I thought it was probably time to introduce myself to my new subscribers and what better way to do it than by sharing some of my all time favourite novels. First of all I’d like to say welcome to you all and thank you for subscribing. This year there will still be book reviews and blog tour posts, but I’m also going to be sharing my favourite novel and authors with my Sunday Spotlight and my new Tens on Tuesday posts, starting with this one. I think this post lets you know a bit about me and my interests: historical novels, crime and mystery, the Gothic, trauma and psychology, disability and finally a little sprinkle of magic. I hope you enjoy hearing about what I’m currently reading but also older books, authors and themes I love too. Wishing you all a Happy New Year and a great year reading what you love.
I think this novel is the one that explains a lot about my reading tastes ever since I first read it when I was ten years old and the BBC series with Timothy Dalton as Mr Rochester was on Sunday afternoons. I loved how this little girl tried to stand up for herself with her horrible aunt and cousin, being labelled wilful and passionate and in need of correction. Being locked in the Red Room and then sent to boarding school at Lowood were meant to soften her, to make her grateful for the roof over her head. All it does is strengthen her sense of justice and although she learns to keep her opinions in check, those emotions are still simmering underneath. When she takes a position as governess to a French girl called Adele at Thornfield Hall, the book becomes more than a Bildungsroman and develops into a Gothic mystery, a genre I love to this day. The scenes where Jane hears noises in the passageway at night, she hears a maniacal laugh and finds a half burned candle left behind, then when a dark, demonic woman enters Jane’s bedroom and tears her wedding veil in two, are truly frightening. Added to this is the dark and mysterious Mr Rochester who appears out of the mist on a black horse and finds solace in the quiet Jane who can keep up with his intellect and doesn’t bow to his demands. Now if a book has a stately home, a mystery to solve, the paranormal and a feminist heroine it’s in my basket straight away.
I bought this novel for the cover alone when I saw it in Lindum Books. I now have six copies in different styles and I love them all. I’ve seen the novel described as phantasmagorical and I could apply this word to a whole raft of books I’ve read since. Outside London, in an undefined historical setting, a wandering and magical circus appears where many of the attractions defy explanation. As well as disappearing and reappearing at will, the circus is the focus of a competition played by two powerful magicians through their protégés Marcus and Celia. The great magician Prospero and his rival Mr A.H. have chosen their players and proceed to create magical challenges for the younger pair, but this is a secret competition and neither one knows they are rivals. Celia is Prospero’s daughter and he has trained her as an illusionist, using cruel and manipulative methods. Marcus is trained to create fantastical scenes for the circus that he must pluck out of his mind. As soon as they’re both of age they are linked to the circus, not knowing their competitor but becoming increasingly suspicious that they’re present at the Circus of Dreams. Meanwhile, other performers start to question the circus and its magical powers – they are forever young and unable to leave. The beauty of the circus seems to mask sinister intent and as Celia resolves to end this game, she and Marco fall in love. Is this love doomed or can they escape without causing further harm. This book inspires artists and creatives all over the world and it captures my imagination every time I pick it up for a re-read.
As someone with a disability, a heroine with a ‘hare’ or cleft lip was a real find in a book that had really passed me by until around twenty years ago. The author Mary Webb was writing in the early 20th Century but her heroine Pru Sarn lives in rural Shropshire at the beginning of the 19th Century. Local suspicion is that Pru’s mother was scared by a hare during pregnancy, causing the disfigurement she calls her ‘precious bane’. Bad luck starts to dog the family when Pru’s father dies and there is no ‘sin eater’ at the funeral. Superstition states that someone must take on the deceased’s sins so that they’re ensured a place in heaven. Despite all his family’s please not to, Pru’s brother steps forward to take on those sins and from that point on their luck changes. Gideon goes from an affable young man, in love with the prettiest local girl Janis Beguildy and set to take on the family farm, to a bitter and avaricious individual who drives his own family into exhaustion in the pursuit of money. Meanwhile, Pru falls in love with Kester Woodseaves, the weaver at Jancis’s bridal celebration but there’s nothing that would make him look at her twice with her lip and the ill luck that goes with it. This is a story rich with local folklore and old skills that are slowly dying out in rural communities. It’s also about how those superstitions can drive people to look for blame and how women like Pru can become scapegoats for a bad wheat crop. Billed as a writer of romance there’s a lot more to Mary Webb’s work and her challenge to the stereotype of facial disfigurement representing evil is definitely ahead of his time.
I loved this book from Alice Hoffman so much, because it has all the Hoffman magic but is set within the Coney Island freak shows at the turn of the 20th Century, something I researched while writing my dissertation on disability and literature. I’d watched the film Freaks and was fascinated with the complexities of displaying your extraordinary body for money. It’s exploitative yet on the other hand it pays well and is perhaps the performer’s only way of being independent, these contradictions are shown in this novel following Coralie Sardie the daughter of the Barnum- like impresario of the museum. Coralie is an incredible swimmer and performs as the museum’s mermaid, enduring punishing all year round training in the East River every morning. It’s after one of these sessions goes wrong that Coralie is washed far upstream into the outskirts of NYC where development suddenly gives way to wild forests. There she meets Eddie Cohen who is taking pictures of the trees and hiding out from his own community, where his father’s expectation is for him to train as a tailor in the family business. Alice Hoffman weaves Eddie and Coralie’s story with real historic events like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the other wonders who populate Coney Island and her particular blend of magic.
This must appear on so many ‘best of’ lists and there’s a good reason why. I was introduced to Daphne Du Maurier very early in life through my mum who showed me the Hitchcock adaptation of the novel starring Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Wjinter and Joan Fontaine as the second Mrs de Winter. This was an incredible film and no adaptation since has come close to emulating it, although I still hold out hope for a Carey Mulligan Mrs de Winter someday. This has one of the best openings of any book with its dream of the winding drive at the Cornish home of the de Winters, Manderley setting the atmosphere perfectly. This is where ghosts and secrets lurk beneath the outwardly perfect life led by Max and his beautiful first wife Rebecca. Our unnamed narrator is in Monte Carlo as a paid companion to an obnoxious rich woman who sees the infamous widower and an opportunity to hear some first hand gossip to take with them to their next destination. Her companion is young, quiet and under confident. She has no family and is vulnerable in a way that I’d didn’t see when I first read the book and the disparity between them is more obvious the older I get. One thing that really angers me is that Maxim doesn’t bother to remove traces of his ex-wife whose extravagant signature is emblazoned on the stationery in the morning room and her pillowcases in the untouched bedroom she occupied overlooking the sea. Also he doesn’t even consider that her upbringing is from such a different class, she has no concept of how to run a stately home and falls victim to the ghoulish Mrs Danvers, Rebecca’s old maid and now the housekeeper of Manderley. This is most definitely not a love story, it’s a mystery with a hero who is controlling and manipulative to his new wife. This is a book to re-read over and over.
A spiteful spirit rules the roost at the home runaway slave Sethe shares with her elderly mother-in-low and daughter Denver, a ghost that haunts with a ‘baby’s venom’. It’s a million miles away from her years in slavery at Sweet Home, but she carries the damage of those years in the whip marks on her back that look like a gnarled tree. The atmosphere of this little house is set to change though as two visitors come calling; one is Paul D who was also at Sweet Home and shares so many experiences with Sethe she will have to talk about them. The second is a naked young woman who seems almost non-verbal, like a toddler in the body of a young woman. Sethe is entranced by their guest, who demands more and more of her attention pushing out Denver and trying to create a wedge between her and Paul D who has to sleep in the outhouse. Sethe believes that this girl is the embodiment of that restless spirit in the house, who has gone remarkably quiet. While Sethe becomes drained and exhausted trying to care for her new charge. What is her purpose with Sethe and why does she take the treatment meted out to her? The answers lie in a grave marked with one word – Beloved – and the unthinkable price of freedom.
This book was the first of two featuring the Todd family and their lives across the 20th Century. Here we see the world through the eyes of the Todd’s youngest daughter Ursula, born on a snowy night in 1910. As her mother Sylvia gives birth, the cord becomes wrapped around Ursula’s neck and she dies before the doctor can even reach their home. We then loop back and Ursula survives her birth but dies from a fall as she leans from a window to retrieve her doll, or she dies by drowning as a little girl. In 1918 their maid joins the Victory Day celebrations post WWI and brings Spanish Flu to the Todd house killing Ursula at eight years old. Each loop of Ursula’s life is longer and we see more of the family’s rather upper middle class life in Chalfont St. Peter in Buckinghamshire. We notice that Ursula becomes more knowing, taking experiences from her extinguished lives to avoid that fate the next time round – at one point she remembers her death at the hands of a rapist and next time is aggressively rude to avoid his company so she lives a little longer. Later lives take Ursula into womanhood and WW2, working for the war office in London and experiencing the terrors of the Blitz, sometimes rescuing others and other times perishing underneath the rubble. Eventually she works her way close to Hitler through Eva Braun and determines to end the war by killing him. What we never know is how these lives turn out for others, as each narrative ends definitively with Ursula’s death. I loved Kate Atkinson’s bravery and playfulness in using such a complex structure and inventing a character like Ursula who is able to carry the novel on her shoulders. I’ve enjoyed other novels from the author, especially A God in Ruins where we follow the life of her brother Teddy, but there’s no question that this book is her masterpiece.
I’ve read a few of Thomas Hardy’s novels, but something about Far From The Madding Crowd stays with me. At heart it’s a love story, with all the obstacles and diversions you’d expect from the moment shepherd Gabriel Oak turns up at Bathsheba Everdene’s door with a lamb for her to hand rear and a proposal. A proposal she refuses on the basis that she has a lot of other things she wants to do. After this a terrible misfortune befalls Gabriel as he loses his whole flock to a young sheepdog who drives them off the cliffs. However this does force him to cross paths with Bathsheba a second time when he goes for a job where the new farm owner is a woman. Bathsheba makes so many rash decisions, especially where men are concerned, but Gabriel becomes her trusted and loyal friend. As always with Hardy it’s the misfortunes that tug hard on the heartstrings: a pregnant servant girl who goes to marry her soldier lover at the wrong church, the tragic and lonely Mr. Boldwood who takes a poorly timed Valentine joke to heart and Gabriel’s faithfulness to his friend, always putting her first even when she doesn’t appreciate it. Hardy captures the headstrong and impulsive young girl beautifully and as always the rural setting is so wonderfully drawn and strangely restful to read. Having grown up on farms my whole life I understand the character’s connection to the land and the animals they care for, plus I always long for a happier ending than Hardy’s other women.
It’s hard to pick one favourite from Jodi Picoult’s back catalogue and I have about four that I love and read again, including her most recent novel about the works of Shakespeare By Any Other Name, Small Great Things and Plain Truth. This one stayed with me, perhaps because of my late in-laws WW2 experiences and the realisation that the generation who went through the invasion of Poland first hand will one day be gone. Recording their stories is vital and although this is fiction it still has a purpose, in educating readers about the Holocaust. Ironically, it has been banned in several school districts in the US despite its message on fascism and antisemitism. It makes it all the more important to read it as well as Picoult’s other banned novels. Sage Singer is something of a recluse, working nights in her local bakery to avoid people. She wears her hair to cover a large scar across her cheek, caused by a car accident that killed her mother. Sage sees her scar as a reminder she was responsible for her mother’s death and struggles terribly with survivor’s guilt and the resulting lack of self worth. When she attends a grief therapy group she meets an elderly local man called Josef Weber, a resident of Westerbrook for forty years with his wife who has recently died. He’s known for kind acts around town, but as he and Page become friends he tells her a terrible secret. In WW2 he was a guard at Auschwitz and is responsible for the deaths of many people. He asks Sage to help him commit suicide, leaving her with a dilemma. Sage describes her self as an atheist despite coming from a religious Jewish family. Can she be friend with this man? Should she report her discovery? Should Josef be able to cheat the death God has planned for him when so many others had no choice? Picoult structures this narrative like a set of Russian dolls and the very centre is the story of Minka, Sage’s grandmother who managed to survive a concentration camp. This is the heart of the story, a survivor’s account that describes how an SS Guard allowed her rewards of food and warmth because of her incredible talent as a storyteller. This is a hard but vital read with huge dilemmas around forgiveness, the degree of bad deeds and whether all sin is the same. Are some people simply unforgivable despite their attempts to change? Is accepting earthly punishment part of forgiveness? Is killing ever justified? It is absolutely spellbinding.
I adore the playful opening of this historical novel as our heroine addresses us and draws us in to her world, a version of London rarely examined at the time. Published in 2002, Michael Faber introduces us to Sugar who has worked in a brothel since she was thirteen. She’s creative and intelligent, scribbling down her story in the time she has between working. She’s also streetwise and determined to create a new life for herself. She meets the rather clumsy and awkward William Rackham as a client. He’s married but his wife Agnes is delicate, a fragile Victorian ideal of a wife who’s disturbed by her own bodily functions. She’s sent further into decline after the birth of their daughter, Sophie and now has no idea she is a mother. She is kept drugged in her room, with visits from the creepy Dr. Curlew whose treatment is sexual assault. The two women couldn’t be more of a contrast. Sugar believes that William might be her ticket to a new life, not that she’s in love with him of course. William is a selfish man, inadequate and under pressure to continue the success of the family soap factory, a business built by his overbearing father. He’s obsessed with Sugar and thinks he could have the object of his affections closer to home. What if he engaged Sugar as Sophie’s governess? This is an incredibly well written novel, full of detail on a grubby and exploitative part of London that Sugar navigates with practised skill, utterly reliant on her own wits. She’s a beguiling character who knows that the gentlemanly ideal is a facade and that all men are disappointing or dangerous. Watching her encroach onto William’s carefully constructed home life is fascinating and you’ll be desperately hoping that all of his women will find a way of escaping their fates.
Well it’s been a very interesting year and for my little community of friends and family, quite a tough one in a lot of ways. I’ve had my health struggles, including a cancer scare I could have done without, and our new kitchen turned into a total kitchen renovation. The entire contents of our kitchen were in my study for five months and I’m only just getting things back to normal. For my reading life this has meant periods where I simply couldn’t read because I couldn’t focus. So reviews have been late and I’m still reading a lot of my NetGalley books from the summer. My Goodreads challenge has been missed by a mile. Yet in all of this I’ve read some incredible books and I’ve finally managed to gather a list of the ones I’ve most enjoyed and a list of honourable mentions that I couldn’t ignore. There’s no particular order but each one has been a book of the month and I chose those I couldn’t stop thinking about whether that’s because it was so gripping and or hit my emotions hard.
For years and years, when I’m asked the question which book has hit me hardest emotionally I’ve always had to say One Day by David Nicholls. Now I’ll be able to say that Leaving absolutely tore my heart out. Warren and Sarah dated for a while in their college years and she had ended it. Yet they never stopped thinking about each other. Sarah is divorced and lives alone in her country home with her dog Bella for company. She has a daughter, but she’s married and lives a long way from her mother with her husband and Sarah’s two grandchildren. Sarah works at a gallery, working on an exhibition about the Bloomsbury Group. Warren lives just outside Boston and has his own architectural practice in the city. He’s married to exactly the sort of wife he has needed: attractive, a good hostess and great mum to their daughter Kattie who is an older teenager. However, his wife is also a snob, very aware of who should be in their social circle and how things should be done. They can’t talk about current affairs together, listen to an opera or read the same books. Perhaps their marriage has always been like this, but feels empty since he saw Sarah again. Can he spend the rest of his life in his marriage as he promised or can he be with Sarah? If he leaves what price will he have to pay? And if he doesn’t can he live without that kind of love?
