Category: Personal Purchase

Posted in Personal Purchase

Other Women by Emma Flint

Posted on by thelotusreaders

It is 1923 and a country is in mourning. Thousands of husbands, fathers, sons and sweethearts were lost in the war, millions more returned home wounded and forever changed.

Beatrice Cade is an orphan, unmarried and childless. London is full of invisible women who struggle to find somewhere to work through their grief. But Bea is determined to make a new life for herself. She takes a room in a Bloomsbury ladies’ club and a job in the City. Just when her new world is taking shape, a fleeting encounter threatens to ruin everything.

Kate Ryan is an ordinary wife and mother. Following the end of the war, she has managed to build an enviable life with her husband and young daughter. To anyone looking in from the outside, they seem like a normal, happy family. But when two policemen knock on her door one morning and threaten to destroy the facade Kate has created, she knows what she has to do to protect the people she loves. And suddenly, two women who never should have met are connected for ever . . .

I can’t say enough great things about this incredible novel, but I’m going to try and do it justice. It’s a historical mystery, extraordinarily clever psychologically and made me think about feminism, sisterhood and the difference between what society expects women’s lives to look like and the life decisions we make for ourselves. Flint has told her story through the eyes of the Kate and Bea, two women who are strangers, but connected by one man. Bea was an orphan and is now an unmarried woman in her late thirties. She’s the book-keeper for a firm in London who has pretty much resigned herself to being a career girl and living in a woman’s hostel. All this changes when she meets the handsome and charming Tom Ryan, a salesman at her firm. Bea struggles to believe that this man, with his movie star looks, would be interested in a woman like her. She expects him to chat up the young women, who have noticed him and are giggling, but he makes a point of stopping at her desk. He comments on her name, telling her that Beatrice was the great love of a poet. Bea is smitten and agrees to meet him, despite the fact that he is married. She is mentally aware of his wife’s presence, the third person always standing between them. Despite this, will Bea allow herself to succumb to Tom’s advances and can it end any other way but heartbreak or disaster?

Flint’s setting is vitally important to this story. We can draw parallels between contemporary women and these two characters, but they are also very much products of their time. This is a post-war Britain and everything has been changed by a war so terrible it is known as the Great War. Men have come home destroyed by what they’ve experienced physically and mentally.

‘There were empty sleeves and eye patches that one must not stare at or draw attention to; there were crutches and bandages and dreadful ridges of thick pink skin; and sometimes there was simply an absence in a face where a man had left a part of himself – the brightest and most vital part – in a muddy foreign field.’

Whereas women could be said to have flourished. Yes, there’s the ever present weight of grief and loss, but some of the changes in women’s lives had been positive. Both Kate and Bea are working women, and represent the many women who became wage earners during the Great War, plugging the gap in the employment market as more men joined up to fight. This was liberating for many women, who were then reluctant to move back to the domestic sphere after the war. There were also a shortage of men in the marriage market, some women had lost their fiancé or husband but there were others who came of age just after WW1 for whom eligible men were scarce. Having the option of throwing themselves into an absorbing career instead proved very fulfilling for some, like Morley’s office manager who clearly expected Bea to be left on the shelf and had marked her out as a potential replacement. Women being outside the domestic sphere meant that the pre-war rigid barriers of social class started to be breached. Different classes of people mingled in work places and matches that would have been impossible a few years before became more common. Bea still longs for love, but as her personal life becomes complicated and painful she does muse on what she has lost. As a single working woman she had women friends and lived in a vibrant city where she could take herself to the theatre, to a museum or for tea with friends. Now that she can see the reality of a relationship, she wonders was she better off before?

Bea knows there is a difference between herself and the girls who have young men to wait for. These are carefree girls, full of life, ‘neat and slender – sleek hair, dainty ankles, flickering glances and quicksilver laughter.’ She’s of a different sort, in looks and class. Where her married sister Jane looks on career girls as modern, smart and fashionable Bea looks a little closer and sees

‘frizzed modern hairstyles that they’d seen in advertisements and that didn’t suit them; women with lines around their eyes that no amount of cream or powder would cover. And women who, despite the well-cut clothes, had red rough hands and nails cut to the quick.’

Bea is well aware she is plain and there are references to Jane Eyre in the way she sees herself. After talking to Tom, she sees herself in the bathroom mirror and is shocked at the difference between her tumultuous, rich inner life and this pale, plain outside. She feels such overwhelming emotions that she disassociates from her rather normal body; ‘how can all these feelings come out of this plain face and body?’ It immediately took me to the conversation between Jane and Rochester when she challenges him for underestimating her:

‘Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you, and full as much heart!…’

In fact Tom uses the comparison to flatter her, praising her strength and courage in living such a lonely life. Patronised by her sister too, she is full of anger inside and expresses the creeping fear that not only is she without a husband, she’s noticed younger, smarter girls starting to come into the workplace. Bright, young things who might be better at her job and quicker. She admits to being afraid of the day when the axe falls, her clothes become shabbier and she gets more desperate. Yet is it any better to be at the mercy of a man? As Kate’s story unfolds we can see that the state of being a wife, is just as unstable and scary, because where Bea has all the responsibility and makes decisions for herself Kate is powerless, entirely dependent on the whims of her husband. A husband who is capable of terrible things. The more Kate starts to learn about her husband, tiny jigsaw pieces start to slot together in her head. She has to admit to herself that she has always known there was something hidden underneath:

‘Hadn’t I known – hadn’t I always known – that he had something terrible inside him, something that lay rotting under the smooth surface of our normal life? I saw glimpses of it sometimes. I thought of his face as he persuaded me, sweet-talked me, into doing things I did not want to do. I thought of how dirty, how shamed, I felt afterwards.’

