Category: Publisher Proof

Posted in Netgalley, Publisher Proof

House of Shades by Lianne Dillsworth

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Hester is a doctoress, using her mother’s skills and recipes to treat the ladies of the night around her Kings Cross home. She’s offered a commission to work in the Fitzrovia home of Gervaise Cherville, a rich factory owner with declining health.

If Hester can diagnose and treat his illness he will pay her ten pounds, a life changing amount of money in 1833. Thinking that the fee will help them move to a better area of London, she leaves behind husband Jos and slightly wild sister, Willa, to work at Tall Trees the Cherville mansion. However there’s a dark energy in this old house, as if there’s a curse on Cherville and his mansion.He asks if Hester will track down two women who worked in the house – Aphrodite and Artemis. However, they weren’t servants but slaves and Cherville’s treatment of them torments him and keeps him awake at night. If Hester can find the women, allowing him to make reparation before he dies, he will raise her fee to twenty pounds. Hester is torn, twenty pounds would allow them to move to the country, removing Willa from the temptations that keep her out at night. Yet, will these women want to found, especially given Cherville’s abuses of power? Also, can Hester as a black woman, put another black women in danger without the consequences being on her conscience forever?

Inheritance is a huge theme in the novel and especially, the way in which characters receive their portion. Of course an inheritance isn’t always financial and the intentions of the giver play a large part in what it can do. Hester’s mother has given her an incredible inheritance, her doctoress’s bag of herbs and potions that can ease sicknesses of the mind and body. This of course helps her earn a living, tending to the prostitutes around their part of town at night. Kings Cross is known as a red light district and Hester tends to their venereal diseases, but also their bruises when men take what they want without paying. However, she also has the keeping of her younger sister Willa which isn’t easy. Willa is wild, easily led and naive when it comes to the intentions of men. Hester’s husband Jos finds it difficult living with Willa, especially when the sisters are at odds with each other. Willa works at the Cherville’s factory and has been noticed by Gervaise Cherville’s son, Rowland. It’s clear to Hester that his intentions aren’t honourable, but can she convince her headstrong sister that he isn’t as in love with her as he claims? When working at the Cherville’s house can she stop Rowland from recognising who she is, while also taking care that he doesn’t put undue influence on his father. Rowland isn’t happy with Gervaise giving away ‘his money’ in reparations, after all their plantation has hundreds of slaves and where will his charity end?

I loved the double meaning of the title House of Shades; the shades or ghosts of the past play their part here, especially in the mahogany furniture Cherville had made from the trees on the plantation. However, it also refers to shades of skin colour. I loved how the author explored the concept of ‘passing’ and colourism, especially in the light skinned character Lady Raine. Hester herself is very dark skinned, a colour that immediately places her in an unusual category. Her position as a doctoress situates her far higher in a house’s hierarchy than we might expect. There would be darker skinned slaves on Cherville’s plantation who are confined to working in the fields and bear the brunt of the ill treatment meted out, whereas those slaves considered lighter skinned might get to work in the household. Traditionally house slaves were thought to be higher in status than field workers, but whereas field workers get to leave the crops and spend time with their families in the village in he evenings, house slaves are at the beck and call of their master or mistress and even sleep in the house away from their families. They’re also closer to the male family members and therefore very vulnerable. There is a moment where Margaret is startled when she bumps into Hester on the landing, lurking in the darkness. She would only expect to meet servants of her own status on the master’s floor, not a black woman with her herbs and potions. I wondered how light skinned Willa was, to make her ‘palatable’ to Rowland Cherville, who appears to think slaves are expendable. He certainly doesn’t want them taking ‘his’ money.

Reparations are a huge theme in the novel and potentially the cause of Gervaise Cherville’s illness, as he admits the concerns and guilt around his treatment of slaves. Could his disturbing symptoms of insomnia, hallucinations and sleepwalking be put down to the end stage syphillis he’s suffering, or are the women he’s wronged in that house haunting him? When Hester first finds a dark, cold room off the kitchen she feels straight away that this isn’t a cold larder. There’s something about the space that she can feel and isn’t remotely surprised that slaves were sleeping in there, deemed unfit to be housed in the attic rooms with the servants. If all he wants to do is make reparations and apologise would it help the women to hear it? Or will the mention of their former master be so terrifying it disturbs their lives and leads to them fleeing once again? I suspected Gervaise hadn’t told Hester all that transpired between him and the women, in fact I doubted he even fully understood the extent of what he’d done. Yet it was Rowland Cherville who made my blood run cold, not only is he entering into exploitative relationships with young women who work in his factory but he doesn’t appear to have any empathy at all. His entire focus is on his own needs. He refers to his father’s money as his own, even though his father is still alive, and seems to have no feeling for his illness or imminent death. In fact he’d rather his father died, before he’s able to give all his money away. He also cares nothing for any of the slaves on whose backs the factory, Tall Trees and his inheritance have been built. They’re simply incidental to his own plans.

I really enjoyed the way this novel took me into the reality of Victorian England for black women. It gave me a new perspective, after Lianne’s first novel which looked at the rise of freak shows and the display of black women’s bodies. The private showings being another insidious and secret experience like rich men using women as domestic slaves and the objects of their desire behind closed doors, while seeming like a respectable businessman to society. Yet, the freak shows seemed to be freer and more in the control of the individual performer. One of the things I hated most when I visited the Slavery Museum in Liverpool, was the taking away of identity, so the way Cherville gave his slaves the names of goddesses made me shiver. It shows his desire for them on one hand, while keeping them in a cupboard, locked away all night like animals. While Hester is searching for them I was wondering whether they’d found their identity again, reclaimed their names and found a space to be relatively free. I feared that they’d had to adopt yet another identity, to disappear, constantly looking over their shoulder. Hester is a heroine that it’s easy to become involved with and I really sympathised with her feeling of being in-between: torn between being a wife and a sister; between her patient and her fellow women; not a servant, but not entirely free either. There’s even a revelation that draws her further into the history of Tall Trees. I wanted a happy ending for Hester, that she might be able to leave London and live that simpler life she and Jos have been craving. This is another triumph for Lianne Dillsworth and neatly places her on the list of authors whose books I would buy without question in future.

Published on 16th May 2024 from Random House

Meet the Author

Lianne Dillsworth lives and works in London. She has always loved anything and everything to do with books and her earliest memories involve reading and being read to. At school Lianne’s favourite subjects were English and History, so when she started writing, historical fiction was a natural choice. In Theatre of Marvels, her debut novel, Lianne indulges her love for the Victorian period evoking London in all its mid-nineteenth century glory. She is currently working on her second book under the watchful eye of her tiny terrier.

