Category: Squad Pod Collective

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Appointment In Paris by Jane Thynne 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

1938. Stella Fry is walking home from her job at the film institute and surprised to find a crowd gathered near her home. It’s clear there’s been an accident, but when Stella enquires she’s shocked at the reply. ‘It’s someone called Stella Fry’ a woman whispers and with great presence of mind she doesn’t identify herself. She simply turns and walks away, thinking that Harry Fox is involved. After a night on the sofa at her friend’s flat she’s deciding what to do next when she’s called in for an assignment with Harry Fox, who she’s worked with before. This is a very sensitive case, looking into the death of a man at the POW camp at Trent Park. A man wearing Luftwaffe uniform was found dead in the grounds with a gunshot wound. It’s vital to know what’s happened because Trent Park isn’t just a POW camp, it’s a huge intelligence gathering centre and one of their listeners has gone missing. Stella is enrolled in the ATS to become a ‘listener’ at Trent Park. She will join other German speakers, listening to cellmates through state of the art microphones. The women are recording and transcribing anything of interest and sending it up the chain. It’s an important tool to learn about Nazi positions, their plans to invade Western Europe and their treatment of Jewish communities. However, Stella must also listen to her colleagues, because they have no idea where the murder weapon came from and there is a possibility that the missing operative has been turned. There’s also intelligence about three German spies living within the immigrant community close by. Harry will be on the trail of the spies which brings Lieselotte Edelman into his path, a beautiful young Jewish woman who fled her own country before war broke out. Could she be a spy and could Harry’s desire for her cloud his judgement about her true purpose? 

This is an interesting thriller based on true events and the second to feature Harry and Stella as a team, although this time they’ll be working different lines of enquiry on the same case. Stella comes across as the ideal operative, she blends in well and seems to secure people’s confidences very easily. She’s competent and able to keep secrets, even from those closest to her. As for her own feelings, they’re a little more complicated. She has feelings for her best friend’s brother but he’s become engaged to an American he met through the Kennedy family. Harry also has complex feelings. I wondered how he felt about Stella, but would he ever be able to admit to it? He seems to enjoy his bachelor lifestyle and never gets caught up with one woman. Both take comfort from people they meet in the course of their investigation, but these are war time affairs belonging to people who pass in the night never to be seen again. 

I found the psychological dynamics at Trent Park really interesting. The POWs are treated very well, but that’s designed to lull them into a false sense of security. If they’re treated well and have some freedoms they’ll never imagine that their every word is being scrutinised. One man observes that Stella’s job reminds him of the Nietzsche quote that’s the book’s preface – when we look into the abyss the abyss also looks into us. It’s easy to think their inmates are just ordinary men forced into fighting for their country and some are, but others are sadists and enjoy exerting their power over civilians. The stories of beatings, rapes, casual slaughter and the mistreatment of Jews is horrifying. It shows how people’s basest instincts are woken up and distorted by power. Listening to this everyday must chip away at the transcribers as they process these horrors from German into English. I was utterly drawn into this because it’s a very heightened version of working with in the mental health sector, listening to the worst things that have happened to people takes its toll and it’s vital to take breaks and even extended leave in order to do the job well. I wondered how people coped with the roles they were forced to take during the war and whether we would be equally selfless. My grandad missed the war but did his National Service in Germany in the aftermath and I know what he saw affected him. I can’t imagine how a country heals after such horrific events. Those ordinary people who turned on their Jewish neighbours must suffer from terrible guilt when the full truth emerges, whether they believed the propaganda or participated to save their own skin. I was sure that the truth lay somewhere in this sea of human suffering and I was sure Stella would find it. 

I found Stella’s narrative more compelling than Harry’s, possibly because the historical detail and background were so brilliant. Harry js delving into the criminal underworld on the trail of a gun as well as the spies but Stella’s narrative takes us to Paris as the Nazis are on the verge of invading and taking control. The author really captures the sense of fear and disbelief combined, there’s a sense of unreality as if it could never happen to them. It’s something I feel personally with the rise in far-right politics. We always think it couldn’t happen again or it couldn’t happen here, but it can. It’s very tense as Stella gets closer to the man she needs to bring in, but also make sure she gets out of Paris in time. Another feeling the author captured beautifully was the nostalgia for a time before the war, for Stella it’s a party she attended at Trent Park as she is falling in love with her friend’s brother. Since then they’ve both had roles to fulfil and perhaps sacrificed happiness for duty, it’s the story of many people who missed their chance or passed only briefly, never to see each other again. When Harry and Stella are together they’re a formidable team and there is just a tiny hint of chemistry. This was a great historical mystery and I’m very curious to know where this team go next. 

Meet the Author

Jayne has a passion for historical fiction and loves the research that involves. The first in her Clara Vine series, Black Roses, became a number One Kindle Bestseller. In the UK the series is published by Simon & Schuster. Outside Britain, my novels have been translated into French, German, Greek, Russian, Polish, Romanian, Turkish and Italian. In France the series is published by J.C Lattes and in Greece by Kedros. In the US and Canada the series is published by Random House. The TV rights have been optioned by Hillbilly Films who are producing the pilot for an eight part series.

The Words I Never Wrote is published in the US by Ballantine and in the UK by Sharpe Books.

I have also written two alternative history novels under the pen name C.J. Carey, Widowland and Queen High (published in the US by Sourcebooks as The American Queen). I chose that pseudonym because it’s a reversal of my own initials, coupled with my mother’s maiden name. In the UK, the novels are published by Quercus and in France by J C Lattès.

My most recent novels, the Fox and Fry series, feature Harry Fox, a suspended MI5 surveillance operative, and Stella Fry, a former tutor, who are thrown together to solve mysterious murders on the eve of WW2. Midnight in Vienna and Appointment in Paris are both published by Quercus.

As well as writing books I freelance as a journalist, writing regularly for numerous British magazines and newspapers, and also appear as a broadcaster on Radio 4 and Sky. I have been a guest reader at the Arvon Foundation and sat on the broadcasting committee of the Society of Authors. I’m a patron of the Wimbledon Bookfest and live in London.

