes of a member of the Tudor court and his manners are impeccable, offering to let Ella rest in the palace until her memory returns. Her rescuer is Henry VIII. As Ella finds herself in the court, becoming one of Katherine of Aragons ladies, she is a fly on the wall for some of the most dramatic events in royal and religious history. Is it possible to remain an observer, or will Ella find herself tempted to intervene and perhaps change the course of history?

I’ve been fascinated by Tudor history, ever since I saw one of the Hans Holbein portraits of Henry VIIII in the Chatsworth library when I was a child. Henry seemed like a curiosity in our royal history with so many wives and scandals to his name. Once I’d read the David Starkey books and Phillipa Gregory’s novels from The Other Boleyn Girl onwards. I was also drawn to the glamour and dubious historical content of the Showtime series The Tudors, with Jonathon Rhys Meyers Henry and his best friend the Duke of Suffolk, as portrayed by the rather delicious Henry Cavill. What all these sources brought home to me was how uneven his marriages were – he was married to Katherine of Aragon for as long as he was to every other wife combined. That’s without noting his devotion to her from the moment she reached England for her marriage to Henry’s elder brother Arthur, a devotion that survived his teenage years, her first marriage and his brother’s death. They were in love, he wasn’t faithful but Kings were not expected to be faithful. The idea of a character time travelling to that period threw up all sorts of questions and I was so impressed by the bravery of the writer. Writing historical fiction means researching your period throughly, so to do that and put your character in the middle of such a well- known series of events is such a risk.

I also applaud the author’s bravery in ripping up the rule book on time travel – we all know that it is important not to change anything in the past, but Ella ignores that rule. It’s a great choice because it gives her character more freedom, but I also think it makes an historical point too. I have always said that had I been in the Tudor court, I would do a Mary Boleyn and marry someone of little importance and get the hell out of there. I have always wondered while reading about the wives and friends of Henry why you would involve yourself in the political and religious machinations of the time. Wouldn’t a life in the country as a nobody be preferable? I think that the author allows Ella to get involved because she’s making the point that it would be impossible to live in that court and not become involved. It’s a game of survival and women are both marginalised and limited in their choices. They have a choice, to withdraw for a quiet life like Mary Boleyn or fight for their place and power like her sister Anne. Ella’s choices certainly raise the tension level! She’s playing a living game of chess, trying to keep within the rules but think three steps ahead of her opponent. Of course she has the benefit of hindsight and all the Tudor history her grandmother Lolly taught her, so she might be able to win.

I thought the book really brought to life the difficulties of the time period and being a subject of Henry VIII, particularly for women. We know there are ladies in waiting, but they’re often portrayed as companions the Queen and possible lovers of the King, but here we see more of their day to day activities and their emotional lives. Ella is a 21st Century woman and because of that we can see these women as being just like us. I loved the way she formed friendships and how the women supported each other. They are portrayed as emotionally open about their marriages and the dangers they face, whether from men or from their own bodies. Fertility plays a major part in the huge decisions of this court, in fact it still does today if we think of Prince Harry’s book Spare and the importance placed upon his father to marry and have both heir and spare. It’s always a huge part of the ‘King’s Great Matter’ that Katherine had not produced a male heir, but here the author explores what these struggles were like for the ordinary women at court. There’s a moment where Ella has to cope with getting her period in a time where underwear isn’t worn and she’s having all the same worries I remember having when starting my periods, all over again. It made me realise how vulnerable women were to sexual assault as well. It broke my heart to see how terrified women were of becoming pregnant, then dreading childbirth or losing their child. Having Ella there as a 21st Century comparison really heightened how different a woman’s lot really was and how the aristocratic practice of handing your child to someone else to look after caused such pain and grief.

I came away from this book with a different understanding of both the time and the court, even Henry himself. This Henry was intelligent, tender and seductive. Despite his shortcomings, there’s a compassion in Henry that seems missing from his actions in later years. It’s interesting to see how different the course of history might have been with just a few small changes. As Ella builds a friendship with Henry, I wondered how far her influence might reach and what might happen if she ever returned to her own time. This kept me reading and there was also a huge twist I didn’t expect! This was such an interesting premise and kept me intrigued enough to read to the end. I recommend this to anyone who knows a bit about the time period and maybe thinks they know all there is to know about Henry’s court. I would be interested to know what the author would change if she went back to Henry’s court, or whether she would choose to lie low? This is such an interesting debut and I hope to see Clemmie flourish as a writer of historical fiction.

