Sarah Hilary has this amazing ability to leave the reader floundering between law, morality and ethics. I never quite know who I’m rooting for. Who’s in the right or the wrong? I come to different answers depending on the lens I’m viewing it through – someone can be within the law whilst being morally questionable. I often find myself stopping to wonder if I even like any of the characters. This is one of those stories that expose the dark underbelly of what looks like the dream neighbourhood. The houses at Black Thorn are like those you see in the Omaze giveaway adverts. The opening scenes of a neighbourly barbecue show us two very different narratives: the jolly and friendly neighbours enjoying each other’s hospitality; the neighbour who breaks into the party with a grudge. Is Luke Dearborn a nutter and a conspiracy theorist? Is there something rotten at the heart of this dream housing development?
The timeline slips back and forth from pre to post-abandonment. Both timelines race towards Day 0, the day of ‘abandonment’ and possibly the truth about what has been happening, both to the houses and the people living there. I was interested in the word ‘abandonment’ because it feels as if it’s in the wrong context. It describes the development as something with feelings rather than bricks and mortar. Also ‘abandonment’ suggests an element of choice, when actually the residents were forced to leave by the authorities. It was an evacuation more than abandonment, a word that gives the sense of an unloved child rather than an inanimate house. Adrian is affected the most because not only did he sell the development, he bought one for his family. This leaves him on site for all the problems to come to his door, creating enormous stress for all of them. It’s almost as if Adrian fell for his own sales patter. He’s sold the units as state of the art living with coastal views through the huge glass sections at the back of the house. It seems a bleak setting to me, the last places before you drop off the edge of the world! They’re also described as luxury, but it feels like a Scandi design, more minimalist. To me luxury means softness, comfort, colour and warmth. These rooms seem to be more about impressing others than thinking what is comfortable for long term residents. Maybe they’d be better holiday homes. Even their gimmick of fake diamonds scattered throughout seems wrong, they’re hard and cold and not something you’d want to tread on in bare feet. Trevor, his business partner, manages to escape this by going off site or bedding down in one of the unsold units where he can’t be seen. In our flashbacks we know that six people die, but what of? Is there poison in the heating systems or is it carbon monoxide poisoning? Adrian clearly feels responsible, falling into a deep depression. Trevor is still hanging around, being cocky and unwilling to admit that corners were cut or mistakes made. Through Agnes we slowly untangle a whole web of deceit and lies, but Trevor is one of those people where nothing sticks. It’s Adrian who might end up taking the blame.
The character I seemed to view things through was Agnes, because I think she represented the reader – an outsider, lost, in the dark and vulnerable. She’s part of a family – her father Adrian was the salesman for this development – but has lived in London for a number of years. She’s had some distance from the project and can look at it with fresh eyes. Yet for a girl whose in her twenties, Agnes seems very naïve and a bit lost. We know that Agnes has split with her girlfriend so may be feeling vulnerable, but she is suspicious of her family’s new home at once. It’s almost as if her nervous system is affected by them. There’s something in the walls, there are trenches in the gardens and her pet rabbit dies. In the aftermath, her family are now living in a caravan park near her friend Errol and his grandmother Bette who was the cleaner at Black Thorn. Her friendship with Errol is warm and open and she’s welcomed into their caravan in a way that feels natural compared to the fractured and strained relationships elsewhere. Her father is almost catatonic and her mother is working round the clock trying to keep her family safe. Agnes is desperately trying to keep younger brother Christie safe, but he is lured back to the development. He walks along the coast road every day and breaks into a house, slowly going through what’s left and choosing his favourite items to take back to the caravan. Agnes feels she must protect him, particularly from Trevor who seems to exert a malign influence over Christie. Agnes knows first hand exactly how far Trevor will go to get what he wants.
As always the author’s writing is incredible. She keeps the reader on edge, never knowing who is lying or who’s in the wrong. She gives us ambiguous characters like Erica who masqueraded as a butcher’s assistant to deliver meat for the BBQ, keen to stay to show them how best to cook it and get to know the residents. Yet she’s not who she says she is and her deceit will place her in danger. Even the person we spend most time with, Agnes, is hard to connect with. As in real life, everyone has their faults, but it isn’t just that. I struggled because no one seemed to be showing human feelings or genuineness. As a result there were a couple of points in the book where I didn’t feel enough for the characters to be completely invested in the story so it stalled a little for me. However, I did want to know what exactly had happened in the houses and it was that need to know the truth that kept me reading. I had to wait till the very end for some characters to show how they really felt; until now feeling totally numb and shocked, or trying to hold it together and be the strong one for everyone else. This was an addictive read and did keep me guessing till the final page.
