As all subscribers and Twitter followers must know by now, I am a huge fan of The Skelf series. I’m a Skelfaholic and it’s become a strange cycle of waiting for the next book to be published, devouring it overnight then longing for the next one. It’s even worse this time because I have it on good authority that this might be the penultimate book in the series. So one more book and no more Skelfing! I’m going to be like a weasel with a sore head when I have to go cold turkey. It has been wonderful to be back in Edinburgh with this family: part private investigators, part undertakers and all round incredible women. For those who haven’t met them yet, the Skelfs are three generations of one family. Grandmother Dorothy is in her seventies, but is still active in both the investigative and the funeral parts of the business. In her spare time she still drums like a badass and has a lover almost twenty years her junior. Daughter Jenny is back home, living above the business and struggling with memories of psychopath ex- husband Craig. She’s drowning her pain with alcohol and sex. Jenny’s daughter Hannah is now a PhD student, working in the astrophysics department, but still finding time to help out. She’s now married to Indy, feeling settled and starting to move past what happened to her father. The women are brought some unusual cases, both for funerals and PI work. A gentleman approaches Dorothy after his wife’s funeral, to ask if they can help him with a nighttime visitor. He believes his wife’s spirit is punishing him and he has the bruises to prove it. Hannah is approached by Laura, a young woman who claims to know her, but Hannah has no recollection of her. When Laura starts to turn up wherever Hannah goes, she suspects mental health problems. She stops being harmless the closer she gets to the family, especially when Hannah drops into the funeral parlour and finds Laura talking to Indy. Laura wants them to do her mother’s funeral, but Hannah thinks it’s unwise. How can she let this fragile girl down gently?
Aside from their cases Johnstone picks up those storylines that weave throughout the novels. In the main we are drawn back to Craig, Jenny’s ex-husband and Hannah’s father, who is still haunting the family. Jenny is most visibly affected by her interactions with Craig’s family, most notably his sister, who seems to have inherited his ability to manipulate and turn to violence to get what she wants. Will Craig ever leave them alone and will Jenny be able to tread the line between her own pain as his ex and Hannah’s pain as his daughter. Both tend to overlook the grief that Dorothy still feels at the loss of her own husband Jim, complicated now by her relationship with police detective Thomas. Indy’s grief is also overlooked a lot, especially since she’s just gone through disinterring her parents in order to give them the cremation in line with their faith. Hannah and Jenny bring the drama and it’s Jenny I was particularly worried about. She’s getting messy, day drinking and embarking on a highly controversial sexual relationship with the wrong person. She never wakes up feeling better, but in the moment she has to drown out the constant pictures in her head. This is PTSD and she’s in danger of drawing others into her drama, especially Archie who works for the funeral business. Can she rein in her behaviour? Even professional help seems doomed to failure at this point.
Aside from these incredible women, and the lovely Indy of course, the things I most love about these books is Doug Johnstone’s love for Edinburgh and the way he weaves incredible ideas, philosophy and physics into his novels. I’ve not been to Edinburgh since I was in my twenties, but the way he describes the city makes me want to go back. He doesn’t sugar coat the place either, there’s good and bad here, but as a whole it’s a poem to a place that’s in his soul. Dorothy muses on her home town a lot in this novel and considering she was born in America, this place is her heart’s homeland. She ponders on the people this city produces, including her husband and child, the history, the architecture almost as if she’s taking stock. She concludes that she’s a person who always looks forward to where life’s going, but grief is like the tide and there’s no telling when those waves will wash ashore again. Jenny tends to frequent the less salubrious areas of the city. She’s stuck. Her past has quite literally washed ashore and the problem with losing someone is you’re not the only one grieving and everyone grieves differently. She’s not mourning Craig as he truly was. She’s grieving the loss of all that hope; the hope they both had for the future on their wedding day and when Hannah was born. Similarly Craig’s mum and sister aren’t missing the Craig who committed all those terrible crimes. Violet misses the little boy she had and the life she wanted for him and his sister misses her baby brother. Hannah seems to be the person most resigned to the loss of her father. She always seems older than she is and with Indy alongside her she has the support she needs. There’s so much wisdom in these two young women, honed from a combination of Indy’s spirituality, years of working with grieving families and Hannah’s physics knowledge, especially where it tries to explain the universe. The supermassive black holes that are thought to be at the heart of every galaxy are mysterious. We know that they have a huge power that acts like a magnet, drawing in items from across the universe.
I loved the element of Japanese spirituality and having read Messina’s novel The Phonebox at the Edge of the World, I loved the concept of the wind phone. I’ve always thought that a good way of letting go of the past, especially when you’re struggling emotionally, is to make a physical gesture or step in the direction you want to go. That might mean taking off a wedding ring when you’re getting divorced, or moving house where it’s full of old memories. I found talking to my late husband in my head a bit strange and it only made me miss him more. So I wrote to him in my journal instead. To have a phonebox dedicated to speaking with those who have died seems a very effective way of keeping them in the present with you, but in a controlled and deliberate way. Samuel Beckett said:
“Memories are killing. So you must not think of certain things, of those that are dear to you, or rather you must think of them, for if you don’t there is the danger of finding them, in your mind, little by little.”
Each of the Skelf women have their own grief to bear, a black hole at the centre of their heart. Each must find their own way to remember a little, to prevent becoming overwhelmed by their memories. Only by reconciling this, can they live in the present moment and make plans for their altered future.
Meet the Author
Doug Johnstone is the author of fifteen novels, most recently The Space Between Us (2023). Several of his books have been bestsellers, The Big Chill (2020) was longlisted for the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year, while A Dark Matter (2020), Breakers (2019) and The Jump (2015) were all shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year. He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions over the last two decades including festivals, libraries, universities, schools, prisons and a funeral directors.
Doug is a Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow and works as a mentor and manuscript assessor for many organisations, including The Literary Consultancy, Scottish Book Trust and New Writing North. He’s been an arts journalist for over twenty years and has also written many short stories and screenplays. He is a songwriter and musician with six albums and three EPs released, and plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of crime writers. He’s also co-founder of the Scotland Writers Football Club.
One week in Cape Cod. The perfect family holiday. What could possibly go wrong…?
For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their rustic beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, its quirky furniture and mismatched pots and pans greeted like old friends.
Now, sandwiched between her children who are adult enough to be fun but still young enough to need her, and her parents who are alive and healthy, Rocky wants to preserve this golden moment forever. This one precious week when everything is in balance; everything is in flux.
But every family has its secrets and hers is no exception.
With her body in open revolt and surprises invading her peaceful haven, the perfectly balanced seesaw of Rocky’s life is tipping towards change…
Rocky and her husband Nick have reached that middle point in life where adults seem to be at their most stretched. They’re coping with children who have left home or are living at university as well as increasingly elderly parents who need more help than they have before. This is the sandwich of the title. The emotions are conflicting, from the parental support a fledgling teenager still needs to the worry about their independence, as well as the feelings of loss that that come from empty nest syndrome. As for parents, it’s like a whole new stage in the relationship defined in the novel as ‘anticipatory grief’ because as they become increasingly frail there’s a constant reminder that the clock is ticking. This reminder of their mortality brings up feelings of loss and a sense of our own life being at their point where more is behind us than in front of us. I’m saying ‘we’ because I fall bang in the middle of this category. I have parents who have endless medical appointments, particularly Dad who seems to have surgery on a yearly basis like some sort of annuity. However, I also have one stepdaughter away at university, really stretching her wings as she ends her second year and moves in with her boyfriend. We’re only a quick call away though and we’ve gained a third child in the boyfriend. We miss her more than I can express. Then we have my other stepdaughter, one of the generation whose education has been massively affected by COVID. She has so many plans with friends that we now see her less so the loss is twofold. Then there’s the menopause, from sweating to vaginal atrophy it’s a veritable shitshow of symptoms that we’re just supposed to manage alongside everything else. To say I felt a kinship with our narrator Rocky, is an understatement. Again Catherine Newman has managed to put something on the page that’s raw, emotional and relatable. So much so that there were points in the book where I burst into tears.
Rocky is a great narrator in that I was immediately comfortable with her and believed in her world. This book was such an easy read and flowed so beautifully that I finished it in a day. A family trip to the Cape Cod holiday home they’ve rented since the children were small throws a family that’s scattered to the four winds, under one roof. Eldest child Tim is there with girlfriend Maya and student Willa has travelled from her college and meets them there. Later in the week grandma and grandad will join them for two days and of course there’s the ancient cat. They are rather piled in on tap of one another but they couldn’t come here to a different, bigger rental because so many of their memories have been made in this house. During the course of the week Rocky will learn and divulge some secrets, all of them filtered through her anxiety and what husband Nick calls a hint of narcissism. This family were so like my own that I deeply appreciated my upbringing, even though some of it wasn’t easy – we never had money, found a secret sibling then happily lost them again, mum and dad had their turbulent years. Yet I always felt loved and that’s what there’s a surfeit of in this family, everyone loves everyone else even when they disagree. Rocky is a passionate and emotionally intelligent mother, the sort of mum you might go to with a secret. She also happy to be schooled where she gets it wrong, especially where daughter Willa is concerned. She might use the wrong pronouns and need to check her privilege occasionally but largely she’s the sort of mum you want. She feels things almost too deeply and I understood that in her. She wants to breathe in her children when they’re little. She reminds me a little of something my mum and Mother, my great-grandmother, used to say when my brother and me were little: ‘ I could eat you on a butty without salt’.