Meet the Author

Clemmie Bennett is a writer, author of the historical fantasy “The Apple and the Tree.” A professional London-based French nanny, Clemmie has been working on her debut novel for over three years, but writing a book has been on her bucket list for as long as she can remember. When she is not writing or reading, she can be found wandering about ancient royal palaces or abbey ruins, most likely despairing that time travel is not a reality – like it is for her main character.

Posted in Netgalley

Vita and the Birds by Polly Crosby

Posted on by thelotusreaders

1938: Lady Vita Goldsborough lives in the menacing shadow of her controlling older brother, Aubrey. But when she meets local artist Dodie Blakeney, the two women form a close bond, and Vita finally glimpses a chance to be free.

1997: Following the death of her mother, Eve Blakeney returns to the coast where she spent childhood summers with her beloved grandmother, Dodie. Eve hopes that the visit will help make sense of her grief. The last thing she expects to find is a bundle of letters that hint at the heart-breaking story of Dodie’s relationship with a woman named Vita, and a shattering secret that echoes through the decades.

What she discovers will overturn everything she thought she knew about her family – and change her life forever.

I’ve looked forward to the new Polly Crosby novel for a while, it was one of my most anticipated books of 2023. I love her writing so I gave myself a lovely sunny weekend to completely wallow in the story. It seemed fitting that I was outside, since nature plays a strong part in the novel both metaphorically and as an extra character that’s often more vivid than the inner spaces. Eve has felt adrift since her mum Angela died so her four brothers think it might be good for her to take a trip to the coast and clear out their grandmother’s studio. Grandmother Dodie was a painter and lived a fairly basic life in a small ramshackle studio just off the beach. Eve has fond memories of childhood holidays there, when her brothers would snuggle up with her like sleepy puppies on the studio floor at night. Close by is the strangely alluring Cathedral of the Marshes, a glass building so imposing it has the presence of such a holy building. Once, when she was a teenager, Eve had taken a dare to go into the cathedral with Elliot, one of the local boys. She remembers being terrified, but doesn’t remember much else about that night apart from seeing a painting standing on an easel. Strangely, it was a portrait of her and she ran out into the night, never to return. How will it feel to be back in a place that she has feared, but that still holds some of her best childhood memories? When she finds Dodie’s letters and reads of her relationship with Vita, she is plunged into a completely hidden part of her grandmother’s life.

This is a dual timeline novel, so through the letters we go back to the outbreak of WW2 and Dodie’s early years at the studio. She met one of her more notorious neighbours, Vita Goldsborough, resident of Goldsborough Hall and an owner of the glass cathedral. Vita and her brother Aubrey are the subject of gossip in the village. The stories are varied: Vita went mad and was put in a psychiatric hospital; Vita and Aubrey committed incest; they were to blame for ‘the vanishings’. They didn’t mix in the village and the stories around the siblings seemed to multiply and when a local girl vanished they were the first to be blamed by villagers. Strangely, as Eve arrives, a boy goes missing. It seems like an echo of the past, a foreshadowing, as if this is a thin place where memories and historical events seem close enough to touch. The physical sorting of her grandmother’s belongings is a simple enough task, she will just hire a skip, but when it comes to finding things that evoke memories and emotions they’re not so easily thrown away. Now Eve finds herself questioning the past and discovering things about this place and her beloved grandmother that she’d never imagined.

I thought this was a fascinating story highlighting women’s history and showing how much Victorian attitudes still prevailed in aristocratic society. The way Aubrey Goldsborough thinks feels around forty years out of date and the power he has over his sister we would now label as coercive control. Vita tries to explain to Dodie that his hold over her is so powerful he doesn’t have to force her, he simply has to tell her what to do and she obeys. He wants Vita to be respectable and only spend time with the right sort of people. Becoming friends with a bohemian artist like Dodie was definitely unexpected and she is the epitome of the wrong sort of company. Vita decides that Dodie must paint her portrait, something that her brother can’t really object to. Aubrey would like her to make a good marriage, but Vita’s interactions with men are fast and short-lived. Vita’s rebellions had to be passive aggressive – she gathers her jewels and keeps them in a box chained to the bottom of a pond in the glass cathedral. Hopefully, she can sell them without Aubrey knowing and have some financial freedom. She and Dodie hide in plain sight after Aubrey goes to war. They set up home in the cathedral, able to see everything around them, but thanks to the reed beds outside they are very unlikely to be seen. In another echo of her grandmother’s past, Eve meets an elderly lady in the village who asks to have her portrait painted. Eve isn’t usually a portrait painter, but can’t turn down the generous money offered for the work. She has the key to the cathedral and suggests they use it for their sitting, so Eve stands where her grandmother did many years before. What might this lady know about that time and her grandmother’s life?

