Family – The Lotus Readers

Based On A True Story by Sarah Vaughan

Posted on 22nd Mar 2026 by thelotusreaders

A lavish 70th birthday party. A body found on a storm-lashed beach. And a secret that someone is dying to tell…

Famed children’s author Dame Eleanor Kingman has summoned her family and friends to her exquisite manor house on the cliffs. They’re celebrating her birthday – and her latest number one bestseller in her series of books based on a mother fox and her cubs. But the night before the party, Eleanor receives an email: an email that threatens to expose the lie she’s kept up for over half a century.

Someone knows her secret. Is it her estranged literary agent? Is it her ex-husband, to whom she no longer speaks? Is it the nanny she fired all those years ago, who always did have a knack for storytelling? Or is it one of her three daughters, all of whom have a stake in the publishing empire she has built…

With a TV crew arriving to film a documentary of her life, Eleanor needs to find out who sent the email – and preserve her multimillion-pound career.

But when push comes to shove, and it’s time to tell the truth – will anyone actually believe her?

Eleanor Kingman is holding a huge 70th birthday party at her Cornish house that sits on the cliffs overlooking the sea. It’s a massive undertaking, even without the addition of a TV film crew who are filming the run up to the big day and interviewing Eleanor and her daughters. Her eldest two daughters have working roles alongside their mother. Gilly is her assistant, co-ordinating both the celebration and the TV crew. Rachel is her accountant, keeping track of the royalties and the spending. Her youngest, Delia will no doubt arrive early or late, she is a lifestyle influencer documenting her travels and the journey she’s taken as an addict. However, each daughter has her own secrets and the resentments between them and their mother threaten to boil over. There are hints of menace, such as the strange man who approaches Eleanor’s much loved spaniel Edith as she’s being walked by Rachel’s children. Then an older couple are seen trespassing on Eleanor’s land, claiming to have taken the wrong route while on a caravan holiday close by. There’s also the early arrival of her illustrator Ayisha, who has steeled herself to talk about her cut of the profits. Alone these things mean nothing, but Eleanor is jittery as the interview approaches and only she knows why. She has been receiving blackmail threats making it clear that they know her secret and are more than willing to expose her. Who are they coming from? What do they know? Eleanor doesn’t know if this is personal or about her work. However, she isn’t the only one in the family to have secrets. Each sister has something they’re hiding from their mother and each other. This night is really going to go off with a bang!

Eleanor is an interesting character and has a distinct style and way she presents herself. As she’s retiring to her room on the afternoon of the party she knows she needs to rest but thinks about what she needs to do ‘to reassemble herself with hair, make-up, fine jewellery, exquisite clothes. To reconstruct Dame Eleanor Kingham.’ It’s as if she is an actress with a role or that over the years people have developed an expectation of how a popular children’s author should appear. The party will be lavish but Rachel can testify that in other ways her mother does count the cost, even making sure food is used past it’s sell by date. There’s also the fact that she pays her daughters below market rate, in fact it could be said that she’s lavish with herself but not so much with others. This could go back to years of frugality as a young woman at university, then as wife of an author whose own ambitions have taken a back seat to his genius. The author gives us flashbacks to show Eleanor’s earlier life, including her writing at the kitchen table late at night, exhausted and wondering if her writing will ever be noticed. There’s a certain ruthlessness in her and a steely determination, in fact her first book had the vixen killing and eating a weak cub for her and other cubs survival. Her agent decided it was too grim a detail for a children’s story, no matter how accurate it might be in nature. This also tells us she is willing to bend or alter a narrative, if it allows her to succeed.

I felt particularly sorry for Gilly who is really working hard to keep things running well in the last few days, with very little credit or thanks. I was really glad there was a flirtation for her. With an attractive camera crew around and Ned the director being particularly handsome there’s certainly opportunity. Gilly is the little overlooked dormouse who scurries everywhere, quietly making everything happen. Rachel is in a world of trouble when her husband Tom finally tells her a secret he’s been keeping and she’s furious. He needs money, fast. Will Rachel be pushed into something unthinkable? I found Delia incredibly irritating! One of those influencers who always appears picture perfect, on a picturesque beach with pearls of wisdom for her thousands of followers. None of it is original and it’s borderline dishonest. She is sober at the moment, but has a gatecrasher coming for the party. Will the tension tip the balance for her? None of these people are particularly likeable, with Rachel’s husband being a candidate for a good slap at the very least – he made me furious. All of this will come crashing to a head on the big night and I was constantly second-guessing which would bring the author’s world crashing down or whether she’d manage to solve it all in her own inimitable style. This is a book that you won’t put down in those final chapters. Vaughan really is a master at drip feeding clues and reveals, keeping me hooked. It’s brilliantly paced, the characters and their dynamics are so complex. There’s also a cleverly created gap between professional personas and the real life person, whether it is a children’s author or an influencer. Honestly these characters are hard to like but there’s nothing like the schadenfreude of seeing some of them meeting their fate.

Out on 26th March from Simon and Schuster UK

Meet the Author

Sarah Vaughan read English at Oxford and spent eleven years at the Guardian as a news reporter and political correspondent, before leaving to write fiction. Her first two novels were followed by her first psychological thriller, Anatomy of a Scandal: a Sunday Times top five bestseller, Richard & Judy pick of the decade, and global number one Netflix adaptation starring Sienna Miller, Michelle Dockery and Rupert Friend. Her fourth novel, Little Disasters, was a Waterstones thriller of the month and developed as a number one Paramount Plus show. Her fifth novel, Reputation, was a Sunday Times thriller of the month and is currently in development by the team who made Anatomy of a Scandal. Based on a True Story is her sixth novel.

A million-copy international bestselling author, her books have been published in twenty-seven countries.

Netgalley

Getting Away by Kate Sawyer

Posted on 14th Mar 202613th Mar 2026 by thelotusreaders

Margaret Smith is at the beach.

It is a summer day unlike any other Margaret has ever known.

The Smith family have left the town where they live and work and go to school and come to a place where the sky is blue, the sand is white, and the sound of the sea surrounds them. An ordinary family discovering the joy of getting away for the first time.

Over the course of the coming decades, they will be transformed through their holiday experiences, each new destination a backdrop as the family grows and changes, love stories begin and end — and secrets are revealed.

Getting Away takes us into the lives and the secrets of four generations of the Smith family, through their holidays. From an east coast beach in the UK just after the war to the early 21st Century, Maggie is central to this, moving from childhood to old age. Through each character in the novel, the author creates snapshots of the century from Maggie’s father Jim and his war injuries to an renewed openness about individual sexuality and her brother Tommy having to police the first Pride in London. He’s worried about the lads at work and their response, he’s not keen either but change is the only constant. We can also see the huge changes in social mobility across the generations. We start with Jim and Betty and their daughter Maggie just affording a day at the beach with a picnic brought from home. Later, Maggie’s brother Tommy and his wife Debbie buy an apartment in Spain and then her granddaughter Melissa is the first in the family to go ‘travelling’ as a young woman as opposed to having a holiday. The shifts are seismic when seen together like this and it made me realise that my own grandchildren will look at me and my husband and realise we were born in the last century. Just like I did with my grandma who was born in 1913, they’ll probably imagine all the changes we’ve seen in that time. That’s what reading this felt like, as morals, finances and our ability to connect with others changes beyond recognition. When Robert takes a holiday with his friend Fitz while Susan is pregnant, they have to send a telegram to one of his destinations to get him to come home urgently. By the next generation, Melissa is island hopping around Asia and keeps them all updated via Instagram and her blog. What is amazing about Kate Sawyer is this doesn’t feel contrived and all these things in the background are just that, because the real drama is happening within this family and the secrets each generation keeps from the next.