I think Catherine Newman is brilliant when it comes to trauma and intergenerational family dynamics. There was a moment, as Rocky was reminiscing about a time when she miscarried that made me feel like she’d read my mind. I had recurrent miscarriages in my twenties and I’d never been desperate for children till I lost the first one. No one explained that grief can manifest in strange ways, in fact after my operation (which I’d had to consent to on a termination form) I was told when it would be physically possible to try again, but never that it might be a good idea to grieve first. To take time. As far as emotions went I was given a leaflet of phone numbers of women who’d had miscarriages – with the warning that in a lot of cases I might hear children in the background. I couldn’t bear to hear that so I didn’t call. What I do remember from that time was buying pregnancy tests in bulk and checking frequently whether I might be pregnant again, even if I’d already checked yesterday and knew I wasn’t. The author writes about Rocky staring at pregnancy tests, imagining she can see the second line in the window and trying again for the answer she really wants. I truly felt her pain in those moments and my own. I felt slightly less mad. To realise this was an understandable response to grief was so comforting. Every emotion I felt in those terrible couple of years was due to grief. I felt a failure, defective and terribly separate from people as if I was looking at life through a glass screen. Now thirty years later I’d like to thank Catherine for the way she handled this difficult story line because I finally felt less alone. I really admired the way she wrote about post-natal depression too. When my mum had my younger brother I was only four years old, but for years afterwards she had a morbid obsession that he was going to die. Every time something happened in his life she worried that this would be it. Now he would be taken away from her. I have to say that sometimes this felt very dismissive of me. Her explanation when I asked if she’d ever thought the same about me was that I could look after myself, despite me spending a long time in hospitals. This aspect of PND is something I’d never considered before and helped me to understand where she was coming from a little better.
I thought the author beautifully described how women are more aware of their bodies because we’re trained to be. In a medical world that’s often dismissive of things like period pain ( or anything that falls into the category of gynaecology and obstetrics) as a natural process, the author shows how these things truly feel physically and mentally. We have to ‘know’ as soon as we’ve got our period because the shame of being seen to bleed is fierce, especially as period shaming seems to be rife in secondary schools. Our minds and bodies are connected so we know if something is a normal pain or a pain that has a different feeling or intensity. As Rocky loses the idea of the baby she’s carrying, she’s also physically losing the baby. These moments are raw because the emotions are. There’s a desperation in physically losing a baby. The mind does gymnastics trying to find a way to keep them inside you where it’s safe. As Rocky reminisces about this time, the unresolved emotions are clear and perhaps stirred up by menopause symptoms and having her babies under one roof. I enjoyed Rocky and Nick’s marriage too. It’s not perfect and they haven’t really connected for a while, physically or mentally. When he stumbles on a long held secret it throws their dislocation into the spotlight and gives them the opportunity to talk. He still loves her, despite the fact she’s a bit of a narcissist. She recognises that throughout the holiday Nick has been cooking, organising, driving everyone and just quietly looking after everyone. They’ve been in their mum and dad roles for so long they’ve forgotten how to be Rocky and Nick. It’s something of a relief for Rocky to know that Nick still desires her, despite the expanding waistline and loss of libido. Also, as Nick points out, it’s hard to get close to someone when there’s a huge secret between them.
I connected with this novel so deeply and I raced through it in a day. I simply sat and read without music or any other distractions, that’s how engrossed I was in this family’s story. Each generation had it’s own issues to deal with. The grandparents are facing health issues and their eventual loss of each other, brought into sharp focus when grandma faints at the beach. Ricky’s son and his girlfriend are facing some huge life choices. Even great-grandparents cause a drama when Rocky’s dad lets slip that they were in a concentration camp, something Rocky’s never known. Rocky and Nick are the meat in this emotional sandwich. Catherine Newman has once again written a novel about family that is truthful, funny and life-affirming. I can easily see this being on my end of year list.
Published on 6th June by Doubleday
Meet the Author
Catherine Newman is the author of the kids’ how-to books How to Be a Person and What Can I Say?, the memoirs Catastrophic Happiness and Waiting for Birdy, the middle-grade novel One Mixed-Up Night, and the grown-up novels We All Want Impossible Things (Harper 2022) and Sandwich (Harper 2024). She edits the non-profit kids’ cooking magazine ChopChop and is a regular contributor to the New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, Cup of Jo, and many other publications. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with her family.
Finally some sunshine! This is my reading nook in the living room, where I disappear to when I want to be in the same room with everyone but away from the TV end. I love the way the sun streaks through this window in the late afternoon until it sets. It’s been busy again this month and next month is crazy! I guess this is just what being a book blogger is like. Here are my favourites this month, lots of crime fiction and a couple of brilliant historical/crime combinations too.
The Small Museum by Jody Cooksley
A shiver thrilled my spine at the thought of what might be contained in collections to be kept away from ordinary eyes…
London, 1873. Madeleine Brewster’s marriage to Dr Lucius Everley was meant to be the solution to her family’s sullied reputation. After all, Lucius is a well-respected collector of natural curiosities. His ‘Small Museum’ of bones and specimens in jars is his pride and joy, although firmly kept under lock and key. His sister Grace’s philanthropic work with fallen women is also highly laudable.
However, Maddie soon finds herself unwelcome in what is meant to be her new home. The more she learns about both Lucius and Grace, the more she suspects that unimaginable horrors lie behind their polished reputations.
Framed for a crime that would take her to the gallows and leave the Everleys free to continue their dark schemes, Maddie’s only hope is her friend Caroline. She will do anything to prove Maddie’s innocence before the trial reaches its fatal conclusion.
This is a cracking gothic thriller where Maddie has only two choices: shut up and remain complicit in a potentially horrific scheme or try to speak up and be labelled a madwoman. All in all, this is a really well written and researched novel with all the ingredients I love in an historical novel: a fantastic sense of time and place; strong female characters that break through the Victorian ‘Angel in the House’ stereotype; those Gothic elements to bring a sense of mystery. Then added to this are the addictive twists and turns of a crime novel. What an incredible debut this is!
The Maiden by Kate Foster
Kate Foster has taken a real life news report and turned it into an incredible read, full of historical detail and intrigue. It’s the late 17th Century and Lady Christian Nimmo lives with her sister Johanna and her mother at their lavish home in Scotland. Although their home is becoming less lavish by the month because since their father’s death she notices pale spaces where paintings or rugs once lived. Their fortunes are at the mercy of their uncle by marriage. James Forrester is laird of the neighbouring castle where he lives with Christian’s invalid aunt Lillias. James comes for dinner and departs with a little more of their family history packed away for sale. The girls must marry well and it is Johanna with her bubbly personality and pretty face who is proposed to first. For her wedding to Robert Gregory, Christian’s uncle sends her a beautiful brooch to wear and she is pleased at his kindness and the acknowledgement that she might feel left behind that day. However, she does enjoy the attentions of the fabric merchant Andrew Nimmo who brings them new fabric and entertains them with tales of sailing to far off lands and the night sky at sea. Marriage to him would be interesting andadventurous, all the things that Christian yearns for when she reads novels and poetry. So when he proposes she accepts happily, sharing her sister’s new found marriage advice and looking forward to being mistress of her own house. Yet only months later she is detained for the suspected murder of her Uncle James, killed by his own sword under a sycamore tree in the grounds of his castle. How has it come to this and will Christian have to face the infamous ‘Maiden’, a guillotine where Scotland’s aristocratic condemned meet their fate?
What the author does that makes this novel sing is combining the time period and story to the structure of a modern crime thriller. Just when we think we know everything, she trips us up with a different perspective or twist we didn’t see coming. Some revelations throw a completely different light on everything that has gone before bringing that excitement and compelling you to keep reading. I genuinely didn’t know how it would be resolved until we arrived there and once we did it was obvious this was the only way for it to end. Utterly brilliant and definitely a debut worthy of it’s accolades.
The Bookshop Ladies by Faith Hogan.
