Personal Purchase

The Bell Witches by Lindsey Kelk

Posted on 19th May 2026 by thelotusreaders

After sixteen-year-old Emily’s father tragically dies, she is forced to live with the only family she has left, an aunt and grandmother in the heart of Savannah, Georgia in a house as beautiful as it is mysterious.

But all is not what it seems with the Bell family; they’re hiding a magical secret.

When Emily meets the alluring Wyn, she forms a connection that feels like it was always meant to be. As the spark between them grows more powerful, her life takes an exhilarating and terrifying turn; but every step closer to him, takes her a step further away from her family.

Emily will find out that blood is always thicker than water…

THERE’S NO BOND GREATER THAN MAGIC

YA fiction isn’t usually on my radar, but I love both Alice Hoffman’s and Sarah Addison Allen’s mix of small town America and witches so I gave it a try. I was sold on the cover comment that this was ‘Buffy meets the Gilmore Girls’. It certainly isn’t short on atmosphere, with a charming setting in Savannah and Bell House in particular. For Emily who is used to the Welsh climate, it’s hard to acclimatise to the soupy heat that leaves everyone dripping in minutes – their laundry basket must be full every day. The Spanish moss that hangs from the trees like a natural brand of tinsel is actually parasitic, showing us that not everything is as beautiful as it first appears. Bell House is breathtaking and Emily’s first glimpse is overwhelming, calling it ‘Sleeping Beauty’s castle through an Instagram filter’. Everything has that southern charm, including her aunt Ashley’s breakfasts that have so much variety it feels like going out to brunch every morning. What Emily hasn’t yet realised is that she has the power to change the weather just by changing mood and Bell House is equally responsive to the people who live there, but its sentience isn’t just benign. Emily’s grandmother Catherine is in tune with the house and drips with Southern charm, her sayings are pure Deep South hokum; “you look like you were rode hard and put away wet” made me giggle out loud. As she starts to educate Emily in her heritage as a witch I wondered whether her sweetness was just as synthetic as saccharin.

I felt like the plot was paced awkwardly, feeling both too slow and too fast at once. This was a slow burn at first, setting up both the atmosphere and back story of the Bell family. While this is understandable as the first book in a series, it did feel like the plot took a back seat to description. Conversely, the central romance seemed to proceed at the speed of light with an intensity that felt unnecessary at this early stage. It felt as if their connection was simply announced rather than slowly building up through their emotions. I wanted more from her new friends Lydia and Jackson, both of whom promise fun and mischief and are incredibly loyal to Emily despite only knowing her a few weeks. I liked Lydia’s role as the naughty twin and I hope their friendship develops in the next book. Jackson is taken with Emily and I was expecting some rivalry between him and Emily’s love interest Wyn. I also loved her aunt Ashley who cares for Bell House and its inhabitants so beautifully, but has a dry wit and plenty of sarcasm. She doesn’t take to Emily right away and she’s a great antidote to Catherine’s syrupy sweetness. She never leaves the house and doesn’t pretend to be happy about her role, there’s far more going on here than meets the eye.

Catherine is the strongest character, stunningly beautiful and clearly very powerful. She takes her role as Emily’s mentor and caretaker very seriously, but there’s very little emotional connection. Catherine isn’t a cuddly grandma at all and imposes quite a few rules on Emily including a ban on dating until her ‘becoming’ when she comes into her full power as a Bell witch. It is Catherine who relates the story of the family of witches who have lived in this house and her history with Emily’s father Paul, who didn’t want Emily to grow up knowing about her potential powers. I loved that the author addressed issues from within that history that resonate today, especially the witch’s role as wise woman to others in her area.

“She helped women who wanted to control the size of their families […] there have always been women who help others in that regard.”

This is important to Emily who soon discovers she’s a natural apothecary, somehow able to identify most of the plants in Bell House’s garden along with their specific uses. I liked the idea that witches tend to have a speciality, with Catherine being an elemental witch. She suspects Emily of having many different powers, shown clearly when they encounter an unexpected attacker in the cemetery one night. This is a terrifying incident for Emily, even though she doesn’t know the full implications of her actions yet. Catherine tells her that their powers don’t signify them as good or bad, but the opposing forces they work with must be treated with respect. It felt like the book really picked up the pace towards the final third, with Emily’s becoming on the horizon and Lydia planning her a birthday party. This contrast shows us how extreme Catherine’s regime is and reminds us that Emily is a teenager who should be getting to know other young people and looking forward to dancing the night away on her birthday. Instead she’s heading out to a cemetery in the dark, for a potentially dangerous initiation into the Bell tradition under a guidance of a grandmother who doesn’t always seem to have her granddaughter’s best interests at heart. This is where Ashley comes into her own and I hoped to see Emily’s relationship with her aunt develop in future books. The becoming is going to be a reckoning for Emily, Catherine and Wyn in an action packed finale that is gripping and unexpected. There were elements of this novel that I really enjoyed and others I felt were underdeveloped or rushed. I wanted more depth to Wyn and Emily, with perhaps a few twists to their relationship considering their age and Jackson’s interest in Emily. The atmosphere and setting really stood out most, the action sequences were dramatic and fast paced and there were characters with a lot of potential. I am very interested to see how werewolves are going to integrate with the story and how Bell House will respond to Emily after her becoming. I really hope we also see more of that conflict between normal teenager and all powerful witch, as well as more about Savannah and its history. The sequel is out now so look out for my review coming in the next few weeks.

Sequel The Witch and the Wolf is out now from Magpie Publishing

Meet the Author

Lindsey is a Sunday Times and USA Today bestselling author, podcaster and vociferous defender of The Cheesecake Factory. Her books include the I Heart series, Christmas Fling, The Christmas Wish, Love Story and YA fantasy series, The Bell Witches.

When she isn’t writing, Lindsey moonlights as a co-host on Tights and Fights, a pro-wrestling podcast on the Maximum Fun network. Yes, really, pro-wrestling. And when she isn’t writing, podcasting or ruining her life with social media, Lindsey is most likely to be found reading, watching literally anything on television, texting the group chat or planning a karaoke night (please note she cannot sing).

Born and raised in South Yorkshire, Lindsey lived in London and New York before settling in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and their two cats.

Personal Purchase

The Drowning Place by Sarah Hilary

Posted on 15th May 202613th May 2026 by thelotusreaders

Every place has its ghosts.

Edenscar, a town in the Peak District, has more than most. 17 years ago, its inhabitants were hit by tragedy when a school bus veered off the road and everyone on board drowned. Everyone, that is, except Joseph Ashe. His miraculous survival has haunted him and the town ever since.

Now a Detective Sergeant in the local police, Joe is called to the scene of a brutal and apparently inexplicable crime. The whole town is spooked, but Joe’s new boss, DI Laurie Bower, more used to inner-city police work, has no time for superstition. She just wants to find the very real killer who has left no trace and apparently had no motive.

Joining forces, Joe and Laurie work to uncover the secrets of Edenscar, both past and present.

But when you dig up the dead, expect to get your hands dirty…

Detective Laurie Bower has a new job on a very different patch from inner city Manchester. They have returned to her husband Adam’s family home at Edenscar in the Peak District, to live with his father who has been diagnosed with advanced dementia. This is a wild place and a community where every family has been hit in some way by a tragic accident from 17 years ago. Everyone including Laurie’s new DS Joseph Ashe. Joseph was the only survivor of a terrible minibus crash that plunged his primary school class, their teacher and the driver to the bottom of Lady Bower reservoir. The village is haunted by the loss of those children and so is Joseph Ashe, whose best friend Sammi is still always by his side, even though only Joe can see him. This is going to be a hard district for Laurie to get used to, not only will she be living in the family home, which means getting used to less privacy and the presence of different family members all the time, but she’s not used to the tiny roads, rough terrain and awful weather. She has to hit the ground running when they receive a call about a couple who haven’t been seen over the weekend. Joe has a terrible feeling, because he’d heard gunshots late on Friday night but put it down to poachers in the woods. He also saw car lights heading in the direction of Manchester. Joe and Laurie drive out to Chris and Odette Miles’s cottage on the edge of the woods, a place they’ve been renovating and now share with baby Eric who is almost a year old. As they enter it’s immediately obvious the couple have been dead all weekend, shot in their own kitchen. Laurie chooses to search upstairs to spare Joe from what she fears has happened, a fear that sadly comes true when she finds Eric drowned in only a few centimetres of bath water. Now they must work together, with Sammi alongside, to discover who Chris and Odette were behind the image of a happy family, and then to find their killer.

The atmosphere of this novel is amazing with an opening section that takes us into the minibus to experience that crash as the children did, bringing home just how terrifying it must have been.

“It hit the water hard. Went under, fast. Waves of broken glass from the front to the back […] water like thunder was filling the bus, roll after roll of it, black.”