Maggie is at the centre though and hers is the most carefully guarded secret. I loved how she and her mother Betty slowly grew to understand each other, but also how one secret breeds another. Her husband Alec knows Maggie is vulnerable when he meets her on a break with her friends, but he’s looking for a wife who won’t make demands and will be happy to travel around the world for his job buying fabric. He is a protector and he remains that way throughout her life, although things do change within their marriage. Maggie has panic attacks near the sea, although her friends don’t know why. We know something happened on a day by the sea when the Americans from Jim’s work travelled with them, but she keeps the secret for decades. However, she isn’t the only one with a huge secret. Maggie’s brothers couldn’t be more different. Tommy comes across as very brash and often drunk, very proud of how well he’s doing at work and happy to splash the cash around. Robert is the baby of the three and a lot more sensitive than his brother. I rooted for him and his girlfriend Susan who he’s desperately in love with. As secrets start to come out their relationship suffers, but I was sure they’d never stopped loving each other. Their children are the final generation we get to know, but it felt like Robert was impacted most by decisions made about his life, even though it was a common choice in that situation. I love how this author writes about her character’s inner lives, she even makes me root for people when their behaviour isn’t great. Once I’m a few chapters in these are real people and I’m feeling every one of their emotions.

Having once had a spectacularly bad holiday with my lovely family I was amazed that they all persevered over years. There are all those little details about each character and how they irritate each other. When they undertake a trip to Florence with Maggie, Betty is exhausted and the others are bored. Maggie likes to stride about the city while her husband Alec is working, sight-seeing and learning about art, architecture and the local food. With all good intentions she wants to make sure those she loves get the most out of being here, but everyone else wants some shade and a cold drink. Tommy is more of a drink by the pool and English food sort of person, it’s clear he has a drinking problem and it doesn’t help his temper. Bringing us into the 21st Century, I loved how Joe and his husband Piotr’s daughter Maja has travelled all over the world when she’s only a toddler. This family have gone from greenhouse tomatoes by the North Sea to being more like the Americans who visited Jim and Betty and scoffed at how backward the British seemed. They also go through every complicated situation a family can, with secrets, affairs, divorce, violence and the addition of those who become ‘found family” like Robert’s lifelong friend Fitz and his daughter. I loved that their friendship survived huge upheaval and betrayal, and that it happened on a holiday pilgrimage. I particularly enjoyed Maggie’s solo holiday after her divorce and her sexual adventure, beautifully written and much needed in order to heal from the past and claim her future as a desirable woman. Maggie’s favourite book is A Room With a View so she felt like a kindred spirit and the passion in that book obviously appealed to this woman who had to reach middle-age before desire was a priority. I loved that this family kept its in-laws close, even after divorce and we can see that as everyone comes together for Joe’s wedding. I became utterly absorbed by this family, so much so I felt like I’d seen one of them as a client. It emphasises the secret complexity of everyday lives and made we think about the fascinating narratives in both sides of my own families. The ending felt like the best one we can ever hope for, which is a family taking time and trying to heal together.

Out now from Zaffre Books

Meet the Author

Kate was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK where she grew up in the countryside as the eldest of four siblings, after briefly living with her parents in Qatar and the Netherlands.

Kate Sawyer worked as an actor and producer before turning her hand to fiction. She has previously written for theatre and short-film.

Having lived in South London for the best part of two decades with brief stints in the Australia and the USA she recently returned to East Anglia to have her first child as a solo mother by choice.

Netgalley

Wreck by Catherine Newman

Posted on 12th Mar 202611th Mar 2026 by thelotusreaders

Rachel (Rocky) is seemingly living her best life as the irreverent, funny beating heart of her family. Her ageing father is his unique, adorable self; daughter Willa is prone to bouts of existential angst whilst berating the fact that her mother has zero filter; husband Nick is steady, logical, sometimes infuriating.

They are messy, they are flawed, they are completely, ridiculously normal.

And like most normal people, Rocky worries about what might happen next. So when a former classmate of her son Jamie dies in a seemingly random accident, Rocky becomes obsessed.

For if accidents can happen – and they do – is it truly safe to love anyone?

Fresh, honest, laugh out loud funny and genuinely relatable, WRECK follows Rocky and her family through one rollercoaster year as they negotiate the unpredictable and beautiful messiness of life.

I don’t know how Catherine Newman does it, but I feel so at home with Rocky as if she’s a really close friend who you can tell anything to. After Sandwich, we meet the family at home, getting over Grandma’s death and getting back into the swing of life. Rocky’s dad has been living in their outside shed since his wife died and daughter Willa is also at home. Newman lets us live alongside these characters as part of the family and I adore their humour and their warm, chaotic household – not to mention their food always sounds incredible. Rocky is a freelance writer and doesn’t have regular work coming in, so when a young man is killed in his car on the nearby railway crossing she becomes fixated on what happened. If anything Rocky is over empathetic, she can’t stop thinking about how devastated his family must be and trying to work out how it happened. Meanwhile, a strange rash appears on her shoulder and while she’s having a check on sun damage her dermatologist suggests they look into it. This turns out to be a good call as it begins to appear elsewhere on her body. A biopsy of the skin and some bloods should solve the mystery but it becomes a deep rabbit hole with many frightening possibilities.

I am not overstating when I say this book could save my life! As Rocky’s symptoms started to mount I kept reading bits out to my husband and looking up the terms, wondering if somehow the author had magical access to my medical records. I identified so strongly with this story of living while unwell because this has been the last eighteen months of my life. I had two breaks in my spine as a child causing issues with pain and the use of my right arm and shoulder. I was also diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 21. However I have always had a collection of symptoms that didn’t fit with that diagnosis. With increasing arthritis in my lumbar and sacral spine my pain management consultant asked for a full body MRI. I couldn’t have prepared myself for the list of problems that unfolded. Not only did I have arthritis and impingement of peripheral nerves, I also had a narrowed spinal canal in places, potentially causing issues with my spinal cord. However, I also had a lesion in my spine, one in my spleen and several growths on my thyroid. All of these things are being dealt with by separate specialists, but Rocky’s story popped a little light bulb over my head. Surely I had to ask the question – what if all these issues are connected? I’ve already been told it’s likely I have Hashimoto’s disease and it’s being treated, but I’m having biopsies and I’ve asked to see an endocrinologist to flush out whether it’s one of diagnoses that Rocky is facing. I recognised the sudden feeling that your body is falling apart and is even working against you. I’ve felt that terrible fear that there’s a ticking time bomb somewhere in your body and almost becoming divorced from it. I could see that Rocky felt better when she did something physical such as going to a dance group or plunging into an icy lake, because her body works for her and becomes part of her again.

This author knows how it feels to be going through all the volatile changes of menopause, while simultaneously supporting young adult or teenage children and elderly parents. It’s a hell of a balancing act while getting used to a body that puts on weight where it never has before, thins all the things you want to be lustrous and thick and thickens all the bits that used to be slender. She captures what it’s like to feel invisible to most of the world, but the absolute beating heart of the home. The generation gap is also brilliantly portrayed when Rocky and Willa try to take grandad to a juice bar, his grumpiness giving the perfect edge this warm and nurturing family. While Rocky’s husband is like a little moon, constantly orbiting his wife and tending to those little things like cheesy nachos in bed. It’s interesting when this very liberal family have to cope with family members whose views are not like their own. Jamie and his wife Maya visit from New York for Thanksgiving and it’s clear their values are different, especially when Rocky makes a discovery about her son. He works for a company that consults for businesses, finding ways to make them more profitable and openly says to his mum that he just loves money. Even though she doesn’t agree, Rocky is never happier than when all her children are under her roof.

‘“Yayy, I say. All the kids back under my roof! When I send out my ESP stealth probe in the night to check on everybody, they’ll be in their proper beds”.

Mostly I love the emotion and atmosphere of this author’s novels. I live for a messy pile of books by the couch, usually with a pint mug of tea within reach and the dog and cats all quietly snoozing in their own places. That’s exactly what this family has, an untidy but welcoming house with cats everywhere and always gorgeous food on the go. It feels very conscious of the seasons too as summer turns to autumn and winter, with festivals like Halloween playing their part – I loved the moment when Rocky tries to do the trick or treat routine on the porch not realising the young woman is Willa’s date. Every festival is marked with excellent food, followed by a long tramp through the nearby woods and foraging for things. I always want to be part of their world and feel like I’ve lived with them for a while once the story ends. As my story continues I’m going to take a bit of Rocky’s dermatologist’s wisdom with me. When he gives his diagnosis Rocky is taken aback and he acknowledges her feelings but tempers it with some advice:

“Yikes, I said, and he said, ‘a little bit of yikes. You can visit with the fear but don’t hire a van and move there.”