Everything about this novel rings true, from the details that set each scene to the love story that binds everything together. It’s exquisitely written, drawing you in so very slowly, then unravelling quickly to it’s emotionally devastating conclusion. Once an affair starts to turn into something more, so many decisions have to be made and the sacrifices those choices will create become stark and very real. Sarah has imagined living with Warren, but she’s always thought of them at her home. This is where she rebuilt herself after her divorce. It’s a place she loves and doesn’t think she can give up. Arguably, Warren’s choices are even more difficult. He knows if he does this, his relationship and happiness with Sarah will come at the cost of someone else’s feelings. On the scales does one happiness outweigh another? Or are some costs simply too great?
Robin is exactly half way through his life. Like Mark Twain before him, Robin came into the world with Halley’s Comet in 1986 and fully expects to go out again when it returns in 2061. Recently he’s had a huge life change. He’s moved back to his home town of Eastgate to care for his sick father, who due to his disability has had one accident too many. Robin had a well-regimented life in London with girlfriend Gemma. He also had a boring well-paid job as an accountant. Now everything has been thrown up in the air and he’s living in a tiny bedroom surrounded by boxes he hasn’t unpacked. He’s trying to forge a relationship with a father who can’t communicate and who he never connected with as a child. There are childhood ghosts to face and a new connection with Astrid, fellow outsider and professor at a nearby university. She’s brutally straightforward and Robin has never met anyone like her. She’s also hiding something, but he’s hiding even more from her. Can Robin make friends, help his father and accept this is the next chapter of his life, rather than a blip? This was a great book that’s simply joyful to read, even while addressing some really difficult themes. When we find out why Robin is so adamant about his comet theory – while being forced to evaluate his choices by a strident Astrid – it all becomes clear. A heart-breaking tale emerges, as Robin is faced with yet another loss and learns life is just messy, terrifying, random and heart-breaking. This story is infused with beauty, humour and hope because life is beautiful and joyous too, if you let it be.
London 1883
Rebecca and husband George run Evergreen House as a home for young girls and their illegitimate children, often called a house for ‘fallen women’. Previously, Rebecca’s sister Maddie was the woman of the house and the wife of Dr Everley. Maddie is recovering well after being on trial for the murder of her baby and the revelation that the Everley family had a tradition of hideous experimentation on the bodies of babies to create strange chimeras. Rebecca knows their tenure here is precarious. The Everley family still own the house, but with Dr Everley dead and his sister Grace in a prison asylum no one currently needs it. The small household are very close so all are devastated when the cook and centre of their household, Rose, is murdered and this isn’t the end of the mysterious events at Evergreen. Rebecca fears the past is coming back to haunt them, the murderous and twisted legacy of the Everley family is hard to ignore. What was a sanctuary is becoming dangerous as the evil presence continues its work. With the charity board also tightening their grip on the house, Rebecca must draw out the murderer and discover their purpose. This was a tense and atmospheric read. I could feel the warmth and happiness slowly being sucked from Evergreen House. There were heart-stopping moments, especially towards the end. This is the perfect gothic mystery, especially for fans of historical fiction who like a touch of feminism on the side. This is a must-buy, for the engrossing story and for the gorgeous cover too.
This was a NetGalley read that sounded fascinating and really did grab me from the off. Dani has been hitting rock bottom. Her eating disorder is out of control and her mental health has meant suspending her place at university where she was studying English Literature. She’s now living in a flat with her sister Jo and her boyfriend Stevie, having to share with his daughter Ellie when she’s there for weekends. She’s working as a pot-washer to pay the bills, but longs to go back to university. Despite having very little money, she decides to see a therapist and has a session with Richard. She feels at home in Richard’s room, it’s quiet and smells of books and furniture polish. She feels like he listens and he seems perceptive, noticing her low self-esteem and anxiety. So she takes the decision to have further therapy with him, although he’s expensive. She starts to feel more positive, greatly reducing her bingeing and purging cycle. Of course as counselling boundaries start to be overturned Dani starts to spiral. There are behaviours and revelations I won’t go into for fear of ruining the suspense and eventual outcome, but I was genuinely scared that Dani couldn’t pull back from the mess she was in. When someone has listened to your innermost thoughts they are a formidable agent for change but an even more powerful opponent. I had everything crossed that I’d underestimated Dani and that she could find those reserves to get through to the other side. This was a fantastic debut novel, full of suspense and stirred the emotions of the reader with finesse.
Nina and her daughter Ash live in the bougie seaside town of Whitstable in Kent. They are grieving for husband and father Paddy, who was killed when a man having a mental health crisis pushed him into an oncoming train. Ash has been living at home since her own mental health deteriorated and she was eventually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She’d just come home to recover when Paddy was killed. When her mum receives a parcel in the post Ash is intrigued. It’s beautifully wrapped, with a note inside from a man who has heard about Paddy’s death. He used to work with him in the 1990s and the gift wrapped box contains a Zippo lighter he borrowed but never returned. Since then Paddy has built a restaurant empire, with his flagship restaurant in Whitstable and two others down the coast. Nick’s note explains he is now a troubleshooter, brought into eateries and hotels to assess what’s not working and put it right. There is of course a number, should Nina wish to thank him for his thoughtfulness. Over the next few months Nick and Nina start to WhatsApp each other and then go out for a drink. Ash is glad to see her mum with a glow, but there’s something about Nick that’s just ‘off’. She can’t be sure and maybe she’s viewing this situation through her own grief or her personality disorder, but something isn’t right. She needs to find out more about him before he becomes a permanent fixture.
I galloped through this book as we went backwards and forwards in time, every time learning a little more and inching towards the truth. I loved the fragile Ash who is at that stage of recovery where she doesn’t fully trust her own mind. Is she making too much of this? Is she just paranoid? Worst of all, if she finds something questionable, will her Mum even believe her? She’s so lonely at this point, she doesn’t have many friends to talk to and feels bad she’s had to bounce back home at her age. Her mum deserves to be happy and she might ruin it all. Just when you think you have all the answers, the author takes it to the next level! This book is like a twisted knot in a necklace. It takes a long time to loosen it, but suddenly the whole thing unravels before your eyes. This is masterful thriller that absolutely begs to be devoured in a couple of sittings, from an author who gets better and better.
I have to be honest and say this book blew me away. I was so engrossed in Ciara’s story that when I was at 50% of the way through I just decided to sit for an afternoon and finish. No distractions like music or telly, just total silence and when I finished I sat in that silence and I could feel, bodily, every step of her emotional journey. It’s the story of a woman trying to leave a relationship that is tying her down and eating her alive. Everything she was before – bright, intelligent and full of life – has been worn away. Enduring her husband’s treatment, as well as having two children in four years, mean Ciara has had enough. She can see his behaviour as a pattern and despite being absolutely terrified she needs to find the strength to go. Ciara has no real support, her family is Irish but live in London and despite her yearning to see her mum and sister the law states that she can’t take the children out of Ireland without the written permission of their father. Her only option is the housing office, to present as homeless. Will Ciara have the strength to stay away and build a new life for herself? This is not a comfortable read, especially if you’ve been through an ordeal like Ciara’s. What helps is when an author is brave enough to use their own experience or extensive research to get it right for readers who’ve survived abuse. Roisin O’Donnell has written this so carefully and made Ciara’s life so real that I felt seen. I read on, hoping with all my heart that Ciara would make it through and build a new life. Underneath my fear I was storing up hope for her. I hoped she knew how much strength she had. She could leave. After all, I once did.
The story unfolds slowly while the author immerses us in the world Sycorax inhabits, at first with her parents. Taking her cue from Shakespeare her prose is lyrical and poetic. I really felt like I was in the presence of a magical being and it was the sounds that really grabbed me – the tinkle of sea shells on her mother’s anklets, the sounds of the sea, the lazy buzz of the honey bees they keep. I felt as if I was cocooned on a Caribbean island and strangely relaxed too. Sycorax’s ongoing inner strength and determination to find her own identity in a world that shuns her, is something to truly admire. Because of this she is vehemently hated among the townsfolk, especially men because she won’t conform or disappear. There’s a constant sense of give and take between Sycorax and her universe. Strangely the more she’s affected by illness, the more powerful she becomes. The power comes in the shape of wisdom, resilience and acceptance. I was moved when Sycorax was taken to a woman in labour by a friend of her mother’s, teaching her how to help and support. Sycorax kneels by her head, holding it gently and singing a song in a rhythm. She slows down the woman’s breathing and draws her attention to the ebb and flow of the pain and allows her to work with contractions rather than fight them. That’s what I’m going to take away from this beautiful book, to remind myself of the ebb and flow in life and in my own body.Nydia has written a beautiful piece of work that takes us full circle to The Tempest. She’s managed to bring 21st Century injustices to the forefront without losing any of the magical beauty of the original play.
There’s a constant sense of give and take between Sycorax and her universe. Strangely the more she’s affected by illness, the more powerful she becomes. The power comes in the shape of wisdom, because people with chronic illness understand things about life that other people won’t get in a lifetime. It’s also about resilience, something that comes with time and getting to know how your illness affects you. By working with it, Sycorax knows what her body can do and how much activities will take out of her. Everything is a bargain and when she has to take to her bed she counts rest as an activity. I love that Nydia puts her own wisdom into the character, in the need to measure out energy daily and live with constant pain. Everything Sycorax goes through and learns about her illness, we follow and it was moving to hear words that have gone through my own head. I’ve woken up in agony, out of nowhere, trying to work out what tasks are absolutely necessary and which can wait. I was moved when Sycorax was taken to a woman in labour by a friend of her mother’s, teaching her how to help and support. The woman is screaming and thrashing, so Sycorax goes and kneels by her head, holding it gently and singing a song in a rhythm. She slows down the woman’s breathing and draws her attention to the ebb and flow of the pain. It calms the woman and allows her to work with contractions rather than fight them. This is something I do when in pain and something Ive taught clients with chronic pain. Even severe pain is rarely continuous agony. It has a pattern, a shift, an ebb and flow. If you tune into the ebb and flow of pain you can go with it rather than fight it. That’s what I’m going to take away from this beautiful book, to remind myself of the ebb and flow in life and in my own body.
This fantastic novel from Emily Critchley fit the bill for an early 2025 read perfectly and was the only thing that drew me away from watching Black Doves all in one go! Our heroine is Gillian Larking, a rather invisible girl at boarding school who does her best to fit in but has no real friends. Gillian has lost her mother and with her dad working in Egypt she feels very much alone. However, when she gets a new roommate that feeling starts to change. Violet is a bright, lively girl whose first goal is to break school rules and sneak up onto the school roof to check out the view. Despite her mischievous and seemingly confident nature, Violet is anxious and has a series of rituals to perform that help her cope. She is also prone to emotional outbursts when things become overwhelming. Gillian is seemingly more aware that as young ladies of a certain class they must manage their emotions. Girls in packs tend to sniff out weakness or odd behaviour and she worries whether Violet’s rituals, or ‘undoings’ as she calls them, could affect both their positions at school. As Christmas approaches Gillian is delighted to receive an invitation from Violet to spend the holidays with her family at Thornleigh Hall. There she is dazzled by their slightly shabby country home, being waited on by the servants and Violet’s rather beautiful older sisters. Emmeline, the oldest and definitely in charge, wafts around in old Edwardian gowns whereas Laura is a rather more modern and fragile beauty. Both girls accept Gillian as one of their own, but their new friendship is tested by a terrible accident on Boxing Day that will reverberate through the years. This was an enthralling and fascinating look at a tumultuous time in history ( post WW1) and its effects on one aristocratic family, observed through the eyes of a naive visitor. The author has created an incredible atmosphere that drew me in so strongly I felt like I was there. This is an amazing debut from Emily Critchley and I look forward to reading more of her work.
This thriller grabbed me straight away and never let go! The pace was fast, with short punchy chapters containing the narratives of five men each linked in some way to a woman called Katie. Each man has his own name for this woman and their narratives tell us her story as they see it. John is her father, Gabe is her childhood friend, Conrad is her lover, Tarun is a lawyer and Max is a journalist. Each one thinks they know her, each one presents a different face. But who is she and which is her real identity? Is she a combination of all five or nothing like this at all. It’s a timely, compelling and addictive story that you’ll want to finish in one go.
The murder committed at March House has killed four very important men at once. Lucian is March House’s owner, presiding over the private members club for the richest and most influential men in the UK and their guests. His guests that night were Harris Lowe, Lucian’s new right hand man, Dominic Ainsworth MP and Russian millionaire Aleksander Popov. They appear to have been murdered with an incredibly expensive bottle of brandy laced with poison. Only one person has been serving the party all evening and that is waitress Katie. She is soon under arrest, but what possible motive could she have had to kill these men? Yet when police apprehend her she is reported as saying ‘they got what they deserved’. Is this an admission of guilt or an acknowledgment that whoever killed them, did the world a favour? Every so often a book comes along that captures a moment and this definitely does. It isn’t the first book I’ve read where online radicalisation is part of the story and how dangerous it can be to become drawn in by conspiracy theorists. It reminded me of how women who are seen as controversial, such as Caroline Flack or the Duchess of Sussex, are presented and packaged by the media. There’s misogyny at the root of this and it’s the same with the male characters in the book who package Katie into roles and personalities that absolve them for the harm they cause and assuages their guilt. This is brilliantly done by the author who doesn’t put a foot wrong in the characterisation and pace of this novel. It’s fast moving and she doesn’t waste a single word, keeping you gripped by what might happen next. We’re never sure on what has happened or who is responsible and the courtroom scenes are brilliant meaning it was impossible to put down – there was one late night where I completely wrote off the following day for anything useful. This is powerful and will make you angry, but you won’t be able to stop those pages turning.
As autumn deepens into darkness in Lidingö, on the Stockholm archipelago, the island is plunged into chaos: in the space of a week, two teenagers, the son of the island’s mayor and that of a powerful businessman, are brutally murdered. Their bodies are left deep in the forest, dressed in white tunics with crowns of candles atop their heads, like offerings to Saint Lucia. Maïa Rehn has fled Paris for Lidingö, trying to come to terms with the death of their only daughter. But when the murders shake the island community, the former police commissioner is drawn into the heart of the investigation, joining Commissioner Aleksander Storm to unravel a mystery as chilling as the Nordic winter. It becomes clear that a wind of vengeance is blowing through the archipelago, unearthing secrets that are as scandalous as they are inhuman. I loved the timing of this novel from Johanna Gustawsson, her second set on the island of Lidingö in the cold, dark run up to Christmas. Some of the themes were very timely, such as incel culture, grooming and consent. I found it fascinating that Swedish law reform in 2018 placed the emphasis on positive consent, so that rape was no longer defined by saying no, but by actively saying yes. It recognises that freezing and becoming unresponsive are normal survival instincts not consent, so threat and physical force don’t have to be present for an incident to be defined as rape. When we are finally taken to the night that sets these events in motion it is devastating and hard to read, but that’s how it should be. This incident is like a veil of darkness triumphing over light. It’s as if the island loses its innocence. I loved that the answers don’t come easily and the tendrils of the aftermath are everywhere. This is a vivid, symbolic and haunting crime story and the truth is devastating – a gradually revealed horror that has echoed down the generations of this isolated community.