Published by Macmillan 13th July 2023
Meet the Author
Sarah Hilary’s new novel BLACK THORN will be published in summer 2023 by Pan Macmillan. Her first standalone FRAGILE came out in 2021. Mick Herron called it ‘a dark river of a book’ while Erin Kelly said, ‘Timeless, tense and tender, Fragile will worm its way deep into your heart.’
Sarah’s debut SOMEONE ELSE’S SKIN won Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year 2015. It was a World Book Night selection and Richard & Judy Book Club pick. The latest in her D.I. Marnie Rome series NEVER BE BROKEN was published by Headline in 2019.
This is my favourite of Anita Frank’s novels so far. She’s chosen a fascinating period of history to set this gothic mystery and it adds something a little different to the ‘new servant in a creepy old house’ story. This is time when the country is traumatised, mired in grief and adjusting to the changes wrought by World War One. A time when loss looms large and people are searching for answers. Sarah is the new employee arriving at Darkacre, the family seat of the Stilwells. Like many aristocratic families, WW1 has wreaked havoc on the men in this family. When their father died, the eldest son Hugo became the heir of Darkacre. Yet his time as heir was very short, as he was killed on his return to the front leaving middle brother Maurice as heir to the Stilwell estate. Maurice was not prepared to be the master of the house and with double death duties already crippling the estate, he has learn fast. Unfortunately Maurice has returned from war a changed man, plagued by nightmares, flashbacks and extreme responses to loud noises, he has PTSD or what was then referred to as shell shock. With youngest brother Leonard severely disabled by his war injuries and struggling to come to terms with the loss of his limbs, the family are depleted and barely coping. However, as Leonard so cryptically tells us, perhaps it is no more than they deserve? Sarah’s arrival is the catalyst for this story and it isn’t just the relationship between family members that points to there being issues at Darkacre, soon a series of unexplained happenings start to gnaw away at the nerves of even the most stoic inhabitants.
Darkacre is the perfect gothic setting for the story and to some extent she represents the changes wrought on the aristocracy during this time period. Where before the war the family would have had several house servants, as well as gardeners, land agents, farm managers and so on, there is now just the brothers, Maurice’s wife Ida and Victor, a lifelong friend of Maurice. Due to the way army units were organised, Hugo Stilwell would have found himself the officer to a group of men he knew well, comprised of his brothers, tenants, young men and boys from the village. The losses were astronomical and not a single family in the parish missed out on their share of grief. This also left Maurice facing families of the young men he led to their deaths on a regular basis, including the upcoming ceremonies at the new war memorial. Servants were now in short supply and the tradition of going ‘into service’ had started to decline. We can see how social groupings have become blurred in the way Ida invites Sarah to eat with the family, instead of in the kitchen alone. They converse as equals, often as sitting together after dinner in the parlour. We can see how Ida has been craving female friendship and where it would be unsuitable to be passing confidences on to village women, Ida does start to confide in Sarah. Up till now it has very much been Victor’s role to inject a little levity into the proceedings and to amuse Ida. He confides to Sarah that both he and Maurice fell in love with her on sight, but she was more interested in Maurice and possibly the house and land that have her a title she craved.
On Sarah’s part there are few confidences shared and I found her rather mysterious and enigmatic. I was at first sure this was only a residue of the deference she had always shown employers in the past, but perhaps there is more to it than that. In a therapy situation, silence tends to draw the client forward and share confidences. In fact silence has often been my most powerful skill in terms of growth for the client and Sarah seemed to be using it for good effect. Is she simply trying to forge good relationships with her employers or is there something more sinister going on? The growing closeness between her and Leonard definitely feels genuine and I wondered what it was about their relationship that made Sarah relate to him differently. Was it that she saw him differently due to his disability, or is it a natural affinity? He seems to have different world views to the rest of the group, more compassionate and accepting of human imperfections. This is ironic given the family skeletons hiding out in closets and cupboards all over Darkacre. What was behind the sense of collaboration I felt between Ida and Victor? Why was Maurice so disturbed, not just by flashbacks and dreams, but possibly by his own conscience? Why is Ida unwelcome at the village’s ceremony for the new war memorial and does it have something to do with the disturbing parcel of an animal’s heart covered feathers that she receives?