Set in the 1920’s, this story is based on the true case of Emily Kaye and her married lover Herbert Mahon. The novel’s aim was to give voice to Mahon’s wife and so Kate’s voice came to life, creating a brilliant interplay between her narration and Bea’s. I loved how well the pace was controlled, from relatively slow at the beginning to a breakneck pace towards the end as Kate makes sense of what has happened and holds the key to solve the mystery. I loved how the author showed us the truth of contemporary attitudes to women, that a man can do something terrible, but it will always be the woman’s fault. How Bea is simply disregarded as shameless, getting old and desperate, brazen and responsible for enticing Tom, despite him being married. It’s quite shocking, but then when I thought about our tabloid’s attitudes to women, I realised that women are judged every day for their appearance, their sexuality, their life choices and if ever there is a marital affair in the papers the ‘other woman’ is always blamed. It’s scary to think how little some people’s attitudes have changed, but thank goodness we can earn for ourselves, own property and have bank accounts. I loved the sense of sisterhood the author brings into the story and it made me think about how it’s the women in my life who have held me up when I couldn’t manage alone. I was on tenterhooks wondering whether Kate would realise that to choose the sisterhood is to change things for her own daughter. To make a decision towards a better world for women. This book was a brilliant piece of historical fiction, an addictive mystery that stirred up the emotions and had me completely hooked. As soon as I’d finished, I wanted to read it again.

Published by Picador 23rd February 2023

Meet The Author

Emma Flint was born and grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne. She graduated from the University of St Andrews with an MA in English Language and Literature, and later completed a novel-writing course at the Faber Academy. She lives and works in London.

Since childhood, she has been drawn to true-crime stories, developing an encyclopaedic knowledge of real-life murder cases from the early 20th century. Her first novel, Little Deaths, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, for the Desmond Elliott Prize, for the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award, and for The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize.

Other Women is her second novel.

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Our Little Cruelties by Liz Nugent

Posted on by thelotusreaders

In the famous words of Phillip Larkin, ‘they fuck you up your Mum and Dad’. 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 godfather. Brian is there for the birthdays and school concerts and Daisy has a great rapport with her Uncle. 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. He is close 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 but soon finds 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, it gets them extra food and attention, especially from their father. 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, it leaves nobody for Brian. He does seem fatally dragged between the two of them. Will is very dismissive of him, even though Brian does so much for his niece. He’s not grateful that Brian stands in for him or that he looks after Luke when his mental health deteriorates. In fact their relationship becomes so destructive that other family members get caught in the crossfire.

The genius of this book is its structure. 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, leaving Luke to follow behind. Mum is also left behind at the castle and doesn’t arrive at the hospital till late. However, through Luke’s story we learn 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. 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, which is 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. However there are other situations where the damage seems deliberate, especially in their mother’s attitude to Luke, Will’s intervention in Luke’s relationship, and in the treatment of Will’s daughter Daisy towards the end of the novel. These acts are more than little cruelties. They are deliberate, potentially causing lifelong psychological disturbance. This is a complex and interesting novel that moves from one narrow perspective to give us all the pieces of the emotional jigsaw puzzle that makes up this family. Liz Nugent is such an emotionally literate writer that I can’t wait to read her next work.

Meet The Author

Liz Nugent lives and writes in Dublin, Ireland. She is an award winning writer of radio drama, children’s animation soap opera and television plays. Her second novel, Lying in Wait, is to be published in July 2016. Unusually for a writer, Liz likes neither cats nor coffee and does not own a Breton top.

Liz Nugent’s new novel Strange Sally Diamond is out on March 2nd from Sandycove.

Posted in Personal Purchase

The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths

Posted on by thelotusreaders

It’s always a treat to be back in Norfolk with Dr. Ruth Galloway, in fact it feels like I’m visiting an old friend. One of those friends you maybe only see once a year, but you just pick up where you left off like you’ve never been apart. This time we’re in the very North of Norfolk, branching into Cambridgeshire and even my home city of Lincoln too. The last book was set in the middle of the pandemic and in The Last Remains we’re still dealing with the aftermath. There’s a sense of dislocation from regular life, but weirdly there’s restlessness and a lsense of urgency too. An urge to start getting things done. It’s no surprise that several characters have big changes on the horizon. Ruth’s university are thinking of scrapping the archaeology department. Nelson remains single, but is still living in the marital home he shared with wife Michelle. Cathbad is still struggling with the ongoing symptoms of long COVID, much to his partner Judy’s concern. The group of friends are once again drawn together by a body. This one is walled up in an old cafe that’s being renovated. Ruth thinks the skeleton is female and has been placed there deliberately. She’s not ancient either, with Ruth ruling that the bones are not historic and likely to have only been there twenty years. What follows is a delve into the more recent past and a group of archaeology students spellbound by the knowledge of their tutor Leo Ballard. Could this go back to an evening of students and their tutor camping in the forest and talking about Norfolk mythology? At least there is one person to ask who’s very close to home and he’s always around where strange Norfolk legends are concerned.

The case is a complex one, with the themes of twinning and disguises. There are also interesting contemporary issues, especially for anyone like me who went to university for the first time in the 1990s. If we apply today’s standards of conduct to the relationships between students and tutors in the past, it’s clear the lines are more blurred. Leo Ballard was happy to have his students at his home and have camping trips with them too. The students would also congregate at the cafe where the body is found – The Green Man. The cafe was run by a man called Peter Webster who had two daughters- Gaia and Freya – who also studied archaeology. However, the walled up skeleton is a student from Lincoln called Emily who was on the receiving end of a blow to the head. Emily was a student at Cambridge University and went missing after the camping trip to Grimes Graves, a prehistoric flint mine. It was thought she had been travelling on the train to Lincoln to visit her parents, but was seen to get off at Ely and simply vanished. I was creeped out by Leo Ballard immediately and I didn’t like his manner when talking about young girls. He seemed to take advantage of his position to lure young students into relationships with him. Freya Webster points out that he never visited the cafe himself, but he felt present because of how much his students talked about him. His following of students felt like a cult, impressed by his knowledge and taken in by his stories. In fact he wasn’t above a bit of theatre, since all students remember seeing a strange figure with horns emerging from the woods when they were camping. Was this a group hallucination or did someone in the group want to genuinely scare the students?