This was the perfect autumn read – a sinister mystery filled with atmosphere and a slowly building sense of menace. Evelyn Dolman embarks on his honeymoon with his new wife Laura and it proves to be anything but the honeymoon he expected. The couple are greeted by servants at their lodgings, but soon the landlord of Palazzo Dioscuri is there to introduce himself and tell tales of his grand and adventurous family ancestors. Evelyn fought hard for Laura’s hand, knowing she was far above him in terms of class and finances as he is merely a struggling writer, but he’s looking forward to getting away. Despite the rot and instability underneath some of the grand palazzos they saw from the vaporetto Evelyn is still dazzled by the faded beauty, the light and the history of this group of islands that make up the city. So, with Laura settling in early for the night he decides to go for a walk and perhaps a drink somewhere close by and she suggests Florian, a cafe that first opened in 1720 and still serves Venetian visitors today. A chance meeting is followed by a night of drinking and one unforgivable act. So when he wakes in the morning, sluggish and nauseous and finds his wife isn’t next to him in bed, he imagines she has taken herself to another room. However, as the morning progresses it becomes clear that Laura has simply disappeared.
This is a mystery as labyrinthine as the city itself and despite having only one narrator we are left with so many questions. There are clues to what is transpiring here but they are subtle. The writer has incredible sleight of hand and it reminded me of The Sixth Sense and how many clues are missed on the first watch of the film but once you know they seem so obvious. Each character is slippery and elusive with an unpredictable quality that felt dangerous. I loved the uncanny feeling the author created which grows organically from the city. This is a sparking jewel of a city that’s risen from the mud and brackish waters of the lagoon. One day it may be completely under water, but the decay isn’t what you see when you first visit. Venice bewitches you with its golden domes, coloured glass and the way sparkling light from the surface of the water bathes everything in a soft light. Banville captures this ‘double’ city utterly, describing the timeless romance of a gondolier serenading his passengers but also the jarring sound of the vaporetto. He links this duality with human nature, our surface selves and the real us, even the parts we avoid and keep locked away. Everything about this novel is a conjuring trick and I fell head over heels in love with it.
I can’t fully express how happy I am to have Jimmy Perez back! Now in the Orkney islands, where he grew up. Sadly, as a storm blows in and the islands shut down, a huge loss is about to hit the community. Jimmy’s childhood friend Archie is found dead at an island landmark. He’s been hit on the head by one of the story stones, taken from the island’s museum. Now Jimmy will have to investigate the murder in the run up to Christmas, along with his boss and partner Willow. Only the reader and perhaps Willow know the depth of feeling that runs underneath Jimmy’s calm exterior. We are privileged in knowing the depth of his grief for his previous partner Fran, the mother of his stepdaughter Cassie. He’s now dad to James with another baby on the way. We can see the love and the anxiety he has about both his children, brought to a head when James becomes lost on Christmas Day. Part of Jimmy hates delving into the private lives of people he’s so close too, but then his knowledge and understanding of this small community is also a strength. He finds out things he didn’t know about his friend: an unexpected relationship with an island newcomer; a secret investment in the hotel and bar; financial difficulties at the farm. The killer made a point with their choice of weapon because they managed to get access to the heritage centre then lugged the stones to the murder site. But what was the point? Did they think Archie was betraying the community or the history of the islands? Is the inscription a clue? To have lured Archie out to such a remote spot in a storm means the site or the weapon must have been important to him.
Anne Cleeves creates a beautiful atmosphere in this novel, her descriptions of this series of islands are both beautiful and savage, echoing its residents who are inextricably linked to each other and their shared ancestry. The storm really sets the scene of just how remote this community is and how they must pull together to get through difficulties, even where they don’t like each other. I really loved Willow, just as dedicated to her work as Jimmy, her pregnancy doesn’t hold her back at all. The case is fascinating, covering potential adultery, family tensions, environmental disagreements and historical conflicts, as well as academic jealousy. As everyone gathers on Christmas Day for The Ba my nerves were like violin strings! It’s this gradually rising tension alongside the beautifully drawn relationships that make Anne Cleeves’s novels. Jimmy has always had incredible empathy for others, feeling his own loss alongside theirs and understanding behaviour that might at first glance seem inexplicable. This is a hugely welcome return for Jimmy, both in a different landscape and place in life. Hopefully it’s the first of many.
With the fate of her missing sister, Ísafold, finally uncovered, Áróra feels a fragile relief as the search that consumed her life draws to a close. But when Ísafold’s boyfriend – the prime suspect in her disappearance – is found dead at the same site where Ísafold’s body was discovered, Áróra’s grip on reality starts to unravel … and the mystery remains far from solved. To distract herself, she dives headfirst into a money-laundering case that her friend Daníel is investigating. But she soon finds that there is more than meets the eye and, once again, all leads point towards Engihjalli, the street where Ísafold lived and died, and a series of shocking secrets that could both explain and endanger everything. I’ve been hooked on the story of Áróra and Ísafold for a few years now and the tension has slowly gripped the reader ever tighter with each novel as more revelations come to light. The combination of Áróra’s skills as a financial investigator, plus the skills and powers of detectives Daniel and Helena, complex cases are profiled and attacked from different directions, make them a formidable team. We’ve always had suspicions but have never known who killed Ísafold. We want this mystery resolved, but I didn’t feel any of that racing tension or triumph that I often get when a killer’s revealed. This was just so desperately sad and I had to take a moment for this under confident woman who was so far out of her depth. If I had feelings of loss, I knew it would devastate Áróra. The question is, if she does get all the answers she needs, what will Áróra do next? Unlike her sister, she has a clear sense of what she needs to be happy and fulfilled. She makes decisions based on self-knowledge and it remains to be seen whether Daniel is a part of that eventual happiness. A brilliant and emotional ending to a fantastic series.
It’s delightful to be back in the hands of a consummate storyteller like Val McDermid. I 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 accidental, new footage shows someone behind Tom as he leaves the hotel and enters the staircase where he met his death. This man must at have seen Tom’s fall, or is his presence even more sinister? The body in the M73 is the body of an investigative journalist, thought to have killed his pregnant girlfriend before going on the run about eleven years ago. I was hooked by evidence that led to a secretive book club of successful men who met once a month in Edinburgh. They’re named the Justified Sinners, but is the Calvinist name a joke between literary friends or something more? Have they stumbled upon an unofficial Freemasons’ club? The team start to wonder about the benefits of becoming one of the twelve and whether those benefits are worth subterfuge or even criminal acts. I think the team are feeling overwhelmed, even without the quagmire surrounding the Justified Sinners and Sam’s quest for the truth. 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 and that sometimes we don’t get the answers we expect.
This book taught me so much about the French Revolution and the aristocrats who left France for British shores and were welcomed in high society. Edmée has somehow made her way to Britain, despite seemingly being an ordinary citizen. She is now being offered at a ‘wive’s sale’ by her husband’s brother, but this potential chapter can’t be worse than her last. For Duval Harlington it’s something he would never usually countenance, but his circumstances are uniquely desperate. Having been recently released from prison by the French, he is returning to Britain and is met by a family servant who bears bad news. Duval Harlington has become Lord Harlington after the recent death of his father. Although he has the title, his right to the ancestral home of Muchmore and his father’s wealth is rather more complex. Duval’s father installed a distant relative, Mr Carson, to manage the day to day running of the estate. So his will has an interesting stipulation; in order to claim his inheritance Duval must be married and he has only two days to achieve this. So when his servant points out the wife sale it seems like a means to an end. Duval notices a young woman being led around the room by a scarf round her neck, with shorn hair and a veil covering her face. When the buyers call out for it to be removed he’s shocked to see that someone has recently beaten her very badly. On impulse he puts up his hand and bids for her, his intention being to marry her quickly and claim his inheritance, then seek an annulment. However he does find Edmée fascinating and with the Mr and Mrs Carson ready for a fight this might not be as easy as he thinks. I enjoyed the fascinating social history and Duval isn’t your average privileged heir. Edmée would never normally be his wife either. In discussion on the revolution, Sir Wifred points out that its biggest folly was that all people should be equal, meaning men and women. Duval surprises him by stating that in his view “it was one of the most exciting things to have come out of the revolution.” It’s a hard read when it portrays women’s struggles through life and I was hoping for Edmée to have a happy ending. It was clear though that this might not be the case as she disappears after their first ball at the estate, making for a tense read in those final chapters. The book has a mix of hardship, adventure and mystery interlaced with the romantic possibility of an unlikely match being perfect, if only Duval can find her.
They said I would swing for the crime, and I did . . .
1724. In a tavern just outside Edinburgh, Maggie Dickson’s family drown their sorrows, mourning her death yet relieved she is gone. Shame haunts them. Hanged for the murder of her newborn child, passers-by avert their eyes from her cheap coffin on its rickety cart. But as her family pray her soul rests in peace, a figure appears at the door. It is Maggie. She is alive.
Bruised and dazed, Maggie has little time for her family’s questions. All that matters to her is answering this one: will they hang her twice? Kate Foster is a brilliant advocate for the women she finds in historical documents, often in dire situations for ‘crimes’ it’s hard to comprehend today. Maggie and her younger sister Joan have grown up in a village known for its fishing and the strong, hardworking women that mend the nets and clean the fish ready for market. It’s a hard life and not one that Maggie wants forever. So, when Patrick Spencer walks into their cottage one evening, with his sparkling eyes and easy charm Maggie sees someone like her, who wants to make their own luck. He has come to ask her father if he could store ingredients for perfume? Maggie isn’t the beauty of the family and isn’t even the favourite either, but she knows that if Patrick is looking for a wife to support and help him in business that she’s the best choice. When he takes her out walking one evening she hopes that perhaps he’s seen someone as ambitious and hardworking as he is. Their courtship and marriage are a whirlwind and they’re soon living in a bungalow closer to the centre of the village. Only months later it’s a terrible shock when a press gang visits the inn and takes Patrick into the navy. Maggie has few choices and as the days go by she’s ever more sure that she’s having a baby, if she leaves it must be now. However, it’s not long before she’s standing in front of the justices to answer charges of concealing a pregnancy and infanticide. I am amazed by Kate Foster’s talent, that she finds these cases from Scottish history and breathe life into them. She actually fleshes out these characters and places with what must be endless research and creates women who feel like they could be one of us, with hopes, dreams and incredibly relatable mistakes. I loved the idea of the scar round Maggie’s neck as a mourning necklace. There’s something about seeing inner wounds made visible that resonates strongly with humans. Maggie could see her scar as a mark of shame, to be covered, but she chooses to wear it with pride because it is proof that her little girl lived. This is the best of Kate Foster’s novels so far.
This book drew me in immediately and two days after I finished I still couldn’t start another book. Our setting is 18th Century London and George II is on the throne. On St James’s Street is a confectioner’s shop called the Punchbowl and Pineapple and running it is the newly widowed Hannah Cole. This was her grandfather’s shop, then her father’s but she was his only child. He needed an apprentice to pass on his skills and he employed a young lad called Jonas Cole. Jonas and Hannah grew close, with Hannah losing her father a few days after they married. Until two days ago the couple ran the shop, with Hannah becoming an accomplished businesswoman. Jonas was hard and ruthless though and of recent years they had grown apart. Jonas often spent evenings out, but two nights ago he didn’t return and was found further down the Thames minus his money, his watch, several teeth and his life. Hannah had to borrow to re-open after his death and caused a minor scandal. She can’t afford to be closed and is waiting on their savings being released to pay her suppliers. Then Henry Fielding pays a call in his role as magistrate rather than novelist. He explains that all money will remain frozen while he investigates Jonas’s death. Luckily, at Jonas’s funeral Hannah meets William Devereux. An acquaintance of Jonas, he has never met Hannah before but is very sympathetic to her plight. He promises to visit her shop and discuss how he may help her with Fielding and Jonas’s life outside the home – was he gambling, womanising or getting into shady business dealings? He also mentions a delicacy his Italian grandmother used to make called iced cream. It has all the ingredients of a custard, but flavoured with fruit or chocolate and is then frozen and eaten as a desert. Hannah resolves to let William help her and to master the art of iced cream, but are either of them being fully honest with each other about who they are and what their purpose is? As with all Laura’s books the setting is incredible and it’s the little details that stand out and make us believe in this world. I loved Hannah’s various confections and how she knows what people will choose and what it says about them. I was entranced from the first page to the last, especially as the tensions mounted in the final third when Fielding makes his move. However, just when you think you’ve worked everything out another twist will come along and surprise you. I was rooting for Hannah to come out on top, but was very scared for her in parts. I was honestly hypnotised by this story and Laura’s talent. Bravo on such a fantastic story that I’m still thinking about it months after finishing it. Go beg, steal or borrow a copy of this one, it’s a cracker.
I love Emma Donoghue’s work, especially her historical novels and this one is a fantastic story based on real events. Many books have passages on public transport but I loved how the writing sped up as we went along and how people are forced to exist together for the time of that journey. There is such a mix of generations, classes and genders that there’s potential for desire, tension and misunderstandings. The fate of one of them, is the fate of all of them. Set in 1895 when a train did crash onto the platform at Montparnasse, Donoghue places us very definitively in the fin de siecle, with every little detail. It isn’t just her description of the train, it’s the character’s clothing and their attitudes. There’s certainly a shift from the Victorian ideals that have held firm throughout the 19th Century. In one journey we can see women being more outspoken, having a definite sense of purpose, and a need to determine their own destiny. I was absolutely fascinated with Mado. She stands out more than she realises, with her androgynous clothing and short hair, not to mention the lunch bucket she’s clutching as if her life depends on it. She’s a feminist, an anarchist and her own internal struggle is so vivid that I could feel the tension in her body as I read. She seems contemptuous of many of her fellow passengers, particularly the men, knowing that the Victorian feminine ideal is simply a role women are forced to play. The author takes us far beyond the beautiful period costumes and shows the reality of train travel – ladies having to relieve themselves in a handy receptacle while the men look away, the inconvenience of a heavy period on a long journey, the strange contents of some traveller’s picnic bags as duck legs and creamed leeks make an appearance! It becomes much more than you expect at the beginning, although Donoghue has never let me down yet. I loved how she ended the novel, I don’t read the blurb or reviews of a novel I’m about to read and come to it completely fresh, so I didn’t expect it and appreciated it all the more. Donoghue’s ability to see the unexpected, the downtrodden, the extraordinary and the silenced voices in a story and it’s place in time, is at it’s peak here. These anonymous and ordinary train carriages are made fascinating and unique by the character’s inside it. Through them she drives the story along faster and faster, until you simply have to go with it and read through to the end.
This book has featured in many end of year lists and it’s not surprising. I bought this book on holiday and as I looked through the purchases in the pub I read the first few lines, then read the whole chapter and I told my other half it was something special. In 1987 Cora is going to register the birth of her baby boy. His name has been settled on for some time. Cora’s husband Gordon has chosen his own name for his son, but it wouldn’t be Cora’s choice. Her choice would be something that doesn’t tie him so obviously to his father. She thinks Julian would suit him. Little sister Maia looks in the pram at her brother and decides he looks like a he should be called Bear. All of these options swirl around in Cora’s head. In this moment, Cora has the power to make a choice and it’s done. It can’t be changed. What would happen if she went with Julian or even Bear? In the short term Gordon would be furious. How bad would it be this time? Long term, would it change her baby’s character or path in life? That’s exactly what Florence Knapp does. The book splits into three narratives and we discover what happens to this whole family, depending on Cora’s baby boy’s name. Each of three arcs has its share of joy and heartache as Cora’s children cope with the aftermath of that day in 1987. Each narrative has its moments of emotion where you have to look up from the book and breathe for a moment. Just to take it in. However, one narrative broke me. I was reading quietly in the same room as my husband and I actually responded out loud. He had to give me a cuddle because I did have tears coming and I’m astonished by the writer’s ability to absorb the reader to that degree. To make words into a flesh and blood person I can shed tears over. This is an absolutely incredible debut with a brilliant grasp of domestic abuse and how it affects every member of a family, their friends and even neighbours. She depicts how the children and grandchildren in this chain have to consciously break the chain. As a daughter and a wife of two men who’ve survived violence in the home I know the struggle to change things and I felt the truth of Knapp’s depiction. I had no doubt it would be on this list in December.