Since I have a disability it would be remiss of me not to mention the veterans of WW1 left disabled by this horrifying war. Over one million men were killed in combat, but a further two million were left with some form of disability, 40,000 of which were amputees like Leonard Stilwell. He sits alongside such contemporary literary characters as Clifford Chatterley with a lot of the same emotional issues coping with the change of self-identity. Sarah represents a new stage in Leonard’s recovery, one he might resent, but yet they do become friends. On her first morning, Sarah arrives at Leonard’s room to find Victor smoking and Maurice laid across his brother’s bed rather like they’re still in barracks or the hospital. It’s a little glimpse into the institutionalisation of the men, more used to other male company in a military setting than the domestic sphere. Sarah could be seen as a barrier between Leonard and his fellow veterans, whereas before his care was kept within the sphere of the family now it is contracted out for money. Leonard could have felt as if he belonged, that his brother and Victor were still in the trenches with him, sharing the seismic shift his life has taken. His getting up routine was part of family life, whereas now it’s a job. A stranger has to perform the most intimate care for him and they are obliged to do it for money. He is now facing his disability alone. Yet he and Sarah muddle on quite well together, helped in part by Sarah’s training and professionalism, but also because they perhaps share the same anger and disdain for the futility of war.
Early on in the novel we see that Maurice is tormented by the memory of a young soldier who has half his face blown away. He can’t forget the horror of it, so it is perhaps fitting that the visiting Sergeant who arrives in the storm has a facial disfigurement. It’s as if Maurice’s worst nightmare has come knocking on the door. The inspector has only visited the day before and the sergeant seems to be following up, carrying out orders by interviewing the family. His disfigurement is covered by a copper mask, it’s smoothness belying the tangled and complex injuries underneath. For Maurice it almost seems worse that his injury is covered, because he can imagine in detail what’s actually there and imagination is worse than the reality. His mask also gives that element of disguise, it conceals his expression and leaves people wondering what he’s really thinking. There’s a definite Agatha Christie feel as a storm cuts the house off from civilisation and the family are trapped with these two outsiders. One of them a detective, trained to uncover secrets and the other has shown herself to have psychic tendencies. There are twists and turns, more than I expected in fact! I loved the atmosphere and Anita is brilliant at those little creepy happenings, that might have an innocent explanation, but start to unnerve you. The battle scenes are so well written too, perfectly capturing the chaos, the fear and a different kind of horror. This is a great read and Anita goes from strength to strength.
Published 17th August by HQ Stories.
Meet the Author
Born in Shropshire, Anita studied English and American History at the University of East Anglia. She now lives in Berkshire with her husband and three children.
This story really crept up and took hold of me. It’s a slow burn, dual timeline mystery set in small town Australia. Katherine has moved to her husband James’s hometown of Lowbridge, a town with a very clear line between ‘the haves and have-nots’. Katherine is struggling with her mood and self-medicating with drink. James is hoping that the move will help her and has made it clear that they can’t continue as they are. He encourages her to get dressed and leave the house or go for a run like she used to. It’s clear something momentous has happened and their lives have imploded, but they are each dealing with it in different ways. In fact their teenage daughter Maggie was killed in a car accident, where the designated driver had been drinking. When Katherine does leave the house she accidentally stumbles across the town’s historical society and shows an interest in the exhibition they’re putting together. It’s something she can potentially help with and it’s enough to get her motivated. However, when she comes across a thirty year old mystery, problems start to arise. The disappearance of a young girl called Tess during the summer of 1987 has remained unsolved and Katherine thinks it may be time to highlight the case and perhaps jog people’s memories. She knows she must involve Tess’s family in the decision, but she doesn’t expect opposition from anyone else. It’s James’s opposition that surprises her most. He tells her to leave the mystery alone, that it will stir up trouble and it’s would be unhealthy for her to become wrapped up in another family’s grief. Katherine is determined though and with Tess’s family on board she starts to research what happened in 1987.
From the beginning, the author really gives us the sense of what it’s like to live in a small town where everyone knows each other. Having grown up in a small market town I know it’s rare for me to run errands without seeing someone I know. I still have friends that I had when I was thirteen and when I was sixteen a friend of mine was murdered, a few days before Christmas. A death like that sends a shockwave through the whole town and I could clearly imagine the collective grief and anger that Katherine would unearth as she investigates what happened. In the summer of 1987 the town was already at odds over a women’s clinic being proposed by a local doctor. This has enraged the anti-abortion lobby leading to protests and appeals to the locals authorities to stop the development. Three teenagers from the ‘right side’ of town are reaching an age where they’re asserting their independence and finishing their leaving certificates at school. Tess and Sim are friends with the slightly younger Luisa who is from an Italian family. The girls try to keep the clinic out of their conversation because it is Sim’s mother fighting to get the clinic open and Luisa parents are Roman Catholics, utterly opposed to abortion. Because they’re from the more middle class part of town they tend to keep separate from the ‘Pitsville’ kids, the area mainly inhabited by miners and their families. The author has really captured what it’s like to be a teenage girl on the cusp of womanhood. In the girl’s conversations there are all those insecurities about how they look and what they wear, their popularity and how boys view them. All three acknowledge that one girl at school really does capture the boy’s attention.