Posted in Squad Pod

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Sally Hepworth is a new author to me, so I was interested in reading this thriller based within the Australian child protection system, most notably one foster home called Wild Meadows. Three girls grew up there under the care of Miss Fairchild, described like an 1980’s Barbie doll, and thought to be one of the best foster parents in the system. The three girls are now grown women. Jessica was the first long term foster child and now runs a home organising business and is married to Phil. Lately, she’s been suffering panic attacks and is using benzodiazepines to control her anxiety. Norah is a ballsy and confrontational woman who doesn’t stand for any nonsense. She is currently being blackmailed by a taxi driver whose nose she broke in an altercation. She sent him a picture of her breasts so he didn’t go to the cops, but now he wants more. Alicia is a social worker in a child protection team, trying to save children who might otherwise end up with a childhood like hers. She has a tentative relationship with her housemate Meera who she has just kissed, but struggles to be vulnerable and accept that she’s worthy of love. They are called back to Wild Meadows when building work unearths the body of a baby. As they travel back to where they spent their childhood, memories start to emerge about their traumatic childhoods at the hands of Miss Fairchild. It becomes clear that their present problems are an echo of that terrible start in life. How will they cope with digging up everything that happened back then and what will happen when Miss Fairchild arrives?

I felt incredibly sorry for Jessie who was the first foster child, conditioned to love Miss Fairchild (who she calls Mum) and to do anything that pleases her including cleaning the house from top to bottom. She and Miss Fairchild are a team and even though the work is sometimes hard, she knows Miss Fairchild loves her. Jessie is the favourite and being the favourite is wonderful – until someone else comes along. When Norah arrives without warning, Jessie is put out. So she tries even harder to please her mother and doesn’t understand when she’s rejected. It’s hard to watch, because even Norah can see it’s like kicking a puppy. Jessie’s confusion and feelings of dejection have turned her into a people pleaser. She’s now married to Phil, who seems kind but still Jessie is compelled to please him and appear perfect at all times. If she’s not perfect, no one will love her. Before she leaves with her sisters Jessie reaches a new low by stealing benzodiazepines from a client’s bathroom cabinet. When she’s rumbled, Jessie switches off her phone and leaves with her sisters. I really enjoyed Norah, who comes to Wild Meadows second and ousts Jessica from the favourite position. It’s not that Norah dislikes Jessie, it’s just that she’s been in other homes and knows that it’s best to be the popular kid. Despite this the girls start a tentative friendship and soon Norah is sleeping next to Jessie and sticking up for her at school. They are sisters and sisters stick together. Norah is now single and lives with her three rescue dogs, named after the first thing they destroyed after they arrived; Converse, Thong and Couch. liked her sense of humour and her ability to look after herself, although the taxi driver issue is out of hand and Norah knows that if he goes to the police she’s breached her good behaviour

order and may go to prison. Alicia, made the least impression on me as a child but perhaps the greatest impression as an adult. She soon bonds with the other two girls and they give each other some semblance of a normal home, playing music together, staying up late talking and devising ways to deal with their foster mother. Now Alicia is battles everyday for kids in the system. It’s as if in saving them, she saves herself. Her friendship with Meera is strong but when it starts to become something more she panics. Never used to the full package when it comes to relationships, she can’t believe that she can keep everything she and Meera already have plus have a romantic relationship too. Sex and love don’t go together in Alicia’s world. She’s avoiding the issue by travelling with her sisters, but when Meera turns up out of the blue she has to bring her past and present together.

Between these timelines there are small chapters that I found really interesting because although we don’t know who is speaking, we know it’s with a psychiatrist or therapist. This unnamed woman is talking about her childhood, which is truly horrific to read and a heads up for anyone who is triggered by reading about child abuse, this is a really tough. To be honest the abuse depicted across the book is physical, sexual, mental, financial and spiritual. I think this narrative really got to me because I grew up in an evangelical church and even though my experience there wasn’t abusive, it was as if women were second class citizens only there to be good, supportive wives and defer to men. What this woman goes through is much worse and as she relates it to the psychologist he seems to have weird ‘tells’ that the also speaker notices. As her story progresses he leans forward, perhaps more interested then neutral. She can see emotions in his eyes as she talks. He’s sympathetic. He’s distraught about what she’s been through. Is she telling the truth or is her story embroidered, gathering momentum as she sees him react. Playing his emotions, but to what end? I was hooked by this narrative, horrified but fascinated in equal measure because there was definitely something going on.

As news reports start to bring in a stream of younger women the authorities refer to them as ‘the babies’. The three sisters hadn’t remembered them except for Amy, a cute two year old who fell in love with her older sisters, infuriating Miss Fairchild who wanted the babies to love only her. What if Amy is the baby under the house? Surely now Miss Fairchild will be taken in for questioning? Sally Hepworth has written three women here that you will really be rooting for, in fact you might even identify with one of them. Miss Fairchild is the perfect villain, with her angelic looks and ability to manipulate any story to place her in a better light. Does this make her a murderer though? It isn’t just the central mystery that keeps you hooked though. Will Norah’s altercation with the taxi man catch up with her? The tension slowly builds around Jessie whose latest client noticed some diazepam missing and isn’t letting it go. When Meera arrives unannounced Alicia has to face her friend, but also explain their close relationship to her sisters. Can she accept Meera’s love and her own sexuality? The author keeps this tension up to the very end, with a couple of revelations and a twist that was really clever and I didn’t expect. I read this so quickly, desperate to see some characters get their comeuppance and others to see justice done. I especially enjoyed the resolution of the therapy sessions. This book will definitely keep you reading, but be prepared. You might not be able to put it down.

Out now from MacMillan

Meet the Author

Sally Hepworth is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including The Good Sister and The Soulmate. Her latest novel, Darling Girls, was released in Australia in September 2023, and will be released in North America in April 2024.

Drawing on the good, the bad and the downright odd of human behaviour, Sally writes incisively about family, relationships and identity. Her domestic thriller novels are laced with quirky humour, sass and a darkly charming tone. They are available worldwide in English and have been translated into twenty languages.

Sally lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her three children and one adorable dog. She has recently taken up ocean swimming (or to put it more accurately, ocean dipping)

Posted in Netgalley, Publisher Proof

Profile K by Helen Fields 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’m going to say up front that I’m a massive Helen Fields fan, with The Last Girl to Die being a particular favourite of mine. Her last novel introduced us to the unusual and complex psychologist and profiler Dr. Connie Woolwine at The Institution. Connie makes a cameo here, but the undoubted heroine of this tale is Midnight Jones. Midnight lives with her twin sister Dawn ( see what the parents did there) and is her main carer, since their parents chose to go travelling when Midnight finished university. Dawn was affected by lack of oxygen at birth leading to Cerebral Palsy. It’s effects are very individual to the patient, but it can cause both physical and intellectual disabilities. Dawn is profoundly affected, needing care 24/7 and that’s why Midnight is desperate to keep her job at Necto. She needs their higher than average pay packet to cover the costs of care. The company like to present themselves as an ethical firm, starting with their space age offices, filled with plants and trees that help create a better work environment. They have their fingers in many pies, but Midnight is a profiler and every day works through thousands of applications for universities, the military and other organisations, passing some applicants through to be interviewed and rejecting others based on assessment data alone.

