May has been a lovely reading month because I have been able to read a few of my favourite authors – Essie Fox, Kate Sawyer and Lucy Atkins – but I’ve also been surprised by an author I hadn’t read before and an author that’s well known, but hasn’t been a favourite of mine until her last two novels. I’ve been able to read out in the garden for the first time this year. This is something I love because I really enjoy my garden in May/June. I can get settled on my day bed, with the cats and the dog usually squishing into my space, and enjoy being outside. Hopefully that can continue into next month when I have so much Squad Pod Collective stuff to catch up on! Here were my best reads of the month.
This amazing confection of historical and gothic literature from Essie Fox was right up my street! Using the backdrop of country fairgrounds, freak shows, the West End theatre scene and museums of curiosities, the author has created a reading experience with all the life and colour of a Baz Lurhmann film. We follow twins Keziah and Matilda Lovell, sold to the mysterious Captain at the county fair by their father, an unscrupulous snake oil salesman. Keziah and Tilly are identical except that Tilly hasn’t grown since she was five years old, she also has the voice of an Angel. There’s also Theo Miller, who catches sight of the twins at the fair then loses sight of them until they turn up in London. Theo is the grandson of Lord Seabrook, a rich man with a collection of human curiosities. Abandoned by his family, Theo turns up at a Museum of Anatomy, selling all manner of strange things from crystal balls to bats wings. When he sees Tilly perform in a West End pantomime he finds himself intrigued by the girls, but they have other admirers far richer and more dangerous than Theo. I loved this incredible story and how Essie Fox explores what it means to be other in 19th Century London. Fantastical, exciting and thrillingly different.
In a brilliant scene at a book event, author Hannah boxes herself into a corner. Used to writing literary fiction, she is disgusted to see the crowds gathering for a talk with popular crime writer Jorn Jensen. Hannah throws a book at his head and tells him she could write a crime novel in thirty days. Her friend and publisher knows a great marketing ploy when he sees one and dispatches Hannah to a remote town in Iceland. There she will stay with a woman called Ella who rents out a room in her house to writers. Unfortunately within days of arriving, Ella’s nephew is found murdered and Hannah finds herself in the middle of a real-life murder plot. If she can find out who the murderer is, maybe she has a good chance of writing a novel about it? However, investigating and having to listen to Jorn Jensen here and there, shows her that crime fiction is not the easy task she thought it was. In her debut novel Jenny Lund Madsen manages to give us a great murder plot, flashes of humour and a heroine who is both brave and flawed. This is darkly funny, dangerous and a clever satire on the bookish world.
No one was more surprised than me when I found myself placing Cecilia Aherne’s Freckles into my favourite books of the year in 2021. Now here’s another novel from her that is emotionally intelligent, moving and shows a different way of looking at the world. Alice’s mum doesn’t cope very well after their father leaves and is often to be found still lying in bed when they return from school in the afternoon. There are also times when they get home to find her up and about, on one occasion frantically cooking pancakes in every pan they have while costing out the launch of a travelling pancake van business. They never know which mum they’re going to get. So when Alice returns home to find her mum unconscious with a blue haze hanging over the bed she decides to call the emergency services. She hid in her bedroom only to hear the screams of anger when her mum is finally woken by the paramedics. No one else can see the blue colour still hanging around her mum. From then on Alice can read other people’s emotions by their colours, from the happy yellows, to the relaxed greens and the terrifying reds and blacks. How will she negotiate the world with this strange way of seeing life? I loved this tale of growing up a little bit different and how the formative difficulties in Alice’s life affect her moving forwards. This is a beautiful look at one woman’s life as she negotiates her difficult family, work, love and motherhood.
I’ve been fascinated with the Tudors for most of my life, influenced I think by the Holbein portrait of Henry VIII that sits in the library at Chatsworth House. He looks every ounce a King, just as his daughter Elizabeth I exemplifies the role of Queen in the Armada portrait. In later years I read more about the women surrounding this complicated King, from his six wives, to his mistresses, mother and grandmother. Henry, like his contemporary namesake, was the ‘spare’. Never intended to be King he remained with his sisters and mother in London, while the heir Prince Arthur got his own court at Ludlow and a beautiful wife in Katherine of Aragon. After writing a novel for each of Henry’s wives I was interested to see how Alison Weir would portray the man himself and I enjoyed the way she presented this complex and controversial man. This is the same story we all know but told by Henry, as he sees it. What I enjoyed most was the way Henry’s reign was put into context, the bloody years of the cousin’s wars showing what happens when a crown is disputed. His father Henry VII was constantly paranoid about his place on the throne, terrified that one of Edward IV’s sons might appear and claim it after their disappearance from the Tower of London. Finally, his brother’s death showed that not just heirs but spares were necessary in order to secure the crown. Weir is unparalleled as a historian and here she brings all of that knowledge to life. I felt as if I was there at court thanks to her wealth of description and it certainly left me feeling more sympathetic for Henry than I have previously.
I loved Kate Sawyer’s first novel The Stranding, so I was very excited to receive this novel about one day in the life of a family, gathered for a celebration. Mary, the mother of the family, is getting married and they are celebrating with lunch in the garden. As they all get the garden ready for the party we learn about the family from each character’s point of view, starting with Mary but extending to her ex-husband Richard and his mother Irene, plus the three daughters and their partners. Everyone has a different part of the tale to tell and they all see it differently. Blending together each character’s voice and perspective, Kate Sawyer builds a rounded view of this family. We see every side, the memories that are painful and those that bring joy, as these family members try to give Mary the day she’s asked for – the family altogether with no arguments and everyone keeping the peace. That’s hard when things are so complicated, especially between the sisters Phoebe, Rosie and Emma. I felt for each of them as they rubbed up against each other, remembering terrible things said and resentments long held. This is an honest account of a modern family, warts and all. It’s so moving and I was exasperated with a character one minute, then understood them when I heard their side of the story. Emotional and honest, with moments of joy.
I’m a big fan of Lucy Atkins so I was eager to have her new novel straight away, she’s one of those writers I just pre-order without question. I was lucky to get an early copy on NetGalley this time. This is her fifth novel and centres around two older women who live together in a windmill with several dachshunds named after brands of gin. Astrid was a successful actress, but is perhaps more well-known for her stormy marriage to the actor Magnus Fellowes. There’s also notorious ‘the incident’ at a remote hunting lodge where a young movie star was the victim of an assault. While Magnus went on to global fame, Astrid retired to her crumbling windmill. She still lives there with friend Mrs Baker, a woman who came to clean twenty years ago and never left. Now Magnus is writing his memoirs and his son, Dessie, has hired a ghost writer. Nina visits the windmill because she wants to hear Astrid’s side of the story, mainly because she’s finding herself censored by Dessie, who wants to control his father’s narrative. She finds the two women in the aftermath of the ‘incident’ often referred to but not explained at first. She passes on that Magnus might like to see a Astrid for one last time. The women in this are such fantastic characters, each in their own way hiding from something but both have learned that life has seasons and they are in control of this one. I loved the friendship they both build with Nina who is open to a friendship with two older women, perhaps realising how much wisdom and life experience they both have. There’s also a great tension that builds around the recent ‘incident’ and the one from years before, as Astrid leaves for Scotland feeling strangely unmoored but determined that this time Magnus will not be in charge. This is a thriller, but with humour, warmth and dachshunds.
Next month’s reading looks something like this:
