Category: Netgalley

Posted in Netgalley

The Butterfly House by Katrine Engberg

Posted on by thelotusreaders

In the coronary care unit at one of Copenhagen’s leading medical centres, a nurse fills a syringe with an overdose of heart medication and stealthily enters the room of an older male patient.

Six days earlier, a paperboy on his route in the centre of the city stumbles upon a macabre find: the body of a dead woman, lying in a fountain, her arms marked with small incisions. Cause of death? Exsanguination – the draining of all the blood in her body. Clearly, this is no ordinary murder.

Jeppe Kørner, recovering from a painful divorce and in the throes of a new relationship, takes on the investigation. His partner, Anette Werner, now on leave after an unexpected pregnancy, is restless at home. While Jeppe leads the official search, Anette can’t stop herself from doing a little detective work as well. But operating on her own exposes her to dangers she can’t even begin to realise.

As the investigation ventures into dark and dangerous corners, it uncovers an ambition and greed festering beneath the surface of caregiving institutions, all leading back to the mysterious Butterfly House . . .

I hadn’t come across the first novel in this series, but was intrigued by this pair of detectives. They seemed to bring something different to the role and life of a detective. The murders in the novel are particularly disturbing given that they take place within a hospital – usually a place of healing. An elderly patient in the coronary unit is killed by a syringe drawn up with an overdose of his heart medication. Six days earlier, a boy on his paper round found a dead woman in a fountain in the town centre. She died due to exsanguination, blood letting from thousands of tiny cuts, and her final moments must have been excruciating. Are the two cases linked and will Detectives Korner and Werner be able to find the killer?

I loved that Werner was home on maternity leave, bored and itching to join in on the investigation. I think, very realistically, she’s struggling with feeling powerless and dealing with the fact her pregnancy was unplanned. She didn’t expect it and can’t stop herself doing some detective work from home. However the problem with snooping alone is that she’s exposed to dangers she wouldn’t normally have to consider. Will she put herself in in harms way? Her partner, Korner, is coping with the aftermath of a painful divorce and now a new relationship. Will his mind be on the job? Together, this investigation will lead them into a dark corner of public institutions – their equivalent in this country would be social services and the NHS. Corruption and exploitation within these institutions seems likely as they continue their investigations.

The characterisation is brilliant. I really connected with Werner. Her husband has adapted well to unexpected fatherhood and can’t really relate to her struggle. Werner is 44 and feels the body she’s been connected to all her life, doesn’t belong to her anymore. The baby cries endlessly and she feels complete indifference. Her head’s still at work and she feels exhausted. Intrigued by what’s happening in her absence, she has a police scanner and makes fake runs for nappies in order to keep up with the case. The strength of her partnership with Jeppe shows in how much he’s missing her presence in the investigation, even for the qualities that really irritated him usually. I warmed to him too as he struggles on with a partner he can’t connect with and who can’t keep up with him. These people felt so real to me and the authors description of their worlds is just as immersive. I could imagine myself in this city, in the autumn air that the author describes. I found the medical histories of the victims fascinating and became really involved with the mental health and psychiatric aspects. The pace of the narrative was just right, fast enough to keep me reading while providing enough detail to pull me into the case. Often with thrillers I can feel short changed or rushed into a conclusion, but here the twists felt real and the conclusion was satisfying. This novel had everything I enjoy about the Nordic Noir genre and I will be following this series with great interest.

Published 14th Jan 2021 by Hodder and Stoughton.

Meet The Author

A former dancer and choreographer with a background in television and theater, Katrine Engberg launched a groundbreaking career as a novelist with the publication of her fiction debut, The Tenant. She is now one of the most widely read and beloved crime authors in Denmark, and her work has been sold in over twenty-five countries. She lives with her family in Copenhagen.

Posted in Netgalley

People Like Us by Louise Fein.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was deeply affected by this novel about the rise of the Nazi Party in 1930s Germany, told from the perspective of a young girl living in Leipzig. The story opens as a young Herta is rescued from drowning by her brother Karl’s friend, Walter. It’s a powerful opener and a metaphor for the coming years, as Herta is slowly drowned by the tidal wave of nationalism, and fascism that overwhelms her country and changes her life altogether. Fein was inspired to write the novel after researching her family’s Jewish roots and eventual flight to London. During her research, she started to wonder how a country and it’s people could go from being a reasonable and tolerant society, to committing such atrocities against their fellow human beings. So, to explore that idea, she decided to write her novel from the perspective of an ordinary German child, slowly becoming brainwashed by the evil ideology. It’s the childhood innocence of Herta that makes this book work so well and allows us to have empathy, despite her allegiances.

Herta’s father has recently taken control of the city newspaper and his reward is their beautiful new family home, their servants and improved status in Leipzig society. He came from humble beginnings to marry Herta’s elegant French mother, but is now quickly rising through the SS ranks. Her elder brother Karl is in the Hitler-Jugend and she really wants to do her bit to make for Vati and Mutti proud of her too. So she pledges her life to the Fuhrer, to serve him and his purpose, totally unaware of its evil extent. Fein slowly shows us his plans, and along with some of our characters we’re like the proverbial frog in tepid water. Without our luxury of hindsight, we too wouldn’t have recognised how much danger we were in, until it was far too late and we boiled to death. There are those characters who truly embrace Hitler’s philosophy and purpose like Herta’s Vati, and below that are various levels of denial, collaboration and fear. Even Vati, has a jumbled mix of motivations: feelings of inferiority from his background and in his marriage; relishing the status and power; a certain amount of brainwashing.

Hitler’s propaganda machine was in full swing within Germany, aided by the country’s financial struggle since the Great War. The Weimar Republic, the post WWI government, signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The treaty stated that Germany would take responsibility for the war, relinquish parts of its territory and pay reparations to the Allies. These policies caused huge social and economic hardship, a situation that the Nazis blamed on Jewish people and communists. A myth was even started that blamed the Jews for the signing of the treaty. Called the ‘stab-in-the-back’ legend, this story blamed Jewish infiltrators in government for the difficulties the German people were facing, despite the fact that many German Jews had served faithfully in the war. Now, the German people were worn down by hardship and poverty and were looking for someone to blame. Hitler exploited these conditions to devastating effect and ordinary Germans were taken in by it. So, when Jewish neighbours and friends started being restricted or sent to work camps, only very rare, brave individuals stood up for them.

The scene when Herta first realises something is very wrong is at school, and her teachers call on Jewish children to stand up in assembly. The shock is seeing her brother’s childhood friend Walter, singled out for abuse and ridicule. Walter can’t be a Jew. He’s the Aryan ideal, blonde and blue-eyed. Besides which, when she was very small Walter saved her from drowning. He had been a constant presence at the house when they were younger. Now here he was being called terrible names and sneered at by their new teacher. Herta is terribly confused, she has been told that Jews look a certain way, and act in a different way to her, but she feels that she and Walter are both the same. Bravely, she runs after him when he is expelled from school and triggers a friendship of her own. A friendship that as she grows-up, develops into love. What possible future can this relationship have under Nazi rule? Then, as it becomes ever clearer that Hitler will not rest until Germany is cleared of Jews, both Herta and Walter will have to make sacrifices and the legacy of these decisions will last until they are both very old.

I don’t want to say any more for fear of ruining the story, but there were many points where I was moved to tears by the situation these childhood friends and young lovers, found themselves in. The displacement of families during WW2 was extensive and with no way of tracing each other, there would have been people who never saw each other again. I married into a Polish family, my husband died several years ago and my father and brother-in-law more recently. My mother-in-law got out of Warsaw as a little girl, escaping through the sewers. Her mother stayed. Her father ended up in America. The family never reunited fully, with Hana finding out her father had ended up in the Boston area of the USA. He had searched but never found either of them. He assumed they had died and later remarried, never knowing that his wife and child did survive and were now in England together. Luckily when Hana found her other family, she embraced them and they in turn remained close to their English family. I felt that the author had really done her background research, possibly with families like mine. I believed in her world and characters immediately.

The background of Leipzig felt homely and friendly, but then developed into this menacing place where you didn’t speak or even spat at the old couple across the street. The night where Herta looks for Walter, knowing that violent confrontations will be taking place in the Jewish quarter, is so frightening and made me feel physically sick. It’s where the threats and rhetoric become real and deadly. Herta is only ever truly free in nature, walking her dog on a Sunday morning and sometimes seeing Walter. It’s harder for someone to conceal anything themselves in open fields and usually Herta can walk freely, enjoying the air and the birdsong. This place represents normality whereas the city is madness, chaos and murder. The ending broke my heart, as we contemplate with Herta on what the world will be like to a new generation. Will it be peaceful with the effects of war far behind, or will the ripples of this hatred and violence be felt for several generations more? I was so moved by this and the epilogue. Some books stay with you for life and I think this will be one of mine.

Published by Head of Zeus 7th May 2020.

Posted in Netgalley

The Last Goodbye by Fiona Lucas

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This romantic comedy had an unusual premise, but first attracted me because of the cover! I have a tattoo exactly the same on my lower back with a quote from Jane Eyre, so I was interested to know why the image represented the book.

Our female protagonist, Anna, is in the throes of grief after the death of her husband. The plot hinges on an interesting device – Anna calls her dead husband’s phone number and weirdly, someone answers. A tentative friendship develops allowing her to explore the anger, numbness, false starts and maelstrom of emotions as she rebuilds her life after such a huge loss. The first call happens on a New Years Eve just over two years since Anna lost Spencer. She has been coerced by her friend Gaby to go to a party and is suffering just one of several attempts over the last few months to set her up with a nice man. Of course whenever Anna meets someone new, it’s like a klaxon goes off in her head screaming ‘not Spencer’ over and over again. On this night Anna flees the party and heads for the comfort of home and for emotional support she rings Spencer’s mobile number, thinking that hearing his voice on the answerphone will reassure her. However, instead of hearing Spencer’s voice, a strange man comes on the line saying ‘ I beg your pardon’.

As more weeks pass and Anna feels so scared of leaving Spencer behind and living in the moment, she continues to call the number and talk to the man at the end of the phone. A friendship starts to emerge between her and the man who has inherited Spencer’s old number. His name is Brody and Anna starts to realise she is not the only one who wants to live in the past. Brody gives Anna the space to grieve. He doesn’t know Spencer so he has no vested interest or conflicting opinion to intrude on Anna’s grief process. In this way he acts rather like a therapist with empathy, zero judgement and a hope Anna will get through this. Other people in her life either want Anna to move forward when she is not ready, or to wallow in grief. Her friends seem to think two years is enough time to start moving forward and although they are well-meaning their interventions annoy Anna and push her too far too soon. Spencer’s mother Gayle wants to envelop Anna in her grief process. She assumes that because they both loved Spencer, their grieving process is the same. Anna keeps up their tradition of Sunday lunch together, just like when Spencer was alive, but also pores over old photo albums and still wants them to mark anniversaries like his birthday together. In her presence Anna becomes suffocated by grief and guilt when she thinks about moving on with her life. Anyone new in Anna’s life would seem like an insult to Gayle. There is nowhere she can do this grieving thing her way, honestly and openly.