Jac is thought of as ‘easy’ by other girls, mainly because of the attention she receives from boys but also because of her sexy clothes. A lot of the derision also comes from the fact she’s a miner’s daughter from Pitsville, but they rarely think about what her life is actually like. The author takes us into her home, with a father who works and drinks heavily, often bringing other miners back to the house to continue drinking late into the night. Unbeknownst to anyone it’s on one of these nights that something terrible happens to Jac, setting in motion a sequence of events that will change her life. As Tess disappears off the face of the earth, Jac also goes missing but no one notices. I enjoyed this angle on the story very much, because it injects a element of social injustice into the mystery. We know that when girls go missing, even now, there are all sorts of social factors that play into the way the police investigate and the media report on the story. Often girls from black british and other minority communities go missing and don’t even make the evening news. Sim and Tess take Luisa to a house party after drinking a lot of home made ‘punch’. When they lose sight of their friend they go searching and find a brawl going on in an upstairs bedroom. Luisa is on the bed and two boys are fighting, each one claiming to be the knight in shining armour who’s found Luisa being attacked. It’s such a big story that everyone at school knows by Monday morning. It’s a big story because it’s Luisa. If it was a Pitsville girl would the popular kids get to know? Would they even care?
Katherine is a complicated heroine. She’s trying to avoid grief by drinking and I had a huge amount of empathy for her. Yet in a vicious argument with husband Jamie, he tells her a few home truths that made me think about it a different way. She wants him to grieve the same way she does, but he points out that he’s never been able to. It’s not that he doesn’t want to cry and shut the world out, it’s that he’s never had the luxury of falling apart. When their daughter Maggie was killed Katherine was able to keep her wonderful memories. She can imagine their daughter’s beautiful face when she thinks of her, but only because he had to see her broken and bleeding. He identified Maggie so that Katherine could keep her memories intact. He went to the inquest, so she didn’t have to hear the horrific details. She has felt alone, but so has he. I found this really powerful and I could understand why he thought involving herself in another family’s grief was unwise. Yet that’s not the full story, because Jamie has been keeping something from Katherine. That last summer when Tess disappeared, Jamie was secretly in a relationship with her. Maybe it’s in Jamie’s interest to stop Katherine from digging up the past. Could it be that he knows more than he’s letting on? The story dragged me in different ways, as each revelation came to light. I loved that the more we found out about Tess, the more special she became. It was wonderful to see her offer support and practical help to others, even to people others might have overlooked. She’s aware of the popular crowd’s opinion, but doesn’t let it sway her. She makes her own decisions and sets aside judgement. I had to have an early night to finish the book in one go, because I didn’t want to miss anything. This is a fascinating mystery, with a powerful theme running throughout about women’s rights over their lives and their own bodies.
Thank you to the Squad Pod Collective and Ultimo Press for my copy of this book.
As we pass the half way point of the reading year, I’m reading so many great books that I’m panicking about my end of year favourites. There wasn’t a bad read at all this month, but these are my absolute favourites of the bunch. With all the wet weather there isn’t a great deal to do outdoors so it’s been a blissful month for reading. Although, I must admit to a little bit of FOMO as people pop off to various festivals that are currently prohibitive due to cost and the fact I’m still recovering from my back procedure. Currently I can manage to be up and about for about 15 minutes at a time, but I’m hoping that will improve soon. I hope you’ve all had a brilliantly bookish July!
I loved this rather gothic dual timeline mystery from Freya Berry, with a fascinating setting of taxidermy and exotic animals. In 1932, Heinrich Vogel employs adventurer Emily Blackwood to come to his castle in Scotland and catalogue his taxidermy animal collection. She soon realises that she’s looking for a rather different treasure and through a book called The Birdcage Library, she follows the clues of another woman to bunches of paper secreted around the castle. In these papers is the diary of Heinrich’s sister-in-law Hester Vogel, who committed suicide by throwing herself from the Brooklyn Bridge. Emily becomes immersed in Hester’s life, as she is separated from the work she enjoyed to be a society wife and becomes stuck between two Vogel brothers. This is a fascinating story with amazing set pieces involving hummingbirds and the menagerie of animals in Vogel’s collection. As she reads Emily becomes increasingly suspicious about the remaining brother and exactly what is the real treasure he seeks? Sinister, intriguing and with two intelligent heroines.