One sure way to entice us bookworms is to write a book about books and this one has all the warmth, friendship and female empowerment we would expect from a Faith Hogan novel. It’s like receiving a big warming hug, but in book form. Our central character is Joy and we meet her at a hugely traumatic point in her life. Joy lives in Paris with her husband Yves Bachand, a well-known art dealer who has made the career of many a new struggling artist. Joy has a very successful career of her own in public relations. Everything is turned upside down when Yves suffers a massive heart attack and in his dying moments manages to tell Joy he has a daughter. Over the next few weeks as Joy starts to comes to terms with losing her husband, she’s also trying to get her head around his dying words. Could he possibly have been unfaithful? The whole idea adds a new level of devastation because Joy and Yves couldn’t have children of their own. Their solicitor approaches Joy about an unusual request in his will, he has bequeathed a painting he owned to a girl called Robyn. We’re back in the gorgeous coastal village of Ballycove, where our other main character Robyn lives. Robyn has a small bookshop, with largely second hand books on various subjects from rare birds to trains. Although Robyn has put the stock onto online book sites she isn’t exactly turning a profit and she wonders if she’s made a big mistake. Her grandfather Albert suggests that she hire someone or find a volunteer to do a few hours in the shop to free Robyn up for business planning and working on her vision for the shop. Into this scenario walks Joy, renting the flat above Albert’s and hoping to stay for only a couple of weeks in order to pass on the painting. She can see that it belongs with Robyn as it was painted by her mother Fern. Joy both welcomes and dreads meeting Robyn and definitely her mother. If she can do it quickly, almost like ripping off a band aid, she can get the painting handed over and be back on a plane to Paris in no time. However, she hadn’t factored Robyn into the equation. She walks past the shop twice plucking up courage and when she does finally walk in she’s so taken aback by this girl who looks so much like Yves she could only be his daughter. Stunned into silence, Robyn’s chatter takes over and she assumes that Joy is there to apply for the position she advertised in the window. In her stunned state Joy doesn’t argue and soon she is Robyn’s new book assistant.
I really enjoyed the women in this novel, especially Joy who is so resilient and generous with her time, her emotions and her heart. I felt like Ballycove worked it’s usual magic, but Joy matches it, bringing her enthusiasm and joie de vive to the bookshop. She’s using her professional skills of course, but there is just that touch of enchantment about her too. She’s like a bookish Mary Poppins. However, would Robyn’s mum Fern immediately know who Joy was and what would it do to her relationship with Robyn? I felt sad that Joy might lose everything she’s built in Ballycove and the sense of family she’s enjoyed with Robyn and her grandfather. There’s a lovely little romantic subplot and a lot of personal growth on Robyn’s part, particularly the unresolved emotions around being bullied at school. The word that always best describes Faith’s writing is charming. It’s like making new best friends and although her stories are emotional and raise serious issues, they are always uplifting too. This felt like a lovely warm hug in a book and added lots of ideas to my imaginary future bookshop.
Toxic by Helga Flatland
When Mathilde is forced to leave her teaching job in Oslo after her relationship with eighteen-year-old Jacob is exposed, she flees to the countryside for a more authentic life.
Her new home is a quiet cottage on the outskirts of a dairy farm run by Andres and Johs, whose hobbies include playing the fiddle and telling folktales – many of them about female rebellion and disobedience, and seeking justice, whatever it takes.
Toxic was a perfect read for me because the author creates such psychologically detailed characters and a setting so real I felt like I was there. Helga never underestimates the intelligence of her readers, assuming we’ll make sense of these complex characters and their backgrounds. The story is structured using two narrative voices, that of Mathilde and Johs. Johs’s narrative establishes both his family and the setting of the farm where Mathilde will make her new home. At first the narratives seemed completely divorced from each other; life at the farm is only just starting to undergo change after the rather stifling management of their grandfather Johannes, whereas Mathilde is a city dweller who seems hellbent on pushing boundaries and pursuing freedom. It is that search for freedom, during the COVID pandemic, that starts Mathilde hankering after a more rural life and losing her job is the catalyst for taking action. Quickly I became so drawn in by the two narratives that I stopped worrying about a link and once Johs and Mathilde are on the same farm their differences create a creeping sense of foreboding.
The author uses local Nordic myths and songs to give us a sense of the history of the area, but also the attitudes towards modernity and women. I found these songs harmless at first, simply a part of a community where families have remained for generations. However, the more I heard, especially with their interpretations from granddad Johannes who performs them on his Hardinger fiddle, the more the content felt controlling and misogynistic. Johs and Mathilde show how different backgrounds and life experiences rub up against each other. Two different upbringings have created opposite values and lifestyles. Yet I felt a dangerous antipathy building towards Mathilde and that one wrong move could cause this tinder box to ignite. With her lack of boundaries, that wrong move seemed very possible. I was surprised by where the ending came, although not shocked. As I took a moment and thought back, every single second we spend with each character is building towards this moment. Utterly brilliant.
Boys Who Hurt by Eva Björg Aegisdottir
We’re back with Detective Elma in the fifth of the author’s Forbidden Iceland series and she is returning to work from maternity leave when a body is found in a holiday cottage by a lakeside. The victim’s name is Thorgeir, who has grown up in Akranes and in a coincidence typical to small towns, his mother is Elma’s neighbour. The cottage belongs to the family and the evidence suggests Thorgeir was not alone – there were two wine glasses and a lacy thong is found under the bed. He is found in the bed, with stab wounds and the line of a well known hymn is written on the wall behind the bed, in blood. With Saever on paternity leave with their daughter Adda, Elma works alongside her brilliantly grumpy boss Hörour to solve the murder. Several leads come to light. Thorgeir was working with his friend Matthías on an exercise and well-being app and had secured a large sum of money as an investment, but from an unexpected source. The hymn is well known, often sung at a popular Christian camp for teenagers and refers to the washing away of sin – had Thorgeir needed such forgiveness? Matthías and his wife Hafdis mentioned a young woman that Thorgeir had been seeing recently, but there is no sign of Andrea anywhere. The friends had attended camps together as teenagers, but on one such occasion a young man called Heioar had died out on the lake in the night, in similar circumstances to Thorgeir’s father’s death a few years before. It’s soon clear that many secrets are hidden in Akranes, some of them within Elma’s own home.
It sometimes feels like every home in Akranes holds an ocean of pain and unresolved trauma. There’s so much going on just under the surface, an intergenerational trauma that seems to come partly from religion and partly from rigid expectations. One of the most complex relationships is between Thorgeir and his new girlfriend. I was fascinated with her narratives showing how attraction and repulsion can co-exist between two damaged people. Also, how one terrible deed doesn’t define a person. This was a brilliant thriller, exposing a dark underside to Akranes and keeping me guessing to the very end.
Look out for my full review on the blog tour last month.
The Cuckoo by Camilla Lackberg
A community torn apart
As a heavy mist rolls into the Swedish coastal town of Fjällbacka, shocking violence shakes the small community to its core. Rolf Stenklo, a famous photographer, is found murdered in his gallery. Two days later, a brutal tragedy on a private island leaves the prestigious Bauer family devastated.
A town full of secrets
With his boss acting strangely, Detective Patrik Hedström is left to lead the investigation. Tensions rise threatening cracks in the team of officers at Tanumshede police station and pressure mounts as the press demand answers.
A reckoning in blood
In pursuit of inspiration for her next true-crime book, Patrik’s wife Erica Falck leaves behind their three children and travels to Stockholm to research the unsolved decades-old murder of a figure from Rolf’s past. As Erica searches for the truth, she realizes that her mystery is connected to Patrik’s case. These threads from the past are woven into the present and old sins leave behind long shadows.
This was my first Camilla Lackberg novel and I thoroughly enjoyed my introduction into the world of Detective Patrik Hedström and his wife Erica. At first it didn’t grab me. I couldn’t remember all of the characters and how they all related to each other at the party. Henning and Elizabeth Bauer are celebrating their wedding anniversary with family and friends, but sprinkled amongst the celebrations the author places little hints of menace or disquiet. As Henning’s son Rikard stands to make a speech we realise all is not well in their relationship. Even worse the couple’s oldest friend Rolf has declined to come, but is over in the gallery organising the photos for his exhibition with an ominous final pair entitled ‘innocence’ and ‘guilt’. Old secrets are stirring and when Rolf is found dead, killed by a nail gun, Patrik has to look at who had something against him. His wife Vivian is shocked and devastated, especially since she was partying the night away. Could there be a link to his exhibition? Or was there something to uncover at Blanche, the club that the friends owned together? Then the next day, when a terrible discovery is made on the Bauer’s private island the pressure mounts on Patrik to find out who could have committed such a sickening crime. Meanwhile his wife Erica has a link to the crime through Louise, Henning’s daughter-in- law. Erica finds herself drawn to a certain aspect of the crimes, through Rolf’s photographs which appear to have featured women in the transgender community. It seems that many years ago the group were linked to another terrible murder. I was fascinated by the narrative told to us by this previous victim, a transgender woman called Lola. She felt to me like the most developed of the characters and through her I became hooked on finding out who had done this and untangling the fascinating relationships between this lauded group. This was a tangled web and I thoroughly enjoyed unpicking it.