It’s astounding that Joe survived, but he has been seen with suspicion ever since with whispers that he and Sammi were messing around on the back seat, distracting the driver. Sammi has never left his side since and appears as if he’s the same age as Joe. However, once the bereaved villagers thought Joe could see their lost children he has been something of an oddity. For some the ability to see their child with Joe can be a comfort, but for others it must be distressing and confronting. The moments when this happens lift the hairs on the back of the neck, one child’s ’little icy fingers’ were reminiscent of Cathy trying to get into the window at Wuthering Heights. They’re always visible as if conjured from under the water, dripping wet and wreathed in shattered glass, their eyes black as night. Laurie’s husband Adam is a therapist and he dismisses it as ‘emotional contagion’, a shared trauma that causes mass hallucination. However, they are usually for a set time period and then fade, but Joe’s powers never go away. The weather is also full of foreboding, with several seasons in one day and the woods near the Miles house not recommended after dark. Laurie’s home set up is also unsettling. She is bereaved, but doesn’t share with Joe that she has lost her sister to addiction. She’s also uneasy at her father-in-law’s house, because Pete’s dementia means he behaves differently, becoming agitated towards sunset in a behaviour known as sundowning. He sometimes doesn’t know Laurie, but then when he does recognise her he becomes threatening. This is a place that has secrets and Joe and Laurie need to uncover them if they are going to solve the murders.

Neither detective is in the best place for an investigation and Laurie realises one of the main differences in policing an area where you live. In Manchester she had anonymity from who she was investigating, but here everyone is connected and has an opinion. To hear Chris’s parents talk about the murdered couple they sound like an idyllic family, with his father very proud of his son’s skill as an electrician. In fact he’s been doing so well recently that he’s been able to send his parents on holiday abroad. Odette’s mother has a slightly different perspective, wondering whether the pressure of the renovations and a new baby were taking their toll on her daughter who seemed to be providing most of the child care. Neighbour Bobby, who is an incredible bit of comic relief with habits that could earn him an ASBO and his arse constantly hanging out of his trousers, is more forthcoming. He thinks Chris was up to something to bring in the sort of money he was making. He often heard the couple arguing even though their house is some distance away. Bobby himself has has trouble with developers wanting to buy his ramshackle house, that is currently devaluing the holiday let next door. The team go through several theories – could Chris have been distributing drugs, keeping stolen goods or weapons? This is going to take a deep dive into his business records and asking more searching questions of his resentful family.

I loved how the author has woven in the real-life concerns of a village in an area like Derbyshire within the Peak District. There’s the difficulty for young people who grow up there not being able to afford a decent home as second home owners and investors buy up the local cottages for their portfolio, some with unscrupulous business practices. Laurie feels herself an outsider in this space, the weapons are different for a start as the pair encounter a crossbow booby trap, animal traps and then shotguns in her first few days. Even the motives and suspects are different to those she encountered back in Manchester. She can also see the pressure Joe is under as a receptacle for the village’s resentment and grief. The horrors here are both manmade and supernatural. The pair peel back the layers of secrets and find a neglected kid practically living wild, a plan for hunting in the woods that could have come from the Epstein files and someone who likes to watch their fellow villagers. These twists and turns of the case are fascinating and kept me reading all day. The ghosts are both horrifying and desperately sad, with parents who long to see their child again but not in the way they appear with deep black pools for eyes and dripping with water. It culminates in a terrifying showdown from a totally unexpected direction. The survivor’s guilt is unbearable and I kept hoping that Laurie’s presence and this awful case might be a catalyst for change. Both her and Joe are outsiders in different ways and I could see that distance from the community being useful in terms of their policing but painfully lonely in private. This was a deeply atmospheric and devastating start to a series I can’t wait to dive back into.

Out now from Harvill Publishing

Meet the Author

Sarah Hilary is the critically-acclaimed author of nine novels. Her debut, Someone Else’s Skin, won the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year 2015 and was a World Book Night selection, a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and a finalist for both the Silver Falchion and Macavity Awards in the US. No Other Darkness, the second in her DI Marnie Rome series, was shortlisted for a Barry Award.

In April 2026, The Drowning Place will introduce readers to DS Joseph Ashe at the start of a brand new series set in the Peak District.

Sarah is Programme Director for St Hilda’s Crime Fiction Weekend, and co-founder of Ledburied, a crime fiction festival in her home town. Her short stories have won the Fish Criminally Short Histories Prize, the Cheshire Prize for Literature, and the SENSE Prize.

Throwback Thursday

Homecoming by Kate Morton

Posted on 22nd Jan 2026 by thelotusreaders

Adelaide Hills, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, in the grounds of a grand country house, a local man makes a terrible discovery. Police are called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most mystifying murder investigations in the history of Australia.

London, 2018. Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, a phone call summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother, Nora, has suffered a fall and is seriously ill in hospital.

Seeking comfort in her past, Jess discovers a true crime book at Nora’s house chronicling a long-buried police case: the Turner Family Tragedy of 1959. And within its pages she finds a shocking personal connection to this notorious event – a crime that has never truly been solved . . .

I’ve always picked up Kate Morton’s novels and I don’t really know why this one has sat on my shelves for so long. I made it one of the novels to catch up on in December, when I take a break from blog tours and read what I feel like. It’s a chunky novel and it took some time to get to grips with everyone and their timelines but there’s no mistaking the power of the central image as new mum Izzy and her children are found on their picnic blanket by the creek. The man who makes the discovery assumes they’re asleep, until he sees a line of ants crawling over Matilda’s wrist. It’s such a striking image that it inspires the title of journalist Daniel Miller’s book ‘As If They Were Asleep’. The only person missing is baby Thea and it’s assumed she’s been carried away by wild dogs. The conclusion is that Izzy has poisoned herself and her children, in the grip of post-natal depression and unable to leave them behind. Back at their home, Halcyon, Izzy’s heavily pregnant sister-in-law Nora is waiting for her brother’s family to return. Possibly due to the shock and in a powerful storm, Nora gives birth to her own daughter Polly. Once she leaves for her own home, no one will ever return to Halcyon. Nora’s brother stays in the USA seemingly unable to face what happened to the woman he loved and the children whose voices once filled the house he fell in love with as soon as he saw it. Now, with Nora seriously ill in hospital, her granddaughter Jessie will be drawn into the cold case through Nora’s rambling words and Daniel’s book. What follows is a not just a complex murder case but a tale of mothers and daughters and how intergenerational trauma has an impact, even when it’s a closely guarded secret.

We’re given various viewpoints through the book and outside sources such as letters, documents and excerpts from Daniel’s book. We travel back to 1959 and Nora’s time at Halcyon and the accounts of various Turners, to Polly’s years growing up with mother Nora at their home near Sydney and Jess brings everything together in the present day. We dip in and out of these timelines and viewpoints and they are layered perfectly by Morton where they will make the most impact. Through this careful placement we build up a picture of characters and their motivations, only to have that impression change when we see a different viewpoint or Jess makes a discovery. My view of some characters changed radically, especially towards the end of the book when we hear more from Polly who has been an absent mother for most of Jess’s life. Nora and Jess have a solid relationship, perhaps closer than most grandchildren have with their grandmother since Jess grew up in Nora’s house until she left for England. She is distraught to arrive and realise her grandmother is more unwell than she imagined. For Jess, Nora has been the perfect example of a formidable woman. She gets things done and Jess has inherited her organisational talents and business-like manner. She feels she has little in common with Polly who is seen by both women as rather unreliable or flaky, a pregnant teenager who left the job of mothering Jess to Nora. I really liked the Nora I saw through Jess’s eyes and I was intrigued to know whether that would track back to 1959 and the young Nora who is pregnant with Polly and staying with Izzy and the children for Christmas.

I loved how Morton used the landscape, particularly regarding Halcyon – a veritable house of dreams. Michael fell in love with it straight away but it’s interesting how it echoes with his choice of wife and how it sits within the wider Aussie landscape. Described as a Georgian manor complete with its own English country garden strangely situated within the heat of southern Australia. It has a backdrop of boiling heat, ghostly silver gum trees on the horizon and its lush green garden stands out against the parched landscape. There’s something unnatural about it, as if a tornado had picked it up in England and dropped it on the other side of the world. This same description applies to Izzy, her pale and freckled beauty out of place in the brutal heat of that last summer. Michael Turner knew this was the right home for his family because it is the embodiment of his wife. Without tending and daily care, the garden and house would be taken over, becoming yellowed and dry and home to native plats and animals. Does Izzy also need such gentle tending? It is Nora who supplies the most compelling piece of evidence that she was struggling and feeling unable to cope. Jess needs to read the book about the case and have a search round the house before her grandmother comes home. It is only by chance that she gets to read Izzy’s thoughts first hand. Then when Polly arrives there’s a real chance for them to connect and discuss their family history openly and this is where the novel became really gripping. Up to this point we’ve only seen Nora through Jess’s eyes but now we see her through Polly’s eyes and there are so many more layers to this elderly lady, now unconscious in her hospital bed. I started to see her controlling side and her ability to manipulate with her money and status. I began to see Polly in a different light too and felt a huge amount of empathy for her situation and the things she lost.