Out Now from Doubleday

Meet the Author

Catherine Newman is the New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich and We All Want Impossible Things, which was also chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club. She is also the author of the memoirs Catastrophic Happiness and Waiting for Birdy, and the bestselling children’s book How to be a Person. She is a regular contributor to the New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, Cup of Jo, and many other publications. She writes the Substack newsletter Crone Sandwich and lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with her family.

Publisher Proof

The Keeper by Tana French

Posted on 8th Mar 2026 by thelotusreaders

On a cold night in a remote Irish village, a girl goes missing.

Sweet, loving Rachel Holohan was about to be engaged to the son of the local big shot. Instead, she’s dead in the river.

In a place like this, her death isn’t simple. It comes wrapped in generations-old grudges and power struggles, and it splits the townland in two. Retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper has friends here now and he owes them loyalty, but his fiancée Lena wants nothing to do with Ardnakelty’s tangles. As the feud becomes more vicious, their settled peace starts to crack apart. And when they uncover a scheme that casts a new light on Rachel’s death and threatens the whole village, they find themselves in the firing line.

This was a new series to me, but having read some of Tana French’s earlier novels such as In The Woods I knew it would be something I’d enjoy. I love her writing and here it is such a beautiful balancing act. This is a slow burn novel that’s beautifully atmospheric and manages to convey both moments of high humour and menacing evil. The small village of Ardnakelty is a quagmire. It’s described as gloomy, misty and wet most of the time. There’s something about the weather that’s oppressive and any walk outdoors is liable to leave you muddy and wet. It seems like a harmless place, but it’s full of pitfalls and weeds that can drag you under. The emotional quagmire is impossible to avoid if we look at it through Lena’s eyes. It is so remote, but anyone like Cal thinking they’ve come here for quiet and to avoid other people is in for a shock. He already has Trey, a teenage girl from a difficult family who is like an adopted daughter to him. How much more tied to this place might he become? Villages like this have one shop and one pub and everyone frequents them so eventually there’s a passing acquaintance with everyone. This is a place where neighbours are more like family. They’ve known each other forever, and their mothers knew your mother too. This could be seen as a bonus, but the author depicts it as spider’s web that once you’re stuck it’s impossible to escape. The only question is, who is the spider?

“The cloud is high tonight, letting through a haze of moonlight here and there so that streaks of fields rise ghostly out of the darkness and the air has an icy bite that burrows to the bone.”

The plot reveals itself slowly and once Cal and Trey find the body of local teenager Rachel in the river, the tension starts to build in this small community, until it’s pushed to breaking point. It made me feel angry and utterly powerless in parts. Rachel had been going out with Eugene Moynihan for years and it was apparently Eugene she had been out to meet on that night. Was this a tragic accident or is something more insidious going on? Rachel’s family are devastated and Lena is shocked to find out she was the last person to see her that night. The village gossip is in overdrive with different theories, but the narrative that seems to be emerging is that Rachel might have committed suicide. Cal doesn’t think so, but most people daren’t think anything different. The Moynihans are a big deal in Ardnakelty, living in a huge house with all mod cons and Eugene’s dad Tommy has a finger in every lucrative pie. Cal is told no one is going up against the Moynihans, because Tommy has all the right friends in very high up places. There was part of me that could see this story as an allegory for what’s happening in the world – a money-hungry bully, who is always looking for the next chance and has such a hold over people he could get away with almost anything.

Underneath this main mystery is the narrative of Cal and Lena’s relationship, in fact very early on we get a conversation about their wedding. Despite being engaged, Cal and Lena are still in two separate houses and have made no wedding plans. This suits them, but Lena’s sister Noreen who runs the shop is forever warning them. If they don’t book something round here they’ll lose the only venue. There’s Cal’s worries about Trey who is hoping to gain an apprenticeship as a joiner, has exams to get through and trouble at home where the landlord seems to want them out of their house. All of these things weave in and out of each other, seemingly unconnected but as with everything here patterns and connection exist under the surface. Tommy and Eugene pay Cal a visit, as an outsider maybe he’s the best person to investigate this? Cal refuses but is left with the feeling that will count against him. If he’s to ask any questions he’d rather do it alone, with no one controlling the narrative. What he doesn’t know is that Lena is already asking questions and because she’s from this place she knows who to ask. It’s clear sides are forming, even in the way people arrange themselves at the wake. Cal is with Trey but also his neighbour Mart, the only locals he feels any allegiance to. While Lena is drawn to a women’s table, containing everyone she went to school with and usually avoids. She doesn’t want to join sides, but with Cal increasingly pulled into Mart’s group she knows there’ll be pressure from the Moynihans. Maybe there’s a positive to being part of Ardnakelty, but she can’t see it as yet.

I loved the build up of tension in this small village and the wonderful way the author balances that with humour. There’s a scene with Mart and a squirrel that’s comedy gold and made me laugh out loud then read it to my husband. Mostly it’s the juxtaposition of things; a gang of masked men is menacing, but has a more comical touch when some are Wolverine and other varied superheroes. As the situation escalated I felt angry and powerless to stop what was happening. It wasn’t so much the brawls, it was the quiet threats and controlling nature of what was happening, particularly to the women involved. Tommy Moynihan made my skin crawl but so did Noreen’s mother-in-law Mrs Duggan, the perfect example of someone who appears powerless but actually controls the household and watches the to and fro of the village from her armchair. This fight could knit Cal, Lena and Trey into this place’s history. They could commit to being lifelong Ardnakelty people but if they are, they must find out what’s behind Rachel’s death and end Tommy’s dominance over the place. I became so drawn into this world that I was genuinely upset by the loss and how far apart Lena and Cal become. I loved that he didn’t crowd her and gave her the space to be her own person. I also loved the way he parented Trey and responded to her new relationship. This is an intricate and carefully balanced thriller that’s perfectly grounded in its rural Irish setting. Cal learns that the villager’s allegiance to their land runs deep and they are willing to put absolutely everything on the line for it, even their lives;

“Their tie to their land is different, not in its intensity but in its nature: rooted thousands of years deep, through strata of dispossession, famine, bloody rebellion. This land has been reclaimed and that changes things.”

Out 2nd April from Penguin

Tana French is the author of In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, and The Trespasser. Her books have won awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Dublin with her family.

Publisher Proof

Warning Signs by Tracy Sierra

Posted on 4th Mar 2026 by thelotusreaders

I couldn’t stop talking about Tracy Sierra’s debut novel Night Watching. I inhaled it and I have been lending and buying it for everyone around me since. So I approached her second novel with trepidation, would it be as good as the first? Well I can set your mind at rest. This novel is incredible. The ‘stayed in bed almost all day to keep reading it’ type of incredible. The plot is simple enough. A young boy named Zach is taken by his father on a ‘boy’s trip’ to the wilderness with people he hopes will invest in his business. This is a part of the country he visited often with his mother who taught him everything he knows about skiing these mountains and survival. As they settle into their cabin and make it ready for guests it’s clear that Zach is an innocent boy, easily ordered around by his dad who’s angry that his secretary Ginny hasn’t been up to prepare the cabin as she promised. As they settle in for their first night, Zach is convinced something is lurking around especially when he has the visit the outside toilet alone and in the dark. The noises and shadows are like nothing he’s heard before. Could a monster be up here with them in the mountains? Possibly. But sometimes, monsters aren’t always what we expect.