Necto’s testing systems are so sophisticated, there’s nothing about the applicant they don’t know. In assessments, virtual reality head sets show images and the applicants every response is recorded from intelligence to levels of empathy. Then, dependent on the parameters for the particular institution they’re applying to, they are accepted or not. However, on this particular day Midnight finds a candidate who isn’t run of the mill, in fact he’s a one-off. In training, a candidate like this is jokingly dubbed a ‘Profile K’- for killer – Midnight finds a man who has recorded as showing zero empathy. When she watches the footage he was shown through her own headset, she is sickened by what she sees. This is way beyond the normal films shown to illicit empathy, it’s as if the machine couldn’t get a reading so has chosen more and more disturbing and violent images that should provoke empathy and disgust. Yet none comes. Unable to compute the response and also where such extreme footage could have come from, Midnight decides to take this further but her supervisor Richard Baxter isn’t interested. So she goes over his head, telling his boss that she’s found a Profile K. Surely they have a duty to report him, what if he’s dangerous? What if he kills? 

I’ve read three great thrillers this weekend in quick succession but this was by far the most inventive, with a hint of dystopia and a touch of social justice that was right up my street. I empathised with Midnight’s situation, determined not to let down her sister Dawn but struggling to pay for just enough care that Midnight can go to work. There is no room for a social life or romance. Their heads are just above water, but there’s no flexibility or empathy for her care role within her company, despite it’s apparent ethics. She takes a big risk taking her findings higher than Richard Baxter, because if she loses her job how will she afford the care Dawn needs? Yet she can’t ignore what she knows. Especially when the worst happens. A young woman is killed very close to where she and Dawn live and although Midnight doesn’t know this at first, the torture methods used are very close to a scene from the film shown during the Profile K’s application process. The victim was subjected to the death of a thousand cuts, which would have been both a painful and long drawn out way to die. Midnight is horrified to find that her boss would rather keep her discovery under wraps and she’s reminded of her non-disclosure agreement. What reason could they have that’s better than saving the lives of future victims? Midnight has read about the psychologist and profiler Dr Connie Woolwine and has a theory to run past someone with her expertise. Not expecting a response, she sends a message and is pleasantly surprised when the unusual doctor calls her late at night to talk it through. Midnight is scared of the consequences, but sure of her theory – could Necto have known about the Profile K? What if they showed the violent material on purpose to trigger a response? To turn someone with killer potential into a killer for real. 

I absolutely loved this belting thriller, because it was complex and intelligent but also full of human feeling. I guess this might sound strange when there’s quite graphic violence involved in some scenes, but they’re balanced by the pure depth of feeling Midnight has for her sister and later on for the elderly lady they begin a friendship with. I loved how authentic Midnight’s caring situation was, with a very clear struggle between wanting to provide the best help for someone she loves but feeling the fear of that sole responsibility. The anger she feels towards her parents is very real, because although she understands their need to follow their dreams, their freedom has curtailed her own. She can’t make any life decision without factoring Dawn in. How could she have a romantic relationship? What if she falls ill herself? Having been a carer I know how lonely and exhausting it can be. We can see the pull between home and work life, in that they both hinder and are dependent on each other. Parts of the book are genuinely terrifying. There is a scene that’s going to stay with me, like that episode of Luther where a woman gets undressed and climbs into bed followed by a ceiling shot where a man slowly slides out from underneath as if he’s been working under a car. It’s that combination of vulnerability and evil. We’ve all done that walk home where we get inside and lock the door, then take a deep breath and know we’re safe. To be attacked in that moment is heart-stoppingly scary! In the end, everything had to stop for those final chapters as I raced through to find out what happens. I was glued to these scenes, made all the more terrifying because the victim doesn’t have a clue how much danger she’s in. It’s one of those finales where I put the book down and realised every muscle in my body was tense! I needed some yoga stretches and a few episodes of Friday Night Dinner before bed to unwind. This is an absolute cracker of a read and I highly recommend it.

Published by Avon 25th April 2024

Meet the Author

A Sunday Times and million copy best-selling author, Helen is a former criminal and family law barrister. Every book in the Callanach series has claimed an Amazon #1 bestseller flag. ‘Perfect Kill’ was longlisted for the Crime Writers Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger in 2020, and others have been longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize, Scottish crime novel of the year. Helen also writes as HS Chandler, and has released legal thriller ‘Degrees of Guilt’. In 2020 Perfect Remains was shortlisted for the Bronze Bat, Dutch debut crime novel of the year. In 2022, Helen was nominated for Best Crime Novel and Best Author in the Netherlands. Now translated into more than 20 languages, and also selling in the USA, Canada & Australasia, Helen’s books have won global recognition. She has written standalone novels, The Institution, The Last Girl To Die, These Lost & Broken Things and The Shadow Man. She regularly commutes between West Sussex, USA and Scotland. Helen can be found on X @Helen_Fields.

Posted in Netgalley, Publisher Proof

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn’t there,

He wasn’t there again today, oh how I wish he’d go away.

Antagonish by Hugo Mearns

My grandad taught me the first few lines of the poem above. I think it appealed to his sense of humour. I thought it was a riddle and I used to ask ‘but is he there or not?’ This is the very question this whole book revolves around from the first line – ‘there is someone in the house’. Our unnamed narrator wakes in the night as a strange noise breaks through her sleep. I was told by a book reviewer I respect enormously that this was brilliant and she was absolutely right. Although I drove my husband crazy by waking him up to ask if he remembered locking the door. He hadn’t always and I knew I wouldn’t sleep until one of us had crept downstairs and checked. Preferably not me. This is the situation all of us dread, waking to that unexpected noise in the night and finding there is an intruder. Our narrator is at her secluded home with her two small children in a blizzard. The sound she hears is a familiar one, a tread on the stairs to her room, but it’s unusually heavy and slow. She has a split second to make the decision – does she hide, try to run or stay and fight. Will all three of them get out alive and if they do will anyone believe her?