It was only towards the end of the book when I realised that there aren’t many men in this family. In fact the only person who has no voice in the novel is Michael Turner. Why did he buy Halcyon, the dream family home and then live in a separate country from them? Polly doesn’t have a man in her life and nor does Jess. Morton keeps the twists and turns coming right up to the end of the novel, some expected and others a complete surprise. She never leaves even the tiniest loose end and that isn’t easy when we see just how far the ripples of this tragedy spread in the community. In the midst of that Christmas and all that comes after, Izzy really has an impact with her beauty and vitality. It is unthinkable that only hours later all that sparkle is simply snuffed out. If you love Kate Morton, this has all the aspects that make her novels so popular – the family saga, the big house and the secrets kept behind closed doors. However, this had the added element of an unsolved crime giving it an addictive quality. Added to that is the length of the book, allowing the story and characters to fully develop, showing fascinating and complex psychological dynamics between each mother and daughter. I can’t believe it took me so long to finally read it.

Meet the Author

KATE MORTON is an award-winning, Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author. Her novels – The House at Riverton, The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours, The Secret Keeper, The Lake House, The Clockmaker’s Daughter and Homecoming – are published in over 45 countries, in 38 languages, and have all been number one bestsellers around the world.

Kate Morton grew up in the mountains of southeast Queensland and now lives with her family in London and Australia. She has degrees in dramatic art and English literature, and harboured dreams of joining the Royal Shakespeare Company until she realised that it was words she loved more than performing. Kate still feels a pang of longing each time she goes to the theatre and the house lights dim.

“I fell deeply in love with books as a child and believe that reading is freedom; that to read is to live a thousand lives in one; that fiction is a magical conversation between two people – you and me – in which our minds meet across time and space. I love books that conjure a world around me, bringing their characters and settings to life, so that the real world disappears and all that matters, from beginning to end, is turning one more page.”

http://www.katemorton.com

http://www.facebook.com/KateMortonAuthor

Keep up-to-date on Kate Morton’s books and events by joining her mailing list: http://www.katemorton.com/mailing-list

Throwback Thursday, Uncategorized

Throwback Thursday: The Attic Child by Lola Jaye

Posted on 8th Jan 2026 by thelotusreaders

“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
Chinua Achebe (Author)

When I was gathering books for the Queen’s jubilee stall at our village book exchange, I could have stuck to the British Isles and its experience of life in the reign of Elizabeth II. However, I wanted to look at the jubilee from a global viewpoint and include the voices of all the Queen’s subjects. For me that includes voices from countries that were once part of our empire, some of whom are now under the Commonwealth banner. I think these other voices are important; those who are literally silenced, but also those who were ignored because were simply not the white, middle class, man that society is used to listening to. This book had a beautiful example of one such voice and I was reading it around jubilee time. Celestine Babbington is recorded for history in a silent form, photographed wearing clothes he didn’t choose and posing with a man whose relationship to him is very problematic. The man, Richard Babbington, is a wealthy explorer who has a love for Africa and a large mansion house in England and by 1907, Celestine is being kept in the attic of that house, only allowed out to work as a domestic slave.

Years later, a young girl called Lowra is suffering the same fate. Locked in the attic as punishment for any transgression since her fate was left in the hands of her resentful stepmother. After her mother died, Lowra’s dad remarried and from that day on her life was punctuated by spells of abuse. While locked in the attic she finds an unusual necklace with clawed hands, unlike anything she’s seen before. There’s also an old-fashioned porcelain doll and a sentence on the wall, written in an unfamiliar language. These are her only comfort, because she feels as if the person that owned them is still with her in some way. As an adult, her stepmother’s abuse still affects her and she’s conflicted when she inherits Babbington’s house. People seem to think she’s lucky and the town is proud of this intrepid explorer. Looking into the house’s history leads her to an exhibition of Babbington’s life, where she sees photographs of Babbington and a young black boy wearing an African wrap and what looks like her necklace, the one from the attic. However, the thing that keeps Lowra transfixed, is the young boy’s eyes. Lowra sees someone filled with sorrow, a fellow sufferer of the darkness inside that house. His name is Celestine Babbington. Lowra wants to find out more about this boy, how he came to be in England and what happened to him after Babbington’s death. She enlists the help of a history specialist called Monty, who has an interest in stories that have not been told, particularly those of empire. Together they start their search for the attic child.

I think anyone who talks about the glory of our empire should be encouraged to read this book. It’s fitting that the opening quote of the book is from the incredible author Chinua Achebe, because his novel Things Fall Apart is a perfect companion to this tale. This time the story is partially told by an innocent victim of our Victorian forays into Africa, a child called Dikembe, who is largely ignorant of the atrocities being carried out by the Belgian forces plundering the natural resources of his homeland. At the time of Dikembe’s childhood, his homeland was named the Belgian Congo, a large area of Africa now known as Zaire, then the Democratic Republic of Congo. Very few Europeans had reached this area of Africa, known for tropical diseases like sleeping sickness. King Leopold of Belgium had urged the Belgian Government to colonise the country, but when they stalled their efforts he decided to take charge himself. He took ownership of the country and named it the Congo Free State in 1885, using his private army the Force Publique to press gang Congolese men and boys to work for him in the production of rubber. No one knows the exact population of the country at this time, but due to exploitation and the exposure to new diseases it is estimated that up to ten million native people died during Leopold’s rule of the country. Dikembe is young enough to stay at home each day with his mother, but he envies his brothers who go off to work with their father every morning. His parents keep him ignorant of the way native workers were treated so it is an utter shock when his father is killed one day. Richard Babbington, based on a real man called Henry Morton Stanley, expresses an interest in Dikembe. He wants to take him back to England and turn him into a gentleman and his companion. Ridden with grief and terrified about what could happen to her youngest son, his mother agrees, knowing this may be the only way to keep him safe. Although his intentions seem pure, isn’t this just another form of colonisation? He then takes away Dikembe’s name, calling him Celestine Babbington.

I found both these children’s circumstances heartbreaking and realised that Lowra’s affinity with this boy is because she sees something in his photographs echoed in her own eyes. I thought the two character narrative worked really well here, but all of the characters are so well crafted that they pulled me into their stories and didn’t let go till the end. We’re with Lowra and Monty on their quest, finding out more about Dikembe’s story and we experience the effect these revelations have on all the characters. It’s moving to see Monty identifying with Dikembe and feeling emotional pain from the injustices he has gone through. Monty still experiences racism and oppression, just in different ways and Lowra can’t be part of that even though she has empathy for how Monty feels. They worked together well and slowly become close by being honest about their pasts and what effect their life experiences have had on them mentally. Lola Jaye has managed to engage the emotions, but also educate me at the same time, because I didn’t know much about the Belgian empire or King Leopold’s exploitation and murder of the Congolese population. However, it was those complex issues of identity and privilege that really came across to me, especially in the character of Richard Babbington. His arrogant assumption that he could give Dikembe a better life is privilege in action, as Dikembe soon finds out that he’s a womanising drunk and the companionship he spoke of only works one way. All he does bestow is money, for clothes and school, but what Dikembe craves is the warmth and love of his mother calling him a ‘good child’. The way this need for love and comfort was also exploited made me cry. I was desperately hoping that by the end, these terrible injustices didn’t stop him living his life to the full, including embracing happiness when the chance came his way. We see this play out for Lowra during the novel, can she ever accept that she is worthy of love? I wasn’t surprised to learn that Lola Jaye is a therapist, because she understands trauma and how it can manifest through several generations. The story doesn’t pull it’s punches so I felt angry and I felt sad, but somehow the author has managed to make the overall message one of hope. Hope in the resilience of the human spirit.

Lola Jayne’s latest novel is The Manual for Good Wives. It came out in 2025 is on my tbr for March.

Everything about Adeline Copplefield is a lie . . .

To the world Mrs Copplefield is the epitome of Victorian propriety: an exemplary society lady who writes a weekly column advising young ladies on how to be better wives.

Only Adeline has never been a good wife or mother; she has no claim to the Copplefield name, nor is she an English lady . . .

Now a black woman, born in Africa, who dared to pretend to be something she was not, is on trial in the English courts with all of London society baying for her blood. And she is ready to tell her story . . .