The outside spaces seem to have an effect on Eve and I noticed a more natural, authentic part of her shine through. When she’s wild swimming or having a campfire on the beach with her brothers it feels like she belongs here. I was fascinated with how Polly plays with interior and exterior spaces, mirroring the parts of themselves her characters are revealing and concealing. Dodie’s studio has one glass side, leaving the whole living space open to view and her only concession to privacy is a screen where her models can undress. This is so in keeping with Dodie’s character, she is who she is and nothing is usually concealed. A beautiful detail comes when Eve is aware that putting the light on opens the space up to the outside like a stage set, but switching it off opens up the landscape outside. The cathedral is something of a paradox because I thought at first the glass would be very exposing, but Aubrey had designed it with living spaces that were kept private. I was imagining it like a Victorian glasshouse or orangery, very ornate with an almost tropical climate inside. The central ‘Turkish Room’ where Vita sits for her portrait has an otherworldly feel, with a smell of vegetation and rotting fruit. A large pool sits at the centre and church pews are placed around it upholstered with Turkish throws and pillows. There’s a sensuality to this space, the heavy warmth and the softness of pillows contrasts sharply with the glass. The room is hidden by the marsh reeds and it feels like a world apart, a feeling echoed by the ornamental bird cage engraved just for them. It holds Vita’s canaries, until one day they escape out through a hole in the roof. Yet they come back and visit Vita, eating out of her hand and filling the room with beautiful bird song. The name Eve finds scratched on the cage alongside that of Vita and Dodie should be no surprise. It’s a hope that person will return and bring a new generation back to the cathedral, represented by the flock of yellow and brown canaries Eve sees fly into the cathedral – the ancestors of those first two birds returning to their home.

As with previous novels, Polly really knows how to pile on the layers of mystery and create an undercurrent that’s quite unnerving: the painting that looks like Eve; the birdcage and the names engraved on it; the earrings Eve finds under the sink in the studio that she’s never seen her grandmother wear. Eve’s mind plays tricks on her, confused by the likeness between Vita and her grandmother, but also with herself. She’s still confused about that night when she was a teenager, when she went into the cathedral on a dare. Did she really hear a woman’s voice? Was she holding something when she ran away? Was it a shard of glass? As we move towards finding out what happened in the cathedral all those years ago the tension builds and I worried whether the two women would be safe from someone like Aubrey. Eve knows that he was found dead in the cathedral cut by a shard of glass, but was it suicide or murder? Whatever happened to Vita, someone her grandmother never talked about? There’s also the question of Eve’s mum Angela, born around the same time period but brought up by Dodie alone and has never known her father. As Goldsborough Hall was obliterated by a bomb during the war, only the cathedral remains and I wondered who owned it now? I was totally engrossed by this point and dishes went unwashed, the dog went unwalked and my other half, who knows when I’m lost in a story, kept me amply supplied with tea and toast. I do this strange thing when I’ve really enjoyed a book, I seem to hug it to my heart as if it can reach the characters inside. This was one of those books. It’s a beautiful hidden love story and an intriguing mystery as well, told with compassion and empathy.

Meet the Author

Polly Crosby grew up on the Suffolk coast, and now lives with her husband and son in the heart of Norfolk.

Polly’s third novel, Vita & the Birds, came out in May this year. Her first novel for young adults, This Tale is Forbidden – a dystopian fractured fairytale with hints of the Brother’s Grimm and The Handmaid’s Tale – is out in January next year with Scholastic.

In 2018, Polly won Curtis Brown Creative’s Yesterday Scholarship, which enabled her to finish her debut novel, The Illustrated Child. Later the same year, she was awarded runner-up in the Bridport Prize’s Peggy Chapman Andrews Award for a First Novel. Polly received the Annabel Abbs Creative Writing Scholarship at the University of East Anglia.