I love Rachel Joyce’s work and her ability to show complexity in domestic relationships. Here we see the complex relationships within a family who have a famous father. Vic Kemp is a painter and the family in question are Vic and his four children – Netta, Susan, Iris and Goose (short for Gustav and the only boy). They’ve been parented by Vic and a series of au pairs after the sudden death of their mother just after Iris was born. Their father’s art came first always and the conditions he needed in order to create were paramount so the oldest girls often played the mother role for Iris and Goose, especially when Vic inevitably slept with the au pairs. Vic was not an artist celebrated by the establishment. The description of his paintings brought Jack Vettriano to mind, criticised heavily by the art world, but very popular with the public. Many of the paintings had a sexual element to them, a sort of soft BDSM theme, except for his only painting of one of his children, Iris. Depicted on the beach with a sandcastle and a man in the background, it brings up mixed memories for Iris. Now grown up, his children are stunned when Vic starts losing weight and drinking green, sludgy health drinks. His diet is being looked after by his new girlfriend, 27 year old Bella-Mae, who none of his children have met. Within weeks they’re engaged and Netta suggests that they stand back and give it the space it needs to fizzle out, but a couple of weeks later Vic announces their marriage with a single photograph from the family home in Orta on Isola Son Guilio. Only two days later Netta is stunned by a phone call from a stranger claiming to be Bella’s cousin. Vic has drowned after a morning swim in the mist. Why would Vic go swimming in the mist? His children come together to travel to Orta, to finally meet their new stepmother and to find out whether she has killed their father.
I enjoyed the different personalities of the Kemp siblings and how Bella becomes a mirror through which each of them evaluate their lives. It’s psychologically fascinating and I was absolutely transfixed! I couldn’t work out whether deliberate manipulation was at play or if grief and the new outsiders were changing opinions. Is Bella a destructive force or a helpful one? Some revelations will be explosive and take place in the open air- one particular meal is cataclysmic. Other revelations are quieter, insidious or internal but no less devastating. This is therapy, but without the care and ethics. No one will come out of this trip unaffected. The author made me think about how we view artists and our expectations of them – whether they are potters, painters or writers. We read about their messy and eccentric lives with fascination, but we don’t always consider the damage they do to those closest to them. This was such a beautifully complex study of a family’s dynamics, the way we mythologise people within our family and the stories we choose to represent us. This is a very different novel for the author but it’s definitely built on her ability to present very deep emotions and the truth of human experience.
Probably every English Graduate who specialised in Gothic Fiction has fantasised about that stormy night, in a house on the edge of a lake near Geneva. That night was supposedly the genesis of the first vampire story – Polidori’s The Vampyre – and Mary Shelley’s classic horror, Frankenstein. It always seemed strange to me, how two iconic horror legends were conjured up in the same place on the same night. Yet, everything those writers experienced in their young lives is fuel for their creativity and the setting is definitely strange and unsettling. Caroline Lea paints a picture of the lake becoming monstrous. Something magical but evil too with a sky that is dark, trees like ‘funeral lace’ and ash raining down. Local people have noticed that at times the lake throws up strange shadows and clouds, some that look like sky cities floating in the air. When they find a man called Karl Vogel drowned in the lake with his eyes turned from brown to blue marble – they are shocked, but this is a place of transformation. It’s as if nature is creating the perfect circumstances for monsters to be born.
This incredible book. is a brilliant combination of historical and horror fiction, with a large side order of feminism – all of my favourite things. Every time I read this book I couldn’t help but say ‘wow’. Firstly the historical settings were incredible. The author really captures 18th Century London with Mary’s filthy lodgings a bleak place to look after a baby – the reality of life as the mistress of a poet who does not pay his debts and has retreated back to his family home. The Geneva setting is glorious and it’s clear why frozen mountains, cavernous lakes and the arctic feature heavily in Frankenstein. It’s where Mary goes to have time to think, away from the chaos and hedonism indoors. In Mary’s dark night of the soul she hears her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft’s voice, encouraging and coaching her until Mary’s able to breathe again and see a clear way to support herself – by selling her writing. Will she be able to cope with Shelley’s inconstancy and learn to be independent? I loved that the story of Frankenstein’s monster is stitched together by fragments, just like the monster himself. Mary thinks of medical experiments and stories of medical students digging up bodies for dissection. Then she has to give the creature an internal monologue, that’s ripe with emotions she has felt. Mary’s book, like the creature at its centre, will be sent out into the wilderness looking for people to love it and it will find one because she knows it’s special. Caroline’s book is an absolute masterpiece and made me think about Frankenstein from so many different angles. It brings to life her relationship with Shelley, often told in a rather salacious or romantic way without any thought to the inequality between them. What Caroline has written is a Bildungsroman, a novel of Mary growing up from girl to womanhood. Frankenstein is the chronicle of that birth, as messy, terrifying, horrific and momentous it is, its birth being the genesis of Mary Shelley the writer. .
I loved this book about four women brought together creating an all- female mini circus. Lena is the show woman of the title and as well as managing all their finances and planning, she is the ring mistress. Violet escapes another circus to become their trapeze artist. Rosie is their bareback rider, while Carmen can be a musician, acrobat and dancer whose costume is a swirling rainbow of ribbons. Set in 1910, we meet the Grand Dame of the show circuit in Scotland – Serena Linden. Serena is the show woman behind Linden’s Circus renowned throughout Scotland and the only circus to perform at Balmoral for Queen Victoria and the royal family. Serena is the old guard who has inherited her circus from her father. She is old, arthritic, bitter and quite capable of settling scores with trickery and violence. She particularly likes to thwart those who flee her employ and move to other shows or even worse,start their own. Lena’s father has died and leaves just their caravan and his carousel. She’s advised to sell it if she wants to have a life, because her best options are to find a husband or a factory job. That’s until Violet arrives with a proposition. Violet is known for her flame red hair and by fairground people as the greatest trapeze artist that’s ever lived. What if they started their own show? They’re both outcasts and have nothing to lose, so they start to look for performers and find two more women: Rosie who has practiced bareback riding with her pony Tommy for years and Carmen, a beautiful Spanish girl with luscious black hair, performs acrobatics in her rainbow ribbons. With Lena as ringmaster she becomes the head of this family, determined to keep them together. Can they become a community that fully supports each other, who listen and understand the circumstances and pain that has brought them here. I was rooting for all of these women and not just the show, but their new found independence and friendships. It was in those evenings where they were talking in the caravan after a show, too full of adrenaline to sleep. Or the warm and sunny days when they got chance to swim in a local lake or river, to wash their hair. It’s these moments that are just as magical for these women as the seconds before Violet lets go and flies through the air.
As Vianne scatters her mother’s ashes in New York, she knows the wind has changed and it’s time to move on. She will return to France, solo except for her ‘little stranger’ who is still no bigger than a cocoa. Drawn to the sea she blows into Marseille and a tiny bistrot where owner Louis is stuck, struggling with grief for decades after losing his wife Margot. She charms herself into a waitressing job for bed and board and starts to cook for his regulars using Margot’s recipe book. Louis has one stipulation, she mustn’t change the recipes at all. She revives the herb garden and starts to make friends, including Guy who is working towards opening a chocolate shop. This is going to be the place to have her baby, but then she must move on. She can see her child at six years old, paddling by some riverboats tethered nearby, but she can also see the man her mother feared. The man in black. Vianne has inherited a peculiar kind of magic that urges her to fix the lives of those around her and give them what their heart truly desires. This is fine when it’s discerning their favourite chocolate, but can cause problems when it becomes meddling. Her mother always warned her that she shouldn’t settle too long in one place.
What a joy it was to be back in Vianne’s world. It’s being back with an old friend and in a couple of sentences we’d picked up where we left off. This is a younger Vianne, aware of her burgeoning abilities, but inexperienced in the power she holds and it’s effects on others. Part of that ability is a natural charm and willingness to work hard. She takes time to win people over. She’s happy to take on a challenge whether it’s the recipe book, the garden or the chocolate shop. She merely softens the edges of all this with a ‘pretty’ here and there or tuning into someone’s colours. The details and images they conjure up are always the best part of this series for me, because they take me on a visual journey. The author weaves her magic in the detailed recipes of Margot’s book, the incredible chocolates that she and Guy create and the decorative details of their display window with it’s origami animals and chocolate babies. The most beautiful part is how Vianne brings people together. Yes, it’s partly magic but it’s also her kindness and lack of judgement. It’s when we see what Vianne can accomplish that we see her at her best – thinking forward to her Easter display window in her own shop or the meals cooked for friends under starlit skies. Vianne is a glowing lantern or a warm fire, she draws people to her light and to bask in her warmth. This is also why readers who love the Chocolat series return again and again. We simply want to be with Vianne and that’s definitely a form of literary magic.
I pre-ordered this book as soon as I read the blurb because there was so much about this story of four pioneering women who attend Oxford University and are the first cohort to gain an actual degree. The four women arrive at Oxford in a time of great upheaval. The First World War has ended and women have just been awarded the vote. Beatrice comes from a progressive family, with a suffragette mother who attended Oxford herself despite being unable to graduate like the men. Beatrice is very political, obviously a feminist and is used to being noticed, as she’s usually the tallest woman in a room. Marianne is a scholarship student, but she seems to have secrets -she returns home every other weekend and struggles financially. Ottoline (Otto) comes from a wealthy family, but is haunted by her war experiences as a nurse. Dora also struggles with the consequences of war, after a letter from her fiancé Charles’s regiment to inform her he’d been killed, then only two weeks later her brother George also lost his life. These four girls are assigned to a corridor where the rooms start with the number eight, giving them their affectionate nickname. This seemingly random allocation starts strong friendships as the girls help each other negotiate their university work, their memories of the war and being taken seriously by their male counterparts. I loved every moment I spent with these young women. They are all equally interesting and important so I couldn’t pick one I gelled with most. This is a favourite time period for me so I loved the clothing, the outings, the rising tide of women wanting more from life than a ring and motherhood. These women are the birth of who we are now and I think the author was really successful in portraying issues that are still relevant. As we see women’s rights being eroded and the misogyny on social media, this is also about how men treat women. Whether it’s the control wielded by a father figure or professor, the deception and double-standards men use to manipulate women, the sexual predator or abuser, taking a chance moment or a position of power to commit violence. I believe that just the chance to pursue their education with the freedom men take for granted, is a huge step for the women in terms of status but also self-confidence. However, it is the friendship of these four women, first and foremost, that helps them grow. Their unflinching support and understanding of each other is beautifully drawn and brings to mind something I’ve always said to women on my ‘authentic self’ workshops; men may come and go, but it’s the women in your life who will hold you up’.
Our story starts in Jamaica 1768 on a sugar plantation where a slave rebellion has been brewing. The signal will be sent to all the slaves by drum and Daniel has heard their rhythm. He needs to get to the house where his sweetheart Adanna works for the mistress, the house slaves aren’t in on the secret and the field slaves might harm the house slaves, perceiving their lives to be easier and their loyalties divided. When Daniel realises the house is already ablaze he leaves with his little sister Pearl, hoping to find a way to get off the island. His story then jumps a decade to the aftermath of the War of Independence where black servants who fought for the British were promised a new life in England. Daniel was one such soldier fighting with the British under Major Edward Fitzallen, whose life he saved. Daniel and Pearl were taken under their wing, affording them a level of education and independence unusual for Jamaican slaves. When Edward is wounded he wants to ensure that Daniel and Pearl have a future in England and calls witnesses to his signature on a new will and testament. It hands all his worldly goods over to Daniel, telling him to call on his brother James to inform him of Edward’s demise and Daniel’s new position as his heir. Daniel naively expects the Fitzallen brothers to be equally honourable and he underestimates James who drugs Daniel then throws the new will and all proof of Daniel’s claim and rank into the fire. Now Pearl and Daniel are abandoned in London with nothing.. They end up amongst the people of The Rookery an underground community with a brutal leader. The novels of Jane Austen were written only a few years after this book was set, because in them we never hear of people like this. It’s easy to forget that not everyone lives in the countryside and working class women are out there working, not waiting at home with an embroidery hoop on their lap hoping for a gentleman caller. Comparing this world with Austen’s shows how urban, dynamic and exciting London is but very dangerous too. I came away with everything crossed for Daniel and Pearl. I was so immersed that it felt strange to look up and find myself back in my own living room. This is a fantastic historical novel; vivid and dark, but ultimately hopeful
I was entranced by this beautifully lyrical tale of the unseen sorcerous of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. This is my favourite Shakespeare play because I love its atmosphere and the use of music to conjure up this enchanted island, ruled by the magician Prospero. Sycorax isn’t even present in the play, but is mentioned as a sorcerous and mother of Caliban who is depicted as a monster and a slave to Prospero. The author wants to give Sycorax a voice, one that she doesn’t have in the play, to tell us in her own words what it was like to be treated with suspicion and cruelty. Sycorax’s story is an emotional one as she wrestles with her identity, her powers and the loneliness of being an outcast. However, nothing makes men more fearful than a woman with knowledge and if she won’t behave or remain hidden might they attempt to silence her? In spite of everything she faces, Sycorax remains strong, a strength that could be attributed to her upbringing with her tenacious and otherworldly mother. Sycorax’s ongoing inner strength and determination to find her own identity in a world that shuns her, is something to truly admire. Because of this she is vehemently hated among the townsfolk, especially men because she won’t disappear. I admired Sycorax’s strength, just her ability to keep getting up each day and going on. Everything they try to be rid of her just doesn’t work. Described as born of the sun and moon and shaped by fire and malady gives us a sense of her resolve, she’s hard as forged iron. Nydia has written a beautiful piece of work that takes us full circle to The Tempest. She’s managed to bring 21st Century injustices to the forefront without losing any of the magical beauty of the original play.
So that’s my favourites list for 2025. Wishing you a Happy New Year and Happy Reading in 2026. ❤️📚
October brought many several wonderful things, as birthday months so often do. As always we went away, this time for two weeks in Dumfries and Galloway for book shopping at Wigtown and fishing for my other half. We knew we were onto a winner as we turned off the single track road onto a farm track that was a mile long! I’ve never stayed somewhere so quiet and because it was a Dark Skies area we got to stargaze too, with a meteor shower being a high point of the fortnight. I finally got to check out The Bookshop, run by author Shaun Bythell. The daily occurrences in the shop are depicted in his three books and I grabbed the latest one along with some second hand purchases too. As well as all the shops in Wigtown we stumbled across a little gem called Gallovidia Books in Kircudbright. This was a treasure trove of new fiction, poetry and children’s books as well as a good collection of biographies. The owner was very knowledgeable, definitely a real book lover and he recommended one of my choices above as his wife was reading it and was torn between savouring and devouring it. We alternate on holiday, when it’s a fishing day I stayed on the farm and had a fabulous view to enjoy while reading and getting some of my own writing done. After a couple of months without a kitchen it was a joy to come home to everything finished so I now have a functional kitchen again.