My counselling supervisor used to say that if you find yourself giving the same piece of advice to several clients, it may be something you should look at for your own life. This is definitely the case with Brody, as he gives Anna advice he could do with listening to. Brody is living an isolated existence on Dartmoor with his dog. He allows Anna’s emotions to take the lead in their phone calls, but doesn’t seem keen to divulge his own. I started to wonder why he is living the life of a hermit. What is he hiding away from? Between Brody and her best friend Gabi, Anna starts to feel she can gather all these broken fragments of herself together and start to rebuild. The author found a unique structure for the novel, that allowed Anna’s raw grief to find its voice in these late night phone calls. Brody becomes Anna’s closest friend and with Gabi’s help, she now has hope and a way forward that is so uplifting for the reader. Both the main characters have such moving stories they bring a lump to the throat and their journey through grief is brilliantly rendered by the author. She shows us that each person’s grief is individual, it has its own path with unique highs and lows. She also depicts something I often say to – you can’t get round or climb over grief, the only way out is through it. I could see Anna reaching for the other side of her pain and I found myself wishing for Brody to find his way out too.

What a beautifully written account of grief this is. I was moved and uplifted, and the experience of grief felt very authentic. So what about the cover image and that tattoo? My husband died in 2007 and I rushed my grief journey, only to end up in an abusive relationship that took three years to leave. So, on my fortieth birthday I had my birdcage tattoo and underneath the words from Jane Eyre ‘ I am no bird; and no net ensnares me’. It reminds me I can get through anything so it feels like a fitting image for Anna and Brady’s story.

Meet the Author

Fiona Lucas is an award-winning author of contemporary women’s fiction. The Last Goodbye is her first novel written under this name, but she’s been writing heartwarming love stories and feel-good women’s fiction as Fiona Harper for more than a decade. During her career, she’s won numerous awards, including a Romantic Novel Award in 2018, and chalked up a no.1 Kindle bestseller. Fiona lives in London with her husband and two daughters

Posted in Netgalley

The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer by Joel Dicker. Translation by Howard Curtis.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’m revisiting this book and expanding on my original NetGalley review for this blog blast, as I recover from moving house and suffering an infection from a nasty cat bite! So, I’ve refreshed my memory and really thought about this interesting book again. First of all, here’s the blurb:

A twisting new thriller from the author of The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair

In the summer of 1994, the quiet seaside town of Orphea reels from the discovery of four murders.

Two young police officers, Jesse Rosenberg and Derek Scott crack the case and identify the killer.

Then, twenty years later and just as he is on the point of taking early retirement, Rosenberg is approached by Stephanie Mailer, a journalist who believes he made a mistake back in 1994 and that the real murderer is still out there, perhaps ready to strike again. But before she can give any more details, Stephanie Mailer mysteriously disappears, and Rosenberg and Scott are forced to confront the possibility that her suspicions might have been proved true.

What happened to Stephanie Mailer?

What did she know?

And what really happened in Orphea all those years ago?

For me, this author manages to do something very clever with his novels. He writes thrillers that keep you hooked, while delivering a strangely relaxing read. It’s like the same feeling you get watching a really good TV series; in the days before multi-channels and Netflix, English dramas tended to be short and low budget, whereas American and Scandinavian channels invested money at their dramas, often delivering 22 episodes per season. These longer dramas allow every character to develop and lets the story breathe. If the series is a thriller there can be so many twists and turns over a longer time, red herrings can develop and be dismissed, and the tension of the last few episodes becomes unbearable. That’s what I felt happened with this book, it’s slow and characters change and surprise you. I think readers may have a bit of a marmite reaction to it – those who like their thrillers short and snappy will be frustrated, but those who love to explore character, setting, and a tale that meanders through many twists and turns before revealing the truth, will love it. It’s every shade of grey, rather like life.

The dual timelines of 1994 and 2014 work very well, with the past informing the future for the reader. Both cases are also intriguing and form an interesting contrast. The 1994 shootings are so dramatic, public and involve many victims, whereas the 2014 disappearance has a less public impact. I found myself constantly asking if Stephanie disappeared because of the 1994 case she’s investigating for an article – opening old wounds in a small town that wants to believe it caught it’s killer – or whether something more personal and unrelated was happening. The fact that she turns up just as Captain Jesse Rosenberg is about to retire seems too much of a coincidence though. Jesse is a likeable character, a good, honest cop whose diligence sets him apart. Despite his impending retirement, Stephanie’s disappearance and the knowledge that his findings on the original case were wrong, leave him determined to solve both cases before he leaves. However, Jesse and colleague Derek Scott became small town celebrities for solving the 1994 shootings, and maybe they liked the status and boost to their careers a little too much? It would be very difficult to accept they were wrong, but Jesse seems to do that and appears determined to find the truth of both cases. I also found myself questioning the circumstances of the original case. We know that the original investigation was wrong, but not why it was wrong. The mayor and his family were shot dead, but across the street a jogger called Megan is also shot, in the back of the head. Was this a case of wrong time, wrong place, for Megan? Did she see something that would have revealed the killer? Or should we be turning the whole case on its head? What if Megan was the intended victim all along?