This is another mysterious house with lots of conundrums to solve and isn’t this beautiful Art Deco cover incredible too? Sarah is a new employee arriving at Darkacre, the family seat of the Stilwells. Like many aristocratic families, WW1 has wreaked havoc on the men in this family. When their father died, the eldest son Hugo became the heir of Darkacre. Yet his time as heir was very short – he was killed on his return to the front leaving middle brother Maurice as heir to the Stilwell estate. Maurice was not prepared to be the master of the house and with double death duties already crippling the estate, he has learned fast. Unfortunately, he has returned from war a changed man too, plagued by nightmares, flashbacks and extreme responses to loud noises, an ailment then referred to as shell shock. With youngest brother Leonard severely disabled by his war injuries and struggling to come to terms with the loss of his limbs, the family are depleted and barely coping. However, as Leonard so cryptically tells us, perhaps it is no more than they deserve? Sarah’s arrival is the catalyst for this story and it isn’t just the relationship between family members that points to there being issues at Darkacre, soon a series of unexplained happenings start to gnaw away at the nerves of even the most stoic inhabitants. Especially the arrival of a mysterious, masked detective who claims to be trapped by rising water as a storm descends. A storm that rumbles all night, both outside and inside Darkacre. Exactly what is this family hiding? Brilliantly set in it’s time, with issues of loss and disability handled incredibly well
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. Em needs to get through her day at work, stay smart for her appraisal then find her way across London to reach the airport to catch an evening flight to Spain for her sister’s wedding. What follows is a total clusterfuck! This book is impossible to put down as the heat, her appraisal and strikes on public transport conspire to ruin her day. Not to mention the psychopath running round London and strangling women. Then she gets her period. I finished this book overnight because I just had to know what happened next. Em is determined and with the help of some new friends she is reminded that she doesn’t have to keep her landlords secrets, nor is it her fault that her much older, married boss sexually harassed her. It’s time to stop accepting the state of things and fight back. As Em becomes an unlikely heroine, this is a shocking indictment of the world we inhabit as women and a reminder not to accept it. Powerful, visceral and thought provoking.
This story is a slow burn, dual timeline mystery set in small town Australia. Katherine has moved to her husband James’s hometown of Lowbridge, a town with a very clear line between ‘the haves and have-nots’. Katherine is struggling with her mood and self-medicating with drink. James is hoping that the move will help her and has made it clear that they can’t continue as they are. He encourages her to get dressed and leave the house or go for a run like she used to. It’s clear something momentous has happened and their lives have imploded, but they are each dealing with it in different ways. When she does leave the house, Katherine accidentally stumbles across the town’s historical society and shows an interest in the exhibition they’re putting together. It’s something she can potentially help with and it’s enough to get her leaving the house. However, when she comes across a thirty year old mystery, problems start to arise. The disappearance of a young girl called Tess during the summer of 1987 has remained unsolved and Katherine thinks it may be time to highlight the case and perhaps jog people’s memories. She knows she must involve Tess’s family in the decision, but she doesn’t expect opposition from anyone else. It’s James’s opposition that surprises her most. He tells her to leave the mystery alone, that it will stir up trouble and it’s would be unhealthy for her to become wrapped up in another family’s grief. Katherine is determined though and with Tess’s family on board she starts to research what happened in 1987. Who has the most to lose from her findings? A brilliant depiction of how loss affects individuals and a whole town. Thoughtful, honest and addictive.
73 Dove Street is Julie Owen Moylan’s third novel and I thought it was a brilliant depiction of ordinary women’s lives in post-war Britain. What an incredible writer Julie Owen Moylan is, because within a few pages I was absolutely immersed in 1950’s London. This is a London I haven’t visited too often in literature, the haunted and broken post-war period rather than the glory and the drama of the the war itself. Here the war has a ghostly presence, shown by children climbing piles of rubble or an incomplete street that looks like a mouth with one of it’s teeth missing. The story is told through three women; Edie, Tommie and Phyllis. It’s Edie we follow to 73 Dove Street where she hopes to look at a room, with just a single suitcase and an envelope full of cash. Edie is almost put off by the mattress and pile of men’s clothes burning fiercely just outside the yard, but a voice summons her from an upstairs window and she recognises a place she can lie low. What is she hiding from? Tommie lives in the room below and works for an eccentric socialite who was once wealthy and popular. Outside work Tommie is lured to the seedy nightlife of Soho and the man she can’t quit. Phyllis is the landlady of 73 Dove Street, burning her husband’s belongings in the street after she discovered a terrible betrayal. She puts on a good front, an armour that she needs to cope with a past she won’t talk about. Slowly each woman’s story is unravelled and as we hear them it is so emotional, I found it deeply moving. It isn’t just the bombed houses that are missing. There are people locked in wartime, trying to carry on by avoidance, distraction or stepping around something there’s only one way through. I found this part of the book so beautifully rendered by this wonderful writer that the emotions were deeply felt.