Bought on recommendation from the owner of Gallovedia Books I couldn’t wait to read this atmospheric book so dived straight in, This felt like the perfect autumn read – a sinister mystery filled with atmosphere and a slowly building sense of menace. Evelyn Dolman embarks on his honeymoon with his new wife Laura and it proves to be anything but the honeymoon he expected. With Laura settling in early for the night at Palazzo Dioscuri he decides to go for a walk and perhaps a drink somewhere close by and she suggests Florian, a cafe that first opened in 1720 and still serves Venetian visitors today. A chance meeting is followed by a night of drinking and one unforgivable act. So when he wakes in the morning, sluggish and nauseous and finds his wife isn’t next to him in bed, he imagines she has taken herself to another room. However, as the morning progresses it becomes clear that Laura has simply disappeared.
There are clues to what is transpiring here but they are subtle. The writer has incredible sleight of hand and they seem inconsequential or at list explicable. Some completely passed me by. As I opened the book again for writing this review it made me think of The Sixth Sense and how no one saw the clues on their first watch of the film but when they watched for a second time they couldn’t believe they’d missed them. Each character is slippery and elusive with an unpredictable quality that felt dangerous. I lived this uncanny feeling the author created which grows organically from the city. This is a sparking jewel of a city that’s risen from the mud and brackish waters of the lagoon. Evelyn mentions the fin de siécle, that time of decadence towards the end of the 19th Century and that timing certainly informs some of the events in the book, particularly the fluid social order and sexual licentiousness. We’re told constantly that Venice is decaying and sinking. One day it may be completely under water, but the decay isn’t what you see when you first visit. Venice bewitches you with its golden domes, Morrison arches, coloured glass and the way sparkling light from the surface of the water bathes everything in a soft light. Then suddenly, only a street away you notice a tree growing out of someone’s house and at night most residences seem in darkness now that families can no longer live in the water logged lower floors. Banville captures this ‘double’ city utterly, describing the timeless romance of a gondolier serenading his passengers but also the jarring sound of the vaporetto. We see the sparkling water but also smell the mud as the passing boats churn it up. He links this duality with human nature, our surface selves and the real us, even the parts we avoid and keep locked away. Everything about this novel is a conjuring trick and I fell head over heels in love with it.
I can barely contain my happiness at being back in the world of Jimmy Perez, this time in the Orkney islands where he grew up. Jimmy is living with partner Willow Reeves, who’s both his boss and heavily pregnant with his child. It’s Christmas and the couple are looking forward to the celebrations. Jimmy’s stepdaughter Cassie is spending the holidays with her father Duncan and his family on Shetland, so it just the two of them and son James. For the police, Christmas isn’t a holiday and as a huge storm passes across the islands, terrible discoveries are made. Everywhere there’s storm damage, but when a body is found at an ancient archaeological site Jimmy is devastated to find out it’s his childhood friend Archie Stout. Archie is a well known ‘larger than life’ character who’s the centre of every gathering and runs the family farm with a wife and two teenage sons. Jimmy finds that Archie has suffered a blow to the head and the murder weapon is a Neolithic stone covered in ancient runes and Viking graffiti, one of a pair taken from the heritage centre. Now Willow and Jimmy must investigate their friends and neighbours to solve the murder in the run up to Christmas, where events will traditionally bring the whole island together. The uncomfortable truth is that the murderer is likely to be someone they know and that means nobody is safe.
I really loved Willow and the atmosphere she creates at home, particularly around Christmas. Just as dedicated to her work as Jimmy she takes an active role in the investigation, her pregnancy not holding her back at all. She knows it’s a delicate situation, working together and being in a relationship, especially when she’s the boss. Somehow they manage to keep the personal and the work life separate and she seems to know which responsibilities she must let Jimmy bear and those she’s happy to share. As Christmas Eve approaches fast she’s not running around like a headless chicken trying to make sure they have all the right things, they have food and she points out something I say every year – the shops are only closed for one day. It’s the traditions and being together that are the most important thing. She’s a great interviewer though, brilliant at picking up what people are not saying. She reads their body language and their tone, plus knowing each islander’s history helps too. What she picks up on are the unexpected or secret alliances, such as Archie’s investment in the hotel or his in-law’s apparent friendship with a regularly visiting academic. The case is fascinating, covering potential adultery, family tensions, environmental disagreements and historical conflicts, as well as academic jealousy. As everyone gathers on Christmas Day for The Ba and someone goes missing, my nerves were like violin strings! It’s this gradually rising tension alongside the beautifully drawn relationships that make Anne Cleeves’s novels. Jimmy has always had incredible empathy for others, feeling his own loss alongside theirs and understanding behaviour that might at first glance seem inexplicable. This is a hugely welcome return for Jimmy, both in a different landscape and place in life. Hopefully it’s the first of many.
The haunting final chapter to an award-winning series…
And a final reckoning…
With the fate of her missing sister, Ísafold, finally uncovered, Áróra feels a fragile relief as the search that consumed her life draws to a close. But when Ísafold’s boyfriend – the prime suspect in her disappearance – is found dead at the same site where Ísafold’s body was discovered, Áróra’s grip on reality starts to unravel … and the mystery remains far from solved. To distract herself, she dives headfirst into a money laundering case that her friend Daníel is investigating. But she soon finds that there is more than meets the eye and, once again, all leads point towards Engihjalli, the street where Ísafold lived and died, and a series of shocking secrets that could both explain and endanger everything…
I’ve been hooked on the story of Áróra and the case of her missing sister Ísafold for a few years now and the tension has slowly gripped the reader ever tighter with each novel as each one has brought it’s revelations. With this being the reason Àrora is in Iceland, it’s always been the over-arching narrative, but other cases run alongside. The combination of Áróra’s skills as a financial investigator plus the skills and powers of Daniel and Helena who are detectives, complex cases are profiled and attacked from different directions, making them a formidable team. We meet everyone after the discovery of Ísafold’s body in a suitcase deep within a fissure in a lava field. They were directed to it by an unusual little girl who claimed to be the reincarnation of Ísafold, something that was difficult for Daniel to accept. There’s so much more to understand and we get the narrative through different viewpoints, aside from Áróra, Daniel and his colleague Helena. Felix has fallen into working for a local dealer and we see his fear as the bag he has been sent to collect has disppeared from the car while he was getting some food. There are also flashbacks to the last few months Ìsafold was alive and we finally hear her story in her own voice, which I loved.
We’ve always had suspicions but have never known who killed Ísafold. The novel is gripping and of course we want this mystery resolved, but I didn’t feel any of that racing tension or triumph that I often get from thrillers when the killer’s revealed, especially when I’m right. This was just so desperately sad. I found myself taking a moment for this under confident woman who was so far out of her depth. A woman whose emotions dictated her life decisions. I was harrified and had that strange empty feeling of loss. A loss I knew Áróra would feel. The question is, if she does get all the answers she needs, what will Áróra do next? Unlike her sister Áróra has a clear sense of what she wants and needs to be happy and fulfilled. She makes decisions based on self-knowledge and it remains to be seen whether Daniel is a part of that eventual happiness.
It’s delightful to be back in the hands of a consummate storyteller like Val McDermid. She takes us straight into the story and I always feel like these characters are real, going about their lives and then we 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 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 is 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 sinister? 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.
The book is rooted in the now with cancel culture, the MeToo movement, Covid and the corruption around it and 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. I thought that 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 and that sometimes we don’t get the answers we expect.
It’s getting quieter as we move into the last months of the year but here’s my expected reading for November:
On my holidays I visited the loveliest little bookshop and I do like to share new book haunts with everyone. Gallovidia Books is in the Scottish Town of Kircudbright (pronounced kir-coo-bree if you want to avoid being laughed at like my husband did when I tried to pronounce it). Kirkcudbright has a sheltered position in the estuary of the River Dee on the north Solway shore and is a busy fishing port, behind the harbour the streets have housed generations of creative artists. This is clearly a tradition maintained today because there’s a flourishing colony of painters and craftworkers with lots of pop-up shops and galleries to look at. This has led to it being called “The Artists’ Town“. Other well known features of the town are the pastel coloured houses and wide streets. Set on a corner, Gallovidia books is a quirky little shop, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in its beautifully presented stock and a cute children’s nook.
The Children’s Nook
I found plenty of signed books, including one by my comedy hero Bob Mortimer that I was very pleased about. There were also a great range of classics in special editions and I couldn’t resist yet another copy of Wuthering Heights, this one with illustrations, maps and letters.
Classics Display
The lovely owner was incredibly welcoming and we bonded over a pet hate of people photographing books then loudly declaring they’ll buy it on Amazon. I always ask when I want to photograph bookshops for that very reason. Stewart knew a lot about the books I’d chosen and his wife Elizabeth has been in touch since to ask if I’d let them know how I get on with another choice – John Banville’s Venetian Whispers which came highly recommended. Another collection of mine is books set in Venice and I’m itching to start it. The couple opened the shop in 2021 with experience in library work and the arts in general. Stewart was founder of the Louder in Libraries projects and he’s booked both Sam Fender and Adele as she started her career. Elizabeth’s background is in youth community projects with a passion for connecting young people with books.
There were some lovely bookish and stationery extras including some cute little notecards with a book print that I can when I’m sending a giveaway book. All in all it was a lovely visit and I’ll certainly return.
If you’d like to know more about Gallovidia Books you can visit their website
I loved this book. It drew me in immediately and two days after I finished it I can’t let go of it. I can’t start another book. It’s left me bereft. Our setting is 18th Century London and George II is on the throne. On St James’s Street is a confectioner’s shop called the Punchbowl and Pineapple and running it is the newly widowed Hannah Cole. This was her grandfather’s shop and has been handed down the family. Her father realised he needed an apprentice to pass on his skills and to work with Hannah, so he employed a young lad called Jonas Cole. Jonas and Hannah grew close and fell in love, with Hannah losing her father only a few days after they were married. So until a couple of days ago Hannah and Jonas ran the shop, with Hannah becoming quite an accomplished businesswoman. Jonas could be hard and ruthless in his business dealings and of recent years they had grown apart, with Jonas often spending evenings away from home. Then two nights ago he did not return and was found further down the Thames minus his money, his watch and several teeth. Hannah has had to borrow, especially to re-open after his death, something that caused a minor scandal so soon. She can’t afford to be closed and is waiting on their savings being released from the bank so she may pay her suppliers. Then Henry Fielding pays a call. In his role as magistrate rather than novelist, he explains that all money will remain frozen while he investigates Jonas’s death. He isn’t sure this is a simple robbery and wonders whether he should be looking into his business or personal dealings. He informs Hannah that Jonas had money in the bank, more than the £200 she knew about. Fielding explains he wants to be sure that the money was obtained legally and above board. Luckily, at Jonas’s funeral Hannah meets William Devereux. An acquaintance of Jonas, he has never met Hannah before but is very sympathetic to her plight. He promises to visit her shop and discuss how he may help her with Fielding and Jonas’s life outside the home – was he gambling, womanising or getting into shady business dealings? He also mentions a delicacy his Italian grandmother used to make called iced cream. It has all the ingredients of a custard, but flavoured with fruit or chocolate and is then frozen and eaten as a desert. Hannah resolves to let William help her and to master the art of ice cream, but are either of them being fully honest with each other about who they are and what their purpose is?
As with all Laura’s books we become fully immersed in the setting straight away and it’s the little details that stand out and make us believe in this world. I loved the descriptions of Hannah’s various confections and the way she can tell what people will choose, not to mention what it says about them.
“He paused to take a bite of his Piccadilly Puff, washing it down with a generous gulp of green walnut wine. It is a favourite choice of the sybarite: the silken sweetness of the custard, the crunching layers of puff paste, the dusky depths of the spices mingling with the sourness of lemon. I might have guessed that Mr Fielding was a man who struggled to keep his appetites in check.”
I believed in Hannah as a businesswoman and confectioner very quickly thanks to these details and as she narrates she tells us her hopes and dreams, including a joint dream of her and Jonas, to buy the empty premises next door and extend the shop so they could have more tables and chairs, especially when her iced cream starts to become popular. I think we always imagine that people from the 18th and 19th Century are very genteel and well behaved, this comes of too many Austen adaptations and strange hybrid historical settings like Bridgerton. While lovely to watch they give us little idea of what these centuries were like for those of the lower classes in society and women who worked. Real life 18th Century London was rather more colourful than Pride and Prejudice, as depicted in some of Fielding’s novels like Tom Jones and Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders. The author gives us the dirt and the bawdy side of London life when Hannah takes a trip to the theatre.
“The playhouse crowd gave a wide berth to the nest of alleys around the back of the Theatre Royal, home to brothels and bath houses, gin shops and squalid taverns. The residents started drinking over breakfast and then kept going. Groups of ragged men stood about on corners. One lot were fighting, skidding in vomit. Half-naked women leaned from the upper windows shouting encouragement.”
The King openly has a mistress and there are brothels and gaming rooms everywhere, operating just on the edge of the law. This is a book with every vice on display, even when if it is just cake. As Hannah points out when she’s evaluating Fielding, every man has his personal struggle. She is incredibly astute when it comes to assessing character and has Fielding’s own psychological make-up worked out through reading his novels. William Devereux appears to be equally astute, visiting Fielding’s rooms he notes the perfectly bound volumes of his own books and the wine glasses etched with the crest of Eton College, it’s students described beautifully as the “school of the most selfsatisfied fucksters in the kingdom.” I thought there were some brilliant choices in terms of the book’s structure and the way the story passed from Hannah to William was brilliant. Often when reading from NetGalley there are little mistakes or quirks to the format that can ruin the reading of the book, but here reading from NetGalley was a benefit because with no gaps or idea how far I was into the book, when the shocks came they were huge. The author has cleverly used aspects of modern thriller writing and applied them to her story, so there are twists and turns aplenty. She uses sudden unexpected confessions or statements that mean we know something no one else does. Other times a character suddenly changed their demeanour or had a different inner compared to their outer voice that made me go back a few pages in confusion. Then just as I become comfortable with my narrator, they switched back again.
This is definitely a cat and mouse game between three characters, a battle of wits where you’re never quite sure who is on the right side. Fielding appears to be pursuing this case to make his point to parliament that a national police force is needed to deal with crimes like murder. He also has a good point, Jonas’s watch had belonged to Hannah’s father and had a Russian Imperial Eagle on the case. If that had been stolen, every pawn shop and jewellers in London would have remembered someone trying to sell it. So where is it? Has the thief taken it to be sold elsewhere or is it still with a murderer rather closer to home? Devereaux seems like a gentleman, he introduces Hannah to friends who seem wealthy and of good status and they all vouch for his honesty and charity. He even seems to be thinking of making a young boy belonging to a distant relative his ward, in order to give him a better life. Hannah had a hard life at Jonas’s hands, especially when she found she was unable to have children something they both wanted. I loved the author’s detail of them both saving some urine to pour on a seedling and if the seedling grew they were believed to be fertile. Hannah’s didn’t grow and she felt her husband hardened his heart to her at that point and perhaps looked elsewhere. She has her head turned by the handsome gentleman who wants to find out where Jonas was going at night and intervening with Fielding on her behalf. He wants to help her keep her shop too and his iced cream idea is proving a huge hit, with even an impromptu visit from the King’s mistress who reassures Hannah that a hint of scandal is not necessarily a bad thing: “virtue matters rather less once you are rich.” Devereaux has some ideas in that area, that maybe rather than leave her money in the bank she might like to meet some of the people who’ve invested in a company of his called Arcadia, based in a place called Bentoo. Is he genuine or not? Does he have feelings for her, because Hannah’s starting to have stirring feelings she hasn’t had for years. Surely though Devereaux’s interest wouldn’t lie in the direction of an older widow?