Polly can be found on Twitter, Instagram & Tiktok as @WriterPolly

Website: pollycrosby.com

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Tiny Pieces of Enid by Tim Ewins

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was so emotionally invested in this deeply moving story, written with such care and empathy for the characters, but also the people who are going through similar experiences in real life. I would also suggest hankies or tissues, a big bar of chocolate and a cat to cuddle. This is an incredible read – but you will cry, in fact if you don’t there’s probably something wrong with you. Our heroine Enid has had a stroke and also has a diagnosis of dementia. She has aphasia causing problems with comprehension and formulation of words. Often, people with aphasia know what they want to say, but find something stops them expressing it. Having looked after people who’ve had a stroke I know it is one of the most frustrating neurological symptoms someone can have. The author has set the book inside Enid’s brain – we learn that she’s not completely senile, in fact she has moments of incredible clarity and is often witty, with a great sense of humour. However, she is forgetful and shows a lot of frustration about her lot. Enid has lived with husband Roy for many years, but after another incident at home their daughter Barb has to make a horrible decision. She decides her mum would be better in a specialist nursing home, but this means separating her from her beloved husband. Enid believes that this is a temporary separation and that soon Roy will come live with her in the nursing home. Meanwhile Roy is trying to cope alone, missing his wife terribly but having to plod on without her.

In the home Enid meets Olivia, a young mum who frequently visits another resident and they have an affinity. While they might seem to be very different on the surface, they connect on a deep emotional level. Every time Olivia visits, Enid is reminded of her first marriage and the memories are painful. Enid’s husband was violent and she can see that Olivia’s husband is also a very angry man. She wants to help, to explain that she doesn’t have to stay with him, that there is happiness beyond here. The fact that Olivia and Enid become friends, despite all of Enid’s challenges is so important because Enid’s life experience could help Olivia make a definitive decision. To save her own life. Their experience shows that friendship comes in so many forms and we shouldn’t make snap judgements about who can bring something meaningful to our lives. It made me think of an observation I made a long time ago, when someone has a long term illness their life doesn’t stop at the time of diagnosis. Some people seem to think that an unwell person steps out of life, has treatment, then comes back when they’re cured but it isn’t so. There are so many of us out here, like Enid, living with an illness and even if our lives look different they’re still meaningful and worthwhile.

When Enid isn’t watching life pass by she’s remembering, it’s like her own personal movie running behind her eyes. She sees Roy, from their earlier life together and when they’re falling in love after the trauma of her first marriage. There’s her old home and her daughter Barb who was fascinated with birds, her Tom Jones & Elvis records waiting to be played. She then remembers a scar she has on her forehead. When was that from? It feels like another life. Then she’s back with Roy. Remembering their love story. Roy is her best friend.

The way the author has constructed Enid’s inner world is brilliant. All the information is there, but it’s fractured and complicated. It isn’t always there when she needs it. She’s a time traveller, not present in the moment but enjoying her early years with Roy. Then she’s with a little girl, her daughter. These memories are so clear, but the moments of lucidity are so fleeting and we’re aware that eventually they may disappear altogether. I’ve worked in a dementia unit and every week I would push one of our residents down through the village to the home he’d shared with his wife. He seemed to have no idea where we were, he was rarely, fully in the room. Mostly we would do jigsaws and he would try to wipe his nose on my cardigan. One day we were sat with his wife in the kitchen and I was helping him with his cup of tea when he looked over at her. Then he looked at me and said ‘I don’t know who this lady is, but isn’t she kind? I like her’. It made me cry that they had a whole history that he couldn’t recall, but in that moment he knew she was special. There was a little glimmer of feeling. It’s hard to live separately from someone you’ve had a life with, especially when the relationship hasn’t ended. You’re living like a single person again and while you can always visit your partner (and appreciate the respite from being a full time carer) there are parts of that person you miss. The tragedy is you didn’t need to separate from the person, just their condition. So it was easy to understand Roy’s decline without Enid, he’s lost the shared jokes, the conversational shorthand and that sense of it being the two of them against the world. Although Enid is safe, part of Roy will wish she was still at home with him. I would imagine he must miss her sense of mischief more than anything. Enid will try anything to be with Roy again, and she relies on an imaginary parrot to help her.