This author is fast becoming a master of complex and painful family dynamics with an edge of horror. This monster in the snow brought back memories of the first time I read The Shining and there are parallels in the isolated mountain setting, the pressure cooker of people forced together and the young, innocent boy at the centre of the tale. This wilderness is somewhere Zach knows very well, having come up here regularly with his mum and sister and this was one of my first questions. Where are the women in this story? We know Zach came up here with groups of women and their kids, but his mum, sister and even the expected Ginny are nowhere. In a small vignette at the beginning we see a previous trip and Zach’s mum explaining how to check the snow for the likelihood of an avalanche. She impresses upon him the importance of turning back, even if the risk is small it’s not worth taking. It’s clear very early on that Bram, his father, doesn’t have the same attitude to risk. He’s the sort of guy who thinks men take risks and would rather show bravado to his guests than follow the advice of his wife through Zach or the guide that comes with the cabin.

Zach is a beautiful narrator and he’s written with such care, everything he thinks or tells us maintains that innocent, slightly anxious voice. I desperately wanted to protect him and get him out of this situation. As adults we wear masks – the one we wear for our job for example or the ‘telephone voice’ many of us use without really intending to. Children don’t and that creates a tension, especially in an environment where the whole purpose is to impress and sell yourself. Bram makes it clear that these men expect a winner and he has to act like one. Heartbreakingly, Zach has a soft toy he’s smuggled up there but knows it must remain hidden or risk it disappearing. Bram can’t have a weak son. This idea of wearing different masks is beautifully depicted as Zach takes us back to an evening at home where his mother has returned home late and a little drunk. He listens in silence to their argument and curses his mother because she knows the rules. Why does she set out to make him angry? Zach describes his father’s other side as his ‘underself.’

“For Christmas two years ago, someone had given his sister a stuffed octopus that could be flicked inside out. Flip one way, pink, fuzzy and smiling. Flip the other way, green, slick and glowering […] switching outerself to underself.”

He also has this horrible realisation, that we all have at some point in our childhood, that other people might dislike your parent or think they’re an idiot. As they set out and he watches his interactions with the other men he notes that they can see through Bram. The guide sees he knows nothing and Bram’s need to own the best of everything means his mountain gear is flashy, it looks too new. The only other kid on the trip is Russ and he makes it clear that he knows exactly what type of Bram is because his dad is exactly the same:

“My dad, yours? They’re selfish. They nearly got us killed. And for what? Steve said you and me shouldn’t have skied it and they ignored him, because god forbid they don’t get to do exactly what they want.”

How scary must it be as a child to learn that your parent is willing to take huge risks with your life for money? Even worse, Zach finds something that makes him wonder; if his dad has an underself, does everyone else? Coming at this from a psychological viewpoint I loved the way Zach describes his concerns about the men he’s with and his father in particular. The environment brings its own dangers with further snowfall and too many risks taken. Survival becomes a question between which is safest – taking the chance with the environment or staying indoors which is undoubtedly warmer and locks out whatever it is that Zach saw the night he ventured to the outside toilet. There’s always a tipping point and the pressure the author builds is almost unbearable. My heart was in my throat during those final chapters because I felt so protective of this incredible little boy. Tracy Sierra is able to evoke that heart thumping fear we feel as children, sometimes when we’re doing nothing more dangerous than lying in bed in the dark. With Zach she explores the difference between a manageable fear that’s no more than a calculated risk with the right understanding and techniques, the fear that simply comes from encountering something we’ve never seen before and the fear we don’t want to acknowledge because it makes us face a terrible truth.

Out Now From Viking Books

Meet the Author

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

Monthly Wrap Up

Best Reads February 2026

Posted on 28th Feb 202627th Feb 2026 by thelotusreaders

Hello all. Welcome to my February favourite reads. It’s been a busy reading month and thankfully I’ve been feeling less foggy and able to read a lot more. I’ve also found more balance in my reading so I’ve been able to read by choice a lot more too. These are the best ones I’ve read this month, a couple still have full reviews outstanding but I’ll tell you a little bit about why I enjoyed them so much.

This beautiful Pride and Prejudice inspired book is an absolute dream to read and felt like being back with old friends. I had always felt that Elizabeth Bennett underestimated her friend Charlotte Lucas and clearly she was a character whose possibilities played on author and comedian Rachel Parris’s mind too. Taken from the point Lizzie rejects Mr Collins’s proposal, the book takes in events from the rest of Austen’s romance and carries on beyond giving us glimpses into events we don’t get to see, such as the Darcy wedding at Pemberley. It’s told from Charlotte’s perspective but with letters from other characters and glimpses into Mr Collins’s past. These give us an insight into his manner and behaviour, while the letters give us a new slant on other characters too. I felt that Charlotte was pragmatic in her choice of husband and found ways to grow within it – sometimes in spite of Mr Collins and other times because of him, rather surprisingly. She has purpose, status and time to educate herself. Even Mr Collins has to admit she has blossomed, but when a spark is lit with a visitor to Rosings will Charlotte pursue the one thing she doesn’t have – romantic love and passion? I loved this and I’m sure many of you will too. It is pitch perfect, funny, sad and incredibly entertaining.

I have raved about Tracy Whitwell’s series following the adventures of Tanzy, actor and reluctant medium. This is the fifth and final instalment so I wanted to savour it. After her eventful trip to Iceland Tanz is back on home soil and soon makes her way back to her childhood home of Newcastle. Both she and her ‘little mam’ have been experiencing dreams about hangings, in Tanz’s case very alarming ones where she has a bag over her head and a noose round her neck. Her visions are powerful and are accompanied by sudden and torrential storms. Knowing she needs some help here, she asks Sheila to come and join her. They’re soon at the very spot where a travelling witch finder condemned several women to death by hanging. Even more alarming than usual, he seems to be able to see Tanz too, coming at her with his ‘pricker’ – the implement he uses to prod his prisoners to see if they bleed. This is toxic masculinity 17th Century style and Tanz is going to know her new Icelandic guides and all her power to defeat it. There’s the usual eccentric characters, including an Amazon woman dressed ‘like a Valkyrie’ who is also researching local history of witches and a ghostly lady called Mags who is full of mischief when it comes to putting men in their place. This is genuinely scary in parts and is based on historical research of the area. It was great to see Tanz back home again and with a case to solve, a love story to wrap up and a surprise that might determine her future, it’s a great finale to this funny and fierce series.

I’ve been able to catch up on some reading this month and I’ve been dying to get to the latest Kate Sawyer. She is now one of my ‘must buy’ authors and this novel just confirms her status on my shelves. Using the structure of family holidays, this book follows four generations of one family and the secrets they carry. Starting post-war with Betty who is at the seaside with her little girl Margaret and husband Jim, but Margaret doesn’t know the secret romance her mother had with the son of a local factory owner. Jim was a pragmatic choice and he’s a good husband despite the facial injuries and terrible memories he carries. Jim is doing well in his job and a few years later they visit the beach with his American colleagues and a teenage Margaret. There something happens that changes the course of this family. The author takes us through the 20th Century, showing how the changing world shapes the experiences of this family. From a beach on the east coast of England, we see holidays in Cornwall, then abroad as Maggie embraces the opportunities of a her husband’s job as a travelling buyer, and when her brother Tommy invests in and up and coming area of Europe. We see how changes in law and culture make some relationships and break others. The women in this novel are exceptionally well-written and the issues they face from infidelity, domestic violence, infertility and the consequences of a more permissive society opening the door for a more open generation than the one before. Throughout, this is a family that tries its hardest to stay together, even when some members are on the other side of the world. I love complex relationship dynamics so this was an absolute joy to read.