I was utterly entranced in this novel from the first page to the last, especially as the tensions mounted in the final third when Fielding makes his move. However, just when you think you’ve worked everything out another twist will come along and surprise you. I was rooting for Hannah to come out on top, but was very scared for her in parts. For both her heart and her liberty! I wanted her to live out her days as the grand proprietress of the Punchbowl and Pineapple. I very much feared that Fielding had the desire to see her face the hangman’s noose. While I didn’t trust Devereaux at first I did wonder if he had feelings for Hannah or whether he was some sort of confidence trickster. There is certainly sexual chemistry by the bucketload. I was working out in my head who might play Hannah in a film or TV adaptation because it would be a brilliant period thriller with lots of raunchy scenes perfect for Netflix. I was honestly hypnotised by this story and Laura’s talent. Bravo on such a fantastic story that I’m still thinking about four days after finishing it. Go beg, steal or borrow a copy of this one, it’s a cracker.
Out now from Mantle Books
Meet the Author
Laura Shepherd-Robinson is the award-winning, Sunday Times and USA Today bestselling author of three historical novels. Her books have been featured on BBC 2’s Between the Covers and Radio 4’s Front Row and Open Book. Her fourth novel, The Art of a Lie, will be published in Summer 2025. She lives in London with her husband, Adrian.
I’ve never been to Vienna but it’s very firmly on my list of places I’d like to visit. Firstly I love Klimt with a passion and have been to any and every exhibition of his work, but never in his homeland. I’m also interested in Freud, for obvious reasons. I’d like to eat a piece of Sachertorte there too. For now I’ll have to keep reading books set in the city.
Set in 1938 in London and Vienna, this is a tense and atmospheric thriller told from within a climate of uncertainty and fear as World War Two threatens. As war looms over Britain and there is talk of gas masks and blackout, people are understandably jumpy and anxious. Stella Fry, has been working in Vienna for a Jewish family and returns home with no job and a broken heart. She answers an advertisement from a famous mystery writer, Hubert Newman, who needs a manuscript typed. She takes on the job and is shocked the next day to learn of the writer’s sudden, unexplained death. She is even more surprised when, twenty-four hours later, she receives Newman’s manuscript and reads the Dedication: To Stella, spotter of mistakes. Harry Fox, formerly of Special Branch and brilliant at surveillance, has been suspended for some undisclosed misdemeanor. He has his own reasons for being interested in Hubert Newman. He approaches Stella Fry to share his belief that the writer’s death was no accident. What’s more, since she was the last person to see Newman, she could be in danger herself.
It is 1966, and Robert Simon has just fulfilled his dream by taking over a café on the corner of a bustling Vienna market. He recruits a barmaid, Mila, and soon the customers flock in. Factory workers, market traders, elderly ladies, a wrestler, a painter, an unemployed seamstress in search of a job, each bring their stories and their plans for the future. As Robert listens and Mila refills their glasses, romances bloom, friendships are made and fortunes change. And change is coming to the city around them, to the little café, and to Robert’s dream.
A story of the hopes, kindnesses and everyday heroism of one community, The Café with No Name has charmed millions of European readers. It is an unforgettable novel about how we carry each other through good and bad times, and how even the most ordinary life is, in its own way, quite extraordinary.
Hedy Lamarr possessed a stunning beauty. She also possessed a stunning mind. Could the world handle both?
Her beauty almost certainly saved her from the rising Nazi party and led to marriage with an Austrian arms dealer. Underestimated in everything else, she overheard the Third Reich’s plans while at her husband’s side, understanding more than anyone would guess. She devised a plan to flee in disguise from their castle, and the whirlwind escape landed her in Hollywood. She became Hedy Lamarr, screen star.
But she kept a secret more shocking than her heritage or her marriage: she was a scientist. And she knew a few secrets about the enemy. She had an idea that might help the country fight the Nazis…if anyone would listen to her.
A powerful novel based on the incredible true story of the glamour icon and scientist whose groundbreaking invention revolutionised modern communication, The Only Woman in the Room is a masterpiece.
The year is 1853, and the Habsburgs are Europe’s most powerful ruling family. With his empire stretching from Austria to Russia, from Germany to Italy, Emperor Franz Joseph is young, rich, and ready to marry.
Fifteen-year-old Elisabeth, “Sisi,” Duchess of Bavaria, travels to the Habsburg Court with her older sister, who is betrothed to the young emperor. But shortly after her arrival at court, Sisi finds herself in an unexpected dilemma: she has inadvertently fallen for and won the heart of her sister’s groom. Franz Joseph reneges on his earlier proposal and declares his intention to marry Sisi instead.
Thrust onto the throne of Europe’s most treacherous imperial court, Sisi upsets political and familial loyalties in her quest to win, and keep, the love of her emperor, her people, and of the world.
With Pataki’s rich period detail and cast of complex, bewitching characters, The Accidental Empress offers a glimpse into one of history’s most intriguing royal families, shedding new light on the glittering Hapsburg Empire and its most mesmerizing, most beloved “Fairy Queen.”
Erika Kohut teaches piano at the Vienna Conservatory by day. By night she trawls the city’s porn shows while her mother, whom she loves and hates in equal measure, waits up for her. Into this emotional pressure-cooker bounds music student and ladies’ man Walter Klemmer.
With Walter as her student, Erika spirals out of control, consumed by the ecstasy of self-destruction. A haunting tale of morbid voyeurism and masochism, The Piano Teacher, first published in 1983, is Elfreide Jelinek’s Masterpiece.
Jelinek was awarded the Nobel Prize For Literature in 2004 for her ‘musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating power.
The Piano Teacher was adapted into an internationally successful film by Michael Haneke, which won three major prizes at Cannes, including the Grand Prize and Best Actress for Isabelle Huppert.
Vienna at the dawn of the 20th century. An opulent, extravagant city teeming with art, music and radical ideas. A place where the social elite attend glamorous balls in the city’s palaces whilst young intellectuals decry the empire across the tables of crowded cafes. It is a city where anything seems possible – if you are a man.
Edith and Adele are sisters, the daughters of a wealthy bourgeois industrialist. They are expected to follow the rules, to marry well, and produce children. Gertrude is in thrall to her flamboyant older brother. Marked by a traumatic childhood, she envies the freedom he so readily commands. Vally was born into poverty but is making her way in the world as a model for the eminent artist Gustav Klimt.
None of these women is quite what they seem. Fierce, passionate and determined, they want to defy convention and forge their own path. But their lives are set on a collision course when they become entangled with the controversial young artist Egon Schiele whose work – and private life – are sending shockwaves through Vienna’s elite. All it will take is a single act of betrayal to change everything for them all. Because just as a flame has the power to mesmerize, it can also destroy everything in its path…
It’s Ball Season in Vienna, and Maria Wallner only wants one thing: to restore her family’s hotel, the Hotel Wallner, to its former glory. She’s not going to let anything get in her way – not her parents’ three-decade-long affair; not seemingly-random attacks by masked assassins; and especially not the broad-shouldered American foreign agent who’s saved her life two times already. No matter how luscious his mouth is. Eli Whittaker also only wants one thing: to find out who is selling American secret codes across Europe, arrest them, and go home to his sensible life in Washington, DC. He has one lead – a letter the culprit sent from a Viennese hotel. But when he arrives in Vienna, he is immediately swept up into a chaotic whirlwind of balls, spies, waltzes, and beautiful hotelkeepers who seem to constantly find themselves in danger. He disapproves of all of it! But his disapproval is tested as he slowly falls deeper into the chaos – and as his attraction to said hotelkeeper grows. Diana Biller’s The Hotel of Secrets is chock full of banter-filled shenanigans, must-have-you kisses, and romance certain to light a fire in the hearts of readers everywhere.
Vienna, 1913. It is a fine day in August when Lysander Rief, a young English actor, walks through the city to his first appointment with the eminent psychiatrist Dr Bensimon. Sitting in the waiting room he is anxiously pondering the particularly intimate nature of his neurosis when a young woman enters. She is clearly in distress, but Lysander is immediately drawn to her strange, hazel eyes and her unusual, intense beauty. Her name is Hettie Bull. They begin a passionate love affair and life in Vienna becomes tinged with a powerful frisson of excitement for Lysander. He meets Sigmund Freud in a café, begins to write a journal, enjoys secret trysts with Hettie and appears – miraculously – to have been cured. Back in London, 1914. War is imminent, and events in Vienna have caught up with Lysander in the most damaging way. Unable to live an ordinary life, he is plunged into the dangerous theatre of wartime intelligence – a world of sex, scandal and spies, where lines of truth and deception blur with every waking day. Lysander must now discover the key to a secret code which is threatening Britain’s safety, and use all his skills to keep the murky world of suspicion and betrayal from invading every corner of his life. Moving from Vienna to London’s West End, from the battlefields of France to hotel rooms in Geneva, Waiting for Sunrise is a feverish and mesmerising journey into the human psyche, a beautifully observed portrait of wartime Europe, a plot-twisting thriller and a literary tour de force from the bestselling author of Any Human Heart, Restless and Ordinary Thunderstorms.
The artistic stagnation of Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century was rudely shaken by the artists of the Secession. Their works at first shocked a conservative public, but their successive exhibitions, their magazine Ver Sacrum and their dedication to the applied arts and architecture soon brought them an enthusiastic following and wealthy patronage. With 60 new colour illustrations, this classic book, now in its third edition, brilliantly traces the course of this development, of the Wiener Werkstätte that followed, and the individual works of the artists concerned. The result is a fascinating documentary study of the successes and failures, hopes and fears of the members of an artistic movement that is so much admired today.
This is the true story that inspired the movie “Woman in Gold” starring Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds. Anne-Marie O Connor brilliantly regales us with the galvanizing story of Gustav Klimt’s 1907 masterpiece, the breathtaking portrait of a Viennese Jewish socialite, Adele Bloch-Bauer. The celebrated painting, stolen by Nazis during World War II, subsequently became the subject of a decade-long dispute between her heirs and the Austrian government.When the U.S. Supreme Court became involved in the case, its decision had profound ramifications in the art world. Expertly researched, masterfully told, “The Lady in Gold” is at once a stunning depiction of fin-de siecle Vienna, a riveting tale of Nazi war crimes, and a fascinating glimpse into the high-stakes workings of the contemporary art world.
Seventeen-year-old Franz Huchel journeys to Vienna to apprentice at a tobacco shop. There he meets Sigmund Freud, a regular customer, and over time the two very different men form a singular friendship. When Franz falls desperately in love with the music hall dancer Anezka, he seeks advice from the renowned psychoanalyst, who admits that the female sex is as big a mystery to him as it is to Franz.
As political and social conditions in Austria dramatically worsen with the Nazis’ arrival in Vienna, Franz, Freud, and Anezka are swept into the maelstrom of events. Each has a big decision to make: to stay or to flee?
I’ve had a lovely reading month, with the subject of love and relationships being at the centre of most of my best reads in June. Possibly due to it being wedding season, romance seems to have been in the air and all my reads looked at it in a very different way. A couple are set in the present day but others range from the late 18th to the mid- 20th Century. Yet there was a sense of familiarity, with each book showing the difficulties in how women and men relate to each other and negotiate the rules of their relationship. Women seemed to wait an awful lot, trying to balance a career and a relationship not to mention children and home life. Some women were waiting for proposals, for a man to commit, to be faithful, or for life to begin. They bring up the age old question of women having it all and whether that’s ever possible. There’s also a lot of travel involved from the UK, to America, Italy, France, Switzerland, India and Australia. I hope you all have a great tbr lined up for July and I’ll see you on the other side.
Walnut Tree Island sits in a tributary of the Thames and back in the 1960s its part derelict became a sought after music venue, thanks to the work of its owner George. Based on Eel Pie Island, Walnut Tree is a harmonious combination of up and coming musicians, artists and picturesque riverboats and in 1965 is a weekly Mecca for young people. One of them is Mary Star, a young girl with a beautiful voice and a head full of dreams. It’s there one night when musician and up and coming front man Ossie Clark notices Mary in the crowd as she’s hoisted up on someone’s shoulders. Ossie is about to hit the big time, but he’s captivated by Mary and when he meets her he encourages her to sing with him. They are so in love and lay down in the grasses by the Wilderness – the most beautiful part of the island. When reality hits Mary knows she has to make a choice for both of them, although Ossie doesn’t reject the idea of becoming a father. He asks her to go to America with him, but the adults in her life, including George, make her realise how difficult that’s going to be. There will be compromises and although Ossie can’t see it now, what if he resents her and their baby? She’s left with her baby Ruby and a broken heart, but also a place to live on the island gifted by George.
Years later her granddaughter Jo experiences first love on the island. Used to running wild between Mary’s cottage Willows and houseboats, she meets George’s grandson Oliver when he visits the island. He’s the island’s heir, but such things don’t matter to young people and they have a magical summer thinking their love is all they need to sustain them. Now Oliver has returned from NYC as the new owner of Walnut Tree Island which has become a thriving community of musicians and artists all supported by Mary who is the mother of the community. The whispers over what might happen to the island start fairly quickly, not least the ownership of Willows that has always been a verbal agreement with George. Jo now teaches art to children in one of the houseboats. Once an incredible artist she seems to lose her confidence in creating and her career never fully got off the ground. How will she cope with Oliver back on the island, as handsome as ever, but with a touch of New York sophistication? More to the point, how will Oliver feel seeing Jo again? It’s not long before the red-headed firebrand is at his door, fighting on behalf of Mary and the rest of the community. But does she really know what his plans are? Changes are coming to the island, but some things are as constant as the river flows. Could their love be one of them? This is a captivating and magical read, thanks to its romantic setting and relatable female characters. An excellent holiday read.
Emily and Freddie have been through the mill of late. After a terrible accident when they were on holiday, Freddie has surprised her with the home of their dreams. Emily fell from a cliff on a group holiday and not only did she break her leg in several places, she then developed sepsis and almost lost her life. Now she’s in recovery, still walking on a stick and has been thrust into a whole new life. Larkin Lodge sits just outside a village on the edge of the moors and could be their dream home, but Emily can’t believe Freddie made this huge decision without her. The house is gothic and in the mists and murk of winter it looks a little isolated and spooky. However, she can see that in spring the views will be incredible. As Freddie continues to work in London, Emily spends a lot of time alone and starts to feel uneasy. Sudden drafts and disgusting smells, then heavy footsteps moving across the second floor are unnerving. Freddie is convinced she’s struggling with post concussion syndrome and calls her ITU consultant for advice – much to Emily’s disgust for doing this behind her back. As she starts to look into the history of the house and questions some of the locals, all the different parts of her life start to fall apart. Secrets start to come to light and Emily wonders if the house is having an influence on her.