The first thing that hit me about this book was the unique voice this mother has. We see everything through her eyes and experience everything her body goes through – mainly fear. There’s the heart-stopping tension of that first night, the immediate threat rendering everything else unimportant. Yet there are other fears lurking underneath – will the police believe her, will it stir up questions about her husband’s absence, what will her father-in-law make of what has happened? She is waiting for people to doubt her and the reader doubts her too. Always on the lookout for unreliable narrators, I did wonder whether I should trust what she was experiencing. It’s just so incredibly odd. This tall intruder seems to have two voices: a raspy harsh voice when he’s angry then more of a soft, weedling voice. A voice you might use for children as he asks them to ‘come out little pigs, little pigs are more delicious’. As he does this right next door to their hiding place, it’s even more terrifying. Her little girl whispers to her mum that it’s the ‘Corner Man’ from her nightmares, he sits in the corner of her bedroom at night and whispers to her. My heart was in my throat at this point! Was he real or something supernatural? Could he possibly be real if this is true? I wondered if this overwrought mother is imagining this person, but that opens up a more frightening prospect – is she hallucinating and terrorising her own children with her delusions? The author plays with the reader beautifully. Just as I was starting to think the narrator is completely crazy, she addressed my concerns.

‘How nice it would be to be crazy instead of correct. For t all to be a psychotic break. To have her husband come down those stairs. She’d pop out of the hidden place relieved – rated – to meet his look of confusion’.

This is a woman who is used to being misunderstood and there’s no shortage of men around, happy to convince her that she’s strange, hysterical and marked as different in some way. There’s an awful moment, recalled while hiding, when her husband told his father he was not going to continue studying law. She hears his father’s fury down the phone:

‘You never behaved this way before you met that girl. Christ. She’s disfigured’.

Our narrator has vitiligo – a long term skin condition where areas of skin lose melanin and become paler, creating a patchy complexion. People stare and perhaps mistrust her, worried they may catch a skin disease or worse. Added to this, she’s a newish mum full of hormones, perhaps she’s a bit anxious and over-protective. She’s recently bereaved, having nursed her terminally ill mother-in-law. Maybe she’s not in the best frame of mind. All of this and the fact that she’s a woman, mean the police will be unsure or just plain rude about her. They keep explaining there’s no evidence: no footsteps in the snow; nothing of any value is stolen – in fact the items she does mention are probably lose or mislaid by the children. They don’t sound like the type of things someone would steal. They’ll turn up.

While hiding from one monster, we learn that she’s battling another in the shape of her father-in-law. Honestly, I have never wanted to climb into a book and punch someone more. He is a bully, but everyone else placates him. He is ashamed of his son, even more ashamed of his disfigured daughter-in-law. He hates the noise of his newborn grandson and his wife apologises! Even while his wife is dying, he sits with his feet up watching television and creates holy hell if he’s disturbed. His daughter-in-law does all the work and is rarely appreciated or thanked. He wants his grandson to man up and stop being a wuss. Worst of all he’s aggressive, violent even. Having him in charge of her children is the worst outcome of all. This mother is also fiercely protective. A passing incident where a stranger commented on her daughter and pulled the drooping strap of her sundress back onto her shoulder, really bothers the mother. You can feel her hackles rising in much the same way she reacts when her father-in-law criticises her son. She has very keen instincts and it’s fascinating to see how those instincts can be eroded, mainly by men who still consider women a hair’s breadth away from hysteria and the asylum. It shows that we’re not just gaslighted by individuals, it can be institutional, perpetuated by organisations like the police force or as I’ve found in my own life, the medical profession.

The whole setting is brilliantly eerie. A secluded mansion house with woods behind and five acres of open pasture between them and the next house. The house was built in 1722 with two staircases, higgledy-piggledy rooms and even it’s very own graveyard. She loves the house, even though it’s totally impractical and a nightmare to heat. She’s got to know each creak and bang, it’s night noises, but never imagined when she viewed the house that she’d be fleeing into the secret space next to the chimney, where the builders walled in the labyrinthine brick work. They never imagined being walled in. It’s a place where ghostly presences and hidden secrets would be easy to believe. Yet it’s not all scary. There are some wonderfully tender moments between the mother and her children and we can feel how torn she is when she has to be sharp with them, to keep them quiet and safe. I had no idea where this story might go and the author was one step ahead of me all the way. I might have finished this incredible thriller, but I’m still carefully locking the doors at night and when the cat decided she’d rattle our door to upstairs at 3am my heart did beat a little faster. I can’t believe how assured and psychologically complex it was for a debut! If you only buy one thriller this year, make it this one.

Out now from Viking

Meet the Author

Tracy Sierra was born and raised in the Colorado mountains. She currently lives in New England in an antique colonial-era home complete with its own secret room. When not writing, she works as an attorney and spends time with her husband, two children, and flock of chickens. Nightwatching is her debut novel.

Posted in Squad Pod

A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh

Posted on by thelotusreaders

“Peach. Its shape floats on Mr Bell’s mouth. The pinch of the p, followed by a rounded push of the lips, sending the last syllable hard across the tongue. My hand nearly reaches for my pocket, as if the feather from our lessons might still be found there. It’s been a long time since I thought of the feather. I would balance it on my knuckles and make it quiver with the puff of my ps. Puh-puh-puh. I stop myself just in time, folding my hands against my skirts.”

I found the opening scene of this novel incredibly moving and so skilful, placing us so close to our heroine that we understand the barriers she faced being deaf at that point in history. In it, Ellen and her fiancé receive an unexpected visit from Alexander Graham Bell. As the two men converse, Ellen is picking up body language and tone of voice which indicate a serious topic but she notices a repeated word ‘peaches’. Her attention moves to the beautiful jar of peaches preserved by her mother on the dining table. Yet she’s wrong, as she passes Mr Bell the jar and urges him to take it he tells her no, the word he was saying was ‘speeches’.

As Ellen reminisces, so did I. I was propelled back to the early years of my nephew Charlie, who was born visually impaired. Before we knew the full implications of his sight loss, we’d noticed he was behind in his development. He wasn’t moving round much, had put on weight and wasn’t speaking. It then occurred to us. In order to learn something for the first time, we tend to copy it. If you can’t see, you can’t imitate others and just as Ellen is struggling to get the full meaning of Mr Bell’s conversation, Charlie couldn’t form the words if he didn’t know how to use his mouth to make the noises. So Mum used the same technique she’d used with us when we were small. When a specific noise was needed like the ‘puh’ sound in the book, Mum would raise his hand to her mouth and make the sound against his fingers. He would then put his fingers to his own mouth a copy her. It was lovely to relive that memory and feel perhaps a tiny bit of what Ellen is feeling too.