Cathbad, everyone’s favourite druid, is not his usual self. He is still experiencing breathing problems when exerting himself, he sleeps more than he used to and has difficulties remembering things. It seems that even he is questioning his longevity and is acting out of character, such as taking the whole family to mass at Easter. So, when he goes missing, his partner Judy is distraught. I think she fears he’s gone walkabout, a spiritual walk taken when the individual knows they’re going to die. It’s a change that Ruth is struggling to deal with, especially since Cathbad has always seemed invincible. She’s facing enough changes of her own with the department of archaeology under threat of closure and she questions what more she could have done, but she’s written books and even had a television series. She’s probably the nose high profile archaeology tutor she can think of. She doesn’t like changes that threaten her and Kate’s settled existence on the salt marshes, next door to the sister she has only recently found. Kate is now at secondary school and is used to the changes of the last year. She is not surprised at the occasional presence of Nelson in the early morning and he also arrives most Saturday evenings bearing pizza. Ruth has a lot of respect for Nelson’s wife Michelle, who had the guts to break the endless deadlock of their three sided relationship. She has moved to Blackpool with Nelson’s youngest, George. Now that Nelson is free though, she isn’t sure what it means or what she wants. She senses Nelson moving ever closer to the big discussion of their future, but finds herself avoiding it. She can’t imagine ever being anywhere but here with Kate and Flint, looking out to sea from her little cottage. However, what if Michelle returned?

There’s plenty of tension here, in the case and in the relationships. The sequence with Ruth and Kate at Grimes Graves made me feel claustrophobic! Ruth has interest from David, another department member, and his declaration of love has surprised her, despite friend Shona saying it was obvious. David is going to work at Uppsala University in Sweden and would like Ruth to go with him, where a new post is waiting for her. If she stays at UNN there’s an assistant dean’s position possible. I felt like Ruth was waiting for a big gesture from Nelson. She doesn’t want him by default, just because Michelle has gone. When Michelle returns and is at their marital home, Ruth disengages. Nelson needs to choose and he needs to do it independently. Will he do this or will it just be easier to slip back into his marriage? Does Michelle even want that? I like that Ruth loves her independence and values her life without a man very highly. He has to prove what he will add to her life, because it’s really great as it is. I was on the edge of my seat wondering what she would choose. I was also worried for Cathbad, but loved the way these friends come together as a community. Judy and Ruth support each other and their children get along really well too, so they come together to wait for Cathbad’s return, trying not to think about the alternative. I will say that there’s a wedding a the end, but I’m not telling you which characters tie the knot. It’s going to be fascinating to see Ruth, perhaps in a new location and different job going forward. However, I think there will always be part of her and Flint’s spirit wandering the marshland.

Out now from Quercus

Meet The Author

Elly is the author of two crime series, the Dr Ruth Galloway books and the Brighton Mysteries. Last year she also published a stand-alone, The Stranger Diaries, and a children’s book, A Girl Called Justice. She has also previously written books under my real name, Domenica de Rosa (I know it sounds made up). The Ruth books are set in Norfolk, somewhere Elly went for holidays in her childhood, but it was a chance remark of my husband’s that gave me her idea for the first in the series, The Crossing Places. They were crossing Titchwell Marsh in North Norfolk when her husband, who’s 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, she said, she saw Dr Ruth Galloway walking towards her out of the mist… Elly lives near Brighton with Andy. They have two grown-up children and a cat called Gus who accompanies her as she writes in the garden shed.

Posted in Romance Rocks, Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday! In Five Years by Rebecca Searle for Romance Rocks.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This book surprised me, delighted me and broke my heart. It was not at all what I expected, but was all the more special for that. Cleverly, Serle wrong foots the reader into thinking this is a straight forward romance, but it really isn’t. It’s about love and just as our heroine Dannie is some times unsure what love looks like, so is the reader. We are used to certain conventions and have expectations about how a love story will unfold. It teaches us that sometimes we don’t notice or fully appreciate what we already have.

Dannie is a corporate lawyer, living in Manhattan and dating the eminently eligible David. David and Dannie live together after dating for two years. They have done everything according to an unspoken, but very correct timetable; everything about their relationship is planned and just right. In fact their relationship is so predictable that when David suggests dinner at the Rainbow Room, Dannie knows he’s going to propose. She says yes when he presents the perfect engagement ring, but they don’t plan their wedding. They continue to drift along as they are, until Dannie has the dream. This vivid dream shows a loft apartment in Dumbo with interior design details such as an art print of an optician’s chart with a witty slogan. It’s nowhere Dannie can imagine living. It’s trendy and edgy. She and David live in Gramercy Park. A perfect location for their work and fitting for where they are in life. Yet, the Dumbo apartment feels comfortable. Then a man appears. She’s never met him before but yet there is a connection, something she can’t define. As he moves closer she feels actual electricity. She has never felt this before. Like some huge force compels them to be together. When she wakes, Dannie feels strange, like she’s questioning everything around her.

Dannie has planned to see her friend Bella. They have been friends since boarding school and are still incredibly close. Bella takes more risks than Dannie and in some ways Dannie sees her as someone who doesn’t finish things, perhaps a bit of a flake. Bella loves art, she lives to travel and has a more bohemian outlook on life. Dannie has a more settled and perhaps, conventional life where work is the priority and her stable relationship with David simply ticks along. Up until now Bella hasn’t had a stable relationship in her life, but she has brought someone important to meet Dannie. When he walks in, Dannie is shocked to see the man from her dream. She panics and decides to do everything she can to stop her dream from coming true. But life can take strange turns and a series of events unfold that she never imagined. They make her rethink everything about how to live life and how to love.