Emily is a sympathetic narrator although she’s not entirely reliable. It must be so disorientating to wake from a coma and know that your body has been present but your mind has been somewhere else. Added to that is the risk of ICU psychosis – a common condition causing auditory hallucinations, nightmares, sleep disturbances and paranoia. The author cleverly creates tension between what we know about Freddie and Emily and what they know about each other. They’re both keeping secrets and Freddie projects all their problems on to her. Even when she’s quite measured and reasonable or accepts his apologies he becomes angrier. Just occasionally he pauses and wonders where these thoughts are coming from? Is it the shock of Emily’s fall still working on him or is something more insidious at work? Of course it wouldn’t be a Sarah Pinborough novel without a supernatural element and this one is genuinely scary. It begins with the window on the landing, seemingly opening of it’s own accord. When she starts talking to older locals about the house there’s a moment that genuinely made the hair stand up on the back of my neck! The chapters from the raven’s perspective are very touching as well as creepy. Was this an edge of the seat thriller or a ghost story? We’re never quite sure, but I felt compelled to keep reading and find out. Sarah Pinborough is the Queen of this type of gothic thriller and this was another brilliant read, keeping you guessing till the very end.
This book is definitely up there for my book of the year so far and it will take something momentous to knock it from that position. It’s the story of Mary Shelley and the origins of her novel Frankenstein which became a staple of the horror genre. I’d always known that it was a novel of monstrous birth, but the author has pulled all the ideas together so we can see the psychological background of the novel. I loved the idea that her story is stitched together by fragments, just like the monster himself. Her own emotions and thoughts feed into the emotions of the abandoned monster. She thinks of medical experiments and stories of medical students digging up bodies and stealing them for dissection. Frankenstein leaves his monster just as Shelley left Mary and their baby in squalor in London at the mercy of bailiffs. Frankenstein can be read as a criticism of men, creating with no thought for the thing they’ve created. Victor Frankenstein goes to sleep expecting his creature to die and feels nothing. The creature feels a combination of Mary’s grief and abandonment, having lost her mother at birth and then the losing of her father, as she runs away with Shelley, a married man. William Godwin brought Mary up to have a rebellious spirit and think for herself, but rejects her when she lives by these principles. Mary is this bewildered and angry creature and she gives her monster the equivalent of philosopher John Locke’s tabula rasa – the blank slate of a small child ready to experience nature, love and all that is beautiful. He embodies the nature/nurture debate in that the creature isn’t born evil, it’s other people’s cruel treatment of him that makes him monstrous. Her writing helps process all these feelings and. working through them makes her feel hopeful for the first time. She might return to London with her son and instead of being beholden to Shelley or her father, she could keep them both with her own writing.
Typically, blinded by his own arrogance Shelley doesn’t see himself in Victor Frankenstein at all. The book, like the creature at its centre, will be sent out into the wilderness looking for a creator. She’s fairly sure it will find one because she knows it’s special. Caroline’s book is an absolute masterpiece and made me think about Frankenstein from so many different angles. Caroline Lea’s Mary take us through the psychological angles and brings to life her relationship with Shelley, often told in a rather salacious or romantic way without any thought to the inequality between them. It traces the genesis of this incredible novel. It is stitched together from so many different parts, but here we can see them all and understand the circumstances they come from. What she’s written is a Bildungsroman, a novel of Mary growing up from girl to womanhood. Frankenstein is the chronicle of that birth, as messy, terrifying, horrific and momentous it is, it is also the genesis of Mary Shelley the writer.
London 1990s – An up and coming French composer called Stan is invited to arrange music for a stage production of Dorian Gray. Although the play is never staged, he does meet Liv and she becomes the love of his life. They live together, joined by a daughter called Lisa. Their happiness fuels his senses with vibrant colours and melodious music. Paris, Present Day – Stan lives in France at the Rabbit Hole, a house left to him by his aunt. He now shares his life with Babette, a lifeguard and mother of a teenage boy of Lisa’s age. They also share their home with Laïvely, a machine built by Stan and given Liv’s voice. As Stan becomes more engrossed in his past Laïvely starts to take on a life of her own. His life is about to implode.
Stan presents his life in two narratives, the present in France and the past where he was at his most creative, happy and in love. His relationship with Liv is almost idyllic. Anything he relates of his present can only suffer in comparison. We learn that he and Babette are compatible, but there is none of the life and vivid colour that comes from his reminiscence. We are all nostalgic about the past, but no relationship can be perfect especially when cramped into the average London apartment with a small baby. While it is touching and romantic, the cynic in me wondered was this a true picture? As for Liv, she is in technicolour in Stan’s flashbacks with her vivid red hair. However, all that life is now reduced to a communication device and no matter how Stan cuddles Laïvely to him, she is inanimate, merely a machine. In what way is this a fitting representation of the love of his life? The author brings the truth to light brilliantly and I feared Stan’s mind was splitting. Stan seems to imagine that he and Liv would have lived in this harmonious way forever, but as the truth emerges Stan’s perception of himself starts to shatter. Babette finds him catatonic and soaking wet, having to place him in a hot bath and slowly bringing him back to himself. It’s the most nurturing, selfless and loving part of the book and it’s all the more sad that he hasn’t before recognised or rewarded her love and loyalty. He also realises that there were times he was too distant and distracted with Liv, that he stopped paying her attention. It was as if he had imagined them always walking towards a common goal but truthfully, he knows they were out of pace with one another. As the ‘tick, tock’ of the clock at the Rabbit Hole reminds us that the end is approaching we fully comprehend this heartbreaking story. This is no ordinary loss and it’s clear that Stan has never faced the truth of their final days until now. This is an emotional end that has one final twist to impart and it is devastating. It seems that Stan has always held on to Liv’s portrait, but is was a ‘painting turned against the wall’, keeping it’s secrets until that final terrible reveal.
It was so lovely to be back in Adriana Trigiani’s world. It always feels like a hug in a book! Jess (short for Guiseppina Capidimonte Baratta) is an artist who designs pieces made with marble, everything from a garden fountain to a baptismal font. She lives with her family in the New Jersey town of Lake Como. Ever since she finished school Jess has worked with her uncle Luis at his marble business, shipping newly quarried Italian marble to the United States. Jess is at a stage in life when she’s longing for something new. After divorcing her childhood sweetheart and local heartthrob Bobby Bilancia she’s been living in her parent’s basement. Their mothers, who have a long held friendship, are openly praying for their reconciliation. Jess could see her whole life mapped out, in fact her namesake Aunt Guiseppina has given her the blueprint – the maiden aunt, chief baby sitter for her sibling’s kids, cook and bottle washer for family dinners, and eventually caring for their elderly parents. When the family experience an unexpected loss, coupled with financial worries, secrets come tumbling out of every closet. Jess decides to take the trip to Italy that had been planned for work. Now she’ll use it as a change of scene rather than just a work trip. Finally, she will see her ancestor’s homeland. Taking us to Lake Como via Milan, Jess falls in love with Italy and all it has to offer.
This story is a common narrative in the author’s novels. A young, ambitious and talented woman is looking for a lucky break or a foothold in the family business and has an adventure. Jess is slightly different in that she’s older and has already found her Prince Charming once. Stressful situations usually floor Jess, who has suffered from anxiety all her life. The family carry brown paper bags wherever they go. Yet Jess has withstood the questions and judgement about her divorce and sticks with her decision, only confiding in her online counsellor and her journal. She sets out to her Uncle Louis’s hometown to visit the marble quarries that supply their marble but also meet with local stonemasons who use it. It should be useful for her work but also give her the head space she needs after the divorce, her loss and those family home truths that left her very angry with her parents. When she meets Angelo Strazzi, a talented local craftsman, there’s instant chemistry and future possibilities start to open up. As always Italy is a revelation and Trigiani writes about it in a way that only an Italian American can. There’s familiarity and nostalgia that comes from knowing her family are from here, but there’s also the wonder and magic of the tourist view too. It’s the best of both worlds. Mostly I loved that Italy seems to set Jess free, in her own right. She’s away from a community that claims to know her better than she knows herself, but also from the suffocating combination of her own family and that of her ex-husband. Free from a future that she and her family saw for her – that of the maiden aunt. Maybe it’s the mountains but Jess can breathe in Italy. I came out of the novel feeling like I’d been on holiday. I won’t ruin the book by telling you what Jess’s choices are, but the ending isn’t the only important thing. I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I did.
I was three quarters of the way through this novel before I found out it was based on a true story. Zara was a fashion designer, founding a dress shop called Magg with her best friend Betty in her twenties. Freeman’s novel follows Zara’s life from her meeting with Harry Holt and their relationship, which would dominate most of her life. The novel takes us on her travels, into her career as a fashion designer and businesswoman and the volatility of her relationship with Holt. Harry comes across as a selfish and ambitious man, who clearly loved Zara but was slow to commit and couldn’t curb his womanising ways. Zara is constantly waiting, whether it’s for him to propose marriage or to be faithful to her. She is torn between wanting a monogamous relationship or accepting both Harry’s love and the fact it comes with many compromises on her part. I’m not sure I could have made those compromises, but despite breaking off their relationship and even marrying an officer from the British Army and living in India, she finds it impossible to leave behind those feelings. Aside from her love life, Zara is a remarkable woman and one of those multi-tasking geniuses I envy. She managed to create an empire that paid for the couple’s holiday homes on different parts of the Australian coast and even when on political trips abroad, particularly as Harry was moving towards becoming prime minister, she used local fashions as inspiration and bought fabric to be shipped back. I had to remind myself I was reading a historical novel when frustrated with societal expectations and attitudes, because Zara was such a modern woman and seemed ahead of her time.
As always I have a loose tbr for July while I’m project managing our kitchen renovation. I’ll be frazzled by the time it’s done as I hate change and noise, but I’ll need to be at home so lots of reading time ❤️📚
Beautiful and mysterious Venice has been the backdrop for many stories. It’s beauty, endless winding streets and romantic canals inspire the creativity in film-makers, musicians, artists and writers. Vivaldi, Byron, John Ruskin all fell in love with it’s charms.
The first book that placed Venice on my travel list was What Katy Did Next by Susan Coolidge. I’d read the earlier books in the series, but read this when I was in hospital. I broke my back when I was eleven and I was laid flat for a long time and devoured all sorts of books. I felt an affinity with Katy who had her own accident at the end of the first book, falling from a broken swing. As an adult she’s employed as a companion and nanny for a woman travelling with her young daughter. Their last stop is Venice and the carnival. I remembered Katy sitting on their hotel balcony watching a procession and having sweets and trinkets thrown up to her by the passing revellers. Of course the darker side of carnival and the eeriness of the city didn’t occur to me until I was much older, but that’s the city’s magic I think, the beauty and the decay. Here are a few of my favourite books that feature Venice:
Venice Classics
This edition contains five stories of suspense, mystery and slow, creeping horror, Daphne Du Maurier’s Don’t Look Now and Other Stories includes an introduction by Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black and her own novella set in Venice The Man in the Picture.
John and Laura have come to Venice to try and escape the pain of their young daughter’s death. But when they encounter two old women who claim to have second sight, they find that instead of laying their ghosts to rest they become caught up in a train of increasingly strange and violent events. It makes the reader the third person in the couple’s marriage, let into their innermost thoughts and intimate moments. The atmosphere she creates leaves the reader uneasy and unsure. Then that totally unexpected ending hits you right in the gut.
I thought of this cover when I took the main picture. Milly Theale, an American heiress in London, is young, hungry for life, and terminally ill. There she meets the dazzling beauty Kate Croy. Unbeknownst to Milly, Kate is madly in love with an old acquaintance of hers, Merton Densher, a young journalist who has everything a woman could want—except money.
Intensely aware of her new friend’s fate and coveting her fortune, Kate secretly spurs Merton to seduce and marry Milly. But their scheme to inherit her wealth does not go according to plan, and Kate and Merton learn that deceit alters love, and love, deceit. This is a novel that needs perseverance, but is rewarding for people who enjoy character driven fiction that takes it’s time. There are no action sequences here, just manipulation and a lot of passive aggression as Milly slowly tortures Kate and Merton with her forgiveness.
Historical Fiction
Venice, 1486
Here I have to share two of my favourite novels of last year. The first is Tracy Chevalier’s The Glassmaker. Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives perfecting.
In secret, Orsola Rosso learns to craft glass. As a woman, she must flout convention to save her family from ruin. We follow her through hundreds of years of war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss. Skipping like a stone across the centuries, The Glassmaker is a virtuoso portrait of a woman, a family and a city that are as everlasting as glass. I absolutely loved this novel that takes us from the 15th Century to the present, which also happens to be Orsola’s life span. I loved the strength and adaptability of this incredible young woman, who makes herself a vital part of her family’s glassmaking business.
I was bowled over by this gorgeous debut from Harriet Constable about Anna Maria Della Pieta. A young woman who was left with the nuns at a Venice orphanage when she was just a baby. Anna Maria may have no name, no fortune, no family. But she has her ambition, and her talent.
Anna is a sparkling ball of energy and ambition. Her best hope lies in her teacher, Antonio Vivaldi. Soon she is his star pupil. But as Anna Maria’s star rises, not everyone is happy. Because Anna Maria’s shining light threatens to eclipse that of her mentor…
She will leave her mark, whatever it takes. Her story will be heard. This is an incredible novel, woven around a real person that brings 17th Century Venice to vivid life.
Crime Fiction
I started reading the Commissario Brunetti series after I’d been to Venice for the first time and it was great to read about a character who lives in modern Venice. I’d felt that contradiction: the gratitude for being able to visit the city, whilst also acknowledging the damage the sheer amount of visitors are doing to the city. There are less Venetian born residents of the city every year. Something that saddens me, but doesn’t quell that urge to visit again. Here I could read about someone living everyday life in that city. My other reason for reading this was that my hotel was in a piazza behind La Fenice and we decided to cut behind the opera house to find a quicker route. When it is dark, there is nothing creepier than those tiny little streets behind La Fenice!
The twisted maze of Venice’s canals has always been shrouded in mystery. Even the celebrated opera house, La Fenice, has seen its share of death … but none so horrific and violent as that of world-famous conductor, Maestro Helmut Wellauer, who was poisoned during a performance of La Traviata. Even Commissario of Police, Guido Brunetti, used to the labyrinthine corruptions of the city, is shocked at the number of enemies Wellauer has made on his way to the top – but just how many have motive enough for murder? The beauty of Venice is crumbling. But evil is one thing that will never erode with age.
Phillip Gwynne Jones’s Nathan Hunt series is set in Venice, where Hunt is Great Britain’s Honorary Consul and finds himself drawn into the world of crime. This time he’s asked by the British Ambassador to look into the death of a British Art Historian called Dr Jennifer Whiteread. On the night of 12 November 2019, the worst flooding in 50 years hits the city of Venice. 85% of La Serenissima is underwater. Gale force winds roar across the lagoon and along the narrow streets. The body of Dr Jennifer Whiteread is found floating in a flooded antique bookshop on the Street of the Assassins. The local police are trying hard to restore order to a city on its knees, Nathan Sutherland – under pressure from the British Ambassador and distraught relatives – sets out into the dark and rain-swept streets in an attempt to discover the truth behind Whiteread’s death.
The trail leads to the “Markham Foundation”, a recent and welcome addition to the list of charities working to preserve the ancient city. Charming, handsome and very, very rich, Giles Markham is a well-known and popular figure in the highest Venetian social circles, and has the ear of both the Mayor and the Patriarch. But a man with powerful friends may also have powerful enemies. And Nathan is about to learn that, in Venice at least, angels come in many forms – merciful, fallen and vengeful. This thriller is part of a series, but can be read as a stand alone thriller with a fantastic and mysterious backdrop.