Tim Ewins has written a really special book with such fully rounded characters who have busy inner lives, including Enid. I have a long-term illness and it’s great to read a writer who understands that journey and shows how rich our lives can be, even if they are different. My late husband had the same illness as me and this book reminded me of the snatched moments we spent together between carers, district nurses, palliative stays and hospital admissions. Despite all of that ‘stuff’ no one could take away that connection we had and some of my happiest memories were in those snatched moments; the tiny pieces of life that Enid remembers might seem commonplace, but they are the very moments I’ve treasured and remembered ever since. This is a special book, written with such heart and compassion.

Meet The Author

Tim has enjoyed an eight-year stand-up career alongside his accidental career in finance.

He has previously written for DNA Mumbai, had two short stories highly commended and published in Michael Terence Short Story Anthologies, and enjoyed a very brief acting stint (he’s in that film Bronson, somewhere in the background). We Are Animals is his first novel.

When not writing, he enjoys travel, reading (of course), cycling and spending time with his wife, son and dog in Bristol. Follow him on Instagram @timewins and @quickbooksummaries where he writes inaccurate but humorous book reviews.

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Moon Gate by Amanda Geard.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

1939 – Grace Grey lives in Grosvenor Place in London, with her mother Edeline who is a friend of the notorious Mosleys and wears the uniform of the Blackshirts. As war comes ever closer, Edeline makes the decision to send Grace and the housekeeper’s daughter Rose Munro to stay with her brother Marcus and his wife Olive in the north west coast of Tasmania. After an eight week voyage the girls are welcomed to Towerhurst, an unusual house with a whole tower where Uncle Marcus writes his poetry. Olive immediately takes to the beautiful Rose, but Marcus forms a bond with Grace over the poems of Banjo Patterson, an Australian ballad poet. Grace is reserved and shy, but is slowly coaxed out of her shell by Daniel McGillycuddy an Irish lad working at his aunt and uncle’s sawmill for Huron Pine. As war creeps ever nearer to their part of the Pacific there are dangerous emotional games at play between these young people with fall out that will extend over the rest of the century.

1975 – out of the blue Willow and Ben have been summoned to the north west of Tasmania because of a mysterious legacy. Willow has been left a house called Towerhurst, by an anonymous benefactor who placed it in trust. They decide it’s a great place for Ben to write and Willow to paint, but on their first visit Ben goes missing in the rainforest having fallen down an old mine shaft. What he finds there sends him on a quest that ends in London chasing a story about two young girls who lived at Towerhurst during WW2.

2004 – Libby has flown from Tasmania to London, wanting to claim the belongings of her father who died in the Moorgate Tube Station accident before she was born. Staying with her eccentric aunts in Grosvenor Square, she starts to follow the clues she finds in her father’s satchel: a publisher’s address, a book of ballads by poet D. McGillycuddy and the name Molly Munroe. Her quest will take her to a gentleman’s club, a narrow boat and eventually out to Ireland to solve a mystery that’s been laid buried for half a century.

I enjoyed Amanda Gerard’s first novel last year, so looked forward to reading her new one for a while. I was interested to see how her writing had developed over the last couple of years. To undertake a novel that takes in most of the 20th Century, three timelines and three different settings takes enormous confidence and she has definitely grown in confidence. This is a more complex novel, combining historical fiction with mystery and some romance too, but she pulls it off beautifully and I’ve absolutely loved it. From the historical perspective I learned a lot about living through WW2 in the Pacific Ocean, a completely different experience compared to Europe and the U.K. particularly. I thought Amanda beautifully captured how transient lives were at that time. This wasn’t just about the two English girls, Grace and Rose, uprooted from everything they knew and sent to the other side of the world. It was about the chaos of war, never knowing where your loved ones were, particularly if they were away fighting and whether they would ever come home again. For women that was especially difficult, left at home to wait but also left outside the experiences their men were having. Many women did their own war work, both to do their bit but also to feel a little closer to their men and as if they’re helping them to fight. War displaces people and there were huge shifts across the years of WW2 and afterwards as prisoners of war were slowly released and women who’d married a G.I. or perhaps a Polish airman travelled back to their native countries to start a new married life. It was a good time for people to disappear or slip away under the radar. I already knew a lot about the Blackshirts and their admiration of Hitler’s Nazi Party, but here I learned more about the women recruits and their activities. There was a breadth of research here, underpinning and enhancing the story across three different generations.