Personal Purchase

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Posted on 4th Jan 2026 by thelotusreaders

What an absolute privilege it was to read this incredible story a couple of years ago and it was my book of the year. It is truly the best book Maggie O’Farrell has ever written and I’m a huge fan. I’ve loved her previous novels, especially The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. The scary part was trying to do this incredible work justice in my review. Something that director Chloe Zhao must have thought before embarking on the film version, due out on the 9th January. The responsibility of taking something so precious and recreating it for the cinema must have weighed heavy on the cast too. I watched an interview with Jessie Buckley a few days ago where she divulged that at first she didn’t know how to be. Not how to capture Agnes but how to portray something she’d never had in real life – to embody the role of being a mum when she wasn’t one and to capture the enormity of losing a child. I think her reticence and how she searched for those emotions show that Agnes is in safe hands with Buckley. I’ve been a fan since her debut you on the BBC series I’d Do Anything and to see the wonderful Paul Mescal cast opposite her took away any concerns I might have had about the book being ruined. Here though I want to tell you about this beautiful book and encourage people to read Maggie O’Farrell’s masterpiece.

Despite his place in literature as our most famous playwright, not a lot is known about Shakespeare’s life with his wife and children. Until reading this, and despite doing a module in Renaissance Literature at university, my only knowledge was of a wife called Anne Hathaway. Any other knowledge has rather embarrassingly and erroneously come from Upstart Crow, which depicts his eldest daughter Susannah as an intelligent, outspoken and boy crazy teenager. I also remember that many years ago I was shown the outside of a picture perfect cottage that belonged to Anne Hathaway. This was Hewlands where Anne was born, and after her marriage, the home of her brother Bartholomew. There has always been this hole in my knowledge, and when watching the totally inaccurate Shakespeare in Love I do remember wondering whatever happened to his wife. Did he love her and if so, how did he spend so much time away from her and their family? Also, with his success down in London, what did Anne do with her life? I wondered whether she was weighed down with the care of children, as well as her elderly in-laws with whom they lived.

For the author it was a different absence that became her way into the story. She had always wondered why the Black Death or ‘pestilence’ never featured in any of Shakespeare’s works. It’s absence seemed odd, considering that, in this time period, it killed large swathes of people. From 1575 in Venice over 50,000 people died as a result of plague over two years, thought to be caused by troop movements associated with The Thirty Years War. The beautiful cathedral Santa Maria Della Salute was built after a third of the population was wiped out in a return of the plague in 1630. The city still celebrates the Festival of the Redeemer today as a thank you that the city and some of its residents survived these pandemics. In England in 1563 the plague killed 20,000 people in London alone. Historical sources cite the plague as cause of death to extended members of Shakespeare’s family and possibly his sisters. His work was also affected, with all London playhouses closed down in 1593, 1603 and 1608. However, the biggest loss of all was his only son Hamnet, who is thought to have contracted the disease and died, aged 11, in 1596. O’Farrell takes these facts as the bare bones and fleshes out a more human story, weaving the life of a boy and his family with empathy, poetry and a touch of magic.

One of my favourite passages of the book focuses on the transmission of this horrific disease via some fleas and the beautiful millefiore glass beads crafted on the Venetian island of Murano. It takes accident, upon chance, and coincidence to carry the deadly disease all the way back to Stratford. A glassmaker burns his hand, so someone else packs his beads into some soft rags he finds lying around, instead of their usual packaging. A merchant ship bound for England has docked and a cabin boy searches Venice for cats to combat rats on board, when he is diverted by a monkey in a waistcoat. The keeper roughly pulls him away, but left behind are a few fleas, some of which make their way onto the cats an a crew member who tends to sleep with cats in his cabin. He doesn’t report for duty and has a fever plus the telltale ‘buboes’ or swelling of the lymph glands. These swellings turn black and the smell of the dead man is so repugnant that other crew members are relieved to heave him overboard for burial. He isn’t the last. Only five crew members remain as the ship docks in London and one box of beads from Murano makes its way to a Stratford dressmaker, where a customer is determined that only Murano glass beading would do for her new dress. The dressmakers assistant unpacks the beads from their ragged packaging and as she does a flea jumps from the fabric to its new host. The dressmaker’s assistant is Judith Shakespeare, Hamnet’s twin sister. This is typical of the author’s signature style of layering description to create depth and its effect is like an assault on the senses. I can smell the sweat of the glassmaker, feel the fur of the monkey, hear the creak of the boats in the canals and the shouts in the market, and feel the swell of the waves and ruts in the road as the package takes its journey, delivering both beauty and death at the same time.

In one timeline Judith and then Hamnet succumb to the plague, while unwittingly the family go about their usual day. There is a clever nod to the cross dressing in Shakespeare’s comedies here in the likeness of the twins, but this is anything but funny, it’s a disguise to cheat death. As the family slowly discover what fate has in store, our timeline jumps into the past following Agnes and Hamnet’s father. Although she is more widely known as Anne, she was recorded in official records as Agnes so the author chose to stick with that name. She always refers to him as the tutor, the husband or the father and never by name. The absence of his name creates a sense of two people; the London celebrity playwright and the family man. We start to see what an extraordinary woman Agnes is in her own right. The object of gossip in town, people say the daughter at Hewlands is a very singular character. She has a friend who is a priest, she has her own hawk and can charm bees. In truth she knows a lot of old country ways such as foraging, hawking and bee keeping as well as what plants to grow for household ailments. She often roams barefoot in the forest and her stepmother Joan despaired of her a long time ago and is jealous of the love her husband held for his late wife. When Agnes meets her brother’s Latin tutor, she uses her method of reading people and pinches the flesh between his thumb and forefinger. Here she sees depths and universes within, that his surface youth and inexperience don’t even hint at. It is this promise, these unseen layers, that she falls in love with. For his part, it is her difference he finds intoxicating. He realises that he will never see another woman who walks barefoot, with lose hair and a hawk on her arm. However much they accept each other, will their families accept their choice and will those untapped depths come between them?

I enjoyed the way these two timelines intersected, each informing the other and adding layers of understanding. How both families assimilated and worked together over time was really interesting. In each generation sibling relationships were particularly important, with their rivalries, but also their unspoken trusts and understandings. The idea of ‘doubling’ and disguise around siblings, especially where there are different genders such as Judith and Hamnet, makes us think again about a play like Twelfth Night. Disguise allows women to do things they would normally be excluded from and O’Farrell shows that in the industriousness of women in the novel. This isn’t just based around domestic matters but planning and running businesses. Agnes grows medicinal plants and creates cures, with people often knocking on the door to be seen. As a country girl I also liked the depiction of her relationship with the land. When I stand on the bank of the River Trent, I feel an urge to go barefoot and ground myself. I was born there, so when I moved next to the river recently grounding and feeling the earth felt so powerful. Agnes is the same with the land at Hewlands, particularly the woods, and she chooses to give birth there to Susannah. Agnes feels cradled by the earth, it protects, cures and grounds her. She also has great ‘countrycraft’ such as being able to control bees – something I’ve seen my own father do with a swarm – there’s a practicality but also a mysticism to these abilities.

Underpinning all of this, I am in love with Maggie O’Farrell’s flow. It’s a hard book to put down because it reads like one long poem to love, family, and home. Then there is the tension that comes when a member of this family follows their dream and is taken away from that unit. How does a father balance his roles as lover, son, father and still follow his dreams? Especially when those dreams are so big. When he gets that balance wrong will he be forgiven and will he be able to forgive himself? The book is full of contrasts, from passages so vibrant and full of life, to the devastating silence of Hamnet’s loss. From birth scenes to death scenes. Wild country lanes and the leafy woods compared with the noise and enclosure of town. The routine of daily family life as opposed to a chaotic life in the theatres of London. All of these contrasts exist within one family, and no matter what we know about our most famous and celebrated playwright, this is about family. Finally, the author’s depiction of grief is so moving. Whether quiet and contained, or expressed loudly, we never doubt its devastating power. We never overlook the boy-shaped hole in the life of this family. Whether our response to grief is to run from it, distract ourselves from it or deny it, eventually we do have to go through it. In the life of this couple, will their grief be expressed differently and if so, can they ever make their way back to each other? This is a simply stunning piece of work. Moving, haunting and ultimately unforgettable.

I’ll keep you posted for the film version but I know I’ll be taking lots of tissues.

Hamnet is in cinemas on January 9th.

Personal Purchase

The Boleyn Traitor by Philippa Gregory

Posted on 19th Dec 202519th Dec 2025 by thelotusreaders

She survives four queens. Will she fall to a tyrant?

Philippa Gregory brings the Boleyn traitor into the light in an explosive story of one woman’s survival in the treacherous heart of the Tudor court.