A Sign of Her Own is narrated by Ellen Lark across two timelines and it’s an incredible feeling to be in her world, because it’s so different from the world we know. It felt similar to when actress Rose Ayling-Ellis did Strictly in 2021 and performed a ‘Couple’s Choice’ dance with Giovanni Pernice, choreographed to bring the audience into Rose’s world. At a certain point, the music stopped but the couple continued to dance and we realised that this was Rose’s world. For us the music would return, but she carried on dancing into the silence. She somehow used her trust in Giovanni and read his body to perfect her dance routines. It was moving, disorienting and a complete revelation so it was no surprise to me that they were winners of that year’s BAFTA for a memorable TV moment.

Ellen’s inner world is also a revelation and the author communicates it so beautifully. She lost her hearing as a child during a bout of scarlet fever and communicated with her mother using a language of signs they made up as they went along. It broke my heart to read how the sound of her speech was viewed by local children. Restricted to vowel sounds, because she couldn’t hear the precision of the consonants, Ellen feels shame about how she sounds. Her personal sign language seems to suit her, but it’s her grandmother who comes up with the idea of using Alexander Graham Bell’s ‘Visible Speech’. Students of his method were banned from using any sort of sign language, but were allowed to use a notebook. Family politics played their part in the decision, because the family were in debt to their grandmother. Luckily Ellen enjoyed studying and proved to be incredibly clever, even if she was unsure about Bell’s method and his motives. She has to be perceptive and learns to read people very quickly, including Bell. As we move into the present day, Ellen and her fiancé are visited by Bell who is embroiled in a fight to be recognised as the sole inventor of the telephone. He wants Ellen’s support as a character witness, but Ellen doesn’t have good memories of her time under his tutelage. She feels like he betrayed her and other deaf students for his own fame and recognition. How can she support him when she feels so conflicted?

During the later timeline Bell’s fight becomes all consuming. He is full of determination and I felt torn about his character because on one hand he appears to be paying attention to a group of people rather alienated by the rest of society so his work could be seen as altruistic. On the other hand it’s as if the people he’s helping don’t really matter to him. There’s a narcissism or selfishness in his character that means he only sees his students in terms of how they can help him potentially find fame. I felt like he didn’t appreciate their characters or individuality. I found myself disliking him intensely. By contrast, Ellen is instantly likeable and intelligent. Through her we are invited into the deaf community and the debate over sign language and visible speech is fascinating. As someone who has studied disability theory, I was very aware that some people don’t consider their deafness a disability. If they sign, they simply see themselves as speakers of a different language. I was interested in the politics and ethics of a speaking world imposing a method of communication on the deaf community, rather than the community coming to society with their own choice of language or speech method. I think there are many readers who might never have considered these issues and wondered how the book is being received in the deaf and/or disabled community. I was impressed that the author wanted to bring these issues to the fore and loved the enthusiasm she clearly has about her subject and her heroine. This is a well researched debut clearly inspired and informed by her own experiences of deafness as a child. It puts us into the centre of that experience and I came away feeling like I had a renewed awareness of sensory disability.

Thank you so much to the Squad Pod Collective and Tinder Press for my copy of A Sign of Her Own, published on Feb 1st 2024

Meet the Author


Sarah Marshwas short-listed for the Lucy Cavendish Prize in 2019 and selected for the London Library Emerging Writers Programme in 2020.A Sign of Her Ownis her first novel, inspired by her experiences of growing up deaf and her family’s history of deafness

Posted in Publisher Proof

The London Bookshop Affair by Louise Fein

Posted on by thelotusreaders
Books and Bramble, the perfect combination.

Historical fiction is one of the genres I enjoy most and I’m drawn to Louise Fein’s novels because she always finds an interesting time period then looks at it from an unexpected viewpoint. It makes you rethink events you thought you knew all about. Here she has chosen post-WW2 London and the dawning of the early 1960’s when Kennedy is president and the Cuban missile crisis is looming. Her heroine is Celia, an ordinary young woman with older parents who are stricter than most and perhaps don’t understand her modern preoccupations and ambitions. I always imagine the ‘swinging sixties’ when I think of London at that time, but progress like that hasn’t quite reached Southwark yet. Celia is working at a second hand bookshop, that specialises in antique and collectible books. Yet her heart yearns for adventure. The world is on the cusp of space travel, women’s liberation and the Beatles. It’s also rather closer to nuclear war than most realised as the USSR and USA start a terrifying game of brinkmanship. Celia wants to protest against the testing and gathering of weapons far more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. She also chasing her dream career – she’s signed up for classes at Pitmans to gain the secretarial skills that might get her a job at the BBC. The little life her mum leads is not for her and she’s definitely not going to settle for Sam, the boy next door.

The catalyst for change is the bookshop’s new owner Mrs Denton, a dainty well dressed lady who is living alone in the flat above the shop. She seems more interested in shopping than books and offers Celia a raise to manage the shop as she sees fit. Mrs Denton has two regular male visitors: an older man called Mr Humphries who has wandering eyes and a scar down his face and a younger, handsome American called Septimus who Celia is drawn to. Could he be another pathway to a different life. The changes in Celia’s life are interspersed with a different timeline following a young woman called Anya Moreau who is dropped behind enemy lines in 1943. She’s been trained to help the French Resistance disrupt the Germans by sending messages back home via a wireless transmitter. She is betrayed by a double agent and faces torture to divulge her secrets, but she never betrays her cause. Meanwhile Celia finds a connection to this woman and in her desperation to know more she comes across the mysterious Miss Clarke who opens Celia’s eyes to the murky world of espionage running under the surface of everyday life. Possibly even in her own family. I felt for Celia’s parents who have always been protective of their girl, so much so that she sometimes feels suffocated. However their determination to keep Celia away from the past is understandable when we find out the truth.

I throughly enjoyed both timelines and Louise always has a wealth of research underpinning her story making it feel so real. I believed entirely in these two brave young women and their conviction to support their country. I loved seeing Celia’s political awakening as she talks to friend Daphne about the secret nuclear bunkers being dug out in the English countryside and the drastic measures to move works of art out of London – her shock at the immorality of a government that chooses to save art, but keeps it’s ordinary citizens in the dark is a real moment of growth. Her friendship with one of Mrs Denton’s visitors, Septimus, is also a place where she can freely discuss and share ideas about the world. This freedom to debate is new to Celia and you can see her growing all the time. At home her mum turns the tv off when the depressing news is on and Dad never talks about the war. In fact there seems to be a silence between them. I was excited and scared for Celia as her world opens up. The secrets she starts to discover will change her life forever, but will they leave her with the confidence to choose her own path and who will walk it with her? The emotional scenes between mum and daughter are really heart rending as finally everything is brought into the light. The pace of the novel really picked up towards the end as both stories come to their conclusions and different options start to open up before her. I really hoped Celia would choose wisely and not throw away everything about her home while still gaining some of the adventures she’s set her heart on. This was a great read and would make a fantastic film or TV series one day.