The main love story is so touching as the slightly awkward Grace is lured down to the beach by neighbour Daniel where he tries to kiss her. Sadly though it’s for a five shilling bet and as his mates turn up in a boat to witness her humiliation she runs away into the sea. It’s his friend Puds who has to rescue her, as she can’t swim and finds herself caught in an undertow. Daniel regrets his actions deeply, apologising the very next day and asking if Grace would perhaps share the book of ballads she’d been telling him about. They pass through the Moon Gate, a perfectly round doorway made of Atlantisite that leads to the waterfall and a small freshwater pool. Uncle Marcus claims that to pass through the gate is to become a new person and that certainly seems the case with Grace who not only forgives Daniel, but shares the ballad poems and agrees that he can teach her to swim. It’s so beautiful to watch them become close friends, but Grace knows that it’s Rose that Daniel finds attractive as everyone does at first. I felt for Grace deeply and I think a lot of other bookworms will too because she’s so uncomfortable in company, prefers solitude and loves words so much. My therapist side wanted to help her, because how does she learn to be herself and be confident in that, when even her own mother preferred Rose? When we’re not shown love from our parents, a child can’t understand that it’s a fault of the parent, so they learn there is something wrong with themselves. Grace is shocked by the help and affection she gets from Uncle Marcus, because her own mother is so austere and critical.

It was Rose who spent time with Edeline and became a member of the Blackshirts alongside her. Whereas Rose’s mother, the housekeeper Molly, can see something wonderful in Grace and so can her Uncle Marcus, it just needed to be coaxed out and nurtured. I was so invested in her feelings for Daniel and desperate for him to be clear about whether he had feelings for her. Rose is doing her bit in undermining and leading Grace to believe that Daniel only has eyes for her. She makes sure Grace knows when he writes from wherever he is in the world and if Grace shares news of her friend, Rose makes it clear she knew first. I’ve never wanted to slap a book character more! I wasn’t even sure that she genuinely loved Daniel, she’s just so used to getting one over on Grace that she hasn’t stopped to think it through. There are rumours in town about Rose and Uncle Marcus, she even winds Puds round her little finger but I wasn’t sure to what end? She certainly keeps her cards close to her chest, but when Rose takes up war work and isn’t around as much Grace can actually breathe. As I read I wasn’t sure what Rose was up to but I was certain there was something behind her manipulations and out of character support for the war effort. It’s a shock when her name comes up again in Libby’s investigations, was her father Ben simply interested in her fascist connections or is it something more personal?

There are definite echoes through the different time periods and motherhood is one of those themes that recurs. It’s an inter-generational trauma that starts with Edeline’s treatment of her daughter. Grace knows she isn’t her mother’s favourite, but is confused when this animosity seems to recur with her Aunt Olive. She asks a devastating question of her Uncle Marcus – ‘am I unloveable?’ because if her own mother can’t love her, why would anyone else? Willow has never known her birth parents, instead brought up with her two sisters who are twins. She never asked the question, even though she can see how different she is physically from her sisters. So when Towerhurst comes along, she starts to be intrigued by who created the trust and whether it could be one of her real parents. She finds out she’s pregnant alone, while Ben is over in London, but manages to tell him on the phone just before he is killed and they are both so happy in that moment. To then become a single parent, in such tragic circumstances must have been so difficult to come to terms with. Willow has never tried to collect Ben’s belongings despite knowing they were found and Libby clearly thinks her mother will disapprove of her choice to follow in his footsteps. Willow hasn’t been a terrible mother, just rather aloof and deeply engrossed in her work as a painter, where she demonstrates her terrible grief by only painting in black and white. She hasn’t grieved fully and I could see that Libby’s findings might bring those feelings to the surface. Luckily, Libby has had her eccentric aunts for support and it’s clear they adore her, but I hoped that Libby and Willow would have chance to talk and heal together.