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Silent Bones by Val McDermid 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

It’s delightful to be back in the hands of a consummate storyteller like Val McDermid and to be reading with my fellow Squad Pod friends. She takes us straight into the story and I always feel like her characters are real people going about their business and we just drop into their world from time to time. Here the Historic Cases Unit are working two cases: the death of a high-end hotel manager and the identity of a body found after a landslip in heavy rain on the M73. Tom Jamieson’s death is flagged up by his brother in New Zealand. Thought to be an accidental death, Tom’s brother has footage that shows someone was behind Tom as he left the hotel after his shift and in the staircase where he met his death. If this man entered the steps after Tom and can be seen exiting then he must at least have seen Tom’s fall, or is there a more sinister explanation? The body in the M73 has to have been placed there deliberately. It turns out to be the body of investigative journalist Sam Nimmo, thought to have killed his pregnant girlfriend Rachel before going on the run about eleven years ago. The discovery opens up her murder case as well as Sam’s. I was hooked by the evidence that leads to a secretive book club of successful men who meet once a month in Edinburgh. They’re named the Justified Sinners, alluding to a James Hogg book that’s based on the Calvinist principle that once a person is ‘saved’ they can commit any sin, even murder, and still enter the kingdom of heaven. Is this a joke between literary friends or something more more? Have they stumbled upon an unofficial Freemasons’ club where the members share business tips and inside knowledge? The team start to wonder about the potential benefits of becoming one of the twelve members and whether those benefits are worth subterfuge or even criminal acts. 

Every time I pick up one of the books in this series the same thing happens. I start off slowly, savouring each chapter until about halfway, then I’m racing all the way to the end. It’s superbly plotted, creating a build-up of tension through the short chapters. Each chapter flits to a different viewpoint or separate lead in the cases, causing cliffhangers that last for three or four chapters. This means ‘just one chapter’ at bedtime becomes just three more and finally – I may as well finish. As we near the end of the book those revelations come thick and fast and I had to keep reading till I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I loved the red herrings thrown up in Sam Nimmo’s case as they try to find out what story he was working on. Every lead has to be followed and Jason is tireless on his match fixing leads but is this the story that got Sam killed? The political intrigue is as always murky and fascinating. Between the Independence Referendum and COVID there are plenty of possibilities for corruption and cover-ups. 

What I love most about Karen is her tenacity and absolute belief in her own skills as a police officer. She knows she’s a good detective and believes in the team she’s built, even if Jason and Daisy do bicker and become competitive. She knows how to use their skills and how much free rein to give them. I loved her conversations with the boss, the Fruit Gum and other men who outrank her. She doesn’t allow them any room for misogyny or sexism. When she’s told mockingly that the force can do better than rely on ‘women’s intuition’, she’s quick to tell him that it’s no different from a hunch or copper’s nose, a phrase male officers use frequently. She also won’t be bulldozed into moving their office, stating that it would mean longer commutes and distance from the research and forensic teams they rely on most. She also pushes for what she wants in the course of the investigation. When she doorsteps the Justified Sinners, their facilitator mentions they have plenty of pull with the Chief Constable who calls Karen and tells her to back off. She insists on him supplying a list of members before she does and even follows up in the morning to make sure she wasn’t fobbed off. Even in her private life she’s very sure of what she needs. She is still involved with Syrian refugee Rafiq who’s currently working as a surgeon in Canada. With British and US politics ‘beyond satire’ and political funding becoming ever more shady Karen does worry about their future. She’s flown to Montreal several times but she can’t wait until he has Canadian citizenship and can visit Scotland again, maybe even returning for good at some point. When she has a heartbreaking choice to make she faces it by staying true to herself, because she can be romantic but has a hefty dose of realism too. She can also be ruthless, at one point perhaps a little too ruthless for a softy like me. She has her eye on the end goal, not the other person’s feelings because in her eyes the end justifies the means. The truth is not found by treading lightly. 

I enjoyed getting to know more about Daisy and Jason’s home lives and it’s here where a bit of humour creeps in. Jason and Meera’s stake-out of a football match with the aftermath being a ‘follow that cab’ tour of Scotland’s motorways made me smile. Especially when the reward that clinched Meera’s attendance was a match day pie. Food looms large in Daisy and Stephanie’s relationship too, in fact Daisy eats so much that Jason is sure she has a tapeworm. That’s not a problem for Daisy, in fact she ponders that it might be the only thing that ensures she stays thin. She’s always scoring leftovers from lunches out and between Italian biscuits, french pastries and the South Indian curry that lures a suspect out of hiding I kept feeling hungry. All of this is to balance the darkness at the heart of these cases, where we see powerful and rich people doing what they like, safe in the knowledge that their status and privilege will always protect them from answering to their crimes. It’s also set in dark times and the weariness Karen feels about what’s happening in the world is something I’ve felt myself for the last couple of years, finding myself thinking the world can’t get any worse. Not only is a sex offending, fraudulent, narcissist running the biggest country in the world, but we have politicians here happy to emulate him. The book is rooted firmly in the now with cancel culture, the MeToo movement, the Covid pandemic and all the corruption surrounding it, as well as the cost of living crisis all pertinent to these cases. I think the team are feeling overwhelmed, even without the quagmire surrounding the Justified Sinners and Sam’s quest for the truth. Some characters did behave unpredictably, just like they do in life. The outcome isn’t straightforward and there were people to blame that I genuinely didn’t expect. This is an enthralling read from a writer at the very top of her game. Someone who knows exactly how to pitch a story and keep the reader engrossed until the final pages. She knows that the joy of a book is in the journey not just those final revelations and that sometimes we don’t get the answers we expect and it’s a better read for that.

Out on 23rd October from Sphere

Meet the Author

Val McDermid is a number one bestseller whose novels have been translated into more than forty languages, and have sold over eighteen million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009, was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2010 and received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award in 2011. In 2016, Val received the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and in 2017 received the DIVA Literary Prize for Crime, and was elected a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Val has served as a judge for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize, and was Chair of the Wellcome Book Prize in 2017. She is the recipient of six honorary doctorates and is an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda’s College, Oxford. She writes full-time and divides her time between Edinburgh and East Neuk of Fife.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Watching You by Helen Fields

Posted on by thelotusreaders

A few of Helen Field’s characters come together in this gripping novel that starts with someone being stalked in Jupiter Artland, the park where Laura Ford’s ‘Weeping Girls’ statues are situated. They become the only witnesses to an unspeakable act. It’s a great setting for a murder with five sculptures, each one of a little girl weeping in different poses. I’m a lover of public art but these are genuinely creepy and have an uncanny quality to them. I can’t think of a more fitting place to be hit with a shovel and buried alive – one of my worst ever fears. It’s a bold beginning and we get three more murders like this, each with a narrator who sounds almost bored and melancholy. It’s as if they’re present, able to recount every detail, but detached at the same time. They’re the literary equivalent of the archetypal TV pathologist weighing a pair of lungs one moment and eating a sandwich the next. It’s clear that Lively, Salter and the MIT have a serial killer on their hands but with each murder so different, how will they build a case? Superintendent Overbeck engages Dr Connie Woolwine to profile the killer and run the investigation, but it does seem to the team that the crimes and potential suspect don’t fully fit. 