The Midnight House by Eve Chase
I love Eve’s writing: her female characters; the secrets from the past just waiting to spill out; the gothic feel and atmosphere she creates, especially around old houses; lastly, it’s the dynamics she creates between the characters particularly the mothers and daughters. Here she gathers all these aspects together with an intriguing plot and such a relatable central character in Maggie. Maggie is an author, living in Paris and struggling with writer’s block. Something from her shared past with brother Kit keeps coming into her mind. Her mind keeps being drawn back to her teenage years her mother Dee Dee was a famous model, living in the Notting Hill area of London, close to the Portobello Road with it’s antique and collectible traders. One summer morning, Maggie wakes up to find that Dee Dee hasn’t come home. This isn’t too unusual, late parties and sometimes modelling shoots can drag on into the night. She loves spending time with brother Kit anyway. They go out with Kit’s skateboard and he has a fall, breaking one of the wheels. A stranger comes to their aid, dusting Kit down and trying to repair the wheel. He introduces himself as Wolf and when his eyes lock with Maggie’s it’s instantaneous, first time and first sight love. He recognises the connection too, so he takes the skateboard back to his uncle’s antique shop to properly fix Kit’s skateboard. Just so he has an excuse to go back. Maggie navigates this new feeling, but is also concerned for her mother who still hasn’t come home. Adult Maggie needs to visit home and ask her Aunt Cora some questions. Once in London she makes her way to the old house with the pink door and bumps into a man on his way out. She’s surprised to see this is Marco, Dee Dee’s hairdresser. He tells Maggie he’s digging out the basement of the house and sends her into a complete panic. Maggie knows that secrets lurk in the garden of their old home and it might not be long before they’re found… I loved the depiction of first love in this beautiful novel and the mystery unwinds slowly like a maze. Her best yet.
One sure way to entice us bookworms is to write a book about books and this one has all the warmth, friendship and female empowerment we would expect from a Faith Hogan novel. It’s like receiving a big warming hug, but in book form. Our central character is Joy and we meet her at a hugely traumatic point in her life. Joy lives in Paris with her husband Yves Bachand, a well-known art dealer who has made the career of many a new struggling artist. Joy has a very successful career of her own in public relations. Everything is turned upside down when Yves suffers a massive heart attack and in his dying moments manages to tell Joy he has a daughter. Over the next few weeks as Joy starts to comes to terms with losing her husband, she’s also trying to get her head around his dying words. Could he possibly have been unfaithful? The whole idea adds a new level of devastation because Joy and Yves couldn’t have children of their own. Their solicitor approaches Joy about an unusual request in his will, he has bequeathed a painting he owned to a girl called Robyn. When Joy returns home she goes into Yves’s office where the painting hangs and studies it, trying to see what he saw in this particular work of the Seine. Joy takes in the muddy coloured water, the litter and the green surroundings and thinks it could be a river anywhere. There is nothing to suggest this is the Seine that lovers travelling to Paris dream of walking along. Where are the honey coloured stones, the lampposts and the bridges? It takes time for her to notice anything about it she likes, but there is a streak of light that catches her eye in the top corner. The more she looks at it the more she wonders whether it was this glimmer that kept bringing Yves back to the painting. A promise that the grey cloud would lift and the sun would break through changing the whole scene to something altogether more hopeful. In this moment she makes a decision, she will travel to a Ireland and put this painting in the hands of Robyn herself.
We’re back in the gorgeous coastal village of Ballycove, where our other main character Robyn lives. Robyn has a small bookshop, with largely second hand books on various subjects from rare birds to trains. It’s been just ticking over for several years and while Robyn’s family own the building, including her flat above the shop, she has taken over the stock from it’s previous owner Douglas who has retired. To say the shop is a little tired is an understatement and it really needs some pizzazz to bring it back to life again. Yet it is lovely in it’s own way with it’s floor to ceiling bookshelves and their carvings of animals, little rooms for every subject and a darling little children’s section in a small nook. Although Robyn has put the stock onto online book sites she isn’t exactly turning a profit and she wonders if she’s made a big mistake. Her grandfather Albert suggests that she hire someone or find a volunteer to do a few hours in the shop to free Robyn up for business planning and working on her vision for the shop. Into this scenario walks Joy, renting the flat above Albert’s and hoping to stay for only a couple of weeks in order to pass on the painting. She can see that it belongs with Robyn as it was painted by her mother Fern. Joy both welcomes and dreads meeting Robyn and definitely her mother. If she can do it quickly, almost like ripping off a band aid, she can get the painting handed over and be back on a plane to Paris in no time. However, she hadn’t factored Robyn into the equation. She walks past the shop twice plucking up courage and when she does finally walk in she’s so taken aback by this girl who looks so much like Yves she could only be his daughter. Stunned into silence, Robyn’s chatter takes over and she assumes that Joy is there to apply for the position she advertised in the window. In her stunned state Joy doesn’t argue and soon she is Robyn’s new book assistant. Joy walks away wondering what on earth she’s done and how she’ll cope if Robyn’s mum turns up before she leaves.
I really enjoyed the women in this novel, especially Joy who is so resilient and generous with her time, her emotions and her heart. I felt like Ballycove worked it’s usual magic, but Joy matches it, bringing her enthusiasm and joie de vive to the bookshop. She’s using her professional skills of course, but there is just that touch of enchantment about her too. She’s like a bookish Mary Poppins, thinking up events and little touches to brighten the place including a toy train track which is one of my favourite parts of the brilliant Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland. Yet it’s the fact that she’s giving her time and expertise freely to her husband’s secret daughter that makes her all the more extraordinary. Yet I think she gets something special from Robyn too. Robyn allows her to spend time with someone with the characteristics and mannerisms of Yves and in a sense it seems to comfort her that he’s still here in the form of this shy, bookish girl. I also think Robyn balances some of the grief Joy went through when they lost their own baby who would have been a similar age. I was waiting to see what would happen when Robin’s mother Fern arrived. Would Fern immediately know who Joy was and what would it do to her relationship with Robyn? I felt sad that Joy might lose everything she’s built in Ballycove and the sense of family she’s enjoyed with Robyn and her grandfather. There’s a lovely little romantic subplot and a lot of personal growth on Robyn’s part, particularly the unresolved emotions around being bullied at school. The word that always best describes Faith’s writing is charming. It’s like making new best friends and although her stories are emotional and raise serious issues, they are always uplifting too. This felt like a lovely warm hug in a book and added lots of ideas to my imaginary future bookshop.
Meet the Author
Faith Hogan is an award-winning, million copy best selling author. She is a USA Today Bestseller, Irish Times Top Ten and Kindle Number 1 Best Selling writer of nine contemporary fiction novels. Her books have featured as Book Club Favorites, Net Galley Hot Reads and Summer Must Reads. She writes grown up women’s fiction which is unashamedly uplifting, feel-good and inspiring.
Her new summer read The Guest House By The Sea is out now and it’s a great big welcome back to Ballycove for her readers.
She writes twisty contemporary crime fiction as Geraldine Hogan.
She lives in the west of Ireland with her family and a sausage-loving Labrador named Penny. She’s a writer, reader, enthusiastic dog walker and reluctant jogger – except of course when it is raining!
Just when Abi thinks she’s getting her big break as a movie make-up artist, everything starts to go wrong. When she’s told her booking on Moonmen was a mistake, she wonders if it had anything to do with her encounter in a sauna with a good looking guy who wasn’t honest about who he was. Nevertheless she has been paid for a month and when she tells her best friend Holly, she says there’s no excuse not to fly out to Tuscany and pay her a long overdue visit. When she makes it to San Gimignano she’s charmed by the ancient town and the lovely B and B that she’s booked into. The owners, Mia and Paulo are just starting out and Abi has the chance to be a guinea pig, sampling their food, activities and the wine from the attached vineyard. Then she meets Tony, a handsome American Italian man at Holly and her boyfriend Xavier’s restaurant and she decides to have a little holiday fling. Since the heartbreak she encountered in her last long term relationship, Abi has a rule when it comes to affairs of the heart; single encounters only because then she can’t get attached and can’t be hurt. However, something told me that Tony might not be discouraged as easily as she thinks.
Well this novel is a lovely slice of Italian sunshine! It can be read in a day and is the perfect escapist read. I’m not a usual romance reader so this wasn’t something I’d normally pick up. I wasn’t even sure I was going to like it at first because Abi was the type of person who rubs me up the wrong way. In fact there were moments I wanted to give her a slap. When we first meet her she’s running everywhere, helping her Mum out with hair and make-up when an ill advised spray tan and hair tint have left her looking like an Oompa Loompa. Luckily Abi has all the fixes to get her glowing again then she’s off picking up balloons and cake, getting changed and decorating a party room ready for her friend’s surprise birthday ‘do’. She’s so precise and controlled about everything. The discipline she has to get up every morning and pull on her running gear, even when she isn’t working, made me shudder.