It’s been a while since author and historian Philippa Gregory delved into the lives of the Tudors, but what a character to come back to. I’ve always been interested in those women who survived Henry VIII, not just Katherine Parr but Mary Boleyn, who was the subject of Phillipa’s first book and managed to spurn court and live in the countryside with her husband and children. There’s Anne of Cleeves who had the common sense to take an annulment and lived the rest of her life as a wealthy woman. Then there’s Jane Boleyn, one of those fascinating people who seems in the background and very unimportant. In fact when I first read about Anne Boleyn her sister-in-law was no more than a functionary, a lady-in-waiting with no bearing on the main story. However, the more I read, the more interesting little snippets occurred to me. She’s named as someone who betrayed their own husband in the trial Henry VIII held against Anne and three men who were close to her, including her brother and Jane’s husband, George Boleyn. I wondered why he wanted to prove incest against Anne, when her adultery was treason anyway. This was a claim that had anger and spite behind it, that wanted to taint and bury the name Boleyn and with Jane surviving the fall it seemed likely that she had provided this salacious claim, perhaps jealous of her husband’s close relationship with his sister. Maybe she was just lucky, but Jane survived four queens, serving as lady in waiting from Katherine of Aragon to Katheryn Howard. That shows she was accomplished at court and able to weather the changes under a very unpredictable king. She survived the change from Roman Catholicism to the Church of England and the huge change in Henry’s court when he became less dependent on the opinions of his dukes and more on the commoner Thomas Cromwell. So I was really looking forward to reading more about this woman and her perspective on a story we know very well.

Of course there was a certain amount of repetition, but that’s my fault for having read everything there is to know about Henry’s court. Even though we’re firmly in Henry’s time, this book felt strangely contemporary in its themes. As it goes along we start to see Henry the tyrant emerge from the sought after and enlightened prince he once was, possibly due to the blow on the head he suffered while jousting. Now America is in the grip of a similar man, they’re both petty, vindictive, vengeful and willing to manipulate the truth to get the outcome they want.

“Pity about the horse” my father says […] “the King had him beheaded”.

By the time we reach Cromwell’s search for a new wife, after the death of Jane Seymour, Henry seems on the brink of insanity and no one can say no to his demands. A whole court revolves around his wishes, no matter how irrational they may be.

“The King kills those closest to him […] he loves them at first, calling them to his side to make himself shine and then he cannot tolerate that they eclipse him.”

Philippa writes a brilliant scene based on what we know of Anne of Cleeve’s arrival in the country. We know she spoke very little English or French, but she also had no experience of Henry. One of his foibles was dressing up and fooling people with his appearance. He failed to realise that his sheer size, not to mention his gait which was affected by the wound on his leg, meant he was likely to be identified whatever mask or disguise he wore. Used to the pandering of his courtiers who would pretend not to know him, he was horrified when he burst into Anne’s room dressed as a beggar and she failed to recognise him, even flinching at his touch. It’s was an appalling first impression and Philippa writes Jane as desperately trying to stop it from happening. Jane had spent time with the German bride and knew she wouldn’t get the King’s humour, pleading with Cromwell to stop him. However, it was too late and this woman’s reaction to him would have been a huge dent to his pride. This rejection doomed their relationship before it started, with Henry claiming she was overweight, her breasts were slack and she had a strange smell – a rather bold claim considering Henry’s persistently infected leg and his courtiers having to hold perfume to their noses to disguise the smell. The annulment was swift and Henry’s eye was drawn to a new girl at court, the fifteen year old Katheryn Howard.

Of course, there is also a contemporary parallel between Katheryn Howard’s past at her aunt’s home and Epstein scandal. She was supposedly being trained as a lady-in-waiting but Gregory’s past novel about Katheryn’s short time as Queen reveals that this finishing school in Norfolk is a magnet for the men of the area who are allowed to visit the girls at night. Katheryn has always been portrayed as promiscuous and it is thought by more recent historians that she was sexually active from a very young age of about twelve to thirteen. We would now consider this grooming of a minor for sexual exploitation and it’s worth remembering that she was executed for treason due to her infidelity with Thomas Culpepper, who had been the King’s favourite, but also for adultery with young men she met before she’d ever come to court. Henry changed the law specifically to charge her with this when he had the evidence to sign her death warrant anyway. He’s not alone in his predilection for young women. His best friend Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, has a young ‘ward’ who lives at Grimsthorpe Castle in my home county of Lincolnshire. As a middle aged man he thinks nothing of marrying her as soon as she’s of age and taking her property as his own. He’s also a lot less appealing when I’m not imagining Henry Cavill who played him in The Tudors. I found the scenes where Henry is brought to Katheryn’s bedchamber almost unbearable to read, but I can’t deny that they are well written. Henry is described as bloated, sweating and leaning upon his courtiers who have to heave him into bed with this young girl. We know he is likely to be impotent at this point in his life, but the fact that this tiny girl has to try and initiate sexual activity with him made me feel sick. I felt a tremendous pity for her and a hope that she found some moments of happiness and love in her short life.

Gregory writes Jane as a woman who lost her husband, her status and her role as a mother to serve this tyrant King’s court. It’s so fascinating to read how she stays within the King’s good graces for such a length of time. Here the author writes an alliance that might explain that, but we can see she’s intelligent in her own right, speaks several languages, is good at reading people and has a shrewd ability to sense which way the King might drift next. I found myself admiring her quick thinking and felt she could have easily been a politician or spin doctor in modern times. Something that stood out strongly in this novel was the misogyny, which wasn’t surprising but still felt desperately unfair. After Henry suffers his jousting accident he is unconscious for anything from 45 minutes to a couple of hours, with Anne distraught and by his side. Later she miscarries and as awful as that experience is, having been there more than once, what struck me was the shame and guilt she was made to feel. The rush to clean her up and change the bed, making sure it’s all presentable and the Queen looks well enough to accept a visit from the King. Her brother George is the only man who goes to bring comfort, not caring what state she is in. This belief that women are unclean and should come to a marriage bed untouched, no matter how experienced her new husband may be, does breed a resentment and fury into those women. That can start to question in their own mind but it can’t be voiced yet. This is about little rebellions and pushing the boundaries of the powers they do have and Jane is very good at this, knowing which powerful men to trust and those to placate. I found the book gripping even though I knew the outcome would not change and I think that’s a great skill to have. Gregory takes people we know from school and history books and makes them into living breathing humans, with wants and needs that are no different from ours. I felt Jane’s loneliness and this was perhaps why she helped Katheryn in her love affairs. Both have had very little love in their lives and for Jane living this vicariously was so tempting, but very dangerous. This was an interesting look at the Tudor court from the viewpoint of a character whose position makes her almost invisible but also a very compelling witness.

Meet the Author

Philippa Gregory is an internationally renowned historian and novelist. She holds a PhD in eighteenth-century literature at the University of Edinburgh and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff, an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck University of London and she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her services to literature and to charity. Her novels have been adapted for stage and screen and in 2023 she published her groundbreaking history book, Normal Women – 900 Years of Making History, which was also released as a podcast, a teen edition and a series for young children.

Personal Purchase

Her Many Faces by Nicci Cloke

Posted on 12th Dec 2025 by thelotusreaders

ONE TRIAL. FIVE TRUTHS. BUT ARE THEY READY FOR HERS?

When a waitress is charged with murdering four men at an exclusive private club, her personal life and upbringing are thrust into the spotlight. During the trial, people closest to Katie start to question what they know about her.

Her father remembers the sweet schoolgirl.

Her childhood friend misses her kindness and protection.

Her lover regrets ever falling for her.

Her lawyer believes she is hiding something.

A journalist is convinced she is a cold-blooded killer.

To each of them she’s someone different. But is she guilty?

This thriller grabbed me straight away and never let go! The pace was fast, with short punchy chapters containing the narratives of five men each linked in some way to a woman called Katie. Each man has his own name for this woman and their narratives tell us her story as they see it. John is her father, Gabe is her childhood friend, Conrad is her lover, Tarun is a lawyer and Max is a journalist. Each one thinks they know her, each one presents a different face. But who is she and which is her real identity? Is she a combination of all five or nothing like this at all. It’s a timely, compelling and addictive story that you’ll want to finish in one go.

The murder that has taken place at March House has killed four very important men at once. Lucian is a businessman and owner of March House, a private members club for the richest and most influential men in the UK and their guests. His guests that night were Harris Lowe, Lucian’s new right hand man, Dominic Ainsworth MP and Russian millionaire Aleksander Popov. They appear to have been poisoned with an incredibly expensive bottle of brandy laced with poison. Only one person has been serving the party all evening and that is waitress Katie. She is soon under arrest, but what possible motive could she have had to kill these men? Yet when police apprehend her not long after she’s left work for the evening she is reported as saying ‘they got what they deserved’. Is this an admission of guilt or an acknowledgment that whoever killed them, did the world a favour?