I became so involved with Dannie and Bella’s story that it was hard to put the book down towards the end. The story crept up on me from something very light to an emotional tale about the strength of female friendship. These girls are life partners. Their presence sustains each other in ways that romantic relationships sometimes don’t. Bella’s mother lets slip that she purposely placed her daughter in the same school as Dannie, because she saw them together and could not part them. The very structure of the book teaches the reader something. We learn, at the same time as Dannie, that the happy ending is not always about a man, because love comes in many forms. Also, that loss and love are the same thing. When we grieve it just proves how much we loved. I found myself becoming very emotional towards the end of the book and that rarely happens. I found the writing so truthful and similar to my own experience of grief that I had a lump in my throat. I loved the ending and the fact it wasn’t predictable elevated the book above the ordinary. I will be hugging my friends a little closer and appreciating all the people in my life who love me.

Meet the Author

Rebecca Serle is an author and television writer who lives in New York and Los Angeles. Serle developed the hit TV adaptation of her YA series Famous in Love, and is also the author of The Dinner List, and YA novels The Edge of Falling and When You Were Mine. She received her MFA from the New School in NYC. Find out more at RebeccaSerle.com.

Her latest novel One Italian Summer came out in paperback last year and was a wonderful look at love, mothers and daughters, and the things we learn about ourselves through travelling.

Posted in Romance Rocks, Throwback Thursday

Romance Rocks: The Man Who Didn’t Call by Rosie Walsh

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I read this in two long bursts – one of which started at 3am. It’s a book I couldn’t put down because all I wanted was these two people back together. The harsh realities of grief and lifelong family rifts are well drawn by the author and completely believable. All of these people are trying to move forward despite their lives missing a beat one day on a country road, where a split second decision has lifelong consequences. This book explores grief, loss, loyalty, loneliness and the eventual incredible ability the human heart has to heal.

Sarah has a 7 day whirlwind romance with Eddie. They meet by chance on a country road while Sarah is visiting her parents. She thinks Eddie just might be the one. But, Eddie goes away on holiday and she never hears from him again. Is Eddie a heartless playboy who never intended to call? Did Sarah do something wrong? Or has something terrible happened to him? Instead of listening to friends and writing this off as a one night stand, Sarah begins to obsess and is determined to find the answer. Every clue she has comes to a dead end and she is in danger of completely losing her dignity. As her time back home in the UK starts to run out, Sarah looks for clues to track Eddie down. What she hears is confusing her further. His friend doesn’t give the simple answer, that Eddie has moved on, but gives her a warning; if she knows what’s best for her, she needs to stop looking for Eddie. 

Walsh has successfully intertwined a love story with a mystery. I veered between wondering if Sarah was becoming irrational and willing her to succeed. Interspersed with the narrative are beautiful letters of love and loss addressed to the writer’s sister, affectionately nicknamed ‘Hedgehog’. The letter writer’s sister died when they were young, but we don’t know what happened or who the letter writer is. If Sarah is the author of the letters does this loss have something to do with the warning she’s been given? Is her sister the key – not just to Eddie’s disappearance, but to why Eddie was on that particular stretch of road on that day? 

I quickly became invested in Sarah and Eddie’s story. I think we’ve all been subjected to the watched phone that never rings and how crazy it can make us. It could have made me dislike Eddie early on, but for some reason I never did. I’m definitely a hopeless romantic so I seemed to accept Sarah’s hope that this could still work out. The other characters in the novel are also well-written and compelling. I’m a therapist so I was particularly interested in Eddie’s mother and her mental ill health. I think her symptoms and the way she manipulated Eddie showed a streak of narcissism. She finds it impossible to see this situation from his point of view, only how it might  her. Anything that threatens their dynamic as carer and patient is a huge threat to her and she responds with emotional blackmail and hostility. Eddie is as much a prisoner of her mental ill health as she is. I also had empathy for Sarah’s friend Jenny who is struggling to conceive and undergoes IVF treatment to the point of financial ruin. Her character probably leapt out at me because I’m also not able to have children, and know how difficult it can be to come to terms with. Her stoicism and determination to support her friend in the face of her own loss is very moving. 

I stayed up until 2am to finish the book, because I had everything crossed that the mystery would be explained and these two people could move forward together. To different degrees, all the novels characters are imprisoned by the past and losses they can’t accept. My husband died when he was 42 and I was 35. It’s like a chasm opened up and I had to choose between staying on one side forever, with the past and my feelings of loss and fear. Or I could choose to jump over that chasm into a new future. I never forget what happened or the love I have for Jerzy, but twelve years later I have a wonderful partner and two beautiful stepdaughters. Thankfully, I had the bravery to move forward knowing I can’t lose my memories of the past, but I still have a future full of possibilities I never imagined. That’s what the characters in the novel are trying to do. Grief is different for everyone and there are always tensions between those who are trying to heal and those who can’t imagine healing because it feels like a betrayal. Rosie Walsh draws these different threads together beautifully, creating a bittersweet novel that captures the incredible ability the human heart has to heal.

Meet the Author


Rosie Walsh is the internationally bestselling author of two novels, the global smash hit THE MAN WHO DIDN’T CALL, and – new for 2022 – THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, a heart-wrenching, keep-you-up-all-night emotional thriller, which was an instant New York Times bestseller and stayed in the German top ten for several weeks. 

Rosie Walsh lives on a medieval farm in Devon, UK, with her partner and two young children, after years living and travelling all over the world as a documentary producer and writer. 

The Man Who Didn’t Call (UK) / Ghosted (US) was her first book under her own name, and was published around the world in 2018, going on to be a multimillion bestseller. 

Prior to writing under her own name she wrote four romantic comedies under the pseudonym Lucy Robinson. When she isn’t parenting or writing, Rosie can be found walking on Dartmoor, growing vegetables and throwing raves for adults and children in leaking barns. 

Author photos © Anna Pumer Photography / Verity Rivers

Rosie’s new novel The Love of my Life is another heartbreaking romance, mixed with an addictive mystery you’ll be begging for one more chapter.

I have held you every night for ten years and I didn’t even know your name. We have a child together. A dog, a house.
Who are you?

Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she’d do anything for them. But almost everything she’s told them about herself is a lie. And she might just have got away with it, if it weren’t for her husband’s job. Leo is an obituary writer and Emma is a well-known marine biologist, so, when she suffers a serious illness, Leo copes by doing what he knows best – reading and writing about her life. But as he starts to unravel her past, he discovers the woman he loves doesn’t really exist. Even her name is fictitious.

When the very darkest moments of Emma’s past life finally emerge, she must somehow prove to Leo that she really is the woman he always thought she was . . . But first, she must tell him about the love of her other life.

Available now in hardback and on Kindle, but due out in paperback in July 2023.

Posted in Romance Rocks, Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday! Mix-Tape by Jane Sanderson for Romance Rocks!

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I love this book. Perhaps it’s because I had a Dan. A musician who started as my best friend and who I fell in love with. I was 18 and he took me to my first prom. His band were playing and it was 1991 so perms were everywhere and we were just adopting grunge. I would turn up for school in jumble sale floral dresses with my ever present oxblood Doc Martens. They played some of my favourite songs that night: some that were contemporary like Blur and others were classics like Wild Thing. I most remember Waterloo Sunset. Then, like a scene in a rom-com we walked across town to his house – me in a polka dot Laura Ashley ball gown and him in his dinner suit with the bow tie undone. He had a ruffled shirt underneath that he’d bought from Oxfam. We crept into the house and into the playroom so we didn’t wake anyone, then watched When Harry Met Sally. I remember a single kiss and then we fell asleep, but the love carried on over the years.

When I think of Elliot I always think of those famous best friend couples, like Harry and Sally or later, Emma and Dex in One Day. Now I can add Dan and Ali to the list. Alison and Dan live in Sheffield in the late 1970s when the city was still a thriving steel manufacturer. Dan is from the more family friendly Nether Edge, while Alison is from the rougher Attercliffe area, in the shadow of a steel factory. They meet while still at school and Dan is transfixed with her dark hair, her edge and her love of music. Their relationship is based on music and Dan makes mix tapes for her to listen to when they’re not together such as ‘The Last Best Two’ – the last two tracks from a series of albums. What he doesn’t know is how much Alison needs that music. To be able to put it on as a wall of sound between her and her family. Dan never sees where she lives and doesn’t push her, he only knows she prefers his home whether she’s doing her homework at the kitchen table, getting her nails painted by his sister or sitting with his Dad in the pigeon loft. Catherine, Alison’s mum, is a drinker. Not even a functioning alcoholic, she comes home battered and dirty with no care for who she lets into their home. Alison’s brother, Pete, is her only consolation and protection at home. Both call their mum by her first name and try to avoid her whenever possible. Even worse is her on-off lover Martin Baxter, who has a threatening manner and his own key. Alison could never let Dan know how they have to live.

In alternate chapters we see what Alison and Dan are doing in the present. Now a music writer, Dan splits his time between a canal boat in London and home with his partner Katelin in Edinburgh. Alison has written a new novel ‘Tell the Story Sing the Song’ set in her adopted home Australia and based round an indigenous singer. It’s a worldwide hit and she finds herself in demand, having to negotiate being interviewed and getting to grips with social media. She has an affluent lifestyle with husband Michael and has two grown up daughters. She has a Twitter account that she’s terrible at using and it’s this that alerts Dan, what could be the harm in following her? The secret at the heart of this book is what happened so long ago back in Sheffield to send a girl to the other side of the world? Especially when she has found her soulmate. She and Dan are meant to be together so what could have driven them apart? Dan sends her a link via Twitter, to Elvis Costelloe’s ‘Pump It Up’, the song she was dancing to at a party when he fell in love with her. How will Alison reply and will Dan ever discover why he lost her back in the 1970s?

I believed in these characters immediately, and I know Sheffield, and loved how it was described with affectionate detail by the writer. The accent, the warmth of people like Dan’s dad, the landmarks and the troubled manufacturing industry are so familiar and captured perfectly. Even the secondary characters, like the couple’s families and friends are well drawn and endearing. Cass over in Australia, as well as Sheila and Dora, are great characters. Equally, Dan’s Edinburgh friend Duncan with his record shop and the hippy couple on the barge next door in London are real and engaging. Special mention also to his dog McCullough who I was desperate to cuddle. Both characters have great lives and happy relationships. Dan loves Katelin, in fact her only fault is that she isn’t Alison. In Australia, Alison has been enveloped by Michael’s huge family and their housekeeper Beatriz who is like a surrogate Mum. It’s easy to see why the safety and security of Michael’s family, their money and lifestyle have appealed to a young Alison, still running away from her dysfunctional upbringing. She clearly wants different for her daughters and wishes them the sort of complacency Dan had, sure his parents are always there where he left them. But is the odd dinner party and most nights sat side by side watching TV enough for her? She also has Sheila, an old friend of Catherine’s, who emigrated in the 1970s and flourished in Australia. Now married to Dora who drives a steam train, they are again like surrogate parents to Alison. So much anchors her in Australia, but are these ties stronger than first love and the sense of belonging she had with Dan all those years before?

About three quarters of the way through the book I started to read gingerly, almost as if it was a bomb that might go off. I’ve never got over the loss of Emma in One Day and I was scared. What if these two soulmates didn’t end up together? Or worse what if one of them is killed off by the author before a happy ending is reached? I won’t ruin it by telling any more of the story. The tension and trauma of Alison’s family life is terrible and I dreaded finding out what had driven her away so dramatically. I think her shame about her mother is so sad, because the support was there for her and she wouldn’t let anyone help. She’s so fragile as a teenager and on edge. Dan’s mum had reservations, she was worried about her youngest son and whether Alison would break his heart. I love the music that goes back and forth between the pair, the meaning in the lyrics and how they choose them. This book is warm, moving and real. I loved it.