‘A quick shower and I was in full make-up by 7.35am and ready for the day ahead. Which suddenly felt like a lot of time to fill. I made the pot of chamomile tea and opened my notepad to start a fresh, new list and get myself organised. I loved a list. It helped me feel in control.’
Abi is all routine and organisation, with no fun or relaxation. Luckily I’m a huge fan of transformation and I had a feeling that this one was going to be worth waiting for. I really enjoyed the humour in the story and I knew if anything could change someone Italy could. Abi loosened up by slow degrees – with a cake for breakfast here and a lie-in there. This is mainly because Italy forces her to be spontaneous. Despite a well planned itinerary Abi can’t sightsee because the buses don’t always run on time and sometimes don’t turn even up. People often close their shops to pop for lunch or an afternoon nap when the heat becomes too much. There’s nothing to do some days except be in the pool and the shade. She soon realises that La Dolce Vita is the only way and she’ll have to get on board with it. I started to enjoy this more relaxed Abi and as we hear more of her story and her feelings of loss and heartbreak the more we understand her.
The setting is simply magical. The vineyard view with the red roofs of the town in the distance sounded idyllic and the food made my mouth water. I’m also a massive fan of Glow-Up even though I rarely use make-up myself, so I loved all the detail about Abi’s career and how skilled she is creating everything from a face painted with bunches of grapes to a full Venetian mask with feathers and gold detailing. When she’s using her skills to help the vineyard and the people she loves, Abi really does shine. I did get drawn in by the romance because it’s impossible to dislike Tony. He’s a straight forward decent man who doesn’t play games and respects Abi’s boundaries. I wanted him to be able to break them down, but I didn’t know if he’d be able to. Ironically, in her desperate need to avoid being hurt, she’s hurting herself. I felt like I’d had a holiday myself when I finished the book. I’d thoroughly enjoyed the villa, especially the wine festival with its incredible food and a fairy lit pergola – the perfect venue for dancing the night away. The family of puppies were pretty irresistible too. Venice was the absolute crowning glory of the story, with Abi making-up the movie stars she’s longed to work with and dealing out some sweet revenge at the same time. Plus it’s my favourite place in the world so that helps. It’s wonderfully uplifting to see someone leave behind painful and negative patterns, it’s one of the reasons I love counselling. Even more than I wanted Abi to find romance, I wanted her to truly live life again instead of trying to control it. I could see a whole new world opening up for her and that made for a very satisfying read. I remember a bit of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert where she’s done the praying and the eating and falls in love on the island of Bali. She goes to her herbal doctor who listens as she panics that she’s not kept to her meditation routine and she’s going to lose the balance she’d worked so hard for. Her doctor smiles at this and points out that if we look at our lives overall there has to be some imbalance, otherwise it won’t be balanced. This is something Abi has had to realise for herself.
‘I didn’t want to slip back into my old, controlling ways. I needed to start taking chances again. My lists had to be less about cleaning and more about trying new things and going to new places. I’d wasted so much time…’
And what about Tony? I’ll leave you to find that out for yourself.
Meet the Author
Carrie Walker is a Brummie born romcom lover with a lifelong passion for travel. She has lived in a ski resort, by a beach, in the country and the city, and travelled solo through Asia, South America and Europe.
Her own love life was more com than rom until she met her husband a few years ago and settled down with him and her dog Ziggy in a pub-filled village in Essex.
Longlisted for Helen Lederer’s Comedy Women in Print prize in 2021, writing has long been Carrie’s side hustle, penning columns and features for newspapers and magazines, while working in many other jobs. She has been the CEO of a global disability movement, a board director of a brand agency, the editor of a newspaper, a radio presenter, a football mascot, dressed up as a carrot for the BBC and now she is writing books. Escape to the Swiss Chalet was her debut novel.
Kate Foster has taken a real life news report and turned it into an incredible read, full of historical detail and intrigue. It’s the late 17th Century and Lady Christian Nimmo lives with her sister Johanna and her mother at their lavish home in Scotland. Although their home is becoming less lavish by the month because since their father’s death she notices pale spaces where paintings or rugs once lived. Their fortunes are at the mercy of their uncle by marriage. James Forrester is laird of the neighbouring castle where he lives with Christian’s invalid aunt Lillias. James comes for dinner and departs with a little more of their family history packed away for sale. The girls must marry well and it is Johanna with her bubbly personality and pretty face who is proposed to first. For her wedding to Robert Gregory, Christian’s uncle sends her a beautiful brooch to wear and she is pleased at his kindness and the acknowledgement that she might feel left behind that day. Not all of her uncle’s attentions are welcome though and although he keeps pressing her to visit his castle to sketch and paint with her aunt she isn’t sure. However, she does enjoy the attentions of the fabric merchant Andrew Nimmo who brings them new fabric and entertains them with tales of sailing to far off lands and the night sky at sea. Christian daydreams about sailing alongside him and seeing some of these sights. Noticing her enthusiasm he cuts her a piece of silvery fabric that is the colour of a stormy sea. Next time he brings a sample of midnight blue velvet, shot through with an ocean green and she is very charmed. Marriage to him would be interesting and adventurous, all the things that Christian yearns for when she reads novels and poetry. So when he proposes she accepts happily, sharing her sister’s new found marriage advice and looking forward to being mistress of her own house. Yet only months later she is detained for the suspected murder of her Uncle James, killed by his own sword under a sycamore tree in the grounds of his castle. How has it come to this and will Christian have to face the infamous ‘Maiden’, a guillotine where Scotland’s aristocratic condemned meet their fate?
However, this isn’t just Lady Christian’s story. The novel is split into two narrators: Christian and Violet, a prostitute from Mrs Fiddes’s brothel in Edinburgh. For both, there are two timelines; the present after the death of the laird and the events leading up to it. Until finally past and present come together. Violet is a very young girl, and has been resident at the brothel since Mrs Fiddes sold off her virginity. The scenes within the brothel are brilliant; bawdy, coarse and incredibly colourful. Mrs Fiddes knows every customer’s taste and predilection, she’s shrewd and knows that this gives her a certain amount of power. She’s keeping their secrets close until she really needs them. Violet’s friend is fellow resident Ginger, a skinny young girl with red hair who lives on the same corridor. One evening a rather distinctive man comes in to choose a girl, a man who doesn’t wear a wig which is unusual. He looks past Violet and chooses Ginger, but it’s not long before she is also occupied. It’s not long before Violet hears a terrible commotion and she rushes down the corridor, but it’s too late. The man is gone and Ginger is left like a broken doll on the floor. In the aftermath Violet longs for her luck to turn. When she’s out one morning she notices a wedding taking place and lingers to watch because sometimes men who are celebrating and have had a few drinks might look for a girl. She’s in luck when a very wealthy looking man catches her eye. Before long he’s slipped into the parlour and is so pleased with Violet that he makes an offer. He would like to take her back to his castle for the weekend. As he shows her a secret room in one of the castle’s turrets she is amused by the illuminating art work, but amazed by the lavish surroundings she will be staying in and the maid who will bring her meals and make sure she has what she needs.
Like all the servants Oriana knows the laird has his amusements and they are kept quite separate from the lady of the house whose illness usually keeps her tucked away upstairs. Violet could get used to this sort of treatment, but the power lies with the laird. She might have fallen on her feet for now, but what if he loses interest? When he starts to receive visits from a lady of quality, Violet fears it’s the end for their liaison and starts to think up a scheme to get the upper hand. Meanwhile, Lady Christian’s marriage is not what she expected, not only is Andrew often away for long periods leaving her behind, there has been no physical contact between them. She and her sister often read and giggled over the ‘marriage book’ they found in the library at home, especially when Johanna was engaged. However, Andrew has never made an advance to his wife. Christian is still untouched and although she has a wonderful home and wants for nothing, she can’t help but want to be desired. As her uncle invites her to his castle for a visit she can’t help but think about the special attention he has paid her over the years and her pulse quickens. Could she really think about having an affair with her aunt’s husband? I could understand her need to be wanted, why should she be satisfied with simply being the lady of the house. For many the huge house, the money and the security for them and their family would be enough. It’s interesting to see the interplay between the two characters; Violet would probably be happy to settle for the things Christian has, but Christian could be contemplating risking it all for the freedom to express her sexuality. I felt she was chasing just a glimmer of the adoration that her sister Johanna has enjoyed all her life thanks to the luck of being born beautiful.