These were just some of my thoughts as I wandered through this slice of small town life gone wrong. I love convoluted plots where I have no clue where I will end up in a few chapters time. All too often in thrillers, the truth is easy to work out early on, but here I had no idea and an array of clues and characters to decipher. This novel was long, but it has to be so the reader isn’t overwhelmed with the amount of information. It didn’t feel daunting though, and the writer’s technique of building tension towards small revelations throughout, certainly piqued my interest and kept me reading. Yes, maybe the novel might have benefitted from cutting a couple of characters or points of view. However, it might have lost that constant feeling of uncertainty needed in a good thriller. This is a slow burner of a novel, packed with possibilities and the odd red herring or two to keep the reader on their toes. In the last few chapters I couldn’t wait to uncover the truth, because the long build-up had intensified the tension. The manner in which the truth is revealed was a surprise, as if by accident rather than spelled out in black and white like a traditional detective novel. I felt this contributed to the ‘realness’ of the story; how many real life killers are arrested for something quite different at first? Life is full of multiple characters, faulty memories, strange cul-de-sacs and a million shades of grey, and that is exactly what the author has represented in this novel.

Posted in Netgalley

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Publisher: Viper (Serpents Tail) 18th March 2020

I finished this novel in a sort of shell-shocked silence. I felt like I needed to go straight back to the beginning and start again. It is extraordinary and unlike anything I’ve ever read before. It’s also very difficult to review without spoiling other reader’s experience of it, but I have to give it a go.

The house in question is the home of our first narrator Ted. As we read Ted’s view of the world we start to realise there is something unique and odd about the way he experiences the world. He made me feel uneasy. We get a sense that something is very wrong when the birds he loves to watch, are trapped and killed. Ted spends a lot of time thinking about an incident several years before when a little girl disappeared from the lake nearby and was never found. Others might have forgotten, but not Ted and not the girl’s sister who has a huge sense of guilt about her sister’s loss. Ted was a suspect at the time and it’s not hard to see why; he’s a slightly strange loner, living nearby in a ramshackle home with boarded up windows. The girl’s sister hasn’t forgotten that Ted was a suspect and decides to rent the house next door and watch him, in the hope of finally discovering where her sister is. CCTV proved Ted’s alibi at the time, but the sister’s convinced she has found the culprit.

Things take a very strange turn when we meet another narrator, Ted’s cat Olivia. In other hands this might have seemed twee or whimsical, but here it isn’t. It did give me a shock in the first instance, when a narrator I’d assumed to be human, stopped to lick the back of their legs! I loved the way the author played with language in these sections. Olivia doesn’t realised Ted is a name, she thinks it’s a word for his species, so all people are ‘teds’ and dogs are ‘brouhahas’. She describes her love for another of her species, a beautiful cat with emerald eyes that she sometimes spies preening herself, through the cat flap. She also has a belief system, including her very own god who she refers to as LORD. Yet there are aspects of this cat, that are distinctly not cat-like and I started to wonder if all wasn’t as it seemed. Could this cat be someone or something else entirely?

Other narrators are introduced and I was sometimes thoroughly confused, but never contemplated putting the book down. The beauty of the language and cleverness of the structure kept me going, determined to work out what exactly was going on. I was starting to be unsure which sections were real and what was illusion. The author is clearly hugely skilled at creating that sense of the uncanny – when everything seems normal and recognisable, but there is just that sense that something is off-kilter and sinister. This was so psychologically clever and I enjoyed Ted’s visits to the ‘bug man’ who appears to be some sort of psychotherapist, until he appears where we don’t expect him. I was so involved in this world of Ted’s that I was starting to forget the original crime, the loss of a little girl on the beachfront of the lake. The writing is so involving that I was inside Ted at times and the uneasy feeling is that you will never be able to get out. I guessed some of what is going on, but not the whole and I love the ambition and audacity. This is a unique, original and deeply creative piece of work that enthralled and stunned in equal measure. Ward is a writer of immense imagination and talent and I feel privileged to have been given the chance to read this before it hits the shelves and becomes a phenomenon.

Meet The Author

CATRIONA WARD was born in Washington, DC and grew up in the United States, Kenya, Madagascar, Yemen, and Morocco. She read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford and is a graduate of the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. Her next gothic thriller, The Last House on Needless Street, will be published March 2021 by Viper (Serpents Tail). 

Ward’s second novel, Little Eve (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2018) won the 2019 Shirley Jackson Award and the August Derleth Prize for Best Horror Novel at the 2019 British Fantasy Awards, making her the only woman to have won the prize twice, and was a Guardian best book of 2018. Her debut Rawblood (W&N, 2015) won Best Horror Novel at the 2016 British Fantasy Awards, was shortlisted for the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award and a WHSmith Fresh Talent title. Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies. She lives in London and Devon.

Posted in Netgalley

The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’ve been a little late to the party reading this thriller set in the Swiss Alps. Now I have, I can see why other bloggers have enjoyed it so much.It left me feeling chilled and genuinely claustrophobic. Elin’s brother Isaac invites her to celebrate his engagement to girlfriend Laure at a luxury hotel in Switzerland. The newly renovated hotel is Laure’s workplace and has a complicated history. An architectural triumph for the owner Lucas, the hotel was once a sanatorium for people with tuberculosis. Locals objected strongly to the project due to its position and liability to become cut off by avalanches, but there was also some disquiet about its history and the appropriateness of its new use. Elin and Isaac have a strained relationship, dating back to the accidental death of their little brother when they were children. However, she has been looking forward to trying again with Isaac and is excited to show her architect boyfriend Will around the hotel. Will is looking forward to relaxing with Elin after a tough year including her long sabbatical from work as a police officer. Elin is a detective, but isn’t currently working after an incident lead to her suffering flashbacks, panic attacks and other symptoms of PTSD. Can Will and Elin relax and enjoy their break, or will echoes of the past get in the way?