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 that 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. This is a great addictive thriller, involving one of women’s most emotive issues. It’s an emotional, intelligent and imaginative read from a writer who’s fast becoming my go-to for speculative and dystopian literature.
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 or each other. 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. 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….
I’ve looked forward to the new Polly Crosby novel for a while. I love her writing so I gave myself a lovely sunny weekend to completely wallow in the story. 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 and all have fond memories of childhood holidays there. 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 and running, but doesn’t remember much else about that night apart from seeing a painting standing on an easel – a portrait of her. How will it feel to be back in the place that still holds some of her best childhood memories? She finds a box under the sink filled with Dodie’s letters and reads of a hidden relationship and is plunged into a completely hidden part of her grandmother’s life, a powerful love affair with repercussions that lasted decades. We’re pulled back into the past to see what happened. As I was reading about the past I kept wondering who owned Goldsborough Hall now? The answer took many unwashed dishes and unhoovered floors to unravel. This was a beautiful hidden love story and an intriguing mystery as well, told with compassion and empathy.
What a brilliant month and as we creep closer to the end of the year I’m even more worried about how I’ll choose between them for the best of the year! I’ve been away this month and wanted to catch up on some books in series that I’ve only partly read. So I have to mention Matt Wesolowski’s Six Stories series. I took the remaining four books to Shropshire with me and out of all of them, it was Changeling that made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Not helped by the fact we were out in the very area between Chester and Wrexham featured in the story. This was a brilliant mystery and supernatural thriller combined and I can honestly say Ive never been disappointed by one of his books. I also enjoyed a paperback from Elizabeth Noble with the title Other People’s Husbands where the balance of a group of couples shifts when two people decide to have an affair. This was a brilliantly balanced novel that gives us the viewpoint of the two adulterers as well as other members of they’re social group. Can friendship and marriages triumph over this mistake, or has it blown everything apart? Both will appear in the next month on Throwback Thursday with a full review. Finally I must mention this lovely novel which was a Squad Pod Collective choice for July that I’m a little late starting. Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments by Hema Sukumar was a very enjoyable holiday read about the residents of a an old set of apartments in Chennai, South India. This is a relaxing read, full of incredible detail with each resident facing a personal dilemma as well as the possible compulsory purchase of their homes. Review to come in the next few days. See you next time and here’s a peek at next month’s TBR!
Dear Reader, the man I love is trying to kill me ….
In 1932 Emily Blackwood, an adventurer and plant collector, is employed by Heinrich Vogel to solve a puzzle. A treasure is hidden in his remote Scottish castle and he has employed her to find it. Her excavations take us back several years to New York and a young woman called Hester caught between two brothers and the family business of supplying rare animals to society homes and show business. As Emily follows the clues she discovers torn out clumps of pages from their hiding places around the castle. These tell Hester’s story in her own words and Emily starts to piece together this part of the Vogel’s family history. However, the discovery means she also starts to question her host, the isolated place she’s staying and whether or not she is safe within it’s walls. As Emily solves the clues and we race towards her final conclusions I found myself anxious and thoroughly addicted to Freya Berry’s intriguing and puzzling mystery.
I also found myself rather spellbound by the a book because it features one of my more macabre favourite things – I have to admit that vintage taxidermy has a strange fascination for me and the quirkier it is the better. Victorian tableaux with their anthropomorphised animals really do make my heart flutter. Rationally, I know it’s horrible and undignified for these beautiful creatures but I can’t resist a squirrel tea party. This book is set at a time when killing these beautiful living creatures and posing them for the collections of rich men is huge business. The Scottish castle has it’s owncollection, but we are also taken back a few years to Heinrich Vogel’s youth when he and his brother were the source of all these wondrous creatures. In one example, sourcing a vast collection of hummingbirds to be the talking point of an exotically themed gathering for the great and good of New York Society.