The story has several threads, each focusing on different characters. We go back a few years to a young artist named Molly who is being stalked and harassed with even parcels of rotting fruit and maggots turning up on her doorstep. She feels watched when outside and inside she is harassed by parcels and online rumours, or even worse deep fake videos. There’s the usual porn, but stranger and more sinister scenarios like her hurting an animal. It’s taken a toll on her mental health and her career. With the police unable to help she sinks further. We also have a character called Karl Smith, a carer for his father who had a stroke not long after his wife had a cardiac arrest. While surgeon Beth Waterfall tries everything to save her she dies on the operating table. So when his complaint against the hospital isn’t upheld Karl starts to see his mother. It’s mainly at home and she’s very unsettling. She’s clearly never been a nice woman to her son. She is a grotesque figure who Karl finds repellent. Not only is she unkempt and smelly, she likes to unsettle Karl by sitting very close and wafting her rotten breath into his face. She is cruel and determined that he keep up his campaign against Beth Waterfall. DI Sam Lively watches Beth try to save one of the victims, a homeless man with multiple stab wounds, and they strike up a friendship and a fledgling relationship. So when Sam receives a wound to his neck and it’s Beth that treats him, she takes him home afterwards to recover. It’s a gentle romance that works really well and he finds out Beth had a daughter, who took her own life after a campaign of stalking and harassment. The puzzle pieces are coming together, but I knew there would still be some surprises in store and I was gripped, waiting to find out if my suspicions were right. Desperately hoping they weren’t. 

Dr Connie Woolwine is an acquired taste, but is always fascinating. Here I could see how she could really get under the skin of both suspects and colleagues. Brodie accuses her of snobbery, but it’s not that simple. Connie seems to relish having her suspicions about someone, then having them confirmed. She often tells people what she thinks without considering their reaction and it’s this compulsion to see what makes someone tick that might come across as thinking she knows better. It’s not a class snobbery, it’s an intellectual snobbery. I just love working people out, because the complexities of our brains are simply amazing. I’ve recently been reading up on Functional Neurological Disorder where neurological symptoms are present in the patient, without any disease activity. It’s as if the brain simply forgets how to send and receive messages from certain parts of body but without any of the disease activity common to neurological diseases like MS or Parkinson’s Disease. Symptoms range from functional weakness in a limb, to dramatic paralysis and seizures. It’s amazing how powerful the brain is and how it can be doing something so disabling in the background without knowing why, although it’s thought that the brain processes might mental stress or trauma as physical pain. However, this is nothing compared to Connie’s findings about the brain producing a brilliant twist at the end. I’m always pulled in two directions with Connie, she’s utterly brilliant but more than a little odd (talking to corpses) and manipulative, particularly where Brodie is concerned. She knows the power she has over him, but isn’t honest about it. She seems to fully relax and be herself when she visits Midnight, who is living a bucolic existence in Devon with her sister Dawn who has CP. With Dawn, ‘Wooly’ can drop her ‘therapist’s demeanour’ and just be in the moment. Dawn has no guile and has never learned to hide her emotions.

There’s some heart-stopping action here, especially in the finale which is brilliant. Salter and Connie are quite the team, with Salter able to jump in and secure a suspect while Connie has them otherwise engaged. I love that Helen’s female characters are mothers, carers and wives, whilst also competent at work, even formidable. Overbeck is brilliant, always holding MIT to a high standard, ready with a stern talking to and wears three inch heels all day! She tells Connie she’ll give her the name of the her nail technician because her nails are disgusting and it did make me smile. It’s a novelty to see Connie on the back foot for a change. The murder scenes are genuinely scary or moving. I was especially affected by the murder of Mrs Singh who is a lonely older lady, the victim of her own success. She made the huge move from India to Scotland in the hope of her children having a better life and he does, but that means they’re usually far away from you. She describes a boy who grew up with a Scottish accent, as if he was already moving away from her. The many pictures of her grandchildren attest to the distant between them. Her death is brutal and desperately sad. I loved how Helen brought all the puzzle parts together, despite such disparate victims who had nothing in common, not even their deaths. I could see Karl Smith had a rage in him but it mainly seemed to be for his own parents, could he be murdering complete strangers? I became more addicted as the novel went on until last night when I couldn’t leave the last few chapters and stayed up till 2am. Now I keep falling asleep. This is such a psychologically fascinating thriller that’s given me lots of side reading to keep up with Connie’s final verdicts. I can’t wait to see where she and Brodie end up next. 

Out now from Avon Books

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 Squad Pod Collective

Death or a Little Light Maiming Do Us Part by Kathy Lette 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

One dead husband. Three grieving widows.

When she hears a man has been killed by a Great White shark, Gwen races to the beach only to find that all that remains of her husband is his swimming cap and a piece of torn, blood-stained wetsuit. Her grief is soon interrupted by Tish, screaming for information about the accident. When Gwen reassures her that it’s her husband, Jason Riley, who’s perished, Tish’s response is earth-shattering for them both: Jason was her husband too.

The women’s mutual animosity is not assuaged when they learn that Jason recently sent all his – make that their – money to a mysterious ‘business partner’ in Egypt called Skye. But when they fly to Cairo to confront her, they find another grieving widow whose life-savings have gone missing…

As this double-crossed threesome cross continents in their search for truth and retribution, they start to realise they’re embarking on a journey of self-discovery, renewal and friendship too.