Published by William Morrow on Feb 29th 2024

Meet the Author

Louise writes historical fiction, focusing on unheard voices or from unusual perspectives. Her debut novel, Daughter of the Reich (entitled People Like Us in the UK edition) was published in 2020 into 13 territories and is set in 1930’s Leipzig. The book was shortlisted for the RSL Christopher Bland Prize 2021 and the RNA Historical Novel of the Year Award, 2021. Louise’s second novel, The Hidden Child, was published in 2021 and is centered around the eugenics movement in 1920’s England and America. It was a Globe & Mail bestseller in Canada. Her third novel, The London Bookshop Affair, about one woman’s journey to uncover secrets of her past, set against a backdrop of espionage and looming nuclear war in 1962 London, will be published in January 2024. 

Louise, previously a lawyer and banker, holds an MA in Creative Writing from St Mary’s University and now writes full time. Equally passionate about historical research and writing, she loves to look for themes which have resonance with today’s world. Louise lives in the Surrey countryside, UK, with her family, and is a slave to the daily demands of her pets.

For more information, go to https://www.louisefein.com and sign up to Louise’s newsletter. She also posts regularly to her blog at

https://www.louisefein.com/blog-and-news, or follow her on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/louisefeinauthor; Twitter, https://twitter.com/FeinLouise; or Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/louisefeinauthor

Posted in Netgalley, Publisher Proof

Maud Horton’s Glorious Revenge by Lizzie Pook.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Maud’s sister Constance is on a ship sailing to the Northern Passage, on a mission to find Franklin’s expedition ship. She has always craved adventure and climbed out of her bedroom window, taking the disguise of a cabin boy called Jack Aldridge. Does she really comprehend the dangers that could befall her should the men on board discover a woman on their vessel? On the same voyage is the rather strange and macabre Edison Stowe who has managed to get aboard as a scientific officer – mainly involving the killing and gathering of animals, as bone specimens or in jars. When Constance is lost on the voyage, the rather quiet and timid Maud is determined to find out what has happened to her sister. She devises a plan to get close to and expose Edison Stowe. Telling her grandfather she’s on a trip to the country, she embarks on a rather ghoulish steam train journey. Stowe has a money making scheme to turn various public hangings into a tourist attraction and Maud becomes one of his tourists. The author uses three different narrative voices to tell her story. A diary written by Constance on the voyage was returned to her family and gives us a front row seat for the horrors but also the wonders of the voyage complete with edible arctic creatures, ‘esquimaux’ women and the northern lights playing overhead. Then in the present day there’s Edison Stowe’s narrative of his day to day life, living in Mr Inchbold’s bone shop and dodging debt collectors. His debts being the reason behind his execution tourism. Finally, there’s Maud, whose narrative hangs everything together and provides context with memories of the sister’s lives and her own relentless quest for the truth.

Maud and Constance are fascinating characters, both sisters with the hearts of lions and nerves of steel. It just takes Maud longer to realise she is every bit as adventurous and brave as her sister. Maud has the disarming advantage of beauty and a composed, modest manner that makes her seem the ideal ‘Angel in the House’. Her knowledge of pharmacy and toxicology is honed by years of helping her grandfather in his shop. She is proud of her sister and has never believed the official version of her death, but we never realise the extent of her plotting and planning until the final few chapters. What an opponent she has in the villainous Edison Stowe! Not since Uriah Heep have I felt so uncomfortable while reading about a character. He constantly made me want to wash my hands. He’s a strange contradiction in all sorts of ways: dressed like a gentleman but absolutely penniless; seemingly genteel but capable of moments of extreme violence against those weaker than himself, people or animals. He seems oddly unmoved by inflicting violence, but has strange fits of illness, where he appears to pass out as well as seeing and hearing things, including people long dead.

I was absolutely fascinated by this novel from start to finish. I love books that subvert what we think about the supposedly straight laced Victorians, especially women. She doesn’t downplay the dangers women faced, especially those that try and move outside of their boundaries. It was interesting that it was far more successful for Maud to use her strengths as a woman, than to try and be like a man like Constance. I enjoyed the more macabre and decadent tastes of the Victorians such as Mr Inchbold having a shop full of animal skeletons and a bear welcoming people at the door, the popularity of the gruesome murder room at Madame Tussaud’s and the fascination with collecting such ghoulish souvenirs as Staffordshire figures of the people they’ve just watch hang. Lizzie always creates such a fabulous sense of place and I was feeling the arctic cold and really smelling the crowds, both at the hangings and in the pub at the quay where sailors come unwashed and straight off the boats and monkeys are racing round the tables. These little extra details keep you immersed in her worlds. We even get an unexpected love story that further breaks the image people have of the Victorians. This is such an incredible story and a must for people who love their historical fiction to surprise and compel them.

Published by Picador, Hardback and Kindle Editions 1st Feb 2024.

Meet the Author

Lizzie is an award-winning writer and journalist. She is the author of Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter, a STYLIST and WOMAN & HOME ‘Best Books of 2022’ pick.

Lizzie began her career in women’s magazines, covering everything from feminist motorcycle gangs to conspiracy theorists, before moving into travel writing, contributing to publications including Condé Nast Traveller, Lonely Planet and the Sunday Times.

Her assignments have taken her to some of the most remote parts of the world, from the uninhabited east coast of Greenland in search of polar bears, to the trans-Himalayas to track snow leopards. She was inspired to write Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter, her debut, after taking a road trip through Australia with her twin sister after the death of their father. A chance visit to the Maritime Museum in Fremantle led her to an exhibition about a family of British settlers involved in the early pearl diving industry. Thus began an obsession and a research journey that would take Lizzie from the corridors of the British Library to isolated pearl farms in the farthest reaches of northwest Australia.

She lives in London.

Posted in Squad Pod

The Knowing by Emma Hinds

Posted on by thelotusreaders

If this author had a certain readership in mind when writing this debut novel, she might as well have had a picture of me. I would have picked this book up on the strength of the cover alone. Three of my all time favourite books are: The Crimson Petal and the White set in the seedier areas of 19th Century London with a heroine is a prostitute called Sugar; The Night Circus that appears without warning, held together by real magic and the result of an epic battle between two magicians; The Museum of Extraordinary Things where our heroine is a mermaid, exhibited in a freak show at Coney Island. See what I mean? It’s perfect for me. The blurb promised me a tattooed mystic, a show run by a prostitute with dwarfism and real life New York gangs and Barnum as their contemporaries. It’s quite a heady mix and I was enthralled from page one. Flora is a tattoo artist and mystic, in an abusive relationship with a tattooist called Jordan, a member of an Irish gang the Dead Rabbits. She longs for escape from the slums of Five Points and the degrading relationship she’s been in since she was a teenager. Then she meets Minnie, a beautifully dressed woman whose dwarfism has led her to a career as a circus and freak show performer. Minnie promises Flora a career and life in an opulent town house uptown, not to mention her freedom. However, the freedom she’s promised comes with certain conditions.