The author creates a edgy atmosphere immediately. We find out that Lucas’s business partner Daniel disappeared just as the hotel opened, thought to be swallowed up by an avalanche while taking his morning exercise. The remoteness is immediately apparent and I loved the way the author situates the hotel as a huge edifice almost doing battle with the surroundings. Guests can gaze directly out into the woodland and mountains. However, once the night falls and the lights are on, the hotel must be visible for miles. Guests can’t see out, but anyone could be looking in. The decor isn’t plush and ornate like a lot of hotels, but instead hints at the hotel’s past; almost like a luxury monk’s cell. There is nothing superfluous or showy about the bedrooms. There are also little glass display boxes where artefacts from the hotel’s archive are put on show. Elin doesn’t know whether they honour the past in a respectful way or whether they’re distasteful. There’s a real sense of the cold from outside, but also in the hotel’s decor. There’s nothing cozy or welcoming to offset the harsh weather.

It’s not just the venue that has a complicated relationship with the past. This whole visit is shrouded in secrets. Elin hasn’t told her brother that she’s taking a break from the police force. She also hasn’t told her partner Will about her previous friendship with Laure. Although it soon becomes clear that she’s not the only one keeping secrets. Her silence on certain subjects made me doubt her as a narrator creating an edgy reading experience. The venue seems to have tension built into its very foundations and I sensed something evil had happened there. Whatever had happened left an energy that rubbed off on the staff and guests. The author builds on the claustrophobic theme, by layering the imagery throughout the narrative. There is the history of patients literally struggling to breathe within these walls. Then there are Elin’s panic attacks, intensified by the scene where she is pushed into the plunge pool at the spa and struggles to force her way back to the surface. In flashbacks we learn of the tragic day at the beach when Isaac and Elin’s brother died, it’s always there simmering in the background and even Elin doesn’t seem to know the truth of what happened. There’s also the remote location, and the constant threat of avalanche. The author allows these feelings to build towards moments then describes moments of pure terror as an unknown assailant attacks, wearing a black rubber gas mask that makes a strange sucking and whistling noise. There were moments where I literally had to close the book and have a break with a cuppa!

There are a series of questions within the book, so there are a series of answers we’re chasing towards the end of the novel. Will we discover the truth of what happened when the hotel was Sanatorium du Plumachit? Will we find out what truly happened on the beach between Elin and her brothers? Who is behind the attacks at the hotel and what is their motive? The author has created a mystery that’s like a set of Russian dolls, moving from the present back to past events that still have a devastating hold on the here and now. The strange souvenirs left by the killer in glass boxes, are just like the exhibits from the archive, so there must be a link. I read the last few chapters in one go, because I simply had to know what was going on. There was a definite disregard for the next day that night as I was up till 3am racing through the revelations. I thought this was a brilliant thriller, full of atmosphere and with some genuine scares along the way. I absolutely loved it and would recommend it very highly.

Meet The Author

Sarah Pearse lives by the sea in South Devon with her husband and two daughters. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick and worked in Brand PR for a variety of household brands. After moving to Switzerland in her twenties, she spent every spare moment exploring the mountains in the Swiss Alpine town of Crans Montana, the dramatic setting that inspired her novel. Sarah has always been drawn to the dark and creepy – remote spaces and abandoned places – so when she read an article in a local Swiss magazine about the history of sanatoriums in the area, she knew she’d found the spark of the idea for her debut novel, The Sanatorium. Her short fiction has been published in a wide variety of magazines and has been shortlisted for several prizes. You can find Sarah on Twitter @SarahVPearse and Instagram @sarahpearseauthor

Posted in Netgalley

One Night, New York by Lara Thompson.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

At the top of the Empire State Building on a freezing December night, two women hold their breath. Frances and Agnes are waiting for the man who has wronged them. They plan to seek the ultimate revenge.

Set over the course of a single night, One Night, New York is a detective story, a romance and a coming-of-age tale. It is also a story of old New York, of bohemian Greenwich Village between the wars, of floozies and artists and addicts, of a city that sucked in creatives and immigrants alike, lighting up the world, while all around America burned amid the heat of the Great Depression.

It’s hard not to fall in love with Frances. It only took a few chapters and I was with her wholeheartedly – she simply feels so real. The narrative bounces back and forth from the top of the Empire State Building, all the way back to Frances leaving rural Kansas, but it is always Frances’s point of view we follow. As a poor girl in a thin dress and broken sandals she is noticed by a couple of bohemian types on the train, a photographer and journalist. They are looking for stories and characters that will appeal to a wealthy NYC elite, and poverty stricken farmers are making headlines as the Depression bites. They see something in Frances and want to photograph her, but she is meeting her brother at the station so she takes their card instead. We see her settled into Stan’s tenement flat, taking embroidery in for Mrs Bianchi next door. How does she go from this to contemplating an act of violence at the Empire State?

What we’re seeing is an awakening. It’s not so much a loss of innocence – I realise that went a long time ago when she relates the things she’s seen and suffered. In NYC, although she’ll still experience trauma, she also gains so much strength and self-knowledge. There’s an awakening that’s sensual as she learns to love the feel of fine fabrics on her skin and the joy of moving her body to music. She gains a love and understanding of art, responding emotionally to the most complex modern pieces as well as the photographs she takes with new friend Agnes. There’s also an awakening of sexual desire, something she has never experienced before.