I’ve read Kathy Lette before so I was expecting ballsy women, lots of wit, perhaps some raunchy behaviour and definitely laughter. I wasn’t disappointed. I’ve seen this described as a revenge caper and that is the perfect description. Gwen has a happy life with her children and second husband Jason, who’s a real hottie. He is a big blonde surfer type with a sprinkling of grey, but a body honed to perfection by Iron Man training. She sometimes wonders how they got together. She sees herself as a rather ordinary widow nearing her sixties, while he’s a lot younger and so fit. However, tragedy comes along when Jason is training. Gwen hears on the radio that there’s been a shark attack in the bay and she makes her way there immediately. When she arrives, she knows by the scrap of wetsuit on the sand that the lost man is Jason. She hardly has time to breathe before a leather clad ball of fury catapults herself into the situation. Tish is there because she thinks her husband is missing too, she’s married to a tall, blonde hunk called Jason. Surely they can’t both be married to the same man? 

Gwen wants to quietly go home and cope with the double shock of Jason’s death and the news that he’s a bigamist. Tish has the grip of a small terrier and has about a million questions that Gwen is incapable of answering. She’s totally gobsmacked by Tish’s biker girl style, they couldn’t be more different so why was he attracted to both of them? It seems that when Gwen thought he was working or training, he was with Tish and vice versa. They’ve been together a similar amount of time. They make a very uncomfortable trip to Jason’s lawyer, Tish is adamant there should be a will and she wants to see it. She invested a large amount of money in a business start-up he was working on. Gwen is keeping her cards close to her chest but she too has invested some of her widow’s inheritance in his endeavours. Where has it gone? They soon find out. His lawyer tells them that Jason signed a document that transfers their joint investment to a woman in Cairo. Tish wants to be on the next plane and wants Gwen to go with her. Can they find this woman, solve the mystery of her connection to Jason and retrieve their money? 

I found the novel intriguing and funny at first. Tish is an absolute ball of energy and her power as a character did overpower everyone else slightly. I wonder if Kathy based Tish on her most extrovert side. I felt a little bit like the momentum of the story was lost in long verbal exchanges between the two women that seemed more about the jokes than developing characters or their relationships. Some are admittedly very funny, but when they come thick and fast the humour sometimes misses the mark. It’s also difficult to change the tone and I think the novel could have done with some light and shade. However, it’s a madcap caper that takes on an escapist feel as we travel all over the world with the women and try to work out if Jason faked his own death and whether they’ll be able to retrieve their money. Cairo brings even bigger surprises, leading to Tanzania, the Maldives and throughout Europe. It’s an absurd plot, but it is fun and a great escape read. I read this in one afternoon and had some laugh out loud moments. There’s also some lovely female camaraderie as these women start to come together, overcoming their differences to bond and keep chasing their love rat husband. I really enjoyed the suggestion that there’s a re-evaluation of life as women reach middle-age. A realisation that if we are going to do the things we’ve always wanted we need to start planning now. It’s the chance to throw off things that no longer suit us – not just in our wardrobes! In amongst the action and the laughs is the very profound idea that just when you learn to make the most of your life, it is almost over. 

For more information on Kathy Lette and her books visit

https://www.kathylette.com/

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

Posted on by thelotusreaders

As part of the Squad Pod, I’ve been re-reading this novel in its new edition and I’ve really enjoyed my reintroduction to these interesting characters and the incredible atmosphere the author creates around the Blackhurst Estate in Cornwall. Our story begins in 1913, when a little girl sits forlorn on the harbour side, using her white suitcase as a seat. The authoress told her she was going on an adventure and she’d stayed hidden for such a long time, but now she doesn’t know when the authoress is coming. The harbour master notices her and resolves that if she’s still there when he finishes work, he will have to take her home to his wife. Surely someone will come for her in a day or two? The mystery of the authoress and the little girl took me from 1900 to 2005, in the company of three women who have a link to that little girl in 1913. Eliza lives in London digs with her mother and twin brother at the turn of the Twentieth Century but finds life changes suddenly after her brother is killed in an accident with a coach and horses. She is taken to the Blackhurst Estate in Cornwall to be the companion of Rose, the daughter of the family, who is an invalid and rarely leaves her bedroom. Then in 2005 there is Cassandra, living in Australia and also facing upheaval after the death of her beloved grandmother Nell. Cassandra has lived with her gran since her mother left her there when she was a little girl. She promised to return and never did, leaving her mother Nell to raise her daughter. Together they run an antiques business and after Nell’s death, Cassandra is stunned to find a series of sketches by American artist Nathaniel Walker in her grandmother’s belongings. There’s also a small white case and inside there is a book of strange fairy tales also illustrated by the artist, but the writer is unfamiliar. Eliza Makepeace doesn’t seem to be well known but Cassandra is happy to do some digging and understand what link exists between this famous painter, an obscure writer and her grandmother. After the funeral, Cassandra’s great aunties explain that Nell was the baby in the family, arriving some time after them since their father found her on the Maryborough harbour alone. He decided that Nell needed to know about her true origins before he died, but her sisters wonder if that was the right thing to do. It left her a little distanced from them, as if she didn’t know where she belonged anymore. 

Interspersed between Cassandra and Eliza’s narratives is that of Nell, who did her own detective work on who she was decades before. In fact she had plans to make a big change before her daughter turned up with Cassandra and asked her if she would look after her for a short while. Nell knew that once her daughter was gone, neither of them would ever see her again. This put her own plans to one side but Nell never regretted bringing up Cassandra. Cassandra takes her book of fairy tales to a book dealer who explains that Eliza Makepeace was linked to the Blackhurst Estate in Cornwall. In fact Nathanial Walker was married to Rose, the daughter of the family. When Nell’s lawyer confirms that Cassandra has been left a small cottage on the Cornish coast she is intrigued and before long is on a flight to the UK. From there we are catapulted into the past where Eliza is adjusting and trying to make friends with Rose who has been ill for most of her childhood. Her regime is overseen by her rather formidable mother while her father seems largely absent, secretly longing for the return of sister Georgina who ran away to London with a menial worker from the estate. All of these separate story lines are linked beautifully by the author over the course of the novel, telling the story of a family beset by tragedy, but also shaped by rigid control, manipulation and jealousy. All of this is set within the beautiful backdrop of Cornwall and its history of fishing and smuggling as well as its stunning scenery. Cassandra’s cottage sits above the cliffs looking down to the sea, but has a stone wall around it. She wonders why someone would block off that incredible view, but also whether they were blocking people from seeing out or in? It must have been a gloomy existence. When Cassandra hires a local gardener to remove the tree that’s partially growing inside the cottage they discover a crawl space under the back wall and inside an overgrown but entirely enclosed garden. The walls that cradle the garden create a deep sense of belonging, as if the birds sing just for her. It’s a peaceful space, almost frozen in time. 