Emily rather reminded me of another incredible heroine, botanist Alma Whittaker in Elizabeth Gilbert’s wonderful novel The Signature of all Things. Like Alma she is intelligent, curious and forges her own path in the world of scientific discovery. I loved that Emily wasn’t like other women in society, usually depicted in fiction as diverted by dances and adorning themselves for the marriage market. She is an academic and sets foot in places across the world that many men haven’t yet reached, never mind the supposed fairer sex. That said, her biggest adventure and challenge is trying to be acknowledged for her expertise within an academic system that’s firmly a patriarchy. It is a lack of funds that put Emily in Vogel’s orbit, when he hears of her employment cataloguing the Rothschild’s butterfly collection. He feels that only the intelligent and ingenious Miss Blackwood will do as he wishes to catalogue his own incredible collection of taxidermy creatures. It doesn’t take long for Emily to discover there’s a more intriguing task though. Heinrich Vogel’s sister-in-law Hester famously threw herself to her death from the Brooklyn Bridge. From an old book entitled The Birdcage Library, Emily deciphers clues that lead her to the remains of Hester’s diary and her words pull Emily into a past filled with clues, explaining all that happened to the Vogel brothers and Hester’s relationship with them.
The highest form of love is indistinguishable from liberty.
Freya Berry uses her historical knowledge perfectly. It grounds the story within it’s time, using real people and places to anchor Hester’s account until it feels like part of history rather than fiction. The world she describes is so rich, alive with sound and colour, creating an all round sensory experience for the reader. I felt like I knew this world inside out. As many of you know, the birdcage is a potent symbol for me, one that I have tattooed on my body as a reminder to never let anyone put me inside one again. Here Freya Berry uses it as a metaphor for the way high society and wealth keep women from living the fullest lives they could. A cage is a cage, even if it’s a gilded one. The women in New York society may have money enough to adorn themselves with the feathers of birds of paradise, but they would never have the freedom that Emily has had to travel abroad and see these birds living in their native habitat – something infinitely more valuable than wearing them as a hat. Despite having a central role in the Vogel’s business operations, Hester is soon relegated to the parlour when her brother-in-low returns to New York. The business is going in a different direction, as her husband pursues the kind of fame and fortune earned by Barnum. Her creativity, business acumen and financial know how are sidelined and she finds herself bored and dissatisfied. Her distraction from the boredom and bewilderment of being relegated to the parlour, is a destructive one.
As Emily gets closer and closer to the final parts of Hester’s diary, she realises that the repercussions of what happened in New York are still playing out, but now she is in the middle. I was actually starting to be scared for her safety. The arrival of Vogel’s nephew Yves made me wonder if Emily could find an ally in this isolated castle? Or is she doomed to live out Hester’s life, caught between two Vogel men? The novel is the perfect combination of historical novel and mystery, with just the right edge of gothic darkness. There are echoes of bothJane Eyre and Rebecca here, two of my all time favourites. Freya Berry has created two interesting and intelligent heroines in Hester and Emily, and I was enthralled by their stories till the final page. I think you will be too.
I am no bird; and no net ensnares me
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Meet the Author
Freya Berry always loved stories, but it took several years as a journalist to realise she loves the kind of truth that lies in fiction, not reality. (Or, to put it another way, making stuff up is more fun.)
Her second novel, The Birdcage Library, is out now, a gothic mystery and literary treasure hunt packed with twists. A 1930s adventuress discovers an old book containing clues about the disappearance of a woman who vanished 50 years before. Set between a Scottish castle in the 1930s and an exotic animal emporium in Gilded Age New York, it’s a gothic tale of secrets, obsession and murder. Oh, and taxidermy.
Her first novel The Dictator’s Wife, a high-stakes exploration of power, glamour and complicity, was published in 2022. It was shortlisted for the Authors’ Club First Novel Award, a pick for the BBC’s flagship book show Between The Covers, and The New European’s novel of the year.
Freya lives in London and graduated with a double first in English from Cambridge. She spends more time reading smutty fantasy novels than she likes to admit.
What an incredible writer Julie Owen Moylan is, because within a few pages of starting her new novel I was absolutely immersed in 1950’s London. This is a London I haven’t visited too often in literature, the haunted and broken post-WW2 period rather than the supposed glory or the drama of the the war itself. Here the war has a ghostly presence, shown by children climbing piles of rubble or an incomplete street that looks like a mouth with one of it’s teeth missing. The story is told through three women; Edie, Tommie and Phyllis. It’s Edie we follow to 73 Dove Street where she hopes to look at a room, with just a single suitcase and an envelope full of cash. Edie is almost put off by the mattress and pile of men’s clothes burning fiercely just outside the yard, but a voice summons her from an upstairs window and she recognises a place she can lie low. What is she hiding from? Tommie lives in the room below and works for an eccentric socialite who was once wealthy and popular. Outside work Tommie is lured to the seedy nightlife of Soho and the man she can’t quit. Phyllis is the landlady of 73 Dove Street, burning her husband’s belongings in the street after she discovered a terrible betrayal. She puts on a good front, an armour that she needs to cope with a past she won’t talk about.