Flora stays with Minnie, in her palatial bedroom and bathroom within the townhouse that belongs to her lover, Chester Moreton. Avoiding Chester’s advances seems to be one condition of Flora’s freedom, along with constant worry about being found by Jordan’s friends in the Dead Rabbits gang. She’s to earn her keep as a mystic, with her tattoos and tarot cards the centre of attention. Minnie knows that Flora’s skills run deeper, although she’s always been warned to hide them and ‘tell nuthin’. Flora’s gift is ‘the knowing’ an ability to summon the dead that’s always on the periphery of her performances, but kept at bay by Flora’s willpower. It’s when she’s pushed into allowing her spirit guide to break through that the trouble begins. At the Hotel du Woods she exposes the abuser and killer of a young boy, setting in motion a chain of events including suicide, murder and madness. Flora and Minnie escape and voyage to Manchester, where they try to survive on what they can earn from sex work and Flora’s tarot readings, but the past is never far behind and once again Flora finds herself at the centre of a love triangle where obsession and betrayal are medicated with drugs and alcohol and a tragic end seems inevitable.

I felt fully immersed in the novel immediately as the author creates an incredible sense of place. Five Points is grimy, deprived and controlled by gangs. I loved how the author used the grotesque throughout the novel and particularly where she’s describing the slums of New York and Manchester, filled with rats, unwashed bodies and an ever present grime that’s sticky on the skin. This took me straight back to university and Kristeva’s theory of abjection. The things that women’s bodies can do are magical or monstrous. Flora’s body is a conduit, allowing the dead to speak through her. Minnie’s body is seen as grotesque by others, but she wears angel’s wings and when she’s in bed with Flora it’s the softness of her skin that’s noticed first. All women have a transformative power to produce another life, when their pregnancy isn’t terminated by the men in their lives. The author doesn’t hold back when describing the reality of life for women, particularly women like Flora who haven’t had choices. Bodies seem divorced from minds when it comes to sex with men, as torsos become slabs of meat, breaths are whisky sour and skin is raw, red and broken. Sex is rarely consensual and always comes with violence. It’s a grim world so any chance to escape into a better future is welcome. The gentle and pleasurable attentions of Minnie are a promise of things to come, where Flora could have choices and sexual experiences that come from a loving place instead of a place of ownership.

No one here is perfect. Each character is morally grey and I loved that complexity in their personalities and the ambiguity it brought to their actions. I was also transfixed by the sheer power of Flora’s ‘knowing’. Mediumship has become something of a joke these days, a formulaic stage show where people are picked out of the audience and told that Grandad left the priceless clock in the attic or under the floorboards. It’s always benign and a little bit boring. Flora’s spirits are not there to guide her and they’re definitely not benign. They want to expose truths, tell the subject’s darkest secret and even mete out punishment where necessary. The first seance at Hotel du Woods is successful from one viewpoint – the spirits do come through – but a disaster from the other side when a vengeful spirit talks a man into killing himself. No one will be booking them again! Flora will have to learn how to control the spirit’s power and keep the vengeful ones at bay. Strangely, for a story where our main character is prevented from carrying children, this felt like a story about mothers too. It’s about the lack of a mother when growing up and how the lack of motherly love and protection feels, but it also shows the people who fill that void and become mother figures. This could be a difficult read for some, especially the sexual violence, but it would have been the daily reality for women living in 19th Century slums and for some women in upper Manhattan townhouses. I desperately wanted Flora to survive and have the right people around her, to give her the feeling of being loved and wanted. This is an addictive read of vengeance, betrayal and obsessive love and I couldn’t stop reading until I knew the truth of Flora’s fate.

Meet the Author

Emma Hinds is a queer novelist and playwright from Manchester. She focuses on untold historical Queer narratives and her debut novel, The Knowing, from Bedford Square Publishers is coming in January 2024.

Posted in Squad Pod

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Everything she is about to tell them is a lie…

Evie Porter has everything a girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a picket fence, a fun group of friends.

The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.

First comes the identity. Once she’s given a name and location by her employer, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it.

Then the mark: Ryan Sumner.

The last piece of the puzzle is the job. For Evie, this job feels different. Ryan has gotten under her skin and she’s started to picture another kind of life for herself – one where her boss doesn’t pull the strings. But Evie can’t make any mistakes. Because the one thing she’s worked her entire life to keep clean, the one identity she could always go back to – her real identity – just walked right into this town. A woman, who looks just like her, has stolen her name – and she wants more. As Evie’s past begins to catch up with her, can she stay one step ahead to save her future?

Evie has never seen herself as the sort of girl who could have everything. The things many young girls dream of -marriage, security, family – have never really factored in her life, especially since she started working for the man on the end of the telephone. They’ve never met in person, but he is able to control her whole life even the person she’s going to be. From petty theft and credit card fraud she has been noticed by the boss and honed into one of his best operatives, able to throw on a new identity and slip into the mark’s life within a matter of days. Strangely, despite her criminality, the writer managed to make me feel empathy for Evie and even root for her a little bit. Her relationship with Ryan is at a stage where the friends are asking questions and want to meet this new woman. It’s a small town where everyone knows everyone else, especially the moneyed circles that Ryan grew up in. The rules dictate that he can dabble where he likes when it comes to liaisons, but when it comes to settling down it should be within their hallowed circles. An outsider might be tolerated if they’re rich, but Evie isn’t and neither is she one of them. As she dresses for a lunch date with the women from his circle of friends I found myself willing her to succeed. She’s clever in how she dresses – a bit like them but with a boho edge, enough to be accepted but still seem as an individual. I was nervous for her because it felt like she was being dropped into a shark tank and I had to keep reminding myself that Evie is the shark. As the weeks go by she’s starting to think she can relax, when she’s thrown a curve ball. At a horse racing event Ryan introduces her to a couple she’s never met before, a man who he clearly knows well with a woman who is closer to home than either of them realise. This is an old friend, but he’s with a woman Ryan doesn’t know and when she introduces herself Evie realises that her boss is playing games. The woman introduces herself as Lucca, Evie’s real name. Could she be about to lose the only thing that belongs to her – her true identity?