The author has created two incredible characters in these very different women, both are bravely sexually transgressive but sadly live in a world where men hold all of the power. The settings are wonderfully evocative and range from lavish to squalid, a combination we see clearly in the city of Edinburgh. As Violet observes the wedding, noting the quality of the guest’s clothing she is also aware of watching her footing lest she slip in the contents of a chamber pot flung from a window into the street below. The gap between rich and poor is more of a canyon, best expressed when Violet finds an opportunity to roam the castle and finds a brooch in the shape of a sword. It’s just one of many that the residents have left languishing in a drawer, but Violet sells it she would have enough money to start a new life. The threat of sexual violence is always close by, not just for Violet and Ginger but for Christian too once she has lost the respectability her title and her husband gave her. What the author does that makes this novel sing is combining the time period and story to the structure of a modern crime thriller. Just when we think we know everything, she trips us up with a different perspective or twist we didn’t see coming. Some revelations throw a completely different light on everything that has gone before bringing that excitement and compelling you to keep reading. I genuinely didn’t know how it would be resolved until we arrived there and once we did it was obvious this was the only way for it to end. Utterly brilliant and definitely a debut worthy of it’s accolades.
Out now in paperback. Pictured copy is the Waterstones special signed edition.
Meet the Author
Kate Foster has been a national newspaper journalist for over twenty years. Growing up in Edinburgh, she became fascinated by its history and often uses it as inspiration for her stories. The Maiden won the Bloody Scotland Pitch Perfect 2020 prize for new writers. She lives in Edinburgh with her two children.
Kate’s new novel The King’s Watch is out on 6th June and is a Squad POD Collective book club pick for next month.
Another unusual family and a great mystery from Erin Kelly, my full review is coming this week, but the book is out now. Karen and Rex Capel seem like any normal couple nearing middle age, but there are many secrete in their past, particularly the truth about what happened ‘the night of…’ when two men were left dead, Rex’s sister Biba disappeared and Rex ended up in prison. The Capel family are rich, but Rex’s father found a younger wife and started a new family, leaving Rex adrift. Several things happen that destabilise this usually, rather quiet family. Rex and Karen’s daughter Alicia seems to be getting serious about eco warrior Gabe who she is dating and she also opens a vintage dress shop. Honestly, Erin Kelly had me as soon as I read the name of the shop – ‘Dead Girl’s Dresses.’ Roger Capel dies leaving her an inheritance including her grandmother and her aunt Biba’s wardrobe of clothes. A strange woman keeps appearing, even turning up at the shop in disguise and leaving several cryptic notes. Could Aunt Biba still be alive and might there still be secrets about ‘the night of’? An interesting and engaging mystery with a touch of Alice in Wonderland inspiration.
The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable.
I’m not going to say too much about this novel because it’s not out until the end of the summer. It is an incredible debut though and I was utterly spellbound by it. Set in 18th Century Venice, our heroine is Anna Maria an orphan handed over to the Ospedale Della Piéta as a baby. This community of nuns have a recess in a wall where a baby can be anonymously passed into their care. The girls are brought up to work within the hospital, scrubbing floors and doing laundry, but they also have the chance to learn a musical instrument. The best musicians have a chance to be taught by the music master and be part of his elite orchestra. Anna leaps off the page, she’s lively, talented and ambitious. She’s determined that her violin playing will bring her to the attention of the famous music master, because the alternatives don’t bear thinking about. This really is a book to look out for and I loved it.
My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes
I loved this dive straight back into the Walsh family after Again, Rachel. Rachel has always been my favourite Walsh, but in this latest novel Anna really did steal my heart. Anna is nearing her fiftieth birthday and her high flying PR role in the beauty business is wearing a little thin. Although she’s always loved living in NYC, the pandemic left her feeling the distance from her family in Ireland. After losing her husband Aidan in a terrible car accident several years ago, her contact with his family in Boston has waned. Her subsequent relationship with Angelo – a ‘feathery stroker’ – has been conducted with respect, equality and a deep fondness, but never passionate, all consuming love. With a need to be near those she loves, she gives notice on her job, her apartment and her relationship. Back in Ireland she is offered an emergency PR role for family friend Bridie who is opening a resort on farmland she owns near the coast. Her daughter is seriously ill and their building works have been vandalised overnight. With disgruntled locals and no time for the delicate negotiations required Bridie is begging Anna to work her magic. There’s only one problem, the financial broker on the deal is Joey Armstrong. He and Anna have unfinished business, will they be able to work together without stirring up the past? This is a fantastic novel, full of Marian’s trademark wit and emotional intelligence. I absolutely devoured it.
The Night in Question by Susan Fletcher
“Florrie learned, long ago, that society forgets an old person was ever young.”
Florrie Butterfield has been in poor health lately and her mobility starts to suffer, so rather sensibly she decides to sell her house and look for a residential home. She wants assisted living, where she can keep her freedom and independence but have help on hand if needed. When she finds Babbington Hall in the Oxfordshire countryside she thinks she’s found just the place. As she settles into her self-contained flat in the grounds she starts to make friends, when unexpectedly one of them is found dead near the compost heap. Arthur’s death could have been natural causes, but Florrie’s suspicions are aroused. Then something terrible happens. The home’s manager Renata approaches Florrie as someone she’d like to talk to about matters of the heart. It’s lovely to still be seen as someone useful, someone to confide in. Florrie looks forward to their get together, but that night as she looks out of her window at the storm brewing outside, she hears a scream. Then she sees a body fall from an upstairs window, from Renata’s room. So, Florrie sets out to investigate these deaths. Is there a murderer at large and if so what have they gained from killing a defenceless old man and the lovely Renata? This was a lovely mix of mystery and a woman looking back over her life, it brought back so many memories of working in nursing homes and the rich lives many of my residents had lived.
Goodbye Birdie Greenwing by Ericka Waller
I loved this beautiful story that revolved around an elderly lady called Birdie, who receives a terrible diagnosis from her doctor. Birdie is lonely. She has lived alone ever since an event that took away her sister and husband. She hasn’t been participating in life and even now she chooses to walk away from the hospital without the help or support offered. Birdie’s doctor Ada is also isolated. Having come to Brighton from Poland she has few friends, just the elderly man and his son who run the Polish shop nearby. When a new intern comes to work with her, this isolation is challenged and she is worried about Birdie who lives in the same road. She finds herself walking past and checking the house and garden for signs Birdie isn’t coping. Birdie also has new neighbours. Jane has moved to the south coast with her daughter Frankie to escape the rather claustrophobic influence of her mother Min. However, Frankie and Min are thick as thieves and share a rather abrupt and forthright manner. It’s sure that where Frankie has gone, Min will definitely follow eventually. It is Birdie’s predicament that brings all these women together in unusual ways. Ericka writes beautifully about mothers and daughters, the subtle cultural differences that influence how we support and help each other, as well as the personal growth that occurs when we let someone in. I thought this was a beautiful story and everyone I have recommended it to has enjoyed it too.
You Are Here by David Nicholls.
It’s been such a gift to have two of my favourite romantic writers with books out this month. Marian Keyes is a writing goddess! Equally David Nicholls writes about the experience of falling in love like no one else. As anyone who’s read or watched the Netflix series One Day can attest, David writes about those misunderstandings, obstacles, miscommunications and the minutia of relationships with such truth and charm. Here we have Michael and Marnie, each invited on a walking weekend in Cumbria by a mutual friend, Cleo, but with the intention of meeting someone else. Michael is closed off, hurt in the past and not able to let anyone in. Marnie is a great character, she’s funny, patient, and willing to go with the flow. The man she’s supposed to meet has a high stress and high paid job in London. He would suit her, geographically at least, but to be blunt he’s a bit of a dick. Marnie is a reader though, a translator of fiction and full of romantic ideals. She goes into the walk as a novice, breaking in new boots and not enamoured by the unfortunate weather. However, a transformation occurs over a couple of days as Marnie starts to appreciate the head space, the incredible views and just being out in the open air. Michael’s potential date doesn’t turn up, but he is still wrapped up in thoughts of his estranged wife. He does find himself drawn by Marnie though, noting how she looks when dressed for dinner at the hotel. He finds her perhaps a little too outspoken, she doesn’t hold back when finding the going a bit tough, but does respond to her sense of humour. As the main group make preparations to leave for the working week, Michael plans to walk on to the opposite coast and Robin Hood’s Bay. Marnie has nothing immediate in London and could easily walk alongside him a bit longer. How will they get along, just the two of them? This is a beautiful novel that’s somehow heartwarming thanks to it’s lack of traditional romance. This is two older people, who’ve been hurt, negotiating a challenge together and I was transfixed by the ‘will they won’t they’ of the story.