As the mystery begins to unravel, there are revelations about these three generations that keep coming and a twist I truly didn’t expect. There are small disclosures, like the local police sergeant who helps the search for Ben is actually Puds, Daniel’s best friend who suffered a serious injury in the war and had to return home. How will he go about investigating what Ben finds in the mine shaft, when it might be better if they’d stayed buried? I was desperate to find the whereabouts of Rose, because all the hints are pointing to an answer I simply couldn’t bear! It seems possible that Grace never returned to England, but when Rose’s mother tells Ben she definitely saw Grace after the war he starts his search afresh. Could she have disappeared on this side of the world? I was constantly holding out a little bit of hope for the ending I wanted, so I had to keep reading – up till 2am again! There are so many layers to this story and often with dual timelines there’s a weaker section, but every timeline is intriguing, evocative and emotional. Tasmania sounds wild, dangerous, magical and atmospheric all at once. I loved the reference to the creature that lurks around the pool beyond the moon gate, could it be a shy Tasmanian devil? There’s such a massive difference between Tasmania and London, which feels more domestic than wild with very curated spaces like the old fashioned gentleman’s club and the minimalist narrow boat where Libby meets Sam. Then there’s Ireland, waiting like a promised land with all the answers and the beauty that Daniel shares with Grace right back at the beginning. We are left with an incredible tapestry of places and people full of colour, emotion and a yearning for home whether home is a place or a person.

Meet the Author

I have always loved dual-timeline novels, where stories from the past weave with those of the present day. I want to write books that transport you to another time and place, where secrets lie just beneath the surface if only the characters know where to look.

My new novel, The Moon Gate, is set across three locations I ADORE: Tasmania (my home state), London (where I rented a houseboat for many years) and County Kerry, Ireland (where I now live with my family). Each of these places is special to me and I hope you’ll feel you’re entering the temperate rainforest with Grace, opening the door to Towerhurst with Willow, walking through London’s layered history with Libby and stepping out to the heather-clad hills of County Kerry with … well, with several characters, the names of who I won’t reveal here!

The inspiration for my first novel, The Midnight House, appeared in the rafters of our Irish home, a two-hundred-year-old stone building perched on the edge of the Atlantic. Hidden there was a message, scratched into wood: ‘When this comes down, pray for me. Tim O’Shea 1911’. As I held that piece of timber in my hands, dust clinging to my paint-stained clothes, I was humbled that a person’s fingerprint could, in a thousand ways, transcend time, and I wanted nothing more than to capture that feeling of discovery on the page.

I’m also a geologist who loves to explore the world’s remote places. Luckily for me, writing novels provides a similar sense of wonder and discovery; but the warm office, fresh food and a shower in the evening make the conditions rather more comfortable! It’s also the perfect excuse to regularly curl up by a fire with a great book (often by the wonderful authors who write in my genre). I treasure my reading time, and I know you do too, so thank you for taking a chance on my books.

Come over to Instagram and Twitter (@amandageard) where I share plenty of photos of the wild settings in The Midnight House. You can also find me on Facebook (@amandageardauthor).

I love hearing from readers, so please get in touch!

From Amanda’s Amazon author page.

Posted in Squad Pod

Mrs Porter Calling by A.J. Pearce.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was new to A.J. Pearce’s world and her character Emmy Lake, so before reading Mrs Porter Calling, I decided to read the previous two novels; Dear Mrs Bird and Yours Cheerfully. Set in WW2, the books follow Emmy as she moves to London to start a career in journalism and soon finds herself in the middle of the Blitz, working for the fire brigade by night and living in her friend Bunty’s grandmother’s house. In Dear Mrs Bird, Emmy has taken up a job offer from Woman’s Friend magazine, working on the problem page. The formidable Mrs Bird is the agony aunt and Emmy must sort through the letters and weed out those that are deemed unsuitable – no funny business at all, not even a hint! Through the novel she moves from being engaged to single status, takes big risks in her job and works hard for the fire service at night dealing with the aftermath of the German bombing. I fell in love with this brave young woman who wants to move with the times and use her writing to help an extraordinary generation of women cope with the difficult situations they find themselves in. Over this and the next book, Yours Cheerfully, Emmy faces some serious challenges: being in love with someone far away and in danger; dealing with terrible loss; helping other young women who have been widowed or find themselves without a home. Yet this isn’t a tale of misery and hardship, there’s an almost relentless positivity to Emmy Lake that I absolutely loved. She’s perky, but not brittle. Her optimism and resilience seem to come completely naturally.