Cassandra is also interested to know how Nell ended up buying the property and why she never came back. Speaking to the village’s estate agent Robin gives her a lot of insight and the date Nell bought the cottage starts to make sense to her. Through Robin’s father, a retired fisherman, she hears some of the cottage’s history from a smuggling lookout to the home of the Authoress, a beautiful red- headed lady who used to live at Blackhurst. The actual manor has slowly become a hotel and Cassandra learns more by talking to the owner, who has refurbished the house and made some fascinating finds. She shares some scrapbooks with Cassandra, made by Rose who later became the wife of Nathaniel Walker. Rose was an invalid and her scrapbooks show a young girl’s imaginings from fairies to beautiful dresses and what she imagined her wedding to be like. Not that anyone expected she would meet anyone to marry. Her cousin Eliza tells her strangely dark fairytales and encourages her to aim for some of her dreams, to travel and perhaps get married someday. When she is married, her longings become focused on having a child, but will that be possible for her and if not, how can she find another way to become a mother? Kate Morton gives us little revelations as we go along, taking us back into the past to show us exactly what transpired and another jigsaw piece of this mystery slots into place. 

I loved how vividly Morton describes the squalor of turn of the century London and the harsh way of life for those just trying to keep a roof over their head. Blackhurst is the perfect name for the estate in Cornwall, named after an outcrop of black rock that juts out into the sea and provides an incredible lookout for the brave who enjoy the crashing waves and the seaspray. The estate feels like a mausoleum in contrast to Cornwall’s natural beauty. It is somewhere where people are shut away and miserable, with Rose in bed and her father shut away in his study and harbouring his secret obsessions. The cottage is accessed through the maze and it feels like a walkway to another world as it opens out in Eliza’s garden. What could possibly have caused two cousins to be entirely separate, with the maze as the barrier between their properties? I loved the theme of motherhood throughout, especially the loss of mothers for Eliza, Nell and Cassandra. One of the saddest parts for me was when Nell finds out that she isn’t a blood member of her Australian family and it changes her outlook, leading to her own trip to Cornwall. There’s even a touch of romance for one character who’s suffered a terrible loss. Reading this again has made me realise how rich Morton’s writing is and how reading her books probably led me to me enjoying this genre so much and current writers like Amanda Geard and Kate Lumsden. This is a sweeping epic of a mystery, with great characters and dark gothic undertones which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering. 

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.”

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Havoc by Rebecca Wait

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Havoc is one of the Squad POD Collective’s featured books this month and is a brilliant combination of school drama, mystery and dark comedy featuring a wonderful character called Ida. Ida and her family live on a remote Scottish island after fleeing from her mother’s controlling boyfriend Peter. What started as a lonely but safe place to live, has become impossible since her mother did something unforgivable and the island’s inhabitants turn against them. Deciding she wants to leave, Ida looks for private boarding schools who provide scholarship places. She finds a school as far away from Scotland as she can find. St Anne’s sits on the south coast of England, so remote that the only diversion is a bus ride to a small town with a choice of two tea rooms. The school are terribly surprised when their scholarship student turns up, no one ever has before, so they don’t have anywhere suitable to put her. The school is ramshackle and in danger of falling off the cliffs and the food is questionable and often tastes of fish, even when it isn’t. Ida is placed in a double room with school miscreant Louise and starts to settle in. However, things take a very strange turn when Head Girl Diane becomes unwell, starting with strange jerks of the arms and soon descending into a full blown seizures. Soon after, Diane’s friend April is sick and then starts the familiar pattern of jerks. By the time a third girl has the same symptoms outside agencies such as environmental health, doctors and the police start to descend on the school. Is this illness a virus, or is it environmental? Or could it be something more sinister like poison?

Not only is this a fascinating mystery, the characters are so endearing and I loved the deliciously dark sense of humour. We follow Ida’s story but also that of geography teacher Eleanor. Both are characters are quiet and unassuming but with hidden depths. Eleanor is coping with a change of living arrangements rather like Ida. She was all set to marry boyfriend Anthony, but it was suddenly called off. She’s been used to living in a solo room at the school, but a space in one of the sought after flats has come available. The problem is it means sharing with fellow teacher Vera and they’re not exactly friends, but she’ll gain a sitting room and a kitchen and surely they can get on? Then the first ever male teacher arrives and it’s clear that he’s quiet and ill equipped to deal with the dreamy and rather nosy English teachers. He and Eleanor get along well though, often lunching together at school and sharing the bus into town on their rare day off. However, he does seem to lack a back story and after what happened with Anthony, she’s very wary.

Despite some serious subject matter and St Anne’s having a rather 1980’s morbid fascination with the nuclear holocaust, there is a lot of humour and witty exchanges, even if they are rather black (my favourite kind of comedy). Both Eleanor and Ida have to accommodate their rather forthright and eccentric roommates. Louise comes with many warnings from the school mistress, but their meeting is hilariously slapstick after a mishap with a trapdoor. Louise seems to sense Ida’s intriguing hidden depths and they definitely share an affinity for causing mayhem. As their friendship developed I did worry for the rest of the school’s pupils. Eleanor’s roommate Vera is a comic delight and I imagined her as a young Miriam Margoyles – abrupt to the point of rudeness and very definite in her opinions. On a visit to the tearoom in town she berates the poor waitress for not having Battenberg cake. When she suggests their Victoria Sponge, Vera exclaims loudly that it’s usually dry. Then as she eats it, loudly confirms to the other patrons that is just as dry as she expected. She has no filter, volume control or embarrassment. In between the main narrative, are faxes from the neurologist treating the girls and his previous colleague and even these take a turn you won’t expect. He writes of his concern about Diane, the first girl who fell ill and his confusion at the symptoms displayed by the others. He is the first to notice strange anomalies in the seizures but has a hard time convincing his colleagues, the police and the environmental health of his eventual diagnosis.