Non-Fiction
Who hasn’t dreamed, after a particularly mind-numbing meeting, or in the midst of another punishing five-thirty commute, of chucking it all and packing off to the enchanting canals and mysterious alleyways of Venice? Globetrotting writer Paula Weideger not only dreamed the dream; she and her partner actually took the leap. VENETIAN DREAMING charts the course of Weideger’s passionate love affair with one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Weideger opens her book with the wry, mishap-strewn account of the search to find a place to live which eventually takes her to the world famous Palazzo Dona delle Rose, the only palace in Venice continuously occupied by the family that built it. She weaves the past lives of the family Dona with her own present adventures, creating a tapestry that captures at once the grand heritage and imperilled labyrinth as she gives a lively, riveting and eye opening tour of the city. She explores the centuries old streets, meets locals from noblemen to shopkeepers and artists, makes peace with the ghost of Peggy Guggenheim and explains how Ishmael Merchant and James Ivory almost dislodged her from her home, and more.
“Francesco’s Venice”, now available in paperback, is the extraordinary story of the life of this intriguing city, told by a descendant of an old and distinguished Venetian family. Francesco explores Venice’s remarkable history, from the fifth century when the first settlers retreated to the safety of the lagoon and began to create their homes on its tiny islands, through its glorious years as a successful maritime nation, adept at trade, exploration, diplomacy and protecting its independence, to the fragile city of the twenty-first century. He vividly brings to life the places, events and people, including a colourful array of his own ancestors, that have sculpted this living theatre through the ages. Beautifully illustrated with stunning images by John Parker, “Francesco’s Venice” celebrates the mesmerizing beauty and surpising strength of this unique city.
Romantic Fiction
Caroline Grant is struggling to accept the end of her marriage when she receives an unexpected bequest. Her beloved great-aunt Lettie leaves her a sketchbook, three keys, and a final whisper…Venice. Caroline’s quest: to scatter Juliet “Lettie” Browning’s ashes in the city she loved and to unlock the mysteries stored away for more than sixty years.
It’s 1938 when art teacher Juliet Browning arrives in romantic Venice. For her students, it’s a wealth of history, art, and beauty. For Juliet, it’s poignant memories and a chance to reconnect with Leonardo Da Rossi, the man she loves whose future is already determined by his noble family. However star-crossed, nothing can come between them. Until the threat of war closes in on Venice and they’re forced to fight, survive, and protect a secret that will bind them forever.
Key by key, Lettie’s life of impossible love, loss, and courage unfolds. It’s one that Caroline can now make right again as her own journey of self-discovery begins.
Can a city hold the key to happiness?
”This isn”t a mid-life crisis OK? For a start I”m not old enough yet to have one of those. I”m calling it a happiness project. I”ve stolen an entire summer from my life and by the time it”s over I plan to leave this place with a list in my hand. The ten things that make me happy, that”s all I want to know. How difficult can it be? They may be small things – a perfect cup of coffee, a day without rain – or bigger ones. It”s still the beginning so how can I know?”
Addolorata Martinelli knows she should be happy. She has everything she thought she wanted – her own business, a husband, a child. So why does she feel as if something is missing? Then when her restaurant, Little Italy, is slated by a reviewer, she realises that she”s lost the one thing she thought she could always count on, her love of food.
So Addolorata heads to Venice for a summer alone, aiming to find the ten things that make her happy. Once she”s found them, she”ll construct a new life around her ten things, but will they include her life in London?
Shatter Creek is the second novel in Reynold’s Casey Wray series, set in Hampstead County Police Department on Long Island. The department has been under investigation and the corruption reached to the very top. Casey’s boss and mentor, Ray Carletti, was found to be a dirty cop and it’s clear that she’ll have to do a lot of proving herself to the new Lieutenant. Until then she’ll suspect Casey of being a corrupt cop, who managed to elude the investigation. She’s also under pressure from the Mayor/DA’s office, in fact it seems like Casey is piggy in the middle between the two, vying over who gets the news first. When there’s a double shooting outside a gym in Rockport, Casey and partner Billy Drocker are first on scene. A woman has been shot just outside the gym entrance, but there’s also a second victim slightly further away down a side road. Luckily, Casey finds an off duty cop already there, tending to his wound so she’s free to chase down the shooter. After trying a few side streets, she realises that there are too many possible escape routes for her to cover. It’s like he disappeared and Casey is left trying to work out who was the target. The two victims have nothing in common. The male victim leaves a wealthy widow who has contacts in the mayor’s office – the last thing Casey needs. Surely a self-made man who could afford a home on Shatter Creek has his fair share of enemies though? Then comes the shooting of another woman outside her home and they uncover a link. Both female victims turn out to be just two in a line of women strung along by potential suspect, Adam Ryker. He has a reputation and not just as a womaniser but as a man who likes to control women. Casey has more questions than answers: Who are the couple seen in a car taking photographs? Could one of Ryker’s girlfriends have hired a hit? Why did the male victim have Casey’s phone number on a business card? This is an incredibly complex case, in particularly tough circumstances and Casey needs to solve it, not just to take a murderer off the streets but to prove she isn’t the cop that her new lieutenant thinks she is.
Wow, this really was a labyrinthine case! Full of red herrings and distractions from an endless parade of women claiming to be in a relationship with their suspect and a lot of political machinations behind the scenes. Casey really is in a tough situation and I don’t mind saying that I might have gone for the potential transfer or the unexpected job offer she gets. It’s clear right from the start that her new Lieutenant doesn’t even want to give her a chance. Whatever happens, this case has placed her at a crossroads and if she stays she’s going to have to solve this fast and prove her worth. There is one key witness, a woman with red hair carrying a little girl who seemingly disappeared from the gym during the shooting. Where does she fit? Casey was already in an impossible situation and now she has to rein in her rookie partner who is a little over enthusiastic. She’s still grieving the death of her previous partner, a fact that still hits her hard in the gut whenever she thinks of him. When she meets ex-cop McTeague in a bar, both for information and a catch up, he offers her a way out. Would she want to come and work for him? She’d still be using her skills, but with steadier hours, less politics and doing things on her own terms. She allows herself to think about it, but knows that she has to solve this case first. I’m not sure whether it’s professional pride, a determination to show she’s not dirty or that urge to serve and protect the public. Probably a bit of all three.
Casey is a people pleaser underneath, someone who finds it hard to say no and struggles to let cases go. It’s the reason she becomes caught in the headlights of Rita Zangetty, the chief of staff to the County Executive Franklin Gates. Zangetty wants someone inside who can keep her abreast of this case, but also the ongoing review of the whole police department. A part of her had expected to be placed in the acting lieutenant’s role after being cleared of any wrong doing. She’d put in her application, not even expecting an acknowledgement so to be shortlisted and interviewed gave her hope. To be placed under someone completely new, with no warning was a blow to her confidence. The shootings happen only 24 hours later. When evidence emerges that puts Casey even further under the spotlight I was surprised. Could Casey possibly be as bad as Carletti? I loved her conversations with the dead man’s wife, out at their incredible home on Shatter Creek. There’s a sense that here are two opponents who have the measure of each other, they’ve finally met their match. As Casey starts to interview the previous partners of Adam Ryker it seems like she’s set on a direction, but she’s still juggling questions in her mind. Questions that won’t go away. Why is the woman she saw reading in a bar still on her mind? What was it about the meeting with McTeague that’s bugging her? Who is the man seen taking photographs, not just near the crime scene but at different locations throughout the case – almost like they’re working in parallel. When the truth slowly starts to dawn on Casey she takes us with her at a breathtaking pace, leading a totally unexpected and heart-stopping show down. This was a gritty, inventive and compelling thriller, with a lead detective who’s dogged and determined to find the truth – even when it’s a truth she doesn’t want to face.
Out now from Orenda Books
Meet the Author
Rod Reynolds is the author of five novels, including the Charlie Yates series. His 2015 debut, The Dark Inside, was longlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger, and was followed by Black Night Falling (2016) and Cold Desert Sky (2018); the Guardian has called the books ‘Pitch-perfect American noir.’ A lifelong Londoner, in 2020 Orenda Books published his first novel set in his hometown, Blood Red City. The first in the Casey Wray series, Black Reed Bay, published in 2021, was shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger, with its long-awaited sequel, Shatter Creek, out in 2025. Rod previously worked n advertising as a media buyer, and holds an MA in novel writing from City University London. Rod lives with his wife and family and spends most of his time trying to keep up with his two daughters.
It’s been a busy month at home so there’s been a little bit less reading, but what I have read I’ve really enjoyed. As is often the case it’s a straight split between historical fiction and crime. Weirdly it’s also a straight split between debuts and books that are the third in a series. There are some definite contenders for my favourite books of the year too. I hope to be reading a bit more in May, getting back into my stride with a couple of blog tours and a read with my squad ladies too. One things for sure, I’ve enjoyed mood reading so much that I’m not going to overload myself with tours going forward. I’d forgotten the joy of picking up whatever suits, rather than having a rigid schedule, My bank holiday is going to be quiet with plenty of reading and journaling. We’re planning to spend some of it outdoors, accompanying my other half fishing. Just us, the dog, my comfy camp bed and outdoor cooking. Usually I end up sharing my bed with the dog because it’s so comfy. I’ll also be taking a book of course. ❤️📚
I really do enjoy my time spent in Molly the Maid’s world. It’s one of those books where I find myself smiling as I read. It only takes a couple of sentences for me to feel like I never left her world. In some ways her life could be seen as unchanged. She’s still Molly, as wholly herself as ever, living in her late grandmother’s flat with her fiancé Juan, chef at the Regency Grand. In other ways things have changed, Molly manages the maids and has become ‘Events Manager’ so she’s definitely gone up in the world at work. Two events loom in the near future – Molly and Juan’s wedding at City Hall is on the horizon – but today the two darlings of the antique world are filming an episode of their TV show in the tearoom of the hotel. Beagle and Braun, known jointly as the Bees, are the married presenters of ‘Hidden Treasures‘. A show runs like our own Antique Roadshow where people queue to have their valuables appraised. Before they leave the flat that morning, Juan suggests Molly takes her grandmother’s box of treasures, including a highly decorated egg. When the Bees see this particular treasure their eyes light up. They seem to know immediately that this is very special and they must have it on camera. As the cameras roll they tell Molly that this looks like a lost Russian imperial egg, the prototype for all the ones that follow. It’s one of a kind, decorated with rubies and emeralds by Faberge himself. Now worth several million dollars. Molly doesn’t seem to take the news in and wants to carry on as normal, but as the clip is shared online that becomes impossible and Mr Preston has to take them home. Will life ever be the same again? Things go from bad to worse when during an auction at the hotel the egg disappears, despite being on a plinth and glass case in the middle of the stage. Now Molly must work with Detective Stark to find it, but this is a search that will take us back into the past. Molly really does prove in this novel that she’s a ‘good egg’, pardon the pun. No temptation lures her from the things she values – her job, Juan, Mr Preston and her flat. It was interesting to get some back story on her grandmother too and understand why she brought Molly up the way she did. This is a charming and heartwarming novel and a brilliant trilogy to delve into if you haven’t already.
The Show Woman has been on my TBR since January and I was delighted to be accepted for a NetGalley ARC. I love all things circus, fairgrounds, mediums and freak shows so I was drawn straight away but this was so much more than I expected and has a lot in common with The Eights. Set in 1901 we meet Lena who has lost her father and after his death was left with his carousel and their caravan. She sells the carousel and has the idea of creating the first all-female show with herself as a ringmaster. The only female show woman is Serena Lind and she’s a hard, bitter and vengeful woman who rules her circus with a rod of iron. So when Violet meets with Lena about leaving Lind’s and becoming a trapeze artist for the new show, it sets a scene for what follows. With Rosie and her pony Tommy they have a bareback rider and Carmen the dancer and acrobat makes their four. With an old tent they start to practice and be ready for the next season and with a bit of help from Violet’s brother Harry, they start to become known. This is a story of revenge, friendship, love and women making their own way in the world. I loved how the women bond, living together in the caravan and travelling from show ground to show ground. Lena has the makings of a brilliant show woman but first she needs to find out who is trying to sabotage their circus. Lena becomes the head of this a community that fully supports each other, who listen and understand the circumstances and pain that has brought them here. I was rooting for all of these women and not just the show, but their new found independence and friendships. It was those evenings where they were talking in the caravan after a show, too full of adrenaline to sleep. Or the warm and sunny days when they got chance to swim in a local lake or river, to wash their hair. Then there were the joint efforts to save Rosie’s pony. It’s these moments that are just as magical for these women as the seconds before Violet lets go and flies through the air.
This was another novel set in the early part of the 20th Century, this time just after WWI. It also features four young women but these meet in the hallowed halls of Oxford University where they will be the first female cohort to be awarded a degree for their studies. Nicknamed the ‘Eights’ because of the room numbers on their corridor, Beatrice, Ottoline, Marianne and Dora are very different, but soon become firm friends as they navigate their first year. Beatrice is political, has a feminist and suffragette mother and is used to being noticed, as she’s usually the tallest woman in a room. Marianne is a scholarship student, but she seems to have secrets, including why she returns home every other weekend. Ottoline (Otto) comes from a wealthy family, but is haunted by her war experiences in a nursing role. She’s had symptoms of PTSD ever since, but also feelings of shame that she couldn’t do her duty. Dora also struggles with the consequences of war, having received the dreaded letter from her fiancé Charles’s regiment to inform her he’d been killed. Just two weeks later her brother George also lost his life. Being so close to Charles’s university only serves to keep him at the forefront of her mind. This seemingly random allocation starts strong friendships as the girls help each other negotiate their university work, their memories of the war and being taken seriously by their male counterparts. I loved every one of these characters and it was wonderful to watch them grow and help each other navigate the choppy waters of academic problems, financial worries, matters of the heart and the terrible experience of loss. I was so sorry to turn the final page and leave their world.
I’ve been re-reading Stig Abell’s Jake Jackson series after winning the latest instalment, The Burial Place, in a Twitter giveaway by the author. This is book number three and while Jake and his ‘team’ tangled with an international criminal gang in the last book, The Burial Place is more of a home grown mystery. There has been an archaeological dig close to Little Sky and a hoard of treasure found nearby. The ownership of this treasure is in dispute because it’s unclear who owns the land where it was found. Meanwhile, work carries on for the archaeologists, academics and local enthusiasts who have been working on the site but when a body is found it must shut down. It’s hard for new DCI McAllister to understand the motive and being new to the area he enlists Jake’s help, both for his investigative skills and his local knowledge. The community are aware that several nuisance letters have been sent to the dig office and various people who’ve worked on the site. They’re a strange mix of threats, Bible verses and ancient prophecies signed off by Wulfnoth – an ancient Briton from the area. They promise a terrible end for the dig and whoever benefits from the treasure found. Can Jake find the killer before anyone else is hurt? Looking at themes of belonging and sacred land, this is a quieter novel but no less deadly. A definite team have formed around Jake, a family of sorts who both work and relax together. There’s also the continuation of the romance between Jake and local vet, Livia and an appearance from his ex-wife Faye that brings about much soul searching and healing. Thankfully he has Little Sky as his sanctuary when things get too noisy and stressful. The home left to him by his Uncle Arthur, shows he clearly knew his nephew very well.
The Lotus Readers 