I was so glad to be invited to the paperback blog tour of this fantastic book, it’s been on the pile to read for a long while but other priorities kept popping up. I won’t ruin my full review because it’s out in a few days but I absolutely loved it. The Garnett girls of the title are Rachel, Imi and Sasha, all of them very close to each other and their mother Margo. All were living in London until Margo suggested that Rachel and her husband Gabriel move into the family home of Sandycove. The house is too big for one person and Margo is moving to a bungalow further into the village. Sandycove was their holiday home as children until their father Richard left and Margo moved the girls to the coast. In some ways Rachel enjoys living in the house but she still spends some time in London for work, leaving Gabriel and the girls behind. Margo is often in residence too, planning family events and cooking with Gabriel. There are times when she doesn’t feel that the house is theirs. Imi is in Venice, expecting a proposal from her perfect boyfriend William. She knows he’s going to propose because Margo and Rachel have called her every night for ‘news’. They think William is perfect for her, but is he? When Imi’s head is turned by a beautiful actress starring in her new play, it shakes the safe foundations of her life. Sasha is the rebellious daughter, her short pixie cut is a direct reaction to people in the village always telling her how much she looks like Margo. She’s married to Phil, who isn’t fond of the Garnett family and sits on the edge of family gatherings looking glum. The issues all of the girls are struggling with lie in a past they only vaguely remember. They struggle to live up to Margo and Richard’s wild and passionate romance, but was it really as wonderful as it sounds?
Night Watching by Tracy Sierra
I feel so lucky that two of the best thrillers so far this year have fallen into one reading month. This really is the most incredible, spine tingling and nerve-shredding story of a mother who is woken in the night by a heavy tread on the stairs. There’s someone in the house. Their home is isolated and she has two small children to protect. She remembers the strange hidden space next to the main chimney and quietly makes her way, gathering the children and begging them to be quiet. They make it into the crawl space, now all she has to do is keep the children quiet. As the footsteps move ever closer the tension mounts until the man is sitting in the adjoining office, talking to the children and asking them to come out of their hiding place. Thankfully he has no idea where it is. As he walks away to search other parts of the house, her little girl says she knows his voice. This is the man in the corner, the man from her nightmares who sits in her bedroom and whispers to her. My heart was in my mouth at this point. I didn’t know whether they were in a dream, whether this young mother was in the grip of madness, or if this was an intruder who’s been there before. This is a story that will keep you awake at night and is utterly brilliant.
House of Shades by Lianne Dillsworth
I awaited this novel with trepidation, having loved her first novel I really wanted this to be equally fascinating. Our heroine is Hester, a doctoress who has inherited the skills and potions of her mother and now earns a living treating the prostitutes of the King’s Cross area of London. Then she receives a job offer that could change her life and those of her husband Jos and sister Willa. Factory and plantation owner, Gervaise Cherville, offers her ten pounds to move into his mansion in Fitzrovia and treat his unknown ailments. This is life- changing money, especially for a black woman in the 19th Century. As Hester moves into Tall Trees she makes two discoveries: her sister Willa is enjoying a flirtation with Cherville’s son Rowland; Gervaise Cherville is a slave owner, not only on his plantation but here in his home. Cherville makes a request of Hester, if she can help him trace two slaves who lived at Tall Trees he will increase her payment to twenty pounds. This sum of money could take her family away from London altogether and take Willa out of the clutches of Rowland Cherville. The author portrays Hester beautifully as a woman who falls in between society’s rigid class structure. A black woman living in a Fitzrovian household, in the same accommodation as the housekeeper. She’s torn between helping her family and potentially harming another black woman, one who has fled the Cherville mansion with all the trauma of being a slave. Taking in class, race, ‘passing’ and the misogyny of men this is a deeply affecting story. My full review will be this month.
Prima Facie by Suzie Miller
This novel is an absolute tour de force and a damning indictment of the legal system when it comes to sexual offences. Tessa has come a long way to be a barrister in one of London’s best chambers. Born in Liverpool and raised on a Luton council estate she set her sights on Cambridge and achieved her goal. Tessa doesn’t have many beliefs but she does believe in the law, as a tool that isn’t perfect, but more or less delivers justice. As a barrister she doesn’t need to know whether the client is innocent or guilty, she just needs to find the holes in the prosecution’s story, something she can exploit to create reasonable doubt. She also believes that her experience and education have made her the equal of any rich, privately educated, and well-connected colleague. However, when a date with a fellow barrister goes wrong Tessa finds herself on the other side of the bench, she is now a witness and now someone will pick apart her story looking for the gaps and the holes, the fuzzy bits she isn’t quite sure of yet. Tessa is a character that pulls you into her world from the first page. Miller pulls apart the legal system like I’ve never seen before and watching Tessa lose faith in something she’s always believed in is really hard. In parts this is a hard read with trigger warnings for sexual assault, but it’s necessary. I had a visceral reaction to it. It made me think about whether the law truly is an equaliser or does justice depend on how deep your pockets are, who you went to school with, the colour of your skin, your gender. It also made me think about incidents in the past that newer generations of women simply would not tolerate and with good reason. I wish I has seen the play of the same name starring Jodie Comer who I can see was perfect for Tessa. I’m so grateful to my Squad Pod for choosing this as one of our March reads. This is a book I will think about long after popping it back on the shelf.
What if your soulmate could only ever be the love of your afterlife?
The first time Emery’s heart stops, she is only five years old…
Emery is born with a heart condition that means her heart could quite literally stop at any moment. The people around her know what to do – if they act quickly enough there will be no lasting damage, and Emery’s heart can be restarted. But when this happens, she is briefly technically dead.
Each time Emery’s heart stops, she meets Nick. His purpose is to help people adjust to the fact that they are dead, to help them say goodbye, before they move on entirely. He does not usually meet people more than once – but with Emery, he is able to make a connection, and he finds himself drawn to her.
As Emery’s life progresses, and she goes through ups and downs, she finds that a part of her is longing for those moments when her heart will stop – so that she can see Nick again.
This is the story of two fated lovers who long for each other, but are destined never to share more than a few fleeting moments – because if they were to be together, it would mean the end of Emery’s life.
I recently got married. Kev is my best friend and I can’t imagine daily life without him. Seventeen years ago I could never have imagined this scenario. Seventeen years ago my soul mate was taken away from me. Jerz and I had been together for seven years and I lost him by slow degrees over that time, as he slowly succumbed to breathing complications due to multiple sclerosis. One of the things I found so difficult about his death was just how final it was. I’ve often heard bereaved people say that they can feel their loved one’s presence, that they communicate with them or that they feel visited by them in some way. I felt nothing. I couldn’t believe that we could be so close in life, then have nothing. Somehow I thought our love could transcend death. I still love him of course, but nothing comes back. I wondered if our connection wasn’t as close as I imagined, or were those other people just kidding themselves? Unable to face the reality of death had they imagined the robin visiting their garden was a loved one? I had one night where I was so close to joining him. I couldn’t imagine carrying on. But somehow we do and I felt I would be letting him down if I didn’t fully live my life. Kev and I talk about him often and he knows that if he goes first he must find Jez and share stories of what it’s like to be married to me. So, in a way I felt I had some investment in this story. I have my very own Nick in the afterlife, but I’ve met mine before. I wasn’t sure about a love with someone completely new in the hereafter. I wasn’t even sure what Nick was – Death, the Devil, an angel? However, I was fascinated with Emery’s real life.
When someone is diagnosed with a condition that’s life limiting or ending, it doesn’t just affect the individual. The whole of that person’s family and friends have to get used to the diagnosis and what it means for them. For my late husband and me ( I also have MS) it meant a closeness with our family that possibly wouldn’t have happened without those periods of illness and uncertainty. I think it makes us appreciate each other more and make the most of being together. Yet for Emery’s parents it’s even worse. My parents felt guilty that I’d been diagnosed, relieved, scared and incredibly sad all at once, but whatever happened we knew that I’d still be around. Emery’s family have to accept that they might lose their daughter, but have no idea when it’s going to happen: it could be when she’s 6 years old on her way to school, it could be when they’ve just had a teenage row, it could be when she’s at university and no one’s there to help, it could be on her wedding day. It’s hard to live with such uncertainty. It’s hard to just carry on and live a normal life, but it’s also hard to continually treat someone as if you might lose them, every single day of your life. Sadly Emery’s parents react in different ways. While her mother is scared and grieving, she believes in carrying on as normally as possible. Whereas her father becomes anxious and hyper-vigilant. He wants to know where Emery is at all times, which risks he can eliminate, for everyone around Emery to know about her heart condition and that she only hangs out with those who know and can do CPR. This isn’t so much of an issue at a primary school age, but as Emery becomes a teenager she wants to spend time with new friends, go on school trips and maybe meet with boys. All of this is completely normal for her friends, but Emery has to ask and then listen to her parents tearing each other apart downstairs. For her dad there are no negotiations and no compromises. Until, in the end, it just becomes too much to cope with and her mum leaves. Emery lives with the guilt of feeling that it was her condition that caused her parents to split up.