This incredible debut by Rachel Canwell deserves all the praise it’s receiving online. In fact she had a books signing at my local bookshop in Lincoln and had sold out within an hour! Her book is set in the south of Lincolnshire, in the fens and a family who live on the banks of the River Nene at Sutton Bridge. The new swing bridge allows them to visit the village and on the opposite bank a port is being built. Next to their home is a small hospital, readied by their father to serve port workers when everything is finished. One dark and disorienting night the family are woken by a rumbling sound and the splash of things hitting the water, but it’s only in the morning that the full devastation can be seen. The bank has collapsed underneath the new port, the family has lost their occupation and one of its sons, who drowned trying to rescue workers. We meet the three women who tell our story in the 1910s, Eleanor and her sister Lily are the last family members living in the house adjacent to the hospital – still empty and unused. Eleanor has fallen in love with John, the local blacksmith but can’t make plans because of her sister Lily. Lily will not leave the family house, in fact she rarely leaves her bedroom. The loss of her twin brother in the port disaster still affects her daily and she will not allow Eleanor to leave her alone in the house. Eleanor’s best friend Clara is married to their older brother Frank and they live in the village with their children. Clara is married to a bully and she sees one in Lily, who passive aggressively controls her sister. War is looming and as a prisoner of war camp is suggested for the old port site tensions within the community rise. With grief joining domestic violence, manipulation and alcohol issues this family is set for an explosive reckoning. I became so attached to these women and their family’s tragic history that I read it so quickly. I will go back and read it again though. Every element – character, setting, plot – is beautifully done and the historical background took me back to a time when my own grandparents would have been working the land and living next to the River Trent further North in the county. This is an excellent debut that had me absorbed completely.

This was an unexpectedly great crime novel set around an auction rooms in Glasgow, a venue where criminal elements mix with rich collectors and eccentric dealers. Rilke is pulled into a difficult situation after his friend Les finishes his prison sentence. When one of the Bowery Auctions regulars, the creepy and questionable Manderson, is killed on the premises it’s only 24 hours till their next auction. In fact Manderson has been stabbed in the eye with one of the antique hat pins they had out for the viewing afternoon. An Edwardian amethyst pin would have had to make its way through a huge hat and into a woman’s long, piled up hair, to keep it secure. Now it’s made its way through Manderson’s eye into his brain and it’s going to take a lot of strength to remove it. Knowing the police will be involved and that Bowery’s will be implicated, perhaps it would be better if it wasn’t obvious that he’s been killed with one of their auction lots. Things get worse when a gangster turns up at Bowery Auctions with Rilke’s mate Les in tow. Ray has a way with a razor and he focuses Rilke with a swipe to Les’s face. Rilke must now investigate who killed Manderson in just ten days or Les will pay the consequences. His investigations will take him to an old school where many ex-pupils have reported sexual abuse, to a brothel named after a questionable film and a girl called Chloe who may or may not be controlled by her boyfriend, Dickie Bird. Will he find the answers that will save Les? More to the point, are the answers to be found outside Glasgow or a lot closer to home? Glasgow is a city that doesn’t hide its darker quarters or episodes in its history and we see them here from pubs to brothels and a particularly creepy old school. The author brings in modern concerns around women using Only Fans and other internet sex work to make ends meet. Can it ever be a feminist thing? There are also issues around coercive control and manipulation, but as Rilke learns it’s easy to get the wrong end of the stick. There’s a familiar jaded feeling around these issues and a knowledge that no matter what’s brought to light, some people will always get away with it. This is a gritty thriller with a streak of humour and some fantastic characters. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.

Finally this month I’m recommending this brilliant thriller from Tana French, the third in a series featuring ex- Chicago cop Cal and his new life in the small Irish village of Ardnakelty. This is such an atmospheric read that manages to feel isolated, but suffocating at the same time. Cal and his fiancée Lena, who was born here, try to keep out of any local gossip or feuding. However, when young teenager Rachel goes missing one night in a storm both Cal and his woodworking protoge Trey go looking for her. She’s found in the river, after setting out to meet her boyfriend Eugene Moynihan at the bridge. She appears to have drowned but Eugene claims not to have made the arrangement to meet in such terrible weather and when the autopsy comes back it reports that Rachel had swallowed anti-freeze. Is this an accident or suicide. Cal and Lena suspect foul play and with Lena being the last person to see Rachel, staying out of this might not be possible. When Cal appears to side with his neighbour Mart against the Moynihan family tensions rise and Tommy Moynihan, family patriarch, starts to show just how much of Ardnakelty he holds in his power. This is a complex mystery, with risky allegiances and terrible consequences. The Irish dialogue is so beautifully written and there are moments of laugh out loud humour to dispel the tension. This was an incredibly good thriller with plenty of twists and a fascinating central character too.

Here’s a selection from my March tbr:

Random Things Tours

Fireflies in Winter by Eleanor Shearer

Posted on 19th Feb 2026 by thelotusreaders

Nova Scotia 1796. Cora, an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica, has never felt cold like this. In the depths of winter, everyone in her community huddles together in their homes to keep warm. So when she sees a shadow slipping through the trees, Cora thinks her eyes are deceiving her. Until she creeps out into the moonlight and finds the tracks in the snow.

Agnes is in hiding. On the run from her former life, she has learned what it takes to survive alone in the wilderness. But she can afford mistakes. When she first spies the young woman in the woods, she is afraid. Yet Cora is fearless, and their paths are destined to cross.

Deep among the cedars, Cora and Agnes find a fragile place of safety. But when Agnes’s past closes in, they are confronted with the dangerous price of freedom – and of love…

Eleanor Shearer tells stories about fictional people in situations I didn’t even know existed and then makes me root for them so hard that I cry real tears. Cora is our central character and we see everything through her eyes, so it’s no surprise I felt close to her. Cora is so vulnerable and thoughtful. She cares for her unusual ‘family’ – Leah who has brought her up and been a substitute mother and Silas and young Ben who’s still a young boy. It’s makeshift but it’s the only family she has known, ever since Leah found her as a baby. They are ‘maroons’, escaped slaves from Jamaica who settled in Nova Scotia, Canada. Many maroons negotiated peace treaties with the British, but part of that treaty forced them to aid the British in capturing any new runaways. However, Agnes’s freedom is more precarious. She’s out in the forest alone, except for her dog Patience, and it’s a harsh existence with the added fear of discovery. I’m not sure Cora fully understands that her presence and connection to the Maroons settlement adds to that anxiety and doubles her chance of discovery. Cora isn’t hardened to winter in the forest and hasn’t had to hone her survival instincts in the way Agnes has. Something she shows by getting into scrapes in the snow, saved by the ever present Patience. There are different types of freedom in terms of gender and sexuality too. Cora knows that Silas has an expectation that they will be together one day and so far she has avoided this. However, it is there in every confrontation they have; the fear of his resentment and the threat of sexual violence is ever present. Cora doesn’t question her sexuality, she just knows she loves Agnes. Will they have the freedom to be together?

The environment is an incredibly strong part of this story and here the author excels in creating a Nova Scotia that’s harsh but exceptionally beautiful. I found the time Cora spends in the forest incredibly peaceful to read, the animals, the ice and the frosted trees have a romance, a poetry about them. Yet she doesn’t hide the raw reality of living in it. The girls must trap animals, although Cora frees a white hare unable to kill such a beautiful and mystical creature however hungry they may be. One of my favourite scenes is when Agnes takes Cora out on a boat to visit the whales who appear for them as if by magic. As they sit among these huge creatures one of them lifts their head and looks directly at Agnes and she feels seen for the first time in her life. Not as a woman, or a slave, or a Maroon. Just as Cora, another living being. There are also moments where Mother Nature shows its bite and when Cora falls through the ice I was holding my breath. The suspense of those moments are brilliantly pitched and show us that Agnes’s lifestyle may have magical moments, but it can be lethal.

I love that Eleanor writes people back into history, we can read the historical facts about settled slaves in Canada but she brings their experiences to life in a way that hits the emotions and helps us to understand. We’re also reminded by Cora that women have choices, sometimes marriage is just another form of slavery. It’s something she’s keen to avoid, even if the offer came from a more loving and kind man like her friend Thursday. She knows herself enough to know it is not for her and she’s not willing to sacrifice herself. Luckily, Thursday is a loyal friend and will help Cora without imposing conditions. When Cora finds out the truth about where she comes from, secrets that have been held for years come flooding out and threaten everything that Cora has known about herself. When Agnes faces a similar reckoning it threatens everything in their future. I was emotional about the little details the author puts into her book such as the braiding of Cora’s hair being the only moment where they’re both present and the ‘love can flow between them unimpeded’. Cora’s loss of her sister also hangs over her and I loved the nature metaphors she uses to express those emotions:

“Cora cannot stop thinking of her life like a tree, with the branches that split and split again until you reach the highest […] that there’s somewhere, the branches not taken – the world where she stayed with Elsy and Elsy would still be living.”