The structure brings an amazing tension to the novel. We might think we’ve worked out what is going on, but it’s so much worse than I imagined. We are drip fed the events leading up to the present moment, and the author doesn’t reveal the man Frances and Agnes have lured to the building until right at the very end. The girls become friends before realising they are both affected by the ambitious men who will build this city. Women are disappearing and men have all of the power in this world. It is the resulting male privilege, such arrogance and certainty, that lures their victim to this precarious and windy place. Agnes and Frances are going to draw a line under this, a fatal one. It really chills to the bone when we find out the true extent of what these ‘disappeared’ women have gone through. Within this we also learn the reality of the Depression in Kansas, and the reality of Frances’s life with a brutal father, only curbed by the presence of Stan. I was so deeply sad for Frances. Dicky and Jacks constantly talk about Frances being wise beyond her years, with surprise. It’s no wonder, she’s been through so much.

This book really is an incredible debut with brilliant historical detail and decadent 1920s feel. The gap between the rural areas of the US and and up and coming city like NYC is wide, but we also see the massive poverty gap between NYC neighbourhoods from the Upper East Side into East Harlem. There’s a decadence here that’s evident from the parties at Jacks and Dicky’s home. These people are new money and the mix of bohemian artists, showgirls, businessmen and politicians is rife with exploitation. I was suspecting everyone of ulterior motives, wondering if anyone is untouched by the taint of money and debauchery. The wholesome and motherly Italian lady Mrs Bianchi gives an impassioned speech about leaving her homeland, only for her sons to be drunk and brawling every weekend. There’s a sense that the pinnacle of this age has been reached; this lifestyle cannot be maintained forever. By the closing chapters I was willing Frances to escape this terrible place, not unscathed of course, but at least alive and free to pursue some happiness with the person she loves. Once I’d finished, I found it hard to start a new book, because my head was firmly in NYC. My heart was still with Frances and that is always the sign of a great book.

Posted in Netgalley

Our Little Cruelties by Liz Nugent

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Published: Penguin Paperback Edition 21st Jan 2021

Never have the famous words of Phillip Larkin – ‘they fuck you up your Mum and Dad’ – been so apt. Reading this book was a very interesting experience and patience definitely paid off. Had I given in to my impulses and thrown the book down in frustration during the first part, I would have missed out on a great read. The story of three brothers over their lifetimes is compelling, interesting and a great study in how mental health difficulties can be passed on from one generation to the next.

The structure of the novel is what I had difficulty with at first. The first section was narrated by the eldest brother, Will. Written in short chapters, slipping between decades, we see aspects of his childhood through to the present day where he is a successful movie producer. He meets his wife Kate through his brother Brian,when she’s brought to a family dinner. They have a little girl called Daisy, but Will is much more focused on work than he is his family. We get the sense that Kate is a long suffering woman who gets more support from Brian, who is now Daisy’s godfather as well as her uncle. Brian is there for the birthdays and school concerts and has a great rapport with Daisy. Will is dismissive of Brian and his lack of ambition. He is also dismissive of Luke, despite Luke’s success as a pop star in his late teens. This section was difficult to read because I disliked him from page one. I didn’t think I could stand to listen to his perspective for a whole book. This made me think about my own bias and prejudice – what would I have done if he was a client and I was his counsellor? My main interest was in how close Will was to his Mum and through flashbacks we see she favours him, quite openly.

Luke, by contrast, really gets the brunt of their mother’s moods. He is the youngest, the weakest perhaps, but he is attractive and in his teenage years soon finds real success as a pop star. However, in the later fragments of his life he has times of struggle, where his mental health is poor and he turns to drink or experiments with drugs. He is an unusual child with a religious fixation to the extent where the family priest thinks he has a vocation! The other boys use his goodness against him, he is manipulated by them and by blaming him, they get extra food and attention. Only his Dad seemed wise to this, and just how poisonous the brothers, particularly Will, can be. There are moments where it seems his life is on track and he could be happy, but others where I wondered if he was just not meant for this world.

Finally, there’s Brian the middle brother. If Will is his Mum’s favourite and Luke is doted on by his Dad, who is left for Brian? He does seem mentally torn between both parents, but is without a champion in the same sense his brothers have one. Will is very dismissive of him, even though Brian does so much for his niece. He’s not grateful when Brian stands in for him, but instead is scornful that Brian has nothing more important to do. Will only recognises material success, not the strength or reward of happy relationships. Brian is the one who looks after Luke when his mental health deteriorates, but Will never recognises or appreciates this. In fact Brian’s relationship with Will becomes so destructive that other family members get caught in the crossfire.

The genius of this book is in the knowledge of family dynamics and how destructive they can be, but also in it’s clever structure. As mentioned, during the first part, narrated by Will, I was ready to put the book down. I couldn’t stand him. He was arrogant, self-centred and treats women appallingly. If the whole book had been his viewpoint I might have thrown it out of the window. Just when I was at the point of giving up, I saw Luke’s name across the next section and it was such a relief. As the tale goes back and forth in time and perspective we see a tiny bit more of the whole. At a Bob Dylan concert at a local castle, Will ends up in a fight and is taken to hospital with Dad and Luke following behind. Mum is left behind at the castle and doesn’t arrive at the hospital till late. We think that maybe she’s been caught out here, or that she simply cares more about enjoying herself than her son. But, this is Will’s perspective, for once his Mum has let him down. However, through Luke’s narrative we learn the truth, that something terrible happened to her, something that explains so much about how she behaves. When we finally get Brian’s section we see what a lifetime of being in the middle feels like; he feels overlooked, unconsidered and brushed aside. We find out things we already suspected and other things that surprise and enlighten us. Every single strand of this novel teaches us that we are only ever a small part of the picture and we must step back to see the whole.