I wondered throughout how much of Nick was real and how much was a subconscious invention. Something her mind created so that in those first moments after death Emery doesn’t feel alone. It’s also easier to be in love with someone who isn’t in your everyday world, especially when you have a hidden illness. As Emery learns, dating in the real world is much more complicated. When do you ‘come out’ to that new person about your invisible illness? What if you collapse on a date? Then as time goes on the bigger questions start to come up. How can you move in or marry someone and give them this terrible burden to carry? How can you live a normal life together when at any time they could lose you? Look what her illness did to her parent’s marriage? How do you tell someone that if they pick you, they’ll have to sacrifice having their own children? Isn’t it too big an ask? Nick knows everything, in fact when she’s with him she’s already dead so that removes the risk. It is the easiest relationship she has. I could see how it would be easier to be in love with him than someone in real life. Emery’s trusted friends are Bonnie and Colin who live nearby, they know everything and are trained for the worst eventuality. It’s clear that Colin has feelings for Emery, but he’s the boy next door. He’s probably the only boy that her dad would feel she was safe with and that’s a real turn off! As Emery gets more rebellious and starts to test her limits she doesn’t always understand that she’s more than just one individual – she’s the sum of the people who love and care for her too. The consequences of her risky actions are not just hers; there are consequences for her parents, her sister Amber and her niece, her friends Bonnie and Colin, who clearly has feelings for her. If she made the decision to be with Nick, it would mean all these people losing her.
I was truly fascinated by how the author portrayed Emery’s journey. It was full of emotion and beautifully written. I can testify that it really isn’t easy coping with a life-limiting condition. I was 21 when I was diagnosed and could reason things out, but I still struggled with my self-image and how other people saw me differently. I’d had my wild teenage years not knowing, but Emery has to go through all of that never knowing if this is her last day. It polarises life by making some things feel completely futile and others soul- searchingly important. There’s not much room for the everyday when every day might be your last. I’m not sure if it was the author’s intention, but I didn’t fall in love with Nick and Emery’s love story. I fell in love with Emery herself, this beautiful, bright and vibrant girl who dies for the first time age 5. I understood her and more to the point, I felt like the author truly understood Emery’s experience. I felt seen. I was also rooting for Colin. I wanted Emery to choose real life, the ups and downs and every day with all it’s messiness and complicated feelings. To share life with someone instead of the afterlife.
Published by Corvus 21st April 2024
Becky grew up in Berkshire, UK, and has loved reading since before she can remember. After studying social sciences at Cambridge university, this love of reading led her to a career in publishing, where she worked as a book publicist in London for several years before taking a career break and moving to Mozambique to volunteer with horses. It was here that she decided to give writing a proper go, though it was still a few years, a few more destinations, and a couple more jobs before she had the idea that would become ONE MOMENT, her debut novel.
She currently splits her time between London, Bristol and Falmouth, and works as a freelance book publicist and editor, alongside her own writing.
Find Becky on Twitter (@Bookish_Becky) or Instagram (beckyhunterbooks) – she’d love to hear from you!
I’m going to say up front that I’m a massive Helen Fields fan, with The Last Girl to Die being a particular favourite of mine. Her last novel introduced us to the unusual and complex psychologist and profiler Dr. Connie Woolwine at The Institution. Connie makes a cameo here, but the undoubted heroine of this tale is Midnight Jones. Midnight lives with her twin sister Dawn ( see what the parents did there) and is her main carer, since their parents chose to go travelling when Midnight finished university. Dawn was affected by lack of oxygen at birth leading to Cerebral Palsy. It’s effects are very individual to the patient, but it can cause both physical and intellectual disabilities. Dawn is profoundly affected, needing care 24/7 and that’s why Midnight is desperate to keep her job at Necto. She needs their higher than average pay packet to cover the costs of care. The company like to present themselves as an ethical firm, starting with their space age offices, filled with plants and trees that help create a better work environment. They have their fingers in many pies, but Midnight is a profiler and every day works through thousands of applications for universities, the military and other organisations, passing some applicants through to be interviewed and rejecting others based on assessment data alone.
Necto’s testing systems are so sophisticated, there’s nothing about the applicant they don’t know. In assessments, virtual reality head sets show images and the applicants every response is recorded from intelligence to levels of empathy. Then, dependent on the parameters for the particular institution they’re applying to, they are accepted or not. However, on this particular day Midnight finds a candidate who isn’t run of the mill, in fact he’s a one-off. In training, a candidate like this is jokingly dubbed a ‘Profile K’- for killer – Midnight finds a man who has recorded as showing zero empathy. When she watches the footage he was shown through her own headset, she is sickened by what she sees. This is way beyond the normal films shown to illicit empathy, it’s as if the machine couldn’t get a reading so has chosen more and more disturbing and violent images that should provoke empathy and disgust. Yet none comes. Unable to compute the response and also where such extreme footage could have come from, Midnight decides to take this further but her supervisor Richard Baxter isn’t interested. So she goes over his head, telling his boss that she’s found a Profile K. Surely they have a duty to report him, what if he’s dangerous? What if he kills?
I’ve read three great thrillers this weekend in quick succession but this was by far the most inventive, with a hint of dystopia and a touch of social justice that was right up my street. I empathised with Midnight’s situation, determined not to let down her sister Dawn but struggling to pay for just enough care that Midnight can go to work. There is no room for a social life or romance. Their heads are just above water, but there’s no flexibility or empathy for her care role within her company, despite it’s apparent ethics. She takes a big risk taking her findings higher than Richard Baxter, because if she loses her job how will she afford the care Dawn needs? Yet she can’t ignore what she knows. Especially when the worst happens. A young woman is killed very close to where she and Dawn live and although Midnight doesn’t know this at first, the torture methods used are very close to a scene from the film shown during the Profile K’s application process. The victim was subjected to the death of a thousand cuts, which would have been both a painful and long drawn out way to die. Midnight is horrified to find that her boss would rather keep her discovery under wraps and she’s reminded of her non-disclosure agreement. What reason could they have that’s better than saving the lives of future victims? Midnight has read about the psychologist and profiler Dr Connie Woolwine and has a theory to run past someone with her expertise. Not expecting a response, she sends a message and is pleasantly surprised when the unusual doctor calls her late at night to talk it through. Midnight is scared of the consequences, but sure of her theory – could Necto have known about the Profile K? What if they showed the violent material on purpose to trigger a response? To turn someone with killer potential into a killer for real.
I absolutely loved this belting thriller, because it was complex and intelligent but also full of human feeling. I guess this might sound strange when there’s quite graphic violence involved in some scenes, but they’re balanced by the pure depth of feeling Midnight has for her sister and later on for the elderly lady they begin a friendship with. I loved how authentic Midnight’s caring situation was, with a very clear struggle between wanting to provide the best help for someone she loves but feeling the fear of that sole responsibility. The anger she feels towards her parents is very real, because although she understands their need to follow their dreams, their freedom has curtailed her own. She can’t make any life decision without factoring Dawn in. How could she have a romantic relationship? What if she falls ill herself? Having been a carer I know how lonely and exhausting it can be. We can see the pull between home and work life, in that they both hinder and are dependent on each other. Parts of the book are genuinely terrifying. There is a scene that’s going to stay with me, like that episode of Luther where a woman gets undressed and climbs into bed followed by a ceiling shot where a man slowly slides out from underneath as if he’s been working under a car. It’s that combination of vulnerability and evil. We’ve all done that walk home where we get inside and lock the door, then take a deep breath and know we’re safe. To be attacked in that moment is heart-stoppingly scary! In the end, everything had to stop for those final chapters as I raced through to find out what happens. I was glued to these scenes, made all the more terrifying because the victim doesn’t have a clue how much danger she’s in. It’s one of those finales where I put the book down and realised every muscle in my body was tense! I needed some yoga stretches and a few episodes of Friday Night Dinner before bed to unwind. This is an absolute cracker of a read and I highly recommend it.
Published by Avon 25th April 2024
Meet the Author
A Sunday Times and million copy best-selling author, Helen is a former criminal and family law barrister. Every book in the Callanach series has claimed an Amazon #1 bestseller flag. ‘Perfect Kill’ was longlisted for the Crime Writers Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger in 2020, and others have been longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize, Scottish crime novel of the year. Helen also writes as HS Chandler, and has released legal thriller ‘Degrees of Guilt’. In 2020 Perfect Remains was shortlisted for the Bronze Bat, Dutch debut crime novel of the year. In 2022, Helen was nominated for Best Crime Novel and Best Author in the Netherlands. Now translated into more than 20 languages, and also selling in the USA, Canada & Australasia, Helen’s books have won global recognition. She has written standalone novels, The Institution, The Last Girl To Die, These Lost & Broken Things and The Shadow Man. She regularly commutes between West Sussex, USA and Scotland. Helen can be found on X @Helen_Fields.
The Lotus Readers 