I enjoyed the medical mystery at the heart of this novel, just as interesting as a crime novel with plenty of twists and turns along the way. Having had a rather unusual neurological condition myself this was an accurate representation of how our bodies can surprise and betray us. Of course this has the added intrigue of multiple patients at once and the cause being very difficult pin down — is it poison, environmental or the rather unusual and fishy meals from the school kitchens? There are other mini mysteries too such as why Eleanor didn’t get married and what made new teacher Matthew move to an isolated all girls school? Once the press are on the trail of the mystery illness many more secrets could come to light, including why Ida arrived in the first place. Ida is such an interesting teenager and her growing friendship with roommate Louise is both touching and unexpected. The author has captured the inner world of Ida so authentically that you feel connected to her and the interactions between the students is a familiar combination of funny, bitchy and a little bit guarded. So when the guard drops and real emotions spill out it is all the more surprising and touching. This was an absolute treat to read and I have no hesitation in recommending it.

Meet the Author

Rebecca Wait is the author of four novels, the most recent of which, I’m Sorry You Feel That Way, was a book of the year for The Times, Guardian, Express, Good Housekeeping and BBC Culture, and was shortlisted for the Nota Bene Prize.

Her previous novel, Our Fathers, received widespread acclaim and was a Guardian book of the year and a thriller of the month for Waterstones.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Girl Falling by Hayley Scrivenor 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Finn is taking her girlfriend Magdu climbing for the first time. Magdu is nervous about heights so Finn is taking extra special care to explain everything about the abseil they’re attempting. As Finn lowers herself over the edge to control the descent from beneath, she is sure she has Magdu ready and composed on the blue rope, with friend Daphne on the red rope. She’s waiting to feel the weight of someone lowering them selves over the edge, but is surprised when it seems to be the wrong side. Magdu was meant to come over first but this is the red rope so it must be Daphne. The next thing Finn sees is Magdu hurtling towards her and then towards the ground, with a haunting scream. As both Finn and Daphne are taken in to the police station for questioning, Finn starts to think of an earlier time in her life when someone else she loved fell to their death. The truth of that day is something she’s only ever shared with Daphne. This time it’s a potential murder investigation so she’s going to have to protect herself, but might that mean the end of her friendship with Daphne?

My goodness this was a deliciously toxic friendship to get my therapist’s mind whirring. Finn and Daphne meet at school after a very traumatic occurrence in Finn’s family life. Finn is so vulnerable and hasn’t shared with anyone what truly happened when her little sister Suzy lost her life on a family camping trip. Suzy fell from a cliff edge in the night, but is that all there is to it? Daphne, who has also suffered the loss of a sibling, so knows exactly what to do with someone in that state of mind. She can’t change anything but she can sit with Finn and share her sadness and guilt. Finn is our narrator and we see everything through her eyes and she’s also been struggling with her sexuality, until Magdu comes along.  However, I could also see how the combination of Finn’s kindness and fear of being exposed, left her open to exploitation. I didn’t fully bond with Finn as a narrator, I was unsure whether to trust her or not. She did set off my maternal streak though, because I wanted to see her safe and protected. She’s kind and cares about the environment, her family and climbing. My instinct was that she needed to be as far away from Daphne as possible. She’s manipulative, knowing exactly what and how much to tell Finn to draw her into her confidence and keep her beholden. I wasn’t even sure whether it was the truth. 

I felt, very early on, that Daphne wanted Finn all to herself. When Finn first introduces her to Magdu at a club, its not long before Daphne finds a way to get Magdu alone. She lets slip a secret, making sure Finn doesn’t know exactly how much of the story she’s revealed. As Magdu leaves after the confrontation, Daphne tells Finn it’s her own fault. If she’d wanted Daphne to lie she could have just told her. I was unsure whether Daphne and Finn’s relationship is platonic or romantic, but I was sure about it’s complexity. There’s no room for a third person. Finn tells us about Daphne’s hair and how beautiful she is, there’s clearly an attraction but Daphne also likes to flirt with the male climbers in front of Finn. On the day of the accident there’s a very handsome climber hanging around at the top of the cliff with a huge hunting knife and Daphne makes a bee line for him. She’s used Finn’s grief and guilt and their shared loss of a sibling, to keep her constantly on a tight rein. I felt like Daphne was absolutely capable of harming Magdu. She potentially harms their relationship then reminds Finn that she is the only person who truly knows her, that it’s the two of them against the world. Yet Finn isn’t innocent in this toxic mix, she is complicit by not telling Magdu the same secrets that Daphne knows. Finn is a troubled soul, plagued with insomnia and often going for midnight walks. I thought she needed to choose between her friend and her lover, but I also wondered what Daphne was capable of doing if Finn  chose Magdu. In amongst all the psychological machinations and flashbacks the author keeps bringing us back to the present and the more precise methods of the police investigations. 

The flitting back and forth between the narrators gives rise to the tension that keeps you reading. Both are utterly unreliable and untrustworthy, especially when we think about the enormity of their secrets. The two are bonded and no one else could come between them, it’s as if Finn has been in a relationship with Daphne all along without realising. I craved some input from Daphne’s perspective because I imagined her version of events would look very different, although not necessarily true. They would also be a fascinating insight into her mind. I kept coming back to personality disorders and the way people portray their lives to the rest of the world. Daphne genuinely struck me as a person with potential narcissistic personality disorder. She has a version of the long held friendship she’s had with Finn and she’s keen on putting that version in front of others, especially Magdu. To use an inelegant phrase it’s like a dog marking their territory. The question is, how much of that version is actually true? One of the markers of NPD is the person’s manipulation of both people and events, but it isn’t a conscious action. They believe in their truth wholeheartedly, sometimes repeating a made-up narrative over and over until it actually becomes a the truth in their mind. When they first meet, Daphne and Finn discuss their shared experiences and Daphne explains how she chose to rewrite her story as an ancient myth, invoking Greek gods and particularly epic poetry. She has taken the heightened and exaggerated heroism of these stories to spin her own life narrative and has rewritten her personality to match. I wasn’t sure about the ending I would get, but there was a twist and it was a satisfying conclusion. My only criticisms of the book would be that it was slow in parts and I felt the author could have used the setting more, because apart from a mention of the Blue Mountains I didn’t feel the characters connected with it enough, especially Finn. However, this was a very character driven thriller which really enjoy and it’s deep delve into the motivations and desires of Finn and Daphne were absolutely compelling. 

Meet the Author

Hayley Scrivenor is the author of DIRT TOWN, which published internationally in 2022 (published as DIRT CREEK in the U.S., where it was a USA TODAY bestseller) and quickly became a #1 Australian bestseller. The novel has been shortlisted for multiple national and international awards. In 2023, it won a Lambda Literary Award and General Fiction Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards. DIRT TOWN has been translated into several languages. GIRL FALLING, described as “a remarkable exercise in complex storytelling written in Scrivenor’s idiosyncratic, metaphorically vivid prose”, is her second novel.