And what of my Daniel? Well he’s in Sheffield strangely enough. Happily partnered with three beautiful kids. I’m also happily partnered with two lovely stepdaughters. We’re very happy where we are and with our other halves. It’s nice though, just now and again, to catch up and remember the seventeen year old I was. Laid on his bedroom door, with my head in his lap listening to his latest find on vinyl. Or wandering the streets in my ballgown, high heels in one hand and him with his guitar case. Happy memories that will always make me smile.

Meet the Author

A former BBC Radio 4 producer, Jane Sanderson’s first novel – Netherwood – was published in 2011. She drew on much of her family’s background for this historical novel, which is set in a fictional mining town in the coalfields of Yorkshire. Ravenscliffe and Eden Falls followed in the two subsequent years, then in the early summer of 2017, This Much Is True was published, marking a change in direction for the author. This book is a contemporary tale of dog walks and dark secrets and the lengths a mother will go to protect her family. 

Jane lives in Herefordshire with her husband, the journalist and author Brian Viner. They have three children.

Her book Waiting for Sunshine is published in paperback on 23rd March 2023, with my review coming soon.


‘Who would name a child Sunshine, then give her away?’

Chrissie has always wanted to be a mother. After months of trying to adopt, she and her husband Stuart finally get the news that a little girl named Sunshine is waiting for them.

Abandoned at a young age, the child comes to them without a family history, and it feels like a fresh start for all of them. But when fragments from Sunshine’s previous life start to intrude on her new one, the little girl’s mysterious past quickly becomes Chrissie’s greatest fear …

Posted in Personal Purchase

The Homes by J.B. Mylet

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Lesley and Jonesy have been in foster care together ever since they can remember, in the same room and often in the same bed if Jonesy creeps in late at night. Our narrator is Lesley and she stands out as a little different from the other girls in the homes. She’s clever and goes to the grammar school instead of the one on site. She’s good at maths and seeing patterns in things, so what starts happening at the homes seems to her like a puzzle she can solve. Because someone at the homes is killing girls, possibly raping them and killing them. Who could it be?

The Homes are a sprawling institution made up of 30 cottages filled with the orphans of Glasgow and those needing care. So large, it has it’s own hospital, church and school, with every cottage run by a house mother and father with a Christian ethos. Set in the 1960’s and based on the Quarrier’s orphan village near the Bridge of Weir, where the author’s mother spent some of her childhood. He writes these girls as very isolated and dealt with at a distance, not just from their families, but from the staff too. He throws us in at the deep end with a morning that Lesley’s been dreading. Today she has to face the school bully Glenda, who lives a few cottages up. The adults know that Lesley is very likely to take a beating, but they do nothing. As she leaves for her school bus, Lesley can see a crowd of girls gathering at Glenda’s gate hoping for blood. It’s fair to say they get a bit of a surprise when the encounter doesn’t play out the way they expect. I felt as if the children were treated like animals, like when I’ve brought rescue cats home and left them to sort out their hierarchy amongst themselves. Even so, I would worry if any of them were distressed or fighting. These kids are fed, watered and disciplined, but they’re not cherished.

Only once called by her Christian name, Morag is known as Jonesey and she is a larger than life character. I loved the little characteristics that Lesley relates to us, such as the giggling in church, the constant chatter, and the way she often slips into Lesley’s bed at night but still isn’t restful. Even in her sleep Lesley is often woken by Jonesey’s jerking limbs, she’s like a puppy whose brain is asleep but whose body is still on the go. She’s absolutely irrepressible and incredibly loyal to Lesley, often waiting outside for her bus to arrive in the early evening, wriggling like that excited puppy again. By contrast, Lesley is outwardly very quiet. Her inner world is lively though, bright and full of questions. She has a dogged determination that helps her at school with tricky maths problems, but proves to be a nuisance to the police and the perpetrator of these terrible murders. Unfortunately, her amateur sleuthing is not quick enough to save the third victim. In between the case we learn a lot about the upheaval Lesley has suffered in life. She’s visited by her gran mostly, but she isn’t great at answering all the questions Lesley has. She’s clearly very fond of her granddaughter, but doesn’t want to get into the minutiae of why her mother placed her in care. Her mother visits less, but when the answers finally come there are painful truths to process. I was so glad she had Jonesey and her therapist Eadie but I worried for her going forwards and eventually leaving care. I bonded with Lesley, enjoying her intelligence and sense of fun as well as the way she coped with difficult situations.

A bit like Lesley I suspected every character along the way, knowing that people who work with children are not always doing it for the right reasons. There are people at the homes who are there for their own ends. There are various levels of abuse going on in the community. They’re forced into a religious upbringing they may not want and the expectations, particularly of girls, is tied up in that Christian morality. The discipline is down to each house parent and is always strict, but could also be violent and humiliating. At worst these children are preyed upon by the most horrific kinds of abuser and the tension builds towards a conclusion that not only unmasks a killer, but blows the lid open on everything that is wrong with the institution. I thought the historical setting was captured incredibly well, not so much the location but the emotional landscape of the 1960s. This was a time of secrets, when children were seen and not heard and definitely didn’t have rights. A time when young women were still shamed for their burgeoning sexuality and perfectly normal urges and their consequences. This was the time when my mother was growing up and it felt as if the author had the context just right. I thought the author perfectly balanced Lesley’s personal realisations and growth, with the tension of the murder investigation. As the inhabitants of Lesley’s cottage sit down for Sunday lunch with their houseparents, the Pattersons, she has a very grown up revelation. In the space of her week, this is the only time they feel ‘like a big normal family’ and it’s becoming apparent that all adults will eventually let her down. By the end I realised Lesley had drawn me into her story to such an extent I was wondering about her future. Despite the murders being solved, I was reluctant to close the book and leave her behind.

Published by Viper, 26th May 2022.

Meet the Author

J.B. Mylet was inspired to write The Homes based on the stories his mother told him about her childhood. She grew up in the infamous Quarrier’s Homes in Scotland in the 1960s, along with a thousand other orphaned or unwanted children, and did not realise that children were supposed to live with their parents until she was seven. He felt this was a story that needed to be told. He lives in London.