This author is absolutely brilliant at creating a feeling and time period, from the dark and depressing post-war London to the interiors of both No 73 and the more upmarket house where Tommie works.
“It was one of those London streets that had become a canvas of tatty boarding houses: windows filled with crooked pieces of cardboard saying ‘Room to Let’. The houses all looked the same: bay-fronted with scruffy front gardens filled with dustbins, and children loitering on doorsteps with their runny noses and scraped knees.“
She makes a beautiful observation about these streets, that where once there were hints of colour, London is now bombed back to dreary black and white. People are trying to drag their lives out of wartime monochrome, but fail every time. There are houses with the front ripped off and the contents still inside, looking like a grotesque full-size doll’s house. Through Tommie’s childhood experiences we can see what it was really like to be in one of those houses as she remembers a direct hit on her family home and being sat in the suffocating dark rubble until a hand breaks through to save her. These memories are so powerful and evocative, they really bring the reality of the Blitz to life. It’s clear that one of the reasons why London is so bleak is that it’s people are traumatised and numb. As well as the lack of money, rationing and their surroundings, these people haven’t even begun to recover. They’re vulnerable and in the case of our main characters, they’re trying to battle on alone.
I was immediately on board with Edie and loved the way the author built up her relationship with Frank. It was one of those situations where I could clearly see what was going to happen and I was mentally screaming at Edie to walk away. This is a man who knows how to choose the right woman, the one who will fall for his charms and become hooked on the way he operates. He likes to keep a woman on edge, waiting for his affection and easily moulded to what he wants by withholding that affection. Sadly it’s a pattern that’s only noticeable when you’ve been through it and Edie is a quiet, inexperienced girl who’s bowled over by his subtle manipulations. She’s so unformed and brought out such a protective mode in me. In a typical pattern he follows any glimpse of anger or violence with apologies and huge gestures.
“Frank’s pale blue eyes never left Edie’s face. Pleading with her without saying a word, desperate to make everything right between them. ‘Will you marry me, Edie? Say you will . . .’ The words tumbled out before Edie could stop and think about them. ‘Yes, of course I will.’ Her arms wrapped around his neck; her good wrist covering the bruises on the other one. His mouth felt tender and warm on hers and for that moment she couldn’t hear the daft comments or applause from the pub, it was just her and Frank”.
The abuse Edie suffers is a hard read, but such an authentic representation of domestic violence in all it’s forms. I am from a working class family, with some very strong women on both sides especially in those aunties old enough to get married during the war. They often comment on how the generations beneath theirs are too quick to split up or divorce and that marriages in their generation tended to stay together. Yet, when I hear the reality of some of their marriages – the drinking, gambling, physical and sexual violence, financial abuse and infidelity – I wonder what’s the point of a long marriage that has only left them grieving and traumatised? The author shows how economic and psychological difficulties prevented women from leaving terrible relationships. I was interested to read the author’s comments about her own family and how the strong women in it had given her inspiration for the book.
I haven’t spoken about Phyllis much, although towards the end of the book it was her experience that had tears pouring my down my face. At the beginning we see through Edie’s eyes the burning pile of men’s clothes outside No 73 and we could guess at what had happened in her marriage. She’s full of anger at her husband, but as the story develops we get the feeling there is something more underlying her feeling of being wronged. We get the picture of a marriage rather like the bombed out houses – a facade remains but it’s been empty for some time. When we hear the full story it is so emotional, I found it deeply moving and could identify with this woman whose abrupt manner is simply the amount of protection she needs to get through each day. It isn’t just the bombed houses that are missing. There are people locked in wartime, trying to carry on by avoidance, distraction or stepping around something there’s only one way through. I found this part of the book so beautifully rendered and deeply felt. Julie has dedicated this book to her grandmother and the strong, working class women in her family. She has really done them proud with this wonderful historical novel.
Published by Michael Joseph 20th July 2023
Meet the Author
Julie Owen Moylan was born in Cardiff and has worked in a variety of jobs, from trainee hairdresser and chip shop attendant at sixteen to business management consultant and college lecturer in her thirties.
She then returned to education to complete her Master’s degree in Film before going on to complete a further Master’s degree in Creative Writing. Julie is an alumna of the Faber Academy’s Writing a Novel course. She lives in Cardiff with her husband and two cats.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Lotus Readers 