Yet in this latest book, Mrs Porter Calling, she will be facing some of her biggest challenges yet. Emmy has settled into being the lead on the magazine’s problem page and is continuing her series of articles on women who have taken on war work. Everything changes when the owner gifts Women’s Friend to his niece Mrs Porter in lieu of her inheritance. At first the team are optimistic about having a woman at the helm, but it soon becomes clear that Mrs Porter doesn’t want the magazine because of what it is. She wants to turn the magazine into her own scrapbook with society weddings and events alongside beauty and fashion articles that are a distraction from the war. Telling women what they should be rather than being a support. For a team who are used to teaching their readers to reuse and repurpose, this jump to expensive fashions and aspirational articles feels all wrong and Emmy thinks Mrs Porter has missed the whole point of the magazine. Women’s Friend is not aspirational, they don’t want to be dangling fripperies in front of their readers who can’t afford them. Emmy knows that if they change this much they will lose their readership. Even worse, Mrs Porter doesn’t want any more ‘dreary’ war work articles either. It seems that the realities of war haven’t reached her, the nightly bombs Emmy deals with must be muffled by all that jewellery and designer clothing. The team make a pact, to try and keep their beloved magazine as normal as possible while also introducing Mrs Porter’s ideas. In the meantime they will try everything to dishearten their new owner. Hopefully, if things become boring or difficult, she might drop her new hobby and move on. They just have to hope they have enough of a readership left when she does.

Away from the magazine, Bunty is still grieving for her fiancé and continuing her rehabilitation following the bomb blast they were caught in. However, there are signs that she is stating a tentative friendship with another fireman and Emmy has her fingers crossed that things may develop. Emmy and her husband Charles only had a two night honeymoon before he had to return to his posting, now he is moving into North Africa and Emmy depends on his letters. Both girls are forging new friendships with the women who work in a munitions factory and finding out it isn’t always easy to do your bit. I loved this aspect of the novel, because it taught me a lot about what WW2 was really like for women. Despite advocating that all women should find war work, to support their men overseas or help out on the home front, there were difficulties with this that the government seem to have overlooked. The author shows this through the factory women who have issues with childcare and finances. I was shocked to learn that when a Navy husband went missing his salary stopped immediately, but because he was missing and not dead, his wife couldn’t receive a widow’s pension. This loophole left women with no income and potentially homeless. If the factory women had children and worked awkward hours, they often couldn’t get childcare. Some women sneak their children into the factory and hide them so they can still work their shift and get paid, but if found they would be dismissed immediately. Emmy becomes involved in campaigning for factories to apply for the government grants available to set up a nursery for worker’s children. These are the women she wants to celebrate and help in her own time, but also in the magazine. These factory women don’t care about the lavish wedding of some honourable or other, they care about doing their bit, being able to keep a roof over their head and their man coming home.

Emmy has become a team player. Long gone are the early days of her career where she ran away with an idea without thinking of what it meant for those around her. What struck me so strongly was this sense of camaraderie and the sharing of everything – not just the hard stuff that the fire service go through together, but the food, celebrations, home, shelter and even families. I could see that Emmy was in exactly the right place to help when an unexpected loss devastates the factory women and Emmy herself. This tragedy could bring her the biggest challenge she’ll ever have, but I had no doubt she would rise to the occasion. I asked my partner whether he thought our current generation would pull together as well as this generation did and we weren’t sure, although we hoped so. Watching Emmy, exhausted from a day working, change into her uniform and put in a night shift on the fire service switchboard, then go home and reassure children whose house has been bombed out, made me wonder if I could do the same. The perky, excitable girl has become a woman, a woman with a core of steel. If you love historical fiction or just want an uplifting read about women dealing with daily adversity then this is the perfect book for you. I loved all three novels and have happily added them to my forever bookshelves.

Weekend breakfast and a great book. Bliss!

Meet The Author

Pearce

AJ Pearce is the author of the Sunday Times Top 10 bestseller DEAR MRS BIRD, which was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick and shortlisted for Debut of the Year at the 2019 British Book Awards. It has been translated into fifteen languages and optioned for development for TV.Born in Hampshire, her favourite subjects at school were English and History, which now (finally!) seems to be making some sense. Her novel, Yours Cheerfully is the sequel to Dear Mrs Bird and is now available in paperback. AJ has just released the third novel in the Emmy Lake Chronicles series, Mrs Porter Calling. Follow AJ on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook: @ajpearcewrites