You can follow James on Twitter @JamesMylet, or find him on Facebook.

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday! The Dressmaker’s Gift by Fiona Valpy.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This book is a real hidden gem. I love fashion, so the idea of a dress that calls down through the years – the midnight blue satin, made of many pieces but with such tiny stitches it appears as if one piece of fabric – really appealed to me. Added to this, my in-laws history of escaping the Warsaw ghetto – at 8 years old in one case, and being sent to Siberia in the other – means I am interested in the threads of family history at a time of turmoil. My late husband’s  family has its own incredible story with repercussions that echo down the generation , so I understand that lives can be displaced and changed beyond recognition, with the results of that still being felt two generations later,

It is Harriet’s love for fashion and an old photograph that leads her to the door of a Paris fashion PR for a year long internship. She is loaned a room in the apartment above the office alongside another girl. Harriet knows this is the very apartment where her grandmother Clare lived in the 1940s. She has left behind a difficult situation!. Having finished university Harriet has been living with her father and stepmother, where she has never felt welcome. Her father sent Harriet to boarding school when he first lived with her stepmom, following her mums death. Her father seemed to find it difficult to cope with a grieving daughter and a burgeoning relationship. One of Harriet’s most treasured possessions is the photo she has of her grandmother Claire and her two best friends in Paris, Mirreile and Vivi. She also has a charm bracelet given by her grandmother and it’s charms show Harriet a story of who her grandmother was. When we are taken back into the past we learn more about these three women. All work in an atelier for the Paris fashion houses. We find out that Claire and Mirreille lived upstairs first, but are later joined by Vivi. All three are great seamstresses and are quick to become friends.

When the Germans arrive in Paris at first is it easy to carry on as normal. Yes, there are more German voices in the cafes and bars, more German vehicles in the streets, but people still order couture clothes. However, as the war really starts to bite things begin to change. The girls friendship survives Claire’s disastrous dalliance with a German officer, but afterwards she notices a difference in her friends. What mysterious work is Vivi doing in the atelier after hours? Who is the gentleman Mirreille is seen with and why is she often missing after curfew? The girls are about to be involved in the war in ways they didn’t imagined; ways that’s could mean paying the ultimate price.

Just like the stitches in a beautiful garments the threads of history are so beautifully intertwined with the fictional story of the girls. I read Alice Hoffman’s new novel in the last few weeks and it is also set in 1940s Paris so it was interesting to see the same historic events from a different viewpoint. I could see how much research the author had done and her skill in mentioning actual events without them feeling tacked on to the girls story was brilliant, I slowly came to care about each of the girls and although Vivi seems less accessible than the other two at first, it was interesting to see how central to Harriet’s history she becomes.

The detail is often harrowing to read and the idea that trauma can be passed through generations is one I’m familiar with because I’m a therapist and have read the same research as the author. She uses this beautifully in the novel, illustrating that the German’s horrendous acts of cruelty were on such a scale that it echoes down to the next generation. It is only when someone identifies the trauma in their family and gets professional help to let go of it’s effects, that someone can start to heal. I think I expected this book to be lighter and more focused on fashion from the blurb, but what I got was far superior: an incredible story of friendship and survival.

Meet The Author

Fiona is an acclaimed number 1 bestselling author, whose books have been translated into more than twenty different languages worldwide. She draws inspiration from the stories of strong women, especially during the years of World War II. Her meticulous historical research enriches her writing with an evocative sense of time and place.

She spent seven years living in France, having moved there from the UK in 2007, before returning to live in Scotland. Her love for both of these countries, their people and their histories, has found its way into the books she’s written.

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Throwback Thursday! The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey. #RomanceRocks.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

It was a privilege to have the chance to read this beautiful historical romance. Iona Grey has set her novel in the decade post WW1, where a new generation are coping with both a legacy of loss and parents that are still stuck in the hierarchical society of the Edwardian period. Selina Lennox is one of the ‘Bright Young People’, followed by the press from party to party, and determined to the live the full life that their parents, and especially older siblings, have missed out on. Her family are part of an ailing aristocracy that still has its property but is running short on money. Her elder sister is making an advantageous marriage and since the death of their brother in the war they have the pressure of producing a male heir. Selina is being steered towards the heir of a ruby mining business situated in Burma. Rupert is a war veteran, and it is possibly active service that has made him so stiff and taciturn. Selina finds him too serious and prefers the company of her friends and the social whirl of extravagant parties thrown during the season.  One night, while careering through London on a treasure hunt, the car she is travelling in hits a cat. Selina can’t leave the poor creature and is horrified to see her friends disappearing into the night, leaving her in a garden square somewhere in Bloomsbury.

Young, struggling artist Lawrence Weston chances upon Selina and offers his help. They climb into the garden and give the cat a proper burial. Selina is drawn by this dark haired young man but also knows she is taking a huge risk disappearing at night with a stranger who isn’t from within her social circle. Lawrence is transfixed by Selina’s golden beauty and feels an instant connection. He knows she is far above him and her family would be horrified. He lives in a shared house and rents a studio where he paints portraits of the aristocracy’s lost sons of war in all their military splendour. This pays the bills, but he would love to be a photographer and as yet no one sees this as art. Realistically, he has no chance with Selina but can’t seem to stay away despite receiving warnings from most of his friends.

Interspersed with this is the story of Selina’s daughter Alice in the years before WW2. Alice lives back on the family estate and is being looked after by Polly who was Selina’s maid. Alice’s grandparents are still in residence, living the values of a bygone age. Miranda has now given birth to Archie, the all important heir for the estate. Selina is in Burma with her husband and we see their journey in a series of letters she writes to Alice. They clearly have a very loving relationship, so it seems strange that Alice is hidden away in the cold nursery corridor? I kept wondering why, if she loves her daughter as much as she seems to, would Selina leave her with a family who show her no affection? Alice has been sent a treasure hunt from her mother and Polly gives her the clues to follow. Solving the clues takes her to different parts of the estate and, in her mother’s words, should tell her how she came to be. This is how Alice comes to know and love the gardens, especially the deserted Chinese House with its old gramophone. What link could they hold to Selina’s past and Alice’s future?