It’s hard to get to know Katie because she is simultaneously a wildcat, a conspiracy theorist, a squatter, a farmhand, a waitress or the accused. These are just some of the descriptive words used to label her by the men in her life, but we have to remember that they are viewing her through their own lens. How much can we trust their impressions of her and do we accept that they’re telling the truth? She’s clearly beautiful, even without the ‘right’ clothes she has something that men desire. Conrad feels this when she’s helping out with the pigs on her uncle’s farm but then is shocked when she turns up at his club and his boss Lucien clearly desires her too. Both of them see a sex object rather than the young, troubled woman in front of them. John still sees his little girl, unable to equate the terrible crime she’s accused of with his daughter. However, we learn that she’s always been sympathetic and perhaps a little soft where his daughter is concerned whereas her mother sees her as a naughty child who grew up still getting into trouble. If anyone sees a more rounded Katie it’s her childhood friend Gabe, even if he is in love with her. She pulls him into her internet wormhole of conspiracy theories and he follows her down to London, ready for direct action to change everything that’s wrong with society. Yet when he gets there, Katie is living in a squat and has moved on in her belief system. Gabe has fallen under the spell of the elusive Mr E who appears in the comments under YouTube videos, disparaging the rich and the corruption within the system. He’s saddened to find her working at March House, the centre of online rumours about secret cabals and the ‘real’ people who run the world. He sees the Katie who had these beliefs as the real Katie and now she doesn’t believe or belong to him anymore. Similarly, Conrad sees her as this beautiful, innocent farmhand:

“You’d taken on a hazy, pure quality, a perfume ad of a person. In the cafe you looked ordinary.”

Every so often a book comes along that captures a moment and this definitely does. It isn’t the first book I’ve read where online radicalisation is part of the story and how dangerous it can be to become drawn in by conspiracy theorists. We tend to use the word grooming when it refers to children, but young adults and people with learning disabilities are also vulnerable and political or conspiracy theories seem to be changing the way people view the world without them even leaving the house and experiencing it for themselves. The echo chambers created when we look at certain subjects means people can be left thinking they have the majority viewpoint, no matter how crazy or extreme the ideas. Conspiracy theories are popular because it gives explanations for events that are incredibly complex and totally outside of our control. The realisation that a small group of individuals could hijack a few planes and attack the most powerful cities in the USA is almost too scary. People didn’t want to feel that their country was that vulnerable and open to attack, so they created stories that their own government must have been involved. Mr E directs his followers to March House as the real seat of power and their list of members could easily feed into that narrative. There is no doubt that some dodgy deals and introductions go on there, but the difficulties facing the country are international and much more complex than a few smoking men in a private room, but for some, life being random chaos is a scary prospect.

At the centre of all this is Katie, a lost young woman unsure of who she is and what she wants from life. With no plan or purpose, she lurches from one crisis to the next never feeling safe or grounded. The novel made me angry, especially with Conrad and Max who want to use and exploit Katie. Conrad has the audacity to suggest his connection to her was flimsy at best:

“I could barely even remember your real name. You had come onto me so hard, when I looked back, that in a way it was embarrassing. I was embarrassed for you”.

I was furious and desperately wanted him pulled apart in court by her barrister Tarun. It reminded me of how women who are seen as controversial, such as Caroline Flack or the Duchess of Sussex, are presented and packaged by the media. There’s misogyny at the root of this and it’s the same with the male characters in the book who package Katie into roles and personalities that absolves them for the harm they cause and assuages their guilt. This is brilliantly done by the author who doesn’t put a foot wrong in her characterisation and the pace of this novel. It’s fast moving and she doesn’t waste a single word, keeping you gripped by what might happen next. We’re never sure on what has happened or who is responsible and the courtroom scenes are brilliant meaning it was impossible to put down – there was one late night where I completely wrote off the following day for anything useful. This is powerful and will make you angry, but you won’t be able to stop those pages turning.

Meet the Author

Nicci Cloke is an author and editor based in Cambridgeshire. Her novels have been published in twelve languages, and she has previously worked as a nanny, a cocktail waitress and a Christmas Elf. Before being published, she was a permissions manager, looking after literary estates including those of Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and T. S. Eliot, and was also communications manager at the Faber Academy.

Personal Purchase

The Village by Caroline Mitchell

Posted on 27th Nov 2025 by thelotusreaders

Ten years ago, the Harper family disappeared. Their deserted cottage was left with the water running, the television playing cartoons, the oven ready for baking. The doors were locked from the inside. Overnight, the sleepy village of Nighbrook became notorious as the scene of the unsolved mystery of the decade, an epicentre for ghoulish media speculation.

For crime journalist Naomi, solving the case has turned into an obsession. So now, with Ivy Cottage finally listed for sale, it’s her chance to mount an investigation like no other. And her husband and stepdaughter don’t really need to know what happened in their new home… do they? But Nighbrook isn’t quite the village she expected. No one wants to talk to her. No one will answer her questions. And as she becomes increasingly uneasy, it’s clear that the villagers are hiding something—that there is something very dark at the heart of this rural idyll. And the deeper she digs, the more it seems her investigation could be more dangerous than she ever imagined… In raking up the secrets of the past, has she made her own family the next target?

I came to this novel on the recommendation of another blogger and it’s certainly a page turner. Ivy Cottage isn’t the average house. It’s isolated from the village, tucked away in a forest clearing and inside it’s the archetypal haunted house – dated and untouched, full of cobwebs and creaking sounds. It feels like a house whose history is imprinted on the atmosphere. We also don’t know who can be trusted in this village. At first people are all smiles and welcome, so much so that Naomi takes cakes to the local cafe and the family gets to know local police officer Lloyd, who calls in to introduce himself. The tension is created by intervening chapters that delve into the past and cast doubt on characters that have seemed friendly in the present. They open up questions: why is a girl called Grace slipping out of the cottage in the dead of night and playing in the woods? Why is Lloyd watching? Is he trying to keep her safe or does he have more sinister motives for watching his ‘moonlight girl’. The author also creates disquiet in the reader with odd incidents that have no explanation. We don’t know who is responsible for locking Naomi in the attic one morning. Is her new stepdaughter Morgan resentful or actively dangerous? Who is the teenager talking to online? I found myself full of questions.

I did have a lot of sympathy for Morgan who doesn’t seem to be such a bad kid, considering her circumstances. I found myself cross with her father Ed and Naomi for destabilising her, especially when she’s already estranged from her mother. Naomi and Ed have married in a whirlwind, then have taken Morgan from everything she knows into the middle of nowhere. They’re barely in Ivy Cottage when Ed announces he’s travelling to Scotland to track down Morgan’s mother who we’re told is an addict and has a life full of drama. It’s not hard to work out that Morgan must feel abandoned by both parents and is now stuck in this creepy house with a woman she barely knows. I felt quite angry with Naomi already, but when we realise she’s dragged her new family into her scheme to investigate the previous owners it seems positively reckless. Not even Ed knows the house’s past so Naomi has started a marriage by lying to everyone. To put a vulnerable teenager into this dangerous environment is at best selfish and at worst callous. Morgan is sullen and angry, which is understandable. When Naomi’s sister turns up she encounters Morgan wandering in the night and decides to give her a few ‘home truths’ which I found particularly spiteful. It’s no surprise that Morgan has started talking to strangers on the internet and wanders outside at night to meet new friends like Dawn, not knowing that she’s putting herself in danger. Can she trust anyone in this village?

More tension is created by intervening chapters that delve into the past and the unusual life of a young teenage girl called Grace, part of the family who disappeared from this house. She has a very restricted life, plagued by unusual symptoms and even allergic to light. This level of control has led to her sneaking out at night and wandering through the forest, but out there she isn’t alone. Someone watches Grace and we’re not sure whether they’re benign or a danger. I’d worked out what was going on within the Harper family early on, but that’s only a small part of the mystery around Ivy Cottage and their disappearance. When Dawn asks Morgan to sneak out at night they play with an ouija board in the old church and Grace seems to speak to them. It unnerves Morgan but she’s not sure whether it’s a spectral Grace or Dawn she should be wary of. What we do realise is that there are still people lurking in the woods so Morgan and Naomi feel like sitting ducks. There are several twists and turns from here, with a double showdown coming – one for Naomi and Morgan and one in the past – it was nail-bitingly tense. I was also curious about the future of this whirlwind family if they came out of this alive. Would Ed forgive Naomi for lying to him and putting his daughter in unnecessary danger? Could they carry on living at Ivy Cottage? As the night of the Harper disappearance also unfolds I was on tenterhooks. The house was left with half-eaten food on the table as if they were spirited away with no warning. If Grace and her family came out of their ordeal alive, where are they and why did they leave the village? If they’re dead, then who is to blame? With mind games being played and a scene that may just have put me off cake, I’d have been packing my bags very quickly. I did feel there was a twist or two I didn’t need, but the author paints a brilliantly spooky atmosphere around the cottage and it’s hidden past. I didn’t know who to trust out of the villagers and my judgement was completely wrong! This was gripping and is one of those thrillers you’ll devour in a weekend.