The author cleverly uses shorter chapters in between the main timeline that take us back through Evie’s previous jobs. They are glimpses into her past, teasing the reader with tidbits of information until we finally meet the real Evie. Sometimes our questions are answered and other times we’re surprised by a revelation that takes us in a different direction. We see how she’s pulled into her boss’s orbit, then tested until she’s the best operative he has. There’s a sadism and an element of gaslighting in what he does, sometimes sending multiple people on the same job to see who gets there first – the first prize is staying on his payroll. Although, people don’t get to just walk away from his employment because they know too much. So far Evie has had a great track record, earning well and staying on his good side, but on the last job something went wrong, could this new game be her punishment? There are only two people who Evie trusts, one is her fellow operator Devon – a man she employs to keep her safe and one step ahead of the competition. They have become close over time and he is her family. The other person is George, a messenger man for the boss who brings her the paperwork for each new identity. Can she really trust both of them? Oddly, even though she knows there must be something dodgy about him, she’s starting to trust Ryan more too and that’s a dangerous place to be. She knows there must be something dodgy about his haulage operation, because why else would she be here? Yet, even though this started as a job she feels they’re growing closer. It’s a rare feeling that’s never happened to her before. Could her fake relationship be developing into something real? The author keeps us guessing to the final pages and it’s so tense as Evie has to question the loyalties of those closest to her and juggle her burgeoning feelings for Ryan. Could he be playing her too? Has the boss pitted them against each other to see who comes out on top?

I enjoyed the back story of how Evie had ended up in this life of criminality. It was interesting to see her pluckiness and street smarts pitted against the women in Ryan’s circle. They’re so awful that I was rooting for her. The author has created an original and pacy thriller, full of intrigue and adrenaline filled moments. I found my usual loyalties and moral code turned completely on their head and was left hoping the con artist would win.

“There’s an old saying: The first lie wins. It’s not referring to the little white kind that tumble out with little to no thought; it refers to the big one. The one that changes the game. The one that is deliberate. The lie that sets the stage for everything that comes after it. And once the lie is told, it’s what most people believe to be true.”

Published by Headline 2nd January 2024

Ashley Elston lives in North Louisiana with her husband and three sons. She was a wedding and portrait photographer for ten years so most of her Saturday nights included eating cake, realizing no shoe is comfortable after standing for more than six hours and inevitably watching some groomsman do the alligator across the dance floor. Now, Ashley helps her husband run their small business and she writes as often as possible.

Posted in Squad Pod

Preloved by Lauren Bravo

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Gwen is coasting through life. She’s in her mid-thirties, perpetually single, her friends are busy procreating in the countryside and conversations with her parents seem to revolve entirely around the council’s wheelie-bin timetable.

And she’s lonely. But then, isn’t everyone? 

When she’s made redundant from a job she hardly cares about, she takes herself out for a fancy dinner. There she has the best sticky toffee pudding of her life and realises she has no one to tell. She vows to begin living her life fully, reconnect with her friends and family, and finally book that dentist’s appointment. 

Gwen decides to start where all things get a second chance: her local charity shop. There, with the help of the weird and wonderful people and donated items bursting with untold stories, Gwen will find a way to move forward with bravery, tenacity, and more regular dental care.

Dazzlingly witty, Preloved is a tale about friendship, loss and being true to yourself no matter the expectations. Lovingly celebrating the enduring power and joy of charity shops.

I absolutely loved this charming book about Gwen’s experiences volunteering in a charity shop, but so much more besides. Gwen has lost her job and this catalyst starts a new train of thought. Maybe instead of jumping into the next thing that comes along, she could budget her redundancy money and spend the summer taking stock. Gwen lives alone and some distance from her family, but she hasn’t struck up any meaningful friendships either. She’s alone a lot of the time. She desperately wants change but doesn’t know how to get there. So she takes a voluntary role at her local charity shop a couple of days a week, giving her time to work out what’s next in a more focused way. I felt for Gwen immediately and identified with the life crisis she’s in, having just turned 50 and facing the very real possibility that I might never be well enough to work has felt strange. I’ve never been a focused, goal setting type so I got Gwen’s tendency to drift into work without a plan. As everyone else was leaving sixth form knowing what they wanted to do, I had no clue. It took years for me to move into mental health and my own ill health provided the emotional kick up the bum – if I didn’t choose something I could do flexibly and get some training completed – my MS could advance and I was going to run out of time. Some people do simply drift, but with Gwen I knew there was an underlying reason. Her inability to call her parents and tell them about her redundancy was a powerful first clue. Did she want to avoid making them worry? Would they be angry or disappointed in her? 

Gwen tells her story and she’s a great narrator. We slowly start to build up a picture of the way she relates to others and how limited her support system seems to be. As mentioned she seems estranged from her parents and her best friend Suze has become a mum, such a big life change that means there’s less room for friends. As she gets to know the other volunteers at the shop there’s an opportunity to make friends. One lady in particular strikes up a friendship, inviting Gwen round for dinner to get to know her. The charismatic and energetic Connie is a blast of fresh air rather than a breath. She’s full of ideas to Gwen participating in life again which is inspiring and exciting, but also ever so slightly exhausting. There’s even a touch of romance too, although that’s never the real focus. The author knows this is Gwen’s story and if there is change it has to come from within herself. Only Gwen has the power to change her life and make it fulfilling again. In between the chapters there are small, magical snippets about objects or clothing that’s found it’s way to the charity shop, invariably telling a story about the person that’s donated it or the person who decides to buy it. I loved these little gems because they highlight the importance of these transitional items in their owner’s lives, but also the role of the charity shop in it’s community. They serve a practical purpose in terms of recycling, but also a community purpose because staff know people who pop in on certain days, whether they might need some company and if they don’t turn up, checking if they’re okay. They are places where lonely people can expect a cheery smile and a chat. It sounds simple, but these little interactions can be the highlight of someone’s day. 

However, what the author captures most beautifully is the magic of charity shops. How many of us bookish types have been thrilled with a find from the bookshelves – for me it was a pristine folio society edition of Isak Dennison’s gothic tales. We might find: the perfect pair of vintage shoes; a 1990’s grunge dress that’s come full circle again; old China tea sets that will look beautiful at an afternoon tea party. You never know what might jump off the rails or shelves and become a precious ‘find’ rather than someone else’s clutter or trash. I love that, in a way, Gwen is like one of these objects – made redundant and sitting patiently in place until a new future opens up before her. However, before that happens she must go through the process of clearing out, sorting through the rubbish and throwing out what’s broken. For Gwen that means confronting a life changing event that’s so painful it’s blocking her whole life. I was rooting for her, right up to the very last page.

Published on 18th January 2024 by Simon and Schuster UK