This brings me to the second line of Larkin’s poem This Must Be The Verse and easily the best; – ‘they do not mean to but they do’. There are parts of this novel, particularly the way Dad behaves, where genuine mistakes are made and misunderstandings occur in the same way they do with any family. No parent, however hard they try, will get it completely right. However, there are other situations where the mental damage seems deliberate, especially in their mother’s attitude to Luke. Will’s intervention in Luke’s relationship, and the treatment of Will’s daughter Daisy towards the end of the novel are not mistakes. These acts are more than little cruelties. They are deliberately causing lifelong psychological disturbance. This is a complex and interesting novel that deftly moves from one narrow perspective to another, finally giving us all the pieces of the emotional jigsaw puzzle that makes up this family.

Meet The Author

Before becoming a full-time writer, Liz Nugent worked in Irish film, theatre and television. Her three novels – Unravelling Oliver, Lying in Wait and Skin Deep have each been Number One bestsellers in Ireland and she has won four Irish Book Awards (two for Skin Deep). She lives in Dublin with her husband.

Posted in Netgalley

The Night Hawks by Elly Griffiths.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

It was lovely to be back in the world of one of my favourite literary heroines, the archaeologist and academic Ruth Galloway. I always feel at home in this space Elly Griffiths has created, with an evocative feeling of Norfolk at its centre. She presents the wide skies, marshlands and seascapes and their flora and fauna so clearly I feel like I know it. Yet there’s always that sprinkling of the mystical, the pagan, and the long buried beliefs of a Norfolk long ago. This mix of the earthy, real and scientific as opposed to the mystery and magic is something also echoed in her characters: the craggy, straightforward, Nelson; the Druid Cathbad with his cloak, sayings and pronouncements; Ruth somewhere in-between – appreciating the science and procedure of her work, but not fully dismissing the beliefs and mysticism that surrounds the burials she visits and excavates.

The Night Hawks of the title are a local metal detecting group, who stumble upon a burial site out on the marshes towards the sea. Ruth has been here before, excavating a ‘henge site’ with her then professor, Eric – a man whose conflict between mysticism and science still hangs over this place. The group finds a hoard of Bronze Age weapons, but nearby they also find a body. Nelson thinks it might be an asylum seeker, desperately trying to cross the channel in tiny boats and fallen overboard. He rings Ruth anyway, because he knows she’ll be able to date the weapon find and know if there’s any link. The body turns out to be a local boy, Jem Taylor, who has just been released from prison and has a distinctive tattoo of a snake on his neck. Cathbad suggests this may be a nod to the local legend of the Norfolk Serpent. This could be an accidental drowning, but the second body suggests murder. There are no real clues to who might have wanted Jem dead.

The second case Nelson is called to investigate is that of a couple who seem to have died in a murder-suicide at a local farm. Black Dog Farm is linked to another local legend, that of the Black Shuck, a large black ghostly dog that is said to appear to people before they die. Nelson is sceptical of course, but since the suicide note ends with the ominous ‘he’s buried in the garden’ he asks Ruth to excavate. Ruth has already had a strange encounter with a large animal on a country lane, so her mind starts whirring when she finds large animal bones. Maybe Cathbad has more wisdom than they give him credit for. As Nelson and Judy talk to the couple’s children and Ruth thinks about the farm, it seems clear that there’s something very wrong about Black Dog Farm, something that might signal serious danger for all concerned.

I never stop talking about how much I love Ruth Galloway and here she’s back to herself after a period of time living with her partner Frank in Cambridge. Norfolk is in Ruth’s bones it seems. She and Kate seem to belong in the small cottage that looks out to the coastline, with their cat. Ruth seems to be still recovering and I love how Griffiths writes Ruth’s inner thoughts as she contemplates the choice she made: to be true to her love for someone unavailable, leaving her alone at times. As we’re all a bit battered by love and relationships as we hit our forties, I found her contemplation of loneliness within and without relationships truthful and moving. What I love most about this character is her authenticity. She doesn’t dumb down her intelligence, she doesn’t change her style and when absorbed in a really mucky dig can be decorated with mud from head to foot but doesn’t care. She is resigned to live on the fringes of Nelson’s life and knows his loyalty must be with his wife Michelle, but this case is a tricky one and may bring them close to danger once again. If one of of their lives is at risk, what will happen to those loyalties?

This was a great addition to the Galloway series and has all the ingredients I enjoy: a potentially sinister group of men, the appearance of a mystical creature, the mix of hard science, history and pagan ritual. All my favourite characters are present – I’m always intrigued with the attraction between Judy and Cathbad. There are new people too. There’s a new man in Ruth’s department at the university, a researcher whose very keen to take charge of the Bronze Age site and seems to be everywhere they turn on this case. Could he be a threat to Ruth’s settled life, her accord with Nelson, her academic prowess or something even more sinister? I found myself suspicious of him throughout. I was recently having a chat on Twitter, including Elly Griffiths, and we discussed casting for a potential TV series ( come on BBC what are you waiting for?). Ruth Jones seemed to be the choice for Ruth, David Tennant for Cathbad and either Debra Stephenson or Leanne Best as Michelle. Nobody had a good idea for Nelson. We all agreed he needed to be older, a bit craggy but somehow attractive, with a twinkle in the eye. I’m putting forward either David Morrissey or Phillip Glenister – both would have the necessary Northern bluntness I think. Till then I’ll wait patiently for the next instalment, when I expect big changes for my favourite archaeologist.