However, in everything that happens, one loss hit me the hardest and actually brought me to tears. I loved the still moments created, where Cora learned to be in nature. Where they are both present and entirely in the moment. The fireflies are a symbol for Agnes and Cora, in that they are glowing in the darkest and coldest circumstances. Cora and Agnes have a bond that flourishes where many things don’t survive, they are extraordinary like fireflies in winter.

Out from Headline Review on 10th February

Meet the Author

Eleanor Shearer is a mixed race writer from the UK. She splits her time between London and Ramsgate on the coast of Kent, so that she never has to go too long without seeing the sea.

As the granddaughter of Caribbean immigrants who came to the UK as part of the Windrush Generation, Eleanor has always been drawn to Caribbean history. Her first novel, RIVER SING ME HOME (Headline, UK & Berkley, USA) is inspired by the true stories of the brave woman who went looking for their stolen children after the abolition of slavery in 1834. The novel draws on her time spent in the Caribbean, visiting family in St Lucia and Barbados. It was also informed by her Master’s degree in Politics, where she focused on how slavery is remembered on the islands today.

Her second novel, FIREFLIES IN WINTER, is a love story set in the snow-covered wilderness of Nova Scotia in the 1790s. When Cora, an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica, glimpses a strange figure in the forest, she is increasingly drawn into the frozen woods. She meets Agnes, who is on the run from her former life. As the two women grow closer, they learn more about love, survival and the price of freedom.

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Paper Sisters by Rachel Canwell

Posted on 16th Feb 2026 by thelotusreaders

Lincolnshire, 1914. As the First World War approaches, three women are living, trapped between the unforgiving marsh, the wide, relentless river, and the isolation of the fen.

Their lives are held fast by profound grief, haunted by the spectres of the past. Trapped by the looming presence and eerie stillness of a hospital that has never admitted a single patient.

Eleanor longs to escape. To make a life with the man she loves, leaving her sister, and all her ghosts behind. Clara’s marriage is crumbling and violent and she yearns for peace and security for both herself and her innocent children. Meanwhile, Lily, a formidable force of will, stands resolute against the relentless tide of change. She will stop at nothing, no matter the devastating cost, to ensure that life, and her family, remain frozen in an unyielding embrace of the past.

The author, Rachel Canwell, grew up with the story of this forgotten hospital. Isolated, stocked weekly and cleaned daily but never admitting a single patient. The hospital was real, tended by her family for over sixty years and set against the ethereal beauty and loneliness of the Fens, is the inspiration for her novel.

The atmosphere in this story perfectly captures the strange isolated feel of Lincolnshire’s fens. I’m Lincolnshire born and bred, further north than the fens but I know the area. It’s a flat, almost featureless place with dykes that drain the fields and the constant smell of vegetable crops in the air. The novel’s focus is on the area of Sutton Bridge, a village with a famous swing bridge built in 1897 across the River Nene. On one bank, an area of several acres is home to a building site where a port is being built and on the other is a hospital, built to service the workers of the port area. Alongside it is the home of the family who will run it. The author’s family waited for many years, ready to run their hospital, but this is not their story. The author opens with a strange and disorienting scene where a family are disturbed by noises at night and venture out in the pitch dark. As they stand on the bank, theres a loud rumble and the sound of heavy things hitting the water. The family can’t see anything, but in the light it’s clear that all their hopes for a future working alongside the port are gone. The bank on the far side has collapsed in the night, even worse one of their sons is missing, presumed drowned, while helping to look for workers. As we join them in 1910 only two sisters remain on the hospital side of the bank, Lily who has barely moved beyond the threshold since her twin drowned and Eleanor who tends to Lily, their garden and the hospital. Their other sibling, Frank, lives down in the village with his wife Clara and their children. It is the three women – Eleanor, Clara and Lily – who narrate our story.

I felt so strongly about these characters, especially Clara and Eleanor who have always been friends. It soon becomes clear that both are in a similar position. Eleanor is at the mercy of Lily’s health and her moods. She claims to be unable to leave her room and hates to be left alone in the house. Despite being so isolated Eleanor has met and fallen in love with a young man called John who has taken over the village’s smithy. How can she ever plan a future with him if she’s unable to leave the house? Similarly, Eleanor’s friend Clara is at the mercy of husband Frank’s moods and how much he’s had to drink. One of the book’s opening chapters follows the couple and their children on a train to the coast. However, the train hasn’t even left the station and Frank is already belligerent. The author writes this beautifully, with Clara’s hopes for one day of freedom as a family dwindling by the moment. The tension rises as Clara desperately tries to quiet the children, holding herself tightly, too terrified to move and incur his anger. Luckily, his behaviour draws young men from the next carriage and Clara leaves him to fight his own battles. The sudden freedom she and the children have is blissful, laughing as they run down to the sea, removing shoes and socks to jump in the waves. Clara knows her friend Eleanor is under equal pressure, because under a quiet and timid exterior Lily has a core of steel. While Eleanor feels sorry for Lily, trying to respect her grief and many physical symptoms, Clara lives with a bully and she sees beyond Lily’s quiet and apparent shyness, recognising them as control and emotional blackmail. Her interventions at the house, forcing Lily into activity, almost made me laugh. Clara isn’t emotionally attached to Lily so can’t be bullied. This dynamic brings enough tension but soon WW1 will cut a swathe through the men of the village bringing fear and loss in its wake.

Lily made me furious. Her sly nature is infuriating, always listening where she shouldn’t be and snooping in other people’s things. She seems to struggle with empathy, unable to see what her actions might do to others. Despite keeping her own artefacts of a time when the family were whole, she doesn’t recognise other people’s attachment to keepsakes. She’s quite happy to destroy things if she can’t have her way. John is unsure what to do in order to help Eleanor, if they’re to have a future things must change, but how to bring that about without making things worse? It may not be possible for Eleanor to sever her ties as her sister’s carer. Maybe he will have to come to them and get to know Lily. He doesn’t want Eleanor to think he doesn’t care about her sister, but equally he needs Lily to understand that he’s going to be in Eleanor’s life, whatever that takes. However, when pushed, Lily can be incredibly spiteful and destructive. It’s this selfish streak that sees her making reckless and desperate choices. The only times when we see the girl in Eleanor is when she’s with Clara and their shared history gives us all those elements of female friendship that mean so much – the shared jokes and memories, but also the support both physical and emotional. Eleanor may be in love but it’s Clara who fully knows her and will always hold her up when she can’t support herself. All of these women are trapped: Lily by her memories and fears, Clara by her marriage and Eleanor by Lily and the empty hospital she continues to maintain to her father’s standards. It’s almost a shrine to the dreams of those they’ve lost. Then there’s the isolation of the fen, trapped between salt marsh and the river.

War brings different experiences for Clara and Eleanor, especially when Frank joins up early. It’s like spring comes to Clara’s house because the children can play and make noise, she can run the house in a more relaxed way. She can pop over to sit with Lily giving John and Eleanor some freedom too. John’s is a reserved occupation so he doesn’t have to join up straight away. However, these golden times are short lived. It isn’t long before injury, shell shock and even death reach the village and it’s very hard for any of the women to understand their husband’s or brother’s experiences. Through the male characters we see every consequence of fighting for your country. Meanwhile the women are trying to produce food and help on the land. Even to this day, the fen area of the county still produces huge amounts of vegetable produce, as well as potatoes and flowers. To keep crops growing the farmers need labourers and one solution comes in the form of a prisoner of war camp, situated on the site of the old port, directly opposite Eleanor and Lily. The POWs are mainly German soldiers, who will bunk in cabins and work the fields. The author beautifully shows the tensions between prisoners and those men who’ve been fighting overseas. As a dreaded black edged letter arrives, grief now joins domestic violence, manipulation and alcohol issues. This family is set for an explosive reckoning. I became so attached to these women and their family’s tragic history that I read it so quickly. I already know I will go back and read it again though. Every element – character, setting, plot – is beautifully done and the historical background took me back to a time when my own grandparents would have been working the land and living next to the River Trent further north in the county. This is an excellent debut from Rachel Canwell that had me utterly absorbed and feeling every emotion alongside her characters.