Hayley has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong and lives on Dharawal country, on the east coast of Australia.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

CL Taylor It’s Always The Husband 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This is one of those thrillers where you’re immediately sucked into this narrator’s life and her new circle of school mums or frenemies. When Jude first arrives in Lowbridge with daughter Betsy it’s a new start and she’s keen to get to know the other mums. However, she soon works out that Victoria is the queen of the school mum scene and everyone wants to be in her clique. Victoria appears to have her shit together – a lovely home with all those aspirational touches like a fire pit table, matching lawn chairs and fluffy blankets for when it gets cool in the evening. She has two kids, heads up the PTA and runs her own business as a personal trainer. Although Jude finds the mums a bit cliquey she does hit it off with one of the dads. Will has a little girl of Betsy’s age and is a widower, there is something very attractive about him and Jude receives the red flag a little too late. When finally invited to a garden get together at Victoria’s she’s warned that not only did Will’s first wife die, but his second wife Robyn went missing and lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice. It seems that the mums don’t believe in coincidences. When Sorrel, another one of the mums, is targeted by a blackmailer pretending to be Robyn she is stunned that Robyn might still be alive. With a husband struggling with depression, three children and a pottery to run Sorrel has her hands full. Her husband Finnley did go out a few nights ago, he rang her to say he’d hit an animal and the bonnet has a large dent in it. So why is this woman so sure he wasn’t where he claimed to be and that he’s responsible for a hit and run miles away. Victoria’s husband Andy is a detective and they’ve split fairly recently. He was struggling because he couldn’t solve the missing person case and he still doesn’t know where Robyn went. As Sorrel, Victoria and Jude come together to solve this case they know it isn’t going to be easy and that it comes with great risk. There is a killer in Lowbridge and they’re determined to find who it is. 

This perfectly paced thriller is narrated by all three women, with short excerpts from a diary Jude finds under Will’s bed that they assume is Robyn’s. It shows a side to her that’s completely different to the sweetness and light image she projected while with Will. Her dedication to him and the little girl who’s already lost one mum gives her an almost saintly reputation, but someone knows better. If she’s behind the blackmail plot there’s something Machiavellian about her ability to act and manipulate those she wants to fool. These are ballsy women across the board though, with none of them running to men to get this sorted. Victoria pursues one mum called Theresa down to Devon after she leaves unexpectedly and with no goodbye. Stalking her her husband’s open Facebook page Victoria notices an open, but unpacked box. In it she sees an expensive bird ornament that disappeared from her own house, plus some things belonging to other mums. Maybe Theresa is involved somehow? She’s clearly perfectly willing to steal from them. When she finally tracks Theresa down to the local pub for a confrontation, the answers she gets are definitely not the ones she was expecting. Similarly Jude goes her own way, getting hold of the diary and reading through it for clues. She knows it might jeopardise her relationship with Will but she needs to know, the fact that he keeps Robyn’s favourite cheesecake in the fridge just in case she comes back, strikes her as odd. Especially if he killed her. Sorrel surprised me the most as she seemed so calm and a definite ‘earth mother’ type. Jude notices her unstyled hair, the way she dresses and her lack of make-up, compared to the others. She cares so much about her husband Finnley, worried every time she returns home that she might find him dead. His depression has lead to weeks off work so far, so she’s surprised to find him heading out to for an emergency appointment. He’s a dentist with anaesthetic training and they need him to sedate a patient. Why is this patient so special? When she receives the blackmail message she goes to her secret bank account, finding it completely empty. How long has Finnley been blackmailed for? I almost expected her to crack but she doesn’t. Often just going through the motions at work and home, she’s just as determined as Jude and Victoria to nail this person. When the three of them find another dead body, the tension ramps up a gear. 

Once you’ve started to read, this is very hard to put down. I love Lisa Jewell and Louise Candlish and I found this very similar in the way it gripped me. It’s addictive and there are a few red herrings thrown in to keep you off the scent. It certainly didn’t go the way I expected. It’s telling that the author references The Handmaid’s Tale, as the women definitely pull towards each other as a team rather than the men in their lives. These women, although involved with men and wanting a partnership, are good at stepping back and looking for those red flags. In some cases they are instrumental in checking out their stories and even bringing anyone who needs it to justice, no matter how they feel about them. From a psychological point of view Will’s daughter Milly worried me. She’s clearly spent a long time with Robyn and has understandable issues with grief, but her reaction to seeing Jude in the room that was ‘Daddy and Robyn’s’ and the daily uneaten cheesecake were definite indications of trauma. It also seemed strange she didn’t have the same fixation on her actual mother. She may have been young when she died, but I wondered if Robyn hadn’t manipulated Milly into being her little ally. There’s nothing more attractive than a girlfriend your kids fall in love with. I did find myself having to go back after reading the unexpected final pages to see all the clues I missed. This is a great thriller, full of action, danger and unexpected twists. It’s also deliciously catty and full of gossip. A brilliant read for anyone who loves domestic thrillers. 

Meet the Author

C.L. Taylor is an award winning Sunday Times bestselling author of ten gripping psychological thrillers including EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick for autumn 2024, THE GUILTY COUPLE, (Richard and Judy Book Club 2023) and SLEEP (Richard and Judy Book Club 2019).

C.L. Taylor’s books have sold over two million copies in the UK alone, hit number one on Amazon Kindle, Audible, Kobo, iBooks and Google Play, and have been translated into over 30 languages and optioned for TV.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Every Move You Make by C.L. Taylor 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Alexandra, Lucy, Bridget, River and Natalie. Five friends who wish they’d never met. Because the one thing they have in common is the worst thing in their lives: they are all being stalked.

When one of their group is murdered, days after their stalker is released from prison, time stands still for them all. They know their lives could end just as brutally at any moment – all it takes is for the people they fear the most to catch up with them.

When the group receive a threat that one of them will die in ten days’ time, the terror that stalks their daily lives becomes all-consuming. But they know they don’t want to be victims anymore – it’s time to turn the tables and finally get their revenge.