Meet The Author

I’m the author of two crime series, the Dr Ruth Galloway books and the Brighton Mysteries. Last year I also published a stand-alone, The Stranger Diaries, and a children’s book, A Girl Called Justice. I have previously written books under my real name, Domenica de Rosa (I know it sounds made up).

The Ruth books are set in Norfolk, a place I know well from childhood. It was a chance remark of my husband’s that gave me the idea for the first in the series, The Crossing Places. We were crossing Titchwell Marsh in North Norfolk when Andy (an archaeologist) mentioned that prehistoric people thought that marshland was sacred ground. Because it’s neither land nor sea, but something in-between, they saw it as a bridge to the afterlife; neither land nor sea, neither life nor death. In that moment, I saw Dr Ruth Galloway walking towards me out of the mist…

I live near Brighton with Andy. We have two grown-up children. I write in a garden shed accompanied by my cat, Gus.

Posted in Netgalley

For When I’m Gone by Rebecca Ley.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Publisher: Orion. 3rd September 2020.

There is never enough time. Even when a loved one has been ill for so long and the prognosis is terminal, that moment when they’re gone is seismic. Everything in your world shakes up and resettles around you, but in a totally different shape. When my husband died it had been coming for a long time. He was also suffering. His MS had affected his ability to swallow so he was PEG fed and kept hydrated with a tube directly set into his stomach. He would aspirate saliva, then develop pneumonia in an endless cycle till he decided not to treat it anymore. He’d spent months in hospital, before I received the call from the hospital. Listening to him struggling for breath for 12 hours was torturous. Yet when he took his last breath at 5.15 am, my first thought was ‘no, I wasn’t ready.’

Rebecca Ley’s novel is about a life cut short in this way. Sylvie is given a terminal cancer diagnosis at the age of 38. She and Paul have a marriage that seems perfect. He is a doting husband and father, and loves Sylvie’s intelligence and beauty. There is a certain prickliness to her character, which could make her difficult, but they seem to compliment each other and are great parents to their children Megan and Jude. When Sylvie receives her diagnosis she knows she must help Paul with the aftermath. He needs a manual that helps him deal with a domestic life that’s more complicated than he realises. She also needs to disclose a secret that she’s been keeping for the whole of their married life. As Paul uses her manual to try and negotiate life after Sylvie, he begins to realise just how much she did for them, and how much more indebted he is than he realised. Ley writes about reconciling a life only half lived, but also those compromises made in a marriage and as a mother. This is where he truly gets to know his wife in a way he couldn’t when she was alive.

The book is divided into past and present chapters, so we can be let into Sylvie’s life, but also to form a contrast with after she’s gone. The manual is confessional and written in the first person. Then we have the third person viewpoints of both Paul and Sylvie. Through this we see the beginning of their relationship where everything is romantic to the trickier aspects of their shared life together. I liked that Sylvie isn’t perfect, it’s easy to make a lost loved one into a saint, but Ley avoids that here and it’s all the better for that. Throughout we see that same spiky element to her nature, it’s attractive in a way, but could be seen as hardness or being difficult. As we read through the manual though, after she’s gone, we see a reason for that hardness – Sylvie is this family’s structure, their backbone, and without it what do they have to keep them upright and together?

There is the constant tension of what Sylvie’s long held secret may be, but it wasn’t the thing that kept me reading. It was the slow revelation of her character that held my attention. In Sylvie, Ley has written a truly modern female character who has flaws and makes mistakes, but isn’t cast as a bad person. Often in books about cancer patients, or mothers, there is that temptation to turn them into saints and martyrs. I love that the author made a conscious choice not to do that. Through Sylvie’s choices and her inner monologue as she makes them, we see the complexity of being a woman, a mother and a wife. Sylvie is complicated, sometimes she hurts people and I didn’t always like, or understand her. She is so ‘real’ that I started to think about her in terms of my own friends and family; we don’t always like what they say or do, but we still love them. I felt like I’d got to know a real person and this only added to the devastation when she was gone. I would like to see more women like this in fiction.

The supporting characters were also well written, three dimensional people. I felt particularly for Megan who withdraws as the book goes on. There was also a great contrast between Sylvie and Paul’s mothers, with one very traditional Mum and the other very far from conventional. Ley shows us the chaotic, random and difficult nature of life. This brings home the fact that we never know what’s going to happen next, something people who’ve experienced loss and illness know only too well. I always make sure I tell my new partner and stepdaughters that they should take care and I love them, every time they leave the house. I never want them to wonder how I feel about them, or for something to happen when I haven’t reminded them how much they mean to me. I felt deeply for the family at the heart of this heart-breaking story and it will stay with me for a long time. This extraordinary book is Rebecca Ley’s debut, so I will be following her writing closely to see what’s next.

Meet The Author

I am new to being an author, but the idea that people might read my work and want to connect with me about it is honestly my biggest dream. I would love to hear what you think of For When I’m Gone. You can find click the ‘follow’ button on Amazon, or find me on Twitter or Instagram, where I share fragments of my life raising three children in Hackney, east London. I grew up by the sea in Cornwall and never expected to be raising a family in the inner city, but here we are! I have spent the last sixteen years working as a journalist. I’ve worked on staff at The Times, Sun and Daily Mail, as well as writing a column in The Guardian about my father’s dementia. I’ve also freelanced for a variety of other papers and magazines, including The Telegraph, Psychologies, Mother and Baby and Grazia. And I write scripts for an animation company too.