Out now from Northodox Press

Meet the Author

For those close by Rachel will be appearing at Lindum Books on the Bailgate in Lincoln on Saturday 21st Feb from 10.30am

https://www.visitlincoln.com/event/author-shop-signing-rachel-canwell%3B-paper-sisters/104373101/

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Blank Canvas by Grace Murray

Posted on 29th Jan 2026 by thelotusreaders

Introducing an outstanding new voice in literary fiction: a sensual, sharp, and utterly compelling campus novel about grief, reinvention, and the ripple effects of telling lies

If I ever woke up with an ungodly dread ― that I could change it all now, turn around, and confess ― I ignored it. I had never been good, and there was no point in trying now.

On a small liberal arts campus in upstate New York, Charlotte begins her final year with a lie. Her father died over the summer, she says. Heart attack. Very sudden.

Charlotte had never been close with her classmates but as she repeats her tale, their expressions soften into kindness. And so she learns there are things worth lying for: attention, affection, and, as she embarks on a relationship with fellow student Katarina, even love. All she needs to do is keep control of the threads that hold her lie – and her life – together.

But six thousand miles away, alone in the grey two-up-two-down Staffordshire terrace she grew up in, her father is very much alive, watching television and drinking beer. Charlotte has always kept difficult truths at arm’s length, but his resolve to visit his distant daughter might just be the one thing she can’t control?

I found myself unsure who to like in this novel about a student on a liberal arts campus, but I became drawn in by the tangle of lies and complicated emotions around Charlotte and her relationship with Katarina. When Charlotte first sees Katarina on campus she’s not impressed and describes some aspects of her as ugly, but I thought she became fascinated by Katarina’s confidence. This stands out in the work she’s producing and her very clear sense of who she is, she also seems to make friends easily, whereas Charlotte is something of a loner. When they first meet Katarina has a lot of opinions, likening the TV show ‘Married at First Sight’ to our ancestors enjoyment of public executions. She sees no distinction between high and low forms of art. Katarina is an artist who has no trouble in taking her work seriously, whereas Charlotte is full of doubts and struggles to meet the workload. Charlotte doesn’t really know who she is: in the car she checks whether Katarina likes a song before confirming that she likes it too; she starts to dress like Katarina and notices her wardrobe has become ‘theirs’. It’s also clear that she feels different and dislocated from a sense of family, as she notices Katarina’s lock screen on her phone where she and her mother are hugging and smiling for the camera she thinks they look like ‘catalogue people, entirely unreal’. When Katarina and her friends ask about her own family she tells them family life was turbulent, she was uprooted from schools and moved around a lot. She also tells them her father died over the summer. Of course this brings sympathy and less questions, but Tamsyn mentions her misgivings to Katarina:

“If my dad were gone […] I’d feel insane. Totally scooped out. I wouldn’t be able to chill or smile, or fuck or anything.”

Charlotte tells Katarina that Tamsyn can’t cope with someone’s grief response being different to her own. Even though Charlotte seems attached to Katarina, she says things that suggest she’s just playing out the role of girlfriend rather than actually being present. There are things she doesn’t like about Katarina, in fact she finds some behaviours disgusting, but pushes the thoughts to the back of her mind. As she analyses how she feels she does mention that she loves her – “in a way. The only way I could”. What she has learned is that her story of her father’s sudden heart attack makes people soften towards her and treat her nicely. Although that comes with its own problems, when the following summer Katarina finds them a working stay in Italy. As they’re fed by Guilia and do the work on her smallholding she finds a sense of peace and even contentment, but she doesn’t know how to process or enjoy these positive emotions.

“There was something bottomless about being content. I knew other emotions well, sought them out. I knew how to be in them, occupy them and how to cover them up, so they looked like something else, all wrapped and packaged.”

Her need to be so tightly controlled is being tested and there may be something else she can’t control. The father she has buried and mourned in her head has been concerned about the growing distance between him and his daughter. He could simply book an AirBnB and fly out to see her, meet her friends and have a catch up. I felt Charlotte’s tension as she tries to control her every response and remember the lies she has told before and be consistent. I was waiting for everything to collapse and found myself concerned about what that might do to her mental health. I also felt for her father, who comes across as a loving and kind man. I found myself wondering whether her lie was rooted in repressed feelings around her dad. What was she angry about and what had happened in her childhood to leave her with no sense of who she is or what she is worth? During the last third of the book we find the answers to these questions, bringing that hopefulness to the book that began to creep in during their time in Italy. Not only does Charlotte have to deal with the consequences of her lies, she must face the reasons she started to tell them in the first place. This was where I started to feel some emotion for her and I think other readers will too. When I used to work with clients, I would use the brick wall analogy. If the wall is unstable, the builder must take it back brick by brick to where the problem begins and fix it before rebuilding. That’s what Charlotte must now do and I had hopes that she would reconcile with her father, find some inspiration for her final art piece and most of all find her sense of self.

I was impressed by the author’s depiction of Charlotte’s fragile mental state and sense of self. The novel asks all sorts of questions about what makes us who we are – is it the things we like, the people who love us, our achievements or is there a solid, innate character that determines all these things? Is our sense of who we are fixed and unchanging or is it more fluid? The background of university and Charlotte’s choice of a creative subject is interesting because we create and generate ideas that show aspects of our self and the times we live in. One of the tutors explains this by showing his students a female face that can be seen reproduced in many different ways through centuries and art movements, but it is eventually revealed to be variations on the Madonna. He tells his students that every image is the ghost of all the words and pictures that come before it and that is also true of us. The self we are today is the result of every thing, person or experience we’ve ever known, good or bad. It is only by stripping back and rebuilding, accepting all the parts of our self – even the parts or experiences we don’t like and have caused us pain – that we can be content. In that journey, Charlotte might finally be able to create something she can own and be proud of.

Meet the Author

Grace Murray was born in 2003 and grew up in Norwich. She has recently graduated from Edinburgh University, where she read English Literature and found time to write between her studies and two part-time jobs. Her short fiction has been published in The London Magazine.

In writing Blank Canvas, Grace set out to explore themes of Catholic guilt and queer identity, clashing moral codes and lies, and the opportunity for reinvention presented by moving between countries and settings. Blank Canvas was written over the course of a year as part of WriteNow, Penguin Random House’s flagship mentorship scheme for emerging talent. Grace Murray won one of nine places on the scheme on the exceptional strength of her writing, selected from a pool of over 1,300 applicants.

Ten on Tuesday

Ten on Tuesday: Books About Fathers

Posted on 27th Jan 202627th Jan 2026 by thelotusreaders

Just Ignore Him by Alan Davies

The story of a life built on sand. In the rain.

In this compelling memoir, comedian and actor Alan Davies recalls his boyhood with vivid insight and devastating humour. Shifting between his 1970s upbringing and his life today, Davies moves poignantly from innocence to experience to the clarity of hindsight, always with a keen sense of the absurd.

From sibling dynamics, to his voiceless, misunderstood progression through school, sexuality and humiliating ‘accidents’, Davies inhabits his younger mind with spectacular accuracy, sharply evoking an era when Green Shield Stamps, Bob-a-Job week and Whizzer & Chips loomed large, a bus fare was 2p – and children had little power in the face of adult motivation. Here, there are often exquisitely tender recollections of the mother he lost at six years old, of a bereaved family struggling to find its way, and the kicks and confusion of adolescence. It also bravely relates the years after his mother’s death where he was subjected to sexual abuse by his father.

Through even the joyous and innocent memories, the pain of Davies’s lifelong grief and profound betrayal is unfiltered, searing and beautifully articulated. Just Ignore Him is not only an autobiography, it is a testament to a survivor’s resilience and courage. I’ve always loved Alan and loved his anecdotes on QI and his As Yet Untitled series. He brings the same humorous and loveable narrative voice to this fantastic memoir.