Iona Grey has created a beautiful novel here, filled with moments of joy and sadness. For me, the meaning of the title encompasses both the historical period and the love story at the heart of the novel. The 1920s do stand as a ‘glittering hour’ – a moment of extravagance, partying and glamour, between two world wars. The generation who were young in that period defied the death that had stalked the previous generation in the trenches and were determined to enjoy life while they could. For Lawrence, Selina is his glittering hour, a moment of pure love and beauty that burns bright but can’t burn forever. Grey shows what happens when we dare to break away from the boundaries and societal rules of our class and how the reverberations from this can last for several generations. The love may not last, but the memories can sustain us for a lifetime.

Out now from Simon & Schuster U.K.

Meet The Author

Iona Grey studied English Language and Literature at the University of Manchester, where she also met her future husband on the last night of her three years there. Throwing herself headlong into marriage and babies, she worked (inefficiently, for the most part) in a series of part time jobs before a chance meeting with bestselling novelist Penny Jordan set her back on the path to her teenage dream of writing unashamedly romantic fiction. 

She lives in Cheshire with her husband and three daughters. She is the award-winning author of Letters to the Lost, and her new book The Glittering Hour went on sale December 10, 2019. She is currently working on her third novel.

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday! Little White Lies by Philippa East.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Since our Squad Pod January book club choice is Philippa East’s I’ll Never Tell I thought this week I’d take you back to her debut novel.

This is an addictive and intelligent debut novel from author and therapist Philippa East. It’s a tale of a family coping with the aftermath of an abduction. Abigail White has been missing for seven years, after becoming separated from her mum, Anne, on a trip to London. Now aged 15, Abigail walks into a police station along with a younger girl. The novel flits between Anne’s viewpoint and that of Abigail’s cousin Jess. Jess and Abigail were born only four months apart and were more like twins than cousins. They had a special connection, and even after seven years apart Jess still feels she knows Abigail better than anyone. Her friend Lena warns Jess that Abigail has gone through a significant trauma and will have changed in ways they can’t see. Soon after her arrival at the police station, detectives discover that Abigail was taken from outside the tube station by a stranger. It seems that he was in the right place at the right time, just as Abigail became separated from her Mum and twin brothers. Anne had been trying to manage Abigail, the twins, a buggy and the train doors. Detective McCarthy has experience with abduction cases and uses his expertise to ask some probing questions: how did Abigail manage to wander off the platform and up to the street above, is this just a crime of opportunity or is there any chance at all that the family know this man?

Anne and her sister Lillian are close, but they are different. Lillian is the older sister and the ‘fixer’ who is organised, sensible and it seems to Anne as if she never makes mistakes. Anne’s life has been more complicated. Abigail’s birth father became an addict, causing difficulties with finances and the safety of their new family. With Lillian’s help, Anne left and despite trying to maintain contact with Abigail he has largely been absent. Anne then met Robert who has always considered Abigail his own daughter, creating a stable family unit for the first time. It is hard to imagine that Abigail could simply slot back into her family as if she never left. Anne is beset by doubts and concerns. Will Abigail expect her bedroom to be as if she never left? Can they let Jess back into her life at once or will she need time to adjust? Have the years of captivity and sexual abuse left her daughter so damaged she won’t recover? There is also the hint of a secret surrounding the moments before Abigail’s disappearance that day. Anne wonders what Abigail remembers and whether they should talk about that day. Lillian advises her to leave it alone. The tension between them and Anne’s concerns kept me hooked. To me, Abigail feels like a ticking time bomb and I found myself waiting for her to explode.

I felt that the author understood the psychology of trauma and she depicted beautifully the way a crime like this affects everyone around the victim. The trauma ripples outwards into the family like a drop of water on the surface of a pond. I really liked the insidious way that secrets are shown to damage trust and erode relationships. The depiction of Abigail is very cleverly written because it delves into the complexity of the relationship between the captor and the child. For example, Anne is startled by the findings of an educational psychologist who concludes that Abigail must have been home schooled. It seems strange that a man who has emotionally and sexually abused a child for seven years, would be concerned about their education. It made me think about the relationship between the child and the abductor. We can accept the negative aspects, but it is harder to accept that Abigail might have positive feelings toward her captor. It is as if, in order to survive mentally, she has had accepted captivity as her reality; when Cassingham abducts a younger girl it prompts her to act, but it still takes her a long time to find her voice again and be angry about her experience. The concern I had was whether Abigail would ever accept her new reality at home with her family.

I enjoyed the character of Jess and her struggle to understand the cousin who was once as close as her shadow. Can she trust that the same Abigail even exists any more? Can they jump back into easy familiarity or will Jess have to get to know this new Abigail who is the sum of her experiences? I truly empathised with her internal struggle between supporting her cousin and keeping the friends she has made since Abigail disappeared. Abigail might find it hard to fit when she has missed out on seven years of music and other popular culture. She is awkward, not knowing what to wear, how to do her hair or even how to speak. There is a gulf between her and other 15 year olds that might be too wide to bridge. It might be embarrassing for Jess, but for Abigail the frustration could be too much to cope with. She can’t find anyone who shares or truly understands her experience.

This was a great read, with believable characters facing a parent’s worst fear; their child has gone missing. I enjoyed the different perspective, focussing not on the abduction and police operation but on the issues faced when the child returns. It explores the family’s happiness and relief, only to find a relative stranger in their midst. Alongside this central narrative, East also explores the complexity of modern family relationships, and poses the question of whether we truly know the people we love and live alongside. Within the relationship of Jess and Abigail, we see the pains of growing up and fitting in, particularly the realisations that our elders are fallible and the World might not be as safe as we imagine.

I would like to thank NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.