Because the only way to stop a stalker is to become one yourself…

After starting the novel with a tense and terrifying narrative of a woman being stalked, the author jumps forward and shows us how the loss of Natalie has affected those around her so deeply. For a handful of mourners, her loss is a terrible reminder of how they met and increases the fear of their own fate. Natalie’s friends tell their stories through the WhatsApp group they share. Alex, Lucy, Bridget and River are all victims of stalking. They formed their group to support each other and as a way of looking out for each other, using it to check in when outside their homes and when they return. However, when a very clear threat is made against them, they have to protect themselves. What lengths will they go to? The structure takes us between characters giving us a little bit of their story each time. Each of their stories slowly weaves together to create a whole; the phrase ‘one more chapter’ is very apt for this book. Sometimes you get caught up in a particular story, reach a cliffhanger and realise you have to read through three more chapters to find out what happened. It’s a interesting mix of characters, choosing women of different ages and a man shows us that it’s not only young women who are victims of stalking. I could sense that there were secrets to unearth with all of them and I found myself unable to fully trust anyone. They were complex and I thought the author explored their character and the group dynamics really well. I found myself switching between who I mistrusted and why. This suspicion did ramp up the tension not to mention the thrilling action scenes. 

The other aspect of this novel that is brilliantly executed is the description of the psychological impact that the stalking has on each character. We can see each character dealing with their situation differently, based on their personality, past experiences and who is stalking them. Some know exactly who their stalker is, while others are stalked by a complete stranger. The author manages to put across the constant vigilance, that feeling of always looking over your shoulder and the fear of what the stalker might do next. She shows how some stalkers escalate, keeping their victim behind closed doors, terrified to venture into the outside world alone. There’s also an element of victims taking their power back and carrying out acts of retaliation. The remaining four of the group do this by tagging their stalkers so they can monitor their whereabouts at all times. To do this without the stalker realising is incredibly dangerous. As each chapter counts down to the potential murder of one of the victims, the sense of fear really does set in and keeps those pages turning. 

Reading this in the same week that Louise, Hannah and Julie Hunt’s killer was found guilty of their murder really hit home. Misogyny and violence against women seems to be on the rise at the moment. Often violence follows months or even years of abuse, coercive control and stalking. It also seems that women are losing trust in the system that’s designed to protect them, especially since Sarah Everard was killed by a serving police officer. Here the characters are avoiding telling the police and I was left wondering it was disillusionment with the police force or whether some characters had something to hide. For the person who once professed to love you, to exhibit such abusive behaviour, must be terrifying. In fact it is often walking away from the relationship and cutting off communication that leads to escalation, just when the victim is settled and starting to feel safe again. The author’s writing brings the truth of this issue to light, because it shows how important it is to have all the parts of a story. The problem is, stalking is often a case of one person’s word against the other. The book’s structure shows how one person’s account either illuminates or throw suspicion on someone else. Whether they’re guilty or not can depend upon their eloquence and ability to charm others. This is such a timely novel and it was interesting to read how the author’s research and personal experience informed her story. For me it was this personal insight that made her story feel so authentic.

Available now. Published by Avon Books

Meet the Author

C.L. Taylor is an award winning Sunday Times bestselling author of ten gripping psychological thrillers including EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick for autumn 2024, THE GUILTY COUPLE, (Richard and Judy Book Club 2023) and SLEEP (Richard and Judy Book Club 2019).

C.L. Taylor’s books have sold over two million copies in the UK alone, hit number one on Amazon Kindle, Audible, Kobo, iBooks and Google Play, and have been translated into over 30 languages and optioned for TV.

Her books are not a series and can be read in any order:

Posted in Squad Pod Collective, Sunday Spotlight

Spotlight On The Dallergut Department Store Series by Miye Lee. 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Dallergut Dream Department Store.

I’m a little late and probably too old for the sudden popularity of Korean culture. I’m aware of BTS and Squid Game, but have never listened to or watched either of them. Despite that, I’m aware from my step-daughters, nieces and nephews that Korean music and film-making are innovative and unique, two words I’d apply to these novels. I loved the premise, that there is a department store that supplies people with dreams. Our heroine Penny gets a job at the Dallergut Dream Department Store, somewhere she’s dreamed of working. There’s something hypnotic about the world this author has created, because it’s fantastical and unlike anything I’ve read since childhood. As Penny finds her feet we start to see the way the store works: the communication between the menagerie of unusual creatures who run each department and the actual dream makers who craft their dreams to the individual. These are the upper echelon of the organisation, craftsmen who have to weave a narrative that answers life’s questions, builds hope of love in the air and solves problems. When the dreamer comes in they are served by one of the staff in the store. As soon as I realised this, my mind drifted to the hope they were wearing pyjamas. Some don’t and have to be given something to put on, which maybe explains the strange clothes I’m often wearing I’m my dreams. After a spell of flying dreams I always wear pyjamas!

I really loved the quirkiness of how the store and the system worked. Each sleeper then discusses their needs or can be given hints by those who work in the store – sort of like an Apple Genius, but with dreams. We’re also shown how their dreams pan out with in the real world and whether they help the dreamer make a decision or help them unravel a sticky situation. The dreamer does have to pay for their nighttime adventure and they pay with emotions, which are then recycled by the dream-makers into even more detailed and elaborate dreamscapes. I’m such a sucker for whimsical stories and characters that are complex and quirky. The author delivers on both fronts here.

Return to Dallergut Dream Department Store

If you wish to delve deeper into the Dallergut Dream Department Store this is the second instalment. It takes the reader back to Penny and her colleagues drafting dreams. Penny has finished her first year at the store which means she is now officially part of the dreams industry. She can now go behind the scenes to the Company District, on a special express train of course, where the raw materials for dreams are stored. She’s hoping to have some of her questions answered by this peek behind the scenes. She wants to understand more about customers, especially those that buy a dream but don’t return to the store. It would be great if she could find a way to improve repeat custom. As always though, when we delve deeper behind the scenes of any industry, we see it’s darker side. There is a complaints process for customers and they end up at the Civil Complaints Centre where Penny starts to find answers about those non-returning customers. Their concerns were very relatable and it was interesting to see how customers with disabilities were being accommodated. They are striving to be inclusive and I loved that, having had many discussion with friends who have disabilities about whether they have a disability in their dreams (sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t). Alongside the emotional and slightly darker elements was the usual whimsical and quirky world of the first book, alongside the tiniest hint of romance. Ultimately, this is a warm-hearted fantasy that’s like a hug in a book.