Remember Me by Charity Norman

They never found Leah Parata. Not a boot, not a backpack, not a turquoise beanie. After she left me that day, she vanished off the face of the earth.

A close-knit community is ripped apart by disturbing revelations that cast new light on a young woman’s disappearance twenty-five years ago.

After years of living overseas, Emily returns to New Zealand to care for her father who has dementia. As his memory fades and his guard slips, she begins to understand him for the first time – and to glimpse shattering truths about his past. I loved this wonderful story from Charity Norman, who mines the secrets and complicated emotions of family life perfectly. As Emily’s father deteriorates she learns more about his past and begins to see him as more than her father but as a man in his own right. A man who has secrets.

Are some secrets best left buried?

H Is For Hawk by Helen MacDonald

The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life.

An instant international bestseller and prize-winning sensation, Helen Macdonald’s story of adopting and raising a goshawk has soared into the hearts of millions of readers. This book has just been made into a film with Clare Foy doing the honours as Helen, so it’s a great time to catch this if you haven’t already read it. Fierce and feral, her goshawk Mabel’s temperament mirrors Helen’s own state of grief after her father’s death, and together raptor and human discover the pain and beauty of being alive.

H Is for Hawk is a genre-defying masterpiece on grief, memory, taming and untaming, and how it might be possible to reconcile death with life and love.

Us by David Nicholls

Douglas and Connie – scientist and artist, husband and wife – live a quiet and quietly unremarkable life in the suburbs of London. Until, suddenly, after more than twenty years of marriage, Connie decides she wants a divorce.

Heartbroken but determined, Douglas comes up with the perfect plan: he is going to win back the love of his wife and the respect of Albie, their teenage son, by organising the holiday of a lifetime.

The hotels are booked, the tickets bought, the itinerary planned and printed.

What could possibly go wrong?

This is one of those quietly devastating books that Nicholls excels at and we can slowly see all the reasons Connie and Douglas aren’t suited to one another. They have the type of differences we overlook in the early stages of love and through the years of having a child. Now as their son is in his last summer before university it will be just the two of them. Doug imagines them growing together across their holiday and has his itinerary neatly planned, but will Connie and Albie fit in with his plans? As always while Doug is trying to control life it is busy changing and happening all around him. I loved this story and felt deeply for Doug, whilst also understanding Albie’s anger and Connie’s need to leave.

Big Fish by George Wallace

Do you ever really know your father?

Like many sons, William Bloom never really knew his father. Edward told him stories too incredible to believe about his exploits as a younger man, but any attempt to find out serious truths have been met with laughter and brush-offs. And that never mattered. But now Edward is dying, suddenly it matters a great deal.

So William sets out to tell his father’s story, as he imagines it. He tames a giant, is dragged by an enormous fish through a lake and escapes a purgatory of lost dreams. Through legends and myths, William makes Edward into a true Big Fish. I thoroughly enjoyed this as it appealed to my love of complex relationships while also dipping into my interest in monstrous creatures, circus folk and magic realism. It felt like that way we gather round a loved one who is dying and share funny stories about their life, but in fantastical proportions! Having gone through the loss of someone close to me I can understand why we make them larger than life and how important these stories become as the years pass.

The Storied Life of AJ Fickry by Gabrielle Zevin

A.J. Fikry, the grumpy owner of Island Books, is going through a hard time: his bookshop is failing, he has lost his beloved wife, and his prized possession – a rare first edition book has been stolen. Over time, he has given up on people, and even the books in his store, instead of offering solace, are yet another reminder of a world that is changing too rapidly.

But one day A.J. finds two-year-old Maya sitting on the bookshop floor, with a note attached to her asking the owner to look after her. His life – and Maya’s – is changed forever. A.J is that curmudgeonly middle aged man who can be rude and condescending to everyone he meets, but you always suspect there’s a softer side. Maya is the catalyst for that mellowing of his character. Now he has to consider someone other than himself and he dotes on her, with a focus on making sure his little bookworm is kept busy. Maya is just so loveable and as we follow her through life it’s hard to imagine her as anything but a Fikry. I thoroughly enjoyed their father and daughter relationship but also the whole community around Island Books. We get the running of a bookshop with odd customers, book events that fail miserably and the visiting authors. It’s a simply but enchanting story that any book lover will enjoy.

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

After years spent living on the run, Samuel Hawley moves with his teenage daughter Loo to Olympus, Massachusetts. There, in his late wife’s hometown, Hawley finds work as a fisherman, while Loo struggles to fit in at school and grows curious about her mother’s mysterious death. Haunting them both are the twelve scars Hawley carries on his body, from twelve bullets in his criminal past – a past that eventually spills over into his daughter’s present, until together they must face a reckoning yet to come. Both a coming of age novel and a literary thriller, this explores what it means to be a hero, and the price we pay to protect the people we love most. There’s something really profound about this novel even though it is a simple story. It starts with Samuel teaching his daughter Loo how to shoot with his collection of firearms. They are poor and spend all their time moving from place to place until their return to Olympus where Loo’s maternal grandmother is from. Every time they they’ve moved Samuel sets up a little shrine to Loo’s mother Lily and she hopes to find out more about her. We see the two of them coping with a decision to stay in one place and how Loo starts to form her first relationships. In between we see flashbacks to Lily and Sam’s criminal past. I loved how rich in detail it is and the complex psychology of the characters too.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewicka

Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcée. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside. Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must aside a lifetime of feuding to save their émigré engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth.

The sisters’ campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of Europe’s darkest history and sends them back to roots they’d much rather forget. Part of my reason for loving this book is how much Vera and Nadezhda’s father reminds me of my late father-in-law Aleksander who had an incredible past. He also had an engineer’s practical mindset and a hilariously tactless turn of phrase that never failed to send me into fits of the giggles – one of my favourites was offering a lady his dining chair at Easter Sunday lunch because she was on a kitchen stool and had ‘a much bigger bottom’ than him. This book is touching, covering all the frustrations of dealing with an elderly relative who will not be helped. It is also laugh out loud funny, with some of the best dialogue I’ve read.

A Heart that Works by Rob Delaney

I came to know Rob Delaney through the brilliant Catastrophe and I was devastated for him when he lost his son Henry. I also deeply admired the way he talked about the loss, so openly and honestly. In his memoir of loss, he grapples with the fragile miracle of life, the mysteries of death, and the question of purpose for those left behind.

Rob’s beautiful, bright, gloriously alive son Henry died. He was one when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. An experience beyond comprehension, but an experience Rob must share. Despite Henry’s death, Rob still loves people. For that reason, he wants them to understand and I found his approach inspiring. He never reached for cliches or minimised the enormity of his family’s grief, however uncomfortable that truth might be for other people. If he felt like shit about it he said so, but he also acknowledged that with other children at home life had to go on day to day. The world does not stop. His book is just as intimate, unflinching and fiercely funny – exploring his family’s experience from the harrowing illness to the vivid, bodily impact of grief and the blind, furious rage that follows, through to the forceful, unstoppable love that remains. Utterly brilliant and strangely hopeful.

The Good Father by Noah Hawley

Dr Paul Allen is a well-respected man. He lives a happy, comfortable life with his second wife and their family. Until the night when a knock at the door blows his world apart: a hugely popular presidential candidate has been shot, and they say the young man who pulled the trigger is Paul’s son. Daniel, is the only child from his first, failed marriage. He was always a good kid and Paul is convinced this quiet boy is not capable of murder. Overwhelmed by a vortex of feelings, Paul embarks on a mission to understand what happened and why. Following the trail of his son’s journey across America, he is forced to re-examine his life as a husband and a parent, and every decision he ever made.

What follows is a powerfully emotional and suspense-filled quest that keeps you guessing to the very end. This was a great read for my book club several years ago and brought out some very interesting viewpoints and widely different perspectives on parenting. Many of us were scathing of a father who chooses to take promotion on the other side of the US from his young son, who had to be placed on a plane alone to travel from west to east coast to visit his father. Others felt it was important for a parent to prioritise their career. It was interesting to read a book with this storyline from the perspective of a father rather than a mother and all of us enjoyed it immensely.