Thomas and Mercer Jan 2022

Meet the Author

New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post and International #1 Bestselling Author. Shortlisted by the International Thriller Awards for best ebook 2017, the Killer Nashville Best Police Procedural 2018 and the Audie awards 2022. Over 1.8 million books sold.

Caroline originates from Ireland and now lives in a woodland village outside the city of Lincoln. A former police detective, she has worked in CID and specialised in roles dealing with vulnerable victims, high-risk victims of domestic abuse, and serious sexual offences. She now writes full time.

Caroline writes psychological and crime thrillers. Her stand alone thriller Silent Victim reached No.1 in the Amazon charts in the UK, USA and Australia and was the winner of the Reader’s Favourite Awards in the psychological thriller category. It has been described as ‘brilliantly gripping and deliciously creepy’.

The first in her Amy Winter series, Truth And Lies, is a New York Times bestseller and has been optioned for TV.

You can follow Caroline on:

X: https://twitter.com/Caroline_writes

Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/CMitchellAuthor

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/caroline_writes/

Her book site: http://www.caroline-writes.com

Her digital writing courses: http://www.caroline-mitchell.com

Personal Purchase

Venetian Vespers by John Banville

Posted on 31st Oct 202529th Oct 2025 by thelotusreaders

This felt like the perfect autumn read – a sinister mystery filled with atmosphere and a slowly building sense of menace. Evelyn Dolman embarks on his honeymoon with his new wife Laura and it proves to be anything but the honeymoon he expected. The couple are greeted by servants at their lodgings, but soon the landlord of Palazzo Dioscuri is there to introduce himself and tell tales of his grand and adventurous ancestors, many of whom Evelyn suspects as figments of the Count’s imagination. Simply a tale to entertain guests. Evelyn fought hard for Laura’s hand, knowing she was far above him in terms of class and finances as he is merely a struggling writer. He’s been looking forward to getting away and as they settle into their rooms he’s sure they’ll have a successful trip. Despite his awareness of the rot and instability underneath some of the grand palazzos they saw from the vaporetto Evelyn is still dazzled by the faded beauty, the light and the history of this group of islands that make up the city. So, with Laura settling in early for the night he decides to go for a walk and perhaps a drink somewhere close by and she suggests Florian, a cafe that first opened in 1720 and still serves Venetian visitors today. A chance meeting is followed by a night of drinking and one unforgivable act. So when he wakes in the morning, sluggish and nauseous and finds his wife isn’t next to him in bed, he imagines she has taken herself to another room. However, as the morning progresses it becomes clear that Laura has simply disappeared.

I picked this book up on a solid recommendation from the bookshop owner, he said his wife was reading it and was torn between devouring it or savouring every chapter. After reading the first couple of chapters I knew exactly how she felt. I love the city of Venice and I love fiction that is set there, particularly stories that conjure up the feel of the city. I’ve been lucky enough to visit the city twice, both times for a full week of exploring. It was the perfect holiday for me – the gothic feel of the place, the incredible architecture, the artisans creating in their workshops and the history of the islands. This is a city with a potential story round every corner. John Banville has captured this perfectly and the strange atmosphere that goes with it. Venice likes to fool you. Not just at carnival time with its costumes and masks, although there is something thrilling and terrifying about that time, this is a sleight of hand that’s in the everyday: the theatre that is actually a supermarket, a nondescript red brick church adorned with clouds and painted cherubs above the altar, it’s turning off a bustling street full of tourists into an empty piazza, devoid of sound. I think every visitor has the experience of turning into a quiet corner and knowing it’s been like this for centuries and you could have stepped into a completely different time. This idea of the city as a trickster is used cleverly by the author to wrong foot both the reader and our narrator.

Our first strange event happens in Florian, the gilded and opulent cafe recommended by his wife. As Evelyn begins to settle in with his coffee and brandy a man approaches his table with a shout of surprise. A red haired man introduces himself as Freddie Fitzherbert and can’t believe Evelyn doesn’t recognise him, since they went to the same school. Evelyn has the conviction that he’s never seen this man before, but he seems to know Evelyn and out of politeness he allows himself to be ushered to sit with Freddie and his sister Francesca Ransome, whose charms don’t go unnoticed:

“This enchanting creature of the heart-shaped face, lustrous eyes and invitingly intimate smile […] how deeply, warmly hued her gleaming ringlets”.

As Evelyn is coerced into joining them at a late drinking establishment he senses he may be making a terrible mistake.

We see everything through Evelyn’s eyes and he is bluntly honest about his feelings and behaviour. He desires Cesca and once felt a similar craving for his wife, but just like this city appearances can be deceptive. Their marriage looks like a love match, but could it be sitting on gradually rotting foundations. On the night he proposed, Laura accompanied him to his rooms and there “the deed of tender initiation was at last enacted” but far from being the unknowing virgin he expected, his fiance knew the deed and proved more experienced in it than him. She was also eager to participate:

“To say it plainly her deft embraces and practised kisses were such as to leave me gasping less in ecstasy than astonishment, even dismay.”

Despite his own initiations that were paid for in a certain type of establishment, he resents hers. Despite the passion, he doesn’t feel he fully possessed Laura. She felt absent to him but the night was never discussed or repeated. Even since the marriage Laura had shown no indication of being receptive to his advances and he is beginning to think that the carnal side of their relationship is over. As he returns to the palazzo, so drunk he is accompanied by Cesca, he is so full of alcohol and lust that he is on course to act in a way that is unforgivable. When he wakes, foggy and nauseous the next morning, it takes a few moments to remember the night before. Once reality hits he searches their rooms and the rest of the palazzo for his wife but he can find no trace of her. Did she leave? Has she gone to a hotel to cool off for a while? Or did more transpire last night than he remembers?

This is a mystery as labyrinthine as the city itself and despite having only one narrator we are left with so many questions. There’s a vagueness about every detail that could be an adherence to social etiquette but could also be deliberate. Evelyn seems easily pulled into harms way and claims to feel utterly detached from his wrongdoing. It’s as if he’s too weak to be autonomous or stick to his principles, or he could be trying to fool us. Despite claiming not to recognise Freddie he was easily swayed to go late night drinking with them and even secures them rooms at the Palazzo Dioscuri when their lodgings on Guidecca need to be vacated. He claims to be bewitched by his wife’s dark haired beauty but very quickly switches interest to Cesca. Could he really be this callous? It seems our narrator is not to be trusted and he’s not alone. Count Barbarigo drifts in and out at will, with long fantastical stories of his ancestors that must be false. Cesca is very enigmatic, seductive one moment and pulling back the next. Where is her husband? What does she expect from Evelyn? We get the feeling that everyone is behaving oddly as if there’s something else going on just out of Evelyn’s sight. As Freddie and Cesca join the palazzo the Count provides a lunch for his guests, a gathering Evelyn refers to as a Mad Hatter’s party and it’s an apt description of this strange assortment of strangers. He notices the servants are sitting with the guests. He gets the sense of watching a play unfold in front of him, with everyone playing their part but something feels ‘off’. To me it felt like the house of misrule where the usual social order is being turned on its head. Not to mention Laura is still nowhere to be found.

Doubling is also a theme, with Laura seeming to be the quiet, ideal wife but she has this unexpected sexual past. Cesca is pointed out as Laura’s double by the count, with the only difference being her hair colour. Evelyn even wishes his wife was more like Cesca. She does admit to her dual nature and even likens it to the city.

“You will get used to the pantomime that Venice makes of life.”

The reference to pantomime again brought up that twelfth night sense of misrule, where women are principal boys and men are the pantomime dames. Cesca claims that the venality of Venice makes her feel like the essence of respectability. Evelyn flirts around this statement, wondering about her respectability elsewhere in the world also wishing to be a wilder version of himself. He bemoans his character, wishing that Cesca could see this other self that’s the perfect fit for Venice in all its elusiveness and deceit.

“Wherever I end up I will still be Evelyn Dolman, a northerner born and bred, utterly un- Venetian.”

He wishes for the ability to be a wild rover like Freddie, tied down by no one and no principle or creed either. This part of him longs for Casanova levels of debauchery, but as leans his head against the damp wall of the palazzo he longs for his tidy house in Chiswick and the smell of furniture polish. Will this suburban, safe Evelyn win the day or will he allow his darker, shadow self to control his actions?

There are clues to what is transpiring here but they are subtle. The writer has incredible sleight of hand and they seem inconsequential or at list explicable. Some completely passed me by. As I opened the book again for writing this review it made me think of The Sixth Sense and how no one saw the clues on their first watch of the film but when they watched for a second time they couldn’t believe they’d missed them. Each character is slippery and elusive with an unpredictable quality that felt dangerous. I lived this uncanny feeling the author created which grows organically from the city. This is a sparking jewel of a city that’s risen from the mud and brackish waters of the lagoon. Evelyn mentions the fin de siécle, that time of decadence towards the end of the 19th Century and that timing certainly informs some of the events in the book, particularly the fluid social order and sexual licentiousness. We’re told constantly that Venice is decaying and sinking. One day it may be completely under water, but the decay isn’t what you see when you first visit. Venice bewitches you with its golden domes, Morrison arches, coloured glass and the way sparkling light from the surface of the water bathes everything in a soft light. Then suddenly, only a street away you notice a tree growing out of someone’s house and at night most residences seem in darkness now that families can no longer live in the water logged lower floors. Banville captures this ‘double’ city utterly, describing the timeless romance of a gondolier serenading his passengers but also the jarring sound of the vaporetto. We see the sparkling water but also smell the mud as the passing boats churn it up. He links this duality with human nature, our surface selves and the real us, even the parts we avoid and keep locked away. Everything about this novel is a conjuring trick and I fell head over heels in love with it.

Meet the Author

John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of thirteen previous novels including The Book of Evidence, which was shortlisted for the 1989 Booker Prize. He has received a literary award from the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Dublin.

Personal Purchase

The Bride Stone by Sally Gardner

Posted on 17th Sep 202517th Sep 2025 by thelotusreaders

According to our narrator, a ‘bride stone’ is a precious stone given to the groom’s family as a dowry. Sometimes though, a beautifully made fake stone was used, one they could only have valued when it was too late. It’s an apt title for a book where women are traded in many different ways and in the human sense the most unprepossessing stones may turn out to be priceless. It is set just after the French Revolution where Marie Antoinette, who would have had no choice in marrying Louis VII, was condemned to the guillotine as his Queen. Many aristocrats left France for British shores at this time and were often welcomed in high society. Edmée has somehow made her way to Britain, despite seemingly being an ordinary citizen and she is being offered at a ‘wife sale’, something I had no idea existed until I read Thomas Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge where Michael Trenchard sells both his wife and daughter as chattels he can no longer afford. When I first read it at 14, I felt how degrading it must be and was automatically revolted but now, I’m even more aware of the implications of being sold to the highest bidder. The thought of being owned by a man, a complete stranger, to be treated as he wishes is horrifying. Yet for Edmée this chapter surely can’t be worse than the last? For Duval Harlington it’s something he would never usually countenance, but his circumstances are uniquely desperate. Having been captured by the French while fighting and treating wounded soldiers, he is met by one of the family servants who bears bad news. Duval Harlington so now Lord Harlington because his father has recently died. Although he now has the title, his right to the ancestral home of Muchmore and his father’s wealth is rather more complex. Duval had a tough relationship with his father who didn’t see the point of him training as a doctor. Once he departed for France, Duval’s father installed a distant relative, Mr Carson and his wife, to manage the day to day running of the estate. So his will has an interesting stipulation, in order to claim his inheritance Duval must be married and now he has only two days to achieve this aim. Otherwise the estate becomes Mr Carson’s. When his servant points out the wife sale it seems like a means to an end. Duval notices a young woman being led around the room by a scarf round her neck. Her hair has been shorn away like a boy’s and she has a veil covering her face, but the buyers call out for it to be removed and he’s shocked to see that one side of her face is swollen and covered in bruises. Someone has recently beaten her very badly. On impulse he puts up his hand and bids for her, his intention being to marry her quickly and claim his inheritance. Then he could seek an annulment. However he does find Edmée fascinating and with Mr and Mrs Carson ready for a fight this marriage might not be as easy to shrug off as he thinks.

This is a fascinating period of history and I didn’t know as much about it as I thought. I knew bits about Versailles, the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette and the guillotine but my understanding was very vague. I hadn’t realised how many aristocrats fled here to escape the Reign of Terror and their fate at the guillotine. Edmée is interesting because she is French but claims not to be an aristocrat, so how else did she end up here? Could she be a Jacobin or a spy? The fear that something similar to the overthrow of the ancién regime could spread here was a real one, because it would remove the power held by the Royal Family and other aristocrats, instead creating a republic where all people would share natural rights of liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. Yet a book is always the product of its time and I could definitely see parallels with today’s politics. A dinner guest, Sir Wilfred Fairley MP talks about the influx of French emigrés saying he was asked if he thought ‘we’d been too lenient with the number of emigrés we have allowed into the country and my answer is yes’. However, a Marquis replies very strongly that no one wants to be in that position:

“To be forced to leave their lands, their houses, to start again in a country that doesn’t possess their humour or their language and is frightened of their religion […] to cross La Manche in a small unseaworthy boat to discover they have paid a fortune to be at the mercy of sailors threatening to throw them overboard if they do not pay double.”

It felt like it could have been two people arguing on social media today.

It’s evident Edmée has gone through a terrible ordeal at the hands of her previous husband, the Reverend Hughes. At first she must fear a similar fate from this stranger and Duval doesn’t help by abandoning her as soon as they reach Muchmore to go and sleep with a long term mistress. I was fascinated with Edmée because she’s such an unusual character and like me she keeps a journal and writes daily. The author lets us into that diary and we get to know how unsure she feels and that she has secrets. Duval’s aunt notices Edmée’s vulnerability and really takes a shine to her as they dine together and she takes her to buy gowns from the local dressmaker, a fellow French woman called Madame DuPont. Now that she’s Lady Harlington, she must look like a lady. It’s hard to know who she really is because she could just be fitting into each person’s expectations. Maybe this is something she’s used to doing in order to survive. When she falls ill and Duval returns to Muchmore, using his knowledge as a doctor to treat her, he shows great care and tenderness. As he waits for her to recover he reads her journal and learns so much about this woman he’s married to. With Duval she seems to blossom a little. Something unlocks in her and it’s like watching a mistreated animal learning to trust a human. Until now she’s been a blank space for others to write on, but it seems like Duval might be the person who brings out the real her. It is hard not to like this woman, who is described by her previous husband’s natural son as courageous:

“There was hardly anything of her but she had a will of steel. I don’t say that lightly. Some soldiers profess bravery and talk about courage, but that’s a woman who says nothing and has survived a Revolution and a violent bastard of a husband […] she would be a hard candle to blow out.”

This isn’t just a love story though, it’s a thriller. Just as Duval starts to settle in to being home, the unthinkable happens. The couple are talked into holding a ball to introduce the new Lady Harlington to society. Their guests come from the local area, but also from London and some are French emigrés. Mr and Mrs Carson are even invited and unbelievably accept. Edmée is a great success as the host in her new role as mistress of Muchmore, but the next morning she has vanished. Did she leave of her own accord – perhaps spooked by someone she saw the previous night. Or has something more sinister happened? It could be the work of someone closer to home – a disgruntled lover of Duval’s or someone determined that their marriage won’t succeed. I was drawn so deeply into the story of these unlikely partners. Duval and Edmée have both had difficult starts in life. The relationship between Duval and his father is typified by the ridiculous terms of his inheritance. The only thing he has to guide his search is her journal and the book that came with her, seemingly an ordinary history book but beautifully bound.

The theme of domestic violence and sexual assault is distressing and hard to read, but what shocked me most was other people’s ability to ignore what was happening even when they witnessed it with their own eyes. It brought home to me how dependent women were, in fact the only women in control of their own destiny are those who have a skill or their own business such as Madame DuPont the dressmaker or the brothel madam where Duval was a loyal customer in his youth. This is absolutely in line with social history of the 18th and 19th Century, but so much literature adapted for television focuses on the upper and middle classes where marriage is the only means of improving a woman’s status. I love when writers go back and write people back into a history they’ve been erased from due to race, disability or sexuality or when characters are more complicated figures in society. Duval isn’t your average privileged heir and Edmée would never normally be his wife. During dinner discussion on the revolution, Sir Wifred points out that its biggest folly was that all people should be equal, meaning men and women. Duval surprises him by stating that in his view “it was one of the most exciting things to have come out of the revolution.” I love that he is starting to see women as equals. Edmée is surviving the only way she knows how and by the skin of her teeth, so why would she choose to move on again? Duval has no choice but to retrace his steps, go back to where he bought his wife and find the clues. I was hoping for Edmée to have a happy ending, but it was clear this might not be the case making for a tense read in those final chapters. The book has a mix of hardship, adventure and mystery interlaced with the romantic possibility of an unlikely match being perfect. If only Duval can find her again. The author has created a fascinating mystery and an extraordinarily modern hero and heroine that I desperately wanted to find each other again.

Meet the Author

Sally Gardner gained a first class degree at a leading London art college and became a successful theatre costume designer before illustrating and writing books. Her debut novel, I, Coriander won the Nestle Gold Award and she is also a Costa and Carnegie prize-winner. Her books have been translated all over the world and have sold over two million copies. Find Sally online at sallygardner.co.uk, or on Twitter @TheSallyGardner.